Week 23 - Inverted

As I searched for a word to discuss my home life, I remembered a word I have heard often in the past couple of days when sampling rumen fluid from my fermenters. My treatments for methane mitigation were highly successful this week, and validified previous research done in the Netherlands. However, out of nowhere, my control fermenter crashed and burned, and when we sampled the populations the microscopic view represented a Cartoon Network barren wasteland. Rather than a roadrunner "meep-meeping" across the screen, I could only find dead protozoa and no movement from bacterial or fungal colonies. All dead. As it turns out, there were a few living members of the population hiding in the fiber, but I had not gotten them inverted well enough out of the end of the tube. I needed to do a better job of turning their world upside down and back again, in order to get some in the view of my sampling. Still, #2 is definitely dead.

This is how my fermenter population left me feeling. Credit.

My whole methodical world took a somersault on Tuesday morning when we work up to get ready for work. Usually, my wife hits the shower first, and then I come in and use the restroom. Well, when I flushed the toilet, it was a total no-go. No water flowing, so I promptly asked my wife what she did to the toilet to stop it from flushing. After escalations of blame, including a posit that Betsy could have turned off the water under the bowl, we agreed the pipes were frozen. It hadn't occurred to me before, but the NW corner of our upstairs is exposed to the wind and inconveniently is also our bathroom. The sinks and toilet are on outside walls, and with the subzero windchills, the pipes had finally succumbed to the inevitable.

Thawing the pipes out became a 2-day adventure, to where we finally had the bathroom up shy of 90*F, and it was horrible to try and sleep in the climate. Even Betsy had trouble sleeping with all the heat going on. On day 2, we woke up to water running, and dripping from the sink we had left on. Late that day, my wife texted me to tell me the toilet bowl was finally filling, and I thought the week was finally turning up.

Warmer weather (in the 20s) brought on a sudden snow flurry for about an hour on Friday. Hearing a prediction for snow and knowing that the crazy caps would be worn in full swing by local drivers, I tried to stay home a bit longer to give people time to clear out. No such luck. ODOT absolutely failed to clear the roads or prepare for the weather (and once the roads were locked, no way to clear with a plow anymore anyhow). It took me 45 minutes to go 1.5 miles to the highway and a grand total of 2 hours to get to work. En route I was hit while changing lanes. Out of nowhere when I was merging over to exit, the car far back in my rearview mirror came flying up and hit me in the lane. The contention over whose fault it is will probably lead to me being blamed, but I am still furious over being accused of causing an accident when I was going the speed of traffic and behaving civil given the terrible driving around me, while the student who hit me because he was well over a reasonable speed given all the sliding obstacles in his path. I dislike liars.

View from where I was sidelined by an idiot. Roads only bad because of the drivers.

Our Animal Sciences basketball team lost the first game of the IM season 33-31. I have to say that I was pretty tired early on in the game and feel as responsible as any for the loss. Some of our players came up with great play through the game to keep it close and I wish we could have turned in a win. Next game is Thursday, and we have been practicing some passing and more organization. Hopefully this comes in handy.

Keeping on the lines of inverted, something happened this week which I never would have anticipated. I was playing dance music for us to slow dance to in the kitchen, when Eminem's "Cinderella Man" came on. If you had asked me the odds of seeing my wife dancing to Eminem in our kitchen, 5 months pregnant, I would have told you "next to none". Fascinating turn of events my world has taken as of late.

Finally, I want to urge anyone who reads this soon to go and see "Les Miserables". The movie was a cinematic masterpiece full of emotional ups and downs, moral dilemma and decent singing. Having never read the book or seen previous play, I cannot compare it to other works. What I can say is that the movie made me think and feel, and took me on an adventure through the gutters of Paris during political and moral instability. I loved it.

Week 22 - Help

It took a while, but the wintry cold finally found us here in the Midwest over the weekend and after a final week of mild temperatures, the biting cold is here at last. Stay tuned for next week as I elaborate about frozen pipes and the fun that has ensued, but this week will be a bit lighter, shorter and more positive.

This week I am thankful for some help around the house from my father-in-law who came out over the weekend to help us put up some flashing that came down during the big nor'easter. I had every intention of getting up and nailing it down and started up the ladder, but once up on the second story level of the ladder, I was immediately and brutally reminded of my fear of heights. It was all I could do to just hold the other end of the flashing up while he nailed, and I'm grateful for him for 2 reasons. First, he nailed up the flashing and helped us save time and money with either ourselves doing the repair or paying someone else. Second, unlike my wife, he didn't mock me for my fear of heights. I've done many crazy things in my day, so it's not fear for self-preservation so much as it is a strict fear of heights.

On Friday, I was also assisted by a fellow graduate student as I went out to the dairy to collect rumen fluid for some fermenter work I started over the weekend. For those of you who don't know, a while back some scientists figured out a way to surgically put a hole in the side of a cow at the nearest point to the rumen, and then insert a sterile plug which heals back with the cow. This allows us to open her up and reach in for samples for many different research projects and has led to much of what we know about dairy nutrition. Ultimately, these cows are ensured limited procedural pain because this is only done once and they luck out with a spoiled life for the rest of their days as the top dogs in the hierarchy of research cows. 

At our research farm, we have 7, and this past week we collected from #490. She is one of my favorite cows as she is so docile and friendly. She moves slowly and is always calm, and she responds well to calm people around her as well. The sampling was done very quickly and I was able to get her sealed back and off on her merry way in only 30 minutes (the whole time they are open, the cows just look around or chew their cud as if nothing is going on, quite interesting). All told, we sample a few liters of rumen fluid from her massive capacity, and took this back to the lab where I separated it out into 4 fermenters. These are now running and we feed them and insert buffer (like cow saliva) to mimic the environment that rumen microbes would experience in the cow. It isn't perfect, but it's a lot more effective than wasting time and money guessing what goes on in the cow, and we've set the system to provide as similar environment for microbes as we can do, while still keeping all factors controlled.

A picture of the fermenters up and running.

Short post this week, but that's because this week I'm actually hard at work. Nothing feels better than a productive week.

And don't you forget it!

Week 21 - Copasetic

Trophy sponsors with our National Championship 4-H Skillathon Team.

I'm pretty happy to say that I have a great relationship with my mother-in-law. Since the beginning we have gotten along very well, since we have similar interests and work in the same department. It's always been a bit easy for me compared to most because my mother-in-law was my coach long before I ever dated her daughter. Every so often down here on campus, she takes me out to lunch and we get to talk, which I enjoy a lot because I always learn something new. Well, a couple weeks ago, it was the word "copasetic". If you look it up online, the definition is that "all is well". Unknown origin from the mid-1900s, so some lucky fool got to make it up, and in my opinion it likely came back to the U.S. from World War I when we were interacting with some many Eastern Europeans, which based on previous spelling (kopasetik) is likely the true origin of the word.

Well, my past week has been a flurry of work and downtime filled by exercise (our IM basketball team was schooled yesterday and I've been trying to get into better shape), but our home is truly copasetic. My wife has been feeling better than before, although still plagued by occasional nausea and backaches. I cleaned up some brush piles, got down the Christmas lights, chopped up some of the wood in the sidelot, and we've generally been getting things done. We traveled to a redneck highlight, the WV Cabela's, watched a friend play NAIA basketball (sub D-level), and my wife had a work year-end party.

Ohio Wesley University women defeated Denison this week.

The view upon entering Cabela's in West Virginia.

Elephants inspire so much awe, I don't think I could ever shoot one.

These stuffed animals look just as if they're alive again.

Meanwhile, on the work front, we have a lot to get done, and I even sorted cows for an ongoing trial on Sunday morning before mass, but this is more the calm before the storm. I am waiting on parts to be delivered before I act on project plans that we have. While I wait, I am reading and drafting manuscripts, and writing up protocols and plans. It's hard to focus on this stuff as it requires you to stop and think about what you're writing - and then next thing I know I'm looking up Arizona's basketball schedule and wondering how long it will be before they fall out of the top 25.

Thought I would just share a little video clip exemplifying the home front. She even saw this ad and laughed about how that was how she felt a lot.

 

The beginning of the year always seems to bring on a lot of news as people wake from the end-of-year slumber. Last week was no exception, but I thought I would share a things that just make you stop and shake your head about the world we live in. Regardless of the poor survey tactics and statistics reporting methods, it is still hilarious that lice and Nickelback were found to be more popular than U.S. congress. And who is surprised (except about Nickelback...)? Pundits galore had their way with the idea of a platinum coin; the mere fact that this came up in discussion aggravates me. I have to pay my bills every month, which are close with a miniscule grad stipend, (now smaller by an increased tax which still didn't fix the budget) but Congress thinks they can get payraises and fail to balance the budget repeatedly? Brent Musburger made no friends with his crude comments towards "Miss Alabama", but she didn't seem to mind too much. Personally, I was surprised he didn't get delayed out - his mistake but ESPN let it roll and they ran the camera on her that long to prompt his discussion in the first place.

With all of the recent tragedies bringing on an inevitable gun regulation smack-down that the NRA and right-wing tea party can't hold back, my wife and I, and others around us have talked about gun classes or gun purchases before the apocalypse. We haven't acted on this yet, have enough weaponry in the house, but I do want to comment on this past week's episode of New Girl. We got hooked on the show last season because it was absolutely hilarious, but over time, the humor has led to a long-term plot, and unlike the good old "friends living together having fun" shows, this one does not look like it has the long-term viability based on the writing. And we were especially disappointed by the very poor display of firearm safety and joking associated with it this past week. Jess starts swinging around a shotgun (called a rifle in the show) and flags everyone around her before eventually pulling a half-assed shot which throws her back and hits the power transformer. Drunk college-aged kids playing with firearms is not a message that a TV show should be sending - then people wonder why kids have no respect for the danger that a firearm represents. That episode might just be enough for us to stop watching the show forever. I have known kids who died from firearms accidents, without the added factor of alcohol, and it is never as funny as FOX tried to portray it.

Contrary to the post, this Raleigh never was, and certainly isn't, a fine a racing bike.

My final thought is this. Craigslist is a great place to find all sorts of gems, make horrible life decisions, or get murdered. It is also home to some of the worst items for sale ever. You never know what you might find or get traded, so remember, sign nothing and don't give away your sperm. Other than that, everything's game and good luck!

Week 20 - Rubber

Well, week 20 has come and gone, and here we are in the new year. When it dawned on me that week 20 really had passed, I decided it might be good to look back at what I've actually accomplished towards my degree.  Hopefully I'm not just wasting months of my life doing miniscule busy-tasks around here, and worse yet I hope that when this is over my biggest accomplishment isn't this blog. No offense, but I am trying to get a Ph.D. here.

In August I started working with the fermenters. Tim in our lab, who behaves similarly to and intellectually rivals Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, calls the fermenters a "crying baby" for which there is always something wrong. I wish I could argue this but he is more experiences and more often right. In this case they have been troublesome at best, and I have been dodging from one dilemma to the next, until here I am 20 weeks later and I have a vague idea of the research I will do, but yet no capacity to complete it yet. Hopefully soon it will be as easy as popping pastries in the toaster but my current pursuit is a new set of rubber o-rings for the lids. So let me tell you what I've learned about rubber the past few days. So much time is spent on the methods to spend so few days doing actual research.

Rubber does not just refer to the original substance anymore, but within the industry can refer to many conglomerates of substances. There are probably a few hundred "rubber engineers" out there whose primary specialties is to figure out the next modification which can lead to new behavior qualities of the materials. And for this they deserve an award, for patience if for nothing else. For the debutant, I've included an informational link with Apple Rubber. This is a great page for getting you information on all the commercially available types of rubber materials, their weaknesses, strengths and common purposes. Very instructional. Then comes the sizing, as in my case I need an O-ring. Well, they have a sizing guide as well, and 35 pages of text for all available dimensions. Quite an adventure. And don't forget to over estimate the size of the ring, there's a good chance it might shrink just a bit. That's the part I'm currently nervous about, because my jar has an internal diameter of 115 mm from center to center of the ring. However, they need from inner edge to inner edge, and this is about... 110 mm. But then to undershoot a touch, I need 108 mm. I hope...

Betsy, cozy in front of the fire.

Betsy is cute as ever, and for official judgement, I submit exhibit 345: Betsy wrapped in a fleece by our crackling fire as she tries to stay warm. Yes, this picture was posed, but she loved every minute of it and really was laying down in front of the hearth. However, to make the picture more compelling, I needed those cute eyes looking up at the camera and her face more easily seen in front of the fireplace. I ask myself every day how someone could give her up twice. What a wonderful dog.

Greedy company of the week: Tompkins Rubber. If you google anything to do with rubber stoppers, or other lab equipment rubber parts, they have bought every rubber part ".com" there is. Funny, because their website is extremely unhelpful and pointless.

Word of the week: Speaking of pointless, the TORUS is a circle revolved in a circular pattern. Wikipedia is quite thorough: Torus. Fun shape, and at the top of my "must use" list for "Words with Friends".

Week 19 - Gift

I know I will sound cliche by saying this, but I love gift giving any time of the year. Of course, Christmas is a special time of the year to do this, and this year was no exception. We had a great Christmas and I just thought that this week I would take a few minutes to hit the highlights.

Probably the coolest gift idea this year was something my wife made for the women on her side of the family. She scanned in an old recipe from her grandma's great grandmother. The handwriting scanned in very legibly and had a classic old look to it. The she used a company which can print fabric patterns from any image and printed the recipe on fabric which she turned into kitchen towels. A little fun idea from Pinterest (I think) for anyone looking for ideas.

Both my wife and I set a budget each year for us for Christmas. I highly recommend this to any couple because it takes so much of the pressure off of the giving. Whether or not any of us will admit it, we either judge each other by how much we receive, or the other person in a relationship judges themselves based on how much they gave compared to us. Rather than play any of those games or allow someone to feel good or bad about how much we gave, we set a locked budget for how much can be spent on the significant other for Christmas (all bets are off for birthdays). Now granted, my wife is much more thrifty than I am, but it keeps on a level playing field with known expectations and prevents any of the spending drama that can come with Christmas, and doesn't belong in the holiday atmosphere. This worked very well when we were both dating long-distance in college, and so we've stuck with it through marriage, too. Someday when I'm out of college and have a job, we might change it up, she deserves a medal of honor for all of her work to support us through my schooling, but time will tell how that plays out.

A pair of boots disguised as a super lumpy package.

This year I had a very short list of things that I knew my wife wanted.  I hate being predictable, either by disguising presents or hitting the home run with an unexpected gift. However, this year there were specific needs and wants that we had with the new house, one of those being an under-the-counter radio/stereo for the kitchen. The purchase, broken part, return debacle and final installation are a story of hers, but the end game is that I did buy it for her, did plan on Sony having quality control issues and we did track down a replacement within a week and were able to jam out to Josh Groban and Lady Antebellum Christmas tracks during December.  Seeing the smile on her face and watching her dance through the kitchen while she waits on the oven to warm up was all the gift I needed for Christmas.

However, she always has a surprise up her sleeve. This year she started working on hunting down a kayak. I have wanted one for a long time and worked hard to convince her to buy 2 for us to go out on the water together. I knew she was up to something when she had me wake her up at midnight for a Black Friday sale item. However, when she couldn't get the free shipping (imagine no free shipping on a kayak? lol), she proclaimed, "Christmas is ruined!", with her worst pouty face and went back to bed. At this point, I assumed the kayak adventure was over. She then brought home something into the guest bedroom a few days later and told me until she had time to put it away, I couldn't go in there. Well, days turned to weeks, and I naturally assumed she was just lazy or busy and hadn't moved it, when in truth, the damn boat filled the whole room and she had nowhere else to put it or move it by herself. Imagine my surprise when she leads me up to the bedroom and opens the door where Brutus is scarfed up and sitting in this 10' yellow kayak. I have since hung the boat in the barn and started the long process of registering the boat with the DNR.

My wife and Betsy sitting in my new ride!

It may seem like a silly gift to many, but that boat represents my ability to escape to the water around the corner from us. From a young age, I was fascinated by Lewis and Clark, their daring into the unknown Louisiana Purchase and all of the wonders that they saw. I will probably never be an explorer like them, but the kid in my heart still wants to get out on the water and see what most people never will. I want to break the smooth edge of untouched water in the inlets of our lake. I want to silently stalk the Bald Eagles and Blue Herons who flee the first sound of a motor. I want to see the carp jump out of the water and I hope that they never flip my boat (since I can't swim). I am scared to death of unclear water, but this is my chance to beat it - to prove to myself that there is no monster and to open my eyes to the beauty of nature, unadultered by our numerous neighbors. This gift represents freedom and adventure, and I can't wait for this Spring.

We received many other gifts from both our families, gifts of enormous generosity dwarfed only by the gift of our Lord. I have been blessed by 2 great families, and wonderful friends, and I am grateful for you all. This break was exactly what I needed as we start looking forward to a very busy 2013.

The time has come to announce what I consider to be the greatest gift of 2012, even though it did not come at Christmas. Months ago, my wife met me at the garage door when I came home from basketball, standing there in sweatpants with a puzzled look on her face. I was talking to the dog who was diving in the trees, but I looked to her and knew she had something to tell me. Words that I hope I will remember for all time, "We're pregnant." I have been so excited to announce this for a long time now, but have been waiting until we've told everyone important to us. No offense to the few random readers who pay attention to this blog.

Betsy's reaction when we tried to shoot a Christmas announcement.

I have no idea what the year 2013 holds for us, but this much I know. In June, we are going to bring a new life into this world and being its father will probably be the greatest thing I ever do. While I'm nervous that I might screw up, I know that I will love this child with my whole heart and do my best to raise it as I see best. A whole new world is opening up ahead of us, and it is motivation to work hard through this PhD because there is now another life that will be counting on me. Farewell 2012, and welcome to 2013!

Week 18 - Wisdom

Solomon sought it, our parents instilled it, and this past week I lost it. That's right folks, I had my wisdom teeth taken out just before Christmas, and that will be the bulk of this post. As it turns out, there's not really a lot of stories out there about wisdom teeth surgeries that tell you how it really was. I was pretty nervous going into my surgery and hopefully this post can help someone else down the road be a little more comfortable with what is typically a very simple procedure.

My wisdom teeth story really starts back in middle school when I was scanned for braces work. My orthodontist tried to be proactive about having my teeth removed, but it wasn't until after the braces work was done that they were even in far enough to be eligible for removal. High school brings along many schedule conflicts, and so does 4 years away from home. Next thing I knew I was off my parental insurance and not about to spend money saved for whiskey on a surgery I kept hoping wouldn't need performed. Then I was married and we could justify the expense. However, my dentist and my wife kept after me and we were finally able to get it knocked out over this break.

To tell you what a schemer my wife is, she scheduled my teeth removal (with my approval, sadly) over the Christmas week so that "I wouldn't be able to get fat eating so much over the holidays". Nice lady, eh? Well, she was pretty nice, because she dedicated a lot of time and effort into taking care of my post-surgery and she deserves a lot of love and praise for that because I was neither a perfect patient nor was it on her top choice of things to do with her free time.

Despite some frustrating conflicts with Romney campaign traffic and a cancelled first consult appointment, we did finally get a consult in back just before the election. They took my weight, oxidation (which no nurse could explain how that measurement worked, they thought I wanted to just know what it meant), blood pressure, and then showed me a video to try and scare me about every possible accident that could happen which I was signing off on my ability to sue over. The paperwork out of the way, I walked out of the office with a prescription for generic Vicodin and no commitment to a surgery. And they wonder how kids get illegal prescription drugs! But in our case, we did follow up on the appointment and showed up bright and early on Thursday morning for what I perceived as my death sentence.

Now I should preface my fears by explaining that I am not afraid of pain. My first broken bone came at 5, and I never slowed down after that. Cuts, crashes, blood, brains and bone were the symbols of my toughness and superiority over my fragile peers. Pain scares me none, but the idea of passing away by accident while under anesthetic and never getting to say goodbye to the love of my life scared the everliving shit out of me, and no assurance of the irrationality of this image could soothe me. The day before the surgery I ate everything I wanted as if it would be my last meal, finishing with some Taco Bell after family choir practice (a different story for a different time).

Laughing gas is a joke, and not in a good way. I'm convinced after my surgery that this is just a ploy to make people feel better, because it has no effect on me except a headache and I wished they hadn't wasted our time with it. The nurse kept glancing at the other as if to ask if it was really working, and kept upping the dose. Nitrous oxide is a long name for "no air", and what it really does is thin out the oxygen supplied to you so that you get light-headed. I'm a pretty "big boy" as they put it later, and so I have a capacity to absorb large doses of things with limited effect. Such was the case with the gas until they upped to a quantity where I wanted to throw up. Since they actually didn't want me knocked out with it, they turned it off and I quickly started to feel better again. No worries.

Next we headed to the IV and sensors. They stuck the needle in just like a pro-nurse with the Red Cross and hit me with amnesiac so I wouldn't remember pre/post surgery fading (or so she said), and general anaesthetic. Again - it took me a while to go down. So we chatted about my work at OSU, my plans for eating when we got out and I joked with her about "carb-ing up" so that I wouldn't have to eat for days as I healed. Unfortunately, I didn't preface this joke with commentary on my field of study, so she took me quite seriously and proceeded to lecture me about the foolishness of that statement. We talked about this, and then I knew I was gonna go out. I closed my eyes, and woke up to the nurse and my wife talking to me.

Sadly, these are not mine. Credit to islandcrisis.

Despite my best pleading, I was unable to convince them to let me have my teeth. I'll probably be bitter about that for a while. I had her convinced to send them home with me, but my wife assured her we really didn't need them. Bummer. So I was wheeled closer to the door, and I walked with some help to the car. I saw double/triple for a couple hours, but it was nothing compared to my bar crawl of 2007 when East Lansing heard I died. In a couple hours it had worn off, and a nice nap and a bunch of blood-soaking gauze later, I started to improve. It probably took a day for the anesthetic to wear off, and so there were phases of dizziness and perfect clarity in random order. I won 27 levels of Gears 3 Horde by myself (yes, that really happened), and took some pills.

Me immediately following surgery. Luckily this was short-lasted.

Worst trouble I had was with the Vicodin. Unfortunately, I don't take that stuff too well, especially without some heavy food to absorb the damage and even out the breakdown. I couldn't consume enough food to buffer the pills and so I got pretty dizzy with the meds. But to be honest, the pain wasn't bad at all. After a day, I stopped taking the Vicodin and just took ibuprofen. It was enough to dull the pain in the jawbone, and the rest really didn't hurt at that point. Because my wife was very diligent about preventing me from doing early damage to their sutures, I healed very quickly and wasn't even swollen within 24-36 hours.

I waited to post this until after all the meds had finally cleared out, so I can say in post-script that in less than a week I was able to eat most soft foods and I owe a shout-out to a few great people. My wife is amazing, thanks to my little brother for visiting, and lastly, Ryan came to my rescue and played XBox with me when everyone else who said they might turned around and bailed. You guys are great! My 5 foods of choice were Guinness (after 2 days), Wendy's Frosty, applesauce, chocolate pudding, and the edible incredible egg. You all got me back on my feet quickly and I lost barely any time with this mess. I was able to enjoy the holidays and celebrate the time off with family.

Guinness is the solution for most everything! Me back in Dublin.

Moral of the story - this stuff is not nearly as bad as everyone makes it sound. Be careful and follow the doc's orders and all will end well with a little help from above.