HAPPEE BIRTHDAE HARRY

On July 30 at exactly six o'clock we celebrated Harry Potter's birthday. He actually was born on the 31st but due to several reasons we were unable to have it on this date. It was very simple this time as compared to what we have done in the past. For the last movie we had a party for each movie on consecutive nights to prepare us for the Order of the Phoenix. Each night was themed around the other movies. This night was very calm with us just playing a few Harry Potter based games and eating some Horcrux cake and ice cream.
Just a little about the cake. It was completely homemade and shaped. Most of the body is made from cake with the head being made from fruity pebble crispies. I forgot to flour the pans of the cakes so I had to do a great deal of frosting and smoothing to get the snake to look this smooth. Sarah helped out quite a bit with the last layer of frosting because I was so tired of it by the time we came to the last layer. I know we should have used fondant but it was quite the accomplishment after it was finished. Most of the other horcurxes were made with gum paste. I had tried doing them all in starbursts before I switched to gum paste because the starburst just wouldn't hold their shape. Hufflepuff's cup, Slytherin's ring and Locket, The Daily Prophet featuring the Headline "The Chosen One", and the snake scales where hand painted with a mixture of food coloring and peppermint oil. Jewels for the ring and diadem were made from hard candy that we had obtained from our Japan trip. Slytherin's locket is the only one at the end that is made from starbursts. It was a great deal of work but we had a time at the party even though it was small.

Half Blood, Full Betrayed

Yes, Harry hold your head in shame. Last November, I came out with a blog displaying my disappointment with Warner Brothers for delaying the Harry Potter movies solely on the fact of money. I also voiced my opinion that I was afraid that I would be disappointed with the changes the writer had made with the movie. Here are a few of the things that I said: The truth is this. They jerked us around. They set a release date and made trailers and sent out the information in all the magazines and then when we Potter maniacs thought all was well they came in like a heartless mistress and ripped our hearts out of chest.
Another things is I afraid that when I finally sit down in the seat on opening night of Harry Potter. I will be disappointed. I was disappointed once when it came to Harry Potter movies and have since that time never really trusted again. This was in the case of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban which is by far my favorite of all the books. I really had a hard time with the movie due to the fact that they left a lot unexplained and that troubled me. I have a feeling that this might happen with this movie because some of the vital Tom Riddle memories will not be making an appearance in the movie. They have also added a Death Eater attack on the Burrow scene which doesn't happen until the last book.
This all held true too this movie as well. I left the theater just a little bit disappointed. I had spent the day before doing an exhaustive internet search on reviews of the movie. I'm glad I did because I knew what was coming. I had found out that some vital scenes at the end of the book had been cut from the movie due to budget and redundancy. SPOILER ALERT. Proceed only if you have seen the movie or don't care to have the news before hand. They cut the battle scene at the end of this book due to the fact that there would be another battle at Hogwarts in the last movie. Not to talk bad about the books but redundacny does happen. Every year follows the same pattern except for maybe the third year. Harry starts at the Dursley's, he then goes to school, they play Quidditch or some other sport activity happens three times, and Voldemort shows up and Harry has to fight him off. Redundancy is inevitable. This is what sarah replied shen I posed this theory to her, "It's like saying I'm sick of these wands popping up in every scene and Who's this Dumbledore guy that's up in everyone's business- redundant. Also, they add a Burrow attack scene which as stated before also happens in the last book- redundant. Needless to say, my general feelings about the show are this. The show took too much time playing up the romances between Hermione and Ron and Ginny and Harry (which was very flat and Ginny wasn't very good) and the teenage hormones (trying to compete with Twilight) and far less time trying to give Harry an understanding of who Voldemort is and what his weaknesses are. This is the whole premise of the book. It is a transfer of the reins from Dumbledore to Harry and if I was Harry and had the respondsibility of killing Voldemort and all I was given was the information that I got from this movie I would be screwed. Another thing that bugged me is that it seemed that they decreased the screen time of some of the Main adult characters and I was led to believe that this was die to budget since that is the only explanation that Warner Brothers has given me to explain why they do anything. I did however enjoy Professor Slughorn. I thought Jim Broadbent did very well. I understand that the movies can't be exactly like the books. It's just a fact that happens even though we wish it didn't. But movie required too much prior knowledge to fill in the gaps that I don't understand how anyone who hasn't read the book could have enjoy it. It would leave me hanging in several spots. The writer, instead of using the book's very easy way of putting the scenes together, decided to do something different and it came across as convoluted. It was like he took scenes from the book, wrote them on a paper, and placed them in a hat (apparently, not the Sorting Hat). He then withdrew them one by one and laced the scenes in a way that kind of destoryed the structure of the film for me. I am excited for the next two movies and my hope is that they make up for the blunder that they have done. They will have to invest a lot of time in the next to explain things they could have just done in this movie. Also, Sarah and I both enjoyed the film until the last twenty minutes where everything just fell apart. They had built up the whole time making us feel that something was going to happen. Which we wanted because the real action scene in the movie was the burrow. What a disappointment. The emotion weight didn't translate from the book to the screen. There was a disconnect. Overall, we hope the next two movies do a better job.

Make your own Countdown Clocks

My Trip Down the Mountain

A couple of weeks ago Sarah, Shannon, Brian, and I decided to go down the canal since Shannon and Brian would be moving out to Cleveland and this might be the last time they could go. It was indeed a very good day for a trip down the canal and I was excited to go. My excitement out weighed my judgement because I should have seen the signs that it was going to end in tears.
Here is a list of signs that this wasn't going to be a good canal ride:
1- Couldn't find tubes due to garage being cleaned recently
2- Couldn't find pump to fill tubes so I could check for holes at home.
3- Went to store to buy pump that was on sale and have to go to customer service because cashier doesn't want to do her job and check the sale price.
4- After an half an hour we still have only one tube filled which was filled already. We attribute the failure to the cheap pump.
5- Go to partake of free air at Foothill gas station. We find that it is no longer free and is also busy.
6- Proceed to 7-eleven because we don't want to go cross town. We find that air is 75 cents now
which we pay for three times. Results- Still have only one tube filled due to the rest having holes.
7- Go to Shopko to purchase tube repair kit. I was unable to locate the much needed glue kit so had to settle for a cheap non-glue kit.
8- Patch a few tubes and go cross town to Chevron to partake in free air. Halfway during the tube refills Man takes nozzle from us to fill his tires. We promptly tell him we are not finished and he promptly takes over. After a few minutes we just let him fill his tires and wait to finish our tubes. Results: Two tubes filled one with a patch. Also, Sarah gets sprayed by one tube due to patch not holding.
9- Decide to buy one tube. Total tubes now: two for us one with a patch, one from Shannon and Brian and one recently purchased one.
10- Keyless entry to my car placed in Shannon and Brian's car at First Dam.
11- Get to drop off and find that patched tube has deflated. Shannon and Brian agree to share the big recently purchased tube.
12- I leave them at drop off and park car 100 feet up road. I lock my key in my car and walk back to find them walking towards me. Sharing of tube had failed.
13- Brainstorming session- Hitchhike back down or I walk while the rest ride down the canal. The last suggestion was mine and due to everything else and my stubborness I won't back down and this is the decision that we take.
14- I walk for forty minutes and decide I am tired of walking on numb feet and uneven canal bottom. Brian offers tube and I find it difficult to ride due to not being able to maintain my balance. I get fed up and start looking for a way down.
15- Brian and I decide to go down together we send word with another group to tell Sarah and Shannon that we went down and not to wait.
16- Brian and I make our way down the mountain with me taking the lead. Initial problems: numb feet and flipflops for hiking boots . Encounters: A huge rock that I put my trust in and it takes me down the mountain for a ride, a rusty piece a metal jutting out mountain a few feet from where I stopped after rock slide and a lone deflated tube (apparently others had problems as well). Last twenty feet are too steep to walk down so we have to slide along with rocks which was enjoyable until we started to stop. Results after descent: My legs bloodied and scrapped from huge rock ride and the rock grinding me against the mountain and back of swim trunks ripped baring my butt. Luckily shirt covers this hole.
17- Brian and I walk back to First Dam and meet Sarah and Shannon.
18- Sarah and Shannon have one tube explode as soon as they reached the pull out for trail at First Dam.
19- I take a shower and spend the next forty five minutes pulling gravel from my leg.
20- Fancy Sandwiches that Shannon and Brian made for lunch had the bag open and got wet from melted ice in cooler. We cook them in oven to salvage them. They were delicious regardless.
And there you have it the perfect way to enjoy a tubing experience with friends. I have learned and relearned a few lessons from it. First, listen to my wife because she didn't want to go all day long and tried to find some other activity for us to do so we wouldn't have to. And second, Don't be stubborn enough to notice that when your having a bad day don't press your luck.

On swine, public speaking and religious events

We leave for japan this next Wednesday. I am pretty nervous for several reasons. The first and for most is in regards to the flight. I have been reading about Japan's current quarantine screenings. I seems that after our long flight we may get the chance to sit in our seat even longer and get a temperature taken. This little process in addition to going to customs can take up to two hours. We have a late arriving flight that night and I was already nervous about making a train to get to Kyoto station. If this actually does happen we will be rushing just to get to the last remaining trains out of Osaka. Also, if anyone that was sitting within a few rows of us on the plain has flu-like symptoms then we are going to be suspect to having be exposed. Which means we could get quarantined until they run a PCR test to verify that we don't have it. The hours just keep piling on. But, hey, you get a free hand washing and complementary mask when you exit the plane so it can't be all bad. I guess we will just have to deal with this hurdle when we come to it. We could even enjoy wearing a mask our entire time in Japan. I hope we find a place to buy one of these fashionable ones.


I am also extremely nervous about my poster presentation. I have given a poster presentation before but not at this scale. I am a bit petrified to say the least. But I guess this is expected. I am currently running on fumes because of the amount of time invested on the poster so far as well as taking pictures for Mary's presentation.

The cultural barriers is another thing to be nervous about. But I'm sure we will manage. It is one of the top tourist destinations.

Sarah included in her post about Japan a tasty tidbit of a religious pilgrimage of sorts. I will include two additions to this video. The first is by far my favorite. He gets kind of emotional at one point when he talks about his hopes. The second I take as his moment of silence to pay homage before leaving. They all come from Destructoid which is the same geek in the previous movie. This continues his story we have all grown to love.

Stop the Killing!!!!!

I am sick today and I am getting very antsy because I'm just suppose to rest and get better. I hate just lying around all day hoping that there will be a glimmer of an end of symptoms. You know the pounding headache where it feels as if your brain is going to burst out of you skull at any time. The constant drippage from the nose. The burning needles that pierce the throat. The mass armed assault on the various parts of your body where the pain and misery will never end. And there is the ever present plug of phlegm that is caught in your throat and causes such discomfort that you are hacking for hours on end just so you can have some semblance of a regular breathing pattern. I don't like being sick but I do like the idea of being sick. We can just forsake all the regular duties because no one at work or school wants the infernal disease to come in contact with them. I can't forsake everything today because I can't miss my lab and there is nothing worse than being sick and having to endure through a class or follow an endless list of duties on a protocol when all you really want to do is just pass out. But the idea of being sick is kind of nice when you think about it. You get to lounge around all day and rest and watch TV and pretty much pamper yourself. A carefree day of rest and relaxation to forget the cares of the world and totally envelop all your thoughts on your well being and no one elses. In theory this sounds like a wonderful experience but watching daytime television when your sick makes you wish that you could just give up the ghost and be done with it. I can't bear to watch any more reruns of Judge Judy or any other court show. And the talk shows leave a lot to be desired as well. They just simply pass the time. There is always just sleeping but it even that has to end somewhere. You can't possibly feel good about yourself if you spend the whole day in bed. And what kind of a feeling is that to have after you already have the aches and pains of the plague that is infesting your body. And our body just wants to get rid of them. The poor darlings don't stand a chance.
I don't want to toot my own horn but as of late I have acquired an uncanny knack for picking up lost microbes that need a home to live in and multiply. It is a charitable work that I do for without me these poor small miserable bugs wouldn't last long in the unforgiving environment that is our world. That is why today I have come up with a new organization to make a difference in the world. This idea sprung from sheer boredom because Sarah wants me to rest and get better soon. So I have set up the Christian Catch a Bug Fund. This is hopefully going to be a non-profit organization but I can't be sure at so soon in its development. It is morally imperative that you continue to read.

We have got to come to some new ideas about life folks. What matters is that if you believe in the sanctity of life then you believe in life for all creatures whether large or minuscule, living or non-living. You may not know it's name or where it came from but this little fella needs your help. He like billions before were just spewed or hurled out one day and no longer have a place to call home. Without this home they just meander about with little hope of ever having a place to reside again in the short cycle that is their existence. Denied the freedoms that so many of us have and may have taken for granted. Does this guy have food, a nice cozy roof over its head, or the right to breed and make more of it's type? This little virus doesn't even know that those freedoms even exist. He doesn't know that someone out there could help. That person could be you. For the price you can go out to the movies and get concessions you could support a whole family of bacteria for an entire year. Or you could sponser a whole colony of viruses by welcoming them into your oral doors and giving them a warm, inviting, and accepting mucosal membrane so that they can have residence with your cells. I know what your saying it's not my microbe so who really cares? Or you might be thinking of letting the problem " go down the drain" or you might want to "wash your hands of it" but time is running out. You should care because he is a microbe and it needs you. Every day millions of the little guys are pushed out of their homes and left for dead. When you call Christian Catch A Bug Foundation you know that it will get the nutrients it needs so it won't die. Unlike billions that did just last night. Not your microbe, once you start getting to know each other by hacking off a lung or regurgitating or excreting your whole gastrointestinal track out of you body, that will change. All you have to do is step up and say I am going to help this microbe. Because you can and it needs you. Do something wonderful in it's existence. Call now and ask us to send a picture of microbe that needs you. Just call.

Tequila and Diesel Rivers

Tequila in the morning, Tequila in the evening, Tequila at suppertime, when you are in Mexico you can have tequila anytime. We really got tired of this concept while we were in Mexico. I seriously think that Mexicans think that this is the only thing US Citizens do when they come to Cancun. Which is probably true.
Sarah and I just got back from a wonderful six days in Mexico where we spent our honeymoon. It was all in all a very enjoyable trip and very relaxing which is what we truly desired it to be. We arrived in Cancun last Saturday afternoon. The faint smell of ocean was in the air as we made our way off of the plane. And we hopped aboard a shuttle to our hotel. Upon arrival at the Royal Solaris we were quickly seperated from our bags and escorted to meet Omar who would get us oriented with the hotel. Omar was enamored with Sarah when he found out she was an English teacher because we was an aspiring writer of pop fiction and the english language in general. I was left out in the cold because no one wants to talk to a lowly research assistant. We we coerced into signing up for a tour the next day where they would of course offer us the amazing opportunity of becoming a member of the Solaris family. We were offered an oceanview room if we took to tour so we quickly consented. Most of the time we spent on the beach just relaxing. For most of the trip the weather was so amazing. It was the absolute perfect temperature due to the clouds that provide constant shade from the scorching sun. We didn't need to go very many places because our hotel had quite a bit to offer us. Several things stood out on this trip that I will always remember. The turquiose color of the ocean mixed with the bright white color of the sand on the beach was such a wonderful sight to wake up to every morning as well as listen to all night long. The sight of hovering seagulls eating bread from a an elderly gentleman's hand was pretty cool to watch. I really wanted to try this feat for my self which suprised Sarah because of my slight fear of birds (I have had a lot of encounters with small rodents and birds whizzing by my head and I just can't seem to get over them). And the most unforgettable event that occured on our honeymoon was the trip to Chitzen Itza. The most memorable experience about this whole trip is that we didn't even occur at those old ruins. We had scheduled our tour for the day before we came home. So we board the double decker bus that morning and Sarah wanted to sit on the bottom level. It looked very crowded to me so I pointed out that we should just find somewhere up stairs so we made our way up and found a quite cozy place upstairs that would provide me with the much needed leg room and provide Sarah and I with a little bit more privacy. So the bus starts and we are very excited to get going. The bus gets about a mile away from our hotel and the bus driver comes up with the fun idea of his own. He was turning the bus around and decided to pull out in front of a dump truck. He then instead of gunning it to see if he can get out of the way he decides to stop. Sarah and me had the absolute perfect spot to witness the entire accident take place. Time stood still. The dump truck full of cement and rebar is doing everything he could to just stop. Adn then it happened, the dump truck hit us. The bus lurched to its side in protest and everything in the overhead compartment spued out of it and fell onto the floor. and the people under it. I happened to have a stroller hit me in my arm and I think Sarah ran into my elbow. And then a very pungent gasoline smell filled the air and all we heard was shrieks and wails of "Gasoline" and "explode" filled the compartment. So both Sarah and I proceeded for the closest exit along. We were shocked at the scene that appeared as me made it down that narrow stairway. There was the dump truck halfway inside the bus and a woman that had been sitting in the seats that we would have been taking had we not moved to the upper level was pinned between the bus and the undercarraige of the dump truck. The exit door was half blocked by the truck as well. Sarah got through first but accidently got caught for a minute and I let a mother and child go before me. I had never seen so much gasoline in my life. It literally was a river of it that we had to wade through to freedom. Both Sarah and I came away from the experience unscathed physically. And no one on the bus including the pinned women were killed in the whole ordeal. I am glad for several things taht occured that day that prevented us from sitting in those seats. One of those being my long legs that couldn't endure a three houre trip to Chitzen Itza. But the most eerie thing about the whole accident is that for the rest of our trip we couldn't really enjoy ourselves. We had felt that we had somehow cheated death. Kind of like a "final destination" kind of a thing. In fact the next day we decided that we would just go to the airport early. We had had it with Mexico. The beach was amazing but we just couldn't bring ourselves to enjoy its wonderful view anymore. So it was a wonderful trip where both Sarah and I got to really relax and unwind. Which was much needed. I also learned that life is so fleeting and any little decision that we make on it can change our lives for the good or the bad. I am just glad that Sarah and I are back in the U.S.A.. Mexico is great don't get me wrong but after a long trip it is nice to be able to lie down in your own bed and relax on your own couch. After a long trip you just get the yearning to come home.

I just found out this week that months and months of work that I had been doing on the Stipeae would now have to come to an end due to the fact that there is not enough money to pursue it any further. I have been working on this particular group since June and have really enjoyed my time working with them even though it has been somewhat of a challenge throughout the entire process. I thought because I am sad and frustrated right now that I would do a recap of the past several months of my life as pretaining to the lab. I began in June doing work on the Stipeae which is a tribe of grasses. Mary (who is my boss) had spent the from November to March in Australia working on this group and others and obtained samples of the Australasian Stipeae to come up with a phylogeny of the australasian samples. Phylogeny deals with the evolutionary background of a plant species. So these samples would help in establishing a (ancestral) tree for this particular group. I was asked by Mary when she got back if I would be interested in helping her on this project as well as others. So in June I started beginning to extract the DNA from the plant specimens that were brought back. These samples were packed in silica gel which helped to dry them out completely and keep them dry so the DNA doesn't degrade any more. The extraction process started offf really good. This didn't last long due to the fact that a change in plastic tubes halfway during it caused some extra stress. There are several things that happen during the extraction process. I obtained this simplified process from Wikipedia.
1-Breaking the cells open, commonly referred to as cell disruption, to expose the DNA within, such as by grinding or sonicating the sample.
2-Removing membrane lipids by adding a detergent.
3-Precipitating the DNA with an alcohol — usually ethanol or isopropanol. Since DNA is insoluble in these alcohols, it will aggregate together, giving a pellet upon centrifugation. This step also removes alcohol-soluble salt.

Or in other words, the samples are weighed and then placed in a small tube. A nickle bee bee is also placed in the tube. Then the samples that we are going to extract go through the disruptor which in simple terms it shakes the samples at very high speeds to break up the material.

The next parts of the extraction process has a lot of little technical steps that may come across as boring so I won't tell you everything. The main steps are we use chemicals to lyse or break open the cell and another set of chemicals to seperate all the extra stuff in the cell from the DNA. These chemicals are called buffers which is a substance that help facilitate a reaction but at the same time resists changes that occur during the reaction so it doesn't combine with the stuff in the reaction. So by the end of the process we have a vial of DNA. We then put it through a spectrophotometer and run a gel to test for the quality of the DNA. The polymerase chain reaction is the next process that we underwent. In this process which has several steps we amplify or enhance the DNA and then send it to the CIB for Fragment analysis. After we get if back from them we have the sequence of DNA which we then have to align so that the sequences line up. In order to do this we look at graphs called chromatographs to see what is actually happening in the sequence. The highest peak in the graph represents usually what is found in the sequence of DNA. This is just a simplified view of what I do at the lab. I know it is probably boring to most but I find it a very fascinating process. I will just have to deal with the fact that disappointment is a part of my job now. That is the nature of science. To try to find answers to questions but never really obtain those answers. The answers we receive will just lead to move questions. It's a fascinating process. I have to give up for now and not receive an answer.