Well, I've successfully relocated to my ancestral homeland--Stearns County, Minnesota. I left my husband in Aurora to mind the homestead and try to graduate. Hopefully he'll join us (me and Zora) by Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, I'm living in an apartment twice the size of our Aurora condo furnished with a twin bed, 2 folding tables and a pair of folding chairs. I'm trying to buy furniture. On the right there is Zora testing out upholstery. She doesn't seem to have a specific preference, though she clearly prefers the samples over plain carpet. While typically saying, "Zora's helping" is a nice way of saying "the cat is in the way," this time she actually is helping, since one of the deciding factors will be how well the fabric repels/hides cat hair. Though my job officially starts Monday, I visited the school last week, met the department chair and (more importantly, because she is The One Who Gets Things Done) the office manager. I checked out my new office, picked up my contract (finally!) and the text books for the courses I'm teaching. That was 4 days ago, and the books are still unopened--I'm thinking of getting started any time now with lesson plans and stuff. The problem is, I actually have no training in this sort of thing. Sure, I have a Ph.D., and should be able to master (through re-learning) the material for a couple of non-majors courses, but that shouldn't mean I'm qualified to teach. Don't get me wrong, I am qualified--well, at least as qualified as any other post-doc, but what kind of screwed up system marks people with no training as teachers as qualified to teach?

It's been a while since I blogged, mostly because I've been sitting on a little piece of information that I didn't want to share until it was official, and now it is. About time too, as I've turned my whole life upside-down. Starting August 28, I will be teaching physics at St. Cloud State University. It's a 1-year position that might be extended or even become tenure-track. For the fall, I'll be teaching General Physics (no calculus) and Concepts in Physics (for non-majors). I move tomorrow. I've taken an apartment in east St. Cloud near Clearwater. This afternoon I will be packing my clothes and a few household items into my car, and tomorrow Zora and I will head for St. Cloud. Josh is staying in our condo for a little while, perhaps until he graduates (which is hopefully also just a little while). I'll try to keep up with this blog, but since I have to prepare lab manuals and syllabai before classes start, I'm going to be busy. Good luck to me!

Jiggity jig. Fifteen days in Las Vegas, and now we're home again. It was a marathon of a trip. Casinos: 13 (Rio, New York New York, Gold Coast, Riviera, Bally's, Green Valley Ranch, Harrah's, Caesar's Palace, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Binion's, Golden Nugget, Wynn) Shows: 6 (Rita Rudner, Penn and Teller, Lewis Black, Show in the Sky, Bellagio Fountains, Freemont Street Experience) National treasures: 3 (Hoover Dam, Joshua Tree Forest, Grand Canyon) Celebrities: 10 (Doyle Brunson, TJ Cloutier, Chris Ferguson, Joe Hachem, Scotty Nguyen, Johnny Chan, Robert Varkonyi, Kathy Liebert, Juha Helppi, Dan Harrington) Poker tournaments lost: 2 Harrah's "Total Rewards" points earned: 15 I think my favorite casino was Caesar's Palace. Josh liked the Wynn and the Bellagio. We both thought the Rio was quite comfortable, and even though it is not on the strip, the shuttles to Harrah's properties on the strip were quite convenient. Of the newer casinos, neither New York New York nor Bally's impressed me much. The Riviera, though, was the least impressive--nearly to the point of being scary. I think my favorite show was Rita Rudner. Lewis Black was good, and would have been better if he had toned down the foul language a bit. I'm not a prude about swearing, and I knew that seeing Lewis Black would involve hearing the F-word multiple times, but HOLY. SHIT. Every other word out of his mouth was some form of the word. To the point where it really detracted from the show. Remember the Smurfs, and how they'd randomly replace words with "smurf" and "smurfing"? "Papa Smurf smurfed Brainy's smurf," has no meaning if not deeply embedded in context. The same problem arises when every third word replaced by an expletive. I was disappointed by the Fremont Street Experience and Penn and Teller. P&T were funny, but their magic sucked. Except for their famous "biting the bullet" routine, their tricks weren't much of illusions. Cards slipped into sleeves, coins slipped out of them, it was all pretty easy to see. The juggling and fire-eating were performed well, but those things have never really impressed me. Unless you know poker, you may look at my list of celebrities and wonder who the hell they are. Doyle Brunson is, of course, the father of professional poker. He's won 10 WSOP bracelets (all events, not just the championship). So has Johnny Chan. Scotty Nguyen has 4 bracelets. As we passed him in the hall, he turned and gave me a big smile. I still haven't figured what that was about. Varkonyi, Liebert, and Helppi are Interpoker's pros (that's the site from which Josh won the trip). TJ Cloutier, a true gambler, is a big name in poker, and a bigger name in losing at craps. We saw him several times at the craps tables at the Rio, and once hanging around outside the buffet, apparently waiting for someone to buy him food. Anyway, we're home again, we've checked on the garden (which is doing fine), gone through the mail (nothing interesting), bought groceries, today we go to pick up the cat, and tomorrow it's back to work.

Last night we finally made it to the Bellagio. We had dinner at the buffet. We spent nearly $80--at the buffet! Friday and Saturday nights are "gourmet" at the buffet. The selection was heavy on the seafood--shrimp, crab, sashimi, and a variety of ocean fish. Unfortunatly, we're not big on shellfish and sashimi, or the other specialties of the evening, like beef wellington. The worst part was after dinner, where I asked for espresso, and was told it would be an extra charge. I ended up paying $6 for something that was not espresso, it was a cappuchino-type drink like one gets out of hot-cocoa machines at gas stations. Last word: if you're a seafood lover, you'll like it, but for vegetarians, it's not a great value. Of course, after the buffet, we watched the fountain. I didn't know that 1) the shows are done to music and 2) there are multiple different shows. The first show we saw was done to that Celine Dion song from Titanic. It was impressive, but the second show, set to All That Jazz from Chicago was much, much better.