Headed to Denver

I'm headed to Denver this weekend for the Society of Industrial Microbiology (SIM)'s annual meeting. My advisor, Dr Ingram, was invited to give a talk about our progress using E. coli to produce ethanol and he is sending me in his place. I'll be talking about our research group as a whole, not just my own work. Two other people from my research group will be there, but I don't expect to see any of my former co-workers from UCLA. There was an interesting article in the local newspaper about our research this week. While I'm gone, my officemate Tammy will feed the cats and Dominika and Agnieszka, the visiting grad students from Poland, will be keeping Sheba. I'm very lucky to have such reliable, helpful friends. Sheba spent one trial night with Dominka and Agnieszka last week, and the apartment seemed unbearably quiet and empty without her. It was hard to believe that was "normal" just 4 months ago.

We made another trip to St. Augustine Beach last weekend. Each time we go, the group gets larger. This past trip was the best one yet, we stayed for about 5 hours. There are more pictures here.

Nearly a year after doing my PhD defense, we finally submitted the 2nd paper from my research. We are very proud of the first paper, it was accepted by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), one of the top US journals. There is a link to that paper here (restricted access). The second paper has been more of a struggle because the results aren't as exciting or straightforward. But we finally completed the manuscript and submitted the paper last Friday. So for now we are just waiting to hear if it is accepted or not. But it's nice to come home in the evening and not have that paper hanging over my head.

Who's read the latest Harry Potter? I have put off buying the book until after the conference, otherwise I might be distracted from working on my presentation. I heard that there was someone standing on a street corner here in Gainesville holding a sign that gave away the ending. For now, I've managed to avoid all spoilers. I am looking forward to buying the book before I leave Denver and reading it on the trip home!

Summer Fun

Congratulations to Mary Kate, Nathan and Levynn on the birth of baby Lincoln on the 4th of July! The Chambers are great bloggers, even posting updates from the hospital!

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July. Our department had a cookout at Lake Wauberg, a lovely lake maintained by the University a few miles south of town. Access to the lake, picnic areas and boat rentals is free for students. Unfortunately, it was quite rainy. For awhile it only sprinkled, so we stood around hoping that it would get better and we could go out on the lake. But eventually it started to pour and we had to head home. The university had a great fireworks show on July 3rd - I could see (and hear) it quite well from my apartment. Still, it didn't compare to the great hike and fireworks I enjoyed last year with Katherine, Linh and Gregg in Los Angeles. Pictures and video from last year here and here. We did this awesome hike where you can see all of LA - and all of the firework shows. I was lucky enough to do that 3 times while in LA.

We have two wonderful graduate students visiting our department for the summer. Dominka and Agnieszka are here from Poland and have been a lot of fun. I've made two trips to the St. Augustine beach with them and we've had a blast. This past weekend we even rented a surfboard, but couldn't quite get the hang of it. They were both more skilled than me - I could barely even sit on it without falling off. Another student visiting from Arkansas for the summer (Trevor) was much better with the surfboard than we were (video here). There are pictures here of our beach trips and the cookout.

Speaking of pictures, there are some new fun pictures of Sheba here.

A group of us went to see the newest Harry Potter on Friday night. I saw the 2nd, 3rd and 4th movies on opening weekend at Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood (the one with all of the celebrity handprints), so it was weird to not be there for this one. But still, it was enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the last book coming out soon. As I said in my last post, I got my officemate Tammy interested in the George RR Martin books. Well, interested isn't the most accurate description - she is HOOKED (insert evil laugh here). In less than a month she's devoured the first three books and is halfway through the 4th (they are all at least 700 pages). We've now convinced another grad student to read them and several other people are interested.