It's a bit late for wishing a Happy New Year I guess - it's been a while!
The weather was too poor on New Years Day to go skiing, so I skipped that...hopefully better luck next New Years Day.
But we haven't been bored in the meantime:
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| We enjoyed a very cool performance by the Willamette Singers, Willamette U's 17 member vocal jazz ensemble on January 11th. |
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| Celebrating Michaela's promotion to Full Professor at 'Q' in downtown Portland on January 12th. Very proud of Michaela! |
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| While staying at the Hilltop Inn in Pullman, WA... |
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| I attended CUWIP - the conference for undergraduate women in physics for the third time. As in previous a very fun conference - particularly the Physics Slam! |
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| Ryan and Peggy stopped by for a few games of 'Not Alone' on January 26th - good times... |
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| Same procedure as every year: Photonics West in San Francisco Feb. 2nd through 6th. |
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| This was the first year that I was invited to attend the 'Prism Awards' - the 'Oscars' of the optics world at Photonics West. Our MKS team made it into the finals, but didn't win. |
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| The final result. Well, we are all more engineers than artists. |
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| Team building at ESI...felt like going back to Middle School - where is Jule when I need her?!? |
Now for the actual impetus for updating our blog: Michaela had Skittles' DNA tested a second time - this time with Embark. And apart from learning what we already knew, i.e. that Skittles is a true Mutt, we not only got a sense of the variability/repeatability of dog genetic testing, but we found one of Skittle's litter mates! And, even more amazing, despite the fact that Skittles was likely born in eastern Washington, her litter mate Baxter now lives in Lake Oswego, just a good 15 minutes from us! That was of course too much of a coincidence to let slide - we met Baxter and his parents Sue and Chris at our weekend morning coffee cart 'Royal Scotts Sips & Eats' in Villebois. It was great getting to know Baxter a bit and figuring out which of Skittle's behaviors are shared by Baxter (sneezing when excited, not fond of water, gait/stretching, picky eater, vocalization...) and which ones are not (asymmetrically floppy ears, reaction to unknown dogs, ...).
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| Michaela is getting the attention of all three! |
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| Chris, Sue, Jan, Michaela, Baxter, Skittle and Pepper. |
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| Brother and Sister reunited after >8years! |
Now for the actual impetus for updating our blog: Michaela had Skittles' DNA tested a second time - this time with Embark. And apart from learning what we already knew, i.e. that Skittles is a true Mutt, we not only got a sense of the variability/repeatability of dog genetic testing, but we found one of Skittle's litter mates! And, even more amazing, despite the fact that Skittles was likely born in eastern Washington, her litter mate Baxter now lives in Lake Oswego, just a good 15 minutes from us! That was of course too much of a coincidence to let slide - we met Baxter and his parents Sue and Chris at our weekend morning coffee cart 'Royal Scotts Sips & Eats' in Villebois. It was great getting to know Baxter a bit and figuring out which of Skittle's behaviors are shared by Baxter (sneezing when excited, not fond of water, gait/stretching, picky eater, vocalization...) and which ones are not (asymmetrically floppy ears, reaction to unknown dogs, ...).
