I’m turning off dear ol’ lappy in a few minutes to pack him away. We’re almost completely ready to leave. I just need to finish packing my backpack and double-check that I have everything. Or enough of everything. It’s not like we’re going to climb Everest or anything…there are stores, etc. if needed.
I’ll write and post pictures as I can. Worst case, I’ll type to you guys in about eight days. Have a nice week, everybody!
We’re almost ready to leave, I think. I still need to pack, but all of the laundry is done and I have a decent idea of what I’m taking. I’ve got enough meds so that’s not a worry. We’ve got cash and maps and some snackerels. What else do we need?
I’m sitting at the ‘puter right now migrating a bunch of junk onto the external drive I bought months ago, then never did anything with. I found some nice instructions for moving my iTunes library onto the external drive, and am copying pictures, miscellaneous writings, and all of my lab data. Better safe than sorry, right? Blah, blah, blah.
Sorry. That was an almost terminally boring last paragraph. I’ve deleted and retyped it twice now but decided to leave it in. It’s my blog and I’ll be boring if I want to! 
I finally set up Guitar Hero the other night (Guitar Hero II, actually) and have been having fun rocking out. I totally suck at anything other than the easy difficulty, but I’m working on it. I like many of the songs that I can play so far and am looking forward to what I can unlock in the future. I guess I could go searching, but I’d rather be unspoiled as much as possible.
Okay, this was a pointless post. Typical blog fodder, I suppose. I’m going to go try and get my suitcase packed while Emma watches the end of Magnum, so maybe I can get a little more shredding in before we go.
Emma and I went down to Orlando this morning (far too freaking early after crawling into bed at 2 last night) and spent some time with Emma’s best friend Susy and her new baby (four weeks old today!). Can I tell you what a super cute baby this is? Okay, so perhaps this first picture doesn’t quite do her justice, but she just woke up! She was very sleepy!
She’s absolutely freaking adorable, even if all she does at this point is sleep, eat, and poop. That’s really not such a bad life, eh? She slept for most of the time that we were there, but that was okay.
We also got to visit with Susy, which was great. It’s been a few months since we got to spend much time with her, seeing as she just had a baby and all. Silly baby, not letting mommy drive to Gainesville with you in her belly.
I got to hold her for a little while, too. I even got to feed her a little, but she was mostly just sleepy.
Too cute! Part of Susy’s family came in the afternoon, so we didn’t stay very long. It’s a little overwhelming for Susy, I think, having all of these people clamoring to see the baby. We had a really nice visit, though, and I think we’re going to go back down for a day after we’re back from our trip.
So we need to get Hannah a UF outfit. Susy’s sister Viv just finished orientation at FSU and they brought a hideous red pair of overalls with the logo on the front. Plus, Dad’s family is from Virginia so Hannah has at least one Virginia Tech outfit, so we need to rescue her. 
What we really want to do is get her an MIT outfit, because she’s going to be the genius baby. We’ve decided.
Today is my last day of work before I head off on vacation, and I have absolutely *no* desire to do anything productive. I was hella-lazy this morning and didn’t leave home until just after 9 (usually I’m at work by 8:30, tops), but it actually turned out well for me. There was a fire drill in my building today, so when I rolled down the big hill on my bike I was greeted by a large crowd milling around outside and the faint sound of a klaxon. I still had to wait outside while they cleared the building (although I think they just make people wait outside for a random amount of time, then let them back in) and then got my daily stair climb in. Good times.
Item number two: my friends are bums. Or, perhaps I have fewer friends than I thought I did. I invited about 25 or 30 people from school over to the house tonight for dinner and early-summer festivities. Know how many responses I’ve received? About 6. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve received exactly one response to my email. The rest are from people I had already invited in person (namely, the people I actually see on a daily basis). *sigh* I’m trying not to let it get to me, but I’m failing. I just feel so fucking isolated much of the time and thought this would be a fun way to spend time with people I like in an non-work or non-class setting. Feh.
Okay, enough navel-gazing. Item number three: trip preparations. As I mentioned above, this is my last day before a week and a half of road tripping with my wife. Woo!
You know (back to the party stuff), I don’t think I would be nearly as bothered if everybody wrote back saying they already had plans. I know it’s Memorial Day weekend so some people are going home and others are going on a grad school camping trip (that I completely spaced about when picking this weekend to have people over). But nothing? Grrr. Anyway.
Sorry about that. Back to the trip. Woo! Vacation! I’m trying to get things cleaned up and organized at work today so I don’t come back to a huge pile of disorganized crap after the trip. It’ll just be a moderately large pile of disorganized crap. I need to do some cleaning and equipment maintenance before I go and make a backup of my lab data in case something horrific happens to my computer on the trip.
Oh, so yeah, I’m going to have my laptop on the trip, but mostly I plan to use it for picture storage. I don’t know how much of a chance I’ll have to check my email or blog while we’re going. I’d like to post pictures as we go, but we’ll have to see how realistic that is. Probably not terribly.
The other things I need to do before I leave today involve making lists. I need to make a list of things I’d like “my” undergrad to work on while I’m gone so we can hit the ground running when I get back. Mostly probe testing, that sort of thing. The other list I want to make is one of my current projects and the next few experiments and things to do for each one. I feel like I’ve got about a million things I’m doing right now and am afraid that projects are slipping through the cracks. I think I’m on the verge of gathering a lot of useful data and don’t want to miss any opportunities.
I’ve got a bunch of “fun” reading to take with me on the trip. I had been planning on taking my pile of papers to read, which is about three inches thick at the moment, but have recently changed my mind. Instead, I’m printing out all of the recent PWS/AS papers and am going to re-read them. Most of these papers I haven’t looked at in a few years, so I’m sure there’s a lot of information I’ve missed. I’m going to try to take notes on each one and may be able to start writing my thesis introduction, which would be awesome to have out of the way. I’ve got a bunch of recent review articles as well, but most of it is primary literature…mouse models (with or without phenotypes), case reports, that sort of thing.
Otherwise, I think we’re mostly prepared. We still need to pack, of course, but we’re not leaving until Tuesday. We’ve got our maps and junk from AAA and have heard from everybody we’re planning on visiting. One of these years we’ll get to northern Michigan, Julie, I promise. Some summer, I think…I don’t think I could handle a northern Michigan winter.
I’m about done burning a set of mixed CDs for the trip. I don’t think that Emma will hate *all* of the music. I’m going to try to introduce her to a little nerdcore, so we’ll see how that goes. Just a little of tha Front. Nothing major. Oh, I should probably quickly type up the contents, because I’m never going to remember.
Okay, time to do a little work. I’m planning to knock off a little early so I can take a shower and straighten up a little before people come over. Happy Friday! Don’t forget: dinner at my house tonight at about 6:30 or 7. I’m planning on grilling — we bought hamburgers and hot dogs (as well as their vegetarian equivalents) and some great-looking corn. The weather should be good, too, so hopefully people can hang out both inside and outside of the house. Email me if you’re planning on coming, so I’ll know if I need to make an emergency Publix run.
Emma and I had a couple friends over last night to play Risk, one of whom had never played before. Guess who lost? Guess who got his ass completely handed to him? If you guessed that I did, you’re right!
I was pretty stupid in my original set-up. I gambled that I could quickly dominate Asia while Emma and Chris fought over the Americas and Deborah was bottled up in Australia. Yeah, not so much. In my first battle, my 10+ Chinese armies lost to Deborah’s 4 in India, and then it was downhill from there. If I had managed to win that battle, the outcome may have been different (but probably not). By losing that battle, I was suddenly too thinly spread out along my other borders to attack and only barely strong enough to defend some of the territories. Within three turns — not more than four — I was gone.
It was a small comfort that Emma was the next person out, because she usually wins when we play. Not much of a comfort, though, because I was already out. Deborah put up a decent battle for a while, but then Chris swarmed over Asia and routed her back to New Guinea, where he magnanimously offered her a truce. “Go live with the native tribes,” he offered. Heh.
Here are Deborah, Emma, and Chris (clockwise from left) just after Chris’ rampage through Asia. He is yellow (and green), she is red.
Then, on his next turn, poor Deborah had little chance.
Even though I got royally creamed, I had a good time. We’ll totally have to do this again in the future, and maybe then I’ll be a little better. Asia is just not something you can win early in the game. Focus on Australia, Africa, and South America first, then work northward. Lesson learned.
Look who popped into my office this afternoon. I wonder if it’s because we bought car insurance from Geico last night?
I’ve got a bunch of pictures to share with you guys today. As usual, the larger-sized pictures are available on my Flickr page.
First and foremost, a picture of Emma with our new car.
Isn’t she cute?
Next, how about a garden update? I mentioned the other day that we had ash falling from recent wildfires, so I went out a took a picture before it washed away. All of the gray flecks are bits of ash that fell.
Otherwise, the garden is doing very well. The cucumber bed is doing exceptionally well and the tomatoes are coming along nicely. As Emma said the other day, we’re going to be eating a lot of Greek salads this summer. Now if only I liked tomatoes…
Next I’d like to share with you a little bit about our local squirrels and the hard lives they lead. We buy snooty bird seed from the local Wild Birds store, which comes in convenient, resealable plastic bags. We’ve been keeping the bags on the breezeway with all of the other animal food. About a week ago when I went out to feed the chickens, I noticed that somebody had chewed through the bag and had eaten a little of the seed, scattering a few sunflower seeds around the floor. ‘Stupid cats can’t catch a mouse,’ I thought to myself and moved the feed up higher, where I thought it wouldn’t be accessible. A few days later, the bags had been knocked to the floor and a larger hole bitten open. ‘Smart mouse,’ I thought to myself. ‘Or perhaps an ROUS?’ Shortly after that, Emma and I bought a plastic box to keep the birdseed in, thinking that would end the pilfering. Not so. The very next day after we moved the birdseed into the plastic box, they started attacking the box, chewing off the soft plastic handle in the first 24 hours. At this point, I start to suspect that it’s something bigger than mice, but squirrel has not entered my mind. Yet. The next day, there’s a tiny little hole where the handle used to attach (which is across the floor, thank you very much). The day after that, look what I walked out to discover:
As there wasn’t a mouse or two now trapped in the birdseed container, I finally wise up to the idea that squirrels are getting into the breezeway. I haven’t yet fixed the hole in the screen that they’re getting in through, because a few days later I saw how tough their life is.
Earlier this spring I put up a birdfeeder on a wrought iron hook outside of my office, where I could see it when I was working. A few birds got to eat from it, but quickly the squirrels discovered that they could knock it off of the hook completely and eat all of the seed, rather than just a little bit at a time. ‘Fine,’ I said to myself, ‘if the squirrels are going to eat the seed, we should at least get some amusement out of it.’ So I hung the feeder in a shrub just outside of the front window where the cats could watch the squirrels (one of their favorite hobbies) and the squirrels wouldn’t be able to knock the feeder down. Yesterday morning the cats were at their usual posts, watching what I assumed was a squirrel eat from the feeder.
After I got my camera, I realized what was going on. A tiny little bird was eating from the feeder and scaring the squirrels away! Although the bird was small, its chirp was huge and was enough to fend off the hungry squirrel. It would eat a little, look over its shoulder, chirp at the approaching squirrel, then eat a little more and repeat the cycle.
The poor squirrel was stuck up high in the bush until the bird few away, fifteen minutes later.
With this in mind, I’m not begrudging the squirrels their birdseed thievery, at least not for the time being. I’m going to go find a better box, though. Let’s see them break into that…
Well, that’s probably enough pictures for now. I’m going to go take a little nap then get back to work cleaning the house. Emma invited her ex-boyfriend over on Sunday to play Risk, so I invited a friend of mine (well, both of ours, actually) to help serve as a buffer. Hey! If you play Risk and want to come over, send me an email for directions. We’re starting at about 4. Game on.
At last I can tell what I was so excited about earlier this week. Emma and I bought a new car! It’s a 2007 white Toyota Matrix. Technically it’s not a new car — it has about 14k miles — but it has been a long-term demo car; we’re her first owners. Whee!
So for several years now I’ve been saying to Emma that she should see the Matrix, that I thought it was a car she’d really like. She loves hatchbacks and cars with four doors, and here’s a four-door hatchback! Plus it’s a Toyota, so it’s built well, will get decent gas mileage, and should be pretty reliable. Years, I tell you.
Tuesday afternoon, Emma picked me up from work. We’re driving to find an early dinner when she says to me, “The Toyota Matrix is a really cute car. Have you seen it?” Years, I tell you. I’m glad to know how well she listens. (Love you, honey)
So she takes me to dinner at Hops, a chain restaurant but one that brews its own beer. Two glasses of Powder Horn Pilsner later (in me, not in her) we’re driving to the dealership to “look” at a Matrix. We didn’t have any intention of actually buying a car. But then we saw the car, took it for a test drive, and Emma fell in love. Half an hour later we’re talking with a closer about price. Half an hour after that, we’re talking with the financing guy, and before we know it, we’re driving it home (well, after making a down payment, of course).
The whole thing is still pretty unreal. I can’t believe they just let us take the car after signing a few papers. And they’ve let us keep it. Nobody’s shown up saying, “Sorry, we made a big mistake.” Yeah, Emma’s a doctor, but it’s not like she’s getting paid a huge amount of money. And we’ve got some pretty serious debt between our credit cards and her med school loans. I think we got a pretty decent deal. It’s basically a new car and we got it for a few thousand dollars less than an actual new car. It’s an automatic — which is slightly suboptimal — but it’s ours. Power steering, power locks, power windows (so we need to buy a car hammer and stick it in the glove box).
The car is Emma’s, naturally. She’s going to be paying for it with her moonlighting, so it seems only fair. We kept the Saturn as a beater car, for me to drive around town as needed.
Pictures to come tomorrow!
Earlier, I implied that my 31st birthday would be the start of my fourth decade. Clearly that was just a brain fart because I was of course 0 years old at one point in time. Duh. We regret the error.
So I’m thinking about getting a tattoo. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for several years now. Why haven’t I gotten one yet? Easy. I’m a wuss. Time to get over it. Well, soon. My plan is to donate blood again in early September (a double red again), then get a tattoo for my birthday. I guess it might have been a little more appropriate to get one last year, on my 30th birthday, but oh well. I’ll start the fourth decade of my life with a tattoo.
The question, of course, is what to get? I don’t want just some boring flash or some lame barbed wire on my arm. I’ve got a couple lines of thought and figured I could solicit my friends’ (and random internet strangers’) opinions about them.
First, I really dig the Yggdrasil/world tree imagery and have been thinking about that on a shoulder. I found this picture somewhere online and think it’d be pretty cool. I really like the light/dark theme, almost like a yin-yang but not quite as commonplace.
But then I was thinking, why not be nutty and get something really cool? I found this image online recently and really dig it, but would want to make some adjustments. Emma says I can’t have the boobs in the center and I think I’d want it a little shorter on my arm so it would be mostly covered by a short-sleeve shirt. Not that I think most people really care anymore, but still.
So that’s one idea. My biggest problem with the second one is that it’s so large. I’m a wuss, remember?
Second, and this is what I’ve been really hot on lately, is some sort of biomech tat. I’m a huge fan of biomech and steampunk imagery…I think it looks hella-awesome. A few months back I saw a cool text-under-peeling-skin tattoo on BoingBoing and thought it’d be cool to do something similar, but have a mechanical appearance underneath. After a bit of Google Image searching, dig what I found:
I hadn’t considered an ankle/leg tattoo, but damn, that looks awesome. I had been thinking about something similar on one shoulder, with a joint and cables and cool crap like that “underneath”. And check this out. Earlier today I found some pictures of tattoos with a UV/blacklight-sensitive ink. How awesome would that be if the cables would glow under UV? This cross tat is the best example I found of how the ink looks.
I don’t want the cross, of course, but isn’t that great?
The third idea is some sort of a raven. I really like the raven myths and there’s this fantastic, nihilistic poem by Coleridge that I love called “The Raven”. Yes, I know there’s another, more famous poem, but this one’s pretty sweet. Plus there’s a lot of raven imagery in the Norse mythos, which would fit nicely with the Yggdrasil/world tree tat. Actually, in the top left of the first image there’s a raven flying away from the tree which breaks the symmetry of the tattoo. I know it’s hard to tell that that smudge is a raven but it is. Trust me.
So what do you think? Any suggestions? I’m really leaning towards the biomech tat at this point, especially if our local tattoo parlor has the UV ink.
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