This isn't necessarily goodbye for ever, but for now, most of my updates will be made at our new family blog, Go Team Friedman. Livejournal, it's been a great 8 (8?!?!) years...

Starting this weekend I'm going to be moving the blog over to blogspot. And when I say moving, what I really mean is ditching this blog for the most part and posting in a joint blog that Mike and I set up with google. We've been talking about it for a while - Mike's not so good at blogging, but he'd like to participate, so we figured with the impending (and by impending I mean May) arrival of the grape (who is no longer the size of a grape, but the name stuck) it was a good time to join forces in a neutral location. Not that I won't ever post here (gotta leave myself options), but I'll be doing most of my writing over there. I'll post the addy when it's up and running (don't look! It's not ready yet!!).

I do want to take a minute to wish a very happy birthday to my big brother Rick. Yes, Rick turned 30 today. What an old man!! I'll completely avoid the topic of taking that plunge myself in a little over a year and just make fun of him instead. But really - it's a big deal and I really wish we could be out there with Rick & Adam to celebrate...

It's been a pretty good week. We spent the weekend with Mom & Dad and despite my inability to focus on work, we got a lot accomplished. Dad, Mom, and Mike did some projects around the house, Mom & I went shopping, we all played games, watched movies, ate good food, and celebrated my birthday early and Mike's birthday late. In addition to the awesome cheesecake, we're the proud new owners of a new video camera. this one is (I kid you not) about 1/8 the size of my old one AND records to a 30 gb hard drive. I see it sitting on the table and am still in disbelief that it's not just a still camera!

I got to talk to Meg for her birthday on Monday and then briefly talked to Alaina on the phone (though she's lucky I still like her after she tried to hang up on me by making static noises and then saying I was breaking up. Little punkie!!)

Yesterday was Rick's big pitch at Criminal Minds - and this year they chose his episode! That means he'll be writing and shooting his episode this season as a member of the writer's staff!!! On top of that, he let it slide that he's an extra on tonight's show. So much good news (and he deserves every bit of it). Adam has been working as a PA on the show a lot lately - it sounds like they're enjoying working together and that he's having a good time there.

Happy Birthday to Meg and our niece Alaina (Monday) and Alysia yesterday!

Or more appropriately, scientific writer's block. I'm revising a manuscript for what seems like the hundredth time - but the closer I get it to being "finished" the harder the writing becomes. Case in point: I now have an outline for my revamped introduction and all I need to do is type it up and cite it. But I've been sitting on the same paragraph for an hour. WTF, brain??!

Mom & Dad are coming to visit on Wednesday and I'm surprisingly unprepared. Hopefully (magically?) the house will find its way out of disarray in the next two evenings. Bonus: we did make a menu and hit up the grocery store this weekend. At least one item on the checklist is crossed off!

Instead of house cleaning, we actually had a quite relaxing (and football-tastic) weekend. Friday evening was mostly consumed by the Apex High football game (they crushed Green Hope - when we left a couple of minutes into the 4th quarter it was something like 38-0). We had a fun time watching and luckily the weather held out so that our walk to/from the game was very pleasant. We had a very chill Saturday night hanging out with Angela, Hanna, and Lisa watching football and random other TV. On Sunday we watched more football - this time the Colts and the Cowboys.

Currently reading: The Ghost Brigades

I should preface by saying that I 90% love and 10% hate Fridays. Don't get me wrong. They're generally awesome. Aside from the obvious giddy-that-the-work-week-is-over, it's the one night a week where I don't feel compelled to work from home after dinner, bedtime is suspended, and we can generally look forward to walking outside and socializing with friends all night long without getting in the car or even putting on shoes.

However, there are some downsides. The first is one I'm experiencing right now: lunch. I pack my lunch (and always have) - early in the week I feast on yummy leftovers, mid-week I often make sandwiches, but by Friday I usually have a hodge-podge of not-quite-meal-sized leftovers. Some are things I've brought with other days' lunches and haven't yet eaten (half of an applesauce, some grapes, and a tube of yogurt); some are portions of previous meals that aren't self-sufficient but are too large to throw away; and others are downright lazy (granola bars, cheese sticks). Needless to say: it's nothing to get excited about. My growling stomach is not placated by today's offerings. Already, I can't wait until dinner!

The second downside is evidenced by my to-do list for today. As with my lunch, everything I didn't get around to finishing all week ends up on Friday's list - and usually attached to some sort of end-of-week deadline. I have about 5 hours left in the day and about 6 items on said list... we'll fight it out to the death and hopefully I'll come out victorious!

1. Here are some PAX photos: Mine and Erin's. Also, as Robert gets the official Penny Arcade Photos up, they will be here. Finally, there is a nice set of Omegathon pics here.

2. I missed a lot of birthdays while I was being a slacker. So happy late birthday to Moen, Emily, John, and Sarah. In fact, the first 3 I listed turned 30!!!

3. Otherwise, not a lot to report. We've been keeping busy at home and work, spending what free time we have trying to relax. This weekend was especially nice - on Friday we played Kubb and then talked all night long with Mike, Angela, Skylar, and Myrah. On Saturday we caught most of Myrah's softball game (we're going to one of Skylar's this week). Though I did a little work and we did some house things, we also watched some episodes of Alias and I found some time for Sims2 while Mike watched football.

4. The new blog should be up and running by the end of October. Sorry for being cryptic - you'll understand the delay once we start it up. For those of you in the know, it's being held up by the fact that I'm waiting a bit to communicate things locally (ie at work). And due to the rampant interdepartmental communication, pretty much everyone in the state is currently in the dark. A necessary evil, trust me...

Some parting images for you: Aragorn (my Saturn) recently turned 100,000 miles old on my drive home from Danny's PhD celebration (congrats Dr. Monroe!!) and Erin, Erin, Tommy, and Mike riding the skylink while killing time at DFW (a hand photo to rival the group foot photos we love so much)

I know I still haven't written PAX stories. There is a good reason, I assure you. I'd post photos, but I took all of about 5 becuase people like Kiko were taking such good ones. One of these days he'll post them on Flickr and I'll link to them becuase, let's face it, they're better than mine.

We're working on a new blog. I know you can't wait. More info soon.

I'd add some funny lyrics here but I'm terrified that it will just cause me to get one of those hilarious songs stuck in my head again. I'm not kidding. This is the first day since Friday that one of his songs hasn't been in my head on repeat. I don't know how to make it stop!! Currently it's replaced with RHCP. I'm trying to keep it that way.

Sorry about the lame lack of PAX updates. I'll try to do a proper write-up this weekend. In the meantime, here are two teaser photos. The first is of Mike holding some guy's homemade companion cube in the expo hall on Friday morning. The other is of the two of us watching Freezepop in style on Friday night: on top of a pile of SUMO omnis, along with the other Omeganauts, right next to the stage.

Got back from Seattle this afternoon after traveling all night. Will report on PAX later this week but we had an amazing time. More later.

I finally got around to picking up my TA Evaluations from the class I taught this spring. I've written about the class before so I don't need to say it again - these kids were awesome, we did a lot of great science, and had a lot of fun in the process. I'm not going to share the content of those evaluations but I did want to share one comment that made me particularly proud:



Damn straight!!