and another one bites the dust

how are the weekends . . . and weeks for that matter . . . going by so quickly lately? it's just been an unbelievably fast progression from july to what is now almost october. i can hardly handle it.

matt was in town this weekend. he got in on thursday and had what seemed to be a pretty productive day on friday while i ran two dissertation visits in the morning and went to two meetings in the afternoon. he picked me up for lunch in between and was just generally a good sport about the busy scheduling.

we went to a couple of tailgates before the temple vs. psu game on saturday. in general, i try to avoid posting pictures that look like advertisements for cheap alcohol on my blog because it seems a little tacky, but i'm eager to see what people think of this one. we were flipping through the pictures that we took yesterday (like. . . when matt and i beat kristin and erik at beanbags. . . woot woot!) and for some reason, this one stopped me:

i can't tell you how many times in my life people have told me that i look "just like a brooker," but scrolling past this photo, i definitely thought. . . that could be my mom. maybe i just saw enough pictures from when i was little to see mom in those skinny jeans and oversized sunglasses, but i see it nonetheless. it also brings me back to all of the times that kara has been caught in this cycle with our family pics, "you look just like your mom. . . or, dad. . . no, mom. . .no, dad. . .or maybe mom. . . i actually don't know. . . " well said, kara jo :)

wait, erin garrett is going to want to decide for herself, but hasn't seen that family pic. don't you worry, EG, i've got you covered! (inserting picture now)

we didn't stay for the game, but between sleeping in, the bus rides to and from the tailgating, and watching the rest of the games circa the champs patio, our day was pretty much full.

i think days like that are good sometimes, though. even necessary. it was, of course, pretty much surrounded by "work people" over the course of the day. however, i sometimes forget how nice it is to see people in a "life" context rather than a "work" context, even when all of the faces are the same. we all have a lot going on workwise all of the time. but as it turns out, we're all people, too. and thankfully, we can all occasionally let go of the work stuff temporarily and come together in the midst of the life stuff. we can laugh and play and share snickerdoodles and it's all good. it's all easy. like it should be on occasion.

i say that, of course, as i assemble my "to do" list for the coming week. i will again be trying to cram 5 days of work into about 2 1/2 - to prevent any serious level of getting behind while i'm in portland for the society for psychophysiological research (SPR) conference. hopefully i've used today to give myself enough of a head start.

matt and i rounded out the weekend with a round of golf at freestone. we can't figure out why, but the prices seem to have gone down. perhaps the official start of fall means that we are now in the "off-season." that's kind of depressing. no less depressing than our scores. . . but, it was still a beautiful morning to be out.

oh, and mom and kassi will like this. there were some people wandering around the tailgate yesterday offering free face painting as a way of promoting their organization. wanting something cute, but of course not wanting the same thing everyone else was getting, i asked for these adorable nittany lion tracks up my right arm.

just wish i would've thought ahead about the funny tan lines that that was going to leave. . .

ahhhh, so. . . we can happily start the week recording a win for the nittany lions, a win for the hawkeyes, and a win for matt's wolverines. the texas faction of this house is significantly less pleased, i would imagine. we'll try to end/start the week with smiles, though, and cross our fingers for a good week all the way around next week!

life decisions. . .

i'm allowing myself to interrupt working to post this today because i'm realizing that since this is my last year, posting stuff like this next year will mean something totally different :) And you'd hate to miss out on giggling at something like this, right?

wax on. . . wax off. . . (dads not included)

i already told my mom this, but i finally got around to waxing my car yesterday. i've been meaning to do it for quite a while now. . .like about every summer that i've been here. i did a pretty good job of the once-a-year wax when i was still in and around iowa (for reasons that we'll get to in a minute), and i'm pretty good about car maintenance in general, but for some reason waxing my car always seemed to fall by the wayside.

except for this weekend, that is. i finally got around to it and here's what i learned: when i would wax my car at home, i would just get started and my dad would come out and help me. (i remember this happening at least twice.) this act turned out to be one of the nicest gestures ever, since it just so happens that waxing your car by yourself is a crapTON of work. or at least relative to when you have someone else helping you.

however, i think dad would be proud, because look at what i found waiting for me when i walked out of wegmans today:

i remember thinking several times as i was doing it, "i wish i knew how on earth wax worked. . . ," so i admit that i don't know very much, but i DO know that those beads of water are a good thing. so, yay!

all in all then, i'll say the day was & lot of work, and a glaring success. . . no wait. . .a beading success :)

derby day

so, some of you know and some of you don't, but last weekend i saw my first rolly derby bout. i had no idea that my response would be this: it was awesome. totally, totally awesome. it was an event of the harrisburg area roller derby team, so we had to make quite a drive, but it turned out to be totally worth it.

and because apparently it's required for every type of sporting event here, there was tailgating first (and photographic evidence that i am completely unable to produce a "tough-looking' face.

i will be working on that in case i really do end up moving to new york.

so, the general jist of roller derby - for those of you who don't know - is that the jammers (those skaters with the stars on their helmets) get a point for every player of the opposite team that they are able to skate past. the green team is the harrisburg team. it might not look like they're very good, because. . .well, it seems like they're really not. on the other hand, the team that they played from rhode island was pretty awesome. don't believe me? compare. . .

harrisburg:


Rhode Island (followed by lots of falling down by both teams):



you don't really have to know that much about roller derby to see the difference, right?

but, it was really fun. and i'm suddenly wondering why i lived so long in des moines and never knew that they had a roller derby team - which is apparently pretty darn good! in any case, we all know that i like getting to try new things, and it's even better when they turn out to be enjoyable.

or maybe it's just all relative, though - as nothing much happened during this (or really any other) week in graduate school. although it's kind of starting to hit me that this really is my last year. i mean, look. graduation day is only a little over two hundred days away. . .



but, yeah, until then, probably going to be writing papers and resubmitting my grant. oh. . . and finishing up that little "dissertation thing."

then after that, i can work on selecting my roller derby name :)

new year resolution?

ah, the throws of another year are upon me and i find myself trying to explain to my mother and niece why i haven't updated by blog since the fourth of july. i don't have much of an answer for them, to be honest, but i do have hopes that a more regular schedule will mean more regular updates. it seems like those things should go together, right?

so, after fourth of july was the ERP bootcamp in Davis and a botched trip to Eugene. i don't think either of those things need recounting at this point, except to say the Davis trip was about 6,000,000 times better. and matt gets 5,000 brownie points for driving me to columbus, driving home, calling me right after he walked in the door and talking me out of tears, and then redoing the 5 hour round trip drive to come get me from the airport that i was just dropped off at. there were a variety of travel games played on the way home that involved recounting songs, movies, writers, etc., to keep us awake.


this is kind of a sidebar, but as i was looking through the pictures from boot camp, i realized how funny i think these pictures are where people are pretty much just doing silly poses in the background. i think there are a few websites that focus on this kind of thing, but you can imagine my delight when i found that this unknown stranger had made an extra effort to be a part of our pic. thanks, random davis guy. you make me smile.

since then, the big news has been ashley moving in (she's adorable) and matt officially starting to live the life of dr. vess. look at how excited he was when we pulled into athens on move-in day:

you can't fake excitement like that, people. i was waiting to take pictures of the inside of the apartment until it was furnished - which would have been this weekend. unfortunately my camera batteries died, so you'll just have to live in anticipation of that moment. but the outside of his part of monticello village is cute. and the view is great. it looks right down on athens. and you really can't see it so much from the other picture, but matt has said that some days, he can walk over and see how busy the golf course is before he decides if it's worth venturing out or not. how about that. . .

this past weekend i was in athens again for labor day. on sunday we ventured over toward parkersburg, wv where we met up with peggy and visited the historic blennerhassett island. not only did we get a beautiful day and i learned a lot of things, but we also saw a bunch of deer AND i got to drive a sternwheeler. yup, that's what i said. i got to drive. matt only jumped in for the picture because the captain (or should i say my cocaptain) made him.

glad we got that picture snapped before my batteries died.

so, now it's back to the grindstone. more running my dissertation study and trying to write up papers this month and then next month the grant renewal has to become a priority. so, send your productivity vibes this way if you can!

in ohio for the fourth

i keep swearing that i will be caught up in my postings by the time i leave for california. it seems like since that happens on sunday, i should get moving on my post re: our last trip to ohio. we spent the 4th of july weekend at matt's home in southeastern ohio.


View Larger Map

really, that whole map should be green with little hills on it, because that's exactly what the landscape looks like. it's really beautiful and things were really lush while we were there.

matt had always told me that he lived in the "middle of nowhere," but i don't think i ever actually got it until i saw it. (i suppose the lack of cell phone reception should have been some indication:) this photo is taken from the road in front of his house. you don't get the full effect here, but it's kind of a mini valley from which you can see about as many neighbors and other houses as you can see here. i keep saying that it feels a bit like the midwest in that in the country, neighbors can be a fair distance apart. i think the distinction for me, though, is that the hills don't just make you feel "away," they also make you feel "apart." we actually might have seen more deer and rabbits in the yard than we did people. it's a peaceful remoteness, though, to be sure and an extra-nice escape from graduate school madness.

the main focus of the first part of the move was the arrival of matt's things from missouri (yes, finally) at the hand of a single man from columbus with a diesel truck and unmarked trailer. yup, it was as weird as it sounds. he worked pretty quickly, though, and left us time to go golfing at the golf club of west virginia. the pictures essentially speak for themselves - have you ever seen hills like this on a golf course?! i think i might have died if we tried to walk it. instead we used a cart and got in 18 holes. we both played a surprising mix of really well and really awfully. one has to keep it interesting, you know!

the good news is that i finally got a little bit of sun. you can see that by the end of the day, both of our freckles had really begun to come out :)

the next two days were kind of a mix of work and play. we both had things that we needed to get done to feel like we're still contributing to either someday finishing graduate school (me) or to the start of a career (matt). we did take one day and go to athens, oh, where the professorship will be starting in the fall. it was SO hot out, but nice to see the school's campus, matt's apartment for next year, and some of the places that we're already planning on going to eat and/or exploring in athens. we also went to a 3D movie - my first, i think. we saw the last airbender, which left a bit to be desired acting-wise, but was essentially good and worth seeing. i was expecting a weird m. night shyamalan twist at the end which didn't happen, though. probably for the better.

i also went on my first 4-wheeler ride through the foothills of appalachia. the main tour was on a gravel road which may be a main road for the township, given the degree to which it was well-labeled, if not well-traveled. it kind of made me laugh in spite of myself. certainly, i am nothing if not familiar with rural areas.

we also had the ever-popular fourth of july picnic, complete with the all-American (and yummy yummy) apple pie, good southern sweat tea, and food hot off the grill. this - of course - was followed by several games of bean bags. it was a great time, great food, and great company all around. it was such an shockingly fast trip that i can hardly believe how much we packed into a few days. i haven't even mentioned all the driving time, the stopping at the tanger outlets in washington, pa, or the lunch we had on the banks of the ohio river with our new friends - about 500 ducks and geese (who, it turns out, don't really like to eat lettuce. go figure).

AND i took one picture especially for my mom, because i knew she would appreciate it.

is this a rickety old barn, mom? :)

Music & Milwaukee

remember me saying that we went to milwaukee? yeah, i know that seems like ages ago now, but i am finally ready to write a bit about it. lucky you :)

I didn't take many pictures on the first day in milwaukee. Matt and all male members of the "we're here for the wedding" team went to the brewers game. it sounded like they had a great time (though rumor has it that the stadium gets quite warm when the roof closes). however, i forgot to send my camera along, so if you want to see a picture of miller park, you'll have to do it by clicking here. looks awesome, right? i made Matt promise that we would go back on a day when girls can watch baseball, too ;)

I went with Laura (bride-to-be) and some of DJ's (groom-to-be) family to a cute little seafood joint on the river. truth be told, i kind of fell in love with DJ's grandmother. she was absolutely adorable and we talked a lot about the midwest and her dairy cows. she has a sharp wit about her that definitely contributed to the fun of the evening.

the next day was the day of the wedding. it was a small and intimate group and both an excellent day and an excellent venue. i got quite a few pictures of the ceremony, but I'm actually not going to post a lot of them because it feels a little bit invasive to me to post a play-by-play of someone else's wedding. but you can get an idea of how cute it was from this pic - on the river, beautiful day, happy people - kind of what you'd hope for, i think.

and then my camera battery died, so i won't be posting a lot of reception pictures, either. sorry, friends, i'm still new to this "having the camera" responsibility. i didn't anticipate it coming with other responsibilities like "carry extra batteries."

over the course of the next couple of days, we did some seeing-of-the-city activities. a lot of them involved having food and drinks on the river, because it was gorgeous weather and none of us currently live in places where we can do such things.

the rest of the time we spent at summerfest, which was a ridiculously cheap $15 to get in -AND which matt and i only paid for once because we randomly ended up with these spectacular free passes. what luck! what did we DO at summerfest, you ask? i'm glad you're curious, because I actually have that part of the trip well documented :)

well, we listened to music, of course. my favorite show was probably thievery corporation, although we saw some pretty great local bands at the indie stage (more on that in a later post).  they didn't have the same person singing for the first six songs. seriously - six songs! they just kept rotating singers in and out. and it was fun to be in the crowd because nobody could listen to the music standing still. it was infectious with dance, as you can see here:

but it actually wasn't all music for us. true to form, matt and i each participated in a summerfest competition. i had to "show a talent" on one of the summerfest stages. there weren't a lot of props to choose from, but i made good with the hula hoop, a skill anyone might have bet that i'd lost years ago. as it turns out - that's wrong. i was awesome (or at least good enough to get a cheer and then the same gift that everyone else got :)

matt, on the other hand, participated in a golf challenge. he and his friends Zack (L) and DJ (R) tried their hands to win a car. the deal was that for $6 (or something like that), you got 3 balls and your choice of old, crappy club. if you got a hole in one on the island about 140 feet away (you can see it in the picture under matt's right elbow if you really look), you win. matt actually had a shot that was dead on, but just fell a bit short. i have a feeling there would have been more of this on our second summerfest day had there not been so much wind. alas. . .

wind didn't stop me from finally getting my henna tattoo, however (don't worry mom, it's not permanent. . . in fact, it's already gone :/) aside from having to be pretty patient and pretty still while the ink dried on my finger, i really liked it. look for more of these in the future.

and that was pretty much it, really. (well, we also saw the man vs. food guy if you're into that show). we were exhausted when we got back from having all of the work that is typically involved with traveling, but really it was a culmination of lots of little things that were infinitely enjoyable. i told liz kiel (a native of one of the milwaukee suburbs) that this was a vastly underappreciated summer vacay destination. not surprisingly, she agreed.