Hello, friendly blogpeople!
I’m back in Montana at the moment, surrounded by several feet of snow that’s only just now begun to melt. I’ve been taking a bit of time off from academic work, mostly to do the traditional student-on-vacation activities of eating Mom’s cooking and sleeping. I did play for the Christmas mass at my family’s church for the umpteenth year– but this year, the fabulous Joe Mace (another student home for the break) sang with us, which was great fun.
I’ve also completed my transition from DreamHost, the host for four years of USSJoin.com and related sites, to the much more powerful Linode– it’s really great to have full root on my own (virtual) server, and to be able to run anything I want without fear of being trampled by other shared-host users. Even Movable Type, which powers this blog, and which was already quite fast on DH, has seen major improvements; a blog rebuild which took 45 seconds on DreamHost takes just 11 on Linode, and I have the smallest level of service. I’m very impressed.
For all those of you waiting with bated breath, I did get all my final projects turned in on time (I, for one, count 17 seconds before the deadline as turning it in early :-) ), and do get to return to Hopkins for my final semester– and to write and present my Master’s thesis, the preparations for which I’m happy with at the moment (my advisor, of course, will no doubt push me onward– as he should!), and on which I’ll get back to working soon.
At long last (to me, at least), I have also concluded my search for a job after graduating from Hopkins. I interviewed with a wide range of companies, and had several really great offers– but in the end, I’ve accepted a position where I think I can make a really valuable contribution, both to the work the company is doing, and to the global collection of knowledge; since it’s a research position, I’ll have the ability to pursue awesome new areas of inquiry. (And no, I won’t say where it is at the moment.)
So the general plan is to graduate, move to Arlington, VA (where I’ll be living), then go cause various amounts of mayhem before starting in August. Good stuff.
In the meantime, we’re throwing our usual New Year’s Eve party at our house in Montana– so if you want to come, give me a call!