Little stories, gone gently unsaid

 
 
 
“Interesting” is one of those words that can mean pretty much anything, but usually means nothing. Used as a conversational nudge, it means, “go on, I’m listening.” Said drawn out in the beginning, like, “iiiiiiiinteresting,” it means you just found something odd. Said after a pause, like, “that’s . . . interesting,” means you just [...]

Idio(t)syncrasies

A few weeks ago Susanne and I ventured to a large banking institution to open a joint checking and savings account. I mean, we are married, after all, I suppose it’s time we join our moneys — even though, ahem, I have no income to speak of at the moment. I haven’t gotten desperate enough [...]

How to meet friends and influence…anybody

 
So Susanne, for better or worse, has moved into a veritable community of faculty and staff, and of course, students. As I mentioned in the last post, we’ve gone to one staffer’s house for dinner, and we’ve also been over to another faculty member’s house for a chocolate tasting event which was, shall we say, [...]

My life in the midst of bacteria

It appears that it is not illegal in the State of Washington to produce or purchase unhomogenized, unpasteurized milk. Of course, they also have medical marijuana up here, but that’s another story. This story is about yogurt, hence the bacteria.
I suppose if one is going to be situated in a small town — call it [...]

Wedding photos

Our wedding photographer sent us the link to our photos from the wedding, so I’m sharing it here.
http://heatherzphotography.com/clients/index.php?gnum=78
You need to put in my Hotmail email address as the user name and Susanne’s last name (with the proper first capital) as the password to see the photos. Until we get the CD of the photos, I [...]

In Memoriam

Seven years ago I was in the habit of getting to work at about 7:30, happy enough that I’d gotten an outside office with a window and a fairly reliable Starbucks to keep me charged through the day. We also had a brand new T3 line for all of our servers, and in the days [...]

Drive-thru everything

I think I’ve mentioned before that there is a whole different concept of space out here west of the Ye Ole Mississippi. That is, space has space here. There’s no bragging about one’s luxury 800 sq. ft. apartment. No sucking in your gut to pass a person with a grocery cart in the aisle of [...]

Life in a littler town (than one is used to)

It’s actually a bigger town than you would at first notice, there being two big chunks of streets and neighborhoods here — one more up-down, and one caddy-corner and off to the side from the first chunk. But it is still quite small, at least in comparison to DC. I feel like most people in [...]

Speaking of work

I’ve started harping on my friends who have little kids to send more pictures of them, since Susanne and I have been going through some withdrawal and who likes withdrawal? I was amused to get this one of little A, because he looks very much like a former coworker of mine, Mark. So now I [...]

A winey weekend

Walla Walla is nestled in a valley in southeast Washington State, a largely arid but fertile up-and-down landscape bordered by the Blue Mountains and miles and miles of scrubland. Its sandy soil allows for deep drainage and the mild rainfall lets vinegrowers and farmers control the level of water for their crops via irrigation. So [...]