A lil' more Febtober Fairbanks fun...

Unfortunately, I don't have ANY pictures of Colin and I from our trip. I tend to stay behind the camera on most instances. One of such instances involved an on campus moose encounter...


When Colin and I were walking through campus, we bumped into a pair of moose next to the Wood Center (a big campus building with food, games, and most importantly...the Pub). They seemed to be short on grub in the adjacent wooded areas and started to investigate the stash on campus. When moose are on campus, they tend to be REALLY aggressive, so as you can imagine, the campus police were right by in case either of the moose decided to charge an unknowing student....hehe.


A moose encounter isn't really that far out of the realm of possibility on the UAF campus....but I was still excited because I hadn't been up there in awhile (yes, I'm like a tourist).


I also got to go to a couple of Colin's basketball games. My sports/action photos are absolutely atrocious...so I won't bother posting any of them.....but it should be noted that Colin played absolutely amazing in both games (selfishly, I attribute that to my presence). In the first game against Western Washington, Colin had 23 points...and in the second game against Montana State Billings, he had 11 points and 12 rebounds! Go Colin!!

Febtober in Fairbanks

I recently took another trip up to Fairbanks, Alaska to visit Colin, and to meet with my former academic adviser about new developments with my Masters thesis project. Luckily, I missed the intense cold snap by a couple weeks....temps were hovering above zero almost the entire time I was there, it was fabulous.


And of course, no trip to Fairbanks is complete without a visit to the University Pub. I took quite a few pictures of the Pub's "Loyal Pub Patrons" plaque because my amazing friend Walter was initiated into this elite group. Go Walter!!


There were tons of gorgeous sunrises (shown above), and since it's getting closer to springtime, the sun was rising around 9ish. In addition, I got to see almost all my pals, which was awesome...and I also got to hang out with Colin and his friends a lot. I really love being back up in Fairbanks, mostly because I miss the people (...and by "people" I mainly mean Colin and my friends).


One of my really good pals from Fairbanks is hardcore into bikes! :) Haha...here's Julie modeling her trusty steed that she used to complete the 2009 Lil' Su 30 mile walk/bike/ski race in Anchorage, Alaska while I was there. Julie's such an amazing person, and her motivation and spirit is totally admirable. I strive to one day, be as cool as Julie.


Here's a picture of me and Julie celebrating a birthday (Happy Birthday Rena!) and another departure of one of our close friends from Fairbanks! We went to a local Thai restaurant called LemonGrass.....it's magically delicious.


As you can see, there were TONS of people at the table. I honestly only knew about 25% of them, but I'm always up for meeting new, fun people.

On the job front...

As many of my avid fans may know (and yes, I know I don't really have any avid fans....but a girl can dream, can't she?!)...I've been having some trouble finding a decent job that I'm truly qualified for.

When I graduated from UAF in August with a M.S. in Atmospheric Science, I decided to tap the breaks with respect to continuing on to a PhD. I wanted to see if I could find a great job, where I'd be truly happy, and where I could make a living with the education I currently had. I've learned a lot over the last 6 months, and I've made appropriate gear changes to reflect that.


As many of you know, my Masters work focused on atmospheric temperature inversions in Alaska. Above is a picture taken in Fairbanks in February 2009 of a low-level wintertime inversion. With the skill set I have gained with respect to inversion analysis...I was contacted to do some independent consulting work with a local university near my hometown. The work will focus on Arctic inversions, and nocturnal inversions in the Lower 48! Let's hope I can get this organized and get this project rolling!

South of the Mason-Dixon

In an attempt to spice things up a bit with respect to my social life, I decided to make the 14 hour drive down to Durham, North Carolina to meet up with some old pals from Fairbanks. And since I was driving down 70% of the eastern seaboard, I decided to make the trip three-fold and also stop in Baltimore and DC...where all my old college buddies live.


Not only did we discuss art, life, and politics....but we also managed to bust an occasional move (as seen by Nixon in her FAFSA shirt).


Needless to say, it was really great to catch up with everyone...after all, the majority of my social interaction these days is with children under 4 years old. So, I figured it was about time to test the waters to see if I'd lost all sense of social decency.....I did.


Upon arriving to Durham, I was greeted by my new god son, Bruno...who promptly soiled himself all over my right shoe. I forgave him within about 60 seconds and spent much of my time in NC playing with the little guy. You can see Michael and Dave walked Cujo down the street above.


I also got to see Carrie, a fellow nerd from Fairbanks. She's currently working on her MS at NC State...and doing fabulous! We all got the opportunity to drive to Carrie's house and see her horse farm (is that what you call it?). She's got two beautiful horses and an amazing house...I'm so glad I got to see all of it!


While at Carries, we hopped off the beaten path in an attempt to find an alleged "mill"....but in all honesty, I think Carrie was just trying 'off' us all for making fun of the Larsen Plantation.


My hosts for the NC-portion of the trip were Dave and Laura (and lil Bruno of course). Their apartment is wicked nice, and Laura made cheesecake....so needless to say, I was a happy camper all weekend long.


We also went out in the Raleigh/Durham area and saw a couple bands play and took a nice hike that pooped my poor god son out. Luckily, he's a lot more adorable when he's exhausted and not biting people's fingers off....the little angel.