My Irresponsibility Knows No Bounds

Protip: If you're going to start writing a blog, it's helpful not to be such a lazy piece of shit that you never actually update it. Just sayin'.

So although I haven't quite kept up with updating the training log as I had originally planned, I've still been (mostly) keeping up with the running -- the postings just fell by the wayside as I got progressively busier towards the end of last term (along with proper hygiene, nutrition, sleep, and -- at various times -- my sanity). To summarize, the crazy shenanigans I've gotten into over the previous two months when I was busy not updating the blog include:

• Attended the First National Forum of Young Topologists: Spent a few days hanging out in New Orleans with some other grad student topologists. Met some new guys from other schools, heard some interesting talks, including one by this guy which was a survey of applications of topology to robotics, sensing, and estimation. Given that I am a huge fan of both robotics and topology, this pleased me greatly. Moreover, in addition to being f@$*ing awesome, this also means that the term "applied topology" is no longer oxymoronic.
  
  Also hit up the French Quarter for Cajun cuisine, excellent live music, gorgeous architecture, and general debauchery. It was pretty epic; witness the following picture:
  
  
  
  So all in all it was pretty awesome, the only exception being that it's now two months past the end of the conference and no one in the department has been reimbursed yet for travel expenses. This lends some additional weight to the hypothesis that the conference organizers may be crypto-Communists.
  
  
• Wrote a bunch of applications: This sucked. 'Nuff said.
  
  
• Then my 1 1/2-year old laptop died while I was at home on the break: It is rather difficult to post running log updates when your only means of communication is a $1500 paperweight. So now the only working computer that I have at my apartment is an aged desktop that I bought when I was a sophomore in high school - this thing has trouble running Firefox in XP. Fortunately, I scavenged one of the mapping computers out of the RoboCup lab after the project shut down; it's pretty slick, but it needs a new video card and a DVD reader/writer before it can be used. Speaking of which, you know what would come in pretty handy for getting these parts? The $450 that Tulane owes me. Again, just sayin'.
  
  
• Went on Lloyd Ski Trip: Good God I'm old. On the plus side though, the fact that I knew less than half the kids who are still in the house meant that it was much easier for Tapes and I to antisocially drink by ourselves while watching Army of Darkness.
  
  

• Went on the occasional run: I actually have been putting in runs whenever possible, in between traveling and nearly losing my sanity at the ridiculousness that was the end of the last academic term. Given that I'm now twice-weekly doing 15 to 20 mile runs, I figure that I'm in much better shape now than I was at this point in my "training" the last time I attempted this.

So that's pretty much been it. I'm going to make a concerted effort to be less worthless in the weeks ahead.