Archive for January, 2012

2011 Word Cloud

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

This year’s word cloud was much easier to construct than last year’s because as a result of the difficulty last year in downloading post’s from facebook, I stopped posting directly to facebook and started using twitter much more. As a result the dominate feature of this year’s word cloud are the twitter handles of some friends and some people/sites I follow. These are the at symbols items, like @jodiecongirl. Actually, I transformed any reference to a person in any form, to their twitter handle, if they have one. There are also so some twitter hash tags in the mix.

There are a number of big items that I managed to blog about this year, including the puzzlesI solved at the MIT Mystery Hunt, all the miles I biked along the >Boston Marathon route, an interesting paper about Yelp, and the #WNDNYC trip to see the Daily Show, but there are a number of stand out items that I didn’t get a chance to blog about.

  • I met @jodiecongirl, writer of economistsdoitwithmodels.com at #nerdnite in April.
  • I moved into a new apartment in Davis Square with a new room mate, @jamespost.
  • I went to a #redsox game in September, the one where they actually beat Tampa Bay, after my game in May got postponed due to rain.
  • I pulled hard for the Buckeyes in their worst season since 1897, despite the very unfortunate loss of Jim Tessel and the unfortunate hiring of Urban Mayer. #gobucks
  • I saw my former mentee Christina give a talk about the Awesome Foundation at #tedxboston. Actually I was at a simulcast event at google in Kendall Square.
  • I saw an MBTA musical about how much the T sucks at Improv Boston.
  • I continued to attend Wednesday Night Dinner. We finished our Alphabet Challenge including all of the hard letters: Quick Pick BBQ, Xinh Xinh, Yak and Yeti, and Zaftig’s.
  • I apparently use the words think, night, and work much too often.

There are also a number of things I didn’t get to blog about at all, but I should have:

  • Through my teacher friend Mary I got back into First Robotics for a year, mentoring Brighton Highschool students.
  • I bought skis in in March and promptly did a lot of skiing. I spent 3 days skiing Mount Tremblant in Canada with some Boston friends, and then a couple weeks later I joined Paul in Utah again.
  • I participated in two BAPHL Puzzle Hunts, miniature versions of the MIT hunt. In the first one @sparkyb, Jed, @jamespost, and I made a fine showing, being the last to finish. At the second, inception themed, hunt, however, we failed miserably even after picking up @jodiecongirl and @benlap.
  • I went on the Sam Adam’s Brewery tour for the first and second times. The first time was with these fine people, and the second time I wore a suite.
  • I wore my Google Maps costume to the common on Memorial Day and largely failed to give tourist directions. I blame the fact that tourists didn’t know that I was a map of Boston because they don’t know what a map of Boston looks like. Anyone who did recognize it, didn’t need a map. So I gave up and joined the Zombie March, I figured they probably did need a map.
  • In early June I went to the Bruin’s Stanley Cup Victory Parade and a Water Gun Battle on the Esplanade, on the same day. The Battle got broken up by the cops!
  • I went to a number of Self Proclaimed Rockstars concerts.
  • I joined Paul’s and my families at the Outer Banks Beach trip in 2011 after skipping the trip in 2010.
  • Tony and company topped their usual post thanksgiving turkey deep fry by roasting a pig with a Turducken inside.