Idle Ramblings of an Itinerant Druid

Snow in Louisiana!!

2008-12-12T04:12:19Z

Yep, snow this morning. News said total of 3 inches. It's all gone now of course. Last time the Red Stick had this much snow was in 1940. Nothing by northern standards... but first time I've seen snow here, and the people here really don't know how to deal with it. Glad I didn't have to drive anywhere. ;) Anyway, here's a photo from my morning walk into work, journalism building, and palm trees in snow.

Canopy Photos!!

2008-10-09T04:15:01Z

Well, since I don't want to neglect my livejournal in favor of facebook ;), but mainly since I'm very excited about my canopy photos, I'll post a couple here as well... I went out yesterday (10/7) and took a set of post-Gustav canopy photos for my plots out at CWP. I also happened to take a set on August 20, pre-Gustav... (Gustav hit Sept 1st)... So, now I can evaluate light levels before and after Gustav... In other words, I actually have a way of quantifying the effect of Gustav on my plots!! :) This could be very interesting. My plots are set up under three different canopy types: canopy intact, canopy absent 10 years, and canopy absent 30 years, so now I can make comparisons about how each type may have changed due to Gustav. Initially I would think that the trees along gap edges (and those along roads, other edges, etc.) would be the most susceptible to windfall, and therefore the gaps would be most likely to be altered. Not sure that's what I'll find though. Just from eyeballing it, so far the change is looks greater from the canopy intact plots. I suppose if one tree goes in a more dense area it is more likely to take others with it, and therefore larger changes would be evident from previously intact canopy plots... anyway, I'll be working through the analysis for awhile (60 photos), but this could be a very intersting little side study.

Oh, and here's a couple photos, plot 2C (canopy intact) before and after Gustav...

It's gone, it's gone!! It's finally gone!!

2008-09-30T05:42:20Z

Ok, this post went a little long, I'll put the gory details in a couple cuts, if anyone's really interested they can read it there. :) In short, I no longer have a rodent roommate.

And tomorrow the epic cleaning begins. Finally not just merely picking up after the rodent, I can erase every last trace that it ever existed. My apartment is now my own again, no unwelcome vermin roommates lurking in the corners coming out at night and leaving signs of their presence. Finally it's dead, well, dying in the dumpster, not in my apartment. Oh my god it was huge!! Not some little house mouse like I was hoping, it may have been a rat. Not some cute rat like lab rats, or pets we had in 6th grade science, but a huge filthy disgusting vermin. I didn't look at it any more than I had to. It's gone, it's gone! Still trying to calm down, a bit of an adrenaline rush from my battle with the rodent. :) I was on the computer, turned around, and there it was sitting by my fan. Out in the open, with the lights on, around 11 (I'm normally up much later than that). I've been poisoning it for about 2 weeks, it ate about 2/3 of a package of d-con, and started leaving blue droppings for me in the morning, so I knew it was eating it, after giving up on the old-fashioned spring traps, and the sticky traps the maintenance people provided. I'm not supposed to use poison in the apartment, but I smuggled it in :) had to do something. I was afraid it'd die somewhere in the walls or in the heater or something and I'd never find it, so at least it came out into the open. And it was definitely sick, moving relatively slowly. I think I literally jumped when I first saw it. It was so much bigger than I was expecting, (I really didn't want to think it was a rat.) So I was able to put a trash can over it, weight down the trash can, and think for a couple minutes. I didn't want to leave it overnight. It feels great that it's actually gone. Switched into jeans, shoes, and put on some disposable cleaning gloves, gatthered my tools -- plastic bag, broom handle, and phone book -- closed all the doors so it couldn't get into another room, and lifted the trash can. It moved. Yes, I knew it wasn't dead, but I wasn't exactly thinking rationally at this point. I actually shouted "No" at it and threw the phone book at it. It didn't move fast, it was dying from the poison. It was a bit brutal. I don't like killing mammals, well, vertebrates in general, but this was vermin. So after hitting it with the phone book a few times, with my gloves on, I picked it up with a plastic bag and put it in the trash can and went out to the dumpster. I'm afraid I don't know that it's totally dead, not very humanely dispatched, but it's gone!

This thing had been everywhere, some of its favorite locations were behind the couch, under the fridge, and I suspect in the extra carpet that's rolled up along the wall. I'm dreading what I may find when I unroll it tomorrow. It attacked my houseplants, many of my succulents did not make it, and ate a large chunk out of the climbing onion. I think the onion will survive though, it's sprouted and is growing again now. I had been putting an ice cream pail over the onion at night. It had been in and out of my trash cans and recycling bin. After the first night I turned those upside down at night. Every morning I've had to collect droppings and watch where I walk. It had diarrhea on my sink after getting a banana peel. It knocked my toothbrush out of the rack in the bathroom, needless to say I now have a new toothbrush which resides inside my medicine cabinet. It made it up to my top bathroom shelf where my clean towels were (knocking some cough drops down). And it made it into my desk. I found droppings sitting on my checkbook one day. At night I would sleep with my bedroom door closed and a towel wedged under the door. And every morning I would find more of that towel chewed up, as if it wasn't content to let me have at least one room. That's actually where I ended up putting the poison, right outside my bedroom door, since I knew it was chewing on that towel each night. I'm going to be finding pieces of that towed throughout the apartment for weeks to come. Ok, it could have definitely been worse, it never did make it onto my top kitchen shelves where I keep the food. (My apartment doesn't really have cabinets, mainly shelves.) This thing was huge, I'm not sure how it got in, I didn't think the holes in my walls were that big, house mouse could probably fit, but this thing, I dunno. I'm now wondering if it came through the heating ducts somehow...

So, it's finally gone. After some serious cleaning tomorrow (no classes Tuesdays), maybe I can finally stop worrying about what the rodent will get into next and get some more work done. :)

I wish I had a cat

2008-09-08T00:05:26Z

Unfortunately I think I have a mouse. And it has attacked the my houseplants. I don't just want it gone, I want it dead. A little irrational perhaps, but the few plants I brought with me are some of my favorites. It chewed a hole in my climbing onion bulb. It nibbled on my agave. And it chewed the tops off nearly all my succulents! I first suspected I might have a rodent yesterday, after finding what appeared to be nesting material on my kitchen floor. And this morning I noticed the TV remote was knocked off the stand and laying on the floor. Something had gotten into my garbage. And then I noticed a large chunk chewed out of my onion. Definitely some kind of furry vermin (hoping a mouse and not something larger). And just a few minutes ago I noticed my succulents, in another room, on a higher shelf, had also been eaten. And today I just replenished my food supply (maybe a bit more on that later, it was a bit exciting), there's more food around now that it could get into. I couldn't find any mousetraps at the store, will try the peanut butter & paper tube trick tonight, but I'm not sure I have anything deep enough the rodent would fall into and not be able to jump out of. I've got a lot of stuff stored in the apt, there could be many potential hiding places. I'm not sure exactly how it got in, but there is that hole in my bathroom wall, looks like a mouse could get through that. Probably driven inside by the hurricane, rain, etc. So, I wish I had a cat. Yet another benefit besides the company, would be the potential pest control. Unfortunately there's a stupid no-pet policy for the on-campus apartments.... Hopefully the maintenance people will have real traps.

The Aftermath

2008-09-03T01:37:54Z

Whew! The power's back on. I'm so glad I live on campus, and for the first time I was actually glad of the cinder block construction of the apartment. Power's been on about an hour this time, hoping the third time is the charm and it stays on this time. I'm fine, apartment made it through fine. Baton Rouge is a disaster area. Trees, power lines down everywhere. With respect to Baton Rouge, Gustav was more severe than either Rita or Katrina in 05 (but New Orleans got off much easier this time, and overall, of course much lower mortality, I've only heard of one death so far). Rain was not as much as expecting (so far), and made landfall as a Category 2 and not 3, so it could have been much worse. Winds were impressive though. I think we set records for Baton Rouge, 91 or 92 mph gusts, I think I heard sustained winds were in the 80s. Continuous winds for around 3 hours for awhile there, I hid out in the bathroom for the worst of it. :) Have been listening to the radio a lot, not much else to do without power. I hope the power stays on this time. Most of the city is of course still out, LSU was one of the top priorities. Parts of the state are saying outages for next 4-6 weeks. Classes cancelled at least until Monday. BR is under nightly curfew, 8-6, anyone on road without good reason goes straight to jail. They're thinking of instituting martial law. Too many people on the roads driving around, interfering with rescue/ power companies. Not really anywhere for them to go anyway, most stores and gas stations are still closed. I got out for the first time today walked around campus a little (no, no driving). Many, many trees down or damaged. Myrtles especially didn't hold out too well. There are two trees that tipped up in the Quad. Might post a couple pictures. It's certainly a mess down here. But it could have been worse. Now just have to watch for Hanna, Ike, & Josephine so far. Think Hanna's heading Atlantic, too early to tell for the next two.

Waiting for Gustav

2008-08-31T17:51:32Z

Wish me luck :) Anyway, I think I'm ready. Have enough food for a week or so. Would have got more groceries after church, but the local Wal-Marts and other grocery stores are already closed, boarding up and preparing themselves. Baton Rouge is around 90 miles from the coast, so no worries about storm surge here of course. Probably a good sign, many of the evacuees are evacuating to Baton Rouge. Church was really packed this morning. Classes cancelled at least until Thursday. LSU had its first football game of the season yesterday, it was scheduled for 4PM, they moved it up to 10AM, so tailgating traffic wouldn't interfere with evacuations. Interstates around are under contra flow- both sides going the same way away from New Orleans. And Gustav is now in the Gulf and speeding up, originally we didn't expect landfall until Tuesday, could land by tomorrow morning now. They're saying now maybe 80-100mph winds even here in Baton Rouge, 8-12 inches of rain. Well I think my apartment's sturdy. :) It's built of cinder blocks and has been here since the 60s. I did move my car into the center of the parking lot, as far away from trees, telephone poles, as I could get, just in case. And I'm really not sure there's anything else I can do to prepare, now it's just waiting. It's definitely good we have advanced warning for such a big storm, unlike Midwestern tornadoes that pretty much come and go suddenly, the hurricane conditions can stick around a bit longer. So now it's just waiting. Today of course is another hot, sunny, 90-degree day. It could be a bit miserable if the power goes out. But then I'm right on campus, which had power back only a day after Katrina (according to lab mates), while some of their places were out 3 days or so. I was in Florida for Katrina, nowhere near Louisiana, I was pretty lucky all the time I was right on the coast in the panhandle, and we've had relatively calm storm seasons since then. Oh, and one last thing, we (labmates & I) do find the timing amusing, right with the Republican National Convention... :) Just in time to remind everyone how well the last Republican president handled Katrina, maybe. Ha. Although I must say, everything seems to be going smoothly so far, evacuations and all, so maybe people have learned from Katrina mistakes. Hopefully. Time will tell. Anyway, I think that's it for now, just killing time. I'll post again sometime after the storm passes, when I have power, internet, etc. :)

College Cactus

2008-08-01T01:03:56Z

Ok, so I'm rather proud of my cactus, and felt it deserved a post... :)

If anyone remembers my tall prickly-pear type cactus from college...

Back before college I re-started it as a cutting to fit in the dish garden for easy transport, and then decided not to cut it again, to see how big it would get... Well, now it's 8 years old...

Too big to transport to Louisiana with me, my uncle kept it in one of his greenhouses for me...
It flowered this year...
And it's HUGE!! This is what's left after about half the top broke off. It was over 6ft at one point. :)

Halfway home...

2008-08-01T00:51:37Z

To the apartment in Baton Rouge that is. Stopped at my usual halfway point in Sikeston, MO, even got gas at the same place earlier today -- my Michigan-Louisiana commute is becoming mundane. Mundane is probably a good thing though, especially considering the interesting things my car is doing lately. :) Nothing too hazardous... just that my dials are misbehaving... tachometer, temperature gage, spedometer... I don't think the fuel gage is messed up yet though. So driving up to Michigan earlier this month, I noticed my tachometer needle was pointing straight down and not moving. Nothing major I thought, I don't really need a tachometer, thought the needle had just come loose. Then driving to the wedding the tachometer spontaneously decided to start moving again, starting from its position pointing straight down. I then glanced down at my spedometer and noticed I was going 70 mph on a rural road, I promptly slowed down until the needle pointed to 55, but it seemed much slower than that. Sure enough, when I came to a dead stop at the next stop sign, my spedometer said I was still going 15mph. So that was rather interesting, just had to add 15 to the speed I actually wanted to go. Made it up the wedding fine, and by the time I was driving home everything (exept tachometer, stuck again) was behaving normally and all was well for a few days. Next, while I was driving to visit a cactus and a cousin I noticed my engine was supposedly overheating as the temperature needle was pointing beyond the red zone... I figured there would be warning lights and/or smoke coming from the engine if the situation were really so dire and finished my drive. Sure enough, on the drive home the needles (except tach) were back in their correct position, and Dad checked the fan/coolant level, etc and everything was fine. All was well for a few more days. Then, while driving to Detroit to visit dead people, my temperature needle was again beyond the red zone, so far this time that it crossed over into the spedometer area, and, after stopping, my temperature needle pinned the spedometer needle down so it was unable to move beyond 10 mph (Oh, did I mention I had a spedometer on my GPS? So I wasn't entirely clueless how fast I was going.) I stopped at the next gas station, and after turning the key off and on repeatedly, was able to get the needles (except tach of course) to reset to their proper position, and had no problems for the rest of the day. So, anyway, will have that looked at when I get back to the Red Stick. Today everything started out normal, but the spedometer gradually went off; by the end of the day I was driving 70 miles an hour when the needle pointed to 50. Well, one more day of driving...

Wow, the possessed dial post took longer than expected. All in all, I had a nice relaxing trip back up to Michigan, had fun at the wedding, and it was absolutely great to see the Hit Squad in its entirety again. :) My brother's kids kept me busy for a week when they were there, and I also got quite a bit of genealogy research accomplished. Now its back to grad research, will be taking canopy photos soon, weather permitting...

On the road again...

2008-07-09T00:12:29Z

And halfway home to Michigan... left this morning around 10 AM, made it to my halfway point, which happens to be a hotel room in Sikeston, MO, right where I-55 & 57 meet, interestingly the "home of thrown rolls" as well. Not much interesting to report (which really is a good thing), little slow around Jackson & Memphis, but otherwise nice empty interstate for the most part. Tomorrow it's back across the Mississippi into Illinois, and the only expected headache is of course Indianapolis. Still another 8 hours should do it. And that's about it... just killing time in the hotel room...

Fire :)

2008-05-14T03:57:55Z

And the echoes are dead!

2007-02-20T21:19:34Z

Yep, that's right, the apartment doesn't echo anymore. :) Don & Tracy brought the furniture down from Michigan on Friday night. So now I've got a real rocking chair, a couch, an actual bed (previous was air mattress), the computer is now set up on a desk instead of boxes, and I've got carpet in the living room! :) It makes a big difference. It's much more liveable, and really helps break up the blank white of the walls, floor, and ceiling. The only slight drawback, which is gradually working itself out, my allergies have been going crazy after spending much time inside. I believe the likely culprit would be dust. I think as I continue to use the furniture the troublesome dust will rise and settle somewhere more inconspicuous. (Yes, I have vaccuumed, and swept, etc, but that just seems to stir it up.) As I've said, the allergies do seem to be subsiding, and at least the dust allergies aren't as full-blown as my ragweed allergy, anyway. So, furniture, yay!

Of course it was also great to see Don & Tracy again. I gave them a quick walking tour of campus Saturday morning (they seemed suitably impressed with the live oak growth form :) ), and then off to the Spanish Town parades downtown. Spanish Town's a good introductory Mardi Gras, lots of beads, and meant to be family friendly. A couple of the satirical targets for the floats this year were Britney Spears, Governor Blanco, and Coach Saban. Many LSU fans aren't happy with Saban for taking a higher paying position elsewhere. ;) Well, I think that's all the news for now, the break was nice, have one more day tomorrow, and then classes resume Thursday.

dair_ruis @ 2007-02-20T14:15:00

2007-02-20T20:17:04Z

Happy Mardi Gras!

Well, I'm a treasurer... and a girl scout

2007-02-16T00:45:26Z

Who needs democracy anyway? It was a very close race, in which I ran against no one but myself. As a matter of fact, the only position for which there were multiple candidates was president. And, get this, the one position for which no one ran was.... webmaster. So, I'm a treasurer, when maybe I could have been webmaster. :) Oh well, I really don't think it'll be that bad, and the outgoing treasurer is in my lab, so it should be fairly easy to track her down with questions if I need to. Of course the results aren't official yet, we just had the meeting tonight and the polls remain open for a week or so. So, this was the first meeting I've actually attended, and now I'm treasurer. It shouldn't be that bad, I actually know the secretary, and one of the fundraisers, and I think they're the people I need to deal with the most. Maybe I'll meet more people, being in control of the money ;)

Oh, yes, and then there's the girl scout thing. :) Is an explanation really necessary? I think I've explained it before, and if not, the confusion would be much more entertaining than the explanation. Actually the paper work hasn't been completely finished yet, but it's in the works, just have to figure out where to turn in the form, pay the $10, etc. Well, I think I'll leave it at that for now. The battery's already down to half, and I want to run some SAS. I found out today I might actually have a split-plot design! Aren't stats exciting? :)

Computer Problems & an Unexpected Nomination

2007-02-11T02:54:04Z

Bonjour de Baton Rouge!
So, my poor computer is again tormenting me. My battery has been pretty dead for quite awhile, so I've gotten used to constantly using AC power. Lately this hasn't worked. I would constantly get battery warnings even when plugged in, and eventually the computer would turn itself off. Sometimes I'd get a battery warning telling me to switch to AC, at which point I would have a couple seconds to unplug and then replug the power cord, and hope the warning wouldn't reappear. The situation declined from there, and eventually I wasn't able to turn on the computer (if anyone's noticed me repeatedly signing in and out, that would be me trying to load the computer, and then it crashing because of lack of power). So I ordered a new battery, hoping that would fix things. Battery came yesterday, and it has helped...somewhat. Unsurprisingly, the problem isn't the battery alone. When plugged in to power, the computer fails to recognize it and the battery discharges until empty. This gives me about 1.5 hours on the computer. Oddly, the power cord does successfully charge the battery when the computer's off. So after charging for about 2 hours I can have an additional 1.5 hours. So, next step, see about replacing the AC adapter, I'm really hoping it's not something internal. So more to look into.

In other news, I was surprised by an e-mail tonight. Apparently I have been nominated to be Biograds treasurer for the upcoming year! Why me!? Biograds is basically the biology grad student government thingy. I decided to get involved in the fundraising (selling notes) this year so I could have access to the free money research/travel awards. I'm still not sure if I'm entirely eligilble since I haven't attended any meetings yet, and I think attendance is one of the important factors for determining who can get an award. Of course, I have been in Florida for part of the past two years, which makes getting involved in anything pretty tricky. If I were an officer, though, I'm guaranteed an award for that year. Hmmm..... Well, I'm not particulary thrilled with the idea of being an officer, and part of me really can't get past the whole idea of student government as a popularity contest. Still, it's not high school, it couln't be that bad; these are biology grad students, has to be much more civilized than actual politics. And at least I wasn't nominated for something completely ridiculous (for me) such as social coordinator. I suppose I could run, no guarantee I'd be voted in... Argh. Maybe, guaranteed award.

Battery almost dead...

Still alive

2007-01-15T22:50:43Z

Well, break is about over. Classes start tomorrow. My day starts with Population Ecology at 7:30 in the morning. My last class of the day (stats lab) ends at 5:30 pm. Tuesdays are gonna suck. I'm only really taking the two classes, besides research, so my MWF are open for research stuff, but I'll have to somehow morph into a morning person this semester. Or maybe I can take a nap after my morning class? I'd rather be productive though. Never accomplish as much as I'd like to. :(

Made it back to Baton Rouge on the 10th, moved into my tiny crappy graduate apartment near campus.

My complex has railroad tracks on one side, and on the other is across a major highway from the stadium and campus sports complexes. Still it's only like a 10 minute walk to where I need to go, so that's a plus. I really couldn't find anything else online from Florida. Oh, and it does have windows. (I'm trying to think of the positives first, the floorplan only showed one window.) And it does have some potential to be liveable. I've done a lot already, I've installed blinds so I have some sort of window covering, I signed up for high speed internet (was shocked to find it wasn't included here), and they've come in to fix the stove already, so now I can cook, not to mention all the cleaning I've done, so many of the stains seem permanent though, and the air freshener I bought has more or less eliminated the stale smell. Now if I can get the maintenance people to fix the broken windows, maybe fix some of the leaks, and, above all, get rid of the roaches, it would be better. Have I ever mentioned I don't like roaches? It's the closest I come to an irrational fear of a living thing. I'm fine with snakes, spiders, and butterlfies, and I'm not really afraid of roaches, they're just incredibly gross, and I won't touch them, prefer not to be around them. (Although now that I think of it, the greenhouse roaches really didn't bother me as much as these.) I make sure I turn the lights on for a minute or two before entering a room, and an empty juice bottle has become my designated roach squisher. And that's another thing, most insects crunch when smashed, why do roaches so disgustingly squish and splatter? Well, it could be worse, they're not the full-grown, huge roaches they have down here in the south. I'm not supposed to do any pesticide treatment on my own, just have to wait for the maintenance people, rely on my squisher, and make sure I keep everything ultra clean, as apparently the previous occupant didn't. Enough on the roach rant.

So, my apartment is off-white. White ceilings, white paint over cinder block wall, and even white tile floors this year, I've been busy hanging things on the walls, couple posters from Florida, and I've dismantled some old calendars to add some color, which helps a bit. There's just something unsettling about the crossing lines where the cinder blocks meet. And of course it echoes, I'm definitely looking forward to the furniture arriving next month.

Still need to run around completing all the various errands related to moving. I'm really getting tired of this whole transient drifter thing. But it's raining today, and it's MLK so most everything is shut down anyhow. I've updated my address with the banks, insurance, & loans, just have to head to the DMV to update my license. Really not looking forward to that. It should be so simple, but I have every confidenct the people working there will manage to make it complicated. I still need to turn in my apartment evaluation form, I had to use an extra page to report all the problems. And I do have internet service now, had to get an internet maintenance person out yesterday, just to tell me that they had sold me a defective cable modem, which I had pretty much figured out on my own. So I need to go back and exchange that one tomorrow and just buy a new one. I guess it's my fault for buying used, but, come on, I bought it from the internet suppliers, seems like they'd test them before reselling used boxes. Arg. My car needs an oil change, I'm a little nervous about getting it done in a big city, I just trust small town mechanics more for some reason. And I need to have the Louisiana car inspection done. All of last year I was here I noticed people had these stickers in their windshields, I figured the DMV would have mentioned it to me if it was something important when I registerd the car. I found out from Rae it's like a $100 or so fine for getting caught without one, and it's not like it's even anything meaningful like an emissions test. She said they test things like the horn, etc.

And it's raining today, and everythings closed, so I'm a little frustrated at not being able to accomplish anything. Ok, that's more than enough complaining, I've gotta find something else to do to kill time.

Playing with Panoramas (finally)

2006-12-09T03:06:58Z

Here's a couple of my favorite Oregon panoramas. Just starting to work on some of them. Huge files, not sure if this will work....

Mt. Scott at Crater Lake

Wizard Island in Crater Lake

Catastrophic Computer Crash!!! :(

2006-11-30T04:44:37Z

Well, it could have been worse, much, much worse. I've had my external hard drive for about a month now, and I created a backup from Windows shortly after I got it. The computer also happened to do an automatic backup the night before, which would be ideal if I could completely restore from it. And it still should be possible once I get an actual disk for the system restore.

So Thanksgiving was nice, at Jean's house, she surprised me and cooked a turkey even though she's vegetarian (well except fish). She and Rae had tofu, but the other 4 of us enjoyed the turkey.

I've been working as much as possible trying to get in the last of my 600 hours in the last two weeks I thought I'd be here. I even managed to put in 2 hours on Thanksgiving, a full day that Friday, and 6.5 Saturday until it happened.... Invalid access to memory location...

I had finished sanding for the day and brought my computer over to the lab to work on tree ring stuff. (All my work files are on my laptop, and hadn't been put on an actual disk since I left for Oregon; Rae would have been screwed.) I tried to load my computer suspecting not a thing, it's taken a long time to load since I upgraded to XP professional (SAS seems to need it), and then an ominous beep echoed from the speakers. Invalid access to memory location. Windows then asked me to log on, which is quite unusual as I am the only user of my laptop, and I've never set up a password. So I tried to log on, and it wouldn't work and told me to contact my system administrator. Again unusual, since I also happen to be the system administrator for my computer. So restart, ominous beep, restart, ominous beep, restart... no beep... seemed promising...... frozen! restart, ominous beep. Invalid access to memory location!!! Even safe mode refused to log me on. DOS recovery mode let me see all my files on the computer, but when I would try to copy them anywhere.... access denied. So then I was convinced it would be necessary to reinstall Windows and restore from the backup I knew it had created the night before. Rae and Jean weren't quite as sure and convinced me to wait for Neil to look at it the next day. After all, all the work files were on my computer. Well, I found a few books in the kitchen, and I've been doing a lot of reading lately. I waited around Sunday, it turns out Neil & Jean forgot, but they showed up later and Neil tried a few things. He showed me how to run checkdisk from DOS, and it supposedly found and fixed an error, after the two hours it took to scan. So restarted, and was eventually greeted by the ominous beep. By this time it was pretty late and I didn't want to bother Neil with it again that night. So the next day, I researched my backup program a little more extensively, and surprise, the best thing to do was to reinstall Windows and restore from the backup. So I reinstalled windows, it wiped the hard drive and loaded fine. Reinstalled backup software. And of course it couldn't restore a whole drive while windows was running, and my system restore disk, didn't work. Argh! Luckily I could restore folders and files bit by bit, and by the end of Monday, all the work files safely resided on the network Z drive. Tuesday was spent recovering programs, reinstalling my month-old version of the system (from the Windows backup program), and things are more or less normal. So trying to wait for the restore CD and not change anything too important that can't be easily transferred to a disk.

But at least nothing was totally lost; I lost 3 and a half days of work, but then I can stay longer now, so I'm not so frantically scrambling for hours.

And that's what I've been up to lately, besides apartment searching online, which can be a bit difficult without a computer. :)

I worked 10.5 hours today.

2006-10-18T03:14:15Z

On tree rings. Inside. Microscope and computer. 10-9, with a half hour for lunch. I'm currently having trouble counting, took me awhile to figure out how many hours that was. Well, the faster I put the hours in the sooner I'll be done. And Rae was working as well, so it's not like it was all on my own. We're getting a lot done while she's been here. We got back from Louisiana last week Monday. We have the chronology back approximately to 1880 (for around 20 trees anyway). It's working. I'd rather be outside more though. I don't think I'll pursue dendro for my own research. Too much microscope. Complex sentences are beyond me right now. :) Got the redwood potted yesterday finally. Had trouble getting soil. Wal-Mart was closed Sunday, power outage, it's an hour away. All the small things around were closed Sunday. I'm pretty much typing whatever pops into my mind right not. No real news. This won't be that coherent. Weather's getting nice, back up to mid 70s today, but really humid. It's been down to 60s mornings, had to wear a sweater the other day. It's really nice when it's not this humid. There's a storm coming, it really needs to rain to condense the humidity. Right now the air is thick. Well enough rambling. I need to see if I can save my orchid.

Time for an update.... I have SAS!!

2006-10-05T02:08:32Z

Yes, I now have the magical statistical analysis program installed on my compture. Woohoo. I only had to upgrade to Windows XP Professional (free through univeristy), and install 15 CDs of SAS on my computer. Well, now my computer is a bit sluggish, and the 80GB HD is over half full, but, well, now I can analyze my data. Woohoo!!

Well, now, that's not my most exciting news. I did just get back from Oregon and all. :) The trip was great of course, and if I try to get into all the details and attempt to convey my excitement, this will be a much longer post than I feel like attemtping right now. Besides, I'd like to post a couple pictures sometime (somewhat less than the full 800), and as I'm on my advisor's computer for internet, I don't exactly have access to them right now. Suffice it to say redwoods are awesome and it was great to see barnacle_queen and ghaliex again. :) So for now, I'll stick to the more mundane aspects of my existence.

The place in Florida is overbooked these two weeks, so last week to Oregon, then flew back to Florida (~8 hours, and I was even in Detroit for a while -- all of 10 minutes), spent the night in an office with deer heads staring at me, and then drove 8 hours the next day to get to Baton Rouge, where I'm staying at my advisor's house and taking care of the 3 dogs while he's away this week. They're nice, quite well-behaved housedogs, though the youngest is still a bit hyper at times. I made it out to the field today, did a quick survey of the shrubs to try and see what has been reproductive this year. Took the dogs with me, they had fun, but one got sick in my car, and they found some mud to roll in afterall. Had seat covers so it could have been worse, though. Oh, and apparently it's ragweed season in the south.  :( I still haven't had the allergies quite as bad as up north, but today came close. Even so, I think I managed to get everything done I wanted to do today, made it to all of the plots and did a quick species inventory. Well, I think I'm done in the field so will head back to the lab again tomorrow, see if I can figure out how to set up the SAS program to analyze my data. Wish me significance! :)

Scalloping, etc

2006-09-12T03:16:33Z

Bonjour! Well, I suppose it's about time for an update, and as I don't feel like entering more shrub data at the moment, I suppose it's a good time to do that. So what have I been up to? Well, work of course, I've spent enough time with the tree rings now that they're even entering my dreams, which is mildly disturbing. Anyway, I still haven't made it up to the elusive 50 hours a week, just haven't been able to force myself to work the weekends, or over 9 hours a day, on the microscope. And then September 10th was the end of the scallop season, so scalloping proved an entertaining diversion. Four of us went out 3 days last week, trying to get enough for a meal before the season ended. We paddled out in a canoe, so didn't have to walk as far this year. The process of scalloping, by the way, basically involves wading through the seagrass and feeling for anything hard with your feet. (Scallops are mobile, but they don't move that fast by squirting) Upon feeling something hard, the next step is to reach down to determine 'scallop'... or 'not a scallop'. Falling into the 'not a scallop' category this year were whelks, conchs, tulips (another gastropod), murex (not entirely sure of the name on that one, and no idea how to pluralize it, anyway, another gastropod), pen shells, sea urchins, .... and .... spider crabs. Needless to say, it can be interesting to reach for a scallop and instead find a spider crab. :) I even found a tulip that was in the process of eating a scallop, and there was one with an oyster drill. Anyway, it was really interesting to see the diversity, and there were also other crabs, horseshoe crabs, and stingrays! The stingrays have been busy lately, the bay is full of egg cases. Ok, back to the subject, scallops. Well, we found a grand total of 24 the first day (the limit is a gallon bucket per person per day). So we tried again the next day... nothing. And again the next day... no scallops. Well, as we had been paddling by in the canoe the past couple days, we had noticed tons of fish jumping around us. So the third day, Neil brought his cast net, and in one cast, from the dock even, he caught six large mullet. So what would have been a very meager dinner of scallops (only eat the main muscle), ended up a mullet feast, with a few scallops as an appetizer. So, not what we were originally expecting, but very good anyway, and a useful diversion from tree rings.

No, they're not actually yellow like the gas station, my lighting was bad.

Finally Florida

2006-08-26T03:37:39Z

Well, I've now been in Florida for about a week, my home again for the next several months. The planned "dendro-blitz" has kind of fizzled out, and I'm once again working on the chronology more or less by myself. At least I got to work with Rae a day or two before she had to leave, and there actually appears to be hope for the chronology. The trees are starting to agree back to 1890, still a ton of errors to work out, and so far I'm using about 25 of the 100 or so trees. Really not much else to talk about, I'm trying to work longer weeks this semester so I can get done faster, unfortunately there's not much left besides microscope work, sanding at least was a break. Also trying to save time to enter my shrub data, Bill thinks I should try and publish something this spring, and get my qualifiers done this winter. Well, it sounds possible, so far it's always been reassuring to talk to the advisor. I should probably do that more often, I'm just not big on the whole asking for advice thing. ;) Oh, and I went out walking in the bay the other night. It is nice having a saltmarsh/bay in the backyard, and the sunsets are incredible (bay's to the west). The horseshoe crabs are still there, along with the crown conchs, lightning whelks, and the ubiquitous hermit crabs inhabiting every seemingly empty shell. Oh that's right, I can post pictures... These are from last year.
The first is a picture of the preserve center, taken standing in the bay, other is one of the sunsets. :)

Greetings from Mississipi somewhere

2006-08-19T01:51:03Z

Ok, I feel the need to ramble about my recent (and still unfinished) travels, and obligingly, the motel where I'm spending the night has wireless. Yay! So where am I? Yes, I have to think a bit. No, I'm not lost, I know exactly where I am, and where I need to go next, I just wish I could maybe stay in one place for a little while. (Soon, though, soon.) Ok, so where am I? Tonight I'm in Meridian, Mississippi! Why, you might ask? Well, it's really just a convenient stop along I-59 that had a selection of motels. (I'm at a Super 8.) So I'm on my way back to Baton Rouge from the Great Smoky Mountains. I had originally planned on camping somewhere in Alabama, but then I didn't get the reservation made in time, and frankly, after the past few days hiking and camping in the Smokies, I think I could use a shower. ;)

So, yes, I am beginning to feel like a drifter. I finally gave in to the title of Itinerant Druid, with an appropriate disclaimer of course. So, let's see, I started out from Baton Rouge, where I had been living July 25th or something like that. I drove. So I drove through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, stayed the night in Missouri, then the next day also drove through Illinois, Indiana, and finally made it home to Michigan, where I was stationary for a brief period of time. (It was great seeing everyone by the way, well not everyone obviously, not that it wasn't great seeing everyone I did see, just that I didn't see everyone it may have been possible to see. Does that make sense? Is it supposed to? Well more on that later, maybe.)

Where was I? Oh yes, I was in Michigan. Then it was time to leave for the ESA (Ecological Society of America) conference in Memphis. For some reason I was thinking I had to get there in a single day, when in fact I had left myself two. So, I drove back retracing my route; Michigan to Indiana to Illinois to Missouri to Arkansas to Tennessee, in one day, about 10 hours, more driving than I really like. I stayed at the Marriott, stayed with a post-doc in the lab who had arranged for the room on a grant, really nice, but I'm still not sure exactly how much the grant will cover, I just know that at some point in the future when the university decides how much it will pay, I will owe Matt some money.

So ESA was nice to see, I was just observing this year, hopefully next I'll have something to present, probably a poster the first year. (It's in San Jose next year, should be a nearly free trip if I'm presenting.) ESA was also a little overwhelming, mainly because I disregarded most of the advice I had been given and tried to make it to as many interesting talks as I possibly could. By the end my brain was a little overloaded, but I do have notes from every talk, maybe I can piece it together later. A lot of the people in my lab were there presenting, and I even met some more people from LSU while I was there. Also saw a couple people I used to work for at MSU, Amy and Charlotte were there, some of you may or may not know who they are. So that was ESA.

Then that weekend in Memphis I was able to catch up with Aaron, and see some more of the sights around Memphis, and just generally relax after major brain overload. He seems to be doing well, he likes the lab he works in now, and has a very nice apartment, especially compared to my former abode, he had room for me to crash there a couple nights. Got to go on a tour of St. Jude, very nice facility. Also saw a couple movies, ate at some nice restaurants I wouldn't have found on my own, etc., and just generally reminisce with an old friend. I really need to try harder at keeping in touch with people. Well, enough on that track, trying to keep things light.

So after Memphis, I had a week I needed to find something to do. Well, I was in Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains are in Tennessee (at least partly), and it's a decent-sized national park so I could stay there a few days and not see everything, definitely a bonus since I was pretty sick of planning. So I went hiking in the mountains, around 8 miles the first full day I was there, more like 5 the second, and by the third, maybe a mile or two altogether, and mostly stuck to driving. I saw Cades Cove, an area formerly settled, hiked to some waterfalls, and ascended Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee (3rd highest east of the Mississippi, some 6600 feet). I also drove though the Newfound Gap into North Carolina, so I can cross another state off my list, and walked (a very small part of) the Appalachian Trail. Ok, the mountains were beautiful, some of the grassy valleys were really pretty. I definitely like Appalachian mountains more than the desert mountains of Arizona, so much prettier with trees (and as an added benefit, you don't notice the height as much until you're really high). But, yes there's a but, I'm really a flatlander, or hills anyway. There's the whole fear of heights thing, and I really notice thinner air, or just plain get tired a lot faster going uphill, some of the hiking went pretty slow. I managed not to fall down a mountain though, that's definitely a plus. :)

Ok, so I was in Tennessee, to North Carolina to Tennessee, to Georgia, to Alabama, and then kept going on to Mississippi before I felt like stopping/found a good place to stop. Tomorrow I will continue on through Misssssissssippppi, to Louisiana, and stay the night at my advisor's place in Baton Rouge. Have a few more things I need for Florida that I didn't really want to tote all around the country, and as it turns out my advisor wants to have a "2-4 hour discussion" of my data from this summer, so hopefully I can be working on a paper when I'm in Florida. Then Sunday, it's about 8 hours through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, to Florida, where hopefully I can stay put until, well until Oregon. :) And I think Jean needs my room when I leave then, so I'll probably be moving stuff out into the office or something then.

So if I've counted right, by the time I'm in Florida, I'll have been in 12 different states in less than a month. Is it just me, or does that seem a little ridiculous? I'm not a trucker! :) Generally I like travel, though I'm not exactly fond of the process of traveling, I'd rather reach the destination, and not spend so much time getting there. Well I could've flown, but that takes more planning, is much more expensive (main factor), and can't be easily changed. Honestly when I woke up this morning, I didn't know where I'd be tonight, and that thought's just a little unsettling to me. And THAT is enough rambling for now. How's that for an update? Hopefully it's amusing to someone other than just myself. But no I found it amusing, so that should be purpose enough. Why do I feel the need to rationalize everything I post to a simple little livejournal? Argh! G'night.

Alone with the echoes

2006-07-25T04:46:14Z

Yay! I've got all my cleaning done (about a half hour ago), now just have to finish loading the car in the morning, drop a few more things off at the lab, and then hit the road after the room inspection at 8am. I'm hoping to make the drive to Michigan in 2 days, about 8 hours each. My route mainly follows 55N, then cuts over on 57 and 70 to good ol' 69. I'll get to pass through Arkansas & Missouri, two states I haven't been to yet, probably get a hotel in Missouri for the night. So, enough details.

So yes, my apartment is completely empty, except for the smallest bedroom where I'll be sleeping tonight, the floors are still drying in the other rooms, luckily my ethernet cord reaches. :) So everything echoes eerily. Trans-Siberian sounds pretty interesting echoing though. Reminds me of when I moved in, except the room is probably cleaner now, and now I have a bed. Hopefully I can find a better place for next year, there are new buidings going up nearby, it's just a little challenging to hunt for apartments from a couple states away.

Well enough rambling for now. Beethoven's Last Night (it's what the playlist picked) is almost over, and I'm going to try and be ambitious, have set my alarms for 6am tomorrow. I'm looking forward to being home for a little while (well and dreading it also, but mainly being optimistic). :)

Random Rambling from the Red Stick

2006-07-14T04:19:43Z

Well, since I've got this livejournal thingy, I suppose I should update it occasionally. :) Not much going on here. Finished another field week, have tomorrow to study for my stats final Saturday. Luckily the week was uneventful in the field, no back injury, etc. I'm now up to measuring 100 shrubs a day, it's gotten a little more efficient.... And the end is in sight! 3 or 4 days next week should do it, and then I'll have stem densities from 300 m-square plots, and height/diameter from 750 shrubs under different canopy conditions. Yay! I'm hoping I'll have enough data to say something about more species than just the Rhus (sumac). The Rhus is seemingly the only shrub that is truly randomly distributed, everything else is clumped to varying degrees, and I'm not sure if my random numbers caught everything... Well, it's only my first field season, will probably supplement the randoms eventually. Ok, enough shrub rambling (but what else to I have to ramble about?).

So it looks like I'll be heading home sometime the week after next. I'll send out an e-mail when I'm sure, have to make an appointment to move out, make arrangements for the plants, decide what I'll need in Michigan, what for Florida, and what I won't need 'til I'm back in Louisiana sometime next winter. I'm pretty sure Bill said that stuff could live in the lab for awhile. We actually have another lab downstairs, mainly for storage, besides the offices upstairs. I do have a key for it, but I haven't quite figured out what room it is yet. :)

dair_ruis @ 2006-07-06T13:34:00

2006-07-06T19:13:57Z

Hmmm... Well, it turned out to be another sunny 95 degree day today, meaning of course I should have went out in the field today after all. Past few days have been pretty rainy/stormy after a dry spell. But, no, instead of measuring shrubs, I'm here (apartment) killing time creating a livejournal. Thought I'd give it a try, have enjoyed reading others' entries.

Oh, in other news, I've also been house-sitting the past week. Today should be the last day, my advisor & his wife will be back from Florida tonight. No major incidents, about the most exciting was being mobbed by a couple squirrels when trying to fill the bird feeders.

Well, I suppose I should now go on quest for mid-day sustenance. Mainly wanted to see how this would look posted, not sure I'm satisfied with the colors yet. Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow will be a field day and many things shall be accomplished. ;)