Friday, October 27, 2006
200
So here we are, 200 posts. I briefly entertained the idea of making a list. But that fizzled out at about #35 so I will continue to bore you with my usual crap.

This week the department lab manager sent out an email telling us that we now have to write out the full chemical name (including water for H20) and all components on all bottles in order to pass inspections. The purpose of this is supposedly going to help firefighters who may have to come save us in the event of an emergency.

A. How is writing out things going to help a firefighter? As if they would know what Magnesium sulfate is, as opposed to MgSO4.
2. Why are firefighters reading labels anyway? If the lab catches fire it is gonna BURN with all the chemicals we have in there.
3. The whole point of shortening things is because chemicals have ungodly long names.
EDTA = Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. As if I want to write that all day long.
4. When I went to double-check the spelling SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate), I referred to the bottle the chemical company sent us. What does it say? SDS. Of course. Nowhere on the bottle does it have the unabbreviated version.
5. If a firefighter doesn't know that H20 = water, well, um, mayhaps they are in the wrong business.

Logic, people. What has happened to simple logic? Apparently "red tape" is more popular. Hmph.


Thursday, October 26, 2006
Meh
So you guys aren't impressed by my tree story? Hmph. You have no idea how hard it is to find good tree people. I called 50 million different arborists/landscape companies. About 1 million of them called me back. 500,000 of them don't speak english. 300,000 of them were too expensive. Out of those remaining, 10 had full-coverage insurance. 1 had a good receptionist person and so they got the job.

We've been planning the tree take down for a long time now. But you don't care so I will quit my yapping.

On an unrelated note, I'm popping Advil like candy (Dr's orders) and wearing the biggest wrist brace of all time in hopes that I'll magically be cured in 1 week. Somehow I visualize myself in therapy. Physical therapy, people! And I get to spend $600 to get new pipets for myself at work. If all else fails, I guess I have to get into a new line of work. And I will be asking PhoenixHearse for the hookup because it looks like she has the sweetest job ever made.

Speaking of PhoenixHearse, who recently had her 100th post, I am approaching my 200th post the next time I decide to log on and spew my meaningless crap at you all. Don't worry, I'm not going to post 200 pictures of junk that is laying around my house. If you have anything you'd like to request, I will take that into consideration. I'm just lucky I got this far. This damn wrist brace keeps hitting random keys and messing with where my cursor is. It's like drunk typing, but not as fun.

Ta Ta for now kiddos!


Monday, October 23, 2006
The Big Surprise
Now you see it:

Now you don't!


No more tree. Or bird poo. Or birds. Or nests. EVICTED!!!!!!!!

Seriously you guys are terrible guessers!!! Way off. No baby!!
Here are the in-progress pictures taken by my husband. By the way, he worked really hard at taking these and by stacking ALL THE WOOD by himself after they were done.






I take perverse pleasure in seeing this pic (above)









I was really worried that it would look bad after the tree was gone. But I think it looks much better. Now our Tres Sexy palms can have the front yard limelight all to themselves. I think they need a little recovery time too after being suffocated by that giant canopy.

By the way this is a GREAT way to start a neighborhood buzz because all the neighbors are nosey in their own ways and will wander over to see who/what/where/when/why & how the tree was taken down.

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Friday, October 20, 2006
Monday is a big day for us!!
I have a surprise for you all but I'm not going to tell you what it is. I will *show* you what it is on monday.

For now I will let you wonder and guess away at what it might be.


Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Dumb & Dumberer
Apparently someone in Kansas thinks Arizonans are dumb.

All I want to know is, since when has Kansas been qualified to make judgements about intelligence?

Just sayin'!


Monday, October 16, 2006
Freak Out!
As you can see I posted on the left hand side that I just finished reading Freakonomics. That is a half-truth. I read it a while back and recently re-read the last few chapters that I missed the first time around (it was due back at the library before I finished it. Odd. Usually I read very fast and devour my books.)

Anyway, aside from the interesting conclusions they come up with regarding abortion & crime, etc, I found it fascinating what they found out about parenting. You know how it goes, everyone has their own school of thought about how to raise kids and how to keep them safe as babies. Apparently, no matter how obsessive you are, your kids will turn out how they turn out. Most of the rules and safety devices exist to pacify the parents and to make money for the companies that produce said devices.

They discuss how people obsess over what to name their children; as if the name will affect their children's future success. What it all comes down to is, successful/smart people tend to have successful/smart kids and the names, books, schools and baby einsteins have nothing to do with it. Good. That will save me a lot of money on all that smart baby accessory crap.


Sunday, October 15, 2006
Mountain Trip
We just got back from our trip up to the mountains. The only problem is that they have more conifers rather than deciduous trees so the color changes were not quite what I expected.

PS you can click the photos for full-size view.







Stinky was not impressed by the cold temps at that elevation.












View from the Arizona Snowbowl







You can see the color changes a bit here.







I also have pics in my 35mm camera and they will probably be developed sometime next year. hehehe



Weird Neighbor
Evan met her when we first moved in but I didn't have the pleasure until saturday morning. I had been out in the yard planting my new penstemons and she and her 34 year-old daughter were in their front yard...doing stuff. She came over and introduced herself. She's a widow. Her daughter lives with her. She isn't married, but two of her four kids are. Blah Blah Blah.

Then it went downhill pretty fast:

neighbor lady (looking at my yard): "We have a lawn mower if you need to borrow one." Strike one.
me: "Thanks, but we have one. Our yard looks a bit rough because we had to replace our sewer line and our irrigation has been out for about a month."
neighbor lady: "The people who lived there before took really good care of their yard." Strike Two

Um hello!! I was out there this morning working on it. I'M WORKING ON IT!!! She can sit there all smug with her stupid rock lawn that doesn't look immaculate or anything and be alllll snide about my yellow grass (that coincidentally isn't even that long!) I should have asked her daughter if she needed to borrow a razor for her five o'clock shadow. Hmph.

Well now that I know what we're dealing with I will be much better equipped to handle her in the future.


Friday, October 13, 2006
Big Weekend
I'm already exhausted...

Tomorrow morning i'm getting up at the buttcrack of dawn to hit the botanical garden fall plant sale. I'm going to try my hand at gardening a bit. The good thing about Phoenix is you can grow pretty much anything, you just have to know when to plant it. Because the winters are so mild, now is the perfect time to plant a lot of stuff. I've got my sights set on some Penstemons for the area formerly-known-as-the-planter-box. I'd also like to get some herbs, probably just rosemary for now. If anything else along the way strikes my fancy then it will probably find its way to my cart. Hopefully my yard will look a little less crappy after tomorrow.

So in preparation of plant day tomorrow, I spent this afternoon prepping the soil. I threw down some mulch and painted that half-done piece of wood where the planter box used to be. Sounds easy/basic but my hands are somehow still dirty and my back is killing me. I'm now accepting applications for lawn boys.

I have to go into work to finish up an experiment after I get my plants. Boo. At least I can totally rock out in the lab because there won't be too many people around. I don't know what it is, maybe it's the humming of the air handlers or the apparent privacy my ensemble offers that makes me want to bust a move to my Ipod when I'm in there.




this is what i look like


(this isn't really me)



It makes the time go by quicker at least. Oh and BTW if you couldn't tell I don't professionally bake/ice cakes or work for the united nations. I get paid to manipulate a variety of infectious diseases. I'm a lab rat.
After I get home I have to plant my beloved little plants. And then we are going to roadtrip it up to the mountains. FALL COLORS!!!! Stinky is coming along too. She loves a good car trip. Hopefully I'll have some good pics when we get back.
On that note, I am so excited for halloween. SO EXCITED! Every year for the past several years I have purchased a large bag of candy in anticipation of halloween. And every year those kids foil my plans by driving their cute little costumed selves to some fancy subdivision. Last year I had one piddly trick or treater...and she was bigger than me! Now that we are out of apartments those kids will be coming to my house! I need to start building up our reputation now...we don't want to be a lame house on the route.
That's all for now kiddies. Have a good weekend!




Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Let's Do Lunch
Lunch is always an exciting time at work. I plan all my experiments around lunchtime. Partially because I'm usually dying of hunger by noon but also partially because group lunch is a hoot!!

The people I work with are an interesting mix. There are people from France, Italy, Albania, Algeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, China, India, Canada, Chile, Columbia, and the UAE. I hope I didn't forget anybody. Anyway, the vast majority are from China. And there is nothing more fun than sitting with a table full of Chinese people discussing anything.

They always want to know what everyone else is having for lunch. "Oh what do you have today? Looks good!" Never before has my PB&J looked so exotic. Xiamin recently discovered pizza. He also discovered they were on sale at the grocery store. He looked like a kid on Christmas day.

I think it may be a cultural thing, but the Chinese do not appear to find money/finance discussions taboo at all. If you get a new haircut, they drown you in their admiration and of course they must know the cost. "Did you just buy a house? How much?" "Where did you get that spinach dip? Costco? Oh I love Costco. How much was it??"

Costco is another thing. Now, I love Costco. But there is something special in almost every Asian I've met that draws them to Costco like a magnet. In my old lab there were 2 Japanese postdocs and the first thing they wanted to do once we got to San Diego was get a Costco membership.

Aside from the Costco deals, exotic food and finance there are also great stories to be shared. A woman in my lab was raised in Communist China. She didn't learn english until she was 30. Wei wasn't allowed to play Mah Jong there so she doesn't even know how to. I think we need to get a lab Mah Jong game so we can play during the lulls.

I think I need more exciting lunches. They are expecting the PB&J now. I'll wait until the group gets in a rut. Maybe i'll knock their socks off with some soup or a burrito.



--------------------------------------------------
10-12-06

I brought some tuna casserole today. The crowd went wild!!!!


Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Blah Blah Blah
I don't have anything useful or funny to contribute today.

Except: My coworker swears she saw frost the other morning. Riiiiight.

I need to go see a doctor because I've developed a repetitive strain injury from pipeting too much at work.








I have 3 different pipetters that can suck up volumes from 1 ML to 0.25 microliters. They are all similar in that they make my wrist hurt because I use them all day long. They have a cool little eject button to get rid of dirty tips but that just adds to the strain.







People are always bitching about how biotech is all about making money & taking from the little people. I've even heard of people who truly believe we have the cure to cancer and we're keeping it hidden from the public. ::shaking my head:: Well people, here you have it; I am sacrificing my WRIST for the advancement of science. The next person to blame the downfall of all things sacred on science will be beat with my wrist brace.

And if I find out the lab next door to us has the cure for repetitive strain injuries they will incur a beating as well.


Monday, October 09, 2006
Summer is over!
It has finally started to cool down. Our last 100 degree day was a week or two ago. We had over 100 days of 100+ degree temperatures. I know it sounds unbearable but it's really quite lovely. It has cooled to the mid 80's and there is NO WAY I'm getting in the pool. Way too cold. In fact, I wore my sweatshirt to walk across campus today.


Soon it will be in the 60's and 70's and the students will have their mittens and scarves on. Hopefully in the coming weeks we'll make a weekend trip up to the mountains to see the fall colors. This is what they looked like about a week ago:
















www.thearb.org
photo by Kristen Novo

So beautiful!


Friday, October 06, 2006
Congratulations to Heather
She is now officially non-employed! Now that she has approximately 40+ more hours available, she should swing by my place and hang out.

And regarding the post below...you guys will be the first to know when I am expecting.














That is an outright bold-faced lie.

Seriously...you guys will probably among the last to know. But it's all good. I can post belly pics so we can all revel in my increasing fat-ness.


Thursday, October 05, 2006
This post is for Lou
I just wanted to let her know that my employer has added a benefit that would give me 6 weeks 100% paid leave after the birth of a baby or adoption of a child. FYI.


Monday, October 02, 2006
My Weekend
As if you care!

Regardless; my blog, my weekend.
Now you see it:

Now you don't:



As usual, Stinky helped.

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Sunday, October 01, 2006
I think I have a conehead
I can't wear headbands like this. I think they are cute, esp if you have your hair up.
They always slide off. Hence the proposed conehead.

Oh well. You win some, you lose some.


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