new student snapshots

There are new students arriving this week, and classes start on Tuesday. I've been busy keeping my head above water. The best stress relief in the day is when I'm called away from my desk to get photos. Here's some of my fun in the labs lately...

That's me in the nerdy clean room suit


The red lab


The yellow lab

weekend snapshots out of Prov

My boss took J and I out to dinner to show us around the area that all the faculty choose to live in south east of Providence, Barrington. He also wanted me to take photos of the area for the new website slide show to attract PhDs and new faculty to the area. He also paid me a huge compliment by picking one of the shots I took that day to hang on the wall in his new office. I really liked the area which is literally surrounded by water, but the sticker shock on real estate there is a little nuts. I do think that would be the area I'd really like to live in tucked right between Providence and Bristol.

Travelled up to Chestnut Hill right near Boston College for brunch with a good friend from high school (it only took about 45 min!). Then we trekked down this way to show her a tiny bit of the area. It was a good weekend of errands and relax mode... We were back full swing today. We have new tile being installed in our kitchen which looks really, really nice compared to the kinda schizy vinyl that was there before. I can't wait until it's finished and we can get more settled again.

peculiar sign snapshot

I am feeling particularly observant now that we've moved to a new place. I feel like I'm always on the look out for something I didn't know about. Nothing is routine yet, so I notice a lot more than I normally would. I was walking along to J's office and noticed a peculiar printed sign on a lamp post. It read "A commendable patch of light sits below this street lamp." No explanation just arial text with those words. Wish I knew the story behind that one...

snapshot of my haavard stereotype

Some of you know that I have an irrational problem with Harvard. I think it's overrated and that most of the students come across as stern malcontents. I squirm when I think of Haaaavad and I can't stand that everyone acts as though they are the best at everything they do. I enjoy driving down the street where the crew team has painted kill havaad on the cement. It's irrational, but I won't get into that.

So I was approached by a homeless guy in town today asking for spare change, I said "No sorry, I don't have anything for you," to which he replied "What are you from Harvard!?" I laughed out loud. I'm not sure if that says more about Harvard or Brown, but regardless it tickles me.

flashback snapshots

My boss took his management team to the Faculty Club for lunch today. The old home that houses the Club gave me flashbacks of the MWC President's house which we all got a chance to visit when we started as freshmen and then go to sled when it snowed in VA. It is a pretty swanky place with good food to back it up. I ate more salmon than I ate all of last year in one sitting. I won't use this blog to really discuss work, since it's officially a public blog. But everything is goin really well....and I'm learning more about how to supervise/manage people.

I've been glancing through the Projo (The Providence Journal) Homes section to get an idea of real estate around here and it's rather scary. I'd love to be able to buy a place around here since I really like the lifestyle, but it just doesn't seem reasonable with the prices the way that they are. It looks like we will be commuting the minute we buy something which means parking on the streets around here which doesn't look like a good time. I like my 5 minute walk while eating yogurt and watching everyone else park. Although it's a definite tradeoff of location over space. I think our place is charming, but I'm still adjusting to the tight storage. I miss the walk in closet in Tucson. I've been thinking about our old condo and I'm kinda sad that I won't ever craft out of my old craft closet, pivot our tv around the room, shimmy around in our galley kitchen, or water the plants on our porch.

This was a big move, and I don't think it has sunk in to just recently that we've moved permanently. Years ago I was really used to transplanting myself for a couple months over the summer (California, Rhode Island, and New York all for CTY) and then heading back to the familiarity of Ohio or Virginia. I keep accidentally referring to my old job in the present tense with my new coworkers, which I think is a symptom of indulging in too many flashbacks. Ah, I'll get over it, no worries.

old friend in a favorite place

Today's snapshot (and we're back to some mental snapshots for a while since I can't freak people out by taking photos everywhere I go, although I'd like to most of the time) was back at Ikea. Ikea is a favorite place of mine, but that is apparently the case for all of Massachusetts and a portion of Rhode Island on the weekend. They literally had four traffic cops directing the 1/2 mile long traffic into the place. We got lucky with a good parking spot and headed straight in to meet up with my old college friend Anna (not to be confused with my other old high school friend Anna who I'm meeting up with next weekend - yea!). I hadn't seen her since my wedding and it was really nice to joke around over swedish meatballs and wander the overcrowded Ikea. We walked away with a new bed frame that doesn't require a box spring (since that didn't make it up the third story steps), another kitchen sideboard/wine rack, a new rug, and decorations for J's new office. Anna and I are looking forward to our college reunion over Homecoming in October. I got my flight down to Virginia just this past week, and I am not quite sure what to expect. Should make for good snapshots - Anyone have good reunion stories/advice/tips?

spadyssey treat

For my bday and as a reward for finally having all our boxes unpacked (I visited J's new office and he has the bookselves totally full), we visited the Spadyssey day spa for a couples massage. This was J's first massage and it seems he liked it enough that it won't be his last. When we finished the massage they surprised us with a birthday cake that tasted really good. The spa was right downtown, so afterward we headed over to the oldest indoor shopping mall called the Arcade. It's a miniature version of the Arcade in downtown Cleveland. Topped off a nice birthday in a new place...

rolling pin women

There are many new things to absorb around here. I have this sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that there are many things I don't know, that I should know, but I don't know enough to know I should know. This applies especially to work, but also to the Providence area. We're learning the new area, and while exploring the other day we came across a group of women dancing with rolling pins that they banged together while playing folky music. Their cheeks were dusted with flour and there wasn't any explanation for their elaborate choreography. Anyone have any idea what that was all about?

Other tidbits I've snickered at lately: The menu at the nice restaurant we went to for my bday had a tag line at the top that read, "We live in a world today where the lemonade is made from artifical flavors and the furnish polish is made from real lemons. - The quote was attributed to Alfred Newman.

birthday extravaganza

Coming down off a really busy couple of days at work as our numbers for this crazy open house event rocketed up from 113 to 256 in three days! The crew in my office took on the challenge of the largest number of visitors in a long time for my birthday (last year they only had 90 some people total). It made for a busy day, but everything went off without a hitch, including the dean's new idea to do a "hustle" in between sessions meeting with students for 5 minute intervals with the Hustle song playing as they changed locations. I was asked to speak to the prospective students and parents with my extremely limited knowledge, but I think I pulled it off.

After getting out from work much later than usual, J and I headed to the RISD Art Museum for some R&R. It was Gallery Night in Providence and there was also a modified Waterfire in downtown Providence on a random Thurday night. All in all a bunch of exciting stuff for a Thurday birhtday celebration. The coolest part was putting together a cool collage at the RISD art museum in the adult art class, while enjoying the gallery music. We ate some seriously good food at Citron, drank more than our share of good wine, took in our second Waterfire and walked home.

weekend shots

The long weekend was the perfect blend. We had Monday off for Victory Day which it seems RI is the only state that celebrates. We bounced all around RI. My hardy folks walked up and down the 41 steps to our apartment and all the way downtown (25 to 30 minute walk) twice. We were on the move to Providence Place, South County beaches, Roger Williams Park, Waterfire downtown, RISD Museum of Art, and Newport Mansions. We had really good luck finding good restaurants - Paragon champagne brunch, Spatz British Pub, Narragansett Athena's Mediterranean, Fire and Ice Mongolian bbq, and more. We met up with Stephanie who was in town from Tucson for a conference in Boston - It was great to see her!

Photos from Oakland Beach south of Providence:




Roger Williams Park right on the edge of Providence:




Newport Mansions:

waterfire snapshots

My folks were in town and we really checked out the area. I feel like I was able to see more of the area and get a good feel for the Providence area. Providence is really an extremely accessible city that promotes people walking in and out of town. One highlight was our first Waterfire experience. Here is a blurb from the Waterfire website that explains what it is all about:

WaterFire, Barnaby Evans' award winning fire sculpture installation on the three rivers in downtown Providence, has been praised by Rhode Island residents and international visitors alike as a powerful work of art and a moving symbol of Providence's renaissance.

WaterFire centers on a series of 100 bonfires that blaze just above the surface of the three rivers that pass through the middle of downtown Providence. The string of fires illuminates nearly two-thirds of a mile of urban public spaces and parks, and residents and visitors gather to stroll along the river while listening to a memorable and eclectic selection of classical and world music that serves as a melodic accompaniment to the normal sounds of urban life. The fires are tended from sunset to past midnight by black-clad performers in boats who pass quietly before the flames. There are no admission charges to WaterFire.

WaterFire is an experience that surrounds viewers on all sides and impacts all five senses. The crackling flames, the fragrant scent of blazing cedar and pine, the flickering firelight on the arched bridges, the silhouettes of the firetenders floating by in their torch-lit vessels, and the extraordinary music from around the world engage all of the senses and evoke unique emotions from the many thousands who come to stroll along the river walks. WaterFire has captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands of people, transforming downtown Providence and enlivening the nights of the state's capital city.

Here are some snapshots:

snapshots on the way to work

My walk to work is my favorite part of living in Providence so far. It's pretty refreshing to walk to work eating my yogurt and then mosey on home after a day at work. We found an awesome local shoe store with some funky shoes that I can wear to work and easily walk back and forth around campus.

Here is a glimpse at some of the best views on the way to work:
This first shot is the porch where my future friends ;) like to grill on the second story porch.





More photos coming soon...

dunkin snapshots

swimming, soccer, ballet, oboe, and kaaaraate! Have you all seen that crazy Dunkin Donuts commercial where the bored, morose kids are being driven around on their overscheduled day? The camera flashes to their bored faces while the jingle sings about drinking a smoothie while you drive. Then the mom's face gets fierce when she says "...kaaraaate" It is one of those commercials that tickles you, but you don't know how they got away with it since it doesn't quite make sense.

It's impossible to drive or walk around here without seeing a Dunkin Donuts. They are even in the Home Depots and tucked in the corner of gas stations. They spawn their mediocre donuts everywhere. I can easily avoid those sweety gigantic drinks they sell too - Aren't they something like a week's worth of empty calories?

It's been a week of walking back and forth from work and everywhere we needed to go. It love it about as much as I expected to love it! It's a 6 minute walk to work for me and we found a CVS and Whole Foods within walking distance, so we will rarely need our car. I'm a big fan and just wish you could get bigger places to live around here (without being a millionaire). Although we seem to have enough space to organize most of our stuff and we are much more livable now. My folks arrive with the honda today! They took a big pit stop in Ohio for some down time.

snapshots around campus

Part of my new job is PR/marketing and I'm the new in house Division photographer. I bet you can tell this is my favorite part of my new job ;)

I walked around with the Dean earlier to get some "fresh and edgy" shots of campus for our new semi-annual brochure (yet to be renamed by Division wide contest). This will go out to students, alumni and friends of the Division.

Here are some of the shots:



Two entrances to the engineering building which is probably the most similar to my prison like middle school.






The Brown Bear

organized snapshots

Our relocubes arrived on Monday afternoon and within three hours they were completely unloaded, but that meant there were boxes everywhere. Yesterday when I got home from work we unpacked all but a few and we still have some extra space to organize everything. We're missing hangers which we will run out to get once my folks get here with our car on Friday. We are able to walk just about everywhere and we could walk thirty minutes to the Providence Place Bed, Bath and Beyond, but now that our place is livable I don't think there is any rush.

In other gooood news, I finally got into the photo class that I was waited listed for at RISD. I was bummed when they put me on the wait list because I figured that meant sorry you're out of luck. But I have a spot for a class that starts Sept 12th. It's one day a week from 6 to 10pm right down the way from us. I'm excited to keep photography goin with my day job in full effect.

orient snapshots

Today was my seven hour orientation to everything related to Brown. Even though I've been working a week now, I realize that I still have so so much to learn. The funny little lady doing our orientation kept referring to what used to be in a certain spot 20 years ago to give us landmarks around campus. Then she'd laugh to herself and say, "oh that's such a Brown thing to do to refer to the past as the present". Apparently everyone around here has worked here for a gigillion years so they refer to buildings that are ten years old as new.

I arrived home after the marathon orientation to our relocubes parked outside and the mover men ready to go. They were these skinny scrawny guys that I wasn't quite sure about at first, but they were speedy demons. They had two cubes unpacked and shoved up three flights of stairs in less than 3 hours. It was a pretty amazing and now it's even more amazing how much stuff we have piled up everywhere. We made some good progress to get some stuff unpacked, but it's going to take a while to really be organized. We're living what J refers to as "European city style" now. Soon we'll buy our milk in giant juice box containers ;)

beach snapshots

The heat headed out of town, so we headed south about thirty minutes to one of the nearby state beaches. It was a nice drive and even better weather. The beach wasn't very crowded and we wandered along the water picking up seashells along the way. There is some sort of rare bacteria that I saw mentioned in the paper that is making it hard for bottom dwelling crabs, etc to survive so we saw our fair share of crab shells.

J found tons of creepy crab skeletons with which he pretended to pinch me. He was especially excited by this translucent horseshoe crab skeleton that I wouldn't let him keep ;) Goddard Memorial State Park has what I immediately thought would be an awesome wedding venue. It was a carousel house minus the carousel with really cool tiled windows and round vaulted roof. It opened right up to the beach, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good photo because the farm hockey team was having a big houpla to announce their new team for next year.

We tailed some seagulls down the beach that were not so excited to have a snapshot taken.

snapshots on the way back from nana's

We just got back from visiting J's Nana up north of Boston. It's such an easy drive straight up I-95. I'm happy that we're so close to her now. We took her out to dinner for some fish and back for the requisite brownies and ice cream that have become our routine when we visit her. During the drive back it struck me how green everything was and that the major interstate seems to cut right through the forest.

View right along I-95 headed south right south of Boston somewhere

My Casio caught this shot through the car window as we cruised along at 60 mph - Water view for all you Arizonans!

Nana kept offering us chairs and furniture which is so sweet of her. But our stuff should be here Monday or Tuesday (it's headed toward Carlisle, PA from Dayton, OH right now), so we can continue to camp out and assemble our new furniture. J has rigged up an "desk" which I'm amused by and we're borrowing a chair from the patio area outside.

professional snapshots

"Grease lightning" boss approved buying a Canon 5D with the nicest possible lens so that I can become the Division's official photographer. No joke! He wants to spend $4000 to do it right. Talk about spoiled! I can trade an office without windows for a nicer camera than my own in hand whenever I want to play. I guess he had paid some professional about $2000 to take photos last year, so this is just a drop in the bucket and will pay for itself in two shoots. This may seem inconsequential, but I'm truly excited! I'm off to find the 28-200 Canon lens I want.

J and I found a great wardrobe with drawers and all sorts of space at Ikea. We literally had to wrestle it up three flights of stairs. Our kitties made a break for it and made it all the way to the front door, but they are back safe and sound. Even though we may let Sophy wander free if she doesn't stop peeing in the house. Turns out she was scared of the little door on their new litter box, so we removed it and she seems to be back on track.

Ikea is always a feast of design cool. I also found these awesome fabric panels that I'm going to hang on my gigantic office walls. The ceilings are so high that it echoes and some sound engineer told me that I need to get tall stuff on the wall to pull the sound up. I love being surrounded by these engineer guys that seem to know how everything works.


Good thing Sophy is so cute! She is behaving herself now and finally gets the new litterbox.

snapshots across the way

The best part of our new situation is that we live two blocks from my new job and six blocks from J's office. Which even in this ferociously hot weather is a bearable walk. We are immediately next door to the Brown fields and tennis courts right on the corner of a prissy residential neighborhood and one of the main drags here in the East Side/College Hill area. We're paying double our old mortgage in Tucson for a place half the size, but I think it's ideal for now.

Across the way from us there is another building similar to ours. It is a renovated Victorian with split level apartments. The apartment on the corner has a round walk out patio with these cool hipster people that are always out there grilling. I swear they look like they are straight out of a commercial...maybe for some sort of cool new organic flip flop or some sort of solar powered grill. I long to be on that second floor patio enjoying some sort of turkey burger. I want to be friends with them. I think I miss my friends! Aw well, enough whining, who wants to come have a burger in Providence? You're welcome any time.

Here's a view out the other side of our apartment from our living room window. I can't get a shot of my future friends because there is a tree in the way and besides they might think I'm creepy ;)

tiled snapshot

My favorite part of our new place is this gigantic hall window with cool colored tile panes around the edges. I expect that it will continue to catch my attention and become a frequent snapshot. Soon the trees outside the window will turn fall colors and the grass will be covered with leaves. I think Fall in New England is seriously something to look forward to and I can't wait to walk to work with the leaves crunching under my feet.

actual snapshots

Here are some quick shots of our new place. We are on the third floor of this renovated Victorian that houses a periodontist office. Our sweet ladylady is the doctor's wife. We are off to escape the 110 degree heat (no joke!) in the mall for a couple hours. Eeek, J is spread eagle in front of our new air conditioning unit. I hope I can pry him away to head over to real heavy duty air conditioning.

Take it easy and stay out of the heat!

blurred snapshots

Today was a big blur of excitement. Someone mentioned today that working for my big boss is like "trying to catch greased lighting". I couldn't resist the reference to Grease the play/movie, but I realized that they were right. I have two core bosses, the Dean and the Executive Officer of the Division of Engineering. Both of which I can tell already will be incredible mentors and challengers.

My snapshot today is of my new office door plate. It's a plate with bronzed raised letters that say my name followed by Manager, Office of Student Affairs. It looks like it's been there for years, although I'd only been there a few hours when I noticed it. I was greeted by an office full to the brim with old world maps, which my predecessor had hanging there for over 47 years. I'm probably going to pass on the faded maps, but I do look forward to settling in more both with the space and the people.

deflated snapshot

It's 3:30am and the only snapshot i see is our deflated air mattress. Yes, we must have been in denial that we had attempted to keep it firm by blowin it up at least 3 times before we actually made it to bed last night. Since it was our only place to sit (outside of the toilet which I'm amused by) we thought it just lost air because we moved around on it a lot. Turns out it has some sort of hidden leak that caused it to deflate almost completely. J spent the rest of the night completely on the floor and I in my denial state slept in the middle of a semi deflated air mattress. So much for our "romantic" camping out in our new place...

Let's not forget that I start my new job in about 45 minutes and a good night's sleep may have been an asset to my day. But eh, i'm lucky to have a job that I'm excited about. I get to head off to my newly painted office while J gets to go buy a new air mattress.