Laura's Blog

Best summer ever?

2011-09-04T11:42:00.002-04:00

I know, it's been over a year since my last post. But I've been planning this post for awhile now. Labor Day weekend, I would post about all of the awesome things that have happened this summer. And I would talk about how it's been the best summer that I can remember in adulthood (it's hard to eclipse the endless summers of childhood). But then I received the terrible news that my dear friend Anne passed away yesterday. I talked to her husband Rick last weekend and she was supposed to start chemo on Monday (not even a week ago!) and the prognosis was good. And now she's gone. I'm so sad to think that I will never see her again, and my heart aches for Rick who is suffering so much. But I'm going to make this post anyway. It's hard to know where to start.
Work life: I finally got a proposal funded! My proposal to the "Energy for Sustainability" program at NSF was well-reviewed and my collaborators and I have been awarded support for 3 years. This will enable me to hire a new graduate student to start working on this project. The funding wasn't official until this week, but I received the first unofficial notice while visiting my two best friends from high school (more about that later). It was very nice to be able to celebrate with them. And my research group has published several papers this summer as well - including one in a very good journal that we have been endlessly revising since we first submitted it nearly a year ago. Now hopefully we can leverage that into funding for that project.
The house and yard: I've had a lot of fun fixing up the house this spring/summer, will post photos soon. My parents came out for a weekend and helped me put in an awesome flower garden. It's an endless delight. And I had a patio installed, it's a wonderful place to sit and enjoy the flowers and birds. My veggie garden has been plagued with bunnies - 4 nests, meaning about 30 baby bunnies. I complain a lot about these, but in reality the dear little things are delightfully cute. The real problem is that dog likes to catch them and eat them. Fun for dog, painful for me to watch and unimaginably awful for the bunnies. I've installed an owl house and hope to attract one of the local barred owls to move in. Then hopefully mama rabbit won't think my garden is a safe place for her broods.
Other stuff:
(1) Surprisingly, "Lord of the Rings" had one-day re-release in the theatre. My awesome friend DeDe and I caught each showing. Which reminds me of Anne - my then-husband and I met Anne and Rick at a Lord of the Rings fan event. Charlie and I were sitting by ourselves, didn't know anyone. Anne came up to us, introduced herself, and invited us to sit with her, Rick and their friend Becky. That's exactly how she was - always thinking of others and making them feel welcome.
(2) George RR Martin's "Game of Thrones" series finally had a new installment. I had been waiting for nearly 7 years for info on some of my favorite characters, so it's an understatement to say that I devoured that book. And I should add that Anne and Rick were the ones who introduced me to those books. I'm so sorry that I never got to discuss the newest book or the HBO series with her.
(3) *Awesome* Chicago get-together with my two best girls from high school. I finally got to meet Mary Kate's husband and kids, who were even more wonderful than I expected. The last time the three of us had been together was at my wedding nearly 11 years ago. And before *that* we were last together for a brief visit in 1996. That was one year after our high school graduation and to celebrate being back together again, we all got a small tattoo. So *this time* we got tattoos again. Shannon and Mary Kate went small again, but I decided to go all out and get the tattoo that I had really wanted the first time. I got this great red/black/yellow dragon across my upper back. I love it. I should post a photo, but am too lazy. And of course, it reminds me of the pirate ship that Anne and Rick built in their back yard, "The Red Dragon's Revenge" (http://www.reddragonsrevenge.com/).
(4) Family get-together in Gatlinburg. We finally made it back to the Chalet that we had all visited back in '94 and '98. We had a great time and missed those who couldn't be there. We should do it again soon!

Korea trip, addendum

2010-07-05T14:56:00.001-04:00

I forgot to mention one of the many things that I liked about Korea. In an elevator, if you pushed the wrong button, you could cancel your choice by pushing the button again. A very simple on/off toggle feature. Why can't we do that in American elevators?

Korea trip

2010-07-04T08:59:00.008-04:00

In contrast to my spring trip to the extremely underdeveloped country of Belize, I visited the extremely OVERdeveloped country of Korea in early June. The purpose of the trip was to attend the 8th bi-annual Metabolic Engineering conference. This was an excellent opportunity for me to network with the big names in my research area and get a feel for what other groups are doing. I also had the great fortune of traveling with two of my good friends from graduate school - Katy Kao and Ganesh Sriram, both of whom are also Assistant Professors.We arrived in Seoul 4 days before the conference started, with gracious hosting from three friends from UCLA who are now professors in Korea. This provided us with the opportunity to present brief research seminars at Korea University and Busan University, as well as tour these two cities. These guys were saints to endure the endless questions from three very curious visitors.
I hadn't previously realized that Seoul is the 2nd most densely populated city in the world - 2nd only to Tokyo. But I certainly believe it. It was a very crowded city, but more than anything, it reminded me of Los Angeles, with difficult-to-read signs. I was constantly amused to spot American chain restaurants that aren't available in Ames: TGI Friday's, Outback, and Baskin Robbins, just to name a few. I was also very embarrassed to spot a Hooter's (sigh). Ganesh and I had a fun contest going to see who would we could find first - another blond (like me) or another Indian (like him). Ganesh claimed to see a gaggle of blonds at one of the tourist spots in Seoul, but it was clear that the game was over in Busan, which had a large Indian student population.
One of our hosts had earned his PhD at UCLA, and thus he and his wife lived in Los Angeles for several years. At dinner, I asked her what she missed most about LA, and was astonished when she mentioned a "really great Korean restaurant in Korea town". Seriously? You live in Seoul and the thing you miss most about LA is the good Korean food?
We lucked out in Busan - apparently it is very popular to eat live squid in some places on the coast. They bring a live octopus to your table, cut off a leg and you eat it while it's still squirming. It's even suggested to dip it in sesame oil so that it can't use its suckers to attach to your tongue. I don't like my food to look at me (think of cooked fish served whole), much less for my food to actively WATCH me eat it. Thank goodness we never got into the situation of having to deal with this type of meal.
After having a good time touring Seoul and Busan, we flew to Jeju Island, the site of the conference. Jeju is the Hawaii of Korea, with many people going there for their honeymoon. There is also a volcano in the middle of the island, but it was obscured by clouds during our stay.
The flight from Busan to Jeju was very short, but something quite embarrassing happened. Katy and I were sitting next to each other and talking and laughing. This woman in front of us kept giving us that "look", you know, when you halfway look over your shoulder at people who are annoying you? Everytime she did that, we tried to pipe down, but would inevitably start talking again, but then the woman turned around and said "quiet!". I was so taken aback - it was only an hour long flight and it was 10 in the morning. Other people were talking normally and I don't think we were behaving inappropriately. It was the only time I have been happy to have a crying baby on my flight. She could shush me, but good luck trying to shush the crying baby. Humph. I just wonder if she found us especially annoying because we were speaking English.
The conference was great and I won't go into much detail. On the last evening there was a closing dinner with some excellent performers. It reminded me of the Korean dances that my friend Kristine arranged for a zoo dinner years ago. Here are some videos:

After all of the performances, they had all of us engineers join in for one dance. I was horrified, but grudgingly admit that it was fun. I think it helped that alcohol had been served with dinner.
Perhaps the greatest adventure of all was getting home. I had made a terrible mistake when booking my flights - I was to fly from Jeju Island on the first flight of the morning to Seoul, then after 2-hour layover I was to fly from Seoul to Tokyo then to Detroit, then to Des Moines. The problem was that the 2-hour layover in Seoul involved not just changing planes, but changing AIRPORTS. People who were familiar with both airports agreed that this was feasible, but tight. Once I realized the problem, I tried for several days to find a viable solution. It was possible to fly from Jeju to Tokyo and catch my connecting flight to Detroit, but if I missed my Seoul -> Tokyo flight, Delta was going to charge me $2,000 to rebook the Tokyo -> Detroit -> Des Moines flights. ARGH! So I made a mad dash through two airports with all of my luggage in tow. Finally I made it to my gate, and collapsed in relief in my bulkhead (yeah!) seat, only to see to my growing horror that I was seated next to a young couple that had twin toddlers, one of who was already crying. And she cried and kicked (and kicked me!) for the next two hours, before I finally begged the flight attendant to find me another seat, practically clutching at her sleeve out of desperation. Things got even more interesting in Tokyo, when I bumped into an old college friend that I hadn't seen in at least 10 years. He was on his way home from a trip to Guam. Crazy.
Finally I made it home. Overall the long flights were not nearly as bad as I had anticipated and the jet lag wasn't so bad either. I'm looking forward to more travel experiences in the future. There are pictures from the trip here.

Belize trip, addendum

2010-07-03T20:16:00.002-04:00

I forgot to relate two incidents/observations from the Belize trip.
The first night in our lodging at Kings College, I locked myself into my room. I shut to door to change clothes and when I went to re-open the door, the knob came off in my hand. The two students and I had a good laugh as we communicated through the door and I finally found a way to operate the latch mechanism using the handle of a comb.
Kings College had a very regimented schedule for the students. That being said, there wasn't much for the three of us to do after dinner time, as all of the students, teachers and staff had prescribed activities. So we would head back to our cabin, sit in the hard kitchen-style chairs, chat about the day and good-naturedly argue over who could have access to my laptop (with no internet). We didn't even have cell phone service. So I frequently went to bed around 8pm, even though I wasn't tired. This led to a lot of jokes about why people in similar living situations have such large families; come evening, there isn't much left to do, except well, you know.
Similar ideas explored here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6695338.ece

Belize trip

2010-07-02T21:48:00.004-04:00

Over spring break I had the excellent opportunity to supervise a trip to Belize by Iowa State's "Engineers without Borders" group. The group included 2 graduate students and 5 undergraduates. A great time was had by all and everyone returned home safe and sound.
The official purpose of the trip was to construct solar fruit dryers for two communities in Belize. The previous summer, a few members of the group had visited Trinidad village with the hopes of finding some common interests/needs for projects. One of the needs was a lack of nutritious snacks at the elementary school. Fresh fruit abounds in bursts, but there are no long-term storage options and thus some fruit goes to waste and there are times that fruit is not available. Given that sunshine is plentiful in Belize, our ISU group proposed the idea of constructing solar fruit dehydrators, and worked on the project in Ames during the fall, even building and testing a few prototype units. The dehydrator design focused on using materials that would be available in Belize, with simple construction plans and safe and simple operating procedures.

With the plans in hand and the necessary approval from EWB and ISU, we set out for a week in Belize. In addition to constructing and testing the dehydrator, we planned to help a boarding school improve their menu and fresh produce options, to build a town sign for our partner village and assess the opportunities for future projects. We had a few small grants to cover supplies and a portion of the travel expenses, but all participants covered the majority of the travel costs out of their own pockets.
Getting there was incredibly easy - we boarded an early morning flight in Chicago and were in Belize City in time for lunch. We had a driver who met us at the airport and spent the whole week with us - he was a great guy and an invaluable resource. I had never been to central america (outside of a brief drive to Tijuana from LA, where we never even got out of the car) and was not sure what to expect. This country is unbelievably under-developed - there is only one movie theatre in the whole country and not even one McDonald's. I kept joking that central america is known for producing sugar, coffee and chocolate and I had a very hard time getting any of those! But, it's not incredibly poor either. Most people are able to meet their basic needs and everyone was very friendly. You couldn't walk down the street without people greeting you and exchanging pleasantries. No one was too busy to stop and talk - in Belize that was wonderful, in Iowa it would drive me nuts.
Our base of operations was Orange Walk Town. It's near the western boarder of Belize and is within driving distance of our partner village of Trinidad. There is a great hotel there - Hotel de la Fuenta, and that is where we stayed. The majority of our group stayed in Orange Walk, in order to build a dehydrator for the elementary school in Trinidad and discuss future projects with the town council there. Myself and two other students headed to a boarding high school (Kings College) in a more isolated part of the country. Students of the school arrive on Monday morning and stay in the dorm all week, then return home on Friday. Teachers live on campus with their families. Due to the long travel time to this school, the three of us stayed overnight at Kings College for several days. One dehydrator was built there, but our major purpose in visiting the school was to help with their menu planning. Since the school is so remote, it is difficult for them to acquire fresh produce. For that reason, the principal was hoping to build a school garden. One of our group members is an agronomy student, so we used her expertise to advise on this project. I was particularly interested in talking with the science teachers, as they need some help developing lab experiments that can be performed with their limited resources; both of these are excellent opportunities for future projects.
Finally, we had a bit of fun on our last day. We took a boat cruise down the river from Orange Walk Town to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. At the ruins we learned about Mayan culture and even climbed a pyramid or two. We also saw lots of wildlife, both at the site and on the river. We even stopped at one point along the river to visit with a pair of spider monkeys - one boarded the boat and helped herself to some fruit.
Overall it was a great trip. The weather there was wonderful and an excellent contrast to the snow and mess that we left behind in Iowa. The people we met were so friendly and had a lot to offer - I look forward to future interactions on future trips. We are hoping to go back over fall break of this year. There are more pictures here.

new kitty

2010-07-02T21:08:00.004-04:00

Shortly after my last post (i.e. more than 6 months ago), I went out and got a new kitty. For years I had planned that my "next" cat would be a yellow male tabby that I could name Tyrion, after a beloved book character. So in early January I headed to the local pet rescue and brought home this sweet guy.
He's very sweet and friendly. I have yet to see him show any aggression to the other cat or towards Sheba, or to even see him hiss at or bite anything. He actually seems to like Sheba, frequently rubbing up against her (the feeling is not mutual as Sheba gets away as soon as she can). He has taken over many of Cassie's old jobs, including meeting me at the door in the evening, letting me know when it's time for cat feeding (starting about an hour before it's ACTUALLY time for cat feeding) and supervising the food prep.
He adapted well to life in this house. The first few days were full of excursions to inappropriate places, such as the top of the stove and behind the washer and dryer. After living in a cage for 6 months, he also seemed to struggle with 3D, as he would frequently, and seemingly randomly, roll right off the bed and sofa. But he does quite well now. The next order of business to for him to learn his name. Judging from my other male cat, this could take years.
He's always game for being held and petted and has a nice loud purr to share. I still miss Cassie and her big personality very much, but am glad to have this sweet guy around. Once again, I can't say enough good thing about animals from the pet rescue. There are more pictures of him here.

Christmases past

2010-01-02T10:35:00.006-05:00

20062007
2008
2009

still doing stained glass

2009-12-31T13:11:00.006-05:00

As the weather has gotten colder, I've resumed doing the stained glass projects. I've attended two wonderful workshops at the local "Works of Glass" facility where I took classes and bought all of my supplies.
One was for a hanging garden:
and one was for a bay-leaf wreath. The first workshop for this project filled up before I could get my name on the list and I was very disappointed. I was so glad that they opened up another class. I spent a large amount of my "snow day" working on the pieces for this one. It now hangs in my office:
And finally I finished my first completely independent project here at home:
I've spent the past few days cutting the pieces for a new copper-foil project (a yellow bird with red flowers, ISU colors). I still need to foil and solder that project, so it probably won't be finished for at least another week. I *do* need to get back to work soon. And as a mark of a true stained glass enthusiast, I recently bought a piece of glass just because it was pretty. I don't know yet what I will do with it, but I'm sure the appropriate project will come along.

new sofa

2009-12-31T12:54:00.005-05:00

Since I moved to Florida in August 2006 I've had a second-hand sofa/loveseat set. White furniture is not a good match with three pets and though I've frequently unstuffed and washed the cushions in order to remove the "Sheba sheen", the arms of the couch were not washable. Therefore I bought a new couch as a self birthday/Christmas present. This is my first piece of brand-new furniture and I love it. It looks gray-ish in this photo, but is actually a dark forest green.
I'm keeping it covered with a sheet, which obscures it's beauty but hopefully will keep it clean. This, my last picture of Cassie, clearly shows her dedication to being my anti-helper.

dear Cassiopeia

2009-12-29T20:45:00.014-05:00

After many great years together, my cat Cassiopeia passed away on Christmas morning. She will be sorely missed.
She was part of a feral group that lived under my grandparents' house. I was the first person to ever touch her, and the little 1.2-pound firecracker that I snatched up had the spirit to hiss at me the first time we got a good look at each other. I have always considered her a link to my paternal grandparents, both of whom have been deceased for several years.
She was an adorable little kitten (aren't they all?). She used to "catch" the water droplets from the leaky bathtub faucet and then look at her paws, puzzled by the disappearance of the droplet that she caught. During endless hours working on heat and mass transport homework, she would drive me crazy by chasing my pen and then melt my heart when she feel asleep perched on my shoulder.
She was waiting in the window for me when I came home from my first date with Charlie, and she was also waiting for me 6 years later when he moved out. She was on the plane with me the night that I sadly left Los Angeles for an unknown new home in Florida.
Like most cats, she thought her chief job was to be my "anti-helper". She was most concerned with getting my attention when I was trying to do something else - such as grade exams or work a jigsaw puzzle (note that she's covering up the portion of the puzzle that isn't finished yet). She was so nosy that I considered it not just a personality trait, but an affliction. Grouchy and bossy to boot, she would frequently blockade key intersections in the house and prevent the dog or other cat (both of whom were bigger and stronger than her) from passing. But then at bedtime she could always be counted on to come curl up next to me and purr.
Her asthma was diagnosed very early on, and over the years has evolved from an occasional nuisance to a daily concern. Florida was hard on her. The night before I was supposed to bring Sheba home from the pet rescue, Cassie had a particularly terrifying asthma attack. The vet at the clinic warned that she probably wasn't going to make it - but she did. And once she recovered I DID bring Sheba home and I don't think I was ever forgiven for that. Thanks to excellent veterinary care, we had nearly three more years together after that close call.
Sadly, the asthma got her in the end. I keep thinking of what I could have done differently while I was out of town - increased the dosage on her meds, left instructions for the pet sitter to keep the humidifier running, asked the pet sitter to come twice a day instead of once a day - but that doesn't change anything now. I just wish that I could have held her and stroked her soft chin one last time. It's way too quiet around here without her.

pet statues

2009-12-29T20:33:00.005-05:00

Over Labor Day weekend I took a lovely trip to Sedona, Arizona (housing courtesy of my sister and brother-in-law). I kept seeing this adorable, locally-made animal figurines in the shops and badly wanted to purchase one as a memento of my trip, but I just couldn't justify the shelf space for another knick-knack. Then I visited the art colony in nearby Jerome AZ and had a chance to actually meet the artist, Janie. Here is her website http://janielayersart.com/ with lots of pictures of her adorable creations. I'm always a sucker for anything involving my own beautiful pets, so I asked if she did commissions. She does, so I sent her pictures and info about my sweeties and I recently received these beauties in the mail:

She did an excellent job capturing their personalities and I will always treasure these.

Mice and blizzards

2009-12-29T13:30:00.005-05:00

Last fall I had trouble with mice, so I was expecting to see some "mouse evidence" again this year. Last year's crew only left evidence and I just caught one or two fleeting glances of actual mice. However, this fall I had a brave little visitor. This mouse explored the house as brave as could be, with one very interested cat (Cleofus) following along behind it and occasionally (gently!) stroking it. Eventually Sheba spotted it and was very interested in catching it, but she couldn't get into the small spaces that it hung out in. I was totally at a loss for what to do - screaming and freaking out was a natural response, but I managed to hang on to reason and just tried to avoid the wretched thing, hoping it would find it's way back out. Evidence strongly suggests that Sheba caught (and ate) it in the middle of the night. Lovely. The next day I distributed some poison packets around the house and have seen limited evidence since then. And now we are in the grips of freezing winter and the mice are no longer a problem. Whew.

As I previously reported, we had the great fortune of having a snow day on December 9th. It was a wonderful day to hang around the house. I did some work in the morning and then spent the afternoon working on stained glass, doing stuff around the house and playing World of Warcraft. Ah. I did try to get Sheba out in the snow - my neighbor's dog Magic loves the snow and we thought it would be cute to get some video of them together. As I've said before, Sheba doesn't like the snow. And this was deep snow. And it was very cold and windy. Here are the resulting videos:

Snow Day

2009-12-09T09:19:00.003-05:00

I know, I'm terribly behind on my posts. But (luckily?) we've had a blizzard come through and the university is closed for the day. The wind is gusting, there's at least a foot of snow on the ground and the windchill is -15F (yes, that's a negative). There's so much snow accumulated on the front porch that it's difficult to open the front door - I suspect that eventually I will have to climb out the bathroom window if this snow keeps us. But I'm appreciative for the unexpected free time. Today was an exceptionally lucky day for the university to be closed - not only do I get to miss MY class, but today I was supposed to cover class for my co-worker as well. Therefore, the one day that I need to teach TWO classes is the day that the university is closed. Woo hoo! I'm just hoping that the weather breaks eventually, because I need to go into the lab and tend to my experiments.
What's been going on since my last post? Mainly just busy with work. Rejections for the proposals that I wrote this summer are trickling in (NSF, NIH and Iowa Energy Center). And I'm expecting to receive a rejection notice any day now from DOE. But I didn't seriously expect any of those proposals to be funded and the reviewer comments are helpful for revisions. It helps to start the new year with a clean slate.
In November I went to Nashville for the annual American Institute for Chemicals Engineers meeting. The timing of the meeting coincided with the birthday of a dear friend who lives in Nashville, so it was good to celebrate with her. And then for Thanksgiving I visited with my family in Lexington. Also a good time.
I'm still working with stained glass. I attended a workshop last week and will attend another one next week. And I'm almost done with my first totally-at-home project. It's a good way to pass these cold winter evenings!
Everyone keep warm and happy holidays if I don't post again before Christmas.

blog bankruptcy

2009-10-18T11:45:00.002-04:00

OK, so I've fallen enormously behind on this blog and I'm about ready to declare blog bankruptcy. Here's my last-ditch effort to get caught up. I last left off in mid-July. Since then I've done a lot of traveling, including:
Toronto, for the Society for Industrial Microbiology annual meeting. Lots of good networking and learning opportunities. I shared a room with my good friend from graduate school and we spent the weekend after the conference exploring the city, including the zoo. We also visited the CN tower and had dinner in its rotating restaurant. Perhaps the highlight of the trip? Randomly being invited to dinner by a wonderful woman we met in the elevator one evening. We all got along really well and we ended up hanging out together for the rest of the conference. Photos here.
South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska on an excellent road trip with my parents. I will have to revisit this at a later date with an extended blog post, as it was too much fun to condense to a few sentences. The highlight? Devils Tower. Photos here.
Sedona, Arizona for Labor Day weekend. My sister and brother-in-law gracefully treated me to a weekend via their time share points. I was hoping to get talked into the timeshare thing, but the resort didn't even try to meet with me. Oh well, I had a nice time anyway. I spent an evening in nearby Jerome, home of a great art colony. This happened to be the evening of their monthly "Art Walk". But the highlight of the trip was taking a "Tour of the Stars" on my last evening. Our guide had checked the timing of the International Space Station and pointed out where it should appear overhead - and he was right! We watched for the few minutes that it was visible. The other items were all cool, but the ISS took the cake. Photos here (sadly, none from the star gazing event).
Lexington, Kentucky. I was invited back to my undergraduate department to speak at their weekly seminar. Though I frequently return to Lexington to visit with family, this was my first time back on campus since I graduated in 2000. It was great to re-visit with my old professors and thank them for giving me a good foundation. But it was VERY strange to give my seminar in the same room where I took so many challenging classes, with the professors who taught those courses sitting at the desks. Strange, indeed. The department has a great tradition of each graduating class putting their handprints on the wall. It was very exciting to re-visit my handprint. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of this. This trip also corresponding (almost) with my dad's 60th birthday. It was great to have the opportunity to participate in the celebratory dinner with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew and aunt.
Dekalb, Illinois. Last week I was invited by a colleague to present a research seminar for Northern Illinois University's department of Biological Sciences. It was a good opportunity to meet new people and learn about their exciting research.
And coming up? Traveling to St Louis tomorrow for a meeting with a colleague. And then off to Nashville in early November for the annual chemical engineering conference. Whew.
And meanwhile I'm teaching the same course that I taught last fall (Material and Energy Balances), and helping the graduate and undergraduate researchers in my lab plan and interpret their experiments. And I'm enjoying my new piano. Busy times, indeed. Now hopefully I'm caught up and can return to a bi-weekly update. Thanks to everyone for their patience!

getting caught up - again

2009-09-01T22:10:00.002-04:00

I'm coming up for air after a busy six weeks. Expect to see several posts here in the next few days. There are several fun events to cover - a conference/tour of Toronto, a vacation with my parents across the Great Plains and the resumption of classes. Thankfully, I'm teaching the same course this fall that I taught last fall. It's still a fair amount of work, but not the all-consuming task that it was last year. And just this Monday I submitted a big proposal to the Department of Energy. So I'm enjoying the chance to catch my breath for a few days. I'm looking forward to a trip to the Southwest for Labor Day. Then it's back to work on new proposals, updates on existing proposals and presentations to prepare.
Sadly, summer is clearly at an end here. We are still getting up into the low 70s during the day, but it's been dipping down into the 40s at night. Pretty soon I'll be turning on the heat.
It sounds like everyone is having their own adventures returning to school or helping their kids start/return to school. It's nice to be back in the swing of things here and have a (somewhat) regular routine.

getting caught up

2009-07-19T15:47:00.002-04:00

Three new posts in a new, that's a record for me. But seeing that it's been almost two months since my last posting binge....
Things are going well here, I'm just staying very busy with work. And I've also been doing some traveling. I made a great weekend trip to Nashville to visit with one of my dearest friends. We had a great time together, hanging out, catching up and eating. It was funny to read our old yearbook entries - 15 years later and we are still talking about the same stuff! I also visited with family and friends at Mammoth Cave -there's a post about that below this one. And I have two more trips coming up. Next weekend I'm leaving for the "Society for Industrial Microbiology" conference in Toronto. The conference lasts Sunday - Friday and then a grad school friend and I are going to tour the city for the weekend. Then in mid-August my parents and I will be making a road trip through South Dakota. My dad is doing a great job planning that trip.
Otherwise I'm mainly busy with work. A major part of my research involves "CBiRC", the Center for Biorenewable Chemicals. It's funded by the National Science Foundation and they came out for a visit in early May to make sure we were using their money properly. It went pretty well, all things considered. A collaborator and I submitted a proposal to the National Institute of Health in mid-June. We won't hear a response until early next year, but it was helpful just to get our thoughts written down. And now I'm trying to finish up my "CAREER" proposal for NSF. NSF has a great program for young faculty where you can write a proposal for a 5-year project. You have three chances to submit, and I'm going to try this year. I'm not very hopeful of getting it, but at least I'll get some feedback for my next attempt. That's due on Wednesday and I have a ton of stuff left to do - which is why I've spent all of today doing housework and blogging. Makes sense, no? I also learned a very important lesson with the CAREER proposal preparation. I had this great project all written up, had found the references, made the figures and THEN did my budget. And found that I was 30% over the maximum allowed budget. So then I had to go through a cut a lot of stuff and I was really mad about having to cut things that took a while to formulate/write. So now I've learned that I need to start thinking about the budget BEFORE I write the whole darn thing. And that's the important thing, right? That it was a learning experience?
I do have one small project that's been awarded funding. It's a collaboration with an Ames-based nutraceutical company. They've been great to work with so far, now I just need to hire a postdoc to work on the project! I interview a great candidate, but they ended up taking another job. So now I'm looking for more applicants....
Who's seen the newest Harry Potter movie? I caught on showing on Thursday. It was good, but just couldn't hold my attention. And I missed the fun of standing in line in Hollywood and the campy atmosphere. Tonight I'll be catching a showing of "Angels and Demons" at the local second-run theatre. Has anyone else seen it? Enjoyed it or no?

Mammoth Cave visit

2009-07-19T14:20:00.006-04:00

Recently I had the great opportunity to catch up with grad school friends AND family by making a visit to central Kentucky. My grad school friends and I had decided that we should all get together for a trip sometime during the summer. Mammoth Cave National Park was the decided-upon location. This is the longest cave system in the world. I visited many times as a child, as well as last Thanksgiving, but none of my friends had been before. None of them had even spent much time in Kentucky before. So it was great to share the experience with them.
We all met up at the Louisville airport. It was interesting to see the discrepancy in our travel times. Four people had direct flights, I had to get up at 3am in order to catch my flight out of Des Moines, and Katherine and Linh had to take overnight flights from the west coast. Once we drove to Cave City, the real cultural experience began with a visit to Cracker Barrel for lunch.
We took two great cave tours - the "Star Chamber Tour" through the main section of the cave by lantern light and the "River Styx" tour, which goes through some of the twisty-turny passages and goes down to the lowest level of the cave. Both were very impressive.
We also checked out a more commercial cave in nearby Bowling Green. The "Lost River Cave" takes visitors on a boat tour through a large cave. There was an interesting difference between this tour and the ones given at Mammoth Cave National Park. At Mammoth Cave, they practically beg you not to go on the tour. They list all of the possible health concerns (weak heart, bad knees, etc) and warn patrons that a medical evacuation could take up to two hours. And then it ends up not being bad at all. But at Lost River, there were no warnings whatsoever. But once they had us all loaded in the boat and floating away from the dock, we went under this super low spot where you practically had to put your head between your knees to keep from knocking your head off. Crazy. The visit to Bowling Green also enabled another cultural experience - a visit to Waffle House.
We also had time for a nice hike, even though the trail was wet and had some obstacles. But the best part was just getting caught up and hanging out. We played some old favorite games (mancala) and learned some new ones. Hopefully we'll be able to get together again next year.
After 3 days of fun, my friends left to head back to the airport. And then 10 minutes later my parents arrived at the cabin, quickly followed by my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. And then we spent 2 fun days together as a family. We took a quick cave tour, went horseback riding (Tiffany, Abby and I), and I even got my parents into a canoe! We also made a trip to Bowling Green to see a minor league baseball game. Overall we had a great time, only throwing two temper tantrums at the local fast food outlets (me at McDonald's, dad at Wendy's, I learned from the best). It was a great few days away from my computer and the stress of work, and it's always good to visit with dear friends and family. There are more pictures here.

Gardening Update

2009-07-19T13:14:00.008-04:00

Our garden is coming along very well. Already we've made good use of the rhubarb, snow peas, broccoli and TONS of fresh greens. I just made a batch of pesto from the basil and packed five lunch salads from the greens. We've had the pleasure of at least tasting a few cherry tomatoes and raspberries, hopefully a taste of things to come. But over the past few weeks the real excitement has begun - the butternut squash are growing like crazy and baby eggplants and this morning I found five little melons. I'm extremely excited about the melons because for the longest time they showed no indication of life whatsoever. The sweet potatoes have been the biggest disappointment - we planted three "slips". One is doing OK, a second is at least growing and the other 4 are hopeless. There are progress pictures here, but here are a few of my favorite shots from this morning.

Game of Thrones

2009-05-22T22:39:00.003-04:00

Another recent joy in my life - HBO is making a mini-series out of the first book in my favorite series. The series is called "A Song of Ice and Fire" and the first book is "Game of Thrones", by George R.R. Martin. They recently announced the first official cast member, and it was for one of my favorite characters. I think they made a wonderful choice. This reminds me of the early days of the Lord of the Rings movies and how much fun it was to hear the various casting announcements and the excitement of seeing the first trailer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this turns out well. And I highly recommend the books!

The Secret Path

2009-05-22T22:22:00.005-04:00

Now that the weather is warm, I can consistently walk to and from work. It's only a mile each way. And sometimes I try to come home for lunch. The activity points that I earn walking almost pay for the candy that I eat out of the jar on the secretary's desk. Here's the path I usually take:

View Larger Map
My neighbor previously told me about a secret path through the woods with a "scary" bridge. I've seen people ducking in and out of the woods, but was holding off exploring until all of the winter ice and mud was gone. On Monday I decided to try the trail. What a treat! Instead of the sun-exposed sidewalk on the busy, noisy streets, the trail through the woods is quiet, shaded and green. And yes, the bridge is a bit scary - not only is it missing a few planks, but it also has a general tilt. So I only take this trail when I'm wearing sensible shoes. But it's still a nice change of pace. I don't think it's any shorter or quicker, but it's a delight.

Life is Grand

2009-05-22T21:49:00.002-04:00

Life has been especially pleasant the past week. Nothing major has happened, but just lots of small joys.
Here are a few that are forefront in my mind
1) Spring has arrived in force here. The lilac bush in my front yard has provided fresh blooms to take to my office. They smell great. The flowers I planted in my yard are coming up - the gladiolus and sunflowers are doing especially well. Yesterday I planted more flowers - including foxglove, lily of the valley and violas.
2) The garden is making enormous progress. This week we planted so many things - greens, beets, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green peppers, sweet potatoes tomatoes and basil. The potatoes we planted last week are coming up already. We still have squash, melons and hot peppers to plant, just waiting to finish digging and weeding the third bed. Hopefully I'll have some pictures soon.
3) I've made some great friends here in Ames. The book club, stained glass class, Ames Women's Meetup group, my neighborhood and workplace have all put my in contact with some wonderful people.
4) Work is going very well. Without the need to prepare for class lectures, I have been able to devote more time to setting up my lab and working on proposals. I have one project that a local company is interested in funding. And my collaborator and I will be submitting a proposal on another project next month. The students working in my lab this summer are wonderful - one of them managed to repair an old incubator this week. His work saved me the $1000 to TRY and repair the darn thing or the $2000 required to replace it. And there are two more students arriving in a few weeks. Both are participants in an REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) program, which means they are good students and I do not need to pay them! And my teaching evaluations came in from the spring semester - it was good to get overwhelmingly positive comments from my students.

Kansas City trip

2009-05-10T11:53:00.006-04:00

I wanted to do something special to acknowledge the close of my first academic year. Originally my mentor and I were going to see a James Taylor concert in Des Moines. But the affordable seats sold out too quickly. And then I saw that through some crazy alignment of the stars there were two great opportunities in Kansas City this weekend - the orchestra was performing the "Lord of the Rings" symphony (music from the movie) and Fleetwood Mac's "Hits 2009" tour. Could I ask for a better opportunity to indulge two of my favorite long-running interests? [I should confess that I have indulged these interests before - I've seen symphony performances of Lord of the Rings twice (Hollywood Bowl, Tampa) and caught Fleetwood Mac on their 1997 "The Dance" tour in St. Louis.]
So I made the three-hour drive down to Kansas City on Thursday and got to the symphony just in time. It was a good performance. Unfortunately, I know every note of that music so well that it's jarring for me when the performers interpret it differently. But I was pleased that this performance perfectly matched the brass part on "Bridge of Kazad-Dum", one of my favorite passages. It's the musical selection on the link above. As with previous performances, they had a beautiful accompaniment by Alan Lee's artwork.
On Friday I wanted to explore some of what Kansas City had to offer. It was raining, so I headed to Union Station's Science Center. Blah. It probably was a good exhibit, but was overrun with school groups. The rain had stopped, so I headed to the zoo. Same situation there - lots of school groups. Overall it seemed like a nice place. It had a HUGE African section and a great chimp exhibit with a large group of chimps (about 15 according to the signage). The chimp exhibit was so large and lush that you couldn't see the back of it. Or the chimps, sadly. But it made me happy to see that they had such a great exhibit. Realizing that I was NOT having a good time at the zoo, I called it quits after the Africa section.
I still had most of the afternoon to kill, so I checked the map and found some cool museums between the zoo and my hotel. The Toy and Miniature Museum was amazing - way too much stuff to take in there on a single visit. The colletion mainly consisted of old dollhouses and miniatures, as well as the largest collection of marbles in the midwest. And it was nice and quiet....
Then I visited the "Money Museum" at the Kansas City Federal Reserve. It wasn't really a museum - just a chance to come in and see the money sorters at work. After passing through the security and background check. And they had this $5000 bill on display. Visitors all received a free bag of shredded money ($164). It was cool. And quiet and FREE.
I also popped in at the National World War I museum - about 30 minutes prior to closing. There was a ton of good material there and very interactive exhibits - the even had these cool sound booths where you could go in and listen to voice recordings from the time. I listened to part of a speech by Lenin. I can't say I had ever heard his voice before. There is also a memorial tower there that you can ride to the top for a good view of the city. This museum would be a great place to spend a hot summer afternoon, but I don't think it has much, if any, appeal for young children. Sadly I didn't get to do much except quickly walk through the exhibits.
Then it was on to dinner (Kansas City BBQ at Famous Dave's) and then the FABULOUS Fleetwood Mac concert. It was the most fun I had had in a long time. They sound so great together and they played so many of my favorite songs. My only disappointment is that they didn't play "Say You Will". But they DID play "Storms" - an extremely haunting and melancholy song that I never expected to hear. Steve Nicks actually said that they had never performed "Storms" live prior to the current tour. They did a great job of mixing their emo solo songs with fun ensemble pieces. For example, "Storms" was followed by "Say You Love Me".
I made friends with my neighbors before the concert started and we all agreed that "Silver Springs" was on our must-hear list. And as the concert went on, I started to get nervous that they weren't going to play it. The concert ended with "Go Your Own Way". Of course, there would be an encore. And they came back and played "World Turning" and "Don't Stop" and left again. My heart almost stopped - were they really NOT going to play "Silver Springs"? And then thankfully they came back for a second encore and Silver Springs was instantly recognizable from the first note. In the youtube video that the audience is all singing along - that's how it was at this show too. I never realized that I knew the lyrics to so many of their songs. What a wonderful end to a great evening. I'm seriously considering making a trek across country some weekend this summer to catch another performance of this tour. I'd hate to wait another 10 years to see them again. Anyone up for Atlantic City on June 13th?
But for now it's back to work on proposals and the garden project. Heidi and I may get some stuff planted this afternoon.
Happy Mother's Day everyone!

First School Year Down

2009-05-10T11:13:00.002-04:00

Well, I survived my first academic year. It was rough at times, but I'm very optimistic about the coming years at ISU. My co-workers are great and so are the students. I had two great teaching experiences - a sophmore level core course in the fall semester (4o students) and then a graduate-level elective course in the spring. The graduate-level course was an elective and dealt with my speciality (Metabolic Engineering). There were 6 enrolled students and three auditors. The two classes were very different, but both were a great experience. Next fall I'll be teaching the same sophmore-level class and I'm eager to do a better job than I did last year now that I'm not so nervous. The teaching assignments haven't been made for next spring yet. I'm supposed to have one semester with no teaching somewhere in my first four years; but there are two other new hires with the same deal, so I'm not sure how we're going to co-ordinate the details on that.
My research program is getting off to a good start as well. I'm now supervising one masters student, two PhD students and one full-time lab technician. There were also 10 undergraduates working part-time on various research projects. This summer 4 of those students, plus 2 new ones, will be continuing to work. They are all very dedicated and it's rewarding to see them learn and get good results.
I've got three big proposals going out this summer, plus a few smaller ones. It will be nice to have more time to spend on research since I won't be preparing for class.
This year was great, hopefully things will only get better.

April update

2009-04-12T22:40:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone. Sorry again for the long delay between posts.
As always, I've been busy with work. The end of the semester is in sight and I'm looking forward to a productive summer. My class this semester has been great - I've been teaching a graduate-level "Metabolic Engineering" course and we've covered a lot of neat topics. I have 6 enrolled students and 3 auditors, so the students are comfortable speaking up and asking questions. They all did a great job on their first project and I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle their second project. The first was a summary of published papers and for their second project they are supposed to design a series of experiments. Next fall I'll be teaching the same sophomore-level class that I taught last fall. I'm eager to go back and do a better job than I did last year.
We are also making progress on lab work, slowly but surely. I had a new full-time lab technician start last week, so hopefully that will be an improvement. And a second graduate student will be starting at the beginning of May. So over the summer there should be many hands producing lots of useful results!
On the non-work front, I am continuing to enjoy the stained glass classes. We just finished our second project, a window hanging using the copper foil method. The third and final project is another window hanging, but we use the lead method instead of copper foil. I am eager to pick out my pattern and glass for the new project. And I will be doing a two-Saturday workshop in May where we will put a mosaic-type pattern into a birdbath. I will then put the birdbath outside the bedroom window where the kitties can watch. There are progress pics here.
My neighbor, two friends and I are working on a garden in my neighbor's backyard. We are being VERY overly-ambitious, with plans for herbs, greens, 7 varieties of tomatoes, squash, melons, potatoes, beans, beets, leeks.... So far we have started some seedlings in a greenhouse and are clearing space for the garden. The real fun (digging!) will start soon. There are progress pics for the garden here.
What else... this week I will be attending a performance of STOMP with some of my co-workers. I'm quite excited about that.
Look for more updates soon. Hopefully I will have more adventures to report as the weather improves!

Spring, at last

2009-03-22T10:26:00.004-04:00

Spring has finally arrived here in Ames. There is still a little bit of snow hanging around in a few shady spots, but for the most part the days are getting warmer (up to 70 a few times), the birds are out in force and bits of green are starting to poke out of the ground. I can't wait for the trees to start budding.
This past week was Spring Break at ISU. The break from preparing lecture notes and managing undergraduate researchers was nice. I was able to spend a lot of time thinking about projects, getting caught up on ordering and paperwork and working in the lab with my graduate student. Still, it's sad that classes start back tomorrow and I didn't accomplish anywhere near as much as I had hoped.
Yesterday I finally saw my first in-theatre movie here in Ames. One of my book club friends and I saw "Duplicity" and then got some Thai food for dinner. We had a great time. A strange thing happened though - we arrived at the theatre about 20 minutes early to make sure we got good seats. We were sitting there chatting during all of the pre-trailer commercials and some grumpy old man actually asked us to "take the conversation outside" because he couldn't hear the commercials. It was quite a shock and I had to fight the urge to apologize after the movie for distracting him from the Coke commercials.
I've been dog-sitting for my neighbor for the past week and have had a lot of fun (heh heh) "walking" two 75-lb dogs. Sometimes it feels more like driving a team of horses. One evening we went to the local woods and all three of us got sooooo muddy. That's a great spot for them though because I can take their leashes off and let them run. We all had a great time, despite the mud.
I'm still taking the stained glass class and we are well into our second project, a window hanging using the "coppper foil" method. There are progress pictures here.
I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying spring wherever you are.

Chicago trip

2009-02-14T10:19:00.006-05:00

My aunt and I had a wonderful time in Chicago last weekend. She lives in Detroit and Chicago is roughly a 6-hour drive for both of us, so it was a great meeting place.
We stayed in the Grant Park Best Western and it was within sight of the lake and walking distance of nearly all of the things that we wanted to do. Our first major stop was the Shedd Aquarium. We saw some stunningly beautiful (and stunningly ugly) aquatic life. Both of us were inspired to "someday" start a coral tank.
Once we had had our fill of fish and coral, we headed to Navy Pier. It was a beautiful day and we walked the 3 miles along Lake Shore Drive to the Pier (you can see the Pier at the far right of this photo).

We were, of course, very hungry and tired by the time we got to the Pier. But after a refreshing lunch and rest in the crystal gardens, we hit Ferris wheel and the stained glass museum. The stained glass museum had many wonderful pieces. Unfortunately, the museum is part of the walkway from the parking garage into the main section of Navy Pier, so it was a little hard to admire the artwork while groups of people rushed to and from their cars. But still, they had some lovely pieces and the key exhibits (such as the Tiffany glass) were off in quiet niches.
We then grabbed some dinner and saw "Doubt", the movie set in a 1960's Catholic school. I had heard that it was a good movie for promoting discussion and boy was that correct. We spent a lot of time that evening AND the next day dissecting the characters' actions, decisions and motivations.
Sunday we had breakfast at "Yolk", a favorite Chicago breakfast spot. The food was good, but not great. Then we went to the Chicago Art Institute, who were surprisingly offering free admission for the month of February. We managed to take in most of the European painting collection; I ended up buying a Van Gogh, Monet and Renoir print. We had just a few minutes left so we made the snap decision to check out the "Thorne Miniature" collection. Wow, these were so neat. My pictures don't do them justice; check out the official site.
These are a whole set of 1/12 scale rooms from various times and places. The attention to detail was amazing: tiny clocks, books, rugs, art work. Mind boggling. I wish we had had more time to look at those.
And then sadly, our trip was over. It was great to spend more time talking with my aunt and getting to know her better. We are going to try and plan another visit soon. It would be great if some of our other family members could join us next time! There are more photos here.

General Update

2009-02-14T09:50:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last update. Last weekend I had a great weekend in Chicago with my wonderful aunt. I will have a separate post describing our adventures.
My life these days is very absorbed with work, but I'm trying to maintain some semblance of a work-life balance. I just don't see how my coworkers who have families manage to get everything done. I come home, spend an hour or two getting everyone fed, managing household tasks and then usually sit at the computer and work for another 3 hours. And even with all of that time spent working, I'm still very far behind on several of my projects. I realized this Wednesday that since I was out of town for the whole weekend, it had been over a week since I sat on my couch or turned on the TV. I'm a big fan of "Lost", but I missed the season premiere and haven't yet had time to get caught up.
But despite being so busy, I'm enjoying life. The stained glass class is a nice diversion. Next week we finish our first project and then the week after that we start our NEW projects. Our new project will involve the "copper-foil" method, which is the technique used in making Tiffany glass. I'm very excited and can't wait to pick out the glass for my new pattern. Here's a picture of my nearly-finished current project, with more detailed photos here:
I've also been attending some of the ISU Women's Basketball games. One of my coworkers had an extra season ticket and I bought a share of those.
In my last post I described all of our snow. Well we had a blessedly lovely warm spell early last week and nearly all of the snow melted. It was so nice to be able to see my yard again and use my circular driveway. On Monday I was able to take Sheba for a nice 90-minute walk and I didn't even need to wear my coat! But sadly it has cooled off again and we got more snow last night. It's supposed to be pretty cold for awhile, so I guess I won't see my yard again anytime soon. But at least we are moving in the right direction and the days are getting longer. It will be so glorious when spring arrives in full. My neighbor and I (and two friends) are going to plant a vegetable garden in my neighbor's yard and I'm envisioning nice long summer evenings spent outside working in the dirt. It will be a blast.

Digging Out

2009-01-18T17:42:00.003-05:00

Happy 2009! Hopefully everyone's New Year is off to a good start.
Classes have started back up here and things are going well. This semester I'm teaching a small graduate-level course (Metabolic Engineering). There are 8 students and the course material is within my area of specialization. So it's a nice contrast to the large undergraduate level course that I taught last semester. We are also starting to make some progress on my various research projects. I'm continuing to write-up and (and hopefully publish) my postdoctoral research and starting to work on proposals for my research here at ISU. It's a very exciting time.
It's also been exciting weather-wise for the past week. Like much of the country, we had a "frigid spell". We had several snow storms and then the weather stayed below zero for several days. It even got down into the -20's, with a windchill in the -30's. It's hard to believe, but life still goes on even when it's so cold. Thankfully my car started everyday, but my tape player wouldn't work. They canceled the local public schools due to the cold, but the university stayed open. Sheba had a hard time dealing with the extreme cold. Luckily, we seem to have pulled out of the bad weather. Today was up in the 20s and it seems absolutely balmy. I took Sheba for a long walk and ended up having to remove my gloves because I was getting too warm. After spending over an hour shoveling my driveway last weekend, I relented and subscribed to a shoveling service. It was sooooo nice when they came in the early hours on Monday and plowed my driveway and then two guys came around 7 and shoveled my sidewalk while I watched from inside, warm and toasty and drinking my coffee. Lovely. There are more pictures of the snow here. There's also a video of my cats trying out their new water fountain here.
I've started taking a once-weekly class at the local stained glass studio. We've had one class session so far and I really enjoyed it. In the first 6-week unit of the class we are making a paved "garden stepping stone". Kind of like a mosaic, but you need to learn to cut class into a pattern instead of using random small glass bits. Then there are additional class units where we will learn the copper foil and lead solder method. I will take some pictures of my work-in-progress for the blog.
Stay warm everyone!

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-25T19:17:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope your Christmas was as joyful as ours. We had a great celebration today with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. It's great to see the kids getting older and expressing themselves more clearly. We did our usual meal / Christmas story / presents routine. And then since the weather is so nice, "us girls" went out and watched my niece try out her new bike. There are pictures here.
The drive from Iowa wasn't too bad. I brought Sheba with me and she's always a great traveler. We drove to Peoria, IL on Monday evening and then the rest of the way on Tuesday. Tuesday's weather was pretty bad: strong winds, snows, sleet and rain. I was relieved to make it safely to my parents' place.
It's much warmer here than it has been in Ames. Yesterday was warm enough to take Sheba for a long walk without a coat. Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to 60F, but rainy. I'm trying to enjoy the warmth while I'm here. We'll probably head back to Ames on Sunday afternoon or Monday.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-21T11:30:00.003-05:00

I might as well do my Thanksgiving and Christmas posts all in one day.
Hopefully all of my readers have plans to celebrate the holidays with loved ones. On Monday I'll be driving to Kentucky to celebrate with my own family. The weather is a concern, but driving allows me to take Sheba with me and I don't have to worry about paying additional checked luggage fees for presents. I'll be coming back to Iowa next Monday or Tuesday and then heading up to Minneapolis to spend New Year's with a friend from LA who is visiting with her family in Minnesota. Yesterday I managed to do all of my shopping and wrapping in one day. And I did it all withOUT going to Wal Mart! Woo hoo!
I am relieved to have made it through my first semester in my new job. It's been a bit overwhelming at times, and I spent a larger proportion of time on my class than I had planned (at the expense of writing proposals and papers on my postdoc research), but it was a relief just to get through. My students were a great group and I hope to work with some of them again in the future. Next semester I'll be teaching a graduate-level course that is within my specialty. It should be an interesting contrast to the entry-level course that I taught this semester.
Adjusting to the weather here in Iowa has been a challenge. On Thursday night we had 5 inches of snow. I considered just leaving my car in the carport until the snow melted, but that would probably mean waiting until March. So I shoveled the snow - very good exercise. And not only do we have a lot of snow, but it is also VERY cold. Today (Sunday) it is supposed to be below zero, with the windchill hovering between -30 and -20F. Ick! Luckily, I can spend most of the day bundled up inside. The best investment I've made so far is a new down comforter - it keeps me very warm at night. Sheba is having a very hard time with the cold. She doesn't like it AT ALL and we've also curtailed our daily walks, so she has a lot of pent-up energy. An unexpected benefit of the cold has been that my cat now cuddles up on my lap every evening. Such a treat. Here is a view of the icicles on my front window. More winter photos here. Just a few more months until Spring....

Thanksgiving

2008-12-21T11:01:00.004-05:00

Late Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers! Hopefully you all were able to spend time with family and/or friends. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to celebrate with my family again this year. We had a great get-together at my parents house in Lexington. Per our usual tradition, my brother-in-law did a superb job cooking the turkey. We had about 20 in attendance and it was a nice mixture of my paternal and maternal relatives. The food was great and we had fun watching the kids play, as well as playing some games ourselves; Farkle was especially successful. There are some Thanksgiving pictures here.
I also had the opportunity to spend some time catching up with the friend who taught me how to play Farkle. Bea and I made a trek down to Mammoth Cave National Park. Mammoth Cave is a very large underground cave system that is also held as a National Park. Both of us had been several times as young children, but had not been back for years. We took one of the shorter tours and had a fun time. We tried taking some pictures, but were not very successful. The photos are posted here.
The tour had some interesting points. First of all, it was very exciting when they turned out the lights. Pitch black, no longer how long you wait for your eyes to adjust. Second is the fact that Mammoth Cave is still being explored. They have mapped out over 300 miles of tunnels, but are nowhere near completion. This mapping process is complicated by the fact that it takes about 12 hours to get to the uncharted region of the cave in order to start new mapping. 12 hours - that's just to get there! Factor in some exploration time and another 12 hours to hike out, and that's no small task. I don't think I would be able to do it. But the tour was great and I would love to go back for a longer tour sometime in the future.
Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving trip. When I got back to the Des Moines airport, winter had officially begun in Iowa and has not let up yet. Here's an image of my car at the airport:

2008-11-23T10:40:00.005-05:00

Things have been busy here, as usual. Last week I attended the annual meeting of the "American Institute of Chemical Engineers" (AIChE). It's one of the highlights of my social year (how sad is that?) and I love catching up with old friends from grad school. This year was the 100th meeting and was held in Philadelphia, the sight of the very first meeting. Being back in Philadelphia was interesting because 3 years ago I had to choose between my current job at Iowa State and a job in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a great city; on the drive from the airport to the hotel, I kept thinking "this could have been home". But I'm satisfied with my decision to move to Iowa.
The semester is almost over. This week we are on "fall break", so I'm looking forward to getting some non-class-related work finished. Then there are two more weeks of classes and then finals. It will be a very hectic time. I'm looking forward to my trip to Kentucky on Wednesday to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.
We had significant snow fall yesterday, but it should all melt today. The dogs and

I [I'm pet sitting for my neighbor for the week] had fun walking in it. I imagine that pretty soon it won't seem fun anymore.
I previously posted about my quest to find better winter wear for Sheba. The coat that I ordered from Petco did not fit. It fit her barrel chest, but was way too big everywhere else, despite my attempts to alter it. So now she will continue to wear her old blue jacket (which is embarassing, because it matches MY blue coat) and I got her this adorable fleece to wear at home. It really is the most laughable thing imaginable. She looks so insanely ridiculous, but seems much happier. It's hard not to snicker every time I look at her. I'm not yet brave enough to walk her wearing this thing.In addition to the yucky cold, I've found it hard to adapt to the extremely short days here. It's very disheartening to drive home from work in the dark. I'd heard good things about "litebook", a light therapy device that you use briefly in the morning. I've used one for the past 4 days and it seems to be helping with my mood and energy. Maybe this is just a placebo effect, but the light exposure time fits well with my morning "web-surf and check email while drinking coffee" routine.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Travel safely and enjoy time with friends and family.

LA trip

2008-10-31T22:16:00.003-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone! Last weekend it finally dipped below freezing here in Ames, but I was lucky enough to be in sunny LA for a few days. It was great to re-visit old friends and my old favorite haunts.
I flew out to LA Friday afternoon after my class. The beauty of flying out of a small airport like Des Moines is that you don't need a long lead time before your flight. My grad-school friend Katherine put me up for the night and the next day we drove around my old neighborhood, took a great hike and then went to my favorite LA eatery (Curry House). This was the same trail that we did several years ago for the 4th of July. It's fun to compare this year's photos to the photos from 2+ years ago.
Saturday afternoon my friend Jo-Ann Krohn and I went to a Halloween party hosted by my great friends Anne and Rick Lainhart. Anne and Rick always throw GREAT parties. It certainly helps that they have a hand-built pirate ship and pub in their backyard. I'm always amazed at how many people Anne and Rick know, because I am always meeting new people at these parties.
Sunday morning I re-visited the LA zoo, one of the things that I miss most about LA. Jo-Ann showed me the new gorilla exhibit and some of the other new zoo features. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to see everything and it was VERY crowded because of "Boo in the Zoo".
Sunday afternoon I had lunch with several zoo friends, although there were many people who were not able to join us. It was good to catch up with those who could make it. Then I drove down to Long Beach to visit with another good friend before heading back to LAX for my red-eye flight back to Des Moines. In Long Beach I was finally able to sample the new "Pinkberry" frozen yogurt craze. It was great! Very tangy, and great with fresh fruit, mochi and fruity pebbles! I wonder how long it will be before Pinkberry makes it to Iowa....
It was a great trip, but I was glad to come home and get back in the swing of things. Hopefully I'll be able to visit again next fall. There are more pictures here.

2008-10-19T11:49:00.004-04:00

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since I got my female cat Cassie. I snatched her from a feral group that lived under my grandparents' house and she's been great company ever since then. She's moved with me from Kentucky to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Florida and now Florida to Iowa. Her asthma can be problematic at times, but other than that she is doing well. She keeps the rest of us in line. Speaking of her asthma, I finally acquired a home-use oxygen tank for the next time she has a flare-up. Taking her to the hospital for oxygen treatment is NOT cheap, so I'm glad to have my own emergency back-up per the recommendation of my new vet here.
The weather here has turned chilly, but hasn't yet gotten below freezing. My new coat keeps me toasty when I'm outside and I have a space heater (and central heat) for the house. Because Sheba has such short, sparse hair, she needs a good winter coat. We made a trip to the closest Petsmart last weekend, but they didn't have any good coats large enough for her. It's not that she's too fat (though she is overweight), but her barrel chest is too large. PetsMart was completly unhelpful in my request to find a larger coat, but I did find what seems to be a good one on the petco website. Hopefully it will fit her. In exchange for the chilly weather, we get great views like this one (as seen from my front door).
When I moved to Gainesville, I bought a second-hand white couch/loveseat set. Sheba spends most of her time laying on these and I do too when I'm home. I spend a lot of time mentally complaining about how dirty they look and decided to finally do something about it. I unstuffed all of the cusions (check out this MOUND of stuffing here and here) and washed them. The results are great. Not surprisingly, the clean cushions now emphasize how disgustingly dirty the rest of the couch is.
This week my neighbor's dog (Magic) will be staying with us. He's a real sweetie. He stayed with us one night last week. While the cats aren't happy to have another dog in the house, he's good about not bothering them. Then this Friday I'm headed to Los Angeles for a weekend with friends. It will be quite a treat to see my old friends and old stomping grounds.

Fall Fun

2008-09-28T20:31:00.007-04:00

We've had two weeks of beautiful warm weather here. It's been up into the mid 70s each day and has been just gorgeous. Sheba and I have been walking a lot. Today we went back to Ledges State Park, about 15 miles east of Ames, and did some of the "uppity" trails. We've been back to the local public woods several times too. I've also been taking advantage of the local farmer's market, which will continue through mid-October. Some new-to-me finds include pattypan squash and non-traditional-colored (but still yummy) watermelon.

I'm still settling into the new job. I've now written, given and graded the first exam for my class; I learned more from the experience than my students did.
I had a scary experience with Sheba last week. For the past few weeks, I've been tying her up outside during the day so that she can enjoy the nice weather while it lasts. I came home one day to find her in her normal spot, but no longer attached to her tie-out cable. Apparently she had pulled hard enough to break her chain collar. I'll probably never know what motivated her to break free, but I'm just glad that she wasn't hurt or lost. So no more tie-outs for her. BUT, my backyard neighbor has just installed a large fence around her yard. She has invited Sheba to spend the day with her dog, Magic. Sheba loves playing with Magic, so we'll give it a try and see how it goes. There are more new pictures here.

Staying Busy

2008-09-17T23:01:00.003-04:00

Things continue to go well here as I settle in to the new job and new home. I'm staying very busy balancing my class, ordering supplies and equipment for my new lab, training my new undergraduate researchers and meeting with potential graduate students. I also have lots of meeting with other professors, trying to build up collaborative projects. Now I just need to get some graduate students in the lab starting on some actual research. Today I received about 19 boxes of lab supplies from my huge start-up Fisher order. Fisher is the big research supply company and they give ISU a large discount and new lab start-up orders get an even larger discount. And today my new office furniture was finally installed and delivered. I'll try to post some pictures of the lab and office soon.
We've had a very exciting research development. Last year, a group of researchers at ISU submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to start an Engineering Research Center (ERC) with the goal of producing biorenewable chemicals. The center is called "Center for BioRenewable Chemicals" (CBiRC). These researchers were kind enough to include me on this proposal. Excitedly, our proposal was one of the 5 selected this year for funding. So now we have $18.5-million dollars provided over the next 5 years to start this center. Here's a link to a video of my coworker (the head of the project) discussing the project. And there's a news story here. We have about 16 professors on the project, and some of them are at other schools, such as Rice University and UC Irvine. The chunk of funding that I get this year will be used to pay the stipend and tuition for 2 graduate students. Now I just need to recruit 2 graduate students.
On the personal front, things are going well. We've had a slight warming over the past few days. Today it was almost 80F. I mowed my lawn this evening, maybe for the last time this year? On Monday evening Sheba and I went walking in the local public woods. These woods are less than a mile from my home and have several beautiful walking trails. We saw several deer (Sheba had a blast running after them) and then we got hopelessly lost. Well, not really lost. I knew where we were, but the road that I wanted to use to access the main road had a locked gate and a 10-ft tall fence. So we had to turn around and go back through the woods even though it was getting dark. And THEN I started to think that we were lost. I was just about to starting yelling for help when we finally stumbled out onto the main road; there was just a sliver of sunlight still visible and the full moon was already up. One of my co-workers was out on the main road walking HIS dog (the same guy from the CBiRC video, actually) and he got quite a kick out of my story. Apparently everyone gets lost in there from time to time. Next time I'll make sure we have plenty of daylight left before heading in there.
Speaking of my neighborhood, I was surprised to see that my street is available on google map's "street view". Here is the link.
Anyway, I'm rambling on. I'm continuing to get to know my neighbor (and her dog) and her two close friends (and THEIR dog). And I've found two book clubs that are interesting. I'll sign off for now.

Labor Day weekend

2008-09-01T19:45:00.005-04:00

I hope that everyone had a restful and enjoyable holiday weekend. Some of my weekend time was spent getting caught up on housework and getting ahead on my lecture notes and homework solutions. But I also spent some time having fun with Sheba.Saturday evening, we visited the local Ada Hayden Heritage park. It's a city park that I've visited several times already and it's a great nearby resource. We walked about 4 miles. On Sunday afternoon we went to Ledges State Park, about 15 miles west of Ames. We hiked a bit more than I had originally planned, but we had a great time. The park has a gorgeous spot overlooking the Des Moines River. And there were several great-sounding trails ("Crows Nest", "Council Rock") that I'm looking forward to trying the next time we go. There are more pictures here. The park will look beautiful when the leaves start to change.
Today was "dog swim" day at the Ames city pool. I guess this is something they do every year when the pool is being shut down for the winter. While I've had Sheba for over a year, I've never seen her swim. Unfortunately, she wasn't interested in swimming. She would walk around in the kiddie pool, but showed no interest in jumping in the big pool. I got in myself (in my clothes, of course) and she jumped in after me when I started to back away from the edge. And she immediately sank like a stone. After that, there was absolutely no way to convince her to get back in. Several people suggested forcing her in, but I just couldn't do that to her.
Tonight we are headed to a cookout hosted by my backyard neighbor, who I just met this weekend. She also works at ISU and just purchased her house 3 weeks ago. She has a dog about the same size and age as Sheba, so they are already friends. I'm looking forward to getting to know her and her friends better.
Happy Labor Day, everyone!

First Day of Class

2008-08-25T22:17:00.003-04:00

Today was the first day of classes and my lecture went very well. I have a bright, enthusiastic class of students and am looking forward to working with them for the rest of the semester. Most of them are sophmores, so I may get to work with many of them again over the next 2-3 years. I'm still busy with orientation-type details. Last week I had 2 sessions of all-day new faculty orientation and an evening reception at the home of the ISU president. Then we also had an all-day departmental meeting to review our plans for the upcoming school year. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with human resources to specify my retirement account type, health insurance, etc. It's been a real adventure so far and it keeps getting better.
The movers finally came last Tuesday and my house is starting to look more like a home. There are some photos posted here. There is an breathtakingly beautiful owl in my neighborhood who frequently sits in the tree outside my dining room window at dusk. And tonight Sheba and I saw 3 deer on our evening walk.
The ISU marching band practices in a field adjacent to my office building, so it's nice to listen to them practice. But my house is less than a mile from campus, so I can hear them at home too, if I'm outside. During one of the new-faculty orientation sessions, I talked to a woman who was joining the music department. She said the band's current program features songs from "Guitar Hero" (she explained that the student's play a role in choosing the programs). But then she said that they will be doing a program based on John Williams' movie music later in the semester. I love John Williams, so I'm very excited about listening to this program.
Cleofus is doing well. Last week I thought he might need to go back to the hospital, but he's doing much better now; almost back to normal.

Settling In

2008-08-16T18:23:00.005-04:00

Things are going well here so far. My first three days at work have gone quickly and there are already lots of things to do. The first day involved lots of administrative tasks: human resources check-in, assignment of an ID card, email address, keys and parking tag. My office is great: my view includes the Marston Water Tower, a favorite campus landmark. I'm on the third floor, so I can burn lots of calories taking the stairs. We got my new computer all set up, but it was a multi-day project to transfer over files, emails and calenders from my old laptop onto the new desktop. I love the idea of not lugging the laptop to and from work everyday. By using Remote Desktop, I can easily connect to my office computer using my laptop at home.
I haven't even begun to set up my lab. There is a mountain of boxes containing supplies and equipment that I ordered or inherited. I'm making arrangements to hire an undergraduate student to assist with that. I'm also trying to review and plan for the course that I'm teaching (Material and Energy Balances, the first "real" Chemical Engineering course). AND I'm outlining the plans for my research projects so that I can recruit one or two of this year's incoming graduate students.
Most of next week is taken up with meetings. Tuesday and Wednesday I have new-faculty orientation all day. On Wednesday night there is a reception at the home of the ISU President for new faculty. Then Thursday is an all-day departmental meeting to plan for the upcoming school year. And then classes start on Monday! I'm really excited about all of it.
The moving van hasn't arrived yet (maybe Tuesday), but I'm staying busy at home anyway. My male cat Cleofus ended up developing a urinary blockage. This happened once before in Los Angeles when we moved to a new apartment, so it's probably stress related. I took him to ISU's Veterinary Teaching hospital and he had to stay there from Thursday morning until Saturday afternoon. They let me come visit with him each day. On Thursday, he looked absolutely miserable. But on Friday he looked much better (this picture is from Friday). Each time I went to visit, there was a new sign on his cage, including "WILL BITE" and "CAGE JUMPER". I tried not to ask too many questions about these, I would rather not know. But it's good to have him home. He's acting pretty much like his normal goofy self, so I'm trying not to worry too much.
This morning I went to a Weight Watchers meeting. It seems like a good group. A very funny thing happened though. Months ago, I asked on the Weight Watchers message boards if anyone attended meetings in Ames, Iowa. I found someone who did, and we chatted a few times. WELL, after today's meeting someone came up to me and introduced herself - it was the woman from the message boards and she recognized me from my photo! Strange, no? After that I checked out the local Farmer's Market, got a library card, signed up for a once-per-month book club and got my Iowa driver's license and voter registration.
Sheba and I have tried out several local parks during our evening walks. Last night we found a very nice one - the Ada Hayden Heritage Park. It has a very nice paved trail around a beautiful series of lakes and it's very close to the main part of town. So this morning I went back and rollerbladed around the path - about 3 miles total. I'm hoping to make it a weekly tradition, but I missed my rollerblading buddy from Gainesville.

safe in Ames

2008-08-12T22:51:00.005-04:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long delay between posts. My last few days at UF were pretty hectic and the past week has been consumed with the move from Gainesville, FL to Ames, Iowa.
Last Thursday a moving van (Courtesy of ISU) came and took most of my stuff. Friday was my last day at UF and my parents arrived from Lexington. On Saturday and Sunday my parents and drove 1300 miles; Sheba rode with me in my car, the cats rode in their carriers in my dad's truck and my mom took turns riding with me or my dad. Sheba is always an ideal passenger and the cats did much better than I expected.
While the drive was quite long, it was also a nice trip down memory lane. On Saturday night, we stayed in our former hometown of Paducah, KY. My parents moved to Paducah in 1977 and lived there until 2006. Therefore, it is my childhood hometown. On Sunday morning we took some time to drive around to all of our former homes and visit old haunts. We even got Red's Doughnuts for breakfast! Sunday's route took us through Hannibal, Missouri (home of Mark Twain). Eleven years ago we made that same drive from Paducah to Hannibal when I worked as an intern at a chemical plant in Hannibal. Strangely, I saw very few places that I recognized.
We spent a lot of time buying stuff for my new rental home. Lots of groceries, a new litterbox, used kitchen table and chairs, some used shelves. The most exciting purchase by far was a used washer/dryer pair. I haven't had free in-house access to laundry facilities since I moved to LA back in 2000. So I'm thrilled with these. I'm actually running my first load while I write this post.
The new house is great. There is much more space than I'm used to. It has a small shed, so I'm looking forward to purchasing a kayak and a bike. There are tons of windows and a nice open yard. I can hear one of the local train tracks and the bell tower on campus. And everyone that I've met so far is very nice. My landlord even had flowers waiting when we arrived.
On Tuesday the moving van was supposed to arrive with my stuff. We were hoping that they would arrive pretty early in the day so that my parents could get back on the road at a decent time. We spent most of the day waiting. And waiting some more. And speculating about why the van hadn't arrived yet. Finally, at 2pm I called the moving company to see if they were still coming. And discovered that the moving van is still in Florida. And it won't arrive until early next week. So my parents went ahead and left so that they could make significant progress in their 750 mile drive back to Lexington. It was hard to watch them drive away. And I went to the mall, because ragged khaki shorts and a t-shirt are not appropriate attire for my new job.
Speaking of the new job, it starts tomorrow. I'm nervous, but also very excited to start this new phase in my life.
There are photos of the moving process and my new (empty) home here. I'll post more photos as I get it set up, whenever my stuff arrives. For now, I have my pets, my laptop and ipod, so I'll get by just fine.

misc

2008-07-14T20:41:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I posted, but there isn't much new going on.

After my recent failed attempts to enjoy the Florida outdoors, I decided that my weekends were better spent doing lab work. It's not hindered by the weather and - it's free! And what did I get in return for going in early on a Saturday morning? I burned my hand. Unfortunately, I wasn't doing anything cool/dangerous or stupid/funny. I was just casting a gel, something that I do pretty much every day. Notice the splash marks on my fingers! Two weeks later and it's completely healed, no big deal. But it was quite an attention-getter for several days.

I saw Wall-E and Wanted over the 4th of July weekend. Both were very cool. Actually, Wall-E was better than cool. It was probably the best movie I'd seen since moving to Gainesville. The amount of emotion and meaning that they were able to pack into the first half of the movie was amazing. I was torn about seeing Wanted; I really like James McAvoy, but really DISlike Angelina Jolie. However, the cool action sequences made up for her presence and the stupid plot. It was really, really cool.

The big move to Iowa is less than a month away. It's getting exciting! If you watch my "soaked" video below, you can see some boxes and empty shelves in the background.

foiled again

2008-07-14T20:14:00.007-04:00

I've posted before about how annoying and unpredictable the weather can be here. Tonight's walk with Sheba re-iterated that point.

But, it's a nice warm night and a little water never hurt anyone (my ipod may be another story). And the cute look on Sheba's face as she squinted against the rain was almost worth it.

Failed Attempts

2008-06-22T22:34:00.006-04:00

The move to Iowa is quickly approaching and I've been making a concerted effort to enjoy the outdoor opportunities here in Florida. However, it hasn't been working out very well.
Last weekend I had an afternoon free so I wanted to try a nearby new-to-me attraction. The "Mike Roess Gold Head Branch" state park looked interesting - it is only 30 miles away and has hiking trails AND a lake open for swimming. While the 3-mile hike was beautiful, any time I paused to check the trail map, read a sign or admire the sights, a horsefly would bite me. It was awful. Even a sighting of two beautiful deer couldn't offset the misery of those bugs. And then the lake only had a small area open for swimming and it was very crowded. And then it started to rain. Blah.
This past week I kept seeing online articles about the "solstice moon" effect. Somehow the alignment of the sun during the solstice makes the moon look quite large when it rises. Compounded with the fact that the moon was full, this effect was supposed to be very dramatic. On Friday night Sheba and I walked to a local spot with a slight elevation and a good view of the eastern sky. Unfortunately, a band of clouds near the horizon obscured the moon and by the time it was visible, it didn't look that large. It WAS unusually red, but not that large. Another disappointment.
This weekend I wanted to make a beach trip. My excursion to Clearwater Beach last summer was great, so I decided to try Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area, a barrier island on the Gulf Coast north of Tampa Bay. It was especially appealing because it had swimming AND hiking. Saturday morning was rainy, so I waited until Sunday. On Sunday, the forecast said a 50% chance of rain, so I decided to take a chance and go. After driving 2.5 hours, I had about 20 minutes on the beach before a big storm moved in. You can see the storm moving in here on the right.

It was an enjoyable drive and I enjoyed my time there before the storm came, but I was still disappointed when I think of all of the other ways I could have spent the driving time (and gas money!). I (and several other people) stuck around until the rain started - check out the dark clouds here. And speaking of storms, we've had some really cool ones lately. This one had such strong thunder that some of my pictures were rattled off of the wall. The video was taken from the couch in my living room.

On the other hand, not all of my new adventures have been failures. Shortly after Christmas, I bought a pair of rollerblades thinking that it would be a good source of non-walking activity. However, it was immediately apparent that my fear of falling was going to make learning to rollerblade mainly a mental challenge, not physical. After several months of puttering around, I seem to have finally gotten the hang of it. The crucial event was a fall that I took last week. The fall was scary, but it didn't hurt at all thanks to my knee, elbow and wrist pads. Now that I've survived a fall uninjured, there's nothing to be scared of, right? This past Saturday I rollerbladed all the way from my apartment to the lab and had a blast. I still have a lot to learn (I haven't even attempted any hills yet), but it's turned into something really fun instead of something scary.

Beach Trip

2008-06-10T22:48:00.005-04:00

I only have a few weekends left to enjoy the wonderful outdoor opportunities here in Florida. This past weekend, I convinced two of my co-workers to make a beach trip with me. My co-workers Jim and Wilmer, Jim's two young sons Luke (6) and Paul (4) and I had a wonderful afternoon at Crescent Beach on the Atlantic Coast. Luke and Paul were tons of fun and the weather was just gorgeous.
We all packed into one car, so we ended up only having to chip in $5 each for gas. Wilmer recently started reading my favorite book series (George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire"), so we had tons to talk about.
Maybe the best part of the day: Wilmer brought along two bags of puffy cheetos. During the drive home, Luke and Paul made SUCH a mess with the cheese powder. It was even in their hair. What made this so enjoyable? The fact that we weren't driving MY car.

Milestones

2008-06-10T22:33:00.006-04:00

Many of my friends and family members had some major milestones lately.

My niece Abby celebrated her 4th birthday.

My cousin Lindsay graduated from high school; she will be starting college this fall and studying to be a nurse.
My maternal grandmother (Mamaw) turned 80.
Unfortunately, I had to miss all of these celebrations. I am very proud of all of you and would have loved to have been there to celebrate with you.

Another interesting milestone: one of my Weight Watchers friends is a first grade teacher. This year, the students that she taught during her very first year graduated from high school. Apparently one of these students sent her an invitation to his graduation ceremony with a note about how she had been an inspiration and motivator for him. She said that makes the long hours and low salary all worth it.

Theft

2008-05-31T20:55:00.003-04:00

We were all shocked this week when my co-worker's wallet was stolen out of her backpack. Claudia and Mike share an office next door to mine. These offices are in a hallway with several faculty offices and are just a few feet away from the lab. We make an effort to keep the office doors closed and locked at all times, but it's easy to become lax.
However, on Wednesday around lunchtime Mike found an unfamiliar young man standing in his office. The young man seemed flustered and said that he was looking for "the woman who works at this desk", gesturing to Claudia's desk. Mike is a nice, honest guy, so though he found it strange that this guy had entered the office on his own, he offered to take the him to talk to Claudia directly. As they stepped out of the office, Mike noticed the man put a pink object in his pocket. The man talked to Claudia and said that he was a psychology major and was interested in doing some undergraduate research. After he left, Claudia mentioned to Mike that it seemed kind of strange that a psychology major would be interested in working in a microbiology lab AND that the guy just seemed kind of weird in general. That prompted Mike to mention the mysterious pink object in the guy's pocket. Claudia rushed back to the office and checked her backpack (which was hidden back behind her desk) and sure enough, her wallet was gone. That's right - this guy found the office unlocked, rifled through Claudia's backpack, pocketed her wallet, and then stood there and had a conversation with her WHILE her wallet was in his pocket. Crazy.
Here's comes the amazing part: Claudia and Mike called the police. When the description of the guy went out over the radio, there just happened to be an officer sitting in his car in the parking lot of a grocery store close to campus. He saw a guy who matched the description walking into the grocery store and detained him. The police drove Claudia and Mike over to ID the guy and sure enough, it was him. The guy was arrested and Claudia got her wallet back. Amazing. I was so impressed with the UF police. In the HOURS of discussion that resulted from this mess, we learned that several people had seen this guy wandering around that day and all had offered to help him find whatever he was looking for instead of suspecting him of trying to steal things. So now we've all learned to be more careful AND suspicious.

Memorial Day visit

2008-05-31T20:06:00.011-04:00

I had a special treat for memorial Day weekend - my friend Katherine visited from Los Angeles. We met as a grad students at UCLA where she is currently wrapping up her PhD. She was only here for a short time, but we managed to make the most of it.
On Saturday evening we grabbed dinner at a great Latin restaurant (Mi'Apa Latin Cafe) and saw the new Indiana Jones movie (good, but not as good as any of the first three).
We were up bright and early Sunday morning to go tubing at Ichetucknee Springs. This place is unbelievably gorgeous (video here) and is so different from the typical Orlando/Sea World tourist spots that people associate with Florida. I am very pleased that I was able to share it with Katherine. The leisurely float down the river was a great opportunity to relax and chat.When we were done tubing, we had a great picnic lunch and went back to Gainesville and to visit campus. We toured the lab that I work in and then visited Lake Alice so Katherine could see a gator in person.

Then we drove over to St Augustine, which was especially exciting because Katherine had never seen the Atlantic Ocean.

After our trip to the beach, we checked out the famed St Augustine Lighthouse - and even climbed the 14 stories to the top of it. Then we headed over to historic St Augustine to visit the fort, grab dinner and make several impulse purchases involving seashells and/or chocolate. We had a fantastic time. Then sadly, Katherine had to fly back to Los Angeles on Monday morning. It was all over way too fast and Sheba and I were very sad to see her go. There are more pictures here.

Disney Weekend

2008-05-05T17:37:00.006-04:00

My family recently spent a wonderful weekend at Disneyworld in Orlando. My sister and brother-in-law received a few days at a Disney-area resort as a Christmas gift and were kind enough to invite my parents and me to join them. There are pictures here. We have a group photo taken by the Disney people, but it's kind of hard to access.

We spent Saturday at the Magic Kingdom. Pretty standard fare there - character greetings, "It's a Small World", "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Space Mountain" and "The Haunted Mansion" (the last two I snuck off and rode on my own). The best ride experience was when all of us (minus my dad) squished into a single Teacup - what a blast! My niece and nephew were extremely well behaved and lasted the whole day. We had a "character dinner" with the Pooh characters and then everyone else went back to the hotel and I went to Epcott to watch the fireworks show (I was determined to squeeze every minute of pleasure from my tickets). As always, I was extremely impressed by the great customer service and cleanliness at Disney. And they do a really good job with managing the wait times. Rides explicitly state the expected wait time AND some rides have the FastPass option, where you stop by at say 2pm and get a ticket that gives you near-immediate boarding for a later time (say 5-6pm).

On Sunday we visited the Animal Kingdom (and we wore matching shirts). I had never been there and given my love of zoos, I was very excited about it. However, I had a hard time meshing the zoo/theme park aspect. In a zoo, you stroll around and look at all of the exhibits. At a theme park, I like to sprint from ride to ride. So it was hard to get used to the dual aspects. But still, it was very nice. They had a great "African Safari" ride. Everyone loaded into a big truck and the story was framed as if we were going on two-week safari on an African game reserve. We drove through some open-air exhibit (including giraffes, okapi, elephants, ostrich, wildebeest, oryx, lion) and this story unfolded of the game wardens finding some poachers and an orphaned (animatronic) baby elephant. At some point we even went over a "rickety" bridge that started to tilt precariously. It was cute how they had a story to keep the kids interested AND see some great animals up close. They also had a walk-through African section with gorillas and gerenucks. Very cool. During our day at the Animal Kingdom we also saw two live shows. Like the movies, The Lion King show was AWESOME and Finding Nemo was just OK. The final cool experience at the Animal Kingdom was their "Expedition Everest" roller coaster. Again, Disney was genius by having a "single rider" line, so I was on within 25 minutes. And it was a really fun! That night we headed back to the Magic Kingdom to see their Spectromagic parade. Then, sadly, it was time for me to head home while the rest of the family stayed for a few more days.

Back in Gainesville, the weather has been pretty much ideal. For the past week we've had clear blue skies with puffy white clouds and a constant light breeze. It's been so lovely that I've been walking to and from work (and to and from home for lunch) nearly every day. The walking saves gas AND earns me some "activity points" so that I can have more dessert! I keep saying that calories are my new alternative fuel, LOL. I'm sure this great weather won't last much longer, so I'm trying to enjoy it. Is anyone else doing anything special to enjoy Spring?

Dr. Mickey Carpenter

2008-04-21T18:04:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-19T21:02:00.002-04:00

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

2008-04-06T12:23:00.005-04:00

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.

safety measures

2008-03-05T23:07:00.005-05:00

Given the close call this past Sunday, I'm making some efforts to improve my and Sheba's safety during our daily walks. I found this cute little light-up charm for Sheba. It's motion activated and has an on/off switch for while we're at home (she doesn't wear her collar at home anyway, the jingling drives me crazy). I also bought her a new collar; it's a little more feminine and flattering than her old one, LOL. Granted this thing wouldn't have helped us on Sunday because it was in broad daylight, but still. Now I just need to find one of these things for ME.

Misc

2008-03-03T22:11:00.002-05:00

The final paper from my PhD work at UCLA was finally published last month. Our article was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) and can be accessed here. There may be some accessibility issues for people who aren't logging in via an academic institution. It's nice to have the paper out there and finished, but it's a little anticlimactic as well. Everything happens so slowly - you revise the manuscript repeatedly, submit it, get lukewarm reviews, revise and re-submit, then it's provisionally accepted, you make more revisions, check the proofs for errors, check the revised proofs and then it FINALLY comes out. It seems like there's never a clear moment where it's "done". But it's a great relief to have it out there in a good journal.

I had quite a scary event yesterday - while walking Sheba I was struck by a slowly-moving car. The driver wasn't looking as she pulled out into traffic and the bumper struck my shins and knocked me over. Luckily, my only injury is a skinned knee. Things could have been much worse, for me or for Sheba. It was a good wake-up call to be more careful both when walking and driving. Another scary thing is that this happened in broad daylight on a very busy road and no other drivers stopped to see if everything was OK. I like to think that I would have stopped if I'd seen a pedestrian knocked over by a car, you know?

Instead of listening to the radio in the car, I usually listen to audiobooks. Unusual, but I've done this for over 10 years and really enjoy it. Strangely, two of my recent listens featured the historical figure "Girolamo Savonarola". I'd never heard of this guy before, he was a religious figure in Florence in the late 1490's and was the driving force behind the "Bonfire of the Vanities" He was a major figure in the book "The Birth of Venus", which was apt because it is set in Florence in the late 1490's. But then when he showed up in a book set in modern-day Princeton University, it was quite a surprise. I thought that was really strange.

Last weekend I rented one of the "Rug Doctors" to clean my carpet, couch and loveseat. For those of you who haven't tried it, this thing was AMAZING. It took me about two hours to do my whole apartment (500 sq ft) and I felt like I had accomplished SO MUCH. The water that came out of this thing was so disgustingly dirty and my carpet was so wonderfully clean. Well worth the effort and cost. The total cost for the equipment and cleaning solutions was about $50.

Next week I'll be going to Iowa for two days. My department is up for a big funding opportunity and an evaluation team will be visiting. We decided that I should be there for the evaluation period. I'm hoping to secure some rental housing while I'm in town.

I've been watching the BBC "Planet Earth" series from netflix. It's incredible, I would recommend it to anyone.

New Year's Hike

2008-02-15T11:36:00.005-05:00

OK, so this post is a little delayed. My New Year's resolution was to enjoy the great outdoor opportunities here in Florida each weekend. So far I haven't been very successful, but I did go for a great hike at Manatee Springs State Park on the first weekend of the year. I went there with the intention of kayaking (didn't pan out) or at LEAST seeing some manatees (also unsuccessful), but at least it was sunny and warm with clear blue skies. And I saw some deer. There are more photos here.

It seems like most of the other weekends have been rainy or I've had a bunch of errands to run, so I haven't had any other fun outdoor adventures yet. One weekend I re-worked my kitchen by buying two utility carts and buying some new, smaller, appliances. This freed up my folding table (which was my OLD appliance cart) so that I could work a nice jigsaw puzzle. With Cassie's "help", of course. I'm excited about buying a HUGE dining room table when I get situated in Iowa and working a 2500 piece puzzle. My current table just isn't large enough for anything larger than 1000 pieces.
Hopefully I'll have some more outdoor adventures to post soon. And hopefully everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day! My big Valentine's Day treat this year was Sheba's heart-themed scarf from her last grooming visit. So cute!

Wild Turkey

2008-02-04T08:23:00.000-05:00

My parents and I toured the Wild Turkey Bourbon Distillery while I was in Lexington for the holidays. Why, you may ask? (1) it was free and nearby (2) I was interested in the fermentation and distillation procedures and (3) my dad has collected decorative Wild Turkey bottles for years (if you scroll down to the group Christmas shot, you can see three of these decorative bottles in the upper right corner).

The tour was very interesting. We saw them unloading grain from a truck, got a good look at the fermentation tanks and the distillation tower and saw the storage rooms. The fermentation facilities were especially interesting for me because it is so similar to my own research. Here, they were using yeast and grain to make ethanol. At work, we use E. coli and sugars to make ethanol. Just variations on a similar process. They even let us taste the "sour mash" in the fermentation tanks - that is something that I would NEVER do at work. Here is a video of a mid-stage fermentation. The bubbling is the carbon dioxide production by the yeast as they ferment the grains; it is the same process that makes bread dough rise.

And in the distillation room, they let us each sample some of the product (called "high wine") coming off of the final tower. It was 130 proof and VERY strong. You could feel it evaporating from your lips as soon as you took a sip. Overall, it was a great tour. I was surprised how much we were able to interact with the actual process. It was really neat to experience the different smells in each processing area as well. There are more pictures here.

Before and After

2008-01-23T08:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lengthy spell between posts! I have several fun things to post about soon, so keep an eye out here.

Many of you know that I have been using Weight Watchers for the past year. Through this great program, I have lost 70 pounds. Everything that the commercials say about Weight Watchers is true: it's not a diet, there are no forbidden foods, you can eat what you want, etc. It's all about balancing portion size, food choices and exercise. I am now what's called a "Lifetime" member, meaning that I've reached my goal weight and maintained for 6 weeks. As long as I stay near my goal weight, I can continue to attend meetings for free. And I just love my weekly meeting. Sheba has been a huge help during this process, as our daily walks are basically my only source of exercise. Here are my before, during and after pictures:

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T09:16:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Sheba and I are in Lexington for the week. We've already had Christmas with my mom's family (my mom's parents, two of my grandmother's sisters and my mom's younger brother and his family). My cousin Callie has a daughter the same age as my niece - watching the two of them play is a great reminder of the good times that Callie and I used to have. Yesterday we had our own family Christmas. As usual, everyone did too much. My parents and I went to a Christmas Eve service last night and then tried, and failed, to find an open grocery store. This afternoon my dad's youngest sister and my three cousins are coming over. They love to play board games and I've got a new one (Apples and Apples) for us to try. My dad is hoping that it will warm up enough for him to mow the yard - how's that for a Christmas Day activity? There are pictures here.

Tomorrow my parents and I are going to go tour the Wild Turkey Bourbon Distillery and then catch a movie. On Thursday, I will be visiting with some of my old college friends. And then on Friday, Sheba and I will be driving back to Florida. It has all gone too quickly.

I hope that everyone is enjoying a break from work and time with family.

Los Angeles visit

2007-10-28T13:36:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I made a trip to Los Angeles to visit old friends and attend the wedding of two good friends from UCLA. I had an excellent time and want to thank everyone for making the visit so pleasant.

I stayed with my good friend Jo-Ann Krohn, whom I met several years ago while taking the "Behavioral Research" class at the Los Angeles zoo. She was a wonderful hostess and made me feel right at home. Since I last saw Jo-Ann, she has adopted two male cats. It was really fun to see how happy those two cats (Macho and Pico) and Jo-Ann are to have each other. We went to lunch at Canter's - I have missed their potato pancakes! Jo-Ann lives in my old neighborhood in West LA, so it was nice to be in familiar surroundings. I immediately felt like I had never left.

On Friday evening, I went hiking with some of my friends from UCLA. The LA-area fires hadn't started yet and so the sky was wonderfully clear. We had a great hike up to Skull Rock in Topanga State Park and then watched the sun set as we hiked down. I normally walk my dog at least 3 miles away, but Florida is extremely flat and a chance to do some real hiking was greatly appreciated. After the hike, some other friends from UCLA joined us for dinner at Curry House. Like the Canter's potato pancakes, I have thought often about Curry House and couldn't wait to eat the extra-spicy chicken katsu curry. After dinner, we tried the "Polar Monkey" frozen yogurt store in Westwood. This place actually serves TOMATO frozen yogurt. We all tried a sample and it was quite interesting. Katherine, Linh and Ganesh were impressed enough to try a full serving of the tomato frozen yogurt; Anthony and I stuck with the vanilla. A few others decided to go with Diddy Reese's ice cream sandwiches. Another frozen yogurt vendor, "Pinkberry", seems to have taken over Los Angeles since I left. It seems like I saw it everywhere I went. But, I didn't have a chance to try it this time around.

Katy and Albert are two dear friends of mine from UCLA; their wedding was held Saturday evening at the Long Beach Aquarium. It was a wonderful, contemporary ceremony. Katy even had a "man of honor" as one of her attendants. The ceremony was held right in front of one of the main tanks - it was awesome (picture here). Between the ceremony and dinner, we had a chance to walk around the aquarium and look at the exhibits. Katy and Albert had the traditional "bride and groom growing up" picture slideshow, which is always fun. However, they added a really nice personal touch. Katy and Albert are both big gamers (especially Albert) and play one of those online games where you can team up with other people and go on quests. Within their photo slideshow, they added screen caps of some of their most important gaming moments. LOL.

Sunday I went back to visit my friends (human and non-human) at the LA Zoo. It was neat to see the nearly-ready Gorilla exhibit and spend some time with the chimps. I like to think that all of the chimps remembered me, but only the two young females (Jean and Zoe) were willing to show it. The others were "too cool" to show their excitement. My good friend Kristine joined me at the zoo, so it was like "the old days" when we used to do ape enrichment together.

After the zoo, I spent the afternoon with my good friends Anne and Rick Lainhart. Not content with just having a pirate ship in their backyard, Anne and Rick have built and decorated a lovely pub in their backyard. Their handiness and thoroughness are always astounding. Rick had a health scare last fall, so it was good to see that he's doing so well.

The Los Angeles Griffith Observatory has re-opened after 4 years of renovation and Katherine was kind enough to take me there for a visit. We had an awesome time. Not only does the observatory present an excellent view of the city (video below), but it also had a great planetarium show and cool exhibits. I was most impressed with their "Big Picture" feature. Inside the observatory, there is a statue of Einstein holding up his finger (picture here). On the opposite wall from that statue, there is an enlarged photographic image of the amount of night sky that would be obscured by Einstein's finger. This picture was amazing. I was initially impressed by the color variability (picture here). But then one of the volunteers pointed out that there is no true "empty" space in that picture. When you get really close, you can see that what initially appears as black, empty space is actually full of very faint stars. It was mind boggling.

On Monday I joined some of my friends from the zoo, Mimi, David, Nancy and Kristine for dinner. And then, way too soon, it was time to go home. It was a night flight and we were able to see the fires from the plane. Overall, it was a fabulous trip. There is a complete set of photos here.

My animals were all very happy to see me. The people at the dog kennel (Sun-Kiva kennels) had fallen in love with Sheba and were sad to see her go. She, on the other hand, couldn't get out of there fast enough.

These are busy days. Next Sunday (Nov 4th), I'm off to Salt Lake City for the annual Chemical Engineers conference. It's another chance to spend some time with my good friends. Katy, Katherine and I will be sharing a hotel room. This will be my first trip to Utah!

Rainbow

2007-09-11T22:37:00.001-04:00

There was an awesome rainbow this morning. There was no rain in my area, but one of my coworkers said it was raining at her place. I rushed Sheba through our morning walk, afraid that the rainbow would disappear before I had the chance to take a picture. Luckily, it persisted.

Governor's Visit

2007-09-08T22:05:00.000-04:00

The Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, visited our lab last Friday. The state of Florida has given us a very generous research grant and Gov Crist wanted to get a closer look at our lab. There's a news story here. He was constantly surrounded by a large group of still and video photographers, but we've yet to see any of the shots.

I hope that everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend. After making so many weekend day trips over the summer, I decided to spend the holiday weekend staying close to home. It was enjoyable, though not very exciting. My sister and her husband (in Lexington) had their annual Labor Day cookout - it sounds like everyone had a wonderful time. My mom posted some photos here.

It's been about a year since I started this blog and I'm not sure who is in my regular audience. If you stop by here regularly, please drop me a line and let me know. I'd like to tailor my posts to best fit my audience. Any constructive feedback would also be appreciated!

One Year

2007-08-25T22:30:00.000-04:00

Today is the one-year anniversary of my move to Gainesville. I still miss my friends in Los Angeles and my work at the LA Zoo, but I am enjoying my life here. And the weather in Florida isn't as oppressive as I expected. Several times lately I have stepped outside and marveled at how nice it feels and then am surprised to find out that the temperature is in the mid 90s. I guess I have adapated to the hot weather.

My trip to Iowa went well. The other faculty members in my department are great and I have started working on a computational project with one of them. Which means that I am now using some of my start-up funds to contribute to the payment of a student who is doing the data analysis.

Sadly, Agnieszka and Dominika's time in Gainesville is over. Agnieszka flew back to Poland yesterday and Dominika flies back tomorrow. They've been great company and we've had a lot of fun exploring Florida together. They are planning to come back next summer, so hopefully we will have some more adventures before I move to Iowa. There are pictures from our Ichetucknee Springs tubing trip here. Unfortunately, we never had a chance to go back for a second visit. Last weekend we went to Clearwater Beach on the Gulf Coast. It was absolutely beautiful and the logic of the name "Clearwater" is obvious. You could stand in chest-deep water and clearly see the fish swimming around your feet. We also found a Fatburger in Clearwater, so Dominika and Agnieszka had the chance to sample a West Coast chain. There are Clearwater Beach pictures here. And I've tried pasting a video of the fish here.

Last weekend I downloaded the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack on iTunes and have had a blast listening to it on my iPod. It's been so much fun, that I decided to watch the movie tonight. While it's a little more wooden than I remember, it's still really fun to watch. It's hard to believe that it was released 20 years ago.

I previously reported that the Discovery channel had visited our lab and interviewed my advisor, Lonnie Ingram. We suspect that the show aired this week as "Future Fuels" on the Discovery Science Channel, but unfortunately no one in our lab has access to this channel. But if you do, and you find the program, check it out! But don't look for me, I was never on-camera that day.

back from Denver, off to Iowa

2007-08-11T22:42:00.000-04:00

My trip to the SIM conference in Denver went very well. It was good to get to know my co-workers, Ken and Xueli, better and also to meet some new people. The convention was held at the Denver Hyatt, which was lovely. However, I was surprised at the stinginess of the hotel. For example, the room contained a great flat-panel TV, but there was absolutely nothing that I could watch on that TV for free - not even network TV. But on the other hand, the hotel did have a lot of great free amenities, such as a gym, pool and hot tub. It was fun to compare the email updates that I received from my pet sitters. Dominika said that Sheba was "the nicest dog that she ever met", while Tammy said that Cassie growled and hissed at her - embarassing, but not surprising.

This week I'm headed off to Iowa State University for two days. My department (Chemical and Biological Engineering) is having their annual one-day faculty retreat and have invited me to join them. Then I will spend one day doing an inventory on my lab space. The previous professor in my speciality left behind some equipment, so I need to get a feel for what's there and what I still need to order. It's all very exciting! I'm flying to Iowa on Wednesday night and will be back late Friday night.

I am continuing to enjoy the outdoor opportunities here in Florida. Last weekend a few of us made another beach trip. Instead of making a fourth trip to St. Augustine, we decided to try Daytona Beach. The differences between the two beaches were amazing, especially considering that they are only 60 miles apart. The waves at Daytona Beach were much gentler and the water didn't taste as salty or bitter. And NO, we don't intentionally taste the water, but sometimes you just can't help getting some in your mouth. But despite the nice features of Daytona Beach, half of our group ended up getting stung by jellyfish. Luckily, no one was seriously injured and I was NOT one of the people who got stung. Daytona Beach pictures here. Yesterday, Dominika, Agnieszka and I tried "tubing" at Ichetucknee springs. I have previously posted about my kayaking expeditions at Ichetucknee springs (pictures, video), but "tubing" was an entirely new experience. We had a wonderful time and are going to play hookey one day this week and go again. I will post a more detailed description and pictures soon.

I read and enjoyed the newest Harry Potter book last weekend. I thought it was the most exciting of the entire series. To prevent giving anything away, I won't say anything else.

Like most of the country, we are having a heat wave. When I drive home at 5pm, it is often 100F or higher. And one day our overnight low was only 78F! But, it's really not that bad and I am super grateful to finally have a car with functional air conditioning! The worst thing about the heat is it makes it difficult for Sheba and I to get our long walks in. For now, we get up before sunrise and walk 2 miles - but even then it's uncomfortably hot.

Headed to Denver

2007-07-27T21:52:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-15T09:50:00.000-04:00

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.

Horseback Riding

2007-06-23T06:45:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-09T09:04:00.000-04:00

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.

Happy Memorial Day!

2007-05-28T20:19:00.001-04:00

Happy Memorial Day to everyone!

Sheba and I had a wonderful time kayaking today at Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast. Cedar Key is a lovely little town about an hour away from Gainesville; this is the 3rd time that I've gone over there. There are many small islands in the area and I see dolphins everytime that I'm there. It took a lot of patience to convince Sheba to get in the boat, but once we got started she seemed to enjoy herself nearly as much as I did. It wasn't too hot and there was a nice breeze. There are more pictures here.

While there are some lovely outdoor opportunities here in central Florida, there are some drawbacks as well. Sheba frequently picks up ticks on our walks. However, I was horrified to find a tick on ME this past week. It was absolutely disgusting.

I recently wrapped up a legal dispute with a towing company in Los Angeles. Many of you are familiar with the old 1987 Honda Accord that I drove in LA. While it got me where I needed to go, it certainly had it's problems: no air conditioning, a chronic oil leak and it needed to be jumpstarted every day. Before I left LA, I sold the car for $500. Thankfully, I went through the trouble to submit a "Release of Liability" document with the California DMV. Well, 2 months ago I received a bill for $900 (!) from a collection agency on behalf of Hollywood Towing Agency. Apparently the guy that bought the car got fed up with it and just abandoned it somewhere in early January. Apparently, he also never bothered to transfer the title into his name. This dispute led to countless phone calls to both the towing agency and the DMV. One of my good friends in LA volunteers with the "Dispute Resolution" program and agreed to take on my case, which was very helpful. After a lot of frustration and time, the towing agency has finally agreed that I am not the owner of that car and am not liable for the $900 bill. The take-home message here is: when you sell a car, don't trust the new owner to transfer the car into their name - make sure to submit a release of liability and keep a copy of everything!

Ash Flurries

2007-05-08T22:27:00.000-04:00

Gainesville has been smoky and hazy for the past few days. Wildfires in Georgia have been the cause of most of the smoke, but a local brush fire started on Monday. This evening while I was driving home and walking Sheba there was ash falling from the sky. Flurries in Florida, especially in May, are a strange sight.

There's nothing exceptional happening here. I am staying busy with work and taking care of my pets. Sheba and I are nearly finished with a 6-week obedience class. The class is held in the parking lot of the local community college. This college also has a "teaching zoo", so while we are at obedience class I can hear the zoo's peacocks vocalizing. It makes me very nostalgic for the Los Angeles Zoo. Sheba has done pretty well at the class despite a slight stubborn streak. She has surprised me several times by already knowing the task when the teacher first introduces it. It's like she's pre-programmed and I just need to learn the access codes.

One of my posts last October dealt with the disgusting Love Bugs that are common here in September and May. Of course it is now May and I saw a pair of these guys today (in the lab!). Argh, it is only a sign of bad things to come.

I saw the new Spiderman movie this past weekend. It was better than the first installment, but not as good as the second. I really like the sweet, dorky cuteness of Peter Parker, so the evil "goth" Peter Parker was bothersome. Surprisingly, this was the first movie I have seen in Gainesville. I guess the fact that the majority of the movies coming out these days do not appeal to me is a sign that I am getting old. Speaking of non-appealing movies, on netflix's recommendation I tried to watch West Side Story and boy was it terrible. I didn't even finish it.

I took my male cat to the vet for what appeared to be an injured paw; he had been holding the foot up all week. The vet couldn't find anything wrong with his paw and speculated that he was feeling neglected in the wake of Sheba's adoption. At least he seemed to realize that faking an injury would land him at the vet's office because he has pretty much "recovered".

5.9.07 Addendum:
After complaining about the smoke and ash here, I logged onto CNN and MSNBC this morning to find that Los Angeles is apparently burning. The fire is in Griffith Park, so it's close to the zoo and downtown LA. It's been a little scary reading the news stories and seeing places that I recognize.

Nothing New

2007-04-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

As the title says, there's not much new going on here. This is just a quick post to say hi. I'm staying busy with work and with my pets. Speaking of the pets, here is a rare opportunity - all 100 pounds of pet within range of a single photo.

There are some new pictures of Sheba on my picture site and a new video. We are taking obedience classes at the local community college every Saturday morning. In the first class she got singled out for bad behavior (very embarassing!) but did great this week. One night we were coming home from the dog park when I stopped at a drive-thru for (my) dinner. Sheba sits in the front passenger seat and does very well. The drive-thru attendant asked if she was for sale - the answer was NO, of course.

A personal message to my cousin Jessica Bell - are you reading this? If so, the last email address that I have for you isn't working any more. Can you please contact me?

Kristine's visit

2007-04-01T21:49:00.000-04:00

My friend Kristine Reed was here for 3 days this past week. It was wonderful to spend time with her and we did a lot of fun things. There are photos here and video here and here.

We spent one afternoon kayaking at Cedar Keys, a group of islands on the Gulf Coast; most of the small islands there can only be reached by boat. It was a great adventure, we even saw dolphins. There were at least 3 dolphins and they kept surfacing all around our kayaks. Of course, since they surfaced randomly and quickly, I couldn't get any decent pictures. We were very ambitious with our plans, speculating on visiting several islands. But then after just one island, I was starting to get worn out. We even had a bit of a stressful time getting back to port since the tide was coming in. But it was a wonderful time.

We spent Thursday afternoon at the Jacksonville Zoo. Kristine and I met several years ago as volunteers at the Los Angeles Zoo and worked together doing Enrichment for the chimpanzee group there. Kristine is currently doing a observational project on the bonobos at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Therefore, we were very excited to see the bonobos and chimpanzees in Jacksonville. Overall, it was a nice zoo. They have lots of room for their hoofstock. Some of the other highlights included a baby mandrill, fruit bats, a black jaguar (I never knew the black ones had spots!), jaguar vocalization, a close look at a sloth, and a giant anteater.

Friday afternoon we went kayaking again. This time, we went to Ichetucknee Springs, a wonderful trip that I have done several times before. The water is crystal clear and the scenery is just beautiful. It's a nice little float trip; a shuttle service drops you off at the head of the river, you float/paddle downstream for 4 miles and then the shuttle service picks you up and drives you back to your car. It's a great way to spend an afternoon. Florida has 33 so-called "first magnitude springs", meaning that they discharge more than 100 cubic feet per second, including the Ichetucknee. There is one little cove where you can paddle right over one of the spring vents and see the water welling up. You can see it as the light blue area in the third clip of this video.

Sheba continues to do well. Tonight I took her to one of the local public parks with an "off-leash" area. It was so cute when she realized that she could run around as much and as fast as she wanted. She definately wore herself out! I'm starting to learn some of her personality quirks. Whenever an emergency vehicle passes us with its siren on, she howls at it. And she often tries to take one of her toys with us on our walks. Yesterday we saw someone dressed up in a plush alligator suit and it really freaked her out. On our lunchtime walks, she always like to find a shady patch of clover and roll around on her back - she makes it look very appealing.

Sheba!

2007-03-26T20:12:00.000-04:00

Sheba, the dog that I adopted from the local pet rescue, came home last Thursday. There are pictures here and a video here. So far I have been absolutely thrilled with her temperment and behavior. She is incredibly affectionate, completely housebroken and doesn't mess with things (i.e. trash) that aren't hers. She walks well on her leash, at least most of the time. Several people that we have passed on our walks have commented on what a good dog she is. She does have a small weakness for kitty chasing that we are working on. For now, I have put up a baby gate so that the cats can hang out in the bedroom in peace, though both (especially Cassie) are willing to come into the living room ocassionally. Speaking of Cassie, she is recovering very well from her bad asthma attack 2 weeks ago.

My dear friend Kristine Reed will be arriving here tomorrow afternoon. She is currently on spring break from UCSD and I am thrilled that she will be spending part of that time here. We have a lot of fun activities planned, including checking out the Jacksonville Zoo and kayaking at Cedar Key. I'm sure I'll have some photos to post.

Emu Egg

2007-03-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

One of my coworkers found an unusual, large, dark green egg near our building today. After some online searching, we decided that it was an emu egg. Compare the photo to this one. The thought of an emu running around the UF campus is quite amusing. Some of my coworkers had the kind, but misguided, idea to "rescue" the egg and it briefly resided in one of our incubators. I tried to raise the point that "rescuing" this egg could yield a baby emu and then what would we do with it? Luckily, an expert was consulted who said that the egg was almost certainly dead, germ-ridden and could explode when warmed and should be discarded. We returned it to where we found it and concluded that someone else must have found it in a more remote (and probable) location, brought it to campus, and then discarded it when they got this same information. Who knows - maybe it's passed through several people already?

I had a wonderful time celebrating my nephew's first birthday with my family. There are photos here and a video here.

My female cat, Cassie, was diagnosed with asthma 7 years ago (it sounds ridiculous, I know). Though the condition has worsened over the years, it has been kept under control with oral medication. However, the pollen count here has been really bad this week and on Tuesday night Cassie had a severe asthma attack. I rushed her to the local animal emergency hospital and by the time we got there she was in very bad shape. They warned me that she probably wasn't going to make it. Luckily, she pulled through and was able to come home in less than 24 hours. It was a traumatic experience for both of us! For now she is on increased meds and has been instructed to "take it easy". Isn't that a cat's whole life? Taking it easy? Unfortuntately, this means I've had to delay the dog adoption for at least a week. The delay is disappointing, but I'm just glad that Cassie is still around. Hopefully I'll be able to bring Sheba (the dog) home next week.

dog!

2007-03-08T22:01:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. I am pleased to announce that I am adopting a dog from the local pet rescue center. She is a wonderful 4-year old bull mix. She will be coming home next Thursday (3.15.07). Her name is Sheba; I'm not crazy about that name, but she responds to it so I guess I'll keep it. I have been readying the apartment for her arrival (baby gate, kennel, bed, toys) and the cats suspect something is up. Sheba supposedly interacts well with the cats at her foster home, but it should still be an interesting adjustment period for all of us. Speaking of my pets, there are some new videos of Cleofus on youtube; just follow the "Laura's videos" link on the right.

Today is my nephew's 1st birthday - Happy Birthday Jacob! The family will be having a birthday party for him this weekend so I'm headed to Lexington tomorrow. I'm very glad to have the opportunity to join in the celebration - I've missed both of my neice's birthdays thus far. Next week is also my mom's birthday, so we'll be celebrating that this weekend too.

My research advisor, Dr. Lonnie Ingram, had a personal meeting with President Bush recently. The meeting is described here.

Professor Friedlander

2007-02-16T23:17:00.001-05:00

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

2007-02-04T18:23:00.000-05:00

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

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-30T09:27:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope that you all enjoyed the holidays. I spent a week in Lexington and got to spend a lot of time with my family (pictures, video) and even managed to visit with two friends from my undergraduate days. Unfortunately, we were unable to have Christmas with my mom's side of the family because my 90-year-old grandfather was hospitalized with pneumonia. We were able to visit him in the hospital on Christmas Day and the doctors are saying that he will be released today (12.30). Some of my aunts and cousins are celebrating New Year's in Sarasota, FL, so it looks like I will be driving down there tomorrow to celebrate with them.

Since my cats spent Christmas alone, I assuaged my guilt by buying them a climbing structure. So far they are enjoying it, but I'm not sure how long that's going to last. For now, Cassie seems to prefer laying in the Christmas tree box. The woman who ran the store where I bought the structure said that one of her great-grandmothers was a Jarboe. Given that she is from central Indiana, we decided that we must be distant cousins. She said she didn't know much about this great-grandmother because nobody ever spoke about her; apparently the woman ran off when her children were very young. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any idea who this could be? She also said that one of her other relatives told her that Jarboes are known for having a mean streak. That's the first time I've heard anyone say that!

We tried to be adventurous this year and make some oven-roasted chestnuts. They were terrible! My sister said they taste like cat food smells, LOL. Has anyone eaten (and enjoyed?) chestnuts? If so, have did you prepare them?

The holiday party that I hosted for my labmates went very well, except for the fact that both cats bit someone. We played Cranium and had a great time. Hopefully we will have another get together soon. Albert, I wish you were here to explain how to play Catan.

Happy New Year to everyone!

2006-12-15T19:56:00.000-05:00

I will be hosting a small holiday party for some of my labmates tomorrow night. The thought of having company was great motivation to clean my apartment, hang some remaining pictures and finally finish unpacking. OK, so I didn't actually finish unpacking but I did move the boxes into the bedroom. I've got meatballs in the oven right now and then I need to make some brownies and a Dump Cake (bad name, good dessert). I'm looking forward to some social interaction! The party was also a good excuse to download some new music from iTunes, which I am greatly enjoying right now, especially the classic Stevie Wonder and James Taylor.

On Wednesday I'll be flying to Kentucky for Christmas. In comparison to the 13-hour drive, the flight there will take less than 5 hours. I'm flying directly from Gainesville to Lexington, with a connection in Atlanta. Flying definately saves time, but then I have the disadvantage of being without a car in Lexington. Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends.

I picked up one of my "Little House" books this week and (as always) great enjoyed reading it. I may have to go through the whole series again. I feel a little silly enjoying those so much, but they really are great books. Plus they have short chapters, pictures and large print - what more could you ask for? During the move from Kentucky to California we stopped at two of the Little House sites: Mansfield, Missouri (where Laura spent most of her adult life) and the Kansas Little House replica. Two other sites (De Smet, South Dakota and Walnut Grove, Minnesota) are within a few hours of Ames, Iowa - so I'm looking forward to visiting those someday. And for the people who think I am too old to be reading these books - I also frequently reread the Ramona Quimby books.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

30!

2006-12-02T11:38:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone - I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Our family celebration was wonderful. We had 4 generations present and (I think) 25 people. My brother-in-law cooked a great turkey. There are pictures here and video here and here. It was great to see so many of my family members; some of these people I hadn't seen since my grandfather's funeral 3 years ago. It was also nice to be able to celebrate my birthday (30 this year!) with family, something I hadn't been able to do when I was out in Los Angeles. Someone came to this page and left me an anonymous birthday greeting. Thank you, whoever you are!

My friend Katherine from UCLA got me a lovely birthday present. It's one of those alarm clocks you see advertised in the SkyMall catalog on airplanes. It has several really cool features. 30 minutes before your alarm time, it slowly lights up (simulating sunrise) and instead of an annoying alarm, it starts to play a pre-selected nature sound. Also, the light feature warms aromatherapy beads so you can wake up to your chosen scent. For good measure, there is also an annoying alarm at the end of the wake-up cycle, which is good for me. I'm still playing around with it and checking out all of the features.

I haven't started any new books lately, but I'm continuing to enjoy my netflix subscription. I recently watched "A Door in the Floor", which was very good. Movies based on John Irving's book are usually very good, even though I don't like reading his novels. This week I also enjoyed "The World's Fastest Indian", based on a true story about a man from New Zealand who travels to America to test his souped-up motorcycle on the salt flats. It starred Anthony Hopkins, but I don't remember hearing anything about it when it was first released. Netflix kept recommending it to me though, and they usually pick good movies for me. I'm always eager to hear book and movie recommendations from other people.

I wish there was more to say, but there really isn't much going on here in Gainesville these days. I'm struggling to get some work done after being out of town so much. The weather has been warm here for most of the week; I even had my air conditioner on a few times. However, tooday is rainy and gray. Perfect weather for a nice long nap!

Nearly Home from SF

2006-11-17T06:34:00.000-05:00

I am writing this from the JFK airport while waiting for the final leg of my journey home from San Francisco. The flight from Oakland to JFK was my first experience with JetBlue's DirectTV consoles - it was very nice to be able to scroll through various channels and watch whatever I wanted. Another nice surprise was the fact that JetBlue supplies free wireless internet service here at JFK. Most airports have wireless internet, but will charge $5-10 for access.

The conference was great; it was wonderful to see old friends and interact with my future colleagues from Iowa State. My PhD advisor received a prestigious award plus I had the opportunity to attend a talk given my advisor's advisor (making him my grand-advisor) Ed Lightfoot, who is very well known in Chemical Engineering. On the way to San Francisco, I stopped in LA for the day and visited with both human and ape friends there.

While my trip was great, I am eager to get home, see my cats and get back to work. One of my coworkers at the University of Florida has been nice enough to feed and care for my cats while I was away. Check out this cool picture of Cleofus. He moved while I was taking the picture and it left a very ghostly impression. And speaking of my nice coworker, check out this great video of her daughter on youtube.

Happy Thanksgiving wishes to everyone. I'm very excited about the opportunity to celebrate with my family this year - it will be the first time to spend Thanksgiving (or my birthday) with my family in 7 years. It will also be my first time to meet my nephew Jacob, so I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not too enthused about turning 30 though.

Still Warm

2006-11-03T16:36:00.000-05:00

Well, after the brief cold spell two weeks ago, it's back to warm weather here. It's still warm enough to be out at night in a t-shirt. Today has been particularly nice. I delivered some samples to the proteomics core in the Cancer/Genetics Research Building, which is a 15-minute walk from my building. The Veterinary Science area is between here and there, so it was a treat to stop and visit with the three horses they have pastured. I believe they thought I had some snacks for them in my ice bucket.

This Sunday I'll be volunteering at the Great Ape place; I'm really looking forward to it.

I've realized that my experimental work here won't allow me to go away for a whole weekend. A typical experiment takes about a week and needs to be tended to at least every 24 hours, if not every 12. I definately get more satisfaction out of killing my cell cultures (with bleach) at the end of an experiment now than I did with a typical 2-day experiment at UCLA. Another demand on my time here is the Gas Chromatograph (GC), which we use to determine the amount of ethanol being produced by our bacteria. The lab techs on CSI use a GC all the time and they make it look so quick and easy. While it is very to use, it is anything but quick. It takes 20 minutes to analyze each sample and there are 4 people using it and we each generate about 12 samples a day (that works out to 16 hours of machine usage). Add on the fact that the machine is old and needs to be "babysat", and it becomes a non-trivial matter. I'm really enjoying the fact that I live so close to campus and can easily go back and forth from the lab.

So I caved to cultural pressure and bought a video iPod last week. It's been enjoyable so far, but I don't see what the big deal is. I'll be traveling to a conference next week and I'm hoping to get more enjoyment out of it while I'm flying. I am really looking forward to the conference. The "American Institute of Chemical Engineers" (AIChE) has a meeting every fall. This year it's in San Francisco and this is my first year to attend but not give a presentation (I've done a presentation every year since 2002). My coworker from UCLA is presenting our work from there and I haven't accomplished enough yet in the new lab to warrant a presentation. It will be nice to see old friends from UK and UCLA and my future colleagues from Iowa State.

I'm reading an interesting book right now. It's called "A Natural History of the Face" and is built on the basic fact that while we are very good at identifying faces, we are very bad at describing them. For example, most of the time we are able to identify someone's gender based on their face but unable to explain which features distinguish male from female. An interesting tidbit: our blink rate changes according to the emotions that we are feeling/expressing. One of the reasons that bad actors are annoying is because their blink rate doesn't match up with what their character is supposedly feeling. I never would have thought about that on my own!

As a final note - early Happy Birthday to my dear friend Shannon, who turns **30** next week. I'll get to enjoy two weeks of still being in my 20's while she is in her 30's. We've been friends for over 20 years.

Lovely Weather and Long PCR

2006-10-23T17:44:00.000-04:00

The weather here is just lovely. It's still warm enough for a t-shirt everyday and I have yet to turn on my heat. I hear from other people that it is "cold" where they live, but I just can't relate anymore. Today has been the first day that it feels like autumn. It was such a nice day that I played hookey this afternoon and went for a quick hike. [10.24.06 addendum - it was 36F this morning!]

Paynes Prairie State Preserve is just a few miles from campus and parking is free! The preserve has an usual geology due to the underlying limestone structures. Sometimes it's a large lake, other times it is a grassland. Apparently there was one point when the limestone sinkholes became plugged and the lake became large enough to support steamboat traffic. And then the sinkholes opened back up and the lake drained within a week. Or so the story goes. My first time hiking there I was lucky enough to see the herd of wild "cracker horses". These are supposedly descendants of the horses brought over by the Spanish settlers. There is also a herd of bison that was brought to the preserve about 20 years ago, but I haven't seen them yet. The hiking trail that I normally use passes through a woodland area and then opens up onto the "prairie" component. At the end of the trail there is a small observation platform. Today when I reached the platform, there was a vulture sitting on the railing. He flew away when I approached, but he left behind the remains of the fish he had been working on. Very interesting! Mark, it would have been nice to have you along to help identify all of the different birds.

Non-biology people may want to skip this paragraph as it will probably make no sense. Today is my first attempt at a "long" (10kb) PCR. Stratagene recommends an extension time of 2 min/kb, so that means the program is quite lengthy. We only have one thermocycler in this lab and I'm a little nervous about having to repeat the PCR if I don't have any product. I'm still getting used to culture conditions here. Fermentations are usually done with at least 9% carbon source, as opposed to the 0.2% that I used back at UCLA. As you can imagine, we go through glucose and xylose very quickly. We actually buy xylose in 50-lb bags.

The rumor around the lab is that there was a snake in our building on Friday night. Very scary! I've always kept an eye out for rats after the infestation that we had at UCLA, but I wasn't aware that I should be watching for snakes here.

I bought Moulin Rouge and Trainspotting this weekend, both very original movies. The Moulin Rouge soundtrack is actually playing on my computer right now. Somewhat suprisingly, Trainspotting is in the top 250 movies on IMDB, near "Toy Story" and "Magnolia".

Many people are saying that the new TV show "Heroes" is very good. I haven't given in to temptation yet. On Monday nights I'm usually too busy watching re-runs of "Six Feet Under" on Bravo. Who all is watching Heroes and why do you like it?

There's not much else new or exciting going on here. Officially, I'm spending all of my non-work time working on writing up my results from my PhD work. I'm planning on getting an ipod and would appreciate any comments that anyone has to offer regarding the various models.

Center for Great Apes

2006-10-10T20:10:00.000-04:00

I volunteered at the Center for Great Apes (GCA) this past weekend and had a great time. The rest of this post will outline what I did there and what I learned about the sanctuary and its residents. So if you aren't an animal person, be warned.

The CGA is a sanctuary for chimpanzees and orangutans. Most of them were previously in showbusiness or were family pets. Usually when you see chimps or orangutans on TV or in movies, you are seeing juvenilles. Once they reach adolescence, they are too strong and unmanageable to work on a set. They are then used either as breeders or are sent to small unacredited roadside zoos. The CGA aims to provide a good home for these guys where they can enjoy a safe and enriching existence with other apes. It is not open to the public and is run solely on donated funds and grants. They currently house 14 orangutans and 26 chimpanzees.

This was my first time to volunteer there, so I'm still getting to know everybody (staff and ape) and they are still getting to know me. I mostly cleaned, did laundry, helped with food preparation and made popsicles and enrichment treats. From what I can tell, there are about 10 staff members and there were 2 other volunteers.

The sanctuary is not open to the public, so the apes are very interested when somebody new shows up. They have a nice tunnel system that allows the the apes to wander around the sanctuary and still be enclosed. It seemed like no matter what I was doing (folding laundry, cleaning, food prep), I could turn around or look out the window and there would be an ape watching me. It was cool, but also a little unnerving at times.

I didn't get to spend much time with any of the individual residents, but there are a few stories I would like to share.

Grub is the alpha male of one of the chimpanzee groups. He is very much the "star" chimpanzee of the sanctuary and is apparently very artistic. He did some painting while I was there and I was very impressed. Halfway through my first day there, one of the keepers brought me a scrap of paper with two holes in it. She said that it was a mask that Grub had given it to her, but she felt like he had made it for me. Then that afternoon I stopped by his enclosure and he quickly tore the paper backing from a piece of cardboard, poked two eyeholes in it and pushed it through the fence to me. I was very honored!

Brooks is a young male chimp in Grub's group. Their enclosure is circular, with a sidewalk running around the inside edge. Whenever I got within a certain distance of the enclosure, Brooks would push a large blue barrel around and around the sidewalk. This made a nice, loud, scraping sound and he kept sneaking peaks at me to make sure I was impressed, which of course I was. If I went away, he stopped. I went away and came back several times and he was as predictable as a wind-up toy.

Pongo is an orangutan who only recently developed the cheeks pads and long thick hair of an adult male. He is just gorgeous and the pictures on the CGA website do not do him justice. He spent a lot of time sitting in front of a large fan, and with the wind in his hair he looked like a runway model. The staff there says that when he first started developing his cheek pads he was very self-concious but now he knows he looks good.

Christopher is an adolescent male orangutan and I have heard him described as "the resident MacGyver" and "a physics professor in a previous life". He didn't do anything spectacular while I was there, but I heard several great stories. Orangutans are notorious for dismantling objects, so when devices (such as hammocks) are installed in an enclosure, they are often secured with padlocks and the bolts are glued down with "locktite". Apparently, this isn't enough for Christopher - he has taken down devices and then reinstalled them elsewhere in the exhibit. He also developed a habit of using his blankets to lasso items outside of his night room, so they restricted him to very small blanket scraps. Then one night he meticulously worked at his tiny blanket scrap (less than 12" on each side) so that it was torn into one long strip and he somehow used it to lock the keeper out of the building. These stories may be embellished, but it's obvious he is a very capable orangutan.

I also met a very interesting volunteer. Betsy is an older woman who helps the CGA director, Patti Ragan, write grant proposals for the center. Several years ago Betsy was on a trip to Kenya and got involved in helping the street kids there. She has since made it her life's work to help these kids and has gone back to school in order to learn more about how to help them. Very impressive.

Oh - I also met a keeper who had worked with Zoe at Lion County Safari. Zoe is a female chimpanzee who moved to the LA Zoo as an infant. This keeper was pleased to hear that Zoe is doing so well.

Catnip Bandit

2006-10-04T19:13:00.000-04:00

My cats like catnip, so when I saw a catnip plant at the grocery store I bought it for them. Since my cats don't understand moderation, I put the plant on my patio along with the other plants I am trying to not kill. Unfortunately I didn't consider the local stray cats, so the plant was pretty much destroyed on the first night. Last night I caught what I assume was a repeat offender hanging around. Cassie and I are keeping an eye out for him tonight. One of my coworkers compared my leaving a catnip plant accessible for stray cats to leaving marijuana plants accesible for college students.

It's been good to get such a positive response on the blog so far. Please note that there are some links underneath my picture on the right. "Laura's videos" goes to videos that I have posted on youtube; these are mostly zoo stuff. "Recommended videos" are some of the best videos that I have found on youtube. I highly recommend "Where is Matt?" - it's a little long, but an amazing overview of this guy's world travels. If it's fake, I don't care.

Speaking of world travel, I have been enjoying a re-read of Kon-Tiki. If you're not familiar with the story, here's a brief recap. Back in 1947, an explorer came up with a theory that Polynesia was settled by people from Peru who crossed the Pacific on balsa rafts. People were very skeptical of this theory, so he set out to prove that it was possible by doing so himself. The book is a diary of his experience, along with his five companions. These guys spent 101 days on their tiny raft and had an amazing time. It's a really great read. For more info, check out the article on Wikipedia here. There's also a documentary (it won an Oscar), but Katherine, Linh and I watched it this past summer and it wasn't nearly as fun as the book.

Thankfully, it appears that Love Bug season is waning here in Gainesville. I had never heard of or seen actual Love Bugs until I moved here. They do not bite or sting, and they don't buzz around you like flies. However, when you see them there are always two of them joined together (hence the name Love Bug) and car exhaust seems to be an aphrodisiac. They land on your window, or get smashed on the hood of your car, and it's just gross. They supposedly swarm in May and September, so at least it's over for now. Katy - I've heard they are big in Texas, so you have that to look forward to. Supposedly Love Bugs are making their way north, so they may be in Kentucky before too long.

Since the weather is not quite so hot, I've been enjoying walking to and from work. The University of Florida is a huge school - it has more students than UCLA and twice as many as UK. However, the southern end of campus is really dilute. The two routes that I can take from my apartment to the lab take me past either the "natural area teaching lab" (a swamp) or the farming area, consisting of fields of beans and sunflowers and a citrus grove. It's just lovely. Here - compare the google satellite images for UF microbiology building and UCLA Boelter Hall. Quite a difference. And get this - the building adjacent to ours is the "Weed Science" Building. Really.

Gotta go - watching Lost tonight!

Laura

First Post

2006-09-30T22:40:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Gainesville! I've been here for over a month now and am still pleased to be here. The weather isn't as bad as I expected. It's up into at least the mid 80's everyday. I'm still getting used to having pouring rain sunshine at the same time, but it keeps things interesting.

There are lots of great outdoor opportunities around here. Since Florida is so flat, hiking is much easier than in LA. The local Payne's Prairie state park has wild horses and wild bison. I was lucky enough to see the horses my first time out, but I haven't seen the bison yet. This week I was hiking in San Felasco state park and saw four armadillos - very close! Last weekend I went do to the ruins of an old sugar plantation and saw a a 400-year-old oak tree (Fairchild Oak). Unfortunately, the mosquitoes there were just awful. Several followed me into my car! There are also plenty of alligators, fish, birds, snakes and turtles right on campus at UF.

Gainesville is very conveniently located near both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. I've taken a small boat tour of the Gulf Coast over at Cedar Key - we saw dolphins and walked around on a shallow sand bank several miles out. And I made it over to the Atlantic after realizing I hadn't been there in 7 years! As you can see, there's tons to do here so everyone please feel free to come visit!

This weekend I start volunteering at the Center for Great Apes (www.prime-apes.org). They specialize in caring for chimpanzees and orangutans who were in showbusiness. Many of them spent their whole life only with people and had never met their own kind prior to coming to the sanctuary. It's a long drive, so I plan to head down there one weekend per month. I went down there to visit/interview last month and was very impressed. I hope I can contribute to their care for these animals.

Work in my new lab is going well so far. My coworkers are all very nice. Every Wednesday the grad students and postdocs in the department have a little cookout for lunch. It's been a good way to get to know people. My new lab specializes in using bacteria to produce ethanol (an alternative fuel) and other commodity products. They have previously isolated several mutant bacteria which are especially good ethanol producers, and my project involves determining what kind of mutations help them make so much ethanol.

I expect to update this page at least once a week. I'm still playing with the layout though, so don't be surprised if you come back and it looks different.

Stay well and please stay in touch.

Laura