Jeff and Suresh point to the newly released SODA call for papers. There's plenty of time between it and the FOCS notifications, so one can submit to FOCS (next week! where does the time go?) without foreclosing the option for SODA in case FOCS's random number generator goes against you.

I was also amused to see that SODA short papers are a tool of Voldemort, so it's a very good thing they were abolished.

Why is Daniel Radcliffe wearing a T-shirt with almost-my-name on it?

Finally, another batch of photos, after almost a two month break from shooting: Timothy's Harry Potter 7th Birthday Party. Timothy is really into HP these days, and he and Diana made elaborate plans for HP activities for the party. We thought maybe we'd get through two of the activities before all the boys got too wild to organize, but it actually went off pretty much as planned. Good time had by all. Softball and baseball seasons are starting, so I may be taking a lot more photos of those soon, and I'm hoping to find time this weekend to get to the Huntington Beach Kite Party.

While I'm posting about photos, it looks like it may be time for me to upgrade to a paid Flickr account. With the free account I have, only the latest 200 photos show up on my photostream, and I've reached that limit. Also, I'm limited to two sets (galleries of photos I pick out for some theme or subject). I hadn't been using any sets at all until very recently, but Mike G. persuaded me that other Flickr users look for them to find your best photos, so I set up two for some of my landscape and people shots, and I think it would make sense to have at least one more. The downside of sets: they take up room on my Flickr page, so the main photostream only displays one column of photos instead of two. Oh well.

Erik writes Harry Potter fanfic?
Actually, better than much of what's out there: it's short and to the point, it keeps the characters in-character, it avoids unlikely romantic pairings, and it doesn't throw in extraneous lyrics to Evanescence songs.