Halloween Treats

1. I've been a little on edge this past year because our lab has had some funding issues. Meaning, we lost ours. I've been able to get a good amount done in spite of the lack of money, but the sands have quickly been draining from the proverbial hourglass. After my personal grant runs out in April (don't know yet if it will be renewed), me staying as a postdoc would be in jeopardy since the lab would have no money with which to pay me. Enter the little ray of light in the form of us getting our most recent grant score back -- it did very well and has an extremely good chance of getting funded. So it looks like I may be able to stay after all -- provided Dubya doesn't reduce NIH's budget even more to pay for war, hurricanes, oil drilling, his halloween candy, new supreme court nominees, etc. Keep your fingers crossed. We'll hear in a few weeks if we get the money or not.

2. Paul accepted a post-doc at University of Oregon. He and TJ will be moving to Eugene in January, which is less than 2 hours from here. Hooray!

3. Ridiculous halloween pictures from the softball team party this past Saturday. Ken went as Count von Count. I went as Charlie Brown from the Great Pumpkin (far right; contining my tradition of having a costume inside of a costume; couldn't find my old pictures, this one will have to do and is a better costume than mine was anyway.)

Happy Birsday Wuz!!

Today is Ken's 32nd birthday! Off a' celebrating we will go!

Catch Up

Few things:

Paul was here this past weekend for interviews. Rode bikes out to the bar for a few drinks. Was awesome to see him. Hopefully they'll both be back... soon.

Women's roller derby is very fun to watch. Pushing. Fights. Panties. Pictures coming.

Found an old sideboard on craigslist last weekend which will now hold our tv/stereo (rather than the behemoth we have now -- still keeping it, but not in that room). Anyway, Ken's configuring it this weekend and soon we'll be able to have seating for more than two people.

Made invitations and delivered them to the neighbors last night for the neighborhood dinner we're hosting next wednesday. 27 invites.

Learned transfections in the lab (and it's actually working, gulp).

Congratulations

to Rogue Softball. They won their game last night, the last game of the season, making their record 1-10-1.

Tuesday's Penis is not Full of Grace

When I ride my bike to work, I often look at the houses and gardens along my route. Today I got the special joy of seeing some man's penis. Double take. Yep. That really was his penis between his legs as he was physically spreading his buttocks and squatting in a parking lot. I have horrible visions of what happened after I kept peddling.

Happy Tuesday!

Microbrew for $2.50/6 pack

Widmer is having a sale on their heavenly beer. They're selling cases of Oktoberfest for $10 each! That's $2.50 a six pack, folks -- cheaper than PBR. Minimum of 3 cases. Available until they run out (they made around 1000 cases).

Go to the office (open until 6 weekdays or during the day on weekends). This batch is no dud, either. Yum.

I Heart My Bike

I've riden it to work everyday since last weekend. In the rain, too. Brakes on a dime and has a sweet turning radius. Makes me feel cool riding it -- except that I'm not and I feel ridiculous for feeling cool... so I guess it's sort of a wash.

Ken left yesterday for a conference Seattle until Saturday night. I came to a dark, cold house and a lovingly needy cat. Quesadilla and beer for dinner followed by the hairdryer making it's first appearance of the season. (For you cold sleepers out there, blasting the hairdryer under the covers before you climb in makes for a toasty and quick-to-sleep night. Mmmm.... toasty. Ken's usually our bed furnace, but alas).

In my weekend future, I forsee plants and pastry at Criollo Bakery (their cheesecake brownie is direct medial forebrain bundle stimulation, aka crack for Lisa)

Talk about dropping a smurf-bomb

Here's an image from a UNICEF commercial in Belgium that's being run to heighten the awareness that war can happen in the most innocent of places and to increase fund-raising efforts for ex-child soldiers in Africa.

You have to be kidding me, right? Who on earth would allow this to run, especially in Belgium where the creator of the Smurfs, Peyo, is from.

And is that a dead Smurfette on the left side in heels? I wonder if this means that Gargamel and Azrael are likened to, say, Bin Laden and Hussein.

Fire in the Sky

On our way to Tucson for Brian & Marsha's wedding a couple weeks ago, the pilot mentioned over the intercom that there was a meteorite coming into the atmosphere on our side of the plane. Cool. Ken snapped these before we realized the "meteor" was coming from the ground rather than the sky. The pilot came back on the loudspeaker without any answers but said that he was calling it in. A couple minutes later, he came back on saying it was a rocket launched from a desert base near LA. Apparently, you could see it all the way from the ground in Tucson -- as radio announcers were still talking about it when we landed. Here's the sequence. Originally, it looked just like a comet (but coming from the ground; we missed that picture while looking for the camera). Then all of a sudden you saw a burst that then lengthened and diffused with time. Pretty cool.

First one with the tight cone:


Lengthening:



Lengthening & Diffusing:


You could see the red trail almost until we landed. It was totally mesmerizing.

Oh Sweet Bike

How I love you....



I think this is my first purchase not from Craigslist. A brand new bike of my very own. Disc brakes and lots of gears for riding down that rainy OHSU hill. Finally, I don't have to be Fred Flinstone and use my feet for brakes.

Seriously.

Ken attached my basket to the back (for farmer's markets) and hooked up my front and rear lights. I'm so excited.

Tivo-lution

Ken's love of sports is no secret. Neither is my love of gardening. Put them together on a Sunday afternoon and then we have a dilemna. Enter Tivo -- a DVR device that automatically records the programs we want it to, allows us to watch them when we want, no commercials, no VCR tapes.

Sounds great.

Ken brought it home last week and started installing it Saturday. Three hours EVERYDAY until Wednesday night when he was finally told that the unit he bought was defective. He exchanged it for a new one and lo and behold it worked on the first setup try.

In the process of this whole set up fiasco, we got to know our neighbors a lot better because they allowed us to use their LAND (phone) line. We only have cell phones. As do most of our friends. Two dinners in two nights meant lots of chatting and wine... also, their living room setup convinced me I want a change in ours. Currently, we have one couch and a giant massive armoire that holds all the electronics (fine for our house in Tucson, but it swamps our place here). We decided to switch things out -- move our armoire to the garage for a while, bring in another couch/seating area and move the TV to a different corner such that it's not the focus of the whole room. I can't wait. Wow, conversations in the living room? Is that even possible?

Craigslist here we come. Good thing Tivo's recording the game.

Front Yard Update

Remember all that rototilling, compost & mulching we were talking about? Well, here's the result. Behold, the front parking strip looking out from our front porch. All drought resistant, full sun perennials that will bloom throughout the summer and fall, year after year. Just planted 230 spring-blooming bulbs in it today, too. Should be awesome come springtime.



Here's the front bed that we expanded and put in some more plants & bulbs.


Lastly, this is where a huge conifer once was (before we moved in). It's now all flowers. You can also see our pumpkin we grew in the backyard! We love that pumpkin.

Oh Craigslist, how I love thee

Our latest craigslist aquisition. For those who once sat in our crickety old chairs that have broken numerous times, we bring you these. Old school teachers chairs that are as thick and sturdy as Hughes. I adore them. Finally, you can lean back and relax after dinner without wondering if the chairs will give way. You can also see the stained glass Marsha & Brian made us in the background.

October Birthdays

October Birthdays - Dave Herman (10/3), Brian Gaffney (10/9), Adam Sirkin (10/15), Chuck Hoeffer (10/21), Ken's! (10/27)

October Anniversaries - Chuck & Dana (10/28/00)