Friday

I hate science.

Anyway, it's been a few days since I got on here. This week's been pretty uneventful (i,e. I haven't gotten much done). That's nothing new. I did go riding through the countryside of Anderson Sunday, attempting to find the new abode of Tman and Rebel. No luck with that, but I had a good time just riding (Yes, I know I could've picked up the phone and asked for directions, but that would've taken all the fun out of the journey). Of course, that ride was a little more expensive than it would have been this time last year, but you can't put a price on relaxation.

I guess I'll head on over to the gym to try and get some running in, and then head up to see the in-laws. I think there's supposed to be some cooking-out going on. I'll probably head over to the library near their house and try to get some work done while I'm there. Later!

FYI: I just found out that the Jacksonville Jaguars have a home game @ 4:05 vs. the New York Jets while we're at the Feast. I may try to check that out. And I might not be doing the ride around the track with a professional driver at the Daytona International Speedway - it costs $134 for 3 laps. Bummer.

Is it October yet?

I'm so ready to go to the Feast that I'm about to burst. This is the first year we've gotten our room so far in advance. There should be no worries or last-minute scares involving where we're going to stay. Of course, now that I've said it... The rest of the fam are eager to go as well. We know that some of our friends from OH and LA are going to Daytona, along with most of our local congregation, so there should be plenty of people there we already know. I'm looking forward to making as many new friends as possible while I'm there; I know it's gonna be tough devoting enough time to the friends we already have while making an avid attempt to incorporate new friends into our family circle. I think we'll have an event or two at our place, maybe a progressive dinner or something like that as well as a lunch. Maybe a fish fry, 'cuz I'm definitely going deep-sea fishing. We'll see.

As far as the exercise/diet, today I plan to wrap up week two of good ole couch-to-5k. I've lost maybe a pound this week (after splurging on lasagna to begin the week), and I'm currently wearing a pair of jeans that were uncomfortably tight a few weeks ago. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Tomorrow I'll probably wear a pair of black slacks that I haven't been able to button in months. They won't be as loose as they were when I bought them, but I tried them on today and at least now I can button them again. *Yay for small victories* Yep, I'm definitely gonna utilize the exercise room at Ocean Walk this Feast. Oooh, I get to have key-lime pie every day while I'm there. Yum.

Guess who just decided to look at the speaking schedule last night? Guess who's gonna be pulling a Manuel tonight?

Mom joins the club

I talked with my mom yesterday after a trip to the emergency room for stomach pain. She's been under a lot of stress lately, and she appears to have re-ignited an old ulcer. While they were running tests on her, they discovered she has diabetes. Let's tally 'em up:

Diabetes
Mom,Pop, maternal Grandpa (died from complications), paternal Aunt Berta, paternal Grandpa (died from complications), paternal Grandma, paternal Uncle Del, and I'm unsure about my 15 other aunts & uncles.

High Blood Pressure
Everyone above the age of 40.

Of course, the heavy consumption of refined starches and sodas, as well as even heavier consumption of fatback, fried pork chops, chitlins', and ham is probably not helping much.

For the past few weeks I've been trying to diet, and I think I've done pretty well. I think I've passed the craving stage, and as long as I don't skip meals I don't struggle with cheating. I've FINALLY started to exercise a bit too. A quick recap:

• Sunday: 1 hour of full-court basketball
  
• Monday: incline sit-ups, 1st day of couch-to-5K
  
• Tuesday: incline sit-ups, 1.5 hours of full-court basketball
  
• Wednesday: incline sit-ups, 2nd day of couch-to-5K
  
• Thursday: incline sit-ups, 30 minutes of full-court basketball
  
• Friday: sometime today, incline sit-ups and 3rd day of couch-to-5K
  

Hopefully I can keep this up as well as incorporate some weight lifting. Right now I have negative muscles.

The new melting pot?

I find my bus rides to and from work to be pretty interesting. I spend a lot of time just looking at people (not staring, stalker-like). As opposed to many small southern towns, being in Clemson means that a substantial portion of the CAT-bus-riding community is international. I get on at the first stop so I have my pick of seats, and I get to watch the faces come and go. My street has a heavy Chinese population. The next stop, Goldenwoods, offers a variety of passengers; some white Americans, some black Americans, some Turks(I think), and some Chinese. We then travel down Cochran road, which is heavily populated with Chinese and Koreans. The bus travels through an income-based apartment complex, (Sterling Woods) where the residents are mostly lower-middle-class-to-poor black and white Americans. There are also some Mexicans who get on here too. We then hit the LeMans apt. complex, or "Little India" in Clemsonspeak. This is where the bus fills up, unless you're riding in off-peak hours like I usually do. The route then takes us through downtown, and from there on to campus. After I get off I think the route continues on to the grocery stores and out past where Summa works.

I enjoy looking at the beauty and variety in the different ethnicities and nationalities I see living here. I enjoy comparing and contrasting the different hues, accents, hair textures, eye colors and shapes of my fellow bus riders. Back in my hometown, everyone was either black or white, with a few Native Americans thrown in. I kid about the public schools here being like the United Nations, but I'm glad that my kids get to interact regularly with those who are different from them. The boys recognize ethnic differences, but they know (without me telling them) that people are people, and that neither ethnnicity nor race lessen a person's worth.

Interesting articles

Dublin, Ireland (LifeNews.com) -- A scientist in Ireland has made a major breakthrough in the field of adult stem cell research by producing insulin needed by diabetic patients from the stem cells from the umbilical cords of living babies. The result provides real hope for diabetics because the insulin from embryonic stem cells doesn't work as effectively and involves the destruction of human life... (click to read more)

WASHINGTON - Circumcising men routinely across Africa could prevent millions of deaths from AIDS, World Health Organization researchers and colleagues reported Monday... (click to read more)

LDRs

My long distance relationships hurt.  There’s nothing like the buildup as the opportunity to see the object of one’s affection approached.  There’s nothing like the release of emotion when you finally get to see, hear, and touch that voice on the other end of the phone, or the hand that wrote those letters.  After the first day, the little monster called Dread would show up in whichever room the two of you occupied, usually starting out in the corner.  Its rate of growth was inversely proportional to the length of time remaining for the visit, and as it grew the monster would creep to the middle of the room.  One developed the art of pretending Dread wasn’t there.  Eventually though, Dread would force the two of you to acknowledge its presence – with said acknowledgement usually accompanied by a tear - or thirty.  And parting?  Food didn’t taste as good, comedies weren’t as funny, hanging out with friends wasn’t as desirable… …not, at least, until the planning for the next visit had begun.

The internet age has dulled somewhat the excitement of walking quickly (running) to the mailbox as the postman drove off.  Ooooh, and if you actually received a letter from your baby… … life was good.  Of course, there was the slight disappointment to deal with if you didn’t have any mail, but there was always the next day to look forward to.  Of course, IMing and cell phones with mega-minutes have made long distance relationships easier (and cheaper) to manage, but one still has to deal with emotional highs and lows.  I think I’ll just keep the M.R.S. close by.

Put some South in your mouth

The Food Network is becoming an obsession in the Hot Buttered Soul household.  It seems like every time the TV’s not on ESPN or Sci-Fi, it’s on the Food Network.  I must admit that I’ve even been caught watching the channel by myself once or twice.  It’s sort of like the weird attraction the M.R.S. (and certain other bloggers who shall remain nameless) had for Trading Spaces.  Weird.  I’m finding myself particularly fond of Good Eats and the show that shows how common food products are made.  I guess if I were one of Isaac and Rebekah’s twins, I would be Jacob.  I’m DEFINITELY stopping by Paula Deen’s restaurant The Lady & Sons on my was down to the Feast.

There is some intrigue going on here at the Institute.  Without going into details (since I don’t know them), my advisor is changing positions and will no longer be the director of the Institute.  Since this just happened today, no one is sure what the fallout’s gonna be.  My advisor is remaining on staff, and is still on the tenure track, so I shouldn’t have to change advisors.  I don’t know yet how (or if) this will affect the proposed Brazil trip, or the direction of my research project.  I know this interests absolutely no one out there, but I needed to pad this blog entry.

Desiree, I apologize for stepping away from MSN Messenger w/o letting you know.  I was recruited to help set up some cubicles and I forgot to return to the computer before dipping out to the library.  My bad.

The day after

The 4th was OK. I should've been here working, but after making a cameo appearance I dipped and went to a cookout at my (wife's) uncle's place. Most of the family made it over there, and there were plenty of cousins for Nick and Noah to play with. Noah was quite the cranky one yesterday, as he's being weaned by the M.R.S. and apparently this was causing withdrawal symptoms. That also led to he and I spending quite a bit of time together, as everytime he was near his mother he almost ripped her shirt off. (sorry honey). Things did not get any better last night; we finally had to drive him around for a while to get him to go to sleep, and when he woke up in the middle of the night the M.R.S. had to leave the bed and go sleep on the couch whilst the Tiny Terror and I fought in the middle of the bed until he went back to sleep. He awoke pretty early this morning, but seemed to be in good spirits as I left.

I spent the end of last week and the early part of this week trying to compare some of my cotton DNA sequences with protein sequences in an international database and just couldn't get it to work (even though it's not complicated). Turns out that as editing the Perl submission script in Wordpad, the text editor was inserting extra characters at the end of each line. Apparently UNIX doesn't like these extra characters. Our systems admin finally figured out what I was doing wrong, and now I'm good to go.

I'm waiting on my labmate to come back to the office. She's been in a meeting with here committee for the past 2.75 hours getting grilled on her research grant proposal. Hope she does OK. I'm sure she'll cry, as she's very emotional - but I'm also sure she'll pass, as she's very, very smart. Guess I need to go about scheduling mine. Yuck.

I don't want to be at work

The fireworks display @ Clemsonfest looked awesome - from my office window.