Lousy Day

So my brilliant system of 3 interlocking alarms completely failed to wake me up this morning. I didn't wake up until 9.05, when I had intended to be at work by 9, so I could leave to go to class at 5. So, not going to class today, not a huge deal as I'm still seriously considered dropping it.

At work I was waiting on someone to look at some data, to make sure it's ok, but they couldn't see my directory for some reason (on a unix system.) Yesterday I had played around with the permissions to try to give them access, but managed to completely break everything I was doing. So not only can they not see what I need them to look at, I can't see it anymore. Apparently the admin may be able to fix it, but he's awol, so the only thing I can do is recreate the work I spent most of last week doing. So once I get back to where I was yesterday, I'm still stuck cause he still needs to check this data! So, not the most productive I could be.

And I kind of wanted to go to class today, I remembered I like physics after reading this article about a paper AIAA published on research that connects gravity and electromagnetism.

Summary:

The standard model of physics, … is incapable of predicting a particle's mass. …when researchers ... implemented Heim's mass theorem in a computer program, it predicted masses of fundamental particles that matched the measured values to within the accuracy of experimental error.

….From this, Dröscher claims, you can derive the four forces known in physics: the gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But there's more to it than that. "If Heim's picture is to make sense," Dröscher says, "we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces." These are, Dröscher claims, related to the familiar gravitational force: one is a repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. And the other might be used to accelerate a spacecraft without any rocket fuel.

… if this happens, it would be possible to reach Mars in less than 3 hours and a star 11 light years away in only 80 days, Dröscher and Häuser say.

That would be so incredibly, ridiculously awesome. It will probably not happen, but the future has to come sometime, right? Maybe I read too much, but I spend so much time in worlds that are much better than ours, it really sucks sometimes to come back to reality and realize that no, the world is not that amazing yet. I wish it would hurry up.

Learned Something Today

My car's turn signal clicks in time with Nine Inch Nails' "Closer". I thought that was cool. That song is 14 years old now, which isn't as bad as I was afraid of, at least.

Memories of Christmas

Heather telling us a story about my 4 year old nephew Eddie: He came into the kitchen and asked for a cookie without saying "please", so she asked him, "Have you lost your manners?" He said, "I've lost them! I've lost my manners! I need to go to the store and get more!" and proceeded to run in circles around the dining room table shouting, "Manners! Where are you manners? I need to catch you! I need to put you in my mouth and eat you! Manners!" until finally coming back to her and saying, "I've found them! May I have a cookie please?"

Playing Hullabaloo with Eddie, my sister Stephie and our friend Jay. The game has 16 plastic tiles which are different colors and shapes, with different pictures on them, and a speaker. When turned on, the speaker gives directions such as, "Swim to a circle!" or "Hop to a triangle!" After so many tile-swappings, the game says, "Freeze! If you're on a blue triangle, you're a winner! Winner, do a funky dance!" The winner got a hug from Eddie and then everyone danced, and if you've never seen a 4 year old do a funky dance, you have not lived.

Holding my 10 month old, little fat doll of a niece Julianna, in her adorable Christmas dress, and posing for pictures with every combination of my family we could think of. I even managed to keep my eyes open in some of the pictures! Not many though lol.

Coming home from Target with my Mom and Dad and Heather and the 2 kids, and when it was time for them to leave, I asked Eddie for a hug. I had been holding the baby, Julianna, so he said, "You've had enough hugs!" So my Mom asked for one, and he said, "Ok, but I only have 3 left after that!" After he gave my Mom one, he deigned to give me one, but then "I only have 2 hugs left!" He very graciously gave them to my Dad and my sister.

Walking around New Hope with Stephanie, I love that place! It's in PA, a very cute little town. It's almost a tradition now for us to go and have lunch someplace nice there, then walk around to all the shops. It's funny, we fought like cats and dogs when we lived together, but since I've moved out she's my best friend.

Heather's excitement when my dad and I opened one of her gifts to us, personalized doormats with our latitude and longitude printed on them! She made us open them at the same time, so the surprise wouldn't be spoiled, and we both loved them!

My mother lying to my face when I asked her if she had had time to finish the wallhanging she'd promised me! She said "Oh no, it's on the list somewhere" when I asked about it before Christmas. I was so surprised when I unwrapped and opened a box to see the gorgeous wallhanging completed on Christmas I almost fell over!

I love my family! I wish I got to see them more often. The kids grow up so fast! Luckily Steph is planning come visit me in March, so I just have to wait til then to see her!