Weekend To-Do List

• Go to bank, grocery, Target
  
• Write down phone numbers
• Go to library
• Shovel sno
• Pay bills
• Review checklists
• Write down books
• Pack
• Gather paperwork
• Fix Erin's headlight
• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Write cranky letter to US Federal
• Secret item
• Weigh backpacking items
• Clean up living room
• Work on trip photos
  
• Fix plant stand
• Make pouch for bus pass
• Hassle elected officials about health care, partisanship
  
• Clean off table
• Run
  

Trip Report Shout-Out

I love outdoor adventures, and for the past few years, I've written up detailed trip reports afterwards, with lots of photos. I just completed updating them all to my new visual design. I'm quite proud of these reports (many of which I co-wrote with my lovely wife, Erin) — to be blunt, I haven't seen better trip reports anywhere on the Internet. I now have 14 reports published, with 1,384 photos. So if you have some time, take a peek and let me know what you think. Here's the link:

http://reidster.net/trips/

I also have begun to put together some how-to notes (e.g. gear checklists), which are on the same page.

The above photo is from my latest adventure, this one 9 days in the Grand Canyon backcountry. Report to follow.... :)

Weekend To-Do List

• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Write cranky letter to US Federal
• Secret item
• Clean out e-mail
• Weigh backpacking items
• Clean up living room
• Work on trip photos
  
• Blog post about trip
• Washington job app
  
• Fix plant stand
• Make pouch for bus pass
• Hassle elected officials about health care, partisanship
  
• Call 1-800 Contacts about price match
• Clean off table
• Watch the Obama video
• Date night with Erin
• Go to grocery
• Run
• Update trip reports

Weekend To-Do List

• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Write cranky letter to US Federal
• Secret item
• Clean out e-mail
• Weigh backpacking items
• Clean up living room
• Go to library
• Update old trip reports to new format
• Add ads to blog (ugh - damn that's ugly)
  
• Work on trip photos
  
• Blog post about trip
• Do some work
• Play Plants vs. Zombies
• Fix plant stand
• Make pouch for bus pass
• Hassle elected officials about health care
• Salt/sand sidewalks (no need)
  
• Shovel if needed
• Order contact lenses
• Do laundry
• Clean out Google reader
  

Why You Should Avoid US Federal Credit Union

I'm a customer of US Federal Credit Union. Today, I opened a letter from them dated January 6 (I've been out of town for a couple of weeks), explaining that:

Effective Wednesday, January 27, 2010, the US Federal Credit Union ATM located in the McNamara Alumni Center ... will no longer be in service.

This seems to be the final chapter in the demise of credit union service for the University of Minnesota community. Let me tell you a story.

I came to the U in late 2001. I chose to bank with the University of Minnesota Federal Credit Union. They rocked. Why? First, they treated me like a human being. Second, they gave me a very nice auto loan when TCF laughed in my face (and rolled their eyes vigorously when I told them why TCF turned me down). Third, they were located extremely conveniently right in the middle of campus in Stadium Village. I was happy.

Fast-forward to early 2007. The UMFCU membership was asked to vote on merging with US Federal. I voted no, but the measure passed. On April 1, UMFCU disappeared and everything was re-branded US Federal. Aside from the now-rather-corporate look and feel, so far so good.

Then, US Federal torpedoed the Stadium Village branch. (I don't recall the exact date, but I believe this was sometime in 2009.) WTF? The "closest" branch was now in South Minneapolis, near Lake & Hiawatha. Note that I don't ever bring a car to campus (and this is very common among the University community). The Minneapolis branch is a moderate detour when I'm biking to work, but it's not in a neighborhood where I like to lock my bike outside, and when I'm bussing it would burn an hour to stop in. This wouldn't be so horrible because there was still an ATM on campus, except it didn't take deposits. Banking went from extremely convenient to a major chore.

Now, they are removing the ATM too. The closest alternatives appear to be somewhere in Prospect Park ("just blocks" from the existing ATM according to the letter, but it's actually a full mile) and at Bullwinkle's at Seven Corners on the west bank. Neither takes deposits.

The bottom line is, US Federal Credit Union either doesn't want business from University of Minnesota people or is so utterly clueless about the University community that it appears so. I encourage you to immediately close your accounts and take your business elsewhere. If you wish to make your displeasure known, write to:

Bill Raker, President/CEO
US Federal Credit Union
1400 Riverwood Drive
Burnsville, MN 55337
bill.raker@usfed.org

(As an aside, I also discovered that back when the merger happened, savings accounts were silently converted to a type carrying life insurance, for a fee of course. This garbage was "disclosed" in the fine print - clearly designed to discourage people from realizing they are paying for a service they don't need and thus opting out. Again, more customer-hostile behavior.)

I find this situation particularly amusing in light of US Federal's "Statement of Commitment to Members", which reads in part: "We will uphold our fundamental responsibility to actively serve the many communities within our field of membership. We will treat all members with respect and dignity.... [W]e will continuously improve and communicate our services in a meaningful way.... The credit union ideal is to extend service to all who need and can use it."

Sadly, I do not have any suggestions on alternatives. Certainly, you don't want to deal with TCF, the monster bank that the U is in cahoots with. Any such suggestions would be most welcome in the comments.

Northrop Auditorium

Weekend To-Do List

Long weekend! Lots of stuff to do.

• Register for "classes"
• Apply to schools - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  
• Shovel sno - 1x 2x 3x
  
• Clean out e-mail
• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Fix plant stand
• Order "Christmas" presents
• Sort/blog photos from the past week
• Fix Thermarest(s)
• Repair and test camping stoves
• Test filter
• Put together chlorine dioxide kit
• Make pouch for bus pass
• Inquire about returning photo map
• Send note to trip members
• Do trip tasks
• Write eBay feedback
• Fix snow shovel
• Celebrate Christmas with Erin
• Play Plants vs. Zombies
• Complain about bonehead lawyer
• Exercise
  

Incoming!

Here's the current Minneapolis weather forecast from wunderground. Hmmmmm.

	Tonight Snow. Snow accumulation around 4 inches. Lows around 25. East winds 10 to 15 mph.
	Thursday Snow. Snow accumulation of 5 to 6 inches. Highs around 30. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph.
	Thursday Night Snow. Areas of blowing and drifting snow. Snow accumulation of 6 to 7 inches. Lows 25 to 30. Northeast winds 15 to 20 mph.
	Christmas Day Snow. Areas of blowing and drifting snow. Snow accumulation of 3 to 4 inches. Highs around 30. Northeast winds 15 to 20 mph.
	Friday Night Snow. Snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Storm total snow accumulation of 19 to 21 inches. Lows around 20. North winds 10 to 15 mph.
	Saturday Cloudy with snow likely. Snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Total snow accumulation 20 to 25 inches. Highs around 25. Chance of snow 70 percent.
	Saturday Night Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of snow. Lows around 15.

Olympia Trip

Last weekend, we flew up to Olympia, Washington to visit my granny. My mom met us there. Here are some pics.

Erin at the "Beach House" on Steamboat Island, where my Granny Lou and Papa Frank lived when I was growing up. One of my favorite places.






Dinner at the beach house: my mom, aunt Zina, Granny, cousin Darby, cousin Bridgette, me, wife Erin.

Weekend Imbecile Report

Last night I heard a loud "crunch" and looked outside to see some unidentified junk hanging off the rear bumper of the rental truck that's been parked next door for the past week. Then, a gray sedan with the passenger door missing backed into view and drove away.

I went outside to find our neighbor, Tim, on the phone with the police and so I went around the corner a bit to see if he'd stopped close by (he didn't).

Indeed, someone had (a) crashed into a parked object, (b) left their passenger door hanging of that object's bumper, and then (c) driven away.


A few minutes after the cops arrived, I overheard them saying that they'd found the car but not the driver, and there was blood in the car.

Frankly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people whose behavior is so incredibly stupid. I hope they found the guy. I wonder if the car was stolen and that's why he ran.

The truck was bent up a bit, but probably not enough to merit any repairs.

Incidentally, this image was 2.5-3 stops underexposed and I managed to recover the above. I'm pretty impressed.

Weekend To-Do List

• Reboot
  
• Work on trip stuff
• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Fix plant stand
• Blog/sort zoo pics, Olympia pics, truck pics
  
• Order battery
• Order Christmas presents
• Profile schools & send to reccommenders
  
• Go to REI, Ax-Man, grocery store
  
• Clean out e-mail
• Phone calls
• Go to library
• Dry spaghetti sauce
• Shoe goo Erin's boots
• Shovel sno
• Take out trash
• Do dishes
• Exercise
  

Grad Student Review

Every year, the CS department does a performance review for each of its Ph.D. students. Here's mine.

We are very pleased with the quality of your work and with the pace of your progress. We want to congratulate you and encourage you to continue doing such an excellent job. We especially note the unusual and significant achievement of having originated and led the development of Cyclopath, a system that has (a) earned significant real-world usage, (b) resulted in deep collaborations with local government and non-profits, including a sizable grant from the Metropolitan Council, as well as (c) serving as a platform for carrying out excellent research. We also note the unusual and significant leadership role you have taken on the Cyclopath project, engaging in extensive informal and formal mentoring of less experienced students as well as doing large amounts of software project management. We understand that this work certainly has taken away from the amount of "pure" / narrowly construed research you could have done -- that is, you probably could have published more papers if you had not done this. However, you *still* have published a good number of very high quality papers, and the amount and type of effort you have put in have led to accomplishments are much more substantial and longer lasting than just a few (more) research papers.

We congratulate you an reaching an advanced stage in your degree program. At this point, we think you should be ready to finish and defend your thesis within the next year. Please consult closely with your advisor to develop a detailed timetable and verify that your examining committee is appropriate. You also should be seeking career guidance from your advisor if you have not done so already.

Sincerely,

Loren Terveen
Director of Graduate Studies
on behalf of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering
The University of Minnesota

The tone is interesting to me, as Loren is my advisor in addition to being the DGS.

B&W pics

Couple of images that have been floating around for a while. Both of these were taken in November. Isn't black and white fun?

These were converted using the iNDA film simulator plugin for Bibble 5.

Weekend To-Do List

• Apply to NMSU
• Search for jobs & update bookmarks
• Upgrade Cyclopath
  
• Prep for PFF class
• Clean out e-mail
• Reboot
  
• Call MSR, Marmot
• E-mail scale vendor
• Order maps for trip
• Work on trip stuff
• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Fix plant stand
• Schedule exercise
• Exercise 2x
• Blog B&W pics, zoo pics
• Order battery?
• Go to play
• eBay K200D body
• Invoice St. Martin's
• Order Christmas presents?
  

St. Louis trip

For Thanksgiving, Erin and I drove a long 11 hours down to St. Louis to visit Joanna and Steve and their new baby Anya.

Anya being cute.

Walking in Forest Park. Joanna lost her phone, but a woman picked it up and Steve recovered it a couple of days later.

St. Louis has the City Museum, which is a jungle gym for adults plus about a zillion other things, including...

... a school bus 10 stories up where you go in and look around ...

... a 7-story slide ...

... and a Gothic watchtower, plus two airplanes you can climb in, an artificial cave with an organ in it, a giant white whale, a human hamster wheel, giant ball pits, smores, etc.... the list is basically endless. I have no idea what fraction of it we saw.

Anya being cute.

Joanna and Anya.

Weekend To-Do List

• Revise job portfolio
  
• Apply to Denver
• Prep job portfolio for other Dec 1 deadlines
  
• Prep for PFF class
• Work on wedding photo book
• Write 5115 syllabus (cancelled)
  
• Clean out e-mail
• Reboot
  
• Call Katadyn, MSR, Marmot
• E-mail scale vendor
• Order maps for trip
• Work on trip stuff
• Vacuum, mop, sweep
• Fix plant stand
• Schedule exercise
• Exercise 2x