More pieces, more puzzles [collections]

Today on the blog we have puzzles featuring what I’m calling collections of things, specifically chocolate, doors, soda cans, and toy cars.

We’re starting with a 1000-piece puzzle aptly titled “Chocolate!” by Re-marks according to a Reddit post found by Google image search (the puzzle’s packed away and yes, in this case I am being too lazy to go look at the box). The Re-marks website doesn’t have a whole lot of information, but they seem to be a jigsaw puzzle-only company that’s on the newer side and operates on Pacific time. This was a fun, relatively quick solve that will probably make you want dessert if you’re a chocolate fan.

Chocolate!

Our second puzzle of the post is doors of all colors and styles. I’ve personally seen a couple different versions of this puzzle, and a quick search reveals at least half a dozen variations for sale, but the one we did was by Kodak (“Colorful Montreal Doors”). It looks like the Kodak Premium Puzzles line is now distributed by Cra-Z-Art, who are the ones responsible for the much maligned RoseArt crayons. I can’t speak to the quality of new Kodak puzzles, but the one we assembled was fine, and there’s something classic about the color and subject matter of a Kodak puzzle.

Doors

Next is soda cans of a vintage nature, another 1000-piece puzzle by Springbok (“Retro Refreshments”). One of the notable things about Springbok puzzles is their random cut, which could be a plus or minus depending on who you ask. Another thing about this puzzle in particular is that the soda cans are in the same order on the different rows, which again, some people may enjoy as an added challenge and some people may find frustrating. In my opinion, Springbok tends to make a quite cardboard-y feeling puzzle, and the pieces go together well, but the final product isn’t as smooth as a lot of other brands. It was still an enjoyable solve.

Soda cans

Last up for today is “Toy Car Spectrum,” a 1000-piece offering from Buffalo Games. It was similar to the other puzzles in this post in that they tend to be colorful and usually come together faster than landscape-type puzzles due to the colors and distinct lines between elements. In general, I like doing this kind of puzzle, especially when they’re acting as a palate cleanser after yet another world’s hardest gimmick puzzle I just had to try.

(Toy) Cars

Quarterly baking report [Q1 2023]

My cooking is best described as edible, so I wouldn’t entirely trust anything I have to say about dinner recipes, but people at least tell me they like my baking. Here’s a review of what we baked in the first three months of 2023 with some notes.

Linzer cookies – King Arthur Baking – This was a post-Christmas bake (hence the Christmas tree shapes). I’m pretty sure I would have reduced the sugar from 1/2 to 1/3 cup, we may have used one whole egg instead of an egg yolk, and we substituted almond extract for the lemon zest/cinnamon and vanilla. The almond extract we had was quite strong, so maybe be aware of that if you do a similar switch. The cookies come out like a crisp sugar cookie with a finer crumb, and I used jam for the filling. Our cookies turned out well, though very almondy. The dough works nicely, so the rolling/cutting out isn’t too tedious. Would bake again.

Clockwise from top left: Linzer cookies, filled wool roll, Nutella/chocolate babka, cranberry apple galette

Filled wool roll – King Arthur Baking – We may have baked this partly (mostly) because it looked interesting. It’s a sweetened bread, so I think we followed the recipe exactly this time. The base is a Japanese milk bread that’s then filled, rolled, cut, and shaped to give it its form and the filling is a mixture of cream cheese and freeze-dried fruit. This was a fun and tasty bake, but as usual I’m reminded of why I don’t bake bread that often because why does proving take so long?

Coconut shortbread cookies – Not sure on the recipe for this bake, which was done mainly to make a dent in some expired coconut flour. I liked the cookies, though the coconut flour definitely does something to the texture.

Prinsesstarta – The Great British Baking Show: The Big Book of Amazing Cakes – I picked up the book at the library, wanted to make something from it, and had a birthday cake to make: enter, Prinsesstarta. For those unfamiliar, it’s a cake layered with jam and pastry cream, then covered in whipped cream and marzipan. Going in to the bake, I knew it would be a long process, and after having done it, the cake is good, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort for me. I can confirm I’m in the pro-marzipan camp though.

Prinsesstarta

Cranberry apple galette – The Pioneer Woman – For pie day we went slightly off script with a galette. My pie crust is still a work in progress so I can’t say too much about the recipe. Overall, it was more or less edible, and the fruit was great.

Nutella/chocolate babka – Again, I’m not positive which recipe we ended up using. I do know we made a Nutella variation on a babka, and as long as your bread turns out, it’s bread and chocolate so assuming you like bread and chocolate there’s not much to complain about. Same comment as above about proving but otherwise I have no grievances against the recipe.

911 Trail [May 2023]

The 911 Loop Trail is located behind the 911 Memorial field in Southborough, MA. The 911 field is an artificial turf field used for youth soccer, football, and lacrosse that’s been in use for at least a couple of decades. I believe the 911 trail is a newer development, possibly a result of a Covid-induced renewal of interest in the outdoors, but don’t quote me on that.

The trail is a 1.2-mile loop on a peninsula in the Sudbury Reservoir. One side of the loop goes along a Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) access road while the other follows the shoreline more closely. The access road portion of the trail is wide and flat, probably accessible to strollers and mobility devices, but near the reservoir and on the other side of the loop the trail is narrower and rockier. The whole trail travels through forest and provides view of the Sudbury Reservoir.

We hiked the trail in mid-May when the leaves and ferns had reappeared after another New England winter. Lily of the valley, wild geranium, and starflowers were in bloom, and we also found a number of oak apples (oak galls). Turns out oak galls are formed by chemicals from some gall wasp larvae to protect them as they grow, so that was a fun discovery. No wildlife sightings except a possible double-crested cormorant to report, but there were a lost umbrella and multitool.

Clockwise from top left: Oak gall (cross section), lily of the valley, wild geranium, starflowers

As far as hiking trails go, the 911 Loop Trail’s on the shorter side, with minimal elevation changes, so it could be fairly easily covered in 30-60 minutes depending on how many botanical/environmental tangents you get sidetracked by (all of them, if you’re hiking with me). It’s a pleasantly wooded trail with some nice views of the reservoir, so a good easy trail with decent payoff. Quick post for a quick trail today; I’ll be back later with a report from the kitchen.

Fern land

Go Out Doors and MacCallum Wildlife Management Area [May 2023]

Ellsworth McAfee Park in Northborough, MA was hosting an outdoor art event called Go Out Doors where local artists painted, as you might have guessed, doors, that were then displayed in the park. There were nine doors in total, placed along one of the sidewalks through the park. I liked the landscapes and the goats, and the second door from the left below (A Walk by a Pond) had a bunch of local wildlife sprinkled throughout the painting, including a frog, Canada goose, wild turkey, skunk, deer, groundhog, and raccoon.

 

Doors (from left to right) (click to enlarge) - Kids at Play (Brittni Laquidara), A Walk by a Pond (Rose Herrmann), Local Getaway (Lisa Hayden), No Place Like Home (Suzanne Cox), Purple Guitar (Jill Strait), What's your Dream (Anne Plaisance)

The park also has courts for pickleball, volleyball, and basketball, as well as soccer fields, a playground, and a walking track. When we were there, it was fairly busy with youth soccer, kids on the playground, people playing pickleball, and parents and families walking. After admiring the doors, we headed down the street to the Wayne F. MacCallum Wildlife Management Area (MacCallum WMA).

Massachusetts Wildlife Management Areas are managed by the commonwealth through MassWildlife and are intended to provide land for wildlife. They may be used for hunting and fishing as well as hiking and bird watching, and are typically less developed than parks, with parking lots and trails that may be unpaved. MacCallum WMA covers 906 acres in Northborough and Westborough and contains Lake Chauncy and Little Chauncy Pond. Until 1971, the Lyman School for Boys, a reform school established by the state, ran the school and a farm on the now WMA land.

Hole in the trees

We hiked a ~3.5 mile loop to Lake Chauncy, up the lake, and back to the west parking lot. Trails were not paved but main trails to and around Lake Chauncy were wide and easily passable, varying from dirt and gravel to grass. Side trails through the woods were narrower though still easy to follow. There are maps available but there is no signage in the WMA itself and trails don’t always appear on the maps. You probably won’t get lost, but you may not end up exactly where you’re intending to go the first time.

Pond by the west entrance

The landscape varies from ponds and lakes to forest and fields leased for corn growing. Wildlife sightings were plentiful and included a red-tailed hawk, a goose, red-winged blackbirds, frogs, turtles, and a coyote(?!). The weather was nice, the trails were pleasant, the surroundings were interesting, and we didn’t get eaten by a coyote, so all in all, it was another successful hiking trip.

Eastern coyote (according to Google Lens)

Cedar Hill and Crane Swamp [April 2023]

The Crane Swamp Conservation Area is a 2,225-acre parcel of land located mostly in Northborough, MA that includes Cedar Hill, managed by the Sudbury Valley Trustees (SVT), and Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) land with a water treatment plant. Cedar Hill as well as the other hills in the conservation area are drumlins, formed by glacial activity, and the other main attraction is the 400-acre red maple swamp. Trails at Crane Swamp are part of a trail network linking it to neighboring towns, and I’d estimate there are around 4-5 miles of trails with loops of 1-4 miles possible to hike.

Eastern bluebird

We visited on a spring day in April 2023, and it was one of the last hikes we took before I got my stalker Garmin watch, so I don’t have watch data, but I’m pretty sure we did a 2.5 mile loop on the Cedar Hill and Crane Swamp Trails that takes you up to the top of Crane Hill and into the swamp down to the aqueduct where the MWRA treatment plant is. I’m guessing we were there for a little under an hour and a half, which is either a fairly moderate pace or a moderately fast pace stopping to examine every wildflower, bird, and skunk cabbage you encounter. I’ll let you guess how I hike.

Crabapple tree in bloom

The main trails were well signed and pretty well maintained and easy to follow. On this visit the skunk cabbage was abundant, wild violets and bluets were out, crabapple (I think) trees were in bloom, fiddleheads were unfurling, leaves had not quite emerged, and we had sightings of an American kestrel and an eastern bluebird. Looking back at photos, I think it might have drizzled on us a bit, but otherwise the hike was nice. The view from the top of Cedar Hill was what you might expect of a hill in the suburban northeast – lots of trees and some occasional buildings. Good for a quick outing, at least in the spring. That’s foreshadowing for a future post, if I ever get around to writing it. I am officially just about 2 years behind now, but I’m hoping I can start catching up with some quicker shorter posts. Here’s a start, at least.

View from the top of Cedar Hill

What was watched in 2024

I didn’t watch many movies last year, and fell asleep a lot while watching Netflix, but I did still make it through quite a bit.

Barbie – I got around to seeing the Barbie movie last year and enjoyed it. The plot was fairly average, but fun, and I liked seeing all the different Barbies as characters.

Mean Girls (2024) – I was curious about it, so I picked up the Mean Girls movie musical based on the musical based on the movie based on a book. It wasn’t bad, but for me, the 2004 movie is just so good at capturing high school in the mid-2000s that the musical didn’t really add anything. There are also some parts that only make sense pre-cell phones and internet everywhere that they tried to adapt but again, the (first) movie already did it so well.

The Big Year – Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin spend a year competing to see the most birds within twelve months. This might have edged Barbie out as my favorite movie of the year. Though it’s not a mockumentary, it has the same feel. And who wouldn’t love a movie about birdwatching? (A lot of people; the reviews were at best mediocre.)

La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) (season 1-2) – This was the original heist arc that got broken up into two seasons for Netflix. I watched it in the original Spanish with English subtitles. It was more action and thrills than my usual fare, but I enjoyed it.

This is Us – Overall, I really liked the show and the variety of topics it dealt with. The last season felt a little rushed trying to wrap everything up, but I think the last couple seasons were thrown off a bit thanks to Covid.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (season 3) – Definitely a show that I’ve liked more as it’s gone on. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but still feels like Star Trek at its core.

The Good Place – I have to admit I didn’t like this show as much as most people did. There’s nothing wrong with it – the plot is good, it has its funny moments, and the characters are likeable – it just didn’t come together for me.

Star Trek: Discovery (season 1-2) – First off, it visually looks great. Unfortunately, it does feel like it misses the mark a bit, especially in the first season. It does best when it’s less of the Michael Burnham show and more about Discovery and its crew, so it does get better for me in the second season.

The Mandalorian (season 1) – Amidst a barrage of sequels, prequels, tie-ins, and remakes from Disney, this was something new, and it was really good. Plus, it brought us baby alien/baby Yoda/Grogu.

The Great British Bake Off (season 1-2, 15) – I finally got to see the first two seasons that have never been aired in the US. Hello again, Mel and Sue, and hello moving tent, baker elimination during the final, and random passersby peering in the tent windows. Season 15 had the most wholly likeable group of bakers in a while and no poorly executed national weeks/open flame final challenges/-gate dramas.

Heartland (season 16) – Similarly to Grey’s Anatomy, there was a period where the number of heart attacks, car crashes, exotic illnesses, and general tragedy happening to one group of people made you wonder what curse they’re under, but they’ve pulled it back a bit and I thought this season was better than the couple previous seasons.

Brooklyn 99 (season 1-3) – Funny and another solid offering from Mike Schur (also involved in The Office and Parks and Rec). My one criticism is that Jake Peralta is the exact same character as Shawn Spencer from Psych and J.D. from Scrubs – slightly inconsiderate guy who thinks he’s funnier than he really is and inconveniences people just a little bit wherever he goes.

Over the Garden Wall – A little weird, a little haunting, so I liked it a lot. I did suspect the ending maybe halfway through the series, and also the soundtrack’s really good.

Heartstopper (season 3) – A continuation of the adaptation of the graphic novels. I think they’ve continued to do a good job staying true to the source material.

Grey’s Anatomy (season 20) – Now that they’ve given Meredith a break and returned to more of an ensemble cast with a new class of interns, the show’s actually gotten better than some of the mid-teens seasons that were really scraping the bottom of the barrel for new disasters (Seattle Sharknado, anyone?).

Blown Away (season 4) – The glassblowers are back in North America’s biggest hot shop. The creations were a highlight as always, but this was also the most likeable group as a whole for me.

Overall, I didn’t really dislike anything I watched in 2024. If I had to pick a few favorites, I’d have to go with Lower Decks, The Mandalorian, and Over the Garden Wall for trying to do something a little different.

2024 Reading Roundup

It was another quiet year for reading. I logged 23 books, though a few were rereads that I didn’t record the first time through and there were probably a couple more rereads that I didn’t officially track. I managed to read my yearly nonfiction book, plus 3 graphic novels, 2 horse girl books, and 1 short story collection. Here’s what I liked (and didn’t) from my 2024 reads.

Exhalation: Stories (Ted Chiang) – A collection of science fiction short stories by the author who wrote the story that the movie Arrival is based on. I really liked the author’s writing style and the stories were interesting and thoughtful.

Legends and Lattes (Travis Baldree) – If you’ve heard anything about cozy fantasy in the past few years, you’ve heard about this book in which an orc, tired of the adventuring life, settles down to open the first coffee shop her city has seen. I did enjoy the lower stakes plot and the characters were likeable.

Kill the Farm Boy (Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne) – This was the only book that I disliked as a whole when I finished it. It’s supposed to be a sort of parody of The Princess Bride that critiques fantasy genre tropes, but it tries too hard, so it doesn’t end up being funny and falls into the stereotypes it’s supposed to be subverting.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid) – At 79, Evelyn Hugo’s been married seven times and she’s ready to tell her story. The whole story. I picked up the book because it got positive reviews in internet book circles a few years ago and ended up liking it more than I thought I would.

Ask Again, Yes (Mary Beth Keane) – Another book that made the rounds on the internet. The plot follows two families whose fathers are both officers in the NYPD and how their lives become connected through the years. This was definitely a more serious read than some of the other books on the list, but I thought it was a worthwhile read.

The Invisible Library (Genevieve Cogman) – I discovered this book at my local library going up and down shelves looking for sci-fi/fantasy stickers on book spines. The premise is that librarians at a library that exists outside of time are tasked with protecting/collecting rare works of literature in alternate universes. On one such mission, a librarian and her new apprentice run into events that hint at a darker side of the library. Though some of the worldbuilding was a bit clunky, it was solid enough that I would read more in the series.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Maria Semple) – An epistolatory novel about Bee, a middle schooler investigating where her mother Bernadette has gone after she disappears before a family trip to Antarctica. In general, I’ll give the book a positive review, because the parts satirizing the Seattle charter school parents and tech industry were funny. However, I found the “money will fix everything” attitude and breaking laws with few/no consequences annoying at times.

Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus) – No self-respecting scientist I’ve ever met would unironically ask someone to pass the sodium chloride at the dinner table. That said, the struggles of a woman in STEM in the 60s still ring true today. Overall, I did like the book, I just think the main character in particular talks and acts like how someone who’s not a scientist thinks scientists should talk and act, which is not how scientists actually talk and act.

The Fifth Elephant and Night Watch (Terry Pratchett) – Still making my way through the Night Watch books. This time on the Discworld, Sam Vimes must travel to Uberwald, home to various dwarfs, werewolves, and vampires, as an official ambassador of Ankh-Morpock, to negotiate fat imports. Then, in Night Watch, the members of the City Watch remember a day years ago, when the Watch wasn’t what it is now, and Vimes does some time travelling. Pratchett’s as good as ever at blending elements of fantasy and science fiction with police procedurals and social commentary.

Making It So (Patrick Stewart) – I ended up with a copy of Patrick Stewart’s memoir, so I read it to see how Captain Picard came to the Enterprise. It was (surprisingly?) readable, and another book that I enjoyed more than I thought I would. I appreciate that he at least comes across as honest about the not-perfect parts of his life and doesn’t endlessly make excuses.

It Ends With Us (Colleen Hoover) – A romance book that went big thanks to TikTok. I don’t normally read romance, but on occasion I’ll pick up books that everyone was talking about a couple years ago to see if they live up to the hype (usually not, but some aren’t too bad). A mixed review from me for this one – some parts were handled well, others . . . were not.

Pumpkinheads (Rainbow Rowell) – A cute graphic novel about two high school seniors working their last day of their last fall at the pumpkin patch, getting ready for things to change, and not having regrets.

A Feast for Crows (George R. R. Martin) – He had a two-and-a-half-decade head start, but I’m catching up. This is where Martin had the brilliant idea to just . . . not talk about half his characters for an entire book. I’m not as bothered by this choice as some people, but you can’t deny it’s a bit of an odd decision. This is where you also start wondering how everything’s going to come to a nice, tidy conclusion in only 2,000 or so more pages.

Evvie Drake Starts Over (Linda Holmes) – My last book of the year and my last “the internet made me read it” book. It’s a Hallmark movie in written form. Not bad, but nothing I’m going to rave about.

Despite how it may sound, I did enjoy most of what I read in 2024; I just happened to pick up a number of books that were/are widely popular but normally aren’t the first books I’d reach for. Having said that, I borrowed another book from the library that the internet seemed to like. I believe it can be classified as a romance book, so we’ll see how it goes.

Last Last Year in New England [2023]

It was only when I went to write my 2024 recap post that I realized/remembered that I never wrote my 2023 post. I have monthly posts for most of the year, but for the sake of completeness, I wanted to get this post out, since I have one for every year since 2017. [Monthly posts can be found here: March April May June July August September October November December.]

The year began in January, as it does. There was at least one day that snowed enough to need to shovel the driveway. Before the end of the month, I finished what I started during NaNoWriMo 2022, writing the conclusion to the first draft of my novel and bringing it to a total of 74,747 words. I also made it to the end of the Mighty Nein’s adventures in campaign 2 of Critical Role, renewed my driver’s license, and baked Linzer cookies.

In February, I read Crying in H Mart, watched Jane the Virgin and Everything Everywhere All at Once, and baked a wool roll with a strawberry and lime cream cheese filling. I cross stitched a dragon that still needs to be delivered to a friend, raked leaves, shoveled snow, and made a birthday Prinsesstarta from the Great British Bake Off’s The Big Book of Amazing Cakes. My verdict: it’s a lot of work for a good, but not amazing, tasting cake. And the Revolution began their 28th season in MLS with an away win in Charlotte (North Carolina).

The tomato seedlings were started in March. In between job interviews, I solved a jungle puzzle, a Rubik’s cube puzzle, and a puzzle of a horse and a barn. I watched Derry Girls and Galaxy Quest, finished the cross stitching on the dragon (back stitching still to come), and rolled some sushi.

April was tax month. I guess the big news for the month is that I received a job offer, accepted the job offer, and started work. Right before losing all my free time, I went for one last hike up Mount Watatic, which has a fairly high view to effort ratio. I began watching Friday Night Lights and reading The Night Circus, baked a peanut butter cake, and got to watch the Revolution survive their first 2023 Open Cup match.

Clockwise from top left: January - snow, February - the Prinsesstarta (sponge cake layered with pastry cream and blackberry apple jam, covered in whipped cream, covered in marzipan), March - the Rubik's Zigzaw, April - penguin at the MA/NH state line after the descent from Watatic

During May, I settled into work, and performed a TFF process, was introduced to the AKTA, made a lot of buffers, and organized the lab’s collection of tiny plastic parts (mostly for the AKTAs). We tried playing pickleball, the tomatoes made it into the raised bed outside, and I worked on my LEGO Millenium Falcon. At the end of the month, I went into Boston to see some Cornell friends and spend a day wandering the city since it had been awhile.

With a whole 6 weeks of experience, I was left co-in charge of a client run involving multiple chromatography columns, membranes, filters, and concentrations at the start of June. I also bought a new phone to go with the new stalker watch (Garmin Forerunner 45S) that I got last month, made it through A Storm of Swords, baked pecan rolls, saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie, got out for a hike at the town forest, and started in on season 19 of Grey’s Anatomy.

In between rain showers and storms, we managed to hike every weekend in July, mostly visiting nearby trails. I got a milkshake from Shake Shack, finished Daisy Jones & The Six and started The Courtship of Princess Leia, watched the MLS All Stars lose 0-5 to Arsenal, and went blueberry and raspberry picking and made a birthday blueberry lemon pound cake. At work, we prepared for a large scale run by making buffers in barrels and packing our big column.

August 2023 is a month that will live on in infamy at my office because after surviving our large-scale run, doing it again the next week, and starting take three, half the company caught Covid from management. Before that, there were a few hikes when it wasn’t raining, I ate some chocolate hummus, tomato harvest began, and I read more Star Wars books. By this point in the year, the Revolution were embroiled in Bruce Arena drama and beginning their slide down the standings.

Clockwise from top left: May - swan boats at the Boston Public Garden, June - ghost pipe seen while hiking, July - raspberries, August - tomatoes

Thankfully, September was a less eventful month. We went to see an outdoor art exhibit, and to the Big E (New England’s state fair for all six states) for the first time. Free Friday lunch at work was cancelled, then not cancelled, then kind of cancelled indefinitely. I made a quiche to make a dent in the piles of tomatoes coming out of the garden, baked a chocolate cake in the instant pot, and we played 7 Wonders, a favorite of some of my college friends.

At the beginning of October, we went apple picking, and I started fall color watch, eventually getting one of my favorite fall color photos in the middle of the month. We hiked an 8-mile 6-mile loop around a lake and spent a day at World’s End. I saw a Cornell ChemE friend for the first time in years, raked, finished the backstitching on the cross stitch dragon, and had a fall party with coworkers.

I was left unattended at home for most of November. At work, we simultaneously executed another large scale run and design of experiment (DoE) runs. Outside of work, I went to Tower Hill for Gnomevember, made waffles, and celebrated Thanksgiving with all-sides Thanksgiving (mashed potatoes, stuffing, steamed broccoli, and cranberry sauce).

In December, we had one last run for the year for one of our clients, but got into the holiday spirit with our holiday party and Yankee swap. I also baked gingerbread dinosaurs, made cross stitch post-Christmas Christmas gifts, for some reason thought it was a good idea to do a puzzle of a bottle of sriracha, and almost caught up with campaign 3 of Critical Role.

Clockwise from top left: September - The Big E, October - fall colors, November - steampunk gnome, December - gingerbread dinosaurs (and snickerdoodles)

That was 2023. I’m sure I missed some details, which is what happens when you’re writing two years later, but I think I got all of the highlights and lowlights.

I ran out of puzzle puns (for now) [character/IP puzzles]

It’s me, slipping back in before the new year to review some puzzles, in this case a few puzzles with characters from various franchises. The puzzles were completed between June 2022 and October 2023 and range from 300 to 3000 pieces.

First up is a puzzle of the Mandalorian and his baby alien Grogu hanging out in the Razor Crest. I solved this puzzle well before seeing The Mandalorian, but I’ve since seen the first season and enjoyed it. The puzzle is a 1000-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games, maker of jigsaw puzzles and board games since 1986. It was a fairly straightforward assembly, a bit on the dark side but with enough color variation and texture to not require resorting to shape sorting or brute force trial and error. Buffalo Games puzzles are often found at stores like Target and Walmart, and tend to be slightly cheaper than puzzles from dedicated manufacturers such as Ravensburger or White Mountain Puzzles (sub-$20 vs. $20-$25 for 1000-piece puzzles). The quality is good but not amazing, and pieces fit together tightly enough to pick up sections of the puzzle, maybe the whole puzzle if you’re careful. You may get some pieces that feel like false fits, but looking more carefully at the pieces is enough to see if they really go together or not.

 

Mandalorian and Child

Next on the list was Hidden Cows, featuring hidden (and not so hidden) cows in a Sandra Boynton illustration. This was a fun solve, on the easier side thanks to all the colors and clear lines, and it was borrowed from the library. The puzzle comes from Workman Puzzles, started in 2020 as a branch of Workman Publishing Company, which was founded in 1968 but as of 2021 is now part of Hachette Book Group, one of the “big five” publishers.

Hidden Cows

The largest puzzle (by number of pieces) I’ve ever solved is this 3000-piece puzzle of Marvel superheroes. It was another loan from the library, and is produced by Aquarius Puzzles, who seem to specialize in licensed puzzles (they’ve also got a couple Star Trek puzzles and some Lord of the Rings puzzles). Quality is similar to Buffalo Games puzzles, so quite reasonable for the price point. As is fairly typical for these kinds of images, the dark parts with seemingly random lines and body parts dragged a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. In the end, it took 9 or 10 days to finish, compared to 2-3 days for a similar image on a 1000-piece puzzle, so time scaled pretty linearly with number of pieces.

Marvel Cast

And the largest puzzle is followed by the smallest puzzle of this group, a 300-piece puzzle of scenes from The Office. It was a very fast solve on a Saturday morning, pretty average in terms of quality, and fun for fans of the show. From what I can tell, the puzzle is made by the New York-based Cardinal Games, but there doesn’t seem to be much information about this company. Overall, this was an entertaining group of puzzles, and I actually just finished another Star Wars puzzle, but it’ll have to wait until next time.

Scenes from The Office

The Year in New England [2024]

Hello there! Well, 2024 happened. So did 2023. I would still like to go back and write about some of the things that happened, but we’ll see if that ends up getting done. For now, here’s the yearly overview of the things I read, watched, made, and did in 2024.

In January, there was one hike in unseasonably nice weather, snow, and one hike in the snow, within a period of four days. I finished my last post-Christmas Christmas gift for my coworkers (a cross stitch of peppers, pattern provided free by DMC), we played a new-to-us board game (Forbidden Desert), and I baked a matcha Swiss roll and my yearly batch of pecan rolls. After putting it off for some time, I committed to watching the first arc of La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) (in Spanish with English subtitles), and picked up Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree and Ted Chiang’s Exhalation: Stories at the library.

February in New England was cold, dark, and depressing as usual, but eventful because I said farewell to my foot mole. Dermatology wanted it gone, so right after Valentine’s Day podiatry sliced out an inch of my foot, I wasn’t allowed to put weight on that foot for a couple weeks, then I had a very cool Frankenfoot (seven stitches) for a few more weeks after. I also tried a new thumbprint cookie recipe, finished another cross stitch project, read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and watched the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. Mixed feelings about Discovery, but mostly positive, I think.

As some semblance of warmth returned in March, we got out for a couple hikes. I filed my taxes slightly early for me, finally made the Wellesley fudge cake I meant to make for my birthday last year, and assembled some knock-off not-LEGO flowers. Knock-off LEGO has come a long way, but still doesn’t quite compare to the real thing. Barbie showed up at the library, so I finally got to watch and enjoy the movie. At work, we turned over 60 L of cell juice from upstream into 10 g of protein in seven days.

For a very late birthday present, I took my mother and a friend to a paint bar in April. Later in the month, after seeing other people post about it, we went tulip picking. There was also eclipse day, and I completed the last cross stitch in a set of three that I’d originally started back in Ann Arbor. Last minute, I decided I did want a garden this year and started the tomato seeds way too late.

Clockwise from top left: January - snow along the reservoir, February - thumbprint cookies, March - trees on a hike, April - tulips

In May, we went to Dam Day at Wachusett, one of two days in the year that people are allowed to walk on the Wachusett Dam. After some delay, a boardwalk trail finally opened nearby, so we went to check it out one weekend. I continued my delayed media consumption with season one of The Mandalorian, which I liked, and Lessons in Chemistry, which I have to give a very mixed review.

Unlike last year, it did not rain almost every weekend all summer, so we got outside every weekend in June. There was a day trip to Quabbin Park, strawberry picking, Art on the Trails at a local park, and a visit to the botanical garden at Tower Hill.

We celebrated the 4th of July by hiking at Wachusett, then continued the summer of activities with blueberry picking, a day at Purgatory Chasm, and a trip to Revere Beach for the annual sandcastle competition. For a birthday, I baked my best-ever sponge cake for a Japanese strawberry shortcake that turned out delicious. On the library front, I continued my slow way through Terry Pratchett’s Discworld with the next night watch book, Night Watch. In the garden, I harvested my first zucchini.

In August, we visited Moore State Park (it frequently comes up in lists of places to visit in central Massachusetts) and spent a day at the beach in Salisbury. In the second half of the month, my at least second favorite brother came to visit. We spent a week at Acadia and hiked a lot, ending up covering over 130,000 steps or a little over 55 miles. The tomatoes from my one volunteer tomato plant that ended up growing this year were coming in in earnest, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making It So.

Clockwise from top left: May - Dam Day, June - Quabbin Reservoir, July - blueberries, August - Cadillac Mountain

I was allowed sent to attend BPI East in September, my first conference since grad school. It was held at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, and we got to go to the Museum of Science as our “scientists can have fun too” activity. We went for a first round of apple picking, and I baked a belated birthday key lime pie.

October always brings on the hunt for fall colors. I did some exploration around the reservoir, and we hiked Mount Watatic and a hill a few towns over. As it got cold, we officially pulled up the garden for the year, closing out this year’s harvest list at arugula, baby bok choy, green beans, red peppers, orange lunchbox peppers, habanero peppers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of other unsuccessful tomatoes. Additionally, I completed my next cross stitch project, an anatomical heart, baked a birthday German chocolate cake, picked apples (again), and went bowling with my company for our fall outing. I watched The Big Year, This is Us, and Over the Garden Wall, all of which I would recommend, but for very different reasons and probably audiences, unless you’re me.

On Halloween, with unseasonably warm temperatures in the forecast, we took an impromptu road trip to Cape Cod, seeing in the first day of November with sunrise on the beach. We saw a bunch of lighthouses, hiked Great Island, and got a nice dose of coarse, rough, irritating sand that gets everywhere. As the days really started to shorten and cool, there was less hiking, but we did make it to Tower Hill for Gnomevember. And also I built a k’nex roller coaster.

Finally, that brings us to December. Earlier in the month, we went to see lights at Tower Hill, and there was one day warm enough for me to take a 7.7 mile walk up the aqueduct. At work, we had our annual Yankee Swap, and we celebrated the company’s 10 year anniversary at Top Golf. Now it’s Christmas Eve, it’s cold out, and there’s snow on the ground. We’ll see what 2025 brings, but for now, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to all!

Clockwise from top left: September - Musuem of Science, October - fall colors, December - lights at Tower Hill, November - sunrise on the beach

What I Watched in 2023

I watched more TV than I originally thought in 2023, though the list looks long because a good amount of it was shorter series than I usually get into. There were a few movies as well, but I have not seen Barbie (or Oppenheimer) yet. Here are the highlights, a lowlight, and some quick-ish reviews.

Movies:
Thor: Love and Thunder – I know people hated this movie, but I liked it. It was ridiculous, which I’m fine with after the conclusion of the Infinity Saga with Avengers: Endgame.

Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Enjoyed both installments. The plots held up well enough, and the casting was solid.

Galaxy Quest – A movie making fun of Star Trek that could only have been made by people who love Star Trek. By Grabthar’s hammer, never give up; never surrender.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – A good adaption of a tabletop RPG to a movie, with enough nods to D&D mechanics without getting bogged down in dice rolls and rules lawyering. The “speak with dead” scene was particularly funny.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. – Though I never read the book, I thought the movie was good.

Jungle Cruise and Sonic the Hedgehog/Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Perfectly fine adaptations of a Disney ride and a videogame. I like watching them even if they’re a bit forgettable.

Blue People Avatar 2 Avatar: The Way of Water – The cinematography was great; I hate Jake Sully so much I wanted the comically evil antienvironment military zealots to turn Pandora into a strip mine and/or desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland.

TV shows:
Jane the Virgin (S3-5) – Especially liked the telenovela aspects and Petra’s character arc, but Rafael’s role too often felt like “hot rich guy” with no other personality traits, and I wanted more for Michael.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (S2) – It’s growing on me; I’m mainly just annoyed that of all the ships in Starfleet, Mariner ended up on that specific ship with that specific captain, when their personal relationship clearly affects the professional lives of the rest of the crew.

Wednesday – Wednesday’s teenage angst would have been an interesting jumping off point for the show, but part of what makes the movies so good is that everybody around the Addams family is completely, 100% normal, and they’re weird, but not edgy. It was too much of a character departure for me to fully enjoy the show.

Somebody Feed Phil (S4-6) – More food, more travel.

New Amsterdam (S5) – A not-entirely satisfying conclusion to the show. The main character was marginally less annoying than in previous seasons; the supporting characters were generally more interesting.

Game of Thrones (S1) – The books are better. Same amount of incest and decapitations, less backstory and details that fill out the world of Westeros.

The Chair – The parts about women in academia were good, but it felt like they tried to do too much with the rest of the show.

Derry Girls – Catholic school shenanigans in 1990s Ireland. One of my favorite watches of the year.

Bojack Horseman (S1) – Don’t like the animation style, also a bit depressing to watch for too long, but I might come back to the show because of the character development.

Heartstopper – Good adaptation of the comic.

Friday Night Lights – I do like a good sports movie/show. More optimistic and less racist than the book.

Heartland (S15) – Continuation of the series; more settled than the previous season.

Grey’s Anatomy (S19) – The drama at Grey Sloan just keeps on going.

The Baby-Sitters Club – Never read the books, but I liked this series.

Pokémon Indigo League – Surprisingly clever writing for a kids show, even if the plotlines are nothing to write home about. And Team Rocket make excellent dumb sometimes villains.

Great British Bake Off (S14) – A more grounded season than they’ve had the past couple years.

XO, Kitty – A spin off series from the To All the Boys movies featuring Lara Jean’s younger sister Kitty. The drama was sometimes a bit over the top, but overall a cute show.

Anne with an E – Inspired by the Anne books, an exploration of the darker aspects of Anne’s story. I thought they stayed true to the characters, if not the plot, and I liked the depth they added to some of the characters, particularly Diana and her Aunt Josephine.

The Dragon Prince (S1/2) – Often recommended after watching Avatar (A:TLA), but I’m still not sure how I feel about this show, and using Sokka’s voice actor as one of the main characters is distracting if you watch it right after A:TLA.

The Good Place (S1) – Another show I’m withholding judgement on until I get farther into it. The last episode of season 1 makes it worth it, but I still haven’t really gotten into the show.

Overall, I was disappointed the most by Wednesday and The Dragon Prince, and my favorite watches of the year were Lower Decks, Derry Girls, Bake Off, and Anne with an E.

What I Read in 2023

2023 felt like another kind of strange year for reading. I read 38 books for the first time, reread another half dozen or so, and read some in print for the first time (originally read in webcomic form). I did read a single nonfiction book, plus two memoirs, three additional graphic memoirs, and a semi-autobiographical short story collection. There were 19 graphic novels, 4 romances, 2 short story/novella collections, an epistolatory novel, a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, and only one vampire book.¹ Goodreads tells me that I read over 12,000 pages (first time reads only), the longest book was George R. R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings, and my most shelved book was Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

¹Nonfiction: Mother Tongue (Bill Bryson)
Memoirs: Lab Girl (Hope Jahren), Crying in H Mart (Michelle Zauner)
Graphic memoirs: Sunshine (Jarrett J. Krosoczka), Almost American Girl (Robin Ha),
    ¡Ay, Mija! (Christine Suggs)
Semi-autobiographical short stories: A River Runs Through It (Norman Maclean)
(Science) romances: The Love Hypothesis, Love on the Brain, 

    Loathe to Love You (Ali Hazelwood), The Soulmate Equation (Christina Lauren)
Short stories/novellas: A River Runs Through It (Norman Maclean), 

    Loathe to Love You (Ali Hazelwood)
Epistolatory (email) novel: Dear Committee Members (Julie Schumacher)
Vampire book: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (Stephenie Meyer)

Some notable reads:
A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords (George R. R. Martin) (A Song of Ice and Fire [ASOIAF] books 2 and 3) – Westeros is at war – there are too many kings and their armies are wreaking havoc across the continent. The Stark children are mostly missing, scattered from the Wall to King’s Landing. Meanwhile, Daenerys plots from across the Narrow Sea and something’s brewing north of the Wall. Despite their length and number of characters/plots, the ASOIAF books (to this point) are surprisingly readable and not excessively convoluted to follow. I’ve enjoyed this fantasy series so far.

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern) – The general consensus on this book is that the descriptive passages are magical, the plot somewhat less so. The premise is that there’s a travelling circus that appears, operates at night, and has the most incredible exhibits in its tents, then it disappears, perhaps not to return for years. The mystery of the circus is revealed throughout the book, and I do think the plot gets a little weird at the end, but the writing is worth it.

Daisy Jones & The Six (Taylor Jenkins Reid) – I’m a fan of mockumentaries, so I maybe shouldn’t have been as surprised that I liked this book as much as I did. Presented as an oral history, primarily featuring quotes from interviews of band members and those close to them, Daisy Jones & The Six follows the rise and fall of the band – how they came together, wrote a wildly successful album, and what led to them eventually going their separate ways. The author has talked about the story being inspired by Fleetwood Mac.

Mistborn: The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages (Brandon Sanderson) – Less of a commitment than The Stormlight Archive or The Wheel of Time, Mistborn was a good introduction to Sanderson’s work. The (first) trilogy takes place in a world where plants are brown, ash falls from the sky, and mists come at night and certain people, Allomancers, can use metals to gain different abilities. The first book is overall a heist novel, the second is more political, and the third turns philosophical. The world is built well, with varied characters, though the conclusion is a bit deus ex machina-y.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Café (Toshikazu Kawaguchi) – An interesting take on time travel, where patrons of a café are allowed to go back in time, but only at one table in the café that they can’t get up from, and their stay is limited to the amount of time it takes a cup of coffee to get cold. The books are translated from Japanese, so the writing doesn’t always flow perfectly, but that’s not necessarily a negative for a translated novel.

The Sandman: Season of Mists and A Game of You (Neil Gaiman) – The Sandman continues with Morpheus taking a trip to Hell to see his ex, only to find the realm abandoned and having to deal with the consequences of that, then New Yorker Barbie travels to her magical dream realm to save it from the Cuckoo. A step removed from the real world, as befits the Lord of the Dreaming.

Sunshine (Jarrett J. Krosoczka) – It’s about a camp for children with cancer and their families, so of course it was going to be sad, but also poignant. Based on the author’s actual experiences.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise, The Search, and The Rift (Gene Luen Yang) – After Aang saves the world, Team Avatar still has a lot of work to do. Aang and Zuko must figure out how to rule a Fire Nation colony in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko looks for his mother, and Toph faces her family. The author did a good job continuing the story and portraying the characters.

Star Wars – Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn), The Courtship of Princess Leia (Dave Wolverton), the Jedi Academy trilogy (Jedi Search, Dark Apprentice, Champions of the Force) (Kevin J. Anderson) – The Star Wars books I read in this year featured the emergence of Thrawn, Han chasing Leia to a planet of force witches, and Luke’s quest to establish an academy to begin teaching the next generation of Jedi. Everything was readable, if nothing spectacular.

1 Day, 1 Sentence [December 2023]

Made it to another December. The weather remained unseasonably warm, and life doing contract work continued, with busy weeks and less busy weeks.

Friday, December 1 – I needed to start using up PTO, so I stayed at work long enough to stop the reaction from the previous night, clean up the lab for the week, attend a meeting, and take a walk to the bagel place before heading off to buy craft supplies and groceries.

Saturday, December 2 – Worked on a jigsaw puzzle most of the morning before convincing myself to leave the house to stop by the library and then do some raking.

Sunday, December 3 – Figured I should probably start going through the year’s photos if I wanted to get a calendar together for 2024.

Monday, December 4 – Ended up spending most of the day troubleshooting our AKTAs, then had instant noodles for dinner for the first time in a good while.

Tuesday, December 5 – Supervised what should have been a relatively simple day of column packing that turned into a bizarre host of problems plaguing multiple columns and AKTAs, and finally got around to roasting a bunch of potatoes/carrots and making a sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows).

Wednesday, December 6 – Column packing continued, somehow turning into an all-hands-on-deck situation for the downstream team.

Thursday, December 7 – Finally got the columns packed and qualified.

Friday, December 8 – Another half day at work followed by Wegmans.

Saturday, December 9 – Finished the puzzle of a bottle of sriracha that I’d been working on since before Thanksgiving and baked a batch of dinosaur-shaped gingerbread cookies and a batch of snickerdoodles.

Sunday, December 10 – Wanted to make stuffed peppers without actually having to deal with stuffing peppers, so instead dumped a bunch of pepper chunks into the toaster oven and cooked rice and ground beef separately; also got the 2024 calendar ordered.

 

Sriracha puzzle

Monday, December 11 – Got pulled into a bunch of meetings at work.

Tuesday, December 12 – Had to update sampling plans and finalize batch records for the run I was about to lead, attended more meetings, then went home for a dumpling making class held via Zoom by the library and made dumplings.

Wednesday, December 13 – TFF (tangential flow filtration) day proceeded without major issue, but I ended up working late extracting the sampling plan from old batch records for our other project.

Thursday, December 14 – Played chauffeur again to collect my parents from the bus station.

Friday, December 15 – Bagel day – I tried a cinnamon crunch bagel with honey walnut cream cheese.

Saturday, December 16 – Stalked Amazon looking for a LEGO set that was about to be discontinued.

Sunday, December 17 – Worked on finishing cross stitch projects (cutting/edging).

Monday, December 18 – Started the first column of the run.

Tuesday, December 19 – Completed the longest unit operation of the run – 14 hours (7 am to 9 pm) from prep to clean up.

Wednesday, December 20 – Got to eat leftover pepperoni pizza for lunch (and performed the next two steps of the run).

 

Gingerbread dinosaurs and snickerdoodles

Thursday, December 21 – Managed to finish the last purification step before the company holiday lunch and Yankee swap, then decided to undergo another 14-hour day to finish concentration and wrap up the run so there wouldn’t be any lab work on Friday.

Friday, December 22 – Checked batch records and closed out the lab for the week.

Saturday, December 23 – Baked cranberry orange bread.

Sunday, December 24 – Had a Christmas Eve lunch of bagels and a Christmas Eve dinner of pork ribs.

Monday, December 25 – Celebrated Christmas by matting and framing most of the Christmas cross stitch gifts, working on stitching the last gift (almost caught up with Critical Role campaign 3), doing laundry, and using the chain saw on some trees that fell the previous week.

Tuesday, December 26 – Quiet day at work, giving me the chance to finally organize some files on the lab computers.

Wednesday, December 27 – Continued with the file organization and had a string cheese snack.

Thursday, December 28 – More PTO, so I cross stitched and started trying to catch up on the blog.

Friday, December 29 – Cleared out the last of my PTO that wouldn’t carry over to next year, and used it to go grocery shopping, take a walk, cross stitch, bake a flourless chocolate cake, and write some more.

Saturday, December 30 – Made the ganache for the cake, went to the library, and finished season 1 of The Good Place.

 

Cross stitch plant

Sunday, December 31 – Last day of the year – didn’t quite finish The Hero of Ages (the last Mistborn book in the first trilogy), had orange chicken for lunch, didn’t quite finish my last cross stitch gift, ate a small banana, and was up at midnight to bring in the new year not quite catching up on my monthly blog posts, so business as usual for my life.

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.