so many lines of code to check

i have a talk coming up entitled "classical trajectory modeling of the photodissociation of the linear argon-iodine complex" based on research i did last semester, and i dusted off the program to work on the talk, but it's outputting really messed up data, and i can't figure out why. part of the problem is that there are like 2000 lines of fortran to sift through, though thankfully i have the problem nailed down to a very small section. this involves the always exciting writing of many 'write(*,*)'made it this far' statements looking for the one that doesn't print.

i'm also writing code to do a gauss-chebyshev numerical integration for my summer research. this also has a problem i can't seem to fix, but in this case it's due to my own ignorance in fortran programming. i seem to be calling my subroutine with the wrong variables....

so, after wading through all that stuff about computational chemistry, here's the 'non-nerdy' stuff. had a wonderful dinner tonight with some friends, talking about our small group and how to make it more accessible, and at the same time foster close relationships.

my stupid fantasy baseball team has decided not to hit any more. i have five 10+ game winners for starting pitchers, but my batters are in a slump, all of them... except for andruw jones.

strange behavior

just a bunch of interesting "goings-ons" i experienced today.

today during research, we noticed that our laser was being really picky (more than usual...) about its temperature.

i got a couple more nice comments about my talk on tuesday. how "using a diode laser to study the 13C/12C ratio in CO2" turned out to be such an interesting topic to a bunch of non-physical chemists i have no idea, but it was nice to hear that people understood what i talked about, because i really tried to make it accessible.

got a call from the DNC (democratic national committee), wanting to hit me up for money. i told them the honest-to-goodness truth that my wife and i support different political parties, and rather than give money to both and grumble about having our hard earned dollars go to "the other side" we decided not to give money to either, unless its random personal cash on hand. the guy on the line was amazed and started laughing. little did he realize, i was telling the truth!

nothing in particular

i had a wonderful day today. my presentation went very well, and i was able to answer some tough questions. plus, research was spectacular! we got an isotope ratio that is one decimal place better than we've ever achieved!

just started work on the second talk. came up with a pretty sweet background, it's part of the runge-kutta code i found online.

quit yer' whining

so i'm reading this article on yahoo's fantasy sports page [yes, i manage several losing teams a year...] about hockey. jeremy roenick is complaining about having to give up so much money, and any fans who said the players were greedy should just not ever watch the sport again... to him i say, booooooo.

hockey players each are very gifted at their chosen profession. this should not, however, give them the authority to tell "commoners" to shove it when we complain they make too much. in years, i will have a Ph.d in chemistry, and likely be making less a year that roenick makes a game. fair? i think not. skill and talent does not mean entitlement to big paydays. if you really loved the game, you'd be happy to play for whatever the going rate for a doctor, or professor, or m.b.a. makes. they're no less talented at what they do that you are at what you do.

and that's how i feel about that!

but! i am so stoked to see my wings back in action this year! nobody beats hockeytown.

talks, talks, and more talks....

so... i have two talks to prepare in the next couple weeks, though one is coming up in two days. how does one make "using a diode laser to study the carbon 13/carbon 12 isotope ratio" interesting, even to scientists? though the other talks in the series didn't reach out to p-chem types, i suppose i have a duty to make mine reachable by the synthetics...

the other talk will likely be more fun, in that it is on a computational project i did this past semester, and i'll be giving the talk at a computational chemistry conference in july. chatting with peers will (or should) be pretty fun!

i was reading the most recent issue of national geographic today, and i had no idea that the chinese of the ming dynasty were such accomplished seafarers. the ships that they sailed were incredible. i think i'm going to find a book about them and read it!

current reading list:
1. the odd quantum - a great laymans book on quantum mechanics (you need a little math though)
2. the early middle ages (300-1000) - a very dry account, but full of wonderful commentaries and stories about several interesting tribes/groups that shaped the european continent.
3. the one year bible - i've never read the whole thing, and it's high time i did

boooo to summer

i can not believe how hot it is out today. it's going to be 87 here [MI] with air that hangs so thick it clings to you as if you were carrying several loads of laundry as you walked around. i suppose that it doesn't help we placed the computer in the room above the dryers.

we went to the zoo today to see the wallabies. they were facinating to see, but the area they occupied is half as big as the room i'm sitting in right now, and that was sad to see. seriously, the zoo could have given them more room.