Nerdy Limerick #3

Sed has been pissing me off the last couple days. FYI, if you're unfortunate enough to be using sed to do something, here's a couple things I have learned (re-learned?) recently:

1. If you want to use the + to indicate one-or-more, it must be escaped. Check out this lovely example:

lark [1045] head -n 1 1028/1028-10.txt | sed "s/[ ]+/\n/g" | wc -l
1
lark [1046] head -n 1 1028/1028-10.txt | sed "s/[ ]\+/\n/g" | wc -l
976

Ahhhh what a difference one little backslash can make.

2. \s does NOT mean white space. Doh.

All that ranting about sed reminded me that I had written another nerdy limerick and not posted it, so here it is:

Limerick #3

if you work in Euclidean spaces
and you want an orthogonal basis
you can see what you get
from using Gram-Schmitt
but it might not be nice in all cases

A New Surfing Vehicle

Yesterday, Sean finally got his dream car!! After a quick road trip to Portland, we are now the proud owners of a 21-year-young Toyota Van .



The seats fold down, so we can sleep in here, which means that we can do overnight surf trips for free! (er, minus gas costs). Apparently in Europe this vehicle was known as the Space Cruiser. How awesome is that?!?

My Crowning Acheivement

Someday I may have a child. But until then, the Fiscal Stimulus Boat Party that I threw last weekend will be the best accomplishment of my life. Most people who read this probably know that I have been working on this party for 2-3 months. It was kind of a lot of work, but I love throwing parties, so it was fun work. A few things didn't go quite as planned, but overall I was amazed at how well everything came together.


Here's my trying on Jeff's birthday hat before the big event went down.

Here are the vital stats from the party:

76 - year the boat was built

109 - total # of guests on board

4800 - number of miles traveled by Andy, the most dedicated partier, who flew in all the way from England

21 - age of the birthday boy, at least according to the candle we put on his cake

1 - number of people who jumped off the boat

12 - number of liters of alcohol we had (and ran out in about an hour - evite your drink calculator has a very different idea of "average drinker" than I do)

4 - number of CDs I burned for the party - the boat crew liked my mix so much that they asked for a copy, so I let them keep the CDs. I will brag about this for the rest of my life

30 - approximate number of beers leftover after the event

1000 - dollars we raised that will go to the Boys and Girls Club

3 - time in the morning when I finally went to sleep!

Stuff Engineers Like #3 - Measuring Stuff with their Feet

If you are sitting in a house with an engineer present, and someone says, "Hmm I wonder how many square feet this house is?", the engineer will jump up and start walking across the room, heel to toe. All engineers believe that their feet are 12 inches long. And who am I to judge? Maybe they are right. Maybe if you are in high school, wondering if you should major in engineering when you go to college, you should just measure your feet. (Disclaimer: I am not sure how big my feet are. But they're fairly big for a girl. Maybe I should have a fellow engineer perform the foot-measurement test on my foot.)

I'm not sure it matters how long their feet are though, because no one ever checks the accuracy of their measurements. Even if an engineer was so advanced that he was actually carrying a tape measure on him, he would not break it out. Using a tape measure is akin to reading an instruction manual before assembling something or running a new program. It's just not done.

Many engineers will only perform the foot test on one dimension of the room, and then use their uncanny ability to judge aspect ratios to arrive at the length of the other dimension. If you are at a party with an engineer, and you would like to shift the topic of conversation away from spreadsheets, just casually ask, "how many square feet do you think this room is?" It will make the engineer feel useful and increase his enjoyment of the party.

Funniest Song About Private Parts

Remember when OPP came out? That was pretty funny. But this song takes the cake! I saw it on the new Harold and Kumar movie, which was freaking awesome, BTW.

Before you click on this, (in case you couldn't already tell from the title of this post), beware that there are some quite graphic lyrics.

Mexican Food!!!!

There is a new Mexican place on the Ave called Memo's. I went there for lunch yesterday, not expecting anything (cause you know, I'm in Seattle).

Well, I had my non-expectations blown away!! I almost hyperventilated when I tasted their beans - they are actually good! The torta I had was pretty decent, although I will agree with some of the yelp reviewers that their meat is fairly bland. I also had a bite of Sean's bean and cheese burrito, which was delicious.

Here are a few things that I have not found in Seattle, which combine to make this place truly amazing:

1. The horchata was yummy! Really good. Gordito's has a pretty OK burrito, but their horchata is kind of 'meh'. Same with Guanaco's. IMO this is the best horchata in Seattle.

2. The prices are reasonable. I want to smack some of those crazy yelpers. This place is not expensive at all. If you can get two enchiladas for $3.99 you should not be complaining. (Especially with the ongoing food crisis and all that....)

3. 24 hours!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately I'm too old and cirrhosis-ridden to fully appreciate this feature. Still, I can revel in the joy that the young UW drinkers are experiencing. I spent 6 years at U of A being pampered by the presence of the 24-hour Los Betos (drunk or sober, their quesadillas just tasted better after midnight). Now the UWers can experience this great luxury too.

Stuff Engineers Like #2 - Free Food

We've all heard the stereotype - college students love free food! Well it turns out that engineers keep this youthful trait until much later in life. Engineers take the procurement of free food quite seriously, and most engineers have no problem doing the following things well into adulthood:

1. Decide whether to go to an event based solely on the presence of free food
2. Attend a club meeting that they are not a part of just to get free food
3. Stuff pockets/purse full of food, or even bring a tupperware to an event
4. Show up to an event, grab food, and leave as the event is starting
5. Donate blood. (yes they give out cookies and juice).
6. Drive so far for free/discounted food that the amount spent on gas was more than the amount saved for the food

Notice that the companies that are notorious for providing free food/drinks are google and microsoft. Full of engineers. Also, at many engineering events the food is purposely withheld until the end. This strategy seems intelligent but is ultimately futile, as the engineers will find out quickly and stop attending that event. (And yes I have done every single thing on that list).

10 Places You'd Love to Travel To (That You Haven't Gone To Yet)

10 on Tuesday

I haven't done the 10 on Tuesdays for awhile, but I *heart* traveling so much I couldn't pass this one up!! The only hard part is narrowing it down to 10.

10. Turkey
9. Dubai
9. Russia
8. Austin, TX
7. Brazil
6. Puerto Rico
5. Maldives
4. Lamu, Kenya
3. Saba (an island in the Netherland Antilles, in the Caribbean)
2. Thailand
1. Peru

Monday Picture Day - Neah Bay

Sean & I did a camping/surfing trip to Neah Bay last fall. This was the first time we brought our waterproof camera in the water! This was some random spot we drove past and decided to try - the surf was super flat, but we got in some good surfing the day before by the campsite at Hobuck.

Stuff Engineers Like #1

Ok, it was only a matter of time before I started blatantly ripping off Stuff White People Like . That website is just too awesome to not be copied. I have pondered the question of what engineers like, and now I am here to bring you the answer.

#1 - Spreadsheets

Many people use spreadsheets for work. I'd guess that accountants, bankers, people in marketing, etc. use them. But engineers don't just use them, they love them. They carry around the proverbial spreadsheet in their back pocket, the way their forefathers carried the slide rule. They use spreadsheets to keep track of their bills, their exercise regiments, their friends' birthdays! No task is so trivial that it couldn't benefit from a little spreadsheet action. Between Sean and I, we have spreadsheets for:

- budget
- current condo prices
- party guests for my upcoming boat party
- weather conditions for surfing at Westport
- song names & durations for boat party mix
- stock prices

I'm sure I have forgotten at least a couple here, but you get the gist. Next time you are talking to an engineer, mention that you think excel is the only Microsoft product that doesn't suck. If he/she is older than 35, add that you liked Lotus 1-2-3 better.

My Paper

Hey guys,

If you are ever having some trouble falling asleep, I finally got around to putting my paper up on the web. You can check it out here