Triumphant Return

“Strap in, we have a lot of ground to cover”

– Einstein

Introduction

Welcome back Mr. and Mrs. Bell. Your son, Crack McDusty (name changed for privacy) tells me that you have been eagerly awaiting your next big hit of this blog. I simply cannot comprehend that this is true, but Crack insists that you have practically been inconsolable the last few years. I was merely doing what all great auteurs do – vanish at the very peak of their fame. It makes the art just way more sexy that way. If wanting to return to my simple life of anonymity is a crime then call me the Hamburgler (reference – famous criminal). But wipe that frown off both your faces, because I’m back.

Just a Little Off The Top

If you rewind the clock to mid November 2019, me and Andy were wandering the streets of Buenos Aires, sweating enough to single handedly keep the Gatorade Industry afloat, playing what are the odds. Andy asked me the question “what are the odds you grow your hair out, and I cut it into a mullet?” and managed to nail me on that one. So, I travelled, with and without Andy, returned home, started work (for Andy) all without cutting my hair. Every weekend I would silently wonder to myself “Is this the day Andy gives me the snips?” I began to feel that he had forgotten about the whole bet like some sort of lobotomized rat riddled with dementia. Things were going along swimmingly, until one day at a friends cabin he reached over and squeezed my shoulder. I looked at him. He looked at me. In slow motion his mouth opened and out came the words “tonight is the night”. My butthole clenched, my heart fluttered and my adams apple stood at attention, quivering. My feelings were wrong. Andy had proven himself a studly elephant, with a Ph.D in the field of remembering things. It was not long before he was ridding me of all that pesky hair.

Honestly he didn’t do too bad. If the landscaping thing doesn’t pan out I can really see him being a rising star in the cutthroat world of manscaping.

In some circles my fresh new style actually received rave reviews. But I began to fear that it was maybe a bit too much. The attention was really coming from directions that I didn’t desire it from.

I Met A Lady

Why do I tell all this about hair, and show the grisly details you ask? It’s because it is under these exact hair circumstances that I met Megan. You see, Andy’s mom decided that she would steer the ship of my love life, and that I would be relegated to swabbing the poop deck.

This fact is neither SAD nor PATHETIC of me. I could have done it for myself but I was just really busy. Turns out my personal cupid did a good job, and Megan was wildly attracted to the haircut Andy had provided me. The universe works in mysterious ways.

So that pretty much sums that up. I think it should be super clear now why all the backstory about haircuts was necessary. More on the family at a later time.

Germany

During Covid, everyone wanted to hire me for a job, but ended up forgetting to send me formal offers. As a forgetful person myself I found this really relatable and honestly pretty humanizing for these large companies. I strongly admired how much hustle all the workers were working with such that they would have no time for me.

After suffering a single rejection I decided that I would just do more school. I found this:

It was exactly what fit for me. I could study abroad while I work (assuming that I would get some), and do research and thesis writing at the labs when the time came. I also got the added benefit of being asked by everyone I know if “I was still going to Germany” every time I saw them over the last three years.

But, amazingly, 3 years passed in a whirl, and me, Megan and Gus have made the voyage to Germany.

Here I’ll be working in the Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics group, doing research into the stability of Organic Solar Cells.

As me and Megan began looking at flats to move into we noticed one thing – rent here was hella expensive, and not overly dog friendly. So we made the extremely rational, huge brained decision to purchase a RV and move into that instead.

Gus finds everything about this situation to be pretty horrifying. The new ‘house’ incorporates a ladder which is a big no-go for him. Pair this with the fact that the great outdoors are now full of trains and bikes and you have a consistently scared Gus. But he is adapting, we are adapting and the crew is on an upward trajectory.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it Bell’s. Where is Reid is back. The consistency of posts is likely to be low at best, and it might not even be chronological. Maybe we will even look back in time and do some writing about our summer in the Yukon. Sometime maybe it will just be about solar physics. All I can say is that the next post will be about our journey to Germany, and the struggles of getting settled. If you really hate the format, take it up with your son Crack.