StarWitch

Yes, I realized I said that I'd post more yesterday. What is it about weekends that in one minute you have lots of free time and the next minute you're crazy busy?

I'll try to post some more this week... We're going to Denver on Thursday for a few days, so I should have lots of fun stuff to post then. :P

Yes, it's happened again. A little black kitty camped out in front of our window and cried for an hour before I finally caved and took him in. And yet again, no one has come forward to claim the poor little kitty. So far we've nicknamed him "Snarf" because of his voraciousness toward food. He's 6 months old, but pretty small. I'm hoping to convince one of my fellow grad students to take him in, as we certainly don't have room for him.

So here's a quick shot:



I've got more to post, but it's been a crazy busy week and I'm going to relax. More tomorrow!

Just thought I'd post a few quick pics of kittehs:

Bandit Sprite!



Silke and Sprite being cute:




Remember the two stray kittens we got invaded by last November? Well, here's one of them (Casey, formerly known as Gollum) with Jason:



He's doing really well and is getting so big! Wash (formerly known as Zorro) is also doing really well, but I forgot to get pictures of him when we were in MN.

Summer has been pretty good so far. Research is going well; studying isn't going so well. It's been really hot here, but that seems to have finally broken. Things have been a little less chaotic now that we have exponentially less car problems and a new vacuum.

For the scientifically minded who read this, here's an example of what I've been doing for research. In short, I'm comparing "normal" Type Ia supernovae to "high velocity" or "broad line" Type Ia supernovae to see if the higher velocities cause the supernovae to appear redder in observations. The picture I've linked to shows the broad line supernova 2006X (in black) to normal 1998bu (in red). I'm taking each ion in the supernova and plotting it against the filters U, B, V, R and I to see where they overlap and then calculating the difference in apparent magnitude of the flux in each band. This is all in short, of course. :P I can certainly explain it in more detail to whoever wants to know, but I'm sure this is pretty mind-boggling to enough people.

So I'm going to try and post more stuff in the coming weeks. Probably more pictures, since it's hard to explain things without those!

Yes, I have been a bad blogger. The last school year was especially rough and stressful and I needed a mental break to get get my brain rebooted. But we got through the semester, took our trip to MN and came back to chaos. As usual. :P The car transmission decided to really start crapping the bed and the vacuum broke. This doesn't sound like much, but the car is a big deal. Or, should I say, was a big deal. Let me show you our newest addition:



We bought a 2009 Hyundai Elantra yesterday! It's my first new car; Jason's second. It's pretty! And it's tricked out, by my standards. We traded the Buick in, which I felt bad about because I'm most likely far too sentimental about cars.

Another minor project of mine was to clean up our front "yard". The apartment complex doesn't do any landscaping (aside from the few bushes present) and our front area was a mess of weeds. The only before picture I have is Jason "discovering" a birthday present left in the bushes by our good friends Bobby and Allison:



I brought some Lamium back from MN (Thanks, Mom!) and ripped up everything but the shrubs and planted the whole lot. So here's what it looks like now:



Much better, in my opinion! :D I'm just happy that the weeds are gone.

I'm going to make a point to post more; there's actually been a few developments that will take longer to explain that this short summary post. But for now, I'm doing research for the summer, Jason is teaching and we're muddling along.

Earth Hour is tomorrow!



This is getting to be a huge event -- even Norman is getting into it!

In other news, spring break was... interesting. I'll give more details later, but it involved trips around Oklahoma and trips to urgent care. Poor Jason!

It's been a long time since I posted anything, but there's nothing much to say! School has kept me extremely busy, even though I only have two classes. Both those classes have generated much homework and then I have research on top of it all. So I haven't forgotten about the poor, neglected blog -- I just haven't had a lot of time.

Spring break starts this weekend and the parents are once again heading down our way for some sunshine, flowers and other greenery. We've been fairly warm and I can only hope that trend keeps up for them.

I meant to post all this yesterday, but a pesky migraine got in the way. But here are some updates!

First, let me say that I did pass my Astro Qualifier. Woo hoo! I'm not sure what's next, but at least that's behind me...

We got hit by an ice storm Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening. It wasn't as bad as last year because we never lost power, but this one seemed to hit the roads harder. School was canceled Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday. I took some pics, but they aren't nearly as impressive as last winter:

This is Tuesday morning, after the initial front; the parking lot and our "backyard"




Here's Wednesday after the last 1.5" and second front


It's 65F today, so most of it is gone now.

I also wanted to share how I've been spending my evenings of late:



Somehow, all of the cats have managed to work out a way to lay on me. I got stuck like that Thursday night for almost 3 hours! I just can't bear to move the cuties.

We're attending the monthly beer tasting night at some friends -- this month it's Belgian night. I'll have to post the before and after pictures. :D

Wow, it has been a while since I updated...

Winter break went far too quickly after the chaos that was fall semester. We had a great time in MN, even if we didn't get to do half of what we had hoped. We're hoping to come up sometime after the spring semester when there are no holidays involved.

We've been back in OK for a couple of weeks, but immediately upon returning I had to buckle down and study for qualifiers, which were last week. I should (hopefully) get the results tomorrow. On a good note, I did pass E&M I. Woohoo! I was a bit worried about that, but now I'll just have to take Quantum II next fall. Classes started this week, though I'm hoping this semester will be less stressful and crazy, as I only have two classes and research credits. I'm finishing up E&M and taking an observational astro course, which already is so much better than the one I took as an undergrad. We actually have a text!

I know we pick on Oklahoma a lot (it does have it's disadvantages), but one advantage is the weather:



It was 70F the day of the National Championship bowl on 8 Jan and it's supposed to hit almost 80F today. Pansies are blooming all over campus, though they did look a little peaked last week when we got "cold".

Anyway, this was just a short little post to let everyone know I'm still here and brag a bit about the weather. :P I'll post again soon (not 6 weeks!)

So I'm caught up with my grading and my presentation is over. Now I just have an assignment due Friday, a paper due next week and 2 finals next week. Then I'm done! Woo hoo! And we can go back to MN for a little while. :D

Speaking of MN, the hubby told the story quite well, but I have the pics. :P

To start, on Wednesday I got to see one of my best friends for the first time in something like 10 years:



Jamie and I have been friends since junior high, but lost touch when I went down to Mississippi in '98. I'm so glad we got the chance to meet up! The funnier part is that she knows Jason's friends Sean, Becky and Mike. Jamie knows them from Normandale Community College; Jason knows them from Mankato. What a small world! Sean, Backy, Mike and Jess joined us that evening, in addition to my friend Andri and her fiance, Brian:



Thursday was day full of good food and we both ate too much. My stew turned out well and we were still eating it last week. :D It was great to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law:



The kitten previously known as "Gollum" is now known as "Casey" is getting along well at Jerry and Heather's:



I'm so glad they took him, as we really would have liked to keep him. This is the next best option!

Friday night led us to Carbone's to meet up with Mike, Rich, Dave, Nik, Denny, Jerry and Heather. I managed to get a picture of the five guys:



On Saturday we stuffed ourselves with Jeff's eggplant parmesan and I got to dote on Kaylee a bit:



Wash is also enjoying his new home:



We had to leave on Sunday, but we got a traditional MN send-off!



And the girls survived their trip to MN and back. Think they've settled in to the new place?

I'll post more later this week (I'm so behind in my grading it's not funny) with lots of pics. We survived the trip up with 5 cats, returned with 3 and everyone is well.

It was a great weekend. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!