We actually had autumn in Pittsburgh and these were the colors outside our apartment.

A shot of Carnegie Mellon.  I got mad at Dan for knocking over a bookcase and putting a small crack in it, the next day I put this lovely dent in our new car....that's karma for you.

We visited the botanical gardens and were impressed with the blown glass chandelier hanging from the main dome.

My niece Amy came and visited us in November and poor Dan had to put up with a lot of girl talk and shopping.

Nanook has pretty much become a growth on Dan's side; wherever Dan is, there's Nanook.  Nonetheless, the cats have settled into their new home with relative ease, as you can well see.

Heinz Ketchup is based in Pittsburgh, so the family naturally does a lot for the city.  They built this cathedral for the University of Pittsburgh in the 1930s.  One very shrewd person pointed out that the doors are the color of ketchup.

We went to Tucson, Arizona for Christmas where we met up with both our parents.  We had a grand time hiking and enjoying the sun.  The photo on the left is from a huge hike Dan took with his parents.

I had fun stealing mineral specimens from my father, who is an avid collector.  I also enjoyed the amazing mineral display at the Desert Museum (left).

But the thing we loved most at the Desert Museum were the mountain lions and bobcats, who were being trained to sit on little white mats.  Dan told me he'd give me a million dollars if I could train our cats in a similar fashion.

$ mpost --tex=latex zz.mp
This is MetaPost, Version 0.993 (Web2C 7.5.6)
(zz.mp
! MetaPost capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=1500000].
fill->addto.currentpicture.contour(EXPR0)
                                         _op_
<to be read again> 
                   withcolor
l.86510 ...7.3b)--(355.1a,667.3b)--cycle withcolor
                                                   fillcolor;
Transcript written on zz.log.
 
$ tail zz.log
fill->addto.currentpicture.contour(EXPR0)
                                         _op_
<to be read again> 
                   withcolor
l.86510 ...7.3b)--(355.1a,667.3b)--cycle withcolor
                                                   fillcolor;
If you really absolutely need more capacity,
you can ask a wizard to enlarge me.

Well, I couldn't find a "wizard" so I asked Google. The fix is to edit the "texmf.cnf" file and boost the "main_memory" setting. It sounds like maybe 8000000 is the largest allowed value, but I don't know for sure.

$ kpsewhich texmf.cnf
/usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
 
$ sudo vim /usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
 
change this line:
main_memory = 1500000 % words of inimemory available; also applies to inimf&mp
 
to this:
main_memory = 8000000 % words of inimemory available; also applies to inimf&mp

But now there is another less than helpful error:

This is MetaPost, Version 0.993 (Web2C 7.5.6)
(Fatal mem file error; I'm stymied)

I'm not sure why, but it seems that after texmf.cnf is edited you need to run fmtutil:

$ fmtutil --all

And now it should work.

I got an MS in Physics at the University of Alaska. I then got accepted to Carnegie Mellon for a Ph.D. Moving took tons of time and it was hard to say goodbye to old friends.

Before we left we got to fly over Fairbanks in a Super Cub. Unfortunately, we didn't bring the camera along for that one! The week after a friend took us out to the range and we got to fire all sorts of automatic weapons.

On the way out of town, I stopped by the transfer station one last time, and then on the plane we got to see Denali one last time.

The cats did not take well to the plane ride. But they like their new home, and their new chairs.

There is a nice cemetery on the edge of our new neighborhood.

The building on the left is typical of CMU's beautiful architecture. The building on the right houses the physics department. It's what's on the inside that counts.