We have now completed our move from Massachusetts to Maryland. There are still boxes to be unpacked, but we have a generally livable house and are slowly figuring out our way around the area.

Can you guess which of these is MA and which is MD?

or

I’ll give you a hint: our new house has two malls and at least four large shopping centers within 15 minutes of us.  Our old house had one small shopping center and the mall was a thirty minute drive. On the plus side, we have already found some good restaurants nearby and have both a Trader Joe’s and a farm stand with fresh produce quite close. We also have bike trails close to our house, although we haven’t explored them yet. I think we’ll get used to it in time!

(The pictures above may be a slightly biased comparison. There are in fact some nice green areas nearby and it is not all shopping centers!)

The lack of posts to this blog has been due to Megan and me being a bit busy—in the last few months we’ve defended our Ph.D.s, gotten new jobs, and moved to Maryland. Leaving Amherst and all the great friends we’ve made there over the last six years was tough, but we’ve already had some visitors to our new home and hope to have many more in the future!

From a BBQ after Megan’s defense:

and from our going away party:

In Asheville we stayed at the Princess Anne Hotel, a historic bed and breakfast built in 1924. The hotel has sixteen rooms and is in a mostly residential neighborhood not far from Asheville’s downtown area. Our suite on the top floor was very nice and the staff was incredibly helpful. They served a great breakfast each morning and even had a wine and cheese hour each afternoon. For our first night’s dinner they suggested the French “comfort food” restaurant, Bouchon in downtown Asheville. The food really was delicious–Megan had mussels and I had something else involving pasta and seafood, although I forget exactly what.

We spent most of our time in Asheville visiting the Biltmore, a French chateau style mansion built by a Vanderbilt descendent (with way too much money on his hands). The architecture was quite impressive, and we did both a self-guided tour and the Architect’s Tour which took us to the balconies and rooftops for extra views of the property. The home was built in the 1890s at the height of the Gilded Age, and really shows the splendor of the nation’s wealthy at that time.

It was interesting to see the technology in the house; it was built on the cusp of the electrical revolution so it has a mix of old and startlingly modern features (e.g., an elevator and indoor swimming pool). The gardens and wooded grounds around the house are also quite pretty, and we ended up coming back for a second day to see the gardens. A storm thundered through just as we headed to lunch, and we barely made it inside before the worst of the downpour (it even briefly took out electricity in the restaurant). Later we stopped by the Biltmore vineyard to sample some of their wines.

We spent our other days in Asheville wandering the streets and browsing the stores and cafes. It was quite a lively town and seems to be going through a nice artsy revival. Hopefully we’ll head back someday!

See also: Part 1 and Part 2. Or more photos.

I wrote before about  my job as my department’s “Message Meister”. I’ve continued the job this semester, sending out (hopefully) witty and interesting emails each week that are at least tangentially related to department events. Recently I was curious to look back at all the emails I’d written over the last two years on the job, so with the help of a friend’s software library I produced a set of “tag clouds” which represent the most popular terms in each email.

You can see the tag clouds (and all the related emails) here. Use the slider to scroll back in time, and click on the dates inside the box to read the full e-mails.

Enjoy, but sorry, the tea and cookies advertised in the emails are only available to members of my department.

After our time in Roanoke and Floyd, we spent a night outside of Boone, NC, at what met my stereotypes for the quintessential B&B: the Taylor House Inn. We had a room in a charming 100 year old house and ate eggs benedict for breakfast while making small talk with the inn’s other patrons. Our hosts were very friendly and took great care of us.

Our next night was to be spent in Asheville, but we had a long ways to go first. We were reaching the end of the Blue Ridge mountains, and we made a stop at Grandfather Mountain, highest of the Blue Ridge. Grandfather is a privately owned mountain, and feels a bit like a tourist trap. They have a fudge shop to fatten you up before you visit the animal enclosures where you can see bears and a cougar. The animals watched us hungrily.

Near the summit is the “mile high” bridge that stretches from a parking area to a large rock outcropping. It was fairly crowded and touristy, but all that doesn’t detract too much from the views off into the Blue Ridge, which are the real reason to go up there. We were pressed for time, so we didn’t get to do any of the hikes to the true summit. This was probably just as well, because just as we crossed back over the bridge, a cloud rolled in and made the whole place disappear.

We continued on our journey south, stopping at overlooks when the weather permitted (rarely). We were clearly being followed by storms, so we were unable to do some of the hikes we’d hoped to do along the way (Linville Falls, Craggy Gardens, and Crabtree Falls). Eventually we reached Mount Mitchell, highest point east of the Mississippi, and hoped that the weather would stay clear as we headed up.

We pulled into the parking lot to the sound of thunder. It did not feel wise to be quite literally the tallest thing on this half of the country during a lightning storm, but luckily the rain held off. We practically ran up the half mile path to the summit where an observation platform gave us a magnificent view of clouds, but not much else. We’ll have to go back some day.

We continued our drive on towards Asheville, NC. After an hour or so, we finally escaped the storms and got the first sunny view of our trip!

More pictures here, or see the previous post.

This will be the first of several posts on our honeymoon adventures. You can see a full map of our itinerary here.

We started our honeymoon by heading south on the Blue Ridge Parkway from Roanoke. The Parkway is a winding road that goes from Virginia down to Tennessee, and passes not only through the Blue Ridge mountains, but a number of other chains as well before ending in the Smokies outside of Gatlinburg, TN. The parkway can be amazingly scenic, with frequent overlooks providing beautiful views. Or so I had been told. Our first day on the Parkway was spent in the clouds and we could barely see ten feet in front of our car as we drove.

We ended up exiting off of the Parkway early to take some roads at lower elevation. This turned out to be a good idea, because we got to drive through picturesque farm country rather than a dull haze. We spent the early afternoon in the town of Floyd, VA, a small town trying to keep up a lively arts and craft community image. We looked through a few galleries, but the town was mostly dead since it was a Sunday.

Late in the afternoon we checked in to our first lodging: Miracle Farm B&B. We had a very quaint cabin beside a small creek. We were the only guests for the night, so we had the B&B’s 25 acres of woods and farmland all to ourself. It was amazingly peaceful and quiet–a perfect spot to rest after being busy with the wedding for so long.

The next morning the inn keepers left a basket with breakfast on our door step. We enjoyed delicious omelets made with many ingredients picked from the farm, as well as freshly made juice and jam. Later in the day we took a tour of Chateau Morrisette, one of the older vineyards in Virginia. Older doesn’t mean that old though–it was started in the 70′s, but at the time most of Virginia’s vineyards had long since shut down and switched to growing tobacco. The tour guide was informative and showed us the various steps of the wine making process before leading us in a tasting of a number of their wines. Quite a few of them were very good, particularly the sweeter whites.

The next day we continued our trip south on the parkway, and were relieved to find that the clouds had taken the proper position of being far above us, rather than all around us at the overlooks. We stopped at a scenic mill and many of the overlooks. We did several short hikes, but the weather still didn’t give us great views. The walk around Cumberland Knob was particularly disappointing, but later on we got a nice view of some cascades.

More pictures are here and here

Megan and I got married on July 31st in Roanoke, Virginia.  We had a ton of fun at our wedding; thanks to everyone who came and partied with us! We had a lot of help from friends and family, and everything worked out great (except for the weather).

Here are a few of the great pictures that our photographer, Sam Stroud, took.  We’ve also posted a ton to Facebook, so check there too.

Last weekend we celebrated Megan’s birthday with dinner and some friends out on our porch. We were lucky to have a fairly cool evening and the bugs stayed away at least for the first part of the meal…

I should have been better about taking more pictures of the people and food, but I was busy grilling.  Megan also made a chocolate almond cake topped with cheesecake topped with dark chocolate frosting with raspberries on the side that was every bit as delicious as it sounds!  Here are some of the recipes so that I can repeat them some other day.

Spiced Chicken and Grape Skewers

These were fun because most people haven’t had grilled grapes before. They go really well with the chicken, and their juiciness makes up for the fact that I tend to overcook everything when I grill!  This is pretty much identical to the recipe from the Food Network.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 pound chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups green grapes
8-10 skewers

1. Whisk together the oil, lemon, garlic, and spices in a small bowl.
2. Pour over the chicken and let marinate for 30 minutes (I kept it in a plastic bag for easy mixing).
3. Alternate grapes and chicken pieces on the skewers
4. Grill for about 3 minutes per side

Veggie Kebabs

A simple vegetable marinade with some middle eastern spice that goes well with the grape chicken above.  This recipe is also similar to one from the Food Network.

Ingredients
2 bell peppers
1 onion (I forgot to do this)
1 zucchini or summer squash
a few handfuls of grape tomatoes
1/2 container of mushrooms (not sure how big the container was…)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Chop up all vegetables into skewerable shapes, cut mushrooms in half
2. Place vegetables on skewers
3. Whisk together all marinade ingredients
4. Brush marinade over vegetables and sit for 10-15 minutes
5. Grill for about 3 minutes per side

Deluxe Israeli Couscous

This is basically the recipe you get on the back of the box from Trader Joe’s Israeli Couscous, but it is even better if you use their Harvest Grains mix since it has couscous and a few other colorful grains as well:

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/3 cup pine nuts
3 tbsp butter
1 stick cinnamon
1 bay leaf
1/2 package TJ’s Harvest Grains(or just Israeli Couscous)
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup dried cranberries
optional: lemon rind, parsley, etc
(Note: this is from memory, and may be wrong… if in doubt, follow the package)

1. Fry up 1 tbsp butter and the pine nuts until golden (2-3 min), then set aside.
2. Add remaining 2 tbsp of butter and fry up onions until tender
3. Add cinnamon stick, bay leaf, and couscous. Fry 5ish minutes, stirring occasionally
4. Add chicken broth and salt and bring to boil, then reduce to low heat
5. Wait until liquid is all absorbed (10ish minutes)
6. Turn off heat, add pine nuts, raisins, cranberries, and any other goodies you can think of

I’ve spent a lot of hours driving and cleaning the house lately, and that means I’ve also been listening to a lot of podcasts. Lately I’ve been especially enjoying Radiolab, a show out of the public radio station in New York.  My good buddies Chris Knauer and Ira Glass both recommended the show to me ages ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I began listening regularly. It’s a quirky show similar to This American Life in the type of stories it covers, but is generally more focused on science topics, making it especially interesting to me.  All the back episodes are available free online.  Here I’ll ruin a few of the episodes for you by describing some of the more surprising findings:

Google maps thinks I can bike this 2,964 mile route in 10 days and 15 hours (after 1183 turns and no sleep). I'm less confident.

5/16/2010 Limits – talks about the limits on our bodies and minds. They claim that the human body is very conservative about its own limits, and will make you sore and exhausted long before you really come anywhere close to running out of energy. The energy gets saved just in case something truly terrible happens and the body needs to release some extra bursts. They describe the Race Across America, which sounds like an absolutely horrible experience.  People bike all the way across the country, more or less non-stop; sleep is “optional”.  The winner usually takes about 8-9 days, and bikes 22 hours each day. The radio show describes a rider from the Slovenian army who has won the race in five of the last seven years. Not surprisingly, he basically goes crazy after a day or two of pushing his body so hard, but this just leads to him having vivid hallucinations about being chased by enemy soldiers… in turn, these terrifying visions fill up his adrenaline and trick his body into giving him just a little bit more energy.

6/28/2010 Oops – this show covers various unlikely events and their even more unlikely consequences. One segment discusses the Berkeley Pit in Montana, a lake of toxic waste leftover from mining operations. The spot is of course a huge eyesore, but it was even worse in 1995 when a flock of over 300 snow geese landed in the pool thinking it would make a nice rest stop… they were sadly mistaken. Despite the poisonous nature of the pollutants in the pit, biologists have recently found a number of amazingly hardy microorganisms able to survive there.  One of them is even able to do a remarkably good job at transforming the waste into less harmful substances. The kicker: that particular microorganism has only been found one other place–the bowels of snow geese!

I’ve really enjoyed listening to these and other episodes of the show.  Sometimes the results from one segment of the show are used a bit too freely to make claims about later parts, but it is still quite thought provoking. The two hosts make a great pair, and give the show a nice style.  Highly recommended!

I’ve been farming virtual popcorn on this blog for a while now, but this year Megan and I decided to try our hand at some plants for our back porch.  The term porch is a bit generous, it is more likely an empty concrete swimming pool sticking off the back of our townhouse, but at least it is outside!

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