No snow, where to go?

Mardi gras beads and a sexy hat is all you need.

Happy Mardi Gras!
We celebrated at work yesterday with some beads, gumbo and a king cake. Good stuff. Also prime time to meet some colleges that I hadn't had the chance to talk to. Met this nice guy and started telling my story and what I thought about my new job (all positive so far). Then asked what he was doing, turned out he was the director for NCCOS that my unit is organized under. Just a little embarrassed that I didn't know. Start paying attention. Start paying attention. Start paying attention...

Bob looking smug in his warm beard knowing his
wetsuit is at least 10 degrees warmer then mine. Bastard.

This weekend was a long one as we celebrated President day on Monday. I stroke a sweet deal with Poseidon and he was nice enough to send a clean NE swell towards the coast on that very day. Me and Bob were quick to capitalize the opportunity to get out of the city for a day and took the 3 hour trip to Jersey Shore. Finally some quality waves around here! So good to be in the water again, it almost makes up for the lack of snow - if just it wasn't so damn cold!

Sexwax on, next stop Ocean City theme park.

It could have been us (if we weren't exhausted after 2 hours in the cold water).

Jersey Shore in the background, two happy tired shadows in the foreground.

Bob getting warm again on the boardwalk, enjoying the quiet sunny day.

Have a feeling that in 3 months from now this place is going to be filled with screaming
children with melting ice creams. Winter might not be that bad after all.

What else to do, except for baking? On Saturday it was warm and sunny so I spend the day on the Frisbee golf course while Anna was sweeting with her midterms. Almost start to feeling bad about all the work she has to do while I play... But then again, playing can be hard work too.

The back nine in the woods of Druid Hill Park

We all got different styles...

Andy going for the basket.

And I have kept my promise to myself and gone swimming quite a lot lately. Took my gopro camera to analyze my crawl over and under water the other day and compared with some Youtube lessons I have been studying. Got work to do...

Cap and glasses check, now all I have to do is to learn how to swim.

Dropping my arm, breathing to long, kicking to slow, lifting
my head to much. Dough! It looked so easy on youtube.

Bake to work

The rat race have started... Door to desk 1.20 h

Some changes in my life since last time I wrote:

1. I sleep in a bed.
2. I go up early in the morning
3. I dress somewhat nice
4. I got a slightly shorter beard
5. I take daily showers
6. I buy flowers (I admit only one, but its a start)
7. I have Anna within arm length distance instead of half a world away.
8. My daily exercise is a 3 minute bike ride to the train station.
9. I have started baking bread and I can't stop it - my sour dough keeps calling, feed me!  
10. I spend my days with other people that, like me, breath air but mostly think about water and fish

My cube at NOAA CCMA Biogeography Branch. Lots of
fish around, and Swedish meatballs waiting for me at my desk.

They let me through security after almost 10 weeks of waiting and I started working for NOAA on the 1st of February. I am so glad it finally worked out! It even almost make up for the city life transformation. Luckily enough there is already a 20 day field trip to the Caribbean planned for April (well, there is some more paperwork first...) to do Coral reef habitat mapping of Puerto Rico. So I am exited to say the least about that. Motivated people all around me and I don't think I could come up with a better place to work right now.

If it wasn't for the computers this photo could well have
been from the last century (thats the last time I baked)

Home made cinnamon buns according to secret family recipe (found on google)

My very own rye sour dough bread, I am so proud of myself! Good Gustav!

Anna Valentine. We followed up with the black and white silent movie "the Artist"

Baking and flowers, what is happening to me?

 Did you notice most of my pictures for this blog where taken in our apartment? It kind of mirrors the change of every day life over here. I have been out for some refreshing surfing with Bob on the coast though just two weeks ago, and am hoping to escape out this weekend again. It actually started snowing last week for an hour or so, before the rain took over... who knows what winter have left in store.

My new pirate ships arrived just in time to decorate the wall...
Stranded on a desolate beach...