Things have been going well at camp.  I love my staff.

There’s a fire 9 miles south of the ranch and they are moving people
out of camps.  That’s pretty much all I can focus on right now.  Please
say prayers for everyone involved in planning for and managing the
fire, and especially the firefighters. 

The smoke cloud is huge and scary.

Don’t worry, my camp is so far north it’s actually off the ranch. 
(There’s a fire burning near us, but it’s not nearlly as bad.)  But
Fish, my camp last year, is threatened.

Sorry this is a downer. 

Prayers for rain.  Prayers for good decisions.  Prayers for safety. 

I love and miss all of you!

Howdy from New Mexico!  Things are going well here, for the most part.  We are almost finished with Camp Director training, which is mostly very useful but rather boring.  It kind of sucks to be in the mountains sitting in a meeting all day long.  Oh well!  Today was maintenance day, which is actually really fun, because we have lots of hands-on activities, like fixing leaky pipes, setting up platform tents, and lighting pilot lights.  It’s way more exciting than it actually sounds, believe me.  We also get cool things like pens and necklaces.

One of the biggest parts of our training has been focusing on the fact that there is literally Extreme Fire Danger Everywhere.  (It’s a sign, hence the capitalization.)  Everything is soooo dry and brown, it’s almost eerie to look out over the plains.  Within the past few weeks there have been 6 fires on the Ranch (all small, and all out now), and there are something like 7 more fires on the Vermejo and some of the other neighboring ranches.  It’s scary.  This is the dryest year in the 105 years since they started recording.  The moisture level in the grasses is about 1%.  As Dave Kenneke, one of the maintenance head honchos, said today:

“Our water runoff levels are currently 2% of average.  And our average sucks.  2% of sucks is waaay sucks.”

Hehe.

I rode up to Harlan the other day with some other staffers and we totally saw a bear (a pretty big one too) running across the meadow, and drove within about 12 feet of a bison.  That was really cool!

I think that’s about all the excitingness.  Hope y’all are doing well!

As always, I’ll try to keep updating throughout the summer, but my loyal readers know that it will likely be infrequently.  I hope y’all have great summers!  I’ll read my subs every few weeks or so, but if something really exciting happens, shoot me an email!

Well, it seems like most of my blogs these days are of this form. Here’s a
brief summary of the past few days…

*Made it safely home. It is nice, as always. I have mostly been unpacking,
packing, and cleaning, but have done a few fun things:

*First, I have listened to this CD a lot:

It was made by my dear friend Lisa, who deviously got all of us to send her a
list of our favorite songs (an “extra credit assignment for her statistical
management class”…sneaky…) and she compiled them all. They’re arranged by
birthdate, which means I’m first, hehe. The songs are great, and completely
varied, which is really fun. It’s an m’ing awesome cd.

*Mom & I had a Creative Memories scrapbooking party last night which was
tons of fun! We had 9 people and we all had a good time. I got another page done
on the Italy scrapbook, which is good! My goal is to get most of the packing
done tonight so I can scrapbook all day tomorrow and the next.

*I knitted my first sock!!! It is so cool!!! Here are some pictures:

Socks are certainly tricky, but not super hard. You just have to know a few
decreases, how to navigate dpns, and how to slip stitches, and then learn how to
graft/kitchener stitch at the end (which is not hard at all…people who say it
is are crazy). I’m hard at work on the second one, because I look kind of funny
walking around with mismatched socks!

*I accidentally left my camera in the kitchen last night. Here is what showed
up this morning:

My brother is goofy.

I think that’s about it. Back to packing for me! Or, maybe sleep…we’ll see!
Y’all have a great weekend!

Notice anything different?

1) Finished with exams!  Whoop!  And I think I did well in all my classes.

2) Finished up my research project.  I’m gonna try to figure out a way to post my final paper online, because it is supercool and not nerdy at all, so when I do I’ll tell ya how to get there.

3) Blackout came out!  The CD Release Party at Revolution in downtown Bryan was so fun, got to see a bunch of Italia folk, and had great Cafe Capri dinner beforehand.  The music is great, and it’s good to have another all-acoustic CD from Vanessa.  (http://www.vanessapeters.com/blackout to order.  Do it.)

4) Graduation!  My friends are grownups now!  (Well, supposedly. )

I’m leaving CS today for KW for a few days, so if you live there call me & we can hang out.  And by hang out, what I mean is, you can come over and talk to me while I unpack/wash/pack/go crazy getting ready to leave for NM next Sunday!  (Kim is a pro at this.  She’s my favorite to pack with. )

I hope y’all are doing well!  Happy weekend!  Good luck to those of you who still have finals – you can do it!

Um, so I just talked to dearest Benjamin Sparks on the phone for 30
minutes and I think his feathers got a little ruffled when I talked
about the “silly little horse race” his state had today.  But it’s ok
because I drank some Kentuckystraightbourbonwhisky for him.  Yes it’s
all one word.

Updates are more fun than studying for finals!

I gave my presentation on Cosmic Rays on Monday.  It went great.  I am a nerd.  Don’t even bother commenting.

I turned in my paper on Tuesday.

Both of those required staying up til 5:00am-ish the night before.  Fab.

Wednesday – Friday I worked on Wiley stuff.  There is so much more to do for my new job than I’d imagined.  Eeeps.

I
also found out that I do not have a stress fracture in my foot (whoop!)
but that I do have tendonitis, caused by my weird shaped feet that
“collapse inward” when i walk.  Again, fab.  I am only allowed to wear
my trailrunners for the next few weeks, then I get to work my way up to
80% trailrunners (and other supportive shoes) and 20% fun shoes.  For
basically the rest of my life.  Can I tell you how excited I am?  Here
are my trailrunners:

They
are wonderful, and I love them, but I also love my new wedge sandals
and my flipflops with big turquoise stones on them.  Both of which were
purchased with the intention of wearing to the James during training
week.  And the rest of the summer.  (Is it bad that I buy shoes for the
bar?  I don’t think so…)  I still haven’t used my dividend so I may
use it to buy the Vasques in a dif. color so I have some variety.  Or
new socks.  Or a windproof fleece.  But the one I want, that’s on sale,
is NorthFace, and I really hate NorthFace because they sold out to
sorority girls.  So yeah.

Also, on Wednesday we went observing
for one of my classes.  I took a sweet picture of Jupiter.  The thing
that makes it sweet is that it is being occulted by Ganymede, on if its
moons.  Look at the bottom of the planet, you can see the moon passing
in front of it:

Today Mom came up for Mother/Daughter tea with the church ladies, and tonight we had a mini Italy reunion which was super fun.

I think that’s about it.  Back to the books…Ciao!

Paraphrase of tonight’s dinner conversation:

Waiter (who is our age): So do y’all have finals?
Us: Yeah.
Waiter: Yeah, I have ones Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  The won’t be too bad, but I need to bring some of my grades up.  Finance will be pretty hard.  What are y’all’s majors?
Heather: Mechanical Engineering.
Waiter: *gets ‘the look’* Wow, that’s way harder then any classes I take, I think.
Jennie: Biology.
Waiter: *’the look’, again* Yep, also harder.
Ashley: Math and Physics.
Waiter: *look of defeat* Yeah I give up.

Tehe.  We are nerds.

Mom came to visit Sunday and Monday, AND she even brought the dog!  We
had a lot of fun looking at all the scrapbook pages she’s made of my
early years!  I was pretty much the cutest little kid ever.   (What
happened?  There I said it now you don’t have to! :-p)  And don’t worry
Dad, I did get plenty of homework done.  

Dad’s overseas right
now – he made it to Dubai safely so that is good!  I think he enjoyed
his day off there as well.  (They arrived at 5am and then got the rest
of the day to sightsee and get on schedule.)  I’m mucho jealous,
because I now have the travel bug and want to go anywhere that is
foreign and/or exotic and Dubai is both!  Plus, they have the biggest
mall in the world.  And speaking of the world, they are building
islands of the whole world in the marina – country by country!  I’m
hoping that Texas gets its own island so I can buy it someday when I’m
rich.   He flies back this weekend, so say a prayer for safe travel!

My car turned 1000 (miles) on Sunday, which was really exciting!  I
wish I’d had a camera because I totally would have pulled over and
taken a picture!

I have lots of tests, hw, labs, and projects
due this week, so it’s a good thing Google created their snazzy page
maker to suck all my time away.  (Sarcasm, kids.)  Check out
http://ashley.pagnotta.googlepages.com/ and let me know what you think,
and what I should use it for!  It’s completely unnecessary, but I like
it anyways.  It’s super easy; you don’t have to know any HTML!  (If you
want a Google invite so you can make your own, let me know I have a
bunch!)

It’s hailing on my car.

My computer
science prof hides funny comments in the documents he puts out for our
class.  These documents are very useful because they tell us how to do
our labs.  It is funny (to me, at 1:45am) to come across, in the middle
of a lot of code, the heading “Act as if we have some work to do” and the corresponding code for it.  Hehe.

The lab is so much more pleasant (and less sterile/anti-creativity)
with my music.  Thank you Vanessa, Counting Crows, Gillian, Cory,
random church choirs, and Aaron Watson.  Speaking of Aaron Watson. 
“Off the Record” is my new favorite song.  I pretty much tear up every
time I hear it, and I want to track him down and give him a big hug. 
You should dl it.  (Legally, of course.  Yay iTunes for making legal
downloads easy!)

I have a new friend in the cs print room. 
Some other guy was working the printer tonight, pulled a bunch of
printouts off, and asked me for my user name.  My friend says “It’s
ashpags, don’t you know her by now?  She’s my favorite customer! ” 
Which, now that I type it, sounds stalker-ish, but really it’s not. 
I’ve printed almost 600 pages in there so far this semester.  That’s a
lot.  He’s allowed to know me.

Well, I’ve done as much as I
can on the cs lab.  Still don’t understand linked lists, a key part of
this lab.  Crapola.  Hopefully the TA will be helpful tomorrow.  Now, I
have to relearn spherical geometry for some of my research stuff. 
Fabulous.  I’ll do that at home!

“lost somewhere, in life’s complications”

Ok so I know that’s not the title of the song, but that’s what time it is.

Actually, it’s 3:45am, but by the time I finish this entry it will be 4.

Tonight I had dinner with a Nobel Prize Winner.  (Charlie Townes, in
case you’re wondering.)  It was pretty freaking cool.  Also at my table
were my department head, the first Aggie astronomy prof, two profs from
Cornell, and a prof from t.u, and associated wives.  Dinner was delish
(Messina Hof, did you expect less?), conversation was wonderful, etc. 
And I talked to a Nobel Prize Winner.  And he wished me good luck in my
studies.  Wow.

Now I’m working on my compsci lab.  I love my
roomie so I’m finishing my lab tonight/this morning so I can take her
out tomorrow night/later today after she turns in her thesis.  All the
todays/tomorrows get confused at this hour!

Ok.  Back to work.  Just thought I’d share.  Buona notte!