Impending DNA presentation to 8th graders…

I’ve done the experiment (at home DNA extraction from an onion – uses
household chemicals…you can do it if you want) for several college
level courses. I am somewhat leery about doing it for 240 8th graders
(8 classes of 30 kids each)….simply because I find them much harder
to talk to.

I’m also leery of giving my thesis defense – the normal people version, not the one I gave for my professors….

I’m unsure how much and what specifically to tell them….

And, ye gods, how to keep from swearing like a sailor…

Note to self:
No matter how tasty that medium rare to rare steak may seem at the time
– the pain that your gastro-intestinal system will be throwing at you
within 36 hours or so makes it simply NOT WORTH IT.
Ugh.

That card is from this site.
It cracked me up.
I did not send or recieve it.
Actually, it vaguely reminds me of my first boyfriend now that I look more closely at it….

Crankiness abounded yesterday, which caused a marathon of pouting in
bed. I was in it from about 8am until about 630pm. I wasn’t really
sleeping so much as I was avoiding reality for awhile. Job-hunting with
little or no success does get to a person after awhile.

It is very much frustrating to know that I could get a job in my career
field doing basically what I would really like to do for the rest of my
life — except that I would have to move…and then, given the salary
of these places (I did not, clearly, enter my career field for the
money) and the cost of living where these jobs are available…well,
let’s just say, potatoes might be out of my price range if I want to
live some place that is not the ghetto and pay off those pesky credit
cards (seeing as for the first time in years they’re going DOWN, I’d
like to continue that trend)…

*sigh*
So, I suppose life will continue at Stride-Rite….unless I want to change over to someplace like McDonald’s
or Subway.
I think I could do Subway. They’re tasty, if nothing else.
However – no insurance then…
I guess I need to sit down and decide how heavily my sanity weighs in comparison to insurance.

In slightly better news…
I finally got the electric bill (exciting, I know) and it was about 1/3
to 1/2 of what I thought it would be (especially given that the heat
has been run much of the time as has the dryer and the
dishwasher….)  — it was $54, FYI Colleen
I also got an email telling me that I am getting  $100 from
Rent.com (found my apt through them). That is exciting – and will be
groceries for at couple of weeks.

****

Sunday evening I had dinner at the Outback (my man and his parents as well as his sister and her boyfriend).
Red, dead cow. Yummm.
Dinner was good.
I suppose it is to be expected that the comfort level keeps going up.
I did leave my leftover pizza at his house, which is terribly sad.
He did call yesterday evening which I admit made my crankiness abate to
some degree (as did the random cards…though that will lead to an
all-out card hunt tonight while I clean).

****

I am having a sex toy party at some point in time (probably a Friday or
Saturday evening in late May or early June) from foryourpleasure.com.
Any interested parties can email or call me….

http://www.annasova.com/sections/wallfinish/default.asp

proof that people will buy anything…

I’m also very proud

I got weighed and measured the other day at the gym (Curves)
and while I’ve only lost 4lbs since January (holidays bad), I’ve lost 6.5 inches (combined from waist, andomen, hips and thighs)

Even more impressive, at least to me – my mom has lost 5.25 inches —
and almost has muscles! Go her! She’s doing very well for an old woman
(sorry mom, you knew I was going to sneak that in). Not that she’s
really old – she’s only 47. And yet she’s a grandmother twice over…

Scientists discover why some popcorn kernels don’t pop

By Rick Callahan

Associated Press

Eat your way to the bottom of almost any bag
of popcorn and there they are — the rock-hard, jaw-rattling unpopped
kernels known as old maids.

The nuisance kernels have kept many a dentist busy, but their days
could be numbered: Scientists say they now know why some popcorn
kernels resist popping into puffy white globes.

It’s long been known that popcorn kernels must have a precise moisture
level in their starchy center – about 15 percent – to explode. But
Purdue University researchers found the key to a kernel’s explosive
success lies in the composition of its hull.

Unpopped kernels, it turns out, have leaky hulls that prevent the
moisture pressure buildup needed for them to pop and lack the optimal
hull structure that allows most kernels to explode.

“They’re sort of like little pressure vessels that explode when the
pressure reaches a certain point,” said Bruce Hamaker, a Purdue
professor of food chemistry. “But if too much moisture escapes, it
loses its ability to pop and just sits there.”

The findings may help popcorn breeders select the best varieties – or
create new ones – with superior hulls that yield few, if any, unpopped
kernels. But for now there’s no way to screen out potential old maids
before they end up in bags of popcorn.

Hamaker and his associates compared the microwave popping performance
of 14 Indiana-grown popcorn varieties and examined the crystalline
structure of the translucent hulls of both the popped kernels and the
duds.

In the varieties popped, the percentage of unpopped kernels ranged from
4 percent in premium brands to 47 percent in the less-expensive ones.

The findings could be good news for people who savor the snack and
those who grow the 17 billion quarts of popcorn sold each year in the
United States.

Wendy Boersema Rappel, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based Popcorn
Board, said popcorn processors are always looking for ways to improve
their product, including reducing the number of old maids.

“It’s one of life’s annoyances – it’s not rocking anyone’s world, but
our members always like to improve their product,” Rappel said.

Hamaker said two popcorn manufacturers have already expressed interest in Purdue’s findings.

The research, funded by Purdue’s Whistler Center for Carbohydrate
Research, which Hamaker directs, has been published online and will
appear in the July 11 edition of the journal BioMacromolecules.

*sigh*
I need a job that doesn’t involve shoes.

Things you learn at work that you would really think are obvious but aren’t at about 430am…

1.) Attempting to hop the moving conveyor belt, even with the help of
the nifty little step, whlie holding a 30lb roll of paper is NOT a good
idea.

2.) When your legs are as short as mine, you simply cannot hop from
nifty little step over conveyor #1 to nifty little step over conveyor
#2 without hopping to the ground first – even if you think you can.

3.) Taking the short cut past the conveyors is a good idea until you
walk too close to the actual conveyor (which you only realize is too
close from the dime size hole that is now in the ass of your jeans).

Boston Fern on the floor + two cats = big, big mess.

And me with no real vacuum.

Boston Fern has now been moved to a (hopefully) safe location atop the 6ft+ tall entertainment center.

Back Home in Indiana….

9 days of vacation in Boston.
Mmmmm…vacation. First vacation ever with significant other. First REAL vacation in I don’t know how long.
Coming back to work last night was rather like a smack in the face.
I’d been up since 6am (excluding the nap that I attempted to take with
two VERY excited kitties – you’d think that there hadn’t been TWO other
people in my apartment the entire time I was gone) and I just finally
crawled off of work and onto the computer.

Lots of posts that I had to read
And I’m too lazy to go back and make comments on everyone or even anyone.
Though I did read’em all.

What I did for the last 9 or so days….
Left on Saturday and got to the NH airport where we picked up the
rental car and drove to Woburn – I navigated quite well I am happy to
say, though I did have the advantage of downloaded directions from the
internet.
That night was spent in a king-sized bed. I am developing an appreciation for king-size beds.

Sunday we slept in a bit and then went to the grocery store to buy some
bread and peanut butter and pop (soda, if you prefer). Unfortunately,
this trip when combined with the time change that we forgot about
caused us to miss the commuter rail into Boston. Rather than hang out
at the station for 2+ hours and take the late train into Boston (the
museums would be closed by the time we got there), we went back to the
hotel and hung out. We watched a very strange movie about HIV in the
80s called Angels in America.

Monday we actually hauled ourselves out of bed at a decent hour and
made it to the New England Aquarium for a day of fish. We also got to
see the sea lions being trained, though I did determine that paying $10
for a kiss from the big fat one (I think his name was Gunthor) was a
bit much. Also, I really don’t think I want to be that close to a
carnivore that was 800lbs. Granted, they really prefer fish, but that
isn’t something I care to challenge. They have sharp, pointy teeth. We
moved hotels to a more ‘spensive one in a different town- but we were
relegated to two double beds. (Randomly enough, we really only used
one…the second was just the bed that I cross-stitched on…you’d
think we’d have at least used one for sexing and one for sleeping….).
The trip to the hotel did involve some finagling as we had the address
of the hotel and a vague map to the town where the hotel was but no
actual directions. And the hotel didn’t answer their phone. Thank
goodness for people who know the Boston area and answer their cell
phones with good directions on the fly.

Tuesday, he had to work and my friend MJ came up from Boston to hang
out for the day. We swam in the hotel pool for a long time (2 hours? we
were damn pruney)…though, swim isn’t really the word for it. We
migrated from the jacuzzi to the cold water and floated around and
talked mostly. Then off to find food in a town where neither one of us
knew where anything was. We ended up at a random seedy diner place in
the middle of Danvers. It was surprisingly cheap and tasty.

Wednesday, I slept in and he still had to work. I didn’t get out of bed
until he came back from his conference at mid-morning and scared the
crap out of me. I thought he was housekeeping…and I, of course, was
sleeping stark nekkid. That, apart from the sexing was really about all
that happened on Wednesday – well, I did cross-stitch a whole lot.

Thursday was another conference day for him and cross-stitching for me,
though in the evening it was the Blue Man Group show with MJ and her
man. Awesome. That’s the only word I can really say about it.
Completely worth seeing and very very very entertaining. I was
extremely impressed.

Friday was another new hotel and a VERY busy day. We did the Museum of
Art and and Museum of Science. I was very impressed with the art museum
- we spent oodles of time in the ancient art section staring at the
Egyptian, Roman and Greek art. The science museum on the other hand was
somewhat disappointing….very children oriented which is okay…but
little biology was offered (and seeing as that is my main interest….)

Saturday was a fairly relaxed day, though the commuter rail was late
getting us into Boston. We went to Harvard to see the Natural History
Museum. That was surprisingly more enjoyable than I thought. Lots of
dead and stuffed things — certainly puts things into scale to actually
SEE the skeleton of a sperm whale in comparison to you. The glass
flowers were also damned impressive.

Sunday – up at 6am and fly home to Indiana, where it was over 80 degrees when we landed.

All in all — insanely good trip. We managed to navigate the city well,
both walking and using the T-trains. Driving was amazingly good.
Nothing (I think) was lost….

I rather enjoy traveling with someone else…well, I suppose I should
specify that to one someone else – I’ve not tried such a trip with
anyone else.
I still hate airplanes though.