New Apartment Needs Stuff

We all know that stuff is bad. Ok, maybe I just think stuff is bad. I don't even think it's bad, but I'm three days out of a move and so right now all the stuff is sitting in my dining room and I'm wondering what would happen if I took a match to it and walked out...well I mean assuming that just the stuff burned and not the apartment as I'm not really looking to add that piece of crazy to my resume. 

But aside from just the stuff we own, our new apartment is a lot bigger, including a second full bedroom and bathroom. By full bedroom I mean not these closet sized bedrooms we have been utilizing (...uh....utilizing...really I used that word?) for the past 8 years or so. In fact we think it's going to be big enough for some queen sized mattresses along with our office furniture...but might be a bit tight......WAIT! We have queen sized mattresses that are really uncomfortable. If we move those to the second bedroom...we would have to get new mattresses that are comfy...like clouds. 

On Tuesday we went to the apartment to get the keys and the apartment is all ready for us to move in. I wish they would have really known that it was going to be ready because then we could have moved on Saturday. After just sitting in the apartment for about an hour we walked around our new hood with huge smiles plastered on our faces. We walked by a mattress store and we decided to see what they had going on. Of course I'm brilliant (I mean I do have PhD you know) and I laid on the most expensive mattress first. You know what the means right? Every other mattress in the store sucks ass. So we laid on a bunch of them and tried out the memory foam ones and some other types. Finally we settled on a pillow top type thing that had all that kind of foam stuff in it. It was really comfortable and when we got home we wondered how we could have ever slept on our current mattress. The place we got the mattress was called Sleep City right on Clark just south of Belmont. The owner's name is Charlie and so far I would highly recommend the place. Charlie was really nice and owned that store and another Sleep City on Diversey. We could have had the mattress whenever we wanted but as our bed frame won't be there still Sunday we have to wait till Monday. 

We also have a second bathroom and so will need to get bathroom stuff in there and so we looked around Linens' and Things. Kinda wish my mom was up here from Florida to help pick out stuff. I think she would get as psyched up as me about little things like shower curtain hooks (yes I might be one of those people). Understandably most people do not....but I suppose most mothers and daughters do. She is going to come to Chicago for Mother's day in the spring though and help us get some flowers and stuff for our back porch. 

Our apartment is almost completely packed up and ready to go, which is awesome and terrifying. We are going to take our electronics over to the new place before the move I think and I'm going to call the movers today and see if there is *any* way we can move our move up from Sunday to Saturday. I'm sure we can't, but I might as well ask. 

Alright. How about that for a ramblin' post. Stay tuned for our next installment when we talk about how we are pretty sure we are going to join a gym similar to Average Joe's in Dodgeball.

The Office

Not the TV show....rather our office at home. It's looking like it's about halfway done. It's been funny reading peoples blogs and twitters when they talk about moving. It's such a horrible process and everyone thinks they own too much stuff and there is always this feeling of we'll never have enough boxes. My cousin gave us a ton of small boxes but not many large or medium sized ones. I don't know how she moved her stuff, but she owns way less than I do I guess. So Jason and I ran over to Home Depot last night at 9pm to buy some larger sized boxes. If you saw a girl in a ratty IU t-shirt and some rockin' pink shorts, that was me. 

We are being very good about throwing stuff away, but there are just some things that I'm like...hmm....would I care if I let this go? No, but that doesn't mean I want to let it go. But I hate owning stuff....so anyways, it's annoying. We need to get the office completely emptied then we can move some boxes back into there to get it out of the dining room. Dawn mentioned that professional movers take the boxes first so I'm going to call them and find out if that is in fact the case because if it is we are closer than we thought. 

Tonight we are going to pick up the keys for the new place. We are wondering if they are just giving us keys or if they are giving us keys if the old tenant has moved out...in which case....well we can go sleep on the floor in our new place :-). I'm so excited to get out of our old place. I just wish it be over already. I'm always a nervous wreck on moving days....but this might be easier as we have professional movers and so hopefully most everything is done so I can step back and just watch the moving magic happen. 

Great Weekend...But Sad Ending

This weekend Jason and I headed to Fort Wayne where his parents threw us a big PhD graduation party. They invited so many people including a lot of Jason's teachers from middle and high school (Jason's dad is a teacher at the school Jason went to so knows all of these people). It was fun to meet all of them. So a big thank you to them. Also want to thank Lisa, Evin, Mike and Barb for making the trek from Chicago to help celebrate. 

Our best friend Joe and his new girlfriend Heather also came. Every time I have seen Joe lately it has been a lot of..."Hey, yeah I'm tired. What's up." So it was so great to see him with all the stress melted away. We all stayed in Fort Wayne on Saturday night and enjoyed a big ihop breakfast on Sunday morning. 

After breakfast we headed back over to Jason's parents house where we found that Jason's grandfather had taken a bad turn. Jason's mom talked with one of her brothers and it was decided that he go into hospice care as his quality of life has deteriorated enough that it's time to make that decision. It's looking like we will back in Fort Wayne in the next few days. So a sad Sunday.

We stayed for awhile in Fort Wayne to help out as much as we could but then decided we had to get home as our packing needed to be an expedited process as we don't know what's going to happen in the next week. We got home around 5pm and just decided to not cook anything this week and so we packed up the entire kitchen. We left out a couple of plates and bowls and glasses but other than that everything is in a box and broken down. We have put everything into the dining room which as I was looking at last night I was realizing was probably a bad decision as you can't get to our furniture in the living room. SO. I think once we get the office packed (tonight and tomorrow) we can move all the boxes into there and then there will be a path for the furniture to get back out of the house. Getting the kitchen done was a huge step. The office is still a *disaster* but that should be done soon as well and then I think we'll be just about good to go which is nice. I'm starting to get really nervous because I haven't heard back from the dude that I am supposed to get the keys from so I've got to give him a call back and hopefully get a hold of him. 

So that's what's going on here. Kinda a lot and just hoping the week isn't *too* stressful. 

Wait...didn't I finish school?

Uh...apparently not and the hours in the days don't seem to be enough.

For some reason...and the reason is Jason's procrastination ways...theAdviser wants the thesis submitted NOW. I also want it done and so I'm glad he's pushing hard for this to get fixed and turned in. The deal is that your committee reads your thesis and then marks it up with comments etc, you fix all that and then submit it...turn in mounds of paper work and then if all the eggs are in the correct basket your thesis is accepted by the graduate school and 3 months later they mail you your degree.

So Right. I'm on the first step. Earlier in the evening I got off the phone with one of my committee members who wanted to go through the thesis commets in person and so I have all the corrections in hand. Some are just typo corrections and some are not as trivial.

Tonight I have to make some plots to send in to the reviewers for my publication and so my plan is to get that done. Then tomorrow I'm going to get going on the thesis corrections. Hopefully it's all done by the end of the night...whenever that might be. I also have to write the acknowledgments which is a non-trivial endeavor

Jason and I managed to squeeze in a 3 mile run this evening and are just going to watch the cubs have some dinner (which is going to be *awesome* as we are trying to eat all the food we have left before we move...so Mac & Cheese it is) and then try to get to bed at a reasonable hour and not think about the disaster that is our apartment at the moment.

Looking Better

Well Ok, obviously, this beautiful newness wasn't all me. It was time to finally get a new template, although from there I was able to make some good changes (just say they are good). I'll just keep it here for now and as I learn more or whatever maybe I'll keep changing it, for now though I think it's good and I like the new simple look.

Yesterday was just a typical Monday morning. The new apprentice started and so I'm not longer the newest employee...even if it is only by a week. I finished reading the HTML book and I'm moving onto some Rails/Ruby stuff as well as starting to work with a dude on updating the design on the Obtiva website.

After work Jason and I walked home like we like to do. The plan was to run to Powells to sell some books as they said their buyer would be there after 4:30. I told Jason to call to make sure as it's not in our neighborhood....he did and apparently the buyer left at 5pm. WTF. Apparently this magical buy will be back on Wednesday and will be there all day. Those books that Powells doesn't buy we'll take to the most excellent used book store on Clark and Wellington(?). Last time he just took all the left overs we had and gave us some cash. Nice guy.

Tonight I have a phone conference with one of my thesis committee members to go through the corrections to my thesis. My goal to have it submitted by Friday. I finished up some other things for theAdviser last night for the publication and so maybe this could start to be the end of all that stuff.....we'll see.....it's seemingly always something else.

Jason packed up all the CDs and DVDs last night and so we are getting there, one step at a time. We also decided to cancel our Comcast cable as they are super expensive and wouldn't give us the triple play deal even though we were moving....which I don't understand. In our new neighborhood we can get RCN so we did that and got DVR added on as well as The Big10 Network, and the NFL network so that should be fun.....although IU is going to be super crappy in bball this year....so maybe not the year to have it.

Alright, well on to Tuesday...or 13 day before we are out of this crappy apartment (I already feel bad for my future children as I know they are going to be all, "MOM I KNOW ABOUT THAT CRAPPY APARTMENT. Why do we have to drive by it again? We know we know...you didn't have any money and now you think it's funny".) Alright, LeahC out.

What's Up!

That's right...it's probably going to look a little crazy around these parts as I attempt to take somethings I have learned at work and apply it here in my tiny corner of the web. I'm guessing every time you come here things will look different :-) Thanks for the patience. 

Oh ... blog update. Ran 5 miles yesterday although ended it with a screaming headache, gave us 12 miles on the week. 

Had a great weekend with the Obtiva family outing on one of the boats on lake Michigan...had a crazy busy Sunday as we had tons to do and got through lots of packing. We are moving in 13 days (!!!) which is uber exciting. 

That's all for now!

Fun Evenings and a Packed Weekend

The last two nights have been good times in the LeahC/JasonR households. On Wednesday night we went to Wildfire for dinner where we enjoyed too much food and way too much wine to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary (I can't believe it's 4 years already!).

Last night Jason had drinks with his work peeps and I went along just cause that's how I roll. Home late last night and I fell asleep on the couch watching the Olympics.

This weekend should be fun as there is an Obtiva family outing on a boat on Lake Michigan to enjoy the air and water show, but there is also going to be lots of packing as well as a trip to Fermilab to pick up somethings from my adviser and drop off stuff to take back to Bloomington to get signed and turned in.

Tonight we are going to run and do some packing. Super fun!

Wow....I'm bad at blogging in the early hours. Ah well.

Blogging at NIght?

Wait...running at night? Both? 

Wow...it's been over 6 years since I have been on a regular schedule. Not that I haven't been worked harder than a red headed step child over that time, but it was all the time and not in one block. So I could say, hey time for a break, so let's go for a run at 2 pm and then come back and finish things up. I don't even think I work very well with that kind of schedule however as I'm pretty driven by schedules, and todo lists and it helps to be like, ok, every day you get up at 5:30, get ready, go downtown, enjoy the coffee shop, work 8 hours, go home, run, eat go to bed. It's just funny to get used to again. 

So today that schedule listed above is just about what we did. I woke up at 5:20 and dozed in and out until the alarm went off at 6am. Then I went and enjoyed the Corner Bakery and read the paper and a book for work. Then it was another enjoyable day in the Obtiva studio where I got a new MacBook (which was a total surprise as I didn't know I would be getting a new laptop)  and did some reading as well as shadowing two of the dudes that work there. 

I met Jason at his building and we came home, and went out for probably about a 3.5 or so mile run. And now it's time to relax, watch some Olympics, eat some frozen pizza and get ready to do it all again tomorrow!

Quickly!

The first day at the new job was awesome. Really good people that work there....but I am noticing that now that I am working there isn't going to be all the lalala.....I think it's 12:57 and I'll blog now. The routine will fall into place though as time goes by.

Up early this morning to beat the rush downtown and to do some reading.

3 miles on the schedule for tonight.

Unplugged

Well it's been awhile since the ole' JasonLeahRun has been updated. After the defense last week I just wanted to unplug for a bit as the weight of that PhD was finally off my shoulders and it would be a week until my new job started. So that's just what I did.

I first want to thank everyone in my family for coming to support me and watch my dissertation presentation (usually no family goes to that, and I had both parents, step parents and inlaws there) and hang out with Jason and I in Bloomington. It was so nice having all of you there. A big thank you to Rick, my adviser, as without his help, guidance and patience there is no way I would have finished the program. Lastly...of course Jason, thank you....you are my everything.

So there, now that I got my awards speech out of the way, what else has been happening in LeahC's world....quickly as it's been awhile!

After the defense Jason and I stayed in Bloomington by ourselves and walked all over campus and went to check out the dorms we had lived in our freshman year and all the places that we loved so much while we were living there. The weekend after the defense was my cousin's wedding which was awesomely fun although I think although the shoes I wore completely completed the dress outfit, I think they also completely broke my toes....ah well, as my aunt says, it's painful to be beautiful sometimes (especially for those of us that usually walk around in Converse and patagonia flip flops). My cousin had a whole wedding weekend with a brunch and a cubs game the Sunday after the wedding which was really fun....after the Cubs game Jason and I came home and passed out around 8pm.

Monday I had planned on doing nothing, but with me that always lasts for about an hour. For the rest of the day I walked around the city and headed to Borders to get some Photoshop books as my dad got me the Creative Suite 3 for my graduation present (I'm *so* excited about it...but oh so much to learn!). Tuesday morning I headed out to Michigan to my aunt and uncle's lake house which was a total blast! I just played with my little cousins for 2 days including taking the 8 year old (she's almost 9) on a walk around the lake to go to the candy store....it's about 5 miles around. She's quite the little trooper though and made with only minimal complaining :-)

Thursday I helped my dad and Sue run some errands as they were leaving on Friday morning. Friday I really did nothing until about 2pm when I went down to Wicker Park to sit there and read for a few hours while I waited for Bridgette to come into town for the weekend.

We have had a good time with Bridgette these last few days. She's still sleeping and so I am thinking that I successfully wore her out yesterday like I had hoped to do. We got up early and went to get manicures and pedicures, then headed downtown where we walked through millennium park over to the lakefront path and then onto the architectural tour which although expensive...was really really fun even for this Chicago native. From there we jumped onto the bus, back to our apartment to change, then walked through West Fest a few times and then back to Ashland to get back on the bus to go East. Off at the brown line, then we walked through our new neighborhood and showed Bridgette our new apartment...seriously we are going to be arrested for stalking soon enough as we keep doing walk by and drive bys. From there we walked into the thick of Wrigleyville, noticed that we are really close to a Penny's noodles, and then had a beer at a bar. From there it was off to Matsuya for dinner with Bridgette's aunt who is awesome and bought us dinner AND gave us a ride home. THANKS VICKI!!!

In sad news, Jason's grandfather is very very sick and so he headed to Fort Wayne today to be with his mom and to hopefully see his grandfather. I think he might have gotten a little better yesterday evening, but I'll know more when I talk to the JMan.

So that brings us to today. Sunday. You know what comes after Sunday. Monday. And this particular Monday is super special because I start my new job at Obtiva. I'm pretty nerved up about it, but as the people that work there are some of the nicest people that I have met I'm guessing they will make it pretty comfortable when I start. So that should be a really really exciting and fun day.

So that's it. Bridgette just woke up and so we are going to walk to a diner to get some breakfast and then we are heading back downtown for some shopping and some beach time!

Oh running...yeah not so much. I don't care though, I have been basking in the glow of being finished with graduate school. Running will be getting going again shortly. Maybe the name of this blog should be, jasonleahneverrun.....well maybe not.

What's That?

Who just got a PhD in physics?

Wait...what...me? That's right bitches.

Dr. LeahC is home free!

yay!

Thanks for all the good vibes!

In a few hours....

I'll be "done". I use quotes...and by using them I am really meaning a nice set of air quotes...because of course there is still paperwork, and I'm sure there will be a few corrections to make to the thesis. BUT the brunt of it will be done. More importantly this long presentation will be done....seriously have been worried or thinking about this day for *years*.

I actually slept a lot last night. The previous two nights I had gotten 4 hours of sleep and I was really really tired last night and so I was out at about 9:30 and slept through until my 5am wake up call.

On the drive to Bloomington yesterday morning I gave a practice talk in the car which went pretty well and then Jason quizzed me on some notes I had taken and I knew the stuff pretty well. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out in Bloomington, I got the *worst* pedicure/manicure of my life, played some pool in the union where my dad schooled Jason and I, and then last night my parents and Jason and I went to dinner at Yogi's which was our old hangout when we lived here.

Oh yeah. We parked in the union parking lot at about 10:30am and then came back around 4:30pm to get our stuff to check in. Jason gave me the....you have the keys. Knowing that I didn't have the keys I looked at him with a look of...uhoh and we both ran to the front of the car where we put our hands on the hood and realized that for the 3rd time this year (and of all time) I had left the keys in the car....and not only that...but left the car was running....for 6 hours. So. Stupid. So we got some auto service dude to come by. I went back to check in to the hotel (there is a hotel in the IU union) and it was everything the kid checking us in could do to not really laugh in my face. Sigh. Well I might be a little preoccupied.

Today and tomorrow are going to be so much better because there won't be this *thing* hanging over my head. Thanks to all the peeps out there for the shoutouts and the good lucks. I'll be talking at 10am EST :-) Too bad it's not on TV.

Alright, Mrs. LeahC out.....soon Dr. LeahC will be back.

Feeling Young Again...

But not the fun party girl young. The young sit on my ass in the corner of a library and try my best to concentrate on re-reading stuff. Not surprising I'm not the person I was at 18 1/2 and so found it tough to sit there. Of course at 18 1/2 I was taking Physics I and History of Comic Book Art (I kid you not on that one the professor looked like Clark Kent....one of the best classes I took in college) and so the studying was a bit more fun...and more varied. I have been all in the Bc meson's koolaid for the past two years and so while I know a lot of it sometimes I'm like...WAIT what is that all about.

I never ever wake up on my own early. Ever. I am so attached to my alarm clock and the snooze button that at times it becomes an annoying problem (I have to set my alarm for 45 minutes before I want to get up because I less than three the snooze button...ok but granted I like to be up early, I just wish I could do it more on my own than relying on the alarm clock...anyways). This morning however I snapped awake at 4:45 in the morning for no reason at all. But I was up so I got up and checked my e-mail hoping to have heard back from my Adviser on the draft of my talk. And I did which was exciting as there weren't too many comments on the talk itself. I had also asked if he would be interested in joining the family for dinner on Thursday night and he said he was and so that's really exciting. It's going to be a happy day.

After reading e-mailed I thought I would just fall asleep on the couch to SportsCenter...but you know how they have all the previews of what they are going to talk about and I wanted to see all of them...including Cubs highlights...ooh they are starting to smoke again! I fell asleep for another 20 minutes or so and then it was up and on it.

It's 11am here in Chicago which means it's noon in bloomington. In 48 hours I'll be done. Who's tired of me talking about my defense? Anyone? Oh right...I am!

What!!! Double Digits!?!

That’s right people. And not just for the week (which granted has been a bit of a stretch these last few weeks...and will be again this week)! Jason and I ran a solid 10 miles yesterday morning and felt great. We drove to the lakefront path at Montrose and started our run east of the golf course. When we got to the totem pole we met up with my Dad and the three of us ran together to Belmont. It was like we were our own little running group which was fun. From there we continued down stopping at the Fleet Feet aid station at North Avenue Beach which was nice. I love those aid stations as I refuse to carry water bottles in the summer but sometimes you want more than water and so it’s nice to get a cup of Gatorade before moving on. We went as far south as Navy Pier and then headed back. We ended at the totem pole where we met back up with Dad who was feeling some calf pain. We went to his apartment and had a nice big breakfast. From there we decided to go home since I am just about on the edge of explosion since my defense is this week (holy ass...this week...how is that right?!?!?!?) and I wanted to go home and just try and study a little. We had a great rest of our Sunday napping, watching the Cubs come back to life, making a quick dinner and finishing up with a walk to Piccolo for some ice cream and a walk around our neighborhood.

The weekly review in running is shown below. As you can see we are finally in the positive for our planned versus actual, and I had a nice week of running consistently getting in 5 days worth.


The rest of the weekend was just as good as our Sunday. On Friday we had Psych night (cause the new season is on and Jason and I are loving it more than ever) and had my dad and Sue over for some bbq, some Psych and of course some Pineapple for dessert. The episode was as quick as ever with LOTS of references to movies from the 80s: The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day off. After they left we discovered that we had recorded Pretty in Pink at some point on our DVR and so we watched that and caught some of the references from the show. On Sunday morning The Breakfast Club was on and we had our fill of 80s hair and Molly Ringwald.

Saturday we went to The Taste of Lincoln with my Dad. I found a super cool new necklace which was exciting, we listened to some good music, had some good bad food...corndog yum! From there Jason and I went home and I was exhausted and so I took a nap, and from there we headed to St. Charles where we met Jason’s dad for dinner. His dad was at a golf camp in the area and so we went to meet him. It was a really good time and we went to this really good Mexican place. For those of you in St. Charles, I think it was called El Puente and it’s right downtown. Really good stuff.

Thus we come back to Monday. I am going to the library today and locking myself in there to study. I know I know stuff, but I am so worried they are going to ask me stuff I don’t know, and they probably will and that’s probably ok, I’m just really nervous. I know I should treat it like, I GET to give this amazing talk and show off what I did for the past two years because my analysis is really complicated and I am really proud of it. But who the hell does that really? I mean who is ever that comfortable standing in front of people? In fact I was talking to my adviser the other day and he was going to California to give a talk at SLAC and he said, “I’m really kind of nervous because there will be a lot of big wigs there.” I laughed (to myself of course) as I think of him as one of the big wigs and I don’t know how he could be nervous as he is so freakin’ brilliant and gives really good talks...but I guess that never goes away.

This week will be lacking in running because we are taking today off and then tomorrow we’ll get something in, Wednesday we leave early in the morning for Bloomington and no running that day, Thursday is my actual defense and I am planning on running around the campus for a few miles in the morning, then Friday Jason and I are going to just enjoy Bloomington as we have spent 10 years of our life associated with IU and we heart Bloomington (especially in small doses). Then this weekend is my cousin’s wedding which should be a crazy good time. They are having their wedding reception where Jason and I had our wedding and reception, and then on Sunday they have a pack of Cubs tickets for everyone and we have that going on. In short. This week = awesome (should anyways).

Alright...well in less than 72 hours I’ll be giving my talk. That’s right, I have a countdown going in my head of the hours left. This chica cannot WAIT for that to be done!

Feeling Good for 5, Getting Excited and Why So Sleepy?

I have decided that I could just really put the subject of each topic in my posts in the subject line and then you don't even need to read this like today.....

Well nevermind, I'll just give the details.

Yesterday I took the train back downtown. There is something about those freakin' Metra trains that make my eyelids close on me. I'm all ready to get a lot of reading done and then my head is leaning on the window and the eyes are droopy. Anyways, went downtown and met up with Jason. We Bluelined it to Milwaukee and then walked home from there (I hate being on crowded buses and we are only about 2 miles from the stop so a walk it was. After we got home I tried giving the theory part of my talk to Jason. I was all excited about it, but as that was the first time I had run through it, it was pretty rough. But that's how it used to be when I have the analysis part of it which at this point I have down so I don't really even need to run through it (although of course I will).

After that and cooling down a bit we went out for a 5 mile run. Again, just trying to get the mojo back and so we started off really slow. We went for our usual 5 miler around the neighborhood and felt really good. No pain and the breathing was ok (my achilles has been feeling really good...most of the time. I am experimenting with lacing my shoes differently and it seems to be making a world of difference) and it wasn't as hot out as we thought it was going to be.

Ok...what's the next subject up there in the subject line. Right. Getting Excited. About what? Well everything but specifically these days, giving my talk next week. Jason took of Wednesday-Friday and so we will leave for Bloomington very early on Wednesday morning. While I am nervous for my talk, I also realized that I am going to get 3 great days in Bloomington and the defense part of it is only about 2 hours of it. That's right 6 years of work all wrapped up in a nice 1 hour talk with questions. I think my talk looks good and I have added in some slides from the last time I gave this talk. I will send my adviser a copy of the talk on Sunday and hopefully he'll get back with comments soonish. I am also supposed to expand on my conclusions section of my these as was requested by one of my committee members and I haven't done that yet.

This morning I took the Metra train back to the lab (probably the last time!) and I was again all set to read a bunch of my book (I'm reading Atlas Shrugged) and I sat down and I mean instantly I was shutting my eyes. What the ass? Is there some kind of something in the air on those trains that I am allergic to or something. Sheesh.

Today I am just at the lab and working on my talk and trying to "get my words down" as Jason says and then around lunch time (in about an hour) I am going to walk around the ring, stopping at the main building for lunch. It's about 4 miles around. The whole "leaving Fermilab and academia" is a post in and of itself and I don't want to really think about it just yet because while I know it's time to move on...it's still sad as parts of working here were really cool.

Alright, well that's all from these parts. Happy Friday all!

Spirit of Racine Photos

I took 250 pictures at the Spirit of Racine Triathlon on Sunday. That's right...250. Most of them are linked below.

Here's just one, showing the crazy that was the fog on that morning. Click on it for the full gallery on my smugmug account (I took a lot of random pictures and so there might be one of you ...you being a random person I don't know but might be reading this...of you in there). Enjoy!

Why So Serious?

oh yes. Go. See. Batman. Right now if you have to!

One of the best movies I have *ever* seen. It's 2 hour and 32 minutes long and it so doesn't feel that long. Totally action packed, great scenes of Chicago and I'll probably have nightmares of the Joker in the future.

Yesterday at the lab I got the tests done that I needed to get done and things worked out perfectly (hot damn is it nice when physics works...it's like I don't know real I guess ;-) ). I decided to come into the lab today and tomorrow for some time so that I can review my thesis (you know that 200 page document I have to defend in a weeks time...shit, in a week's time the talk will be done (I'll be giving it at 9am Chicago time) and I'll be trying to answer questions about it...to my thesis committee who don't read this...be nice ;-) ) and make any last minute changes to my talk that I think are necessary before I send it off to my adviser. Poor Jason is going to have to listen to practice talks starting tonight.

But after that. Wow. I'm going to be one happy LeahC....hopefully anyways.

Tonight Jason and I are going to run probably about 5 miles around the neighborhood. In 38 days we'll be able to do that run on the lakefront path as we'll hopefully be in our new digs at that point.

So that's it. Time to review!

WALL-E & Fermilab & New Running Plan

Two of the above make me want to cheer and the other makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little.

Yesterday theDad, Jason and I headed downtown to see Batman. We planned on going to the 7:30 show but when we got there all the tickets for all the shows were sold out! We decided to get tickets for tonight's 7:30 show instead. Dad left but Jason and I hung around to see WALL-E which was *fantastic*. There is so little dialog in that movie and they totally got away with it.

Right now I am at Fermilab. It seems like physics analyses are like Velcro, you can't easy pull away from them. I am here working on some tests of the analysis. Never. Ending. I am hoping *hoping* that I can get what needs to be done by next week so that I can have responses back to the reviewers and then defend my thesis and then really really be done. Oh yeah. A week from tomorrow at 10am, I'll be all, "blah blah blahing" my defense away. I'm really really nervous for that, and I'm just hoping I calm down in the next week before I give it. I'll run through some practice talks with Jason as that really helped last time I had to give a big talk.

As far as running goes... I ran 3 miles yesterday and I'm taking today off. But what about the future of the running plans around here? It seems that Jason and I really need to be signed up for a race to stay in that training mind set. We are not exactly out of shape, but not exactly in the place we were last year or the summer before that. This summer reminds me of the summer before our wedding, it just seems that as soon as we get into a little training grove something comes up that screws up the plans. Things like interviews, and getting new jobs, and new apartments and celebrating those things. SO I think we are going to do the Miami Marathon on January 25th. As our bodies won't be acclimated to the heat and we'll have to do some training in cooler months in Chicago this probably won't be a PR race, but it will be nice to get out of Chicago in January. I think we are going to follow a beginner program (Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan) just to get back into a rhythm. With me starting a new job we are going to have to figure out how to run around a 9-5 schedule and so I think an easier plan would be good for that. It's just 4 days a week and that will start towards the end of September.

Alright. Well I AM at the lab so I better get working on what I came here to do.

Hot & Humid

Yesterday after the JMan got home we went out for a neighborhood run with the intention of ending at the gym and doing some weight lifting. We did the running part going about 3.4 miles. The lifting heavy things part...hmm not so much. We started on the assisted dip/pullup machine and I got *really* lightheaded. The gym we belong to doesn't have the greatest cooling system ever as it was just as hot in there as it was outside. I hadn't eaten much during the day either which I'm sure didn't help. I grabbed a Gatorade but that didn't do the trick and so we headed back home.

I'm currently in my apartment. It's muggy in here and we already started to pack up our shit and so it's not the nicest environment to work in but physics must be done and so work it is :-). Yes that's right we aren't moving for another 5.5ish weeks, but a) I'm very excited to move and b) my Dad and Stepmom are around and offered to help with our basement storage area (read : area where we have a lot of shit which we haven't looked at in probably 6 years and I'm terrified of looking at) and so we started the process. Sue moved all the storage area crap out of cardboard boxes and into nice big plastic tupperware tubs that are now all categorized, which is exciting. I hope this move is better than the last few. It's so easy to go..."Oh it's not that bad to move, just put stuff in boxes" then you start and all of a sudden it's 3am and you are rifling through pages of papers going ... yeah...WHAT IS ALL THIS SHIT? So we are starting early to hopefully lighten our load a bit this time around.

I'm going to try and get a run in this afternoon/late morning and then tonight I think the plan is to go see Batman tonight. Yay!

Spoiled Beach Plans and a Weekend of Fun

On Friday, just as I sat down at the beach I had a call from my adviser. The reviews of my paper that had been submitted came back and to answer one of the questions there is quite a bit of work that needs to be done. My God this process is annoying. Now I am not being paid by my university and as my health insurance expired the second they stopped paying me I had to go out and find bridge insurance to get me from that point to when my new insurance will take over. I know it's not all about the money, but rather the pursuit of science...but it's always a little bit about the money. Had I chosen to stay in the field this wouldn't be a big deal, it would just be another little thing that had to be done. I will still do it, it's just that right now I have to prepare for my defense talk which is now in a week and three days, I have a new and super exciting new job starting in three weeks and so now this looks like it will have to be done in the evenings and on the weekends. I'm frustrated because of course I want all the work to end up in a publication, and it has to, I just wish that this kind of question had come up in the already long and involved review process so that I could get away from it. Anyways. frustrating to say the least. So I left the beach to start looking at that. I thought that the last month or so would be a relaxing break but it's been nothing of the kind. From job interviews, interview tests, studying for interviews (even though I know that's impossible), last Friday was the first "day off" that I thought I could have. Oh well.

Jason and I spent the rest of the weekend a) talking about our new apartment and b) spectating a half ironman competition in Racine, WI. This girl did the race and holy shit man, she's amazing. In fact everyone that day was awesome. Jason and I stood at the finish line watching people finish, and there were a lot of faces filled with determination, tears and laughter. Jason and I are more and more intersted in doing triathlons as they just look really really fun. After we got home I found out that my new boss's wife did the race that day too, which is quite the small world.

We drove Barb up there on Saturday to check in and to drop her bike off and then Jason and I had a barbeque and then tickets to the White Sox (I know I know...still an evening of baseball is fun) game. We had to leave the game early due to an early wake up call on Sunday. Jason and I got up at 2:30 in the morning and left at about 3:15 so that we could stop at the starbucks that is open 24 hours on North Ave. It's awesome when you are freshly awake and there are people that had yet to go to bed. Awesome. We picked up Barb right on time and headed north so she could get setup and marked up and all that good stuff.

The race started about an hour late due to fog. We walked with Barb to the start of the swim and stood among the masses of wetsuit clad folks. The water was a brisk 55 degrees yesterday! Just about when the swim started we headed back towards where the transition was so we could catch Barb between the swim and the bike and then her starting out on the Bike. She was a lot faster than we though she was going to be and spanked her goal out of the park. She transitioned fast and was on the bike.

While she was biking Jason and I walked around downtown Racine which was deader than a doornail. It was such a cute downtown and we thought that there would be a cafe or something and there was *nothing*. We headed back to just about the start of the bike where we had seen a restaurant. We had a great breakfast and then headed back to the race to watch the leaders finish up for the day. They broke a new course record finishing in about 3 Hours and 49 minutes. After watching them finish up we headed back to the end of the bike course to wait for Barb to finish up. We saw her and she mentioned that she couldn't keep any food down. We ran down to the transition area and saw her making her way out on the run. After seeing her start off we headed farter up the run course so we could see her at about the 6 mile mark of the run. I walked with her for a bit and the she continued on her way. We moved our spectating party to about the 7.5 mile mark saw her one last time before heading back to the finish.

We knew that she could break 8 hours if she kept moving. Other friends of Barb's were there too and so one of them went back to run with her. When we saw her coming we all starting screaming and cheering and she gave us a triumphant fist pump and ran through the finish line. The announcer said that she finishing in 7:59:30 making the 8 hour cut off by 30 seconds.

She was awesome and it was a really fun day. I took about 250 pictures and hopefully I got a few that work. I'll have a gallery up on SmugMug within the next few days/weeks depending on how much time I have to go through them. I'll have at least a few up soon though.

Alright with that, the duty of working on my talk calls and so I must go. Congrats again to Barb it was a really fun day!