binary gregorian chronometry

11111.1111111110100110001110011

this is my age. my chronometer is about to roll over. about to get my sixth bit!

i've been posting these numbers on facebook for more than a week, and nobody has figured out yet what i'm doing.

i posted it once to google+, and murf got it right away.

so, win for murf!

this reminds me of my old toyota. we met when it was at 86,000 miles, and i was a spry 10010. we were together when it rolled over 100,000; when it crossed 111,111 and 123,456; when it crossed 186,000, and when it rolled over 200,000. we even made it to 222,222 miles together. then i had a crisis of faith when it was time to drive from louisville to boston, and we parted forever. i'll never see that odometer roll over to 238,000 miles, or to 300,000, or 333,333... we could have been together when my binary gregorian chronometer rolls over - it won't happen again for 32 more years.

but we won't be together tonight. the camry is gone. i miss you, 1991 blue toyota camry LE. we were friends. i'm sorry i left you behind.

Andrew,

I am wondering, how many lectures have you prepared?

How many pages of dissertation have you written lately?

Do you have a job yet?

Are you hungry?

Wow, my posting rate is really down. Really, I just can't think of anything to write about.

Anyway, the other day Jingping and I were talking about memory. We were talking about how strange it is to remember things from very, very early on. I point out that things seem dim in most of my oldest memories, like the lights are turned down low; she pointed out that the very earliest ones seem almost completely visual. It's true for me: I can remember images from when I was 3 or 4 years old, and specific events from as early as 4; but, I can't remember many details of what it was like to experience those things.

Anyway, people, what's the earliest things you can remember? I know for certain that I can remember my 4th birthday. Some other, foggier recollections seem to be even older, but I have no way of dating them.

Okay, that's it.

41

On orders from Michael Murphy, here are details of my return from Austin to Louisville.

These events took place on a Sunday, on November the 27th, in the year 2005 CE (or 60 MA depending on your region).

At the Austin airport I ate two tacos, which was easy because my flight was delayed about an hour. This is funny because my flight from Houston to Nashville was to leave only about 30 minutes after my flight from Austin to Houston was due to arrive. This meant that all the other people had to wait for us Austin-Houston-Nashvilliers. This was okay. At Houston, we had to get from gate 4 to gate 50. For some reason, to do this we had to leave the terminal and then go through security again, which was exciting.

The entire way I occasionally read through my new dictionary of Chinese words. I now know lots of Chinese words, but I still can't speak Chinese. I don't know what the critical mass is. I think I may be a few years away.

I arrived in Nashville at about 11 o' clock. This is Eastern time, which is officially the time which I am supposed to abide by. Strangely, I just got a weird sense that it was sometime in the afternoon, and that it was daylight out, and that it's business as usual, even though it's actually 8 forty-five, and it's dark out, and most people aren't here. Someone is out there slamming doors.

So, first, I thought, I'll just walk to my car, it will be nice to walk to my car, I don't really know where I parked it anyway, so I'll walk to my car. But I couldn't figure out how to get to the longterm parking lot. So I walked all the way back to the bus stop like a loser and rode the bus to stop 6, and found my car very quickly. I considered calling a girl on my new cell phone, but decided it would probably be rude and weird to do so so late at night, and without anything in particular to talk about, so instead I just started up my car and left the airport.

I took Briley Parkway to get to I-65. In doing this, I passed the Opryland Next Exit sign, which is pretty stupid. Then I was on my way, though I did stop somewhere up towards the north end of Tennessee, to get gas and some lame coffee, and some candy. So then I drove home. I am still getting this weird sensation that it's daytime right now and not nighttime, and that any minute someone's going to walk into my office from the hallway to ask me a question. Not that that happens often, you see, but it's something which could happen in the daytime with much more probability of happening than at nighttime.

Finally I got home, and apologized to my cat for being gone so long. Then I went to sleep. This was a little before 3 o' clock. I woke up this morning at 8 o' clock which was okay. Right now I have this weird pain in my forehead, or my temple, but I actually think it's a tooth. This is called referred pain. If that's what it is. It might also be a muscle by my eyeball, which makes a little more sense and is less worrisome.

Today I did a few things, less than explicitly expected but maybe about what was implicitly expected.

So, was this worth it. Really, I should be writing scientific essays and papers and ideas and things, but really, all I ever write are entries in this blog. I write a good amount of functional and fun Matlab code, which no one really cares about. But, really. Really, I write best in short bursts. When the writing comes, it's worthwhile. Unless it's about what I did the day before, in which case it's usually kind of pointless.