How is it 5pm and completely dark outside?

Nice lunar eclipse last night, though.

More pictures...

Where's Pixel Part 1

Size reference

Where's Pixel Part 2

Finally, as promised, a movie [3.7meg AVI].

I finished escape-proofing the aquarium this past weekend and so this evening I opened the terrarium and let Pixel out into the rest of the main tank.

He was very cautious at first, and then Righty got too close he even inked a little bit. He quickly snatched up the remaining Sally Lightfoot crab and a large red footed hermit crab and found a hiding spot under one of the rocks to feast.

Grades for my students are due tomorrow at noon, and I just got done with mine (putting myself firmly in the faster half of all RCs, I believe).

Each quarter (that is four times a school year for those of you without a degree in math. Actually, come to think of it, that comment is probably better reserved for people that *do* have a degree in mathematics) I have to write several paragraphs about each of my twenty-four outstanding students.

So I went to an SCCA meeting on Wednesday. This morning I went to an SCCA Solo event at Route 66 Speedway (the event was actually held on the parking lot of the track).

[I saw a post in another journal that reminded me to post some more information about Pixel]

I got the PowerBook (shipped four days before it was scheduled to ship, and delivered a day earlier than it was scheduled to take from Taiwan).

All I can say is "Wow!" This is truly a nice machine. The RAM was delivered a day earlier, so I snapped that in and was off and running.

No more sitting in the office stuck with the Windows 98 computer I was forced to endure for 2.5 years. Now I get to pull in the PowerBook. I can even stream my MP3s from the PowerMac.

This Tuesday night I finally broke down and ordered a new 12" PowerBook.

More and more I see English speaking Americans replacing adverbs with adjectives, even when gramatically incorrect.

"How are you doing?" "I am doing good."

"Good" is an adjective. In that sentence, it might modify *what* you are doing, but it can never modify *how* you are doing. To modify a verb, you need to use an adverb.

"How are you doing?" "I am doing well."

The difference? "Well" is an adverb in this situation.

Pictures of Pixel are now up at http://www.vampy-alumni.org/octopus/pictures/pixel/

The best picture in there is IMG_4556.JPG

The pictures were caught when he was eating some of the small clams I have for his food. While he ate I saw quite a bit of color changing. It was rather impressive.

Pixel arrived via FedEx at 12:05pm today.

Currently he is going through an acclimation procedure that requires the lights to be off, so I do not have any pictures yet. I should have some this evening, and tomorrow morning at the latest.

He has already eaten a meal.

His head is about an inch long, and each of his arms is about an inch, as well. He seems to be a somewhat dark brown color, but that is with the lights off, so I actually have no idea.

So I was at the pet store the other day - I find myself going about twice a week for supplies - and I bought four items that are very aquarium-specific.

Another octopus update: I ordered the octopus online on Sunday evening. I heard from the company today - the octopus they want to send is still a little small and young, and they do not want to ship it yet. They are planning on getting it shipped next Tuesday, which means I will have my pet octopus next Wednesday.

The winning name was Pixel, submitted by Slashdot reader Heliocentric. Heliocentric, as I mentioned in my last entry, also nominated the winning name for my computer.

It has been a while since I wrote about the aquarium. A lot of work has been done, but nothing too exciting (other than the addition of the fish - Lefty and Righty - and the snails).

Well, I had been a little quiet about my grad school application process because of my job. I wanted to leave some options open, and I did not want to get the students and parents worked up about the possibility of me leaving IMSA.

Last fall I decided to apply to graduate schools to study mathematics. I narrowed down my choices to three schools, the University of Louisville, Indiana University - Bloomington, and Tufts University.