The protagonist, who should be doing a pset, takes a break

Greetings, intrepid reader. In the month since I last remembered to blog anything it has only snowed a few times, and I haven't had to shovel at all. This makes me realize that the combination of grad school and horrible WI winter have reduced the list of things I can usually think of to write to a) complaints about snow and b) complaints about cold.

This afternoon, however, I can report some actual news. I had my first run-in with the maintenance arm of my rental management company this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised. Granted my expectations were so low, it would have been really impressive if I was disappointed, but the plumber showed up within two hours of my calling the emergency maintenance people, and fixed the toilet seal so it would stop dripping water into the ceiling above the kitchen cabinets, and promised to send the regular maintenance people by to fix the hole in the ceiling tomorrow.

Also, effective very soon I am switching research groups. I will be working on an experiment more closely related to the one I worked on as an undergrad than the one I work for presently. Although I am disappointed that I will have to find a new way to go to the South Pole, I'm excited about my new project and the possibility of being sent to Hong Kong. (Recent research into the topic suggests that Hong Kong has more skyscrapers than NY by a considerable factor, a respectable population density, and a large English-speaking population. If they also have bagels, I'm sure I'd like it.) Anyway, before I switch groups, I need to get a talk together and finish a quantum mechanics problem set... all before 8 a.m. Tuesday... and while recovering from a cold (i.e. without the option of pulling consecutive all-nighters). So I'm going to get back to that now.

In which the protagonist.... oh nevermind

WI vs. OR seasons
Originally uploaded by lazyphysicsmajor

Laura drew this sometime in February... apparently she was unhappy with the weather as compared to that in the Pacific Northwest. In sympathy, I added an illustration for August in NJ compared to WI. It made my advisor laugh.

Anyway, since we just got another seven inches of snow yesterday I decided to check the season snowfall total with the NWS. We're at 99" if I recall correctly - only 2" behind Buffalo, NY and they are also having a snowier-than-average winter. I realize I said I was going to stop complaining about the weather, but really, this does totally suck.

In which the protagonist secures a library card

Things have been pretty busy lately, but I'm still around. Since last post I've survived the first prospective grad student visiting weekend, midterms, and the first half of Spring Break. I still need to finish my taxes, jump start my car, and, tomorrow, it's supposed to snow half a foot. Gah.

Anyway, yesterday I went to get a library card for the Madison Public Library. It was my first excursion into the central branch of the library, which is amusing because it's immediately next to the building where I work downtown and I've walked past it hundreds of times since I got here. Anyway, a cool thing about Madison is that it's a large enough city to have several library branches and in addition it's part of a 7-county group of libraries so I can request almost as many books as I'd be able to get from the university libraries. They also have lots of DVDs and many copies of the popular ones. So, for example I expected it to take several days or a week for me to get the first disc of Firefly episodes, because I was the fourth person requesting it, but it showed up for me to collect within 24 hours of my request. w00t.

More later, perhaps, unless I'm busy watching movies. :-)

Warmth! Sunshine! w00t!

Last week it was sunny every day, and we got less than one inch of snow in total. Happiness! Presently, it is 43 degrees (sadly not sunny anymore, although it was this morning), and for the next week highs should be in the mid-to-upper twenties. I've never been this ready for spring to start. Now that there are only 13" of snow left on the ground in most places, if the current weather trend continues, I'll be able to see the grass again in about two months. :-D

Edited: According to the NWS, our current snow depth is not 8", which I had estimated, but 13"

In which the protagonist, accepting that it will never improve, gives up on complaining about the weather

...except to say that she's betting that she will have shoveled more than 5' of snow this winter (having left some of it to housemates) when all is said and done, and she's not happy about it.

Anyway, as of today I am officially registered to vote in the state of WI. However, I did *not* register with any particular party, because WI doesn't require one to (actually, I probably would have, but I didn't see the option on the registration form and I wanted to leave the polling place as soon as possible). My polling place is in the moderately sketchy area that I go half a mile out of my way to avoid when walking home from work at night... but whatever. WI uses paper ballots, which confuse me mightily. I neglected to study the layout and determine whether there was a write-in option anywhere (not that I foresee wanting to vote for persons not on the ballot, but these things are good to know).

Earlier this evening, I was amused that CNN called WI for McCain before any results were officially in, and that they waited all of 20 minutes before calling it for Obama. w00t. This makes me optimistic that I have possibly voted for the winner of a national election for the first time (since my 2004 choices for presidential nominee (Dean) and President (Kerry) both lost).

Obama in Madison

The following speech was given at the Kohl Center (I was all the way up in the nosebleed section).

More snow; the descent into madness continues

Another foot today. We're at 7' total since the beginning of December (the normal amount is about 2'). WTF? I miss being able to see the ground. I also miss the sun, as it tends to be cloudy while it's snowing every day (and on the special occasions when the sun does come out for whole hours at a time it's usually because the temperature have dropped below 10 degrees).

I had to trudge home from the downtown office over more than a mile of unshoveled sidewalks and several snowdrifts up to my knees. Adding insult to injury, while I was walking, I was passed by a bus. Then five minutes later I was passed by another bus on the same line, which is completely wrong. They're supposed to run every half-hour and there were not supposed to be any around the time I left the office (hence my decision to walk). I hate infrequent, scheduled public transportation - it's f*ing useless when the weather is crappy and it gets off schedule (which, of course is the only time I'd want to use it).

I got home to find our walks in need of shoveling for the third time since this morning (I shoveled once in the morning and one of my roomies redid them during the day... I also think someone may have shoveled last night). The snow mountain in front of the house is now taller than me. And it's spawned a second snow mountain at the end of the driveway, which is also about my height. So any future snow will have to be carried halfway down the block so I don't hurt myself trying to fling it over the top of a 5'6" pile.

Spring can't come too soon (although someone pointed out that around here snow is not unheard of in May).