greg3d

day to day stuff

Mortimer informed me today that I have sent off over 100 emails to the WAAC Committee. I'm nothing if not vocal. Can't accuse me of not participating.

Today was one of those days where the clock just crawled. One spark in the day was when one coworker rushed off to go have a baby. She thought she still had a couple of weeks, but the baby had other ideas.

Stayed home and got the kitchen usable again. One of the signs I've gotten myself to busy is when entropy takes it's natural course and the clutter gets out of hand. It really doesn't take that long to get things back in shape, but when I'm in high gear with my activities the whole house gets covered in my debris field and I can't seem to do anything about it.

I have a bunch of cool stuff in progress. There is the "not Steve" project. More on that soon.  Friday I'm going to a high school play for the first time in 30 years. Mortimer and the Panda and I are trekking to Spokane this weekend. Hopefully the Norse Princess will be able to go with us. We will be riding in a caravan with our Seattle counterparts.

There is no question about it, things are not dull around here.

sad loss

Our mama bug died over the weekend. We have a terrarium at work fulled with Indian Walking Stick bugs. The oldest one was over a year old, which is their normal lifespan. She was pampered and well cared for, and leaves many many survivors. We have some Australian stick bug eggs which I'm trying to incubate. The last of those went before I started working at the City lab, but they left a bunch of eggs behind. They are supposed to be viable for two years, so I'm trying to get them to hatch.

Sometime I have talk about Gamma the betta, the laziest fish in the world, but first I have to get a picture of him.

a bit of controversy

Jason sent me this website. I particularly enjoyed the "Morphology of Steve". I applaud the goals of this organization.

It also gave me something to blog about as absolutely nothing remarkable happened today.

some days are just fun

Today was the second day of the AOAC Conference. Got in early to socialize, hit a couple of talks, got bored and went off to visit Jason who teaches where the conference was being held. Just in time to help him move his office. (See June 19. Come back at the end of July. There will be a trend here.) Had a nice lunch with some of the coworkers I will be leaving, then invited Peggy to join me back at the Physics Department to hear one of Jason's undergrads practice giving a paper on the research they've been doing. He did a very good job. The math was over my head, but I got the concept. It has something to do with microchip technology. It was quite fun and both Peggy and I agreed it was more interesting than the dry stuff going on at the conference.

Came home and relaxed a bit with Arthur, then took off to my meeting. I was actually just going to open the door, then head over to Jason's house for a little gathering, but we had newcomers show up and no one was there with a lot of experience, so I stayed. Went over to Jason's afterward and played Trivial Pursuit for a couple of hours with him, Lisa and three of their friends.

It was a long day, but enjoyable.

No real plans for the weekend. We'll see what develops.

work

I have been trying to avoid writing about work in this log, but today was interesting.

oh screw it, who cares about audits and computer problems anyway.

I work for the Washington State Department of Ecology, in the Environmental Assessment Program. This program does most of the scientific studies for the agency and publishes them here. Having been with the agency nearly 16 years, I've had a hand in providing the data for a number of these studies.

Happy reading.

It's Science Day!

I've been working on a project for the last couple of years determining pesticide levels in Padden Creek near Bellingham WA. The report was published on the web today by Ecology.

Saturday we went for a ride away from city lights hoping to see an aurora. We were to early. It occured yesterday. It might be going on now for all I know, but unfortunately its raining. We did see a spectacular one a couple of years ago, the first I had ever seen. It was amazing. Looking for news of it today I ran into the website devoted to study of the Sun.

Now for some Biology. My friend Ron is out of town this week and I'm taking care of his cats. All six of them. five bowls of food and three litter boxes. I know what goes in and I know what comes out, and then I have to pet the middle furry part. Which reminds me, I haven't done my duty tonight. OK, off to scoop poop.