Wedding, Ireland, Scooter

John and I got married, as you may have guessed from all of the references to the wedding John has been making. It was really great. Before the wedding I mostly sat around and did girly things, like having my hair done and putting on make-up. However, the guys were apparently working their butts off setting up the ceremony and reception site. Some of the highlights include the best man and maid of honor speeches, the first dance, the bouquet toss (I hit the ceiling on the first attempt!), watching Kate boogey down with my little sister, and seeing all the people I love most in one room. It was a great day. And I guess that guy I married made it a good day too.

Then we went to Ireland, which was awesome. As soon as I figure out how to post pictures, I will put them up with some explanations of what we did.

And now we’ve bought a scooter. It rocks. I will put those pictures up at some point too. But I promise you, John looks really cute on it.

Wedding – pre-events – Rehearsal

Though initially a joke, we decided to do the rehearsal at Toby Keith’s I Love this Bar and Grill in Bricktown.  While I know this sounds ridiculous, it’s close to our wedding cite in the gardens and they have something for everyone.

Before the dinner, Lisa and I met our officiant – Reverend Lofton.  She was a wonderfully nice and funny lady and I think we both felt that we had made the right choice.  After talking to her for about 30 minutes, the three of us walked over to the gardens for a walk through.  The wedding party met us over there as did the musicians, and we walked quickly through the ceremony twice.

After that, everyone packed up and went over to Toby Keith’s.  We had a nice long dinner with tons of food and appetizers and gave gifts to Zach, Sam, Kate, and Tracy.

Maybe the best part of the night were the speeches that the dads made.  Bob’s was based around the central metaphor of child birth and our 9 month engagement.   While the women mostly shook their heads, I liked his point that he now knew something of the pain of child birthing having produced the wedding.  My dad’s speech was based on our agreement when I was a kid that I would wait till I was in my late 20’s to get married and 30 to have kids.  My grandfather was 30 when he had his first kid – my dad – and dad was 30 when he had me.  When I came to my dad at 23 and said I wanted to get married he was understandably surprised, but I told him that I had found the right one.  It was a nice punchline and Lisa even cried a bit so it all went well.

Wedding – pre-events – Bachelor(ette) parties

May 24 was a huge day.  However, first the build-up.

Ryan was the first to get into town for the wedding.  He came in the Sunday before, so Zach and I got to hang out with him for a few days before things got crazy.  Needless to say much ESPN insued.

Midweek, the rest of the guys came in along with my sister.  We had a bit of time to hang out, but the main events midweek were the bachelor and bachelorette parties.  My party started a bit earlier than anticipated because the champions league final was on at 1:30.  The Man U – Chelsea match was the first all English Euro final in like 50 years and was a one game recap of the league battle between the two teams.  Though Chelsea probably played better, my Red Devils prevailed in penalty kicks and got their second trophy of the campaign.

After that, we all got dressed and the girls split from the guys.  Event one on our agenda was dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse.  Zach had somehow reserved the banquet room, though we didn’t have nearly enough people to meet the minimum.  Still it was nice to have our own room to sit around and tell old stories.  After a relatively quick dinner, we moved on to stop two, the Bricktown Brewery.  There we drank like half a keg along bit of liquor, while playing poker.  When they closed at a shockingly early 11pm, we went to my favorite bar, Maker’s Cigar Lounge.  I finished off my complete drunkenness and smoked a cigar.  On the whole, it was a fantastic night and I met everyone’s expectation for sloppiness.

The more surprising part of the night was how messed up the girls got Lisa.  Through a similar dinner and bars pattern, Kate got together like 12 girls to send Lisa off in style.  Apparently Marty also had a few drinks and let loose the family secrets.  Lisa then spent the end of the night trying to call me and being foiled by everyone under the sea.  When I finally got home at 3am – after a late night drunken IHOP run – we stumbled into each others arms and went very happily to sleep.

Graduation

Again, sorry for the delays.  I’m going to try to make several posts in the next few days to get up to date on everything.

Lisa’s grandparents along with my sister came into town for our graduation ceremony, so we felt somewhat obligated to show up as well.  On the whole the event went fairly well.  We made it to the party mostly on time – a few minutes late – met up with Peter Barker and got to where we needed to be.  Tracy and Mary (Lisa’s mom) sat with the rest of Lisa’s party – Bob, Marty, the kids, and the grandparents.

After some initial confusion both parties spotted the other during the ceremony.  While not conspicuous on our own, Lisa and I were seated near our professors Piers Hale and Suzanne Moon, both of whom had on very brightly colored PhD gowns.

The ceremony itself went relatively well – the speeches didn’t suck – and we got some good pictures (see Pier’s page or the OU departmental page).

After the ceremony we went to lunch.  Getting there was a bit of an adventure.  There was an hour between the arrival of the advance scouting group – Marty and the kids – and the last arrivals – Lisa and Mary.  Lunch lasted like 2 hours and then leaving took another.  Still, we had a good time and got some very nice gifts.

In a related though chronologically distant note, Tracy graduate from high school.  Her valedictorian gave a great speech but the rest of the trip was a bit of a fiasco.  We got lost several times, and on the whole the thing was fairly boring.  Still, I’m very proud of Tracy and look forward to not having any more graduations for at least 3 or 4 years.

Long delay

Sorry to all my avid readers (Sam) for the long delay, but end of the semester stuff won out over blogging. Lisa and I both successfully defended our theses and we’ll “receive our master’s” this Saturday – we won’t actually get anything but an empty diploma holder. Still, should be a memorable day with much of Lisa’s family already in town for the wedding.

Planning for said wedding is also going very well. We have all but finalized most of the details and are really just looking forward to the big day. I am really looking forward to seeing some of my extended family and old friends that I haven’t seen in a few years – not to mention the honeymoon in Ireland afterward.

There’s not too much to update on my internship work. I made some good progress in April, but thus far in May have only really gathered information on one figure in the Graduate College. I’m hoping to finish up a biographical sketch of him tomorrow, and then begin work on the last few deans.

My more beloved project, HYDRA is coming along. I’m picking up what I hope will prove to be our server this weekend. If all goes well, I can start loading all the software packages on it, set up my file architecture, and begin integrating the many components to the online journal. I’d really like to have a fully operational site by the end of the summer, but we’ll see how far we get.

Last, but perhaps most fun, Lisa and I are thinking of getting a scooter. We are going to sell my Honda Fit and buy either a Yamaha Vino 125 or a TNG Milano 150. The savings on insurance alone will pay for the scooter in under 2 years, not the savings from ever rising gas prices. My Fit gets 30-34 mpg while these scooters get 60-85 mpg. Should be nice.

Update: Thesis Writing 2

I’m so tired.  It’s like 1:23 am and I’m up in the department working on my thesis.  I really want to have a rough draft done before I go home.  I also have a meeting for my internship tomorrow.  I did a couple of hours of work last week, but I really need to be doing more.  I’m hoping they recognize that priority is on the thesis.  I’m sure I can get caught up later (when all I have to do is get married and finish the semester).

Update: thesis writing

The absence of posts lately is mostly due to thesis writing.  Lisa is all but done with her rough draft, and I am within ten pages (I hope).  We have also written papers for the Midwest Junto which will be taking place this weekend in Minnesota.  Started in 1957 to stick it to the East Coasters, the Midwest Junto is a yearly history of science conference hosted by rotating member schools.

Last year, I presented a paper denying the validity of Forman’s thesis, which maintains that the social milieu of Weimar Germany was a trigger cause for the development of arealist quantum mechanics.

This year, I’m presenting on the totally unrelated issue of Richard Kirwan.  Specifically I will be discussing the third chapter of my thesis,  which looks at the Kirwan Collection at the Salem Athenaeum.  I will relate how the Irish chemist’s library wound up in Salem, MA and how that collection became mixed up with the rest of the library’s holdings.

Lisa is also presenting part of her thesis.  She will show that Caroline Herschel was an astronomer.  This seems like a simple idea in that Caroline Herschel discovered 8 comets and 13 nebulae, but Ms. Herschel”s current biographer has denied her status as astronomer repeatedly.  Michael Hoskin says that Caroline was merely the assistant of her more famous astronomer brother, William.  Lisa reanalyzes this distinction based on her archival research and a less anachronistic definition of what it meant to be an astronomer at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In addition to writing, we have also been watching the NCAA tourney, the new baseball season, the travails of my Mavs,  and playing Wii (Lisa is right now anyway.  I’m trying to help but its not going so great).

Basketball and thesis writing

I had always planned to do a good bit of my thesis writing during Spring Break.  While others are off enjoying the sun on beaches or hitting the slopes, I have been at my apartment, pondering the chemical theories of Richard Kirwan.  While I’m obviously on the plus side of that fence, it hasn’t been as great as I expected.  I started off the week in a cold streak, constantly tired or suffering from allergies or both.  And then on Thursday the NCAA challenge started.

By this point in the week, I was so tired of not being productive, that I have developed a strong urge to get things done.  I avoided a good bit of the basketball yesterday by going to Cafe Plaid.  Today, I went to Winan’s for several hours and got a good bit of work done.  Still, anytime I sit down, the lure of basketball calls.  It’s omnipresent.  Earlier, I saw the minutes and overtime between Western Kentucky and Drake.  Just now, I watched the last minutes and overtime of Connecticut v. San Diego (in both games, the underdog won).  The basketball is great, but will my thesis ever be completed.

As long as I can get something like a rough draft of the 2nd chapter I’ll be happy.  This will be the primary chapter of the thesis, looking at the multiple facets of 18th century chemistry.  This morning I finished a section (about 5 pages) on affinity chemistry.  Throughout the 18th century, those interested in chemistry looked at the formation of salts and why elements were more attracted to some elements more than others.  Kirwan had developed a gravimetric, algebraic system for measuring attractions and understanding compound formations.

I’m going to work on understandings of heat, from Joseph Black through Irvine to Kirwan and Adair Crawford, for the rest of the day. English chemists had a different understanding of heat and fire than many of their continental counterparts.  Understanding these difference gives a more nuanced understanding of the chemical revolution than the narrow studies of phlogiston offer.

Right now I’ve got about 7 pages of my chapter done, and if I can have 12 or 13 by the end of the night, I’ll be very happy.  Still, when the week started I was hoping to do 4 pages a day, so even if I get to my 12-13 page goal, I’ll be 8 pages behind my initial goal.  Oh well.  If I weren’t behind on my work, things would be easy and boring.

So tired

We’ve had pretty good weather for Spring Break, but I haven’t been able to get much done.  For one reason or another, Lisa and I have had to get up early every morning so far and are getting worn down by the early afternoon.  Today we met up with Lisa’s step-mother to work on wedding stuff.  We got a lot done, but I quickly developed a head ache and am working hard to avoid light right now.  I just want to be able to sit down at a table and type for the rest of the week.  I don’t know if that will happen though.

Productivity

Today, I woke up early, wrote a class paper, mailed off my tax return, did several hours of internship work, and completed and submitted a grant application.  And it’s just now 5.  This is easily one of the most productive days I’ve had in a long time.  I think I might go write some more for my internship now, or finish my thesis, or cure world hunger.  Or I might go have a beer and play video games.  We’ll see.