Scary

As you can see, I am in serious need of cable tv. Or an antenna that costs more than $9.99.

Last Sunday I was bored, so I read the synopses of all of the episodes of the tv series "Lost" (which I had never seen before.) Last night I watched it for the first time. I didn't realize that the show is actually pretty scary. And I'm not good at scary. When I watch scary movies, I spend most of the scary scenes with my eyes closed and/or ears plugged. Last night I kept muting the scary music because I couldn't handle the suspense, but I kept going because I really wanted to know what was in the hatch.

After Lost, I left the TV on so that I could get unscared, only to get drawn into the premiere of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers type show that only intensified my feelings (again, there was a lot of muting of scary music). I finally calmed myself down by watching the news (because the lack of scary music on the news makes real hurricanes seem a lot less scary than hurricanes caused by aliens to hide their secret landing).

By the time I went to bed, I was able to fall asleep. Because I knew that if anyone tried to get me, I would wake up and spray them with the trusty can of mace that sits on my nightstand. Ooo-Yeah!

Early Risers

I have to teach a phd student seminar in which we discuss a paper that will be presented by a guest speaker later in the day at a research workshop. We are having problems finding a time on Friday morning when the seven students can come, and it looks like we are going to have to have it at 9am. That right, 9 A M. I gave them the option of doing it sometime on Thursday afternoon/evening, but they chose 9am. Where did these people learn to be grad students, anyway? They obviously aren't being socialized properly.

My advisor never came in before 11am and never wanted to see me until 4pm. Ah, the idyllic days of yore. The only thing that gets me to work before 11am now is the fear of having to park a mile away.

Leaving Well Enough Alone

I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I occasionally go back to my old posts and revise them because I decide that what I wrote was stupid. Why? Well, when our blog becomes famous and people start reading the old posts because they just can't get enough of us, I don't want them to think I'm stupid. Why do I always think I'm stupid? One of the requirements for grad school is that you check your self esteem at the door. I turned in my dissertation three weeks ago, so I'm waiting to start feeling smart and capable again. Waiting. Waiting.

Every day for the last three years I've wondered what it would feel like to turn in my dissertation and turn off the constant nagging voice in my head that was always telling me I needed to work on it. Not that I listened to it - but it was always there, like an old friend. Well, now I know. I miss it. I need a project. Yesterday I was thinking that maybe I should learn to knit. Six months ago, I would never have considered knitting/crocheting/embroidering/sewing anything unless WalMart-seeking missiles destroyed all of the cheap textile goods in our country. (Not that I buy my clothes at WalMart, but you get the idea).

Today I decided that I will study for my Ham Radio license, which, according to my husband makes me the queen of the übernerds. We'll see who's calling who a nerd when I save us by calling for help when an earthquake cuts off all phone communications.

Candy

I don't have a wireless router, so I have to string a cable to my living room so that I can surf while I lay on the couch. Why don't I have a wireless router? Because it's one of the many things that Ed already has but is currently using in Maryland. And if I buy one, I won't need it when he moves here in March. So I tell myself I can just tough it out until then. I gave in and bought a TV because I knew I couldn't last until March without one. I bought an $8 toaster at Target because Ed has a nice toaster oven. I chop my vegies by hand because Ed has a food processor. Just kidding. I haven't eaten any vegies since the first week I lived here. The ones I bought on my initial "stock the fridge" shopping trip are mostly rotting in the vegie drawer. That's my guess, anyway. I haven't really checked on them for a month or so, so I can't say for sure.

I was watching an infomercial about some diet where you pay $300/month and they bring you food every week (I was too lazy to change the channel. And I only get 2 channels anyway, so the likelihood that the other channel was showing anything better at that time of day was small.) The food didn't look too bad, and I actually considered it. Not because I want to go on a diet (which I don't) but because someone else would bring meals to my house and all I would have to do is heat them up. Then I thought about how I have a whole freezer full of Trader Joe's frozen food that just needs to be heated up, but I don't eat it because it all takes an hour to cook and I just never feel like waiting that long (I already ate everything that can be cooked in less than 15 minutes). Instead, I eat Easy Mac (yes, it's microwave macaroni and cheese - 4 minutes), cheese and crackers (15 seconds prep time), Power Bars (Cookies and Cream is my flavor of choice lately) and candy (Long's drugstore had big boxes of Hot Tamales on sale for 79 cents. I bought them all.) I know I should be eating better, but IT'S JUST TOO HARD. I need my husband to get over here and cook for me. Husband, are you reading this???

Go Cal!

I went to my first Cal football game yesterday with a friend of mine who is an alumnus and has season's tickets. It was really fun. We were down 7-17 at half time, but came back with some exciting plays to win 35-20 (we were playing Illinois). I even managed to produce a couple of pieces of Berkeley clothing to wear to the game. The only disappointment is that our cheerleaders don't do ridiculously dangerous stunts. I had to watch the Illinois cheerleaders to get my fill.

My friend was determined to show me as much Berkeley coolness as possible. We parked in the secret faculty parking lot right across from the stadium (wahahaha) and then ate lunch at Top Dog. After the game we got candy at the campus bookstore and then walked down Telegraph. It was all very cool and fun.

I am now beginning to understand the level of anti-Stanford sentiment that floats around here. When everyone shouted "blue!" over the word 'red' during the national anthem (...and the rockets' red glare....) I thought hmmm. Then I started seeing a lot of anti-stanford slogans on the student's shirts (we were sitting next to the student section). When some poor guy showed up with a red hat and all of a sudden 100 people were pointing at him and chanting "Take off that red hat!", I realized that I am firmly entrenched in bear territory. I never got the sense that Stanford students went to that much trouble to hate Cal. (I only went to one football game, so maybe I missed a lot of anti-Cal antics, but I did go to a lot of basketball games and I didn't see any there). So now I understand that people are really sizing me up when they ask me suspiciously, "So how was it coming from Stanford to Cal?" I might have to change my answer from "Fine" to "Stanford? I hated every second. The palm trees, the club-med atmosphere, the beautiful weather, the air conditioning - It's nothing but a breeding ground for sissies."

Reality TV and Jeopardy

Do you ever find yourself wondering, "why do dead bodies always float face down?" Well, here's your answer:
Why do dead bodies float face down

I finally got a TV yesterday and yes, it has changed my life from a lonely silent existence to a life full of talking heads and reality tv. Last night I watched Couples Fear Factor. The first stunt was a physical activity where the man and woman held on to opposite ends of a rope while hanging by their ankles at opposite ends of a beam while the beam spun around faster and faster. It kept going until one of them let go of the rope, which made them both fall in the water. Because of the setup, the force exerted by the rope on each of them was proportional to the body weight of the other person. In other words, the women were at a huge disadvantage because they were all smaller than the men. Immediately afterwards in the boat that picked them up, the men were huge jerks - all but one of them were ripping into the woman for letting go. In reality, once the force (which was increasing with the speed of the spinning) exceeded her grip strength, the rope would slide out of her hands - none of them just let go.

Fortunately, several of the women were vindicated during the next stunt when they had to use their mouths to find coins in pies made of maggots and stuff, and then drink a shake made of ground maggots, duck heart, etc. One of the mean guys threw up, which almost got them kicked out and another guy couldn't drink the shake (they were drinking it together, so the woman drank most of it). Sissies.

I always assumed that they made sure that the stunts had no potential dangerous health effects. (I mean, is it reallly safe to eat live maggots?) But then I read a New Yorker article about leeches in which someone from a leech farm said that Fear Factor had contacted them about buying some leeches, but never asked if they were safe to eat.

You will not be seeing Ed and me on that show anytime soon. But if you tune into Jeopardy tonight, you will see our friend Michael Shirts go up against a guy whose been on for 15 or so episodes.

Puppies, Babies, and Countertops

Check out this great post about raising puppies (and kids): Mormon Mommy Wars. I know my kids are going to realize right away that I can't actually force them to do anything and then they will never mind me again.

On a mostly unrelated note, we didn't have enough storage space in our kitchen, so we bought a modular cabinet from Ikea (you pick out the countertop and cabinet separately). We picked a nice looking wood countertop only to find out that we had to cut it down to size ourselves. Ok, fine. We're mormon - it only took 10 minutes at church to find a retired guy with a saw who was happy to help us. Then they gave us the wrong sized cabinet - so we had to brave Ikea on Labor Day. Yes, it was my worst shopping nightmare come true.

We finally got the cabinet put together and were trying to figure out how to attach the countertop when we read in the instructions that we have to buy a special Ikea oil and treat it every three days for 2 months. Not only did I have to go back to Ikea AGAIN, but now I have needy countertop. "Um, no, I can't come over tonight. I have to oil my countertop."

After the first couple of treatments, I have to admit that the oiled wood is looking very spiffy. When I get my house cleaned up, I'll take pictures for you guys.

The saga that is my knee...

So we removed the hardware (good) and put my knee back together. It was healing along seemingly well. But Monday it started to hurt in a certain spot, and it just got worse every day. By Wednesday evening I had started to get worried. Since it was not better Thursday I made an appointment to go in. This is what it looked like:


Does this look infected to you?

A big red spot, kind of swollen and sensitive. Suggestive of an infection if you ask me. I was fully expecting antibiotics...however, when the nurse practicioner took a look at it, she said that she wasn't sure (since there was no puss). She thought that it might just be inflamed. She said that I should just watch it, and if it got worse come back. (Note this is Thursday--right before a long weekend). Apparently it just wasn't bad enough yet...


If the red gets beyond the black lines, then we panic...


They drew these lines on it and said that if the red gets outside the lines to come back...and by the way, not to worry, there is a doctor on call over the weekend...
Somehow, this was, to me, a fairly disappointing response. I mean, it hurts plenty--I don't particularly want to wait for it to get worse...

meanwhile, this morning--it looks the same. Not worse so I can go get it fixed, but certainly no better...

Arg-Medicine can be so frustrating--there just isn't that much which they know with certainty.

Done at Last

Great new look for the blog.

I turned in my dissertation to the Stanford registrar today. Then I tried to drive home, but my car overheated. Since we are planning to buy a new car this weekend, I seriously considered renting a car and abandoning mine if the repairs were going to be expensive. Luckily, I was only half a mile away from the Barron Park Shell in Palo Alto, where I had taken the car before, and they were nice enough to look at it immediately. Thirty minutes later, they told me that my coolant was low, that they had topped it off, and that it was running fine now. They also tested the system, but there were no leaks. When I asked if it was low because I suck at maintaining my car, the mechanic just gave me a look that said "You know it, baby."

In the meantime, I missed my office hours.

Then I drove to my old roommate's house to sit on her porch and check my email, only to find a pile of emails from my students who can't get the book to do the homework that's due tomorrow. I call the bookstore and find out that they are out of the 70 copies they ordered, but will order more right away. 70? There are 170 students in the class. Ok. I have 100 students without a book and there is homework due tomorrow. No problemo.

So I called my assistant and had him make copies of the chapter they are supposed to read for the next two class periods and I sent out an email to the class telling them they can get it from him. Five seconds later, the email comes bouncing back, telling me that I don't have permission to post to that email list. HELLO. I'M THE PROFESSOR.

I'm sure I will get the hang of Berkeley bureaucracy soon enough. In the meantime, I'm just glad I got my car fixed and got home. And I'm glad my office doesn't face the field where the marching band practices every afternoon, so that I can only hear them faintly instead of full blast.

gas prices

First I must say though: oooooo pretty. :) I like the new look for our blog.

Now, to the gas prices. So I take the train and bus to work. On the way, I pass by 2 gass stations right next to each other. They were selling regular for 3.29, plus for 3.39 and premium for 3.49.

So, what are prices like in CA?

The funniest thing was the reaction of the people on the bus. I heard at least 3 people gasp out "And there are still people filling up!" hehe. Public transportation users are funny.

I will post a pic soon. (Must go home and take one first).

Enabled comments...

Ok, I've enabled comments. That is a really different process than last time I did it. Now you can just click a button--no more inserting the correct HTML code into the right place...So much for my learn HTML goal.

Devin--You need to post a pic with your new hair.

Nikki--the really easy way to post a pic is simply to hit the landscape picture above when you are making a new comment. It will allow you to browse on your computer and find a picture to put up.

Work email is indeed a tricky line to walk. You don't want them to be overly long and hence annoying, in fact you would like them to be short and humorous--but it is hard to do funny over email at all- and then in an 'official capacity' and to people that you don't know, it is almost hopeless--but press forward--I believe in you!

Hi again. My usual randomness:

Very cute picture and a good idea. I'm not good with title ideas...

I'm totally obsessed with wedding photo albums now. I guess since the wedding itself is over, this is my next thing. But we haven't even gotten our pictures yet! It will be much easier to be obsessed once we get pictures. :)

Apparently a family friend (very very rich and really into photography) made an amazing album with 8x10s from the wedding (the type of album where each picture is matted) and framed 3 8x10s and gave all of that to my parents, plus a few extras. My mom sent me 4 prints but I really want to see the rest of the stuff. I feel like we got the leftovers. :) Of course, the leftovers were very nice too.

Our other "hobby" is unpacking wedding presents and packing away all our old stuff. We're making really good progress. We're going to have to make a trip to a thrift store soon - we have *so* much stuff to donate. If you know anyone in Boston who needs house/apartment stuff (luggage, pots and pans, plate sets, kitchen appliances, bakeware, glassware, silverware - we've got it all) let us know.

Oh, and I'm doing this introductory Accounting workbook. It's so much fun!!! It's like doing homework. I love homework.

(I did chop my hair off 3 days after we got back from the honeymoon, but I haven't done it again since then (dispite a few urges))

Suggestions for the new subtitle of our blog:

Three married women. Three jobs. Zero babies.

or

Three weddings. Three haircuts. (Devin, have you chopped your hair off yet?)

or

Something to do while we're supposed to be working.


And with that, I have to get back to work.

Proofread BEFORE you send

I sent an email to someone in the copy/printer place, asking how to connect to network printers. My exact words were "I can't figure out who to print."

I reread the email after sending it and sent a follow up emailing saying, "Actually, I need to know "how" to print, not "who" to print.

Later he sent me a response to the first email telling me that that he didn't know and that I should contact the computer helpdesk (which I did) and he gave me their email.

Then he sent a response to the second email saying, "I guess you are still having trouble. Here are is some additional contact information that might be helpful" and gave me a lot more information.

At that point I realized that he must have not read my second email until after he responded to the first and that he must have thought the second one was a totally snotty response to his lack of ability to help. I responded and tried to explain what I meant and apologize, but I feel like a dufus.

I think I'll go take him a chocolate bar tomorrow and apologize again.

That's why you should never try to be funny over email. Especially to people you don't know.

Almost Done

Cute picture, Becky. I'll have to figure out how to upload pictures too. Then I can show you guys my new house.

I finally finished the last paper in my dissertation and sent it to my committee today. It's such a relief. Now I just have to keep from slacking off long enough to write the introduction & conclusion to the whole thing, put it all in dissertation-happy format, and do any revisions they request. It should all be over a week from Monday. I seriously don't know what I'm going to do with myself all day. Unpack my house, I guess.

I'm grateful for the deadline I'm facing because it made me stop analyzing and start writing the paper. And amazingly, as I wrote I was able to wrap my mind around the issues much better and I think the final product is pretty decent. I guess the moral of the story is to do what older academics always tell you - spend some time writing every day.

Photos

becky at cheesecake factory
Originally uploaded by rbrunson.

I think that since we do not see each other nearly enough anymore that we really should start to include photos occasionally. (I reccomend Flickr hosting service -- makes it really easy to upload and blog photos)! I'm excited about the rebirth of this blog as well. Nikki--so glad to find that you got such a cute place! Devin--have you gone back to Boston now?

Oh, also I think that we might consider a name changed as well as subtitle change -- any ideas?

Empirical Work

I'm working on an empirical project to include in my dissertation. I started this project in June and thought it would be fairly straight forward, but combining data from different sources and performing tons of random analysis is really hard! I've rerun my data-generating code 8 billion times, because I decide I need another variable, or I didn't calculate something just right early on. Ugh!

But I'm working a lot harder that I do when I'm doing theory work (which entails a lot of laying on my bed thinking with my eyes closed) and it's actually a lot of fun to do all the coding. I'm using Stata because (1) Ed has Stata for windows and using the stanford unix servers remotely is a pain in the arse and (2) I have a massive aversion to SAS. Stata was very easy to learn (it helped that I could query Ed when I got stuck) and it's really easy to generate all kinds of stats on your data very quickly. Maybe I never really gave SAS a chance, but I'm going to stick with Stata for now.

I'm nearing the end of most of my projects and I'm teaching this fall, so I'm worried that I'll let myself get caught up in that and not start any new projects until after December. So I would love to start something coauthored to keep me in the research mode. I'm still really interested in the paper on returns and eps numbers that end in 9. It's random, but it seem really interesting. I'm at a loss about what to work on theory-wise right now. I'm so sick of my dissertation that I can hardly stand to think about transfer pricing or intangibles ever again!

Houses vs. Apartments

I'm so excited for you that you're going to have a real house! It seems so much more grown up and settled. I love our apartment, but I still feel a little like a college student living in it. I wouldn't know what to do with a real yard of my very own, but it would be so fun to learn!

Let me know when I can come visit!

Oh yeah, that reminds me. You are officially invited to come visit us (as long as you are not a stranger randomly visiting this blog). :)

Work-wise I am stuck in a major rut - I can't get myself to do anything. More on that later. But I think we need to write that paper together sometime soon! It would be so fun, and I know we'd get it out quickly.

Yay!

I'm so happy that you blogged, Devin. I tried to resurrect my other blog with Heather and Sarah and Erin, but it didn't work out. I put a post up there and emailed them all, and it just sat there all alone for days and days.

We found a house to rent in Albany and I'm getting excited to move (I'm not excited to leave Ed, but it will be fun to decorate the house). The house is really cute - it's yellow and has a cute backyard. It has two bedrooms with wood floors and roomy closets.

In the meantime, I just found a paper that finds totally opposite results to the empirical paper I'm working on, so I've been spending all day yesterday and today trying to replicate his results. Mine are more robust, but I want to be able to at least explain his.

Hi! So it was a bit of a slow year post-wise, huh?

:)

Just over a year later...

Nikki suggested starting up again to keep in touch, and I think that's a fabulous idea, so here I am. Susheem and I just got back from our honeymoon. I love honeymoons. I'm trying to convince him that we need to do them more often, but he says we can only have one! (Although I'm pretty close to getting him to agree on a 25th anniversary honeymoon.)

I'm married!!! The wedding was so fun. I hope other people had fun too. I can't wait to see the picture and video. I don't want to go back to work yet! Now that wedding planning is over I just want to sit around and appreciate how well it went for about... oh... a month or so. :)

I've spent today sitting around and reading the new Harry Potter book and a friend's blog. She (Cathy - BM) started it up about 6 months ago and I never looked at it before! I finally did, and it's hilarious! And she writes so much. I knew she was into it, but I didn't realize just how much. Well, that was today. Yesterday was about 2 hours on the phone with UPS trying to track down a package. Apparently one of their guys didn't know that "THE RECEIVER PICKED UP THE PACKAGE THAT WAS BEING HELD FOR THEM" was UPS code for 'the package is waiting to be picked up and noone has picked it up yet.' So we thought some random person had picked up our package. I don't know whether to be more annoyed at him for not knowing their code or at UPS for having such a ridiculous code! And apparently "THE RECEIVER HAS MOVED. UPS ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE RECEIVER TO COMPLETE DELIVERY, NO DELIVERY WAS MADE;THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED." is code for 'no address change is neccessary and none has been made and no random person at this other address has been told about the package for them to just come in and take.' ... sigh. The more I deal with UPS, the more I appreciate the United States Postal Service. Fast, Cheap, Through rain sleet or snow...

:)

Okay, this is my first post back. I bet you forgot how random I can be on this thing! I'm so excited to start this up again. I can't wait to hear all about what's going on with you two.