If case you haven’t noticed, I have moved my blog to a new part of my website.  It was easier to keep this blog then try to rewrite it from scratch.  So head on over and get up to date!

It’s official!  I am on my way to Harvard University to take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Autumn after I finish my thesis.  Read all about it in my Journal entry.

Many years ago, Dad and I trekked into the Emigrant Wilderness in just north of Yosemite National Park.

It was a. . . memorable journey.

This year, for Dad’s birthday, I have decided it only appropriate to chronicle this journey for future generations, and have done so in my Journal. Read, enjoy, and may the powerbar be with you.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Well, Thanksgiving has come to this humble abode. This year, I am celebrating it a week early. The webcam is now up, and I encourage all to view it and comment on the the mania as it ensues! We will be online on Friday (today) from now for a few hours, and then tomorrow all day (British time).

This will most definitely be my final Michaelmas Term as a student at Oxford. I have once again let the Autumn go, but not without at least a few (albeit poor-quality) photos of the scenic vistas of this wonderful city.

Enjoy. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for the Thanksgiving webcam on the 22nd (next Saturday)! That’s right, we’re having Thanksgiving the weekend before the official day this year.

My Research site has been live for a few weeks now, and I thought I would mention it here.  There’s not a whole lot up there yet, but hopefully once I get my doctorate and start publishing, it will get busier.

I have also move my CV over there, and added a link to the new site in the top bar above.

Yes, it’s time once again for Thanksgiving celebrations Oxford-style.

I have about 16 people coming around this year, and am hoping to get all of us at one table!

If you can’t make the festivities, you are more than welcome to watch the webcam (either on the right hand side of this page orthe larger version), which will be live most of Saturday (and part of Friday too!).

With life moving quickly these days, I thought I would pause for a bit to reflect on things once more. "To not be happy is still to be" is a bit more philosophical than some of my other Journal entries, but I hope you still find it interesting.  All comments welcome!

I have waited a long time to post this one. After Amy-Ruth's wedding, another Ole, Kristie, and I decided that our time with Amy-Ruth was not as long as we wanted it to be.  We also discovered - after swapping photos in the early hours of the morning after the reception - that what was a wedding on March 31st had just become a wedding night on April Fool's Day.  This was an event that we could not pass up.

At first, we heard a rumour that the newly minted couple were actually staying in the same hotel, but after a long time of searching for their car in the parking lot, we talked the receptionist into telling us that they had actually checked out that day (good thinking!).  

Then I remembered that Amy-Ruth and Jason had kindly provided all of the guests with their new address on the back of the wedding programmes, and that their house happened to be a mere 10 minute drive away.  Vacating the hotel premises (an event spurred on at least a little by the arrival of a security guard, no doubt do to our giggles and suspicious walk through the parking lot looking at every license plate), we found said house, and though not certain it was indeed the happy couple's, we nevertheless set to work.  The windows steamed as we chuckled to ourselves composing a letter and trying to avoid looks from the passing police cars.

And now, a little background is in order.  Amy-Ruth, Kristie, and I all lived in Mellby Hall at St. Olaf one year.  In an unfortunate event, Amy-Ruth went to collect her laundry one day, and the whole lot seemed to have gone missing.  This load, moreover, contained all of her bras.  In a petition to the hearts and minds of all students, Amy-Ruth wrote a very long, loving, but insistent note and posted it all over the Hall.  The gist of the note was that, if the person who took the bras really desperately needed them and couldn't afford their own, then she was happy to give them away; otherwise, they had better return them ASAP because there was one very unhappy camper on the second floor.  They never returned.

This story provided all the fodder we needed to drum up just what exactly had happened to those bras.  And in a humour that I suspect only those who are Oles will truly appreciate, the result was our Nefarious Letter.  Click the image above to (re)live the moment. 

The birds are out, the weather is unpredictable, the days are long, and everyone's dying to get outside.  I've put up a selection of the Term's events, from May Morning and a Cambridge conference to dinners for the graduates of the business school and New College.  There are picnics, punts, and plays - plenty pictures for perusing.

The picture I won't show is of my supervisor standing at the door to my office threatening to chain me down to my desk until I produce some writing.  It's true, though.  I think he's serious too…