Nickster

I know, I know, I haven't posted in FOREVER, and... well, that's not super-likely to change any time soon.

In the meantime, my Canada pics are posted on Flickr: The short-form Best of Canada set for the weak, or the larger Canada Vacation collection for the more hearty souls among you.

Vacation was pretty awesome, although a few days too long (thanks to frequent-flier seat restrictions). We had a bit of a scare with my dad not being able to come right away because of a retinal tear, but he got fixed up quickly, and is fine, and really only missed a day's worth of vacation.

Since I've been back, I've mostly been wrangling photos, playing ultimate, reading, fighting with my database, and procrastinating against making my poster for ISBE in Ithaca in a few weeks. Fun times!

HOOOOORAYYY! My NSF DDIG (that's a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, or $$ to pay for my research for you non-science-y folks) has been recommended for full funding for the next two years.

This means, more to the point, that I will actually have the money to finish my genotyping and maybe, some day, actually get my darn degree.

It also means: YAAAAAAAY!

Pictures from Spring Break WOO! 2008 and adrienneee and burnumd's wedding are on Flickr, and a selection of them are on Facebook. For pictures with people in them, you have to be my Flickr friend; leave a comment with your info and I'll friend you.

I spent yesterday afternoon partitioning my hard drive, formatting my partition to accept Windows, installing Windows, and then using Boot Camp to install all of the drivers and bits and dealie bobs that it needs to run.

And now my laptop can run Windows.

I hate it.

It's necessary for my research (the program that I use to assign babydaddies to my birds is Windows-only), and I'm glad that it works, and it *was* the original motivation for getting a new computer at all, but seeing the Windows desktop on the screen of my pretty new laptop made me die a little inside.

Even now, I can't help giving it suspicious looks. It may look all shiny and pretty and friendly, but inside, it's harboring a little 15-gig pocket of evil.

So I was watching part 1 of my most recent BBC british costume drama miniseries (Daniel Deronda, if you're interested, and no, I'd never heard of it either) last night. About ten minutes in, this guy comes on and I *swear* I've seen him before, which is not all that uncommon in costume dramas, but for the life of me I can't place him.

And then I recognize the voice.

And then I can't stop laughing.

Here he is, with Hugh Dancy, below the cut.

( Guess who! )

Hee! bsquaredsf's awesome. My Christmas present came last week - from the Ukraine! - and it's a giant picture of Jamie Bamber. Hee hee hee! I need to get a frame for it, and then find somewhere appropriately awesome to hang it. Maybe in the TV room?


Hello. Can I help you select a DVD?

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In other news, I was talking to my mom last week, and in the middle of a conversation about something else (a trip to the grocery store, or something similarly trivial), she pipes up with the following:

Mom: Oh! That's why I wanted to call you! I had a dream about you this morning.
Me: Oh?
Mom: I was upstairs, doing the ironing, and then you came in and told me you were pregnant, and then I fainted.
Me: No worries, I'm pretty damn sure I'm not pregnant.
Mom: Yeah, I wonder where that came from?
Me: Well, a few weeks ago I had a dream where I told you I was pregnant and you yelled at me and stopped speaking to me.
Mom: I don't think I'd yell at you.
Me: Just pass out, right?

So, either my mom finds the idea of me reproducing to be so horrible that she passes out, or her grandmother clock is trying to give my biological clock a jump-start (didn't work). Either way, yeesh. Especially since she called again a few days later, and opened her conversation not with "Hello." or "How are things?", but "So, are you pregnant?"

Okay, after spending fall semester of 2007 sitting on my fat ass and doing very little physical-activity-wise, I think I've worked out a gym schedule that a) I can actually stick to, and b) will actually do something.

So, not like anyone cares, but in the vain hope that making it public will make me stick to it, here it is:

Mon: Deep Water in the afternoons (Dave?)
Tues: Yoga
Wed: Elliptical before work
Thurs: Yoga
Fri: Ultimate
Sat: Yoga
Sun: Elliptical

That way I'm doing actual cardio 4x a week, and the in-between days I can either take it easy and do a short and/or easy yoga program, or can do something a little more intense, depending on my energy. When ultimate ends, I can add in Friday morning on the elliptical.

Of course, this has gotten thrown off the rails already, since I went to bed at 10 last night, with all good intentions of getting up this morning and hitting the gym... and then at 12:30, I'm laying there, wide awake, thinking "yeah, like hell I'm getting up in 5 hours." So I'll do some yoga this afternoon and try again for the gym tomorrow morning.

It could happen.

Pictures are now up on Flickr and Facebook. Both of them are friends-only.

I'm late, I know, but I was too busy napping for most of yesterday to get around to posting this.

Also, before I get to the best/worst of last year, I have started my new book blog as my post-Christmas project. I know that only few of you (if that) read my book reviews anyways (hi, Fit!), but if you're interested, they're there, and there's a functioning RSS feed as well, if you're so inclined.

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Books
Grand total of books read in 2007: 127 new (or about 2.9 days/book), 11 re-reads
- 38 audiobooks
- ~57 fantasy
- ~64 young adult
- 15 non-fiction (probably a record!)

Best books:

Non-fiction:
- Emergency Sex by Kenneth Cain et al.
- Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay

Fantasy:
- The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
- Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

Other Fiction:
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Worst books:
- Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
- The Crown of Silence by Storm Constantine
There are quite a few more that were annoying or disappointing (I'm looking at you, Last Days), but that's not really enough to merit inclusion on a "worst" list.

Movies
107 movies in 2007, ~12 in theaters.
Not counted in the 107 - 3 mini-series (Band of Brothers, The Forsyte Saga, and The Forsyte Saga: To Let), plus all three seasons of Battlestar Galactica, all three seasons of Deadwood, and Wonderfalls.

Other Events:
- Managed to kill not one, but TWO computers, and at least two power cords.
- Knitted 5 (and a half) afghans, and various other scarves/hats
- Did a damn-hell-ass lot of genotyping, some of which actually worked.
- Taught a class for the first time in a few years
- Got my picture in the paper after the Egg Scramble.
- Family Vacation to Alaska
- Nickel Creek Concert with Dave.
- Took a lot of pictures, read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies, posted to my LJ hardly at all.

When I get the New Year's Eve pictures uploaded, I'll post a few choice ones, or at least I'll post links.

Happy 2008, y'all!

So, the reason I've been MIA for the past month is not just that I've been too lazy to post, but that my computer was sick. Well, not sick, just broken. The powercord connection was going a little wobbly, and I jiggled it too hard at some point and actually bent something inside the computer, such that no powercord could even be plugged in anymore.

Fortunately, I'd ordered myself a new computer three days before the old one broke, although I'd had it sent to my parents house, reckoning "well, my dad's more likely to be home during the day than I am, I don't really need it right away (ha!), and I don't want to have to drive out to FedEx to pick it up." So, three and a half weeks later, here I am (finally) with my new computer, slowly getting it up to working speed.

It's purty.

Anyways, that's where I've been for most of December, using public computers for an hour or two a day and falling irretrievably behind on my LOLcats. I swear I'll catch up on any Scrabulous games that I haven't been forced to resign once I stop hogging my parents' wimpy internet connection with the downloading of Office from IUware - which has crapped out on my and I've been forced to restart THREE TIMES today, but that's a different story. Actually, that's all the story, but it's still annoying.

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Anyways. So, I know very few of you read the book reviews I post here, and I know even fewer of you go to my all-on-one-page book reviews (which is fine, I keep that page mostly to jar my own memory about what I read), but it's getting huge and unwieldly, and I'm thinking of starting a separate book review blog (probably on Wordpress). Calling it nickisbookreviews or fyreflysbooks is descriptive and gets the job done, but is kind of boring. Adrienne's suggested "Nicki's Book Bitching". Any other thoughts?

Review posted for the sake of paulg2000, who was interested after I'd only read thirty pages, and katyissmrt, who's already read it - now that I've finished, I want to hear your opinion!

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Geek Love by Katherine Dunn (1989)

Length: 348 pages

Genre: Literary fiction

Started: 13 Nov 2007
Finished: 19 Nov 2007

4 out of 5 stars.


geek
(slang) –noun
1. a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp. one who is perceived to be overly intellectual.
2. a computer expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often considered offensive when used by outsiders.)
3. a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, such as biting off the head of a live chicken.

( Summary & Review )

With the help of a little kick in the ass from Paul, I realized that I hadn't posted here in over a month! I couldn't let that stand, even though all I have to post at the moment is my latest book review. I'll try to conjure up some "my life sucks, here's a funny link"-style vanity blogging later.

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Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)

Length: 351 pages

Genre: Literary fiction; 2001 Booker Prize shortlist

Started: 6 Nov 2007
Finished: 12 Nov 2007

( Summary & Review )

I know I haven't updated in a while. No, I'm not going to sum up everything that's happened between now and then.

Today was pretty awesome for a number of reasons. This morning's lecture talked about Bateman's principle AND effective population size in cheetahs. I convinced my advisor not to make me do six assays (~1 month of labwork) that I have no interest in. I got a little kick in the seat of the pants from a labmate and I think it's enough to get me out of the unproductivity rut I've been in all semester. I won a free trip to North Carolina to present my research basically by being prompt about responding to e-mail. I got to listen to the funniest deli counter lady/crochety old guy interaction ever. My mom cleaned out her desk and found a saving bond in my name from my grandmother to the tune of $5k. We lost our frisbee game tonight AND I had to play savage, but I played pretty well, considering, and scored 3 of our 8 goals.

But mostly, any day that I don't spend puking up a hippo is a good day.

Okay, I admit to being fascinated by the Nazca lines ever since my after-school Gifted Enrichment program covered them (the class was on science vs. the supernatural) in fifth or sixth grade. I mean, c'mon, giant Pre-Columbian drawings made from light-colored rock that can only really be seen from the air? That are usually geometrically perfect and may or may not have some relation to astronomy? Too damn cool.

And then I realized today (during a bout of frenzied productivity, I assure you), that since Nazca lines show up from the air, that they're probably visible on Google Earth:

View Larger Map

Oh my goodness, learn something new every day...

So the room I teach in is also the lab room for the Biology for Elementary Teachers class. Part of that class (as I understand it) is learning about keeping a class pet, so there are iguanas and frogs and fish and lizards and such scattered around the room.

We were in there for a teaching meeting this afternoon, and as we're sitting there, there's this fairly constant high-pitched "Ahn! Aahn!" coming from one the far side of the room. We go over to look, and sure enough, one of the Russian tortoises is loving up on its cagemates, biting at their faces and then hustling around behind them, crawling up on top of them, opening his mouth super-wide, heavy breathing loud enough for us to hear, and going "Ahn! Ahn!" in his squeaky little voice. His cagemates, unsurprisingly, wanted none of it.

I didn't even know turtles could make noise.

Late, I know.

( Part 1 - Juneau )

( Part 2 - The Cruise )

( Part 3 - Back in Juneau )

( Part 4 - Denali )

( Part 5 - Seward/Sinus Infection )

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (2006)

Length: 623 pp.

Genre: Steampunk sci-fi/fantasy

Started: 9 Aug 07
Finished: 19 Aug 07

( Summary & Review )

Abhorsen by Garth Nix (2003)
Abhorsen Trilogy, Book 3

Read by: Tim Curry
Length: ~11 hours

Genre: YA Fantasy

Started: 25 July 2007
Finished: 5 August 2007

( Summary & Review )

So we are all good and moved into our (awesome) new house. It's great, I'm extraordinarily happy. I'm almost entirely unpacked except for desk stuff and a few odds and ends. All of my books are put away; I bought (and filled!) a new bookcase, so I'm only double-stacked in a few places. AND I actually found about 15-20 books that I'm willing to purge! I'm also super-pleased that we now have a TV room where six people can comfortably sit and watch TV, not to mention people laying on the floor (which is feasible now, unlike in our old place).

Anyways, major thanks to everyone who helped load and unload. Extra-special thanks to Kate, who went above and beyond by staying the whole time to help us clean out our old house, and Adrienne, for helping assemble all of my new furniture (I've dropped a lot of money at Walmart, Target and BB&B the past few days).

And, now, I'm off to family vacation in Alaska. I've re-packed a couple of suitcases; I think I've got everything (probably more than enough); I've loaded HP7 onto the iPod for a reread. I'll be gone for two weeks starting ass-early tomorrow morning; there should be intermittent internet access (although I'm going to be sharing a computer with the rest of my family), so watch my Flickr page for pretty Alaska pictures.... and maybe end of the summer/moving pictures tonight, if I get around to it. I also need to grab the info for some Alaska geocaches.

Great, now I just need to drive to Chicago. Woot!

I haven't gotten a good solid night's sleep in at least two weeks. Between the last few days at Mountain Lake, the conference where I was kipping on the floor, and the past few days here, I can't think of a single night where I went to bed at a reasonable hour, fell asleep without insomnia, slept through the night, and didn't wake up an hour before my alarm was set to go off. It's starting to get really wearing, and not likely to improve until I can actually settle back into a normal routine, which will be at least a few days after I get back from Alaska... in three weeks. Bah.

Also, I'm really, really tired of the moving process. I'm tired of packing, I'm tired of cleaning, I'm tired of spiders and dust bunnies EVERYWHERE, I'm tired of finding odds and ends and shoving them into random pockets and boxes because whatever they go to has already been packed somewhere inaccessible and hopefully I'll find them when I unpack because otherwise I ain't going to find them until I move again, and I just don't want to have to think about having to do this AGAIN.

Life's hard when you're me.