All About Me - How Exciting!!

Hello folks! A lot has happened since my last post. We're reaching opening night for DARWIN IN MALIBU, so we've been really busy with that. We had a really great rehearsal last night. I'm so glad I decided to do this show.

I won a raffle last month and got $5. It was a "pay it forward" raffle. I hid the money on top of the fridge while I decided what to do with it. I thought maybe I could stuff it in one of those cans by the cash register. Maybe I could get it changed to quarters and walk through town putting coins in expired parking meters. Unfortunately, Ricky found the $5 and took it. Boo.

Random thought - It really is strange for people to like cats considering that they are a major primate predator. - end of random thought

We had a bit of an emergency earlier. Ricky caught the kitchen on fire. It's not bad, but the microwave is toast and we haven't been able to cook. I think we'll have it together over the weekend.

I've been on the verge of exhaustion lately. I can tell when I've reached my limit. I drove down to Maryland last weekend. Drove down on Sat and drove back on Sun. It was awful. I spent the evening at Horn Point dumping samples and the morning at the house. We still have some stuff there. I turned off the water and brought in the ACs. I also emptied the mail box. I'm so sick of that stupid house. I wish someone would just buy the stupid thing. Anyhow, I hate driving that much.

Wow, my blog is really boring. I should put some thought into my posts or have a theme or something.

We've had a tough time here this past week. Ricky's grandfather died a week ago. He flew down the friday before and he died on a Sunday morning. Nate and I flew down the following Wed. for the wake and funeral. The service was nice. We saw a lot of people we haven't seen in a long while. Too bad we only seem to see people at funerals. I think we'll go back for Christmas, but the credit card is smokin' a little right now. I enjoyed seeing all the nieces and nephews, which reminds me, I have birthday present shopping to do. We all flew back last Sunday. Somewhere along the way I picked up a horrible, mutant virus. I called in sick Monday, but I still feel crappy. I'm really tired and aggravated with feeling this way. Some good news is that my NOAA letter of intent was recommended for submission of a full proposal. I have a conference call on Tuesday and then I'll get to work on it. I feel pretty good about it.
On a completely unrelated note, I heard a bit on NPR about Alex the parrot. He was an African Grey and was subjected to the same sorts of cognitive studies that primates were being subjected to, only parrots can talk. He was able to identify all kind of objects and colors and shapes and demonstrated that birds were in fact much smarter than originally thought. Anyhow, his handler said he had trouble with the word "paper" because he didn't have lips. That got me thinking about how different language would be if the speakers didn't have lips. There would be no "p", "v" or "b" sounds.

Things are up in the air at our house right now. Ricky's maternal grandfather is doing very poorly. He's pushing 90 years old and has been dragging lately. We were told last Monday that the doctor had given him 6 months. Then on Thursday we find out that he wasn't expected to make it through the week. If that wasn't bad enough, we were sitting in Cape Cod traffic on our way to Provincetown for the day. I had taken the day off work - the first one all summer. (Something horrible seems to happen every time I try to take a day off. I think I'm cursed.) We stopped at a public library in Eastham and booked a plane ticket for Ricky to fly out the next day. We still went to Provincetown and enjoyed ourselves. They were having a parade that day. I have lots of wonderful pics, but I'm not sure if it's the kind of thing I want on my quasi-work-related facebook page. Anyhow, I took Ricky to Boston yesterday morning to catch an 8:30a flight. Right before he arrived in New Orleans his grandfather was detached from everything and taken from the hospital to a nursing home. Ricky went straight there. He called late last night to let me know what's going on. I think he's going back again today. Nate and I are still in Mass and waiting to hear what we should do. I'm 99.9% sure we'll be going down for a funeral, but I don't know exactly when, which makes my calendar a little crazy. I think we're all hoping it doesn't drag out too long. It's quite different when this happens to an older family member. Everyone is focused on making the person comfortable rather than being too upset. When Ricky's aunt suddenly died back in May it was more of a shock than anything, but very upsetting.

I'm just sitting around, waiting to leave for rehearsal (for those of you who don't know, I got a part in Cotuit Center for the Arts upcoming show, DARWIN IN MALIBU) and thought I would blog about something that occurred to me the other day. A friend of mine from high school found a gecko in his office and wanted to take it home. He asked me if this was a species he could take home and feed and basically make a pet out of it. I, of course, went through my spiel about how much work it takes to care for a reptile because of their special nutrition requirements and the additional problem of convincing a wild-caught animal to thrive under captivity. Then I started really thinking about it. Maybe cats and dogs seem easy to care for to us because we're mammals too. What if there were humanoid reptiles (kind of like that show V, remember that?) trying to take care of mammal pets. Would they think we (we meaning mammals, not Homo sapiens) were easy or hard? These reptiles would keep their houses hot and humid and have lots of skylights. They would probably not keep their food in a refrigerator. Instead they would have pens of live food (crickets, mice) in the kitchen. The nursery would have eggs in it instead of infants. They would probably think that the cat or dog needed the house to be too cold and dry. They would think that we shed too much and our hair/fur was too much of a pain to deal with. I bet they would think the cat or dog needed too much attention and interaction. These are the kinds of weird things I think about while I'm jogging.

I have to admit that I've been very bad about updating my blog lately. I blame facebook. Now that I'm on facebook I have a hard time updating my own blog and reading everyone else's. I probably need to think up some sort of recurring theme or goal for this blog to create motivation. Then I'd have to spend time on it, however. Anyhow, I'm on facebook multiple times a day, so if you really want to keep up with me you should probably friend me. I recently deleted my "my space" page because it was useless. I'm still on LinkedIn and Epernicus, but don't use them much. For those of you who are not on facebook, I've been spending a lot of my time writing proposals. I feel quite a lot of pressure to bring money into the group. I've been rather glum lately because of this and because Ricky has been acting like a bit of a baby. It would be nice to not have everyone depend on me for everything just for a day. I can't be too mad at him, though. I've done enough enabling over the years. He went to a workshop on how to audition professionally. He said he felt good about it, so I hope he can do that for a living. Nate is enjoying his summer. He's got another month left before the third grade.

We had a very nice visit with Ricky's sister and her family. We spent the 4th of July holiday going to the neighborhood parade, which was really cute, and going to the beach. We went to Falmouth in the evening and had ice cream before walking to the beach for the fireworks. That was really nice and nowhere near as crowded as I thought it was going to be. Initially I had planned that we would have wings and sit in the hot tub after fireworks, but that didn't work out. We were all tired and the spa wasn't heating up fast enough. Sunday we went to Martha's Vineyard. The kids rode the carousel and went beach combing. I tried to take them through the campground, but they weren't impressed. We got ice cream there too! When we got back I went for a run and turned on the hot tub. Then we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. The kids had never had Indian food before, but ate the Naan pretty well. That night we used the hot tub! I now know that I like having a hot tub. We let the kids get in first and jump around. Then we put them to bed and got in ourselves. It was relaxing. Thus far the upkeep has not been so bad. The water chemistry is the hardest part. Monday I had to go to work to run a workshop at the Jonsson Center, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences. It was a really nice place. I met our visitors for lunch and the Captain Kidd. That evening I went home and Ricky put the gas grill to good use making hot dogs and zucchini. Tuesday our guests left early in the morning and took Nate with them. He'll be visiting grandparents until the end of July. I'm at home by myself right now. Ricky is doing a show, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I'm going to see it tomorrow. I'm rather sleep deprived at the moment bc I stayed up until 2:30a working on a proposal the day before our guests arrived. I haven't been able to catch up for a while. That's what the weekends are for.

I'm sorry I haven't been updating regularly, but I have a very good excuse. Actually, no, I don't have a good excuse. It's been a very rainy June on the Cape, but things are starting to clear up. Today was a wonderful day. We're going to get the hot tub cranking. We're having visitors this weekend. They're from closer to the equator, so they should at least be glad to see that the temperature is below 80 F. The good news out of Mass is that someone is looking at our house tomorrow. Ricky is now medicated and has a new doctor appointment for next week Tuesday. Nate is taking swimming lessons in the ocean! He says he wants to join the coast guard, but that the thinks swimming in the ocean is gross. I don't think that's going to work out for him. Next week he's going to visit grandparents for the rest of the month. I've managed to stick with the running and can go 3-4 miles at a time without trying. I'm not very fast, though.

I want to say that I've been spending a lot of time on facebook lately, which surprises even myself. The interesting part is that I find facebook is a major source of news for me now. I heard about the shooting at the holocaust museum, the death of Farrah, MJ and Billy Mays and the DC metro crash first on facebook. I also kept up on the proceedings of the ebiosphere conference by reading the updates from a half dozen colleagues who attended. I'm not to the point where I'm tweeting every 5 minutes, but I do like how easy it is to keep up with friends and coworkers. I heard about a new species of diatom via facebook! I think as long as I get off facebook when I'm done reading everyone's updates instead of killing time with quizzes I'll be okay. I'm also teaching myself Danish by reading the posts of some Danish people I friended who also have my last name.

Something else that's made me happy lately is the appearance of all the bunnies and chipmunks in my yard. They're so cute! And rather tame.

Many people have their anger directed at me. They're not mad at me personally, but I still have to deal with it. I have a pretty thick skin. I have to in my line of work. However, I think this is the first time I've had this many people pissed at me at one time. In other words, it's been a rough day.

Ricky is coming back from Maryland tonight. He should have the car stuffed full of crap from the house. I'll be glad to have my car back. He's pretty much trashed my old Nissan, but it still runs like a dream.

On another note, I've decided to run another 5K in July. I hope I can do it faster than the last one.

I spent the morning getting the yard together and then went to the beach. The water is still cold. I hope it warms up by the time our guests arrive in July. The yard looks good and is ready for summer fun. I discovered that I can spend one full day per month doing yard work without feeling like I'm wasting my life. I very much enjoy living here and would like to buy a house. Someone died in the house across the street last summer, so maybe I can get that one cheap. However, there are lots of old people around here. Death houses are not uncommon. While at the beach Nate found some mating horseshoe crabs. He thought is was totally unfair that the males are smaller. The female was bigger than a dinner plate. After the beach, Nate and I went to see UP. It was a cute movie. Ricky is in Maryland, by the way. One of us had to go to collect mail and bring more junk up here. This is the longest, most frustrating move I've ever gone through. It's already lasted more than a year. I just want to sell that stupid house. I've never had such a feeling of "good riddance" when leaving a place as I have about Vienna, Maryland. It was great while it lasted, but now it needs to end.

Nate has one more week of school left. I'm not quite sure what we'll do with him over the summer. We can't afford summer camp this year. He'll visit his grandparents for several weeks in July. I was thinking he could just sort of hang out either here at the house or in Woods Hole. He amazes me daily at how smart he is. He says some crazy things.

Ricky is not doing well. He did not go to his doctor appointment last week. We had to wait almost 2 months for that one. I don't know what we'll do now. He says he didn't go because he got lost while jogging and stayed that way for 5 hours. That kind of thing could only happen to him. I was furious. He thinks that since he didn't do it on purpose that I shouldn't be mad. He's just about completely out of all his medications. All I can do is nag him about going to the doctor.

I've had a very busy past several weeks with many ups and downs. First, we had a death in the family. Ricky's aunt Elaine died on a Tuesday in May after being hospitalized for a hernia. It was very unexpected. She was not old. We found out Tuesday afternoon. Ricky's mother called me and I called Ricky. Wednesday we learned of the funeral arrangements and I booked transportation to Mississippi on Thursday. We arrived at their house at about 9p Thursday evening. I stayed up with the daughter (Ricky's cousin) until 1am going through photographs. The next morning I woke up at around 7 or 8 and started working on a memorial card. After I got it put together, a friend who is a graphic designer came over and made it look professional as well as did some photo tricks for us. That afternoon we went to the funeral home to decorate the room for the visitation. The room was very "little old lady" and totally inappropriate. We set it up like a gallery. It was very easy to do, since this aunt did so many interesting things. There was no need to cook because their neighbors kept bringing over food. I worked on keeping the kitchen clean and the towels laundered. Saturday morning was the visitation at the funeral home. Everything went very well and we were very proud of how the room looked. It was a really good funeral. There were lots of people there and everyone had stories to tell. If I died I doubt 5 people would show up. Anyway, that evening, there was a reception at the book store where she worked. The place was packed and several people stood up to share stories about her. It was really special. Afterward we went out for sushi with some of the family. That night was the first night we all got a good night's sleep. We all rolled out of bed around 9 and stayed in our pajamas for a while. Then some of the family arrived at the house to say a few words. Then people started having to go back. Our flight left Memphis at around 7p. We got back at the house after midnight, but had that monday off.
On wednesday, I caught a train to Washington DC for a meeting at College Park, Maryland. I had forgotten how much I liked the DC metro. I stayed at L'Enfant Plaza. It was nice, but their internet connection sucked. The meeting was really good and I'm glad I was asked to be involved. I gave a talk about EOL. I think I got a lot of people interested in participating. I didn't get back until the following Saturday. My train ended up being an hour late and really crowded. Give me the Acela any day. The train is nice, though. I was able to get work done while traveling. There's way more room than an airplane. Anyhow, I got home around 10p saturday evening. Ricky pissed me off bc he was 30min late picking me up at the bus stop even though I called him ahead of time.
The past week has been rather hectic - a string of days filled with meetings and emergencies and not much going to completion. Some good news is that Ricky and I were cast in a play titled DARWIN IN MALIBU. I think it will be a lot of fun.

The race went well. I came in at 35:02, which was 5 minutes more than my goal, but oh well. I was really nervous before the start. I could tell who knew what they were doing because they had great legs and cute outfits. I got behind all those people at the starting line. The fastest time was around 15 minutes. The course was fairly easy except for a huge hill at the end of mile 1. I was on track to make my goal until the last mile. I'll probably do another in the fall to see if my time improves. After the race we were served lunch by the Italian restaurant sponsoring the race. There was a raffle, but I didn't win anything. The oldest person to finish was 84. I was back home by 12:30 and felt like I was done for the day. It rained during the race so I was cold and wet. I took a hot shower and lounged for the rest of the day. Well, I did some work on my laptop, but that wasn't physically demanding. I had to stretch a few times throughout the day and went for a walk in the evening. My legs were feeling twitchy. Oddly enough, during my walk I found a lemon in the street at the end of someone's driveway. I knocked on their door to ask them if they were missing a lemon and met two more neighbors. Finding a lemon in the middle of the road was too strange to pass up.

It rained on sunday, but saturday was wonderful. Ricky went in town to have his oil changed and stayed for a long time. Nate and I went to a nearby pond with hiking trails. It was so wonderful. There were swans with cygnets on the pond, fish and turtles. There were inch worms all over the place and we got covered with the little guys. When we came home we ate lunch and then I sat on my deck and read. The lilies are blooming now, so the backyard smells great. I love living here!

Today was one of those days when I just run around putting out fires and don't actually get anything done. Nate left his backpack at a friend's house yesterday so I had to go get that first thing this morning. I had to move some sensitive microscopes from one room to another because of renovations and try to get some of the maintenance guys at work to help. Then I had to drive home and give Ricky a jump. He left the light on in the car. At the end of the day we had a seminar about programming. The only reason I went was the free beer. I learned something, though. Now I'm at home and ricky is in a volatile mood. He said he called a psychiatrist today. I hope that gets started soon.

I'm doing a 5K on sunday. Wish me luck. I hope I can finish in 30 min.
Life in general is rather challenging. Morale is really low at work. We're all overworked and now in a situation where we might have to fire people this fall. Bogus. We need a visit from EO Wilson to remind us why we're here. In general, I'm energized by a full schedule, but I do have a limit. Life at home is rough too. Ricky's mad at me right now because I made him give me his unemployment money. Oh well. I tell myself that one day he'll appreciate what I'm doing. On the up side, I'm the new Vice-President of the North Falmouth Elementary PTO.

The Waste Land and Other Writings by T.S. Eliot

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Phew! I can see why people refer to THE WASTE LAND as one of the most difficult poems to read. It was good, though. I also read ASH WEDNESDAY and JOURNEY OF THE MAGI. I liked both and thought ASH WEDNESDAY was the best.


View all my reviews.

I'm also avoiding writing a paper.

Happy mother's day to all the mom's out there, including myself. I have already received my wonderful gifts and am awaiting my breakfast. The weather is wonderful today, so I suspect I will go for a run or a hike later.

My mind has been consumed by three things lately. First, we are trying to build a key to all life within EOL. This will be a place people can go and say, "I see a bird in Colorado in July. What is it?" and get an answer. This will be very difficult. We need to do several things to be successful. We need to find a way to store data about species in a way that is easy to query. Not a simple task for billions of data. We need to collect data about every species on the planet. Also not an easy task, but we hope to speed things up with natural language processing. Then we need to standardize our vocabulary. If you've ever painted your house you know how many shades of white there are. People could use terms like white, ivory or eggshell and the computer needs to know that all those terms are the same. The computer also needs to know the different between ovoid, ellipsoid and lanceolate, for example. Not an easy task. Second, I've been thinking a lot about the high levels of primary production in Barrow Canyon for an abstract to submit for a meeting in November. I spoke with a physical oceanographer a few days ago and he explained a few processes that could cause what we're seeing. I'm pretty happy about it bc things are falling into place and I think it will make a good paper. Lastly, I'm trying to rewrite a paper that was rejected recently. It's about an experiment I did as an undergrad. I'm quite sick of thinking about it. The experiment was testing the grazing of oysters on different types of diatoms, including species that produce algal toxins. The really interesting part was that the presence of algal toxin didn't affect oyster grazing.

On a completely different note we went to see Star Trek yesterday. It was really good. Nate was a little bored at first, but by the end he liked it. I'm going to get him started on the TV series. Later that evening Ricky and I watched HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. It was creepy.

There's one other thing I'd like to sound-off on. I live in New England and that, in combination with all the economic news, has made me think about labor unions lately. I think that unions have their place and are important for maintaining balance in the labor market, but it's still easy to hate them. This is partly their fault. They've gotten big and bureaucratic, which is easy to hate. But what are people mad at, really? Am I angry at people for having a living wage and benefits? That doesn't seem right. However, I'm a doctor. I've invested a lot in my education. Why should someone with a high school diploma make as much as I do? Does that make me angry? Yes. I feel that's not the right attitude to have. I don't think that I'm better than everyone else bc of the PhD, but really, is the time of an unskilled laborer worth as much as my time? I think one reason people hate unions is because people view union members as over paid. Most people are not in unions and therefore don't get good benefits. They see the good pay and benefits of union members as unfair. But shouldn't we be happy that they've managed to "fight the man" and get decent pay and benefits? Anyhow, I'll continue to think about it.

In addition, I have some good news. Ricky's unemployment has started flowing, so he now has health insurance. Also, I have secured a permanent room for my tai-chi club. Work is going well, but is very busy. I'm about to start another proposal. I have a paper to review. I have a paper to write. I have a session to plan. I also have a workshop to plan. And an abstract to write. I kinda like being busy.