Elvis is in the house

Seriously, he is. What kind of casino doesn't have some sort of Elvis impersonator?

My trip here was slightly difficult. My flight left Regan Nat'l Airport at 3:55. It was crammed full - I was in zone 3 for seating. By the time I got on the plane, no one was sitting in my row, but there was no room for bags!! We made it to Atlanta in plent of time. I had about 45 minutes to get to the next plane. When I got there they were boarding. My only food option was Krystal (the White Castle of the South), so I passed. BIG Mistake. It was SNOWING in Atlanta! We got on our plane, and wound up waiting an hour for them to deice our plane. In the end we didn't get deiced. It had started raining hard enough that all of the snow got washed off. Luckily the flight wasn't full, so the seat next to me was empty and I could stretch out later on the flight.

The in flight movie was the Jane Austen Book Club. I read this book ages ago. I didn't like it. I don't remember why, but it never really piqued my interest. However, I watched the movie anyways. I NEVER like the movie more. I can't think of more than maybe one or two books that I've enjoyed the movie more. Occaisionally I enjoy it equally, but in a different way. Well, I hate to admit it, but I REALLy enjoyed this film. It may have just been because it was better than the alternative - working... But I really did like it. It may be because I had low expectations, and because I enjoy Jane Austen. It could be because I'm in a different place in my life. now I want to re-read the book. We also got to see The Game PLan with The Rock - HORRIBlE. That is all I will say.

We got into Vegas an hour after we were scheduled to arrive. Then it was a LOOONG wait for luggage. By the time I got to the hotel (with a 30 dollar cab ride) and checked in, it was about 10:30, and I STILL hadn't eaten dinner. THe best part - The fire alarm in the room next door was going off. It took about half an hour for security to come up and turn it off. I just called it a night. I'm staying at the stratosphere (http://www.stratospherehotel.com/) . IT is OK - not as posh as the palomar was. The big problem is that it is at the far north end of the strip. We are about to head out so that I can get some dinner and to do some sightseeing!

Ms. Jersey Goes to Washington (pt 2)

Well, isn't that a creative title, NOT. The remainder of my D.C. Trip was fairly uneventful. Tuesday was spent in meetings all day. It was uneventful, but good. I ran into Eileen, who used to work with us, and we caught up over coffee. She and her husband, Airangel, moved to Palm Beach, Fl since Vicksburg didn't really sit with him. They seem really happy! After talking with her for a while I hit the next session - and got a LOT of good talking in. It was a poster session, so I was able to talk with all of the presenters. More importantly, they had two sessions and about 15 posters that were related to things I am really interested in. I think I made some great connections and should be getting some good stuff for my new projects. I spent the afternoon in committee and signed up to do some stuff - so now I'm an active committee member! That is always a good thing to be.

Tuesday night was the U of I reception. Every year they hold a reception inviting all alumns and friends of the CEE dept who are attending TRB. It was another good chance to get in some time with the students as well as schmoozing with the professors. After a drink and some schooze time I cut out and met up with John, Jeb, and Don to go to the ESPN Zone. We were intending to catch BIlly Gillespie and the Kentucky Wildcats vs. the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Unfortunately, they forgot about the time change, so the game didn't start until 9. We didn't feel like sticking around that late, so we ate and watched Michigan State-Ohio State, and then headed home. It was an all around fun time.

Wednesday I hit the sessions in the morning, and then I met up with Kate at her other store. We stopped by the National Building Museum (www.nbm.org) and decided we need to go next time I come visit. We grabbed a heavy lunch and then we split up. I headed back to my hotel since it was time to hit the road sarah.

Your Taxe Dollars at Work, Thanks!!

Your Tax Dollars at Work!
I’m safely arrived in D.C. Let me tell you, your tax dollars are at work this week, and I’m enjoying it! I arrived yesterday around 2 PM. I headed to the hotel and met up with my sister there. Let me tell you, my hotel is SWANKY! The Hotel Palomar (http://www.hotelpalomar-dc.com/) is located in DuPont Circle. It is definitely Fancy Pants. The place is super fine. The hotel has Free wine and beer and tapanade from 5-7. They also have a free coffee and tea in the morning. For a big city like DC, this is about as good as it gets. You don’t get free stuff at these types of conferences – so any meal savers are happies. Plus, you know you are swank city when the soaps and lotions in the bathroom are L’Occitaine of Provence!

I ate lunch with Katie Grace, and went over to her store. It is about 3 blocks from my hotel. I got fitted for new running shoes, and got a good discount! Yay for that. Then, Kate had to start doing inventory, so I left. She was doing shoe inventory until late, and then was supposed to be at work at 6AM today, so she stayed with me. I went up to the conference hotel to get my week started. I wasn’t sure if I would be doing much of anything, but the TRB fates intervened. I was headed to the UT Austin Hospitality room when I ran into my friend Dennis from my M.S. at UT. We sat in the bar with his co-worker Dave, and we caught up. I was about to go to the ARA hospitality suite when I ran into my boss. We had a few moments chat, and then I did hit the ARA hospitality suite. While there I was able to catch up and do some schmoozing, then I got to meet up with the U of I kids! I miss them!!! My Airport Chick, Carrie was there – we were the best team ever! We started and finished a complete semester project in the course of about 3 days, during finals week. I also got to see Creepy Bob – my Ex-officemate. Bob is the Token White Boy in his part of the department, literally. I think that after 6 months together I have status as a full friend of his. Minnesota Matt, my friend who also knows all aboot how to show the structural kids that we are just as good as them, except that we are actually better than them. Amanda gave me some good news – the professors don’t’ have a clue about what my QE will be about. It was good to see the posse! We went to this cool place, the Brickskeller, which had 500+ different beers (http://www.lovethebeer.com/brickskeller.html). When we decided to call it a night we headed toward the Circle, and I realized that we were actually around the corner from my hotel. Excellent choice!!

Yesterday, I gave my presentation and hit some committee meetings. It was rather lame, but good. I skipped the conference stuff this evening, and then I met up with Katie Grace. We went over to Georgetown for dinner. It is definitely a cool area. There are a million shops, both expensive and cool boutiques. We ate this awesome Italian restaurant, Papa-Razzi (http://www.georgetowndc.com/mapit/86). I had this delicious chicken with proscuito, fontina cheese, mushrooms, and a marsala sauce. The portion was huge, and I couldn’t finish it if I tried. Kate had a fabulous farfalle with chicken and broccoli in a olive oil and garlic sauce. We even sprung for desert – cream puffs filled with gelato instead of cream. Super Yum. And, not at all a bad price – I paid almost as much for my chicken kabob lunch at the Afgani Café, and that didn’t include desert and had slow, poor service.

I'm too exhausted to summarize today's events - I'll leave that for another day.

A little Less Conversation

Things are not super great in MS. Unfortunately, we went to the vet on Saturday. Madison had a red belly, which had me worried. Turns out she had some sort of allergic reaction and started itching it pretty badly – now it is infected. She is on major antibiotics. She isnt’ acting like a sick dog – but she isn’t an all well puppy. So, I don’t want her spending too much time outside until I burn off the leaves in the back yard. However, every time we have a weekend where I’m not booked solid it rains and I can’t burn them off. Plus, these dogs are dumb. When I leave them outside during the day, they spend half of their day sitting in the leaf piles as though they are “beds”. Yesterday I pulled a huge nasty tick off of Daisy. I don’t want to encourage any more of that than possible. Unfortunately, when they can’t go outside they get into a bunch of trouble in the house. If I didn’t know any better I would think that they hated one another!! There is a lot of biting and rolling around. I definitely have not figured out what to do with them while I’m out of town next week.

Still, it could be worse. Erin and Jeff, she works in my lab, just got a new dog over Christmas. They had a basset hound, Pogo, who was purchased when Jeff was single as a mechanism to attract women (it worked), and Alley, a cat who came from Erin’s single days. They wanted a second dog, so after much looking around they tried to rescue a basset hound. They picked Juno up on the way to Erin’s parents for Christmas. Both dogs spend a fun holiday in Memphis with Erin’s parent’s dogs. All went well until they brought Pogo and Juno home. Pogo stopped eating on December 27th and hasn’t eaten since then. After going through bloodwork at the vet the other day it turns out that Pogo is just depressed. He now has two crazy females living with him, so he is on puppy prozac!!! Really, puppy benadryl isn’t as bad as puppy prozac.

Speaking of out of town – Next week will be a busy week. It turns out I’ll be world traveling. I’m heading to Washington DC on Sunday morning. I’ll spend the first part of the week at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Meeting. It is essentially a meeting of 10,000 transportation professionals from all areas – government (state, federal, and local), academia, practitioners, and all sorts of others. It is amazing some of the things that get discussed in the sessions in this meeting. The conference deals with my area: pavement materials, as well as highway and airfield design, traffic flow, geometrical design, railway and ship transit, policy, and a million other things that I forget. My favorite is always seeing the sessions regarding things like: Women’s Issues in Transportation, or Signage for the Elderly. There will be people from all over the nation, and it should be a blast, as always. Luckily, my former boss is going to go on his own dollar – he retired last year and it just isn’t TRB without Al there drinking scotch and chewing on a cigar.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon I’ll be heading out to Las Vegas to meet a couple of my coworkers to attend a training seminar on constitutive modeling of soils. If that doesn’t sound like a Vegas type of topic, I don’t know what is!!! Actually, this will be a great training course for the work I’m doing right now and the work I want to move into. So, this will actually be a really good opportunity for me. Plus, it is Vegas baby!!! My one goal: Go to the Venetian. I’ve been to Vegas before for work, and it sort of made me sick. I see so much excess that it sort of makes me sad. It was cool to see the neat stuff, but it goes a step too far. Plus, we have boats here in the ‘Burg, so the gambling isn’t such a big deal to me. Still, Vegas Baby! Where else do you get to go to a mall with a canal and gondoliers in it?

On the 12th Day of Christmas

For those who aren't aware of it, today is the 12th day of Christmas. This reference is not to the twelve days prior to Christmas (obviously) as people commonly believe, but rather to the twelve days after Christmas. The twelfth night after Christmas is the night upon which the Magi (Three Wise Men) arrived in Bethlehem to behold the newly born King, a.k.a, the Baby Jesus. I believe that the celebration of the 12th night is primarily a Catholic tradition, mostly if not all together forgotten by the Protestant denominations and completely ignored with the Commercialism of Christmas in America today. In fact, many Americans celebrate Christmas for months prior to December 25th as they attend a gazillion parties and buy a million presents, but they take their decorations down on the 26th. Indeed, the Christmas season doesn't truly end until today. I traditionally celebrate Epiphany (as 12th night is also known) by not taking down my tree until after today. Likewise, in my family we exchange one last gift on 12th night, a goofy joke gift goes to each and every one of us.

To all of you, a Happy 12th Night of Christmas from Sarah, Daisy, and Madison! Take a moment to enjoy the gifts that Christ gave us through his death. We would give you the gift of a goofy picture, but my internet has been ALL screwed up since Thanksgiving. I tried to use dial up through work, and it was so slow that I could barely even log in to upload text to my blog!! I can’t imagine trying to get a picture uploaded. I am now remembering just how spoiled I am to have DSL.

Yesterday we took the day off to keep Virginia while Amanda and Stephen went to his cousin’s wedding in West Monroe. Virginia and I had a great time; we played all afternoon and into the evening. A couple of months ago she became vertically mobile. She has REALLY gotten the hang of it. It is amazing to see the difference in the type of play she is interested in since I kept her in October.

Do They know it's Christmas Time?

Christmas was a busy time at 721 Lake Forest Dr. We got out of work early on the Friday before Christmas, and had Monday off too. I tried to use it to my advantage. On Christmas Eve I joined my friend Jennifer Tate and we went and helped sever lunch at the local homeless ministry. There are a few homeless in Vicksburg, and a whole lot of people who are a lot less fortunate than the rest of us. It was really nice to do some good and help them to have a Ham dinner for Christmas instead of a SPAM dinner for Christmas. I look forward to volunteering here again in the near future.

This was the first time I did some sort of service activitiy on the holiday itself. It really made me feel good to be able to do something for someone else rather than focusing on the commercialism that has become Christmas. This is where I’m taking the opperutnity to put out a public service message. The Christmas season may be over in your eyes, but please think about the reason for the season. Take some time out of life to do something for someone else. We all are so blessed to have so much. How many of us stressed about giving (or getting) the perfect presents and making it to every Christmas party to which we were invited. At some time during the year, I ask that you take the oppurtintity to give someone else a helping hand. It might be the homeless,, or a battered women’s shelter, an at risk child, or even just a stray animal. As Christ himself said, “That which you do for the least of my children you do for me”. I implore that you do something for another. Try to live by the golden rule, and do something for another – you never know when you might need someone to take a moment and assist you. It doesn’t need to be at Christmas, every day is a good day to serve.

Bragging for Busch

The weekend before Christmas I headed up to St. Louis to catch the Bush Bragging Rights Game – an annual tradition in which the Illini and the Mizzou Tigers battle it out on “neutral” territory. This was my third year going, and it is always a treat. I drove up to St Louis on Saturday, spending a long 8 hours in the car. Once I got there I joined Jane, Nikki, and Karen at the Drury Inn Plaza. It is our game hotel – you get free drinks and snacks at happy hour AND a free HOT! Breakfast. It is quite the great place to stay! While there we did a little group ornament swap, in which we all showed great taste in picking out some cute ornaments.

Then it was on to the game. Our seats this year were behind the basket again, but a few rows up. We were seated right near the tunnel rather than the Illinois band. The game was good – and we won with about 10 seconds left! After the game we got to go over to the tunnel and touch the trophy, AND Brian Randle gave us 5!!

While at the game we got to see Nikki’s dad and our friend Nathan who both “found” tickets in box seats the week of the game. What luck! Nathan just returned from Australia and looks like he enjoyed every moment of the rugged outdoors. He has gone from looking rugged to bordering on crazy Unabomber. We then hit TGI Fridays for a late ngiht snack and headed to the hotel for some girl time. After breakfast it was back on the road. It was a fun trip, but too much driving for me – I guess I’m getting old.