Research Award Banquet

I was invited to the Research Award Banquet for the James L. Carmon Honorarium that I received last fall. Being one of the only two graduate students there, it was intimidating at first. Fortunately it turned out to be a rather enjoyable event. I sat next to Dr. Virginia Nazarea from the Department of Anthropology. Her work on ethnoecology and biodiversity was very interesting and we had a very good talk. I mentioned John Wares and Barbara Schaal (at Washington University) to
her as potential collaborators for her work.

Watson Mill State Park

We went to the Watson Mill State Park in Comer, GA. The covered bridge there is the longest one in Georgia. Ann took the kids in our minivan and I got a chance to ride my Ninja 250 there. The weather was really nice and I met a lot of riders on the road, it was really enjoyable. Kids got to play in the river for a little bit and they really like that. Maybe we'll come back sometime.

Stone Mountain Park

We went to Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta today, The Stone Mountain is the world's largest exposed piece of granite and is the 3rd largest monolith in the world. It is really impressive, wikipedia has a very nice entry about it. I found it really odd that the park put so much emphasis on their theme park activities while at the same ignore the fact that it is really a wonder of nature. Maybe it's just because that's where the money is.

Zoo Atlanta

We went to Zoo Atlanta today.

Alyssa's 5 year-old birthday party

We had Alyssa's 5 year-old birthday at World of Wonder (WOW) playground.

Old friends from NTU Botany

Yung-Yao and Ho-Yi are here for the New Year. It is so good to catch up with old friends but I still find it hard to believe that our shared memories are from >10 years ago...

Rainy Chrismas and a high-viz helmet

It rained all day today. Alyssa and Vivian helped me finished the high-visibility mod for my helmet, the result was very interesting.

Flush mount turn signals

Install the flush mount turn signals from Keith Summers (AsianCycle @ ebay).

A motorcycle for me!

Finally got my Kawasaki Ninja 250 home today. After so many years of living without a motorcycle, it is really exciting to ride again.

James L. Carmon Honorarium

I got the James L. Carmon Honorarium this year from the UGA Research Foundation for "innovative use of computers in dissertation research". The award comes with $2,000 in cash, which is really GREAT!