Is it too early for cider?

For the past 24 hours, Cambridge has started to feel like Fall. It hasn't been particularly cold, but there's something in a cool wind and overcast sky that says, "Let's go carve some pumpkins." Maybe I'm just getting excited about the holidays already (which is probably not a good thing). Or maybe the act of changing apartments is making me subconsciously want change in every aspect of my life. Either way, I could go for some caramel apples right about now.

A long summer...

Hello again, everyone! Sorry for the long delay between posts, but Emily and I hosted more than half our readership at some point over the summer, and so our motivation for blog updates was somewhat reduced.

We've had a great summer, despite this being our first summer to not have an actual multiple-month break since ... ever. We'll discuss some of our summer adventures with family and friends (and post pictures too), but for now, here's a brief update on us.

Emily's still working at Borders, and still enjoying it. A few weeks ago she was relocated to the basement, working on incoming and outgoing shipments. She loves it there for three reasons (in descending levels of significance): 1 - she doesn't have to deal with customers; 2 - she isn't dependent on the schedule of other people; and 3 - she doesn't have to work weekends. So it's been a nice change. We finally got to spend a weekend together (for the first time since moving here) and so of course we slept in, had brunch, and watched movies all day.

My research is going well, though I'd love to take some time off sometime soon. I submitted my first year dissertation in mid-June, and gave my first seminar to the research group in July. The seminar was well-received (not least of all because I stuck within the time limits); I had several compliments afterward and two people stopped by my lab the next day to see my research.

For the last five weeks I've been running a full-time experiment on one of the group's ten or so cryostats, which is basically a six-foot-tall, souped-up vacuum thermos. One of my semiconductor devices is in the cryostat at a temperature of -459.1° F. The big downside to the experiment is that it has to be refilled with liquid helium every 24 hours, and helium is expensive, so I feel obligated to work at least a little bit on it every day. Luckily, I've been able to connect to the lab and run the experiment from home, which means I only have to go in for an hour or so on weekends.

Coming up, we'll be moving to our new apartment near Pembroke. It's the triple threat compared to our current place: bigger, cheaper, and more central. September 1st is the big moving day, so we've got two weeks to get packed and ready to go. We're pretty excited about the move.

More to come soon!