Time flies when you're busy

I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything. I've thought about posting from time to time, but between not having my computer set up at work, and not being too excited about waiting for this dial-up sloth we have at home, I have put it off many times. I believe I promised Shannon I would post "very soon" over a week ago, so in relative terms I don't think I've broken that promise, although that could be considered a stretch.

We had another visitor here this week - Joanna, a childhood friend of mine, came to our place for a few nights after spending the weekend in San Francisco and the Sonoma valley. Kai was super-excited to have another buddy to play with, although he insisted that the room she slept in was Shannon's room.

I've been keeping pretty busy lately. For work, I've been at a local county airport with a number of colleagues uploading (installing) our 4-channel CIMS (chemical ionization mass spectrometer) onto the NCAR C-130 for over a month. Unfortunately, we've been beating our heads against the wall for the last week and half because we can't get counts through our inlet. There are 4 inlets with 6 people in total contributing effort: OH, HNO3, HO2/RO2 (the one I'm associated with) and NH3. We're supposed to start test flights early next week. It was originally to be this Monday, but of course, that's been pushed back. I'm a little overwhelmed at times, but I'm learning a lot. The shear magnitude of the field study that I'm going to be involved with is enough to make my head hurt. I just hope that I actually get some data... at this point, it's looking sketchy. Of course, it wouldn't be a proper field study otherwise.

We had our second snowfall since mid-December a couple nights ago. This year has been incredibly mild, but I'm not complaining. (Neither is our heating bill.) From what I've heard, heavy snowfalls aren't uncommon in this area even into the middle of May. I don't think we've had more than 2" on the ground at any given time so far this winter, so for Kai's sake, I do hope we get dumped on before spring. How Canadian of me, to point out the weather.

Life here has certainly fallen into a rhythm. Keith is keeping busy with Kai and with work. I've been quilting during my free time. We get together with friends on a pretty regular basis. I guess it all sounds rather uninteresting, but we wouldn't want things any other way. I guess it's the calm before the storm, if you can consider my absence a "storm". I guess that's something Keith will have to fill you in on when I'm gone. Wow. I just realized that 4 weeks from today it all begins.