Invisus Manus

Thanksgiving 2009 recap

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:46:29 GMT

Zen_oven's father and stepmom were to visit for Thanksgiving, but he was ill and couldn't travel. Wednesday night we saw the Fantastic Mr. Fox. I enjoyed the stop action animation. There was a similar aesthetic to the director's other movie "The Royal Tanenbaums". Worth seeing though.

Thursday I cooked a turducken and made two pies during the Macy's Day Parade and the National Dog Show. We listened to "Alice's Restaurant" as our usual tradition. We have a ton of food left over so I froze a lot of it for later. Like my mother, I'm eating mincemeat pie for breakfast. I think next time I'm going to reduce the sugar even more for the pumpkin pie and the Sunday sweet potatoes (with pecans, brown sugar, flour, and butter topping). I'm planning to make some turkey mole since it's the traditional meat for mole. Turkey tetrazini might be in the offing as well.Every time I eat a turkey sandwich I'm reminded of traveling to Ireland where a pub served turkey with cranberry under the name of "The American". The sandwich tasted pretty good at the time.

Friday we had planned to visit the zoo (since it was free) but the crowds were so bad that we didn't even try to find a space. We'll see the red panda another day. Instead we bought a pot for the bouganvillea and some plants. The Buchanan's upgrade is very nice and will be more of a one-stop shop for the stuff I like. I bought a new light colored baking pan and a Vinturi wine aerator at Sur La Table and some new metal storage containers for our new apartment. We bought some pirate-themed party supplies at the reopened Arnies for our future apartment warming pirate party. In the evening we had some more of the fall drinks at Anvil and danced at Classic Numbers.

Saturday we made the annual visit to the Texas Renn Faire with several friends and had a good time drinking mead and people-watching. I added some feather bling to my pirate hat and tried on some moccasins. Highway lane narrowing leaving town and some invisible cause on our return was cause for slowdown. Luigi's pizza and calzones at Grayanna and Baalin's house

Sunday was mostly the usual. I spent the afternoon putting up the new blue LED lights I bought last Christmas at Morgan Imports. They are looking good (and costing less). Then I dug up a bunch of my plants and took some to the Zen Center and potted the others for moving. I may still have too many for our new apartment if I can't move more to the Zen Center. I may switch over to the E-version of the newspaper. I'd like to ultimately download a PDF of the paper and read it on a Sony Reader. The paper is all set up to do just that. Every day is one step closer to digital media convergence. One day I hope to have all my books, newspapers, magazines, music, podcasts, radio, television, and photos in digital form and access to the content equivalent of the Library of Congress, free through Google. Then I can have just furniture and art in my apartment.

News item:
If you ever wanted to get even with someone, viruses that download child porn are now available. Here's a news story about it: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/6710095.html
So far, proving the porn is downloaded by the virus is related to the number of images downloaded per second and the time of download. If this gets fine-tuned to download only one image while the user is making keystrokes and send an anonymous text to police, it could be very dangerous. I predict it will be used against members of congress any day now. Used against a select few high profile business people, it could cripple Wall St. The real criminals could flood the computers of victims to hide their crimes.

Lebowski Bash

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:41:10 GMT

There is a festival at Discovery Green dedicated to fans of the Big Lebowski tonight with human bowling, costume contests, and a showing of the movie at 10pm.

http://lebowskihouston.wordpress.com/

Tomorrow I going on a coffee crawl with Houston Chowhounds.

Crossposting from halloween_fan and food_porn

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:18:25 GMT

Surinam Toad pumpkin and the heap of bugs costume: http://community.livejournal.com/halloween_fan/576222.html

Spider cupcakes: http://community.livejournal.com/halloween_fan/575586.html

Brain cupcakes for zombies: http://community.livejournal.com/food_porn/5598764.html

The tribal woman looks like a gray-haired alter ego of Zen_oven: http://community.livejournal.com/halloween_fan/575148.html

Watchmen costume: http://community.livejournal.com/halloween_fan/574202.html

This journal is very cool for SCA-minded foodies with its description of historical recipes like the latest post on pike galantine.

http://coquinaria.livejournal.com/

A cute version of carrot cake for baalin: http://community.livejournal.com/food_porn/5601663.html#cutid1

Politics and Energy policy

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:57:32 GMT

I watched "Power Paths" on Independent Lens last night.

Full-length episode available here:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1317137222/

This documentary shows how the southwest U.S. has been exploiting the natural resources of Native Americans to power southern California, Utah, and Las Vegas. They have been depleting Native American aquifers to send coal slurry, mined on Indian land in strip mines, through pipes to dirty coal-burning power plants which threaten national parks, including the Grand Canyon, with smog. Although Native Americans in these communities themselves have no electricity in their homes, many Indians were involved in the energy industry through their connection to mining. Thus they only need retraining to become effective energy industry employees.

By coincidence, I watched an American Experience episode two nights ago on the Civilian Conservation Core and the stimulus that it provided the economy during the Roosevelt years. I wrote the White House, Nancy Pelosi, and energy secretary Steven Chu about a proposal to focus on stimulating the economy by creating a high-tech version of the CCC today to take the place of the proposed third stimulus of cash. The idea is to train young workers and retrain older workers for renewable energy industry jobs. I'm basing my idea on Grameen Shakti and Gerhard Sheer's solar stimulus in Germany. Grameen Shakti trains rural Indian women to be solar engineers. The installation of solar power by these women leads to the creation of microbusinesses which reduce childbirth and increase education. The German solar stimulus was the proposal that any solar energy generated by German citizens could be sold to the government for a fixed return for the next ten years. The result was the adoption of 20% solar energy in Germany in two years. My idea is to train Native Americans (and others) as a kind of CCC to install and maintenance solar and wind powered devices, building an industry that replaces their dependence on dirty energy production. Second, tax incentives are given to citizens who install solar panels or wind turbines on their property. The government should use these energy CCC people to "green" all federal buildings and national and state park facilities by installing renewable power in place of coal-powered electricity. Since the mechanism to motivate the change in solar investment is market-driven, it should have bipartisan support if properly marketed to voters. Most important is to use these incentives to lead energy industry leaders to invest in this new market so the troublemakers become the change agents.

I'm actually surprised that no one has proposed outsourcing in general to Native American Indians rather than east Indians. Between tribal councils and their special relationship to the federal government, equivalent benefits might be able to be derived by developing a Native American workforce versus a non-U.S. based workforce. The call centers would be a close time zone versus India and the employees, as U.S. citizens, would have a better grasp on handling the problems of other U.S. citizens. Tech support could even have a cute name based on the Navajo role in WWII - the Code Talkers.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:33:17 GMT

Well, for Halloween I'm going to be a pig with a chef hat like in so many BBQ restaurants. The twist is that I'm serving "long pig" chopped with my bloody ax. I call the costume ... OMGWTFBBQ!

The pic "creeped Zen_oven right the f*ck out" as she says. I told her that next time that a troll posts an email to her profile that she should offer them a threesome and send a "pigture" of my costume as the third person.

I bought the costume supplies at Frankel's 2801 Polk St. (just a bit north of greyanna and baalin's condo). They have a lot of costume supplies - I see a future pirate party in there post-Halloween. The folks selling make-up are good at giving tips and they have lots of scar/glass/etc for attaching to faces for zombie crawling. http://www.frankelcostume.com/StoreHoursLocations.aspx

At 1:59am Nov 1 will be the Houston Moonlight Ramble. http://www.bikehouston.org/

This Saturday is the 3rd Annual Montrose Halloween crawl. http://www.montrosecrawl.com
Here's some good costumes from 2007 & 2008 crawls:
Frida Kaelo http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=275#joomimg
Lawn gnome & evil queen http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=314#joomimg
Zelda's Link http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=481#joomimg
Mario & princess http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=133
Colonel Sanders http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=162#joomimg
Yip yip http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=171#joomimg
Fortune telling machine http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=166#joomimg
Bender http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=258#joomimg
Fifth element http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=295#joomimg
Jack in the Box http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=262#joomimg
Catwoman http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=259#joomimg
Alien http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=194#joomimg
tetris http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=249#joomimg
yard gnome http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=189#joomimg
Long Island iced tea http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=132
http://www.montrosecrawl.com/photos?func=detail&id=67

Halloween is drawing near...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:57:44 GMT

I just joined Halloween Fan featured in Spotlight http://community.livejournal.com/halloween_fan/

Check out these pumpkins. http://community.livejournal.com/halloween_fan/553767.html

I'm still deciding what to be for Halloween. Zen_oven thinks I should be one of those BBQ pigs consuming itself with a chef's coat and a bloody cleaver. She is going as a droog and suggested we could go as a couple. I'm thinking it might be too warm in Austin for wearing insulated underwear. I also considered going as the Nobel prize or a steampunk or zombie version of Dr. Livingston. I have a science costume in mind for our departmental party that is a pun on a particular method. Anyone have any other suggestions?

Sunday Oct 25

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:53:47 GMT

I've been reading the autumn_and_fall list on LJ. Here's a post that amused me.
http://community.livejournal.com/autumn_and_fall/240747.html

I told Zen_oven that the correct pronuciation of Pho is (Fuh). Therefore a good name for a Vietnamese restaurant might be What The Pho?

Saturday was pretty good. I'm taking pics of all my favorite interesting things around Houston. I will make an album and show you all soon. I also found paper Mexican carnations for our Dia de Las Muertos offrenda (altar), a shirt with the lotteria (Tarot cards) on it, and some miniature food bowls. The owners of Casa Ramirez are very nice and even gave me some pan de muertos since I would be in Austin on Sunday. I finally went to a Fiesta (24th St in the Heights) and found all kinds of interesting Mexican pastries, carribean, and Indian food. It's got the local rep of being the cheapest food in town so I tend to steer clear, but I thought it was fun to shop there yesterday. I also finally got to eat mafungo and bacalao at the Puerto Rican restaurant Tex Chick near our house (always is closed whenever I drive by) and it was pretty tasty. I even liked the malt soda (tasted like molasses).

Sunday was initially good with the meditation session, but then got into an arguement with the leader of my garden. I haven't been doing enough service work in the garden and my bed isn't getting as much attention as others would like. I've necessarily prioritized grant-writing instead. I recognize that I don't have as much time as the retirees do to give to the garden, but I'm giving up a lot of the benefits of being in our old house to make my living space better for zen_oven. The living space decision makes sense, but the garden has a particular meaning for me even though I don't get to go there often. It is one of the places that neither my wife or my boss has sway over. I enjoy being able to put plants in the ground and watch them grow. I have a hard time reconciling that I often only have a little time to give to a lot of activities and when other people get involved, they often demand more than I can give. At the same time, I'm unwilling to stop doing them entirely. I have to find homes for many of my plants when we move out of our current house because the other tenants won't take care of them. If I can't stay in the garden, I'm not sure where they will be able to go. My neighbors just redid their driveway and the workers destroyed one of my plants. It has been damaged two times by other work crews and was starting to recover right before this happened. I'm not sure how many more times it can recover and I feel bad about this happening. I'm wondering if I need to start tagging my plants in Spanish so that this doesn't keep happening.

I had planned to go on the taco truck crawl II with the Houston Chowhounds today. I got started late after my encounter at the garden and missed the group at the first location (they were running an hour ahead of schedule) and had to eat by myself. I did have an interesting corn, lemon juice, and salt drink at one restaurant. Apparently it's a regional specialty. I thought it was refreshing and not as strange or salty as the ingredients would seem. I finally caught the group at the third location for ten minutes. After we went to the final location, all the people I knew were mysteriously someplace else. I had hoped to spend time with some of the oldtimers in the group today and now it's getting so big that it's not as fun. Hopefully the upcoming oyster throwdown will go better although the throwdowns went from 50 last year to >250 this year so far.

I need to upgrade the RAM on my computer but it keeps getting updates, which slows it down further, making it hard to use the internet to buy more RAM.

October 10 2009

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:48:34 GMT

Two grants are done now and maybe will be the end of grant-writing for this year. (fingers crossed)

Went to Tenshi Sushi & Japanese Noodle up in NW Houston with J &LA. Food was excellent (their on personal terms with the chef) but service was spotty - mine came out immediately and zen_oven's came at the end of the meal. They gave us some extra spicy tuna roll and an appetizer with a crisp wrapper that was unique and filled with different sectors containing tuna, veggies, and roe. Afterward we saw Zombieland at Willowbrook theatre. Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray were excellent!

Today went to the Conroe Cajun Catfish Festival. Had low expectations and about 60% were met. Lots of odd looking people (but less than the horror show on Thursday). I had some crawfish pie and heard the last quarter of the set by the Zydeco Dots (http://www.zydecodots.com/). I was mostly interested in hearing Cajun and zydeco music. Unfortunately the rest of the afternoon didn't have any. They are playing at the Katy Rice Festival (http://www.riceharvestfestival.org) tomorrow, but they are a local band so I'll wait until they play in Houston again.

We stopped afterwards to buy a skeleton mermaid holding a bouquet of roses for our Dia de Los Muertos display at Las Manos Magicas (http://www.lasmanosmagicas.com/). I'm slowly collecting holiday decorations for the holidays that people don't typically decorate for (Mardi Gras, Valentines, Halloween/Dia de Los Muertos). I need to find some paper flowers that look like the Mexican marigolds that they normally put on their altars.

Here are some of my other favorite places to buy Mexican art available online too.

Tesoros (Austin) http://www.tesoros.com/homepage.html

Milagros @ Pike Place Market (Seattle, WA) http://www.milagrosseattle.com/index.html

It's Cactus (Carmel, CA) http://www.itscactus.com/catalog/Peruvian_Retablos-62-1.html
The retablos with the bakery, flowers, and cloth shops are really cool.

Grants progress

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:00:44 GMT

I've writing grants for eight weeks now. Last week sent out grant #1 and tomorrow will send out #2. Unfortunately, no time to celebrate my birfday last Monday. I had hoped to turn grant #2 in Friday, but helping my boss with #1 and him writing a second one at the same time made everything overrun into the time I wanted to be finishing my grant. Due to grant writing I was unable to do the following plans: celebrate Octoberfest at St. Arnold's brewery, listen to Houston Symphony play "Ode to Joy" (one of my favorites), go to the farmer's market, attend the Rice festival, and bake a pie. Unfortunately, I need to get some funding to keep working after next July so I have to stick to priorities. Only 10% of grants are getting funded, so my boss and I are writing four grants hoping to get at least one. It's tough when Houston has finally hit fall weather and is prime for all kinds of activities. I am glad for the opportunity to learn grant-writing and I am finally getting along (mostly) with my boss. I enjoy the grant-writing, just not what has to be done in the last week to meet the deadline. After this grant is done I still have another grant and a paper to write so I may be missing more activities that I had planned for the rest of the month.

I did at least go see Moby in concert with Zen_oven last night. The concert was great. I especially liked the dancing by his African American singer and his playing of the bongo drums. They do a great job with the lighting. I'm getting too old to stand for four hours. My back starts to hurt although dancing did help. I guess the lesson is that if things don't move, they hurt. That has some spiritual meaning too. We were distracted by some obnoxious woman smoking in the club next to us and hollering in her drunken excitement in my ear. Grayanna got into an arguement with her because she is sensitive to smoke. I spent too much of the time afterward thinking about revenge fantasies. I even thought about carrying some handcuffs and slapping her in some so the cops could catch her with her pot. Afterwards I thought that I should treat this like I do in meditation - label it as "thinking" and refocus my mind. I think this strategy might have promise.

Fall movies

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:38:18 GMT

Sep 25: Surrogates
Oct 2: Whip It (Austin roller derby)
Oct 9: Zombieland
Oct 9: 9
Oct 16: Where the Wild Things Are
Oct 23: Amelia
Nov 13: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:55:37 GMT

I just finished reading "A Voyage Long and Strange" by Tony Horowitz. This is about his travels following the explorers during the pre-colonial period in the U.S. I am always interested in how things begin so I've been to many of these sites on vacations. We'll get to see Zuni pueblo on our trip to Santa Fe at Christmas this year. I've read several of his other books about his travels in the footsteps of Captain Cook's voyages and "A Confederate in the Attic". The book identified a number of cases of racism and discrimination between Indians and blacks. I had no idea that a county official, by declaring many of Virginia's Indians to be negros, effectively barred them from collecting any government Indian benefits contributing to its status as the state with the lowest Indian population in the U.S. They all left the state to find places they could qualify. So you can't say that county officials don't affect anybody. I also didn't realize that the Lumbee in N.C. intermarried with the Lost Colony people and free blacks. This is why they don't have classic Indian features and there is tension between them and other non-Lumbee tribes in N.C.

I started reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. He's pointed out a number of factors that allow individuals to succeed or fail in spite of high IQ. Once your IQ is over 115, there is no relationship to your success. Many Nobel Prize winners went to state colleges. The key was not IQ, but rather their ability to think creatively. It turns out that being in your mid-thirties when a major technical breakthrough occurs in your field, having access to technology in advance of your peers (like Bill Joy or Bill Gates with real-time computing vs. punchcards), being born just after the great depression (less people like after the Great Plague in Europe = more resources per capita), being born middle class vs. poor (key factor is that middle class parents cultivate opportunities outside school to determine your talents and a sense of entitlement that makes kids emboldened to achieve their goals), and being born just after the cutoff for a sport or school (best hockey players are the biggest in January when the cutoff is, while students born in September/October tend to outperform others). His goal is to show how many people our education system fails because we hold the myth that people lifted themselves up by hard work or were born gifted. There are a lot of systematic biases that allow some individuals with the good factors to succeed while others with similar IQ and talents fail that lack those factors. It's highly readable and now I'm thinking about using some of this knowledge to affect my management in the future.

This weekend we went to the Diamonds exhibit at the Museum of Natural Sciences. It was interesting but I would have liked them to integrate the major mines with the jewelery examples and the technological part (ex. during the medieval period most diamonds were from secondary river sites in India and were uncut resulting in necklaces with octagonal stones with the lower half set in gold). I could see they were trying to sell to the folks that a) liked rocks, b) liked history, and c) liked technology and engineering applications, but they could have integrated these three sections and made it a lot more interesting. I realized that I could have seen U2 3D all summer and now it's gone. Their upcoming exhibit for 2009 is
Spirits and Headhunters: Vanishing Worlds of the Amazon    October 9, 2009 – January 10, 2010
http://www.hmns.org/exhibits/special_exhibits/vanishing_worlds.asp?r=1

Sep 12 is Museum District Day with free entrance to 17 museums in Houston
http://www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org/default.asp?id=1

MFAH upcoming exhibits for 2009 are:
Arts of Ancient Vietnam   September 13, 2009 - January 3, 2010
http://www.mfah.org/exhibition.asp?par1=1&par2=2&par3=607&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=4&eid=&currentPage=
The Moon: "Houston, Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle Has Landed    September 27, 2009 - January 10, 2010
http://www.mfah.org/exhibition.asp?par1=1&par2=2&par3=625&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=4&eid=&currentPage=
Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography    October 18, 2009 - January 3, 2010
http://www.mfah.org/exhibition.asp?par1=1&par2=2&par3=610&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=4&eid=&currentPage=
Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea    November 22, 2009 - February 14, 2010
http://www.mfah.org/exhibition.asp?par1=1&par2=2&par3=603&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=4&eid=&currentPage=

Weekend and Fall festivals

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:26:15 GMT

This weekend we're going to be busy: the LUMA light show Friday night at Miller Outdoor Theatre, A/V Geeks at Aurora Picture Show Saturday evening, and Depeche Mode Sunday night.

Here's some of the interesting events for Oct and Nov:
Chappell Hill Scarecrow Festival Oct 10-11 (would be a good weekend to have BBQ around the Chapel Hill - Brenham - Round Top area)
Texian Market Days @ George Ranch Oct 24
Renaissance Festival Oct 10-Nov 29
Halloween (Austin) Oct 30-Nov 1

November
Houston Arcade Expo Nov 6-7 @ Crown Plaza Houston @ Reliant Park http://www.arcadecenter.com/
play lots of classic arcade games and pinball
Turkic Festival downtown Nov 7-8 www.turkicfest.org
Daughters of the British Empire Bazaar Nov 7 10-4 http://dbetexas.org/houbaz.html
Chocolate Festival of Texas @ Sheraton Hotel @ International airport Nov 7 10-5
Chapell Hill Pointsettia Celebration Nov 21-22

Publication news

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:58:21 GMT

I received the news this morning that my manuscript was accepted to PLoS Genetics! This is my first post-doc publication so I need a few more before I can look for my next position. It's been a long time in coming, but hopefully the time to the next one will be shorter.

July 4 2009

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:59:31 GMT

Busy weekend of the fourth. Friday morning I subjected zen_oven to Dark City. One of my favorite SF films. I just love the plot device that the doctor uses to train the main character to use his psychic abilities and time perception. I wish I could "tune". Later in the day we toured five apartments in Midtown/Montrose that we drive by all the time. We don't plan to move until it cools down and is closer to the end of our lease, but we thought we'd get a jump on it. We liked the New Orleans styled Calais the best and it is the newest of the bunch and comparable in price. Here's pics:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.texasexplorer.net/calais1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.texasexplorer.com/MidtownHouston.htm&usg=__bj7hvfadiCQTMgZS_SMWGxn4Pvg=&h=432&w=720&sz=181&hl=en&start=14&sig2=rGB_UlRC7xqKdYiY7-1lyg&um=1&tbnid=SpVLNSi7ktO6yM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCalais%2BHouston%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1&ei=5n5RSqu6J6C-NPqC9PUP

Later that day I made a blueberry pie and squash casserole to have with the lamb chops that baalin grilled. Then we watched "Repo: the Genetic Opera". It was interesting, but not as engaging as Sweeny Todd or Moulin Rouge.

Saturday morning I went on the ice crawl with the Houston Chowhounds. I passed on the pork cooked in blood, but I did brave the rice with chocolate topped with a dried fish. Not my favorite. I won't push to have dinner at New Phillipiana from now on. I did enjoy the halo halo though. It was shaved ice with milk, coconut fruits, congealed coconut, jellied fruits, and two kinds of paste (one purple that was related to taro). This was followed by Malaysian at Banana Leaf (beef rendang, dried fish fried rice, etc.) and another bowl of frozen dessert Chinese style at Star Snow Ice. Very similar to the first but with many kinds of sweet beans and swelled grains, fresh cut fruit, and gelatins like grass jelly. In the afternoon I visited Central Market and bought cloudberries, gooseberries, champagne grapes, and several kinds of apricots and plums. I got stuck on the Apple movie trailers site for a couple of hours watching previews of summer films. We had tacos and margaritas for dinner at La Mexicana (guisada de puerco is fantastic) and then hiked a few blocks north to watch the fireworks at Buffalo Bayou from a vacant lot at West Gray and Taft. Lots of new fireworks styles. Shaped charges that looked like mitotically dividing cells, corals, and gnat clouds were shown. Afterwards we watched "Step Brothers" and Rome Season II episodes 9-10.

This morning we watched "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay". I made hot dogs with purple German potato salad with olives, capers, and some Branston pickles. Housecleaning and watering the yard (we really need rain) took up the afternoon. Finally, I made my own tomato ragout with grilled venison sausage, roasted green peppers, and spinach linguine. Over pasta, we watched the preview of Ken Burn's National Parks. Ken is truly a great person. I think his projects bring out what is good in America and I get proud and teary when I think about the effect of his films have had. I hope that his work galvenizes national support of our parks that have been dealing with more travelers and contracted budgets.

Zen_oven's B-day

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:19:21 GMT

Today is Zen_oven's birthday. She's been feeling down about some things over the weekend and not feeling well, so please give her some B-day cheer. Yesterday I bought her a dozen pink roses, chocolate cake from The Chocolate Bar, breakfast at Baba Yega, and money to buy some new clothes (since she lost all the weight she hasn't had the money to get replacements). We may go out for a nice dinner at Mark's or Mockingbird Bistro, but not tonight because Monday is the worst day to go the restaurants since the head chef is off and their food shipment is the oldest while Tuesday and Thursday are the newest.

Over the weekend we bought a new camera (the old one stopped working) and lots of nice fruit at Central Market (white peaches, canteloupe, nectarines, cherries, blueberries). I'm working my way through my honey do list including clearing out furniture we don't want to move this winter when we find a new apartment. I sent my 1 year-old niece some boots that look like cows with tails on the back, a cloth book "Goodnight Bear", her name carved in wood, and a sippy cup that looks like a monkey head. I sent my dad some Buds 'n' blooms organic fertilizer for Father's Day from the online store at Maestro Gro. This stuff will make anything bloom. I wanted to send some Minerals Plus too but it's fertilizer so I can't send it through the mail.

Scottish music

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:44:18 GMT

Last night we went to see Ed Miller and Brian McNeil (one of the original Battlefield Band members) at the Mucky Duck. We were treated to a great Scottish traditional song medley with union songs, "We're going to South Australia", and shepherdess jokes. Mucky Duck is really a great Houston resource. I overdid it with the food though. I had three trios. First three mini pies (beef and mushroom, chicken pot pie, and shepherd's pie), then a flight of three beers, then a flight of three ports, and a sherry trifle.

Tomorrow is the Houston Chowhounds slider crawl. We're eating sliders at several places nearby. We've got several eating marathons planned in June. We're doing a BBQ Throwdown, a Fried Chicken Throwdown, and an ice crawl (different ethnic frozen desserts).

After I finish the re-write of my paper on Sunday I'm going to the Accordian Festival at Miller Outdoor Theatre. I'm hoping to hear some zydeco music.

Emo ribozyme

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:44:31 GMT

I just posted to lolscience

Summer 2009 Movies

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:42:39 GMT

The summer movie guide came out in the Chronicle this morning. Many prequels are in store (but no Hobbit yet). Here's a rundown of selected film titles:
May 1: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
May 8: Star Trek
May 28: Up - animated Pixar flick about a house flown to South America with balloons
June 24: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
July 1: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
July 10: Bruno - Sacha Byron Cohen as gay Austrian tv reporter
July 17: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
July 31: The Cove - documentary about the Japanese city that hunts dolphins
Aug 7: GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Aug 7: Julie and Julia - adaption of the book about a woman who spends a year cooking Julia Child's recipes
Aug 14: The Time Traveler's Wife

These looked interesting on Apple Trailers

Food Inc
http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/foodinc/

Where the Wild Things Are
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/wherethewildthingsare/

Heisenberg Cat

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:24:28 GMT

Ganked from Lolscience
http://community.livejournal.com/lolscience/62377.html

Crawfish boil

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:54:46 GMT

Check out these Peeps
http://tinyurl.com/cll32u

I've been missing this show that I used to listen to back in school.
http://www.echoes.org/
I should have remembered to listen on www.publicradiofan.com. They list all NPR shows streaming online at that time by station and program name. You can find almost any NPR program is streaming somewhere in the U.S. I like Afropop World and Thistle and Shamrock too.

Bellies full of crawfish and beer after a day of crawfish boil eating in Baton Rouge. I got a bit of acid reflux from the spices, but some OTC acid blockers knocked it right out. We also watched the end of the Return of the King on the tv. Right now it's pouring down rain and I've been looking up Rood Food recommendations from the Splendid Table website. We stopped in Breaux Bridge on Friday to eat at Cafe des Amis that was just reviewed recently on the show. I had duck and sausage gumbo and zen_oven had seafood and corn bisque. For the mains I had BBQ shrimp and she had crawfish etouffee. We ended with a sirop gateau (syrup cake) that was a 18th century style dessert gingerbread cake with molasses and topped with nuts that was served with ice cream.

I've been looking at the National Park sites in Lousiana. Jean Lafitte has six sites. We went to two near New Orleans several years ago. There are several in western LA. I'm thinking that visiting the Cajun sites in Lafayette and Eunice might be fun for our 3rd anniversary next month. The site in Eunice does Cajun dance lessons, cooking lessons, and a Cajun music show.
http://www.nps.gov/jela/prairie-acadian-cultural-center-eunice.htm
We could stay in Lafayette, drive up to Eunice on Saturday, and see the site in Lafayette also.
http://www.nps.gov/jela/new-acadian-cultural-center.htm
Check out the Lafayette NPR station KRVS for streaming Cajun music.
www.publicbroadcasting.net/krvs/guide.guidemain
On the Lafayette visitor's bureau website I found several good looking French bakeries (run by actual French people including this one:

They serve American King Cake and the original French one. As

http://wwwpoupartsbakery.com)
I expected, the French original was served on Epiphany and is filled with almond paste. That means my plan to reengineer American King Cake with almond paste and less sweetness would put me square in the middle of the original French recipe.

I also found out that one of our favorite seafood restaurants in Baton Rouge, Parrain's, means godfather's in French and was a very important role in Cajun society. I also didn't realize that the Lebanese restaurants in Louisiana result from an influx of Christian Lebanese during the early 20th century. Their common French language made a good match for this to be a Lebanese landing point in the U.S.

Today is the first day of National Parks Week Apr 18-25. 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the National Park system set up by Teddy Roosevelt. Ken Burns is making a six-part series about the National Parks too.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2008/05/ken-burns-national-parks-documentary-where-does-it-stand

Someday it might be fun to visit some of the War of 1812 sites besides the Battle of New Orleans (Chalmette) and Fort Necessity (near Pittsburg) that I've been . I haven't ever been to upstate NY or upper Michigan to see Fort Stanwix or some of these non-national park sites. http://www.visit1812.com/historic-sites/

On a related note, I'd recommend the American Experience miniseries about the role of Native Americans in American history by Rick Burns "We Shall Remain". It gives an upside-down view of American myths that I believe that we still have not reconciled with. The next episode about Tecumseh and his prophet brother tells the story about the attempt that almost united all Native Americans to stop U.S. expansion beyond the Mississippi that was referenced in the "Alvin Maker" series by Orson Scott Card.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/

Peep shows

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:52:06 GMT

Check out these Peeps
http://tinyurl.com/cll32u

Work and division planes

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:53:58 GMT

My research meeting was very enjoyable. I asked a lot of questions that got excited responses from the speakers. Unfortunately that didn't translate into appreciation from my boss. I did get promises from competitors to share materials. That the majority of the talks were related to my project has led my boss to reconsider ending my project and even thinking about writing a grant to expand the work, but he still doesn't trust me to do the work. No recognition that most of my past interests and predictions were at least partially validated by my work and several others. I have heard that some bosses play head games where they tell their employee that they don't think they can accomplish something in order to get them to prove them wrong and work harder to get the work done. I wonder if this is what I'm experiencing. I'm planning to spend some of my remaining training grant period looking into other career possibilities. I used to think that I was going to pioneer a novel career path. Maybe that's still possible.

I had an idea that came up after a discussion with a colleague who noted that some people have a "clinical eye" to see meaning in details that others often miss. Some say that autistic spectrum disorders cause individuals to lack a filter for much of the data they receive which forces them to develop novel strategies to cope with data and to see novel relationships. I also read that some speculate that Einstein would have been diagnosed as ADHD and might have not developed his theories were he medicated. I often take the perspective of the "riding on a light beam" thought experiment to explore a new problem. On several occasions I have thought that the branch pattern of trees and the branching of vasculature (as I saw in the latex forms in the BodyWorlds exhibit) display particular branch patterns that reiterate much like a fractal. Fractals can be derived from simple mathematical formulas. Each of the branches must ultimately be tied to the angle of a division plane with respect to the prior division. The outcome of a division in stem cells, either to renew as two equivalent stem cells (symmetric) or as one stem and one differentiating daughter cell (assymetric), is determined by rotation of the division plane in fly germ cells. So the division planes of a vascular bed over space or the stem cell divisions in an organ over time could be depicted like Morse code and compressed into a simple formula. Not being a mathematician or a programmer, I'm not sure how to derive a formula from observed measurements.

March 31

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:32:38 GMT

Lots of things to catch up on. Our wireless @ home has been acting up so I couldn’t do any of this stuff this weekend. So, if you want to keep in touch with me, email is still the best way to do that. I rarely check LJ and even rarer on Facebook. We made the decision over the weekend to eliminate our land line so I and Zen_oven are only available through our cell phones now. We’re looking at aspects of our budget that we can cut to save money. One of our long-term goals is to consolidate all our media (music, periodicals, books, podcasts, movies) on one device so that we can eliminate clutter. I heard that the Seattle Post Intelligencer is now online only with no print edition. I’m looking to get a PDF version of the Houston Chronicle or maybe use Google News so I can hear news on the topics that interest me. We’re planning on getting a computer with a media center and hooking it up to a television with a digital receiver. Then we can eliminate our cable and still record PBS shows to the hard drive. The other shows we watch can be downloaded from the internet or Netflix. I’ve heard of a few companies that are planning on replacing game consoles with streaming web-based games, so I think business models that allow access to download streaming content from the web will be the future.

Some of you know that we’ve been having difficulty in our marriage. We had a good argument this week and some discussion Zen_oven has had with her new friends that has helped us come to some understanding of issues that we have been stuck on for the past two years. We’re both making changes to address each other’s needs and that has led to us feeling like we’re more willing to work together to try and make things work out. I heard an interesting podcast about the stories about how couples got together are often the stories that help them stay together. The author of the story remarked that rarely do people ask about the times that couples struggle and how they managed to stay together. Although I’ve been hearing useful advice from couples that have been together longer about how to resolve these differences.

I resubmitted my science paper about a week ago also and have been hearing some positive things about funding in general as well as for specific money in my lab. This week I’m going to Testis Workshop in Philadelphia and then visiting my parents just before Easter. We’ll be heading to Baton Rouge the weekend after Easter for a repeat of the crawfish boil that we attended last year. Afterwards, I have no significant plans for travel or meetings for a while. I’ll be working on grants again this summer and may explore some teaching opportunities if my training grant doesn’t preclude them.

A week ago I went to Dallas to see the King Tut exhibit, the Nasher Sculpture Garden, and the Crow Collection. The King Tut exhibit was okay but mostly oriented to the novice audience and very little of Tut’s burial artifacts were present. I enjoyed the early Kingdom period show in D.C. that J and ymasen and I went to much better. We had more opportunities to docent and the books at the Smithsonian were much better than this show. I regret I was unable to be there on Tuesday when Zahi Hawass was arriving for a special lecture.

I saw some very interesting scuptures using light at the Dallas Museum of Art. In one room black lights were set up at intervals to make it impossible to see anything but black and white. In the opposite hall all you could see was intense colors without any appreciation of depth. The same artist had many pieces that incorporated the element of time. I also went to my old house in Plano where I lived from ’82-85. The whole place was unrecognizable. It was all subdivisions and strip malls. Aside from the art I found Dallas in general to be just one big sprawl area with inadequate signage downtown – I could really have used a Tom Tom. I would have like to have had a little more time for exploring places like the Soda Shop www.thesodagallery.com. Then maybe I would have seen a different city. I did have a great meal at Stephen Pyles downtown with some ceviche in guanabanana juice and four gazpacho shots including a tomatillo-honeydew one and a smoked beet one.

Sunday I went to the Fort Worth Botanical Garden which is in full spring bloom and very beautiful. Their Japanese garden was very large and filled with hidden curves and gifts from their Japanese sister city. I had a buffet lunch at the restaurant in park which was your typical buffet food, but well executed and moist despite being in a steamer tray. I had time for a quick driving tour of downtown (fairly unremarkable to me and not much dining or shopping options) and then toured the Kimball Art Museum. I had seen it on Great Museums on PBS. It has a small but rich collection installed in a specially designed building of curved concrete with narrow light slits that disperse the light over the ceiling and not onto the art itself. Downstairs I saw Aztec chocolate vessels and Nok sculptures – some of my favorite things. They had a special exhibit on love in Renaissance Italy. There were a lot of specific platewares and trays painted to mark the betrothal, the marriage, and the confinement after childbirth. Bedroom chest lids were painted with erotic scenes to encourage children and some drawings that were the Kama Sutra of their day that were destroyed by the Catholic Church were also on display. Across the street is the Modern, one of the largest modern art museums in the U.S. I didn’t have time to see it, but hopefully I will have a chance someday. Fort Worth seemed more authentic than Dallas and has several museum about the cattle drives and cowboys to give it a more western feel. It is home to the corporate headquarters of several companies like Pier 1. Dallas is home to a lot of corporate dining chains and Blockbuster.

This weekend we ate at Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant Friday night. Saturday we had coffee and breakfast at Antidote Coffee on Studemont in the Heights. I biked to the Bayou City Arts Festival and then I joined J & LA for an event at Meridian in the evening while Zen_oven went to the Westheimer Block Party with her friend B from her work. I remember a photo of a set of bathroom doors marked “sit and wiggle” and “stand and shake” for the women’s and men’s bathrooms.

Some of the artists I enjoyed included:

Dave Rizzo (Ontario, CA) – trees www.daverizzostudios.com

Sheila Walters Beaverton, MI

Alexis Silk (Energy, IL) – women’s clothes suspended on hooks www.nogasilkartglass.com

Aidi Kansas (New Orleans) – pugs www.aidikansas.com

Gregory Arth – oil trees www.gregoryarth.com

Will Connor – landscape photos www.willconnor.com

Fred Conlon (Salt Lake City, UT) – metalwork www.sugarpost.com

Lea Alboher – pug clocks

Sam Stark (Asheville) – glass art similar to Chihuly www.starkartglass.com

Audrey Heller (San Francisco) – photographs with little people figures www.audreyheller.com

Jay Long (Austin, TX) – surreal art www.jaylong.com

Sunday we joined greyanna and baalin for Watchmen at Marq*E, some furniture shopping (they bought a new dining room table on sale), and dinner at Cadillac Bar on N Shepherd. I had the meltingly soft roasted cabrito al pastor (enough for two or three) and some flan for dessert.

St. Pat's Day

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:06:25 GMT

I cooked up the corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes in the crock pot along with a pub can of Guinness to celebrate the day.

I've been watching a Frontline episode about the upcoming crisis caring for the elderly that are older than 75. Some of these people are looking very frail. Despite being former doctors and nurses, they are no more prepared for their own aging care and death than anyone else. Apparently to reduce your chances of dying in a home you need to have at least three daughters or daughters-in-law. I'm reminded again how skewed my social circle is - I almost never interact with the elderly or children.

I've started listening to the Moth podcast through iTunes. There are some fascinating stories including one about a fireman's experience failing to save someone and a woman who dates a fireman just before 9-11.

This American Life has a great explanation of the U.S. Financial Crisis. Totally worth listening to in order to understand why sometimes we have to support unscrupulous bank executives to avoid a total financial meltdown.
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1285

Just finished the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card. I enjoyed a lot of it since I like alternative histories (especially pre-civil war ones), but it did end rather abruptly as the reviewers on Amazon said that it would. Not sure what I'm going to read next, but I'm reading whole series that I've had on the shelf for a while instead of buying a lot of new books. Probably will read some of "Listening is an Act of Love" that I got as an NPR supporter gift.

Humanoid robot to replace fashion models.
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=100425&newsChannel=oddlyEnoughNews
Some disturbingly human-like robots in Japan.

I joined the Couchsurfing network today. Madpiratebippy used it to find places to sleep on her cycling trip through California. I'm hoping to find some hosts in Dallas and other places I might travel to. Even having some folks to do activities and eat with could be interesting. Most of the folks on the website have traveled extensively.
www.couchsurfing.com

Valentine's Day

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 02:38:40 GMT

I had a bad weekend last weekend about several different problems in my life. I've told most of you about what's going on. If I haven't and you would like to know email me.

Today I did some cool things though. I bought a beautiful metal Mexican Valentine's Day wreath from Manos E Magicas on Durham in the Heights. I went to The Blair House www.theblairhouse.com nearby. They sell a variety of Indonesian crafts, sculptures, and teak furniture. I got a bat kite like the one's I saw in Austin and some carved wooden rambutans and a jackfruit. I talked to (and was totally crushing on) the Indonesian salesperson, Ankah, a member of Space City Gamelon (www.spacecitygamelan.org). We talked about Community Supported Agriculture, Sandy's Market www.sandysmarket.com, and ecstatic dance every Sundy at Planet Funk ecstaticdancehouston.com (sounds like bodychoir in Austin). She said that the band is thinking about having a concert inside some caves near San Antonio (one is a state park). I would think that would be very cool to do.

Zen_oven and I went to Jenni's Noodle House for lunch (had to postpone our Indian buffet at India's due to lateness of the hour). The picture menu of the noodle dishes made them look awesome. I got the thai chicken curry. It looked great but needed more seasoning and the potatoes were underdone. I might try one of their slippery noodle dishes, the spicy beef ramen, or the soba noodle dishes before I pass final judgement though. We hoped to go to the cupcake store nearby but they were sold out on account of the V-day rush for cupcakes.

I finished book four of the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card while Zen_oven napped. The series is an alternative history set in a magical U.S. that never unified into the United States between 1820 and 1865. The main character is a christ figure and there are some Mormon elements to the story. Jace recommended the books to me in the past and I never read them, but I can see why she thought that I would relate to the main character and his system of "making". If you enjoyed the Greg Keys books about the magical 1760s and other Orson Scott Card books, I recommend the series.

I'm pleased that after a prolonged drought during most of winter that the past several days have poured rain ever since I turned my big rainstick. Like the Federal folks, I get vacation for President's Day on Monday. I'll probably try to arrange to sell some of my stuff at the iSold It on Ebay store on Washington Ave and possibly look into selling some old Dragon magazine issues and First Edition AD&D books that day. I've been purging a lot of old files, papers, catalogs, etc. this week. I'm looking for a good local service to scan some of my papers into PDFs cheaply.

Hopefully another weekend before it gets too warm I'll be able to go to Beuscher and Bastrop state parks for camping and bike riding the 12 miles between the two parks.