Adventures in Hooterville

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-10-03T22:06:00.000-05:00

Today I was the lucky recipient of a brand new camera, because my dad spoils me. I won't pretend to know all the nerdy specs, but I will say that so far, I've been really impressed with the zoom and the industrial strength flash. The image stabilization also rocks my socks, but I don't have any example shots of that. I didn't get the battery charged until after dark, so all the photos I've taken have been indoors with fairly low light. Which, actually, is why I wanted the camera. I've had such a hard time getting decent photos of friends - seems the nerds only come out at night. Now, they have nowhere to hide...

hehe. So shout out to Papfoo, thank you for the top-notch birthday present. I'm looking forward to taking lots of pictures.

Pictures, ahoy!

2008-09-10T15:56:00.008-05:00

Mom requested photos for her birthday, so I posted house pictures and long-lost Bahamas pictures to my Picasa account last night. Both albums are large and far from complete, but there are a couple interesting tidbits. Feel free to make fun of my cheesy captions (Bahamas captions to come, various stressors are interfering at the moment).

Anyway, my main reason for posting is that I was tickled by an email I just got. Nick and I are having a housewarming / birthday party on the 19th, which by no coincidence is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day... so pirate themed it be, yarr! I recently decided to buy some decor - pirate flag, inflatable treasure chest cooler, etc - to go with our theme. I got the following from the online retailer I decided to go with:

We would like to notify you that your order has been shipped from our warehouse.

Should you happen to face any problem (e.g. item not arrived, item damaged or in bad condition, wrong item received etc.) or just have any questions regarding your order/product please feel free to get in touch with us. We would be more than happy to assist you as we would do anything to make you a satisfied customer.

Hehehe. Maybe I should suggest they come to my party, dressed in their fine pirate merch, to lead the group in some pirate drinking songs? No? Okay, well, a girl can dream.

The way of the Goob

2008-08-23T08:46:00.005-05:00

This new habit of K's amuses me greatly. It's as if she's too lazy to lift her head to look out the window. She even keeps her head propped like this as she swivels to look from one side of the yard to another. It's adorable.

In other news, Lauren gave a shout out to me / knitting night in her blog, and featured a photo of my latest WIP. I'm not sure I would call myself an advanced knitter, but... sweet! I'll take it :) The project is this purse, which looks great on paper. I'm hoping that it will test my sewing (for the lining) as well as knitting skillz, and result in something useful if not beautiful. Honestly I'm regretting my choice to add the red. I think I would have liked it better in a solid dark grey to show off the cables properly. Maybe I'll start over, but that's always a bummer. Choices, choices...

On the work front, I'm getting bogged down in some statistics, which is so incredibly frustrating. I took two stats classes in college, which might suggest that I know something, but no. I think this stuff is just out of the undergrad-stats league, which really means that I'm frustrated that Emory/Tech doesn't have stats consultation services for labs. Seriously people, back me up here.

Regardless, I survived technical presentation #1 last week, so I'm looking forward to the potential of another one in November in DC. We'll see, but I'm optimistic.

Oh, and this week I made an amazing soup and some carrot-raisin-pecan cupcakes (from VCTOtW, of course). Yum! You're jealous.

Home sweet.

2008-07-09T18:34:00.002-05:00

The last several days have taught me, once and for all, that my cell phone camera is terrible. I need to bust out my old-school digital rebel for this job, but I'm too damn lazy. I'll get around to it, promise.

Until then, be satisfied with this shot of our sun room. I've spent most of this week sitting in that amazingly comfortable chair, working from home because I'm gearing up to write a paper and what does that mean? Lots and lots of reading. But hey, on the bright side, it's allowed me to do lots and lots of cooking (hello, crock pot!) and that's been fun (and cheap).

Otherwise, thunder and lightning are plentiful, Kaisa is dealing with an abundance of mosquito bites (I'm sorry Goober!) and I finally finished my Heroes binge. Season 1 was really good. Season 2 was a complete nutter soap opera in that deliciously cheesy, circular storyline sort of way. Yum. Now on to 30 Rock. Thank you, Netflix, for your instant-watch goodness.

Does anyone have any good zucchini recipes?

(vegan) Cupcakes are wonderful

2008-06-24T12:43:00.006-05:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I am a big fan of the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Let me reiterate: best cookbook ever.

To be fair, I never thought I would say that. As desserts go, I've always been more of an ice-cream-cake sort of girl. In fact, I hate most frosting. The sugar content makes the roof of my mouth feel funny, and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. (What? No, you're weird.)

Oh, but this cookbook. Incredible. Until last night, I was particularly fond of the peanut-butter cupcakes and the cashew-butter cardamom cupcakes. But last night, I decided to try the basic chocolate cupcakes topped with a chocolate mousse (linked picture is from the blog of the author).

Holy crap.

This is what cupcakes are supposed to taste like. Basically, you've never had a cupcake before. Trust me.

Annnnnyway, in other news.... :)

We're finally starting to feel settled in the new place, but we don't have internet as-of-yet. I'm writing at work right now (waiting for some code to finish running) and of course I forgot the cable for my phone so I don't have any pictures to share. They will be up soon.

My last little nugget for you today involves a website I'm currently obsessed with: muxtapes. Playlists have time limits again! It's fun, so if you're as music-obsessed as I am, I recommend it. You can search for a list you might like via muxtapestumbler or you can just go straight to mine. Enjoy!

Transitions

2008-06-12T14:15:00.002-05:00

We move this weekend! I'm really excited about this. You should be too. Do you know why? Because as soon as I move, this space will be inhabited with excessive house pictures in lieu of excessive puppy pictures. See? Aren't you excited?

But as long as we're on the topic of the pup... We went to a coffee shop / dog park for knitting this week. Yes, that's right. It's half coffee shop and half dog park. It's decently close to the new digs, so I have a feeling I will be going back frequently. Rachel and Emma (Rachel's adorable new pup) got there a few minutes after us, and Kaisa actually jumped on Rachel when she walked in. This is a HUGE recent development for my usually-shy girl. It made for an awkward moment when I wanted to squeal with joy, but felt it necessary to apologise instead. But Rachel was nice about it, and Kaisa was as happy as ever, and it ended up being a lovely evening. Hooray for Kaisa, the social butterfly in training...

Fetch!

2008-06-08T10:18:00.003-05:00

More hiking pictures!!! Hooray!

These are from last weekend at Red Top Mountain. Of course, being GA, the mountain is more of a hill, but it's next to a lake. So the draw for me is that it's one of the few places around here where K can swim, which is always really fun for all involved*

*really!! It's hilarious to watch, and she loves it. So much so, she actually barked at Nick when he was taking a break (she appeared to be worn out, but I guess not). It scared him half to death, which was really funny because he jumped and yelled back at her. It was so uncharacteristic of both of them, it really made me laugh.

Hotlanta, to go

2008-06-07T13:08:00.005-05:00

Yep, it's 100 degrees here.

I hope it cools down by next weekend, when the moving begins.

Speaking of moving, Nick and I are on a roll regarding picking up essential items on the cheap. Between us, we have very little furniture (sans an abundance of matresses, which will come in handy for furnishing the guest bedroom). So, being neurotic, I needed to get some furniture before I felt ready to move. I recently found an entire set of beautiful livingroom furniture for $200 (thank you, craigslist!!!), and Nick just bought us some deck chairs that are so comfortable I might vote that they live in the sunroom (he paid half that). Anyway, I also found a set of these:

at my local Salvation Army, for $9. What makes this deal so sweet is that they're available on Amazon.com, so if I want to expand the set or get replacements I know where to go.

MAN, I am good at this poor college student gig! Next on the list is closet space (think antique armoire), sunroom furniture (?), kitchen table, and book shelves (lots of them). I think Nick might want to build the last two with his new fancy woodworking toys, and the former will have to wait until (1) we move in and (2) craigslist offers up something good :)

Allllllright I should get back to packing. (Also, why don't grocery stores offer up boxes anymore? Apparently now you have to call ahead by a day or two. Lame.)

Goofy pup

2008-05-21T19:22:00.001-05:00

We've been getting out a lot lately. This is from last weekend, after a run to the park. Last night we went to a local restaurant to sit on their deck during the tornado warning. Kaisa and my knitting buddies were loving it until the downpour began... No actual tornado though. Such sensationalism...

Debauchery

2008-05-09T21:41:00.003-05:00

I'm not feeling my best tonight, and as such I am staying in and doing notsomuch. Instead of blogging about doing nothing, I will blog about a semi-recent fun event.

The Moustache Parade of 2008.

I'm not sure who was the brilliant and awful person to come up with this event, but a vast majority of my male friends participated by growing moustaches... a week or two in advance. It was glorious, and horrendous.

Us girls, well, being bald, we had to improvise. Enjoy.

Free time? What's that?

2008-05-08T18:49:00.006-05:00

Ah, the semester is over. I survived. I passed quals, my classes, and... the majority of... my students. I am a happy camper. So why haven't I been writing, you ask?

Well, I've been working, which is great. I'm pretty into my research as of late, which is a really nice change of pace. More on that later.

The more likely culprit is The House Search. Nick and I are lookin' to shack up at the end of this month (yay!), so I've been looking at a looooot of houses. That shit is time consuming! But also amusing. We looked at one place last week that was something out of a horror movie. It was a couple thousand sq ft, had 20 ft ceilings and was probably a hundred years old, easy. It was a homestead house, apparently, and as such did not have a living area, only a 7-ft wide hallway from which all the equally-humongous rooms branched. Best part? The second floor "wasn't renovated" so the owners used it as storage. Tenants weren't allowed up there. Creepy much?

Yeah. Right now we're zooming in on a loft complex with a pool and a doggie "run" (like a small but loooong fenced dog park), but we're keeping the options open. We've got time.

The pictures are from recent hikes. The one of Nick is from a week or so ago on his birthday - all he wanted to do was go camping but the weather didn't oblige. It rained all Saturday. Luckily on Sunday we did sneak in a hike at our favorite (closest) spot, and it was a lovely day.

The rather unfortunate picture of me is from a few weeks back, when we decided it would be a good idea to try a 15 mile day hike. That's me taking a necessary break after mile 12 or so. By mile 14 I was limping and suffering from a horrendous sunburn. (What? Sunlight comes through the leaf cover when there aren't any leaves?) I was pretty proud of myself by the end, but I won't be trying a hike like that again after several months of vampirish behavior such as studying/sitting on my ass/living in the dungeon at school. Ahem.

Other fun things about life right now: Vegan cupcakes take over the world, knitting my first pair of socks, and a Lord of the Rings marathon potluck this coming Wednesday (gotta take a day off every once in awhile, right?).

PS- I heart you craigslist.

I have a dream...

2008-04-25T12:40:00.003-05:00

... that, someday, I might have time for blogging. This semester is so close to being over I can taste it. I am so close! And yet so very far away.

So some big news lately. I passed my qualifying exam finally (took me two solid attempts) and good thing, too, because shortly thereafter I got word that I had been awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! WooHoo! That's three years of life paid for (including a bit of a pay raise) and a significant ego boost because those things are competitive. In fact, my application was ranked 3rd nationwide. Yikers.

So when this semester is over I can take some time to really celebrate. Before then, my students and my classes have me by the throat.

Here is something cute:

Committed.

2008-04-24T09:29:00.004-05:00

I am going to make a new-semester resolution to post in this blog regularly. In particular, to take more photos. Maybe posting a photo a day is a little ambitious, but if I got in the habit it would make me very happy. Let's try one a week for now.

It's beautiful here.

More to come...

DNA scarf!

2007-12-07T09:57:00.001-05:00

DSC00544
Originally uploaded by aerchelise

It's laying on the fleece that I bought to line the back, which is almost a perfect match color-wise. It's still curling pretty badly - but it's wool and I've heard blocking will help that. I expect the lining will help it hold it's shape too. I will post better pictures someday soon, maybe when Nick gives me back my camera.

My dog is cute.

2007-12-05T12:29:00.001-05:00

DSC00538
Originally uploaded by aerchelise

Hehe. This is from a recent vet trip. She was a champ. She's been much more relaxed and super affectionate lately. She's taken to sitting at my feet and just watching calmly when strangers are around. She doesn't like it when they show interest in her, but she doesn't hide under the couch either. It's a big improvement. I'm so proud.

Speaking of proud, Ryan was in the Seattle Times last weekend! Yay! (He's the 4th picture)

I bought a Christmas tree this weekend! Or, well, a Christmas bush. A rosemary bush to be exact. It's a couple feet tall. It's cute, and it smells nice, and I can claim to have eaten my xmas tree which makes me laugh. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase.

I turn in my last hw of the semester today. Next Friday is my only final. I'm learning C++ for work, and talking with a few Profs about the feasibility of my project. It's looking more and more like I might get to do some wet-lab biochemistry type stuff in addition to the electrophys, which makes me happy.

Qualifying exams, however, do not make me happy. They are in January, and they are scary. I need to start studying. Back to it...

DisneyWorld! oh, and the Bahamas etc...

2007-11-26T09:31:00.001-05:00

Hoooooly moly what a vacation! There will be lots of forthcoming pictures. In the meantime, I created a flickr account, so all those interested can browse through the ones I've posted there. My flickr account is under the name aerchelise. The pictures in question are under the tags "Bahamas" and "DisneyWorld". Other notables are the recent pumpkin carving we had at our place (under "Pumpkin!") and my San Diego pictures.

Right now, I need to get back to work. Hw due at 1. Sigh.

San Diego nerdfest

2007-11-06T20:20:00.000-05:00

Greetings from San Diego. I'm here with my lab attending the Society for Neuroscience conference, which is f*n Huge. More on that later.

Last post, I mentioned that I was meeting Nick's parents. I feel that deserves a re-cap, and yeah, it went well, they are awesome, and I did not embarrass myself horribly or anything. We went hiking:

It was fun.

So blogger is being silly. I'll post more later.

Short and eventful, but no pictures.

2007-09-26T17:03:00.000-05:00

I'm not getting anywhere with my homework so I'm going to blog instead.

The birthday party was a success, no pictures yet. I might have taken a few but nothing too impressive, I don't think.

Today is Ryan's birthday and I'm missing home, but tonight is knitting night, so... yay! I'm meeting Nick's parents tomorrow night, that should be fun and probably some good food will be involved.

Otherwise, life is good. Busy, and good.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2007-09-19T16:57:00.000-05:00

So last Thursday marked the very first of a string of weekly knitting nights with Rachel and Sarah, and hopefully others as we get the ball rolling. Tonight, we're taking knitting night to the Braves game. I'm so excited! I heart knitting.

In knitting news, I finished Jeff's pirate hat and gave it to him for his birthday. I doubt he'll wear it because it was a little too big, thus I might try again and pawn that one off on someone else with a bigger noggin. But right now, I just started a hat for Nick. He picked out the yarn when we were in Seattle, because I couldn't help but drag him to my favorite yarn store in the world.

That's right, the world.

Ode to soda pop

2007-09-18T20:43:00.001-05:00

I don't say "pop" anymore in reference to soft drinks. I say "soda". In fact, I think I made the transition many years ago, many years before moving to the east coast. Does that mean it was fate? I'm just not sure.

I had a conversation this weekend about intuition and random happenings. It stuck with me.

This weekend I'm having a birthday party with four other people. There are a lot of September birthdays, I've come to find out. In fact, I work with or around 3 other people who have my birthday, the 24th. Of the 3, 2 of them decided to go in on this party. One of them is a professor of mine, and he's turning 60. It'll be a good party.

But that's this coming weekend and I'm barely falling out of the last one, which was way too much fun. Josh left this morning and I was sad to see him go. However, I know he's going to have a blast in Berlin so that's exciting. While he was here, we saw lots of Atlanta stoplights (I think we hit every single one at least 3 times), went to a reaaaaaallly boring Braves game, went to a reeaaaaally fun birthday party, and met the Coca Cola polar bear at World of Coca Cola. Josh, being an avid Pepsi fan, was attacked by the Coca Cola bear.

I had a really encouraging talk with my advisor today, and I'm feeling much better in general. I'm not sure, but I'm going to guess and say that Prelief is pretty much the best thing ever. At least that's what I'm saying right now.

Yay.

To the weekend...

2007-09-14T09:05:00.001-05:00

I'm feeling better as of yesterday, as of when I finally decided to take my doctor's advice and take Prelief with "problem foods". Who knew an over-the-counter drug could be so helpful? I haven't tested it out with alcohol yet, though. I'm sure this weekend will provide me opportunities to do so.

Tonight is a friend's birthday-bar night, and tomorrow I'm picking Josh up at the airport at 2. He's going to be here until Tuesday morning, and I have yet to plan out all the details, but we will, at the very least, see a Braves game Monday night and go to Jeff's birthday shindig Saturday night.

Right now I'm sitting through an online ordering tutorial and I'm incredibly bored. I'm also thinking about the DSP homework I should have finished last night, but that's a boring story involving lots of knitting and reality TV shows.

Today was a rough day.

2007-09-05T17:17:00.001-05:00

So, the girls night was a whole lot of fun, but my bladder did not like the Franzia as much as I had hoped. In fact, I've been having a really hard time for the last three days. The pain pills I have aren't cutting it today. I'm trying to focus on finishing a lab presentation I'm giving tomorrow, but it's hard with this very constant distraction. I really hope it calms down tomorrow. I was able to make it through class today, but by the end of the day I was walking funny. I'm not ready to accept that this is something I have to live with.

I know that alcohol is bad for my bladder. I've gotten used to the pattern of pain-the-morning-after... but pain for three days after? That is too much. And this is worse than I am used to. I guess I don't usually drink wine? I've heard that wine is especially acidic. I guess I needed to learn the hard way.

I have another urology appointment on Friday. More tests. The last time I was there they gave me hope, and I'm looking forward to another successful visit.

Summer '07 - Heck yes!

2007-09-02T16:44:00.000-05:00

Having recently visited Seattle and some of the lovely people I dearly miss, it reminded me that I should probably make a better effort to keep in touch. Like so. I'd like to make updating here part of my weekly ritual, but before I can do that, I feel I need to bring this silly little blog up to date on what is going on in my life after The Summer of '07.

During this summer I have:

- Begun volunteering on weekends with Hands On Atlanta. I was part of a group of my friends that worked together through their Teamworks program. Basically every Saturday or so, we would go to a different type of volunteering project. The idea is to get an idea for what opportunities are out there. I was able to entertain some disabled kids, repackage medical supplies to be sent overseas, and build a mudhouse in a community garden.

- Chosen a lab to do my thesis in. My advisor is Dr. Astrid Prinz, and she works in computational neuroscience at Emory. I'm still trying to bring together my second-year project, but I'm looking into building a more detailed neuronal model, specifically incorporating Ca2+ signalling cascades.

- Met an adorable boy named Nick, who I subsequently started seeing. He's great!

- Started hiking and backpacking. Nick is really outdoorsy, so he's been helping me with getting the gear and such I need. So far we've been on a few overnight trips together but I just bought a new backpack (that actually fits!) so I'm excited to try that out. So is Kaisa, she's loving this turn of events!

- Gone to a couple music festivals, including Sasquatch and Bonaroo. Both involved camping and being dirty/tired but I was really impressed with the music in both cases. If you ever get a chance to see Ghostland Observatory, DO it. It was such a happy dancey show. Good times.

- Seen my mom get married. Nick came with me to Seattle for this, and we had a great time overall. It was really fun to see everyone.

- Dyed my hair pink (highlights only, and they've faded to blonde).

- Watched my friend Lauren shave her head, and her boyfriend Stephen get a mullet (the mullet is now gone, and her hair is almost a half inch)

- Been diagnosed with interstitial cystitis. This has been really hard for me to accept, but I'm coming to it. Though I'm still going through a few more tests, my history and symptoms match up pretty well to this diagnosis (at the very least). There's no "cure", and the causes etc aren't very well known, but there are various treatments to try. I'll probably write a few "TMI" entries in the coming months, just FYI. I have a feeling that there will be times I am more frustrated, but right now things are going well and I'm optimistic, so I won't go into too much detail.

I think that about sums it up. Classes have started again, so even though it's still 90 degrees outside summer is pretty much over. Tonight I'm hanging out with a bunch of my girl friends. We're celebrating our feminity by eating lots of spaghetti, drinking lots of boxed wine (hello, Franzia!) and having a sleepover to get up early and hit all the Labor Day sales. Hahahaha, I love my friends!

Delirious musings

2007-05-03T13:07:00.000-05:00

It's a bit weird to me that cheap, frozen burritos and diet coke have become my comfort foods, especially when studying. Of course it makes sense because the Bioe computer lab at UW was always stocked with such things, but in the midst of a week like this one it still surprises me how much I crave them.

Finals will be over at 9 pm tonight. I have a rotation report to turn in... sometime soon after that. And then it will be summertime and I will have more time to write about the crawfish boil and... well, I haven't done a whole lot of notable fun stuff since then. It's been a little crazy round these parts lately.

Until then...

Brains!

2007-03-29T14:57:00.000-05:00

Ivan finally sent me the pictures. This is me, teaching kindergartners about the 3 parts of the brain: Cerebral cortex, Cerebellum, and Brain stem. How did I choose to teach this? Play-doh! It was great.