It's been a long time running

It's been quite a while since I have sat down and wrote anything meaningful here. There is good reason for that.

The month of May has been incredibly busy for me. In that time, Emily has graduated from Nazareth, Jeremy (my brother) has graduated from Cazenovia and I graduated from RIT (just this past Friday). That's three consecutive weekends of graduations and travels for me!

All three experiences were very special to me. It was a great feeling to see Emily and Jeremy walk across that stage to get their diplomas. I am incredibly proud of them both. My graduation was quite an experience as well. I was very thankful to have my grandparents there. In addition to the congratulations extended to me, my commencement was a great opportunity to express my thanks for the hard work from all the professors that I had the opportunity to work with and the friends and family that supported me throughout the whole process.

I also started my job with Johnson and Johnson. The job is enjoyable so far. All I have done in the first few weeks are read training documents (a rather boring process). This week however I am done with my training and will be starting to work in the lab doing more hands-on activities.

So as you can see, the past few months have been busy for me. Now that things are calming down, life should be much less stressful and enjoyable.

I will keep you posted!

As promised... New Orleans from my lens.

I promised... here is a recap of my trip to New Orleans in photo form!

Upon landing at Louis Armstrong International Airport, the A.C.S. aranged for this band of musicians playing "When the Saints go Marching In" and other popular New Orleans style jazz songs for all the arriving chemists.

Sidd and I stayed at the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel. Located right on the corner of Canal and Bourbon Street.

Apparently hotel rooms in New Orleans come with their own beads! Beads are everywhere in the French Quarter. It's not just a Mardi Gras thing!The French Quarter is in great shape considering how badly damaged the city was from hurricane Katrina. However in the rest of the city there are numerous hotels, strip-malls and plazas under construction or awaiting construction. This is what appears to be a multi-story office building with all the windows blown out awaiting renovation. This is just outside the French quarter... and you can tell that the neighborhood quickly turns a bit more dangerous in those areas!
Here's the River Walk along the banks of the Mississippi River. It was pretty unique to see such a busy port city like New Orleans at work. Huge ships were constantly traveling up and down the river.
On Tuesday I had the opportunity to get together with my former professors from Nazareth at Cafe Beignet. It was here where I had my first experience eating beignets!I took a break to visit the National World War II Museum.

And Sidd and I enjoyed more beignets at Cafe Dumond.

We also presented posters and gave talks at the conference... it was not all eating great food, listening to good music and having fun!