A new blog feature: Lisa does the experiment

I figured I could put my screwups in the lab to good use with a new feature, "Lisa does the experiment". All you non-lab people out there, don't worry. My screwups typically extend beyond the lab world, and they will also be included.

We'll start with a double-whammy today!

A. Western blotting mayhem
You know how you're suppossed to soak your membrane in methanol before you try to transfer proteins onto it? Did you ever wonder what would happen if you... say... forgot? Well, I did the experiment, so I can tell you! The proteins do not transfer! Hurrah.
In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't actually COMPLETE this experiment. I realized after I had assembled 4 blot sandwiches (yes I know non-science people, that sounds dumb. blot sandwiches.) that I hadn't done the methanol thing and I had the foresight to ask my PI what would happen. It turns out that he did the experiment in the past, all the way through to its sad finish.

B. Password-typing crazy
This morning I was sitting here and my screen saver came on. We have to have our screen savers password protected, so I had to input my password to get back into my computer. But it wasn't working. In fact, about 2/3 of my keyboard wasn't working. I thought I had broken my poor old powerbook and I very nearly called my wonderful mac support guy. But no! I had done the following experiment: What happens when you accidentally turn on 'number lock'? I'll tell you! only the keys that have numbers on them work!

ohmigod!!

My paper finally came out!! Hurrah. So much for the "September" issue, which comes out at the end of October. Hee.
Well, at least it now looks to the rest of the world like i did something in grad school. Now if I could just get my PhD advisor to get those other THREE papers off his desk, we'd be cooking with gas.

Also, Brian had one come out today. So tonight? We're going out for dinner!! Woohoo! Party!

weekend

An exciting weekend of excitingness:
1. On Friday we went to an institutional postdoc happy hour (that was off campus). And there were hm... 10 people there? Not the most social bunch, the fellows here. Also that night Stephanie came up from Fayetteville to take her pharmacy admittance exam at UNC the next day. We entertained ourselves by asking each other questions from her practice tests. Did I ever mention that I am a bit nerdy? I know, its a shock.

2. On Saturday we went to a big Halloween party at friends of friends house. 1/2 of the hosts were Aussies, who JUST LOST TO ENGLAND IN THE ASHES!!! The Ashes is an annual cricket match between England and Australia, which the Aussies usually win. Brian had the opportunity to bet on England against this guy and didn't because he didn't think the odds were that great. However! Would have been a good bet after all. So of course we dressed as English cricketers. Brian made a cricket bat and wickets out of wood. He was very proud of his work. I'm sure they were very accurate but you know, what do I know. I've been to one cricket match ever. Also, do you know how hard it is to find white pants in late October? Impossible.

3. Last night I went to see the Bravery with a friend from the new lab. They were playing at Cats Cradle in Carrboro. Every time I go to Carrboro I have major trouble, and last night was no different. I take I-85 to 15-501 to get there.



For as long as I cam remember, the exit from 85 has been TO THE LEFT. This is also the way that I go to work every morning (Except that I get on 147 instead) so... pretty sure I know what I am doing. However, last night? 15-501 exited to THE RIGHT. Huh??? They're doing a lot of construction here, so okay. But some warning that this was happening would have been helpful. I didn't figure it out until I was right on top of it and thus I missed the exit. Of course the next exit is seemingly 80 miles down the road. It took me a while to turn around, only to find that there WAS NO EXIT for 15-501 coming from the other direction. So, great. I was only ~15-20 minutes late because I had left myself some extra time, figuring that something would go wrong.
Anyhow, it didn't matter because the first band didn't even start until probably close to 9 pm. They were okay. Nothing that great. Then the next band came out and were great. And the funny thing was that I totally thought that it was the Bravery. Its not like I'm their biggest fan or anything, I only got to know them via the Musical Taste Project this summer. And the singer sounded Cure-esque, which I think the Bravery does - a more upbeat version of the Cure perhaps. But I kept thinking, I can't believe that they haven't played a single song that I've heard before! Well, duh. There were two opening bands. This one was VHS or Beta, and they were really great. So, a new fan has been minted.
The only problem with this scenario was that now it was 10pm, the Bravery hasn't come on yet, and I have to give lab meeting first thing the next morning. I have never felt so old and boring in my life. We stayed as long as we could, but they didn't come on until 10:45. Come on! We stayed for 4 songs and left. As it was, I didn't get home until 11:30, which is too late considering that we get up at 6 am. Blah. Also? Standing all night in heels is not good for the calves. Ow.

I'd like to think that I used to be a lot more fun than I am now, but I know that is probably not true. After all, even in college in the height of my fun-ness, I still turned into a pumpkin at midnight, generally leaving Amee stuck at BW3 with Marc and Krishna. Not that she minded.

Fly-by

Yesterday my dad came though on his bi-annual trip down to Florida. I picked him up in Chapel Hill yesterday after a long flight - the strong headwind had added almost 2 hours to the trip! In past years, he's flown down with Kola (the parrot) and Captain (the dog)




This year Wynton and Olly got to make the trip.



This was their first time in the plane, and neither are particularly fond of traveling in general. Olly has a really funny low-pitched meow, and apparently he was doing that continuously for a large part of the trip. Hee.

We went out to dinner to my favorite place, Pops. I got the shitaake mushroom pizza, although its not my favorite. It needs to be saltier than it is. But I cannot turn down the TRUFFLE OIL. I love truffle oil. I would marry truffle oil. I put some parmesan on it, and that helped.

(a truffle oil-related aside: We were playing taboo with Denise/Jim/Chris/Leo one night, and Brian was on my team. The word I was trying to get them to say was 'popcorn'. I said something like 'I put truffle oil on it!' because I thought Brian would know what I was talking about. Of course, he blanked, and the rest of the people playing just thought I was wierd. But really. Try it! Truffle oil drizzled over airpopped popcorn and salted. Its the BEST)

Also I had a martini, because I had had the Worst. Day. Ever (for this week anyhow). It was good. Mmmm gin.

This morning I took my dad to the airport for the return trip. That was an exciting trip in itself. First, my dad (who had Kola's carrier on his lap in the front seat) decided to open the cage and let Kola sit on his hand. Which was fine, until something freaked him out and he flapped his wings like crazy. Of course, then the bird-dust flies all over the place, and also the shredded newspaper lining the bottom of the carrier. So, that was nice. In my new car!! I'm sorry car.
Then, Wynton, who was not thrilled with being in the cat carrier in the first place, decided that he needed to puke. We were not too far from the airport, and I was hoping he could hold it, but apparently he was not interested in that. When we got to the airport, we tried to clean out the carrier - my dad cleaned up the puke with paper towels while I held the cat. The cat, who of course had puke all over his little kitty feet. Which were on my white shirt. Which now has cat-puke stains on it. Hurrah! I tried to wash it off as best I could, but I swear that I can still smell cat puke. The stains were all up on my left shoulder, so kind of close to my nose. Ew.

The cats will like it once they get down there though. The house opens up into the pool cage, which is essentially a screened-in backyard of sorts, so they can hang out outside.

This place is a prison, and these people aren't your friends

Well, in a crappy travel-related development: I just got a phone call from my mother, who is stranded in Charlotte for the next 4.5 hours on her way down to Florida. She is (unsurprisingly) flying on My Favorite Airline, USAirways (Please see my July 2005 archives) (and Karl's most recent post) (and all the posts he linked to) (Ok, those weren't specifically USAir related) (Hm.. How many parenthetical thoughts can make up one blog entry?).

She is stranded in Charlotte (which, and I know - another parenthetical thought, is a very nice airport) (especially when compared to DETROIT, aka the WORST AIRPORT IN THE WORLD) because when she was leaving Manch-vegas, someone who was servicing the aircraft forgot to close some panel or other. I know, a comforting thought, which they were informed of 20 min. after taking off (I always like that when they tell you that there is something wrong so that you can sit there in the cabin FREAKING out while you wait to land, thinking that you might die at any moment). So they had to turn back, close the panel, and fill out some paperwork, all of which took about an hour. So she missed her connection and there are no more flights until later this evening.

(I just realized that I'm flying on USAir for my next planned travel, because I am dumb and I do not learn from my mistakes.)

I am a scientist.

For all you science dorks out there, here's another blog I have been reading. Its very funny. Ah. I remember back when I was premed. Good times, good times.

I liked the hall of fame post entitled 'hypertalkers'. I knew some of those in grad school. One in particular. And those of you who went to school with me know who I am talking about. And that his initials are MM. You probably also remember that landmark 'news and views'-type article, containing the still famous phrase: "intra-individual-specific proclivities".

I kept that paper. I still have it, how many years later? Wow. I am sort of pathetic.

I hate your way, a little more every day.

Neighbors. You can't live with them, you can't shoot them.

When we lived in Cleveland we had good neighbors who we loved, who moved away and left us with this Indian medical resident and his entire family (extended family too). Residents have a bad reputation (among me) as neighbors because they are too busy to give a crap about their home. In the n = 3 residents I've known in the neighborhoods I've lived in, 100% of them have not taken care of their homes or yards. I know you're busy, but so are we. Give me a break. I felt guilty this year because we didn't plant any flowers in the front yard (very busy what with the whole thesis thing, and besides. Gardening = bugs + dirt, so I hate it). These people don't mow their lawns until the grass is a foot tall. Anyhow, Cleveland resident neighbor backed into the decorative lightpost next to his driveway and left it there (until we moved, so who knows whats going on with it now) seriously cockeyed and with the broken light on top covered with a plastic bag. Nice. Also, the yellow tent-like roof on their playset had blown off and was just left hanging for months (again, until we moved). There were weeds in their grass that would kill you. I actually cut my ankle on the prickers of one of these weeds once when I was getting in the car. However, in that neighborhood there really were no enforcable rules to deal with this kind of thing, so we just griped to ourselves.

When we moved to Durham, we were excited about our new neighborhood because we had restrictive covenants and architectural guidelines. Finally, some control!! Hurrah. We were the 2nd people to move into the neighborhood so we didn't really know how it was going to turn out.

Our next-door neighbors seemed good on paper (he's a realtor, apparently) but in real life? They totally suck. They have 5 or 6 trashy cars parked out in their driveway at all times, plus 1 or 2 (lately its only been the one, thank god) parked in the circle. They have a two car garage, just like the rest of us, but none of these cars have ever been parked in the garage because they use it as a rec room. They have a front porch where they store a bunch of crap. Like, I don't know. Inflatable pool toys. Toolboxes. Other crap. Since their garage is not useful for storage of garage-type things, these are stored in the backyard. When we are sitting on our deck enjoying an evening meal, or entertaining, or whatever, we get to look at their lawnmower, their fertilizer spreader, a random piece of white vinyl lattice, their grill, a broken picnic table. All stored in their wooded area. Which is nice. They have huge parties on what seems like a weekly basis, where they blast the music until the early morning hours, and have their friends (all of whom seem to own HUGE SUVs) park wherever they feel like.

I'm on the architectural review board, which is made up of what sometimes seems to be the only people who give a crap about the neighborhood. We end up being the ones who enforce the covenants (or at least bring violations to the attention of the homeowners association guy who sends out the letters). I've actually been slightly too lazy to do much about this, I generally complain to the other people on the board and find that they've already contacted the guy about these things. With our neighbors, I think we've only complained about the car in the street. We've done it more than once, and the car is still there. I haven't even said anything about all the junk, although that too is a violation. The other weekend they also bought a portable basketball hoop - also a violation (permanent ones are okay, but portable are not because they can be brought into the street). I don't understand these people who move in but seem to have never read the covenants. It seems to be about half of the neighborhood.

So this weekend, my dad was in town and we went out to lunch in the newly renovated American Tobacco Historic District (which by the way is WONDERFUL and I love. And if you come to visit us I'll take you there and you will love it too). When we got back, one of the huge parties were going on, and some classic stupid parking had been done by two of their guests. See, we live in a cul-de-sac. For some reason these MORONS think that when the driveway is full you just keep parking out into the culdesac. Not true. Here's an illustration of what the parking was like when we got home:



We are the green car. The two blue cars are the offending moron cars. The red car is that stupid red car that they ALWAYS park there. It didn't directly impact the situation, but I included it because I hate it.

So obviously, we can't get into our driveway. Brian (who was driving) initially decided that the way to deal with this was to lay on the horn. Which he did. I got annoyed because I thought I could handle it better, so I made him stop and I got out of the car. I should really know myself better, because I... how best to put this... totally lost my shit. I was yelling at them about how they were not the only people who lived on the street, although they obviously think they are, and how they're obviously quite skilled at parking cars on the curb (because of the stupid red car, which I pointed out) and how did this skill seem to fail them all the time? Etc. etc. All the pent up hostility towards them came flying out at these two stupid cars.

The cars got moved and we parked in the garage. Then we went for a walk. My dad said that he was slightly concerned when Brian's approach was to lay on the horn, so he was relived that I had decided to go handle it. However, then kind of thinking that maybe he should have done the handling. Not that this is not precisely what my father expects of me, because I mean, he's known me for 30 years. I didn't just get like this.

Brian says that I have an 'aggressive' personality. I think that word has a negative connotation. I definately have an 'assertive' personality. Aggressive means like, picking fights. I don't do that. But, I do not suffer fools gladly, as my mom says. I think that I just do not take peoples crap. In this case I agree that I did cross the line from 'assertive' into 'aggressive'. Oh well.

I lost my girl to the Rolling Stones

Well, the Rolling Stones concert was on Saturday! How crazy was THAT? So crazy. I mean, beer was $7!!

No really, it was good. Here's a review from the News and Observer, which I must make sure to link to because I stole these pictures from their website. Its important to have visual aids to illustrate my points, and cameras were not allowed.

Ok, so stage? Very big. And people are sitting on it as well. I don't have photoshop yet so I cannot illustrate to you where they are, but you're going to have to trust me. See the purple stripes that are going out on either side of the big screen? They're sitting in those.


Mick Jagger was all over the place. The guy is 62. Holy crap. I mean, he was dancing like a crazy man. From far away you would not know he was an old man. Er.. an older man (I get in trouble if I call 60 old because my dad is now 60. And so's my Aunt Ruth! Hi Ruth! Happy Birthday!). However, from close up? No argument:



In this picture I think you could mistake him for a televangelist. An old one. I mean OLDER.

He did take a little break during the show where Keith Richards sang two songs. You think ol' Mick looks old? Oh my GOD. I think Keith Richards might actually already be dead:


But they were rocking out anyhow. They played some the faves (Brown Sugar! Honky Tonk Woman! Sympathy for the Devil!) and some new stuff, and some crap (She's So Cold. That song was CRAP). None of my absolute faves, Mother's Little Helper, Paint it Black and Under My Thumb, but I'll forgive that. After all, they are old and forgetful.

It rained a bit during the show but that was okay, because my hair looked like crap anyhow. Hee. And you know, I was with my dad. And I don't think he cared.

Took us an hour just to get out of the Duke campus, so didn't get home until midnight. We were both totally awake, so dad and I stayed up and had a drink and didn't go to bed until 1am (yes, you read that right. Dad was up until 1 am!!!).

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.