CRA-W DMP Program Summer 2004

Journal
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Week 6

At work this week I made progress with the PPC backend and set a goal for Wednesday of next week when I meet with Kathryn again to be capable of producing a program that can be assembled and run. The main challenge standing my way is perfecting the stack frame, which I imagine will be one of the toughest parts of the project as a whole. The other thing that will be extremely challenging is covering all of the special cases. When I made a code generator for the compiler I wrote in class last year it was not nearly so difficult because it was for a small subset of the language which did not include structs or other complicated data types. It will be very difficult to get this project completed before we leave, but I hope to make some serious progress on it over the next two weeks and hopefully get something that is reasonably functional.

Andy was still here at the beginning of this week. He rocks, so he woke up at 6am with me Monday morning to go for a run after having gone to bed at 3am Sunday night. Unfortunately he's not a big runner, so he started walking after about a quarter mile and I walked the rest of the trip with him, but it was still fun. He got to see the route I run every morning. Then he came home, showered, and crashed pretty solidly until the afternoon. We went into ACES for lunch so I could introduce him to Maria and he could see what lunch at ACES is like. Afterwards, we went to Amy's ice cream, known for the best ice cream in Austin. I had the Belgian chocolate and he had the white chocolate and we mixed them and made an amazingly yummy swirl. That evening, we finally went to Mount Bonnell. We'd been meaning to go all weekend. Mount Bonnell is the highest point in Austin with an awesome lookout over the whole city. We arrived right at sunset and it was absolutely stunning.

Andy and I on Mount Bonnell just after sunset. That's downtown Austin to the right, and the UT tower to the left.

After Mount Bonnell, Andy and I went to a place called Eddie V's for our last meal together. We had heard great things about the place from everyone but it still managed to surpass my expectations. Our waiter was totally awesome. I think Andy and I BOTH had a crush on him. I had an 8oz filet mignon and Andy had a 16oz new york strip steak and we split a huge twice baked potato. It was, without question, one of the best meals I have ever eaten. Andy insisted that I have a green apple martini, too. That's my favorite drink and they made it absolutely perfectly. After dinner we had some coffee, and went home very happy and very satisfied. Tuesday morning I took Andy to the airport and said goodbye to him.

Once Andy was gone I had a lot of catching up on work to do. I stayed up pretty late Tuesday and Wednesday nights getting work done. Thursday I went to ballroom, and then I went to the Austin Swing Syndicate dance. Dan, one of the UT ballroom club co-presidents, gave me a ride to and from the dance and he was very awesome. Friday night we all went out to dinner at the World Beat Cafe, which is a nearby restaurant that serves a lot of African food. I had the Nigerian Veggie Platter which was a pastry filled with seasoned potatoes and carrots that was actually delicious. Afterwards we went to Matt's place to watch the Bourne Identity. We had an awesome time and decided to go to Chris's afterwards for some hot tubbing.

Julia, Mike, Matt, Walter and I at Matt's place. Chris, Jen, and Kartik were there, too. I am so very disturbed by Matt and Mike in this picture.

Saturday night I went to another Austin Ballroom Dancers (ABD) weekly dance. It was free to everyone this week so tons of people came, including a lot of people that I normally only see at the Austin Swing Syndicate dances. I had an awesome time, and we all went out to Chez Zee afterwards for dessert. Chez Zee is an adorable little restaurant I've been meaning to go to that's known for the best desserts in Austin. I split a flourless chocolate cake with vanilla cream with Vinh's friend, yuuuuum. We hung out and talked until about 2:30am and then I finally came home and crashed.

Vinh and myself at the ABD dance Saturday night.

Sunday I went into ACES for a while to get some work done, then went to the gym with Kartik and Matt to play some racquetball. Afterwards, Vinh called and said he had found me a ride out to Diloris's place where the advanced ballroom students have a weekly practice time. Javier, our quickstep/tango instructor's assistant, picked me up with Vinh and drove me out for the practice. The place was really neat - there was a really nice dance studio right there inside the house. We did an hour of standard practice and an hour of latin practice. Cami, who is incredibly talented and moves sooo well, helped me out with my latin technique, which I really needed. I got to try out some samba and rumba with Javier as well, which was great because Javier is damn good. Afterwards, Javier dropped Vinh off at home and then he and I went out for coffee.

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