Still Here

Tiffany says I haven't posted in awhile, so here goes.

We made a cherry stout quite a long time ago. It should be in good shape for our Thanksgiving road trip back to the bay area.

I am working hard on post-doc applications. Finished my first one for Berkeley yesterday. Second one for Utah is due Wednesday. Then a two week lull, followed by 8 applications in two weeks. In the next 6 weeks I'll probably finish about 11 applications. By early December, a new wave of applications will be posted and I get to start all over again. Yay!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yahoo Mom!!

Incidentally, we finally got around to bottling the brown ale last night. There was little flecks of stuff floating in the beer, and it had a strange smell, but we drank some and it tasted ok, so we'll so how it ends up after carbonation.

Mary and Heidi are in town

Mary and Heidi arrived this evening. Sirius and Heidi are already best buds.

We finished brewing a brown ale tonight. Yesterday we bottled the Imperial Stout, which is going to be fabulous in a couple months. Our original homebrew, the amber ale, is finally starting to taste a little carbonated and like decent, potable beer. Yay us.

This weekend is an ultimate frisbee tournament for me in Park City, only a half hour away from our house. Should be a lot of fun. Hopefully I'll have time on Sunday to walk with the gang somewhere near Park City.

Bunch of pics posted

I finally posted the pictures from Marseille and Monaco. I wrote a little blog post somewhere when I didn't have internet access, but now I can't find it. If I'm ever able to find it, I'll post it here.

Missed June Completely

Whoops. So much for June...

I'm in France right now for a conference. Jet lag is hitting me pretty bad. I slept like 4 or 5 hours the past several days and I feel pretty wiped out right now (twenty minutes before the lunch break ends on the third day of the conference). It takes me forever to fall asleep at night, and then I have to wake up several hours before I'm ready to. Plus the conference isn't all that great. I am, however, looking forward to watching the Tour de France on Saturday in Monaco and then on Monday when it goes through Marseille, where the conference is. If everything works out like it currently is, I'll finally be adjusted to the time zone on Tuesday, when I fly back to the States. Brilliant!

Philanthropy!

Tiffany and I recently went through our finances and found that we had saved up a bit more money than we thought we would, so I decided it's high time I start donating some of my disposable income to causes that really deserve it. I had been thinking about donating to a non-profit dedicated to saving the environment, but nothing quite appealed to me.

Then, yesterday, I heard about the Harlem Children's Zone, a 100 block area in Harlem where the focus is placed entirely on giving children the best chance to succeed, all the way from birth through college graduation. It struck me as exactly the right way to go about giving kids the right environment in which to grow up. So, this morning, I donated $100 (and now I get my own special HCZ hat!!). I encourage everyone to check out their website, and if you feel like it, give 'em money!

Two Earth-Shattering Events

Number 1: Tiffany got sworn in today! I was there for the oath and all that. It was good. Momentous, and it only took 10 minutes too.

Number 2: Tiffany took Sirius roller-blading, and he is EXHAUSTED! Damn!! His breathing sounds "fast" according to Tiff. I say it sounds like he hasn't finished his breath before he starts a new one! Amazing. Now there is actually an activity where Sirius gets completely worn out and we -- ok, Tiff -- barely has to break a sweat.

Garden Pics

Posted some pics of our garden on the picasa web page. I think a link to them will show up on the right part of the page after I post this.

Lots O Stuff

I'm sitting in the San Jose airport and I guess it's time to review the past couple of weeks. I went to an ultimate frisbee tournament north of Salt Lake City two weekends ago. A couple days after that, I went to bed around 11pm and woke up an hour later to puke my guts out. I puked three more times, once per hour, and finally went to the emergency room to get better around 4am. They got me on IV and made sure I didn't have anything too bad (like swine flu), and I left a couple hours later. The whole day was pretty much lost to sleeping and recovering, but after that I was a lot better. A couple days after that, essentially the same thing happened to Tiff. I guess it was some kind of stomach virus that was quick onset, quick recovery. Of course quick recovery involves 24-36 straight hours of sleep...

Then, this past week I was in Tucson for a meeting with my thesis committee. It didn't go too badly, although there were some bumps along the way. I think the main thing is that I seem to be making some progress. There's still a bit of uncertainty in how things are going to finish up in the next year, but I think it's not unreasonable.

Meanwhile, Tiff left for a field trip for work at 6am on Thursday. 11 hours later, Tiffany's co-worker Morgan was going to drop Sirius off at home before picking me up at the airport returning from Tucson. Unfortunately, she discovered that our house had been broken into. The thief(eves) busted down the door into the dining room and took my old laptop and a stereo receiver before (presumably) getting spooked and taking off. There was a lot more they could have taken but did not, so it could have been a lot worse than it was.

I talked to the cops that night and we walked through the house, while I pointed out the few things that were taken. I was in a pretty weird state of mind. I thought I would be ok, but when I saw the busted-up door, I just freaked out and had a difficult time functioning. I guess that's a normal reaction, who knows.

The next day, I went around telling the neighbors about what happened, and cleaning up the mess in the dining room. Then I got on my flight to San Jose for my sister's graduation ceremony from SJSU library school. It was a good ceremony, with good speeches emphasizing how important it will be in the coming years to maintain the level of access to information that we currently have, and how librarians will play a critical role in that endeavor.

Today my family went to see the new Star Trek movie in the theaters. I liked the characters (except for the one-dimensional, boring villain). The plot was iffy / so-so, but that's usually the way it is with Star Trek.

I'm supposed to arrive in SLC at 8:20pm, and then I'll get a few weeks uninterrupted at home. It'll be nice not to have to travel for awhile. Ok, I'm exhausted! Adios.

Chateau Chunder

I went to bed last night around 11pm, and an hour later I was in the bathroom vomiting my head off. Eventually we went to the emergency room around 5am (Tiffany has been a total all-star all day today; Thanks Tiff!) and I got some IV fluid and some kind of medicine that helped reduce the nausea. We left the hospital around 7am and I was feeling ok, but all day long I've felt like crap. Fever, chills, a bit of nausea. No cough or cold symptoms though, so apparently it's some kind of stomach virus. I have some nausea medication that will help me sleep tonight, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be feeling better. In the meantime, I leave you with this:

Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

So that's what I had last night!

Back to Life

And we're back in Salt Lake City. I think we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish. There isn't much more we can do, so we need to focus on our lives for the time being.

Off to CO Tonight

We're heading to Colorado Springs tonight, and we'll be there through the weekend. Should be an interesting visit...

In other news, the internet is back up at home. And I got to watch the Sharks beat the utter living daylights out of the Ducks last night, 4-3. Let's hope they keep it up!

Like a Cockroach, Horsey Just Won't Die

I was casually poring out some brown rice into the rice cooker today, and I happened upon this lovely little creature. Back from the dead! And on such a fitting day too!

Attorney AT LAW

Yes indeedy!!! Ms. Bartz is now an official lawyer! Congratulations Tiffany!!!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Famous

Yes it's true, I'm now famous. I can die happy, as finally my ultimate goal in life has been realized beyond my wildest fantasies.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1340582

Victorious!!!

My ultimate frisbee team won the SLC winter league!  YEAH BABY!!  Everyone on the team had a great day and we totally came out on top.  We had to beat a good team in the semis first, then watch a better team win the next semifinal game, then beat the better team in the finals to win it all.  We had a bunch of college kids on the team and they played their hearts out.

I played well in both games and actually scored a few points.  Also played some good defense, which I tend to think is my forte.  That and making very few stupid plays.

I'm still feelin' good oh yea!  Getting tired though so it's time for bed.  PEACE OUT!

The White Tornado Has Touched Down

"I was really looking forward to reading National Geographic and playing Boggle, and then I saw the dustbuster."

Yeah. Our house is CLEAN!

Tiime to go to bed!

It being 6:52am and all.

Just submitted a proposal to use a telescope in France to measure how much carbon monoxide is emitted by DOGs (dust obscured galaxies yo) back in the day (the day being a few billion years after the big bang, or about 10 billion years ago).

At least I beat the sunrise!!

Jess and Joe in Town

Our old friends Jessica and Joseph are in town to fix our teapot.  Joe, where the heck have you been for the past couple years!?!?  Jessica meanwhile is torturing us by baking a chocolate raspberry cake and forcing us to wait to eat it until tonight.  Grrr!

I forgot to mention this earlier, but Tiffany is now a full-fledged nerd.  She may not want the world to know, but a couple weeks ago, we watched...  STAR WARS!  And THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!  and THE RETURN OF THE JEDI!!  Yes, she finally knows where "scruffy looking... NERF HERDER" "who's scruffy looking?" comes from.  And the next time Nelson and I get rolling with a few "I have a bad feeling about this..."  she can join in too!  Welcome, Tiffany!

Nearing the End of the Great Study

Tiff is only two days away from taking the bar exam. It's a two day test (all of Tuesday and Wednesday), yikes!! Fortunately, she's spent the past six weeks or so studying her butt off, so she's in good shape.

I played frisbee tonight in what can best be described as an acrimonious affair. Now frisbee just shouldn't be anything close to acrimonious. But there were a few questionable calls on both sides, and it was a close game, and these things happen. It's kinda too bad, considering it should be a league for fun, but some people get carried away sometimes. Hey, it even happens to me occasionally, and I have the emotional range of a teaspoon.

I just spent a week in Socorro, NM, learning how to reduce and analyze data from the VLA. I had help from a couple of experts there and it made the reduction process go a lot faster.

Tomorrow the plan is to go cross country skiing out in the Uintas. Should be fun!

Snowboarding is Fun!

Yesterday Tiff and I went snowboarding, and I had the best run of my life around the middle of the day. I had my ipod on and was listening to a bunch of punk and yelling at the top of my lungs. Apparently I was loud enough that Tiff heard me while she was on a lift going up! Wowsers.

Also, normally I don't like to toot my own horn too much, but in this case I just can't resist. Nelson posted this competition over at the joyful fool, and I supplied the correct answer, along with some extra-credit background info. As a result, I am now 1 dahra richer than I was before. Oh yeah, baby!

Merry Inauguration Day!

Can't wait to watch Obama's speech!  And good riddance to the reign of error!

Go Sharks!

Just finished watching the Sharks beat the Red Wings 6-5 in SJ.  It was a great game.  Maybe I'm just too pessimistic, but it seems like Detroit's a touch better than the Sharks.  But San Jose is really good too, so any time they play I think either team can win.

We went cross-country skiing again today.  I'm definitely getting better, but there were some tough times when we got off the beaten path.  Next time I'll try to bring the video camera.  Tiff took a couple movies with her digital camera; maybe I can post one of them tomorrow.  Sirius did really well and didn't jump on anyone at all!

Speaking of Sirius, he's got some kind of ear problem.  Probably allergies or something.  He shakes his head and scratches his left ear a lot.  We've been cleaning it out with these special wipes, but I think we'll have to take him to a vet on Monday or Tuesday. 

Blogging Sucks

It's been like 23 weeks or so since my last post.

Let's see... Tiffany passed her MPRE (ethics law exam, where the goal is to provide the least ethical response to each question). Go Tiff!!

We went back to California for Thanksgiving and had a good time.

I had a thesis committee meeting in Tucson, went back to Salt Lake for a few days, then traveled to a conference in Socorro, NM two weeks before Christmas, then to home in SJ for Christmas, then to Colorado Springs for a couple days with Tiff's family, and then finally we drove back to Salt Lake on the 31st.

Yesterday we went to REI and bought cross-country skis and did some skiing that very day. It was tough learning how to do it for me, but it was fun. Tiffany really likes it quite a bit. Sirius got to come along too, but he got too excited and jumped at people that were skiing downhill. We might have to take him to obedience lessons so he doesn't do that stuff...

Today we snowshoed up in some hills behind the university of Utah. It was pretty much straight uphill, which my snowshoes aren't quite equipped for (I ended up going up on all fours). But Tiff's are quite good and she didn't have too much of a problem. Once we got to the top there was a very nice view of the city.

It's cold today!! 20 degrees or something is the high. Finally time to take the Christmas lights down. Tonight is my first night of indoor winter ultimate frisbee league. I'm looking forward to it quite a bit!