JPL and Mucus Covered Squirrels

My trip to JPL was fabulous. I learned how to use Lemur and tried out my controller and learned a lot and met a lot of cool people. Best of all I found out that they're trying to get me some kind of official status at JPL so that I can have a badge and visit to work with Lemur any time I want. They work on such cool projects there I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should work there for awhile after I graduate. I mean, how could you not want to work with robots like these:

Look carefully! I'm in that photo! And these are half scale models of robots to carry astronauts and their stuff around on the moon. Here's my robot:

More photos of JPL stuff are posted, as well as photos from my backpacking trip to Big Basin a couple of weeks ago.

When I got home Chris informed me that he had done something very nice for me... I had been complaining that the drain in the shower was slow and that I was sure there was a hairball in there and I could pull it out but really didn't want to. Anyway, while I was gone he rigged up a coat hanger and went fishing around in the drain and found on his first jab....

Cover your eyes if you're feeling squeamish...

A couple of pounds of gooey bad smelling hairball that was more than 3 feet long. He said he had to run out of the room because it was so horrible. He said it made him think of a mucus covered squirrel. Isn't that NASTY???? He's such a hero. We're assuming it couldn't have been all our hair... probably those drains have never been cleaned in their lives.

Ensnarement

I was just totally suckered by the floor layout people at Macy's. I went in there looking for one particular thing and walked out with that and also some socks and a swimsuit just because I passed them on the way to other stuff and "Oh! It's on sale! I've always wanted one just like that!" Interesting about the swimsuit actually - I went last year looking for one just like it but I went to Old Navy because I knew it would be cheap. But the lights in the dressing room at Old Navy's are ugly lights. I just know it. I wouldn't be surpised if they have fat mirrors there too. I looked hideous in this swimsuit at O.N., but at Macy's it looked pretty good. Now I just have to do a few situps between now and Greece and it'll be perfect for suntanning. Oops, except sun tanning is out of vogue... I mean... uh... shade sitting.

I go to JPL tomorrow morning. I'm nervous about it too. What if I turn out to be dense and can't get the robot to work? What if I panic and can't remember the differences between Matlab and C code? What if an asteroid drops on my tiny rental Aveo in the parking lot and I can't get back to the airport to come home??? What if? What if? I think this is my first business trip by myself. But I'll be fine

This past weekend I moved in with Chris. Matt and Anne came over and then it only took about 2 hours to transfer all my stuff from one house to another. Now we're packed in there like sardines and have discovered new levels of creativity with stuff-storage. Disassemble the desk and put all the flat parts behind the bookshelf and dresser. Stack the mattress and boxspring on top of the futon and put the disassembled bedframe under the futon frame. (Chris is trying to convince me that the ultra high bed level is trendy. I dreamed last night about getting the Bend's - clearly a reference to my actual fears regarding change of pressure from floor to bed level.) I'm not all the way unpacked yet, but that'll come soon enough I'm sure.

In other news, I found out in the last couple of days that both Jorge and Dave Thom are recently engaged. Congratulations to both of them! (Is it something in the water?)

Valentines and Stuff

Chris got me flowers and tickets to Viennese Ball for Valentines day. Here's me dressed up to go to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - Trellis.

Here's a big plant Chris calls a Century plant. These plants are all around campus and most of the time look like giant aloes. (A couple of years back I voted one near my house "Most likely to come alive and run amok.") Anyway, every once in awhile they decide they need to flower and they send up these enormous stalks. But Chris's mom didn't believe, so this photo is for her.

I bought airline tickets to go to JPL next week. I'll be there Tuesday through Thursday. It's so exciting! I'm going to get to control Lemur!

Cute Amelia

Here's a very cute photo of Amelia with her mom and grandma. I visited them a week ago and she's gotten so big. Her favorite toy when I was there was a medicine box and she was sitting up and pushing other things around with it. She can stand really well with someone supporting her now - I'm sure it's only a matter of days before she's walking. He he...

Chris is so cool

I don't think Chris has any idea how cool he is. I just came from watching him get in his research vehicle (research sponsored by Nissan) and drive away with the CEO of Nissan. There were body guards and camera crews and all kinds of excitement, but in the end it was Chris getting in the car and driving off. So cool. I wish I'd had my camera.

Backpacking this weekend was very fun - Chris couldn't go because of deadlines and it was definitely a quieter group in his absence... the waterfalls and big trees were very beautiful though and the weather was perfect.

JPL wrote last week and said they really want me to come down and work with them and I just came from speaking to my advisor and he wants me to go down ASAP also. So that's very exciting.

And congratulations to Abigail and Dave on the birth of Adara Joy (A.J.) Imako Korka. The full moon on the 11th turned out to be the perfect delivery time and Ab didn't have to be induced - I'm sure she's pleased about that! Can't wait to see pictures of the little one.

New page design

Check out the new design of my webpage here. I was getting thoroughly sick of all the pictures of exboyfriends so I went for something more on the classy side. I'd love to hear input from anyone! I intend to add some professional links soon too - my trip to JPL was a big success and it made me think of things like graduating and getting jobs, so I want to post a resume (a vita I guess it's called at this point in my education) and some good information about the research I've been doing.

Paper done

Wee hoo! I submitted my first paper as first author on Monday. If you're interested in reading it, here's it is. It's in pdf format, is about 1 Mb big, and is pretty technical, but I have pretty smart readers, so I bet you'll all be able to understand it. Pretty much.

So then yesterday I took off and went geocaching and found my 500th geocache. Yay!