I just set up a filter called "too much information" as a place to put posts that even I, who tend to lead my life on an "open book" policy, understand that the content thereof falls into the category of things which shouldn't be shared with the universe at large.

Thus far the filter contains two type of people--those whom I love, and those who have given me the impression of being understanding and unlikely to twitch if I happen to share something that really does fall under the category of "too much information". If you are on the filter, you can see the test message asking anyone who doesn't wish to be on it to please let me know. If you can't see that message, but would wish to, please let me know. I have enough "friends" on LJ it is possible I missed a few folk who belong on that list when creating it.

( from hunrvogt )In other news, after answering the earlier set of questions, going home and making some yummy spinach/zucchini/tofu sauce, and then baking some of the sauce inside some bread dough (and totally burning the roof of my mouth enjoying it), I returned to uni and managed to get one capsule filled and welded shut for my next experiment. This means I get to come back again tomorrow to try to have a second one ready. Since we've also got fighter practice scheduled for tomorrow, that means it will be a busy day!

My plan for today was to come in, quickly look at mail, then go fill some capsules for my next experiment. But a few people had asked me questions. Answering them and coming up with new questions, and reading the questions others have answered has caused a very happy 4 hours and 44 minutes to slip by. Oops. But it was fun! (and somehow I don't think the game is over, yet, there are others who may yet ask, and others of whom I'd enjoy asking...)

Yesterday I did a trip to IKEA to pick up one last set of shelves for my pantry. Since I already knew exactly what I wanted, and their location in the store, it was a relativity fast trip. 2 hours, 30 minutes to do the walk to the station, take the train to the end of the line, take the free bus from the station to the store, grab the stuff, and reverse the process. Because it was only one set of shelves I was able to fit the shelves into a wheeled suitcase and carry the uprights, so I didn't have to pay for delivery, but was able to manage it on the train on my own. (clovis_t can't stand furniture shopping, so elected to stay home and help out by sorting the scrap fabric, which had been used as packing material, into bags based on fibre type. Later, when I've got time the pieces will be ironed (still need to buy one of them) and folded neatly and stacked into boxes such that all the pieces can be seen at once, so when I need something I can find what I need quickly. Now that I've got enough pantry shelves and all of the books unpacked (though still mostly random on shelves at this point) I'm starting to get enough room to turn around. Still some boxes of craft supplies to sort out (and probably bring to the office, where I have more room), and I need to decide just where I'm going to keep big things like the pavilion, since it can't stay on the couch.

There is still ever so much work that must be done before December and all of the traveling that will entail...

I’ve asked a few people for questions in the current round of question game. If you’d like to play, let me know and I’ll ask you questions. If you’ve got questions you’d like to ask me, let me know, and I’ll write them up too. Here are the questions I’ve got so far:

( from learnteach )
( from vittoriosa )
( from jupiterorbit )
( from baroness_eilis )

When I enrolled at UTAS, back in 2005, they assigned me a computer-generated e-mail address, which was comprised of my first name, my last initial, and the numeral 0. At the time I told them that I would much prefer an address without any numbers in it, and I think I have vague memories of the computer tech guy in our department putting in a request for an address that didn't involve any numbers. But I never heard anything more on the subject, and, over time, got used to the address as assigned.

Today I received the following letter from the UTAS computer department:

Because you have a job entry on the HRMS or a student entry on the USRS
and the details there for your birthday, surname, or given names did not
match our existing records you were allocated an additional email account.
The account reiac is now being closed to eliminate the duplication.
Mail held in account reiac is now in a folder called reiac in the mailboxes of account reiac0.
All formal addresses now deliver mail to account reiac0.

This was a surprise to me, so I logged in to the Webmail (which I never use, since my mail is downloaded by Eudora) and checked the new folder. over 3000 messages! Apparently it was *also* subscribed to the various geology department e-mail lists. Paging down through the old messages, I found at least three which had been intended for me, personally, and sent each a reply letting them know why I never saw the message and apologizing for therefore not having replied (one was as recent as May of this year, one of the other personal letters was from as early 2006).

If only they had told me in the first place that the version of my address without the zero existed, I would have happily switched to that one and let them delete the other. Silly computer people...

Today I managed to do the first polish on the capsules from my second experiment. First thing in the morning I need to add additional epoxy to them to get the contents of the capsules to hold together when I do the final polish, and then on Thursday I'll be able to take them to the microprobe and analyze the results.

This evening was spent working on creating the final pdf of my thesis. I now have all of the figures for chapters 1 to 4 in place, and all the the appendices are ready to go. But it is now nearly 02:00 and I have to work again in the morning, so chapters 5 and 6 figure inserting will have to wait. I am really liking this ability to change pdf files!

Alas, today I missed my Italian Language class, again (missed it last week due to my boss only being available to teach me something during that time, and due to my boxes arriving at that time on Wednesday). But, honestly, I need to finish the thesis and turn it in. I don't *need* to attend the class. I wish to learn enough Italian to be courteous, but I could survive here without speak a word of it.

Haven't done any unpacking today, either. This is the first time I've ever had to work a full-time job while unpacking boxes, and it really slows down the progress. It has been five days since they arrived, and they aren't all unpacked yet. Granted, if I were only working full-time, it would be done, but this trying to finish the thesis thing is taking lots and lots of "extra" hours...

Today I downloaded adobe acrobat pro (version 9) free trial version. This is such a cool program. I now have assembled the text portion of my thesis. This involved stitching together lots of different files (one for the title page, another for the abstract, the table of contents, list of figures, the text itself, 14 appendices files, plus chapter title pages, which got inserted in between other pages. And then I told it to reduce file size, and it dropped from 6,000+ to ~2000 KB. I'd keep going, but it is somehow now well after midnight, so tomorrow I'll assemble all of the figures into a single pdf and reduce its file size, too. If necessary I'll use the "split pdf" function to break it into reasonable file sizes. Those two (or however many files the figures wind up being) files will be the version I turn in to the UTAS library for anyone who wants to read my thesis to go look at (since it is easier when reading on a computer to be able to open the text and figures separately, so that you can view them side-by-side when you want to). I will also make the printer's pdf. To do this I'll insert all of the figures into a copy of today text pdf, each located such that when the file is printed double-sided each figure will face the page it is meant to face. I'm very excited--the end is in sight! And the printing to pdf is fun with such a tool. It lets me rotate pages as needed, too, so the Excel spreadsheets from which I created some of the appendices which were in landscape orientation have been put into the thesis in the correct position.

I am terribly afraid that I am going to have to purchase this product. I don't *need* this much power on a daily basis, usually Cute pdf writer is good enough for my pdf printing needs, but it is such a joy to be able to do this merging that I'm afraid that when my month is over I'll want to keep the program. I suspect the manufacturer is counting on that...

I spent most of the day at home organizing stuff in the apartment. Discovered, to my joy, that at least two of the boxes we didn't find yesterday when we were looking to be certain that all of the boxes were present and accounted for are, in fact, here. One of the others might be here--we just set the boxes of paperback novels aside when we came to them--no point in unpacking those till we've got the paperback shelves put together, and can't do that till we clear enough space to make the assembly possible (these are the only shelves I shipped, because they break down and therefore are easy to ship; I made them myself--I see no point in putting paperbacks on store-bought shelves, which are never the correct size; I like books to have shelves which are just exactly the correct depth and height). Alas, the suitcase full of good fabric for sewing projects is still missing (noticing that it wasn't here is what prompted me to try to do an inventory yesterday).

This evening I spent three hours working on the thesis adjustments. The earliest mention for some figures wound up moving one page up or down as a result of the edits to the text--any place it is easy to move the figure itself so that it still faces the first mention therof I am moving it. Occasionally it isn't really feasible to do that based on how full the new target page already is, but I have to check all of them. I managed to finish the figure shuffling for chapters 1-3 today. Tomorrow I need to do chapters 4-6 and I'll be ready to try to compile the final pdf. Of course this means that I need to gain the ability to do this. The adobe page says that it is possible to download a trial version of acrobat professional. I wonder if that will let me combine various pdfs into a single document without doing something nasty like labelling them "this was done with a trial version"? I don't want to have to pay for the program for just the one use, but I do need to combine figures and text into a single file, and I know better than to paste the figures from CorelDraw into the Word document. I'm not willing to put up with the crashes that result.

Tuesday I received the examiner's report. Wednesday they delivered my boxes. These two facts alone would be enough to keep me very, very busy. Add to that experiments to upload, microprobe time, a conference next month to prepare for...

I saw the first bad news about the box delivery while the delivery guys were still there--we unwrapped all of the odd-shaped items from the huge sheets of bubble wrap, and set the resultant giant bag of bubble wrap away with the delivery guys. This means that I found out straight away that when the movers in Tassie "packed" my trike all they did was wrap a single large sheet of bubble wrap around it--they made no attempt to box it or do anything to protect it from pressure. As a result one of the wheels is seriously bent and the trike is totally un-rideable. I am particularly annoyed by this because I packed everything else myself, taking care to protect everything that could possibly be damaged. I had intended to put the folded trike into a large box, and then put my bean-bag chair into the same box to keep it from shifting around during transit. However, I didn't find a large enough box in the Uni box-store room, and ran out of time to go to a store and purchase a large box. When the shipping guys arrived I told them that I had wanted to put it into a box but ran out of time to do so, and they assured me that they were good at packing bikes and odd shaped things, and they would be fine with it. I still had things to pack in the back room, so I left them to it, and didn't see the results of their failed attempt at packing till it arrived.

On Wednesday I was a little surprised when the shippers said that that was the last of it and the truck was empty, but the pile looked more or less large enough. Today I finally managed to get the last of the large boxes unpacked so that there was enough room to move the pile of smaller boxes around so that we could see the numbers and compare them to our inventory. As it turns out there are seven items missing. Consulting the inventory the missing boxes and suitcase contains things like all of my best linen, wool, and silk for sewing projects, my highschool and university diplomas, a variety of good books, including some of the Harry Potter books, some of the books my mother wrote containing her memories, the music books I bought to learn to play my hammer dulcimer.

I've sent the list to the shipping companies who had control of my things in transit. I really, really hope they can find them!

This weekend I need to finish getting pdfs of my thesis ready for printing so that they can be at the printers in Tassie when they open on Monday, open and polish the capsules from my second experiment, get the data from today's microprobe session into the correct format for use in Mathmatica (and hope that we can figure out why the program isn't yet properly dealing with the routines my colleagues have written on my computer, when the same files work fine on theirs soon), get the boxes unpacked and the stuff organized. Does anyone have an extra five days I can borrow so that I can get it all done before Monday?

I've now completed the list of editorial chances suggested by both examiners. I will never, ever forget the fact that photos of thin sections are taken in either crossed-polarized or plane-polarized light. Just because plane polarized light photos tend to be less colourful than crossed-polarized light photos does not make them "plain". Why will I never forget? Because I had to open some 19 different CorelDraw documents to change "plain" to "plane" for 27 different figure captions. The other edits, being in the Word document itself, were far easier to make.

I've sent an e-mail to my advisor asking him if he thinks the various comments within the text of the one examiner about things he'd have done differently, but appearing before his list titled "minor corrections" are things I should act upon or not.

Tomorrow, while waiting for his reply I'll give the whole thesis a read-over and see if I can find any other places where I could have better expressed what I was trying to say.

From there my plan will be to find a way to create compiled pdf documents, so that I can create the electronic version of the thesis which I am strongly encouraged to turn in to the university along with the paper version. Once I have pdf files which have the figures facing the pages which they should face, if printed double sided, I'll take them to a local print shop and print and bind one copy for me to keep, checking to be certain that the printed version matches my vision for the document. When I'm happy with that I'll send the pdfs to the UTAS print shop with instructions for them to print and bind the final copies and get them submitted from there (there is no point in my taking the time to post the physical copies over the ocean, when I can do it electronically). Assuming that it all gets there by the 14 December deadline the Uni gave me, my degree will be awarded in the December graduation batch. I would, of course, love to have that all done before 1 December, or, at the latest, before 10 December. Why? Because I think that I'd like it if "the question" (about life, the universe, and everything) turns out to be "at what age did Reia complete her PhD?", and I'm seriously running out of time for that one, with the birthday only a month away...

Tomorrow I've got work to do for my post-doc--it is time to upload the next experiment, since we downloaded #2 yesterday... Oh--I forgot to pick up the capsules today--they should be mounted in epoxy and ready to polish. I need to remember to do that too. Guess I must have been distracted...

From the first day I enrolled at UTAS they sent all important correspondence electronically to my UTAS e-mail address. All bills to be paid, all enrolment confirmations, all "turn in this form or you won't be enrolled" notices, everything.

When I moved from our house in Fern Tree (technically South Hobart) to clovis_t's house in Allens Rivulet in November of last year I made a point of going to the main uni office and turning in my change of address, even though they only did electronic correspondence.

I thought I had also turned in my change of address with them when I moved from there to Italy in July.

Today my advisor sent me a scanned copy of the paper letter the graduate resource office sent me. It was a *paper* letter, dated 14 October, and sent to the address in South Hobart, where I've not lived for a full year! They did not also send an electronic copy! I can't believe they'd send something so important by snail mail. What are they thinking? Paper is too easily lost and is impossible to track once sent. This means that I've lost out on nearly three weeks of time in which I could have been making the (thankfully minor) corrections the thesis needs. If they had send an electronic copy on the same day they posted the paper version I would have been able to work on those changes straight away. Sigh.

Of course, they set themselves up for my disappointment in their choice of delivery methods--if the university had ever sent me anything in paper hitherto, I'd have expected them to do so this time. Do they really think that most phd students spend the many weeks after submitting their thesis waiting in Hobart for the examiner's results? I don't think so--most of us get a job and move on...

21 weeks ago today my boxes of stuff were picked up by the moving company. They told me that it would take 10 to 12 weeks to get them to Milan. Last week their UK counterpart told me that I should get them on Wednesday of this week.

21 weeks ago tomorrow I printed my thesis and left it with my advisor to be bound and submitted. Today my advisor tells me he's surprised that I've not yet heard back from the examiners, that it has been a few weeks since their report was turned in. He also told me that he's not permitted to give me any details till I see the report for myself. He later checked with the department head, who says that he filed his report on 29 Oct, so I should get official word soon.

21 weeks ago Wednesday I boarded a plane for my brief holiday between being a PhD student and starting the life of a post-doc.

17 weeks ago Wednesday I arrived in Milan.

since then I've:

* dealt with a ton of paperwork required when one re-locates to Italy

* found a place to live, across the street from my office, and acquired what I hope will be sufficent shelves to store my stuff when it arrives

* done *lots* of reading on the things I need to know to run experiments

* ran two experiments and have a third ready to start

* had one microprobe session to analyse the results of the experiment, and have the next one scheduled

* started learning to use the program mathmaticia to process the data generated by the microprobe

* attended a conference in Scotland

* had an abstract accepted to present a poster at a major conference in San Francisco in December (and received a travel grant to attend said conference)

* organized a regular SCA dance practice, attended Drachenwald Crown tournament, and made new friends locally who either have been or are interested in being part of the SCA

* made myself a nice linen skirt, a decent wool tunic (and started embroidering it), am making good progress on a nice silk/wool blend tunic, taken in a couple of shirts and a dress to make them fit better

* Enrolled in an Italian Language course, and had mostly kept on top of the homework, even if I've had to miss a couple of lessons due to work

* done one draft of a paper for publication from my research, and discovered that it needs major revision, and some additional modelling

* started trying to learn the additional skills I'll need to accomplish that modeling

* edited for grammar one paper written by a colleague in India, and did some work on figures for that paper and for another for which I'm a co-author

* shared information on things I'm learning on my geology blog

* continued to maintain my daily yoga, and most-days walking or dancing for exercise

* learned where to purchase the things I need to maintain the healthy diet I enjoy

* made it to the Alps three times for minor adventures

* hosted a couple of old friends, and some new friends (met through couch surfing)

* helped friends with their costuming

* attended a couple of BBQs and a couple of parties

* managed to read a few books for fun

Yet, for all that, I still feel like I'm behind and there is so much more to do! Before I fly out for that conference and my Alaska holiday in December I need to:

* run one more experiment

* process all of the data from the experiments and create a beautiful poster full of exciting information obtained there from

* do whatever the examiner's report says needs to happen to complete my degree

* unpack my boxes and put everything away

* finish the winter coat I started ages ago, and shipped in a "close to done state" so that I'll have something to wear when I go to Alaska

* build a spice cabinet so I'll have some place to put my spice jars

* keep doing my Italian homework and attending class

* take in my bileaut to fit so that I can bring it to wear at 12th night, decide what sewing project to take with me when I travel, and make certain it is ready for stitching without scissors on the flight

* try to find time to do the modelling I want to do for that paper, and see if I can actually write the paper, or, perhaps, start writing the other one we discussed doing.

Yesterday, about 5pm, as my co-workers were heading home for the day, I suddenly felt like I needed a break from working, and had a strange impulse to go be totally frivolous and spend money I really can't afford to be spending. I also felt like eating more food, never mind that I'd already has as much to eat over the course of the day as I normally do. So I suggested to clovis_t that he put down his computer and we walk into town and see if there was a caffè or something open, so I could indulge the odd impulses to spend and eat more than usual in one fell swoop (restaurants don't open that early in Italy, and that would have been more food and more money than I wanted, despite feeling impulsive). He agreed, and we set off, walking first north to one of the main shopping roads, and then east into the city center. As we reached the shopping area north of my neighbourhood we saw a store devoted to clothing made from natural fibres. Since I'm a total fibre snob, and was in one of those rare "shopping" moods, in we went. He was appalled at the prices. I didn't bother looking at them--I knew that they'd be dear, but just tried a few things on. Nothing I tried on got better than a slight sneer out of him, and while the fabrics were nice, the styles were not quite what I'd have them be were I actually going to purchase (other than one item where I like the cut but the colour was unacceptable), so on we went. Or next stop was a toy/game store, where we considered but did not purchase an Italian-language version of the Munchkin game, and I was amused to note that in the kid's book Prosciutto o Uovo Verdi (Green Eggs and Ham)the main character's name was changed from "Sam I am" to "detto Ferdi" to maintain a rhyme with one of the food words. And more amused to note that I'd never before *noticed* that "Sam I am" rhymes with "ham". Ok, so it has been many decades since I've read the English version of that story--back in those days rhyme was something that may have made the story easier to read aloud, but I didn't pay any attention to it.

From the toy store we wandered on towards town and soon saw a store called "house of cashmere". Having enjoyed looking at the cotton, wool, and hemp fibres at the hippy-clothing store, I decided to go have a look at some nice wool. When we entered I remembered to say "Buona sera" (I've been told that failing to offer a greeting when entering a shop in Italy is considered rude (and something that only Americans would do)), to which the reply was (in English) "May I help you?". I said that I was only looking, and proceeded to look at the many shelves of neatly folded stacks of wool, reaching out to touch a bit of fabric, and commented to clovis_t how nice it felt. At this point the saleslady suggested that they had quite a variety of styles available--t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, v-neck, round neck, with and without buttons. On a whim I suggested that I'd like to look at something in dark blue or black, long sleeved, with buttons, and she quickly went to the correct shelves and brought out several for me to try on. The first one was too loose, the second a good fit, but too short in the waist, but the third was decadently soft, long enough and a perfect fit. At which point she suggested that this particular style comes as a set, one t-shirt, one button up long sleeved version together for 190, or 120 for only one of them. Then she punched some buttons on a calculator and suggested that she could go as low as 175 for the pair of them. Remember the part about feeling like spending money recklessly? I also remembered a nice wool sweater I'd purchased years ago in Ireland which I adored, but which failed to follow me home from the airport once. Even though it had been getting old and worn out, I was still very sad to have lost it, and have been thinking of replacing it with something as nice for a while now. clovis_t, he who merely sneered at the clothes in the other place, commented about this sweater that it "looks quite nice". So, on a lark, I decided to purchase it. I got out my wallet and asked the lady "how much was that? 170?", to which she paused a moment, and said, ok, that is fine". When she saw my bank card she explained that at the end of the month the bank would give me an additional 10% back, because the business has a special arrangement with the bank. I'm not certain I understand, but if that happens it will be nice.
Wearing my new soft, lovely, beautifully blue, warm layers we continued on our stroll into the city. As we neared the Duomo (cathedral) area we started to see caffès with menus out front. The first few we looked at were uninspiring, but after we passed the Duomo we came upon another which had a few more items to both of our tastes. As we looked at the menu a waiter came up to us and asked us (in English) if we'd like a table. Looking at the risottos on the menu I told him about my "allergy" to wine and vinegar, and asked if their risotto recipie contained either of those ingredients (as so many do). He went in to ask and soon returned with the news that their recipie was safe for me to eat. So we got a table. He started to show us to one of the outside tables, but that is the smoking area, so I asked if he had something in a smoke-free area, and he led us up a cute spiral stair-case (I love spiral stair cases!) to a little inside dining room, with lovely crystal chandlers and real table cloths (unlike the outside area, which was crowded with smokers and had plastic table clothes). I choose the risotto con asparagi and he had the lasagne with a hot-chocolate. The waiter asked if he wanted cream on the chocolate, and he started to say "no", but I suggested that he did want it (since I'd happily help eat the cream--I may not like chocolate, but I adore cream). The cream was added on in amazingly generous proportions--the stack was twice as high as the chocolate itself. It was, alas, sweetened, but only lightly so, so I was still able to enjoy it (no, I didn't eat all of that cream myself, he helped me with it, and seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. Looking at his beverage, it appears that Italians like their hot chocolate the same way they like their coffee--seriously concentrated and in small volumes at a time. He seemed to really like it that way. Being a light meal for two at a caffè it was cheaper than a restaurant would have been, but at 33 Euros was also more than three times what I normally spend a day for food for one of us. But since my goal was to go be frivolous with my money, I couldn't complain, and I very much enjoyed the evening. We left the house a bit after 17:00, and returned home a bit after 21:00, having had a nice walk, some minor adventures, and goals achieved. Then we did yoga early and went to sleep before 22:30. I didn't wake up till after 09:00, so, for the first time in weeks, I'm actually caught up on my sleep! Today I've re-arranged some of the values I'd set aside to various "savings goals" to cover yesterday's spending spree, and then spent most of the day reading fiction published in the live journals of my friends. But there are a few hours left before it is time to head to the "un birthday party" a friend is hosting, so perhaps I'll manage to either finish my Italian homework or do some uni work (or both!) before heading out this evening.

Since I am still enrolled at UTAS as a student through the end of the year and the examiners have yet to get back to me with their thoughts on the thesis I submitted back in June I applied for the student travel grant for the AGU conference I am attending in December. I just received word that I was approved for the grant. This means I will need to send them a post-trip report as well as receipts; once I do my travel expenses (up to a $1000 US limit) will be refunded. This makes me very, very happy! I do have a budget for conference travel in my funding here, but the less I use of it, the more conferences, overall, I shall be able to attend!

I just spent way too much money on my holiday travel plans. Ok, so I found the best prices possible given that the flights are right in the middle of the holiday season, and it was right about what I'd been expecting to pay for them, but still, it is a lot to spend at once.

So, my plans:

3-6 December, Stockholm, Sweden, for sight seeing and a music/dance SCA event. Why? Because it sounded fun, and my birthday is the following week, so it seemed like a good reason to celebrate.

11-18 December, San Francisco, CA, USA, for a geology conference and the Boar's Hunt SCA event. Why? Because it sounded like fun, my poster was accepted for presentation at the conference, and my funding will pay for the Milan-SFO journey.

18-21 December, Seattle, WA, USA, for my mother's birthday. Why? Because she is wonderful.

21 Dec-5 Jan, Anchorage, AK, USA (and, possibly other regions, depending on people willing to help me get places) Why? Because I haven't been home since I flew back for Kylson's memorial party, and I miss it, and I didn't get there this summer due to no time/money for it. I'm counting on seeing family, SCA friends, highschool friends, and making it to an SCA bardic.

5-7 January, Seattle, WA, USA to see mom & co again briefly, and, with luck, other Seattle friends, too. Why? Because the pre-Christmas visit here is a short one, and doing it as two round-trips was easier (and the same price) as booking four one-way trips. Sure, I may have saved a bit of cash flying SFO-SEA-ANC-SFO, but seeing folk in Seattle again will be worth it, I think.

7-11 January, California, again, to attend 12th Night Coronation before returning to Milan. Why? Because flying back to Milan on the 11th was half the price of flying the week before 12th night, so what the heck?

If you live in any of these areas and want to see me while I'm there, please let me know ASAP, it is a busy time of the year, so coordinating timing to see everyone may become challenging as some people only have small windows of opportunity that time of the year. If you've got crash space available, or want to share a room at 12th night, let me know--having paid for the journey I really need to be careful with my pennies for a bit while the savings recover...

When I first looked at the apartment I wound up renting we noticed that it lacked things like a toilet seat and towel rack, and the free-standing wooden closet had broken hinges, no door knobs, and missing shelves. When I did the meeting with the owner to sign the rental contract I gave my colleagues (who came along because they speak Italian and I don't) a list of things the apartment needed. After the meeting one of them told me that I was to do the repairs and get the things I needed and give the owner the receipts for everything, and that he would pay for it. And so it was done. Yesterday was the day the owner decided that he wanted to pick up the extra, cash-only, portion of the rent (the part which is above and beyond the amount specified in the contract, but brings the total in line with the price advertised on the web page). So I left an envelope in the letter-box with a printout of all items purchased, the receipts for the purchases, and the remaining cash. Today I get an e-mail from the other of the two colleagues who attended the initial meeting with me. The owner called him to explain that he didn't authorize anything save the toilet seat, and that I can take the rest of the stuff with me when I go, he wants his money.

I replied pointing out that it would be foolish to take away the new hinges, door knobs and shelves cut to fit the cupboard, to say nothing of the bathroom towel rack, and asked if he really wants me to undo the repairs I've made to his property, since the next tenant will have the same complaints as to the condition of things. I also pointed out that since I'd been instructed that the owner would pay for things I'd done my budgeting accordingly, and if he really would rather have the repairs undone and the cash in hand he will need to wait till I receive my next pay check at the end of November, but since he gets the cash two months at a time, and what I gave him was November and December's cash, it shouldn't be a problem for him. I haven't heard back from that one yet.

In the same batch of e-mails was a letter from the shipping company saying that they don't want to deliver on Monday the 9th as they said they would, that the'd rather make it Wednesday the 11th. Sigh. Monday marks 21 full weeks since the company picked these boxes up in Tasmania. I was told at the time that it would likely take 10 to 12 weeks to get here. I do not want the additional two day delay. I want my winter clothes and warm blankets. I want my kitchen toys. I want my books. My costumes. My project. I want my stuff! Now. Yesterday.

Ok, enough wining!

Yesterday's dance practice was fun. We didn't have many people, but one of them was a new guy. He tells us that one of his friends used to do SCA here before the group exploded/fizzled out some years back and agreed to put us in touch with him.

Tuesday's microprobe session was fun. There are photos on my geology blog (link on the top of my main LJ page or on my facebook info page if you want it). It is nice to be generating data again. Now I just need to learn how to make mathematica work to generate the graphs and such I need. The short lesson I got from my college before she left for her maternaity leave wasn't really enough. So today is devoted to seeing if I can make it work, and if not, I'll call on my boss, who tends to be very, very busy, so I prefer not to bother him if I can avoid it.

I celebrated Halloween this year by getting out of the city. This was my first trip to the Alps without a native guide driving their car. Therefore I opted to head to the same town from which I commended my last alpine adventure. It turns out that one can catch a train there from the train station in the Milan city center, not the big Milan Centrale station from which one catches trains to some of the other Alpine communities. clovis_t and I had planned to head out for the adventure with some friends, but we'd originally planned to meet Saturday morning at the Centrale station, and it was Friday evening before we looked up "how to get to Canzo" on line and determined that we needed to be at the Cardona station instead. Since I still didn't have a local mobile phone number and my office phone wouldn't let me call our friends (he's got a mobile from another country, since we know him through couchsurfing) so I sent him a message via the couchsurfing web page, and another via facebook and hoped that he'd see it on time. There still wasn't a reply when time to depart in the morning arrived, so we weren't surprised when he didn't meet us at the station. The journey to Canzo takes 1.5 hours by that train (there are a lot of stations between here and there), so we started our adventure at 10:30, first wandering through the town of Canzo, and then heading up the low end of the ridge to the north of town, heading eastwards up the hill.

Very soon after reaching the forested part of the trail I started noticing chestnuts on the ground.



Not being one to pass up free food, I started pausing in my accent to put them into my pocket. Even just limiting myself to only picking up the ones which were directly in my path and either completely free or mostly free of their dangerous, prickly, exteriors my pocket was soon full. So I moved some of the food I'd brought along to much on whilst walking from its bag to share another bag with some other items and emptied my pocket into the bag. Onwards, and upwards. Trying not to pick up any more nuts. But there were so many of them! I added "only the really plump, tempting looking ones" to the list of restrictions, and still my pocket was soon full again. I hadn't reached the high point of the ridge by the time the amount of collected nuts filled the bag, and there was literally no room left in my backpack. From then on I managed to resist collecting any, and my progress up the hill became faster, but it was so hard to just walk past so much free food, just lying on the ground like that.

Since I was hiking with clovis_t, who only agreed to come along because he was looking forward to hanging out with our friends, we did only a modest hike up the ridge to the first trail back down to town, and then back to the train station. At the train station the automatic ticket machine refused to accept my bank-card, despite the screen stating that it was an option. I had no cash, and we hadn't passed any banks in town, but clovis_t had a 50 euro note. Alas, the ticket machine isn't willing to make more than 9 euro in change, and we weren't willing to donate 32.90, so we went back into town, where we found one open cafe. We bought one creampuff and two cookies for 1.50, which really underscores the difference between Milan and the smaller towns in northern Italy. In Milan I think they would have wanted the 1.50 for just one of the items. Cash obtained we purchased our ticket and were soon wending our way back to Milan.

It was so good for me to get out of town! There is nothing like country air and the sight of mountain ridges, pretty rocks, and more vegetation than fits in a window box to make me happy! I was in such a good mood after the trip that I was willing to do a bit of shopping in the city center when we got back. We finally checked out the American Book Store. Their Sci Fi/Fantasy section is reasonable, but didn't contain anything on my "don't have; must obtain" list, so we wandered into the basement, where they keep the really old, pretty, leather bound books. We wound up buying clovis_t a copy of Ovid whcih has the Latin on the left and the translation on the right. From there we found a store from which were were able to obtain local SIM cards for our mobile phones. Yes, that is correct, after 16 1/2 weeks in Milan, it is *finally* possible to reach me when I'm *not* in my office! The cards were priced at two for 20 Euros, or three for 15. So I bought three. This means that not only do he and I each have local numbers, it will now be possible to lend the spare to visitors who bring a phone, so that they can do local calls at local rates, should they so desire. (My number is available on my Facebook info page, should you need it. I've also got more photos from my hike in an album there.)

After we got back home I noticed that my index finger hurt a bit, particularly when typing. There was a tiny red dot on it, so I guessed that I must have acquired a splinter of chestnut spine. Therefore I went own to the lab to use the binocular microscope to see if I could see it. Yes, indeed, that was the problem, so I took my smallest sewing needle and attempted to extract it. This task was complicated by several factors. The needle, which looks sharp to the naked eye, looks rather blunt under the 'scope, and is a fair bit larger than the embedded spine. The afflicted part of the finger couldn't be rotated into focus without twisting my arm at a very funny angle. The angle of entry was such that it was needful to cross my left arm over my right in order to get the needle at the correct angle at which to work. The spine was very deep (compared to its size) and stubborn. So I worked at it a bit, then took a break looking for, finding, and removing, a few other spines which were more superficial and hadn't hurt at all, before returning to the problem spine. Eventually I managed to dig deep enough to release a tiny bit of blood into the wound, after whcih it was a simple matter to remove the spine, which, while very, very tiny, was still many times longer than it was wide. This morning my finger is much happier, though I can still see the spot upon which the surgery was performed.

I hope to do a bit of Uni work today, and my Italian homework. I may join clovis_t and the couchsurfers he's hosting today on their adventures in the afternoon/evening.

Nine more days till my boxes arrive from Australia!

I welded it! I welded it! That capsule is SHUT! Totally air tight, and there is no shadow of doubt about it whatsoever! I've been struggling with this skill for a while now. Step one in setting up my experiments has become routine--take a piece of gold tubing 2mm in diameter and cut off a 7 mm length of it, pinch one end shut into a triple-junction, and weld that shut. But the next part, which involves adding a measured amount of water (and putting the holder + capsule + water onto the scale and making note of the combined mass), then adding the powder (again making note of the combined mass) such that the water is 5% of the total, then adding a sliver of graphite (again taking note of the mass) and then carefully cleaning the end of the gold tube so that not one speck of the powder nor any other contaminant remains, and then pinching it shut and welding it has been a problem.

In part because this second weld needs to be done with the capsule "cooled" during the process. This means that we set a small beaker full of water under it, and carefully arrange wet tissue paper fore and aft, in contact with the full part of the capsule, so that the welding process doesn't cause the internal water to boil out before it is sealed shut. In part because I've had problems getting the voltage exactly the correct setting on our old, jury-rigged, welding system, and in part because the bad welds I'd been doing have required carefully trimming of the end of the capsule, and trying again, which, if all isn't well, can cause the part I'm welding to be low enough in the capsule that some of the powder is caught between the pinched parts of the area I'm trying to seal, causing the melting to get down to that level, and the whole thing to open up to reveal the now molten powder. This happened again tonight, on my first attempt.

But I resolved to try once more, and pulled out a second ready to fill capsule. I added the water. Check. Added the powder. Check. Not quite enough powder, add a bit more. Check. Added the graphite. Check. Thought about it, and after very, very careful packing down of the powder and cleaning of the top portion of the capsule I moved the pliers lower than I had been, so that a millimeter or two stuck out above the width of the pliers. Then I carefully pinched the tube shut, confidant that the powder is located at least the full width of the pliers away from the end of the tube. Then I took the capsule to the large clamp and very carefully placed only the outermost bit of the pinched end of the tube into it and cranked it shut. This is called a cold-weld, and some labs stop here, not caring if their capsule is truly sealed. But we care here. So then I very carefully trimmed the very end of it off, making an even tighter, narrower end to weld. Then I applied the welder. I still don't have the hand-eye coordination to do the whole length of the weld at once (I think I'm still jumping back away from it when the flash of light and noise of the welding happens), but the first pass sealed one end with a beautiful bead. Try again from the other end. Another beautiful bead. But the middle is still un-melted. Oops, they recommend always working from the end towards the middle. Oh well, one last try, and it worked! The whole end of the capsule is a beautiful bead, totally smooth and looking exactly like it should! I was so pleased that I literally broke into song, making up a tune to the words "It's shut! I welded it", and variations thereof. Now I'm going to celebrate by heading home early (it is only 8pm!), and in the morning I'm off to the Alps for a gentle hike with some new friends.

I've just spent a very frustrating hour on the web page trying to book flights to the US for the conference in December. I found reasonably priced tickets that would let me fly to San Franscisco on time for the Boars Hunt event the weekend of 12 Dec, and then return to Milan the first Wednesday in January (so that I can attend a new-years Bardic in Oertha, for the first time in years; I still need to book flights to Seattle and Alaska in between the conference and my return, but not today, I'm tired of dealing with airline web pages). However, every time I got to the final step to pay for the tickets I got a "unable to process your request" error message. Eventually, the process went on so long that the price of the tickets I had intended to purchase had gone up by 60 Euros. In anger and frustration, I checked the prices for returning a week later (in other words, able to attend 12th Night in the West). It turns out that the tickets were nearly 200 euros cheaper than the ones I'd been trying to purchase. So, I clicked on that flight, and, much to my surprise, it worked. This means that I will be gone from Milan for a full month--leaving here on 11 December, and returning on 12 January! I had so better get *lots* of writing and data analysis done during that period, since I won't be here generating new data.

tafelspitz, do you and your lovely lady have room for me to stay during the conference? The dates would be Sunday evening the 13th through Friday morning the 18th of December. I could bring something from Milano, if you tell me what you'd want.

corva, want to meet me at Boar's Hunt and keep me for that Sunday, sending me off to the city in the evening?

Anyone want to share a room at 12th Night? Anyone convenient to SFO have room for me on Sunday night after 12th Night? I fly out at 07:35 on Monday morning. I'm willing to do public transit to get to the airport, if I can find some place to crash that works well for that.

Alaskans: Who wants to see me, when? I haven't purchased those flights yet, so am still flexible as to when, exactly, I'm up there. Please tell me someone is hosting a New Years Bardic this year!

Seattle folk: ditto; I need to stop in and see mom and family, so anyone wanting to also see me, let me know what your schedule is like. But my main focus this time will be Alaska, since I did Seattle in June/July.