happy halloween

[see larger photo and poem on flickr]

halloween is always one of my favorite times of year...colorful trees, cool crisp nights, dancing leaves, warm sweaters, hot cider, pumpkins...and of course, lots of candy :)

i didn't get a chance to dress-up this weekend, but i definitely saw a lot of costumes downtown!  there were many jersey-shore characters, tiger woods [complete with mistresses on each arm], and then the tight, short, skin-revealing costumes that the undergrad girls bravely wear while shivering in the 40-degree temperatures.

i had fun listening to some bands on friday night and going to my brother's tailgate on saturday.  then penn state shocked us all with a 41-31 win over michigan!  so it was quite the fun-filled weekend and a much needed break from school work and grading midterms :)

hope you had a great halloween too!

my boots

being back on campus gives me a great, front-row seat for the "young" trendy runway of college fashion.  i've seen skinny jeans, leggings, converse sneakers, patterned hoodies, long necklaces, uggs, colorful nail polish...those crazy ray-ban wayfarer glasses in fluorescent colors [like these...yeah not my thing].

but one trend i really love are all of the great knee-high boots.  not the ones with the four inch-heels or super shiny fake leather [aka: the pretty-woman-ones that were in style in the '80's], but the really pretty suede or leather flat boots.  they are super cute!

so i decided to try out a pair and ordered some online [because the ones in the stores are made for girls who have calves the size of my finger].  i got a pair of faux black suede, and i love them!



and the best part [in the words of nancy sinatra...or jessica simpson], these boot really were made for walkin'!  they are so so so comfortable.

so just wanted to introduce you to my love of the week...my boots :)

falafel feast

a friend invited me over last night for a de-lish vegetarian feast of some middle eastern cuisine...

flavorful falafel with creamy tzatziki

cous cous with lemon, olive oil, fresh peppers, carrots, and parsley

soft pitas and fresh veggies with yummy hummus and amazing babganoush

...can you say yum?

it was a perfect mid-week break to talk about some of our favorite things: movies, food, travel, & photography

the heir to edison

last night a few of us went to see ray kurzweil speak.  i had never heard of him before my technology theory class, but this guy is fascinating...super smart and a bit crazy...the perfect combination for an IT mastermind!

kurzweil is most known for his inventions in the optical recognition field (technology's ability to read text and font), which include the first flatbed scanner and text-to-speech synthesizer [a major breakthrough for the technologies that aid the blind!].  he went even further in the 1980's and created a speech-to-text program that allows computers to transcribe the spoken word [incredible].

his father was a musican in vienna, austria before the family fled to america during WWII, so kurzweil talked about his appreciation for music.  this led to his invention of the piano synthesizer that can mimic the sound of a grand piano [think about the casio keyboards from our childhood...on crack].  but the interesting thing is that all of these technologies seem so common place because they have been around for awhile and we take them for granted.  but the initial conception and invention of them was considered insane, if not impossible, at the time that kurweil introduced them...which makes you wonder about the types of technologies that are in our near-future.  the ones that we all think are "crazy" but will soon become commonplace.

he talked about a lot of geeky-awesome things [which gets us technology students all excited] like moore's law, transhumanism, artifical technology, and nanotechnology [crazy, yet possible, ideas that make the movie, the matrix, look normal].  he is currently working on "reverse engineering the brain" [i kid you not] and believes in microscopic technologies that will be ingested into our bodies to help us regulate and heal our bodies leading to much longer lives, even immortality [yeah, this one takes a bit of time to wrap your head around].  he talks about the ability to download your brain...memories, thoughts, emotions...onto a computer by the year 2020.  no wonder he has been called "the rightful heir to thomas edison."

i couldn't take pictures inside and it was raining, so i just snapped this photo outside of the auditorim showing all of the students pouring into the building, excited for kurzweil's talk...i haven't been to a just-for-fun lecture in a long time, and it was so exciting to just listen and learn...especially to a technology legend.