Mother's Day

Last Sunday was Mother's Day and being an expecting father I decided to do something for my wonderful wife Britney. We picked up some flowers for her and I gave her the option of a Mother's Day breakfast-in-bed or dinner and she chose a combo: breakfast for dinner. I made her waffles and pulled out all of the fixings (which was great because it was so easy and I still got all the credit). 

If you can't tell, here is the list of toppings I 'prepared':

Fresh Strawberries

Fresh Bananas

Nutella

Whipped Cream

Maple Syrup

Peanut Butter

Apple/Apricot Sauce

It was very tasty.

On a more serious note, Britney is an amazing wife. She is always supporting me even when I come home late from work. Even being pregnant she does more than her share of work around the apartment and keeps on top of groceries and finances. I can't wait to see how wonderful of a mother she is/will be! Just two short months to go!

Racing Again!

I finally ran the Big Lake Half Marathon! The race was a week ago (Saturday, May 9), and one that I had been planning on running the last two years. I say 'planning' because both years random things popped up preventing me from running. 

Two years ago I just happened to have a final for school on the same day. It was the ONLY day I had a school engagement on a Saturday and it just happened to be the day of the race. Last year I was again planning on running but in March I started to feel more and more tired when I ran. I found out in April that I had Mono, plus my MS thesis was due a week or two later so I had to stay home yet again.

This year though was different. I had no engagements preventing me from participating in the race or training. I was able to prepare well for the race and got the right sleep and food in the days preceding and ended up running a great race. 

The course runs along part of Lake Winnipesaukee, a huge and very pretty lake in New Hampshire. It was on the hillier side but a good course and we had perfect weather. I started off on the slower side then tried to push myself a bit more on the second half. It worked well even though I was running by myself for much of the race. In the end I posted one of my faster times, 1:22:41 (6:20/mi pace) and took 8th overall and 1st in my age group! I was very pleased with all of that. 

For winning my age group I won a flask of real Maple syrup and a bright fluorescent yellow hat (all the finishers got medals). Pretty cool!

Next weekend I am hoping to run a 5 miler on Cape Cod and after that (baby permitting) a Boston Marathon qualifier. We will see if I actually do the latter.

Ice Cream Nugget

We really like a particular type of mint ice cream. It usually has a lot of chocolate in the center, but this one was extra big. Look what I dug out of this carton!

Yes, that is ONE HUGE NUGGET of chocolate. It took me two days to actually extract it! I like chocolate, but that is even too much for me. It would have filled up the entire bowl if I tried to eat it...

Popular Mechanics

After getting published in the journal PNAS, there has been some interest in my research. The coolest so far was the magazine Popular Mechanics. 

They called me and interviewed me about the device and wrote an article about it. The article made the Feature article on the Health and Medicine page on their website! For the direct link to the article click HERE.

Pretty cool eh?

Is This Really Necessary???

Check out the sign near our apartment. It is at a Harvard building... 

For those of you who can't read it, the sign says "Temporary Bike Rack, 2 Hour Limit".

I'm pretty sure the bike here has been there for several months.

I wonder what the penalty is for leaving a bike there longer than 2 hours?

Airplane Safety Revisited

Here are the details from my coworker who's plane had to make an emergency landing.

It turned out that an oil line was getting plugged which was stalling an oil pump in one of the engines. As a result, the pilots decided to turn off the engine, at which point they headed to make the emergency landing.

Just so nobody worries, the plane didn't just stop working, the pilots were fully aware of the situation.

25.5 weeks!

Holy moly, I am coming up on the last trimester! CRAZY! I haven't even thought about strollers or carseats or anything...I just have clothes :) If you have any suggestions or thoughts, please share. Also, I'm interested to know if anyone has attempted cloth diapers....

Here are the goods:

Can you tell a difference??