24 Dec 2009
So as of yesterday, I’m unemployed!
And today I tried to go home to Arkansas, but American Airlines wouldn’t let me 
Howard was very sweet and drove through a snowstorm to Syracuse twice to drop me off and pick me up from the airport. He must be feeling extra good today because he also decided to wash the sheets. I think he intended for us to stay off the bed in the meantime. But did we listen?
No we didn’t. Ungrateful little beasts, aren’t we?
2 Nov 2009
I have been trying to keep this under wraps, although Howard thwarted me a little, but now that the decision is made, I can tell you: we are moving to Chicago. That is actually not quite true and sounds a lot more exotic than the truth. We are moving to the cornfields northwest of Chicago. I’ve accepted a job with Northwestern University to work at Fermilab on two neutrino experiments: MINERvA and NOvA.
It turns out that I am not very good at announcing major life events such as this. On Friday, shortly after I decided which offer to take, and after keeping the details of my job search secret for months, I wanted to finally tell everybody the news. But I realized there might be a few people in my life, e.g. my mom, who would prefer not to hear major news via Facebook (or via some acquaintance who checks facebook more often than she does). So I wrote to a few people, posted to Facebook, then got on a plane. It turns out that I forgot to inform one important person: Howard found out that I’d finally made my decision when his nephew called to congratulate him on our move. Whoops. Really, Howard knew what was going to happen. But, in case it ever comes up, if your boyfriend is going to considerable personal effort to sell his house and alter his employment situation in order to follow you around the country, it’s really best to keep him fully in the loop.
So, as you might imagine, life is a little chaotic right now. I have been imagining scenarios that involve moving myself, Howard, two cats and a dog and all of our stuff 700 miles and have so far been unable to come up with a reasonable scenario. How does one do this? Does anybody have advice on moving pets long distance?
16 Oct 2009
The good news is that Howard and I both have successful careers. The bad news is that our respective careers are making us feel like someone has put our heads in a vice and starting cranking. Right after I finished three weeks of traveling to San Francisco, Chicago and Charlottesville, Howard got word that he would have to go to Vancouver on Sunday and I was all “Yessss!!!! For once it isn’t me!!!”. And then today I found out I have to go back to Fermilab on Tuesday. And then go to Fermilab again the following Tuesday. Not so “Yesssss!!!!”. Fermilab is actually a very cool place, but I’ve been away so much lately that the cats are getting used to sleeping in my bed and get kind of pissy when *I* want to sleep there.
The other good news is that I get to spend the weekend with my adorable pets, and this past week was the second anniversary of Oliver’s adoption, and his approximate 3rd birthday.
Happy birthday, old man!
5 Oct 2009
(Warning: lots of dorky photos of me standing in front of stuff below!)
We had a nice trip to San Francisco, and I survived turning 30. Here’s some of what happened:
My talk at SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) went well, except that it was a wee bit short. I’m the only particle physicist in the world who gives short talks. I feel bad that I didn’t give them their money’s worth, and, since I have to give the very same talk at least two more times in the coming months, I’m going to have to think up something more to say about semileptonic decays. That’s easy, but coming up with something to say about semileptonic decays that other people would actually want to hear is less trivial.
We took not a single picture of SLAC! It was the nicest particle physics laboratory I’ve ever seen, but that is not saying a lot — particle physics laboratories are notoriously ugly.
Palo Alto is a little weird. Much more to my taste was Mill Valley, where we headed next. We stayed at the Mill Valley Inn.
The innkeepers left a birthday card, chocolate cake and a bottle of wine in our room for my birthday. Isn’t that nice? There was also a redwood grove right outside our room.
We also drove up the coast to Point Reyes Seashore on highway 1, both of which were really spectacular.
We went for a very pretty and very windy walk on the beach.
On my birthday, we went for a hike in Muir Woods.
Howard was very good to me on the whole trip, and especially on my birthday. Among other things, I got cool nike+ipod stuff. In San Francisco, we stayed at the Harbor Court Hotel. The staff seemed to be high on something, but we had an awesome view of the Bay Bridge.
For dinner on my birthday, we went to Millenium, which was lovely and delicious.
My friend val loaned us an awesome book Stairway Walks in San Francisco, which was a really excellent way see and learn a lot without spending money. The hills there are craaazy! I have no idea how people drive standard transmissions in that town!
On our final night there, we walked out on the pier next to the hotel
And finally, we had dinner at the Tanga Room with my long-lost friend Sherry, and Howard got to hear about all the trouble I got up to in junior high and high school.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip.
As usual, I’m really happy to be home.
27 Sep 2009
… but probably not wearing any flowers in my hair. Howard and I are all packed, but as usual, the most difficult part of leaving is saying goodbye to my homies:
But they will be well cared for. Oliver is going to stay at his doggie daycare, which he really prefers to home. My friend Val is coming to feed and cuddle the cats, and there is no better cat sitter in the world than Val. I’ll still miss them though!
15 Sep 2009
There is a big birthday coming up at the beginning of October that involves me and the number 3 followed by a zero. To celebrate, I have decided to drive myself crazy. Here is my schedule for the foreseeable future:
Also, I decided to make myself feel really old by signing up for Twitter. There is now a Twitter feed on the front page of my blog, and trying to get Twitter, WordPress and Facebook all linked up gave me a glimpse of what it must be like for old people to use computers. Which is good practice, since I myself will be old in 15 days! On the bright side, I can now send updates from my cellphone, so that you can all follow the craziness as it unfolds.
8 Sep 2009
This weekend, we had the second of Howard’s two annual barbecues. I guess they are now my barbecues too, but since they have been going on much longer than I have known Howard, I don’t feel much ownership. We spent a lot of the weekend cleaning up in preparation, and then cleaning up in post-paration. It was all very fun, but there was a lot of feet-dragging when we had to wake up early this morning. Oliver was supposed to go to doggie day-care today, but we rescheduled him for tomorrow because this was the only evidence that we own a dog:
As it turns out, Fermilab’s machines are refusing to build my code this morning, so I might as well have just crawled under the bed with him.
31 Aug 2009
Surely I’ve mentioned here before that I’ve got major issues with Laundry. At some point while writing my thesis, I stopped wearing socks because I didn’t have time to find matching pairs. These days, I have a little more time, but the laundry still builds up in huge piles that have to threaten the pets’ safety before I get around to dealing with them.
But I’m not sure why. Laundry time is always fun in our house. Look what it results in:
* Today’s photo processing brought to you by Laura’s laziness and Picassa’s “I’m feeling lucky” button.
There are several interesting features in the bottom photo:
After laundry time, it was ice cream time, also a very exciting event:
I didn’t have an ice cream. I was too full of the sweet and savory pies I made this weekend. They were really yummy.
31 Aug 2009
When I first started this blog, nobody knew it existed, and I could say anything I wanted. These days, I feel a little censored, given that it might be read by my family, my boyfriend’s family, long lost friends, long lost not-so-friends, and current or prospective employers. So, without going into all of the gory details, I shall just say that this week a lot of circumstances, including but not limited to: bugs in my code, ignorance what does or does not constitute “black tie”, and the cat peeing on the carpet have all combined make me feel like a bit of a failure.
I even still pretty much suck at cake decorating. But I did manage to make this is class the other day:
The icing may not be smooth, and the shell border may be a little wobbly, but the flowers look pretty, no? I had the prettiest flowers in my class, but it wasn’t because of any skill on my part. If anybody else out there is trying to make buttercream roses and having trouble with the petals breaking, here is the secret: you have to buy store-brand shortening. Unlike Crisco, the store brands still contain trans-fat. And trans fat may be bad for you, but it’s good for making roses!
19 Aug 2009
I have been meaning to take a cake decorating class for years now, and this month I finally stopped traveling for five minutes and signed up for a Wilton course at the local Michael’s. I think they are taught at at craft stores all across the country. If you have one nearby and have any interest in cakes, I highly recommend them. The three classes I’ve had so far have been lots of fun.
I don’t recommend that you take a picture of your cute little cupcakes
And then leave them unattended for half a second
See that extra sheen there? That’s dog slobber. Really enticing, no?
