My New iPod is too Smart

I underreacted on Christmas. I got some really overwhelmingly awesome gifts, that I didn't even realize should whelm me right over. But here I am, still whelming.

I got two pretty amazing bits of techno-kit this Xmas. This is not to say that I am not going to shop the heck out of my gift cards or listen my CDs flat- but these are things I am reasonably experienced in. My very best brother and sister-in-law gave me a flash new GREEN new iPod. The preserved-in-all-its-digital-glory "You got me an iPod?!" face really only covers the "wow- this can select artists and have its contents updated... unlike the old one." This is of course the most important feature of such a thing, and I am pretty jazzed to have it back. I normally use my iPod to ignore people, so it didn't have a place in the family celebrations. I loaded it up with some stuff from Noel's computer, and then didn't turn it on until we hit 10,000 feet leaving Seattle sometime well after midnight. This was when I discovered that it has an external speaker- yup, I started playing that new Owl City track for the whole plane. My efforts to adjust the volume were stymied by the accelerometer flipping the screen to album view. ???

I told Matt about this (3 rows ahead, and asleep) later when we landed- and he got all pumped and asked if I played the maze game. There are games? That you play without buttons?? OMG, yes, and also there is a pedometer AND it synchs to my iCal!! Now I just have to figure out the interface where I tell it what music I want on it. Currently, I can get it to fill up with random music, or not very much music at all, but I am sure a break through is on the way. Oh, but this iPod has the long awaited feature of being able to shuffle a playlist or album- I knew we had the technology!

The other amazing piece of kit is the Kindle 2 from Mom and Dad. I am letting Matt sort out the many bonus features of this (the iPod having taken up all my new technology amazement). But it is getting a lot of use- I obviously recommend it for plane travel, since you can load up WAY more ebooks than your carry-on would accommodate. We were both confused about how to react to the "please power down electronics" announcements- since it only uses power to 'flip pages,' and will always have something printed in e-Ink, on or off. Fortunately, the very classy case we have can be closed over it, making it seem more 'off' or at least 'not in use' for the comfort and safety of our fellow passengers.

All in all, it was pretty fantastic stuff, the fantastic-ness of which I am only just scraping the surface of.

In Seattle, Breifly

Hey,

I'm posting this from the terminal in Seattle. Jess and I are here (early) and ready to get on a plane up to Juneau for our vacation. We spent the night here and ate at a roasters restaurant last night, which had some really good food. Jess had a delicious "salad "and I had some roasted meat(s) in gravy. Thanks to dad for the Hotel Recommendation, the place was really nice and just about as close the the airport as it is legally possible to be.

We'll see our Juneau family pretty soon. Much love!

-N

Home for the Holidays!

Matt and I arrived on Sunday, with only minor revisions to our flight plan. Although we missed the storm that crippled the eastern seaboard by about 5 more inches of snow, our Saturday night flight was delayed - so we spent the night in MSP instead of SEA. And then we jumped straight in to the holiday excitement- stocked up on holiday foods and got paint clothes to help in the bathroom. Since the parents have jobs to get to, we got up Monday to see the Sunrise- and then sat in place until it set again. Perfect way to spend the shortest day of the year! We watched some amazing wildlife from the picture windows- whales, sea lions and so many birds!

I've started to make an impact on the Christmas cookies requirements of the household. Noel better show up quick, because both the peanut blossoms and ginger cookies are in danger of not making it until Wednesday- I'm sure we'll have something else good by the time he shows up.

Last night we went out to NOT celebrate Mom and Dad's anniversary, just Mom's last day of work before the break. The rest of the week, we've got big ambitions in the kitchen as well as the Master Bathroom (Painting!). And today, Kelsey is babysitting a toddler with the best babycheeks to grace the house in years. What we need now is to pull out the Christmas music, toss up a tree, and really get this holiday started.

Home soon, YES!

I finished another semester and am avoiding getting my stuff packed up.
Finals week wasn't too bad this semester, it was mostly the weeks leading up to it. As a Communications major, most of our work is project based or paper based, so I just had a lot of things due before finals. I did have a few things to take care of finals week, but it could have been a lot worse.
This also means that I had extra time to do things to prepare for leaving, like getting my oil changed. I'm also trying to figure out meals; with the end of the semester means the end of the need to go grocery shopping, so I have a bunch of random loose ends to try and create complete meals with. Turns out pasta goes well with a lot of things, and apple sauce fills in a lot of gaps.
I'm looking forward to getting home, having some home cooked meals, and spending time with the family.

Finals week is for suckas!

You know that feeling when you are still on campus during finals week, and there are students stuffed into every nook on campus where you can possible sit and hold a notebook, desperately cramming for finals- and you aren't? You feel kind of liberated, slightly superior, maybe even a bit righteous. "This too shall pass, dears. Follow my example, and you'll pull through." Can you imagine how divine this feeling is when you have finished your last final FOR LIFE??

I can't help it- I am looking at these students thinking, "Suckers. Heh, taking classes." And yes, I have only been finished with my last final for barely a week now, but TRUST me, it is easy to transition in to the expansive feeling of being so profoundly over-educated that classes can no longer hurt me. What a relief.

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Tonight is the last week of Hanukkah, and I'd hate for it to pass without some comment. This year, we managed to slightly celebrate- we had a Hamukkah Party with some friends (this is a country ham and latke party), we had jelly donuts at out Secret Santa party, and we've been counting the 8 holy nights on the menorah's of our neighbors cars. Yes, the menorah-mobiles are back! We (again) missed the parade, but haven't missed the chance to indulge in the traditional fried foods of the season. (The oil lasted 8 nights, so the foods celebrate oil...) Growing up where Xmas always has a token star of david, or blue set of ribbons, but no one to actually claim them, it is pretty novel to be living somewhere that the red and green is more of a minority. Our neighborhood has the lamest Christmas Lights in the city- but no one else has a parade. A worthy trade, since we still get to go home and Christmas it up with the folks. We leave this weekend- Hooray!

A shift of perspective

Here is another science post- skip to the micro-news at the bottom if you don't want to slog through my professional drama.

In the last few months, I have been eyeing the finish line for a story, partly because I think what I do next will be more interesting, partly because I don't really think the current story is going anywhere. I've had some setbacks in getting the 'last' experiments done, but while Dr. Boss was out of town, I started thinking we might be able to publish without them. Now that he is back, I have been hinting, suggesting and nagging him to look at the data. Finally we sat down to pour over the data, and it was a really tough meeting. At first, I thought it was tough because maybe the science isn't as good as I thought- but I had answers for all his concerns. He just really doesn't understand what I do. I am not completely confident that this work can be published yet, but now I am starting to doubt whether that will be my biggest hurdle.

We agreed that I could give him a draft of the manuscript I've been working on since October to look at (finally) next week. Now I realize that this manuscript has to be great- I have to explain my research, my results, my logic to my boss so that he will start thinking I am a brilliant independent scientist. I am frustrated and confused, because if I have to tell him that- what does he think of me now?

---
Micro news! Last WISC discussion for the year was a success- 5 of us had a nice talk about mentoring. You should have them- or at least recognize them. It has suddenly gotten quite cold here, I guess that means it is winter. Tragically, this means the worm bin froze solid. I think this will be a project to restart in the spring...Matt and I have decided making Irish cream is going to be our new 'thing,' so add that to the list of holiday traditions. We also finished the majority of our holiday shopping. And Happy Hanukkah!

Further Adventures in Home Ownership

Hey, not killed by snow. Cool.

So here are some pictures you may enjoy:

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

Jess and I bought curtains! Now we can let light in and still walk around in our PJs. It made me feel all homeowner-y.

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

We helped Jean and Ray decorate for Xmas. They had a fake tree with a motorized stand that rotated. I set the exposure time really long for this picture.

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

I've been practicing making cinnamon rolls. Get ready for Christmas treats. These came out really good.

From Late 2009, Blog Pics

Fall in Austin. These are the trees out in front of our house. The evergreen live oaks and two other types of oaks that also grow out front. I think they cast a pretty striking image, don't you?

Further adventures in home ownership! When we were in Vegas for Thanksgiving Lacey and Mark mentioned that they had to replace their air filters extra often because they lived in the desert. That caused Jess and I to realize that we didn't know about air filters and hadn't replaced them at all in the approximately one year we'd been in our house. Neither of us had ever heard of this particular home task before. How novel! Anyway, we cleaned them out/replaced them as appropriate, so hopefully we're breathing cleaner air as we speak.

I was out raking (very red) leaves this weekend when I noticed a pipe sticking out of the ground that had been fractured a little and was full of water. There was also a little of what looked suspiciously like wet toilet paper scattered around the pipe. I had Jess flush the upstairs toilet and, sure enough, a bunch of water poured out of the pipe and into our lawn. I guess it's some free lawn water, I guess, and I can't imagine it have been too much of a problem for too long, or we would have been alerted by a scent quite a while ago. Anyway, we called out some plubmers, and they were out in a mater of hours, snaked the drain, cleared the clog, and re-capped the tube. Problem solved. Adventure!

We also went out to a Holiday party for work last night. Jessie looked BEE-YOU-TI-FULL in her black dress and red jacket. We even went out to pick up some heels for her to wear to the event, and everyone commented on how nice she looked. The party was on saturday, and the University of Texas was having a big championship game that night, so they played it during the party. It was a VERY dramatic finish, fun to watch. After that we hung out at a nearby bar until 2 in the morning trying out various beers and talking about nothing important.

Micro-News!

I got my grey shirt in Ving Tsun a few weeks ago. It marks something like the halfway point for my training. Very exciting. It got down below freezing here a couple of nights this week: we got to use our gas fireplace. Romantic! We got some fresh catnip from Ray's garden in Vegas and have been spreading it around the house. The cats seem to enjoy it just fine. Just a few more weeks until Christmas! I'd better get some shopping done.

-N

Viral Pathogenesis- pretty much done

Perhaps the crowning achievement of every student's 21st grade is to finish the last of their course requirements. Actually, but the time you been doing this for so long, it seems like there aren't a lot of crowning achievements, so I am inclined to make up my own. I went to the last lecture in the last required course of my career (assuming I pass this) on Thursday. Now to finish the take home exam, and wrap up the whole 'going to classes' part of my education.

It's odd, in a few respects. I've obviously signed up for a long term commitment to my education- why would I gripe about going to class? I just can't make myself get worked up about it any more. Heavens knows, taking notes, doing readings and managing my time are all things I got under control a long time ago. Now I struggle with things like, remembering to go to class, forcing myself to get to the books. And take home exams? You can spend as long as you want on those- and guess how much time I feel like spending on it? I've also burned through a lot of my optimism about school work after lo, these many years. Now I just want to finish this up. And on the short list of things that need to get done before I graduate- finishing this class! Then finishing the exam (before Thursday). Wish me luck!

AAAAAAAAAAH!

We're being told it may snow tonight.

I know these are the words every parent dreads to hear. To know that it may snow somewhere in the vicinity of one of their special, precious, children. There are no words I can think of to soften the blow. Everyone here is somber, quiet. Those that can have already fled, but for the rest of us, there is no time left.

No time.

I just want you all to know that I love you very much. You have all been supportive and loving, and after...I dunno, an inch or two...of snow falls on Austin, utterly destroying the city, that my thoughts and dreams will echo among the family I have left behind.

Already people have begun to see the coming of the end. There are snow parties. Madmen who will wait outside, defying nature to take them to their last breath. They hold strength and hope in their heart that I cannot mirror. I am afraid.

Jess and I will cuddle beneath some blankets, we'll keep the Cats close to us, but when that final, white death comes for us all, blowing through the house and disassembling us on an atomic level, I want you all to know that my final thoughts will be with you.

With deepest love,

-N

P.S. None of that was true.

P.P.S. Except that it is going to maybe snow tonight.

P.P.P.S. Oh, and the fact that I love all you guys is also true.

P.P.P.P.S. So, yeah. Snow! Maybe! Ticom has a policy similar to Dad's office, which is to say that if the schools are closed, so is the office. I'll check on it in the morning, but it wouldn't be the first time this sort of thing happens, it's just pretty rare. It was an ice storm last time. There is a holiday party that was supposed to be on Friday that got moved to Saturday as a 'just in case' measure. They are already making plans to show the Big 12 Championship there, so they do have their priorities straight.

I'll put up pictures if we get any white stuff, and Family members in colder climates can feel free to giggle at my state's weakness to snow.

Birthday horoscope??

My horoscope this morning said something about "the world beating a path to my door . . . be sure to be home to enjoy it."

What actually beat a path to our house was our neighbor's car. For the second time in two years, she smacked into the side of our house backing out of her garage. This time she didn't do nearly as much damage to the house, but plastic car parts were scattered all over our driveway.

If the young woman had stopped, rung our doorbell, we probably would have let her pay for it, not even called the insurance company. As it was, she blithely drove off to work. Both Jane and I heard the crash and raced to different windows (upstairs and down) to see what had happened.

Under the cirumstances, we called our insurance, the police, her cellphone voicemail, and her insurance company, in about that order. The property damage is too slight to be worth criminal charges but we now have an official incident report on file. I would never go to this trouble for a first time problem, but this is not the first time . . .

Not how I wanted spend the morning of my 63rd birthday. (Thank you, brother, for the birthday wishes!)

Thanksgiving Sheetrock....

While the rest of the world was focusing on Black Friday and Tiger Woods driving skills off the golf course, we were making dust in Alaska. The following are pictures of our progress. The artsy arches actually cover exposed vent pipes that we wanted to keep out of the wall to improve insulation and protect from freezing on the sunless side of the house. Tommorow the plumber makes first connections to the household system after our rough-in plumbing passed inspection. We expect one little hand washing sink in our toilet room to be connected and that represents real progress.

Friday I buzz down to Miami for a daytrip of Medical education. This should allow for dinner with the Swanson-in-laws ( I really don't know what our technical relationsip is...) on Saturday night, then back to Alaska on Sunday.

Happy brthdays to all sides of the family: Nana, Bart, and Grama Warner.

Vegas Traditions

Hello, everyone, happy Thanksgiving!

Jess has been nice enough to let me continue my tradition of going to Vegas for thanksgiving. We showed up Wednesday and got to hang out with the kitties for a bit before getting to sleep and getting ready for the big day.

Thanksgiving was, as you would expect, a total blast. Jeanne made a Martha-stewart worthy turkey, and there was stuffing and 'taters and all sorts of extras. Further awards to go Grandma Warner's Cranberry Sauces. My favorite part of the feast. After that we played Farkle and Apples to Apples, which was a lot of fun. Then we went out to a late showing of Ninja Assasin. Quick review: A thoroughly silly movie with lots of overblown action and blood. It was fun to watch, though, and that's really what counts.

Friday Jess and I got up early and went running. Have to burn off that egg nog somehow. Then I came back and made Egg Nog french toast for everyone. Extra thanks to Sandlin for that recipe. It continues to be a perennial favorite. We went over to see Lacy and Mark and their new house. We helped them decorate for Christmas, too. After that, Marc decided he wanted to buy himself a PS3, and so we got him an early Christmas present: Rock band. We played a little, then did some sequence and came home.

Which brings us to today. We set up Jeanne's house with some decorations, Jess made some Guacamole, and later I'm making Krub. I might make some bread, too, just because it's fun. Practice my cinnamon rolls for Alaska.

Anyway, much love to everyone. Hope you're having festive times.

-N

A Concrete Thanksgiving

Not to brag, but, my thanksgiving was awesome. A towering tribute to the homesteading spirit of early Americans that instills a real sense of gratitude, and awe. And food coma.

Matt and I flew in to SeaTac and drove out to Betty's in the wee hours of Thursday morning. When we fumbled out of bed, a turkey with zesty Cuban marinade was slow roasting in the oven and washing the house in delicious smells. The three of us cooked up a storm in the kitchen, mashing home grown potatoes* and parsnips*, making a green bean* casserole from scratch, baking apples* for a roasted apple and pecan salad*. We mixed up a yam and apple* stuffing, while Betty baked bread. I toasted this amazing by spraying champagne across the table (oops). We had an incredible, colorful meal, full of fresh and delicious dishes. The freshness, I cannot under emphasize- I actually picked the salad from the garden outside before it went to the table. By the time we re finished eating, the fresh rolls were STILL to warm to put in a ziplock.

*organic- from the world renown Seguin Gardens

Life is good. Life is SO good, we are starting to look ahead to next years holidays. Although we are still in the works, if you have any interest in spending next Xmas in a casita in Belize, consider yourself invited.

I'll be here, on the couch

*cough cough* I've got a bit of a thing coming on. Pretty mild actually, itchy throat, stuffed up head and a hot feeling in my lungs that might turn into a cough. (It's totally not H1N1- I'd have a high fever by now if it was) Odd as it is, I must say, the timing couldn't be better. Really, this is far enough in advance of our Thanksgiving trip to Washington that I'll just scale back my expectations at work, and spend the weekend in my PJs at home- which had been the plan before the cold anyway.

I whipped up a pretty awesome avgolemono last night, which will sustain us through the weekend. The downside is I had been planning to use the weekend to think of some good holiday recipes, and so far I've been through Cooking Light and Everyday Food and I can't quite get excited about any food stuff. Oh, delicious whatever cookies, ethnic something breads, fancy stuff salads... nothing really resonates. But I've got all weekend, and maybe after a run to the pharmacy I'll be in better shape to make the hard choices.

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In our undergrad discussion on Friday, we did this awesome exercise (I can say this because I can take no credit in it) where the students thought about how to best convey information about H1N1 to the general public, or their own friends and family. We watched two videos- the first from NPR, the second is the source of the footage from the biotech Zirus. The first is a fun, topical glance at how viruses cause infection, the second is a hardcore, long science lecture. Some of the students thought the NPR-fun version was too pedantic and uninformative, but mostly we thought the Zirus-lecture wasn't something anyone would willingly watch. My feeling is that the NPR video made science kind of pop- you might watch it because it is short and fun and heck, you might learn something or be interested enough to look up more. The second video, you HAVE to want to learn about viruses. We need both, but probably only the first type gets viewed much. Would you agree?

Blog more!

Why haven't I been blogging? It is a complicated answer of course- school has been busy, what with taking a class, teaching and being a grad student. But that isn't new. More likely, since I am putting in more hours on campus, I am more inclined to dedicate my time off campus to things with Matt, but we don't have enough time to get up to anything super intresting. Like today- he picked me up at 6, and we went out for Pitas. He bought the new Terry Prachett book, and I got some woolly hats to keep my new Pixie cut chique. We came home, made browned butter, salted, rice crispy treats and ground down the rest of the ceramics. I am not gonna say it was typical, but obviously the rhythm of blogging tends to fall by the wayside. That, and nothing lately has screamed- OMG, this must be blogged- (after the successes in Canada, that is).

Are you familiar with the website, My Life is Average? Well, my life isn't that average, but if I were going to try, this is what I would post.

The other day, I tried to make a caramel recipe to dip apple slices it. The sugar got too hot, and instead of caramal sauce, I have caramel candies- which are still delicious. I figured this out by burning the tip of my index finger and nibbling the crunchy candy off. The next day at work, I went to retrieve something out of the liquid nitrogen tank and found that it was stuck with ice. Nice water ice, but frozen solid alcohol. I figured this out by burning my other index finger chipping away the ice. MLIA.

You aren't missing out on anything monumental, and I'll be sure to update once I have something to say.

Big Wind, No Travel+ Remodel Progress

Well, a front moved through Juneau tormenting downtown residents with mudslides and Airlines with cancellations, so an expected visit with Nana and Poppa failed to materialize. Well then, back to the sheetrock and pre-plumbing installations. The following are the current status of the masterbath conversion.

Someday, I'll be that cool.

Today was going to be just hugely busy with science- then it took jaunt down Awesome Street. It started when I got a message from a grad student in my program asking for more of this reagent that I have consistently supplied for them (I was sending much more to the robots in Alabama, so his use is not an issue). His boss (who serves on my committee) now feels this merits co-authorship on the eventual manuscript. Yeah! This would have made the whole day awesome on its own.

Then I got an email from the president of SCWIST, who I met while in Toronto. She is a SUPER cool scientist, who spoke on an exciting panel about democratization of science (eg. scientific knowledge has power, how can we ensure fair distribution of power?) which was both novel and compelling. We interacted very briefly, mostly me explaining why I had come from Pittsburgh to hear a meeting on Canadian Science Policy, and she asked me to write a very short piece about my search for a career for the newsletter. I figured I wouldn't ever hear from her again unless I wrote the piece, and it was very short. So, I sent it off, and hoped such an awesome person would possibly remember me.

I almost swallowed my tongue when I got her email back today. She thought it was great, they'll plan to use it for the SCWIST quarterly newsletter and would I like to be e-introduced to some science journalists? O_O I am so happy/excited, I can't even imagine how I'll respond to her email- right now it would be ZOMG!!!YESTHANKYOU!!!ACK!! <-- not the way to launch a writing career. Also, I need to find a way to clarify, I don't think I want to be a journalist, persay, but I know I'll be in a career that requires some non-technical writing skills. Ah, getting ahead of myself. The newsletter my piece will go in will be e-published in January, although if you can't wait to see my 250 words, I'll send them by email.

Matt and I went out to celebrate with crepes. Maybe grad school is going somewhere after all.

England in Brief: Part 3

Friday:

Friday was a short day. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to go in so that we could head over to York and look around, but there was enough that still needed to be done that we ended up going in. We wrapped most everything up, though, said hi to some people, and got taken out to lunch at the Queen’s head again. I had my other favorite beer from last time, Black Sheep Best Bitter, and the Queens burger, which was huge, juicy, and delicious.











Here's the royal bath house, where that pub was.

We didn’t have time to go to York after that, but we did end up walking around Harrogate, which I liked because I hadn’t gotten to see much of the City last time I came out. We stopped off at various shops and I picked up some chocolate for Jess. (We’ve gotten into the nice habit of eating dark chocolate for dessert, so we’ve been trying lots of different types). I also found the local video game store, simply named ‘Game’ and had fun looking around in there. We ducked into a coffee shop to dodge a downpour of rain and walked around a bookstore. I took pictures of books I wanted. Then we turned in a little early and went to a really nice Italian restaurant for dinner. Then hung out in my hotel some more, chatted with Jess, and packed up all my stuff.

Saturday:
HOME! The car came to pick us up at 6:30, and I slept some on the ride down. We got to Manchester airport plenty early and then started the day-long process of waiting in lines and sitting in chairs that would eventually bring us home. The check-in line for the flight was quite long, but moved at a good clip, and there was no wait at all through security. Then we had the LONG flight from England back to Chicago. This time against the jetstream. It was a bit over eight hours. I totally wore out the battery on my PSP and spent a lot of time on the DS as well. I thought I was getting sick at one point, but I think I was just tired of being on a plane.

Upon landing in Chicago, we had to first go through customs, then pick up C’s bag, then drop it off, then find our next flight, then go back into security. *Then* I was able to call Jessie. We talked for a while and got all excited about how we’d be together soon. I got some dinner, too, a sandwich and a couple of fruit smoothie drinks. For some reason I was craving them. Then it was on the (comparatively short) flight down to Austin and back home to Jess! We gave each other many, many hugs and kisses at the airport, then came home and I went to sleep early and slept late.

And that’s England.

-N

England in Brief, Part 2

Early for us meant that we met at 5:00 AM. We picked that time because that’s when the McDonalds opened. Plus, we figured, as long as our sleep schedule was going to be temporarily mucked about, we might as well get some work out of the deal. So we got in and started chipping away at our work. It was slow going, but we did find some useful stuff.


Hey, check out the hotel. Posh, eh?

At 11 we went back to the hotel to pick up our boss, B, who had flown in the day after us. She was feeling off from the flight but after some lunch was up to staying awake and working with us. We went to dinner at the Queen’s head, the Pub at which we had stayed last time, and had some of our favorite Old Peculier. Good stuff.

The next day was the long one. We met up at 5:00 AM, took an hour off for lunch so that C could take a nap, and then didn’t leave work again until, I think 9 at night. We were supposed to be demoing some software of ours, and for some reason we were having a horrible time finding anything that worked. We found several bugs, I eve n helped figure out that it wasn’t entirely our software that was on the fritz. It was one of those sets of problems where the question wasn’t “why isn’t this working?” It’s “why has this ever worked before?” We were supposed to be demoing in the afternoon the next day and almost nothing was working properly.

On the way back from work, we closed out the kitchen at a pub because we were hungry and wanted to make sure everything wasn’t going to close before we got food. I also had an appointment with Jessie. We had agreed to meet up on Google Chat at 10:00 PM my time, 4:00 PM hers, to say hi. I was a bit late, but we did manage to chat several times throughout the week.

Oh, and on that note, the hotel charged 12 Pounds for 24 hours of internet access, bandwidth-limited. Unlimited internet was 18 Pounds a day. That’s ludicrous. I almost considered not buying any until Jess informed me that work would reimburse me for it.

The next day was the demo, so I put on my slacks and black shoes and even a tie, so you know it was serious. We managed to do some more bug searching in the morning, but we mostly just put together a suite of data that showed what our software did (when it worked) and some slides about the history. B did the slides and C did the technical demo where we ran the software live. It worked, thank heavens, but it was all on data that we had carefully screened. We would have liked to have just run it on real stuff, live, but the system was too flaky for that.

Still, we did manage to show off our prototype code and no one came down on us too hard for having a sub-optimal demo, so congratulations were had all around. In the afternoon we showed on of the local workers how to run our software so that they could check it out, and then we went out for celebratory food and beer.

The celebratory food was at a Thai restaurant. I just got Pad Thai, which wasn’t particularly adventurous, but was really good. Then we went back the pub with the Beer Festival. The pub was actually in the old Royal Bath House in Harrogate, a very pretty venue. I had 6 beers...all 1/3 the size of a normal beer. But I got to try out a lot of good stuff. There was a rasin flavored beer, an ale with 8% alcohol, one brewed by a japanese master brewer specially for the festival, and even one called Banana bread, that, yes, tasted like bananas. I liked that one just for being different.












Beer!


Tired, we turned in relatively early, and then came friday.

England in Brief

Well it is my tradition, when I get the opportunity to travel outside the U.S. to do a great big series of posts that catalog my various adventures (and gets my post count up closer to Sandlin’s). Unfortunately, Not a whole lot of interest happened while I was over there. Mostly work, so splitting it up by day would be disingenuous. So here, then, rather quickly, is my week in england.

Sunday
I met up with a guy that I work with at the airport. We’ll call him C. We both showed up at the same time but while I generally prefer to put everything in a backpack and just carry it on, he had some actual luggage, so I stood in line with him and we dropped off his stuff. The first leg of our flight took us from Austin to Chicago, and we had several hours of layover there. We got some lunch and then walked around the terminal, both to burn time and because Work is having a charity event (as it does every year) where if you strap on a pedometer and get 70,000 steps in a week, they will donate some money to a charity of your choice.

Well as we were sitting there, we got called up to the front desk. It turns out they had overbooked the flight and so because we had paid so close to full price for our ticket, we got bumped up to business class. Nice! That’s definitely the leg you want it on, too. Flying east is the worst. We got on the plane and spent about half an hour just cataloging all the cool things in our area. We had video on demand, a lengthy dinner service, free alcohol and our chairs folded down completely flat and nearly horizontal. Great for sleeping.











Check out our seats!

So we had appetizers, salad, main course, and dessert. I even had some courvoisier because I’d never had it before. It’s a type of cognac. Strong, as it turns out. After dinner (and finishing off my first book) I stretched out on my luxurious business class seat and caught a few hours of sleep. Much better than regular seats. I skipped breakfast because they were going to serve it 2.5 hours after dinner, and I wanted sleep more than I wanted food.

Finally we landed, on Monday, and took a car from Manchester, where we landed, to Harrogate, where we would be doing our work. We took a car service up from the airport, which is nice because I got some spare Z’s on the ride up. After that, we checked into our Hotel, dropped off our stuff, and went right into work.

The first day of work after an international flight is, as you might imagine, pretty rough. We mostly just managed to get some paperwork taken care of, check out some basic stuff, and then call it a day. We had dinner at a place called Betty’s and kept ourselves awake by walking around the town. We discovered a place that was having a local ale festival and so I got to try Three 1/3 pint glasses of several different types. My favorite way to drink beer.

Finally, sleep caught up with us at around 6 or so, and we made plans to wake up early the next day.

On my way home from England

Greetings, ladies and gents.

It's Saturday morning (early morning) and that means I'm on my way home! Jess and I have been chatting a lot online and we really miss each other, so we're both really excited. It'll be a long day for me, though, lots of flights. Luckily I have my portable games all charged and ready to play.

England was pretty nice. The weather wasn't as oppressively miserable as it could have been, nice and crisp and only a little overcast most days. I even got to see the sun a couple of times. Our demo went pretty well, but it was a lot of hard work. I haven't calculated the hours yet, though, so I can't tell you exactly how much work, but on one day we met at 5:00 AM and didn't leave till 9:00 PM, I think. Course, we did take a lunch break, but it was mostly so that one of my coworkers could take a nap.

Anyway, more news when I have more time to write it, though not much touristy-things happened. I'll try to get un-jetlagged and write more soon.

Cheers, mate!

-N

This week, in Pittsburgh

Since I came back from Toronto this week, it has hardly been business as usual around here. Of course there are the networking-y follow-up emails to people, and we are going give the lab an update at the end of the week (tomorrow??).

But life itself moves on. The apartment has become infested with fruit flies- a side affect of the way I was dealing with the worm bin humidity. We've scrubbed every wall in the kitchen and installed fly paper, now we wait for them to die. Work seems suddenly pressed up against the holidays. I am trying to cram in every inch of experiments possible before we leave. Also, I am teaching another 3 discussion sections for the HHMI fellows. Tomorrow is vivisection, in two more weeks, personal genomic. This week, I am ready for, next one, not at all.

And we are being audited by the bankrupt city. Why? We didn't completely pay a city tax for schools- which we wouldn't. If we completely loose this battle, we could afford to cover the cost, but I am protesting on principle. Was it really worth tracking us down for a couple bucks (most of which they've already received the rest of which we likely won't be liable for)?

Matt, bless his soul, has been the voice of reason and sanity in all of the. "We'll just move the worm bin outside on the porch." "Those policy people will be glad to hear from you." "I'll call the tax people." My role in all of this is gratitude. It's going to make a fantastic chapter in my memoirs.

H1N1- are you getting vaccinated?

My step-mom-in-law just sent me an email asking about the H1N1 vaccine. To those of us in biology, there are no questions- vaccination is MUCH better that getting sick. But the view from the ivory tower is misleading, apparently this isn't clear if you follow mainstream media. Here is the response I sent her- I hope the rest of you will encourage everyone you know to at least drop the autism argument against vaccination.

***
I am glad you asked about H1N1- it is scary the amount of misinformation out there. The video you sent was a typical example- I didn't watch it because the first two speakers are both intolerable anti-vaccination activists. (Did you see the cover of last months Wired? Those people make me furious!) I will agree with them, every vaccine carries a risk, and it is good to understand these risks. Most experts will agree though, the risk of influenza (either H1N1 or any other strain) is much greater.

As for the safety of the H1N1 vaccine, it is no different than the normal seasonal vaccine in the process used to manufacture it. It just directed at this one virus. Normally, predication are made almost a year in advance about what the 'next' seasonal influenza will be and vaccines are manufactured accordingly. This year, the seasonal shot does not include H1N1 (it emerged late in the manufacture process), which is surely the most abundant influenza out there. Since the manufacturing process is the same, if you were comfortable taking the seasonal shot, do yourself a favor and get H1N1 vaccine. I know that there have been soem questions about the adjuvants (chemical additives designed to enhance the immune response) used, it might help to understand that adjuvants are used in most all vaccines. I am attaching a short pdf about the vaccine (prepared for the UK parliament- some of the regulatory stuff does not apply, but I understand we use the same suppliers here).

As for the risks to the elderly, I think the same applies. You should talk to their doctor to be sure it is right for them, but the idea of vaccination is to give the body immunity without getting sick. If there is still vaccine available for them, I would encourage you all to get it. The H1N1 strain sounds nastier than average flu, which itself is not fun to get. I think public health efforts have kept us from seeing major death tolls, but that doesn't mean that H1N1 is not a threat. So please, tell all your friends, the vaccine is as safe as any other flu shot, and H1N1 is at least as bad as any other flu.

Want to know more about the nasal spray?

I hope that helps, if you have any other questions please ask. I've made it my business to know about the flu and vaccine this year.

Oh, Canada.

If Noel can manage a post while he is in England, surely I can pull together some evidence that I am back in the states. I had a VERY successful trip to Toronto for the Canadian Science Policy Conference. This was a very different conference- a lot of audience involvement and many interdisciplinary speakers. It renewed my interest in developing my communications skills and really inspired me to consider a lot of new career paths and the possibility of emigrating to Canada.

We also had sometime to visit the city of Toronto, including a super fun Halloween party downtown and spending some quality of time with Karen's parents who hosted us and fed us infinitely. I haven't been through my photos yet to see if there is much worth sharing, and now I am completely immersed in my work- signs of progress!

Fast English Post

Hey,

I gotta be quick. It's 8:30 here now but we're meeting up at 5:00 AM tomorrow, after doing the same thing today, which is 11:00 at night where I usually come from...which is bed time...so I have to go to sleep pretty soon.

But yes, I am in England, though most of my time is spent working. We've hit a few pubs briefly after work, but there's little time for relaxing. Luckily we won't have to do anything on friday, most likely, so I think we're going to head over to York to Check it out. I come home Saturday.

Everything here is so old, and it's all made out of stone. Imagine living in a house where you'd need a masonry drill to hang christmas lights, and installing cable for your internet could involve low-yeild explosives. The permanence is impressive, but a little overwhelming for this flighty American.

-N

Going to england!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that next week I'll be going to England for work! It's mostly just hanging out in someone else's building and working on software, but the travel is nice, and we usually hang out in pubs afterwards and drink really good british beer.

I may be incommunicado for the most part, but I'll try to post something from a foreign country. With the power of the internet! I've been over there for work before, but this time we'll be staying in a different place, closer to the main city, so we can walk around and see more stuff besides cute little lambs, who had just been born and were wandering around the green fields when we were there last time.

Jess has Ratchet and Clank to keep her company while I am away, which is her favorite game series in the world. I've been watching her play some, and not only does it look like a lot of fun, the graphics are *gorgeous*, both technically and from an art direction perspective.

Also, as first-time homeowners in a neighborhood with kids, we get to officially hand out Halloween candy for the first time ever this weekend. We plan to hang out in the front and hand out candy and maybe meet some neighbors. I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm traveling on Sunday morning and I don't land until Monday, so it may be a bit before I'm fit to communicate with other humans.

Loves!

-N

Take THAT, week!

I've either become jaded or really good at what I do here. This week has been busy, and stressful, but not the epic endurance test that any single one of these factors caused me in my first and second year here. The run down-

Monday and Tuesday, clear schedule to work on Midterm that turned out to be really hard. Minimal guilt associated with not doing experiments, this class doesn't take up much time otherwise.

Wednesday, present 1 hour-long lab meeting for Dr. Rockstar's lab. The process of getting ready to talk for an hour about the things I need help with is never fun, but didn't require multiple practice runs or anything like this has in the past. In fact, I was reading a paper for my midterm until I went to set up the projector. Dr. Boss thinks I am meeting expectations. Submit midterm ~7pm.

Thursday- go to class, what, there were TWO papers to read? Skimmed these during lab meeting and was still the most 'participatory' student. Check!

Friday, last push! I am leading the HHMI students in a discussion of Reserch Integrity. I am relying on the fact that the case study was really cool to give me some time to think about how to assess students in discussion. We have TWO hours, people! I didn't even decide what I was going to wear the night before (although jeans and a hoodie wouldn't have taken long to arrive at), I would have thought I'd be more nervous. I am a little worried about letting down the faculty who provided me these students, but I don't know what other kind of prep to do in the mean time.

Just a few more hours until this week is conquered!

VIDEO GAMES!

Tis the season! The dam has broken! All the holiday-time titles are all hitting the market within the next few months! What a great time to be a nerd. :)

Here are some of my favorites:

Brutal Legend: Weird game. Sort of a mashup between an action game and a strategy game, all set in the strange, beautiful ancient land where Heavy Metal rules the day and guitar solos can literally melt faces. Great writing courtesy of industry legend Tim Shafer, but the game is only 'ok'. I liked it, though.

Ratchet and Clank: Another in the series comes out next week, and Jess is VERY EXCITED about this one. This is her favorite game series, and is made by her favorite developer, Insomniac Games. They've made a LOT of really great ones over the years.

Borderlands: Another hybrid, this time of a First Person Shooter and an online Role-playing game, where you can find new equipment (guns, sheilds, etc) and play with friends. I'm interested mostly because it's coming out this week for PC, and I'll need something to play while Jess takes over the TV for Ratchet and Clank.

Dragon Age: A PC Role-playing game from industry giant Bioware. They've got a long history of great PC RPGs, and this looks to be shaping up like all the rest.

Facebook Civilization: This actually just got announced, but I thought my Facebook-enabled family might be interested. They're going to be making a civilization game for Facebook. Civ is actually one of the longest running strategy game series, and is well regarded for deep and involving gameplay. I've been considering starting playing some facebook games because 1) they're free and 2) I can play them upstairs on my laptop while Jess reads.

Micro News! I'm going to England in two weeks! The date has been set, the tickets have been purchased, and the beer is on tap. I leave Nov 1 and I get back Nov 8, so if anyone has anything extra-British they need, let me know.

I've finished the tutorial books I got for Cubase and Reason, and so I can start getting down to the thrilling job of writing music! I'm planning a two-pronged approach. The method I learned in my Music Theory classes actually involves starting with a poem (lyrics) writing a melody, and then assigning chords that fit. The other approach is just to play around with my synthesizers and see what comes out.

It's been raining here, and I planted a whole bunch of wildflower seeds around our flowerbeds and around the new tree in the backyard. They've already started to sprout! We'll have to see what comes up. I'll post pictures.

Peace, love, unity and respect!

-N

Taking this show on the road

I write about work here a lot. Probably more than I should, but my professional development gets a lot more play then the rest of my life at this stage anyway. I actively try to come up with post-worthy topics that aren't work whenever possible, but there is so much to consider with my work!

Last week, at the annual Science meeting, I happened to stop by one of the vendors because I dyslexically read their slogan as "Getting the Public Interested in Science" and I thought- that's what I want to do. Actually, the slogan for Fund Science is to the get the public invested in science, but I was still glad I stopped by anyway. Fund Science is trying to develop a socially networked, crowd-sourced buzz-wordy forum to fund early career researchers (ie, me in 10 years, not now). Part of the whole mechanism is to make this a site that normal people are interested in going to, and the public face of this is meant to be a blogosphere about science topics. Anybody can join, and they are actively trying to recruit more bloggers. Since at the career session in the morning someone put the idea of giving your interests documentation by taking classes, or going to meetings or volunteering, I was uniquely primed to hear this as a personal invitation.

And I've still been thinking about it, quite a bit in fact. Would I really want to be professionally linked to a blog? What would the blog be about? What might I write about that anyone would read? Am I that good a writer anyway? Do I need to ask my boss about this? I've got a co-worker spurring me on as well, but I am curious what my semi-regular readers think about the possibility of me starting a 'serious blog.' Professional suicide? Game changing? Only after I take an intro writing class? Maybe if I get a good topic?

Visting my Host-sister, An!

Can you believe it has been 6 years since An left Juneau? Well, in the intervening years, she got a degree in business, a Master's in finance, did 6 mo in France and Peru for academic exchange and landed a job an an auditor at a large international chocolate and bakery supply firm. Although she has only been doing the job a couple months, she has already spent almost half of that away, she spent two weeks in Toronto last month, and is in Philadelphia for two weeks. Which is in Pennsylvania, which is where Matt and I are. So of COURSE we drove out to see her.

Matt and I arrived fairly late on Friday night, so we met An at her hotel in the morning. She is just as energetic as ever! After breakfast over wifi, we formulated a plan to take the train from New Jersey (where our hotels were) into the city, catch some patriotic sights, visit some local joints and see what there was to see. The train dropped us just blocks from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. We also found Ben Franklin's grave, and the US Mint. We probably managed to trample another half dozen historically important sites, but because Matt and I never had proper US history, most of this was lost on us.

All the tramping made us hungry, so we headed down to see the indoor market. Mom, I am pretty sure that this is where we went for the ISEF events, except that now it was full or people and food from all over the place. An saw her first Amish people and to remember why American cookies are so delicious. I saw a chocolatier pouring a chocolate mold, which gave An a chance to tell me about the 'Chocolate school' she had to attend for her job. Essential training for an auditor. Matt just went ballistic for all the different kinds of food- he loves the mixing of people and smells and tastes at these markets. There were fresh meat and fish stands, several greengrocers, bakeries (oh! the bakeries) and all kinds of places serving up foods for lunch. Imagine the spread. while eating an Indian samosa, Matt pressed An into trying the BBQ place Oprah said has the best Mac'n'cheese in the whole world, along with her first BBQ ribs. I went in for Peking Duck and a duck roll (crispy, but it melts in your mouth!) with a homemade Pakistani pomegranate Lassi to drink. Matt picked up a falafel and fresh squeezed juice, and we enjoyed the whole bonanza in front of the guy playing ragtime piano. The weather was alternately blowing fiercely and raining, so we spent most of the afternoon holed up at a Starbucks just catching up, until we felt motivated enough to make the hike south for cheesesteaks.

A note on cheesesteaks- although the Philly cheesesteak is ubiquitous around the city, there are two places in town that claim to be the best, and locals line up every night to support their favorite. This is a classic Betty or Veronica choice, made all the more difficult because the two places, Geno's and Pat's are across the street from each other. We decided on Geno's because we thought we'd like a cheesesteak with provolone better than 'Whiz. We are pretty sure Geno's is the place Palin tried for her first cheesesteak, based on the pro-America, pro-military conservative paraphernalia. Although I don't normally eat beef, we went in for "3 provolone- with" onions, of course and some cheesefries, since none of us could bring ourselves to order the freedom fries. High quality beef, with fried onions on a big fluffy hoagie with the cheese melting right in- I don't think this should be a habit.

After a long day of trekking the city in the elements, we decided to catch the train back to NJ, get some drinks and cozy up in front of our fireplace. An (and us too, if we're being honest) were impressed by the enormity of the Wegman's we stopped in at. We picked up some junk food and oggled the Halloween candy- An says Halloween is starting to come to Belgium, but has not yet reached the height of tacky that is available in NJ. Once we were carefully settled with the cozy fire and a hard cider, we even got to call Mom and Dat to share our adventures.

This morning we got up for a hearty Bob Evans Breakfast before heading down to a big mall for some window shopping. Matt wanted to be sure she got to experience these essential American experiences since she had this second chance to see the states. She said she was glad to have someone to hang out with instead being cooped up at the hotel all weekend. We took off in the early afternoon to drive home. It's about a 5 hour drive, easy thing for the chance to see An again!

Relaxing, mostly.

The parents finished off their little visit with us earlier this week. We saw some of the neat shops on South Congress, which I believe pretty much all of my family has seen at this point, and then on a couple of days when Jess and I had to work, we gave the Parents a car and a GPS and told them to have a blast. &nbsp;Evidently they did, checking out the LBJ museum, Neiman Marcus (I think) and a few other stops before punching the 'take me home' button and coming back for DELICIOUS NOEL PIZZA. If this sounds familiar to anyone, it's because we pretty much do the same thing every time someone comes to visit. We're still checking out the city for ourselves. The Capitol building was definitely worth checking out, though. Old and beautiful.

Yesterday I went to a local Independent Game Developer meetup at a bar downtown. Jess wasn't feeling well, so I just went on my own. It was pretty nice. I recognized only some of the developers, and I wasn't interested in too many of the games, but it was still nice to see some local gaming companies come together. Plus it was free, and they had a guy doing a performance of some chiptunes (music made on old nintendo audio chips) music on stage. It always gets me right in the nostalga center of my brain.

Also playing some video games for relaxing, and getting ready to go to England. They've had us buy the tickets: Nov 1 - 8. I'll have to remember to buy a power converter this time.

-N

My brain hurts....

I am in the midst of midterms, and am getting ready for bed, but I thought I would blog so that I could at least pretend to be one of the good kids.
Today I had a paper due (a response to the movie "Munich") and had to give a speech in my War and Peace lecture series. I talked about how I think music can be used as a tool to help evoke peace, and used my Japan story as an example. I got a really great response to it, because people approached me after class to say how much they enjoyed it.
I have another paper due, and two more tests, one of which is in my music class and will ultimately kill me I think. There is a section will I will have to be able to listen to a song and know the title, composer, date, genre and, if it's part of a mass or opera, the section...and there's a lot of songs. BUT the Marriage of Figaro is one of them, and it's pretty easy to tell that one, 'cause he just says his name a bunch of times.
Tomorrow my writing class is meeting at a restaurant and we're going to eat so we can do a restaurant review (p.s., being a communications major can be really awesome sometimes).
I'm also working on a fundraiser for Newman Center that will be happening the first weekend in November. I'm supposed to be working with some of the churches to get them to let us sell tickets to our dinner event, but for some reason the are not cooperating. It's getting a little frustrating. So if anybody would like to head out to California that weekend, I think I will also be having a concert on the 9th. So you can have Vietnamese food one night, and then enjoy my concert another night. Awesome.
The rainy season has begun with a bang. It was POURING rain today (even by Juneau standards). At one point I saw ducks sitting in a massive puddle in one of the parking lots and they were actually diving for food. They even had to put sandbags by one of the building's stairs so that it wouldn't flood the basement. Good thing I have a rain coat.
That's all the news I have so for now. Love you all!

Worm Bin

Early one weekend morning before Matt was up, I got inspired to start a worm bin. It's like a compost pile, but more urban- ie, it's inside. Everything I read about itdescribed the process as "easier than taking out the garbage," "no smell," and "too easy for instructions." So I found an arbitrarily sized plastic bin, ordered some red worms online and started saving scraps from the kitchen. Unfortunately- the scraps got ahead of the worms, which is probably not an ideal way to get the bin started. Because, without worms, a worm bin definitely smells. So the worms arrived, and had a lot of catching up to do. This probably set a bad precedent. Matt asked me if I think of the worms as pets, I suppose because I worry about them a bit. I don't think of them as pets, more like a slightly malfunctioning appliance.

You see, being an organic appliance without instructions, there seems to be quite a lot of tinkering to deal with. First to get the wetness right, otherwise the worms try to crawl out. And if the worms aren't doing all the eating, fruit flies start breeding. And if there is too much wet, and not enough air, all the old food creates an array of horrific smells. Currently, I've drilled some holes in the lid to circulate air, added extra cardboard to moderate the moisture and set a fruit fly trap in the basement. It's still a work in progress, but I hope someday we'll have the hang of composting our own food scraps on site.

Visiting Parents

We picked up the Parents yesterday and have been hammering them with Austin Ever since. We went to a championship Roller Derby game where Jess was doing stats. Dad described it as a 'once in a lifetime event'. We went to dinner late after that, then came home and slept.

Today we checked out the capital building, which is really pretty and very historical, and even got a tour around our house and senate, which is out of session at the moment. Then we got some delicious mexican food at Chuy's and wandered around the massive Whole Foods building downtown. Now we're hanging out and resting. Jess and mom are on nap duty, dad is relaxing with his newspaper and the tv.

-N

Much to celebrate

Matt and I had pondered going camping this weekend, but ultimately decided to delay the plan, in part because we didn't know where we might go, and in part because there was so much else to opt into this weekend. Our good friend W had the committee meeting to set his defense date (this is a HUGE deal), one of my coworkers gave a talk at a local meeting which required him to overcome crippling stage fright, and best of all- our soldier friend is home for two weeks of R&R. All of these are of course party-able occasions, so Friday night we went out with the coworkers for pizza and beer, then picked up W to see Zombieland (funny and gross). Saturday, we went to celebrate Oktoberfest- under the guise of R&R, which was a good chance to catch up and see everyone looking happy and healthy.

It is probably for the best that we spend a weekend at home. I've got big plans in the otherwise neglected kitchen- we had pancakes for breakfast, I am roasting squashes for some soups and there are apples just begging to be sauced. Matt is watching the game, and we might even be able to tame the mess that is infringing on the living room. How domestic of us.

Best Case vs Fears and Anxieties

The 'modern' thinking in course design is to think backwards- how do you get students to become inspired innovators for the 21st century? Or more likely, what do do students need to know before they can be expected to adequately describe the foodchain? As a student, I didn't realize that all classes weren't designed this way, but in retrospect, it does explain a lot of things.

Currently, I am reflecting on what I want my outcomes to be. In my dreamland, I inspire a generation of scientifically trained silver tongued mediators who descend on humanity to clarify the confusion surrounding modern bioethical debates. I am recruited to be a White House adviser, helping politicians understand science before they pass policy. More realistic though- especially for this first pass-, my pilot class is meeting from 3-5 on Friday afternoons. Ideally, they'll talk about it after we wrap up. Maybe some of them will sign up to take the real course. I won't have to do most of the talking (aha! I need more questions to ask, less 'things to tell them'). While my murky idea of success is marinating, I tried contrasting that to my worst case. No one does the reading. Not a soul talks, I say things that are embarrassingly wrong to fill the silence, debate gets too heated, students spend all weekend talking about the meltdown that resulted in f-bombs, tears or other unsuitable classroom material.

What I want is to filet the material, leave it out for the students to examine as raw as they can. At some point I am going to be asked to 'assess' this (what, give grades? Ack!), which means I do need to clarify what we are ALL getting out of the experience. There is a personal aspect to ethics, and bioethics is murky only in that it mixes the black and white of science with the personal and political. Not that it is too complex for undergrads to understand. I hope.

My first 'pilot' is set to be Oct 22. !! We are going to talk about Research Integrity- easily the MOST boring subject to tackle. This is the basic stuff of 'don't lie about your results' something that is not too distant from the 'don't cheat on your exams' stuff students get anyway, but something that is rarely explicitly stated in research. So, it must be done. I am going to take Noel's approach- try to help them understand that the public will believe them, as scientists, and that this gives them an onus to be responsible with the public trust. At the moment, what I mostly do is day dream and blog about it, but I like to imagine this is an essential component of the creative process.

I'm still feeling too full!

Matt and I got to have a great weekend too. On Friday, our upstairs neighbor hosted a neighborhood and friends Pizza tasting party we called the G6, to figure out who had the best tasting pizza in Squirrel Hill. We got pizzas from the 6 pizzerias in Sq Hill and sampled from all of them while watching the first hockey game of the new season. Great fun!

Saturday I turned into a vegetable, a nice change of pace from the fast-paced month of September, and what promises to be another fun busy month.

Sunday we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. All the joys of American Thanksgiving, but it arrives in October. How could we say no? J hosted, we've been eating turkey everyday since- hot dang! Life is good!

Other news, Matt finally ordered his new Netbook- the toy he has been considering for weeks now. My worm bin is still a work in progress, especially as the weather fluctuates in heat and humidity. I am excited to start piloting some modules at the end of this month- or early next- with the HHMI fellows in responsible conduct of research and bioethics. Still a lot up in the air yet, but it is coming up quite quick! Much like my pending trip to Toronto for the Canadian Science Policy Conference.

Preecscast #1

Hey, look what I did! I made a podcast with me and Jess! I hope you all enjoy it.

Preecscast #1

Frequently Asked Questions:

1) Wow?
A: Yeah, wow.

2) It's not working!
A: That's not a question.

3) It's not working?
A: Yeah, I'm using a free hosting place and it looks like the server gets busy, if you get a message that the 'server connection was reset' just try connecting again. It should click in after a few tries.

4) How do I play this?
A: Once it connects, you can either download it to your computer and then double click (the file type is very common, you computer certainly knows how to play it) or just click the 'play' button and it will bring up a little audio player in a new window.

5) What music is that at the beginning?
A: Something I made in reason in about 10 minutes just to put at the beginning.

Let me know if you have any other frequently asked questions!

-N

Matt got a promotion!

In sticking with the theme of my great week, Matt took me out to dinner on Thursday to tell me that he got a promotion! He is now a Senior Drafter- which requires no extra work or responsibility from the work he already does above and beyond his position, but does look better on the resume. I've mentioned before, they seem to really like that Matt can be very independent, he is a quick learner and he likes to problem solve. As much has he ponders a career shift while we are here in Pittsburgh, his boss would obviously make a case to keep him around as long as possible. Hooray for the new Senior Drafter!

Fallingwater Or Frank's almost falling down house..

So yes, indeed, the Parents were in Pittsburgh and enjoyed the sophisticated dining of a cosmopolitan urban center with their Favorite grad student and her sweetie. I actually got a little tolerant acceptance from Raoul but not lap sitting or co-mingled napping, so I'm still jonesing for a kitty fix in Texas next week.

We did go to Fallingwater, the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright house on the waterfall in rural Pennsylvania that turned the thinking of architects forever away from stodgy traditions of design previous to that time. I embarrassed my family by asking Too Many Questions and truly enjoyed the exploration of a truly iconic structure, not unlike the Great Wall and Stonehenge. I am a little annoyed that this building gets such a breathless reverence from the architectural fraternity when, in truth it was fundamentally unsound. Wright broke new ground with the nature of his design, cantilevered, organic, original, open, and inspired. He just didn't do it very well. Early on in the project the owner experienced some concern about the soundness of the stunning cantilevered decks that mark this design and with the complicity of one of Wright's on-site interns had engineers evaluate and sneak in a bit of structural steel to stabilize the breathless expanses of seemingly floating decks that is the hallmark of the design. Wright was famously outraged at the interference and essentially walked off the project. Years later it became obvious that the structure was in peril of collapse in spite of the extra steel and heroic work was done to brace and tighted the structure to present soundness with high tension cable installed to close expanding cracks. I would think the first mark of good design is whether it will stand up for more than a few decades. Oh well, stodgy me....

We had a most fabulous Indian Dinner with the assembled friends and classmates from Pitt and about who then allowed this photo. We specifically saved Mexican and BBQ for Texas next week. We did embarrass ourselves trying to keep up with Rock Band and got nowhere following the bouncing ball, even if we did prsume to "know the words". Not our best skill set. Really a nice week.

I'm having a good week

And I haven't even blogged about it! Mom and Dad came to visit, and we did a million fun things- shopping at Ikea, eating Ethiopian, Indian, Italian, Mediterranean, looking for bathroom lights for the parents house, not going to work, visiting Fallngwater- what a hoot! As a result, I have a new light in my living room and a fridge full of doggie bags. Hooray! I also got to show off my new wood-fired ceramics, which mostly turned out really cool. I'll work on getting some pictures of this up, they have a very organic look which is different from what I've done in the past.

I didn't get pictures from Fallingwater, hopefully Mom and Dad will post some.

Everything is fine now, but a consequence of cleaning up and looking at all these new ceramics, I managed to chip a piece of glass into my eye on Saturday, a few hours before Dad got to town. It wasn't very painful, but it never did feel right until we went to the Optometrist on Wednesday and Dad held my hand (and head) while the doc used his deadly sharp tweezers to yank the glass shard off the front of my eye. And yes, I could see that. Thank god Dad was there, or I much more likely would have had a long procedure to remove the tweezers from my face. Eyeball is fine now- but don't forget to wear safety goggles!

It is also really nice to have the folks around for normal things like sharing meals and hanging out, makes me excited about going home for Christmas!

My projects

It may not have involved any 2000 degree ovens, but I've had my own weekend art projects. Less flame, more electricity. Less crazy science pictures, more tech research and signal diagrams. I'm finally building my studio!



It's been a long time coming, but since I've finished the second draft of my book, I figured it would finally be okay for me to take up music production as a serious hobby. I spent a lot of time doing gear research (after all, picking the equipment is half the fun) and put in the order right before we went off to Derek's wedding. When we got back the front room was filled with boxes (brought in by the cat-sitters) and I had a lot of presents to open.

I've gotten the basics all set up: the audio interface, two microphones, and some software. I can do recording now, which was one of the goals I had for my studio. I'd like to try and put out some simple podcasts up here for fun. Just me and Jess talking about stuff. We'll see how it goes.

The other thing I'm planning to set up is the synthesis portion of the studio: that keyboard you see there and some more software. I've been experimenting and reading up on the recording software, and just finished that book, so now I can go on exploring synthesis. It's all so exciting!

Also, this week marks our one year anniversary. Even more exciting! Being married is really fantastic, it's been a pretty amazing year for us, what with the new house and new town to explore. We continue to get along great, primarily, I think because we both believe in open and honest communication and because we both like to see the other happy so much. Here's to many more great years!

-N

G20, Day 2

Overnight there were 'riots' near campus. 40 people were arrested, but I heard a lot of the confusion stemmed from students being in the streets, trying to ward off violent demonstrators. There has been no sign here of the targeted demonstrations that were supposed to disrupt all the banks and starbucks in the city. The groups responsible for yesterday's mayhem decided to splinter into a large and explicitly peaceful demonstration, leaving the smaller anarchist factions to do whatever they felt like. Hopefully this will allow some kind of message to get out. Tibetan monks assembled up the hill for a march this morning, but there hasn't been much else going on here.

I am disappointed really. Aside from a few small and clever demonstrations, the nondescript mayhem captured most of the media attention. Pittsburgh doesn't have many activists, so on the whole residents are confused and aggravated by this. It just seems like pointless destruction. Even the groups that are "anti-greedy-big business" are having to hoof it around town to find some big businesses to protest. Ugh.

The Big Protest has been really well received, very peaceful. There was speeches and singing, just like a Rally. We'll see if they move forward peacefully. The city was significantly over-prepared for protests, and violence- it isn't surprising that there were clashes. I'll agree with Bart, too many people uncoordinated on both sides always leads to confusion. The 'confusion' has gotten a LOT more coverage locally than any issues that anyone has been pushing. On the flip side, I am really surprised that there are so FEW protesters here. I guess everyone who cared was at the UN in NY at the start of the week.

---
In his closing remarks, Obama said he was resentful that he didn't get to eat at Pamela's, the local diner that serves big, fried in butter pancakes to die for. Or put you on lipitor. This was a visitor favorite, before it got the presidential nod. Who wants to go for breakfast?

G20, day 1

At the moment I am drinking coffee and writing from the safety of a Squirrel Hill Coffee shop. It ha been pretty busy this morning, since reports from all over town are that no one is working. Campus is dead "like a Sunday morning," and this is my favorite of all- from WPXI "Police communications center says city is so quiet the mid-morning media briefing is canceled." Buses still seem to be running fine, but most protests aren't scheduled until later this afternoon.

Delegates have arrived without much going on. There has been some sense from the ACLU that the city has over reacted, and squashed peaceful protests. My sense from Squirrel Hill is that in general people are more scared then interesting in 'joining the dialogue.' A few minutes ago, the Coalition of Anarchists launched a march to 'disrupt the summit.' Sigh. They are lead by a banner that says No Boarders, No Banks. There are TONS of cops around, so I wonder how far they'll make it.

3:30- The illegal protest has reached a stand off at Penn and 32nd. Police are threatening to escalate, in an effort to disperse. Live feed suggests there are equal numbers of spectators and protestors, and not as many of them as there are police.

As the day wraps up, the work leaders are in Phipps Conservatory, and most of the protesters are off the streets. Reporters think maybe 6,000 people were here protesting, hardly what we might have expected based on London or Seattle. They've also only arrested 15 people. When 50,000 people marched in Seattle, they arrested 6,000 people. Matt and I went out to eat, and saw people from other marchs (Free Tibet, Anti-Ethiopia, Oxfam) taking in the city. The smaller demonstrations were mostly squashed out of the news by the big, vague protest. It wasn't very violent- but they kept interviewing college kids who would say "it's our right to demonstrate- why are they doing this?" which was sort of expasperating. If these kids were really anti-big business, then they shouldn't be disrupting traffic in front of all these small businesses. Sigh. Could have been worse. The big (stupid, lame and disruptive) stuff is planned for tomorrow- we'll see how that goes. All is well here- let's just hope the world leaders are having a productive evening.

G20- so it begins

I mentioned earlier that I would be working from home in celebration of the G20. Worst case, riots will envelop campus like the Steelers SuperBowl win, best case this is a perfect excuse to start writing my paper. Likely, this will just save me dull waits in traffic. In either case, I am starting to feel pretty thrilled with my choice- esp when the entire lab started streaming LIVE webcast of 4 Greenpeace climbers who had lowered themselves off a bridge, to bring out attention to climate change. Many arrests were made, and attempts at 2 simultaneous stunts were quashed- but the summit hasn't even started yet!

Find the story here-

Also, 6 people were arrested today trying to get in to the secure parts (read: animal facilities) of our building. Thanks Pitt Police, for letting the rest of us work like normal!

Tomorrow, I'll likely post a couple updates on the off chance anything of interest happens. The local news is doing a nice job of covering the changes and security, and hopefully will keep me up to the minute of the rest of the excitement without having to be a first hand witness.

News at random

For a work project, I've been testing Bing News Alerts, where you can get a notice from Bing whenever a topic you're interested in pops up in the news.

I asked for a regular alert on a company called Perot Systems, just to see what level of detail would turn up, and how many different items might flood my in-box. Well, nothing much happened for a while but last week, Dell offered to buy the company, which, yes was founded by Ross Perot, for $3.9 billion.

Today, Bing sent me a summary of all the articles on this sizzling hot, Texas-sized busines-tech story. At the top of the list was a link to the story . . . as it appeared in the People's Daily Online. Yes . . . the one in what used to be call Red China.

I'm not sure what's more jaw dropping . . that a computer algorithm ranks the People's Daily Online along with the Wall Street Journal . . or that the the PDO actually exists . . or the scary thought that there are probably millions of PD readers who are actually interested in the dealings of Michael Dell and Ross Perot.

All I can say is, the world's certainly changed since I first sat down at the wire service desk at the Spokesman-Review.

Good luck, Sandlin and Matt, with that G20 thing . . try to meet some interesting venture capitalists, or something.

G20

It's coming! It's going to be this week! The madness has already started. CMU is closing several buildings including one a friend works in due to their perfect view of the site of Michelle Obama's diplomatic dinner, Phipps Conservatory. In an email to students, the department said FBI officials would be inspecting the offices to confirm the best 'views,' but urged students not to let in anyone without a valid badge number, since the best view would be advantageous to people of nefarious interest. Ick.

Pitt has been distributing this soothing message:

The University of Pittsburgh is honored that world leaders will be convening in our great city for the G-20 Summit. We want to remind students to abide by the Student Code of Conduct and law at all times. In accordance with the Pitt Promise, please conduct yourself in a civil manner and exercise mutual respect and concern for others. You are also reminded to use your common sense and avoid potentially dangerous situations.

Don't let one bad decision negatively affect your future.

While the G-20 Summit will put the world’s spotlight on Pittsburgh, it also will bring many visitors to Oakland. Because of heightened security, we ask you to use caution and common sense on and off campus. As a reminder, here are several safety tips to follow:

* Avoid angry or obviously violent individuals.
* If you find yourself in a "mob", find a safe spot and remain calm. Text friends to let them know where you are.
* If you are in a dangerous situation, contact police. When you are on campus, dial 412-624-2121 (add this number to your speed dial); off campus dial 911.
* Treat others, including police officers, with respect.

(italics mine, edited for length). Dr. Boss also reminded us of his days in a Berkeley yeast lab when ignorant PETA protesters broke into his lab and destroyed equipment. He urged us to keep our large-windowed door locked while he is out of town to a meeting in Italy, but didn't go so far as to suggest we stay home. Parts of campus will be closing, and I suspect more to come. I'll be watching the broadcast news while I work from home, and Matt will hopefully avoid the worst of traffic delays.

I maed youz a prezent

But I eated it.



-N

Feeding the inferno, and other things I couldn't do without Matt

<-- Just a pizza, but more like how I imagined the firing might go. We survived the wood firing, which I hope by the end of the post you'll appreciate as a righteous achievement. I went to the laurel highlands to participate in firing this kiln as the culminating event in my Wood-Fired Ceramics class (a generous birthday gift from Mom and Dad!). My teacher Joe, had described the process as 'you know, the kiln has to be loaded, and there is a lot of smoke and ash that transforms into glaze and it takes a long time and then later we can unload it. Oh, we can camp and there is pizza oven.' This description somehow failed to convey the sheer amount of labor, heat and vertical shooting FLAMES that would be involved. Really, I should have put that together on my own- Normal glazes melt at just under 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and to deposit enough ash that could be transformed into a glass that would melt evenly on the surfaces, that has to get to 2,300 degrees. And sit there for hours.

The whole process is transformative. A dusty shed at the edge of retreat center is filled with shelves, pots and wood, sealed shut and becomes a kiln. The pots turns from earthware to ceramics, the logs turn to ash which becomes a colored glass. For myself, I rebuilt my definitions of 'uncomfortably hot,' 'dangerously hot,' and 'hot as summer in hell.' But with Matt there and my classmates/coworkers to cheer me on, I suited up and conquered the flames. We won't see the pay off for all this hard work until next weekend

I was nervous going in to my first shift- the kiln had been cooking for a full day, and I was handed the gloves at 8pm Saturday night with the temperature at ~1,600 degrees. Joe hoped it would get to 2,000 by lunch, and Matt and I had the reins until 4am. I'd been watching my coworkers, so I knew what to do and had safety gear to do it in, but pulling the lid off a blazing inferno brings out a really instinctual response (RUN AWAY) that seemed impossible to overcome. Within the first hour though, I was doing it all. Opening the door to reveal the blaze, counting the cones of glass that would melt as the temperature increased, piling in wood until flames poured out the chimney, the pressure holes in the ceiling and finally the door itself until I slammed the inadequate-seeming pillow of fiberglass back over the hole. In this blazing atmosphere, you can smell the oxygen burning out of the iron, a smell that accompanies thick black clouds of burnt metal. Matt and I took turns feeding the fire and passing the wood, and Matt killed time by splitting logs and raking coals. As scared as I was to be in charge of this monster until 4am, I was so much more brave to have Matt there with me, whose welding experience gave him an edge at things like battering a coal bed flat with an iron rod, and raking coals until the iron rod turned red hot (eta:30 sec). With his support in tending, we got the fire to 1900 degrees by 4am. We saluted the next shift by shooting flames out the chimney and slept a few hours.

We took over again with more help the next day at noon. The temp was up to 2050, and we wanted it to get just a bit hotter and stay there over the day. We worked the first until about 6, and then left the kiln in the careful hands of Joe to tend for another day or so. When it is done, he'll seal up all the intake, choking out the flame and giving the pots a chance to cool slowly. We'll be back next weekend to unseal the door (we closed gaps with raw clay, which was baked into submission over the weekend) and unload the kiln. I can't imagine what we'll see- pots fused together by overzealous ashing, pots shattered by inarticulate wood tossing? we nearly destroyed the door on several occasions by shifting bricks out of place so severely they had to be banged back with a mallet-, but I hope some things come out well. Just as Joe described though, we made a lot of pizza, the camping was quite glamorous and it was a lot of fun. Fabulous! More pictures, here!