We never talk anymore.

I know, I know.

I'm still here. The semester got off to a quick start and I'm busier than I thought I would be at this point. Part of it may be time management but I know that I only get frustrated if I stare at my assignments for too long so I have to be allowed a few breaks, right? MIRL work has shifted to hands-on testing of a design for a cooling device that will support an imager to be installed in one of our upcoming rockets. The Pi1B paper is on the back burner but that's probably good; I need to clear my head and refocus with respect to that study.

I watched the Super Bowl tonight and am happy that I did. That was an impressive win for New Orleans. I spent the first half here, actually watching it on my own television after Erin reminded me that we get a few channels with our basic cable/internet package, then went to the Pub for the second half because they had a meal deal in which a person could get a pint and a sandwich for $7. The deal worked even better for me because I have a mug. Not surprisingly, the crowd was thin.

I have to go to bed now so, as I always say, I'll tell you more later. Maybe I'll actually keep my word this time.

False Start

I keep catching myself mentally preparing for the first day of classes tomorrow and, while classes do start tomorrow, it will actually be just another work day for me. I don't start until Wednesday.

There were actually a few times this past week during which I thought I ought to sit down to write about something here but I neglected the urge and now I have to rely upon my distracted memory...

The low point of last week was paying $450 for new brake drums so my car could pass inspection. I couldn't even put it on a card because I took the advice of a friend whose opinion of mechanics is trustworthy and the new garage only accepts cash or check. I realized later that I could have thanked them for their time and driven my car to my old garage but I have never been good at thinking on the fly in those situations.

I played bluegrass again on Thursday and it went well. I am especially pleased that it went well because I have an 8am class on Fridays so I will have to cut back on bluegrass nights, maybe not in frequency but certainly in duration. Oh yeah - I played mandolin for most of the set but I played the upright bass for a few tunes, as I did the week prior. I was again surprised at what a different instrument it is: I feel like I am learning the bass all over again. At least it refreshes my motivation to save up for one, though I would like to buy an electric bass first. Maybe I should have sold my car last Tuesday ;-)

Saturday was the high point. Melisa and I went up to NL to have a lunchtime people date and an afternoon dog date. The people date was, of course, very nice and relaxing. The dog date involved a walk along Colby Point and all was amiable between Mazie and Buddy and it seems like they will at least be tolerant of each other, given enough room and few stressors. The Mazie-Sampson dynamic is undetermined: he had to be on leash post-op so we will wait until he is not so physically sensitive to find out how they work together. Unfortunately, the Mazie-Jade scene is not copacetic and Mazie has the welts on her back to prove it. She didn't seem to be in any pain when I saw her yesterday but Melisa found little wounds, likely from the dogs' tussle for dominance during our walk in the woods. Somebody's gotta be top dog and when two border collies are involved, things can get heated.

When we came back to Dover, Melisa went to a friend's house to eat dinner and watch movies and I went to find Jim. We ended up going to our friend Mary's cousin Pete's house (hereafter known as Cousin Pete) in...Lebanon? (somewhere in the woods)...Maine, where we ate delish chili and cookies, sledded and shot the cud around the wood stove in his shop. It was a very fine way to spend my evening, especially since I had started feeling like I was back in the habit of going to the Pub out of boredom or out of fear that if I didn't go down, I would miss the Greatest Impromptu Hang-Out of the Winter.

As I said, school officially starts tomorrow. Of course, I am looking forward to it. I have lab work to do during the day but I will take a bit of time to get my affairs in order (which will probably just involve a trip to get notebooks and folders). At the end of the day, I get to eat a lovely surprise meal cooked by my incredible girlfriend!

Snow Day!

I just saw a headline on msn.com mentioning something about today, 18 Jan, being the gloomiest day of the year. I presume that the reason lies in it being in the middle of winter but I can't say I agree (at least not this year). There is lots and lots of beautiful snow flying and falling outside and I think I finally caught enough rest to make up for my busy week last week so National Gloomy Day has been postponed.

Last week was so packed because I both worked the most hours at the MIRL that I have over the course of this break, and I spent the most time hanging out with my friends in a while. For work, we had a magnetometer system to ship out by Friday and I had promised Hyomin that I would spend some time working on his stuff, while at the same time, the project whose initial results I brought to AGU is hitting its stride. As far as friend time went, I think I was feeling good enough about the amount of MIRL work I was doing that when I got home, I made a point to put down the physics and "relax." I add quotation marks because I have the tendency to want so badly to take in every possible minute of time with my friends that I stay up past my bed time and end up pretty beat by the end of the week.

Melisa made another batch of delicious chili on Friday, so I had three bowls while we watched "Runaway Jury;" I am lucky to have a sweet girlfriend who knew that what I really needed on Friday night was chili, a movie and an early bedtime.

Jazzputin and the Jug Skunks played at the Pub last night. That would be Jim (drums), Eff (accordion), Steve Roy (bass) and Chris Klaxton (trumpet) nominally playing jug band jazz, though the set last night included some standards, some Spinal Tap and a medley from the old cartoon version of Robin Hood. One expects good music from those four but last night was especially killing.

Now I am putting all my music into iTunes so I can finally use my new iPod. I have the itch to get into my new textbooks and since the regular weekend (during which I have tried to observe a self-imposed break from physicsdom, at least until the semester begins) is over, I might just give in.

Prep Work.

I spent most of my MIRL time today going one-by-one through plots made over night and printing them so I could put them in a binder. Between printing jobs, I downloaded 150 data files from a website, again one at a time, and copied them to folders so I can write a program that plots the information. This is the equivalent of breaking down thirty chickens and chopping the vegetables for stock. If I only had an undergrad to do all this boring stuff for me...

The high point was that I finally posted something to the website all by myself. It was just a bunch of text but the baby step is a key one: Much of what I will have to put onto the website when I fully assume responsibility for its maintenance will be text, pictures and videos. Throwing it all together on a template is easy but now I feel comfortable uploading that template to the website. Actually, it turns out that that's pretty easy too. I guess that since the program is still a black box for me (which is to say that I am still learning how it works), I worry that it is going to be more complicated than it really is.

This is a short one. I am off to pick up Jim and we are going to check out the Granite Men at RiRa in Portsmouth.

Day 199...

Found some moldy bread behind the fence at noon. Had to sneak out when the sun was high. Could smell zombie stench from last night and possibly also something recently deceased...

Okay it's not that bad. I cobbled together a dinner by toasting bread, covering it in various spreads and slicing up cheese but it is actually pretty tasty. I have as follows: Steph's cinnamon raison swirl bread with her blueberry jam, sliced grocery store bread with smokey black bean dip, more sliced grocery bread with spicy eggplant dip and the end of that red wine cheese. Though I can speak neither for nor against the nutritional balance of my meal, I like having a snacky dinner because it doesn't immediately usurp my remaining energy.

MIRL work has been great lately. Now that Marc and I have an outline for the paper, I feel like I am working on something I own. There is still Hyomin's study that I need to keep up with but there are so many similarities between the two that my study tends to benefit directly from whatever I do for his project. The difference is whereas I follow Hyomin's lead on his work, I get to explore the other project more intensely.

Tonight, Melisa and I went to Josiah's monthly prose and poetry open mic night at Adelle's. I think he typically brings in one or two featured readers, then opens the floor (or mic, I suppose) after they have read. Tonight's theme was mysticism and I had a tough time making the transition from physics to mystical prose so quickly but I enjoyed the event once settled in. It reminded me how far I've moved from literature. I'll get back eventually.

Birthday edition.

Yesterday was a total success. The first feat was to not worry about school and MIRL work for one whole day, which I did by picking up free Dover dirt, eating leftover homemade pizza and watching The Two Towers. At 6, Melisa, Steph and I went to Jim's, Matt's and Kristie's apartment for roasted pork chili (the pig was one that Matt and Kristie had raised), then headed to the Pub a little after 7. A bunch of people showed up; I was really flattered. We hung out at the Pub for a while until we got tired of the scene and went back to Jim's for a fire. Now it's noon and I'm drinking water, feeling like last night was my birthday party. Thanks to everyone!

Back to normal.

After the whirlwind of SF and NL, the past week in Dover felt pretty tame. I did some MIRL work while the ideas were still fresh in my mind but doing lab stuff alternated with organizing my room and unpacking some boxes that had been sitting in the kitchen since September. I was torn between taking advantage of the motivation I had coming off of AGU and finally having a livable room. That divide made for a few periods during which I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything but today is Saturday and can look back on the week knowing that isn't true. I had a good meeting on Thursday with Marc during which we outlined the paper that will be the extension of the work I presented at AGU and I came out of that meeting with a good list of tasks to tackle. I'll start that on Monday. The kitchen is neater and my room certainly feels more comfortable; I'm glad I took that picture posted below to serve as a reminder of how it started.

Tonight is when I gather my friends for a group high-five in honor of my passage into the twenty-ninth year of my life. We will meet at the Barley Pub and will let it evolve from there so I hope everyone has recovered from whatever madness they cobbled together in the past two days.

Speaking of the past two days, Melisa and I had a nice New Year's Eve with some friends and acquaintances at my friend Jamie's house down the road. We ate snackies, talked to the dog, played music and did the count-down business. The crowd at Jamie's, having been notified that my birthday is on the 1st, sang Happy Birthday before Melisa and I left. We slept in a bit then watched "Burn After Reading," which is a cooky black comedy with John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, etc. and I highly suggest that you watch it. I also suggest that you sleep in. We met my parents for a fun lunch at the Brewery and my mom even brought a deeeeelish rich chocolate cake. Melisa and I went back to Dover to watch the "Prairie Home Companion" movie (I loved it, though she was not as tickled) and, en fin, went to La Festa to celebrate our friend Cole's birthday. It seems especially fortuitous that I postponed my birthday celebration for one day because we had a very nice time at Cole's get-together.

I ought to get salt and dirt for the steps and walkway. I am tempted to run errands in Newington (I have threatened to do that every day this week) but I am also tempted to sit on the couch and watch "Lord of the Rings." Come back next time to find out what I picked!