Tester the new

We officially opened our new building today. It's part of the new department I work in and is completely amazing. Our senator missed his plane and couldn't do a speech or grand tour. Not that it's that big of a deal. The students were awesome and everything went really well without our esteemed senator.

It's been a week of tests for me. I finally received corrections for my thesis, right in time for every faculty and staff meeting. Right in time for the big dedication ceremony. Right in time for the return of the students. Right in time for the start of my new project.

Not to be bitter mind you.

But it is a time of testing. Testing my patience (how many more meetings?!). Testing my knowledge (can I design a upper level class?). Testing my training (new experiments, new project). Testing my relationships (working with students, working with other faculty). Testing my organizational skills!!

So our building didn't get Testered, but I certainly got tested.

dinner on a boat

This weekend was an interesting one. I attended a fund-raiser dinner for a local basketball team, the Polson Pirates. Since I don't know anyone here yet, I bought a single ticket and went alone. You know, it's kind of scary to put yourself in a situation where everyone knows everyone and you're the odd man (or woman) out. It's a small town so almost everyone there have known each other since birth.

I almost didn't get on the boat. But as I sat there watching the dock load up with chatty people, all as couples or groups, I swallowed that loneliness bubble in my throat and got on the damn boat. I found a table up top and, with a deep breath and smile, I introduced myself to a couple sitting at one of the tables and asked if it would be OK if I could share their table. They were cool. Another couple, much older, sat at our table too. Three of the four were teachers and the older gentleman was a coach. We all chatted, entered into the raffle, (we all won something, lucky table), and had a couple drinks and laughs together. Later, after dinner and the lake tour, we all assembled for more raffle stuff and karaoke. I stayed for awhile and met a good chunk of the town.

You know, I almost didn't get on that boat. I'm really glad I did.

Running 4.5 mi tonight, but have to wait for it to cool down a bit.....

Clubs

I finally got my golf clubs up here (thanks mom and dad) and for good reason. There's a golf course practically on campus. Well, it may even be on campus, I'm not sure if they consider themselves part of our college or not. Doesn't really matter though, does it? The point of the matter is that I can step out the door, pick up my clubs and walk over to the driving range. For $2 I get a small bucket of balls and consequently spend my lunch alternately frustrated and elated.

On a constantly frustrated note, I'm trying to find a place to rent. There are advertisements for places, but no-one answers their phones. Out of five companies only one answered today and gave me some vague directions to a house for rent so I could drive by and check it out. Needless to say I didn't get to golf today. Rather I spent my time driving in circles on the west lake shore. But I did meet some locals in a bar this past weekend and one girl had a place going up for rent soon. I guess that means I'll have to go back to the bar to pick up the information she was going to leave for me. Darn, a beer after work. Well, we all do what we have to do in dire situations.

2-a-day

So yesterday I ran twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. I mostly did this because I was trying to make up for my lack of runs earlier. Still, it felt pretty good. I only did about 2 in the morning and about 4 in the evening. Today I'm thinking one about 5 mile run in the evening. But it's hot today so I'll definitely have to wait till later.

Finally got itunes up and running, note to everyone, their system is linked to UPS to verify your address. UPS does EVERYTHING IN CAPS, which is stupid and annoying. Whoever wrote the itunes script made it case sensitive so you HAVE TO WRITE YOUR ADDRESS IN CAPS ALL THE TIME. Which of course means you're literally screaming your address to everyone. Either that or you're trying to text or e-mail and you're over the age of 50. OK, that was mean, not everyone over the age of 50 has yet to figure out how to type on a computer, but it's a fair generalization. I like reading the comment section on our local newspaper (online) and you can always tell the older folks by their constant use of capital letters. Maybe they just get the button stuck? On the other hand at least they're online. One has to applaud that.

Another fun fact for the day, if you happen to be running an agarose gel and your mA are off the scale but your volts are low, your student probably made the running buffer too concentrated.

itunes is pissing me off

To run, I like great music.

It's a hell of a motivator to think you've got some tunes hot off the press to trot down the road to.

But itunes is being a bitch.

In my payment information, the system can't seem to come to grips with my address. It can't verify the address. I had this problem when setting it up for my Dad on his computer.

Apparently, the state of Montana may or may not actually be in the USA. There's a glitch that, after two weeks, they finally fixed. It's been a week for me and I'm starting to fume. This is stupid. I told them exactly what the problem is, but they can't seem to wrap their heads around it.

I'm going to keep sending e-mails until someone responds. At this point I've received only one e-mail back from them. It's now been two days. Their help center sucks. This is making me not want to run.

What a cruel, cruel virtual world it is.

Do weekends count?

Only a few days into this exercise and already I've fallen off the wagon. Weekends are hard! My parents came up to visit and I just 'didn't get around' to running.

How utterly pathetic am I?

Well, I suppose I should have put in place some stricter rules. I am having knee trouble so I suppose it's OK to take weekends off as long as I run the other 5 days a week and don't count them in my 100 runs.

But I should sign up for some races ASAP. Those are always on the weekend and then I'll have to run. I have a feeling the weekend coming up will also be an issue. There's a parade and big powwow nearby that I really want to go to.

And good luck getting me up on a Sat. early enough to run before heading out to the fun!!!

Well, 4 miles tonight for sure. Just as soon as it cools down a little......

97 to go

Joke's on me.

The winds picked up and they canceled the event last night. It's a big lake, so I understand why they don't want some giant waves to pick up their guests to join the Flathead lake monster in those green depths. They already have our money, though, so I guess they wouldn't have been too heart-broken.

Well, in any case, the event was rescheduled for another weekend. And anyway, I got to run in the nice cool of the evening, 4.6 miles. I worked late to make up for coming in late too, just in case you were wondering.

I was craving some green Thai curry last night. Something nice and spicy, but I worked too long and then ran too long and the place was closed by the time I got there, sigh. So I made my own version. Chicken, vegetables, lots of green curry paste, a little coconut milk and some vanilla yogurt to sweeten it up. All and all not bad. But I still had to cook for myself. Which is annoying.

I'm not sure how far I'll run tonight, my knee is giving me a little trouble, so I'm thinking just a couple miles, easy. Then maybe something more substantial tomorrow.

My parents are driving up tomorrow. I'm starting to reconsider my original idea that three hours drive away is the perfect distance from home. I'm still in Montana, and close enough to drive home for a weekend, but far enough away so that the family isn't always at the door. Of course where I've moved too is a vacation haven.

Beautiful and on the lake. So they're coming up to see the campus and to camp in the area. Of course I want to see them, but I'm starting to wonder if this is going to be a more consistent thing, in summers at least.

They are retired. Just wait until I find a house on the lake, I'm thinking summers may be pretty full of people coming up from Helena. Well, actually that may not be such a bad thing. A house full of family and friends is a good house to come home to. I could get a boat by next summer, start a gas-for-the-boat-fund so when people come up we're all pitching in a little.

And maybe they'll do the cooking..... hmmm this could work.