Massive Belated Update
It occurs to me that I have not chronicled much of anything lately. I thought I'd at least try to hit some high points, mostly for my own life record. Please feel free to ignore, or
The biggest change came on January 30, when I got engaged. I'd been planning for months and months, but had some troubles. Sarah at first wanted an artificial diamond, then later said she only wanted something that looked like a diamond but was sustainable and that it should be cheap and very low-maintenance for her (no re-plating, etc.). It took me a while to find a nice recycled palladium ring and get a nice-looking cubic zirconia for it (Arlington has many more shops that sell mined diamonds than CZ). Also, I wanted to secretly learn enough guitar to propose via song (it's only time by the magnetic fields). The trouble was that Sarah is generally only out of the house when I'm there one night a week for class, and I'd had trouble both with self-teaching and with finding a teacher who could commit to the very narrow time window I had. Anyway, the day I was going to do it I was working at home so I could also secretly cook a fancy meal in-between working. She called that morning to say how frustrating the whole "women just wait around to be proposed to" system was and it was stupid. The timing was funny, but it still made for a lovely evening, even if less of a surprise (the dinner was still a surprise, as was the manner of proposal). So! We're getting married in May 2011.
I also spent almost two weeks in March in China (Beijing) for work. It was very successful from a work standpoint, and fascinating from any standpoint. The culture, the language, the food was all so different. I had a lot of trouble with the air pollution, and ended up with an eye infection and a fever & sore throat. But it was still beautiful and I had some wonderful feasts. I'd like to go back somewhere outside of the urban areas and see what the countryside is like.
We started a small illicit vegetable garden in front of the steps to my condo in May, just basil and shiso and tomatoes and peppers. The tomatoes and peppers were just volunteers that sprouted from the compost I mixed into the soil for the basil. The peppers are good (some anaheim, some bell pepper, some bull's horn), the sun gold cherry tomatoes are awesome, the romas suck.
In June I visited my brother Chris and his family and had a great time catching up with them all. I hadn't seen Gudrun or William for years. Chris sadly injured himself in short order and was on crutches for the whole trip, but that at least let me feel extra-useful...
Work has been rough lately. Our team lost two more people in March (down to 4) due to layoffs and one more this month (transferred to another team). The workload has been at least what it was before but with half the people. My boss is great, and tries to help me find ways to prioritize things, say no to projects/people who I can't accomodate, etc. But it still has been really stressful frantically trying to get enough done on even the top priorities. Hopefully that will let up sometime, somehow. In the meantime I'm preparing to lead a data publishing workshop in October which should be a lot of work but rewarding. After the last one we did several people told me it was the best meeting/workshop they'd ever been to.
I think being busy at work has made me less apt to want to be on the computer, especially for long enough to write substantial updates. The allure of facebook is the ability to just drop some tiny update without feeling pressure to explain it. But I do occasionally enjoy looking back at livejournal to stir up my horrible memory now and then. Hopefully this meets that goal someday!
The biggest change came on January 30, when I got engaged. I'd been planning for months and months, but had some troubles. Sarah at first wanted an artificial diamond, then later said she only wanted something that looked like a diamond but was sustainable and that it should be cheap and very low-maintenance for her (no re-plating, etc.). It took me a while to find a nice recycled palladium ring and get a nice-looking cubic zirconia for it (Arlington has many more shops that sell mined diamonds than CZ). Also, I wanted to secretly learn enough guitar to propose via song (it's only time by the magnetic fields). The trouble was that Sarah is generally only out of the house when I'm there one night a week for class, and I'd had trouble both with self-teaching and with finding a teacher who could commit to the very narrow time window I had. Anyway, the day I was going to do it I was working at home so I could also secretly cook a fancy meal in-between working. She called that morning to say how frustrating the whole "women just wait around to be proposed to" system was and it was stupid. The timing was funny, but it still made for a lovely evening, even if less of a surprise (the dinner was still a surprise, as was the manner of proposal). So! We're getting married in May 2011.
I also spent almost two weeks in March in China (Beijing) for work. It was very successful from a work standpoint, and fascinating from any standpoint. The culture, the language, the food was all so different. I had a lot of trouble with the air pollution, and ended up with an eye infection and a fever & sore throat. But it was still beautiful and I had some wonderful feasts. I'd like to go back somewhere outside of the urban areas and see what the countryside is like.
We started a small illicit vegetable garden in front of the steps to my condo in May, just basil and shiso and tomatoes and peppers. The tomatoes and peppers were just volunteers that sprouted from the compost I mixed into the soil for the basil. The peppers are good (some anaheim, some bell pepper, some bull's horn), the sun gold cherry tomatoes are awesome, the romas suck.
In June I visited my brother Chris and his family and had a great time catching up with them all. I hadn't seen Gudrun or William for years. Chris sadly injured himself in short order and was on crutches for the whole trip, but that at least let me feel extra-useful...
Work has been rough lately. Our team lost two more people in March (down to 4) due to layoffs and one more this month (transferred to another team). The workload has been at least what it was before but with half the people. My boss is great, and tries to help me find ways to prioritize things, say no to projects/people who I can't accomodate, etc. But it still has been really stressful frantically trying to get enough done on even the top priorities. Hopefully that will let up sometime, somehow. In the meantime I'm preparing to lead a data publishing workshop in October which should be a lot of work but rewarding. After the last one we did several people told me it was the best meeting/workshop they'd ever been to.
I think being busy at work has made me less apt to want to be on the computer, especially for long enough to write substantial updates. The allure of facebook is the ability to just drop some tiny update without feeling pressure to explain it. But I do occasionally enjoy looking back at livejournal to stir up my horrible memory now and then. Hopefully this meets that goal someday!