(no subject)

Although I had a brief break for a New Year's Eve with blackwingedboy, beckyb, imtboo, thevorak and exterra (see their journals for some updates, especially blackwingedboy) and some other people who don't have livejournals [that I know of], including the R family (J, A and itty bitty rockstar H), I have been working long days.

I have my coding groove back -- I'm interested in coding again, which I wasn't at the end of the quarter. Problem is, the deadline for publication is the 14th, but I am going to the bay area for the LSA and my current tickets keep me there until the 12th (I am going to stay with the charming, lovely and recently graduated damidnara while there).

But the experiments aren't done and the LSA only runs through Sunday, so I have been talking to my travel agent about standby tickets and I may have to leave early on Sunday to come back to Seatown. There's just not enough time. But the end of the tunnel is coming; the real question is whether or not this particular tunnel lets out somewhere noxious and noisome.

In other news:

• Quicksilver is a very pretty book, in its geeky way. I'm learning a lot while reading it, and Stephenson is name-dropping all over the place. Also he's covering some material that I've never really gotten into -- dawn-of-science stuff, which bored me to tears when read in the original in a chew-yer-leg-off dull seminar in undergrad, is fun when you're rattling around London intriguing with Samuel Pepys, the King of England, and Isaac Newton. (Liebniz keeps sending in letters from offstage.)
• A lovely present from thevorak was a big hit at the NYE party: Schott's Original Miscellany is a book of random knowledge, a sort of print BoingBoing.
• I had a credit card canceled because "The consumer credit report we received shows a recent delinquency [that] is too high". This is crazy, because I don't carry a balance on the one credit card that they just canceled. I requested a credit report -- nice that it can be brought up online -- and the credit card they attribute to me (and its $13K balance) was allegedly opened when I was barely 17 years old. I know I didn't have a credit card then. I've officially disputed this mess and we'll see what happens. Ugh.