February 21, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
I finally had time to watch the men’s figure skating for the 2010 Olympics last night.
I was reminded of getting to see the 2008 US National’s in St. Paul, MN. The men who represented the US in the Olympics this year are all skaters whom I was able to see that year.
I have a handful of photos of them. My camera was running out of battery power by the end of the finals, and I had to keep flipping it on and off. Plus, I was trying to not get too caught up in taking photos. I wanted to actually enjoy their fabulous skating.
I only have a couple of images of Evan Lysacek actually skating. Of course he is this year’s Olympic champion (gold medal winner). He won Nationals in 2008 too.
I have more photos of Johnny Weir skating. He actually tied Lysacek in total points that year, but the tie-breaker was their standing in the free skate program, and Lysacek won that portion.
They have come a long way since 2008. Lysacek in particular is just an amazing, amazing athlete. I’m so glad he won gold this year!
Here are a couple shots I was able to take of Evan Lysacek.
Of course, the advantage of having a camera with a really fast shutter speed is that I was actually able to get photos of them jumping. But they spin so fast, and I hadn’t figured out how to use my “sport” setting, that they are still a tiny bit blurry.
Here are some photos of Johnny Weir.
Three cheers for figure skating!
February 14, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
These flowers were ordered for me before I wrote my post where I mentioned that I hadn’t bought flowers for myself. When Texas Seestor saw my comment, she got a good chuckle out of it, because unbeknownst to me, she had gone in with Mom and Dad to buy me this bouquet!
It was delivered this afternoon, and as you can see, is just gorgeous!
I’ll be taking more photos soon. But for now, this is what I was able to shoot quickly with my normal lens.
February 13, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
It is official! I have been offered and I have accepted a job offer for a tenure-track position in biology at a small liberal arts school in Texas!!!
wooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooo
The image above is something I created to make notecards on Snapfish. I am going to send cards to people at my future school who are in my new department, were on the search committee, the provost, the president, and the woman in development (i.e. will be helping me get money for research). The school colors are black and gold, and I thought they might enjoy a card with a flower in the school colors. So I searched my numerous flower photos in my huuuuuuuuuuge iPhoto library (currently 9,800+ photos) for a yellow flower and can you believe that I found this tulip that actually has a black center in it too???!!!
Was this meant to be, or what? I took that photo in April 2007.
I really just thought I’d use a daylily that was yellowish green. But when I saw this and popped it on the design, I realized it was the right one.
Note, I can’t take credit for the idea for the background. Something similar was on Snapfish. I just copied it in the colors of my choice with the sizing of borders and lines of my choice.
Anyway, about the job:
Location: about 45 min (?) from Texas Seestor’s house! Maybe 30 min from where I might live (?). You know what this means? It means that I will get to see her, her hubby, and my two darling nieces on a regular basis!
Also, mom and dad are retiring in the area, so I’ll get to see them too! They haven’t picked a house, so it is still a bit up in the air as to how close I’ll live to them. But I have hopes that they will be close!
School: smaller than my current school. But my current school is the largest liberal arts school in the country, because of the way it is designed. (I can’t really say more without giving everything away about where I am, etc.)
People: This is a BIG draw for me. The search committee was actually made up of people all across the school, which is really unusual. There was someone from chemistry, kinesiology, and hispanic studies on it (along with the bio dept chair and another bio person). They all get along really well. We were actually laughing and joking on my phone interview. My on-campus interview was really great too.
There was this whole school reception after my seminar, where I met people from all over the school and everyone just seemed to get along and emphasized how much of a positive aspect that was for them at the school.
As for the students, the professors all had very positive things to say about them. They were shy at first in my guest lecture, but really warmed up to me pretty quickly. So, I think that we will all get along well. 
Courses: This is the other main draw for me. I’m was hired to teach a course in one of my specialties: molecular biology/molecular genetics. I’ll also teach their intro bio for majors and a non-majors course. And one semester of anatomy and physiology.
Research: This is the one drawback. There are internal grants that I am almost guaranteed of getting for my usual lab consumables ($3600 a year). But to get some of the larger equipment that I have currently, I’ll write small proposals with the people in the development office. Then they will go to donors in the area and try to get them to donate money to the school/my research. This was the most involved part of my negotiations. I tried to get the school to actually give me start up money. In the end, they just don’t have the funds to offer any start-up money. BUT the provost did have an in-depth conversation with development and the woman in development is pretty confident that we can get the money. If not, I’ll just have to change directions in my research to do less expensive stuff. Which I can do. I just hope to continue doing neuro stuff.
Religion: The school is affiliated with the same denomination of which I am currently a member! This is not the denomination that I grew up with, but it is what I found when I went looking for a local church that has contemporary music. Again, could this be a better fit?
I don’t have flowers to celebrate; with it being Valentine’s day weekend and all, the prices are just jacked up too high. BUT HB bought me chocolate truffle cake! We had some last night while we watched the opening ceremonies and just finished it off (I stopped mid-post to have tea and cake).
Note: I had to take this next photo really fast, because HB was ready to eat the cake when I realized I hadn’t taken any pics!
It tasted even better than it looks!
We had passion fruit papaya tea with it.
yummmmmmmmmmmmm
February 7, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
Texas Seestor emailed me about something that happened to her this week. I asked her to write a guest blog post about it.
Here it is, in her own words:
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Out for a stroll…
I was out for a stroll on Friday with Danielle’s newest niece in the jogging stroller (walking, not jogging, and with an infant sling for those that might be concerned).
It was a lovely, sunny day and I was aiming for 30-45 minutes. I was about 20 minutes into my walk on a main street through our neighborhood, and thinking that I should hold the stroller tight as I was going somewhat downhill and I was pretty sure I didn’t have the energy or speed to catch it if it got away, when I stepped in something on the sidewalk. I looked back to see what it was…
So, I ask you, what is worse…stepping in dog poop or not realizing until its too late that you just stepped onto a mostly decomposed, but still stinky, armadillo? Oh, and then, a few minutes later, getting dog poop on the stroller wheel and one of your new running shoes while trying to walk in the grass to get rid of any dead animal stuff on your shoe.
Yuck! UGH!
Only in Texas…
I didn’t puke, so that was a good thing. I did keep my walk to 30 minutes as all I could think about the rest of the way home was cleaning my shoe and the stroller with the garden hose. This was also a challenge as I was trying to keep my thumb dry which I had managed to slice open earlier in the week while recycling some cans, thus requiring 4 stitches.
Last week doesn’t seem like it was my week.
Of course, it all seems quite humorous now.