Saturday, June 23, 2007
Thing that happened to me today #6
Five years ago today Sandy and I were married under a 200+ year old Kentucky Coffee tree on the grounds at Swan Harbor Farm, which is located on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. My brother Gwydion presided over the ceremony and we had all of our family and friends in attendance. It was wonderful, stifling hot, but wonderful indeed. Couldn't have planned a better wedding if I tried a thousand more times. Happy Anniversary sweety. Love you.
Thing that happened to me today #5
My work is located right next to the Minnesota fairgrounds, which every year has a huge state fair, second largest in the country I believe. It also hosts many other events, including lots of car shows, one of which was going on today. So driving into work today, I passed lots of really cool cars. It seemed like I was in another era because most of them were really old. Does it just seem that way because they are so rare, or do they just not make them as cool as they used to?
There were some newer ones as well. Apparently, this corvette was an official pace car for the 82nd Indianapolis 500.
Zoom. Zoom.
There were some newer ones as well. Apparently, this corvette was an official pace car for the 82nd Indianapolis 500.
Zoom. Zoom.
Thing that happened to me today #4
Fridays around here are known as 'Daddy Fridays' because it is the one day of the week Sandy works and I stay home with the kids. The kids get bored pretty easily so you have to take them places or at least come up with interesting projects for them to do. Yesterday I decided that making tye-dyes would be the thing to do. I think they came out pretty good, although maybe they could be a little more vibrant and with less white space, but pretty darn cool if I may say so myself.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Thing that happened to me today #3
I will just type out the letter I received today:
Dear Ben,
I am pleased to inform you that you have been awarded the M. F. Kernkamp Scholarship for 2007. You exemplify the positive characteristics that we seek in our graduate students and the department is pleased to honor you in this way.
The department awards ceremony is planned for September 20, 2007. The event will provide an opportunity to officially recognize your achievements. Please plan to be present for the ceremony. Again, congratulations and best wishes.
Sincerely,
Carol Ishimaru
Professor and Head
This is great. Couldn't be more happy. This is not only normally a cool thing, but especially so this year because it happens to be at our departments centennial celebration that I will be awarded this. We boast the oldest and one of the best Plant Pathology departments in the nation. I think the former graduate of our department and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug will be in attendance. Way cool, plus I get $750.
Dear Ben,
I am pleased to inform you that you have been awarded the M. F. Kernkamp Scholarship for 2007. You exemplify the positive characteristics that we seek in our graduate students and the department is pleased to honor you in this way.
The department awards ceremony is planned for September 20, 2007. The event will provide an opportunity to officially recognize your achievements. Please plan to be present for the ceremony. Again, congratulations and best wishes.
Sincerely,
Carol Ishimaru
Professor and Head
This is great. Couldn't be more happy. This is not only normally a cool thing, but especially so this year because it happens to be at our departments centennial celebration that I will be awarded this. We boast the oldest and one of the best Plant Pathology departments in the nation. I think the former graduate of our department and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug will be in attendance. Way cool, plus I get $750.
Thing that happened to me today #2
Everybody's work sucks sometimes, yesterday mine was atrocious.
So I am studying Plant Pathology at the UMN. I work with barley, specifically on genetic resistance to diseases of it. In order for us to determine which lines of barley have resistance to disease, we have to make them sick on purpose. Summertime is field season, and we have huge fields of barley growing, usually with thousands of lines spread out in dashes along the rows in the field. Now, the easy way to inoculate a field of barley with, for instance, a fungal pathogen, is to spray a suspension of those fungal spores all over the field and let them do their thing. Sometimes, however, the conditions are not right for disease, it is too dry out and the spores just dry out before that can germinate and infect. So my adviser came up with an alternative method. He decided it would be best if we injected the spore suspension directly into the stems of the barley plants. Thats right, walk the fields with a repeating syringe injecting plants, THOUSANDS of them. So yesterday I walked the length of say, a football field, bending all the way over to about a foot off the ground, injecting a plant, moving one foot further down the row, bend over again, repeat, one foot, repeat, etc. I did this for the length of the field, then back again, then halfway back again the way I started. Luckily there was a lot of us doing it and it wasn't too hot out. It still sucked and needless to say, I have a bit of back pain today.
Can't wait until next week when I have to go to every single line and read the level of disease.
So I am studying Plant Pathology at the UMN. I work with barley, specifically on genetic resistance to diseases of it. In order for us to determine which lines of barley have resistance to disease, we have to make them sick on purpose. Summertime is field season, and we have huge fields of barley growing, usually with thousands of lines spread out in dashes along the rows in the field. Now, the easy way to inoculate a field of barley with, for instance, a fungal pathogen, is to spray a suspension of those fungal spores all over the field and let them do their thing. Sometimes, however, the conditions are not right for disease, it is too dry out and the spores just dry out before that can germinate and infect. So my adviser came up with an alternative method. He decided it would be best if we injected the spore suspension directly into the stems of the barley plants. Thats right, walk the fields with a repeating syringe injecting plants, THOUSANDS of them. So yesterday I walked the length of say, a football field, bending all the way over to about a foot off the ground, injecting a plant, moving one foot further down the row, bend over again, repeat, one foot, repeat, etc. I did this for the length of the field, then back again, then halfway back again the way I started. Luckily there was a lot of us doing it and it wasn't too hot out. It still sucked and needless to say, I have a bit of back pain today.
Can't wait until next week when I have to go to every single line and read the level of disease.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Thing that happened to me today #1
Ok, this didn't actually happen today, it happened on Monday, but it was so funny it made me want to start blogging again. Not just about this story either, but from now on I hope to start blogging about things that happen to me whether large or small, funny or sad, as often as I can. It's kind of a take on my brother's blog that I frequent and enjoy thoroughly, which is 'Things I Love/Hate' (see: www.gwydions.blogspot.com).
Anyway, here goes:
So to start by setting the stage a little bit, my wife Sandy and I went to take our two little ones, Solana (3) and Sagan (1) to get haircuts at the beauty school down the street. This is Sagan's first haircut. The place is huge because it is a school, 20 foot ceilings, and tons of chairs (and $5 haircuts that are just fine if you get a good student, especially for a 1 year old). So the haircuts go quite smoothly and we are in line waiting to pay and get out of there.
There is a stereotypical male homosexual hairdresser type guy at the register trying to ring us up, and it is taking him forever (has to ring up one at a time, has to change the receipt tape, can't figure it out, etc.). We are standing behind a very long counter with tons of open space on either side. While we are standing there, Sagan, who is just learning to speak, points up to something in the air and says, "Bee!". As it turns out there was no bee, but there was, in fact, a spider. He must have very good eyes because it is not very big and it is suspended in the air. Now this spider is doing his spider thing and dangling about 8 feet or so off the ground from a silken thread that is suspended from the ceiling, BEHIND the counter. Now the fun begins.
We do say, out loud, to Sagan, that that wasn't a bee, it was a spider (trying to teach him correctly), and since it was doing no harm to anybody, we said nothing more. Now the guy ringing us up didn't seem to hear anything, he just went on about his business with the tape fixing. In comes two more employees, we'll name them hairdresser lady #1 and #2. Lady #1 comes around and positions herself behind the counter, DIRECTLY underneath the spider. So of course what happens next, the spider decides to begin to lower itself slowly, very slowly, downward. Now, you have, as an observer of this situation as Sandy and I both were, two options. One is that you can say, very loudly, "Watch out!, there is a spider about to land on your head". The other option is to just watch and wait to see what happens when the spider reaches it's landing pad of, as my wife would say of these types of hair dressers, "over-processed" hair.
Which do you think we choose? Thats correct. Watch and wait. The best part is that we both, silently, choose option two without even looking at each other. I probably would have pegged myself as an option two kind of guy, but not necessarily her, but in this instance she went along for the ride. Very proud of her to say the least.
Now if you have ever seen a mighty mouse cartoon, or more recently any of the Austin Powers movies, then you would be familiar with the scenes where someone is set to die in a violent yet overly drawn-out way, such as a saw that is slowly moving towards them while they are tied down, or they are dangling above a pit of alligators while a candle slowly frays the line. They are always saved in the nick of time, usually, of course, because there is always way too much time. This is exactly what was happening at that moment.
The spider was SLOWLY trickling downward, inch by inch, moment by moment (I could almost feel the camera angles shifting constantly in my head as I watched it unfolding). I felt like a kid in a candy store with unlimited funds. Then into the scene comes Lady #2, on our side of the counter. She must have noticed the jaw-dropping look of astonishment on our faces and followed our gaze towards Lady #1, because immediately, she turned that way to see what was going on.
At this point the spider has made it, literally, to within a half inch or less of it's hairy home-to-be. Instantly, she chose option one (damn her), and screamed, "There's a spider!" while pointing at lady#1's head. Immediately following the scream, cashier guy spins around fast, and let's out, of course, the stereotypical girly high-pitched shrill, "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH", with both hands to his face. Lady #1 jumps out of the way at the one instant she had left before impact, ruining our show.
It didn't quite end there though. Everybody laughed a bit and stepped away from the spider, and we were still in kind of a daze about the whole thing that had just unfolded in front of our eyes. Enter in another male employee, who had stepped in to see what was going on after hearing the commotion. He decides to be the hero and remove the spider for all the ladies (including the cashier guy).
Now, we are still standing there with our two children. Solana is at that age where all bugs are cool, loves to find them and play with them and ask about them, and has no clue about death. Certainly would not kill anything she found. So what does hero guy do? He grabs the silken thread about a foot above the spider to carry him away. However, instead of carrying him away, perhaps outside to freedom would have been appropriate, he drops it on the floor about two feet from everyone and slams his foot to the floor in one furious spider crushing stomp. Shocked again.
At this point our business there is slowly coming to an end and we are about to leave (thankfully). Yet, Solana, has some questions to ask first. She says, "Mommy, what did he do?".
Sandy, who is absolutely the type to have carried the spider to freedom is, I can tell, still floored (pun intended) by what just happened, and just matter of factly states, "He stepped on it".
"Why?"
Cashier hands us the receipt.
Sandy, "Um...I don't know".
and we're gone. As fast as we can.
Now, the implication of us choosing option two doesn't really hit us until we are laughing hysterically in the car on the way out of there. The thing is, although we tried to act as if we didn't know there was a spider when the screaming hit, we clearly did know there was a spider. More importantly, Lady #2 clearly knew we knew there was a spider, and even more importantly, knew that we knew it was about to land on Lady #1's hairy dome, and utmost importantly, knew that we knew about it and chose not to say anything. Being as she was an option one kind of girl, my guess is that she figured to inform the others after we had left that we were in fact option two type of folk. Who knows what she did, but the thought of that implication just made us laugh even more hysterically, luckily she didn't call us out on it at the scene. Hopefully that was too much for her to process and she didn't even consider it, let alone say anything. Sandy has an appointment there next week, I guess she'll find out if she gets any funny looks.
Anyway, thought I'd share, thanks for reading. Check in often, although my life may not always be full of stories this good.
Anyway, here goes:
So to start by setting the stage a little bit, my wife Sandy and I went to take our two little ones, Solana (3) and Sagan (1) to get haircuts at the beauty school down the street. This is Sagan's first haircut. The place is huge because it is a school, 20 foot ceilings, and tons of chairs (and $5 haircuts that are just fine if you get a good student, especially for a 1 year old). So the haircuts go quite smoothly and we are in line waiting to pay and get out of there.
There is a stereotypical male homosexual hairdresser type guy at the register trying to ring us up, and it is taking him forever (has to ring up one at a time, has to change the receipt tape, can't figure it out, etc.). We are standing behind a very long counter with tons of open space on either side. While we are standing there, Sagan, who is just learning to speak, points up to something in the air and says, "Bee!". As it turns out there was no bee, but there was, in fact, a spider. He must have very good eyes because it is not very big and it is suspended in the air. Now this spider is doing his spider thing and dangling about 8 feet or so off the ground from a silken thread that is suspended from the ceiling, BEHIND the counter. Now the fun begins.
We do say, out loud, to Sagan, that that wasn't a bee, it was a spider (trying to teach him correctly), and since it was doing no harm to anybody, we said nothing more. Now the guy ringing us up didn't seem to hear anything, he just went on about his business with the tape fixing. In comes two more employees, we'll name them hairdresser lady #1 and #2. Lady #1 comes around and positions herself behind the counter, DIRECTLY underneath the spider. So of course what happens next, the spider decides to begin to lower itself slowly, very slowly, downward. Now, you have, as an observer of this situation as Sandy and I both were, two options. One is that you can say, very loudly, "Watch out!, there is a spider about to land on your head". The other option is to just watch and wait to see what happens when the spider reaches it's landing pad of, as my wife would say of these types of hair dressers, "over-processed" hair.
Which do you think we choose? Thats correct. Watch and wait. The best part is that we both, silently, choose option two without even looking at each other. I probably would have pegged myself as an option two kind of guy, but not necessarily her, but in this instance she went along for the ride. Very proud of her to say the least.
Now if you have ever seen a mighty mouse cartoon, or more recently any of the Austin Powers movies, then you would be familiar with the scenes where someone is set to die in a violent yet overly drawn-out way, such as a saw that is slowly moving towards them while they are tied down, or they are dangling above a pit of alligators while a candle slowly frays the line. They are always saved in the nick of time, usually, of course, because there is always way too much time. This is exactly what was happening at that moment.
The spider was SLOWLY trickling downward, inch by inch, moment by moment (I could almost feel the camera angles shifting constantly in my head as I watched it unfolding). I felt like a kid in a candy store with unlimited funds. Then into the scene comes Lady #2, on our side of the counter. She must have noticed the jaw-dropping look of astonishment on our faces and followed our gaze towards Lady #1, because immediately, she turned that way to see what was going on.
At this point the spider has made it, literally, to within a half inch or less of it's hairy home-to-be. Instantly, she chose option one (damn her), and screamed, "There's a spider!" while pointing at lady#1's head. Immediately following the scream, cashier guy spins around fast, and let's out, of course, the stereotypical girly high-pitched shrill, "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH", with both hands to his face. Lady #1 jumps out of the way at the one instant she had left before impact, ruining our show.
It didn't quite end there though. Everybody laughed a bit and stepped away from the spider, and we were still in kind of a daze about the whole thing that had just unfolded in front of our eyes. Enter in another male employee, who had stepped in to see what was going on after hearing the commotion. He decides to be the hero and remove the spider for all the ladies (including the cashier guy).
Now, we are still standing there with our two children. Solana is at that age where all bugs are cool, loves to find them and play with them and ask about them, and has no clue about death. Certainly would not kill anything she found. So what does hero guy do? He grabs the silken thread about a foot above the spider to carry him away. However, instead of carrying him away, perhaps outside to freedom would have been appropriate, he drops it on the floor about two feet from everyone and slams his foot to the floor in one furious spider crushing stomp. Shocked again.
At this point our business there is slowly coming to an end and we are about to leave (thankfully). Yet, Solana, has some questions to ask first. She says, "Mommy, what did he do?".
Sandy, who is absolutely the type to have carried the spider to freedom is, I can tell, still floored (pun intended) by what just happened, and just matter of factly states, "He stepped on it".
"Why?"
Cashier hands us the receipt.
Sandy, "Um...I don't know".
and we're gone. As fast as we can.
Now, the implication of us choosing option two doesn't really hit us until we are laughing hysterically in the car on the way out of there. The thing is, although we tried to act as if we didn't know there was a spider when the screaming hit, we clearly did know there was a spider. More importantly, Lady #2 clearly knew we knew there was a spider, and even more importantly, knew that we knew it was about to land on Lady #1's hairy dome, and utmost importantly, knew that we knew about it and chose not to say anything. Being as she was an option one kind of girl, my guess is that she figured to inform the others after we had left that we were in fact option two type of folk. Who knows what she did, but the thought of that implication just made us laugh even more hysterically, luckily she didn't call us out on it at the scene. Hopefully that was too much for her to process and she didn't even consider it, let alone say anything. Sandy has an appointment there next week, I guess she'll find out if she gets any funny looks.
Anyway, thought I'd share, thanks for reading. Check in often, although my life may not always be full of stories this good.
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