Miscellany

Ow. I've had a low-grade headache all day. My eyes were a wee bit funky in the morning too. I had a nap this morning... I'm not sure if I would have had one if I were at school, but I'm working from home today. (H is away from the office today.) Coming home yesterday I talked to a friend who was in town, and she also had a headache. The weather was changeable yesterday, so perhaps that's why I had a bad headache. I'm going to give this med a bit more of a trial before writing it off.

(This paragraph contains dissertation gobble-de-gook.) Today I've been thinking about the meaning of the rigidity matrix, and am getting a bit better understanding of it. It's a bizarre thing. I've figured out how translations and rotations look as velocity vectors, and that distance-preserving edge motions can be broken down into a rotation about the center of the edge (or one of the endpoints, it doesn't matter) plus a translation. Non-trivial motions are then simply the ones where two or more edges have motions that can't be broken down to a translation plus a rotation around a common point. I don't think any of this will actually end up in my dissertation, but it's nice having a better understanding. (End of dissertation gobble-de-gook.)

I've also gotten around to answering a few outstanding e-mails. I have more to deal with, though. *blush* I'm bad about e-mails... if I don't answer them immediately, I almost never do. Bad me.

I signed out "The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning". That sucker is *big*. It's a flippin' textbook! Despite being an academic, I have a deep-seated dislike of reading textbooks. I have read the first chapter of Alden, and it is interesting. I just have to overcome my dislike every time I pick it up. I'd like to take it up to the lake with me, but it's due back the day we're coming back... and I *don't* want a late fee. (I hate library fees with a fiery passion.) I can renew it online as long as there's no requests on it... I'm going to do so before I leave, I'm just not sure when. The longer I wait, the longer I get to keep it for (we only get one online renew before having to take it back in), but the higher the likelihood someone will place a request. Hm. I guess I'll go renew it now, and that way I will definitely get to take it to the lake, and will have two days after I return in order to return the book. But I have a doctor appointment on one of those days, so that would only give me one day to return it, and no leeway if I'm forgetful. I guess I'll wait until tomorrow to renew the book.