Awaiting Revelation

New Blog Location

2009-02-26T23:08:00.001-08:00

I've decided to move my blog and give it a new look. The design isn't yet complete, but it's about time I just jump ship and redirect readers. My blog can now be seen at:

www.chrisbrow.net

Little victories in the snow

2008-12-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

What you see below is a picture of a TimTam. For those who don't know, a TimTam is a little treat from Australia. It's a chocolate covered wafer-like cookie, and there's a traditional way you're supposed to eat one. First, you nibble off the chocolate on opposite corners. Then, you dunk it in your coffee and use it like a straw sucking coffee up into the wafer. Once the coffee hits the wafer, the entire TimTam begins to dissolve from the inside-out. You have to stuff the whole thing in your mouth immediately. It's melt-in-your-mouth goodness! (Yes, I know, the living room in the background is an absolute mess. Please ignore that.)

These things are not easy to come by. Aussie members of our department bring them as treats for lab meetings, and more often than not, the TimTams arrived in care packages from the land down under. Well, last month I found them at a fabric store in town. Random, I know, but what a find! I had one left over, and today was its day. So why am I talking about TimTams in terms of a "little victory in the snow"? Here's why:

Yup, Portland has just been hit by what the weather men are calling the worst storm in 5 to 10 years. We normally don't get much snow here, but the past week or so has been a weather event for the record books. There was an ice storm that shut schools and businesses down for several days last week. Half a block from our house we did a 180 in my car just trying to get off our little street on Tuesday. My PhD qualifier exams were even postponed a few days. Yesterday morning I was supposed to play a disc golf tournament in Estacada. I made it half a block up the street (in the other, flatter direction this time) before my car got stuck on the ice. There was just no safe way to make it to the tournament. Turns out that was a good thing because throughout the day yesterday, Mother Nature dumped anywhere from 6 inches, to over a foot of snow in town. That's on top of ice already up to 3 inches thick on the roads. We live in the hills, and got the worst of it.

In leiu of disc golf, Ryan and I walked to a neighborhood cafe for breakfast. I think I was wearing 5 layers of clothing because the wind chill was so cold. On the walk home, we were crossing a street. It was icy, and I went down about 5 feet from the curb. Ryan was a few steps ahead of me and didn't notice that I had fallen until he turned around a few steps later and saw me sitting on my butt in the road. I landed hard on my hip and my knee. My knee is pretty sore today, so in keeping score, that's Mother Nature: 1, Chris: 0.

But today, I evened the score. My knee hurts, it's bitter cold and windy, and there's a half inch of ice covering every surface out there (that's a picture of me holding a sheet of ice above). But I managed to get up, layer up, walk to the village, buy a nice hot coffee, bring it back to the house, and enjoy it with a Tim Tam, all without taking another digger. Mother nature nature: 1, Chris: 1. It may look like a tie, but I call that a victory.

Random mismoshed updates

2008-11-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

Economic crisis hits home

Got a letter in the mail yesterday today from Citibank regarding my credit card. It was a "notice of change in terms and right to opt out." Basically put, they were informing me that as of October 1, 2008 (and yes, I did just get this notice yesterday, go figure) they were increasing my APR on purchases to 16.99% for my current 8.99%. I got worried. Had I missed a payment? Had my identity been stolen? I called to ask the reason for the change. The lady on the phone assured me that my account was in perfect standing, and I had done nothing to incur the change. It was simply do to "business reasons" (a.k.a. they're running out of loot due to bad investments and are trying to recoup losses by screwing their customers). I've been a cardholder since 2003, and have never missed a payment and this is how they show their appreciation for my business? No thank you. I chose to "opt out" which basically means that I'll hum along at my 8.99% APR until my card expires in 2011, at which point my card will effectively be canceled. I won't be able to use the card to make any purchases, but my original APR will be locked in and I can continue to make payments at that rate. Obnoxious. Didn't Citigroup just get $20 billion in bailout money? What the heck are they doing with that money that the still need to jack my rates for absolutely no reason? Grr!

I sold a photograph!

Ryan has 7 of his photographs on display at the Laurelthirst. He surprised my by putting two of my pinhole photos in the show. I found out last week that one of them sold! I've never had my work on display, and certainly didn't expect to have anything sell. It was a pretty good feeling. Here's the pic that sold. It's a 20 min pinhole exposure at Ecola State Park in Oregon.

Politics

It's been quite a while since I've left any political post here. That's partially because I'm busier than ever and I usually give these posts a lot of thought and include references to back up facts, etc. I do have a little list going of topics I've been meaning to write about. But for now I'll simply say this. I'm 29 years old, and have only been around to vote in 3 presidential elections. For the first time, and with much hope and optimism, I can say that I voted for the winning ticket. Now when I travel overseas, I won't have to automatically either a) be an an apologist for American foreign policy, or b) straight out pretend I'm from Canada. Living in Switzerland in 2003 in the the beginning stages of a unilateral "-ism" war was a very interesting experience. Everywhere I went there was anti-Bush graffiti and signs and protests. Most Europeans I encountered were sophisticated enough to distinguish the anti-Bush stance from an anti-American one, but it still gave me an unsettling feeling traveling around as an American. I finally have hope that the next time I'm abroad, that feeling won't be there.

Would you like a bag for your tampons?

2008-10-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, now that I've made all male readers squeamish, I'm going to tell a story. I was at the grocery store this morning buying, yes, tampons. There was only one cashier, a middle-aged rough-looking guy. I got in line, and immediately behind me two firemen got in line with their cart full of groceries for the firehouse. Embarrassing enough already, sure. I put the box on the belt, no other purchases, and the cashier scanned it. "Wow," he exclaimed, "did you see the price on those?"...he motioned to the LED screen. It read, "$1.20." Now, the sign on the shelf did say "$4.49" but it's not like I care. This isn't exactly the type of item you shop around for the best price on. "Um, that's um, pretty good," I say. "They must be on final clearance or something, you lucked out!" he exclaims. "Um, yea, I guess so," I reply. Now really, do we have to stand here having this conversation on what a great deal I'm getting on my tampons?...the whole time with these two firemen unloading their cart on the belt right next to me? After I handed him some cash and he handed me a receipt, he finished by asking, "would you like a bag for those?" No mister cashier, just duct tape the box of tampons to my forehead with the receipt attached so I can run into the parking lot and let everyone else know what a great bargain I just got on tampons!

Elevator Master

2008-10-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

I just joined a gym for the winter. This is one of the luxuries that the ARCS scholarship affords me, quite literally. I went there for the first time after work yesterday. All of the cardio equipment is on the 2nd floor in a loft-ish area overlooking the rest of the gym. As I jogged along on the treadmill I watched as 4 girls came up the elevator...and got immediately on stair climbers. ?!?!

Spoke too soon

2008-10-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

Yup, I spoke too soon. Got too excited. I must always remember...PCR-SSCP is cursed in the hands of researchers in lab number 7309. Cursed. The image looked great. The overstaining problem appeared to have been solved. I changed the resolution setting, and clicked go for the high resolution image of my gel to be scanned. This is what I got:

Waaay too dark! Not enough contrast to run and decent image analysis and develop electroferrograms. And this happened repeatedly for the next 4 hours. Garbage. As a last ditch effort, I turned the scanner off and repositioned the gel in a different corner of the scanner:

Much lighter background....but my bands were lighter too...disappearing. It had been 5 hours since I unhooked the voltage on the gel, and now the DNA was starting to diffuse through the gel. These faint fuzzy bands are worthless to analyze. I tried restaining to see if I could get the bands any darker. No good. The stain wasn't faded, the bands were just diffusing and fuzzing out. Boo. PCR-SSCP strike 3. This is the closest I've come to getting actual results. The bands I see confirm my hypothesis, so I know I'll be happy with the result and that it fits in nicely with the rest of my data. But this is the one last crowning experiment that I'm trying to finish so that I can include it in a paper. And I really want to get the paper submitted before I start taking my prequalifying exams this fall. To top it off, I'm just about out of the DNA I was using in these experiments. That means I have to go back to square one in order to repeat the SSCP. It'll take at least a week. Grr. That's the last time I celebrate until the data is actually in hand.

Success!

2008-10-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

Finally!!! This image looks better to me right now than da Vinci's Mona Lisa, or Van Gogh's Starry Night. It's a picture of a PCR-SSCP polyacrylamide gel that I ran this week. This is my third attempt at PCR-SSCP, and if this didn't work out, I was going to have an aneurysm. It takes days to prepare everything needed for this experiment, extracting the DNA, running the PCR, converting to single-stranded DNA, pouring the gel, running the DNA on the gel, and staining the gel. It's the last part that has been hindering me for a few weeks now. It should be the easy part, but it hasn't been. My entire gel was turning black, not just the bands of DNA. No one in the department could figure it out. I stumped tech support from the stain's maker. My advisor said to me, "Chris, I encourage you to come up with creative solutions, not creative problems." Sooooo frustrating. Turns out it's alot of little things....like that the stain that is designed to bind "exclusively" to DNA happens to also bind to the type of plastic we put the gels on in order to scan them. Once bound, it fluoresces...and appears black in the image. If the gel isn't completely washed of the stain before going on the plastic, poof! A big black mess. Keeping the stain off the plastic just about takes more effort than the entire PCR-SSCP process before that. Lots of other little things factor in too. The staining process is definitely much more art than science. None of the manufacturer's suggested staining times or concentrations came even close to working. This here is just the prelim, 2 minute scan image. A much more detailed and resolved 30 minute scan is going on right now. This has been such a headache. I think I deserve a beer! Maybe two.

And we're off!

2008-09-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

First thing this morning I awoke to this picture mail from Jerry. I think it's going to be a good day, through and through. The last week or so has been really busy because I've been trying to get some things sorted out in the lab before my birthday trip to Snowater resort in Glacier, WA with Jerry, Brian, Ryan and Bob. Nothing is currently working in the lab the way its supposed to. The Archaeal qPCR primers aren't working with the bioreactor DNA. The new DAPI isn't staining the neucleic acid for some reason. And the primer design software is so primative that I'd be better off just pulling an amoA gene sequence out of my butt than using it to design primers. That, and I'm pretty sure that when I finally check on the PCR-SSCP that I've been running for two days, it will have failed too. I just think the DNA is too degraded. But not even that will put a damper on today. Nope, today is my birthday, and Jerry and Brian will be flying in tonight from San Diego. I could ask for no better present! And tommorrow, we're all off to Glacier! The resort accomodations include no TV, no phone, and no internet. No outside-world distractions, just good friends, good food, and good fun!

Singer Castle Wedding

2008-08-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, Ryan and I flew to upstate NY to attend the wedding of my friends Christy and Todd. Christy was in all of my classes as an undergraduate at Syracuse, and oh, the stories I could tell. Anyway, we arrived in Rochester, NY and were picked up by my friend Kelly. After a long awaited dinner of Dinosaur BBQ, we went back to her home and spent an evening by a backyard fire with her and her husband Dana. Kelly, Christy and I were inseperable while students at Syracuse, and we were going to the wedding in Cape Vincent together. Cape Vincent is basically in the middle of nowhere. There isn't a single chain hotel or motel for miles. Finding a place to stay was complicated by the annual pirate festival in a neighboring town. Ryan and I found this fellow. Yar!

Here's a picture of Ryan and I before going to the rehersal dinner.

And here are Christy, Kelly, and I.

This one is at the rehersal dinner. Kelly, Dana, Ryan and I are seated at the table and Christy and Todd are standing behind us.

Here's Christy beign walked down the aisle by her father.

And Christy and Todd's first dance as a married couple.

F = (9/5)C + 32 = Frickin' Cold!

2008-08-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

The environmental controls in my building are pretty screwed up. At some points this summer it has been so hot that we had to drape the bioreactor in wet towels and aim fans at it to keep it from overheating. That's the opposite of what's been going on the past few weeks. It's been exceptionally cold in my lab. Can't-feel-your-fingers-well-enough-to-type cold. The AC is running full blast, and there's a vent right above my desk. I keep a huge sweatshirt in my drawer and have to wear it anytime I'm in the lab. Dan has begun wearing a winter hat while working in here. He tried to make a clone library last week, and couldn't get anything to grow...too cold! The hallways are fine. The faculty offices are fine. The labs at the other end of the hall are fine. Ours seems to be the first room on the central AC duct work system, so we get cold blasted. We've been leaving a thermometer on the counter out of curiosity. I walked in this morning and took a reading. It's the coldest it's ever been in here...15 C. For those of you not accustomed to temperature in Celsius, here's a brief primer. Science folks run a lot of experiments at "room temperature" and report it exactly as such in papers etc. Saying "room temperature" makes it clear that temperature wasn't strictly controlled during the experiment, but if anyone were to ask what "room temperature" actually is, the common answer is 22 C, with a range from 20-25 C. For those who want to put Fahrenheit numbers to it, 22 C is equivalent to about 72 F, 20 C is 68 F. But right now, my lab is hovering well below "room temperature." 15 C amounts to a frigid 59 F! That's just plain ridiculous!

Reno Road Trip "They're from Oregon"

2008-08-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

1300 miles later, Ryan and I are back from the Unity Celebration for a good friend of mine in Reno. It was wonderful. Surrounded by friends and family, my friends Lynell and Thomas celebrated their commitment to one another in a way uniquely their own. It was far more touching than any wedding I've ever attended. Unlike most weddings in which the guests are there to just wittiness, this celebration was participatory. Guests took an active roll through a toast-giving ceremony modeled after a Hopi tradition. It was reflective of how the couple live their lives and treasure the concept of community. It was truly a moving experience.

The weekend was full of good friends, good times, and good memories. We stayed with my friend Ilka, who was generous enough to let us stay with her despite her being super busy with work and thesis writing. We enjoyed an evening of good food, and live music with her and Henry. Together they entertained us with piano/guitar music while we sipped the last drops of the blackberry wine from last year.

Adventure and laughter was also abound. Ryan, Ilka and I were out on some errands and had to stop for gas (this is where it gets funny). Ryan was driving, and he pulled up to the pump. I attached the hose, started pumping, and then Ilka and I began to walk to the convenience store to get Mt. Dews. We barely made it half way to the door when Ilka began waving her arms frantically and pointing behind me. I turned around to see Ryan driving away from the gas pump...gas hose still attached to my car. It pulled the hose straight off the pump!

Both Ilka and I were stunned, and didn't know whether to duck for cover, or run away. Part of our brains were expecting a big KaBoom explosion. Fortunately, no such kaboom followed, and we watched Ryan park the car in a spot, and continue to sit in the car unaffected. Meanwhile, everyone else at the gas station appeared to have also been expecting a kaboom, and were sighing in relief that none happened. Stunned, I ran to the car, pounded on the window, and began asking frantically what he was doing. He opened the car door, apparently STILL not even having a clue what he had done, and began to get out of the car as I blurted out that the hose was still attached.

He had totally spaced it and had completely forgotten that we were pumping gas. We had not even put in an 8th of a tank when he drove off. I had no idea what to do. Ilka and I went into the store, ordered Ryan to remove the hose from my car, and tried asking the attendant what to do. She was completely useless. "What do you want to do?" she asked. !!!WTF?! At this point, I'm almost expecting the police to show up. Back outside, folks tell us the hoses have a quick disconnect and should just snap back on. Ryan manages to accomplish this, and we still need gas, so we begin again.

Ryan pulls up to the pump, and we try to fuel up. As the pump starts, we're all still half expecting a kaboom, but nothing...and I mean nothing....not even fuel coming out of the pump. Ilka and I head back into the store, (instruct Ryan not to drive away this time), and tell the attendant that the pump now won't fuel. She couldn't understand why. Apparently she had been the only person in the whole place that didn't know what had happened. That explained her previous reaction at least. She sent a guy out to prime the pump. A guy came out, gave us all that look, and began priming the pump. At that moment, in chimes Ilka: "They're from Oregon. They don't pump their own gas. They didn't know any better."

While the pump was being primed, we finished filling up at another pump, and drove off quite embarrassed and laughing nervously. My stomach hurt soooo much from laughter and nervousness. We finally managed to breathe again, finished our errands, and headed back to Ilka's. Of course, to get there, we had to drive right by the gas station. This was about an hour an a half after the "incident." As we drove by, sure enough, there's an "out of order" sign on the pump. Thankfully, it was gone the next day, but it didn't make for a good feeling when we saw it. All we could do was laugh about it. I haven't laughed that hard in a long long time. I had never seen anyone drive off like that before. It comes with a weird combination of fear, and hilarity, all wrapped up in a nervous ball. For one of the first times though, I can say I'm glad to be back in Oregon where you're not allowed to pump your own gas.

(Obviously, this isn't an actual picture. I was waaay to frantic to have the presence of mind to take a picture of my car, with Ryan behind the wheel, and gas hose still attached. But this is a pretty good rendition. I modified this pic to show a VW, not a BMW, Oregon plates, and Ryan waving and smiling obliviously. Priceless.)

"Look in your trunk"

2008-08-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

While I was at work Tuesday, Ryan stopped by my lab around 4 to "say hi" on his way to Tuesday doubles. He was a bit sweatier than normal, but it was hot out. I figured he'd been working in the yard or something. He left for doubles at the same time I left for home. In my car there was a note: "Look in your trunk." When I did, I found a huge container full of blackberries that he had been picking behind my lab. He was sweaty because he'd been picking blackberries for me to make wine with, and it was close to 90 degrees out. So, wine we did make. With Ryan's new camera phone, we took some pics of the process.

Start out by figuring out how many pounds of blackberries we have. Here are the tools of the trade, a jumbo slurpee cup, and a 16 oz kitchen scale. We had 12 pounds of blackberries. Enough for about 3 gallons of wine.

Next, put the berries in a jelly bag, tie it off, and mush the heck out of it. Good job Ryan. I'm sure you're glad you had those gloves.

So what do yeast need to make alcohol? Sugar. 6.5 lbs of it to be precise. I dissolved a 5 lb bag into some hot water and added it to the bucket with a total of 9 liters of water. The remaining sugar can be added later. Too little is better than too much. I don't like sweet wine, and I don't want more sugar than the yeast can use. Alcohol kills 'em off at around 14-15% alcohol, so it's a tricky game of adding a little at a time from here on out and testing the alcohol content along the way.

After adding pectic enzyme to break down the blackberries, and campden to kill off the natural yeast, it's a waiting game. After 12-24 hours I'll add the yeast and the wine will be on its way!

You win some, you lose some

2008-08-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

I picked up lunch at Wendy's on my way to work today. Value menu. Jr. bacon cheeseburger and a sour cream and chive baked potato. I was up until 4 am last night working on the second draft of my manuscript and didn't get on my way to the lab until 11:30. When I got there, I realized there was no bacon on my jr. bacon cheeseburger. It was just a jr. cheeseburger, which was wholly unappetizing to me. I threw it away. I then checked my email. Scanning the list of newcomers to my inbox...junk...junk...junk...OHSU ARCS Scholarship offer...junk...wait, what was that!? Must read further:

Dear Christina,
I am delighted to inform you that you have been selected as an ARCS Scholar. A formal offer letter with additional details about this scholarship is attached to this email.....

I won! This was the scholarship that the department nominated me for. The one I scampered around putting the application together for two weeks ago when notified that I was nominated. I can now afford to go back to Wendy's, and get a new jr. bacon cheeseburger, this time one with bacon. Aw, hell, with 15k, I'll even splurge and get a frosty!

Last minute nomination

2008-07-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ran into the head of the department in the hallway and he informed me that I, and one other student, were being nominated for some type of scholarship. He wanted to make sure I'd be around the next few days because there's a lot of paperwork to put together. I got the official award nomination packet via email today. I have to work on a research and career interest statement, polish up my CV, track down undergrad and grad transcripts, get my supporting letters...all by Wednesday. The scholarship is a long shot, and it seems odd to have to drop everything for a few days to work on this, but it is still nice to be nominated. There are two majors offered in our department (environmental science and engineering, and biochemistry and molecular biology) and a student was nominated form each. It's a honor just to know that the department got together and collectively decided that of all the students here, I stand the best chance of getting this award. Like I said, this is a long shot, but regardless, even just being nominated for this is CV-worthy in itself, so it's not a bad deal...even if I do have to drop everything and figure this stuff out ASAP.

Ammendment to warning lable

2008-07-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

Sleeping last night was nearly impossible. I walked through stinging nettle for almost an hour yesterday while looking for a disc. My legs wouldn't stop burning. I couldn't sleep because of it. By 3 am I had had enough. I hit the bottle of pain reliever pm. The bottle tells you not to use unless you can devote 8 hours to sleep. Well, I did. I didn't get up until almost 11. Regardless, I felt completely zonked out and useless until well into the afternoon. And I'm still not feeling 100%. What the bottle should say is "do not use unless you have nowhere to be and nothing to do for the next 24 hours." Adding insult to injury, my legs are still burning and itching, and I never found the disc.

Do it again for the first time

2008-07-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

With the school's merger came new policies. Before, us at the West campus sort of flew under the radar as far as our medical records and compliance was concerned. Now we're all required to show proof of immunization, and get tested for TB and hepatitis etc. That's what happens when you merge with a med school I guess. I had already gotten my first skin injection for the TB test a few months ago. Of course, I forgot to go back 3 days later to have the test read. That means I have to do it again...for the "first time." One clear test isn't enough for the compliance people either. We need to have two. So today I went to the primate center where some folks were sticking us again. No my favorite part of my day. Hopefully I'll remember to go in to have it read on Friday. I don't want to do it a third time for the first time.

4th of July

2008-07-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

Fourth of July was yesterday, a Friday. Even though it was a national holiday, I couldn't help but feel guilty for taking it off. Regardless, it was a fun day. I sleep in until 9, woo hoo! And then Ryan and I headed down a bit south of Albany to play a course in Waterloo that we had never played before. It was great! Still in the construction phase, but it will be a really fun course. Once back in Portland, we went out to the pub and split a double nachos and had a drink. Oh yes, and then there was pool. We played 6 games of pool, and I won 5 of them...but not because I'm any good at pool. It was crazy.

1st game: Ryan scratches on the 8 ball
2nd game: Ryan scratches on the break
3rd game: I won it outright
We then decided to start a new best out of three series
1st game: Ryan scratches on the break
2nd game: Ryan wins outright
3rd game: Ryan scratches on the break

Heck, a win is a win, (and 5 wins are 5 wins) and I'll take any I can get, but what a weird series.

Once at home we decided to set up the tent in the backyard and sleep under the stars. Of course, by stars I mean fireworks. Some small fireworks were being lit off in our little neighborhood and we could see them through the mesh ceiling of the tent. It was great! Of course, we had the rain fly off so we could see the fireworks and stay cool, but it started raining at around 3 am, and I had to scurry to put the fly on. Funniest thing was when I woke up in the morning and got out of the tent. I looked towards the slat fence separating our backyard from the neighbor's...and I saw that they had set up a tent in their backyard too. I laughed. I wonder if they camped out in the rain too.

Edible Yard

2008-07-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

A lot of edibles grow in our yard. Most came with the yard and had nothing to do with us. A few were actually planted. And one came up by happy accident.

Rosemary-2 huge bushes of it. Very fragrant.
Mint-Growing in a little planter-like box right next to the side door. (Oh, and Ryan claims it as his since he "discovered" it.)
Lavendar-A recent discovery.
Filbert tree-(Hazelnuts to those of us not from the Northwest.)
Cherry tree-At the rate the squirrels are eating, I don't know we'll get many.
Rasberries-A few have started turning pink in the last day or two!
Rhubarb-Never watered it. Slugs got the best of it. Oh well.
Strawberries-I've been enjoying these a bunch. Probablly got 6 pints thus far. They make great smoothies!
Squash-I planted this, and it's actually growing and doing well!
Onions-Planted this too. Still alive, but I have no idea how the onions are actualy doing since they grow underground.
Garlic-Happy accident. Ryan threw some old garlic out the back door and it took root. Go figure.

Bank error (not) in your favor...go directly to...

2008-06-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'll not finish that sentence despite my urges to the contrary. I'm hopping mad! Got a letter yesterday from a debt collector. I have to contest the debt in writing within 30 days or a permanent mark will go on my credit report. I'm not saying I have nosebleed-high credit or anything, but my credit is pretty darn good, so needless to say, this got me a bit concerned.

See, when I left UCSD, they overpaid me by $85.94. Keep in mind I was a salaried employee and never once turned in a time card. It was their fault they overpaid me in the first place. But this bank error has ended up being anything but in my favor. They wanted their 86 bucks back and began harassing me about it within a few months of my leaving the job. Fine! I paid the darn $86, but letters from payroll kept coming. So I kept calling payroll, and they insisted they had a record of my payment. They claimed it must not have made it all they way through the system yet, and that I should just ignore their recent correspondence. So I did...until yesterday.

Yesterday's letter wasn't from UCSD, it was from a debt collector. Woah! Hold up! Again, just to confirm I wasn't delusional, I uploaded an image of the cleared check from my bank's website. Nope, not crazy. This bill had been paid. The stamp on the back said "UCSD Cashier" and it was dated February 8, 2008. It even had the name of the person who endorsed it. So what did I do? Well, I called the Cashier and asked to speak to Mrs. Endorser. Once on the phone, she tried to locate the cashier's copy of the check. Of course, she couldn't. That was at 9 am. I was promised they'd find their copy of the check and I'd get a call back by 3pm. 3:20 came, and I admit I was getting peeved...but at 3:24 the phone rang, and their record of the check had been found.

Turns out the money had been deposited in the general fund and never transfered to the office in charge of clearing my debt. Nice Mrs. Endorser had the money transfered, and even called the debt collector in person to take me off their hit list. Though she seemed perfectly competent, I've had far too many dealings with the cashier's office to trust anyone there at this stage. I will still be calling the collection agency directly, and following up, maybe 3 or 4 times with the cashier's office. Especially now that I know that the cashier is just the first stop in a long line of transactions that apparently need to take place for a measly 86 bucks (that they should never have paid me in the first place) to get from me, to clear my debt. This poor $86 has been en route for more than 6 months! To bad it couldn't go directly to....

First Ace!

2008-06-04T14:54:00.001-07:00

Yes, it finally happened. I got a hole-in-one on hole 7 of the Orhard Park disc golf course in Hillsboro, OR yesterday. It was a blind ace, meaning I heard the sound of chains after my drive, but my view of the basket was obstructed. My doubles partner ran up and and started hollering that it was sitting in the basket! It was awesome! And it happened in the middle of tournament play too. It was the weekly Tuesday doubles event, and my ace was on a CTP hole. The CTP winner is the one whose drive lands "closest to the pin." The ace got me the CTP prize which was a rare and valuable CE Valkyrie disc. On top of that, the ace pot for the night was $104. Of course, someone else happened to shoot an ace yesterday too, so we had to split the ace pot, but I didn't care. I got an ace! And it was in tournament play! Woo hoo! (Oh, and did I mention I got the ace with Ryan's disc? I didn't have my golf bag with me and was playing with discs that were laying around in my trunk. It was windy and I wanted a more stable disc than I had, so I borrowed a Tee Bird from Ryan. Go figure that I'd get my first ace with someone else's disc.)

Update

2008-06-04T14:52:00.001-07:00

Yeah, the four strawberry plants I replanted when thinning out the garden...they are all pretty much dead. I gots the brown thumb.

I Like Gardening

2008-05-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

OK, maybe I should clarify. I like the idea of gardening, the practice is an entirely different story. We've got a 6 foot strip along the back of the house that's planted with strawberries. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any one's weeded or thinned the bed in years. Tonight I thought I'd give it a shot. I thought I'd weed it, and then thin it out by transplanting some plants to pots that I'd bring and replant in my garden plot at school. I started weeding, but that was really hard to do without pulling out strawberries in the process because they're all so packed together. I did the best I could, but kept getting this weird foamy white stuff on my arms. I looked it up. Apparently it's from something called a spittle bug. Aptly named, right? Yuck! And then there were the spiders. I pulled out this one huge weed and its whole root ball came up with it. It was right along the house's foundation. When the root ball came out, about 30 3/4 inch fat black spiders came pouring out and climbed up the foundation, then froze in their tracks. It was like they were all staring at me and giving me the evil eye (or eyes) for destroying their nest. Ugh! gives me the creeps just thinking about it. So I quit weeding and moved on to replanting a few strawberry plants in little pots. That part went fairly smoothly. I moved the pots to the beds under the bushes in the front yard, and then watered them. The soil bubbled up and the plants started falling over. It was like they were planted in soup and not soil. I thought the little pots had holes in the bottom for excess water to drain. Turns out the "holes" actually need to be punched out first. I grabbed a nail and gently punched out the holes while trying not to pour out the plants and soil in the process. When that was finally done, I had dirt all under my nails. I had taken off the gardening gloves and forgot to put them back on. It's two hours since starting this little escapade, and I'm exhausted. This gardening business is way more work than I thought.

It's Official. We Don't Suck!

2008-05-23T10:58:00.003-07:00

Really! We don't. Sure, we were standing tied for 13th place out of 18 bowling teams, but it's not because we're bad bowlers. We've really just gotten some bad luck in which teams we've been pitted against. Every week we go one-on-one with another team for two games. A point is awarded for each game won, and two points are awarded for the overall pin fall winner. We had played four times and had already faced the two-times league champions, and a few other top teams. We lost almost all games, but if you compare our pin fall numbers, we'd have beaten 3/4 of the teams in the league.

Anyway, last night we faced off with the number one ranked team in the league. They're a whole 3 points ahead of the 2nd place team and that's huge! Sure, they got us in the first game, but only by a measly 9 pins. We were encouraged. After all, these were they guys to beat. Then, we went on a tear! We destroyed them by something like 30+ pins in the second round and walked away with the overall win 3-1! Barb and I (That's my ball's name) even managed to bowl a 141! We may not be making it to the finals, but we can stand pround in that we beat number one! That's our team in the pick. We may not always have the skills, but we've got heart (and beer, did I mention beer?)

Big Week

2008-05-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

This week was a big week for the Brow/Gwillim household. I awoke yesterday morning to the smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of a lawnmower outside my window. It sounded a lot closer than usual, so I walked outside to investigate. Low and behold, there was Ryan...mowing our lawn! OK, so him physically mowing the lawn wasn't the incredible thing. The incredible thing was that he had gone to Sears first thing in the morning and bought a lawn mover. It's a craftsman self-propelled mower. Originally $300 but marked to $150 because it was scratched, and had been used a handful of times. The lawnmower could not have come at a better time. The mailman was going to have to start using a machete to get to our mail slot. The grass was actually taller than our bird bath.

To top it off, we have a few squirrels in a big tree out front who eat seed that Ryan leaves for them in the bird feeder. They scurry down the tree, and hop the 5 or 6 feet to the bird feeder, and feast. They've been doing it so much that they have left a well defined path in the grass between the tree and the bird feeder. When Ryan mowed the lawn, the path became even more obvious. Because the squirrels parted the tall grass along their path, sun was able to reach all the way to ground level along it. Now that the grass is cut, their path stands out even more because it's still green and lush and didn't turn brown from lack of light.

Ry Dye

2008-05-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

Ryan dyed me a sweet disc recently. I've had this pic of it for a few weeks and totally thought I had already posted it, but I must have forgotten. Yup, that's his picture on it with a little heart. So sweet. Awesome addition to my bag!

Noah's Bagels, You Loose!

2008-05-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

That's right, you loose. Another busy day today and I sped off to the lab without even grabbing a glass of juice. I decided to stop by a new Noah's Bagels that just opened up a few blocks from school and grab a bagel to go. "Asiago cheese bagel with butter on the side, please," I said. Then, in a moment of hesitation, I asked, "Wait, do you have real butter, or is margarine?" "Margarine," she tells me. Bleck! That's always been a pet peeve of mine at bagel places which is why I hesitated after ordering and asked. I specifically asked for butter, and the lady gladly took my order...full well assuming margarine would be a reasonable substitute...not even caring enough to ask if that was OK. Well, it's not. Margarine is OK for certain recipes and such, but never as a spread. It's unnaturally yellow, and just doesn't taste right. In my opinion, it totally ruins the bagel. I canceled my order, and walked out...sans bagel....and will definitely not be returning. Margarine? Bleck!

Another Thrift Store Score

2008-05-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

Went thrifting again Sunday and found this little gem at only $9. How stupendously retro! Can't wait to bust this out in our Big Turkey Bowlers league.

Mr. and Mrs. Suds

2008-05-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here's are the new additions to our home. Mr. Washer and Ms. Dryer (a.k.a Mr. and Ms. Suds). No more having to buy new socks and underwear because I don't have time to sit around a laundromat. No more waiting until I've gone through every single article of clothing I own before doing laundry. No more hoarding quarters. I can now do laundry in the peace of my own home. And there are, of course, additional benefits. 1) I enter the house through the mud/laundry room, and now it always smells nice and fresh. 2) The dryer vent hose leads into the garage (wierd, I know). This means we now have a "heated" garage and can use the workshop, or set up the ping pong table there and still play in the winter. Ah...aren't they beautiful?!

Cheeze 2. Chris 0.

2008-05-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's defeated me, yet again. I've been trying to make homemade mozzarella. It' supposed to be simple. Heat milk on stove. Add citric acid and rennet. Watch curd form. Remove curd and microwave. Stretch, kneed, pull, and microwave again. Repeat until taffy-like and roll into balls. How hard could that be? Well, hard. I get curds...ish. They aren't melty or firm like the ones in the pictures, and they don't kneed or stretch. Picture trying to roll ricotta into a ball or pulling it like taffy. I'm not going to show any pictures, but trust me, it's just not pretty. I think I need to do a bit more research before stepping up and trying this again.

One upper, one downer.

2008-04-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'll start with the upper. When I got home last night, Ryan had a surprise waiting for me. He dyed a disc for me with a picture of Albert Einstein. How much does that rock?!?! I actually worked in the very same physics department that he worked in at the University of Bern in Switzerland a few years ago. I walked by his statue every day to get to my lab, and by his apartment every day to get to and from my own apartment. I'm so excited about this disc. I had been having a rough few days, and the disc really put a smile on my face.

So as for the downer....I was getting my things together to go to school this morning. I have a class at 10am. I realized that I locked my keys in my car the night before. Ryan has a set, and we had been using his, so I left mine in the glove box. Well, shoot. Ryan was already at work, so I went to the Tri-Met website to figure out the public transportation system. Their system is easy, you enter your starting and ending addresses, and it gives you all you need to know to get from point A to point B. Still, by the time I figured out my travels, it was 9:43 am. Hmm....the next bus leaving from 2 blocks away comes at 9:44 am. Eeek! Grab coat, wallet, directions, and the container with all our laundry quarters (I carry no cash, and the bus won't take a credit card). Run! I barely catch the bus, huffing and puffing.

I took the buss to downtown Portland, walk a few blocks, and catch the Max train into Beaverton. About a third of the way there, and conveniently inside a really long tunnel, the train starts experiencing "technical difficulties." It can't get itself up to full speed. So there we are, crawling at a snail's pace through a tunnel under the zoo. We all have to get off at the underground station, and wait for the next train to come through. Of course, even when it gets there, we immediately catch up to our crippled old train, and have to crawl along behind it until we reach a service turn out for it to pull off the main line.

When I finally reached my stop, I still had to walk a half mile to get to campus. Oh, did I mention it had started to rain? In my mad rush to catch the bus, I hadn't even considered rain, and neglected to bring an umbrella. So I finally arrived in my lab at 11:32 am. Class ends at 11:40, so I missed the whole thing. Oh, ya, and I'm soaking wet too. Yippy!

Oh, and 48 hours and still no response from my advisor about the email I sent her. Perhaps I should have just stayed in bed.

Arghhhh....there be no more rooms!

2008-04-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends from college is getting married this August in Cape Vincent, NY. The wedding is in a castle on some small Island in Lake Ontario, just a stone's throw from Canada. The town is tiny. Quaint. Quintessential upstate NY. Ryan and I are flying in for the festivities. Here's the kicker: The tiny little town doesn't exactly have hotels...more like bed and breakfasts. And as far as I can tell from my search so far today, they're all booked. Turns out that Christy and Todd scheduled their wedding for the same weekend that a huge pirate festival descends on little Cape Vincent. It seems the room have all been rented by salty dogs already. I don't know if Christy and Todd knew about the pirates before planning their wedding. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if they picked that weekend for that express purpose. I say they may as well make it a pirate themed wedding. I can SO picture them doing that.

Boat captain: "Todd, do you take Christy to be your wife? Through smooth and rough seas? With scurvy and without?

Todd: Ayeee! Me do!

All the funny aside...I seriously can't find a hotel for under $200 a night within 50 miles. We just might end up camping it. Arghhh..!!!!

Standing up for myself

2008-04-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

I've been a pretty disgruntled employee for the past several weeks. There have been caddy, sarcastic, demeaning notes left around the lab by our PI that have really brought lab morale down. In addition, I've been frustrated by something else. Last weekend was one of the first sunny weekends in months. In addition, with Ryan working Sundays, we haven't gotten to do fun outdoors weekend stuff together in quite sometime.

Well, our lab PI has been avoiding people, including students, ever since she started teaching a class this quarter...been too busy. I couldn't find her last Thursday, so I sent her an email:

Hi (PI),
I tried stopping by your office, but must have missed you. Since Ryan works weekends, we haven't had a nice day off together in quite a while. I was thinking that I'd swap tomorrow, Friday, with Sunday so we can spend tomorrow together since he has Fridays off. I hope this is OK. See you Monday.
Cheers, Chris

Well, we had a great day on Friday, and I don't regret swapping it for Sunday. But that night when I got home, this email awaited my in my box:

Chris, graduate school is not a five day a week job, you should be doing whatever it takes to get your research and classwork done, including working on nights and weekends. So, swapping a weekday for a weekend day makes very little sense from my frame of reference, since they are essentially all the same. It always surprises me when I don't see students around on the weekends, because I know what it takes to make it in science.

I don't know what part angered me more. The insinuation that I wasn't in the lab enough, or that she really thinks she knows what it takes to make it in science. Sure, she may have her PhD, but she has a horrible reputation among students. Since starting to work here, she's apparently lost several post-docs and a lab manager, all on not-so-nice terms. In addition, she hasn't graduated a single student yet. And the one graduating with a MS this summer was supposed to be here for a PhD, but decided he couldn't stand to work under this PI anymore. Until this email, I though I had a fairly decent relationship with the PI. I had been extremely disheartened by the nasty notes in the lab, but the complaints in them never really applied to me...they had been more of a downer than personal attacks.

But the email was personal and it struck a nerve. I cried my eyes out. I work my ass off and really don't appreciate the insinuation that I'm not working hard enough. I do work plenty of weekends and I know I'm the best student to come through this lab. I really want my PhD. But at the same time I'm simply not willing to tolerate such a hostile work environment. And hostile is putting it nicely. I've wanted to talk to the PI about the lab work environment for several weeks, but like I said, the PI has been too busy for students and has canceled all our meeting so far this month.

Today I cracked. I'm here in the lab...yes, on a Sunday...and I reread the email. Then I looked through my lab notebook to account for all my weekend time in the lab. Then I wrote and email to the PI laying out my case and defending myself. I'm not good at that. I've very rarely had to do it before. I'm a hard worker and none of my advisers or bosses have ever questioned how much time I put in before. Additionally, I've been blessed with amazing advisers and bosses until now. They were professional, were amazing mentors, and showed appreciation for work well done. Anyway, I wrote an email, and after an hour of hesitation, I finally sent it:

Hi (PI), just so we're on the same page here, I thought I'd try clarify somethings.

When I said that I would swap Friday for Sunday, it was not to say that I'd "still" be working a 5-day-week...it was to emphasize that i wasn't going to be working a 4-day one. Going back through my own lab notebook shows me that I've actually been in the lab running experiments 10 of the last 16 weekends. And that doesn't count the times when I've come in to just to analyze data, do homework, or do other work. I reserve weekends for doing chores like the dishes, for example. And I even came in one recent Sunday for the sole purpose of assembling the shelves in the new deli case, a chore I doubt any one else would set to unless asked.

I do realize that it takes a lot of time and effort to be a successful doctorate student. I'm not a slacker, and all of my old advisers and bosses will attest to that. But that being said, there are things I will not do, and will not sacrifice for graduate school, or anything else for that matter. Those things include my physical, and emotional well-being, and meaningful relationships with family and friends. Experience has taught me, sometimes in harsh ways, that life is too short and too precious to squander. The time we have with loved ones today cannot be banked until tomorrow. There are few people in this world upon whose death beds would claim their biggest regret to be not having spent enough time at work. I work to live, and not the other way around. And I do not believe that mentality, in any way, diminishes the quality of my work, or my enthusiasm regarding the science. I am a committed student, and put 100% into my work. But I am also an adult, and owe it to myself to live as I know is reasonable and right.

I hope that this sounds reasonable to you as well, and that you can understand where I'm coming from.

Cheers,Chris

So there it is. That's what I said. I now have that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I sort of want to throw up...but I know it needed to be done. I wanted to address the nasty notes too, but this was about as much as I could set to for the moment. Besides, I'm sure we haven't seen the end of the nasty notes, so there will, no doubt, be other opportunities for that.

Stupid Stimulus Check

2008-04-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

Ever since filing my taxes, I had thought I was getting a stimulus payment from the good 'ole IRS. I knew I didn't qualify for the full $600, but I thought I was getting the $300 check. I went online today to see when I should be expecting my deposit to appear. Woo hoo! I'm in the first batch and would see a deposit on May 2nd! But then I went and actually entered my tax info into the stimulus calculator. What?!?! As you can see above, I don't qualify. You needed to earn $3000 in 2007 to qualify. I "earned" $2460 from my job at UCSD before I moved to Oregon. Of course, I've been taking home $1886 a month as payment for working in the lab at school...but since my check doesn't come from the payroll department, none of that money counts in the eyes of the Fed. Very, very boo.

Proving the sky is blue

2008-04-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sure, it may not look like much, but this little graph here is what I spend just about every day producing. It's the optical fluorescence readout from a real-time polymerase chain reaction. This little graph contains information on 96 samples that I've painstakingly prepared. 30 of sample A, 30 of sample B, 24 standards, and 12 blanks. With a little mathematical witchery, I can convert this graph into information about the relative concentrations of my samples, the amplification efficiency of each sample, and the linear range of amplification for the particular gene I've extracted from my bugs.

This one isn't finished yet, but it's looking good so far. You can see 5, almost 6, distinct groups of curves. These correspond to my 6 dilutions. And you can see that the second group of curves has a whole lot of lines, 60 to be exact. Those are my two samples. It's good to see them pretty closely packed like this. It tells me their standard deviation is low, and that sample A isn't a whole lot different from sample B.

That's a pretty big deal. The whole point of this research is essentially to quantitatively demonstrate that samples A and B are the same. In reality, it's the same sample, but half was treated one way, and the other half was treated another way. Scientists have assumed A and B would be the same for years, but it had never been shown quantitatively because there had been no real-world application in which it would be neccessary. Engineers have now come up with a real-world application that requires quantitative data, so now us quazi-scientist/engineers have to proove A = B. So this is it. This is what I do, day in and day out. With different bacteria. Different genes. Different primers. It's my job to proove A = B...the mathematical equivalent of proving the sky is blue or that acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared.

OK, maybe it isn't that obvious, but alot of the pure-science types around here can't fathom why it's necessary to proove something that's been assumed for so long. They kind of see my research as the equivalent of... well... proving the sky is blue. "It just is," they say. Well, that's all fine and good when your research never extends outside the doors of a lab. But to engineer real-world solutions to address real-world problems, I need real world numbers...otherwise any design is based on a whole lot of arm waving and no substance. When addressing public and environmental health concerns, that's just not good enough. That's why this little graph here is so great.

Disc Dye Party

2008-04-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

Now that we've refined the method, we've been really excited to dye some discs. On Thursday we had our friends Russ and Amanda over to dye some discs. They were really excited about it, and it was a lot of fun to get together and do this as a group. Here's a pic of the discs we dyed that night. Russ did the pig, Amanda did the bride of Frankenstein, and I did windmill one.

Bowl-a-rama!

2008-04-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's true. Ryan and I have joined a bowling league. It starts in a few weeks and we're pretty excited about it. A fellow PhD student (and Shamrock Run runner) in my department got 6 people together and we formed a team. We've called ourselves "The Pin Pals" (yes, like Homer Simpson's bowling team.) We'll be drinking beer and bowling on Thursday nights through mid June. Beats the usual Thursday night routine of staying late at the lab and watching TV. None of us are experienced bowlers. I played on Sunday night and shot a 96, a 114, and a 128. In the 114 round I alternated between shooting strikes and shooting zeros. But regardless it will be fun, and it's another excuse to make team shirts.

Oh, and it's 10-pin bowling, aka "big ball bowling." That's what we used to call it back in New Hampshire. We called it "big ball bowling" to differentiate it from "candlepin bowling." And for the last time, NO, I'm NOT making this up! Candlepin bowling exists! Apparently it's primarily a New England thing. The pins are skinny like candles, not fat like the "duckpins" in 10-pin. The balls are smaller with no finger holes, and you get three shots, not two. I've been asking EVERYONE around here if they've heard of it. They all think I'm crazy and that I'm making it up. No one from the Western or Central U.S. has heard of it. I even asked someone from New Jersey thinking an East coaster would know of it, but no. Anyway, read all about good 'ole New England style candlepin bowling at Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlepin_bowling

Dye Job

2008-04-03T22:02:00.000-07:00

And no, I'm not talking about my hair. I'm talking about my new fly dyed disc! Last weekend we went out and bought sign-making vinyl to make stencils with. We've dyed discs before, but using contact paper stencils. The contact paper just doesn't adhere to the disc well enough, and the dye bleeds out so you can't get clean lines. The vinyl works much better. Here's a pic of my first two-color dye job.

The Research Dance

2008-04-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"- Albert Einstein

Well, that about says it all. The pace and tempo of research is so painfully slow. It is marked by moments of extreme excitement, followed immediately by moments of utter exasperation. For every step forward, there seems to be a step or two back. Last Thursday after a short presentation of my work, I was beginning to see what I like to call, "the paper at the end of the tunnel." Publications are the currency of my industry. Before last Thursday, neither myself, nor my advisors could envision a stand-alone paper coming out of the work I'm currently doing. That's not to say it isn't necessary or important work, it's just that it didn't have a stand-alone spin to to, and so would end up sandwhiched in a paper with some other related work some time pretty far in the future. But Thursday I was able to find the spin that would make the research stand on its own. In fact, it could actually end up being a fairly substantial methods paper addressing some technical and mathematical aspects of a very common reaction that have been largely overlooked by members of my field. So Thursday...Thursday was one of those exciting days.

But Thursday is where the excitement stopped. Nothing came up that threatens my paper, but work has come to a stand still. I spent 8 hours in the lab Saturday ramping up for phase two of the work I'm doing....and I'm having technical problems with some of the reagents I need, and the solution isn't readily available. I simply need 2 more duplicates to finish up the first block of experiments in phase 1 of my work...but the DNA I'm working with has started to degrade and that forces me back to square one....such a waste when I just need to squeeze two more runs out of the DNA I already have. It's not a problem, just a bummer, because the ramp up is time-consuming, and expensive. I really want this to work out, and soon. It would be AMAZING if I could get a paper submitted for publishing before my first year here is up. That is my goal. I'm crossing my fingers that by August I'll have two solid blocks of experimental data ready and in manuscript form. The dance continues...

Ecola State Park

2008-04-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

I just got another roll of film developed from my Zero Image pinhole camera. Here's a shot from Ecola State Park on the Oregon coast (where part of The Goonies were filmed). I think it's the best one yet. With the weather getting nicer and nicer, I'm looking forward to getting out to shoot more this spring and summer.

Out of Post-Its?

2008-03-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday. I came to work fairly excited today to start a newish phase of my research. Sometimes the weekends are the best times to get things done because there are no interruption/interrupters. Anyways, this is what greeted me on the lab white board as soon as I arrived in the lab:

It's tough to read since I took the pic with my cell phone camera but I'll dictate it to you:

Friday
1. Electronic pipette must be returned to charging platform, or guess what happens? It doesn't take a rocket scientist! Lab phone had similar problem and was beeping about it.
2. pH electrode reference solution was evaporated because of inadequate parafilm coverage.
3. Gel box power supply was left on. Geez!...
4. Gel running buffer was left in gel running box to dry out.
5. Beaker stuck to benchtop.
...Thanks for making it all seem worthwhile!

This is exactly the type of behaviour that makes me not want to come into work. And no, this isn't the work of a colleague or lab mate...it's my boss. My favorite part is the line about the rocket scientist. Seems to be one of the boss' favorites. Looking over the list I know that 4 of the 5 of these items have nothing to do with me. I don't use the electric pipette. I haven't run a gel for months. And the beaker was stuck to the gel station benchtop. None of my doing. The pH electrode is on my list of equipment that I maintain in the lab. I check on it once a week. Last week I checked it on Tuesday. It was fine and full. The parafilm only comes off when the electrode is in use, and I haven't used it in at least 2 months. So none of the angry list items are my fault, but I still can't help but be angered, hurt, and discouraged by it.

It's just another sign that I work somewhere where workers aren't treated with dignity or respect. How can a boss expect notes like this to resolve anything. If anything, it makes workers less inclined to care about their jobs than more inclined to. It's unprofessional, and demeaning.

Normally these little notes (yes, with more "rocket scientist" references) are on post-it notes left in the lab. Those are a little less infuriating because you can at least crumple them up in a ball and throw them away to relieve some anger. But this one was huge and written on the white board. I can't erase it, so it's going to have to stay there, making me angry, until the boss takes it down. I guess we were all out of post-its.

How not to drink tea

2008-03-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

I drink a lot of tea at the lab. Everyone does. It's a tea culture at OGI. We have a water spout in the kitchen that spits out 190 degree water so there's no boiling necessary. Well, last Thursday I walked down to the tea fountain, filled my mug, added tea and honey, and walked back to the lab. Before I made it back to my desk where I was going to put down the tea to cool, I got involved in a conversation with a lab mate. 1 minute into the conversation, I had forgotten the tea hadn't cooled, and took a big sip. Ooowww! Scalding hot water burning the roof of my mouth. Sure it hurt, but I do dumb stuff like that all the time. I had no idea that 5 days later I'd still be paying for this mistake. Huge blisters had formed. Sunday they burst. Eewww! And ever since then it's been more painful than before. Eating is the worst, but drinking isn't a picnic either. Stay away from anything citrus! Toast is a no go. Anything you need to bite pieces off of, like a sandwich, is misery. Even breathing through my mouth is painful. I'll think I'll be sticking to water at the lab for a while.

The Team Formerly Known as OGI

2008-03-22T21:43:00.000-07:00

After the student's research symposium two weeks ago, a group of us students set to work making T-shirts for the Shamrock 5K run. We call ourselves "The Team Formerly Known as OGI." It's sort of a play on the fact that our school is getting eaten up by the med school and will cease to be it's own independent school within the university. While the paints on the shirts was still wet, we put them on and went to Pub Night on campus. Once every one or two months our "school" brings in a keg and some pizza or sandwiched after work on a Friday night. Faculty and students kick back, have a beer or two, eat, and relax a bit. With the unique organization of our "school," most people spend 99.9% of their time in their labs and wouldn't hardly get a chance to socialize without these Pub Nights. This Pub Night was St. Patrick's Day themed. We were given green beads and there was a bagpipe player. It was pretty fun.

Anyway, about 9 of us signed up together to take part in the Shamrock 5K run on March 16th. The run was loads of fun! Lots of people were dressed in St. Patrick's day attire...running in foam Guinness mug suits, or tied to 5 other people dressed as beer bottles in 6 pack. The Team Formerly Known as OGI will run again soon. We have a few upcoming races on our docket. We'll have to make some non-specific team shirts soon.

Student Research Symposium

2008-03-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Two Friday's ago students in my department took part in our annual student's research symposium. Symposium is just a fancy way to describe a bunch of grad students standing around a room next to 3 foot by 4 foot posters of our research while faculty and other interested parties walk around and ask us to talk about our work. From the faculty's perspective, it's a good way for the students to get practice designing and presenting research posters which will be helpful for big future international conferences. From the students' perspective, it's little more than drain on time that could be spent in the lab, but on the plus side it goes along with free pizza so I'd call it a draw. Anyways, here's a pic of me next to my poster.

To and Fro

2008-03-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

On my long, long list of things to do today, is to clean out my car. Throughout the winter things would migrate to it, and there they have stayed. I dread this project so much that I even had dreams about it last night. In my dream, I don't know why, but I had to pack up my Jetta and move again to a new house, but I couldn't because I had so much other junk in my car already. That got me thinking. I've always owned a Jetta, and I've moved a lot. I wanted to pin an actual number on how many times I've packed all my belongings into a Jetta. So here it goes, here's my list:

1. Manchester to Syracuse, Day Hall
2. Day Hall to Manch
3. Manch to Haven Hall
4. Haven Hall to South campus
5. South Campus to Ostrom Ave
6. Ostrom Ave to Genessee area apartments
7. Genessee area apartments to Manch
8. Manch to South campus
9. South Campus to Manch
10. Manch to Washington, DC
11. DC to Manch
12. Manch to Salt Lake City, University Ave
13. University Ave to 300 East
14. 300 East to Manch
(moved to Switzerland for 6 months)
15. Manch to Salt Lake City, small studio
16. Studio to a friend's apartment
17. Friend's apartment to San Diego, Pershing Ave
18. Pershing Ave to Reno, NV
19. Reno to San Diego, A St
20. A St to University Ave
21. University Ave to NE Portland
22. NE Portland to SW Portland

So there we have it. I've packed all my belongings into a Jetta and moved 22 times! That's pretty impressive. Jetta's aren't especially spacious. I gues it's a good thing I played to much Tetris as a kid.

Look! A Dandelion!

2008-02-29T07:42:00.000-08:00

A few random things:

Yesterday, as on all Thursdays this quarter, I went to my 9 am class, and then to my 11 am lab meeting. Class was good, and during our mid-class break, a group of us decided to sign up for the Shamrock Run 5K as a team. (It's cheaper if you register as a team, and well, we're all starving graduate students so cheaper is better.) There are 5 or 6 of us doing the run on March 16th and we're pretty excited. Our school has no undergraduates so the environment feels more like an office than a school. As a result, students rarely do anything together, so it's nice to see some socialization happening. We've come up with a team name and will be meeting next week to design our team t-shirts. We're "The team formerly known as OGI." See, when the whole tort cap decision came down a few months ago, we effectively ceased to exist as a school. OGI no longer exists. We're getting swept up into the School of Medicine ASAP. (So hurry up and grab all the OGI garb you can get your hands on before it's gone for good.)

The meeting went on significantly longer than usual because our presenter talked quite a bit. After over an hour of listening to details on her project, I couldn't help but phase out and start staring out the window. It was beautiful out! It was beckoning me. Once the presentation ended and we conducted about 5 minutes of lab business, I declared that I was headed out for a run and would be back in an hour. My boss asked if I'd like to take her dog with me. Her dog is a great running dog. I've taken her out before while dog sitting for a week. She doesn't pull on the leash, and she knows to run on the side of me farthest from the road. Anyway, I took my boss up on the offer and headed out with her dog for a great 5.25 mile run. I was thinking I had gone about 4-5 miles, but when I used my GPS software when I got back it came in at 5.25 miles. Pretty good!

Aside from feeling great about having the chance to run outside on such a beautiful day, I also got another treat. While running through a park, I saw the first dandelion of the year. Sure, the dandelion is a definite harbinger of the onset of spring, and that's good and all. But I was more excited about the little "weed" for a different reason: Dandelion Wine! I simply wasn't able to make time to pick flowers and make wine last year and I was pretty disappointed about it. This year, I'm not going to let anything get in my way. Come on Spring!

Mutilated Valentine!!!

2008-02-26T14:10:00.000-08:00

I sent out Valentines this year to about 25 people all across the US. They were candy Valentines, and I put them in small envelopes affixed with $0.41 stamps and brought them to the post office. I had a feeling that the single stamp wouldn't be enough to deliver them, since they were heavy with the candy. The nice man at the post office informed me that because of their thickness the envelopes would get stuck in the mail sorting machines. I would have to send each as a small parcel.

"No problem", I thought, and I told the man that would be fine. He then needed to add postage to the 25 parcels and stamp each with "Parcel Post." He had to do this ONE AT A TIME instead of just printing out 25 identical postage stickers. He then proceeded to key in the zip codes on all 25 parcels. "Still fine", I thought. All said and done it was about $1.13 to mail each Valentine, and the process at the post office took about 30 minutes.

Well, Valentine's Day came and went...and I got word from a few friends thanking me for the Valentines. For example, I know one made it to Boston, and another to LA. Still, I was surprised by the lack of response. That was until yesterday when this came returned to me in the mail:

Yup, a mutilated, and de-candied Valentine (recipient name and address have been obscured to protect the innocent). According to the accompanying note, it arrived in Santa Anna, CA missing its contents. Now, if I hadn't have sent the Valentines as parcel post, the damage could be explained by the sorting machine describe by my friendly post office employee. But this was a small parcel...no machine. To be honest, it looks more like a small animal got hold of it than anything else. My favorite part of the accompanying note is where it says "We realize your mail is important to you and that you have every right to expect it to be delivered intact and in good condition." I'd settle for poor condition, as my mail certainly isn't "intact."

So this is the dilemma: How now do I distinguish between the ungrateful Valentine recipients (and think twice about sending them Valentine's next year at $1.13 postage, lol) and those whose Valentines were unceremoniously destroyed en route? My friends talk to each other too. I hope no one thinks I intentionally left them off my Valentine's Day list! The real kicker is that this exact thing has happened in the past with candy Valentines that I've sent. A few years ago, someone I had sent a Valentine to received an empty, mutilated envelope 2 or 3 months AFTER Valentine's Day. And the true irony here: it was the same person who's mutilated, empty Valentine got returned to me yesterday.

V-Day Table

2008-02-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was two holidays in one; Valentine's Day, and Oregon's 149th birthday. To celebrate, Ryan set the table beautifully, bought a wonderful bottle of wine, cut up some of my favorite gruyere cheese, and cooked up a fantastic dinner of seasoned steak, garlic bread, and almond green beans. We haven't had a meal that good in a while. It was sensation overload. The steak was juicy and delicious. The green beans are our favorite side dish, but we hadn't had it in forever. The cheese...well...it's gruyere, need I say more? And the wine was one of the best bottles I've had in as long as I can remember. It was a cab sab with overtones of oak and pepper. Mmmmm...so yummy. It was a dinner I won't forget for a long long time.

Tee Birdy!

2008-02-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

This week I tried my hand at disc dying for the first time. I made and cut out a pattern from contact paper and put in on a clear blue TeeBird disc. The I floated it in black dye. The next day, I pulled it out and presto! A tee birdy on the TeeBird! I like the way it came out and want to try more discs and make more patterns. The contact paper is just a beginning tool. Vinyl like you buy from sign shops is what works best. I'm looking forward to trying that. In any case, I'm pretty happy with how my first disc turned out.

One month later...

2008-02-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

Phew, my last post was exactly one month ago today. It's been a pretty bust month. I had this huge deadline in the lab during the first week of February and that kept me busy. By busy, I meant working 7 days a week busy. Yuck. Once a year my advisers need to fly to DC to meet with the folks from the Department of Defense that funded the project I'm working on. They have to give a presentation about the progress we've made so far. The money started coming in over the summer, but in reality it wasn't until January that we started in earnest. Not for lack of wanting to, but this work is just complicated, to say the least.

We had both of the laptops connected to the PCR machines fry. One wouldn't even turn on again. They're what we like to call "dinosaurs." That's the technical term. The connect to our equipment via parallel ports. No laptop even comes with parallel ports anymore. Working with the IT department (his name is Jim) here to get such issues resolved is painfully slow. The one guy is we have in the entire department and he's stretched so thin we can't even see him anymore. He's see-through. We jerry-rigged a desktop into place while waiting for a permanent solution, but then the camera on the PCR machines weren't aligned. Someone must have knocked the machines. That took a while to trouble shoot. And on top of it all, we didn't even get in the supplies we needed until a month before the deadline. Anyway, I managed to pull it off and have some data to present, but it was exhausting.

Other than work, I started playing disc golf a little more often. Played a tournament called "Festivus" in the pouring rain. I've never been so miserable golfing in my life. No more winter rain golf for me. But I won the tournament, so at least I didn't walk away wet, cold, and empty handed.

With the weather getting nicer and nicer by the day, I'm looking forward to getting out more and hiking and golfing and running. And with the deadline passed, hopefully I'll be able to make plenty of time for all those things.

Now this is just silly....

2008-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

The soda machine is toying with me. First the Dew that got stuck, then the two Pepsi pay back. Then the dollar-stealing antics....and now this. Today the machine gave me two Pepsis for the price of 1 again. This machine is wacko!

The Cold Steel Sting of Monday

2008-01-15T01:10:00.000-08:00

Today was a Monday. As far as Mondays go, it wasn’t too bad. But a Monday is a Monday, and so to dull the pain I made brownies for desert tonight. Brownies don’t solve all Monday’s problems or make Monday’s bitterness dissolve, but they’re a good start, and second only to beer on the “oh, god, not Monday” registry of consumables known to hasten the transition to Tuesday. When the timer sounded, I removed the yummies from the oven to test for doneness. I normally do this with a butter knife, but I didn’t have one. We were also down to just two forks, which we would need for dinner, so I opted for a steak knife.

Rewind to Christmas.

For Christmas our friends Sakshi and Tamy sent Ryan a really really nice set of knives. In the world of cutlery, “really really nice” translates into “holy carp that’s sharp!” (I rhymed there, ya like that?) Anyway, what does one typically do after piercing the warm, chocolaty brownie with the butter knife? If you said, “lick the butter knife” you’d be correct. And that’s just what I did, only this wasn’t a butter knife, it was a really really sharp steak knife. I’ve never in my whole life used such sharp knives. (I bet you can tell where this is going…)

So yes, I cut my lips, both upper and lower, while licking brownie off the knife. The bottom lip is barely scrapped, but the top one was a bleeder. For the rest of the night the sting of Monday more than just an intangible feeling, it was an earnest, burning sting with every spoonful of salty soup that was our dinner.

Next Monday I’m sticking to beer. I think it’s safer.

So much for retribution

2008-01-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

Retribution was short lived. This afternoon I tried to buy the machine's last can of Mt Dew. I put in my dollar bill. Pressed the button. And nothing. Not even an attempt to spit out my beverage. It was as if the machine didn't even know I put in a dollar. If it had, and tried to spit out a drink and failed, it would have at least given me my 25 cents change. The current score is:

soda machine: 2
me: 1

Blast!

Retribution

2008-01-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not typically a believer in the ole "what goes around comes around" karmic theory of the universe evening things out. But today... today is different. Today I felt like I got what's been coming to me. Back on July 5th of this year, the soda machine at the lab took my money, and gave back no soda. My Mt. Dew got stuck in the machine as you can see in the picture on the left. And there it stayed for over a month until the soda delivery guy came and refilled the machine. Mocking me every time I passed it. But today... today I finally got what was coming to me. I inserted my dollar, pressed the button, and ka-thud, ka-thud! TWO Pepsis fell down the chute! Today is going to be a good day.

Rocks don't rock

2008-01-03T22:54:00.001-08:00

Driving down OR 42 last night, Ryan, Bob, and I. Bob was here but just for the one night. We though we'd be spontaneous and adventuresome and go to Bagby Hot Spring. It was dark and gently raining. All was going swimmingly, then BAM! Head sized rock in the middle of the lane that couldn't be avoided. Immediate flapping sound of a flat tire. We pulled over. Damn. I have never seen such tire damage before. My rim is mangled and destroyed. The tire is ripped apart. Thankfully I have a full size spare. After we put it on and drove another mile or so we saw the "rocks" sign. Hmm. Would've been a little more helpful a mile back. Needless to say, we never made it to Bagby. Boo.

Holiday Recap

2008-01-02T13:25:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd just throw in a brief recap of my holidays.

Started out by meeting up with Jerry in Salt Lake City for a few days to visit with friends Sakshi and Tamy, and Lis and Gabe. I got to SLC before Jerry so I treated myself to a relaxing bubble bath at Sakshi and Tamy's place to kick off the vacation in a relaxing fashion. It was indeed relaxing, but unfortunately it ended up in injury. When standing up, I managed to hit my bum on the faucet and get a big cut haloed by a black and purple bruise (oh yes, pictures soon to follow). This just confirms my suspicions that I am destined to die in some sort of bath-related accident. Anyway, aside from that, it was a great visit. We played dozens of games of ping pong on Sakshi and Tamy's new ping pong table. We went skiing the morning after the mountains got 19 inches of fresh powder, and Lis and Gabe treated us to a fabulous home-cooked dinner before an evening sitting in a hot tub on the top of a high rise in downtown Salt Lake.

After saying good buy to my Salt Lake friends, it was off to NH to visit with family and friends there. Despite a midnight arrival, both of my parents were there to greet me at the airport which is always exciting. I got to watch 2 Patriots games on my dad's 52 inch plasma TV with surround sound. (The games look and sound so much nicer than when watched over antenna at my place.) My mom made a spectacular 11 lb prime rib roast for Christmas and the whole family got together to eat and be merry. The day after Christmas my mother and I were treated to a spa day complete with pedicures, paraffin hand dips, and hot stone massages. This will definitely be a new holiday tradition! My dad showed off with his new prize possession, a Margaritaville margarita maker. My dad still makes the best margarita around. I got to catch up with good friends and we had a nice holiday party at Christine's parent's house. Instead of doing gifts anymore, we all decided to donate money to a new charity every year. This year we donated to a leukemia research foundation and everyone felt really good about it. After all, the holidays are about friends, family, and giving.

After a great week in NH, it was back to Portland. I got in on the 30th of December and basically struggled to stay awake the rest of the day. Since my plane had left before 6am, I hadn't gone to bed the night before. I was exhausted. Thankfully, I woke up New Year's Eve Day with a bit more energy. I was looking forward to New Year's Eve and Day because they were the first real time Ryan and I have has to do stuff around Portland together in many many weeks. With my exam finals, and the holidays etc., I had been working most weekends for a long while. We wet out to Milo McIver state park and played a round of disc golf. I hadn't played for 2 or so months so it was great fun. Back at home we made a first attempt at home film developing. Results weren't so great. Turns out we used the wrong developer concentration but at least we know what needs to be done next time. Finally, we headed to the Laurelthirst bar at around 10 pm to ring in the new year. I was happily surprised that it wasn't at all crowded. There was music and food, and beer, and I even got Ryan to dance (though he may deny it if asked). It was one of the best New Year's Eves I've had in many many years. On New Year's Day there was more golf to be played, this time at Timber Park. We played two rounds of doubles and then headed straight for the Laurelthirst for a private New Year's Day party. There was tons of free food and beer. We only stayed about two hours but it was a good time.

After a full couple of days, I crashed early last night. Today is back to the old grind. Being back in the lab is almost surreal. Classes will start again on Monday. Hopefully I will be able to make time for plenty of R&R and fun this quarter. I'm only taking 1 full class this quarter as opposed to 2 last quarter. I'm hoping that will make a difference. All work and no play makes for a very unhappy Chris. I think making time for R&R and fun should be one of my New Year's resolutions.

Photos from vacations

2007-12-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

Ryan has been scanning some of the film that's been developed from my Zero Image 6X9 pinhole camera. It's been so busy recently with moving and finals and the holidays that I hadn't given much thought to shots I had taken. Here are two. The first is the lighthouse at Bullard's Beach State Park in Bandon, Oregon taken in December. The second is a waterfall called Fishawk Falls about 25 minutes inland of Seaside, Oregon taken in November. Many thanks to Ryan for helping me climb down to get this shot. It was steep and wet and slippery. I don't think I'd have tried the descent if it were not for his help.

Ted D. Gets a New Outfit

2007-12-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

This is my childhood teddy bear. His name is Ted D. Bear. He was a Christmas present from my godparents when I was in kindergarden or 1st grade, and I probably thought the name was pretty smart. I just arrived back at my parents' house in NH and found Ted in my room wearing some new garb. It was 5 am in the morning when I found him and it was such a fun surprise. He's now sporting a New England Patriots uniform, complete with helmet, jersey, pants, kleets, and a football. It's AWESOME! Until now, he's been wearing the same thing for over 20 years which was basically some of my old baby clothes that hadn't been washed in about 20 years either. It was definitely time for a change, and I think he looks great!.

First PCR and gel electrophoresis!

2007-12-10T17:49:00.000-08:00

I have a HUGE presentation to give before the department tomorrow. I haven't even put together half of my slides yet. This will be done last minute and I'll still be working on it right up until "go time." Par for the course. There just aren't enough hours in the day to be able to get things done ahead of schedule. Anyway, until about an hour ago, I only had one type of data for the presentation, fluorometery data. Alone, it doesn't make for a very interesting presentation, or a very compelling conclusion. I wanted data from a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and subsequent gel electrophoresis. I've done precisely zero of either before in my life...ever. I ran the PCR on Friday and would have to wait until today to run the product on a gel. If anything went wrong, there wouldn't be time to redo it before tomorrow's presentation. With such a complicated and tricky protocol, your first PCR and gel should really be something simple, perhaps 6 or 7 samples including positive and negative controls and your size ladder. I ran 25 samples, not including controls or ladder. I was nervous. But an hour ago it was finished running, I stained the gel, and took this picture. This is the picture of success. My blanks were blank! My positive control showed up! The samples all ran well! I won't get into the details of what this gel tells me, but I will say that it bodes well for the method of DNA extraction I'm testing in the lab. Woo hoo!

End of the Quarter

2007-12-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Finally! The end of my first quarter at OHSU. I took two major classes and one minor one where attendance was required, but there were no grades. The first class was EBHE, which I figured out a few weeks in stood for Environmental and Biomolecular History of Earth. It was a team taught course with three instructors. Each and every lecture was a crash course in a different subject. Prebiotic chemistry, paleontology, atmospheric chemistry, stable isotope analysis, thermodynamics, biomolecular systematics, phylogenetic analysis, elemental cycling, microbial metabolism, bioinorganic chemistry....just to name a few.

We'd get a crash course in one of these topics during every lecture and then have a technical paper assigned to read about the topic. During the next class we'd start with a new 30 minute lecture, and then spend the next two hours discussing the last lecture and the assigned paper. Because the lectures were just half hour tastes of the material, most of the learning came outside the class while doing outside research to understand the paper. All in all, it was a great class and I definitely learned a lot. Since the department is interdisciplinary, this course really helps put everyone on equal more equal footing with regards to what we've been exposed to subject wise. Everyone knew about at least one of the subjects from their past academic studies, but we all knew about different things. This course was great in that, though certainly not comprehensive in any area, we can all now at least speak using using the same language and terminology and understand each other. That's always a difficult thing to accomplish when throwing engineers, chemists, biochemists, microbiologists, biologists, geologists, hydrologists, environmental scientists, and ecologists together.

Though EBHE was definitely the more time consuming course for me this quarter, my Biochemistry course was the one I had the most trouble with. There were 8 of us in the class. Turns out 4 of them weren't even taking it for a grade, but were sitting through it for a second time, and not because it was entertaining or fun. At the end of everyone's first year, students need to take, and pass a qualifying exam. The exam is made of 4 sections which depend on which classes you've already taken. Apparently almost everyone failed last year's biochemistry section of the exam so they were sitting through it again in hopes of passing it the second time around. Not encouraging. Thankfully, I'm an ESE (Environmental Science and Engineering) major, and not an EBS (Environmental and Biomolecular Systems) major, so biochem isn't required to be on my qualifying exam. I only took it because the other ESE class offered this quarter was analytical chemistry, a course I've already taken in Reno.

Anyway, so of the four of us who were taking the course for the first time, I was the only student in the class who didn't have an undergraduate major in biochem. Lucky me. I had to do a TON of outside work to just understand what the terminology used in class. Biochem wouldn't be on my qualifying exam, but I still needed to pass. But graduate school isn't like working towards your undergraduate degree. When you're working on your PhD, anything lower than a B is failing and you have to retake the course! But hey, no pressure! The only grades for this class were two homework assignments (5% each) and two tests (45% each). I got B+ on the first test which I was mighty proud of, and an A- on the first homework. That first test was a lot of memorization so I was pretty sure I'd do better on it than on the second test which involved a ton of structural chemistry. After sitting for the second exam last week and only feeling comfortable with the answers to 2 of the 6 questions, I was pretty worried.

Questions looked like "draw the structural schematic of the catalytic triad of residues essential to the activity of serine proteases," or "draw the chemical structure of the covalent tetrahedral intermediate of the first stage of the turnover in serine proteases and explain the roll of the oxyanion hole." Uh...sure...what the heck is a serine protease again??? In regards to the second question...I knew the function had to do with the backbone chain of the monomer and not the side chains of the residues. I knew the intermediate was stabilized in terms of it's charge. But that's all I could come up with. Then I drew this:

By some miracle, I got a 6/10 on that question. No, that's not very good, but considering a 65% turned out to be a B, it's could have been worse. Below you can see what the professor wanted. To be fair, cartoon versions in the text book look like the image on the right, with the jelly bean-looking thing around the residues that make up the oxyanion hole. And though much much simplified, I oriented my tetrahedral intermediate in the hole properly.

Anyway, I somehow managed to pull off an A- on the final and wound up with an A- in the class. I still dislike structural biochem. I guarantee I'm never taking another class in it again. And hopefully next semester I can limit it to one class. It's been really hard to get any work done in the lab when I've had so much class work to do. In early February I have to have an abstract written and a poster and speach put together for a conference they might be sending me too. That mean's I have to seriously get busy in the lab. I also have a seminar to present for the department on Tuesday. It'll be the first time most students and faculty get introduced to the project I'm working on, so it's kind of a big deal. On that note, I should probably start working on that...

Wanted: Spell Check for Scientists!

2007-11-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

I'm a terrible speller. Over the years, I've gotten by thanks to MS Word's speck check feature. Without it, you'd think everything I've written had been done by a scientist with a few letters in the wrong place on her keyboard (Or a disturbingly smart monkey. Take your pick). Still, I've got a lot of beefs with the spell check function. For starters, it makes me a worse speller than I already am. Some misspelled words just get red squiggles under them to show me they're wrong. Others it recognizes and changes automatically so I don't even know I didn't spell them right in the first place. And don't even get me started on when it changes words you don't want it to because it thinks you're trying to type something else. Finally, and here's my biggest beef, the spell check feature doesn't keep pace with scientific discovery, or in some cases even pay attention to 50-year-old scientific terminology. I'll write something for my work, and almost every other word will have the dreaded red squiggles under it, even though spelled correctly. Just take a look at this excerpt from something I wrote this morning. Seriously, how am I supposed to work like this:

Movin' on up!

2007-11-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Say goodbye to police tape and 2-hour nightmare commutes. We're moving up and out! Ryan and I found out today that we got the rental house we had applied for. At bad traffic times, this will knock as much as an hour and a half off my commute. In the absolute worst traffic, it will soon only take me 30 minutes to get home. Most days it will take around 15 to 20. It's in a great residential neighboorhod with lots of nearby fun. There are a whole handfull of parks and ball fields just a stroll away. There's a track a few blocks away that I can jog to. There are restaurants and coffee shops and a brew pub just a short stroll in the other direction. And there's even a 12-hole disc golf course just a 5 minute's walk away. We have a yard! Front and back. Room for a BBQ grill and some outdoor furniture and a few disc golf baskets. It's a small house (Only 850 sq ft) but it has a garage for storage, a mud room, and hardwood floors. Move in isn't until November 23rd. I can hardly wait!

This is how close we are to the disc golf course.

We have the corner lot with a front yard, and an even bigger back yard.

Eeek. Biochem midterm!!!

2007-10-31T07:23:00.000-07:00

This is what I've been up to for the past several days. Pretty much all day long I lock myself in the students' lounge and study biochemistry. Everyone in my biochem class has had a biochem class before. Not me. Never mind biochem. I've hardly even taken plain bio. I've take exactly 1 biology course ever, and that was back in 2000, two degrees and a full-time job ago. I consider myself more of a chemist/physisist. (Not to be confused with a physical chemist...way different thing.) This class takes every ounce of brain power I can muster, and even then I feel lost alot of the time. Some of the other students even got their undergrad majors in biochem. Sigh.

Anyway, the midterm is this morning. In an hour and a half to be exact. I'm not excited. I've seen previous years' midterms for this class. Ouch. When a professor grades a 66% as a solid B, some student get excited because of the scale. Me, I get nervous. Such a crazy scale in a class tells me one thing: the professor is more concerned with quickly spewing forth a ton of information at a breakneck speed and is satisfied if the students comprehend about half of it. I call that lousy teaching. It would be better if the professor picked out the absolute essentials, and focused on actually fostering knowledge and understanding of those essentials. Ok, nuff grumbling. Back to the board for more studying. (I think this is officially "cramming" at this point.)

The Red Sox sweep the World Series...(and I proudly eat my taco!)

2007-10-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

For the second time in four years, the Red Sox win the World Series, and they do so in dramatic fashion...sweeping the Rockies in the series, 4 games to none.

Today, the triumphant Sox celebrate in Boston with their fans in a parade-like party. I, on the other hand, am celebrating clear across the country by eating a taco. Taco Bell offered a free taco to everyone in America from 2-5 pm on October 30th if someone stole a base in the World Series. As I eat my taco, I have a big smile on my face. My Sox are victorious! And Jocoby Ellsbury (who incidentally is an Oregon boy) stole a base. Thanks for the taco Jacoby. And thanks for a great season Sox. What a great time to be a Boston fan!

Oh so ghetto

2007-10-15T16:21:00.001-07:00

How to know you're staying at a classy joint, Part 1

You're tired. It's been a long night of sitting on a park bench drinking your malt beverage out of a paper bag. You stumble back to your motel. You're starting to realize that the 2-lb, 7 layer burritto you got from the corner vendor's pull cart for $1.75 was more of a rental than a purchase. You make your way to the bathroom. While "doing your business" you think, "Ahhhh...the only thing that could make this better would be cracking open a cold one right here and now." Well if you're lucky enough to be staying at a super classy joint, you can. You know you're staying at a classy joint when there's a wall-mounted bottle opener in your bathroom within reach of the toilette. Eeek!!

Flight of the Valkyrie

2007-10-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I played a one-day non-sanctioned disc golf tournament at Milo McIver near Portland. It was one of the best run tournaments I've played and all the gals in my division were great fun to play with.

I didn't play too well, but I did walk away with a bit of prize money in the form of a gift certificate to Next Adventure, an awesome sporting goods store in downtown Portland. With it, I went to Next Adventure the very next day. What did I buy? More discs of course! ProLine Valkyries. 6 of them!

I could have spent the loot on anything in the store, but a little birdy told me that a new shipment of ProLine Valkyries had recently arrived. The Valkyrie is my favorite disc. ProLine is my favorite plastic. Unfortunately, Innova is no longer making the ProLine plastic, so I've been scouring the area for Pro Valks to hoard for myself. I hit pay dirt at Next Adventure. The shipment had 7 Valks in the weight range that I throw. I bought 6 of them. (I didn't want to be greedy.)

Bottling Season

2007-09-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

Tis the time to bottle the blackberry! In late summer I picked a ton of wild blackberries and began brewing a batch of blackberry wine. It's finally done fermenting and has fallen clear. I love the color. It smells like fresh blackberries. It's not a sweet wine, but I did add a little extra sugar to accentuate the blackberry flavor. I tried to stop fermentation on this batch at 11%. The yeast were having no part of my plan. Despite two efforts to kill 'em all off with sulfur dioxide...they kept eating the sugars and producing alcohol. The did so until they were eventually poisoned by their own byproducts (the alcohol). Alcohol starts to becomes poisonous to the particular yeast I used at around 14%. The little buggers plodded on until the A.C. hit 15%, and then they finally died off and settled to the bottom of the carboy leaving me with really strong, really dry wine. I siphoned it off the sediment and added back some of the sugar that the little guys had devoured. Last night I bottled a portion of it. Look at that color! This is the first batch of wine I've made from actual fruit as opposed to juice or a kit. As far as non-kit wines go, I think it's my best work yet!

Zero Image

2007-09-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with pinhole photography for a few months now and have had moderate success. I now have a light meter, and that will no doubt improove my chances of getting nice shots. This whole time I've been using a camera I made myself form a tin can and a magnet. It produces pretty distinctive images and I don't plan on giving up on it, but it was time to upgrade. The Zero Image company in Hong Kong makes amazing wooden pinhole cameras that take beautiful images. The cameras themselves are beautiful too. Teak wood. Shinny. Nice. My parents got me one for my birthday. Yippy! Took it out last week to shoot a test roll. I love the results so far. Here are a few of the images from the camera along with pics Ryan took of me taking the pics. Click on the images to see them bigger.

Birthday Yum

2007-09-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

My birthday was back on September 18th. It was a Tuesday. Weekday birthdays aren't as much fun as weekend ones. People work and can't stay out late. Being a student, I have a flexible schedule...not everyone else is so lucky. Had a low key, but enjoyable evening at home. Had a few friends over for a BBQ. I had called it a BYOM (M is for meat) event and was going to pick up something for Ryan and I on my drive home from work. I was about to pull into the market when Ryan called to tell me not to. Our friend Jeff had apparently gone a little overboard at the store himself, and said there was plenty for all. And he was right. He brought over four of the biggest steaks I'd ever seen. In this picture, you might be tempted to think I have a small, cheap grill. No. It's a full size grill. The steaks are just so big they make the grill look puny. Mmmm...birthdays are yummy. Thanks Jeff, for bringing the cow!

2007-09-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

Back in March I bought a new sleeping bag for backpacking trips. I wanted something lightweight (2 lb or less), and that packed down really small. As with all ultralight backpacking gear, you pay pretty heavily for every ounce you shave. The best deal, by far, was the REI SubKilo bag. I pail just under $220 for mine and that's after I used a 20% off coupon. Unfortunately, the women's bag doesn't come in a left zip version, only right zip. I tried and I tried to make it work, but to no avail. I'm a left side sleeper. When I'm in a right zip bag, the zipper is at my back and I can't adjust it without rolling over. I also couldn't get over the feeling that I was trapped. Getting out of the bag quickly was simply not possible. I'd struggle to roll over, find the zipper, and unzip myself. After waking up to a bear sniffing my feet and not being able to un-bag myself last Fall, I decided that my next bag simply had to be a left zip. (See my previous post, http://awaitingrevelation.blogspot.com/2006/11/does-chris-poo-in-woods.html, for the bear story.)

All the preface aside, after this weekend's backpacking trip I decided I simply couldn't put off getting a new bag any longer. Aside from being a right zip bag, my SubKilo also tends to leak down feathers much more than is acceptable. All down bags leak, but not this much. Ryan has the men's version of the SubKilo, and his doen't leak anywhere near as much. And on top of all of that, I simply don't think the bag is rated correctly. It claims to be a 15 degree bag, but I seriously doubt it would keep me warm at even 20 degrees. It's a good bag, but it simply won't suit me. Thus I returned the bag to REI, and the research began.

Like I said, these bags aren't cheap so I did a whole heck fo a lot of research. I'd look at a bag, read all about it, check out the specs, and read reviews. In the end I had a grouping of 7 bags that I was considering, but I was having a tough time making the plunge. I knew that after using my return credit, I'd still be dropping at least another $140 on the bag. Big decision. So I resorted to the only real decision making system I've ever used; making a spreadsheet. I listed all the bags and their relevent specs such as weight, stuff size, and inner diameters . I ranked the different spec categories accordning to their relative importance in my decision. Then I ranked each bag in each of the spec categories. As you can see from the graphic, I used the tried and tested (by me, of course) rating system of "woo hoo" for great, "eh" for acceptable, and "boo" for, well, boo. In numerical terms, a "woo hoo" earns a ranking of 3, "eh" scores a 2, and "boo" gets a 1.

In my system, the bags recieved scores for each category. The scores were calculated as the product of the relative importance of the category and it's ranking on the woo hoo-eh-boo scale. The scores for each category were added up to give each bag a total score. A perfect score is a 63. The worst score possible would be a 21. Sure, I could have normalised the scored to a more intuitive numbering scheme, metric perhaps, but that would just have been over the top. I'm a geek for sure, but ya got to draw the line somewhere.

Clearly there's one bag that stands out with a perfect score. That's the Marmot Helium. Just one problem...this bag isn't being produced anymore so it's pretty tough to find. I had to get my bag at an REI in order to be able use the credit from the old bag towards the new one. The Portland REI had none in stock and wasn't expecting to get any more but their display model was still up. The Tualitin store didn't even have a model on display any more. I asked customer service if they could call the Portland store and hold the display model for me, and they did. Then I checked at the Beaverton store, and they actually had one in stock. (Keep in mind the guy at the Tualitin store said the bag wasn't even in the system anymore so no store in the area would have it. Shows what he knew.)

I immediately snatched up the bag at the Beaverton store. New beats a display model any day. I had never actually tried the bag, I just knew my analysis said I should love it. I got right down on the floor of the store and tried it out. My spreadheet was right! It's far roomier than my old bag. The down is loftier. I love the left zip. It's as close as perfection as you can get for less than $400. Ryan took a couple of pics of me trying out the bag with my phone camera, but Sprint is being super slow tonight and I can't upload the pics to put here. Maybe I'll update this when they finally make it to my inbox. In the mean time, I just may sleep in my new bag tonight.

Seeing the Light

2007-09-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

Just a few days ago I acquired an object that I've been in search of for several months; a light meter! I had gotten to a point where I couldn't progress any further with my pinhole photography because I couldn't get a handle on lighting or exposure times. I'd say I've been lucky to get a decent picture only one in every five or six tries thus far. That's because the exposure times I was using were determined by the not-so-sophisticated method of guessing. Cloudy weather, 30 seconds. Sunny skies, something less than that. Highly lit subjects got less time, and shadowy ones got more. Not exactly a sure fire method.

A few days ago I was at a really dingy thrift store. I was itching to get out of there, but Ryan spotted something in the display case. A light meter. We took it out and had a look, and sure enough, it worked! For the meager price of $9.99 I walked off with a 1946 model GE exposure meter. Ryan even found a scanned copy of the actual user's manual online.

It's not ideal, but it's a huge step in the right direction. Since I'm using a pinhole camera, my f-stop is way higher than any of the values on the exposure dial. That simply means that I can't use the dial to calculate the necessary exposure time directly. I'll have to play around with it a bit and make my own light values/exposure chart. It'll take some time, but in theory it should work just as well. In the next week or so I hope to do some research and play around with the meter a bit. With any luck, I hope to use this puppy to get my success rate up as close to 100% as possible.

Solitary Winemaker

2007-09-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I had picked 4 or 5 gallons of wild blackberries on one of the nearby disc golf courses and started a batch of blackberry wine. I intentionally added less sugar than would normally be called for so I could keep the alcohol percentage below that which becomes toxic to the yeast. That way, I could have complete control over the end stages of fermentation and finely tune the alcohol content and the sweetness of the wine. I stopped fermentation at about 11.5% alcohol and still had a dry wine because I skimped on the sugar. That way I could kill off the remaining yeast, and add back some sugar until I achieved the perfect amount of sweetness...semi-sweet, but not overly sweet. I know fruit wines should be sweet, but I'm a dry wine fan, so I wanted to produce a minimaly sweet wine that still brought out the blackberry character.

Here's the problem with trying to achieve wine perfection when you are working alone trying to add just the right amount of sugar, but not too much: You have to go by taste. Add a dash of sugar. Let disolve. Chill. Taste. Repeat. The problem comes in the repeat part. Trying to sweeten a 4 gallon batch of wine by adding small doses of sugar takes many cycles of adding sugar, chilling, and tasting. By the 10th go around, it's hard to tell you're even drinking wine, nevermind trying to determine whether it's achieved sweetness perfection. Half way throught the process I couldn't go on. It's warm today. I'm short on sleep. I probablly haven't totally rehydrated and recovered from backbacking. I decided to take a 45 minuted nap. Then I made a few phone calls. Finally, I got back around to business. Add sugar. Let disolve. Chill. Repeat.

I think I finally got the wine to where I want it, but I'm not certain. I need another opinion. Or maybe I'll just wait until tommorrow and give it another taste. As for now...I think I need another nap.

A Good Visit

2007-09-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

For the last week, my friend Jocey and her boyfriend Jason have been in town visiting from NH. After weather delays pushed their arrival back by two days, they finally arrived and we started off on a backpacking trip less than 12 hours later. We did a 4-day loop in the Columbia River Gorge and it was great! The first leg of the trip was a more or less uneventful 9ish mile stretch that parallels I84 for a ways before climbing out of the Gorge. The first campsite was nothing to write home about, but it served its purpose. The next day is when the real adventure began.

We knew day two would be a tough day; lots of elevation and around 11 miles. After a wrong turn early in the day, we found ourselves at Casey Camp. All the Gorge trails are connected so it wasn’t too big a deal. The wrong turn ended up shaving a little distance off our trek, but adding pretty significantly to the terrain difficulty. To get back on track, we took the Casey Creek Trail, which we later found out climbs just shy of 3000 feet in only 2.1 miles. From what we can tell from maps and such, it’s the steepest trail in the entire Gorge, and it was tough. 20 steps. Stop. Breathe. Repeat.

After a rest atop the ridge, we continued on through an awesome forest to our camp alongside Rainy Lake. It was a beautiful camp on a secluded lake. It made the climb all worth it. That night there was a lunar eclipse and we all woke up to watch it. What a great treat! The stars in the wilderness are so much brighter without all the light pollution from the cities. Watching the eclipse and catching glimpses of a few shooting starts was definitely a trip highlight.

The next day we trekked onward to the shores of Wahtum Lake. Along the way Mt Hood showed itself to us and it sure was a sight to behold. Rainy Lake was beautiful, but Wahtum Lake had it beat. Our campsite on the shore was surrounded by blueberry bushes. We had blueberries and granola for snacks. Yum!

The last day, we hiked out 13 miles along the Eagle Creek Trail. We passed too many waterfalls to name and went for a dip along the way in a pristine swimming hole. We arrived back at the trailhead just before 4 pm and were all pretty tired and ready for showers. Over about 40 miles of trials, we had seen several deer, snakes, and slugs. We even found a pretty big bear print and some mountain lion scat.

After a day’s rest, we headed out for more fun, but this time we traveled by car. We went to the Tilamook cheese factory and then to the Oregon coast. We stopped at a few state beaches and parks along the drive North to Astoria. We visited a few of the spots where the movie, The Goonies, was filmed. Then we ate a fantastic meal at a place called The Silver Salmon, in Astoria. With full bellies, we headed back to Portland.

On the last day of Joc and Jason’s visit, we slept late, ate breakfast, and then wandered around downtown Portland’s Chinatown, and the Saturday Market. It was a great visit, and I was sad to see them go. I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t have a camera, but Joc took plenty so when she sends me a copy of the picture disc, I’ll post some.

I’ll finish with one of the more memorable quotes from the weekend:

Jason: “It’s pretty hard to starve to death. You’ve got to really want it.”

Let's play catch up

2007-08-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since my last blog and it hasn't been for lack of things to post, it's just been a pretty busy few weeks. Ryan and I took a great trip back to NH the last week of July to Visit friends and family. We had all sort of fun. Kayaking with my parnets. Visits with my grandparents and Aunt. Friends of mine who made the trip from Pennsylvania to spend a weekend wth us. Tattoo convention. Great BBQ. Super dinner and ritas in Portsmouth with my folks. Really wonderful home cooked meal with many friends. Swimming in the pool. Disc golf NH and MA style. Geocashing. It was a great trip.

We had only been back in Portland for 5 days when we headed down the coast to spend some time with Ryan's folks. Another good time. His mom helped me out with a cool purse that will probably be a holiday gift for someone. His dad made some great smoked tuna (amongst some other great meals). We started a batch of Pino Noir wine...mmm. Spend some more time checking out the beautiful Oregon coast. Another good visit. From there we went directly to Bend, Oregon where we played the Lava Launch disc golf tournament. I'm proud to say I took my first Oregon Series win, woo hoo!

We got back into Portland late Sunday night, and since then have played 4 courses that we hadn't played yet. It's always exciting to play new courses. It's especially nice to have so many new courses to play. Definitely living in a good place for golf. In that time I've also picked many, many pounds of blackberries on the disc golf course in Dabney State Park and just yesterday started a batch of blackberry wine. Best way to bottle summer!

In just a few days we head out again for Southern Oregon to do some camping and rafting with Ryan's folks and some of their friends. With any luck, we'll arrive back in Portland in one piece (or two pieces...one for each of us) on the 22nd or 23rd with couch in tow and just in time to pick up my good friend Jocey and her beau from the airport. Then we embark with them on two back to back backpacking trips (that was fun to say) that will bring us through September 2nd or so.

Phew...so it's been busy, and it's going to keep on being busy. I'll do my best to post more often, but no promises. At least not until September when things calm down a bit.

Cape Blanco

Photos by Pam, hand modeling by Ryan

Eagle Creek

2007-07-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

Today Ryan, Jeff, and I took a hike along the Eagle Creek trail to Punchbowl Falls. The trail is beautiful, with some sections carved out of the side of the gorge hundreds of feet above the creek. Of course, it was Sunday and the falls were pretty crowded but it was a nice spot nonetheless. The trail ends level with the creek but a few hundred yards away from the falls. The gorge walls are too steep on either side to get any closer by land. Jeff and I swam in as close as we could get. It was exhausting. We found some driftwood and used it for more buoyancy. The force of the water coming over the falls was enough to push us back so that we couldn't get much closer than 30 feet away or so, and that alone was exhausting. It was a ton of fun though, because for as crowded as the falls were, we seemed just about the only people daring enough to make a swim for it. It was awesome!

Also, it had been a while since I took the pinhole camera out. I don't have a light meter, so shooting is a whole lot of guess work when it comes to exposure times. When I'm taking pictures close to home, I can try a time out, develop the shot, and see how I need to adjust the exposure time. Can't do that when I'm on the road though. I took 8 shots, hoping to get maybe one I could work with. That seems to be about the success rate I have in guessing light levels. Of the 8, I actually got 5 that came back in the developing room with images. That was great seeing how normally I get far more over or underexposed shots than ones I can actually work with. Anyway, here are a few of them.

This is a 25 second exposure of the Bridge of the Gods. It's a lot more overexposed than I would have liked, but it does have a ghostly look that appeals to me. I especially like the rusted old farm equipment in the foreground.

This is a 35 second exposure of Eagle Creek. I love what the long exposure times do to water. It smooths it all out and makes it look surreal. I really like this picture because I didn't have to make any brightness or contrast adjustments to it after developing. This is the picture exactly as it was taken.

Why persistance pays off

2007-07-21T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've got this thing against fake wood furniture. I despise it. The laminate board/press board/particle board stuff is just plain garbage. Sure, when you're on a budget (like, oh say, because you're a dirt poor graduate student) it can, at times, look appealing. But in all likelihood, it'll fall apart before you even get your degree, and it just plain looks bad. Not to mention you have to assemble it yourself nine times out of ten. And besides all that, I'd like my home to be formaldehyde and formamide free. That press board and particle board stuff is full of such chemicals and they give off fumes. Sure, you can't smell them, but they're killing you slowly. (Just ask FEMA. All those cheaply built trailers they gave the New Orleans folks after their homes were destroyed were made out of that stuff. And their interiors...where the people live, test positive for formaldehyde vapor levels over twice what is deemed safe. Way to go FEMA.)

So that being said, I'll now brink you to my quest for a desk. I'm a graduate student. A desk is a must-have piece of furniture. Mind you, I can't afford to go to the local furniture store and buy a solid wood desk. And I don't fancy the idea of spending hour after hour sitting at a cold glass or metal desk. I'd like something a little warmer and more inviting. Wood.

After checking out a few nice wooden ones...well...let's just say that that particle board laminate desk was beginning to look pretty attractive again. None the less, I had time in my quest, as school doesn't start until the end of the September.

After several weeks of searching, I finally found the desk. Check it out at this website: http://lonewolfreviews.tripod.com/unfinfurn.htm

In the search bar, type "shaker 18 desk right"

The first link to appear should be the desk. It's the "Shaker 18" Desk with Drawers Right." It's selling for $465.88. It's made of solid alder wood with brushed nickel knobs. It's from the Maco Home Office Collection and is made right here in Portland, OR. Ain't she a beauty?!

Now before you begin to think I'm crazy...there's more to the story. No, I didn't shell out $465 for a desk. I have scruples, but I'm not crazy. I found this desk at the Salvation Army. It was probably sent there because some kid had written in red marker all over the side of it, and gotten huge black ring-like stains on the top. Not to mention some really sticky glue-like substance. If it was my kid writing all over a $465 desk, I'd have left him at the Salvation Army along with the desk!

Anyway, I digress. So there's my desk. Of course, at the time I had no idea it was a $465 desk. I only just found that out today when I went to refinish it. It's in absolutely perfect condition except for the marks. Looks to me like the artist did his deed when the piece was very new. I couldn't leave it as is, so I sanded it for several hours to remove all the marks, and then spent another few hours staining it a dark walnut color. I like wooden furniture, but not light or natural colored. Anyway, while staining it, I noticed this sticker on the back:

And that allowed be to track it to where it was made, and subsequently sold for $465.88.

After an entire Saturday full of TLC, my desk is looking all dapper and graffiti-free. Go ahead and admire her. I didn't pay $465.88 for her. I paid 94.6% less than that. OK, I'll do the match for you. I walked away with this desk for a mere $25. Persistance pays off.

And in the news...

2007-07-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Today, the second news story listed on cnn.com was about President Bush’s upcoming colonoscopy scheduled for tomorrow. The status of the president’s colon health was eclipsed only by a story about the emergency evacuation of boy scouts hiking near a wildfire somewhere in Utah. Clearly, this speaks to the remarkable perceptiveness of the CNN news crew in picking out stories of interest to the American people. I’m not being facetious here either. This isn’t a dig on CNN. They’re just giving the people what they want. And apparently the people want dramatic boy scout rescue stories, and all the latest information pertaining to the presidential heinie.

To be fair, I think it’s good for the American public to see that even the leader of the so-called free world needs to pay attention to his health and get routine medical screenings. It’s a step towards awareness and hopefully prevention of colon cancer, and that can be nothing but a good thing. Still, I can’t help but be a bit disturbed by what I read.

I think this whole terrorism/war thing has really gotten to our president. It’s taken him over and affected his perceptions of all things not war or terrorism related. He’s adopted a way of speaking that is beginning to make me think he’s on the verge of paranoid neurosis. In reference to colon health and checkups, the president wants to “encourage everybody to use surveillance.”

Surveillance?!!! Is he for real? That sounds a bit more militaristic than medicinal if you ask me. Wouldn’t surprise me if he secretly refers to the upcoming procedure as the war on polyps. Seriously, the man need to just chill out a bit.

On another note, check out Cheney’s face in this photo. This is where they met to discuss how while Bush was put under for the war on polyps, power would transfer to Cheney for a few hours. Can you almost see Cheney salivating? I have to admit, I’m a bit frightened. I don’t know how long it takes to power up a nuke and aim it at Iran, but I’m betting Cheney’s already done the math. All I know is that I hope the war on polyps goes more quickly than this war on terror.

Break on through...

2007-07-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

I finally did it! I broke the 900 mark! This past weekend was the Rose City Open disc golf tournament in Portland, OR. It was three rounds of golf played over two days at Pier Park. After the first round, I was in second place and shot a 847 rated round. After the second round I was in 3rd place and shot a 859 rated round. That was then end of the first day of golf. At this point, I was 5 strokes out of first place, and 4 strokes out of second. I had a lot of ground to cover if I wanted to finish better than third and there was only one round to go. It would be a challenge. Plus, the layout the second day was tougher. All the baskets were moved to their longer positions.

Anyway, I never really keep track of strokes when I play. I do in a general way, but I don't keep track on how far off from the competition I am after every hole. I just play each hole as if it were the only one and don't worry too much about the numbers as they compare to my competitors. I had a feeling on Sunday that I was having a pretty good round, but didn't know much beyond that. I got 3s on holes other girls were getting 4s or 5s on. I was first on the box on almost all of the holes. I ended up finishing that round 2 strokes better than the girl who was in first, and 5 strokes better than the girl who was in second. So once the math was all done, that meant I moved into second by 1 stroke, and was only 3 strokes out of first place instead of the 5 I started at.

The girl who won played a spectacular tournament and deserved to win. I was just glad to have moved up to second. Still, the best part didn't come until this morning when I saw the round ratings for that last round. I shot a 902 rated round!!! My player rating is a 838. All three rounds of this tournament were significantly better than that, but up until this weekend, I had never shot a tournament round in the 900s. The closest I had come was 887. I shot an average of 870 for this tournament. That's 32 points (or about 3 strokes) better than my rating. I've been saying that when I hit that 900 mark with my rating I'd crack out some champagne and celebrate. OK, it'll probably just be some cheap sparkling wine, but that's beside the point. The point is that I shot a 902 rated round in a sanctioned tournament, and I'm pretty darned pleased with myself. Woo hoo!

Funny Signs Part II

2007-07-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my recent post about funny signs, I dug up some old pics of signs I took while living in Switzerland four years ago.

This is robidog. As you can probably figure out, the green box is a trash can designed especially for dog poop. Switzerland has kilometer upon kilometer of what they call "fitweg" (pronounced fit-veg). These are single track paths for running, walking, or biking that have different exercise stations along them for things like pull ups or sit ups etc. The US equivalent would be something like a parcourse. About every 3 or 4 km, there's one of these green robidog cans encouraging people to clean up after their dogs. I love them so much I had to take a picture of one. The picture says it all. You can barely make it out, but yes, there is a little cartoon turd behind that adorable little little mutt.

This is definitely my favorite door sign ever. This was at the University of Bern, Switzerland on one of the office doors in the Department of Biomedical Optics. Immediately to the left of the door was a coffee vending machine. People would break for coffee and head to the machine. When going as a twosome or as a group, people would stand to the left or right of the machine with their scalding hot beverages while waiting for everyone to get their coffee. This door had no window and opened outward into the hall with the vending machine. If someone were leaving the department offices, the door would swing open, and slam into whomever was standing there. It's a solid wood door and was very heavy. Not only did getting hit hurt, but if you were holding your coffee, it was very likely that it would spill all over you and scald you in the process. This became such a regular occurrence that they had to have a custom warning sign made for the door. (Apparently that was easier than moving the vending machine.)

Bad Marketing Slogan

2007-07-09T15:08:00.001-07:00

As I was driving into work this morning, I passed a Sara Lee truck. In case the brand isn't ringing a bell, the Sara Lee company makes snack cakes, bread, and other yummies. As I passed the truck, I noticed the brand slogan written on the side,

"Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."

Huh. All these years I thought the slogan was, "Nobody does it like Sara Lee," which in my mind is a much better slogan. "Nobody does it like Sara Lee" implies that they do something that no one else does, and it sets them apart. "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee" doesn't really give their products a positive spin. Sure, nobody doesn't like them, but nobody necessarily really likes them either.

"Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee" is the equivalent of saying, "It doesn't suck," which could only be a worse slogan if it were used by a vacuum company.

Are you SURE it's not Monday?!?!

2007-07-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Got home pretty late last night after an outing to Eugene, OR to watch a minor league baseball game with Ryan, his folks, and some of their friends/family. Slept in a little later than usual this morning then trudged off to work. Tired, and not wanting to be at work on such a beautiful day, I made my usual trip to the soda machine. I deposited my $0.75, pressed B-9, and watched my Mt. Dew hurled over the edge of it's row, plummet towards the bottom of the vending machine, and KrThunk!...get wedged between the bottom row and the glass. What the %*&@?!?! Undercaffinated and out my last $0.75....not a good way to start the day.

2007-07-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

Unlike a lot of people who do scientific research for a living, I make it a point to take my lunch somewhere outside the lab. I've never been a fan of the "working lunch." When I'm working, I just want to work. When I'm eating, I just want to eat. For the most part, I don't want to dine with coworkers. And if I must dine with them, I certainly don't want to discuss work.

Today I took my half sandwich and oatmeal cookie with me and started exploring the area behind my lab. When I came out to visit the school, my now advisor and I took her dog out for a walk behind our building. There's a lot of thick, forested land back there with some trails running through it. There are a lot of blackberry bushes also, and I though I'd check on them and see how the ripening was coming along because I might end up making a small batch of blackberry wine.

Anyway, I was absentmindedly wandering around down some heavily overgrown trails...turning here, stopping there. Then I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to remember enough of my meanderings to get out the same way I got in. With thicket that dense there are no landmarks and everything looks pretty much the same. Also, the whole time out there I could hear what seemed to be rather large animals scurrying around both in the trees and under the brush. Whatever they were, they were sneaky devils. I couldn't catch a glimpse to see what type of animals they were. That's when I started to get a bit weary of my surroundings...

You see, my lab is on the same campus as a primate research center. My lab is on property that abuts that of the primate center. There are literally hundred of primates there, most of which are monkeys. They do all sorts of medical and behavioral studies on them there. I think the DOD and NASA even sponsored a few studies that are running over there and I certainly don't care to know what those involve. You can't just drive up to the center. It's pretty heavily guarded and tucked away off the road. There's barely even a sign for it. They're trying to keep a low profile. Wouldn't want some angry PETA folks storming the place and freeing the monkeys.

So anyways, there I was, lost in the woods between my lab and the primate research center. And just to get my imagination going I happened to be surrounded by mysterious noisy scurrying animals that I couldn't catch sight of. Nuf said. It was time to get out of there. I certainly didn't want some narcotic-addicted, avian flu-infected, escaped monkey with a prosthetic leg and a space suit on jumping on my back. Hell no! (And yes, that's exactly how I picture the monkeys who live at the primate center. In my mind, some of them have eye patches. Others who were involved with nicotine testing even smoke cigarettes. The monkeys are something of a legend on my campus. If you've heard what I've heard...well...you'd be picturing some pretty funky monkeys too.)

Funny Signs

2007-06-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

I love coming across signs that are intrinsically funny without meaning to be. Sure, some of these signs are probably only funny to me, and no one else of sane mind. And some would only strike me as funny if in the right (or wrong) frame of mind. For example, I can't help but snicker when I see one of those "deliveries in rear" or "parking in rear" signs. I know, my brain is just warped like that, but I've seen other people laugh too. I'm not the only one.

I was walking around campus today and saw this one. I know it's not got full time funniness, but it was funny to me at the time. It's on a fence surrounding a building that's right across from a picinic bench, a tennis court, and a water fountain. The building doesn't look industrial in any way. I found it funny because I couldn't imagine where in the world these fork lifts would be coming from. I'll be on the look out.

More "Home" Pics

2007-06-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

More pics of my new home(s). Here we have my lab as seen from my desk. I'm putting this here as a pic of "home" because in all likelihood, I'll be spending more time here than at my apartment. This is about a third of the lab. There's more to the left. My desk is right by the window, so I at least get daylight. I've never once has a lab with a window so I'm pretty excited. In Utah and at UCSD the labs were windowless, mostly because they were designed that way. Sunlight does bad things to many lab chemicals and experiments. In Switzerland, my lab was windowless not because of UV concerns, (physicists generally aren't as concerned with such things) but because it was essentially in a basement underneath the train station. In that way this lab is a step up in two ways. 1. Window. 2. It's on the second floor.

Now for the home home. Ryan found two end tables on Craig's List this past weekend for $10 apiece. Since "end" tables typically go at the "end" of a couch...a couch that we don't have yet, they're being used as bedside tables for now. We each have one of the pair. I topped mine off with a surveyor's tripod lamp. Being an engineer I just couldn't resist. And I figured since the table was so cheap, I could splurge a little on the lamp.

Ah...to sit (and more!)

2007-06-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

Ah. At last. A place to sit. Woke up bright and early Saturday morning and replied to a Craig's list add I'd seen the day before for this dining set. It consists of a solid wood (not laminate) 5' table with four matching chairs. The chairs are also solid wood, have curved backs that make them actually quite comfortable, and are upholstered with that nice red fabric. I'm happy with the set because even though I like the chairs red, they can easily be reupholstered to match any future decor change I could come up with down the road. And solid wood furniture is way nicer than that laminate garbage the sell everywhere now. Plus, the chair and table set only set us back $80! I'd call that a bargain. The table runner seen in the pic is something I made tonight with the sewing machine Ryan's mom so nicely is letting me borrow. Next on the sewing agenda: curtains.

While I was off buying fabric for the table runner, Ryan was busy putting up a system for us to store our golf discs. Those are wall-mounted bars spanning our hallway up towards the ceiling. This keeps them out of the way (they're not even head-whacking height, not even for Ryan) but not taking up closet space. And if you ask me, it looks darn cool too!

Living Large

2007-06-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've been in Portland for about a week now. The apartment doesn't have much to show for itself yet, but slowly signs of occupation are beginning to appear. As of yet, there is no kitchen or living room furniture (or even a light in the living room). We were sitting on skateboards until just a few days ago when the bed delivery guy came and brought the beds. Now we can sit on the edge of a bed and eat dinner off our paper plates. I'd call that progress. We've also gathered a few kitchen necessities. We have nice flatware. Not the kind that will rust in a month or two, but some actual decent stuff. We also got a few pyrex baking dishes, frying pans, and my two favorite kitchen goodies: a deluxe knife set in a swivel wooden block caddy, and a spice rack. Spice rack=living large!

Oh, the bottom left pic is of the building I work in.

Partially Hydrogenated What?

2007-06-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

Midnight craving: the blueberry muffin mix that's been siting in the cabinet for the last two years, maybe longer. The only hurdles to successful midnight baking: no egg, no muffin pan. Thankfully, the neighborhood 24-hour CVS pharmacy provided both.

It's Jiffy brand muffin mix I'm using. The box says "quality and value since 1930." Coincidentally, I think that's the last time they updated their box design, and their recipe. In this blurry picture it's tough to read, but the black text right under the "Jiffy" says, "artificially flavored with imitation blueberries." Imitation blueberries?! Is it really that much cheaper to make fake ones rather than throw in a handfull of freeze dried ones? Anyway, I was curious as to what constitutes an imitation blueberry so I checked the ingredients list expecting it to look something like this:

flour, sugar, imitation blueberries (flour, corn syrup, blue 1, whatchamacallit)...

Of course, that's not what I was met with, else I'd have nothing to write about. There was nothing on the ingredients list that I could directly ascribe to the imitation blueberries other than blue 2 and blue 1 which were both listed in the "contains less than 2% of the following" category. Instead, what I found was far more interesting:

flour, sugar, animal shortening....

Woah woah woah...animal shortening? Now I'd heard of vegetable shortening before. Everyone's mom had a can of Crisco, but animal shortening! What could that possibly be? Oh yea...here it is:

flour, sugar, animal shortening (lard, hydrogenated lard, partially hydrogenated lard)...

Well, I guess they've covered all the lard bases. Ew. Silly me for thinking blueberry muffins would be blueberry-containing, animal-free food. I got to thinking a bit more about this animal shortening business. "Animal" isn't really very descriptive. You'd think the Jiffy people would need to be more specific. What animal are they getting this shortening from? It's important information. Sure, all the vegetarians of the world need to know is that it comes from an animal. That works for them. But what about the millions of people whose diets are dictated by the laws of their faiths? If it's pork shortening, then it's not Kosher. If it's beef shortening, Hindus can't eat it.

Shame on Jiffy. Imitation blueberries, and animal shortening. Time for an update. I think I'm switching to Krusteaz wild blueberry muffin mix. I hear they use real Maine blueberries. That's a start. I'll check into the whole shortening business before making my decision. Of course, it may be a while since I only make muffins once every 2 or 3 years.

Jerry, The Next Generation

2007-06-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

I don't read many blogs. I can think of maybe five total that I look at. Of those, there's maybe only three that I check out more than once a week. One of which is The Sneeze by a guy named Steve. I came across it a while back when I wrote a blog about a can of "potted meat food product" that turned my stomach when I saw it on the shelf of a store. Turns out that Steve had encountered it too. He wrote all about it, and other horrible "food" items in a portion of his blog called, "Steve, Don't Eat It" in which he samples the world's most revolting consumables, and blogs about it.

Anyway, back on May 23, Steve blogged about an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation in which a male Enterprise officer was seen in the background wearing a uniform dress. Steve's readers, obviously well versed in Star Trek trivia and no doubt still living with their mothers, were quick to write in and provide insight. Apparently, the man-dress "was an attempt to reinforce the idea that men and women are equal in the twenty-fourth century. [The dress] was worn by both men and women. The uniform seems to have been short-lived, being used only during 2364-2365 (TNG season 1 and the first part of 2). It was phased out in favor of the unisex jumpsuit."

Whew! That's a lot of useless nerdy information. Anyway, I couldn't help but see the picture of TNG officer (like my use of the insider lingo here?) and think of the only other Star Trek fan I know of: Jerry! If Jerry were an officer on the Enterprise, I'm confident he'd throw aside gender rolls and don the dress. He's just that kind of buck-the-system, forward thinking, equality-seeking guy. So for anyone who's interested (and with insincere apologies to those of you who aren't) here's what Jerry would look like in his TNG Enterprise officer uni-dress.

Unlike the actual officer on the left who looks horrified by his own attire, Jerry would be smiling and cheerful in his duties. I'm sure of it. (OK, maybe I'm 70-30 on him smiling, but this was the only picture I had to work with.)

On a related note, I find it tough to believe that men in this generation haven't yet donned the dress. Not to dredge up stereotypes, but your typical man lives out much of his life trying to find the easiest way to do just about everything. For example, you'd be hard pressed to find a guy willing to change the TV channel without the aid of a remote control. The dress would make many manly activities easier. Mooning someone would no longer require the undoing of the belt. Going to the bathroom would no longer require using a zipper. (I'd imagine this would provide additional safety benefits as well.)

For hundreds of years, Scottish men have donned kilts. Clearly, these men saw them advantageous. And who can argue with the Scots? They're the men who brought us the self adhesive postage stamp, whisky, and golf. All thing that make our lives easier (or in whisky's case, at least easier to deal with anyway).

So, "What's Chris' point with all of this?" you may be asking yourselves. "Is she advocating that men start wearing skirts and dresses?" No. That's not it at all. I just thought it'd be pretty funny to see what Jerry would look like in a Star Trek dress uniform. I'm just a bored, unemployed jerk like that with way too much time on my hands.

The Security Line

2007-05-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've been in Portland, OR for the last week and flew back to San Diego yesterday afternoon. I got sick on the landing at my layover in Reno, but that's not news. I get sick a lot on planes. Especially in Reno. The mountains there make for pretty turbulent landings. Anyway, as always, airports are a great place to see humanity at it's dumbest. Here are just two examples taken from my 10 minute wait in the security line:

A woman in her mid to late 30s with a huge brown leather purse stood about 3 people ahead of me in line. There was a TSA sanding at the security check point rattling off the new rules about carrying no liquids, gels, aerosols, or pastes over 3.4 ounces. When the woman with the brown purse got to the front of the line she put her bag on the conveyor belt and it went through the scanner. I was standing far enough back in the line that I could get a good look at the monitor and get a peep at her belongings. Aside from some usual-looking items, there were three of what appeared to be quart-sized containers holding some type of liquid. The TSA asked the woman if she had any liquids, pastes, gels, or aerosols in her purse. She said she didn't. He told her he had to search her bag and he took it off the belt and started to go through it. I watched him pull out three Tupperware containers full of red stuff. When the TSA asked the woman what was in them, she replied, "spaghetti sauce." ?!?! Wha-wha-what?! On what planet is spaghetti sauce not a liquid? There's no question this woman was dumb, but what was she being dumb about? Was she dumb enough to think spaghetti sauce wasn't a liquid, or was she dumb enough to actually think she could sneak 3 quarts of spaghetti sauce past the TSAs?

Right behind the spaghetti sauce woman there was a man and an 8 or 9 year old boy. It was obvious this was the boy's first plane trip and the man was trying to explain to him each and every thing that was going on and what he could expect once he got on the plane. He was telling the boy about the safety demonstration that the flight attendant would do. He talked about the multiple exits, how the attendant would show them how to use the seat belts and the oxygen masks. The boy asked what the oxygen masks were for. The man explained that they were for if the plane lost cabin pressure. The boy then asked what happens if the plane lost cabin pressure. The man proceeded to say, and I quote, "Well, if the cabin gets depressurized, everybody dies." What?! I don't know much about raising kids, but I'm pretty sure telling them about the mortal perils of flight isn't the way to ease their minds before boarding a plane. The man went on to tell the kid about a flight where the cabin depressurized, and everyone suffocated, but the plan just kept on flying until it ran out of gas and crashed. He followed that up by emphasizing that no one on the plane died in the crash since they all died long before that when the plane depressurized. Poor kid. He wasn't on my flight, but I imagine he was terrified.

Wino Butt!

2007-05-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

So what the story behind this you ask? Well, today is Sunday. In two day's I'll be flying to Portland, OR to play a disc golf tournament. I'll be camping at a state park for about a week. Normally, I'd bring my backpacking tent for camping, but since I'll be there for a whole week, and I'll be set up at a big campgound, I figured I'd bring my bigger tent. I haven't used, or even looked at this tent since a trip I took to Hawaii 2 years ago. I thought it would be a good idea to take it out, set it up, and make sure I have all the parts etc. before heading or Oregon.

My friend Jerry and I headed to a park at the end of the street to set it up. It's a beautiful warm, sunny day, so we decided we'd fill a few flasks with some nice cold white wine to enjoy during the setup. Since the flasks are stainless steel, they were immediately chilled. We pocketed the cold flasks and walked the 4 blocks to the park. We remarked a few times on the trip as to how cold the flasks were in our back pockets.

Anyway, we got to the park, set up the tent, and then got inside to enjoy our wine. There was this persistant little drip of wine from the bottom of my flask. I thought, at first, that it was just spilling over from the spout since we filled the flasks to the brim. But the dripping wouldn't stop. "I think mine has a leak," I said. In Jerry's head he was thinking, "There's no way. If there were a leak, it would have been leaking this whole time." No sooner did he start thinking that did I crawl to the front of the tent, get out, bend over, and ask reluctantly, "Jerry, is my ass wet?"

Yup. Wet. Hilarious! The whole time during the walk I thought my butt was just cold from the cold wine. In reality, white wine was actually soaking my entire back pocket and my butt.

Limpopo!

2007-05-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

I don’t have internet access at my apartment so whenever I want or need access, I use the WiFi at a friend’s place. But sometimes the house internet goes on the fritz. When this happens, I just connect to one of the unsecured networks in the area. My favorite one is called, “Limpopo.” It’s my favorite not only because it’s reliable, but because it is just so fun to say. Say it with me. “Lim-Poh-Poh!” Ain’t it great?!

We’ve been using that network on and off for months now but haven’t had any idea what it means, if anything. Until tonight, that is, when curiosity got the best of us. Tonight we used the mighty power of the InterWeb to do some sleuthing. Turns out, it’s not nonsense, or even a Spanish word like we originally suspected. “Limpopo” is the northernmost province in South Africa. A province named after a river by the same name.

But that’s not all! “Limpopo” is also the name of a Russian “Folk-N-Roll” band from the mid-80s. It’s actually on record that one curious Limpopo fan asked the band members what “Limpopo” meant. Apparently each one of them told the guy that it meant, “elephant butt.” And it gets even better…

I’m betting every single American over the age of 5 has actually heard this band before. By some stroke of luck, a big-time ad executive heard Limpopo play and liked their quirky style so much that he encouraged them to audition for a TV commercial spot. They got the gig. So does this sound familiar?

“Give me a break, give me a break. Break me off a piece of that KitKat bar!”

So there you have it. Limpopo. Unsecured wireless network. North African province. River. And the band responsible for the KitKat song.

Three Person Job

2007-05-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

It was midnight at the drug store, the only retail store open in the neighborhood at that hour. I was out of toilette paper, so I stopped by on my way home to pick some up. While in line, I started people watching. Generally speaking, it's one of my favorite ways to pass the time when delayed in public for any reason. The best people watching is usually at places like the DMV, or the emergency department's waiting room. But tonight, the drug store proved pretty amusing.

I was standing in line behing a group of three frat-looking tough guys. The type of guys I'd normally expect to be buying cheap beer, cigarettes, or condoms. Sometimes all three at once. But not today. Not even a bag of Doritos. Nope. There was just one item on their list tonight:

A plunger!

I couldn't help but laugh. No one goes to the store at midnight to buy a solitary plunger unless it is urgntly needed. And that was funny enough, but then I began to wonder why it took 3 guys to buy a plunger. It's not like a keg run where you might need some extra muscle. It's just a simple plunger! I imagine it's because none of them wanted to be pegged as that guy who plugged up the crapper at midnight so badly that the situation required a plunger. If all three of them showed up together to buy the plunger, no definitive blame could be ascribed. Social safety in numbers I suppose.

Making Things Difficult

2007-05-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, my friend Jerry and I made Swiss cheese fondue for a few friends. It was a good evening. We ate chocolate covered strawberries, drank some home-vintage wine, and, of course, ate a LOT of cheese. It all worked out well and good, but we clearly could have planned better.

One hour before people were scheduled to arrive, we were still poking around in tide pools at the beach and had yet to even buy the necessities, namely cheese. It's tough to make fondue without cheese! We made a mad dash to the store, got the cheese, bread, garlic, strawberries, and chocolate and rushed back to clean the apartment a little.

With just a few minutes before guests were supposed to arrive, we couldn't find the fondue pot! It's probably even harder to make fondue without the pot than without the cheese. Thankfully, after some worrisome scrambling, the pot showed itself. Next task: shred a few pounds of cheese. Sure, that sounds easy enough, unless your only cheese grader is of the 3 inch by 4 inch variety. Sheesh! But like I said, it all worked out in the end. The fondue was tasty, and a good time was had by all. I can say with some certainty now, however, that my next kitchen purchase is going to be a bigger cheese shredder.

Road Trip

2007-05-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

After a 10 day jaunt through the Western states of California, Nevada, and Oregon, I've landed back in San Diego. I'm going to leave out the details and just say I had a great trip. I relaxed in a sauna with a good friend in Reno, watched some good music played in Eugene, painted pottery in Coos Bay, strolled among sand dunes in Bandon, and hiked to 6 different waterfalls. Oh yea, and I got to throw up in the Portland airport. I think I'm going to start of list of airports I get airsick at. I'm up at least 12 by now. Anyway, I took a few pictures along the way. Here's a little starter set.

Old cemetary in Coquille, OR. Pinhole camera.

Dunes in Bandon, OR. Pinhole camera.

Double exposure. Holga.

Same Coquille, OR cemetary. Holga again.

Tin Cans

2007-04-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy the past few weeks and I haven't done anything with my oatmeal box pinhole camera in a while. Yesterday I though I'd try something a bit different. One of the big problems with the oatmeal box camera is that light seeps in from all the seams in the cardboard, and even through the cardboard itself because it's just too thin. Light also was seeping in from the place where i inserted the metal tab with the pinhole, and from all around the shudder. I figured there was a better way to design a pinhole camera.

I headed out to the thrift stores in my neighborhood and bought three tin canisters in different sizes. Instead of cutting out a place to insert a pinhole tab, I just made the pinholes in the canisters themselves since they're made of metal. The cans are thick and the lids fit snuggly so there are no light leaks in the cameras whatsoever! Finally, I am using thin pieces of magnetic tape as the shudders. They ensure a light-tight seal and are really easy to open and close. Here's a look at the new cameras.

I took the little guys out to play today in Balboa Park. In retrospect, tourist traps like Balboa probably aren't the best places to use a pinhole camera. In order to take a shot, the shudder needs to be open for several seconds. With so many people bumbling around, someone is bound to walk right through your shot and there's nothing you can do about it. Furthermore, people don't recognize these as cameras. Generally, when someone sees a person taking a picture, they wait for the picture to be taken before walking in front of the camera. They don't pay the same notice to someone standing patiently holding a cookie tin. Still, patience paid off and I got a nice shot of the Botanical Building with the koi pond in front of it. You can even see the reflection of the building in the pond!

Cops

2007-04-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

I don't normally watch the TV show, Cops, because more often than not it erodes my faith in the inate goodness of humanity. Still, every now and then I end up catching part of an episode. By "catching part of an episode" I mean that the batteries in the remote are dying and I'm too lazy to get up and change the channel. Today was such a day.

In today's episode I watched a well-meaning officer knock furiously on an elderly woman's door yelling at her to get out of her house. "Your house is on fire! You've got to get out! Let me in!"-he screamed. The woman was slow to react and seemed confused. She put on her robe and looked as if she was finally going to open the door for the officer when he started breaking all the windows in the front of her house. The woman was very visibly upset and flustered. Finally she opened the front door and the officer bolted into her home and started searching the house for other occupants. Finding none, he escorted the very reluctant woman out into the street where a crowd was gathering to watch the home burn.

So what about this episode was blogworthy? Well, the house that was burning didn't belong to the elderly woman. It was the house nextdoor that was ablaze. The well-meaning officer smashed all the front windows, and broke into the home to rescue the woman from a house that was not, in fact, on fire. Hilarious!

Choice

2007-04-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

With Easter weekend upon us, I realize that I’ve been keeping this blog for almost a year now. My first entry came after a trip I took with friends to Moab, Utah last Easter. That has got me thinking. Last year at this time I was a PhD student in Reno. The research didn’t excite me. The department was small, noncohesive, and struggling. The classes offered were few and not of interest to me. I was living in a small, very brown, very smelly one room apartment. I knew that the path I was on was neither making me happy in the present, nor leading my career in the direction I wanted it to go. To put it lightly, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my situation.

I made changes. I got out of Reno. That was easier said than done of course. In my personal life I consider myself pretty spontaneous, but in my professional life I generally insist on having a well developed plan before making any changes. I needed a fall back plan. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of leaving a PhD program where I had a full tuition scholarship unless I had an offer at least as good elsewhere. Luckily I stumbled upon just that. Quite by accident, I found a University near LA that had people working in the vein of research that I am involved with. I applied, and they offered me full tuition, and a nice stipend. That was my out. When the Spring semester in Reno was finished, I packed up my smelly little apartment and moved back to San Diego to await the new school year.

As my time away from Reno accumulated, I began to realize something. This new offer was good, yes. But was it really what I wanted, or was it just the excuse to get out of Reno? I wanted my choice of a doctoral program to be just that, a choice. To me, it didn’t seem like a choice if the decision was between this one doctoral program, and nothing else. I’m pretty sure that’s how I ended up in Reno in the first place.

I began to look around for other opportunities. More than knowing what I wanted in a university, I knew what I didn’t want. Regarding academics, I knew I didn’t want to study in a department of civil and environmental engineering. Traditional civil and environmental departments tend to be focused on drinking and wastewater treatment, and these are two areas that do not interest me. My MS degree came from such a department, and though my experience was good, towards the end I had exhausted the limited list of classes that pertained to my interests. The department at Reno was also this type of program, and classes and research opportunities were even more limited in scope than where I did my MS.

More evolved environmental engineering departments today are lumped in with chemical engineering as that discipline has significantly more in common with environmental engineering than does bridge building or road design. These departments tend to have more to offer in the way of classes, and their students aren’t as railroaded into public works type projects. This is the type of department that my fall back school had, so I was moving in the right direction.

I also knew I wanted to go back to some of my earlier research roots with microbiology. Whatever program I decided on would have to have a strong research base in environmental microbiology and environmental genetics.

Outside of academics, I had criteria for schools as well. These were also best stated in terms of thing I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be somewhere where I’d have to drive hundreds of miles to get away from it all. When I chose to do my MS in Utah this was my primary motivation and I was very pleased with how it worked out. I’m not a partier. I’m not a fan of bars or clubs. I don’t spend my free time at the mall or getting my hair done or going to the theatre or sitting in from of the TV. I like the outdoors. I enjoy hiking and running and backpacking. When my thesis work was getting to my head in Utah, it was really easy to just hop in the car and drive 30 miles into a canyon to find solitude and peace and regroup my brain cells so I could get back to work. My brain and my body need that.

Taking all these things into consideration, I found a few more schools to apply for based on the type of research I want to do, the type of department I want to be in, and the area the school was located. More specifically, I started by trying to think of places I’d want to spend the next four years, and then seeing if there was any school in those areas that met my other criteria. With the help of my former MS advisor, I found a few. I’m seriously considering four in all, two of which have given me offers so far. One school is flying me in for a 2 night visit next week and I’m pretty excited because this school is head and shoulders above the others in terms of its academic reputation.

Who knows, maybe by this time next week I’ll have made a decision. All I know is that it feels good to have a real choice to make this time around. Especially when all of the options look so good.

Worst Job Ever

2007-03-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day for plane builder, Airbus, and the German airline, Lufthansa. Two of their new A380 aircrafts touched down on American runways for the first time today, one in New York, and one in Los Angeles. The new double-decker planes can carry up to 550 passengers, fly 560 mph, and travel over 8,000 miles without refueling. Today’s flights were part of a series of “test and demonstration flights” that the plane builder hopes will generate excitement (and sales) for the new plane.

The planes weren’t carrying any passengers, but they were loaded up with 500 technicians to “help balance the plane’s center of gravity.” Here’s the translation of that, just in case you’re not as critically-minded as I:

The gargantuan 239 foot-long airplane with wings as long as football fields flies much like the Microsoft Excel flight simulator unless it’s loaded with passengers whose weight is distributed according to some principal no doubt involving Euclidian geometry and a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan.

Flash forward a few years to when the plane is actually in service. If I were to find myself on one of these planes I’d be mighty concerned, for example, if I looked around to see the entire squad of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders sitting on the right side of the plane while a sumo wrestling team was seated on the left.

Now I haven’t seen any footage of the technicians disembarking, but I imagine the whole lot of them climbing down the steps onto the tarmac, dropping to their knees, and kissing the ground. I also imagine the next technicians’ union meeting not going so well for the union reps. If the union can’t keep “flight test monkey” out of the technicians’ job description, there’s no way it can expect to continue collecting union dues.

EIEIO 2k7

2007-03-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was the Emerald Isle's Emerald Isle Open (EIEIO) disc golf tournament in Oceanside, CA. It's a great tournament that takes place every year on St. Patrick's Day weekend. This year, as always, it was a fun, well run, and festive event drawing in 90 discers for two rounds of challenging play.

Here are the amateur women of this years tournament. From left to right are Sandy, Lori, Keri, Britt, and myself.

And here are a few of this years winners. From left to right are myself (1st place, AdvancedWomen), AJ (2nd place, Recreational Men), Allen (3rd place, Advanced Masters), Dave (1st place, Advanced Men), Ryan (3rd place, Open Men), Carlo (1st place, Open Men), and Scott (1st place, Intermediate Men). A special extra congrats to Ryan for shooting both tournament rounds over 1000 for a tournament average rating of 1015!

Indoor Exposure

2007-03-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

Tried another indoors exposure tonight with the pinhole camera. For the first time, I actually overexposed the shot! That's actually a breakthrough because there's so little light indoors, even with all the house lights on, that previous attempts of multiple-hour exposures have come out underexposed. You can see the touched up shot on the left. On the right is the original, completely untouched shot.

Mechanic Needs A Dictionary

2007-03-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

My VW Jetta has about 48,300 miles on it and is under warranty until 50,000. I figured it was a good time to bring it to the dealer and have some minor things checked out while it would still be free. This isn’t the first Jetta I’ve owned, and previous experience has taught me a few things. Primarily that the electrical circuits that control the dashboard indicator lights are a bit shoddy. For example, the check engine light is permanently on, the radiator light comes on and flashes at will and then turns off, and the windshield wiper fluid light will come on once a week or so.

I’ve had the car hooked up to the computer several times and the dealer has told me there’s nothing wrong with the engine. He’ll switch off the indicator light, but it will turn back on when I get about two blocks from the dealership. (Just far enough away that the mechanics can’t hear me blurt out profanities.) I’ve had the radiator checked and it’s in the clear. And there is more than enough wiper fluid. Still, with the warranty window closing, I figured I’d bring the car in for one last look over.

I hate mechanics. I’m pretty convinced they’re out to screw over everyone, but they take special, and conceited advantage of women. Before I left my car in their all-too-capable hands (sense the sarcasm here?) I sat down to explain to a mechanic what the problem seemed to be. I told him the check engine light is on, and that the wiper fluid and radiator lights come on intermittently. He got up and told me to wait while he went to the car to get a look for himself. When he came back, this is the conversation that ensued:

Mechanic: I see that the check engine light is on, and we’ll look into that, but there are no other indicator lights on.

Me: Yes, the wiper fluid light and the radiator light come on intermittently.

Mechanic: Were the lights on when you dropped off the car?

Me: Yes

Mechanic: Huh. Well they aren’t on now. (And he gives me this look like I’m some sort of hypochondriac with my car.)

Me: Yea. They come on intermit….(Ah! I see where this is going. He doesn’t know what “intermittently” means. So I continue…) they come on and go off at random. They were on earlier, but it doesn’t surprise me if they’re off now.

At this the mechanic nods and types into the computer: “Customer says lights turn on and off randomly.”

In my head I think to myself…"Yea, lights come on “intermittently. That's what I said the first time.”