A Christmas Limerick

By Rob
On a tropical island for Christmas
with two volcanoes and an isthmus.
The monkeys are howling,
and the dogs are growling.
Instead we'll return so our families won't miss us.

Limerick writing is apparently one of Rob’s lesser-known talents. Who would have thought. I tried to take some photos of the holiday decorations here at the hacienda, but they didn’t turn out so great. You’ll probably be better off just imagining twinkling lights on palm trees.



At any rate, phase 1 of this project is just about over. We’re leaving the island tomorrow (Sunday) and flying out on Wednesday. I don’t think its really hit me yet that I’ll be back in the US again in just a few days. I’ve been fairly stressed as of late. Sometimes it seems like this project is going along just smashingly great; other times, it seems like its going to hell in a handbasket. Lately, its been the latter of the two. There was another scare with the toughness tester just this week. What had been a small problem turned into a larger problem, and I had to send a few frantic emails to Barth and P.L. to try to figure out what was going on. It could have been any number of things… mechanical failure, electronic failure, load cell failure… all of which would have been pretty catastrophic. In the end, it seems like we may have fixed the problem by oiling the columns. Its worked just fine the 3 times I’ve put it together since then, but my big fear is that the problem re-emerges when I return and use it again in January. I’ll just keep holding my breath.

The other thing that happened is that my laptop’s hard drive bit the dust. The battery had died several weeks ago, so I could not use the thing without it being plugged in. Annoying, but still functional. Then yesterday, just as I was finishing my final report for my grad college dissertation travel grant, a loud squealing noise started coming from my computer. I ran to get Rob and he said, “This is not good.” He got the squealing to stop, but my hard drive was dead and it appeared that I had lost everything. Well, not everything. Most of the important stuff was saved in other places, but there were several documents that I had compiled from my data that I had not backed up. It wasn’t a total catastrophe: the data were still there, it was just a bunch of lost time in making those documents. Still, I felt pretty grim. Then in a complete fluke, the hard drive started working again just long enough for me to recover the non-backed up documents before it died completely. It seems like everything super important has been saved, but I lost all my email. So if you are waiting for a reply from me, you might be waiting a lot longer. As in indefinitely. Especially if I don’t know your email address—which is likely considering that I usually just click on someone’s name in my address book without paying attention to what their actually email address is. What is perhaps even worse is that I lost my entire iPhoto library: everything from this trip except the photos I have shrunk down to post on this blog are gone forever. Rob says he is going to “try” to see what he can do, but I don’t think there is much at this point.

Rob is, I think, almost secretly glad that now we “have” to get me a new computer. I had been trying to hold out on this ancient and decrepit machine until I finished my fieldwork, because I thought it would be much better to get a new computer when I am at home to write my dissertation. But Rob has been pointing out for some time that my computer is 3-1/2 years old, which is apparently pre-Cambrian for these things. Oh well. I guess if it was going to happen its good that it happened now. We can get a new computer while we’re at home, and I’ll be back in business. Except for my lost photos and email.

Anywho, I need to get going and do some last minute laundry and packing before our big trip commences tomorrow. So, for many of you—see you soon!!