22 May 2020
0308 skyping with Dave
0839 sleeping
2159 eating ice cream
2221listening to the Yankees/White Sox

Food: grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, tacos for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: Even though most periodical cicadas emerge in 13 or 17 year intervals some small number emerge early, and right now in Alabama we have a cicadas emerging after 9 years so 4 years early.  If enough emerge early all at once it can be enough to overwhelm the predators and have some reproductive sucess.  Usually this is only temporary and within a few generations the off cycle ones have been phased out, but if you have some sort of major climatic event it can be enough to knock the whole region's cicadas off cycle and then you end up with a a new brood.

Woke up and listened to Ari's defense on blood parasites in chickadees.  He did really great.  One of the side projects he talked about was using the parasites to determine where birds on migration were coming from since they were carrying the parasites they picked up when wintering (or breeding).  Its something we've also talked about for ectoparasites.  What was really interesting is they let everyone stay on for the committee questioning also.  After that I worked on some stuff for my grant, moved some assemblies around for Renata, and also did some sequence editing.  Then father and I grilled burgers and we went on a walk.  Again I did about 3miles with 45 pounds in 75 minutes (including a short walk down the hill with Dumas).  During dinner we talked about high school fights, apparently some kid one challenged father but he didn't see the note on his messy desk and then when the kid announced he and father were fighting all the big fighters volunteered to fight for him.  The other kid decided it was no longer necessary.

21 May 2020
0250 working on sequences
1531 driving back from Kroger
1557 unloading groceries
2113 trivia

Food: lunch meat for lunch, salmon for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: Peafowl lay brown eggs.  I was actually a bit surprised they weren't blue, but i guess brown is useful for a ground nesting bird.


Woke up and had my zoom with the ANSP lunch group.  Highlight was meeting Bob's new puppy.  Then I did some work, ate a little lunch and went to pick up groceries from Kroger since father was almost out of water.  It seemed even more straight forward than walmart pickup for some reason.  I also got gas for 1.59 a gallon.  Mother made cookies while I replaced the light bulbs in 3 of the outside lights.  After I unloaded the groceries I did some more work and then did a milkjug workout.  I even got mother to do a round with me.  Then we had dinner and followed by trivia.  This time Ron joined the Social Distancing Flycatchers which helped quite a bit.  It was also amusing because father was saying the things Ron was saying was no different than what he would have said 40 years ago, its like nothing changed. We ended up in 3rd, even with the abysmal 90's movie villain round plus i got to write an irate comment about how the trivia game sometimes uses unapproved common names (chicken) but other times doesnt since we were expected to know that peacock was actually being used correctly and not in the common informal way (the question was what color are peacock eggs).  We beat Maria and Kevin so that's all that matters anyway.  When I took the puppies out i played my screech-owl call and got a reply!  Finally.  Mother said she had heard one the night before.  After that I skyped with Dave.  New Zealand is starting to open back up... there are some benefits to being on an island in the middle of nowhere.


20 May 2020

0133 working on sequences
0714 sleeping
0817 sleeping
1501 working on sequences

Food: burgers with fruit and veggies

Fact:There is Russian Orthodox church on King George Island in Antarctica.  It is staffed by 1-2 priests and can hold up to 30 people (although I expect that figure is pre social distancing).  Anyone who lives in the town has to have their appendix removed since it's so isolated. 

Woke up and mother redyed my hair to see if we could get it a bit more blue.  Then I spent most of the day working on sequences or looking over stuff for my Accipiter grant proposal.  Went to pick up a prescription for mother and then worked on sequences until it was time for our walk.  I decided to work in the living room and put the baseball game on.  We were playing the Mets in the first of a day/night double header.  During our walk Mother found a discarded program from the graduation ceremony which oddly enough incldued a bible verse on the front page and an invocation... I think there was more prayer at this public school graduation than there was at my graduation from Catholic high school.  Once we got back we had a snack and listened to the rest of the game and then put on the night game.  The highlight was John making a comment about how you can't predict baseball and if anyone tells you in March 2020 spring training what April will look like don't listen to them.

19 May 2020
1543 working on sequences
1648 dinner
1840 getting ready to go for a walk
2329 watching harry potter 7a

Food: left over roast for lunch, manicotti for dinner

Fact: The London Underground first ran electric engines underground in 1890 as part of the City and South London Railway.  Even before this though the Metropolitan Railway began running underground in 1863 and infact the idea of running trains underground in London originated in the 1830's.  Both of these routes are still in existence today, one day I'll be using my Oyster card again.

Woke up and had our ANSP Zoom discussion group on the first half of chapter 6 in the book.  It was mostly about mutations- looking at pairwise distances between samples and calculating things like Dn/Ds (and what it all means).  Then I had lunch and worked on sequences.  Father wanted to eat early so we had manicotti before our walk, luckily mother made mine without pasta but it was in a bowl with foil which made it confusing for me to eat.  Eventually I decided to eat it from the center out.  We ended up walking down Greenway and up the hill since graduation was going on at the school.  There were a ton of Cliff Swallows flying around and also a roadkilled chipmunk that I moved off the road and someone had killed a ratsnake and left it on the side of the road.  People piss me off, especially when they complain about rodents but kill all the snakes.  Then we came home wand watched Harry Potter 7a, probably my favorite of the Harry Potters since its so much darker.  I had to keep reminding mother it all turns out ok in the end.