Sweet News!

I won the Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust Award for Category 2B, best postgraduate dissertation for my Masters dissertation on Robert Moyes Adam!!!!! Not only will it look good on my CV but I also get some cash...100 quid! Woohooo. Maybe I do have a shot at a career in academia. Just maybe.
There is also a big award ceremony thats going to be held off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh by the Scottish Executive and my prof. and I have been invited. If my parents help me with the plan ticket I will be very tempted to go and accept my award and bug all my British friends. Any excuse to go back to Scotland!

SOOOOOOOO excited!

Avert your eyes if you hate books or ice cream

Ice cream section at the Tillamook Cheese Factory...I am sure you all know why I had to try this flavor.

The picture could not even contain all of Powell's books.

Sign from the Sci Fi/Fantasy section of Powell's Books, Portland.

Book Heaven

I have just returned from a very relaxing trip to Portland, Oregon where I visited with my buddy from St. Andrews, Lizzie. I stayed in her very cute 1940s duplex home, which has huge picture windows that look out on Mt. Hood. The weather was a bit grey and rainy (not unlike Scotland!) but that didn't put a damper on the trip...it was a nice contrast to all the sunny weather we're having in California (heheheh I just have to rub that in while I still live in CA). Besides catching up on old times, the highlights of the trip were Powell's Books and the Tillamook Cheese Factory. You can't imagine my excitement upon seeing Powell's Books...a whole city block taken up by a bookstore that sells used and new books and is not Barnes and Noble!!! It even provides you with a map when you come inside! We spent hours wandering the aisles and my stack of books slowly grew. We missed you Elizabeth, Daniella, and Natalie when we were perusing the romance section and reading the back covers aloud and laughing. I think the other more "serious" romance shoppers were slightly offended by our amusement at such titles as "Much Ado about You" and an entire section on "Paranormal Romance" most of which was set in the Highlands of Scotland (is there nowhere else romantic in the entire world?).

Besides being the home of Powell's Books, Portland is a pretty cool city with a great public transportation system (free in the downtown area), lots of bike lanes, great shopping areas, a beautiful public library, and some interesting museums. Oh and lots of whole foods stores where you can get wheat germ and all other assorted healthy, organic and free trade foods on a level that would even surpasses the crazy health stores in southern California. Hmmm perhaps there is a place in the United States after all where I might want to live.

On Saturday Lizzie and I drove along the Oregon coast, stopping at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, which was a surprisingly busy stop filled with families, visible lovers of all things dairy, and even some naval cadets. The factory was cool with all sorts of weird bits of machinery moving the cheese, cutting the cheese, packaging etc. I also highly recommend the Marionberry pie ice cream. After the cheese factory, we drove along the coast and the sun finally came out as we stopped in the town of Manzanita, a cute town with lots of little artsy shops. We drove back along the sunset highway, which lived up to its name, stopping only to wonder at the largest sitka spruce tree in the United States (somewhat underwhelming after seeing the redwoods and sequoias in Yosemite).

More good news though! I have another job as a research assistant to an old professor of mine, Dr. Igler, helping him to do research for his book on trade, disease, and natural history in the Pacific basin from 1770-1850. And I am getting paid! Maybe I should change the title of my blog now? Nah...people would rather read a blog with a more bitter sounding title. Ok back to work at my temp job...answering the phone when someone actually calls (the rate is approx. 1 call per hour).

Eamonn made my day!

I was not looking forward to another day at work (especially when everyone else seems to have the day off) when I checked my email this morning and received this link from my buddy Eamonn: http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/2005/HCR029.html
It looks to be for real but even if it isnt it is very enjoyable. My favorite ones: "WHEREAS, tater tots figure prominently in this film thus promoting Idaho's most famous export" and " WHEREAS, Napoleon's bicycle and Kip's skateboard promote better air quality and carpooling as alternatives to fuel-dependent methods of transportation."

Last night, after several failed attempts, my friend/cousin Jenny and I finally saw Mrs. Henderson Presents. We tried two times before to see this movie, which was playing at the local "artsy" cinema, but both times we were thwarted by a huge line of senior citizens that wound along the parking lot all the way to Trader Joe's. When we did finally get tickets and enter the movie theater on the 3rd try, the ticket collector held us up by regaling us with how wonderful Mrs. Henderson Presents was and how "it was the best movie this year on so many levels." As I stood in line for some overpriced movie snacks (5 dollars for a SMALL popcorn!!! WTF?? 10 dollars for a movie ticket? I remember when evening films were 5 dollars...I'm practicing this bit for my future grandchildren), this ticket collector proceeded to tell EVERY person that came in about Mrs. Henderson Presents: "have you seen it? its wonderful! best movie this year! the comic dialogue is spot on!" blah blah blah. By the time I got my drink I wanted to strangle him; with all this overhyping and all the effort I put in just to get into the movie theater I knew this movie could never live up to expectation. It was entertaining in the end, but not as much as the two ladies who emerged from the film accusing each other of being rude and almost getting into a cat fight. Good times.

Another interesting movie I saw this weekend: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The plot was so vague and confusing at first I had to go online to figure out what was going one. Richard Burton played a very unglamorous, alcholic spy...the harsh lighting picked up every pockmark on his weathered face. Jenny and I didn't really like the film but we did learn a few valuable lessons: a) I could never be a spy...I have not the wit nor wiles even to figure out the plot of this movie (I can now cross it off the list of possible career options) b) you don't always get hot babes (exhibit A: very plain, card carrying communist lady vying for Burton's affections) c) apparently laughing in a girl's face about her life's passion is a successful way to pick up lonely women librarians d) if invited behind the Iron Curtain, decline politely because you never know you if you might be forced to testify in a mysterious trial, imprisoned and then shot as you try to escape over the Berlin wall.

Filling up space with random pictures

My dog Eowyn making the adorable beseeching face when you ask her if she wants to go for a walk.

Couch Potato

New Year Resolutions are crap. Since the beginning of 2006 I have only managed to be a couch potato, watching all manner of TV shows I received for Christmas including The Office (British version), Gilmore Girls and Firefly. I have not finished one application. I have not answered any emails. I can bitch and moan all I want about living at home but I will never get out at this pathetic rate. And I am going to receive a package of books in the mail any day now and that will be even more distracting and engrossing than the tv shows I have been watching. I ordered Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (I saw the movie Capote the other day, which was really interesting and made me want to read his book), Mary Austin's The Land of Little Rain (which I came across in my research for my undergrad honors dissertation but never got a chance to read) and Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I wanted to get Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert (about water in the American west) but I didn't have enough money left over after buying a GRE prep book. I hate tests.

The couch potato has not been completely eliminated but I have taken to walking in the evenings with my friend Lauren, water polo has started again, and I have another temp job to fill. The weather lately has been particularly fine for walking although a bit chilly at night for water polo in an outdoor pool.

I got that package in the mail...plus another xmas gift from my buddy Daniella with two more books. Although I have work at the moment, I have managed to finished In Cold Blood and most of the Land of Little Rain (a particular quote regarding a stagecoach ride through the desert seemed very applicable to my current work situation and intellectual state: "of such interminable monotony as induces forgetfulness of all previous states of existence."). I was inspired to read Capote's book after watching the film about him starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. The movie was interesting (I had no idea Capote was a childhood friend of Harper Lee and prob. inspired the character of Dill!) and Hoffman was excellent but I found the book to be even better. I couldn't put it down. And I only did when I had to answer the phone at work and enter purchase orders lest they think I was not working. It was both fascinating and horrifying to read. I don't want else to say...read it and let me know what you think. Its too bad he only wrote a few novels and short stories...but I guess all the drinking and the crazy jet-setting lifestyle was not very conducive to writing.

In other news, I am currently working for an electrical rep company (they sell products from the manufacturers to other companies I guess) and pretty much the only cool thing about the place is that they have a poster of Napoleon Dynamite in the office. My first day after mastering the entry of purchase orders and answering the phone the ladies in the office cornered me and said isnt the job easy? Um (wondering if this was a trick question or if they were leading up to giving more work to do) yes I suppose so. Apparently they have had trouble obtaining capable receptionists...all that is required is to answer the phone and enter maybe 20 orders or so a day which takes me about 30 min. The rest of the day I read and pretend not to use the internet. There next question was, "so do you want to work here instead of just temping?" "No, I am going back to school to get my PhD most likely," I replied trying not to sound too ungrateful. According to these ladies, the electrical business is very fun and interesting and I don't need to go back and get my PhD. They would have to pay me a helluva lot to get me to stay and do this job from 8-5. Money they don't have (ok I know I am a snob). But I guess its nice to be wanted (and good to have a fallback plan in case it turns out I have no future in academia or anywhere else where an actual functioning brain is required). Oh and I still have not finished any of the applications I was supposed to finish ohhhhhhh last year. Couch potato syndrome? Slackeritis?

Well, thats all the news thats fit to print. Tschuss! (see I am practicing my German, Andrew)