Week 68 - Aurora

I have only seen the Aurora twice in my life. The first time I saw it was only briefly, with the sky turning shades of red over the dam near our house. Luckily, since we grew up near a state park, the encroaching urbanization didn't impair our experience of the outdoors. Our little farm life on the "compound" was rich in appreciation of animals, the soil beneath our feet and the beauty of nature. I was a either in 8th grade or freshman in highschool, headed back from a choir practice at church with my aunt, uncle and cousins. I hopped out at the barn and fed the rabbits and cattle before walking the path back to the house. And as I walked, I noticed that the sky seemed lighter than other times. At most, we might pick up the city Northwest of us, or directly South, but this color was shifting. Faint reds, a bit of green/yellow. And by the time I shared it with anyone it was almost gone. But my imagination had been captured by this improbable appearance. What a wonderful world it must be out there on the frozen tundra, when the sky breaks forth in color.

A couple years later, I was also walking back from the barn with my dad. Time with Dad was pretty hard to come by and almost always happened when we were working outside or in the barn. But as we walked and talked, that old lantern clanking against his leg and our stupid dog Jake twisting his leash all over the place in search of wildlife poop, we both noticed the change in color of the sky over the dam. This time, I wasn't alone, and we both just stopped and stared in awe at the shift in colors. I remember my giddy voice describing the color shifts out loud as if Dad wasn't standing right beside me. It was the first time he had seen them, and they were so much more vivid than before. We just stood there and watched, filling the silence with "Ooohs", "Ahhs" and "Wows", as if it were the 4th of July. Nature is full beautiful wonders if you will only take the time to appreciate them.

The Aurora will never be as awe-inspiring as it is nearer the Arctic Circle. Photo Credit

Well, it's prime time for an Aurora down here by us, but this week it was of a different variety - the rumen fluid kind. Before you get grossed out and stop reading, just take a moment to appreciate the art in this science. When we go out to the farm to collect rumen fluid, we have to hurry because the cold weather this time of year can kill the bugs. They prefer the temperature of the rumen (about 39C), and so we fill a cooler with heated water, this time of year about 43C, and head out to the farm. We catch the cow, coax her into a stall, open up the cannula and remove rumen digesta. This is squeezed through cheesecloth and exposed to oxygen (the microbes hate this!) and stored in bottles, in the warm water (which has cooled down to about 40C by now). We make sure to put all the digesta back since we only need the fluid, and then seal the cow up gently. Back in the lab only about 30 minutes from when we left, we mix these microbes with a buffer designed to limit pH fluctuation. In the cow, the saliva and feed would serve as the buffer, but we have to manufacture this in our culture environment. By the time all of this is done, you are generally hoping a critical process mistake wasn't made during the transfer, usually indicated by dying protozoa as they are more sensitive to pH, oxygen and temperature than many other microbial groups. Well, when the white film floats wispilly through the fermenter, you know that you have done it perfectly. This white trace is the protozoa swimming out along the edge of the fermenter and seeking the slower mixing where they can safely hide away from passing out until there is feed introduced into the fermenter. It is a very cool thing to see and always reminds me of the Aurora. This week as we started the CO35 period 3, we got to see great protozoa response at the beginning of the trial - so wonderful!

Not so wonderful was later on in the week when I had to reach in and adjust an infusion line. Unfortunately, any adjustments inside usually end with splashing of rumen fluid on the heating rod that we use to keep them warm. You don't want to walk into the lab and smell burning rumen fluid very many times in your life, so I took a video instead.

 

Other notable things that happened this week include my start on a proposal for a USDA grant. It would be a real honor to receive this grant, and my letter of intent is due next week. Since I've only just started on my literature review (up to 2 pages, lol), the letter was a real push for me to visualize what I wanted to accomplish with the rest of my time here as a PhD student. Quite a big thing to put together in such a short amount of time, but I have had my hands immersed in so much research over the past year that this letter is coming together pretty well. Unfortunately, it does mean long hours at work and less time with our beautiful daughter and my lovely wife. Flip-side? I got to see people skiing across my parking lot this week when we got hammered with surprise snow. You never quite know what you will see around here.

Hannah is actively rolling now, much to the dismay of her playmat.

We also sit up quite nicely. :)

And we have a newfound fascination with our hands.

Well, the long-prophesied conflict has finally come to play. My Spartans went undefeated in conference play nearly parallel to Ohio State. In what was always bound to be a crash collision, the best offense will play the best defense and I have tickets to the game. My wife volunteered to stay home with Hannah, probably just so she could finally break out the "Tressel sweater-vest" that we bought a couple years ago. It's good we didn't go to the game together, because it would have only been stressful for both of us. Instead, I took my brother, the trusty drinking buddy and responsible driver that I knew would get us both there and back with our sense of humor intact. We picked up my boss and his son, and made the trek to Indy across windswept and bare fields. Traffic wasn't really that bad and parking was pretty easy. But the bar scene was packed and it was nearly impossible to get food to eat. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that our friend Chris found a place and invited us out there, courtesy of social media and my urgent request for a warm place to sit, eat and drink. Nice place, but I won't tell you where it was since I don't want to give up the hideout for future years. Great food, decent service, nice pitchers - all courtesy of my boss/advisor in gratitude for the free ride. It is really awesome to have such a good relationship with my advisor through graduate school. I know what it feels like to have animosity with an advisor, and I can appreciate my current one so much more because I know how hard he works to guide me and make sure that grad school is fun, and doesn't always interfere with my family. It was a great trip, and a great win for a team that has been an underdog so long I didn't even believe this moment was possible.

Their team theme this year? "Chase it". I think we could all apply a little bit of that to our dreams.

Love me some barbeque and porter.

Feeling the beer, just trying to see how he would react. I think it shocked my advisor more.

Enemies by the rivalry, but friends and brothers at a great game.

Great seats, and a proud moment for the Spartans. First time since 1988 to go to the Rose Bowl. I almost cried.

Week 67 - Thanksgiving

Second period of our CO35 wrapped up the beginning of this week, and the main grad student decided he wanted to wait to continue until I was back, because I informed him I would not be working over Thanksgiving weekend. But we are halfway, without any losses!

Thanksgiving is a nice time to spend with family, and over the years has been one holiday that has never changed in value for me. Yet, too often I let the day pass by because I say that every day should be a day of thankfulness. In reality, it is not about being thankful on a specific day; Thanksgiving is about telling other people that you are thankful for them as blessings in your life. And it is the one day of the year where you know that those people you are grateful for are also going to take the time to relax and enjoy a day with you. Of course, the holiday gets all this flak about being a rush of shopping and dinner preparation, clouded by family disagreement and obnoxiously undisciplined children. We have to just draw the line, not get caught up in all of this and instead focus on the peace and laughter that comes from memories and time well-spent together. In the end, nobody cares if the damn turkey catches on fire - just don't steal my beer.

Well, this is the first Thanksgiving that I have not seen my family, and also the first Thanksgiving since my grandfather passed away. I think being at home would have been difficult and so that is why it was so easy for me to just up and leave to North Carolina for my wife's family get-together at a rented lakehouse. The weather not being perfect for lakehousing, we were looking at a lot of time indoors together, but I viewed it as a chance to let her family get to know Hannah better and to relax, drink beer and watch it all go by. My parents weren't thrilled that I was gone, but in the end I think they will understand. My older brother was fine with it; he was looking forward to interception-free catches as the sole big guy in a friendly football match.

It was a beautiful drive down, through some historic country. West Virginia and the Appalachians are still resistant to the urbanization of America. Here, you can drive the trails taken by Braddock during his invasion of the Ohio River Valley in the 1700s, and you can breathe in the same mountain air that Federal scouts breathed as they watched Jackson march his troops behind the mountainous cover in defense of Virginia in 1862. We drove by a shot tower, one of the only remaining, where molten lead was dropped hundreds of feet into the ground, to be recovered by an access point near the river level - the lead shaped into round shot by the resistance and gravity. History was all around us, and I could feel it. No week that starts with that kind of feeling can end poorly... it might have helped that this was the first time away from work (aside from the hospital for Hannah) that I had taken. Ever.

The shot tower in northern Virginia from the highway.

There was one slight hitch, and that happened in the mountains near the North Carolina border. Stop and go traffic, "more stop than go", I would later tell the patrol officer, and the guy behind me suddenly slams into my tail in the in-laws' new Toyota. I don't get into accidents with other vehicles (2 trees, 1 rock, 2 parked cars in driveways, sundry roadkill - but not vehicles on the road) and I was pretty mad, more frustrated by the fact that this was a new car, and it wasn't mine. Well, I turn on hazards and go to pull off to the right side of the road, but the SUV just keeps going down the road like nothing happened!!!  I was furious, and if he hadn't come across the road after I started gesturing and flashing my headlights/brights, there's no telling what I would've done. My bet is on running up and ripping him out of his driver's seat.

Anyhow, so we pull over, and come to show up is a 3rd guy. Turns out he was the instigator of the accident in the back and can't figure out how he didn't think to stop. Brake lights weren't a clue in for ya? Or maybe the traffic that wasn't moving? Well, the guy in the middle was from Michigan, and I'm betting he had insurance or accident reasons for wanting to leave. He didn't seem too comfortable, and the guy behind told him to just go since he was taking fault for the accident. And he gone. Then there was two of us. When the officer finally arrives (after we've changed a dirty diaper from Hannah - perfect timing), he proceeds to cite the guy behind me and then give us both a lecture about "keeping our eyes on the road". It's not nearly as funny without all the hand gestures and condescension that came with it, classic, and evidently stemming from his frustration with holiday traffic drivers. I don't blame him, but I do feel like he thought it was my fault for being in the way, when I obviously had enough distance between me and the guy in front of me since I didn't hit anyone. Phhhh...

Our time down there in North Carolina was great. I missed my family, and missed our traditions, but it was good to do something fresh, and to just relax.  The sun was shining, and the breeze not too brisk. Beer always helps, and when in doubt add a couple touches of coffee and Bailey's, and a glass of wine. I demonstrated my complete lack of prowess on the pool table, scratching the 8-ball for a record 5 losses in 2 sittings. We tossed the football around, I got to school people with some good hands plays, and we ate a lot. Even Hannah was eating, demonstrating a new love for mashed potatoes, her first non-baby food. She topped that off with a taste of my cherry wheat made last summer to celebrate her birth, and she was pretty happy. I think she really enjoyed chewing on the bottle more than anything, because her teeth have been coming in and she likes the hard surface.

Family gatherings always bring out the good or the bad in family, and with a new baby in the mix it was pretty much just the good. Hannah was the center of attention, especially for people who had yet to meet her or wanted to demonstrate that they still had the magic touch. I barely got to hold my own child, but I got to just watch her be passed around and see her smiling. That's enough for me.

Eating some of those great potatoes on Thanksgiving day!

See the sneakiness on her face as she tries for the beer?

Hannah really brought out the best in some of her younger second-cousins.

Week 66 - iPhone

Short post this week (for those of you keeping track - this would have been Nov. 17-23, only 3 months behind!) as I have pretty much had my head in the lab. My wife was gone for the first half of the week, still in Kentucky at the livestock expo with Hannah, and I figured there was no reason to be at home by myself when I could be getting things done in the lab. Besides, it's pretty lonely at home. So lonely, in fact, that I could hear mice running through the floor - it would seem a great invasion has begun as it gets much colder in the evenings.

About a year ago, I had slated a post to focus on my transition to the new world of smartphone technology. But I never could quite get all the pieces to fit together at once to where I felt that it was worth the read. And if it's not worth the read for me, it certainly wouldn't have been for you. So I postponed over and over again, but this week's biggest happening was my interaction with Apple at the "genius bar" so the time to talk about my phone has now arrived. Let me preface this by saying that Apple's entire operation seems to be hinged on people being ignorant about technology. They theme towards children, elderly, and then cater to those in the middle with gimmicks to make them feel really smart, artsy or efficient. I am none of these, but am instead a product of a cross-over generation that remembers a Macintosh, how to use an 8'' floppy disk, what the "flip-side" really means, the early days of music piracy (when we recorded songs from the radio on a cassette tape, and dubbed out the DJ). I am comfortable configuring my own computer, communicating in command prompt to find internet and manipulating file types. Needless to say, the "genius bar" is really just people who know how to follow instructions and can navigate the quirks of an Apple product.

So when I first got my phone, the learning curve was pretty fast. Being familiar with guessing functions, I never read instructions and probably don't use half of the imbedded applications on my iPhone because I didn't have a need for them. My purpose to a smartphone was to have email, internet access and a mobile camera. Obviously, the camera has paid dividends even for simple things like this blog. But at work, I can shoot pictures of things that I need a repairman for, text them to our guy and then he can talk me through how to trouble-shoot before he ever has to step on the premises. This saves both of us time and money. For example, this week was the motor/fan combination for coolant circulation on the freeze dryer. Yes, another damn thing wrong with the fricking dryer. It's starting to remind me of the "Office Space" printer, and I really want to go all mob on it. But by being able to use a picture to communicate, I can at least speak the same language as the guy on the other end. And the picture quality is much better than the old 1.3 MP cell phone cameras.

So I really loved my iPhone 4s, even though I was indifferent about Siri. She is fine and all, but really not necessary, and if I am out of decent service, she can't access the web. Unfortunately, she is not nearly so helpful when she has poor service. It gets to the point where she will even struggle to understand what I am saying. But the big advantage of the 4s over the 4 (free when I got my 4s) was the ability to use international bandwidth for calls. Will I ever use it? Maybe, but maybe not. It was a chance I didn't see the need to take given the other upgrades that came with the 4s. Oppositely, the high price of the 5 was completely unnecessary for increased screen space, and I had similar feelings about memory upgrades. You see, Apple is making a killing on convincing people that the stuff they just bought isn't cool enough, and this race for the newest tech is driving down prices on the old stuff for folks like me. I plan to never buy a brand-new iPhone in my life.

Only twice have I struggled with the phone in the past year. First time was when the new operating system was released. It would seem that just like phones, Apple is never happy to let a good thing sit. Instead, they are always tweaking the next version that will have eye-opening freshness for all to enjoy. Problem is that when the system is forced on us, we all turn into guinea pigs to find all the bugs that the programmers didn't catch. And there were A LOT of them. I avoided the upgrade for as long as possible and truth be told I barely even remember the old system now. But I do remember the frustration from the interim.

And then there was the "lock" button this week, or as I put it in my service request "the button at the top of the phone". This one is specifically to turn your screen off or on, and serves no other purpose (unless you are taking a screen shot). Well, I learned that while my Otterbox is the greatest thing ever for protecting my phone (and their warranty service/response is excellent!), the soft silicone case button has a tendency to wear down the iPhone lock button spring unevenly. Eventually it gets stuck and then you have to put in a work-around for turning your screen off. Luckily for me, my phone was still under the 1 year warranty, and a 30-minute visit to the Apple store later yielded a new phone. With an Otterbox on the phone, there are very few questions on your care of the piece and it expedited my trip to the back of the store. Only hang up was that since I hadn't embraced the iCloud backup system, I had to restore my phone at home. If there is one thing in business that I still value and appreciate, it is customer service on warranties. Sure, Apple is gimmicky and self-obsessed with their own creativity. And ownership of an iPhone classes me with both the ignorant and the hipsters in an uncomfortable categorization, but I would do it all again for the ease of use and the company service.

The only other thing that I did this week was finally bottle the bourbon barrel lager that I made months ago and then stored into a bourbon barrel that a friend left at our house when he and his wife moved to Belgium. The barrel experience elevates my brewing to a new level, and I am so excited to taste this beer soon. Nothing is more American than bourbon, and bourbon beer seemed only appropriately capped with an American flag bottlecap. Color is almost red with a bit of caramel, and the beer when I bottled it seemed to have a slightly greater viscosity than previous batches. I'm not sure if that is inherited from the barrel, or if it was imagined. As a scientist, if I can't quantify something then I usually suspect that I am imagining the difference. Unfortunately, beer brewing is not something I have the time to replicate in blind studies. Maybe some day I can run a brewery and really apply some sharp wit to perfecting some batches.

As we enter into "Beat Michigan Week" here on campus, I partook in something a bit unique - a spinning class to the scenery of SR 23 on the drive to Ann Arbor from C-bus. Spinning is not nearly as difficult as I expected it to be from all the rants by friends who have done it. I broke a solid sweat, but after not riding for months and drinking my weight this fall I would have expected far worse. I got a free t-shirt out of the deal, but I'm not sure it's something I would do again by myself. It is pretty boring when you don't have someone to chat at, especially with so many people just hunched over their bikes. It did put me in the mood to beat that school up North, one of the institutions that represents the elitism, prejudice again the working class and condescension towards agriculture that I will be fighting my whole life. It is more than a 200-year-old war over the Maumee River to me, it is personal. Luckily for me, I get to celebrate beat Michigan weeks twice as often since I am both a Spartan and a Buckeye.

Week 65 - Semen

Oh, yeah, I did just take it there. But if you want to catch the reason for this week's title, you have to read to the end...

So this week I am back at work after that little road trip up to Christmasville, and we kicked off the week in true style. As period 1 of trial C035 wraps up, we wanted to have a quick turn around with period 2. Right now, the goal is to get 2-3 done before Thanksgiving and then one more in early December. So we rushed to wash all the glassware, and wiped down all the fermenter room utilities before rushing out to the farm to grab some sample. As is tradition when you sample with me, I snap pictures of the sampling. Someday, when I graduate, I will present the collage of all the people who have rumen sampled with me, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty long list. It might seem a bit gross to some people, but it is really a pretty cool bit of science.

Back in the late 1800's or early 1900's (I forget right now), a guy got shot in the stomach and didn't die. He's pretty famous, and you could look it up if you'd like. He submitted himself for study by scientists who were interested in being able to see what was actually going on inside the body - a rarity at the time. And so the first fistulated study began. Now, fistulation of cows is a requirement for a good dairy nutrition program. It enables us to take samples from the primary chamber of the cow stomach (1 stomach, 4 chambers - not 4 stomachs), and then we can use those samples to study the microbes and their response to feeds or other stimuli. The intent is to better understand what happens inside the cow so that we can help the cow be healthier, more efficient and more consistent in her intake, digestion and milk production. People often ask me about if I feel bad for the cows that are fistulated/cannulated, and the answer is always no. Cannulated cows are precious to a research institution and are insured a long lifetime beyond their productivity in a normal dairy setting. These girls are some of my co-workers, and I miss them when they have to move on.

I learned something new about our university this week when I went over to the machine shop buried under Evans Lab to check into getting some parts machined. Over time, the rotating rod fitted within the housing (pictured at left) get worn out and eventually get stuck. Working with the degradative acids produced during rumen fermentation of starch and cellulose, the metal parts all start to collect acid and eventually brake down. What I didn't know until this week was that I can get these parts made from scratch in our machine shop, just by bringing down an example. And it was so cost effective, minimal prices for the metal and only $40/hour on the labor. Very happy with this new partnership and adding it to a growing list of reliable partnerships with our lab.

This week, my wife and I were guest at the Huntington Club in the football stadium as part of a reception for people involved in the leadership of the Pelotonia at school. Part of this included the opportunity to meet a hero from the early 2000's: Craig Krenzel. Back in the day, Krenzel was a pretty standup guy. He was a dedicated student athlete, working in a cancer research lab (the PI eventually helped found Pelotonia), with good grades as a pre-med major, and a pretty good arm combined with decision-making and grit. But when the Buckeyes won the game, Krenzel was elevated to the rank of state hero. Sure, the game wasn't pretty, but it was hard fought and one of the best sporting events I have ever watched, catapulting OSU back into the national limelight as a premiere football university. But you'd never know that when you meet Krenzel. He was nice, talked about anything but football (mostly research and bicycling), with eye contact that lacked superiorism. Great guy that did not disappoint in person.

Big wigging it. Dr. Caliguiri, my wife, me and Craig Krenzel.

As you look at the picture, you might notice the beard from Hannah's baptism has been chugging along. I'm not sure where it is going yet, but my brother and I are talking about a bike race in late November and I need to definitely have the face cover if we are to bike out in the snow.

Hannah is continuing to grow up, and now is becoming more vocal. Watch the video if you want to hear her new squealing noise. Such a happy baby!

This week was also our university "dairy challenge". Dairy challenge is a student competition where undergraduates go onto dairy farms and use their class knowledge in an applied evaluation of the farm as a team. Observations on animal well-being, reproduction, labor management, nutrition, feed storage, milk protocols, and records lead to presentations guiding the farmer for future planning based on their goals and strengths/weaknesses. This event helps develop students that hope to have a future in the dairy industry gain practical experience to prepare them for the workforce. Here, veterinary students are also invited, and I tagged along. So let me get on my soapbox for a few minutes...

Veterinary students are health professionals, but they often don't get the full picture of what goes on at a farm. This is because we are not training veterinarians to be farm advisors, completely knowledgeable about nutrition or reproduction, but rather to be serving for the health of the animals on a farm. Is health related to nutrition, or reproduction, or labor management? Certainly, but unless a veterinary student realizes these deficiencies in coursework and goes to great lengths to serve internships or extracurricular activities such as dairy challenge, they might never be exposed to this area. And yet, once they graduate, they will either volunteer or be expected to provide guidance to farmers on nutrition. This is a mistake, as many experienced vets will tell you. Vets should combine with nutritionists to provide the best guidance as a team, building on strengths and weaknesses. My props to those vet students who broadened their horizon by joining the buses to the dairy challenge this year, and thanks to Cargill for your involvement in the event.

Off my soapbox - a few pictoral examples of things students pick up on (or don't) at these farms.

Poor ventilation in this barn. As it turns out, many of the fans weren't working, and this combined with inappropriate curtain usage that inhibited "tunnel" airflow in the barn.

Bunk face the size of Texas. Bunk faces are where the feed mixer is collecting feedstuffs (silage) to put in the mixer wagon. On this farm, they were doing it by hand, with a 100 yard bunk face. I would guess feed wastage due to mold to be 10%, regardless of the labor lost in doing the face by hand.

Temple Grandin would have been very happy with the pathway to the milking parlor... EXCEPT - the highest producing cows walked at least a quarter mile to get milked. But great texturing to prevent the cows (or students) from slipping.

The biggest accomplishment this week at work came on a more unique front. As you recall, I have been working with my of my undergraduate interns on adapting a microscope for HD video capture on a budget so that we can determine the activity, density and volume of protozoa from the rumen. We care about this because protozoa provide protein to the cow and we struggle to know how much protein they provide because we have so much conditional variation in outflow abundance, size and nitrogen (protein). Well, I was struggling with how to get the camera adapted to our own lab microscope without using electric tape to lock it on there. I wanted the camera to actually latch down into the monocular and remain there, securely. When in doubt, turn to Google - I came back with this...

I was intrigued, and so I read all the way through. Turns out, that the kid who wrote these instructions wanted to prove that the video setup on a microscope actually worked. So he built a foam connecter, hollowed out a camera body cover, glued it all together and set it on his microscope. And then video-recorded his sperm swimming on a slide plate. Yep, you heard me right. Recorded his sperm on a video and loaded it to YouTube to prove that his camera adapater worked. I would say that is daring or some sort of awesome, but in the end I am just disturbed, appropriately summed up by the comment under his instructions, "Please tell me those aren't your sperm..."

I have to hand it to the kid - it worked. I did a few modifications, mostly because after I glanced through the instructions I never looked back at them. I ran over to the hardware store, picked up paint, PVC pipe and camera body caps. Unfortunately, the guys at Cord down by campus can kind of be idiots sometimes and they sent me out the door the first time with the front-end lens cap instead of the body cap. A bit frustrating, but it only set me back an afternoon. Punching out the plastic inside the body cap was easier than I thought it would be, and then my 2" PVC pipe fit in smoothly. I put it snug against the cap and glued the two together with super glue. Then to shade out the light we made a cardboard skirt and glued this around the base where the PVC would slide into the monocular. And then we spray painted the whole thing in flat black. The video quality isn't any better than using electric tape to secure the camera to the monocular, but the camera is snugly fit onto the microscope now. Great find online and a great save, a manufactured adaptor costs about $500 and I made ours for about $20.

Hannah and her uncle.

As this post is getting a little long, I will close that we took our annual trip to Louisville for the NAILE, and my family showed our Shropshires again this year. Hannah got to meet many new animal friends, including a ram that was fascinated with her and some ducklings. We played cards around the show box, ate beef jerky and drank Dr. Pepper. And my brother got some great placings with sheep he bred and raised himself back at home. Our sheep are moving up in the world, and it largely due to the dedication of my siblings in the show ring and visiting other farms. I know I say this all the time, but this lifestyle develops leaders with strong character. They are both going to be great in whatever they do later in life.

Hannah and Clarence in Louisville.

Week 64 - Santa

Not a lot getting done on the work front this week. As we get colder and the leaves fall, and the sheep ship off, it is increasingly obvious that winter is coming. And with winter comes a growing struggle to get a parking space behind the building at work. During the summer, this is not a problem, but with the students back in session, 9.30 am is generally the limit to get a spot close to work. But now, as more students drive and pay for parking only with the inclement weather, that number creeps earlier, reaching 8.50 am by full December. Luckily, this is just when finals and break come. Is it sad that I already know this? Including my master's, I have already been here at OSU for 4 years.

Well, the one thing that has happened at work this week was donuts. Usually, donuts at work means we are fixing something and this week it has been the freeze dryer. Lyophilization is the bane of my existence most days, and our damn dryer continues to find something to gripe about. We have replaced the vaccuum pump (because someone let it suck air into the oil) and now we are replacing a condenser valve that got plugged. Oh, did I mention that each of these fixes totals about $5,000 and that we only get to run it once or twice before it breaks again? Then the seals went bad, splitting from the constant open and shut of the door with the repairs and testing. So now I am a rubber expert. Several calls in to companies that tell me they won't support our freeze dryer seal, and no calls back from Gilson or other local rubber companies (shout outs for failure) where I was hoping to just purchase a sheet of 3/4'' neoprene to make my own seal. Thank goodness for Amazon, the lab lifesaver. I ordered a sheet of rubber and traced a pattern on it with permanent marker, cutting it out with a pocketknife.

My sister came in to visit the lab and take a pumpkin donut.

Trial CO35, as we call the project from Virginia Tech, is rolling along nicely. I can breath a bit as the first  one went down smoothly, isotope infused accurately, and no deaths of fermenters. The cameras are a nice bit of comfort, but the care taken during checks (and a lot of time on my part) have made a bigger impact so far.

I got a nice touch of generosity for our state representative, Pat Tiberi, this week in the mail and it totally made my day. Last fall, we rode along politicking with him on a miserable day and I was able to see that he is more than just a great representative in Congress. He is a nice man, a loving father and a good listener. This fall, we played in a volleyball tournament for him and represented nicely, winning 3rd place. Afterwards, I asked if there was any possibility that he could sign a picture for us. Since he wasn't there, one of his staff said she would take care of it and I doubted it would be remembered. But sure enough, a special delivery showed up at the house this week. He will be getting framed up in the office as soon as I have a chance. I wish more politicians were like Pat Tiberi.

Crazy week as gas hit below $3.00/gallon. Almost like it's election season.

This week, we took a trip up to Frankenmuth to buy some Christmas stuff and sample the local beer as a family w/the in-laws. My sister-in-law had just finished matching Spartan hats for me and my daughter. So, I thought I would share a little love with a pretty scUM-heavy part of the state after the 29-6 thrashing that we gave them last weekend. Needless to say, the bar scene was pretty unhappy as they watched their school lose to Nebraska (when does losing to Nebraska ever feel good?) and I got quite the looks. One person thought they'd be funny and asked me about why I was wearing an OSU jacket (pretty cold outside, I don't have winter coats in green), and a MSU hat. Well, that's pretty simple - I told them I was predicting the future. Both schools are now quickly progressing towards a clash to which those boastful pricks up in Ann Arbor won't be invited.

Hannah looks so great with all that Spartan green going on.

While on the trip, our in-laws bought a gift for me that is pretty special to me since my time in the Netherlands - a Jim Shore Dutch Santa Clause carving. Tulips and windmills rightly highlight this figure and I think he is really special. When I went to the Netherlands, my life was in a lot of turmoil and I struggled with my identity and life's direction. And yes, I did drugs. During all of this, I really took the time to learn about myself, what mattered to me and I learned to be more relaxed, big-picture oriented and focused on what really matters in life. Our struggles forged lifelong friendships, and a part of my heart always rejoices with Dutch sports triumphs and sinks with their tragedies because I feel like I became a very small part of their culture. Not being very big on memorabilia, I didn't bring a lot back with me. A cheese wheel, a set-around seal, a coffee mug, broken beer mugs and some wooden tulips from the Koekenhoff (shattered by a wild night that I shall explain a different time). As I sat and reflected on the depth of impact this trip had to me, and glued those tulips back together, I realized that the study abroad experience was great, but the trip as a whole was a huge part of shaping who I am, and I am proud of the person that I have become since that time. Holland will always have a special place in my heart, and this Sinterklaas (St. Nicolas) reminds me of those good times and brings Christmas cheer to me.

And yes, I know that Christmas is still over a month away. Nobody ever accused me of celebrating too soon, and I don't plan to start now.

Week 63 - Octobaby!

This week was halloween, and while I regalled you in the past with costumes (see last year), this year was all about Hannah. With a baby, there are a ton of fun costume ideas, with everything from Disney to a cupcake, but we settled on the 8-legged octopus for this year. My wife painted a onesie with eyes, and then filled stockings with fluff and pinned them under a baby mini-skirt. Our cute little girl was transformed into an octopus, and we took her to "Boo at the Zoo" to show off her costume to all of the other animals. For the more realistic look, we took her underwater at the polar bear exhibit to catch her in her more "natural" habitat. Dressing her up and having an excuse to celebrate the holiday again was a lot of fun.

Our family in front of the polar bear underwater exhibit.

My little monster dressed up for Halloween.

Hannah has been learning to crawl w/these rolly balls.

Speaking of fun, Betsy has been having a lot of fun with our floppy eared wether lamb out at the house. He loves to play with her and she is so happy to have a sheep that pays attention to her and romps around. "Flops" got an ear edema early on, probably because he got stepped on by his brother when they were young. This swelling caused the ears to fill up with fluid, which naturally drained over time but left his ears a bit crinkly. He can hear fine with them and moves them around without pain, but they flop most of the time. He is enjoying his last days on grass before we send him off to market. With the cold weather soon to be here, we can't afford to feed him over the winter and will market him at our local stockyard where he will enter the food chain.

People ask me how I could let something so soon go for food as if I don't care about it. The thing is, if I were to tell you that I feel nothing for the animal, that would be a lie. I do care about him, and his mother, "Daisy", who lives at our house still and will have new lambs next year. I am proud that we provide our lambs with a quality lifestyle, including social interaction with other lambs, grass to range on, fresh water, shelter from the sun and rain, and vaccinations from common diseases. Knowing that we have provided a quality life for the animal comforts me as we sell him into the food chain, and I am glad to be part of providing quality food converted from marginal land to my fellow Americans. It is honorable to produce food, and is in my family's blood for more than 200 years. We could not feed the world efficiently without the ruminant and I enjoy applying my knowledge from work to my hobby at home.

At work, it is back to the grindstone. I am now a part of an isotope dilution and tracing project from Virginia Tech using 13C labeled volatile fatty acids. This involves running the ever-troublesome fermenters with a new complexity of about $100,000 in carbon isotopes (when it couldn't get any worse). As a part of this, we needed to adapt the sealed fermenters to dose isotopes separate from the normal buffer, and accomplished this by running a line across the inside of the lid from a butyl stopper and then securing it to a bar that supports our temperature probe.

In combination with this, I am working to set up a previous laptop with webcams and an open remote desktop program called "TeamViewer". TeamViewer is free software (for private use) that allows me to log in from a remote computer or my phone and see the laptop I have set up by the fermenters. This is just a demo run of how we will eventually use a VPN and our hardwired university computers (will have to wait some weeks for the hook-up), but with the webcams loaded up on the resident computer, I can go out to dinner, or beers, or be sitting at home with my family and log in to check the fermenters by camera. By assigning responsibilities for timing, we can allocate around the clock monitoring (yes, waking up every other hour all night). Granted, this isn't fun and it is intrusive on my life. But I am hoping it will be less intrusive than my previously drawn out fermenter experiment that last twice as long as it should have.

View of the fermenter with new line from the top.

You can see the line run inside. Have to watch out for clearing the paddles.

Amidst the start-up chaos at work, the big game has snuck up on me again. Despite my season tickets, I just couldn't make it up there this year. Instead, I got to watch it at home with my family as my Spartans wiped the ground with those scUMmy wolverines. This is Sparta, and don't you go forgetting it anytime soon. Challenges build character, and there is plenty of character to be found in East Lansing.

Week 62 - Solid

With her four month appointment came the big news from the doctor, Hannah can now start trying solid food! Of course, solid food by her definition is still less viscous than cream of wheat in hot water, and I have demonstrated early my lack of skill in getting the food delivered to the target. My wife, on the other hand, is a natural born spoon feeder. In less than 3 days, she had already taught Hannah to eat and they are able to get through the food without dripping all over the place. Half of the time when they are done, I can't even tell that she was fed at all because there is no mess to clean up. Now if only I could learn the same skills on Mexican night and stop spilling burrito all over the place.

I had my own solid food night this week with the consumption a 1 lb. cheeseburger in Chicago. Yes, I know, I was back in Chicago again. I wish that I could say the drive gets better, but it doesn't, and neither does the traffic. After a while, the get-to-know-you phase with your boss also wears out and there's less to talk about. True, we really haven't covered all topics under the sun, but it's not a date. Now we're down to covering the work items, talking about weather and sports, and then turning up the radio and cruising til someone's bladder gives out. And this week in Chicago I got to meet some of the greats in the dairy nutrition world at a project meeting for the government-supported research that is interconnected between different schools. You learn a lot about people when you get them out for food and drinks, and these small meetings are the best for getting to know people better. A little Johnny Black Label helps, too, but after a long couple of days and a few glasses of that... I have trouble staying awake and following the conversation. Trouble of not sleeping enough.

Hannah loves her new rolly toys from her great-uncle.

But that's not for lack of Hannah trying. Every time people ask us about our baby and how sleep deprived we are, I feel a bit guilty and am torn between letting them believe she is awake at night and telling them the truth; I usually feel guiltier after sharing the truth. Hannah generally sleeps through the night without a problem. I'm not sure what we did right or wrong, but since a few weeks old she has been a solid sleeper. We all go to bed, and we all wake up. She probably would even sleep longer in the morning but we have to go work and finally wake her up. It makes me nervous to ever have a kid again, in case we don't end up with a similar deal. I've heard karma can be a real bitch.

Ants devouring the apple chunk within an hour of it dropping.

Back at work this week, things are changing again. We have a new Columbian, and 2 Brazilians visiting, as well as a PhD student from Virginia Tech who I am assisting with a fermenter trial. We are busy busy busy again, and it feels good to be out of the desk and away from the papers. In a week or so I am sure I will be tired of running the fermenters, but I am training him in the dark magic of fermenter trials and praying that we make it to the end of the experiment without any losses. With the visitors comes the new trainings for protozoal counting, lab safety manuals, and induction into office etiquette. This includes not leaving ANY food on the floor of the office. Sure, a few crumbs won't hurt, but our Columbian left apple chunks under her desk this week and immediately drew in a whole new crowd of friends. The paint may be fresh, but the critters haven't gone anywhere. And yes, I would rather take pictures of the ants and their progress on the apple than kill them all and clean it up. Disgusting it may be, but it is also cheap entertainment.

For those of you who don't know, there are three primary volatile fatty acids in dairy cattle and these acids are produced by microbial fermentation of what the cow eats. This is what is so unique about the ruminant (and their compartmentalized stomach). A cow can literally eat only hay or grass (completely indigestible to humans) and turn it into milk and meat by symbiosis with the rumen ecosystem and the absorption of fatty acids (milk fat), VFAs (energy) and amino acids (protein). People complain about the amount of feed that the cow eats, but the cow is converting non-edible substrate into edible products for you. Think about this the next time you drink milk.

So our visitor's experiment uses C13 labeled VFAs to track the interconversion of VFA within the rumen fluid in hopes of better modeling of VFA production. Microbes do a lot of interconverting of the VFAs after they are made and this makes it difficult for researchers to accurately predict the energy that is available to a cow from a specific diet. It is the hope that if we can better trace this then we will be able to better predict energy efficiency. Of course, I say "we", but in reality I am just providing the technical know-how to get the job done with the fermenters. This isotope stuff is very expensive (totaling $100,000 - easy), and we don't want to lose any of it through a fermenter period failing like the did for me over the summer. Turns out that since everything possible to go wrong did just that over the summer, I am better prepared to predict these things now. I am also working on setting up video surveillance of our fermenters and if this comes to be, I will make sure to share pictures.

This week was also the wedding of a good friend. I don't really blog about all the weddings that we go to, but this was unique in a number of ways. First, the reception was down at the athletic club, and old gentlemen's club from the high society days and complete with a live band and Chicago beers, the atmosphere was very classy. Second, I caught my brother dancing with my wife on camera. I encouraged it, of course, but it is kind of like catching evidence of my dad playing a game. So victory is mine. And finally, the groom was a guy we hauled out of the woods a few years ago after a severe concussion.

I got the call on the way home from something, probably Pelotonia 2011. And then I caught my mom and we both drove over where I ran the trails to get back to my brother. A nice couple had stopped to help them and the groom was feeling pretty good about things as if he could walk out of there. Unfortunately, it was obvious by the loop in his conversation (I would later see this with my wife as well) that he had suffered a concussion. I guess it takes one to know one. His parents later told my brothers and I that we were heroes for saving their son, but I guess it's all fair because we got him into mountain biking in the first place. All I know is that we got really lucky because a golf crew was driving by and the bike course was just against the fence. I flagged them down and talked them into loading the guy up on their cart after we finagled him under the chain-link fence. If we hadn't caught them, then we had to either call the EMS and rack up a bill for the poor bloke or carry him miles out of the course through the woods. God was definitely looking out for us and getting him to a resting place could not have come sooner.

Well, at the wedding, the groom cake was of him riding a mountain bike out at our local trail, known so because of the infamous bridges included in the cake. It was one of these bridges that claimed his helmet and bike those years back. So we decided to have a little fun with it and switch the cake up a bit. Everyone seemed to get a kick out of it and even the bride played along, although she switched it back after we were gone. Check out the pictures to see if you can spot the difference...

Full bike course cake. Actually a pretty cool idea.

The moral of the story is to always wear your helmet. Wear it down over your forehead and buckled. You never know when it can save your life and you might not get lucky enough to get a re-do.

Week 61 - Baptism

As I catch up on more manuscripts stacked in my desk drawers (knowledge just waiting to be gained!), a few things have butted in and provided some distraction that I thought I would share. To date myself, I consider myself to be among the third generation of computer users. No, I didn't use data cards, but I know how they work (or that they exist). And no, I didn't have to code my own game (but I've seen it done). But I did play the original Oregon Trail on the Mac, complete with a lot of .DOS legends, and I did play Nintendo and Sega - no pre- or post-fixes. As a proud part of that gaming heritage, I started digging for the classics and figuring out how to run them on a new-ish PC. Turns out there are a lot of sites that are probably run by teenagers who are thankfully not as devious as they could be and I downloaded a mirror for the old Mac that runs on my computer and I made it out alive. 

And I now possess the original Oregon Trail. I have to say that apart from shooting buffalo, there's really not a lot of value beyond nostalgia. But the old deer-call dance and a spray of bullets after a stray rabbit can put any old guy in a good mood - I just prefer to do it digitally. Also, for those of you with short attention spans, it took me 3 hours and 2 years on the trail to reach the Williamette Valley. My oxen got stolen in Utah and I spent a year there killing varmits and trading them for bullets and clothes to survive. No game now would ever let you extend it into oblivion like that.

After celebrating my victory in this game-feating, I may have gotten a little carried away. A friend recommended the Organ Trail as a comedic follow-up and it truthfully has a little more game complexity (shotgun to Ed, or anti-Z vaccine?) that makes it a bit more fun. Plus, a trip out hunting now represents a scene from the twinkie-hunting "Zombieland". And then there were the gorillas...

When we were kids at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we used to take turns with the "gorilla game" as we called it, where a duo of King Kongs march across the rooftops and chuck atomic bananas at each other. Of course, to make it a fair game, you have to take in the wind speed, angle of encroaching buildings and velocity in order to score the direct hit. The new game comes with a computer opponent that learns as you go, and since the games last about 5 minutes they are the perfect thing to do over lunch or when you're sick of doing anything real at work but don't want to be distracted indefinitely.

Otherwise, I end up reading moving stories like this. Very touching and indicative of the hockey community in Michigan.

This week was third year for our Horse Judging Team to compete at Quarter Horse Congress, and it probably wasn't our best showing. But another good group of kids are graduating through the ranks with improved decision-making and public speaking skills, and I am proud of them for sticking through it - some of them better than others. It is nice getting a bit of recognition from the department that we actually exist.

2013 Horse Judging Team

Our Hannah also turned 4 months old this week, and the photo shoot began anew. You can't really see it most of the time, but someone is usually hiding behind the baby and holding the blanket up, while trying to balance the baby through the blanket. Meanwhile the photographer is trying to keep the dog from plopping right down amidst everything and focusing the camera and calling out to Hannah, trying to get her to smile even though it is the one time that day where she starts to cry instead out of confusion. And then I lost the camera battery charger, so the battery was dying, too. Total chaos. And yet, she looks cute once more, a tribute to her mother who always seems to get just the right picture.

Hannah is growing more attached over the weeks to her little toy cow that we picked up on the Labor Day trip (see previous post) in Arlington, VA. Clarence the cow is going to need washed again on account of the fact that he has become the designated bottle holder. In an awkward state of events, Hannah actually ends up eating her bottle while it is balanced on the butt of a stuffed cow. Perhaps she has associated Clarence with food, too, which is why she is so attached. I'm not sure the reason, but she loves that thing. The picture to the left is of her dressed in the Spartan hat her aunt J made for her asleep in the carseat with Clarence. He goes practically everywhere with us and she always has him close by.

The main even this week was Hannah's baptism. For those of you more familiar with the Catholic ways, she is probably a later dipper than most but we kept running into schedule conflicts and this was the first real weekend we could get it done. We went to a baptism preparation class, but it was unfortunately not helpful. We didn't really learn about the ceremony set-up to expect for the big day or anything about the teachings of baptism. Luckily for us, we both grew up rooted in our faith (despite different denominational teachings), and we were comfortable without all the teaching. But I think the program definitely left something lacking for a lot of people.

Speaking of lacking, when the baptisms (they do all the kids 1x per month, so there were 5?) were ready to start, a good chunk of our families were lacking. Courtesy of a huge block of cement being moved down the road and blocking 2 lanes of traffic, people were over 20 minutes late to the service and my wife and I went into immediate stall mode. Everyone made it in time, thankfully due to the deacon's willingness to delay, but it was a bit more hectic than I expected. Hannah cried a bit at the water, but she looked so angelic in her gown. Her gown was passed down from her mom's side of the family, her bonnet is a gift from Ireland, and her blanket was mine from my baptism. She was quiet through most of the service, but once the baby boy beside us started filling his diaper, and then they all got hit with the water, it was a good thing the service was about to be done. We got family pictures, and pictures with the godparents, her aunt (my wife's sister) and uncle (my brother), and then headed back to the house to party it up with chili and homebrew. A pretty special way to start off this week.

Our family (minus Betsy, the dog) on Hannah's baptism.