Coming Out of Hibernation

Updating the blog has been on my to-do list for about a week- though on my mind for much longer. As items have gradually been crossed off the list, the blog remains the single nagging task that still remains. It's not like I've been busy. Mostly doing a lot of this:

But I'm ready. I'm ready to start telling you what I (and we) have been up to, things I've been learning, what's on my mind, lots of things that many of you may or may not even care about. I'll make it official and start on Monday, because that seems like the thing to do.

10 months

monkey see, monkey do

look how clever he's getting!

Sparks Family ca. 1990

so awesome. I need to submit this to awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Not in a million years...

did I ever think I'd say "I went outdoor rock climbing at night in February in Boston." Guess you never say never. I love having a rock climbing buddy again.

stop motion baby

mobile baby

President's day

I remember when a three day weekend was a sacred thing. A not to be missed chance to go on an adventure. This year, as I'm frantically getting ready to graduate my President's day three day weekend was a little less glorious.

It featured many hours of mad scientist fume hood scribbling (most of this is Roger's actually).

 Several batches of this.

WAY too much grinding up powders in this (my hands are a blister covered ruin).

Sintering samples in this. (SPS, spark plasma sintering chamber. Don't be fooled, there's no spark or plasma, just a huge electrical current and sintering)

And after spending my entire weekend I only end up with this

as you can see, I'll be lucky if two or three of those sixteen meet the criteria of correct composition, >95% dense, pure single phase and crack free necessary for thermoelectric measurements in my final experiments.

Here's to graduating in a few months!