Well, thanksgiving break started a week early for me — I was under the impression that it would start from the next week! On Monday, I finished one of the last things with APS March Meeting - Abstract Submission. That’s probably the only thing that went right as Packers lost to Vikings in pretty the same fashion as they did earlier in the season Quite a bit of bad news followed from Tuesday morning. An accident in Calumet area that killed a 18 year kid, series of events leading to Anil not coming to Houghton, another accident later in the night in which, fortunately, no one was seriously hurt…

On Wednesday, I was informed about the new store in Mall (Steve & Barry’s - yes, in Houghton), where I met and chatted with an elderly gentleman for nearly 30 minutes or so - topics of discussion, as usual, varied widely. Later that night, I took a ride to Phil’s cabin (to get AC-adapter for my external hard drive) and ended up getting quite a few nice pictures; now, I am back using RHEL Desktop on my laptop. Weather is getting pretty bad and stormy in this area. For those of you who think that I am just bluffing about the snow-related things, check out the pictures and video clips here. If you still don’t believe me, get onto US-41 and drive north…

Thursday was Thanksgiving and like last year, was spent in Phil’s Cabin in the woods. Not as many people as the year before, but same spirits nevertheless. Thinking about the things I have to be thankful for — qualifier results, APS Meeting in LA, summer softball, second straight GSC championship, surviving near-death experience in Portage canal, decent progress in research, a well-working beowulf cluster, trip to the Grand Canyon, meeting many new people, and 120 lbs of sand making my winter-driving lot safer and comfortable…. - the list is quite big and seems endless. Weather this time wasn’t so conducive to driving but definitely more predictable, which made photography easier. Food was good too - mashed potatoes, vegetable squash, and more…. Again, talking about weather, it can change so much in such a short span of time in this region - check the pictures in the link I mentioned above carefully and you will see it yourself!

I have few things planned to do during rest of this break and hopefully, I will get them done with much time to spare.