Keeping Busy

My blogging has been way down over the last month, but not without reason. I'm aboard the emotional roller coaster of a job search. I want to be a professor when I grow up, so I've been busily applying to open faculty positions. Twenty-three so far:

"But wait," you say, "that's only nineteen!" Right you are. There are actually two in Pittsburgh, and I think some of the east coast ones got bunched up. Number twenty-three is here:

Although it may appear that I'm just applying to any place with an opening, that is in fact only partially true. My vetos fall into one of two catagories: 1) schools that are lame, and 2) schools that are in Texas. Actually, I'm okay with a semi-lame school if it's in a really cool place. I also bent the rules and vetoed Louisiana Tech under option 2.

So far, only two responses, both rejections. Oh well, they're all long shots. All part of the aforementioned emotional roller coaster.

I have at least four more applications to go, which all fit nicely on an east-coast map.

Big Snow

What better way to celebrate our recent three feet of snow than with some cat pictures?

Swayze doesn't like to go outside when it's below 45 degrees, but he made an exception yesterday when he inexplicably climbed onto the big snow and started swimming across the yard. He got about 15 feet in, sat down, and started crying for his mommy, who proceeded to rescue him.

St. Augustine

Greetings from St. Augustine! Okay, so maybe I'm a few weeks late posting about my trip to Florida, but better late than never. Here's a lovely picture of the Casa Monica hotel where I stayed (work picked up the bill). It's right across the street from Flagler College.

My first three days in Florida were spent cranking out data for our Powerpoint slides, and my last two days were spent outside in the not-freezing weather. I played a round of golf on Thursday, and did some sight seeing down by the ocean on Friday. There's a fort in St. Augustine called Castillo de San Marcos that dates back to 1672. Phallic symbols were apparently in vogue back then.

Sweet Anti-Tobacco Propaganda

I came across this in an airport over Christmas...

Christmas Lights in Troy

Whoever owns this apartment building goes nuts with the lights every Christmas. It's pretty impressive. Is that Winnie the Pooh on the roof? I couldn't even get everything in a single picture. The reindeer there on the left has friends over on the other side of the building. Lots of other inflatable stuff too.

Picture of My Mother-In-Law

Yikes!

Visiting Pete

This year's plan for traveling to Montana to visit Kate and Ruth looked like this:
1. Fly from Syracuse to Philadelphia to Denver to Missoula.
2. Commence visiting and snowboarding.

The year's reality looked like this:
1. Fly from Syracuse to Philadelphia.
2. Have flight to Denver canceled due to big snow.
3. Have US Airways tell me that I've been rebooked on Lufthansa.
4. Discover that Lufthansa has only one flight out of Philly (destination Frankfurt).
5. Re-rebook, this time to Minneapolis, with a flight to Missoula the next morning.
6. Call Pete in Minneapolis to tell him I'll be spending the night.

So I got to visit my brother Pete, and he even took me out to dinner at his favorite Thai restaurant. This is what Pete looks like when seated at a Thai restaurant:

In his own words, "looking a little Lyle Lovett."

Unbeknownst to me, Pete has been working on his own blog, Peter Unzipped. He's very prolific--lots of book reviews and snarky commentary.

Happy New Year Everyone!

As a token of friendship, and as an apology for making zero posts over the past month, I would like to present to you the following picture of a squirrel eating a donut:

Amazing, no? I caught him with the camera phone on my way back from lunch.

Bovine-Canine Friendship

Rae and I spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Rochester with my Granddad and Aunt Susie. Susie cooked up a feast!

We picked up our Christmas wreath just south of Rochester at Pittsford Dairy, home of Ginger the cow. Here's a shot of Ginger with her dog friend. Amazing, no? They hang out.

Aunt Susie has a dog, Roxanne, but no cow that I'm aware of.

Cavalry called in!

By cavalry, I mean the dean's office, where Phylis works. The dean's office is kind of a big deal (smells of rich mahogany). They write important memos, as you can see below.

For real, man, those seats need to be usable by future users.