The Desert, and I’m sick

Spending the last week in the middle of the desert did leave some interesting highlights. It was about a 30 minute drive out away from the last vestiges of civilization known as China Lake. It’s a base of some sort, and they shoot a lot of stuff out there because there is so much ‘nothing’ to hit. We actually went out into the dried out remains of China Lake proper, which put us pretty far away from anything. As such, I got pretty good at bringing all my food and a lot of water with me. Normally I’m not a fan of bottled water, but you have to drag it all the way out there somehow, and you end up going through a lot of it during the course of a 100+ degree day.

For the most part, I spent my time sitting in my car. Which was nice, because it was air conditioned. Primarily for the comfort of the equipment, but I got to tag along. We’d get out there pretty late, and stay even later, so I’m not sure which was more tricky. Setting stuff up in 100 degree weather, or taking it down in total darkness. (Bring a flashlight).

The one good thing about being that far away from civilization is that you can see the stars really well. We lit up our worksite with some work lights, a little, but on the drive up Jess got tired and we switched chairs so I could drive. We were out on some highway. No lights for miles, and I haven’t seen the stars that well in years. The milky way was clearly visible, and I really enjoyed that sense that each of those points of light was a star, and that those that weren’t were probably whole galaxies. Very, very pretty.

The reason we didn’t have more light at our work site, however, is that at night, in the desert, the land comes alive. Mostly with bugs. There were dozens of moths flying around the light, bunches of beetles on the ground, and pointing your flashlight up revealed a squadron of bats divebombing the confused moths. I saw a camel spider (see picture, that's two of them) twice, yes they’re pretty huge, and also a couple of scorpions. Yep, real big ones, too. We also caught glimpses of desert rabbits a couple of times on they way home, too. There’s a surprising amount of life out there. I heard stories about coyotes, but never saw one, luckily.

In other news, I’m sick. I started feeling not so great on friday, which was the day Jess and I came home. Nothing like being achy and sore on a plane, that’s for sure. I survived, though, with the help of the PSP to pass the time . This morning, though, I got it real bad. I woke up with a fever of 101, which hasn’t happened in approximately a really, really long time. (Mom will have to give you exact dates. ) It’s come down a lot since then, but it’ll be a while before I feel like doing any jumping jacks, and the doctors say I may never play the piano again.

Hey, my birthday is coming up. 28 soon. I still feel the same age I always have, though. I’m ‘now’ old. Seems like a good philosophy. Less time spent worrying about age.

Also, many exciting games coming out. I plan to go out and get Mercenaries 2 tomorrow when it drops. And Spore comes out the day after my birthday, which is nice.

Speaking of video games, I should tell you about hanging out with Derek. He’s my best man for the (rapidly) upcoming wedding, and I tried to convince him to let me get him his ‘guy in the wedding’ present early, which I’ll leave out for the sake of any other ‘guys in my wedding party’ that might read this. He declined for the moment, so I’ll have to pick it up for him later. Other than that, we ate some sushi, played a lot of Wii games, and petted the neighbor’s cats. Derek has a balcony that is connected via a little, tiny ledge to his neighbor’s balcony. This means that every once in a while, the neighbor kitties walk over and meow for attention. They are obviously brothers, and one is more aggressive than the other. He reminded me of Tigger, except more social. He really liked petting, and I managed to get massive clumps of hair off him using my patented, ‘butt scratch’ technique. They really seemed to like me, even if the aggressive one did get a little nippy at times. I’ve dealt with Tigger, though, so I know what’s up.

Right, so enjoy that news and I’ll let you know when I get some more.

-N

P.S. Oh, and one other thing. That final test on Thursday? It didn't happen. Whole thing got canceled. We did some other little tests, but nothing big like we were planning. And then on Friday, we flew home.

Instead of more griping...

Yeah, teaching today wasn't so smooth either. This time, not my fault. Rather than rehash the train wreck that was our first lab, I thought I would post something more lighthearted- it seems like I am not the only one having an incredibly long month of August.

I remember now how weird this is- we showed this clip to W and J, and were reminded that most cats HATE water. Like avoid it. Like don't even try and cuddle it. Ever. But Raoul does this every morning. Turn on the the shower, while it comes up to temp... well...

Is it over?

Goodness, what time is it? What day is it? Blarg, what a week.

Well, it hasn't been *too* bad at least. I'm writing from China Lake, where Jess and I continue our marathon work week. Even the short days are pretty long. We've been showing up at work at 2 in the afternoon, which is weird enough to start with, and then working till usually about 1 in the morning and sleeping until we wake up, which is usually just enough for us to go get food (lunch? breakfast?) before going back to work again.

The work itself isn't bad. It's not the typical, engineer number-crunchy stuff I'm trained to do, but I don't think I could do that for 10-12 hours a day anyway. It's more like 'technician' work. Set some stuff up, some hardware and some software, make sure it's running okay, take down some numbers periodically, and make sure nothing breaks. Pretty simple, overall. I spend most of my time watching a computer screen out in the middle of the desert while numbers scroll by and occasionally changing parameters by request. Jess updated a bunch of software yesterday and then was the unofficial 'communications hub' for all the people at all the different locations.

We've been doing tests for the past few days, and today (Thursday) is likely to by the last one for us. I, for one, get put under the microscope a bit more today, which is okay, because I've had a lot of practice with my stuff over the past two days. Jess isn't sure what she'll be doing, but letting people know what's going on can easily be a full time job. We don't get to do an 'official' test on friday, so tonight (tomorrow morning, technically) Jim will decide if there's any reason for us to do some testing of just our stuff. If not, we may get to go home on friday, if we can find any flights that aren't stuffed with vacationers and/or travelling college kids. (Hi Kelsey!)

As I've said to Jess, it's not the work that I dislike (at least this time I have something to do), it's all the trappings that go along with it. The travel, which at least isn't so bad because I get to bring the thing I miss the most along with me (Jess :), the strange schedule, the desert, the inability to leave for lunch, and the sense that the only contribution I can make to the project is by not screwing my stuff up, which is true.

Well, I'm going to go try and work out a birthday list real quick before I have to go back to work again. Remind me sometime and I'll write more about the desert. It can be kinda cool, in small doses.

-N

Kelsey Apartment....

And a few of her living arrangements.............

Kelsey, California and Car

Thought we'd add visuals to the experience of Kelsey's new car and apartment.

Ceramics- First Fire

After a long wait, pictures of some of my ceramics pieces are up! Here they are all together for scale- the peaches are small, and the butter enormous. Except for the plates, everything is pretty much ideal for beer nuts or similar scale. An online album is here, and I'll update it as I get a few more things this week.

And doesn't this blog need more photos?

Cruelly horrible day

Today was supposed to be my first day of teaching- I was going to write a post about how inspiring it is to work with the next generation of future scientists, and how profound it is to have an impact on them and their careers. It was supposed to be that way.

I was actually thinking about this as I was writing up a grading rubric for use in class over the noon hour while I tried to calm the butterflies before our 1 pm class. I showed up super early- 20 minutes early- to the mortifying realization that our class begins at noon! And I was 40 minutes late!

I thought Dr. Teacher might pull my still beating heart from my chest only to crush it on the tattered shards of my science (he has a bit of a temper), but he seemed to take it in stride. We'll see if this bears out through the week.

To cope with the paralyzing guilt of being the worst TA in the history of the department, I went off to Dr. Rockstar's lab meeting. I offered to pick up the laser pointer, only to be asked by the Secretary to the Chair "how is the baby?" Since my ego was already reeling, it was all I could do to say that , thanks, but I don't have a baby, and make an abrupt exit.

Seriously, being a grown-up is hard. Matt, being the best husband a ne'er do well pudgy grad student could have, picked me up at work where I was still cleaning glass plates at 7, took me home and told me despite what appears to be a fantastic memory problem, I am not nearly as horrible as the world has left me feeling today.

Summer Bounty

Our next door neighbors- who maintain the garden in our joint backyard- have left for a fellowship year in the Netherlands. This means that there is a blot of herbs and tomatoes and flowers that need to be tended to and eaten, in addition to my standing farmshare subscriptions.

And so it was that I found myself almost buried under tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers. I want to share how I solved the problem, since it was both easy and delicious. Gazpacho! You can Google recipes for the finer points, but I used tomatoes, cukes and bell pepper in a ratio of 4:2:1, with some oil and vinegar and mint and basil (due to an herb garden mix up). Pulse blender the whole mess, leave it in the fridge a couple hours and then pull it out for dinner- maybe with garlic toast.

At Casa Seguin, we served it with tomato pesto noodles. Who would have thought vegetables could be so yummy?

Back to School for Adults...

Well, this was a busy and eventful weekend for the dwindling nuclear family as Kelsey launched off into several new stages of adulthood right before our eyes. Officially turning 21 and allowing her mother to buy her her first legal glass of wine last Tuesday, she returned to Sonoma State with her parents intent on buying her first car this weekend.

We had spent weeks surveying Craigslist, the on-line want-ad system that has revolutionized local shopping for the technically inclined, in an attempt to judge the market and her place in it. She was not going to buy a new car like her brother did on an engineer's budget. She was looking for gently used. Our surveillance indicated that there were options that had to be carefully assessed. She was looking at a price point that could still give her many years of use but some risk of unwelcome future vulnerability. The best options were newer Fords or older Hondas and Toyotas with lower miles.

We made a heroic trip from Santa Rosa to the southern end of the SF Bay on our first day. Our most disappointing moment came when we saw a beautiful Focus with an engine you could eat off on a Used car lot run by an earnest Pakistani who swore by his vehicles provenence and virtue but could not explain the grinding vibration and howl that clearly emanated from its transmission. In spite of vague promises of a "warranty" which suggested he might split some repairs with her in the future if it blew up in the next 90 days, we moved on. We eventually met with a pair of young Doctors in Downtown SF who were upgrading from a tenderly maintained corolla with low miles and new tires to their dream Lexus. I was thrilled with the car and had to be restrained from throwing money at their feet by the daughter who didn't want an old granny car no matter how nice it seemed to her Dad. This was the end of almost 200 miles of driving and 12+ hours of shopping, but her mind was firm.

That evening I logged on to craigslist once more at 11PM. There I saw a new listing for a one-owner focus that was very much in our budget and more importantly, just what Kelsey had described as her dream car. I e-mailed, they returned a call to our cell phone within minutes and we arranged a visit to Treasure Island to see it first thing this morning. It looked great, Kelsey was pleased, money and paperwork were exchanged on the spot, and Kelsey was a proud owner of her first car. This was followed immediately by baptism by fire on the California Freeways. On Saturday morning, traffic is thinner and moving fast. The on-ramp from Treasure Island to the I-80 bridge traffic is zero to 70mph as quickly as you can with virtually no merge lane. There is a dutiful little sign that says "Short Merge Lane" as you're bearing down on the brave citizens emerging from the side of the road. She did great but man, what an experience in your first moments of car ownership!!

We returned home for some apartment preparation. I delivered the new bed strapped to the top of our rental car, then spent a few moments getting the car insured with USAA on-line. Very smooth. Tommorrow is a bit more shopping and church, then she pretty much ignores us for Monday while she gets ready for School and we get to have an adult day of our own before leaving early Tuesday back to Juneau to vote in our Primary.

The measure of how absolutely lousy Juneau's summer has been is that both Connie and I burned faces and necks in the few minutes we would spend kicking tires in various car lots on Friday. It has of course been beautiful here but it takes some breaking in for the pale faced among us. It feels good to have her settled with friends and in a community on firm ground connected to the same continent we're on. That's not expecting too much is it??

So now we're back to cellphone relationships with our children and looking forward to the next big event in Florida. Missing you all each day. Gordie

Travelling for Work again

I'm travelling for work again. I just got out yesterday and counting the time I get to charge for travel, I had a 15.5 hour workday yesterday. Not bad.

The weather's hot, the work is often tedius, and the test shifts only happen at night, so we worked till midnight last night and I get to go back in at noon. At least I get to sleep in a bit, which is nice. Also on the upside, I make a rediculous ammount of money for all the work, the people are pretty nice, and the particular slice of the project I'm in charge in is at least a step up in interest from what I did last time. I'm not totally frustrated with the work, yet, but ask me again in a week and a half when I'm done.

Also, I'm out a little early to learn how to run a system. It seems relatively straightforward, and my predecessor has a pretty thorough tutorial, so that's quite helpfull. I get the weekend off so I'm going to drive down to San Diego to hang out with Derek, and then I get to pick up Jess from her bachelorette weekend back in LA and we both drive up here for next week. So at least Jess will be around. That's a definite improvement.

I may write more later. I've got to go get some breakfast, or lunch, or whatever.

-N

Nine inch Bear Claw Nails

This weekend, Jess and I took a trip out to Houston, TX to see Nine Inch Nails (NIN) in concert. We left on Saturday afternoon after Jess had an evaluation for Roller Derby. They do a couple of those and everyone who makes it to the end of the training season and passes gets brought into the league. Woot.

Right after the eval, we hopped into the car and drove to Houston. It's a 3 hour drive, and we stopped on the way to have some dinner and then again to check into our el-cheap-o hotel. The concert was going to be late, and we didn't want to be driving home until 3 in the morning.

We had floor tickets, which meant we got to get down in the middle of the stadium with a whole bunch of others. We also got really close to the front, which was nice. Lucky for us, NIN has been around long enough that the mean age of the concert-going-crowd had gotten out of high school, and that meant that, all in all, it was a pretty civilized concert. I got bumped a couple of times due to proximity, but for the most part people just stood around and listened to/watched one heck of a good performance. There was some amazing stagecraft, including huge interactive light screens. My favorite part was when the drummer came out and started touching a bunch of squares on the back display. It turned out it was actually a massive, interactive drum machine, and he built up the drum loops for one of the last songs. It was a pretty long concert, lots of great songs, and a really good vibe. Jess, of course, was totally enamored by Trent (lead singer, composer, and all-around musical guy.) I gotta admit, the man looks good in a black t-shirt.

After the concert, we went back to the hotel and slept. We got up in the morning but, since we were in Houston anyway, we decided to try and check out the Zoo. It was a bit of a trail to find the darn place, but perseverance paid off and we tracked it down. I'm really glad we did, it was pretty spectacular. Most of the animals were awake and being interesting, so we got to see a lot of neat animals. My favorites included the primate exhibit, which held a bunch of small primates with bat-like faces. Cute, but I can just imagine people 1000 years ago assuming they were demons.

Other highlights: a family of giraffes. I only came up to their legs. The african elephants were awake, and the mommy and the baby were rolling around in mud to keep cool. Then they got their daily bath. They had been trained to lift up a leg on command so that the zookeepers could get all over with the hose. There was one small-cat exhibit with a wildcat about twice the size of a house cat that woke up while we were watching. He was very cat-like, he even did the 'wake-up-and-stretch-out-with-clawing' thing that our cats do, except that when he did it, he dug some pretty impressive furrows in a log. There was a petting zoo with some goats that were so fat they were nearly spherical. We got to see a nautilus, too, a crazy, deep-water crustacean that propels itself with a jet of water and always swims backwards. There was a family of orangutan in one of the displays, too. The mom and dad were busy being lazy, but the kid was playing around with a empty, plastic, tidy-cat bucket of litter. He would jump up on it and then fall off, or crawl around inside. It was all very entertaining until dad got annoyed and started coming after Jr. Mom rushed to his defense. Crazy but amazing.

After that, we had some diner, drove home, and wrote this. Coming around, full circle.

-N

Teaching looks a lot like manual labor.

You may remember that this is going to be my First Semester Teaching. I have been anxious about what that might entail for me responsibility-wise, am I lecturing? Grading? Writing assignments? Prepping? What?

After a few long-winded meetings with Dr. Teacher, I think that - despite the hourly breakdown of my responsibilities he gave me (3 hours grading and 1 hour clean up a week? Really?), most of my job will be to keep Dr. Teacher sane. That is why I am spending this weekend unpacking.

The space for the teaching labs has been 'renovated' so every piece of equipment, every chemical, every one of the hundreds of little fragile glass flasks has to be moved back into the the dungeon, unloaded and organized into a semi-logical fashion.
Before classes start the 25th.

If I were Dr. Teacher, I know I would be more than just freaked out (which he is), I would be livid (which he is). The space isn't technically ready for us even now, and there isn't like some major task force on hand to help with the transition.

And they didn't clean up the dust, and they didn't actually put any shelves in the prep area.

And they killed our internet connections.

But rather than freaking out about this myself (not my job), I am trying to maintain a optimistically hardworking attitude, and just fix the problems that will be my problem later. Like organizing glassware. Now is probably a good time for Dr. Teacher to form an impression that I am normally a hard working person, so that when things come up later- like I want to some experiments- he'll be inclined to be flexible. And things will come up.

I think I should point out the Universities attitude about the value of Teaching- I am getting a pay cut this semester. You can bet I'll be counting up my 20 hours a week pretty closely, because teaching won't get me any closer to graduating. Oh, I see- this is where all of those cynical, apathetic TAs came from.

No really, I am fine.

Today, I had a tube of cells explode at my face. There must have been some liquid nitrogen under the cap that didn't take well be being out in the air before I thawed it. As I leaned over my bucket of dry ice to do the combination on the cell culture lab, I heard a shot ring out and I was slapped under the chin. In the absence of all that noise I felt a little deaf for a moment. No one else was around, there was nothing on the floor to signify what happened. But my tube was completely annihilated. I found a shard under my shirt, and the lid buried in the dry ice, but the rest I haven't found.

I am fine- physically. But the tiny explosion actually set me off mentally for the rest of the day. If Tony Snow was the ultimate professional for separating his feelings from his job, then I am the ultimate sap. I feel personally invested in every aspect of what I do. So losing the tube to a common lab fatality was like losing a lot more to me (apparently this happens all the time). This was the ONLY tube of these cells I had. This tube was sent to me special. This tube was sent to me special by someone I had been really intimidated to talk to at the meeting in Madison, but was of course a very helpful guy and brilliant scientist. This tube had been such a major hurdle for me, but I got it! And then it exploded. I took it as a sign not to try any more experiments for the day. I spent the rest of the afternoon mourning the loss of the tube, the loss of this small triumph. Maybe this personal investment isn't really helping me out in the long run.

Visit to Spokane!

Sorry I didn't post over the weekend. I was visiting my favorite grandparents in Spokane, and we were too busy catching up, watching the Olympics and being spoiled (well, I was at least) to get around to it. Nana and I took a ride on the Gondola over Spokane Falls- which is a spectacular view! I wish I'd remembered a camera. We also went out for Greek food, putzed around in the garden a bit and kept Papa company for the BBC Sunday mystery (Inspector Lindley?). I caught up with Gramma W too, who has decided she would like to make the move to Las Vegas, and I for one am really pleased for her.
I know everyone has been wondering about Papa's health. I think he plans to announce the end of his professional sprinting career soon, but he has enough humor that I think he can overcome the set back, especially with the aide of Nana's great cooking.
It is always nice to be reminded that I have such a great an supportive family, and especially good for the ego to hear grandparents tell you how smart and talented you are. I got in late last night, but I am primed and ready to master some science this week.

We got some Catnip!

Movie get!



Level Up!

-N

I'm writing!

Wahoo!

So I *finally* figured out how I wanted to rewrite chapter 8 in my book, after months of letting the idea ferment in the back of my head. I finally came up with a story idea that made sense, added to the story, and is interesting to write. I'm so excited, this has been the big roadblock for me on this book for a really long time, and it looks like I've figured out what to do about it. That means I might concievably finish my novel. How exciting!

I'm currently about eight pages into chapter eight and all of it is new material. For those of you who don't remember (which should be all of you, it's been a while since anyone read it) chapter eight was where I explained everything. It was important to get all the information out there, but it was too booring of a chapter. This new wrinkle will make the delivery of all that sort of information more interesting.

I'll keep everyone informed. I'm excited!

-N

The Euphoria of Science

These last two years have been a real hard pull, science wise. I feel like I don't have enough/ energy to make headway. Every step has to be learned, and it is slow. I take heart in the fact that most people accomplish little until their last year- the rest of graduate school is just training and laying the ground work for that golden time. But it is frustrating have little hope of anything going right for the next couple years.

But, I was caught off guard today when, miraculously, Something Worked.

I have been doing a genetic screen which involves a lot of registering dead cells. "Yup, this tells us nothing," "this is meaningless," "nothing to be learned here," "check" "check" "check." This is high risk project Dr. Boss gave me to fill in the time when the drug screening was slow. Screening for drugs is low risk, if you do it right you are guaranteed to get something. Dr. Boss had asked in the morning if there was anything to tell the collaborators during his conference call today, so I told him I would check on some things. I've been about ready to can this project, when surprisingly some of my cells were Not Dead today. This is Awesome. This is so awesome I made myself leave the room and come back and check again. This is so exciting I made someone else look at them to be sure I wasn't fooling myself. And then I went upstairs and did some incredibly mundane work that I felt fabulous about because Something Worked. Now, this is very preliminary, and there is about a year of follow-up to do here. But I haven't had so much as a hint of preliminary excitement since starting this, so I was ready to Explode with Excitement!

Finally, after I told half the lab and they were all convinced that these cells are Not Dead, I told Dr. Boss. Now, when it comes to collaborators, Dr. Boss is a blabbermouth. So I told him how very preliminary this was, and that I knew I would follow this up, but I thought he might like to know. And he very coolly wrote out the result to tell the collaborators, who had a million extra ideas to try because this is So Exciting! And even though it is some of my least favorite science, I don't care! Something Worked!!

Update on the Scoop

For those closely following the Major Drama that unfurled while in Madison, I Finally got to talk to Dr. Boss the whole "Are we getting scooped by a Big Wig at Yale?" thing. This was a very good chat. I carefully explained what I thought Dr. Bigbucks was up to (including the things that seemed intentionally vague), and Dr. Boss thought that the way he had set up his experiments would give him more hurdles to jump later- whereas our targeted approach might make it to trials someday more smoothly. He also said it was inevitable that other labs would be looking for drugs (sigh), and that this may be ideal- HIV is treated with a cocktail, why not our virus?

I feel less anxious about this, and I got some good props as well.

I explained that I was anxious because Dr. Bigbucks has already screened other members of the virus family, something I am hoping to set up soon. Dr. Boss thinks we should move ahead and try to get the system established ahead of having drugs to screen so we don't have to trouble shoot both at once. This is, and continues to be, a major goal of mine since joining the lab and I feel really good about getting the green light. Like dance around in a lab coat good.

I also learned about an assay that I thought would be cool, fast and boost my science-cred a lot- but a bit out on a limb for Dr. Boss' normal taste in experiments. He thought that would be worth getting in place too. He also thought that this was a very good meeting for me to keep going to, and was pleased that I have gotten to interact with so many important people. He said he might even go himself sometime (I doubt it). This makes me feel like he really respects and trusts me as a scientist, which means a lot. Dr. Boss is an even Bigger Wig in some circles.

Bottom line is, we aren't worried about stuff coming out of Yale, but I get to do the really exciting science I'd been daydreaming about for my efforts. Great Meeting!

Reflections on Being Married

Tuesday Matt and I celebrate our 2nd Wedding Anniversary. Hopefully by then we'll have plans for something awesome to celebrate, but in the meantime, I wanted to offer my reflections on being married. As a point of reference, I never really imagined myself being married until I met Matt- but I am incredibly fond of him so I am glad we decided to go through with it.

Just being married is pretty easy (since Matt is so easy going), but I still feel like I could be better at it. For example, in our picture of marriage, we are supposed to be here to support each other. I am supposed to help Matt be the best Matt he can be. He has recently gotten into designing speakers, and the obvious output of this hobby promises to be a lot of speakers. My knee-jerk reaction is that "We don't need any more speakers- we don't need half the ones we have," but as a good wife, I am trying to find friends who might appreciate this new interest. He is much better at this than I am. A big component of grad school is an unpredictable schedule. I try to keep mine reigned in as much as possible, but we share cooking duties about 50:50, and he does more laundry and dish than I do by far. Considering what a huge sacrifice he made by coming to Pittsburgh with me in the first place, I ought to be pulling my own weight a bit more, right?

Fortunately, neither of us is ready to act like settled people - although adopting Raoul (the cat) really felt like we increased our maturity a lot- we still manage to pack our time with lots of fun. After having to rebuild our lives out here, I appreciate that we are both more interesting people if we don't do everything together. This does mean consciously planning time together and respecting the separate spheres we do travel in, which is a sort of daily act. But it is very satisfying to have someone who is impressed by my cooking, who makes sure the rent gets paid and still tries to make me laugh waiting at home for me.

Holy pants it's hot!

I saw a newspaper article that says Austin has had 37+ days of weather over 100 degrees. I checked on weather.com after Jess and I went out today, and it was 103 outside. I don't think I've lived in a places this hot *ever*, and that's including Kentucky, where I wasn't even old enough to remember how hot it was. 'Twas hot, though.

Today we went out to get some stuff for our big Honeymoon vacation down to Costa Rica, which, coincidentally, also looks like clothes for crazy-hot summers in Texas. This includes shorts, light pants, and other things that dry off quickly and don't retain much heat.

Though the one thing that this shopping trip did afford me was the ability to get some new shirts. Either I'm getting bigger or my shirts are getting smaller. Probably a little of both, considering that Wing Tsun works out my upper body and I'm not really great at laundry.


Jess is still recovering from yesterdays Roller derby practice. They did endurance training, which is where you skate around for 40 minutes while one of the established trainers yells 'Stand', 'Sit', 'T-stop', 'Pushups', 'Knee stop'. Crazy. Good exercise, though. Jess is going to end up way more fit than me.

Also, I think I may have *finally* figured out a way to rewrite chapter 7 of my book in a way that is more interesting. Perhaps this means I'll be able to do some actual writing.

That's all that's interesting for now, talk you you later!

-N

Camping Near State College

Just got back from a nice weekend away from the city. A former lab mate's family owns a cabin in the middle of the state, and she was gracious enough to host us there for the weekend. It is a sleepy little property with great sun and stars, and a wide yard that turned out to be perfect for playing croquet. We played several rounds, with decreasing appearances to the rules. There was also time to squeeze in a little Scrabble, and quite a few s'mores. We at a lot of great food, drank some nice wines and relaxed with a post-doc from across the hall and her husband. I think this next week and coming month will be increasingly crazy, so I am really glad we had a chance to relax together.