I kind of rule.

Since I started my postdoc, I have been doing all kinds of new experiments. New to me anyhow, as my grad school science life centered pretty much around ensuring the good sex lives of my mice, doing PCR, and bugging Karl to analyze my data. My postdoc science life on the other hand involves all these new kinds of experiments. Like plasmid preps! Real-time PCR! Western blots!! Cell culture!!!!

What I've been trying to do since I started is knock down gene expression in cultured cells using a technology called RNA interference. So non-science people, I'm trying to turn off genes by putting this very small piece of RNA into the cell. Sort of. Anyhow. I am of course working with the most difficult to transfect cell line in the entire universe. That means that I can't get my very small piece of RNA into the cell so that it can do its job. However today??? I have done it. I rule.

I can't get the genes to turn off to the same degree as I can in a cell line that is easily transfected - where I can get the small RNA into the cells with little or no problem. I can get about 50-60% knockdown in gene expression, rather than 80-90%. But still, its a start!

Of course, I did this experiment in cells that also happened to be contaminated with bacteria. Well done on my part. This might affect the results, so I may either get better knockdown or worse knockdown when I do the experiment again with clean cells. However, for a start? I am thrilled.

Whoops!

I almost forgot all of the exciting hollywood news that I need to catch you up on!

- Linsday Lohan can't drive!

- Nick and Jessica finally broke up! Oh, no they didn't!
(Seriously, how long is this going to go on? I'm guessing until they fulfill their 'Nick & Jessica' show contract with ABC!)

- Katie Holmes is carrying the spawn of the devil!
(Wow. That was SOME contract!)

- Rachael Ray will NEVER leave you alone!

Darwin

So. Last night? I'm driving home, like I do every night. I drive home on Hwy 147 which, although it is not technically an interstate, is set up like one. An interstate-like driving experience without all the states. Anyhow, suddenly a spontaneous traffic jam occurred. I couldn't tell what the hell was going on. I finally crawled past right after the fire/ambulance/police had shown up. At this point now I can see things but still, no clue what happened. There was a guy sprawled out on the road. It didn't appear that he had been thrown from any car or anything, as I didn't see a wrecked car or motorcycle. This morning I found out what happened. The guy decided to CROSS THE HIGHWAY on foot. During RUSH HOUR. Some poor woman hit him and now he is dead. It doesn't say that in the article here, but I saw it on the news this morning. I feel so badly for this woman, because seriously? Ten seconds later and it could have been me who hit him. You just don't expect some moron to run across the interstate. She's probably feeling horribly guilty and it is totally not her fault. Moron.

I also missed Lost last night which, I'm dying. Dying. Because it looked like it was going to be good in the preview. It has taken all of my strength to not read the recaplet on TWoP, but I've managed to keep it up all day! So hurrah. We were at a friends house last night entertaining a postdoc candidate, and because I was late getting home, I forgot to set the VCR before I left. Another party attendee did tape it, but she forgot to bring it to me today. So now I have to wait until TOMORROW. And what if she forgets it again? Death.

Also happening tomorrow: my dad is coming to town for his 60th birthday present. It struck me that I have not yet told you what that is, even though I was so excited about it when I bought it. I'm taking him to see the Rolling Stones on Saturday at Duke. That will be fun. Unfortunately I am not also going to the World Beer Festival that day, because it is SOLD OUT. We went last year and it was the Best. Day. EVER. Here is a picture of Lisa P. and I at the beer festival:



Oh well. We can't all drink beer all day for $25 I guess.

A Crazy Wedding update

I know you were all just dying to know what has become of the crazy wedding couple, Jules and Dave. I'm happy to report that all is well on the newlywed front. I saw them this weekend, about a week after they returned from their honeymoon in Mexico. I got a little behind the scenes scoop too, which was all very funny. Julie said she's just about ready to laugh at it a little bit. Heh. I'm glad, because on the big sign-able picture frame they had at the wedding, I wrote 'Wish you were here!'. My absolute favorite part was when she was in the ambulance going from the chapel to the hospital and they asked her, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, how nauseated are you?' To which she answered "8....9.....*barf*" Now, thats comedy right there.

She said that she heard other new brides at the resort complaining about what had gone wrong at their weddings.... a flat tire, etc. Julie just smiled, as she's clearly ahead of ANYONE in terms of wedding mishaps.

Thank god for the new TV season

The new television season has started well, hurrah!
First and foremost, Lost is FANTASTIC. I missed the airing of the first episode last Wednesday because I was at a retreat for work, but Brian taped it for me so I saw it on Friday night. Oh my god. Dying. Just DYING. When they were going down the hatch? And the scary light came on? Oh. And who was that guy? Was he the running up the stairs guy? I was happy I was watching it on tape because at least I didn't have to suffer through the commercials. So thank you Lost for delivering on all your promise, I love you. I was so hyped up after I watched it, I needed someone to talk to, so I called Pop-Pop (who watches it too).

Desperate Housewives, not so much. I think my disappointment with it comes from the fact that it was so hyped, now I feel that it doesn't live up to its expectations. As oppossed to say... Grey's Anatomy. Which I had no preconceived notion of, so I was able to just enjoy it. Its not an amazing show, but it is fun to watch. So... DH might not be must-see for me any more. I'll give it some time, but it just doesn't seem that great. And SO did not deserve to win the Emmy, so I'm glad that it didn't.

Another great great show is Arrested Development, which Bayly got us watching this summer. I would have felt personally responsible if that had gotten cancelled for lack of viewers. Thank god it is still hanging in there. Its on Monday nights on Fox, so please tune in. It is hysterically funny. When the show won an Emmy last week, in the speech they said something funny like "We'd just like to point out to you that this is the second year in a row that we're getting awards for a show that NONE OF YOU ARE WATCHING". Heh.

Diet Coke please.

The new Diet Coke guy (dancing in his red socks and suit) is my new television boyfriend. And now I can go to the website and watch his commercial any time I want.

Several items of note.

1. On Thursday night, we went to a live taping of 'Wait wait, don't tell me' at UNC. This episode will be airing on your local NPR station today! Or tomorrow!! So listen in.

2. Courtney Love has some fashion advice for Renee Zellweger and the Britster.

3. We're on our way to Chapel Hill for the Walk for PKD. Pictures coming soon!

4. My dad is at the Reno Air Races this weekend. Jealous!! I've been with him a couple of times and would love to go again. Maybe next year. Go Rare Bear!!

5. I have a cold, so I'm whiny and miserable. Apologies in advance for anyone who has to deal with me.

hummingbird nest

This morning we got an email on the all-work email list that someone had brought in a hummingbird nest, and it was available in the library for public viewing. So...being the nerds that we are, several of us went to see it. It was SO COOL. It was probably 2 inches across or so, a perfect little cup stuck onto a tree branch. I wish I had had my camera, but I didn't as...you know. Don't normally bring my camera to work. Not that much of a dork.

Instead I found this cool website that shows daily photographs of the goings-on inside a hummingbird nest, from the time the eggs are laid until the chicks leave the nest. The nest pictured here is a lot more fluffy than the one we saw here, which was almost like a cup molded out of mud and lichen and tree bark. I read somewhere that hummingbirds use spider webs as 'glue' in their nest building and that they mould the sides of the nest between their body and their wings (like, in their armpit, if a hummer had an armpit).

We only have ruby-throats here, but I would like to see some out west or in Mexico or something where they have a lot more varieties around.

Dear The Gap

Dear The Gap,
Thank you for finally realizing that women have hips.








Love,
Lisa

Craziest. Wedding. EVER.

I love weddings. I’m also a bit of a sucker for wedding bloopers (or just bloopers in general) so I always watch those stupid shows like ‘Wild Weddings!!!’ or ‘Weddings Gone Bananas!!!’ or whatever. However, this weekend I attended a wedding that was way way up there on the craziness scale. This is the tale of the wedding of Julie and Dave, a tragic (well, not totally!) opera in three parts.

Overture: The night before
Julie, a postdoc in my Ph.D. lab, also did her Ph.D. up in Cleveland, so many many mutual friends came down from Clevo for the wedding. It was a lot of fun to see everyone, some of whom I hadn’t seen since we moved to NC almost 2.5 years ago, so we gathered everyone (including our five houseguests!) at our house for some drinking the night before the wedding. At about 10:30, one of our guests (Dr. Jeff… er … I mean Dr. Sandwich – an actual medical doctor!) received a phone call from a slightly panicked bridesmaid saying that the bride was not feeling well, and what was his medical advice? We didn’t really know the details but all were waiting to see how she was going to feel the next day, sure that she just had a case of the pre-wedding jitters (“Did you check her feet? Are they cold?”).

Part I: The ceremony
(I would like to begin this part by stating that in the car on the way over to the ceremony? I felt totally nervous and slightly nauseated. So if I turn out to be psychic, this will have been one of the first examples of my powers.)
At 2pm, we all show up at the Duke Chapel, where the wedding was to take place. Everything is beautiful. We get our programs, are ush-ed to our seats, and sit down to listen to the pre-wedding organ music. After a while the priest comes out with the groom, and we all get a little nervous. The priest tells us that our Jules is not feeling well enough to get married. She’s not really strong enough to walk down the aisle, and it has been decided that we’d try again later at the reception. He did stress that she wasn’t having cold feet and that she was, in fact, actually at the chapel in the back room, but secretly we wondered. Their engagement had been called off once before, and although things seemed to be fine this time, we thought that it was theoretically possible that she was having second thoughts, and had gotten herself so stressed out about it that it made her sick. Hey. It could happen.
Anyhow, the ambulance came and carted her off to the Duke Hospital. Most people had left by this point, but a few remained, and we actually went into the chapel and staged pictures – sat one person in each aisle seat and had the bridesmaids and groomsmen pretend to process for some pictures. It was pretty amusing. Here are Amy and Missy during the fake picture posing:




Part II: The reception
At 5:30, the cocktail hour begins. The reception is at this swanky country club. Everything is beautiful. I drink gin and tonics. Mmm. And later gin gimlets, which are really quite tasty. We all chat. Here's Bayly, Kristin, Tori and Karen chatting:



We file into the reception hall to be seated for dinner. Eat our salads… still not quite sure what is going on. The head table has all the bridesmaids and groomsmen sitting at it, but the bride and groom seats in the middle are empty. Next, dinner. Dinner itself is eaten, still no sign of the bride and groom. By the time we get to dessert, we’re pretty sure they aren’t getting married that night. The DJ tries to get everyone dancing and my friends and I are happy to comply. It was still pretty bizarre though, because we were celebrating a wedding that still had not occurred, without the primary participants. At about 9:30 or so, Dave (groom) and parents arrive without Julie. Here's Dave being grilled for info (At first, I felt tacky about taking this picture as it seemed a bit like rubbernecking, but I saw the hired photographer doing it too, so I felt better):



Mom and Dad of the bride give a speech to tell us what is going on. Julie’s dehydrated and her electrolytes are all out of whack – she’s been on an IV at the hospital getting back in shape. They were concerned about possible unexpected side effects if they let her out of the hospital early, so she ended up staying, but the wedding was going to take place after all, at the hospital (!), with room only for a few people. Also, hey! We need to eat the cake, so someone cut it and they served it. Crazy. It was tasty though. Yum! We had about an hour and a half until everyone was leaving for the hospital wedding, so the strange party continued.

(A side note: at some point during the night, I found out that I had pulled an Alexandra Kerry and that my undergarments were visible under my dress in all the flash photography. See here (in the daylight):



and here (with a flash):



At least I was wearing a cute bra, but I was wearing FUNCTIONAL (read: ugly) underwear. Hurrah. So when everyone develops their pictures and sees me in my undies, thats what happened. I am not the wedding floozy! It was an accident!! The dress was DARK MAROON for gods sake!)

Part III. The hospital
We show up to the hospital at about 10:45ish, and had a very surreal conversation with the security guard where we said ‘We’re here for the wedding’ and he pointed us towards the hospital chapel. The room was very small, but I’d estimate that about 40 people were crammed in there, including the wedding party:



The bridesmaids filed in, we all hummed the wedding march, and Jules came in looking radiant in her actual wedding dress and veil. A short but sweet ceremony followed:



and they were married! Hurrah!



Then we went downstairs to the hospital lobby for pictures:




Epilogue: Our house
We got home at probably 1 am, but everyone was wide awake from all the excitement. And we wanted some drinks. So other Clevelanders also came over for the planned merriment. HOWEVER. We do not typically lock the door that goes from our garage into our home, as the garage doors themselves are locked, and there is no alternate way into the garage. But this time someone had inadvertently locked the door on their way out. And we had no house keys. I have mine on my car key ring, and I hadn’t driven to the wedding and had only a cute LITTLE purse, so no keys. Brian doesn’t carry his house key on his car key ring, he’s got this little key wallet – which he hadn’t brought. Of course, we’re in the garage with all of the tools, so everyone gave their best shot at picking our lock (where was brother Jim when we needed him):



But we gave in eventually and ended up calling a locksmith.

A good time was had by all. The End.

P.S. to wedding attendees - I will post pictures online and send you all a link, and I hope you will do the same!! I'm dying to see the pics!!

Various updates.

Hope everyone had a nice Labor day weekend. Like a good little postdoc, I spent much of it working. Well, I was actually getting DATA! From actual EXPERIMENTS! How very exciting. So I couldn't wait until the end of the weekend to see the results and I had to come in. Because thats just how geeky I am, in case you were questioning it.

We did do some fun things though. We had a Labor Day potluck dinner which was fun, and Mehrnaz brought the best samosas I've ever tasted in my LIFE. I already miss those samosas and I had the leftovers for dinner on Monday, so its not like we've been apart that long. Samosas really are the best food ever. Spicy, starchy food wrapped in lovely pastry and deep fried. The only thing better really is deep fried cheese.

The PKD fundraising is going well! I've surpassed my target by $70, but I'm continuing my efforts to raise more money than Leo. There's still time to donate online here, or you can make donations to me in person. You'll also find some more helpful information about polycystic kidney disease on my fundraising page. Also check out Brian's (click on 'Tobias Team' over on the left side of the page and then on Brian's name). Brian did his PhD in one of the labs where the PKD gene was cloned, so he has a personal connection to it.

I know that many of you are putting your charity dollars to Hurricane related causes as well. Here are links to several worthy causes: The Salvation Army for general relief, and Noah's Wish or the Humane Society of America, two groups that aim to assist all the pets and animals that were left behind.


EDITED: New PKD Update!! Team Tobias is in 3rd place for fundraising at the Chapel Hill Walk for PKD! Behind such creatively named teams as 'Cease and De-cyst'. HAHA. See... we're trying to cure polyCYSTic kidney disease? Get it? Hee. Ok, I'm a dork.

its a gas!

I'm enjoying monitoring the gas mileage in my new Civic hybrid. There is a real-time gas mileage indicator, and it also indicates the average gas mileage for your trip on the trip meter. I reset the trip meter when i filled the tank with gas. On my first tank, I was averaging about 38 mpg with the air conditioning on, which seemed a little low. So I started to pay attention to how I was driving, to see if I could improve the mileage a little bit. Mostly I started using the cruise control, which made a big difference. About 2/3 of my drive each day is on highways, and this upped my average mpg for that tank up to 40-41. I refilled the tank last week and have been driving like this all the time now (still with the air on though) and I'm up to 42-43 average, which is more like it. I imagine by the next tank I can turn the air off and I should get up several mpg into the published range of 47/48.

Brian has also been paying attention to mileage as he's driving the Pilot every day. On his last tank he was pleased to see that he got 20 mpg! See, we average out ok.

An update on the musical taste project - Death Cab for Cutie was a great pick by Larry, I totally love it. I also bought 'Sumday' by Grandaddy which I really like. That wasn't a suggestion from the MTP, but something I heard playing when we were out for pizza with someone. I found out what it was and wrote myself a little stickie note on my desktop to remember to buy it... and then I never did. Well, bummer. Because its really good.

and yet, no marmite.

My new favorite blog to read is "The Sneeze", which I have linked over there on the side. Those of you with children would also appreciate it, as many of his posts deal with the doings of his young son. Anyhow, a favorite feature of mine is Steve, don't eat it!, where he tries various disgusting things at the grocery store. The first one is 'potted meat'. That remids me of when I was a freshman in college, boyfriends mother sent him a care package that contained a can of 'deviled ham' that we were not quite sure what to do with. Certainly he was not going to eat it. Instead he opened the top and hid the can in the backpack of a certain fraternity brother. Said fraternity brother did not go to class much in these days, so his backpack didn't see a whole lot of action. It was pretty smelly. I was amused, because I am twelve.

I really think that Marmite should be on this list. I mean, lets think about this here. Its Guinness sludge. Not that I do not love Guinness, I do! Very much. But this stuff is the tar on the bottom of the vat that you were never meant to eat. Brian of course LOVES Marmite, in phases anyhow. Thank god we're not currently in a Marmite phase... peanut butter smells so much better. When he opens the Marmite jar, a horrible stench fills the room. Then he glops it on his english muffin, like... ew. Like the tar that it is. After this horrible concoction is eaten, Brian is not allowed to have his face anywhere near mine, because there is no smell so foul as Marmite breath. Interestingly, the Marmite slogan is something about "You either love it or you hate it". I'm firmly in the hate camp. Actually, the 'hate' website is pretty amusing, with some recipes, or '10 ways to ruin a perfectly good sandwich'.

Oddly enough, I kind of like 'Twiglets' which are like a Marmite Cheet-o or something. I mean, I wouldn't eat a whole bag, or even a whole SERVING of Twiglets. But they're tolerable.

mysterious non-pooping geese

So, the place where I work now is situated on a beautiful park-like campus. There's a big pond right outside, the whole place is wooded. There are a bunch of walking trails - not that I've used them or anything... There are a million gazillion geese everywhere. When we lived in Wind Point there was a pond in the middle of our development where the geese hung out. Of course the place was loaded with goose poop. I noticed that here, even though there are ten million geese everywhere there is no poop. I thought perhaps they had engineered non-pooping geese (or toilet trained?). But I found out that someone actually goes around and removes it. Hm!!

We had a good weekend - on Friday we went to Tyler's Taproom with Julie/Bayly/many others for J/B birthdays. The food was just ok, but they had a great beer selection. They had Rogue Hazelnut brown nectar on tap!! ON TAP, I tell you!! Its so good. On Saturday we had a new friend over for dinner - she works on the same floor as me and started on the same day I did. It was fun. My mom said I'm Martha Stewart now with the entertaining! Hey, its the only way I get the floors vacuumed anymore. I'm just kidding. Sort of. Anyhow, I made something that was very very very good from the September issue of Bon Appetit. It was a pizza made on ciabatta bread with sweet walnut pesto, havarti, pears, gorgonzola and arugula. It was fantastic. It probably is not up on epicurious.com yet. I also made pasta with tomatoes (from our garden) basil (from Kristin's garden! I'm rooting it so maybe I can plant it) garlic and pinenuts. And we drank many bottles of wine. A good time was had by all.

Now back to work! I'm taking a class here this week to learn how to do RNA interference. First class started this morning at 8am. I'm a morning person too, but I didn't get a chance to get any coffee first so I was dragging a bit!

I would lose my will to live.

This post was hysterical. If this had happened to me I would have simply lost my will to live. Right there. In front of the trash can.

When I was younger I was terrified of June bugs (er... lets clarify: still terrified of June bugs) and I would not enter a door at night that was lit because it would invariably be surrounded by flying horrors. I would enter through the garage door, because it was a double door and the lights were on either side. So in the middle, you were good if you ran really fast. Anyhow, one time I was on the phone with someone (Kendra?) sitting in the front seat of my parents car that was parked in the driveway. Why? Who knows. But it got dark while I was out there and for some reason I couldn't open the garage door. So I had to have whoever I was on the phone with hang up and call my house again to ask someone to open the garage so I could get in.

I am still just as pathetic, I am happy to report.

Many new things to screw up

So I've finished my first week of postdoc! It was very exciting. I have a fancy name tag on a fancy lanyard now. And a new parking pass.

I started the week off on a good note by driving out to Raleigh for traffic court. THAT was an experience. I've never gone to traffic court before, so I didn't really know what to expect. When I got up to the traffic court floor of the courthouse it was just MAYHEM. Seriously, it took me a good ten minutes just to find the end of the line I was suppossed to be waiting in. It was very difficult because the line wound around the room TWICE. I waited in line for 45 minutes. There is not much that you can do to entertain yourself when you're waiting in line, so I entertained myself by checking out all the fashion disasters surrounding me. I was struck too by the people in line who knew other people in line. I mean, are you at traffic court like every week? I don't think this is the kind of place where you want to be considered a "regular".
When I finally got up to the end of the line, you get to this desk where a woman asked me what I wanted to do with my ticket. I had no idea that I had options. So I said I didn't know, I'd never been here before. She told me to go talk to the ADA that was at the desk. This was a very nice woman who asked me if I wanted the ticket reduced. Sure! So she did. It was still $110 though, only 10 of which reflected the actual FINE. Oh well. It shouldn't cause any problems with my insurance now, which was the major concern.

At work I decided to jump right on in and start doing work. After discussing with my new advisor, he had suggested a project to start on that was similar to one I had been interested in doing that he didn't think was technically possible at the moment. Since I hadn't been doing lab work for a while, I kind of missed it and I was excited to actually DO SOMETHING. In general the week went okay, but yesterday I screwed up Every. Single. Thing. I. Did. Minipreps? Easy, right? Not when you forget to label the tubes. Of course, these were my second minipreps of the same thing, because the day before I had done them and forgotten to save some of the culture for a frozen stock. I did 4 maxipreps but stupidly stupidly used glass tubes when precipitating my DNA and even more stupidly centrifuged these at speeds that are apparently MUCH higher than they're physically able to go. How do I know? One of the tubes shattered in the machine and I lost the whole sample. And had quite a glass-powder mess to clean up. Ran a gel and forgot to load the size standards. Screwed up my tissue culture.

Once I get into it I know I'll be ok, but yesterday was a very frustrating day.

Fortunately I got to do out for drinks after work, because Karrie and Ben were staying with us on their way from Cleveland to some beach in NC. They got to the house right before I did, and we went to the Federal for dinner and beers. They have great sandwiches and the BEST FRIES EVER. As well as a great beer selection, including one of my new favorites: Tuppers Hop Pocket. Mmmmm....hoppy!

Ugly Cars and nostalgia.

I told Brian about the Ugly Cars discussion, and he was a little surprised that I didn't include the ugly pimp-mobiles we see around our neighborhood. Not that we live in a pimp neighborhood or anything, but I think we are surrounded by a few poseur pimps. Anyhow. The problem was that I didn't really know what they were. I'm going to have to do more research on that. Although I think at least one of them is the Cadillac that Eve was talking about... it looks like Lionel Richie (There was a car that my mom and I used to say looked like Lionel Richie and now I forget what it was!).

Anyhow, since I couldn't remember the names of any of these cars, I googled 'ugly cars' and came up with this, the Car Talk guys top ten Ugly Cars of 2005. Now, I don't want to ruin the surprise or anything, but I think many of you will agree wholeheartedly with their pick for #1 ugliest car. Also look at this, their favorite comments recieved on Ugly Car nomination forms. I like one from the Aztek "Lets face it, not every engineering student gets an "A". The "D" students need work also." Hee. And I'm sure none of those were trained in the Cleveland Institute of Art Industrial Design department, although given some of the stuff I've seen at their student shows? I don't know.

For old times sake, I also wanted to post a picture of this (I know its too big for the width of the page, but I wanted you to get the full effect!):



which some of you will recognize as... (dun-dun-dunnnnn!)
The 8-trackmobile!!!

My first car, which had been my parents car before me. A 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix, which my parents lovingly removed the 8-track player from and replaced with a cassette player so that I would not need to entertain my friends with Neil Sedaka or the BeeGees. Obviously, this is not my ACTUAL first car, but one I saw driving in the Memorial Day (or whatever holiday, I forget) parade outside our house in Cleveland. However, many of the details are right. The two tone silver. The hugeness. However, mine had a black velvety interior, rather than this sort of scary red. And I don't think the pinstripe was red on mine either.

Ah, the 8-trackmobile. Site of much exciting highschool fun. My favorite 8-trackmobile memories include:
1. Driving with Herryn to take the PSAT or some other test in the bitter Wisconsin cold, and the latch on the passenger side door froze so that the door wouldn't close. So Herryn had to hold it shut the entire way to Gilmore. Hee.
2. Egging unsuspecting people at Pershing Park (those losers deserved it though) and standing in line at the Dairy Queen.
3. Kendra getting bruises all over her upper arms from egging unsuspecting people and then having to have her senior pictures taken.
3a. Also, one time Kendra missed with the egg and egged the inside of the car. We had to stop at the Spur (where we had bought the eggs, incidentally) and clean it up. However, that was the night I started hooking up with whom I had long been boy crazy about, so it was all good.
4. With Elizabeth and Becky, finding roadkill on the cabbage-scented roads of Franksville to transport on the hood of the car (as we drove slowly) and deposit on the front porch of a guy we knew. This was always followed the next day by questioning said guy to see if he would mention it... like "Sooooo! Anything exciting happen this morning?" He never said anything, so either he was onto us, or roadkill on the front porch was nothing out of the ordinary at his house.
5. Getting back from a jazz band trip to LaCrosse or Eau Claire or something at like one in the morning in (again) the dead of winter, going out and turning the car on to warm up while we loaded stuff into the trunk and then-boyfriend Jason R. locking the doors, with the keys in and the car running. So had to call my parents to come out and help out.
6. Driving back from a party at UW-Parkside where a kid I went to school with (names changed to protect the innocent!) drank like one beer and smoked a cigar and then threw up on Herryn, her new shoes, her boyfriend, and everything in the back seat of my car. Then Kendra sprayed 'Red Door' and I cannot smell that to this day without being overcome with nausea.
7. Having to drive around the Rockingham Park Mall parking lot for like seven hours (it was Christmas) with Melissa because when we found a spot it was one I didn't feel I could fit into.

Of course my car is not pictured here because it pretty much self-destructed. I played a small role in its self-destruction (you will recall the infamous rear-ending-sneeze incident where I rear-ended someones brand new SUV when I sneezed mightily, thus failing to notice that all the cars in front of me had stopped because a tractor was also driving down the road). After that, the fiberglass front of the car had some bolts in it to hold it back together. I also had a small depth-perception incident (at least thats how I like to think of it) when I drove a little too close to the island around the gas pump and did a little damage on the passenger side door.

But the car had problems that were larger than anything that I could do to it. At some point the trunk stopped opening reliably, so I had to store everything important in the back seat. This included sheet music and music books, my golf clubs, etc. Remember when Brian Drier puked in the back seat? Also all over all of this stuff. I lost a lot of music that day. Wherever there was fluid in the car there was a problem of some sort. First, there was a phantom hole in the brake fluid line somewhere that caused a bubble or something to periodically interrupt the flow of brake fluid to the brakes, thus the brakes would pretty much stop working. That was fun, and in fact contributed in part to the 'sneeze' incident. The oil also seemed to vaporize such that I needed to (or my dad needed to) give it oil on an all too regular basis. The most exciting thing was that the gas tank had rusted out. Now, remember I was a poor high school student, so I didn't ever have the cash to purchase an entire 50 gallon tank of gas (ok, maybe it wasn't 50 gallons, but it was huge). I would buy like, 5 dollars of gas at a time. 10 if I was rich. I remember quite distinctly everyone in the car gathering up all their change and buying like, $1.67 worth of gas.

Anyhow, one day my mom and I drove up to Grand Avenue to go shopping (almost certainly we had planned around Macadamia Nut Custard day at Kopps) and took my car. She bought me a whole tank of gas before we left. We got up there, parked in the parking garage and started shopping. Then we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker saying "Would the owner of a two-tone silver Pontiac Grand Prix please come to the information desk". Huh? We were standing at the info desk when we ran into a guy I knew from GMYWE. He said, 'Thats your car? They've put orange cones all around it and they're directing traffic around it!'. Ok. Well, it turns out that the gas tank was ~half rusted, so the gas was just leaking right out of it. We had to push the car out of the parking garage and leave. It was a little mortifying, but funny now.

The Grand Prix finally succumbed to an electrical problem of some sort. My brothers and I would be driving to Pinkerton and the car would just randomly turn off. I'd have to wrench it over to the side of the road (no power steering when no power!) and wait for a few minutes, then try again to restart the car. I think my dad had hoped to keep the car (because it was going to be a classic!!) but the mechanic talked him out of it.

So please. Leave your 8-trackmobile memories in the comments section. I know you have them.

Ugly cars: A direct comparison

I know that Mel is feeling like everyone is ripping on her car, and I feel badly about that. So I started thinking about whether the Element was TRULY the ugliest car? I think this side-by-side comparison of three ugly cars will convince you that it is, in fact, the most attractive of the three:

Witness, the Scion Xb:


The PT Cruiser:


And finally, the Element:


Of these three? Clearly the Element wins for most attractive. It is helped by the fact that, in this particular picture it has a sign above it that says "TACO". I like tacos.
Similarly, the Scion is undeniably the ugliest. So there, now we've done the experiment and I rescind my previous statement.

The Element is NOT the ugliest car in the world.
The Scion is the ugliest car in the world.

But lets compare to a truly beautiful car, the Jaguar XKE.


Am I not my father's daughter? Don't worry though mom, I'm with you on the Corvette.

Walk for PKD

If I did not send you an email about this already, Brian and I have signed up to do the Walk for PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) in Chapel Hill on September 17. Not only do sitcom star George Lopez and fashionista Steven Cojocaru have PKD (and if you didn't know that you don't read enough People magazine, but I forgive you), we also have a friend who does. And besides, raise money AND get some exercise! Hurrah!

We would really appreciate your donations! Money from these donations will go straight into PKD research, providing funding for a scientist just like me. Except one who works on PKD.

You can make a donation online by clicking here. I think at this point you can probably choose to make the donation in either my name or in Brian's, but either way, its all going to the same place.

No other real blog news. The love of the new cars is rampant. I could just kiss they hybrid! And in fact, I have. A friend from Cleveland is in town for a meeting and we hope to see him tonight. Smokey is inexplicably peeing on the couch again. At least its not a) brand new and b) we're not showing our house, like last time she got into the couch-peeing frenzy. A week of heartburn has apparently begun, making me consider buying stock in Tums again. Now I know that its clearly not stress-related, its just random because I'm totally not stressed. New job starts on Monday so I'll have a new email address, which I'll pass along.

a) a new car

So this weekend we began with the 'Things we can do now that we can't buy the new house'. We went out to the Honda dealership with the intent of buying a new Honda CR-V (SE, pewter pearl!). We had decided that we really needed something SUV-ish because we need some more cargo room. And Brian, who is considerably taller than I am, would really have preferred something that he didn't have to squeeze his knees into. We looked at the used cars first, where we saw a 2003 Honda Pilot with only 30,000 miles on it. Secretly I wanted a Honda Pilot. Its a little larger than the CR-V (built on an Accord chassis rather than a Civic chassis), has a lot more room. And, oh. Leather seats. And a GPS Navagation system. Turns out that Brian also found the CR-V very scrunched knee-wise, perhaps even more so than the Civic. We had never actually been in one, you see. The Pilot was also not significantly more expensive than the new CR-V we were thinking about.
Then we also saw a used (!) Civic Hybrid! Ohhh... a used hybrid. A 2005 no less. Only 9000 miles on it. To be honest, we didn't even test drive it. I think I sat inside. Both the cars are certified, so mechanically I was not worried. I loved it. I wanted to take it home to be my new car. So on the spur of the moment we decided to trade in our Civic and get both cars. The hybrid is so exciting. Kristin, who finally got her Prius after a year of being on the waiting list, said that she gets a little obsessed watching the gas mileage guage on their car, which tells you what gas mileage you're getting at every moment. Driving home from the dealership I could totally see how this could get obsessive. I watched that (Ooh!! 48 mpg!!) and the IMA guage (is the battery assisting the motor now? Is it charging?? Woo!) constantly. So very exciting. The car is bright blue and I get to drive it, since I will be driving further to work.
The next day Brian already started feeling guilty about getting an SUV. I figure that the hybrid cancels out the SUV ownership. Our AVERAGE car miles per gallon highway is still ~35, which is good. It equals out.
Now I'm desperate to get an iPod hookup for the cars. Mel has one in her Honda Element (the ugliest car in the world) which I'm very jealous of. I could almost have been talked into an Element for the iPod jack alone. The Honda dealer recommended a car audio shop where we could get one installed, so we may look into that. Otherwise I'll look for an iTrip or something.