23

Sunday, 20 September 2015 00:48
dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
So... the Northwestern Wildcats were 2-0 going into this weekend's games. I had not realized that they'd made the #23 spot in both major polls. NU hasn't been in the NCAA Division I top 25 since October 2013 -- I remember, because I was still in the hospital watching them. Now don't get too excited. We haven't hit the rest of the Big Ten juggernaut yet, so most years any top 25 ranking happens early in the season. On the other hand, some of the mighty Big Ten teams have struggled early. Michigan has lost a game. And #1 Ohio State was tied 10-10 at the half with Northern Illinois today -- they only won by 20-13, not a Buckeye slaughterfest. I keep telling people, you've got to take the Huskies seriously.

Just before I went to take my nap at 12:10, after a late breakfast following my ER adventures (DW) (LJ), I remembered that the Northwestern game was actually going to be on in West Michigan.

#23 Northwestern at Duke, 12:30pm on MyTV -- cable channel 789.

No problem, I figured they'd still be at it when I got up in two hours. And they were. Northwestern, wearing white and new dumb looking Wildcat logo helmets -- much prefer the simple N logo -- was ahead 12-7 with most of the third quarter to go. So as we settled down to lunch, it was Northwestern football.

Duke managed a field goal, and it was 12-10. Then we got a touchdown and the game ended at 19-10.

Hey, ho, Northwestern is three-and-oh! Go Cats!

Dr. Phil
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dr_phil_physics: (kliban-basketball)
It's not often that I get to crow about the Northwestern Wildcats going into anything as big as the annual NCAA Division I March Madness basketball spree. But the #22 Wildcats (23-8) are a #7 seed and playing in a First Round game on Friday 20 March 2015 at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas and...

Oh. You're confused? Not going along with how you remember your brackets from Sunday night? Well, this is Monday's brackets and we're talking about the Women's NCAA Division I March Madness basketball championship.

Graphic from the e-mail I got as a alum:


I end up having to say this every year, but while millions of Americans go gaga over the Men's tourney, covered across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV these days, there's also ESPN's heroic coverage of the Women's tournament. I have seem some remarkable games in the last several years, ones which most of you miss.

There is one particularly amusing footnote to the bracketology. The whole point of seeding is that smaller numbers are supposed to beat higher numbers. So #7 Northwestern "should" beat #10 Arkansas in the Noon game. But the joy of the NCAAs is the upsets and the Cinderella stories -- which technically should be more possible in the Women's side, just saying. But the 2:30 game which also feeds into the same Second Round game features #2 Baylor (30-3) and #15 Northwestern State (19-14) from Louisiana. That Second Round game on Sunday 22 March "should" be #7 NU and #2 Baylor. However, if there is an upset Friday afternoon, we could have #7 Northwestern versus #15 Northwestern State. This could be a really amusing game to call. About as much fun as listening to the play-by-play on the radio between North Carolina and South Carolina. "Carolina has the ball and runs up the side, but Carolina intercepts the pass and it's going the other way, Carolina sets the defense, the Carolina player shoots and... foul on Carolina." (sn*cker)



Even better:

Northwestern University (Div I)
CONF: Big Ten Conference
LOCATION: Evanston IL
NICKNAME: Wildcats
COLORS: Purple & White

Northwestern State University (Div I)
CONF: Southland Conference
LOCATION: Natchitoches LA
NICKNAME: Demons
COLORS: Purple & White with...

I want that Second Round #7 Northwestern versus #15 Northwestern State game on Sunday SO BAD! (hee-hee)

You cannot make this stuff up, folks. You just really can't.

Dr. Phil
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dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
Somehow I managed to live in the same dorm for four years at Northwestern. This wasn't easy, given that one had to survive a housing lottery. And being the social animal I've always been -- I wanted a single room and wanted nothing to do with sharing a room with a roommate. (grin) So I managed to get into Foster House, 2253 Sheridan Road, my freshman year. Room 108, right in the SW corner, with windows on two sides and across the hall from Room 101, Tim the RHC/RA, Resident Adviser for Foster House and Resident Hall Coordinator for Small Houses North. Alas, I lost the lottery the first year, and Gary Murakami, who had the ha-ha room on the first floor, was able to move into the much more spacious Room 108. Eventually, I got off the waiting list and got Room 308, which because of the first floor lounge, was NOT two floors above 108, but in the NW corner of the dorm, at the end of the hall. Next to me was the fire escape, whose landing was shared with CCS next door. If you went up the fire escape, there was a sort of patio up there, built onto the arched bridge between Foster and CCS.

I survived the lottery two more times and stayed in Room 308.

Way back on 26 August 2011 we drove around the campus and released a monarch butterfly in front of Foster House (DW). Who knew this would be the last year of Foster House? Oh, the building is still there, but it has been absorbed into CCS -- the College of Cultural and Community Studies -- the first Residential College at NU, established in 1971 -- five years before I started college.
In summer 2012, CCS underwent major renovations. Foster House, which was an all-male dorm since its construction, was combined with CCS through the addition of a central bridge and staircase and consolidation of mechanical rooms and facilities. Because of the university’s decision to relocated three fraternities into what was once university housing, GREEN house was moved into the new combined 2303 Sheridan. CCS members live in the second and third floors of the combined building, and GREEN house members live on the third, fourth, and fifth floors.
I found all this out because Book 2 of my YA trilogy takes place partly at Northwestern as the princesses go to college in America. And I've been using a lot of resources to track the changes from those idyllic years in the dorm, 1976-80, and the years working at NU and living in Wilmette 1980-84.

So there I was tonight, checking out the fraternities in the north quads, because there's been some movement. 2251 Sheridan used to be Kappa Sigma -- now it's ZBT -- for example. But when I hovered over the interactive NU campus map at my old home, it just said College of Cultural and Community Studies.

Say it ain't so? I mean, the "Foster Home for Single Men Who Couldn't Get Dates" was an institution since 1903. And who could forget the confusion between Foster House north of Tech and Foster-Walker Complex several blocks south, which was a giant coed dorm of single rooms literally furnished by Playskool? The kids these days call Foster-Walker "Plex" now. Who knew?

Actually, CCS was squeezed between Foster and Goodrich -- they really needed room and by conquering Foster House, they share their enlarged territory with GREEN House, which itself was displace by moving frats around. Goodrich looks like it's Pi Kappa Alpha now.

So it's more of a surprise than anything. I'm not going to stop giving to NU because they took away my dorm. (absurd-grin) Hell, Allison hasn't been an all-women's dorm in years, for example. Back in the 70s it was called the Virgin Vault. College students are such asses. The last all-women's dorm is Hobart House -- and THEY call it affectionately Ho House. No, really, it's on their web page. And it, too, is a residential college.

And what's this air conditioning business I keep seeing in campus housing? I bet they changed the sidewalks along Sheridan Road so you don't walk uphill both ways any more. (cranky-old-grin)

Meanwhile, I shall shed a tear for Foster House, which is no longer just Foster House.

(sniff)

Dr. Phil
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dr_phil_physics: (delete-hal)
Announcement

The university's e-newsletter included the following note yesterday:
Thursday, 04 April, 2013

The OpenVMS computing environment (vms.wmich.edu, also known by service names Winnie, Kanga and Pooh) will be removed from general service April 30.

Once there were VMS computer domains on campus named Winnie, Kanga, Roo, Piglet and Pooh. I ended up using Piglet until it was retired, then Kanga after that, until they migrated the university e-mail over to other servers. In the early 90s, I still had FORTRAN programs that I ran on the VMS computers, and I seem to recall that one of the VMS machines ran a Gopher server I used in one of my grad classes when I was working on a 2nd Ph.D. in Science Education for a time.

Before that, of course, we were using Digital Equipment Corporation DEC VAX-11/750 hardware at the Center for Experimental Communication at Michigan Tech. VAX-A was the main machine for Physics when I started there in the Fall of 1984 and had a Floating Point Systems FPS-164MAX array processor attached for doing calculations. The VAX-11/750 was a very nice box, looking like a washer/dryer pair with one of hard drive boxes next to it. I was amused to learn that a couple of CS students bought VAX-B and VAX-C from the university when they were retired for a couple of hundred bucks and had all this network hardware installed in the living room of the house they were renting in Calumet Township. (grin)

Learning VMS in the mid-80s was very handy for when we finally bought our first IBM Personal Computer around 1986, because some of the command structure that PC-DOS/MS-DOS used was derived from VMS. And ten years later when I started doing serious work on Pentium-class PCs, Windows NT4 was developed by some of the same people who made VMS so stable.

In my Northwestern days in the late 70s, there were lots of DEC machines around the EE and CS departments. The CS network lab was a loose assemblage of DEC PDP-8s and PDP/LSI-11s. And around 1979, I think it was, Vogelback Computer Center, which housed the big iron Control Data CDC-6400 and CDC-6600 machines I worked with, decided to buy a pair of those newfangled VAX-11/750s and set them up in a spare room and let anyone who wanted to play with them do whatever they wanted. After all, the VAXen were so much cheaper to buy and operate than the CDC and Cyber machines, that they considered it "free" computing.

My dear friend from ISP days, the late Steve Houdek, adored the VAX and the VMS operating system. He learned all he could at VCC's two pet VAXes and then later worked for a VAX data center.

VMS eventually became OpenVMS. There was once a move to port VMS to the PC architecture, but PC-VMS never even made it to beta level, as far as I ever heard. I would've built a PC-based research computer and run VMS on it, if I could have.

I'm sure I have friends from all those eras who get chills and break out in hives thinking about having to work with VMS, much as when I contemplate working with IBM MVS or IBM VSE with JCL. (shudder) But I found the VAX/VMS combination to be very dependable and a good system to really cut my teeth on serious computing. A few years later, when we started using the Berkeley version of UNIX, I had a much better idea of what I was doing.

It's been years since I had to actually log into a VMS system at WMU -- when I was logging into piglet or kanga, I was using DEC VT-100 or VT-240 terminal emulation in MS-Kermit to do command line processing.

But you know? The VMS-Mail system worked pretty damned well for its day. And I had a lot easier time of managing thousands of old emails that way than the current stupid system. Really.

Enjoy your retirement, OpenVMS. At least for the five or six machine cycles before the power is cut and you're lobotomized forever. (evil grin)

Dr. Phil

Sticker Shock

Thursday, 19 April 2012 11:16
dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
Ah, The Difference Thrice Dozen Years Doth Make

In my email queue this morning was the current e-newsletter from my alma mater, Northwestern. In it was this little bit:
Undergraduate tuition at Northwestern will increase 4.3 percent to $43,380 for the 2012-2013 academic year from the current year’s $41,592. Room and board also will increase 4.3 percent.
Ouch.

Now realize that (a) NU is the only private university in the twelve schools of the Big Ten, (b) that college tuition rates have been rising above the rate of inflation for the last couple of decades and (c) I knew that the tuition rate was high. Still, I hadn't actually paid any attention to the numbers in quite some time.

When I Was A Lad... (Shakes Fist At Kids On His Lawn)

In September of 1976, tuition and room and board exceeded $6000 at Northwestern for the first time -- and that was greeted with howls of protests from the students and complaints from the parents. Now mind, that then as now, very few Northwestern students paid the full bore tuition and room & board out of pocket. Most of us were on some sort of scholarships or loans.

My folks normally bought a new Chevy every four years, so 1976 would've been a new car year. Instead, our 1972 Chevy Malibu soldiered on until it was replaced by one of the first 1981 Chevrolet Cavaliers. You could say that my college was our new car, except that I ended up with a 1979 Chevy Suburban in my senior year, so you could say I lucked out big time.

Part of this was helped out by the fact that my PSAT scores qualified me for a National Merit Scholarship -- and my father's employer CIBA-Geigy actually had corporate National Merit Scholarships available for some dependents, so I earned the max amount of $1500 for four years. A lot of National Merit Finalists end up getting the equivalent of a hearty handshake for their efforts, so this was nice. Both myself and Mrs. Dr. Phil managed to get through college and graduate schools with minimal student loan burdens -- which we have long ago paid off in full.

Still, the economics of books and expenses and travel and the cost of going to school were all so very different in those days of the seemingly innocent Ford and Carter Administrations. So raise a glass in salute of all students, public or private, who are battling the dark forces of financial ruin in order to further their education.

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (seasons-best-kate)
In The Heart Of The Storm

So the winter storm warning/watch/whatever mentioned yesterday (DW) has been extended to Tuesday morning at 5am. Truth be told, there is a persistent training band of snow running along the lakeshore from Whitehall south to Holland and beyond. And there are serious blizzard warnings for north of us and south of us -- up to 20" of snow. But Allendale? We've been having in-and-out sunshine all day.


2pm looking Southeast (Click photo for larger)


2pm looking Southwest -- Yup, we'll never make it out of the driveway alive at this rate. (Click photo for larger)

The Bear

Coming back in I decided to snap a picture of The Bear. He was on the door in the motel when we went to Menominee WI for Mark and Carrie's wedding back in like 1987 -- I had photographed the wedding, so we were part of the wedding party. (grin) We brought him back to Laurium and put him on the front door inside the front porch -- now he lives on the back door we use coming in from the garage. Very jaunty. Mrs. Dr. Phil had put a bow on him this Christmas. Sometimes The Bear can make you smile as you trudge up the stairs from a long day or a long drive. (grin)


Still looking pretty spiffy for holidays, after some 24 years.

Bowling For The Big Ten

New Year's Day was on a Sunday, and as pointed out yesterday (DW), college football players can't possibly on Sundays. It's a matter of conviction and faith, as Sundays from September to January are a wholly owned subsidiary of the NFL. (grin)

There are six bowl games today -- five of which feature Big Ten teams: Penn State, Ohio State, Nebraska, Michigan State and Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. Not all of the Big Ten bowl games are today. Michigan plays on Tuesday. Iowa lost to Oklahoma on Friday and Illinois WON against UCLA on Saturday. Northwestern also played on New Year's Eve:
As a result of Saturday’s 33-22 loss to Texas A&M in the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, the Wildcats dropped to 6-7 on the year, suffering their first losing season since 2006. The bowl loss was their ninth consecutive, and the toy monkey, which wore No. 63 to symbolize the program’s 63-year bowl drought and was going to be destroyed if Northwestern had won Saturday, lived to see another day, actually another year.

And Purdue beat Western Michigan in Detroit in the only bowl game on Michigan soil -- or carpet -- on Tuesday the 27th. That makes ten of the twelve Big Ten teams in bowl games? Minnesota and Indiana are not in the list on ESPN. And as usual, no matter their rankings, most of the Big Ten teams will not triumph. But FIVE Big Ten teams did make it to "New Year's Day" and a sixth in the BCS Rescheduled New Year's Fiasco Bowls -- it is good to be invited. Northwestern has lost nine bowls in a row, tying Notre Dame's national consecutive losing record, having only won its first bowl game at the Rose Bowl some 63 years ago. And Michigan State is right now trading scoring drives with Georgia -- MSU hasn't won a bowl game since 2001.

Ah, fun and festive futility for the holidays. Keeps us honest, I guess. (grin)

Happy New New Year.

Dr. Phil

PS- MSU went for the tie, 27-27, with 19 seconds to go...

N vs N

Sunday, 6 November 2011 21:40
dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
NORTHWESTERN 28 Nebraska 25

Two things. Thing the First -- If it wasn't for our cable getting the Big Ten Network, I'd probably never get to see NU play football. Thing the Second -- Most of the time getting to see My Teams is a losing proposition. They can be winning and the moment I tune in, it all derails. Not that the Wildcats can't win a game. But we're the smallest school in the Big Ten and a tough private school to boot, so it ain't easy.

Then there's whole Twelve Teams in the Big Ten conference. This year we welcomed the University of Nebraska. Back in the 60s and 70s, when all the important bowl games were crowded on New Year's Day -- as is proper -- I have many memories of watching the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the middle of the afternoon. Of course the danger of letting Nebraska in is they could run the table over the traditional Big Ten teams.

So when I saw that at 3:30 on Saturday that BTN was going to show Northwestern at Nebraska, I knew I had to watch the game. And prepared to be pummeled.

But that's not what happened. Northwestern scored first and managed to hang on for the 28-25 win. Nebraska tried the ol' onside kick after their last score. The problem with the onside kick is that it's a trick play that everyone knows it's coming. To mix things up, they tried kicking to the wrong side, but NU smothered the ball, took a knee and headed off with the win.

A nice afternoon when nursing a cold.

Go you Northwestern...

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (monarch)
On The 26th

Friday a week ago we were driving around Lake Michigan from Allendale to Milwaukee. Decided that since it was a beautiful blue sky warm summer day, that we'd take Lake Shore Drive to Sheridan Road and drive by the campus of Northwestern University. Ten days before we'd released the first of our Monarch butterflies for the year -- and we had a cooler with a couple of chrysalises.

Before we left NU we discovered that one of our butterflies had emerged.

It'd been out long enough that its wings were inflated and dried

So it was time to let it go free

It's a girl! (click on image for larger)


Mrs. Dr. Phil placed it on a tree

And we let it be.

Dr. Phil
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dr_phil_physics: (wmu-logo)
Sacrificial Lamb Week

Seems a lot of big football teams schedule non-conference games, often against lower tier opponents, for their first game. So there I was, flipping channels after the Cubs game hit a 7th inning rain delay, and ABC was showing Western Michigan University at Michigan. While The Ohio State University was beating up on Akron 42-0, Western had bravely scored first blood, 7-0. Then 7-7, then the Broncos were about to score and Michigan intercepted and ran it back for a TD. Michigan scored again, but must've missed an extra point, 20-7.

At this point I changed channels. So color me surprised when I checked the score and saw the final as 34-10 -- not bad, Broncos. But there was a cryptic note, cut off. So I investigated on ESPN. Seems both teams agreed to call the game near the end of the 3rd quarter -- due to lightning.

The Wolverines were driving for another score when the game was suspended because of lightning. Nearly an hour later, the game was called with the result and statistics standing in what school officials say is the first weather-shortened game in the 132-year history of college football's winningest team.

Huh.

Not sure I've ever heard of a football game called before.

Meanwhile Northwestern played a more regular non-conference foe and had a more civilized win, NU 24 Boston College 17. Ah, a real college football game. (grin)

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
Father's Day Weekend In Evanston

Basic cable's second most popular fake news host Stephen Colbert, both of him, gave this year's commencement address at Northwestern University.

NOW, AS YOU HAVE EXPLAINED TO YOUR GRANDPARENTS, MY NAME IS STEPHEN COLBERT, BUT I ALSO PLAY A CHARACTER ON T-V WHO IS NAMED STEPHEN COLBERT. AND I DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHICH OF US HAS BEEN INVITED SOMEPLACE. WELL, TODAY, I'M FAIRLY CONFIDENT THAT I'M ME. BECAUSE I WENT TO NORTHWESTERN AND MY CHARACTER WENT TO DARTMOUTH. SO HE WAS THERE FOR GRADUATION LAST WEEKEND AND HEARD CONAN. IT WAS A GREAT SPEECH. BUT HE WAS HOPING FOR LENO.


You can read the full text here. And here's a video clip:

Alumnus Stephen Colbert Addresses the Class of 2011 from Northwestern News on Vimeo.



And remember -- brothels.

Dr. Phil

May Day

Sunday, 1 May 2011 22:55
dr_phil_physics: (dr-phil-nikon-f3-1983)
Forty Years Ago...

Saturday 1 May 1971, the results of the 1970 Railpax bill are the formal start of operations of the National Rail Passenger Corporation, more commonly known as Amtrak. On that day about half of the nation's intercity, transcontinental and non-commuter passenger trains ceased operations and nearly all the remaining routes taken over by Amtrak. Notable holdouts included Southern Railways, which maintained their Southern Crescent and Peidmont passenger trains on their own.

Though I was in junior high in the time, I was involved with the small Maple Avenue Model Railroad Club out of Greenwich CT, which also operated the monthly mimeographed newsletter The Railway Gazette News and the passenger train advocacy group The Railroad Preservation Society. We may have been few, but Greg Thorson and Harry Funk wrote, called and visited a lot of people in the government, railroads and Amtrak -- and we actually accomplished some changes.

Thirty Years Ago...

Friday 1 May 1981, I started working full-time at the Northwestern University Library as a Library Assistant I in the Search Department (Pre-Order Searching). It was a hot day and I decided to give up shaving after irritating the hell out of my face. The previous two years I'd grown a beard in the winter, especially as I was working out in the cold nights delivering Chicago Tribunes.

But thirty years ago I gave up shaving and haven't given up that since. (grin)

Just thoughts for today.

Dr. Phil

Breaking News...

Here in the states, at around 10:45pm EDT, NBC News is reporting that Osama bin Laden is now dead. There will be more about this, as the Internet erupts.
dr_phil_physics: (Default)
Scarce

Yeah, I haven't posted much in the last six weeks or so. After doing a run to North Carolina to visit my mom over Thanksgiving -- and dealing with a thumb infection -- and not having caught up with some of the posting about that trip... we did another run to NC over New Year's after our quiet Christmas at home.

2010...

Clearly trying to do any kind of sorting in the old homestead over holidays is a bad idea. (sad-grin) That's a given. And it doesn't help to add in anything else -- like my thumb infection at Thanksgiving -- and this time two of the four of us suffered a bit with a 24-hour bug.

Dr. Phil's Sister made her wonderful traditional Swiss cheese fondue for New Year's Eve dinner, but after a little taste, I finished with a meal of Coke and bread. Damn, and I was so looking forward to that.

All was not lost, however. I did get my Q1 entry into Writers of the Future -- my second new story finished in a week. Go me.

...2011!

Yay... happy new year... No one felt lively enough to toast the New Year, either with wine (sparkling or not) or the family traditions of eggnog and/or herring in wine sauce. Yeah, it takes a tough constitution to have eggnog and herring, but I've done it for decades. Not this time, though. And while I have a nice jar of herring in wine sauce in the fridge here at home, it hasn't been opened either, so I've yet to have my New Year's Good Luck Fish.

New Year's should be for bowl games. ESPN-U had the so-called Ticket City Bowl from the Cotton Bowl in Dallas with Northwestern against Texas Tech. NU lost. As did Michigan State. As did Michigan. As did Wisconsin the Rose Bowl. The Big Ten went 0-for-4 on New Year's. Illinois and Iowa managed wins before New Year's, so the Big Ten hadn't been shut out completely.

Under other circumstances, I might've passed on the ham for New Year's dinner, but it was tasty and I was hungry. Thankfully we managed to get on the road on the second for two days and my guts held together. Though my intestinal system rebelled after we got home. (Hence the unopened herring jar.) Spent a day taking it easy and that seems to have helped.

Now I have to get ready for the new semester and a new course for next week. We're getting there.

More anon. (grin)

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (rolling-stone-boat-2)
49 Hours To be Precise

Under DST2007, this was the weekend of "Fall Back" from the twice annual clock changes. Only one device -- an alarm clock -- automatically fails the DST2007 test. Even our digital thermostat with the new furnace knows both sets of DST rules and so pretty much only those date insensitive clocks needed to be changed.

With recent weather dipping down into the mid-20s and low-30s at night, and a couple of visible flakeages during Friday afternoon in West Michigan, it's been some nice fall weather lately. Today on Sunday it's finally the full blue sky and sunny I've wanted in order to shoot some reference photos with different lenses and settings with my Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n. (Update: wrote this note too early, haze settling in, it's wan sunlight and no bright blue sky anymore.)

The Bagel To Batteries To Litter Triangle Trade

We went out to Holland yesterday on errands. Stocked up on bagels -- got two baker's dozen. Felt good that I didn't get them in Kalamazoo on Friday, because Saturday they were half price. Then ran by the Holland Post Office to mail my mother's birthday card, and found they had a 4pm pickup which the Allendale P.O. doesn't, so that was a win. Then circled back and located a new Batteries Plus store. Our two Motorola Razr cellphones need new batteries, but I couldn't find any Motorola replacements that weren't actually old stock. Bought a pair of new Rayovac Li ion batteries, so unlike everyone else in the world, we'll continue to have cell phones that are two-and-a-half years old. Shocking, I know. Mrs. Dr. Phil also got a new watch battery for her Pulsar watch with no numbers and no second hand, which was got in Hancock MI back in the late 80s, I think.

And since the weather was fine, we drove over to Grandville to get some cat litter and some paper and a memory card. Finally home, just in time to watch most of the Northwestern football game.

Gas Prices On The Move

Suspicious of motives? Moi?

Gasoline in West Michigan has ping-ponged a bit of late, but just before the election it dropped down to $2.67.9/gal. After the election, when many business and big oil friendly politicians get elected, gas shot up 18¢/gal to $2.95.9/gal, dropped briefly to $2.90.9 Saturday morning, then up another 19¢ to $3.09/9/gal an hour later.

I heard a pundit on the news explaining that gas prices rose because (a) there was a fire at a small Chicago refinery and (b) the Federal Reserve dumped $600 billion into the money supply and "devalued the dollar". Ri-ight...

I think gas prices were kept low all summer, compared to an earlier prediction of $3.50/gal summer gas, by the BP oil spill in the Gulf and the Enbridge oil spill into the Kalamazoo River. Now that both of those are no longer daily news items, and those evil socialists in Washington have been roundly defeated, I am NOT surprised that gas prices are jumping. And now that we've broken the three buck barrier, I expect $3.50/gal gasoline Real Soon Now. The frugal local conservatives should chew on that for a while. (evil grin)

Football & Such

Illinois scores 65 points yesterday. In a football game. And still lose. Michigan won 67-65 in 3OT. I turned into NU scoring 3 TDs in a row against Penn State, then PSU managed to run 3 unanswered TDs before we turned away, finally beating Northwestern 35-21. Sigh. At least Joe Paterno got his 400th win.

Before last Sunday's 60 Minutes, we'd never heard of Zenyatta, the mare who was 19-0 and going for a 20-0 retirement at Saturday's Breeder's Cup Classic at Churchill Downs. Despite another example of her terrific out-of-last-place acceleration, she just barely lost. A 19-1 career.

Last weekend's football had been disastrous. Michigan State ran into the University of Iowa at home buzz saw -- I've always maintained that Iowa at home is one of the toughest games in the Big Ten. And undefeated #1 D-II Grand Valley State University went up to Houghton lost last weekend to Michigan Tech in football. Unbelievable.

I can't root for anybody.

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
As Some Of You Know...

I did my undergraduate work at Northwestern University. I thought I wanted to get a degree in Astronomy, but for some reason which no one can explain I received not one, but TWO brochures for this new Integrated Science Program. The NSF and NU were concerned in the mid-70s about undergrads overspecializing too soon, especially as there was some real pull at mixing disciplines in science and engineering. So starting for September 1976, NSF helped fund the creation of ISP.
Since 1976 the Integrated Science Program (ISP) has selected some of the brightest science students for a challenging, tailor-made honors curriculum that integrates mathematics with the sciences. We believe that the most effective way to prepare for a career in one science is to be immersed in all of them. No program better prepares students for the increasingly interdisciplinary world of science.

For me the appeal was obvious. An advanced accelerated all honors program in ALL of the sciences, plus mathematics and computers? For someone like me whose brain is something of an absorbent sponge, this sounded like the best of all possible worlds.

To give you an idea of how radical this three-year program was, we started classes during New Student Week, so that we could get on the university's CDC-6400 mainframe computer early -- and as freshmen we were given unlimited accounts! That first day we started with 30 students. One quit on the first day after taking one look at the collection of crazies who'd sign up for a program like this. But we were able to pull a person off the waiting list on Day One and so were back up to full strength. Over the three years we lost people to traditional majors. Those who stayed usually combined ISP with another major. Six of us from that first entering class (EC76) actually earned the B.A. in Integrated Sciences. I worked on a second major in Physics, but despite NU thinking I had finished that program for a while, I actually ended up like one two-course math requirement shy. So I may have been the only person in EC76 who has only the ISP degree from NU. (grin)

And Now We Can Reveal The Secret Of Our Success



xkcd is one of the finest webcomics I've encountered. Randall is a genius at hitting that perfect note about geeky things and how the hell can you draw stick figures with personalities and emotions? (grin)

What A Time We Had

I loved ISP. I loved NU. Did not necessarily get the best grades in the world -- for one thing I was too damn smart and had never learned to study before college. That took until I was 25 and in grad school. (sigh) It took a special breed of person to sign up for a program like ISP in the first year. Later, as the program matured, they managed to run with the concept of ISP undergraduate research -- we were supposed to have an advanced ISP lab in the third year but it never materialized and so I took the Physics advanced lab course. ISP students do a lot of amazing things now and I'm glad they get that opportunity. I like to think that we had to prove to the science departments that such a thing as ISP could exist, so we were the trailblazers. (But I think it would be fun to be in the program today, too.)


May 2001 ISP Reunion Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the program. Four EC76 members were in attendance along with many other years. Dr. Phil is the large guy in the hat in the second row -- Mrs. Dr. Phil is in front of him.

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (what-if-winslet)
First Stanza

Between Northwestern undergrad and Michigan Tech grad school, I worked for 2½ years in the Pre-Order Search Section between Order and the Cataloging Dept. at the Northwestern University Library. All three units were in Technical Services and all three were somewhat obsessed with accuracy. All of us had occasion to input data records and we worked hard at not making mistakes. One day someone was at one of the big IBM mainframe terminals and said, "Oops." A person at the next terminal said, "No 'Oops' at the terminal."

Refrain

Oops, I Did It Again,
(Oh No You Didn't)

Second Stanza

In grad school, I was sitting in the office debugging a FORTRAN program on Monday 19 October 1987 when one of the other grad students came in and said the stock market was crashing. At the time it was down nearly 300 points. It went on to drop over 500. I remember thinking that it was my generation's Great Depression being born and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I mean, I was in the middle of graduate school, busy working on my doctorate. I'd defended my MS thesis, but hadn't gotten around to finishing the revisions, so officially I didn't have any graduate degree. If the economy collapsed and the university started laying people off -- there really wasn't any place to go. It would be two years or so before I could take wing and try to go somewhere, assuming there was an economy left at the end of the day. So I shrugged and went back to debugging my program.

Turns out my reaction was common. Unlike 1929, there wasn't the same kind of people dabbling in the stock market in 1987. If the stock market was crashing, most people didn't care. Indeed, the U.S. economy didn't tank and within a year things were back to normal. Or at least normal for 1988.

Refrain

I don't care,
(I swear)
I don't care,
At all.

Third Stanza

Thursday the New York Stock Exchange took a nosedive. For a brief amount of time the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly a 1000 points, but that big drop only lasted like 90 seconds. Rumor has it that someone typed a sell order for 16 billion, instead of 16 million -- Citi denies this, but who asked them, hmm? Then automatic sell programs triggered on the big sell order and for a brief moment some stocks hit zero. Some want to blame the initial drop on concern about the Greek Debt. Some figure that some sort of correction was overdue.

The thing that killed me about Thursday was how much this was Not News. Yeah, I heard a bit in passing on NPR's All Things Considered, but if this was The End Of The U.S. Economy, you sure couldn't tell by the news. Indeed, the local TV news was dominated by coverage of the death of legendary Detroit Tiger's announcer Ernie Harwell. Thursday night NBC's Brian Williams was on The Late Show with David Letterman. I was not really paying attention, but they spent most of the time talking about last Saturday's incompetent Times Square car bomber and the unfolding ecological disaster off the coast of Louisiana. But a major stock dive? Just a few minutes right at the end. I expect tomorrow's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me to be all over the (b)illion versus (m)illion issue, if it makes the show taping in time.

But the stock market wasn't much for news. Americans are weary of the economy -- and if some Wall Street fat cats got skinned on Thursday, then no doubt the sentiment is "good for them." Because the rest of all already had our retirement investments fleeced in 2008. What can they possibly take from us in 2010?

Meanwhile, neither Big Oil or Wall Street seems to get it, regarding why they need to be regulated for the good of everyone.

Refrain

And I'm free, I'm free fallin',
Everything is less than zero...

Chorus

Thank God for those financial institutions,
Too big to fail and,
Paying millions in big bonuses,
So they have the best and brightest,
Forever on the payroll.

Oops, I did it again.
(Oh no you didn't.)

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (chicago-stuffed-pizza)
Two Chicago Stuffed Pizzas!

Back on Friday one of my good friends from Northwestern days came by for dinner. Cole's family has some cottages along Lake Michigan about an hour south of here and he bopped up from Indianapolis to do some work about the place. Ever since we found Joe Chicago's Pizza over by Rivertown Crossings Mall, we've tried to get together with Cole and his family for some lovely Chicago stuffed pizza. Alas, though I was able to bring one pizza by the cottage last summer, other attempts to eat at Joe Chicago's have been thwarted by (1) going out of business for a time and (2) not being open every day after the new owners came in. But they either have new management or new owners yet again, because lately they've done a top notch job of being open, making pizzas and have been creatively expanding their menu.

As for the two pizzas, I ordered them on the way home, which magically enough allows me to bop off of the M-6 freeway at Wilson Avenue Exit 3, swing by Joe Chicago's for pick up, then jump back onto I-196 from 44th Street. We would do this far more often if one had no concerns about spending all that money or eating all those luscious calories. The deal was, since Cole was coming up alone, he was under orders to bring a large stuffed pizza home to his wife. I think maybe their son might get some of this. Might, mind you. (grin)

The advantage of this plan was that there was more pizza for us -- we wouldn't feel like we had to send some of "our" pieces home with Cole. (evil grin) The pizza we ate on Friday was a large 14" Chicago stuffed pizza with sausage, mushrooms, black olives, roasted red peppers and spinach. The one we sent on, assuming Cole was trustworthy, to Indianapolis was also a 14" Chicago stuffed pizza with sausage, pepperoni, green peppers, mushrooms and black olives.

Lovely. Simple lovely.

Heaven On Earth

One of the great things about great friends is that you can sit and talk about anything without any kind of prep. But of course, one of the topics of conversation was pizza -- go figure. Anyway, I told Cole that the Sunday before I'd seen a piece in the Grand Rapids Press about Chicago Pizza Tours. Oh you read that right. Chicago. Pizza. Tours. 3-hour bus tour of FOUR styles of Chicago pizza INCLUDING Gino's East and... drum roll please... Edwardo's on Printer's Row. Now I first ran into the original Edwardo's on the border of Evanston and Chicago in early 1979 not long after they opened. And fell in love.

The tours run 3 hours, typically start at noon, and cost $55 a head, not including drinks and tips. You get one slice of signature pizza at each venue. Click on the thumbnails to really enjoy:


Marcello's cracker crust


Gino's East -- also a world famous Chicago deep dish pizza. (But really, it's not Edwardo's -- grin.)


Coalfire's pizza is cooked in a coal-fired oven. Wasn't this featured on an Anthony Bordaine's No Reservations?


Finally we have The Food Of The Gods: Edwardo's Double-Crust Stuffed Pizza. The FINEST pizza in all the lands. Now THAT'S a pizza. That's a meal. (sigh) (swoon)

They're limited to 15 max, but they will do private tours. And you can pick your toppings when you order your tickets. I'm thinking I think I know what I want for my birthday this year. Now I just need to figure out a weekend in August or September... and how many people I know I could get to join us. (yet another evil grin)

You know, assuming it's on time, the Amtrak train from Holland MI to Union Station arrives at like 10:30am CT and leaves a little after 5pm CT, and Chicago Pizza Tours start and end at Gino's East, 633 N. Wells St -- Wells and Ontario -- one could get a cab to/from the train. And then sleep on the way home. (zzzz)

So... what's better than two pizzas? Four classic Chicago pizzas in three hours? Mmm... maybe.

Dr. Phil

PS - go by the Joe Chicago's website (linked above) to check out a really LARGE Chicago stuffed pizza. (grin)
dr_phil_physics: (nu-logo)
The Good "NU"s

I do believe that my Northwestern University Wildcats finished the season 4th in the Big Ten at 8-4. Which put us in line, not only for a bowl game, but a much better bowl game than say the 6-6 Michigan State Spartans. Michigan Wolverines, you say? Who? Where are they this year? Home for the holidays? (grin)

Anyway, Northwestern will meet the Auburn Tigers, I believe for the first time ever, at the Outback Bowl in Tampa FL, at 11am EST on Friday 1 January 2010, New Year's Day -- the day where God intended big bowl games to be played.

General Rants

Don't get me started on the whole ruination of the bowl game system that the BCS has wrought these last years. I want closure. I want the bowl games to end after New Year's Day. As we wait for this Saturday, 12 December 2009, to see the Grand Valley State University Lakers take on Northwest Missouri State -- and you know this was the matchup everyone wanted -- for the NCAA Division II National Championship in Florence AL, 1pm on ESPN2, I am not going to hold my breath for a real Division I National Championship system.

But more to the point of NU's game on New Year's Day, I would like to point out one of my biggest pet peeves. Now, I dare you to go the homepage of the Outback Bowl site and find exactly WHEN the game is to be on. No, really. I'll wait.

Yeah, somewhere it does say New Year's Day. But the time? Why would you want to know something silly like the bloody time?

While it is probably almost reasonable that at some point during the end of 2009 most people will figure out that 1 January 2010, like 25 December 2009, falls on a Friday, in general most announcements made by most people (and NOT Dr. Phil) manage to omit the day of the week.

Let's think about this -- given the way our schedules are, in any given week the one piece of information that will right off the bat tell you whether you can do or watch some activity is the bloody day of the week. Our work schedules are based on the days of the week. Our class schedules. Our TV shows. Our days of worship. Some of our holidays. Why in the world would nearly everyone routinely NOT put the bloody day of the week? This band will be in concert in your town on 14 April 2010. Quick -- tell me if that's a school night. Idiots. Newspapers, advertisers, promoters, websites, radio stations -- they are all IDIOTS for not telling us that the 14th of April in 2010 is a Wednesday.

It's a little thing, I know, but... Please, I beg of you -- if you have to ever promote an event, make sure you mention the day of the week. It will make everyone so much happier. And doesn't our racing modern recession world need a little bit more happiness?

Oh, and please mention the time, too, if it's not too much trouble. And it isn't, is it? Too much trouble I mean. (double-trouble-grin)

Dr. Phil

A Cold Day In...

Saturday, 29 August 2009 22:30
dr_phil_physics: (Default)
Stares At Calendar Again

High today in Allendale was maybe 65°F. Lows in the next few days will be in the 40s. Cold and rainy all day. I was just looking at the latest Northwestern Magazine -- the alumni mag from NU -- and noted to Mrs. Dr. Phil that (a) 2010 will be my 30th Reunion, which means (b) 2009 would've been her 30th Reunion. But she doesn't like the way her college does reunions right now. They used to be held at graduation in June -- having it in October makes no sense at a school where football was not important.

On the other hand, NU reunions in October are wonderful -- fall in Evanston is wonderful. Of course the picture in the alumni mag showed fall foliage with a backdrop of brilliant blue sky. Given today's weather, Mrs. Dr. Phil brought up the rain. But it didn't deter me. Cold fall rain in Evanston is perfect, too. (grin)

Kind of like... today. (Goes back to contemplating the calendar.) The end of August calendar. Not October.

More On Charles N. Brown

Back on 13 July 2009 I reported on the legendary editor-publisher of Locus magazine. Today I got the September issue, which includes several pages of reminisces by many SF people about Charles.

Also cover interview with Larry Niven and extensive coverage of this year's Hugos. As if you didn't have enough reasons to go to LocusOnline and get your own subscription to Locus.

(Goes back to contemplating calendar.) Locus almost always comes on the first, but it's the 29th. Of August. Not September.

Whatever The Weather Is Doing, It's Not All Bad

My mother used to comment that when they were at the University of Illinois, that the farm reports typically said the weather was "good for the corn" no matter what the weather was doing.

Well, this year had produced some damned fine Red Haven peaches. Red Havens are already the best eating peaches ev-ah, but the ones we bought today continued to be beautiful and lovely. Sigh.

(Goes back to contemplating calendar.) It's still summer? I can has Red Haven peaches? (double-grin)

Dr. Phil

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