DrNic
01-10-2010, 09:47 PM
Let me start by saying that I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday season and a happy new year. I got a number of kind holiday PMs over the holidays, so thank you to everyone. I would also like to thank those of you who have continued to submit my past thread posts for rep points. It's nice to see that my comments have some lasting value.
I'm actually writing this as a result of a few messages I received asking how I have been doing when I suddenly stopped posting much after being a somewhat avid poster for some time. Let me start by giving a summary of the last 6 months.
The past 6 months have been rather busy to say the least. As some of you may remember both my wife and I have been working on our doctorate degrees, which in short means a lot of stressful days of writing and reading with a sprinkling of lab work just to make it that much harder. I successfully defended my dissertation on Oct 22, and after making some requested edits to my written thesis, started my new job in Boston, in early November. The transition was rather smooth and the people in the new lab have been awesome. On the down side I currently have a 2 hour commute one way (4 hours daily) to my new job. My wife also defended her thesis a few weeks ago on Dec 18th. She is currently in the process of making some written edits which she hopes to have turned in by the middle of January.
So as you can imagine things around our apartment have been a little crazy to say the least. Luckily we were able to stay in rather good spirits throughout the ordeal. To make matters even more interesting, aside from writing and defending our theses, on Oct 18th, we found out that my wife is pregnant!!! (For those of you keeping track of the dates, yes, I found out we were having a baby the week I defended my doctoral thesis.... That was a REALLY long week) Things have been going well with the pregnancy and we have a projected due date around late June. :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange::hmm3grin2orange:
With a baby on the way and both of our degrees finished we now have a LOT of upcoming changes. Once my wife finishes things up and takes a new position we will likely be moving closer to Boston. We're hoping to start house hunting as soon as possible to make sure we can be at least partially moved in and settled before the baby comes.
After a rather long discussion we've also decided that it's time for me to consolidate my many tanks. I'm currently running 6 tanks (plus 2 'farm' tanks) which were rather under-maintained during the past few months. Since my schedule isn't likely to get much better, we decided that it would probably be best to transition from multiple tanks to 1 lager tank which should take a LOT less time to keep up. (For anyone who is in the central MA area and would like to pickup some tanks/gear/plants for a GREAT price sometime in early March check out the post I'm going to put in the classified section in a few minutes)
So as you can see it's been a busy few months and the next few months are going to be just as crazy. We're looking forward to the upcoming changes and hope that the transition goes as smoothly as possible. thumbs2:
I'm actually writing this as a result of a few messages I received asking how I have been doing when I suddenly stopped posting much after being a somewhat avid poster for some time. Let me start by giving a summary of the last 6 months.
The past 6 months have been rather busy to say the least. As some of you may remember both my wife and I have been working on our doctorate degrees, which in short means a lot of stressful days of writing and reading with a sprinkling of lab work just to make it that much harder. I successfully defended my dissertation on Oct 22, and after making some requested edits to my written thesis, started my new job in Boston, in early November. The transition was rather smooth and the people in the new lab have been awesome. On the down side I currently have a 2 hour commute one way (4 hours daily) to my new job. My wife also defended her thesis a few weeks ago on Dec 18th. She is currently in the process of making some written edits which she hopes to have turned in by the middle of January.
So as you can imagine things around our apartment have been a little crazy to say the least. Luckily we were able to stay in rather good spirits throughout the ordeal. To make matters even more interesting, aside from writing and defending our theses, on Oct 18th, we found out that my wife is pregnant!!! (For those of you keeping track of the dates, yes, I found out we were having a baby the week I defended my doctoral thesis.... That was a REALLY long week) Things have been going well with the pregnancy and we have a projected due date around late June. :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange::hmm3grin2orange:
With a baby on the way and both of our degrees finished we now have a LOT of upcoming changes. Once my wife finishes things up and takes a new position we will likely be moving closer to Boston. We're hoping to start house hunting as soon as possible to make sure we can be at least partially moved in and settled before the baby comes.
After a rather long discussion we've also decided that it's time for me to consolidate my many tanks. I'm currently running 6 tanks (plus 2 'farm' tanks) which were rather under-maintained during the past few months. Since my schedule isn't likely to get much better, we decided that it would probably be best to transition from multiple tanks to 1 lager tank which should take a LOT less time to keep up. (For anyone who is in the central MA area and would like to pickup some tanks/gear/plants for a GREAT price sometime in early March check out the post I'm going to put in the classified section in a few minutes)
So as you can see it's been a busy few months and the next few months are going to be just as crazy. We're looking forward to the upcoming changes and hope that the transition goes as smoothly as possible. thumbs2: