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.

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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