Corcovado

The first day we saw the Corcovado or "Cristo Redentor" (Christ the Redeemer) was on the cloudiest day. We only had about one minute of time to get a clear picture of the 80 year-old statue on the list of the 7 Wonders of the World. Today, we took the most amazing helicopter tour from Sugarloaf Mountain and had an amazing view from above. It literally takes your breath away. Such an amazing sight...

In the moment of clearness


These two are from a helicopter above the Christo

Michelle Hartman, Ph.D.

I've been completely MIA from my blog recently and once I explain it, you'll understand! I have been BUSY!! In 6 weeks time, I went to San Diego to finalize wedding details, went back to Massachusetts to finish writing my PhD without electricity (thank you Irene) and complete my defense (sucessfully!), finish my last experiment to get my paper published, drive down to Maryland, apply for our VISA's to go to Brazil for our honeymoon and catch up on sleep. Even more than that, I am getting married in 18 days! Yikes!! That being said, I am sooo excited for our upcoming wedding! Very happy that I am officially Dr. Hartman! And really really really looking forward to a week in Rio de Janiero to relax and celebrate with my love not only for our new marriage but also to celebrate both of our recent graduations! What a year... That being said, I can FINALLY share some graduation photos since I've FINALLY finished my PhD!!! :)

Wedding Registry/Hotel/Info

Hi Everyone!

We've been getting emails about our gift registry and also hotel information for the wedding weekend.

You can find all of this information (and more) on our wedding website:
http://lanes2be.weddingwindow.com

But, to sum it up, we are registered at:

Williams & Sonoma
Macy's
Crate & Barrel
Bed Bath & Beyond

We have rooms booked at the Empress Hotel in La Jolla (a short 2 minute walk from the reception venue). To get a booking discount, tell them you are booking for the Hartman-Lane wedding & the discount is applied when you check out.

Thanks a lot all!

Big Move!

We are buying boxes today, so I guess that means it's really happening. We are moving to DC! Yup, that's right. Dave got a job at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Producer Price Index department. (Don't ask, I don't know!) He starts his new job August 15th so we're packing up and moving him down to our new apartment on August 9th. We're sad to leave Boston, but excited for what's to come.

As of now, Dave will be alone with Ginny until I am finished with my dissertation. I'm defending on September 7th and will help him get moved in and then come back to Worcester to wrap stuff up. I don't have a job lined up yet, but have applied for several jobs. I've been in contact with a scientist at NIH to be a post-doc, and it looks promising. I've also applied for some private-sector and government (non-post doc jobs) and hope to hear from some of those as well.

Our new residence will be in Rockville, MD in the adorable town center, complete with cute shops and restaurants. We'll be about a 3 minute walk to the metro and... wait for it... we don't have to pay for a parking spot!! (That was HUGE when we came down to look for an apartment).

So stay tuned and wish us luck!

Business & Networking Cards

Many of you know the importance of networking. You do it all the time. At work, at meetings, at lunches, but you may not realize that you also network at the gym or the hair salon... dare I say it, even at a bar! You never know who you will meet or when. I recently started working out with a group of about 6 people. The guy who "ran" the group is married to the VP at BD Biosciences for the Health Economics and Outcomes Research Group. Whoddathunkit? Gave the guy my "grad student" card that I made myself and am now connected to her, a valuable resource. Awesome. Always be prepared. You never know who you will meet!

These are the cards that I made myself in grad-school. I think you can get some through UMass when you are a student, but I wanted something a little more feminine.


But now, I'm facing the idea that I may be looking for a job while NOT at UMass and living in our new town Rockville, MD. So, I found these awesome "mini" cards. They are half the size of a business card. I was able to use confocal images that I took during my graduate research for the back-side and put my current info (email and phone number) on the opposite side in a cool lime green color, which happens to coordinate well with the images on the opposite side. Cool huh?!? Even better is that you can upload up to 100 different images. And they are cheap! $19.99/100. I think that's pretty good considering you are getting a unique product that can really promote your "brand". In full disclosure, I also ordered some non-nerdy ones with a cool pink-geometric pattern when I don't want someone to know my full geekiness. :)

Use the link above for a 10% discount!!

These are some of the images I used for my custom cards!

Little Miss Picky

This cute little thing, Ginny, well, don't let her fool you. She is as picky as they get. She only eats her dog food when she is absolutely starving and there is no sight of human food anywhere. Now, the good news is, we aren't totally worried about her eating habits because she doesn't wolf down everything in sight. However, her pickiness has made me realize that it's actually easy to "trick" her into eating her dog food. For example, all Dave has to do to get her to eat is to put one little piece of human food in her bowl and she gobbles it up! Amazing!! Problem solved! But, we do give her little things every now and then and this is what we've discovered our sweet Ginny likes to eat.

1. She loves her food cooked in egg yolk (we do this occasionally because it's good for her coat). When we do this, she inhales her food... and we usually only give her one yolk (cooked) with a few tablespoons of kibble mixed in.

2. She goes CRAZY for barbecue... especially pork ribs. It's like she's died and gone to heaven. When we barbecue, you see her almost twitching as she sits watching us devour the deliciousness.

3. Chips/pretzels... anything like that.

4. Carrots, broccoli, oranges, apples

5. Cheese! oh boy... she waits at our feet when we grate cheese

6. Peanut butter (really though, who doesn't?)

7. Meat (any kind actually)

8. She really WANTS to like chocolate chip cookies (especially straight out of the oven) and mint chocolate chip ice cream, but no chocolate for Ginny. :)

OK, so most dogs will eat just about anything, our sweet puppy does not like the following:

1. Pickles

2. Strawberries

3. Cucumbers

4. Lobster

5. Asparagus

6. Zucchini

As you probably guessed, she will eat most things, even if it's not her favorite, these are just the things that she absolutely won't eat :)

Toilet Paper

This story is 100% true. All of it.

Dave & I were out shopping at Costco. We needed toilet paper. Even though we live in a small apartment, Costco size TP is totally worth it because I hate always having disposable items on my shopping list. That's why I stopped buying paper napkins, but that's another story. So Dave is off looking at something else and I'm sent to fetch the TP. On my way towards that paper aisle, Dave reminds me to get the cheap stuff. (He's an economist, it's not his fault). So, I go and I start looking at all the different TP and the prices. Scott 1000 was by far the cheapest (even compared to Kirkland brand) and so that's what I got (mostly in fear that Dave would go back to look at the prices and discover that I didn't choose the absolute cheapest one).

We get home and he looks at the toilet paper.
Dave: "You got this one!?!? Why?? This is horrible!"
Me: "It's the cheapest. You said get the cheapest"
Dave: "But not that cheap!"
Me: "Too late now... besides, it can't be that bad"

We begin using said toilet paper and it is truly awful. It was 100% recycled fiber (whatever that means) and just plain awful. By the time we are finished using the first 3 rolls or so, we had a couple of the old stuff left. We saved that... boy did we save it! In fact, if we had guests over, we put away our cheap awful toilet paper and put out a roll of the "good stuff". Seriously. This is true. Though, once (and only once) we forgot to put out the good toilet paper and Dave was concerned... he said "do you think Jen noticed our crappy toilet paper?" ummm... not sure. We did not let it slip after that.

Move forward to May. Dave is graduating with his Master's Degree and his mom, dad & sister come out for the event. At this point, we are bout 80% through the bad TP and have about 3/4 of a roll of the "guest TP".
Dave says "should we put out the good toilet paper?"
Me: "No way! It's just family. Not anyone we need to impress. Besides, they can help us use up all this bad toilet paper!"
Dave: gives me a look.
Me: "Besides, we don't have much good stuff left, we'll have to go buy more if you want to use it while they are here."
Dave: "I guess so. Hopefully they won't notice"

If they noticed how crappy our TP was, they didn't mention it. It might have been said behind our backs, but I can deal with that.

At our most recent trip to Costco. I declare, "We are getting good toilet paper, and I don't care how much it costs". We both laughed. It took us forever to get through that stuff! One mistake I'll never make again.

But this all brings me back to when I was a kid... probably in middle school or something like that. We were all in front of the TV watching StarTrek and a Charmin commercial comes on, you know, the one withe the Bear in the forest with the newspaper and his roll of huggably soft toilet paper. Anyways, dad, being the funny one, says, "Ya, like I look for comfort when I'm in the toilet". (Insert 4 kids laughing). But seriously dad, I do. I didn't before, but I've been to the other side and back. It's way more important than you might think!