Basefree

Prolitizzle

Goddammit. I said it once and I'll say it again. We are all doomed. The worst part of being a pessimist is when I am right.

In other news, I have been listening to lots of good music, and actually made it out to a concert recently. J-4cob is right, Ratatat fucking rocks. On the 15th, I will enjoy the live sounds of Subtle, a group composed of Doseone and other artsy-fartsy bay area hip hoppers. Because the end is clearly drawing near, I think I will stop worrying about curing cancer, and focus on eating good food, drinking good beer, and listening to good music from now on.

corymb

I always get excited and obsessive when I discover music that I like and haven't heard before. My latest obsession? Boom Bip. I came across his stuff when I learned from a Boards of Canada site that BoC was going to be remixing a track for the new Boom Bip album. Out of curiosity, I checked out some audio samples from the Seed to Sun album on the Warp Records site, and quickly determined that I was required to buy the album.
I also discovered that one of our new lab undergrads listens to a lot of good music (which we will define as music that I like), and had a bootleg Mp3 of the Boards of Canada remix of Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (which is on the new Boom Bip album Corymb, which was released today). This song was so good, that upon hearing it I immediately walked out of lab and to the nearest music shop. The guy at the shop was kind enough to sell me a copy of Corymb one day ahead of the official release on the condition that I wouldn't post it on the internet that night. Now that I have listened to Corymb about 20 times, I think it is one of the coolest albums I have heard in recent history. It has original Boom Bip tracks, as well as remixes by Boards of Canada, Mogwai, and Clouddead. It also has remixes by other artists that I haven't heard before and now want to check out. I am sure that Warp/Lex records planned it this way, and I for one am certainly falling victim to their scheme.

Bankroll

I just returned from an epic 4 days in Las Vegas. The trip was sort of like a bachelor party for a couple of guys in the department that are getting married (not to each other) and consisted mainly of gambling and drinking. I quickly discovered that I could never make it as a professional gambler because: A. My luck sucks. B. I am way too miserly to buy in again after busting in a game. I did a lot of busting, in fact I busted in every game I played and at no point had more chips than I bought in with at any given table. After wandering in and out of casinos and losing money on the first night, I came to perceive Las Vegas as a colossal noisy machine in the desert, similar to White Dan, existing for the sole purpose of sucking money out of tourists instead of capturing bison and processing them into bison products.

On the second night, I determined that wandering around inside that machine and examining its workings is amazingly entertaining after consuming 13 beers in a hotel room and heckling a cover band from the balcony. In this extremely intoxicated state, Nate managed to win back some quantity of money from the Frontier Casino that had been taken earlier in the day by Marvin, the most ruthless blackjack dealer in Vegas ("come back so I can take some more of your school money"). Nate also managed to knock cigar ashes all over the table, and everyone else did their part to make us an attractive target for getting thrown out. I am surprised we didn't end up in a back room getting our legs broken by Joe Pesci.

Later that night, we wandered in and out of multiple casinos in our drunken state, while other members of our group enjoyed even less wholesome pursuits. Eventually, we realized that we were painfully hungry and ended up in the Barbary Coast, eating $3.00 hash browns and eggs at about 1:00 in the morning.

Over the course of the trip, I took a liking to run-down casinos like the Barbary Coast, the Imperial Palace, and Casino Royale, and not just because it is cheaper to gamble there. There is a lot of classic Vegas character in those places. The cocktail waitresses all seem to be in their 40's, and are grizzled, depressed, and surly from countless nights of exposure to cigarette tar and drunken loudmouths. The dealers are equally surly and tar covered, but seem to have a slightly more positive outlook, perhaps because they don't have to wear corsets. The pit bosses are mostly older Italian looking guys that perfectly fit the image that comes to mind when you think of the term "pit boss". The Barbary Coast also had $1.00 drinks, which may have played a part in my affinity for it.

The expensive fancy casinos were cool in their own ways as well. The Venetian indoor canal is pretty neat, even if the casino has some kind of nauseating perfume pumping throughout its ventilation system. I greatly respect Caesar’s Palace for building a futuristic prison to contain Celine Dion, even if the interior of the casino is so gaudy and confusing that it made my eyes bleed and brain short circuit (I envision a Return of the Jedi type scene, where an angry casino official at Caesar’s activates a hidden trap door beneath a gambler, dropping him into a pit to meet his doom at the hands of the horrible creature that is Celine Dion). The Luxor also had my approval, mainly for its bountiful buffet, which we utterly decimated after a full day of intentional fasting.

The most enjoyable activity I took part in (i.e. lost money at the slowest) was low-limit Texas Hold 'em poker at the pleasingly dilapidated Imperial Palace. Even if you never place a bet, you can manage to only spend about $6.00 an hour playing, and get free (good) drinks regularly. In keeping with my terrible luck in Vegas, I only had playable hands about 4 times in 8 hours of play. I always ended up getting frustrated, chasing draws, and trying to bluff people, which never works at a table where it can only cost a player a maximum of $4.00 to call a bet. We met some interesting folks at the poker tables, including a guy from Honduras with a sweet curly mullet, and a belligerent drunk asshead that wouldn't stop giving Nate shit for going to school at Pepperdine. Hopefully, I will completely dominate our next no-limit hold 'em home game because IT IS ABOUT TIME FOR ME TO START GETTING SOME GODDAMN GOOD CARDS!!!!!!1

As a last act of gambling, Rick and Dave each laid down about $100 on the roulette table. Dave won, Rick lost, and I reaffirmed that I would never make it as a professional gambler because I felt no desire what so ever to attempt to compensate for my losses by making a similar bold bet. We ended up not sleeping that night, drinking several gin and tonics starting at 5:00 A.M., and wandering drunk, past joggers on the strip, and into Starbucks for a dose of caffeine in a futile attempt at making it through the day to come. Our flight back and the entire next day were filled with grogginess, as expected. If I ever find out who was responsible for the jackhammer running outside the exit of the Portland Airport, I swear I will ..... scowl at him/her. And thus ended my Vegas adventure. I will end this post with a few choice quotes, which may only be funny to those who went on the trip because they are sort of inside jokes, so beware.

Pit Boss: "Looks like we should get some more chips for your table there Marvin".
Marvin (looking at us): "No man, I will be getting some more from these guys real soon"

Marvin: "Hey guys, come back soon so I can win some more of your school money".

Me: "All I know is that I heard a lot of LAUGHING coming out of that room last night".

Brett: "You are an Idiot. All of your friends are idiots. You all deserve to rot in hell."

Unidentified Piston's fan at the Mandalay Bay sports book who was double-fisting Foster's: "Yeah, Kobe Bryant is a good player... for a rapist".

Me following Nate's poker performance: "After that, your bankroll must be up-regulated constitutive HUGE baby!"

Baby on the shuttle bus back to our car: "BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

Nate in response to baby: "I don't like small humans."

wafer

I knew next to nothing about semiconductors until Britney taught me. I don't know who is the bigger dork, the guy that made this site, or me for thinking it is goddamn hilarious.

Christ Allmeaty

Yesterday, I was out to lunch with Lisa and my sister at our local cheap and tasty burrito restaurant and I noticed a couple of people from UPS at another table. One of them was this physics guy that seems to be a grad student at U of O now. Guess who the other fellow was. I'll give you some hints... he was reported to be a comedic genius and was in the Honors program at one point. Erica was fascinated with him, and something about him suggests that he might be a serial killer. One more hint: his last name rhymes with "man".

Unfortunately, I didn't strike up a conversation with him because I never really knew him, don't like talking to people, and was somewhat afraid he would murder me and make a suit out of my skin. The event seemed worthy of a post, however, because it illustrates that this is indeed a small world that we live in.

Optimism

Whenever I am feeling pessimistic or just plain pissed off, I kick back and enjoy some music. I just purchased the latest Squarepusher album, Ultravisitor. After listening to it a couple of times it is really growing on me. It makes me want to play my bass again. I have also been going through all of my old CD's and ripping them into MP3 format on my work computer. It is pretty fun rediscovering stuff I haven't listened to in years. Even if the fascists stay in power, good music will continue to be made somewhere in the world. At least I have that to look forward to.

All In

I have been playing a lot of poker lately. A bunch of us molbio nerds get together about every couple of weeks and play no limit hold 'em in to the wee hours of the morning. The game isn't so intense that we can't carry on conversations, has a luck component so I don't beat myself up when I lose, and involves enough skill that it is possible to get better at it. Poker has pretty much become the main social event in my life these days actually. Being married has made me even more of a hermit than I was in college. It is nice actually interacting with people every now and then.

Schneider

Things are starting to look up in lab. We are finally having some success in getting S2 cells to grow and thrive. For about two weeks, I was nursing along a sick stock of cells that were probably 90% dead. We ended up trying multiple frozen stocks, but it seemed like no cells from the Doe lab's freezer were happy. Finally, I got a tip that people in a crystallography lab were growing huge tubs of S2's and were having no problems with them. All it took was a friendly request, and I soon had a big-ass flask of healthy cells just begging to be transfected. Now I can proceed with two major projects that were hopelessly stalled due to the lack of viable cells.

In other news, Lisa is entering a climbing competition this weekend in Portland. She will be competing in the Open category, which means that she will get a cash prize if she wins. Unfortunately, it also means that she will probably be competing against professional climbers. Join me in wishing her luck.

Fish Speakers

The most enjoyable part of watching the Superbowl for me was seeing the new Quiznos ads for the first time. The sheer oddness of those singing furry creatures with bulging eyes and bad teeth makes me want to reward Quiznos with my business for paying to broadcast such wackiness.

I am willing to bet that I am not the only cementhorizon type person who was amused by the ads and did some Googling to discover their origins. I'll also bet that Jack-bo probably recognized the characters in the ads immediately as Spongmonkeys: the stars of a flash animation entitled "We like the moon" that was circulating around the internet a while ago. It seems that Quiznos contacted the creator of the Spongmonkeys and paid him to make advertisements. How do you guys feel about this? Does it upset you that Quiznos is attempting to cash in on a wacky internet phenomenon?

Roadie

Good God it has been a long time since I have posted anything new. I have kind of been slacking on all fronts (work and non-work) ever since I passed my comps. I guess the holidays were in there somewhere too so not all of the slacking was inappropriate. Much has happened in the land of Doug since my last post way back when, so I will try to update you folks to some extent.

Following my comps I decided it had been a long time since I had bought anything, so I rewarded myself by purchasing a road bike. I got to go though the whole fun process of being fitted, riding around on town of various bikes for hours, and getting parts swapped out so the complete bike suited me perfectly. You don’t get to do all that fun stuff if you buy a bike online, even though you save a bit of money over buying from your local bike shop. I ended up going with a classic light weight steel bike made by socialists right here in Eugene. I am shocked by how easy it is to go really really fast when you are riding a light bike with skinny tires (the opposite of my mountain bike). I am currently attempting to get into some semblance of decent shape so I can enter some local races this spring.

The holidays were fun for the most part. I got to go snowboarding at Whistler for three days in a row, and became painfully aware that I hadn't been snowboarding in a damn long time. I also got to attend to Lisa's parents' dying computer that was infected with tons of spyware and other garbage. I NEVER want to do that again. It is amazing how trashed Windows can get if people using it have no idea about what is and isn't a good idea to click on. While at Lisa's parents' house I also got to ride in her Dad's new mid-life crisis car. 450 horsepower + all wheel drive + wacky computer controlled traction and suspension = lots and lots of G-force and fun for all parties involved.

When we finally got back to our house, we took a couple of days to settle in, and then decided to go skiing during a pretty severe winter storm (New years day). The snow was fantastic, but it took us about six hours to drive to the ski area, and visibility on the slopes was next to nothing due to the genuine blizzard conditions. It was worth it though, because there were no crowds, and the sensation of floating through three feet of powder is amazing.

Now I am back in lab and feeling unusually motivated. Vacations are good

You'd pay attention to me too if I had feet sticking out of my face

A couple of days ago there was a bloodbath in my lab. I was calmly sitting at my desk designing primers when I heard a great deal of profanity coming from the other end of the lab. When I went over to see what had happened, I saw Nate (a grad student) clutching his horribly lacerated thumb. Apparently Michelle (another grad student) had been using Nate's scissors to cut some very sticky tape, leaving said scissors gummed up and un-usable. Nate had been trying to clean them and had cut himself in the process. Michelle, of course, felt pretty bad about gumming up Nate's scissors and making him cut himself, so she quickly offered to clean them for him. Seconds later, Michelle was cursing like a sailor and clutching her finger which was also horribly lacerated. At this point, I went into smarty-pants mode and decided to use the power of chemistry to clean the scissors. I would prove to my unfortunate lab mates that the scissors could come clean without injuring anybody. I took the scissors from Michelle (who was trying to fend off our post-doc from China, who was insisting that Michelle should douse the wound in ethanol before she put a band-aid on it) and found a bottle of acetone. I then poured some acetone on a paper towel, which I thought would cut through the glue like nobody's business. However, when I went to pick up the towel, it felt like a bee had stung my thumb, and I swore a blue streak. At first, I thought I had accidentally poured something a little more caustic than acetone on the towel (like TFA), but when I examined my stinging thumb, I discovered that I had somehow cut myself in the process of taking the scissors from Michelle and placing them on a bench. I became convinced that the scissors had some kind of magical powers and refused to have anything else to do with them. At this point, our PI walked into the lab (perhaps because he could hear all the profanity from his office) and proceeded to make fun of us all.

The next day when I came in to lab, I saw a note on the white board (in the PI's handwriting) that said "There have been (1) day(s) without an accident involving scissors"

Comps=Stomped

I defended my comprehensive exam proposal yesterday. It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. Those of you that know me have seen how I can get super obsessive about things (playing bass, mountain biking, building computers, playing tribes, etc.). For about the past month, I have been eating, sleeping, and breathing Salmonella pathogenesis. Apparently I had a pretty good understanding of my topic because I anticipated almost all of the questions the faculty were going to ask. It was actually kind eerie giving the presentation because they weren't interrupting me all the time like I thought they would. In fact, the whole thing only took a little over an hour instead of the usual two and a half to three.

Now that it is all over I feel like a man that has just gotten out of prison after living there for 40 years, and immediately robs a liquor store because he dreads the freedom of the outside world. I kind of miss having one focused little question to obsess over 24-7. Now I have to turn my attention to all of the assorted projects I have going on for my own research. sigh...

TTSS

I have been procrastinating like an ass-machinist. I have a horrible irrational dread of starting to write my comprehensive exam proposal. I have been doing everything from setting up fly crosses, to transferring mp3s onto my new laptop, to updating my neglected weblog, as long as the activity has nothing to do with my comps. At least my laptop is a mac and therefore I can't play tribes on it.

I need a shaz-dance

I have recently had a Tribes relapse. If this continues, it is good bye grad school and hello McDonalds for me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

This is spooky. So is this. I want a short wave radio. Apparently broadcasts like these from all over the world can be tuned in easily. Here is a page about numbers stations. NPR did a story about them. This kind of stuff fascinates me.

We are all doomed

I am finding it increasingly difficult to watch the news or anything on TV where people make comments about politics or current events. I am starting to think that perhaps democracy isn't the best system in a country where the general public seems to be horribly belligerent and illogical. It doesn't seem that way in Eugene, (or in the Bay area for that matter, right?), but despite the absurdly unjustified war and continued deaths in Iraq, a majority of Americans still approve of the way the Bush administration is handling things. What the hell is wrong with people? Am I the only one that thinks that "we are living in a post-Sept. 11 world" is not a valid excuse for blowing up every country with a regime that is not friendly to the US? People seem to be incapable of looking at things from other people's perspectives.

I heard a clip of Howard Dean speaking on NPR the other day, and I was actually impressed. He seems unafraid to assert that the war was wrong. I was disturbed by the report, however, because it suggested that democrats should be worried that Dean is currently the leading candidate because he is far too liberal to have a chance of beating Bush. Dammit! vgd vgd vgd vgd vgs vgs (who got that reference? I bet only 4-cob and maybe Gene) v-period v-period v-period fuck v-period v-period v-period fau sa assassassassassass asses asses aaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss

I want to move to Canada. The mountainbiking is better up there too.

Ooops

I should not be allowed in a bike shop without supervision.

Oh well... of all the respective shops and companies out there, I feel good about giving my money to Paul's and Chris King in exchange for their goods and or services. The purchase wasn't completely frivolous. With its original headset back, the old GT is coming together nicely. Now I just need some shifter cables, a seatpost collar and wheels and I am set. Project=good for mental health.

No Talent Ass-Clown

Who else out there thought the movie Office Space was a kick in the pants? I had never even heard of it until Mo-chan insisted that seeing it was essential for my survival. Now that I have seen it, I am inclined to agree with her. I am not sure how I lived for so long without hearing Michael Bolton referred to as a no talent ass-clown. Now when I am feeling down, all I have to do is think of that phrase and I can't help but grin. Thank you, Mo-chan.

Project

I need a project. I have decided to throw together the amalgam of parts that has been lurking in my garage into a functional bicycle. I only need two things as far as I can tell:

1. A front wheel. I sold the only extra one I had to 4-cob. I may need a rear wheel as well in case I can't fix the broken spokes on my old wheel and end up creating a taco .
2. A headset. This is the only part from my old GT that now lives on my Cove.

So, if anyone out there has a front wheel or a headset, I would consider purchasing them, or trading them for these lovely items which I have and don't really need.
1. A Shimano XT front derailleur (31.8, top swing, bottom pull)
2. A Shimano ES70 splined bottom bracket (goes with XT or LX cranks, 73x113, I didn't destroy this one, I just couldn't use it with my new frame)
3. Shimano XT V-brake levers
4. Shimano LX V-brakes (front and rear) with pimp-ass polished aluminum Salsa brake boosters.
If only there was someone else out there with a garage full of bike parts like me, by our powers combined, we could create a multitude of working bikes, or perhaps summon Captain Planet.

epistasis

Has anyone ever woken up one day and wondered what happened to the past four weeks of their life? I feel like I have been on autopilot for a while now. I get up, go to lab, go home, and go to sleep. I haven't taken a day off since Lisa left. Obsessing over work seems to have put me through some kind of time-warp. It feels like Lisa left days ago, not weeks.
I felt very odd today, as though I had been watching myself go through the motions from a third person perspective for a while, and just regained control. I had to stay home from lab so the goddamn Comcast people could come reconnect my cable which was mistakenly disconnected a few days ago. To pass the time while I waited for them to show up for our oh-so-specific 12-6 PM appointment I rented a DVD. Come to think of it, watching Mulholland Drive was probably what set off these feelings of oddness. Something about not being sure which characters were real people and which ones were imagined probably did it. Damn you Lynch! I did enjoy the movie quite a bit though. Very visually interesting and all of that other intelligent-sounding movie review stuff. Did that movie even get good reviews? I'm not even going to bother checking before I post this just in case cool people think it sucked and I sound hopelessly uncool for liking it. Regardless, I will probably at least sound behind the times and therefore uncool since it must have come out a while ago "Oh, you hadn't seen that movie yet? What did you think of (other more recent Lynch film or acclaimed artsy foreign film that you probably haven't heard of)? Oh, you haven't seen it?" Damn I feel cynical today. More than usual.

Betaine

Oh dear, my webpage seems to have become haunted. Perhaps an update can chase the ghosts away. Things have been interesting since the wedding. The honeymoon was fabulous. Now, instead of getting used to domestic married life, I am living as a bachelor for the first time in two or so years. Lisa is off in a swamp in the midwest measuring gas levels, and I am holding down the fort in good old Springfield. Since I have little to do at home other than watch TV and decompose, I have been hitting the lab Carlson style. I don't think I have ever worked this hard in my life. Scientific productivity has been somewhat enjoyable, although having to attend to experiments all night for two nights in a row leaves me feeling rather zombie-like.....ZOMBIE SAYS MORE BRAINS IN SOUP!!!!!! On that note, off to lab I go.

Inebriometer

The fact that I am leaving at the end of next week has somewhat limited what I have been able to do in lab. I am still getting all of my stocks of flies grown up, so I don't really have enough of any of them to do any experiments. To avoid being an utter slacker for the past few days, I have been doing lots of research and reading about stress responses in drosophila. I have come across lots of fun studies...

When I get back from the wedding, I will be able to get my flies hopped-up on all kinds of stuff. I can hardly wait.

I just acquired "26 Mixes for Cash" by Aphex Twin. Thank the lord for hotline. Most of the remixes are essentially original Aphex Twin tracks with occasional samples from the original song. There are a couple of genuine 100% Aphex tracks on the album as well which are quite good. I say this album=enjoy.

Misanthrope

Every time I go to Hollywood Video, I end up fuming about what a disgusting mass of filth and stupidity the human race is. This happens because each time I enter this part of Springfield, I either nearly get run over by a 12 foot tall 4x4 pickup truck, or get drag-raced by a 16 year old in a pimped-out 1986 Honda civic with neon lights illuminating its undercarriage. I think that public transportation is a good idea not only because it will save the environment, but more because the majority of human beings give every indication of being too goddamn stupid to drive automobiles like civilized individuals. Arrrrgh.

On a happier note, the lab I am joining is going to buy me a laptop. The PI is encouraging us to wait until Apple introduces powerbooks based on the IBM PPC 970 chip. Various rumor sites predict that these notebooks will be released sometime between this month and March of 2004. I am giddy with anticipation.

Tabasco

I am in the middle of end of the quarter craziness. I spent the last week analyzing fake microarray data, making about 1,000 RGB images in Photoshop, and grading a painful number of papers. The only thing that has kept me going lateley is the hope of seeing this guy on my commutes to and from school:

What I first thought was a muskrat turned out to be a nutria after some intense web searching. Regardless of what it is, I am extremeley fascinated with it and any other pudgy aquatic rodent because they all closely resemble b3av0rz!!!1

P.S. these guys kick ass. Oh how I wish I had a welding torch and lots of time on my hands...

Burma Road

I recently had another spectacular weekend at Smith Rock.

I spent most of my time mountain biking since I was the only beginner climber in the group and have been needing to get on my bike for a while now. I watched Lisa and our friends climb quite a bit too. One of them almost redpointed a 5-14 route! Mountain biking in the desert is quite different than riding in rainforests of western Washington/Oregon. I kept feeling like I was going to fly off the side of the trail and perhaps over a cliff because there were no trees lining the path.

The ride was basically up and then down. The "up" part consisted of a horrific three-mile climb of pain up the aptly named Burma Road.

I wasn't too upset about the climb since a couple other molecular biology grad students and I are in the process of training for a half-marathon, so I need every workout I can get. After climbing the Burma Road, I decided to climb even more in order to get to the top of the tallest geographical feature in the area. The trail to the top of the peak was horrendously steep however, as well as covered in large loose rocks so I ended up pushing the bike to the top of the hill.

The view at the top of the hill was pretty damn nice. It was even better the next day I climbed it, but I didn't take a picture on that day (oops).

Since I was riding alone, I attempted to use the timer on my cheap digital camera to take a self portrait on the top of the peak, but the results were a bit questionable.

The ride back down was pretty intense. It involved a lot of fishtailing and praying that my front tire wouldn't wash out. At the bottom of the hill when I had come all the way down, my disk brakes smelled kind of funny. They are definitely broken-in now. Soon, my name will be "Mr. Nose-Wheelie", or perhaps (and more likely) "Mr. Painful Endo as a Result of an Attempted Nose-Wheelie".

In other news, I have decided on a lab for my Ph.D. research. Starting this summer, I will be working in the Johnson lab. I will probably be doing all kinds of wacky genomic/proteomic experiments involving exposing fruit flies to esoteric stresses. I am also going to be a part of the first ChIP-Chip experiments done on a “real” eukaryotic organism (i.e. something other than yeast).

Gordon

Several people, well... actually only J-4, has/have been asking about what I am doing in school these days. I am in the middle of my final rotation at the moment and am in the process of trying to decide on a lab to settle in for the next few years.

I am currently working on trying to establish zebrafish as a model organism for studying the roles of intestinal microflora in gut development. In humans, the number of bacteria living in the digestive tract is at least an order of magnitude greater than the number of cells in the human body, so it isn't surprising that this "normal flora" plays many important roles, including aiding in digestion, protecting us from all sorts of nasty pathogens, and is necessary for normal development. Historically, "germ-free" mice, rats, hamsters, and even kooky animals like cows and goats have been used to study the interactions between hosts and their microflora. Zebrafish have several advantages over the traditional model organisms used for studying these interactions. Namely, fish embryos and larvae are clear, lots is known about their development, and they reproduce frequently and mature quickly making them useful for all kinds of fun genetic techniques.

So, I have been looking at conventional and germ-free fish, attempting to see differences in cell proliferation (using BrdU labeling and/or antibodies to phosphorylated histone H3) and glycoconjugate expression on the surfaces of epithelial cells that line the lumen of the gut (using fluorescently conjugated lectins). All of my stains/antibodies are working, but raising germ-free fish has been a colossal pain in the ass. I either don't kill all the bacteria, or I kill both the bacteria and the embryos. I need to find a happy medium in my killing.

Here is a picture I took last week. Red is fluorescently conjugated soybean agglutinin (SBA), green is anti-BrdU, and blue is autofluorescence.

P.S. Anyone who can figure out why "Gordon" is the title of this entry gets a gold star.

B1k3 pr0n

Here, for no particular reason, is a picture of my bike. It was originally a 96 GT Ricochet, but it has since morphed and evolved extensively, and now all that remains from the original bike is the headset. It has gained a bit of weight lately, but it is worth it. Riding scary technical terrain is much more fun on a bike that feels indestructible.

Here are the specs for anyone that cares:
2001 19" Deep Cove Stiffee FR frame
2001 Marzocchi Z1 MCR fork with 5" of travel
2000 XT derailleurs, shifters, cassette, and cranks/bottom bracket
2002 Hope M4 disk brakes (big hunks of British-made machined billet aluminum)
Sun Singletrack rims (basically disk-only Rhyno-Lites) laced to XT Disk hubs with big fat spokes
Easton EA50 riser bar and seatpost
WTB Motoraptor tires or Wierwolfs depending on trail conditions
ODI lock on grips
SRAM PC-89 chain (way better than Shimano chains)
Specialized Body Geometry Comp seat (paid like $99 for it then J to the 4-cob got one for like $20 a week later)
Cheap-o Redline BMX platform pedals

Observation #2: Community Members

While I don't feel nearly as confident about the content of my lectures as I did last term in cell biology, being a TA for ecology and evolution has been a kick in the man-pants this quarter. I am relearning all sorts of things, and get to participate in activities seldom undertaken by molecular biologists such as wandering through the forests of western Oregon and picking up salamanders.

In other science news, look for an update in a couple of days in which I will describe the research I have been doing this term.

You'll never defeat Andross

I got an email from the sperm whale the other day. Apparently he is in a rock band these days, and is working on finishing a degree in electrical engineering at WWU. Attempting to think of the kinds of stuff Anderson will create with his electrical expertise makes my head hurt. I miss that guy. Does anyone remember the fateful day when we discovered that Unix had eaten Linux? The horror...

On a lighter note, here is a kick ass recipe that I call "Tasty Ginger-Mango Lassi of Joy". I am pretty sure that it is ultra healthy, and it tastes like God. It serves 3-4 people, depending on how much you want. I like to make it for dessert at night and refrigerate the leftovers for breakfast the next day. If you try it, comment and let the world know what you think.

*In a blender, combine: 3 cups of chopped peeled ripe mango, 1/2 cup of water, 1/3 cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons of chopped peeled fresh ginger, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and 2 cups (16oz) of low-fat vanilla yogurt.
*blend until smooth
*drink and feel joyful with the knowledge that you are tasting God.

Uh! What is it?

I have been walking past this chalkboard just about every day for the past month. Each and every time I see it, I must stop and ponder: who the hell made this horrific creation? What in god's name does it mean? It is in a hallway with a bunch of synthetic organic chemistry labs, so perhaps ether was somehow involved in its creation. Any ideas on what the significance of this piece of art might be?

vordhosbn

I discovered that I may have committed an ethical no-no today. Around lunch time, the Bio-Rad salesman was doing a product show down the hall, and I (as well as just about everyone else in the building) attended in order to partake in the precious free doughnuts and candy that were being offered. The salesman had this silly RC car composed of an electrophoresis power supply on wheels. He was inviting people to drive the car around the hallway, and was timing us as a kind of contest. The person with the best time won a $300 electrophoresis power supply, and the runners up (including myself) got to select from some other fabulous prizes including a CD boom box and a Weber charcoal grill. When it was all said and done, I was full of doughnuts and the proud owner of a new grill.

However, tonight I got an email from some administrative person at the Institute of Molecular Biology explaining how it is illegal for us (Oregon state employees) to accept "gifts" from companies. At the product show, no one was concerned about being corrupted and becoming puppets of Bio-Rad, but in hindsight, I sort of see the point of not accepting prizes from the corporate "man". What do you folks think about this? Should I throw my grill at the Bio-Rad salesman's head in disgust the next time I see him, or should I cook burgers (mmmmm burger) and gorge myself on beefy goodness with the barbeque device? discuss.

Smith

Another weekend, another entry. Lisa and I cruised over to eastern Oregon and went camping/rock climbing on Friday and Saturday. It was quite an enlightening experience. I learned all of the following things this weekend:
1) camping is still a kick in the pants
2) it is fun to hang out with goofy non-scientist rock climbing punks every now and then for a change
3) eastern Oregon owns eastern Washington (and western Oregon in some ways) and I need to go camping there more often
4) I still have the upper body strength of a 6 year old girl and thus still suck at rock climbing
5) Lisa still climbs absurdly well.

In other news, I found out today that the tech in my lab that is working on the same stuff that I am doing my rotation project on grew up in none other than Centralia Washington (the "sister city" of Chehalis). The only other former resident of Lewis County that I have run into down here was working for U-haul. The odds of ending up working on the same project in the same lab as a person that grew up in the same backwards corner of the USA as myself truly boggle the mind.

Pre

This has been a good weekend. I didn't do anything spectacular, just yardwork basically. I never thought I would actually enjoy yardwork, but this homeownership thing has done odd things to me. I actually take pride in my rose bushes for christ's sake! I even worry about the BMX punks next door crashing into them. Can you picture me shaking my fist and shouting "stay out of my damn rose bushes you punks"? Strange stuff.

I have also taken up running again. I am up to 6 miles a day, and am starting to get into decent shape. It is pretty easy to keep up the routine in Eugene since 90% of the people that live here are runners. I don't know if you guys remember my philosophy regarding other runners, but it can basically be summed up with the phrase "There can be only one". The only way for me to eliminate them is to pass them when I am running, thereby humiliating them and making them jump to their icy deaths off the Ferry St. bridge into the Willamette river. No, I'm not a competetive person at all...

Belay Order

As much as I have enjoyed being an enigmatic "ghost blogger" I am starting to think that the time has come for me to actually do something with this site. Believe it or not, I have never actually had any kind of website before, so this is pretty intimidating. I feel a huge obligation to post stuff that is interesting and profound... content that could bring together a diverse group of troubled teens in suburban Arizona to stand behind my website as a source of meaning for their turbulent lives, even in the face of persecution from the FCC and local high school principal (damn that was a good movie). Look for more genuine content in days to come. Until then, "talk hard".

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