Defeated

As some of you may know, I am the biggest fan of The Daily Show. And since I am the shows biggest fan EVER, you could imagine my excitement when I clicked on the OSU webpage yesterday to pay my fees and saw an announcement that the Daily Show was coming to Columbus Ohio for the Midwest Midterm Midtacular. I only had to catch two words, which were "ticket requests" to instinctively click on the link. I sent in my ticket request and went back to work. Later on in the day, I checked my email again and saw that there was already an email response from The Daily Show. My heart started pounding as I realized that one of my dreams might come true. With sweaty palms, I reached for the mouse and opened the email. After a few minutes, when reality hit me, my heart sank down to my feet as I realized what was going on. "Due to an overwhelming response" the email said, "we are no longer taking ticket requests". At that moment, I lost the will to continue working for the day and had to head home to morn the missed opportunity.

When I went home, I read the webpage about the Midtacular more carefully and noticed that there was going to be a reading of "America (The Book) : A Citizens Guide to Democracy Inaction" at one of the local museums. This helped my mood a little bit as I realized I had another chance to get my fix. So this morning I looked to see when the tickets were going to be on sale so that I wouldn't miss out. As I read about the event, I noticed the tickets were $100 each for a reception along with the reading. So once again, I was crushed with the realization that this was not in the cards for me. So Jon Stewart, if you are reading this, please, please find a way to get me into a taping of your show. I probably can't return any favor unless you need something that has to do with silver fluorides or transparent conductors, but I promise, I will greatly appreciate it.

I passed!!!!!!!!

Well, the Argonne Neutron and Xray school is finally over and I am sure you will all be relieved to know that I passed. I know, I was worried too. Now we can all sleep better. Here is the diploma to prove that I was able to withstand hours of lectures and experiments, two bee stings in one night, cockroaches, mice, many beers, a moldy room, and slimy crabcake sandwiches.

Looking back at the past few weeks, I want to recall some rather funny moments. First was a trip to El famous burrito. I think that no explaination is needed really, but it was mentioned that they probably named it "The famous burrito" then thought it didn't sound quite like a Mexican restaurant, so they changed "The" to "El" ignoring the rules of the spanish language. Here is a pic of some folks in front of the restaurant. Some of them claim this hole does indeed have the best burrito ever. Me however, not a fan, especially after watching a pork burrito explode before my eyes and form a lake of grease in the basket that you could swim in. Below that is a picture of a burrito that is the size of a small baby.

This next picture is from the last night at camp. After the picnic we decided to head to Chili's for a night of margaritas. After we all ordered a margarita called the "presidente", which was pure joy, I talked the guys into getting another one. The waiter accidentally brought this one frozen instead of on the rocks. Even worse, he brought them in these tall girly glasses. The guys were really embarassed about drinking such a faminine concoction so I wanted to make sure that I put the picture on my blog for everyone to see!

And finally, I want to show you a picture of the coolest people to ever grace a Neutron and X-ray scattering camp. If you are reading this, thanks for a great time! I had a blast with you all!

My kind of town, Chicago

Amidst all of the busy events of the Neutron and Xray scattering school, we all had the pleasure of having 1 day off over the weekend. So most people decided to head to the windy city. I had a great time. Here is a picture of the skyline along Lake Michigan. It was an absolutely beautiful day!!!!

The main activity for the day was eating. We wanted to see how many meals we could possibly eat in a single day and we found out, it is a lot. My main reason for going to Chicago was to find a bakery that I had seen on the food network. They make homemade twinkies there. That's right (Pete) home made twinkies! It was heaven! Below is a close up of the scrumtrulescent piece of creamy goodness and below that is a picture of me enjoying my prelunch treat!




Next I want to show you the wierd side of Chicago. Below is a picture of the back of a guys truck. Well you might not say that is too unique, but in the back he had a stick with a skull on the top. You're not laughing yet? I am, because I saw this in Chicago NOT Tennessee!



The next picture is probably my favorite. This guy is walking around downtown Chicago in shiny blue speedo like underwear. The person who took this picture got the finger from him but what does he really expect? Does he think that people aren't going to look at him when he walks around in his underwear?


In between all of the eating I also got to go to the Shedd Aquarium, which is AWESOME. I highly recommend it to all who go there! Well, I have to get back to the grind now. Later.

New Home . . . For Two Weeks

Well, this is a picture of my new home for two weeks. I am at a workshop at Argonne National Laboratory which is about 45 minutes southwest of Chicago. The workshop is going ok so far. One of my former group-mates at UT is here and another fellow grad student from UT is here so it's nice to see some familiar faces. However, the living conditions are worse then "The Vault". Half my lightbulbs are burnt out, the TV doesn't work, the thermostat doesn't work, it smells kind of funny and there are dead bugs in the corner. At least I brought my own pillow.


Here is a picture of a "soap" dispenser in the bathroom. Apparantly the soap can be used both as soap and shampoo. I've never seen or heard of this before. I think they are just cheap/lazy and expect you to use shampoo as soap or soap as shampoo. Which do you think it is?

Jerky Anyone?

Not much is going on right now, but I wanted everyone to know that somewhere in Southeastern Michigan, off of I75 near Monroe there is a store called Beef Jerky Unlimited. There are about 20 barrels of different kinds of beef /turkey jerky. But the biggest surprise is behind the counter they have all kinds of tasty jerkeys: ostrich, venison, bison, etc. Oh, and they have an entire wall full of a couple hundred types of hot sauce.

On another note, there was a gallery hop in the artsy district of Columbus this weekend. Besides great art there was, ballerinas pirouetting down the sidewalk, men with ostrich costumes walking down the sidewalk on stilts, zombies who wanted their voting rights (no joke), and much more. My favorite quote that I over heard was "Stop walking like you are in the hospital. Stroll B****!". Don't ask me what it means to walk like you are in the hospital. I simply don't know.

Somewhere in Kentucky . . .

This weekend we went to Western Kentucky for our friends Ben and Mary's wedding celebration. You might think that a trip from Columbus, Ohio to Hopkinsville, Kentucky would be boring, but no, there are many sights to see along the way.

Apparantly, the middle of nowhere, KY is the site of the World's Most Awesome Flea Market. It says so... right there... on the end of it. It's about a mile from the highway.


Hodgenville, KY has a national monument that preserves the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. The original cabin sits atop a hill and is housed in a marble one-room Parthenon-like building that, on the inside, is only slightly larger than the cabin. We also saw the spring from which the Lincolns got their water, and the divit in the ground where a really big tree grew. It's dead now, but the hole in the ground is still there, complete with informational posters at the stone viewing patio.


Just off the federally-owned property is "The Nancy Lincoln Inn", where visitors can buy shot glasses, commemorative Lincoln busts... with certificate of authenticity, and other Lincoln and KY souvenirs. There was a two dollar and five dollar table, as well. Every item just two or five dollars. The best was "Abraham Lincoln's Beard". It came in a sealed bag (stapled shut), but I doubt it was authentic. Someone actually asked.


So here are our recommendations you can use when planning your next vacation in western Kentucky. Enjoy.