3 weeks

I have three weeks left of school. Well, really 14 days. I'm not sure if I'm excited or not. But, it feels pretty seismic in my world. I worked for two years after Dartmouth, but I was taking courses for a masters then. So, in short, except for my leave when I had Joe, I've been in school since we were at Dartmouth. Granted, that means I've been spared the disappearing 401K that Jay seems to have...but, in case you were wondering, that basically means that I've never been gainfully employed (well, I guess Pfizer counts as being gainfully employed, but I definitely spent that money eons ago). Luckily, a resident's salary will likely not shock my system, since it works out to less than minimum wage, or so I've been told...but holy cow! I'm about to finally grow up (at least a little).

New blog

After our Christmas card met with some critical acclaim this year (critical acclaim = less than 10% "returned to sender"), Betsy asked that we record all the interesting things we hear for the rest of our lives. Conveniently, the internet allows us to do this in a way that is both self-aggrandizing and shameless, without the annoyingness of vacation slide shows. 

So if you're bored, and curious what my kids are saying and whatever other stuff interests me, you can go to

http://betsuccocards.blogspot.com/

and read up on stuff. I can promise you it will not be as detailed or interesting as "home on the range."

I want to have babies

Hey, we finally had Eleanor, and labor was so easy for Betsy this time that she's considering being a surrogate in the future.

Born April 13, 2009

3PM

8 lbs, 2 oz

21.25 in.

Everyone is healthy (or at least all the Mazzuccos are)

I Hate Waiting

Dialogue between Betsy and Eleanor (who is still hanging out in Betsy's belly).

B: "Hello there."
E: Glances up, kind of grunts.
B: "Slow going?"
E: "Look, I don't mean to be rude, but this is not as easy as it looks. So I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't distract me."
B: "Sorry."
E: "Thank you."
B: Steps away, folds some baby clothes, practices a diaper change. Then looks eagerly at her belly again.
B: "I do not suppose you could speed things up?"
E: "If you're in such a hurry, you could lower a rope, or a tree branch, or find something useful to do."
B: "I could do that. In fact, I've got some castor oil up here. But I do not think that you will accept my help, since I am only waiting around to oogle you and change your diapers."
E: "That does put a damper on our relationship."
B: "But I promise I will not oogle you until you reach the top."
E: "That's very comforting. But I'm afraid you'll just have to wait."
B: "I hate waiting. I could give you my word as a Mazzucco."
E: "No good. I've known too many Mazzuccos."
B: "You don't know any way you'll trust me?"
E: "Nothing comes to mind."

And so, we wait. No labor yet.

Madeleine Rhynehart Hurst

Just in case anyone didn't get an email or text message from me or Hillary, here are the stats on the newest member of the BLD:

Madeleine Rhynehart Hurst

Born 3/25/09

8 lbs, 8 oz

21 inches

Long swimmer legs, hands, and fingers.

Good eater.

Good crier.

Sporadic sleeper.

Excellent pooper.

Enjoys Dr. Seuss & Disney books.

Madeleine has been a real trooper.  She had a rough entry into the world, deciding to come out sideways after about 24 hours of labor and 3.5 hours of pushing (poor Mom).  She had to be vacuumed out at the end, which led to some bruising on her little head, which led to elevated bilirubin levels.  Because of that, she had to spend the first day and a half of her life under a baby tanning bed, naked except for her diaper, with her head wrapped tightly to protect her eyes from the rays.  She was OK with this scenario for a couple of hours, but then decided, understandably, that it wasn't her cup of tea.  It was hard on Mom & Dad to not be able to hold her, but everything worked out in the end, and we were able to come home as a family a little earlier than expected.

Airport Ratings

Hilarious. Seems to be loosely based on a Dan Mazzucco short story:


Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Match Day

I matched!
Baptist in Birmingham for TY
Hopkins for Radiology!

(I was super excited (still am), but the holy crap I have to move/sell my house/etc part is starting to kill my buzz a little)

Published

Check this out. Someone actually paid me (in credit, but so what?) to post on her blog!

I Love You Too!

And in honor of my birthday and the fact that I know you all love Hawaii I present:


http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/hawaiian-hotel/1056148/


I'm not sure if it's kid friendly enough...it is SNL.

Love you all!!

Happy Birthday Adin!

We love you!

Prncs Bryd 4Eva

http://xkcd.com/549/

sorry, no mounties pictures yet, Adin, but i'll work on that.

p.s. the comic link is not meant for younger eyes.

New Geography

Since when is London part of Canada?

Or did Maurissa move without obtaining my consent?

It's really hard to get good restraining order enforcement these days.

Mazzucco

Creative Dartmouth grad

I was flipping through the March issue of Reader's Digest and discovered an article about a Dartmouth grad. Apparently, at his reunion in 2007, Jeff Deck realized he wasn't doing anything beneficial with his life. He started the Typo Eradication Advancement League and now travels around the country fixing typos on signs. He was recently sued and fined by the National Park Service for changing a sign at the Grand Canyon, but he has been dubbed the Indiana Jones of typos. That's pretty cool.
I thought it was a creative way to make use of a major in creative writing.
(I tried to find a link to it on the Reader's Digest site, but my computer didn't like it.) The article is called "Righting Wrong Writing" and it's on page 22, if you want to look it up.

Clueless in Alabama or pretty much anywhere

Has the Hurst baby landed? I feel as if that must have happened and yet I have no official confirmation recollection in my mushy brain.

Liberal Arts Education

So by the close of business (COB) today, my team and I are supposed to submit a report document on the results of laser data collected in August by my company. One member of the team volunteered to write up a "boiler plate" which consists of all the non-results related information such as "how we did it", "what we used," etc. Seemingly straight forward correct? Especially when the guy writing it has a title of "Principal Electro-Optical Laser Scientist" right? So...here's some of my favorite highlights of the draft before I spent 5 hrs revising my life away.

1) The use of the word "nominally" as much as 5 times in a page in sentences such as, "Mechanically, the camera was nominally set back from the target screen about 25 feet when positioned at Nohilli Point."

2) The ability to repeat the same concept more than once in the structure of a sentence, i.e. "Sunlight being the main culprit was relatively constant but intensity on the screen did change over time throughout the day operations due to changing position of the sun as well as occasional clouds that would impede sunlight briefly thereby changing the background of the target screen. "

3) And my personal favorite...the use of dramatic effect: "To add more challenges to the air operations, the passenger door on the helicopter was removed leaving roughly 10 ft2 of open area for not only the laser to propagate into the helicopter but the ambient environment as well. On the ground, the temperatures experienced by the crew were relatively mild however, as the helicopter achieved 3800 foot elevations, the air temperatures coupled with the strong prop wash from the main rotor blades created near freezing conditions for the operator next to the open doorway (**adin's note: Guess who the operator next to the open doorway was**). In addition to the cold temperatures, noise from the rotors was substantial and communications suffered from the excess background in addition to some still unknown electrical problems associated with the internal headsets used by the members of the flight crews. The open door created additional concerns with regard to safety. All equipment had to be secured so as to prevent the possibility of something falling out the open pathway and striking the main or tail rotor props the consequences of which are left as an exercise for the reader to consider."

Thank you for exercising as a reader. Have a good day.