Data!

Hey, look! A chlorophyll phenotype! The black line is wild-type, the red line is my mutant, and the green line is what you get when you add back DMB to the medium. Trust me, it's awesome. :-)

Anyway, stuck at the lab 'til midnight tonight. Cursed protein is mighty damn slow, and I need those 10, 12 and 14 hour time points. I have beer, a book, and a banjo, though so life is good. My career is weird, but fun.

I finally picked up Scientific Method in Practice by Hugh Gauch from the library today. Chris Jones had recommended it last time I was in Ithaca (lo, these many moons ago), and I finally remembered it while over at Steenbock. It's a textbook on the history, philosophy, and fundamental principles of science. You'd figure that sort of stuff would be standard in a scientific education, but you'd be wrong. It promises to be an interesting and valuable read. We'll see how it goes. The first chapter is good.

Wascally Wabbit!

Cursed wildlife! Something (presumably a bunny) climbed into my herb planter and ate the baby parsley plant! Grrr. Time to unleash the hounds!

I suppose I should be happy that bunnies don't seem to like cilantro, basil, oregano, or thyme, but still, I could have used that parsley. And now there's an empty spot right in the middle of the planter. Sigh.

Microbiologists in the mountains

Here's a picture of all the microbiologists who were at the conference in Colorado. A fine bunch of folks. It's always nice to spend a few days in a crowd which appreciates drunken jokes about sporulation...

I'm making a very goofy face in this picture, but luckily it's hard to see at this resolution.

What! No Pictures?

The thrilling excitement of my life is such that I am reduced to blogging while I wait for three small bottles of clear liquid to cool down to room temperature so I can put bacteria in them. Woo-hoo! Also, Anita is convinced that I go to work only to spite her.

Regardless, great fun and progress is being made. I bought some little baby herb plants at the farmer's market and planted them in a big half whiskey barrel outside the kitchen door today. Hopefully they'll grow up to be tasty. The herb man (hereafter referred to as "Herb") was pretty helpful, and said that I'd probably be able to start picking things in a month or so. I've got cilantro, parsley, oregano, thyme, and two kinds of basil. Mmm. Thanks, Herb!

We also rented the new (well, newish) Battlestar Galactica miniseries and watched through the first half of it last night. Good stuff so far. Definitely an improvement over the original, despite my fond memories of channel 24 Saturday afternoon bad sci-fi marathons... (Original Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Buck Rogers, back to back. It was a gloriously mind-numbing way to spend a geeky afternoon.) If it continues to be this good, we may be forced to rent the TV series, too.

All right. That should do it. Excuse me while I return to my regularly scheduled toying-with-the-very-stuff-of-life.

I'm Back!

I have returned from an extremely successful and surprisingly isolated scientific conference in the mountains of Colorado! No more 900-mile road trips for me anytime soon. Sleeping in my own bed is also a plus.

It was an excellent trip for animal-spotting. I personally saw:
• cows (lots and lots of cows)
• horses
• a pony
• sheep
• goats
• llamas
• turkeys
• a truck full of pigs
• donkeys (both miniture and full sized)
• an ox (in a truck labeled "Mormon Ox Association")
• buffalo
• 3 camels (in Wyoming, hanging out with a herd of buffalo)
• deer
• pronghorn antelope (they're so cute!)
• elk (up close and personal in the parking lot of the lodge)
• mule deer
• a bighorn sheep
and, after nearly giving up hope in the farmers of America,
• chickens!

A successful journey, all in all. And now, back to work!

Hooray!

We just got back from Dan and Amanda's wedding in Oklahoma. It was a really beautiful ceremony, and we had a tremendously good time. Congratulations, guys!

We stayed two nights at Amanda's parents' house, along with pretty much everyone else. It was cozy, and Amanda's parents are clearly the sweetest, most accomodating people in the entire world. No one got bitten by any of the poisonous critters scurrying about, and it was generally a spectacular success.

Oh, and for my parents, here's a picture of me and Anita all dressed up and looking respectable:

And now I need to go pack. I'm off to a conference in Colorado tomorrow. Busy, busy...