Belated Blogging

Whew. Busy week. Lots of science and unpacking and whatnot. I will have bunches of before and after pictures of our spiffy new place, but first, it's time to do a little catching up!

A few weeks ago, my parents came to visit us in Madison. It was loads of fun. They stayed at the Chaucerian bed and breakfast downtown, and we spent most of the trip exploring the restaurants of Madison. Bandung (the Indonesian place) and the Great Dane (which serves a mean bratwurst) were big hits.

We also went to the Farmer's Market, which was (as always) a source of great amusement. We even bought vegetables! Here's a picture of me and my Dad sitting by the Capitol. Kind of eerie, isn't it?

Another fun thing we did was go to the Olbrich Botanical gardens, which are quite lovely. They were having a Thai cultural festival at the pavilion, and there was lots of entertainment, including dancing girls with extremely funny hats.


We relaxed a bit after the festival over in the new rose garden, and Anita and I went up on the funny little decorative tower while my parents cleverly rested in the shade. We did snap a picture of them from up there, though, which doesn't nearly do justice to my Mom's classy hat. Sarah and I got it for her, and she wears it to embarass us, but it doesn't work! Our upbringing has rendered us immune to mere embarassment!

More blogging excitement soon!

The Sad Saga of the Moronic Squirrel

(to the tune of "Charlie on the MTA")

Let me tell you of the story of a squirrel named Larry
It's a tragic and fateful tale
And it will serve as a warning to every squirrel who ever goes out
On the Atwood Bicycle Trail

Chorus:
Did he ever return? No he never returned,
And his fate is still unlearned.
Did he run into the bushes or did he fly straight up to heaven?
He's the squirrel who never returned!

Larry went out to the Atwood Community Garden
To steal some tasty snacks
And as he sat a-munching, a bicycle came rolling towards him
And Larry froze right in his tracks!

Chorus

He dodged to the left, and he dodged to the right,
Then he let out a little squeal,
Then he ran to the right, and faked to the left,
Then threw himself under my back wheel

Chorus

Larry disappeared, and his fate's uncertain
Does he live to frolic in the phlox?
Or did he climb right up the oak tree of Jordan
'Cause he was dumber than a bag of rocks?

Chorus x 2

Off To A Jolly Good Start

Oy. I have a bad feeling about today.

So, my new commute is a five-mile bike ride, which is normally no problem - good exercise, mostly on bike trails, a nice way to start the day. Ok, fine. Except this morning, about half a mile on, I swerved to miss some stuff in the road, and the edge of the sidewalk reached out, caught my front tire, and took me down. Many martial arts classes worth of falling practice paid off, and I came away more or less unscathed - a bit of the road in the palm of my hand, a serious grass-stain on the shoulder of a fairly nice T-shirt - but when I picked up the bike, I noticed something was awry.

Specifically, the handlebars were at a 45° angle to the front tire. Not ideal. Anyway, I walked back home, got a wrench, and after a great deal of muttering and puzzling, managed to figure out what needed loosening and what needed a good whack to get it all back in alignment. Tightened the thing back up, and hit the road again.

Arrived at work a good hour late, which is fine, except I need to purify a protein today, which I don't know how to do, and I was planning on lots of time to figure it all out.

Oops. speaking of which, I'd better go pull it out of the centrifuge. Remind me to tell you the sad saga of the Moronic Squirrel some time.

Moving

Movers have moved the stuff without apparent disaster. Cats are freaked the heck out - one is under the bed, one is behind the toilet. I am at the lab, working, dammit.

Will soon attempt to figure out how to bike to the new place from here. If no word in 3 weeks, please call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Non sequiturs, etc.

Well, we've more or less recovered from entertaining my parents over the weekend. It was lots of fun, but tiring. I should have a more comprehensive report with exciting pictures soon. However, this week is devoted to getting packed and moving into our new place on the east side of town. It's a fantastic place, and we're very excited, but there's a tremendous amount of work to do. Pfui.

In the meantime, here's a picture of Kaiyo when he was just a little guy. (He is, of course, a rather larger guy now, but I've been scanning some old photos lately.)