Lately I have found myself hanging out at #ubuntu on irc.freenode.org, mostly listening and lending a helping hand whenver I can. It sort of reminds me of what I think Open Source and Community really means! I have personally gotten insulted in the past by some pretty lame IRC users who assume that everyone is an idiot and who can’t say anything helpfull but repeat “rtfm” to every enquire. But I will not go off on a tangent here and rant about all those “newbie basher” loosers out there.

This past Monday I hosted the monthly Northern New Jersey Linux Meetup at Panera Bread. It is the 7th meeting I have organized ever since taken over the group back in September 2004. I managed to get there earlier than usual and took advantage of the extra time to write down some ideas I had for a new pet project of mine and get some good coffee. One hour later some of the frequent attendees arrived.

My daughter is very ill. Actually, she’s been ill for a few days now with very high fever and coughing coupled with a persistent runny nose. I had to take Wednesday off from work so I could bring her to her doctor but it turned out to be a complete waste of time. He even performed an on-site strep throat test to see if that was the problem but the results were inconclusive.

My personal quest of gathering as much information as possible on the requirements to enroll into a PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill continued last Friday. I was up and early for my appointments at the Department of Computer Science considering I went to sleep really late the previous night. It was my sister’s birthday so I took her out to the movies and a late dinner.

Arrived here in North Carolina last night at the Raleigh-Durham airport. My younger sister was waiting for me and as soon as we picked up my luggage we headed to her apartment in Chapel Hill. Woke up early today and went to my first (and only) meeting with the chair of the School of Information and Library Science at UNC. My sister had set up the meeting for me and I must admit I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to spend the time to talk to someone from a department that had the word “library” in it.

The day I fly to North Carolina has finally arrived. I’m extremelly excited about this trip for it could be the kick in ass I need to get back on track with my goals. I’ll be staying at my younger sister’s apartment which I believe is near the UNC's Chapel Hill campus. She's already scheduled 4 interviews with the chairs of 4 different departments and I have just emailed her to try to get me 2 more.

This Wednesday I embark on what may be the most important trip of my life: I’ll be visiting and interviewing with the chairs of several different departments at the North Carolina Univertsity with the objective of gathering information for my possible come back to the academic world. It’s been almost 8 years since I graduated from Pace University and my plans of earning a PhD/MD diploma have taken a major detour.