personal
drorzel | May 13, 2009It has come to my attention that unspecified people are having a bad couple of days for unspecified reasons and could use a pick-me-up. Thus, I give you the cutest laughing baby in the universe.
Hope this helps. Have a nice day.
terrasig | May 13, 2009
Ski Train? Wasn't that the title of a Cat Stevens song?
I was just getting around to putting up a science post when I just received a Tweet from my Rocky Mountain peeps at Denver's Westword magazine, the indy pub of the Queen City of the Plains. (Actually, this is kind of a science post because I did a lot of science in Denver.).
In his post, "Video: Goodbye, Ski Train! We'll think of you the day we finally punch Phil Anschutz," Jared Jacang Maher writes:
The train had been making trips between Denver and Winter Park since 1940. The operation was owned by local billionaire Phil Anschutz. […
jstemwedel | May 13, 2009Today, I may have picked slightly more slugs than snails. And, in the process of acquainting myself with the ways of the slug, I discovered a very good reason to perform early-morning gastropod removal as a solo activity:
The tall grass slug trebuchet.
Seriously, if either of the sprogs had been on the receiving end of the (totally accidental) launch, I think the screaming might still be in progress.
Anyway, the slugs seems to like stretching themselves to their full length, helping them look like dew on stems and narrow plant leaves. But when you try to pick them, they rapidly change shape…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2009In the comments of one of my snail eradication posts, Emily asks some important questions:
I'm curious about how exactly you reason the snail-killing out ethically alongside the vegetarianism. Does the fact that there's simply no other workable way to deal with the pests mean the benefits of killing them outweigh the ethical problems? Does the fact that they're molluscs make a big difference? Would you kill mice if they were pests in your house? If you wanted to eat snails, would you? Or maybe the not-wanting-to-kill-animals thing is a relatively small factor in your vegetarianism?
Killing…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2009This morning, it seems like the pickings were somewhat slimmer.
Part of this may have to do with the weekday morning time constraints (30 minute time limit). However, it seems like some regions of the yard that were swarming with gastropods over the weekend had only a few wee snails this morning. (It's possible that there are gastropod hiding places yet to be uncovered. That's a project for Saturday morning.)
The wee snails may also be a sign that I'm making some progress -- the proportion of large snails relative to tiny ones was greatly decreased today. Since snails can't reproduce…
pharyngula | May 12, 2009Oh, Ben Stein, I shake my fist at you in rivalry. The infamous apologist for Republican criminality, idiotic economics, and creationist inanity got to present a commencement address to a famous university.
As it happens, I'm going to be out of town for a few days now — I'm off to deliver a commencement address myself. Yes, it's another travel day for me, I'm afraid.
Should I be jealous? Stein got to speak at Liberty University. I'm speaking at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. I might be a teensy bit ahead. After all, this is what Richard Dawkins had to say:
"Many of the questioners…
jstemwedel | May 11, 2009Today was the first school day of our snail eradication project. This meant I had to get out to the yard a bit earlier (just after 6 AM), and that I had a fairly limited time to pick slugs and snails before I needed to get inside to propel the sprogs school-ward.
Last night, when I was buying more salt, I noticed that rock salt was significantly cheaper than table salt, so that's the gastropod-melting agent that I'll be using until it runs out. Today, it seemed to do the job (while sounding a lot like gravel as I shook it to make sure the gastropods I had picked stayed picked). We may try…
drorzel | May 11, 2009It's that time of year again in academia. The time when academics at other institutions write posts directed at graduates, reminding me that summer is starting for everybody else, while we have another four %$^*$ing weeks to go before the end of the term.
Grumble, mutter, grump. Stupid calendar.
drorzel | May 11, 2009Everybody I know who has back problems swears up and down that sleeping on a really firm mattress is key. My father used to have a big plywood board under his side of the mattress, so that his side of the bed would be less soft (I think they have since bought a new mattress that is uniformly hard).
So, why is it that every time I sleep on a mattress that's firmer than the one we have here, my lower back locks up so badly that it's an hour before I can walk comfortably? And when I get back to our relatively soft bed, my back feels fine in the morning?
I suppose this could be some sort of grand…
clock | May 10, 2009For a whole year, I knew the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Starting today, I am ignorant again.
jstemwedel | May 10, 2009Dr. Isis asked me to write a letter for her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project, which she describes as follows:
When I was a graduate student, I took a physiology class in which I was given the assignment to recreate my scientific family tree. When I did, I found that my family tree is composed some brilliant scientists. But, my family tree is also composed entirely of men, plus me. The same is true of the tree from my postdoc. I have scientific fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, but no aunts, grandmothers, or mothers. As I considered my career path in science, I…
jstemwedel | May 10, 2009This was another early morning out in the garden picking snails. It was, however, markedly yuckier than yesterday's foray.
First, to those who have recommended alternate strategies for dissuading the gastropods, I've done the copper tape before. It seemed to help a little, but it was far from perfect -- some of the snails seemed not to mind getting a charge out of sliding across the copper. I think we may have a bit of copper tape in the garage. Perhaps I'll put it along the perimeter of our raised beds.
The drowning-in-beer strategy we have tried. Each time, a few slugs and snails have…
terrasig | May 10, 2009
This is for all of my peeps in SW Florida and all who love folk music. I received a lovely e-mail last week from Robin Leach, wife of mandolin player Dan Leach (and mother of bassist Andy Leach), who came upon my posts about a very special musician. Dan played with a gentleman named Steve Blackwell, a Midwestern transplant who came to the Sunshine State as a high school English teacher and became a fixture in the Florida folk music scene. My path crossed with Mr Blackwell in the months before his untimely departure from melanoma at age 58.
Yesterday, my friends celebrated Steve's life and…
jstemwedel | May 9, 2009At least, if you're a member of a philosophy department:
Spending the day with them is enough to get your mind working on interesting problems and productive ways to approach solving them -- and this is true even if while you're together you aren't really discussing philosophy per se. Just being with them puts you in the zone.
Yeah, I really like my department.
jstemwedel | May 9, 2009The most troublesome invasive species in my backyard garden is the snail.
Yesterday morning, when I took out the buckets of shower-warning-up and vegetable-rinsing water to feed to my plants, I was horrified to find snails on my carrots, snails on my chard, snails on my potatoes, snails on my garlic, and especially snails on my tender pea plants.
The strawberries that were starting to get nice and red? Shot through with slugs (which are basically snails without the convenient handles).
On top of our wee little lime tree? Snails copulating.
This is not a situation conducive to effective…
jstemwedel | May 8, 2009We have just stopped for lunch.
Out of ten agenda items, we have covered three.
I blame this, in part, on the fact that our faculty gets along so well and cares a lot about our shared work. Everyone has a great deal to say, and adds footnotes and friendly amendments to everyone else's points.
But, we need to get through the agenda.
Thus, as the person nominally running this meeting, I have told my colleagues that our post-lunch focus will be laser sharp, and that the talky folks should eat enough during the luncheon that they'll be sleepy (rather than talky) when we reconvene.
3:40 PM:…
drorzel | May 7, 2009It's been an uneven week for SteelyKid. She was a litle bit sick last week, and really only got better last weekend, only to turn listless and feverish at day care Monday. This led to yet another trip to the pediatrician, at which we learned that waking a sleeping baby up to press a cold stethoscope to her chest is the End of the World.
She's improved dramatically from that unpleasant visit, though, and did some painting yesterday at day care, and today felt well enough to wrestle a bison:
That's not the best Appa-for-scale picture, but how could I resist that expression? For a wider angle…
jstemwedel | May 7, 2009It is not easy to be a tremendous Luddite parenting 21st century kids.
Currently, the Free-Ride offspring are learning the intricacies of Photoshop.
The elder offspring so far has focused on creating new Pokemon using parts from existing ones, while the younger offspring has taken to adorning bulldogs with handlebar mustaches, bowlers, spats, and tutus. I'm sure Dr. Isis will be ready when Little Isis is old enough to Photoshop. Me, not so much.
However, I do feel an inexplicable urge to make a diorama. Maybe I can make one that represents what we hope to accomplish at our department…
terrasig | May 6, 2009The other day I wrote about a really nice post someone wrote about a cardiologist with whom I have had a relationship since postdoc years.
I also have several physician friends and colleagues IRL and on these interblogs who must constantly be questioned about their motives, their pharma connections, etc.
Let me state from this place and time: t
There are far more physicians who uphold our idealistic Rockwellian view of them than not.
Two years ago, I shared a cab with a doc on his way to a basic and clinical cancer research meeting focused on an organ we both study. Good guy. I might have…
jstemwedel | May 6, 2009I've been poky about getting my eyes checked regularly.
I got my first pair of reading glasses in the last year or so of my time as a chemistry graduate student. About nine years later, shortly before the eldest Free-Ride offspring was born and in the midst of an intensive stretch of writing, I managed to go in for another exam and got my prescription updated. Last month, after a stretch of about ten years, I got my eyes checked again and got another pair of reading glasses.
It's not like I can't function at all without the glasses. My main issue is astigmatism, and the glasses make it…