20 June 2020

0239 reading with the critters
0257 working on Accipiter
0759 sleeping
1126 sleeping

Food: Chicken enchiladas, beans, and cucumber for a late lunch

Fact: Rugby, ND was named in 1886 as a junction in the Great Northern Railway.  It was named this because there is a railroad junction in Rugby, England where 5 major railroad lines met.  A bunch of towns in that part of the Great Northern Railway were named after towns in England.  This town is famous for being the geographic center of North America (although its hotly debated) between a number of North Dakota towns.

Woke up and spend basically all day doing Accipiter stuff.  Got the mt alignment finished.  I'm hoping Julie can run it on her cluster so she can deal with that while I work on the UCEs themselves.  We also put on the last Yankees/Rays game before the all star break.  We lost 2 to 1, but favorite yankee hit a homer.  After our late lunch mother and I walked the puppies and then went on a walk down at the high school.  When we got back I did some work then we ate brownies and fruit for dinner and mother and I watched some House Hunters while father went to bed.

19 June 2020

0258 working on Accipiter
0422 trying to go to sleep
2205 trivial pursuit
2231 trivial pursuit

Food: the rest of the pizza for a late lunch

Fact:  John Wilkes Booth slept in the same bed where Lincoln died a few weeks before the assassination.  When Lincoln was shot he was taken to Petersen House across the street from the theater.  This was also the boarding house where a lot of the actors rented rooms.

Woke up and spent the day checking the louse names on the south Texas trees.  Once those were done I sent them to the rest of the group.  So happy to finally get that off my desk.  We put on the baseball game from last Friday which was a lot of fun since we won in extras.  Mother and I took the puppies for a walk (Dumas has been super energetic today, i think the daily walks are helping his arthritis), and then since we ran into the annoying dogs we drove down to the high school for our walk instead of walking down again.  Then it was trivia time.  This week we all got stuck on the orange pie piece.  Twice father actually knew the answer but we went with a different answer instead (including one about what a bottle of Chianti is wrapped in (he said straw but mother really thought twine).  Eventually the west coasters won, but it was a close game- we had all the pie pieces and were trying to land in the circle while maria and kevin only needed 1 more pie piece.  Surprisingly eddie even knew that a fireman was a relief pitcher.  We were all impressed (got some points back for thinking
Knute Rockne played in the 1920s and that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in September).  The game wrapped up right around 0130. 

18 June 2020

1000 sleeping
1021 sleeping
1554 working on Accipiter
2005 working on Accipiter

Food: fruit, veggies, and ham for lunch salmon for dinner

Fact: Locoweed is estimated to cause 300 million dollars of livestock losses each year in the US making it one of the most economically important of the poisonous plants.  There are many species that fall into this group depending upon region and they live in a variety of habitats and reach as high as 10,000 feet.  Symptoms of locoweed poisoning include weight loss and erratic behavior.  Horses are more susceptible than other grazing animals.

Got to sleep to a normal time so that was amazing.  I spent the majority of the day working on Accipiter mitochondrial genomes.  Mother finished up checking all the bird names in the south Texas louse trees so now I just need to do a final check of the louse names and then that's finally done.  I took a break from working to lift some milkjugs.  Mother and I watched a bunch of House Hunters (since we hit the All Star break we are only watching baseball tomorrow and Saturday since we had a couple games from last week that we skipped).

17 June 2020

1021 sleeping
1247 quick nap between two zoom gatherings
2218 trivia
2218 still trivia

Food: cottage cheese for lunch, tacos for dinner

Fact: There are actually multiple places that claim to have the world's largest ball of twine.  The largest community rolled ball weighs around 20,000 pounds and lives in Cawker City, KS.  However, the largest rolled by a single person is in Darwin, MN and weighs 17,400 pounds.  That ball took its creator 29 years to complete (at 4 hours a day).

Woke up for the ANSP zoom lunch.  Got to meet Dan's new puppy Echo who is absolutely adorable.  Then I took a short nap before having another zoom meeting, this time with Jason and a couple of algae

people.  They are putting a grant in to do some algae taxonomy and were wondering about next gen sequencing.  I took that zoom call on the porch which was really lovely.  After that was finished I spent the rest of the day working on the south Texas louse stuff and Accipiters.  Then I took the puppies for a walk and it was time for trivia.  Today's bonus was really fun- how far are each of these locations for Lawrence.  Between Ron and us we had driven to a lot of the general areas listed from LFK and then could guess based on how long the trip took.  We only missed points on 3 of them out of them.  Since SpaceBallz the trivia team (who always wins) skipped this week we came in 5th (SpaceBallz came in 6th).  But there were only 3 or so points separating all the teams so it really did go down to the wire.  The worst was I completely forgot Smaug's name.  I even knew there was a special edition Dragon's Milk named after him and that Drew and I spent weeks trying to find it without luck in Urbana but couldn't think of the name.  If I'd have come up with that we would have been in the 4 way tie for 2nd. 

16 June 2020

1103 sleeping
1209 sleeping
2032 walking Dumas
2225 watching House Hunters with mother

Food: ham, berries, and cottage cheese for lunch, smoked pork and mashed potatoes for dinner

Fact: Grazing animals are more likely to consume poisonous plants when forage quantity is low or they are hungrier than usual.  To keep livestock safe you should not rotate them onto a new pasture until there is sufficient non poisonous plants to easily support the herd.  This is especially a big deal when moving to higher elevation pastures in the spring and summer since poisonous plants are often among the first to green up and be really appealing to eat because they are succulent and palatable.  It also can be a problem when introducing new livestock to an existing herd since they rely on social cues on where to graze.  livestock occurring in areas with certain poisonous plants can develop some tolerance to the toxins, and when a new animal is introduced they might lack that tolerance and be sickened.  Conversely, some plants like locoweed are avoided by animals that haven't eaten it before, but once an animal tries it they keep coming back for more until they are poisoned.  Look for more future facts from the Poisonous Plants of New Mexico Rangelands publication by NMSU.

Woke up and had a Collections Committee meeting about the OC situation.  Hopefully we have a game plan now.  Immediately after that I had a meeting with Shanta about the hawk paper.  She is going to handle the biogeography and diversification once I get the tree together.  Luckily she is pretty busy the next few weeks so I can try and wrap up the sharpie and Catharus papers first.  Next I got mother set up checking the spelling of the names on the louse tree and I worked on the mitochondrial genomes for the sharpies.  Eventually it was time for dinner.  The topic of conversation was the instillation of the bishop next week.  Apparenlty the first part is the new bishop knocking on the cathedral door and the rector letting him in.  I wonder what would happen if the rector just decided to ignore the knocking.  Or better yet opened the door to discover a pair of Mormons asking if they wanted to learn more about their Lord and Savior.  We also then were looking up the number of Catholics served by various diocese.  Apparenlty the Diocese of Los Angeles is the largest in the US.  This all started because a bishop in Bangladesh is in serious condition with covid-19 and we were surprised to learn that a country which only has about 800 thousand Catholics has 8 dioceses.  Next I took Dumas for a walk.  Since i could hear the dogs barking down below we just went up and down our hill a couple of times.  I also messaged with Andy a bit about the Whiskered Auklet trek I'm planning on doing.  Side note, now I really want to try for the chicadee also, but not this year since its off the highway system.  Then it was time for dessert, hearing about fathers first brush with poison ivy, and mother and I watched some House Hunters.  I moved Suhubies pillow into the sitting room so she could hang lounge on it, but instead she lay on the blanket.  However, when grey kittie came in and tried sitting on her pillow she got unhappy.  Once mother went to bed black kitty tried eating not one but two rubber bands.  I thwarted him and so he then restarted the computer I was streaming House Hunters International on.  Silly kitty.

15 June 2020

1829 working on the mitochondrial genomes
1902 eating dinner
2139 watching house hunters
2254 watching house hunters

Food: cookie dough for lunch and burgers for dinner with veggies

Fact: when you are getting fit tested for a respirator one of the standard practices is to recite the Rainbow Passage.  This short poem is also used to determine how well someone can speak because it includes a wide range of sounds that require different facial expressions and tongue placement.  When doing a fit test this ensures that your mask will continue to function properly, even when you speaking.  Since I am considering trying to find some N-95s for the plane ride I was asking Maria if it is possible to do a fit test as a normal person. So being her she sent me a paper published in Healthcare Infection looking at the efficacy of homemade fit testing (take home message, it works ok for qualitative fit testing but not quantitative). 

We didn't have discussion group today so it was nice being able to sleep to a normal time instead of having to wake up early especially since I was up so late.  Infact I had just fallen asleep when the fan started making some wierd noises which woke me up.  Then a couple minute later Schubie started barking like crazy to the point I was worried that she had turned into Lassie and was trying to let me know father had fallen down a well.  Luckily she was just annoyed father was taking a long time to get her fed.  I spent the day working on the south Texas louse figures and also my bird genomes.  It was a pretty laid back day, the highlight was watering all my plants.  They are all growing quite nicely, and the tomato plant really perked up are growing nicely.  I also put some tickets on hold for late August-mid September for my ferry trip.  Mother and I went for a walk after dinner but father stayed home since he was doing some recording.  When we were walking back up the hill the neighbor dogs were running around so that was annoying.  Mother went to fix the sprinklers and I went straight inside.  After a little bit father came out and asked where mother was, I told him I abandoned her to the dogs since I could run faster (although I had my backpack with me).  Father didn't seem to worried and it took about 3 minutes before he was like well I guess I go look for her lol.  Silly parents.  After father went to bed mother and I had dessert and watched House Hunters.  Before I went to bed I was able to finish getting all the labels updated on the south Texas louse trees, now all we need to make sure all the names are spelled correctly then its finally done. 

14 June 2020

1715 churching
1807 talking to maria/kevin/eddie/ania
1812 talking to maria/kevin/eddie/ania
2137 dessert

Food: scallops and shrimp for dinner with asparagus and the rest of the salad from yesterday

Fact: The earliest harpoons were found in the DRC and were probably used to spear catfish (because they were found in association with catfish bones).  These harpoons were made about 90,000 years ago.  These early harpoons were made of bone and some included barbs on the sides while others did not.  The same site also yielded a daggerlike object which lacked a point or sharp edge suggesting it wasn't used for cutting or piercing but its actual use is unknown. 

Woke up and did some work but mostly screwed around.  Then father and I got the sunless room ready for churching.  We've pretty much mastered the video set up (which might be handy if we end up having to live stream maria's wedding since one possible option is immediate family only).  We told father he had to be finished with the homily before the candles burnt out (2 were low on wax).  One of them burnt out before he was done but the other lasted the whole service so I guess he did ok.  Not much else to report, mother and I watched some House Hunters and I played World of Warcraft for a while.  I also talked to Jason for a bit at like 2300 to give him the full story on the Alaska entrance requirements since at this point I have them pretty well down.

13 June 2020

1100 sleeping
1211 sleeping
1440 working on Accipiter
1743 working on Accipiter

Food: pizza and Caprese salad for an early dinner

Fact: Copper has been worked with since ancient times.  Copper jewelry in Iraq have been dated to 8700 BCE while amulets found in Turkey are dated to earlier than 6600 BCE.  Those were produced without heat and instead were created by shaping native copper at room temperature.  Annealing and smelting copper emerged sometime around 5000 BCE (probably in Serbia) although the exact timing is debatable. 

Woke up and got to work on Accipiter.  That was pretty much my entire day except going with mother to pickup the pizza.  Luckily I went since I ended up having to go inside and get it since they weren't answering their phone.  Mother did some work for me getting figures ready and I did mitochondrial genome assembly.  She and I also went on a walk and then I took Dumas on a walk just as the sun went down.  When I got back I put on the Yankee/Rays game (we lost on a walk off in the 9th after Hick tied it up in the 9th even though they turned him around to his right side and he hadn't had a righty homer all season).  

12 June 2020

0404 getting all the Accipiter libraries ready to download
0507 sleeping
0912 sleeping
1715 post assembly processing of the Accipiter seqences

Food: ham for lunch, scallops and shrimp for dinner

Fact:  At the end of Star Wars: A New Hope, only Luke and Han get medals from Leia.  As time went on the fact Chewy got shafted started raising eyebrows and so in 1977 George Lucas said as a wookiee Chewy wouldn't have cared about a human medal and was instead recognized at a different ceremony by other wookies with the rebel alliance in attendance.

Woke up for the louse people zoom hang out.  Drew's tarantula is about the size of a half dollar now.  We also got to hang out with Steph's turtle.  After that wrapped up I did a little bit of work and then went to pick up the groceries at Walmart.  Talked to Jason on the way back to come up with a final plan on which samples I'll add to the Caribbean Sharp-shinned Hawk paper.  Once I got back I got the groceries unloaded and then spent the rest of the afternoon working on the hawk stuff.  I got the alignments started just before dinner.  After dinner I took the puppies for a walk and then did a little bit of work until it was time for Trivial Pursuit.  We played with the same rules as last week (once you are on a pie piece you don't leave until you get it right).  We got stuck on our first pie piece (yellow) forever, but once we finally got that right we were able to knock out a bunch of pie pieces pretty quickly until we got stuck on our last pie piece (pink).  It wasn't as bad as the west coasters though.  They were having a perfect game and then got to their last piece (also pink) where they got stuck for the rest of the game.  They even missed the star wars question about how many medals were presented at the end of Star Wars since Zac and Ania didn't think there would be discrimination against Wookiees.  They took so long on pink the Kansans came from behind and managed to get 4/6 questions on a card correct (on their 3rd try).  So they the kansans asked us both pink questions until one of the teams got one right (which we did, so we came in 2nd).  Afterwards we talked about plants and met some of Ania's new plant friends.

11 June 2020

0448 trying to fall asleep
1229 sleeping
1329 sleeping
1841 finishing up louse IDs

Food: ham and my leftover baked potato for lunch, scrambled eggs, bacon, and potatoes for dinner.

Fact: The Mayan Empire lasted about 3,000 years, and their collapse could have been due to drought.  Based on soil core samples taken from Lake Chichancanab.  The core samples revealed a layer of gypsum occuring at the same time the Mayans started their decline.  These layers are deposited during long running, extreme droughts.

Woke up for my 1400 meeting with Jason and Matt about the Accipiter paper.  We came up with a plan to incorporate some of the data (the Caribbean samples and also a couple of mainland tissue samples) from the new plate.  We also are going to try and drive hope the fact that the biological species concept should not be the only species concept that is used, especially since it doesn't work on allopatric species.  We ended up talking until after 1630.  Then I started getting the new data ready to incorporate with the old data. Finished up the evening listening to the first Yankees/Rays game of the 4th of july series (yankees won even though they didn't make it easy) then watched some house hunters while finishing up the last of the louse IDs. 

10 June 2020

0035 working on louse IDs

0932 sleeping
1658 picking up the mixer
1735 at Lowes

Fact: Steven Sasson was the inventor of the first self contained digital camera in 1975.  Pictures were saved onto cassette tape and the entire camera weight about 8 pounds.  He also is the recipiant of the highest award given by the US government to scientists- the National Metal of Technology and Innovation which he was awarded in 2009.

Food: ham for lunch enchiladas for diner with fruit and veggies

Woke up and did the ANSP orn zoom lunch.  Nothing very exciting going on, other than finding out about a long power outage some of them had.  After 24 hours Dan went to borrow a generator from Janice only to have the power come back on while he was picking it up (and insult to injury being gone for those hours meant 3 of his fish died since he couldn't manually arraite the water).  I also sent out the Auk reviews to the rest of the authors and worked on finishing up the louse IDs from south Texas.  Mother sent me to go pick up her new mixer and some stuff at lowes.  While waiting in line at lowes I noticed two orphaned plants.  the person in front of me picked up one of the orphans but left the other.  So of course I had to adopt it.  It was a Morning Glory and even blue!  We ate dinner and then I took the puppies for a quick walk before trivia time.  Ron called in and we did ok other than the bonus round which was identifying kid pictures of actors.  We didn't come in last though so thats all that matters. 

9 June 2020

0755 sleeping
0822 still sleeping
0827 you guessed it, sleeping
2105 dessert

Food: jerky for lunch, tacos for an dinner

Fact: Qanats and puquios are ancient ways to move water in deserts by constructing underground tunnels to move water with low amounts of evaporation.  Qanats originated in the middle east (although exactly where is debated) and rely on a series of shafts.  Over time they spread throughout the Old World and could be found around the Sahara Desert, southen Europe,and widely through out Asia.  The technology was also brought to Mexico by the Spaniards in the 1500's.  Qanats were also use to provide building cooling by drawing air from a maintenance shaft through the water tunnel, and then this cool air would pass through the house and out through a wind tower on top of the house.  The first shaft acts as a well to provide water to the tunnel while the others allow access to the tunnel for maintenance.  Water flows via gravity.  Puquios are similar, but are found in Peru, and use corkscrew like openings to not only allow entrance to the tunnels for maintenance but also funnel wind into the tunnels to push water where it needs to go.  Based on carbon dating of some of the materials used in the puquios they could be over a thousand years old.  Conversely, Qanat technology is much older, at least 3,000 and maybe as old as 5,000 years old.

Woke up to a bunch of noise and sounds of annoyance.  Emerged to discover the parentals trying (and failing) at fixing mothers mixer.  I retreated to my room and worked until about 1630 when I came back out to discover this scene.  Apparently they had managed to break the mixer more since it wouldn't even turn on.  After father talked me through what they had done i decided we needed a circuit diagram so I found one.  After an hour of messing around with things we figured out a little copper bar needed to be in contact with this other contact point and somehow how much contact there was determined the speed of the mixer (and if it didn't come into contact it wouldn't turn on at all).  Got it all back in place and now it turns on (but the speed doesn't seem to change and it makes a horrible noise).  Mother has decided just to buy a new one (this one is 23 years old, Grandma Mary bought it for her) while father and I continue to mess with with one.  At one point she threatened to get her really old one out for us to try and fix also.  After dinner mother and I went for a 3.25 mile walk.  I'm still walking with my pack even though no backpacking trip.  Ran into Hal and Stephany, apparently they just got done quarantining after one of there kids was exposed.  Luckily they are covid free.  Then we had some Angelfood cake with berries.  Mother and I watched some House Hunters until she went to bed then i lounged with Dumas and the kitties. 

8 June 2020

0926 sleeping
1103 Ornithology discussion group (which wasn't a discussion today)
1623 working on the south Texas lice stuff
1908 listening to the 2nd Yankees game in London

Food: ham and crackers for lunch, enchiladas for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: For over a thousand years soap has been used to clean cotton or wool fibers before using them to produce clothing, but was not used for cleaning people until really recently.  The early soaps were good at cleaning dirt and oils away but were pretty nasty (they were made from animal fats and ash).  They also were documented being used to tint people's hair.  All these early soaps were solids, liquid soap didn't become available until 1865.  During the mid 1800's using soap to clean skin rose in popularity, especially once the 1870's rolled around and soaps that actually smelt good were starting to be manufactured.  In 1898 a soap made out of Palm and Olive oil caught on (Palmolive brand) and more soaps that were not derrived from animal fats became popular, especially since fats and oils were rationed during both WWI and WWII resulting in more soaps made from synthetic materials. 

Woke up and logged into Zoom.  Survi was doing her graduation speech for the lab before she recorded it for graduation.  She did really great and it was a nice speech.  After that Sami had a bunch of UCE handing questions so we talked about that for a while also.  Then I spent most of the day working on south Texas lice and Catharus sequences. During dinner I put on the 2nd London game (the one I was at).  It was pretty fun reliving it, although I totally agreed with the commissioner that they needed more merchandise tents because that was an epic disaster.  I stood in line for like an hour.  They really needed to have a separate line for the common stuff (tshirts/hats) and have them cost a round number so you could just walk up hand them a 10 note and walk away with your hat.  But no, not only was it all one line but they would guess what size you were show you all the tshirts of that size you pick which you want, theyd put the other ones back and then charging you.  It was redic.  But not as crazy as listening to brits ask questions like "is this like bowling where if you score in the last round you get to go again?".  Also the stadium sound people kept only playing half of the crowd participation noises so those of us in the know started just filling in the missing parts.  Afterwards mother and I watched some House Hunters and then I lounged with the critters before going to my room and watching TV. 

7 June 2020

0212 sequence editing
0431 watching house hunters renovation
0717 sleeping
0904 sleeping

Food: omelette, ham, fruit for lunch, maple salmon and baked potato for dinner

Fact: The Vasa was a navel warship commissioned by the Swedish royal family in 1625, and included over 700 carved sculptures and other ordainments to go with her 64 cannons.  Without any real way to calculate how much ballast the ship would need (since it was larger than anything previously constructed) the builders guessed and drastically underestimated it.  The boat sank less than a mile from shore after a gust of wind capsized her.  The ship's cannons were removed about 40 years after she sank but from that point on was undisturbed (other than anchors or dredging/blasting waste being dumped on her) and lost to history until the 1960s when she was rediscovered (in pretty good shape since conditions aren't right for a lot of the things that destroy ship wrecks, other than the parts destroyed by things being dropped) and eventually refloated, then towed back into the harbor for restoration work.  Since drying out before conservation work was finished could result in cracking all work was done under a mist of polyethylene glycol mixed with water (25 min of spraying, 20 min stopped 24 hours a day, for 17 years, followed by 10 years of gradually drying out). 

Right as i was getting ready for bed I heard Dumas wandering around aimlessly and apparently when he got up to get some water grey kitty mat snipped him.  Being a good puppy he wouldn't disturb the kitty.  So i moved the kitty for him and then went to bed.  Once I woke up we had lunch and then I did a little bit of stuff on my computer until it was time for dinner.  After diner we got everything ready for churching, then churched and talked to the others on skype before and after.  I found out mother made an angelfood cake for dessert and we had that with fruit.  We are still trying to figure out what is growing out of our geranium plant since it really doesn't look like a germanium.  According to mothers app it is some sort of sunflower.  Guess we will know when it starts blooming.  Then mother and I watched House Hunters for the rest of the evening while I did some computer work.  My favorite episode was 2 guys in Palm Springs.  One was all into crystals and wanted to buy the house they looked at that had a crystal sound room.  The other guy was like yeah your crazy.  I also liked that they didn't like lawns in the desert but were also concerned about killing something that was already planted. 

6 June 2020

0413 reading
0937 sleeping
1458 sequence editing
2338 talking to Brendan

Food: ham, fruit, and veggies for lunch, lamb, rice and cauliflower for dinner

Fact:  When the Jesuits came to China they called God "lord of heaven" or Tiānzhŭ .  This was also the name of a traditional chinese god.  This spelling was recognized by Pope Clement XI during the Chinese Rites controversy (which mostly a battle between the Jesuits and the Franciscans/Dominicans about if Chinese rituals regarding honoring ancestors and Confucianism/Chinese imperial rites were secular and allowed (what the Jesuits said) or conflicted with Christianity.  The Jesuits lost in the 1700's but eventually in the 1900s the issue was reevaluated and determined not to be in conflict.  This decision also lead to greater diplomatic relationship between the Vatican and China.

Yankees game 1 in London.  Suzyn was sad she didn't get to meet the royal family.  Father and I grilled lamb and it was basically and inferno.  So much easier to do a whole rack than individual pieces since you could flip the whole thing at once (and we only did 1 minute per side).  Father's new gloves worked well.  We also decided when flipping we won't spin now that we are using this super intense heat, its too dangerous.  We ate dinner outside which was lovely. 

5 June 2020

1116 sleeping
1440 working on sequences
1558 working on sequences
1854 eating dinner and listening to the Yankees game

Food: PB&J for lunch, burgers for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: Hart Island, in Long Island Sound, is where the City of New York buries unclaimed bodies, people unable to pay for burial, people whose families sign the burial over to the city (knowingly or unknowingly), and body parts from amputations.  There are somewhere around a million people buried there, although its impossible to know how many since records are not digitizes and a number of the hand written log books were destroyed in a fire.  It's run by the Department of Corrections (workers come from Rikers Island prison each day).  There used to be a prison, Union POW camp, sanitarium, and a reform school on the island but its all been abandoned now.

Woke up for my lunch gathering with the louse group (although Julie couldn't make it).  Everything is going well with everyone, although Tic and Fanny are thinking about getting covid tested since they were at the protests over the weekend.  I also talked some to Lizzie and its looking less and less promising that we will be able to go backpacking.  Basically the new rules didn't change much other than you can now be free to travel as you want after 7 days (really longer since the 2nd test can only be taken after 7 days in state and it takes 48 hours to process the tests) if you have 2 negative tests.  Since we don't have time to go up for that long before the hike its a no go.  They may even postpone the trip in general since things are a bit crazy in Anchorage right now.  After work I put on the Yankees game (although it was actually Wednesday's game since Thursday/Friday were travel days for London).   We managed to eek out another win although the didn't make it easy. 

4 June 2020

0935 sleeping
1223 getting ready for meeting with the hawk group
1411 eating lunch
2012 trivial persuit

Food: hotdog for lunch, chicken with spices and mashed potatoes for dinner

Fact: Siberia is over 5million square miles (6 if you listen to the trivial persuit card; 4.6 if you listen to zac's estimates based on knowing the size of a series of other random states/countries and also 4.6 if you listen to eddies amazing math that included estimating the degrees of lat/long covered by sibera and doing a surface integral in mathmatica (or was it matlab) shown in the picture below).  Since they rounded up to 5 and thats what the internet says, we gave it to them.  

Woke up a little before the zoom meeting with Jason, Shanta, and Keith about raptors.  The meeting went pretty good although we basically decided that Shanta and I could decide how to best proceed when we met separately in a couple weeks.  I also decided to go ahead and get my plane ticket to Alaska on the off chance things work out to go backpacking with Lizzie and John still.  Other than that spent the day working on Catharus sequences.  We ended up trivial persuting today rather than tomorrow since Maria and Kevin have their prewedding retreat thing this weekend.  Since Eddie has a grant proposal due Friday we played by quick rules, which meant once you landed on a pie piece you didn't have to leave until you got the question right.  The west coasters still won, but we had all the pie pieces and were making our way to the center, and maria/kevin only needed 1 more so it was a close game all around.  The highlight though was the Siberia question, especially when Eddie and Zac came up with the same answer using two totally different methods.  Ironically, the only random state/country measurement that Zac got wrong was Texas. 

3 June 2020

1407 picking up schubie food and puppy meds
1421 on my way back from the vet
1546 working on sequences

2212 trivia with Kansans

Food: lunch meat for lunch, chuck roast, asparagus, and potatoes for dinner

Fact: Benjamin Lay was a Quaker who was known for being anti-slavery, a vegetarian, and into animal rights before any of these things were cool.  He was born in England in 1682, ran away from home to became a sailor, after a while ended up in Barbados where he and his wife would feed slaves and spoke out against slavery.  This didn't go over well and eventually they were forced to go back to England.  Eventually they ended up settling near Philadelphia and kept up the antislavery fight.  Benjamin also began making all his old clothing by spinning flax he grew inorder to be sure not to be benefiting from slavery or animal pain.  He was also had some form of dwarfism.   Overtime he was disowned from 4 quaker meetings due to his radical views (2 in the UK and 2 around Philadelphia) and he wasn't undisowned from the last one until 2018.  Lastly, he wrote an antislavery book that was published by Ben Franklin, but it was too radical for Franklin so his name wasn't actually on it as publisher. 

Woke up for the ANSP lunch.  There was apparently a pretty strong storm and people kept losing power/internet.  Jason was the original host then he handed it to Nate and then i ended up with it since none of them were sure they were going to be able to stay on (and many of the people would appear and disappear at random).  What was funny was the storm didn't look particularly crazy on the radar.  While I was on the call I got an email from Drexel saying they were ready to submit the NSF if we were, and so the button was pushed and the waiting begins.   Once i was off the call then I had a quick bite to eat and drove over to the vet to pick up food/meds for the pups and drop off the box of sleeping bags for Maria and Kevin.  Silvy texted me a bunch so I gave him a call when I got home.  Not much going on there other than people not taking things seriously and a bunch of new cases.  Afterwards I did some work on my sequences and then we had dinner before doing trivia.  Jimmy was running a few minutes late, so we talked to Ron for a while before it began.  Father was telling him about the salt treatment he put on the poison ivy to try and kill it, and that if that didnt work he was going to try some thing with gin.  Ron said just drink the gin and then you wont worry about the poison ivy.  We ended up coming in 4th (or 3rd from last) after a tie for 2nd to last.  We were closer with the tiebreaker question (how many miles above the eary does the space shuttle orbit) even though we were way off.  The bonus round was college team nicknames.  Maria put it together and we did pretty well, although Ron missed the The Washburn Ichabods, a D-II team in Kansas.  As usaul, without Ron though the game would not have gone nearly as well. 

2 June 2020

0457 sleeping

0550 sleeping
1622 sequence editing

1734 sequence editing

Food: ham, fruit, and veggies for lunch, tacos (with the korean style beef)

Fact:  Willa Cather wrote part of Death Comes for the Archbishop while staying with with Mary Austin, a writer who focused on the healing aspects of nature, especially the deserts.  Austin was also involved with the California Water Wars (on the loosing side).  After loosing that battle water from the Owens River was diverted to Los Angeles and Owen's Lake dried up.  The Lower Owen's valley began receiving water again in 2006 after missing earlier deadlines to restart the flow. 

Woke up spent most of the day working on the Catharus sequences or checking COEUS to see if all the approvals to submit the NSF were finally in.  Still waiting on the 4th level of approval.  Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day.  I did message with Larry a bit about my post highlighting the differences between when Is and I got pulled over and when Brendan and I got pulled over.  After dinner the parentals and I went for a walk, and then I took the pups out for walks as well.  The Yankees beat the Jays, but the highlight was YES spending much of the later game showing a Red-tailed Hawk (Homer) that was watching the game.  John and Suzyn had a long talk about hawks, which was mostly Suzyn correcting John's mistakes.  But they both agreed it would be a pretty nice life to snag some food on the way to the stadium and then watch the game from the foul pole. I wish I had my Homer the Hawk shirt (the was the reason they made the shirts), but its not here (Illinois maybe?).

1 June 2020

0905 sleeping
1128 sleeping
1802  getting some work done
2025 watching Yankees/Jays

Food: pb&j sandwich for lunch, chicken and rice stuff (with some Italian sausage spaghetti sauce stuff) for dinner with fruit/veggies

Fact: Sesame Street was briefly banned in Mississippi because it included an integrated neighborhood and the adult that did most of the teaching was black.  Some of the board claimed they were doing it to make sure the Educational TV network wasn't defunded for being too progressive for the Mississippi legislature to handle.  Luckily there was such an uproar when the decision was leaked to the press it was quickly overturned.

Today was fathers birthday.  Mother made him a Key Lime pie that was pretty amazing and we sung happy birthday with Alexa.  Mother also hung up a happy birthday father sign over his chair.  Other than that I got the lit cited finished with the NSF proposal and then went to walmart to pick up groceries.  Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day mostly of noone talking to eachother.  We did enjoy the yankees victory even though they made it way more interesting than they should have with a large lead late in the game.  Also spent a while working on a fb post about the differences I've encountered at traffic stops when Is and I were together and driving a nice truck (first question was what are people like you doing driving a truck like this) vs gtting pulled over with Brendan.  I really feel like in order to truly end police brutality and racism we need to get at the root causes and why cops feel like they can treat people differently based on ethnicity. 

31 may 2020

0051 working on the grant
0851 sleeping
1956 trying to get the screen capture box working to record churching
2316 working on the grant

Food: buffalo burger and a little bit of steak

Fact: Bitter almonds are grown primarily in the Middle East and Asia.  Since they have a stronger flavor than sweet almonds they are mainly used in baking or for flavor.  Since they contain hydrocyanic acid they must be processed (by baking or boiling) before being sold to remove the cyanide.  Even just 7 unprocessed almonds is enough to kill someone.  It made me think of Eddie as a kid eating fruit seeds that contained cyanide to build up a tolerance.  Such a weird kid.

Woke up and spent much of the first part of the day working on the NSF proposal.  Its just about done so I should be able to get everything uploaded to fastlane tonight or tomorrow.  Also got an email confirming ANSP is still standing, although some of the nearby stores on 19th and JFK were looted.  There are curfews everywhere, apparently even Champaign had some looting.  The whole situation is just depressing- the police brutality continues even while people are peacefully protesting, no wonder people feel like the only way to be heard is through property damage because clearly what we've been doing to this point hasn't made a differnce.  Next, father and I grilled some steaks and buffalo burgers.  Father used some old almonds (we had to look up if the cyanide was potentially an issue).  The fire burned super hot and I couldn't get the steaks off because of the flames so father ended up having to put gloves on and do it.  Mother then cooked the mushrooms because we thought it was too hot for the burgers.  But then the fire died out and it was challenge to get the last batch of burgers finished.  It all turned out amazingly though.  Then we had a quick dinner and i worked on my grant while the parentals got everything ready for churching.  We tried recording the service but the box kept falling asleep, possibly because it wasn't plugged into a monior.  Have to try it again next week.  Then I worked on getting the final touches on some stuff I needed Jason to look at.  Eventually the parentals and I had a discussion about the risks associated continued churching at church which wasn't exactly pleasant but it had to be done because cases here are spiking and it isnt a testing thing since the percentage of positive tests is actually increasing with greater testing. Spent the rest of the evening getting stuff uploaded to fastlane.  What a day.

30 May 2020

0001 trivial pursuit

0552 trying to sleep (and failing)
1215 sleeping

2358 working on NSF proposal

Food: leftover steak for lunch, steak and bacon for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: The New Forest was first declared a royal forest by William the Conqueror sometime around 1076.  It was first recorded in the Domesday book in 1086.  It was heavily damaged in the Great Storm of 1703, and extratropical cyclone (probably with the force of a category 2 hurricane) that hit England.  When the storm hit (it also destroyed a lot of chimneys in London and killed over 1000 sailors) the Church of England said it was proof God was unhappy with the country, possibly because they hadn't done too hot fighting those pesky Catholics during the War of Spanish Succession. 

I had a really hard time sleeping last night, so much stress/uncertainty/anxiety these days.  Finally fell asleep a little after 0700, and slept fitfully until about 1400.  Spent much of the day working on the comments on my NSF.  It's coming along nicely so I think we will meet our goal.  The plant I rescued from the squirrels is really growing up nicely.  Went for a walk with mother.  We talked quite a bit about the situation in MN and all the other cities. 

Its insane than 30 years after Rodney King police brutality against African Americans is still so common, and its heartbreaking to think about living in that type of fear and knowing that so many people won't listen to your word.  The times I've been profiled suck enough, and those are limited to not allowing me into stores with my backpack even though tons of other people are walking around with theirs.  That's embarrassing but not life threatening.  Once we got back I then took the puppies out.  Schubie went first and got to bark at Georgia, the annoying dog down the road who is just allowed to roam at will whenever she is outside.  Georgia actually turned tail and ran though when schubie barked who was then so proud of herself she trotted up the hill back home.  Mother was waiting with Dumas outside and we were amused that they greeted each other like it had been years, not minutes since their last interaction.  Dumanator enjoyed his walk and then I fed them.  We had dinner once father got home (tomorrow will be a "fun" conversation about reevaluating the current situation since cases are climbing dramatically here).  We listened to the Saturday Yankees/Astros game.  Suzyn was unhappy that the replay review didn't overturn a call, even though that call favored the Yankees.  She was sure there was enough video evidence that the ball had hit the grass before Hicks gloved it.  Luckily the replay guys didn't agree and eventually we won the game although it was back and forth to the end, including the Astros bringing up the go-ahead run in the 9th.  Finished up the evening with an email from ANSP letting everyone know the museum was safe but that they were bringing in extra security and anti-terrorism was keeping an eye on our building since there had been some vandalism in the area and a few blocks away some looting.  2020 is shaping up to be the most ridiculous year ever, I just hope it all results in positive changes.

29 May 2020

1235 zoom with Drew, Steph, and Julie

1412 zoom meting with Jason
1551 going to costco

2320 trivial pursuit

Food: ribs for lunch and dinner with the last of the tomatoes and some fruit we had frozen

Fact: Polar Bears and Kodiak Bears are the largest terrestrial mammal in North America.

Woke up for the lunch meeting, Steph started the call cause we didn't think things through, so when she had to leave for class the call got killed mid sentence.  So i started up a new one for the rest of us.  Not much going on with everyone talked a bit about a preprint that is out using HMM profile alignments for covid-19.  It seems like we should be able to tie our HBV alignment paper into this somehow.  Afterwards I had a few minute break and then it was time to talk to Jason about the NSF submission.  We are aiming to get it in on Monday so he sent me all his comments this afternoon.  Once that was over I took care of a few other loose ends with the grant and then I went to costco while mother waited in the parking lot.  It was a pretty straight forward experience, masks were required (and enforced) and social distancing was maintained.  There were limits on the amount of meat (a total of 3 packets of some combination of beef, pork and chicken) you could buy.  They were out of lamb, but I got some steaks, a chuck roast, and some ground bison.  They also had no cheddar cheese or cucumbers but I was able to get everything else, even the mixed nuts I hadn't been able to find during my previous trips.  Afterwards we went for a walk and then ate before it was trivia time.  Eddie and Ania had trouble with their internet so they ended up having to skype in on his phone.  Then there was spider drama that eventually resulted in they disassembling their couch so Eddie could catch the spider and take it outside.  As usual the west coast team won, although all of us were down to our last couple of pieces.  We played the Genius 2 edition from like 1985 so entertainment was rather challenging.  I did have an issue with one question- what is the largest terrestrial predator in North America.  I said polar bear and then mentioned that polar bears and brown bears are really the same thing anyway and depending upon what genes you do your phylogeny with may or may not be reciprocally monophyletic.  According to the card the answer is Kodiak Bear, which isn't even a species.  Besides, Kodiak and Polar bears are similar in size.  So we played the rest of the game under protest!

28 May 2020

0839 sleeping

1524 working on louse ID
1628 working on louse ID

2353 listening to the Yankees game

 

Food: clam chowder (with shrimp added) for lunch, burgers for dinner with fruit and lettuce

Fact: At the Queensland Police Museum there is a stuffed dog named Peter on display.  Peter's owner was suspected of committing a murder and the eyewitnesses all noted the dog when they saw him in the vicinity of the murder.  Peter happened to be infested with ticks, got sick, and the vet was unable to save him.  The investigators (who had staked out the house) exhumed the dog's body, took it to the Queensland Museum to be prepared and brought it in during the trial when asking witnesses to ID the suspect.  The suspect was convicted.

Woke up and found out my new shoes had arrived (much earlier than expected, since the ETA was the 2nd week in June).  They are nice and blue.  They will take a little bit of getting used to since they are a little stiffer than my normal shoes and also have a little more bounce to them, but I think they will be really good for hiking.  Spent most of the afternoon getting the trees ready for a South Texas louse project.  I also talked to Cammack for a few minutes since he got stuck having to empty out my office in the wildlife building.  I had told him I had 2 boxes of stuff, a print, and a bulletin board, but apparently he thought i was underestimating and brought more boxes.  He was rather surprised to discover I in fact really did just have 2 boxes of stuff.  Mother and I went for a quick walk since it was about to rain (and actually started sprinkling when we were walking back up the hill).  Shoes worked well, did a little under 2 miles with my pack.  Then we had some dinner while listening to the baseball game.  Mother had made mushrooms for her and father and they were super smelly, I had to sniff vanilla extract to get my appetite back.  Fungus is disgusting.  Tonight's game was the first of the Yankees/Astros series at Yankee stadium and Suzyn was talking about how the series the Astros had earlier had a series with the jays resulting 38 runs in 3 games.  Just wait until the London series with its 50 runs in 2 games.  Mother made a cinnamon roll coffee cake that was really good, but needed 3 times as much frosting.  When I told her this she was amused because the recipe actually had called for 3 times as much frosting but all the reviews said it was too much frosting so she scaled it way back.  She's so silly, has she ever met a recipe that I didn't think needed more frosting?  Then I talked to Jack for a while and finished up the evening with the rest of the Yankees game while working on my alignments.

27 May 2020

0207 working on sequences
0456 trying to go to sleep
0923 sleeping
0949 sleeping

Food: Clam chowder for lunch, hot dogs for dinner

Fact: The countries with the most airports are the US, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada.  The US is first, the order of the others depends on how exactly you count airports.

Woke up in time for the ANSP zoom.  Everyone was doing pretty well although one of Survi's friends has been missing since early Tuesday.  After that I did some work until mother asked me to go to the Dollar General to get cream of mushroom soup so she could make clam chowder.  I also got some root beer and hot dogs.  As expected I was the only person in the store wearing a mask.  More surprising though was the Baptists across the street saying on their billboard that church wouldn't start up until the 31st, much smarter than some other churches although probably still too early considering the fact cases are climbing here faster than the testing rate is.   Otherwise it was a pretty low key day since it was raining the whole time.  Dumas and I ran up the hill to burn some energy since he and I were both bouncing off the walls.  I discovered an 11 year old pointer ran in the National Field Trial this year, which isn't too surprising.  The parentals and I tried getting the treadmill running but that is going to require some replacement parts.  Father and I think the barn would make an awesome home gym.  After dinner we played trivia.  Even with Ron (who answered a ton of questions we came in last).  The only other fun thing was grey kittie has decided he likes sharing Dumas's mat which has created a ton of adorable pictures. Who said puppies and kitties can't be friends?

26 May 2020

0406 working on sequences
0639 sleeping
1246 sleeping
2315 working on sequences

Food: leftover steak for lunch and leftover pork chop for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: NYC spends and estimated 300 million a year fixing damage done to underground infrastructure, mainly caused by the fact there is no single map of what is where (not to mention the fact some stuff isn't known at all).  The first attempt to use GIS to make a NYC infrastructure map was done by combining the water and sewer maps (although this didn't even happen until the sewer people were forced to participate).  The resulting map was even useful for predicting West Nile Virus based on where water might pool.  Interestingly 9/11 was both a wake up call and a hindrance to trying to get all infrastructure on a map.  On one hand the map (which was in progress) was useful to determine how to proceed with rescues and also to identify the location of a large Freon tank at the world trade center site (which if it had been heated by the fires and exploded would have been catastrophic).  But on the flip side suddenly the various groups realized potential security risks from sharing data, for example Con Ed bailed on adding their infrastructure to the map. 

Woke up and spent most of the day either working on NSF grant stuff or sequence alignments.   It was raining basically all day so we weren't able to go on a long walk.  I did some jump roping however (36 was my maximum in a row) and took Dumas on a short walk down the hill.  Schubert looked at me like I was crazy when I tried to take her.  I also think she officially has twirling down so mother recorded it for the others to be impressed by.  Tonight's baseball game was yankees/rays and we won moving us further into 1st.  Suzyn and John kept talking about how much they will miss Maybin since there is no way he would clear wavers when he got sent down for Judge. Knowing how everything played out makes listening to the games rather amusing at times.

25 May 2020
0010 playing WoW
1210 sleeping
1847 lounging outside
2018 walking

Food: pizza rolls for lunch, chicken for dinnner

Fact: There are multiple carrier pigeons displayed in the US that lost legs during WWI but managed to save the troops they were deployed with but carrying messages alerting others where they were pinned down.  One is in Dayton and the other is at the Smithsonian, not sure if there are others.  The one at the Smithsonian even had a wooden leg made for it (both lived for quite a while after their adventures).

Woke up and talked to Kristen about getting the NSF resubmitted.  Then i filled out the form she needed to start the process.  Other than that it was a pretty low key day.  Since the weather was nice I did some computer work outside then lounged.  Eventually we went for a walk (I did 3.6 miles @45 pounds).  When we got home I we ate dinner and listened to baseball.  Since REI was having a sale I decided to go ahead and buy some trail running shoes to hike in since my real boots are in Texas and I didn't want to buy a new pair when I had already planned on my next new pair being custom made.


24 May 2020
0636 sleeping
1652 hanging out outside
1929 churching
2245 watching HP7b

Food: tacos for lunch

Fact: King Arthur flour was founded in 1790 as an importer of European flour.  Originally it was named for its owners, but in 1896 one of the owners attended a musical rendition of the knights of the round table and decided to call one of its new premium flour products King Arthur.

Woke up and played on my computer for a bit.  We decided since the weather was so nice out that we would eat our tacos outside as a late lunch.  We put on the baseball game and luckily the Yankees won.  I did a little bit of work and then mother and I lifted weights.  Then while I finished my sets the parentals got the sunless room set up for churching.  Mother wanted to record the whole thing so we used the screen capture to do so.  Afterwards we talked for a bit and then we cleaned up.  Mother made turnovers and we ate those while watching HP7b.

23 May 2020

0039 playing trivia
0748 sleeping
1612 picking up beer
2232 listening to baseball

Food: pizza for lunch, shrimp and rice for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: Hertz Rental car was founded in 1918 with a dozen rental cars (Model T's) in Chicago, IL.  I'm wondering who was renting cars back then?

Woke up and did a little bit of work on my computer (and checked all the aTRAM runs).  Since it's Saturday I also watched all the birds roll in for my fantasy birding big day.  The most amusing part though was I was pinned in Champaign for one of my spots so I got welcomed to a spot on Florida a mile or so from my house. 
Then we had lunch and I did a bit more work before picking up beer at Top Shelf while father churched.  Mother and I also took a short walk- since it was stormy out we just walked up and down the hill a couple times.  Once father got home we ate and put on the baseball game.  Always fun listening to the Yankees destroying a team, even if we did loose the first 2 to the White Sox. 

22 May 2020
0614 sleeping
0857 sleeping
1055 sleeping
1214 zoom with Tic, Fanny, and Drew

Food: waffle for lunch, Pork chops, left over potato, corn, and veggies for dinner

Fact: From 1900 until 1933 there was an Underground stop at The British Museum (not to be confused with The Natural History Museum).  However, it closed when Holborn Station opened (less than 100 yards away).  From 1933 until 1989 the surface building served as a military command post then was demolished.  At track level the station is used for storage.  The station is also apparently haunted by Amen-Ra's daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh who's tomb was moved to the British Museum. 

Woke up just before our noon zoom.  Julie wasn't able to join us but said she could next week.  Oddly enough I had a dream where when I tried adding her to a Skype call instead i got added to hers, with the president of Costa Rica discussing goats.  Rather odd.  After the call I had a chocolate chip waffle.  The best part though was i gave a little bit to the puppies and Schubie was sleeping.  So i dropped in infront of her nose and she sniffed it in her sleep, stuck her tongue out and slurped it up without opening a eye.  I'm sure she was a happy puppy.  Then I worked for a while, then we had dinner followed by a quick walk and ran into this froggie.  There was a bunch of lightening in all directions but no rain for us this evening (although it had poured this morning, hard enough to wake me up for a few minutes).  Then it was time for Trivial Persuit.  Eddie first answered on his phone after coming back from picking up food.  Then it froze when he hung up to switch over to his normal set up.  We all thought it looked like some crime stopper CCTV (which is closed circut, not closed captioned like we had guessed but I had immediately realized was wrong on our 2nd question of the game).  All the rolls were going right for the west coast group and they won so quickly we decided they had to answer 4 of 6 questions on a single card; which they did.  So then we played the Kansas group for 2nd.  We both got to the center on the same turn (although we got there first).  We only answered 2 questions on the card and they answered 3 so i guess technically they came in 2nd and we came in 3rd even though we got to the center and answered a question before they did.  Highlights included Eddie not realizing Philadelphia had an MLB team, and all of us suggesting he do math any time they weren't sure of the answer.  Also good was Zac and Ania answering a tiger correction incorrectly, Eddie getting it right (how many wild tigers are there: hundreds, thousands, 30 thousand) and Zac and Ania saying that since they watched Tiger King they must be right, but alas.  A little later Zac got a question that Eddie talked him out of so i guess it was fair. 

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. 

0742 sleeping
1304 sleeping
1555 getting things set up for churching
1629 eating just before churching

Food: prime rib with aspargus and baked potatoes for lunch, oven pankake for dinner

Fact:  Continuing on with the metro systems (and will probably do so for a while since I'm reading all about them currently) Beijing has the largest metro system both in terms of number of riders (just under 4 billion rides a year) and also by size (just under 430 miles).  Conversely, the smallest metro system by rider number is Hohhot, China (200,000 riders a year) and size is Yokohama, Japan (2.5 miles).  All figures are based on 2019 numbers

Woke up just after 1400 and then mother dyed my hair blue.  We let it sit about 20 minutes before rinsing it out.  Its just a blue shine when the light hits it right so we may add some more dye in the next few days to see if we can make it bluer.  Other than that it was a pretty low key day, we churched at 1630 and then talked with Maria, Kevin, and Eddie for a while after.  Kevin really should join the choir when this is all over.  Maria, Kevin, and I also beered.  Father and I think we should put some more LED reptile lights in the sunroom, repaint the walls so they are a bright white, and put some of those futuristic plant things we saw in the Keys in and that room would be really nice to hang out in.  After we got everything put away I worked on sequences for a bit, then did some milk jug lifting.  I didn't do any jumproping because my calf is bothering me a bit (it's oddly stiff) and I wanted to give it a rest with just some stretching.  We watched the Yankees-Indians game and finally the yankees won; we blew a 5 run lead midway through the game, then a 1 run game in the 9th thanks to a DiDi error, luckily we won it in 10.

16 May 2020

0201 trivia
0209 trivia
0422 watching house hunters reno
1945 drinking root beer with mother

Food: chicken for lunch scrambled eggs and sausage for dinner with fruit and veggies

Fact: About 123 years passed between Mout St. Helen's last ash eruption in 1857 and the large eruption in 1980.  The 1980 erruption was the most devastating and costly of any volcanic eruption in modern US history.  All of us also learned that Mother drove by it shortly before the eruption and saw it venting steam. No idea how we all missed that over these 30+ years. 

Woke up and was happy to see Dumas's foot didn't seem to be bothering him today.  We cooked up some chicken and it turned out really well.  Usually I'm not a huge chicken fan but this was pretty dang good.  Then I worked on some sequences for a while and kept up with the fanbirding chat group.  Mother also cut my hair so it is ready to be dyed tomorrow.  I took Dumas for a walk half way down the hill, then Schubie for a walk all the way down to the road.  After that I went for a walk down at the school.  All told it was just over 3 miles in about an hour carrying 45 pounds.  I also talked a bit to Lizzie about the backpacking trip.  The 14 day quarantine for all out of state travel to Alaska is renewed until early June so we will see what happens.  Father decided to deacon 2 Masses this evening and I was not happy and apparently neither was mother.  When he got home we had a talk about responsibility and why someone needs to take control of the situation rather than the free for all that is going on now.  Hopefully that works.  During dinner we had a froggie visitor which made us start talking about all our old frogs.  Father doesn't remember having the White's Treefrog, but he did remember nuc the Green Treefrog and of course Woody the Woodhouse's toad was a family favorite (who looked like Jabba the Hutt).  I also learned mother never lived in on campus housing which surprised me.  Finished up the evening listening to the yankees get destroyed by the indians.

15 May 2020
0042 sequence editing
0128 world of warcraft
0916 sleeping
2205 trivial pursuit


Food: ham with fruit for lunch and chicken and rice casserole for dinner with vegetables

Fact: The only two subways in Africa are in Cairo and Algiers.  The Cairo one opened in the 80s and Algiers opened in 2011 even though construction started in the 80s.  The annual ridership of the Cairo system is over 1 billion riders and Algiers is over 40 million.

Woke up for a zoom meeting with Drew, Steph, and Julie about atram.  Trying to figure out why some genes fail to assemble in abyss even when there are blast hits that read map.  After the meeting I tried a few of the things we talked about and sent the results to Julie.  Spent the rest of the day doing sequence editing.  Dumas's foot was really bothering him today so I only took Schubie on a walk.   Dumas seemed really sad so i gave him a rawhide to make up for it.  Then I walked around the high school.  Today I did 2.1 miles with 45 pounds.  Then it was trivia time.  The west coasters won although it took a while since we all kept rolling really small numbers and lots of missed questions.  There were a couple of really amusing ones, including eddie refusing to listen to Zac about Algeria's subway because he thought the answer was Libya based on the amount of corruption and resource extraction by their colonial governments.  After the game we had a long discussion about mustard greens, radishes, and beets.  My siblings are all strange people.  The other amusing thing was I learned today Matt has all of the user ids for our little group memorized since we are always causing problems and breaking things.  I like mine (77).

14 May 2020
0102 sequence editing
0729 sleeping
1352 sequence editing
1613 sequence editing

Food: pizza, fruit and vegetables

Fact: During the 1918 flu pandemic MLB games were played with all participants wearing masks.  They also moved the location from Fenway to the Brave's stadium since it was larger.  But between that, a lot of returning solders coming into Boston by ship, and a parade Boston became an epicenter of the epidemic.

Woke up and spent most of the day working on sequences.  At about 1630 I went to Decatur, dropped my office key in the mail so Cammack can clean it out for me, and then picked up a pizza at the Italian place.  I was supposed to be able to just have them bring it out to me but i kept calling and not getting ahold of anyone so I had to go inside.  Everyone was masked so that was encouraging.  I also took the puppies for a walk down to the bottom of the hill while carrying 45 pounds (so exactly 1 mile).  Listened to the Yankees get beaten by Toronto and educated the parentals over dessert on swifts and how they can stay airborne for months.  After this I talked to Jack for a while.  

13 May 2020

0053 working on sequences
1511 working on sequences
1656 working on sequences
1830 working on sequences


Food: pork roast for lunch and burgers for dinner both with fruit and veggies

Fact: The first time beer was sold in a can was 1935 by Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, New Jersey.  Prior to prohibition a couple of the large breweries (Anheuser-Busch and Pabst) had done some experimental canning. 

Woke up for the ANSP lunch.  Met a new perspective STAR student.  Then I spent most of the rest of the day working on the thrush sequences.  At one point i listened to Lord of War while doing the editing.  I also did some jump roping and lifting.  Then father and I grilled burgers.  They turned out really good, and as usual we can't figure out why everyone doesn't use a circular grill and rotate the grate so it cooks more evenly.  Then it was time for trivia.  We had a pretty good first round (between father and I we managed to pull out St. Elmo's Fire for the lightening that is around a ships mast, since i knew it was St. something fire and he remembers a movie called St. Elmo's Fire).  We also got the decade (but not the exact year) for the beer canning fact above.  We still came in second to last sadly.  Spent the rest of the evening reading with Dumas and working on sequences.  I can't wait until these things are finished.

12 May 2020

0436 watching TV
1339 zoom meeting with Shanta
1705 working on the hawk sequenced list
1853 out for a walk

Food: hot dogs for lunch, beans, ground beef, and chile for dinner with fruit and vegetables

Fact: Bessie Coleman was the first African American woman and first Native American woman to hold a pilot's license, receiving it in 1921.  Since noone in the US would teach her she had to travel to France for lessons, with the backing of Robert Abbot, who published a newspaper in Chicago and was one of the first African American millionaires.

I woke up and had a Zoom meeting with Shanta to try and coordinate our hawk research.  It went pretty well so her and I will meet with Jason and Keith to hammer out the details.  But i think I will get to do some more sequencing!  Then I had to pick up groceries at Walmart.  It was wild- i think there were more people on the road than there were pre covid.  Interestingly all 3 restaurants between here and walmart will still takeout only, so it looks like places are trying to make responsible decisions.  Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day.  On todays walk i carried 31 pounds for 2.4 miles so not bad.  The Yankees got destroyed by the Jays, I kind of blame Suzyn since she was talking a lot about how the Jays hadn't been hitting.  Hopefully the rest of the series goes better.  After the game I played with the puppies for a bit and read my book before spending the rest of the night working on thrush sequences.

11 May 2020
0818 sleeping
0825 sleeping
1247 having lunch
1532 working on alignments

Food: posole for lunch and chicken for dinner

Fact: Somalia is no longer the pirate capital of the world, instead it is now the Gulf of Guinea.  About 90% of kidnappings from vessels occured here.

Woke up and had my discussion group.  We read a couple papers on diversification estimation.  Speciation and extinction rates are really unknowable and that also means we can end up with the observed pattern in any sampled modern tree through an infinite number of ways so its pretty misleading to do this.  I spent most of the day though working on thrush sequences.  Finally starting to feel like I've made decent progress on this.  We went for a short walk after dinner and then watched the cubs/angels game since the Yankees had an off day.  Father was also going to be for the angels but kept forgetting and celebrating at the wrong time.  It was pretty amusing.