February 27, 2010

February is drawing to a close and what a wintery one it has been.  Although, I must admit I thoroughly enjoy the fact that we are actually having winters again and not just extended autumn weather.  I love the snow piling up outside as it makes the change over to spring weather with the green sprouts that much sweeter. 

It has been a while since my last post as Jo and I took a short vacation to New Orleans.  We headed down last Saturday and came home on Tuesday.  We had a wonderful time, especially as this was Jo's first visit to NOLA or the Big Easy (you would think one name for your city would be enough).  The food was phenomenal - we even tried a crawdad Po'Boy.  The highlight had to be our order of red beans and rice which was a plate of beans with some rice thrown on the side.  Fortunately, this came the night we went to the piano bar at Pat O'Brians and enjoyed the music and drinks - especially the drinks, started with Hurricanes and moved to Sazeracs.  So by the time we got to dinner we could really see the humor in the dish - well we could pretty much see the humor in anything by then as the Sazeracs were flowing pretty freely at the bar. 

We stayed at the Elysian Fields Inn which was a great B&B Inn near to the French Quarter and several restaurants.  We would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a nice place to stay that is a convenient walk to music and the main tourist destinations.  The other highlights of our trip were eating beignets at Cafe La Monde (fried dough with powdered sugar - hard to go wrong there), seeing the Mardi Gras museum which corrected many of my mis-perceptions on Mardi Gras (for instance, I thought it was one parade, turns out it is 11 or so and they all happen before Ash Wednesday - no two are allowed on the same day - that's Jo at the museum in her Mardi Gras finest), and a fantastic WWII museum that Joann patiently spent many hours in with me.  Lastly, the Insectorium - think aquarium except for insects - was a great stop and really made both of us enjoy the fact that we live somewhere cold enough that our insects don't get to be the size of small mammals.  There are some really cool colored bugs and some really large bugs in this world - as long as they choose to only live in museums for me to see, we'll be ok.

Unfortunately, like all vacations, we had to come home on Tuesday.  We hit major rain at all of our return destinations, but no flight delays amazingly.  The big event once we were home is that on Thursday it was finally time for me to go under the knife and get my shoulder repaired.  I had arthritis between my collar bone and shoulder blade removed, the bursa in my shoulder shaved (I'm sure there is some fancy medical term for that), and a couple of minor tears in my rotator cuff repaired.  The surgery went remarkably well - ok I was asleep for all of it so I'm not exactly sure how it went - and I've been recuperating since.  There hasn't been as much pain as I expected although I have to pretty careful in how I move my arm.  Jo has been dutifully trying to care for me although I'm not the easiest person to care for since I don't like feeling like an invalid.    I'm planning to be back at work on Monday and with any bit of luck back on the road running in 2-3 weeks.  Not too much planned this weekend due to my shoulder although our nephew Chris is visiting tonight since he is in town from New Hampshire to see a show at the casino.

February 15, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day and President's Day - naturally we didn't get the day off, but work was quiet as many of those with little ones in the school system stayed home. The turkeys have been around recently trying to find some open ground to scratch up some food - whatever they eat in the winter is a mystery to me, but they are very diligent about working to find it. With the fresh snow on the back porch, it was interesting to see all their tracks and the apparent puzzle of arrows pointing every which way to go. Their feet make a perfect arrow by the way - fun fact to impress your friends at your next opportunity (Gee George, what footprint pattern would turkeys leave in the snow?, Gosh Bill, I just don't know - you can see how it goes from there). Unfortunately, it is easier to see them than photograph them when you have my photography skills. Just imagine 30 feet of all these arrows running in every direction.

We had a reasonably nice weekend with Jo arriving back in town on Friday very tired and with a bit of a cold. I guess I should clarify - I had a nice weekend, Jo spent it recovering from her cold and catching up on missed sleep. Friday night the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics was on the docket and that captures a major theme for the entire weekend. I love watching the amazing things these superb athletes can accomplish - especially the mogul-freestyle skiers. It makes me envious and also very glad I have a nice desk job that won't tear out my knees in my thirties.

Saturday, after our morning run and weightlifting, Jo made some desserts for the evening events and then promptly sacked out on the couch for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, I finished up the last little bit of the tax stuff to ready it for the accountant. I then enjoyed several hours working on my computer game while the Olympics played in the background. That evening we were off to Westport, CT to visit with some friends, Barbara and Mike, who recently relocated back from San Francisco. It was a great evening of catching up and enjoying the tour of their wonderful new house - including the hobbit inspired front door (remember, I'm only 5 foot 9 and I'm as tall as the door - Mike keeps hitting his head on the door). Also, check out the slippers on the dog - it was to help the dog get traction on the slippery floor so the dog wouldn't hurt itself - it made for some interesting stories and evening humor.

For Sunday, we decided to read in bed in the morning actually skipping all of our usually exercising finally getting up just in time for lunch. The rest of the day consisted of chores around the house and - yep you guessed it - catching up on the latest Olympics successes and heartaches. Dinner was a homemade vegetable and pasta soup using some more of our garden potatoes (sweet and regular). Then it was off to get ready for another exciting week of working.

February 7, 2009

Well the groundhog saw his shadow and this week would certainly convince most people that we are looking at another 6 weeks of winter. While we didn't get any of the snow that hit the east coast just south of here - imagine if we were still in Philly - the Arctic blast that kept the snow south made it nice and chilly. We are certainly having a full blown winter as the temperatures continue to hover in the high 20's during the day and teens at night. Not bad except for the weekends when we do our daily run in the morning before it has warmed up. One upside has been the amazing ice crystals on our creek. These are a little different every week and all types of interesting structures are formed. Of course, that might just be the chemist in Jo and I speaking.

I also thought it would be worthwhile to provide an update on Wilson (that's our ex-snowperson). As you can now see Wilson is now trying to imitate a large snowball. Hopefully you have gained an appreciation of how talented Wilson has been as this is the third imitation that has been accomplished (Leaning Tower of Pisa, Headless Horseman, and now snowball). This is also a testament to how cold it has been in CT this year since Wilson first came to life back in December.

The work week was fairly standard with Jo having to travel to New Jersey and New York from Tuesday to Thursday. She presented at a town hall in New Jersey but she has done this so often she doesn't really get nervous any longer - whereas I would always be a wreck. I can handle up to about 50 people and then my nerves get the better of me - might that whole she's an extrovert/I'm an introvert thing. Also, maybe she is just a better speaker and more accomplished in her career. I'm going with the extro/introvert answer since then I can blame genetics and not my personal shortcomings. I had my usual mix of items to take care of at work, the most exciting of which was reviewing and selecting which exciting scientific proposals to fund for external collaborations. Always one of my favorite jobs to do.

For our free time we spent a lot of time working on the floor plans for our house redesign project. The majority of which was figuring out where to put stairs. With the small footprint we have, the stairs are turning into the major decision from which all else flows. I've learned more about stair design this week then I ever thought I would need to know. The good news is we are pretty close to agreeing on our final design. Other than that, we had planned to see Avatar yesterday, but we both got busy and never made it.

Jo is off to sunny and warmer Florida this week while I remain hunkered down in the cold. I'm still hoping for some snowfall as I haven't had the chance to use my snowblower since Christmas.

February 2, 2010

I didn't get a post up this weekend since with the cold weather and work there really isn't much new news to report. We had bitterly cold weather on Saturday as an Arctic high pushed in. The good news is that it kept the snow down to the south of us - of course, that limits the opportunity to be using the snowblower. We spent the weekend hunkered down inside with our only haircuts to get us out in the cold. Not much to take pictures of as well so another week with just text to read.

Jo is in New Jersey and New York this week for meetings while I keep the home lights burning.