Kenny Chesney's Goin' Coastal Tour featuring Zac Brown Band

My friend Erica and I went to Kenny Chesney's Goin' Coastal Tour featuring Zac Brown Band at the New Meadowlands Stadium in North Jersey.  Despite growing up less than an hour from Darien Lake Preforming Arts Center, I never went to any concerts before college.  This was my first country concert and a marathon concert as well.  We left after the 6 hour mark and the concert was still going! The tour had four acts of increasing popularity: Uncle Kracker, Billy Currington, Zac Brown Band, and Kenny Chesney.  There were two unfortunate parts of this concert.  First, we failed to properly tailgate the show and resorted to guitar-shaped slurpees that were delicious but still left us lacking in festive country spirit.  Second, It started raining right after Zac Brown Band finished their set and continued raining during the 30 minute change over and into Kenny Chesney's set.  Erica and I toughed out the rain in our sets and were later rewarded when we eventually dried off and everyone around us still had to sit in wet seats.  I really enjoyed the latter three acts.  Billy Currington is a relative newcomer who I think shows promise.  Zac Brown Band was good but I'm not as familiar with their music and it's tough to follow new songs from the top of a giant football stadium.  Kenny Chesney was awesome.  It's easy to understand why he's won Entertainer of the Year more then once.  The set list from the concert said he played 36 songs, mostly from his older albums.  Erica and I were both thrilled that he played the older stuff since neither of us likes his new stuff very much.  Next country concert adventure: Carrie Underwood or Brad Paisley.

View from our seats

Billy Currington

Kenny's grand aerial entrance

Entertainer of the Year 2004-2008

Life in Science

A friend of mine in England posted this cartoon today. It's been circling around my lab all day so I thought I'd share it with the rest of the virtual work as well.

Platter Masterpiece

Over the last year I've been frequenting The Pottery Place with several different friends.  You purchase an unglazed piece of pottery and paint it at the shop. When you're done the staff adds a final clear glaze and fires it.  You pick up the final product about a week later.  The Pottery Place offers technique classes on Thursday evening for an additional $5 fee.  Last week I went to the "bubble painting" class with my old roommate Grace.  You blow bubbles using a straw in a dish of paint mixed with water and dish soap.  When you have a solid mound of bubbles you transfer then to the piece you're painting.  I created the letters and designs by applying stickers before I painted and then removing them.  The best part was that I finally had a piece selected for the shop's online gallery.  I've had a couple friends that I introduced to the shop have pieces featured before but this is my first and I'm super excited.  It's definitely one of my favorite pieces.

Beaudets in Chi-town

Over this past weekend I went on a whirlwind adventure in Chicago with the family.  The catalyst for the trip was a Red Sox vs. White Sox baseball game. It turned into an early morning flight on Saturday to wandering around Chi-town and the Field Museum to a baseball game to a bus tour and lunch at Navy Pier.  As always flying out of O'Hare was much more difficult than flying in to O’Hare.  I had so little trouble when I was flying around Europe that I probably shouldn't complain about my delays on domestic flights but it's still aggravating.  But the Red Sox won 10-2 and the Field Museum was amazing so the weekend was a success.  I think Mom even managed to get her Christmas card picture.

Sears Tower

Water Tower

Chicago Theater

They named a doll after me but they got the hair color wrong.

My American Girl doll

The Field Museum

Sue

The Tribune Building

The Bean

New Haircut!

I decided that I wanted long hair so I could get fancy updo's for the two weddings that I was in recently. I had it trimmed a couple of times but no serious cuts in over a year. Today, I finally was able to give it a serious chop. It isn't as short as I was planning but I still like it.

Before

After

New Decade, New Degree

This week marked the beginning of my graduate career at RPI. Ten years ago people were preoccupied with Y2K and the turn of the millenium. I was concerned with the next middle school dance and getting my braces off as soon as possible. Now the braces are long gone, I still get excited for dances, although they are much more infrequent, and I'm starting a PhD.

This week was a little intense. I started working onthe project that is going to eventually working on my PhD. I helped write the manuscript for my first paper. I might be getting another pet project. I have a stack of papers to read over the weekend. And I have no idea what I'm doing. Luckily I've been around the lab enough to know that's completely normal.

I still have a lot to do and a lot to learn, and I'm really excited about it. This definitely a different career path than I had in mind when I entered college in the fall of 2006. Then, I wanted to be a high school science teacher and wasn't very enthusiastic about coming to RPI. Now, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else for undergrad. I'm no longer as sure about what I want to do when I'm done but I have another 3 years before I really have to worry about that. Looking back on the last ten years, I have no idea what to expect from the next ten years.

The not so bad side of high school

I was not a big fan of high school and still maintain that you would have to pay me a whole lot more that RPI tuition to relive those 4 years of my life. However, college has taught me that there are some not-so-bad parts of high school. What I'm missing the most right now is sick days. Mom says you're too sick for school = you are too sick for school. The end. Here if you don't go into the Health Center with a high enough fever, vomit while you're there, or produce a positive disease test result while you're there then good luck getting an excuse. I was out sick with a sinus infection complete with fever for the last couple with instructions to not go to class until I hadn't had a fever for 24 hours. I had a slight fever last night but I had a test this morning and the professor isn't the most forgiving guy to I figured I could muscle through it. During my exam this morning it was confirmed that my antibiotics are doing a great job killing the bacteria in my sinuses and also the bacteria in my intestines. This discovery sent me running a couple times before my TAs suggested that I finish my test later and go to the Health Center.

At the Health Center the doctor was nice enough but would only give me a note saying I was there and a paper with instructions for my symptoms instead of an official excuse. Now I'm waiting on pins and needles and waiting for my professor to tell me if, and how, I'll be able to finish my exam. Hopefully my "excuse" will be legit enough for him.

Happy Friday 13th everyone! Is it Thanksgiving break yet?!?