Melinda, Drake, Scout and I planned on doing something for labor day yesterday. After a little thought, we decided that the beach was probably not a good idea. Too many people. Drake had said the night before that he wanted to see airplanes (he’s been watching a video series on busses, trains, and planes) and so we decided to go check out the battleship Alabama which I pass every day on my way to work. It cost $24 to get in to see the ships. If anyone asks, Drake isn’t quite 2 yet. I think that it was money well spent. Drake really seemed to have a great time running around on the ships. The battleship is older than I had originally thought. In fact, the deck was wooden instead of some other (more durable) material. It has help up suprisingly well though. I think I may have missed my calling. After leaving the battleship I kept thinking how neat it must be to be able to live on a boat like that. Everything you need is there. You just have to worry about getting sunk, or (worse) having to sink other ships. I wouldn’t have liked that. Maybe I should quit the rat race and get a job on a fishing boat. Who needs fingers?

Scout was able to see most of the park, but we didn’t think it wise to try to cram her into the submarine. So, Melinda and Drake went on that tour by themselves and I stayed behind while Scout took a nap. It was an incredibly fun day. In fact, Drake was so well behaved that he got a new toy. It’s an aircraft carrier complete with two F-18’s. I’m not really sure why that was for sale in the gift shop since they had no aircraft carriers on site. Maybe it was for the F-18’s.

Today Melinda took Drake and Scout to the pool in Fairhope with Kelly and her daughter Georgia. It gets kind of confusing telling Drake that we can’t quickly drive to see his grandparents since they live in Georgia while Georgia lives in Alabama. But I digress. Kelly and Georgia are really neat folks. Melinda didn’t have very much for Scout to play with at the pool and so Georgia came over (without being asked) and gave Scout one of her toys. Georgia is 2. Remarkably sweet kid. Her mother is a great lady too. Melinda has gotten to know Kelly pretty well and I am really pleased that she has actually met someone here that she is really enthusiastic about spending time with.

In academic news, I’m now trying to find an algorithmic way to make a closed polyline equilateral. I’ve about got it, but I haven’t yet figured out a good way to do it that doesn’t risk changing knot type. Further bulletins as events warrant on that front. Dr. Cheney (the department chair) told me what classes I will be teaching next semester. It’s a lighter load than usual. So far I’m only teaching ten hours instead of the usual 11. The calculus classes here run 4 hours a week and usually folks teach two of those in the fall along with two 3 hour classes, then in spring teach two calculus classes and a 3 hour course. In the fall this works out to 13 hours and in spring 11 so that the average is 12. This year there is a faculty member who is in grad-school but is now ABD and she wanted to teach one of the calculus classes. Have at it. One less hour for me. I get to teach vector-calculus as my upper division course in the spring. Dr. Cheney showed me the book that he was using and asked what I thought. I mentioned it would be great to use Spivak’s book and he chuckled. Evidently he thought I was joking. *sigh* Oh well.

I re-discovered a neat website recently. It is a part of the “music genome” which, I think, is an attempt to classify music based on user likes and dislikes. The site is pandora.com and it has had me pleased whenever I have used it. The idea is that you seed it with a song or artist that you like and will play songs at you that are in some way similar to the ones you like. As it plays the songs it gives you the option of saying you like or dislike and it modifies its selections based on your input. You don’t need to provide any input, but it really does hone in on music that is more to your tastes. It’s quite an interesting project. I wonder what their scheme entails. It’s a great way to find new artists that you have not heard of before. The core of songs that they have available is evidently pretty large and I find a new band that I like every time I listen.