Bunnies with Sharp Teeth

Earthquake

2008-09-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

Apparently California is so happy to see me it's literally shaking with excitement. Yay?

Update: Magnitude 4.0 [usgs]
Also, neat map of people's accounts of shaking [map]

Augustuary

2008-08-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

The weather here in Seattle has been downright dreary and winter-like this week. Good thing I don't have to put up with it for much longer!

Top Banana

2008-08-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Possibly the best episode of Arrested Development ever.

My favorite quotes:
-- There's always money in the banana stand
-- Doing the time... of my life!
-- [note: Dead dove do not eat] Well, I don't know what I expected
-- Wow, I'm Mr. Manager!
-- I have a job Michael, it's called supporting my husband
-- Do you need a cage for that? // No, I'm a magician. *bumps into door* What is your return policy, by the way?
-- Is there a carbon monoxide leak in this house?
-- Then why don't you marry an ice cream sandwich!
-- So, mom, I'm trying to find these... // I don't know where they are. // ... flight records. You know, it's really more believable if you let me finish.
-- It's a fire... sale.
-- Definitely the work of a flamer.
-- Gob was intrigued. He also suspected he couldn't return a completely frozen dove to the pet store and receive the full refund he felt he was entitled to.
-- There's always money in the banana stand...
-- We throw away a banana for every buck we take so no one finds out. // Wait a minute, I think you should do that math again. // Wh-why, is it wrong? // It's fine. He's an arsonist, not an embezzler.
-- Gob had not mailed the letter. But, in an act of defiance, dramatically hurled the letter into the sea. This proved a more difficult dramatic gesture than he'd anticipated.
-- Did you burn down the storage unit? // Almost definitely!
-- You mailed that insurance check, right Gob?
-- Are you crazy? There was money in that banana stand.... There was $250,000 lining the walls of the banana stand. Cash, Michael. How much clearer can I say, THERE'S ALWAYS... MONEY... IN THE BANANA STAND!! // NO TOUCHING! NO TOUCHING! NO TOUCHING! NO TOUCHING!

Go, grease lightening

2008-07-03T01:44:00.001-07:00

Natural fireworks
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

The sky put on quite a show this evening with frequent lightening strikes out to the distant east. I grabbed my tripod and (borrowed) camera and tried to get a shot of the show. I had to take many, many shots of the sky in the general vicinity of the lightening show that were completely blank in the hopes that I'd get lucky. I had actually taken the camera back inside, but then I noticed this cluster of strikes and went back outside to try again. Fortunately, one of my exposures managed to capture this elegant strike. That I think this looks like blood vessels is a sad sign of how much I've been working lately.

I hope the weather is a little less dicey on Friday!

Update: storm has moved much closer but I'm too tired for more pictures...

(Mary) Ruth Brower Small

2008-05-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

April 19, 1916 - May 29, 2007

My grandmother is the second-to-last rower on the starboard side in this photo from 1934. She was on the first women's crew team at the University of Pennsylvania, long before women's athletics were even close to mainstream.

I rowed for three years in college and one in grad school, and it was really fun to know that I shared that experience with her, in a way.

My grandmother lived for 90 amazing years and was only sick for the last 3 months or so of her life. I'm so thankful that her mind was sharp till the very end and that we were able to spend so much quality time with her. One year ago, less than 12 hours after arriving in California following a 60-hour trip across the country in a medical transport RV, she passed away with my mom and sister by her side.

Grandma grew up during the Great Depression, and that experience shaped her life. She and her brother and sister had to take on lots of responsibility around the house, no doubt instilling her strong work ethic and no-nonsense attitude about life. She and her older sister Doris were only 15 months apart in age and were bosom buddies their whole lives.

After my mom and her brother had moved out of the house, my grandparents traveled the world with my grandfather's Glee club. They also took cruises, like one through the Panama canal (I still remember the t-shirt they brought back for me with a tropical bird on it), and one on the Rhine river, when she and Aunt Doris won a hat-making contest.

My grandparents moved to Florida 20 years ago to retire; my grandma must have been the longest-residing person in her retirement community!

She loved to play cards; her favorite games changed a bit over the years and recently we played lots of Aggravation - which is a truly aggravating game. But you could always talk her into playing just about any game - pinochle, bridge, kings in the corner, double solitaire, hearts, you name it. My mom and sister and I spent many spring breaks in Florida playing cards all day when I was in junior high and high school. She also loved her crossword puzzles, and she and Aunt Doris always argued about whether to use pencils or pens to fill them out. Grandma eventually embraced the erasable pen - which seemed to settle the matter for her.

When she came to stay with my family in California for a few months, she fell in love with Panera Bread (I don't blame her) and wanted to go there every day for lunch. She loved simple foods - ham and cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, soups. She also liked her food hot - coffee, soup - if it wasn't hot enough, she didn't want it. A few years ago we were all having lunch at the Nordstrom cafe, and my sister ordered tomato soup. My grandma wanted to try some, and since my sister was under the weather, she had Grandma take the first sip. Grandma took her bite and proclaimed it to be very good. My sister then took a spoonful, only to discover that the soup was really hot, and she burned her tongue so badly it had sores for several days. Grandma didn't seem to realize that her temperature sensors were much less sensitive than my sister's!

Nearly the entire time that Grandma lived in Florida, she'd go to the pool and do her water walking. She really rejuvenated her lifestyle when she moved, and there's no doubt that moving to a warmer climate helped extend her life.

I wrote this last year right after her death, but didn't feel like posting it then. Now that a year has gone by I decided to post it so that people may know what an amazing woman she was. Obviously this isn't a catalog of her whole life - just the parts that stand out to me when I think about her. I still miss her very much.

Stimulating the economy

2008-05-03T15:47:00.001-07:00

This morning when I woke up (with my not-quite-dry nailpolish stuck to my pajamas, oops) I didn't think, "today is the day I'll buy a new computer". Nonetheless, that's what the day has turned into.

Having been obsessively checking my bank account for W's $600 check this week, I finally got it today. I really wanted to buy Canon's Rebel XSi DSLR, but pl reminded me that with my 5-year-old Dell laptop, I wouldn't be able to do anything with the pictures I generate on said camera. Besides, I reasoned, I've got access to a great DSLR right now (the 10D) and the price on the XSi is only going to go down the longer I wait.

I've been thinking about getting a MacBook for about a year - I really like the ability to use both OSX and Windows and it sure would be nice to be able to take my computer to a coffee shop without hauling 10 pounds of accessories along with it (for example, my Dell needs an external wireless adapter because when I purchased that computer I didn't think I'd ever need wireless and didn't want to pay for the extra charge. Oops). Aside from my old roommate who seemed to get a lemon of a macbook, I haven't met anyone who didn't like theirs.

So I decided to get a refurbished macbook (one of the most recent models), which, much to pl's dismay, is faster and lighter than the one he bought in Jan. 2007. I'll buy some 3rd party RAM to make it zing when I'm editing photos.

Maybe this means I'll finally get around to editing photos and blogging about my recent trips to southeast Asia, the east coast, and California.

It's been nearly 10 years since I owned a mac (I had a molar-style mac, possibly this one, for my first two years of college) so it will be fun to see what's changed in all that time.

Wishing I'd brought a raincoat today

2008-04-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

It's hailing for the third time today. Since I was in sunny California during the recent Seattle spring snowpocalypse, I think I'm allowed to say, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?

Detour

2008-04-16T23:54:00.000-07:00

My bus ride home tonight was interrupted by a jumper on the Aurora bridge. All manner of siren-bearing vehicles were racing up Aurora to shut down the northbound lanes (and presumably try to coax the jumper out of jumping). A policeman hopped on our bus while we were stopped and told us they didn't know how long it would be before the traffic got moving again (because, you know, who can predict the plans of a jumper?). Our bus driver then took a sharp turn down to Dexter (apparently this was only an option because we weren't in an articulated bus) - which wouldn't have been much of a detour - if the Fremont bridge had been open. But that bridge was closed for construction work. So we drove down Nickerson St. - all the way to the Ballard bridge - then up to Market, and back to 45th, rejoining our normal route at Stone and 45th. We lost only a surprisingly small segment of our normal route (from the Bridge Way offramp of Aurora up to Stone and 45th). Looking at the map I'm now thinking we should have come back along Leary, which would have allowed us to rejoin the route even further upstream... although there may have been some turns along that route that are too difficult for a bus. Overall, I think our driver did a good job of getting everyone where they needed to go.

Frazzled

2008-03-04T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well, I think my day can be summed up by the fact that about 2 hours after I inhaled a granola bar (my only food for the day thus far, at around 7pm), I vaguely remembered that I had actually brought food in for lunch today and it was still in the fridge. Hurray! thought my stomach. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to eat said food until 2 hours after that (now, it is 11 pm).

In many ways my return to the lab is just a BIT too familiar... the long hours I worked as a grad student (as a temporary, hourly employee, not eligible for overtime, you'd think maybe I'd find a way to keep it to 40 hours a week, but somehow the cells and my experiments always seem to dictate otherwise), the extended periods of time without eating, unable to break away from what I'm doing to grab a bite, the exhaustion every day that then prevents me from making a dinner or a lunch for the next day, thus leading to the aforementioned fasting and further fatigue.

Today started out innocuously enough... auspicious, even. My morning experiments went really smoothly, and although I was running a little late to make it to my agreed-upon time to hand some cells to my collaborator, I managed to hitch a ride with CM as he was walking out the door to drive to campus. I guess things went off schedule when I ended up staying in the collaborator's lab until 6:00 working on the joint experiment; in my mind I had thought I'd just drop off the cells and come back.

Upon my return I realized how much more I really had to do today, especially since I'm planning on attending the annual lab ski trip tomorrow and will be gone all day (not that I won't come to the lab in the evening and feed my cells, but some things had to be dealt with more urgently than that). So starting at 7:30 pm, I proceeded to trypsinize, count, and replate four different cell types into various vessels for experiments I'll be conducting later this week. I also fed three other cell types that I have going, and neglected several other flasks that just couldn't be dealt with.

Obviously this isn't sustainable, but I feel like I'm in a huge hurry because I only have 3 months and so many experiments to do. I also clearly have no mechanism for prioritizing anything else in my life besides the lab. I hope my next job is just a tad more manageable. Scratch that, I hope I can even FIND another job, since at this pace I haven't even had time for the job hunt!

In just 7 short hours I have to be back here, with all my ski gear, ready to hit the slopes. I hope I wake up on time!!

Eclipsapalooza

2008-02-21T00:56:00.000-08:00

This evening I headed down to Green lake to view the full lunar eclipse (pictured above, taken by me). I knew to expect some company - I'd seen that the Seattle Astronomical Society was planning to gather there for the eclipse viewing. What I didn't know was that it had been advertised in just about every paper, drawing well over a hundred people.

We waited in suspense while the eastern horizon was obscured by fairly dense clouds. Fortunately the sky above that was clear so we had a good feeling that the moon would be visible soon enough. King 5 and Komo 4 news were both there covering the event. Passers-by on their evening walks repeatedly asked what was going on (since there were several telescopes and pimped-out cameras pointing across the lake). Despite some false alarms (our viewing area coincided with the flight path to SeaTac), we eventually saw what we were waiting for. The edge of the clouds began to shimmer and then the moon became visible, already in the throes of a partial eclipse.

Shortly thereafter it cleared the top of the clouds and was fully visible to everyone looking. I shot quite a few pictures, using my borrowed Canon 10D and a rented 300 mm f/4 lens plus 2x extender (to those counting, that amounts to a focal length of 960 mm when you account for the 1.6 crop factor). Since I've been shooting in RAW, it will take me a few days to wade through my pictures and develop the ones that came out well.

It was a pretty crazy scene. It was dark, save for a few street lights, and yet it was incredibly crowded, including quite a few kids. I'm all for teaching kids about astronomy and science in general, but I'm also all for keeping them from running around when there are $1000+ pieces of equipment everywhere. Many of them seemed paradoxically wired - maybe it was the thrill of being outside past their bedtime. I let a few kids borrow my binoculars to get a closer look at the beautiful reddish moon, and I let a few others peek through my camera (though the far better live view was to find someone with an actual telescope).

The crowd thinned as the eclipse wore on, and once totality ended, most people headed home. I stuck around to near the end, enjoying the elbow room and shooting some pictures of the lake and the lights reflecting across it.

As I mentioned, King 5 news was there covering the event. As I set up my camera, they came over to interview me about the eclipse and why I wanted to photograph it. You can see my cameo in their news segment here.

It was a wonderfully pleasant evening (surprising, for a Seattle winter) and the heavens were well worth the effort.

Democracy, up close and personal

2008-02-09T19:01:00.001-08:00

Caucusing in the cafeteria
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

This afternoon I went to the 2nd caucus I've ever been to. Today is the day Washington state figures out how many delegates it'll be giving the presidential candidates.

I'm in the 46th district, in a teeny-tiny precinct, so we only got 2 delegates to go on to the next level. This meant we weren't able to split our vote very realistically. The popular vote was about 76%/24% (with about 60-70 people present) split in favor of Obama (reflecting almost exactly the rest of the state) but with only 2 delegates, we had to give one to Hillary and one to Obama. We sure have a weird electoral system in this country.

There were heated debates across the line drawn in the proverbial sand - of our 13 undecideds coming into the caucus, 2 went to Hillary's camp and the remaining 11 sided with Obama. Age, sex, experience (both the pros and the cons of having it), health care, electability, hope inspiration, the Iraq war, and polls all came into the discussion between the two sides. Each side firmly believed that their candidate was the only one who could beat McCain in November. Both sides also made weak arguments as well as strong ones.

Overall it was definitely more heated and exciting than the caucus in 2004 - which was pretty boring, as far as I can remember. Back then there were a few people trying to persuade others to change their vote - but nothing like today. Maybe that's a good sign.

On another, semi-related note, our precinct gathered in the library of Daniel Bagley Elementary School, which allowed me to reminisce about awesome youth literature while listening to the boring caucus rules.

P.S. Thanks to PL for lending me the 10D... I even got a comment that it's a "beautiful camera"!

Update 02/10/08... Upon chatting with a friend I've come to the idea that perhaps there were more precincts of the 46th district at our caucus back in 2004. This would explain why it didn't seem that much more crowded than the last time...

Zoids with sharp teeth

2008-01-10T03:37:00.000-08:00

A few days ago zoid aficionado PL brought over a zoid for me to assemble. Skeptical at first, I proceeded to follow the directions (despite the utter lack of English anywhere within the booklet, they were remarkably easy to follow thanks to excellent illustrations). The end result is the creature seen below. I named him Fred. When I get back from my trip, I'll take a stab at assembling a few more zoids.

My favorite part about Fred is how his tail swings back and forth as he walks. The sigmoidal motion of the fins on his back is pretty awesome as well.

Linux computing

2007-11-30T00:21:00.000-08:00

Due to the recent failure of my mom's computer, and my role in dealing with it while home for the Thanksgiving holiday, my newest obsession has been cheap computers and Linux. While researching possible replacement computers for her (despite her pleas to not buy anything... I can't help it) I learned about the $200 computer they're selling at Walmart, the Eee PC, and the OLPC (XO). (I had, of course, heard of the OLPC, but this week was the first time I really looked into it to see what it's all about.) These computers all run on Linux-based operating systems. I've never worked in Linux before (though I did do a small amount of work in Unix back in college, but I don't remember much). Fortunately it seems like Linux is pretty accessible for the non-computer-savvy masses these days and I'm really tempted to dip my toes in the open source waters.

Now that my initial urge to buy a new machine has waned somewhat (though I'm still seriously considering the Eee PC sooner or later - it's only 2 lbs so it would be awesome for working in coffee shops and on the plane) I think I'll try installing a Linux OS on one of the older laptops that have been decommissioned and are collecting dust at my parents' house. Maybe one of them will like the fresh install and smoother OS and will be useful to them (or me :P).

My friend over at the Hope for Pandora blog has the Eee PC so I'm waiting to hear about his impressions after several weeks of use. In the meantime, I should probably spend some time cleaning up and backing up my laptop, given the fate of my mom's late desktop...

Heading for sunnier skies

2007-11-19T21:27:00.001-08:00

I won't mind getting away from the late fall weather we're having here (it's currently hailing) when I fly to California tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family!

Bottoms up!

2007-11-15T01:05:00.000-08:00

On a walk during a break in the stormy weather on Monday, I noticed some ducks voraciously feeding in the shallow part of Green Lake. They seemed to spend more time upside down than right side up...

5-handed pinochle

2007-11-14T01:14:00.000-08:00

Several generations ago my family invented a version of pinochle that allows 5 players to play, and is won individually (not as a team). I think it speaks to our competitive nature that this is one of our favorite card games whenever we get at least 5 family members together.

At a family reunion this summer I played it a bit, and decided to write down the rules so I don't forget the next time I play... one time we tried to remember them after a long break, and we got it all wrong.

I still remember very distinctly the summer I learned to play this game. My cousin and great-aunt were visiting from the East Coast. After learning the rules and such, we started getting competitive. I remember being dealt an outstanding hand, outbidding my great-aunt (who was a legendary high bidder) with a bid of 72... and I managed to make it. It was a high point of my adolescence, for sure.

*************
5 players
2 pinochle decks, remove the 9s.
Card hierarchy is A, 10, K, Q, J

All the cards are dealt to the players (often in batches of 3 at a time), leaving 5 cards untouched in the middle of the table (which are supposed to be dealt randomly during dealing, and never the last 5 cards). This is the "widow" and the high bidder gets these cards.

The total number of counters in the deck is 50 (counters = A, 10, K), including 2 points for taking the last trick.

One round of bidding starts at 40. If no one bids, then the dealer is the "bidder", and has effectively bid 40 points.

The highest bidder names one suit to be trump. The next person around the table, to the bidder's left, who has the Ace of trump, is his or her partner. If no one has an Ace, then it's the next person with the 10. The remaining three people then become the "other" team.

The high bidder then picks up the cards in the widow and incorporates them into his or her hand. This ability to get 5 extra cards has often driven people to bid too high and pay later!

At this point everyone lays down their "meld". The points gained here are added to the total number of counters taken during play.

Meld points:
Marriage (K, Q of same suit) = 2
Marriage in trump = 4
Pinochle (J of diamonds + Q of spades) = 4
Jacks in all four suits ("40 Jacks") = 4
Queens in all four suits ("60 Queens") = 6
Kings in all four suits ("80 Kings")= 8
Aces in all four suits ("100 Aces") = 10
A, K, Q, J in all four suits ("Roundhouse") = 28 (?)
Run (A, 10, K, Q, J) - trump only = 15

It should be noted that I learned how to play with "Shore rules" but in other branches of the family, there are "Michigan rules". The main difference (that I can remember) is that for Michigan rules, a double pinochle (i.e. 2 jacks of diamonds and 2 queens of spades) is 20 points, whereas in Shore rules it's 8 (2x 4). This nearly caused an incident this summer, but was thankfully ameliorated by the person with the double pinochle being outbid.

After playing all the meld and counting it up, the high bidder discards 5 cards (and must disclose to the other players if he or she discards any trump cards). If the high bidder has an amazing hand and could meld all their cards without leaving at least 5 out, then he or she has to remove some meld in order to discard. Then the high bidder leads, and must lead in the trump suit.

The play proceeds as standard trick/trump games go. The person who plays the highest card of the suit led takes the trick and leads the card for the next round. Play proceeds in a standard clockwise direction. If someone no longer has any cards of the suit led, they must play trump. If more than one person must trump, the second person must beat the first person's trump card, if they can. In the case of a trumped round, the person who played the highest card in the trump suit takes the trick and leads the next round. If a player is out of the suit led and is out of trump, he or she can play any card of any suit but has no chance of winning that round.

Play continues until all players are out of cards.

Each team then counts the number of "counters" they took during game play. These are A, 10, and K of any suit. The team that took the last trick gets an extra 2 points.

The counters are then added to the meld points. Each person on each team gets the points accrued by their team during that hand.

The bidding team must have beaten their bid (i.e. if they bid 50 points, then their meld + counters must be at least 50). If they do not make their bid, then the bid amount is SUBTRACTED from their overall score (ouch!).

The "other" team, made of the three non-bidders, must take at least one trick during the hand in order to "save their meld". If they do not take at least one trick, they do not get any points for the hand.

The game proceeds until one person reaches 240 points.

***************

The great thing about this game is that your partner is almost never the same person from hand to hand. Bidding can get out of control and then the unlucky person with the Ace of trump can end up being taken down by the high bidder... it's a game full of drama and strategy.

Around Town

2007-11-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

On the bus last week I spotted this gadget, which is part of the new Puget Sound transit smart card system, called ORCA. I initially assumed it was in the testing phase, but apparently they're already rolling it out everywhere! I wonder if the UW's UPass system will stay the same or if it will get incorporated into this new system.

Also, there's a brand new Starbucks on Westlake between Harrison and Thomas. Wish they'd been there when I worked in that neighborhood!

Another perk of finally graduating...

2007-11-08T16:19:00.000-08:00

I happily received this email from United Airlines today:

Congratulations on graduating from college!

Thank you for sending us verification of your degree. We have credited your account with 10,000 bonus miles.

This makes the $6 I spent on an official transcript well worth the money. I wasn't sure they would accept my PhD as a "college degree" - seems so far away from what I consider "college". Those of you who have recently graduated should take advantage of this offer - you can find the details by clicking here.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T13:44:00.001-07:00

Comet Holmes

2007-10-30T00:03:00.001-07:00

Comet Holmes
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

This evening I stepped out onto my balcony to check out the newest sky feature - Comet Holmes. Sure enough, it was easy to spot, and when I dragged my camera and tripod out there I managed to get a few nice shots! It's not quite as spectacular as Comet McNaught was back in January, but it's always fun to see new comets when they become visible in the night sky.
I remember going out into our backyard with my dad the last time Halley's Comet came by. I had expected some fast-moving blazing fireball in the sky - and so was considerably disappointed when the thing we were looking at was just a blurry blob that wasn't moving perceptibly. Since I was only 8 at the time, I hope you can understand my misconception. I'm glad that there have been other comets to entertain me in recent years, since I'll be 83 the next time Halley comes around.

Minimum Wage

2007-10-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Washington State has the highest minimum wage in the US? It's currently $7.93/hour and will go up to $8.07/hour at the beginning of 2008.

This is good news for me because I may end up trying to find a part-time job in the near future while I conduct my more extensive career search for jobs in the biotech sector. I'm especially interested in finding a company that offers benefits to its part-time employees, as health insurance can be rather expensive (especially when one has zero income).

In other news, I've been told by my 2 readers that now that I'm unemployed I'm expected to be blogging more. Consider this a first effort with more to come.

No, really. I'm getting a little tired of this.

2007-09-23T01:49:00.001-07:00

It's 1:50 am on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and I'm still at the lab.... It seems completely unlikely that I will be done with all that needs to be done by my last day of work (Friday 09/28/07). I still have an incubator full of cells (the biggest time suck of all), slides that need staining, slides that need counting, a manuscript to revise and return to my PI, other experiments that need tending, multitudes of frozen cells that need to be moved to the liquid nitrogen tank and recorded, and on top of all that I need to clear out my desk and bench and file cabinets to make way for the next person who'll be using them. And it would be nice if I could organize my samples and reagents that I'm leaving behind.

You might think that I'm a procrastinator and put all this off till the very end; on some level that's true, but there was also the issues of the cells not being ready this summer and I certainly had plenty of other things to do to keep myself busy. I feel like I've been going non-stop since about mid-July; that's about when I started to get back into the swing of things after defending my dissertation and finishing the revisions and then going to various family reunions in June.

Of course, one of the other major tasks I was supposed to be working on this summer was finding a job, and I've completely dropped that ball. I haven't even done anything job-related in about the last month. I should have been sending my resume out to companies all summer. I got some advice to take one afternoon per week to work on my job search, but I couldn't even manage to find that amount of time in my schedule. Therefore, as of Friday, I will be officially unemployed (and officially terrified at the prospect).

In the meantime, here's a nice video of some beating cells that I took tonight.

SER-iously.

2007-09-18T21:35:00.001-07:00

Work is really, really, really kicking my butt right now. Seriously.

(With apologies for the Grey's Anatomy reference...)

SLU parking changes

2007-09-11T00:11:00.001-07:00

Propaganda
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

The city of Seattle is implementing a new pay parking plan for the South Lake Union neighborhood. I saw several new parking meters and signage today, as well as these inspirational posters on every light pole. I'm sure it's no coincidence that they're appearing at the same time as the parking meters. The other posters have similar catchy phrases with people's names in them, encouraging the reader to commute using non-car transportation. I'm always in favor of alternate transportation, but I find this ad campaign a little cheesy since it's clearly meant to distract you from the other changes being made.

Two-way Westlake opens up

2007-09-11T00:03:00.001-07:00

Two-way Westlake
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

They opened up the new southbound lanes of Westlake this weekend. There were very few cars traveling in that direction, but then again it was the evening rush hour again. Photo taken at Mercer and Westlake, facing south.

Changing seasons

2007-08-31T00:51:00.001-07:00

I found this leaf today... last time I checked, it was still August (and therefore technically SUMMER), but apparently that fact is lost on the tree whence this leaf came. [sigh] At least the weather has been nice this week.

New walk signals at Dexter and Mercer

2007-08-24T12:19:00.001-07:00

New walk signals have been installed at the (rather busy) intersection of Dexter and Mercer in South Lake Union. These are the type that count down until the hand stops flashing, which I find to be quite useful. I noticed last night, however, that the northbound signal on the east side of the intersection wasn't working - it never went to "walk" so I had to dart across and hope that the cars turning onto Mercer saw that I was there. In the near future the city will be installing pay stations on the streets throughout this neighborhood, eliminating the free parking that currently exists. I guess it's all part of the growth that the area is experiencing under the watch of Paul Allen/Vulcan.

Near miss

2007-08-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

As I was reading the Providence Journal-Bulletin on a plane that ultimately never took off (more on that later) I discovered that the hotel I'd been staying at over the weekend had had a fire alarm/evacuation while we were all at the wedding reception. It was really weird to be idly reading the newspaper of a city I don't live in and to come across an article with such relevance to myself. At first I thought the evacuation had happened while I was there, and I was thinking that perhaps I'd slept through it (those of you who know me know that this is a distinct possibility), but then I realized it was earlier in the evening and we hadn't yet returned to the hotel.

How many states have you been to?

2007-08-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

I just found this neat tool to show you which states you've visited. There aren't many I haven't visited (and I didn't count a state if I only changed planes there - that would add Georgia and either Missouri or Kansas - wherever the Kansas City airport is). I've lived in three states (CA, RI, WA). I've camped in five (only five?? -- CA, SD, WY, WA, WV). Road trips help bring the state count up - driving around the Southwest with my family as a kid and then driving across the country 7 years ago helped my list grow substantially. (My sister is currently making her way from FL to CA by car, so I imagine she'll add quite a few new states to her list!!) I'd like to go back to Alaska since I was only there for a long weekend a few years ago. I haven't been to the Rockies since 1992, so that would be another area high on my list. Later this week I'll be back in Rhode Island for the wedding of my good friend from college. Interestingly I've never been to Mexico, despite that being the closest country to us where I grew up (the Bay Area in California).

Wonder-ful news

2007-08-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

The storm damage that ravaged Mt. Rainier last fall has been repaired enough that the 93-mile circumferential Wonderland trail is now open for business. I attempted to hike the trail three years ago but had to turn back after only 25 miles when heavy, constant rain flooded the rivers and washed away the bridges. The damage from November's storm was far worse. I don't have any plans to try the trail again (though I'd like to complete it someday), but it's great that they've been able to get it back to working order with 1-2 months of hikable weather still left this summer!

Lolcar

2007-08-03T11:51:00.001-07:00

Lolcar!
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

The good news of the week is that I'll be getting a new (to me) car pretty soon! My parents' friend's mother is no longer driving, so my parents were able to buy her car for a great price. It has a few issues - a dent in the front side panel, a gas gauge that doesn't work - but it still runs well and has only 73,000 miles on it (100,000 fewer miles than my current car). It also has a brand new set of tires! My mom and I are thinking of driving it up to Seattle over Labor Day weekend, but those plans are far from concrete. The 1992 Jetta that I've been driving for the past 8 years has started to have more and more problems recently, which prompted this purchase. I've loved driving the Jetta - it gets 400 miles to a tank of gas and has a lot of "pep" due to its German engineering and manual transmission - but I definitely won't mind parting with the rusted engine block, lack of cupholders, and a safety system that consists of seatbelts only.

R2D2

2007-07-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

Spotted this R2-D2 themed mailbox at the mall the other day. I guess it's a promotion the USPS is doing in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars -- "Jedi shipping and mailing Master" -- [groan]. Not sure why USPS has taken it upon themselves to do this, but they are releasing a Yoda stamp later this year so that could be fun.

Candy spin-off

2007-07-09T00:07:00.001-07:00

A staple of touristy Hawaiian candies is the Caramac, a chocolate-covered caramel and macadamia nut patty, made by a company called Hawaiian Host. Quite yummy. Used to be you could only get this delicacy in Hawaii, but now airports and grocery stores on the mainland carry it as well.

On a recent trip through an airport, however, I noticed that the Hawaiian Host has spun off an "American Host" brand candy, complete with a patriotic Statue of Liberty on the box. I'm not sure how much America can claim the chocolate-covered almond as its own, but this just seemed like a strange way to utilize the popularity of the Hawaiian Host brand.

Life is just a bowl of 191 cherries

2007-07-04T09:56:00.001-07:00

I harvested the cherries from my balcony cherry tree yesterday... I ended up with 191 edible cherries in all! Quite an improvement over last year's paltry 15 cherries. I lost some cherries to the wind a few months ago, and the birds managed to peck at a few through my protective netting, but still harvesting nearly 200 seems like a reasonable yield to me :)

Getting out of Seattle

2007-06-01T02:23:00.001-07:00

Old Kautz Creekbed
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Last week, as you may know, I defended my PhD. (I passed.) Yay!

My dad flew to Seattle for the big event and then stayed for a few days afterwards. It was great to have him in town because a) it's always fun to have visitors, b) it's always fun to have family around, and c) it made me take a few days off after my defense, which I might not have done otherwise. Also, we had some great dinners (Pair!) and got to take lots of photos together since he had his new camera with him.

The day after my defense the weather was glorious so we took a little trip down to Mt. Rainier. The road to Paradise just re-opened earlier in the month and the park is still heavily damaged from the flood of November 2006.

We ate our picnic lunch up at the Jackson visitor center, though there weren't any seats outside. Then we meandered slowly back down the road and enjoyed the majesty of the mountain and marveled at the power of nature.

This photo is the old Kautz Creek bed - the new Kautz Creek jumped its banks during the storm and now runs about 1/4 mile away. The small amount of water running in the old tracks was really red, which made for nice contrast with the green trees, white mountain, and blue sky. We couldn't figure out why the water was red. We figured it is probably iron, but the creek wasn't red before, so why would it be now?

I hiked down the Kautz creek trail once before - during another heavy weather event at Mt. Rainier. Several friends and I had set out to hike the Wonderland Trail in the summer of 2004. (The Wonderland trail is 95 miles long and encircles the Mountain, gaining and losing 20,000 feet in elevation along the way). The day we started hiking it started raining and raining, and it just didn't let up. On the 3rd day we crossed paths with several groups who told us that the bridge over the next river we needed to cross had been washed out, so we turned back to the trailhead. We couldn't take the exact route we'd taken in because by the time we got back yet another bridge had washed out. So we hiked down the Kautz creek trail to the road, and two members of our group hitched a ride back up to the parking lot where our cars were.

Mt. Rainier is an amazing park, but its weather patterns (and active volcanic status!) make it just a bit edgier than other beautiful locales.

Cruisin' Classics

2007-05-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to purge my audio tape collection, since I'm pretty sure that's a dying technology. My car still has a tape player, but I don't even listen to tapes there - I usually just listen to the radio (even though the LCD is partially broken so it's difficult to see the station), or, if I'm going on a long trip, I take my iPod and the radio adapter that broadcasts to an unused radio frequency. So, tapes are a thing of the past. Except that my friends made fun mixes for me over the years, and it would be nice to preserve the collection of music, if not the physical tape. So I'm trying to write down the playlists from those mixes with the intent of finding those songs in my library/buying them on iTunes and re-creating the mixes on my iPod. On the other hand, I also have many tapes that were direct recordings of CDs, so these went directly into the trash. It's quite cathartic.

Another set of tapes that I have is the Cruisin' Classics. These were tapes sold by Shell gas stations in 1989 and 1990 for $1.99 (with purchase of 8 gallons of gas). Each one had 10 songs from the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's. My sister and I LOVED these tapes. We loved them so much we fought over them (though that's not saying much since we fought quite a bit in our childhood). To circumvent this particular predicament, I made copies of the cassettes by making my read-only "Annie" cassettes into writeable cassettes via the old scotch-tape-over-the-holes-on-the-top-of-the-cassette method (sorry, had to start calling them cassettes due to confusion with adhesive tape...). Well, being the packrat that I am, I still have 2 of the originals and one of the copies from 18 years ago. Yeah, I wasn't kidding about being a packrat.

Turns out it's harder to find information about Cruisin' Classics than you might think. These tapes were pretty popular when they came out, so it seems like someone would have chronicled their history and playlists somewhere on the internet. All I could find was eBay listings with patchy information and bad spelling. So, in case you're wondering and don't want to crawl through the interweb to find this information, here it is (Volumes I-III came out in the summer of 1989 and Volumes IV-VI came out in 1990):

Volume I: 60's & 70's

You Can't Hurry Love [The Supremes]
Kind Of A Drag [The Buckinghams]
I Heard It Through The Grapevine [Marvin Gaye]
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher [Jackie Wilson]
Joy To The World [Three Dog Night]
Proud Mary [Credence Clearwater Revival]
Do You Believe In Magic [Lovin Spoonful]
Hot Fun In The Summertime [Sly & The Family Stone]
Lady Willpower [Gary Puckett & Union Gap]
Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season) [The Byrds]

Volume II: 70's & 80's

Uptown Girl [Billy Joel]
Rosanna [Toto]
Love Train [The O'Jays]
Your Mama Don't Dance [Loggins & Messina]
Crocodile Rock [Elton John]
Don't Stop [Fleetwood Mac]
What A Fool Believes [The Doobie Brothers]
Sara Smile [Hall & Oates]
Rock' n Me [Steve Miller Band]
Ramblin' Man [The Allman Brothers Band]

Volume III: 50's & 60's

Johnny B.Goode [Chuck Berry]
Great Balls Of Fire [Jerry Lee Lewis]
All I Have To Do Is Dream [The Everly Brothers]
My Girl [The Temptations]
Travelin' Man [Rick Nelson]
That'll Be The Day [Buddy Holly & the Crickets]
Blueberry Hill [Fats Domino]
He's So Fine [The Chiffons]
Reach Out I'll Be There [The Four Tops]
I Get Around [The Beach Boys]

Volume IV: More 60's & 70's

Come See About Me [Diana Ross & The Supremes]
Beautiful Morning [The Rascals]
Midnight Train to Georgia [Gladys Knight & The Pips]
Mr. Tambourine Man [The Byrds]
Build Me Up Buttercup [The Foundations]
Chain of Fools [Aretha Franklin]
You Didn't Have to Be So Nice [The Lovin' Spoonful]
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [Marvin Gaye]
My Guy [Mary Wells]
Monday, Monday [The Mamas & The Papas]

Volume V: More 70's & 80's

Listen To The Music [The Doobie Brothers]
It's So Easy [Linda Ronstadt]
Ventura Highway [America]
Could It Be I'm Falling In Love [The Spinners]
Can't Fight This Feeling [REO Speedwagon]
The Heat Is On [Glenn Frey]
Wake Me Up Before You Go - Go [Wham!]
Kiss On My List [Hall & Oates]
September [Earth, Wind & Fire]
Footloose [Kenny Loggins]

Volume VI: More 50's and 60's

Sherry [The Four Seasons]
Blue Moon [The Marcels]
Oh, Pretty Woman [Roy Orbison]
Why Do Fools Fall In Love? [Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers]
Get A Job [The Silhouettes]
Runaround Sue [Dion]
Do You Want To Dance? [Bobby Freeman]
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On [Jerry Lee Lewis]
Yakety Yak [The Coasters]
Oh, What A Night [The Dells]

Canon's take on IS

2007-05-20T00:49:00.001-07:00

I had been wondering whether the next DSLR in Canon's Rebel line would have in-camera image stabilization, since some of its main competitors have already implemented this feature (Sony A100, Olympus E510, Pentax K100D and K10D, Samsung Digimax GX-10, and Panasonic L1, though this last one isn't in the same price bracket as the others). So I was somewhat disappointed to see this Canon advertisement extolling the virtues of in-lens image stabilization as opposed to in-camera. Not that I don't believe them that stabilizing the lens is more effective than stabilizing the sensor, but when you're on a budget, it would be nice not to have to slap down the extra money for the IS in the lens. I still plan to get a DSLR sooner or later, and it will most likely be Canon (though the common 4/3 mount that Olympus shares with Panasonic/Leica is tempting, since my dad has the L1 and the accompanying Leica lens... :) ). Depending on how long I wait it will be the XTi or its successor. It will be difficult to go back to a world without IS after using the S2 for so long. But who knows, maybe I'll be making SO much money by then that I can buy some IS lenses too! Or, maybe not. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. :P

More balcony plant management

2007-05-19T20:37:00.001-07:00

Net
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Speaking of pests, I learned a few years ago that birds will eat cherries well before they are ripe, so if you want to save any for yourself, you need to put a net over the tree. This worked wonderfully last year and so I have put the net up again this year. If the current cohort of cherries all manage to ripen, it will be quite a bumper crop!

Unfortunately, we had quite a bit of wind today, the result of which was that the net ripped some of the cherries off the tree as it was blowing back and forth. Cherries near the trunk and proximal portions of the branches remained untouched, but I was sad to see bunches of green cherries hanging in the net, helpless.

Field trip day?

2007-05-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

This morning on the 16 there were not one, but TWO class field trips using the bus as transportation. The first group looked to be roughly 10 years old, with probably 20-25 kids and several adult chaperones. They took up quite a bit of space despite squishing two little kids into a normal seat. Then we got a second group as we headed south on Stone. Though the group was smaller (maybe 10 kids), the kids were much younger (maybe 4-5) and the bus was quite full by then. Some kind people gave up their seats so the little ones could stay together (I was already standing or I would have done the same). I think both groups were heading to Seattle Center. It was just funny to watch the excitement unfold, though a number of regular bus riders seemed disinterested (and failed to scootch to the back of the bus when the density got higher). It makes you wonder, though - public transportation is a great way to save money for large groups, but I would probably worry about losing a kid or not having enough space on the bus, especially during commuting hours.

Project Ladybug

2007-05-15T23:06:00.001-07:00

the good guys and the bad guys
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

This morning I inspected the ladybugs outside and was pleased to find that there were still a few on my plants. They hadn't quite found the stash of aphid-like bugs yet, so I moved a few over there and they immediately started munching on them. (You can see the culprits on the leaf stalks in this picture... click on it for a larger version.) I didn't see very many this evening, though, so most may have already moved on. I hope a few stick around to keep things tidy out there!

Ladybug gators?

2007-05-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

After spotting a few aphid-like bugs (maybe even aphids; I'm not an entomologist) on my balcony plants, I decided to treat them the organic way - with ladybugs. I'd seen some bags of ladybugs for sale at Home Depot the last time I was there, so I stopped by this weekend and picked one up. This evening I let them loose on my plants (the packaging recommends a nighttime jailbreak; maybe they fly less when it's cool and dark?). There were actually quite a few dead ladybugs in the bag (I hope I didn't kill them!) but still plenty of live ones. I then spent a while collecting the ones that had fallen to the ground and encouraging them to crawl onto the plants. (The inside of the packaging has some interesting information about the ladybug life cycle, including the fact that the larvae are called ladybug gators... really?) If there are any "ladies in red" left during the daylight hours I'll try to post a picture. I hope they do their job and find lots of little pests to eat! If not, I suppose I'll be doing the neighbors a favor as the ladybugs will probably migrate to greener pastures, as it were. Either way, for $4, it's a fun experiment!

QFC! QFC! QFC at lunch!

2007-05-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Update on the QFC at Mercer and Taylor just West of 99: it's been open since Wednesday a week ago! I stopped in there today, and it looks great. The store has a very similar feel to the new Whole Foods, with an emphasis on prepared foods (but perhaps not quite as much as WF has). There was lots of beautiful produce, and a Starbucks kiosk inside (making it officially the closest Starbucks to my lab!). I didn't have time to wander all the way into the back, but I'm really looking forward to having a nice grocery store so close to work. It's even on my route to walk from the bus stop, meaning I'll probably go there most days to pick up breakfast on my way to work.

Draft done

2007-05-09T23:50:00.001-07:00

Pile
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

After weeks of lots and lots of reading and writing and such, I finally finished a draft of my thesis! I finished proofreading yesterday and printed it up without too much hassle. Then I decided that since I'd printed it double-sided, it would be best if I had it spiral-bound, so as to make it easier for my committee to read. I took it to the UW hospital duplicating office, since the Rotunda copy shop is closed (for how long? indefinitely?). Seems like it would have been a simple job, but when I picked up the bound copies, the pages were out of order and flipped the wrong way. So I had to have them punch new holes and rebind the document - except that now there were holes on the outside edge of some of the pages. This seemed fixable by cutting off that edge, but the guy somehow managed to mangle that too. Instead of cutting the whole document, he only cut the pages with the extra holes. So then I had to have him cut the rest of the pages, which resulted in the document edge being somewhat ragged. In the end I still got 5 copies bound and in the right order, but one copy had margins of about half an inch (instead of the 1.25" I'd started out with) and another copy somehow had some pages ripped. I saved that one for my adviser, figuring he was the least likely to care that some pages were taped back together.

If I'd been on time with all this and finished a draft last Wednesday (when it was technically supposed to be done), then I could have gone back to work, reprinted the document, and gotten it bound again. But I was in such a hurry to get it into my committee's hands that I pushed forward with what I had.

Oh, and then my GSR's office is under construction, so I had to trek all around the south campus trying to find him. And it was kind of hot. And I was flustered from the whole binding thing. So it was a bit of a wacky day.

But at the end of it all, I am done with my draft, and that's a pretty good feeling. Now I just have to work on my presentation, read piles of papers, continue to work on experiments for my manuscript, and clean my apartment before my dad arrives in two weeks!

John Krasinski

2007-05-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Nyanko and I are huge fans of The Office, and my favoritest character is Jim Halpert, played by John Krasinski. I even have a claim to fame - we went to the same college and overlapped by two years (though I can't say I ever met him). Anyway, he apparently stopped by our alma mater last week to talk to the students. You can read a recap of his speech here.

Green and blue

2007-05-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

Anyone know why the Space Needle was green and blue last night?

Awesome sign

2007-05-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

Apropos of Wednesday's water main break/sinkhole event, this sign was spotted at the Eastlake Bar and Grill: "Sink hole de Mayo!/We're open." (Apologies for the crappy camera phone image quality.)

Tutta Bella

2007-05-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

A new branch of Tutta Bella pizzeria will be gracing the Denny/Westlake Whole Foods complex. I noticed the "coming soon" sign while there foraging for lunch earlier this week. I've only been to the one in Wallingford once, but it was pretty good! I'll have to check this one out when it opens.

Oops!... I did it again

2007-05-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

Seattle suffers its second water main break in a week - this time on Eastlake, causing a sinkhole to form, but NOT the fault of construction workers. The University Bridge is closed, wreaking havoc on the traffic in the U-district for the foreseeable future. Luckily, our traffic problems are probably not quite as bad as the Bay Area's. (Photo via P.I.)

Diet Coke Plus

2007-05-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I spotted this new Coke product at Safeway. Diet Coke Plus - with vitamins and minerals? It just sounds so weird. I mean, sodas are the epitome of unhealthiness, so does this somehow make them better? Do the vitamins and minerals counteract the phosphoric acid and other chemicals? (Not that those qualities keep me from drinking sodas fairly frequently, but they really aren't great for you). (Ooops, just checked my own facts and discovered that the claims about Coke's nastiness are largely false). I wonder if this will go the way of Crystal Pepsi and New Coke, or if it will catch on and be the newest health craze... only time will tell. I personally can't stand artificial sweeteners (except for whatever they use in Fresca), so I won't be trying it anytime soon. If you're a Diet Coke drinker and feel brave enough to try it, please report back on taste and/or other benefits! :P

Accept

2007-04-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

It isn't a big red stamp, but it's very nice to finally have 7 years of work be recognized by the scientific community.

(P.S. It's kind of funny that the button I click to "blog" this item is called "publish")

SLU drama!

2007-04-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

Walking to my building from the bus today was an adventure - the entire building is surrounded by gushing water from a broken water main on Dexter. My friend tr already blogged about it here. (Photo from King 5 News, whose studios are located right where the main was breached.)

In other news, I noticed that the new luxury condominium complex on Mercer and 5th Ave N (Lumen condominiums) will have a QFC on the ground floor - very exciting for increasing the lunch options in SLU!

Venting

2007-04-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

I really dislike it when a paper has an intriguing title, and then it turns out that either it's a crappy study, or the title was misleading. Every time I look at this paper I get excited and think that it will answer all my questions, and instead, it just disappoints every time. It's really dense, doesn't flow that well, and doesn't really tell me what I think it should. Oh, sure, it talks about VEGF and endothelial cells and vascular development. But it doesn't tell me how they are all interconnected; instead it just recaps the same story that many other review articles cover. Oh well, such is life. And yes, I'm still procrastinating. But I needed to vent. So thanks.

Sunshine and gravel

2007-04-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've taken to working rather long hours. I'm not complaining, it comes with the territory of trying to write one's thesis dissertation, but I'm just saying. So today when I headed home early to meet roomie for dinner, it meant that I was actually at the bus stop while the sun was still up. I wouldn't think that this is really that a notable event, except that as I was kicking the gravel rocks back into the strip along the side of the sidewalk like I always do, I thought it was kind of weird to be able to see them clearly. Anyway, thanks for the excuse to get out early, kc!

And yes, I'm procrastinating. :P

New plants

2007-04-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got around to potting up some cuttings I've had sitting in water for WAY too long to admit. The water has been nasty for quite a while. Ick. The new additions are: two pots of Tradescantia zebrina, one pot of Ceropegia woodii (actually not 100% sure that is correct), and one variegated Chlorophytum comosum. I'm not planning to keep any of them except the Ceropegia woodii, if I can manage to find homes for them. I already have too many plants to care for! Also up for adoption are several pots of Ornithogalum caudatum, and several more pots of Chlorophytum comosum.

Florera Greenlake

2007-04-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

In other construction news, it appears that the new "Florera Greenlake" condos at Woodlawn and Ravenna have topped out, based on the cupola in this picture:
There's obviously a ton of construction going on all over the city, but I seem to live and work at two relative hot-spots. I used to be intrigued by watching the progress of various building projects, but I have to say that I'm kind of oversaturated and fairly annoyed at the inconvenience they can cause. The future doesn't look too much better, what with the eventual renovation of the old Albertsons lot and even more condos in South Lake Union.

Westlake and Mercer - progress!

2007-04-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, the Streetcar tracks at Westlake and Mercer are really starting to shape up! It looks like they might even be fairly close to re-opening the segment of Westlake between Mercer and Valley that's been closed for nearly a year... (Actually, I can't remember when they started the roadwork there, but it has been many months, if not a year.) But they've repaved the non-tracks segment and even painted lane lines, which I consider to be a strong sign of imminent opening to car traffic. I can only hope that this might help relieve some of the constant congestion this neighborhood has had recently.

Northbound:

Southbound:

Whale sighting in Hawaii

2007-04-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

Check out this awesome animated GIF PL put together from a sequence of pictures I took of a humpback whale in Hawaii last December! Thanks PL!

Seats

2007-04-07T00:46:00.001-07:00

Seats
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

I have a short, shameful confession to make. I want more people to view my flickr photostream. To this end, I have implemented a two-pronged Plan. 1) upload some of my coolest pictures from over the years (not just recent ones), and 2) add them to groups in hopes that they might get some more notice. I think #2 is the general strategy of most popular flickrites. I also noticed recently after browsing through the explore/interestingness pages that if I comment or favorite some random person's picture, sometimes they comment on one of mine too. It's a nice reciprocity thing.

In other news. Seattle was hot today. It's midnight and my apartment is still overly warm. Of course, I will forever be shunned by my family (in CA) for claiming that mid-70s is hot, but I've been here for 7 years... I can't help it. I've acclimated. Fortunately for me (as I have a LOT of work to do in the next 6 weeks or so) the weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse in a few days. Can't have too much sunshine and happiness mocking me while I spend all my time in front of the computer.

Moon over the Blue Flame

2007-03-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the bus last night, I noticed a waxing moon over my building (and its adjacent construction site). Upon examining the EXIF data, it appears that I took the picture at 7:44PM (and the sky was not yet pitch black). I'm glad that the days are so much longer now! Winter really appears to be over. :)

Lightness

2007-03-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

Up here in Seattle, we have pretty significant swings in the number of daylight hours over the course of the year, compared to most other parts of the country (except, of course, Alaska). The upshot of this, for me, is that certain parts of the year are marked by odd behavior on my part. The most alarming one is that in the summer, when it doesn't get dark until the 10:00 hour, I frequently forget to eat dinner at a normal time, since the darkening sky is a cue to me for most of the year. More pertinent to this time of year, though similar in mechanism, is that I tend to work much later in the evening when the light/dark transition moves later and later. At some point towards the summer, this stops, because even I can tell that it's time to go home before 10:00 (usually). But right now, when the sky is staying dusky till nearly 8:00, I find myself looking at the clock and being amazed at how late it has gotten and I'm still at work. This effect is made possible by the fact that we have windows in our lab and offices, a feature that was completely foreign to us just over two years ago when we still worked on main campus and were imprisoned in the center of the building, the lab completely window-less. In the winter, though, the reverse effect doesn't seem to happen quite so much. Unfortunately, one can't justify going home at 4:00 just because it's dark outside - on the contrary, since it's already dark, you just end up working till you're done and then go home. But in the spring, it's always like this, and it always catches me off guard.

FTV

2007-03-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Somehow, despite being out of the country (and away from internet) in between the final two "sweeps" weeks of our most recent fantasy teevee league (and thus unable to update my lineup for the 2nd week), I managed to pull out a win in the end. Roomie kc's boyfriend came in at a veeeery close 2nd. I think the surprise showing by Sam Winchester of Supernatural helped me immensely. Last season I came in second to kc. We're already setting up a new league, so we'll see if the Seattle contingent can continue to do well or whether totoro and his contingent will dominate this time. One of these days we'll get a second league set up so my sister can play - she's dying to have her own "fantasy" league since her boyfriend loves to play all the more traditional fantasy sports (baseball, football, basketball, whatever).

Busy March

2007-03-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I returned from a great trip to Germany and Austria, was home for a few days, and then turned around and went to a conference in Canada for a few more days. I plan to eventually blog about both trips, but in the meantime, you can check out my flickr set as I slowly add more pictures from Europe.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

2007-02-28T00:28:00.000-08:00

I'm off to Germany (Munich as the hub) for 8 days, traveling with roomie AS for 6 of those! I'm pretty excited, especially now that I'm done packing. Hopefully I'll be diligent and post interesting photos from the trip in a timely fashion when I get back!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Valentine's Cactus?

2007-02-22T23:43:00.000-08:00

After three years of careful watering (well, most of the time), a bit of fertilizer every now and then, and not much else, my Christmas cactus really came into its own this year. Last year it bloomed with just one flower. This year I came home from the holidays to find it chock-full of beautiful pink flowers. Then, a week or so later, another flower bloomed. I should explain that my plant has two different types of "Christmas cactus" in the same pot. The second type has a much redder and more dramatic bloom. Then, lo and behold, just the other day, I got yet another bloom! Perhaps it should be called a Valentine's cactus or a President's Day cactus?

Actually, it looks like the one that bloomed first is a "Christmas cactus" and the one that bloomed a bit later is a "Thanksgiving cactus" - backwards! The main thing to getting them to flower (besides overall age) is to make sure they're exposed to increasing darkness in the winter (no problem here in Seattle), and I think colder temperatures help too. In some climates this can be achieved by placing the plant outside, but my kitchen windowsill seems to work just fine. My plant was made by taking cuttings from other mature plants - one from a coworker, and the other from (I'm a bit ashamed to admit) the floor of the garden center at Home Depot (I asked if it was ok to take it). Now I guess I just need to add an "Easter cactus" to the mix and I'll be all set!

Seattle Symphony goes high tech

2007-02-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

I went to Benaroya Hall this evening to hear the Seattle Symphony perform Grieg's Piano Concerto and Bruckner's unfinished 9th Symphony. I liked the latter more than the former, perhaps due to my partiality towards wind instruments, which were much more prominently featured in the second piece. The audience, on the other hand, disagreed with me and preferred the former piece. Having not been to the symphony since the end of their amazing 100th anniversary season in 2003-2004, I was amused to see their new way of reminding people to turn off their noisy electronic devices. I snapped this picture right before I complied. I've been so spoiled with Seattle Symphony's Campus Club tickets ($10 for a ticket right before the show, best available seats in the house, for currently registered university students) that I worry I might not want to pay full price when I become a non-student someday. Tonight I was in the Founder's Tier, where the tickets normally go for $75 each. Had it not been for the fact that I wanted to sit on the left side of the hall so I could see the pianist, I could have had a seat in the Founder's Tier Box section, which is normally $99 a seat. 90% off... not bad!

Update... Amante is already open

2007-02-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Well, it turns out Amante is already open, and has been for 3 weeks. I stopped by tonight to find out when they'd be opening and was greeted by a bright neon open sign. Stopped in and decided to order a salad to go for dinner, since my rations at home have been dwindling. The people were very nice, but I was the only customer. I think that location tends not to do well - it's right next to the Greenlake Bar and Grill, but you can't even see it or tell that there's a restaurant right next door. On the other side is Super Jock and Jill, and beyond that there's no more retail. The space has recently been occupied by a noodle restaurant and later a teriyaki place, neither of which did well (obviously).

As I waited for my salad, I looked around the interior. I really liked their light fixtures, though you can't see them in this crappy camera phone picture. The fake tree in the middle was a little weird. Otherwise, though, it was nice enough. Took my salad home to eat it, and it was pretty good! I only had half of the half-size salad, so I'll be eating the rest for lunch today. Next time maybe I'll get the full-size salad and make it into three meals...

Those of you who know me know that I tend to keep things, things that don't seem to be keep-worthy, for reasons only known to me (and sometimes not even me). Some people call me a pack-rat. I don't disagree. Anyway, so funny story. A few years ago I was house-sitting, and I wanted dinner, but didn't feel comfortable trying to cook in the kitchen there. I was tired of pizza, so I found a flier for a place that delivered and ordered some tortellini alfredo and a salad. I liked the meal so much that I kept the receipt, thinking that I'd call them again someday. I never did call them again, but I happened to look at the receipt last night and realized it was actually Amante! I guess I can shred the receipt now.

Update 02/08/07:
I forgot to post the picture of my Crispy Chicken Salad - it was quite tasty! (The lettuce is hidden underneath the chicken pieces... :)

Coming soon... new restaurant in town

2007-02-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

Spotted this sign the other day down on E Greenlake Dr, near the Greenlake Bar and Grill. I'll have to check it out when it opens and report back! The pizza prices seem to be on the higher end, but it is nice that it's within walking distance. Back when current roomie kc and I lived two blocks away from each other in Wallingford/Fremont, we'd sometimes walk down to the Pagliacci on 40th and Stone and pick up pizza for dinner. Of course, if we still lived there, we could go to Tutta Bella on Stone and 43rd as well, which would be even closer. But apparently proximity of restaurants has not encouraged me to frequent them - there are several decent places near my current apartment and I almost never go to any of them. Well, maybe trying out this new place will motivate me to change that. Stay tuned!

Raindrops

2007-02-04T23:35:00.001-08:00

Sparkly
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Went out to my car today and noticed that the water from the recent rain had beaded up on the newly waxed surface. It was the only car on the street that still had visible water on it - kind of eerie. I like how the water droplets magnify the sparkles in the paint in this one.

Ferries and Grey's Anatomy

2007-02-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

Apparently the next 2 episodes of Grey's Anatomy will feature the WA state ferry system prominently [psbj]. I am a big fan of the ferries (much like the show's characters, I guess), so I'm pretty excited about this. In case you didn't know, Washington has the largest car ferry system in the US and the third largest in the world [wikipedia]. You drive your car onto the car deck, and then you can go upstairs to enjoy the ride. They used to serve warm food in a small cafeteria, but they discontinued that service back in 2003 [p-i]. Ironically, I remember reading a story not too much later saying that the ferries were making more money from the vending machines than they did from the cafeterias. Lower overhead, I suppose. Anyway, I love going to the front or back deck of the ferry and watching the mountains and water from the middle of Puget Sound. One of the most interesting routes is the Seattle-Bremerton ferry, which takes you into the channels of the Kitsap Peninsula. I'm excited to watch Grey's to see how they portray the ferries in these episodes!

Olympic Sculpture Park on Sunday

2007-01-31T22:00:00.001-08:00

Wake
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

On Sunday, inspired by the sun (again!), I went to the new SAM Olympic Sculpture Park with kc and ma. They preempted their GL walk to go with me, and I was quite grateful for the company. After braving the streets of Belltown to find a parking spot, we made our way back to the park. Crowded it was, but didn't feel claustrophobic.

As we made our way down the path, one of the first things that struck me was how much more amazing the Eagle looks in person than it does in pictures. Not that it doesn't look striking in photos, but the scale and setting have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.

Another observation is how much more impressive "Seattle Cloud Cover" is in the evening (and presumably morning) than during bright overhead sunlight. We passed by it initially and didn't think too much of it, but later on came by again and it was much prettier.

At the end of the Sculpture Park (which isn't quite finished yet), there's a little beach full of driftwood and pebbles that people have taken to arranching into large structures. I guess visiting a park full of sculptures can be inspiring to some, especially when they find the right medium.

It turns out that the park is next to two Seattle parks with a continuous walking/bike path, so we kept on going and ended up getting in the walk that was abandoned earlier in the decision to go see art. We walked down to where the grain silos and grain elevator are (I had no idea we had a huge grain elevator on Elliot Bay), which was pretty cool, and then turned around.

We made it back to the park and hit the areas that we'd had to skip earlier based on our route. This included Wake, pictured, which was also much more impressive in person than in photos.

Then we went off to find dinner, hitting Mama's Mexican Kitchen in Belltown, an establishment that had been frequently noted but never visited by any of us, before I headed back to work and kc and ma went home to play Elebits. :) All in all, it was a great day, even better than I'd thought it would be. Hurray for sun in January!

Wax on, wax off

2007-01-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the unexpectedly temperate and clear weather today, and faced with the time to do something, I decided that today was the day I'd finally wash my car (Betsy)... for the first time in a year and a half.

The washing went well - there's some caked-on crud that will take more than me and my little sponge (and dish soap) to get clean, but overall, getting rid of the leaf imprints and the bird droppings was a big step in the right direction.

As I was finishing up drying off the car, a thought struck me. Why not also wax Betsy? I bought some Turtle wax a number of years ago and had never used it, mainly because the yearly car-washing was on a hot summer day, and it says not to use the wax if the car is in direct sunlight.

So I set about to waxing the car after reading the instructions on the label. Didn't seem too difficult - just smear some on, let it dry, and wipe it off. I learned quickly how much to smear on (hardly any at all) and that if I did leave some goopy stuff to wipe it off with a separate towel so as not to sully up the one I was using to wipe off the main stuff. Before I had even finished two panels, I needed a new towel - and having a clean towel seems to be quite important. I ran upstairs and grabbed some more towels and came back armed and ready.

Well, by the time I had made it all the way around the car, my arms were exhausted, I was exhausted, and it had taken me quite a bit more time to complete than I'd anticipated. Mr. Miyagi definitely had it right - wax on, wax off is a really good exercise. I'm actually having difficulty typing this post, thanks to the soreness of my forearms! All this effort to make my 15-year old car just a little bit prettier.

Update 01/28/07:
Here's the finished product - so shiny!

Friendly family competition

2007-01-24T17:24:00.001-08:00

A happy gingercouple on Chistmas morning
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Christmas day in our family is spent half at home - opening presents, eating breakfast, etc., and then driving to Half Moon Bay in the late afternoon to spend the rest of the day with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. In recent years, my aunt has started having us play various games, and this year was no different. We arrived to find an assortment of plain gingerbread people, frosting, and other decorations. Our instructions were to decorate one of these (the other was meant to be a backup in case of a failure on the first one), and at the end, we'd do an anonymous vote for the best decorated gingerperson, with prizes for the winners. Some complaints were lodged regarding the limited color palette (mainly red, green, and white), but everyone put quite a bit of effort into their creations.

Well, our family is a bit... disturbed... and we ended up with no fewer than three entries involving death and destruction. The top spot ended up going to my cousin Susan for her recreation of the Texas chainsaw massacre. The picture here is my sister's entry, which didn't win, but definitely should have gotten bonus points for being in the spirit of the day, and also had some of the most attention to detail.

If you click on the link, you'll go to a gallery with all the entries, and you might even find a gingerbread tribute to the namesake of this blog!

It's raining

2007-01-17T23:11:00.000-08:00

... just raining. Not snow, not ice, not hail, not sideways hail. Just rain. How nice.

Sisters in Seattle

2007-01-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

Well, there's simply no excuse, but somehow I never did write about my sister's visit up to Seattle back in October (gasp!).

So, waaaaaaaay back in 2006, lil' sis came up for a weekend o' fun. The weather behaved, which was really nice. Good thing she wasn't planning to come this month. (Sheesh! Just when you thought the snow/icepocali were done, another few inches gets dumped overnight....) Anyway, she flew in on a Thursday night and fortunately I was able to take that Friday off to spend more time with her.

We first headed down to Pike Place Market in what seemed like a burgeoning trend, involving going to the market to buy yummy food to make for dinner later in the evening. While there we noticed a film crew surrounding a woman (we don't know who she is) and Andy Paige, who my sister recognized from TV. Apparently the latter is a makeup artist to the stars. After watching them film the flying fish at the south end of the market, we moved on.

Next stop was the Seattle Public Library. Since en works part-time at an architecture firm, she just HAD to stop by (if for no other reason than to hold all the architects at bay when she got back). We headed in and noticed that they were cleaning the windows that day. The library was beautiful as usual.

After passing by the Seattle Art Museum, still under construction (not much longer now though!), we passed through the market again and picked up some salmon, assorted fruits and veggies, a pretty bouquet of flowers, and other goodies. Then it was on up to picturesque Kerry Park. Unfortunately Mt. Rainier wasn't showing her pretty head that day. Then it was on back home to prepare our dinner and chow down. Thanks to some tips from dad on how to cook the salmon, we had a delicious meal. Since M&K were eating dinner at the same time, we felt very domestic and even documented it for posterity.

The next day dawned beautiful and sunny, so we took the opportunity to get up into the North Cascades for some prime larch viewing. After living here for 6 years and never seeing a larch in fall color, I decided it was time to make a pilgrimage. (Western larches are deciduous conifers - their needles turn yellow and fall off every year.) We drove up to highway 20 and passed through the North Cascades - which were absolutely spectacular. I've never driven that road when the sky has been clear - and it was just amazing. Our destination was the Maple Pass loop and Lake Ann. Due to the length of the drive to get there, we only had time to hike to the lake and back. Luckily we were still rewarded with some beautiful yellow larches, as well as other vibrant fall foliage. The ground at the lake was frozen and the there was extensive frost on everything around. We found a sunny rock to eat our lunch and then headed back down, but not before crossing the creek to get close to a larch tree and then investigating the extent of a pond's frozenness (i.e. it took a lot of rocks to break the ice). Sunset on the drive back was gorgeous and I stopped a few times to capture the mountains in the afternoon light (since I was driving I had the power to stop, even if en didn't want to get out of the car :)

On Sunday, we headed north again, but this time to a corn maze (inspired by a sign we'd seen the previous day). The maze was pretty neat, but we learned a few important corn-maze lessons:
1. If you're going to go to a corn maze, go on the first weekend it's open. If you go after that, all the kids obsessed with finding the route to the finish will break through the walls of the maze and make shortcuts. These will soon be indistinguishable from the original path.
2. Corn mazes are muddy. Wear appropriate footwear.
3. We were probably the only two people in there trying to find our way through the maze without using the shortcuts
4. When en gets hungry and decides it's time to go, all bets are off and all shortcuts will be used to find the way out.

So back it was to Seattle for a little more time together, downloading pictures, and hanging out. All in all it was a great weekend and I sure hope she comes to visit again (hint, hint.) :)

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Comet McNaught from Queen Anne hill

2007-01-13T13:29:00.001-08:00

Comet McNaught
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

Last night was the last chance to view Comet McNaught, the brightest comet in 32 years, before it swings around the sun and comes out on the other side, visible to the southern hemisphere in a few days. TR and I drove up to Queen Anne hill as the sun was setting and joined a group of people camped out at the end of Highland Drive, where there is a great unobstructed view to the west. There were quite a few clouds in the sky, but we were all hanging on the hope that we might catch a glimpse in the small swath of clear sky.

Just as we were about to give up and head home, the photographer standing next to us (flickr user Ed119) spotted the comet (he'd been out there the night before and so he knew what to look for). Because the comet was setting, and setting fast, we only saw it for about 2 minutes (confirmed by the EXIF data on my photos). But it was clearly visible by the naked eye, and just beautiful through binoculars. Before we knew it, it had disappeared again behind the lower cloud bank.

It was a perfect Seattle moment - we were all huddled out there in the cold (it's been chilly here lately), hoping against all hope that the sky would be just clear enough to spot the comet. When it appeared, it was just amazing.

Same day, one year later

2007-01-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

I did the polar bear swim down at Mathews Beach on Lake Washington again this year. We somehow got a little mixed up on the timing though - we thought that it started at 12:30 so we got there just a little after 12 noon, only to find ourselves being passed by dripping wet and freezing people walking the other way. Apparently it had been at noon. Not having the crowd to fortify us didn't keep us from running into the water anyway - we couldn't go all the way down there in our bathing suits and not jump in! We were rewarded with this year's "badge of courage" after joining the mob surrounding the volunteers passing them out. KC and I agree that this year's is cuter than last year's. Water temperature was 44 degrees fahrenheit, 2 degrees colder than 2006. The Seattle P-I reported that nearly 900 people participated this year! More proof that this city can be insane sometimes :)

Christmas was two weeks ago

2007-01-10T21:39:00.000-08:00

But here are some pictures from the Bay Area. Mom and I went to check out the lights at this one house that always puts up a crazy display. This year was no different; they even put an arrow out by the main road so you'd know where to turn:

They do have a donations box, from which the proceeds go to the NY fire department. Santa was out the day we stopped by, despite the torrential downpour.

Our tree, decorated with our leis from the Luau on Maui:

And on Christmas morning:

Merry belated Christmas! And happy new year!

Beside myself!

2007-01-09T23:54:00.001-08:00

Well, I've apparently had blogger's block for a while now, but I just had to post since I'm now officially a flickr pro member! See, a friend of mine, who is currently residing in Copenhagen, had a bit of a panic attack when leaving for the airport because he was still in possession of his Comcast cable modem despite having canceled his cable service while he's out of the country. To thank me for returning it for him, he got me a flickr pro account. Hurray!! I'm super-excited.

To those of you who are aware of the previous reason why I hadn't upgraded, sadly, I have not resolved the issue that was keeping me from doing so. I'm apparently paralyzed when it comes to deciding what I want to do with my life.

caterpillar and his handiwork
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

This picture is of a castaway caterpillar that I found on one of my houseplants this winter. I put him on the counter to take some pictures of him, and gave him a leaf to sit on. He prompty munched away at it. (I later disinfected the counter).

I hope to blog more frequently now that I'm back in town and it's not the holidays. We're not calling it a resolution; it's a goal. I refuse to make resolutions, since it's inevitable that they'll be broken. Goals are much more ambiguous. Somehow that is better.

Fun and light, yet practical: the W300i.

2006-12-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

About a year ago I took the plunge and got a new phone and new contract with Cingular. I loved my new phone and the plan I got was about the same as my old one, so I was pretty happy. Then, after just a few months, my phone started having an issue where it wouldn't ring anymore. It turned out that this was a common issue with all phones like mine, and it just required a firmware update. However, Cingular's method of updating the firmware is to send you a replacement phone and take the old one back. OK, fine.

Except, the replacement phone they sent me wouldn't even turn on reliably. I called them up, and they said, ok, fine, here's another phone. Luckily the 3rd phone worked, and I sent back my 1st and 2nd phones.

Fast-forward to November (phone worked great until then). All of a sudden my phone freezes up occasionally. Pushing the buttons has no effect. Sometimes I had to take the battery out to reboot, sometimes it resolved itself. I called up Cingular and they say it's a phone problem. Lucky for me, my phone is STILL under warranty. So they'll send me a new one.

A 4th phone of the same model? I ask them - Doesn't that seem like I'm asking for it again? No problem they tell me, you can pick a new one of these 4 models (LG CG300, Motorola V557, Nokia 6103, or Sony Ericsson W300i). So, in a miraculous bout of decisiveness on my part, I manage to pick a new phone - the Sony Ericsson W300i, one of Sony's "Walkman" phones (we've come a long way from portable tape players...). I decided to stick with Sony Ericsson because I have their chargers and I like their interface. As an added bonus for my troubles, I also got a car charger.

The W300 arrived a few days later and I have to say I like it quite a bit. It's nearly identical to my old phone (the Sony Ericsson Z520a) in many ways - the menu system, the crappy camera, the button layout, the infrared port for file transfer - but also has some improvements. For example, it doesn't have the take-a-picture-of-the-inside-of-my-pocket button. Instead it has the Walkman button and volume controls there. It also has an FM radio if you plug in the headphones that come with the phone (they act as the antenna). The reception so far has been pretty decent! Furthermore, you can load mp3s onto the phone's internal memory or a Micro Memory Stick (up to 1 GB so far) and listen to those too. It's like my own iPod Shuffle! The battery life is long (9 hours of talk time), so using the music features shouldn't drain the battery instantly (and thus far hasn't been an issue). And despite its slightly larger size (see photos below), the W300 is actually a bit lighter than the Z520a.

A few things I liked better about my old phone: the keypad buttons were easier to push, and the center button of the 4-way controller went to the menu instead of the Web (and thus charges everytime you accidentally push it), and the earpiece was actually more functional because it coveres a larger surface area instead of being 3 small holes. And sadly, the speakerphone function on the W300 is fairly hard to hear - ironic, since it's supposed to be a phone with good sound quality for music listening.

Here's a review (from whence the title of my post came), and here are some photos I took comparing the two phones before I returned the Z520a. The W300i is on the left, Z520a on the right. Happy calling!

New Whole Foods

2006-12-02T01:15:00.000-08:00

After nearly two years of waiting (since we moved into our building), the Whole Foods on Westlake and Denny finally opened. I went there with pl on the first weekend it was open, and damn, produce never looked so good. We whipped out the cameras and were having a heyday - till an employee informed us that Whole Foods does not allow photography on the premises and that we should go over to customer services (presumably to erase the memory cards?). The latter part was thankfully not enforced. After a delightful sandwich from the deli counter (a bit more emphasis on the pre-made sandwiches than at the Roosevelt location), consumed at a table hard-won in the puny eating area, we ventured back out into the rain (it was November, after all), stopped by the new Starbucks on the upper level of the same complex (we are Seattleites, after all), and then went back to work (we are graduate students, after all).

Pure Genius

2006-11-29T21:37:00.000-08:00

As I was walking through the B terminal of the SeaTac airport yesterday, I spotted this interesting contraption, the "chargecarte" - it's a machine that you use to charge your cell phone. It has slots for all of the major phone manufacturers. It makes a lot of sense- people forget to bring cell phone chargers all the time. When you need one, you really need one. Looks like it's made by the SmarteCarte people - you know, the ones who give you $0.25 back when you return the luggage cart that you rented for $3. Somehow, at $3 for 30 minutes, the price for this device actually seems surprisingly reasonable, especially given its utility!

Speaking of lightning...

2006-11-21T23:03:00.000-08:00

A few years ago we had a fantastic lightning storm here. I spent a long time out on the balcony desperately trying to take pictures of the storm with my old Fuji digital camera. The camera could only go down to 1/4 of a second, and had no manual focus, so it was perpetually unhappy about the adventure. After some hundreds of completely black images, I did manage to catch a few pictures of lightning - this one originally looked like a mostly black picture with a small white line in the lower right, but some photoshopping by pl (thanks!) really brought out the details. Guess I should have used a tripod though, eh? Were such a storm to happen again I think I'd be able to get a better shot with my current camera - but storms are quite rare here, so I may have to wait a while longer :)

Seattle, MI?

2006-11-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

Today my labmate tr and I ventured outside the building for lunch, determined to finally check out the newly relocated Dexter Deli [bwst]. After eating (I had a turkey sandwich - perfectly edible, a nice change of pace, though nothing to really write home about...) we looked outside and noticed it had started to rain. Then there was some lightening and a crack of thunder fewer than 5 seconds later. (tr, being from the midwest, scoffed at the paltry thunder and lightning.) Well, we thought to ourselves, best get back to lab before it starts raining harder. Heh. Apparently the gods were putting us in our place for daring to actually take a lunch break because no sooner did we get about a block down Dexter before the skies opened up and started pelting us with hail! Sideways hail, about the size of peas, and it HURT. We started running, but had to wait at a stoplight, so hid behind a telephone pole to escape the ravaging storm. By the time we made it back to the lab, my jeans and shoes were soaked. Glancing out the windows at the streets below we noticed that there were mini icebergs floating down the gutters of the inundated streets. Definitely crazy weather. Some 10 or 15 minutes later the storm abated for the most part. KOMO4's webcam managed to capture some of the excitement - not every day you see a shot like this.
Thanks to Samantha at metblogs for the link to the photo.

Stamps

2006-11-16T01:10:00.000-08:00

Only a little over a week late, here is a shot of all the stamps I had to put on my absentee ballot this year. The ballot's large number of votable things contributed to its longer length, heavier weight, and requirement for 63 cents postage. The election, of course, turned out rather nicely.

The Windy City

2006-11-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

Note to those who are as naive as me: if you're walking around Chicago on a windy afternoon, freezing your butt off as the wind whips between the buildings and makes you shiver to your core, and you decide to remark that Chicago's nickname sure is apt, you WILL get pounced on and told by anyone "in the know" that, in fact, that nickname did not arise because of Chicago's most famous weather pattern. Instead, it originated from olde-tyme Chicagonians' love for telling long stories (i.e., long-winded). Huh? I'm SURE that the irony of the nickname was not lost on whoever came up with it, but come on, it's WINDY there! Like, air moving fast, cold air at that, blowing your hair around, pushing you over, making the trees sway, WINDY. Sheesh.

That said, I spent a few days in Chicago last month for the BMES conference, which meant I didn't see much of the city except for the inside of the conference hotel for the majority of the time I was there. Luckily I had a little time after the conference was over to explore before flying home. I checked out the "Bean" - i.e. the Gehry structure at Millenium Park (see pic above), and also walked the "Mag Mile" - Michigan Avenue. I then turned south, but along the lakeshore, and walked down to Navy Pier and eventually down to Grant Park before heading north again to complete my loop. I was disappointed to miss the Art Institute - it came highly recommended - so I will have to go there the next time I'm in the gateway to the midwest. I also didn't have time to make it to the Sears or Hancock towers.

I was also fortunate to be in the company of people who grew up in Chicago, so I managed to get some great food while I was there! Italian food was wonderful at both Rosebud on Rush and Club Lucky. Giordano's for pizza tasted alarmingly like Delfino's - go figure. Lunch at Potbelly Sandwich works (twice!) was awesome (and so much better than the truly craptacular lunch the conference provided).

As for the bean, I actually went there twice - once in the evening and again the following day. As I first approached it, I thought it was enormously overrated - till I came within about 20 feet of it, and then it became obvious that it really was all it was cracked up to be. Ond of the neatest things about it is that if you stand underneath the curved part and look up, it looks like you are standing at the bast of a long cylindrical shaft - when in reality it's just a smooth surface. The picture only sort of conveys this phenomenon.

Anyway, the rest of my pics are here.

Transit of Mercury

2006-11-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

Today is a rare celestial event - Mercury is passing in front of the sun (the small circular dot in the lower left portion of the sun in the above image). If the sun was actually out and if I had a solar filter and a telescope, I could be viewing it myself. But instead, I'll just have to be satisfied with images from the SOHO satellite.

Blue sky!

2006-11-08T13:06:00.000-08:00

View of Queen Anne hill from my desk - blue sky!

More rain news

2006-11-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

Interesting blog entry from the Washington Trails Association about the rain/flooding today. The crazy thing is, there has only been about half as much rain today as there was that day in October of 2003. Sure doesn't feel like it.

They weren't kidding.

2006-11-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's been doing nothing but rain for the past few days... and hard rain at that. Hence, flooding imminent.

Here we go again...

2006-11-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

Well, we can't say we weren't warned!

Orca watching

2006-10-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

One of my best friends from college (sns) came up to visit me the last weekend of September, so we thought it would be fun to take a whale-watching tour. The boat departed from Anacortes a bit later than normal because they'd had a private group come through earlier in the day.

We got geared up - which meant full-body "comfort suits" to keep us warm, and then got assigned seats on the boat. We were on the high-speed boat so our trip would only be 3-4 hours instead of 5-6. Luckily, sns and I got seated near the front.

Our guides had heard from other people in the know that the pods were hanging out up in the Strait of Georgia - practically even with Vancouver (in Canadian waters!). So away we went, up the Rosario Strait, past Orcas Island, and up up up. That part of the ride wasn't super exciting. I kept thinking I was seeing dorsal fins, when really it was just more waves in the water.

Finally we caught up with the "southern resident pods" - there were three pods all hanging out together. Apparently they were in some kind of hurry because they moved right by us pretty quickly. We followed one pod for a little bit, then let it go by and waited for the next one. The guides said there were 90 whales in the area - I think we probably saw 30 or so. Not bad!

After the last pod had passed by, we had to head back to Anacortes. We had ventured out some 60 miles or so, which was only possible because we were in "the fastest boat in the Washington whale watching fleet". Nonetheless, we still had to high-tail it back to beat the setting sun. Instead of coming back the way we came, we went through the San Juan Islands. We ran into some Dall's porpoises en route, just before we passed back into US waters.

As we passed by Spieden Island, we got to see some of the resident Fallow Deer and Mufont Sheep. Apparently some guy used to own the island and brought those species to it so he could hunt them. Now they just roam around. We also spotted a harbor seal shortly thereafter.

The sunset was spectacular as we motored on back to the harbor. The rest of my pictures are here. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day!

Albertsons update

2006-10-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Noticed this sign on the ex-Albertsons building by my house the other day. Looks like they're going to turn the space into residential units with retail on the ground floor... surprise, surprise!

Marmot Pass

2006-10-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears that I'm getting quite behind on my blogging! It was already a month ago that I spent the weekend on a quick backpacking trip up in the Olympics with ks and new friend evw. We departed on Saturday morning after stopping by the lab for a brief cell feeding, and headed down to the downtown ferry terminal, destination: Bremerton. None of us had ever taken the Bremerton ferry before, and it turned out to be really nice! The ferry actually goes into the islands of Puget Sound, sa opposed to just crossing open water and then docking on the other side.

After we unloaded at Bremerton, we drove up to the Hood Canal Bridge and then back down on 101 to the Big Quilcene River. The hike was pleasant - a river walk through lush woods (and this is the DRY side of the Olympics!) before climbing up the side of the valley and along the craggy peaks of Buckhorn Mountain and its neighbors. The fall colors were just starting to turn. When we reached Mystery Camp, we decided that we would set up camp and make dinner and then do some more exploring the next morning, bright and early. Sleep, however, didn't come easily, as there was something large and alive outside our tent for part of the night (I wasn't the only one who heard it - ks did too!).

Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of sleep that night. We evetually got up in the pre-dawn hours, grabbed our breakfast, water, the stove, and the pot, and headed up towards Marmot Pass and beyond. The sun rose on our way up to the pass, and the views of the Cascades and Puget Sound were amazing. We decided to head up further, to the top of Buckhorn Mountain. When we got up to the ridge above Marmot Pass, we could actually even make out the skyscrapers of downtown Seattle! We could also see Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens. We couldn't see Mt. Hood, but we are convinced it is because it was hiding behind one of the other mountains, perhaps Mt. St. Helens. We could also definitely see a number of peaks in Canada!

Following our summit of Buckhorn Mountain, we stopped to make breakfast (oatmeal all around). I have to say, that was one of the most spectacular places I've ever eaten breakfast before :) When we finished, we made our way back down to the campsite, packed everything up, and headed back towards the car. The first part of the trail was slow-going for me, as I had to keep stopping to take pictures of the beautiful scenery. I'm convinced that the trees got noticably yellower and redder overnight. The sky was perfectly blue. Once we were back in the forest, my shutter quieted down and we made our way back down to the trailhead.

We decided to take the faster Kingston ferry back home, and timed it just right so we could grab a bite to eat at a local carry-out grill place (the sign stated that there were no refunds if you had to leave to catch the ferry before your food was ready). We enjoyed our cheeseburgers and cokes and then boarded the ferry for another spectacular crossing of Puget Sound.

All in all, it was an awesome weekend! As always, you can find the rest of my pictures here.

Leavenworth

2006-10-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago I went out to Leavenworth for the Pathology departmental retreat. The department always puts us up in the Sleeping Lady, which I really like. We listen to science talks and then have a nice dinner (cafeteria style, but with really good food), followed by a scientific poster session and wine and cheese. This year I ended up eating dinner with an old labmate, and it was really great to catch up and reminisce about old times. The poster session was good - I got a fair amount of traffic - but I didn't get a chance to read anyone else's posters. The evening ended, as it usually does, with everyone hanging out at the "Grotto" - the on-site bar.

The next day we had more talks and then were given lunch and let loose. I had been planning to stay out there and camp that night, but it was pretty cold and no one was available to stay with me, so I decided to just go for a dayhike instead. For that adventure I convinced my two labmates ks and jg to come along. We headed up to Eightmile Lake out along Icicle Creek road. We headed up the trail through the open forest - the area has been hit by forest fires from time to time - and then reached Little Eightmile. It wasn't more than a pond, being the end of summer and all, so we headed up another half mile to reach the main Eightmile Lake. It was bigger than I expected - and had some nice craggy snow-dusted peaks surrounding it.

The air temperature was a bit too chilly for my companions, so we spent only a little time at the lake before heading back down. On the way back to the car it started to rain, and then when the sun came out, we had a rainbow right in front of us. It felt like the rainbow was very close - not sure I've ever seen one like that before. The valley to the south was very pretty as well, having been dusted with snow the night before. Before too long we reached the cars and headed back home. I made the (poor) decision to go down 97 to 90 instead of taking 2, thinking it would be faster, but instead was met with a torrential downpour at Snoqualmie Pass. Doh!

Click here for the rest of my photos from the weekend.

Dexter Deli and Sushi Bay

2006-10-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

It appears that some change has come to the culinary organization on Dexter north of Mercer. The Dexter Deli, which was previously up by Starbucks, is now down in the new Neptune apartment building. Taking its place at Highland and Dexter is "Sushi Bay" - perhaps a welcome alternative when eating lunch out at work!

Fall foliage tracker

2006-09-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

This is pretty neat - weather.com has a fall foliage tracker. Looks like Washington is still in summer mode, despite these trees on my street being the first on the block to change colors. They are always the harbingers of fall for me!

Gothic Basin

2006-09-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

Over Labor Day weekend, my friend lb and I went for a day hike out on the Mountain Loop highway. We decided to head up to Gothic Basin, since I'd recently heard from two different people how great it was up there. It was about 5.5 miles to get up to our destination, but well worth the climb. We were rewarded with striking rock formations, green valleys, tarns, and views of the surrounding peaks. When we first reached the basin we turned left instead of right and wandered down to the point where there was a sheer dropoff of about 1000 feet in elevation down to Weden Lake. Realizing this was not quite right, we backtracked and then made our way to Foggy Pond (frequently mistaken for Foggy Lake). We ended up taking the long way around, passing another pretty tarn with a waterfall on the way, but finally made it up to Foggy Lake. Though I have it on good authority that the lake often lives up to its name, it was in fact beautiful and clear when we were there. We picked our way around the lake so we could find a place to swim, though the swim itself consisted of a quick dunk and rushing back out to the warm rocks due to the frigid water temperature. Finally we turned our boots back downhill and made our way back. Foggy Pond tempted us with its much warmer water, but time was of the essence and we knew we needed to make haste in order to get back to the car before dark (it's not July anymore, Toto!). All in all it was a great hike, worthy of the praise it was given that inspired us to go in the first place.

As an added bonus, we stopped for dinner at the first little restaurant we saw, and were treated to the musical stylings of a Guns N' Roses cover band called Max Axle, complete with dancing groupies. Click here to see the rest of the pictures!

Robin Lakes

2006-08-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Many people I know use the Mountaineers' "100 Classic Hikes in Washington" as their hiking bible. It's for good reason: the hikes described in that book are practically guaranteed to be awesome. One of the ones that has stuck out in my mind for a while, but I hadn't had time to do, was #53, Tuck and Robin Lakes. This past weekend, I finally made it up there for an overnight trip with my labmate ks.

We got a bit of a late start - feeding cells in the morning combined with a longer-than-expected drive out beyond Cle Elum resulted in a 12:30 start time. This meant that we were climbing up the trail at the peak of the heat of the day - with packs on - but oh well. The first part of the trail is extremely flat, following the Cle Elum river up to Hyas Lake and Upper Hyas Lake. A little while after passing the lakes, we started heading uphill. The up-ness didn't take many breaks after that. We came to a junction and took a right, towards Tuck and Robin Lakes. I think that the trail up to Tuck was the hardest part - the trail wasn't graded very well, and the dusty steepness was pretty tricky. We stopped for lunch on a flat slab of granite - and also provided some lunch (in the form of our skin) to some local biting flies.

We eventually made it up to Tuck lake, which was quite beautiful. It had some amazing rock islands in the middle of it that I just yearned to swim out to - but alas, it was already after 5:00 and we still had another mile and 1000 feet in elevation to go to get to Robin Lakes.

The trail up to Robin Lakes bordered on a scramble at times. Much of it was marked with cairns as it passed over granite, which doesn't lend itself well to trail-cutting. We passed a group of people who tried to convince us that there were no more campsites left at Robin - but then they admitted that they were just joking. We went around a knob, then up some more granite, then up some more granite, and just when we thought we couldn't take anymore, we came over the crest of the basin and the Robin Lakes came into view. They are beautiful lakes, very different from Tuck and Hyas in that there are far fewer trees (and more granite) surrounding them. Just a tiny bit of snow remained on some of the north-facing slopes.

Since the sun was beginning to set, we knew we had to find a campsite in a hurry. However, since the sun was setting, the light was all pretty, so we kept taking pictures and delaying our progress. Somewhat fortuitously, ks wanted to gain higher ground and climbed up on a bluff, where a perfect campsite was hiding (the rest of the good campsites having been long occupied that day). In between photo ops, we managed to get the tent set up and water purified, and mac and cheese cooked. We ended up eating in the dark, but that was fine.

The stars were out and absolutely amazing - a late rising crescent moon meant we had completely dark skies. I saw at least a half-dozen shooting stars, including one that was particularly bright.

The next morning we got up early and took more pictures - for about 3 hours - before even eating breakfast. We met a fellow photographer who was there by himself - and agreed to swap photos once we returned home. While pumping water down by the lake we encountered some of the area's many resident mountain goats. They just sauntered down the trail, right past us, causing me to break out my camera in 2 seconds flat to take a ton of pictures. My favorite one is here:

Finally, we managed to eat breakfast, break camp, pack up our packs, and hit the trail at about 11:30. The way down was no easier than the way up - especially with packs on. We stopped at Tuck lake for a snack break and a chance to splash my face in the water (alas, no time to swim) and then proceeded on down. By the time we got to the flat part, we were pretty ready to be done - but we still had 4 miles to go. Towards the end of the trail we passed a large group that also included 2 horses. Finally, after crossing the aptly-named Skeeter Creek, we reached the trailhead and our car.

The ice cream bars and cherry cokes we had at the little general store we stopped at were to die for.

The rest of my pictures can be found here.

Chinook salmon in the Ballard locks fish ladder

2006-08-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever came to Seattle, my hosts took me to the Ballard Locks to witness the amazing movement of boats between two different bodies of water at different heights. It's all done without the use of pumps; pretty cool! We also walked over to the fish ladder - the series of pools of water through which spawning salmon can swim upstream in order to reach their breeding grounds - the other option being to jump over the dam (!), or to happen to pass through the locks. At that time there were no fish in the ladder, nor have there been on the handful of other times I've stopped by the locks to enjoy the view. Finally, this summer, I decided to go when the fish were there - which apparently also means that that is when the people are there too! I guess it was my own fault for going on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in August.

Well, I have to say it was really worth it to finally see the salmon there. I missed the really big run of sockeye earlier in the month, but there were still plenty of chinook to be impressive. Apparently the coho run towards the end of the month, so you still have time to go and see them if you get a chance!

One of these things is not like the others

2006-08-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend nyanko headed out of town with a note on the whiteboard: "Please eat my blueberries!" I decided this was a perfect opportunity to try making some blueberry muffins. Round #1, from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (top right in picture above), turned out to be fairly plain and boring - but still edible. Having never made blueberry anything before, I was surprised at the way the blueberries popped and drizzled upon baking.

For round #2, I googled for blueberry muffin topping and came up with a Bed and Breakfast website that had a recipe with a streusel topping. Differences from the first recipe included the addition of lemon yogurt, baking soda, and a few more blueberries (plus the yummy topping) making this batch much more fluffy and flavorful. I have one more aliquot of blueberries left in the fridge.... maybe I'll try making some blueberry coffee cake next!