How’s this for a picture? September 17, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Nance, Dr. Jay , add a commentSparky asked for photos!
I will take a photo of the wicked cool shoes I got. I actually found 3 pairs of shoes! One pair doesn’t actually count since they were clones of the ones I was wearing that day…
I got some great outfits for the girls, some awesome cookie cutters (dinosaurs!) and some margarita mixes.
The photo of the day is not those great scores. No…it is this.
Jay took the girls to swimming and then up to our town’s birthday celebration. When he got back to the car, he thought he had a ticket…no not a ticket, a note that said "oops, my neighbor backed into your car. She didn’t notice, and I didn’t see damage until I got close"
The name and number of the person who hit the car and who saw it was on the note.
This was taken with his cell phone camera.
Fortunately, when he was talking with the insurance company, the woman who hit him called and gave him all of her info. She had his license plate and called the police to report the accident once her neighbor told her. The police gave her our phone number (!) and she called with her info and apologized.
Life is never dull!
I promise to take photos of the shoes and some of the dino cookies we made today!
supporting the economy September 15, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Nance, Home wreckers , 1 comment so farTomorrow, two mom friends and I are hitting the local outlet mall. We leave Metro West Boston at 9:30 with Dunkin’ donuts in hand to get to Wrentham outlets!
So darn exciting. Most of this trip is for ME ME ME! I have discovered the my pregnancy with Luna has left me with size 7-7.5 feet. Hmm, is this why NONE of my size 6.5 shoes FIT?? Ack! So I need at least 3 pairs of shoes! I know I know! I hate shopping for shoes…But maybe I’ll get lucky.
I also want to get some nice pants. I am starting to get tired of my jeans and nice shirt look at work…but then again, they are so comfy….
I do need to buy some dressed for the girls. They have both decided that dresses are the THING to have. Luna gets irrational if you give her pants. G-d FORBID she wear pants.
So far, things are going a bit smoother at work. I am looking at taking most of the day off Tuesday, All of Wednesday, all of Thursday and most of Friday. There is a meeting on Tuesday I need to come in for, a goodbye to my admin person on Friday, but MAYBE I can actually FINISH the bedroom in between? I have 2 walls stripped of wall paper, but only 1/2 washed (you need to wash the remaining paste off before you patch and prime). The hope is to get the base coat down Sunday or Monday night on these two walls and then strip and clean one more wall on Tuesday. I really hate the stripping wallpaper part. I know I’ve said it before…
Yesterday, Soleil’s Pre-K teacher related a funny story to me. They were asking the kids where the dinosaurs they were playing with should live. Soleil’s answer? The Cretaceous period. Oh yeah, That’s my girl! Then we had a debate between Jay and I whether T. Rex lived in the Cretaceous or Jurassic period. I lost, it was the Cretaceous. Soleil told me "Of course it was mommy." Damn you Leap Pad! You have taught my child more of the dinosaurs than I know!
And this is equity? September 14, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : She Blinded me with Science , 2 commentsI rarely talk about work in detail. Sorry, just how it is, but I feel I need to get this off my chest.
Yesterday the strategic plan for our workplace was set out. It was focusing on some basic goals for the next 5-10-20 years. Great. One of the things that was mentioned was that we need a cafeteria.
What?
Yes folks, we have a lunch cart. Literally a cart with food on it and we can buy from there and eat in the lobby where tables are set up. In the summer, we can go to the courtyard. Usually, we bring in food or go out to lunch at one of the many fine establishments nearby.
The idea was that a cafeteria will allow more people to come together to discuss their ideas and foster the growth of science.
Okay, I can see that. Now what was missing?
We recently had a 2 year study on gender equity. This study showed that for some staff, women were in dead end jobs, women had less chance of upward mobility in salary, women had less office space, women at the same "grade" as men has less pay at all levels.
Was this addressed in our strategic plan? No. I called the committee on the carpet for this. They said, yes yes, we will include it. We missed it.
How the hell do you "miss it"? How can you say that 1/3 of your employees are not part of the plan?
And then we wonder why women are not doing as well as men in science?
The guy next to me yesterday actually asked "Are you concerned about gender equity?" and I said "Of course. I I’ve been passed over things for men when I was clearly the better person for the job". He was shocked.
I think that is part of the problem. Some people don’t see gender as an issue so they assume everyone does the same as them. Some people still punish women for having families. Some women take dead end jobs because they don’t need to be the bread winner…. the list goes on.
But in any organization, understanding why there are differences needs to be addressed.
And I am ashamed that they "missed" this.
The claim is they will have it in the final report. One of the senior scientists whom I dearly respect came over and gave me a brava for calling her on this (she was on the committee). She wants more women to make a stand.
and that is what we have to do….
Life and an update September 13, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Life...otherwise, Home wreckers , 1 comment so farFirst, I have dropped the password for now. I am checking my stats and deciding if I am happy with this or not. At the moment, I am leaning towards staying at typepad. I have until October 8 to decide.
Life, oh my. Life.
I have taken down the wallpaper from 1 3/4 walls from our bedroom. I want to finish these two walls (ie, clean, prime and paint) before I continue with the other two since I can’t move all of the furniture away from the walls. This is one of the things I hate doing. I LOVE painting. I HATE stripping wallpaper. However, it costs almost $500 a ROOM to get wall paper removed by a pro. Screw that. I am planning to take next week off and finishing the project so we can actually get this done before the holiday (Rosh Hananah is Sept 23). I doubt I’ll get it done, but I have to try. I can’t wait to get this damn paper off. When we first moved in, we saw how the paper had faded around their picture frames. But it was a strange yellowish fade. Then I realized this was the Northeast wall which NEVER saw sunlight and I figured out it wasn’t sun fade, but SMOKE stains. Ick ick ick. The floor has multiple cigarette burns too, but we are getting the floor refinished in May, so that should go away then…
My bosses are willing to give me the time off, BUT I may still have to work. You see, there is this asshole idiot moronGuy in the White House who thinks we need a manned mission to Mars. Ok-ay… Well, this has cause NASA to redirect their budgets. Which means we are running short staffed on our contract with NASA. We have 4 people on our team. We should have 6. I may need to log in and come in if needed next week because we are so short handed. Thanks Pres Bush! Love ya DoubleYa!
I just got a tax bill for Annabelle, my car. The town valuated my car $3,000 more than I paid for her. So now I need to get the bill of sale, call and get it revalued… Mass does a funny thing of an excise tax on your car. So, I pay $25.00 per $1,000 of value. This means they are asking for $75 more than I should be paying. Grrrr.
I have several posts rolling in my head, but little time. Today is a meeting day. I have three meetings and some new software to write. Anyone written a module in Perl before? I think I need to write one soon and my training is in C,and C++….
Sigh…
moving soon… to here..maybe September 12, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , add a commentI have decided to move here. I am in the process of moving all of my photos off of typepad and into photo-bucket since wordpress doesn’t host photos.
I will probably password protect my photo posts to protect my family. If you already have the password to my typepad blog, that will be the password here. If you don’t, and you want it, you will need to email me for this info and have a darn good reason why you want it!
Oh no! I just read Johnny’s post and I am now rethinking. Am I lemming that follows Johnny? No, but I did count on sitemeter to work as usual, and if it doesn’t that may be a big issue….Rethinking….
Moving….soon..maybe September 12, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , 2 commentsI made a decision. I’ll be moving over to wordpress soon. My typepad expires October 8. I am in the process of moving all of my photos over to photobucket since wordpress doesn’t hold photos….
Please update your links and blogline feeds to
http://spacemom.wordpress.com
I will continue to post at both sites until everything is moved….
I will start password protecting certain posts. Mostly, the ones with photos.
IF YOU HAVE THE CURRENT PASSWORD, then you will have the password for the photos. 
If not, then you need to email me and tell me why you want them!
For reference, S will now be known as Soleil (French for "of the sun") and Lwill be known as Luna (Moon or lunatic, take your pick).
Thanks guys! I hope that you all can make these changes. Sorry to make you do this!
———-
ETA: Damn you Johnny! I just read Johnny’s post this morning. WP is not all it is cracked up to be. Back to thinking… Maybe I will move, maybe I won’t….
My Memories September 11, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 3 commentsI debated putting my September 11 memory out here. But here it is.
I was at work. Usual place for me to be. I was deep in my
infertility nightmare. Once this cycle failed, we would start
injections. Me, the terrified of needles woman would have to take daily
shots in the stomach in attempts to have a child. Lovely.
I was checking my favorite web-board and compiling code, my normal
MO when I saw a post about a plane hitting the Trade Center building. I
immediately went toNYTimes dot com. My stomach lurched. Lee lives in
Manhattan. He must not be down that way. Why would he? He stays on the
upper west side, most of the time…
I went across the hall to Warren’s office. We all gathered around
listening. We listened for a while. We heard about the second plane,
the car bomb outside the state department, the pentagon, then the
unthinkable happened, the tower collapsed.
I texted Jay who was in a staff meeting. The observatory director
was reporting from his pager the news coming in. Every body was. The
staff meeting continued in shock.
As the flights were confirmed, HR rushed and reported that none of our people were on those flights. Small miracles.
Then Jay came down to my office. As he started to talk to me, his cell rang. MIL called. Lee was okay and so was Keith.
Keith? From Seattle? yes, he was at the Millennium hotel at the WTC
covering a conference. He called Lee and said he was out of the
building, but he was going to stay and cover the story. He filled one
of the first on site stories for his editor. What we didn’t know until
later, was that Keith stayed until he saw people leaping from the
buildings to their deaths. He could not stay watching that. So he
turned and headed towards Greenwich Village.
He was at least 1/4 mile away when the first tower fell. Lee did not
know this and lead to panic attack and fear. He thought Keith was still
there.
We thought they were both safe. Jay and I went out for a walk. I
looked at the sky and made the lame joke of the “Ranger Blue Sky” (the
1994 NY Rangers celebrated their Stanley Cup win on a day where the
reporter called it the Ranger Blue sky”), although in truth, it was
beautiful.
Work was closed. We took my friend Lynn to our house to watch the news. We were all stunned and sick.
We went out side for a walk. A small plane was flying overhead.
Within seconds, a fighter was next to this plane. We are near an
airforce base. That night, Jay and I went for a walk again and noticed
that except for the patrolling fighters, the sky was eeriely silent.
Those are my initial memories. I got sad today and started to
explain when Soleil asked, but then stopped and told her I wasn’t ready
to talk about it. Because I am not.
Please go to 2,996 today, or this week, or this year.
I posted a tribute for John W. Wright Jr.
Unfortunately, I can’t get to the 2,996 site right now. I am hoping
that D.C.Roe has just been FLOODED and needs to fix the technical
details.
My memory… September 11, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , add a commentI debated putting my September 11 memory out here. But here it is.
I was at work. Usual place for me to be. I was deep in my infertility nightmare. Once this cycle failed, we would start injections. Me, the terrified of needles woman would have to take daily shots in the stomach in attempts to have a child. Lovely.
I was checking my favorite web-board and compiling code, my normal MO when I saw a post about a plane hitting the Trade Center building. I immediately went toNYTimes dot com. My stomach lurched. Lee lives in Manhattan. He must not be down that way. Why would he? He stays on the upper west side, most of the time…
I went across the hall to Warren’s office. We all gathered around listening. We listened for a while. We heard about the second plane, the car bomb outside the state department, the pentagon, then the unthinkable happened, the tower collapsed.
I texted Jay who was in a staff meeting. The observatory director was reporting from his pager the news coming in. Every body was. The staff meeting continued in shock.
As the flights were confirmed, HR rushed and reported that none of our people were on those flights. Small miracles.
Then Jay came down to my office. As he started to talk to me, his cell rang. MIL called. Lee was okay and so was Keith.
Keith? From Seattle? yes, he was at the Millennium hotel at the WTC covering a conference. He called Lee and said he was out of the building, but he was going to stay and cover the story. He filled one of the first on site stories for his editor. What we didn’t know until later, was that Keith stayed until he saw people leaping from the buildings to their deaths. He could not stay watching that. So he turned and headed towards Greenwich Village.
He was at least 1/4 mile away when the first tower fell. Lee did not know this and lead to panic attack and fear. He thought Keith was still there.
We thought they were both safe. Jay and I went out for a walk. I looked at the sky and made the lame joke of the “Ranger Blue Sky” (the 1994 NY Rangers celebrated their Stanley Cup win on a day where the reporter called it the Ranger Blue sky”), although in truth, it was beautiful.
Work was closed. We took my friend Lynn to our house to watch the news. We were all stunned and sick.
We went out side for a walk. A small plane was flying overhead. Within seconds, a fighter was next to this plane. We are near an airforce base. That night, Jay and I went for a walk again and noticed that except for the patrolling fighters, the sky was eeriely silent.
Those are my initial memories. I got sad today and started to explain when Soleil asked, but then stopped and told her I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Because I am not.
Please go to 2,996 today, or this week, or this year.
I posted a tribute for John W. Wright Jr.
Unfortunately, I can’t get to the 2,996 site right now. I am hoping that D.C.Roe has just been FLOODED and needs to fix the technical details.
More on passwords September 8, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , 1 comment so far
So, I have set up a test blog here…
The advantages here:
1) I can put my password back up if I need to
2) I have 3 blogs to play with, one is for family and completely off of your guys radar. In fact, if you found it, you would need to uber secret password and username to get in, so that is completely out.
3) I have a great deal of flexibility with the design
The cons:
1) if I password protect, then only those people I invite come in. I’ve invited people who I read, but that’s kind of limiting
2) $90 a year.
Wordpress:
The advantages:
1) Free!
2) I think I can set more than 1 blog, but I don’t think I can password protect everything.
3) Free
4) I can password protect some posts.
The disadvantages
1) Heavy feel to it
2) Little flexibility in the design
3) Can’t just up an password protect this site, but I can allow any wordpress user in…but that gets tricky, I force people to become wordpress users…
There is a question of WHY do I have a password protected site?
This is easy, Jay is in a small field. If you google our last name and the telescope, well the first page of results are all Jay’s work. I did google Nance and our telescope and I luck out because there is a scientist with the last name of Nance who does work with it. Yippie!
I want to protect him. And my girls.
In addition, I had a bad experience in the past. Read HERE for more. Basically she lied to several of my friends and I and actually went to a place where she impersonated someone via Yahoo and emailed things to another person (very high schoolish) and created a nasty scene. I even stopped going to one of my favorite parenting boards because I discovered she was screwing with me there….
I sometimes feel I am past that. But other times, I am worried that if I go live, she will find me and bug me again.
Until my year runs out, I’ll be posting on both sites, wordpress and here. But my decision will depend on alot
More on passwords September 8, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Spacemom , 4 commentsSo, I have set up a test blog over at wordpress. Check it out!
The advantages here:
1) I can put my password back up if I need to
2) I have 3 blogs to play with, one is for family and completely off of your guys radar. In fact, if you found it, you would need to uber secret password and username to get in, so that is completely out.
3) I have a great deal of flexibility with the design
The cons:
1) if I password protect, then only those people I invite come in. I’ve invited people who I read, but that’s kind of limiting
2) $90 a year.
Wordpress:
The advantages:
1) Free!
2) I think I can set more than 1 blog, but I don’t think I can password protect everything.
3) Free
4) I can password protect some posts.
The disadvantages
1) Heavy feel to it
2) Little flexibility in the design
3) Can’t just up an password protect this site, but I can allow any wordpress user in…but that gets tricky, I force people to become wordpress users…
There is a question of WHY do I have a password protected site?
This is easy, Jay is in a small field. If you google our last name and the telescope, well the first page of results are all Jay’s work. I did google Nance and our telescope and I luck out because there is a scientist with the last name of Nance who does work with it. Yippie!
I want to protect him. And my girls.
In addition, I had a bad experience in the past. Read HERE for more. Basically she lied to several of my friends and I and actually went to a place where she impersonated someone via Yahoo and emailed things to another person (very high schoolish) and created a nasty scene. I even stopped going to one of my favorite parenting boards because I discovered she was screwing with me there….
I sometimes feel I am past that. But other times, I am worried that if I go live, she will find me and bug me again.
Until my year runs out, I’ll be posting on both sites, wordpress and here. But my decision will depend on alot…
