The lull before the holiday rush...

The holidays are fast approaching, and this weekend is my last weekend in Ithaca before I begin a massive amount of traveling to see family and friends over the course of the 2011 holiday season! There is not much to report, but here are some random photos taken over the last month or so that do not require their own post, but are still fun.

My laboratory is in the middle of another CHESS cycle. We were given three weekend blocks of time throughout October and November to conduct our experiments, the last of which is a 24 hour time block this weekend from 12 noon on Saturday to 12 noon on Sunday. My CHESS data collection has been frustrating as of late (to put it mildly), and so I am hoping this weekend's trip will be more productive. On November 4, Karen and I worked a night shift at CHESS during one of the Crane weekends there, working from 10 pm until 9:30 am. To survive, we watched episodes of Gilmore Girls while we collected data (and during our 3 hour wait for broken equipment to be repaired), and to stay awake, she consumed a 5 Hour Energy drink and I drank this 2 L of Coke Cherry Zero out of a coffee mug. These were terrible choices - we may have been awake, but we made ourselves massively sick to our stomachs. While in undergraduate, I used to consume a 2L bottle of Coca Cola (not diet) EVERY DAY, 5 days a week...and I have no idea how I did this then, but I am not capable of it now! It will be awhile until I will want to consume cola-type beverages...

Our Sunday afternoons are spent watching NFL football. Here is a cute photo of David and Ipita while enjoying the Dolphins' first win last weekend (the Dolphins also won their game yesterday too).

I have been invited to give a talk at a conference in CA during January. I was excited about this opportunity for about an hour, and then I became completely stressed out about getting more work done between now and then. David and I saw this wine in the store a few weeks ago and thought the name was clever enough to justify purchasing a bottle (the label also suits me perfectly, because I take a bath almost every day to unwind). I am sad to report that the wine itself was nothing special, but I still like their concept of a Tough Day Chardonnay...