After Hours Aerobics Club

While Colby is doing his important research at the Smithsonian Institute, I'm back in Seattle keeping up the fun factor this summer. Friday night was the quarterly gathering of women from my aerobics class. For some reason we have all been going to class together for years but just recently, perhaps united by sweat and sore muscles, we started getting together socially.

The first get-together was dubbed a Tequila Tasting at Sara's house. It was very organized and orderly with Sara giving us interesting tidbits of information about each different kind of tequila. I learned something new at that party. I really like tequila. Not margaritas. Just a clean shot of quality tequila.

The second gathering of this group started out in a similar fashion, sipping on a few new tequilas, politely chit chatting away, etc. But before you could say Aye Caramba the party had taken a turn. A much louder, booze spilling, laughter-filled, crazy story telling turn. Hilarious!

Friday's party was a little different too. We had a delicious meal of fajitas and various Mexican style side dishes. And we also learned that Gretchen (our aerobics instructor) makes the best damn Sangria on the west coast.

Lab Rat

Some of my (Colby) fans have asked me to recount a day in the life of a pre-doctoral graduate fellow at the Smithsonian Institution. I am working on my dissertation research which is aimed at understanding the social networks that may have existed among people living in the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East some 800 to 3,000 years ago. By using obsidian artifacts and tracing them to their volcanic source, I hope to understand where the obsidian came from, the routes and extent that people moved through in the Kuril Islands, and how people might have participated in local as well as regional social networks to maintain reproductive success and access to subsistence resources.

However, unlocking these secrets of the past requires me to spend 8 hours a day in front of various instruments using elemental analysis methods to determine the geochemical make-up of each of my 1,300 obsidian flakes. The instrument pictured above is a laser-ablation inductively-coupled mass-spectrometer (LA-ICP-MS). Each obsidian flake is put into a chamber where a laser vaporizes a tiny amount of the flake, and this vapor is transported by argon gas into a plasma ion source at 8000 deg. C where ions are generated and separated and then collected according to their mass to charge ratio. Unknown specimens (elements) can then be identified and measured by this extremely sensitive instrument.

I have also used X-ray fluorescence (XRF) on a part of my artifact sample. XRF utilizes an X-ray source to excite electrons in the obsidian material, causing ionization of the component atoms that releases energy when the electrons move out of their shells. The energy (fluorescence) is measured by a detector and the instrument determines the elemental composition of the sample material (for the Mid-Z elements).

So on a typical day, I arrive at the lab about 8:30am and pick up where I left off in running my artifact samples through analysis. Sometimes this requires testing the instrument settings and making adjustments, and re-running samples that returned ambiguous or suspect results. After a break for lunch from about 12:30-1:00pm, its back in front of the instrument for another four hours or so until its time to pack up and catch the Smithsonian shuttle back downtown so I can take the DC Metro home.

The work can be slow-going and tedious, but at times there are interesting discoveries, and often frustrating technical glitches, to break up the day. This is Science with a capitol 'S'.

Espresso Anyone?

At last! I finally have my very own espresso machine. It might be the world's smallest espresso machine, but that's why it fits perfectly in my one-butt-kitchen. It was waiting for me on my doorstep when I got home from work today. I immediately cleared off the requisite 9 inches of space on my kitchen counter and brewed up a shot of decaf (why waste a perfectly good dose of caffeine that will be needed come morning?). Each shot is brewed from a tiny little pod that you put into the machine. The machine came with a dozen of these pods. But just in case, I pre-ordered an extra 50 pods of serious espresso for future use. No need for frothing of milk - latte's are for wimps.

Hey Seattle, this is a hoagie roll

I (Colby) love sandwiches. I love to make them and I love to eat them. Especially hoagies and meatball subs and cheesesteaks and Cuban pork sandwiches. The problem is, in Seattle you can't find a good quality cheesesteak/hoagie roll to save your life. They just don't get it there. The closest thing you can find is a pseudo french roll the Vietnamese restaurants use for their bahn mi sandwiches. Its OK. Its the best you can do in Seattle. On the East Coast, even the lame Safeway near my apartment offers a decent sandwich roll. Since I'm in DC, just a ways down from Philadelphia, I have seriously contemplated taking the train up to Philly for a day and hitting Geno's Steaks, the eastern Mecca of all things cheesy and steaky. Pretty expensive cheesesteak though: $152 round-trip on Amtrak, $8.00 for the Philadelphia Metro, $7.95 for the cheesesteak sandwich. Which makes it a $167.95 sandwich. I think I'll see what DC has to offer first. More to come...

General Disrepair

Just as one might have guessed, Colby does the majority of cooking and cleaning in our house. And by majority I mean ALL. Here is what it has come to in a matter of one week:

• My clothes are strewn about on half of the bed. No worries...I can still sleep on the other half.
• Dinners that consist of popcorn, cereal and left over brown rice and veggies.
• Right now there are probably 4 or 5 pairs of shoes sitting on the floor in various parts of the house (Colby's personal pet peeve).

Not too bad. I suppose this week I'll actually go to the grocery store and if it comes right down to it I might mow the lawn.

Wheelin' and Dealin'

My level of mobility has just been increased about 500%. I am the proud owner of an $89 full-suspension mountain bike from Target. I wanted to buy it right off the showroom floor in the sports department, and the manager said "We're not s'posed to sell 'em right off the floor, you have to put in an order. But if it makes you happy to have a new bike today, then its O.K." Sold, and I'm outta here. This is the crappiest bike I've ever owned, but it will turn sweltering 20 and 30 minute walks in 90 degree temps into breezy 5 to 7 minute bike rides to the store and the Metro station.

Living in the suburbs and not having any independent means of transportation sucks. The bus only comes once an hour, and since you are screwed if you miss it, you spend a lot of extra time getting to the bus stop early and waiting around. In a normal week, having to walk everywhere and be tied to a bus schedule adds tens of hours of extra time and aggravation, and seriously reduces your overall quality of life. Every American adult should spend some significant time without a car and experience what life is like for those who can't afford a car (or to put gas in it). Then you'd see how much people would want to support better public transportation. People would also be more sensitive and alert to us wackos who insist on pedaling ourselves around town. Share the road, buddy.

There's Something About This City

Commuting through downtown DC seems different to me. Maybe its the massive, monumental architecture. I (Colby) have lived and worked in other big cities -- Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle -- but I was never really in awe of the architectural surroundings in other cities like I am here when I walk from the Naval Memorial/Penn Quarter Metro station to the National Mall to pick up my shuttle bus in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The buildings that I pass by -- the Kennedy Building, the National Archives, the Smithsonian Museums -- all seem solid, strong, proud. Its as if everything was built at a scale 1.5x normal. And it makes me feel mildly patriotic, not in a "And I'm proud to be an American, 'cause at least I know I'm free," kind of way, but more in a way that makes me feel connected the history of the country. Check out the slide show for more photos of what I see on my daily commute.

Free Range Wife

The most common response I get when people learn Colby and I spend 2 1/2 months apart in the summer is "Wow, I could never do that". For a brief moment it makes me feel like I'm a super cool gal. Like I'm a one-of-a-kind special woman. But then I immediately change my train of thought and think...what a sad statement. Of course you could spend a few months apart from your spouse. You could do it if it helps support his dream for a new career and life change. You could do it because it makes you stronger and makes you reacquaint yourself with yourself. You could do it because it's an adventure and a challenge. You could do it because you know he would do it for you too.

But, mostly my friends take pity on me during this time and make a million plans to keep me busy - usually within the first 2 weeks. Dinners, walks, happy hours, movies, shopping, you name it. I'm thankful but also exhausted. I am learning how to be alone and quiet.

The Beagle Has Landed

So here is my (Colby) first individual post to get things started. I've been in Washington DC for three days now, getting set up in my apartment last weekend, and starting work at the Smithsonian Institution on Monday. I'm actually living in Hyattsville, MD, which is a stop on the Metro line northwest of the city. Hyattsville is touted as "A Good Place to Live" on the side of the public garbage cans, and was incorporated in 1856. Today it is basically a collection of strip malls with lots of hair salons, immigrant markets, Western Union stores, and fast food. My apartment, the Top of the Park, is located north of a large public park about a mile from the Metro station.

The neighborhood is a collection of nice streets with small but well-kept houses, as well as a number of brick apartment buildings in various stages of decay. Overall, it seems like a decent neighborhood, with much more ethnic/racial diversity than is present in Seattle, even though Seattle likes to boast its "international" flavor, which basically just boils down to white and Asian.

My daily commute from Hyattsville takes me down the Green line Metro to the Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter stop where I get off and walk down to the National Mall, and pick up a shuttle bus that takes me to the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute out in Suitland, MD. Door-to-door it is an hour-and-a-half trip each way. Such is the plight of a lowly employee of the Federal Government. This will be my life for the next 10 weeks.

Kris & Colby: The Summer Experiment

Welcome to the 2008 edition of Kris and Colby's usual summer apart from each other. For the past two summers, I (Colby) have been working in the Kuril Islands of the Russian Far East on an archaeological project that is part of my PhD dissertation research.

I (Kris) have held down the fort in Seattle, working, working out, wining and dining with friends, and gradually missing Colby a little less each day until he comes back home after 8 weeks away, re-inserting himself into my almost-single-again lifestyle.

This summer is a little different. I (Colby) will be working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC on a 10-week graduate fellowship. Email, cell phones, and this web space will keep Kris and I connected in ways that were not possible when I was working in the uninhabited and isolated North Pacific Ocean.

While having Colby on the same continent and being able to communicate regularly with him will make this summer a little less worrisome, I (Kris) still have to continue on in my role as the sole gainfully employed member of our family and go to work, manage the finances, keep up the house, and generally be responsible for everything that the two of us together are responsible for during the rest of the year. I thought it would be good and potentially interesting idea for Colby and I to share our thoughts and perspectives on being apart this summer through this blog. So here's how it will work: Colby and I will alternate blog postings about things that are going on in our lives this summer. Could be insightful, might be funny at times, and will probably be fairly mostly boring. But it will be a way for each of us to express how we are feeling and what we are doing over the summer. It will also be a place to post photos and other info about places we've been and things we've done.

The postings will probably be sporadic, but hopefully we (Kris and Colby) can manage a couple a week. So feel free to visit often and check up on us, and post comments or just say hello. We look forward to hearing from you.