Mike

A-maize-ing!

I write often about the girls, and the pets, but not often enough about my son and daughter-in-law.  I'll work on that starting today.

On Monday the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University in St. Louis announced the completion of a working draft of the corn genome sequence.  This is big news for geneticists, plant breeders, and those doing basic research in plant biology.

Laura was in charge of the finishing effort for the project.  Even after Googling "finishing effort" I'm not sure what that is.  I'm waiting for Laura to email me with the details.  William says that he played a less significant role.  As Resource Controller for the Center his job was to receive all incoming DNA samples from collaborators, enter them into the GSC database, test them for contaminants, then submit them to the correct groups for processing.  As of yesterday he had processed 16,027 tubes of DNA and 364 96-well trays of stocks for those DNAs.  (He can correct me if I got something wrong.)

Both flew to DC this morning for the official press conference and to attend the 50th Annual Maize Genetics Conference.

I've been to the Center several times and gotten the grand tour twice.  The technology that makes research like this possible is mind-boggling.  As the Center's Co-Director recently wrote, "The recent introduction of instruments capable of producing millions of DNA sequence reads in a single run is rapidly changing the landscape of genetics..."  I'm convinced that the Center has enough computing capacity to run the NASA space program.

Update from Laura:  "Finishing or sequence improvement, involved the manual review of draft sequence data.  We look at the sequence when it is put back together and look for errors, and when possible fix them.  If it is not possible to fix them, we design experiments to improve the data.  This work is ongoing, the announcement is for the completion of the draft or raw assembled sequence.  We are not finishing the whole genome because corn is about 80%  repeats, so we are only focused on the unique gene regions."

Is it the Year of the Osprey?

Rev. BigDumbChimp has some beautiful photos of the Osprey that hangs out in a tree in front of his house.

Since I posted a photo and the history of my Osprey it has not only become a daily visitor again but it has been joined by a second Osprey.  For two days they soared on thermals above the lake and golf course, flying side-by-side before pulling away into wide loops and then closing in on each other to repeat the aerial dance.  Does any know if this was part of a mating ritual?

Happy Birthday Home Ec 101!

Stop by and congratulate Heather and Ivy.  They're giving stuff away!

The Oscars

I don't watch award shows.  Fortunately Carrie live-blogged the Oscars from the red carpet to Best Picture so I was able to read her amusing, snarky summary this morning while enjoying my first cup of tea.  If you are wondering what the God count is, Carrie was keeping track of how many times winners thanked God for their awards.  Evidently God was shut out last night in Hollywood.

I haven't watched many of the movies that were up for awards either because they didn't interest me, they haven't come out on DVD yet, or they are out on DVD but Netflix hasn't sent them to me yet.  I loved Juno but I wasn't surprised that Ellen Page didn't win.  The competition was too stiff.  I thought Eastern Promises should have been nominated for Best Picture and I was disappointed that Viggo didn't win Best Actor.    His performance was amazing and while I haven't seen There Will Be Blood, I've never been convinced that Daniel Day-Lewis is as great an actor as many others think he is.  I saw No Country for Old Men, and thought it was a great film, but the ending left me asking, "Is that it?"

I'll watch There Will Be Blood, Atonement, American Gangster, Michael Clayton, Gone Baby Gone, Charlie Wilson's War, and Away From Her as soon as Netflix sends them to me.  I'll report back later.

Long story...

I sprained my foot.  I know, I know...  Hard to believe a Courtney would hurt themselves!
Here's how it happened...
Thursday night, my friend Nav and I went out to Varsity Lakes Tavern.  I went to step up onto the raised platform and half missed the step.  You know what happens next... an inversion sprain!  It just so happened that my friend Specko (don't worry... that's not his real name) was there to see it happen!  The bouncer, Mark, got me some ice, and Specko took me outside.  I've broken my foot before and I didn't think this time it was broken, so I told Speck I just wanted to go home.  He told me he had already called an ambulance, so I was going to the hospital and he was paying for it.  No argument there, I guess.  Forty-five minutes later, the ambulance shows up.  They let Specko ride, and my friend Stu wanted to come.  The ambulance guys decided that would be fine, but when Speck realised that Stu was trying to throw a party in the ambulance he made him stay back!  haha
Fast forward to several hours later, when I'm still sitting in the emergency room.  I only stayed that long because several interesting, non-related things happened.  One, the wheelchair they put me in had 4 little wheels on it.  I couldn't really go anywhere unless Speck let me b/c I coudn't reach both back wheels at the same time!  It drove me nuts!!!  Who would do such a cruel thing?  Anyway.  As I was sitting there, the apparently resident little brown mouse scurried by!  He stopped just long enough for me to interrupt Speck, saying "Mouse... mouse... Mouse... MOUSE!!!"  until he finally stopped talking and turned around.  By then, he had run off and I looked insane.  Luckily, the desk workers knew this mouse lived here and set some food down to lure him out so they could catch him.  Weird...

See the stupid little wheels?  What am I supposed to do with that????

Fast forward again, past the boring, useless stuff the doctor said... past breakfast... to when I arrived home.  It was 6:30am.  Wonderful.  I was supposed to go to a 7 hour seminar, but doc told me to stay home!!!  It was the only useful thing that came out of his mouth!  I fell asleep immediately only to be woken up 2 hours later to a knock on the door.  It sounded really, really loud in my sleep and it startled me awake.  My heart rate jumped a bit.  Before I realised what I was doing, I hopped out of bed and across the room on one foot to answer the door.  Outside were a security guard, Robyn from the Accommodation office downstairs, and a cleaning lady.  They had been asking everyone on our floor about a big mess in the hallway, trying to figure out who caused it.  I tried to tell them I didn't see it happen, but I couldn't seem to put a sentence together, literally.  The very next thing I know, I'm sitting on the floor with Robyn holding me up, and the temperature in the room felt like 1000 degrees!  I remember mumbling "throw... up..." and dragging myself 3 feet to my toilet using my hands to throw up my entire breakfast.  Robyn closed my window and turned my air conditioner on.  After some water, I felt okay and got up.  I was told my face turned ghost white, I made a comment about my heart, and passed out!  Scary!  I've never passed out before.  As the large bruise on my forehead tells me, I hit my head on the door on my way down.
I blame Specko for making me go to the hospital instead of getting sleep...  He blames me for not staying at his house and making him take me home after he cooked me breakfast.  Either way, I don't ever want this to happen again... any of it!
Since then I've been acting like dad, ditching the crutches and wandering around on it.  I might go get some x-rays tomorrow.  My heart starts racing very easily now, and it scares me a bit.  I just start taking deeper breaths and counting backwards from 10 until it calms down.  Now, if we could just stop having stupid people set the fire alarm off at 2:30am every other night, I'd probably be completely fine!  haha

--Justine

A culinary field trip, perhaps?

When the Beard Award nominations were announced Briar, as might be expected, was most interested in the nominees for Outstanding Pastry Chef.  She hadn't heard of Charleston nominee Lauren Mitterer or Red Drum, which isn't surprising since Briar has been in NYC for four years now and Red Drum has been open for less than three years.

All chefs are curious about what other chefs are doing so Briar wants me to go to Red Drum for dinner one night to check out the desserts.  I have no problem dining alone, even at a fancy restaurant, but since I can only eat one dessert a night it would be great to go with a small group so that we can give Briar a more extensive report.

Let me know if you are interested in a little culinary research.  There's no hurry so we can pick a day and time that suits everyone.  An excuse for a meet-up, Heather?

Eclipse

Like Eugene, my view of the eclipse was either blurred or obscured by clouds for most of the night.  I finally looked at my photos and I did manage to get off one halfway decent shot two minutes before totality ended.

It was an 8-second exposure which is why the limb is a bit overexposed.

My brother has a longer lens and better tripod for his D200 than I have and, unlike me, he knows how to use the camera.  He has great before and after photos.

I still have nightmares after Bobby Flay stood on the cutting board and raised the roof*

It turns out that Iron Chef America and professional wrestling have a lot in common.  The only difference?  Way more people watch professional wrestling.

*The nightmare starts at the 3:29 mark in case you missed it:

Google 411 Fun

From Eater:

"Call Google's free 411 service at 800-GOOG-411, and ask for Momofuku. Robotic pronunciation hilarity ensues."

When the robo-voice asks what city and state say "New York, New York".  When it asks for what business say "Momofuku", pronounced Mo-mo-foo-koo.  Wait until the robo-voice comes back with the first listing.

A fun night out

Someone gave Joan two tickets for the Saturday evening performance Bad Dates at the American Theater.  She asked her friend Estelle to go with her.  She also invited several others to tag along.  I was the only one to bite and buy a ticket.  We walked to the theater from Joan's house and walked back after the show for a light supper.  Joan had made cream of mushroom soup, an artichoke tart, a tomato-mozzarella salad, and pralines for dessert.  A fun night and a delicious meal!

Deal of the Day

Audra has a camera for sale.  She emailed:

"I have this Canon PowerShot S3 that I paid $300 and it has only been out of the box once because it is too technical for me.  I was hoping maybe you have a friend or family member who might be interested in buying it?  It's in mint condition and I will sell it for $199.00 and ship it in the US for free.  It lists on the Amazon page all the stuff that comes with it: memory card, computer software, strap, etc... I found a less technical Sony Cybershot that is being released on April 1st that I might have better luck with."

I am maxed out on digital cameras but if you are interested, and it's still available, let me know and I'll send you Audra's email address.

Happy SAD!

It's Singles Awareness Day!

A question for Valentine's Day

My friend Beverly asked me this in an email discussion of the election and today seems the appropriate time to ask you:

Will Hillary leave Bill if she doesn't get the nomination?

Discuss.

Breaking Foodie News

The James Beard Foundation released the list of nominees for the 2008 Beard Awards today.  Judges will pick five finalists from each of the categories.  (For you non-foodies the Beard Awards are the Oscars of the restaurant industry.)

Charleston is, once again, well represented:

Robert Carter at Peninsula Grill, Jason Houser at Muse, Robert Stehling at Hominy Grill, and Mike Lata at Fig were nominated for Best Chef - Southeast.  Will this finally be Mike Lata's year?

Lauren Mitterer at The Red Drum Gastropub was nominated for Outstanding Pasty Chef.

Sean Brock at McCrady's and King Tarver at Woodlands were nominated for Rising Star Chef of the Year.

Charleston Grill was nominated for Best Service.

In the equivalent of Best Picture, Peninsula Grill was nominated for Outstanding Restaurant.

People worried (and I was one of them) that when the Bank of America and other moneybags lured Johnson & Wales from Charleston to Charlotte it would hurt Charleston's reputation as THE place to dine in the Southeast.  Evidently not.  No chef or restaurant from Charlotte was nominated for anything.

I know I said that I was disgusted with politics but the Democrats have made CNN "must see TV"

It's not a shock that Obama won the three primaries yesterday.  The polls predicted it, although they underestimated how much he would win by.  What is shocking is how he won.  According to the exit polls (I know, not exactly accurate) Obama either won, or came close, in all of the demographics that Hillary has relied on up to this point.

Before you Obama supporters get excited remember that it's all about the delegate numbers.  Late last night CNN's John King used the network's impressive computer graphics to run through several scenarios for the remaining primaries, including either Hillary or Barak running the table.  Each scenario ended with the so-far undeclared Super Delegates picking the nominee at the convention.

That's the DNC's worst nightmare.

Does Penn know something that the pollsters don't know?

Or will drunks in Vegas laugh at anything?

America really WAS bad for me!

Maybe it's a good thing I moved to Australia!  Sometime last year Men's Health magazine chose the 20 Worst Foods in America!  It just so happens that #1 was one of my absolute favorite things to eat when I was still in the states...  So what is it?

Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with [spicy] Ranch dressing!!!  What else?

I seriously used to eat a 1/2 order by myself, or eat half of a full order when I was dining with a friend!  Considering I wasn't eating many other calories at all, I pretend to justify it to myself!  haha

Knowing me though, it will probably be one of my first meals when I get back home in December.  Let's all hope for a dietary behavior change before then!

--Justine

Wecome to the VP Follies!

Ever since Super Tuesday, when it became apparent that McCain would likely win the Republican nomination, the screech of talking heads and blog pundits have been either speculating on or suggesting who he should ask to be his running mate in November.  Some shameless politicians have gone so far as to tell the press that they'd be happy to run if asked.  There's even a very active new blog, created four days ago,  devoted to the topic.

In the unlikely event that McCain asks me what I think, this is what I'll tell him.  Ask Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to join the ticket.  Yes, she has one big minus - she's only been Governor since the 2006 election - but here are the pluses:

She was one of the few non-incumbent Republicans at the federal or state level to win in 2006.

She won, in part, by running on an anti-corruption/transparency-in-government platform which should fit in nicely with McCain's battle against quid pro quo deals that masquerade as earmarks in the budget bills before Congress.

If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination it can't hurt the GOP to have a woman on the ticket.  There are a lot of independent women voters who have their doubts about Hillary.  It would help to show that the Republican party isn't about just old white men.

Sarah Palin is young.  McCain isn't.

At over 90%, she has the highest approval rating of any Governor.  Almost three time's higher than Bush's.  Almost four times higher than Congress's.

Her conservative credentials have never been questioned.  McCain's constantly are.

In what has already become an iconic image, she smiles after bagging big game.

That should come in handy in DC.

Unlike Dick Cheney, she's never shot anyone.

I don't think so!

For all of the good it's done (not), evidently the portable radar speed detector has become a permanent fixture in the Shadowmoss landscape.  This one has been sitting in the same spot near my house for several months.  I'm guessing the city forgot that it's there.  This morning when Champ and I went for our walk it clocked us as going 11 mph!

I don't run, except from Jehovah's Witnesses and paternity suits, but if I did run there's no way in hell my arthritic knees and hips would let me go that fast.

Collective Nouns

I had almost forgotten about my contest to find a collective noun that best describes the news people and pundits (aka Talking Heads) that infect the news channels.  I was reminded this morning when I turned the TV on and heard them yammering on about today's primaries.  (If the 5th was Super Tuesday is today Stupor Tuesday?  It feels like it.)

So far the suggestions include coterie, gaggle, mess, coven, McLuhan, Beale, and muckle.  Gaggle describes geese so scratch that.  Mess is a general noun used in the south to describe a bunch of something, usually food related, such as "a mess of greens" or "a mess of fish" so scratch that, too.  Witches laid claim to coven centuries ago.

Nothing in the non-existent rules says that I can't win my own contest so in an effort to milk this for as many page views as I can let me suggest "screech" as in "a screech of talking heads".  After all, at least on the news channels, all they seem to do is interrupt and yell at each other instead of actually, you know, debate the issues.

You've got until Monday to come up with something better.  In the event that you don't I'll still send books to several honorable mention winners.

Too cute!

[Click to biggie size.]

It was 15 in New York this morning when Briar took Taka for a walk.  As she told me, no one makes cute little coats for a 100 lb dog that's built like a truck so she made do with one of Isaac's hooded sweatshirts. 

His 30,000 mile tune-up

I took Champ in for his annual physical and vaccinations this morning.  He's clicking on all 8 cylinders.  For those of you who are petless and think human health care is expensive, buy a dog.  For the examination, fecal sample test, heartworm test, and four vaccines the total came to $175.89.  We were in the exam room for 10 minutes.  At least they cut his nails and didn't charge me for it.

Oysters!

Heather is determined to organize regular, and frequent, meet-ups and last night we met at Bowen's Island. We had a nice mix of meet-up regulars and new faces.  As always, the conversation was wide-ranging.  Last night it ran from the latest blogging and tweeting tools to dog poop.

It's the first time I've been back to Bowen's since it reopened following the disastrous fire that destroyed the original restaurant.  The oysters were great, as usual.  $21.50 for all you can shuck and eat.  Henry keeps dumping them on the table by the bucket load until you tell him to stop.  Bowen's is still operating out of temporary digs but graffiti is starting to cover the plywood walls and the atmosphere is slowly returning.

The gods were smiling on us

Brian can probably explain why storm fronts that roar across the south often lose energy and become disorganized by the time they near the coast.  The front that ravaged several states and killed over 50 people last night and early this morning finally arrived here in Charleston.  As you can see there isn't much of it left.

Psycho at Sunset

[Bigger?]

My osprey

When I moved into my house in ’03 I used to love to watch the osprey that visited every morning.  It would hover over the lake next door until a fish came close to the surface.  Then it would plunge feet-first, grab the fish in its talons, and fly off to the woods on the far side of the 15th fairway behind the house.  A year later a developer started to rip the trees out of the woods to make room for the Shadowmoss Parkway extension and more McMansions.  The osprey disappeared.  Last year the osprey came back, or maybe it’s a different one.  It doesn’t come every morning like before.  About once a week if I’m lucky, but I feel lucky that it comes at all.

I apologize for the photo but when I saw the osprey sitting near the top of the tallest tree next to the lake, instead of hovering, I grabbed the camera and started shooting before it left.  It took flight seconds later.

[Yes, you can click it.]

I hope the writers' strike ends soon

I watched the premiere of Welcome to the Captain tonight.  CBS has officially scraped the bottom of the sitcom barrel.  Thank gord for books and Netflix.

Of course the Clydesdales won. Don't they always win?

I figured that the ad I liked the best, Doritos and the mousetrap, would be too Pythonesque to make the top 20.  I was shocked to see that it was #4 on the USA Today Ad Meter.  My second-favorite, the talking baby and the clown, was #14.

I ran over my brother because I'm sexy and I do what I want

I thought that memes were dead, but evidently not.  I got this one from Isaac, the guy who is sleeping with my daughter.  I think of him as a son so I'll pass it along.

This is funny, don't spoil the fun, and keep it going............Type out the sentence you end up with, in the subject line and forward to your friends...also, send it back to the person that sent it to you.

Pick the month you were born:

January-------I kicked
February------I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May----------I jumped on
June----------I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August--------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October-------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:

1-- -----a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7-------my mobile phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbour
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19------ - a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an ipod
29-------a surfer
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White---------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink-----------because I'm crazy.
Red-----------because the voices told me to.
Blue-----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green---------because I think I need some serious help.
Purple---------because I'm AWESOME!
Gray----------because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow--------because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange--------because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown---------because I can.
Other----------because I'm a Ninja!
None----------because I can't control myself!

Now type out the sentence you made, in the subject line and forward to your
friends.  Don't forget to send it back to the person that sent it to you! I
can't wait to see what you get stuck with.................

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Microsoft is going to buy Yahoo with the change it has in its piggy bank.

In a defensive move Google will announce next month that it will buy the entire country of Kazakhstan and rebrand it as Googlestan®.