Exciting News

Well there's a lot of exciting news to report. First, if you didn't catch my last post, I finally finished my Master's. It was a sort of mad dash towards the end, but I made it. I had given a couple of talks about the work I've done, so the defense/oral exam part was pretty easily. It also helped that I had Doug and Cinzia there lobbing me softball questions that made me look like I knew what I was doing. :)

Second, I signed on with ANDRILL to handle the IT operation for this year's drilling expedition. That means I'll be heading back to Antarctica in October for another two month stint. I'm excited at the prospect of going back and being part of all the hard work that the ANDRILL team is doing. I'm hoping to make this years expedition even more successful on the IT side of things than last years.

Third, I'm moving up to Minneapolis! Elizabeth and I are (99% sure) renting a house in St. Louis Park, about a block from Cedar Lake. This has been a long time coming, and I know both of us are looking forward to moving in together. It's a three bedroom with a nice screened in porch and a bit of a yard. I'm converting one bedroom into an office and will be working remotely for ANDRILL from there. I really like the Twin Cities area and it will get me closer to my family and friends in Minnesota.

With all of that going on, I've still managed to get a few other things done. I was out in Boston a couple of weeks ago (just before my defense) to attend the 2007 AccessData Workshop. The workshop was about bringing data representatives, software tool specialists, scientific researchers, curriculum developers, and educators together and developing educational activities. It was a really great time. I made a lot of great contacts and got some very valuable feedback on PSICAT.

I also gave a talk to the Ames Kiwanis. I didn't know what to expect going into it. The University PR department put me in touch with them about possibly giving a talk, so I figured if nothing else it would be good practice for my defense. It was a really great experience. Everyone was very interested and asked a lot of great questions. So much so that I didn't know if I was going to get out of there. On Thursday, I'm going to give a similar talk to some students participating in the REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) program through the Human Computer Interaction department here at ISU.

The last bit of news is that Dr. Dobbs picked up an article I wrote about PSICAT. I don't know when it will run, but when I get more info, I'll pass it along. I wanted to thank Anne for her patience during the several months it took to actually get it written. It didn't actually take me several months to write, it just kept getting preempted for higher priority things like finishing the thesis and such. So anyhow, thanks Anne, and thanks Jon from Dr. Dobbs for reading it, and thanks Bill for the edits.

I'm going to make it a point to blog more often so I don't end up with these novel-esque entries. Now that the preparations for Antarctica have begun, I should also have more to blog about. Cheers.