Golden Birthday

Your "Golden Birthday" is when you turn the age of the day of your birthday. For example, today I turned 29 on June 29th. Considering they say that women just keep turning 29, this means it will be my Golden Birthday every year from now on! :)

So how does one celebrate an extra special birthday like their Golden Birthday? Well, if you are in the middle of writing a dissertation that needs to be done in about 3 weeks*, it's not so much a fun event than it is something you'll turn into one of your life's "war stories" that will become more dramatic with each retelling.

Question: "So what did you do on your Golden Birthday?"

My answer as a function of time:


Today: "I got to my office at 9:00 and worked on my thesis all day. I went to a cycling class at the gym, and had planned to stay and do another, but I felt so stressed about my thesis that I left early and went back to my office to work for another hour. The night before, Michelle suggested dinner so we went to the Cheesecake Factory with some friends. We had a nice dinner, and I even splurged on a piece of cheesecake. After dinner I went home and worked a bit more. I was feeling stressed all day though, I won't lie."

A year from now: "I worked on my thesis ALL DAY. Ug, it was terrible. I was feeling so stressed out. I barely even had time to make it to the gym, I felt so stressed and guilty about spending time away from my thesis. Michelle insisted I at least go to dinner, which is good because I probably wouldn't have done anything otherwise. So we went out, and fortunately, I had fun at dinner. But I had to get back to work after I left dinner which was not fun."

Five years from now: "I was in the middle of writing a dissertation! What do you think I did? I worked. All. Day. Long. I hadn't slept in like 3 days, and could barely see straight by the end of the day. I went out to dinner, but I was so stressed out I couldn't think about anything else. I was not fun to be around. I went home and stayed up all night working, until I fell asleep at my laptop. By the time I woke up, I had 7 pages of the letter H in my thesis."

Ten years from now: "I don't want to talk about it."

Twenty years from now: "Oh, I was in the middle of writing my thesis and was pretty stressed. As I recall, I hadn't planned anything but work, which I did all day. I hadn't left my office in like a week. My office mates were starting to think I was one of the fixtures, and would accidentally turn the light off and shut the door when they left, even though I was still sitting there. My good friend Michelle had to practically use a crowbar pry me away from my desk to go to dinner with her and some friends. But then I had to go back and work, which I did into the wee hours of the morning, and I just felt like I wasn't making progress at a quick enough pace! I was totally panicking because my defense was like 3 weeks away and I still had soooo much to do. And don't even get me started about how hot it was in Austin that week..."

Fifty years from now: "I don't really remember, but I'm pretty sure there was snow uphill both ways involved.... "


Well, let's hope I don't make such exaggerations and have such failure of my memory. I'm very glad Michelle arranged dinner so that I DIDN'T sit in my office all day! (Because I would have...) She's the best!! Though I was feeling stressed out most of the time today. I'd like to say the stress is subsiding, but if anything it's mounting. Anyway, that's a different story. In the meantime, here's to many more 29th birthdays!** Does that mean I'll just keep getting more golden with time?



* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Stressed? Who me?)
** Just a disclaimer, I'm really not THAT distressed about getting older. I just think it's funny.

Seeing America, Part 2

As you may recall, I made the long drive from Austin, TX to Albany, NY about 5 months ago. Well, it was time for Part 2 of the journey, Albany, NY back to Austin, TX: the Reverse Trip. My friend Nathan drove with me and it took us 2.5 days.

The route this time around was different. Since it's not winter, there was no reason to avoid the northern route, which is actually less miles than the southern route. Our route laid out like this:

We left last Thursday afternoon around 1:00. Our goal for the first night was to make it to Cleveland. We made it all the way to Kirtland (which is about 30 minutes outside Cleveland), which worked out great for our sightseeing hopes.

We made our way across upstate New York and the first stop of interest was Niagara Falls. I've heard the Canada side is the best for viewing, so we headed across the border. Fortunately we are both seasoned travelers and had our passports ready. (They are now required for crossing the border.) And they didn't even get suspicious with all the stuff I had packed into my car. Though the border agent into Canada did get after me for not staying behind the stop sign while I waited. (I didn't even SEE the stop sign.)

I've never been to Niagara Falls, and I was pretty excited. It was even cooler than I thought it would be. It was amazing! It was raining, but at least it wasn't dark yet. Here are some pictures.



This one will probably go into my collection of "Elizabeth in Front of Famous Things," even though the mist makes it kind of hard to see the falls.

We joked that this structure from the American side actually looks like an unfinished bridge. I was finishing it for them.

We stayed Thursday night in a Ramada Inn about 10 minutes from Kirtland. The rooms were fine, but I was highly disappointed with the breakfast. When I called them as we began looking for a place, I specifically asked if they had a free breakfast. (It's question #1 that I ask a hotel.) They said yes, but failed to explain that their "continental breakfast" was really small muffins, a bowl of apples and bananas, coffee, and water. (Not even juice!) Yeah...uh, kind of lousy. But whatever.

There are lots of cool church history sites in Kirtland, but we didn't have much time, so only went to the temple. We (i.e., the Mormon church) don't own the Kirtland Temple, but rather it is owned by the Community of Christ (formerly the RLDS church). They recently built a very nice visitors center right next to the temple. The tour of the temple starts off with a 20-minute video about the history of their church and the church's history in Kirtland. I'll be honest, it's kind of weird since their history is also OUR history, but told with a different spin in some ways. So interesting. At the end of the movie, "The Spirit of God" is playing over the speakers, the screen lifts up, and the curtains open. You're then left looking out a huge picture window with an incredible view of the temple.

We then walked over to the temple where the tour guide took us to all three levels. It was amazing! Such a beautiful building.

The tour concludes with the group (it was us and two families) sitting in the pews on the first floor. After the guide explains a few more things, he invited us to sing "The Spirit of God," asking for a volunteer from the group to play the piano. I volunteered Nathan, as he is an incredible pianist. And hey, playing that hymn in the Kirtland temple is too cool to pass up. Nathan noted later that the hymn book they had sitting on the piano was, in fact, a Mormon hymn book. Go figure. (But they don't print the music in theirs, so it makes sense, I guess.)

Here is Nathan and I after the tour. Someday I'll go back and see everything else.

So here's what I got thinking about as we saw the Kirtland temple. (Well, one of the many things I was thinking about.) If we owned the temple, what would we do differently than them? In a broad sense, I mean, what would we do with it? It certainly can't function as a standard temple because it wasn't ever designed to do so. (Especially when you consider that the temple ordinances weren't revealed until Nauvoo.) And making it a functioning temple would require a major overhaul of the inside, and I don't see that happening. Not given the beauty and historic significance of the temple to Church history. Anyway, that's some food for thought. Anyone have any thoughts?

Anyway, we got back on the road with St. Louis as the eventual goal of the day. We hit two more capitals on our way down, Columbus and Indianapolis.* These brings my total to 22 capital buildings visited! I'm almost halfway there!

Me and Columbus. No, Nathan didn't cut out the dome, turns out that's what it looks like. Maybe they ran out of money in the construction?

And here's Indianapolis. This one was right in the middle of downtown and harder to find a good angle for the picture.

Okay, and here's a totally random picture. This cement thing had these hand prints on them, and this was the most clever pose I could come up with on the spot.

We made it to St. Louis by about 8pm, and stayed the night at Nathan's sister's apartment.

Saturday was our final day on the road. We knew it would be long and it was! We were on the road for about 16 hours. We pulled out around 7:30am and were determined to make it to Austin. (We drove through Oklahoma City, but didn't stop for the capital, as I've already been there.)

Nathan took this picture of the "frosty air" my AC can create if left on long enough. I won't go into the details, but basically last summer my AC was broken and rather than paying $500 to fix it, my mechanic (who is a genius, by the way) came up with a cheaper way to hot wire it. It's basically like super AC now and gets so cold that eventually the air begins to blow out frosty. Thank goodness because it gets hot in Austin!

Texas!! We made it! (Of course, making it INTO Texas is only half the battle. We were still like 6 hours from Austin.)

I had to give Nathan a proper Texas experience, and that included eating bbq and Tex Mex. (Though not at the same time.) We stopped at Rudys in Waco for dinner. I think he was sufficiently overwhelmed by the pro-Texas spirit of our fair state.

The next day was Sunday, and we saw UT campus in the morning before going up to church. He took this great picture of the Tower and the Littlefield Fountain.

And we found the giant 5-point star downtown. He liked it.

That evening we also went to a concert in the park, walked around the Town Lake trail by Auditorium shores, saw the capital, and almost saw the bats. Monday morning we ate Tex Mex at the Hula Hut and got Amys Ice Creams. (I was saving my treat for finishing Chapter 2. Yay!) Nathan then flew back to New York, and I have to get back to work on my thesis.

It was a good trip, and I'm happy to be back in Austin. Yay Austin! Many thanks to Nathan for making the long drive with me.





* To my friends in Columbus (Katie) and Indiana (Kevin, Ted, and Aubrie): Okay, so I'm sorry that I couldn't stop to see you. We were a bit pressed for time. Next time. :)

Summer update

Many of you already know this, but I figure I'll make a general announcement. I'm moving back to Austin for the summer. I'll be house sitting for a professor in my department while he and his wife are away for the summer. I'll be driving back sometime in the next two weeks (exact date still to be determined). I will be around Austin until the end of August, then travel up to Utah to see my family, and move to Baltimore in September to start my new job. (I'll be moving to Baltimore from Austin; that's where all my stuff is.) My dissertation is not finished yet, but I'm making progress and my goal is to defend sometime around the end of July. (I hope...)

Anyway, that's all.

NYC and back

Last weekend I met up in NYC with my sisters Sue, Julia, and Sue's friend Dawn for a quick, but fun-filled trip. They took the Jet Blue red eye out of SLC Saturday night, and I took a 6am train from Albany Sunday. (It's only a 2.5 hour train ride. Getting to the city from here is so easy!) They met me in Penn Station, we dropped my stuff off at the hotel and the fun began.

First off, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. I've never done this before, but it was pretty cool. Here are the three sisters on the bridge.

This makes me feel like I'm in some kind of Escher painting.

That night we saw two musicals, Billy Elliot and Mary Poppins. Good times!

We stayed at the Marriott Marquis right in Times Square. Sue got a killer deal! And split between 4 people, it was even cheaper! Yay! Here I am in Times Square after we saw the shows.

The next day, Sue and Dawn went off to do some shopping and Julia and I went sightseeing. We went to Top of the Rock, which is the observation deck of Rockefeller Center. Here are some views from the top. (The first picture of this post is from Top of the Rock as well.)


Next we saw St. Patrick's Cathedral. Afternoon mass was just finishing up, so we heard the organ playing. It was amazing!

Next we wandered over to Central Park, but got distracted for awhile by these street vendors selling jewelry. Everything was in small white boxes, piled on this table. They had some cool pieces and they were only $5 each. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. We stayed at that table for awhile, wading through the mountain deciding what to buy. I had to exercise some restraint, and only ended up buying two necklaces and a pair of earrings.

We did actually make it to Central Park though.

We met back up with Sue and Dawn after that and got some lunch at a cute little place called Serendipity. (Famous for their desserts. And I think featured in the movie Serendipity....maybe?) They also had the biggest menu I've ever seen!

Then it was time to go home. They took a cab to JFK to fly back to SLC and I walked the 10 or so blocks to Penn Station to catch my train back to Albany. Such a fun trip!

Chicken, black bean, rice soup

At the risk of making this turn into a recipe blog, I have another recipe. Apparently I've just been in the mood to try new recipes. I got home from the gym tonight and wasn't sure what I wanted to eat. I think I should be eating more protein, so decided to go for the frozen chicken breasts I had. I figured I'd go for boring chicken and rice (tasty, but boring), then I saw a can of black beans and thought, "I wonder what I could do with that."

So I did a Google search for "chicken 'black beans' rice recipe" and after wading through a bit, came across this one. Well, I have another winner! (And the black bean trend continues.) (I have to use all those cans I bought somehow. :) )

Chicken, black bean, and rice soup

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 x 14 oz can chicken broth
• 2 x 15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (16 oz) jar of salsa
• 1 cup cubed cooked chicken breast
• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 tsp ground cumin

Directions:

1. Saute onion and garlic in oil until tender.
2. Stir remaining ingredients and heat through.

My notes:

• That's it! So easy and so tasty. I like the mix of spices of the salsa plus the cumin.
  
• I only had one can of chicken broth, so I loosely halved the recipe. It turned out just fine.
• I imagine this would be good with sour cream and cheese or something, but I ate it plain and it was still great.
  

Oh, be a fine girl...!

Many years ago, an astronomer named Annie Jump Cannon (who was one of the "calculators" in Edward Pickering's lab at Harvard) classified well over 200,000 stars in the sky based on their spectra. She organized them into a sequence according to temperature that is still used today. It is:

O B A F G K M

O stars are the hottest and they are blue. M stars are the coolest and they are red. The Sun is a G type star. The mostly common mnemonic device to remember this sequence is "Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me!"

I gave the final to my astronomy students on Monday. I included an extra credit question: create your own mnemonic device for the spectral sequence. The stipulation was that the words had to flow in some sort of logical order and form a complete sentence. I have some clever students, and there were a lot of great ones. Here are some of my favorites. (My comments are the italicized text in the parenthesis.)

• Only Beautiful And Fun Girls Keep Men (Written by a girl, I might add.)
• Old Billy Ate Fifty Giant Kansas Muffins (What exactly is a Kansas muffin?)
• Oh, Boy! Astronomy Facts Give Me Killer Migraines (Clever, and appropriate.)
• Obnoxious Boys Are Frequently Getting Kicked More (Ha! Love it.)
• Okay, Be A Fighting Guy, Karate Man. (Karate Man...so funny!)
• Overall, Brendon Always Finds Good Kissing Mates (Written by someone named Brendon.)
• Only Behaved And Fun Guys Keep Me (Probably my favorite.)

Try it. It's not as easy as it looks. :)

The Weekend

This last one was among the best of my Albany weekends. My reasons are as follows:

0. I had the house to myself! The Porters were celebrating their 40th anniversary with a weekend trip to Canada, so I was left to hold down the fort.

1. Swing dancing Friday night -- I haven't gone dancing since I've been in Albany. I found out that they only have dances once a month, on the first Friday. So I donned my dancing shoes and headed downtown. There was a live band, and to put it mildly, the dance was an awesomely fantastic time. I don't think I've EVER had so much fun swing dancing before. I was worried I'd be a bit rusty, but it all came back after the first dance. I often worry that I'm not very good, but a lot of the leads I danced with seemed to really enjoy dancing with me. Two of the best dancers there asked me to dance THREE times (each!) and another guy (who also danced with me three times) kept telling me how wonderful I was to dance with, and he was delighted when I said that I lived around here (meaning, I'd be back next month...and believe me, I will!!). I danced a lot, I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. But it was the most dancing fun I've had in a long time.

2. Major workout Saturday morning -- I had a great cardio workout and went to a weights class (that's Body Pump, for you fellow Golds Gym-ers) and it felt great! Yay gym!

3. Saturday afternoon in Albany -- My friend Nathan showed me the Capital Plaza downtown; we went to the top of the Corning Tower (tallest building in Albany), and walked down to the river. Turns out downtown Albany does have some nice spots. Next Saturday we're going to the Tulip Festival in Washington Park.

4. I made my first pot roast -- Sister Porter invited people over for dinner Sunday afternoon before plans were made for them to be out of town. So I played hostess, including making the pot roast. She gave me a lesson Friday morning, and set everything out for me.* (Even the whisk in saucepan on the stove!) She really does think of everything.

And it actually turned out pretty well (even the gravy!) and people seemed happy eating it. (Sorry, didn't manage to take a picture of the finished product and the happy people eating it.)

5. CES Fireside Sunday night -- Elder Bednar. Need I say more? I think not. (But I will.) There was a mingle beforehand...here we are "candidly" socializing. Holly and I were probably having a discussion about Freaks and Geeks. I had lent her the DVDs** at church that day, and when I saw her at the fireside (a few hours later), she come up to me and said, "Oh my gosh! I am in love with this show. I've already watched a couple episodes." Yay! Another convert! :)

6. New shoes -- Saturday night I realized that a Kohls gift card that I had expired that day. So with half an hour left before they closed, I ran over to Kohls and looked around. I ended up buying these shoes. At first I thought they were kind of ridiculous, but kind of awesome. (Now I just think they're totally awesome.) I was debating them in the store, wondering if they were too bold. As I was putting them back in the box (still unsure as to whether or not I should get them), a woman who was nearby while I was trying them on said, "I like those shoes." I said, "Me too! But I don't know if they're too bold." She said: "Oh no! They're great. You should buy them." I bought them. I also bought a long necklace that matched pretty well. I wore these shoes with the outfit in the above picture. (I wish they'd gotten the shoes in that picture!)

7. Maybe less fun, but I actually got my grading done. Yay end of semester projects and papers! (Such a big stack of grading!) Monday I gave my final, so I'm done teaching and now 100% thesis. (Well, after I turn grades in.)

8. Barefoot Ultimate -- Okay, so Monday night isn't the weekend, but for FHE on Monday night, the group from church played Ultimate again! It wasn't raining this time, like last time, and a few of us took our shoes off to play. I was a bit cautious about the no shoes idea at first, but it was great! My feet were filthy by the end, and it was so fun! (And I even survived crashing into my teammate Dan as we both went for the frisbee, an incident that ended with us tangled up on the ground.) (My friend Cathy took a picture of my feet, but I don't have it yet. Otherwise I would have posted it here. Oh well.)

The greatness of the weekend will be hard to top. Of course, this next weekend has a good shot. Tulip Festival Saturday, then I'm taking the train to NYC to spend Sunday and Monday with my sisters Sue and Julia! (They're flying out from SLC along with one of Sue's friends.) (But no shuttle launch in Florida on Tuesday that week...sad. I canceled my plane ticket to Orlando because NASA moved the launch up one day. Boo!)



* Lest you think I made the gravy from the brown gravy mix there, let me set the record straight. She set that out in case I (a) messed up making it from scratch; or (b) ran out and needed to make more quickly.
** We traded off. I let her borrow my beloved Freaks and Geeks DVDs and she lent me her prized Arrested Development DVDs. It's like we're holding each other's stuff hostage, so we'll be sure to get them back.