Busy, busy, busy! As usual. . . .

Winter quarter is now over at OSU. It was a really busy one this year - primarily because I had a larger enrollment than usual in my biogeography class, plus I had three independent study students and we had three simultaneous job searches for our department, which meant attending lots of seminars, meeting with job candidates and making it to some of the receptions. I also was in the Chamber Music Connection adult program and had to devote some time to learning classical music on my hammer dulcimer. In addition to all that, Aisling was very busy gearing up for St. Patrick's Day concerts and working on rehearsing for our CD projects. I won't even mention all the family stuff that goes on top of this other scheduling challenge.





So, what is it about St. Patrick's Day and green beer that make grown men dress this way?

















Or this way, for that matter?












At any rate, the quarter is over, spring break is here, and I'm off in a couple of days to head to Hawaii and Australia. I will be demonstrating at Turnfest 2007 at Kooralbyn Resort in Queensland. To break up the long flights to Australia I am first stopping over in Hawaii to do a demo with the Oahu group. I'll also spend a weekend on the way back with the Big Island Woodturners. In between, after the Turnfest symposium, I get to have a week of research and I'll be working at the herbarium of the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney and then the national herbarium in Canberra. I'm really excited about the research opportunity as it will allow me to obtain some preliminary molecular data on a parasitic plant genus I've had an interest in for a very long time.

I'll try to do some posting while I'm away, but if you don't see anything here for three weeks time, don't worry - I'll make up for it when I return. I'll have three weeks of photos and stories to share. Check out my previous trip to Australia by clicking on the October 2005 and November 2005 archives. That was another woodturning/research trip that set the stage for this coming one. Send good thoughts my way for safe travels. . .