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A little bit about my personality: pretty good sense of humor (if weird at times), sometimes a little shy (frequently around people I don't know, in somewhat uncomfortable situations, or around a lady I'm particularly attracted to (which would explain lack of dates, etc.), but not really shy at all once you get to know me), romantic (I'd say, although I haven't had much of a chance to express these feelings, so I'm not always good at being romantic), a bit hooked on chivalry and honor and stuff like that; I guess I'm kind of old-fashioned. I've also added in my geek codes for the last few versions of the code. I should also mention that I haven't updated the older versions of the code since I made them, which would be at roughly the time they were released. Actually, the newest version of the code is kind of old, too. The official site is geekcode.com, but there's also some info on Yahoo's Geek Code. Yahoo also has a page with links to other codes done in the same fashion. The A Word A Day home page and mailing list is a fun way to learn the meaning of a new word every weekday. I've also found that the Desiderata has some very good advice; I like some of the ancient eastern classics like the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching for the same reason. And, BTW, you don't have to divine with the I Ching either (though I've had two interesting experiences doing so; ask me about them if you like), the whole book is essentially just generally good advice.
About my family: I have one sister and one brother, both younger than me (3 and 6 years younger, respectively). My sister is currently staying at home taking care of her three children while my brother works at both The Washington Inn and Martini Beach. Before that he had positions as a sous chef and the executive pastry chef at the Fromagerie Restaurant. (Good record, so I'm plugging him. ;) ) We also have a female Newfoundland, a Landseer (black and white), named Nova who is about 10 years old. As she gets older she gets a little less active and her joint problems get worse (which is kind of sad considering how much she always used to run around and play), taking more naps, but she still likes doing things, being with people, and knowing what everyone is doing. She may be a giant dog, but she's very sweet and gentle and we love her a lot. She gives me a great welcome when I go home on breaks. Of course, I also took care of her a lot when we first got her and I was on Christmas break from undergrad so I guess she kind of got attached to me; my mom says Nova's always happy when I come home. And my brother got a male boxer puppy named Horatio; he's about 2 years old now, I think. Our other dog, a solid black male Newfoundland named Kodi was nearly 11 years old before we had to put him to sleep. :( Poor thing had a variety of problems including depression, tumors, lung infections, and nerve problems. It was sad, he didn't even recognize the family at the end. He was a great pet, we all loved him, and we're going to miss him a lot. I do wish that I could have seen him one more time though. Here's a photo of Nova and Kodi lying down in our back yard. It's from 1997, but Nova still looks basically the same. I just got a photo of Horatio leaping off the two steps from our kitchen into the den when chasing a toy. :) He used to lie on the pillow in the corner of the picture; it's right in front of a vent so it's nice and warm, but he's too big to fit there now so usually he just lies on Nova instead. :) You can take a look at the newfoundland faq for some information on Newfoundlands and stuff or read this wonderful and famous poem by Lord Byron. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, and pets (i.e., everyone except me) are all living back in New Jersey right now. My sister is now married and living with her husband in their own house raising three children, a boy named Alexander (3), a girl named Abigail (1), and a newborn boy named Damian (here's their 2004 holiday photo), but they only moved like one town away from my parents' house, so they're still in the same area. My brother bought a house down near Cape May because he has a job down there now and he's now engaged to be married. OK, I think that's about enough of that. Now on to my interests and the rest of the links.
The astronomy program at Villanova is excellent and I already have some practical research experience. I am a co-author on 8 publications: two abstracts in the BAAS -- 1993, Vol. 25, No. 4 and 1996, Vol. 28, No. 1; IAU Circular 5770; and IBVS Bulletins 4101, 4161, 4229, 4362, 4363. Last I heard my undergrad research advisor, Dr. Edward Guinan, was trying to get some additional work we had done published in the IBVS and/or the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) and our senior year research work was supposed to be published as well, but I don't think any of that has happened yet and it probably won't now. I assisted a professor on an observing run at Kitt Peak, I participated in an observing run at IUE headquarters with one of my professors. (There's some IUE information available at the Multimission Archive at Space Telescope.) I'm a junior member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and I have presented poster papers at the January 1994 and January 1996 AAS meetings. My work has included the study of a supernova (SN 1993J), binary stars as tests of general relativity (DI Herculis, V541 Cygni, and V1143 Cygni), and my undergrad senior research project which involved flare stars (HD 1405, HD 220140, and HD 17925).
I am now in my eighth (and expected final) year of graduate school at the University of Maryland in College Park where I am working on achieving a PhD degree in astronomy. I earned my MS degree in astronomy in May 1999 after completing classwork, the PhD qualifying exam, and a second year research project. That was a theoretical project done with Dr. Eve Ostriker on the modeling of stars in young clusters (primarily for the Orion Nebula Cluster), studying their dynamics with N-body simulations, and trying to figure out how they form and evolve and of course if the theoretical calculations match the observations available. While it would have been nice to have gotten further than I did, since I've changed areas for my thesis, I'm not doing any additional work on that project now. I was officially passed to PhD candidacy by the Graduate School in the fall of my fifth year. My PhD dissertation advisor is Dr. Stacy McGaugh and I'm working on a sky survey of very low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. The observations were made before I started on the project, so my job has been to reduce, calibrate, and analyze the data. The detection of LSB galaxies was the main goal, creating a catalog of objects that can be used to plan follow up observations and future studies. For the science, we've mainly been studying the surface brightness distribution and performing the necessary corrections to turn the observed distribution into the intrinsic one. We're also looking at relationships between certain galaxy properties and seeing how our observations compare with previous work. A few years ago I made a small montage image of some of the galaxies we've detected on one of the first fields I was looking at. The galaxies are the faint, fuzzy objects near or at the center of each box. Yep, those are basically the kinds of things I'm looking for. Fun stuff, huh? :) I presented a poster paper on this work at the January 2004 AAS meeting and hope to publish a short paper, probably in ApJ Letters, in the near future as a sort of introduction to this survey. Of course we will want to publish the entire catalog of detections eventually as well. I may do some follow-up observations in the future if I keep working in this general area, but it would have to be after I graduate. I'm going to be working very hard to finish, defend, and graduate by the end of this summer. Since I'm approaching the end of my stay as a grad student, I've started applying for a variety of jobs, mostly research post-docs and fellowships, but a few others as well. If you happen to hear about any available positions, I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know about them. I'd be particularly interested in hearing about non-traditional jobs, things outside of academics and research, because (1) it's a little harder for me to find out about them and (2) I'm starting to get burned out on research and am kind of looking for a change. I now have a curriculum vitae (CV) up if you're interested; it's subject to change and updates, but it should cover all of the most important points. Oh, I also just found out about a site called Piled Higher and Deeper -- check out their Comics Archive List. Admittedly being a grad student thing people who are/were grad students will relate to it more, but at least some of it should be amusing to others as well. I think it's a riot and since it's about grad school life, it kind of fits in this section.
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