28 Apr 2020

0452 sleeping
1113 sleeping
1326 fantasy birding
2345 working on the thrush assemblies



Food: lunch- honey and fruit, dinner ribs from Ted's bbq

Fact California produces about 80% of the world's almonds and since honey bees are the typical pollinator of that crop during February 2/3's of the US commerically operated honey bee hives are there doing the pollination.  It takes about 2 hives to pollinate an acre of almonds.

Woke up slightly before noon, then had a Zoom meeting with Julie and her student to talk about the new pipeline to do some quality control on the UCE sequences.  We talked through a couple of issues and it looks like it is coming along nicely, the set of scripts can complete the replace with N step so it's just about finished.  I then talked to Julie a bit longer before it was time to go to Costco.  Even though the rules said everyone had to wear masks and only 2 people per membership were allowed in the store there were a lot of people not following the rules which was annoying.  Luckily people were being pretty good about social distancing.  The meat section was rather bare, but there was plenty of lamb and buffalo so i got a couple rack of lambs and 2.5 pounds of ground buffalo to round out the steaks (1 package of maybe a dozen left),  rib roast (the last one), pork loin (1 of 3 left), scallops, and shrimp i got.  Also scored 12 rolls of paper towels, but the parents said not to get the mile of industrial toilet paper.  Hopefully we don't end up regretting that decision.  We picked up some takeout ribs on the way home and listened to the ball game for the rest of the evening. 


27 Apr 2020

0452 trying to fall asleep
1245 discussion group
1448 working on the assemblies
2255 working on the assemblies and listening to the game

Food: i had the left over lamb from Easter, the parentals had spagetti

Fact: Crisco was originally made from cottonseed oil.  The cottonseeds were originally a waste product from the cotton milling process, which were pretty nasty to work with.  But eventually David Wesson figured out how to make the oil smell neutrally and also bleach it so it looked better.  First companies mixed the oil with animal fat just to make  a lard substitute that was a bit cheaper, but then in 1911 Crisco came along and only used the cottonseed oil. 

Woke up for discussion group.  It was fun getting to tell everyone that most taxonomists don't have to deal with a checklist committee and infact find it weird to have one.  Otherwise I just worked on the thrush data all day with a short break to go for a walk.  The Yankees/Baltimore game today was crazy.  We were down 6-1 and managed to come back and win it after a couple awesome innings.  Also spent some time looking at backpacking backpacks online incase i can't find mine (dads).  Found a 90L one that i think will work ok.  I've also decided that before bed I will spend some time designing my perfect house.  Tonight it was working on my epic cupboard under the stairs with attached bath. 

0459 trying to fall asleep
0709 sleeping
1907 out for a walk
0113 reading paper for discussion group

Food: Sunday breakfast (sliced potatoes, bacon, scrambled eggs with cinnamon syrup) fruit; steak, stuffing, asparagus, bread

Fact:Starting in the late 60's there was an approved cookbook that restaurants could pick from in Czechoslovakia.  Deviation from these 845 recipies required governmental approval.  These recipes were in quantities of 100's of servings and stressed nutrition and caloric value over taste.

Woke up and did a bit of work before having breakfast around 1400.  Spent most of the day going through thrush samples while watching superbowl xxxi (packers/patriots).  According to the announcers, the half time show wasn't very well thought out- it was in the superdome, included pyrotechnics and vehicles but the air vents were covered by banners.  The 2nd half was rather smokey, and the players were dropping like flies from the heat/fumes.  The we churched (it was delayed because Maria and Kevin were hunting for mushrooms but only found 3, an antler, a frog, and a dead bird.  Afterwards we went for an abbreviated walk since it was cold and then there was some sort of emergency at the house across the street from Valley View, but we couldn't tell if the response vehicles were turning on Valley View (which turns into our street) or not and we wanted to make sure it wasn't our house burning down! Also, planes are so rare these days we check all the flights we see. Today we had 2 flights following eachother, one was an Atlas Air 747 going from anchorage to miami so I sent Maria a picture (the other was an A-320 going from Des Moins to Punta Gorda, FL). Once we got back we turned on the first Sunday game of the 2019 season since father hadn't realized opening day was in march when he picked where the season started gamewise. 

1035 sleeping **** I've decided these random times should actually include all hours so I can get an idea of my sleep budget also, not just random times I am likely to be awake****
1108 sleeping
1501 having lunch
1918 watching florida state #1 vs notre dame #2 from 1993

Food: lunch=leftover shrimp/saussage thing, minus the shrimp; dinner- enchiladas with fruit and vegetables

Fact: The Sea-Doo was originally made by Bombardier Recreational Products (not the same people who make planes) back in 1968.  It only lasted for 2 years before being discontinued.  It got resurrected though in 1988 and within a decade had over 1/2 the market share in personal watercraft.  There was a Sea-Doo commercial during the ND game so I investigated.

Woke up and had lunch, then spent most of the day editing sequences.  I also talked to John for a while.  He's thinking Schmidts may join the Resurection Trail hike on day 3 by bike and there is a chance Ipish will deliver beer by float plane on day 4.  That alone is enough to make this hike epic.  After i came in from talking to John I discovered father had put on a football game from 1993.  It had been recoreded in celveland so we got to watch a bunch of random cleveland commercials for a telephone dating service, a car that came with a driver airbag standard, and a minivan with doors that opened with just the click of a button.  Also amazing was OJ Simpson was on the broadcast crew.  Fun times.

24 Apr 2020
1434 dealing with student emails
1618 dealing with student emails
2014 having cake
2249 getting destroyed at trivia

Food: Tacos, Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake (never got around to lunch)

Fact: Leonard Nimoy was in a couple seasons of the TV show Mission Impossible starting in 1969 (so after he was already Mr. Spock)

Dumas got his stitches out today so he is back to being a collared dog.  We went for a walk and the white laberdoodle followed us much of the way to the high school before stopping in the middle of Greenway and just barking for ever.  In birding news saw the first Scarlet Piranga of the year, they are such pretty birds.  We really need to stop calling those things tanagers, it makes no sense.  Trivia went very poorly, for some reason eddie/ania/zac got all the easy questions (seriously, why is "name the 3 primiary Axis countries" a question) while Kevin/Maria and the 3 of us got all hard questions.  We were also impressed that the west coast team knew the Rangers were a hockey team, but they only hockey player they knew was Wayne Gretzky.  We eventually ended up asking them 1980's version entertainment for the middle piece.  Their final question was what does "IMF" stand for in regards to television.  After deciding it wasnt International Monetary Fund Zac came up with Impossible Mission Force.  Eddie was about to talk him out of it since they didnt think Mission Impossible was old enough to be in the 1983 version of Trivial Pursuit, but Maria accepted their answer too quickly.  Only other thing i did today was finish sorting out grades and deal with student emails.  So glad the semester is wrapping up.

23 Apr 2020

1539 looking at thrush sequences
2207 Grading exams
0013 Grading exams
0228 Grading exams


Food: Shrimp and Sausage with potatoes and peppers, Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake


Fact: The catacombs of Paris were once a large Paris mushroom producing area, in the 1880s they were producing 1000 tons a year between 300 farmers.  However, just 20 years later (possibly due to construction for the metro system) the farmers had all left the catacombs and were mainly producing their mushrooms outside the central portion of the city. 

Spent most of the day either emailing with students or grading exams.  I asked the students for feed back on the switch to online learning and overall they thought it went ok.  Multiple students commented on how enjoyable the intro videos were because they provided lighthearted distractions and a sense of normalcy (and cats meowing in the background made them smile).  Most of the problems people had were exam related, but based on how well they did i think it worked out ok.  The best request though was more puppies (so i sent her this puppy picture).  We also listened to the Yankees/Rays game which included a rain delay and a walkoff hit for a yankees victory.  Father and I have decided the best way to stream the games is to sync 2 streams one tv and one radio and mute the tv.  MLB allows you to overlay radio over TV but it really screws up the commercials and so each commercial break is torture for father.  What was funny this time around was with the rain delay we finally decided to give in and skip to the restart of the game, only to discover if we had waited 2 more minutes it would have resumed on it own. It took us longer than 2 minutes to resync the games.  The highlight of the day though was trying to figure out what exactly dinner was.  When we were walking mother said we were having shrimp and sausage or sausage and shrimp.  I asked her which it was going to be and father said it was critical so we could pair our beer correctly.  Eventually she said it would be shrimp and sausage since she had gotten out a pound of shrimp and just a bit of sausage.  So we agreed that sounded like a Stout would be the best.  When we got home i went to the outside fridge and got a couple stouts including a Narwal 2018 for me since it was a sea creature to go with the shrimp.  But then as she served it mother announced it was actually going to be a sausage and shrimp dish.  Luckily she made the cake to distract us.

22 apr 2020

1643 Working on the exam and listing to the yankees game
1957 Working on the exam
2004Working on the exam
2046 Trivia

Food: Chicken and rice caserole, Posole, fruit and veggies

Fact: The words "chasing cards" only appears once in the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

Woke up for ornithology zoom lunch.  Everyone wanted to see my hair but since its already gone I said i'd do it again for sure.  Nate also shaved his as a mohawk so things are getting crazy.  Otherwise spent the day working on my 408 exam and responding to student emails.  No walk today because its raining, but i did sneak in some jump rope.  muliple 20+ in a row.  We did trivia again but this time we came in last.  I did however get the Snow Patrol question right, and got to correct the quiz makers again since chicken isnt an accepted bird common name.  Annoyingly they still accepted chicken.

21 apr 2020

1535 figuring out target lists for the SDF team
1607 figuring out target lists for the SDF team
1944 dinner
2359 playing WoW






Food: lunch meat, cheeseburger fruit and veggies

Fact: The earliest known bats are from around 50 MYA and based on the fossils they couldn't echolocate.  Those early fossils look pretty much like bats, although a lot of them have more claws than modern bats

Pretty low key day.  Spent much of it working on the hit list for the Social Distancing Flycatchers.  It reminds me i need to start making the country ebird lists also for so i can know what i need to target where easier.  Otherwise just went for a walk and hung around the house.  the yankeees game was postponed again but none of the other options really called to us so no baseball today.

20 apr 2020

1227 discussion group
1404 eating lunch
1756 working on the transcription
2031 dinner


Food baked chicken

Fact: Donald Knuth developed TeX, a digital typography program because he didn't like how the galleyproofs of his book "The Art of Computer Programming" looked, and printing it in a way that looked good was too expensive.

Spent most of the day getting the transcription done and final lecture recorded.  I did wake up early for the discussion group, but Emily was the only other person logged in and then we discovered it was actually an hour later so i went back to sleep. My hair was nice and blue today though so that was exciting.  We went for a walk, there was a family of 6 also out so we had to wait from them to come down the street before we could go up it.  the kids were bouncing a bascketball,  I said if that had been us by that point father would be carrying the basketball and we woud have shot eddie off in a random direction playing tommypong.  Yankees game was rained out so we listened to Astros/Tigers instead (it was in detroit so no trashcan banging). 

19 apr 2020
1741 churching
2301 watching Harry Potter 4
2309 watching Harry Potter 4
0104 recording the first round of my lecture

Food: Creepes and tacos

Fact: The Tenement Museum in NYC also salvaged the artifacts that were present when they took over the building in 1988.  The building had been a tenement between 1863 until 1935 when the owners boarded it up to save on maintenance and just kept the ground level stores open.  It incldues everything from rat skeletions to partially eaten bagels, to wedding invitations.

Woke up and had fruit creepes.  We really should have those more often.  Then mother dyed my hair with the blue dye we got.  When the light catches it you can really see the blue.  We delayed churching until 5 since Maria and Kevin were hiking.  Otherwise we just listened to the yankees game and watched Harry Potter 4.