I don't get e-mail

After spending the weekend at my grandparents' house to celebrate my mom's birthday, I am home. Waiting for me here was a package my friend Natasha sent me for Christmas. It came back to her when she sent it the first time, so she sent it again, and it arrived a couple of weeks ago. She got me some cool Vancouver 2010 swag (a sweater and a planner), some of her favorite pens, and some notebooks reppin' her college. It's too bad that they came so late, but I'm glad they didn't get lost in the mail.

Speaking of things getting lost in the mail, my current e-mail setup is not working, and I'm tired of it.

My personal e-mail account is one that I've been using for about 10 years now. Last year (actually, two years ago... jeez, it seems like last year), I had e-mail forwarding set up at my web host so that I could have a permanent and easy-to-remember address at my own domain name. That's all fine and good, but my e-mail provider's spam filters often bounce messages back to my web host, where they're kept in a "spam quarantine" for me to view and delete.

By not checking my spam quarantine religiously, I've missed out on correspondence from long-lost relatives, notifications from web sites, e-mail newsletters, plane ticket receipts that I needed to print out, and more. My e-mail provider thinks all of this is spam (probably in part because it's been forwarded through another server), and I don't have control over their spam filters... even though I'm paying $20 a year for their service. It's time for change.

I'd like to switch to an e-mail provider that meets the following requirements:

• I must be able to use my domain name with their service.
• Spam filtering must be very accurate, or I must be able to fine-tune it (or turn it off altogether).
• Must be cheaper than my current e-mail and forwarding costs of about $27 per year.
• Must have a POP server. (I prefer it to IMAP. I know, I'm a weirdo.)
• Not Google. (They already know what I search for; that's enough for them.)
• Not Microsoft. (I'm basically against everything they stand for.)
• Not my ISP. (I travel back and forth between home and school, ISPs get swallowed up by bigger ISPs, etc.)

I've come across a service that fits all of these requirements: it's Lavabit, which I think I had previously heard of (it used to be called Nerdshack). It was founded as a reaction to Google including targeted advertisements in Gmail. Or, as they put it on their history page, they "felt it was possible to create an e-mail service that was fast, reliable, feature rich and didn't achieve profitability by prostituting its user base to marketers." Their freedom-loving, no-nonsense philosophy is similar to my web host's. I like it.

Other perks are that they have an SMTP server; allow SSL connections to their POP, IMAP, and SMTP servers, as well as their webmail interface; and encrypt your e-mail on their servers if you have a paid account. I would have to have a paid account; they said I would have to have a $16/year personal account or a business account if I wanted to use my own domain name with their service. It's more than I'd like to pay, but it's less than I'm paying now.

I've been researching them online, and there are some criticisms of their service. Some people claimed that their support was limited. I can live with that, I guess. I think the benefits outweigh the costs. Has anyone else used their service? I'd be interested in hearing what people think. Unless somebody has a better suggestion, I'll probably sign up with Lavabit in a few days.

What do blind people see? The answer is more complicated than you might think, and there's hope for people with certain types of blindness. (Via The Presurfer)

In the past, I've considered using Amazon's online music store, but their downloader (which is required to get discounts on buying whole albums) is not free software. Now there's pymazon, a free replacement, so I might reconsider.

Back in the day, Soviet scientists tried to domesticate foxes. After 10 generations, the foxes were not only completely docile but also had colorings not seen in the wild. Humans may have domesticated dogs just as quickly.

A capital weekend

In my last post, I talked about how I went to Washington, DC last Friday. It was a big day. I rode in a limo, an airplane, and a train; I saw snow for the first time; and I almost literally rubbed elbows with a presidential appointee. You'll have to go back and read about it if you want the deets. At this point in the story, it's Saturday morning, and we're getting ready to go to Free Culture Conference 2010, which is what we went to Washington for.

The four of us set out with Gavin to George Washington University, which was only a few stops away on the subway. Unlike the University of Florida, GWU is an urban university with its city's street grid running right through it. We walked quite a few snow-covered blocks to get to the right building, which was at the edge of the campus. We got our first glimpse of the Washington Monument as we approached the building.

We arrived late. We checked in and got the t-shirts we had each bought upon registering for the conference. There were two designs to choose from. Mark, Kris, and Jennifer all chose one with a drawing with a pile of electronics and stuff, and I chose the other, which had the copyleft symbol.

All of the day's events were held in a particular lecture hall. First, some panelists were discussing net neutrality and similar issues. One of them was a guy from the FCC, which I thought was pretty interesting. I was still tired, and I was trying to warm up due to it having been extremely cold outside, but I tried to pay as much attention as I could. Next, there was a speaker who talked about fair use, an important but increasingly ignored part of copyright law. After that, there was another panel with speakers talking about open access, which I thought was especially interesting because I don't know as much about it as I do about other aspects of the free culture movement.

For lunch, the four of us followed Gavin and some other people to Potbelly Sandwich Shop, which is apparently a chain. This particular location was off Pennsylvania Avenue, just a block away from the White House. We were so close that I could get a glimpse of it. I wanted to steal away from the group for a little while to check it out, but I figured I wouldn't have time. I got a large sandwich and a cookie, which ended up being too much food. I ate it anyway, figuring I wouldn't have to eat as much for dinner.

Back at the conference, there was a keynote speaker, a panel about open educational resources, and then another keynote by Jonathan Zittrain, perhaps best known as the author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. (If that still doesn't ring a bell, he appeared on The Colbert Report to promote the book.) Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it to the conference, so he delivered his address via a video conference. I expected it to be boring since he wasn't actually there, but his presentation was easily the most entertaining. One of his main themes was to explore the different ways people have used the Internet to obtain information. At different times he brought up examples such as an old newsgroup posting, a Yahoo Answers question, and an Amazon Mechanical Turk task (all of which asked, "What's the difference between vanilla and French vanilla ice cream?"). And, like any good speaker, he answered questions at the end. It was as if he were actually in the room.

With that, the official events for the day ended, and we had some time to kill before the evening festivities. So the four of us decided to walk toward the Mall and see what we could see. It was really cold, and I didn't bring my gloves because they made it hard for me to use the camera that I borrowed from my dad.

It got dark by the time we reached the Washington Monument. After posing for some pictures there, we walked to the World War II Memorial, where we got a picture with Florida's pillar (which still had a bit of snow on it). It was very cold, and my hands were so cold that I felt like my thumbnails were going to pop off, but we continued toward the Lincoln Memorial, walking alongside the reflecting pool and trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) not to slip on the ice. The walk seemed to take forever. I actually saw some people walking on the pool, which had frozen over, and wondered if they had an easier time.

Finally, we made it to the Lincoln Memorial. It was lit up and still had a ton of snow on it. We made our way up the small section of the steps that had actually been shoveled.

You know how, in the movies, someone goes to the Lincoln Memorial and it's all quiet and there's no one around except for them and the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln, which somehow inspires them or gives them a chance to reflect on whatever they want to do? It's not like that in real life. I mean, there are other people there, so it kind of ruins any moment you might have. But it is pretty quiet. There are signs asking you to be quiet, and it really feels like a religious shrine to Abraham Lincoln, as if he were some sort of god or something. The place looks like a Greek temple, after all.

We wandered around a bit. I read the text of the Gettysburg Address, which was engraved on one wall. We also went to the gift shop. We wanted to have our picture taken in front of the statue of Lincoln, so we got someone to do it for us.

By then, everyone was really cold, so we decided to head toward George Washington University's student union, where the after-conference festivities would be held. Fortunately, we weren't too far away, and we were even early. The plan was that everyone would meet to go bowling, but no one was really there yet, so we went to the restaurant next to the bowling alley. There were a lot of TVs there, and there happened to be a Gator basketball game on. We got to cheer on our school for a few minutes and then watch them lose. Then we got some food. I got some chicken strips and fries, which also ended up being too much food.

After that, we made our way over to the bowling alley, where Gavin and some other people from the conference were bowling. I didn't feel like joining them, so I just hung out until everyone was done. Then we went back to Gavin's apartment with him.

On Sunday morning, the four of us left Gavin's apartment and set out back into Washington. We had considered attending the second day of the conference, but we would only have a few hours there, so we decided to do a little more sightseeing instead. It wasn't at all cloudy that day, so it was warmer and more pleasant.

We started by going to the White House, which, it turns out, is next to the Treasury. The Treasury is much larger and more imposing, but it's the White House that always has tourists in front of it. We were at the front of the building, which doesn't seem to be the side where most people have their pictures taken. It's a lot closer to the street, though, so we got some good pictures. Then we walked down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, passing by all the three-letter-acronym buildings (DoJ, FBI, EPA, FTC, IRS...). After what seemed like forever, we made it to the Capitol.

Before that, we were going through a parking lot in front of the capital. Since it was Sunday, there weren't many cars parked there. A Capitol police officer was hanging around in his car, waiting for us to jaywalk. We stuck to the crosswalk, though, so he went away. I guess they have nothing better to do when Congress isn't in session.

We got as close as we could get to the building, which wasn't very close since they had the staircases roped off. There was a police car up there too, right by that fountain. So we weren't very high up, but we had a great view of the field out in front and the Mall, which were still covered in snow. So, after taking a few pictures of ourselves there and seeing all that there was to see, we went around to the other side of the Capitol. On the way, I saw some people (kids, probably) sledding down Capitol Hill. I didn't think they would let you do that, but no one seemed to be stopping them.

We checked out the other side of the Capitol, and then made our way toward the Library of Congress, which the others wanted to check out. We had found out that it was closed on Sunday, so we couldn't go in, but we walked by it. From there, we went to the nearest subway stop and took the subway out to Greenbelt, Maryland, where we connected to a bus that took us to the Baltimore airport, where we arrived early for our pleasantly brief flight to the Orlando airport, where Kris had parked his car, in which we rode back to Gainesville, where Kris dropped me off at my apartment.

I wish I could have seen more stuff in Washington, but we were really there for the conference. I did get to see all the main touristy places and, for the first time in my life, snow. (It's wetter, colder, and icier than I imagined, but I like it.) The best part was that we'll be compensated for most of our expenses by UF's Student Government and by Students for Free Culture. Hopefully we'll be able to go on other trips in the future.

Check out my photos from the trip! They're posted on Facebook, but you don't need a Facebook account to view them. I was too lazy to include any of them here, although I know it would have gone a long way in breaking up the sea of text that is this post.

(Those of you with an eerily good memory may notice that this post's title is similar to one I used for another post about Washington, DC in January 2005. I think after five years I'm entitled to use it again.)

Many of Norman Rockwell's paintings were based on photographs that he staged. Here are some of them! (Via waxy.org)

There are some weird stadiums in the world. Here are twelve of them! (Via The Presurfer)

There are a lot of actions that demand the death penalty in the Old Testament. Here are all of them!

Mr. Kalilich goes to Washington

Last week, I mentioned that I'd be going to Washington, DC for the weekend to attend Free Culture Conference 2010 with other members of my school's chapter of Students for Free Culture. Well, I'm back, and here's how it went.

On Friday, I had to skip my classes and go into work early. It was raining, and I had brought a duffel bag with some warm clothes (and a camera) borrowed from my parents. As I waited for the bus, a pink Porsche SUV limo pulled up to the bus stop. One of the other people at the bus stop turned out to be in on it; she said our apartment was giving free rides to campus in the limo, presumably as a gimmick to get people to renew their leases. I was expecting to see a camera crew at any moment, like I'd end up in one of those commercials where they surprise random people by going to their house or whatever.

Anyway, we all got inside the limo, where they had granola bars, Rice Krispies treats, and bottles of water for breakfast. I expected to be lectured to about the benefits of renewing my lease, but nobody said much. It was kind of awkward, actually. The limo followed the route that the bus would have taken and dropped us off at the usual bus stop on campus. I thanked them for the ride.

After working at my job on campus, it was time to go. Kris, Jennifer, and Mark picked me up, and we drove to the airport in Orlando. It was the same airport that Mark and I flew to Europe from last year, so it brought back some memories. I didn't have much time to reminisce, though, because we were almost late. We hurried through everything until we made it past security, when we had a few minutes to get some food.

The flight was slightly delayed, but we got on eventually. I was seated between two people in the emergency exit row. It wasn't very comfortable, but I didn't mind much. I spent most of my time thinking about the trip and reading that day's issue of the Alligator. I didn't even get to finish it before we started our descent into Baltimore. I strained to look out the window. The clouds parted, revealing an endless, twilit landscape of barren trees and little neighborhoods covered in white. I had never seen snow before, and there it was—lots of it.

We landed at the airport. The runways had been cleared, but everything else was covered with a thick layer of snow. I became giddy. I didn't have much time to be giddy, though, because we were almost late. We hurried out of the airport to catch a bus to the nearest train station. We made the bus with a few minutes to spare, and then we made the train with a few minutes to spare. In the meantime, I did notice that the cold was a different, more tolerable kind of cold than what I was used to in Florida. It just felt like being inside a freezer. I guess there was no humidity.

The train took us to Washington's Union Station, where we took the DC subway out to Arlington, Virginia, where we met up with Gavin Baker, the founder of our chapter. He had graduated and moved to the DC area, and he let us stay in his apartment for the weekend. We made our way to the apartment (I also tried to run around in the snow and throw snowballs) and got settled in. Then Gavin took us back into DC to have dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant called Lalibela. Apparently there are a lot of Ethiopians and Ethiopian restaurants in the city.

It was a small place, and a lot of the table/booths were right next to each other. I was sitting on a bench next to another group of people. Still, it was pretty cozy, and Gavin had a suggestion for what to order. We got a communal dish consisting of some portions of various meats and vegetables served on a type of flat, doughy bread. We each had our own piece of flat, doughy bread, which we tore pieces off of and used to pick up the meats and vegetables. It was fun and delicious.

During the meal, Gavin surreptitiously showed us a Wikipedia article on his iPhone. He was almost certain that the guy I was sitting next to was Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer of the United States. I had read about him on some of my nerdy news web sites, so I was pretty pumped. I couldn't help but try to pick up on the conversation he was having. His friends were talking about his past job as CTO of DC and how he had been on the cover of a magazine. Definitely Vivek Kundra. We decided not to talk to him, though. More often than not, public figures want to be left alone.

We went right back to Gavin's, where we wound things down and went to bed. We had a couple of big days ahead of us tomorrow.

Speaking of going to bed, I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to continue this story next time. Soon, probably. In the meantime, here are some links:

Here's a spectacular NSFW animated short in which almost all of the scenery and characters are logos and mascots: Logorama. (Via waxy.org)

The webcomic xkcd is pretty funny, but I don't think anybody ever gets the punchline every time. Fortunately, we have Toby, Dave & Ian Explain XKCD, a blog in which the humor behind every comic is explained.

Photo woes

Okay, I can't remember everything I've ever done. Kate gently reminded me about one of the more interesting gifts she brought me during her stay. Remember how I said I was on the cover of an Esperanto magazine but I didn't have a copy of it? Kate brought two copies, one for me and one for my parents. Here it is:

The photo was taken at last year's International Youth Congress of Esperanto in Liberec, Czech Republic. From left to right are Esperantists from South Korea, Togo, Ukraine, and Vietnam. And then there's me.

Another postscript: When I got home after seeing Kate off, I noticed that the dry erase board on the refrigerator still had a Russian sentence that Kate had written. I took a picture of the board and then went to put the picture on my computer. But... the camera wouldn't read my memory card. My last memory card.

It had already stopped reading each the others, most recently a few days before. It was now official: I really needed a new camera. My beloved Sony DSC-P73 was a brick.

I had been wanting to buy a new camera for a while, but now I really have a good excuse. My ideal camera is a compact point-and-shoot with manual controls. Oh, and it has to take good pictures. I don't ask for much, you see. But it turns out that new lower-end point-and-shoots have done away with manual configuration entirely, leaving me with no choice but to jump up to the next price range.

I didn't want to get a Sony again because I knew how much they love pushing their own proprietary formats, particularly their Memory Stick storage format for cameras. My dad pointed out that some of their new cameras also accept SD cards, which have apparently become the standard while I've been busy fiddling with Memory Sticks.

That made me feel a little better, and knowing that Sony products tend to give you a lot of bang for your buck, I had a look at what Sony had to offer. The DSC-H20 and the DSC-HX5V caught my eye. I liked the former because it was cheaper and had already been released. I liked the latter because it was smaller, didn't have a lens cap, took SD cards, and shot higher-quality video (in stereo, yet).

I've decided to go for the HX5V, but apparently it's not coming out until the end of March. Till then, I am cameraless, which kind of sucks because... I'm going to Washington, DC this weekend!!

That's right. I'm the secretary of the UF chapter of Students for Free Culture, and we've decided (sort of at the last minute) to make the trek to George Washington University for the organization's Free Culture Conference 2010 this weekend. We'll be staying with Gavin Baker, the legendary founder of our chapter whom I've never met (apparently everyone else who's going has.

It won't be snowing, but it will have snowed, so it'll be the first time I actually see snow. (what jordan u've never seen sno? what is wrong with you, dont u ever travel in the winter?? its not like its incovenient or anything...) I'm pretty excited about that. I should have enough warm clothes, but I think I'll need boots or something to actually walk through the stuff.

If you have a car, you may be interested in this: How to Decode Your Car's VIN. (Via Lifehacker)

Scientology Sucks is a contest in which participants submit videos of themselves pranking the Scientology cult. The submissions should be posted online tomorrow, and the winners (as judged by the judges) will receive cash prizes.

Time capsule 2000

My weekend was pretty good. On Saturday, my sister and I went to visit our friend Kevin in Miami, which was overrun with New Orleans Saints fans who had come for the Super Bowl. We had a semi-fancy lunch at Perricone's and went to some less touristy places I hadn't been to before, including Simpson Park and the City Cemetery. We also met my sister's friend Jennifer, but we didn't have much time to hang out with her because we had to get back home for our friend Mark's party. Mark will be joining the Navy in a few days, so it was good to see him one more time before he goes out.

I got back to Gainesville yesterday evening. I missed most of the first half of the Super Bowl, and I was kind of bummed about that, but I don't really know why. It's not like I watch pro football the rest of the year, and I don't even like the commercials. Well, I like to think I don't, but I have a few favorites. I wasn't rooting for either team, but I arbitrarily bet my sister (for no money) that New Orleans would win 23-17. When they were trailing 17-16 at the end of the game and then got a touchdown, I was arbitrarily ecstatic, but then they went for two and got a pick-six, and the rest is history.

Ten years ago today, I joined Where's George?, a site for tracking where your dollar bills go after you spend them. I was heavily active during the first half of the 2000s, but my interest waned after that, and I haven't entered many bills into the system since then. I look fondly on WG as my first online community and the one I've participated in the most. I figured the least I could do would be to drop by and say hello on the forums, so I just did that, and I hope to hear back from some familiar faces... I mean, nicknames.

Speaking of things that happened ten years ago, my old school's time capsule should be opened soon.

In early 2000, when I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked me to write a message for a time capsule that our class would be making. So I wrote something like "People of the future, we are Mrs. Sgroe's fifth-grade class at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School in Pompano Beach, Florida..." Then she said that we would be making a contribution to the school's time capsule, so the extra details were unnecessary. She had me rewrite it with a couple of other people.

Later, we gathered in the school auditorium/cafeteria to seal the time capsule. But first, the principal opened the previous time capsule, which had been sealed in 1990. I don't think it was actually buried; I think it was just kept in a closet in the office or something like that. But it was probably for the better as the box contained some interesting finds: a Statue of Liberty foam hat, a Madonna poster from when she looked like Marilyn Monroe, some newspapers with articles about the cold winter of 1989-90, and a hand-designed t-shirt saying "We love the '80s, the '80s were the best!"

Oddly enough, I have no recollection of what anyone put in the new time capsule except for a picture of my class and the handwritten message. I guess the artifacts from the '90s were too banal for me to bother to remember. So when the faculty and students at St. Elizabeth-St. Joseph School, as it's now called, open that box in the office, it'll be a surprise for me and most everyone else.

(Well, I hope they still have the time capsule. The faculty suffered a large shake-up during the past decade, and it wouldn't surprise me if the new folks took their predecessors' old boxes of junk to the curb. That would suck.)

Wired writer Evan Ratliff tried to vanish. Here's an interesting article about his experiences forging a new identity and staying on the run from readers looking out for him.

A life worth remembering

I'm tired. When I'm tired, I don't want to do anything but sleep. It doesn't matter if I have to do homework or clean my room or whatever. Sleep wins almost every time, or else I don't feel good and I'm not fun to be around. (Andy, who traveled throughout Europe with me last summer, knows this. Let's give him a round of applause.) So I'll try to be brief.

On Sunday night, I got the horrible news that a girl I went to school with for many years had been killed. I was stunned. I'll be the first to say that I didn't know her very well, but I knew her for a long time. I went to pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school, junior high, and high school with her.

I just did a little fact-checking, as I like to do when I'm writing a post. I went through my pre-school yearbook (yeah, I have one) and found that she was in my sister's and my class. Now it's a little haunting to see the group picture. There we all are, captured for a moment in time. Who could have known back then her life would be cut short so soon?

She went to St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School from kindergarten through sixth grade. The memories from her last year stick out most for me. It's clear to me now that she wanted little more than to be liked. She had friends, to be sure, but I don't think she got the respect she deserved.

I didn't see her much when we went to Pompano Beach High School together. Probably the last time I talked to her was at a football game in my freshman year. Later, I heard that things were rough for her, although I'm not sure how much of what I heard was true. She gave birth to a daughter and loved her dearly.

In recent years, most of what I knew about her I gleamed from friends and from her Facebook page. Her "About Me" section began:

My name is Misha and before I get into anything you should know that you know absolutely nothing. No matter what you think, see, or heard, you no absolutely NOTHING about me...

I thought it was funny at the time, but it's true. I really didn't know her. So in a way, it might seem odd that I'm going on about this terrible thing that happened, but she was almost always a small part of my life. She was always there, and then, suddenly, she wasn't. It definitely has made me think about how it could happen to anyone at any time.

Misha had recently moved to Louisiana. According to some news articles and her obituary, she pulled over on the highway to check on another driver who had just been involved in a hit-and-run crash. After walking over to the other car, she herself was hit by a passing car whose driver has not yet been found.

I'm home now (that's how I have access to my pre-school yearbook; I don't carry it around with me at all times). I'm home because my friend Mark is joining the Navy, and he invited my sister and me to his going-away party, which is tomorrow. Misha's funeral and a candlelight vigil are also tomorrow.

I would like to go to the vigil if I can, but if not, I've at least been reminded about how fragile life can be and what a good example Misha was for all of us. In spite of all she had been through, she stayed strong and still went out of her way to a good deed that unfortunately led to her untimely death.

That wasn't brief, but I think it was just right.

Kate's visit, part five

I was tired on Monday night, the 18th, but Kate had been wanting to jam with me and Andy. She had brought sheet music for a couple of songs—"Sunshine of Your Love" and "Tears in Heaven"—and we played them in Andy's room. Kate played Andy's keyboard, Andy played his bass, and I played my guitar. Kate also sang on "Sunshine of Your Love."

The next day was the Kate's last full day with me. She and I had Krishna lunch on campus again. After lunch, she spent a while in one of the computer labs making arrangements for the last leg of her trip, a few more days in New York. Later, she joined me for my Databases class.

In the evening, Andy, Kate, and I had a good video chat with Kate's French-Canadian friend. We mostly used Esperanto, but we slipped into English sometimes because her friend was more of a beginner. After that, Kate said her goodbyes to Andy in case we didn't get a chance to see him in the morning.

Later, I tried figuring out how we would get to the Greyhound station by bus (it's conveniently not located along a bus route). After much frustration in trying to figure out the best combination of buses, which would have taken at least an hour and a half anyway, Kate suggested that we call for a taxi.

Kate woke up at 6:15 on Wednesday, January 20. Her alarm woke me up, but I lay in bed for a while, trying to go back to sleep. At 7:00, I got up and prepared her usual breakfast of bread and cheese. Even though she was packing her things frantically, I thought we would be late for our cab, which was arriving at 7:30. But somehow, she managed to pull it off, and we were early. She got another chance to say goodbye to Andy, and we went outside, where the taxi was waiting for us.

It was cold and foggy, and I couldn't remember the last time I was out that early. The drive to the bus station seemed very long. It was essentially a drive across town through some minor streets. Along one of the streets were statues of the planets in planetary order. I hadn't seen them since my visits to Gainesville as a child, and since I had moved here to go to college, I had always wondered where they were.

The cab driver made small talk, asking how we knew each other and what Kate thought of the country and things like that. I didn't really feel like answering questions, but I did my best. After all, being a taxi driver has to be one of the most boring jobs. At one point, he got a call on his cell phone, apparently from his son. "Not now," he said, "Daddy's got people in the car." I didn't ask him about it.

Finally, we arrived at the bus station. I had never been to a Greyhound station before. It was pretty much a large room with a ticket desk, some rows of benches, and a few other people. It didn't look fancy, but I should have expected as much. We were about a half an hour early, so I sat next to Kate for the last time, away from the TV that was competing for my attention.

We exchanged words. I could see the tears coming down from her eyes. I was starting to get emotional too. This was it.

The bus came. We shared one last kiss, and she got on.

She sat by the window where I could see her. I fought back tears. But she smiled.

She smiled, and I smiled back. The bus moved forward. I followed it through the parking lot until it stopped at the street. She smiled at me again.

The bus turned right and drove away.

I walked the other way, toward the nearest major road, where I could hopefully catch a bus to campus. Cars zoomed past me. It was still kind of cold.

I saw Firpo's, a diner that we used to go to when I visited Gainesville as a kid. At least, it used to be Firpo's. It was something different now.

Not far away was my bus stop. According to the bus schedule that was posted there, I had missed the bus by five minutes and would have to wait 55 minutes for the next one. I decided to keep walking instead.

One of my pet peeves is when people treat walking as a last resort, a mode of transportation for only the most destitute and desperate—worse, even, than riding the bus. People are always oddly fascinated if I tell them I spent more than 15 minutes walking to get somewhere, as if using my legs as nature intended were something I should be ashamed of. But what could be more beneficial? It's good exercise, it's entertaining, and you're actually getting something done.

So, I kept walking. I had never seen this part of town. It looked like a lot of other parts, with gas stations, small strip malls, and even some neighborhoods. I passed by a historic house. I had never heard of it, but it was apparently one of the oldest in the city, dating from before the Civil War. I never would have been able to read the historical marker if I were in a car or a bus.

I kept walking. On the opposite side of the road, there was a real estate agent's office with a marquee in front. I expected it to say something about houses, but it said:

LET GO OF
WHAT EVER HOLDS
YOU BACK

Walking further, I made it to University Avenue and started walking toward campus. This was the way I had walked with Kate when I first met up with her 12 days ago, and now I was making the same walk alone.

I made it to campus and to the building where I work. I had been walking for a little less than an hour. The sun had come up some more, but it was still early for me; I wasn't supposed to be at work for another hour. But I got started early.

My room seems quiet and empty without Kate here. All of her stuff is gone except for a few things that now decorate my room: the monthly calendar of St. Petersburg, a few more yearly calendars printed on single sheets of paper, a New York City subway map, a tiger-shaped bag containing coins from around the world, and a couple of record albums: a Soviet Beatles compilation album called A Taste of Honey and Paul McCartney's Снова в СССР.

On my desk, she left a sticky note that she had written on early in her stay. It reads:

Life is a movie
without
a happy end.

Kate's visit, part four

Kate, Andy, and I got bus tickets to South Florida for Friday, January 15. My last class ended at 3:50, and the bus would leave from campus at 4:30, so I packed some clothes and other necessities in my backpack and carried them around with me throughout the day. After my class, Kate met up with me, and we found Andy at the parking lot where the buses were.

We got comfortable in the back row, which conveniently had three seats and inconveniently was next to the restroom. The bus got off to a late start, so we laughed and joked in Esperanto to pass the time. In fact, we spoke Esperanto during the whole bus ride, to the probable confusion of those who anyone who was trying to listen. (I doubt anyone was. Everyone turned on, tuned in, and dropped out.)

We got off at Pompano Beach, where my parents were waiting to pick up me and Kate. One of the first things we did when we got home was make some tea for Kate. I wasn't even sure if my parents would have any tea, but they did, so that was good. It was already late by then, so after making plans for the weekend, we just went to bed. My sister had let Kate sleep in her room, which was very nice of her. (Thanks, Kristen!)

On Saturday, we got off to kind of a slow start, which was fine by me. But it was going to be kind of a big day. There's a lighthouse near my home, and it's only open to the public a few days a year. I had never been there. As it happened, they were giving tours on Saturday, so my mom took Kate and me to the waterfront hotel where tour boats were departing. Soon, we were heading down the Intracoastal, on our way to the lighthouse.

I thought there would be a guided tour, but after a guide talked about the statue of Ed Hamilton, the barefoot mailman of local lore, we were left to just wander around. There wasn't a lot of space for wandering, though. There were a couple of cottages that were off-limits because they were being used as vacation homes for Coast Guardsmen and their families, apparently. That pretty much left the lighthouse.

Of course, we wanted to go up to the top, but the lighthouse had a maximum capacity of about twelve people, so we had to wait a while first. Finally, we were allowed to enter, and we made our way up the narrow spiral staircase. Soon, we were on the observation deck just below the light. It was extremely windy up there, but in spite of that, we managed to stay a little while and take some photos. I tried a couple of panoramas. This one turned out better (click for huge version). The boat in the corner is a nice touch, if I do say so myself.

After a while, we made our way down to the ground. One of the Coast Guard Reserve people hanging around the entrance saw that I was wearing a Beatles shirt, and we had a little conversation about the Beatles. The lighthouse people took our photo, and they said they'd put it in the next issue of their newsletter.

There wasn't much left to do, so we planned to take the next tour boat back to the hotel. We asked one of the lighthouse people when the next one was coming, and he said it would come at 3:30. In the meantime, we sat on the beach. Although we tried to be early for the boat, we ended up missing it because it was even earlier. Instead of waiting an hour for the next one, we decided to walk to the nearest public beach.

Our walk took us through the ritzy community next to the lighthouse. It was filled with people playing golf, tennis, and yes, croquet. After that, it wasn't a very long walk. It was cloudier and windier by the time we arrived. We had two beach towels with us; we sat on one and I covered myself up with the other. Kate didn't think it was cold, so that worked out well enough.

After that, my mom picked us up and took us home. Kate gave my parents a gift; it was another calendar with some spectacular scenes of St. Petersburg. Kate then used Google Earth to show us some of the places she's lived in and visited. After we had a dinner of steak, Kate took a dip in the pool while I watched from a safe distance. I've tried to go swimming in the winter, and it is just not fun. Again, Kate didn't think it was very cold.

On Sunday morning, Kate got to experience a Kalilich Sunday brunch, complete with waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, bagels, and probably other stuff (I think Kate had bread and cheese). It was a big meal for a big day. Kate had wanted to visit the Museum of Art and the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, and Andy had said that his aunts would treat him and us to dinner in the evening.

Before we left for our big day out, I tried to get my photos off my camera and onto my dad's computer. "Tried" was the key word. My trusty memory card, the one I had used throughout most of my camera's life, was corrupted and unreadable. I remembered Magic Rescue, which I reviewed here a year and a half ago, and installed it on my dad's Ubuntu machine (I didn't have my computer with me for once). Magic Rescue recovered 67 of the 72 files. After that, I resigned myself to using my last good memory card, capable of holding a whopping 8 (yes, eight) photos.

We went to the Museum of Art first. They happened to have an exhibition of Norman Rockwell's artwork, which I figured would be good for Kate to see: what could be more American? There were a lot of his earlier works, and also some well-known later works such as Triple Self-Portrait and The Problem We All Live With. There was also a huge wall with every one of his Saturday Evening Post covers.

We proceeded to the rest of the museum, which was more modern and less traditional, and after that, we went to the Museum of Discovery and Science, which was just a few blocks away. I had fond memories of going there as a little kid, so it was fun to go back. It was full of little kids running around everywhere, though.

Kate had wanted to go to the museum's IMAX theater, but the showings were all sold out, so we just checked out the museum. They must change it up periodically because I hardly recognized anything at all. Still, it was fun to see all the exhibits about marine life, space, geology, and so on. There was a section of the museum devoted to brain teasers. I solved the Towers of Hanoi puzzle with six discs. I wouldn't have known how to do it if I hadn't learned about a recursive solution in one of my previous programming classes.

After going through two museums, we were pretty tired, so we sat by the New River and then went over to Riverwalk, a shopping area by the river. That's when Andy came to pick us up. The three of us went to Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, where we would have dinner with two of Andy's aunts. (The preceding statement should not be taken to imply that Andy has more than two aunts; in fact, I don't know how many he has.)

We ate at an Italian restaurant called Da Leo Trattoria. One of Andy's aunts, the one who lived in Miami, told me about how she and everyone in her office would read my blog over the summer to find out what Andy and I were up to in Europe. From the blog, she already knew about Kate, and she said she felt as if she already knew her.

The food was very good, and so was the dessert. I was actually the only one who didn't order dessert, but after the waiter gave everyone else their desserts, he inexplicably had a slice of Key lime pie left over and asked if I wanted it. How do you say no to that?

After dinner, we thanked Andy's aunts for treating us to dinner. Andy drove Kate and me to South Beach and then went to his aunt's place for a little while. Kate and I pretty much spent the whole time sitting on the beach. It was pitch dark, and there weren't many people around, but there were a lot of flickering lights from boats on the water.

Later, Andy picked us up took us home. Thanks, Andy!

On Monday, we got off to another late start, I think because I was taking a long time to pack my things (even though I had hardly brought anything). My mom drove us to Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, where we had about twenty minutes to walk around and see the River of Grass before we had to go to the rest stop on the highway where the bus would pick us up.

At the rest stop, we met up with Andy. The bus came and whisked us away to Gainesville. It was a newer bus than the previous one; the back seat spanned the whole width of the bus, which was more than enough room for us all to be comfortable. The bus ride, of course, took forever, but it didn't seem quite as long as before.

It was a national holiday, so there would be no local bus service to take us back to our apartment from the bus stop on campus. Andy called ahead for a cab, and it arrived right after we did. By the time we got back to the apartment, it wasn't late, but I was tired, so I didn't think we did very much.

Congratulations for reading this far. Here's a link: The Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Greatly Simplified. It's a sort of crazy flowchart.

Kate's visit, part three

It was Tuesday, January 12. (I'm really falling behind here.) I went to work/school, and Kate met up with me for lunch. We had the infamous/not-really-infamous Krishna Lunch, served on the Plaza of the Americas outside my workplace, Peabody Hall. Fortunately, Kate liked the food.

After lunch, Kate sat in on my classes. First, there was Numerical Analysis (<sarcasm>fun!</sarcasm>), and later, Databases. Kate actually works with databases and stuff like that, so as the professor was giving a lecture on the basics of SQL, Kate told me that she could probably give the lecture herself. I wouldn't doubt it.

Tuesday evening was our Esperanto Club meeting in which we would introduce a real Esperanto speaker from an exotic land. I invited 100 people on Facebook, and only one showed up. I blame myself for not promoting the event more, but I didn't promote it very much because I didn't have enough time to reserve a room. So I blame myself for not reserving a room before winter break, although I'm not sure if that was possible, so maybe I shouldn't beat myself up over it. Anyway, the show went on, and we explained to the one guy there how Kate learned and had used Esperanto.

I think it was that night that Kate gave Andy and me a primer on the Russian alphabet. Andy was interested in learning Russian (or maybe just the alphabet, I'm not sure), so we went over the vowels and then the consonants. It took a while—there are a lot of them, and Andy and I were struggling to pronounce some of them. I thought it might be hard to learn a new alphabet, but surprisingly, in the weeks that have followed, I've been able to sort of pronounce Russian words that I see.

On Wednesday, Kate got ready in time to go with me to work and class. Wednesdays are kind of frantic for me this semester, so we grabbed a quick lunch at the KFC Express on campus. Kate didn't really like the food, but I could have guessed as much. I'm glad she tried it, anyway. After that, she sat in on my other classes, Software Engineering and Accounting.

We stayed on campus for dinner because Kate was interested in attending a lecture. We ate at Pollo Tropical at the Reitz Union, and she loved it, which made me happy. (Wikipedia has some bare facts on Pollo Tropical for those of you unfortunate enough not to be graced by its presence within a reasonable distance.) After that, we went to the presentation. A professor from UC Irvine talked about the history of criminal identification technologies, including the rise of fingerprinting and then DNA.

On Thursday, I had my weekly lunch with my sister. We eat at a different place each week, and this week, it was Moe's. She brought along her friend Nathalie, and I, of course, brought Kate. We didn't have much time, but Kate and my sister chatted it up.

Kate had been wanting to take an official tour. She had looked into it and said that there would be one starting at 2:00, so we hurried over to the Welcome Center after lunch. I was going to be late for Numerical Analysis, and I wasn't sure if they gave tours to non-prospective-students, but I thought we should give it a shot. When they asked about her potential relationship to the university, I just told them that she was a junior computer-science major at PBCC looking to transfer, and when asked why I was doing most of the talking for her, I just said her English wasn't very good (even though it is, I hasten to point out). We had to give her contact information, so I wrote a fake address, and we hurriedly parted ways: my class had just started, and her tour had just started.

Later, while I was at work, she said she had gotten lost from the tour group and would meet me at my Databases class. So she met me there, and afterward, we had a little bit of time to grab coffee (well, she grabbed coffee and I helped her drink it). After that, we went to the Gator Freethought meeting. Kate had asked about any student organizations she might be interested in, so I suggested Gator Freethought, which promotes science, skepticism, and critical thinking. The topic of the meeting was logical fallacies, which I thought was kind of interesting, but the discussion was pretty chaotic, so I wasn't sure how much of it Kate could follow.

So that was Thursday.

Back to the present for a moment. Today (well, yesterday, since I'm writing this after midnight) I found out that J.D. Salinger had died.

I first read The Catcher in the Rye in my freshman year of high school. It was influential on me, as I noted at the time:

(As a side note, my writing may seem unusually informal today. That's because I have to read The Catcher in the Rye for English, and it's written in very informal speech. It's a good book, if you really want to know. I was actually reading it today while I was waiting for about five hours for my sister to get off the lousy computer. I was that much into the darn book. I mean it.)

Ha ha. I didn't say "damn."

Anyway, The Catcher in the Rye instantly became one of my favorite books, and it's one of the few that I still reread with any regularity. In fact, I was just thinking of picking it up again the next time I go home, which will probably be soon. After recent re-readings, I've wondered whether I can still identify with Holden Caulfield. I'm older than him now, after all, and I'm in college. Who's to know? I guess I'll have to keep reading to find out.

The Onion has responded to the news in the style of The Catcher in the Rye: Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger. It actually works well if you think about it.

Kate's visit, part two

Let's continue this story.

Sunday, January 10, got off to a slow start. I hadn't been online much in the past few days, so I was surprised to hear that Ocala and other relatively nearby cities had recorded snow. Gainesville didn't get so much as a flake.

On my list of places to visit was the Florida Museum of Natural History, located next to the Harn Museum of Art, where we had gone the day before. This time, we made it a group thing, with Andy's dad driving Kate, Andy, and me to the museum.

I had been looking forward to seeing the museum's butterfly garden, which is probably the star attraction of the whole place. I hadn't been there since 2005, before I even considered enrolling at UF. I remember my first visit fondly, but apparently I didn't actually like it that much. I noted at the time that I

could see butterflies flying around everywhere and stuff. Some were small, some were big, some were bright, dark, old, young, whatever. But there were a whole lot of them. I wasn't at ease with the whole situation. Butterflies and colleges scare me.

This time, the weather meant that our trip to the butterfly garden was kind of a bust. The plants were all covered up due to the cold. Also, the butterflies were going into quasi-hibernation, said a random worker who was so bored that she decided to act as a tour guide for us. They were just lying around on the ground. She would pick one up and open its wings to show us, but some of them broke when she did that. They were dead.

To make up for the freezing-cold walk through the covered garden with dead butterflies lyin' all over the place, they let us go into the Rearing Lab, where the butterflies (and moths, to be politically correct) are reared. It was there we encountered the mighty Atlas moth, the world's largest. I remembered seeing one during my last visit, but I think it was a specimen. In the lab, there were a few just hanging out, and one was flying around. You could hear its wings flap. It was intense.

One of the guys at the rearing lab gave us some fun behind-the-scenes facts. He said they were keeping a lot of the butterflies and moths in the lab instead of letting them go out into the butterfly garden, where they might freeze to death. In lieu of fruit, many of them fed on sugar from Q-Tips soaked in—what else?—Gatorade.

After going to the museum, Andy's dad treated us to dinner at Olive Garden. Kate seemed to like it, so that was good. I think it was a lot of food for her, so she took her leftovers home and I helped her finish them later.

The next day was Monday. Kate wasn't ready by the time I had to go to work, so she decided to stay behind and meet me on campus for lunch. When lunchtime rolled around, she said she wouldn't be able to make it (I think she was catching up on sleep), so she agreed to meet me when I got off of work. That would have been all fine and good, except I had to stay late because I'd just received the files for the new Multicultural and Diversity Affairs web site, and they had to go up that day.

So Kate met me at work while I was working late and got to see some of the typical things I do. She works with databases and programming and stuff like that, so it wasn't unfamiliar to her. I was worried that she would be bored though, so we looked up things to do. It turned out that they were going to screen The Invention of Lying at the student union, so we decided to go to that. On the way there, I called my friend Natasha to wish her a happy birthday.

I liked the movie, and so did Kate. After that, she got an ice cream cone, and I helped her eat it while we were waiting for the bus home.

Kate actually posted this link on my Facebook page a while back. It's a quiz called "Can You Guess Where My Accent Is From?" See if you can beat my score of 23.

Here's a CPU-hungry but cool Flash animation about planetary orbits. (Via The Presurfer)