Week 3: The calm before the crush

Have I really been here only 3 weeks? As strange as it sounds, it feels like I have been here so much longer. If you take away the fact that I am a 16 hour plane ride from the place I call home, and the fact that I am surrounded by people that I have known for less than a month, a full time job is a full time job. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, do work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed, and repeat ad nauseum. Granted, I love this job, but I, like everyone else, am going to be very glad when crush is over and fun can resume. And with that cheerful introduction, we begin our story.

Contrary to what I am sure is your initial impression, I did have some fun this last writing period. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I had a fantastic beginning to this writing period. On Thursday (March 17), I rented a bicycle for the afternoon and went wine tasting with Eric. We biked into the valley west of Blenheim and tasted at four wineries and one microbrewery, in the spirit of St. Patrick ’s Day.

I can’t remember the last time I put in so much time on a bicycle. And honestly, I can’t think of a better place, or better circumstances to do it. Essentially, we biked until we ran into a tasting room, and then relaxed for a few minutes while we tasted wine. Afterwards, we hopped back on our bikes and did it again. Of course, it happened to be a gorgeous New Zealand afternoon that we decided to do this, and many good pictures were taken. After we finished tasting, we had to hurry back to return our bikes before the shop closed. It was a challenging ride for a couple out of shape harvest workers, and it didn’t help that there was a headwind the entire last leg back, but we made it back to the shop with five minutes to spare.

We tasted wine at St. Claire Estates, Hunter’s, Cloudy Bay, and Sarasin, and tasted beer at Moa Brewing. I made a list of all of the wines that I liked, but I will publish it in one of my final blogs; I still have close to two months left in this country, and since I plan on tasting again, the list is going to grow. I am not the right person to make insightful and intelligent comments about the wine I taste, as I am still new to all this. At this point I can tell the difference between common wine varietals by smell and taste, and even put a name to a few of the very common ones, but detection of faint or obscure aromas and tastes still eludes me. I’m happy with my progress though, I don’t think many chemists my age can do what I just described. It was great tasting with Eric though; he is very passionate about wine and winemaking, and nothing escapes his nose or his taste buds. He and I have very different tastes in wine though: of the four wineries we tasted at, he preferred the wines at Sarasin, which is known for only using native yeasts in their ferments. As a result, their wines taste “funkier.” Yes, that is an official wine industry descriptor. Yes, I am being serious. Eric’s reason for his unique preference is that he’s tasted so many fruity and floral wines, and it’s nice to have a change of scenery, if you will. I on the other hand still quite like fruity, floral wines, so I didn’t enjoy their wines as much as I did the others. There were still a few things for me to like about Sarasin though: Sarasin grows olives on their property in addition to grapes, and produces some very good olive oil. I will be passing a bottle along to the my resident olive oil connoisseur back home (ie: my mother), to see if it stacks up against the oil we picked up in Sicily. Also, the view from Sarasin was breathtaking: the winery itself is situated atop a low hill in the middle of the valley, and from the top you could see over all of the vineyards. It was the last stop on our adventure, and it was a great way to end the day.

The day was not quite over though. After all, it was still St. Patrick’s Day, and after a day of wine tasting, I was very ready for large quantities of beer. I woke up and went to work the next morning hangover free, but with a strange green smear, which I think was a tattoo made with green food coloring, covering the underside of my right forearm. Everyone at work had a good laugh at my expense, and I was right there laughing with them.

I had a second adventure during this writing period as well: on Saturday, March 19, I went to the Havelock Muscle festival. Paul, one of the guys at Duncannon with a car, had planned on going, and had a few extra seats, so I snagged one, Jess, the other lab tech at Mud House, snagged another, and Alison, another Mud House harvest worker, got the last one. The adventure began the moment the car left Blenheim: none of us had ever been to Havelock, and Paul hadn’t been there in six years. Yet again, it was another spectacular New Zealand day, so the scenery took every opportunity to show off. The landscape changed from an almost completely flat valley, to very step green hills. Havelock itself is located at one end of one of the Marlborough Sounds, and to get there we had to drive some narrow, windy roads. The region looked quite a bit like the coast range in Oregon, but with different flora and warm sunlight, something which I’m sure the residents of Cannon Beach, Oregon know nothing about.

We got to the muscle festival and the fun began. Havelock is renowned for its greenshell muscles, named after the muscle’s green edges. Havelock actually has a muscle processing factory, and few workers live at Duncannon as well; however, for obvious reasons, none of them were interested in going. I had never tried muscles before, and I figured this would be the best place on earth (literally) to get a taste for them. I think I tried muscles prepared six different ways, one of them was even prepared personally by the man who won Master Chef New Zealand, a television competition similar to Hell’s Kitchen back in the states. Every muscle I had was fantastic, from the basic method of preparation: simply boiling the muscles till they opened and serving them with lemon, to the elaborate concoction prepared by the Master Chef. My taste for them was not even soiled when I entered a muscle eating competition; sadly, these muscles were cold and came from a small plastic tub. My only goal was to out-eat Paul, and that dream was dashed the moment the guy next to me started throwing up. Sylven, another Mud House worker who found a ride to the festival, actually got a video of Paul and I in the competition, but sadly I do not have it to show you. After eating our fill many times over, we spent the rest of our time there listening to and dancing to the live music playing on the main stage.

the end of the day, Sylven piled into the car with us and we drove home. However, Paul decided to take us on the scenic route, so instead of driving back to Blenheim the way we came, we took a narrow road along the sound east to Picton, then drove south to Blenheim. We stopped along the way to hike up to a vista point, where we could see Renwick and the sound. Sadly, my little point and shoot camera can’t do the scenery justice; as I said in a previous blog, sometimes you just have to be there yourself. I like to think I did ok though. On the way to Picton, Paul also found a tree that an entire family of birds had nested in, so of course we had to take pictures. The rest of the drive back to Duncannon is a bit of a blur, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in back seat.

That weekend was the best one I have had thus far in New Zealand. I wrote in my week 1 entry that at the time, nothing extraordinary had happened thus far; nothing had happened that I would look back on and say ‘this would only ever happen in New Zealand.’ In those 72 hours, I had two of those experiences. I hope to have more in the weeks to come. However, it may be a few more weeks before I even get free time to do so.

The saying in the lab is that our crush season is longer than it is for any of the other cellar workers: before the grapes are harvested, we get grape samples to analyze, and then during harvest, we get grapes, press samples, and tank samples. When all of the cellar hands are done, we are still in the lab monitoring the fermentations. When I go to work, I don’t have a minute of down time outside of my lunch break, I’m always doing something in the lab. The Monday after the muscle festival was a 12 hour day, and my brief journal entry for that day says it all:

“12 hour day today. 53 grape samples. Word on the street is that tomorrow will be a half day because of some rain coming into Nelson, but I’ll believe that when I see it. They told us that today we would be done by 4:30, and we were there till 8. I think it’s time to bust this one out: Welcome to the suck.

Exhausted. Bed. Tomorrow is another day (3-21-11).”

The days since were spent in a similar manor as that Monday. We didn’t have 12 hour days every day, but they were still long days. Everyone knows that our remaining days off are numbered, and if I am going to have any more adventures during crush, they are going to be impromptu. Though, now that I think about it, it’s more of an adventure if you don’t know what is going to happen, and if college has taught me anything, those have the potential of being even more fun. Time will tell.

That’s all for now. Talk to you next week!

-DK

Week 2: Finding the beat

I love typing outside. It seems a bit counter-productive: computers are usually the centerpieces of rooms designed to optimize productivity and minimize distractions. But in this particular case: sitting in the cool shade of my housing block on a beautiful sunny day, recounting the events of the last few days, it fits.

Last Wednesday was my first day in lab. It was an interesting experience the first time, but it solidified something that I suspected from the day got this job: I really had no idea what constituted grunt-analytical wine chemistry. I guess it’s a sign of my experience (or lack thereof) when I walked into the lab and the only instruments I recognized were the pH probe, the stir/heating plate, and the FTIR. All of the glass rigs and most of the chemicals (most of which were specific to the wine industry) were completely foreign.

With the new house also came new house rules: new methods, new standard operating procedures, new ways of cleaning and standards of cleanliness, etc. Learning the ropes has taken time, and I am definitely still learning, but at least the process is happening, albeit slowly. The biggest difference between the lab here and the lab at Gallo is because we clean and re-use our test tubes and centrifuge tubes, we need to condition them with the sample before we fill the tube, in order to remove any particulate or leftover soap. In the beginning, it was very easy to forget to rinse your tube or sample jar before I filled it, but now it’s almost second nature. By the end of harvest, it will be muscle memory, and the next place I go will give me funny looks when I do it.

Another noticeable difference is the way we handle and crush grape samples. Those of you who are familiar with my experiences at the grape assessment lab in Livingston will know that I have handled several thousand grape samples in my career, and I like to think that I know how to process samples efficiently. I really liked the way Gallo handled grape samples: after de-stemming, the grapes were crushed in the bag they came in and the juice was then roughly filtered, mixed, and poured into 50 mL centrifuge tubes; minimal cleanup afterwards and no cross contamination. At Mud House, grapes are crushed using a large garlic press, essentially. The juice is collected in a large bucket, mixed, then poured into a 150 mL plastic jar, then transferred into centrifuge tubes once it gets back to the lab. Since the garlic press has to be cleaned before each grape sample, this method takes more time. Also, since the garlic press can’t be rinsed thoroughly with water between each press, as extra water would dilute the sample, you need to scrape it out with a stiff spatula, and since you cant get every bit of pumice out of the press with a spatula, you get cross contamination. Afterwards you need to thoroughly clean everything with water, and sweep up the pumice you scraped out of the press that didn’t make it into the garbage can. In short: lots of cleanup, and cross contamination; feel free to bang your head against the wall on my behalf. I actually spoke to my supervisor about changing over to the “Gallo method,” but apparently our current method most closely replicates the grape crushing practices in the winery. I can see several flaws in this argument, but in the interest of keeping my job I think I’ll shut up and simply settle for reporting results that are sort of wrong.

There, I said it. It’s out of my system. Now onto other matters.

I am still affectionately known as “lab chick.” However, like all jokes, if you use it enough, it stops being entertaining.

“It was funny the first time, and amusing for the next couple of days, but now its jus annoying. I feel like I’m back at DCS being teased about my weight (3-13-11).”

It has always been done in good fun, everyone would always laugh afterwards and say something like “We do it because we love you Dan,” or “I’m just jealous because you get to work with two attractive women all day and I get to work with this jerk.” When this started out, I didn’t quite believe them: I had only known them for the better part of two weeks, and you need to build up more rapport then that if you expect me to laugh at the crap you throw at me. However, I am happy to report that unlike in my elementary years, I can dish it back just as easily. I feel a little bad for Eric, one of the guys who really likes to jab at me with this. It was almost too easy:

“Life is funny sometimes. It turns out Eric was paid $10 to kiss another guy, an old guy, and then blabbed to everyone about it. Hello, leverage! (3-13-11)”

Eric and I are still good friends despite the name-calling. Sometimes I want very much to taekwondo him, but that can be said for most of my friends. A couple days later, he, another guy named Graham, and I discovered that there was a rope swing hanging over the river that runs behind Duncannon. And as it was a hot day, guess what we all did? I’m not sure I can backflip off the swing though; you don’t get a lot of forward and upward momentum on the upswing to help with the rotation. I’m sure I’ll give it a try at some point though. The rope swing has since become very popular amongst the residents here, even a couple kayakers paddling down from Blenheim have taken a swing.

The last thing I wanted to talk about: Ryan, my roommate from California, has finally arrived at Duncannon. True to form, the first thing he did was find a brew kit at a supermarket and start brewing four gallons of ale.

“I was initially hesitant about rooming with Ryan again, but that’s all gone. I’m glad that happy lumberjack brewer is here. Ryan is over living with the other Rapaura Vitners crewmembers. All of them are awesome too, though Ryan is wishing he spoke Spanish, as half of his crew speaks it as a primary language. Who knew you needed Spanish in New Zealand. Go figure (3-15-11).”

Things really started to come together toward the end of this writing period: I got into the swing of things at work (however reluctantly), closer friendships were made with my own coworkers, and new friends were made as well: I mentioned that I had met Ryan’s colleagues, but I have also gotten closer to the guys working for Oyster Bay. I really like it here; I think I may have a hard time leaving. I used to say that when I got rich and old, I would retire in a villa in the hills above Florence, Italy, but now I think I may retire somewhere here. I can’t pin down a location for my villa here yet, there is a lot of this country left to see, and Marlborough isn’t even an area known for its beauty.

“I am going to stop here: I’ve run out of things to talk about, and there is a beerpong game going in the ping-pong room. Again, thanks to Ryan (3-15-11)”

Until next week, take care everybody!

-DK

Week 1: New friends and old routines

“Would you like a sausage, Dan?”

It took a couple seconds for my delirious mind to register this statement. There I sat a picnic table in Duncannon, surrounded by people I had met literally only seconds ago, and here was this tall English fellow with crazy brown hair offering to barbecue me a sausage. What a cool guy. I answered the only way a sleep deprived, exhausted, and hungry adult male could: “Yes, please.”

We started talking, and as it turned out, all of them had temporary crush jobs as well. Then came the best piece of news I had heard since I arrived in Blenheim.

“So where are you working?” one of the guys asked me.

“Mud House Wines. I think my bus passed it on the way into town.” I replied through bites of sausage.

They all laughed. “We are too!”

“Actually, I’m not sure how much I’ll get to write in this from now on, I hadn’t expected everyone to be so cool right off the bat (3-6-11).”

And just like that, I was part of the family. We hung out and barbecued for the rest of the day, only stopping briefly to capitalize on a ride into town to do some grocery shopping. That night, all of them decided to go out to celebrate one of the guy’s 30^th birthday party, and I was excited to go as well, but at about 9:30 that night, the 40 hours of travel with little sleep caught up to me. I tried to convince myself that I was not swaying awkwardly back and forth, but I took it as a sign to go to bed when I started nodding off and having small dreams, while I was standing up. I didn’t feel too bad about missing it, there will be other nights, and I heard all of the good stories the next morning.

I wish now that I had gotten here earlier; maybe arrive on February 25^th instead of March 5^th. It would have been nice to have established a friend base before I started work. It also would have been nice to get the lay of the land a bit better before the crazyness of a full time job ensued. However, I needn’t have worried.

The longer I stayed in Duncannon and explored Blenheim the more I realized that this place, or at least my immediate surroundings, did not feel that foreign. Blenheim itself doesn’t have any stoplights, which was a bit strange, but the shops here sold a lot of the same things that I would find in a shop in the states. Also, the types of cars I see in and around Blenheim are strikingly similar to cars I see in the USA. This was probably the most surprising, when I was in Europe, the cars were much smaller, and only recognized a few of the brands. Here, I see a lot of familiar brands: Honda, Mitsubishi, and Mazda. I suppose this makes sense, Japan would have more of an influence here then a US or a German manufacturer. I see a lot of vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks though, despite the fact that gas is horrendously expensive. These are full sized, V8 vehicles too. My guess is that because Blenheim is an agricultural town there is a need for extra carrying capacity, and because this is the south Island, one of the extreme sports capitals of the world, a lifted SUV with a snorkel air intake would also fit here.

Duncannon itself also seems very familiar: I have been describing it as a cross between an apartment complex and a hostel, but truthfully, it looks and feels like I am at an international summer camp, or back in college living in a dormitory. The camp is divided into blocks of ten rooms, two beds to a room. The administrators have divided the blocks by winery, which is nice: you get to know people a lot faster this way. Mud House occupies the high red block (rooms 11-20), St. Claire Winery occupies low red block (rooms 1-10), and Oyster Bay Winery occupies high yellow. A few of the blocks also house people who either pick grapes, or put nets on the vines in order to keep the birds away. There are a few backpackers here as well, but at this point they are definitely a minority. Right now everybody is a bit cliquey, and there are also some language barriers which contribute to that (there is a Thai block and a Tongan block, and if they can speak English, they definitely prefer their native tongue, as do we all I suppose), but hopefully we will socialize with each other a bit more. A few of the guys have also described it as a concentration camp, and since we are all working full time, the comparison is easy to make. There is even a small oven in the back, and sometimes at night the camp has this really bad smell…

There alsoseems to be a lot of Americans here at Duncannon, especially my block and the blocks close by. I will admit, this was something that I prayed would not happen. People gravitate to people who are like them; hence, all of the Americans, including myself, have isolated ourselves from the others a bit. Yes it is easier to hang out with other Americans, but if I wanted to do that I would have stayed in Oregon. I am making a conscious effort to have a diverse group of friends, however even with an international entourage, as I stated earlier, it doesn’t feel that foreign right now.

“Right now in Blenheim it feels like I’m back in college: working and hanging out with a bunch of new people, all of whom speak English pretty well, while trying to save money. Nothing has happened so far that I would look back on and say, ‘This would only ever happen in New Zealand’ (3-6-11).”

An experience like the one I am looking for may have to wait until the job is over and I travel off the beaten path a bit. Speaking of, I may have to extend my ticket, it seems like there is too much to do in New Zealand for just one extra month of travel.

And speaking of work, there is a reason I have put off talking about it until now: not much has happened. Paperwork, safety briefing, winery tour…large portions of the last few days (Monday through Wednesday the 9^th) were spent sitting around doing nothing. I am trying to enjoy the boredom while it lasts, we will be getting grapes soon enough. The ladies who work in the lab also seem very nice. I am constantly amazed and thankful at the number of attractive women who just happen to work in the labs that I do, even if they are unavailable. However this has had an unfortunate consequence, in the way of a nickname: I am now affectionately known as “lab chick” or “lab girl.” There is even talk of making me a t-shirt. It’s kind of funny now, but I hope this gets old fast. Besides the scenery, the other awesome part of my job is that we have an FTIR. I may or may not start petting it every morning when I start my day.

Besides finding out I had an FTIR to play with, the one other highlight of the last few days was confined space training. Some of you are rolling your eyes, but hear me out:

“I am going to be stuck in a lab for the majority of my adult life, so when I get a chance to put on a harness and crawl into a wine tank, I take it (3-8-11).”

That’s all for now. A word of warning for the reader: the entries following this one are more than likely going to get very boring, since the only thing I will be doing for the next 6-8 weeks will be working. I’ll try and put as many interesting stories in as possible, but there are only so many ways you can write the phrase, “today I did wine chemistry,” and have it sound interesting . I’ll do my best though. I don’t plan on using this as a forum to bad mouth or gossip about my coworkers, so any readers hoping for some winery drama will be sadly disappointed.

I will keep writing though, in spite of any lack of interesting subject matter. I make time to write in my journal every day, it’s very relaxing. And as long as I have a journal (and a working laptop), I will blog.

Well, until next week! Take care.

-DK

Week 0.1: A very long trip

A note to the reader before I begin: from now on,my entries will be about the events of the previous Wednesday through the most recent Tuesday, and I will try and post that blog on Saturday, New Zealand time. However, since I’d like to tell you about my experiences in between Portland and Blenheim, I am going to devote this blog to that transition.

When last we left the protagonist and his stalwart companion, they were about to embark upon the journey of a lifetime. With heads held high and with spring in their step, our heroes boarded the plane to Los Angeles.

The glossy rendition of my upcoming adventures abruptly took a back seat when I was reminded of how uncomfortable airplane seats are, and how loud a hungry baby can be in a large, insulated metal tube. I am very happy that the first flight was only two hours. My company at the time was pretty good though: I met a Texas transplant who owned a large pasture outside of Sweethome, OR who boarded horses, and since the lady next to him owned horses, I just listened to them talk about all things equestrian for the duration of the flight. If only they had talked a bit louder, they may have covered up the noise of the screaming baby, but sadly it was not to be.

I got off the flight in Los Angeles and ran into my first unexpected complication of the trip: apparently I needed a visa to enter Australia. My layover in Brisbane was about ten hours, and if you are going to remain in the country more than eight hours, you need a visa. Thankfully, the people at the airline desk were cool, and I got my visa. I didn’t have to pay a cent for it either: normally it costs $20 US. Thankful that my visa situation had been resolved, I made my way to the airport bar.

My idea was to have two to three (at the time I hadn’t decided) beers at the bar: just enough to get me a little buzzed, so that I could sleep through the sixteen hour flight ahead. I soon ran into two problems: First, beer at an airport bar is incredibly expensive; and second, beer at the LAX airport bar is only two steps above raw sewage (read: Budwiser and Coors.)

“Also, my idea to get buzzed before my flight to Brisbane has fallen flat, owing to the fact that a beer in an LAX bar costs more than $10…I gotta tell Ryan this so he can make other arrangements for sleep aids (3-1-11)”

Luckily, my discontent with the LAX bar was short lived. After four hours people watching, writing, and Windows 7 solitaire, I boarded the aircraft and took stock of my surroundings. It was like Christmas.

Virgin Australia Boeing 777’s have a small monitor built into the back seat of every chair; that includes the seats in coach.

“I have a selection of current movies at my fingertips, as well as TV shows, music, and…wait for it…video games. Only simple ones like Pac Man and Bejewled, but still…this is kind of awesome. Plus the cabin lights change color. That’s all for now, nerdgasm over (3-1-11).”

Apparently, you could also face chat with another passenger on that plane through your monitor as well, but that feature wasn’t working for this flight. You could also observe the aircraft’s altitude, speed, and of course, how much more time was left in the flight. So on my flight to Brisbane, I watched Unstoppable (meh), 127 Hours (good, though not for the weak-stomached), Black Swan (great movie, but a head-trip), and How to Train Your Dragon…again (anyone who knows me knows how much I love that movie). I did get some sleep, though not as much as I would have liked: my two neighbors had unbelievably weak bladders, and were getting up every half hour.

I touched down in Brisbane a little ahead of schedule, and armed with my Australian visa, I bought a train ticket into town. I spent the majority of my time wandering around the Fortitude Valley district, which has a very cool outdoor bar and restaurant scene. However, nobody was sitting outside and eating: for one, it was raining heavily, despite the fact that it was about 73 (F) degrees outside; and for two, it was about 11am local time. The one bar I knew of in Fortitude Valley, the Mana Bar, was closed. This was very disappointing: I have always wanted to go to a place and drink heavily while playing xbox. Hopefully I will be back during business hours at some point.

I couldn’t really take any boat trips or go to Gold Coast and surf in 10 hours (well, maybe I could have, but it was more money than I would have wanted to spend), so after Fortitude Valley, I wandered around downtown Brisbane (one stop after Fortitude Valley on the train), and then took the train back to the airport, thoroughly exhausted and soaking wet.

I had no trouble at all sleeping on the flight to Christchurch. However, a surprise awaited me as I came through customs: In light of the earthquake damage, all of the hostels and hotels in town were full, so a bunch of other backpackershad set up camp in the international arrivals waiting room and were spending the night. I thought it was going to be difficult to convince people to let me sleep in the airport, or at least that I would have to convince someone.

Despite that small blessing, I ran into a complication with my bus to Blenheim: The place I was supposed to catch the bus was in a quarantined area of the city. The bus company would have made arrangements to change the pickup location, but the website I had bought the ticket from had not been updated. The best advice anyone could give me was to show up at the bus stop outside the airport at 6:30 in the morning, and ask the first bus drive to arrive where I needed to catch my bus, then hail a taxi and cross my fingers I get there in time (according to the itinerary, the bus to Blenheim left Christchurch at 7:05am). So, I did. And thankfully, my luck held: the first bus to show up was the bus to Blenheim. I did an awkward happy dance (cut me some slack, I was carrying 50 lbs), making a complete ass of myself in front of the attractive Australian I was talking to, and boarded the bus. As far as I was concerned, I was there already.

That said, part of me was glad that I wasn’t; I am very happy I decided to take the bus north. The scenery on the southeast coast of the south island is breathtaking. However, it didn’t look that foreign: it looked like the foothills of the coast range south of San Francisco, but much greener. Of course, once you see all of the vineyards, the sheep, and the very sheer mountains in the distance, you realize that you are a very long distance from home. We stopped for lunch in a coastal town called Kaikoura, and I got to see the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Kaikoura was reminiscent of a small Oregon coastal tourist town, but again, the steep mountains nearby shattered that illusion. The farther north I drove, the more enamored with the country I became.

“I actually saw a pod of dolphins playing off the coast south of Kaikoura, which was fantastic. It was the first time I have ever seen dolphins in the wild.

The sun is out now. This place truly is incredible.

…And the ocean water north of Kaikoura is turquoise. Another first.

There are only so many pictures you can take of beautiful blue water and emerald hills. Sometimes, you just have to be there (3-5-11)”

After close to forty hours in transition, my stalwart companion and I arrived at our destination. Our first trial was over, the next trial--learning how to be a production analytical wine chemist--was about to begin.

Until next time

-DK

PS: This blog really didn’t fit with the events in the days following, so I decided to give it its own entry. I will write something about my first week of work and post that before next Saturday to get back on schedule.