fun in the sun

The most exciting thing this week is that Oscar's shifting over to one nap a day. We see him so much more on the weekends now! It was tolerably warm this week, and most of the snow has melted. Here's a nice article about how cold isn't all bad:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/how-being-cold-burns-calories/283810/

This part of it made me laugh for a long time: "Our bodies burn energy to keep us warm in a process called non-shivering thermogenesis (NST), they explain, which works even at pretty reasonable temperatures. They defined mild cold exposure as 64 degrees Fahrenheit." We keep our house at 65. My parents keep theirs at 63 - all of us turn the heat down to 55 at night. No wonder snacks are so important!

We took Oscar out on his sled today. He was outside and found the sled and then clambered into it and demanded a ride:

I bet it's a lot easier to pull him over snow instead of grass. He really liked it though!

The snowdrops have started blooming, and the tulips and crocuses and daffodils have started to emerge.

I need about 100 more snowdrops to be really happy, I think. Maybe 200.

Here are some more pictures of Oscar having a grand old time:

There are some videos to share too, but that will have to wait on well-behaved internet.

Have a lovely week!

late post

Sue and Lloyd were here on Sunday night and took us out to dinner! So the blog is getting updated a little late.

Oscar is very well-behaved at restaurants. He dutifully chews on the crayons and drinks from straws and eats the unfamiliar food. It's quite pleasant! He is also no longer able to click his tongue in an inhumanly loud way, since he has giant front teeth that get in the way.

Eric is negotiating with reps all the time. The lab is going to buy a robot to do RNA extractions from plant tissue for them, for many thousands of dollars. And then they will have a lab robot! We had one in the Biology department a few years ago as a demo, and it was very cute and very efficient. The yields were exactly the same, every single time. And while it was running, you could go do something else!

I am finding more and more evidence that extensins are an integral part of wood, which is essential to my theory that extensins are a problem in making biofuels out of wood. I don't know why I couldn't find all these articles before when I was applying for grants - a paper was recently published that had a bunch of good citations that have opened the world of wood-protein studies to me. One paper is by an art conservator who studies pyrography, which is the art of making pictures by burning wood. A lot of the discoloration is achieved by caramelization of the sugars and also by my personal favorite, the Maillard reaction, which requires nitrogen, which is donated by the proteins found in the wood! It all comes together so nicely...
a) a pyrograph

b) the painting it's copying

a - ‘The Dead Christ Mourned’, by Smith c. 1829. Photograph by Susan M Millis; b - The original painting, NG2923 The Dead Christ Mourned (‘The Three Maries’) by Annibale Carracci c. 1604. Presented by Rosalind Countess of Carlisle, 1913. Photograph ©The National Gallery, London. 

Anyway, here's some pictures of Oscar at his latest and finest.

Investigating his Valentine's Day package from Great-Gramma

Playing with some dinosaur magnets

And finally, the shawl for my cousin is finished! It's very warm and cozy, and I'm excited to make another one just like it for myself!

Here it is drying after I blocked it. When I make things for other people, I do it right, but I usually can't be bothered to block things.

Ta-da!

surprise post!

I finally mailed Lloyd his Christmas present so I can now show it off here:

It's a runner, on which he may display his finely turned wooden bowls. The pattern is Swedish lace, the yarn is Tencel (a kind of rayon), and I am very pleased with it. The selvedges turned out particularly nicely. Lloyd likes it too, he says, so everybody wins! Merry Christmas!

The other surprise news is that Eric was offered a position at CTY again this summer, in Bristol RI, and Todd has said that he can totally go! Eric gets to go to camp again and see all his camp buddies! And now that Oscar's in daycare it won't be quite so dramatic for me either! Everybody wins again!

It is still February.

Yesterday and Friday were exciting because the temperature was around freezing, unlike the rest of the week when it was at or below 0. I was woken up many times in the night by the furnace kicking on, which confused me since the furnace usually turns on at 7, acting as my alarm.

I was not woken up by Oscar! He's been sleeping through the night for the past two weeks and boy has that been wonderful. However he just started growing again so just recently he's started needing a bottle again in the middle of the night. It's really too cold for such shenanigans, so we've been stuffing him as much as possible during the day. I think he prefers to sleep through the night, himself, so the strategy might actually be working. Oscar has also mastered standing up by himself, as well as spinning around to make himself dizzy. He'll spin as long as he can without falling over - a real thrill-seeker!

Not so many pictures this week - it is February after all.

Oscar assumes the upright posture

The unheard-of three-cat pin

Happy little dude!

this week, wicked baby edition

Events of note:
Eric had his first week of work as Lab Manager. He ended the week by getting ordering powers ($2000/day on the lab credit card!) and interviewing undergraduates - in other words, highly managerial. We also got all signed up for all the benefits, mainly health insurance and a retirement plan. The health insurance is a little bogus because CSU's plans are "grandfathered" under the ACA, so they don't have to meet all of the new requirements like no copays etc. However, they cannot refuse coverage due to preexisting conditions, and it is cheaper than student insurance, so I guess I'm happy.

I got publishable data! My theories are right and everyone should grant me lots of money! There are no fancy pictures to go with this data, but suffice it to say the error bars on my charts are really, really small. My advisor left this weekend for Denmark, so I'm not sure when this paper will get written, but updates will ensue as events warrant. (I'm definitely going to graduate!)

I had my first Super Bowl experience and boy was it disappointing. I'm quite glad I didn't travel to any parties or even change out of my pajamas for it!

Oscar has been terrorizing cats and the general public in various ways, including donning socks as mittens and being inconsolable at daycare.
Evidence:

Beer bottles are very cold and nice on baby gums, Oscar tells us.

A tripartite pecan! Whoever heard of such a monstrous nut?

It's been snowing, and it's going to snow. A snow caterpillar decorates a coneflower.

Socks for hands!

I don't know what got into us - it was halftime, we were feeding Oscar dinner, it just seemed right...

That's the news, see you next week!

the semester begins

It looks like we're going to be barely able to keep our heads on this semester, so I'm going to be posting once a week, on Sunday.

I started my class this week, on teaching undergraduates using writing. It's an exhilarating class so far, because it's something I haven't thought a lot about, and there's an enormous field of research supporting the use of writing across the curriculum. There's a lot of good stuff to learn about. There's also a discussion section to the class - I haven't been in a truly discussion-based class since St. John's, so it's reminding me how much I love and hate seminar.

Eric and I went to work together on Friday. It's so nice to go in to work with somebody, and to have someone to eat lunch with, and someone to walk to the car with. Office romances have their problems to be sure, but the benefits are very pleasant!

Since Juniper is the only rabbit left, we moved her inside this weekend and took the loom out to the shed to await rehabilitation. Here she is in her new digs:

The object on the end of her cage is my Christmas present from Lloyd and Eric.

It's a skein winder, for all the yarn that I've been spinning. There's no metal in it - it's all held together with joins or wooden pins, and a little bit of glue. We just tested it out with some yarn from a project I didn't like, and it worked beautifully!

This is a shawl I'm making for my cousin. I'm afraid it might be enormous - afraid because it will take forever. I increase 2 stitches on the wrong side rows and 4 stitches on the right side! And it's supposed to be 144 rows long! At least it's wintery and my room is now in order, so I have nothing to do but knit when I'm home. 

Oscar has been enjoying climbing inside things.

And finally, here is Oscar trying to walk while wearing shoes. He hasn't quite figured it out yet.

I think this is really going to be a crazy week. I start teaching - Eric starts working - Oscar keeps growing... wish us luck!

Eric's other new job

I start another new job monday.  I can perform this one while I teach a section of bio at the community college.  My days are filling up!  This position is technically considered a laboratory assistant II position but Dr. Gaines affectionately calls me his lab manager.  I am in charge of setting up, cleaning and organizing a lab as well as initiating projects that can be handed off to grad students when we start recruiting.

This is Dr. Todd Gaines my new boss and adviser.  He's a righteous dude. 

This is Amaranthus or "pigweed"

This is Kochia.

Amaranthus and Kochia are some pretty hostile and serious weed and both threaten farmland.  These two species are controlled using the herbicide glyphosate (roundup) but in the last decade they have evolved a pretty hardy resistance and no one knows why.  That's where our lab steps in...we are investigating the mechanism for resistance acquisition. I can't wait to get started.  I have a huge start up budget to work with and a beautiful lab space with windows!  I can even decorate it however I want.  Todd thinks we need a sound system to play some sweet tunes while we work.  I also have some pretty serious computing power.  We have a few super computers (256 gigs of ram!) to help us out and over 12 terabytes of storage for our data sets.  I have a feeling the learning curve will be high but I can't imagine a funner assignment.  I get to be queen (king) bee and make all lab based decisions.  I also get to train the newbs and bend them to my will....YOU VILL DO VHAT I SAY!  

Anyway its sweet.  Stay tuned for more updates.

Phew!

Oscar devours a pear

Little fajah

U 

Unprecedented kitty swarm

This has been quite a week! Eric started teaching at ACC, and it seems to be going well. I am being bossed around by the biology department and the lab coordinator, which is making me quite grumpy. Oslo passed away on Wednesday night unexpectedly. Eric seems to have gotten a job as lab coordinator for a new professor on campus, although it won't be official until Monday or Tuesday. We'll be able to ride the bike to work together again! And now we're all sick with a dumb cold from daycare, so we've been wearing loungewear non-stop and self-medicating with Popsicles.

Misc Pics Post Christmas

Getting Ready

Struttin' in our new ride...

Happy Camper

Green Ice Pop Prize for being a Champ

We're getting the band back together!

Not really. But, Pat has finished perfecting the album and it is now available for purchase, at cdbaby for the low low price of $1.29: http://cdbaby.com/cd/thelaydownsister, but also at iTunes, Amazon, spotify, wherever. It has an E for Explicit Lyrics rating on iTunes, which I hope makes Pat happy. The album is called After the Red Giant. I haven't listed to the final version yet myself, so I make no promises. May it satisfy your curiosity.

Professor Patterson

Eric has been hired at AIMS community college as a professor! He will be teaching one section of Introductory Biology starting on Tuesday!! He may also be working full-time as a lab manager... It's going to be a busy semester.

We made it!

Oscar is such a good traveling baby! We made it safely back to Fort Collins today without much fuss. It was fun to get home and unpack the presents and see where they'll all go in the house! Oscar took a giant nap on the plane - Eric's butt fell asleep but at least so did O.

What a nice visit that was. We got to meet Casper, and Josh, and say hello again to Henry. We weren't responsible for anything, which is such a relaxing feeling! Two weeks is definitely the best for a vacay. But now we're back, and Pocky is purring on my lap, and Garage is purring nearby (and Mo is just prowling), and we put Oscar to sleep without having to ask anyone to stop shouting. So there are advantages there too.

Oscar is delighted to toddle around this tiny house. He is fearless and only needs to learn to stand up on his own before he's fully functional.

Texas Ranger for the new year!