Odds and Ends

So, it seems like I'm going to be a blogger like Ken Coar and just do massive brain dumps rather than pithy comments along the way. So, here's some odds and ends that have happened touch all three pillars of this blog:

Went to see the Dalai Lama when he visited UC Irvine two weeks ago. He talked about that ethical behavior comes from the pursuit of positive feelings. He said there are two types of behavior: positive and negative. The bad actions come from the pursuit of negative feelings (hate, anger, jealousy, etc.), while the ethical behavior comes from seeking the positive behavior (love, compassion, etc.). That's cool, but the really intriguing aspect of the Dalai Lama is what an imp he is. And, I mean that in a good way - but here he is in front of several thousand people laughing and donning a UC Irvine visor because the "light is in my eyes." It was, but the way he handled himself is not at all what I expected. The funniest response to one of the questions was in response to, "What do you think about the XV Dalai Lama?" (Note that he's the XIV Dalai Lama.) His response, "Not my problem" while waving his hand goodbye. His English is passable, but he had a translator with him to help produce phrases he couldn't translate on his own. Also, the US Secret Service was there providing security for him. Very interesting to see them in action around the Bren.

Saw the Rangers take two out of three from the Angels. Yay! As my mom said, "You didn't think they'd win any games!" Yet, I was there in my Rangers attire for all three games cheering them on. While there weren't any Rangers fans near where we were sitting in Right Field, I did think I saw some of the friends and family of the current Rangers players - only someone who knew Gerald Laird would have his old number (and he's still in his rookie season - the number from his September callup last year!). (Laird and a few others grew up or went to college in Southern California, so I'm not shocked.) Incredibly, their pitching is still holding up. I also was watching the doubleheader between the BoSox and Rangers last night. Drese and Benoit held their own against Arroyo and Pedro. They are in first place, and I'm wondering how long this will continue...

I'm also a TA for ICS 123: Software Architecture and Distributed Systems. This is why I've been completely swamped. I was only assigned to be the TA after the first week of class - so I've been playing catch-up since then. Even though there are over seventy students in the class, the school is not interested in providing any assistance in grading. I've spent the last two days non-stop grading assignments. It's awful. I also bet there is a workload grievance somewhere I could file. The university is making boat loads of money off this course and does not desire to allocate enough resources to it. They should be ashamed of themselves. The students will be hurt in the long run.

My planning for my trip to Europe continues. I have a flight booked (only $1k from LAX to Oslo via Heathrow - not too bad). I have a hotel while I'm in London (but not yet one for Oslo). I've also arranged to meet in London with a family friend from New England while I'm in London. So, I'll have someone to go play tourist with. Heh. I'll also hope to meet up with some of the ASF guys while I'm in town. Yay! It can't come soon enough.

Oh, and in response to Steven's post, a colleague and I were looking at a document the other day that we had supposedly written and we both went, "We didn't write this. It has grammatical errors." Both of us are real sticklers about that - it turns out that an undergraduate had written that sentence (it was a proposal he had submitted to us and one which we returned back to him after edits) and we both overlooked it. We should be ashamed of ourselves for not catching it earlier.

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