Weathering Irene, part 1

After roughly five years of living in the Capital District,  my friend Heather finally made the trek on I-90 to visit me.  We had planned a grand weekend of mojitos and visiting the Ben and Jerry's factory in Vermont.  We ended up with mojitos, 2 for $5 pints of Ben and Jerry's and waiting for Hurricane Irene.  Even though the storm isn't supposed to reach Albany until Sunday, most of Saturday was spent in slightly nervous anticipation.  We've both survived more blizzards than we can count and know the formula for staying safe through a major winter storm.  A high velocity summer storm is a rather different animal.  I've been especially anxious since my boyfriend is in the heart of the Mid-Atlantic region which is currently getting pummeled by category 1 hurricane winds. Currently we're in the middle of a chick flick marathon with a persistent rain and a steady flow of wine.   The worst of it is supposed to make it to Albany in a matter of hours.  Irene should be demoted to a tropical storm by than and winds are supposed to be even weaker by the time they make it 200+ miles inland from NYC to Albany.  RPI has cancelled the first day of classes and opened ECAV as a shelter for students during the storm.  The last time RPI closed the storm died out several hundred miles before it reached Upstate New York.  Here's hoping the meteorologists are the only "blow-hards" we hear this weekend. 

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.