Dance!

Last month, I bought a long, white, flowing skirt to wear to work. I took it with me to Denver and Lucy said that I look like one of the girls dancing to "Many a New Day" from Oklahoma! (which is on of the more masculine musicals, mostly because it features cowboys.) If you don't know the movie, in that scene the girls are dancing in petticoats and various undergarments. So of course, I did a few of the dance moves for Lucy. But it reminded me of the fact that sometimes when I am taking the stairs, I think "Man, these stairs would be great for a song and dance number!"

"Ladybird Hill, you are beautiful."-Hank Hill, from the doggy dancing episode.

Wondering and Wandering

After trading emails with my sister Rachel today, I realized that my birthday is in a week. I will be 23. I guess I thought that I would be established by now, or a least have a good idea of where my life is going. And I don't. I feel like I'm still waiting for my life to begin, considering that being a student isn't really considered a long-term career. And it really doesn't help that most people I know are married, or married with a dog, or married with children, or employed. And me, I'm still in school. I know that I only have one more year, but for some reason I am getting anxious for the next step in my life to begin. Maybe the novelty of school has finally worn off. Okay, I think that is enough melancholy mutterings...

"I'm trying to contain an outbreak here and you're driving the monkey to the airport"-Hank Hill

Home again home again

Well I am back in Indiana after my vacation in Denver. On Tuesday before my flight out, Lucy, Josh and I went to downtown Denver to visit Hammond's Candies and The Molly Brown House Museum. Hammond's Candies in a factory that was started in 1920 which still uses most of the original machines to make the candy. They specialize in "old fashioned" hard candy which means they make ribbon candy, lollipops, and candy canes by hand as well at art candy (which is candy with a stylized picture in the center. It was amazing to see the people haul a 60 lb block of candy and then see them make lollipops out of it. I got some ribbon candy for my mom as well as some clove sticks and a lime "barber pole" (a pretty thick candy stick) while I was there. After the candy factory, we went to the Molly Brown house which Molly Brown (the unsinkable one!) owned in around 1910-1920. There was a lot of restoration that was done on the house and they were able to restore the house and belongs pretty close to the original. Some pictures were taken of the house when the Browns were having a large party (of 800 people) so those pictures were used in the restoration process. Mostly it made me want to watch Thoroughly Modern Millie because there was a short exhibit on life in Denver during the 1920s. After a trip to the spice shop and lunch, it was to the airport and back to Indiana. I flew to Denver and back on Frontier which has a free channel called Wild Blue Yonder. As a promotion, the was a little film festival of independent shorts. I had seen a little bit of one of the three shorts on the way to Denver and so on the way back I was able to catch all three. I highly recommend seeing the three shorts which you can by clicking here . All three are good, but I think my favorite is "My Name is Yu Ming" (the other two were "The Leeward Tide" and "The Climatic Death of Dark Ninja). And you can vote for your favorite as well. So I had a really nice vacation and an excellent time with Lucy and Josh.

King the Hill Quote:
"If I find out this was you and not some laundry accident, I'm going to be really mad"-Luanne Platter

Rocky Mountain High

Yesterday, Lucy and Josh took me to the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was really breathtaking and I saw 10 animal species (okay, some were insects). I saw Eastern Chipmunks, Abert's Squirrels, Yellow-Bellied Marmots, and lots of Elk. Here are Lucy and I in front of Chasm Falls (we are on the right, under the tree)

And here is the third Elk herd that we saw (really close up)


Here is the Yellow-Belllied Marmot:
And this is a picture of the Never Summer Mountains, not far from some inactive volcanoes in the Rockies:
After we went to the Park, we took a tour of Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory. The machines don't run on the weekend so we didn't see them in action, but we did see the machines and everything. There was a short video about the company and tea production. According to the video, every time the company receives ingredients for a tea blend, a small batch is made to make sure all the teas and herbs are good for mass production. We also went to the Tea shop where they had every kind of tea that the company makes. I got some really good tea called Bengal Spice that has cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla. And Lucy got this nice red square teapot (that drips a little when you pour the tea out). Today, Lucy and I are going to the Six Flags to ride some roller coasters. Lucy, in our classic family fashion, has planned out menus for my entire stay. Yesterday we had foccacia-chicken sandwiches for our picnic in the park and then we had Cornish game hens for dinner last night. Despite Lucy's worries, the game birds were both done and delicious. And tonight, we are having stroganoff.

King of the Hill Quote:"An F3 tornado will drive an egg through a barn door, two barn doors if one of them is open"-Dale Gribble
Bonus Quotes: "Tornadoes are like the end of days, the soft shall be driven through the hard and the strongest of men will become like a women of average strength."-Dale Gribble
"Mega-lo-mart has everything and a whole lot more so maybe just maybe, they'll have fruit pies."-Bobby Hill

Almost Vacation Time

I am so relieved that I finally saw the conclusion to Miss. Marple on Sunday! I saw part one last week and thus I have been thinking about it the whole week since until the very satisfactory conclusion on Sunday. Thank goodness I didn't miss it. For the past two Miss. Marple mysteries, I saw both parts back to back, but with this one I had to wait. But next week's is back to the good format, so no waiting! Somehow is a bizarre flurry of activity, I am almost done with my internship at Life Plus. I have completed the majority of the projects that were decided upon in May. So my last major project is my final presentation and paper about my experience during the summer. And apparently, my final presentation is going to draw a big crowd. We are going to broadcast it over the web so my lab group at school can set it as well as some Life Plus employees that are not in Lafayette. And I forgot to mention that the assistant Dean of Health Sciences from Purdue is coming too... So really, no pressure. But the more exciting new is that I will be visiting Lucy in Denver this week! She already has everything planned and I am so excited to see her. It will be a nice break, and as my mom says "a giggle-fest" (which will most likely be true!). And we are going to Six Flags!! Tonight Mom, Dad and I will be going to the Beefhouse tonight for a seedcorn dinner. I haven't been to the Beefhouse in probably ten years, so I am actually looking forward to it! My great aunts Carol and Beth are in town this week as well, so I will be visiting them today and tomorrow before I leave for CO.

"If all you have is my confession, you can forget it. I am simply not credible"-Dale Gribble
Bonus Quote "I would like to thank my neighbor Dale Gribble. If it wasn't for his paranoid and down right hateful nature, I wouldn't know the beating a friendship could take."-Hank Hill

A judge of all trades

On Wednesday, I went with my mom and dad to judge some 4-H projects in another county. I said that I would judge soil and water conservation (since I am very familiar with the books!), geology (ditto, I worked on these books last summer) and entomology. We got to the fairgrounds at a little before noon. So dad judges small engines, weeds, corn, and soybeans while I helped mom judge Shooting Sports (I mostly filled out her official sheet because she didn't have a Jr. Leader helping her). Then at a little before 2pm, I went over to my table to judge the 3 projects I agreed to judge. There were about 10 projects I had to judge (and I had an assistant who helped me fill out all the paper work, she was very nice and really knew what she was doing!) so it took me about 30 mins (including talking to the kids). So then I went back to Mom's table to help her finish up. And then the 4-H cooridinator for the county asked me if I would judge geneology because the judge they had never showed up. So despite the fact that I know very little about geneology, I judged it anyway (the leader for the geneology club was there, so it really wasn't to bad.) So overall, it was a pretty good day (and I got paid for it as well). And it was a nice change of pace from "processing" chickens on Monday (and Tuesday night). Mom and I are going to pick up an old Chambers stove (which is like to one on 30 minute meals with Racheal Ray on foodnetwork) that mom won on ebay. I'm not sure what she is going to do with it, but once I have a house, I call that stove!

"What if you have it wrong and it's where old people go to make out and young people go to die?" -Bobby Hill

Oh, Greg Daniels, you make me laugh til I snort

So last night, I was working on some stuff for Natalie and watching the American version of the show "The Office" with Steve Carell. I was watching the credits and I saw that Greg Daniels works on that show. Greg Daniels also works on King of the Hill (and he used to work on the Simpsons, back when the Simpsons was still funny. I think he was around on seasons 2-4 of that show). So I'm not surprised that I like the Office since Greg Daniels works on it. I love the humor in that show because it sort of understated humor which is what I like.
I have some bad news though. I went out to the barn yesterday morning to milk. As I was doling out the feed I noticed that Mr. Strickland was not getting up. And I then I noticed that he wasn't breathing either. Alas, poor Mr. Strickland was dead. So mom and I took him to the vet school to have a necropsy so we can figure out what happened. So yesterday was kind of a bummer. But on a more positive note, mom and I gave blood yesterday as well. There is a serious blood shortage at the local blood bank so we gave blood (and got free movie tickets!).
I was reading an interesting article in Newsweek (on line) about how getting pregnant became cool due to so many celebrities becoming pregnant and showing it off. The expert that was interviewed also talked about an increase in both baby services and baby experts. In regards to more baby experts she said "I don't mind experts. I mind that women aren't willing to be a little more intuitive. That bothers me a lot." So I thought it was good that someone is an expert wants women to take her advice with a grain of salt. She also had a funny quote about more baby products: " I got a phone call from somebody that said, 'I have a really amazing entrepreneurial idea. I'm going to come up with an organic baby-food mill. I'm like, 'We all have them. It's called a Cuisinart.'

"You may have ruined my arm, but my legs are still feeble yet functional"-Dale Gribble

Bonus Quote: "It's just a little fire, and more bees than I remember." Hank Hill

"John, I'm not even speaking to you"

We celebrated the fourth in our traditional way, making too much food and watching 1776 (which is the source for the quote, said by Ben Franklin to John Addams). I got the movie on DVD from Netflix on Tuesday so mom and I could watch it for the fourth. There were a whole bunch of extra scenes and a new song (about the "cool cool conservative men" called "Hosanna" which is sung after John Addams is gone to Maryland). But the extra scenes made transitions that I always thought were weird make more sense. For our lovely dinner we had pork chops, green beans, baked beans, and mom's delicious potato salad. Mom and I made dessert which was a black raspberry roulade (also known as a "fool"). I picked the fresh berries from the fence row of one of our fields (which was less fun than it was when Rachel picked with me, at which time "We'll pick just a little longer" was equavalient to picking for another 30 minutes). Then mom helped me make the sponge cake. While that was cooling I crushed and strained the seeds from the black raspberries (like one would do when he or she was making jelly). Then I made some sweetened whipped cream (from scratch of course) and mixed the black raspberry juice/pulp with the whipped cream. The cream then gets spread on the sponge cake and then the cake gets rolled up like a jelly roll. We put it in the freezer to speed up the chilling process so by the time we ate the cake, the cream was a little like ice cream. Then the cake got topped with powdered sugar and served. It was fantastic! Hope you all had a good Fourth of July! (The US is now 230 years and One day old!) Mom and I also went in to see grandma for the fourth (and took her in some dinner). On the the way to grandma's house, we heard this hilrious comedien named Brian Regan on XM. He was talking about since he was the youngest he always sat in the worst seat in the car. So he decided to make is seem like he wanted the crappy seat. He would call "Back seat, in the middle, feet on the hump" which reminded me of my childhood, having to climb over that backseat or squished in the middle.

"Face it guys, we were putting extra stress on a structure that wasn't up to code to begin with." -Hank Hill (about Dale)

Is there a job at the end?

So reading Trey's recent blog posts has made me think about my future in terms of what job is going to make me happy? I think that I have already decided that I don't want to be in academia, mostly because I don't think that I am cutthroat enough so screw people over if the need arises. Plus, I would much prefer to science for the sake a knowledge, not for personal glory. I remember going to lecture at Purdue about the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. The lecturer basically said that Watson and Crick were able to figure out the structure because they had access to bits and pieces of discoveries from other researchers. Even though Roselind Franklin knew the helix configuration, she was not aware of the work of Chargaff about the base pairing. But the lecture made me think about how Roselind Franklin felt about her x-ray crystallography picture being taken by her research partner Wilkins to Watson and Crick. She never really received credit for her work on the determination of the structure because she was dead by the time Watson, Crick and Wilkins received the Noble Prize. After the lecture, I began reading the biography of Franklin written by Brenda Maddox called the "The Dark Lady of DNA". Based on that book, I got the impression that Franklin was doing science for the sake of science and to increase our understanding of the surrounding world. So it has made me think about why I chose to go into the field of science and what it is that I like about science. And I've realized that I do want to know how/why things exist or work. Even though there are "laws of science" in the life sciences, there always is some flexibility because we don't know ever single organism and ever single biological process. The more I learn about the world, the more I am amazed that we ended up with the world we did. There is something inherently beautiful about both the complexity and the simplicity of the world.
My mom came home from Germany on Friday. And she brought me the coolest gift an England World Cup T-shirt (with a hat!). But England lost on Saturday by penalty shoot out to Portugal. But France beat Brazil so it's okay. On Sunday, we had a huge thunderstorm at our house. Lightning struck near our house and effected some stuff, but hopefully it will be fixed today. But the rain put a damper on my plan to pick blackraspberries on Sunday, so I will have to do that tonight. There is a king of the hill marathon on today so I am looking forward to that!

"They make us say these asinine things like 'Easy there grumpy bear' and 'Relax Mr. Angryslacks"-Hank Hill