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I finished my qualifying exams.  I don’t think I have spent that much time testing since the MCAT, which was probably about 3 years ago.  Even then, I didn’t spend as much solid time (8 hours of MCAT vs 3 straight days 10am-5pm).  However, the real difference is that I am (supposedly) an expert on what I was tested in the quals.  For the MCAT, it was kind of like a weeding test.  I felt no attachment to the test if I did really great or not–I was only trying to get into medical school.  WIth the quals, I felt terrific finishing it, but I’ll be devistated if I fail (and to boot, failure will lead to me getting kicked out of the PhD program).

My second bit of good news is that I received a dissertation grant today.  This particular grant will fund me and my meningitis research until I graduate (pending renewal of the grant due to my hard work next year).  I receive certain perks, the best of which is travel money.  I really hope there is a meningitis conference in England sometime soon!  Also this means that my base source of money will not have to come from TAing.

I’m making good headway with my Javascript version of Scrabble.  I’ve decided to learn how to code object-oriented-ly in JS for this too, especially because I am using Prototype/Scriptaculous.

There’s the board and draggable random letters so far.  Soon I hope to make the letters stick and to let the player actually play a word.

Eventually, multiplayer.

Then get sued by Hasbro.

…. and THEN modify my game enough so that I don’t get sued (Literati, anyone?)!

I am challenging myself to make a multiplayer version of javascript scrabble, with The Man in Blue as my inspiration.

http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/SSCrabble/

As you’ll recall, Flash is the devil.  And I can’t believe that Scrabulous and Hasbro both decided to use it.  Pa-lease.

I’m dividing this post by days because it is so long, and so if this gets imported to facebook with only the first page, please click the link “view original.”  There was just so much going on and I wanted to write it all down and so this might be my longest post ever.

Thursday

I woke up at 4am and realized I had a 24 hour day ahead of me.  The day was going to end with a bachelor party, and it was probably going to end around 2am or so, central time.  I finally arrived via a connecting flight to Kearney, Nebraska around 1pm central time and I was kind of tired.  I had slept on the planes a little but it wasn’t really enough.

Gibran and Maryanne got me at the airport–it was such a tiny airport, and it was the first time in years where someone met me in the terminal.  After some catching up, Gibran drove us to the bed and breakfast where Maryanne and I were staying for a night.  The lady who runs the place, Sherry, was a sweet woman who showed us everything from the tv to the nightlight.  We scheduled a breakfast for 9am the next morning.  I had never done that before at all, so it would have been a really fun experience had I not been so tired.

Maryanne and Gibran left me to sleep in the hotel for an hour or two while they went out for a bit.  I lied down but alas my powers of napping are weak at best.

They came back to pick me up for the “bachelor party” which was really a fun time out at a country club.  We set out on golf carts to hit a few holes with the guys, and Maryanne joined us for a bit.  However, she had to leave when the girls went out on their bridal shower out to a vineyard (there are great pictures she posted of this on Facebook).  I have never golfed before but I did pretty well for a beginning.  I think that I finished each hole in about 8 to 12 shots.

Then we had to stop golfing at 6 because the next item on the schedule was labeled only as “sandwiches” for one hour.  I had been wondering what sandwiches would be and why it was scheduled differently, but there it was, sandwiches.  We all had a good time sitting around talking over our sandwiches, and we could go into the pool nearby which some of us did.

We went overtime on the sandwiches and made it back to the Ramada soon thereafter to get ready for the real bachelor party.  Some of the guys went to the Ramada bar to have drinks.  The bartenders were a little flirtatious but I guess that’s the next best thing to strippers, especially since James directly forbade me to get them for his party.

We hung out at the bar until the girls finally returned from the vineyard.  Their trolley was waiting outside while they came in for a drink, and we all met each other there.  For everyone, there was someone in the bridal party who another person hadn’t met, so it was good to get together right then and there.

Around or after 11pm we commandeered the bridal party and turned it into our bar-hopping-mobile.  The first bar we went to was kind of dead and so we only stayed there for 30 minutes or so.  We hopped right back onto the party trolley and went to the next bar.  This bar was kind of funny because before 8pm, yes before 8pm, the bar is a stripper joint but afterwards it is a really great club/bar.  I guess some people need to get off of work early to watch the strippers and then need to cool down in a stripper-free club?  There were a lot of college students dancing on the dance floor and the bar itself was overcrowded.  Drinks were literally all less than $2, which alone probably makes it a great college town.  I bought some drinks; some others bought me drinks.  We all bought drinks for each other.  The caveat of all the clubs in Kearney though is that they all close at 1am.  At 1:00, they stop serving.  At 1:05 there is someone who goes through the bar and takes your drink and kicks you out of the bar.  Then maybe 10 minutes later, police might come and clear you off the sidewalks.  So it was really weird to experience it but exactly at 1am, the music died out, the lights got a little brighter, and they started shuffling people out of the bar.  The party died in a snap.  Maryanne and I were dropped off at the B&B around 1 or 2am and passed out.  Thus ended my 23 or 24 hour day.

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I just realized that I have to be awake for 24 hours.  I woke up for an early early flight and will have to stay awake for the party, maybe until about 2am mountain time.  Hopefully I can take a nap on each of the flights.

Also hopefully the bed and breakfast owner won’t hate me for introducing myself at 2am.

Georgia Tech email stinks for a variety of reasons including bad spam filters.  I won’t get into the myriad of the other problems here, but suffice to say, I haven’t used their email for about 3 years and have been using Gmail instead.  Ok, I double checked and it looks like I made the switch March 2005.  Anyway, this will be the best thing you’ll ever do with your email once you get it all done.

I want to outline how to use Gmail while still using your school email.  This includes forwarding your email to Gmail, sending messages through Gmail but from what looks like your school address, and importing your address book.  For you see, there is no good reason to check your email on the gatech website when compared to the awesomeness of Gmail.

• First, get Gmail
  

• Second, Forward Your Email

1. Go to http://tools.mail.gatech.edu/.
2. Click on Smartsieve.
3. Enter your username and password and click Login.
4. Click the link that says Forward Mail.
5. In the Forwarding Address field, enter the e-mail address you wish to forward your mail to.
6. Click Save Changes.

• Third, Set up Custom ‘From’ field in Gmail
  

1. Click Settings along the top of any Gmail page, and open the Accounts tab.
2. Under Send mail as, click Add another email address.
3. In the Name field, enter your full name.
4. In the Email address field, enter the email address you’d like to send from.
5. (Optional) When someone replies to a message you sent using a custom ‘From:’ address, the reply will be delivered to the ‘From:’ address rather than your Gmail address. If you’d like replies to be delivered to Gmail or a third account, you’ll need to enter a ‘reply-to’ address. To do this, click Specify a different reply-to address and enter the email address you’d like.
6. Click Next Step >> and then click Send Verification. Gmail will send a verification message to your other email address to confirm that you own it.
7. Open your other account and either click the link in the message Gmail sent or enter the confirmation code in the Accounts section of your Gmail settings.  If forwarding is set up already, then the message should appear in Gmail instead of your other account.

• Exporting and Importing your Address Book

Ok, I don’t really know how to export from Zimbra but maybe someone reading this could tell us how?

To import (but you can only do this after you export your contacts), click the contacts link on the left side of Gmail.  Then, click the import link towards the top right.  You should be able to follow the instructions from there.

For more information on this whole migration to Gmail and other ways to get this done, see lifehacker.

I specifically wanted to make sure my name was “Lee S. Katz” on pubmed so that I wouldn’t be grouped with the weirdo who writes about sexuality and farm animals.  However, on Pubmed they just use my initials and so I am grouped together with that person.

Forever now, if you search my name on Pubmed, you’ll see both of us.