halloween...

can you guess who we are supposed to be?

Daylight savings....

I hate this time of year. I hate the fact that we will soon be in darkness by 5pm. I do appreciate the extra hour of sleep I received on Sunday but have refused to set my watch back in silent protest. I am keeping the DST dream alive.

Time is such an abstract concept. We have come up with these standard measures of time that are completely arbitrary. I mean they had a conference to decide how to measure time and when and where to start. It is hard to imagine how things used to be. Something to ponder...

craaaapppp!!!!!

so there has been lots of talk about arachnophobia lately and I thought I did not have a problem with this fear... until today. I was driving home down park persidio singing to one of my favorite bands at the moment when all of the sudden I look down and see this big spider on my arm.

i freaked... it was my initial reaction. I work with bees and other insects and do not fear bugs of any kind but I totally lost it. I flung the spider which landed on the dashboard and started to climb the door jam. I then corrected my course and luckily did not hit any pedestrians or drivers. The spider sort of hid in the crack between my windshield and the trim of my car. I was close to home so I waited to get home to get him out of my car. Yes, I did not kill him. I just sort of flicked him outside. Spiders are good creatures with a bad wrap I do not like to kill them. They eat other bugs. he is safe to strike the fear into another person.

more zoo fun...

I forgot to post some great photos like one of me almost getting mauled by a statue of a big cat...

Or this big a** millipede that was rolled into a ball and put into my hand. It was cool and heavy. I wanted it to crawl up my arm.
but my friend Simone put it on her cheek. what a nut!
On a more somber note I realize that I am not going to graduate this December. I could do it if I worked day and night on my thesis but I want to have a life. I want to surf in the morning and hang out with friends and maybe if I am lucky go out on dates every once in a while. I plan to be done with school in Feb (whenever school starts again) so I am delaying the defence of my thesis a bit. I am still motivated and work on it when I can but there are too many holes to patch up. "Every day is progress" is what my friend Craig tells me. I like that idea. There is a paradox at State in that many graduate students take tons of time to finish there thesis. They get jobs because the city is so expensive to live in and the thesis sort of gets put off. I do not want this to happen to me (knowing my love of procrastination) so I have to be careful. I need a coach or something...

a day at the zoo...

Today I went to the zoo with my class for a field trip. We went there to see the insect zoo and the curator of the insects showed us around. I had never been to the zoo before so I was pretty excited. I was not the biggest fan of the zoo system in my youth in that I thought it was animal jail. I have since learned that zoo's do great work with the conservation of rare animals and their breeding programs are top notch. I was glad I went.


Here is my class. They are an exciting bunch.

Here are a bunch of butterflies that were pinned, placed in glass, and hung on a wall.


Here are a bunch of dead trantulas. I love these spiders. They are so big and hairy. Most are pretty harmeless to humans but since many people are afraid of spiders they get a bad rap.
We got to see giraffe's. They are my favorite african animal. They are so tall and slender. evolution really did a number on these guys. The basic horse body plan was modified throught many generations to get a giraffe. A long neck to get branches. I wold love to see one in the wild.
Here is a big male gorilla. He has some great guns. I wish my forearms were as big and powerful as his. I learned some intersting facts today about gorillas. They have a brain 1/2 the size of ours and they weigh 500 lbs.
Here are some beetles that were pinned.
Check out this big tarantula.
Pink flamingos!
These small monkeys are the cutest things ever. I forgot to get thier species name but they were so friendly. They came right up to the cage and wanted food or something.

surf sesh...

I went out to Pacifica's Linda Mar beach this morning to do a little surfing. I had the best time today. Surfing is the best way to start the day. The waves were small and consistent but fun , fun , fun! There were a few people out so that made for a nice relaxing session. I did not have to fight the crowd to get a wave. My goal for the rest of the year is to go surf as much as I can. Look how good my car looks with a surfboard on top of it!

Surfing is so much fun. Especially when you catch a wave. You go from 0 to fast in a matter of seconds. Surfing is the hardest fun I have ever had. Surfing takes tons of work and energy which I seem to not have. My arms were jelly after an hour or so. What keeps me going is the desire to ride one more wave. It is an addiction. Since surfing is an endurance sport I guess I just have to go out as much as I can!I was so pumped up today to go into the lab and work. My session today helped me to keep a positive attitude while working in the lab. My job can be a little frustrating at times but today went smoothly. I taught students how to do restriction cutting of their PCR product. I also did some lab dishes and made aliquots of chemicals. I also tried to kill time by repetitive e-mail checking. You never get e-mail when you check every 15 minutes...

All and all it was a good day. One of the problems of surfing in the early morning is the nap I wanted to take at 2pm!! Gosh I was dragging this afternoon and work seemed to take forever to end. The price I pay...

Check out the Tea garden

So I have not posted in a while. sorry about that. My life has not been interesting lately and have not been getting into adventures. I have been working on my thesis and locked up on the computer writing. I had the opportunity to go to the Tea garden in SF this morning and brought my camera. This is what I shot. Enjoy the sideshow!














Hydranga














Melastomaceae














Solanaceae! Trumpet flower!






































































This was the steepest bridge I have ever crossed. It is a perfect half-circle.














Fall foliage














Same

discovey of America today

Christopher Columbus "discovered" America today, way back in 1492. Some treat him as a hero, others a rapist and murderer. There is also controversy that he was not the first one to sail to the new world. Whatever you believe, whatever you feel about this man, he did pave the way for explorers to sail from the old world to the new world and inter-continental travel was born. Of course this let to a wide variety of other problems...

So I do not know when my next post will be. The thesis is keeping me busy for sure. No time for fun and adventure. I miss the adventure the most.