Listening to Solti/Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing Brahms' Symphony No. 1 in c minor

One lesson I learned today is taht I mix with sugar/caffine as well as Emily mixes with sugar. I was falling asleep at work this morning, so I brewed some tea and added some sugar. After awhile, I was more awake, but my hands were trembling as I tried to steadily hold the pipetter. A more extreme experience arose almost a year ago, when I had my first cup of coffee in over a year, and I added too much sugar to the coffee. I had the coffee before physics class, and throughout math class taht followed physics, I was tapping my hands on the desk, and on the way back to my room, I was hopping around and loudly tapping my coffee cup. It was crazy. I could consciously control it, but after a little while, when I stop pay attention, I find myself tapping the cup again. Then, around four hours later, I crashed from the caffine high. I was dead tired at 5pm couldn't do a thing. That taught me to stay away from caffine and sugar...until today, when I was dumb enough to imbibe some more.

Well, one good news is that my best friend has more trust in my driving abilities now. He took the front seat every time I drove yesterday. 'Tis a proud day for me. On the subject of driving, I think it's pretty funny that Brendan's sister Keira has difficulty steering hte car in the correct direction while backing up. Last night, as I was driving home, she was to follow me in their car. Well, I waited on teh side of the road for her to pull out of the driveway, and she pulled out but was facing the opposite direction. I was a bit confused, so I thought she perhaps wanted to practice on another route, but as I was thinking that, she started to make a three-point turn... In the car, Brendan and I were discussing that she should play more GTA3- or Rush 2-like video games. True they turn you into maniacal drivers, but at least you know which way to turn the steering wheel if your car starts to flip over and which way to steer in reverse. ;)

I'm leaving for Yellowstone at 4am Tuesday morning, but I'll probably be posting entries locally on my hard drive and uploading one big blog at the end of the trip. I'm bringing 20 rolls of chromes, so hopefully, I have good pictures to scan in as well (negatives don't scan very well).

Listening to un-named orchestra playing Rimsky-Korsakov's Scezherazade.

Had bundles of fun at work today trying to help Shao wipe her white board clean. She used a pen that looked exactly like a permanent market, but had labelled on it "Dry Erase Marker." It didn't, however, dry erase; in fact, it didn't even come off with 200-proof ethanol. We then tried "institutional" strength acetone, and that didn't do the trick either. We gave up after that. I suggested using gasoline, because it's a terrific solvent, but she said she didn't want to die. Any suggestions?

I did some running with Brendan and his brother yesterday, and my hamstrings were so sore this morning. We originally met to play tennis, but upon seeing all the courts were taken, we played frisbee instead, after which we did laps around the track. Well, the intention was to run a mile, but I lost count and sprinted to the 3/4-mile finish. Phew that was tiring. First time I've ran a mile at such intensity since the mandatory eighth-grade mile run and the ninth grade "donut" 3-miler for soccer team. Running's a good workout, but I don't like it. It's just not objective enough. In other sports, you always have to either get the ball in a net or a hole or in cycling, you enjoy the scenery or show up cars with your superior speed on bike, but I really don't see anything to go after in running, especially around a track. I think I've already discussed my views on this before, so I won't start again.

Listening to Rubinstein playing Chopin's Ballade. I rarely listen to unaccompanied piano pieces, but this is a piece I like a lot. It's from a CD Binoy gave me for Christmas, and this piece was also in the movie The Pianist (it's a great movie, by the way).

I was thinking the otehr day, and got inspired to write this because of Anne-Marie's comment to Emily's blog entry. My thought and her comment aren't really related, but I think it's almost frustrating that scientists are searching so hard for life on other planets when they really shouldn't be too certain what they're looking for. I mean they look for water and other signs of life as we know it on Earth, but what is dictating that life out there must be analogous to life here on Earth. Heck, even life on Earth isn't all to similar; bacteria living by the hot water vents deep in the ocean don't need sunlight or oxygen or carbon dioxide. Hell, they even survive the pressure and temperatures that are high enough that they are the standard for disinfecting things. I mean what we can look for is only something we can perceive. Likewise, we seem only to be searching in the third dimension. Perhaps there is life in the fourth-, fifth-, or higher dimensions, but it's just that the "higher" dimensions are higher for us and transcend our ability to comprehend their existence. Just as we can perceive a one-dimension black hole that affects space in three or more dimensions, who says there can't be higher dimensions looking down at us pitiful three-dimensional beings trying to understand the world? I know the feeling of trying to "see" the fourth dimension when my math prof tells us to draw graphs of the fourth dimension represented in three dimensions on a two-dimensional piece of paper. I'm sorry, but I've only experienced three dimensions and cannot comprehend what the fourth dimension is like. I mean to me, it's just wrong to have a fourth axis in the Cartesian coordinate system; where do you stick that extra axis? It's simple for those who live in four dimensions, but utterly impossible for those who don't. As easily as we can slap on a z-axis on a 2D graph to make it 3D, those living in a 2D world won't be able to even imagine depth.
Aaah...gotta love the long periods of time spent alone in the tissue culture room, where such thoughts are conceived.
(By the way, when I say fourth dimension, I mean the spatial dimension beyond the third dimension. I don't mean time, which is sometimes referred to as the fourth dimension because it is in the context of a three-dimensional world. It's interesting, because perhaps the time is the spatial fourth dimension, and we're living in it but don't realize its spatial properties due to a lack of udnerstand of the enveloping dimensions.)

Listening to Lu Si-Qing playing Monti's Czardas.

I feel like somewhat of a blog delinquent for having neglected it for quite awhile (or so it feels). A new guy came into work today. He's a cool dude, but he thinks (at least I think he thinks) my name is Marty....

Yesterday was quite interesting. I originally set out to go biking with my brother, Binoy, and Brendan, and upon reaching Lexington Center, Brendan ran over a shard of glass that punctured his inner tube. So, we ended up taking the bikepath over to Revere St., then turning left and climbing up Revere St. to Brendan's house. Well, once we got there and were about to leave (after Brendan changed his wheel), Brendan's little sister Linnea insisted on joining us, so Keira ended up riding her bike with Linnea in the back seat. What made it interesting is that on the way, LInnea got restless, so we all ended up picking roadside flowers for her as we passed them on bike. On the way back, my brother, hungry from lack of lunch, couldn't ride any longer. Well, we made it home, but not after my bottom bracket started wiggling and creaking and my back wheel came loose and kept hitting the chainstay with the tire. What tiresome business. :-p

One of my mother's flowers has started to bloom. I think it's a rose plant, but I could be wrong. I went and took some pictures today. Unfortunately, the light conditions are far below optimal, as these were taken after work. The first one is a little wildflower growing in our yard. Sadly, there wasn't enough light to use a smaller aperture for the whole flower to be in focus (there was wind, so a tripod wouldn't have helped). The second picture my mom's flower with a water droplet between two of the petals. Both of these are cropped, because the original files are too big, and if I resize them, the water droplets would be lost.

Listening to Jascha Heifetz playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

Today was a terrific day! In the morning, Biogen handed out windbreakers to everyone. There was a poster session with free food for lunch (I stayed for the posters, too :-p). Then, at 2pm, they took those who signed up on a cruise around Boston Harbor. The cruise was okay. It wasn't too interesting in terms of the landmarks it visited, and most of the people I know at Biogen were too busy today to attend the cruise. Despite all that, it was very nice to just be on a boat, feel the ocean breeze, smell that oceany smell, and relax, knowing Friday has finally come. I was thinking--as I was watching the other people on their boats--it would be lots of fun and a good way to relax and chill to spend a day on a motorboat. The sea is definitely very soothing and lets you escape the time-pressed people and always-in-a-rush society. Furthermore, you can always just stop your boat and sit down and chat with friends and family members on your boat, as I saw many do, saluting the occassional boat that passes by. Aaa...what a life.

On a different note, after reading a certain comment made in my blog today, I decided there are those out there who were dropped on their heads as babies and are unable to comprehend the basic meaning behind a blog: it's your space for you to write whatever you want to write. Now I have nothing wrong with people disagreeing with my ideas, that's what starts interesting discussions and debates, but saying that "this site is a piece of shit" is making an empty and superficial comment beyond comprehension. If you want to say something like that, it also helps if you say *why* it is so. Maybe that person doesn't like my discussion of classical music? Perhaps he/she is offended by my use of cycling pictures that express my passion for cycling? I know not the answer, but one thing I'd like to make clear is that a blog reader is like a visitor to the blogger's home. Readers are welcome to make comments, but must also respect the fact that the blog is the person's space and its contents are the person's thoughts and ideas, and whether right or not, should still be respected. I'm sure whoever wrote that was probably looking for something more interesting than my blog when he/she searched for "blaster worm xanga" (pray tell what you were looking for in particular), but entering my personal blog preempts respect and consideration for my opinion (and my photo). While I'm on that note, I'd like to point out that, not being a vain person, I couldn't care less about the photo I post. I chose this photo because I feel it best represent me in my natural state; it's not necessarily my best, most glamorous photo, but it, without distortion, shows what I look like when I'm in my normal state. For purposes of a blog photo, I want people to see the photo and think, "Oh, so that's who he is" rather than seeing a dramatic pose that doesn't represent my true self. Now the photo on my webpage is a different story, as that's taken artistically to hint at my interest in photography, but for heaven's sake, this is a blog. While I understand there are people who want to portray themselves as more than what they are, I also feel that is a sign of pretentiousness, from which I try to shy away.

Listening to unnamed conductor/orchestra playing Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 'From the New World'

I was just thinking, what's really interesting is the morning person on WCRB. When they do the news, they always say, "In sports tonight, the Red Sox play the Yankees, the Bruins play the Phillies, and Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops play John Williams." Just had to get that little bit out. :-)

Listening to Cho-Liang Lin playing Saint-Saens' Violin Concerto No. 3. This used to be one of my favorite violin concertos, especially the third movement. It was up there with Brahms and Tchaikovsky. It's not that I don't like it now, but I've been neglecting listening to it, just because there are too many good songs to listen to. :-)

I played some frisbee with Brendan yesterday evening. It was much fun, especially since he joined the Oberlin frisbee team (known as Horsecows), and the team consists of crazy crazy people (crazy even by Oberlin standards) who smoke weird stuff and do weirder stuff, on the field and off. Well, I ended up showing him GTA3 VC for the computer after that, and then, the most exciting part: I gave him a ride home. :-D It was my first time driving solo, and it was terrible, because I couldn't see anything due to the condensation on the windows, both inside and outside. Well, Brendan didn't say it directly, but he sat in the back seat, even after I offered him the front seat. He said the back is safer. Grrr. My dad thought it was hilarious that my best friend has no faith in my driving. Well, I got him home safely in one piece, didn't hit his car in his driveway or the tree that he hit, and I got home myself safely.

Interesting convo I found while browsing through my archives (this is too long to put as my quote of the day):
Atrcan (12:53:58 AM): ds
Moli Luo (12:54:08 AM): ?
Atrcan (12:54:16 AM): (not dump swing, or dumb shit, but damn straight)
Moli Luo (12:54:25 AM): aah
Moli Luo (12:54:25 AM): ic
Moli Luo (12:54:29 AM): weirdo
Atrcan (12:54:31 AM): yups
Atrcan (12:54:43 AM): well you got your fuckin' "afk" bullshit
Atrcan (12:54:49 AM): whatever that is
Moli Luo (12:54:55 AM): hehehehe
Moli Luo (12:55:03 AM): ds
Atrcan (12:55:17 AM): hey!
Atrcan (12:55:35 AM): i know you meant dumb shit that time! ...motherfucker...

Listening to no-name orchestra playing Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.

Joshua Bell is coming to Dartmouth during Spring term! I'm so excited. It doesn't say what he's going to play, but I'm going to get tickets today or tomorrow. It never hurts to get them early, as I experienced when Wynton Marsalis came to Dartmouth last fall. Tickets were sold out before I even officially became a student! Even the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra tickets sell out quickly. The November concert that featured Mozart's Overture to Magic Flute, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 was sold out two weeks before the concert. I wasn't able to get tickets for that either. The all-Mahler program I was barely able to get tickets for. When I ordered, there were three seats left. At that peformance, I found my friend Dan walking around the front row, and he later told me he buys all of his tickets at the end of summer and not have to worry about them except to show up. :-)

Listening to Itzhak Perlman playing Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy. I just finished listening to Ponchielli's La Gioconda, a recent favorite of mine. The piece puts me in a blissful, above-the-world, surreal mood. I had John Mayer's Your Body is a Wonderland stuck in my head during work. It was terrible, especially since I don't know all the lyrics. Needless to say, I won't be listening to it as I would with Classical pieces stuck in my head.

Browsing the Internet just now, many sites seemed extremely slow, thanks to the W32.Blaster.worm spreading around. The virus was rampant in the Biogen network; my computer at work had the virus, and I think IT did a terrible job trying to control it. They told everybody to restart the computers so an updated virus definition file could be installed upon startup, but that didn't do anything, as I was one of the first ones to reboot, and not only didn't the update fix my virus, it failed to detect the presence of the virus. I ended up finding it manually in regedit and getting rid of it myself and applying the system patch myself (I don't know if the IT folks will be happy about this--I'm technically not supposed to install software, let alone alter the operating system on my own). I think those who write viruses are terrible people who have a terrible life and lots of free time and choose to get back at the world by unleashing detrimental viruses. I can partially understand this one, as the message of the virus says something like, "Billy Gates, stop making money and fix your software" or something like that, but I don't think a virus that exploits such bugs in Windows is the best way to spread the message. Okay, so the programmer of the virus gets arrested (assuming he/she is found), a lot of computer systems are destroyed, and Bill Gates makes more money selling Windows updates taht are more resistant (but not completely resistant) to these kinds of viruses, and the cycle starts over. The net effect (no pun intended)? Millions of dollars in computer/software damages, a dude in jail, and Bill Gates with more cash in his wallet. The other major computer viruses are even worse than this one. They deliver no message and are made for the sake of destroying data and causing damage. What kind of a freak accident must have had to happen to result in the birth of these virus programmers? These guys are almost as bad as the peple who spend spam to people. *Sigh* What is the digital age coming to?

Aaah. Erick Friedman's playing of Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen is so nice. Like reading, the third movement calms me down so much. Friedman is an interesting guy. He seemed to be on his way to being a beastly violin player, then seemed to just disappear. In his youth, Heifetz invited him to record Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in d-minor, and I think that recording is the official recording of Heifetz playing that piece.

Listening to no-name conductor/orchestra playing J. Strauss II's Vienna Blood.

'Noting is more deceitful,' said Darcy, 'than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.'

Aaah...what a great line. I missed it the first time I read the book. I just have to write it down somewhere. I'll think about it more once I'm in a better mood (just had a big argument with my mom). Back to the reading that can, hopefully, calm me down a bit more.

Listening to Solti/Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducting/playing Mahler's Symphony No. 5. I *always* find myself whistling the Trauermarsch of this piece at work when I have nothing else to whistle; that is, when I'm not actively thinking of whistling anything. I'm sure all of the people in my lab and the tissue culture room are probably sick of this song now, especially since the intro is beyond my whistling range.

My presentation today went pretty well. I got two questions that weren't too bad from the Yale guy. I'm dreading tomorrow, when I have to do transfections up the whazoo. I prepared 5 plates of CHO cells and 4 plates of cos7 cells today. Well, I guess it isn't as bad as the time when I emptied out the box of TC plates with something like 12 plates of 4x10^5 cells and 12 plates of 3x10^5 cells.

Oh, I'm going to order some more Fuji chromes before the Yellowstone trip. Probably going to get 5 rolls of Velvia 50 and probably 5~10 rolls of Sensia, and probably 15~30 rolls of Fuji C41s. I want to bring both the Nikon and the Canon and keep one loaded with chromes for landscape shots and the other with either black and white film or the negs for shots of my family and stuff. My dad thinks my bringing both bodies is excessive. One problem with the Nikon is that it lacks a built-in spotmeter, which I use very very frequently for landscape shots, especially on black and white film (I'm going to be bringing some Ilford HP5 plus). I'm also hoping to get a new Bogen tripod (either 3001N or 3021P, depending on how much I'm willing to spend) and a complementary ball head.

I'm really surprised at the popularity of dehumidifiers. Well, it's not that shocking considering the humidity these days, but what has been surprisng is that they're all sold out at Home Depot and Sears, and both stores basically told me they're sold out everywhere.

One last thing before I head off to bed. I hate crows! Argh. There are always a few crows that nest on a tree across the street from my house, but very close to my window, and at 5:20am everyday, they just have to screech at each other. Being sane, I sleep with the windows open and consequently get woken up at 5:20 everyday. The problem is, I stopped getting up at 5:30am to go biking, just because I like sleep so much and I make up for it on weekends, so I try to sleep until 6:45am but am rudely, prematurely awakened by crows. :-(

Listening to no-name bassoonist playing Mozart's Bassoon Concerto in B-flat

Yay. I think my parents have decided on going to Yellowstone National Park for this summer's trip. The original plan was to go to Canadia...I mean Canada. :-p However, my parents figured there wasn't anything really exciting aboot Canadia, eh? Yellowstone should be very exciting. I wish I can get a medium format camera before the trip and try to pull off some poster-quality pictures. Well, 35mm Velvia 50 might be able to do it, but it still won't be as nice as 6x6 Velvia 50. :-)

Listening to Rachmaninoff playing his own Piano Concerto No. 2.

A few days ago at work, my direct supervisor, Shao, and I were discussing why "scientific" refrigerators were so expensive. These are refrigerators that hold about 5 cubic feet of stuff and cost $1,000. She said the main reason they're expensive is that they're fireproof and explosion-proof, although she said her husband, who does research at UMass, buys refrigerators directly from Sears and saves his lab lots of dough. Well, our lab ordered three scientific refrigerators and they came in today. As I was commenting on why the boxes still said "Fragile, handle with care," Shao replied, "Well, they may be explosion proof, but they're still fragile." Something about the way she said it made me crack up so much. Anyway, that was the highlight of my day. Well, that and the presentation I had to prepare for Thursday's talk to the research team and to our Yale collaborator. Much fun that provided (note sarcasm).

Biogen posted their Family Outing photos, and the photos go to show the classic example of a photographer having great equipment but still cranking out terrible photos. I think 90% of his photos were very plain photos that could have been achieved with a simple point-and-shoot camera. I mean this guy had Nikon's top-of-the-line camera and flash and lens. He had a $4,000 Nikon D1x digital camera, a $350 Nikon SB-80DX or SB-28 flash (both are basically equivalent), and a very good Nikon wide-angle to short-telephoto fast (f/2.8 I reckon) lens (I'm not familiar with Nikon lenses, so I can't name a specific one). His photos are sooo poorly composed with very distracting, superfluous backgrounds. The flash was used at the wrong times and used with too much power (he needs a flash diffuser or he needs to learn to correctly use fill flash). When a flash was actually needed to fill in shadows, he didn't use one. He's the type of "photographer" whose belief that buying the best camera will make him a photographer is often criticized by professional photographers. I mean you can have the best camera in the world, but it still wouldn't compose the picture for you; composition is one of the key places that separates a good photographer from a bad one. A camera is much like a violin. You can play wonderful music on a terrible-sounding violin (my violin teacher can play Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen beautifully on his daughter's 1/16 sized violin), and conversely, you can have a Strad and play horrible music. The instrument is just an outlet for your artistic expression, but you're the artist who makes songs sound melodic or photographs look breathtaking. A camera is just there to hold your film and open the shutters when you need it to.

Then again, all of this makes me sound like a hypocrit for buying a super-nice camera body. I justify my decision with the need to shoot sports and action, which don't wait for the photographer or the camera. I mean I'll keep my old Nikon for anything for which I have reasonable time. Hell, I'm even looking into buying a manual-focus, manual-exposure medium format camera (the Mamiya 645E) for the ability to shoot 6x4.5 film, but that's for nature and scenic photography. I need my Canon EOS 3 though to track and shoot lacrosse players as they fire the ball into the net or football players as they throw the touchdown pass. A slow camera such as my Nikon N4004s will not be able to follow the action as well and take the pciture when I need it to (I have tried lacrosse on manual focus, manual exposure mode on the Nikon before, and it is tough). However, I am not relying on my Canon EOS 3 to take creative and good photos for me. I just want it to take the photos when I tell it to take them. Ultimately, it is I who decide when to press the shutter release and where the camera is pointed when I do press it. In fact, I don't even trust Canon's metering system most of the time; I spot meter when my subject allows me to do so. But that's just me. I'm paranoid about the camera making the wrong exposure. I try as much as possible to manually expose my own photos, as sometimes, you just don't know what the camera is thinking. For example, when you take a picture of a backlit subject, how do you know the camera is exposing to make the subject silhouetted and the background properly exposed or make the subject clear and the background overexposed? Many times, you don't know, even if you've had plenty of experience with the camera's metering system. The safest route is just to expose it yourself (or if you have film to burn, use exposure bracketing over such a wide range of exposures as in the listed example). Anyway, I love my EOS 3. It does what I want it to, and that's all I need from a camera. I have a picture page devoted to my EOS 3. You can access it here (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~moliluo/pictures/photog/eos3.html).

Listening to no-name orchestra playing Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld.

I got a new fan today! It feels so much cooler wo be with a fan. Well, a new fan wouldn't give me the extra minutes of sleep I'm missing after my 10pm bedtime. More from me tomorrow. :-)

Listening to Yo-Yo Ma playing Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 1

Went on a crazy bike ride today. Started on my normal route, but as I was descending into Wilson Farms, the rain suddenly started pouring to the point that it was difficult for me to see anything. It was crazily fun though. I ended up going around Lexington a few times. :-)

I would blog more, but it's way too humid to do any thinking. :-(

Listening to Jascha Heifetz playing Bruch's Scottish Fantasy. I love this song, by the way. This song is my third most listened to song on my playlist (all four movements!). The first two are Debussy's Arabesque and Debussy's Reverie with 42 and 40 plays, simply because those songs are so short and they occur on three playlists. The Bruch has 35 plays. Interestingly, after the Bruch is Debussy's Clair de Lune with 28 plays, and following that is Eminem's Sing for the Moment tied with Mozart's Piano concerto no. 21, second movement, with 27 plays. I only wish I had used WMP XP earlier so the play counter would count beyond the March 29, 2003 date when I started using WMP XP.

I just got a haircut. Saved myself $15 by having my dad cut it this time. I figure since I want a simple, cut-most-of-my-hair-off style, my dad's cutting it would have the same effect as a barber shop. I really needed this haircut, and having gotten one, everything feels so much cooler, and I'm sure my head would appreciate it, too, next time I go biking. What do people think?

Speaking of biking, I went on the Belmont route I've been wanting to try. Rode my normal route to get to Wilson Farm, and turned onto that street (I know not the name) and headed over Route 2 and to the end of the road, where it merged with Concord Street. I went down Concord Steet until its intersection with Trapelo Road, where I turned right and started the climbs all the way to Spring Street. The climb right before Spring Street was quite interesting, as I had the opportunity to pass a few cars when I thought I was going to die on the climb. :-)

I spent many a minute adjusting the color saturation and balance of two of my favorite images after scanning them in using my terrible scanner. Here they are. I'm still not able to get the original colors, simply because the color saturation and detail were lost in the scanning process, so no matter how much processing, I can't get them back.




Portrait of my brother. The colors are a bit messed up, and the scanner lost a lot of the contrast. In the original print, one can see a clear distinction between his hair and the background.







I thought this picture would look awesome in black and white. Unfortunately, my scanner can't really get the colors right and scan with enough sharpness to really have it look good in black and white. (The original print has a lot more detail and colors in the area that is now just white washed)

Listening to Jacquelin du Pre playing Elgar's Cello Concerto in e minor.

Wow. I just spent the last hour viewing Steve Hoffmann's photographs found on his website here. He's an amazing photographer who has excellent technique and a wonderful eye for photography. I'll admit I didn't enjoy all of his photos, but most of them lept out at me for capturing the moment, beautiful composition, contrasting colors, or just looking at things in a completely new perspective. Looking at his photos, one can see that he's a brave man, because he shoots pictures of wasps and hornets with flash on a 100mm macro lens. In a few cases, he shot their stingers with a 35mm lens on bellows! That means getting really close to them; in fact, in one of the shots of the stingers, you can see his thumb in the picture holding down the wasp. Some of his tarantula pictures are pretty freightening, too. His flower pictures are just unbelievable, and some his scenic photos that include the moon are so good that they really remind me of Ansel Adams' famous photograph Moon and Half Dome.

Listening to Erik Friedman playing Wieniawski's Legende. I had this tune stuck in my head for most of work, so of course, this is the first thing I'll listen to when I get home. :-)

It's raining pretty hard right now, and it was really pouring this morning when I was on my way to work. My dad was commenting today how this has been a really wet summer. This whole year's been very bizarre. A very very cold winter (in Hanover at least, though it was cold even to Hanoverian standards), and the summer's been very cool generally. No days past 100 degrees yet, and only one or two above 90 degrees. What can I say. It's been terrific weather for biking though, save the rain, but I'm actually very tempted to go biking right now. If it weren't for the fact that the paint on the roads and manhole covers are as slippery as ice right now, I'd definitely be out already. Speaking of manhole covers, I think some of the DPW folks definitely aren't road bikers. Those grill-shaped manhole covers are incredibly annoying when people put them on the wrong way. That is, many times, they are put on with the grills parallel to the road, and the holes are wide enough to fit a road bike wheel, so if your'e riding down the street and aren't careful, your wheel can fall into one of those and the wheel will snap and you'll go flying over your bars and probably into traffic. Most of the time, the roads are wide enough so I can swerve around them, but I've had to bunny hop over one once, because there was a car right next to me and it was impossible for me to approach it at an angle. Argh. Somebody should do something about this.