2 May 2020


0759 sleeping
0848 sleeping
1647 sequences and virtual Kentucky Derby
1823 looking for birds/grilling

Food: lunch: hot dogs dinner: steak potatoes with cheese fruit/vegetables

Fact: The 1974 and 1975 Yankees played their home games at Shea Stadium while old Yankee Stadium was being renovated.  So there were some yankees who never played a game in Yankee Stadium.  Oddly enough prior to this Yankee Stadium was owned by Rice University for about 10 years before being bought by the city of New York via eminent domain.  I am also sad I didn't make it up for when they played the rays at Shea Stadium after Hurricane Irma in 2017.  Especially considering I flew to Florida to watch the Astros play the Rangers in Tampa Bay after Harvey.  Always fun to text a friend and be like what would you do if i showed up in town tomorrow night for the game and then flew out early the next morning?  Luckily she is also a baseball fan so totally got it.

The weather was amazing today.  First mother cut my hair with the new trimmer out on the front porch (she even used an old poncho as a barber's cape).  It turned out pretty well (pic above is before, pic to the left is after), she got fancy towards the end and did some blending and paired the clippers with a comb rather than just the guard.  Then i did a little bit of work and we all watched the virtual Kentucy Derby.  It was between all the triple crown winners, and the favorite (Secretariat) won.  The race did play out like father had expected- slow start for Secretariat, he got boxed in, but he actually was able to get through the crowd to win in the last straight away.  before the virtual race they replayed the 2015 race so that was also fun.  before spending the afternoon looking for birds in the yard, jumping rope, and grilling the steaks.  The birding highlight was 3 brown thrashers- a recent fledgling being fed by the parents in the bushes just behind the house.  I was able to get mother on it so she could see the thrashers also.  Such cool birds.  Father had the fire really hot- hes discovered that a combination of pecan shells, wax, and paper soaked in cooking oil make a really good fire starter for the charcoal.  It perfectly seared the steaks.  I put on the first game of the Yankees/Royals double header while we grilled so we listened to the rest of that while eating dinner then we put on the 2nd game afterwards.  I think i was actually in Kansas the week before these games were played helping tear down Maria's shed and the timing just didn't quite work for me to stick around for the games. 




1 may 2020
0640 sleeping
1321 preparing to grill
2015 eating dinner
2217 trivial persuit

Food: Lunch- bison burgers Dinner- pork loin

Fact: The first documented plane/bird collision occurred on 7 September 1905 when Wilbur Wright was flying his plane over Huffman Prairie and killed a bird.  A few years latter the birds got their revenge when Calbraith Perry Rodgers flew into a floc
k of gulls, crashed and was killed when the engine broke off and hit him, breaking his neck.  Rodgers was the first person to fly across the US (it took 70 stops/crashes to make it all the way).

Woke up just in time for the zoom lunch with Drew, Steph, and Tic.  Julie was supposed to join us but must have had something come up.  We also took a pic of all of us with different pictures of KJ in our zoom backgrounds.  The the meat cooking began.  First father and I did the bison burgers.  Since bison is pretty lean we needed 2.5 minutes per side instead of 1.5 like we do normal burgers since they didnt drip fat into the fire and increase the heat.  They turned out amazingly.  Then we took the coals and put them in the smoker.  I split some wood into chips and then we smoked a double brined pork loin, which also turned out great.  Since I didn't have to do much once the wood was split I birded.  Lot of birds moving around including some new ebirds for me (Worm-eating Warbler and Northern Waterthrush pushed my ebird life list over 1500).  We also listened to the 2019 opening day game since today's game was rained out.  I also learned that fathers only bucket list item is listening to New York New York in the stands at Yankee Stadium.  Not only have he and i done that, we've done it when they clinched a playoff berth.  After dinner it was game time.  Todays fact was actually based on a trivial pursuit question.  Highlights include eddie talking zac (who lives in portland, OR) out of a question comparing the latitude of Portland, OR to ME.  Second best was a question about Nashville that Ania correctly said was nash, and both Eddie and Zac were like no def not and then decided it was Chicago. They still won, but we had 2 chances ourselves (they selected entertainment for us and yeah that didn't go well).  Infact it took them 3 or so tries to get the 1983 edition sports question we kept picking for them.  Maria and Kevin only needed 1 more pie piece so it was a good game for everyone.



30 Apr 2020
0101 working on sequences
0146 working on sequences
1802 working on sequences
1924 out on our walk

Food: lunch and dinner pork roast, fruit, vegetables

Fact: you can identify where batches of chemical weapons come from by looking at impurities that are present.  The Joint Investigative Mechanism, a partnership between the United Nations Security Council and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, employs scientists to try and identify the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks by figuring out where the chemicals originated and what other attacks that batch was used for. 

Spent the day either working on sequences or in back to back meetings.  I woke up just in time for the TWS quiz bowl meating at 1300.  Nothing very exciting- we are going to limit it to 16 teams but if more than 16 regester we will have some sort of play in round probabily using a written exam so the students can justify coming to the meeting.  Of course this is all dependent upon the meeting actually happening, which I'm not particularity convinced is likely.  Then it was the AOS collections committee meeting at 1400.  This one was on Zoom and i took it on the porch since the weather was great and the parentals were skyping.  I was amused when the AOS meeting actually involved talking about a lawyer who works for TWS.  It also hadn't crossed my mind that the average ornithologist didn't realize that mammal research isn't federally regulated unless you are working with T/E species or doing an import.  After the meeting I ate a couple of pieces of pork roast and then went to walmart to pick up our grocery order.  After I got back i spent the rest of the day working on sequences except for when we went for our walk.



29 Apr 2020
0310 working on sequences
1000 sleeping
1340 working on sequences
2101 trivia

Food: Prime Rib, fruit

Fact: Sudan has the highest camel population with 3.2 million followed by Mauritania (1.23 m), Ethiopia (1.07 m) and India (1.03 m).  We guessed none of these in trivia.  But at least we know what a cycle in baseball is!

Woke up for the ANSP lunch group zoom.  The highlight was finding out Emily passed her qualification exam.  Then I spent the rest of the day working on my sequences.  The prime rib turned out amazingly.  Right after dinner it was time for trivia.  This time around Social Distancing Flycatchers were winning for rounds 1-3.  Then we were tied with another team in round 4, and ended up coming in 2nd.  The highlight was the first round included the question: what element has the atomic symbol Pb.  Which was amazing because maria and kevin's team is often called "we know the symbol for lead" I texted them to make sure that was still their team name, maria was saying they thought about changing to to vindication. They came in 3rd so we were very happy to beat them.