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Fact: Crisco was originally made from cottonseed oil.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.