me a call if they, too, plan to be at DFW for more than an hour between flights so we can visit. I also promise not to jeopradize any future attempts at making connecting flights (he made it-- a bit sweaty-- but he made it!)
The spectacular Lynx rufus.
Since then, I have seen Todd many times in many states, and usually not just states I happened to be in. Most of the time , I wear a homemade concert t-shirt on which I have used a sharpie to write "Todd Snider Rules" in big letters, referring to one of my favorite stories that he tells (here's a not-great-recording of the version of Rose City Blues during which I first heard him tell it in KY-- you can hear my whistle if you know it well). Sometime about 2 years ago, I changed my mom's life, and I am not sure if a bigger fan now exists. You want evidence?
Always. Not just at concerts.
Have you ever seen Breaking Away? If not, do. It is a great movie (required viewing for all IU students and bike race enthusiasts) in which the art of quarry-going is depicted very well. The giant holes that result from the extraction of limestone fill with rainwater over time and provide welcome relief from the suffocating heat and humidity, as well as a bit of a thrill because the gravel road entrances are plastered with Do Not Trespass signs threatening everything from imprisonment to almost-certain-death. We managed to avoid both, in addition to the most real threat-- getting towed.
Today's post comes from Pacific Grove, CA where I have been attending a conference on transposable elements (TEs). Most of you have heard me go on and on about them at some point or another, but for friends from other walks of life, it is probably worth explaining that TEs are mobile pieces of DNA that move around the genome. Most of the time they are unwelcome, but occasionally they modify the host genome in positive ways. They were discovered a long time ago by a rock star geneticist named Barbara McClintock. For about 50 years, they were largely ignored by most biologists-- relegated to the margins as "junk" DNA. Now we know that they comprise a huge fraction of the genome and are super dynamic. McClintock's contribution was eventually fully recognized and she won the Nobel Prize for her work. I could go on and on about them, but I will hold off for now-- preferring instead to share morsels of fascinating TE antics in the genome during future posts.
A picture to share: This part of CA is spectacularly beautiful-- so much so that no 2 megapixel picture can do it justice. On the way down here, however, my lab clan and I stopped in Santa Cruz for lunch and got to ooh and ahhh over the sea lions, a surprising number of which were performing what appeared to be some type of pre-coital water ballet. In an effort to keep this blog kid-friendly, here's a picture of them performing their other favorite activity.....
Today's post comes from the terrific little town of Tempe (pronounced temp-EE), just outside the terrible urban sprawl of Phoenix, AZ. I am here visiting one of my favorite people, John Gillece (pronounced gil-EE-chee) and learning to appreciate the desert. Yesterday, we went to Sedona to go hiking. Sedona is supposed to be a vortex, or at least there are supposed to be lots of vortices around that area. The only time I have ever been in a vortex previously was Danilo's Italian Eatery, just outside of Gainesville, FL. We went there for dinner one night (because it was supposed to be a vortex), but nothing strange happened. Nothing strange happened yesterday either-- except for the fact that I mentioned the band The BoDeans to Gillichi on the way there and, strangely, a BoDeans song came on the radio on the way home. I haven't heard a BoDeans song or uttered the name of the band since, I think, 1990. A musical vortex?
So, today's picture, straight from the hands of my new labmate Komal, another one of the many multi-talented people I have met since my arrival. I hope, in addition to learning lots, some of this artistic ability rubs off on me in the next 2 years. Isn't she amazing?
Mascot-wise, I have had the honor of being a Titan, a Hustlin' Quaker, a Gator, a Hoosier, and now .... a Maverick. How serendipitous! The same year Tina Fey perfectly mocks Sarah Palin's over-embrace of John McCain's now-baffling nickname, I get to be a Maverick too! For some reason, the University of Texas-Arlington felt the need to trademark the phrase "be a maverick", so I am not sure this privilege is open to just anyone anymore. If you come visit, I'll try and pull some strings so you can get mavericky too.
In addition to celebrating Martin Luther King today, and the spirit of service and the campaign for selflessness that has miraculously caught on in this country over the last few weeks, I can't help but share in the public ecstasy that is tomorrow's inauguration, even if I can't be in D.C. to witness it with my own eyes. The next four years could be the best of times and the worst of times, but I am so relieved to have intelligence and candor at the helm after 8 years of astonishing ethical and political squalor. On the night of the election, I wrote a kind of dorky poem for April and John Paul's election party (as I have done for the last 3 elections) expressing my hopes for the outcome. This was the first time those hopes were realized. Halleluah. 
Last night I went to my first show in Dallas! Ahhh, the thirst-quenching effects of seeing live music aren't to be mis-underestimated.... The band: Jude the Innocent. Comprised in part by two guys from here in the biology department, Jeff and Jesse, and a civilian named Mike on the drums who you can't see here. They were the first of 4 bands playing at a venue in Deep Ellum, a neighborhood that seems to serve as the live music epicenter for the metroplex region, and they were by far the best. So good I had to wonder why they don't give up the biologist halves of their double lives and dedicate themselves fully to rocking. That's definitely what I would do if I could play roughly 2 and half times better than my current level, which would still put me far below these guys... but after two years of wood-shedding/post-docing, maybe I, too, can get my dreamjob.
Yesterday, Cedric (my boss #2, right) and his post-doc, Clement (left), generously invited me to lunch. They are both French, and have the commensurate love of good food and good wine the rest of us associate with french people. The main course? Rabbit they had bought because they needed tissue to extract DNA from for a current project.
Blogging is harder than Arianna Huffington might lead you to believe.... I have only a very vague idea of how these postcard-like messages are going to appear when I hit the all-powerful "publish post" button, but here goes:
