About Me: What I do

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In case you're curious......

My Job

I am a researcher in Corporate Research at The Dow Chemical Company. I started work there in the summer of 1999 after I finished graduate school. I joined the Research Assignments Program, which is a program that allows new employees to spend 13 months rotating throughout the company in 3-month assignments in various businesses. I started in Corporate Research, then moved to Freeport, TX, for an assignment in Polyolefins Research. I then moved back to Midland, MI, for my last two assignments in Fabricated Products and Engineering Plastics. After I finished RAP, I rejoined Corporate Research and started working with the Advanced Electronics Materials Business.

School

I finished my B.S. in Polymer Science at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1994. While I was there, I completed an undergraduate thesis under the guidance of Dr. Robert Moore as part of the requirements as a member of the Honors College. I then moved to Amherst, MA, to attend graduate school at the University of Massachusett's Polymer Science and Engineering Department. I spent 4.5 years there under the direction of Prof. Shaw L. Hsu before finishing my Ph.D. in 1999. I immediately started work with Dow Chemical.

Hobbies

Genealogy

Around the time I finished school, I finally started having a small bit of free time that allowed me to start something I had been wanting to do, genealogy. (Please connect to my genealogy page for progress on that research.) I consider this my main hobby, thought it goes in fits & starts. I do much of my research, particularly census research, at the Michigan State Library in Lansing, MI, where they have a complete collection of census records. I also drive to the Allen County Library in Ft. Wayne, IN, a couple of times a year. Of course, I always try to sneak in some research, especially searches through old newspapers, when I return to MS to visit family. Finally, Clayton Genealogy Library in Houston, TX, is a good resource and is only ~1 hour from Dow's Freeport site. Unfortunately, business rarely takes me to TX, but when it does, I try to take vacation time to get to Houston to do some research.

I am very particular about researching family history. All too often you find folklore and false information out on the web. Sometimes, you have to take oral family history as a good starting point, so I'm very grateful that this information abounds on the web, but I'm still a firm believer in documentation and original sources. I try to be very careful in my research and cite sources for all facts and clearly label guesses and hypotheses as such. I do not think it's wrong to expound on theories, as long as they are labeled as such; after all, it shows your thought process!

Website

I guess my second hobby is this website. I taught myself basic HTML code and constructed this website in the most basic of text editors, Notepad. I'm not interested in creating a fancy website. My goal for this is to share genealogy information in an accessible form. The other information, like information about me, my immediate family, and my adorable bulldog, are just side topics. (I'm not sure anyone really cares to hear about them anyway!)

Yoga

My third hobby is a very new one, yoga. I just started taking classes under a yoga master, Zenith Manwell. Her classes cover all eight limbs of yoga, not just the the physical poses. I'm amazed at how difficult and rewarding this is! The biggest advantage I've seen so far is an increased awareness of body posture and thought processes. Years of ballet training have made me quite comfortable in contorting my feet and legs into unnatural positions, something I'm gradually addresssing through yoga. Now maybe I won't have to replace my shoes so often from wear on the outer edge of the soles!

Antiques/Flea Markets

My fourth hobby is to go antique or flea market shopping. I've acquired most of my Russel Wright collection, which we use, at flea markets or ebay. Many of the items in our house have come from flea markets or auctions. I love estate auctions! I bought our 2-year-old Kirby vacuum cleaner for $160 (new $1600) and a new John Deere snow blower for ~$400. Our Heywood Wakefield china cabinet was only $50. When I get pictures of our house posted on the "Where I live" section, they will feature many of our flea market finds.

House Projects

I guess my last hobby isn't really a hobby. Each spring/summer I have a number of projects to complete around the house. Last year it was paint the basement and strip the paint off the master bathroom windows to restore the natural wood look. This year it is to strip the windows in the master bedroom. One wall is floor-to-ceiling windows, so this is not going to be an easy task. I don't particularly enjoy the work, but I do enjoy seeing the progress and I hate to spend the $1000 a professional would charge to do something I could do if I would just focus.

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