La fondue.....got cheese?

We went to a fondue place called La fondue for our friend's b'day, and it was the first time that I had a fondue dinner. I think it was way too expensive for what it serves. So think of it as you pay for the experience, and you will feel better (I did). It started with a salad plate for everyone that was way too much, even the big eater in our group only finished half of it. At the same time there was bread and vegetables for cheese fondue, and there were more than choices of cheese than I could manage. Then came the main course, which we grilled by ourselves. The quality of the meat was ok, not especially good, and the taste was just so so. Dessert was the highlight. Again, there were many choices of chocolate for the chocolate fondue. Dipping the marshmallow and strawberry into the pot of molten chocolate, just like it is always shown on TV. Overall it was an unique experience. Will I return for more? I doubt it.
More pic here.

Quarter ended

The winter quarter has ended, and there will be a week of time-off until the spring quarter starts. But there will not be any free time for me because I will start helping my adviser on his research. Hopefully I can demonstrate my ability and he can let me continue for PhD. I will need to read a lot of the background information about the project. This is like the only shot I have at getting into the PhD program. Apparently finding faculty support is much harder than I thought (my bad, I under estimated it). Poor economy put financial constrains on everything, including research funding. Hopefully my adviser can get more funding soon.

Besides that, I have another project on my own. I am looking into using Linux at home. I would like to replace Windows by Ubuntu. For some reasons I always think that the graphical interface of most Linux distributions look better than that of Windows. Not to mention Linux is free, together with a wealth of free applications. Now I am running Ubuntu in virtual machine (VirtualBox and VMware) inside Windows. This will let me familiarize myself with the Linux environment, and evaluate the practicality of using Linux at home. Much to learn for sure, and I will always have something to do.