Final Halloween preparations

I was able to complete my spider when I got home. I hope mom appreciates the 8 legs! 

This has become a classic for me. A man (stuffed with leaves) holding his head in his lap. (He should probably tie those shoes!)

 And a final picture of my ghost circle, now complete with the fire they are dancing around!

Cats

The cats are hanging out close to each other more often now. This first one is a little family portrait we did (as you can see, though, Shep is blocking Paws' vision of Ichi!) and the one below occurred when Paws had been sleeping on our bed and didn't notice Ichi come up next to her! He didn't bother her at all, just sat real close, but then when she woke up she left. He still tries to play with her once in a while, which she does not appreciate! But for the most part they are pretty amicable. 

Halloween Preparations, cont.

The Halloween preparations continue!

Shep bought me an awesome door mat:

 I added the orange and black wreath I made last year to our front door:

 We carved pumpkins! Shep's is on the left, it looks scared and goofy. Our friend Joanna's is in the middle, it is a silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock. Mine (right and below) looks pretty evil!

 My circle of ghosts is complete, except for the fire (Christmas lights) that they'll be dancing around:

My spider does have 8 legs, but hasn't been hung up yet, because I am worried about it lasting too long in the rain and wind.

Halloween preparations!

Halloween preparations have begun! Seen here are the beginnings of a spider that will live on the front bushes, the beginnings of a group of ghosts having a seance around a fire, and a witch!

Pizza Pi

We went to the District of Pi the other day. They are a pizza place in DC. I thought Andrew would appreciate a lot of their designs, so I took a few pictures!

Their bar, with the numbers of Pi: 

Their glasses:

New office decoration!

I got a new item to decorate my office at work with! The reason I acquired this brain is a long story... here goes!

During the SfN annual meeting every year, we have a big party for our VIPs called the Presidential Reception. We invite the neuroscience rock-stars to network and basically kiss up to them to thank them for being members? Anyway, they always get some sort of small gift as they leave the party. The gift is always a different neuroscience-related item. Last year it was the wrapping paper covered in neuroscience images I was able to give Dad a packet of. This year, someone decided that the gift should be little chocolates in the shape of brains.

Well. A brain made out of chocolate requires a brain shaped mold, which requires an accurate brain model! Since I am one of the go-to neuroscience experts on staff, the woman who is organizing this came to me asking for good images she could send to the mold-maker for him to base the mold off of. I told her that I did not think it would be a good idea to base a 3D mold off of a 2D image, so instead suggested that she buy a cheap brain model.

So, the molds have been made, and they returned the model to us, which was given to me so that I could have it during our exhibits (like during the National Science Teachers Association meeting)! So now I get to have a lovely brain on my desk!

This brain decoration joins my many other office decorations.
Images of Shep and I, Paws, Ichi, and one of Tania, Rana and I (during the Chicago SfN meeting):

 Some small cute trinkets I've collected. The one in the right back is a little fold out pop-up type thing of koala bears I got from Shriee, the Australian graduate student who won the first Brain Awareness Video Contest.

 And my plants!

Psychics

This is a photo I took a few weeks ago but never got around to uploading. It is taken right outside the National Science Foundation. The purple booth is a psychic booth.

I just thought it was a bit ironic.

Fungi

I was walking home from the Ballston metro on Friday like I do some days. I walk through the mall and then down Carlin Springs to Park. I cross George Mason and rt 50, and then Park ends with an entrance to a walking trail that connects to my neighborhood. While walking through that section, I can across this incredible bright orange fungus at the base of a tree! It is quite large too, though you can't tell that very well from this picture.

Wine corks!

Shep's dad was at a garage sale and found a box of wine corks for $2! I got them home and added in my collection and this is the result. I put my hand (fingers straight) in the box for size reference! I think I will be able to start on my project now (I'll have to figure out exactly what it is I want to do!).

Backlog - snow post

So back on March 25, we had a snowstorm and I took pictures but didn't post them! Probably since they'd given us off for the snowquester flop, we had to work, so I got ready super fast to make my first snowman of winter before work! The first three shots are of the snow in the morning, and the last one is to show my snowman faired during the day!

Snowquester flop

Turned into rain and didn't give any accumulation on the roads at all. :-(

Funny comments I've seen:
- snowquester furloughed!
- slushquester

Snowquester part 1

They are predicting 8-10 inches now! The govt is shut down for the day and Shep is staying home as well. It is really just starting to stick on the roads now, and is 33 degrees outside, so I hope this lives up to expectations!

Weekend craft project!

This weekend I got the idea to make complementary state pictures for Shep and me! At first I was going to do both like the NY one, but with Shep's in green (because that is his favorite color) but then decided it might be cool to have the land in green to represent his love of the forest and my blue represent water!
I also made tiny little hearts over Arlington and Setauket, but they had to be super tiny to fit on Long Island!
They are still drying, but we will hang them in the living room when done.

Weekend craft project!

This weekend I got the idea to make complementary state pictures for Shep and me! At first I was going to do both like the NY one, but with Shep's in green (because that is his favorite color) but then decided it might be cool to have the land in green to represent his love of the forest and my blue represent water!
I also made tiny little hearts over Arlington and Setauket, but they had to be super tiny to fit on Long Island!
They are still drying, but we will hang them in the living room when done.

Owl!

This is kind of a lie, because it actually doesn't come with a picture I took! This morning, I was looking out the front window and saw a barn owl sitting on the Japanese Maple tree that is right outside. I got very excited and tried to sneak forward to take a picture, but either it heard me or was startled by something else, because it flew off before I was able to get to the window! It was very pretty though. I used this very nifty bird finding site to help me decide what type of bird it was! I also thought Grandpa would like to explore this site if you ever find a bird that you don't know.

Brain Bee!

Tonight was the DC regional brain bee! We had 19 kids from schools in DC and southern MD. (There is a northern VA brain bee for those kids.) We had a professor from Georgetown university, Ben Walker, be our judge. He has been the judge for out brain bee for almost 10 years! He actually brought a human brain for the kids to see, which they really enjoyed.
Our winner was a girl named Sara from Richard Montgomery high school. She will be traveling up to Baltimore in early march for the US brain bee, and the chance to represent the US in the international brain bee in September.

Trip to Fredricksburg

We took a trip down to Fredericksburg for the day to see Mary Washington. We just did a bunch of walking around. They keep building and renovating! This is looking down the mail campus walk way.

This is of my freshman year dorm, VA hall.

This is just a picture of us.

We are always looking for evidence that the "University of Mary Washington" as it is now called was once "Mary Washington College" since we were the last graduating class of MWC. We found one here!

And Shep convinced me that we had to eat in the dinning hall... he has been dreaming of this moment for the past 9 years, since we graduated... he loves the idea of having unlimited access to food.... Anyway, we ate there, the food wasn't that great, but he was in heaven. This is a picture of him after being conquered by Seacobeck dining hall!

It was a chilly day, but we weren't too cold walking around. We just stayed for a few hours and came back home. It is nice that we are such a short drive away (only about an hour)!

We were thinking of also visiting Richmond, but decided that we didn't have much to do but visit our old house, so we will wait until the first weekend of May, when Arts in the Park is on, to go down there. 

Second show

Cake and Calculus had a second show last night. It was at a really nice place called 9th and Beats near the convention center in DC. I walked there straight from work! They played with a band from Philly and a number of people came, a lot who we didn't know! (Which is exciting because they want to get themselves know to many other people).

Happy Valentines day!

Shep got me some daffodils for our anniversary (Feb 12) and they are bringing a touch of spring into my office! This weekend we will drive to Fredericksburg, where we met!

Bread mixer

I've been using my mixer quite a lot lately! Here is the remains of a loaf of rye bread I made last weekend,

and today I am making cinnamon raisin bread! 

It is rising now, but I will let you know how it turns out!

Spring?

While you guys were enjoying all that snow, our front yard decided it was spring-time! (It hasn't been that warm, but I guess there have been enough pretty warm days to encourage the flowers!)

Basketball!

 I found a Groupon deal for basketball tickets the other day, so we want to a game! The Washington team is called the Wizards. They played against the Brooklyn Nets and won! Our Groupon deal came with free Wizzard scarfs, so we cheered the team on in style! (Shep took one of those 3D pictures - you can see my scarf but can't see my face very well!)

They were also celebrating the Chinese new year that day and were actually broadcasting the game in china as well! (Shep and I thought they were trying to recruit more Chinese basketball fans!) They had a number of people playing awesome traditional Chinese instruments in the lobby area. There was a xiao flute, a gijik fiddle, a yangqin zither, and a pipa lute, to name a few! Then, during half-time, some local students prefomed some traditional Chinese dances (the person who posted this YouTube video had a much better view than we did!)

Snow!

Point number 1: it snowed last night! Our first snow of the winter! We still went to work, though many schools had a delayed opening. It wasn't quite as cold today as it has been lately, but it still didn't get above freezing all day!
Point 2: its been so cold, in fact, that our bird feeder cracked! I didn't even realize that would happen, but I guess there must have been a small crack that got split. We will have to try and find something else for the birds in the spring!

Agent Skully

One of my coworkers got a plastic skull from her sister for Christmas. She didn't want to bring it in at first, but I convinced her that her office would benefit greatly from the addition. She named him Agent Skully (she is also a big x-files fan).

Inauguration

DC is getting ready for the inauguration! On Saturday last week Shep and I went into DC to see a show. When we were headed home we saw a line of 18-wheelers piled with cement barricades.  When I came into work on Monday, I saw these outside the metro stop. It seems that they will be blocking off parts of 14th st.
I am very glad that the inauguration is happening on Martin Luther King Jr day and that I don't have to go into work. They are expecting 600,000-800,000 people to attend, and many roads will be shut down, forcing everyone to go by metro! I can imagine there will be quite some delays!
Shep and I were in this area for the second W. Bush inauguration (in early 2005). It happened there was a small snow storm the night before, and they must have gotten all the trucks that normally plow northern Va to plow DC. I was working at Georgetown and Shep would pick me up from Rosslyn. I remember it taking forever to get home that day, with the traffic and road closures in top of the snow!
Shep will have to go into work on the 21st, but he will be headed the opposite direction than the sight-seers.