Mike Stevens is on my shit list. I was supposed to have a late-nite TEM session tonight, but this bastard has signed up for tonight and tomorrow night. I don't know who he is, but I hate him. I wish public humiliation on him and his kin. Maybe boils or something biblical like that. A plague of frogs or termites might be cool. I don't want him dead though. First off, I'm not an inhuman monster. Second, it's much better to see them suffer than to put them out of their misery.

So what's the plan, you ask? I'm signed up for a session on wednesday next week. And one the monday after. Tom and I may do one this Sunday, but neither him nor I want to give up our weekend. Saturday is bad because it's Grady's birthday (Tom's son). Why can't we just have our own TEM? Then we could use it whenever we wanted.

By the way, you can only sign up for two sessions, and I already have two nice times picked out. I wasn't about to give one up for half of a shitty evening session. But I ran the risk and lost. Fuck Mike Stevens!

I realize I haven't posted in a while. This may be a habit for a while as the conference draws closer. I'm making good progress though. I have a good sample, so I can concentrate on that. If I can get some diffraction patterns, x-ray spectra, and EELS spectra on the kerogen, I'll be set. Then all I have to worry about is the presentation itself. If I can finish all the research work next week, then I'll have two weeks for talk preparation (i.e. learning powerpoint and practicing public speaking). Kelly took me to the Chandler Mall the other day to look for new clothes for my talk. Although I don't really care for J Crew, they had a really spiffy pants-shirt-sweater combination that I really liked. Kelly also bought me one of those cool wallets. Now all I need are shoes and a belt.

In short, I'm in a good mood for the time being.

This past weekend, I had a field trip up to the NW corner of Arizona, near where to Grand Canyon empties out into Lake Mead. Once I get pictures developed, I may post them (if I remember).

I fucked up big this time. I was supposed to have a TEM session with my advisor early monday morning. I didn't quite finish up all the sample prep this week, so I was going to come in on the weekend and do it when I can have the whole place to myself. Unfortunately, I forgot that I don't have keys to the sample prep lab. So now I feel like a big fool, and I have to tell Tom we can't do TEM tomorrow. That also means we have to make up that session either at night or during the weekend because the microscope is booked solid until mid-November. I was lucky to get that monday, and I threw my opportunity away because I'm a dummy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really cut out for grad school. I have very little motivation sometimes.