Breaking the silence

Wow, it's been awhile since I blogged. Ever since Alison got home I've found myself much less bored, and therefore less apt to look around on the internet trying to find things about which I could feel high and mighty. I am, however, still alive.
We went to Santa Fe (twice!) this past weekend. My parents came to town on Saturday and left Monday morning. They claim that they came to visit me for a certain event; I'm pretty sure it was an excuse to see Santa Fe. We went to a baseball game on Friday with BT and friends, then another on Saturday with my Dad. The Saturday game didn't start out so well, with the Isotopes quickly falling way behind. And it started raining; we left our berm seats to get under some cover. When it got up to 14-4 (Isotopes losing) the game was postponed due to lightning. Not rain, mind, just that the lightning was so close to the stadium that they couldn't have people out on the field. At that point, the rain was still not strong. We drove home through quite a deluge. The game was resumed the next day and the Isotopes ended up losing something like 20-6. By losing the regularly scheduled Saturday game as well, they dropped themselves out of playoff contention. I think they ended up third in their own division after being in first like two weeks ago.

On Monday we went back up to Santa Fe to go hiking with K&PS, which was neat except that I was so exhausted afterward that Alison had to drive back to ABQ. These folks make a mean picnic though. I hucked a 6-pack of beer all the way up the Santa Fe Ski Area. I also got to see my old buddy Monkey, which is always a treat.

So now I am entrenched on the commuter van to Socorro. I went down four times last week, and will probably have to do the same this week. This means that I'm gone from the house for 12 hours a day. I never see my wife. It's bogus. Hopefully the semester will calm down a bit and I'll only have to go thrice a week. However, I am theoretically actually going to be going out to the field this month to do fieldwork for myself! What a rush. This semester I am only taking on class and it shouldn't be a backbreaker, but I am also the T.A. for another class of 21 students. This class has never been taught before, and I am responsible for teaching the lab; this includes creating the lab, writing up a lesson plan, writing up the lab materials, teaching the lab, and grading everything. This turns out to be more work than it sounds like. Yesterday I got to take my class around campus so they could learn how to use a GPS, which like half of them already knew. Good stuff. Next week we might deploy over 50 rain gauges somewhere and then do a rain dance and hope.

Last night I finally finished my book that I was reading, Picture This by Joseph Heller. I've now read Catch-22, Something Happened, Good As Gold, and God Knows by Heller, and enjoyed all of them. Catch-22 is Alison's favorite book ever, and probably my favorite by Heller, although there's something about Something Happened too; if anybody reads this who has only read Catch-22, I would highly recommend Something Happened. Anyway, Picture This, unlike his earlier books, seems to me to have a little less depth of feeling to it; in previous books he could take you from hilarity to the depths of tragedy in mere moments. There isn't the tragedy in this book up until you get to the end. But still it was a good read. Now I'm on to the Origin of Species by Darwin. This one will likely be less easy to read.