Marching for Babies, and Coding at Broad

This passed weekend, Tim, Rae Beth, Jackie, Ashley and I all made custom "Team Fiends" shirts for the March of Dimes March for Babies. All the credit, of course, goes to Ashley, who bought the shirts and puff paint, and got us all involved in the first place. She and I went to the March for Babies kickoff at the EMC clubhouse at Fenway a couple days ago. It was phenomenal to see Fenway from the inside for the first time. We're both dying to catch a game this summer. Nick and I both have thrown our hats in for the MIT Red Sox Raffle, which gives us at least a slim chance of getting super cheap tickets to one of 11 games this coming season. I'm crossing my fingers.

The MathWorks and Novartis both got back to me on my job applications this passed week. Pfft.

Work this week has been good. I'm still learning about the software (SO much code), and it looks like I'll be getting a new desk by a window before long. We're about to gain another office, and they were good enough to ask everyone their preferences. Excellent! Hopefully I'll be able to get a big ol' whiteboard wall installed as well. I want to write on EVERYTHING!!! As it stands, I have about 20 post-it's stuck all over the wall next to my current desk.

Anyway, I arranged for Ray, Anne and I to meet with my friend Curran today to talk about the visualization platform he built called JyVis, and consider it as a base for our new version of CellProfiler Analyst. The meeting went really well I think! It looks like there's a good chance that we'll be rewriting the whole thing in Python while using the JyVis as a model for our architecture. This is exciting news for me, not to mention Curran and Ray (who has been dying to get away from Java). It also makes me feel good to know that my connections to UML are still strong, and have potential for mutual benefit. Speaking of which, I'm meeting with Christine, Howie, and Hongli, all of whom I used to work with at the IVPR, next Tuesday for lunch.

After the meeting with Anne and Ray tonight, Curran and I headed out together and ended up bumping into a couple kids who talked to us for about 10 minutes about Greenpeace. I learned about how Kleenex is deforesting north western Canada, and how George Bush is stalling at putting polar bears on the endangered species list because we're drilling for oil. Neato. A few minutes later, Curran's friend Justin met us at Kendall. We walked down to the Cambridge Brewing Company (CBC) where Justin's girlfriend met up with us for food and drinks. We got a pitcher of Om, a 9.4% "venture into the world of beer and mystical experience", and a second pitcher of Saison Noire, which tasted like a magical garden filled with lilacs. Both were really good! We ended up staying there and talking for nearly 2 and a half hours. It was a great time.

Friday is coding day at Broad, something I'm looking forward to. It's the one day a month that the whole group locks ourselves in the Matterhorn conference room and work on bugs and enhancements all day long. Granted, this is what I do every day in my office, but coding day means I get company... and free pizza. I'm excited.