As weird as it might sound, none of the men’s team from my school, Michigan Tech, had ever beaten a men’s team from our arch rivals, Northern Michigan, when I was part of the audience. I thought it had to do with my physical presence in the gym but apparently watching them over the internet [...]

I might sound like a broken record but as happy and excited as I was about ten days ago to be going there, I was equally sad & depressed to be going away from it - at least until the next time, whenever that may be… Looking back at these ten days while I awaited [...]

Disclaimer
These instructions/steps worked for me and it may very well work for you on Sun OS / linux distributions. Please note that if you decide to use these instructions on your machine (either for this particular application and/or for other kind of information), you are doing so entirely at your very own discretion and that [...]

It’s hard to believe - at least for me - that it has already been THREE months since I moved to New Jersey, and more importantly, it has been an equally long time since I last tasted beer! With many of my friends graduating (or should I say gradumatating?) from Michigan Tech this Spring, plans [...]

Disclaimer

Not liking something is NOT THE SAME as hating it.
With above point in mind, I do not like MS Word - reasons for not liking it could actually be another blog entry and I will reserve it for some other day.
With first point still in mind, it does not mean that I do not dislike [...]

Disclaimer
Instructions given in this page are what I used to configure my Sony Vaio VGN-S360 notebook and DELL Dimension 3000 desktop. These may very well be applicable to your computer, of other brand/model. However, note that you are using these instructions at your very own risk and this website, sgowtham.net, is not responsible for any/all [...]

I am not so sure if you read my previous entry. If you did, you know where I have been. If you did not, please be notified that I have been lost in compilation… Colloquially speaking, I did not see any light anywhere in the tunnel and instead of resorting to some bar (and alcohol), [...]

Well, for about a week since I arrived in Houghton, my body continued to be in some weird timezone but having returned in the Home Coming week and Fall foliage about to peak, I had quite many stuff to entertain myself. After properly unpacking my stuff (& other related work) and taking care of some [...]

I had been meaning to write about this for a while but didn’t find a suitable occasion (don’t I always claim so?). Anyway, I got out of bed quite early in the morning (thanks to my new found passion that makes me be at a given place before 8 am), browsed through some usual pages [...]

Ever since the softball season started, /me has been wondering Why is our Team Fiziks sucking so bad?. We have had our usual practice sessions (with rather diminishing, not-so-encouraging attendance) but our performance had been way below our usual standards. Games that we won in the first six weeks have been close escapes and we [...]

As many of my friends have been asking me recently, How did I get involved this thing?. Cutting the long story short, couple of people who organized this workshop are very good friends of mine and we happened to have similar interests. Karen S and Eli had spent numerous hours/days in designing the syllabus, and [...]

It was three days ago, in an early morning email, that Anil informed me of a certain event in India - in Bangalore to be precise. Why did I have to be told by someone else, about an event of that magnitude? Simple answer follows: I watch news while having breakfast and/or dinner (about 20 [...]

Last seven days or so have been quite busy and most of the busyness had to do with school/research work. After exchanging few emails and reading few manuals, I finally managed to run Atomistix Tool Kit (v2.0) on our beowulf cluster. It wasn’t easy by any means and I still have some work to do [...]

It has been a relatively easier week so far - the most important thing to happen was the Engg. Physics Qualifiers. Since then, it has been cruise control, sort of. The presentation, in my personal opionion, went on lot better than I expected and this, as far as I can remember, is the only one [...]

This is something that I had never experienced since I started playing softball, thanks mostly due to the people who introduced me to this wonderful, democratic game and taught me to be patient. While I still was bragging about my in-field home-run, this strike-out, in my 100th plate appearance, against a not-so-powerful team brought me [...]

I have been trying to hit a home-run (in-field, not over the fence) for last three seasons and I did it at last. It was one of the Church League games and I charged towards third-base (while my base-coach was shouting to stop at second). Throw from outfield was wild, helping me get an extra [...]

I came to school early as we had a meeting planned, but it had to be postponed since the Qual-Committee was meeting in the same room. My nervousness had no upper bound and I grew very restless with time. It was just around 12.30 pm that Dr. P put all my nervousness to rest - [...]

Yesterday got off to a nervous start and I spent much of it in the school (good thing about bad weather was that Dr. Beck’s class was cancelled) - revising and reworking some important problems. I also discussed couple of problems with Tilvi and the examination started off at 7 pm. The questions looked [...]

Dr. Suits colloquium, Tamarack Mine Experiments had been in news for a while. His presentation was very impressive, with practical demonstrations, and it was undoubtedly one of the best I have attended so far. Fisher 139 was full - mostly with people associated with our department. More about these Guinness record events are here.

Semi-Finals, against MSE : Lots of people, players and supporters alike, showed up at the ball-park and my throwing arm felt lot better. After a brief warm-up session, the much awaited semi-finals started off, with Metallurgy scoring 4 in the first innings. We replied equally well, scoring 8, with 7 coming after we were two-down! [...]

Well known (since last season) for nail-biting finishes, this game against Metallurgy was no different. We got off to a great start but defence left much to be desired. It was a neck to neck race till the very end, with plenty of electrifying hits, heart-breaking fielding from both teams and not to forget, some [...]

It has been a long time since I got up really early on a Saturday morning and today, I had to because of the Sigma Xi Multi-disciplinary Research Colloquium. It started off early, around 8.30 am and went on till about 1 pm. Almost all presentations were clear, crisp, well thought out and pertained to [...]