A low-key welcome to 2006

This time the New Year came and went without much thunder or applause. We played it pretty low-key and fundamentally mellow. In fact, here I am, about 30min. into the 2006 (as usual, way ahead of most everybody else I know back home!) and I'm actually back in the Crary Lab playing around on the internet and writing on my Blog. I realized that I never posted our first Family Christmas picture - so in thinking about back home and feeling just a little homesick, I thought it a good idea to share this photo on my blog. As usual, Liam pretty much slept the entire time whilst waiting in line and woke up sitting on the lap of a strange old man wearing red pants with fuzzy trim. I think you can see his surprise by the deer-in-headlights look he gave the camera. priceless.

On a different note, I received some exciting news today. As most of you know, I truely enjoy the outdoors and camping and I found out today that I will have a chance to do a load of camping this field season beginning this coming wednesday. I'm heading out to the field with plans to stay about a week or 10days. Camping in the antarctic should be a trip. However, since I'll be working in ASPA's (Antarctic Specially Protected Areas) we will be observing no-impact rules, which means peeing in bottles and pooping in bags. Well, maybe I will have something to mail to my dear friend Hutson after all. Indeed, 2006 is getting off to an interesting start.

peace and love to all, dr. rock