Writing from the Desert, more or less. I’m currently in Barstow (not Baker, as previously reported) a much more civilized home base from which to do testing than was China Lake, which was really just a tiny main street and a bunch of fast food joints. This place has a much larger main street and a whole lot more fast food joints. Some of which even sell healthy food, so I’m excited about that.
I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier as time has progressed, and even though I don’t have to meet anyone until 9:00 today, I still got up at 5:00 because I’m probably going to have to get up at 4:00 tomorrow and I don’t want to waste all the effort. This means I’ve had time for a leisurely breakfast, a stroll around the hotel, and a morning skype-call with Jessie. The internet in this place is unfortunately slow (I’m pretty sure it’s either shared or *dramatically* throttled) so I can’t get video of her, but she can get video of me, which is nice at least.
I’ve also set up my Xbox, so all is well. I’m planning to do a little bit of exercise, take a shower, and then goof off with video games until It’s time to meet up with people. The work promises to be generally boring, but pretty long. Maybe 10 to 12 hour days. I doubt much longer than that. Today is mostly ‘fill out forms and attend safety briefings’ day for me and my travel buddy, and then tomorrow the testing begins in earnest. I’ll try and drop little updates on people as things happen but other than ‘sat in a car for many hours today: glad I brought books’ I doubt there will be much to report.
-N
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Skype is so great
I’ve gotten a taste of Skype, and now I’m pretty much addicted to it.
It started out with a few ‘calls’ to the Pittsburgh residence to get the families to say hi to each other and check out how slick video calls can be, and now I’m using it pretty much all the time. Jess and I have been Skyping back and forth at least once a day, and usually twice. It’s really great to see her, and it’s really great to see the house behind her, looking all normal and familiar. It’s much better than I would have guessed. It’s good for Jess, too. She gets to see my face, she calls me ‘cute’ over and over, and it usually makes her feel better, too. She has stomach cramps and headaches and she always says that just looking at me and relaxing makes her feel so much better, so evidently my super powers work over Skype, too. She wants to cuddle me, too, which we can’t do over skype, but we’ve gone from audio calls to video calls. By the time I’m 80, who knows?
The pregnancy is going well. If I can convince Jess it’s a good idea, I may have her post up some of her weekly ‘pregnancy e-mails’ here. They’re great reading. It’s just two more weeks until we get the ultrasound where they try to divine the gender of our baby. That’s a thrill waiting to happen right there.
I’m still in Vegas for a few more hours, at least. I’m meeting up with someone at 3:00 today at the rental car center to head down to Baker. Not much happens today, other than checking into hotels and meeting up with people. Tomorrow we have a meeting to go to, and then it’s off to do some data collection, or something. Honestly, the work promises to be long and pretty boring. Similar to other collects I’ve done in similar scenarios, if everything is working correctly, there’s nothing to do. It’s only when stuff goes wrong that there is any excitement, so if we’re good at our jobs (and we are) it should be a snooze-fest.
Even extra snoozy given that we have to get up so darn early. I’m expecting to be getting up at 4:00 AM most days, so I’ve been moving my days up earlier and earlier. I was up at 5:00 today, so plenty of daylight still ahead of me. I plan to do some laundry before heading off today.
I made cinnamon rolls for the family here, which turned out pretty well except it didn’t rise the first time. I added the yeast and everything and nothing happened. I think I bought some dead yeast. So I just bloomed some yeast from another source and then sort of kneaded the yeast-slurry back into the bread. It was a mess, yes, but at least the dough rose. I tell you, though, between that false start and heading out to the casinos It took me all day to make a single batch. Came out good, though.
-N
It started out with a few ‘calls’ to the Pittsburgh residence to get the families to say hi to each other and check out how slick video calls can be, and now I’m using it pretty much all the time. Jess and I have been Skyping back and forth at least once a day, and usually twice. It’s really great to see her, and it’s really great to see the house behind her, looking all normal and familiar. It’s much better than I would have guessed. It’s good for Jess, too. She gets to see my face, she calls me ‘cute’ over and over, and it usually makes her feel better, too. She has stomach cramps and headaches and she always says that just looking at me and relaxing makes her feel so much better, so evidently my super powers work over Skype, too. She wants to cuddle me, too, which we can’t do over skype, but we’ve gone from audio calls to video calls. By the time I’m 80, who knows?
The pregnancy is going well. If I can convince Jess it’s a good idea, I may have her post up some of her weekly ‘pregnancy e-mails’ here. They’re great reading. It’s just two more weeks until we get the ultrasound where they try to divine the gender of our baby. That’s a thrill waiting to happen right there.
I’m still in Vegas for a few more hours, at least. I’m meeting up with someone at 3:00 today at the rental car center to head down to Baker. Not much happens today, other than checking into hotels and meeting up with people. Tomorrow we have a meeting to go to, and then it’s off to do some data collection, or something. Honestly, the work promises to be long and pretty boring. Similar to other collects I’ve done in similar scenarios, if everything is working correctly, there’s nothing to do. It’s only when stuff goes wrong that there is any excitement, so if we’re good at our jobs (and we are) it should be a snooze-fest.
Even extra snoozy given that we have to get up so darn early. I’m expecting to be getting up at 4:00 AM most days, so I’ve been moving my days up earlier and earlier. I was up at 5:00 today, so plenty of daylight still ahead of me. I plan to do some laundry before heading off today.
I made cinnamon rolls for the family here, which turned out pretty well except it didn’t rise the first time. I added the yeast and everything and nothing happened. I think I bought some dead yeast. So I just bloomed some yeast from another source and then sort of kneaded the yeast-slurry back into the bread. It was a mess, yes, but at least the dough rose. I tell you, though, between that false start and heading out to the casinos It took me all day to make a single batch. Came out good, though.
-N
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Boohoo! We're all alone!
Sadly, the fam just left Pittsburgh. Speaking only for myself, I had a fantastic week. I never cooked, except for apple butter and apple sauce. We indulged in great food from ALL my favorite ethnicity (Mediterranean, Thai, Indian, Italian, Ethiopian...) and I got to show off some of my favorite places in Pittsburgh. But mostly I just got to enjoy being with my family. Nana hemmed some pants for me, we drank some hot tea and laughed at the cat. It just felt like normal time with my family.
Nana's photos got posted to Snapfish, and at some point I'll create an album of the pictures I took too. Then maybe we can talk about all the fantastically fun stuff we did all week. In the meantime, I need to mope around a bit more since I have to go back to cooking AND working next week and no one is hanging out at my house anymore.
Sigh. I leave you with this one happy memory, of dinner at the Church Brewworks.
Nana's photos got posted to Snapfish, and at some point I'll create an album of the pictures I took too. Then maybe we can talk about all the fantastically fun stuff we did all week. In the meantime, I need to mope around a bit more since I have to go back to cooking AND working next week and no one is hanging out at my house anymore.
Sigh. I leave you with this one happy memory, of dinner at the Church Brewworks.
Friday, October 22, 2010
I’m so freakin’ tech savvy.
I’m sitting here with my laptop downstairs in Jean and Ray’s house connecting wirelessly to the internet through their router. I have configured a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that allows me to logon to my work network and then remote desktop view my computer back at work and check on it’s process in running the simulation that’s cranking on it even as we speak. My phone is connected to a 4G tower nearby and beeps at me whenever I get an e-mail or text message. Soon I will attempt to video conference with my family in Pittsburgh just to say *hi*.
We are living in the FUTURE.
-N
We are living in the FUTURE.
-N
Saturday, October 16, 2010
You are jealous
Right this very minute, I am waiting for the arrival of Mom and Nana. Yes, here, to my very own apartment. It feels pretty adult to be receiving guests in your home who aren't college buddies that would have happily crashed on the couch. We are Hosting. They are going to visit me for a WEEK (with Dad showing up at some point too), which means good times are sure to follow.
Our things to do, outside of eating gobs of ethnic foods and showing off the city in fall colors, include: Making some stuff with the half bushel of apples I picked last weekend, hemming some pants, seeing Nana's pictures from China, Skyping with the siblings (or anyone else who wants to get on Skype), cheering Matt at a Mtn Bike race, meeting our friends, showing off my lab and the ceramics studio. We've cleaned up our house and we are totally ready for fun times. I'll try and update with pictures as we go, but it might be ahrd to take a break from all the fun and stuff. You might just have to wait until everyone goes home to hear about how fantastic it was. Or Skype us. Your call.
Our things to do, outside of eating gobs of ethnic foods and showing off the city in fall colors, include: Making some stuff with the half bushel of apples I picked last weekend, hemming some pants, seeing Nana's pictures from China, Skyping with the siblings (or anyone else who wants to get on Skype), cheering Matt at a Mtn Bike race, meeting our friends, showing off my lab and the ceramics studio. We've cleaned up our house and we are totally ready for fun times. I'll try and update with pictures as we go, but it might be ahrd to take a break from all the fun and stuff. You might just have to wait until everyone goes home to hear about how fantastic it was. Or Skype us. Your call.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Name changing and marriage
I obviously should have taken care of this a MILLION years ago, but I finally sent out my passport to get my named changed. Remember when I got married? Yeah- that's how long ago I should have dealt with this. I finally decided when we bought our tickets to Belize, that now would be an appropriate time to make this final upgrade. The passport arrived today, and my favorite bit is that the inside cover has a picture of the moon- which is now the next place I want a visa stamp from. Satisfyingly, this is the last big name change that I am going to worry about. Four years later, I guess I am really committed to this marriage. (I joke!)
I've been listening to a lot of Mumford & Sons this week (love the album), which, being Folk music is all about honorable love and honorable death and pious heartbreak. It puts one in an introspective frame of mind. This one line in particular has really gotten stuck in my head (due in part to the rockin' banjo)...
Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
-Sigh No More
While I think we can argue about whether or not I am living the life I was meant to live, it does seem quite plain to me that without Matt around, I'd be living a much suckier version of this life. I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to venture to grad school, let alone so far from home. I surely wouldn't have the time, energy and leverage to pursue the other things I've done since I've been here (ceramics, WISC, teaching...). There would be no really compelling reason for me to leave work before dinner, or to ever come to the conclusion that working more doesn't mean more gets done. All the little emotional dramas of grad school would be the main emotion of my life, which would make them much harder to bear. Most details of my life are quite unlike folk music, I'll give'em the affectionate description of love.
I've been listening to a lot of Mumford & Sons this week (love the album), which, being Folk music is all about honorable love and honorable death and pious heartbreak. It puts one in an introspective frame of mind. This one line in particular has really gotten stuck in my head (due in part to the rockin' banjo)...
Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
-Sigh No More
While I think we can argue about whether or not I am living the life I was meant to live, it does seem quite plain to me that without Matt around, I'd be living a much suckier version of this life. I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to venture to grad school, let alone so far from home. I surely wouldn't have the time, energy and leverage to pursue the other things I've done since I've been here (ceramics, WISC, teaching...). There would be no really compelling reason for me to leave work before dinner, or to ever come to the conclusion that working more doesn't mean more gets done. All the little emotional dramas of grad school would be the main emotion of my life, which would make them much harder to bear. Most details of my life are quite unlike folk music, I'll give'em the affectionate description of love.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
I think I may actually qualify as Handy.
I made so much stuff this weekend that the only way to contain all my productivity is in a list:
1) Decided to fix pretty much everything
2) Disassembled and reassembled the dripping kitchen faucet to learn how to do it.
3) Tried to disassemble the master bathtub faucet
4) Failed
5) Did some internet research
6) Succeeded!
7) Went out to Lowes to buy a whole bunch of replacement parts and a ceiling fan.
8) Jess took a nap
9) Fixed tub.
10) Fixed kitchen sink
11) Hung up a ceiling fan (good arm exercise)
12) Jess woke up from her nap
13) Assembled a rocking chair (for future nursing-of-of-baby)
14) Did some Laundry
15) Replaced some light bulbs
16) Hammered some nails
17) Wrote some music.
That last one doesn’t count as handyman work, but I did accomplish it, so it goes on the list.
You want to *hear* my music? Of course you do. Click here and enjoy with your ears, not with your hands.
Preamble-Vengance on spooky mountain
-N
1) Decided to fix pretty much everything
2) Disassembled and reassembled the dripping kitchen faucet to learn how to do it.
3) Tried to disassemble the master bathtub faucet
4) Failed
5) Did some internet research
6) Succeeded!
7) Went out to Lowes to buy a whole bunch of replacement parts and a ceiling fan.
8) Jess took a nap
9) Fixed tub.
10) Fixed kitchen sink
11) Hung up a ceiling fan (good arm exercise)
12) Jess woke up from her nap
13) Assembled a rocking chair (for future nursing-of-of-baby)
14) Did some Laundry
15) Replaced some light bulbs
16) Hammered some nails
17) Wrote some music.
That last one doesn’t count as handyman work, but I did accomplish it, so it goes on the list.
You want to *hear* my music? Of course you do. Click here and enjoy with your ears, not with your hands.
Preamble-Vengance on spooky mountain
-N
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