Brad, say that again. Part Two.
Pleasure with some business thrown in.
I’m home from a week in Boston where I attended the American Society for Microbiology 108th General Meeting. Overall, it was a good time. The sessions were not as informative or novel as the ones I saw last year in Toronto, so that was a little disappointing. But this year I presented a poster and had really interesting responses. I passed out some business cards and tried to appear professional and job-worthy since I have to start thinking of these things.
Me at my poster:
An intimidating sea of knowledge exchange:
Boston is fun. Our hotel was on Tremont Ave. near Boston Common, so we spent most of our free time there. A friend of my fellow traveler lives in Cambridge so we took the red line to see Harvard, MIT, and the Broad Institute (which shows live genomic sequencing data on TVs in the windows-they were working on the African elephant when we walked by!). Nothing makes you feel more inadequate than visiting prestigious universities!
I also love how there is a Dunkin’ Donuts on every block. This is not an exaggeration. They are tucked into every nook and crannie up there. It was killing me. I had to succumb.
I’m gonna miss this place, but it’s time to be moving on.
Luke and I are moving next month. We will only be 10 minutes from where we live now, but it will be pretty different in little subtle ways. I’ll have to take a new bus to school and Luke will have no choice but to drive to work, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. This new place is awesome! I can’t wait for our friends and family to see it.
Ultimately, I am really ready to move and try a new environment. It will be nice to get away from the noisy neighbors, garbage on the sidewalks from heavy pedestrian traffic, and the flower pot of cigarette butts on the porch from the neighbor d00ds. This new place is going to be a lot of fun to decorate and I am pretty sure the walls are not concrete like our current place, so we can actually hang some artwork! Plus, we will have a huge backyard (with a view of downtown’s skyline!) and we can finally start a garden.
I am going to miss this place though. It’s a cool apartment. But, this is just a chapter in the book that is Luke and Dawn.
But, shit. Now we have to pack.
More Want Pet.
My pet wants are manifesting in my dreams. I dreamed of a pet rabbit named Bun Bun the other night. He was small and white and I just sat petting his ears back against his head.
He looked like this:
Sike naw, he looked like this:
I decided to dye yarn instead of eggs this year.
After reading Julie Theaker’s article about dyeing yarn at home using nothing more than food coloring and a crock pot, I decided that I had to try it. I had this natural yarn from Shadyside Farm Studio that I bought a few years back that, while pretty in its natural state, was boring me when it came to actually knitting with it. It was screaming for some fierceness.
I used the McCormick dye dropper bottles in neon and regular shades to mix what I wanted and tested along the way on paper towel scraps. It took surprisingly little dye to achieve what I wanted. And it went so smoothly that I can see myself doing this every Saturday morning from now on!
First up the dip dye method using the crock pot. Here is what I ended up with:
And second, the cold pour method using plastic wrap, the oven, and my kitchen floor. Results:
Big Mistake?
The Penguins traded my favorite player, Colby Armstrong, this week. I am really sad. Not only was he an asset to the team, but he was totally cute. Now he will be totally cute for another team (the crappy Atlanta Thrashers)! It’s not fair! Is it any wonder that the Pens have lost their last two games since this trade?!?! Why mess with team chemistry this late in the season? Let’s hope Hossa pays off in the long run because it would be nice to make it further than the first round of playoffs.
