Durham has events

Wow, there are actually three cool-sounding events happening right here on the UNH campus this weekend: a Home and garden show at the Whittemore centre, a greenhouse show at the Thompson school, and a paddle sports show at the Field House. Why are they all converging on this one weekend? I'm not sure.

New easel!

John got me an easel yesterday without telling me. We went out for pizza with Val and Kurt, and when we got home, I found it in the upstairs living room. It's so cool, it folds up into a little suitcase, so if I wanted I could take it out somewhere to paint. He also got two new rugs and re-arranged the living room. Thanks John! It was pretty hard to say no to painting last night, but I had math homework :( My painting skillz are pretty much non-existent, but it's nice to have someone who's encouraging me anyway. Pretty soon our entire apartment will be wallpapered with mediochre artwork by me. I'm not good, but I can paint fast!

Scrabble and ice cream

Janice had a great dessert potluck/scrabble party on Saturday night. It's wonderful to eat tons of sugar and listen to music and think of obscure scrabble words. This time we decided not to keep score since it became far too competitive last time. Not only that, but we decided that interesting words that had 'cred' were allowed to be used. Hence UNIX. and novae. and jedi.

Subversionland

It is kind of lame and more than a little bit dorky to write about this in my blog, but it's so exciting I just can't help it. I have finally got a Subversion folder of my very own set up on the CCOM server - woo hoo! It's better than a backup system (hold on to your hats folks) - it will save every single revision that I ever do on my thesis, even if I make 700 revisions! Holy moley.

I haven't quite got the commands or structure sorted out in my head though, so I'm a little bit dangerous to myself right now. I need to make sure I don't inadvertantly overwrite something that's on my computer, yikes. Okay, if any of my CCOM friends are interested in learning how, I will show you whatever I know (which is not much right now, I'll admit). You should definitely get Nathan to set up a subversion account for you, you won't regret it.

Here's the book, it's online and it's totally free, and in a variety of formats (namely pdf and html): Subversion book .

And yes, I said holy moley. There's just no better way to describe it.

Thesis defense

Kim's thesis defense is today, it's on estuary current modelling - cool. I bet she's going to feel pretty good after about 5 o'clock. I'll find out what it's like a short year and a half from now. I got a sneak preview of her presentation and it's very neat. She kept the scary equations down to a minimum and she explained things well. I hope that I can manage to do that when my turn comes. Good luck, Kim!

Snow and sun and trees

UNH campus can be so nice. This was taken last night as I was walking home. It's facing DeMerritt which I think is the physics building, but I'm not sure.

Crock pot cooking adventures

I was inspired to make soup last night for some reason - I don't know, I might have been just avoiding math homework, but I guess that's okay for one night. The giant slow cooker was excavated from its hiding place and put to use once again. It's definitely one of my favorite kitchen appliances - that and the foodsaver. Anyhow, here's a picture of the chopped veg right before it got tossed into the pot. I was inspired by Val and Alice's split pea and lentil soup, and thought I'd try it myself. Except I added bacon, so it's not vegetarian friendly.
John was bugging me about having no pictures of myself on my blog. So here I am - look at me I'm cooking!

Sofia - International traveller

Here's Sofia, all bundled up and ready to get on a plane. John and I drove Sofia and Luis to the airport yesterday. Sofia didn't know what was going on. Luis said she might be worried because last time she was at the airport, her mom left. Now she was at the airport again and probably thought her dad was leaving too - poor kid! She'll be happy when she finds out they're going to meet her mom in Brussels.

Snowy Night

Last night we had a pretty big snowstorm. It started snowing a bit around 2 o'clock or so and it just kept on going through most of the night. John was quick to point out that the snow is, in fact, up to the bottoms of the cars. That has been our landmark for a decent snowstorm. And I think it's the first time it's happened all year. This picture is sort of bad, dark and tilted a bit. But I still like it for some reason. Actually, most of the pictures from the storm are dark because I started taking them later in the evening.
Last night John and I watched Flushed Away - Jakob, I think you'd really like it, if you haven't seen it already. The singing slugs are hilarious!

Surveying the Surveyor

Val and Lynn and I are going to help Ben do the offset survey of the Coastal Surveyor in early April. Yesterday we went out to try and figure out how we are going to do it.

The Coffee Cart

Here is a picture of our favorite coffee cart. Janice and Lynn and I used to go three times a week, before our physical oceanography class. Mom, Dad, and Jakob: if you guys come down here for a visit, I'll make sure to take you to Vinny's for some chowder or chili or lattes, Yum...

Did you know it's Spring Break here at UNH? Why am I not in some tropical paradise this week? I must really love Durham. Maybe I'll make some Pina Coladas later, I wonder if they sell those little drink umbrellas around here?

Sunny Sunday

Finally the temperature has started to rise - it's about 10 degrees (Celsius of course) today. John and I took a walk around the block, and down to the Oyster River. You can see our house on the map, it's 'E' on the picture above.

I started a Picasa site, so if you click on the photos above, it will link you to the whole album. And a couple of other albums. You can also find it at: Michelle's Picasa photos

The year of the papercuts - ouch!

What's going on? I've had at least 6 papercuts since the start of the semester! What have I done to deserve this? Maybe it's because I didn't recycle enough last year and all the paper around me is getting revenge the only way they know how. Do you think this might have something to do with it?!? Shocking, I know. Not only am I using an upside down recycling bin for an unnecessary table, but I'm using TWO upside down recycling bins for an unnecessary table. Well, it's not that I throw all this paper in the garbage. I keep it right there on my desk. You know, in case I need it again.

The High Bay

I sometimes forget that not everyone knows all about CCOM, especially those who do not work or go to school there. A couple of posts ago I said that there was an alpaca in the High Bay. Well, the High Bay is a mystical and magical place where humans and alpacas live in peace and harmony, and underwater acoustic systems are calibrated. At night, when all the people and alpacas go back to their homes, the UNH wildcat comes in and does laps in the pools for excercise. That's why cat hair gets stuck to the transducers so they give funny results.

If you want to know the truth, I don't even really know why it's called the High Bay, it just is. So that's not very helpful. But I can tell you what it is: it's a big room with a High ceiling (maybe that's where the 'High' part comes in), and it's got two pools in it. One pool is big and deep and the other one is long and narrow. And kind of deep. Anyone who is interested the High Bay can come on down to Durham, New Hampshire, and I will give you a tour.

Bottles

I couldn't figure out why John was keeping all of these glass jars on our counter. He kept saying he had a plan but he wouldn't tell me what it was. This afternoon he built this shelf with jars attached to the bottom. Cool! He even filled the jars up for me. What a guy! Thanks John!

Boston trip

John and I went down to Boston yesterday. It's the first day in a really really long time that I did no schoolwork at all. It felt so good. We were planning on seeing whole bunch of things like the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Science Museum. But we only went to the MFA and spent the rest of the time wandering around. Here's what it looked like when we left:

In Boston it was more like this one:

This photo was taken outside the Museum of Fine Arts. We spent more than 3 hours in there, and we didn't even see everything.

No Snow Day

:( The weather conditions do not seem to be any better than they were on the last snow day, so I'm not sure what prompted the decision to keep the school open today. Whoever decides on the snow days around here certainly seems to be a bit inconsistent. I mean, UNB never had any snow days, but at least they were consistent.

Maybe I'll put on my snowpants and build a snow man later. I will take pictures with my phone again so you can all see how pretty a NH winter is.

Alpaca-Rama 2

I finally got to see a real live Alpaca - and here's the photo! Believe it or not, this little fella (Fabio) was in the CCOM High Bay this afternoon. He was temporarily hanging out because Andy McLeod had to bring him in to see the vet. Fabio was living with one other Alpaca and two Llamas. It seems that the two Llamas were bullying him, and not letting him eat, so he was losing a lot of weight. Don't worry though, they figured out what was going on, and separated the llamas and alpacas. Fabio has since gained 18 pounds.

You never know what you'll find in the High Bay.

Quote of the Day

"I got more work done on that snow day than I did all summer!" - Lynn Morgan (from Alaska)

We were talking about the possibility of getting a snow day tomorrow. There's a NOAA research scientist here at CCOM - John Kelley - who always lets us know when the storms are coming. He sent out an email this morning and it looks like we're in for a big one, starting later tonight. Keep those fingers crossed! I don't think it'll be anything like the snow day that Andrea got at MUN. But it would still be cool.