New Book

Last night I arrived at my hotel to find out that the room had not been cleaned. (It's a big deal because they only clean once every two weeks.) I was irritated, but decided to be calm and go run errands. Fortunately for my blood pressure, Barnes and Noble is on the way* to the grocery store.

I picked up a couple of bridal magazines (looking for hair ideas and the elusive answer to 'What am I forgetting?') and proceeded to wander around the store. I stopped at the science and psychology sections (some of my favorites!) and picked up a book that I'd been looking for in the store for a few weeks.

I realized as I was paying how odd my purchases must look. I bought two Bride magazines and a copy of The Sociopath Next Door.


*A short five mile detour.

A new feeling...

I did something exciting this weekend.

My super-senior year at college, I received an odd scholarship. This scholarship gave me some free money (awesome!), but only so long as I also took a loan for the equivalent amount (huh?). Since free money is one of my favorite things, I accepted the scholarship with all of the loan inducing caveats.

This weekend, I paid off my first and only student loan.

Signing the check and putting it into the mailbox felt good. All of a sudden, I am a Productive Adult who Pays Her Debts to Society.

The high lasted until I looked at the principal left on my computer, car, photographer, and wedding ring loans.

At least I can look forward to many such exciting moments in my future.

Ringo is my favo(u)rite Beatle

I just spent five minutes listening to Octopus's Garden and lamenting the fact that I don't have Yellow Submarine on my phone. (There's another song he sings that I like a lot too. Beej, help me out.) Anyway, I suppose this makes Ringo my favourite Beatle, especially since I can't really tell the other three apart.

I had a blog topic just a couple seconds ago, but I got distracted by the sign in process to blogger. Technology thwarts me.

Anyway, this weekend looks like it is shaping up to be a good one. I will leave work in another hour and a half or so and head back to St. Louis. I need to get a waiver thing so that I can register my car (memo to self, figure out when the DMV is open and if I have to show up myself.) and then run by the Apple store after I pick up B.J. from work. (The silver 'silence' button on my phone broke off. Am not pleased by this.)

The rest of my plans for this weekend are simple - watch Young Frankenstein and spend some time perusing Sears to decide if B.J. and I want to register there. Other than miscellaneous errands (bank, grocery store) it is shaping up to be a very nice weekend.

A bunch of physicists go to a party...

* Everyone gravitated toward Newton, but he just kept moving around at a constant velocity and showed no reaction.
* Einstein thought it was a relatively good time.
* Coulomb got a real charge out of the whole thing.
* Cavendish wasn't invited, but he had the balls to show up anyway.
* Cauchy, being the only mathematician there, still managed to integrate well with everyone.
* Thompson enjoyed the plum pudding.
* Pauli came late, but was mostly excluded from things, so he split.
* Pascal was under too much pressure to enjoy himself.
* Ohm spent most of the time resisting Ampere's opinions on current events.
* Hamilton went to the buffet tables exactly once.
* Volt thought the social had a lot of potential.
* Hilbert was pretty spaced out for most of it.
* Nobody could find Heisenberg at the end of the evening.
* The Curies were there and just glowed the whole time.
* van der Waals forced himself to mingle.
* Wien radiated a colorful personality.
* Millikan dropped his Italian oil dressing.
* de Broglie mostly just stood in the corner and waved.
* Hollerith liked the hole idea.
* Stefan and Boltzman got into some hot debates.
* Everyone was attracted to Tesla's magnetic personality.
* Compton was a little scatter-brained at times.
* Bohr ate too much and got atomic ache.
* Watt turned out to be a powerful speaker.
* Hertz went back to the buffet table several times a minute.
* Faraday had quite a capacity for food.
* Oppenheimer got bombed.

Movies I want to see

1. Whatever the new Harry Potter movie is (this includes everything from the 4th movie on, as I have been busy in the last couple of years)

2. Dark Knight

3. Twilight

I wish miscellaneous had synonyms

1. I couldn't be prouder of B.J. Congrats on getting into grad school (again)! I'm convinced that MFA really stands for mutha *cough* awesome instead of Master of Fine Arts.

2. To the people on facebook ranting about Palin/the GOP in their statuses. People. We get it. You're pissed, you don't like Palin, you think she's the worst thing to happen to the country since Bush, yada yada yada. The conservatives feel the same way about Obama. The exact. same. way. So, updating me every five minutes with your new, deeper levels of disdain doesn't do anything. Post about the color of your lunch instead. I like that better.

3. The one day I don't wear PPE and contacts to work is the day that I'll get an email announcing a field walkthrough in the afternoon.