Halloween

Well, I haven't got a costume or any plans. I am not too concerned about this. We have a few gummy snacks should some small person make his way up the stairs to our door. I don't expect he will (I think there is only one child in our building--most of my neighbors prefer dogs).

In other news, I have three exams this coming week, in Comp Sci, Stat, and Diff Eqs. I hope to do well.

Still on the cusp of playing with lisp enough to make a meaningful program. Learned just a small amount of SQL last weekend. We'll see when I can make use of that.

Math woes

So I had an exam yesterday in Differential equations. My biggest difficulty, it seems, now that I think I remember calculus, is knowing what I just have to leave alone. I had a problem that started well enough, y' = e^(x^2/2)(x+xy)/y. This solves pretty easily to y - log(y+1) = e^(x^2) + C. I wish I hadn't believed it would be a good idea to try to solve for y. Although wolfram suggests the answer lies in something called a lambert product-log function, it's a horrible solution, and can't be expected to pop into the head of an undergraduate math student (esp. not before complex analysis). So the good news is that I got all the parts on the page. The bad news is I didn't put them all next to each other, circle, and move on. The other 5 problems were either really easy or I did them all wrong.

Apple Holler

Went up to Wisconsin this morning to have a trip through the apple orchard. It was windy and chilly, so we were glad we dressed appropriately. Unfortunately, only the jonathan and golden delicious were really harvestable, so we mostly walked through rows of barren trees. We had a fun time regardless.


Cristin with our bag of fresh fruit.


There was a pig race at noon, 4 little porkers running to get their dinners.



This little guy can probably get through the fence if he really wants to.