Levi's Silly Blog - General

To-PhD-or-not-to-PhD, Alaska, Disco-Kegger

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:28:00 -0700

So I've been meaning to write this post for a while. Many exciting adventures have happened in my life lately. Most recently, I have just walked in the door from the 2nd night of my Cuban Salsa I (specifically Casino) class. What a blast!

Perhaps the most significant happenings in my life over the last month have had to do with my near miss with dropping out of graduate school. The short story is that: a) I got discouraged/depressed about school. b) took a while off to think about it why exactly I want to do this at all (including traveling home to Alaska... more on that in a moment). c) Eventually decided to actually do this thing. For those who have talked to me in the past, this may not sound much different than other thoughts that I've had to this effect. However, for those who have talked with me through this one, I think the differences are clear, and I feel pretty good about the decision that I've made. I'm now shooting for being finished with my PhD in a year. There, I said it. ;)

Alaska was fantastic. My Nana and Grandpa Mark were there as well, and it was wonderful to spend some time with them. August is growing up, and while it is fantastic to see him, it makes me miss all the moments that I don't even know I am missing. My favorite August story from this trip was when we were sitting down to breakfast at "The Cosmic Kitchen", and two police officers came in. When they sat at there table to wait, August sat up straight and said:
"Thank you for serving and protecting our city of Homer." You can imagine how much the officers appreciated this, and August proceeded to get up and sit at there table to discuss local current events.

I've had a few fun weekends since coming home from Alaska. The day after I arrived back in Corvallis, I headed straight back to Portland and joined Peter, Kara, James, Andy, Axel, Tim and Melissa for a "ring-in-the-new-year" at Mt. Hood Meadows. It was fun, except for the 20 minutes that I had to wait at the bottom of the lift while the fireworks went off (at 10:00, not midnight). The next weekend (Jan. 5), Emily came into town. It's been nice to have another friend around town to hang with.

On the 12th, we threw our "Saturday Night Fever", disco party that was inspired by the Disco music I won in a White Elephant gift exchange at my Mom's friend Shannon's place in Alaska. I don't know if this was the best party the Hacienda has ever hosted, but it was the best party I've ever hosted and the best party I've been to since... I dunno probably Junior year. For some reason, I can't imagine parties ever being as much fun as my sophomore year of college. It was all so new and exciting at the time. Anyway, highlights included Kenny - root beer in hand - heckling pool players for at least three hours. The dance floor was raging for at least 4 solid hours, and the kegs (ya, that's right there were two... though admittedly one was only 5 gallons) were tapped by midnight. Fortunately, I had encouraged people to bring back-up supplies, and the party was still going strong at 2. Logan lost his shirt, twice, and pretended like he couldn't find it again. Many impressive costumes surfaced, out of the >70 people. I even caught a bunch of crap for not telling everyone that it was a theme party. I can't really keep track of all of the debauchery, but I believe it was a success.

Beavers defeat Ducks at Autzen!!!

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 08:00:00 -0700

What a game this was! After a decade of homefield advantage, the Beavers defeated the Ducks at Autzen.
The Beavers dominated in most categories the entire game, but the score was tied near the end when both teams had chances to close out the game by kicking field goals. Some crappy penalties gave the Ducks more chances than they deserved, but thank the stars they couldn't make it happen.
In the 2nd OT, the beavers scored a TD and were able to hold the ducks on a 4th and 1 to obtain victory!

It's a great day to be a Beaver!

Update

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:35:13 -0700

It's been a while since making an entry and a ton of things have happened. Points of note are: visiting Tim and Melissa in Hood River, a RISE meeting in Portland where I got to hang out with Peter and Kara, a couple dates, a few frisbee tournaments (coaching), and a lot of research. I'm still not making as much progress as I'd like and every time I think I'm ready to make some, I wind up reprocessing/fixing data.

The other thing that happened today was that I found out that I didn't make Rhino. I didn't play too well at the tryout (my throws were off) so it wasn't that surprising, but it was still sorta dissapointing.

Parasite

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Today is the day I found out that I have a parasite! Apparently picked up in Thailand. Actually, I have both a parasite and a bacterial infection in my intestines. So that's fun. I had been experiencing periodic pain in my stomach (gastrointestinal distress) so I went to the doctor earlier in the week to have it checked out.
The parasite is Blastocystis Hominis (wikipedia entry), "an intestinal microscopic parasite". The bacteria is called Campiobacter, and is "among the most common bacterial infections of humans" (wikipedia, webmd).
Fortunately both are apparently curable with antibiotics, and so I am now taking Metronidazole for the parasite, and Doxycycline for the bacteria.

Toshi gave me a compliment

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:21:20 -0700

After helping him with a simple matlab question, he said:
"Thanks Levi, you're Awesome."

Since compliments from Toshi are so few and far between, I wanted to be sure to document this.

Thanks Toshi, I think you're Awesome too.

Josea Crashes at La Hacienda

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:00:00 -0700

Josea Busby (LONG time friend from AK) crashed at my house. She came with her boyfriend Roger (tres cool guy from S. Africa) and their friend Pete (Canadian I think). We sat around and caught up on various goings on in our lives and rehashing old memories. I cracked open a $9 12-oz beer (no typo: Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, >18%) and passed it around for all to try. I had purchased mostly just to see what a $9 beer tasted like, sorta expecting it to be too strong or too rich or something, but it ended up being pretty good.
After a bit, other friends from around town showed up and we all watched FlashDance, which in my opinion is just a bad 80's romance bordering on soft-porn. It makes Dirty Dancing look tame and has a far shallower plot. At the very least it's a good laugh.
After the movie I get them set up to sleep and we all passed out.

Call From Detox

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:33:11 -0700

At approximately 1:00 am, Peter (my former roommate) called and woke me. He was calling from the drunk "tank" (more properly detox), because apparently the officers had told him that he couldn't call a cell phone. Anyway, being the only land line phone number he could think of (besides his parents), he called me. I considered it quite an honor. I'd always hoped that I would be someone that my friends would use their "once phone call" to call, but now it had come true.
At any rate, the story behind his reason for being there is also interesting, but not really a part of my day. Suffice to say that it had to do with Peter (who is known for not taking crap from cops) and some officers on a power trip. In many ways, he's lucky that he didn't get arrested (being taken to the "tank" is different than being arrested apparently... something I did not know). Another unfortunate outcome of this event is that Kara (probably the nicest, most tolerant, and caring person I have ever known... and Peter's girlfriend) is now very upset with police officers in general. Though I'm sure she will overcome her over-generalized low opinion of police officers, it is unfortunate that this event has skewed Kara's opinion.

Waiter Adam

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:21:18 -0700

Emily and I had dinner at McMenamins.
After waiting about 25 minutes for a table, we finally got seated upstairs next to a busy pooltable. It then took nearly a half hour before we were actually served.
However, when our waiter finally noticed us, he was extremely apologetic, and brought us each salads. He was incredibly entertaining, making jokes about how long he had ignored us, and how he finally couldn't avoid us any longer because Emily was apparently making sour faces (I think this was just a part of his joke). At any rate, in spite of the long wait, it was fun. Then at the end, I told Adam how great I thought his service was and he was very appreciative because he said that he normally tends bar, but that the night before he had gotten in trouble and was sorta on waiting-table-probation. Anyway, I filled out a "how do you like our service" form and gave adam mad-props.
Love,
Levi

My First Blog Entry

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:52:17 -0700

All-
November 16 2006 marks the first entry into my blog!
First let me just say (in spite of the fact that it reveals my inner nerd) this is:
AWESOME!

Chances are that I will be making 'retro' entries to this blog (mostly about my climbing trip in September and October of this year), but let it be clear that this IS the first entry!

Love,
Levi

Children's Day

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:05:00 -0700

Apparently, many countries around the world have a "Children's Day" (Today is India's). There's also a "Universal Children's Day", but apparently the United States does not have a national Children's Day. I think that stinks.
Anyway, not that I'm going to get on it and do anything about it at this particular moment, but I just wanted to share that with anyone who happens upon this page. For more info on Children's Day in general see the wikipedia entry (I got all of my info from this page... so if I'm mistaken about anything blame wikipedia ;) ).

Ultimate Players = Smarty Pants

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:09:00 -0700

As it turns out, Ultimate has been correlated with high graduation rates.
Perhaps I'm not smart at all, just really really good at Ultimate. Read this asap.