Dr. Shirley

That's right, you heard me...Dr. Shirley.

No, not me, I'm still just Shirley. But Lindsey officially and successfully defended her dissertaion in mid December (we've been kind of busy since then). So now the job search begins. She has applied at two places thus far. One would take us back to the midwest and place her in a great program, the other would be an alright program and we would not have to move from our current residence. If either offer the position to her they would both be great opportunities, however I have my preferance...can you guess which one. That said, I also have a realistic view of how we will have to shape our professional careers. Taking a position in a less than appealing place to live early in your carreer can set you up for a better position in the future. Espcially if that less than desirable place has a position associated with it that is of the highest quality...

I ramble. We have had a good break. Most of it has been doing ABSOLUTELY nothing. We decided to spend the majority of the Christmas break here in Idaho. We did make a trip to Iowa for 11 days. Actually we were only in Iowa for a few of those, the rest were in Minneapolis with Lindsey's family, and on the front end of the trip I was in Indianapolis for the Entomological Society of America meeting. It's always good to go see family, I truely love my in-laws, and enjoy spending time with them. But every time we go back to the flat land I am reminded how much I love our home here in the Northwest. Because of the brevity of the trip we did not take much time to see other friends, whom we do miss. I did get to go to a Cyclone men's b-ball game with Dan, which was a lot of fun, and the next night we went and had a beverage together. It was good to see him, also, Jerry, Sara, and Antalya (along with Jerry's sister) all came over from Iowa City to see us. That was really cool of them, we were really happy to get some time with them, and after we had come so far it was cool of them to make it a point to come see us, espcially because we wanted to see the baby, but it had also been almost two years since we had last seen them. But we are home now, and this morning's rain has now turned to snow, so it's getting hard to focus on the lab work I have to do.....

I've had only one day of skiing since we've been back (7 for the season, plus a few days of cross country close to home), largly because once we got back we kind of went through a warm spell, there is plenty of snow, but I'm just being picky. It looks like I will head down to the Wallowas in Northeast Oregon (see prior posts) to do a little BC later this week. And next week I will probably ski almost every day. The weather is shifting again and we appear to be heading into another storm cycle next week, but we shall see.

Lindsey seems to be almost fully recovered from the stress of last semester. She took a couple of days right after we got home and just crashed. So she should be ready to take on a whole new semester of teaching in a week or so, and just in time, becasue that's when the semester starts. Of course this time she will be doing that and that alone, she will no longer be a student. I'm pretty excited for her. The whole time we've lived here she has a student and working full time. Now she only has to work....

First week in the backcoutnry. Diesel got his first turns of the season, and my skis got thier first real rocks of the season, as well as my body. We had a good group of strong skier out this weekend. Unfortunately the group was 8 strong for most of the weekend. They were all good people, and I want to go out with all of them again, but man I hate big groups. The decision making is poor, sometimes even dangerous, and everything moves slow. Anyways it was a beautiful weekend and we had a blast.

Now it's back to the midwest for a few days. We leave Friday morning (Dec. 8) to fly to Minneapolis. This trip has a four-fold purpose. I have to go to Indianapolis to present at the Entomological Society of America meeeting. Lindsey needs to go to Ames to DEFEND her dissertation (that's right she is going to be DONE with school). Charlie (Lindsey's brother who is going to be living with us a for a spell this winter) is graduating form Iowa State. And Lindsey's family is going to be around so we will celebrate Christmas together. Of course we will get to spend some quality time with Lindsey's folks, something I have not gotten to do since last Thanksgiving. There is also a chance we will get to watch a Cyclones mens hoops game.... of course there will be plenty of pork consumption on my part.

The photos posted below are from skiing last weekend. One is of course Diesel running, the one on skis is my buddy Trevor turning, and the boarder is my buddy Chris (who is staying with the dogs while we are away). This was Chris's first trip to the backcountry with a split board.