Author: smrogers

Steve turned 28 this weekend.  It involved good times with friends, some tornados, and two great photos.

I decided to go to St. Louis for the weekend.  I was going to go Friday, but the route home had multiple tornado warnings.  These warnings sent people from my office to the basement.  But a CSDI fellow had her priorities straight and knew that even tornadoes couldn’t stop CSDI Happy Hour!  So it was taken to the basement!

Then on my birthday morning, I was greeted by an excellent message from Alex.

Good weekend.

Two months ago I was in St. Louis…then Milwaukee, then Princeton, then Pittsburgh, then Princeton, then New Orleans, then Nashville, then Milwaukee, then Princeton, then Nashville, then Houston, and back to Nashville.  DC and Durham were also supposed to be on that list, but car troubles prevented that.  I could go into extensive detail about the past couple of months, but lets just say they involved multiple car problems, multiple conferences, multiple unexpected nights on an air mattress, but most nicely a nephew.

All this was in lead up to me moving.  For those who do not already know, I have moved to Nashville for a few months.  Two of my advisers from Princeton took jobs at Vanderbilt over the last couple of years, so I decided to spend some time down south before returning to Princeton for the summer.   I have a desk in the department, and I am renting a room in two bedroom house about a mile from campus.  I haven’t explored the city very much yet, as work has been the main focus (rightly or wrongly).  As I am here longer, I am sure I will stumble upon new things, but I need to do a better job leaving the office.

The people here are quite nice, and it is interesting to see the norms of another department.  (For example in talks, Princetonians are more aggressive with their questions during the talk…Vanderbilt folk are much more assertive hand raisers)  It additionally is fun to have Josh and Larry (advisers) down the hall.  It, however, would also be nice (and make life simpler) to have Nolan (adviser at Princeton) around too.  Fortunately people have been understanding of the situation and move.  As much as people sometimes gripe about Princeton, I think I like it more than most.   Whether it be friends, professors, or dogs at Princeton, I miss em.

I do owe thanks to many people for putting up with / helping me in the last couple of months.  In particular, Deborah and Scott get shout outs for many things from providing me a place to sleep, helping me move, drive, and just being good friends.

The funny thing is my Dad was born in Jersey and had little reason to go back until I went to Princeton.  My mom, meanwhile, was born in Nashville, and, well, here I am.

Steve’s an uncle! My nephew was born on January 12th, 2012. Today is his two week birthday, and I will proudly display photos of my little buddy Alex Rinehart.

Last week, I went to Milwaukee to meet my nephew. He was very appropriately dressed.

I got to spend all day with him on Thursday and Friday. My sister characterized her son well: He is always in a state of waking up on a Saturday morning. Karen and the baby are doing well. The new grandmother loves holding Alex. This baby is well photographed. My sister had the neat idea to take pictures of Alex with common objects. Here he is thinking about whether to pay the 10% or $200 on Income Tax.

And here is the little guy dreaming of the day he can compete for the Taboo Championship cup and win the right to be served pie by the Flowers women.

He already has the competitive spirit. I challenged him to a thumb war, and he won!

It was great to meet my nephew, and I can’t wait until I see him next.