Month: March 2007

Trips and Weddings

Brown had a career fair and with a week to go, Microsoft sent out a call for alums who could attend (ie, who could get sign off from their teams and their significant others on such short notice). With the prospect of a trip to Providence, I sent out empassioned emails to both crowds, and was added as an excited member of the group. I was upfront: Brown is always great (and my brother is a senior!), and aiding the college recruiting program is a high priority. But (!), this trip also meant that I finally got to (1) see relatives who I haven’t seen since we announced our engagement and was not expecting to see until the wedding week, and (2) got to see all of the professional wedding people who I haven’t seen since we announced our engagement and was not expecting to see until the wedding week.

We’re getting married in less than three months outside of Boston, we live in Seattle, and our parents and siblings all live out of state. The chance to get to talk to the florist, caterer/reception hall, cake people, and most of all the minister was so, so wonderful. I haven’t droned on in this blog about wedding prep, though it’s been a constant diversion since August. Most of the decisions and plans have been very intimidating to me. In a “Forge On!” frame of mind, we’ve actually gotten a lot done, but the whole process has stretched me far beyond my typical self-image and comfort areas. I’ve had a hard time envisioning the day.

So, again, I was so delighted to be flown back to MA/RI. They’ll let you fly early if you pick up the non-work expenses, so I red-eyed out on Friday evening on the inimitable JetBlue. In what I assumed was a ploy to win people back, they had rental car deals where you could rent for 3 days for just over $50 including tax. Wow! It a sleep-dazed state, I arrived at the lot full of SUVs and PT Cruisers, and signed on for my car. I wasn’t expecting a lean machine, but none-the-less was properly impressed at the caliber of vehicle I was assigned. The entire thing weighed about 200 pounds, and looked like someone had just chopped the back of a normal sedan off, and paper-macheed it shut. On the plus side, it was light, so it got great gas mileage.

Saturday, I drove from Logan to Concord (my aunt let me stay with her, and, blessedly, shower), Concord to Milton, Milton to Northboro, and back to Concord, which was almost 200 miles on very little sleep. Since my commute to work is just under five miles, this impressed me.

Here’s the little BzzmBzzm rental outside the cake place.

Like the snow? 🙂 And look how teeny those tires are! Craziness!

The good news is that now I’m all on a cloud of how lovely all of this will be. I can finally picture it. It will have to be a future post, but wow. 🙂

South Station

My senior year at Brown, I was dating Kevin at MIT. Aside from the emails and IMs and phone calls that are the crutch of any long-ish distance relationship, we saw each other most weekends. He had a car, and I had the Boston commuter rail and the T. On my weekends, I’d go flying out of TA hours on Friday, back to the dorm, pack a bag, and run down the hill to the train, which I always made with about a second to spare.

Coming home was equally hectic, since I’d always wait till the last minute (are you sensing a trend?), leave Kevin’s house late, and then put my faith in a faster-than-possible walk and an on-time red-line train, before racing through the South Station construction to get on the train down to Providence. When I graduated and had cause to take the commuter rail, I always left from Back Bay, so I haven’t been in South Station since. It was fun to see it finished (though I missed the person selling flowers next to the huge expanse of plywood downstairs). Some places just stand as pillars of your past. Even better, just as I showed up, it started snowing. The sky was still all sunny, and the flakes were huge. If you look in the upper right corner of the picture you can see them against the brick.

I love Seattle, and it’s always felt like home to me, but every now and then I just deeply miss belonging in Boston. It was good to be home.

More coral updates

Kevin and I have been amazed at the growth we’ve been seeing in our SPS corals in the last few months. Nothing has changed — we’ve been dosing kalkwasser at the same rate, and our lights, if anything, have grown dimmer, but they look so happy.

Here’s the blue acro.

All of the blue, with brown mouths, that’s showing up in the photo is new growth. How amazing, hmm? The bleached white portion after the storm has grown back, and the guy just keeps growing — I’m shocked each day how much longer he’s become.

(Below, you can see all of the closed purple zoos. We have no idea what the problem is, but they haven’t opened in weeks. It’s a colony of about 70, so the issue is major, but tweaking flow, light, and nearby corals doesn’t seem to have any effect. We’re at a loss.)

The pink monti is equally impressive. He’s growing out as well as up. (You can see a piece that broke off in the lower left, and the yellow montipora plate coral in the background) The light pink portions at the tips are the newest growth.

I manage to hit into him all the time and snap off limbs when I’m cleaning the tank. This 3″ frag was one result, but he’s been growning well since.

Tank update

My favourite rock in the tank is covered in purple coraline algae, orange zoos, sunflower zoos, and the gorgeous ricordia I bought when I got my new job, and which has since spread like mad.

When we originally bought the orange zoos, they came with a big (1 1/2″) brown and white striped starfish. Starfishes can spread asexually, and at this point we have well over 25 in our tank. They’re light-shy, and so you rarely see their bodies. Random legs sticking out of holes in the rock or from behind a coral are a much more common sight. Here’s a photo with Clack and a hermit crab for scale (the crab’s shell is 3/4″). And at the edge of the rock, you can see brown and white legs waving in the current.

But usually the starfish are hard to see. I came home to find out that had three legs emerging from one hole, and a fourth from another, at the front of the ricordia rock.

How neat.