I'm tired

I think that grad school is slowly killing me. I need to get out! I need to know what it's like to be outside in the daytime, to sleep in past 7am, to stare at a computer screen for less than 14 hours every day. What is that life like? I don't even remember... That's why I need to get graduated and move on out of here.

Right, sorry for all the complaining. But I am sick of trying to wade through 27 gigabytes of acoustic data, only to realise that I didn't calibrate the sound levels for changes in the pre-amp gain settings. Now I have to go back and write it all down by hand, and apply it to the data after the fact... Oh well. Such is life, eh?

Well, I think I'll try posting a video. This on cheers me up, it's starring Trooper, mainly. It was after we'd just played scrabble, and I lost (235 - 240). I have a bad habit of gambling on words that I have never heard of but suspected they might make their way into the scrabble dictionary.

Finally, a new blog post...

It's been so long since I've posted anything. I'm pretty sure that no one even checks anymore, assuming of course that people checked it out before. John has been reminding me for weeks to put up a post. So here it is, finally. A lot has happened since my last post (which was on September 3rd by the way) - John returned from Africa mid September, I went to a conference in Vancouver at the end of September, we collected data for my thesis for two weeks in October, and then we got married on November 9th. :)

John in Mozambique

Here's a shot of John sitting with the sonar that they've been working with. They are currently in Maputo, Mozambique. They're doing the survey work for a fiber-optic communications cable. Which, in my opinion, is desperately needed - the internet connection there is terrible. Our Skype calls keep getting cut off! Well, by the time the lightning-fast internet connection arrives, John and the rest of GRS will be long gone... to Tanzania, anyway. He should be back in Durham by early September. This six week trip has transformed into more than 7, and is expected to go on for at least another 2!

Back to blogging...

Well, it's been ages since I've updated the ol' blog. (and by ages I mean 21 days). So here's the latest update: We had to give Cayo back to the SPCA. She was very aggressive to other dogs, and then we discovered she was also scary aggressive to little kids. So that wasn't cool. I was so upset when I went to take her back. She was only with me for 3.5 weeks, but I was pretty attached. She was so sweet when it was just the two of us, but she definitely had issues. We're still going to look for another dog, we just need to take our time and find the right one for us.

John is in Africa now, they're somewhere near Richard's Bay, South Africa. They should be leaving for Mozambique any day now. The place where they're staying now has fairly reliable internet access, so we can talk on Skype every day. It works out pretty well for the most part, except that because of the time difference, I'm usually at CCOM when he calls so I have to lug my laptop and some headphones somewhere out of cubeland. So I go to the lunchroom, and sit on the blue 'comfy' chairs. (I put quotation marks around comfy because they are not actually comfy, but they have blue cushions on them so you think they're going to be comfy, but then you sit down and they're hard as a rock. so they're faux comfy)

I've had one email from my little sister, Andrea, who's allegedly in Ecuador, bestowing the healing powers of a first year med school student on the innocent injured in Quito. I am sure she's doing great. Dad says that she has been putting stitches in people and everything. Yikes!

Saturday in Boston

John and I went to Boston yesterday and saw the Blue Man group. It's a show that has a lot of audience participation. Before we went John was expressing concern about getting singled out (he tends to get singled out for thigns like this, I don't know why) - and sure enough, he got picked. He had to throw pieces of chocolate at one of the Blue Man guys who was standing about 10 feet away and catching the chocolate in his mouth. And it was all broadcast onto a big screen at the front. I think they're just really good at picking people who really don't want to be picked.

The weather was okay in Boston, a bit muggy but not too bad. But once we got on the highway, and were just past Newburyport, the sky turned that scary greenish colour and got really dark and ominous. And before we really realised what happened, it starting raining and hailing. It turned into a complete white-out and all the cars were pulled over to the side of the road. It brought traffic on the I-95 to a complete standstill - well except for a few crazy people that kept driving anyway. There were bits of debris and leaves flying everywhere, it was very strange and unexpected.

Memorial Day Weekend

Here's a picture of John at Kennebunk beach in Maine. We decided to drive up on Saturday and see what all the fuss was about. It was cloudy at first, but by the time we finished our lunch it was sunny and hot. On Sunday morning we went into Portsmouth and had breakfast at the Friendly Toast. On Monday we drove into Portsmouth again and had lunch at the Icehouse. The Icehouse is a restaurant/ice cream place on Newcastle island on the way to the Coast Guard station. Gretchen and Gretchen's mom both recommended it a number of times, it was definitely worth it. Their seafood chowder is delicious.

John's coming home tonight!!

Correction: John's flight's been changed and he's coming home tonight at 5!

John's coming home - 50th blog post!

Okay, it's for real this time. He's got a plane ticket and everything. I don't believe him anymore when he says he's coming home unless he has flights booked. This two week job has turned out to be nearly a month and a half! Although I really can't complain because he did fly me out to California for a week. But I think that my formula has worked once again: take whatever time estimate he gives me at the start of the trip, multiply by two, and add two weeks.

Anyhow, his flight arrives at 8am in Boston tomorrow morning. I'm seriously considering bringing a giant cup of coffee and trying to convince him that despite taking the red-eye flight from Seattle, he still has enough energy to go hang out in Boston. Surely there will be lots of fun stuff going on, what with it being memorial day weekend and all. Of course maybe the city will be totally empty, since people will all be heading up north to hang out in new hampster and maine. We'll see...

Back to rainy NH

I'm back in New Hampster, and it's pretty rainy and cold. Oh well, it is supposed to be sunny this week. Here's one of my pictures from last week. Just click on it to see more on my Picasa page. It was a great trip. Thanks John!!

**note to John: these pictures are for you! I know you're the one who put a comment up about the lack of photos recently - you can't fool me by calling yourself anonymous! ;)

Goodbye, California

This week went by incredibly fast, as you might imagine. I spent every single day doing basically nothing. I brought along a few 'academic papers' and some half constructed matlab code with high hopes of accomplishing something (anything) while on my quasi-vacation, but alas it was not meant to be. 'Reading academic papers' turned into 'taking pictures of myself beside california-looking things', and 'writing code' turned into 'trying to get a tan so people believe I actually went to California'. So the week was spent mainly relaxing and watching other people (John and Chris) do work like lugging car batteries and GPS equipment around.

Well, my slacking days are over (for the time being). I'm in a hotel in Sacramento and am being picked up by the Super Shuttle at 3:45am. My flight leaves at 6am, I'll fly to Denver, then to Laguardia, then arriving in Boston at 10pm. The C&J trailways bus will take me to Portsmouth, and I'll take a taxi from the station to home sweet home. I should arrive sometime near 1am. The next day I will meet Gretchen and her family at 7:00am in preparation for the graduation day ceremony. After the ceremony we're going for lunch and celebratory drinks at Kennebunk with Gretchen's family and friends. Much coffee will be consumed between now and Saturday night.

PS: for anyone who is not sure, this is not my graduation. It is Gretchen's. And many others. And believe it or not, Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr. are speaking at the graduation ceremony. I'm not joking

No single-beaming yet

I'm still at Lake Berryessa, enjoying the sun and the views. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my download cable, so I can't share the photos yet. I thought I'd be spending my days here on the little ski boat helping John do a little single beam survey on the east side of the lake. But the boat has been out of commission since I arrived. They thought it was the starter, then thought it was the solenoid, then the mechanic decided it was something more serious and needed to take it out of the water and have a look at it at his shop. So I'm just hanging out and following John and Chris around (to Napa, to the other side of the lake, to the marina office, etc.). It's nice to be on a job, but not actually have to do anything. I got John to take a picture of me by the RTK base station. It kind of looks like I'm working.

Sunny California

I said a while back that I was going to try to get myself out to California. I didn't think it was really going to happen, but here I am. We're waiting on the shore of Lake Berryessa for a starter for the boat. John and I tried to get it started earlier, but no luck. So while the mechanic is locating the part, John has moved on to another task - fixing the broken pinball machine.

Brunch on Sunday

I apologize, this post is quite late. I've been pretty busy for the last week or so. But now that my presentation is done, I can update the blog again.
We had a brunch/lunch at our place on Sunday, the day before John left for California. It was also a birthday celebration, although John made three quiches himself. And they were so good! We also had cheese, bread, fruit salad, pancakes, bacon, cheesecake, and carrot cake. Thats a lot of food. And Kim brought up her super duper instant coffee machine which was very impressive (very similar to the one at Carol and Loren's house, but a different brand).

Happy Birthday John!!!

Have a great day, John, and thanks for helping me pick up equipment at the Thompson School!

This is a picture of John, first thing in the morning on his birthday. He got up early to help me pick up survey equipment and even carried the super heavy box of GPS equipment for me. What a guy!

Easter Potluck

Val and Alice hosted an Easter potluck at their house last night. It was a blast, we got to eat lots o' food, and then we dyed eggs! Here's a picture of everyone before the meal, doesn't it look yummy? Val and Alice made paella, John and I brought John's special black bean/cilantro salad, Lynn brought delicious devilled (sp?) eggs, kurt brought 2 pies, and Nathan and Alyssa brought blueberry/apple crisp. We all had a good time, and Kokua supervised the entire operation. Because she loves us.

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!

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!

I miss Key West - Updated picture

John finished his latest painting yesterday, it's a scene from Key West. I'm in the picture, can you spot me? It makes me want to go skateboard around Key West at sunset. Or learn to paint - actually I'll just leave the painting to John :)

*Note: this photo was taken with a real camera this time, not the phone.