Ryan's Blog

Wireless networks are everywhere these days. So common, in fact, that my uncle thought that “linksys” was some kind of national wireless network—“There’s one everywhere I go!” I just got my internet connection working and I expanded the wireless net with a new Linksys router. The question: to secure it or not?

My friend Chris read in an etiquette column that an open wireless network is preferable so that your house guests can connect to your network easily and use your connection. From a convenience standpoint it makes sense. You won’t always be around to help your guest use your connection. On the other hand, it might be a discourtesy to let your guests’ sensitive traffic fly around unencrypted, not to mention your data whenever you don’t have guests. It’s a good idea to secure your wireless network to keep your data private. But how to handle visitors?

Continue reading "Wifi Courtesy Cards" »

Posted by Ryan at 2:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

With apologies to Jean-Paul Sartre, hell is AT&T. If you like, you can substitute whichever giant unresponsive corporation you like for AT&T. I spent 580 minutes on the phone with that company during three weeks trying to assess their installation of DSL service. What follows is the text of a letter I sent to AT&T this afternoon. If you deal with AT&T you probably won’t have problems, but I hope you don’t fall into a crack like I did.

Dear AT&T:

At AT&T’s store I contracted service for $30 a month. Later operators told me to go back to the store to figure out why they gave me the wrong price.

On August 20 I walked to the AT&T store near my house (located at 2180 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, Calif. 94704) to get pricing information for standalone DSL service. After talking with James (not his real name*), the sales representative who helped me, I signed up for AT&T DSL Direct Pro service at $30 per month. I received a printed confirmation and then email confirmation of this order (see enclosure). My activation date for my order () was set for Aug. 27, one week later.

On Aug. 27 my DSL modem could not detect a DSL signal by the end of the day. The next morning I made the first of many phone calls to AT&T support. The first person I spoke with told me that my service had been activated. I checked the phone line in my house, searching for obvious problems. When I turned up nothing, I called AT&T again, at which point I was told my service had not been activated. Getting these two short but conflicting messages consumed near an hour on the phone, so I decided to take the problem to the source and return to the AT&T store.

Continue reading "Hell is AT&T" »

Posted by Ryan at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

While I was working in a meals-on-wheels kitchen in Santiago, one of my compatriots Ramón took to teaching me every expression in the Chilean dictionary. Pretty much every day I’d be stirring a pot, Ramón would explain to me what it meant to derretir los helados (for example), and one of the half-dozen women around would shout at him, “Oye Ramón, behave yourself—he doesn’t need to know those things!” It happened like clockwork.

Probably the phrase we used most often, however, was “muchos toquis, pocos indios.” Toqui entered Spanish from the Mapuche language. The Mapuche were people indigenous to south and central Chile, and it refers to the chief or head of a group. Here indios best means tribesmen or workers. When we combine the elements, the saying is “too many chiefs, not enough workers,” a riff on too many cooks spoil the broth.

I was delighted the other day when my mom showed me a Chilean wine she found in Costco (of all places) called El Toqui. The symbol matches the meaning of the word I just described:

This El Toqui wine might introduce some confusion into the phrase, though: now having too much toqui could mean something completely different….

Posted by Ryan at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A week after I returned to the U.S. last November was attend my friends Chris and Kate’s wedding. At the reception one of the things that astonished me was that nearly every guest brought a digital camera.

Most people hire a professional photographer for their weddings, but I thought you would see some great shots from guests simply because there are so many more of them. Besides, it often takes professionals weeks before you actually see their photos. Having immediate access to candid shots from the day would be nice for the couple.

But when everyone returned home, I found that there was no good way for all the guests to give Kate and Chris their photos. Email can’t accomodate such large files; posting them to Facebook or a free photos sharing site like Kodak doesn’t allow you access to the original files; and recording everything on a CD-R and dropping it in the mail is a hassle. What’s a solution?

Continue reading "Crowd-sourcing wedding photography" »

Posted by Ryan at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I made a whirlwind trip to California a month ago to find an apartment. Within 48 hours of landing, I signed a lease for my new place. I’m told these results may not be typical.

The next time I would see the place would be when I arrived with all my belongings and furniture, so I wanted a way to size up the apartment to determine what would fit. I took a couple dozen measurements and made a rough sketch of the rooms in the house. The next day I turned these into a blueprint of the house using InDesign. Once I printed out this blueprint I could cut out paper rectangles to represent my furniture to see what would fit.

Continue reading "Feng shui my apartment" »

Posted by Ryan at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I left Chile several months ago I was sad to say goodbye to my home in a now not-so-foreign land, but I was also ready to return to the U.S. Now, after being home since November, I find myself trying to recover pieces of my life away. After living off two suitcases for two years, I’m into downsizing: if I don’t use it actively or treasure it, it’s time to give it away.

One of the things I miss most about Chile is the ability to walk and take public transportation almost anywhere. People probably arranged the system from necessity. I didn’t have a car, and most of the people I knew didn’t either. I didn’t drive for over two years and as my return date approached, I was itching to get back into the driver’s seat. I realized quickly that I had to be in the driver’s seat, or at least in a car; the area where I live is in Utah is just built for driving. Sure, there’s a supermarket just two miles away, but you have to brave a four-lane road without a sidewalk to get there. In one of those ironic twists, I realized shortly after I got back to my car that I didn’t want it.

Continue reading "Walkable Me" »

Posted by Ryan at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I did my undergraduate studies at Notre Dame in Indiana, and a few years after graduation I’m starting a graduate program at UC Berkeley this fall. A number of people have asked me how I got from a place like Notre Dame to a place like Berkeley. Notre Dame isn’t as conservative as some people suspect, and although liberalism at Berkeley is infamous, it’s not unchanged since the 1960s. But as for how I got from one place to the next I tell people the answer is simple: I-80.

Both schools are just a few blocks from the same highway, it’s just 2200 miles between them.

Fortunately I just drove the leg from Salt Lake City to Berkeley this time. My dad and I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday morning on the road. Now I’m unpacking and getting set up in my new home.

Posted by Ryan at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m not about to disclose any major plot points from the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, but if you don’t want to know anything about the movie before you see it, don’t read any further.

Seriously. This is as far as you should go.

When I went to see The Dark Knight—fantastic film, by the way—there was one part that stood out for me. Early in the movie Bruce Wayne and Alfred are planning an operation where Batman needs to board a flying plane from the ground. Alfred suggests a program that the CIA has been working on called Skyhook. After an action sequence, Batman uses this Skyhook apparatus, and given all the other far-fetched technology in the movie, you might think that Skyhook is imaginary too. It’s not. In fact, it’s old school.

My grandfather was a navigator aboard this MC-130E during the Vietnam War.

I know this through something of a coincidence. A few weeks ago I was visiting my grandfather in Massachusetts for his 80th birthday. We got to talking and he showed me some pictures from his days in the Air Force. During the Vietnam War, my grandfather served as a navigator aboard the MC-130, a modified version of the cargo plane. One of the pictures he showed me depicted the plane with a strange, Y-shaped protrusion from the front nose. When I asked about it, he explained the Fulton Recovery System, which sounded to me like something from a movie. Using this system, which is also called Skyhook, a person on the ground wears a harness which is connected by a nylon cable to a giant balloon hanging the in sky. The MC-130E flies into the cable, the V-shaped fork catches it, and the person on the ground shoots into the sky. The plane’s crew then opens the rear cargo bay door and retrieve the person dangling in the distance using a winch.

Although the maneuver sounds dangerous, it was actually quite safe. Robert Fulton invented the system in the 1950’s and in the dozens of years it was in use there were only 1 recorded fatality.

Time Magazine actually has an article in their archives from December 1964 describing the Fulton system.

This frame from The Dark Knight shows an aircraft about to pickup Batman with the same V-shaped fork as the MC-130E. © 2008 Warner Bros. Pictures

The Batmobile, Batman’s armor, and his other gadgets may be from a time in the future, but his Skyhook liftoff is over 40 years old.

Posted by Ryan at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have always liked Absolut vodka advertisements. Maybe it’s a somewhat clichéd thing to collect, but I think all the variations on the theme of something bottle-shaped with a matching tagline are pretty clever. Last week I was traveling in Southern Utah and I saw something that sparked my memory.

Continue reading "Absolut memories" »

Posted by Ryan at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I took this picture about a month ago but I haven’t gotten around to posting it. It struck me as a funny juxtaposition between Small Town America and Big City, U.S.A. While it might be unfair to compare the front page of the Post to the B section of the Standard Examiner, another moose did make an appearance on the front page two weeks ago. I don’t have a shot of that so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Posted by Ryan at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just started studying to take the GRE later this year. For the last two years my preparation has consisted of sytematically eliminating my English vocabulary and replacing it with Spanish. I can’t count the number of times lately that I’ve had an English word on the tip of my tongue only to find out that it isn’t, in fact, English. So I’m a little preocupado. Anyway, I bought Baron’s GRE book to review. When I opened it, I was relieved to find that I’m way ahead of the game.

I knows me this mouse stuff cold.

Continue reading "The GRE, mice, and Spanish" »

Posted by Ryan at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Once you put something on the Internet, you really can’t predict who will see it or what will happen to it. A year after I wrote about having LASIK surgery, a stranger emailed me to ask how it went. Parents who have children studying abroad in Chile write me every so often when they stumble across my site. Jast the other day I got an email from a woman who apparently read my account of making strawberry jam. She mentioned that there are many unique South American fruits that make for good jam and suggested that I look at recipes in her jam cookook. When you live on the Internet, the motley crew that knocks on your door is astonishing, and rather charming in its own way.

If that is true for what I write here on my small-time site, it is magnified by several orders of magnitude on Flickr, the photo-sharing site that receives nine bazillion times more traffic. I had been a Flickr member for just a couple months when a woman asked if she could use some of my Disney World photos in a book about scrapbooking Disney vacations. Then I got an email from a book publisher in Argentina asking if they could use my photo of an empty classroom in an English textbook. A few months ago a creative director wrote me from the Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian to ask about using my photo of a man riding a bicycle with his cow on a mural in their bronchoscopy ward. Even though I thought I understood the far reach of digital media online, I was still pretty flabbergasted by each request. How did these people select my pictures?

Continue reading "Oh the places Flickr goes" »

Posted by Ryan at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Thanksgiving is behind us, Advent wreaths are lit, and Christmas is around the corner. For many people that means shopping and selecting gifts. I myself am not doing much shopping this year, in large part because buying and sending a mere Christmas card from Chile costs about $3, and they only pay me about 20 cards a month.

That said, I would like to give you a book for Christmas. Technically a book recommendation because you are going to have to buy the book yourself or convince someone to buy it for you. Here’s the low-down: in the past fifteen months, I’ve read about 50 books, plus several others that I started, but decided weren’t for me. I will recommend one specifically for you that I think (hope!) you will like.

It’s easy. Email me the following:

• Your name
• Some information about the kind of books you like. Fiction? Non-fiction? Maybe the title of another book you liked. The less I know about you, the more you have to help me out here. If I know you well, you can take your chances and skip this step.

Plus, if I haven’t heard from you in awhile, let me know how you have been doing, what’s new, etc. But optional! If there’s too much to write, don’t let that deter you. Just ask for your book already. I make no guarantees that you’ll love the book, although I’ll tell you if I can’t come up with anything. Don’t be shy—send an email. Operators are standing by….

Posted by Ryan at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spelling my last name has always been somewhat problematic, not so much for me, but for other people. I even have trophies from soccer and baseball teams (back from when I was young and you got a trophy just for showing up to most of the games) with my name misspelled. The problem arises, I think, because there are some —bergs spelled with an ‘e,’ like me and the kind that sank the Titanic, and other —burgs spelled with a ‘u,’ like the ones we get from cows and eat. It’s a legitimate mistake. I think the problem is that Greenberg sounds easy enough to spell, so people just give it their best shot. Sometimes I wished I had my mother’s maiden name, which I won’t give you here because then you’d probably go open a bank account in my name. Suffice to say it is Italian and almost unspellable, so no one would ever think he could spell it without looking for it somewhere.

At one point, I even considered registering ryangreenburg.com as well to cover the possibility of typos. That was back in the internet days of yore, though, when it cost $35 a year to register a domain instead of the $6 it costs today, so I discarded the idea as untenable. I’m pleased to report that Google has recently made the problem mostly a nonissue, at least in the online world. Now, if you search for my name spelled incorrectly, you’ll see the following:

Continue reading "Google solves my problem" »

Posted by Ryan at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recently the moon has been in the news. Earlier this week, NASA reported that it can’t find the original tape of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. I can’t help but think that this problem could have been avoided had NASA’s mother been more insistent that it keep its room clean. In any event, news of the missing tape was significant enough that it made the Chilean evening news. As a result, people here are abuzz talking about the moon.

That doesn’t shock me. I figure the moon is as good a conversation topic as any other. What shocks me is how often I hear it suggested that the U.S. never actually went to the moon, and it’s just a giant conspiracy. Do many people really believe that? I suppose conspiracies aren’t impossible, but I’d hate to be in charge of planning one because it seems awfully difficult to execute. There have been exposés on various peculiarities about the moon trip. There’s also some compelling evidence that people went there: photos, videos—in the era before Photoshop and blockbuster Hollywood effects—soil samples, rockets, witnesses. I’m interested to know if the Hubble telescope could focus on the various objects left on the moon (allegedly, I should say): the flag, plaque, lower section of the lunar lander.

Fortunately, NASA says it has started looking for its missing tape. In the meantime, myth busters are working on the non-believers.

Posted by Ryan at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to the song “Seasons of Love” from the popular musical Rent, people know there are 525,600 minutes in a year. Beyond minutes, the song offers a variety of ways to count the passing time in a year: in sunsets, cups of coffee, diapers, report cards, speeding tickets. Though more mundane, I add my own methods to the list: in papers, in word counts, in total pages written. Or at least that’s how I did it a year ago, at the end of senior year. I took the opportunity to feed my penchant for statistics at the end of finals week by pasting together all my papers and counting the pages.

Continue reading "How do you measure, measure a year?" »

Posted by Ryan at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few weeks ago we painted our living room, transforming it from a sickly green to a vivid, dark green, by way of a pale yellow. What can I say—we bought cheap paint from a cheap paint store and it didn’t cover our walls. After we were done painting, I washed the paint rollers in our outdoor sink. I washed and washed, but green paint still flowed from the rollers. As I watched the green water flow through the sink, I had visions of the dyed-green river running in Chicago on St. Patty’s. Hopefully you think the same since I’m offering this photo as my online celebration of March 17 this year. Sláinte!

Posted by Ryan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few people have been sending me snail mail letters here in Bolivia. For the record, intra-America snail mail is nothing compared with inter-American snail mail. A letter takes anywhere from 11 to 18 days to arrive. But I digress.

As I was looking at a recent letter, I noticed something different about the postmark. after checking a few other letters and those sent to friend here, I have come to the stunning conclusion that the U.S. Postal Service is changing its postmarks! The familiar postmarks of old had wavy lines across the postage and a circular stamp with the date sent, city, and zip code. The new postmarks have the same wavy line, albeit lighter, but the date, city, and zip code are printed on the envelop by a computer.

Old postmark

New postmark

Personally, I think the old postmarks are more aesthetically pleasing. Emily agreed with me, though one brother here said that he thinks the new mark is easier to read. Ultimately, my conclusion was, “They’re postmarks—who cares?”

Who would have guessed that, despite being 3000 miles away, I would have my finger on the pulse of such important changes in the U.S.?

Posted by Ryan at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cliche lovers say you should stop and smell the roses. I’m on board with that. The Maryknoll Institute where I have classes is surrounded by beautiful gardens and flowers. A few days ago I decided to smell them and take a few pictures along the way. One of them was topped with this pollen-munching honeybee. I think the picture turned out pretty well.

Make sure you take the time to do some rose sniffing yourself, even if it’s just metaphorically.

Posted by Ryan at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since leaving home, I have helped, instructed, cajoled, or bribed several people to start blogs. This lead to Stephen, one of the people who I helped, calling me The Blogfather. While I don’t think everyone needs or wants a blog, they’re a valuable way to communicate for some people. They’re also a fascinating example of technology making something relatively easy that was once moderately difficult: putting “stuff” on the internet. As a result, you can hear unique stories from people from whom you wouldn’t otherwise.

For that reason, I read with interest a short article in the latest issue of Time, “5 Riveting Soldier Blogs.” It describes 5 blogs written by U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Anyone who is interested can read about the day-to-day lives of soldiers, as they occur, thanks to blogs and the internet. If the phrase “anyone who is interested” describes you, visit the following:

• A Soldier’s Thoughts
• Boots in Baghdad
• Life in this Girl’s Army
• 365 and a Wake Up
• Ma Deuce Gunner

Of course, we also have the ease of blogging for the partisan political blogfest of Election 2004 and some of the boring stories you find all the time on this Internet of ours. Win some, lose some, no?

Posted by Ryan at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A week ago I realized I have the exact opposite problem in South America that I had in college: I have time to read, but no books. After we returned from Santa Cruz, I started the last English book I brought with me, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Seven hours later, I had nothing left to read (so much for savoring the story—when will the last one be released?). Since I left home, I’ve read the following:

• 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, et. al.
• Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

All have been quite good surprisingly, considering the number of mediocre books available (even Getting to Yes was enjoyable, though I admit it has a dull-sounding title). For now, I dealt with the problem by buying a book when I was downtown: Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal, a Spanish translation of the first book in the series. Reading it is sure to be slow going, though good practice. Right now I’m still on chapter one, “El niño que vivió” (“The boy who lived”).

My Spanish Harry Potter nonwithstanding, I still have something of a book problem. If you have read anything recently (or ever, for that matter) that you would recommend, leave a comment with your suggestion. I like fiction and non-fiction alike—but no Danielle Steel or the equivalent in other genres. I have time to read, but not reading time to waste.

Posted by Ryan at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Early this morning I walked to the Institute to check my email. Before checking my mail, I went to the ESPN site. It was hard to surpress a smile when I saw, on the front page, “Irish rip Pitt 42-21.” Judging from this single game, the new season looks promising. I won’t be at any of the games, but I have friends going to almost every one, which seems like the next best alternative. Already, I have my fingers crossed for the tough matchup this weekend against #4 Michigan.

Posted by Ryan at 9:43 AM | Permalink

I got a taste of things to come this week when I got an email from my friend Chris. He had just ordered a new Mighty Mouse. I was pretty surprised. What surprised me was not that Chris ordered one, but that I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about.

Several times a week for the last several years (at least since I started high school), I checked various tech news sites. At the very least, I would read them a few times a week. I had bookmarks for MacCentral, MacInTouch, and MacOSXHints, which were the mainstay Mac sites that I frequented. I’d also check up on the Apple site, sometimes Think Secret, the Mac rumor site, and, of course, Slashdot, the granddaddy of tech news sites. But since I left home to work with Holy Cross Associates, I’ve gone practically cold turkey. Though, I have to confess, I raced to the Apple site when I got the email to learn more about the day hell froze over and Apple started selling a multi-button mouse.

It’s interesting how even a few days can make you start to feel out of the loop. Tech knowledge ages very quickly. I remember that I created this site in 2000, using sloppy HTML code. I didn’t do much with it until about 2002 when I came back to work with it again. In the meantime, CSS, a technology for designing web pages, had exploded and I had no idea how to use it. Who knows how much I’ll have to learn if I’m still interested in being up-to-date on technology when I return?

I guess I should start getting used to not knowing plenty of things—the latest developments in the Mac world, what happened last week on “Desperate Housewives”, if so-and-so’s latest album is any good, or the “news” from Hollywood. It will be hard to get used to, but I think it will be a good experience. I’ll get a new perspective on how important those things really are.

And if I don’t like the perspective, I can always have my friend Percival send plot synopses of the latest episode of “Desperate Housewives.” Right, Percival?

Posted by Ryan at 3:07 AM | Permalink

Since I got my new car slightly over a year ago, I have been tracking my fuel usage pretty closely. Every time I filled my tank, I would record the miles traveled and gallons used. When I had nothing better to do, I’d put the numbers into an Excel spreadsheet and see what came out.

I’m leaving for Chile in a couple days and won’t be driving my car for awhile (read: 30 months), so it’s time for a recap of fuel consumption in year one. Remember: you’re interested in this because I bought a VW Jetta with a diesel engine based on the assumption that it got great gas mileage and you want to know if that was stupid or what.

Continue reading "The Great Mileage Experiment Ends" »

Posted by Ryan at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I rolled over, read my alarm clock clearly, and didn't feel guilty at all. Guilt and my alarm clock normally doesn't have anything to do with the time I'm getting up—it's being able to read the clock clearly. When I can read it, that means I was too lazy or forgetful to take out my contacts the night before, which is bad for the eyes. In fact, I've scratched my cornea twice by sleeping in my contacts. Ouch. But this morning, I woke up and read the clock clearly because I have 20/20 vision.

Yesterday morning I went to the Mount Ogden Eye Center for my LASIK eye surgery. From start to finish, it took less than 15 minutes. Dr. Baliff cut a small flap on the surface of my eye and peeled it back. Then I had to stare at a pulsing orange light for 30 seconds. During that time, an eximer laser fired, vaporizing tissue in my eye to improve the refractive properties. Here you can see the laser focusing on my eye. I think it looks like an F-16 is about to fire a missile into my iris. To finish, Dr. Baliff replaced the flap, smoothed it out, and repeated the procedure with my other eye.

The post-operative recovery time is pretty minimal. I had to use steroid eye drops hourly yesterday (or more accurately, get my sister Erin to put them in for me). Now I have to use steroid drops and antibiotic drops four times daily for the next five days and artificial tears whenever my eyes are dry. I haven't felt any pain, especially compared to tonsillectomy a few months ago.

Since I was in fourth grade, I have been wearing glasses and contacts. I was at the point where, without my glasses, I couldn't read a newspaper unless it was 5 inches from my face. Yesterday my vision was roughly 20/500 in my right eye and worse than 20/800 in my left eye. Time will tell how well the corrections work, but right now I'm convinced that the LASIK procedure is just one step removed from magic.

Posted by Ryan at 5:06 PM | Permalink

In the past week I have joined the sudoku craze. Sudoku is a puzzle, something like a numeric crossword. Earlier this year, sudoku became popular in the U.K. Now it's hitting the U.S. The emergence in the U.S. is due in large part, I think, to the USA Today's decision to include sudoku puzzles in its daily paper.

The puzzle consists of a 9x9 grid with some preprinted numbers. It looks like this:

The object is to fill every row, column, and 3x3 box with the numbers 1 to 9 once. There's no math to it—just logic and reasoning. I like it because there's none of the frustration I typically experience with crosswords ("I have been speaking English for decades and don't know any of these words?"). To solve the puzzles, you start by using elimination, and then use more advanced reasoning once you get better. For example, in the puzzle above, you know there has to be a 6 in the bottom right-hand corner. There is only one 6 in each column and row, so the preprinted sixes give you the location of the one I filled in. See?

If you're intrigued, get a puzzle to work for yourself at Daily Sudoku or in the Life section of the USA Today. There's no shame in starting with an easy or very easy puzzle. Some of the hard ones are pretty diabolical. If you need more tips, check out this guide to solving Sudoku

Posted by Ryan at 2:08 PM | Permalink

I'm considering having LASIK eye surgery towards the end of the summer. The only real remaining obstacle to having the procedure done is to make sure the timing will work out. Many of my readers (well, both of them) may be interested in my reasoning for having corrective eye surgery, so I put together a little guide.

Here is a picture as it appears to someone with typical, good eyesight:

Here is that same picture as it appears to me, without glasses or contacts:

For those Photoshop users in the crowd, I simulated my eyesight using a 10 pixel gausian blur. You can try it on your own photos to see how they would appear to me.

Now, you might think, "Well, that's not good, but you're just missing some giraffes and some other African animals. What's the big deal?"

Well, the big deal is this:

Here, I see two seemingly innocuous gray blobs that vaguely resemble cows.

But they're not cows! They're vicious rhinocerous, ready to charge and trample a man with poor eyesight without warning!

So I think that pretty much explains why I want to have eye surgery. Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Ryan at 8:25 AM | Permalink

I went to visit Elizabeth in Minnesota last week. The last time I went in 2003, I saw roughly 13 lakes. ("Roughly," because I saw Lake Superior, which is so big that I thought it should count as 2 lakes.) This trip I saw considerably fewer. Elizabeth's family recently moved to Cannon Falls, a small town just south of Minneapolis, where the lake density is markedly lower. In short, I thought I saw 5 more lakes, but one was the Mississippi River and another was a drainage ditch, so my grand total is 16. For those mathematicians out there, 10,000 lakes minus the 16 I've seen leaves 9,984 to see. I think it's going to take many more trips to Minnesota before I even start to make a dent in that number.

It was a relaxing vacation—I went from posting a daily sleep deficit to having a sleep surplus. We went to the horse races for a day where I tried to understand how to make winning bets, while Liz just put her money on Mr. Clever Socks and Lucky Ducky (we both ended up in the loser's column). We saw a Twins game (they lost to San Francisco), a few movies including Madagascar, and went to visit historic Font Snelling. We also played tons of rounds of Sequence, a fun board game with Liz's brothers Tom and Paul.

The trip wasn't all fun and games. We did a little bit of babysitting and we helped Elizabeth's aunt and uncle move into their new house. But I figure it's only fair when you get double-digit hours of sleep.

Now that I'm back home, I'm going to spend my sleep surplus to get some work done. Elizabeth is coming to visit in July, which means I only have a month to get my room clean. It's going to be tight.

Posted by Ryan at 12:06 PM | Permalink

Summertime boredom has set in. Michael is still in school. Erin is taking organic chemistry and working at the hospital. That leaves me home alone from the time I drop off Michael at the bus stop until about 5:00pm. Sure, I have things to do: thank-yous to send, boxes of junk from college to sort through, and database code to write. It's just hard to do them where the only company you have all day is a crazy black poodle.

Yesterday I drove past a highway sign that said "Boise: 310 miles." I thought Hey—I could be in Boise in 5 hours. I don't know that there is much more to do when you're sitting at home alone in Boise than in Ogden, but that shows you how desperate I am.

After passing the sign, though, things improved briefly. I took Michael to Walmart to buy some of those floating, foam noodles people use in swimming pools. They also make terrific lightsabers, so we had an impromptu duel in the parking lot. Then we debated whether Obi-wan or Yoda is a better Jedi.

Can you believe you're reading this? I'll be honest—I can't.

Posted by Ryan at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Between my last class and finals week I went home to have my tonsils removed. They had been causing me some problems, and since my health insurance expires once I graduate, this was the only time to have it done. Now, after a 15 minute surgery and 40 doses of Lortab, I am returning home from home.

My mom booked my ticket back to Notre Dame and specifically requested the window seat on the left side of the plane for my connection through Cincinnati. From this seat, you can look out your window as you approach Notre Dame and see the campus. I took a couple of exciting aerial pictures during the airport approach:

In the meantime, there's work to be done. People keep asking, "How are the tonsils?" Well, they're gone. And while my body learns to deal with that, I'll do some healing, write a paper, and study for accounting. Finals week is here.

Posted by Ryan at 8:30 PM | Permalink

Today, like most weekdays, I woke up to go to class. But unlike most days, today felt melancholy.

In the past, spring at Notre Dame has been a welcome change from the frigid winter. The sun returns and people actually want to go outside. But this time, spring also brings with it the end. So today, it was with a certain sadness that I walked down the quad, into DeBartolo, and sat down for my last class as an undergraduate.

As of 12:15pm, when I left Evolutionary Medicine with Prof. McKenna's, I'm done with class. And two weeks from today, when I take my accounting final exam, I'll be done with it all. I know that some people are ready to leave. If it was up to me, I'd keep going to class, writing papers, and taking tests for a few more years.

But there's still some time left. Senior week should be a good time. I already bought a slip-n-slide to keep us busy, and we're getting the volleyball courts ready for action.

On a more upbeat note, I also finished my senior thesis today. Now all the relevant parties have their own copies of "A Critique of Searle's Argument Against Cognitivism" by Ryan Greenberg. My guess is that their copies will end up much like mine, forgotten on a shelf collecting dust. I did learn a lot from the project, though, and I'm glad to have done it. But also to have it done.

Posted by Ryan at 5:47 PM | Permalink

I got a great card recently that I thought I would share. Here's the front:

And the back:

Isn't that a great line?

Posted by Ryan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Dad, Erin, and I went skiing today up at Snowbasin. The conditions were almost perfect. It snowed yesterday, so most of the day we had knee-deep, untracked powder. Once in awhile, you'd find yourself almost waist-deep in snow. The sky was bright blue and the sun was out.

Because the conditions were so good, Lone Tree Peak and the C Chute were open from the Strawberry Gondola. These runs look something like this:

It was absolutely gorgeous at the top of some of the runs. Here's a panorama shot I took in Strawberry Bowl:

I might not be skiing again in Utah for awhile, so it was nice to end the season on a high note.

Posted by Ryan at 1:34 PM | Permalink

The end of the semester has been packed with activities.

Last Friday, Carroll Hall hosted Carroll Christmas, it's signature event. Last Saturday, we had our winter formal in the Main Building. And last Sunday, I went to a seniors-only Mass and dinner in the stadium press box.

This Sunday, a bunch of seniors went to brunch at Tippecanoe Place. It's a great restaurant in the downtown area, and it was a really nice way to start finals week.

Finals week itself doesn't look too bad. I am already done with 1 of my 5 classes. My senior thesis is due tomorrow. I have exams Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. And then I'm 7/8ths done with college.

The application process with Holy Cross Associates is almost done as well. I turned in my final application last Friday. I've been through the psychological paperwork, clinical interview, and group interview. My final interview is tomorrow morning. I hope it goes well. But as one friend pointed out, the interviewers want to know about me, and I'm more-or-less a certified expert on that subject.

Posted by Ryan at 3:45 PM | Permalink

The short answer is no.

Thanksgiving was a nice break (with plenty of good food), but it was too short to get much work done. And now it's back to work.

There are generally two parts to a really busy week: the week itself and the aftermath, which comes anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks later. Well, the aftermath from two weeks ago has arrived, and it isn't looking bad. My paper on Aristotle and term paper on diplomacy in Chile came back they both turned out well.

My senior thesis, while definitely behind schedule (it's due Dec. 8) is coming along too. I hit some big mile markers in the last 48 hours: 4000 words, 5000 words, and 6000 words. The length is supposed to be at least in the neighborhood of 6500 words, but there is still an enormous amount of work to do.

The application process for Holy Cross Associates is also going well. Last week I filled out 3 hours worth of psychological paperwork in preparation for my clinical interview tomorrow. Why so much work? In the words of one friend: "They want to know if you're nuts. And they want to know if you're going to go nuts anytime soon."

In the meantime, there's always more reading and writing to do. Back to work....

Posted by Ryan at 5:58 PM | Permalink

Rather than just talk about how tired I've been this week at school, I thought I'd give a little demonstration.

Here is a sample of notes that I take during a typical class day:

These are notes from my class on U.S. diplomacy & foreign relations. This class's topic is the first Gulf War. My handwriting isn't perfect, but the words are mostly intelligible and the sentences fit together pretty well.

Now here is a sample of notes that I took during Tuesday's class on Yugoslavia while I was extremely tired:

Not only is my handwriting worse, but you can see tell-tale "sleep marks" on the page (circled in blue). Those are the little random lines here and there that happen when I lose concentration and my pen falls against the page. Plus, some sentences (e.g. the one circled in red) visibly degenerate into nonsense: "Now, without a leader the ... was ... there ... ?" Hmm. That's helpful

Thankfully, I can say this paragraph was by far the worst of the day and the ones following it were better. But I had better get some more rest, or else ... bed ... pillow ... sleep?

Posted by Ryan at 1:55 AM | Permalink

The last several days have been marked by lots of work. I wrote a paper on Aristotle for last Tuesday, a paper on Aquinas and Arnauld for last Thursday, and several pages of my senior thesis on Searle for Saturday. I'm not sure how many sheets of paper are in a tree, but I took down about 20 pages this week. Plus, I had a test in my computer programming class Friday morning and was on duty in Carroll Hall last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Change is in the air. The leaves have changed color and are now, for the most part, gone from the trees. The forecast predicts snow either this week or next. Sadly, the last home football game of the season is this Saturday.

As many seniors are (some more aprehensively than others), I'm looking at the future. It's a rare week that goes by without someone asking, "So...what are you doing next year?" Right now I'm looking at a variety of service programs in South America. One that looks particularly exciting is the Holy Cross Associates program in Chile. The application process is particularly competitive—only 3 to 5 people are accepted to the program each year. I had my preliminary interview earlier this week, and I should hear if I will be one of 12 who complete the application process this week or next.

Until then, though, I'll keep writing papers, taking tests, and enjoying the fall.

Posted by Ryan at 3:40 PM | Permalink

I thought my site was safe from spam because it is relatively obscure, but it turns out not. I was recently alerted that 120 comments had been posted to my blog. This is an unusual feat because there are only about 7 people that visit this site, 5 of which share a substantial portion of my DNA, and none of which generally have much to add to my ramblings. Alas, automated spam bots visited my blog in the night and posted helpful comments to all my entries like "Get CHEAP Paxil & CIALIS NOW!!!" and "Do YOU want MORE SIZE??!?"

The short of this story is that comments are no longer enabled. No real loss, save the increased frustration I have for spam.

Posted by Ryan at 2:50 AM | Permalink

This past weekend started the wonderful procrastinatory tradition at Notre Dame of home football weekends. In fact, we've got three home football games in a row. You would think that pep rallies on Friday, ND football on Saturday, NFL and interhall football on Sunday would be all fun and games, but it's hard work too.

On the upside, Notre Dame's team is having a good showing so far this year. After the season opener loss to BYU, most people were expecting the worst. A couple weeks later, we're sitting at 3-1 and looking forward to a big game against Purdue this weekend.

In other exciting news, Carroll Hall's football team (ranked 14th of 14 teams) defeated Siegfried's football team (ranked 1st of 14) today. In his victory posture, Coach Vince Versagli bears a close resemblance to Coach Willingham. Well, at least a passing resemblance, right?

Onward to a week with an exam in U.S. Diplomacy and C++ Programming!

Posted by Ryan at 11:33 AM | Permalink

In less than a week I'll be making the long drive from Ogden back to Notre Dame. The return to school raises the inevitable question, "So...what did you do with your summer vacation?" Good question. Here is a quick run down:

– Computer programming. I worked for my old high school to develop a PHP/MySQL web application to manage their calendar system and sports results. I'm done writing the system, but it won't be online until late August. Unless someone asks, I don't plan to say much about it because its the sort of stuff that puts you to sleep faster than an 8am class.

– Research. Though it turns out I am far better at purchasing books at Amazon.com than reading them, I have been doing research for my senior thesis on cognitive science. I think the topic is interesting, but, again, most people put philosophy right up there with receiving socks for Christmas.

– Vacationing. Since I wasn't working a job with strict hours, we took a trip to Hawaii for my sister's graduation.

And, if that wasn't enough, I've been working hard on other tasks like watching old episodes of Friends with Erin & Michael and swimming. It's tough.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my summer.

Posted by Ryan at 1:37 AM | Permalink

Through a series of fortunate events, I am now the excited owner of a new diesel VW Jetta. It's Galactic Blue with a gray interior. I took possession of it with 14.5 miles on the odometer. Thanks to the diesel engine, it gets over 38/city 46/highway miles to the gallon. The handling and shifting are very nice, which you could probably attribute to German automotive engineering.

On the downside, while German automotive engineering is excellent, German cupholder engineering still needs a little work: there are 3 cupholders for 5 people.

If you want to see something cool, check out VW's expensive sports sedan, the Phaeton. If you want to see something ultra-cool, check out VW's Transparent Factory where they build the Phaeton.

Posted by Ryan at 3:47 PM | Permalink

Not since days long past has this blog been host to complaints about the irregularity of weather in the Midwest. Break out the champagne glasses because today is that day again. Yesterday, light rain gave way to a gorgeous afternoon that peaked at about 60 F degrees. Today, I sit at my desk watching white snowflakes accumulate on the ground in the "28, feels like 15" weather outside. To answer the question raised in the subject: not in thy weather, for sure.

In other news, I set a personal record this week. Email used to be a fun task, and hearing "You've Got Mail!" evoked thoughts of Christmas morning. No more. Thanks to my increased involvement with Scholastic, I received over 100 non-junk emails and sent more than 60 in the past 5 days. I'm sure this count pales in comparison to business executives and secretaries everywhere, but it seems like a lot for a student.

Temperatures are low, but spirits are high. This week Scholastic's annual Sarcastic issue comes out, which is our one chance each year to pretend we work for The Onion. Moving right along....

Posted by Ryan at 12:24 PM | Permalink

After a tough midterms week, Saturday has finally arrived and I'm about to head out for break. For the next week I'll be in the Coachella Valley in California as part of a learning seminar on Hispanic spirituality.

During the next week, the 11 other people in my group and I are going to meet with immigration policy lawyers, visit fields where low-paid workers work, and live with families from the parish of Nuestra Se?ora de Soledad. There is a chance that my host family won't speak any or very little English. With any luck, though, it will turn out that I've learned something in the past few years in Spanish class.

In a few minutes, we're leaving on a bus for Chicago Midway and catching a flight to LAX. 80 to 90 degrees and clear skies, here I come!

Posted by Ryan at 9:55 AM | Permalink

One of my friends showed me an absolutely appalling and hilarious book today. It's The Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don't Want To Live Anymore.

I don't want to generalize, but I will. The women that I have shown this to have had a far higher appalling to hilarious ratio than the men have had. This has lead me to believe that women may not find this book as funny as men. Judge the ratio for yourself by examining one of the many high-quality pictures shown below:

Posted by Ryan at 9:20 PM | Permalink

Remember Space Balls? It's that Mel Brooks Star Wars spoof that I think is absolutely hilarious until I actually watch it and realize that is much funnier in my mind than in reality. In any event, the Space Balls supervillain Lord Helmet said: "Evil will always triumph over good. Why? Because good is dumb."

On that note, if you have aspirations of world domination (and really, who doesn't?), then I have found the website for you: www.villainsupply.com/

If you're wondering what to get me when Christmas rolls around again, I'd like the secret moon base.

Posted by Ryan at 12:05 PM | Permalink

An editorial I wrote to The Observer, ND's campus newspaper appeared in last Thursday's issue. You can read it online here

Posted by Ryan at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Those at Notre Dame and any other place where you find crazy squirrels would appreciate the opinion piece in this week's edition of The Onion: "I Have To Admit: I Love The Nuts," written by Danny the Squirrel.

An excerpt (courtesy of The Onion):
"I'm not a strong-willed squirrel. If you take a can of nuts and dump them in your backyard, you'd better believe I'm gonna eat those nuts. I won't be polite about it, either. I won't share them with the chipmunks or the birds. No, I will behave like a fool to secure those nuts. I'll shove as many nuts in my mouth as I can fit, and chew as fast as possible to make room for more nuts. "

Posted by Ryan at 3:51 AM | Permalink

Since I decided to take Thursday and Friday off before I leave for Europe on Saturday, today was my last day at Riester~Robb. You really couldn't ask for a much better end to a summer job: it was a light work day, mostly filled with cleaning up, finishing what projects I could, and a few errands. The company took me out to lunch at Chevy's. And, at the end of the day, they gave me a company tote bag, a great Swiss Army travel alarm clock, and a corporate sponsorship for my upcoming European travels as a thank you.

So if you just happen to be somewhere in the 3,837,000 miles of Europe and see a confused American wandering around with a map, wearing a backpack suitcase, and sporting a golf shirt with the Riester~Robb logo, stop me and say hi. And if you need a full-service advertising agency in the Salt Lake, Phoenix, or Venice, CA region, I suggest you give us a call.

Posted by Ryan at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[entry corrupted by spammer]

Posted by Ryan at 12:07 AM | Permalink

Later this morning I'm boarding a jet plane bound for Minnesota. While there, I plan to do 45 minutes worth of work. I'm spreading that across 6 days, though, so it hopefully won't be too taxing. To cut through the fluff: 9 minutes a day isn't enough to blog (yes, it's a verb now, too). Any of you avid readers of mine shouldn't expect any updates before Aug. 11.

Posted by Ryan at 12:49 AM | Permalink

I don't golf. The closest I've come was a couple weeks ago when we had a driving contest out in front of the ad agency I work at. We drove marshmallows. I missed 2 of 3 and hooked the last one. That said, for some crazy reason I decided to fill in for someone who can't make it to the company golf tournament tomorrow. It will be very interesting to see how it goes. Jim and I went to the driving range tonight and he gave me a few pointers on hitting the ball. Now if I can just remember all 8 key points to a good swing simultaneously, I'll do fine.

On the up side, there are prizes for the top three finishing teams. Better yet, there is also a prize for the team that comes in dead last (not second to last!). Best of all, there is a prize for the shortest drive (while still trying). And with the company picking up the tab and renting clubs for me, it's going to be hard to lose. More on the exciting venture tomorrow.

Posted by Ryan at 1:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After a couple weeks of on-and-off tweaking, I put the latest revision of my site online. It's a mishmash of HTML, CSS, and a tiny bit of PHP. Basically, it's a site held together with liberal application of duct tape. My ultimate goal is to be able to manage all the site content remotely so I don't need to be at my computer to make changes. There are all sorts of systems that would probably help me do this, but I kind of like putting it together myself.

Last week was surprisingly busy at work for a week with a holiday. I spent almost 20 hours preparing for some focus groups taking place this week. It was really interesting to see all the preparation that goes into hosting a group. I shouldn't say more than that, lest I find myself in the middle of some confidentiality agreement breach.

The Scholastic project is going quite well. I spent several hours working on it last week, both writing and designing. I also got some advice from two sharp design guys at work. They gave me some really helpful tips for improving the look. I'm contemplating adapting a version of the manual for general use and posting it on the site.

Only 8 days before my trip to Minnesota. The summer is flying by....

Posted by Ryan at 1:14 AM | Permalink

I was off work today thanks to Utah's state holiday, Pioneer Day. In one of those inexplicable twists, Pioneer Day is bigger than the Fourth of July here in Utah. I like it because I'm a fan of pretty much any no-work holiday.

My dad is moving to a new house, so I spent a couple hours this evening shifting books from his shelf to dozens of boxes. While I packed, I came to one conclusion: there's just too many. Not specifically too many on my dad's shelf — just too many books in general. I saw at least 5 books I'd like to read on the shelves, but they'll likely find their way to the end of my "To Read Someday" after 30 other titles. Maybe I'll just quit school and read them all now. But then, I'll miss all the books I'd be reading in classes, so it's a lose-lose situation. I'm was also a little disheartened when I cleared books out of my own room and saw all the "junk books" I've read over the years.

One book leaped to the top of my list, though. I found a copy of the Portable James Joyce which has both The Dubliners and A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man. I feel compelled to read something by Joyce in the next couple weeks because he graduated from UCD, the Dublin university I will attend starting in September.

On a technical note, I'm working on adding a slight polish to my site's main page, but web design changes so quickly and I haven't bothered to keep up. HTML used to be so easy! Now with CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and other acronyms, it's not quite so simple. I'm just waiting for computers to do everything so I can just sit back and read. Unless, at that time, computers will do the reading too, in which case I'll have to rethink my plan.

Posted by Ryan at 11:56 PM | Permalink

I've been reading from my newest Amazon.com delivery, Rick Steves's Europe Through the Back Door. It's a great book with what I hope will be lots of ways to make traveling in Europe easier. It's hard to believe that in just about a month I will be in Dublin. There only catch is that I arrive 3 weeks before classes start, so I will have to, as one of my travel partners put it, "traipse around Europe."

Right now I'm brainstorming how I can track my travel online with this system. Ideally, it would involve satellite telephones, GPS locators, and digital photography. Ultimately, it will probably involve text. We'll see.

One might think that being away from school might reduce the amount of work I'm doing for Scholastic. Well, if one thought that, one would be wrong. I've been working in collaboration with the other four executive editors to write the equivalent of a book that could be called "Life, Scholastic, and Everything." For my part, all I have to do is write all I know about computers. Or something like that.

Posted by Ryan at 2:18 AM | Permalink

Today I finally went live with my new blogging system, provided by the folks at MovableType. Blogger is old news. It was getting difficult to use without paying for their service because I don't have convenient access to an SFTP server. But enough of that. Here's some real info...

What are some of the advantages of this new system? Well, readers can post comments on my posts if they are so inclined. It should be noted that I plan to exercise dictatorial rule over those comments, deleting worthless ones with my remorseless internet will. Feel free to post, but bear that in mind.

The look of this blog doesn't really match that of the rest of my site, and that was keeping me from bringing it online for awhile. But, recalling my slogan of less fluff, more stuff, I decided to bring it anyway.

One final note: I am slowly bringing entries over from my old system with Blogger. Until then, you'll just have to wait. Back to business.

Posted by Ryan at 11:58 AM | Permalink

Some people say, "Live life with no regrets!" That's crap. Right now I regret a couple of things. Foremost, I regret nicking my nose with a razor. It's not painful, but it is a bit of a nuisance to have blood trying to exit my body via the corner of my nose. That just happens to be an example that's at the forefront of my mind. But if you live life and you don't regret anything, you're not paying enough attention. Now if you're dwelling in regret, that's a different story. But moving on...

To a slightly lesser degree, I regret not posting anything during the entire month of June. Most of the reason for that was being in the same physical location as most of the people who typically read this, which means I don't need to keep them informed of day-to-day happenings here.

I have been experimenting with different blogging software and before long I will be moving to Movable Type's content management system. In the meantime, expect more content to management from your friendly Ryan-content-system.

Posted by Ryan at 7:10 PM | Permalink