This week - a montage

I've noticed that I'm posting less frequently, so each post ends up being a big mega-update.

Well, this one is no different.

This week has been super exciting. Last Saturday we went to the World Beer Festival in Raleigh with some friends from work. I graciously offered to drive, so my beer consumption remained relatively low, especially in comparison to everyone else at the event. Usually when there are a bunch of drunk people I am right there with them. This was one of a few times that I can think of where I've been completely sober while surrounded by drunk people and... hm. Things just aren't as funny when you're not drunk. Its especially easy to see this when you're surrounded not just by the four drunk people you're driving around, but the 500 bazillion other drunk people at the event. Also, its much easier to pee in a port-a-potty without completely grossing yourself out when you're drunk.

On Monday night, Brian's parents arrived from England. Well, actually, they arrived from Sarasota where they had first gone to visit my parents. They rented a car and drove up here over 2 days, ostensibly to stop on the way to see things. However, they stopped in Hardyville SC, where they went somewhere for dinner but were not allowed to drink alcohol because it was Sunday. And then on Monday they stopped in Fayetteville (Fayette-nam) and went to Pizza Hut. All in all, a rousing tour of the Southeast. In the grand tradition of in-law visits, we've put them to work. They powerwashed and stained the deck (with Brian) and next are installing a ceiling fan. We haven't really done too much exciting with them yet. On Monday we took them out to dinner, but that was a bit of a fiasco. We drove 25 minutes out to Hillsborough to go to a Mexican restaurant we liked, but it was closed (assuming because of the 'day without immigrants'). Then we drove 15 minutes to Chapel Hill to go to Crook's Corner and introduce them to some good Southern food, but that was closed for a private function. We ended up at the Carolina Brewery, which is fine, but by the time we got there it was 8:30 and we were all practically self-digesting. We planned to go to a Durham Bulls game this weekend, but the games are on Sunday and Monday and each night looks like it will rain, so we may put that off until later next week.

As if this was not exciting enough, we've also been moving our lab to a new space. Lab moves SUCK. In the past three years, I've been involved in three other lab moves (Cleveland to Duke, Duke Building 1 to Duke Building 2, and Duke Building 2 to Duke Building 3) and each of those has sucked in its own way. None more than the Cleveland to Duke move though. Anyhow, the moving process is GREATLY enhanced by proper planning. Our move this week was fairly poorly planned and thus was a complete free-for-all. I guess it mostly worked out in the end, but things aren't organized as well as they should be. Ah well. On the plus side, I now have:
a) my own phone!!
b) a big lab bench all of my own!
c) a hole in the lab bench where my knees can go when I'm sitting down (I know that doesn't sound like a luxury item, but I didn't have this in the old space. You try wearing a skirt and sitting at your lab bench like that)!

I was also suppossed to have a work band performance yesterday, but I ended up opting out. Of course, I did lug my saxophone into work before it became obvious that I wasn't going to play. I don't have one of the cool small shoulder bags for my alto like I did for my old tenor, I just have the humongous case it came with. Anyhow, this was suppossed to be a smaller group - myself, the trombone guy, and the piano guy - the work 'jazz combo' if you will (but its no 'Managers of Zayres'). I asked what music we were playing and the piano guy said he had some he would bring. Okay. Yesterday morning I thought to myself, "Twenty bucks says the guy just brings a piano book and thinks I'll be able to play off of that. Maybe I should bring my flute, just in case." See, for all you non-music people out there, instruments are tuned in different keys. So one instruments "C" is not anothers. Piano, flute, trombone... these are all in 'C', but the alto sax is in 'Eb'. So their C = my Eb. Anyhow. Back in the day I probably could have done this okay and transposed things in my head. But alas, that day was a long time ago, and there was no way in hell I was going to be able to do that. Indeed, the piano guy brought over a piano book. I tried to explain to him why I couldn't play along, because my instrument is in Eb, not in C. He truly did not get it, because he kept suggesting that we play songs that were written in the key of Eb, and then I would be fine. Its not like I'm only capable of playing songs with three flats, dude. Whatever. I just went back upstairs to the hell that is lab moving.

Anyhow, I better get going because this continues this morning when they'll migrate our computers over, and that happens in half an hour which, coincidentally is the amount of time it takes me to get to work!

Cow. Cow. Yep yep yep yep. Cow.

My brother sent me this video the other day. This is my favorite Sesame Street skit ever! I especially enjoy when they cover their faces with their lower lip. Click on it to play.

Various

I'm glad to see that Jessica from GFY has finally broken up with Lindsay Lohan. Its been a long time coming.
Oh, and if you're a girl? and you like shoes? like I do? Take a look at those shoes she's wearing in the 'coming' link. They ARE the cutest shoes EVAH. My mom called me the other day and this post was one of the things she wanted to talk to me about, and we said almost simultaneously how unbelieveably cute those shoes were. I MUST HAVE THEM.

Also, the bluebirds. I haven't checked the nest since the last update, but I need to do it soon. Like tonight. Anyhow, I don't really know what happened to those other eggs. Its a mystery. I noticed the last time I had looked before they hatched that they mother had sorted the eggs out, and the chickadee eggs were kind of pushed off to the side. So its possible that they weren't warm enough and they didn't hatch. I don't THINK she got them out of the nest, at least I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that. So, I'm thinking when the baby bluebirds fledge, we're going to find some nasty old eggs underneath them.

UPDATE: I fixed the link above. Go drool over some shoes!

Hey, all you stats people!

I know you're out there. And you too, Eve. I know you're not a statistician, but every other post on your blog contains the word 'regression'.
Anyhow, this will be right up your alley (via the Consumerist). Although, did he use Excel?? Oh, no he DIN'T.
(Actually, it might be Prism, not Excel)

Basically, this is 'how to commute effectively for nerds'.

Suri update

Consultation with a baby name book has led to the following meaning for 'Suri':
"Just thought I would let you know that I looked up Suri in our name book and it means "pointy nose." The origin is given as Todas which means nothing to me."

That didn't mean anything to me either, but again Wikipedia has proven fruitful by telling me that the Todas are members of a small, pastoral tribe in Southern India.

Tom and Katie, you still suck.

(I really used to like Katie Holmes too. Did you see Pieces of April? That was good.)

Bring on the fakeness

They have this new yogurt now, Activia, which is advertised to 'help naturally regulate your digestive system'. God knows I could use a bit of help regulating my digestive system, so that I do not have to become so familiar with all of the public restrooms on my way to work, and/or within a 20 mile radius of wherever I am at any moment. Of course I picked this up as soon as I saw it at the store.
I've had these 8 little cups for about three weeks now and I've still got two left (even though you're specifically told to eat it EVERY DAY by the annoying girl on the commercial) because it tastes kind of icky to me. I cannot put my finger on what part of it I don't like, but there's something. I was thinking that perhaps it was these beneficial 'live, active cultures' and 'bifidus regularis' that I wasn't nuts about, but I really think these same things are in EVERY yogurt, and that Dannon is just marketing their fancy bacteria.
Upon further reflection, I think its probably just that I don't like regular yogurt. Real yogurt. I'm so all about that non-fat, no-sugar blended yogurt that I'm no longer able to tolerate real yogurt with real fat and real sugar in it. Come to think of it, I feel the same way about peanut butter. You're all going to think I'm crazy, but I don't like regular PB anymore - I eat the reduced fat crunchy Jif, and now regular PB seems tooooooo goooooooey. We got some regular once to like, bait mousetraps or something, but we ended up throwing it out when our mouse problem subsided because no one would eat it.

Doing my 'bifidus regularis' research for this entry, I read in wikipedia that:

"Opinion is divided about the benefits of live yoghurts - while some consumers seem to gain relief from using this product, others see results from no change to chronic diarrhea."

Which doesn't seem sooo helpful for me. So I guess I won't feel as bad when I switch back to the fake stuff.

The long-awaited bluebird update!

We weren't able to check the bluebird box while we were in Florida (obviously), but we checked it just now. Look!



Four baby bluebirds!! I think they're about 8 days old, judging from pictures I've found on other websites.

Suri about that...

Well, Tom and Katie finally had their fake, alien baby. In keeping with celebrity tradition, they gave their new daughter some ridiculous name - Suri. Ok, its not as ridiculous as Apple or Moses (geez Gwyneth) or Pilot Inspektor (but I also love that Grandaddy song, and in fact that whole album. Go listen to it!). But still.
Suri is suppossed to mean 'Princess' in Hebrew and 'Red Rose' in Persian. One friend of mine said that "in Gaelic, Suri means 'one who is screwed from being born to weird parents'." Hee. Actually, I have a friend in the lab who is from Iran and is thus a native Persian speaker. I asked her what Suri meant. She looked it up and found that it meant 'One who enjoys feasting; a hanger-on'. This is not quite 'red rose' and actually not quite good either. Well done, freaks.

Working on my massive sunburn

Well, this week I've been in Sarasota visiting my parents and getting sunburned. We drove down here on the 12th in time for my birthday - 31! ack! My mom took me to get a manicure and pedicure. I like getting a pedicure, but I'm so fricking ticklish that its a little difficult. We also went out to dinner that night with my grandparents.
We brought down Milo (the cats were left to fend for themselves, a la that Travelocity - or something - commercial) so that he could meet his new girlfriend, my parents new sheltie, Kelsey. Kelsey looooooooooves Milo. She followed him around wherever he went. Brian and Milo drove home on Monday, so Kelsey is a little bummed out. She's a normal size sheltie, but since our dog is such a big one she was like half his size. They look kind of funny together. Kelsey lives here with our two cats, Wynton and Olly, neither of which are overly certain of their feelings towards the dog. Kelsey thinks that the cats tails are some sort of handle for them and he walks around with their tails in his mouth. Consequently, Wynton's normally puffy tail is now thin and ratty.

One day we saw a pair of Sandhill cranes on the golf course across the pond from my parents backyard. Brian and I sat out there to watch them, and they started walking over towards us. They got really close - we finally moved because we thought they might eat us. I got some good pictures of them though. Here are two of them.




(Well, you're just going to have to tilt your heads for now, because I don't know how to flip those. I'm on my parents computer.)

We went out on the boat to Egmont Key, which is a wildlife sanctuary. On the way over there we had three dolphins following behind the boat. I'm not kidding you, they were RIGHT OFF THE SWIM PLATFORM. By some miracle, I got some good pictures of them jumping:




After Brian left, my dad and I went kayaking in some mangrove canals at their friends house in Port Charlotte. It was fun, but we hardly saw any wildlife at all, which was surprising.

And yesterday we went to Tarpon Springs with my grandmother, where we saw some sponge diving and ate at a greek restaurant. This is a very heavily greek city that was initially populated largely by greek sponge divers. We went on a sponge diving boat ride where they had a guy go out in the old-style diving suit and get a sponge. I chatted to the guy for a bit because he was from Stevens Point, WI.

In other Wisconsin news, we went to Shaner's Pizza today, which is owned by Shane Rawley, an ex-pro baseball player who went to my high school in Racine (Horlick!). They serve the perfect Chicago pizza - not that stupid thick stuffed pizza. Oh no. I grew up in the Chicago area, and my dad before me. And I'll tell you, its CRISPY THIN CRUST CUT IN SQUARES that is the real Chicago pizza. So that was great.

Also, Easter with my grandparents was good. Its nice to be able to see them when we come down here, they live about 15 minutes away. Jim and Ed's birthday was on Saturday, but we tried to stay busy so it wasn't too bad. Jim was up on NH with his group of friends, who are just great. For his birthday they took up a collection to get his Gay Miata painted. Right now its barbie yellow, but you can see the red underneath where the paint is scratched. Yesterday we saw a hot pink Miata and I texted him to tell him that would be a good choice. I thought I was the only one who called it the Gay Miata, but his Subaru friends posted a funny funny picture:



bahahahhaah!
Coming home tonight, back to the cats! Oh, and Brian. Hee.

This is for Mel

Mel just posted a list of google searches that bring people to her blog. One of them was 'foam tactile issues'. Well Mel, I think we've found your searcher.

Another screwed up concert

My friend Sheri and I really suck at going to concerts together. We attempted to see The Bravery a few months ago, only to get there and mistake the second opening act for them and leave just after the Bravery started because it was so late, and I had to give lab meeting the next day (as I do today!). On Friday night we went to see Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab For Cutie at Duke. The doors opened at 7pm and there was an opening band, so we decided to get there later. You know, these things never start on time, then the opening band takes a while to play and a while longer to dismantle and set up for the next band. We figured that FF wouldn't come on until about 8:30 or even later. We went out to dinner first and got to the concert closer to 9pm. We were standing in a loooooooong line for the bathroom and asked one of the undergrads near us who had already played: Franz Ferdinand, of course. This was who I wanted to see most too. Bugger. Well, that was the most amazingly fast two sets in the entire history of concerts.

We got to see lots of little undergrads who look like they're 12 in relation to our very nearly 31. Death Cab was good, but I'm still bummed that I missed FF.

The rest of the weekend was not too exciting. Brian has installed cabinets in our laundry room and painted it, and he finished that up this weekend. It looks really good, and like an actual room. And yesterday we visited our friends and their new baby.

We're going to Florida this week which I'm looking forward to. Bringing Milo of course so he can meet his girlfriend, my parents new Sheltie, Kelsey. I'm hoping to go kayaking while we're there. We wanted to kayak with alligators in Myakka, but it sounds like its been too dry and the waterways are largely dried up, at least to the point where kayaking would be difficult. My dad said something about a kayak trip through a mangrove swamp which sounds cool. Mangroves make their own little ecosystem. Their roots are like little fish hatcheries. We snorkeled in one on a marine biology trip when I was in college, and it was pretty cool to see all the teeny tiny baby fishies.

A bluebird dilemma

A few days ago I showed you a picture of our female bluebird sitting on her eggs. Today I checked on the nest again and she wasn't there, so I got to see the eggs. The nest is a little high up, so I have to stand on a step stool and I had to tilt the nest cup (its in an egg carton kind of cup) to take this picture.



As you can see, we do have bluebird eggs in there, five of them! There are also four other eggs, and I'm not sure what they are. House Sparrows are considered a pest and you're suppossed to dispose of house sparrow eggs and nests found in bluebird boxes. I don't think thats what they are though. It is probably more likely that they are Carolina Chickadee eggs. I'm not sure what to do with them though. It seems like this would create a problem for the baby bluebirds. I just sent an email to someone who runs a bluebird website, hopefully they'll have some advice.

two more and some additional info

I forgot about this two - one that i took in Bah Habah, and one of a flying hummingbird.

Also, in response to a previous comment - pet photos DO count, but i'm trying not to enter in that category because it was the most heavily entered last year. And I saw some of those photos and lets just say I've got NO CHANCE. Although, Cherry is very photogenic and I've got several really good pics of her! Bummer. In order to increase my chances, I'm trying to go for some of the other categories - flora, local flora/fauna, landscapes.

Photo contest

Okay, now its your turn to serve your blogger. We are having a photo contest at work which will apparently be judged by our co-workers walking down the hall. Its an earth day contest, so a nature theme. I have no delusions of actually WINNING anything, but I want to enter. So I'm looking for your votes from the following batch of pics, a shortlist that Brian and I came up with.
You can see them all in my Flickr photostream (click here). You can leave a comment on the pictures you like, if you're also a Flickr member.

I've also uploaded them here:
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Leave your comments in the comments section, obvs. I am going to enter three photos.
Thanks!

I know you're jealous.

I won this today at a product show.



Secretly, you're jealous. I know you are. By the way? Its not just ANY figurine. Its a BOBBLEHEAD.

bluebird motel

Look who is in our bluebird house!



A female bluebird! She must be sitting on eggs, because she didn't leave the nest when I knocked on the side of the house or when I opened it. Pretty cool!

Don'ts and Don'ts

I can't believe I've missed this for so long, but this is a great feature on Gawker: Blue States Lose. Which is described by them thusly:
Every week a fresh crop of images of ridiculous-looking hipsters acting in a ridiculous fashion is made available on the Internet. Many of us are familiar with the photo galleries at The Cobrasnake (primarily Los Angeles), Last Night’s Party and Misshapes (both in New York). These sites, which aim to make wasted party-going retards look fabulous, are quite possibly the most infuriating thing in the world. But much like a gruesome car wreck or a Paris Hilton home movie, you just can’t turn away. Every Friday, we’ll steal a little from Vice magazine and post our choices for the Top 10 most ridiculous hipsters, complete with links to the photos and derogatory comments. They’ll make you - a young, liberal-leaning urbanite - suddenly hate everything about youth culture, your city and, probably, life. In other words: Blue States Lose.

Its like What Not To Wear of young hipsters. Oh man. Some images are NSFW, but you'll know which ones by reading the captions. I'm so glad I'm uncool and boring.

Birding around the pretty lake

When I go on walks around the lake at work, I see a lot of cool stuff, other than geese who are out to get me. The other day we saw what looked like a couple of male mallards, except they had white breasts, which mallards don't. They were Northern Shovelers. I wish I had had some binoculars so I could have gotten a better look at their beaks. Yesterday I saw a Double-crested Cormorant airing himself out, like in that photo. They're generally found in more coastal regions, so perhaps he was migrating? I'm also pretty sure I've seen Ruddy ducks in their winter plumage. Whatever I saw had a big white cheek patch like that and was a diver, and I didn't see anything else in the bird book that fit both of those descriptions. I should get a second pair of binocs to bring in here that I can bring with me on walks. I don't go too many other places where I get a chance to see water birds, so its a nice change.
I saw a birding blog listed under the blogger Blogs of Note that I'll have to check occasionally.

Vote for me: The naughty judge

Last week or so, a bunch of those election-time roadside signs began to appear. There is one posted across the street at the intersection when I turn out of my development, so I see it every day when I go to work. I kept meaning to post something about it, but I kept forgetting.
I was just standing here, brushing my teeth, when Brian called. He had just left the house on his way to work. He said:
"Oh! I've been meaning to say something to you about this for a while and I kept forgetting. Have you seen that sign for the judge candidate when you pull out of the development? What the hell? Why would you want to vote for THAT guy?"

Too bad Brian isn't an American citizen, so he can't vote.

The reason we're perplexed by this campaign is that the sign says something like:

Vote for "Naughty" Nauseef for Judge

This seems like a bizarre nickname to be using in your quest to become a District Court Judge. It sounds more like a mobster or something. I think if I were on trial and found that "Naughty" Nauseef was my judge, I'd be a little concerned.

I found this article which discusses the fact that this guy submitted his paperwork to be a candidate for this position, and it says that the nickname is based on a mispronunciation of his name. Which is great, but that doesn't mean you have to use it in your campaign. Because you are not twelve.

New content, the easy way!

First: a goose update!
Yesterday? I was walking to my car? And a goose totally HISSED at me. I'm fearing for my life now. If you don't hear from me for a while, talk to the geese.

Second: Links!!

I can't stand Kelly Osbourne, but that is a really cute coat.

(also from Go Fug Yourself, Britney's back and she's mad!)

Eve's alternate endings for journal articles are also appropriate for the biological sciences. Writing a paper? Check them out. Its what you're really thinking, after all.

Haiku makes every day life far more interesting. Try it!

Photo Booth is an excellent way to amuse yourself and others!

Soccer is not just for warm-blooded creatures anymore! (I saw a video of this on Good Morning America, and its much more entertaining in video form, I have to say. But I do what I can here, for you, my readers).

Hedgies!

When geese attack

The institute that I work at is very park-like. We have a pretty lake in the middle with a path around it. I like to walk it sometimes when I'm waiting for an experiment to finish. As a result, we also have tons of geese running around. I've heard stories of people getting attacked by geese when they're on the path, but I've never had a problem. That is, until yesterday, when I came head-to-head with ATTACK GEESE.


See? I took this picture over the weekend at the pretty lake. Look at how that goose is coming to kill me.

So, I was walking into work in the morning, drinking my tea (which I now inexplicably take with milk and sugar. Those Brits got to me!!), minding my own business. I was approaching the building when I saw a car coming up on my right, and to my left I heard some geese going nuts. They like to yell at each other sometimes, so this didn't really faze me. Actually, the day before as I was walking in, I watched a goose chase after three guys drving around in a John Deere tractor. That was pretty funny. The goose was full-on angry, and the guys were just moseying along in their little tractor, totally not caring.

I'm getting off track here. Okay. Minding my own business. Drinking tea. Car on right, geese going nuts on left. As I'm crossing the little parking lot entrance, I hear the geese coming closer, and fortunately I looked to my left because THREE GEESE WERE FLYING STRAIGHT TOWARDS MY HEAD. Holy crap! Here's an intricate diagram that I just constructed for you:



In the split second after I noticed this, I thought to myself "Surely those geese are going to change course so as not to kill me." But as they came closer, it was clear that they were not. Holy crap again. So I ducked!! And shrieked loudly, I have to say. They flew right over me, I swear they were less than a foot away from my head. Oh my god. After they flew past, the car that had been coming from the right pulled up next to me, and the guy rolled down his window to say "Holy cow! I thought they were going to hit you!" Me too, buddy!

Seriously, if one had hit me? It would have broken its neck and totally died. Died from hitting me. Thank god I don't have to be the 'Girl Who Killed a Goose with her Head".

I hear that when the geese have nests (which they will soon!) they get extra testy, so I'm looking forward to THAT. Because clearly, they are out to get me.

*sniffle*

Oh, that Duke v LSU game last night was HEARTBREAKING.



Don't you just want to cry looking at this picture (which I lifted from ESPN.com) of my two favorite Dukies, JJ and Coach K? Oh. I do.

I mean, Duke was certainly not in top form, and LSU did a good job of keeping JJ Redick under control, which I think is pretty important if you want to beat Duke. I am so sick of hearing about 'Big Baby' though. Gag me.

But I mentioned that I love JJ Redick. He seems like such a nice guy (I cannot vouch for how this idea holds up in real life having never run into the guy anywhere in Durham. I do know from having dated - or tried to anyhow - many apparently nice guys, a good chunk of them are actually total jerks) and I really wanted him to be on a winning team in his last year, because he deserves it! So, I was sad. And I was really actually tearing up when he walked off the court and was crying and hugging people. Ohhh. Because I am that pathetic.

But anyhow. Any hopes I had for doing well in the NCAA pool were also dashed, along with my JJ dreams.

Can I also say that I love the ads that they play during games for the NCAA, with the athletes talking about how they're going pro in something other than sports? I love them. Brian hates them though. I just have more respect for college students who are students FIRST and athletes SECOND. Actually, I don't mean that. I know that being a college athlete requires a SIGNIFICANT time investment, so I am sure that they spend almost as much time on sports as they do on school. But I hate the guys who drop out of school before they finish to pursue a professional sports career (hello, last year's UNC team!). If you're in school, you're in school to get a degree. Yes, perhaps your sports playing GOT you to school, but you should at least accomplish your education-related objective while you're playing. Maybe thats just me.

A plug

My friend from high school is a jazz saxophonist who just came out with his first CD. You can buy it on his website.
I totally sat next to him in Jazz Band when I was a freshman, people. OMG, I am so cool. Yet he was very good and I was only sort of middling as far as jazz band went. And now it is his career, and I play saxophone in the science-geek band at work.

Anyhow, if you like this sort of thing you should give it a listen!

I heart The Consumerist

The Consumerist had several great articles yesterday... and I have nothing much to talk about.

1. You know you've thought about this: how many freaking blades are we going to get on razors? Do you remember that SNL commercial? Funny.

2. And you thought your job was sometimes difficult. Click on the link to read the whole story, because its kind of hilarious.

3. Creepy. However, I'd go to her plastic surgeon.

4. This is totally true. I didn't read the original article but I totally agree with this:

We’ll let you read it for yourself, but here’s the crux: “Do you want to be told by your doctor, ‘Oh, nobody studies your disease any more because the owner of the gene/enzyme/correlation has made it too expensive to do research?’” That really just says it all.

That is totally true. I don't know much about how patenting of genes is going now, but back when I was a tech, people still did positional cloning of SIMPLE MENDELIAN DISEASES (can you imagine that??) and gene patenting was all the rage. In fact, Brian had a patent on a gene from his PhD, which was subsequently sold by his university to some company. However, at the time these things were patented little (to nothing) was known of their functions. Most were only patented based on speculation, or even more so because you had to get in while the getting was good and all the genes were already patented. It was not really clear what the patent was going to accomplish in terms of how it would impact other people's research on a given gene. I'm not sure that it has yet... at least not as much in academic labs. At least, I don't ever remember hearing of any instances where this has occurred.

I think a more pressing concern is "Oh, nobody studies your disease anymore because not enough people have it (or at least have your specific mutation) and its not cost-effective for the companies."

The highs and lows of my NCAA bracket

I don't really watch all that much college basketball, but I love March Madness because I love to watch the scores all day, agonize about the state of my bracket and talk trash to other members of our pool. For many, many years I picked Kentucky to win every time (In college I was a UK fan, and also a big Rick Pitino fan, although not so much when he went to the arch-enemy, Louisville) and I got screwed every time. This year actually is the first I didn't go with UK - I picked Duke.

Oh, shut up. I like Duke. I particularly like JJ Redick, and he's a senior, so I want him to win.

I don't know too much about the other teams, particularly ones not in the ACC, so my rationale for choosing teams usually goes a little something like this:
"Okay... Oklahoma vs. UW-Milwaukee. Well, I used to live near Milwaukee, so I'm picking UWM (an upset which I correctly picked!). Gonzaga vs. Xavier.... Gonzaga sounds like 'gorgonzola', and I like that, so I'll pick Gonzaga."
Also, there is a lot of bias in my picks towards who was good in the past but may not be so great anymore. Like Marquette, who I picked to go to the 8 but who lost in the first round.

Of course because I'm a Duke fan, I desperately want UNC to lose. Yesterday they totally got beat by George Mason, so HA. I had picked UNC to win, so its not great for me in terms of the pool, but it IS great for me in terms of gloating.

It seems like a lot of people have picked UConn, which only sort of narrowly avoided defeat yesterday at the hands of my old favorite, UK. I have them in the final, but I'm hoping that this suggests that they're not going to win.

food photography

For some reason, I've always thought food photography was pretty cool. All of the little tricks they have to make your food look more appetizing are pretty neat. In fact, the father of someone from my PhD lab is a food photographer, and he made a special pizza slice lifter to make the pizza in photos on frozen pizza boxes look all gooey and cheesy.
This video about photographing pancakes for IHOP* is pretty funny.

* if IHOP must advertise themselves as the International HOUSE OF PANCAKES, then why do their pancakes totally suck?? They taste like wallpaper paste. Seriously. If pancakes is going to be your thing, at least make sure your pancakes are awesome. Which they are not.

dead weight

Brian has had his own lab for about a .... year? or more? I don't remember. Anyhow, when you're a scientist you get thrown into this land of managing people with very little experience. His first tech was okay, but he was only there for a few months before he followed his girlfriend when she moved away. It took a little while before he hired another person, but when he got his R01 funded he had the cash to do so. He hired a research analyst, which is a higher level position requiring a number of years of experience and thus gets paid more, because he had the funds and he didn't want to waste too much time training.

This girl was a piece of work. She was constantly suffering from 'migranes', and would sit at her desk wearing sunglasses and holding an ice pack to her head. When Brian would ask her to do something, she would sometimes say something like 'do you really think thats a good idea in my current condition?' I do understand that people have migranes. One of the girls in my lab in Boston did. I would say she got one every month or two, and when it happened she was completely laid up. However, I suspect that Brian's tech maybe was not having actual migranes. One incident that tipped me off was when she was sitting there in the lab doing the sunglasses/icepack/laying head on desk thing, and told Brian that she was waiting for the emergency room to call her back to let her know whether they had a bed available, so that she could come over and get treated for her terrible migrane. Okay. A migrane which is so bad that it requires an emergency room visit. Again, I've never had migranes, so I don't know whether this is really something you would do or not. A little while later she was still sitting there waiting and Brian came by and said he had just been to a product show. For you non-scientists out there who get wooed by companies with actually cool stuff, scientists are easy and we will flock to anywhere that there are a) free pens, b) free food or c) free t-shirts (the best). He mentioned that there had been free pizza at the product show. She immediately perked up and said 'Oh really? Free pizza? Well, maybe I'll just head over there while I'm waiting for the hospital to call me back.'

So - emergency-room-requiring migrane can instantly be cured upon the mention of free pizza. Hm.

There were loads of other indications that the illnesses were not always as bad as she made them out to be. One day she came into his office doing charades with a note that said she had laryngitis and couldn't talk. She spent the rest of the day trying to ask him questions by acting things out or writing them down. However, later that day he came into the lab unnoticed and she was talking on the phone. One day I had stopped by the lab to pick something up from Brian, and while we were sitting there talking I kept hearing this dinging noise. I thought she was playing computer games, but no - she was clicking around a pair of those worry balls that had chimes in them. I finally said 'What in the HELL is that noise??' and she was all 'oh! I have to do this all the time, for my wrist.' Uh huh. I had trouble with tendonitis or carpal tunnel in my wrists when I was in high school and college (from all the musical instruments) but you know, I did my physical therapy AT HOME.

This would all have been bad enough, but she was also really crap at lab work. She screwed everything up, all the time. Even very very simple things. It was really setting him back, both time-wise and money-wise.

Anyhow, after going through a long and arduous process, he fired her yesterday. She totally knew it was coming - she had already packed up her stuff. We went to the Mellow Mushroom to celebrate. I'm so very very happy, because now we don't have to deal with this crap anymore. Although the stories were always funny.

Brian has learned many things from this experience, most importantly: LISTEN TO WHAT THE REFERENCES SAY ABOUT A PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEE. There were hints in her references that there had been some problems like these, but Brian didn't really pay that much attention to them (of course, the referees don't come right out and say it, so they were being a little vague, and he wasn't sure how much to believe them).

Lost the go in the go-for-it

I'm having a really bad week this week, for reasons that are probably partially PMS related, but otherwise are unexplained. I mean, come on. I've had PMS like three other times since Ed died, eh? These did not result in four full days of all-crying-all-the-time. I don't know what is the deal this week, but I don't think my eyes can take it anymore! So sore! Also, really not getting much accomplished at work - a minimum.
I have been going to a bereavement counselor, my second visit was this week. I'm sure this is a good idea, but it feels a little strange talking about my feeeelings with this stranger. Duke has a bereavement center that is run through their hospice. Family of hospice patients go for free, everyone else is with donations. Its in Hillsborough, which is quiet and rural-y, and the center is really an old home which is located near the hospice (I think).
One thing we talked about this week was how I felt about how other people have handled things. Feeling abandoned by friends or relatives, etc. I have read that this is very common among people who have lost siblings. Support seems to flow in the direction of the parents, the spouse, the children of someone who has died, while people tend to think that grief felt by siblings is not as great. Or that you must be over it by now (surely, its been four months, aren't you over this yet?). I can't decide what I am most upset about this week: the fact that my brother has died, or the relationships with other people that I feel I have lost (or that never were what I thought they were in the first place). It does help to know that I'm not the only person who has felt this way.
My parents had a great support network around them in the weeks immediately following Ed's death. I assume it has stayed this way. I asked the counselor whether he thought it was just people of my age group who didn't know how to be supportive in this situation, because we have not experienced this as frequently as people of my parents age group? He thought that was probably true, and also mentioned that it might be because people of my age do not form the same kinds of communities as my parents generation did. He mentioned like church communities, neighborhoods, other things. This is probably true, and I never thought about it before. I don't even know my next-door neighbors. Also, my social group is generally the other scientists that I interact with, who end up moving around a lot (every couple of years, especially early in our careers). There are many people with whom I've been the best of friends when living in the same place, only to completely lose touch once one or both of us have moved. I guess thats just the way it is.

On a completely unrelated note, I also wanted to say that I totally tried to not find out who won Project Runway last night. We don't get Bravo in Durham (although our neighbors in Chapel Hill with the SAME FREAKING CABLE COMPANY do), so I had just been reading the recaps on TWoP and talking to my mom about it. Until, that is, iTunes started selling it. Hurrah! It hasn't come out yet on iTunes, so I didn't want to know. Then I was reading a totally non-PR related post on PerezHilton.com and IT TOTALLY SPOILED IT. Oh!! So so so so sad. Still can't wait to watch, but it just won't be the same. Sniffle.

I can't believe I'm defending algebra, but I kind of am

As much as I have a well-documented hatred of bugs, I also have a well-documented hatred of math. I did a passable job at it in high school (because I worked hard at it), but I really never got algebra. I did sort of get geometry, but not algebra (I personally think you're either an algebra person or a geometry person), and certainly not calculus (which I got a C on first semester and failed second semester). What the hell is going on with calculus, I have no idea. And I certainly couldn't tell you if I ever required calculus skills in my daily life, because I have no idea what calculus even has to do with anymore.

Like me, my friend Karl has the tendency to 'not suffer fools gladly', but he rants even more than I do. Like, exponentially more (ooh! is that algebra-related? I think so!!). Some of my blog readers surfed over here from Karl's blog, so you already know him. But for those of you who don't, he's a biostatistics professor. So he likes the math. He insists that statistics is not math, but I still don't believe this, owing to its use of numbers and mathy symbols.

He has a post up on his blog today about a recent editorial in the Washington Post (which you can read here), in which the author discusses the uselessness of requiring algebra for high school students. His basic point, as far as I can tell, is that algebra is useless in your life, and students who just don't get it can get frustrated and just drop out of high school entirely, as did his example: a girl named Gabriela.

I totally can't even believe this article, as it seems to suggest to me that we should just eliminate the requirement for any "hard" classes in high school, just so the students don't get frustrated. I quote: " The LA school district now requires all students to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry in order to graduate. This is something new for LA (although 17 states require it) and it is the sort of vaunted education reform that is suppossed to close the science and mat gap and make the US more competitive. All it seems to do, though, is ruin the lives of countless kids. In LA, more kids drop out of school on account of algebra than any other subject. I can hardly blame them."

How incredibly ridiculous is that? I hate algebra too, but this really seems to send the message that students really shouldn't have to challenge themselves. No one is saying you're going to need algebra in particular to survive in life, but what you DO need is the ability to face these kinds of challenges. I had to study way more for algebra than anything else. I had to get a tutor for calculus, just so I could pass it (because 2 semesters of it were required of anyone getting any degree at my college). It was hard, and I was miserable, but you don't just get to give up because something is hard. You're going to face many challenges in your life that aren't math-related, and you're not just going to be able to skip them because you don't know how to deal with them. You may as well learn that in high school.

Terror on the highway

Yesterday it was almost 80 degrees here. Have I mentioned my love of North Carolina? Love. Okay. So, since it was so nice out, we were outside a lot yesterday. We ate lunch outside, and Sheri and I took a half-hour break later in the afternoon to go for a walk around the lake (where I saw what I think were ruddy ducks in their winter coloring). When I went to my car that evening, it was still really nice so I opened the windows a bit.

After I had just pulled onto the highway, something horrible happened: a huge beetle of some sort flew into the car and landed on the dash right in front of me. I am aware of course that I am a grown woman. However. I am majorly terrified of bugs. Majorly. Some highlights from my life of bug fear:

1. In Wisconsin, the summer brought June bugs. I hate June bugs. They fly all out-of-control and bang into things, and if you're unlucky and you get in the way, the thing will be you. Ugh. They congregate around lights at night, so each lit doorway was a minefield of June bugs. There was no way I was going to stand in the doorway trying to open the door when I could be barraged by June bugs. So I carried a garage door opener with me. That way, I could open the double garage door (which had lights at either end) and run in through the center, as far from each light as possible.

2. In a related story, one time in high school I took the cordless phone outside to sit in the car while I was talking. No, I have no idea why. We used to play with the electric seat adjustment controls in the car (we had 'chair races' where you had to take the seat through a predetermined course with the various controls), so maybe thats what I was doing. Anyhow. I'm sure I was talking to Kendra. I decided it was time to go back inside but there was no garage door opener in the car, and there was no frigging way I was going to the front door. So I had Kendra hang up the phone and then re-dial my house, let someone inside pick up and tell them to open the garage door.

3. In England, for whatever reason, it is not common to have screens on your windows. I think it is just to torture me. When the windows are open, any and every insect outside can fly right on in. I can't sleep then, because I'm terrified that something is going to get me in the night, and I end up taking some Tylenol PM just so I can go to sleep. I keep telling Brian that we need to get his parents screens for Christmas sometime.

Anyhow. There are more stories, but I think we've effectively established that bugs and I are not friends. So this bug is in the car and I know there is no way I can drive like a normal human being under these conditions, so I pull over to the side of the road. I get out and go to the other side of the car, so that I'm not on the highway side (and some moron doesn't hit me or something). I can see the stupid beetle overturned on the dashboard, trying to right itself. I'm panicking now, because I don't know what to do. Because obviously, I am not going to TOUCH it either. No way. My phone had fallen out of my bag onto the seat, which I hadn't noticed, so I thought I had left it at home. And I was like, crap. I can't even call anyone (although who would have gotten that phone call from me and not totally hung up on me?). I had some sort of newspaper type item in the backseat, and I grabbed that and tried to push the beetle out the open driver's side window while sitting in the passenger seat. Even when I pushed it, it didn't go far. And it was getting further and further in this narrow gap between the window and the dash, so it was harder and harder to reach. I'm really freaking out now, and kind of half hoping that someone will see me and think I have a flat tire, or engine trouble, or something, and stop and help me out (even thought I'd have to tell them that in fact, I needed assistance getting a bug out of my car). Finally, I got one good flick in and I thought it had gone out the window. Phew! I snuck back around to the drivers side of the car to get in. However. The lighting was rather poor, and thus I couldn't see the floor of the car all that well from the passenger side. When I got over there, I saw that the beetle was on the floor on the driver's side. I was afraid to spend too much time over there trying to get it out (again, not wanting to be killed by oncoming traffic) so I just furiously stamped on it. It was pretty well smashed, but even so, I kept worrying while I was driving that I hadn't killed it, and that it was going to crawl up my leg or fly into my face and then I was going to crash the car. So I kept stomping my foot and rubbing it around, just in case.

I did make it home safely, but totally adrenaline-charged. Now I've got to take the dustbuster out there and vacuum the bug up so that I can get back in the car to go to work.

Some links

These ads are pretty hilarious. (from The Consumerist)

Why in the hell did anyone marry this guy in the first place? Shouldn't this contract have been a bit of a red flag? I'm just sayin'.
(And by the way? This is totally for reals, lest you question the authenticity.)

A really crazy landlady.

Where are you?

Where are you in the Geek Hierarchy? Lets all answer this question honestly today, shall we?

I fit in here a few times, actually. I'm definately a 'video gamer' who ABSOLUTELY considers myself less geeky than Brian, who is a (gasp) war gamer. There is no spot for war gaming, so I'm going to have to call it 'role-playing gamer'. However, I am also a 'Pokemon fan older than six', which puts me down pretty low. I didn't even know what Furries were, does that somehow make me cooler?

(Found this link in the hilarious archives of Brian's blog. I don't care if you don't know him. I don't either. Ooh. Like this entry.)

Ok, really have to get out of the parentheses here. That reminded me of 4th grade, when I had a mad crush on Steve Studley (I am totally serious, this was his name. He was indeed Studley). He was the president of the student council, which I was also on. I always tried to sit directly opposite him in case he noticed that I was alive. I also always wore the same outfit on student council days, because it was my favorite and I thought he might like it. It was a pink shirt with white overalls that had various color paint splashes on them. One day someone told a joke or something while I was drinking my wild berry punch Hi-C (the absolute most dark purple Hi-C flavor ever!) and it all came out my nose onto my white pants, right in front of Steve Studley. Mortified! You might be surprised to learn that he never wanted to be my boyfriend.

A little too much spice

Last night we went to City Beverage in Durham for a postdoc happy hour. We had never been there before, but were excited because they had Old Speckled Hen on draft. Hurrah!
I got there really late because I was doing a timecourse experiment, and needed to take a sample at 7pm and process it, which took about 45 more minutes. Then I got lost on the way there, so I didn't make it until about 8:15. Brian had been waiting there for me with another postdoc from the lab. They had just gotten the table after a long wait.
There wasn't a whole lot on the menu for vegetarians, practically nothing really. I got the only thing they offered, which was a vegetarian chili. Oh my god. It was so spicy, I could barely eat it. Lets review here. I order extra hot pepper flakes in bulk from Penzey's. I often carry a small container of peppers with me in my purse. I buy hot sauce by the case. I eat my food VERY spicy. I put hot sauce on BAGELS for gods sake. But this was so hot that even I was having trouble. I told the waitress that she might want to clue the kitchen in on the fact that the stuff was so spicy that it was practically inedible, and for anyone else it probably WAS inedible. I don't know if she did or not, but I hope no one else ordered it.

I don't think we'll go back. The food was not that great, and it was REALLY pricey, considering the quality. I was not impressed.

Muffin hata

I'm blogging from home right now before going into work. I am making muffins for lab meeting this morning. I really hate baking. Hate it. But I need to bake periodically, just to remind myself of that. So: muffins.
I made the batter and the strusel topping and doled the batter out into the muffin cups. Once I had FINISHED, I realized that I had forgotten to put the fruit in. Duh. So I've got a bunch of plain muffins on my hands. I tried to stick frozen raspberries into them, but I didn't think that was going to work so great because the cups were then a little too full, so I ended up spooning them all back out into the bowl, stirring it back up and dishing it back out. Awesome. Definately remembering why I hate baking. And if this wasn't enough, when I get to the part where I try to take the muffins out and, even though I've used a non-stick pan sprayed with Pam the tops come off, I'm going to be SURE that I hate baking.

While I'm sitting here right now waiting for the muffins to cool, I'm watching episodes of 'General Hospital' that I recorded on the DVR (my absolute favorite device EVAH!). Oh, GH. I love you so. In college, we planned our schedules around it. Yes, I am that sad (but you already knew that). Its not as ridiculous as 'Days of Our Lives', so give me a break.

Anyhow, another woman I work with also watches GH, and has for MUCH longer than me. Right now on GH there is this outbreak of some monkey virus that has infected practically everyone on the show. Yes, a monkey virus. Luke brought it back from Africa (actually, I'm not sure where he was, but it looked like it was suppossed to be Africa) with him when he brought a monkey with him. As you do. The virus quickly infected everyone, and I think its suppossed to be transmitted in the air. Yet, all these doctors on the show are running around not wearing masks. Um, duh! This really bothers us, because we're entirely too much of dorky scientists. One of the doctors already died (Amee, if you're reading this and not watching it, it was Tony!) from it, one other one has gotten sick (Robin! She's back!) and a nurse seems to be getting sick (Elizabeth Webber!). Come ON you people!

DVR really is the best thing ever, and if you don't have it, you'd better get it. Now.

knitting

Matt and Melissa were here for a visit this weekend and we had lots of fun, mostly involving eating, drinking, shopping and playing of Trivial Pursuit or Karaoke Revolution. One additional bit of excitement was that Mel was able to teach me how to knit - finally! I had totally wanted to learn. I have all these delusions of making beautiful hand-knitted items that I can wear and give as gifts, and everyone will say 'Gosh. That Lisa? She's so cool.' Well, or something like that. Mel showed me something new she had made (a scarf) which you can see if you scroll down to the bottom of this post.
So we started knitting! We went out and bought some needles and some yarn and started up. I started doing just a garter stitch, which is where you knit (or purl) each row. Then I learned the stockinette stitch, which is where you alternate with knitting and purling to make a knit that is flat one one side (like what you'd picture when you think of a kint sweater or whatever) and bumpy on the opposite side. You can see examples of both of those stitches in my first ever knitted item, pictured here! I decided to make a scarf. Its certainly not going to be a perfect scarf. I messed up some stitches along the way and I also didn't count rows very well, so the stripey sections are not all the same size. But whatever! Its my first time! Next I will buy some yarn to make samples of different patterns which I can practice with. I got two books to help me now that Mel is gone and cannot fix every mistake I make and tell me what to do. I would like to make a scarf like the one that she just made. We found the yarn somewhere so I can give it a try when I feel more comfortable. Its fun though, and I'm getting better at it. For example, I'm not making my loops so tight that I can't knit onto them. I don't know what I'm doing differently, but it is working better. I'll post more pictures when I have something interesting to show.

The S is for Sucks

You can now add to your list of podcasts the Strong Bad E-mail podcast, which can be downloaded here, or through iTunes.

Goodbye Smokey

Among the three vet visits last week was taking Smokey in for her annual senior wellness exam. Smokey is our old cat who I've had since I was in... middle school? I think so. She's about 18, I think.



Deep down I knew Smokes wasn't doing well. She has been blind for about two years now, so she had really stopped leaving our bonus room - she sat on the couch practically 24 hours a day. But when I'd feed the cats each morning and night she would hop down to her bowl and eat. The last week or so she hadn't, she had actually been sleeping under one of the beds in a room nearby. I took her in on Thursday and told the vet that I didn't think she had been eating or drinking much, that her behavior had changed, and some other things. The vet wanted to do blood work, but said it could be something treatable, like her kidneys or her thyroid, or diabetes, or something. On Friday (right after Matt and Melissa arrived for their weekend visit, of course!) the vet called back with the blood worl. Smokey's liver is failing, and we're going to have to put her to sleep tomorrow (Monday) afternoon.

Even though I know this is whats best, I can't help feeling horrible. I'm dreading tomorrow. Every day this weekend has been bad because every day I think 'In one more day Smokey won't be here anymore'. And even though its a pet, and nowhere near on the same lines as say... a brother, its bringing up all the same feelings, and I don't think I was particularly ready to deal with them again.

Smokey's had a good, long life though. We rescued her as a stray and she was terrified of us for a long time. After a while, she would sleep on my pillow at night and sit on the back of the couch behind your head. When I married Brian I think she started to like him better, which was always a sore point. She enjoyed living with Wendy and I in Boston, with us in Cleveland, and then in Durham. She always was a prima donna and loved to be the only cat, so she was pretty disappointed when we got Alton (and then Cherry and then Beamish). But she loved to sit with us when we watched TV upstairs and to eat any of my leftover ice cream.

Right now she's hiding under our bed, where she's been almost all weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to take Matt and Melissa to the airport, stop in at work for a while, and then come back home to spend some time with her before we take her to the vet.
And then totally cry my eyes out for the fiftieth time this week.

Will write more uplifting posts later. We finally have internet access at home (!) so I can blog whenever I want!

Lisa v. Beamish

The victor? Lisa. One ripped shirt and several scratches later anyhow.

This morning Brian hung around a bit longer than normal to help me catch Beamish. Even though her appt. wasn't for like, another hour at that point, I thought it was better to have some help and let her sit in the cat carrier for a while than to try to do it myself. I explained the plan to Brian in detail: I would get Beamish into the bathroom (somehow) and close the door, pick her up, and then Brian would be outside with the cat carrier ready for her. Then I'd stuff her in. Most of this plan worked very well. She came into the bathroom, I threw one of her mice over into the corner so she was far enough away from the door that I could close it without her making a break for it. I picked her up, and opened the door.... and no Brian. I called him, still no Brian. Then I heard him say 'I'm coming!' at which point I realized that he was DOWNSTAIRS. The cat was going nuts by this point trying to get away and finally she did, before he got the cat carrier fully into action. Of course, I was a little ticked off, and I told Brian to shove off and go to work, since he wasn't being much help to me.... which he did.

Next Beamish is off hiding under the bed in one of the spare rooms. Actually hiding IN the boxspring, which was nice. I didn't know how to get her out, and I decided that the best way was to remove the mattress and boxspring from the bed entirely, which I managed to do. Then she was totally freaked out, and tried to hide behind the mattress, between it and the wall. All of the pillows were over there, as well as a small bedside table, which she hid underneath. I crawled in there to get her and she escaped through a gap between the end of the mattress and the wall, which I hadn't noticed. I crawled back out and went around to the other side, and of course she was right back under the table. I managed to push the mattress up against the wall so she was trapped - and I crawled back in there and got her! I carried her into the room with the carrier and got her in, and made it to the vet on time. I totally rule.

Of course, my shirt had multiple holes in it by this point, my arms are scratched and so is my chest, which is nice. But Beamish is done for another year.

Also, Happy Valentines Day, everyone!!

Taking Beamish to the vet

This week, pretty much all the cats (except Cherry) are going to the vet for one check-up or another. Tomorrow is sure to be the most exciting of these vet visits, as we have to take Beamish in. Beamish is very cute and everything, but the one problem is that she is terrified of everyone and everything - primarily the dog, and Brian and I. I remember the first time we had to take her in for something, it was a major ordeal getting her into the cat carrier. We had to try to coax her out from under the bed, first of all. This involved some dangling of toys next to the bed, and then throwing them into our adjacent bathroom in hopes that she would follow. She didn't, and I think we finally had to accomplish this by Brian lifting up the mattress and me crawling underneath to get her. She isn't as bad now as she was then, and she does come out regularly and even sits in the same room as us. She just doesn't want us to touch her. So I imagine this will be somewhat of a challenge.

In case we're not able to get her, I have another appointment on Thursday which I am bringing Alton and Smokey to. I told the vet that if I couldn't get Beamish on Tuesday, I'd bring those two and try again on Thursday.

Should be exciting!

And I thought a few mice were bad...

You might recall, if you knew me then, that I had pet mice in college. I stole a couple from the lab that I worked in. One of the ones I stole was pregnant (which I, of course, didn't know) and she had babies. In three weeks, when I weaned the babies, I had to find something to do with them. I kept some of the females, and gave the rest to other people. I gave a few to one of my sorority sisters that I did not particularly care for - but I made sure to give her males. They're much smellier pee-wise than females. All of my other sisters living on the floor thought I was a wonderful mouse caretaker and she was a terrible one, because her room (and the whole quad) always smelled horrible, and mine never did. Hee. My little secret.

Anyhow, some of the other ones sadly found their way to another sorority sister who had a pet snake. I was really devastated by this, but I didn't know what else to do with the poor mousies.

Today I read this post on Karl's friend Brian's blog. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. First of all, where the hell do you get a cayman in the first place? Snakes, ok. And what do you do with it when it gets too big and tries to eat you? Is that where all the alligators in the sewers come from? Second, there are snakes that eat chickens??? Oh my god.

Ok, even besides these two revelations, that post is hilarious.

Fug, fug, and more fug.

Lots of post-Grammy's fug over on Go Fug Yourself, including ol' Teri Hatcher and her whore dress.

Speaking of fug, Melissa and her alter ego Heidi Ellis pointed out this fun blog, You Knit What?? It was totally my New Years Resolution to learn to knit, especially after Mel made me the cute felted bag, but alas - I have not gotten so much as a ball of yarn into this yet.

Also, I know that you're jealous, but I'm going to see Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab for Cutie when they come to Duke in April! Yippee. Right before my birthday too, so I can feel extra old when surrounded by all the Barbie-like undergrads.

Lisa does the experiment: Going to the bathroom

Wait!!! Come back!!

Don't worry. There is no experiment involving my actual bathroom activities. This post is safe for your virginal ears.

Ok. So last night? I was just about to leave work but I had to avail myself of the facilities first, because I have the smallest bladder in recorded history. I'm in there. I'm doing my thing. All of a sudden the toilet goes 'cha-chunk!' and drops an inch or so. In total fear of my life, I leap off of the toilet! Something that connects the bowl part to the wall had broken (there was a broken metal ring underneath the toilet, and I'm assuming that was the critical component) so that the bowl was no longer anchored firmly to the wall. Holy crap. I was a little nervous about flushing, but I did it anyhow. As the bowl was refilling, water did leak out of the top flusher part. But not a ton, so not really a huge deal - except for the whole broken toilet aspect.

I had to call the Troubleshooter (this seems like such a funny title to me - this is the person who you call when things break. I always think of the person on the evening news who tackles consumer complaints in a sensational manner), who of course wasn't at work anymore, given that it was 6:30 or so and after the normal employees work hours. So I had to leave a message detailing my problem:

"Hi. So, its 6:30 on Wednesday night and I'm calling because one of the toilets in the 4th floor womens restroom just broke off the wall. I was just sitting there and something broke. Its leaking a little bit, but not too much. I put a sign on the door so that no one else would use it. So, please come up and take a look at it tomorrow morning. And also, apparently I need to go on a diet!".

I'm sure she enjoyed THAT message this morning! And now I will be famous as the Girl Who Broke a Toilet. The line for autographs forms to the left.

Hedgies!!

I love me some hedgies!!

A little math never killed anyone...yet

In lab meeting this morning, our department head mentioned an upcoming seminar sponsored by the biostatisics department that he thought we might be interested. He said "Now, I know it will be a little math-heavy" (also known as mathy). "It might be a little painful, but as far as I'm aware no one has ever died from math."

I say: No one has ever died from math... YET. I'm sure there's still a chance, as I've felt like I was nearly dead after certain very mathy lectures. I'm sure that one more incomprehensible slide about MCMC would have done the trick. I was just LUCKY to escape with my life. But next time, I might not be so lucky, so I think I'll skip it. Just to be safe.

more podcasts

Its a little late in the cycle for me to be finally blogging about this, but if you like podcasts and you like British accents and the men who bring you The Office, you will like the Ricky Gervais podcast. The series of 12 podcasts is almost over, but if you subscribe to it, you should be able to download all the previous ones.

I like all three of those things, so I'm a fan.

I also enjoy the Cycling Insight podcast, even though I do not watch nor perform any cycling-related activities. Its just funny, funny, funny! I know that some of you blog readers do enjoy cycling-related activities, so you will like it for sure.

I sometimes listen to these podcasts on my iPod while I'm in the lab. Usually I am totally cracking up, and no one can figure out why, so they think I'm crazy (crazier, I mean). Just now I was analyzing sequences on my computer while listening, and everyone was trying to figure out what could be so freaking hilarious about DNA sequences.

When to think twice about auto-fill-in

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

busy this week

V. little posting or emailing is going on this week because I'm attending a grantwriting workshop. It has been good so far but it goes on ALL WEEK and I'm getting a little antsy to go back to the lab.
Just so you don't think I've fallen off the face of the earth.

Embracing my inner dork

Oh, I almost forgot!

I have joined the band at my institute. No, my rock star career has not gotten a start - I mean the band. Being in the band in high school often has dork-related connotations (I don't know what that is all about though - I personally was Miss Popular! Hee!). I'm thinking that when you're an adult working in a lab environment full of other people who were probably a little on the geeky side AND you're in the band on top of that?? That must be the HEIGHT of dorkitude. However, I'm doing it. For God's sake, I'm already in the bridge club. How much dorkier could I get?

I told the guy I play sax, flute and oboe - but that I'm a little rusty at the oboe and thus probably sound like a dying duck. A little rusty. That can be translated as "I haven't picked the thing up since I graduated college". They were pretty excited about that because they said they'd never had an oboist. Its too bad I don't own a bassoon or I'd be a double double-reed shocker! Now I'm trying to order some reeds online (I never learned how to make them myself, which was one major factor in the eventual undoing of my music performance major) so that I have something to play on. I think the music will be pretty darn easy, but I don't want to sound like an idiot. Also, I don't want to depress myself too much.

Back in the Duke blue

The past few days I've been on "sabbatical" - I'm working with Brian over at Duke. My PI said ' You know, most people go somewhere cool on sabbatical. You're just going to Durham.' Heeeeee.
I'm here trying to learn a technique from my husband, the fab cell biologist, We got through the whole experiment (two overnight steps, so it took ~3 days) and it didn't really work. The control did, but none of the stuff I was trying to use. Bummer. So now we're starting over, trying again.
Brian is seriously the most anal-retentive man on the planet. I don't know how we ended up together, but we did. And more importantly, he hasn't killed me yet. I am a bit of a disaster area. At home it works out okay though - I've reined my slobbiness in considerably, and he tries to not be too particular.
In the lab, his analness reaches new levels, because I'm not here to normalize him. I swear, the guy would draw circles on his shelves indicating the exact position to place bottles. He hasn't, but he totally would. I think I must be driving him nuts by not putting things back in the exact right places.

My love-hate relationship with bridesmaiding

Well! Blogging today from Herryn's house in Knoxville, while she's still asleep. We had a busy busy weekend of wedding planning stuff, which was mostly fun. The only not fun part? Trying on bridesmaids dresses. Holy crap.

I remember when I got married all those long years ago, I was wearing about a size 12 when I had to pick out my wedding dress. These dress shops have a single sample of each dress, which is generally a size 8, 10, or 12. The kicker is that the sizes are not the same as the sizes of the clothes you wear every day - they run about 2 sizes smaller (or the clothes you wear every day run two sizes bigger). So the samples are really size 4, 6, 0r 8. At the wedding dress time, I could get the dresses on my body but could not possibly even dream of zipping them up. So I had to picture what the dress would look like if it fit me, which was not always easy.

Cut to this weekend, where I have become a big fat bastard and I currently wear a size 16. Which is bad enough, but now those samples are 4-6 sizes too small, instead of 2-4. Holy crap. Many of them I couldn't even get over my hips. The ones that I could do were no way going to come even close to closing over my uh.. ample bosom. So jeez. Poor old Herryn is trying to glean any useful information from these ridiculous attempts to try things on, which clearly is getting her nowhere. So that was great! A whole day of being 20 sizes too big! I really don't understand why these places can't have two samples, one is a smaller size and one in a larger size. Even though I know I'm on the heavier side right now, but I'm pretty sure that statistically the "average American woman" is a size 12 or 14. I'm not asking for the sample to fit me perfectly, but it would be helpful if I could at least get it ON.

Then we went to David's bridal, which, although a complete and total madhouse, works differently. They have many sizes of every dress, and the sizes match up to what you wear normally. So that was nice. I would try on things that were my size or close to it (or even larger!) and we could actually tell what they looked like. The biggest challenge I think is going to be finding something that will look reasonable on me and another bridesmaid (both of us, even if I were at my thinnest, are super busty) and on the MOH who is very petite and small. Complicating things further is that there is the potential for at least one pregnant bridesmaid by the time this thing rolls around. You would think they would make a reasonable number of maternity bridesmaid dresses, but you'd be wrong. There are a few, but not many. And not like maternity versions of another dress - they're generally totally different.

Now I've really got to get back into the weight loss in earnest. You will recall that I was planning on starting back on WW, but that was back in November right before my brother died. Obviously I got a little off track after that. I am pleased to say that I haven't gained anything additional since then (even with that, and the holidays, and everything) which is good because it seemed to be piling on pretty steadily in the year leading up to that. I may try to go back soon.

Finally, it has been fun going around K-ville with Herryn, who is a TV reporter. Some people totally seem to recognize her and thats amusing to watch. I remember seeing local TV reporters around my neighborhood in Cleveland and you'd look at them like - don't I know you? Did we go to school together or something?

Ok, everyone's up now (including her dog who is practically trying to maul me) so I better go.

What I wouldn't do to get Bravo!

My cable company doesn't have Bravo as part of the channel lineup. Its a bummer, especially since my mother got me hooked on 'Project Runway' when I was home for Christmas. I read the recaps on Television Without PIty, but its not the same!

Maybe its for the best though, because Santino just irritates the living crap out of me. Nervous Breakdown keeps an eye on Santinos equally irritating blog, so you don't have to. You'll want to check out those links there. My favorite one is 'Satano' (click on 'equally' above, mom!).

Its okay though, because I do still have Lost to watch on Wednesday nights! And yesterdays new episode was great, as usual!!

A few pieces of news

News #1 - My brother Jim just rode along with the 48hrs of Tri-state drive-a-thon for charity, organized by a Subuaru owners group. This year they raised money to donate to the American Cancer Society in memory of my brother Ed. If you're interested in this, he said that they are still taking donations - there's a link on the '48hrs of Tri-state' page linked above - but that so far they had raised around $2000. You can see some of his pictures here, if Subarus driving through snow is your thing.

News #2 - My parents adopted an 8 month old Sheltie female yesterday! She still remains nameless until they decide on something. She's a tri-factored (or mahogany) sable. This is their third sheltie. So now our Milo (he's a blue merle)has a Sheltie sister! Perhaps we'll have a picture soon?

News #3 - I am heading off to Knoxville, TN for the weekend to visit Herryn for some wedding planning excitement, and hopefully do some bridesmaid dress shopping! Hurrah! That means that Brian will be beginning his ritualistic eating of pizza, hamburgers and bratwurst tomorrow night.

Another day, another Diet Coke

I know I left you with a lot of reading yesterday, so today I'll just tell you this:

Diet Black Cherry Vanilla coke = yum

I got a free one a Target this weekend. I'm a fan. I was sad to read that with this good news comes some bad. Unfortunately, Diet Vanilla Coke will no longer be with us. I love that one too. But thats okay, I'll live with this.

Also, Diet Coke with Lemon is going away, which is also good because it tasted like crap. As my mom's friend said, it tastes like Lemon Pledge.

Besides, do people really put lemons in their cokes? I don't. Limes, yes. Lemons? No.

(Also, the free Coke I got was a 20 oz bottle. I drank some of it in the car on the way home and then brought it upstairs when I was playing PS2. I guess I also stopped in our bedroom and did something, I don't even remember. That night we got into bed and I was getting all comfy under the covers when my feet hit a cold, wet spot. I totally freaked out. I was trying to smell it using the 'wafting method' like we were taught in chemistry class, but I couldn't smell anything. Cat pee really stinks, you know. Ask my couch. Anyhow, I had to practically stick my nose in it to figure out what it was, and it smelled very vanilla-y. I must have not had the bottle closed all the way and put it on the bed, where it leaked)

The return of Sweaterboy!

Oh my god. Something so amazing happened yesterday that I can't believe I didn't post about it immediately.

One of the other postdocs (we'll call her 'Stalker') in my lab talked to Sweaterboy!

OMG. Oh. My. God.

She had gone down to the cafeteria ahead of me, and when I arrived with another friend we scanned the cafeteria to find her. The friend spotted her first. The exchange went like this:

Friend: "Are you sure she's already down here? I...don't...see... .... OH MY GOD. Ohhhhh my God!'

Me: "Wha??"

So, Stalker asked him about his soup habit. We've got an answer now: He had had a tooth pulled and was still having some trouble, so had been sticking largely to soup. Also, he's Russian and thinks that the American diet is horrible (which, of course is generally true) and that we should be eating a lot more soup, because its better for you. Of course as soon as she sat down with us we gave her a steady stream of crap. She said to our boss, who was also sitting with us 'Do you see why I can never get a date with anyone that works here?' To which he replied: 'Yes, because you stalk them. We don't like that'. Heeeeeeeeee.

Today was even more exciting, if you can believe that. Because today, we found out that he has stalked her as well. He asked her something about her twin, which she was totally perplexed by. But as it turns out, he was referring to her sister, who visited her here like THREE MONTHS AGO. So that long ago, long before she ever spoke to him, he noticed her and who she was with and REMEMBERED it. This is a big development in the Sweaterboy tale.

I'll be sure to keep you posted. I know you're all on the edge of your seats. Its like waiting for a new episode of 'Lost'!!
(Which comes TOMORROW, btw. The long drought is over!!)

The Annals of Internet Dates

I noticed that my old roomate mentioned on her blog that she may regale us with tales of her internet dates. I may be happily married now, but I was once a lonely single girl living on the mean streets of Boston, a town that while really cool, isn't filled with friendly single men. It was tough to meet them, so I turned to the internet dating thing. Keep in mind that this was right after I graduated college... 1997. Internet dating was not as mainstream as it is today, so it was filled with other geeks like myself. But I figured - hey, I was out there. So perhaps there would be other relatively normal men looking for dates. Boy, was I mistaken.

My first few dates were with this guy who was a law student at BU. He was nice enough but totally had a drinking problem, earning him the title 'the Alcoholic Lawyer'. What really tipped me off was when he said (and I quote) "My last girlfriend said that I had a drinking problem. Sure I do. I've got two hands and only one mouth!"

I went on a date with a postdoc in like, geology or something at MIT. I was not really feeling in the mood so I dragged along my friend who then dragged along my future husband (whom she was secretly dating at the time!). I wasn't really into this guy, so she and I took off after dinner. Brian however stayed out with the guy until late, went to another bar and played pool or something. Hee. Brian had a better time with my date than I did.

One guy that lasted more than one date became affectionately known as 'Stonehenge Teeth', christened as such by Brian for his widely spaced chompers. On the (I think) third date (where he asked me and thus, I think, should offer to pay - especially as he had a real job and I made $20K/year living in downtown Boston) I didn't bring any cash with me, and when the check came I said something about paying him back if we stopped at the ATM on the way home. He said 'Sure, that sounds good'. And I, already having been pretty sure I didn't want to date him further, said "No. What you meant to say was: 'No, of course not. I asked you out and I'm happy to pay for your lunch.'" He was a little taken aback, but did pay for lunch. He explained this by saying that previous women he had dated had stopped seeing him at the moment that he paid for things on dates and so he was wary of doing so. Well, that was the last date we had, so I was no exception to the rule.

By the time I had dated enough of these guys I got a little less wary and a little more tired of trying to find the random stranger who I was going on a date with at whatever venue we had chosen. So one guy I just said could come to my apartment building and buzz me. I know, probably not the safest but, I figured he'd have to get past the locked front door to come in and kill me, and that was a chance I was willing to take. Also, we had the 'ghetto bar' to keep us safe - this bar that held the door closed by sticking in a slot in the floor and one in the door. I had even gotten lazy at checking the guys profiles out online before agreeing to meet them in person. When I did this, you filled out a profile that included a question about your body type. Your choices were like 'slim', 'athletic', 'average', 'slightly overweight', and 'overweight'. I had observed to someone when I was filling this out that even though I personally felt that I was slightly overweight, I certainly wasn't going to answer that, and I put 'average', which I really was. After all, who would admit that they were overweight in a setting where you're trying to get dates sight unseen? No one. And by extenstion, anyone who put 'slightly overweight' and was actually admitting to being at all overweight, was probably significantly MORE overweight than 'slightly'.

Anyhow, this guy, I noticed way too late, had indicated that he was 'slightly overweight'. And when I met him, I found that my theory was correct. I did go to dinner with him. I told him when he picked me up that I wasn't feeling great and that I would probably not be out long, just so I'd have an out. He was so very boring and talked about his high school marching band the entire night. I was in marching band (in college too - but I was on the colorguard, so give me a break), but come on!

The most exciting one that I can remember was a guy I talked to on the phone for several hours the night before our date. I thought that, if nothing else, I would have a new friend in Boston. At the date, he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I noticed a little bit of tattoo sticking out from under the sleeve and asked to see it. When he pushed up his sleeve, his ENTIRE shoulder was covered in them. A totally random assortment too, ranging from bloody daggers to cute cartoon cows. I was a little surprised and he told me he actually had THIRTY tattoos, only a small proportion of which I could actually see. I asked (not really sure if I wanted to know the answer) where the rest of them were and he said 'Oh you know. My back, my legs, my stomach... and I have one here...'

At this point he pulled down his lower lip and (and I'm totally not kidding here) on the inside of his lip was tattooed 'EVIL'.

Holy crap.

I didn't go out with him again.

I'm interested to hear whether any of you have had similar freakish experiences.

Pass the cheddar

Yet another reason to love cheese. As if I needed one.

Edited to add: Ok, fine. Thanks Keith for the article! Nyah.

A cautionary tale

Yeah, so I like wearing heels. I like shoes. Give me a break. As a result, I usually click loudly when I walk across hard floors, such as those lining the halls of the building that I work in. As a general rule, academic scientists can be a bit uh... lets say "very casually dressed", so I'm generally the only person wearing such shoes.

(Actually, in the last incarnation of my PhD lab, our lab was located near the administrative offices, including that of my advisor, the big cheese. Two other friends who have real jobs -i.e. admin jobs- also wore groovy clicky shoes. My advisor got tired of listening to our shoes outside of his office and installed carpeting in the hallway. Hee.)

The other people I work with like to make jokes about my noisy shoes. One friend, who is a PI and thus has her own office (!) likes to feign surprise every time i walk into her office and say something like 'Oh! You really snuck up on me!'. Heh. However, yesterday one of my co-workers made a shoes-related assumption that almost ended in disaster.

I had told my lab mates that I was going to go heat up my lunch so that we could go eat. I walked my lunch and my clicky shoes down the hallway to the microwave and fired it up. Unbeknownst to them, I then walked down another hallway so that I could hit the restroom while my lunch heated up. One of the other postdocs in the lab heard clicking shoes coming down the hallway and, thinking it was me returning from the microwave, decided to sneak up on me and scare me. So she crouched down along the wall to hide, and was just about to jump out at the clicky-shoes person when she realized that it was not in fact me, it was some woman in a suit. Accompanied by the DIRECTOR OF OUR INSTITUTE. She quickly straightened up and said 'Oops. Sorry' and retreated to the lab.

This just goes to show you that clicky shoes does not necessarily = me.

No, it was definately 'Darjeeta'

Website I love, The Sneeze just had a post about people hilariously misnaming things. I tried to leave a comment but it isn't working at the moment, so I'll post my story here.

Any of you who have met my husband know that he is the evil master of doing this. He inadvertently makes up names for things, places, etc. and I'm suppossed to know what the hell he's talking about. Once he names something in his head he always uses the same name, so at least I've got a shot. For example, Pizzeria Uno is inexplicably called 'Deep Pan', and a bar we used to frequent called 'The Common Ground' was called 'The World's End'.
My favorite example is when he told a friend we had just seen a movie where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (although surely he actually said 'You know, those guys from that other movie') played two angels. He said "I think it was called 'Darjeeta'." The friend said "Oh, you mean 'Dogma'?" After he thought for a minute he said "No... no, I'm sure it was 'Darjeeta'."

Also, upon reflection, my dad (he may have seen the light by now, this is a historical account) at one point called the state to the south 'Massatwosetts'.

Why aren't you watching Arrested Development?

Well?

I'm waiting...

Last night we watched two episodes of AD on Fox, one new and one rerun. How many television critics have to tell you people that this show is one of the best on television before you'll watch it?

Seriously. Before it gets totally cancelled and we can't watch it anymore.

(OK, Showtime or ABC may pick it up. But you still have to watch it)

(also, I spent a lot of time putting in all of those links, so you'd better check them all out)