Study Break

Fri Jun 13th, 2003 11:53:19 PM EST

Diary Entry 133
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The last few weeks have been a nice change from the routine of frantically writing and submitting one paper after another. Frantically studying for quals was a change, but not really a nice one.


It's the end of the quarter here at Stanford, and I'm graduating too! I found out last weekend that I passed my quals. Along with passing the last of my comps last fall, that means that I get my masters degree in computer science. Woo-hoo!

Rumor has it that my research group's paper on trusted computing using a trusted virtual machine monitor for SOSP 2003 was accepted. Rumor also has it that the competing paper from Microsoft on their publicly reviled ``Palladium'' technology was rejected. Wonderful!

On Sunday, June 1, Kate and I went to an Ozomatli concert in the afternoon. Ozomatli is a band that—well, I can't really describe it, so go to their website if you're interested. Kate has been a fan for a long time, but it was the first I'd heard of them. Fun concert though.

Last Saturday, Kate and I went into Palo Alto to the local humane society's ``Cat and Kitten Adoption Fair.'' Kate wants a cat pretty badly, but pets are not allowed in university housing. We are talking about finding an off-campus apartment that would allow cats.

Kate's got me into crossword puzzles lately. Most days lately I've gone out and grabbed a copy of the Palo Alto Daily News for its two daily crosswords. I'm getting better at them, but they're still pretty hard sometimes.

I've had plenty of time for biking these past weeks. Last week I went out on a couple of trips, and today I biked across the Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge to Fremont and back. Sun Microsystems has a big office complex on the near side of the bridge, and an even bigger one on the far side of the bridge. It was not a particularly long ride (30 miles) but tiring because of construction on the bridge's near side and the awful, rough road on the far side.

The car's odometer passed 1000 miles on the way back from the grocery store this week. I've had the car a little over 6 weeks. That's on target for about 8000 miles a year. I figure we'll probably go on some extended trips this summer that could bring it up to 10000 miles, which is what I estimated for the insurance.

I start my summer job at VMware on Monday. Wish me luck!


Last updated 03 Apr 2004 21:17. Copyright © 2004 Ben Pfaff.
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