Roswell - Grandma's 90th Birthday

Grandma's cat was jumping around behind the blinds the first day we got here, so upon opening the blinds to see what the hub-bub was about, this is what we spotted...

Hummingbird nest!
We spent about 2 hours milling around on the back porch, take a look.

Update

The powers that be here at Duke must have gotten wind of my blog posting yesterday (no pun intended) because the problem seems to be fixed. The construction continues in the background.

First Visit to Duke

Saw the Duke Cathedral this morning. Took a photo on a windy day, 50mph gusts in fact.


Then I headed over to meet a few people to sign paperwork and things. Turns out I can see Lori's building from my boss' office window, so I took a picture.

Then I see something interesting, a reminder that this campus is not as nice as people might think. Take a closer look and everything becomes clear. A sign of the wind, but there are little signs like this everyday, even in good weather. I should have warned this lady not to walk on the grass.



The campus is okay, everything is under construction, the roads are in terrible shape, and parking is horrible. You would think that at least two out of three of these problems would be fixed in a wealthy campus. Lori and I walked right by the Cameron Indoor stadium (where the "famous" basketball team plays) on our way to her lab, interestingly quiet. UC Davis is equally nice in my opinion. After dropping Lori off at her work I headed off to the library to see what kind of campus maps I could find, and hopefully find a wireless internet connection. After a couple of hours figuring things out at the library I was able to meet up with the people I was supposed to meet, which is when the porta-potty hilarity ensued. The entrance to this building I was in smelled like urinal cakes.

Dissertation, Flight to Durham

My boss emailed me this morning around 1am to say that I could give my dissertation to Frank and Matt (my commitee), so I finished formatting around 5am and went to bed. After oversleeping, I woke up at 9am and rushed to school with my luggage in the back of my car. I pulled up to a metered spot (that a colleague had just vacated) and there was 30 mins left on the meter. Sweet. I threw in another couple quarters and ran to lab with my ginormous suitcases. I printed one copy of my thesis, photocopied it, and threw them both in their mailboxes. Then I ran back out to my car because the meter had expired 5 mins earlier. As I started the car a parking enforcement office walked by to check the status of my parking meter, whew, barely made it out of there without a ticket! Drove home, biked back to the building, grabbed my suitcases and headed to the MU to catch the airport bus. Waited 5 mins, hopped on the bus and took it to the airport. Checking my bags, I see the bigger bag is 49lbs, 1 pound shy of having to pay extra for baggage being too big. Wow, today must be some kind of anti-Friday the 13th for me. Knock on wood, I still have one more plane flight then hopefully my 49lbs suitcase shows up with me, we'll see.

Update:

The plane landed fine, the suitcase showed up, and all is well. What a fast paced day!