Back to Reality

I fully intended to blog about my vacation with my mom, but a lack of reliable internet sort of put a damper on that plan. It is also completely non-academic, and although I have posted about things other than graduate school on this blog, I don't want to make that too much of a habit.

I will say though, vacations are important for maintaining the sanity of a graduate student. We all need breaks, and anyone who tells you any different is a dirty filthy liar. Our trip to Arizona was one of the better vacations I've taken in a long time, and it was nice to finally see the Grand Canyon. It wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd want to do every year; but, sometimes just staring over something so vast and outside of yourself is what you need to bring everything else in reality back into perspective. It's the main reason I miss being close to an ocean, and why I want to see the Pacific some day.

Hance Rapids. Taken with my mobile, so forgive the lousy quality.

But now I'm back to reality. First, I'm going to do the cliche thing and comment on how I can't believe that it is June already. I'm completely unapologetic about this. Summer intercession is almost over, and come Monday there will once again be college students wandering about. This won't change my working environment much, though. Working in my office over the past few weeks has been incredibly boring. No one is around, and by that I mean I sit in my office for 8 hours by myself, only seeing other human beings when I leave to go to the bathroom or get food/coffee. The PiBBS space is a different world when classes aren't in session. Furthermore, I think a lot of other people are traveling, so it is extra dead.

Another dose of reality came recently when I finally got my rejection letter for a big grant I had applied for back in the fall. The big yellow envelope of depression showed up right before I was going to Arizona, so I put off reading its contents until I got back. I finally went over the reviewer comments the other day. I had myself mentally prepared to get ripped to shreds, but it actually wasn't that bad. I agreed with pretty much everything the reviewers had to say, and they will help me write a stronger proposal for the next go around. Three years of support is just too good to not try again. I didn't really expect to get it this time around, they only funded something like 80 proposals with this particular award.

The reviews I got were also mixed. One reviewer rated my entire application as "fair" and provided the most detailed comments and criticisms. The other two rated it as "good" and "excellent". Even I know that my application wasn't "excellent", so I'm going to just go ahead and average everything out and say that I did "good" on my first attempt. Which isn't too shabby. All three reviewers commented that the whole proposal was really well written. The primary complaints were that I didn't elaborate more on my methods and statistics and that I was vague about the broader impacts. It was only a 5 page proposal, so I'm going to have to really try to fit some of these details in and trim up other areas. I'll also have some publications by the time I try again, so that will also boost my application.

The complaints about my broader impacts section kind of threw me, however. Almost all funding agencies now require applicants to explain how they are going to make the world a better place with their research. Kind of like a Miss America pageant for scientists. I thought I had included enough in this section, but clearly not. Apparently they wanted to know how the specific project I was proposing would be relevant to my community (aka NM). I was more broad about how my activities as a scientist were beneficial to my community. Wrong! Looking back on it, I can easily make my project applicable to NM because it is on the role of large carnivores in communities. NM has a lot of issues with wolf populations and managing their larger carnivores, so this should have been a no brainer. But I wasn't sure what they wanted from me and I gave them the "wrong" thing. Next time I'll know better. These sections are becoming more important and less of a kiss-off, and now I know to put more into it.

The next month is going to be all about me tying up loose ends with projects, and thinking about my comprehensive exams. I'm thinking those will happen in the fall, but I'm kind of on the fence about it. We'll see.

Valles Caldera Weekend

It's Monday, so I thought I'd get my writing juices flowing by giving a recap of my weekend.

I've been taking a Quaternary Paleoclimate Seminar all semester, and this weekend we had a field trip up to the Valles Caldera. The caldera formed as a result of two eruptions: one at 1.6 million years ago, and another at 1.2 million years ago. The graduate students in my class went on this trip to help out and act as mentors to a freshman class in the "Freshman Learning Community". They have been taking a first year writing class that is split between Earth and Planetary Science and English departments. Peter, the instructor for my class, has been spending the semester teaching them about some of the geology and past climate in areas of New Mexico.

The Valles Caldera is beautiful this time of the year, all the aspens and cottonwoods are changing to a brilliant yellow color. I saw some of the prettiest foliage this weekend on this trip. We checked out some of the areas that had burned severely this summer. The caldera is also just really cool in general. I collected some pumice samples from an outcrop, and we also collected some sediment samples which we later looked at under a microscope. Right after the caldera formed it filled up with water and formed a very large lake that persisted for several thousand years. The sediments preserve evidence for how climate changed, which is why Peter is interested in them. We saw some really cool stuff in the samples we collected, bits of charcoal and also diatoms. I was very excited to look at the microfossils, I hadn't done this kind of work in years. I'm happy to report that my field group collected a sample that had about 5 different diatom species, and we got some good pictures of them for Peter with the microscope camera.

The place we were staying was also really cool. It's a retreat center that used to be where they sent wayward priests for rehabilitation. Now it's used for a variety of purposes. Mary, our host, fed us very well and the accommodations were some of the most comfortable I've experienced for field work. We had a spectacular view of beautiful scenery from the dining area, and we did some star gazing Saturday evening. It was also really nice getting to spend extended time with the other graduate students in my class. They seemed like fun people from the little I see them in seminar. I had a really good time hanging out with them.

I don't have my pictures from the weekend downloaded off my camera yet. Check back later for picture updates in this post.

Connecticut Trip: The Final Recap

Some of you may be wondering why it is taking me so long to write about my travels this summer, and why I am doing it after the fact. True, doing it during my trips would have made this simpler, but for security reasons I don't like publicizing when I'm not home for long stretches.

I've also been catching up at school and have had some health stuff come up, but that's another post.

While I was home I wanted to make sure I got at least one beach day in, since New Mexico is land locked, and I don't want to cross over into Mexico to see the ocean. On Thursday we went to Ocean Beach Park, in New London, CT. On the one hand, it's nice to have bathrooms and food easily accessible. On the other hand, it costs $14 to park, which is kind of nutty. But then on the other hand again, it's a pretty clean beach, so I guess you have to pay for it somehow. I never use it, but for an additional fee they also have a small water park and mini golf.

When I go to the beach, my primary objective is to be as lazy as possible. I always being books and snacks and spend a good bit of time sleeping. I did get into the water, of course, and it was a nice break from the heat. Matt was reluctant to go in much further than waist deep, which is actually counter productive. You need to just get in, get it over with, and you'll feel much better afterward. Standing around shivering just allows you to get splashed. Being in the ocean also means you sometimes pick up hitch-hikers, like this arthropod that must have gotten on our blanket via Matt's bathing suit (eek!)...

My other favorite thing about going to the ocean is just walking up and down the shore, looking at whatever I can find. Ocean Beach has a bunch of these pinking half clam shell looking things that are actually snail shells. They're really pretty. While looking out over the water, a huge sail ship was coming in for OpSail, a tall ships event that goes on every year. They sometimes have historical ships, the one we saw was pretty far off shore but I think it was a Class A ship. I could be wrong, I don't really know much about ships.

On Friday evening Lura and Steve had us over for home made pizza and game night. I have to say, I really miss these guys and I always look forward to seeing them when I visit. It's funny because I wasn't super close with Lura in high school, but we've become pretty good friends because we kept in contact through college. There aren't too many people I still see regularly since I've left CT, not because I wanted that to happen, but it takes a lot of work on both sides to keep up.

Matt and I specifically made room in our suitcases to bring some board games along on our trip, with the hopes of having a game night. We successfully stowed away Settler's of Catan and Flux. We brought Settler's to Lura and Steve's, and also showed them a new card game we learned from our friends in Socorro called Oh Bleep! All in all, it was a fun evening.

For some reason that still escapes me, East Hartford had it's July 4th fireworks on July 9th (maybe because it was a Saturday). Matt, my Mom, and I went down to the river for some fried dough, whatever free stuff we could find, and pulled pork sandwiches before the fireworks. Despite my town having no money, and the supposed economic apocalypse that our country is going through, the fireworks were actually really good this year. The town sets them off from two barges in the river, and we got a really good seat up on the levee. Aqua, who I haven't seen in over a year, was supposed to meet us but she got held up and I didn't see her until after the show was over. Regardless we chatted while she enjoyed her much needed fried dough. The next time I'm home, I'm having her over for tea for a proper visit. No excuses.

Big East Trip: Part 2

The remainder of my visit in Connecticut was all about trying to fit in as many activities into one week as humanly possible:


Tuesday evening - Trivia
Wednesday - Wadsworth Atheneum
Thursday -Beach with my mom
Friday - Visited Grandma, Dinner at Lura and Steve's
Saturday - Uncle Dave came over at lunch time for burgers and hot dogs, fireworks in the evening

I don't generally stress too much about having something to do every waking moment when I'm on vacation, but since I only had one week in CT, I had to make it count.

After our Tuesday trek to the shore to get lobster, our plan was to meet up with Mike, his girlfriend Emily, and Katie for trivia in Hartford. The place we were going to apparently hadn't updated their website since Christmas, but made us feel like WE were the dopes for expecting trivia. We ditched that plan and went to another place for some pub quiz action. We were half an hour late but still played. I personally believe that had we gotten there at the beginning, we would have kicked some ass. After a couple beers I didn't want to call it a night, so we found a diner-type place where I had a very large piece of chocolate cake. It was important for me to catch up with Mike, I didn't get to see him at all during my last visit because I was sick, and it would have been completely unacceptable if I missed him again this time around.

On Wednesday we stayed in the area and went to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. We spent a good 4+ hours in Hartford, going to the museum, getting lunch, wandering an old graveyard, and then back to the museum. It was a good day to be inside, away from the heat and humidity. They don't let the paintings suffer from the weather, so it was comfortable indoors at the Wadsworth.

I always forget just how much stuff this museum has, it looks modestly sized from the exterior, but I can never seem to get through all the artwork in one afternoon when I visit. I came close this time, but only because I'm not a fan of modern art and I kind of blew through some rooms that had carpet costumes and large monochromatic canvasses with splatters of paint. There was also this video of a guy on a motorcycle picking up a dead kangaroo... like I said I don't really get some of this stuff.

One of my favorite paintings by Dali (the melting clock guy), is on display. I like the painting because it has images that sort of magically pop out at you the longer you stare at it. The Wadsworth has quite a few paintings by some very famous artists, and it's not like there's any high tech security there. They do have a large guys who tells you when you're getting too close, but other than that it's just you and the painting right in front of you. They also have a fairly large collection from the Hudson School of Art, and I like standing in front of large landscape paintings.

Whirlwind Tour East: Fourth of July and Some Lobby

Normally I don't like abandoning my blog for long periods of time, but I've been traveling to visit friends and family for the past couple weeks. Shortly after returning from the mammal conference in Portland, Matt and I headed to Connecticut and Virginia.

There never seems to be enough time to see the people I care about. That's true regardless of if my visits are a week or a month long. I haven't been back home since Christmas, which thanks to a stomach virus, wasn't the most productive trip. This time no one got sick, my mom took some time off of work to be with me, and I feel like we got more out of my visit.

On July 4th I met up with Jenn to go to the annual Willimantic Boom Box Parade. We got there early to get a seat on the porch at the Willimantic Brewery. It was so weird, and also fun. The parade has no marching bands, but a radio station plays marching music and people bring radios, and there were also some speakers set up at the parade itself. It also seems like just about anyone can march in this thing, and there were individual people marching, church groups, political groups, and businesses that participated. It's kind of hard to describe, because it's such a random assortment of entertainment. I'd like to be able to go again next year.

In the afternoon Lura and Steve stopped by to say hello, chat, and make plans for later in the week. We sat out on the patio, drank Hosmer Mountain sodas, and caught up. Later in the afternoon Grandma and Uncle Dave came over and we grilled some chicken and enjoyed other cookout stuff. I really value even these short visits with people, I've always liked just sitting around, being with people, talking. Sometimes I feel like there's an expectation to always be "doing" something, but to me this counts as "something". I did it more in high school and college with friends. It's sad it doesn't happen more often, because graduate school has made me into an accomplished breeze shooter.

On Tuesday my Mom, Matt, and I drove down to Abbots in Noank, CT for a lobster lunch. It might seem silly to make a trip like that, but after being in New Mexico, and no where near an ocean and reliable seafood, it isn't weird. We enjoyed some steamed mussels while we waited for our lunch, and took in some nice scenery. We sat out on the dock that looks out over the marina nearby.

American Society of Mammalogists Meeting June 24-28, 2011 or My Trip to Portland, OR

I recently attended the annual meeting for the American Society of Mammalogists in Portland, OR. Despite its reputation, the weather held up for most of the time I was there, and we only got some drizzle on the last day.


I really liked Portland, and it's a place I would definitely go back for another non-work related visit. I really liked how easy it was to get around, how relatively clean it was, and all there was to do. I went to the Saturday Market (which actually goes on all weekend), which was really neat to see. It's basically a huge craft fair/flea market and you can find a lot of unique hand made items. I got a nifty bronze and copper barrette.
Portland State University was also really nice, it's right in the middle of the city but it doesn't feel overly city-like when you're actually on the main part of the campus. During the first day of the meeting there was a huge farmer's market going on right in the plaza area of campus, which made for a really convenient place to get lunch. The growing season there is several weeks behind NM, so it was a treat to see all the late spring veggies and berries.

I stayed with a friend while at the meeting. Fred's mother lives in Gresham, OR, which is really close to Portland. Fred, Matt, and I camped out in her mom's living room, and we enjoyed the added company of Jack the dog and Darwin the cat. We took the light rail in to get to and from the meeting, which was about an hour long trip, but it was convenient none-the-less. I can always appreciate cities where you don't really need a car. I could live in a place like Gresham, or any of the other cities near Portland. They're all just really convenient, and you can get just about anywhere between the light rail, a bus, and some walking. Portland is actually pretty eco-friendly, as far as cities go. They recycle everything, and it's one of the few cities I've seen that composts.

The meeting itself was very enjoyable. I personally prefer smaller meetings to the supersized meetings I sometimes go to. This was my first mammal meeting, and it's the first meeting where I was in the minority as a paleoecologist. Unfortunately, there was a mix up with my abstract and I ended up presenting in a session that wasn't ideal. But, the show must go on, and it went alright. Not my best talk, but certainly not my worst. I did have a couple of people approach me about my work with some interest, which goes to show that I am, in fact, my own toughest critic.

The final day of the meeting was really good because I saw some really interesting posters, got some really good deals on reference books, and the keynote talk was also fantastic. Liz Hadley from Stanford gave the talk, and it was on Pleistocene paleoecology and really highlighted how paleontology is relevant to modern ecology. The whole talk was basically about all the things that keep me up at night, so I really enjoyed it. Liz is also just really cool and a really great speaker. She's definitely on my list of amazing female scientist role models.

Here are a few non-meeting related highlights from my trip. I know it starts to sound a bit like a travel guide, but honestly, if a good time can't be had at a conference (or during field work for that matter), then you're doing it wrong:

Multnomah Falls - a really good afternoon hike, beautiful scenery, and I saw TWO pikas. Very appropriate for my first mammal meeting! If for some reason you don't know what a pika is...

South Park Seafood Grill & Wine Bar - I was disappointed with the mussel & sausage appetizer, but everything else I tried was delicious. Kind of pricey, I recommend the butternut squash ravioli, and Fred enjoyed the smoked salmon salad. The wine was also very nice, and I had a Sparkling Elderflower cocktail which was fabulous.

Saturday Market - Lots of hand made goodies! North Waterfront Park and Ankeny Plaza. The portion near the waterfront has the most hand made stuff.

The Seafood Groto - This place is tiny but good! Matt and I broke a cardinal rule by going to a restaurant on a Monday, but we still got a nice (but again, pricey) dinner. The crab stuffed mushroom caps and hazelnut crusted halibut are really great.

Saturday Farmer's Market at PSU - Located right in the middle of Portland State University is a really nice farmer's market. An excellent place to get a bargain lunch that is delicious. You can also buy really fresh fish, and the berries in June are just beautiful.

Powell's Books - The world's largest book store that takes up over a city block. I got some good deals on books, and they have just about everything.

Voodoo Donuts - They're going through a remodel right now, so the hours can be kind of iffy, and if you try to go during the day on the weekend, be prepared to wait in line for at least an hour or more, no exageration. We went at 11pm on a Tuesday, but were still able to get a decent selection considering they were out of a lot of things. They also have a really large selection of vegan donuts, and I've heard their maple bacon donut (so not vegan) is really good. I'll definitely go back to try and get it.

Hotlips Pizza - Definitely a good place for a delicious slice and good drink, right near PSU. They offer up a variety of guest microbrews and they make their own fruit sodas. I got the raspberry soda which was on tap, and two slices of veggie/vegan pizza. You can get a large slice of pizza and a (good) beer for $6. Did I mention they have HUGE fresh cookies? The service is also really quick and they have both indoor and outdoor seating.

Rogue Brewery - There are a lot of breweries in Portland, and I want to go back and try them all (wishful thinking, haha), but this is arguably the most famous. I went to the Rogue Hall on campus, it's under a dorm for Pete's sake. They have all their beers you can find nationwide in stores, plus a bunch of others which you can only get at the brewery. I was very happy with their Mocha Porter. Also, there was free Rogue beer at all the social events for the meeting, and the Hazelnut Brown Nectar Ale is really really good.

McCormick & Schmick's Pilsner Room - Another good place to get a beer, not to mention the best place I did my networking at the conference. They have an extensive selection of guest brews on rotation, and they do their own on the premises. Most of their beers can be had for about $5 a pint, or they have a sampler of 6 varieties for $9. Plus it's down by the marina which has a nice view.

Gator Huntin' in the Bayou: Louisiana Trip Part 5

On my last full day of my visit in Louisiana, Bea and I took in an air boat tour. When we first started planning my visit she had mentioned this activity, and I was looking forward to it since. It turned out to be a great way to look at some of the really cool scenery and also look at natural historical stuff. Plus, the guy driving the boat (I didn't catch his name) had an awesome Louisiana accent.

This is an air boat. As you can see, the propeller doesn't go into the water. It has a flat bottom, and doesn't need much (in some instances any) water to move.

These boats don't come equipped with seat belts, but there is a little bar that keeps passengers from flying off the side. In all seriousness though, it was a really smooth ride and once we got going it felt like we were flying. They are, however, very loud boats. For most of the time we were moving at full speed I had ear protection on, although I did take them off near the end of the trip and it wasn't so bad.

The objective (or at least one of the objectives) was to see alligators (gators) in their natural habitat. The area we were going around is government property that is leased by the air boat tour company. Gator huntin' isn't allowed in this area, and it's kind of a refuge for them. Most gators don't live to be more than 5 feet in length, so gator farms will raise them to be that size to give them a head start before releasing any. These farms, in addition to releasing a certain number of animals back into the wild, also sell the skins and meat for profit. The bayou we were in had a mix of wild and farm raised gators. Farmed gators have a notch taken out of the tip of the tail, so that's how you can distinguish them from a wild gator. Of course, they fight so much they may end up with missing parts anyway... like this guy...

 

This gator's name is Tripod, and he's about 9-feet long. It's not obvious from the pictures, but he is missing his front left leg. He probably lost is sparring with another male for the rights to a female. This is not uncommon, and there are much larger male gators in the area, which we unfortunately didn't find. The guide spent some time looking for Vicky, a 13-foot male. Apparently it was mating season, so there weren't as many large male gators around, but that just means I'll have to come back at another time of the year!

The way in which the guides get the gators to come up to the boat is kind of insane. They use marshmallows (or gator crack, as our guide called it). They love them, which is convenient since they float and the guides can plop them on the surface to make ripples. The gators sense the movement on their snout and come toward the boat. It's actually pretty ingenious, until you see something like this...

Oh yeah, he's totally leaning in to kiss the gator. That little maneuver gained this guide $5 from me, personally.

 We spend the rest of our 2-hour tour driving around looking for whatever we could find.

A Great Egret.

A common moorhen, who also liked the marshmallows! (There was a gator in the water about 15 feet away.)

A very large turtle, he didn't like us and he jumped off his log when we got close.

Another exciting moment was when I got to hold a juvenile gator. It wasn't a wild gator, but that's fine with me, I didn't particularly want to lose any fingers. It was so cute, and the longer we handled it the limper it got, probably trying to convince us that he/she was dead or something. All of us who held it managed to avoid getting peed on (gatorade). It was cool to see it up close, I got a good shot showing the pores around it's mouth that helps them sense movement in the water.

Look at those teeth! He/she is going to be fierce when they grow up (or a marshmallow junkie).

Aside from seeing and touching gators, the best part of the trip was getting to see all the scenery. The bayou is beautiful in an kind of eerie way. Most of the live oaks and swamp cedars are draped in Spanish moss. It's like there are thousands of dark graceful veils hanging off the trees.

When we got back, I took some pictures of the inside of "Air Boat Adventure Tours", because the place was definitely quirky and like something you read about in creepy books. They had stuffed gators and skins all over the place. They also had a holding tank filled with gators. There was a fairly large albino gator which came from a farm. This animal can never be released into the wild, it's color would have made it stand out too much and it would likely die. This animal also had another strange feature, it had a double eye on the left side of its head. It only had the one eye socket there, but you could clearly see two pupils. I don't know if that affects its vision, but I imagine it must.

The albino gator. If you look carefully you can see the double eye. The right eye was normal.

Most of the gators in the tank were pretty small, and were just kind of hanging around. Normally I don't like captive animals, but these guys didn't appear to care. I'm of the belief now that gators are pretty big couch potatoes.

This shows the eye glow that hunters and trappers use to find gators. They hunt at night, when the animals can't see very well, and the glowing eyes give them away.

This more or less concludes my Louisiana adventure. For a four day visit, we did a whole lot, and it was exhausting but super fun. I would have to say it was one of my more successful "short" trips. Bea was really great about coming up with stuff to do, and I can't wait to go back. I think Louisiana is such a neat place, the people and culture are really different. Maybe next time I'll go on one of those ghost or Voodoo tours in New Orleans, that would be awesome.

It was really good to see Bea again, as well. I'm terrible about keeping up with people, I'm just not a phone person. I was just starting to really know her when we were living together in State College and then we all moved. It was also great to see the girls again, I miss having a cat around.

Lani and Luna

Louisiana Trip Part 4: The French Quarter

No trip to New Orleans would be complete without a trip to the French Quarter. After a delicious breakfast of crab cake Benedict (seriously!) we once again took the long trek across the causeway to the south shore.

Our first stop on our walk about was the Southern Candymakers to get the world's best pralines. There was a huge line, and this place was tiny. We actually came in one side of the building, saw the mass of people, and went back around to the other side of the building to get into line. It moved really quickly, and in short order I was enjoying a fresh pecan praline.

I would have to say the best thing (other than restaurants) about the French Quarter is St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square. The cathedral is one of those old enormous churches that has really cool architecture and artwork inside. I also love that it's right in the middle of everything, there are shops and residences literally right around it. I didn't get any pictures (photography wasn't allowed), but it was truly a beautiful building.

Right outside of the cathedral was Jackson Square, which has a beautiful little gardened park which was apparently designed by the same guy who did Central Park in New York City. The park is an oasis of trees, flowers, and grass in the middle of a city. There was a banana tree producing fruit right there in the middle of New Orleans!

On the brick walks around Jackson Square there was all sorts of art being sold by local artists. I think my favorite pieces were of pre-Katrina images done on remains salvaged after the hurricane (anything from building doors to shutters from windows). There were also people painting and making art right there, and some of the techniques were really fascinating. There were apparently shops all along the periphery of the walkway, but I was so taken with the artwork that I completely missed them.

One of the other great things about Jackson Square, is that there are all kinds of people playing music. These are really talented musicians. There was a jazz/Dixieland type band playing that we stopped to listen to for a while. I was able to get some shots from Bea's iPhone from the steps of the cathedral.

We wandered around some more, I bought a funky dress from a vendor, and Bea found some interesting old dishes to add to her growing collection at a neat antique shop. Hunger was starting to set in, but I was also feeling kind of sluggish from all the rich food we had been having all weekend. We decided to go to the Gumbo Shop, and we each got gumbo and a salad. The gumbo was good, very different from what I had 2 days previous. The salad though, wow, the dressing was amazing. It was a pecan vinaigrette, and the fresh greens were nice too. I really just needed some kind of vegetable in my stomach.

Since this was the French Quarter, we had to go down Bourbon Street to get a large crazy drink. Cities as a whole are kind of stinky, it's one of the reasons I don't want to live in one. Bourbon Street smelled like every gross bar I had ever been in, but that's to be expected, because there is some kind of bar or porn shop every 5 feet. It was a cultural experience. There are no public drinking laws, so the objective was to find a Hand Grenade ("New Orleans' most powerful drink", according to my glass) and do some more wandering around. We went to the Tropical Isle to obtain this neon concoction, which had the decor to match the Hand Grenade; the whole place was done up in green and electric yellow. The bar. The floor. The bathroom. The "Hand Grenade Flavored Condoms" dispenser. Everything.

With my icy cold pineapple flavored drink in hand, we continued our wandering. Eventually I finished my drink, and we made it back to the street we were parked on. We made a stop at Lush to get some bath products. We also make one more trip to the candy store where I bought a box of pralines for Matt (and me).

Over all, I really liked the French Quarter. I'm a fan of people watching and wandering, and there is a lot of both to be done. The city itself is kind of surreal, like something out of the past. Most of the buildings have the really beautiful Spanish ironwork on balconies. You also discover all kinds of "secret" courtyards withing restaurants and shops, which are pleasant little shady areas that come in handy in such a hot and humid climate. I'd definitely go back, even just for the pralines.

Oak Alley: Louisiana Trip Part 3

I took a day off from blogging yesterday, Matt was gone for a couple days and came back in the morning, so I was eager to spend time with him, away from the computer.

I last left off on the Saturday afternoon of my visit: Bea and I drove off into the country to go visit a plantation. On the way we passed through cuts of lush forest, and at one point the sky had 8+ white egrets. I mention this because I forgot what dense forest looks like, and even from a highway clearing it's impressive.

We arrived at the Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie in the early afternoon. Back when it was operational, it was a sugar plantation. Now it is preserved by a historical society, the mansion (built in 1839) has been restored for tours, and the grounds are used for a variety of tourist and entertaining purposes. Around the mansion there are rows of live oaks, which are estimated to be 300 years old. These massive trees can live to be about 600 years in age. In the back of the house are some younger oaks, about 150 years old. They've figured out where the slave cabins were in the back of the property, and the historical society is in the initial stages of rebuilding those. I'd be interested to see how that turns out, and it's good they are working to acknowledge the people who were arguably the most important presence on the plantation.

The mansion itself has a pretty interesting history, and went through a handful of owners before the historical society received it. In particular, one family allowed their sons to race horses from the stables in the back of the property, to the front of the property... and the fastest way was through the house. I can't imagine this, but sometimes wealthy people are weird and do strange things. The mansion has been used in a variety of television shows and movies, such as Interview With the Vampire. I'm sure most people would recognize it, the oak trees leading up to the house is pretty memorable.

I don't have pictures from my own camera (always check to make sure you have a memory card before you go on a trip, sigh), so I'm waiting to get the pictures from Bea, who let me snap some shots on her iPhone. I hope they came out okay, it was such a pretty place. They have cabins that you can rent, and I'd love to come back and spend more time looking around.

Here are pictures!

Artsy photo of a live oak.

Waiting for the tour to begin.

The Mississippi River, flooded right up to the levee.

View of the walk up to the mansion from the 2nd floor balcony.

More live oaks.

Live oaks and the mansion (tourists for scale).

View of the plantation from on top of the levee.

Louisiana Trip: Part 2

Saturday morning Bea and I headed to the local farmers market. This was one of the nicer farmers markets I've been to, and I think we were both surprised at the variety of stuff that was there. I got a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice to enjoy as I wandered around, and I bought a couple of snacks to enjoy over the next couple days. "Theresa's Italian Cookies" was selling much more than cookies, and I ended up going home with some tasty granola and vanilla custard. Bea went home with some local free range (really really free range) eggs, and some grass fed beef. Everything looked so good, I'm glad we didn't stay too long because I would have spent all of my money.

After the farmers market we went to the "English Tea Room" in Covington for some girly tea time. This place was absolutely adorable, and also kind of quirky. Nothing pretentious about this place: there was a London black cab in the front yard, a red phone booth, and an adorable scotty dog named Nigel who was hell bent on coming inside and getting attention. We enjoyed a teacup of butternut squash soup (seasoned with pumpkin spice tea, such a good idea, I'll need to try doing that myself) with spinach and artichoke quiche, and a savory cheddar cheese scone. I got their maple creme black tea, and we had another plate of chocolate chip scones with clotted cream, preserves, and lemon curd. Of course, I had to get some thing to take home with me and I ended up buying the tea that Aubreya had, which was a loose leaf cardamom black tea. 


Next Post: Oak Alley Plantation

The Land of "Union, Justice, and Confidence" (Louisiana)

This past weekend I finally made it out to visit my friend and former roomie, Aubreya, who lives in Louisiana. The timing worked out great, we had a full four days to see the sites, shop, and eat delicious food. It was a drastic change of scenery from New Mexico, it was hot an humid, which is something I'd nearly forgotten about since moving to the southwest.

For the sake of comprehensiveness and brevity, I'm going to stretch my recollections of the trip over multiple blog posts.

It's surprising for me when I think about how much I've changed in the past 5 years when it comes to traveling. I used to dread traveling and flying alone, and I vividly recall freak out moments when things wouldn't go as planned. This time around I was delayed 3 hours (on top of my 2 hour layover), so I spent a very boring 5 hours in the Dallas Airport on my way to New Orleans, only this time I just kicked back, read a bunch of papers, and wandered around. The disappointing thing was that I ended up getting into LA late, and I ate airport food instead of something worthwhile. BUT, I eventually made it, my plane got in around 9:30pm, and I was comfortable at Aubreya's house by 11pm. We stayed up late, had a glass of wine, and caught up. Bea and I started having really interesting conversations right before she moved out last year, it was too bad we didn't get to do more of that. That always seems to happen with me and friends, I start getting close to people and then one or both of us move on to the next thing in our life and we end up in different places.

On my first morning of my visit I was awoken by Lani and Luna (the cats) pretty early, but I lazed around for a while. Lani serenaded me from the bathroom, and I finally relented after she started climbing all over me. Our plan was to get brunch before heading out across the lake, and we went to this really fabulous place in Old Mandeville called the Broken Egg Cafe. Mandeville is the super cute old town that has a lot of really interesting buildings, and the cafe was one of those places that were a local chain that didn't look or feel at all like a chain. The one in Mandeville is the original (all the others are called "Another Broken Egg"). Bea got the redfish Benedict (which I didn't try but it looked amazing), and I got the Mardi Gras omelette, which had smoked andouille sausage, peppers, crawfish, and a tomato-hollandaise sauce. I also had an enormous glass of peach sweet tea.

After breakfast (lunch?) we headed out across Lake Pontchartrain via the causeway that has the longest continuous water span in the US (but see comments for clarification). I never actually timed it, but I estimate it took us about 30 minutes to cross this thing. We had crossed it the previous night coming back from the airport, but it was dark and I couldn't see anything. It turns out you can't see much of anything even during the day because you lose sight of land pretty quickly. Bea lives on the North shore of the lake, New Orleans is on the South shore.

On the South shore we checked out an area called River Walk, which Bea hadn't been to yet. It's a mall area that also has transient shops on the upper level. One of the stalls had clothing from Greece, but they were rather expensive, and there was nowhere to try things on. We also checked out a store that was selling fruit wines, and we had a rather tasty blackberry wine. We also had a very weird tasting orange coffee wine, that smelled like coffee and tasted like orange. It was a little too freaky for either of us.

We wrapped up the day with a big delicious bowl of gumbo and some more tea at a place called Mulate's.

Death Valley Trip

This past weekend our lab group jam packed two SUVs full of gear and people and headed out to Death Valley to clean up the field site and do some additional data collecting.

I've never been driving through California, Nevada, or Arizona before, so it was cool to get that far out west. I've officially stayed in California now, so I should really update the list of states I've been to as a result of this trip.

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US that forms as a result of the damming of the Colorado River by the Hoover Dam

I drove past the Grand Canyon two times during this trip, but yet I have still not seen it. This is unacceptable.

Our main purpose for this trip was to try to retrieve as much field equipment as possible. That included animal traps, wire, and lost i-buttons. Ian, equipped with a map and metal detector, found a good number of traps, but none of the i-buttons. i-buttons are data recorders that are attached to tagged animals, and you get the data back when you trap the animal again. The obvious flaw with this technique is that animals die or get eaten and you just never see them again. The hope was that we would find some lying on the surface, get some additional data, and also save $20 a pop on each data logger. Sadly, that didn't happen. For some reason, a lot of the rocks in the area were setting off the metal detector, so it was a waste of time using that particular piece of equipment. We checked any coyote scat we saw on the surface for i-buttons, but this also turned up nothing.

A panorama of the field site.

Another shot of the field site, the big bush-like things are mesquites.

The other data we collected were branches and thorns and leaves from mesquite bushes. The project was on how the woodrats in Death Valley survive, and they make their middens in these horrific mesquite bushes that will stab you even if you look at them. I've never held so many thorny branches in my life. The idea was to bring back samples to see how much water the woodrats are getting from these plants. This involved carefully stripping leaves off of the branches, and placing the branches and leaves in separate collection bags. We'll weigh and dry the leaves and branches to see how much water they have back in the lab. I think I still have mesquite spines stuck in my fingers.

An adorable young (and healthy) woodrat that was trapped in our campsite!

The whole trip was enjoyable over all. I got to bond some more with my lab mates, and I find camping to be fun in general anyway. However, Friday evening the wind really picked up and it didn't subside for the rest of the weekend. This made every task much harder, and I'm glad I brought ear plugs. Otherwise, I doubt I would have gotten much sleep with the flapping of our tent. In addition to the wind, there was this raven on our camp site that was awake at the crack of dawn making this horrible "warking" noise. It sounded funny but was annoying Fred.

The view from our campsite.

We (as in the Smith Lab girls) proved ourselves to be giggly and upbeat throughout the weekend. Meghan, Fred, and I crammed ourselves into a tent that was really only intended for two people, and hilarity ensued. The first night Fred and I were in the vehicle that arrived early to set up camp, and we had an early dinner with Ian and Summer before calling it a fairly early night. I had gotten a little sleep when the second car finally arrived, and Meghan had her sleeping pad and bag to get into the tent with us. The sleeping pad was more like a raft, and it was a ridiculous effort at first to try and get it in the tent over me and Fred. We had a pretty good laugh about it. Meghan is officially the happiest most excitable person I know, regardless of what time of day it is.

The afternoon of our last full day was spent in Titus Canyon, scoping out midden locations. It was full of amazing geology and I did a lot of climbing around on rock faces looking for little caves.

A fairly large cave on a rock face in Titus Canyon. There was a huge midden inside, and some bones from something that was roughly sheep sized.

View from the exit of Titus canyon. All that tan stuff is dust being blown around by the wind. The wind didn't let up for a full 48 hours.

I took more pictures, but there are more than I want to put up here. I'll probably put them in an online album to share, where the beauty of Death Valley can be done justice.

SVP 2010 Tuesday

It's been a busy few days, hence the lack of a recap for last week and a lack of information about the meeting thusfar.

The past few days have been full of trying to connect with people I haven't seen in a while, and also meeting people I haven't met before at previous meetings. I've also been working on my talk, right up until yesterday evening. I wanted to make some changes to some figures that were confusing before. Hopefully all the work and frustration with my computer were worth it, I personally feel like the figures look better now.

I gave my talk this morning during a session that was really heavy on mammal evolution, patterns in mammal diversity, and extinction. The session was really good in general. It's weird, but I usually find that the sessions I am scheduled to talk in are usually really good, where as other sessions can be kind of lame. That really sounds much more conceited than I mean, and I don't think it's a bias towards only wanting to hear about mammals or the Pleistocene. It's just that I've sat through a few too many cocky dino talks than I care to remember, and it's nice to see talks that have rigorous science in them.

This afternoon I need to take care of some work in my room, and later I'll head down to the poster session. Fred and I are having dinner with Felisa before the SVP auction. Every year they auction off a bunch of random stuff, and some of it is really cool and/or valuable. I can't wait to see what there is this year. Come on Paleontologist Barbie, complete with bag and pink plastic dinosaur!

SVP 2010 Friday

Today I left for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists, in Pittsburgh. It was a long trip, but my adviser and I had the same flight, and I learned some interesting things about her and we chatted more than we have since I moved to Albuquerque.

The meeting itself doesn't start until Sunday, but Russ and Tony Barnosky are leading a field trip tomorrow to some famous cave sites in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Hopefully it will be an interesting trip, it had better be, it cost a pretty penny to go. At least I'll see some nice fall foliage.

Right now I'm sitting in a pretty posh hotel room, waiting for my roomie to show up. I got in, and apparently I missed a call from her (I think, I could make out the message, so it could have been anyone, really). She's out with Russ and folks, I called and left a message, but no reply. It's okay, it's been a long day, I'm tired, and I'll probably see people tomorrow.

My friend Chira picked me up from the airport, which was awesome, because otherwise I would have needed to take the airport shuttle, and those can be hit or miss. We hung out for a while, and got some dinner out. Dinner was delicious, I got pan seared salmon with mango butter, cinnamon smashed sweet potatoes, and green beans. I haven't had salmon in a long time, and it was great. Chira looks like she is doing well, her baby is due in January. I know she'll make a really great mom. I hope that classes and student teaching aren't too stressful for her.

I'm gonna go relax, and hopefully fall asleep soon. Early morning tomorrow. The good thing is, I don't have to go far to meet for the field trip.

Catching Up - 2

Wednesday March 10th

My second day of my school visit I met with various faculty and talked to other students in the department. Probably the best part of that particular day was attending the lab meeting; I got to see how Felisa and Jim interact with each other and the other students.
Just a quick explanation: Felisa Smith is a paleoecologist and my future adviser. Jim Brown is the famous biologist who is largely responsible for the metabolic theory of ecology (basically tying most ecological phenomena in some way to body size and metabolism). The who of them hold their lab group meetings together, so I'll get to interact with some pretty smart people.
During the lab meeting one of Jim's students gave a presentation on allometry in cell size and volume as it scales with metabolism. I know for most people that won't mean much, but it was interesting to me :-P

I've come to the conclusion that I am joining a bright group of scientists who, interestingly, are in another scientific camp about the causes of the end Pleistocene extinction. They are of the camp that humans caused the extinction. I'm of the camp that climate changed and destroyed habitats and thus lead to extinction. This is going to be fun, and it's nice to be challenged. I'm actually more of the opinion that it doesn't matter what caused the extinction; we do know that all sorts of weird things were going on ecologically at the time, and that on some level humans and climate were involved.

(For those of you who are lost, I'm a paleontologist. I'll provide further elaboration on what that means either in another post, or in a revamping of my "about me" stuff.)

Up until this point I had been staying with another student, "Fred". Fred is actually a girl, and her name is actually Shawn. Which doesn't clear anything up. Fred was a very good host, I knew things would be good when I showed up Tuesday night and she and her friend were watching Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. I also had been enjoying the company of her two funny cats. I don't have the pictures off of my camera yet, but an update with pictures will come in the future. All I can say now is that one has a very unfortunate haircut! Think puffy cat in a leotard, and you've pretty much got the mental image.

Fred and her friend had to leave early the next morning, so Matt picked me up and we stayed at a Motel 6 by the highway. In grad school, you have to make these kinds of tough financial choices.


Thursday March 11th

The last day of my school visit. I had lunch with Felisa and Matt at a place that has the best Greek food I've had in a LONG time. Spinning meat on a spit, with cucumber sauce, and tomato, on a pita. Perfection. I have no idea what the name of the place is, but it's about a 5 minute walk from work, so I'll be going there pretty much as often as possible. They have a dolmas salad, which I think I'll try next time (that's stuffed grapes leaves for those of you who are missing out).

After lunch, Matt and I drove off into the sunset to go birding, with the hopes of seeing a road runner. I saw one, it practically ran out in front of our moving vehicle. Then we landed at the Mauger Estate Bed and Breakfast Inn in downtown for a non-Motel 6 experience. That place is mentioned in a previous post, and I highly recommend it!

Catching Up - 1

It's been a crazy week, one without consistent internet access, so I'll have to spend a few posts catching up.

Tuesday March 9th:
At 9am I met for the first time with my future adviser. She is a co-director of the new Program in Interdisciplinary Biological and Biomedical Sciences (PiBBSs). They just recently finished moving into a newly built wing for the program, so recently that I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony the first day of my visit. This brings me to my first point on graduate school:

Always accept free food. Retired people like to talk about fixed incomes... graduate students have VERY fixed incomes, and any opportunity to get good free food should never be passed up. Four words to sum up: very large shrimp bowl.

The new facility is very nice with lots of comfortable places to do work. I'll post images when I have access to my own computer.


I'm in Virginia at the moment, and I'm about to drive back to PA. Further updates once I'm settled in.

Still Alive

Just a note: I'm still alive, I just haven't had good internet in a while. A lot has happened during the past week, and I'm hoping to give a recap of it all this evening... provided the hotel has internet.

We spent the evening at the Mauger Estate Bed and Breakfast Inn near downtown ABQ. I have to say, it was really nice. The bed was really fluffy and the room was cozy, I didn't want to get up right away. However, breakfast was worth getting up for, they have delicious homemade granola which I will miss dearly. We were greeted last night by a light snack, cookies, and wine as well. Overall, I was very very comfortable.

Today we are headed to Petroglyph National Park to check out some drawings on rocks made by Native Americans. It is a sunny and clear day, so we'll be picking up some sunscreen, definitely. I'll post some pictures later.

Birding and New Mexican Delights

Today's adventure brought initially brought us about an hour and a half south of Albuquerque to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. On our way we were passed by what at first looked like a police pick up truck. It turned out to be a livestock inspector, which for some reason was very amusing to me. Once at the refuge, we saw around 40 different bird species, including some sandhill cranes. They were, unfortunately, really far away, and the heat shimmer made it difficult to really focus on them with the scope. Other sightings were a bald eagle eating a freshly caught pintail duck, a vermilion fly catcher, a mountain bluebird, and a bushtit among a variety of water foul.

On the way back to Albuquerque we stopped in San Antonio, NM for the world famous Buckhorn Burger. This delicious green chile cheese burger defeated Bobby Flay in a throwdown, and it was heavenly.

Other good eats for the day involved having a very late and very heavy dinner at Sadie's. Delicious food, and great margaritas!

I'm stuffed, time for bed.

Travel and the First Day

Yesterday was more or less a travel day, and involved such boring activities as sitting around in an airport. Matt and I DID however manage to get $370.70 vouchers, one for each of us, by volunteering to be bumped to a later flight. Score! Now I can pay for another trip to actually look for an apartment.

First great meal in Albuquerque: 2000 Vietnamese, great food, good price. It's located on the corner of Zuni St. and San Matteo Blvd. I recommend the boba tea milkshakes.

Last night finished with some television, we caught the last part of Legally Blond and the first part of Mean Girls. It was cinematic magic, but I was too tired to watch any more.

Today was an early morning; we woke up at 6:45 to hurry out of our hotel to drive up to Sandia Crest and see rosy finches. We were really lucky and saw several up close, there was a bird banding project going on and the birds were being brought into the inn where we got a good look at them.




There were also these funny squirrels running around...




During the afternoon we drove around the city to try and scope out where the "good" and "bad" areas were. I decided that I liked Old Town and the area around Ridgecrest the best. My new strategy is to spend the rest of the week figuring out specifically the areas I want to live in, and plan accordingly for my apartment hunt later in the summer.

I had an opportunity to go to church in the city today. I think we went to "Immaculate Conception Church", which, given the name, is obviously a Catholic church. It was different from what I'm used to, I didn't think it was that great. Although, there were some neat shrines throughout the building that were worth the visit. It didn't even come close to being as good as the church I'm currently attending in PA, so I'll have to keep looking for a spiritual home.

Mouse and Dave also flew into ABQ this evening, and we met up for a late dinner. We went to the Route 66 Diner on Central Avenue, which is the historical Route 66. I got the meatloaf. The meatloaf and mashed potatoes were really quite good. The mixed veggies were over done. My recommendation is to just pass on them entirely, they went pretty much uneaten. Matt got a shake that was good too, so that's a good item as well.

Tomorrow we'll likely adventure outside of ABQ and head south to look for sandhill cranes, then I want to spend some more time checking out Old Town or Nob Hill, possibly.

The pre-Beginning

Today I officially accepted my offer from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; so my exciting PhD adventure can officially begin. I still need to graduate from PSU, I still need to find an apartment, and I still need to move. I guess that actually makes this the pre-game.

I'm currently in Virginia, getting ready to fly off to Albuquerque tomorrow morning to visit the city and see UNM for the first time. I'm a little nervous, but SUPER excited about the upcoming week.

Tomorrow: Arrive in NM, get rental car and check into my hotel with Matt (boyfriend, who I am taking along on my adventure).

Sunday: Early birding in the Sandia Mountains, hopefully we'll see some Rosy Finches. Also, dinner with friends.

Monday: Green chili burgers in Socorro!

Tuesday: 9:30 meeting with future adviser, Felisa Smith in the department of Biology.
The rest of the week is yet to be determined... I'll update those plans when I figure them out.

Matt has informed me that we'll see cactus wrens... alrighty.