Kids these days...

Nothing too exciting to report from Australia. I explored a little this morning, got really tired, and went back to the conference for the afternoon. After all, that's why I'm here! Anyway, I decided to post funny pictures from the day we left.

Ever wonder what happens when you give a kid an iPad? A lot more than you might ever imagine. There's a reason most gadgets come with a quick start up guide and no actual instruction manual. Gadgets are intuitive, and kids will proove it every time. I let me nephews play with my iPad the other day. They figure out everything. And I mean EVERYTHING!!! My one year old nephew figured out real fast how to play the xylophone. And by that I mean he figured out that if he pressed the home button, the app went away and he figured out which app to open so he could play more. Yowzers!

My 4 yr old nephew figured out the Cut the Rope game and got to level 22. Jerk! Pretty sure I've only ever gotten to level 10. Boy did I feel dumb! He really took to the camera. I started with about 12 pictures and ended up with over 350! Here are a few of the moments he captured. We were all laughing like crazy.




Muscle man!


Pearly whites!


Brothers.



Too cool for school.


I think it's hilarious that he took a picture with the iPad of his little brother messing with the iPhone.


Whoa...blue.



Don't you wish there were 2 of him?!?!?

Dear Volcano, please quit erupting.

Oh my gosh! Have you all heard about the volcano in Chile that's causing loads of travel woes? It seems most of the ash cloud is over Australia and New Zealand. Just my luck.

Yesterday's conference time was good. The research group that I'm a part of was invited to come to this conference to describe and demonstrate our project. I have to admit, our project pretty much rocks. The principal investigators (professors) are amazing to work with and they take such good care of us, plus the other grad students are super fun to work with. No wonder I actually like grad school! Here are a few pictures of my fellow grad students preparing for the demo.






Dinner last night was probably the highlight of the day. Partly, because the only food I had between breakfast and dinner was a cup of coffee and a cookie. Mostly because we had amazing Italian food and laughed and laughed and laughed. Marc and Maggie had baby snapper. Marc's fish was staring at me the entire time. With about 28 teeth! I've never seen so many teeth on a fish other than a piranha!



Today is already Thursday here. I think you all are getting ready for bed on Wednesday as i write this. I'll go exploring this morning and then head back to the conference this afternoon. I'll leave you with a few sights along the Yarra River.

Survived the 16 hour flight!

How was your Monday? I didn't really have one. I left LA at 11:30pm. Immediately we were forced to switch to Melbourne time which was 5:30pm on Monday. They served us a late dinner, and told us to go to sleep. Which of course I did. I woke a few times, but I didn't really wake up till 5am when they served breakfast. So according to Qantas, I flipped from bedtime on Sunday in LA to dinner time on Monday in Melbourne in a matter of minutes. I'm surprised how easy the switch was! I was so tired, I didn't really care.

Chicago to LA was an adventure. We were late getting to the airport, but that didn't much matter when I realize our flight was delayed. I tried to leave my poster at security. A certain someone asked that I refer to research posters as a "poster of research awesomeness" to distinguish it from a jr. high science fair poster board. So I ran back to security to claim my posternof research awesomeness, but it already been deemed suspicions and they made me stand there while they leisurely checked it for explosives. For real. Then I nearly left the dang thing on the airplane in LA. Oops!

I think I'm most excited that I got to fly in an A380. The A380 is currently the largest passenger plane out there. I have an inside scoop on the A380, because a certain someone was a part of the engine test flights. Way back in 2006, I visited Toulouse, France for the first time. He left me on the side of the road outside the Airbus headquarters so that I could watch for the A380 take off. Might sound lame, but seeing it take off is quite the sight. It does this hover thing that you don't see in normal passenger planes. As you can imagine loading about 800 people on a plane is a pain, and the terminals for them are often really far away from civilization. I think we walked at least 1.5 miles to get to our terminal.

Qantas did a few things right on this flight.
1. Everyone got a meal card. If you're asleep when they come by for a meal, they keep your meal in the oven and you can have it later.

2. There are snacks available at your leisure and the snacks are good! Apples, cookies, seasoned almonds, etc. Plus you can get your own drink whenever you want it. Every airline should do this.

3. There are foot rests. Thank you!

Ok, well...time for me to check into my room, freshen up a bit and go exploring! It's 1pm on Tuesday in Melbourne and 11pm on Monday in Indiana. Craziness!

It's about to get crazy!

I'm heading to Australia tomorrow, so things are getting crazy. Despite all my traveling, I hate packing. This time I have a packing list and I'm sticking to it! Hopefully that will prevent over-packing. No promise that I will remember everything I need though. I'm always liable to forget something. Here are the top 5 things I'm most excited about:

1. I get to present my research in Melbourne, Australia! I mean really...it's pretty awesome.
2. I finally get to drive on the wrong side of the road without being yelled at! We rented a car to drive from Adelaide to Melbourne along the coast. I've heard it's one of the mos beautiful drives ever. I'm thinking that me driving on the wrong side of the road for 13 hours with my mom in the passenger seat could be a little stressful, but I'm still excited!
3. I have 3 days to roam the streets of Sydney. Oprah house, the Rocks, cool pubs....fun times!
4. I got some really good deals on hotels and the car. In Melbourne we got the room for $75 less per night because my mom is a "senior." In Sydney, we got 1 night free! They had a deal if you drove a car one way from Adelaide to Sydney or Melbourne. $5.50 a day! Even with insurance, it was only $40 for 3 days!
5. My dad doesn't know it yet, but he's getting a Nook color today so that he can keep in touch with us better while we're gone. He doesn't read my blog, so we're safe announcing this!

Alright, well laundry and packing are calling my name. I can hardly wait for the 16 hour flight! Not true. Obviously that didn't make the top 5 list of exciting things. In fact, I'm kind of dreading the flight. Anything over 2 hours is too long if you ask me, but alas...it's quicker than a steam boat! I will be blogging from Australia, so stay tuned!

iPad apps I'm loving right now

This iPad was obviously a big purchase. I did tons of reading before making the decision to be sure that I would have a tech tool that could enhance my life and not just a fun gadget. Trust me...this is one heck of a fun gadget!!! When I travel, it's a rare event to forget about work. These days, most of my big travel is for work. I'm actually heading to Australia for a conference here soon. Pity, right? When I'm away I need to be able open and edit documents, I need remote access to my office computer, I of course I need email with the ability to attach documents as needed. What I hate is lugging around my giant laptop and acquiring random notepads of notes during the conference. I'm decently strong, but lugging around a laptop during a week-long conference can do a number on my back! Here is the arsenal of apps that I've gotten in the last few days to make traveling with only my iPad possible. I have very few apps on my iPhone that I paid for. However, I knew that most productivity apps would be paid apps. Here they are...

iWorks $9.99 each





iWorks is actually a suite of 3 apps including Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. They are the iPad counterparts to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. I'm honestly not sure how well it works to create a new document and then edit it on a PC. Importing Microsoft documents and making edits isn't bad though. To be fair, I haven't done anything major with these yet, but the reviews I've read are good. I'm really impressed with the general sophistication of these apps. The documents you can create using these apps are far from basic! It takes a little to get used to, but there are tutorials at are super helpful.

Splashtop $1.99

Splashtop is a remote desktop application. This was a gutsy decision on my part. I mean rurally...how do you know if a remote desktop app is going to work for you just be looking at a brief description and some screenshots? I read reviews, but even those direct me to a single best app. Finally I found a review that basically said Splashtop was the best because of the ease of set-up and the price. Some of the other remote desktop apps are $30! One downside is that you have to download some software onto the home base computer. That meant I had to submit a request to our IT department. Luckily, they were totally cool with it! Once the home base computer software is activated and a password is set, it's super easy to connect and my brief test tells me that I can do anything with this app! Plus, you can access multiple computers! I'm going to install the software on my home computer too. $1.99 well spent!

Daily Notes +todo $4.99








I wanted an app that would allow me to type notes during meetings and create corresponding action items. There are lost of apps for creating task lists. There are also lots of apps for taking and organizing notes. Evernote is pretty popular. It's not bad. I like the way Daily Notes is organized better. You create your own notebook categories. Right now I have one for project meetings, dissertation related stuff, blog ideas, and conferences. The app basically creates a new page for each note book on each day of the month. It's easy to visualize your notes by date. You can also add tags within the note categories. There is a task list within each category as well. So let's say I'm in a project meeting like I was today. I can take general notes throughout the meeting. When an action item comes up, I can immediately create a task with a priority level, a tag for easy searching, and a due date. You can also email the meeting notes to anyone. I believe you can also delegate tasks. Boom! Done. When I'm back at my desk I can review all the tasks for all categories in one view. There is one feature that I have yet to have an opinion on: I don't think you can sync with your online calendar. So my final opinion is that this is one very organized, stand alone digital notebook and I like it!

BlogPress $2.99

Alright...blogging isn't really work, but it's also not so simple to do from your phone. Blogging through the Blogger site on an iPad isn't as simple as you might think either. Everything is all fine and dandy until you want to upload a picture from your iPad. So, to really be able to integrate images, you need an app. I honestly don't know why I ended up picking BlogPress. I'm sure I read reviews, but they aren't etched in my mind. It's easy to use. I need to work out a few quirks related to formatting, but it's just a learning curve thing.

Right, so the grand total spent on apps is $40. But actually, I had a $20 gift card to BestBuy that I used to buy iTunes gift cards and a $10 iTunes gift card that I bought using Chase rewards. So I only actually spent $10 out of pocket on the apps. Not too bad if you ask me!

Once apon a time, there was a Garden...

Once upon a time (and that time is actually now) there was a beautiful garden. The garden was planted by Emily, Rebecca, John, and me.


Rebecca and Emily are very happy about how the garden is growing!



The beans are growing!



The tomatoes are blooming!



Everything is growing! Oh wait. That's not our garden! That's Jim and Jim's. We've learned a lot from them!




John is really happy to water while the girls watch. Look closer! He's smiling!



Radishes are almost ready!




Lettuce is...well...it's growing.



Cabbage is doing awesome! Doing awesome over in Jim and Jim's garden!



TusaRebecca and RegularRebecca look too school for school!

She's here!

The long awaited moment finally arrived! I am officially blogging from my new iPad2! Tracking the delivery on FedEx tracker was awesome. Waiting all morning for the FedEx guy was not. I used gift cards and Chase Rewards points to buy iTuned gift cards. I really wanted iWorks...basically Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. They're $9.99 each, but worth it to be able to edit documents and create documents on the go. I downloaded a free kids' book which my nieces enjoyed quite a bit! Speaking of...shout out to Annie who is the awesome mommy of my nieces! She made the best brownies AND strawberry short cake tonight! Yum! I may have also gotten some pool time today! All in all a very very awesome day!

If anyone has a favorite iPad app, let me know!

Urban Commuter Biker Chick

Bike commuting in my town is not the easiest. It takes come courage and determination. Don't expect too many bike lanes. They are few and far between! Don't expect drivers to be looking for you. Bikers are few and far between! Here are a few things I've learned about bike commuting.

1. Your bike will set the mood. Getting a girl's bike is pretty important if you are a girl. You can decide what you want to pay for a bike. If you've got a short commute like me (about 2 miles), I wouldn't put too much money into the bike. I happen to have the greatest retro cruiser. It's a Puch. Love it! Love it! Love it! My bike has a basket, fenders, leather seat with springs underneath, and a wee bit of rust. It also happens to have a cup holder thanks to my sister. Be sure you let everyone know you're a cute commuter, not Lance Armstrong.

2. Dress to impress and maintain good posture! Slouching on a bike is bout as attractive as slouching any other time. I'm working really hard to have better posture and only slouch on the couch! There is no reason to buy an entire wardrobe of stuff from REI or Dick's Sporting Goods for your commute. Euro girls, particularly the uber cute girls in Amsterdam (city of bike!), don't sacrifice fashion just because they are biking around. Trust me, you can't wear a cute skirt if you're on a guy's bike. Today I wore a flowy silk skirt that caught in the wind a few times. Oops! Several people around here may have gotten to see more than is necessary! That might not have been the best. But anyway, I've biked in just about every summer dress and skirt I own and it's all just fine.

3. You do not have to race to work. It's a commute, not the Tour de France! Bike at a comfortable clip, but don't get nasty sweaty on your way to work.You might want to pick a nice evening to bike to work as a practice run. That way you know just how much time to allow to get there at a comfortable pace.

4. Follow the law. Did you know it is illegal to ride a bike without a bell or a horn in the state of Indiana? Bikes must follow all traffic laws. You must stop at stop signs and red lights. It is illegal to ride the wrong way on a one way street. You can get pulled over by the police and you must provide an ID such as a driver's license or a state issue ID. Bikers must stay in the far right lane and must pull over if the biker is holding up more than 3 cars behind it. I'm not sure how you could possible know that, but whatever...it's law. Bikes are not to be ridden on sidewalks or other pedestrian areas. I was once on Grafton Street in Dublin going about 1 mile per hour on my bike. I was kindly asked by the Garda to get off my bike. The Garda even said "please."  Now...it's my opinion that my town simply does not provide safe conditions for cyclists, and in situations where I feel completely uncomfortable on the street I will occasionally ride on the side walk. In this case I make sure pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way and I go slow. In a crowded situation I get off the bike and walk. You know...I would love to go for a ride with the mayors of Lafayette and West Lafayette and show them just how intimidating it can be to try to cycle to work. I wonder if they would have more bike lanes put in if they realized just how bad it can be.

5. Keep yourself safe! I'm all for looking cute while biking, but helmets are a must. Maybe in Amsterdam where there are plenty of bike baths and strictly enforced traffic laws to keep bikers safe, you can choose to go without a helmet. In Lafayette, Indiana helmets are MANDATORY, not optional! There are very few bike paths let alone bike lanes. Drivers are distracted and rarely expect a bike next to them. You can try to stay towards the curb, but you'll have an urban obstacle course of water drains, pot holes, gravel, etc. When I bought my helmet I chose one that would maximize my visibility! Hard to miss a giant pink helmet with flashing lights on the front and back! Which brings up another point. LIGHTS! Also mandatory. Actually, I'll have to double check, but I believe it's Indiana State Law that bikes have to have a front and back light of some sort if biking after dusk. In Ireland they sure take lights seriously. The back light should be a red flashing light. Doesn't hurt if the front light flashes too. My helmet has a flashing red light on back and a flashing white light on front. When I turn my head, the light will shine into whatever I'm looking at. Safety first. Better to look dumb than dead!

Notice the last 2 sections are the longest. Share bike laws with your non-biking friends. It will help them become more aware of you and your commuter friends. Mostly, just keep safe! I don't know many people who can afford a head injury. Besides the hospital bill, you may end up brain damaged for life. Not good. Helmet!

Gas prices drive me crazy

If there's one thing that's really been making me angry, it's jumping gas prices! The only thing that makes me more angry than the actual price jump is listening to the news throughout the day and hearing all the conflicting excuses for the jumps. It's ridiculous. This morning I passed my usual gas station and gas was $3.64. As I've said before, I'm pretty loyal to Speedway. I don't shop around for gas, because it's not worth driving across town to save 2 cents per gallon. Today was a different story! On my way home for lunch, gas had jumped to $4.15! That's right...51 cents in about 4 hours. I can see prices jumping 10 cents, but 50? So immediately I grabbed my phone, opened my GasBuddy app and this is what I saw.

 Gas at Payless (it's actually Kroger, but they left the local name) for $3.62. I'm willing to round to 50 cents saved per gallon since I drove a few extra miles, but still...I saved about $6.50 by going to the Kroger station today.There were about 20 or so other cars there waiting to get gas. I should have thought to take a picture of that!

I scrolled down and got a screen shot of the Speedway price. Just so you know that it really was $4.15 there. Glad I checked GasBuddy!

Student loans: good, bad, ugly

No really sure why I've been thinking about student loans lately, but I have. Certainly not all, but most folks end up with student loans during some point of their education. Particularly undergraduate education. I just read that about 66% of 4 year program students graduated with student loans in 2008. The average student loan debt among these graduating seniors was just over $23K (finaid.org). Supposedly, students who applied for financial aid borrowed even more. Not sure how that works. Did they have greater need, got less in grants (money that does not need to be repaid), and thus borrowed more? I'm not sure, but anyway...student loan debt is still a bear.

So much so, that our Federal Government started the Income-based Repayment Plan in 2010. On the up-side, the minimum monthly payment is based on your income and family size. As your income changes, your payment amount may change or you may become ineligible. But...if you are eligible and make the payments for 25 years, any remaining loan will be forgiven. This is an over-simplified description of the program, so please go read for yourself if you think you are eligible and think you may want to participate.  There are certainly some down-sides to the program. If you are only making little bitty payments and then all of a sudden you start raking in the cash....eek...you'll have a big chunk of balance to pay off.

I'm in a good spot. My loans are deferred while I'm in grad school. That means no interest earning and no payments needed till 6 months after I graduate at which time I will have a relatively low interest rate because back in the stone age when I graduated from college the first time, interest rates weren't so bad. I could start paying them off now, but I'd rather meet other financial savings goals for now and have fun with what little money is left. I will not be participating in the Income-based Repayment Plan. Based on my projected income and family size of zero, I won't be eligible anyway. No big deal though. If I'm not income eligible that should be something to be thankful for!

Does anyone out there participate in this program? Anyone wish they had known about it sooner? Anyone have opinions?

Weekly Money Check-Up

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MyPrettyPennies

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on a membership to the Shedd Aquarium. Who wants to go with me? My pass is good for 2 adults!
2. Today I am thankful that my learning plan portfolio is done. Hard to believe I've been a dietitian for almost 6 years.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was hang out with my nephews!
4. I will consider this week a success if I get my poster done for Australia.
5. My pet peeves are gum smacking, nail biting, slow driving in the fast lane, whining over a few points on a grade, refusing to take responsibility for self, etc, etc, etc...

Coin Star: turns metal into plastic!

Image Credit

I've seen the CoinStar machines in various locations, but I never pay attention. I was under the impression that those machines take a percent of your money. Purdue Federal Credit Union has a coin machine that is free for members, so I just use that. If you want cash, then yes...the machine takes a cut. But...Turns out that you can cash in your change at a Coin Star machine and get gift cards and there's no fee! How fun is that?!? It gets better. Sometimes they have bonus deals. Right now, if you cash in at least $5 in coins, you get a $5 Borders book store bonus certificate. Recently, the bonus was iTunes. Other gift card options include Lowes, Amazon.com, Gap and their family of stores, Starbucks, CVS, etc. Looks like I have a new motivation to stash my pocket change. Maybe I can hold out for an Amazon.com, Starbucks or iTunes bonus.

The iPad2 race is on!

The race is on. Actually, it's been on for almost a week. Who can get me an iPad2 faster? Best Buy or Apple.

Best Buy: I put a $100 deposit down on the iPad over a month ago. Still.No.iPad. Super frustrating. I did this because it was going to help me save about $20 and I thought it wouldn't take forever. Blogged about it a while back with all the rational.Well, that rational has gone to pot. Luckily, I can get my deposit back. Unheard of, right? My guess is that so many people are ticked off and Best Buy can't make us wait forever.




Apple: The only real reason I wasn't buying through Apple was the $20 in coupons I had for Best Buy. I ordered on through Apple on Saturday. Supposedly it will ship in 1-2 week. I'll for sure get it by June 10th. The great thing is that I can cancel my order if one comes into Best Buy before Apple ships one to me! It's a win-win. The main thing is that I want my iPad before I leave for Australia. Now it's a sure fire thing! I still think I've waited way too long!

Weekly Money Check-Up

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Time for the weekly money check-up from My Pretty Pennies!

 1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on gas. This month has been a gas guzzling month. Not because I have a gas guzzler, but because I've been driving to Indianapolis a lot to spend time with friends! Totally worth it!
2. Today I am thankful for sunshine!
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was sit on the porch and knit and watch the storm blow in.
4. I will consider this week a success if I take a bag of clothes to a charity shop.
5. I am currently craving nothing. My tummy feels funny right now.

Weekly Money Check-Up is a fill-in-the blank post once a week. The first four questions are always the same each week and the fifth is always different. Care to participate? Fill in the blanks in the comments section or post it on your blog and link back to here! I usually post it on Mondays, but it can be posted any time of the week. Thanks for participating! :)

BlogBooster Lite initial review

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For those of us who often blog from an iPhone (eh hem...Annie), this app could be for us! The only way I knew how to blog from my phone was to email a post to my blog. The problem with that is that only some of the text comes through if you add a lot of images. Additionally, there's no way to hyperlink, change the font size or color, and stuff like that. BlogBooster Lite free app allows all that! If you see my test post, you'll notice that the image is way big. I picked the biggest image to see what would happen. Obviously, it's too big! Other than that, I think the app has serious potential! BlogBooster has another app like this with more features for $2.99. I'm not willing to pay that right now. I think I'll get to know this one first. Oh and just FYI, this post was not written in BlogBooster.

Testing a new app: BlogBooster

I think this app called BlogBooster has potential. A free iPhone app that allows for more sophisticated blogging on the go. Mystery. you can change the font and text color. Underline. Strike. Bold. Italics.

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Stayin' alive! Stayin' alive!

After all that apocalypse hooey-balooey, thought it would be nice to focus on life! Here's the garden update!

Two nice rows of bush beans! By far the most aggressive growers in the garden.

We planted all our vining veggies (all technically fruits, I know) the night it got super cold. All but 1 were pronounced dead. We have 4 confirmed survivors!

Another surviver. See those ity bity leaves growning?!?

The decorative corn is in the aggressive grower competition. Knee high by July? Maybe. 

Our herbs didn't look like they survived the cold snap, but they did!

Fiesta!

Just got this Fiestaware for free!

Watch out P-Dub!

I had one crazy Texas weekend! Started to feel a little bit like Pioneer Woman. We hit up the local rodeo on Saturday and I cooked all day on Sunday. The rest of the weekend was super relaxing. Mostly spent time by the pool and read magazines.

Check out the fresh ingredients! My favorite place to shop is Central Market. They have the best produce section ever. In fact, I think their produce section is probably about the size of the Kroger I usually go to! Ok, maybe the Aldi.

Here's the picture of the recipe in Bon Appetit! Does that look delish or what? Chili-braised pork shoulder tacos, Pickeled onions,  and house recipe guacamole.

 Here are the beautiful ingredients.

Here are the spices that cost us next to nothing because we bought teeny tiny amounts in bulk. Total about $0.12 on spices! Yay for Central Market!

 Ancho chilis and some other kind. BEFORE "stemming and seeding."

 AFTER: "stemming and seeding." I was so careful not to touch my face. I know they were dried, but still...seemed risky to me!

Final glorious tacos. Only about 6 hours later. While the meat was soaking up the amazing flavors of the chili rub we actually went for a run. And we went cigar shopping. And we made guacamole. Actually...I didn't have anything to do with the guacamole, but it sure tasted good! 

Seriously worth every minute in the kitchen. The chili rub has a full flavor, but it's not spicy at all. I loved the pickled onions and the radishes. Added a nice, fresh zing. I need a dutch oven though. Meats just don't get tender enough in a skillet covered in foil. That said,  tacos were still the bomb. I ate 3! I would have eaten more but I didn't want to look like a complete pig. Thinking back I wish I had eaten one more.

Wait till you hear about the rodeo! Then you'll really think I'm a P-Dub wannabe!