Yeah.

I've started saying "Structural Biology." It doesn't make any more sense to most people than "Macromolecular X-ray Crystallography" or "Microbiology and Molecular Genetics," but it is faster to say.

Sam wants a snowblower for Christmas.

Why do snowplow drivers have this unerring instinct for pushing huge mounds of snow in my driveway? If a neighbor with a snowblower hadn't taken pity on me I might still be shoveling out my car. 

In other news, the dumber of our two cats finds this "snow" thing absolutely fascinating. She keeps trying to go explore it, even though it's deeper than she is tall. By about 200%. Darwin missed a few.

I am seriously considering trying out hibernation for this winter. Tonight it's supposed to be -20 to -29F windchill (for you snobby metric types that comes out to -28.9 to -33.9C). It's only December...it's only getting worse from here.

Let's hear it for global warming!

With windchill bringing the temp to -3F, I think I'll go buy an SUV. Vermont could use a little more warming...

Speaking of SUV's, is this not the stupidest thing ever? I mean, ok, I understand why we don't want a major American industry to go belly up. That sort of thing is bad for the economy, and puts a lot of employees out of work for no fault of their own. On the other hand, if that major American industry refuses to make cars that get more than, say 2.5 mpg, I'm not sure that throwing billions of dollars at the problem will make it go away. Maybe, shockingly enough, American car manufacturers should try making cars that are a) fuel efficient and b) smaller than your average tank. Just a thought. *Packs bags in preparation for getting thrown into Gitmo*

Deep thoughts...

You know you're finally settled into a new job when the printer runs out of paper, and you know where to find the obscure supply cabinet two buildings away without asking anybody.

You know you need to get out more when...

You're walking  down the hall, glancing at posters and find yourself thinking, "Man, I wish I had electron density like that!"

Sam I. Am needs a vacation...

Edit: My boss' husband once told me that the first thing that attracted him to her was her electron densities. I am a geek, yes, but there are far worse geeks out there.

So very, very true...

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher".

--Flannery O'Connor

Ok, seriously, folks, this isn't funny anymore...

You know how I said that I am bad for computers? Yeah. So I started  running several programs on a remote computer on our cluster at school. Normal programs that everybody else runs all the time, no problem.

Result: computer crashed completely, losing its  hard drive. They say it's not my fault, but I'm not sure I believe them...

Update: On the first day of this week, my computer gave to me...

In an effort to document why I believe my computer should be exorcized, I will keep a running log of what malevolent things it does to me. Let me know if you know any priests.

1. Mac OSX has crashed today. Twice. Mac OSX is not supposed to crash every five minutes like Windows does.

2. My web browser blew its brains out repeatedly.

3. My crystallography programs are not running. (This is probably my fault. I swung the chicken counter-clockwise instead of clockwise this morning).

Edit: Update 12.3.08

I seemed to have crashed another hard drive. I'm thinking that's a bad thing.

I think I sacrificed the chicken incorrectly...

The computer deities/spirits/demons apparently have it in for me. Even my boss is beginning to think so, and that's not a good sign. Here's my reasoning for this belief:

First: my computer has a tendency to play the little game we like to call "kernel panic." It generally does this before an important talk. 

Second: my laptop has the following problems:

1. The keys  "B" "G" "T" and "5" don't work. Just those keys, no idea why.

2. The lightbulb behind the screen appears to be broken.

3. Funny little lines appear on the burned out screen from time to time.

4. It. is. so. slow.

Third: no crystallography program will work for me. Today I ran *the exact same* program under my account on a server. Nada. "Input error" etc. I then ran it under a coworker's account. No problemo. 

Edit: I just thought of another example: 

When I lent my keyboard to Housemate Helen (don't you like your new nickname, Helen? I thought it had a nice Sesame Streety sort of feel) a few weeks ago it managed to destroy like five hours worth of work. I mean, it completely lost her file. Pretended it had never seen it. It's like I'm contagious or something...spreading computer malfunctions through computer accessories.

I'm beginning to feel like that guy in Good Omens who manages to break or destroy every single piece of electronic equipment he ever comes across. To the point of shutting off power to his city on a regular basis. Which, come to think of it, might be a highly marketable skill. "Will shut off competitor's power for food."

Happy Dance

Yay for cheap books... I found a whole bunch of David Eddings books for 75c each on Saturday at my church's holiday bazaar. And the entire set of Chronicles of Narnia for, like, $5. And then I found 5 Agatha Christie mysteries in the used book section of Barnes and Nobles for $5. I am a happy little (poor broke grad student) bookworm. I have this dream that someday I will be able to purchase entire series of book for *gasp* full price. Full price book purchasing= the true American dream. (For you lucky foreigners reading this, the definition of "American Dream" is very fluid, but generally refers to a plucky young poor (but not the wrong kind of poor, of course) person bucking society and making oodles of money. Apple pie may also play a part, but I'm not sure how).

Interesting. The american keyboard has the dollar sign but not the cent sign... *goes to look up magic key combination to get cent sign*

In other news...   mmmmmmm.....sugary caffeine. One of my house guests from this weekend snores so loudly that it kept me awake through the wall. Finally I gave up and slept in basement, where snoring, while audible even through earplugs, was somewhat abated. Am sleepy little Sam today. 

100% Pure awesomeness...

From a test I am grading:

Answers to the name of the disease caused by a reactivation of the chicken pox virus in elderly people years after the initial infection: (correct answer: shingles)

1. Smallpox (!)

2. Schizophrenia 

3. Scabes

4. Rubella

5. Measles

I don't know if this is only hilarious to microbiologists, but it certainly made me giggle.

You know you're old when...

Someone says you look really young to be a grad student/married, and you gratefully take it as a compliment. *shudder* Only six years ago I was getting irritated at the airline stewardess for not thinking I was old enough to sit in an exit row (for which you must be 15 years old).

Deep thoughts...

I realized today that I'd probably get used to these new fangled glasses sooner if I stopped taking them off every five minutes or so...

(The joys of being just nearsighted enough to finally need glasses, but not so nearsighted that I can't see without them.)

Must...restrain...fist...of...death...

Anyone who designed any of the x-ray crystallography GUIs shall be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Followed closely by the brilliant coders who decided that every single crystallography program should require a different file format. One more time people, repeat after me: "Interfaces are supposed to help the usability of the program. Not destroy it." Also, "I do not need my own special format to feel special." Not hard concepts, I feel.

In other (old) news... Coolest. Priest. Ever.

The new priest at church who quoted the Monty Python "What have the Romans ever done for us" sketch in her sermon has my full, unreserved approval. (This actually happened several weeks ago, but I'm stretching for something not of the "my job sucks" category of material here).

Yay!!!!

Sometimes I hatez my job, I does.

I have spent all day trying to do what should be ~ 1hr worth of work. And my reward at the end? A nice, spanking new crash report from the program in question. And I can't run the program on my work computer because my computer (which is a relatively new 15" iMac, intel core etc) doesn't have a big enough screen because the authors of the program couldn't be bothered to (get this...) make the window resizeable. So the buttons I need are literally off the screen, and I can't move the window around to access the stupid things. 

GRRR!!!! *headdesk*

Must... find... new... career.... or at least some high quality chocolate.

Exploiting whole world...you're doing it pretty well, akshully.

How is that, with the rest of the world's economy tanking, companies losing major money and laying off people, Exxon is still able to smash its own profit record? How does that work?

Must be nice to be an oil executive right now. I wonder if selling your soul is actually mandatory, or if you can trade in your first born child instead?

In other news, the number of undergrads to set their lab glove aflame increased by one this week. I have seen the future, and it is on fire. (Literally).

Today, in really creepy science news...

And you thought your cats were weird. Because, you know, all the world needs is a freaky glowing cat. Do I sense an Ignoble award coming up?

Why am I surrounded by stupid people?!?

If you were to invite an outside speaker to speak at your club meeting, and if she asked you repeatedly over the course of the month to give her *some idea* of what you actually wanted to speak about, wouldn't you give her that information? 

So apparently I'm giving some nebulous presentation about "Women in Science." This will be a pretty short presentation: "There are women in science. We do science."

I'm sure they're gonna love it...

[Edit: Three hours and fifteen minutes before the stupid thing is supposed to start I get a list of questions they might want me to think about answering. To recap: advanced notice= good. Having only 3.25 hours of said advanced notice= bad.

Edit edit: They gave me chocolate. All is forgiven. Well, not really, but most is forgiven. A significant portion, anyway.]

So true...

Most Mother Goose Rhymes/fairy tales are really quite twisted, when you actually stop and think about them.

It's life Jim, but not as we know it...

Strange headlines du jour:

Someone in Jamaica is stealing beaches. Apparently nobody noticed the disappearance of an entire 400m beach. Come on, folks. Not even we Californians would fail to miss an entire beach.

Worried about finding the proper rhythm for CPR? Worry no longer, my friend! For lo and behold, doctors have determined that all it takes is Stayin' Alive.

Iz in your pirate bag, absorbing your skillz.

Why? Why not sleep on a couch or a pillow or something? Of all the places in the house, why would a cat pick a gym bag to sleep in? Is she afraid that mutant space rats are trying to steal our Tae Kwon Do uniforms while we sleep? Or maybe she just wants to pick up mad martial arts skills by osmosis. Now there's an idea for a very bad martial arts B movie... 

Gotta love teaching...

Running Update:

Number of lab sections taught today (so far): 1
Number of people using dirty equipment and contaminanting entire plates of bacteria: 1.5 (I caught the second one before any more damage could be done).
Number of fires started by students: 1

[Edit: the girl set an entire jar of ethanol on fire. Fwoosh!]

There you have it, people. Students: the hope for the future. 

By popular (ok, one person) demand...

You asked for it! Create your own Political Interference Story! Actually, this is just about the level of coding I could probably manage. I should sell an application suite for the newspapers: create your own political/celebrity/science news/gossip/latest and greatest breakthrough. I'd be rich! Except, actually, I suspect they already use such a product...

Ok, so I normally avoid internet jokes, but...

Create your own scandal...

Obviously, since I'm in the biomedical research field, I hear about a lot of the drug company scandals that occur on a regular basis. Imagine, then, my excitement when I learned that I no longer have to actually read the news to find scandals...now I can create my own, thanks to the lovely people at Nature. What a time saver!

Dream job...

You know you're a strange duck when you decide that your dream job would be to be a microbiological history professor... teaching impressionable young college students about how the plague changed western civilization. How cool would that be?

How Ironic...

In the same family: 

Sam I. Am: has autoimmune disorder causing dangerously low platelet levels (can potentially lead to severe bleeding).

One of Sam I. Am's siblings: hospitalized for pulmonary embolism (although in the end they couldn't find one). Platelets: way above normal. Clotting factors: sky high.

How, how do genetics explain this? (I know, I know...8 years of Microbiology training and all that, I do know the answer, but still...)

Thoughts from an immature grad student upon walking by a meeting...

"Neener neener neener! You guys have to be in a meeting at 9:00 am and I don't! Sucks to be you... Hey, wait! You guys get free food at your meetings? No fair! Aah...you have free coffee too? Oh man, why don't we get free food and coffee at your meetings? That's totally unfair."

-Sam I. Am, doing her best to shatter the myth of the pretentious scientist every day.

Nom nom...eww?

We have two lovely and devoted (when they want food) cats. One of these cats, Eve, is dumb as a post. The other one, Anya, is both reasonably intelligent (for a cat), and dutiful.

Before Anya's injury we used to let her roam around free outside. In appreciation of this she would bring us nice little presents, such as the ever-popular half eaten mouse. Unfortunately, she got seriously creamed by something (car? cow? who knows), so we keep her inside now. Apparently she has been worried about how to give us presents in her mobility-limited new lifestyle.

The result? Last night Anya came bounding into the kitchen from the garage. Seeing Mr. Sam standing at the sink, she proudly offered her newest gift: a dead cricket. Nice to know she still loves us... I think?

A break from book stuff...

Am too busy doing real life stuff to be bothered with "trying to get published stuff". (Oh, who am I kidding? I'm just tired of rejection letters). I passed my PhD qualifying exam last week, which is very nice and gives me a lot more time. On the other hand, I'm TAing a class of... shall we say non-biologists? In another section of the class yesterday three (yes, three!) students managed to catch their lab gloves on fire. I didn't even know that was possible! And to think I missed it all... the one section I don't TA has all the excitement. Wow. These kids find new and exciting ways to put themselves in danger. Who knew you could have so much fun with a bunsen burner? I mean, I've certainly considered the possibility of toasting marshmallows with a culture needle over the burner, but not so much with the setting myself on fire.

Hmm...

There are times and circumstances that force one to reevaluate one's choice of occupation and/or place of employment.

Finding oneself walking through the halls with a liter of e. coli in one hand and a fully grown cucumber in the other is one of those circumstances. 

Heh.

Dave Barry is covering the Democratic convention this year. His insights on how Hilary must feel are so, well, insightful, that I thought I should share:

"It's hard to blame Sen. Clinton for being bitter. Here she is, the smartest human ever, PLUS she spent all those years standing loyally behind Bill Clinton wearing uncomfortable pantyhose (I mean Hillary was, not Bill) (although there are rumors), PLUS she went to the trouble and expense of acquiring a legal residence in New York State so she could be a senator from there, PLUS she assembled a team of nuclear-physicist-grade genius political advisors, PLUS she spent years going around to every dirtbag community in America explaining in detail her 23-point policy solutions for every single problem facing the nation including soybean blight. And after all that, she loses the nomination to a guy who has roughly the same amount of executive governmental experience as Hannah Montana. Hillary is like: ``Are you KIDDING me?'' "

Yeah... that's pretty much how I would feel. 

Update...

on my success in the plan to become rich and famous:

Exciting, no? 

In other news, I have been reading some truly wretchedly awful murder mysteries (cozies, I think they're called?) I mean, we're talking bad here, people. But they're fun in an MST3Kish sort of way. And there are recipes in the books (I think I'm safe to say that without being too obvious about whose books these are, since I know of at least two separate authors who include recipes in their murder mysteries). The recipes are pretty good, I must say. They almost make up for the total lack of subtlety, plot-wise, and the awful pseudo-romantic bits thrown in here and there.

The scary thing? These books are best sellers.  

[Content temp edited away]

Gah! and again I say, gah!

Sam's life in brief:

1. Closed on house (hurrah!)

2. Got icky summer cold (boo!)

3. Found new crystallization conditions for protein at work (geeky yay!)

4. Was attacked by monster mosquito from hell. I mean, seriously folks... one bite. And my forehead is grotesquely swollen. When people see it they recoil in horror (literally). It looks like I have a congenital disorder that results in swollen heads. Am wearing hat. Have taken/applied two benadryl, and roughly a metric ton of 1% hydrocortisone cream. Neither have noticeable effect except that now I'm all spacey from the benadryl (which I took last night).

Vermont mosquitoes take their job seriously, man. Vemont: not for wimps and commies. Well, not for wimps, anyway. Commies always welcome.

Now don't get me wrong...

[Content temp. edited away]

 Kthxbai.

Heh.

Waahhhhh...part II

So... apparently the state of Vermont has no building code for single family residences (read: houses). This means that, despite the fact that the house is only safely a three bedroom house, they can list it as a four bedroom house. So, the upshot of all this is that, despite the fact that Mr. Real Estate Agent committed fraud, we still have to buy the house. That's ok, I suppose, since we like the house and the buyer  decided to give us back some money at closing (read: don't sue!)

Mr. RE Agent, on the other hand, is still in deep doo-doo. We're going to report him as soon as we close. He's in for one... fun and interesting investigation from the licensing board. Admitting to our lawyer he knowingly mislisted the house = stupid.

[Content temp. edited away]

(Image once again from the hilarious Devil's Panties).

Just a quick link...

We're still in real estate limbo. There was a hint that the criminal real estate agent may have been fired by the house's seller, but we need confirmation before we can move forward. We're too scared to work with that crook anymore, for obvious reasons.

So, in the absence of real news, I found a news article that amused me greatly. Who knew there were heavy metal monks?

Waahhhhh...

Picture courtesy of the fabulous comic strip Devil's Panties.

Why is Mr. Real Estate Agent so stupid? Lying, ok. Many people (unfortunately) choose to lie. But lying in a way that makes it possible for people to sue your tush off? Not so smart. That takes lying to a whole new realm of stupid.

[Some content temp. edited away]

Please, non-existent readers (it would probably help my hit count if I told people I know that I started this blog) cross your fingers for me and Mr. Sam. We really don't want to take this guy to court, no matter how justified we are in doing so.

Shellshocked Sam

Oh. My. Goodness.

The Great Real Estate Debacle of 2008 continues. 

To review: 

1. Seller's agent misrepresented the number of rooms in a house (I asked him repeatedly to confirm that one room was a bedroom; he confirmed that it was, which turned out to be untrue). Seller's agent also claimed (dishonestly, as it turns out) that Mr. Sam and I could not get a real estate agent of our own unless we paid out of pocket. According to our lawyer this is just not true.

2. Mr. Sam and I talked to a lawyer, who assured us that this meant we could terminate the contract. We followed the protocol as dictated in the contract for doing so.

New:

1. We receive email from Seller's agent, saying that they were fixing all the problems (riiiiight) with the house, and that, oh by the way, the contract was still in force.

2. Mr. Sam, who, bless his poor little heart, has been on the phone *all day* now, calls lawyer back. Lawyer explains that agent is full of fecal material.

3. Mr Sam calls agent, and tells him that the contract has been terminated, but we'd be willing to a) negotiate an addendum to the old contract, bringing it back into force, or b) negotiate a new contract. Agent refuses to acknowledge termination of old contract.

4. Suspicious little Sam I. Am feels that this is not good. Suggests that Mr. Sam ask lawyer to call agent.

And now all hell breaks loose...

5. Agent starts lying. Big time. First Mr. Agent says (take notes, kids, this is a good one) that the official MLS listing (which listed the house as a four bedroom house) is the result of a software glitch. Lawyer expresses disbelief. Agent then says that he and Seller knew that the room in question wasn't a bedroom, but decided to list it as a 4 bedroom house anyway for tax reasons. (Note that Agent had said to Mr. Sam earlier that the house was a 3 bedroom house for tax reasons). Agent then claims that Mr. Sam knew that the room wasn't a legal bedroom at the time the contract was signed. Now people, this is just straight out lying. I asked the agent repeatedly (needless to say in Mr. Sam's hearing) if the room was a legal bedroom. Agent repeatedly assured me that it was. 

So that's where things stand. I think I shall report Mr. Agent to the National Association of Realtors. I was perfectly happy to believe that the misrepresentation was totally accidental. These things happen. But when someone just starts straight out lying? Not so cool. What a nightmare...we just wanted to buy our first house. We didn't ask to get into a legal mess. We're also not sure where to go from here, except that we know we want to run far, far away. Unfortunately, Mr. Agent has $3000 of our money held in escrow, so we can't run yet. Mr. Sam and I feel physically sick over the whole thing. 

Waaaahhh....*sniff* waaahhhh

A point of clarification...or not.

Picture du post: Nifty looking ornamental peppers from the botanical gardens in Montreal. Must try growing some next year. (No, this has nothing to do with the post, I just like these peppers because, you know, they're black and stuff).

Mr. Sam suggested that I clarify the whole name thing. I am not Mr. Sam. Mr. Sam is my husband. I am Sam. Mr. Sam has a brother named Sam, but he is not the Sam who is the subject and/or author of this blog. No, I am merely Sam. Well, not really. My legal name is something else entirely, but I haven't used it for a decade or so, so it probably doesn't matter much. Also, while I realize this is Vermont and all, I should probably clarify that I am, in fact, a female Sam, rather than a male Sam (not that I have any problem with such marriages, I just don't happen to be in one).

If that clarified matters at all for you than you should seriously consider a career as a college textbook author.

Because finding an agent isn't hard enough...

So far this weekend the following fun and interesting things have occurred:

1. Real Estate deal fell through. No house for Sam and Mr. Sam. Well...not unless seller of house drops the price by ~$10,000, since it was misrepresented as a four bedroom house, when it has (follow me carefully here, this is difficult) three legal bedrooms. Three != Four, people.

2. One of Sam's friends and/or relations went crazy. Literally.

3. Not to be outdone by Sam's friends and relations, Mr. Sam's mother got sick(er)... in the beginnings-of-heart attack sort of way. I know in-laws are often competitive, but really...

4. Agent #1, who has Sam's partial, has not responded. Agent #1 says he tries to respond within six weeks *at most* of receiving partial. It has been over thirteen.

5. Agents #2-3, who have queries, have also not responded.

6. Sam has done diddly/squat work towards her PhD qualifying exam this weekend. Sam's work computer has decided that it is fun and interesting thing to crash two or three times a week. This makes working on a major document more than a little nerve-wracking. And people, this computer is only a year old. And it's a mac. Macs aren't supposed to suck.


On the other hand, Sam's environmentally friendly, organic, low carbon footprint and [insert your buzzword of choice here] is growing nicely. There are lots of tomatoes. There are peppers. There are baby courgettes (sorry folks, I can never spell zuchinininini, so I'll stick with the franco-british word from here on out). There are even ground cherries, which should be interesting. Miserably humid weather + rain = happy plants.