Horseback Riding

I recently had the chance to go horseback riding on Amelia Island, a barrier island on the Atlantic Coast. I hadn't been on a horse since my senior year of high school and this was a great experience! Kelly Seashorse Ranch is located within Amelia Island State Park and the riding trail goes through some jungle-like areas, over a sand dune and straight onto a wonderfully undeveloped beach. Here is a link to the google maps image of the area; the ranch is a little bald spot in the upper left corner of the image. We weren't allowed to carry cameras with us, but there is a photo taken by the ranch peope here.

Things are pretty much the same old thing here. I'm staying busy with work. We frequently have TV news crews come in to interview my advisor and it's usually not cause for excitement. However, we were very excited when the Discovery Channel showed up this week. They spent several hours interviewing Dr Ingram and videotaped some of my co-workers doing fake experiments. I'll be sure to let people know when the program is going to air.

I was surprised to receive some mail addressed to my male cat Cleofus this week. Ends up it was a birthday card from the Pet Insurance provider. I feel bad because I hadn't even realized his birthday was coming up and I certainly wasn't planning on getting him anything. But, since he can't read, I just told him that the card was from me.

I'm finding out that more and more of my friends have blogs. I've modified the links on the right to include those. Lisa and Bea are both friends of mine from college. It was Lisa's blog who motivated me to start this one. Eileen is a friend from UCLA and Mary Kate is a friend from high school. I have also added a link to "mom's videos" - this will take you to videos that my mom has posted on youtube. Does anybody else out there have a blog or youtube videos? I'd love to add a link!

I'm still getting a handle on how unstable Cassie's (my female cat) asthma is. Since her terrible flare-up in March, she had been doing wonderfully and was only needing 1 dose of her medication every other day. Then last weekend, I opened one window for 2 hours after confirming that the pollen count was low. Well, the next day she started coughing and wheezing. So now she's back on a higher dose of her meds for awhile. But otherwise, she's fine. Those of you who know Cassie shouldn't be surprised to hear that she (12 lbs) is dominant to Sheba (70 lbs).

Florida weather

The tropical summer weather is starting in earnest. I've started to notice my glasses fogging up when I step outside and we've started having sudden cloudbursts. Last night when I went to the grocery, the sun was shining and there were few clouds. By the time I finished my shopping, it was pouring too hard to even consider dashing to the car. And then 10 minutes later the sun was shining again.

Congratulations to my friend Katherine for successfully completing a marthon last weekend! And get this - she did it with no special training program. She headed to San Diego with the intention of cheering on one of her friends and then decided at the last minute that she would run too. And then the next day she ran the marathon.

Several years ago my good friends Anne and Rick Lainhart recommended George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" book series, for which I will be forever grateful. The series, though not yet complete, is wonderful. It's technically a fantasy series, but it is also full of political drama and intrigue with wonderfully complex characters. For awhile, there were 5 of us in my lab at UCLA who were reading the books and we had so much fun discussing it. Well now I have convinced my officemate here at UF to read it. I loaned her my copy of the first book and she was hooked after one night. I am excited about vicariously experiencing the books again through her and recommend the series to anyone who enjoys books that require thought and attention.