/var/log/nolandda

20:18:42 Sunday August 03 2008

20:18:42 Sunday August 03 2008

First thing first: Sara and I are back in the states as of July 29th.

Also, as promised, photos of the wedding of Ali Thompson to Chris Constantine. Chris and Ali are fabulous together and their wedding at the Marion County Central Library in downtown Indianapolis was amazing. Everyone had a great time and we are grateful to have been invited.

Photos of our trip to Europe will follow shortly. I will try to space them out to avoid dumping an unreasonable number of photos on my readers.

14:01:44 Monday July 14 2008

14:01:44 Monday July 14 2008

On vacation in Paris. Everything has been wonderful: the museums, the churches, the food, and even the parade since it is Bastille Day here in France. Photos of Munich and Paris are forthcoming as are photos of the Constantine wedding.

However, the most important news is that today at the Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Garden my lovely girlfriend, Sara, agreed to marry me.

02:44:21 Sunday July 06 2008

02:44:21 Sunday July 06 2008

The weekend of the 21st was Chris Constantine's bachelor party. Terry put together quite an evening of activities in his role as Best Man.

We began with a fantastic dinner at Sullivans Steakhouse in Keystone.

Afterward we moved to Cracker's Comedy Club in Broad Ripple. There we enjoyed the comedy stylings of Dan Cummins and Jim Holder. I was surprised at the quality of their routines. I expected local talent that was very hit and miss, but they were quite good. We enjoyed it a lot. Were it not for the 2 drink minimum on top of the ticket price I might frequent Crackers more often.

The evening concluded at Brad's Gold Club, the strip club near Lafayette Square Mall. Needless to say, my photo set does not include anything from there. The place seemed surprisingly empty for a Saturday night, and the music selection could be charitably be described as dreadful. None the less the strippers were friendly and the bachelor got plenty of attention so our mission was accomplished.

00:56:14 Friday July 04 2008

00:56:14 Friday July 04 2008

An Ash tree on Cumberland Avenue that is being used to test for the presence of Emerald Ash Borers (Agrilus planipennis). The USDA is conducting the survey. More info about the survey here.

If you see what look like purple kites stuck in trees it is probably the USDA counting Emerald Ash Borers.

00:50:16 Friday July 04 2008

00:50:16 Friday July 04 2008

Windmills belonging to the Somerset Wind Farm. I snapped this photo on June 1st from a rest stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike as we drove to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of Sara's Grandfather, John Laughlin.

19:17:14 Friday June 13 2008

19:17:14 Friday June 13 2008

Yesterday on the way to dinner Sara and I discovered a tiny little Eastern Cottontail in the road. It was limping on one of its hind legs. A passerby mentioned that they had seen another one in the area earlier, so I suspect a dog or other predator flushed a nest.

We were uncertain if the mother was still alive, and the kit was injured even if the mother still lived, so we decided to take it to get help.

We brought it home and placed it in a bin with some hay. It survived the night and we took it to Wildcat Wildlife Center just up IN-25 near Delphi. They will set its leg and tube feed it until it is well enough to be released.

20:09:40 Thursday April 17 2008

20:09:40 Thursday April 17 2008

Senator Barack Obama speaking at at Jefferson High School on April 10th. Sara and I managed to find some balcony seats way in the back. Sorry about the photo quality.

17:25:54 Wednesday April 09 2008

17:25:54 Wednesday April 09 2008

Nota Bene: I am going to start posting some backdated log entries.

16:27:52 Wednesday April 09 2008

16:27:52 Wednesday April 09 2008

The queue for tickets to Senator Barack Obama's town hall meeting tomorrow night at Jefferson High School.

23:59:59 Saturday March 08 2008

23:59:59 Saturday March 08 2008

Sara and I got up early and drove down to IUPUI for the 3rd annual Darwin Day conference held by CFI Indy. That event seems to go further downhill every year. What began as an interesting event with nuanced presentations and debates has degenerated into a boring training session for primary school teachers looking to collect certificates and graduate credit.

The primary reason that I returned this year was to hear Richard Carrier Talk about the creationism vs. evolution debate as it played out in ancient Rome 1800 years ago. Unfortunately he was sick and unable to attend. We did watch a video version of his lecture which was interesting even though there was no opportunity to ask questions.

Many of the other morning presentations, such as a hokey speech by a gentleman dressed as Charles Darwin were torturous to endure. In addition the conference was also plagued by technical issues most of the morning. As a result Sara and I bailed out before noon. Supporting the science of evolution is one thing. Wasting an entire Saturday on a poorly executed event is quite another.

Fortunately not all was lost. On our way out of Indy we noticed that The Flying Cupcake Bakery was open. We had been by before, on the recommendation of braingirl, but their hours are somewhat sporadic around the holidays so we had never actually made it in. We are glad we made it in this time. We had delicious gourmet cupcakes for lunch.

Later that evening the behavioral neuroscience crew got together to check out the newest bar in town, the Black Sparrow. It is a nice place with a very artsy/hipster feel to it. You can tell that the owners put thought into the design. There is lots of stencil art. Live DJs are common (The Soul Stewards played that night).

The cocktails are modeled on drinks popular during prohibition. Many contain whiskey and bitters of some type. Feel free to check out my photos of the evening including Sara's arm wrestling victory.

19:48:41 Tuesday March 04 2008

19:48:41 Tuesday March 04 2008

Sara's mother and sister visited us on the weekend of February 23rd. The girls had their hair done at Christina's Spa. They all came back looking even more lovely than usual.

After their spa session we stopped by the Purdue Armory and caught the tail end of the 2008 Rube Goldberg High School Regionals.

On February 24th we had some people over to make pizza's. They were delicious and fun as always.

Just last night we stopped by campus to hear Artist Ken Rinaldo from Ohio State talk about his Autotelematic Spider Bots. He has some weird artist ideas about trans-species communication and what constitutes consciousness, but the art was interesting.

The spider-bots seemed to do an OK job of avoiding one another and the walls, but it was evident that he hadn't worked out a number of important engineering problems such as battery life. I suppose that is why he is an artist and not an engineer.

Photos of the spider-bots are in the usual place.

14:31:23 Saturday February 23 2008

14:31:23 Saturday February 23 2008

February is a very boring month. There are a lot of hours spent in the house trying to avoid the cold. The motivation to go out and find interesting things to do drops in proportion to the temperature.

Nature did provide something interesting with a total lunar eclipse on the 20th.

Before that Sara and I celebrated Saint Valentine's Day with a nice meal and a quiet evening at home.