The Heron House

Week Two begins

2009-06-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

Ventral view of a parasitic isopod. The cressant on the left is the dwarf male. The speheres in the background are eggs prematurely released from the marsupium.
Clione- a beautiful swimming pteropod mollusc
Cadlina leuteomarginalia

This course has continued to be an indecent about of fun. My photomicroscopy's coming along, even if my photography isn't. I spent part of the weekend in Seattle tracking down some non- reflective plexi to make dish bottoms, and I borrowed a can of black spray paint from DT. Now I can shoot the animals (at least those big enough for the dissecting scope) against a less scratched and distracting background. As of now, I've got a Nikon CoolPix 990 with a remote shutter, with a 10x ocular-cmount adapter on the dissecting scope. Today I got a nice shot of a parasitic isopod (with attached dwarf male) which a student found under the carapace of an poot Ibogea and a Cadlina. In class we discussed some of the weird meiofaunal phyla- the gastrotrichs and acanthocephalans. Acually got to see some gastrotrichs squeezed out of freshwater wrack from Egg Lake. These guys are both on the order of 100 um, and my pictures aren't pretty. But I like these two.

Tomorrow is the best low tide of the year, and we have a field trip. It also looks like the family is going to arrive from CA. I'm thrilled. It's been peaceful in their absence. But where's the fun in that?

2009-06-17T07:38:00.001-07:00

By popular request. Kohanyi included for scale.

FHL Day 1

2009-06-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

Now THAT'S a fouling community.
The instructor GP shows us how to explore the tire organisms
The lab.
My bench.
The view from the dining hall.

Today was the first day of the inverts course. It's pretty interesting to be facing the tall side of the podium again. Most of the other students are early in their grad school careers- i'd say the weight of students are in the first half of their PhD- decided on their topic but not their project, if that makes sense. There's also someone who's writing a book on inverts- she's a professional photographer, we also have someone from NOAA/NMFS Hawaii, and a student from Moscow University (doing a dissertaion on vestimentiferan worms, and a student from mainland China. I think it'll be a good group.

This morning was sunny and cool. I got a cup of coffee in town on my ride into the labs, and met the lab office staff and finished my paperwork while the kids were having breakfast. The morning lecture (8:00) was on basic zoology from a funcitonal systemics approach. We got an overview of the body wall and coelom formation with a view to it's diagnostic utility- lots of emphasis on coeloms as hydrostats and regions for gas exchange. Big banks of memory being dusted off here. Late morning was all orientation stuff- boat use, stockroom, network, library. Interesting to me as a metaphore for the same functional systemics approach we see in the lab. All animals have to solve the same problems, and all academic institutions have to solve the same problems. So many variations on so few themes...

Met Moose for lunch. He's just back from a workshop on teaching undergraduate science. Again, we're all trying to solve the same problems. Here I have less patience, as so much of pedagogy is jargon which reduces to "be considerate". Not that this isn't worth saying, but one tires of the precious cleverness that goes into restating it. You need to think about what students know, what they need to know, and how to help them from the first spot to the second. Perhaps I only think I do this, and the fact that so many science teacher workshops hit this again means that this isn't what's happening. I'll have to think about this.

Afternoon lecture continued on fxnl systems- Gut, Blood/vascular, Excretory/Osmoregulation. Then lab. The lab space is nice- we all have a compound and dissecting scope, an a rack of seawater tales runs the length of the lab. Today we walked out on the dock and flipped over the tires that serve as boat fended and pulled some of the fouling community off and brought them back to the lab. I ended up watching a scaleworm for ~ 90 minutes trying to draw it and key it out. Then most folks evaporated for dinner and I got the lab to myself for a few minutes to finish my keys.

I went to see the Cowdonnells and try to identify mystery NorthWest berries (which turned out to not be the salal I expected.) and then home to have dinner with Dennis and read my text for tomorrow.

FHL T-1

2009-06-15T21:19:00.001-07:00

Cormorants on the Ferry dock piling.

The Cottage at The Spring Street International School- home for the next five weeks.

The Labs, from the ferry.

I'm back at FHL after a twelve year absence. It's amazing to be back. I don't know the animals and plants here as we;; as I do the one's I've been studying in Monterey, but they're what I grew up with, and somehow it does my heart good just to see them again.

Managed to catch the 5:25 ferry, the MV Chelan. We saw a pod of four Dall's porpoise in the first five minutes of the run. It's good to be home.

Haiku

2008-12-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

As extra credit on the finals for Marine Science and AP Bio, I asked my students to write some haiku. Here are some favorites.

Dr. Reilly's beard
Sometimes longer than his hair
and that makes me laugh.

-SG

Nondisjunction.Wow.
That is a really big word.
Makes me feel smarter.

-SG

The final I took
In AP Biology
was quite difficult.

-SR

Phosphorylation,
I never understood you.
Someday, I hope to.

-KA

Nature
Green leaves make the trees bright.
Funny to think that green is
being rejected.

-MB

Mendel-wrinkled, smooth
peas made him Father of Genes.
Better than a priest.

-KK

Biology hurts
my brain- overflowing with
terms, details, and angst.

-KK

Green anemone
sand covered ball unfurls to
show its artful inside.

-CR

The vikings traveled,
Christopher Columbus, too.
I wish I knew more
of what I studied.

-LE

That about sums up the semester. More later...

Hooray! Crap!

2008-04-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today I met with the head of the upper school where I've been subbing and tutoring. Apparently, he's been getting a lot of comments about me. I'm fairly used to this, but in this case he says the comments are brilliant. This part is new.

He says they really want to keep me on for next year.
He says they don't know if they'll have a position for me.
He says he'll try to work something out.

This is flattering, since I do like this school. The faculty is really enthusiastic and has a DIY approach to building the curriculum Right(tm) that I find attractive. However, as flattering as it is, I have the feeling that it's not going to convert itself into a job offer in time. Or worse, that it might turn into an offer after we've committed to moving back to CA. That would be amazingly frustrating.

However, for today I'm treating it as a vote of confidence. Secondary school teaching is not what my R1 research school trained me for, but apparently I'm good at it.

And that's just nice.

More poems!

2008-04-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

Totally like whatever, you know?
Taylor Mali

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences -- so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally...
I mean absolutely... You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like...
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation... ness
is just a clever sort of... thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since...
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

2008-04-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

In November
by Lisel Mueller

Outside the house the wind is howling
and the trees are creaking horribly.
This is an old story
with its old beginning,
as I lay me down to sleep.
But when I wake up, sunlight
has taken over the room.
You have already made the coffee
and the radio brings us music
from a confident age. In the paper
bad news is set in distant places.
Whatever was bound to happen
in my story did not happen.
But I know there are rules that cannot be broken.
Perhaps a name was changed.
A small mistake. Perhaps
a woman I do not know
is facing the day with the heavy heart
that, by all rights, should have been mine.

Back in the saddle

2008-01-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

Went for a ride today, a little hill work. It must have been a couple degrees below freezing. I feel better having been out.
Otherwise, things are going. Not much worth writing here, this is just a place holder- I'm not dead yet!

Because it's the whole point of the Pacific Northwest

2007-10-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

Another banner weekend. Saturday we pointed the car West on 26, and headed away from the mountain to the ocean so I could get in my therapy session. I really miss the daily surf session in CA, when I drove past the beach on the way to work. In Portland, heading out is a bit more involved, with almost a half hour drive on either side. But a couple hours in the water keeps me smiling for a few days, and Saturday was an anomalously beautiful day- no wind, almost 70 degrees in the air, and maybe mid 50's in the water, and small but perfectly clean sets every couple minutes. Just a nice go out with friends. It was like June in Santa Cruz, except in July. And Oregon. Odd, and too wonderful to question.

We went out to the coast with some friends from down the road. He's a longtime SoCal surfer, and his daughter is almost the same age as T. The girls and the very indulgent (and slightly... is matronizing a word?) moms stayed on the beach and did the classic sun and sand activities.

I was trying to explain to K what surfing meant to me the other day. Which, really, for most surfers is probably a ridiculously common conversation. What made it surprising to me is that it came up in a discussion of religious practice. We had dinner with with another couple with a kid about T's age. (note the recurring trend? My social circle is collapsing to a group within 2 blocks who have kids. This blows. But they tend to understand why we can't get anywhere until 30 minutes after we said we would, and why we have to leave at 7:30 pm. My friends without kids! I still love you! I'll be in touch in a couple more years!) They were trying to figure out what religious frame work to raise their son in. This was funny to me, because neither of them practice any religion now. but they were raised that way, and felt that religious practice, or at least religious community, were an important part of their upbringing. So, what practices are important for me, and what do I want to pass on?

I really tried to think about this, and surfing is what I came up with. Surfing with friends is so much fun, but I've surfed for almost fifteen years now, and my poor skills and penchant for solitude means that most of my surfing has been done by myself, on the ugly breaks. What I remember from this isn't beautiful, clean, drops. I hoard the hours floating on my board, in the fog. Hours listening to the hiss of rain. The sounds of whales breathing nearby. Common dolphins rolling under my feet. Loons, cormorants, Vellella, pelicans, the sweep of the Pacific ocean, the two wave holddowns, the rafts of Macrocystis, the thought of sharks and the slow, cold, combustion of the largest food chain in the world. The important thing here is putting yourself into the system. Like most devotional acts, it's an acknowledgement and a participation in a thing beyond yourself. Paddling out is a mortification of the flesh, and an act of humility. Waiting for the waves, and noting the life around you is an act of bearing witness, paddling for the wave is hope, and the drop is joy. Mark Helprin once framed the western philosophical ideal in Mountaineering- the performance of difficult acts amidst great beauty. Surfing, and least the cold water surfing I'm familiar with, is similar, and if the act is less complex than that of the mountaineer, the beauty is greater.

2007-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

From the ride home from work- Mt. Hood and a gibbous moon from the top of the Riverside cemetery.

How did this mountain get so high?

2007-10-21T19:54:00.001-07:00

We made it back up to the mountain this morning for a quick ski. T skied from the car across the snow park and about 20 m down the trail. Not far, probably 100m total, but the farthest she's gone yet. Better, she seemed pretty excited. Well, not excited, but focused and happy. When she fell, she figured out how to untangle skis and self. When her skis crossed, she got them uncrossed (not on the first try, but without frustration). I like watching her hit these problems. She has an uncanny amount of patience with a problem for a 2.5 yr old. I try not to fix everything for her when we first start out because I don't want to cheat her of a challenge. Later because I want to see what she'll come up with next. Still later it's because I just can't believe she's still going at it. By the time she says, "I need some help", I feel I'm about to burst.

She's better than most people I've seen on their first cross-country outings, and better than myself on most days, in most situations.

After she started to get tired, I talked her into skiing to a little fallen branch, we had some chocolate. This was almost an out-of-body experience for me, because I remember so many time my dad would talk me into going just a bit farther before sitting down, and then the chocolate would come out. The role reversal was sharp enough to give me double vision- me and dad, me as dad.

After a section of Tobblerone, we popped T into a backpack, and K figured out how to strap T's skiis to the pack, and we dropped down into a little valley trail. T always wants to go faster- this is a real problem with having her go with LJ our first time out. But LJ doesn't crash, and my crashes were the things of song and story. Now, with T strapped to me, I've become so cautious. Children make you old. It's odd to worry about wadding after so many years of not caring- I used to figure that breaking stuff was bad, because things (skis, derailleurs, surfboards) cost money, but the body heals for free. But the last couple times I've tested my body's healing powers, I've not been keen on the rate or the quality of the healing. I worry that this new caution will become habitual, and that by the time she's ready to throw herself at the world, I'll have forgotten how.

We made it to the bottom of the trail, and while K and I were putting skins on, and T was discovering the magic of peeing in snow, a string of cowboys came up the trail looking for a missing bull. It made T's day; the smell of old hay, sound of heavy, sealion-like breathing, and the squeaking of heavy leather- all the things that go with horses. And the guys- leather chaps, grey walrus moustaches, big felt hats- T's eyes were like dinner plates. Nice little surprise meeting.

Almost back to the trailhead, there's a section of trail where the trees open up, and one faces right up the summit of Mt. Hood. I was pointing out bits of geology for T with my skipole, more of a running commentary for her distraction than for pedagogical purposes, and she says, "Let's climb it!". So I do the whole explanation of perspective - that things can look close when they're close, or when they're surprisingly large, and here we're sort of functionally more in the second case. So T mulls this over and says, "When I'm older, older, can we climb it?"

Hell yes.

Snow day.

2007-10-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

T's been talking about the snow pretty much constantly for the past week or so. Nothing demanding, just her normal, barely verbalized, constant monologue. Lately though, when I tune in, she's not talking about whatever toy is in her hand, but, "...then the snow comes, and there's snow on the ground, and snow on the trees, and I jump in it and I wear my skis and..." As far as I can tell, this is pretty much apropos of nothing. It did snow on Mt. Hood last weekend, but the mountain's been socked ever since. I have no idea how she found out or what put snow on her mind. But a trip to the snow seemed mandatory. This morning, while K went out for outrigger practice, T and I loaded up the car and went up to the mountain to find the snow.

A find it we did, though we had to go all the way to Timberline. Which was pretty cool, since thhe lifts aren't open, we got to mess around on the runs. T's actual skiing was a limited success. I got them on her for about 5 minutes, and then she wanted them off (Must...Not...Push.. Too.. Hard). Then we did a little sledding. But mostly sat in a snowbank out of the wind and made snow pancakes with snow syrup and snow butter. These are fun, but it turns out not filling, (or warming) so after about an hour, we adjourned to Mt. Hood Brewing for a burger and age appropriate beverage.

I'm calling this a good day.

So damn proud.

2007-10-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Hard to see here, but she's grabbed Neal Stephenson's In The Beginning Was The Command Line. Now if only I can find her a little used PDP-7...

You guys are killing me.

2007-10-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

So... we had a power outage at work. Work where we have several thousand liters of fish aquaculture. Luckily, all of our pumps, filters and lifts are on emergency power- which is great except that Wednesday was some kind of electron holiday, and none of the emergency power actually came on. So that's ... nice. The fun part was getting to continue the easter egg hunt that the firm who built the system arranged for us. The most recent find was by Suzy, who pulled out of the pump baskets two 2" threaded ABS couplings, a buch of broken zip ties, and a handful of filter beads. I realize this is getting pretty aquarium geeky, but. Okay. So the filter beads... whatever. The zip-ties are tacky- that shouldn't be. But the 2" pipe couplings? What the hell? They were rolling around so let put them in the screen for a $1500 pump? I'd also like to note that we pulled out a whole instruction manner from another canister filter. Sopping wet and destroyed, but it must have been in there for months. Oh, and Friday morning I found that a small submersible pump had a big plastic sticker jammed in the intake. The best part is that it was a sticker FROM THE PUMP! Who puts sticker with water soluable adhesive on a submersible pump? Why do they hate me and my fish so much?

Sigh.

Bike to work

2007-10-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

Rode in to work today for the first ime in a donkey's years. I'm working on driving one way with the bike in the truck, and then riding home, then riding back and driving home. Not an ideal situation, but it's better than I've been doing (i.e. getting fat), and it's a compromise between time at work, time at home, and the bike. This pic was taken this morning on my way through Tryon Creek park. Freaking brilliant. Made it to work about 15 minutes later than usual- that's what, like a coffee break? I call that damn fine.

The whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret.

2007-05-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

So, after having dropped my writing again, for, oh, let's call it 4+ months, last week I heard from two of my favorite people (Hey Liz! Hey Dionne!), who were sending out their blog addresses. This reminded me of several things- 1) I have a blog, 2) A blog is a pretty useless way to keep in touch with folks if I 3) Don't update it and 4) Don't tell anyone it exists.

Right! First I'll add something. Things here are mildly chaotic, but only mildy. I've almost cleared the last round of revision to my first manuscript, which has been a nightmare. One good round of scientific peer review, and a couple rounds of rugged copyediting. I think it's done, though, and on Monday I'll probably upload it. I have the feeling though, that if there's a single reference misspelled, the Editor-In-Chief will not only reject the whole ms, but fly over the Atlantic to egg my house. Hideous, hideous.

Work has been a bunch of pippeting "nucleic acids" into tubes.

In more fun news, K has joined a dragon boating team, and the big dragonboat races are coming up during Portland's Rose parade over 8-9 June. T and I have been really enjoying hanging out at the river on practice nights and weekends, watching the boats,ducklings, barges, and drawbridges, and generally just enjoying long spring evenings in the Northwest. We missed the last two practices for graduation parties and planting tomatoes (unfortunately, these weren't the same event).

Sweet! I just got to help LJ diagnose a headset adjustment gone wrong over the phone! Thanks to Sheldon Brown, Chris King and Al Gore for the internet.

Finnegan, Begin again.

2006-12-11T20:02:00.000-08:00

So... it's been suggested that doing some writing would be good for me, and it's hard for me to argue. And really, at least in my own head, there's been a lot going on, so maybe I'll give this thingy-thing another try. Baby steps...

This morning I wimped out of riding, spooked by the forecasts of mixed snow and rain and 50 kt winds. Which failed to materialize. Tons of rain did materialize, though, and since I had to run into town to buy blackworms for the electric fish, I wasn't entirely sorry to have taken a car. But, when L.J. and E.G. showed up for beans-rice-and-science lunch on their bikes, I felt a little soft.

Before this latest storm rolled in, though, it's been beautiful here in PDX. The last storm dumped a ton of snow on Mt. Hood, and the shoulders are pure white as the mountain rises above the fringe of conifers on the horizon. I really am so happy to back in the Northwest. The picture above was taken on my Friday ride in to work. I'm at the top of the Riverside Cemetery, just before dropping down to the Willamette and crossing the Sellwood bridge to work. It's a pretty great ride, and it trade the terrifying lack-of-shoulder of Hwy 43 for these deserted roads in the Cemetery and the bike path ringing Tryon Creek State Park.

I've always been in favor of commuting by bike. I'm an ecologist, and I know too much about the impacts of driving to pretend a blissful ignorance of the impacts of my car. And early in my married life, I found that the increase in commute time that accompanied my ride really helped me make a transition from lab to home. Driving just put me home too fast, and I was still thinking about whatever bits of work I'd been wresting with- physically home, but mentally in lab. Biking home gave me time to let go of work, plus gave me some excercise, so by the time I walk in the door, I was happy, and happy to be home. Now that I'm a dad, and a postdoc, it's a bit more complicated. Both are more than fulltime jobs, and I'm not sure I'm doing either well. It's increasingly hard to justify to extra 1.5-2 hrs a day riding, when I feel like I'm leaving everywhere undone. My only consolation is that maybe the riding is preventing me from doing an even worse job... The exercise does mellow me out, and it is slowly eroding the dissertation-belly, and 20 years from now, I imagine I'll appreciate the working heart.

The commute was the most interesting part of the day

2006-06-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today I tried the PG to Menlo Park commute on Neil's NT 650. I don't think I'll be doing that again. Well, I'll be doing it once more, I guess, but that thing is just not a commuting dream for anyone over six feet tall. I get the attraction- it's a really nimble bike, and I'm not immune to the antisocial charms of the Kerker exhaust Neil's running. But right around Moss Landing the "cafe"-style mirrors started unscrewing themselves from the grips so that I had to lever them up with the meat of my palm. That put me in an even more punishing posture. And the cockpit , what would be the top tube of a bicycle, is really short. I just... didn't love it.

Which is funny. I really thought the Hawk was going to be this awesome traffic weapon, at least compared to my K100RS. The KRS is just not a glamourous bike, and I have these dreams of riding something within a decade of its fabrication... The K100's are big, and really top heavy. Somehow BMW was able to make a really heavy bike, and locate the center of gravity above the actual bike. It's like the soul, floating constantly a foot above the tank. But that bike just fits me. I can commute 100 miles each way on that thing, and still be in a good mood when I get home. Way better than when I'm in a car, and that's the point of motorcycles, I think. If you're not comfortable, the whole motorcyling experience is wearing. (well, too wearing). Still wicked fun for an afternoon, where you can pull off you helmet and get a beer, but if you've got to pull off your helmet, and get to work, it kind of sucks. Now, on the commute home, maybe I can take Pescadero, and make this twitchy little bastard work WITH me.

Oh, in uglier motorcycle commute news, I pulled over next to a guy who was stopped on the side of Highway 17 this morning with his shiny BMW R1100RS. Two of the four lugnuts holding his rear wheel on had gone walkabout. He said it felt like a flat. He only had 2 mile left till his exit, so he was going to crank 'em down and go slow... but Hwy 17? I peed a little just talking to him. I've heard of getting the back wheel loose, but good God! Not what we like to see.

Chamber Day

2006-06-10T16:43:00.000-07:00

Most of this morning was Chamber cleanup day for PGOR. Once a year we do our housekeeping at the Hyperbaric chamber. A lot of Brasso, and lot of mopping, and we dissassemble pretty much all the pressure fittings, and sterilize the interior. Good fun, that. It went really fast this year, and we were done just in time to miss Sweden's World cup opener. Ah, well. This is the price we pay, I guess.

After the Chamber cleaning, we had a picnic with the ocean rescue folks. One of the rescue folks fixed T a virgin strawberry daquarie, and she spent about a hour glued to that. Then she studiously filled the dog's water dish with pebbles. I call that good employment.

Cleaner, Faster, Better than Before!

2006-06-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

Getting closer... I should be working on my talk for the International Temperate Reefs conference, or at least polishing up on of my manuscripts, but instead I'm puttering with this. But- this may not be all bad. I have high hopes for using this blog to keep up with my far flung family and these damned friends of mine who keep moving away.

This, this moving away is one of the larger problems with being a graduate student. The constant shared stress makes for intense friendships, and this community of people I've been living in for the past... um... eight-plus years is incredibly wonderful. Incredibly wonderful and inherently temporary. It's a dandelion community, and now we'rdefending, and people are taking to the wind. Dammit. However, it's also a community with a heroin-like attatchment to the internet. So... maybe the weblog is a good thing...

In other news, it's finally spring on the central coast, and I've been able to bundle up the bairn and the pooch and do some hiking to check out the bloom. That's never bad. The picture above is from Sobranes, just North of Big Sur.

Oops, the bairn awakes...

Ping

2006-06-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

The first test. Sitting at home on a foggy day while the baby sleeps.