Last night, and into today, Rochester was hit by the big storm that came across the US. Like many places, this weather came in the form of ice. RIT canceled classes. So I have spent most of today grading (as I did yesterday). I’m almost caught up. I did manage to sneak out for a bit and take a few pictures. The one above is of the Hawthorn tree in our front yard. I hope the plants that we added this past summer survive this weather event.

For the first time in quite a while, I’m not being deluged with spam comments. Up until this point, on an average day, this blog received upwards of 20 cybersex/weight-loss/gambling/loan offers masquerading as user comments. Since the move yesterday to the new URL (http://www.waking-dream.com/blog”) nothing new has come through. I wonder how long it will take for spammers to update their databases.

It also just occurred to me that all of my RSS feeds are now broken. Though, actually, I’m not sure if they ever worked correctly. One of the great things about this reskinning project is that I’ve finally taken the time to really pull the Wordpress engine apart.hI have a much better understanding of how it works and how it can be tweaked. And that provides me with new insight into finally getting a number of Wordpress plugins to work.

In other news, its the first day back here at RIT after the mid-quarter, winter break. And sadly, I’m still grading.

In terms of the PhD hunt, I’ve received confirmation now from NYU that they have all of my components. Now the waiting officially begins.

Ok quick review on things:

Done Items:

• applications for PhD programs - Check. Cornell, NYU, and Columbia are all in. I just confirmed that Cornell has all my materials. So things are good there.
• redesign for Wordpress - Check. Things seem to finally be holding together and the Frank Cost youTube isn’t blowing the page out anymore. I also upgraded Wordpress. I have to say that, plus the new version of Firefox is a great combination (in particular FireFox’s built in spell checking).
• Finally, got the PS2 hooked up again and rocked out with Guitar Hero. Drea rocked to. We rocked hard. Thanks again Aaron.

Mostly Done Items

• grading - all but caught up.
• revised CV/Resume - one last edit to go.
• filing the past few month’s mail - just about there.

Still to do

• Finish writing and uploading the rest of the website.
• Revise my thesis for the next round of publications tries.
• Get consulting gigs up and running.
• Work on wiki research.
• Get back on exercise program.

Still, Aught-Seven is off to a good start.

As you can see there’s a bit of redesign going on. My goal is to get the site simpler and faster loading. I’m also going to be adding some additional content soon. So please, let me know what you think.

Things are moving along. The application to Cornell is in. NYU and Columbia go in tomorrow. Rock and roll.