EWwww

Ever wonder what a hermit crab looks like..you know, naked? Our hermit crab, Connor (as in Port O'Connor in Texas), has taken to nudism lately. Are there any pet whisperers around who can comment on the relative health value of this new behavior in my crab?

In other news: I went up to St. Augustine this weekend to visit Jen. We stayed in a pirate themed hostel with the standard tortured-artist-too-old-to-be-THAT-irresponsible set. I'll post pictures and commentary soon...but for now, more gratiutious cute pictures of my impossibly adorable doggies.

Shark Valley

Shark Valley is Everglades Light. It's where you go when you want to see some alligators hanging out but don't want to commit to canoes and bug spray and signing liability wavers. Meredith told me that it's a pretty neat place to go--when you're training for a marathon it's a nice 15 mile run...I guess. When Jen was in town I thought it would be a nice place to take her. She wanted to see a swamp. She was disappointed to find that there was no mossy areas to frolic in barefoot, I was really disappointed to find out that there were no sharks. It's named for some river basin. How lame is that? At least it's not a Bog.

Here's a little photo essay.
"There are many alligators in this ditch because there is water in this ditch. This ditch is here because an oil company dug out the rock to make a road. The very road I'm standing on. The alligators are here because someone was looking for oil. Oil exploration saves animals. QED. Off to the Arctic!" I am a park ranger.

Look! I found one!
Laura REALLY likes alligators.
Jen becoming familiar with the swamp fauna. She is trying to make peace with the sawgrass.
Baby Alligators. And we couldn't even pet them! Silly federal regulations...
Oh but I really want to!
My 1st favorite bird, ever. The wood stork.
Laura likes wood storks, but not as much as alligators.
See!
She even got to take one home. This is Harold.
This bird eats fish.



And finally, because no blog post is complete without some sort of gratuitous pet picture. Grant got a snake.

DMSO

Dimethyl Sulfoxide.

I use it to make things dissolve better--decylubiquinone among other things. It inhibits secondary structure formation in DNA, which is useful when you're trying to get those sticky little buggers to copy themselves.

It's also a neurotoxin. Guess I was wrong about the cancer thing. I went onto the Wikipedia and found out these fun facts:

1. It dissolves nitrile gloves with ease. (thought I was being safe)
2. It's a great solvent (it mixes well, and can dissolve both polar and nonpolar things), but it makes whatever you put in it That Much More Toxic because it penetrates the skin like a dream.
3. It's commonly used in medical treatments, because it can be a vehicle to carry medicine into tissues without compromising them. Think toenails...
4. When it penetrates your skin, you get a strong taste of oysters in your mouth.
5. The FDA has been recently evaluating its potential use as an agent to reduce brain swelling. Wait...Neurotoxin, what?

So, maybe I was being a bit too nervous about the DMSO. Just to be safe though, I'm going to avoid dissolving things like potassium cyanide in it and then spilling it on my hands...

Updates...

Work is REALLY boring. We're annotating a gene list...boring boring boring. Sometimes I hate genes. Why are there so many databases? Why can't we just name a gene and get it over with? Why do we need to name a gene 8 times? Why does everybody need a turn to name the same thing? What is WRONG with fly-genetics-people?

The problem is that the databases AND species all have different naming schemes and the don't overlap. This would be like saying that in France a cat is called a Pointy Eared Meowie Thing while in Germany it's called a Fuzzy Friend, in the US it's called a Cat...ad nauseum. How do you know that you have the same thing, without looking at a picture of a cat? How did you know that zwischenferment is really the same thing as G6PD? Tedious.

Right now, I'm waiting for Dlc to finish lunch because I finished MY gene list and need to have him teach me some SAS. To fill the time I'm aliquot-ing some DMSO that came in last week. I can never get over how awesome DMSO is...I mean, I'm terrified of getting cancer or whatever from it...but it's a solid at room temperature. How wild is that? Ice that isn't COLD. Woah!!!

I wish I trained Dolphins.

Oh gosh

Ok, Meredith is putting me to shame over there at Stranded Science. That's like a thousand posts in one week. Seriously, I'd like some zucchini, and a sandwich bread recipe.

"Where have YOU been??" you may be asking....

Deep in Excel hell I be. Cutting and pasting, pasting and cutting, borders and shading. Gene names here gene names there, why can't we all just get along and call them all the same thing? Because then we wouldn't need 8 different databases.

Besides that I've been running around with Jennamari from Finland. She's gone now, she ran off to St. Augustine without me. Let me know if you see her, will you?

Coming soon to Moving Targets:

Ani Concert!
Everglades Alligators!
Drama, Drama, Drama!

and more!

Take that Fred Phelps

Jamboree

I was away for the weekend, at my very first Jamboree (which is defined as a Large rally of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts). Actually, I think it was a Camporee, which is a smaller gathering usually regional in origin. There were only about 200 girls there, and they all came from our Council--which is the local area. Dictionary.com says there's a difference.

Jamboree or Camporee, it was my first. I must say I am NOT impressed with Council's ability to put on an event. In fact, they should be paying ME to run these things. It was a great event, I have to say--the kids really enjoyed (most of) the activities and learned at least one new thing.
However: the planning was a bit--typical.
Time seems to be an abstract thing in Southern Florida. Like: someone has a clock...somewhere...and we have an idea that to make a schedule, we need to include time, or something, on it? right? But time never moves beyond some sort of abstract necessity around here. Breakfast is at 8? Ok, well, that means I should wake up when I do and then I'll go straight to breakfast. That'll work. Workshops are 45 minutes? Alright, well that's a little longer than a half an hour and a little shorter than an hour. Any other time will be filled with willynilly running around, that's not a problem.

For example: There was a program called "Outdoor Skills Relays" scheduled for 4:40 pm. We showed up at 4:35 and learned that the program was canceled. No one wanted to do it, they said. So my girls were hanging out, looking at other girls who were hanging out. One of mine said "I want to go play with them" I said, "so go ask if they want to play" She's 9 and she's shy...so she wouldn't. I said "fine, do you want to see if we can start a big game?" So we all went over together and asked the other troop if they wanted to start a game. They did. Next thing I know, we've got about 80 kids running around playing tag. Awesome.

An aside to the event planners: How hard was that? How hard is it to have a Plan B? It's not, but it's not something they think about either. They missed the "too much free time = boredom = misbehaving" part of PreCamp, I guess.

On that note: Willynilly running around bothers me because I was very seriously indoctrinated during my youth at resident camps. We do not climb trees, we do not run, we do not even think about stepping over a bench and we most certainly never consider breaking the buddy system. Here in South Florida--some of these kids never even get to go to the beach. Willynilly running around seems to be their right according to their leaders who must feel sorry for them and want to let them have a good time. Well! A broken ankle or a missing eye is never a Good Time!

So, now that I've put Pony Nuzzles behind me, I think it's time to start working on my next Technical Manual: Kat's Camping Theory. And then maybe some day someone will pay me to plan these things.

NOOOOO!!!!!!!

from MLB.com

Amezaga hurts left knee in Classic

Switch-hitter returning to Florida, will undergo exam Tuesday

A veteran who can play infield and outfield, Amezaga is arguably the Marlins' best defensive player. He has played seven different positions since joining the team in 2006.

Scary Things

There are things that scare Scott, especially at night when we're out walking. He's kind of a sissy. Palm fronds, plastic cups, plastic bags, basketballs....the list goes on. There's one thing that scares me when we're out walking: the scary Kujo Cat that hangs out on our block. It's a mangy calico looking thing. Its hard to say how big it really is, because whenever I see it it's puffed up. It has a very Bad attitude. The Kujo Cat appears when you least expect it and attacks. She seems to take offense to our imposition on her territory.

Laura called the other night while I was babysitting my favorite 8 year old ever and said "Hey what are you doing", I said "not much, building a model of the London Tower Bridge" she replied "Oh my god it's the cat!" and then she made some grunts and puff-puff sounds and she may have screamed. I said "ok well why don't you call me later when you're not busy" and I hung up.

I think the cat must belong to my upstairs neighbors. I think that they hate us and are trying to do everything they can to make us miserable in our new home. Every night at 10 pm (precisely when I go to bed) they start moving furniture. I can not imagine why they would need to move furniture EVERY NIGHT. But they do. It sounds like something large sliding across the floor. Like a large chair going back and forth, for hours, directly above my head. Maybe it's a poltergeist..but I doubt it. I think they're malicious. And so: Anyone who would do something as horrible as that every night must also own the cat that menaces me and my dogs.

QED.

13.1 pictures

Got my half Marathon pictures back.

I read in my runners' magazine that you're supposed to do this at the end to take a nice picture. Apparently the "nice picture" part is more complicated.

I Have a Hitch in My Giddyup

Laura and I ran the Miami Beach half marathon on Sunday. Well, I ran it and Laura hop-limped it, since she's suffering from an ITB injury. That's what we call your standard OverUse tendon injury. Shame on Her! But she finished, and she beat a ton of people who weren't hop limping.

The run was nice. There were only about 1500 people there, and the course was out and back (boring!) but for the inaugural run it wasn't so bad. We got medals too, but they lacked imagination (like the course). They're just big rectangular shiny things that say 13.1 on them.

All day Sunday we sat around and groaned and said "ooohhh" and "Are you done with the ice pack" a lot.

Now we're trying to decide which marathon/half marathon we'll do next.

PS: the sensor in my shoe died. That's why my nike avatar is looking lazy.

Celebrity sightings

I live in Miami, land of wealth and famous people. I haven't seen a single celebrity since I've lived here--until Feb. 22nd (I'm very behind here at Moving Targets, sometimes we need breaks...).

I was driving down Coral Way when I looked over and saw a Lamborghini next to me. I noticed the hub caps, the girlin the passenger seat and then, the driver. DAN UGGLA! I saw Dan Uggla! He's the second baseman, and he is really cool, and I used to have a Dan Uggla bobble head on my dashboard until Laura made me take it off. He would have been really impressed by that, I'm sure.

Because my windows were up I was spared another embarassing repeat of the "OMG IT'S ANI'S DRUMMER" incident. He noticed me staring, and the light turned green. I'm still excited. I hope he noticed my Marlins hat and my Marlins bumper sticker.

And how does he afford a Lamborghini? I think those cost more than the Marlins total player salary budget...