Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

Hey all,

We are sitting at a coffee shop in Sedona downloading photos. Since Cliff always seems so cool when he posts from remote locations, I decided to try to be dool too! I am never very good at being cool, but one must try.

Christmas was great. Matthias got a pair of cowboy boots that he ended up exchanging for a slightly larger size. The cowboy at the shop who was a boot professional, gave us a long spiel about finding the right size. We all think he was full of it, but we liked him none the less.

The weather is great, and it’s nice just to hang out with the family. I have bonded with Mark’s new dog Molly (AKA ’salt’). Matthias says she is a lot like me - she is a little slow but persistent…. I don’t know what he means by that, but my dad agrees with him.

The big news is that we are going to Irvine tomorrow!! After an hour or so with the airlines, we convinced them to change our tickets so we fly out of LAX on the first. Angelo sounded so excited when I told him. It looks like we’ll be celebrating New Years with some of the old crew again. This has been a nice, relaxing trip so far because almost nothing has been planned, and we have just been going with what works. It’s a very Italian way to travel. We like it.

I am waiting for Matthias’s plane to land in Phoenix Sky Harbor
airport. Being back in a civilized land, I have access to free
wireless while I wait!

So Merry Christmas Y’all!!

A BBC article:

High IQ link to being vegetarian: Vegetarianism has been linked to better heart health

“Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.
A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.”

I think it’s a far better indicator of my intelligence than my ability to spell and my SAT score!

I discovered something new last night. You see, I don’t have cable, and I have been using an antena on the top of my apartment building to get reception. The reception was so bad that I started experimenting (it’s the scientists in me). I found that I get the hands down best reception by holding the coax cable with my finger touching the contact. Since, I don’t want to literally be tied to the TV when I watch, I tried a few more options. The second best reception happens when I tape the Coax to the frame of the sliding glass door! So, I have left it there in the past few days, and my TV watching capabilities have doubled. I went from 6 to 12 channels! You can see why I don’t watch much TV.

My coworker (who manages the E&M spectrum for NSF) said that the problem with reception from the rooftop is probably caused by too much signal, not lack of, because we are really close to many TV towers here. It causes some reflections and distortions. He claims that when I am holding the cable, I am such a bad receiver that I actually damp the distortions. I don’t by it, but I can’t offer a better explanation so that’s the theory I am sticking to at the moment.

Anyway, the night before last with my new array of stations, I was changing the channel and saw an image of a telescope on one of the Spanish language stations. I stopped to see what it was, and I heard German! The show, whatever it was, was just ending. I decided to see if this was some kind of regular thing, so I looked at the same channel again last night. I found a documentary in some language I didn’t recognize, dubbed in German with Spanish subtitles! It’s like learning two languages at a time! How cool is that? Unfortunately, the show was a boring documentary about a car crash, and I stopped watching, but there is some potential there.

An update on the travel plans - Matthias is still flying through London, but it looks like they are finally getting flights moving again. The fog has lifted, do to speak. Too much travel…..

So, in a strange twist of fate, Matthias is coming to DC via London Heathrow, and I am supposed to go to Phoenix via Denver. For those of you who have been paying attention to the weather, you’ll know there’s a not so small chance that things may not work out according to plan. Matthias has to wait until tomorrow morning to try to change his tickets (things in Europe aren’t open 24 hours). I just changed my flight to Phoenix so that I go through San Francisco and add a few hours to my flight time. I had originally booked our flights so that they were only an hour apart so neither one of us had to wait too long at the airport, but that went out the window so I could avoid Denver. Here’s hoping that Matthias even gets to this side of the Atlantic on Saturday!!

The airlines are going to love us. Once we arrive in Phoenix we are going to beg, bargin and fight to get our return tickets changed so that we fly back out of Orange County. We’ll see if all of our crazy ideas come together or we just end up a few days in Phoenix and then being sent back home to DC to figure out a New Years plan for the two of us. We are turning into real Italian travelers these days.

After talking to Adrian today, I learned I really have nothing to complain about. I could be like Maria Jose and sitting in bed at the end of my 9th month of being pregnant waiting for my body to do what it’s supposed to do (plus having the parents around and not too mention a 2 year old obsessed with cars)! Good luck Maria and Adrian!

Since there is a good chance I won’t be posting for a few days at least, Happy Holidays to everyone, and I hope I see everyone sometime soon

I’ll try to be brief, but it was an eventful weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera along - ironically, the weekend ended at a photo exhibition. All of the artists spoke about taking their camera every where :-). I think someone out there was making a commentary on my life.

Dad invited me up to Pennsylvania, so on Friday at lunch, I rented a car and headed up. Enterprise has a great deal where it’s $15 a day for the weekend for a car. Pretty good deal.

I stopped off at Temple University to see Ruth, made an appointment to meet her on Sunday at a photography studio for an event where she would speak, and then I headed up to see dad.

Dad took me to Atlantic City on Saturday afternoon along with Uncle Ken, Aunt Louise, Uncle George and Aunt Sue. It was nice to see them all again even though we split up upon hitting the casino! After a couple of hours, we did meet up for dinner though. Dad and I walked around a bit on the boardwalk, had a coffee, got sand in our shoes and then gambled. We lost a lot of money before dinner, but then I went to a slot machine directly in front of the restaurant, put in a dollar and won over $30. My luck picked up from there, and we won back most of what we spend before dinner. It was nice to have it balance out like that. As we were waiting to meet up with the gang to head out, dad was giving me back a few dollars that I gave him when he ran out of bills. A security guy walked up to us at this point, and asked, “Is there a problem here?” Naively, we both said no, we were just waiting to meet some people. He walked away slowly eyeing me…..upon some reflection, we realized that the exchange of cash and our age difference may have drawn some suspicion. We weren’t sure which one of us should be more offended. - me, for being mistaken as a prostitute or my dad, for possibly being eyed as a serial killer who has been attacking prostitutes in Atlantic City recently. I think I win for the bigger insult.

This morning, after some Skype time with Matthias, I met up with friend I had lost touch with about ten years ago. Due to the recent, sudden death of an old acquaintance, Brauna, another friend, Kris, called me to share the news earlier this week. It was a last gift from our friend to bring some people together. I met Kris and Becky for lunch today with their kids (2 each). It was nice to see them and their beautiful kids. They are all grown up and taking care of other people. I am still playing and trying to figure out what I am doing here I feel a little more grown up being a married woman though - thanks for that Matthias!

The day progressed into a photo gallery in Philly (thanks, Ruth for just being your fabulous self and inviting me to follow you). Ruth was on a panel for photographers who were displaying their photo books at the Photo West Gallery. Ruth gave a great, lively introduction to the exhibit as a whole. I really enjoyed some of the work - I didn’t get some of it. The quote in the title was spoken by one of the photographers though it is attributed to someone else (don’t ask me who). Before the panel began, Laurence Salzmann played one of his documentaries about a Jewish community in Romania. It was interesting with great stories about the people. I realized that I can understand a good deal of Yiddish now! Learning German has so many benefits. I bought one of his books tonight. It is a book of photos from the Romanian community’s communal baths - What I will be doing with beautiful images of naked Jewish men in a sauna has yet to be decided.

It was great to sit in a little gallery listening to discussions about art that I don’t completely get. Since it is the third night of Hanukkah tonight, we all partook in some potato cakes with apple sauce after a little prayer - that was dinner. I need more of the art scene in my life.

This gives me the giggles.

A new report based on the 2004 census data found that “More people are injured by wheelchairs than by lawnmowers, the abstract reports. Bicycles are involved in more accidents than any other consumer product, but beds rank a close second.”

So, here’s a networking tip for everyone - I mean ‘networking’ as in meeting and connecting with lots of people, not IT. Anyway, I bought a cool lamp last week and put it in my office yesterday to help reduce the need for the annoying flouresent lights in my windowless office. Apparently, having a new lamp is one of the best ways to meet people in my office! I have met more people from my floor than I have the entire time I have been here because of that lamp! Who knew?

I made some useful connections too. For example, I have been trying to make sense of the international agreements for constructing and managing the Large Hadron Collider (a big machine that smashes atoms together in Europe). Today, the man in NSF who oversees the experimental contribution from the U.S. part of the collaboration dropped in to admire my lamp! Somehow we started talking about that project and what do you know, I have an offer to interview him and extract the info I need….no need to try to figure out what the lawyers wrote in those agreements. I mean, the entire infinite Universe is one thing, but I don’t think I’ll ever get contract law.

On another note, we had the AAAS Holiday party today, and it was fun. I got a new dress when I went Christmas shopping on Sunday (yes, I admit that I went shopping for others and only managed to by a dress for me ). I got my chance to wear it tonight. Observe the fabulous dress with the fabulous green necklace from a German toy store, and my friend Gay’s fabulous red dress. It was a nice party, and I was reminded why I am so happy to be married - I don’t have to pretend to be nice to annoying single men!! The lawyers (again with the lawyers) from the party next door started shmoosing on the balcony and seem to instictivly recognize the single ladies….or I am just such a big dork that they avoid me naturally. One guy was going on and on with one poor Cognative scientist on about how cognative science is his new replacement for existentialism - oh God……. Seth, how can you be a lawyer and not a freak? - oh, wait….

I did get to dance though, which is always my favorite part of any party! There was only about 30 minute of dancing, but they did play Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ and my favorite Prince song ‘I just want your extra time and your (da, da, da), KISS!’ More photos from the party are on Flickr.com

I started decorating a bit for Christmas in my usual strange way. Here’s what I have so far. I’d like to get a tree, but it would take a lot of effort to get one here without a car. I might go to Trader Joes this week and get a little plant or something.