I don't know shit about orchids. I had a friend in undergrad who loved plants and knew things about them, but that's as close as I come. Plants just don't like me. They have a tendency to die on me, and to aggravate my allergies out of spite.
What I do know is that I saw the movie Adaptation several years ago and I liked it. So when I saw this book, in Costco of all places, I decided to pick it up. See, the book was the "inspiration" for the movie, even though the movie doesn't really follow the story in the book at all. What it does follow is the sense of passion that the author tries to portray in her book.
For this book is the story of obsession. It's the story of people (real people, not fictional) who will spend thousands of dollars on one plant, who will breed plants and then wait 7 years to find out if they were successful. People who go to all ends of the earth and risk unimaginable hardships just to find plants that no one has seen before. People who will risk alligator and snake attacks to get into the Everglades just to see these plants in rare bloom.
Orlean's writing is compelling - she managed to pull me in to a topic that I have never had any real interest in. She manages to create sympathy for characters when other people may just look at them as being crazy. But more than that, she is able to tie this passion for orchids to other passions, so that the average reader, while maybe not caring about orchids at all, is able to understand through the eyes of their own obsessions.
Definitely a good read, and very informative about the subject. Even if you walk away from the book still not caring about orchids, as I did, you will come away with an understanding, and maybe some empathy, for the people who do.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Saturday, June 9, 2007
An argument from earlier this week, which I resoundingly won
A certain friend and I routinely get into an argument about beds. However, in this exchange that occured earlier this week, I think I may have settled the matter once and for all.
Friend: "I know you like your bed, but it's way too short. See, my bed is long enough for my feet to stay on it. It's an adult bed."
Me: "...Isn't that a futon?"
Friend: "... ... ... yes."
Friend: "I know you like your bed, but it's way too short. See, my bed is long enough for my feet to stay on it. It's an adult bed."
Me: "...Isn't that a futon?"
Friend: "... ... ... yes."
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Playing the mad scientist
Today, I found out that I successfully mutated some DNA.
Not to do anything cool. Basically I have some cDNA for a gene that was sent to me by someone else, and it contained three mutations that make it different from the wild-type (normal) gene. This is a problem because it messes up the protein sequence that is made from this gene, which can screw up the protein's function. And considering I'm studying that protein's normal function in a cell, mutations are not cool.
So I had the task of mutating those three nucleic acids back to what they should be. It's not really as hard as it sounds, because a kit exists for it. What you do is order some short stretches of DNA which contain your desired mutation and that will sit down on the DNA sequence that you already have. You mix those with your DNA, along with an enzyme that synthesizes DNA from an existing copy and some free nucleotides, which are what the enzyme puts together to make the bigger pieces of DNA. Then you let the enzyme work its magic for a number of hours (this involves multiple temperature changes, but fortunately we have machines for that).
Once you have this replicated DNA, you get it into bacteria by opening pores in their cell membranes (by heat or electricity). Since the DNA forms a complete circle and contains all the elements necessary for more replication, the bacteria who uptake this DNA will produce more of it every time they divide. It's also possible to have multiple copies of your DNA in each bacterial cell. So then you grow the bacteria in food (we call it media) containing some sort of antibiotic, because the DNA you inserted into them also contains a resistance gene for that antibiotic. So only the bacteria containing your DNA will grow in the presence of this drug. Finally, you grow up a bunch of the surviving bacteria, extract lots of DNA from them, and send it to be sequenced. And hopefully you find that the resulting DNA contains your desired mutations.
All of that almost makes up for the fact that my right wrist strangely hurts today, in a sort of carpal tunnel kind of way. Repetitive motion injury from too much pipeting (aka moving around small volumes of liquid)? Ugh.
Not to do anything cool. Basically I have some cDNA for a gene that was sent to me by someone else, and it contained three mutations that make it different from the wild-type (normal) gene. This is a problem because it messes up the protein sequence that is made from this gene, which can screw up the protein's function. And considering I'm studying that protein's normal function in a cell, mutations are not cool.
So I had the task of mutating those three nucleic acids back to what they should be. It's not really as hard as it sounds, because a kit exists for it. What you do is order some short stretches of DNA which contain your desired mutation and that will sit down on the DNA sequence that you already have. You mix those with your DNA, along with an enzyme that synthesizes DNA from an existing copy and some free nucleotides, which are what the enzyme puts together to make the bigger pieces of DNA. Then you let the enzyme work its magic for a number of hours (this involves multiple temperature changes, but fortunately we have machines for that).
Once you have this replicated DNA, you get it into bacteria by opening pores in their cell membranes (by heat or electricity). Since the DNA forms a complete circle and contains all the elements necessary for more replication, the bacteria who uptake this DNA will produce more of it every time they divide. It's also possible to have multiple copies of your DNA in each bacterial cell. So then you grow the bacteria in food (we call it media) containing some sort of antibiotic, because the DNA you inserted into them also contains a resistance gene for that antibiotic. So only the bacteria containing your DNA will grow in the presence of this drug. Finally, you grow up a bunch of the surviving bacteria, extract lots of DNA from them, and send it to be sequenced. And hopefully you find that the resulting DNA contains your desired mutations.
All of that almost makes up for the fact that my right wrist strangely hurts today, in a sort of carpal tunnel kind of way. Repetitive motion injury from too much pipeting (aka moving around small volumes of liquid)? Ugh.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Missed Opportunity
Goddammit, the sun actually comes out today, breaking the usual June gloom, and I don't have my camera with me. Damn damn damn damn damn.
Ah well. At least I had a 4.5 hour incubation and got to go swimming. I'm also in the process of going through all my concert photos in order to pull out the best ones for my portfolio and trying to come up with ideas for a new photography website design. I wish I knew more about graphic design, etc. That would come in handy right about now.
On a totally random note, why is it that the lobby of the building I work in smells like sulfur (i.e. rotten eggs) every once in awhile? What exactly was this building built on?
Ah well. At least I had a 4.5 hour incubation and got to go swimming. I'm also in the process of going through all my concert photos in order to pull out the best ones for my portfolio and trying to come up with ideas for a new photography website design. I wish I knew more about graphic design, etc. That would come in handy right about now.
On a totally random note, why is it that the lobby of the building I work in smells like sulfur (i.e. rotten eggs) every once in awhile? What exactly was this building built on?
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Back to the Dark Ages
I just bought about $120 worth (after shipping costs) of chemicals and other various necessities to develop black and white film in my home.
Why, you may ask, when I have a digital SLR camera, do I feel the need to return to the darkroom of yore? Isn't film a dead medium?
Bullshit, I say. For one, I like the feel of tangible film over digital ghost files. There's something to be said about laboring for your work, doing things by hand, actually spooling the film onto the developing reel and then pulling it out, all wet and slick and so concrete.
Secondly, I just feel that black and white film gives much more depth to an image than simply converting a digital image from color to black and white or vice versa. The image was meant to be shot in black and white, and I feel like that adds a certain weight to it. It's not switching to black and white because your image was underexposed, or because there are too many distracting colors in it. You actually looked at a scene in color and had to convert it to black and white in your head before making the shot. It's a totally different way of viewing a shot. It's ignoring color and looking at light. And I love it. I haven't shot black and white film in over a year, and I'm itching to get back into it.
And yes, there's a darkroom on campus that's fairly cheap to join if you're a student ($76/quarter), and it is open 24 hours. The downside is that I no longer live close to campus and the latest I can stay without being stuck here overnight is 9PM, which is when the last shuttle to Hillcrest leaves. And driving in is expensive, not to mention bad for the environment. Plus parking's a bitch. So it's not really so much of an option, although if I want to eventually make prints from my negatives I'm going to have to join, or buy an enlarger for myself. But that's a whole 'nother level to this hobby. For now, I'm planning on scanning the negatives into my computer and dealing with them digitally from there on.
Another cool thing about black and white film - I can get ISO 3200 film and maybe try using that to shoot some concerts. It gives fantastic grain and works really well in low light, so it'll be cool to see how it works out. And that's even better than my digital camera, which can only be pushed to ISO 1600.
Something else that I forgot to mention previously - I have my dad's old Canon AE-1 fully manual camera, which uses a type of lens that is pretty much obsolete (FD versus EF lens mount). You can't use these lenses on any camera made after 1987. But you can definitely still find them, as glass that is well taken care of can last pretty much forever. What does this mean? EBAY!!! I just bid $10.50 on an FD lens whose homologous EF lens costs over $300. Hells yeah.
Next up after this adventure - learning how to develop color film. That should be interesting...
Why, you may ask, when I have a digital SLR camera, do I feel the need to return to the darkroom of yore? Isn't film a dead medium?
Bullshit, I say. For one, I like the feel of tangible film over digital ghost files. There's something to be said about laboring for your work, doing things by hand, actually spooling the film onto the developing reel and then pulling it out, all wet and slick and so concrete.
Secondly, I just feel that black and white film gives much more depth to an image than simply converting a digital image from color to black and white or vice versa. The image was meant to be shot in black and white, and I feel like that adds a certain weight to it. It's not switching to black and white because your image was underexposed, or because there are too many distracting colors in it. You actually looked at a scene in color and had to convert it to black and white in your head before making the shot. It's a totally different way of viewing a shot. It's ignoring color and looking at light. And I love it. I haven't shot black and white film in over a year, and I'm itching to get back into it.
And yes, there's a darkroom on campus that's fairly cheap to join if you're a student ($76/quarter), and it is open 24 hours. The downside is that I no longer live close to campus and the latest I can stay without being stuck here overnight is 9PM, which is when the last shuttle to Hillcrest leaves. And driving in is expensive, not to mention bad for the environment. Plus parking's a bitch. So it's not really so much of an option, although if I want to eventually make prints from my negatives I'm going to have to join, or buy an enlarger for myself. But that's a whole 'nother level to this hobby. For now, I'm planning on scanning the negatives into my computer and dealing with them digitally from there on.
Another cool thing about black and white film - I can get ISO 3200 film and maybe try using that to shoot some concerts. It gives fantastic grain and works really well in low light, so it'll be cool to see how it works out. And that's even better than my digital camera, which can only be pushed to ISO 1600.
Something else that I forgot to mention previously - I have my dad's old Canon AE-1 fully manual camera, which uses a type of lens that is pretty much obsolete (FD versus EF lens mount). You can't use these lenses on any camera made after 1987. But you can definitely still find them, as glass that is well taken care of can last pretty much forever. What does this mean? EBAY!!! I just bid $10.50 on an FD lens whose homologous EF lens costs over $300. Hells yeah.
Next up after this adventure - learning how to develop color film. That should be interesting...
Monday, June 4, 2007
A Much-Needed Separation of Church and State
Whereas Church=music and State=personal life.
I have a music blog at It's Too Sunny Out Here. It used to be a mostly music blog peppered with personal observations and photos. But I've decided to divorce the two, making It's Too Sunny Out Here strictly music, and this site a dump for all the other stuff.
Other stuff include travel photos, or any photos that don't have much to do with music, political rants, personal thoughts, and science posts.
We'll see how it goes managing two blogs. It could get complicated...
I have a music blog at It's Too Sunny Out Here. It used to be a mostly music blog peppered with personal observations and photos. But I've decided to divorce the two, making It's Too Sunny Out Here strictly music, and this site a dump for all the other stuff.
Other stuff include travel photos, or any photos that don't have much to do with music, political rants, personal thoughts, and science posts.
We'll see how it goes managing two blogs. It could get complicated...
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
My Cousin Emily's Wedding, 5/25/2007
This was my reason for flying all the way across the country this past weekend. And I almost didn't make it.
I've decided that the Dallas airport is just a bad idea for me. I think I've only ever flown through it twice. The first time was coming back from Christmas at home last December. After sitting on the airplane for 2 hours, waiting for the thunderstorms to abate so that we could get into the air, we were told to get off the aircraft and back into the terminal, and to keep away from the windows when we got there. Long story short, a tornado ended up hitting the north fence of the airport while I was there. Fortunately it missed the runway (not to mention the terminal), so I finally got back to San Diego that day, only about 5 hours late.
This time it was thunderstorms again, but apparently, for legal reasons, the Dallas airport doesn't make people sit on airplanes waiting to take off anymore. Instead they just start canceling flights. On Memorial Day weekend. Yikes. But by some twist of fate, my connecting flight to the Harrisburg airport was delayed more than my flight from San Diego, so I was able to make it to Harrisburg, only 3 hours after I was supposed to.
The next day, we drove from Harrisburg to Allentown, where the wedding was held. We stayed at the Bear Creek Lodge, which is where the reception was held (conveniently!), and which is apparently a ski resort in the winter. Pretty neat to see the cleared ski runs in the summer. At any rate, it was a really nice place. They had Otis Spunkmeyer cookies at the reception desk, and my family managed to consume a number of them. The decor was also really nice, which mostly monochromatic, brightly colored walls with some tasteful decorations.
I would have liked to explore the area, especially the bare ski slopes, but we didn't have much time before the wedding. So we all got purdy and drove through downtown MacCungie to get to the church on time.
The ceremony was beautiful, as they always are, but I'm not the type that gets really choked up at weddings. Although it was sweet when the groom broke into tears while saying his vows, and the bride wiped them away for him. The pastor made a joke about how he sees more tearful grooms than brides these days during his sermon. He also tried to explain the "wives, submit to your husbands" Scripture in a feminist-friendly format, which kind of went over. I still don't really like that passage, but then, Catholicism has jaded my view of most of the Bible. Ah well. At any rate, both the bride and groom seemed phenomenally happy to be getting married, and I have no doubt that their marriage will last.
After the ceremony, it was back to the hotel room for a quick change of shoes (as a tall-ish girl I never really felt the need to master wearing heels for extended periods of time), then down to the reception. My siblings and I had brought backup alcohol on the off-chance that there wouldn't be an open bar, but we needn't have worried. The spirits were flowing, even before the room for the reception was opened. After having a couple of drinks and snacking on some hors d'oeuvres, we were allowed into the dining room and found our table. Joining all 6 of the Kardos family members at our table were my Uncle Lee and Aunt Cathy. Since Uncle Lee is well-known as a troublemaker (although a harmless one) in our family, we decided that our table was the "rowdy" one, and continued drinking in order to uphold that idea. Pretty much all of my family members, parents and myself included, got nicely toasted. (Note: all the photos after this point were taken with my point-and-shoot camera. No way was I risking the SLR in the state I ended up in.)
Here's my brother Neil, pretty early on in the evening:
And here's myself and my little sister Steph, also fairly early on:
Proof that my parents were drinking as well (even though my mother's father was there...):
And then there was the dancing. Although here I must note that I discovered my mom is a music snob. My father asked her to dance at one point, during a slow song that apparently wasn't to her liking, because she replied, "Not to this crap." It's good to know where I get it from:
We did the YMCA:
And the Electric Slide:
While my dad videotaped everything:
Then we decided to indulge in some other vices (that's a cigar behind my ear):
I even managed to take some upside-down photos that actually turned out okay, once rotated (first pic is older sister Rachel, her boyfriend Ed, then me):
By the end of the night, even my Aunt Linda (mother of the bride) was letting loose:
And the bride and groom were still on their feet, having a great time:
And that's when my camera's memory card got full.
A few minutes before the bar shut down (at midnight), a bunch of us went up and ordered multiple drinks, so we had a bit of an afterparty on the patio outside the dining room. Then my cousin Eric told us his dad was having the official afterparty in his suite - which was conveniently connected to our room by an interior door. Sweet! We ended the night up there, where we were surprisingly the youngest people in the room. I caught up with very drunk cousin Trevor, who was the one who introduced me to Mystery Science Theater 3000 way back when, and is thus directly responsible for giving me a lot of cred with guy friends, even to this day. Things get a little fuzzy at this point, and I think I went to bed shortly thereafter. The next morning we had brunch at Aunt Linda's house, where I ate a lot of bacon and drank a lot of apple juice to recover from my hangover. Then it was back home to Harrisburg to rest up in anticipation of a night out on the town there with my siblings and some of their friends.
To be continued...
I've decided that the Dallas airport is just a bad idea for me. I think I've only ever flown through it twice. The first time was coming back from Christmas at home last December. After sitting on the airplane for 2 hours, waiting for the thunderstorms to abate so that we could get into the air, we were told to get off the aircraft and back into the terminal, and to keep away from the windows when we got there. Long story short, a tornado ended up hitting the north fence of the airport while I was there. Fortunately it missed the runway (not to mention the terminal), so I finally got back to San Diego that day, only about 5 hours late.
This time it was thunderstorms again, but apparently, for legal reasons, the Dallas airport doesn't make people sit on airplanes waiting to take off anymore. Instead they just start canceling flights. On Memorial Day weekend. Yikes. But by some twist of fate, my connecting flight to the Harrisburg airport was delayed more than my flight from San Diego, so I was able to make it to Harrisburg, only 3 hours after I was supposed to.
The next day, we drove from Harrisburg to Allentown, where the wedding was held. We stayed at the Bear Creek Lodge, which is where the reception was held (conveniently!), and which is apparently a ski resort in the winter. Pretty neat to see the cleared ski runs in the summer. At any rate, it was a really nice place. They had Otis Spunkmeyer cookies at the reception desk, and my family managed to consume a number of them. The decor was also really nice, which mostly monochromatic, brightly colored walls with some tasteful decorations.
I would have liked to explore the area, especially the bare ski slopes, but we didn't have much time before the wedding. So we all got purdy and drove through downtown MacCungie to get to the church on time.
The ceremony was beautiful, as they always are, but I'm not the type that gets really choked up at weddings. Although it was sweet when the groom broke into tears while saying his vows, and the bride wiped them away for him. The pastor made a joke about how he sees more tearful grooms than brides these days during his sermon. He also tried to explain the "wives, submit to your husbands" Scripture in a feminist-friendly format, which kind of went over. I still don't really like that passage, but then, Catholicism has jaded my view of most of the Bible. Ah well. At any rate, both the bride and groom seemed phenomenally happy to be getting married, and I have no doubt that their marriage will last.
After the ceremony, it was back to the hotel room for a quick change of shoes (as a tall-ish girl I never really felt the need to master wearing heels for extended periods of time), then down to the reception. My siblings and I had brought backup alcohol on the off-chance that there wouldn't be an open bar, but we needn't have worried. The spirits were flowing, even before the room for the reception was opened. After having a couple of drinks and snacking on some hors d'oeuvres, we were allowed into the dining room and found our table. Joining all 6 of the Kardos family members at our table were my Uncle Lee and Aunt Cathy. Since Uncle Lee is well-known as a troublemaker (although a harmless one) in our family, we decided that our table was the "rowdy" one, and continued drinking in order to uphold that idea. Pretty much all of my family members, parents and myself included, got nicely toasted. (Note: all the photos after this point were taken with my point-and-shoot camera. No way was I risking the SLR in the state I ended up in.)
Here's my brother Neil, pretty early on in the evening:
And here's myself and my little sister Steph, also fairly early on:
Proof that my parents were drinking as well (even though my mother's father was there...):
And then there was the dancing. Although here I must note that I discovered my mom is a music snob. My father asked her to dance at one point, during a slow song that apparently wasn't to her liking, because she replied, "Not to this crap." It's good to know where I get it from:
We did the YMCA:
And the Electric Slide:
While my dad videotaped everything:
Then we decided to indulge in some other vices (that's a cigar behind my ear):
I even managed to take some upside-down photos that actually turned out okay, once rotated (first pic is older sister Rachel, her boyfriend Ed, then me):
By the end of the night, even my Aunt Linda (mother of the bride) was letting loose:
And the bride and groom were still on their feet, having a great time:
And that's when my camera's memory card got full.
A few minutes before the bar shut down (at midnight), a bunch of us went up and ordered multiple drinks, so we had a bit of an afterparty on the patio outside the dining room. Then my cousin Eric told us his dad was having the official afterparty in his suite - which was conveniently connected to our room by an interior door. Sweet! We ended the night up there, where we were surprisingly the youngest people in the room. I caught up with very drunk cousin Trevor, who was the one who introduced me to Mystery Science Theater 3000 way back when, and is thus directly responsible for giving me a lot of cred with guy friends, even to this day. Things get a little fuzzy at this point, and I think I went to bed shortly thereafter. The next morning we had brunch at Aunt Linda's house, where I ate a lot of bacon and drank a lot of apple juice to recover from my hangover. Then it was back home to Harrisburg to rest up in anticipation of a night out on the town there with my siblings and some of their friends.
To be continued...
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