Friday, December 26, 2014

Another childhood gem

We've reached the elementary school layers of the great closet excavation:
My favorite part is the spitting sound effect.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Closet Cleanout

We're at my parents' house for the holidays; they are getting ready to move into a smaller house in Baltimore so my sister and I need to go through all the stuff in our childhood bedrooms and decide what to throw away and what to take back to our respective homes. My closet had all my binders and notebooks from high school and college, the vast majority of which are getting recycled, but I've been  flipping through them to look for things worth keeping. The high school work in particular reminds me of how extremely neurotic and bored I was at that time - for example, check out my math notebook:
Every speckle is colored in a different color, and outlined in pen - front and back, and even the sides are colored in rainbow. The inside is much the same:
The actual contents are page after page of meticulous notes, complete with color-coded section headers:


My favorite thing I've found from college so far is the page of quotes written down from my calculus professor, who was a very sweet old man who was also somewhat crazy. Highlights include:
  • MIT has many strange rules, and one of them is that I'm not allowed to torture you any more than I do.
  • ≈ is a sort of Saturday night equal sign, you're not quite sure what you're doing.
  • There's nothing magical about the damn second derivative!
  • It's complicated, so my advice is to use the arm-waving method to decide what's true.
  • Mathematics is difficult to explain to someone who doesn't know any mathematics at all.
  • We could solve this by bribing a friend, or an enemy, or by standard methods, or by writing down the answer.
  • You won't need to know this til after Thanksgiving, and you'd better give thanks.
  • So much for that problem, which I'll never assign again for as long as I teach this course.
  • Greenspan wrote those problems, I don't know how the hell to do them.
  • Any questions? This is pretty easy stuff, right? That was meant to stop you from asking questions.
  • You don't believe me? You'll believe me when you're sitting there again next term.
  • Mean Value Theorem - some are meaner than others.
  • Lagrange was a very smart guy and now he's dead so we have to give him credit.
  • The Jacobian is always lurking in the dark alley of calculus.
  • Whether you remember it or not, Simpson is still dead.
  • I don't want to test you on the intricacies of elementary calculus, but I might mistakenly. 
  • I am available to take the test for anyone for the price of one million dollars. I will put on my teenage disguise.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Conversation with my Little Sister today

Her: Guess what? I have a new friend! Her name is Michelle!
Me: That's great! Did you meet her at school?
Her: No.
Me: Does she live in your neighborhood?
Her: No.
Me: Did you meet her at church?
Her: No.
Me: Did you meet her at your after school program?
Her: No.
Me: Okay, I give up. Where did you meet her?
Her: My imagination.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Bay Area Revisited

After Thanksgiving, we went to San Francisco for a wedding. But first - SUSHIRRITO!!
SO BEAUTIFUL
I look insane, because I am.
We also ate lots of other things and saw lots of friends and generally enjoyed not having to be bundled up in winter gear in December. Then - the wedding!! It was lovely and wonderful in all the ways a wedding can be lovely and wonderful. Plus, I made this:
(The grooms live in SF, grow lots of things in their backyard - hence the American Gothic farmer outfits and all the veggies, one is a chemical engineer, and the other plays hand bells.)

Now we are back in Philly, cold and Sushirrito-less but happy to be home after lots of travel.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Lazy Thanksgiving

We spent the holiday in Chicago with Ben's family, eating and laying around not doing anything more exerting than going to the movies. I took today off work to hang out with my Chicago friend, and we went to Eataly because we love eating and heard they had a Nutella restaurant. That part did not disappoint:
Yum, Nutella on fancy brioche!
The rest of Eataly was a bit nuts, though. It made Whole Foods look like one of those crappy grocery stores that's also a gas station. Check out their "bulk foods" section:
Yes, those are precious little wicker baskets filled with not-actually-that-much grain/beans each. And yes, that is popcorn for $7 per pound you are seeing in the front there.
SEVEN DOLLARS A POUND.
Tomorrow we go to San Francisco for more friend-visiting and a wedding this weekend - it's also probably the only other place in the world where you can find $7/lb popcorn.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Grand Slam

Remember when I randomly won  that story slam back in August? Well, the "grand slam" of all the individual slam winners from the year was last week. I thought it would be at another small venue, but it was actually at a giant theater and pretty intimidating. The theme was "thanks a lot"and my story was not as dramatic as the last one:
I'm not sure what place I got because they only announced the winner, but I didn't crash and burn so I'm happy. You can see all the contestants here - I highly recommend Nimisha (the winner, who was AWESOME) and Lisa (whose story is both adorable and hilarious).

Friday, October 31, 2014

Travel Food

I just finished the 3 consecutive weeks of travel part of my fall, and am embarrassingly excited to sit at home and do as little as possible for the next few weeks. When I travel for work I am mostly working the whole time I'm in whatever place, but I did manage to squeeze in a little bit of non-work over the past few weeks.

The night before my St. Louis conference began, I went with some work friends to Lambert's Cafe - aka that place where they throw rolls at you across the room and walk around ladling out fried okra from a giant bucket. It was a two hour drive from St. Louis, and it was worth it!
Yes, that is the "small" drink size.
After that conference ended we had about two hours to kill before our flights left, so of course we went to the (free) St. Louis zoo, where we ate pumpkin funnel cake à la mode and drank beer as we walked around.
Living in PA has made drinking in public a very surreal experience for me.
This past week I was in Milwaukee, and I flew in a day early so I could spend time with my work friend who lives there. It was totally worth it because I got to go trick or treating with her ADORABLE niece and nephew.
Anna and Olaf
Best day ever!
Then we pretty much worked forever (I was there to execute a big project with her), but we did eat this:
Monkey bread!!
And this:
Ethiopian food!
And - finally - we got to try PUMPPLE!! Pumpple is the infamous "turducken of cakes" made here in Philly (it's a pumpkin pie baked into a chocolate cake layered with an apple pie baked into a vanilla cake), and when this friend was in town over the summer we tried to get some, only to discover that it is seasonal and only available in the fall (I guess because of the pumpkin part?). Anyway, I got a slice before I left and brought it on the flight to Milwaukee, and we had it for breakfast the next day. Each of the constituent parts was good, but having four different cakes/pies in your mouth at once was just kind of... weird. Oh well. It still doesn't deter me from wanting to try this.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Moose and Giraffe

Another wedding tonight! Here was the sampler for the happy couple:
(Their wedding had a moose and giraffe theme, since he grew up in Maine and she grew up in Botswana.)

We just got back, and in a mere five hours I get to wake up and head to the airport to fly to Milwaukee for week three of work travel - woo!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

St. Louis

I'm here for a conference this week - and while I've been at conference sessions pretty much the whole time, the view from my hotel room is awesome. This was the sunrise this morning:
Heading home to Philly tonight and will be there for two whole days before the next trip!

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Dogfish Head

This weekend we went with some of Ben's grad school friends to Rehobeth, Delaware to visit the Dogfish Head Brewery and generally hang around the beach. The brewery itself was quite neat - we got to see all the fancy equipment for brewing and bottling, the vast amounts of beer awaiting distribution, and of course try lots of samples.
Beer goggles!
Apparently this is a "low amount" of beer since we were there on a weekend.
We ate at their brewpub, where they had all sorts of elaborate beer-related food. The grand finale was bacon chocolate cheesecake with beer-infused whipped cream.
Delicious!
We walked it off on the beach, which was cold but still pretty.
Hooray, mini-vacation in the middle of work travel madness!

Monday, October 13, 2014

Under the Weather Wedding

We had another wedding this weekend! We dosed up on dayquil so we could power through it, and had a great time - although we slept for 12 hours afterward so clearly our bodies were not happy with us about it.

Wedding highlight - they had FIVE wedding cakes! Each more delicious than the last.
Wedding sampler:
(The couple got engaged in Australia, the bride is a physician's assistant, the groom is a musician, and they really like alpacas - they have a bunch of alpaca art in their house.)

Off to sleep for another 12 hours before getting up early for a flight tomorrow - I've lost my voice, which always happens when I get a cold, but since I'm supposed to spend this week interviewing applicants I hope it comes back soon...

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Legos!

The volunteer list for the middle school robotics competition Ben and I volunteer with got a great email last week - they were running out of time to assemble all the lego obstacle courses before the season starts, and needed volunteers to take some home and assemble them. Um - YES! What followed was the greatest week since my office got all new Ikea furniture and I got to build all of it.

Beginning of the week:
That's a lot of bags of legos.
End of the week:
Look at all those expertly assembled lego obstacles!
Seriously, every day at work I couldn't focus because I was so excited to come home and build intricate lego contraptions. Now they're all done and turned it, and I am sad.

Ben and I also both caught nasty colds this week, which didn't really put a damper on sitting at home and playing with legos, but is going to make my upcoming travelpalooza pretty miserable if it doesn't go away soon. Blergh.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Puzzle Pals

Our pen pal shenanigans continue! We got this in the mail a few months ago:
We inserted it into a laptop and discovered this game, which when defeated led to a URL.

We responded with a lovely gift:
And when we were in Boston this weekend, we saw that our friends had completed it:
Yes, that is my hand spelling a URL in sign language.
Onwards and upwards!

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Boston and belated wedding sampler


We went to Boston this weekend! We were mostly visiting our friends who just had a baby, and swooning over said baby, but I also delivered a wedding sampler. A few friends got married before I started making them so I'm slowly working through the "backlog," and was able to give one to its owners this weekend:
Closer up:
The martini is self-explanatory, the bottle is the husband's favorite bourbon:


I really wanted to make something for the new baby, but had to stop myself because it's hard enough keeping up with all the weddings, so if I start doing all the babies my fingers will probably fall off.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Shades of emsque

I was looking at my schedule for the next few months and realized that, like emsque, I might need to create a sidebar to keep track of my insane travel schedule:
  • October 3-5 Boston for baby party (yay!)
  • October 12-13 Maryland for a wedding (yay!)
  • October 14-16 Boston again for work
  • October 17-19 Rehobeth with friends for the weekend (yay!)
  • October 20-23 St. Louis for work
  • October 25 wedding in Philly (yay!)
  • October 26-29 Milwaukee for work
  • November 1 Friends staying with us in Philly (yay!)
  • November 17-20 Houston for work
  • November 26-December 1 Chicago for Thanksgiving
  • December 2-7 San Francisco for a wedding (yay!)
So... yeah.  There might not be too many updates here for the next few months...

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Sort-of Sushirrito!

One of my favorite things about living in San Francisco last summer was Sushirrito, which is the only thing there that's not at least quasi-reproducible here in Philly. UNTIL NOW.

The recently opened Hai Street Kitchen has sushirrito-like rolls, and today I got to try it out. They wrap it up for you in a cute little hexagonal box:
It's got 4 more sides you can't see.
 And it's definitely sushi in the style of a burrito:
It was good, but not as great as my favorite roll at Sushirrito back in the Bay. I may have just not found the right roll for me yet, though... further investigation is definitely needed.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Bees and Buses

Last weekend our friend was visiting and we went to the Philadelphia Honey Festival! Apparently it's put on every year by the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild (also, apparently there's a Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild!). We learned lots about bees, beekeeping, and how to get honey out of honeycomb (hint: centrifuges). We got to try some honey still in the comb, and we saw a bee bearding. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like:
Photo credit: Quinn!
The beekeeper strapped a queen bee to his chin, said "this is the cool kids' version of the ice bucket challenge," and then just dumped a ton of bees out of a box and onto himself. He also told us that 5,000 bees weigh just one pound. AND while he was sitting there a little kid asked him what you call a newborn bee, he started to explain all about grubs and larva and insect development stages, and the little kid said "no, a bayBEE" and laughed hysterically. Awesome.

This weekend Ben finally delivered on his Christmas present to me (does it still count as his Christmas present if it's nine months late?), and we did one of those double decker bus tours around Philadelphia. I LOVE both double decker buses and Philadelphia, so it was a great combination. We even got there early enough to have the front seats on the top level of the bus.
Bus selfie!
We learned lots of fun facts about Philadelphia history - including that, contrary to popular belief, Pennsylvania isn't named after William Penn. It's actually named after his father: William Penn.

Lastly, the bus tour started in the historical, super-touristy part of Philly, and we saw this sign for a food court:

Monday, September 1, 2014

J+J Sampler

This weekend was the second wedding in our year of eight weddings! Of course, I made a sampler:
The happy couple has a story where Jessie was abroad and trying to talk to Joe on a cell phone - it was raining and she was standing on a stump in a muddy field of chickens while juggling the phone and an umbrella. Hence the sampler of that situation, but with the two of them together!

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Unexpected party

Since we live downtown, and specifically in the Gayborhood, we often leave our apartment to discover unexpected parties - an arts festival or gay pride parade or something else fun happening on our street. Today, though, we went outside after dinner to go to the convenience store, and encountered this:

That's several hundred people, all dressed in white, having a formal dinner along the entire street from here to City Hall. There was also live music and mummers dressed in white (although we didn't get a good picture of them).

We googled it when we got home, apparently it's called Diner en Blanc and is sort of a flashmob/public art thing. It's pretty cool looking, but - as our friend who was there too said - it also kind of looks like "a summer formal for the klan."

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Good week

I got back from San Antonio last weekend at the same time Ben got home from a conference in Istanbul. He brought me the prettiest box of chocolates:
The photo doesn't really convey how golden and sparkly it is.
He also brought these cute little glass turtles:
How do they do that??
Then on Monday I went with some friends to a story slam, and one of those friends put my name in the hat. I didn't mind so much because I didn't think they would pick me, since there are lots of people who put their name in and they only pick ten. But somehow my name got picked, and - even more unexpectedly - I won!


I got $100 in cash, which I used to take the responsible friend out to a nice dinner. Now I have to (get to?) compete in the "Grand Slam" in November, against everyone else who has won a slam this season. Eeks!

Sunday, August 3, 2014

HARRY POTTER WORLD! AGAIN!

We went to Harry Potter world when it opened four years ago, but since then they have added a new section - Diagon Alley! Since I was already in Orlando with my friends for LeakyCon, today we went to Universal Studios so we could frolic through Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley - I didn't think it was possible, but it was even more magical than the first time!

From the main walkway through the park, you can't even see Diagon Alley. They have some of the London scenes from the book instead:
We just apparated at 12 Grimmauld Place.
Hanging out with the conductor of the Knight Bus.
But then, tucked behind a brick wall, you enter into Diagon Alley! It's crazy cool how it appears out of nowhere when you come around the corner.
Drinking butterbeer at the entrance to Diagon Alley.
Just as the highlight of Hogsmeade is the Hogwarts castle, the highlight of Diagon Alley is Gringotts.
THAT DRAGON BREATHES FIRE!!
The day had a bit of a rough start in that we waited in the Gringotts line for two hours, then the ride broke and we waited another hour before giving up and abandoning ship. So three hours into our day we had done nothing but wait in line, and that was a bummer. But then we spent some time wandering through the alley itself, and all the connected smaller alleys, and we were happy again. As in Hogsmeade, the attention to detail is just crazy throughout the park.
This seems like my sort of place.
Inside Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes
About to get our butterbeer on.
Swooning over Gilderoy Lockhart
Outside Gringotts
My favorite newspaper!
Hagrid's motorcycle!
They also have Knockturn Alley, which is SO CREEEPY. As we were walking through it, a person in a crazy witch costume walked up behind me and started stroking my ponytail and staring at me. I saw that she had a Universal name tag on so I knew she was an actress, but my friend Ashley didn't see the name tag and freaked out. She grabbed my hand and pulled me away while telling the lady to get away from me - I was touched by her protective instinct. None of the photos we took in the Alley turned out because it was so dark, but I did get a shot of me about to enter a vanishing cabinet in Borgin and Burkes.
It had bird noises coming from inside it :/
Diagon Alley is in a different Universal Park than Hogsmeade, which is obnoxious in that it is a blatant money grab (since you have to pay more to go to multiple parks) - BUT the one good thing is that you get to ride the Hogwarts Express between the two locations!.
With our tickets!
ON THE MOTHER FLIPPIN' HOGWARTS EXPRESS!!
The ride is really neat - the "windows" are screens that show you the scenery going by with fun little things happening (like Buckbeak flying by, Fred and George setting off fireworks, and Hagrid swooping by on his motorcycle). I knew that even though I didn't get my Hogwarts letter when I was 12 I would still get to ride that train one day!

We spent some time revisiting all the Hogsmeade attractions in the afternoon, before heading back to Diagon Alley and trying our luck at Gringotts again. Happily the ride was fixed, and they had given us a special pass to skip to the front of the line because of our morning tragedy, so we got to go on it! You get to walk through the Gringotts lobby and it is amazing - but I have to get those pictures from Ashley. I did take this picture of the dial over the elevator you take down to the vaults, though:
The ride itself was pretty short and sweet - you are in a Gringotts cart and careen around through the vaults while dodging Voldemort and Bellatrix, who are trying to keep you from stealing the horcrux from the Lestrange vault.

The last thing we did before heading home was go to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for BUTTERBEER ICE CREAM (which is new from last time). They had lots of wizardly flavors in addition to butterbeer:
Strawberry and peanut butter.
Now we are back in the hotel, watching the last HP movie and dreaming of butterbeer. Pure happiness.