So I spent the bulk of the past week in Burlington, VT, at the SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics. It was definitely a nice trip. Our research group (at least the student members of it) flew to Boston Sunday and, despite flying on three different airlines, arrived within a 30-minute time span. Dave’s mom picked us up, and we drove to his house in Arlington and hopped in a different car for the drive to Burlington. It was a really great drive. Vermont in particular is a lovely state. Lush with green, mountainous (east coast mountains, that is), and great temperatures. At the conference, we had the chance to talk with some other researchers working in a similar area to some of the stuff we’ve been doing, and hopefully started some connections outside of Georgia Tech. One of those people will hopefully come visit this fall for a week when she’s on sabbatical.
I definitely had conference fatigue by Thursday afternoon, and so I sure didn’t object to the idea of heading back to Boston early. We went for a nice (short) hike through a gorge on the VT/NH state line, which fulfilled Csaba’s desire to go hiking. After arriving back in Boston, we headed into the city. We had dinner at Faneuil Hall. (I had clam chowdah and a shrimp salad roll, which was tasty.) We then ventured into an area of town known as the North End (an area of town full of Italian restaurants) for pastries at Mike’s Pastry. I had a great chocolate mousse cannoli after I finally fought my way to the front of the line. We finished the evening by walking through Boston Common, the public garden, and to Fenway Park. Friday I went to the Museum of Science with Marcus and then headed back to Atlanta at 1800.
I’ve lived in one place for almost four years know, which has been great, as I love my apartment (especially the kitchen) and its location. However, being ~12 miles from campus and needing to drive every day is getting tiring, especially with gas hovering around $4/gallon and little sign of a change there. I’ve been looking for a different apartment for a couple of weeks now, focusing on places where I could be closer to the subway. I again enlisted the assistance of Promove to help in screening out large complexes and monitored craigslist to look for more independent type of places. There’s a place that I’ve had my eye on but had been waiting to get a solid price and specials for August move-in. Finally, when I called yesterday, they were able to give me specific information, and it was good. I went and visited and loved the place. By official space numbers, it’s about 170 square feet larger than my current apartment, but considering that I think there’s a lot of space cheating going on in the number used to rate my current apartment’s area, I think the new place will be even bigger. I’ll post more details once I know for sure that my application has been approved. I had to provide a lot of documentation of my finances to them, since they want you to make 2.5 times the market rate of the apartment, which I don’t (I make over 2.5 the leasing rate, but not this mystical market rate), but they’re willing to take documentation of the money I have in the bank to show that I can afford the place, so hopefully I get good news tomorrow. I’ll post more details once I’m sure that everything works out. Looks like the move will be 16 August, if all goes as plans, so go ahead and start making your travel plans to come help 
The new place will be right on a MARTA bus line that runs every 20 minutes and takes 10 minutes to get to a MARTA rail station, giving easy access to campus. My commute will be longer than it is right now, but I’ll be able to read or make other good use of my time then, rather than focusing on driving every morning.
Today’s been kind of blah. Had no idea what I wanted for supper, just knew that I needed to bake bread to use for sandwiches this week. Even on that front, I feel like I’m stuck in a rut. I should probably sit down with The Bread Bible and identify a new recipe to try next week. I wound up just making a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, which was tasty, but not inspiring. It sucks when you’re tired of eating out but have nothing in your kitchen to cook and don’t know what you want to eat. Hopefully things get better this week.
