Adventures as of late

Well, I haven't got any pictures to put up with this post, but I thought you might like to know what we have been up to recently. Following our visit to Joshua Tree National Park, we had a wonderful dinner with our friend Justin Widener. Justin was a labmate of mine in the Duk lab, and we both worked on TLF. He is now a program manager for Merial, and was here on the West Coast for training. J-dawg, it was awesome to see you again! I really miss that guy.

We also attended a play here in Hollywood. Plays are very numerous and popular here, as sometimes you can catch famous actors or actresses getting in some stage time. The play we went to see was called "Photograph 51" after the piece of data taken from Rosalind Franklin's lab and used to develop the structural model of DNA published by Watson and Crick (they did not acknowledge that they had taken her data until after they were awarded the Nobel prize). It was at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, and Jay and I really enjoyed it. Jay was very involved in drama while in high school, and also during the one year of college he bothered with. I think that we will be attending many more plays, and the Fountain theatre was one of the most intimate settings I have ever been in.

Last weekend I attended a conference in San Diego, Women in Science and Technology. It was awesome, especially because I got a lot of ideas about what I want to do next in my career. I am usually a big planner, with the next 5-10 years of my life detailed out. That has fallen by the wayside since I finished my PhD and started my post-doc. There are a lot of options out there, and I have had a difficult time deciding where I want to go next. Jay is such an open and supportive spouse that no doors have been eliminated based on where he wants to live or what he wants to do (although he is very keen on me going overseas for a while). At any rate, if any of my friends are not current members of AWIS, I encourage you to join and take full advantage of their networks and education offerings. It has been a real boost for me.

Since Jay was left on his own for a couple of days with no one but the cat for company, he made lots of plans with friends. He started Saturday off with a trip to the Renaissance Faire here in LA, and I really wish I had pictures to show you! Don't fear, we are supposed to return there this weekend so I can explore as well. After the faire, he went to see Star Trek with a friend, and then out to dinner. We both crashed pretty hard on Sunday!