Episode CXLVII: Job Interviews

I've reached the point in my scientific career where it's time to start wrapping up my postdoctoral fellowship (being a 'postdoc') and start thinking about a real grownup job (in my case, I'd like to be a professor).

Hiring of professors in my field is a seasonal affair, with applications due between October-December, and interviews occurring between December-February. This means that a lot of my autumn was spent writing up job applications, and a lot of my December has been spent traveling around the country going on job interviews!

The academic job interview is quite an experience. It's usually a 2-3 day affair. Add 1-2 days for travel to and from, and you've burned almost a whole week on a single interview. I've gone on five interviews in the last month, meaning that I'm now pretty exhausted (and unproductive!) But at least I've been assembling a nice collection of hotel pens:

One nice thing about the interviews is that the university is also trying to recruit me, so they treat me well: hip hotels, fancy restaurants, campus tours, etc.


On a sad note, I decided it was necessary to look like a responsible 'adult' for my interviews, meaning that I had to shave off my beard (months of hard work!) But not before I let Meg have some fun styling it:

Now I get some time off for the holidays. Meanwhile I wait to hear back from my interviewers, and store up some energy for more interviews in 2017.

Episode CXLVI: Greece

Meg and I recently celebrated our FIFTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, and decided to do something special. Since we spent our honeymoon in Italy wandering through ancient ruins, we thought a fitting homage would be to spend our fifth anniversary in Greece wandering through even ancienter ruins.

 

[Ancient Mycenae, built ~1300 B.C.]

Our first stop was Athens. Here we are at the Areopagus (aka Mars Hill), in the shadow of the Acropolis. Meg and I are performing a historical reenactment of Paul's journey to Athens. I am playing the part of Paul, explaining to Meg that God is not to be worshiped with idols.

[I make a pretty good Paul, if I do say so myself]

In other Paul-themed travels, we also toured ancient Corinth. Here we are at the spot where Paul is supposed to have stood trial for inciting Jewish law-breaking. He was acquited.

[Off on a technicality!]

Next we took a trip to ancient Olympia, where the ancient Olympic games were held. Since we were traveling Greece in the shoulder season, it meant that we had nearly the whole secluded, leafy, quiet site to ourselves. Here we are racing on THE ORIGINAL Olympic Track!

We also took some time off to relax. Here we are watching the Grecian sunrise:

Meg's favorite part of the trip might have been the food. Mediterranean is her favorite. It was also super cheap. Giant gyros for ~$2:

Here we are dining seaside, ordering every possible thing we could want, and I'm pretty sure the bill ended up ~$25:

 
Finally, here's my attempt at a photographic recreation of our original honeymoon magic. Above is the newlywed Norris family in front of the Pantheon in Rome. Below is the Norris family five years in, in front of the Parthenon in Greece.

[Here's to many more adventures!]

Episode CXLV: Spousal Sports

In the last couple of months, Meg and I have had some fun participating in each other's favorite sports. In September, Meg joined me to play in a weekend doubles co-ed volleyball tournament in Boston.

 It was a beautiful day, full of high-quality volleyball. And, surprisingly enough, Meg and I won our division! To celebrate we put on our championship shirts and treated ourselves to some KFC.

 [A treat indeed, as there is no KFC in Cambridge]

Then in October I joined Meg in running a half-marathon on Cape Cod. It was a perfect day for running (cool and cloudy), Meg's parents came down to spectate, and Meg and I both ran our personal bests (which was easy for me to do, having never run that far before).

I considered this to be an EXTREME sport, so I brought along my GoPro, with which we shot the following race montage:

Episode CXLIV: Slow and steady

Spring and Summer 2016 has been pretty slow and steady for Meg and me. No exotic vacations, no earth-shaking news. Instead it's been a slice of more-or-less normal life. For instance, here we are celebrating Meg's birthday with a brunch at our local Turkish bakery and cafe.

[See how happy she is??]

Here I am at work, posing with my experimental subjects. I took this photo for a work presentation to demonstrate the large number of worm strains I have generated. Each container fits around 30-40 different plates of worms, and each plate contains thousands of worms.

In a bit of dramatic news, I was hit by an SUV while biking to work (he ran a stop sign and "T-boned" me: I ended up on his hood/windshield). I was fortunate to wind up with only minor cuts and bruises. The bike got a little banged up, but amazingly enough, landed upright with its kickstand deployed.

In other news, my cousin Brock Pluimer moved into the next town over from us! He's here to do some research at a Harvard-affiliated research institute (MGH) for a year or two. Small world, huh? We did a bit of reconnaissance work for him and scoped out his potential apartment for him before he got here:

My sister turned 30 a couple months ago! I recorded her a birthday song. Here it is if you haven't seen it:

We took a quick trip out to Denver, Colorado to see Meg's brother get married, and Meg stayed on for the next week to see him graduate from his graduate school.

On my way back home I got to sit in first class thanks to a particularly generous credit card promotion:

 [My first first-class meal ever!]

Episode CXLIII: Greetings from Boise, Idaho

 Meg and I joined most of the Norris family in Boise Idaho to celebrate the wedding of Tyler Capobres and Shannon Reich. The weather was great, and the wedding was lovely:

 We also managed to fit in the obligatory frisbee session:
 

Our family rented out a whole two-story house via Airbnb, which was fun. Here we are enjoying the living room fireplace:

And playing the baby grand piano:

I didn't know much about Idaho or about Boise before this trip. There were a couple of surprising things that I will share.

Surprising thing #1 There is a lot of outdoorsy stuff in Boise. We spent two different days along the Boise river:

 

[Day 1: hiking along, observing all sorts of waterfowl]

[Day 2: biking along (on tandem bikes!)]

We also took a road trip through the desert out to Shoshone Falls, which is quite a sight.

Surprising thing #2: There are a lot of Mormons. Nearly everywhere we went the major landmark was a nearby Mormon temple. The house we rented must have been a Mormon household, as the default Pandora station on their TV was "LDS Hymns of Worship"

[What could go better with LDS Hymns than local potatoes?]

Unsurprisingly, we had a good time catching up with family from across the nation, some of which I see often and some of which I haven't seen in ages. We had a good time all around.

Episode CXLII: Wintering in Florida

After returning from our trip to Brazil, we had only two days of rest before heading right back to the airport for a second wedding-centered trip. This time to Orlando, Florida (I know, it's a hard life).

Once again we took some extra time to do some tourism. Day one we went to Gatorland:

It's sort of a theme park, but mostly just hundreds of alligators and crocodiles in a variety of settings. Meg loved it.

We also took a trip to a state park where wild manatees are often spotted in winter months. And spot them we did. There were a couple lazily swimming upstream when we got there, then a few minutes later they lazily swam back downstream, then a few minutes later back on upstream. If I had to pick an animal to be, the manatee would be my new choice.

[Baby manatee!]

On day two we went to a Disney park. When in Orlando, right? We chose Epcot. A very unique theme park.

Day three was the wedding. Shelby and Andrew are a couple we know from our church in Cambridge, and they had a lovely wedding in the Orlando Museum of Art.

[The wedding and reception were held right in the middle of all the art galleries]

Finally, day four we went to the Holy Land Experience. Talk about unique theme parks! They've got a mixture of bible-themed musical theater, re-creations of ancient biblical sites, and a trove of artifacts pertaining to Christian history. Here we are inspecting the empty tomb...

An amusing anecdote from our way back home- we flew out of Daytona Beach, which has such a tiny airport that when we arrived (a little early) for our afternoon flight, TSA was closed! There hadn't been any flights for the last few hours, so we had to wait in line for TSA to finish their afternoon tea time.

 

 [Meg and I and a bunch of retirees, waiting to be let in]