the third candidate

I saw this bumper sticker in Glendale. Made me laugh outloud.

My brother added "Finally, a president we can trust, and one who can tell the difference between a moon and a space station from relatively far away".  

How it looks

Field nights have been busy for me lately. Wednesday, we marked about 200 flies, and last night we marked about 90. There were only 6 returners, and the low numbers were a little surprising, but I'm going out for the next several nights in a row, so I'm sure I'll get good numbers. 

I did talk to a few Big Losers. They were taking a walk down to Mulholland highway and back up to the mansion. One couple asked me what I was up to. I said "Field work", what are you studying? "Well, I'm looking at this fly that parasitizes a cricket (laugh)", OHohh (in the tone of "that's nice, c'mon honey, let's get out of here").  So I'm basically famous now.

Anyway, here's a video of the flies responding to my recorded cricket song. They're pretty tenacious. 

a flat

I had a flat tire the other day. It is times like these that I am so grateful for the way my dad raised me. Before I was allowed to get my driver's license, he insisted on teaching me a)how an engine works and b)how to change a flat tire. Of course, I thought he was the meanest dad on earth and clearly he hated me terribly to put me through such stupid hoops. I remember sitting at the dining room table as he sketched out the engine and explained it to me (it was actually pretty cool) and the repeated practices of changing tires.

Well, it's all more than paid off. When I take my car in (more specifically, when I used to take my sad volvo in), I can talk at least a little bit intelligently with the mechanics, which gains me some respect. And half the time I don't need to take it in because I can figure out pretty much what's going on (sometimes with a call to dad) and deal with it myself. I also have the confidence to learn about the problems that my dad's lessons didn't teach me, because I know the basics.

As for the flat tire business, I think this is one of the most important skills every driver and non-driver should learn. That and how to use jumper cables (also taught to me by my dad). Do you know how to change your tire? It's not that hard, but you have to know how to do it. Especially because when you get a flat, it's not in a situation where you're able to figure it out so well.

I moved down here to Southern California 3 years ago. I got a flat tire on my first day of work, halfway there. That sucked. But I sucked it up and made my dad proud. I pulled off the freeway into a parking lot and changed my tire in 6 minutes. While I was at it, some guy came up to me and offered to help. I can't tell you the pride I felt as I said "No thanks, I got it". I got to work on time and without a mark on my outfit. My hands were filthy, so I asked where the bathroom was and added that, ugh, I got a flat on my way to work and had to change it. Yeah, I was bragging. 

Anyway, I was thinking about all this a few days ago while I was changing my tire and thought I'd write about it. Everyone should know how to change a tire. 

mark and recapture

I have 2 fabulous research assistants, Nancy and Andrew. I simply wouldn't be able to do my work if I didn't have their help. And they're fun to be with, so I'm pretty lucky. I should also mention that they often bring their sig-Os, Angel and Jessica (respectively), and I appreciate their willingness to help when they get nothing for it. 

Anyway, Andrew took a bunch of pictures the first night we marked. They're pretty cool.

Here's a coyote running across our field just as we arrived. We see its poop a lot.

No caption necessary. We see at least 20 of these ladies each night.

Alright, here's me getting the flies out of the trap. I use a plastic vial to take out a few at a time, because there are so many of them now that it's not possible to count them while they're all in the trap. I have to have one person watch for escapees while I'm in there. 

Once I've got the vial full of flies, I stick it into a cooler full of crushed ice. Since flies are exothermic, cooling them down is like anesthetic. But I have to be careful not to cool them for too long, because it would kill them (by slowing down their metabolic processes so far that they stop). 

Here I am marking the flies on their wings with sharpie. 

These flies are not afraid of humans. Not much is known about them, but the only predators I can think of for them are bats, so they have no genes for being nervous around big mammals. Here is a fly that I've just marked standing on the tip of my pen. This isn't uncommon, it's kind of a hassle. But cute:)

This is the "recovery room". After the flies are marked, someone drops them here so we can see if they recover. It's pretty important in a mark-and-recapture project that the marking process doesn't kill the organism. I would say it's imperative...

So there you go (Erin:), it's like you're almost there. I wish I could have all of my friends and family come and do this with me. It's a pretty cool experience and I would love to share it with all of you. 

not much, a lot.

I haven't posted in a while, partly because not much postworthy has been going on with me, and partly because school started and my fieldwork kicked into high gear. For the record, I'm getting TONS of flies and the cricket population is declining rapidly. It's as we expected, just not so quick! Here's a graph of my censusing:

As you may know or remember, or not, I'm studying a fly that parasitizes crickets. This means that when my fly is pregnant (we call it "gravid" in insects), she flies around listening for chirping crickets. As an important side note, only male crickets call, and they call to attract female crickets. So when my gravid fly finds a chirping cricket, she drops one of her little maggot babies onto the unfortunate cricket. The maggot baby then digs into its host and spends the next 8-10 days consuming the cricket's insides. This makes for a sad cricket and he stops calling pretty soon after the maggot finds him, which means that the female crickets can't find the males anymore, which means the cricket population starts to crash. So as the fly population increases and larvae depositing becomes a popular trend, the cricket population starts crashing because sex suddenly isn't so popular (because the female crickets can't locate any male crickets). Then, because there is justice, as the cricket population crashes, the gravid flies have a harder time locating hosts, so the fly population crashes.

This has not been formally shown (the fly is uninteresting to most biologists and has been largely neglected as a study subject ecologically), so my nights out counting flies and crickets is doing that. My graph looks pretty good so far. Though I'm very nervous because this censusing business is only the smallest aspect of my study and, as my advisor Dave stated, "A cricket and fly census does not a thesis make". So I am also marking captured flies and then releasing them with the hopes of attracting them with a different fly song (long story, boring too, maybe another time when I have nothing to post). So last Friday, my excellent assistants (and their girlfriends and boyfriends) and I marked all of our trapped flies with sharpie on their wings. 3 nights later, last Monday, we trapped again and had NO recaptures. That sort of sucks. I don't know if there were really no returnees, or if the sharpie wore off. We marked some flies in the lab and after 4 days I couldn't see any marking at all. Who'd have guessed that sharpie isn't so permanent after all?

To add a little pressure, I expect the fly population to crash any day now, and I have to wait until next week for an additional fly trap to come back from Utah before I can try an official mark and recapture (I need 2 traps to do it correctly). So I'm a little nervous.  Dave's words ring in my head like an ominous warning: "A cricket and fly census does not a thesis make". Jesse and I are in a big hurry to get back up to Seattle permanently, so I need to get all of my data this field season, and it's happening so fast that I'm worried it will be inadequate. 

So that's what's been keeping me busy. That and Biometry class (statistics for biology). 

At least that's it. I could be complaining about having to drive to Arizona and Utah for my fieldwork like my labmate, and I could be complaining about having to work part-time during all of this like a lot of grad students (thank you for supporting us, Jesse). And I could be complaining about having to collecting cat poop and being stuck in the lab doing DNA sequences like my other labmate. I'm pretty lucky overall. 

So why am I always complaining?

I love life.

new bike

Not my favorite day, this day.

 A friend moved recently and gave me his mountain bike. I was glad, since I had recklessly lost my previous bike (actually, I left it too long with a friend in South Carolina and I believe he has since sold it). This new mountain bike was no beauty- heavy, old, plastic pedals- but it was a bike and I was glad to ride it. 

Being a former cyclist snob, I felt it necessary to get clipless pedals for this bike. These are the type of pedals that you lock into with fancy shoes. I think it's the only way to go. I bid on and won a smokin deal on ebay- 2 pairs of pedals for $10!! So Jesse could have one pair as well. I couldn't believe my luck. These pedals normally run between $45 and a million dollars, so I was pretty pleased. 

Well, I took my bike in to the bike shop so they could change my pedals this morning. Free of charge, which was nice. But when I got my bike outside and tried to step into the pedals with my old shoes, they did not agree. Which was not nice. I was disappointed, but not bummed, as I had spent a mere 10 bucks for the pedals and they came with a pair of cleats. I would just change the cleats on my shoes when I got home. Or tomorrow. Whatever.

Also, as I rode home from the bike shop, my bike started making crazy sounds. I think the guy banged into my rear wheel one too many times and set it off course, so it was rubbing all over the place. Which was not nice. But I was cranky about the cleats and just wanted to get home. 

Which I did.

That night, I headed out for field work. Which is a 30+ minute drive to the middle of nowhere. I got there just after sunset, so the park's gate was closed, which was not nice. So I tossed my equipment over the fence and hiked into my field (not far at all, maybe 100 feet, but I was cranky, so it was a cranky hundred feet). I started setting up to find that I had neglected to replace my batteries after charging them all. So my headlamps were completely without batteries. That's alright, I have a flashlight and light isn't really that necessary. It's too far to drive out there and back for nothing. I checked my cd player and speakers (the two critical elements for attracting my flies) and they had batteries. Phew. So I turned on my cd player. No go. Switched batteries from my little flashlight to the cd player- still no go. THAT SUCKS. I'm more than cranky now. Nothing can be done for field work tonight, so I pack up my stuff, toss it back over the fence, and drive home. Boo. That sucks. A waste of a night.

So I get home. You may be wondering why the 2 stories- bike and field work. Well, because when I got home, my bike was gone. Which was strange. Our apartment building has underground parking with secure gates. But apparently that's no problem for bike thieves. And most strangely, Jesse's bike was leaning against the wall immediately behind my bike, but his was still there. 

Ugh. So my new pedals that didn't work with my shoes are gone on the bike that was too heavy. Maybe I didn't appreciate it all enough. 

Oh, and here's the kicker. After I've been home a while and I'm just sitting on the couch wondering how my bike got stolen from our secure garage in a good neighborhood, it occurs to me that I didn't check the "hold" button on the cd player. You know how the little "walkman" style cd players have the "hold" button to prevent you from accidentally turning them on? Yeah, well I forgot about that. So I pull out my cd player, flip the hold button, and the thing turns on, happy as a clam. 

So I could have done my field work after all and not wasted tonight and tomorrow night (because I'll have to go out again now). 

And I don't have a bike, and one less pair of pedals.

I'm pretty cranky.

Frack and his boxes

Frack's love for boxes prompted me to start this blog. And here's a video depicting this love. Even when the box is too small to contain his love.

Frack Jump

Do all cats do this?

I think he is trying to look out the peephole, but when I lift him up to it, he's not interested. Maybe he's just training for the feline olympics.

more olympics

More:

Hi-fiving

Hand Shaking (you have to shake the judges' hands)

Artistic/rhythmic/synchronized Hand Shaking

Dungeons and Dragons

Taxi Hailing (the arena for this is fun)

Gardening

No Moore

So we're big fans of the Dave Matthews Band. We have tickets this summer to 2 shows- last night and tonight at the Staples Center in LA. We got to the show last night, and when the guy sitting next to us showed up, he told us that LeRoi Moore had died. This is pretty shocking. LeRoi was the saxophonist for the band, 46 years old, and had an accident on his ATV earlier this summer. He was recovering alright from that, but died suddenly yesterday (the guy next to us is friends with a driver for the band and had learned that it was a blood clot.). So that was a bummer. The show went on, it was sad. 

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it. 

Other Olympic Games

Jesse and I were watching Olympic speedwalking last night. It's a funny looking sport and the athletes are very serious. No disrespect to speedwalkers. 

It prompted me to ask: How did speedwalking begin? who started it? And why has it lasted? I mean, seriously. 

Again, no disrespect to speedwalkers. It looks tough, but I just don't get how it stuck as a sport, let alone as an Olympic Sport.

So we began an Absurd Brainstorming Session. We have Absurd Brainstorming Sessions sometimes- like our "Worst Child Names Ever" brainstorm, the results include "Crappy", "Cavity", and "Toilet". These were just some of the names fit to post...

Anyway, following is our current ABS list of "Other Olympic Games". Humor is enhanced when you include images of the commentary, training regimes, athlete intensity, and medal ceremonies for each of these...

Here is our list thus far:

• Tag
  
• Hide-N-Seek (one of my top favorites- what would the arena look like? A house? Jesse says they would just play all around Beijing) (Commentary: "This is Jack Jones' second Olympic Games, he has been an outstanding hider for the Americans")
• Red Rover
  
• Dodge ball
  
• King of the Hill
  
• Go Fish (or even better, War)
  
• Swings
  
• H-O-R-S-E 
  
• Kick the Can
  
• Ping Pong (oops, already an Olympic Sport)
  
• Bingo
  
• Flying (everyone sucks at this one, good commentary potential here)
• Stairs (this should beat out spweedwalking)
• Easter Egg Hunt (Isreal says "Huh?")
  
• Tetherball
  
• Make Believe
  
• Grocery Shopping (remember Supermarket Sweep?)
• Badmitton (oopsy again, another silly sport gone Olympic)
  
• Four Square
  
• Water Balloon Toss
• Trampoline jumping (Holy Mackerel! Another one!?)
  
• Capture the Flag
  
• Rock, Paper, Scissors

Do you have any to add?

P.S.

Dan's comment to add synchronization to any current event warrants mention. It has added a new dimension to the absurdity and we are enjoying it tremendously. Synchronized boxing. We've come up with some good ones in late night brainstorms that I can't remember now. Thanks Dan.

Field work in SoCal

Here are some pictures of last night's field work. Keep in mind that I'm living in Southern California, so naturally, my field location is also the set for a tv show. My mother-in-law joined me to count crickets and she suggested that we go early and have a picnic. We drove around the grounds looking for a suitable picnic spot and discovered the Biggest Loser campus... 

This is where we picnicked. The pool was set up with cabanas for the show (lights and microphones too). Do I look like a field biologist or a tv star?

I peeked into this room from our parking spot. If you watch the show, you'll recognize it as the room the losing team goes to decide who they're kicking off. You can see the black glass-front refrigerators on the left.

Filming equipment.

Here I'm setting up my fly trap at the gravel turnout.
This is my cricket field. I'm taking the compass bearing so I can be sure to walk a straight line. 

Me trudging off to set my reflector poles.

Setting said reflector poles.

Can you see the cricket? It looks different from crickets most people are used to because it's a field cricket. They're bigger, darker and more fun.

Here's one of 4 black widow spiders I saw just last night. They sure make you nervous.

This concludes our tour of Jen's Fieldwork in Southern California. We hope you enjoyed your visit.

Flies!

2 flies came to my trap tonight! This is very exciting. It officially marks the beginning of my field season. I'm very pleased.

Charlene (my mother-in-law) and I set up the trap and then headed over to my field to count crickets. One hour and 70 crickets later, we drove back to the trap and found the flies! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

harvest time!

I decided that my cucumbers were ready to eat today. 

They were quite tasty, though not crazy delicious. I sort of expected them to be sweeter than normal, since I had just picked them. 

Here's a biology lesson for you: You probably know that plants perform photosynthesis to make their energy. sunlight + CO2 + water = sugar. Plants have an enzyme that chains sugars together to make starches, which are easier to store for future use. When you harvest a fruit (ie. remove it from its plant), it stops photosynthesizing, therefore stops making sugar, but the enzyme keeps working to turn sugars into starches. So if you eat a fruit that was picked a week ago, it will be more starchy and less sweet than a fruit you picked a minute ago (assuming they are both ripe). That's why fresh picked corn is so damned awesome. 

There is another lesson about how commercial farmers pick fruit long before it is ripe, transport it with a fungicide to prevent loss to fungus during travel, then spray the fruit with ethylene gas to ripen it. Which is why farmers market produce is tastier and better in so many ways than grocery store produce. 

And what you can take from all of this is that fruits naturally produce ethylene gas, which in turns stimulates them to ripen (positive feedback cycle), so if you keep fruits in a bag, they will ripen quickly. This is why you should hang your bananas and keep fruits in a basket instead of a bowl (unless you want them to ripen quickly).

I should turn this into a "lessons in biology" blog. It seems that I need an outlet for this trivia.

Anyway, I expected a little more greatness from my cukes, but they were certainly tasty, and it was much more rewarding to eat them than a store-bought cuke. I have more growing, so now I'll have to cheer them on. And my beans too, who are doing great.

Field work

I semi-started my field work last Friday night. Up until now, I've been waiting for permits and permissions to collect flies on state park property. While I was waiting for these, I've been setting up my fly trap once a week on a gravel turnout close to my future study site. The flies I'm studying (Ormia ochracea) don't come out until mid-august, but I need to establish that there are zero flies. So I go, set up the trap, and wait in my car for 2 hours. I usually bring a movie and watch on my computer. It's not the most fun I could imagine having, but at least it's not painful or difficult. Here's my trap setup: 

The computer has cricket songs that play through speakers that are sitting under the floor of the trap. So the flies are attracted to the song/speakers, find their way into the trap, and hang out over the speakers. I have since replaced the computer with a little CD player that plays a CD of cricket songs (which I recorded, in case you were wondering where to get such a thing). There are songs from 3 local cricket species on the CD, and each species has versions for temperatures ranging from 11 to 31 degrees celsius. Did you know that crickets chirp faster when it's warm and slower when it's cold? So I continuously take the air temperature and switch songs when necessary.

Here's a closeup of the fly trap with a fly in the trap on the dowel:

My field location is in Calabassas, CA. It's right off Mulholland drive (a very twisty scenic road made famous in various songs and movies) in the Malibu Creek State Park. Here's a picture of it from google maps (click right here King Gillette Ranch if you want to see it yourself):

On Las Virgenes Road (the vertical road in this picture) there is a gravel turnout just before it intersects with Mulholland Drive (the horizontal road). This is where I've been setting up my trap. It’s been a pretty reliable spot in previous seasons. But part of my new project is censusing crickets and flies, and since the turnout is overlooking a steep brushy incline and canyon that I can’t access, I can't really count the crickets that live there. So Dave (my advisor) and I decided that I would trap and census in the “King Gillette Ranch”, which is state park property. It was originally Mr. Gillette’s ranch (as in the razor), but it’s changed hands many times and recently became open to the public. It’s a fascinating story and really beautiful area- almost 600 acres, plus a crazy huge mansion, etc. 

Anyway, here is a closeup of the field that I’ll be doing my work in (it's the upside triangle field with a dark spot in it):

It’s just a big field, but crickets like it, which (hopefully) means that the flies like it. 

So last Friday, I walked this field after dark, counting chirping crickets. I will say right out front that I am afraid of the dark, and this field is dark. But I pushed through it (well, for the first 40 minutes, then a loud car raced by and scared the bejeesus out of me, so I called Jesse and had him on speakerphone for the rest of the census).

It was quite cool- early on, I walked under a tree that a large owl was roosting in, so it hooted and screeched as it flew on to another tree, which I walked under about 10 minutes later. 

Shortly after that, a coyote in the distant hills started howling and was answered by 2 coyotes in the near hills! They howled back and forth for a while, which was pretty cool. 

Another cool perk was that there were lots of insects, including one of my favorites-  green lacewings

And near then end of my hour-plus walk in the field, I spotted a black widow spider! wowee! When I was younger, they were THE scariest animal in the world. We didn't have any in the Pacific Northwest, but they were legendary for their scariness. Down here, especially around my field sites, they are common. And shy. And even polite. It is quite cool to see one, almost like seeing a movie-star. But it made me remember to watch my step. Because they aren't friendly.

So I ended up counting 79 crickets and no flies. I'll be going out a couple of times a week to count crickets, and hopefully the flies will be coming out in a week or two. Wish me luck!

Beans! Beans! Beans! Beans! Beans! Beans! Beans! and cukes.

My beans are growing!!! I'm so excited! They are teeny tiny, quite cute. The best news of all is that I didn't have to pollinate them myself! I don't know who did it, but I'm so pleased. They are welcome back anytime.

And not to be forgotten, my cucumbers are a-growin'. Just 2 of them though. They are a high maintenance crop. I've had to pollinate them myself, and that's only about 50% successful, and 75% of the fruits that start don't make it past 2 inches. I just don't get it. They'd better be tasty cukes. Here's one of them. 

I also have 2 tomatoes growing, but slowly. 

If I'm lucky, I'll get a salad out of all of this.

But that would be pretty great.

earthquake madness!!

We had a little earthquake today in LA. 

I was studying at the Burbank Public Library and there was a short rumble followed by a bigger jolt. It couldn't have lasted more than 7 seconds. We all looked around at each other. At this point you could tell who was from SoCal and who was not- those from SoCal went back to reading, those not headed for the doorway (myself included). But nobody really got there because it was over by then. 

Turns out it was a 5.8 with 24 aftershocks and counting. I don't have any picture to post because nothing really happened. 

I went home to see if all was well, and it was. A flower vase had fallen off the tv spilling water and flowers, but nothing broke. Frog seemed a little shaken up but felt better after some kisses. Frack came out from the bedroom, maybe just a little suspicious. 

So I guess I've lost my earthquake virginity. It was fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIOT!!!

Our good friend eliot often celebrates our big events with pictures and singing videos. She is pretty awesome. 

Well, today, eliot turns FOUR! So we'd like to say Way to go eliot! Happy birthday!! We love you!

Frack is just so cool

Frack is just so cool. I've been home a lot recently, so I've been able to observe his sleep schedule. 20 minutes over here, 20 minutes over there. Etc.

Sometimes he lays like this:
Sometimes he lays like this:

And sometimes he lays like this:

Our friend Dan gave us a great "pouf" (a squishy ottoman) that I've gotten a lot of use out of. but when I'm not in it, Frack is.

Frack says "Thanks Dan!"

I am inspired by Frack, and I think when we build a house we will focus on creating many places to sleep, instead of having a designated bedroom. 

frying makes everything taste better

Another wonderful wedding gift was the deep fryer. Ohh, the deep fryer. All things taste better when they've been battered and fried.

Jesse is an ambitious and adventurous cook. So his first days with the deep fryer saw many things. First of all, potato chips. Quite tasty. Thin and crispy.

The next thing Jesse made was deep-fried herbs. I didn't understand until I saw them. He took sprigs of fresh herbs like basil, mint and sage, dipped them in batter, then deep fried them. They were DELICIOUS. I ate a lot of them. David (Jesse's brother) was over and he and I just kept eating what Jesse was bringing out. There were other things Jesse fried, but I don't remember what. I was enjoying my gin & tonics. More than I realized. Luckily, David made us some salads, so that helped my cause. More than my deep-fried cheese curds. Which were delicious.

So a night full of deep-fried foods was really good, but I will say that I can't stomach the smell of basil, mint or sage (even typing them makes me a little sick). And hangovers don't like greasy foods. At all.

I'll be ok. In a few weeks. 

Until then, I think we're keeping the deep fryer closed up for a little while. But soon, we will fry again. Because it is so good.