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Name: Em
Country: United States
State: California
Gender: Female
Interests: fantasy bball, reading trashy novels, eating, otherwise wasting time...
Expertise: professional slacker
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/25/2002
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| fall has been flying by! given limited time, here's a quick photo update of what's been happening in the last month or so...
view of mt hood from somewhere in the willamette valley
good eats in san diego (scallops, sea bass, cold peanut noodles, and fresh greens, mmm...)
the awesomest alpaca with a fro! (i think i was the only one that liked the alpaca that much though!)
another year older (30 is just around the corner! yikes, where did my 20s go??)  my roommate gil and i have birthdays on the same day so we celebrated together. if you add up our ages we are *almost* a senior (64!) i know, it's a tarheel cake not a birthday cake but that's only because the ice cream shop lost our cake and offered a free replacement. who can say no to free cake??
and since no post would be complete without demonstrating my crazy cat lady side... "where's waldo"??
since you made it this far, i will reward you with a disgusting story! i volunteered to cook at the soup kitchen yesterday, and was working on a squash casserole. the finishing touch before it went in the oven was a layer of stuffing, bread crumbs, and croutons on top (hey, when you're working at a soup kitchen you work with the materials you've got!) the bread crumbs were sealed, and when i opened the can, it looked fine, like a multi-color seasoning. when we poured it over the casserole however, we discovered that the darker "seasoning" was actually bugs. hundreds and hundreds of little bugs that had hatched inside the bread crumbs!! needless to say, that was a not a dish that got served. and i will never ever buy bread crumbs from that vendor!
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i'm leaving for another series of site visits on saturday, and will try to post another update after i return.
hope you are enjoying the fall! | | |
| At the end of July, Kevin and his coworkers hosted a radio telescope workshop in Greenbank, WV. The lack of cell phone towers, Wi-Fi access, and other signs of civilization meant I spent a lot of time either working or biking.
Fergie shows some Hawkeye pride! She's also sulking because I've banished her from my work area. Lately, she's really displayed a number of new talents, such as: jumping in the laundry basket, stalking feet, drinking out of the toilet and out of every single available glass with liquid in it, and trying to get my attention by sitting on whatever I happen to be working on at the time (laptop, book, etc)
At the last minute, Kevin and I decided to spend Labor Day weekend hiking instead of working. We spent an afternoon at Hanging Rock State Park (in NC) and a full day at Rocky Knob, which is off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia (near Floyd).
A couple photos from Hanging Rock:
We'd been to Hanging Rock before but not Rocky Knob. The Rock Castle Gorge hike in that park is definitely one of the better hikes in this area. I'd rank it on par with Grandfather Mtn and Mt Rogers, even though we spent the latter half of the hike (starting around mile 6) getting drizzled and/or poured on. It offers a good mix of scenery and there's a mile or two of strenuous uphill as you climb out of the gorge that keeps the hike from getting boring.
Why cows, you ask? Well, they were part of the hike... right around mile 10.5, there they were... a huge herd of cows right on the hiking trail, unfenced and freely available for passing hikers to gawk at, pet, what have you. One "calf" (easily the same size as its mother) was still nursing. I would have thought it was time for mom to cut the cord and start the weaning process, but what do I know?
Hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekends too!
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| i'd hoped the next time i posted i would be sharing photos from a dive trip out in wilmington but was thwarted by the weather. our dive was canceled because of stormy weather, so no luck after all! we might get to do a day trip in early september, but will have to wait and see. the schedule is currently looking pretty packed and pretty soon it will be too cold to dive here. one can always hope, though!
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it's been a while since i last updated. let's see... kevin had a radio telescope conference in greenbank, so i tagged along and spent a week in the boonies of west virginia. i also spent the early part of august in chicago for another conference, which also went well. (next year's conference will be in montreal, so i have some incentive to get another submission together!  ) i made a nice contact at the conference, and there is a post-doc position i would really like to get. i plan to apply in late september, and will share more details if it works out.
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in terms of what's coming up, lots of insanity! as the "west coast" person on one of the research projects i work on, i'm doing a lot of site visits over the next few weeks. fortunately, two of them (seattle and SF) are virtual this time around, meaning i don't need to fly anywhere, but it does mean i'll have approximately 6 hours of phone interviews a day, three to four days a week until they're over. 
i will also be leaving for a site visit on the west coast on sept 13th (portland!). i'll be following that up with a short trip to san diego. my sister will be coming down to visit from LA as well, so i'm really looking forward to it.
i haven't had time to upload pictures, so sadly i don't have any to share, but i promise the next post will include some.
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| especially as the debate over health care reform continues...
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| i hadn't planned on updating again until august, but since i made a blogging deal with joe, i'll keep up my end of the bargain. i apologize in advance for being boring though!
lately, my life has been all about work. this summer has brought "down time" for both of the projects i work on, which means i've finally had the opportunity to move forward with papers and my dissertation. i'm currently on track to graduate this year, though i haven't yet started checking out the job market (i'll start in the fall, i swear!). i did get a second-round interview invite with a major consulting firm, but the more i hear about the lifestyle, the more i'm convinced it's not for me. i am currently planning to pass, though i may be less picky once i've actually taken a better look at the job market.
[fergie keeping me company while i work]
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i pooled some money with kevin and we bought a wii together to play in our "spare time." thus far, he uses it to play "punch-out," and i use it to play that nerdy farming sim i still love. occasionally we play wii sports together, but he's had so much more practice than i have (from going over to josh's house to "work") that it mostly consists of me losing, which isn't very much fun for me.
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i also recently saw "harry potter and the half-blood prince." i would have liked to catch the 3-D version, but couldn't wait until the june 29th wide release. i liked it a lot (i thought they did a nice job of condensing a 652-page book into a watchable movie) though those who hadn't read the book were less impressed. admittedly, not much action happens in the sixth book until the very end -- it's a lot of narrative and set-up for the grand finale -- so that might have influenced others' opinions. additional thoughts welcome, of course.
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i started running again earlier in the summer, but didn't get very far because (1) the knee injury i got at that trail race last year has been acting up again; and (2) my eye infection re-appeared, probably from re-using an old contact case or using contaminated solution. yuck! so, i completely replaced all my eye care supplies and have gradually started considering swimming as an alternative exercise option. or possibly taking a bunch of fish oil to see if that has any effect.
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here's a quick list of my fall travel plans. send me an email if we're going to cross paths and you'd like to meet up. except for the possible san diego trip, all of these trips are work-related so free time may be limited but i'll do my best.
early august: chicago
mid-september: portland, and possibly san diego
late october: oahu
early november: medford
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hope you all are doing well!
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