busy week... back in the swing of things with a new grant cycle already, and i can hardly catch my breath. *sigh* but since i've been out of touch, an update:

this past weekend: dinner with kat, judy, heather, seth, genine, anthony, and mark, most of whom i haven't seen in over a month since most of them were on travel! we went to the cheesecake factory in palo alto for waaay too much food, attempted to do some geocaching, and cruised around on university ave for a while. it's good to see them, i'd missed seeing that group. hopefully i'll see them (or some of them, at least) on sunday at the MRS show in los gatos. saturday afternoon, zephyr recorded our second win (2 for 2, baby!) on the season. yay! i like winning. sunday, h and i went down to visit kristin, jonathan, and their monster dog diesel for a few days of fun in the sun in san diego. we went to a cool dog beach, hung out, hot-tubbed, went to balboa park, hit up the viejas casino (where h found a fun electronic roulette game. hmm.)... also stopped by to see zoltán on the way back through town, which was good.

got back late tuesday, headed to work wednesday and plowed through lots of purgatory problems, read preproposals at home on thursday, and here i am today. oh, and i got my hair cut (actually, got all of them cut :))-- i figured i was due for my annual shearing. it's about shoulder-length, kind of layered, but as you know i always pull it back anyway. i think the hairdresser was annoyed at me that she was giving me this cool haircut but i don't ever do anything special with it. oh well, sue me, i like being low-maintenance, dammit!

also yesterday, i went to the bay institute's annual event at the corinthian yacht club in tiburon. it was pretty chic-chic, which makes it something that i'm not usually invited to. but it was fun! i got to sit with this fabulous biologist named tina swanson, whose project i'm currently working on, and she was amazingly dynamic-- one of those people you're glad that you get to sit at a table with because they are such enjoyable and conversational company. she also did her grad work at my lovely alma mater, so we had some professor stories to swap. another UCLA connection at this dinner-- i ran into my TA from my geography 1 class, ken schwarz, who is now working for jones & stokes. random. he said he remembered me, but i rather doubt he did. i actually knew a number more people there than i expected-- there were a number of people from the san francisco bay joint venture in attendance (two were even sitting at my table), PRBO staff, and TBI staff that i've worked with on various projects. i also did some networking for setareh, in the form of a pediatrician that she might be able to do a rotation with. :) also seated at my table: bill berryessa, whose grandfather is the namesake for lake berryessa and the berryessa area of san jose. all in all, i was anticipating a stuffy event, but it was fun, cool location, good people, lots of good food and wine flowing... i enjoyed it, even though i had to get dressed up! :)

this weekend should be fairly mild, but two highlights i know of: san jose earthquakes vs the hated southern rivals, and rent with the 'rents. yay!