oggle my goat! This can't be real!

But it is. This is from nationalgeographic.com





February 23, 2009--With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes--topped by green, orblike lenses--in a picture released today but taken in 2004.

The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact.

The 6-inch (15-centimeter) barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.

--Richard A. Lovett

Do your part to save the Economy!

An old camp friend of mine, Mrs. Sheats, was in town for the weekend. She was here on a business trip. Her off season job (when she's not at camp) is selling security systems.

We spent some time recounting old adventures, new Epic Stories (she is the queen of attracting crazies, and also a very vibrant story teller), and of course describing our latest encounters with the Supernatural. This is the best part about Girl Scout friends, we get to enjoy a time warp. Whenever we meet, we can pick up right where we left off. Two years has passed since we last saw each other, or really even talked, but you wouldn't know it.

The most exciting story of daring and adventure this time was about her recent wedding. "Wedding?" you might ask. How is it possible that Mrs. Sheats has gone and gotten herself a marriage license in Washington state? You know...considering that she's gay and all. Well, apparently she read an article on Yahoo news about how people were imploring young men and women to get married ( I can't remember the reason: perhaps to save traditional marriage?) So she took it to heart and found herself a nice gay boy to marry. Now she has health insurance and tax benefits and is all gay-married (hyphenated, it means two gay people of opposite sexes who have a legal state-recognized marriage. Otherwise the term is Married--where two people who love each other make a life long commitment blah blah blah) .

I don't think gay-marriage is for me, but if any of you all out there want to stick it to the man and find yourself a nice gay boy or girl to get legally gay married to. Here's a nice video extolling the economy saving virtues of the more romantic type of gay marriage. Please watch it, it's very very good, and it has Jack Black in it.

yeah! take that Fred!

From slog.thestranger.com
Way to Excercise Good Judgment, United Kingdom
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 3:06 PM

Officials are refusing to allow a family from the Westboro "God Hates Fags" Baptist Church to enter the UK.

A father and daughter from a US church which preaches hatred of homosexuals have been banned from entering the UK by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church had urged protests against a play being put on in Hampshire.

Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke is staging The Laramie Project, a play about a man killed for being gay.

The UK Border Agency said it opposed "extremism in all its forms".

A spokesman added: "Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a number of communities.

Now we should refuse to take them back.

What's a Grad Student to do?

What's a grad student in distress to do? What do I do when nothing works until it DOES?

If I had to describe my job in 6 words they would be: I Move Tiny Invisible Crap Around.

If I got 6 more words after that, they'd be: What the heck is that number?

Ahh, research. It's a singular pleasure to come into work every day and spend a few hours setting up an experiment, wait for 20 minutes to get the result, spend an hour or more doing "digital arts and crafts" (or what they call Analysis), to find out: I screwed it up. Damn, that long list of numbers with lots of zeros and dots didn't make a pretty picture. Even if I put this column here and swap it with that row over there...still it's not a nice picture.

My job involves a little math, and stellar memory (was it A4 or A3? Where did I put that tube of stuff that looks exactly like every other tube of stuff on my bench that I forgot to label, but is really important to keep separate? What is the molecular weight of DMSO?) and a steady hand. Too many cups of coffee, one moment of distraction by Ani lyrics and the results can be disastrous. I think today I tried to do too much at once and it slowed down the whole process enough to screw up the results. Damn enzymes.

So what do I do when it's 4:15 in the afternoon and all my pipetting and waiting and centrifuging and basic algebra has resulted in a bunch of dots on a graph and no line going through them? I need to start the experiment over, but that would require me to be HERE in my LAB until 9 pm. I guess if I had nothing better going on--you know, a nice house to go to, or doggies or Girl Scout obligations --then that would be alright, but I guess I'm a bad student. (ok, if I only had Girl Scout obligations then maybe I'd be freeze-thawing some livers now). No, I do what I suspect lots of students do...I seek comfort in my favorite blog. Every one has one.

By 4:15 this afternoon I had already exhausted my regular haunts and instead found comfort in the chonga girls. Seriously, do you remember them? Well, if you're NOT from Miami, you certainly don't. Check out this video. Do it, it makes me laugh so hard. And maybe after watching it you'll understand just a bit more about what I'm really going through here (and notice that they mention Calle Ocho! woo! That's where I live!)

THE CHONGA GIRLS

and while you're at it: check out their blog. Pretty hilarious but they have a distinct...ghetto...sort of writing style. iF yOu CAn ReAd THiS thEn Ul B oK.

Wednesday, Wednesday

The wind continues to blow here on the island (Virginia Key that is). I'm continuing to slog away at my enzyme assay experiments.

I've been doing these assays for about a week (since I figured out how to dissolve that Damn decylubiquinone) and my results have been sporadicly decent. I couldn't figure it out. I didn't want to do it anymore. I was doing experiment after experiment, and never were the results what I expected. Then I looked a little more closely at the data output from the spectrophotometer software (Tammy, seriously What Is "Lm!"? Do you know? Because I can't find the actual explanation anywhere in the software or hardware manuals). The software was supposed to be calculating a slope (you know, change over time) from the absorption data. Drop in absorption = drop in DCIP = enzyme activity. Easy. So, I was taking the calculate "slope" from the data output and trying to make pretty pictures out of those numbers. It wasn't working. It was terrible.

Turns out, the SLOPE is not a slope. It's...something that I can't figure out. But when I calculate the slope manually I get pretty pictures:Mom, I thought you might want to put this on your fridge. Beautiful isn't it?

In other news: clearly not much is going on down here in Miami. I'm up to my eyeballs in Girl Scout Junk--no parents want to email me back or commit to anything, we've got too many leaders with their hands in the pie and not enough communication. Doug has been dressing like me again. Now I have to get rid of my jean jacket, too. Meredith and I are getting closer to the March 1st 1/2 marathon. And Laura likes Grant now.

Dog Naming Contest Answers

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, and congratulations to Bob, Jen, and Ruth who correctly predicted the Dog's name.

You will be receiving your prizes soon.

Here are the answers:

1. Frank: chosen by me.
The reason: L. Frank Baum, one of my favorite authors, and Frank Thomas, one of my favorite baseball players.

2. Jack: chosen by me.
The reason: Jack McDowell, my first favorite pitcher

3. Newton: Laura
The reason: Laura likes astronomy. Sadly, Kepler didn't make the list.

4. Obama: neither
The reason: Because it would have been funny.

5. Granite: Laura
The reason: Laura says it came to her in a dream. Laura likes rocks.

Granite

I am pleased to introduce to you the New Dog. Her name is Granite, but I've taken to calling her Grant: it sounds less like a Noun and more like a Name. Also, Grant is the character played by Clea Duvall in But I'm a Cheerleader.

Grant fits in well enough with Scott, Kricket and Ellis. In fact her introduction to them was relatively painless. Scott was depressed for a day and the cats haven't seemed to notice. They don't notice much besides the fish tank and the level of food in their bowl anyway.
The member of the household who Did have a problem with the New Dog was Laura. Grant is a twitchy, neurotic, anxious little Jack Russell/Spaniel mix (near as I can tell). Her anxiety is decreasing with every day, and she is a sweet dog. Her good qualities are--and as they reveal themselves I'm sure the list will grow-- 1. She doesn't run away when she goes outside 2. She has very few annoying habits. Her main flaw, however, is that she is not a Lab. I may have told a lie: "Laura, let's get this dog, It's part Lab". What I really meant to say was "it's a mix, therefore, we'll never know its ancestry, and so any breed of dog--including Lab--is equally probably as to the actual parentage of this dog" Ooops.

As Grant warms up to the house, so does Laura to Grant. In fact, last night Laura even petted the dog, and addressed her by her new given name rather than "Concrete".
We took the dogs to the beach on Sunday: this is a picture of Laura yelling "That dog won't swim!" For the record, the water was cold and it was overcast and windy. Scott wasn't swimming either.

I'm not sure we could say the dog is Like Granite. But I can say a few words about Granite--which I suppose the average person doesn't really think much about. There's a reason: Granite is a Rock. Some people like rocks. Laura LOVES rocks.

Granite comes from the Latin --a grain. This references the coarse grainy texture that some granite has. The viscosity of granite at standard temperature and pressure is really really high. It is very hard, and like many other hard rocks it is used commonly in construction of things like buildings and Mormon Temples.

Granite is an igneous rock: it is formed when magma intrudes other rocks and forms hard pockets of more rock. It's composed mainly of SiO2, but other chemical components vary by region. There are several types of granite that are distinguised by the type of rock they melted to make: I-type granite is made from other igneous rocks, s-type is made from sedementary rocks and m-type forms when magma melts other magma based rocks. However m-type granite is quite rare because for some reason that I don't understand, it's hard to turn basalt into granite.

Lots of things we like are made of granite: Statues Mormon Temples, kitchen counter tops, sarcophagi of ancient Egypt, pyramids, New HampshireElberton, Georgia and Half Dome in Yosemite...tons of things.

A Moving Targets Contest

The dog's name is ready. I won't tell until after we pick it up. Laura has naming rights for this one--since I've named the last three.

Now it's time for a game. This game will Actually have a prize that isn't pony nuzzles. Excited? I bet you are!

Here's the game:
1. If you can pick the dog's new name off the list: I'll send you a postcard.
2. If you can tell which names I picked and which ones Laura picked: I'll send you two postcards.
3. If you can correctly describe why each name was picked: I'll send you 5 postcards.

And another thing:

For the Record:

If Scott were lost, I would rather someone take him to the pound than do any of these "Email Adopt A Lost Dog" shenanigans. He's micro-chipped, and since they would scan his chip at the pound--we would be reunited, rather than him being handed off to a stranger.


PS: I just ran my normal 4 mile loop 3.5 minutes faster!

Meet Mr. Diamond

Mom, I checked and there are no extra holes in my head--I have just the right amount.

I'm getting a new dog tomorrow. It's one of those things that I've been thinking about for a while and now the opportunity has presented its self.

I get sad-story-please-adopt-this-dog emails ALL THE TIME. Several a month at least. Usually they're people who pick up strays and are fostering them at their house until they can sucker someone else into taking it in--because they picked up a stray they couldn't actually accommodate. I never feel too bad for those people: it's not their dog. They can do the right thing and drop it off at the pound with a relatively clear conscience. The dog will probably fare better at the pound than on the street in Miami.

This time it was different. The sad story went like this: "My Lil' bro's (from Big Brothers/Big Sisters) family is being evicted from their house and they can't keep their family pet" Some poor little kid has a tough enough life--he's in Big Brothers, his family is being kicked out of their house AND he's losing his dog. So I thought, if I'm going to get another dog Some Day, why not now. At least this kid'll know his dog didn't get put down.

There is a problem though: This dog's name is Diamond. It's a boy. It's a boy named Diamond. That's a problem.

Here's the list of replacement names we've come up with so far:

Frank
Jack
Newton (Newt!)
Obama
Granite
Halley

What do you think? Stay tuned for news of Mr. Diamond's introduction to Scott, Ellis and Kricket.

What it really means to Ride the Bench

I've been in the Lab. For the last few weeks I've been trying to lay the ground work for my Master Plan: an enzyme assay experiment. To do this right, I've been learning how to use the equipment, compiling and double checking protocols and reagents. I ordered all the reagents, and I've been slowly trying to make all my stocks. The first (NADH) was no problem, I got to the second and immediately hit a Brick Wall. My decylubiquinone would NOT dissolve. I immediately switched to Panic-this-sucks-why-does-everything-have-to-be-so-hard mode. Of course this was my most expensive, and thus least plentiful reagent. Of course it had to be the hardest to prepare. Of course all the literature reported either "Make decylubiquinone solution" or "Reduce decylubiquinol by following these 18 very complicated steps that include the word 'extract' and 'extreme excess'". None said "Don't worry, this is really easy, it just dissolves".

So, I spent 3 days trying to wrap my brain around the possible organic chemistry nuances I was sure I was missing. This morning, in my last act of desperation, I emailed the author of one of the papers I have been referencing. He's located in the Netherlands (DutchLand) and thus I expected either no response, or no response quickly. Imagine my surprise when he responded to me within the hour. "I don't know what your problem is, we just add DMSO and it dissolves like a charm"

I tried again, with new DMSO, and it worked fine.

Turns out: that reagents from 1993 that are stored under dubious conditions in the rusted, dripping, foul smelling chemical room aren't always of the highest quality.

Camping

My troop went Miami Camping this weekend. We're lucky to have a private 11 acre camp site right in the middle of Miami. But, Miami Camping involves lots of Moms, cabins with electricity and a paucity of discipline. It wasn't how I would have done it. But then, what is?

The positive points are that: my girls got out of the house in a safe and fun environment and learned something new. Some of them touched a goat for the first time, or slept under the stars (very adventurous for a girl who told me she would rather sleep in the cabin). We built camp fires--they certainly have mastered the one match, no paper fire--we sang songs, we slept on hard ground without pillows. The girls have a tireless appetite for tether ball and picking up Air Potatoes (which are some sort of tuber that drop from invasive vines).

I love Girl Scouts--you may already know this. I think it may be one of the greatest volunteer organizations Ever in America! What I like about it is that the kids get to do things on their own that their mothers would otherwise do for them--like cooking, or cleaning, or general time management.

When we were camping this weekend I was the only adult there who was Not there with their own offspring. For a significant percentage of the campers their mothers were still present to give them instructions or hairy eyeballs. The girls did get to do things on their own--mine certainly did their own dishes and set up their own tents and build their own fires--but I noticed that other troop leaders were cooking dinner for their girls while they ran amuck in the hammock. I think this sort of defeats the whole Girls Growing Strong idea of the program.

The kids had a great time and I'm sure it was a memorable weekend for them, but I would have liked to see some of their time spent in a productive-learning-type way (like I did at camp). It's hard though. All of the leaders are Moms who love their children, but either don't know enough about outdoor skills, or how to manage groups of other peoples children in the woods. I find it frustrating, because I can see how things could be better if there was just a small group of leaders willing to work together and put in the effort to plan a great camping program --full of games, and learning new skills, and working together, and free time too--rather than having the whole weekend be a social get together for moms while daughters do....something...

Here's to next time.

MadDog

MadDog is our Security Guard here. He sits in a lawn chair by the entrance gate to the parking lot and ceremoniously waves me in every morning. Just in case you were worried that I wasn't being nice, MadDog is how he introduces himself. He's some old Army Navy Marine Seal, or walrus. This morning he was wearing an arctic parka with an abundance of fur around the hood. He was slumped down in his chair and seemed to have problems with the wave.

It's 55 in my office again (that's 13 C for you Europeans).

Time to get busy

Everybody get out your List. You know the one I'm talking about. Mine is titled "Things to do when Hell Freezes over". Well, hell hath frozen over. This morning I saw my breath on my way to the car. The lizards really did drop out of the trees. Laura collected one, named it Theodore and "Cuddled it beneath [her] sweater" No kidding. I guess she didn't really read my post the other day about the paper bag and under the kitchen sink.

In the office today everyone was in Apocalypse mode. Meredith was wearing her Norwegian sweater and hat (she knitted both, because naturally there's no where to buy things like that here). Doug was walking around in a turtle neck, and a fleece jacket. He came into our office around 10 with his hands scrunched up into the cuffs of his jacket and his shoulders all hunched--I think his lips were even blue--and said "I put hot water on in case anyone wants a hand warmer" and then he shuffled out. He said it was 47 degrees in his office. It was 55 in ours. I'm not sure why, but facilities insists on keeping the blowers on even in frigid weather. They have no heating system, and the fans always blow from outside--supercooling our offices. In fact, there was a distinct thermogradient as you walked from the hallway into our offices.

It's a wonder I didn't die of hypothermia today.

Somewhere Different redux. and Driving Photos.

The other bathroom is PINK!

The Sky is Falling!

Ahhh, paradise.

It is Cold here in Miami this week. Tonight the overnight low is supposed to be around 33 degrees F. For you Europeans, that's nearly freezing. That means, that the iguanas will freeze. They are cold blooded creatures and at such unbelievably low tropical temperatures they're unable to maintain any sort of activity level, including holding onto branches. So they fall out of the trees.

In the morning I plan to cruise the neighborhood looking for new pets. I will bring them home in a paper bag and put them in the cupboard under the sink and wait impatiently for their reanimation.


Here is Carl, he is the iguana who sits on the roof of the building next to my office.

Scott

Is named after someone named Scott who was my lab mate in ichthyology.

I live somewhere different now.

So, I moved into a new house. Here are some pictures of the move-in process and the lovely furniture we bought. I was cursing the decision to buy a white rug only 3 days after we got it home, when it started to turn a lovely grey color. What were we thinking?!

The house is about twice as big as the last house I had in Miami. Laura and I have still not decided what we will do with our extra room. Katie came over for dinner last night and she suggested that we could roller skate around the house if we got bored. I was thinking more along the lines of a Jazzercise studio, but I'm open to all sorts of suggestions at this point.

Speaking of Jazzercise: on Friday when I was driving to work I saw a woman standing in the banyan-tree median on Coral Way. That wasn't out of the ordinary--most pedestrians around here get their daily exercise in the form of what I like to call Miami Sprints, or creatively dodging traffic in a city that is Not walking friendly. Anyway, it wasn't strange to see someone trying to cross from the median, but she was wearing a very tight tank top over a striped t-shirt. As my eye traveled down I realized that she was wearing a black bathing suit over a normal every-day office type outfit. That was a great way to start the day. Anna suggested she was going from her morning Jazzercise class to the office. That's possible I suppose. Or maybe she was on her way to the pool, but she's modest about her swim wear?

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I hope the Cardinals win, because I've never heard of them before. But besides just waiting for the game to come on, Laura and I have been wiling away the hours doing things like: cleaning, or going to the movies, or eating large tropical fruits.

This morning we went to see Milk. We only go to the movies on Sundays before noon. This is because that's the only time of the week that a movie costs $6. It's quite a commitment to get up and finish the paper and get to the theater by 11, but at least it's also the only time of the week when traffic is at a minimum. The regular Miami Masses are at home sleeping it off. The bars don't close here until 5am.

Milk was really depressing. Laura and I and all the other really old people in the theatre (I guess that's our crowd..the before noon on Sunday crowd) were all crying by the end. It was sort of like Titanic--we all knew how it ended, but couldn't help ourselves.

13 Things:

1. I hate donuts. I especially hate watching other people eat donuts.
2. I love the smell of bleach, clean towels, and swimming pools (which smell like bleach too).
3. I don't like when green things and orange things are next to each other.
4. My favorite color is green.
5. I am fascinated by office supplies and derive guilty pleasure from lurking in an office supply store for long periods of time. I hope no one notices.
6. I hate getting the cuffs of my shirt wet when I wash my hands.
7. I used to love to watch Punky Brewster and Oprah in the afternoon when I was in elementary school.
8. I don't mind doing laundry but I have a pathological aversion to doing dishes.
9. I know everything there is to know about everything. I like Junior Girl Scouts best because they still believe this.
10. I don't like hoppy beer but I love spaghettios.
11. I talk in my sleep. Sometimes I sing in my sleep.
12. I used to think Kate and Katherine were two separate names and that I was Extra Special because my parents gave me 4 names instead of the usual 3.
13. I like to name my pets after people I liked but don't keep in touch with anymore.