California here I come!

I'm off the Santa Barbara for Dave's wedding! Yay! Happy early Birthday to Caitlin! :)

???

Seriously, what is up with my blog! Now all my info on the right is at the bottom of my blog instead of the top! I hope this is some server error that will fix itself, because I don't know how the hell it happened.....

I Heart Cooperstown

I visited Cooperstown a few times this summer but never wrote about any of them. Since it is now a distinct possibility that Maggie may visit me and we might go to Cooperstown (yay!) I thought I'd write about a few of the things I did there, and what it's like.

Cooperstown is a small town that is inundated with tourists in the summer because the Baseball Hall of Fame is there. Seriously, all the hotels for next summer's Hall of Fame weekend are already booked because Cal Riken Jr. is being inducted. As a result, all of the locals either love baseball or are absolutely sick of it. Luckily, since I don't care about baseball, there are other cool things to do. For instance, The Farmer's Museum, which is like a small town from the 1860s with a tavern, church, farm animals, blacksmith, basket weaving, general store, etc. All the workers dress to the period and actually weave baskets, blacksmith, etc. At Christmas time, the oxen pull people around the tiny village on a sleigh and the tavern is open selling cider and hot chocolate, and there's a big bonfire. It's magical. There's also an art museum, The Fenimore House, but I don't go there as often as I do the Farmer's. Oh, and the Farmer's just added an old time carousel that is all hand carved. It's beautiful.

There are also cool touristy places to check out, like the Ommegong Brewery (Belgian) and the Fly Creek Cider Mill. There's also my granddaddy's old farmhouse, Longview and my Aunt Barbara's house, which has an amazing view of the valley below. Oh, and every fall they have Pumpkinfest. I haven't gone yet, but people bring the biggest pumpkins they've grown and they're weighed, measured and judged. Afterwards, everyone carves out the pumpkins, sits in them, and paddles across a small portion of Otsego Lake in the pumpkin race. Seriously, I"m not making this up. Of course, the race doesn't last long, I hear a lot of people fall out of the pumpkins pretty quickly. Still, it sounds incredibly entertaining.

I was there for the week of July 4th, but we didn't get to see fireworks until July 10 because there was insane flooding. The day before I left our house had no power and my Mom and Mike had stayed up the night before because the basement was full of power, and they were afraid the 4 sump pumps would break down. On the plus side, the entire family was together for the first time in a year in a half (this is mostly Dave's fault, he lives in NYC and doesn't get a lot of time off from work). Anyways, all the siblings got to go see Paul Simon play at Doubleday Field. We were in the unofficial locals section, and Ames and I saw people we hadn't seen since middle school. It was a random, surprising reunion ("Scottie's so tall! Ben's in art school! etc.).

I came back later on in the summer and got to see a play, Sleuth. It was awesome. Not only were the play and actors amazing, but the stage set up was really cool. It was in Hyde Hall, a historic building with no power, so lights were hooked up. The stage was in the middle of the room, with the audience sitting around it, which caused the actors to constantly move around so that other sides would be able to see their faces. I was in the front row, and the actors had so much energy! I won't ruin it in case others haven't seen this play. It's all about playing games, and what happens when those games start to go too far. I've heard they made a movie of it in the 70s which is probably worth checking out. I'm now eagerly looking forward to URI's theater season. One of the advantages of going to a larger school is that there are enough drama people for there to be 2 plays every semester. This year they're doing Fat Pig, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Buried Child and Pride and Prejudice. Should be interesting....

Here's a few pics of Cooperstown:
Otsego Lake= http://www.littleviews.com/lv_art/cooperstown_01.jpg
Pumpkinfest= http://www.pumpkinnook.com/giants/pics2004/cooperstown2004.jpg
Farmland =http://www.cooperstownrealty.com/OtsegoView2.jpg
Kingfisher Tower= http://www.smartdivers.com/images/photogal/his1.jpg

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!

I've tried to edit my links like 4 times and it never works! If anybody knows how to edit links and wants to email me directions, that would be great. I tried following the directions the "Edit Me" gave me, but it didn't work!

The Trials and Tribulations of Science

It's the long anticipated, long put-off 2nd cruise post!

My second week on the cruise was miserable. We docked in Guaymas, Mexico and walked all day. It was incredibly hot, and we didn't have much water with us. Luckily we found a bar, Los Barcos, that opened when it saw like 10 people walking aimlessly around. We stayed in the bar for like 3 hours because they had tons of fans in there. And of course, everyone got drinks, even me (I got a local Mexican beer). The food was alright but unfortunately the conversation turned to politics. This wasn't a big deal at first, but the conversation stayed on politics for like 45 minutes. This got increasingly annoying, as I have discovered I am the only conservative in all of Rhode Island. Eventually I had to tune out the other end of the table, because I knew I wasn't going to hear anything I would like, and that it would only make me angry. Understand, I have no problem with liberals, everyone should be able to believe in whatever they want to. But up here I tend to get the impression that all conservatives are 1) Satan or 2) too stupid to realize they are wrong, and should be liberal instead. I'm probably making a big generalizaton about New England politics, but when you mix politics and alcohol, that's the impression this lone conservative is left with.

Anyways, none of us really spoke Spanish, but Rui is Portugese and apparently Portugese and Spanish are very similar, except for some of the pronunciation, so Rui was a big help. Guaymas is a big fishing port, so we went to buy some more squid jigs and other stuff. When the Mexican fishermen heard we were going to be diving with Humbolt squid, they just stared at us. They told us that those squid could bite a person's hand off, and that if you throw a dog into waters with Humbolt squid, the squid will eat the dog. That made me kinda glad I don't know how to scuba dive.

That night we went squid jigging for the first time. It was awesome! I really hope I can find some pictures to post here so you guys can see. It was great to see 15 people really excited about science, cheering each other on and admiring the squid everyone caught. Admittedly, we did get a little too excited, and caught a few more squid than we actually used, but it was the first night and we didn't do it again. Unfortunately, the rest of the week sucked. I spent an entire week setting up and calibrating equipment. Yes, I should have done a bit more work during those initial days when we were in transit to Mexico, but this was ridiculous. I had to change out almost every piece of my equipment, because something would always go wrong. Seriously, I once spent an entire day trying to get my oxygen electrode down to zero. I was pumping pure nitrogen into this little cuvette filled with water with the electrode inside it for hourse, and it still read that there was oxygen inside. I changed out tubing, switched the direction of flow, adjusted the cuvette closer and farther away from the magnetic stirrer (which controls a tiny magnetic stirrer I put in the water to help the gas mix with the liquid, the stirrer resembles a tic tac), adjusted the speed of the stirrer, etc. You get the idea. Since the cruise itself was only 2 weeks long, I started to get stressed and worried about getting enough data. All in all, it was a very frustrating week.

I'm leaving on Thursday to fly to Santa Barbara for Dave's wedding, but I'm hoping to squeeze in a few more posts before I go, I hate being so behind!

The "Sorry I Haven't Updated" Post

My apologies, guys. I know I have woefully neglected my blog. I haven't updated in a while, and I have like 4 or 5 posts in my head (about the cruise and Cooperstown), I just haven't had a chance to post them. I'm hoping to post a couple this weekend. Things are a little stressful at work, since classes are starting soon. I've been reading papers off and on all week, so I can write my proposal. I've also been having back problems again for the last week or so. It feels like I have a disc in my lumbar pinching a nerve through my right leg. Pretty much the same thing I had to have surgery for in high school, except it's affecting my right leg, just to mix it up a bit. The weird thing is, I haven't done anything lately to strain it. I moved some heavy stuff during the cruise, but that was in June. I had started running again, so maybe that somehow triggered it? I don't know how these things work.

Anyways, so on Saturday I went to a walk in clinic to get checked out (the health center for URI is closed during the summer). I had to wait for 3 hours, but at least the nurse I saw was optimistic. She said that it may not be a disc problem. Instead something (I'm not clear on what) may be swelling, and the swelling may be pinching the nerve in my leg. She told me to ice it and gave me muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories. I'm also supposed to start physical therapy, but I couldn't get an appointment until Sept.5. Still, I'm already feeling better. And it would be great if I could avoid surgery. I don't mind the surgery itself, but recovery from back surgery is just a bitch. You can't get up for like a week, can't drive for a month, can't run for 3 months, and you can only sit for 15 minutes at a time before you can feel your back tighten with pain. Since my professor is going to be gone pretty much all of the spring semester (3 research cruises), I really need to get a jump on my thesis this semester. At least, that's what Brad says. I just hope I can hack it.

Oh, and a belated Happy Birthday to Mags and an early Happy Birthday to Mike. :)

And in happier news, I get to go to Santa Barbara next week for Dave's wedding!

Sequels and Continuations

So lately I've been reading a lot of books that continue "classic" stories. March, by Geraldine Brooks, is about Mr. March, the father from Little Women. It chronicles the year that he is serving as a chaplain during the Civil War, when he is absent from the book. It was interesting, particularly because Brooks does a good job of giving everybody shades of grey. I love Little Women, but it focuses on the daughters and makes the parents appear pretty perfect. In March, the parents are very human, they make mistakes and occasionally act in ways that sort of shocked me, considering how proper they always act in Little Women. The ending was a bit abrupt (I turned the page and was surprised that the book had actually ended), but it was interesting nontheless. And hey, it won the 2006 Pulitzer, so it's gotta be good, right?

The other books were recommended to me by Mags. It's a series of mystery books, in which the newly married Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy solve mysteries that involve their friends and family (including Caroline Bingley and Kitty Bennet). The books are Pride and Prescience (or A Truth Universally Acknowledged), Suspense and Sensibility (or First Impressions Revisited) and North by Northanger (or The Shades of Pemberley). All 3 books have enjoyable banter and fun mysteries, although you'll probably deduce the "bad guy" long before the book reveals him. Still, there are little surprises and the books are pretty fun. Characters from the books referenced in the titles show up, which makes it extra fun to people who are obsessed with Jane Austen. The books are by Carrie Bebris, and she says she's working on another one, so I'll look for that soon.

Other sequels or continuations that are worth reading are The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and all of Gregory Maguire's books (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Wicked, etc.). The Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Mr. Rochester and Bertha, how they first met and got married, and how their marriage changed. I prefer the mysteriousness of Jane Eyre, but The Wide Sargasso Sea is still pretty interesting. And of course, I love all of the retellings of fairy tales by Gregory Maguire. They're just so fun and clever.

If anybody else has read sequels or continuations that are worth reading, let me know.

My Stupid Screw Up

Alright, I know I've been neglecting my blog a bit lately. I still have a few cruise posts to post, but lately I've been too tired or lazy to do it. So instead, I'll entertain you with my own stupidity. So the weekend of July 22nd, I tried to start my experiments. However, all my data was noisy, and then I stopped getting good data at all, and just got 0.00 every time. For my experiment, you never actually read an absorbance at 0.00, so I knew something was wrong. The next week I described my problem to Lloyd, who said I should probably check my light source. Duh, I thought to myself. There's no absorbance because there is no light. So I checked and, sure enough, no light was coming from the light source. I put in an order for the lightbulb, then went to Cooperstown for a long weekend to see my mom, Mike, Aunt Barbara and cousin Ellie.

The new lightbulb came in yesterday, and it cost roughly $500 with the shipping. So this is one important lightbulb. I take apart the apparatus, which involves about eight tiny screws, and finally get the old lightbulb out. However, the lightbulb is attached to a black piece. I can't separate them, but I need to put the new lightbulb in the black piece. I struggle with it for a while, trying to twist it or pull it out, but nothing helps. Finally, I call Ocean Optics, the company who made the equipment, and wait a good 15 minutes before someone can actually answer my question. Turns out there's one more tiny black screw that I need to use the tiniest Allen wrench to unscrew. Relieved, I unscrew this last screw and change the bulb. As I do this, a wire snaps off the old lightbulb (there are 4 wires sticking out of it that must connect to other things in the apparatus), but this doesn't really matter, since I"m changing it for a new lightbulb anyways. However, as I attempt to screw the teeny tiny black screw back in, I drop it, along with the allen wrench. I looked for that stupid screw for about an hour and a half, and then got so frustrated that I left. After all, I can't do any more experiments until I find that damn screw.

So this morning I come in and start searching again. I'd already used a flashlight yesterday and essentially laid down on the floor, but today I also tried running a stir plate around the edge of the wall. Stir plates have a magnetized core, so I hoped the screw might stick to it. After more random searching I finally spotted the screw, underneath a black tableleg. Rejoicing, I pulled it out and slowly put the light source back together. However, when I plugged it in, I still didn't get a beam of light. Oh shit, something else is wrong, I thought. But then I remembered that there was an extra power cord when I finished unpacking my stuff. Maybe I had been using the wrong one all along.....I switched power cords and immediately a beam of light shot out of the light source. Of course, this means that my light source was never burned out, and all I really had to do was switch power cords. Unfortunately, that wire broke off the original light bulb, so we can't send the new one back for a refund. Which is too bad, because I essentially wasted $500 because of my own stupidity. Obviously, I did not tell anyone in the lab about this. In fact, I'm only posting this because no one in Rhode Island even knows I have a blog, so I feel I'm fairly safe confessing here. Still, I'm feeling pretty stupid now....

On a completely unrelated note, I checked out the 2005 Pride and Prejudice from the library, since I hadn't seen it since it was out in theaters. If you still haven't seen it, stop reading now, there will be spoilers ahead. I totally forgot how completely blameless they made Darcy! In this version, he really never saw Jane in London, and all his slights are attributed to shyness, never pride! In fact, I watched one of the extras and someone involved with the film noted that the famous book was about "prideful Elizabeth and prejudiced Darcy." Seriously? Doesn't Elizabeth actually state at one point in the book that Darcy's pride and her prejudice kept them apart? Darcy's pride is continuously referred to in the book, and Elizabeth is prejudiced by bad info (Wickham) and her own inclination to dislike a man who insulted her. Don't get me wrong, I like the movie, it has good visuals, and the different take means it's not just a copy of the 1995 miniseries. Still, I forgot they didn't even include Mr. and Mrs. Hurst! I guess you can only do so much in 2 hours.....