real time simpson lab blog 14:46

near real time blog today at 14:46 11/29/07. i am a nerd. working on the IC, DOAS.

another fun night of knitting. i tried out my new web cam on my laptop for this shot! my friends are so talented at all these crafts and i am starting to learn. the face is a little puffy, i guess my good friend dialysis didn't remove all the fluid today. i am so grateful for all these Alaskan girls showing me their stuff. though grad school is a big part of my life, it is not everything. there is way more to living in Fairbanks then UAF. that is about as deep as it gets for me, but if you want to really dive in..check out ben's photo blog entry.

skijor with caz and sky side by side. i don't know, i think this year caz will be faster.

Lisa and Trevor's Bday party

happy birthday to Lisa and Trevor!
we headed out to Lisa and Dan's to celebrate Lisa and Trevor's birthday. these are the sweet cold ski mittens Lisa received as a present. the hole on the bottom is to fit your ski pole into, perfect for those 40 below hut trips.

Lisa introduced us to this New Zealand game of cutting the chocolate. every time you roll a six you have to dress up in this winter gear and try and cut the chocolate, very strange and fun. here is Ben really getting into it.

i started out making Trevor these sophisticated lime raspberry martinis, but as always with this crowd things headed south. i believe it was Lisa who invented this "toilet 'tini", before you get too grossed out it, it is only fondue chocolate. i think you had to be there, but this was the funniest thing. i have not laughed so hard in a long time. i have to thank Trevor and Lisa for such a memorable night. yuck.

thanksgiving

ben and i on our now annual thanksgiving day ski on the dog musher hall trails behind creamers.
we headed to Rebecca and Malcom's thanksgiving party and it was a great time. typical Fairbanks cabin party; out in the middle of nowwhere, dogs running wild inside and out, game meat and a big fire. we left early, but it was pretty wild when we left and i am sure the night was crazy. this is Rebecca belting out Gillian Welch. we had to drag pella out of there after she was fed deer and salmon, this was her favorite party this year. Malcom is a chef so the food was top notch, all that cooking and no running water, it is pretty impressive.

finishing up the field work....for now

this is part of the dirt road out to the site, Fairbanks winter can be so beautiful. this is sunrise around 10am, not too bad yet.
and sunset a few hours later. today was our last day/night running at the field site. so this is maybe the last blog picture of all this excitement. though our science hut on skis is pretty cool, we are tearing it down tomorrow....maybe my blog posts will get more exciting?
julie and i were able to get on the goldstream valley trails and took the dogs out. it was very warm night for this time of year.
pella was having a good old time being drug around by these two.

tis the preseason party

julie made this excellent torte for a pre- season party since she will be in Anarctica soon. we also did a taste test with this box wine, because i swore i could tell the difference and would not like box wine. both ben and i, with conviction, choose the box wine thinking it was the nice bottle we bought. ha ha! who would of known?
some of the party goers enjoying the torte. my close friends have also been very supportive as we ride this crazy roller coaster trying to have a transplant. now the numbers are good, but Mayo still may not do the transplant! some more complicated stuff. for now, more waiting.
just a random great sunset out at the Quist farm the other night.

way to go, way cool husband!

we just found out ben received the Rasmuson Grant, a highly regarded artist grant! this is to pursue his work on the Dalton project, way up north. this is so exciting, it is a lot of money to do what he loves...how cool is that? check out the link and the other winners. this is sooo big for ben's photography and i am so happy for him. here he is back in the cabin days of 40 below and going to the outhouse. he also had a 16x20 print going up in a New York gallery, what a month for ben!

bloggover

i have not had too much time to get out with our field research going on. we bundled up in our warm ski clothes and headed out for a classic ski late tonight at creamers. patrick and i sent in blood samples this morning to mayo and we should hear something by the end of the week.

also check out Ed's post on their trip into the now infamous "into the wild" bus. one crazy adventure after another, this coming weekend ben and i will join them on a tamer trip into Tolovana hot springs.

at only -3 we have inversions here in Fairbanks and they trap all the pollution near the ground. by the time is -20 the CO levels from cold starting vehicles is really high and we violate clean air levels. time to start plugging in the car. still working all weekend at our field site, we are collecting data and that is good.

We are finally up and running at our field site!

stacia stopped by out on a ride with her dogs yesterday. I was surprised to see someone riding up to the site. there are great trails in the cripple creek area, we hope to meet up for a ski soon.

knit 1

i have this little nervous/anxious new habit, i pull my hair at the end of dialysis! Yuck. So, Audrey taught me how to knit this weekend so both of my hands are busy. so far, so good.
the rest of the weekend i spent at the field site. i am closer to getting this met tower logging correctly. ben rode his bike to pioneer park last night and met up with friends to watch" gates of the arctic". i don't have the link handy, but he said it was a great film.

on my way home from our field site last night i stopped by julie's place for hot buttered rum halloween drinks. notice i am wearing my big down parka inside because she ran out of fuel!

luckily we had plenty of warm clothes from audrey's patagonia sponsorship, we all got some nice stuff. this picture is supposed to be of the "EE" on the old monitor heater in julie's cabin. she will have to get even more used to the cold, she is headed to Antarctica in a few weeks!