igooo

lol haha i said i'd post more but turns out i can't access Blogger from work because for whatever reason the army doesn't want me to blog...

anyways just wanted to drop a quick hello to everyone. My sister's in town so we're going to the beach tomorrow.

and yay jo!!! i think andy's gonna take off work on the 5th so we can both come see you in philly!!

just lemme know where to meet'cha and i'm there ;)

You know I hate to be left out!

Well everyone….since it seems like everyone is moving in new directions at this time in our lives, I thought I would follow suit. Yes, that’s right…I’m leaving Madison. It’s been a good 7 year run, but I thought I should get out before it’s too late (and since the best opportunity in the world has come my way). On September 24^th I start working for The Nature Conservancy in Minneapolis. For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently working for The Nature Conservancy in Madison doing GIS and other assorted odd jobs around the office. My new position would be that of GIS analyst for the Central US Region, which includes 10 states (including Wisconsin) and 2 large scale projects (the Great Rivers Program and the Great Lakes Program). This is an amazing opportunity, and it means that I get to live in one of the places that I’ve always dreamed of spending a few years of my life….the TC (that’s Twin Cities for those of you not up on the lingo). Like I said, I start working on September 24^th, so I anticipate that I’ll be moving on the 23^rd (if any of you are so inclined to help me out!). If you want to see me before I leave, I suppose we should try to plan something (though with Brian and I both moving out now, my house might not be the most organized place to get a lot of people together). The complication is that I will be in Milwaukee for weddings on the weekend of the 14^th and the 21^st, so if we do plan something, it will need to be the weekend of the 8^th or 9^th (Friday night is probably the best that weekend…the 7^th.) or else some Thursday night, since I’ll be gone for the next 2 weekends. Also…if anyone wants to come visit Brian and I in the TC, give us some time to get a place to live, then let us know. Any of you are welcome at any time.

It’s scary to leave Wisconsin….even though I’ve always said I wanted to. I’ll miss you all, so make sure to call/e-mail/IM often ok!!!

See you soon!

I'm flying to Madison from Friday night (Sept 14) to Sunday night (Sept 16). I figure I can get together and do something fun for a couple hours one night and one morning. I am going to have to spend a lot of time studying, so that's pretty much all the pure fun I can handle. I might go visit my dad in Milwaukee, too. Hopefully, my workload for that weekend will be manageable. I think it has the potential. Anyway, I wanted to let people know. More info to follow. :D

on my own

hey all-

Thought I'd give a report since it has been so long since i've posted anything here.

Life has changed for me too, as since last Wednesday I've moved into my sweet new pad....and found myself unexpectatly lonely and depressed. Maybe its just that I'm missing my close friends that have left the midwest, or maybe this is just a phase i have to go through before i totally live on my own...

When I finally got the majority of my stuff moved in, and was on my own, i just started crying...didn't plan on that happening. plus now that i've started seeing jeremy again my anxeity has been kicking back in.....hence why right now as I write this I am NOT at my new place, but back at home in S.P....i have to say i'm appreciating my family a little more lately.

However--Jo will be staying with me next weekend! and that's totally exciting!

also, frisbee starts again this Monday, so hopefully with that and work, things will start to improve....also this Wednesday I'll get internet at my place...and oh, i'll be doing tons of stalking....

tatafornow

North Carolina

Now that I can post again, I will. I also am employed, by North Carolina State University. Classes start Wednesday, and my adviser gets back from vacation Monday. It turns out they don't expect me to start up a project any time soon. It'll involve something with quantitative disease resistance in these 3 different fungal foliar pathogens of corn, along with a lot of statistics and walking around a field in the long tradition of plant disease genetics. I like these things, as I found out all of my fellow grad students do. That's how corn geneticists come into being - by default, because no one else would willfully do the protocols. I know a lot of you guys would, too, because this is a blog of nerds. Awesome.

Um, so, school is good, and the state is pretty cool, too. I haven't seen as much racism as I was lead to expect yet, which is cool, and people are REALLY nice here. There are a couple really kick-ass bars for beer, too. Oh, and lots and lots of trees. Raleigh-Durham-etc is kind of like one really spread out large town. It's all either residential, strip malls (even all the local places are in strip malls) or sporadic short stretches of small street with local commerce in old buildings (like the Main St in every small town). All the buildings have big lawns and lots of trees between them, and the residential buildings are either old houses or really new townhouses/condos. The whole thing is spread out over about a 100-mile-long stretch of interstates. So, if you drove just 5 minutes, you'd think you just went through Oconomowoc or something, but then you could keep driving through areas just like that for another 2 hours on the side roads. It's kind of strange, but it's nice, too. And the barbecue is really good, there's a lot of fried food, and the Mexican is really bad. My co-worker and I went to a Mexican restaurant in a mountain town, and, among other not-too-tasty things, they served us really crappy Chinese rice. Oh, and everyone that worked there was Mexican. Strange. They also did not have margaritas, but they did have daiquiris. The service was great, though. The local ice cream stand was good, and named Party Time. This isn't important, but I still can't stop laughing at the idea of an ice cream stand named Party Time. Ice cream is great, but it is not, in and of itself, a party. So I think. Maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, I really miss you guys. I don't have any friends yet to go out with on weekends, but I think I may eschew making any and just read papers and all of your myspace/facebook profiles on my days off. It's kind of been making me feel like a stalker, since a lot of you post about groups of people I don't know all that well, but it's been nice anyway. Please everybody start posting again, and I will totally read it. :D

yay employment

yes, i am employed now.

I work for andy's boss's wife, who's also an entomologist (yaaay!). We're doing monitoring of mosquito and tick-borne diseases from different army bases. I'm doing a lot of the same stuff that I did while i was in california, but with way more cool and competent people. and they're paying me pretty damn good for a part time job-- $18/hr! wooohooo!!!

Meanwhile, I'm still having issues getting the documents I need to prove I'm resident here, so if I take any classes it's gonna cost me like $300 per credit instead of half that, which sucks major ass. All I need is to show them somthing that proves i've been here for 3 months that they'll actually accept. Hopefully it'll work out, but i'm not holding my breath.


So jo, I'd still like to see you if you're heading out this way--just lemme know where you'll be and when and if possible i'll get my ass there too.


and sarah j if you still read this i needs your home address so i can accurately mapquest you!


I'm trying to work on being more bloggy now that I'm away again. I hope you'll all write more too!

yay everybody i love!

oh my god

I just heard about the bridge collapsing in Minnesota. Is everyone ok?

My sister lives on the edge of Minneapolis and luckily she and her husband are ok but...

please please tell me everyone here's ok too.