Birthday wishes

My birthday is almost over, and I did not get what I wanted. . . ISABELLA! Maybe next year. However, I did get an amazing homemade carrot cake form Bryn and her mom, which I am about to tear into. Bryn and I will go back to the hospital for a check up on Wednesday, if nothing has happened by then. Thanks to everyone for the nice birthday wishes.

Isabella update

Still no Isabella yet. Bryn is feeling fine, but anxious. Yesterday, we took advantage of some sunny weather and walked around the neighborhood. We found a walking trail that runs along a small brook, past a plot of vegetable gardens. Today, I woke up to white streets and rooftops. With the snow falling again, Bryn's mom is keeping us busy with baking lessons.

Still no baby

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still waiting for Isabella. She seems to think that it isn't time yet. Maybe she is waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. Whatever her reasons, she has a strong will, and we encourage her to make her own decisions. I will try to update daily, and will definitely post when we are off to the hospital.

Due Date

Well, today was Bryn's due date. . . and nothing. We had an appointment with the doctor, to check the heartbeat and amniotic fluid. Everything was fine, indicating that the placenta is healthy and there is no need to induce pregnancy yet. We will go back in one week if nothing happens before then.

From my perspective, Bryn is having an incredibly easy pregnancy. You will have to ask her if she feels the same. She hasn't suffered from the usual problems; no morning sickness or back pains. She still moves around so well, that I sometimes forget she is pregnant. As fortunate as she has been, it is still a pregnancy, and I think she is ready to be finished. New challenges await right around the corner. The delivery. The new baby.

It was a beautiful day in Zurich today. Blue sky and below freezing, with snow on every surface to reflect the sunshine.

Project Approval

I had my first progress report last week, in the form of a presentation for my Research group. It was the first time that I really explained my project to everyone in the group. It went very well. The group was interested in this ribozyme business I'm in, and asked a lot of questions. In my experience with scientific presentations, questions are a good thing, because it means that the audience at least understood enough to ask questions. When everybody is quiet, it either means I didn't explain things very well, or my ideas are incredibly uninteresting. So I was glad for the questions. Dr. Wagner also approved of my ideas and the progress I was making, so I still have a job for a while.

Bryn and I furnished our new apartment last weekend, and it feels like home already. Although just the other day, I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, with my eyes closed, and I had the overwhelming feeling that when I opened them, I would see Portland. Not that I have been feeling especially homesick, just a bit disoriented.

This is the first year that I didn't watch either the NCAA football national championship game or the Superbowl! Maybe this is causing the disorientation? I found an "American" restaurant here that was showing the Superbowl, and I even made reservations. But when midnight rolled around, and it was time to ride my bike to the restaurant (the return would be too late for public transportation), in the below freezing night air, I decided to stay home and follow the score on the internet. Maybe I'm getting too old, or maybe I'm turning Euro. . . either way I don't like it.

Update from Zurich

I have received several requests for updates and information. Instead of the mass email route, I decided to return to the blog. Its good to back.

First off, Bryn and the baby are doing great, I think. My observations of the baby are limited to the sound of her heartbeat at the hospital once a month, and the increasing size and disturbances of Bryn's stomach. Both seem to indicate that our baby is going to be a hyper-genius supermodel.

Bryn and I just returned from a trip to Spain. We wanted to escape the entrenched below-freezing temperatures here in Zurich, and get in some final traveling without a child. We spent a few days in Seville with the family of my co-worker, Elias. They made us feel right at home and gave us an insiders tour of Seville. It is a beautiful, historical city, with many narrow cobblestone streats and a GIANT gothic Cathedral. Palm trees sway in the wind, and the streets are lined with vibrant orange trees. Elias' family even let us participate in their celebration of the Three Magic Kings, which is a day of feasting and gift giving. In Elias's family, it is also a day of singing, dancing, hugging and kissing. I'm not sure every family in Spain is as extroverted as his, but I like to think so. After Seville, we spent the weekend in a devalued four-star hotel (thank you economic crisis) in the city of Cadiz, located on a small penesula on the southern Atlantic coast of Spain. The beaches were beautiful, and the entire city is like a history museum. It gave me real perspective to stand in a Cathedral that is more than five hundred years old and look out over the Atlantic ocean, which is more than 4 billion years old. People have been standing in that spot and seeing the same view since before the United States existed. Before the writing of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, before slaves were taken then freed, before baseball, basketball or football were invented, before a single chemical element was known.

As far as work, I am settling in and finally getting some real work done. It is amazing how long it takes to get settled in a new place, especially in a new country. . . and maybe even more especially if that new country is Switzerland. We have a very diverse group here, both geographically and scientifically. Our group members come from India, China, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Chile, the U.S. and Switzerland. Dr. Wagner is from Austria. In the lab, we are evolving yeast, fruit-flies and ribozymes. The computational biology projects are looking at gene expression networks, signal transduction, transposable elements, and cooperativity/conflict in ecology. It is great to be exposed to so many different cultures and scientific ideas. If I don't learn anything about computational biology, I should learn how to make a mean Shahi Paneer.

Bryn is also keeping a blog, and she has been putting our pictures on the web.
http://ericandbrynhayden.blogspot.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/thebrynster

A new chapter?

Today I am leaving for Zurich to interview for a postdoc position with Dr. Andreas Wagner, at the University of Zurich. This is not the University where Einstein taught, that is the tech school down the street. This university is wonderful its own right, with its own traditions of excellence. Dr. Wagner is interested in evolution, at all levels of biology, and has a lot of interesting ideas on the subject. He spends alot of his time using computer models to study evolution, but time to time, he hires someone like me, to do "wet" experiments in his lab. The way things work these days, one person can produce enough data for four people, with four computers. Dr. Wagner has people in his lab that can handle these large amounts of data, which is good for me.

After my two days of interviewing, I'm taking a train to the Alps. I'll travel from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, where I will load up on food in the last grocery store before mountain huts replace resort hotels. In this part of the Alps, there are trains and lifts that can take you to just about any peak you want to ascend. On the Shilthorn, there is a restaurant at 11,000 ft. You can take a cable car up to it. On the other side of the Lauterbrunnen valley is a tiny farming village called Gimmelwald sitting at the top of a sheer cliff at about 4500 ft. There is a trail leading from there that passes through a forrest, criss-crosses a river, and ends up in a glacier field. Oh, the trail also passes a shooting range, which I will avoid. I plan on heading down the trail and finding a spot to pitch my tent and roll out my sleeping bag. I will post pictures when I get back.