Switching Web Sites

Check out this blog at its new location:

http://acoupleofhistorians.wordpress.com/

Lisa's back

Lisa's back from her trip to Austin. While the guys have all gone back home, it's so great to have Lisa back here in Norman. She got back in late last night after spending the afternoon with my family. She and Tracy got the invitations done for the wedding and then met up with my parents for dinner. One of the better stories from dinner is that my dad apparently told Lisa about his new found love for podcasts. Lisa then admitted that she didn't have an iPod. My Dad noted how sad it was that he was ahead of Lisa on the technological curve. My Mom then noted that her mother, my 88 year old grand-mother has an iPod.

Apparently her work went well down in Austin. She found a good bit of information that shows that Caroline Herschel was more than the empty headed sister of a great astronomer as she has been portrayed. One of the odd things about the Harry Ransom Center though is that they don't make copies for you until after you're done. Thus, Lisa is going to have to wait up to a month for the copies she's requested. This seems to me a strange policy. I know I've had great access with the Western Histories Collections here at OU and ridiculous access to our HSCI collections. However, even the archives at the AIP allow you to make your own copies. It didn't end up being that big of a problem though, because she was able to type up notes early enough that she can get work done till the copies come in.

One of the people Lisa met while while in Austin was Elizabeth Green Musselman. Dr. Musselman apparently already knew about our blog because of the link to her blog, The Missing Blog. She's just posted a new podcast, so check it out.

New Hampshire

I was really hoping Obama would win the New Hampshire primaries. With Clinton and McCain's victories though, I think the doors are swung wide open for an expensive, unproductive race that achieves little and delays the actual debate between the Republicans and Democrats. Clinton seems to me to be unelectable. Her negatives are historically high, she supports the war, and she's just generally unpopular. Her candidacy might be the democrats best chance at losing the general election. If she could achieve the health care packages she's proposed, her presidency wouldn't be all bad, but I don't think it will happen.

McCain's victory is more interesting, because I didn't see it coming at all. I haven't been following the races that closely, but it seems that the republicans have an extremely open race. My understanding is that Giuliani is building support in the upcoming states, and I think that it will remain a four or five main race for some time. The fact that Paul again got 10% of the vote shows that he has gained some support and that there are anti-war contingents within the main stream of republicans. However, with as much money as he has raised and spent, I would think that he should have been able to get higher totals.

The record turn outs in New Hampshire seem to me at least to be somewhat indicative of the widespread interest in the primaries and in national politics. This is the first time me or my friends have ever paid attention to primaries. After having drunken 5-8 beers a piece, we were playing Rock Star. Zach read off the results from New Hampshire and everyone was interested. This may seem a small thing, but for a group normally devoted to talking about video games, sports, and beer, the interest in politics was startling.

Missing John and Austin

I'm in Austin doing some research on Caroline Herschel at the Harry Ransom Center. The people at the Center are super nice, and getting in to look at the manuscripts is a fairly simple process. There looks like there is going to be a lot of interesting stuff about Herschel, which is very exciting. I haven't actually thought about my thesis in a couple of weeks, which is a little distressing. But I think that being here I will be able to make a lot of progress on my thesis. My goal is to have a pretty solid outline of what I want to say in my thesis.

I miss John. It sucks being alone in a hotel room in a strange city, but I guess I'll get over it. I have plenty of CB work to do, there is work to be done on my thesis, and I brought the seventh Harry Potter book to reread. Hopefully I will be able to get a lot of work done and won't miss John too much. Well, the truth is I'll miss him no matter what, but in spite of that, I hope to get a lot of work done.

Missing Lisa

Lisa left this morning for Austin to do some research at the Harry Ransom Center. They have a collection of the Herschel's (Caroline, William, and John's) papers, which is extraordinarily lucky for Lisa's work. While she's gone, I'm going to hang out with the guys and goof off. Still, I miss her every night that she's away.

Everyone's Here

As Lisa said, everyone came back in town this weekend. Bobby, Andrea, Joe, and Ryan all came up for the weekend and everyone who still lives here in Norman is here. Last night everyone assembled for dinner and beer pong which went to like 3:30. This is somewhat normal for us, but Lisa and I had a meeting with a wedding photographer this morning and Greg was supposed to be in the city at 8:30. Still, a fun time was had by all (especially by those that passed out or nearly did (Red and Zach respectively)).

We've got 9 people hanging out at my apartment right now with the following activities: Settlers of Catan is going on the table. ESPN 2k8 is going on the main tv. The Redskins v. Seahawks game is showing on Zach's tv which we brought out to the living room. Bobby's playing poker on his laptop, and I'm screwing around on mine. Pretty freaking sweet.

I imagine that over the weekend we'll get more beer pong, poker, bowling, ESPN, and real basketball going in a weekend of completely unproductive debauchery. Bobby and Andrea leave Monday which will leave Ry and Joe to play ESPN until their thumbs bleed. Very exciting.

The Boys Are Back In Town

Well, not all of them yet, but soon all of them will be. Joe, Ryan, Bobby, Andrea, yea that's it, but it's significant nonetheless. I am very excited, mostly because John is so happy that all of his buddies will be around again. Currently, Zach, Sam, Joe, John and I are sitting in the living room and they're playing NBA 2k8 and bickering about which players to take in their fantasy video game draft. It's just amazing how much energy goes into this. And they're all in grad school. It's great.

I got a haircut today. The girl who cut my hair was really nice, but when she was washing my hair she was finger-combing my hair and it felt like she was yanking my hair out. It really hurt. I never know what to say in those situations, mostly because I don't want to hurt her feelings. I think that's a bit strange on my part. Anyways, I only got about a quarter of an inch cut off, so no big change.

Next Monday I am going to Austin to do some research at the Harry Ransom Center. I'm not really sure what to expect, but I'm looking forward to it. I might stop by John's parent's house on the way back and stay the night so that me and Tracy can go print up some invitations. Who knows, though? I have no idea how I'll feel in two weeks, so I'm officially putting off the decision until a later date.

I worked my ass off the last four days of December for the CB and ended up with 150 records for the month, which is great. However, now I am almost completely burned out on the CB, which means that at the end of January I will make another mad dash to finish up. It's a vicious cycle, but I'm not really sure what to do about.