Dan Stutzbach’s blog

Friday night I proposed to Alisa. After much squealing and bouncing, she said “Yes”. The longer version of the story follows.

We’ve been talking on-and-off about getting engaged for several months now. Not directly, though–only in roundabout ways. It started when two friends of hers were planning on getting engaged and asked her to go ring shopping. I suggested that this would be an excellent opportunity for her to look at rings and let me know if she had any particular preferences and her ring size, on the off chance that the information might come in handy someday down the road. She leapt at the opportunity, went shopping with a couple of different friends, and told me about the sorts of designs she liked and didn’t like. I hadn’t expected her to act quite that quickly. She was fairly specific about the kind of setting she was interested in, but not too picky about the diamond (“not crappy”).

I started reading up on diamonds. I may have gone a little overboard in my diamond research. In addition to talking to several jewelers and diamond connoisseurs, I picked the brains of:

• a physics professor who studies the effects of variations in the atomic structure of diamonds
• a geologist who studies the formation of diamonds and their travel through the earth
• two gemologists who run their own independent gem labs
• the president of one of the finest name-brand diamond cutting companies in the world

What can I say? I’m an information junkie and a slow but thorough shopper. I’ll make a separate entry on what I learned (along with links to useful resources), but I imagine most people are more interested in the proposal. Back to that story.

Around a month ago, I told Alisa that the deadline INFOCOM had been extended by a week to August 8th and that I’d need to be in Eugene for the final push to complete and polish the paper. Regrettably, I wouldn’t be able to be in Dallas for her birthday (August 5th), but I’d come out the following week. Alisa was pretty good natured about me missing her birthday, but I did have to endure a lot of teasing.

We really were submitting a paper to INFOCOM and there really was a lot of work to do, but the extended deadline was a fabrication on my part. Other conferences have extended their deadlines in the past though, so she bought it hook, line, and sinker. Since I wasn’t coming out to visit, Alisa’s sister, Teresa, was going to come visit her so she at least wouldn’t be alone for her birthday. This worked out well for me because I could invite Teresa to cooperate with me in my proposal scheme. I spent the time after the actual deadline (August 1st) frantically lining up all the surprises that would lead up to the proposal.

On Thursday, August 3rd, I drove up to Portland to pick up the ring, then drove back to Eugene to hop in a plane to Dallas. Alisa and I usually chat on the phone each morning and evening, so I gave her a call before I headed out “to school”, and told her that I’d be working late into the evening on the INFOCOM paper and might not get home until she was in bed.

Arriving into Dallas around midnight, I rented a car and spent the night in an inexpensive hotel. The following morning (Friday, August 4th), I called Alisa in the morning, but didn’t reach her. I left her a voicemail saying that I’d be heading into school soon. The rest of the day, I didn’t return Alisa’s calls, feigning being busy working at school. I scrambled around make some last-minute purchases, buying streamers, a “Happy Birthday” banner, packing tape, wrapping paper, a nice button-down shirt, and a tie.

Around 11am, the florist delivered the four dozen long-stem roses I had ordered, along with an “I love you” balloon and a “Happy Birthday!” balloon and a card reading “It’s almost somebody’s birthday… Love, Daniel”. I got some very happy voicemail and email from Alisa (using such phrases as “::huge, enormous, gigantic, bone-crushing hug::”). Apparently, she interpreted the roses as making up for missing her birthday.

I got in touch with Teresa and went over to Alisa’s condo. I had brought a package with some other gifts with me on the plane. Unfortunately, the Transportation Security Administration cut open the package and put their own packing tape on it (which has “TSA” written all over it in blue and white letters). I removed their tape and put some ordinary packing tape back on the package. I also hid the ring and my laptop in Alisa’s condo so I didn’t need to carry them around everywhere I went.

I made myself scarce while Alisa and Teresa met for lunch, grabbed some lunch myself, then went to work trying to get my package of gifts delivered to Alisa at work. I headed into the SMU Post Office and explained that I was planning to propose to my girlfriend who works at SMU, and that I’d like the package delivered to her sometime in the late afternoon as if it had been shipped from Oregon. The gifts would lead her to believe that a proposal might be coming soon–next week when she saw me.

After the story spread through seemingly everyone working there, I paid for some postage and they found a driver willing to get the package and deliver it. I had written on the package something to the effect of, “Here are some gifts for your birthday. There are more gifts, but you’ll have to wait until next week when I can give them to you in person!”.

I stopped by another florist to pick up a bag of rose petals I had ordered, then headed back to Alisa’s condo to meet up with Teresa, only to find that she had locked herself out. Oops. I drove down the street and parked while Teresa called Alisa and asked her to come back home to open the door. Awhile later, I got a call from Teresa letting me know that she was inside and that the coast was clear–but that Alisa had brought the package back home without opening the gifts that were inside! A short while later, I got a voicemail from Alisa telling me that she had received a package with gifts, but she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to open them or wait for her birthday (the next day, the 5th).

The plan had been for Alisa to open the gifts at work, then come home to a decorated house and the proposal. Teresa and I had no trouble brainstorming our way around this unexpected development; we would just move me and the decorations upstairs, and get Alisa to open the gifts downstairs as soon as she got home.

We set to work decorating the bedroom with the happy birthday banner and streamers, lighting candles, and covering the room with rose petals. We also worked out where we could stand so that Alisa wouldn’t see me until she was actually in the bedroom, while allowing me to stand close to her, and leaving Teresa in a good spot to take pictures. At around 4:30, I sent Alisa a text message saying something to the effect of “Of COURSE you’re supposed to open them, you big goon! I should be done working around 6pm and will give you a call then.”

The hardest part was when we were all set up and had to just sit there, twiddling our thumbs waiting for Alisa to come home.

Finally, she arrived. Teresa met her at the door downstairs, while I quietly waited upstairs in the bedroom. Alisa got to work opening the card and two gifts from the package. The first gift had a little label on it, “Normally I wouldn’t buy a pet without asking, but he’s just so cute!”. Inside was a vintage 1975 Pet Rock, complete with box and training manual, that I had picked up off eBay (his finer tricks include “Sit” and “Play Dead”). Alisa thought this was very neat.

The second gift had a little note on it reading, “We can’t have a hot tub right now, but I thought at least our pet could have one”. Inside was an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner. I think this threw Alisa a little off guard and it took her a moment to piece together the implications. Just as she was starting to figure it out, Teresa’s cell phone rang (from upstairs) with her husband’s ring-tone. Teresa headed up stairs, answered her phone (which in fact I had dialed), and said “What? Really?” then “Alisa! You have to come here!”. Alisa raced up the stairs and got to the bedroom door where she stopped, dumbstruck. She saw the rose petals, and the streamers, and the “Happy Birthday” banner and Teresa grinning and pointing a camera at her. I was standing in Alisa’s peripheral vision, and she hadn’t seen me yet, but she was already grinning and giddy and squealing.

Then she caught sight of me, who as far as her brain was concerned, ought to be in Oregon, thousands of miles away. It was fun watching her try to mentally shift gears to accommodate this new information and all that it implied, as she grinned, and giggled, and squealed, as well as closed in for a bear-hug! After quite a lot of hugging, I dropped to one knee. She was still trying to hug me and kiss me, then I popped the question. After more squealing, came a delighted, “Yes!”, then more hugging and kissing. She was so completely bursting with happiness and surprise that she forgot there was another part of this ceremony, and I had to shake the ring right in front of her face (which of course led to more squealing and happy giggles!). I slipped the ring onto her finger and that was that.

We headed downstairs for more pictures, to call our parents, and explain to Alisa how I managed to be in Dallas rather than Oregon. At some point Alisa said “I just can’t imagine how my birthday could get any better!”. I raced back upstairs and came back down with one final gift. Alisa opened it to reveal two travel books about Rio de Janeiro and a Brazilian Portuguese phrasebook (a trip that we were hoping to make in October, contingent on my getting papers accepted to the Internet Measurement Conference, which I found out about earlier but delayed revealing).

Following up on my previous entry about my do-it-yourself projector, when Alisa came to visit in May we built a screen for the projector. We picked up a 6-foot long, 1-inch diameter curtain rod at Home Depot, and 6 feet of blackout cloth at Jo Ann Fabrics. While at first we were thinking of wrapping the cloth around the rod, we discovered we could just tape it directly to the rod. The rod itself is slightly fluted, which allowed us to easily line up the blackout cloth in a nice straight line. Packing tape is in place on the two ends, and regular masking tape is holding up the rest.

Blackout cloth, for those who don’t know, is white, not black. It’s meant to be attached to regular curtains to block out all the light coming in to the room. In fact, we bought some extra blackout cloth to cover my sliding glass door and the nearest window to make the picture more viewable during the day.

The picture quality has improved dramatically compared to the wall. While my walls are white, they’re also textured and not quite reflective enough. Previously, the contrast was poor with very dark scenes being too dark and very light scenes being too light. Now the picture looks great!

Things have really been moving. Or, at least, I’ve really been moving. I was in Miami for a week for INFOCOM and the Global Internet Symposium where I presented a paper on my Gnutella crawler. That went well; I got some positive feedback and had the chance to meet a few of the other researchers in my field. INFOCOM was huge with 7 trackers and a little overwhelming. I got a lot more out of the smaller, single-track Global Internet Symposium even if the work presented there tended to be less developed.

Since I was going to be in Florida anyway and since Alisa grew up there, she flew out for a few days before the conference. We got to spend some quality time together, and I got to meet her family. I also got to see some of the less-touristy scenic spots near Orlando, such as Alexander Springs. Canoing and snorkeling make for a relaxing and romantic time.

Everyone in her family was very nice. The first day Alisa and I spent some time lazing Lake Eola in downtown Orlando, then meeting up with her sister and her sister’s fiancee for dinner. Later, we went out with her dad to see Red Priest’s “Pirates of the Baroque”. The following day we drove down to Eustis and spent the next two nights at her mom’s house (where she grew up). We took a nap in the hammock, and later cooked a tasty dinner for her mom, capping off the evening with a few games of Farkle.

After getting back from Florida, I had a week at home, spent a weekend at GameStorm, then took for the Passive and Active Measurement Workshop in Boston. I again left home a few days early, this time so I could have dinner with my family on my birthday. It was nice to see them. I spent the time staying at my sister’s apartment, conveniently located just a few blocks from the workshop hotel. The day before the conference Mom came up from Rhode Island and she and my sister went to the New England Aquarium, where we learned all about how jellyfish are thriving because of global warming while fish and land-life suffer. The penguins were cute and the giant turtle waves “Hello”.

Now I’m back in Eugene, but next week I leave for Dallas to visit Alisa. Next month she comes here (just in time for Episode III!).

Here are pictures from my trip.

Things have been picking up lately. In the past month, I went from having no publications, to having two posters and two papers accepted (see Publications). There’s a lot of traveling in my near future as I hop all over the country to present them.

Speaking of traveling, in a few days I’m heading up to Vancouver to the annual meeting of the Music Library Association where I want to get a feel for their take on issues related to my work: peer-to-peer file sharing, copyright, and rewarding artists fairly. It’s a tricky issue, and I’m interested in the point of view of librarians since, on the average, they share a lot of my ideals: open access to information and artwork for the betterment of humanity.

In fact, I must confess there’s one music librarian in particular I’m looking forward to meeting, after corresponding with her for the past few months via email, instant messenger, and, most recently, telephone. It’s a little strange to have encountered a woman who in so many ways seems very much like me. Our families and the values we were raised with have a lot in common, and that’s manifested in a long series of parallels between our lives.

It’s going to be an interesting trip.

I recently bought an overhead projector and a transparent LCD display and now I have a projector for watching movies. The way I have it setup right now, the viewable diagonal is a bit less than 8 feet. :-) The quality is great, although I do need to fiddle with the contrast depending on how bright or dark the particular movie is. I’m still working on figuring out the best way to arrange the projector and the furniture so that there’s plenty of seating that isn’t too close.

For those of you who are real-life friends who live nearby, I’m planning to start hosting weekly movie nights soon. Stay tuned for details, and start thinking about movies you want to expose others to.

Google Scholar is neat. Try entering the title of a book and the name of the author, search, then click “Library Search” on the matching result. You may have to put the book title in quotes.

Controversial food for thought.

Several people I know have told me that they’re thinking of leaving the country if Bush wins. Some are just joking, some not so much.

Traveling to Berlin changed my outlook on American politics. The people of Berlin saw the rise of a tyrant. They saw the demise of civil liberties. They saw their country perform acts of evil. They saw their city bombed to the ground.

The saw the rise of the Cold War, where we were a thin margin away from nuclear war. They became the focus point: their city divided, families split by a few miles and unable to see one another. Those in West Berlin lived for forty years surrounded by a hostile power.

And they stayed.

Though it took a long time, their hopes were realized. They persevered through the Nazis, the devastation of World War II, and the Wall, they survived, and now, they are thriving.

And here in America, we’ve had our horrors: the effective genocide of Native Americans, slavery, concentration camps for Japanese citizens during World War II, McCarthyism. This is not our darkest hour–and when that hour does come, we will need you.

“So let me ask you, as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow” - John F. Kennedy, addressing the people of West Berlin, 1963