Next time you look back, I think you should look again.

Today I am in a blogging mood. Prepare for what could possibly be a lengthy post of my adventures from the past few months or so. I think I will follow along with what few photos I have, and see where that takes me.

There was a bonfire.

This is Dustin, keeping warm and entertaining us with his impressive glowstick-collecting skills. The bonfire is always a pretty cool thing, but it was cold and raining, which was not so great. I think that happens every year.

There was the Dartmouth Underground Tour.

This is a photo taken while we were under the Dartmouth green. These tunnels are very lengthy and carry steam.

There was a snake.

Jo and I saw it one time when we were talking a walk around the pond.

There was a fall hike up Gile.



This is the fire tower and me at the top of the fire tower with Sarah and Lisa. I was playing dress-up, wearing an amazing outfit inspired by some french teenagers I saw hiking once.

There was halloween.

Some people came over to the barn. This is a photo I took of Julie with some odd settings on my camera. I like it.

There was a hike up Cardigan.

On the way down the mountain some people asked us if we had a rope, which sadly I did not. Apparently they found this sweet little dog whose owners were further down the mountain looking for her. This is a picture of Greg carrying Gardenia back to her owners.

There was a conference in San Francisco.

I flew on Virgin Air, which is the hippest airline ever. Check out these neon lights and futuristic seats. They also had free wireless (thank you Google) and also electrical outlets.

There was the Ferry Building and a pier.

Here are Brian and Bethany on the pier in San Francisco. My back hurt a lot because I spent the day walking around carrying my computer in my backpack.

There was some cool artwork at SFO.

Enough said.

There was a trip to Wisconsin, where I got to see my younger brother's new house and my older brother's and sister-in-law's slightly less new house.

Here is a picture of the fat bunny who lives in the backyard of Andrew's house. My dad lined up some carrots for him, which he is clearly not going for.

There was a visit with my grandma.

Here she is with my dad. She has macular degeneration and is legally blind, but she said that if I was going to take pictures I needed to send them to her too, because people always take pictures and never give her any of them. :)

There was family time.

Here is Adam with a wine charm in his nose.

There was a trip to the botanical gardens.

Here is a caterpillar of lights! Also, I'm really proud of myself for spelling caterpillar correctly on my first try.

There was a trip to Madison.

We had a great lunch at the Java Cat, which I will fondly remember as the Lava Cat.

So there you have it, a photo tour of the past few months. I guess most of that was concentrated in December, but certainly not all of it. I might try to do a better job of taking more photos, but lately I need to feel really inspired to actually pull out my camera. We shall see. We shall see.

Boring

Recently I was thinking about how it has been a long time since I felt bored. There is always Something that needs to be done or that I want to be doing. So I almost started this post with the title "Bored" but that is just not at all true. Right now I am suffering from a boring life, but certainly not a life of boredom.

I almost started using twitter to give short updates of my current states of Boring. This is what the sequence for the past day/days would have looked like:

-sensory overload at *** *** (censored to avoid ruining Christmas surprises) but was happy with the results.

-had a really hard time with that last update, as I forgot the word "censor".

-falling asleep reading textbooks, but when I finally get in bed my thoughts will keep me awake for hours.

-every time I re-tune the radio to VPR it manages to un-tune itself. In the evening it is radio, in the morning the alarm goes off and it is a quiet fuzzy noise.

-mmmmmm Isabell's muffin

-going for a run around Hanover, first must load up on caffeine.

-It started snowing while we were running!!

-I should NOT be feeling this tired while under the influence of So Much Caffeine (SMC).

-alone in the office, good thing, because I'm reading text books out loud. Science words are aesthetically pleasing.

-I just managed to spill oily salad dressing all over my desk (don't worry, just the desk, not important things like paper/books/compy). Luckily we've got tons of ethanol in the lab, so cleaning was a breeze.

-soo late, soo tired, soo ready for a pretty, snow-covered drive home.

-back at Wilder... I left this parking space less than 9 hours ago.

-currently reading textbooks out loud to avoid falling asleep.

-Note to self: Stop blogging and start studying for at least one hour, then you can have a coffee-reward.

Customer Service Win!

Last weekend my friend Malory had her housewarming party at the new house she just bought in Denver. Clearly, I was not able to attend, as I am oh-so-far-away in the East. So, knowing Malory's love for flowers, I figured I would send some her way. And here my first experience ordering flowers online begins.

First, what flowers to send? I certainly have my favorites, but I'm not sure if they are Malory's favorites. And anyone who has seen You've Got Mail knows the value of daisies, but in my mind those are a springtime flower. So I decided to go with sunflowers, because they seemed seasonally appropriate, but equally friendly.

Next, what website do I use? Google: order flowers online. Options: 1800flowers.com, ftd.com, or proflowers.com. 1800flowers is a phone number, so I'm not really in favor of that. FTD.com sounds interesting, but they don't have sunflowers, not to mention the fact that I still don't know what FTD stands for. Proflowers.com! OH I know someone who LOVES Proflowers!



Proflowers.com it is! Thanks for the recommendation, Ro!

So I manage to successfully order flowers, scheduled to arrive the day before the party. Perfect. That day arrives and I now have a tracking number to see the shipping status. I check it out. The flowers are in Canada! And the status is: Incorrect Routing at UPS Facility. Uh oh. This is bad. New delivery date: 3 days later than it is supposed to be! I am pretty sure that if you keep flowers out of water for 3 days they are likely to not be living, which is just no good. So I decide it would be a good idea to get in touch with customer service, which I do, via email:

-----------------------------
Customer Comments: Hi,

This is my first time ordering flowers online, and I had heard good things about proflowers.com, so I decided to give it a try. I ordered flowers to be delivered to a friend today, since I cannot attend her housewarming party. I went to the tracking page to make sure everything looked alright, and it says that the delivery date was rescheduled due to an incorrect routing at the UPS facility. The new delivery date is listed as 11/16. I am really disappointed that she will not be getting her flowers today, and I am also concerned that when she gets her flowers on Monday that they will be dead. Is there any way to make sure she gets her flowers today? Or do I just have to wait and see if she gets dead flowers on Monday? I feel that sending dead flowers to a friend will have the opposite effect on the friendship than I was hoping for. Please let me know if there is anything that can be done.

Thanks,
Meghan

-----------------------------

And I get this very nice and quick response!

-----------------------------

Dear Meghan, Order Number: xxxxxxxxx

Thank you for contacting ProFlowers. Please accept our most sincere apologies for the delivery delay of your gift as this is not typical of our service. We definitely don't want your first experience with us to be negative.

We realize the importance of timely deliveries and have refunded your delivery charge of $9.99 to help make this up to you. Please allow 5-7 business days for this refund to fully process.

In addition, we want to make sure your recipient receives a fresh bouquet. For this reason we have ordered a replacement with a delivery date as reflected below. If the selected date is not satisfactory, please contact us and we will be happy to modify it to a more convenient date. Please note we can schedule deliveries for Tuesday through Friday if we receive notification and process the change by noon Pacific Standard Time the business day before the desired delivery date.

Please know that you will NOT be charged for this replacement order. However, we want to keep you informed regarding your order status, so you WILL receive automatic confirmation, shipping, and delivery emails.

ORDER INFORMATION:

Order Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx

Delivery Date: Saturday, November 14, 2009 (unfortunately we cannot do same day delivery on a replacement)

If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Once again, please accept our sincere apologies. We greatly appreciate both your trust and business and hope to serve you again in the future.




Best Regards,

HB Mike
Customer Care
ProFlowers
Send love, not like. Send ProFlowers.

------------------------------

A replacement bouquet? I like the sound of this. This leaves me to wonder, does this mean Malory will be getting two sets of sunflowers? It certainly does, and apparently neither of them were dead and they both managed to arrive on Saturday morning, still before the party! So we close my first experience ordering flowers online with:

------------------------------

Dear HB Mike,
Thank you for being so prompt in addressing my issue with a delay in the delivery of the flower order I placed last week. I really appreciate the effort that was made to have the flowers delivered as soon as possible, once the delivery routing error was realized. My friend has received her flowers and says they are beautiful.
Sincerely,
Meghan

------------------------------

so much contra dancing

Lately it seems that my only activity during waking hours that is not work is contra dancing. I like it a lot. In October I got to go to one of the twelve hour long dances. And since it was so long, we took a break in the middle to check out the pumpkin festival. And since it was so long, I also did not attempt to dance every dance, and as a result I have a few pictures and videos. The dance was the Fall Ball in the Peterborough town hall, which has a balcony that overlooks the dance floor, which is where these shots are taken from.

Never Refrigerate

To whom it may concern,

I have just purchased 1 U.S. dry pint of Santa Sweets Grape Tomatoes. I noticed that the container specifies, "NEVER REFRIGERATE." Is this true? I am quite accustomed to refrigerating any tomatoes I purchase, so without even realizing it, this package was automatically put in the refrigerator. Should I be concerned about eating these tomatoes that have now been refrigerated? Why is it important to never refrigerate your grape tomatoes?

Thank you,
Meghan

---------------------------------

Meghan,

Thanks for the email! The "NEVER REFRIGERATE" is on the label because tomatoes (in general) begin to loose thier flavor profile at temperatures below 50 degrees. Also, once they get below 50 when you take the tomatoes out and return them to "room temperature" they will have a reduced shelf life.
Ironically the Santa Sweets will have an excellent shelf life when kept in the 'fridge and the change in flavor profile is very sublte over the first 10 days.
You're ok keeping them in the fridge as long as you're aware of the reduced shelf life after they come out of the fridge.

Feel free to contact us with any further questions.

Thanks,

Chris Cunnane
National Sales Director
Santa Sweets

--------------------------------------

Good Morning Meghan,
Thank you for your email. It is safe to eat your tomatoes. The reason why our container has “never refrigerate” is when grape tomatoes are kept at temperatures below 50°F the natural sugars break down and the tomatoes will not be as sweet. We recommend the tomatoes be stored in an open container at room temperature out of direct sunlight. Although refrigeration will extend the shelf life it will never have the same flavor profile as if you were to leave them at room temperature. Please let me know if you have any other questions.


Thank you,
Heather Wladyka
Sales Associate
Santa Sweets, Inc.
Tel: 813-759-0765 ext 1166
Cell: 813-786-0381
Fax: 813-759-8372
Email: hwladyka@santasweets.com

My Favorite Smell

I feel like I am one of those people who never has a good answer for any question about my all-time favorite anything (e.g. all time favorite food, all time favorite other thing). Okay, so trying to give examples, makes me think that maybe I am good at having all time favorite things. Like tuesday, for example.
Anyhow.
Today I realized my all-time favorite smell! It is the smell of what I think is a Katsura tree, in the fall when it starts to lose its leaves. It is a Most amazing smell, reminiscent of cotton candy. We are very fortunate to have two directly in front of the physics building. Perhaps I will update this post with a photo soon.

Peanut Butter Apple Pie

So here I sit, eating a most delicious apple with some most delicious peanut butter.* This most delicious peanut butter:


It occurs to me that the only way this could possibly be more delicious is if it is in a pie. After a slight moment of disappointment that it took me 25 years to discover this. I quickly did some research. Recipes for pies that are potentially the most delicious sort are abundant on the internet. However, I believe there are none of the White Chocolate Peanut Butter Apple Pie variety, so there you go, I just invented something new.

*This statement is a non-truth, as I was unable to stop eating my delicious snack for long enough to do any blogging.