Hilariously geeky thing I read today at Animal Review:
"A typical example of an evolutionary arms race can be seen in the Great War between Kingdom Plantae and Kingdom Animalia. It went down something like this:
Plants arise. Animals arise and eat plants. Plants grow thorns. Animals counter with thick skin and fur. Plants say ‘Yeah? Get a load of these toxins. We hope you like diarrhea.’ Animals declare diarrhea a gratuitous ‘prelude to war’ and introduce simple digestive enzymes to break down the toxins. Plants make vague conciliatory gestures at mediated peace talks while their military secretly draws up plans for deadlier toxins. Animals appeal to the defense sector to begin work on a liver. Propped up by surging nationalism and xenophobia at home, plants begin testing bark. Et cetera."
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
The Outside (a little bit)
The house no longer matches the ground! Last week one of us took Monday off and the other took Tuesday off and between us we distributed about 10 loads of topsoil using the bobcat we had rented. I now have a new skill set: using a skid steer loader to move dirt around. The weather had been calling for sunshine across the board for the entire week: ideal weather for topsoil distribution because that stuff is a bitch to move around when it gets wet. But on day two, I spent the entire afternoon frantically trying to spread the last of the topsoil before a looming thunderstorm rolled in. Nobody was predicting the showers until Tuesday morning, but all afternoon it was high winds, sudden temperature drops and ominous clouds. We had rented the skid steer loader and I had the day off to wait for water purification people/mortgage inspector so the machine was there to use. When my husband got home, he helped by raking out the uneven bumps I left with the skid steer and we finished the tenth load before the rain. Then we spent the next two hours raking out the soil to an even level - sweating profusely and complaining the whole time. Finally, dark came and we could no longer see anything. I was utterly exhausted. We only got about 90% of it finished, but we are happy with that (for now). A gentle mist arrived just as we were packing up the rakes. The rest of the week was glorious sunshine, but we were too physically spent to attack the last 10% of raking.
Me, practicing before I add to my CV:
(A really violent summer storm two weeks ago tore off a piece of our siding near the eave of the bathroom. Ah, to be a home-owner:)
On Friday, four skids of sod (about 400 pieces) were delivered as well as an additional load of topsoil. I was hoping to have some help with the time-sensitive landscaping, but everyone was (understandably) busy enjoying the last few summer days, so we attacked it as a duo. When I talked to the sod dude on the phone, he suggested we wet down the soil, and then wet down the back of the sod pieces (about 2' x 4 ') while laying them down. We thought four skids would be enough to do the front yard, side yards and maybe a tiny bit of the back yard near the deck. Turns out we can't do math, because we just had enough to do the side yard near the tree-line and front yard. While my husband started tearing apart that last load of topsoil by hand (an enormous and tiring job), I started prepping the side yard and getting a system going where I would lay out the sod pieces upside down, spray them, and then haul them two-at-a-time to the side of the house. To wit:
The last hour or so he helped me, and we got about 1/3 through the skids and about 1/2 through the topsoil pile when the sunlight disappeared. Mind you, we bailed on our work during the hottest part of the day -from noon until 5 pm. So all in all, it was a good day. We watched a movie and I fell asleep five minutes from the end I was so tired. On Sunday, he spread about half of what was left, and then helped me with the sod and we finished off all four pallets.
Getting dark, only a tiny bit left:
We've left some areas sod-free for planting beds. Most notably right up by the house, where I want to put several tall bushes to try and squishify the house. It's too tall-looking and maybe some greenery hiding the basement will help. And obviously under the stairway window, which is just screaming for a big tree or lilac bush.:
As you can tell, my half-wall was replaced by a gentle slope. No money in the budget for a $2500 retaining wall, and no time left to scrounge a cheaper alternative. Now that it is there though, I kinda like it.
Sunday night: clean the inside of the house ("ants-be-gone mutthafuckas!"), have the best shower of my life, and eat the most satisfying fast food from King of Donair ever. Mmmm...
Me, practicing before I add to my CV:
(A really violent summer storm two weeks ago tore off a piece of our siding near the eave of the bathroom. Ah, to be a home-owner:)
On Friday, four skids of sod (about 400 pieces) were delivered as well as an additional load of topsoil. I was hoping to have some help with the time-sensitive landscaping, but everyone was (understandably) busy enjoying the last few summer days, so we attacked it as a duo. When I talked to the sod dude on the phone, he suggested we wet down the soil, and then wet down the back of the sod pieces (about 2' x 4 ') while laying them down. We thought four skids would be enough to do the front yard, side yards and maybe a tiny bit of the back yard near the deck. Turns out we can't do math, because we just had enough to do the side yard near the tree-line and front yard. While my husband started tearing apart that last load of topsoil by hand (an enormous and tiring job), I started prepping the side yard and getting a system going where I would lay out the sod pieces upside down, spray them, and then haul them two-at-a-time to the side of the house. To wit:
The last hour or so he helped me, and we got about 1/3 through the skids and about 1/2 through the topsoil pile when the sunlight disappeared. Mind you, we bailed on our work during the hottest part of the day -from noon until 5 pm. So all in all, it was a good day. We watched a movie and I fell asleep five minutes from the end I was so tired. On Sunday, he spread about half of what was left, and then helped me with the sod and we finished off all four pallets.
Getting dark, only a tiny bit left:
We've left some areas sod-free for planting beds. Most notably right up by the house, where I want to put several tall bushes to try and squishify the house. It's too tall-looking and maybe some greenery hiding the basement will help. And obviously under the stairway window, which is just screaming for a big tree or lilac bush.:
As you can tell, my half-wall was replaced by a gentle slope. No money in the budget for a $2500 retaining wall, and no time left to scrounge a cheaper alternative. Now that it is there though, I kinda like it.
Sunday night: clean the inside of the house ("ants-be-gone mutthafuckas!"), have the best shower of my life, and eat the most satisfying fast food from King of Donair ever. Mmmm...
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Inside (a little bit)
I took a few pictures of the inside of the house last week before company arrived. We had five guests + one dog staying with us for several days, including my two nieces (twins) aged two years old. I fault them entirely for the cold I am currently battling. The weather more or less co-operated while they were here, so we went for day trips to Frog Pond, the Natural History Museum and Duncan's Cove (where the millions of huckleberries are about to ripen any day- yum yum).
Some of the dining room (with dining room set purchased through kijiji - looks nice eh?), and the kitchen, messy with small appliances that haven't quite found a home yet.
Here is a picture of the downstairs bathroom with mirror and towel ring that doesn't yet have a job, technically, since we haven't picked up hand towels for that room.
The office room has a gigantic messy desk in one corner (overlooking the water in the backyard) and on the other side of the room, a "reading corner" with a comfy chair I ordered online via Home Depot, and a new painting we got at Homesense for 30% off.
Oh, and one crazy writhing cat.
The spare room is fairly sparse yet. My big accomplishment in this room was the linens. I couldn't find the right combo of dark chocolate brown and light blue in pre-packaged sets, so I just bought multiple stripped damask sheets sets in the right colours and made curtains and pillow shams from the flat sheets. Can you imagine that pilllow shams, similar in design to the brown ones on the bed, cost upwards of $40 each? Is that not ridiculous? Who would ever pay that much per pillow sham?? And try as I might, I couldn't even find them for less than $10 each on super-clearance sale (and even then, they weren't the right colour). So out came the trusty sewing machine :)
Notice the crazy cat in the above picture? Starved for attention since we haven't been spending much time at home lately. He followed me around while I was taking each picture, rudely ruining them. He usually isn't so demonic looking, I swear.
Some of the dining room (with dining room set purchased through kijiji - looks nice eh?), and the kitchen, messy with small appliances that haven't quite found a home yet.
Here is a picture of the downstairs bathroom with mirror and towel ring that doesn't yet have a job, technically, since we haven't picked up hand towels for that room.
The office room has a gigantic messy desk in one corner (overlooking the water in the backyard) and on the other side of the room, a "reading corner" with a comfy chair I ordered online via Home Depot, and a new painting we got at Homesense for 30% off.
Oh, and one crazy writhing cat.
The spare room is fairly sparse yet. My big accomplishment in this room was the linens. I couldn't find the right combo of dark chocolate brown and light blue in pre-packaged sets, so I just bought multiple stripped damask sheets sets in the right colours and made curtains and pillow shams from the flat sheets. Can you imagine that pilllow shams, similar in design to the brown ones on the bed, cost upwards of $40 each? Is that not ridiculous? Who would ever pay that much per pillow sham?? And try as I might, I couldn't even find them for less than $10 each on super-clearance sale (and even then, they weren't the right colour). So out came the trusty sewing machine :)
Notice the crazy cat in the above picture? Starved for attention since we haven't been spending much time at home lately. He followed me around while I was taking each picture, rudely ruining them. He usually isn't so demonic looking, I swear.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Identity theft Schmidentity Fweft
My entire purse was stolen on the weekend. We were out hiking in the middle of the country, and admittedly, there have been thefts in the area before...but on a rainy Sunday afternoon I thought "no chance, thieves are lazy and they will not be working in the rain".
Wrong. Thieves get bored on rainy days, and unlike other sane people who flock to shopping malls, they roam about the country side stealing things from beat-up cars.
Honestly! I buried my purse under the pile of trash in the back-seat. Why would anyone even bother to move aside the disgusting bags of fast food to search underneath? In a car that, until six months ago, had no working front door handles? That is dinged and scraped and paint chipped to all ghetto'ed out hell?? I cannot explain it. But my beat-to-shit purse was under there, for the enterprising thief to find.
And lordy do I carry around alot of crap with me; debit cards/credit card/ well water test results/ birth certificate/ hair clips/ bus tickets/ perfume/ my entire make-up bag/ jewelry/ coins left-over from Europe/ etc/ etc. When I realized it was gone, I had hoped to find the thing tossed to the side of the dirt road we were parked at, but no luck.
Three hours after arriving home in a pissy mood, I got a call from the regional police. Someone found my purse in a trash bin near the soccer field, 20 km closer to town. Upon inspection, I found the thieves took my drivers licence and student ID (WTF?? So they could get library books from the university library?), my cash, my bus tickets, my (one) credit card (which I had already, at that point, cancelled), and my cheap perfume. Oh, and about 5$ in gift certificates to the pretzel place in the mall (to use on sunny days??).
They LEFT my set of keys, my social insurance card (an essential, as far as identity theft goes), my provincial health card, my birth certificate, my debit cards, my important papers (well water tests results), my make-up bag. They could have copied my SIN number for future use, but judging by the contents the thieves were interested in picture ID only, and cash. My SIN card and birth certificate (difficult to replace) still had my maiden name, so no good to them.
I was very very lucky. The important stuff was left behind, and my purse did not have my digital camera or mp3 player in it at the time (I often carry those around with me too). So all in all, lesson learned. Third time the car has been broken into in six months. I'd like to believe that if I were a thief, I would target nice cars with nice stuff in them, but I guess each time they got something. The first was an incomplete air compressor about to blow a gasket, the second time our CD player but since the incompetent nicompoops cut the wires on the wrong side of the connection we are certain that thing won't work anymore without some re-wiring....and finally my drivers license/student card and about $80 worth of cash/etc.
And I still hate the idea of locking my doors. Quick, get me to a small town, stat. Ugh.
Wrong. Thieves get bored on rainy days, and unlike other sane people who flock to shopping malls, they roam about the country side stealing things from beat-up cars.
Honestly! I buried my purse under the pile of trash in the back-seat. Why would anyone even bother to move aside the disgusting bags of fast food to search underneath? In a car that, until six months ago, had no working front door handles? That is dinged and scraped and paint chipped to all ghetto'ed out hell?? I cannot explain it. But my beat-to-shit purse was under there, for the enterprising thief to find.
And lordy do I carry around alot of crap with me; debit cards/credit card/ well water test results/ birth certificate/ hair clips/ bus tickets/ perfume/ my entire make-up bag/ jewelry/ coins left-over from Europe/ etc/ etc. When I realized it was gone, I had hoped to find the thing tossed to the side of the dirt road we were parked at, but no luck.
Three hours after arriving home in a pissy mood, I got a call from the regional police. Someone found my purse in a trash bin near the soccer field, 20 km closer to town. Upon inspection, I found the thieves took my drivers licence and student ID (WTF?? So they could get library books from the university library?), my cash, my bus tickets, my (one) credit card (which I had already, at that point, cancelled), and my cheap perfume. Oh, and about 5$ in gift certificates to the pretzel place in the mall (to use on sunny days??).
They LEFT my set of keys, my social insurance card (an essential, as far as identity theft goes), my provincial health card, my birth certificate, my debit cards, my important papers (well water tests results), my make-up bag. They could have copied my SIN number for future use, but judging by the contents the thieves were interested in picture ID only, and cash. My SIN card and birth certificate (difficult to replace) still had my maiden name, so no good to them.
I was very very lucky. The important stuff was left behind, and my purse did not have my digital camera or mp3 player in it at the time (I often carry those around with me too). So all in all, lesson learned. Third time the car has been broken into in six months. I'd like to believe that if I were a thief, I would target nice cars with nice stuff in them, but I guess each time they got something. The first was an incomplete air compressor about to blow a gasket, the second time our CD player but since the incompetent nicompoops cut the wires on the wrong side of the connection we are certain that thing won't work anymore without some re-wiring....and finally my drivers license/student card and about $80 worth of cash/etc.
And I still hate the idea of locking my doors. Quick, get me to a small town, stat. Ugh.
Oh shut up already
The departmental talk I spent forever preparing went over well. I had many positive comments afterwards, even though the talk itself was poorly attended. I had a ridiculously rough time leading up to the talk. My supervisor had to order me to stop analyzing data...I just always felt that I hadn't done enough yet...the perpetual inferiority complex. As a result of my lack of attention to the actual presentation itself, my practice talks were excrutiatingly bad. I had to hold back tears during round two- honestly, that NEVER happens. I don't cry over stupid shit like that. But then, with the help of my fantastic lab mates, the actual day-of presentation was smooth. I kept thinking to myself "I would not repeat these past two weeks if someone PAID me". Which, incidentally, is the exact same thing I told myself for the two weeks of extremely late nights leading up to my poster presentation in Spain. I see a pattern.
I had two amazing days to recover, and then the start of the week+ long international protistology conference/tree of life conference. I gave my first "real" talk at that conference - in front of colleagues more experienced than I. In fact, there were startlingly few Masters students. So I was surprised I got a presentation prize. A $200 cheque, membership for free, and a gigantic book worth alot of $$. Combined with the copious amounts of free alcohol and food I ate during that week, well, I think I came out ahead.
Yay for Science.
I had two amazing days to recover, and then the start of the week+ long international protistology conference/tree of life conference. I gave my first "real" talk at that conference - in front of colleagues more experienced than I. In fact, there were startlingly few Masters students. So I was surprised I got a presentation prize. A $200 cheque, membership for free, and a gigantic book worth alot of $$. Combined with the copious amounts of free alcohol and food I ate during that week, well, I think I came out ahead.
Yay for Science.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The Hard-Ass
I had an interesting conversation with a lab mate this morning. She was complaining about the service of a telecommunications company (surprise surprise). And she said that when she and her boyfriend were discussing calling and complaining, she got elected to do it. And I wondered...is that something most couples do? Because we do it too. Pre-arrange who will call based on their ability to be extra bitchy. I win, of course - so what does that say about me? What does that say about the service industry?
We went on to exchange horror stories for too long. It reminded me of this article I read in the Globe and Mail
I've been neglecting the blog too long, there are a hundred things to post. I will try to update in small manageable chunks over the next few days.
We went on to exchange horror stories for too long. It reminded me of this article I read in the Globe and Mail
I've been neglecting the blog too long, there are a hundred things to post. I will try to update in small manageable chunks over the next few days.
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