I'm about to go to bed after the longest 4-day week ever. This was definitely the first time I've felt real pressure at work... but, working on something that's going to be submitted for publication in less than a month will do that to you I guess...
Anyhow, I still love the job, and I'm excited by the work that's going on... today was definitely a good research day (in contrast to yesterday). A digest that looked hopelessly wrong yesterday was replaced by one that looked spot on today, thanks to phenol-chloroform and changing the ratio of DNA to enzyme. And the culprit of a failed PCR was discovered as well... I had the wrong template! I was using Anopheles DNA instead of Aedes! Well, of course those primers designed from the Aedes sequence aren't going to work... they're not that closely related... we're not talking about a one SNP difference every 10 kb...

Well, I'm off to bed, wish me a safe journey on the morrow.
To chicago I go...

If all goes well, there will be some pictures in it for you when I get back.

I got my package today!!

The figures I ebay'd at the beginning of the month, that were priority mailed to me on the 5th are finally in my possession. I really don't understand how it took so long, but certain people in the Vanderbilt mail distribution system obviously are a bit confused... the folks I spoke with today though were nothing but helpful.

Interestingly, I think the first time I went from being mildly annoyed by the whole situation to actually praying about it was yesterday.

If you haven't done so already, you should check out the blog of this fellow who is one of the first tourists in Iraq. Really really cool... I wish I had the chance to go over there now...

I really wish it was easier to learn a language from the privacy of your own home... and then travel someplace and make use of it.

Well.... this is a bit anti-climactic... and all because a certain CEO gave me a not quite as effective as desired product... honestly, who designs a set of CD-writing software that doesn't allow you to encode the information in both MAC and PC foile formats...

Well, it's not really his fault... I should have made certain that I would be able to get the files from my home computer to work...

Anyhow, I shall overcome this little obstacle, and since I have to work tomorrow and sunday, I'll hopefully be able to overcome sometime this weekend...

I really like leaving lab after dark. It is the most reminescent of NU that I can get here... something about the lighting in the courtyard between my building and the chemistry building is almost identical to the area between kemper/slivka/cci. Like a movie set... you're really not standing in the real world when you're there...
I also like walking past the medical library... it reminds me of coming back home after an evening stroll on the lakefill... peeking in through the big windows at students studying hard... who are to me silent, and oblivious to my gaze.

Mmmm... a bit more BLAST-ing tonight, and then it's home Jeeves....

Something bit my leg.

At first I thought it was a mosquito bite, since it itched a little.

Then I noticed that it didn't itch as much as it felt sore. I concluded that perhaps it was one of the famed Anopheles' bites.

Then I thought that I always wear pants when I'm in the insectary, and I would likely have noticed getting bit anyhow.

Right now my pet theory is that it was a spider bite, inflicted upon my naked leg while I slept.


The world may never know.



And now a drumroll please!

*drumroll*

Coming (hopefully) tomorrow...

An internet institution...
Returning to public viewing on the web...
Be afriad...
Be very afraid.

No time to write much at the moment, however a quick update... I got a nice email response from Jeshua that helped me compose my thoughts a bit more... I'm pretty convinced now that this is merely garden variety doubt in disguise... so I think I'm pretty close to a satisfactory resolution.

This whole episode has certainly highlighted how much being graduated sucks, and how much loneliness is actually a problem for me... often I think I conceptualize my self as a Han Solo type, battling evil with only a wookie by my side... but... I miss people... If you're reading this right now, chances are you're one of the people I miss...

Last night Di and I made casserole... I'm really glad that Di is around... If we weren't in the same city, I'd really have no one close around... it's quite a blessing... anyhow, the casserole was a makeshift recipe that we essentially dreamed up while at the grocery store. I think that the episode producing procedure demonstrated why Di is the master chef and I am but the apprentice... she was able to make great decisions about what to put in the casserole... decisions that made me nervous at the time, but that turned out to be delicious.

Oh yes, this is getting longer than I thought, but one more thing... I got a new cell phone over the weekend... they're really more fun than I thought they would be. I've got Sprint service, but right now I'm only signed up for 300/1000 anytime/night & weekend minutes a month... I'm debating whether or not to switch up to 500/unlimited for 9 dollars more, or possibly get unlimited mobile to mobile minutes for 5 dollars more... If you have a sprint PCS phone, let me know, and that might sway my decision. Anyhow, I'm not going to post my digits here, but email me and I'll send them to you, or give you a call :)

Hello everyone, I'm going to try to put to screen what I've been thinking about for the past 48 hours... I don't think I'm going to be able to completely express everything, but I'll do my best... I debated about posting this for a while, since I didn't want to inflict my thoughts upon any of my readership, but simultaneously, I feel that any thoughts others might have would be really helpful to me, so if reading this sparks any thoughts in your mind, let me know

That being said, it might also be a good idea to pray that your heart and mind are protected in Christ Jesus before continuing to read...



So, If you'll scroll down to my last real post, you'll notice how I discuss the concept of authority... so, that got me thinking about where people get their notions of authority... I was also following some discussion on the merits of religious faith vs agnosticism vs aetheism on a discussion board. Taking the aetheist's perspective, I could not come up with any reason to conclude that any authority was really legitimate... obedience to authority might be advisable if that authority could harm you, obedience to moral law would be fine if that was something that made you happy... but I couldn't come up with any objective reason to do anything other than precisely what you want...

Now, I must confess that I sometimes get frustrated (in an abstract sense) that people don't seem to think much about the big questions... people seem more content just living their day to day lives, unconcerned whether or not there is any bigger picture... often doing good, often doing bad... I thought that perhaps this "distracted-ness" might actually be a blessing from God... in that, if people who chose not to believe in God thought about things hard and long, they might reach the same conclusion that I did, and pure anarchy, and self-interested hate of others would result...

Now, I think there were some other thoughts in here that I can't remember at the moment, but I recall that all my thoughts seemed to logically proceed from a previous thought, so there had to have been something in here...

I ended up thinking about how we know anything about God... I concluded that the only things we are able to know about God are those things he chooses to communicate to us or allow us to pick up on... not just in the sense that the bible is his communication to us... but more generally...anything that we can observe about God from the universe for instance is something that he put in the universe to allow us to observe... we don't have any ability to make observations about God without him knowing it, and therefore being able to regulate what we observe...

This was a rather disturbing thought... It allowed the possibility that the whole message of Christianity is "true" in the sense of being that which God has communicated to humans, while still allowing God to be totally different than the description of himself presented by Christianity... in other words, what would prevent God from presenting a totally different picture of himself to us than what he really is...

"Well, the bible says that God is a God of truth." Ok, fine, but... what would prevent a lying god from telling mortals that he is a truthful god?

"Well, Jesus' death proves that God was willing to humble himself to our level... so, he must care about us." Ok... without even denying that Jesus was God, how do we know that the process of becoming human was at all demanding for God? It could have been the easiest thing in existence for him...

This whole line of thought was very disturbing to me.... I still can't figure out whether or not it is actually some reasonable form of doubt outside of doubt of the essential message of Christianity, or whether it is "old doubt" in some new metaphysical clothing...

The way I was able to come up with at least a partial solution to this dilemna was as follows... I essentially postulated that god was in fact lying to humans through his creation and his special revelation... ok... why would he do such a thing? Merely to torment us? If so, I conclued that if God were merely a cosmic sadist, he could have created a much more painful world for us than the one we inhabit (this is the opposite of the Candide "Best of all possible worlds" line... I conclude that this is definitely not the "worst of all possible worlds")... soo... the only reason for him to communicate untruth to us here in the temporal world would be to get us to do something... but... what could we possibly do in this temporal world that would matter to god? Convert more people to believe in him?? So what? If god were interested in torment etc, again he could simply create new individuals...

The only possible reason I could come up with for God to lie to humanity is if the highest pleasure for God is irony... ie. observing individuals devote their lives to following what are ostensibly God's principles, only to then see the look on their faces when he damns them for the rest of eternity...

Occham's razor seemed to rule out this rather unlikely deity...

In general I've also been thinking a good deal about eternity... and whether or not we really have free will... I mean, God didn't ask any of us if we wanted to exist... he just made us... and made us exist... of course, on the other hand, it's rather rediculous to discuss whether or not something that doesn't exist wants to exist.
I also thought about children... and I'm not certain about having children... I mean... can I truly take on the responsibility of bringing a consciousness into existence for the rest of eternity? Of course, I also considered whether or not the physical act of producing a child here on earth actually produces or is linked to the production of a new consciousness... but I don't think that souls are merely stacked up in a cosmic warehouse somewhere, waiting to be shunted into whatever body becomes available... I have no memory of such a thing...

Of course, bringing a consciousness into existence for the rest of eternity wouldn't be a bad thing if it was known to be a good thing... but I was also pondering the nature of eternity... I concluded that in order for heaven to not actually be torment in the long run, there would have to be not only eternal existence awaiting us, but also infinite creativity... there would always have to be something new... otherwise it would seem inevitable that a finite amount of stuff would be come old and wearying after an eternity and therefore intolerable...
Of course, this seemed to call into question the whole notion of there being any sort of hierarchy in heaven... if heaven is a joyful place for everyone, and for it to be so demands that everyone have access to infinite creativity (whether their own or God's), how could anyone have something that others did not have? The only possible explanantion involved a notion that I read in the "Beyond the Cosmos" book about the theological implications of extra-dimensionailty... that there might be some possibility of "orders of infinity".. ie. infinity squared... or cubed... or too the 100th....but honestly, such a notion, while perhaps mathematically possible, confounds any further analysis.

There have been alot of other thoughts in the past two days, and I don't think I can recall all of them, or put them to screen here... this however gives you an idea about what I've been wrestling with...
I'm afraid that existence will become burdensome... don't get me wrong here, I'm not suicidal or anything... I said existence, not life... currently, life is the only thing protecting me from eternity.

The thing is, despite all my thoughts, I haven't been able to reach any solid conclusions... I can't conclude that there is any reason to change how I'm conducting my life, and yet it seems somewhat futile... the words in ecclesiaties... "meaningless, meaningless... everything is meaningless," come to my mind...

Can I really have complete faith in someone who is holding all the cards???

I've been thinking a whole lot the past 24 hours...

I don't have time right now to put down to internet everything... perhaps tomorrow (later today...)

Well, seemingly in honor of a roach in my apartment, we've got an even worse pest here in lab... mites...

The little buggers parasitize flies... this is bad for us, since we do some fly work... but it's potentially devastating for the lab next-door to us, since they do all fly work... they're not going to be getting much actual research done this week...

So... I was thinking about something someone on a message board posted to the effect that... "If someone tells you 'it takes a village', then it must also take a village leader." In the context of the post, the person's point was that anytime someone suggests that a responsibility shouldn't lie solely in the hands of the individual, but rather in the hands of the [government, trade union, fill in the blank group] you have to ask whether or not they're essentially going to be subordinating your freedom under their power.

As I was thinking about this, it struck me that what a person thinks about authority and power, and what constitutes legitimate authority and power is perhaps the determining factor of a person's politics. And it makes me concerned...

As a Christian, I obviously believe that God is ultimate source of all power and authority. That being the case, I am obligated, whether I like it or not, to respect those institutions of authority which I believe he has set in place... The family for instance.

What if a person doesn't believe in God or even a god however? Without some force operating from outside of our existence to vest authority in certain institutions or individuals, what basis is there for authority? Well, tradition perhaps... pragmatism maybe? the most good for the most people? But... what's the most good for the most people only really applies if you're not the person who can stand to get the most good for yourself... I'm really pretty certain that without outside influence, no matter how much window dressing of political ceremony etc etc there is, one is left simply with "survival of the fittest". Everyone is essentially out for as much power as they can get...

Even our republic is essentially vulnerable to this, since even if we keep the trappings of democracy, without a concept of where authority comes from, we will simply have a tyrranny of the majority... if God hasn't deemed the family a locus of authority, what right do you have to raise your children one way when 200 million of your neighbors want to raise them another way...

As I think back on the history of this country, sometimes I wonder if I'm over-reacting... I mean, certainly there have been many times in our country's history where people must have thought to themselves " that's it, the country is going down the crapper, we're doomed." And yet, here we still are, over 200 years later...

I just hope the constitution we have been so blessed with is allowed to keep doing its job....

Note: Today's post may not be for the squeamish in the audience.

It's amazing how five little letters can prompt a person to reconsider their hygenic practices...


R
O
A
C
H

Yes my friends, last night I found a roach in my kitchen. Forever gone are the halcyon days of yore, when I could put off washing a plate for twenty four hours... now everything must be clean, all the time.

I flipped on the light switch, and there the bugger was, right in the middle of the floor; it's long antennae floating airily... it did not move when I first turned on the lights... I backed out of the kitchen to the living room, to put on a shoe...
and then I struck!

All that genetic information... gone, renedered useless, no longer able to copy itself...

There was a grim pleasure watching the carcass swirl around in the torrent of my toilet bowl's flush. I was surpised at the sheer volume of guts the creature had though... and all white... I was also forced to wonder how many different oderant receptors the species had... oh shoot! I should have collected some DNA... I could have probed it with AgOR7... although I think someone else is already doing that type of experiment and have demonstrated high conservation of that oderant receptor all the way back to... crustacea? I think that's it...

In other news, never before has sewage smelled so good... I walked past a spot on the way to work that had the exact same nauseating smell as the stairs leading from tech up to sargent back at NU.

It's reading some of the quotes on sights like this that make me worry... now of course, much of this is no doubt purely internet posturing by pubescent males and females etc etc... however... those ELF freaks for instance... they're the real deal... like some acronymed organization from the spanish civil war or something...

I had a really epic dream last night. I had been framed for some murder, and I was a fugitive on the run from the law. This was actually a very suspenseful dream... There was one part where the cops were in a room, and I was hiding in the ceiling above them... there was this other really suspensful part where I was escaping the building and I just barely managed to turn a corner before the fuzz came into line of sight. Eventually I escaped from the crime scene and made it out into the city and into the slums, where I got put up in the flat of someone who was helping me out...

So, I've generally been checking out LGF every week and generally getting pissed off... hwoever last night when I was reading Psalms, I came across a great one, #64. And I quote:

Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint;
protect my life from the threat of the enemy.
Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from that noisy crowd of evildoers.
They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their words like deadly arrows.
They shoot from ambush at the innocent man;
they shoot at him suddenly, without fear.
They encourage each other in evil plans,
they talk about hiding their snares;
they say, "Who will see them?"
They plot injustice and say,
"We have devised a perfect plan!"
Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning.
But God will shoot them with arrows;
suddenly they will be struck down.
He will turn their own tongues against them
and bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
All mankind will fear;
they will proclaim the works of God
and ponder what he has done.
Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD
and take refuge in him;
let all the upright in heart praise him!

I couldn't help but think of those IAF missles targetting Hamas leadership when I read the "God will shoot them with arrows," part...
Anyhow, this psalm was just comforting considering the friday sermons of the mullahs going on around the world... those that continue to preach a false gospel, and obscure the true nature of God will have their tongues turned against them... and the world will ponder what God has done... very cool.

Today's post is not for those under the age of 18.

You have been warned.



So, as I was taking care of the mosquitos today, I couldn't help but pause as I was feeding the adult Aedes Aegypti. Now, obviously all mosquitos have to mate sometime... otherwise where would we get all of our new mosquito larva... but... these fellas were going at it like crazy... I couldn't help but anthropomorphize them a little bit in my mind, and imagine dialogue as if their little bucket was some mosquito pick-up bar...

"So, hang out here often?"
"Buzz off buddy."
"Aww, come on, lemme buy you a dextrose."
(Male with larger antennae comes up)
"Da lady said to beat it."
(First male flies off.)
(Female mosquito giggles)
"My what big antennae you have."
"Yeah, I do a couple dozen sets of reps, and...
(catches sight of a female with bigger maxillary palps)
"I'll catch you later..."
(Male wanders off.)

And they don't seem to be too particular about positions either...

"Harold, not now, I told you I'm not in the mood."
(trying to crawl underneath her) "But honey, your wings look so good tonight."
*sigh* "Alright, but let's make it quick."

(In another mosquito bedroom)
"Take that b*tch."
"Ohhh Reginald, I love it when you talk dirty."



Oh my... I think I need to get out more on weekends ;-)

You know, after last Saturday, I had some hope for the season...
Yes, I know... University of Kansas isn't exactly a powerhouse, but our victory seemed to bode well for the rest of the season...

I'm somewhat less credulous now...

I mean... does no one on NU's offensive unit know how to make a tackle?? I must admit, I didn't watch the game (who would have it broadcast down here, when UVA vs SC was on) but I did read through the play-by-play on ESPN.com. 79 yards off of an interception for a touch down? I don't slight Bassinez too much for throwing an interception... everyone does that from time to time... but... was there really no one around to stop the guy who made the interception for eighty yards!!?

If I go to E-town for homecoming weekend, I will be rooting most fervently for alma mater. But... at least if we lose I won't have to feel as bad since we're playing UW.

Ok, I think I'm going to go to Kroger now... gotta pick up some tinfoil so I can make these buscuit thingies....

Another work day finished. I think I may be getting set up for a big "eureka!" moment within the next day or two... or at least that's the hope. I finally got really low background transformation with the cut and phospotased bluescript vector I'm using, and besides that I got oneexperimental plate with two dozen transformants... not that many, but considering I'm trying to insert a 7.8 kb fragment into a 3 kb vector, it just may be enough colonies. Rather than using the colony hybridization procedure that I tried before, I'm just miniprepping the two dozen colonies, and hopefully one will cut with a nice 7.8 kb size band... so hopefully they'll be some "eureka!" there... besides that, I've got my blot of aedes aegypti genomic DNA digested with 5 different enzymes probed with AgOR1 exposing overnight... the geiger counter indicated that it was still hot after my four washes, so hopefully I'll get at least one enzyme that cuts to a nicer sized fragment than 7.8 kb.

Thanks for listening to this biology babble... if you actually want to know what all this means, give me a call or an email.

We conducted more looting today... I found some really nice foam that I would love to take... perhaps tomorrow... we'll see... I'm not sure whether it's quite cricket to take things for personal use from the lab, but on the other hand, it's just packaging material, and would likely be thrown out anyway.

I'm painting Gauls now... they're somewhat annoying, just cause they're even more irregular in uniform than confederates... I paint one set of pants and one shield at a time any given color... have to switch paints and clean brushes quite a lot. Also, I got an email today that my Macedonian figures are getting shipped tomorrow! I should have them by early next week! And this despite my not having sent the check in quite as timely a manner as I expected to...

And now, a few words about grocery stores.

The more I see of this great country of ours, the more I become convinced that there is no grocery store like Woodmans. Obviously, employee owned and operated Woodmans is the greatest greocery store yet conceived by man. However, we cannot all always live in the fair state of Wisconsin, or just across the border in Illinois. Thus, we must often make do with the local food vendors. I would like to give my thoughts on the local grocers I've visited thusfar.

HG Hills was the first grocery store I shopped at upon my arrival in Nashville. It is really unlike any grocery store I had been to in Chicago. The closest comparison would be the old Sentry store that used to be at the shopping mall on Raymond road a block away from my house... the store seems clean, but... old somehow... it's almost surprising that they have scanners... the order of the store is all messed up... that last thing you get to is the produce section, and that's right next to frozen foods... all wrong... I still really like the place though, since they don't have those annoying scan cards that everyone else has.

Kroger seems like a cross between Dominicks and Jewel... it's definitely has a more proletarian customer base than for instance the Dominicks on Greenbay we always went to. I think a lot probably depends on the location of the store as well, but they all seem well lighted... actually... all the Kroger's I've been to remind me of the grocery store we went to that one night after getting rejected from K-TV down in c-town... of course, I can't even remember if that was a Jewel or a Dominicks...

Then there's Publix... I haven't been there yet.. perhaps I never will... but for some reason, this place seems analagous in my mind to The People's Market... of course I never went there either, but... both seem somewhat hip, and somewhat subversive...

Of course I'm sure they don't have Woodmans' cheese selection...

For some strange reason, text that I tried to enter on any explorer browser window would only appear on the screen o - n - e - - l - e - t - t - e - r - - a - t - - a - - t - i - m - e.

Very annoying.

Today was fun... Larry had me meet him at Buttrick Hall -- the old building that used to house the biology department. Not only was I exposed to more HL inspired scenery, but I half expected to see Neils Bohr sitting in one of the labs there. This building was old. We're talking classic 1890's stylings. The elevator was amazing! You opened a door as if going into a closet... then you had to open the gate, lift the porticullis, and get on board. There were three buttons on the elevator's control panel... "Up", "Down", and "Stop". I'm really not sure what the "Stop" button was there for, since you had to hold the "Up" or "Down" button down while you wanted to travel in that direction.

We were there to loot from an old abandonned lab. It was quite a lot of fun, seeing the chaos and disorder of a now derelict lab. It was also sad in a way... I thought of all the folks who had called that lab a home away from home for so many years of their careers...

Did my first hot work today, as I made my own probe and am currently hybridyzing a southern blot. This is my first Southern ever! Yes! I feel like a real molecular biologist now. :)

Today was the first day it has rained while I've actually been travelling to or from work. This morning there was a bit of rain and I actually used my umbrella.

I was struck by this essay. It's long, but it's worth reading both parts. It struck me after reading part one, that when I paint my miniatures I'm actually creating wealth... heaven forbit, if I'm ever in such financial straights that I need to sell my miniatures, I'll be able to do so for many times the amount that I spent on the unpainted figures and the paints and brushes... still not sure I'd make a good hourly wage, but thankfully I enjoy doing it... hopefully it will never come to selling my work though...

Last night I stumbled across some information that confirmed something that I had wondered about for some time... in retrospect, it's definitely a good thing I didn't stumble across it until now... I'm not sure my brain could have handled it... nor my body for that matter...

Interesting weekend.

Saturday Di and I went on a lunch date, in honor of my first paycheck. We went to this... well, first we thought it was a Korean place, then we thought it was a Japanese place, then we finally determined that it was a Japanese place owned and operated by Koreans.

We ate Korean food... which -- despite being advertised on a menu that looked like it it was written two minutes after we were seated, on whatever scrap paper they had lying around on the maitre'd's podium -- was twice as expensive as the Japanese food. It was good food, and the service was nice too, with extra rice and kimchee being offered and accepted. I want to go back sometime and try their Japanese lunch boxes though... something I would be able to more readily afford.

Sunday was rather interesting... we tried the middle school church again, and I don't think either of us were that impressed... In the afternoon we went to a GCF picnic at the park just west of my apartment. Strangely there were two other NU alums there besides Di and I, and they were also dating... if you will think back to the class of 2001 you may recall Monica and Milton... to be honest I didn't recall either of them, but I remembered Monica after it was made known to me that she had played drums at IV large group. It was an interesting bunch of people, but I am definitely not used to this whole "socializing outside of your age group" thing... I mean, I was told that perhaps a third or more of the fellowship consisted of married people!!!

It was strange... it must have been the first time in over three years when I put on a name tag that read "Patrick" instead of "Pmart"...

Despite my sentimentality for the past, I think I could get used to the group however... we shall see.