The Homecoming

Our last day in guatemala was pretty crazy. We got all our stuff packed up and Jose came and picked us up. We loaded up the truck and then drove to the airport, which is undergoing major renovations. He dropped us off and we said our good byes. The four of us then headed in. me, AMC, and David checked in and got everything squared away while JRJ went and checked in for his flight since he was again on a different plane. We then went and payed the exit tax which was about 2$ US. We started to head towards security but then David decided he wanted a nice 20$ Q bill for the display frame he was making so went back to the exit tax people and got one. Then we went through security and customs. None of us had any problems going through either so that was quite exciting. Inside the terminal we found some more souviner shops to play around in while we waited for our flights. We found some brightly colored clothes that we all wanted but I had no cash so JRJ bought me the one I liked. Its rainbow colored, should look nice on my desk. I then went out to the lobby area and transfered some moths around and watched all the people running around. As David and I were sitting there I heard someone yelling my name. I looked up and saw Christina from Dominca class in the airport along with her boyfriend. Totally random, but typical Catanach trait of running into people you know everywhere. They were on our flight. We headed off to our gate and had to go through a second round of security to get into our gate. We then waited around forever until they finally called us to board. Me and AMC sat together again, but fell asleep instantly and I slept basicly all the way to houston. Once we landed we got our bags and went through immigration and customs. AMC went first and they asked her what she had and she told them dead insects. they sent her and us over to the ag inspection line where they just waved her and i through. They totally searched David and made him fill out the FWS forms before theyd let him leave. Then we emerged into the normal part of the airport. Davids wife was waiting for him and they left. AMC and I found a place to sit and waited for her mom. I called JAC and told him we were back in the US of A and he asked if wed be back in time for dinner. I told him itd be late but wed be back by 9, so he said call him when we left and hed have dinner ready. AMCs mom got to the airport and we loaded up our gear. Traffic was bad, but we made it to her house and got the stuff wed left there. After hanging around for a little bit we decided it was time to leave so we could make it back for dinner at a semi reasonable hour. The trip back was uneventful, just talked about guatamala and how much we want to go back. When we got to college station we ran by AMC's apt to drop off some stuff and then went to cammack's. Dinner was almost ready and we talked bugs while he finished up the cooking. I drank some milk- the one thing I've discovered tastes totally different if you're out of the country, so had been craving some good american milk for a week. Then we broke out the beer. The 3 of us talked bugs and collecting while we ate, it was great fun to have JAC back with us, he definatly makes things fun. We pulled out some of our bugs to show off what we'd collected and then told the collecting story highlights. Dinner was great, ate quite a bit and enjoyed the good times. It really did feel like I had come home, sitting there in the kitchen eating a homemade dinner (well wed been eating homemade food the whole trip but this was made by someone who did it cause he liked us not cause we were customers), telling stories, and planning the next trip. It really was a nice ending to a good trip. I think coming home to an empty house would have been different, I'm so glad JAC was there. Eventually we decided to call it a night and AMC dropped me off at Maria's friends apartment where my truck was. I went inside and saw her for a few min before I took my truck and went to heep to deal with the trap samples. I re alchoholed the samples, played a bit on the computer then called it a night.

Guatemala Day 2

We woke up pretty late today compared to normal. Breakfast was at 8 so I got up about 745. We were suppose to check the sheets at 2 and 5, but when the alarm went off at 2 I closed my eyes and instantly fell back asleep until 4 where I woke up and realized wed missed our target time. So we reset the alarm for 5 at which point we decided it was too cold and bright so went back to sleep. At breakfast jose said we didn’t miss anything at the sheet the moon never really set. O well, guess we made the right descion to get some descent sleep. Breakfast was pancakes (which david called waffles and so we told josh they were Guatemalan waffles and made him call them that for the rest of the meal), fruits, beans, and eggs. I had hot tea to drink. We decided to collect the highest area on the finca and then go back to where we set traps yesterday and work our way up the hill. We would then light trap up there and then come back for dinner at 8. Since we were going to be up their for so long jose suggested we not go up right away. That sounded good to everyone so we settled on 11 to head up. Aubrey and I organized out gear and I finished yesterdays report. Then we went out to the hammocks and I took a nap. I got bit up pretty bad by flies so I put on a flannel shirt and went back to sleep. Aubrey couldn’t take the flies anymore and got up and talked to josh who had just gotten back form taking some pictures. David and jose went to a stream and returned shortly before 11 saying there was absolutely nothing in the stream. We then loaded up and headed up the hill. AMC and I sat in the back this time and talked the whole way up about our plans for this semester. We both have decided we really need to learn Spanish and think the best way would be to make Carla and JBW talk to us every day so that way we can learn conversational spansih along with a more specific ento background. Well see if we can pull that off. Weve also decided that were going to try and stick to a daily schedule like Andy P. does, setting aside blocks of time to work on identifications, his bibliography, papers, etc. Well see how that goes. Part way up Jose stopped the truck and got out to point out a bird- a motmot- large and blue very cool. We saw a bunch of morphos on the way up too. Those leps are so cool. Then it was back to the road. A bit later we saw a falcon of some sort and JRJ got some pictures. AMC and I decided we really needed to take a group collecting trip of me, jac, amc, mika, eric, and frank or whichever of them wanted to come. Sort of a muskateer and et reuinion trip. I think it should be international- maybe panama since permits are manageable or even better austrilia. How cool would that be. I hope we do something like that. This trip has made me realize how much I miss having jac around. So often ive been like hed do this or hed really like this. Ive been trying to collect everything that t I think hed like and as strange as it sounds have been using his headlamp so atleast hes kinda here. Weird I know but ive really learned how much I depend on him. Even setting up the malaise traps I mean AMCs great and totally knows what to do, but JAC and I had it down to a science and could have a trap up in less than 10 min if we wanted to. I don’t know whats going to happen when he leaves for grad school, I might go crazy itd be like ½ of me is in Clemson. We got to the top of the road in about 50 min. There was a small village and we got out and looked around. There a bunch of black flies up there and they have river blindness so we totally soaked ourselves in DEET. There were some antlion pits but jrj didn’t have any luck with them. We headed down a trail into a canyon to the river and along the way met people walking back up to the river after washing clothes. One woman had all her laundry stuffed in a terracotta pot held to her back with a piece of cloth. There were also a bunch of kids running up and down including one with river blindness. You could look at him and the first thing you would notice what that his eyes looked wierd. We made it down to the place where theres a waterfall in the wet season and started collecting. Not a ton of leafhoppers but did get some new stuff. I also caught some leps including one with orange and purple wings. As AMC and I were getting ready to head up the trail a bit more I spotted a Morpho land way up on a rock. I climbed up as far as I could and jumped and netted the bug. It was sweet. I pinched it and put it in AMCs lep jar. JRJ had met one of the kids (actually the one with river blindness) and was talking to him about taking pictures and bugs. The boy followed us all up the trail. AMC and I stopped to sweep some veg and I caught a bunch of different leafhoppers I hadn’t gotten before. We then went further up and met back up with jose. JRJ had gone down with the boy to see where they wash clothes so the 3 of us started back up the trail. David was already up at the top and came back down to let us know all the kids wanted their pictures taken. Sure enough once we got to the top all the kids started yelling photo photo so we took a bunch of pictures. Once we were all loaded up we started back down and all the kids followed us trying to jump on the bumper. 4 of the older ones (a 12 yearold boy, the river blind kid, a young boy and girl) made it. The youngest boy hung off the truck dragging his feet while the rest perched on the bumper. The young girl jumped off after 5 min or so, followed by the young boy and river blind kid a couple min later. The 12 year old jumped off 15 min down the hill or so. After a bit we stopped and picked up a guy who was walking down the hill. He was better dressed than most of the people and had a pretty nice looking backpack. We dropped him off where the road we were on met the main road going down the mountain. We drove down to where the malaise traps were set and AMC and I checked everything. The 1st trap was very productive, the pan traps were collecting stuff including some ant mimic membracids. The 2nd trap however was really drooping and most of the alcohol was gone, so we tried to get it proped more upright in hopes of saving what alchol remained. We headed back up and ate our MREs- quite an adventure. Mine wasn’t bad they come with a small heater to warm the food, a snack (like peanut butter), a dessert, fruit drink mix, gum, and crackers. After we were done Jose, AMC and I headed up the hill to set the rest of the malaise traps. The 1st one we put across a path near a stream but quite a bit higher than it. We managed to find a spot where the trail was pretty high with an opening to the river the set up was a bit tricky since the trees we were tying into were overhangind the stream but we managed. Jose got the light sheet set up while we worked. We got done first so sat on a big rock in the stream until he got back. We then headed all the way up to where wed turned around the day before then worked our way back until we found another good set up. This one required some major habitat modification as I like to say and jose opened up a hole in the forest with his machete. Everyone down here carries them even the homeless people in town. Its kinda crazy. We got the trap set with joses help. It was a pretty nice looking trap with all sides out and taut. We kept driving down the mountain and found a place for the last trap. This one was along an embankment and we used sticks to tie onto on the grassy side. This trap also looked really good with all sides taut. When we were done we talked traps for a while- jose suggested using poles instead of rope since often its hard to find stuff to tie onto. I think im going to try this. He also suggested tying something dead onto the side to attrack calliphorids for JAC. I think were going to buy a dead fish for this purpose. JBWs going to freak out when I tell him what we tied onto his trap. Itll be great. We went back to the stream were jrj and david were. Jose stopped and caught some leps on the way down. He had envelopes so I stuck my morpho in one. We got back to the stream and he came and helped us fix the drooping trap. We wedged a stick under the head to keep it taut and refilled to head. Jose then started to look for some leps that had flown over while Aubrey and I went to look at the pan traps again. We found another membracid so now we have one for her and I along with JAC. I went and got somemore water and refilled the traps since they were getting kinda low. While doing this I heard a funny call and jose said it was a guan of some sort, then I heard the pitch change and moments later jose pointed at it flighing overhead- huge birds with stubby wings. It was totally black. It’s a pennelope. Then it was time to turn on the lights. JRJ was kinda upset we wernt collecting at that stream but I think the other one was much better as it was higher and more open. He tried fogging and caught a single psocid. There were apparently culicids flying in and out of the fog with no effect. We drove up and turned on the lights. There were some good bugs at the sheets including a bunch of new leafhoppers and my 1st flattid of the trip. At 730 we headed back down the hill for dinner. AMC and I were in the back of the truck again. She was commenting on the fact it was nice there were no huge predators like bears in guat. So I told her I though there were pumas which freaked her out a bit. Any noise after that was a puma coming to eat her and a squeaking noise became a puma whos tail wed runover and was now about to spring on us. It was defiantly funny. Supper was squash, chicken, and rice. As expected it was excellent. At dinner we heard all about the fogging and had a good laugh at jrjs expense then he told us all about mating in scorpean flies. After diner we tried fogging under the eves which worked a lot better so jose suggested some stronger pesticides. JRJ decided to try it out again along with a raid bomb tonight while amc and I light trapped with jose. David stayed back at the hotel. The collecting was great again. AMC swept some and then sifted through the veg at the light. She managed to catch an anole while she was at it. It jumped around between all of us before running away. We heard an owl also. When it was all said and done I filled a 15 cc vial about 2 inchs just of hoppers mostly cicadellids. I bet I got 30-40 sp today. I also got stung by a pomplid just before dinner. It flew into the light then flew off into the brush. I could still see it so asked AMC to get my net so I could catch it. I netted it on the 1st try and while transferring it totally got nailed on the finger. Since this was my 1st wasp sting (other than an ich last year) I was a bit concerned but didn’t seem to have much of a reaction. Jose gave me some benydrl cream and that brought the swelling down fast. We called it a night at about 1130 and we took everything down and headed down the road. JRJ decided to leave his fogging trap up and collect it bright and early before we leave at 7 for the Mexican boarder area. I’ve decided Id really like to some back here for longer and spend more time running more malaise traps and ypts. I love passive traps. I think im actually a closet hymenopterist since I like all their collecting methods.

Its official

So I woke up at about 630. Was suppose to be at Heep at 7. Got dressed for graduation- blue jeans, blue shirt, blue socks, blue everything- trust me. It wasnt planned, just happened, but hey blue is my favorite color so i guess its not unexpected. Blue runs my life really- I have to use blue toothpaste and a blue toothbrush. I also use blue soap and shampoo (the lids are even blue). So I guess saying i like blue is a bit of an understatement. But yall arn't reading this entry to learn about how monochromatic my life is, but rather to see if I actually was allowed to graduate or not. So after putting on my blue ensamble, I grabed my hat (both my blue p-fund hat and my bugified graduation hat) and ran out the door, only to realize that I would probabily need my black gown deal if I expected to actually walk. So back inside to find the thing. Luckily it was where I though it might be- Maria's closet after being used as a Harry Potter opening night costume. Back in the truck and sped over to Heep for the graduation breakfast. Everyone else was already there and had already been introduced to Woolley, Wharton, and Oz so that spared me the need to. I showed off my hat and woolley and wharton scored it. They threatened to deduct some points for a bug missing antenna and also for the elytra, but I think I prevailed. I ate some sausuage out of the pigs and a blanket deal and talked to cammack for a bit. The breakfast started to break up and everyone else headed off to Reed. Woolley and I signed the INHS loan form for my bugs and then he left. I waited around for Cammack then figured I should probabily head to reed since it was almost 830. I walked to my truck to grab the gown and cammack called me to see where I was. I met him in front of the building and we walked over to Reed. He decided to sit with my family so I had to call them and figure out where they were but we got it straightend out ok. We parted ways and I headed upstairs where the ag people were. I got up there and found out I got a honors deal since I was a research fellow. So I checked in with Mandi, discovered that Andy had also came to line us up. So I talked to Andy for a little bit, it was really cool that he came also. I gave my stuff to Kyle then ran back downstairs to find the honors people. Got it then back up the stairs. At this point we were all lined up and started heading down to the floor. We walked in and I looked all around trying to figure out where they were sitting. I was talking to them on the phone and texting like crazy. Eddie and I started texting diseases to eachother such as Ebola, Ecoli, Anthrax, and Infulenza. It was quite amusing. Once I sat down I was able to figure out where they were sitting since they were taking a bunch of pictures and so kept telling me to look at them. Balancing the boxobugs was kinda tricky and it was rather heavy so I took the lid off so at least there was less weight. The speakers were pretty good. At one point they asked for all the vetrans to stand up so I was able to look up and see grandpa ike standing, that was pretty cool. The intro was right off the program, almost word for word. Pretty soon I got board and read the entire program and then started playing games looking for different patterns in the book. I was also texting with Aubrey and eventually spotted her. They went through ENTO first, so got to yell for a couple of my friends that were graduating in that group. Then it was time for the wildlifers to go. We stood up and walked over to the other side and started walking up. We got stopped by the ento people so I got to talk to them for a bit. I told them after I walked I'd come back and sit with them til the end since realistically more of my close friends were over there than with wildlife. As i walked up to the stage I heard them call my name and announce that I was graduating with honors as a reserach fellow. It was very exciting. I walked up and shook Gate's hand as they took a picture. So I had my deploma handed to me by the secretary of defence. How cool is that. He signed it also. I walked through and shook all the random people's hands. A bunch of them asked what was in the box on my head and I told them it was part of my insect collection. They seemed to be amused by that. I walked down the steps and was greated by a couple of wildlife profs- slack and gelwick I think, but it was all a blur. Then I saw that the ento profs had stuck around also. I was really excited to see that. Oslen, Teal, and Heniz were all down there along with a couple that I didn't know. Ento actually had a better represntation than wildlife did. I hugged them all and went back to my seat to gather my stuff. I got a text from cammack through maria that said "hell just froze over". So true on a couple different levels. after a few min of congradulating my fellow wildlifers I went over to ento and sat with DiAngela and the rest of them. We talked through the rest of graduation and then all walked out together after a fianl word from Gates. We were the last group he was graduating, hes shooken over 40,000 hands over his time here, but we were his last. That was really cool. Once out DiAngela and I walked towards where our families should be and eventually found them. I got congradualted and hugged by everyone, guess its official now, i'm a college graduate. Scary aint it? We met up with Mika (who arrived shortly before the end) and Aubrey, then started to head back to heep. Cammack stayed to help DiAngela's family find eachother then met up with us shortly there after. We walked back to Heep, while dad and grandpa went to get the car. Mika and Aubrey headed to biocontrol and it was picture time. Mom tried to take a picture of me and Cammack, finally after the 3rd time it worked. Then they tried for a picture of all of us, but the wrong lens was on the camera so in order for it to work cammack had to be almost at ground level and all of us 30 ft away. Typical catanach camera debacle. Grandpa said no pictures of him cause he was an indian and to take his picture you have to pay a fee. We then headed off to HiKu, the Japanese place I wanted to go to. I rode over with Cammack and we met everyone plus Steven, Dasiy, and Aubrey over there. Mandi showed up after a few min too and we ordered. I got my traditional bento box with terioki beef and 8 california rolls instead of sushi. They came with avacados as always so I used cammacks chopstick to de avacado them. Its become tradition to do so, and even with other options it was the one we used. I think everyone else though we were crazy but o well. Lunch was great fun and was wonderful as always. Everyone pretty much knew everyone there so that made it easy. Daisy and Steven brough me flowers and a balloon and Mandi got me a pair of boots. Grandpa Ikie wasn't quite sure what to make of the japanese food so we got some good pictures of him inspecting it before maria's camera ran out of batteries. Daisy then took some pictures of me and my family. By now everyone was done and my family needed to get back on the road since they were going home. I got a ride back to Heep with Cammack then decided to run home to put my bugs away. I got home just as everyone else was about to leave so said good by to everyone then headed back to Heep after putting my bug hat in the deep freeze. I put my new bugs along with the ones I had taken up north for ID in my cabinet- which now has a full set of drawers. After a while Cammack came back and we attempted to get some work done. I got hungery and we decided it was time for dinner. Cammack said hed fix something, so we went to the store and got some beens and meat. He cooked it all up while I had a Sam Adams (I was reintroduced to it up north and now its one of my new favorites). Dinner was great as it always is when Cammack cooks for me. I also got my first introduction to a spoon holder. Its this little deal that you put on the stove and rest spoons your using to stir or whatever on it so they dont drip on the stove. It was pretty cool. He was in shock that I'd never seen one before so I called my parents and told them about it. They agreed I'd never seen one since Grandma Mary'd never used one as far as they knew and I didn't do much in Grandma Stella's kitchen (who did have one). The concept is quite facinating to me although I think its easier just to balance it on a pot or make someone else hold it. After dinner he took me back to Heep and I went home and was asleep pretty fast since I hadn't gotten much over the last week. Sunday was prety uneventful, went to Mass then tried to figure out what I would need for my Guatemala trip. Got a little bit of work done and got together with Cammack for a bit before heading to Dallas.
Monday and Tuesday were filled with Drs Apointments- physical, dental, and eyes. Great times. I hate doctors. I got the 2nd of my Hep-B series so that made it even more exciting. I hate needles. Other than that just hung around the house played with the dogs and all the normal home stuff. I went up to the Heard for a bit and saw some of my friends up there. Found out Debbie died a few days before. That was pretty sad to hear, she was always so nice to me and asking after my family. They have a new exhibit- anamatronic dinosaurs. It was pretty cool looking.
We headed out to New Mexico on Thursday mid morning. It was a typical Catanach exit- hurried and hours later than planned. Me and Eddie were in my truck following the renta van. The drive was pretty easy, weather was good almost the whole way, except for a little bit of ice in Clines Corners. We stayed in Albequerque for the night at Patty's. We were greated with Pasole (kept on the porch as is tradition) and chicarones- not pork skins like people here think they are but rahter balls of fried pork fat. Heavenly. I must have eaten 50 of them before deciding it was time for bed. I slept on the couch and was woken up by Patty's dog jumping on me. Tiny little dog, very soft. I needed to pick up my upgraded permit so got dirrections to Fish and Wildlife and drove over to the building. I walked up only to have to go back to my truck and unload my pockets since apparently you can't take knifes into a federal building. I finally deweaponed myself and was allowed to enter the building. I took the elevator up to the 14th floor then wandered aimlessly in hopes of finding Camilies office. I eventually figured out where it was hiding and went in. I met God herself and actually sat down for some coffee and cookies with her. She was quite funny and apparently has 2 JRTs that the spoils. I spent about 30 min talking to her before realizing I was suppose to meet Maria, Eddie, Grandpa, and Patty for lunch. So I left and met everyone at Golden Corral. I had the shrimp as always- must have eaten a plate full. We drove back to Santa Fe, Eddie and I following Grandpa and Maria. It was a bit of an adventure since we got seperated a couple times but we managed to figure out how to get home. Chaco didn't attack me as I went in so i figure thats a step in the right direction. We spent most of the day doing nothing, as seems to be our past time in Santa Fe. It was nice to sit still and watch TV for a change. We went to PCs for dinner, my mom and I did the bar run since there was a pretty long line for tables. I had a Negra Modelo which my dad thought was pretty nasty. I don't know why he doesn't like them I think there pretty good. I had an enchilada, sopapias, and natias for dinner. Nice to have real new mexican food again. You cant find a decent sopapia in Texas, enchiladas are differnt and people think your crazy when you ask for natias.

Times they are a changin

so since my last post my world undergone some intense modification. It started when Cammack found out he wouldn't be staying at A&M for grad school. The concensus of the profs he works with was that for what he wants to do he has exhasted all resourses here so between that and funding its time for him to move on. Hes looking at Davis, some school in Turlock, CA, Virginia Tech, Michigan State, Clemson, and maybe a couple others i've forgotten. Clemson would be cool since its still in the dominica consortum and his major prof would be petter adler, a guy we met in dominica. Plus the collecting up there would be pretty sweet and its not too far from A&M relativly speaking. A&M without cammack is sort of hard to imagine since as you can probabily tell from how often he pops up in this blog is my partner in crime, comrade in arms, and the other 1/2 of woolley's robot/clone team. Seriously there arn't many people who will spend finals weekend looking for sailor suits for a stuffed Chihuahua instead of studying or that I can talk into wheeling me around Heep on the dolly. The 3 muskateers are already down to 2 and I guess in July itll be down to just me. I had been planning on that since he was orignially planning on leaving but then recently it looked like he would be staying in God's country. O well, well both be back here eventually. We decided a few years back we were going to live next door to eachother with a giant light sheet between the houses. Over time this has morphed into 3 different house/lightsheet set ups- 1 in east tx, 1 in the hill country, and 1 in west texas. All with minibars at the light sheets and air strips so we can fly to work (we both want to be profs at A&M) each day. yeah we are nerds but its so much fun.

Then later last week I realized that I was starting to forget my motto- Fly hard, Kill Swiftly, Make no Apologies. I don't have a bird right now so a lot of the new people this semester havn't been around for all the bird and hunting talk. It had been kinda easy to forget that I am who I am and that changing who I am isnt good. I love the chase as much if not more than the kill but when it comes down to it coming home with a bunny, squirrel, or whatever else at the end of the day is incredible. Nothing beats watching bird, dog, quarry, and human interact. Its sort of birdwatching on steroids., but at the same time I am not out flying my bird, I am hunting with a bird and thats that. No reason to justify it, it is what it is and I love what I do and I make no apologies for it. This holds true for the gun hunting that I do. I take pride in stalking game, I may not come home with tons, but its enough to feed me and my bird and have some fun in the process. When it starts getting to easy I change it up some- throwing knifes, rocks, etc, especially these days when I actually can put food on the table for myself and the dog and dont currently have a bird to feed. Now when food gets tight itll be a different story, a bunny is a bunny wheather it was shot, taloned, or knifed. Too many americans don't feel a connection to the land and I think part of it comes from never living off of it. I am proud to say that there has been more than a few weeks when all I ate was game be it deer I got from friends or stuff I had killed. At the time it was out of necessity but honestly deer steaks are pretty dang good.

Then on friday I found out dad may be moving to Huntsville, and not huntsville, tx like me, maria, and eddie all thought when were were first told. The funny thing about that is we were all told seperatly and all had the same reaction. He was offered a spot on another project and since the current project is almost done he might take it. They dont want to move eddie so mom would stay in allen until he graduated then move to alabama. Although I think eddie should move to Huntsville as it would drasticly improve his chances of going to ISEF, which as we all know is the most important part of a catanach's highschool carrer. At first I didnt think it would really matter if they moved or not, since I'm don't get home much these days anyway, but the more I think about it I realize how wierd it would be not to have my parents in Allen. At the same time though this new project would open up the possibility to moving back west, which I know they both want. And in the grand scheme of things i'll be heading north for my phd and so for 5 years will be far away even if they stay in tx. When I was a kid I though Huntsville, AL would be a really cool place. Our neighbors back in CA moved there when we were kids and since Mr. James, who worked with my dad, was really into space and galexys and so was I I figured we should move there too. Now though, im not so sure if Id like Alabama. Guess i should check out the hunting regs. Should be interesting to see what ends up happening.

Now that i've totally bored the few people that actually read this thing itll be back to the regularly scheduled programing- random slightly entertaining stories. Below is a picture of the muskateers in the sand dunes out in west Texas. I think thats my favorite picture of the 3 of us even though its totally washed out, its kinda a cool effect. Cammacks in the middle and Erics on the right (which means I'm on the left, shocking I know).

How to drive a prof crazy and corrupting the young

Well eddie came down to visit last weekend. He came down on saturday and left on monday. He hung out in the lab over the weekend and then came to class with maria and I on monday. I got him for insect physiology and wolleys systematics class. Woolley starte class by saying we had a visitor and you could tell it was my brother cause we looked identical and we had matching dell computers. It was rather amusing. Eddie left after that class and by some maricale he made it back to allen wtihout getting lost. Quite an accomplishment for someone who got lost in north zulch (population maybe 50 and only has a highway running ns and one runninng ew (the one he was on) and who on the way down on saturday turned the wrong way down 190 and made it back to I45 before figuring it out. The rest of the week was uneventful at least until wensday, when I had my late lab, then movie for genetics, then time for making clay wasp models. Before this though I had to take a range test then my genetics make up test. After this i realised i needed to write up my phys lab report so went back to the office and typed it up. Only issue was that I had put last weeks data in my copy of intro to the study of insects which I let josh use for whartons class. So I ran downstairs, but he was already in class so I just wrote up what I could then called it good. Phys lab was the longest ever, so Ramish bought the entire class pizza for dinner. It was the greatest. Went over to biobio for my extra credit movie night. After a 30 min delay for equipment difficulties they finally got the movie started. It was gatica, i had seen most of it, but finally got to see the ending. Pretty good movie. Then finished a paper then over to cammacks to make clay Eucharids for Woolley. On the test it said no more than 4 pages including tables, figures, and clay models, so we took him up on that. I made one that was blue and cammacks was green, they were pretty dang cool looking. They took quite a while, but were pretty close to morphologically correct. On the way home I picked up maria at the girls house and then we went home. One the way back maria pointed out a cop in this parkinglot so i made sure i was going the speed limit and all that jazz. I still managed to make an illegal wide righthand turn and got pulled over. Only got a warning, not bad. I was kinda hoping the cop would ask about the budlight box maria was holding so i could whip out the clay eucharid in the box, but he didnt. So good times were had by all over the last week.