Warming Up, Getting Out
So I've decided that it would be in my best interests to vote for Donald Trump. With that in mind, here we are on the first day April. The February/March slog tends to be the least eventful part of the year - at least, I say that every year. Of course, last March ended up being a hell of a lot more exciting than I had intended. Stepping things down in 2016 was a nice change of pace, however, I still remain committed to more weekends away this year.
Which brings us to the third weekend in February. After a short 3-day work week, I suddenly found myself at the beginning of MAGFest. This year, the 'Fest was back to its regular Thu-Sun schedule, so Deb and I picked up Eric on Thursday morning and drove down to National Harbor. Our room at the convention was ready upon arrival, so we were able to check in and relax from our trip prior to wandering down to the vendors floor. Dunf and Amy stayed with us as well on Thursday night, and Cliff and Bryan joined in on the fun on Friday afternoon.
The room had a lovely view of the harbor.
MAG was just as good this year, though it's getting a bit crowded. Cosplay has really ramped up over the past couple years, and it was on full display throughout the hotel. Some of things I did: saw a panel with Ellen McClain (GlaDOS), video game and D&D improv shows, attended concerts: Super Smash Opera, Orchestrated let's play of Journey, The World is Square, You Bred Raptors?, screening of That Dragon, Cancer, played some Johan Sebastian Joust, Roborally, Imperial Assault, Exploding Kittens, ate crab cakes, ice cream, drank beer, played some arcades, etc. etc. etc. I didn't find myself picking up much MAGFest swag this year, though I did come home with an etched Green Dragon pint glass. Oh, and I got to play a game of convention zombies, where 'survivors' wear red wristbands and 'zombies' hunt them down. If a zombie catches you, it's a game of RPS to see if you succumb to the attack. It's a great, paranoid time avoiding getting noticed in a crowd..until you get off the elevator to find your zombified wife waiting for you at the top.
Deb enjoys MAGFest for its fine selection of hats.
MAG's always an enjoyable weekend, and a nice chance to travel in the dead of Winter (sadly, I did not get a chance to play any Dead of Winter). Sunday we were on our way back home, only for me to face a couple frustrating weeks of HPLC assays at work.
On the homefront, Deb finished painting the downstairs powder room, which will be our haunted bathroom. She chose a shade of purple a step or two above periwinkle with the intend to creating our version of the corridor of doors from Disney's Haunted Mansion. I took it to task to reproduce some version of the renowned 'Demon's Eye' wallpaper. Since you cannot find it commercially, I took a design from the internet and began to translate it into a vinyl decal version of the wall paper (starting with the test plot from my last entry). I cleaned up thousands of tiny little nodes in the SVG file and figured out how to set the tick marks in a way that would both properly align the black and white layers as well provide a pattern for the wall. Many hours of work later, I had my first successful plot. Now I'm in the process of kicking out nearly 50 of them while Deb sticks them to the wall. We're only focusing on the back wall right now, and will decide if we want to do all of them at a later date. Then Deb will install the hardware and decor, and at some point I'll bring in some special effects from my electronics lab.
Nodes. You know I hate 'em.
One down..how many more to go?!?
So far, so good. At 45 minutes of weeding for each piece, this is going to take some time.
I've been killing my free time and weekends at home in the usual fashion - playing card and board games. My new favorite is the Warhammer Quest Adventure Card game, but I've also been playing my fair share of the Lord of the Rings LCG. I'm still on my third readthrough of the LotR books, and after a year I'm nearly done. I'm not a slow reader. I just don't make a lot of time to read fiction. But I did make enough time to finish my first playthrough of Fallout 4, and then immediately dove back into a new character. I dusted off the 3D printer for a commission the other week, and once again I found myself using the Replicator to fix something around the house: a plastic fitting on the kitchen faucet. Oh, and I signed up for one of those 'box' subscription services. Hackerbox, more specifically. They send you a box full of electronics projects every month, which is just enough to keep my skills sharp while I wait for inspiration for my next workbench endeavor.
The part was discontinued. We'll see about that.
While the caseload has been light over at Mama Merck, there has been a lot of HPLC work to do. I took some time over the past month to familiarize myself with the new Waters Millennium UPLC system that was installed in my lab. I also developed a couple of methods to identify active ingredients in products just so I could avoid unnecessary HPLC time. Don't get me wrong - I like working on the wet bench, but I like the reliability of my spectrometers. The beginning of March meant that it was annual review time, and mine was on the 2nd. No, I didn't nail a top performer slot for a third year running. But I still had a good year, and more importantly, the company had a good year. So I was happy with the outcome. At least it eased the cost of the snow blower, microwave, and of all those truck repairs.
On the weekend following St. Patrick's Day, we made plans to take a trip once again down to DC, this time to enjoy the city. It's almost become a tradition to take a March trip, as the cherry trees begin to bloom, but last 2015's home buying madness delayed things until this year. This time around, Amy and Eea came along.
Three of us drove down to College Park on Friday morning, taking the Metro into the city. Our first stop was the National Archives to see the Declaration and Constitution, then we took (a visibly excited) Deb to the Air and Space Museum for a planetarium show. Then we had some lunch and hit the Natural History Museum. We were disappointed to learn the dinosaurs were off exhibit and that Written in Bone, the forensic anthropology exhibit was gone. But we still got to see the taxidermy, gems, and a few fossils. Eea met up with us at the hotel that evening, and we had an amazing dinner at a Peruvian restaurant nearby.
Saturday we got up early, ate breakfast, and hit the National Zoo. We got to see the 7 month old panda, Bei Bei, and a slew of other fuzzy and scaly things before the skies opened up on us. We hit a lot of the covered pavilions after that, so we didn't miss much. Cold and wet, we found a nice coffee bar in Silver Spring, then headed out to a nice Mexican dinner a short time later.
Sunday we were back on the Metro, this time bound for the Botanical Gardens. I had never been there before, and it reminded me a lot of Ott's greenhouse in Schwenksville. The warmth and scent of flowers was a really nice contrast to the cold weather that had swept in. After getting our fill of green, we headed to the Air and Space for a second planetarium show (again, Happy Deb), then walked along the mall, visiting the monuments before boarding the train and heading home.
Botanical Gardens.
Taking over the asylum.
No, Jane.
So, to the outside. With the Winter nearly behind us and the weather warming up, Deb and I took a couple weekends to assess the condition of the woods in the back yard. Mother Nature was not kind to many of the smaller trees over the past few months. There were at least 14 fallen (or nearly fallen) evergreens that needed to be cleared out. So I just simply started dragging them across the yard to the fire pit, until I was too tired to carry another one. A couple of them were a little too big to handle myself, or had firmly rooted stumps, so it was finally time to gas up and learn how to use my chainsaw. I was a little intimidated at first, so I watched a few safety videos to familiarize myself before diving in. After much pruning, sawing, hacking, gnawing, biting, and burning, things are starting to look nicer in the yard. But man, I'm out of shape. I guess all this work is a good thing, after all.
Destroyer.
Usurper.
We had some excitement at home, as well. A couple Thursdays back, I officially became old when I fell down the stairs. Fortunately I didn't break anything beside the box for a card game I was carrying, and I managed to keep my drink upright the entire time down. Besides being sore and a bit embarrassed, everything was okay.
Then there were the explosions. Yeah. One night, we're sitting in front of the TV and suddenly there's a concussion loud and powerful enough to shake the windows. I swore a tree had fallen and hit the house, so I was outside with a flash light when the second explosion hit. A quick check on the local newsfeed revealed that the local police had found explosives at a nearby residence and had to perform a controlled detonation. Rumor is that they were grenades. From the sirens and trains of Lansdale to the peaceful explosions and gunfire of Bedminster.
It's hard to believe we're fast approaching a full year of living in Bedminster. Just the other day marked a year since we put in a bid on the house. I've become accustomed to the commute and slight inconvenience of living 30 minutes away from damn near everything, and I really do enjoy the peace and quiet. I'm looking forward to seeing the leaves on the trees once again, and a quiet afternoon outside in the hammock. Watching the bird feeders has become a favorite activity for me (and the cats) after work. We've also had a few new visitors to the Poo Party Hill over the past month.
A possum decided to snack on some bird seed one night.
And then there was the afternoon we were invaded by turkeys.
"Excuse me, sir? May I have a moment of your time to share the good news?"
We had turkey for dinner that week. Store bought, mind you - we don't eat the scenery. So, that's it for March. Welcome Spring, on to April, which will end with a vacation/business trip. More on that to come!
Oh, and I'd like you to meet Angry Beer Line Lady. She's my new spiritual guide.
Which brings us to the third weekend in February. After a short 3-day work week, I suddenly found myself at the beginning of MAGFest. This year, the 'Fest was back to its regular Thu-Sun schedule, so Deb and I picked up Eric on Thursday morning and drove down to National Harbor. Our room at the convention was ready upon arrival, so we were able to check in and relax from our trip prior to wandering down to the vendors floor. Dunf and Amy stayed with us as well on Thursday night, and Cliff and Bryan joined in on the fun on Friday afternoon.
The room had a lovely view of the harbor.
MAG was just as good this year, though it's getting a bit crowded. Cosplay has really ramped up over the past couple years, and it was on full display throughout the hotel. Some of things I did: saw a panel with Ellen McClain (GlaDOS), video game and D&D improv shows, attended concerts: Super Smash Opera, Orchestrated let's play of Journey, The World is Square, You Bred Raptors?, screening of That Dragon, Cancer, played some Johan Sebastian Joust, Roborally, Imperial Assault, Exploding Kittens, ate crab cakes, ice cream, drank beer, played some arcades, etc. etc. etc. I didn't find myself picking up much MAGFest swag this year, though I did come home with an etched Green Dragon pint glass. Oh, and I got to play a game of convention zombies, where 'survivors' wear red wristbands and 'zombies' hunt them down. If a zombie catches you, it's a game of RPS to see if you succumb to the attack. It's a great, paranoid time avoiding getting noticed in a crowd..until you get off the elevator to find your zombified wife waiting for you at the top.
Deb enjoys MAGFest for its fine selection of hats.
MAG's always an enjoyable weekend, and a nice chance to travel in the dead of Winter (sadly, I did not get a chance to play any Dead of Winter). Sunday we were on our way back home, only for me to face a couple frustrating weeks of HPLC assays at work.
On the homefront, Deb finished painting the downstairs powder room, which will be our haunted bathroom. She chose a shade of purple a step or two above periwinkle with the intend to creating our version of the corridor of doors from Disney's Haunted Mansion. I took it to task to reproduce some version of the renowned 'Demon's Eye' wallpaper. Since you cannot find it commercially, I took a design from the internet and began to translate it into a vinyl decal version of the wall paper (starting with the test plot from my last entry). I cleaned up thousands of tiny little nodes in the SVG file and figured out how to set the tick marks in a way that would both properly align the black and white layers as well provide a pattern for the wall. Many hours of work later, I had my first successful plot. Now I'm in the process of kicking out nearly 50 of them while Deb sticks them to the wall. We're only focusing on the back wall right now, and will decide if we want to do all of them at a later date. Then Deb will install the hardware and decor, and at some point I'll bring in some special effects from my electronics lab.
Nodes. You know I hate 'em.
One down..how many more to go?!?
So far, so good. At 45 minutes of weeding for each piece, this is going to take some time.
I've been killing my free time and weekends at home in the usual fashion - playing card and board games. My new favorite is the Warhammer Quest Adventure Card game, but I've also been playing my fair share of the Lord of the Rings LCG. I'm still on my third readthrough of the LotR books, and after a year I'm nearly done. I'm not a slow reader. I just don't make a lot of time to read fiction. But I did make enough time to finish my first playthrough of Fallout 4, and then immediately dove back into a new character. I dusted off the 3D printer for a commission the other week, and once again I found myself using the Replicator to fix something around the house: a plastic fitting on the kitchen faucet. Oh, and I signed up for one of those 'box' subscription services. Hackerbox, more specifically. They send you a box full of electronics projects every month, which is just enough to keep my skills sharp while I wait for inspiration for my next workbench endeavor.
The part was discontinued. We'll see about that.
While the caseload has been light over at Mama Merck, there has been a lot of HPLC work to do. I took some time over the past month to familiarize myself with the new Waters Millennium UPLC system that was installed in my lab. I also developed a couple of methods to identify active ingredients in products just so I could avoid unnecessary HPLC time. Don't get me wrong - I like working on the wet bench, but I like the reliability of my spectrometers. The beginning of March meant that it was annual review time, and mine was on the 2nd. No, I didn't nail a top performer slot for a third year running. But I still had a good year, and more importantly, the company had a good year. So I was happy with the outcome. At least it eased the cost of the snow blower, microwave, and of all those truck repairs.
On the weekend following St. Patrick's Day, we made plans to take a trip once again down to DC, this time to enjoy the city. It's almost become a tradition to take a March trip, as the cherry trees begin to bloom, but last 2015's home buying madness delayed things until this year. This time around, Amy and Eea came along.
Three of us drove down to College Park on Friday morning, taking the Metro into the city. Our first stop was the National Archives to see the Declaration and Constitution, then we took (a visibly excited) Deb to the Air and Space Museum for a planetarium show. Then we had some lunch and hit the Natural History Museum. We were disappointed to learn the dinosaurs were off exhibit and that Written in Bone, the forensic anthropology exhibit was gone. But we still got to see the taxidermy, gems, and a few fossils. Eea met up with us at the hotel that evening, and we had an amazing dinner at a Peruvian restaurant nearby.
Saturday we got up early, ate breakfast, and hit the National Zoo. We got to see the 7 month old panda, Bei Bei, and a slew of other fuzzy and scaly things before the skies opened up on us. We hit a lot of the covered pavilions after that, so we didn't miss much. Cold and wet, we found a nice coffee bar in Silver Spring, then headed out to a nice Mexican dinner a short time later.
Sunday we were back on the Metro, this time bound for the Botanical Gardens. I had never been there before, and it reminded me a lot of Ott's greenhouse in Schwenksville. The warmth and scent of flowers was a really nice contrast to the cold weather that had swept in. After getting our fill of green, we headed to the Air and Space for a second planetarium show (again, Happy Deb), then walked along the mall, visiting the monuments before boarding the train and heading home.
Botanical Gardens.
Taking over the asylum.
No, Jane.
So, to the outside. With the Winter nearly behind us and the weather warming up, Deb and I took a couple weekends to assess the condition of the woods in the back yard. Mother Nature was not kind to many of the smaller trees over the past few months. There were at least 14 fallen (or nearly fallen) evergreens that needed to be cleared out. So I just simply started dragging them across the yard to the fire pit, until I was too tired to carry another one. A couple of them were a little too big to handle myself, or had firmly rooted stumps, so it was finally time to gas up and learn how to use my chainsaw. I was a little intimidated at first, so I watched a few safety videos to familiarize myself before diving in. After much pruning, sawing, hacking, gnawing, biting, and burning, things are starting to look nicer in the yard. But man, I'm out of shape. I guess all this work is a good thing, after all.
Destroyer.
Usurper.
We had some excitement at home, as well. A couple Thursdays back, I officially became old when I fell down the stairs. Fortunately I didn't break anything beside the box for a card game I was carrying, and I managed to keep my drink upright the entire time down. Besides being sore and a bit embarrassed, everything was okay.
Then there were the explosions. Yeah. One night, we're sitting in front of the TV and suddenly there's a concussion loud and powerful enough to shake the windows. I swore a tree had fallen and hit the house, so I was outside with a flash light when the second explosion hit. A quick check on the local newsfeed revealed that the local police had found explosives at a nearby residence and had to perform a controlled detonation. Rumor is that they were grenades. From the sirens and trains of Lansdale to the peaceful explosions and gunfire of Bedminster.
It's hard to believe we're fast approaching a full year of living in Bedminster. Just the other day marked a year since we put in a bid on the house. I've become accustomed to the commute and slight inconvenience of living 30 minutes away from damn near everything, and I really do enjoy the peace and quiet. I'm looking forward to seeing the leaves on the trees once again, and a quiet afternoon outside in the hammock. Watching the bird feeders has become a favorite activity for me (and the cats) after work. We've also had a few new visitors to the Poo Party Hill over the past month.
A possum decided to snack on some bird seed one night.
And then there was the afternoon we were invaded by turkeys.
"Excuse me, sir? May I have a moment of your time to share the good news?"
We had turkey for dinner that week. Store bought, mind you - we don't eat the scenery. So, that's it for March. Welcome Spring, on to April, which will end with a vacation/business trip. More on that to come!
Oh, and I'd like you to meet Angry Beer Line Lady. She's my new spiritual guide.