Sticking my foot in my mouth January 19, 2008

City Park at Sunrise

Originally uploaded by Christy Payne.

Brad came in for a visit this weekend. He is less than three weeks away from finishing school as well!

Anyway, last night we were sitting around eating dinner and watching a movie and hear this crazy noise. He goes to check it out, and lo and behold, it has snowed nearly 2 inches since we came home. The “crazy noise” was someone shoveling the sidewalk, but it’s not a common sound for a southerner like me.

The funniest part is that Katie asked me to take photos of all the snow the night before when we were chatting. I’m all like, “The snow is almost all gone. It’s just really cold here.” So apparently, mother nature wanted Katie to have her pictures of the snow. Although, I thought there was just a bunch of snow in Portland.

January 13, 2008

    An unprecedented two posts in a week’s time? I never thought the day would come!

So my first full week of work was a seeming success. I didn’t break anything to my knowledge, and was only tempted to surf the internet during my lunch break. I have way too much to learn about oil and gas processing and being a real engineer to waste any time right now. Oh yeah, and there’s free coffee, hot chocolate, and mocha out of one of those dispenser machines. You can’t beat that. Actually, the coffee’s not the best, but when you’re trying to stay awake because you get up at 5am, it works.
My stuff is completely unpacked, and nearly everything is in its place. The moving company is coming to pick up all the boxes and paper on Wednesday, so then I can finally use my back sunroom. Then I promise I will take photos to post on Flickr.

I credit this productivity to the lack of cable TV, which will take a nose dive tomorrow as the cable man should be coming to connect my blissful Food Network. I haven’t actually watched the Food Network in a year and a half, so I hope the programming hasn’t gotten any worse. As long as Alton Brown is still there, I’m cool. I had a dream that I got to meet him last night. Of course, he loved me being a chemical engineer and all. There wasn’t much to it except for our mutual admiration. Maybe one day we can meet, and I will steal him away from his wife!

Speaking of food, I may be making some vegan jelly donut cupcakes tonight or tomorrow. I’m thinking about going to this potluck music show that Jeremy Averitt, of Cookeville notoriety, pointed out. I need to get out and meet people outside of work.

Okay, okay… January 5, 2008

This is for Ariel… I’m pretty sure she’s the only one reading this. Well, and Ross, of course, because he is forced by Ariel…

So, long story short… In the more than year since I have posted, I have finished my Ph.D. and moved to Denver. I started my new job with Big Name Engineering Firm on Wednesday, and I have to say it is very nice to not be a grad student anymore. Not that being a grad student didn’t have it’s perks (i.e. a flexible schedule to do as you wish during the day)… I have been doing mostly little programming tasks for which no one else has time. Not a bad gig… It’s better than writing manuals, which is what I was told I would do until someone had time to take me into their project.

I still have to get my stuff unpacked. It didn’t arrive until the day I started my job. Once I get things squared away, I will take photos of my new abode. I should have taken a photo of the outside the day I got here. There were at least four inches of snow on the ground. It’s nearly all melted though. Except for that alley I tried to drive through last night and almost didn’t make it out of… The ice between the tire grooves was taller than the clearance of my car!

I promise, Ariel, I will try to keep up with this blogging thing again. Oh yeah, I found out the beer festival thing sells out months in advance, so if you want to go, we need to be prepared.