More calculus today, and somewhat more engaging than yesterday. Went over the basics of partial differentiation, Jacobian matrices, and began simple optimization.

When I got home, a Day Companies contractor was busy putting in our new front door (we knew he was coming). He did a great job, and the doors looks great. As for my homework, I finally gave up on typing it. Just taking too long.

While Devon and I didn't experience it, apparently a quarter of the city is without power. I didn't know this until I got to class this morning. Seems several of the other students, and the professor, were without power all night. The city itself is a mess. Trees are down all over the place and it seems most everything is at a stand-still.

Today, it was on to calculus in math camp. As I am relatively competent in that area, I was pretty much bored out of my mind all day. At least the homework was relatively easy---and much easier to type up. Matrices just take a long time in LaTeX. I wonder if there are any tools out there that could make it easier.

Spent the whole day working on the math camp problem set. I was nearly finished by the time I went up to our study session at 2:00 pm. Turns out, only four of us showed up. Not sure where the others were. And Emily had to leave early, so that left just Travis and me to work through a couple ugly matrix algebra problems. We finally finished a bit after 6:00 pm.

As I was leaving, I noticed that a serious wind storm seemed to be coming through. I had gone up to school on my bike, and on the way home I could barely stay on it. Trees were falling down all over campus (I was even hit by a falling branch as I rode through the oval), and everything was just a mess. Turns out the storm was some remnant of Hurricane Ike, which when it came ashore decided to head northeast---fast. Maybe this is why the rest of our cohort didn't show up to study.

Back home I set to typing up my results. It took much too much time and I didn't finish until nearly 1:00 am. If the next problem set takes this long, I'm going to stop typing them.

Spent most of the day typing up my class notes, then started in on the weekend's problem set. Without a doubt, this is a long one. We have scheduled a study session for tomorrow at 2:00 pm up at the department. I plan on getting through most of the homework before I head off to that. I don't think that will be a problem, though not sure about getting it typed.

Half way through math camp. Today was spent wrapping up the section on linear algebra. Made it through inverses, determinants, minors, cofactors, adjoints, and finished with Cramer's Rule. A lot of material to cover in a day. I think we would have been better served by a quicker pace during the first few days. A long problem set for the weekend.

September 11, 2008---seven years ago I was doing basically what I am doing now, beginning a PhD program. Of course, that was at UC Riverside and the program was in economics. While it's been a long road to where we are now, it's one that I am happy with---in retrospect. Though it hasn't been easy.

Class today covered more linear algebra, including the rules of matrix arithmetic and row echelon versus reduced row echelon form (yes, still fairly basic, but the review is nice). A fairly long problem set in the evening.

Day three of math camp and the first day of linear algebra. We began with the basics and made it through quite a bit of material. The problem sets are starting to take quite a bit of time---especially given that I am still typing them for submission. Maybe I need to rethink that.

Devon and Jenny made cookies and profiteroles last night and I took a bunch in to class. Needless to say, they went over well.

Class today covered more basics, with the most interesting portion being the refresher on permutations and combinations. Tomorrow we begin our three-day review of linear algebra. Another problem set in the evening, which kept me busy for the night.

First day of "math camp" today. Class began with a short "pre-test", which wasn't very tough but should serve the purpose of focusing the class. Personally, I need a refresher in linear algebra. Been a long time since I've had it, and it was just one class. As for the content of the class, we started out with the very, very basics. Can't say it was all that exciting. Home around 1:00 pm and to work on the day's problem set. It wasn't hard, but I decided to type it up, which took some time---going to need some practice with LaTeX, a bit rusty, especially with the math markup.

It seems that I had made a pretty simple error with the form I was working on yesterday. Put simply: I had specified function(x,y) in a dictionary and not simply the function name function. This meant that each function included in the dictionary was being called on page load---not what I wanted. The result was the corruption of the mod_python request object, causing the contents of the form elements to vanish or be altered.

Overall, got quite a bit of work done today. Finished the vast majority of the site editing features, just have some cosmetic edits to do on the directory page and need to write the file upload/delete page.

First day of class tomorrow ("math camp"), don't suppose I will be writing much from here on out. Not that there would be anything interesting to write.

Worked all day on the website management. Made some progress, but later in the evening got stuck on something that should be simple: my edit/preview form breaks, returning an error stating that a value, stored in a hidden form element, does not exists. I know the value exists, because I can print it. Stranger yet, it seems that if I remove one of the steps in the content processing, any of the steps, the pages work as intended. That points me to some problem with one of my class instances. More investigation needed tomorrow.

Made fried rice in the evening. We didn't have much to put in it, except for some excellent herbs and a habenero that came from Marissa and Matt's garden. The habenero made it very hot, but it turned out well.

Out for drinks in the evening with with Jenny, Dom, and Amanda. We went to the Cup of Joe's at the south end of the Short North. Had a good time, even though it was crowded due to it being a Gallery Hop night.

Up early and out to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get our licenses. Unfortunately, Ohio requires out of state drivers to take the written test. It was easy enough, and we left with our new licenses only an hour or so after we arrived. I am still amazed at the efficiency of the BMV here.

We then hit Tasi for breakfast---good, as always, though their croissants weren't at all dark enough, that seems to be common around here. We then headed to a bike shop, where we picked up a new seat and a lock for me. Expensive, but worth it, I hope.

Back home, I spent some time filling out my FAFSA. Don't really think I need to since I'm on fellowship, but my school loan servicer is starting to send mail stating that I have to begin paying my BC loans back in November. Guess they didn't get the word that I was still in school.

Devon and I went for a ride in the evening along the Olentangy bike path. It's a very nice ride. I then spent the rest of the night writing a simple logger class for my website since the Python logging module doesn't seem to place nice with mod_python.

Headed up to school in the morning to turn in some paperwork with the fellowship office. I then had a meeting with my advisor regarding my coursework for this term. That went well enough, though come to find out I was working off an old schedule (one that remains available on the department website), forcing me to revise by schedule once I got home.

Spent much of the day reviewing logs and adjusting settings on the JR email server. Nothing major to report there. In the evening I began work on the website administration. That portion of the project should go quickly.

It was deployment day today. Spent the majority of the day writing documentation, emailing users, and checking and rechecking my scripts. My efforts paid off, it looks like. The transition went very smoothly and, once the new email jail went live, everything seemed to work. I'm sure some trouble may crop up, but I am happy with the results.