Professor Friedlander

I was very saddened to hear of the recent passing of Professor Sheldon Friedlander (obituary). He was an outstanding member of his field but still always had time to stop and say hello. I visited UCLA as a potential graduate student in March 2000; when Professor Friedlander learned that I would be staying in town over the weekend, he gave me his home phone number so that I had someone I could call if necessary. He will be sorely missed.

Things are going well here. There's a rumor that it may dip below freezing tonight! Both of my cats have had some sort of stomach virus, so my carpet is in desparate need of cleaning. BUT, the fleas have been nearly eradicated!

I received some lovely tulips for Valentine's Day (thanks mom and dad). Cassie, of course, wanted to eat them, so I took them to work. And then my co-workers decided to eat them. I was talked into trying a petal and they are actually quite tasty. They smell lovely as well.

I complained in a previous post about the slowness of our gas chromatograph (GC), which we use to measure ethanol production. We now have a new and improved GC. It runs samples in 5 minutes instead of 15 and does not need to be babysat - it's wonderful! Here's a picture of Claudia using it.

Long Time, No Post

Hello all! My apologies for not posting for so long. There hasn't been too much of note to post about.

Just after New Year's I came down with the flu. I never had a fever, but was completely wiped out for several days. Now, weeks later, other people in my lab seem to be coming down with the same thing. I guess I was ahead of the curve on this one.

My apartment has been invaded by fleas. After a month of daily effort, the infestation is nearly under control. I suspect that the infestation is a result of the stray that lives in the crawlspace under my apartment. I was desperate enough 2 weeks ago to bathe both cats. I had never bathed Cleofus and Cassie hadn't had a bath for at least 3 years. They tolerated it better than I expected, but Cleofus did manage to escape several times before I was finished with him. Speaking of cat baths, there is a interesting Petspa video on youtube here. It sounds like a good idea, but the cat in the video seems rather traumatized.

The department that I work in (Microbiology and Cell Science) had a graduate student / postdoc cookout yesterday at a local lake. Unfortunately it was a little too chilly (mid 50s), so we spent most of the time huddled around the grill. It was way too cold and windy to get out on the lake.

Many people asked me about Thursday night's storm. We did have a big thunderstorm that night, but no tornadoes came through this area.

I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" last weekend. It's a really cute movie and I recommend it to anyone who's interested.

We are still working on publishing the results of my UCLA research. We have split our findings into 2 papers. The first (stronger) paper just came back with positive reviews, so my PhD advisor, coworker and I have been making revisions to it. Our findings in the second paper are dependent on the first paper, so we can't submit the second one until the first one is accepted somewhere. It's been a struggle to keep the details of that project fresh in my mind.

I will try to not stay away so long this time! I would love to hear from all of you.

Laura