my sandbox

Just left my cool job at the Center to go on to another cool job at Cornell. I told my friends at the old job that I’d keep them up-to-date via this blog, so I’m unearthing it. Look at it! It’s so dusty and creaky. It’s like a zombie. Except that I think zombies are more wet than dusty. I wonder if my mom is still checking it (the blog, not the zombie) every day? If she isn’t, does it mean she no longer loves me?

So, since my last post, there was Thanksgiving and Christmas, which were lovely, then a new semester that included an internship and a coupla classes plus my old job at the Center, and then I got a job, and another job, and a scholarship. The first job is via Cornell’s Biology Library but I will actually be working and living at the Cornell Biological Field Station. It starts June 2 and will last through the summer. I’ll be working on a data curation project involving a long term aquatic ecology data set, an online repository, two dwarves, and a wheel of cheese. There will also be the semantic web. I will tell you more about it later, when it actually happens and I know enough about it not to be nonsensical and flippant. After that I’ll be working full-time for UC Berkeley’s Bioscience Library. In a fact that turns out to be not entirely coincidental, this is also where I did my internship this semester. And I won a scholarship for one thousand dollars based on my sheer intellectual prowess. Disappointingly, it’s to be applied to my tuition rather than given to me cash in hand. Oh, and I have to take a couple more classes before I graduate, which will be in Spring 2009, unless the asteroids come and muck everything up.

So that brings you just about up to date, except for two important events. One is that Victor and I went hiking on the Tomales Bay Pt. Trail in Pt. Reyes Nat’l Seashore and saw elk, and wildflowers, and elk in wildflowers. Like this:

And, we went to Limantour beach (also in Pt. Reyes Nat’l Seashore) and found that the best thing to do at the beach is to bury Arty in the sand. Here’s how:

And so:

And then he falls asleep:

And there you have it. Next post might be from Rhode Island, or Cornell, or something. Or it could just be from here.

This picture is from the day that Arty grew to giant size and destroyed much of San Francisco. Captured here during an introspective moment.

Fort Funston, San Francisco’s premiere dog walking venue, is mere minutes from our apartment, but because it’s in San Francisco we’ve had a psychological barrier preventing us from checking it out. Well, we’ve smashed that barrier and have just returned from our second jaunt in three days. Arty is a much better dog off leash, and although we’re not above breaking the law, it’s always more relaxing to take him to places where the man doesn’t frown on him roaming free. The vast majority of other dogs at Fort Funston are unfettered, and generally those dogs that are on leash are phlegmatic when it comes to being approached by boisterous young whippersnappers. It’s a happenin’ doggy atmosphere, a place to see and be seen. Victor has already run into a couple of his clients from Planet Pooch.

Fort Funston has the added bonus features of ocean views and abandoned WWII bunkers and batteries. Here’s a couple of pictures (sorry about the poor quality; it was cloudy out on Saturday):

This is what Arty looks like today. I’d be willing to bet that he’s cuter than your dog.