i'm back! the conference went really well; i presented my data without passing out or falling flat on my face (hooray!), and i met a lot of reall cool people. *and*, surprisingly enough, i was able to make a few arizona-related connections regarding constructed wetlands projects, whcih i really wasn't expecting considering the conference participants were largely from eastern seaboard states. and i got to spend a waaaay too short few days with dana, which is always wonderful. here are some pictures from the halloween party he had on saturday. i'm the fairy, and dana's indiana jones (sexy!). now i'm at home, trying to catch up on some reading for my fluvial geomorphology class, baking pumpkin pie, and spending quality time with my cat who missed me more than i was aware that a cat could miss someone. cutie patootie.

so...what was everyone for halloween?

it's 7:15am on sunday, and i am all packed and ready to head out to my conference. eek. dana's mom is going to bring me to the train station, and i'll be in atlantic city by 5 this evening. then i get to sit in my hotel room and freak the hell out because tomorrow i give my presentation to a room full of wetland scientists. but i'm not hyperventilating. noooo. (hmmm...probably ought to pack my inhaler now that i'm thinking about it). four days of conference fun, then on thursday night i pick up my rental car and drive back from atlantic city, and friday morning i hop on a plane out of hartford to go see dana for a few days. i have a very interesting suitcase packed (clothes for both temperature extremes, and a halloween costume!).

oh, and dear atlantic city airport: maybe it would behoove you to have more than, oh, i don't know, two flights out of your lousy airport so that it didn't cost a bajillion and two dollars to fly anywhere from there, causing me to have to drive back to CT just to get on a plane. i'm just sayin'.

dana, i love you and i will see you in FIVE DAYS!! :) everyone else, i'll be back in a week...wish me luck!

first, a great big THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the American Cancer Society. the Relay went well last weekend, the rain stopped, the sun came out, all was well. big round of applause for my dad, who walked roughly 7 hours, which is way more than he thought he'd be able to do. my mom, dad, and i walked throughout the day; jim showed up and walked with me from about 7pm saturday to about 6 am sunday, and april and mark walked with us from ~12:30 am sunday to ~ 6 am. i set out to do the whole 24, but my body said a big Hell No after hour 18. but, i did manage 11 am saturday to ~6 am sunday.

for my efforts, i got a big ol' nasty case of SICK. to be fair, i was already tossing my cookies the night before the Relay, but it's now wednesday night and i'm still not 100%. and that's sucky. especially since i leave for my conference on sunday (!!!!!). god, am i getting nervous about that. yikes. think of me on monday afternoon; that's when i present my data. and on monday night, i consume copious amounts of beer. well, maybe not copious amounts. maybe 3. whatever.

one week and one day until i get to see dana... :)

from helloflamingo:
go to google, type in "(your name) needs", and post 10 results.

1. Krista needs to practice her wise-girl accent with someone, we'll bring the pizza.
2. Krista Needs Help With Her Sunscreen
3. Krista needs to have someone tell her to straighten her act out or she'll be 30 and replaced by the 8,000 other, younger, better boob jobs in town. (hahahahahahaha!)
4. Krista needs a place, too!
5. Krista needs to give up tv (i elected to leave out the second part of this...)
6. Krista needs to know *everything* that goes on in Corey's life (it's true, i do.)
7. Krista needs to speak with potential speakers, facility options and determine a reasonable date based on others availability
8. Krista needs mainly to polish up her leaps and aim for greater amplitude on her straddle jumps to maximize scoring potential. (good to know)
9. Krista needs a POSITIVE banner.
10. Krista needs your fax number, or your name and phone number so that she can contact you.

and what have i learned from this exercise? that my name is apparently quite popular in a particular industry which shall remain nameless. yikes.

my inner former FFA member cries at this. the rest of me is laughing my ass off.

hey all! just wanted to put out one more reminder about the American Cancer Society Relay for Life that i'm participating in oct 15th-16th. thank you to everyone who donated money...every single dollar helps, and your donations mean a lot. last year i managed 17 hours of the total 24; this year i'm going to skip on the running and attempt to do the entire 24 at a walk.

i have to hand in all cash and check donations by this coming tuesday (the 11th), but i'm pretty sure online donations can be made right up until the relay. if anyone would like make an online donation, you can do so here.

thanks again to everyone for their support--it is hugely appreciated.

happy birthday erika!!

busy busy busy! the semester is humming along full-tilt, as always seems to happen. i've got my conference coming up in a few weeks which i'm working on my presentation for (eek! presenting my data!), then i get to spend a weekend with dana, then it's november, then it's thanksgiving (and i get to see dana again!! hi dana! i love you!), and once thanksgiving break is over, there's only 2 weeks left in the semester. and that means that, hopefully, i am DONE WITH CLASSES. i cannot convey to you how happy that prospect makes me. and, i stop collecting my data in december and start working on my thesis...which means i am almost done with school. good grief.

i got in the mail yesterday my copy of dan's book, and i'm *loving* it. i would highly highly recommend it. i think at the rate i'm going i'll be done with it by friday, so i'll post a better review then, but for now, i can say that it's very well written and engaging and creative. so be a cool kid and buy it. :D

alrighty...back to work. just wanted to get an update in here.

yesterday, jim and i saw a unicorn cow.

no, really.

went to the big e, ate a lot of food (though less than normal, admittedly...we got a late start), then went and saw a kick-ass "half plugged" Stand show in wilbraham mass. i attempted to work this morning, then pretty much said "eh...no." and putzed around all day. we had a great fall weekend...today was cloudy but nice and cool, and yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. i'm hoping we keep with the cooled-down trend, i'm ready to bust out the autumn clothes.

nothing much to say, so i won't blather on...

i handed in my lit review today! granted, it was only a rough draft, and i'm sure it'll get edited to within an inch of its life and i'll be pretty much starting from scratch come monday, but for the weekend...it's handed in, and i don't have to think about it. huzzah!

it was an eventful week in world of klutz girl! on wednesday, i slipped on a rock and fell into a lake (luckily my elbow broke my fall...), garnering myself a lovely ground beef-esque elbow, and big ol' bruise on my hip, and some back pain. then today, i got sucked up to my calf in a bog and almost lost my shoe. then i horrified the shoppers of the north windham walmart by going to buy bandaids (for my ground beef elbow) *covered* in bog mud. covered. my feet were black. i got several disgusted looks. (hey! i needed bandaids! and i didn't go near the food....for pete's sake).

tomorrow jim and i are going to the big e, then going to see stand (again). will my international contingency PLEASE assure me that you know what wetlands are? because when i tried to explain to these fine irish lads what i do, i got "what's a wetland?". and i was sad. i think i'm going to have to make some sort of "this is what i do" page to refer people to...anyway, should be a fun weekend. hope you all enjoy(ed) yours as well.

oh my god. you can get old school oregon trail online. i am so disproportionately excited about this it's not even funny.

ahoy, mateys! 'tis national talk like a pirate day!

arrrr!

yesterday was the girls' trip the the yarn store. i got ~$80 worth of really, REALLY nice yarn for $50. I am a happy, happy camper. christmas presents, here i come! i'm so excited about all of the fun things i'm going to make, and i can't blab about them b/c i don't want to ruin any surprises. but...wheeee! dana already knows that i'm going to make him these fabulous mittens, so i don't have to worry about ruining that surprise ;).

had sushi with abbie and adam and lisa last night, then we all went to bidwell for beer and dairy queen for blizzards (sushi, beer, blizzards...we are a very cultured lot). fyi: the key lime blizzard rates an "eh" on a scale of "blech!" to "yum!", which is somewhere in the middle. not necessarily worth repeating. lisa spent the night and we went to breakfast at nita's which was very very tastey (thank you dana for introducing me to that place, we split a crepe and it was fantastic). and now i'm home and i think i'm going to go play with my new yarn. later gators.

i am completely hopped up on coffee right now. as in, bouncing on my exercise ball-slash-desk chair, humming loudly to myself, talking to the cat as though he might answer me. but damnit, i WILL have a draft of my lit review done by friday!

*bounce bounce bounce*

pictures from erin and enoch's wedding.

i am such a useless human being right after dana leaves.

today was absolutely gorgeous, and the only time i stepped outside at all was to bring dana to the airport at 5 am. then i came back home, got back in bed, and slept until ten. then i sat on my arse all day working on Christmas Project #1 and reading the cool new book that jim got me for my birthday (thanks jim!) and trying to figure out crochet patterns. i should have gotten outside, and i definitely should have worked on my lit review, but i was just too bummed out to get off the couch. blah.

had a wonderful last few days...dana surprised me with a dozen red roses and an incredibly beautiful sapphire and diamond bracelet while we were at the rehearsal dinner for enoch and erin's wedding at this really nice restaurant, and friday was the wedding itself which was lovely. got to meet a lot of dana's friends that i hadn't met yet, which was great and they were all very nice people. and my man was hands down the most handsome guy to ever put on a tux. so there ;). aside from my feet being in incredible pain from wearing super high stiletto heels two nights in a row, i'd say it all went well. and now i'm tired and i have to go back to the real world tomorrow, so i'm going to shower and go to bed. g'night all.

pictures from offroading with justin, and also some shots from the labor day picnic (complete with go-carts!).

you can get free, legal live music downloads at archive.org. they're recordings of concerts, so sound quality is not necessarily guarenteed, but there are reviews to help you decipher that information. i've had really good luck so far, and am happily listening to a recording of a guster show in RI on june 25th. thanks to the guy whose name i don't know who recommended this site to justin and i while we were off-roading yesterday.

now that's some funny sh*t.

and happy birthday, ray. you're old. and in five days...you'll still be five days older than me. ha ha!

yeah, yeah, i know. i'm sorry. *hides head*

still working on my lit review, which seems so impossible and cumbersome and just ugh that i'm fairly certain that it is killing my brain. slowly. otherwise, classes seem like they're going to be interesting, which is always helpful in making the semester slightly less suck-like.

glorious long weekend coming up, which is even more glorious because it only really occurred to me at around 4:30 this afternoon that not only is it a long weekend, but that today was, in fact, friday. don't ask. it just seemed kinda mondayish. tomorrow i'm the fabulous pinch-hitting vet tech, after which i will come home and make buckets and loads of potato salad, and maybe some cookies. maybe a lot of cookies. who knows. which reminds me that i forgot to re-borrow april's ginormous le crueset, and it will take me roughly forever to boil five pounds of potatoes. but that's okay. i will perservere. then on sunday i'm going 4-wheeling with justin. whee! (check out his jeep pictures...we're going *real* 4-wheeling!). then crashing at april and mark's most likely, and back to justin's for a picnic on monday (after april and i go into the office for a while and work like diligent little grad students of course...and stop by col's to feed bootsy rodent slayer). hooray for long weekends!

and double hooray for dana being here on wednesday! only for a few days, and they're all pretty much booked solid (again), but that's okay. and he'll be here on my birthday, so that's even better. *and* i get to see him in a tux at the wedding we're going to, which is even more better (*fans self*). the wedding for which i purchased an $80 dress for $12.49. that's right. $12.49. too bad i hate shopping, b/c apparently i'm pretty good at it. and i was still out of the mall in under 45 minutes, so that's not too bad i'd say.

so, recap: classes good, weekend good, hottie boyfriend in a tux good, and i'm a mad bargain speed shopper. i think this ridiculously long post makes up for my recent shoddy posting habits. so there.

(as a post script...i had the intention of writing about the hurricane, but i just can't do it. it makes me cry, and nothing i have to say seems relevant or meaningful. this site and this site are two good places to go if you want to donate money to the victims. it seems like so little, but i just don't know what else to do. if any of you are looking for loved ones in the stricken areas, wiki has some good links and tips for finding people. my heart goes out to all of you...)