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07:51:56 Tuesday August 09 2005
I survived the trip to Vegas. I had a good time and I am in nominally the same condition now as when I left. The main thrust of the trip was of course DefCon. I was both pleased and disappointed to have gone to Defcon. I can clearly recall being a young computer nerd with windows HyperTerminal and BBS door games. I thought that it would be the coolest thing in the world to attend DefCon. Now after a bachelors in CS, a masters in CS with concentrations in crypto and networking, and 6 months working at a computer security company I have to say that the majority of the presentations were either (1) remedial or (2) non-technical. There were some very interesting and technical talks however the signal to noise ratio left much to be desired. A given 12 hour day at DefCon would likely yield 3 hours of excellent talks if you were lucky enough to get in (there were often long queues to enter the best talks).
Of course I didn't make it out of Vegas without consuming my share of entertainment. I saw Blue Man Group for the first time. Which is good because I have been listening to their first CD Audio since 2000 or so. They put on a great show as long as you are neither epileptic nor claustrophobic. I also had a chance to see Penn & Teller two of my favorite performers on the planet. The show was witty and well done as I knew it would be. They preformed the always amazing double bullet catch for the grand finale. I shook hands after the show and got my copy of Sock autographed.
Fine dining was also an integral part of the Vegas trip. On Thursday night we ate at Prime in the Bellagio. It is a truly excellent steak-house decorated in the style of an upscale 1930s speakeasey. I had the most excellent truffle mashed potatoes with my roasted chicken. We also had a very nice Bordeaux and a truly excellent Zinfandel with our meals. On Saturday we ate at Valentino's in the Venetian. E.B. was gracious enough to arrange a private room for the Arxan folks.
Booze is an absolute necessity in Vegas and we consumed at least twice our daily recommended value. Two outstanding places to drink in sin city are Nine Fine Irishmen at New York and The V Bar at the Venetian. The ladies highly recommend the Sunsplashes which were served to them at the Bellagio.
As for gambling... well I did none of that. I just can't get excited
about playing a game that I know I will ultimately loose. In case
anyone is curious about what it costs to party like a rock star in
Vegas for 4 days or so consult the following table:
| Airfare | 386.90 |
| Hotel | 447.87 |
| Parking / Taxi / Transportation | 145.00 |
| Tickets | 383.44 |
| Food | 324.82 |
| Booze | 330.15 |
| Souvenirs | 62.90 |
| Gambling | 0.00 |
| Total Spent | 2066.07 |
| Company Reimbursement | 1066.77 |
| Total Personal Expense | 999.30 |
Pictures of the trip can be found here.
19:42:24 Wednesday August 10 2005
A while back an old friend whom I hadn't spoken to in some time invited me to his wedding. Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending. I ran into the Knapps (old family friends) and some of my parents' friends and co-workers. There were surprisingly few people from my high school class in attendance. Best of luck to Andy and his lovely bride Marissa. Photos can be found here.
23:06:34 Tuesday August 23 2005
Does this thing still work? Sorry for the radio silence for the last
couple of weeks. I have been busy. Shortly after my last post I
attended a birthday party for my friend and co-worker Mike Mehlberg. A
large portion of the Arxan crew showed up and a good time was had by
all. Photos of the event are
located here.
That weekend (Saturday the 14th) my grandparents held a Noland-Harper
get-together-reunion-thing. As you can see my grandparents had two
children which produced 9 grandchildren. The families used to get
together on an almost monthly basis to celebrate birthdays and the
like, however we hadn't all been together since Christmas. My lovely
girlfriend Sara had the opportunity to meet the Harpers. She was very
well received by the family.
Concerning pets: Many people have criticized the inhabitants of Casa
de Noland for their antipathy towards pets and the interminable
cleaning job they represent. Well we have finally decided to come
around to their way of thinking. As such we have adopted a pet. Nancy
is an orb weaver, more precisely she is a barn spider (Araneus
Cavaticus). She appears every night to tend her web and devour her
prey. She is more quiet and less messy than other pets; plus she feeds
herself and destroys pests. Best pet ever.
In other news my parent's
dog died on Sunday. She was 15 years old, she had a stroke more than a
year ago, and had not been doing well for some time.
This most recent weekend was my Gencon vacation. My friends Castor, Lehmann, Showalter as well as my room mate Brad and Sara came along. We ate at the Claddagh, Buca di Beppo, and the Rathskeller while we were in Indy. The best games played at Gencon were Ursuppe, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Conspiracy X, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a Sherlock Holmes themed Matrix Game, and Masque of the Red Death. The weekend was exhausting, but I am almost back to full speed.
12:30:48 Wednesday August 24 2005
Beers consumed at the Rathskeller include :
Schneider Weisse,
Westmalle Trappist Dubbel,
Delirium
Tremens Ale,
Tripel
Karmeliet,
Gösser Dark,
and O'Hara's Irish Stout.
Sara was particularly fond of the Lindemans Framboise
Lambic. It is terribly girly and Belgian. Brad and Orion cannot
seem to get enough of the Schneider Weisse.
The Rathskeller's beer menu is available online.
15:53:57 Thursday August 25 2005
Thought Bucket:
Set the windows XP clock to display 24 hour (military) time.
- Go to the control panel
- Open "Regional and language options"
- Click customize
- Select the time tag
- Change "h:mm:ss tt" to "HH:mm:ss"
15:49:08 Friday August 26 2005
A friend from my
childhood church died recently. Jay Perry
was shopping in a mall and dropped dead suddenly due to a Pulmonary
Embolism. He was about my age.
07:55:26 Monday August 29 2005
Many thanks to Josette: X-ray Crystallography is the coolest thing ever. See also the wikipedia entry.
The webcams page has been updated accordingly.
19:13:01 Tuesday August 30 2005
Last night Sara with no 'h' and I
attended a pannel discussion on the current state of installation art. Afterwards we were treated to a dual opening
reception for both Mountainside
by Megan and Murray
McMillan and Cocoon
by Makiko
Miyamoto. It was very interesting. Both Sara and I found
ourselves agreeing with Megan and Murray during the panel
discussion.
Mountainside was very well done, although I think that it
needed a stronger tie to Persephone or at
least a
proper image of The Rape of Persephone. The whole piece makes a
lot more sense with that one small bit of information, and I think
that I would have been hard pressed to come up with that association
on my own had I not attended the pannel discussion.
Cocoon was much less intellectually dense, but it was beautiful. All of
the soft textures, warm dim lights, and ambient organic sounds almost
put me to sleep.
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