Tag Archive for 'joe'

Downs And Ups

I had an absolutely horrible day at work today–the sort that ended with me lying on the floor laughing the desperate and hopeless laugh of one who’s doing her best not to break into tears. This state was vastly improved when my sister, Stephanie, Joe, and I got some sushi at Miyake and then walked to Madeline’s for drinks and dessert. (Madeline’s Peach Mixed Berry Crisp is so, so amazing–as are pretty much all of the desserts there.) We followed it up with a trip to Steph’s place for some Smash Brothers Brawl and Mario Party 4 on her Wii. There’s nothing like socializing with friends to improve an awful day.

And, to top it all off, I got home to my midterm TA evaluations, which indicate that my students are pleased with me. They rated me between good and excellent on all counts! It’s good to know that someone thinks I’m doing my job well.

Tomorrow’s forecast: more unpleasantries followed by dressing up and dancing the night away at Grad Ball.

Project 22 - 17 January - 8 February 2008

No, actually, I have not forgotten about Project 22. It’s just been busy the last few weeks and I’ve only just gotten together quite a few make-up photos for days that went past without appropriate photographic records. It’s shameful, I know. In any case, here they all are, starting with… Continue reading ‘Project 22 - 17 January - 8 February 2008′

Project 22 - 1 - 16 January 2008

Now that quals are over and done with–yay, again!–it’s time to catch up on some of those things I’ve been putting off in the meantime. Which means that it’s time for a ridiculous gigantic Project 22 update. Definitely not recommended for dial-up viewers.
Continue reading ‘Project 22 - 1 - 16 January 2008′

Project 22 - 14 November 2007

Roadside Assistance

Yesterday’s adventure was helping Joe jump his car, since I’d never participated in such a venture previously. Before we could jump it, actually, we had to push his car out of its parking space, which was pretty difficult on wet gravel and leaves against an incline. Thankfully, a friendly bicyclist stopped on his way up the hill and helped us get it moving. It turned out that people on the street were much more helpful than the people at the local branch of an auto parts store, where we discovered that the best way to get service is to arrive and then call them on the phone. They’ll leave you standing in the store for ages, but they jump to catch the phone every single time.

Project 22 - 28 - 29 October 2007

Sunset Over Ithaca

On Sunday, I was actually pretty girly and went out shopping with Stephanie, supposedly for stuff for Halloween and our upcoming conference. I was good and didn’t buy much, although I didn’t find the sort of shirt I wanted for my costume. I’ll just have to make do, I think. That evening I headed up the hill to Joe’s place to hang out, and, on the way, I noticed that the sunset was lighting some clouds up beautifully, so I stopped to take some pictures.

Sick and Studying

Monday I woke up feeling sick, but I’m at a point in the semester where I can’t afford to stop or slow down, so I worked a full day anyway (and then came home and worked some more). The notes my drugs are sitting from my turbulence class, where I have an exam later this week.

Project 22 - 26 - 27 October 2007

Anniversary Sekt

Anniversaries are an occasion for Sekt.

Cayuga and the State

I did quite a lot, on Saturday, beginning with donating at the blood drive on campus. Most of the rest of my day was spent working on slides for the first half of my APS presentation (personally, I think there are already too many, and I haven’t filled in the ‘previous work’ ones yet). Around sunset, though, Joe and I poked around down on the Commons before deciding that the restaurants there were all rather crowded and/or expensive, so we drove to Chili’s instead. This particular picture is one that I took out our sunset walk on the Commons. I wanted to capture the lights of the State Theater, as well as the general busy-ness of Cayuga Street. Still need to work out just how to get awesome nighttime traffic photos, but this isn’t bad.

Project 22 - 5 - 13 October 2007

I’ve gotten behind on posting my daily pictures, in part because last weekend was Fall Break and I spent that time taking my first trip to New England. Some exciting things have happened since the last post, but I’ll let the photos do some of the talking.

Upstate New York In Autumn

Joe and I left town after work on Friday and began our drive to Massachusetts. It’s always interesting to see central New York outside of Ithaca–while you’re in Ithaca, it’s easy to forget how peculiar and isolated we are. The countryside in this picture is pretty typical of this part of New York and reminds me quite a lot of the part of Arkansas in which I grew up.

Paddling on Balch Lake

We arrived at Joe’s house fairly late on Friday night and rose early to drive with his parents to their place in Maine. The weather was fantastic when we got there, prompting Joe and I to take the canoe out and paddle five miles or so on the lake–far enough to say that we paddled from Maine to New Hampshire and back. This particular shot–as one might guess from the awkward angle–was taken over my shoulder but is lovely nonetheless.

Curious Reflections

I discovered that the lake provided some fantastic reflection pictures, especially near sunset. Since few boats were out at that time (in October at least!), the water was incredibly still, allowing interesting shots like this one, where I managed to capture the trees, the sky, and the bottom of the lake in one shot without any Photoshopping to create the overlay effect.

Misty Morning

After our first day on the lake, the weather turned much more autumn-like. On our final day, we woke to a slow rain with mist rising from the water. I took this photo from the boat dock, between chores to close up the cottage for winter before we drove back to Massachusetts. I was sad to leave the solace.

King of the Rock

Before we left his hometown, Joe insisted on taking me to a farm that sells homemade ice cream. He had egg nog and blueberry; I tried a scoop of pumpkin and one of maple walnut. It was quite yummy. There was a pen nearby with these fellows and a cow; the goats were pretty amusing to watch because they were constantly trying to all be on top of the tallest rock at the same time, like children playing King of the Hill.

Going Home

An unfortunate side effect of Fall Break ending is work started again. I wasn’t ready to leave the office until well after dark, so all of the photos I got on the 10th were nightshots. This particular one is a mash-up of several long exposures at the corner where College Ave. meets Campus Rd. I think some of its companions will appear in my gallery at some point, too.

Rainy Day

The 11th was one of those autumn days where it simply rains steadily for the entire day. On such days, an extra waterfall appears in Cascadilla Gorge next to the engineering quad.

Cascadilla Sunset

People complain a lot about Ithaca’s lack of sunlight, but one advantage of having clouds is getting interesting lighting around sunset.

Tibetan Sand Mandala

One of the unusual aspects of Ithaca is that we are home to a Buddhist monastery. As a result, it is entirely normal to see Buddhist monks walking around Ithaca. For the past month, these monks have been building a sand mandala at the Johnson Museum of Art as part of the festivities surrounding the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ithaca. This photo is a detail of part of the edge of the mandala; I’ll post more photos of the entire mandala later. The precision and detail in the shapes and shading of the mandala are absolutely exquisite. The mandala itself represents a palace in which a deity is housed. After the mandala was completed, the monks held a dissolution ceremony, in which they swept all of the painstakingly-placed sand together, processed with it to Beebe Lake, and poured it into the water to release the deity and allow it to disseminate its blessings upon the world.

The Awesome, Awesome Life of a Researcher

Since turning in my last final, life has gotten so much better that it’s almost unreal. Yesterday Stephanie and I started work in the lab. Things have been a bit haphazard in terms of what order we should do things in, but, for the most part, it’s a lot of fun. Our advisor sticks his head in the lab every couple hours or so between meetings, but we are primarily working under Sathya, who is the only other grad student in the lab. He’s finishing up his thesis at the moment and is essentially sticking around long enough to train us.

Yesterday, we started out by getting an overview of how to take data in the big Upson tunnel, which is about a meter squared in cross-section. It’s the first tunnel I’ve seen with wooden walls. The sides have portholes along them for data collection, and every surface is covered in thick foam and aluminum foil from the days when a great deal of temperature work was done in the tunnel.

Yesterday began with an attempt to construct a hotwire anemometer probe. The important thing to know about a hotwire is that it involves a wire that’s about 3 microns in diameter. This means that, in order to clean and solder and etch a new wire onto a probe, one has to use a microscope. So we were busy using sandpaper under a microscope yesterday, which, let me tell you, is a truly bizarre feeling. Unfortunately, one of the cleaning chemicals that we needed was missing, so we couldn’t finish building our own probe. Instead we calibrated a ready-made one.

After work last night, Joe and I had a “double-date” with Stephanie and Eric for Mexican and margaritas. It was lovely, and, boy, was I ready for some relaxing fun like that. Also, margaritas = yummy.

Having done the calibration yesterday, however, we could spend today actually taking measurements in the wind tunnel’s boundary layer. It’s a pretty repetitive process, of course, but the fact that we get to crawl inside the wind tunnel to change the probe position qualifies as pretty awesome. I always said that I was going to grad school so that I could play in wind tunnels. Guess I just didn’t realize how literally I would take that.

Today’s good vibes have also included lunch with our advisor and buy one, get one free on fresh baked goods at the Duffield Cafe. Since today is the last day of finals, they’re running specials to get rid of food without having to throw it away once all the undergrads are gone. This means that Sathya and I came back to the lab with a stack of goodies, most of which were desserts. Oh, yes, I love my lab already.

There are some painters that have been in and out of here a few times today, and I had to ask them not to leave the door to the lab open while we have the wind tunnel on because it disrupts our experiment. At which point the painters asked, “Yeah, uh, are we going to get sucked into there if we walk past?” as they stood next to the exhaust. No, guys. Feel that breeze coming out of the wind tunnel? You’re definitely not going to get sucked in. I assured them that it was perfectly safe to walk past, we just didn’t want the air flow in the room to be disrupted. But then they wanted to know if they would get sucked out the window by passing the exhaust. Oh. Dear. Lord. p.s. My lab partner is the prettiest most awesome wonderful and modest person evar! (says me, Nicole, yep, no one else writing in here but me. nicole. you know the one.)

I’M IN UR BLOG! EDITING UR ENTRIES!

(All italics are courtesy of Stephanie. Who is crazy. In a good way.)