the caRRiage house

The album here makes me want to run through fields and all sorts of other silly stuff. In other words, I like it a lot...

Yes, it is 4 am, and I am posting for the first time since summer, it seems. Nightshifts tend to bring on such bizarre impulses.

I've been toying with the idea of signing up for a triathlon. Might be a crazy idea, especially since I don't have a bike yet, but hey, that's just a little obstacle. :) We'll see ... I should finish this 20K first and see how I feel afterwards!

Our tomato and pepper plants are flowering (finally)! We thought they were going to be a bust ... But apparently, the right fertilizer and some time outside were all they needed. Hopefully we'll get some fruit to go with the lettuce we're growing in our windowsill. And perhaps a few habaneros to go with my homemade tortillas.

I have a very funny job. Tonight, I'm on shift, and the only major casualties so far include my right hand and my attempt to get some work done. The source died, and I went to help change it, and then, of course, there was autofill, which is not automatic at all and involves pouring liquid nitrogen all over the place. Or feeling it splash over my hand, in this case, because, yes, I'm that clumsy. In case you haven't noticed me tripping over my own feet in the hallways. Apparently, it's charming? Or amusing, more likely. I'm not complaining. I'd prefer playing with vacuum gauges and swearing at mystically broken equipment than sitting in front of my computer, fitting peaks and searching for cooking schools anyday. Yay for "quiet" Friday nights at the lab.

On the very plus side, I'm going to NY tomorrow. I'm not quite sure what to do yet, aside from a trip to Sullivan St. Bakery, Kitchen Arts and Letters, and a bit of shopping, but if you have some ideas for me, pass 'em on.

So, it looks like I'm probably flying into Paris, spending a few days there. I'll then (hopefully) meet up with Pam in Copenhagen for a few days, and will finally fly to Sofia with an overnight stay in Vienna. On the way back, I'll go from Sofia to London, and then head back to DC from there. Of course, I haven't booked flights yet, but will once I find out what the lab'll pay for. :P So, how about Paris and Vienna? Any hostel recommendations / non-obvious things I just have to see?

We've finally managed to haul all of our stuff up the 3 flights of stairs, and have even unpacked some of it. The place is sunny and quiet, and perfectly adequate for the two of us. We have gorgeous views of East Rock Park from the kitchen and one of the bedrooms, and have a new oven, which I think we chose the place based on. I'll post pictures when the boxes are put away and the walls (which could use a bit of paint) are scrubbed... Oh, and when I have internet. Hopefully that'll happen by early next week!

I'm heading to Bulgaria in October for a conference, and I'm thinking of taking a week or so beforehand to travel around Europe a bit. At the moment, I'm thinking of doing the budget air thing, and either going to France (Paris & surroundings) or Spain (Barcelona). I'll fly through London regardless, since there are couches to crash on and Ryan Air is so amazingly cheap at the moment. Better yet, if things are cheap enough, I can get the lab to cover some of my fun flight costs, as long as they're enroute to Sofia and as cheap as a semi-direct ticket. Yay for travel funds!

The point of all this is to see if anyone has any recommendations for where to go. What are your favorite cities in Europe? I've only been to Germany, Italy, the UK, and Greece, so otherwise, all of Europe is fair game, as long as some budget airline goes there (or close to there). Oh, yah, and I'll be poor and (possibly) on my own, so good hostel recommendations are welcomed, too. :)

I'm back to nightshift posting, which means utter randomness, mostly fueled by boredom. Start run, stop run, stare into the distance, and you have my night. I tried a bit of work, but mostly, I can't think straight, so I waste hours on the internet or watching DVDs. I should be working on a website, at least, but somehow, an easy description of the accelerator just isn't going to emerge from my brain right now.

I bought some figs today for the shift -- I love when they're in season. We used to have a fig tree in the back yard when we lived in Fresno, and I used to go out and eat straight out of the branches. I took it for granted then, but now I miss having so much fresh stuff right in my backyard. We had (I think) 8 grapevines, both red and green, an orange tree, and an ill-fated apricot tree that committed fruitful suicide at some point, if memory serves me correctly. The orange tree still fills the front yard, and since the house looks much the same, I'm guessing the grapes and figs still fill the backyard, rendering summer a bit more pleasant than the Tule fog winters despite the oppressive heat. There's some benefit to living in the middle of what used to be prime ag-land.

I think it'll be decades before I have a bit of land to grow anything in again. For now, I have house plants and herbs, and am looking forward to adding to my collection after the move. Maybe I'll try some tomatoes, a few more herbs, and whatever else Edge of the Woods happens to have available, since it's too late to plant anything myself. Just a few more days to go!

It is pouring rain outside my window, complete with dramatic lightening flashes and the occasional thunder-induced car alarm sound. I'm glad to be back in my house, all conferences behind me. The last week and a half has been completely consumed by physics. The Yale conference was decent enough. It was good to have a chance to see old friends and meet some new people, and the talks were interesting enough. The second conference I went to, which was in New London, New Hampshire, was the more interesting one. Think physics camp in lovely surroundings, with deadly amateur soccer / football, a long stream of practical jokes (intended or otherwise), and lots of physics discussions over late night beers. The whole thing was "off the record" -- so I better stop there. I did, however, come back with an inspiration to actually be an experimentalist (which I supposedly am) and get involved in more experiments, rather than continue spending most of my time playing with calculations. And so, the summer fills quickly with work...

On an unrelated note, I'm thinking of moving my food blog yet again to wordpress. I'd like to make it more regular after the move, get a bit more traffic, have more control over the appearance, and do a bit of local food coverage. I swear, James and I spend most vacations/ weekends scoping out the best place to get various food items wherever we happen to be, to the point where my recommendations for a visit to NYC start with "There's this bakery you have to try ... and on the way, stop by this cheese shop," so expanding my format a bit might not be a bad idea. We'll see... This is all after seeing a talk this author/blogger gave to the folks at google. She's a former software engineer turned food writer, and just put out a cookbook. I know it's no way to make a living, but a side project might be fun...

1st funny sunburn of the summer: Check.
Last graduation I'll attend in the next 10 years, including my own: Check.

Graduations are so bloody boring. Especially when they read the names of every single one of the 1200 or so graduates. But Pennsylvania is worth the trip in spring. My brother had his graduation at Lehigh (in Bethlehem, PA) this weekend, so we went and did the whole family thing. It was lots of fun, complete with code words for dinners with a certain someone and the hilarious tour of the frat-like disaster my brother currently lives in, minus the maid and the whole cleaning after parties thing. Hey, you never know -- the two toasted guys on the couch seemed to have kept it going. But I finally dropped off the guitar, found out about his peace corps dreams, and introduced him to James, so it was worth it. That and it's good to know that, minus a character or two, my family's actually not so bad. It's small and bizzare (whose isn't, these days?), but they all seem to be figuring out how to find some sort of happiness, in their own way. Me too, I suppose.

The way back was nice, too; we decided to take back routes and passed through the Delaware water gap. I don't think I've ever seen woods like that. There were densely-packed old growth trees, all emerald and new, and isolated waterholes with campgrounds and little farms and the like. Gorgeous. And the antithesis of I-95, really. Towards New Haven, the road got a bit precarious -- I don't think I've ever used my fog lights that much -- but hey, how often can you say you felt like you were in Pee Wee's Big Adventure? (Anyone remember that movie? Oh, so twisted. I think it scarred me for life.)

I just got my first freelance writing assignment! :) And am jumping up and down like a complete loon. It's just for the Alumni Magazine, but hey, the editor seems nice, and they didn't seem to mind my aging writing samples...!

There are two good things about living across the street from the library: 1) I can work at home with free wireless, and 2) I get lots of random shared playlists from my desk. I ran across Andrew Bird's new album, Armchair Apocrypha, on one of those shared libraries today, and oh, it is good. Check out some of it here.

I'm listening to the Brian Lehrer show at the moment, and they're discussing CFL use in the US. We are apparently shocking. Here, CFLs are only 6% of the market, as opposed to other (perhaps more enlightened) places in the world, where their market share is something like 50%. The excuse? Oh, the color rendering is slightly less warm than incandescents, and therefore, CFLs are unacceptable. You know, if people just sucked it up and got used to using them, they wouldn't notice the change after a day or two. In fact, if they use the full spectrum CFLs where they read, they'd probably even prefer them (if they have a nice lampshade). And they'd get a nice surprise when they got their electricity bill the next month.

We are such whiners sometimes.

From now on, I'm going to spend lunchtimes in the park behind the lab, reading in the sun and pretending I'm not in New Haven. It definitely helps make up for a lack of windows. That and I can catch up on my reading.

I'm listening to a podcast called "The Beer Drinking Scientists" at the moment... It's good for gains shifting boredom (tdcs this time). I have yet to figure out what the beer actually does for the podcast, though, aside from very muffled bar sounds in the background...

... are the best shoes ever (thanks, Pam, if you're lurking). Just thought I'd share.

I'm attempting to finish this paper, and am to the "editing figures" and checking references stage. Oh, motivation is hard to come by. But I'm so close! So, decaf coffee in hand (which, oddly, seems to make me crazier than the caffeinated stuff), I go to work... A practice in patience, I tell myself, in a week where I think I've applied to more freelance writing jobs (one) and professional writing societies (1 new, 1 renewal) than I can really justify. Just for the potential experience. It's a Yale thing, for those of you who don't know. We're all insane, impatient beings, who really just need to calm down and enjoy everything that's -- let's face it -- most likely been placed neatly and carefully into our laps.

Right now, a crisp breeze is making its way through my living room, making me think of elsewhere. I want to be driving down Highway 1, singing to the radio (or lack thereof) at the top of my lungs, into the ocean, lined with expensive, precarious structures that periodically burn up or fall into the sea. Maybe a stop at Neptune's Net for deep-fried sea goodness sprinkled with a bit of sand. Once I get to the banana fields, I know I'm halfway home, wherever that is. Extra points if I'm in an ancient '59 Mercedez Benz with torn seats and a fiery, makeshift speaker system, so the cops get a shock when they pull me over, thinking I'm coming up from Mexico. The old diesels only go 60 mph max, so they'd let me go with maybe a fix-it ticket and a sheepish grin.

Now, I go to work.

It is amazing how one little talk can lead to major, life-changing decisions. I went to a talk on science writing sponsored by the Science Alliance and Yale Career Services, among other entities. Now, some of you already know that I was either going to be a journalist or a scientist when I was in college, and I wasn't really sure which. I decided to go ahead and get my Ph.D. because I frankly figured I could always go back and do journalism, but the same wasn't so true of physics. So here I am, presently struggling over whether that decision was a mistake. Today, I learned that it wasn't. If I get my Ph.D., it is not impossible to get into science reporting, which I now know I really want to do. In fact, a Ph.D. may help me. I sort of have a game plan, even, for the next two years and beyond. We'll see how it pans out. It'll mean a lot of work, but as I found when I was researching a possible story idea last night, it's work I don't really tire of. Hope my advisor thinks I'm not completely nuts. Speaking of which, I am about to head back to the lab, massive grin in place.

pshairyn, I agree with you. I ♥ JV. The show tonight was the best I've ever been too, really. I brought James along, since I'd never been to this venue before (and you know, I'm timid to a fault, most of the time), and it was in this tiny, random coffee-shop-like place in Hamden, behind some random warehouse buildings. There were maybe 30, 40 people in all, draped over couches or perched in corners, and they were such a random assortment. Yah, the typical indie kids were there, dressed in salvation army prep, but it was a bit more eclectic than that. There was this lovely old couple, dressed in almost-matching red shirts, who sat on a couch by the stage and rocked gently to the music. And neighborhood kids, who came in identical white boots or baggy pants and bought the same drinks as they bounced along to the music. And of course, the physicists in the back, playing with the dirty alien magnetic poetry kit stuck to the front of an old fridge (wall decoration, of course). The music was awesome, as expected, but the best bit was at the end, when JV gathered everyone around the stage, and sang without mic, without amplification. It was homey, like musical storytime. And not something you'd get at somewhere like Toad's Place or any of the bigger venues. We'll definitely be back. And if JV comes again, wherever he plays around here, I'll be there. It was probably the most fun I've had on a Saturday night for a while, which is probably a sign I need to get out a bit more. :) But I knew that already.

For those of you who have no idea who JV is, well, there's a lovely mp3 collection here. Check it out... The songs from Cellar Door, and me and my 424 are good places to start.

It is SO bloody gorgeous outside. I suggested installing new skylights in the lab to one of the operators ... You know, the sledgehammer-installed type ... He was all for it. :) But walks are good, too. I went for one at lunch, just to see all the little crocuses and daffodils popping up all over the place, and the tiny little blooms threatening to burst any second. I think a trip up to Sleeping Giant is a must for this weekend. Though the farmer's market is definitely already on my list. And John Vanderslice. Saturday will be awesome.

Yesterday, James called to tell me to look out my bedroom window, at the night sky. A sparkling crescent moon backlit with a subtle shade of moonshine and an insanely-bright Venus, just beyond the lower tip of the Cheshire cat teeth, were visible just beyond the branches of the tree outside my window. Kind of like the Turkish flag, now that I think about it, backed instead in a deep navy velvet hue. Oh, so lovely.

In other news, I think we found an apartment!

It's bouncy and interesting, unlike gainmatching:

unearthed

Not that I'm complaining... The all but one leaf autoshifted pretty well; it's just this one I have to do by hand... And I think only one person's going to actually get what I'm blabbing about today, but oh well! I'm high on chocolate muffins and caffeine, so I don't really care. :P

Happy Tuesday.

Apartment hunting is stressful, even post-Craigslist. We found the perfect place today... Except for the move-in date, which would be right in the middle of the Yale conference. :(

On the upside, good music (John Vanderslice, Kristin Hersh, Spoon) is coming to town soon. I really need to see if anyone actually wants to go to any of these things, as me by myself in some bar in a semi-crap part of town is not a picture I'm totally comfortable with. I have yet to meet someone here with similar musical tastes, though... Most people I know tend to prefer the kind of bands that come and play at the casinos. Or they're just not into music.