Monthly blog posters...shameful...

Looks like we've dipped into that realm...blogging is just not easy-quick-convenient enough for regular postings it seems...Alas, We'll try to maintain a blog presence a bit longer.  We have yet to figure out Twitter, Tumbler or Instagram, etc, and we are steadfast against getting Facebook accounts for no particular reason so occasional blog posts it is...for now..

The summer has been busy, just with work really.  Dan is putting in a big push with lab samples, and NEON's field season is in full swing.  Right now Dan is enjoying some much deserved quality time with the folks up in PA!

So, lest you think otherwise (and why would you), field work in Alabama is challenging.  Enjoyable yes, but challenging nonetheless.  Between the heat and humidity, and the bug bites (oh the bugs bites - I currently have a handful of ticks, mosquitoes, fire ants, and chiggers littering various body parts), it's enough to drive a person mad, or certainly to their limits at least.  But yet we all persevere, because if we did not, how would we survive the following week??  I falter towards the dramatic...my apologies.  I'm much too spoiled by my past field exploits, which were in the comforts of the ocean and idyllic Pacific Northwest streams - it's about time I cut my teeth on stronger stuff!

Life at work is busy, and we aren't even fully online yet!  I'm certainly learning a great deal - we have begun our plant sampling so I'm learning to identify the many different plants in the diverse southeast!  Though my knowledge pales in comparison to our resident botanists, I'm slowly learning to ID a handful of plants with regularity.  Currently, when I go out with the plant folk I just point to plants that look different from the ones we've seen and request an identification so I can properly record its presence.  I do know that Sweet Gum is Liquidambar styraciflua which I can now link to one of our favorite beers from the Cahaba Brewing company also called Liquidambar - a highly drinkable Amber ale!  Plant diversity is the newest of our protocols and it requires a lot of standing and sitting around - which makes us prime targets for chiggers.  Chiggers bring grown men to their knees, with insatiable itching lasting days and days.  Prominent in the southeast, they are our newest foes in the forest.  I think I'd rather suffer a couple of snake bites than these dern chiggers, but I've got a healthy armory of topical creams and salves that combine to make a super salve (or so I think).  I also have benedryl...sweet, sweet, benedryl.

We currently only sample one site for terrestrial work (two more to come), and no aquatic sites (three to come) or towers (also three to come) functioning.  It'll be hard to imagine what life will be like next year when everything is at full force.  Thankfully (I think?) by then we'll have 25 seasonals (compared to the mere 5 we have now) and three additional permanent techs to finish the work.  Right now the workload is manageable.  Mosquito sampling every other week, tick sampling (strangely satisfying and not as hair crawling as I originally expected - we actually get quite excited at the sight of a tick on our drag cloth) every three weeks, beetle samples every other week, small mammal trapping once a month, soil sampling the same, and then the various plant protocols - whether it be plant diversity identification,  something called "herbaceous clip" where we hand mow a small section of the forest for measurements, leaf area index - where we take pictures of the canopy and understory, or vegetative mapping - where we measure stems , canopies, and heights of trees in our plots.  Lotsa new protocols and knowledge, and the work is never dull so I'm constantly on my feet and thinking...all in all, the new work is going well.

In other news, Dan and I are set on the Bay area for a visit in November for my dear friend's wedding! It will be fun to visit and spend a few days in the area.  I've always just visited the same SF-Berkeley haunts, this time we'll be based in the South Bay area - near Redwood city with hopes of visiting Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay for some spectacular views of the Pacific!  We've rented a small cabin for a few days and I'm excited to hike around without the threat of ticks or mosquitoes! 

I should be taking photos of our veggie plants, which were in the ground late this year, but late for us means on time with the rest of the State of Alabama, so I think we are good.  This year we've concentrated on peppers the most, with a few smatterings of tomatoes and herbs.  Peppers always seem to do well in the garden, and we can always look to the farmer's markets for the other goodies grown by the professionals :)  

Oh!  Also, I put my hat in for season tickets for Bama Football and got 'em!  So we'll be looking forward to our first football game in Bryant Denny!!  I am excited and also fearful of the crowds and heat.  Still over two months away but I'm salivating at some SEC football!

Here is one pic, Dan set for fishing on the Cahaba last weekend:

and the Cahaba:

Hannah, still up to no good:

A toad I found hanging out one night outside of our office door:

and one more of Dan fishing:

Those are seriously the only pictures I've taken in the last month.  This is depressing.  Hopefully a call to arms for change.  

Sigh, 

xo

Clearly we have been behind the times...

Apologies, it's been too long, and I just had noticed that I never published a post I wrote back in April so that was the earlier email you may have received.

Apologies all around.

Anyhow, Dan and I have returned from a fantastic trip to Portland for the 2014 JASM conference.  It was a fantastic week and we had a lot of fun.  Karrie came down with a friend from Seattle and visited us for the day on one of the rainiest Portland days ever.  We still had a lot of fun, had some tasty food, and saw some neat parts of Portland.  I haven't spent much time in PDX so it was nice to get a tour around town and see some new spots. 

The conference was a lot of fun as well.  I saw a few talks each day, and got to catch up with old friends from NOAA so that was pretty great.  I got to sit in a few NEON talks as well so it was nice to get a little more info on what my job is all about (The aquatics portion of our site is not yet in place so we don't have a lot of details about it just yet, but seeing the overview as presented to the scientific public was pretty informative).  Overall we had a great week, we ate a lot of amazing food we don't usually get here in T-Town, got to ride mass transit like it was our job, and sipped A LOT of fantastic coffee, including Stumptown's nitro coffee - a cold brew coffee infused with nitrogen - why you ask?  I just don't know what to say except -why not? The coffee was creamier tasting without being anything more than coffee infused with N2 gas.  It tasted kinda like a Guinness without actually being a Guinness..

Anyhow, other amazing places we tried: Toro Bravo, Frank's Noodle House, Mirakutei, Pambiche, Burnside Brewery, Base Camp Brewery, Rogue Brewery, Green Dragon (Pub), Nong Khao Man Gai many food carts to be named.

In other words, a lot of good food and drink, happiness to get us by until our next big city trip!  Now we are home in the sweltering heat keeping Hannah nice and happy.  We celbrated Memorial day with a nice grill session where Dan put a couple of nice pork tenderloins to task.  We ended the evening with a viewing of Rocky 4 (because, really, why not) and that got us extra revved to be proud americans....

down with russians!

Here are some photos from the last few weeks.

xo

OMG it's April!

Nearly a month since the last blog entry.  Clearly we have misplaced our priorities.

Spring is bouncing around here in Alabama - giving us some sunny 80 degree days bookended by soggy rain-filled blah days like today!  Yesterday downtown Tuscaloosa hosted the (free!) Druid City Art Festival which has come a loooonnnngg way from the first year where there was a main stage with a few musicians and 5 artists (one of them being our old neighbor).  This year the number of artists increased maybe about 50 artists.  It was a beautiful sunny day so it was nice to walk about around a bunch of , though the artists weren't totally our cup of tea (mostly houndstooth items, jewelry, soaps, and a lot of pottery).  So still a ways to go, but all in all good fun for the family.

Last week we drove to Birmingham for the day to take a soggy walk at Red Mountain Park with Hannah.  We did a bit of shopping (including walking into a West Elm for the first time ever (BAD idea, we want everything in the store), and then had a meal at El Barrio.

We're headed to Portland in May for the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting!  Dan will present some data from his dissertation and Chau will tag along for fun and mostly tool around Portland and soak up liberal city life.  Dan found a place from airbnb which is a short walk from the convention center so we're pretty excited for the trip!

Speaking of Dan-o, Friday he received his award for the the Chernock prize, so he is now a proud owner of a nice pen and pencil set and an award he can setup in his office.  Yeah!!

My work has been going well - things seem to go in cycles.  Right now we're entering another quiet week with some office work and field work, but then next week our 5 seasonal technicians come and it will be fairly hectic!  We will train them for 2 weeks then we will finally start field work!!  Yikes!

Here are a few photos...

From today's mail:

Hopefully you can read it, the gist of it, Dan has received the Ralph L. Chernock Prize for 2014 which is awarded to the most outstanding graduate student in systematics and ecology.  How great!!  So proud of him!!  He's been working his behind off throughout his time here in Alabama and especially this year!!

Woo hoo!! Many congrats love!

xo

Another photo link!!

Here are some photos from Dan's fancy new SLR!  He even did most of the photo captions!
Yeah!

xo
ct

A working picture link...hopefully

So here is an updated link that I hope works - these photos are from Dauphin Island and a few pics from training this past week in Florida!  Next up I'm going to work on the photos Dan has taken with his fancy camera (he's quite the photographer!!).

Let me know if these don't work!!

xoxo

Comin' home!

Hi there all!

It's been a crazy week here in the household! Mostly because I haven't been in the household! I'm now just getting back from Gainesville, Florida. The town is inland about an hour and a half from Jacksonville. 

For the last week I've been at training with my fellow NEONates. We met new field techs from all of the other domains that are just now getting up and running like us in Tuscaloosa! We are considered Domain 8 and so all week there was a lot of meeting folks and asking what domain they are from.

"I'm from D8! Where are you from?"

In the very beginning of training it was fairly overwhelming. A lot of information on the first day which kinda felt like very ng hit on the forehead with a baseball bat (which I have actually experienced first hand so I'm drawing from experience). By Tuesday morning things were either clicking or my soul had just given up entirely (I think the former).

The days went basically like so: morning classroom lectures on protocols broken up by plant and animal people ( I was deemed a plant person). Then a boxed lunch ( I never thought I would get sick of club sandwiches, but it happened), then an afternoon of the field or lab implementing recently learned protocols. Then enjoy evenings chatting more work and such with other NEONates.

It was great because our trainers were technicians much like us who have gone through a field season or two and could provide us a lot of insight on how to sample and make our NEON machine flow smoothly.

We are now armed with a butt load of knowledge, and ton of new friends who are also amazing resources. It was kinda like a short summer camp though I've never actually attended a summer camp. Its refreshing because I've spent the last few years in Tuscaloosa secluded in the University lifestyle so it's been  to meet some new folks who do lotsa cool stuff.

The either domains coming on line this year or soon there after include Tennessee, Wisconsin, North Dakota, North Texas, Virginia, Utah, and Puerto Rico (and yes, everyone and their mother wants to work in Puerto Rico).  The domains that are already chugging along include Florida, Massachusetts, and Colorado. 

All in all there will be 20 domains in place by 2017. Yikes!! Heidi and I already know there will be another week of aquatics training for us in August, probably in Virginia! I'm hoping I also get to tag along on the tower training, which will be fun since our tower in Alabama will be 126 feet tall!!! Yikes!!

In a week Utah and Tennessee folks will be coming to Alabama to help us with plot establishment protocols.  They'll be with us for two weeks which will be fun and hopefully not as insane as this past week! At the very least I'm hoping for better weather than the rainy crud we had all week in Florida this past week!!

Well, I need to fix web links to our pictures, and we have to link up Dan's stellar photos from his new fancy phone hopefully this weekend amid relaxing at home I can get to those!!
Xoxo
Ct

JELLO!

I know it's been a while...a lot has transpired in the past few weeks...

I started the new job!  It's been great so far but quite busy!  I leave in a week to go to Gainesville, FL for training for a whole week!  It should be fun and very informative, since as of now all of the protocols and overall tasks are kind of a blurry mess in my head.  In the meantime we are just getting the lab slowly up and running...ordering supplies, readying the lab, familiarizing ourselves with protocols, gear, and the general day to day stuff to make NEON work - its a crazy system!  There are passwords for everything and I forget them ALL every weekend!!  We start sampling mid-April.  In the meantime we'll have a total of 4 permanent techs, and a handful of seasonal techs that will work with us from April to about October-ish.  This first year is a bit of a test run of sorts, we won't be sampling everything just yet (no streams this year - boo!!), but it should be good to get out the kinks!  We'll still sample plants, soil, ticks, mosquitos, small mammals, beetles, and a host of atmospheric data - woo!!  I need to remember to take photos of the lab so you all can see how we progress!!

Dan and I just got back Wed night from a Dauphin Island trip where we were the very responsible chaparones for 14 high schoolers ranging from 10th-12th graders.  There were a total of 5 chaparones which made the adult-to-student ratio quite manageable, but still, very very tiring.  We lucked out with good weather, and saw many a cool things (rays, dolphins, squid, shrimp, jellies, fish, birds, plankton, ack!)!!!  Dan got a fancy new SLR digital camera, so he has most of the cool photos, but here are a few of mine from my phone..soon I'll share his photos once we get a system going with the downloads...anybody else Apple's photo stream?  I am slowly learning the technologies of the now!!! ..sigh

Anyhow,

that's all for now..

xo

Hallo there folks...

Hi!!

Started work at the new job today!! Change!!  Adulthood!!  Hoorah!!  More soon...

Here are pictures from our weekend holiday!!  We took a break and went to Northwest Alabama because we've been curious about the Muscle Shoals Sound.  We had a blast!  Good food, good sights, birds, just good fun all around...It's still way too cold here in town...the University is closed tomorrow in anticipation of possible snow...ugh...

xo!

ct

SNOOOOOOOW DAYYYYYYY!!!!!

Hi all! We had a snow day!!!  

We got dismissed early from work/classes yesterday at around 11am.  Most of us just stuck around the lab though and watched the entire University lose it.  The lab has a nice vantage point of the parking lot and we saw plenty of near-accidents and cars crawling about.  Beyond our little bubble most of Alabama (and the South) was experiencing winter traffic hell, which unfortunately included our fearless leader and a grad student.. Jon and Oliver had gone out to scout out streams in NE Alabama at 7am.  By 2pm they had decided to turn around and head back home because the roads were getting icy.  What followed was a 1.5 hour drive home that took 10.5 HOURS.  yikes.

We even made BuzzFeed which I guess is noteworthy...the pictures in the post of highway I-280 in Birmingham are pretty insano.   We were very fortunate that we were able to walk home from work and spend the night in our cozy bed with the Hambone!  

The University ended up closing today as well (and we just got another message that tomorrow is also a snow day!!).  Dan and I walked into school this morning with Hannah...

The quad covered in snow:

Hannah had a blast running around in the snow and eating her fair share of it as well.  She always transforms into her puppy self when she sees snow.  So fun!

Oh yes!  I almost forgot!  This week has been quite exciting ASIDE from the snow!  On Monday I accepted a full time position at NEON, which stands for National Ecological Observatory Network!  The position is a field technician here at the Tuscaloosa office that has just opened up.  Over the next 30 years NEON will be collecting various data from the atmosphere, terrestrial, and aquatic realm.   

Here is a 6 minute video on YouTube if you want the NEON skinny!  It's a great position because it takes advantage of the general field and lab experience, but I'll also be exposed to new things as well - including plant identification and small mammal trapping!  The team (I think 4-5 of us) gets to go to Florida in the beginning of March for small mammal training!  Yeah!!  One of the other techs is actually Jon's wife so I already know someone (and like them!!) at the new job already!!

These are all the NEON sites all around the US:

And here is a closeup of the Domain 8 sites that I will be working at:

As you can see, they are fairly close to Tuscaloosa - ranging from about 30 minutes to 2 hours away.  I'm excited to work in them as they are new areas of Alabama I have yet to explore!  My start date is actually February 10th and I'm excited because it's a great position with a lot of room for growth and possible relocation (see the picture before of all the NEON sites, ha!!).  

In the meantime I'm almost finished with water chemistry samples at the lab, so there will be some closure with that.  I hope to still hang around in the lab here and there on the weekends because I enjoy it so!  My goal is to relocate all the equipment into different drawers so no one knows where anything is so they'll have to keep me around in some capacity...

Here are some pictures (many videos of Hannah)!

Also of note: Dan got home safe and sound Saturday evening from Iceland, albeit a little sick from cabin fever.  We also spent some of today finishing up the data entry from all his midge identifications he tackled over winter break!  What a productive snow day!!

xoxoxo

jello!

Hi all!!!

Dan and crew have returned to Reykjavik after a successful week in the field!  Here are pictures from the Fixation on Ice blog!  Now the crew spends the next few days getting lab work done and then they get to have fun until they leave Friday!  Dan comes back to BHM Saturday evening!  Woo!  

In the meantime...here's what Hannah and I were up to this past weekend:

2014!! Holy moly!!

It's almost mid-January!!!
SERIOUS!

Well, the blog has been a bit quiet..apologies, but to wrap up -

I had a nice Xmas with the Tran Fam back in the LBC (we ate a LOT of food), Dan stayed in T-Town and measured a LOT of midges.

We reunited before NYE where we proceeded to do nothing aside from barely stay awake until midnight, say "Happy New Year" to each other, and then fall into a deep slumber.

On the football front we were bummed to watch our boys totally flop the Sugar Bowl vs. Oklahoma University.   To make football even worse this year I lost the AL fantasy football championship game to the league leader, but managed 2nd place overall (I wanted that win oh so bad especially on our first go at it).  Yes, I am upset about losing a fake game with my fake team.  Dan eked out 5th place after a string of very tough match-ups...Our joint team that we played in with the Iowa crowd did quite poorly...I am shaking my head in disbelief with that one...sigh, all in all Fantasy was a lot of fun and I would be willing to do it again in the future!  However, it made football season especially nerve wracking on top of the AL games we would watch, so it's nice to have a break from constantly checking the scores on Sundays.

Dan just left this morning for Iceland!  He'll be gone for two weeks for field work with a collaborator's group from MN.  It should be a lot of fun for him to be a warm body on a project and not be too stressed out about collecting samples and getting into sites.  He certainly deserves a break from T-town and lab work!! Hopefully there will be some pictures on the Fixation on Ice blog soon!  The group will be out in a cabin in the Hengill Valley with no electricity or running water for a week.  Thankfully there's plenty of snow to melt for water and a propane stove and heater to keep them warm and fed!!  Sunrise hits Iceland around 11am these days, and then sets at around 3pm!  So not much daylight and snow everywhere will make for some interesting field conditions.  Thankfully Dan brought Bananagrams along so the team should be pretty set on entertainment!!

My days in the lab are numbered due to a dwindling of funds in the grant, but things are looking promising with a possible position for me here in town soon- more news when things are concrete, no jinxing it more than I have already!! Ha!!

PHOTOS!!

xo,ct