Dateline Stanford: New Toys, Old Faces

Well, it's been a while since my last update. In the past couple weeks some cool things have happened here... for one, I turned 23 last Tuesday.

Also, I bought a CD Rewritable drive and some rewritable CDs so now I do a full backup of my computer once every week.

I also got an old PowerMac set up as a version control server (using CVS). So now I can put all of my programs in the server and keep track of changes very easily. It's also a huge help for team programming projects for class since it helps with merging everyone's changes together.

The other day I ran into Kurt Franke, a friend from high school who was on the math team with me. He's getting a PhD in Physics here after doing a dual major in Computer Science and Physics at Rice. Small world.

Obligatory sports news:

The men's basketball team clinched the Pac-10 title for the first time in school history (Pac-10 has been around for about 20 years).

Tonight, the women's basketball team beat Oregon... very intense and exciting game. Best attendance of all the games I've been to this year I think.

Dateline Stanford: Oh no, baby!

Well, Dick "oh yeah, baby" Vitale came to Stanford for the big game against #1 UConn today. The tents were up around Maples Pavilion again this week, and they had barricades in place for people waiting in line that showed up a couple hours before the game started.

With all that hype, it was pretty disappointing to see them lose a close game, especially since they came back to tie the game after being down by 18 points. Oh well. I watched on ABC...

Earlier today, I went to the women's water polo home opener. They took on defending national champion UCLA, and came out with the 4-3 upset win. It was drizzly this morning, and actually is still raining as I type this. A flood watch is in effect.

In other sports news, the women's basketball team traveled to Berkeley and beat the bears once again. Oh yeah, the men's basketball team beat them too. Not much of a suprise. We have a 15-2 record against them this year.

My only midterm was on Thursday. I think I did well. I watched _Pleasantville_ last Sunday. A weird, but cool movie. Kind of inspirational actually. That's about it I guess, other than lunch with Kerri Strug last Thursday...

Dateline Stanford: Back to the grind

It has been a while since my last update...

I'm settling in at work... I actually biked there one time last week. It's a good excuse for me to get in better shape and enjoy the outdoors here more. Plus parking is much easier that way, since I usually arrive at work around 10:30 and the good spots are all gone.

This past week I went to the men's basketball game against Washington State. At the end of the first half we had about a 10 point lead, but we blew it open in the second half, leading by as much as 50 at one point. It was still a cool game because they really put on a show making a bunch of three pointers and stealing and fast-break dunking. Saturday, Arthur Lee came up with a three pointer, a steal and some clutch free throws to put away Washington. I watched the game on TV. 13 wins in a row. Undefeated in the PAC-10. Can you say "It's Cardinal Chaos, Baby"? :)

Sunday I went to see _What Dreams May Come_ with Robin Williams. It was a very surreal movie. It felt like the whole thing was a dream.

Yesterday we had a mini poster fair thing in my Interdisciplinary Interaction Design class. The topic was Human-Food Interaction. My group did a poster on "Virtual Meality" - a restaurant chain with videoconferencing so you can have a meal with someone across the country.

BTW, if you're interested in Stanford athletics, you can point your web browser at www.gostanford.com.

In other news, be sure to check out Apple's ad in the SuperBowl on Sunday. It features HAL 9000 from _2001: A Space Odyssey_ and will air during the first commercial break after kickoff.

Dateline: Stanford - Scott McNealy, Kerri Strug, and Job

Well, it's been a hectic week, and tomorrow is my first final. Here's a quick update.

Last Thursday, Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems gave a talk at the Stanford Business school. He is quite a character and it was really neat to hear his thoughts on the computer industry, especially since the AOL-Netscape-Sun deal just went through a few days earlier, and Sun's continuing involvement in the antitrust and Java cases against Microsoft. McNealy got an MBA at Stanford in 1980, but said he should have dropped out like Bill Gates and gotten a head start on the competition.

Also, I will start a part time job in January, working at SRI (Stanford Research Institute), working on Java component software for middle school math curricula. I'll be lowering my course load a bit for Winter and Spring quarters.

SRI pioneered areas such as modems, TCP (one of the first two nodes on the ARPAnet, predecessor to the Internet), magnetic ink encoding, hypertext, artificial intelligence, and wireless networks, among other things. I will also get a PowerBook as my computer, and be able to bring it home with me. :)

And the suspense is finally over... today I met Kerri Strug. She was just leaving to go jogging and I managed to catch her and say hi. She seemed like a pretty nice person.

Oh, and in sports news, the men's water polo team plays USC for the national championship today. And women's volleyball beat SE Missouri State and Notre Dame to advance to the Sweet 16. Next up is Texas...

OK, back to work...

Dateline: Stanford - Big Game & Star Wars

Well, the big news of the weekend was that the much maligned, embattled Stanford football team pulled out the 10-3 upset victory at UC Berkeley in the 101st Big Game to keep the Axe for the fourth consecutive year and spoil Cal's bowl hopes.

In other sports news: the women's basketball team beat #1 Purdue; men's water polo beat Cal as well; women's volleyball continued their PAC-10 dominance and clinched the conference championship by beating UCLA; men's soccer advanced to the next round of the NCAA playoffs; finally, men's basketball blew away SW Missouri State to head to Madison Square Garden for the NIT Semifinals. All in all, the Cardinal kicked some major butt this weekend.

Also this week, Lucasfilm released the trailer for the new Star Wars prequel which is due May 21, 1999. A QuickTime version was posted on their website and shortly massive network congestion ensued.

I am mirroring a few versions of the movie at different sizes and quality levels. There is an unofficial list of mirrors at:

http://countingdown.com/mirrorlist.htm

If you'd rather come directly to my computer, it's:

ftp://starwars:trailer@cable.stanford.edu/

Dateline Stanford: Sports extravaganza weekend

Well, it was a sports extravaganza this weekend. We went 3-0 in games that I attended. Friday night the women's volleyball team swept Oregon in three games. On Saturday, men's water polo demolished UC Davis 19-3. It was the final home game of the season. The football team managed to win their second game of the season 38-28 later on Saturday to move into second to last place in the PAC-10. I didn't go to the game.

And the big news of the week was that I was picked to get tickets to two men's basketball games in a lottery of leftover tickets. The first game was Saturday night versus UC Davis. I got to sit in the UC Davis section. :) Luckily for me, we beat them soundly 76-49. (Getting tickets to a men's basketball game is impressive because people were willing to sleep out for _two weeks_ to get season tickets. Stanford is ranked #3 and made the final four last year.)

And Sunday night I went to _There's Something About Mary_ at Flicks here on campus. Hilarious movie. The theatre was packed.

Today in White Plaza on my way back from class I noticed the band was playing. One guy was dressed up like the Crow and had impaled a teddy bear on the fountain. It's some sort of spirit thing for the big game against UC Berkeley, which is this weekend.