1851 Working on the transcript of my lecture
2028 dinner
2146 Working on the transcript of my lecture
0238 Recording the lecture and lounging with the critters

Food: Key Lime pie

Fact: Iowa was almost home to an indoor rainforest back in the early 2000's.  The same guy that designed the Chattanooga aquarium was involved with designing this structure.  Federal money was appropriated but eventually the people in town decided this wasn't such a great idea for the 200+ million it was going to cost.  It didn't help the formal annoucment occurted on 10 September 2001.

I discovered the recording I had done the night before was garbled.  Since there was no way I would be able to do a lecture again that soon after doing it the first time father and I transcribed all the slides and I rerecorded them.  It was not really fun.  It also meant no baseball game today because I was working on the transcriptions and recordings until after 3am. 

1302 Checking the assemblies and then trying to figure out why my laptop is no longer charging
1557 just back from target with a new charger, computer still not charging
1920 Looks like letting it charge while in the BIOS diagnostics fixed the issue
2204 Trivial Pursuit on Skype with the parentals, vs Eddie/Ania/Zac vs Maria/Kevin.

Food: tuna for lunch, shrimp for dinner

Fact: 20 million books were produced in the first 60 years (so between 1440 and 1500) after the invention of the printing press. This jumped to between 150 and 200 million in the 16th century

All kinds of drama today- my computer stopped charging for no apparent reason. Since I had to go to the store anyway I got a replacement charger but no improvement.  My first thought was to take my computer apart, but luckily Eddie watched some youtube videos and suggested we play around in the BIOS first.  Computer was recognizing the charger, and in the diagnostic screen it appeared to be using wall power but also not charging the battery.  Unplugged it to let it discharge a bit (in order to test and make sure that the diagnostics would show me real time battery use) then plugged it back in.  Crazily enough it now worked normally.  Other big new was trivia with the family via skype.  Lots of laughter (did you know "Under the dome" was about living under a dome?).  Eddie/Ania/Zac won.  Next time we will all need to wear family shirts since today only Zac (monitor) and Maria/mom (octopus) wore them. 

1144 Just waking up
1350 helping my dad clean out our ditch
1651 Spades was finally finished assembling so getting things ready to combine UCEs
2040 Talking to eddie after dinner

Food: bean soup and fruit for lunch, baked chicken, veggies, rice,and mashed potatoes for dinner

Fact: J.P. Morgan's house was the first private home in New York to be electrified even though his father thought electricity would be a passing fad.  Also, when he died flags on Wall Street were flown and half mast and trading stopped for two hours as his body passed through NYC.

 Zoomed with Fanny and Tic then helped my dad clear out the ditch along the road.  Hardest part was trying to figure out where all the tools were supposed to be hung.  We also discovered we have 3 pick axes.  Did a fair amount of work with the Accipiter assemblies, discovered that when you look at the actual assemblies of uces where there are two motifs present in the alignments there are also two motifs present in the assemblies.  So the real data is there we just need to tease it apart.  Lectured the parentals on assembly including drawings on a white film mother put up on the wall for me to draw on.  Played with the pups, went for a walk, and started the alignments on the spades assembled fucater data.  We decided to eat outside and had an unexpected guest- a mouse that fell off the lattice over the patio and onto the table.  I eventually got invoved after i was worried father would spill our beer.  We also watched Zorro

1116 ANSP ornithology zoom on lunch
2059 Cleaning up after beer, brauts, and baseball on the porch while watching yankees/red sox
2159 yankees/red sox while eating ice cream sundaes
2337 reading Tongues of Serpants

Fact: George Lucas thought Close Encounters with the Third Kind would be a bigger hit than Star Wars so he traded 2.5% of Star Wars profit to Steven Spielberg if he got 2.5% of the profits from Close Encounters.  I'd say that paid off pretty well for Spielberg

Food:  PB&J for lunch, brauts and mashed potatoes for dinner

Woke up just in time for the zoom lunch with ANSP.  Almost the entire dept was there so that was a good time.  We had fun playing with the backgrounds.  Mine wasn't working until i moved to an ll white background, but I couldnt use the standard ones.  so i imported a pic from the prep lab.  Dr. Pete then took it a step further and made his looking toward the window of the prep lab with the angles looking reasonable whereas mine was a pic looking at the table from above.  Finished up the timing of the transitions for my veg lecture and then listened to it all the way through.  I answered some student emails then we went for a walk.  Did a bit of work on the Accipiter assemblies then it was time to grill our brauts.  A bit chilly out while we ate but not bad with proper outerwear.  Favorite yankee his his 100th homer- a grand slam to beat the sox is about as good as it gets

day of 24 Mar 2020
1207 zoom lunch with drew, steph, and lorenzo
1622 doing some work on the Accipiter assemblies
1920 emerging from the tornado sheltering
0052 grading exams

Fact: Babe Ruth made $52,000 in the 1933 season.  Apparently adjusted for inflation that is just over a million.  Baseball salary have changed a bit.

Food: ham, fruit, and sketchy cheese for lunch ham before the tornado, grilled cheese and left overs once things calmed down

Well the big exctiment was the tornado sirens going off while i was working around 1820.  then the phones.  Tornado coming our way, and they were using west morgan hs as a location to say where the tornado would be at 1907.  We gathered the animals, took the pups out, then got everyone in crates in the hall way.  The the 3 of us gathered headlamps, moved stuff around, and found all the pillows and mats we could find.  Then we ate a quick sandwich and watched the radar.  one of the storm chasers was on the road that goes to decatur and showing video of the tornado over our hill.  At one point they wer like if you live on 20 or 24 get in your safe place now, this is a bigger threat than COVID-19 at this insant (so dont worry about social distancing), which is exactly where we live.  We were standing by the hall way and my mom had just asked if it was time to shelter, when there was a lightning strike and followed immediately by shaking thunder so we slid our couch infront of the doorway and sheltered in the hallway.  Luckily it went over us with no damage!  There were still some storms following it so we left the cats contained in a room until that all passed so we could find them easily if need be.   So we delayed the start time of the yankees red sox game for a few hours, but it was a game well worth the wait.  Other than that pretty low key- picked up an order of food at walmart, went for a walk, and graded exams for my class



day of 23 Mar 
1230 lunch after a zoom meeting with ANSP discussion group
1706 early game today- red sox orioles and in a game that may be my favorite of the season 15 apr, davis had a break out day lol
0028 (24 Mar) skyping with Dave
0122 (24 Mar) finishing Hero of Ages

fact: The volcano eruption in NZ a few months back stressed the health system down there with the addition of just 30 or so highly critical patients.

Food: lunch meat; dinner beef stroganoff (no mushrooms or noodles for me) and veggies/berries

Worked in my new office (my bro's room) much of the day.  Had an enjoyable zoom meeting about pop gen with ANSP ornithology and others, then tried out zoom with steph and lorenzo. Will have a skype lunch with them and drew tomorrow.  Loved the red soxs game today.  The weei commentators were so funny, kept talking about what a wierd start to the season they were having.  if only they knew how bad the red sox would be (and that the following year no start to the season).  spent a lot of the day reading my book before the loan expired, but also watched james bond with my dad, talked with eddie and ania, and skype beered with dave.  Hopefully these abyss runs finish soon so i can get back to the data analysis. 


day of 22 Mar

1336 just finished remote churching.  Father fell asleep but grey kittie payed attention.
2046 watching yankees white sox from 14 april 2019
2047 still watching yankees white sox
0150 (23 Mar) playing WoW

Fact: Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve is almost 11,000 acres and a pretty great place to look at the night sky. When i was in KS a few weeks ago we went out there and saw a ton of shooting stars.  We also almost froze to death, and i had been under the impression we were going to Tallgrass Taphouse, not the preserve so that took a bit of a mindshift.

Food: chocolate chip waffles for breakfast; beans and enchiladas for dinner.

Pretty quiet day- we churched via nortre dame (the priests on the right had issues maintaining social distance- each time they moved they got closer together).  Father slept during the homily but grey kittie payed attention.  We also watched the yankees-white sox game which wasn't a high point of the season.  Talked with maria on her drive home from Tallgrass (preserve, not taphouse).  I spent the evening working on my exam since that is on tuesday.  Gotta say these online exams are both more challenging and also easier to write.

New friend [hre]

1259 On my way to publix to resupply
1311 At publix, lots of empty shelves but I found a dinosaur friend
1524 working on my lecture exam and skyping with Is
201 (22 Mar) Playing World of Warcraft

Fact: Joe DiMaggio's major league debut was delayed a couple months because he burnt his his foot in a diathermy machine.  These machines use heat to lower pain via heat (and to create interference negatively impacting German bombing raids in World War II)

Food- dinner was tamales, posole, and tomatoes.  Desert was dutch chocolate with caramel, chocolate, and whipped cream

Pretty slim pickings in frozen foods

Went to the store.  It was pretty bare.  However, made a new friend.  The canned fruit isle was shared with the school supplies and apparently in Alabama plastic dinosaurs are school supplies (I fully support this).  After coming back a few times it finally cleared out enough I could social distance and i checked out the dino box.  I usually only buy orphans and I was happy to discover a blue dino had falled out of the box and was pushed to the back of the shelf and behind some other random stuff.  So now I have a friend to hang out on my desk (my parents put together an office area for me).  I've already shown him pics of his new friends at ANSP but he wont be able to meet those dino friends for a while I expect.  Also, never send me for wine with instructions like get white wine.  I dont know what that means and none of them are labeled white, just have a bunch of words in languages I dont understand.  I eventually just grabbed one at random. But i was able to get almost everything on the list, only missed corn (and of course any form of hand sanatizer).  Had to improvise a bit, and ended up with some really, really green bananas but at least its something.  It was crazy to me that only us kids were wearing gloves.  But even those people need lessons on proper glove usage.  Filled out a form delcaring my BL2 and blood borne pathogen training if any labs need people in the HSV area.  Never would have guessed all that random training we have to do because we work with foreign bird tissues would maybe be handy.  Crazy times we live in. 

1056    Just waking up.  For the first time every Dumas actually slept with me, guess the trick is to let him totally pass out first and then he just looks at you but doesn't actually get up.  Also my mat has to be made before he goes to bed, which almost never happens.  Grey kitty also slept with me so i had like 1/4 of my mat
1819  Working on some sequence alignments before turning on tonights game.  Sadly the Yankees will loose after a rain delay.   
2116 finishing my beer while father talked to Jake and mother played on her phone
2253 Skyping with Eddie and Ania.  They were so bored they texted to see if their baseball gloves were in CA or AL.  We have them so they had to make due with jump rope and throwing a kickball around.

Dumas and Grey Kittie on my mat

Fact: There is a maple syrup cartel that regulates the price of syrup in Canada.  3000 tons of syrup was stolen between 2011-2012 (C$18.7 million) from the cartel and when adjusted for inflation this is the largest theft in Canada history.  I jokingly called it the great maple syrup heist, only to find out thats what its called.

Food:
Lunch- tuna and berries
Dinner- shrimp, cucumber, rice, and chocolate pie

Pretty lowkey day- it rained so no playing outside.  Worked on my lectures, talked to Silvy, and worked on the Catharus dataset.  Reassembling everything for the 3rd time cause I really don't like the velvet assemblies.

Back maybe?

Was talking to one of my friends about how i used to have a blog and decided to bring it back in these crazy times.  Figure I'll keep the same format as before (4 random points, something I learned, what I ate, and a brief what I did). 

Since I didn't have random points selected for the day already here are just a few things:
-Went to Wheeler Dam and practiced socially distancing while outside with my parents.  Saw 1 other person but they stayed on the other side of the parking lot. 
-Watched the 2019 pirates/cubs game (with a long rain delay)
-Watched the Washington/AZ State game from just before the sudden end of the season.  Its funny listening to Bill talk about brackets
-Talked about the NACC B/C proposals with Jack

What I learned today (well maybe it was yesterday, it was ~midnite): there is a subspecies of Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus) includes a subspecies (Aegolius acadicus brooksi) forages in tidepools in non-breeding season. 
Bonus fact: There is a skybridge border crossing in the Tijuana Airport into the US.

Ate manicotti (without the pasta part), calabacitas, cucumber, and some bread for dinner and chocolate pie for dessert.  No real lunch just some cheese and fruit.

Other than the things listed above I worked on some thrush data and did some fantasy birding planning.  With all the trips getting canceled, parks closing, and ports turning boats away its a total crap shoot on where to pin.