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Sweetie needed more help than the pictures in my hotel room. In my previous post, the top-left picture had a brick building with the Harvard crest on it, and the top-right picture had the MIT dome (I think). So where am I? Cambridge, Mass.
Here’s another cool picture that I snapped last night in Harvard Square:
And now I’m on my way home….Yay!
AGAIN.
Let’s see if we can guess where Barb is based on the art in her hotel room:
…I’m an idiot.
I know I’ve said it before, and some of you already believe me. But for those of you who still have faith that I’m not an idiot, please give it up. I am. I have proof.
What’s the latest proof, you ask? Let me set it up a little first.
As most readers know, I’m a grad student. I’m hoping to defend my thesis in March of next year, so a mere five months from now. That means that I’m in the intensive writing stage, in addition to trying to finish up the data analysis. On top of that, I have a half-time real job which sucks up as much time as I let it. Then, there’s my recent travel schedule: in August I was in MN for fun, in September I went to Chicago for a meting, October I was in Huntsville for a meeting. I’m writing this entry from Denver, where I have a meeting. Coming up I’ve got Austin in January (though, I’m trying to get out of this on), possibly Chicago in February for fun, New York in March to run a workshop, LA in April for a meeting, and St. Louis in June for a meeting.
Did you get that? Of the last 6 months in 2007, I will have traveled during four of those months. And of the first 6 months of 2008, I will be traveling at worst 5 of them, and at best 3. While finishing my PhD. And working part-time. And trying to keep myself sane with a small semblance of a personal life.
Here’s where the “me being an idiot” comes in. I agreed to another trip. In December.
Sigh.
Greetings from the Huntsville airport, here in sunny Alabama.
I thought I’d blog earlier this week, with being at a conference and bored in the evenings, and all, but obviously it didn’t happen.
I’ve been at the Eight Years of Science with Chandra meeting this week. I travelled with the Constellation-X booth, but I also had a poster at the meeting. Attendance at this meeting was actually fairly low, but surprisingly, it was the first time I’ve had any interest in my poster from researchers doing work in my field. Yup, I’ve brought posters to 3 or 4 AAS meetings and the last Chandra meeting – all relating to my thesis work, but this is the first time I’ve had a discussion with anyone *in my field*. And they seemed interested in it! I have to say that it’s nice to finally have some outside validation of my work.
Other than that, it was a typical conference. A few interesting talks, a few boring talks, and several talks that I just didn’t understand (either due to language/microphone difficulties and/or due to material).
Yesterday (my birthday…hurmph) the conference ended at noon, so I packed up the booth, and then Felicia and I went over to the US Space & Rocket Center, which was right next door to the hotel. I actually had gone many years ago, when I was in junior high or high school (can’t remember exactly when), with my aunt, uncle and grandma. Sadly, I was a little disappointed this time around. One of the coolest things to see was the Saturn V rocket last time. Now the Saturn V is getting a new home, in an under-construction building next to the main building. Translation: I didn’t get to see it. They also have a mock-up of the Saturn V standing in the “rocket park”, but the area was also under construction, so I couldn’t get up close to it.
Oh well. I did get to see the other rockets, and took some pictures with Felicia (more posted to Flickr later). Plus I got some astronaut ice cream – since I couldn’t have cake on my birthday, at least I got some ice cream.
Yesterday was Andrew’s birthday. We spent a quiet evening celebrating his 35th year, with dinner and cake.
Inspired by Chocstress over at Chocablog, I decided to make a Dalek Cake.
That’s Andrew with the final product.
I told my coworkers yesterday that this would either turn out really cool or that it would be one big mess. Little did I know that both would be the case. Details on the making of the cake below the fold.
Read more…
Most commercials are merely annoying, very few entertaining, but lately I’ve been hearing (on the radio) and seeing some creepy commercials. Here’s a few of them:
Bah? Ick! I thought one of the big ethical “rules” of medicine was that you do not treat family members. But here they are trying to use this as a reason that I should go to this guy? I think not.
Their commercials try to highlight how helpful their staff is. In one commercial, the salesperson talks about one of his clients. During the long process of acquiring one of these cars this client’s father dies. The salesperson goes to the father’s funeral. ‘Scuse me? This guy I hardly know, who is helping me to buy a very expensive car, goes to my father’s funeral? I think not. That’s not comforting; it’s creepy.
What have you heard or seen in an ad that’s creeped you out?
I finally got a chance to wear those jeans I bought last month. It’s been such a warm summer that I’ve been wearing cropped jeans and bermuda shorts up until now.
One problem with the jeans is that they are way too long for me – I ended up doing a quick hemming job this morning with safety pins. I’ll have to decide if I have the time and energy to hem them for real myself or to bring them to a tailor.
Other than the length, though, they fit very well and were quite comfortable all day. The main challenge I have with jeans is that I have hips that are a size larger than my waist, so I end up buying jeans for my hips, but then have a gaping waistline. I didn’t have that problem with these jeans, because they were designed for someone with my body type – hips a different size from waist. They didn’t end up stretching out during the day, as other jeans I’ve had do. And, frankly, they were rather comfy.
It looks like I’m trying to cram all of my nightmare travel scenarios into one calendar year. As I write this, my vision is fuzzing out – the first sign of a migraine. Sadly, I can’t just hop in bed with the covers over my head, because that would put me out for 3-6 hours. Instead, I’m finishing my packing, watching a special on ice cream on the History Channel, and forcing myself to have a breakfast of leftover dinner rolls, Teddy Grahams and Diet Coke. The airport shuttle will be here to pick me up in about an hour.
My other nightmare scenarios?
I know there are more nightmare travel scenarios – certainly worse ones – but I’m not about to mention them, as I still have two trips to take before the end of the year.
Share some of your nightmare travel stories (or worries) in the comments.
A 35-year-old skinning her knee is just pathetic.
Just sayin’.
Ever have one of those moments in a conversation where it becomes clear that you are not talking about the same thing as the other person? Yeah. Andrew and I had one of those last night:
Andrew: Speaking of old shows, I used to watch “The Littlest Hobo” when I was a kid. I recently discovered that the actor who plays Tigh on Battlestar Galactica was on it.
Me: Really? Did he have a big afro then?
Andrew: [Blank stare followed by gales of laughter.]
Me: Oh, the new Tigh. [Followed by my own gales of laughter].
For those of you who are not BSG fans, in the original BSG, in the 70s, Colonel Tigh was played by Terry Carter – an African-American actor. In the current BSG, Colonel Tigh is played by Michael Hogan, a balding white actor. So you can imagine the image this exchange brought to our minds.
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