Day Six Hundred Ninety Six

If you're wondering why I've gotten so bad at posting photos with my blog entries, the answer is because I usually write these on my phone right before falling asleep, and a couple months ago my Blogger app decided it no longer liked dealing with photos. Since its summer and I officially have no excuse for not doing these posts on my actual laptop, I promise to get better at attaching photos! Cause that's really what everyone wants to see, right? That being said, this will be implemented tomorrow. Because I'm already halfway to sleep town.

Today was a day of failed experimentation (this is basically the descriptor of almost every grad students day all the time). The bacteria were not cooperating, and we ended the work day on bad terms with one another. I'm hoping they'll get their act together by tomorrow. Then I spent all evening watching my Tuesday summer TV shows. Because I'm living in an apartment with no DVR (because grad student salary) and have to watch a show when its actually on. Like in the stone ages. Sorry everyone, Tuesday nights are booked over the summer for me, because I need my Rizzoli and Isles time.

Day Six Hundred Ninety Five

Favorite quote of the day, courtesy of my friend Bryant:

"The squirrels have been eating all the vegetables in my garden...so this little vegan bought a pellet gun."

Day Six Hundred Ninety Four

I went bowling yesterday, and was reminded of two things:

1. I use a lot of hip action when bowling, causing a subsequent pulled hip muscle and quality time with a heating pad.

2. I'm really not very good at bowling.

First game was just under 100, second game was just over 100. I'll take it. Though considering I've bowled for as long as I can remember, I should probably be a little better. And probably not so sore by the end of 2 games.

The rest of the weekend was basically spent reading (an awesome book about the history of cancer called "The Emperor of all Maladies"), watching Netflix, and doing apartment chores. Sounds boring, was actually quite wonderful. Now, back to the grind.

Day Six Hundred Ninety Two

Almost to 700 days in Austin! How weird.

Here's a run down of my week:

Go to campus
Run experiments
Go to meetings
Run more experiments
Come home
Read and watch Netflix
Sleep

Aaaaaand repeat. There were some dinners out thrown in (thank you, Avants and Dawn!), one of which had the manager coming to our table to tell me "sorry your food is taking so long, we dropped the first finished plate on the floor." Well, thank you for not giving me floor-seasoned salmon.

Today I treated myself to a trip to Half Price Books to pick up my new book club book, and I stumbled upon the yearbook section where I was able to locate a UT yearbook that featured both my parents. That's when you know your Austin roots run deep - when you find photos of your parents in a local book store.

Day Six Hundred Eighty Six

For the past week, my lab mate Mindy and I have been doing a mass purging of all old lab equipment (aka - crap we don't need). Yesterday had us taking an alarming amount of old computer monitors and towers down to surplus. Well also got an old copy machine down to surplus, but only after getting it stuck in the elevator first. It was an adventure to say the least, but I don't have a photo of it because it wasn't an adventure we were particularly proud of.

Today, we learned that one of the computers we took down was a second edition Apple Macintosh. Chemistry pounced on it to put in a display case in Welch Hall, preventing IT from getting their hands on it instead. I can only hope they put a small plaque with the computer saying "courtesy of Shear Lab - master hoarders." But hoarding will no longer be tolerated under the Allison-and-Mindy dictatorship. Our boss has learned that resistance is futile. This lab will be clean, even if it takes us ALL OF OUR DOCTORAL TIME HERE. Bring it, old dusty lab. Bring it.

Day Six Hundred Eighty Four

The flood producing rain I mentioned a couple days ago has slammed both Houston and Dallas, and did so with the moniker "Tropical Storm Bill." I think we can all agree that that's the best storm name in the history of storm names. Whoever came up with that deserves a high five and possibly a promotion. Austin only experienced "Gentle Rain Bill", as the weird path of the storm somehow swirled around us. We're supposedly going to get heavy rain tonight, but I just don't know what to believe anymore when it comes to weather and the state of Texas.

Day Six Hundred Eighty Two

So, it looks like flood-worthy rain is coming to Austin again tomorrow. Are we trying to become the next Lost City Of Atlantis? Because it's starting to feel that way.

I went to a pretty cool place this past weekend called Moontower Saloon (most people stop me at this stage and say "wait, what? you went to a saloon?!") and was pleasantly surprised to find they were having a free concert with a seriously good local country band. They're called the Cody Bryan Band, and everyone reading this post should go check them out. They helped improve my mood tremendously after my left ankle was annihilated by fire ants in the parking lot. I was spraying bug spray on my arms (of course) when I noticed my ankle stinging really badly. Oh, hello 30 fire ants ALL over my poor sandaled foot. My new life goal is to live somewhere where fire ants don't exist, because those dumb little things may be small, but man those bites hurt. I looked like I was doing some weird interpretive dance getting back in my car, purely as a method to prevent another ant attack (it worked). But anyway, Moontower was awesome and had great music and a ton of outdoor lawn games and sand volleyball, and it might be one of my new favorite places to hang out. Minus the ants.

After my Louisiana adventure I've settled back in to my work routine. Today I obtained some bacteria that glow electric blue when cultured though, and I'm pretty pumped about that. I legitimately can't wait to go in to work tomorrow morning and see my little bacteria flashlight in the incubator. It's times like these where I'm confident I chose the correct career path, as glowing bacteria is something I actually find exciting. It's like the time in Gen Bio in undergrad when I told the professor that I loved planaria (small, freshwater organisms) because they look like baby dragons (Google it if you don't believe me). His response = "well, you're clearly meant to be a biology major." Probably true, and I'm thankful every day that I found an analytical chemistry research group that allows me to continue to let my love of biology run free.

Day Six Hundred Seventy Seven

Okay. Louisiana. Louisiana. Who knew that state was so gorgeous? I certainly didn't. Baton Rouge (and all the other parts of Louisiana we drove through) were green and water filled and beautiful, and I was impressed. Even though it was a long 8-hour drive from Austin (thank you, Emily, for being a champ and driving the whole way and not giving me too much grief about being a horrible road trip partner that kept falling asleep in the passenger seat), it was a great and much needed mini-vacation.

The main reason for going was to see Emily's roommate get married on Saturday morning. The wedding was held at a verrrry fancy plantation, and it was brunch themed and had a live jazz band. And since I love both breakfast food and jazz music, I didn't even care that I didn't know anyone there. And of course, we were both dressed fancy and had to use this opportunity for an impromptu plantation photoshoot.

I don't know if you can tell, but we had a pretty good time. And we figured, while we were dressed in our wedding-best, why not hit up some casinos? Okay, it was mainly me that wanted to go to casinos, because Texas doesn't have any and I wanted to play slot machines. Both casinos were on the Mississippi river (one was on a riverboat!), and I broke even...which in my view is basically winning.

If was a full Saturday. And on the trip back to Austin, we stopped just outside of Lafayette to go on a swamp tour. Because once Emily and I learned there was such a thing as a swamp tour, it had to happen. We met our tour guide Ernest, a retired war veteran, who runs his own little tour company called Couret's Swamp Tours (if any of you are remotely near Lafayette, LA, you need to go meet Ernest and let him show you the swamp). He was adorable and knew everything one could possibly know about the swamp and surrounding area. We saw gators and raced around 30 miles of swamp basin in Ernest's speedboat, and it was awesome.

Underneath the giant highways.

There's a gator in this photo. Can you spot it? 

Ernest!

So all in all, Louisiana was awesome, and I was a little bummed to have to come back to work. Today my lab mate and I met with some congressmen to try and get more funding, and I have no idea if anything we said made sense. Cross your fingers!

Day Six Hundred Seventy Five

Many Louisiana adventures were had this weekend. Plantations...casinos...swamp tours...what else could you ask for from a mini weekend road trip?

Day Six Hundred Seventy One

Here are some photos from the Mount Bonnell adventure from a couple days ago. It's a beautiful view, and you should all go if you find yourselves in Austin (or if you already live here and have never been).

I didn't do anything today other than deal with my problematic IBS and clean my apartment. It's been great fun.

Day Six Hundred Seventy

The sudden drop off in blog posts was due to me having a friend in town. John came to visit from Seattle, and we were basically busy from Friday to Tuesday going all over Austin. Highlights of his visit include...paddle boarding on Lady Bird Lake, checking out the view of downtown Austin from Mount Bonnell, and going down to San Marcos to volunteer time to helping families whose houses were destroyed or severely damaged by the recent flood. During volunteering we knocked down walls and swept floors and hacked off pieces of dry wall, and though we were covered in dust by the end of it, we both felt good about helping some people in need of a few extra hands. Side note - we volunteered through a group called Samaratins Purse, and learned that they're an amazing organization.

Now I'm back to work until Friday, when I head out on a mini road trip to Louisiana with my friend to attend her roommates wedding. And go on a swamp tour. Because obviously you can't go to Louisiana without spending some quality time in a swamp.