So join me as I explore my own long road, from Maine to Antarctica to the UK, and most things inbetween. This blog is my ramblings from the daily life of a deep-sea biologist living as an alien in the USA, and a way to keep my family and friends in the loop that is my life without filling up everyones mailbox!
Monday, June 30, 2008
A word to the wise....
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
My day and the days to come
Bathroom Update
And on the ceiling. It looks like my giant globe light is being replaced by several smaller lights, which will be nice (though I shall miss the spaceship). I think they may even be putting one in the shower stall, which will be nice.
Friday, June 27, 2008
The lives of geckos
Another long but semi-sucessful day. No I'm not packed, but I am piled. My Internet is out at home otherwise I would post some photos. No internet here is driving me crazy, im such a blog hog, how am i supposed to keep up! Going to have to start reading at work.
The bathroom has progressed, the plumbing is all done, the shower stall framed out and the floor has been totally redone in cementboard. I'm just wishing they had managed to get the toilet in........having to go outside, upstairs, unlock the really noisy front door, creep past Liz's bedroom to not wake her up, pee, creep back etc etc is getting a little tiring......but then again I guess if I got my arse in gear I should be leaving sunday.....
Hugs (even more)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Traffic
Monday, June 23, 2008
Giligans Island and Bathroom Demo!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Ahhhh.....
Ready to go (again).....?
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Quote
Today is "Pee on Earth" day
Friday, June 20, 2008
Shallow 1 : Deep 1
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Hugs to NEA et al.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The verdict - Ice Pops
Gas prices...
Monday, June 16, 2008
A walk in the rain....
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Froggy sex
Couldn't fit them all in one picture......i'm pretty sure there were more in the bushes too, waiting in the wings....
oo la la........i'm such a voyeur....
(ps....I realised i haven't said, each of these little guys is only 1.5-2inches long)
Saturday, June 14, 2008
I'm a sucker...
Friday, June 13, 2008
More friends
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Solar powered bible....
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Am I where I thought I would be by 30?
- Finished a BSc in Marine and Freshwater Biology
- Started and finished a PhD in deep-sea ecology
- Since 2000, i've been on 18 research cruises (I think, I lost count somewhere) to three different oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Southern)
- Been a Principle Investigator on two cruises
- Watched some amazing sunrises, and sunsets, over many amazing places with many amazing people
- Been down to 3500m in the submersible Alvin, seen coral reefs at 1000m and hydrothermal vents at 3000m with my own eyes out the sub porthole
- Published twelve papers and a book chapter
- Moved my life from the UK to Woods Hole for 4 years, then moved again to Honolulu
- Been to - the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Bermuda, Mexico, Canada, Antarctica and many of the US states that are so different some of them could be their own countries!
- Finally saw a moose after 12 independent trips to moose country to look for them!
- Became an aunt (yes I know I had LOTS to do with that one.....:0), a crazy aunt at that
- Stepped on the Antarctic continent
- Got a faculty job (in Hawaii of all places)
- Snorkeled at night with corals spawning all around me
- Ended a bad relationship, and started a good one
- I've gone from a $500 1962 landrover to a brand new car in ten years, but I still love my landrover more, as rusty and holey as she is now.......
- Had seven research proposals funded - four big ones (two with cruises)
- I've grown in confidence, and in carefreeness
- Knocked six parks off my life-time goal of visiting, camping and hiking in, all 58 National Parks in USA (Haleakala, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Acadia, Isle Royale)
- I have my own lab, thats just mine
- Hiked the Presidential Traverse (23.8 miles, 9050ft elevation gain, 11 peaks including Mt Washington) in 2 days on the second attempt. But i'm pleased with that....:0)
- Learnt to ski and snowboard, neither of which i'm any good at, but I have learnt I really love the snow, never saw very much of that before I was 20
- I've snorkeled with sealions, swum with penguins, seen orcas, humpbacks, baby blue whales and sperm whales, watched giant tortoises waddle and great albatross' fly, watched urchin eggs be fertilized and become babies - in short i've seen some pretty amazing natural sites, too numerous to list here and all I am grateful to have witnessed
- I've moved from sharing a house with 5 people i hated; into a tiny studio with pink walls and red trim in the middle of the Southampton red light district; into my pdoc advisors basement; into a huge two bedroom apartment with dining room, double kitchen, deck, garden and pond; into a much smaller two bedroom house with wonderful garden; into a shoebox studio which is seven steps from front door to back (and thats around a chair)
- And I share that shoebox with two geckos
- And I actually love the shoebox and having to downsize, it's been good for me
- Made many lifelong friends, too many to count
Root Canal
Sunday, June 8, 2008
The weekend
The way back down - just as the rain came in. It's started being wet again, and this made this trail really slippery in places, lots of mud.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Got em......
Some Pix from Torres del Paine
My companions contemplating the Torres del Paine (the Towers of Paine) over Lago Azul. What you don't know is that this picture is taken post pee-in-the-woods - they all just looked so cute there staring out at the mountains giving me some privacy!
Guanaco! A relative of the Llama. We stopped at pretty much every Guanaco we saw, until we saw around a thousand in one spot so we didn't stop so much after that.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Some Pix from the cruise
One of the many beautiful icebergs in the Scotia Sea - otherwise known as Iceberg ally for the number that drift on through the area.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Kate B is wonderful!
Wednesday update
Big ass cars.....
Monday, June 2, 2008
Parking
return is always parking. This morning I had a meeting at the biomed
building. Downtown, so just drove straight there. No short-term
visitor parking, I had to pay the regular uni $3. So then came back to
main campus. Well my parking ticket was orange and the parking
structure only has blue tickets, AND they are non-exchangeable. So
another $3 down. $6 in parking today and I've had to leave at 2pm to
go to the dentist. Best bit is that if I want to go back to work after
I'll have to pay another $3 because they are invalid if you leave the
car park. Shish.
On the good side at least when I drove back this morning
there were actually spaces to park in, summer vacation.