1 Day, 1 Sentence [November 2023]

Wednesday, November 1 – Got into work early to start a column and stayed late to run a filtration step.

Thursday, November 2 – Had leftover Chinese food from the previous night for lunch.

Friday, November 3 – Decided it was a good idea to start cross stitching potential Christmas gifts the month before Christmas.

Saturday, November 4 – Hiked up a “mountain” in a neighboring town to take advantage of the mild weather, though we were pretty well past peak fall colors, and trees were mostly bare.

Sunday, November 5 – Another warm November day, so we got in a final pickleball session for the year.

Monday, November 6 – Spent the day attempting to figure out what was going on with the conductivity probe’s calibration coefficient.

Tuesday, November 7 – Chauffeured my parents to take the bus to the airport for their Singapore trip, thus beginning my Home Alone experience (spoiler alert: no bandits, wet or otherwise, and much fewer traps).

Wednesday, November 8 – Took a field trip to the gas station for slushies and watched the Revolution’s season officially end with their second loss to Philadelphia in a best of three playoff series.

Thursday, November 9 – Due to unexpected circumstances, we had to repeat the filtration we did at the beginning of the month, and this one went excruciatingly slowly for no discernable reason, keeping us in the lab until 11 pm.

Friday, November 10 – Reported back in to work bright and early, but took off for a couple hours in the middle of the day for a dentist appointment.

Bare trees post-brush fire

Saturday, November 11 – Met a couple coworkers at Tower Hill Botanic Garden for Gnomevember, followed up by a quick hike along the Wachusett Reservoir and a trip to Wegmans.

Sunday, November 12 – Raked up the carpet of leaves in the backyard by myself in an hour.

Monday, November 13 – Since I was uninspired to cook over the weekend, I turned to one of my standard fallback dinners of pasta, tomato sauce, and meatballs.

Tuesday, November 14 – Made it into the lab before 7 am for double column day and found our loading material very much not thawed, which could have thrown off our entire week from the start, but somehow, we recovered to finish the day at a halfway decent hour.

Wednesday, November 15 – Performed the next (and final) step of our shortened run with no unexpected problems.

Thursday, November 16 – Went to get bagels for lunch; I had sausage, egg, and cheese on a jalapeño cheddar bagel.

Friday, November 17 – Mandatory work seminar, but we got samosas.

Saturday, November 18 – Quiet day at home, minus a quick trip to the library.

Sunday, November 19 – Took a trip to the grocery store for milk and animal crackers.

Monday, November 20 – Made waffles.

Gnomes

Tuesday, November 21 – Filled in for a coworker and presented update slides to one of our clients.

Wednesday, November 22 – Moved bagel day because of Thanksgiving, but I had leftover rice/ground beef/corn/tomatoes, string cheese, and clementines for lunch.

Thursday, November 23 – Did two loads of laundry, raked, and made a sides-only Thanksgiving dinner of mashed potatoes, stuffing, steamed broccoli, and cranberry sauce.

Friday, November 24 – Baked my yearly loaf of pumpkin cranberry bread and batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

Saturday, November 25 – Watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which I quite enjoyed.

Sunday, November 26 – Had a block of tofu to use up, so I made peanut tofu to have an excuse to eat peanut sauce.

Monday, November 27 – Started a column and dealt with a bunch of miscellaneous tasks at work.

Tuesday, November 28 – Began reviewing batch records for scale up.

Wednesday, November 29 – Spent all day going through batch records.

Thursday, November 30 – Worked a split shift, finishing batch record review in the morning and returning in the evening to set up a reaction.

Wachusett Reservoir

1 Day, 1 Sentence [October 2023]

October began with our largest scale run yet, continued with a series of DoE (design of experiments) runs, then we got a break to prepare for another run scheduled for November. Meanwhile, it was fall, meaning leaves changing colors, raking, and shorter days.

Sunday, October 1 – Went apple picking and left with 17 Gala, 2 Empire, 5 Jonagold, 13 Smitten, 17 Honeycrisp, and 6 mystery apples, plus 4 Harrow Sweet pears, apple cider, and apple cider donuts.

Monday, October 2 – The beginning of a busy week in the lab, involving finalizing batch records, running TFF (tangential flow filtration), equilibrating a column, and setting up two more columns to run overnight all at the same time.

Tuesday, October 3 – Started the day in the lab at 7 am,but managed to hand off 4 columns in various stages of cleaning/loading/equilibrating and leave before 4 pm to get in a quick hike on the way home.

Wednesday, October 4 – Arrived at work to hear about everything that went wrong the previous night, but we forged on ahead with the run.

Thursday, October 5 – Another long day at work, though at least I got pad thai for dinner.

Friday, October 6 – Celebrated the unusually high number of October birthdays with cake at lunch, and completed the final concentration and formulation of our protein in the evening.

Saturday, October 7 – Good news: saw a Cornell ChemE friend for the first time in 6-ish years; bad news: watched the Revolution lose to Orlando, though Carles Gil tried his best to save New England with two goals, one in (wait for it) second half stoppage time.

Sunday, October 8 – Officially ended the tomato season with 1075 cherry tomatoes and 75 yellow pear tomatoes and baked an upside-down apple cider spice cake.

Monday, October 9 – Had the day off for Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, so went for an 8.2-mile long 6-mile hike around a lake.

Tuesday, October 10 – Ate leftover banana French toast for breakfast.

Fall colors

Wednesday, October 11 – Continued running DoEs for a client and had a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich for lunch.

Thursday, October 12 – Used comp time to spend the day hiking at World’s End, a park on a peninsula in Hingham, MA with views of the Boston skyline.

Friday, October 13 – Survived Friday the 13th without any mysterious power losses, equipment explosions, and/or missing orders (our lab is 1000% haunted).

Saturday, October 14 – Did laundry, made sushi for lunch, went for a hike near my high school, and had the absolute pleasure of seeing New England lose to Nashville, though Tomás Chancalay had another two-goal game and almost brought the Revolution back from a first half three-goal deficit.

Sunday, October 15 – Finished Mistborn (The Final Empire) and raked for the first time in the season.

Monday, October 16 – Finally got around to catching up on documentation tasks at work.

Tuesday, October 17 – More lab organization while in between runs.

Wednesday, October 18 – Cornflakes for breakfast.

Thursday, October 19 – Got into work early so I could leave early and go hiking in search of fall colors.

Friday, October 20 – Spent part of my morning on the lab floor taping around our equipment.

World's End

Saturday, October 21 – Completed a jigsaw puzzle of scenes from The Office and got to see the Revolution actually win a game for once, their last game of the regular season, against Philadelphia, on two Gustavo Bou goals.

Sunday, October 22 – Went out to look for more fall colors, then came home for a raking session.

Monday, October 23 – Enjoyed an apple cinnamon yogurt (sadly, a seasonal item from Trader Joe’s) as part of my lunch.

Tuesday, October 24 – Packed columns, mixed buffers, and made applesauce with some apples that had been hanging around in the fridge.

Wednesday, October 25 – More or less a normal day.

Thursday, October 26 – Eventful day for the lab – there was a new piece of equipment delivered, our existing equipment got a maintenance visit, and we had a water delivery.

Friday, October 27 – Managed to get off work early enough to get in a quick hike at a nearby farm and see the sheep.

Saturday, October 28 – Had coworkers over for lunch and pickleball to enjoy fall before everything became cold, dark, and grey.

Sunday, October 29 – After almost a year, finished a cross stitch piece for a Cornell friend.

Monday, October 30 – Two days before starting client work, decided to rearrange the lab, which may or may not have involved a lot of climbing onto the lab benches.

Sheep

Tuesday, October 31 – Low-key Halloween at work, though my lightsaber did make an appearance.

1 Day, 1 Sentence [September 2023]

September wasn’t the most exciting month, but that was probably a good thing considering the August we had. We got a bit of a break from lab work at the beginning of the month before ramping up again going into October.

Friday, September 1 – Start of meteorological fall at the end of the week as we finished up batch records and did some troubleshooting to figure out why the pressure was high on one of our instruments.

Saturday, September 2 – Went to see an outdoor art exhibition at a nearby nature preserve, harvested the first yellow pear tomato, and watched the Revolution drop two points against Austin on the last play of the game after an encouraging Tomás Chancalay brace.

Sunday, September 3 – After hearing his name in fantasy circles all across the internet (and picking up his books for free), I began ridiculously prolific author Brandon Sanderson’s original Mistborn trilogy.

Monday, September 4 – Celebrated Labor Day by making a tomato, onion, and spam quiche to use up some of the tomatoes.

Tuesday, September 5 – Spent the day at work inventorying chemicals and labeling shelves.

Wednesday, September 6 – Arts and crafts continued with picture labels for our drawers of AKTA parts.

Thursday, September 7 – It was a Thursday.

Friday, September 8 – Moved on from labelling to working on batch records for an upcoming run.

Saturday, September 9 – Hiked in a neighboring town and saw some fun fungi and lots of ferns, then witnessed the beginning of the Revolution’s slide into a depressing fall as they yet again snatched a draw from the jaws of victory by allowing Minnesota to score a(nother) second half stoppage time tying goal.

Sunday, September 10 – Had hot dogs for lunch, did some work on the garage door, made an instant pot chocolate cake, and started Avatar: The Way of Water.

Quiche

Monday, September 11 – Finished blue people Avatar 2 – cinematography was solid, but I dislike Jake Sully to the point where I wanted the incredibly militaristic antienvironment jerks to win.

Tuesday, September 12 – Took tomatoes with smoked pepper jack cheese and peanut butter and jam on marble rye to work for lunch.

Wednesday, September 13 – Edited batch records for both projects and continued my Grey’s Anatomy rewatch while in between shows on Netflix.

Thursday, September 14 – Meeting day at work was disrupted by one of our fridges losing power.

Friday, September 15 – Lunch was burgers and fries.

Saturday, September 16 – Made chili, baked cranberry orange scones and mini cheesecakes, tried crab flavored potato chips, and saw the Revolution break their streak of last-minute ties by having Omar González, of all people, score a second half stoppage time consolation goal in a loss to Colorado.

Sunday, September 17 – On a trip into Boston, stopped at Tatte for a prosciutto fig panini with gruyere and pear for lunch.

Monday, September 18 – Started lab work for both projects at the same time.

Tuesday, September 19 – Simultaneous project work continued, plus batch record editing.

Wednesday, September 20 – Got to have a leftover giant meatball for snack.

Tomatoes

Thursday, September 21 – Went to the Big E for the first time, where we saw some animals, got deep-fried Oreos, had a lot of people try to sell us things, admired quilts and cross stitch projects, and visited all six New England statehouses.

Friday, September 22 – Returned to work for the fifth straight day of filtration for one of our projects, and finished the major edits to a set of batch records for our other project with over a week to spare.

Saturday, September 23 – Baked a coffee cake, tried out playing 7 Wonders thanks to the library, and watched the Revolution draw Chicago with no second half stoppage time goals.

Sunday, September 24 – Started the last season of New Amsterdam.

Monday, September 25 – Worked late to set up and start an overnight reaction.

Tuesday, September 26 – Found a round red mushroom on the front lawn.

Wednesday, September 27 – Ran the second half of our post-reaction solution through a column and set up another reaction.

Thursday, September 28 – Packed columns and did a test run of a new chromatography method.

Friday, September 29 – Ordered pizza for lunch.

Saturday, September 30 – Made another quiche and actually saw the Revolution beat Charlotte on Dave Romney’s first regular season goal for the team.

Rides at the Big E

Wetter ‘N Wilder [August 2023]

In August, the best way to describe work was dramatic, but on the home front, despite yet more rain, we did manage to hike during 3 of the 4 weekends.

Tuesday, August 1 – At work for 11 hours straight running two columns at the same time, but still got home at a reasonable hour because I arrived at the office at 7 am.

Wednesday, August 2 – Despite the best-laid plans of mice and men, our purification started going awry even with all hands on deck.

Thursday, August 3 – Forged onward with our run at work and on an unrelated note, my first cherry tomato started turning red.

Friday, August 4 – Somehow made it to the end of the week with product for the client, slides updated up to the minute, a newly packed column for the following week, and a relatively clean lab.

Saturday, August 5 – Went to a park in a neighboring town and opened the chocolate (brownie batter) hummus I picked up at Target.

Sunday, August 6 – Put in a solid hour of pickleball before mentally preparing to repeat the previous week’s schedule.

Monday, August 7 – Started the week too tired to bother asking for dinner while working the late shift.

Tuesday, August 8 – Double column day went more smoothly than last week, which was good.

Wednesday, August 9 – It took ten hours, but we managed to squeeze in both unit operations we were supposed to do last Wednesday instead of delaying one to Thursday.

Thursday, August 10 – Broke out some freezer goat for tomato goat soup for dinner.

 

Mystery sunflower (see last month's post)

Friday, August 11 – Wrapped up take two of our 10 L run much more successfully and cleaned up the lab before leaving for the weekend, having accumulated 16 hours of overtime in two weeks; also harvested my first cherry tomato, so it was a pretty good day.

Saturday, August 12 – Went for a hike and saw swallowtail butterflies and a giant hydrangea bush, then made pizza from scratch for the first time.

Sunday, August 13 – Started Champions of the Force, the last book in Kevin Anderson’s Jedi Academy trilogy (again, not too bad).

Monday, August 14 – Spent the day at work partially recovering from the previous two weeks making summary slides, preparing buffers, and working on freezer inventory.

Tuesday, August 15 – Had rice and beans for lunch.

Wednesday, August 16 – Returned to my standard peanut butter and jam sandwich lunch.

Thursday, August 17 – Tomato harvest began in earnest and my new laptop arrived to replace the 11-year-old laptop that held on through the end of my computational PhD.

Friday, August 18 – Went out drinking with coworkers to celebrate surviving the first half of the month.

Saturday, August 19 – Hiked at a property we hadn’t been to in years and visited the community garden.

Sunday, August 20 – Tried a new hot chicken place for lunch.

Tomatoes (and penguin)

Monday, August 21 – Arrived at work to discover most of management was out with work-acquired Covid, but started round 3 of the 10 L run, minus the initial filtration step, anyway, at the same time as a reaction DOE (design of experiments) for our other project.

Tuesday, August 22 – Continued the run but spent a decent portion of the day hiding in the supply closet working on organizing files.

Wednesday, August 23 – Officially tested positive for Covid along with half the company, after stopping by the office to pick up my laptop, so went home to read the D&D player’s handbook, do laundry, and organize my room.

Thursday, August 24 – Worked from home doing endotoxin research.

Friday, August 25 – Another work from home day.

Saturday, August 26 – MLS returned after the Leagues Cup break, and the Revolution began their downhill slide with a 1-0 L to Montreal.

Sunday, August 27 – Discovered that Pokémon episodes were on Netflix.

Monday, August 28 – Back at work to find out what happened during the rest of the previous week and welcomed a new member to downstream.

Tuesday, August 29 – Enjoyed homegrown tomatoes with horseradish chive cheese for lunch.

Wednesday, August 30 – More labelling shelving in the lab, more inventory updating, and another Revolution loss, this time to the New York Red Bulls.

Ferns

Thursday, August 31 – Meeting day at work, and closed out the month working on batch records for the start of the month to try and make sense of everything that happened.

Wet ‘N Wild [July 2023]

It was a bizarrely wet summer in New England, overall raining a lot but especially on weekends, lining up nicely with my days off now that I’m working. Still managed to get outside when it wasn’t pouring to explore some local trails.

Saturday, July 1 – Started the month with two finishes: Daisy Jones & the Six, which I enjoyed more than I expected, and my LEGO Millenium Falcon, which was exactly as enjoyable as I expected (also went hiking in a neighboring town and listened to the Revolution draw Cincinnati).

Sunday, July 2 – Had visitors in town, so even though it was rainy, we stopped by MIT/Harvard and ended up at Shake Shack for dinner, complete with milkshake.

Monday, July 3 – Quiet day at work before the holiday doing research and making general preparations for a future run.

Tuesday, July 4 – Celebrated Independence Day at Wegmans, then went home to do an escape room in a box (not as immersive as a room, but pretty well put together), and did my roughly biannual (6-monthly) file and photo backup.

Wednesday, July 5 – Back at work to make 20 L of buffer in a barrel.

Thursday, July 6 – Spent some time crawling around in the grass taking pictures of bees in the lavender.

Friday, July 7 – Leftover Olive Garden spaghetti and meatball for dinner.

Saturday, July 8 – Snuck in a hike featuring lots of toads and mushrooms.

Sunday, July 9 – Hot dogs and Long Trail Ale for lunch, then pickleball in the afternoon.

Monday, July 10 – Another long shift at work, including preparing a buffer we needed for the run on the day of the run itself.

 

LEGO Millenium Falcon

Tuesday, July 11 – Put the run on pause to bathe everything in sodium hydroxide to deactivate endotoxin and reorganized our storage room (again).

Wednesday, July 12 – Finally managed to run our chromatography column while preparing to run a filtration for a different project the next day.

Thursday, July 13 – Worked the noon to eight shift to get the filtration done, but at least got dinner.

Friday, July 14 – Finished The Courtship of Princess Leia, my latest Star Wars read, which have all been surprisingly bearable so far.

Saturday, July 15 – Removed my poor fungus-ed yellow pear tomato plants from the bed, walked a nearby rail trail, and watched the Revolution beat DC United 4-0.

Sunday, July 16 – Reread some of The Light Fantastic, went to a Wegmans one last time before it closed, and ate an apricot.

Monday, July 17 – The first groups of cherry tomatoes started making their appearance.

Tuesday, July 18 – Multitasked (#efficiency) by keeping an eye on a column while also writing up endotoxin prevention/removal notes.

Wednesday, July 19 – Packed our first 5 cm column on the AKTA Pilot at work, then at home watched most of the MLS all star game, a moderately depressing 5-0 loss to Arsenal (featuring minimal Carles Gil and no Matt Turner).

Thursday, July 20 – Helped out with take two of a tech transfer run.

Lavender and incoming bee

Friday, July 21 – Continued the tech transfer run, attended Lunch and Learn, organized the lab’s resin collection, and sorted paperwork.

Saturday, July 22 – Went blueberry and raspberry picking, ending up with almost 3 pounds of blueberries and a pound of raspberries.

Sunday, July 23 – Tried a beer inspired by Singapore, a coolpool pale lager that was part of Jack’s Abby’s Lagers of the World series.

Monday, July 24 – Interviewed a potential downstream process (DSP) candidate.

Tuesday, July 25 – Put my 6 years as a computational researcher to use by reorganizing DSP files all day (I finished my PhD with on the order of 10,000 files and I know what/where almost all of them are.).

Wednesday, July 26 – Dropped by Target on the way back from work to buy pants, then caught the majority of the Revolution’s Leagues Cup group stage 5-1 victory over Atlético San Luis.

Thursday, July 27 – Had half of an interesting taro/mochi bun for breakfast.

Friday, July 28 – Final preparations for our first 10 L scale run.

Saturday, July 29 – Made pancakes with blueberry compote for second breakfast, went for a morning hike around a pond to beat afternoon rain, and baked a blueberry lemon pound cake in the night.

Sunday, July 30 – Played pickleball and tried the pound cake.

Blueberries

Blue jay

Monday, July 31 – Discovered a stray sunflower growing in our flower bed and jumped into our first ever full 10 L run for one of our projects.

[June 2023]

I couldn’t come up with a punny title for June, so we’re just going to jump straight into the post. Here’s how I spent the month:

Thursday, June 1: A normal day at work, spent running a chromatography column, eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and attending group meeting.

Friday, June 2: Pizza day at work, then made a batch of chocolate pudding at home.

Saturday, June 3: Started a 3000-piece Marvel superhero puzzle, the biggest puzzle I’ve attempted.

Sunday, June 4: Went to the mall and got the mango chicken special for lunch.

Monday, June 5: Started the week with a 10-hour shift waiting for our protein to elute from the column.

Tuesday, June 6: Slightly less long day at work, featuring a “can’t be bothered to pack lunch” lunch of yogurt and chips.

Wednesday, June 7: Finished work on one project at work just in time to start on another project; Marvel superhero puzzle assembly continued.

Thursday, June 8: Finally got a new phone even though my apps still supported my version of Android because my old phone’s 2 GB of memory were really starting to struggle.

Friday, June 9: Snuck out of work a little early after completing preparations for the upcoming week.

Saturday, June 10: Made it through A Storm of Swords, stopped by the library book sale, and watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (would recommend).

Roses in bloom

Sunday, June 11: Played pickleball and made my watch think I was having an hour-long heart attack.

Monday, June 12: Laundry day, started a new season of Heartland, and finished the superhero puzzle.

Tuesday, June 13: Second 10-hour shift in a row to start the week (should’ve stuck with computational work – you can’t alt-F4 a chromatography column).

Wednesday, June 14: Spent the entire day testing the endotoxin level of samples.

Thursday, June 15: Data analysis and documentation day. Also ate half a grapefruit.

Friday, June 16: More endotoxin testing, buffer preparation, and back to back Friday afternoon meetings.

Saturday, June 17: Rearranged the furniture in my room to add another bookcase.

Sunday, June 18: Bagels for lunch, pickleball in the afternoon, pesto linguini for dinner, and cookies and cream (Oreo) cupcakes for dessert.

Monday, June 19: Began inventory of the lab stockroom and chemicals to fulfill the first of the 6 S’s.

Tuesday, June 20: Continued inventorying and helped stop a chemical reaction/load a column.

3000-piece superhero puzzle

Wednesday, June 21: With no more inventory to take, attended a meeting about inventory.

Thursday, June 22: Saw a northern mockingbird and its mostly grown baby on my daily walk.

Friday, June 23: Tomatoes reached the second ring of their cages.

Saturday, June 24: Went for a quick hike at the town forest and watched the Revolution take on Toronto, earning a 2-1 victory.

Sunday, June 25: Rewatched Pitch Perfect because acapella.

Monday, June 26: Met some squirrels and rabbits on my walk.

Tuesday, June 27: Summarized a year’s worth of data for one of our projects at work, as per a request from my manager.

Wednesday, June 28: Next item on the organizational agenda: freezer cleanout; plus, started season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy.

Thursday, June 29: Had a red banana with my peanut butter and jam sandwich at lunch.

Friday, June 30: Rearranged the contents of two stockrooms because why not?

Ghost pipe sighted while hiking

May Days

Overall not a terribly exciting month, but in the lab I went through the setup and operation for all our primary unit operations and outside of the lab I got to see friends at the end of the month.

Monday, May 1: Just another day of work to start the month.

Tuesday, May 2: Finished a jigsaw puzzle of butterflies and worked the late shift at work, putting in 10 hours straight to complete my first filtration process from start to finish.

Wednesday, May 3: Worked on the next 1000 pages of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), A Storm of Swords (book 3).

Thursday, May 4: The penguins celebrated Star Wars Day on Instagram with a partially constructed Millennium Falcon; I was voluntold to be my department’s 6S representative and attended the first meeting.

Friday, May 5: Celebrated Cinco de Mayo with burritos and tres leches cake on free lunch Friday at work.

Saturday, May 6: Went to see an outdoor art exhibit in a park, then hiked around a state Fish and Wildlife property, and later listened to the second half of the Revolution’s 2-0 victory over Toronto.

Sunday, May 7: Tried pickleball for the first time at the neighborhood park and didn’t completely suck?

Hiking through a hole

Monday, May 8: Found a bee on the driveway after my daily walk and the phlox continued to bloom.

Tuesday, May 9: Caught the last fifteen minutes of the Revolution’s unsurprising exit from the US Open Cup in their second game of the tournament.

Wednesday, May 10: Completed a jigsaw puzzle featuring dogs.

Thursday, May 11: Received a new-to-us toy in the lab (i.e. a refurbished machine was delivered and installed).

Friday, May 12: Organized the lab in the name of 6S and watched Jeopardy! Masters.

Saturday, May 13: Worked on the LEGO Millennium Falcon, went hiking, took the tomatoes outside for their first field trip, and watched the Revolution fall on the road to Miami (featuring a Dave Romney deflection goal for Miami, an offside ruling on a would-be goal for Noel Buck, a Carles Gil revenge goal minutes later, and a late Miami red card that New England couldn’t capitalize on).

Sunday, May 14: Bagels for lunch and pickleball in the afternoon.

Lily of the valley

Monday, May 15: Halfway through the month.

Tuesday, May 16: Spent the morning testing solutions for endotoxins.

Wednesday, May 17: Got to bring leftover fried rice to work for lunch.

Thursday, May 18: Packed and qualified a chromatography column on my own.

Friday, May 19: Had weird fusion ramen for lunch that nobody liked.

Saturday, May 20: Made sushi for lunch, then baked pecan rolls and triple chip peanut butter cookies (peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, and chocolate chips).

Sunday, May 21: Afternoon at the pickleball courts and laundry at night.

Fern-filled forest

Monday, May 22: Another week, another Monday.

Tuesday, May 23: Went out for dinner with my group before a coworker left.

Wednesday, May 24: Started another jigsaw puzzle, this one with lots of patterned kites on it.

Thursday, May 25: Project meeting, group meeting, and column packing.

Friday, May 26: Talked about shelves for an hour at the 6S meeting.

Saturday, May 27: Put the tomatoes into the raised bed, planted green beans, tried Trader Joe’s strawberry rhubarb soda (tasty), and listened to the Revolution’s 3-3 draw with Chicago (yet another bizarre night where they went down two goals, came back with two goals, and got the final equalizer through Jozy Altidore, of all people, accidentally).

Sunday, May 28: Dim sum in Boston with Cornell friends + family.

Flags on the Boston Common for Memorial Day

Monday, May 29: Used my Memorial Day weekend commuter rail ticket to go back into Boston to visit the Common and Public Garden, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, the Harborfront, Rose Kennedy Greenway, and Chinatown.

Tuesday, May 30: Back at work after the long weekend, we prepared for a full run through one of our purification protocols.

Wednesday, May 31: Midweek soccer produced another 3-3 draw for the Revolution, who were saved (again) by Carles Gil, who scored a brace.

Falling to Pieces [puzzle time trials]

I was lurking on Reddit when I came across a post from the subreddit Hobby Drama, which details all the petty details of drama in any niche hobby you can imagine. One week in their “hobby scuffles” post where people are allowed to talk about almost anything, someone posted about watching an entire 40-minute video about the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship. Of course I had to see what that was about. At the competition, competitors are given puzzles of various sizes that they have to solve in under a set time. For a 500-piece puzzle, they were allotted 90 minutes, which is a short enough time that I could easily try it out for myself, because I was curious to see how feasible it was for someone who’s pretty fast (I think) compared to a casual puzzler, but nowhere near world champion speeds.

For my first attempt, I assembled a 500-piece puzzle of a giant girl jump roping on a bridge with a city in the background, by Ravensburger. This was not a great choice for a speed solve because of the muted and limited color palette and minimal distinctive features, but it was what we found at the library. At the 90 minute mark, I had completed most of the girl, the sky, and the water and bridge at the bottom. In the end, it took me just over two hours to finish the puzzle, half an hour longer than the competition time limit.

Giant jump rope girl (left: at the 90 minute mark, right: finished puzzle)

A few weeks later, I tried again with another Ravensburger puzzle, this one of a European-looking cobblestone street with a café, other shops and apartments, and people strolling along enjoying the day. This puzzle was a better candidate, with a greater variety of colors, but it still had large areas with a single texture/color (e.g. the street and building facades), which again, isn’t ideal for speed solving. However, I did manage to complete the puzzle in under 90 minutes, with a time of 1:28:32, showing that it is indeed possible for a fast-ish hobby puzzler to finish a 500-piece puzzle within an hour and a half.

European street

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I borrowed a very Lisa-Frank-esque puzzle of dolphins in a slightly psychedelic sea from the library. It was manufactured by Cra-Z-Art, maker of subpar crayons but okay jigsaw puzzles. The fit of the puzzle pieces wasn’t as nice as Ravensburger, but was definitely still well within acceptable limits. I was concerned about the amount of blue, but was able to finish the puzzle in less than 90 minutes (in 1:28:49).

Psychedelic sea dolphins

Just for fun at this point, I did one last Ravensburger 500-piece puzzle of lockers containing assorted sports equipment. I thought it would be a straightforward solve because each locker was a different color, but it ended up being trickier that I anticipated and still took me an hour and 28 minutes flat. Since I seem to be stuck around the 1:28 mark, I’ll probably try a few more puzzles to see if I can get any faster without really trying vs. using more optimization techniques (fully sorting pieces, doing the edges sooner, etc.), though it does take some of the fun out of it.

Sports lockers

Another Monadnock [Mount Watatic]

Right before I started work, we went for one last hike so I would really know what I was missing out on while spending eight hours a day in an office/lab. We drove over to Mount Watatic, which, like Mount Monadnock, is a monadnock, or inselberg (“island-peak”). As of 2002, Watatic is managed as conservation land by a partnership of 6 groups representing the towns it lies in, land trusts, and state departments. It stands 1832 feet tall in Ashburnham and Ashby, MA just south of the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, and the Wapack and Midstate Trails both pass over/around the mountain.

While looking for information about Watatic online, I found a blog post that mentioned the relatively small parking lot filling up at 7 am on a summer weekend. Even on a weekday in spring, the parking lot was consistently almost full, with only one or two open spots at any given moment. We did manage to park without too much fuss, and then we were off on the trail. It’s pretty typical New England hiking, through forests and up rocks. There’s a stream crossing a few tenths of a mile in, but there were enough stepping stones and the water was low enough that it didn’t cause any trouble.

Hiking at a fairly leisurely pace, we covered the approximately 1 mile to the summit in 35-40 minutes. At the true summit, there’s a stone marker with some words about the mountain and a pile of rocks, but not much of a view. If you walk about another couple hundred feet to the south, there’s a shoulder/secondary summit that does have great panoramic views. To the south is Mount Wachusett, Mount Monadnock is visible to the northwest, and on a clearer day than we had, you may be able to see Boston to the east. We spent some time at the summit and lookout point having lunch and enjoying the views, then headed back down.

Mount Watatic summit marker

From the summit, the options are to return down the same way for an out-and-back mileage of 2.1 miles, or go around by Nutting Hill to make a 2.8 mile loop with a less strenuous descent. We I chose the latter. Like the trail up, the way down almost immediately drops into wooded areas with little to no views of the surrounding area, but it’s still an enjoyable walk. On our way back to the parking lot, we also opted to make a detour to walk to New Hampshire so we could cross the state line on foot.

Summit view to the south Wachusett (with ski trails visible) to the right

Potentially Monadnock in the center (with the tower on top)

Overall, Watatic is a nice hike, not too long or strenuous, but with better than average views. Before making the drive home, we stopped by Trap Falls in Willard Brook State Forest a few miles down the road, so we got a mountain and a waterfall in the same day.

Trap Falls handheld long exposure (1/5 s at 12 mm, so don't zoom in)

Springing into April

You never know what spring in New England will be like, or when (if ever) it’ll arrive. This year’s April proved to be wet and wild for various reasons.

Saturday, April 1: No April Fools here, just setting up a Smart Garden with basil, baking a peanut butter cake, and watching the Revolution draw NYCFC.

Sunday, April 2: Finished watching Derry Girls, which I quite enjoyed.

Monday, April 3: Filed my taxes, with two whole weeks to spare.

Tuesday, April 4: After taking a second try at the Discworld with the Guards novels, I went back to where it all began with The Colour of Magic (and also got my first job offer).

Wednesday, April 5: Worked on a jigsaw puzzle of 32 doors.

Thursday, April 6: Grocery day, with a stop at the craft store for yarn for a project that I will get around to eventually.

Friday, April 7: Made macaroni and cheese for dinner.

Saturday, April 8: Officially accepted my job offer, went for a hike at the local reservoir after a trip to the library, and listened to the Revolution beat Montreal 4-0.

Sunday, April 9: Easter lunch at church.

Monday, April 10: Tried goldenberries (surprisingly tomato-y), and started a hidden cows Sandra Boynton puzzle.

Aliens, or fiddleheads

Tuesday, April 11: Did my annual-ish mass Goodreads update to see if they could give me any interesting statistics (for 2022: shortest book– The Sandman vol. 3: Dream Country, longest book/most shelved – A Game of Thrones, least shelved – Everquest: The Rogue’s Hour).

Wednesday, April 12: First day of the year hot enough for ice cream.

Thursday, April 13: Continued reading The Night Circus, and I agree with the overall sentiment that the descriptive passages are stronger than the plot, but I still really liked this book.

Friday, April 14: Took one last hike before starting work, at Mt. Watatic; walked to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire state line; had a Taco Bell taco; and talked to a friend from college.

Saturday, April 15: Watched a 10-man Revolution give up a 98th minute goal to Columbus to snatch defeat (a draw) from the jaws of victory.

Sunday, April 16: Finished a jigsaw puzzle of soda cans.

Monday, April 17: Baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

Tuesday, April 18: First day of school work.

Wednesday, April 19: Had leftover lamb, roasted potatoes, and arugula for lunch and calibrated a pH meter for the first time in a long time.

Thursday, April 20: Wild violets and phlox were in full bloom, crabapples a few days away.

Some bush in bloom

Friday, April 21: Free lunch day at work.

Saturday, April 22: Went for a hike along the reservoir, started building the LEGO Millennium Falcon I bought on sale last summer, and saw the Revolution beat Sporting KC 2-1 off a brace from Giacomo Vrioni, who also drew a red card for DOGSO (denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity).

Sunday, April 23: Baked a pineapple cake and watched Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Monday, April 24: Laundry day after work.

Tuesday, April 25: Bonus Revolution game against Hartford for the US Open Cup, which they won after bringing on Carles Gil and co. to relieve a young starting lineup.

Wednesday, April 26: Made 50 L of buffer solution in a barrel, stirred it with a metal oar, and pumped it into the world’s largest IV bags.

Thursday, April 27: Eat, work, sleep, repeat.

Friday, April 28: Ran into the wild turkeys crossing the street while on a walk after work.

Saturday, April 29: Visited a neighboring town’s hill and swamp, where we saw a lot of skunk cabbage and an eastern bluebird, and caught most of the radio call for the Revolution’s tie game against Cincinnati, featuring a Djordje Petrović penalty save, a season-ending injury to Dylan Borrero, and Emmanuel Boateng’s first goal of the season.

Sunday, April 30: Finished Heir to the Empire, the acclaimed first Thrawn novel by Timothy Zahn, also the first authorized Star Wars novel that continued events after Return of the Jedi.

Crabapple tree

Piece by Piece [The World’s Most Difficult Puzzles]

If you’ve ever seen a limited edition flavor at the grocery store or anything proclaiming to be the “world’s hardest” and wondered, “who would want that?”, the answer is me. I would like to try cherry jalapeño yogurt, and today I’ll be reviewing a selection of puzzles that all have some kind of gimmick, including one that claims to be the world’s hardest puzzle.

The first puzzle is the Impossibles puzzle “Great Wall of China,” with 750 pieces, no edge pieces, and 5 extra pieces. The Impossibles puzzles are released under the BePuzzled name, which was acquired in 1999 by University Games from Lombard Marketing. University Games was founded in 1985 and creates/distributes a variety of educational and classic games and puzzles. There are several Impossibles puzzles no longer being manufactured (including “Great Wall of China,” which has a copyright from 1994), and a few new ones currently available. One thing to note is that some of the new puzzles have a repeating pattern, not a fully semi-randomized picture (see this Karen Puzzles video), making them significantly easier.

However, even with a moderately challenging picture, I didn’t find “Great Wall of China” hugely difficult (and it definitely wasn’t impossible). I don’t usually start with the edge pieces anyway, so the lack of an edge didn’t throw me off too much, and neither did the extra pieces. They did add a little extra twist, and make the puzzle harder than a “normal” 750 piece puzzle. Quality was good, the image was interesting, and I enjoyed this puzzle overall.

Great Wall of China

The second puzzle up is an I Spy puzzle of almost nothing but marbles. This 500-piece puzzle was released in 2008 by Briarpatch, which began in 1992 as a children’s game and puzzle company and continued until 2014, when they were bought by University Games. Obviously, I chose to do this puzzle because who would be dumb enough to spend a couple afternoons assembling almost nothing but marbles? It wasn’t as bad as the dalmatians, and the extremely obvious red border was an easy start. I thought the idea was fun, because after (or while) fixing the puzzle, you can look for the objects in the rhyme included on the puzzle, like in an I Spy book. The only negative for me is that it’s not cut particularly well. False fits weren’t a huge problem, but the pieces don’t click together nicely, which, yes, is a thing that people care about.

I Spy marbles

Third, we have a puzzle that wasn’t meant to be difficult, but it has a gimmick, so I’m including it here. On the box, it’s called “The Moving Puzzle – Coral Reef,” and was made in 1994 by the Great American Puzzle Factory, which based on the dearth of information about the company online, no longer exists (the Wikipedia article redirects to Fundex Games, Ltd., a company based in Indiana that started in 1986, produced an assortment of toys and games, and filed for bankruptcy in 2012).

For the molecular dynamics people, this puzzle is supposed to have a repeating boundary condition. For the non-MD people in the crowd, you’re supposed to be able to take the top row of pieces and move them to the bottom, or the left-most pieces and shift them to the right side, and still have a coherent picture. However, because of a misalignment in the image or cutting, the picture somewhat noticeably doesn’t match up when you try this after solving the puzzle in the “default” position. Also worth noting is that the pieces don’t lock together at all. They have indents that help to hold them in place, but every piece is exactly the same shape, so the puzzle is solved entirely by the image, which is doable since it only has 294 pieces and the picture has plenty of colors. I really like the idea, but unfortunately, they didn’t quite manage to pull it off.

Moving Coral Reef (left: completed puzzle, top right: box,
middle right/bottom right: misaligned image)

Next is the 131-piece Rubik’s Zigzaw puzzle from 1982, made by the Ideal Toy Company. The company began in 1907, and was eventually sold, first to CBS Toys, then Viewmaster International, and then Tyco Toys, which merged with Mattel in 1997. Ideal Toy Company was at one point the largest doll-making company in the US, but they also produced the Rubik’s Cube, on which the Zigzaw is based. Similarly to the coral reef puzzle above, many of the pieces are the same shape. In this case, the center pieces are mostly frog-like shapes that tesselate, and the objective is to make sure all the Rubik’s cubes are correctly solved. It’s harder than it may sound, because some of the pieces are very similar, differing only in the color of one “arm,” though slight printing/cutting misalignments sometimes let you see the color of an adjacent cube face that you shouldn’t be able to see. The pieces fit together very tightly, so you have to be careful taking pieces apart to not damage the thin arms. Other than that, it was a good challenge.

Rubik's Zigzaw (left: completed puzzle, top right: non-frog interior piece and edge piece,
middle right: similarly colored frog pieces,
bottom right: misaligned printing shows color of adjacent pieces) 

Finally, presenting the World’s Most Difficult Puzzle, jungle edition. The World’s Most Difficult Puzzles were originally made by Buffalo Games, but it seems that the line, with a few new puzzles, is now produced by TDC games, a board game and jigsaw puzzle manufacturer. This is the same idea as the infamous dalmatian puzzle – it’s a double-sided 529-piece puzzle with the pictures rotated 90 degrees from each other, and it’s cut vertically, then flipped over and cut horizontally so the pieces have no “back” or “front.” Probably fortunately for my sanity, the jungle puzzle was nowhere near as difficult as the dalmatian puzzle. The picture was orders of magnitude easier. Dare I say it was almost disappointingly easy? I’m actually a big fan of the concept, but I have yet to find the perfect image that’s more than “a few afternoons” hard but not “sitting on the coffee table for seven months” hard. Maybe I’ll try the penguins puzzle next, if I can get ahold of it.

World's Most Difficult Puzzle jungle edition

Everyday I’m Puzzling [White Mountain Puzzles]

Thanks to the library now lending out jigsaw puzzles, we’ve had a steady source of puzzles to assemble for free. Over the past nine months or so, we/I’ve put together a puzzle approximately every one to two weeks, with subject matter ranging from cats and books to marbles to pastoral scenes. Today I’ll highlight a few puzzles from White Mountain Puzzles.

White Mountain Puzzles was founded in 1978, and are still making puzzles today. They’re located in New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. Their website claims that their 24” by 30” 1000-piece puzzles are the largest in the industry. White Mountain Puzzles is perhaps best known for their collage-style puzzles, where they pick a theme like Broadway musicals or Christmas stamps, and make a collage out of related images. However, they do also have plenty of landscapes and Americana (general stores, drive-in theaters, etc.), based both on artwork and photographs. They offer hundreds of different puzzles; I found somewhere around 300-400 1000-piece puzzles listed on their website, though not all of them are always in stock.

Their puzzles are fun to solve and the collage puzzles in particular get put together pretty quickly because the individual images are easy to differentiate. The pieces fit together tightly, especially when new, so the entire puzzle can be picked up after assembly, and there are no false fits. The puzzles are random cut, and, though more cardboard-y than Ravensburger or Cobble Hill, overall high quality.

With that, here’s the first puzzle, titled “I Love Massachusetts,” and featuring such icons as Dunkin Donuts, Hoodsie cups, and Spock (Leonard Nimoy). This puzzle was designed/constructed by Charlie Girard, who does a lot of White Mountain’s collage puzzles based on photos/logos.

I Love Massachusetts

Next we have “Old Candy Store,” a candy store filled with jars of candy and excited patrons illustrated by Steve Crisp. This may be the only White Mountain puzzle I’ve done that isn’t a collage or map. It still came together pretty quickly, and had plenty of colors and interesting parts to put together.

Old Candy Store

“The New Millennium” is part of a series of puzzles based on different decades that are done by artist James Mellett. This series highlights important events and people, TV shows, athletic accomplishments, and foods and products associated with each decade. Along with the 1990s puzzle (The Nineties) that I also own, these two puzzles cover most of my childhood.

The New Millennium

Finally, we did “I Love America,” another Charlie Girard creation, which includes national icons like the Liberty Bell, NASA, hockey, and Play-Doh. My final verdict on White Mountain Puzzles: not the most difficult, but fun to assemble. Would recommend.

I Love America

Top Ten _____ [books, general fiction]

Over the past 18 years or so, I’ve read somewhere around 800 books. Just for fun, I thought I’d look at some of my favorites, starting with fiction, and see if anything interesting emerged. In this batch of books, I’ve excluded science fiction/fantasy and YA/children’s, which I plan to go through separately. I’m not a huge fan of romance/thrillers/mysteries, so aspects of those genres don’t feature heavily in the list below. Books are listed in reverse alphabetical order by author’s last name.

Our Town, Thornton Wilder – A play about everyday life in a small New England town at the beginning of the 20th century. Its intentional simplicity and sparseness emphasizes the message, and in many ways is the message.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker – An epistolary tale told by Celie, an African American woman living in the south in the 1900s, about the struggles and abuse she faces. At times violent and explicit, it’s nevertheless a powerful story.

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck – On a street lined with sardine canneries, characters go about their lives in Monterey, California during the Great Depression. I chose Cannery Row over something like The Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men for being slightly less depressing than Steinbeck’s typical work.

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger – A coming of age story filled with angst and alienation in which nothing much happens. Holden is, objectively, kind of annoying, but with reason, and there’s a particular mood that Salinger effectively captures.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – Set in Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of Scout Finch growing up with her brother Jem while her father Atticus defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan – When Rachel Chu travels to Singapore with her boyfriend Nick Young, she doesn’t expect to meet a bunch of crazy rich Asians. (Are they crazy rich? Or crazy and rich? Probably both.) It’s a ridiculous and completely fun read.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad), Gabriel García Márquez – Magical realism at its finest; the book follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the town of Macondo, and explores the ideas of fate and inevitability.

City of Tranquil Light, Bo Caldwell – Based on the author’s grandparents’ experiences as missionaries living in China during the first half of the 20th century. The writing treats the characters and setting with care, resulting in a lovely read.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen – Poor Mr. Bennet has five daughters to marry off in early 19th century England. Despite many misunderstandings and preconceived assumptions, will any of the Bennet women find love? Absurd at times, with memorable characters.

If you’re counting, that’s nine books for a top ten list. I couldn’t decide on a tenth, so here are some honorable mentions: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), Dracula (Bram Stoker), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) (arguably the first science fiction novel), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë).

The list is pretty balanced in terms of gender – four female authors and five male authors. The oldest book is Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813; the newest is Crazy Rich Asians, published 200 years later in 2013. Most of the rest of the books cluster around the mid-1900s. There’s one book (One Hundred Years of Solitude) not originally published in English. One Hundred Years of Solitude is also the longest book by page court, per Goodreads, and Cannery Row and Our Town tie for the shortest (though by word court I would guess Our Town is shorter because it’s a play). And lastly, like only players with last names beginning with B scoring for the Revolution, five¹ of the nine books have titles that start with C.

¹Six if you use the original Spanish title for One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Marching On

31 sentence fragments (and three photos) about things that happened during the 31 days of March:

Wednesday, March 1: Started the graphic novel Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift, chipped ice off the back deck, and did laundry.

Thursday, March 2: Grocery day.

Friday, March 3: Tried monk fruit-sweetened oatmeal for breakfast (not bad).

Saturday, March 4: Shoveled the driveway for (likely) the last time of the season.

Sunday, March 5: Finished the birthday prinsesstarta that was baked the previous week (recipe from The Great British Baking Show: The Big Book of Amazing Cakes) and Wednesday.

Monday, March 6: Reviewed some photos, read some emails, and cored and de-eyed a pineapple.

Tuesday, March 7: Continued making my way through A Clash of Kings and started The Chair.

Crocus

Wednesday, March 8: Rewatched the Great British Bake Off season 9 final, the one with the outdoor open fire technical bake.

Thursday, March 9: Sent in some job applications.

Friday, March 10: Made a trip to the library and worked on a jigsaw puzzle.

Saturday, March 11: Spent the day at home with the puzzle and a book about a time-travelling café.

Sunday, March 12: Listened to the New England Revolution implode on the west coast and lose to LAFC 0-4 at midnight via radio call like it’s 2005.

Monday, March 13: Finished another graphic novel, Almost American Girl, about a Korean girl who moves to America in the 90s knowing very little English and eventually finds her place thanks to comics.

Tuesday, March 14: In honor of Pi Day, baked a cranberry apple galette.

Rubik's Cube jigsaw puzzle

Wednesday, March 15: Ate cranberry apple galette.

Thursday, March 16: First crocus in our sad flowerbed.

Friday, March 17: Put together a Rubik’s Cube jigsaw puzzle that was a gift from a Cornell friend for possibly the first time.

Saturday, March 18: Baked a Nutella/chocolate-filled babka, started another jigsaw puzzle, and heard the Revolution beat Nashville off Gustavo Bou’s first goal of the season while folding laundry.

Sunday, March 19: Dim sum lunch courtesy of (mostly) Trader Joe’s.

Monday, March 20: Watched Galaxy Quest (still haven’t met a parody movie I don’t like).

Tuesday, March 21: Started two kinds of tomato seeds – cherry and yellow pear.

Nutella/chocolate babka

Wednesday, March 22: Finally finished A Clash of Kings.

Thursday, March 23: Baked a batch of chocolate chip pecan banana muffins and talked to a friend from grad school.

Friday, March 24: Picked up The Soulmate Equation at the library to see if it was better than The Love Hypothesis (it was).

Saturday, March 25: Got to watch the Revolution beat DC United thanks to Carles Gil’s first touch after coming on as a substitute being an assist to Bou.

Sunday, March 26: Curry for lunch outdoors at the park.

Monday, March 27: Made research presentation slides the day before the presentation (so business as usual around here).

Tuesday, March 28: Went for an on-site interview.

Wednesday, March 29: Tomato seedlings made their appearance.

Thursday, March 30: Had blueberry frosted wheat for breakfast and bread with butter, arugula, and chorizo for lunch.

Friday, March 31: Mostly successfully made sushi and mostly relearned to knit.