I've never had such a terrible time booking a flight in my life. I suppose I should expect it to be rough since I am trying to fly out of the country's largest airport at the busiest time of the year. Nevertheless, I venture to say that it is bad business to do any of the following:

- Advertise flights that do not in fact exist. As you can imagine, booking imaginary flights is difficult.

- Change the price of flights every five minutes. I'm not kidding. One flight had 3 different prices ranging from $113 to over $500. This makes finding the least expensive flight a crap shoot.

- Advertise flights that are actually completely booked even though your website says "3 seats remaining at this price"

In addition to this, I also question who is in charge of pricing seats for airlines. How is it that a flight on a Saturday can be less than 300 dollars and the same flight on a Sunday is more than 600 dollars? Demand can't possibly change that dramatically over a 24 hour period.

Nevertheless, I prevailed in booking a flight for Thanksgiving week. I arrive in Salt Lake Tuesday before lunch and leave Saturday night at midnight to arrive at JFK early Sunday morning. I'm extremely excited to go and plan to maximize my time with all of my favorite things (I may have sounded like Oprah there), which are, in no particular order:

My family
Utah
Skiing
Old roomates
Mountains
Streets that follow a grid (or any) pattern
Little America Hotel
KSL Weather Forecasts
My old couch and high definition television

I plan to savor all of them.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Tonight at dinner I saw my friend Christian who also graduated from BYU. Christian is in the economics department here and is also a first year grad student. One of the rumors floating around among students is that John Nash (A Beautiful Mind, Nash Equilibrium) regularly eats at the Frist Campus Center. Well Christian saw him there at lunch today. He snapped a picture with his cell phone, and lo and behold, that's John Nash. Aparently he has an office in the mathmatics department that is just down the road from my office. So after dinner I decided that I would watch the movie based on his life. It was fun to see all of the locations on campus that I have become familiar with in the movie. The faculty dining room where he receives the pens of all of his colleagues is actually the common room of one of the undergraduate colleges. There are several scenes that take place in places that I walk through to get to my office every day.

(Guess which one is the real John Nash)

Moreover, it is incredible to think that the guy that developed a concept that is key to several of the classes I am going to be taking is wandering around campus is incredible. Even further, I am constantly amazed at how many people here really have developed foundational ideas that are critical to the study of political science. I'm doing a presentation next Monday for my political behavior class and one of the articles that we are going to discuss really sets the stage for the modern study of political behavior. And what do you know, the guy who wrote it is sitting down the hall from me. Pretty cool when you stop to think about it.

UNABASHED SELF PROMOTION

I'm learning quickly that it is quite easy to become overwhelmed as a grad student. I look at the work and deadlines I have each week, and I don't feel like I should be stressed, but nevertheless I've felt that way this week. It could be because my first midterms as a Princeton student are right around the corner. It could also be that everyone around me seems overwhelmed and stressed and so I unconsciously think I should be freaking out as well. It could also be that I should genuinely be stressed with the amount of work and high standard faculty have of students here. Anyway, enough of the self pity. To counteract this malaise, I've made sure to keep time in my schedule for running. Its one activity that graduate school can't suck the fun out of. In addition its very easy to get fat as a graduate student. I've heard many stories about people starting grad school, spending all day and night in a small office with no windows, eating lots of pizza, and getting very large. Thus far, I've done a pretty good job of running regularly. I plan to run in a marathon sometime during the summer of 2010 and be well trained for it, unlike my last marathon which I was definitely not adequately prepared for (nevertheless I finished). That being said, I've been keeping my weekly mileage pretty constant and plan to maintain this until well into the winter when I can start to crank up the distance in preparation for the summer. So tonight I ran 6.5 miles around town and managed to maintain a 7:30 pace. I'm pretty pleased with that and thought I would share my success with my faithful reader.

LAUNDRY DAY

I did my laundry today. It took every ounce of self control I posses to not hang all of my clothes on the artwork, even though it was raining.

ACTUAL EMAIL RECEIVED FROM COLLEGE HOUSING

Subject: Do not hang your laundry on the artwork

Dear Residents:

It has come to my attention that residents have gotten into the practice of hanging their wet laundry all over the sculpture on the East side of the New Graduate College. This is a reminder that this is not allowed and nothing (including laundry) should be put on any of the pieces of art that inhabit the areas around the Graduate College.

Thank you for your assistance with this matter.

Olivia

Who can blame us? We're poor. We don't want to pay to use the driers, and the sculpture in question really does resemble a broken clothesline.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Today I went into the office early to get some homework done. Its amazing how easily I get distracted. Needless to say, I didn't get much homework done. After a few hours of that, I decided I would go for a bike ride. The weather prohibited going earlier but by the afternoon the sky was clear and the air was crisp. Perfect for a fall ride. I had mapped out a route the night before and planned on riding about 25 miles into the countryside north and west of town. I wanted to make it all the way to Pennsylvania, which is actually not that far from here. Well I made it. The picture below shows the Delaware River. That's right, you're looking at Pennsylvania. It looks like a pretty crazy place. This photo is about 1 mile north of where George Washington crossed the very same river a few years earlier.

It tuns out that this bridge is a little further than I had anticipated. Its actually about 20 miles from Princeton, which meant I had 20 miles of backtracking and only about 1 hour of daylight remaining. My advanced math skills told me I would have to ride pretty fast to get home before it got dark. I didn't make it. The last 5 or 6 miles were a little precarious as I rode home in the dark on a pretty busy road coming into Princeton. Moreover, I hadn't eaten much prior to leaving since the dining halls are closed on Saturdays so when I got home I had that feeling where any type of food sounds extremely good. (Think fast Sunday with a 10K thrown in.) The moment I got home I devoured an interesting assortment of snack foods. Dinner consisted of 2 small bags of Doritos and Fritos, several Tootsie Rolls, a bunch of Jujyfruits, some peanuts, beef jerkey, pretzels with peanut butter, and a cup of hot chocolate. About an hour later I had the opposite feeling. Every type of food sounded repulsive.

BARF

I admit, he is a very smart man with great ambition to do a lot of good things that I agree with. But really, there's no one else in the world that is more deserving? Obama has decades of diplomatic potential left, why not wait to see if he can actually deliver the goods? I think SNL would agree with me on this one.



Its amusing that these two pieces came out within days of each other. I have to say I'm with Lorne Michaels.

MY FIGHT AGAINST CORPORATE AMERICA

Last summer I flew from Utah to Seattle for a friend's wedding. The returning flight was overbooked and since I had nothing scheduled for the next day, I volunteered to get bumped. This meant that I became the proud owner of a $350 travel voucher that is good for any Southwest flight during the next year. I plan on using this voucher to help pay for my flight back to Spokane for my sister's wedding and Christmas. However, I have encountered a small obstacle. For some reason Southwest claims to keep no record of the voucher number and accompanying security code. I know this because in the process of moving from Utah to New Jersey I have lost the credit card sized slip of paper that has both of those number written on it. I thought I would lose it, which is why I emailed myself the voucher number soon after getting back to Utah in July. However, at the time I didn't realize that the security code was also necessary.

I've called Southwest twice and both times been told that they don't keep a record of the numbers and therefore cannot help me. I know this is false. How could I type in the numbers online and receive credit for the voucher if there wasn't some sort of record floating around on their system somewhere? The real reason is that they know that a good number of people like me will lose the tiny shard of paper and be unable to claim what is rightfully theirs. I refuse to allow this corporate giant to prevail.

So here's where I currently stand. I have the voucher number from my email. I don't have the security code. However, I know that it is a 4 digit number. That means there are a mere 10,000 possible numbers that it could be. And, unlike many bank websites, southwest.com doesn't boot you from the site if you type in the wrong security code after 4 or 5 attempts. So what is the next logical step. Of course, try every possible number. Now, any economist reading this would be likely to suggest I review the principles of opportunity cost. I reply that this is now about much more than money. Its about beating the man, and nothing is going to be more satisfying than when I get that number.

I'm currently 1000 numbers into the series and have yet to find the right combination. It takes about 20 minutes to type 100 numbers and I keep a spreadsheet with all the numbers I've tried. Lucky for me I live in Princeton, New Jersey where there is absolutely nothing to do, so typing numbers while listening to music for an hour each evening is actually more exciting than the available alternatives. I figure at 200 per day I have a 50% probability of getting the right number in 25 days. As long as I finish with enough time to book the flight before Christmas I'm set. So I will periodically keep my reader updated as to my progress on the "Southwest Problem", and expect a big post when that fated day of victory arrives. I'm hoping its sometime before Halloween, but as luck would have it, it will probably be the last number I type.

LIFE AS A FUGITIVE...PART II

My loyal blog reader will know what the title of this post refers to. However, for the other person that has recently slipped into a lonely and depressing period in their life, er... I mean started to read my blog, I will explain. An earlier post in August discussed the strange appliance rules imposed by the housing czars at the Graduate College. On the list of unapproved appliances is an assortment of water kettles, a multitude of lamps, candles or candle warmers, and microwaves of any sort. However, I chose to press my luck by owning a microwave. Actually, I bought it prior to knowing many of these electrical policies. And what choice was I given since I was expected to live here for 3 weeks without any kitchen or open cafeteria. Given these circumstances, I kept the microwave and hid it under my bed so that if I were subject to an unannounced dorm inspection I might have a chance of avoiding the law on this one.

So despite my disbelief that people here really have nothing better to do (...like cleaning my shared bathroom which needs a good bleaching) than go door to door looking for contraband water kettles and candles, I came home to find I had been the subject of a search. A small paper was left on my desk informing me that a person had entered my room and I would be receiving an e-mail in the next 5 days informing me of the results of the search. Adrenaline rushed through my body as I quickly turned around to see if the inspector had discovered my secret microwave. It was still there, and I had made my bed in the morning so as to cover the gap between the floor and the bed frame where the microwave resides. (I've never made my bed regularly in my life except for now, and the main reason is to hide the evidence of the microwave.) However, I noticed that the cord was slightly exposed at the end of the bed. Had I been careless with the cord? Was I going to receive an angry e-mail threatening confiscation, fines, expulsion, jail time, court fees...? Should I abandon my education and flee to Mexico, or maybe Belize? I hear they don't extradite prisoners there and the local universities can't be that bad.

A few hours later I went to dinner and asked my friends if they were also under investigation. Turns out the gestapo was in full force today as several of them had also received a notice. One girl had the same experience last week. She and her roommates (she lives in a four person suite) were the owners of three unapproved water kettles. Notice I say "were". It turns out that if the secret police find something they don't like they immediately take it with them. Somewhere on campus there must be a large room full of all sorts of kitchen fare. Or perhaps some Princeton official has a kitchen counter lined with hundreds of water kettles and candle warmers. Anyway, according to my friend, the promised e-mail is then sent to inform you of the $50 fine they are assessing you through your student account. Incidentally, she and her roommates must collectively pay $150. I was elated; not that she had to fork over $50, but that I was likely not going to have to transfer my credits to the University of Belize. Assuming that since my lovely microwave is still in my room, I must have escaped the eyes of my local appliance inspector. But until I have the all clear from the forthcoming e-mail, I think I'll start looking into whether or not UofB accepts credits from Princeton.

SOCIAL LIFE MARGINALLY DAMAGED, BUT...

12:20 Friday night/Saturday morning. Real analysis problem set finished! Take that math, I will not allow you to ruin a good Saturday or Sunday. Bring on the Conference.

MY FAMILY TO A 'T'

This is such a perfect description. And I have no shame in embracing and perpetuating the stereotype. Just change SUV to minivan.

Click Here

TO MARYANNE:

Shout Out.