Kris is at soccer practice now so I will try to update the blog a bit. Well, classes started for Karen and I yesterday, summer is over from an academic standpoint. For me it seems like this past summer was almost like a copy of two summers ago. We took no super-sized trips halfway across the continent like the trip to Seattle last year (my research contact is no longer there and the price of gas is holding us back). We did travel a fair amount regionally...to Wisconsin, southern Minnesota, and places in Illinois. Karen traveled to Virginia at the beginning of summer for her grandmother’s birthday, and I had business trips to southern Indiana and western Washington (so I for one day I got my mountain fix). I have attached a picture of a Door County sunset.
Summer was busy in the lab, too. I had, at a few times, six people at a time in the lab, but often it was four or less. Four seems about as much as I can handle. Karen had lots of summer classes to keep her busy. Karen and Kris visited a lot of places locally as part of a science scavenger hunt program held every summer. I have attached a picture of Kris using a fire hose during a recent visit to a National Guard base. Kris also had soccer camp and piano and swim lessons.
It has been a relatively cool and wet summer, with very few 90+ days, unlike the past few years. It has been great for the garden. We are now harvesting tomatoes, zucchini (still), carrots (Bugs practically inhales them). Our huge sunflowers are well on their way toward going to seed. Our remaining lettuce plants are being let go to seed, and our last pea pods have also been turned to seed. Our second pumpkin is ready for cutting, and we count two unripe ones on the vines. Kris’s cabbage is big. We had lots of walnuts drop off the trees, but they all went bad. We have picked strawberries, black raspberries, and blackberries. As you can see in the pictures, the garden is a real mess now compared to early on, but has been producing anyway.
A little while ago outside a queen ant and drone ant landed on my laptop computer keypad and…uh…well…I guess this is an odd variation of mating scenes on the computer. Sorry, no pictures of that.
Anyway, with all the nice nature pix that I have taken this summer, one pic that really stands out to me is one of the freshly painted house. We barely finished by July 1, but I was worried that we would take all summer. Karen and Kris helped get the job done, it looks good, and it is holding up well so far.
As I mentioned yesterday, classes have started and the campus is full of fresh faces. Last night we held a chemistry demo show out on the quad. Though I was disappointed in the turnout (thirtysome people) considering how hard we advertised it, the show went OK, and the science building is still standing. My favorite part was the way the sound of the exploding hydrogen balloons echoed off the surrounding buildings; it sounded like thunder rolling.
Watched Obama's speech while I worked on this. Very impressive in many ways, but there are some sticking points. According to the statistics I looked up, less than 25 days of U.S. abortions in 2007 would equal the population in that big stadium.
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