When I got back from my vacation and scientific meeting in Boston, I started summer research with an undergraduate student. His project involved working with RNA which degrades really easily if it is exposed to the enzymes (RNases) in dust. So, I was able to convince him, by showing him some highlight and tip sheets about working with RNA, that it was worth it to spend the first few days cleaning the lab spaces.

We ordered chemicals and primers for doing PCR and the supplies just barely arrived before I headed off to Port Aransas (TX gulf coast) for a family vacation. When we were planning the vacation, I was thinking that I wasn’t going to be doing summer research this summer. This meant that I basically had to get him up to speed and able to do the experiments by himself (or with minimal emailing/phone calls) in a short period of time. The great thing was that we did a quick RNA extraction, RT, and PCR, gel, and photo. We got a PCR result! That meant that he had a stock of RT (cDNA) to go back to while I was away and keep trying new PCR conditions. It was good for him to have to learn to work more independently and do some trouble-shooting. AND that allowed me to go to Port Aransas and hang out in the pool with my nieces, Texas Seestor, Trainwreck (bro-in-law), Mom, and Dad.

We spent all day at the pool, because my nieces were a bit afraid of the ocean again. The pools are incredible! I had a ton of fun there.

A couple of times, after supper, we went out to the beach to play in the sand.

All of the photos from that trip are on Flickr in a set.

When I got back from vacation, I went back to working with my undergrad all week long on research. I also wrote a Letter of Intent for a grant proposal. It was basically a 1 page summary of all of the parts of the grant; I think I had 2 pages of references for that one page (single-spaced) of writing. It was rather intense. But I did get it accepted and am now trying to find/make the time to write the full grant! (due October 10th which is really soon! – I really need to turn it in about a week or so early)

As an aside, science writing is one of the things that I really dread. Once I start, I’m usually okay at it, but it takes me a long, long time. This is one small part of why I decided I didn’t want to be a full-time PI at a big research institution where all of the funding depends on grants and publications. It just isn’t my passion. However, mentoring students IS my passion. So, a small school setting makes so much more sense for me. But I am finding that the funding is really an issue when it comes to doing molecular biology research. We only had $1200 this summer for a 10 week RT-PCR project! We spent 1/3 of that on the enzymes to do the RT and 1/3 of that on the enzymes to do the PCR! That didn’t leave a whole lot of wiggle room for chemicals for the RNA extraction, filter tips, RNase-free tubes, etc.
However, we did find out that we could cut all of our reactions in half to make them last longer. And we found other ways to stretch our small amount of money. But that isn’t going to be enough to do cell culture in future summers; which is why I’m writing a grant. We are also trying to get some local businesses to donate some money. I’ll be spending more time on that this year, I believe.

Anyway, around the time that the letter of intent was due, I went to the 4th of July parade in our town.

Towns from towns all around had floats to promote their local festivals and show off their festival queens and festival princesses.

There were a fair number of horses (drill teams) and cars (car clubs) too.

More photos are in the set on Flickr.

Other summer activities included going to the annual ice cream party hosted by some friends.

There were 17 flavors this year!

They have a really great pool, so I spent most of the party with my nieces in the pool. It was such fun! I was so glad to be invited. It is hard to fathom that they make 17 flavors of ice cream and host such a huge party each year.

We also saw Footloose at an outdoor park in Austin. Next year, they are doing the Sound of Music. Some of my friends (neighbors of Texas Seestor and Trainwreck) are organizers of the musicals and perform in the musicals (the very accomplished teen in the family), so it is always great fun to see the show. There is a wealth of talented performers in Austin, so the local productions are just amazing.

At the end of the summer, I went with them to see Hairspray – another summer Austin musical. And it was fabulous too! Seeing those shows were definitely some of the high points of my summer.

Near the end of the summer, and just before school was starting up, Mom and Dad baby-sat my nieces so that Texas Seestor, Trainwreck and I could see the last Harry Potter movie. We saw it in 3D IMAX, which was just incredible!

The 3-D part didn’t matter as much as the IMAX. I wish I could see ALLL my movies in IMAX. It was the first time I’d seen a traditional movie (and not just an hour-long IMAX movie) on an IMAX screen. WOW! The sound was just incredible!

Mom and Dad also baby-sat right at the very end of the summer so that Texas Seestor, Trainwreck, and I could go to the Schlitterbahn waterpark for the day and stay until it closed.
There were two watercoaster rides that we rode that were just incredible. The Wolf Pack was the raft ride that we rode when we first arrived. Dragon’s Revenge is their newest ride and had EIGHT uphill sections where blasts of water shot Texas Seestor and I uphill (on a two-person raft)! It was AMAZING! Both of them had pretty long waits (about an hour), but we knew before we went that all of the big rides would have long lines (even on a weekday). We rode the Black Knight at the end of the day when the line was shorter; it is a black, enclosed tube, which is rather unsettling, but definitely adds to the adrenaline rush.
Other things about Schlitterbahn that I hadn’t realized was just how many inner tube rides there are! I was envisioning the type of waterpark that I’d gone to as a teen where we went on a lot of body slides and rode mats on the slides. Schlitterbahn is almost entirely raft and tube rides; it makes for many fewer bruises!
And I also discovered that a “tube shoot” is basically like going over a (small) waterfall on a tube. They are crazy fun.

Going to Schlitterbahn was the last thing I did before I started work again at school. We literally went on a Tuesday and I had all-day faculty meetings the next day on Wednesday. Classes started the following Wednesday for me. It was a great way to end the summer.

Speaking of classes, I’m teaching 2 sections each for 2 courses that I taught last year. That is helping me a lot with my course prep, because a lot of what I prepared last year (powerpoints), I can use again this year. But I’m also tweaking and revising things that I want to improve. Also, I’ve designed their workload differently as far as the type of prep they do before they come to lecture each time. It makes it so that I have to get their Incomplete Notes posted online earlier than in past years. But thus far, the students seem to be responding well to the new structure. Their first exam is next Friday, so I’ll see how they do!

In other news, I am singing regularly with my church Praise Band, and I have been encouraged by the lead singer to find some songs where I can do solos. We did a song by Casting Crowns (Glorious Day) which was in a perfect spot in my range. I did a couple of solo verses on that song, and I sort of surprised myself at how well I could sing it when it was in such a good spot in my range! I surprised some people at church too! That experience has helped me get some additional confidence in singing solo or in a more exposed setting where the instrumentals have backed off in volume.

I continue to spend most weekends (at least Saturday) with family. We played a lot of slip-n’-slide, baby-pool, squirt bottles, this summer in attempts to stay cool amidst the 100+ degree weather.

Dad got their used golf cart up and running, so one of the fun activities when we are at Mom and Dad’s is to go on golf cart rides. We especially go in the evenings when the sun is setting and it is cooling off.

That is a view of one of the first-ever golf cart rides as you look out across the golf course from my parents’ back deck. There is another road on the other side of the course.

When we are at Mom and Dad’s we also enjoy watching out for deer.

You can see how dry it is in their yard. They had to stop watering their grass a while back this summer when water levels dropped to a certain amount.

Mom and Dad also had a couple of owls that were living in their trees out front.

Here is a photo of just one of them.

As the tree got more brown, the owl became easier to spot.

Of course, when it sat on the roof, it was really easy to see!

Well, I think that covers the majority of my news from the summer. I hope to not go quite so long between posts. But with school and then with getting sick (I have some sort of cough right now), I haven’t had a whole lot of time to write long posts. Now that I’m more “caught up,” I hope to post small things more frequently!

I am still not on facebook. One of these days, I’ll get to it. But for right now, I need to go water my plants, prep some Incomplete Notes for lectures, clean my apartment, and work on my grant!

All the best,
Danielle

I don’t go to the MSNBC site everyday, so I often miss it, because they only have it every few weeks or so. But the good thing is that once you are on it, if you keep clicking previous, it will keep taking you back to older ones.

I was looking at it today, and some of the photos were reminding me of my family.

My older niece, M, usually bonks some part of her body at least once a day – I think she may average around 3 a day right now.

Texas Seestor is usually the one who consequently holds her and kisses it to make it better. So this photo reminded me of them.

Please don’t think that the appearance of either of them remotely resembles the orangutans!

Then I saw these photos, which reminds me of my younger niece (YN) when she is eating her mushy foods by spoon in her highchair.

Thank goodness there is just one of her! Can you imagine feeding triplets? or more?

This next one reminds me of playing blocks, playdough, or cartons with M. She just loves to make towers.

And this final one reminds me of my parents’ new home in TX.

There are a LOT of deer in their neighborhood. And when I say a LOT, I mean that the house right next to them had 3 deer in it the other week eating the grass. And one of the homes down the road had a whole herd of about 10! TEN deer!

crazy.

And since they live on a golf course, I wonder how many times the golfers end up seeing deer run across the course?

And did you notice those pants on that golfer???

too funny!

Warm weather penguins.

SeaQueen and I went to Sea World at San Diego. Here are a few highlights of that trip – flippered friends.

Emperor penguins, among others.

Swimming penguin – doesn’t he/she look cool! I love to see them swim.

Dolphins – many close up shots are coming soon to a Flickr near you.

I love this shot of a killer whale.

I think this photo helps you appreciate their (large) size. Can you imagine coming out of the water on a jumping whale?

Hope you have a good weekend. If I get to it, I’ll be putting more pics on Flickr and creating a Sea World set.

I hurriedly grabbed my camera and sure enough, they were checking out the neighbor’s hot tub.

You can barely see them between the two trees in that photo. Here is a close-up of the same shot.

It was dusk and hence the lighting was dim, but what you’ll see there is the male mallard in the center and the female just behind him.

They hung around for a little while. And then another bird swooped down and scared them, and they flew off toward the lake. I figured that was the last I’d see of the ducks until I went on my next walk around the lake where I tend to see lots of ducks and geese.

But I was mistaken! The next morning, the female was checking out the neighbor’s front yard and then our front yard!

She was hopping up onto the stones surrounding the landscaping and was touring through the landscaping. Then she’d hop down and check out the next section of landscaping.

I started to realize that this wasn’t just some blind search for bugs or food, this was a search for a nesting site!

She was clearly leading the search and was wasting no time going from spot to spot.

I call that photo, “female duck – trekking on”.

Eventually, I realized the male was following her. But our yard must not have been conducive to nesting, because they left.

Note in that photo, although the male shows up the best, the female is in it too.

At first I was disappointed that they didn’t choose our yard for nesting, but then I started thinking about how before too long, we are going to have to mow and weed eat. And that wouldn’t exactly be the type of activities that Mama Duck would want to have going on near her nest. So, it is probably just as well that they went somewhere else.

But it was still fun while it lasted.

Note in these photos there was a glare on the window, hence the foggy appearance of some of them.

So, I went out there on Friday to move the feeder and she (the woodpecker) must’ve been nearby, because after I’d hung the feeder and walked back up to the deck, she was fluttering around the regular bird seed feeder!

Once I was up on the deck, she quickly flew to the tree where I’d just hung the feeder. After trying to figure out where to stand to get to it, she started pecking away at the suet! Success!

I grabbed my camera and swapped out the lens and took a whole bunch of photos before remembering that I needed to check the exposure! doh! They were all white. So, I hurriedly started changing the exposure and film speed in order to get a shot.

I just barely got this one before she finished eating at the feeder.

Then she shimmied up the tree, so I got a few of her in her natural environment. Here is the best one.

and in large

Then, I couldn’t believe it, she came and perched on the regular bird feeder up at the deck for a second.

And then she went over by where the feeder had hung until just a few minutes ago! Which meant, of course, that she was REALLY CLOSE!

and in large

I love this shot! I can’t believe I got it.

You can see that she is a female by not having any red stripes on her head. And it is really hard to tell the difference between a Downy and a Hairy by the coloring, but I’m pretty sure she is a Downy because of her size (6″ as opposed to 9″).

Heee!

I took all photos with Dee-Dee and my macro-zoom lens from Dad, the Vivitar 70-210 mm.

Unfortunately, my camera batteries had run out and I had to recharge them before I could take any photos. But I was fortunate in that the finch decided to stay on the tree for a while. This gave me enough time to get my batteries recharged.

and in large.

It isn’t perfectly in focus, unfortunately, but close. It is an improvement over the last photo I took with my zoom lens of a moving object (the squirrel) so I figure I’m making progress.

I’ve been seeing lots of birds when I go for my walks too. Last week was particularly exciting because I saw a woodpecker about 5 feet from where I was standing! I got to watch her for a few moments as she ate bugs and pecked at a birch tree.

I also saw a gorgeous hawk. Scared all of the other birds away, of course, but was infinitely graceful and elegant. Big white belly on that hawk. Really quite pretty.

And then just yesterday I saw 2 white herons. It is amazing how much they stand out from the land and water. Every other bird is kind of camouflaged, but not them. I guess maybe they are at the top of the food chain and thus don’t need the disguise.

Lots of ducks and geese and lots and lots of robins on the ground. You can tell it is really spring here with all of the robins.

Oh, and the lake has officially thawed. It no longer has this huge patch of ice on it like it did on Friday.

I have enjoyed seeing these changes in the lake and watching the birds. It might be a bit mundane, but there just isn’t a whole heck of a lot of exciting stuff going on in my life right now. And each one of these things really did perk up my day when it happened. So, I decided it was blog worthy.

Somehow, I just don’t think that all those birds are going to fit at the feeder. Doncha think?

I guess they could always wait and take turns.

I hope to post about my weekend one of these times when I gather the energy to take some extra pics that go along with it.

In the meantime, my thesis defense is officially set for Feb 7th. Now, if we were to use Trainwreck’s method of keeping track of dates, the ‘anchor date’ would be Valentine’s day on Feb 14th, and we’d remember the 7th by knowing that it is exactly one week earlier.

There, now we can all remember.

Another key date is that in just under 2 weeks, I will be shipping my entire thesis to my committee.

Which means, that
A) this feels a bit like ‘crunch time’ and
B) the end is near.

hmmm… that may be a bit ominous.

How about “the light at the end of the tunnel is closer”
or
to build upon the mountain climbing analogy from before, I can see the peak, and am approaching the top.

There. That’s better.

Now, just in case you are wondering why there is so much snow in that picture, just ignore it. It is actually all melted today. I took those on the 30th.

How many birds did you see in that pic?

Did you see the three on the railing?

Usually there are many more when I grab my camera, but the ones who are camera shy fly away as I approach the window.

“Beeeeeeg skeeeery black thing!”

Then there are the little guys I can see out the kitchen window, waiting their turn on a different tree.

And the Girlie-girl watches and watches and occasionally makes these little “Meeorph! Meeerph.” sounds that are quite adorable.

In fact, here is an up to the minute pic of us, with many notes (click the pic and move your mouse/pointer over it to read them)

I’d better turn the heat up though, the natives are getting restless.

Which got me wondering if our house layout here in Minnesota would be more conducive to a bird feeder than the one in MA. I started envisioning something that would hang off of the deck somehow so that it would be near enough for me to actually see the birds and to easily keep it filled without having to trek through the yard and the snow.

Now about this time of year, my parents ask for my Christmas wish-list. This would be the same wish-list that gets passed along to my seestor and my in-laws. And from years past, I’ve learned to not make any impulse purchases in Sept/Oct/Nov but to ‘save’ those things for my wish-list. And guess what item is perfect for the wish-list? You got it, a bird feeder!

I mentioned this to HB’s parents while they were here visiting for Thanksgiving, and HB’s dad looked at the deck and discussed the logistics/placement of a feeder with me. And when they all came back from their shopping adventure at the Mall of America yesterday they gave me my Christmas present early!

This is my view of it from the dining room table.

Yay!

It is made entirely of cedar. And the screws look like they are treated or something so that they won’t rust.

Isn’t it neat how the shepard’s hook clamps onto the railing? I was hoping for something that wouldn’t require permanent holes or anything in the wood of the deck, so this is perfect!

It was pretty late yesterday when we got it set up, and I wondered how long it would take the birds to find it. Everyone said “Not long.” I sure hoped not.

This morning when I started to wake up, I thought “Oooo! I wonder if there are any birds out there yet?! I’d better get up and see.”

Well, there weren’t any as I was boiling water or brewing my tea. None when I was cutting the bread or making my first piece of toast. But when I got to the second piece, I got my first bird visitors!

And guess what! One of them was the black-capped chickadee.

I took these pics through the sliding glass window, ’cause it is cold, yo. And well, I didn’t want to scare them off and stand there with the door open forever while I was waiting for them to come back just so that I could get a pic without the glass.

chickadee and finch (I think)

Guess I’m going to need to put a bird book on that wish list, huh?

I expect that I’ll be taking lots of bird pics this year.

I can’t wait!