Hm. What next? Part VI

In my resolutions post I mentioned some changes underfoot, and one of those changes is my job!  In September a took a job with the same instrument company that I post-doc-ed with.

[Side bar.  I verbally use "post-doc" as a verb all the time, and I know I'm not alone.  My problem is the past tense of post-doc.  Post-doc-ed?  Post-doced?  Post-docked?  Should it even have a hyphen between post and doc?  Everything I come up with looks dumb.]

So as a post-doc I worked for an instrument company in Delaware, but I was primarily based in a lab at BFU (Big Fancy University).  It was definitely a non-traditional post doc, even by industry standards.  This lab is a joint project of sorts between my company and BFU.  While there are faculty chairs technically associated with the lab, I was pretty much the only staff person making things happen on a day to day basis.  Everything from prepping and running samples, caring for the instruments, data analysis, training users on various software programs, tracking down supplies, coming up with content for a lab handbook and website, to communicating guidelines and results with lab users.  I did my best to stay out of BFU administrative and political nonsense.  It was an insane job to say the least.

Since I got hired for real my responsibilities have gradually been transitioning away from this lab at BFU.  Supposedly there's a replacement for me... he's real and I've met him...but I'll believe it all when I see it.  (Let's say BFU has known since August that I was going to step down my time but not a whole lot has happened administratively to hire a replacement.)  In November I dropped to 50% time in Baltimore, with most of the other 50% of my time spent in California at another company location.  Since then I've been working a couple weeks in Baltimore then a couple weeks in California.  After February I'll do a couple months at 25% time in Baltimore, until finally dropping down to just a day or two every now and then.

In California I've been training and working on a new instrument that we've just put out.  I had experience on another instrument with similar technology in grad school, making me a good candidate ti work on this project.  I'll continue to spend lots of time in California for a few more months (hello frequent flyer miles and Marriott points!) before being based primarily in Delaware.  I'm sure I'll still travel quite a bit, though not as often, far, or for so long at once.

I'm pretty excited about the changing job.  There are a lot of less than polite things I could say to explain this, but in this venue it's going to have to rest with this: I'm ready to be done with Baltimore (both in terms of living and working there) and the work in California is pretty fun.  I think in the long term this will be have a lot more of what I want in a job than this post doc has had.  The post doc was in a lot of ways closer to the facility job I thought I wanted than this job will be, but there were a few things that made this not the best match for me that wouldn't necessarily be true everywhere.  If I ever did take a facility type of job (funnily enough I've been hearing rumors that there may be exactly such a job available quite soon), it would definitely have to be in a very different type of academic setting that BFU, where I'm preferably not starting from scratch and not the only person working in the lab.

P.S.  My other/older What Next posts are here, here, and here.

Wedding #3

Ok, before I lose all steam, here's Wedding #3 from 2013!  My college roommate (the other college roommate...not the one whose brother I'm dating) got married in StL right after Christmas.  I was super excited leading up to this one because of the venues.  Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted to see my friend so happy, but The Church!  The Chase!  Despite living in StL for several years including college, I had never been to a wedding at the College Church (listed among the most beautiful college campuses for a wedding!).  I'm sure I'm biased by all the great memories in this church (though to be fair there are some sad ones too) and the fantastic choirs, but this is hands-down my favorite church.  It's just exquisite.  The reception was held at the Chase, a very fancy, historic hotel not far from campus.  We used to go see movies there in college because that's right, there's a theater in the hotel.  The reception was on the top floor, with a lovely view of the city.  The hotel block for the wedding was at the same place, and between the off-season timing and the wedding block it was shockingly affordable.

Now I knew this wedding was going to be fancy.  The bride has by far the most elevated taste of all my friends, not to mention she's the most meticulous planner I know.  Let's say I wasn't disappointed by this wedding.  Not only was there a dress change during the reception, there was a hairstyle change between the ceremony and the reception.  Her dad is Chinese, so during the reception she changed out of her American-style, traditional white gown into a red gown, as red is the traditional color for Chinese weddings.  When I'd heard beforehand that she was going to change her hair before the reception, I assumed this meant something like up versus down, or changing to a more sturdy style for dancing.  What I never dreamed this meant was a new hair cut and color!  In less than 2 hours too!

Dinner was also super fancy...we were highly entertained by the number of glasses with the place settings.  It wasn't difficult to figure out what they all were (water, white wine glass, red wine glass, and champagne flute), but my goodness!  Add to that the fact that most people got to the table with their last drink from the cocktail hour in hand and I had nearly as many glasses as I use in a week in front of me at once.  A raspberry sorbet palate cleanser was served between the salad and the entree.  I've watched enough Top Chef to know what a palate cleanser is, but I'd certainly never been served one before!  When the chargers were cleared from the table before we expected there was a puzzled conversation as to the purpose of chargers that never got resolved, even after consulting with Boyfriend's (and college roommate's) very ladylike southern mother.

While this was a much fancier wedding than I'd ever come up with, I have to say it may be the first where there isn't anything I'd critique!  Everything was incredibly well organized and just so elegant.  I know I've talked about how fancy everything was, but really the best part was the gigantic smile on the bride's face.  It's the sort of smile that makes me weepy-happy. :)

Blurry roommates!

With the college-roommate-whose-brother-I'm-dating and our fellas

That sums up the 2013 year in weddings.  I don't know of any yet for 2014, but it's hard to imagine that won't change...

Wedding #2

Before I lose interest in blogging again I wanted to post about Weddings #2 and #3 that I mentioned when I blogged about Wedding #1 - Amy's wedding last summer in Massachusetts.

Wedding #2 was that of my other Amy - a dear friend from college.  She got married on a warm October Saturday in Cincinnati.  I made this trip by myself, since Boyfriend wouldn't know anybody else there.  Amy looked gorgeous, and the wedding was loads of fun.  There were several small children at the reception who totally tore up the dance floor.  There was a kids activity table with a basket of games and little activities for them - which I thought was a fabulous idea - but they were all far more interested in the dance floor, with and without any adults.  The other fabulous aspect of the reception was the alternative wedding dessert.  Instead of a cake there was a brownie bar!  Amy's mom made a massive pile of brownies, and there was ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, and all sorts of goodies with which to decorate your brownie.

Amy was a fellow alto in the mass choir in college.  We spent many hours cooking and giggling.  Sometimes at the same time.  I've always loved one of the things she said about our friendship when I graduated.  Since moving apart, we may not talk terribly often, but it's the type of friendship where we can always pick up where we left off as if no time as passed.  There is always lots of news to catch up on, but there's no period of re-acquaintance if you will.  With how busy life gets I have to say I feel very lucky indeed to have such friends.  Amy is one of those friends I mean to call more often this year.

New Year, New Post

So it's been ages since I've blogged, but in the spirit of New Year's and motivated by one of my favorite women-making-it-work-in-science-with-a-family bloggers (seriously adorable little family and frankness that makes me laugh out loud and adore her all the more) I decided to post.

I'll warn you right now that this is a stereotypical post on resolutions and goals for this year.  Let's check up on last year's goals as we go...considering the one I bombed in 2013 is going to make a reappearance in this year's list...

Student loans!  They're paid off!!  I made steady progress on them for the first half of the year until summer when I started saving money for a trip to France.  In September I got promoted/hired as a "real person" with the same company I post-doc-ed (what on earth is the past tense of the verb "to post-doc"???).  Getting a real PhD job came with a substantial promotion, and as soon as I saw my first pay check I promptly paid off the remainder of my student loans.

My other financial goal was to build up a safety cushion of savings.  I actually got pretty darn close to accomplishing this, but then Boyfriend and I decided to buy a house... So there goes that money.  While this wasn't exactly a fail, savings are important to me so it's going on the list for 2014.  I'm aiming again for 6 months of living expenses, as well as some money for a certain pricey occasion.

Along with saving, I want to figure out how to improve my retirement savings plan.  I only acquired retirement benefits when I got hired in September, so all I've done so far is contribute the maximum that my company will match.  But this year it's time to study up on 401ks and Roth IRAs and HSAs and who knows what else to understand what all this stuff is and figure out how to do the most I can for our little family (Boyfriend is in on this goal, too.).

Now here's where I bombed big last year.  The self-loathing weight loss goal that 99% of way too many women (myself included) make every year.  I'll use Academomia's terminology here - last year I was about N+7 at this time last year, with N being my goal weight.  Frankly, right now I'm not brave enough to step on the scale to see how far I am from N.  I'd guess I'm at least N+7, and it's entirely probable that I'm as much as N+10.  Let's not think about the possibly of  >N+10.  I think after a week or so of normal eating rather than holiday and travel eating I'll be brave enough to see where I am.

One corollary that I had to that was to complain less about my weight.  I think I've been pretty terrible about this one the last month or two.  And in all fairness, I've been travelling at least 50% of the time since the beginning of November, and then you throw in the holidays and it's just incredibly difficult to eat anything besides junk.  I asked Boyfriend, and maybe he's trying not to get himself into trouble, but he thinks I've been pretty good about not complaining.  I'm going to declare a verdict of decent success except for the last couple of months.  Since I still want to lose weight I'm keeping this corollary on the list so I don't tick off all my friends and Boyfriend.

The hobby goals I made last year were to make another photo-a-day album and to go on at least one hike every month.  The album has been made, with a handful of cell phone photo cheaters in place of photos taken with my big girl camera.  I think I may shelve this project until I have kids.  Or at the very least a bigger social circle.  Between living alone, having a much smaller social circle in Baltimore than in Tucson, and living in a city where it frequently feels like a really bad idea to walk around with my camera this project wasn't nearly as fun as it was in 2011.  I did get some fun pictures out of it that I'm happy to have, but it felt like a chore a lot more than it should have.  As for hiking, we did great through at least July.  Maybe we went on a hike in August.  Sadly I can't remember.  Maybe we didn't go for a hike in August after how miserably humid and nausea-filled July's hike was.  In September we biked at least 20 miles in the Camargue and walked all over several other cities.  Once we got back from France we spent almost every weekend looking at houses...so hiking fell by the wayside.

The only other specific goal I'm going to make this year is to keep in better touch with friends.  There are a handful of friends who have the same gchat habits I do, so I talk to them pretty regularly, but there are a handful of other still very dear friends who don't leave gchat open all the time.  My goal this year is to call those people more than twice per year!

I've got a lot of big changes on my plate for this year - buying a house, moving in with Boyfriend, a transitioning job with lots of travel - so I think that's plenty for official resolutions.  I don't know that I'll begin posting any more frequently, but I'm not ready to close the door on this blog, so I guess I'll just have to leave you in suspense on that front.

Happy New Year! It's going to be a big one!

Update

Some of you may recall a certain sloshball incident... Well it's been just over three years since that fateful day, and here's what my leg looks like now:

Significantly improved, but still significantly scarred.

My Other Home

So I'm so behind in blogging that three months later I'm getting around to writing about going to St. Louis for Little Brother's college graduation.  It was mostly a really nice trip, and I'm always happy to go to St. Louis.  I love St. Louis.  I loved my time there.  It's such an under-rated city.  Little brother still lives there, along with Dad's side of the family, and one of my college roommates.  I can't wait to back for Wedding #3 in December!

I mostly took photos of family and graduation stuff, so not a whole lot to share, but here are a couple shots.

Ted Drewes.  Amazingness in a cup.  It's right on Route 66, and it's pretty much a St. Louis icon.  Grandpa (mom's dad, who lives in Connecticut, not dad's dad who lives in St. Louis) thought it was crowded.  The crowd that night hardly counted as a crowd.  After a Cardinals' game it's nothing short of a mob scene.  Ted Drewes is an essential stop on every trip to StL.

Those of you who have lived in mid-town St. Louis may recognize this UFO-like building.  Though you may not, as it is now far more classily (Yep, made that one up.  Standing by it.) occupied than when I was in college.  At that point it was a Del Taco.  And I never once in 4 years ate there.  It was a shady, shady place.  Now the university has bought the apartments behind it, and it's much more respectably occupied by a Starbucks and a Chipotle.  The flying saucer has come so far.

Time for a tangent.  My dorm freshman year was directly across the street from the above flying saucer, somewhat separate from the rest of campus.  The road was a really busy road, and we were just south of a large and apparently confusing intersection.  Accidents happened all the time.  The former Del Taco makes me think of one of the dumbest accidents I've ever seen, which happened right in front of it.  There's a light there, and a school bus - you know, giant, bright yellow vehicle - was stopped at the red light.  I was walking up the street towards campus when I heard a crash behind me, and I turned around to find a vehicle had rear ended the stopped school bus.  I don't really remember, but I think it was a jeep.  It's entire front end was smashed into the back of the bus.  We're not talking little fender bender from somebody creeping forward at the red light.  How do you miss the GIANT YELLOW BUS stopped in front of you??

At commencement all the faculty in their academic regalia process in before the students.  Check out the guy in the middle of the photo below.  It's Dumbledore!  Apparently he teaches at my old college - he didn't die in Book 6 after all!  After the ceremony we were chatting with a professor (actually a Jesuit priest who lived in the same dorm I did my freshman year) who was a contemporary of my parents when they were all students at this same college.  Dad asked him who Dumbledore was (literally, that's exactly what he said), and this professor thought about it for a few minutes, and said he teaches in the theology department.  On that description alone, he knew exactly who he was.  Priceless.

While in St. Louis I got to hang out with my college roommate (the bride in Wedding #3 this year - and I'm seriously excited for that wedding!), and she and her fiance just got the cutest little puppy.  He's adorable, and super photogenic.

I just love St. Louis.  Only 4 1/2 months until I get to go back!

Happy birthday Little Sister!

Today is Little Sister's 19th birthday!  I will take this occasion to suggest that you browse through the Little Sister label to relive some of her finest moments, which are obviously documented on my blog. :)

Happy birthday, Little Sister!

Wedding #1

So I last left off the 4th of July weekend/wedding/stomach bug saga with the hike up Mt Greylock and heading to Gloucester for Amy's wedding in a puke-free state.  This was wedding #1 for the year, with weddings #2 (my other Amy, in Ohio in October) and #3 (my other college roommate, in St. Louis after Christmas) later this year.

We got to Glouchester around lunch time, and were able to relax for a while before the wedding.  Unfortunately it was about 95 degrees with 95% humidity (and I'm really only just barely exaggerating - it was awful).  The wedding was outdoors in late afternoon.  I literally had sweat running down my legs.  The ceremony was very nice, and it was really neat how they wove their love of travel throughout the ceremony and the reception.

They had the best food I've ever seen at a wedding.  They had a salsa bar and sangria during the cocktail hour.  Dinner was three stations from three countries.  New Zealand (where they met) was a lamb roast with the most delicious mashed potatoes I've ever had.  Italy was classic pasta and antipasto.  Greece was pita and hummus...and stuff I don't remember...because I only ate about 3 bites of dinner before feeling so miserably sick again.

I felt so awful that I had to go back to the room - Boyfriend was so super sweet and came with me, abandoning his dinner.  Neither of us could believe how distended my stomach was.  Boyfriend zipped me into my dress with no difficulty, even with a bit of room to spare.  Plenty of room to be comfortable.  By time we got back to the room I could barely breathe in the dress.  The weird thing was, without actually getting sick sick, about an hour later I felt ok.  Not good, but good enough to go back and get some more for Boyfriend to eat and at least say goodnight to Amy.  While Boyfriend had some dessert (pavlova! so much better than cake!) I gradually felt better and better.  I can't explain it, but I wasn't complaining.  We would up staying for the rest of the reception, though we skipped the after party.

Believe it or not, the stomach woes weren't over.  Boyfriend woke up sick the next morning.  It was pretty crummy timing since we had to drive back to Pennsylvania that day.  He stayed behind while I went to brunch, and fortunately he survived the drive home without being sick (in my still quite new car!).  By Monday he felt tolerable, and back to normal by Tuesday.

It was definitely an up and down holiday weekend, but the wedding was lovely and fun.  Amy's one of my oldest friends, and her mom's been one of my extra moms for ages.  Amy was a year ahead of my in school, and I met her playing softball in the town summer league.  I believe we introduced ourselves when I slid into her at second base. :)  There were a couple of years where we played year round, with indoor practice at a the batting cages during the winter.  After winter practices we always went back to her house for ice cream and Dawson's Creek (yep, judge away).  My senior year when Amy had gone away to school, I still went over to her parents' house on Wednesday nights for ice cream and Dawson's Creek.  I can't tell you how happy it made me to see Amy so happy.  In every photo I took of Amy she had a giant, beaming smile.  I actually I tear up a little every time I think about how completely happy she is and seeing that enormous smile on her face. :)

New lens!

I got a new lens to play with today!  I've been hemming and hawing over a 50 mm f/1.4 lens for ages now.  I almost pulled the trigger after Christmas and didn't.  Honestly I don't really remember why, obviously financial, but I don't remember what it specifically was.  Maybe wanting to pay off student loans (down to about $1200! so close!)  Boyfriend and I are taking a big trip next month, and I really wanted this lens for that trip.  Seems appropriate since it was another trip that motivated buying my DSLR in the first place.  I've only spent a few minutes playing with it in my apartment, but I can already see a huge difference in low-light photos with the wider aperture.  Yay new toys!

July Hike

The day after the 4th of July (the third anniversary of this) we hiked the Appalachian Trail up to the summit of Mt. Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts at 3491 feet.  We started from Route 2 on the north side of the mountain, and hiked 6 very steep miles up to the top and 6 very steep miles back down.  Unfortunately, it was even more hot, humid, and buggy than when we hiked another section of the AT in June.  And hiking on an almost empty stomach after certainly didn't help matters.  It took embarrassingly long, but we made it through the 12 miles.  The 6 miles of trail added to the 15 miles we've done in Pennsylvania bring us to 0.96% of the 2180 miles of the Appalachian Trail.  Woohoo! The next hike is sure to put us over 1%!

After living in Tucson, 3500 feet seems like a really small mountain, but hikes around Tucson also didn't start well under 1000 feet.  Even if it was "only" 3500 ft, the views from the top of Mt. Greylock were beautiful.

Don't read this while eating lunch.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were going camping over the 4th of July holiday...and well...it could have gone better.  We camped at Clarksburg State Park in northwestern Massachusetts, and planned to hike the section of the Appalachian Trail between the summit of Mt Greylock and the Massachusetts-Vermont state line - about 20 miles total hiking.

We drove up the morning of the 4th, uneventful, easy enough drive.  We had planned to set up camp, have some lunch, then go hike from Route 2 in North Adams to the state line, which would be 8 miles round trip with a fair amount of elevation gain, but not a ton.  When we sat down for lunch, I felt kind of off, not bad, just not quite right.  We ate lunch and decided that we were too tired to hike, and really wanted to be able to hike to the summit of Mt. Greylock the next day.  So we went to Mass MOCA, a contemporary art museum in the area instead.  

That's where things deteriorated.  I actually really liked the museum - and I usually just think contemporary art is either weird or not art.  But my stomach was not happy.  I kept feeling more and more bloated, like my stomach was painfully distended.  Eventually it was just too much and I got sick.  Yeah, that kind of sick.  Thankfully I made it to a restroom - fortunately an unoccupied, single toilet restroom.  The short-lived upside was that I instantly felt better, so we continued to go through the museum.  But it only took about 20 minutes to feel miserable and distended again.

We headed back to the campsite and hung out - I managed to nap for a bit.  I could barely choke down a graham cracker or sit next to Boyfriend while he ate dinner.  The smell of his dinner was just awful.  After dinner he suggested that perhaps going for a walk around the campgrounds would make me feel better.  Well we got about three-quarters of the way around the loop before I was spectacularly sick on the side of the road.  Fortunately not in anybody's campsite, and hopefully it was dark enough that people couldn't really see (even though there was no doubt that more than one campsite of people could hear).

I felt tolerable overnight, but was ready to kill the large group of middle school age kids a few campsites over.  They occupied about 4 campsites, and at midnight they were still yelling back and forth between campsites and shrieking over who knows what.  Quiet hours started at 10.  I was pissed.  I got up around midnight to go to the restroom, and Boyfriend thought I was getting up to yell at the hoodlums.  I really, really seriously considered it.  But I didn't really want to go wandering in the dark feeling like crap.  Man it would have been so satisfying to tell those brats off though!

The next morning I actually felt decent, before and after breakfast, so we went hiking.  I'll blog about the hike in another post, but I made it through (very slowly) despite the lack of food the day before.  Anyway, everything was good on the stomach-issues front all day, and the hoodlums were gone the next night, so yay, at least one good day of camping.

Saturday morning we headed east to Amy's wedding, but that's a story for another day.  Unfortunately the stomach woes weren't over...

June Hike

We just managed to squeeze in a June hike on the last day of the month.  We did the 9 miles of the Appalachian Trail north of the section we did in April.  It's a nice, easy section, that's entirely flat and then downhill when you hike north.  The downside is that the day we hiked, it was hot with about 1000000% humidity.  I just dripped sweat the entire time.  But the worst part was the bugs.  I spent the entire 9 miles constantly swatting bugs away from my face.  The creek at the end of the hike was absolutely beautiful though, and the water was wonderfully COLD!

Last college cookie package!

Little brother graduated from college!  More on that and my trip to St. Louis for his graduation in another post, but for now, cookies!  I usually sent him cookies once per semester or so, so this was his last college package of cookies.  (Though hopefully I'll get around to sending him a belated batch for his birthday, because I know he enjoys them, and he's skinny enough to eat them in unlimited quantities.)  He requested "letter" cookies...I think he was grading general physics labs at the time... :)  I don't have letter cookie cutters, but this is what I came up with.  I thought they were pretty awesome.

P.S. Happy 4th of July!  Boyfriend and I are off camping in western Massachusetts before heading to Amy's wedding.  Hopefully I'll still be on a blogging kick when we get back and you'll get to hear about it!

Pennsylvania for the Win

Pennsylvania has the best town names.  On the way back from camping over Memorial Day weekend we drove through Virginville, PA.

For the record, Virginville is 45 miles from Intercourse.

Alternatively you can swing through Blue Ball, PA - just a few miles out of your way. :)

Wedding Cookies

At the beginning of May I went home for a weekend to go to Amy's bridal shower.  It was a surprise, and the bride was actually surprised!  Woohoo!  I made these super fun cookies - some more lingerie cookies and some adorable bride and groom cookies.

So excited for Amy's wedding in July!  They're having a mini world tour of food, and you know I like food. :)

It's a Russian nesting screwdriver!

How neat is that!?

May Hike

Over Memorial Day weekend we went camping and hiking at Lackawanna State Park.  Holy $&!# was it cold overnight!  It was nice during the day, but overnight it was in the 30s, just barely above freezing.  We could see our breath when we went to bed.  A while ago we ordered a big 6 person tent so we could lazy man camp with the comfort of an air mattress.  While it was way more comfortable, sleeping pads and mummy bags would have been a lot warmer.  We hiked several miles around the perimeter of the lake and then some.  Lackawanna is a great park with lots to do beyond hiking - boating, fishing, and swimming (though oddly in a lake-side pool rather than the lake itself...).