Exploring

Jeremy and I ventured downtown today for lunch. It was nice to get out, and I did manage to actually keep down a meal for the first time in 3 days. It also completely worn me out though since I came home and slept for almost 3 hours.

I did miss the first 3 quarters of the Memphis vs. Tulane football game. Apparently it was a very good game. They won the game very decisively, and I'm happy that we're bowl eligible again.

Gross

There has been a stomach bug going around the lab perpetrated by a 5 month old baby, and apparently it was my turn this holiday weekend. Let me tell you, Thanksgiving dinner does not taste good the second time around.

The experience though made me even more thankful for Jeremy. He has been so wonderful. Last night would not have been so pleasant had he not been around.

Hopefully though, I'm on the mend. I've been able to keep food down today, and the nausea has subsided. Hopefully, I'll be able to enjoy the leftovers soon.

Thankful

Today has truly been a great day. The weather is nice, and although we were unable to go home to celebrate with our families, we did have a wonderful day just Jeremy and me. We made the pies last night, and we slept in this morning. Once we got up and going, we managed to get everything finished and on the table by 2:30pm. We had recorded the Macy's Day parade, and we watched it from the Thanksgiving turkey till Santa. Now, we're watching the Cowboys play the Seahawks and continuing to gorge on yummy food.

Although this year has brought a lot of changes and upheavals, I am very thankful for the support I've received from my family and friends. I am most thankful though for Jeremy because even though this move was hardest for him, he never once considered not moving with me.

Ready

I'm ready to go home and start baking pies. My goal tonight is to make the pecan pie and the pumpkin pie. If I get those done and still feel motivated, I'll bake the apple pie as well. Tomorrow, the cooking officially begins, but everything should be really easy. There is not one dish that I'm making that will take more than 5 minutes of prep.

Of course, that being said, I need to have my wits about me at all times. The little brain farts I've been experiencing aren't helping in the least. Just now, I panicked a little because I thought I forgot the lettuce that goes in the Asian slaw only to realize that it's slaw and not salad and thus, no lettuce. *sigh*

BBQ

Jeremy and I decided that since it was just going to be the two of us, we wouldn't get a whole turkey. While this lessens the amount of left overs we have, we are planning on having a very food filled day. I wanted to order a turduchen breast and Jeremy wanted BBQ from Memphis. I ordered a small turduchen, and it looks very yummy. Jeremy isn't sure he'll like the duck, so he can easily pick that out and eat only the turkey and chicken. Since it's only the breasts, there won't be a lot of leftovers, but there will be plenty for turduchen sandwiches next week.

Jeremy's BBQ did not quite make it to us intact the first go around. However, we cannot rave enough about the customer service of Central BBQ. We've ordered from them for several parties we've thrown, and they've always been super great about everything. The last time we were there, we had ordered a sausage cheese plate. They had it all prepared, but they didn't have it set with the rest of the order, so we left without it. Jeremy had to drive back to pick it up, and although it was as much our fault as it was theirs, they threw in an order of ribs for our trouble. This time, they forgot to include our apartment number in with the shipping information even though Jeremy had included it in the order. That meant we didn't receive it right away, and it actually sat, unfrozen for 3 days. Because it was their mistake, they shipped us our order plus some extras at their expense yesterday and we received it today. Since it was their mistake, I would have expected them to either refund our money or resend the food, but I wasn't expecting them to throw in extras. That was unexpected and very generous. There really is nothing like a hometown business.

Slow Start

For no reason whatsoever, I could fall asleep last night, which resulted in my oversleeping this morning. I heard the alarm this morning, and I asked Jeremy to hit snooze. After that, I was completely out and didn't wake up until 2 hours later. Since then, it's been hard for me to hit my stride today. I feel lethargic and unfocused. It could be that I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving, but I was hoping for a productive week this week.

Disappointment

The football game yesterday was very disappointing. I've followed the Tigers through the great DeAngelo seasons and through the horrible 2-10 seasons. However, if we had pulled out this game, we had the opportunity to win our division. A lot of people are blaming the coach for not preparing for the game, and I have a lot of the same issues. For the last month, we've been hoping to get back our starting quarterback. However, even without him, we've managed to put together good games and win. Granted, the opponents weren't exactly top notch, but we ran creative plays that were definitely not obvious to the casual observer. Now that we have our quarterback healthy, we are running the old plays that are so slow in developing that I can tell exactly what plays are called. It's frustrating also that our fourth string quarterback can get the plays called faster than our first string quarterback. While our backup quarterback was playing, even when he hadn't taken any snaps at practice, the coaches did not have to call a single time out because he didn't know what play to run. Yesterday, we took a time out and had a delay of game because our quarterback couldn't get the play called to the line. I can understand being rusty throwing and running the ball because of a month of no practices. However, in that time, at least you can study the plays and figure out what the coaches are calling from the sideline. Our offense doesn't really consist of all that many different looks.

I am so much more of a football fan than I am a basketball fan, but I am not enjoying watching Tigers football this year. I love the players and the coach, but it's getting ridiculous. We have the talent, and we have the schedule in our favor, but this year, I've found myself waiting for basketball instead of enjoying football.

Update: So to add to the disappointment, the basketball team lost to Xavier tonight. *sigh*

Public Transportation

Jeremy and I took the bus today to work, and it was surprisingly easy. While there is a direct bus from home to work, it doesn't run early enough for my commute. We took the one that required a transfer, but while the stops are not at the same place, it's not a bad walk. All in all, I think I will take the bus in the future if it snows too badly and we're not comfortable driving.

Bright

I am surprised as to how bright and sunny it is here. In Missouri when it snowed, it would be overcast and dreary. Here however, despite the snow, it hasn't been overcast at all. If this lasts all winter, it would go a long way in preventing the blues.

The Tigers play Seton Hall tonight in the semi-finals. Unbelievably, USC lost last night. People are saying because USC played Tuesday and then took a commercial flight down to Puerto Rico while we played Monday/Tuesday and then took a charter flight. While I wanted to see us play USC to see how we measure up, we haven't been playing spectacularly, and I'd rather not lose. I cannot wait for Camp Cal and all the big games about to come up.

Forays into Python I

I've been messing around with Python (a programming language) lately, and all I can say is, I'm really rusty when it comes to programming. Don't get me wrong, I love the whole process of debugging a program, but I have just spent an entire day trying to debug a program that should work, but doesn't. It compiled fine, but the output wasn't what it was supposed to be. It turns out, the indents in Python are critical rather than just for formatting or aesthetics. I simply had my return function tabbed to the wrong place. That took me a day and a half and a dozen different iterations to figure out. Lesson #1 learned.

Cold

The weather here has gotten deliciously chilly in the last week, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I did notice though that where I sit in lab was more drafty, and I couldn't figure out why. While I wasn't cold, my hands would be freezing, and it was just me. Nobody else experienced this. Well, I investigated this phenomenon more thoroughly this morning and noticed that even though the crank to the window showed that it was closed, the seal around the pane had caught on the frame just enough to be letting in the slightest hint of a breeze. Once this was corrected, I am no longer considering wearing mittens at my desk. It is so much easier to type and stuff with warm hands.

Holiday Season

The holiday season is almost upon us, and I feel like there is still so much to do before I'm ready. There are still things that need unpacking at home, and I feel like I'm running low on storage space. We still need to finish unpacking the office, but until Jeremy gets a job, there are a lot of things that we cannot unpack. There are other things that I would ideally take to work with me, but since our lab is just temporary, I don't want to bring them here and then move it all again.

The dining room is especially problematic. There isn't as much storage in the kitchen as we had before, so we have a bunch of things that ideally would go in the kitchen, but don't fit. The cabinets in the kitchen are also unusually skinny, so nothing fits in the cabinets except glasses and mugs. Until we get a buffet or something, we really have no place for our dishes because the one large cabinet we have is for pots and pans. So, we've still got things packed up in boxes scattered around the dining room.

We want to get a Christmas tree, but the current disarray of our dining room makes that prohibitive. I suppose I could dedicate this weekend to cleaning the apartment, but I don't really feel up to that right now. The mood could strike suddenly though as it did a few weeks ago when I finished unpacking and cleaning our bedroom/closet/bathroom.

Picking Up

Things are picking up here at work. I'm no longer working on trying to get one thing to work. I have my original project, but I've also started doing more computational stuff on my own (with permission of course). I've also been handed something else that is very intriguing that I've always wanted to try but never got around to. Additionally, I've been learning all sorts of new techniques that aren't new by any means but are new to me. Thank goodness for all of the nice, patient people I work with. Otherwise, I'd still be trying to figure out the little things like how to make media.

Excited

I am absolutely dying here at work today, and I can't imagine how I would be like if I were in Memphis. Today starts ESPN's 24 hours of college basketball, and Memphis plays UMass tonight at midnight. I really want to stay up and watch the game. On the other hand, that would mean staying up until 3 am, and it's usually not possible for me to stay up until even midnight. I am going to give it a try.

On top of all this, it is now less than a month until the Georgetown game, and we finished booking our hotel and bought the tickets. We're going to drive since it's a 4 hour drive but an 8 hour train ride. Hopefully, we can leave right after work Friday and get there not too late.

It started snowing today. Nothing is sticking yet, but that in itself is contributing to the general excitement of the day. This needs to wear off soon as it's likely to snow a lot this winter, and I cannot get this jacked up at every snowfall. Also, it's likely that I'll be so sick of the cold before the winter is over, but I'm not anticipating that.

Thanksgiving is also about a week away. While I had hoped that Jeremy find a job before the holidays, it will likely be December before he formally starts a job. That's fine. We're staying here for Thanksgiving, and we've decided on eating ourselves silly the entire day. I want to have the food done and out shortly after noon so we can start eating and watching football. I don't plan on moving much other than between the couch and the dining room table.

I hadn't meant for this post to ramble on, but I am apparently looking forward to a lot of stuff.

Blech

This is getting old. I am tired of feeling sick on weekends. Every weekend, the weather seems to change drastically, giving me a headache which leads to a variety of other issues. I can't get anything done because being vertical makes my head throb and my stomach queasy. I wish the weather would make up its mind and get cold already. Thank God that Jeremy is wonderful and understand what a pain headaches can be.

Bond, James Bond

The new bond movie was good, but it wasn't great. The plot seemed a little weak, but the action scenes were great. The entire experience though was fun. Jeremy and I walked to dinner and then had dessert at the theater.

Today, we're just spending a lazy day at home before the Tigers play Fairfield. I spent a little time at work doing minipreps. While I was there, Jeremy spent some time at the local library. I didn't get a chance to meet him there before the meter ran out, but it's close enough to work that I might go after work on day next week.

Quantum of Solace

Jeremy and I are going to see the new Bond movie tonight. We had been talking about holding off on the movie, but since we're not going home for Thanksgiving, we don't have to worry about family wanting to go see the movie. I'm excited because we bought the reserved tickets again. It was a fun experience last time. We're thinking about eating around the theater and then go to the restaurant for dessert. There were some yummy desserts on the menu. The only problem will be if we have leftovers from dinner. We're thinking that we don't want to drive to the theater tonight. I suppose we could have a small dinner since we're going to get dessert anyways. Plus, since we're not driving, we can have a few drinks as well.

Score!

My PCR reactions worked yesterday! I got a band on a gel at the right size, so TA cloning here I come! I'll get really excited when the cloning actually works since I suck at cloning. This cloning kit though requires only a 5 minute ligation step, and other people in the lab have gotten 100% efficiency with it. Hopefully it'll work that well for me. We will know tomorrow if I get colonies and next week when I do minipreps. I know everyone was just fascinated by the science above. =)

Life-wise, Jeremy and I are going to try to extend our evening walks a little longer. Using his iPhone as a GPS tracker, we determined that we've been walking about 1.5 miles a night. It's not a great distance, but we're trying to incorporate this into our daily routine. We want to start running on the trails, but we've decided to take it slowly to start.

We also decided today that we're definitely going to the Memphis vs. Georgetown game in DC next month. I am beyond excited because it'll likely be the only game we see all year. Jeremy's dad and step-mom are going to come up and join us for the game. They're going to drive it from Memphis. I cannot even imagine. We will make a weekend of it though, so it'll be fun.

Feeling Dumb

Today I feel like I'm back in grad school again, just starting out. I'm setting up a PCR to run overnight, and then I'm running a gel tomorrow. Things that I know how to do, but I just spent the last five minutes asking the grad student in the lab questions like, "So, do you add ethidium bromide to the gel?" and "What percentage gel is do you usually use to run the DNA?" Earlier today, I asked deep insightful questions like, "So, how do we isolate gDNA?" and "What concentration do you usually make your primer stocks?" I can't wait until I get to the really hard part when I TA-clone and transform into E. coli. LOL.

Who We Are

Ever since Jeremy and I graduated, our lives have become less stressful. Sure it was stressful moving so far away, and the job hunt has been somewhat stressful for the both of us. However, since we've moved here and settled in, we seem to laugh more and enjoy each others' company more.

Last night, we went for a walk on the walking trail that runs behind our apartments. It was nice and chilly outside, and we got to break in our new winter boots a little. Along the way, we had about a half a dozen bunny sitings. We're sure it wasn't the same bunny because that would've been a really fast bunny to get everywhere we were at that quickly. I want to put out food just to see if we can get the bunnies to eat it, but I don't want to personally feed the entire rabbit population of Pittsburgh. It feels kind of like home though with all the bunnies around because growing up, we had a bunch of wild bunnies living in the fields by our house. This means though that Bob the coffee plant will never be moving outside on our porch.

After our stroll, I asked Jeremy to play the movie The Longest Day. He had just put it on his AppleTV, and I wanted to watch it since today is Veteran's Day. While he was copying files, he announced that he was sorry for the delay in the feature presentation but please visit the concession stand while the movie was loading. He said that all he could think of while we were waiting was the nature scenes they play at the drive-in. It was hilarious.

This morning, Jeremy woke up with a migraine, which doesn't bode well for his interview at noon. However, even with him not feeling well, he still went all the way out to Ikea to purchase our new dining room table. He did get to have a free breakfast there as well.

For the most part, we lead fairly ordinary/boring lives. We don't go out and party a lot, and we tend to like to spend time with each other. I think we really enjoy each others' company, and I wouldn't change it.

Falling in Place

While our lives are still crazy and in a state of flux, what with Jeremy's job hunt and all, the little things in life have really fallen into place. On Friday, I was hit with an urge to finish unpacking the apartment. I was tired of looking at the boxes that were everywhere. With the weather finally turning cold, we had all our summer clothes laying around the room waiting to be put up. After relaxing and going out Friday night, we attacked our list of chores Saturday and Sunday with gusto. As I said in my post yesterday, we finished a lot, and our apartment no longer looks like a disaster area.

With the boxes cleared and the rooms cleaned, we have room now for dining room furniture. We were just holding off on purchasing any until after Jeremy got a job. We figured we wouldn't be having people over, so there was no real hurry. Last night, we went on the Ikea site to check out a new couch we were considering in the future. Amazingly, the dining room table and chairs set we were looking to buy was listed as going on sale tomorrow for Veteran's Day at over 50% off. While there will probably be crowds and Jeremy does have an interview tomorrow, he will be braving traffic to go to Ikea to purchase said dining room set. It is too good of a deal to pass up, and it was the set we were wanting anyways. I guess it was a very good thing we decided to finish cleaning and unpacking.

Finally Settled

After about 6 weeks in Pittsburgh, we are finally settled into our apartment. We still have a few boxes of things that belong in the dining room, we can't unpack them until we actually purchase some dining room furniture. That we won't get until close to Christmas or when Jeremy gets a job. For the most part though, we're completely unpacked.

Jeremy, being the wonderful person that he is, once again humored me and moved the entertainment center to where I had wanted it originally. I really like it a lot better where it is now because it makes our living room/dining room area a lot more spacious. He's not sure he likes it where it is now, but he's willing to give it a week to see. I hope he likes it because I think when we get the dining room furniture, it will look better on that side of the room.

It is definitely nice to have things finally in the places they go. Now, we can finally settle into an every day routine. We won't have to worry daily about what else we need to do or which boxes we need to unpack.

Oh, and the Tigers beat SMU yesterday!

Madagascar 2

Jeremy and I went to see Madagascar 2 last night. There's a Loews theater here that does reserved seating for some movies and has a restaurant at the theater. The tickets were a little more expensive, but we ate at the restaurant and the price of a full meal was about what popcorn and drinks would've cost normally. Plus, the portions were so huge that we have an entire other meal left over. The seats were really nice as well. They were roomy and comfortable, although they didn't recline. However, with the armrest up between us, the two seats were about the size of a love seat.

The movie was also very cute and funny. The little kids there loved it although there was humor for adults as well. It was a great movie, better than the first I think. The first one didn't leave as big an impression on me. We would definitely buy the set when it comes out.

Livejournal

I've had a LiveJournal account since 2002 I believe. Since then, I've probably only posted a handful of times. It was before Facebook, so it gave me the opportunity to keep in touch with some friends. Now, I'm not so sure if I want to keep it to write in. I would keep the account because i have friends that post, and I like to keep up with their lives. However, it seems redundant to post things here and then on LJ. I also feel like there are certain things I can't post there because it would offend some people. While I do self-censor here, I don't feel like I have to. I guess we'll see what happens.

Compassion International

Several blogs I read have been documenting their travels and experiences with Compassion International. I had never heard about them until this week, but since then I've been reading profiles of little children all over the world. Just looking at the faces of all those precious children breaks my heart. While there is very little Jeremy and I can do right now other than pray, we hope to be able to sponsor a child in the near future. Even then, it feels like we are doing so little to help the problem in general.

Potential

Jeremy had a phone interview today with one company and a face-to-face interview with another tomorrow. I think it's an exciting time right now for him because he has more opportunities than he thinks. Yeah, it sucks that he doesn't have a job yet, but we're making it. It will get tougher in a couple of months if he still doesn't have a job, but we can buckle down and survive. He's also looked into finishing up some MSCE certifications. I'm glad he's going to finish that up regardless of whether that helps him in his job search or not. It's another skill to have.

Update: Jeremy received a call later this afternoon asking him for a convenient time to come in for a face-to-face interview with the company he interviewed with today. This is definitely promising, and we're definitely hoping this works out.

Out to Lunch

I went out to lunch with most of the lab today. We went to a cute little sandwich place that had really good food. I am actually feeling a lot better than when I woke up. No, I wasn't upset by the result of the election and I definitely didn't stay up late to watch the results. I would've stayed up late had I known I was going to feel like crap this morning. Surprisingly, I've been feeling better as the day's worn on, so that's a blessing.

First Game of the Season

Tonight is the first Tiger basketball game of the season, and it is a bittersweet and exciting. Like Midnight Madness, I will miss being in attendance. However, it is just an exhibition game against Christian Brothers University. They usually play us close in the first half, but the Tigers pull away in the second because of our deeper bench. We haven't figured out all of the logistics for the basketball tickets though. Hopefully someone will take tonight's game and we'll work out the others in the next couple of days.

Since we're just nice people and we're buying the tickets to keep up our donation level, we weren't planning to sell the tickets at face value. If we aren't able to attend the bigger games, we may put those online and see what we get for them. That alone may make up the difference between what our friends pay us and what we paid for the tickets.

We are hoping to make it to the Georgetown game in DC though. That should be fun. It may also be the only game we attend all season unless we make it to the Final Four again. If we do, I think we'll have to make a trip to Detroit.

Right to Vote

This election has been the first one in my lifetime that has interested me enough to actually vote. For the past several elections, I didn't like either candidate, so in an effort to not settle for the lesser of two evils, I chose not to vote. This election is different because while I dislike both the main-stream candidates, my own political views have crystallized into something that I feel strongly about.

What irritates me to no end is the constant badgering in the media to vote, and not only to vote but to vote either Democrat or Republican. I hear from people that if I didn't vote, I have no right to complain. Well, we live in a country where anyone can complain about anything. Really, if I dislike all the candidates, it doesn't matter who wins, I'm going to dislike their policies, and I should be able to vocalize them. If I voted for the winner, does that mean I have no right to complain because I voted for the guy? Or is it if I voted for the loser, I have every right to complain because had my candidate won, everything would be a lot better?

Lately, I've also been hearing about how it is our duty to vote but voting Libertarian/Green/Independent is a wasted vote. Why is it that we live in a society where we have all this freedom, but not the freedom to choose who we want? It should be my decision how I cast my vote, and if I feel like the two major party candidates don't deserve my vote, so be it. They are allowed to be on the ballot, which means I have the right to vote for them.

Also, is anyone else tired of all the political commercials on TV? I mean really, they run the commercials back to back, often two candidates running for the same office. It's gotten to the point where it's hard to tell when one commercial ends and another begins and it is impossible to figure out which candidate the commercial is even for.

Generally, I could care less about politics. It doesn't matter to me which candidate wins because I feel like our government has gotten so big and cumbersome that nothing ever changes, no matter who is in office. I am just so tired of these elections.

Time Change

I love gaining an hour. It's great to get an extra hour of sleep and then spend a lazy afternoon lounging around with Jeremy. We didn't get any trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Since we didn't get a whole bunch of candy, it'll be fine. Jeremy will enjoy the mini tootsie roll pops.

We did manage to get all our errands run yesterday before I wimped out and took a nap. I'm not sure why I get so wiped during the week to require all the sleep during the weekends. It's getting a little worrisome since I went to bed one day last week at 7pm and slept through the night. Maybe getting to work at 8am is finally getting to me. =)

Flu Shot

I wonder if it's even worth getting a flu shot anymore given how much the last couple have hurt. Last year, the flu shot hurt my arm for several days, but everyone who had gotten the shot experienced the same ache. This year, I think it was the person giving me the shot that is causing the pain. It feels kind of bruised although I don't see a bruise at the injection site. Hopefully it'll get better tomorrow.

Jeremy still refuses to get a flu shot. He never seems to get the flu though, even when I do have it. We'll see how he fares this year with the winters being significantly colder here. I hope he stays healthy though. It would not be fun if we were both to get sick this winter.