georion23

1. i love my boss. love love love my boss. she is absolutely amazing and i am very lucky i get to work so closely with her. she makes the days fly by. i can't believe it's friday. i really wish the work week wasn't over yet. she's gone at a conference all week next week (though i'll see her in a video teleconference on thursday) and i'm going to miss her.

2. it is colder in houston, tx than in groznyj, russia. do with that what you will.

em and i went out for whataburger for brunch (breakfast for her, lunch for me) at around 11 and then hightailed it back home before the crazy wrath-of-god storms hit. it's been raining crazy hard all afternoon, and it's so much the drainage system can't handle it so the streets are completely flooded. the streets and sidewalks are completely covered in water. parking lots are lakes. a firetruck tried to go down our street but the water is so deep they decided even they couldn't pass through it so they threw it in reverse. crazy craziness outside. so i'm staying inside with my electricity flickering on and off in my nice warm office trying to get some work done. i'm where the transparent cross inside a circle is on the radar picture.



i did manage to finish grading, except for a couple labs i'm waiting for students to turn in. that should happen by monday afternoon, and then i'm done teaching. and cin-ty is giving me a break from ta-ing, so no teaching in the fall, and possibly the spring, which is exciting. i met with raj yesterday and we talked about my second proposal/term paper and i've got some work to do this weekend and meet with him about monday. i feel good about it though. then a couple paper critiques to crank out, a few paper reviews that are hand written that i need to type up, and finishing my paper. then done for the semester. everything is due a week from monday. it's going to be a busy week. but, i only need to go to school monday afternoon, and then for a couple hours wednesday. i've got an endocrinologist appt up in spring thursday but i'll have the whole afternoon to work at a coffee shop up there, and then em and i are going to galveston friday afternoon. more on that later. other than that, all working. it'll be nice to stay home and work. my office is so nice and cozy. and i totally dig my new desk. here's a panorama of most of it (not the far right end)

my apartment is under mandatory evacuation from hurricane ike. emily and i, with kepler, tater tot, and em's turtle donnie, will be heading to austin this afternoon. we're staying with my aunt and uncle, and i'm not sure of the internet situation, so we'll see when i'm back online. see y'all on the flip side.

i wish i had a popsicle. it's 80 degrees and sunny outside. i want to sit out on the patio and read my paper and eat a popsicle. an orange one. yes.

since it has been raining so much, lake travis was past full so they opened a floodgate at mansfield dam, and i got some cool nighttime photos. sara and i went to friday's for dinner and got oreo cake for dessert. it was served on a long, rectangular plate with a trail of chocolate leading to a strawberry on one end. while walking around shopping in the arboretum, sara, emily, and i came across some wandering jew plants, complete with fresh rainwater drops.

all of the rest are online here.

the stargazing event went well last night. i got out there a bit early so i caught a nice sunset. i only had one problem person out of 50. she was drunk and couldn't see anything in the telescope and kept telling me i didn't have it on anything and i was bullshitting her, even when other people told her there was indeed something in the eyepiece. she was just so drunk she couldn't get her head at the right angle to see anything so she was viewing the side of the eyepiece. but the rest of the crowd was very impressed. i showed them jupiter (and all four of the galilean satellites were visible), the hercules globular cluster, the ring nebula, and the andromeda galaxy. pointed out some stars and constellations and you could even see the milky way a little bit. the only problem was the people putting on the thing (it was a huge ordeal with hummer tours of the desert and a cookout.) had giant bright lights so it was really hard to see things (see the telescope to the left? that was AFTER they turned some of them off.). the guests had to put their hands up to their eyes to shield them from the lights. ugh. they come all the way out to the desert (some from england, some from holland, some from the northeast, some from texas!) because of the dark, clear skies. and then they can't see them because of the bloody lights. frustrating. oh well. they still seemed to enjoy it.

i was feeling like shit after i got home because it had been such a long and stressful day, so i ate some food, did NOT set an alarm, and went to bed. slept pretty soundly until 5am when my lovely aunt dana called me. actually, my 7(? 8?)-year-old cousin katy called me. so i had this nice high-pitched voice in my ear after being awakened from a dead sleep telling me about seeing the international space station fly over. uh huh, that's good katy. is your mom around? then dana gets on and says, "that was the most amazing thing i've ever seen!" good...it's 5am, dana. "right, but it was so awesome!" uh huh. then she realizes i'm REALLY not awake and will not be coherent for a conversation at the moment so she tells me to call her later and we hang up. i had given her the website where you can look up when it will be flying over your location. it's especially bright now since the latest shuttle mission deployed more solar panels. so it's quite impressive and they were so excited they had to call me at 5am to tell me all about it. at least i was able to go back to sleep.

think i got my mom to get off the "you don't have enough money to fly home for thanksgiving" thing because i'll be getting a check in the next couple weeks for $250 for the last two stargazing events i've run so that will cover the cost of a plane ticket and then some. so that's good.

going to put my run up soon. then happy hour at four peaks and then the grey's anatomy season premiere. woo!

it's 82 degrees outside. check this out. 60s at night and high 80s to low 90s in the day. hell yes. it feels wonderful outside. about damn time, too. i love weather like this. makes me happy.

kepler decided last night to make himself comfortable in my bed. had to kick him out so i could go to sleep. silly cat.

sent sara and todd their birthday presents earlier this week so they should get there in the next day or two. maybe even today. fun. they're going to like them.

need to fill out the form so i can vote by absentee ballot for the texas elections in november. i like their directions: "You may open this form (PDF, 38kb), print the application, fill in the information, sign and date it. You will then put it in an envelope, add postage, and mail to the Early Voting Clerk in your county." you know, in case you've never used the mail system before. and you WILL put it in an envelope, etc. you have no choice. do it. do it now.

time to go put my run in. yay!