New Year's Visit to CA

For New Year's we headed out the California to visit Michael's family.

New Year's Eve was a busy day. We started by driving out to San Leandro to visit Bethany, Ryan, and their baby Mercy. She was a really happy baby, but she seemed to like the taste of shoes (at least while we were there). It was really great to catch up. Afterwards, we went into San Francisco to see the Ferry Building and Boudin Bakery because they had been featured on the Food Network show Chefs vs. City. We started at the Ferry Building by having a chocolate San Francisco Egg Cream. Then, we walked up the Embarcadero to Boudin, where we bought two loaves of their famous sourdough. The first loaf was a simple round. The second loaf was a teddy bear. (This later proved to be a problem since no one wanted to be the first to cut into the cute bear, so by the time it was actually eaten it had become slightly stale.) Then we walked back down to Pier 39, where I bought some sunlight-activated color changing nail polish and a new pair of earrings from my favorite designer. Then we headed home where Michael had his New Year's party, where we played about 3 hours of Cards Against Humanity (Apples to Apples for horrible people).

We also drove to Fairfield to visit the Jelly Belly Factory. While there, we also did olive oil tasting at a store for SePay Groves. Here we were regaled with the health benefits of olive oil. The key is to buy olive oil with a high polyphenol content. The higher the content, the better it is for you. So that begs the question: how do you tell if the olive oil has a high polyphenol content? Well, ideally the maker does chemical tests, but a quick and dirty way is to taste it. The stronger the peppery burn, the higher the content. According to the lab that ran the store, polyphenols are a good anti-inflammatory and can help lower blood sugar. The best way to get its effects is to drink a tablespoon an hour before lunch and dinner. So I decided to give it a try. I will let you know how it goes.

That evening, we went out to Ly Luck for dinner with Michael's extended family. The meal consisted of ten courses and a dessert course of cupcakes to celebrate Tori's boyfriend's birthday.

The next day, we drove to Mountain View in the heart of Silicone Valley to visit one of Michael's high school friends. We had an excellent lunch at PastaQ. Before we left, we drove through the Google campus and took pictures with the Android.

So those are just few highlights of my whirlwind visit to the Central Valley.

Christmas Break

After a long and busy semester, I am finally enjoying a much needed break. Michael and I left South Bend early enough to stop by Tulsa and check out the campus. Quite a bit has changed. The Caf is no longer the Caf and has been completely remodeled along with "the fishbowl", which is now "the garage". The road between Kep and ACAC is gone and has been replaced by a large plaza and two new engineering buildings. However, the most exciting change was the new plaque in the lower atrium of Kep featuring a nameplate for yours truly.

We were able to see several professors and catch up with Ron and Charlie at the Wesley. The whole experience was bittersweet, because it reminded me of all the fun I had, but also made me feel a bit more unhappy with my current graduate school experience.

Home also had changed quite a bit. The floor in the family room, which for the past few years has been concrete, had finally been covered in hardwood. Also, the carpet throughout the house had been replaced. The last new change was a new couch.

The Christmas tree experience was a bit different this year as well. Usually we cut our own, but between a drought and a hail storm, the Oklahoma trees were a bit sad and so we had to buy one imported from West Virginia.

Christmas morning was nice. I received some really neat gifts. Michael got me quite a few neat things, including a magnetic pendulum, a box of liquors in chocolate bottles, tasting plates and forks, and a lab beaker mug to name a few. My favorite present was from my parents and was an autographed cookbook from Alton Brown.

The week after Christmas, we went out to a local restaurant in Edmond called Italian Jim's. The concept is a pizzeria attached to a glassblowing studio. It was really fun to watch them make the glass while waiting for our food. The pizza we ordered was the Super Pepperoni, which was a solid layer of overlapping pepperonis. Amazing!

Conferences

This was a semester of conferences. My first one was in October. It was the Biomedical Engineering Society meeting in Hartford, CT, where I presented a poster on the HealthWorks! exhibit. The second conference was the American Heart Association scientific sessions in Orlando, FL. The conference had about 22,000 attendees with a rather large career fair featuring all the major drug companies. Their booths were extremely posh and most featured catering with everything from smoothies to fresh baked cobbler. The best part about the conference was our dinner at The Oceanaire where I had a wonderful swordfish steak.

Two days after getting back from the AHA conference, I was off the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Baltimore, MD, where I gave my first conference presentation. The conference proved to be interesting and useful. I met a girl from Canada who was working to build a flow loop similar to mine and she had been struggling with some of the same issues as myself, which made me feel better since I wasn't alone. I also had a really great dinner with two of Dr. Paolucci's Italian students, two of their Italian professor friends, and a recently graduated student of Dr. Powers at Luna del Sea.

While going to conference was fun and really good for my sky miles account, I hope never to do 3 in the same semester again.