It took nearly a year, but I finally got around to making a web page on one of the many Michigan servers that I have access to. Too lazy to create one from scratch, I simply took Anand’s and replaced his information with mine and changed the colors (with his permission, of course). So, without further ado, I give you…

http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~errhode

(As a warning, it’s not really anything special.)

Despite being completely hosed with final projects and exams, I took a break for an hour today as it was the last day of the John Lennon art exhibit in downtown Ann Arbor. (For those who weren’t aware, Thursday was the 25th anniversary of his death.) Only two of the art pieces were actually originals (and not for sale) — two drawings that were eventually included in In His Own Write. The rest of them… well, I’ll just copy the back of the program:

John’s primary medium was line drawing, either pen, pencil, or Japanese sumi ink. The limited edition artwork in this exhibition consists of lithographs, serigraphs and copper etchings hand reporduced from the original drawings. Each edition is limited and hand signed by Yoko Ono, and comes with a certificate of authenticity from the Lennon Estate guaranteeing that no more will be released. Also included are very rare Bag One lithographs, signed and numbered by John Lennon.

When I saw that there were prints for sale, I thought that perhaps I had found my father’s Christmas present… until I saw the prices that is. The cheapest print was an unframed copy of Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “Stepping Out” for $200. The most expensive was an unframed lithograph, signed by John, entitled “Bed in For Peace” for $20,000. (Lyrics to “Imagine” were $2500 unframed and $2900 framed.) In comparison, I have a book entitled Lennon Legend: An Illustrated Life of John Lennon that ran for $40 which includes reproductions of handwritten lyrics to “In My Life,” “Day Tripper” (for sale at the exhibit for $1600), “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Instant Karma” ($800 at the show), “Imagine,” “Beautiful Boy” ($1000 at the show), “Starting Over” ($1000) and reproductions of a number of his drawings. They’re not framed, and they’re not signed by Yoko, but I still think I got a much better deal.
Even though I couldn’t afford to buy any of them, it was still a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Beatles music was piping through speakers — and it was the first time I really got to hear it in stereo, with the speakers on opposite sides of the gallery. I had never realized that “Honey Pie” has this awesome call and response segment in which the vocal tracks alternate from one channel to the other until I heard it today. “She was a working girl, North of England way,” came from my left, “Now she’s hit the big time,” came from my right, and “In the USA,” came from my left again. It was a very cool way to experience Lennon’s art and music.

I just pulled my first all nighter (outside of Mystery Hunt, which is somehow different) since junior year when I was taking 6.170. I don’t remember it being this hard back then. I think I’m going to make a point to not repeat this. Except for during Mystery Hunt, of course.

Tonight at 5:30, my roommate offered me two tickets to tonight’s Michigan hockey game, as some friends of her parents had given them to her and she couldn’t use them. Unfortunately, at two hour’s notice I couldn’t find anyone else to join me, so I went alone to my first Michigan sporting event. Now despite having played hockey in college (and those really are my stats), I’m not enough of a hockey aficionado to give you a great retelling of the game. But the short version is something like this:
Michigan struck early in the first period with two goals before Boston College finally got one back. In the second period, each team scored once more putting the score at 3-2. With less than a minute left, a Wolverine in the penalty box, and Boston’s goalie pulled, the Eagles appeared to have scored on a power play and tied the game. Moans and groans went up around the crowd until the ref nulled the goal by calling a BC player for charging and putting him in the penalty box. The arena went nuts for the remaining ~30 seconds of the game as Michigan kept their opponents from scoring to earn the win. In general, Boston College was a faster, but smaller team and Michigan just seemed to overpower them, despite looking sloppy on a number of plays.
The actually hockey game aside, the most entertaining part of the evening was listening to the fans. My sister assures me that this is true at the other U of M, Minnesota, as well. (For what it’s worth, I couldn’t bring myself to sing Hail to the Victors — I’d still rather sing the Minnesota Rouser.) I wasn’t sitting in the student section, so I didn’t catch every chant, but I managed to catch enough of them and even figure out when to anticipate some of them. Most of them were variations on “You suck,” and directed at anyone on the ice who didn’t play for Michigan, but some of them were a little more surreal.

• “Who cares?” (chanted after the introduction of each Boston College player)
• “Ref, you suck, ref, you suck!” (chanted everytime a Michigan player got a penalty)
• “Ugly goalie, ugly goalie!” (chanted everytime the BC goalie removed his mask)
• “Ugly parents, ugly parents!” (chanted everytime the opponent scores)
• A ringing phone sound effect plays “Phone’s for you; it’s your mom. She says YOU SUCK!” (chanted everytime the ref made a bad call, according to the woman in front of me)
• “You just suck, you just suck!” (chanted whenever it threatened to get quiet, I think)

The most surreal call of the night…

• “Porno mustache, porno mustache” (I think this was directed at the ref, who didn’t seem to have a mustache, but I confirmed with the people sitting around me that that indeed was what they were saying.)

And my favorite call of the night…

• “You’re not a vaccuum, you’re not a black hole, you just suck!” (I’d like to think of this as the lalopez cheer.)

Well, I attempted to join a softball team tonight. Note the emphasis on attempted. CSEG (Computer Science and Engineering Graduate students organization… not to be confused with the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists… and no, I don’t know why it’s not CSEGSO) claims to have a team in the University of Michigan IM league. But only three people showed up tonight, including myself. And thus, we forfeited. The other team, at 15 strong, was kind enough to lend us some players and scrimmage, so at least I didn’t completely waste my trip out there. I don’t know if we’ll manage to scrounge up enough players for future games to work out or not.
Alas… it was a good try.
On another note, more of my friends should be pilots. More specifically, more of my friends should be pilots who fly into Ann Arbor on short notice and have a few hours to kill when they land.

I’ve started to get settled in my office at Michigan and I’ve discovered something mildly disturbing… the two machines set up for use are named “yankees” and “cardinal.” I’m guessing that somebody here doesn’t like the Red Sox, or at least wasn’t happy with the 2004 playoffs. One of my fellow grad students is going to bring another desktop and set it up and will likely be calling it “orioles” to continue the trend. (He’s from Maryland, so I can’t entirely blame him.)

One of the components of the summer math class I’m taking prior to actually starting the PhD program at the University of Michigan is a “research project” in our field, out of which we are to present some math. Since I’m the only computer science person in the program, they grouped me with the only electrical engineer in the program. The problem is, despite the fact that EECS is one department at Michigan (and MIT and a lot of places), they’re really two separate fields. So what kind of project does a CS student interested in AI and an EE student interested in bioengineering work on? Robotics, of course!
A few weeks ago, when we first met with our advisor, he introduced us to the topic of passive dynamic walking and a paper by Tad McGeer. There were some differential equations involved, so we thought we’d tackle the project. Then we (mistakenly) thought, “Hey, building one of these little walking robots seems easy. Let’s do it to make our project that much cooler.” Our first problem was that we tried to simply build a synthetic wheel, ignoring that line in the paper that said “Meanwhile an infintesimal shortening of the other leg will keep it clear of the ground…” But little legs of balsa wood do not spontaneously shrink (or grow). Our first try simply rocked back and forth until it tipped over.
We realized that our robot needed either knees (much more work than we wanted to do) or it needed to wobble slightly side to side. Our advisor found us another paper to look at — one with a very familiar second author, Teresa Zhang. I left the meeting and immediately called Breath to let him know that I was going to reference his girlfriend’s work. He was highly amused, and didn’t even seem to mind that I was calling him while he was at work. Once my partner and I developed a rough idea of how to make our robot wobble, I got Teresa herself on the phone and ran the idea by her. The good news was, while she thought we were being really ambitious, she didn’t think we were insane.
Toddler, the robot Teresa worked on with Russ Tedrake at MIT, has gotten pretty famous. Toddler also “learns” how to walk on different sources — something our robot isn’t even close to doing. We may not have put as much thought into the calculations as Teresa put into Toddler, but our little Teddler (named in honor of Toddler and the University of Michigan’s Department of Mathematics alumni Ted Kaczynski) waddles and walks down inclines fairly consistently. And for a little guy made mostly of balsa wood, Elmer’s glue, duct tape, and some washers, that’s pretty impressive. A 30 second (poorly lit) clip of him toddling down my new coffee table is here.

Living in a city for the past five years, I had forgotten just how badly skunks can smell. But the woods behind my current apartment complex are full of them. A few weeks ago, an apparently angry skunk released his stench just outside my window and it was so strong it actually kept me awake. Had it just been a one time odor, I would have been okay with it. But I’ve smelled skunk on average three or four times a week since moving here. However, it’s never been as bad as it is right now.
Walking outside to retrieve something from my car a few minutes ago, I heard some rustling in the trees. Suddenly, out wandered three relatives of Pepe Le Pew heading towards the pile of discarded furniture and trash from today’s many move-outs. Playing it cool, I attempted to avoid these furry fellows as much as possible. But the neighbor’s cat, who was apparently hanging out somewhere nearby, must have had other ideas. I had already passed them at this point, so I didn’t see what transpired next, but the result was a loud hiss, a terrified cat bolting across the lawn, and one heck of a hideous stench.
I usually enjoy the outdoors. Really, I do. But I’m not enjoying this one bit.

Recently, my apartment complex has started planning community events and announcing them on multi-colored flyers posted on bulletin boards that I generally ignore on my way upstairs. But as I checked my mail today, one of the announcements caught my eye:

New in July! Midnight Swimming on Fridays!

I thought that was a nice idea, given the recent heatwave we’ve been suffering through. But then I read the fine print below it:

Pool will remain open until 11 pm on Fridays in July.

So I’m confused — why call it “Midnight Swimming” if it’s not actually open at midnight?