How was this possible?? I mean, I can understand how they fire all their “ammunition” over an unsuspecting car’s windscreen, but this window is perfectly vertical. They had to make a fly-by and aim properly at my office’s window. I feel like I’m being targeted… the kitchen window at home also had a few droppings.
Don’t know what I’ve done to you, birds! I even left some grass seed out for you to feast on! (the original intention was to make the garden look a bit greener, but anyway…)
So yeah, after that amazing week in Arizona I’m back in cold, damp England. Well, I can’t really complain – much to my amazement it was quite warm on my arrival, so warm that I was actually roasting inside my car while stuck on yet another M25 traffic jam while returning from the airport!
But the weather here is like a Heaviside step function – Friday evening was still amazing (17 degrees C at 8 PM!!), and by end of Saturday the cold, the wind, and the rain muscled themselves in. As I’m writing this I have outside a balmy 6 degrees C and 95% RH. Anyway, this is not the Met Office so I should probably stop talking about the weather! 🙂
Going back to my trip, I have yet to organise my 1000+ photos I (with some help from the front seat passenger) took whilst on the trip to the Grand Canyon and the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. It is going to take a while but it is going to be worthy, there are some spectacular and exquisite images in there.
Right now I’ve been busying myself with teaching, preparing student chapter activities, researching and thinking about more potential research. Obviously still trying to cram a few runs and sculls in the meantime, especially with S Silvestre so close by (and I have to say that I’m being rubbish at preparing myself for it – I miss the training sessions I was having with my rowing mates back in Porto, here I feel I don’t push the same!!).
Finally got some time to sort out the website and make it look the way I wanted – I feel it is better this way, first time visitors will not go straight into my blog content, which might be a good idea, especially if people from a more “serious kind” end up in these pages!
OK, I think it is time for bed now – tomorrow is going to be a big day, especially since we’ll be hosting a joint colloquium with a few other research groups from different schools within the university. It has all the potential to be quite interesting and to foster potential collaborations between people with a broad range of interests and skills, which is something we definitely lack and that I did see in abundant quantities in the States (more on that in a later post…).
Here we go!… time to get out the warm stuff out of the wardrobe. And maybe get some weights inside my pannier bags, otherwise I think I might fly away! 😛
Anyway, I can’t really complain – last weekend I had an amazing outing on Sunday morning! No wind, and the temperature was such that I actually had to take out layers! We even had a BBQ in the evening here in the house (and this time we had proper coal! 😉 ).
Speaking of Sunday, it is a wonder how I managed to do so much during that day having arrived quite late the night before (~ 3:30 AM), due to the combination of a dinner in Slough which ended up quite late (but went quite well! 🙂 ) and a closure of the M25 just before my exit (talk about luck…) which forced me to face a massive traffic jam on a A-class road running parallel to it at 2 AM (absolutely surreal!).
Anyway, to my astonishment I managed to wake up on my own at 7:30 AM, not feeling sleepy or anything! (not a chance of that happening during the week… 😛 )
Taking advantage of a system which is supposed to be used only when really necessary to make a easy profit… and increasing the premium for the rest of us in the process. You’re barking at the wrong tree!
Yep, indeed – sadly, my holidays are over! 🙁 Hard to believe that exactly one week ago I was still melting under the Portuguese late Summer, especially after spending this whole morning at the University’s boathouse under an overcast sky and with a cold wind continuously blowing…
The holidays, though, couldn’t have ended better: the 2013 edition of the Douro descent (actually this year we had an ascent/descent!) was awesome! Lots of rowing (~64k overall), good company, great scenery and excellent food, what can I ask for more?
(there are a lot of stories to tell, along with some excellent photos, but those will have to wait for a later time, as I’m writing this in a hurry now! 😛 )
Anyway, in retrospective, these 3.5 weeks I spent in Porto were great, albeit they went past very, very quickly – I managed to mentor 5 high school students, train towards and run a half-marathon, work on my ^”!$!^*! paper (which is still not ready – every day we uncover new things that need to go into it, it is the sad life of a researcher!) and do lots of rowing and running (and even some cycling, which didn’t end the way I wanted to, though…).
Via Flickr:
First it was because it was cold, then because it was wet, and now with such lovely weather outside I’m complaining it is too dry and I get dust everywhere :-P. Anyway, that doesn’t stop me from training!
Going out for a run and getting alternating sunshine (& sort of clear skies) and heavy rain – did I went to run a half-marathon? Nope, just 30-40 minutes outside and it was enough. Welcome to England :).
Thinking about doing a proper run today, only the find that I left my trainers at home :-P. Oh well, there’s always the erg at the gym…
they “Facebooked” Flickr! 😛 Not sure if I’ll get used to this new appearance – but hey, at least I can now keep the same cover image in all my online profiles (minus LinkedIn), yay!
I didn’t like the fact that they doubled the fee for the Pro accounts, though! 🙁
Do you know the feeling of barely being capable of maintaining 10 mph over a flat road without considerable effort? Well, if you lived around here you’d discover it pretty soon! 😛
