Motorcycling

So I haven't been posting that much lately so here's a post that may or may not be boring but its something.

Oh yes, before I go on I should reiterate why I have the blog. I don't think I have wonderful opinions that I should bless the rest of the world with, but I do have some friends who like to check out what I'm up to.

I have my new motorcycle, it survived being dropped by me on the very first day and I haven't been riding it a whole lot in part because the weather hasn't been great, my focus has been skiing and I don't really know anything about maintenance. Well, today the maintenance thing changed. Ivan, a fellow I met in the band, has a motorcycle and today I went to his place and we went over the entire bike. He showed me how to change oil, lube the chain, check tension, check everything and now I feel like the bike is in top form (hmmm, except for that pesky no speedometer thing...). It was great, an excellent learning experience and then we went out for a ride. The weather here in Vancouver is pretty darn nice (for spring) so we just went back and forth out behind UBC. There's a big forest with long fast roads and some turny places so we had some fun. And its nice and close to where I live.

Anyway, the bike is ready and now its time for me to mark those f***ing undergrad exams. They're paying me but at this point its not worth the money (hmmm, then again it would be nice to know how fast I'm going...)

Totally Awesome Bacteria

How awesome is this - bacterial art. I got it as an attachment so I can't credit the original. What you're seeing is the same E. coli species with different plasmids expressing different variants of GFP (probably). GFP is a natural fluorescent protein that was originally isolated from jellyfish. Anyway, the people in the lab streaked the different E. coli cultures, let them grow overnight and then exposed the petri dish to UV light to make the fluorescent proteins ....well, fluoresce. In the lab I'm working with a few types of GFP proteins but not enough to make this artwork. And who says scientists aren't artistic!

Burr-day

Yeah its my burr-day! Todays topics are Facecrack and an ode to my alarm clock.

First off - I love my alarm clock. I've had it since elementary school. The best feature is you can dim the digital time light making it bright enough to see in the day but you can turn it down so it doesn't light up your room at night. My alarm clock also has two alarms, a backup battery and a radio. The radio dial button is kind of stuck so it makes changing it difficult sometimes but I never seem to change it anyway. I listen to the radio long enough to get to a commercial break, get annoyed at the commercials and then turn it off. My parents bought me a replacement once but the stupid display was sooo bright I could read by it. Otherwise it looked like a good potential replacement with the added bonus of being able to play CD's.

Facecrack - yes it is highly addictive. You can look up old friends and keep track of what everyone back at home is doing even better than using the mom network (mind you the mom network is still where its at for juicy stories). First, just a few friends are on and inviting you to join but then suddenly its a tidal wave. Yeah yeah, you can avoid it and sound like the man who doesn't own a tv.

Can you tell that right now I'm having a real bitch of a time explaining how for my mechanism of inhibition Ki does correspond to Km of the inhibitor?

Spring Stuff

First off - Andrea's birthday wine and cheese. That was a yummy evening. Here Sachi and Grace position themselves with the best seats in the house.

Then it was spring skiing at Whistler. It was a gorgeous day but windy at the top. In the distance you can see the needle point of Black Tusk.

Then at our house we arranged an afternoon of tradition egg painting. Here is an egg in yellow dye. The black stuff is beeswax applied to block the dye from staining.

Here are the results - mine is the blue one.

And here's the second egg that I did. Thanks to Donna for organizing the afternoon.