Much Excitement

Our lives have been very exciting the past little bit. I'm finishing a PhD and Eric and I have been trying to figure out what we are going to do now. We have been so blessed to have many possible opportunities. Although that has meant a lot of travel and stressful interviews. This week the perfect job offer came our way. While I don't want to make any official announcements yet, I'll give you a little hint.

Relaxed

Eric gave me a day at the spa for my birthday. I scheduled it for Monday and ejoyed a very relaxing and pampered day. It was so nice that I've been relaxed all week and been able to handle some stressful situations without freaking out. Like on Wed. when Eric's alarm didn't go off and he missed his 4:00 am airport shuttle. We got him pulled together and made it to the shuttle stop in Albany on time so I treated myself to a Dutch Bros mexican hot chocolate on the way home. I also felt relaxed enough this week to deal with situations with our car mechanic and the bank that I have been putting off for weeks. All in all it has been a very productive week and I would reccommend a spa day, or at the very least a nice pedicure, for all.

Roboman

Eric visited the doctor on Thursday and now has a new and improved brace. It still goes above his elbow and makes him look a little bit like a robot but it is much lighter and easier to get clothes over. This one will be on until June 14 when we he gets the pins in his wrist removed. I got to see his naked arm with the stitches. They shaved a lot of arm hair and I'm guessing it will be pretty annoying when it starts growing back in. Some good news is that he can ride his bike indoors on the trainer now. Bad news is that he is probably not going to be able to do any racing or sponsored rides this summer.

I had dinner with the new Chief of the Forest Service, Gail Kimbell, last Friday. She was in town to accept a distinguished alumni award from the college and my department was sponsoring her visit. As we have no female faculty, my department head invited me and another female PhD student to go along with four male professors, Gail and her husband to Iovino’s. I had some delicious butternut squash ravioli and really enjoyed talking with Gail. She has a great sense of humor and joked about being the first to store hair barrettes in Gifford Pinchot’s desk. I was disappointed that she didn’t have a security detail with her. I was imagining walking around down-town Corvallis with her and being surrounded by men in dark sun-glasses and ear-pieces. When I am Chief I will take security everywhere with me, they just look cool.

Biker Dude


My brother Tim and his friend rode their motorcycles up from Salt Lake City and stopped by for a visit. They are heading out to the coast today and are planning on riding Highway 101 down to San Fransisco. Luckily we had some great weather and they shouldn't get rained on. He looks a little scary with the big beard but I think he looks like a younger version of my dad (complete with red beard!). Thanks for stopping by bro!

Eric the new lefty
It has been a crazy few weeks for us and to add to the excitement Eric had surgery on his wrist last week. He tore ligaments in January playing basketball and has been living with pain for a while. The surgery involved pinning one ligament back in place and using other wrist tissue to fix another ligament. He goes back to the doctor on Thursday and will hopefully get a smaller brace. Then in 6 weeks he will be back in surgery to remove the pins. No more bicycle for a while. And no more basketball ever! OK, maybe "horse" is still allowed. He is back teaching class this week and today is actually out on an all day field lab. Hopefully he can keep his arm elevated and his meds don't make him too loopy!

My heart is hurting this week for two friends and a family member who are going through sad and difficult experiences. CH, KG, and HB - I love you and wish I could be with each of you to give you hugs and love. This is truly a sad week.

Ode to my Pac-Man lunchbox

Actually I am not very creative and grammar was never my forte (read: engineer) so I won't subject you to any poetry. But isn't my lunchbox great? My advisor poked fun at it today but I think it is pretty cool.

Eric really likes it when I have a loose utensil rattling around in it and he can hear me coming 2 blocks away.

More water

It is raining today so I might as well write a little more about water... A friend sent an email out this morning with a news release on bottled water. You can read it here if you are interested. A point that stood out to me was that bottled water is regulated by the FDA - a federal agency - so bottled water collected and sold in the same state does not have to meet the FDA requirements.

A little poking around at our local EPA and water treatment plant made me realize that our home faucet filter, which uses a carbon filter, does little. It does remove the clorine smell and taste but our water treatment plant uses an active carbon filter towards the end of the treatment process and this does all and more than the dinky faucet filter in terms of contaminants. Our city sends out a water newsletter every once in a while and I looked over the last one but there was no mention of pharmaceuticals. I'm going to try the EPA water quality hotline tomorrow: 1-800-426-4791.