45 minutes

Kate is home in Iowa for the weekend to go our friend Jordan’s wedding and I’m here in Watertown typing.  Some good news happened last week – Kate got offered a full 4th grade teaching position at Newman Elementary in Needham.  This is the school she’s been working at for the past two years as a 5th grade teaching assistant.  She had gone through an extensive interview process and just a few weeks ago was told that she didn’t get the job.  After that, she was pretty bummed out about the school and we were ready to head further west in MA so I could be closer to grad school in Storrs.  After some consideration, Kate decided to take the job as her cousin Shelly is also a 4th grade teacher there and she would really like to work with her.  I’m really excited for her about the job as it’s a great school with a lot of great people and there aren’t too many times in life when you can work with a family member.

This is all great, but it changes our plans considerably about moving.  We want to be closer to the city now so Kate won’t have a huge drive but also far enough out so my UConn commute isn’t too terrible.  We’ve settled on the Auburn/Oxford area as it’s right on the Mass. Turnpike and is centrally located… only a 45 minute commute for her to Needham, 45 minutes for me to school in Storrs, and 45 minutes for me to work in Lexington.  I think I’m going to hate the 45 minute time interval (is it possible to hate an amount of time?).

While Kate’s in Iowa for the weekend, I’m scoping out apartments.  The first one up tomorrow is a townhouse in North Oxford located on a golf course.  The description sounds great and the rent’s cheaper than we’re paying here so I’m really looking forward to the trip.  Of course, North Oxford is 45 minutes away from here.  Stupid 45 minutes.

-Bob

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UConn here I come!

So it happened again – an e-mail from Dr. Jepsen stating it’ll be another year before she starts her research group and I didn’t get into other research groups at MIT. So I’m very excited to announce that I’m going to be starting my masters degree (probably leading into a PhD) with Dr. Bahram Javidi’s research group at the University of Connecticut! I’ve been down there a couple times and have already decided on a research topic! It’s real-time 3d sensing and identification of microorganisms using holography. I’m really excited to start work (took the last half of last week off to get all read up on holography and microorganism fun stuff)!

Originally, Kate and I were hoping to stay in the Boston area. She’s been a teaching assistant in a school for the last couple years and after finishing her teaching masters degree this summer was hoping to take over her own classroom. Unfortunately, she didn’t get a job there (we’re both bitter towards Boston!) so we’re free to look elsewhere. I only need to take one class at a time at UConn, and the one this fall only meets once a week (on Friday afternoons even!) so the thought was for me to keep my full time job at Lincoln and do a part time masters program, doing research in my spare time.

After my visit down there earlier this week, it’s become very apparent to me that it’ll be VERY VERY difficult to do an intensive research project at the same time as working full time… and there’s also the 80 mile commute between work and school to consider. Right now, I think I’m going to cut back to working half time in the fall, either working two very long days and spending three in lab at UConn or come in on weekends. We’re looking to move to the middle of Massachusetts near the Connecticut border so Kate can actually use the Massachusetts teaching certification she’s worked so hard for! UConn is only about 20 minutes from the CT/MA border so that can easily be worked out on my end. Plus, there are TONS of teaching openings for Kate!! Yay!

So things are a bit up in the air with Kate searching for a job… really hope she can find something good and me trying to figure out what to do about balancing work and school. It’ll probably be tough but we’re both really looking forward to moving as far away from Boston as we can (I’m going to get a stupid thing about Boston column going here soon).

So what else is new? I’ve been spending way more time and money on comic books and related paraphernalia than I really should be I’ve recently started acquiring Original Comic Art, focusing on pages that hold significance from my childhood. If you are interested in experiencing the real nerdy nerdy (and roll your eyes like Kate rolls her eyes), then take a look at my gallery at the Comic Art Fans community website: Linky Yay nerdiness!

I’m also working on a fun little 3d movie using Flash. I started another blog to document the process. Check out my White Rabbit 3d Blog! It’s good for you!

That’s me… I’ve been REALLY self absorbed lately trying to deal with all the crap going on. Will get out and say hi to everyone soon!

Hope the weekend was nice and the weather treated you much better than it did stupid Boston (eh, Boston deserves it, stupid stupid Boston)

-Bob

We’re Chreasters

So Kate and I went to church for the first time since… Christmas on Sunday. So that makes us dirty Chreasters. It’s been a really hard time finding a church we both like here in Boston so we gave up looking for longer than we should have. The service on Sunday was pretty wacky so the search continues. We’ll be sure to go this Sunday, though!

I’ve been meaning to post these Easter pictures but some serious sinus issues caught up with me and I’ve been sleeping a lot. Anyway, some fun pictures of our Easter feast are below. We decided to avoid lots of left-overs so just bought a single ham “steak.” Nowhere near as fancy or tasty as a full ham, but we’re not floating away in ham.

I needed a wee bit of Boston’s trademark liquid courage before we could begin

Kate just needed her magic apron

Things got out of hand when she got hold of the masher

Mmmm…. ghetto ham steak…

I confiscated the masher so Kate settled down and used the collander properly

And a beautiful Easter dinner… come to think of it, we’re probably Chreaster table eaters

And so ends another Bob + Kate Easter special.

Happy Wednesday!
-Bob

Thursday full o’ knowledge

I believe to be successful, one must constantly learn new things. Because I would one day like to be successful, I try to learn something new each and every day. Some days I don’t learn much of anything and other days I learn lots. In no particular order of importance, here’s what I learned today:

1) Rotten watermelon is very stinky.

2) It takes approximately 20 minutes to force said watermelon down the tiny holes in my sink drain.

3) Labview is really kind of stupid.

4) Fell #6, released yesterday, is a kickass comic book and is already really hard to find (You should buy a copy for the low, low price of $1.99 – it will be worth much more very soon ).

5) You can spend $2500 on a new wafer probe and get it really fast. When you need said wafer probe repaired for a measely $100, you must constantly bother your group leader to approve the purchase order or else the probe will never be repaired.

6) I miss my wife! She went home to Iowa yesterday and won’t be back until next Tuesday. Aahh!!

7) When you play volleyball in your work clothes at your group picnic and dive for a ball, you will get sand in your pants.

You will also get sand in your pants pockets.

9) When taking your pants off, sand will fall out of your pockets onto the floor.

10) Dirt Devils kick ass!

So what did you learn today?

-Learnd’ed Bob

Boston Heat Wave

Boston is in the middle of a smoking hot heat wave causing all the little boys and girls to run around screaming “It’s hot, it’s hot!” This morning for the first time in the 1+ years I’ve been here an announcement came on the intercomm at Lincoln. It said because of energy required to keep us cool in the heatwave we should turn off any unneccesary power consuming devices. All the lights in the hallways were promptly shut off… all of them except the stairways which happen to have a full wall of windows. Oh yeah, and the air conditioning was set down to what felt like 65. Gotta love your government funds at work!

-Governating Efficiency Bob

Bob at work

This is pretty accurate.

-Bob

MegaMATCH!

Howdy howdy,

So how’s life been for everyone these last two months?  Good?  Good?  I hope so!  I’ve been worked extra hard at the lab to the point of feeling burned out. The good news about work is that I’m getting my name on a patent for all the work I’m doing.  I don’t feel like I’ve really contributed a whole lot of research or new ideas but I’ve been doing a lot of legwork by designing testing methods and then testing device after device after device after… fortunately there’s a break in testing now so I’m free to read papers all day… I need a new job or at least a new project.

Last weekend was lots of fun!  Kate and I went to my cousin Heather’s wedding in Chicago.  The wedding was held at The Catalyst Ranch, the funnest, most eclectic, craziest loft I’ve ever seen.  The wedding was a mix of class and goofiness with Heather’s sister’s husband officiating the ceremony courtesy of his new status as an official Universalist Life Church minister.  The food was catered by someone with a show on the Food Network so it was very tasty though a bit too out there for my picky wife’s tastes.

At the wedding, I was introduced to the husband of Heather’s childhood friend Lisa – a guy named Andy Wachowski (co-writer/director of the Matrix films).  He was a really nice guy and chatted with me on a bunch of technology and entertainment topics.  He thinks the future of entertainment lies in interactive entertainment (i.e. video games) but for it to become the dominant entertainment form it has to win over the housewife crowd.  I joked that he should make a “Days of Our Lives” video game but he wasn’t sure how well he could integrate kung-fu with that world.  All in all, a very cool dude – he even got some beer for my little brother.

In other entertainment news, I’ve been reading a lot of comics lately.  Marvel recently released the Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume 1, which contains roughly 40 issues of one of the best runs of X-Men comics of all time.  This $63 volume is a fantastic deal and the reproduction quality is simply fantastic.  So yeah, go buy it!

My goal for this week is to write two more posts.  That’s right, two more posts.  I’ve been having trouble lately diving head first into things (work, comics, world cup) and forgetting about everything else (friends)… something I should change.

And besides, I couldn’t possibly take another Amber Alert!

-Bob

Stone Zoo

The Kate and I took a trip to the Stone Zoo this afternoon. There were very few animals and most of the ones there were sleeping. It was still nice to walk around and I took some good pictures. We even got some gianormous freezees (blue's the best)! Here's the pics:

One sassy roadrunner

One lazy fox

One lazy zebu

One sleepy Canada lynx

"Daddy, daddy, I want a jaguar!!"

Leaves in front of a llama – this shot didn't turn out as well as I hoped

This Black-necked crane was chilling really close to the fence so I was able to get this nice closeup – unfortunately a blurred fence adds a gray haze to the left side

I also like this shot of the crane – the angle makes the crane really funky looking. I couldn't decide between this and the last pic – let me know which you prefer!

Flamingos – I like how each flamingo has a different colored number tag on its leg

Yeah, so the zoo has a "Dino Dig" station where kids can dig up "dino bones" in a sandbox. This statue was so funky it had to get captured by my CMOS sensor

Overall I'm pleased with this picture set. I may have gone a bit overboard with closeups and am sad I couldn't get a good shot of the spyder monkeys. Steve inspired me to get the Canon Rebel XT used to get these pics. I couldn't have been happier with my digital SLR choice.

Let me know what you think of the pics! Also, does posting all the pics on this page take too long to load? Would you prefer if I posted thumbnails?

-Bob

I’m Back! With Ham!

Howdy, howdy, howdy!

It's been a long time and I have a lot of catching up to do. It's been a very very busy month since my last post and I will fill you in on the details in a timely manner.

But this post will focus on the fun Easter Kate and I had. We experimented in the kitchen and ended up with a surprisingly delicious Easter dinner. Our ham was juicy, our mashed potatoes were smooth and unlumpy, and our crescent rolls were crescently robust (ok, so I don't know what that means). Anyway, here are some pictures:

Kate makes a mean jello

We'll be eating ham for months

Jello ole!

Mmmm… artsy jello

Yum

That's it for now. I'll fill in the missing weeks soon,

-Bob

Ugh

Just to give an update on the state of affairs here… I woke up early last Thursday with a burning throat. I looked in the mirror and my tonsils were HUGE! The soar throat along with fever and tiredness has stayed with me the past week. I went to the doctor yesterday – it's not strepp but it may be mono. Ugh, that does not sound like much fun. I just haven't been very with it this last week. Ugh.