Summer

Megan is out of the house with Anne while Ruby naps so I thought I'd take advantage of some free time and update you. I finished my summer class yesterday so I can finally begin my summer 'break'. I thought things were going to slow down this summer, but it seemed to me that I was busier than I was during the school year. My review of analysis (advanced calculus) turned out not to be so much of a review. But the teacher was good and I learned a lot. I just hope I passed. Coming home last night I felt a bit strange. I think this is the first weekend since Christmas break that I don't have anything that I need to be doing for school.

My job for the summer is working on material for the blog of a book that a new professor here wrote called Bayesian Reliability. The authors wanted to hire someone to help them get a website up for the book. I am interested in both Bayesian methods and Reliability, but I haven't actually studied either of them before. I was talking to Alyson Wilson (co-author and new professor at ISU) and she told me if I wanted to find out what Reliability problems are like and learn some Bayesian methods as well, they would hire me. So this summer I have been adding the data sets from the book onto the website and creating a solutions manual that is also posted on the website. I just finished the chapter on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulations. It has been a challenge writing solutions for a book that combines two areas I have never studied before, but I am enjoying it. An added bonus is that I am learning a bit of HTML (another subject I've never gone into before).

You can check out what we've done for the book at www.bayesianreliability.com. The site is not much to look at right now, but it's organized and has a lot of useful material :)

It was great to have mom and dad here with us this last week. We were all sad to see them go.

This is on campus in front of the student union with the famous clock tower in the background.

Anne was enjoying helping mom with her math homework (as if there is any other kind).

This park has great wading pool that Anne and Ruby (and not-so-secretly Megan) are enjoying.

Thanks for the bike trailer Shamae. We use it all the time. As you can see, they just love it.

We are so proud of Anne's resourcefulness.



And what would the Griffiths' house be like without dancing.