Kai von Fintel » Personal

The World Cup So Far

kvf — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:59:40 +0000

Impressions after the first round of first round games:

Baseline level of excitement because OMG it’s the world cup (on a scale of 1-10): 10.

Added excitement from what’s actually happening in the games: not quite enough.

Sources of excitement: every time Messi touches the ball, every third time Snijder touches the ball, every time a German player touches the ball, one shot by Ronaldo, Maicon scoring from an impossible angle, Chile’s mad attacking machine (especially #7 Sanchez), and one truly gripping match between Spain and Switzerland.

Robben, Drogba, Rooney: please get back in form.

Best coaching move: the wholesale importation of the German U21 team into the senior side.

Favorites now: Germany, Argentina, Netherlands, Brazil, probably Spain still, and — dare I say it? — Chile.

Predictive value of the first set of games: zilch (see Holland at Euro 08).

Life on Planet New England

kvf — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:35:03 +0000

Happy Truck Day!

First snow of the season in Berlin MA

kvf — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:58:37 +0000

[Thanks to Diana for the picture!]

Our house at sunset

kvf — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:23:15 +0000

Courtesy of our neighbor Diana:

Zipcar iPhone app

kvf — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:49:57 +0000

This is cool and these features are very cool indeed:

Honk your Zipcar’s horn with your iPhone to find it in a crowd
Unlock and lock your Zipcar with your iPhone after scanning your Zipcard at the start of each reservation

First dinner in our Common House

kvf — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:04:25 +0000

Just about ten years ago, San and I revived our notion of living in cohousing and she started talking to some other folks with children at Sudbury Valley School. The first official general meeting of what was originally called Sudbury Valley Cohousing but soon became Mosaic Commons Cohousing took place in our living room in Watertown in January 2000. After too many trials and tribulations, we moved into our home in the now physically existing Mosaic Commons Cohousing at Sawyerhill EcoVillage this spring [BTW: there still are homes available; if you want to live in a cool place with cool people just outside Boston/Cambridge, check it out]. The center of our community, our fabulous Common House, was not ready to be used because of various construction and permitting issues. Well, last night, after we had received a (temporary) certificate of occupancy in the morning, we had our first common meal in our Common House. September 1st shall henceforth be known as Common House Day in our neighborhood. Here, courtesy of our friend and neighbor Tim, are some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qwrrty/ / CC BY 2.0

Consolidation

kvf — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:23:58 +0000

These days, I really don’t have all that much time to maintain my web presence the way I used to, what with two paying jobs and all kinds of volunteer work. So, it is time to consolidate my personal web presence into this one site. I will continue to post notes about my field, about academic geekery, and about (parts of) my life, but they will now all appear here.

If you are subscribed to an RSS feed from one of my old sites, those should continue to work. If you want to subscribe to this site, there are a number of choices:

http://feeds.kaivonfintel.org/kvf-all: all posts
http://feeds.kaivonfintel.org/semanticsetc: only posts about semantics etc.
http://feeds.kaivonfintel.org/academicgeek: only posts about (academic) geekery
http://feeds.kaivonfintel.org/complacencies: only posts about life
http://feeds.kaivonfintel.org/kvf-comments: all comments

Another Half Marathon

kvf — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:10:34 +0000

On a gorgeous fall morning today, I ran my third half marathon in the last 372 days. This one was the toughest one, because my training had suffered over the last month from my being under the weather a bit and from my dean-ly duties. So, I just barely managed the 13.1 miles in 2:15:48, not my best time. But for the first time, my family was there at the finish line and that was a great feeling (even if the kids were apparently a bit impatient — next time I have to run faster). I seem to have signed up for the Hyannis Half in February, so training will resume soon.

Our House from the Air

kvf — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:55:29 +0000

Courtesy of a friend of the foreman at the construction site, we now have some very neat aerial photography of Sawyer Hill Cohousing. I highlighted our house with a red oval in all three pictures (click on the pictures for full size versions):

Announcement

kvf — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:45:05 +0000

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