I'm back...

I know, I know, I am a huge blog slacker these days. It seems life in Houston has picked up and become slightly more permanent (but not forever permanent, just like 2-3 years permanent, maybe). I will never actually "live" in Texas, although apparently I am being forced to get a Texas Driver's licence. Lovely. Anyway, in case you have not been in the loop recently (and don't feel bad, the loop has consisted of the first person to get through to me on the phone each day, and not much more), I have changed jobs. I now work at Johnson Space Center, in the Education Office. Or, well, actually, I worked for USRA, which is a contractor(or sub contractor as the case may be) of JSC, but I work at JSC, or NASA. Now, some of you might think I worked for NASA all along. For you, this is not really a huge deal. However, really, I did not work for NASA, despite the affiliation. I do now work on site, in a NASA office, with a NASA computer (that might work one day soon), and a NASA badge. It is official. I have arrived. Even if I have arrived in Houston, I have arrived somewhere. I am a permanent employee, and someone is even giving me health insurance and retirement. Good news, Rachel, you won't have to support me and mom and dad in our old age...

Anyway, in other news, I have done much less traveling recently. I did make it up to Austin for a conference that became a very long weekend. I didn't see much of Austin other than the inside of many Sixth Street Bars (some would argue this is the best part). I will be making another trip soon. I am traveling hor (me to California for a week for Christmas, which will be nice. I am sure the weather is the same as it is here (80 degrees, sunny, and clear). I need to dig out my shorts again. We had winter, it was Thursday and Friday of last week. So, I guess this makes us in Spring now. Interesting.

Oh, in other news, Andrea got married. So did Yasmin. Made it back for the big party in SF for Andrea and John. I wonder if I can find those pictures. Perhaps just a couple. The bride and me, and then the Lisa and me, about to give a speech we found out about when the DJ met us to walk into the reception. Oh Turner (was that his name), he really put up with a lot that night.



Also got to spend some time in Davis and Oakland on that trip and seem some West Coast friends. And the Socal crowd. And, then, about a month later Little Lucy Jeanne Shah was born. I am not posting pictures up here, but she is so cute it is not even funny. And while she was supposed to be a boy, some of us are very excited about the dress up possibilities. And now Joy and I know we will at least have one chance at being homecoming queen...um, I mean, our kids could be homecoming queen...but we will so be on the field. You know we will. Not even a question. Beaman has no idea what is coming his way. We will also be at Lamppost after every game with our walkie talkies...come on by...

Other than the trips, I am settling nicely into life here. I have made some great friends at work, and spend a lot of time drinking coffee and/or wine (one much more than the other) and solving the world's problems. World peace is on the list for January. Don't worry, it shouldn't take us too long to figure it out.

Ok, off to NASA happy hour...your tax dollars pay these people, so we wait until 5pm to actually start drinking.

=)

Alaska continued

In an attempt to put something new up here, I am uploading some pictures from the rest of my trip to Alaska. Of course, the task of writing about all of it is once again huge, and I am not sure it is going to happen. Some highlights from the rest of the trip:

Coworkers show up Monday night after the really fun BBQ with the Alaskan museum folk. We ate fresh BBQed Salmon all night long. Picked up the coworkers, and crashed at the hotel. Got up the next morning to hike Flat Top peak, one of the most hiked trails in the US.

Wednesday we drove to Kenai to stay at a bed and breakfast and do some training work in Kenai (yes, we really did work, thank you).

Thursday we were back to Anchorage for more work on Thursday and Friday. I was exhausted by Friday night, but no rest, because Saturday morning my director, Allison, took the Alaska Railroad down to Seward, and then took a boat tour out onto the Kenai Fjords National Park water to see some wildlife. The pictures from this are not that great, but there are some pictures of other things below. Enjoy!

More on the SF wedding and trip to CA in a few days...

Denali National Park

I would just like to point out I finally finished uploading my pictures from the summer, so they are below this post, which I just posted a few hours ago. I am now going to begin the long task of doing the Alaska summary. I have taken well over 1000 pictures on this trip, so I will just be picking a few of the better ones as I go along.

First up, Denali National Park.

I arrived in Anchorage on Friday night and crashed at a local hotel not far from the airport. Saturday morning I got up and made the four hour trek to Denali. The drive was beautiful, and I spent much of the trip staring right at the amazing view of Mt. McKinley on the horizon, rising high above pretty much everything else in sight:

I stopped to eat lunch about 20 miles south of the park, at this really cute cafe in the middle of nowhere:

Here I had my first experience with Salmon Chowder, which is twenty times better than Clam Chowder. Thus begins my seafood diet for the week, in which I eat seafood at as many meals as possible (this is easier to do when someone else is paying, but it still worked out on my weekend budget).
I drove on from the cafe and found my hotel, the Grizzly Bear Resort:

It was quite the nice hotel, very rustic, with log buidlings and desks on each room. I took some pictures so you could see how where I stayed for the weekend:


And the view from my deck:

Yup, that is a creek through those trees, which lulled me to sleep both nights.
I spent the afternoon doing some much needed hiking in the park. I hiked this to this beautiful lake:

And of course, the courtesy trail pictures, so you can pretend you were there with me:






And some other views of the park on Saturday:


Saturday night I did the big ol' food search, trying to find something cheap and good to eat, and eventually giving up and eating some good but not so cheap. I went to the typical tourist restaurant in town and had a Halibut burrito, which was pretty mcuh amazing. I have never had anything like it, and I was impressed. Oh, and the the town was so cute. I took this picture, which doesn't do it much justice, but helps paint the picture:

I went to bed early that night, to prepare for the early rise on Sunday. 5am came really early, but as it was somewhat light out already, it wasn't too bad. I joined some other crazy people for our all day park bus tour. 6:15, Barry out guide picked us up in the rain, and we made out way into the park. We spent the next five hours looking for wild life and seeing the sights on the 95 mile road throug Denali National Park. I took some pretty random shots of the wildlife, which I will share with you now. First, the moose, who came right down in front of the bus, and was pretty dang amazing:

At this point, I sort of realized that the digital zoom on my camera was doing my amazing (AMAZING) photography skills no justice. So, I have up. good thing, since I did manage to take a relatively decent picrture of a grizzly bear's butt, and could the post it here for you:

Yup, so I saw my first grizzly bear. Pretty cool! Then we saw this moose and two moose babies (calves?):

And then some caribou (these guys were relaly far away):

And of course, there were some amazing views to be seen, despite, the rain and fog (and the fact that Barry drove 35 mph through A LOT of mud, making it hard to a)focus on anything outside and b) see through the windows. Barry did clean them for us every once in a while, but I found looking through the corner was relatively effective when dealing with the mud. Ok, so the views:



And then we got the end of the road, to the resort/hotel in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and ate lunch. Oh, maybe I should stop and talk about the people on this bus with me. 44 other people, all hanging on for dear life as Barry takes the corners of cliffs nice and fast. I began by sitting next to this woman who as on her honeymoon while her (second) husband sat in front of us. I thought it would be nice for them to sit next to each other, so I offered to swtich with him. She moved his stuff while he was on a bathroom break, and when he came back to find out we had swtiched, he let me know he was quite enjoying the break from having to talk to her. Yup, good luck with that marriage. I was then next to Paula. Now, Paula and I could now be best friends. Paula has three kids (Shawn, Chris, and Tia) and a husband (John), all on this trip with her. Tia, who is 9, hates this trip, and lets mom know about every 20 minutes from 2 row back. Paula's response? "yes, Tia, I know, that's why I made you come." Nice. The boys are sitting together, once is slumped over sleeping and the other is plugged into an ipid and game boy. Totally worth the money they spent on their tickets. So, Paula is thrilled to have someone to talk to, and so am I. She told me all about her own girls' weekends she does with her girlfriends (note: the last one they did was in Chicago...). Paula has a full week of activities planned for Alaska, including river rafting and a dog sled ride (possibly on skates, Barry kept interrupting with random facts). Anyway, Paula asked me to eat lunch with them, and I did my best to discuss college with the boys, and try to keep Tia from hating life even more. I think they were too afraid to whine while I was around. So, we ate lunch, I took a walk and some pictures, and then back to the bus for the 5 hour ride back. And yes, at this point, the bus and Barry are both getting a little old. Some more pictures that look nice:



And some more animals, namely, a moose's butt:


and some Dall sheep (the white specks):

We never did see Mt McKinley inside the park, but the tour was still pretty good. We did also see some really cute baby girzzly bears with their mama, pretty close to the bus, but my battery had died by then. No worries though, Paula is going to email me some of her pictures (did you really think we weren't going to stay in touch?)

For those of you who care, I continued my seafood diet with some grilled halibut and sweet potatoes fries at the local fish and chips place, and then decided it was hight time for dessert. I sucked it up and went over the nice new fancy resort and checked out their dessert menu. They seated me at the money table, right next to the fireplace. I proceeded to order some amazing bread pudding and enjoyed some coffee and my book next the roarin fire. I was pretty much in heaven. I think I was in bed by 10pm that night, and it helped that it was overcast and I was unable to see the impending meteor shower. I sat on the deck for a while and enjoyed the peace and fresh air, and decided that Alaska is just good for your soul. I highy recommend this place for everyone.

So, that is all for now, I was continue the trip update later, but I am now off to bed to prepare for my big ol' boat trip tomorrow.

The Big Ol' Update

Greeting from somewhere over the great continent of North America. I am currently flying between Houston and Anchorage, and I seem to have some free time. I have finished a 350 page book, listened to half my ipod collection, and read through the complimentary Continental magazine. Not quite as exciting as the Southwest magazine, I have to say. I thought I could spend some time posting some pictures for those of you who still even check this page. Prepare yourselves, these pictures go back to the beginning of the summer...

First, some pictures from my camping trip to Bridgeport. We did some fishing, some storytelling, and spent plenty of time sunning ourselves on the lake. Joy and I also managed to solve most of the world’s problems (don’t worry, those that were not solved during this trip were solved during a subsequent Sunday morning marathon phone call.


Me gutting the heck out of the first fish of the day:

Joy and Paul on the boat:

K keeping his neck from getting sunburned:

Yup, aren’t they cute:





Good thing we didn’t actually have to put the fish IN the car:


Moving on through the summer, it turns out, they let me graduate. Now, these are never before seen pictures, pretty much of me sweating in way too many layer on the hottest day in Davis so far...Lovely...
It might appear that Kiyomi is about the do some sort of blessing here, but really, she is just making sure the hood isn’t going to fall off:

Me with my fans:


Yea, all graduations look the same, and apparently, these people recycle the same speech each year. Perhaps it would have been better not to tell a whole bunch of Ed people how great the standards are (thank you, Mr. California Secretary of Education...)

Even after the long, boring ceremony, I am still my saucy self:

Michelle and me:

And with Cindy, committee member #1:

So, yea, the thesis is still in review form, but the graduation has occurred, with much success and glory. And of course, a celebration at the local bar. Basically the same as undergrad, only we were asleep by 11pm instead of just going out...nice!

Next, just some fun pictures from the Vita party to celebrate everything great we have all done. It only seemed appropriate to
And, then, they were so jealous that Cara and Xabi had to get in on the action (I am sure they will love me posting these pictures):


And the necessary girl picture:

And the beautiful table setting:

And then K singing some karaoke, Xabi’s favorite song, the Piano Man:

While the rest of us sing backup:




Next up, just a couple of pictures from South Padre Island, where Joe and I spent a weekend enjoying the island, and what it had to offer other than the beaches (basically, a lot of tourist shops and bars, both open to all hours of the night).
You might not be able to tell, but this is during the hurricane force rains:


Don’t remember taking this picture, but I think it was in honor of Joy:

As you can see, during the rain storm, not many pictures were taken. It rained three days straight,, with a slight reprieve one evening. Perfect for island trips!

Next up, the long haul over the England. Now, there are about 10,000 pictures from this trip, but I am sure they are mostly stuck on someone’s camera (ahem), so I will post what I have.
First, the family trying to unclog the sewer, work clothes and all. I was being particularly helpful as the photographer that day:

Uncle Johnnie tests out the hat (every family has one):

The three cousins and two aunts causing huge chaos in the kitchen, baking a birthday cake for our grandmother:

And then we kicked them out and the three cousins somehow made a cake (might have been a little dry, but people ate it...):

Emma tests the final product:

And then the cake is delivered, sparklers and all:

And then grandma finds out what is in the party bags:

The three cousins at Friday birthday dinner:

My aunt and I got a hold of the camera and decided someone might like a picture of the two of us, especially after some wine:

And finally, the big ol’ family shot, with my grandmother, her three children, and the oldest grand daughter from each child. Yup, the representatives were all present and accounted for (and in hats, which were NOT my idea):


There are a ton more pictures, but those are pretty much the highlights.
And with that, I think you are all caught up. I figured I better catch up before the Alaska pictures begin their download, because after the last trip, i know there will be no chance of anything else getting posted if I have new Alaska pictures to deal with. So, expect an update soon on that, and then in a couple of weeks, a trip out west for the fancy SF wedding!!!!