By necessity, I've learned the basics of using matplotlib, a Python library for industrial-strength plotting. I have to say, it's pretty neat. I would not mind getting to be more proficient with it, since I never really learned how to use Mathematica, Matlab, Maple, and R.
I have a team for College Puzzle Challenge. I'm excited - I had a ton of fun participating in (and winning, at the TAMU site) the competition the past two years, and I feel like after joining Death From Above for the MIT Mystery Hunt this last winter, I'm even better prepared.
It's a goal of mine to write a puzzle hunt of my own at some point. It would be an intense intellectual venture to write that many puzzles with varying mechanics, and have the whole thing fit together under a unified theme (which I'm having terrible difficulty coming up with, by the way). This is the sort of thing that inevitably gets put off until a long break period occurs, since writing so many puzzles is not an overnight task for a single man. As described by puzzle hunt writers over many years, one writes the hunt backwards, starting with the meta-meta puzzle, then writing the meta puzzles (each of which belongs to a particular round with a different subtheme), and then writing the individual puzzles themselves.
I wonder if there's a way to tie puzzle hunts into my research. THAT would be an awesome motivator.
I made this quiche for dinner tonight. Well, minus the ingredients that I didn't have on hand, which happened to be the onions, thyme, and nutmeg. Also the sour cream. Nonetheless, it was a great success and quite filling, to boot.