Category: Personal Story

So I just watched Mad Men and about to go to bed, and instead of surfing the internet.  I surfed my hard drive rediscovering things from high school..Old essays, personal statements, and lab reports.

For example, what did I discover in the AP Chem folder….A file called: R data (for those that don’t know, I use a software program called R)  So I had to see what was in the R lab report.  It’s title:

RRRrrrrrrrrr you ready for some calculations me matey?

Yup.  Steve had the wit back in 2001.  I forgot Mr. Becker gave bonus points for titles.  Other gems:

Crucible – The Pottery on the Hot Seat

C u later Oxygenator

Watch those Calorimeters during the Holiday Season!

No wonder all the Ferros dropped off the face of the earth, Egypt is HOT

Also in this folder, campaign materials from my bid for Student Council President….

Mr. Rogers lost.  Hard to win a presidential election when you have close ties to a monarch like King Friday.

And who could forget about Senior Pictures…

There is another senior picture that was quite popular…but to prevent fantasy football rivals from having fodder, thats not going online.

If you are like me and never delete things from your hard drive, I highly recommend digging around.  It is a trip.

For the last two years, there has been a woman with a GMail address very similar to mine who struggles greatly at writing it down correctly.   Because of this, I have received everything from Happy Birthday messages to a newsletter for a senior citizen community in Florida.  For a while, I was receiving emails regarding quotes/estimates for how much it was to ship a car from Balitmore to Denver.

So I today received an email:

Thank you for ordering Cabela’s Inc. – 00210942816 (>CBGL514187<)

Inside, it said:

Thank you for your recent order. We appreciate your shopping at Cabelas.com and hope that you had an enjoyable shopping experience. You will receive another e-mail at the time your order ships.

I had never heard of Cabelas.com…so what did “I” buy? Click and find out.
(more…)

Two Nashville sightings…

1. Go to the library.  There is a pickup truck on display in the lobby.
2. Go to National Tire and Battery for an oil change.  Another customer demands to keep his old tires, as they work well to help burn his brush.

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.