Thing that happened to me today #27

When I took my GRE exams as part of the application process for graduate school, I did quite well on the analytical/math portions of the exam, but basically bombed the writing section (same with my SAT's). As a young scientist, now working on my PhD in plant pathology at the University of Minnesota, this still bothers me a bit, and actually reflects quite well my strengths thus far in my graduate career. I have done a decent job at bench work. Coming up with and carrying out experiments as part of my thesis research hasn't been a speed bump thus far. However, at the moment I am attempting to write my first research article and I am procrastinating like hell because it just does not come near as natural to me as does thinking about the problems at hand and answering the questions that need addressing. The best scientists do both equally well. It doesn't matter how creative your experiments are, if you can't write them up well, you get nothing. Likewise, if you are a good writer, you can make a crap experiment look like you just cloned a human. So here goes my first major writing faux pas, I am going to change the subject abruptly.

If I were half the writer that my brother Gwydion is, I would be able to convey the last few days of my life to you in such an elegant way that you would leave this blog thinking your own life, as magnificent as it may in reality be, is in fact as ordinary as Joe/Jane Doe's, as if you might as well be eating at McDonalds five nights a week and thinking "The View" is quality television. I will definitely not pull this off to that extent, but I will do my best to convince you (at the very least explain to you) that if you were me, you would be considering yourself one of the luckiest people on the planet right now. I have felt such a wide spectrum of emotions I don't even know how to begin with this story. Awe, crap loads of awe, happiness, sadness, and even fear. I will just dive in with some background.

I will start by quoting a recent newsweek article:

"It's a trifecta much bigger and rarer than an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony. Only five people in history have ever won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal: Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel ... and Norman Borlaug."

Norman Borlaug is the key individual on that list, not a household name to say the least, but he should be. This is a man who is credited with saving more lives than ANYONE WHO HAS EVER LIVED. A BILLION people. He also happens to be a former graduate student in the very same department that I currently study.

This week our department was celebrating its 100th birthday, lots of alumni invited, talk after talk scheduled over the last few days, Q and A sessions, awards, banquet dinners, socials, etc., a real centennial celebration. Being as Dr. Borlaug was a graduate, he was invited of course, and despite his ailing health (I heard he had a blood transfusion just the other day and almost didn't make it), at 93 years old he did manage to arrive and was in attendance throughout the whole event. We are not huge, in fact the department is quite small compared to many others, especially those with big money. And like I said, most people have never even heard of Dr. Borlaug, so even with some local attention, there were only 100-150 people there overall with most talks only garnering 50-75 (and were closed to the public so maybe that made them smaller than they would have been).

Awe: The very first day I was awaiting the talks to begin, sitting in my usual spot near the back of the room (never liked the front of the room), wondering what the events of the next few days would be like, wondering whether Dr. Borlaug would be making it (had already heard about the blood transfusion), when sure enough he strolls into the room and sits down two seats in front of me. That would have been enough right there. But it just kept getting better and better. Having a legend sit in front of you is nothing, getting up and introducing myself to him (for the second time - ok, I did meet him once before about six months ago, but nothing more than a handshake and quick hello) and getting the chance to chat with him for a few minutes was glorious. He is such a down to earth guy, wants to get to know everybody who approaches him. A few of us from the department were standing there with him, listening to him tell us amusing stories about his life, and all the while he made a point of looking at all the badges around our necks so he could try to learn our names. The thing is those damn badges always end up sitting on your chest such that your name isn't facing out, so he kept having to flip them around to see the names, and started laughing and saying just that, "Why the heck do I have to keep flipping these darn things over to see the names"? Such a simple thing for the average guy, but coming from him it was great.

More awe: It just kept getting better. I ended up getting to spend two intimate days, full of an amazing array of talks, with him. Not to mention he signed a copy of his biography for me and I got several pictures with him like this one (Ok, this one is blurry, but I have not gotten the others off the camera yet):


The whole event was about the history of our department. As a current graduate student, of course I was aware of some of the history, you can't help but be, but after hearing what I heard, I am so humbled just to be a part of it. The people that have come through here are amazing. I learned so much it awed me to no end. If I could only be a fraction as successful as some of these people I would be thrilled to say the least. The room was filled with people other than Norman Borlaug that were legendary in their own right.

Happiness: Part of the second day of the ceremony was awards day. I just so happen to have been awarded the M.F. Kernkamp award (for outstanding graduate research) this year. So here I am, being presented an award at this ceremony, with Dr. Borlaug right down the row from me clapping for me! How cool is that? That is like winning an award for civil rights activism in front of Martin Luther King! Very cool to say the least. Another award given most years (if they have a suitable candidate) goes to a distinguished alumnus in recognition for their acheivements, called the Stakman award after Norman Borlaug's adviser, E. C. Stakman (Side note: My office is in Borlaug Hall and many of the labs are in Stakman hall). Dr. Stakman is credited with being the first to describe the physiological speciation of pathogens, in simpler terms, he is the one who first used genetics to further classify pathogens (beyond the species level) into races based on their ability to infect only certain individuals in a population. This years Stakman award went posthumously to Sir Bent Skovman. This is the guy who started the Nordic gene bank as well as what is referred to as the "doomsday" vault in Norway. It is a vault carved into a mountain on an island off Norway near the north pole where they will be storing crop seeds to keep the world's catalogue of seeds safe in the event of a catastrophe as well as to preserve the diversity that is present now. Also, very neat.

Sadness: Sir Bent Skovman (knighted by his Danish Queen for his work) died unexpectedly last year from a brain tumor. His family was present to accept the award for him. His wife got up to say a few words on his behalf and ended up presenting what amounted to be another eulogy. She broke up a little at the end and the room could feel the sadness in the air, I noticed a few people in the room blotting their eyes already. It got sadder though, Dr. Borlaug was asked if he would like to get up and say anything. He did get up to say a few words about Dr. Skovman's career, then started talking about what a good human being the guy was and just suddenly broke down and cried. The room went totally silent and it was strange moment, people started crying all over. I didn't even know the guy and I had a hard time keeping the tears at bay. Very sad moment.

To pull some of this together, but also at the risk of not making this not flow very well, I just wanted to quick comment on my research family tree since this was a lesson in history for me. There may be a better name for it but what I mean by research family tree is something scientists do to describe the graduate student/adviser lineage that they are apart of. Dr. E. C. Stakman had two graduate students (many more than that but only two I will mention), Dr. Norman Borlaug and Dr. Roy Wilcoxson. Dr. Roy Wilcoxson had two graduate students (again just the ones I will mention), Sir Bent Skovman and Dr. Brian Steffenson. Dr. Brian Steffenson has a graduate student: me. Needless to say, I am proud to be a part of that lineage.

Fear: In case you were wondering how fear could have played a role in these two days here you go. It doesn't really fit in with everything else, but it was something I experienced and therefore fitting for the blog, so I just sort of left it for the end. What happens when you get a room full of elderly people together for two days of events? You may have guessed it, one of them has a heart attack. You just don't expect it to be in the room with you. On the last day, after the awards, during the final Q & A session, one of our former alums asks a question at the mic, steps back to his seat, and flops over in convulsions. Lots of people with deer-in-the-headlights looks, and luckily a few controlled persons with experience who handled the situation perfectly (including my good friend James Jacobs who was a medic in the army for six years), and the man was stable and on his way to the hospital. I am now fully convinced that storing portable defibrillator's in public places was a great life-saving idea. They are indeed remarkable little machines.

Anyway, I just had a crazy few days this week, and hopefully you leave this blog thinking about life a little differently, anything can happen at any time, you can do whatever you want to if you strive for it and work hard enough, and you can learn a lot from the past.

Thing that happened to me today #26

Brewed a nice IPA today, racked a wonderful Belgian Tripel into the secondary fermenter, and kegged an Irish stout. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then, oh well. If you do, then perhaps you are a tad jealous. There is nothing like a good homebrew.

Thing that happened to me today #25

Saw a huge red-tailed hawk today sitting in a tree about ten feet above the ground right outside the door of the building I work in. I was right under it with a perfect view. It was awesome, had to be at least a foot and a half tall standing up. I tried to get my camera phone out to get a picture but it took off before I could snap it. Things like this are once in a lifetime and to get to see a wild bird like that so up close and personal is amazing. My brother Gwydion who has gotten into bird watching would have loved it, too bad I couldn't get a pic to show off!

Thing that happened to me today #24

Went to see Rush on Sunday night with my brother Jon. Floor, center section, row 10. If you are not familiar with the music of Rush, familiarize yourself now, trust me. Musically phenomenal. This was the best show I have seen in a long time. Lots of fun.

Thing that happened to me today #23

Have not been blogging in a while, so I will fill in on a few things:

First, in case you have been looking for a mouse update, the mice are finished (I think). We practically tore our kitchen apart trying to figure out where they were hiding to no avail. Tried the live trap thing for several days and it didn't catch squat. So we had no choice. We had to go with the old fashioned snap traps that kill them. Hated to do it, and I still can't believe that Sandy went for it, but as I said, we had no choice. The darn cat was useless and we could hear them scuttling around in the kitchen at night, just gross and unsanitary to say the least. The first night we put two traps out and we came down to a dead one in the morning. It was huge (probably chock full of nuts). The trap did its thing and although I wasn't there, it seemed as if it was pretty quick (and dare I say painless?). The other traps bait was gone and eaten (malfunction I think). Since we knew there were two (at least) we did it again the following night. This time it didn't go quite as smoothly. I hate to describe this, but if it helps anyone decide whether or not to do this themselves, at least maybe they will have a better idea of what might be in store for them. Anyway, the next morning we came down to a sprung trap on the floor and leading away from it a trail of blood heading towards the living room....yum....and no mouse to be seen. So I start looking around the living room and finally I find the thing under the entertainment center against the wall. I thought it must have suffered awhile, then died of its injuries, but all those thoughts were erased once it moved. Damn (side note - the darn cat STILL could not catch an INJURED mouse). So I grab a produce bag, the kind you might stick your broccoli in at the grocery store, and put my hand in it and head towards the mouse as if it were a pile of dog crap that my dog just laid in the one neighbors yard that was outside on his porch at the moment (this happens all the time but I digress). So what does the mouse do? It takes off running. Clearly hobbled and hurt it still had some spunk. I did finally corner it on another side of the room and tried to grab it, and after a bit of fighting I managed to get it in the bag. What do you do now you ask? Well the first thing Sandy says is you can't let it suffer in that bag, you have to do something to ease its misery. Man this was terrible. So I take the bag outside to the nice concrete steps outside and..........swung that bag around as hard as I could and slammed it onto the stairs. Did I mention that this was terrible yet? It was one of those moments where you just don't know what to do, and you do the first thing that comes to your mind. Anyway, it did the deed, the mouse was instantly motionless, and sparing you anymore gory details, lets just say I could tell it was dead. So, if you ever get a mouse in your house (or 3), think twice about how you plan on ridding your house of the unwelcome guest(s). Please fill me in if you have any better ideas. The kitchen has been silent since.

Also, over the weekend, I installed our new storm door. I trashed the old one when we painted the house and we purchased one of those new ones that is all glass and the top half of the glass slides down bringing a screen down with it (it hides away rolled up in the top when the glass is up). Very cool door. Installation went perfect, saved myself $150. The guide was like a book with lots of intricate steps, but if you pick through it carefully, it's not that hard. Proud of myself to say the least.

Now I am coming down with an upper respiratory infection and have been doing the coughing/sneezing/runny nose thing for two days. Always comes at the wrong time (not that there is a right time), but my brother Jon is coming into town this weekend, going to see Rush at the Excel Energy Center on Sunday night, etc. I just want this to pass fast, although colds like this hardly ever do. Can't we just find a cure for the common cold already?