Goals Goals Goals

After successfully defending my PhD and getting married within a 3 month span, my life was bound to become a little dull. Where was the motivation? Thus, I recently decided to set a collection of new goals for myself. Big ones, little ones. Ones that seem a bit outlandish. Just a few items to keep the engine primed.

1. Successfully land a tenure-track faculty position for the 2013-2014 academic year. 
   This of course is the big kahuna. Ideally, I would like to land a position in the northeast (or Texas or Colorado), but I am open to other options as well.
   
   
2. Run sub-3:00 during the 2013 Austin Marathon.
   This goal is a bit conservative, but I just need to get on my feet again.
   
   
3. Learn Italian.
   This may seem a bit out of place, but I always wanted a greater command of a second language. I took several semesters of Spanish during High School, but Italian always seemed more natural to me. Besides, I spend a decent amount of time in Italy, and it would be convenient if I better knew the language.
   
   
4. Check out every BBQ joint on Texas Monthly's Top 50 list.
   Seriously, I have lived in Texas nearly six years and still not accomplished this feat. This is not something I am proud of. After tasting the fare at Franklin's BBQ recently, I have slowly gone the way of a BBQ snob, and it has honestly been quite a lot of fun.
   
   
5. Successfully brew a halfway-decent gluten-free beer.
   Gluten-free beer is a disaster. It does not even come close to the "real thing". Sorghum malt is sour and a poor substitute for barley malt. I am convinced there has to be another way.  Maybe millet or quinoa? In any event, my friends Chris and Zohaib have started their own brewing endeavour,  and we have decided to bring gluten-free brewing into the mix. I am quite excited to play beer engineer with them.

I'm a married man!

 
It's true, Sarah and I officially tied the knot this past weekend!  The wedding was a smashing success, and everything turned out beautifully.  We will be getting official wedding pictures from our photographer in the coming weeks, so I will be writing a more expansive blog-post then.  Until then, enjoy "Postcards From Italy", a song which was covered during our ceremony in wonderful fashion.
 

Morrie and Mountain Lions

This past Friday, my friends Chris and Zohaib and I drove eight hours to spend the weekend at Big Bend National Park.  We had no idea just how ridiculous the trip would end up.  For starters, a raccoon attempted to derail our adventure before it even began.  Then, we got pulled over by the park police just to be told "Have a great weekend!"  And, to top it all off, Zohaib and I were almost devoured by a mountain lion.  Okay, we were not almost devoured, but we did run into a mountain lion during a hike on Saturday afternoon.  Luckily, the creature seemed disinterested in us, and we bushwhacked off the trail to get around the great beast.

Anyways, here are a few more pictures from the weekend.  Big Bend is really a gorgeous place, and I recommend giving the park a visit.

A view from halfway up the mountains

A view from Emory Peak

A view from the South Rim

The Santa Elena Canyon

The dried-up Rio Grande riverbed

Initiate Post-Doc Phase

Tomorrow, I begin the next stage of my life.  Tomorrow, I officially become a post-doc.  I am pretty excited about the new changes this stage will bring.  I have already changed my office location, and I now have a window.  You may think this is but a minor change, but words cannot explain how excited I am to have a little natural light at work.

Speaking of changes, I learned yesterday that a Texas judge ruled unconstitutional a collection of asinine beer labeling laws that were hurting small breweries.  Among the changes introduced by the ruling are the following:

* Breweries are now allowed to tell customers where to buy their beers.  Seriously?
* Breweries no longer have to (untruthfully, I might add) label beers with anything greater than 4% alcohol as ales or malt liquors.

The second change is of particular interest to me.  There are a number of decent gluten-free beers that can't be sold in Texas because they are not labeled as ales or malt liquors.   Previously, I had written how Estrella Damm Daura was one such beer.  In fact, the only gluten-free beers that I have seen sold in Texas are Green's, Redbridge, and Bard's, and frankly, all three beers are sub-par.  I expect with this latest ruling that there will be a wealth of new beers available in the state of Texas within a year, gluten-free and gluten-filled.  Needless to say, I am pretty excited about that.  Maybe New Planet will finally come to Texas as well?  I will be crossing my fingers.

Done!

I successfully defended my dissertation yesterday, and I somehow managed to finish my talk at 11:11 AM.  I would say that is quite a successful corduroy day if I say so myself.

All written up and ready to roll!

Well, I did it. I finally finished writing my dissertation, and I distributed hard copies to my committee today. If you would like to download a copy, visit the following hyperlink:

http://users.ices.utexas.edu/~evans/Dissertation/Dissertation.pdf

As the date of my defense approaches, I have been feeling all sorts of waves of emotion. I have been in school for 24 continuous years. It is pretty much all I know. That being said, most of the emotions I have been feeling are of joy. I am very excited with where my life is heading. I am happy with the direction my PhD research took, and I am excited to advance it in my future postdoctoral work. I feel privileged, and I am ever so glad not to feel burnt out at this late stage in the game.

Naturally, with the dissertation out, I am now able to catch up on fun things I have desperately been missing. Long talks with Sarah, running, cooking, wine, Arrested Development (it's coming back!). And I am pretty sure those are the things life is all about.

Deep in the Throes of Dissertating

I know. I am a bad, bad blogger. But seriously, I am dissertationally (yes, that is technically a real word) running down the last stretch. I defend the eleventh of November. Wish me luck.