Two down, two to go

I just finished the Bruster's hot fudge sundae that I had to reward myself. I turned in my Econ homework-5 double spaced pages of useless information and I finished a 23-slide Power Point presentation about designing a super structure using Evolutionary Strategy Design Algorithm. I was going to link this blog to the paper I'm presenting, but it is only available for purchase unless you're an Auburn student. The Evolutionary Strategy Design Algorithm is based on evolution. In a nutshell, you initiate a population of solutions to a problem (like minimizing a function) and through mutation and some other strategies and complications along the way you create generations of better solutions while keeping the population constant by "culling" less robust solutions. It's really very interesting. I've written two programs in Matlab using Genetic Algorithm, which is similar. One of the programs is to take 25 cities and their latitudes and longitudes, find the best(minimize distance between cities and hubs) 2 hubs among them and assign each city to a hub. Next week I write an ESDA. I was up until 3am this morning tweaking the program. One of the "two to go" is to write up the results of this homework--due Thursday. Also due Thursday is my first quiz. It's in linear programming . Hopefully I'll have some time to study tomorrow.

Pictures from Mardi Gras are great! Thanks Brenda and Allan. I'm sorry I missed it! I was asked by one of my teachers to explain to the foreign students in our class what Mardi Gras is. How do you do that??? I ended my explanation by telling them that my husband was probably walking down the street in the middle of New Orleans drinking milk punch--it was 9:30. I think maybe they got it at that point. I'm planning to be in New Orleans this weekend--I REALLY need a break.