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January 27, 2008
New Zealand Pics
Pictures are posted, no descriptions yet. Thesis must take precedence.
Posted by kfeigh at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)
Temperary Thaw
Lots of stuff is happening, so much so that I haven't had a spare moment to update this thing. Let's see. I'll begin with the temperatures. Last weekend Brian came to visit and he arrived to the coldest weekend we've yet had. It was -12F when we left the airport. My car which had been left in a covered, but not heated, garage during my trip to NM was not happy with me, and let me know it by turning over rather pitifully. As we left the airport terminal, I turned to Brian and said, "you'd better put on your hat and gloves, its cold out there." He informed me that he had not brought any, simply not thinking about it. We later made a trip to Tar*get to rectify the situation.
Brian's visit was good. We had our first of three obligatory meetings with a priest. Apparently catholics aren't the only ones who require marriage counseling. Although, I doubt we'll cover natural contraception. The good news is that I think Brian and Father Paul got along, so hopefully there will be less grumbling before our next visit. On Saturday evening we went to see a live taping of "A Prairie Home Companion" I had given Brian the tickets as a Christmas present, as I'm not personally a fan of the show. That said, we both had a great time. The show was very heavily music based and featured a trumpeter. Wow, was she good. She played musical genres on her trumpet that I would not have imagined possible.
I took Brian to the airport on Monday, as I did not get MLK day off. He got to enjoy MSP a little longer than anticipated as his plane didn't take off until 2 hours after scheduled.
The rest of the week was a blur trying to finish up an important conference paper and shepherd it through the approval process. In addition to that I get this random email stating that a formal offer of employment is being put together and that they need my MN address. Then the school chair finally gets a hold of me and says they would like to extend me an offer. He gives the details and says that for the start up package, we need to work out the budget. So he needs me to put together a budget that he can take to the dean and we can agree on before the official letter can be sent.
So, I spend most of yesterday trying to put this budget together. I want to buy three big ticket items (I'll settle for 2 of them), but I'm still waiting back for proposals and numbers from the companies who make them. So right now I'm asking for way to much money. We'll see how it plays out. I need to write to the school chair tomorrow and tell him that I'm going to need a bit more time.
Of course the prospect of a real job, with a salary and benefits and everything, got my mind thinking housing. So Brian and I have been perusing realtor websites.
Oh and this weekend we actually climbed back out from the single and negative digits to actually break the freezing mark today. I'm told it won't last and that the next batch of cold weather is just around the corner.
Posted by kfeigh at 01:37 PM | Comments (1)
January 16, 2008
Albuquerque, NM
New Mexico. I do believe that this is a new state for me! I'm getting to go down to see a demo of a MAV. I'm very excited. If all goes well we should get to work towards helping design the user interface. Design work is always fun and it would get me some experience in an area that I'm very interested in.
Let's see the last week went really fast. Monday was a blur of plane flights and more flights. I have to say though that for the first time in a REALLY long time I was impressed by an airline. I had to fly an airline unknown to me home from LA to avoid a red eye (which I had just gotten off of). I wasn't expecting much. But then as I was drifting off to sleep a flight attendant came by and asked if I wanted a ham sandwich. Since the it was in her hand and halfway to my seat by the time I heard her, I gathered that I didn't have to pay for it. Then I took it, and it was WARM. It was the most amazing ham sandwich that I have eaten in a long time. The bread was not stale, the ham wa sweet and it included cheese. When little thinkgs like that do so much for a traveler's soul it is amazing to me how many other airlines are removing the heaters from their planes.
I fell into bed monday night and then dragged myself to work Tuesday morning. It took me all week to get back to a normal schedule. The fact that it doesn't get light here until after 8am of course didn't help one bit.
Work was good but I don't remember much of it. I also had my first instrument rating ground school class. I am taking it to fill in the gaps in my knowledge about how the avionics in airplanes are really used. It will be especially helpful because it will cover all of the avionics from old mechanical technology to the new GPS stuff. Filling in a big gap in my AE education.
I haven't had time to upload pictures yet as I've been busy getting stuff back where it belongs, doing laundry, buying groceries and writing a conference paper. It is the conference paper that is th emost pressing after food and laundry. It needs to be done by next Monday so I can hand it over for approval from the powers that be. Then in it goes. Last weekend I spent about 12 hours on it and got the method, results, and discussion section mostly done.
Now I'm sitting in the airport waiting to board my flight and enjoying the internet access. I am currently traveling with two laptops, my laptop with my vacation pictures on it and long battery life and my work laptop with my work stuff on it and a much reduced battery life.
Oh and the other day my standard laptop battery gave up the ghost. I got a little pop-up message from the computer telling me that the battery had experiences a catastrophic error and needed to be replaced... Nice of it to let me know I guess, but still kind of eerie.
Posted by kfeigh at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2008
What time is it?
My body is stubbornly refusing to recognize the new timezone. Perhaps the fact that I am exposed to virtually no sunlight might be causing this. Either way, I'm back in MN. I came back to a perfectly clean and organized apartment and proceeded to destroy that peace. I got in yesterday at a little before midnight. Luckily for me the pilot managed to land our plane with very little visibility. I think we were the last plane in before they began the deviations to South Dakota somewhere. Now while it would have been neat to cross one more state off my list, last night was not when I wanted to do it.
Work today was a fog. Luckily there was some mandatory training that I needed to "do". That was easily accomplished in my jet-lagged state. Then I rushed home to pick up what I thought must be 3 packages, what with the two notes and one UPS sticky on my mail box. I figured the office must be furious with me by now. But no, only one small envelop from Garmin (updated maps which I ordered 2 weeks prior to leaving).
Then it was off to instrument and advanced avionics ground school class that I've decided to take on Tuesdays. It runs from 6-9, so I barely had time to rush into the pizza hut in the target down the street from me before class. I think some of my fellow students were jealous of the food. I know I would have been if I hadn't eaten. Class was good and seems like it will be a good investment over the next few weeks.
Tonight I managed to go through my mail and to have a mini Christmas in January. My parents sent me some fun tea accessories including a loose tea maker, mug and measuring spoon all of which I used tonight! Thanks mom. I also got some beautifully wrapped books from Amazon which I will tackle after I finish with my current crop.
Pictures will probably have to wait until Thursday or Friday as I need to pick up the place a bit! Everything is pretty much where it fell yesterday when I walked through the door at o-dark-thirty.
Posted by kfeigh at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2008
Kiwi in the overhead bin
I was all set to bring a kiwi home and baffle the apartment compex's pet rules, when the kiwi informed me that he is afraid of airplanes (what being flightless and all). So no pet kiwi for me. Too bad they are really cute, and keep your apartment free of all insects.
I took my leave of Becca tonight and made my way to the airport, turned in the rental car and am killing time. I did find a great art store in the airport of all places. I had been looking for one all over the country, but finally found it here.
I'll talk to everyone tomorrow when I get into LA around 1:30pm PST
Posted by kfeigh at 02:15 AM | Comments (0)