"The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952): Part 1, Chapter 1

"See the Cat?" asked Newt. "See the Cradle?"
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat's Cradle (1963): Chapter 81

News

2/2/08

Different day, same thing. I'm applying to grad school and finishing up my last semester.

6/2/07

A small update, this summer I will be studying Polya enumeration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polya_enumeration). I have also made a book list, for books that I read or plan on reading over the summer. If you have any suggestions please e-mail me.

5/08/07

Semester is almost over. This summer I'm staying in Cambridge doing a UROP, studying combinatorics with professor Clifford Smyth. Here are some photos from spring break 2007.

1/2/07

Hello, friends. Happy new years and all that stuff. I'm heading back to Cambridge on the 7th and taking a math lecture course for credit over IAP. Lulu is in China for the month, here are some photos for now: photos

11/11/06

The summer went well, Manassas Virginia was great; I got the chance to live in an apartment by myself in a town where I knew no one. Kind of scary, yes, but I had a great time. I met a lot of cool folks at a bar accross the street from my apartment called Okra's. Returned to school in August and things have been going smoothly since then. I have a great girlfriend, Lulu, which occupies most of my time. I managed to harness my inner strength and run the Boston Half Marathon again as well. Cheers.

05/11/06

Two more weeks until summer. Working for Lockheed Martin in Manassas Virginia doing DoD stuff. Look at some of the music i've uploaded, it's pretty much the only thing on this website that gets updated often.

01/08/06

happy new year and all. IAP, i'm doing maslab, we'll see... new song, check it out

09/11/05

On sunday, oct. 9th, I ran the Boston Half Marathon (13.1 miles). Here are the results:

• personal results
• complete results

06/26/05

Freshman year is over. It was quite the experience to spend a year at MIT. I learned a lot of cool stuff, met a lot of interesting people, and found out a lot about myself. I think for the most part I am the same person, I don't feel dramatically changed or anything. However, i do feel a little more cultured. Being at MIT especially. This summer I'll be working at the FBI fingerprinting facility in Clarksburg, WV, under an internship from Lockheed Martin. It should be interesting, and i'll try to post more details as I learn more. That's all! keep checking back!

Classes

Major declared: course 18 (math)

Minor declared: course 24 (philosophy)

Fall 2008:

• 18.315 Combinatorial Theory
• 18.100b Real Analysis
• 18.510 Logic with Recursion Theory
• 18.821 Mathematics Project Lab

Spring 2007:

• 18.312 Algebraic Combinatorics
• 18.424 Information Theory Seminar
• 18.06 Intro to Linear Algebra
• 24.221 Metaphysics

Fall 2006:

• 18.314 Combinatorial Analysis
• 18.310 Principles of Applied Mathematics
• 21A.100 Introduction to Anthropology
• 24.211 Theory of Knowledge

Spring 2006:

• 6.045 Automota, Complexity, and Computability
• 6.004 Computer Architecture
• 4.602 Modern Art and Mass Culture

Fall 2005:

• 18.701 Algebra
• 6.042 Math for Computer Scientists
• 18.03 Differential Equations
• 14.02 Macroeconomics

Spring 2005:

• 18.024 Calculus II with theory
• 8.02 Physcis E&M
• 6.001 Introduction to computer science
• 24.02 Moral Philosophy: what is the best way to live?

Fall 2004:

• 18.014 Calculus I with theory
• 8.012 Advanced Mechanics
• 5.111 intro chemistry
• 24.10J Philosophy: darwanism and evolution

Work

7/6/07

This summer, working with Professor Smyth at MIT, I am investigating a branch of combinatorics which deals with partially ordered sets. The following documents have been prepared to offer a glimpse at the work I have been doing. Check back often!

• Introduction
• Posets of Order 4
• Posets of Order 5
• Posets of Order 6
• Posets of Order 7
• Posets of Order 8

11/11/06

Summer '06 was spent at Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors facility in Manassas Virgina. Nothing very exciting happened, most of the time I read CNN. I did have a chance to work on developing Eclipse plugins, however -- actually kind of usefull; and a large ammount of time was spent writing Perl scripts.

9/26/05

This summer ('05) I'll be working for Lockheed Martin at the FBI Finger printing facility in Clarksburg, West Virginia. I'll post some more info as soon as I find out!

For a while I worked at Wendy's... Wendy's was interesting. I met some cool people, and I learned a lot about the fast food process. Over the summer I worked at the NASA IV&V Facility in Fairmont, WV. My project for the summer was to implement the Cockpit Avionics Upgrade (CAU) Displays into the Facility shuttle simulator. resume

• picture 1 this is a picture of the cockpit simulator looking out over the runway. You can see the display i wrote to mimic the MEDS displays in the center console.
• picture 2 a close up on the display i wrote.
• picture 3 the aft cockpit.
• picture 4 another picture of the aft.

Pictures

9/26/05

here are some random pictures from...
thanksgiving in disney world
christmas and new years ...finally updated
IAP and disco dance floor

Music

4/21/06

Wahoo, music. i love it. Here is a brief list of what i listen to: radiohead, bright eyes, ani difranco, neutral milk hotel, pedro the lion, straylight run, american analog set, deathcab, postal service, saves the day, arcade fire, iron and wine, sunny day real estate, onelinedrawing, elliott smith, damien rice, and weezer.

Favorite albums (kind of in order, but it changes a lot):

• Radiohead - The Bends
• Ani DiFranco - So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter
• Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors
• American Analog Set - Know By Heart
• Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle

I play the guitar, too. i've been playing for about 5 years now, which is pretty sad, because i still suck. so it goes.

I recently recorded some guitar stuff, these aren't so much songs, but more of sketches on a cocktail napkin. check them out, let me know what you think, mike_a@mit.edu. Also, i think they sound better w/ headphones.

• cigarette_smoke_and_soap.mp3
• since_feeling_is_first.mp3 yes, the poem by ee cummings
• acapella.mp3
• atlantic_sea.mp3
• so_shy.mp3
• all_things_all_right.mp3 I'm not so sure I like this one, but here it is! you decide! (the lyric at the end of the second verse is "you made me, amen" not "you made me a man", get your head out of the gutter)
• song#5.mp3
• saturday_afternoon.mp3

I just got back from seeing Ani Difranco and I am attempting to recall the shows I've been to in the last 5 years, here is what I can remember shows.

Code

9/26/05

So i guess i'll just post some stuff i've been working on recently. It's mostly pretty boring, all of the exciting code i wrote was for NASA, so it's classified, and i can't be posting that (not quite as cool as it sounds).

• wave motion requires (arguments.h)- this is a program i wrote with my friend over the summer to help with his dad's research. Depending on differnet parameters it produces a post script graph for the dampening effect of osscilation.
• address book- the final project for my C++ class in high school, an address book! ta da. It's actually pretty neat code, i used linked lists to make the number of entries unlimited. check 'er out.

Other Projects

9/26/05

in sophmore and junior year of high school I worked on building (and balancing) an inverted pendulum. Here is the final paper I wrote, here (this was written a few years ago, so it isn't that great.)