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.
Tags: build-a-bear, grad life, trip report, work
Posted by barb on Oct 18, 2007 in
Memes, Etc. 
Made at Build Your Wild Self.
Tags: dumb fun
Posted by barb on Oct 16, 2007 in
Pictures,
Random Thoughts 
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…
Tags: baking, birthday, my man
Posted by barb on Oct 14, 2007 in
Crafty Me,
Pictures I’ve been looking for scrapping groups in my area for a while, but the recent crops have coincided with my travel schedule. Finally, yesterday, was a crop that I could make. The crop was run through Scrapeppers (who is merging with another area crop organizer in 2008 to become Crops Plus).
I ended up at a table with the other 3 ladies who were new to Scrapeppers, and we had a great time. I was there from about 10 AM to 8:30 PM, and completed four spreads:
Jenny’s wedding
2005 biking pics:
And Pandamania pics:
I’ll be back for the Scrapeppers Holiday Crop in December. Oh, and Sarah’s Cropping Corner crop in November.
Tags: scrapping
Posted by barb on Sep 28, 2007 in
Random Thoughts 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:
- Lasik commercial – There’s a local (I think) radio ad featuring a woman talking about her fears getting lasik surgery. She says that she put it off for a long time, and finally was convinced by the region’s best (in her opinion) lasik surgeon. After her surgery, she looks up at the surgeon and says something like “Thank you, dear”, because afterall, the surgeon is her husband.
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.
- Car dealer commercial – There’s a car dealer here that helps local buyers get imported cars (possibly Mercedes, but I can’t remember) directly from the factory. They even set up trips to the factory in Europe.
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.
- CVS commercial – One of the recent CVS commercials aims to show how caring and compassionate their pharmacists are. The pharmacist in this commercial talks about how concerned he is about the medications that his customers use. The reason this is creepy is that the way he was talking made it sound like he was willing to play “god” with our medications – like he would be willing to refuse to fill a prescription for, say, birth control or the morning after pill.
What have you heard or seen in an ad that’s creeped you out?
Tags: rant
Posted by barb on Sep 24, 2007 in
Random Thoughts 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.
Tags: reviews
Posted by barb on Sep 8, 2007 in
Pictures,
Travels I just got back from Chicago – thankfully the migraine that threatened this morning did not manifest itself into a full-blown headache. Still not feeling great, but at least I’m home.
Here are some of the highlights of the trip:
- I flew out last Friday, a few days before my conference, so my parents and I could play for a couple days. They drove out from Minnesota, and we met up at the hotel Friday evening.
- Saturday we went out to Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, where Frank Lloyd Wright had a house and studio from 1889-1909. We toured the studio and house, and then took a walking tour of the neighborhood where FLW had designed several houses.Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of the day, because I lost my camera somewhere between the end of our walking tour and our hotel. Sigh. Dad and I went back that night, and we all went back Sunday morning, but no camera.
- Sunday, Mom, Dad, and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry (after first going to get me a new camera). I’ve been once before, but it was 10 years ago, so I didn’t remember much, and I’m pretty sure that much of it has been re-vamped since then. We didn’t do any of the “extra” activities, like the IMAX or touring the submarine, but we still spent all day there. If you’re in the area, I definitely recommend it.
- Monday, Labor Day, Mom and Dad had to head back, so they dropped me at the conference hotel, and after I settled in, Jo and I walked out to Navy Pier. She talked me into getting her a second Chicago t-shirt, with matching shoes. I also stumbled upon the stained glass window museum on the pier – very cool.
- Tuesday I walked around downtown, seeking out some of the public sculptures that were listed on my “pop-out” map of Chicago. I ended up at Millennium Park. One thing that struck me on my walk was the amount of green in Chicago. Not in the downtown, strictly, but between the city and the lake. Chicago has refused to let developments take over the waterfront, and has left a strip of green between the waterfront and the tall buildings. There were points when I was walking through the gardens that I could have easily forgotten that I was that close to a large city. It was very peaceful.
- Wednesday the conference began, and I started feeling ill. All-in-all not a bad conference, though I didn’t get in much networking, as I had hoped, because I’d just go back to my room after the sessions.
I’m glad to be home. It was mostly a good trip, besides losing my camera, skinning my knee, feeling ill, and nearly having a migraine while traveling. Huh. It doesn’t really sound like a good trip, does it. Oh well, it wasn’t as bad as all that.
Tags: build-a-bear, trip report
Posted by barb on Sep 8, 2007 in
Random Thoughts 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?
- Being sick while travelling – this happened in May when the night before our flight home from Montreal I was up all night. I won’t get into details, but let’s just say that it was a terrifying flight home, and not from turbulance.
- Being sick at a conference – this happened this week. I have not been feeling well since Wednesday. I managed to go to all of the sessions, though I skipped the networking and special events. Gah.
- Losing my camera – this happened last Saturday. I lost it after we did a walking tour of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Oak Park. Not sure exactly where I lost it, but no one turned it in at any of the places we visited after I last knew that I had the camera. I bought a new camera Sunday morning, but lost all of my pictures of the Frank Lloyd Wright houses. Dad’s going to send me his, but I had some different ones, so I’m really bummed.
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.
Tags: suckitude, trip report
Posted by barb on Sep 3, 2007 in
Random Thoughts A 35-year-old skinning her knee is just pathetic.
Just sayin’.
Tags: suckitude, trip report
Posted by barb on Aug 30, 2007 in
Random Thoughts,
TV 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.