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  

hallo!

Hi all!

a few pictures...off to the field tomorrow for the night and a day, then a day of washing rocks, then the weekend!  yippee!!  the football team gets a bye this weekend, to gear up for the Nov 5th LSU game!!  Which means I get time to work on the frame of the deck (I bought materials last weekend!) and then work on the garden some.  I got some free horse manure from a local horse farm, and bought a few plants at the arboretum fall plant sale - swiss chard, kale, arugula, parsley, chives, lettuce, and a few pansies.  I also got a couple of succulents for Vija and I...maybe he'll be an office plant!!  I also just discovered that my favorite nursery that got blown away in the tornado is back in business!!  I hope to get some good soil from them and a few more odds and ends for the garden.  I haven't taken many pics in the garden recently, that will change this weekend if I get to workin'!!!

Oh yes, I am also planning on a cross country road trip with Hannah for xmas!!  xcited she'll come home for xmas with the Tran family, and hopefully Dan can squeeze in a visit too and drive back with me!!  should be about 2100 miles, and about 32 hours of driving...whew!

Also, The Iceland crew got the heat exchanger working!! Yippee!!  It's amazing that something like that actually worked the first go around!! That NEVER happens in field ecology!!!  Jon took many pics so hopefully he puts them up on the Hengill DIaries soon enough!

more soon!

xo

ct

Team Iceland made it safe and sound...

A bit from Dan this morning:
"We made here safely and with all the gear. Plus we had a very productive but hazy day in the field!. All sandbags are full and we even built one dam!! Plus we finished up some sampling of stream 7."

Yippee!! I was worried not everything would arrive in Iceland, but that is very exciting. Hopefully the crew is rested a bit and I hope to see pictures sometime soon...

xo, and Happy Friday!

ct

Greetings!!

Hi everyone, 

Long time no bloggy.  The past couple of weeks have been slammed with activity, well, work really, but activity nonetheless.  Last week Jon, Mick, Vija and I went on a Coweeta bender - a day in Athens Georgia for the Coweeta Meeting, then two days at the Field station itself looking for insects for stoichiometry - similar to what Dan does in the field for his buggies.  Vija and I skipped out on the meeting since there wasn't much reason for us to sit in.  It was great to spend the day in Athens exploring and taking her easy - drank a lot of coffee, walked around the town bit, and just enjoyed the beautiful Fall day. It's a super hip town and we hit up the Manhattan for drinks, The Grit for an appetizer, A Tovola for a couple of pizzas, Big City Bread for Bfast, and Cali n Tito's for an amazing steak cuban sammy. All of those establishments were the ones we visited the first time we went to Athens, except A Tovola, BUT THEY'RE SO GREAT!!!  Next time we'll have to be more adventurous, but it's great to know there are some standbys that we love.

The last few weeks have also been busy getting things ready for the big trip to Iceland.  This is the trip that all the heat exchanger supplies went out with the crew and they'll do their darnedest to put it together and get her going.  I dropped the gang (Dan, Vija, Jon, Alex, and Phillip the engineer) off at the airport yesterday morning and, with no rest for the weary, they should have arrived today at 2am central time (7am Iceland time) and went right into the field!!!  I told you no rest! Hopefully they got some shut eye on the plane, but either way it's gonna be a rough few days!   Haven't heard from them yet, but they really haven't had time to breathe thus far!

On my end, playing airport shuttle meant I got to spend a day in B-Ham.  I ate a delightful lunch by my lonesome at Urban Standard (braised short rib, autumn puree and roasted brussel sprouts) and had a great hazelnut soy latte - the little things in life!  I then stopped by Alabrew and picked up a couple of beer kits! A New England IPA and another Rapier Wit which was the last beer batch I made.  I just really enjoyed the orange peel and coriander that it seemed like the right thing to do.  My hope is to get both going before Dan comes back (Oct 30th!) and go from there.  Wee!!!

This week Alabama is playing the Tennessee Volunteers..and this is what Bama fans think of Tennessee...Also, the Arboretum plant sale is on Sunday! I am excited to get a few dark green vegetable starts in the ground!!

Pics of the latest Coweeta trip soon...

xo

The weekly post

Pictures! Finally!

Last week was Eve's Bday..check out how we celebrated here.

Also, more random pictures of the week...

xo!

Happy Fall!!

xoxoxo

More pics!

I'm on a roll!!!!!!

xo

Finally, pictures...

Here are pictures of the hike VIja, Hannah and I did a few weeks ago...Finally!  Of course there are more pictures of the past month, but I will get to those slowly...

xo!