Week 3: June 9th - June 15th
Sunday:
Laura and I went back to the OPC church (yes, I realize that's redundant). I really like all the people there; they are all very hospitable. Laura even recognized two of the girls from her school (small colleges...). However, there were kids screaming the entire service, which doesn't really create an environment conducive to attention. We might go somewhere else next week.
We went to Panera for lunch (it's like the Atlanta Bread Company), and then Laura took me to Fresh Market just to show me what a wonderful grocery store it is. And I agree that it is.Monday:
We had our security discussion group this morning because Laurie and her husband are going to Bermuda for the rest of the week for their anniversary (some people have it rough). We read a Microsoft White Paper on Trusted Computing. I talked with Laurie generally about what I would be doing for the rest of the week. She said that I get to come up with a paper for us to read next week, so we'll see what I can find. I caught up on my journal entries since I was a little behind, and then I played with EndNote, which is a software program that helps with bibliographies. I also worked on the survey, and, believe it or not, I did some more reading! (I really honestly love to read, so I'm not complaining at all).
William stayed late and made me a couple of cds of some live Dave Matthews Band concerts, which are very good and make me happy. Sometimes you just have to listen to Dave Matthews.
Laura and I went to see Murder By Numbers that night at the cheap theater. (That's 3 movies in the theater for me, things keep getting crazier and crazier). It was interesting. Pretty much, it was worth $1.50, but that's about it.
Laura just pointed out that everyone is going to think that our world revolves around food (with all the talk about grocery stores, fast food, ice cream, etc.). I'll dispute that some other time, for now, I've gotta run... it's yogurt time. :-)Tuesday:
It wasn't a terribly interesting day. I found some papers that would be good to read for the discussion, but I haven't decided which to use yet. Really, it's amazing how much random information there is on the internet about security (not to mention everything else in the world). I feel like I spend hours just following link after link after link. Sometimes I read stuff for hours with little to show for it. And that's a little frustrating. But oh well, you can't have great productive days every day, I suppose. I did make some changes to my web page though and that was fun. And I also got to read and make suggestions about a paper Nachi is writing. I love editing papers. I always volunteered to edit the training manuals at work.
I am getting so much better at yoga, and I'm enjoying it immensely. It's amazing that being disciplined actually produces results... I'll have to remember that for other areas of my life as well. I've never been very disciplined, but I'm beginning to think that it might be a good thing to work on. And as a continuation of the food theme, I had a cinnamon crunch bagel from Panera for breakfast, and it was great (and I had bought it Sunday, so just imagine how good it would have been if it were fresh!). Also, Laura gave me one of her old water bottles the other day. She's regretting it now because I keep announcing how many milliliters I have drunk. (I drank 600 ml with lunch).Wednesday:
We got bean bag chairs!!! William had been betting that they wouldn't arrive until after Laura and I left, but fortunately, four big, comfortable bean bag chairs arrived today. I bet Laurie's sorry she's stuck off in Bermuda while we're having all sorts of fun with the bean bag chairs! (or maybe not). Annie and I feel that the state of Georgia should allocate funding so that every grad student would be issued a bean bag chair. Since the HOPE scholarship helped keep undergraduates in the state of Georgia, we're confident the bean bag initiative will do the same thing for Georgia's graduate programs. Despite the wonderful chairs, I left early, and instead did some reading later that night at Barnes & Noble. I really like the Building Secure Software book. My favorite line this reading was when he was talking about potential means to circumvent biometric authentication (meaning bypassing security that requires things like fingerprints, DNA, etc.). He said, "Additionally, note that such systems encourage people to steal parts of your body, which is never a good thing." It made me smile, so I had to share. I got some very good, focused reading done as well as had some amusing opportunities for people-watching. And that reminds me of Miss Brill (which is a tragically beautiful short story by Katherine Mansfield which you should read if you haven't... there, now I've even added a link to it, so someday when you have free time, you should read it - I'm sorry, I'm an English minor, I can't help it). Furthermore, I realized last night that the reason I loved Harris Teeter in Athens is because it was the closest grocery store, so I could use it for last minute things. Under normal circumstances, it's too expensive; it's too bad there isn't a Publix around here. Oh, and I also forgot to mention several days ago that I get to go to the XP/Agile Universe Conference at the end of the summer with Laurie and several of her other students. I get to be a student volunteer, and I'm excited about it. My first conference. How entertaining.
Thursday:
Busy day. In the morning, Nachi, Lily and I had our security discussion meeting (sans the vacationing Laurie). It was helpful because they explained some basic concepts to me, about CORBA and RMI. I don't really know anything about distributed object platforms, so it was helpful for clarifications purposes. I also talked to them both about the survey. I had been running into problems because I've been constructing the survey based on the assumption that it would be for the customers to use in evaluating their security needs. The problem being that there seems to be very little that you can ask the customer other than questions about types of users, the level of protection for different types of information, and potential threats based on the environment in which the application will be run. Beyond that, the security problem is more of one for the programmers. Nachi thought that what Laurie had meant was that we should construct a survey for the programmers to answer, in which case, there's about a million more questions to ask. So I started working on that too. Obviously, it will be helpful to talk to Laurie when she gets back. Working on both the surveys has been profitable, though, whether we use the second one or not.
I finally joined the Tues/Thurs volleyball game today (after Brent finally pestered me enough and guilted me into showing up). It was really enjoyable, even though I'm not any good. Later, I went to see Don't Say A Word at the NC State theater for free (I'm going to quit commenting on the amount of movies I'm seeing and the negligible related expenditures - just know that I'm still impressed that I've seen 4 movies for a total of $3). It was an ok movie. It was certainly worth the price I paid for it at least, despite the obvious plot improbabilities that Thomas keeps bringing up. :-) I'm beginning to wonder if it's just that the movies I've seen haven't been that great, or if there is some strange correlation between the cost of a movie and the enjoyment one derives from it. Is paying $7 to see a movie is somehow a contributing factor to the amount of pleasure you take from it? I'm rambling, so I'm going to quit writing now because I'm sure you've already stopped reading.Friday:
I wrote a bit much yesterday. I'll be brief today. I read more papers, and I worked on the survey. Nachi read over the stuff I had done and offered suggestions.
That night I tried Thai food for the first time. I definitely liked it, and we'll have to eat there again sometime.Saturday:
In the morning, I finished The Shipping News by Annie Proulx which is a book I had been reading all week. It was well-written and a pleasant story,and I always like reading stories based in cold climates while I'm stuck in the sweltering summer. Then Laura and I went to the pool, and I started A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, which I finished later that afternoon and which was every bit as beautiful as it was purported to be (you should read it, it's wonderful). Incidentally, I realized that Hemingway always talks about food; so, hey, if it's good enough for Hemingway... That night Laura had to study for an Econ exam, so I was a nerd. I wrote a few little programs to test out some buffer overflows. It was very entertaining. Granted, I was pretty much following some examples in a book, but I had to modify it some to get it to work, and I managed to get the overflow to write over the return address and then make the program go into an infinite loop, which was really so much fun.