Happy Tday!!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!  Dan and I ate waaaaaaay too much at an orphan Thanksgiving that Vija hosted...Smoked turkey, roast turkey, sides coming out of our ears, and a pecan and applie pie with ice cream and whipped cream for dessert!  It was delicious and ridiculously tasty!  Hope you all were with loved ones and enjoyed the day!

pictures!!
xo

Back at Bama!!!

Hello! I am back in the fine state of Alabama!! woo hoo!!!  Here are a few pics of he end of my Iceland trip.  I got home safe and sound with  2 coolers full of water samples and no hassle from customs - whew!  All in all I spent everyday working on the project, with one day at Veidi in a windowless lab, and the rest out in the field.  We got real lucky with the weather - no snow or harsh rain/wind days...just normal fickle Iceland weather days - with a bit of fog, sun, overcast, and breezes to round out each day in the field...It was a lot of fun to finally see the streams that I've been analyzing samples back here at the Bama lab, and see where Dan does his work...I'm still recovering from a bit of a head cold I caught midway through the trip, but it's been great to sleep AND have as much daylight as we have here vs at 66 degrees north!!  Puts things into perspective!  All the hard work in the field has been good for me to rack up hours for my xmas break - 2 weeks off that I will spend driving to So. Cal. and back!!woo!! I got to do some sightseeing for a few hours before Jim dropped me off at the airport for my evening flight outta Reykjavik.  That was really nice to see downtown in the daylight and with open stores to browse in!!!

xo all!!

Halo!

Mmmm...today I ventured off the beaten path (ie, recommendations from Team Iceland) and found a delightful vegetarian/vegan restaurant called the Green Choice.  I had a delish indian-spiced dish that is somewhere in the savory pie/pizza land.  Hard to describe, but there is a picture of my plate along with a handful of pics I've taken today...

A few items:

1) I have not been cold in the field!!  Amazing I know, but Chau has stayed warm with various layers and the all important rubber waders I borrowed from Veidi.  Sadly they have developed a hole and I hope to mend them tomorrow whilst I am in the lab processing chlorophyll a from all the stream we sampled today!

2) Been out in the field lots!  Which is great.  Nothing like a long day in the field to make shower and a dinner so satisfying.

3) this is the latest I've stayed up so far!  11pm Iceland time!  Which is Greenwich Mean Time - Basically 6 hours ahead of Alabama (CST)....

time for bed!

xo!

hello from iceland~~!!

Here are a few pics...Thus far we've been spending every minute of daylight in the field - from 9am-5pm!  So we've left and arrived in Reykjavik in the cloak of night and I still have yet to see her in the daytime!  Tomorrow is another day of fieldwork, then the next day is an all day lab push to process samples...

Here are pics!

xo

Hellos from Iceland!

Hi! I safely arrived yesterday morning in Reykjavik! Postdoc Jim picked me up at the airport, let me sleep a few hours, then we went out to OH2 to do some sampling!! It was a wonderful day with no wind and light rain. We sampled inverts and epilithon, microbes, and did tile metabolism chambers...

This morning we will be doing slugs and invert sampling in the landscape streams wee!! I'll take more pictures today and hopefully post tomorrow. I haven't figured out internet yet at the house so stay tuned.

Thus far it's super fun with spectacular views. The landscape reminds me of the Palouse in wintertime, with its rolling hills of golden grasses sprinkled in snow! But then there are huge clouds of smoke? gas? whatever you call it, I can't think right now, from the hot springs.

xo!
:)

Hi!

I'm in DC waiting for my flight for Iceland!!  hope to post pics and entries throughout my time here.. I get back Nov 20th! Dan's Bday!!

here are a few of the deck and yard...

xo

Whew!!

No pics right now, but!

News:

Chau is going to Iceland!  I leave Thursday and I'm back on Nov 20th - Dan's Bday!!!  It was a last minute trip that just got planned this week.  I'll be helping out in the field with monthly sampling - woo hoo!!  I hope I stay warm enough!  Dan has been prepping me regarding field protocols and such not to mention all the cool places to hang out in town!  I am excited but oh so much needs to happen this coming week!! 

Right now I am running SF6 samples..I basically sit in front of a Gas Chromatagraph-Mass Spectrophotometer and I fill a syringe with gas and shoot it into a machine every 4.5 minutes.  Repeat many times.  Because of a hectic schedule I've been running a lot more than I would normally run.  Normally I would run about 60 samples so I'm in front of the machine only 6 hours and then have a couple hours to ready samples for the next day.  I've upped it to 2 days of running over 80 samples, and then today is the last hurrah with 143 samples - that puts me here until midnight tonight, yikes a real laboratory scientist!  Did I say no pictures well I lied - here are 3 of me in the lab (I gave myself a haircut last weekend!)

Despite the slogging away in the lab, I am excited to have Saturday off because the supposed "Game of the Century" is going on here in Tuscaloosa!  Dan and I are very excited (and even a little nervous!).  The town is a BUZZ with activity - ESPN has its Gameday tent setup on the quad and outside of the stadium.  There are RVs everywhere and the LSU fans started flooding in yesterday...the game is tomorrow at 6pm and I hope to sleep in a little, finish the deck (yeah! It is happening folks!), rack the IPA beer into a carboy, rack the wit beer into bottles, plant some seeds, and then enjoy the game!!

No time for rest because come Sunday morning not only do we change back the clocks an hour, but Chau travels to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab which is on the Gulf Coast of Alabama for a two night-three day field trip with Eve's high school science club class!  She needed a few chaperones and I volunteered.  Her hubbie, who is also a grad student here in biology, is the other chaperone so it'll be fun to hang out with them and check out the Dauphin Island.  I'll be referred to as "Miss Chau" for the trip and I'm in charge of making sure 15 high school students stay alive.  fun!  I'm excited about an estuary walk, salt marsh trip, a "vessel excursion" and a beach walk.  I have yet to make it down to the Gulf so this is on the Alabama bucket list!  

And the fun does not stop there! Wed night Ted Leo plays in Birmingham  (yeow!!!) and then the next morning I leave for Iceland!!  It's a crazy couple of weeks, but once I get back it'll be Thanksgiving week and I'll be able to breathe for a bit.  This Iceland trip also helps me build up vacation time for Christmas break!  I'm getting super excited about the cross-country road trip and even more excited about the trip back when Dan gets to join Hannah and I to see some sights.  We're thinking about stopping at White Sands Park, NM, Austin, TX, and maybe even New Oreleans, LA!!!

I have taken some pics of the backyard - and the step by step progression of the deck, will have to post those puppies up soon!!

xo!

ct