| Festivus for the restivus |
[Dec. 25th, 2007|09:32 am] |
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| Merry Christmas all! |
[Dec. 24th, 2007|01:39 pm] |
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| Free music! |
[Nov. 27th, 2007|09:35 pm] |
Peeps, I just got my free 34 songs from this company. I think the link will work.
It includes Kelly's Let me borrow that top. I so want that album. SHOES!
You go to itunes after you get your code and click on redeem. You can sign up for itunes at the same time.
http://dealnews.com/lw/artclick.html?2,199328,461770 |
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| I want some BRAINS! |
[Oct. 18th, 2007|09:04 am] |
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| Those Crazy Japanese |
[Oct. 16th, 2007|01:59 pm] |
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| Showbears! Auditioning! |
[Sep. 24th, 2007|10:18 pm] |
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| that sh*t be gangsta! |
[Sep. 17th, 2007|08:51 pm] |
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[Sep. 13th, 2007|08:22 am] |
I'm glad to make other people feel useful ;)
yeah for being overqualified for every job on the planet... except academia... Good thing my predecessor died/retired/disappeared.
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| I think I have a lot of webisodes to catch up on |
[Sep. 11th, 2007|03:03 pm] |
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[Sep. 5th, 2007|08:42 am] |
I must be really busy at work...
Here's to you Georgie. For all the crap you've put us all through. Dang, that felt good! |
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| Paul Dateh |
[Sep. 5th, 2007|08:27 am] |
When did playing violin become hip and cool? Bring on more Paul Dateh! Maybe if I knew this or Metallica's string tribute band Apocolyptica was possible, I would have stuck with playing an instrument. Even some of that country crap was fun. Stupid classical crap they teach kids. |
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| Labor Day NYC |
[Sep. 4th, 2007|02:44 pm] |
Took the kid to NYC for her 16th birthday. Fun day on broadway. I highly recommend Madame Tussaud's. Tourist trap but really cool!
Hairspray was amazing. Paul Vogt played Edna Turnblad and you know what... he channeled Divine! Absolutely wonderful! We saw the Beav!!!!! Lance Bass was Corny Collins. All so cool and we sat in row D in the orchestra!
We had a special appearance by RuPaul! Work it Baby!
I was so not worthy of this photo op.
Careful in NYC, you have to watch out for rogue DMD's (Dinosaurs of mass destruction). Where's Godzilla?
More to come later ;) |
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[Jul. 27th, 2007|12:03 pm] |
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Just wanted to say that I almost burned down the Princeton Chemistry building. I rock! |
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| They didn't do this on Oz |
[Jul. 23rd, 2007|01:03 pm] |
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| Back from consulting |
[Jul. 22nd, 2007|05:19 pm] |
So about a month ago my school sponsored a trip to go to DC to visit the National Science Foundation. We were out there scoping for grants for us to write. I got some great feedback on some of my ideas that I plan to write. In addition, I was invited to be on a panel to review grants for funding. I felt pretty important to do something like this. Very few people in my department has ever been invited to be a reviewer.
So when you write a grant for NSF, you submit it by the deadline. Then the program officer checks each grant to make sure you didn't do something stupid like not sign the grant or forgetting a section, which would automatically disqualify the application. Then the grant is reviewed by a panel, which is what I did. We read the grants, I had 7, and then rate them before the panel meeting. Then we meet for ~2 days and discuss all the grants and decide which grants should be funded. Our panel had 17 grants and there were a total of 4 panels. Then the grant officer looks at all the grants that we want funding and decides which ones actually gets the money after considering issues like geography, underrepresented minorities, women in science/engineering, etc. So it's an interesting process. My portion was to read the 7 grants and give it ratings. I was by far the harshest reviewer on my panel. When a grant sucked, I said so. When there's a glaring scientific error, I told them to do their homework. So I was a bit mean, lol. I had fun with this. The reviews are completely anonymous so there are no repercussions for being a bit mean, lol. If I did that in a class, I'd get reamed. I was just glad I could keep up with everyone else even though I'm quite new at this process.
Any way, I got paid some money here. I met up with a bunch of LJ people, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sqrlcub, kurtbear, dmlaenker, their friend Fritter (don't know his lj off the top of my head), and my old friend Mark. Had a great time down in Baltimore and DC. Mark and I went to the new Air and Space museum by Dulles. had some great planes in there! Then we met at Ellis' and Kurt's place along with JD to head to Baltimore. Fritter was at an Anime convention in Baltimore. Think Star Trek meets japanese Dork. I laughed at the number of BIG swords. We had dinner at the City Grill (or cafe or whatever) with a fantastic Mojito. I probably needed at least one more, lol. I had a great time down there! Was very glad to see everyone again and meet two great guys! Hugs guys! |
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| OMG, Drag Queen Fabulousness |
[Jul. 11th, 2007|09:43 am] |
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| SUMMER!!! |
[May. 16th, 2007|09:52 am] |
Woo Hoo, Summer time is here! I finished my grading and posted grades. First year as a tenure track prof is done. The kiddies overall did well, avg for the class was around a B/B-. This was a junior level inorganic chemistry course. I had a ball this semester working my ass off. Stress stress stress! I need one of those homedics shiatsu massagers. I think I'll have to get one for use from Linens 'N Things with one of those 20% off coupons.
No, I don't have the summer off. I have to work like a dog to get research done. I'm off to Princeton this summer to do research with one of the biggest scientists in my field. Should be a fantastic experience. I have to work for free this summer but I guess it's about my career.
Here's my whopper of a Final question that no one got completely right. I'm quite proud of this question, lol. The best was 20/25. Kiddies don't like to apply a semester's worth of knowledge on test questions:
1. Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) and giant magnetoresistance (GMR) are two important materials that involve changes in resistance in a material when a magnetic field is applied. GMR materials are currently used in today’s high capacity hard drives. They use alternating layers of ferromagnetic and non magnetic materials and only require small magnetic fields to change the resistance which is detected by your computer as bits of information. CMR’s on the other hand require very strong magnets, similar to the magnet in an NMR, to cause the change in resistance. You have enough background to understand how CMR materials work.
a. CMR’s are based on La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 family of materials. They have the perovskite structure, ABO3 where A is a mixture of La and Ca and B is the Mn. Draw the unit cell or some other representation (such as polyhedra we used in our first lab) of the perovskite structure. (5 points) If you do not know the perovskite structure, you may trade in these 5 points for the answer. The structure may or may not significantly help you to answer the following question
b. The Mn in this structure has a mixture of charges of +3 and +4, which gives it 4 or 3 d electrons. The (MnO6)8- and (MnO6)9- octahedra are strong field, draw the d electron configuration for the +3 and +4 oxidation states. Properly label the symmetries of the d orbitals. (5 points)
c. The strong magnetic field is used to force all the spins to be in the same parallel spin states, the high spin state. Show the updated electron configuration (for both +3 and +4) when in the magnetic field and propose why such a high magnetic field is required in terms of LFSEs. (5 points)
d. A phonon is a quantum of sound analogous to how a photon is a quantum of light. The phonons cause the octahedral to distort. The super exchange mechanism by which the structure becomes conductive is described using Jahn-Teller distortions. Show how an electron can hop from one (MnO6)9- moiety to an adjacent (MnO6)8- moiety (electron hopping is a net movement of electrons, therefore rendering the material conductive). (10 points) |
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| Mini |
[Mar. 30th, 2007|10:20 am] |
This summer I'll need to have a car as I may be heading to Princeton on a daily basis. We need to do some car shopping. We are looking for something gas efficient and cheap. Those used civics and corollas are way over priced.
So I'm thinking about getting a used '03 Mini... Found a great deal. Any thoughts? Could you see me in that driver seat? It's not the sporty S version but it does have a moon roof.
greatbearmd, any suggestions on upkeep costs on this pup?
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[Feb. 28th, 2007|10:50 am] |
so, why are the rubber feet thingies on my office phone melting.... |
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