A quick post from the brink-- I am back in Arlington after the conference in Canada that made me question my whole scientific self. As you know, I study transposable elements, and the meeting was about transposable elements. So, you can imagine, when I was at the meeting and not understanding very much, it called things into question for me. But now I am back in my cluttered office where I have more of handle on how things work and why, and I am trying to get back to the grindstone. The intervening weekend, however, was spent hosting my friend Matt
Carrigan from Gainesville, FL, the most recent inductee into the SHoF. Matt and I were in grad school at the same time, way back in the late 90's at the University of Florida. He was in neuroscience, but moonlighted in the biology department when seminars or journal clubs caught his fancy. A few years later, when we crossed paths at the Evolution meetings in CA, he remembered me as the loudmouth biology girl in said classes, but since he didn't know anyone else at the meetings, he figured I was as good a person as any to befriend. I remembered Matt too-- punk-rock haired, ambulance-driving, free-lancing academic rogue who worked on scientific questions that seemed almost like fiction (what were the first molecules that constituted life?) Luckily, his astrobiology conference hosted by NASA (no, I am not making that up) was in Houston this year, so he was able to pop up to Arlington for the weekend so we could recover from our overly technical existences, together.
In the process of showing him around, I found out (again) that Arlington isn't as bad as I necessarily think-- especially when we went to a new music venue in the Bishop Arts District of South Dallas on Saturday night to see music (among others, Jacob Metcalfe and his musical troubadours, pictured above on the right) and then on Sunday when we went to play at Dinosour Valley State Park. Nestled just past the Creation Science Museum and the Dinosaur Theme Park, the DVSP is actually a gorgeous piece of public land with a beautiful river, rocky cliffs, and unbelievably awesome, clear dinosaur footprints in the water. Apparently, these kinds of sites are not uncommon in the US, but I had never been to one, and found it to be incredibly cool. I can't wait to go back, perhaps with the next inductee? We shall see....
Carrigan from Gainesville, FL, the most recent inductee into the SHoF. Matt and I were in grad school at the same time, way back in the late 90's at the University of Florida. He was in neuroscience, but moonlighted in the biology department when seminars or journal clubs caught his fancy. A few years later, when we crossed paths at the Evolution meetings in CA, he remembered me as the loudmouth biology girl in said classes, but since he didn't know anyone else at the meetings, he figured I was as good a person as any to befriend. I remembered Matt too-- punk-rock haired, ambulance-driving, free-lancing academic rogue who worked on scientific questions that seemed almost like fiction (what were the first molecules that constituted life?) Luckily, his astrobiology conference hosted by NASA (no, I am not making that up) was in Houston this year, so he was able to pop up to Arlington for the weekend so we could recover from our overly technical existences, together. 
In the process of showing him around, I found out (again) that Arlington isn't as bad as I necessarily think-- especially when we went to a new music venue in the Bishop Arts District of South Dallas on Saturday night to see music (among others, Jacob Metcalfe and his musical troubadours, pictured above on the right) and then on Sunday when we went to play at Dinosour Valley State Park. Nestled just past the Creation Science Museum and the Dinosaur Theme Park, the DVSP is actually a gorgeous piece of public land with a beautiful river, rocky cliffs, and unbelievably awesome, clear dinosaur footprints in the water. Apparently, these kinds of sites are not uncommon in the US, but I had never been to one, and found it to be incredibly cool. I can't wait to go back, perhaps with the next inductee? We shall see....
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