Shawn Lankton Online

I have officially joined the “I have a laptop” club. And what’s more, I joined a subset of that club known as the “I have an Apple laptop” club. Yes its true… I purchased a MacBook recently and have been enjoying it thoroughly!
To the apple users of the world, here are some of the tips and tricks I’ve accumulated so far:
* Get and use Quicksilver
* Get and use Virtuedesktops
* Get iRed Lite if you want to do lots of cool stuff with your remote (besides use “FrontRow”)
* Become one with keyboard shortcuts
* Map your Caps Lock key to be Control (makes the above easier)

Thats about all for now. Presumeably, now that I have a Mac, I’ll be much more creative and ‘cool.’ (Didn’t you see the commercials?!) So be expecting some art, movies, cartoons, etc… who knows?!

Well, I’ve done it! My first marathon is completed. I ran the 26.2 miles of the inaugural ING Georgia Marathon! My time although not too embarrassing will definitely need to be improved next time. I finished the race in 4 hours, 55 minutes. That comes to 11.2 minutes per mile and betrays the fact that I walked part of the way because my calves were cramping… oh well. Here are the intermediate results: (see… I was fast at first!)

Point is, I did it! And, as a treat my roomies decided that that was an accomplishment worthy of a free dinner… so I get taken out tonight! Hurrah! Hmm… maybe that will make up for the throbbing pain in my legs.

Another fantastic Tom Robbins book closed today in the playful sunshine of a sunset in Piedmont Park. Its been said on numerous occasions by me that this author can do no wrong. He has proven hilarious, engaging, and inspiring once more in “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.“Let me share briefly two of the many quotable sections discovered between the covers…

“If little else, the brain is an educational toy… The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometimes they’d rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner.”

“Poetry is nothing more than an intensification or illumination of common objects and everyday events until they shine with their singular nature… How is this done? By fucking around with the syntax.”

I of course highly recommend this guy to everyone. It is fun and witty and will make you appreciate women and the world’s desperate need for their feminine touch.

I have officially banished Adobe’s “Acrobat” line from my computer. I’ve never really liked Acrobat reader (it always loads slow), but version 8 pushed me over the edge. It was so slow that it was making me crazy… even after it loaded! Also, Adobe has that whole annoying “you should pay for me” attitude for their pdf writer software. Puh-leese! That was so 90’s…

So I did a little online research and have found a new suite of pdf tools that I love…

• Foxit Reader
• CutePDF Writer

These two together accomplish everything I need (for free) and they are both super-fast. What could be better?

Today I returned from Phoenix, Arizona… isn’t it beautiful? This was a Spring Break trip for me and it was a lot of fun. I got to see my dad (who lives there), We enjoyed ourselves… as usual. A major highlight was the trip to Sedona. We did some hiking, visited some vortices, and met some interesting critters.In Phoenix, we amused ourselves at the local improv comedy club, at supper clubs wathcing live jazz, and at the sushi bar where, “all the hot girls hang out.” I always have a good time in Phoenix. This time was not different. It was a relaxing way to spend half of a spring break… now back to work!

On Friday in a mad dash to do research I had a bicycle accident and busted my arm and my bike. The wheel was a little bent up, and the brake handle was busted. I took it to a bike repair shop to see about getting it repaired…

The price started low, but then I started getting calls every 10 minutes… “The blank is bent and needs to be replaced.” “If we replace your blank it won’t fit on your old blank.” “You know… now that I’m looking at it, the blank is totally messed up.”Before I knew it, the price was getting way too high. I told them to forget the old bike, I was coming in to replace it. Now, I’m the proud new owner of the beauty you see pictured above. Its a single-speed bike meaning that 1) I won’t ever have problems with gears, derailers, etc. ever again, and 2) I’m gonna have to pedal like a maniac to get up hills.

This bike is very clean and very nice, and I got a good deal on it. I’m really excited to get to riding!

I guess this happens to anyone in research, but it happened to me today…

The build-up: You’ve been reading the literature, you’ve come up with nick-names for the relevant authors in the field, you feel ‘with it’ enough to make snap judgments about the papers that are clearly no good. Then the proverbial light bulb blinks on! “What a good idea I’ve just had,” you think. You even go so far as to tell your friends to demonstrate how clever you are!

The discovery: Now that you’re on to something hot, you start reading even more literature to get help with the techniques and see what kinds of results you have to beat to really wow the community. Suddenly… low and behold… damnit! Someone has already had, implemented, and published your idea! Alas… at least the idea worked, right? Now I just get to implement it, but no publishing allowed… oh well.

As many people will tell you, I’m *very* against having fat wallets. I don’t like carrying anything other than an ID, some cash, and one credit card…. The problem, of course, is these discount cards that every store seems to use now (except Publix… thanks Publix). But! I saw the solution on lifehacker today. (btw, if you don’t read lifehacker, you should… I get tons of great tips from these guys).

The solution is called “JustOneClubCard” This site generates one card with the bar codes on the back of the other cards… Except you can print it on plain paper (thin), and you can put eight on a card (efficient)! I just made my new one, but I haven’t tested it out yet. I’m excited.