Dr. Mickey Carpenter

I learned some very sad news today. Dr Mickey Carpenter, who served as minister at the church I attended growing up, has apparently drowned. News story here. He loved to fish, so it's good to know that he spent his last day doing something that he enjoyed.
Dr Carpenter and his wife Marsha lost their son to a childhood cancer. Several years later, he took a church youth group to volunteer with young cancer victims and their families at the Ronald McDonald House associated with St Jude's Children's Research Hospital. I was part of that group and that trip was a very important event in my life.
Marsha, Michelle and Megan, you have my sympathies. There are some touching tributes here and here.

Back from Iowa

I've just come back from another visit to Ames, Iowa. My department has an Advisory Council, made up of distinguished chemical engineers who work in industry, that meets twice a year. This council provides advice and feedback on issues within the department. They were having their spring meeting this past week, so I made a quick trip to meet them. It was also a good opportunity to work on setting up my lab and spend time with my fellow faculty members. The ISU College of Engineering has a great faculty mentoring program, where incoming junior faculty (like me), are paired with an established faculty member. I learned this week who my mentor will be and am very pleased with the assignment. The department is currently trying to hire two more new faculty. If they both decide to come, they would start this fall, like me. One of these potential hires was on campus for her second visit, so it was nice to meet her as well. As much as I have loved my postdoc work and living in Gainesville, I'm really looking forward to getting established at ISU. Knowing that I was only in Gainesville short-term has left me feeling a little unanchored and transient. Once I move to Ames, I can really buckle down and get settled.
Surprisingly, it was warmer in Ames on Wednesday than it was in Gainesville. But the cold rain on Thursday and Friday more than made up for Wednesday's sunshine.
One of my future colleagues at ISU, Professor Kenneth Jolls, is an extraordinarily well-rounded gentleman. He received his Chemical Engineering PhD in 1966, but his first degree is in music. I've heard about his musical skills on my many visits, but I was lucky enough to see him perform this past week. In addition to his musical and scientific skills, I was surprised to learn this week that he's had 18 "Letters to the Editor" published in the New York Times over the years. There is a selected list on his webpage here. He confessed to me that he's *submitted* about 150 letters total, so a greater than 10% acceptance rate is pretty good! He's an amazing guy and I'm looking forward to getting to know him better.
Enough about my future colleagues at ISU; several of my former colleagues from UCLA have exciting news. Or at least one of them does - congratulations to Eileen and Alex on their upcoming October baby! Read Eileen's announcement here. And this isn't new, but my former labmate Jeff Bernstein and his wife Dana have a photo site with pictures of their daughter Zoe. She's as cute as can be; check out her pictures here.
It's another full week in the lab for me. And then next weekend I'll be spending time with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew as they vacation in Orlando. It should be a lot of fun!

Product Spiel

I recently posted about renting a "Rug Doctor" and the wonderful job it did on my carpet. Since then, Cleofus and Sheba have been doing their best to reinstate the old carpet stains. It's very strange: Sheba can apparently tolerate eating all kinds of junk that she finds on our walks, but my attempt to introduce a small amount of the "light" variety of her normal dog food completely upset her digestive systems. Anyway, instead of renting another Rug Doctor, I bought Bissell's Green Machine. This thing is AWESOME. Within 30 minutes, I was able to remove the 5 new stains on my carpet. Granted, it is designed for stains and not all-over cleaning. But still, it works really well. It has a heater to keep the cleaning solution warm and the hand tool has a motorized scrub brush. Easy to set-up, easy to use and easy to disassemble. I would recommend it to any fellow pet-owners.

Things are coming together well for my upcoming relocation to Ames, Iowa. On my last visit I viewed a potential rental house. It sounded good on paper (close to campus, quiet neighborhood with sidewalks, pet-friendly, near a public park, has a garage), but I wasn't too impressed when I saw it in person. It seemed kind of dark and shabby. I've looked around some more since then, and even dealt with a real-estate agent, but I think that I would be really lucky to find another rental unit that accepts large (75-lb) dogs without investing a lot of time in the search. Therefore, I sent in the deposit on the house this week. My plan is to rent for the first year while I look around for something to buy. Here's a picture of the new place (it doesn't look this nice in person).

Also, my teaching plans for next semester have been established. I'll be teaching the Material and Energy Balance course. Typically, this is the first "real" Chemical Engineering course taken by undergraduates, so I'm really excited about it. I'll be visiting Ames again next week for another meeting.

I'm still following the Weight Watchers program and am always finding great new food ideas on their message boards. My most recent new-to-me food is spaghetti squash. This thing is amazing. You just bake the squash in the oven and then use a fork to rake out these pasta-like strands. Cook it up with some olive oil, veggies and shrimp and then top with a little cheese and it's GREAT. It makes a very filling low-point dinner. Which means I have more daily points leftover for dessert! One squash provided me with enough strands for 4 meals, so it was a bargain too. Other good finds include steel-cut oats and angel food cake made with canned pineapple instead of water.

One of my co-workers has been immortalized in a piece of fine art. Claudia is a grad student in my lab and we are working on a project together. Several years ago, she and a friend were sitting in a coffee shop in St Petersburg when a man asked if he could take their picture. They agreed and he gave them his card, saying that he was an artist and might paint a portrait from the photo someday. Claudia was cleaning out her wallet yesterday and came across his card. When she checked his website, she found this lovely painting. The artist is Bill Farnsworth and you can view many of his paintings here on his website.

I am trying to enjoy the great outdoor opportunities here before I leave for Iowa, but it seems to be rainy nearly every weekend. Sheba and I did make it over to Cedar Key for a kayaking trips a few weeks ago. As is always the case at Cedar Key, I saw dolphins. This time, I paddled out to the main island and hiked out to the old cemetery there. It was a lovely day, though I think Sheba would have rather stayed home.

Congrats to my friend Lisa, her husband J and their daughters Janna, Heather and Kelly on the arrival of their NEWEST daughter, Natalie.

Otherwise, things here are pretty much business as usual. Work has been especially hectic this week. I've been doing a set of very time-sensitive experiments that have required me to be in the lab by 5:30am 4 times this week (including today, a SUNDAY). It's certainly unpleasant, but well worth it when it yields good data. Hopefully I'll finish the last of these experiments tomorrow.