Week 17 - Christmas

Work is slow again for me now as I cleaned up our fermenters this past week. The data was confusing and I need some time to sit down, process it, work through what we need to try next, and also to come up with some new sampling techniques.  For what it's worth, cleaning out fermenters is not "just like cleaning really dirty glassware" as our lab manager declared. It requires line flushing, glass scrubbing, and what I would describe as a full dental exam cleaning on the metal moving parts in the stirring/heating/infusing-equipped lid. Absolutely gross, and even worse is the splashing of the cleaning process and the fact that you end up wearing some of what you clean.

Speaking of gross, this Sunday before I walked for graduation, we decided to hang up the Christmas lights. Nothing too crazy, just icicle lights. This being our first year hanging them, we came up about 3 strands short, which became 4 when a strand died the first day. I thought since we were already up on the roof, I'd clean out the gutters as well. Definitely not something to do with your bare hands if you are queezy at heart. I actually ended up going to graduation and forgetting to wash my hands until about an hour before the ceremony started. Good thing I remembered, since there were classy black rotten-leaved stains all over my hands. Amanda may think that our house looks tacky with the missing icicle lights, but I think that it just gives us a more authentic appearance than other people.

Christmas is indeed in the air around here, and this past week I finally had time to pick up all my gifts. Luckily, in this modern age we can log online and search for what we want exactly. Since I ordered the gifts, I have already received everything except what is to arrive today. One thing I did go buy in person at Best Buy, but that is because I can return it so much easier if things go South. I saw frightening reviews online and I really want to be able to deal with a real person for that product.

Centerpiece at the Christmas Wedding.

We went to a Christmas wedding this past weekend for a coworker of mine, down on the East side of Cincinnati. Had a little trouble finding the place, but the set up was very cheery and that is when the Christmas mood started to sink in for me. I've seen a couple Christmas movies on cable now and taken the time to watch them and can even tolerate the local all-Christmas radio for short amounts of time.

I did finally walk for my Master's diploma this past weekend, which was a nice recognition of the work we've all put into my degree, but more important was that I had the honor of receiving my degree in the same ceremony as Jack Hanna's honorary doctorate. As always, Jack Hanna came prepared to entertain as the guest speaker and even brought a cheetah out on stage (it didn't seem like it wanted to leave). Since my pictures are pretty far away, I've also included a video of some of his animal-sharing on the David Letterman Show. Great ceremony and while I may be biased, I think that it was one of the best I've been to, and definitely the best keynote speaker.

This is what I called "Graduating Coach Class". Very hard to fit in the row.

3 of the 5 of us who did our Master's essentially together.

You can just barely see Jack with a Cheetah up on the stage at commencement.

Speaking of Jack Hanna, and the Columbus Zoo, we went to the zoo twice the past weekend to see the lights. It's a great Christmas tradition here in Columbus, and the zoo was packed both nights, although we timed out the trips so we were either a bit earlier than most or later than most people there. Baby tigers and Hank the largest elephant in North America were the 2 big highlights for me. Hank is huge, no debate about it. Big elephant. But the baby tigers take the cake for me. Babies in general are just so exciting - not sure what it is, but I cannot wait until we have one of our own to care for and raise. I will be so proud.

Santa Claus diving and feeding the fish at the zoo!

Dug one thing from the annals of history on Youtube for your final entertainment today. I thought it was hilarious acting by some highschoolers I know.

Week 16 - Hydrogen

Wow, I can really see the priorities of my readers if I look back on the page views. Whiskey came in a quick first, finally beating out a Halloween cross-dressing post. Yikes! But thankfully, the drinkers came through. I thought about continuing the trend by naming this week's post "gas", since that is pretty much all I've worked with this past week, but I thought I'd just be a little more specific about what is rapidly absorbing my life like a sponge.

Over the past week, I have continued to strive with our fermenters in hopes of getting a better gas seal. This struggle has made me increasingly aware of what a big feat it will be when we can finally get this measurement up and running accurately. I joked with my advisor about the Nobel prize, entirely implausible, telling him that by the time we got it for saving the world from Methane I would instead need to accept it posthumously on his behalf. Of course, by then we will have gone through another half-dozen threats to our survival, too, so no big deal. But I do seriously feel as if my PhD work will take that long sometimes.

After the fun outside, Betsy paid the price with a bath. So pitiful.

Meanwhile, I've been working on better relaxing at home on the weekends. I am now what I would consider a full-fledged member of the Arbor Day Foundation, having received my membership trees and either planted them or given them away to other good homes. Funny scam, that foundation is, and ironic that I joined it since I used to be a heavy trash burner, but we will probably not be joining again because they continue to sell my name and address out, as well as try to squeeze me for money. Dogwoods and Redbuds got placed around the house (at a safe distance) to provide some new color. Our pasture was short on shade, so I put a few fast growers and one big tree out there to hopefully add some comfort to the sheep (which we loaded out over the weekend - traumatic process). They will return again in the Spring once I've had time to put dirt floor into the barn with windows for ventilation and once all the downed trees are finally burned or cut up.

Speaking of cutting, I've been getting pretty good at splitting wood. My accuracy struggled at first, but no harm was done. It's not something that I grew up doing, nor would anyone attest to my being a high grade in the hand-eye coordination spectrum, but I am quickly improving. Betsy, on the other hand, seems to have a deathwish and jumps around the wood when I am cutting. We're still working on her. However, she has finally learned to go out in the dark and come back without needing to be on a leash, so that is good. Perhaps the cooler nights is leading to enforcing this behavior as well.

Unfortunately, this wasn't where I wanted to plant a tree.

The cool weather has brought on fires in our fireplace, one of the perks to this house when we were shopping. The heat doesn't project as well as I'd imagined, but the wood is still green and often wet in this damp weather, so it will be some time before we have roaring fires on the hearth. I am hurrying to finish up the mantelpiece before Christmas so that we have something to hang the stockings on - I know how much that means to my wife. She and I have such different takes on firebuilding. Me, I like the painful struggle of the flame as it works its way through the first few pieces. I like to use 1 match, no paper and the shred off the starters. I've also been known to use gasoline and set things off in a hurry (the best never get caught on video), but not indoors or for civilized fires. However, methodical as she might be, my wife is all hell in a handbasket about fires inside. Sure, she'll tell you all about how she has it down to a science, but the truth of the matter is that she likes to hit it hard with paper and set the damn thing to roaring. Hopefully that catches the wood, and hopefully she doesn't find this blog post. ;)

Not much of a reader, but she likes to sit and help.

With fires comes reading, and I've settled down to a new Shaara book. Not his newest, but it's new to me - based in the Pacific war after Pearl Harbor. It seems appropriate, since it was just this past week that we observed our 71st Pearl Harbor Day. It's insane to think about how long ago that was. This year it was a rainy Friday as I walked to class, and I couldn't believe they left the flags out in that mess. I know that they wanted to honor the fallen, but one would think that respect to THE FLAG would also dictate to keep it out of the rain. Just a pet peeve of mine.

Finally, as Obama's 1st term starts to wrap up, there is one member of his cabinet that I will hopefully not have to say goodbye to: Vilsack. Secretary Vilsack has been a great leader and an outspoken, yet reasonable, ambassador for agriculture. We should be proud of the service he has given, and grateful. On a few occasions, I have had the opportunity to see him in person, and watch his interactions with highschool youth in the 4-H program. He is not only respectful, but takes the rhetoric of our "future leaders" off the table. Rather than patronize kids, he takes their voices one-on-one and debates with them about their opinions on issues, while educating them in the gaps of knowledge. He treats them like leaders rather than talks of them as leaders. I only wish we had more politicians like him.

Week 15 - Whiskey

My past week has been primarily absorbed with research, so this post will likely be brief (even though I have no idea at the current moment - nothing like booze-posting to highlight poor preparation). Despite my recent embrace of the Apple products and a new iPhone, I have actually spent less time this past week on the internet and utilizing technology than previously. However, I do have to say that the iPhone is quickly growing on me and you can expect an upcoming post geared to those of you who are still holding out against the evil. Nevertheless, I have not really gotten a break to focus on the blogging, so it's good to be back and I suppose there will probably be a few of these in short time.

While my main focus of this post is to rave about a great new whiskey I've had over the weekend, I first must tell you about my research. We used a dual-flow continuous culture system with gas measurement equipment attached. However, as one can imagine from 50+ years of data struggles with this set-up and its archaic predecessors, the gas measurement can be pretty difficult. My main function has been to monitor the fermenters for gas leakage and to solve these leakage problems as soon as possible during preliminary tests on the fermenter system. However, these leaks just can't be allowed to occur during true experimental testing and I am back to the drawing board as to methods to prevent leakage. The search continues...

About a year ago, my wife and in-laws purchased a whiskey crafting working with a local distillery: OYO. Apparently, their name is derived from the native American name for the Ohio River, but I think this is more marketing ploy than anything else. However, their whiskey is no ploy. After mixing up mash and talking through the distillery process, it was time to start tasting whiskeys. I learned more about whiskey flavors and their influencing factors in an hour than I have learned through years of heavy usage. Before I knew what I liked and didn't like, but after last Saturday, I learned what I taste in these favorite whiskeys, or what I don't taste. As it turns out, the water holds a large portion of the original flavor in whiskey and Irish whiskeys are distilled to high proof and leave a smoother taste while bourbons in the US are distilled to lower proof and have some of the stronger flavors which are intensified by absorption and escape of the liquor into and out of the brand new bourbon barrels. Fascinating stuff, and as I sat there listening to the guy talk, I realized over and over again how I knew this information already. What was different was that before, I had never realized how all of the pieces an parts of my knowledge fit together to make a whiskey product. This one workshop put all the puzzle pieces together and I realized that I would love to make whiskey and beer, while running a side-show bar, for the rest of my life. And for what it's worth - OYO makes some of the best whiskey I've ever tasted in my life, and I've had the gamut.

It's all about fermentation in the end, right? Some fermentation is just more toxic than others.

Week 14 - Legends

I think it might be my goal to use the word of the week in as many different contexts as possible. It's been one of those kind of weeks, where nothing ever happens as planned. Not a bunch of huge ups and downs, but definitely some serious variety.

Urban Meyer in a UWeekly Cartoon last year. The man lived up to everything expected of him this year.

For starters, let's hit up Thanksgiving. My wife and I got to share some big exciting news with the family this past week and each took it in their own way - but all just about as predicted. I burned a bunch of calories by running a 5 mile race in my PB 47:43. I know, that's not super fast, but I had gas left in the tank at the end and later rocked it up at family football while everyone else was groaning.

The day after Thanksgiving, a guy tried to peel out of the stop sign by our house, hit a wet spot, broke into a spin and went airborne off of the neighbor's driveway. I was the first person there, and my neighbor on the other side was second. Long story short, when you get in a single car wreck, it's apparently always a safe bet to claim you saw a deer. I hadn't witnessed the actually accident but only heard the peel, brakes and saw the mid-air spinning, so I wasn't a reliable witness to prove he was lying.

At my in-laws, there was a surprise in the brew that I've been holding my breath about for a long time. My mother-in-law was 1 of 7 and all of them came into town for Thanksgiving, one of which nobody else knew about. This made for an absolutely chaotic Thanksgiving meal during which I never actually ate dinner. By the time the "meal" was ready, I was full on crackers, cheese, beer, wine (everyone loved the pear wine and mead we had made), and these amazing mushrooms covered in sausage and cheese. Great food, but we left before the true meal. Betsy was run ragged by the kids and eventually hid under the porch, from whence the family got the impression she was stuck and convinced her of this same fact. Picture a dozen people all crowded around the deck trying to dig out a dog that is convinced by the urgency in their voices she must escape now or forever be trapped. Truly a pathetic scene on the dog's face, and the family was equally feared for her survival. Needless to say that she was super wiped out by the end of the day, and even the next day was absolutely exhausted.

Betsy eating while lying on the floor on Friday. She was so exhausted.

Occasionally I see a movie worth recommending, but before I do so, I should warn you about a few things. My idea of a good movie is one that leads you on an emotional rollercoaster complete with high thrill downhill moments, a few corkscrews in the plot along the way (I hate predictable movies), and tunnels of despair. For example, I know the movie is nothing like the book, but I thought Atonement was a huge accomplishment, even though it took me days to recover from it. No Country for Old Men was also a great book, but I'm ok with the occasional happy ending, too. Sometimes peace is the happier ending, regardless of what happens to the main character. So my movie recommendation of this week is "Legends of Fall". This movie stars Brad Pitt among others, in another crazy, wildman type of role with brute strength, killer instincts and unkempt hair. Typical. But the movie is an epic journey through the trials of a family - something I thought was a stupid description on the info box, but completely accurate. Watch it, and you won't regret it.

Speaking of Legends, Rutgers and Maryland are proposed to enter the already weak B1G conference, bumping Illinois over to the bad bracket. My alma mater did luckily qualify for a bowl game this past weekend as they capped what is hopefully their most disappointing season ever. I don't think the fan base will recover for a while. However, over in the other division, 3rd place Wisconsin suffered their 3rd straight OT loss, this time to PSU, and yet they will still travel to Indy next week. PSU's head coach had some fun things to say after the game, I think he was trying to express how hard his boys had worked and how proud he was of their dedication. But I couldn't get beyond the fact that ESPN missed a big-time bleepable moment.

The game of the week is always OSU vs. scUM. Students jumped into Mirror Lake as always, despite the canceling of classes earlier before Thanksgiving and the recommendations against the action by the university administration. Traditions will not be stopped. I wondered how the new football coach here at OSU would react to the rivalry, but it would seem that Urban Meyer has a good grasp on the situation, based on his statement at the Earle Bruce Michigan week event. As a Spartan, it felt good to sit in the stands and feel the mutual hate for a university known for being a bunch of rich, pretentious, self-entitled snobs. Of course, both schools hate scUM for different reasons, but the end-game is the same. Beat the $#!t out of Michigan!

And beat them we did. Great game, exciting to the ending and a great victory to send the seniors out with, even though they couldn't go the BCS games. Having Tressel and the 2002 boys back for recognition made the entire game that much bigger. Nostalgia can be such a rush.

For the lesson of the week, I refer you to the PSA being passed around on Facebook (using a sweet new insert video option on Blogger.com). Remember, these are what not to do... I'm off to make sure these kinds of accidents don't happen in our lab.

Week 13 - Milkfat

This past week went by pretty quickly and quietly. The weekend is freshest on my mind so I'll recap it first. We got the leaves cleaned up and that sucked up nearly all of Saturday and Sunday. Using a larger mower, my wife got the leaves "raked" into rows and then we raked the leaves onto a tarp and dragged it out into the pasture. The leaves piled up to five feet tall and could have easily filled our living room. We also made it to a wedding about 90 minutes late on Saturday night (somehow memorized the wrong time...) but luckily we knew some people at the reception who let us crash their table. The Buckeyes won in OT and carried on to 11-0 on a meaningless season.

I also went mountain biking with an OSU faculty member on Sunday. It might not seem like a lot, but it is so exciting when I get to interact with my co-workers outside of the office. In this case, he was a well-respected, well-published statistician, but out there on the trail he was just another guy new to mountain-biking who wanted to experience the challenge and rush of some trail obstacles. Definitely one of the highlights of my week.

On Thursday, we also had a seminar on the effects of consuming milk by a visiting faculty member from my alma mater. It's worth mentioning that I really enjoyed his dry humor to make an old topic more interesting. He did a great job with questions and really interacted with us students. Within the dairy industry, milkfat is really what farmers get paid on. The research proposal that I spent all week writing to specifically oriented towards better prediction of how methane can be related to milk production and milk fat depression (MFD). The biggest problem with MFD is that when you sink a cow into lower fat components, she has a lot of trouble coming back out of this. That is why it's really important to understand the energy needs and nutrient balance of the cow and rumen, to maintain healthy and high-volumned milk production through her lactation.

It's funny, but when I searched for the cartoon clip that was put up at the end of our guest seminar, a lot of the first things that came back in results were very negative towards dairy farmers, milk and milk products. There were horrible claims about poison, fat, cholesterol and death by vegans with less education about nutrition or agriculture than a 2nd grader's afternoon at their grandparents' farm. For a long time milk has been linked to saturated fat and increased chance of heart disease, leading to death, but as it turns out, a lot of this data was pseudo-fabricated in a similar manner to the tobacco ads and endorsements of the same era. As it turns out, the foundational paper which correlated to saturated fat to death utilized less than 1/3 of available data which led to the desired results.

Yes, it is true that milk has saturated fat, but saturated fat is not bad for you. In fact, milk fat when provided on an equal basis has been shown to have similar or improved health effects in human patients. More importantly, fat intake is not related to heart disease so much as cholesterol. Well, it could be said that milk increases cholesterol, but it increases HDL cholesterol. So the ratio of HDL:total cholesterol actually improves, which has been shown to decrease risk of heart disease. And if all that isn't convincing to you that the milk fat argument isn't all the horror people play it to be, remember your chance of death is 100%, so do you really want to live life without milk?

Which one would you rather?

Milk does great things, such as strengthen your bones with increased calcium availability. It also provides a great source of healthy calories that are balanced in fat and protein. These are great for growing kids, and good in moderate doses in your adulthood, too. Now, people say that "full fat" milk is bad for you, but what you really don't realize is that even whole milk is only 4% total milk. Comparing this to 0.5% fat in skim milk, the difference is very small. And what are you replacing it with? Water. Why pay for more water when you could save money by consuming less pop and increase your healthy consumption of dairy calories instead with whole milk instead of skim?

If you don't want to drink milk, that's up to you - it leaves more for me. I also know that not everyone can drink milk due to allergies or enzyme inactivity. But don't go spreading lies about milk quality, milk safety or  the health aspects of milk fat consumption. I can tell you that I am at a healthy weight, a healthy fitness (mountain-biked 11 miles of advanced course in one sitting without training this weekend) and a healthy intellect. I drink milk and eat cheese and feel great. Have you got milk?

The heroes of the dairy industry: hard-working cows who love to get outside on their time off. Credit

Week 12 - Quiet

Thank God the elections are finally over. This has been the worst election season that I can remember. Rude debates, nasty negative adds, stupid people with overwhelming bumper stickers and billions of dollars spent it is finally over. John Stewart appropriately categorized how I felt in the week leading up to the election (click here) and now that it is gone, the stupid infomercials are a relief. While I had intended to delete everyone off of my Facebook who posted about politics in the "day after effect", I simply didn't have enough time to get rid of them, so I just got rid of the most caustic posts. To everyone who wants to move to Canada, knock yourself out, but isn't socialized medicine and liberal government what you claim to be running from?

I feel like the horses are still more effective in democracy than us.

The only candidates I really cared about were 50/50 with how I voted. Pat Tiberi was approved with a rousing 60+% and huge advantage over he opponent. However, Sherrod Brown beat the upstart due to an independent truck owner/operator getting 5% of the votes. Props to him, even though I'm stuck with Brown for a few more years. At least he pursued his political dream and even that small of a percentage is a huge win in the face of our stifling bipartisanism.

Contrary to the title of this post, my week was not actually very peaceful. Instead, I've found more stuff to do at work in the wake of reduced homework. This past week has been mostly absorbed in data interpretation and grant writing. Meanwhile, we are trying to figure out a method of sampling rumen fluid and silencing the reaction for storage and future analysis of dissolved hydrogen in the sample. As you can guess, increasing hydrogen by use of acid to silence the microbes is not my first choice since it will be more complicated. The longer I sit and work through it, grant writing is definitely an art. There are so many things to consider, such as the education and priorities of your audience, the comprehensive or limited review of literature, how specific the protocols need to be, and then how to describe the theory behind the hypothesis (which is hopefully stated very directly and clearly).

Two more pear wine bottles blew over the weekend while we were away in Louisville. I was pretty nervous to be away from home for a few days, but more so for another reason. Who knew that the wine would blow in the basement? No, I was worried because on Friday we got a call before lunch that someone had let our sheep loose at the house. If I could have caught them, there would be hell to pay. Instead, my wife had to go home from work and catch the sheep to get them back into the pen. I had to run over to Lowe's and buy heavy duty chain and locks just to keep assholes from driving onto my property and letting my sheep loose to be hit by cars on the busy road. How ridiculous is that?

All things tallied, our family did pretty well down at NAILE in Louisville. Besides having a good time and avoiding conflict at the end of a 16-hour show day, my brother and sister each placed 6th nationally in separate classes for Shropshire ewe lambs that were bred and raised on our own farm. This is really exciting to me and I can't wait for us to be raising our own little lambs on the new place. What a great environment this will be to raise our own kids amidst.

While trolling around the internet this week, I stumbled on a decent whiskey review site that I want to endorse. I'm not sure that there isn't a partial bias to different segments of the whiskey consumption demographics, or that average scores reported for whiskeys might not always be as telling as the means, but I am recommending that before you buy a whiskey you should look it up on here. Very thorough and it has great potential for the future. Take this link to the example review of Johnny Walker Red. For what it's worth, I thought this whiskey was the devil's making before I read the reviews. I can't conjure up a single good night related to that damn crap, including my fifth that we backpacked around Ireland back in 2008.

Something fun that I learned this past week in class. Eicosanoids are a type of fatty acid with 20 carbons and varying levels of saturation. These can be turned into many types of hormones in the body. Well, arachidonic acid (C20:4) is present in the membranes of human tissue. When we are exposed to tissue damage, arachidonic acid is dislocated from the membrane and falls into one of a few signaling pathways. Based on the extent of damage, other signals flowing through the cellular area, and extent of oxygenation, the arichidonic acid can be used to signal for swelling to limit blood flow (vasoconstriction), formation of blood clots, signalling for inflammation or communication of pain to the brain. All of this from little fatty acids in the membrane. All of this is programmed to happen and does on its own. The body isn't thinking on the spot but is prepared ahead of time to behave in this way. Absolutely fascinating. What a wonderful world we have around us.

Week 11 - Halloween

In absolute contrast to last week, this week was much simpler and straightforward. I spent all of my free time counting down the days until political season was over and praying we could really get a break from all the rhetoric. We got visited by a con artist who was probably trying to rob the house. Luckily, I was late at home working on data management from some projects and so I encountered him in our driveway. He messed with the wrong guy. The real cap on the week was Sunday night when my family moved over 7 sheep to our place to start grazing down the weeds and tall grass before it is destroyed by winter.

Over the weekend, Illinois came into town and was solidly thrashed by a 10-0 Buckeye team. As always, we went to the game and had a great lunch beforehand, and as always, we stayed until the Carmen was sung at the end. This didn't stop people from leaving ahead of us and traffic was actually pretty light on the way home. Most notable of all was the scoreboard. This past year our school's leaders decided to purchase a new scoreboard with $7 million in donations from the public. This is all good and well but the scoreboard was spazzing out when we walked into 30 minutes prior to game time. The situation worsened as we had no announcer for the marching band entry, recognition of veterans, singing of the national anthem or recognition of the F-18 flyover. At the start of the game, the board was flashing the BSOD and I was betting on no score the entire time. However, with 11 and change left in the 1st quarter, the scoreboard and announcer were finally fired up, to cheering and applause of the crowd. That's a new one.

Blacked out scoreboard at Illini game.

Prior to going down to the game, my wife and I overhauled our house since it's been a few weeks since we last cleaned it. This included sweeping, vacuuming, washing bathrooms, mopping floors, folding laundry, doing dishes, putting away belongings, etc. The house was in great shape when we left, minus one failure on my part. I tried my best to unclog our upstairs bathroom drain, but the masses I removed with a wire coat hanger were not enough. Next step is some hardcore Drain-o, before resigning to having to purchase a new product. I really don't want to cut into the wall and disassemble the drain. I do all the practical thinking at work and by the time I get home I'm pretty burned out on hands-on thinking. I just wanna go outside and chop up trees.

Friday was our graduate student chili cook-off and while I didn't win, I did make a pretty fantastic chili with a little kick to it.  Ingredient list was simple: 1 lb breakfast sausage, 32 oz. kidney beans, 32 oz. black beans, 32 oz. diced tomatoes, 2 splashes of Frank's Red Hot, 3 habanero peppers, 3 teaspoons of chili powder, 1 Bud Light, and 8 oz. tomato paste. Recipe was even easier: 1) Cook sausage and drain grease, add to pot. Add everything else to pot. Slice habanero peppers from top to bottom to allow juices out, cook in pot and leave in to serve. Total cost of the chili would be a bout $10 and it serves a hungry family. One thing that I have decided is an absolute necessity though is a slow-cooker liner. This saves so much time and money; my wife is my hero for buying them.

I think the habaneros scared away voters.

My wife and I's pumpkins this year. Mine is on the right.

Halloween was of course this past Wednesday and we again had no trick-or-treaters, although we did carve pumpkins together and put a shirt on the dog. I hope this isn't a permanent trend. It's unfortunate that we don't live in a development but we live across the street from one, so I hoped we would have some kids drop in. Even when we lived in our apartment complex we didn't get any takers. I'm still trying to see where we fit into the holiday these days. When I was younger, our parents made sure to dress us up and get us out around our neighborhood. I was often Davy Crockett, once a dinosaur, once a cheetah, etc. My parents helped make the costumes and you'll have to take my word for them being awesome because this was back in the pre-digital days before we could document everything like we do now.  Then in highschool we blew off costumes to hang out and carve pumpkins. College was a time to dress up, get drunk and get laid. Unfortunately, my process often ran in reverse and ended with very disjointed costumes (a few of which I will share below). When I was into a serious relationship, our costumes got progressively better but then we lost the excitement of going out. For a couple years now we've just been dressing up the dog and carving pumpkins but it feels like the holiday has died for us a bit. It has so much less allure when you don't have kids to dress up but you're too old to go out yourselves.

2006. I thought I left the dorm wearing a costume. Turned out I only brought a sword.

2007. Me cheating and dressed up as a cowboy.

2007. Nobody knows who the guy in blue was. That was a rough night.

2007. Only photo to document why you don't cross-dress for Halloween - too much friendly fire.

2008. Lots of time at the bar, but only 1 pic with costumes. Halloween bowling.

2009. Halloween in Flint. Year Boondock Saints II released.

2009. Best group costume ever.

2010. Elven warrior on right. Face-off with Leonidas.

2012. Our older years have brought along dog costumes instead. Redneck Betsy.

It's weird being stuck in the middle like that but this is exactly how I feel at work as well. I'm still working on trying to break free and take responsibility for my own thoughts. I'm used to being able to check in with someone and see what they think about my research, but in your doctorate work with my advisor, you're supposed to cut loose and lead yourself while using him as more of a reference. After being checked and pulled back so often during a master's project, it's hard to get in this habit of leading and answering your own curiosity.

Week 10 - Fall

I kept saving this post title until the week that I thought it was appropriate. Well, if there was a fall week this year, this was it. The weather was really hot through the Indian summer part of the early week and then snapped down to the 50s with some clear skies and heavy dews. Needless to say, this was a weekend of great yardwork that I owe thanks to Chris for helping me with. We dug up an 8' birch tree and transplanted it to the pasture. Chris also burned up a lot of the scrap hedgeapple from behind the house and the concrete pad is much cleaner now. Earlier this week, my wife and I moved a lot of the leaves out of the hard. Unfortunately, this is a failing endeavor as each time we finished, we awoke to a fresh carpet of brown and yellow. She is considerably more adept with the leaf blower than I am, so we ended up in a job pattern where I would rake up piles of leaves and move them to a giant collection in the pasture while she would blow another section into a pile. All in all, the outside looks better than it did last week but, as always, there is still so much to go. The fence is done so the rush is now on to get some sheep out to graze before the grass is completely dead.

The birch tree in its new location.

Betsy is also very excited about this weather.

My Spartans pulled off an OT win this week and while the odds are against them, they can still salvage their season with some limited honor. As Dantonio said, "We're just playing one game at a time." That's really all they can do. Meanwhile, OSU has finally dominated up to the top after a rousing defeat of Penn State.

My hard cider bubbling up beside the newly bottled pear wine.

On Sunday night we bottled the pear wine and then early this week we transferred over the hard cider. I have to say that the cider looks fantastic. It was alive and very bubbly when we made the transfer and foaming in the new glass container. It is probably the first time that I've made the transfer this early and on time, and I can tell that we are definitely doing things right. The pear wine tastes really good, with some bubbles and a bit of sweet to it. Hopefully as it ages it will only get better. Based on the sugar content, I still have some concern of corks blowing out down the road but there is only one way to find out. I'm not sure why I worry so much about the quality of my products... while doing some reading, I dug up this article of a guy who brewed beer with yeast living in his old beard. Gross!

My wife showed me how to slip political brochures into door handles.

Sunday morning we went out on the Pat Tiberi bus. Despite a pretty rainy and cold day with the Hurricane Sandy weather changes afoot, the Tiberi trip was a pretty good time. We met some people with mutual friends and also got to know a lot of close-minded, self-privileged whiners. Those people aside, we really enjoyed talking to Pat and it is really good to know that there is a politician out there still concerned with representing his people. Unfortunately, with all the weather, we didn't get to drop as much literature door-to-door as we had hoped, but I did learn quickly from my wife how to get the flyers folded and inserted in stormdoor handles in under 2 seconds. I learned a new skill from her this weekend.

That evening we went down to the wonderful zoo for their last night of Boo at the Zoo. It was cold and rainy as I had already mentioned, but that just kept us closer together as we walked around, ate free candy and looked for animals with a spark of energy. All the bears were asleep, as were the fish in the water. It's very fascinating to me to see outdoor fish so close to the glass and holding their position so steady in the water. Sometimes I wish that I could float so easily in the water and move so gracefully. We also saw the largest elephant in North America, Hank, and his lady friend and the baby elephant. The zoo has been working on their elephant breeding program, so he was just brought in to hopefully bring about another baby elephant. Speaking of babies, there were some baby bats hanging upside down in the Asia display. I'd never seen bats so small.

One of the fish sitting in the water.

Python at the Asia exhibit.

Hank the elephant (right).

Fall brings about such crisp weather which leads into the cold, wet nights. I love coming home and cuddling up on the couch next to my wife. In fact, that's where I'm headed off to right now. Have a good week!

Special Topic - Politics

With the elections just 8 days away, I thought I would share my brief summary of politics - what I think, why I care, and how I keep from going crazy. Regardless of your political party affiliations or religious background, I hope that you can appreciate my point of view and allow me to explain my background on the issues. I've spent my fair share of time around the world and it has opened my eyes to issues we have here in America and all of the possible solutions to them that we are too close minded and "bipartisan"to ever fix. Americans are burned out on politics and half of running for office has turned into dragging people to their precious liberty of actually casting a ballot. Damn are we ungrateful and lazy.

I should warn you that if Ron Paul was running in this election, I would vote for him. For those of you who left my blog because of that sentence, good riddance. It's your subjective type that keeps us in the fatal loop. It is frustrating to me that in today's America, to vote for any candidate except for one of the two who has a lot of campaign money, is to "waste your vote" as so many of my friends have told me. Instead, I prefer to look at which candidate best matches my views on the issues and vote for them. Thankfully, to make this easier my wife has dug up "isidewith.com". This website queries you on your views and then reports back your most aligned candidate. Mine was Gary Johnson. Who? Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately for the guy, his Libertarian party is not currently giving away signs for free so I won't be displaying one in the front yard, but he does have our votes.

So what causes all this political burnout? For me, it's the phone calls. Our house rings every night with misinformed Democratic telemarketers trying to force to see who we're voting for in Florida. Too bad we don't live there. And it's not just one party... the only reason the Republicans don't call me any more is because I told the last lady (3 weeks ago) that if they ever called me again I wouldn't vote for them. Coming from a registered Republican, that's saying a lot. And it's not just the phone calls. Negative TV and radio ads barrage my ears day and night. I fall asleep to it. I sit in traffic jams with it. I watch comedy shows which won't even leave politics alone. Trust me, there's not enough comedy in the world to glaze over a 75% negative presidential campaign ad season. This is ridiculous. Why can't we go back to the old days where people debated on the issues and voters used their brains to pick a candidate. Both parties and all their PAC cronies use so much propaganda you would think we were the Slavs during the Cold War.

To avoid the political burnout, I decided to try something new this year. I signed my wife and I up for a bus tour with the only political candidate that we like: Pat Tiberi. Pat is one of the true representatives out there. Like the good old days, he truly believes in representing his district in DC. He testifies on our behalf and uses personal from his constituents in every issue he discusses. He takes the time to connect with the people in his district and learn what is really important to them. This is why his re-election is really not in doubt, and also why I volunteered my wife and I to go out this past weekend and walk around on his behalf. I just wish that more politicians would take more time to know and represent their people rather than their sponsors. It's because of this that I often debate running for office. I have a respect for those true servants of the people, the ones who give up their livelihoods to represent the unrepresented in our capitals and legislative bodies. I'm not sure I could ever give up that much time myself. But on the flipside, I am so sick of being forgotten and ignored, while fought over and patronized. I just want a break from all of this and I'm not sure how we'll ever get one unless someone like me stands up and takes the initiative.

So here's what I would do if I could be the one in charge...

First off, we need to make better use of our prisoners. I'm morally against the death penalty (it's also a cheap way out), but life in prison is way too good to people. We need to threaten them with real work for the rest of their lives. There are plenty of jobs out there that we can put people to that they would be able to perform without danger to the community while at least paying for their room and board with the government. Along these same lines, I believe that if we're going to hand out welfare checks anyhow, we might as well pay people to perform a job for the government and increase government or civil service contributions with the money that we're giving away. And IDs should be issued for food handouts. People should be more restricted on what they can get with taxpayer money. If I'm paying for someone else's dinner, I at least want to know that they are getting appropriate nutrition with it so that I also won't have to be paying for their healthcare.

Second, with foreign policy, we can stay the course. Foreign occupation is unnecessary and a long-term problem for us. Instead, we should be tactical with handling of those who are wrongdoers while limiting our time spent in foreign countries. I wouldn't want police patroling outside my house every night just because there's one bad guy who likes to speed past there once a week. I think it's the same with military occupation of other countries. We can deal with dangers to our country while not forcing ourselves upon the people. It's no wonder that they're tired of having us there. If we moved faster and stronger we wouldn't be taken for granted by our allies and we wouldn't be taken as pricks by civilians in aggressor countries.

Third is taxes. I'm so sick of hearing about taxing them or taxing me. Everyone should pay taxes. Self-employment opportunities don't pay taxes well. To fix this, let's try random audits of self-employment filings. If everyone pays the same percentage of taxes, I'm fine with that. This is the land of opportunity, not the land of get whatever you want until you make $100,000. And since I'm headed that way, what about education? I don't think we have a problem with enough people going to college. No, I think we have a problem with enough quality people going to college. Trust me, I've seen them in the classes I TA. What we need to do is invest our loan support money into grade schools instead. If we can build up education at this level, we can increase intellectual growth in our students through highschool. If they learn in highschool what people used to learn in highschool, the diploma would again have the value that we have inflated to a community college degree now. Rather than inflate education, I would prefer to decrease our educational statistics and instead increase the quality of education provided to kids.

People tell me that things are just not that simple. Well, I have trouble believing that. We've made things far too difficult for ourselves and if we don't snap out of it, America will be outsourcing our Obamacare medicine to China and then paying interest on it via imaginary monopoly cash from a couch at a European McDonald's where we reside on disability. People need to stop complaining about how hard everything is and get back to work on making things better. Who cares if it doesn't go perfectly as planned? If we don't try to fix things we know what the end result will look like.

Week 9 - Herefords

There's a lot of headliners from this past super busy week, but the biggest one I will have to keep secret for just a little while longer. I know that I didn't come across excited, but mostly because it scares me shitless and the excitement is still struggling to overcome the gut-bottom feeling of "Oh Shit".

The time has literally flown by and I feel like I can't get near enough done. My hydrogen measurements are finally starting to run smoothly and the machine is more responsive. I've got a system down which can pump out data and save me time. We still don't know what units are really being reported, but that's an after-the-fact problem, right? I also bottled the pear wine this past weekend with my wife's help and apart from being a little sugary, I think it should be just fine. Hopefully the sugar fermentation after the sealing doesn't lead to a bunch of blown tops, but the stuff looks good and tastes pretty good as well. For those of you out there who are wondering, you can use corks in standard liquor bottles - they have the same aperture as standard wine bottles. We finished our first puzzle together, and I have learned just how much she loves puzzles.

Our first puzzle together. As it turns out, my wife LOVES puzzles.

Wednesday was the OSU Horse Judging Team's debut back into judging. Although we fielded some kids last year, this was the first year with a team and I'm really proud of the kids. I help with the team from a reasons standpoint and was glad to see a couple kids place in reasons with all sets over the average for the contest. Congratulations to the team for placing 10th overall and this is only the start. You can check out a press release here.


Friday night, we camped out at the family farm. With the wind and cold, and rain, it was a pretty rough night. We ran around shooting each other with tactical airsoft in the dark and my older brother ran through a fence we never knew was out there. Dad tried a new method to keep us all dry this year with a tarp stretched over the ground rather than a tent set up. Cold, but moderately dry given the rainstorm. As always, the fire-cooked breakfast in a Dutch oven makes everything worth it. This weekend was truly a food weekend, as we went to Schmidt's on Sunday night to celebrate my sister's and my birthdays.

Celebrating as Scmidt's like we did in the old days.

No, the main announced headline is the sadness up in East Lansing from this past week - the End of a Legacy sale. In the ultimate wisdom of administrative staff as MSU, the Hereford (pronounced Her-fird, unless you're from the shire of origin in the U.K.) herd was determined to be no longer essential to the university. Now, the MSU Herefords have a long history of greatness in shows across the United States and beef cattle greats like Dr. David Hawkins (and OSU grad) have helped develop a strong genetic pool which has led the breed for decades. Certainly, it was a sad day when we all had to say farewell to the bulk of the herd as they were dispersed this past week. I have fond memories of watching the show out at Kansas City in '07 and showing Herefords at the Little I in '07 and '08. I only hope that these actions can help save the Ag programs at MSU and continue the prestige of the academics and experiences at my alma mater. Click here for a reflection on the meaning and impact of the sale.

Me and 2 of my best friends at the 2007 Little International.

MSU Block & Bridle Club with award-winning Hereford Heifer at the 2007 American Royal.

This past weekend was also notable due to 2 B1G football games. Ohio State pulled off an OT win that was absolutely fantastic and had the campus rocking. With the cold weather and an exhausting overnight campout the previous evening (Redneckness at its best), it was nice to sit on the couch and watch the game. Unfortunately, my Spartans lost the big game of the year to those damn Wolverines up north in the Whore.. Which leads to the joke I heard on the radio with a new WNCI parody: "Why do they throw a sack of manure at a UM wedding? To keep the flies off the bride." No love for that team and school's haughty attitudes towards the "lower callings".

In class we were talking the past week about energy expenditures during walking or running. As it turns out, a human will spend more energy walking at 5 mph than jogging, regardless of how slow the jog actually is. Here all this time I've been thinking that Olympic speedwalking isn't a real sport (and perhaps it still isn't) but in reality, the physical exertion is probably greater than those people running some of the longer races. That's amazing. We also learned about the genetic propensity for obesity which I have been fighting for a long time, but it turns out that from the standpoint of heritable energy storage and probability for increased or decreased PPAR expression, there is some fact behind the myth of genetic obesity. Unfortunately, that's not true for me - but I've committed to losing about 35 pounds and this time it's going down. I'll keep you posted - it won't be easy.

My inspiration for today comes from a microbiologist's art. This guy used his knowledge of bacteria to create beautiful art. The method can be more accurately described here, but briefly... The guy took bacteria of different colors and grew them. Then he used a negative plate to block the potential living cells for color on the "print", while killing the exposed cells with UV rays. Then he sealed the "print". I've included a photo below. Again, very awesome and innovative!

Image created with bacteria. How cool is that? Credit

Week 8 - Fences

The day has finally come when our fence is being put in. I was taking my good old time with the trees until the middle of last week when I came home to a bulldozer and trailer with fenceposts parked behind the house. Excitement mixed with anxiety as I realized that I still had a bunch of trees which needed to be taken down. I started chopping away like a madman, going all Gears of War as I curbstomped branches off the downed trees rather than taking the time to cut them neatly. Good news is that it's the start of a new week and all the necessary trees are down. As it turns out, they didn't quite have enough posts to do the job and they were held up before starting.

That's where the moral of this story comes in - always make sure that you have communicated everything 3-4 times to a contractor before you commit to a project. When the guy came out, my wife talked to him while I paced off the property with his assistant to get a quote, etc. Despite clearly pacing off corners and discussing gate locations, when the contractor returned 2 months later (despite a 2 week promised turnaround), he was unsure of the actual location of the fence. Worse so, he was pretty sure of the location and his idea of where it belonged was incorrect. I stuck around the following morning to wait for him and walk the line, and it was a good thing I did. Otherwise we would have all been disappointed by how much he had accomplished when I got home from work. However, problem is solved and I have clarified the pathway of the fence. They are working on it as we speak (I hope, finally not rainy today) and we should be able to start moving animals in this weekend. I'm very excited to have animals around again, they make me more relaxed and cheery.

The moral of the story coming so early in the post, you can guess that it's been a pretty simple week. Dad was right, chopping down trees  really is an equation of 1 hour of chainsaw to 10 hours of clean-up. There is so much crap around the place now, but that means we get to have a few bonfires and the weather is so perfect for it right now. Cool crisp mornings, sunny days which just barely ease the nip in the wind, and dewey, damp evenings with dark silence of approaching winter. I love me some October!

In other news, the phone that I dropped last week in a toilet is cleaned and finally dried enough to be working again. Lesson has been learned; add "Don't text while peeing" to "Don't call someone in the shower" "Don't text in the shower" "Don't call in the rain" "Don't text in the rain" and "Don't leave your phone near the dishes". Needless to say, I think I've learned all these great (and no-brainer) lessons with cheap phones, but I'm finally ready to stop neglecting the value of the phone and upgrade to the new generation. It's time to get a smartphone. My plan comes for upgrade this November, so I'm starting to count down the days until I can check my email when I receive it rather than be the one guy at the meeting who didn't know the meeting was cancelled.

My Spartans lost again this week and they've officially blown it. As long as they win out from here, they still have a good chance to go to the Rose Bowl, given that the Leaders Division player will likely be 3rd best and that Iowa still has to play Michigan. All pressure is now on the MSU vs scUM football game this Saturday at 3.30 and I am so excited. If nothing else comes to fruition this year, I can still gloat in a 5th straight win against the other guys down in the whore, something that's never been done before.  Speaking of football, my fantasy team continues to be blown out of the water by everyone else in my league. I'm living proof that the automated draft can kick your ass clean back to the stone age. There is just no way to trade yourself out of the black hole.

Friday night, my in-laws treated us to a night of beer tasting here on campus. It was a very relaxing way to end the week, and as always, the barrel aged beer was my personal favorite. We had a good time of food and fellowship for a couple of hours and tried probably 10 different beers, including a probiotic, gluten-free mango tea beer which tasted pretty good in all honesty. The cranberry cider was awesome too, as was the Belgian blonde imitation. The Belgian-style takes me back to the first few weeks in the Netherlands when I was hooked on that type of beer. We hit it pretty hard in Leuven when we went down there - but a story for a different day.

I might have created a monster in my sister with Gears of War. I don't play a whole lot, but I would consider myself to be pretty good at the game. I have great statistics and those can't lie when you play by yourself against the computer. I don't have a current Xbox Live subscription, but I regularly tear it up and the computer is pretty vicious towards me at this point. Well, I introduced my sister to the game and all of her pent up violence came out very quickly. Next thing I knew, she was lighting up waves of drones on fire (pure luck) which egged her on to running out into the open field and I was obligated to follow her. She sure knows how to keep things exciting, but at the end of the game I found her trying to keep on playing. If she fails out of undergrad now I will personally blame myself.

This is essentially how she looked during the whole game. Convincingly dangerous but unpredictable.

I'm headed off to the lab until next week. My method of measuring hydrogen continues to over-saturate the machine, blocking measurements for 24 hours, and I continue to get aggravated about it. Here's to hoping this week brings some real results which can at least be read.

Week 7 - Hedgeapple

The biggest highlight of this past week? We dropped a tree on our house. For those of you city slickers, dropping trees is slang for cutting them down. For those of you who are wondering how I manage to drop one on my own house - it's really easier than you think. Let me explain.

When we first looked at our house back in February, we were blown away by all of the tree cover around the place. Trees do great things for houses, such as decreasing heating bill, shading our grass so that it survived further through this summer's drought, bringing in lots of critters close to the house and generally beautifying the area. Unfortunately, having trees also means lots of leaves (why I don't need a gym membership in the fall), branches falling in storms (last week of June - perfect example), lots of spiders around the house (no idea why, but I hate it just the same), and lastly, risk of damage from falling trees. You see, as trees get older, they might not have grown down the straight path in their youth (how many of us do?), so the weight of all the mature branches continues to tilt them exactly where you don't want them to go, like a drunk tripping towards High St. This was the case of a Hedgeapple tree leaning over the garage when we moved in.

Betsy staring into the wind with her ears blown back.

All summer, I'd look out the back and say it needed to go, but I kept putting it off. Finally, on Friday night, after another beautiful (yet windy) walk on the dam with the dog, I convinced my wife to help me get the tree down before dinner. I wanted to spend the weekend dropping trees at risk to our new fence (coming soon) and figured I'd start with the tree on the property that made me the most nervous. If you aren't aware of Hedgeapple trees, they're really quite friendly. The wood is so dense that it causes chainsaws to spark and burns so hot you can't get close enough to enjoy. It is popular for fenceposts because it never rots or bows because it is so freaking strong. Oh, and did I mention the 2-inch thorns which are a guaranteed infection if poked by one? Lovely tree. Only good thing is that the fruit seems to scare off spiders in houses, even though spiders love to live in trees. It's the ultimate Halloween tree.


Everything was going fine through the first drop. The tree had grown in 2 halves, both of which has curved along the house and were leaning over the house. An additional concern was the power lines which ran to the house across the more logical falling path, so we used a rope to pull the trees in the opposite direction - towards a chain-link fence that we're pretty ambivalent about. First half down, and I am cutting through the second half, sparks flying, when the tree starts to go the wrong way. Mind you, we have cut a wedge to gently remind it where to go, but when I cut, it was so heavy on the one side that it pulled my wife off the rope pulley system she had set up and pinched my saw. Both of us were then frantically pulling on this rope to prevent it from falling on the house. The only thing we accomplished was reducing the momentum. It was getting dark, and we had dropped a tree on our garage.

The rest of the story is really pretty boring. I went up on the roof with the only other cutting tool I had, a Coleman camping hatchet, and cussed and chopped the ever-living $#!? out of the thing. I don't have a good relationship with the tree, given many previous encounters resulting in infections, etc., and I made sure the tree knew about it. A lot of hard work from the both of us and the tree was diced and off the house, with the chainsaw freed. It was only 8.30 pm. Thus began a weekend of heavy work and heavy caloric consumption resulting in 4 more trees down and diced. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have the rest done and the fence guy will have finally shown up. Once the wood is dried there will be one heck of a Halloween party at our place.

Only picture in the dark that I have to prove there really was a tree on our garage.

Firewood consuming the bulk of my weekend, I spent the rest of my time writing papers for classes this coming week. To be blunt though, with a second degree in the bag, I'm not spending a lot of time worrying about classes or grades anymore. Earlier in the week, my wife and I played some pretty comical tennis. Neither of us are especially good at the sport even though we're familiar with the concepts. I seemed to have perfected the lob, while she lays a good first serve. Other than that, we were shamefully terrible. Still, it's fun to get out and exercise, something we are trying to do more these days in an effort to lose weight (results still pending). This was the motivation for the walk Friday night over the dam as well. We saw a snake and lots of dog bags not cleaned up by their owners, and walked through a brisk wind which was putting up whitecaps on the reservoir.

My wife sent this to me, saying, "This is you". Everyone just has a different style of learning.

Close-up with camera-phone of baby snake on walk.

My birthday has officially come and passed now, with celebration on both sides of the family. Mine came over to the house Wednesday night to eat pizza and watch the Reds. We had a great time until I made the mistake of turning on the first presidential debate. My family has definitely split into many branches of political thought since I moved out of the house. We will not be talking politics again. Then on Saturday, we went out to my in-laws to pick pumpkins, eat chili and hang out. My Spartans barely pulled out a win against Indiana and made me further glad that I sold all of my tickets before the season got started. Huge thanks to the in-laws side of the family for getting me totally set up for wood season. A couple of axes, a maul, sledgehammer and 2 wedges will all be broke in this fall as we cut our first firewood together for the new house.

Every so often there comes a time where you owe an apology, but after giving it, you still don't feel better. I know I'm forgiven, but my heart still aches knowing what an ass I was and that I can't take the hurt away. This is even worse if the apology goes out to my wife. We've put each through it over the years, but this one was my turn I guess. Everyone is talking about the great football game and marching band performance (both were amazing on film), but we never got to see it and that is my fault. I feel so horrible. She lives for football season and I ruined the second biggest game of the year. I hope I never make her feel so unhappy again. I love her with all that I am, so desperately, and I hate knowing I ruined what should have been a really great day for her. It's a day that I'll never get back but I will use it to focus on being a better husband and a better best friend in the future. I love you.