nearly two weeks without computer
Not that I was without internet, mind you--I have a smart phone, and a tablet (wi-fi only), but I have hardly touched a real computer since my last post, which was sometime before I departed for the conference, so if I am going to try to catch up on what has been happening, I had probably better start with that.
The conference was for the Society of Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits (SGA). My boss is the president of that organization. Therefore, when I suggested to him some time back that since the sessions directly or tangentially related to my current research project were limited enough that I could save the department money by attending only the first day (when the 3D model session in which I had a poster was meeting) he replied that I should attend the full conference.
However, the conference is in Uppsala, which is near enough to the "Stockholm" Arlanda airport that I was able to book my flight there on Monday morning and arrive on site before the opening ceremony (but I did miss the "ice-breaker" on Sunday evening).
I was glad that I did, because it meant that we could drive to Storeforsen on Sunday and have an adventure. We had a houseguest that weekend--one of my Finnish cousins, K, who lives in Helsinki, had been in southern Sweden to visit his parents (who moved to Sweden in the 60's and never left, but raised him tri-lingual, so he opted to move to Finland as an adult) and decided to do a train trip north, with a stop here to visit me, then bus to Happaranda, walk over the border to Finland, and train down to Oulu to visit cousins there before heading back down to southern Finland. When asked what he wanted to do he suggested "wildlife or nature", which made the choice of adventures easy. Storeforsen is Europe's largest rapids, and is a very pretty area. Highlights of the day include eating wild blueberries, scrambling around on rocks, and swimming in a lovely, quiet, peaceful side channel of the river that goes through a lovely rock canyon. That water was cold, so I am glad we found that wetsuit in a second hand store this spring--makes swimming ever so much more fun to not be cold and to keep the sun off my skin.
The conference itself was busy, and fun. I attended interesting sessions, visited with colleagues I already knew, met some interesting people, and actually spoke to a fair few about my research during the poster session. Diversions while I was there included meeting up with liadethornegge for lunch and museums on Tuesday (thanks! It was fun!), meeting up with lord_kjar's brother and his wife and kids for dinner and hanging out till after midnight on Wednesday, and meeting up with another SCA friend, C, for lunch on Thursday before heading to the airport for my flight home.
Got home Thursday night, and Friday I celebrated having a real kitchen and oven again by spending the morning baking--we did pasties, bread rolls (with almond meal in them, yum!), and an oven pancake with broccoli and carrot in it. Then we hopped in the car and drove to Skellefte, where we stayed with some SCA friends who also do "Lajv" (the Swedish word for what we call "LARP"). Since linda_linsefors talked lord_kjar and I into trying that this autumn we spent much of the evening learning about the world we are going to go pretend to be a part of.
On Saturday we drove further south to Umeå, where we stayed with friends of linda_linsefors and baked plain oven pancakes to eat with jam and cream, yum! I also taught them how to cook fresh artichoke and eat them with butter, lemon, pepper, and rosemary.
On Sunday we returned to Skellefte, where we visited another SCA friend, who has been storing some of linda_linsefors's stuff while she is in France for uni, and brought it back here so that she can use it at that Lajv this September.
Monday I mostly relaxed, but Tuesday and Wednesday I went into the office to work, since lord_kjar said yes to the "I know you are on holiday, but can you please come in and fix some stuff anyway?" question, and it was good to catch up on post-conference correspondence and turn in receipts and such. I also got my last set of thin sections, which is exciting, but I so don't have time to actually look at them, given how much else I need to be doing for work as soon as our vacation is over.
Last night I finally found the time to start setting the stones for our walkway into the ground, and I am very happy with how it is looking, and am looking forward to being done with all of it. Granted, the last half of it can't be done for a while--we don't want it in before we finish driving tractor over it, and that won't be done till we are done with the earth cellar and rest of the landscaping (changing the slope of the land so that water drains away to the far side of the sheds (we have already gotten rid of the huge puddles we used to get in the walkway to the house, but more needs to be done)
Today he went in to work "for a little bit this morning", and I am taking advantage of a sunny day to was the bed sheets, but it is nearly time to take the next load outside, so I will close this, and if he doesn't come home early enough to do earth cellar work with me (they made some progress on it while I was at the conference, but we haven't had a chance to touch it since) I will do more work on the walkway--I can still do a fair bit before I get to the part the tractor will need to be driving over.
The conference was for the Society of Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits (SGA). My boss is the president of that organization. Therefore, when I suggested to him some time back that since the sessions directly or tangentially related to my current research project were limited enough that I could save the department money by attending only the first day (when the 3D model session in which I had a poster was meeting) he replied that I should attend the full conference.
However, the conference is in Uppsala, which is near enough to the "Stockholm" Arlanda airport that I was able to book my flight there on Monday morning and arrive on site before the opening ceremony (but I did miss the "ice-breaker" on Sunday evening).
I was glad that I did, because it meant that we could drive to Storeforsen on Sunday and have an adventure. We had a houseguest that weekend--one of my Finnish cousins, K, who lives in Helsinki, had been in southern Sweden to visit his parents (who moved to Sweden in the 60's and never left, but raised him tri-lingual, so he opted to move to Finland as an adult) and decided to do a train trip north, with a stop here to visit me, then bus to Happaranda, walk over the border to Finland, and train down to Oulu to visit cousins there before heading back down to southern Finland. When asked what he wanted to do he suggested "wildlife or nature", which made the choice of adventures easy. Storeforsen is Europe's largest rapids, and is a very pretty area. Highlights of the day include eating wild blueberries, scrambling around on rocks, and swimming in a lovely, quiet, peaceful side channel of the river that goes through a lovely rock canyon. That water was cold, so I am glad we found that wetsuit in a second hand store this spring--makes swimming ever so much more fun to not be cold and to keep the sun off my skin.
The conference itself was busy, and fun. I attended interesting sessions, visited with colleagues I already knew, met some interesting people, and actually spoke to a fair few about my research during the poster session. Diversions while I was there included meeting up with liadethornegge for lunch and museums on Tuesday (thanks! It was fun!), meeting up with lord_kjar's brother and his wife and kids for dinner and hanging out till after midnight on Wednesday, and meeting up with another SCA friend, C, for lunch on Thursday before heading to the airport for my flight home.
Got home Thursday night, and Friday I celebrated having a real kitchen and oven again by spending the morning baking--we did pasties, bread rolls (with almond meal in them, yum!), and an oven pancake with broccoli and carrot in it. Then we hopped in the car and drove to Skellefte, where we stayed with some SCA friends who also do "Lajv" (the Swedish word for what we call "LARP"). Since linda_linsefors talked lord_kjar and I into trying that this autumn we spent much of the evening learning about the world we are going to go pretend to be a part of.
On Saturday we drove further south to Umeå, where we stayed with friends of linda_linsefors and baked plain oven pancakes to eat with jam and cream, yum! I also taught them how to cook fresh artichoke and eat them with butter, lemon, pepper, and rosemary.
On Sunday we returned to Skellefte, where we visited another SCA friend, who has been storing some of linda_linsefors's stuff while she is in France for uni, and brought it back here so that she can use it at that Lajv this September.
Monday I mostly relaxed, but Tuesday and Wednesday I went into the office to work, since lord_kjar said yes to the "I know you are on holiday, but can you please come in and fix some stuff anyway?" question, and it was good to catch up on post-conference correspondence and turn in receipts and such. I also got my last set of thin sections, which is exciting, but I so don't have time to actually look at them, given how much else I need to be doing for work as soon as our vacation is over.
Last night I finally found the time to start setting the stones for our walkway into the ground, and I am very happy with how it is looking, and am looking forward to being done with all of it. Granted, the last half of it can't be done for a while--we don't want it in before we finish driving tractor over it, and that won't be done till we are done with the earth cellar and rest of the landscaping (changing the slope of the land so that water drains away to the far side of the sheds (we have already gotten rid of the huge puddles we used to get in the walkway to the house, but more needs to be done)
Today he went in to work "for a little bit this morning", and I am taking advantage of a sunny day to was the bed sheets, but it is nearly time to take the next load outside, so I will close this, and if he doesn't come home early enough to do earth cellar work with me (they made some progress on it while I was at the conference, but we haven't had a chance to touch it since) I will do more work on the walkway--I can still do a fair bit before I get to the part the tractor will need to be driving over.