Yes I'm lame

I didn't post the photos and I probably won't get to it tonight because of the concert. Bad blogger, bad!

Why do I suddenly have a social life?

I'm not going to make it to knitting tomorrow night. I'll be going to the Toad charity concert instead since a friend of a friend has an extra ticket. It's a benefit for the SB Rape Crisis Center so you if like the group at all, it's worth the $30 ticket. I will be there next week though.

We (Brian, Dawn and Kathleen) went to see Glenn Phillips yesterday at Soho and he was good as always but without A/C, the temperature was a bit insane. It may be a bit much to see him twice in one week but they should be very different concerts.

After I get back from my softball game (and end of season pizza, beer and ice cream binge) I'll post the photos from the NYC trip. AND!!!! Marius gets back this weekend from S. Africa and none too soon given the phone bill we've racked up while he's been over there. Since he's been away for a month there may be a longer than normal period without posts. :)

back but it doesn't feel like it

For those of you who have no access to national news outlets, California is experiencing a severe heat wave. I got back from D.C./NYC less than a week ago to 100 degree days in Santa Barbara. Now it's hot and the sea layer has moved back in (hopefully to cool things off a bit at some point) so it's hot, humid and hazy. I feel like I'm back on the east coast!

I had an excellent time on my trip. We managed to grab tickets to Spamalot with my brother and his girlfriend and had some excellent Italian food and some terrible Irish pub food (that place apparently stays in business by being known as a serious meat market).

Even without the original cast, Spamalot was funny (to me as well as to the large portion of the audience unfamiliar with Monty Python). It's always a bit odd being the only one in a large room laughing, but I now realize that I must subject my immediate family to a Monty Python fest the next time we are all together so that they can understand the "inside" jokes. I was only sad that "Help, I'm being oppressed!" was never shouted during the course of the show. There was a random reference to "suspenders and a bra" so I can't complain too much. Kristen from the Thursday knit group tells me that the Wynn (win?) in Vegas is doing a permanent installation of the show and should have most of the original cast back at the beginning at least. I'm tempted to try for tickets given that it would include Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce and Tim Curry.

Wicked was fantastic despite major changes to the plot (only one completely contradicted the novel where scarecrows are a small race of people and not a spell that only half worked on a single individual as in the musical). The cast has also changed (although Carol Kane is still in it) but I think the new woman in the Glinda role is better than the original if the CD recording is anything to go by. Mom loved the show largely because of Glinda's performance even though she got the tickets as a treat for me and hasn't even read the book.

I'll try and post photos from the trip tomorrow. We tried hard to get good touristy ones from Times Square and Rockefeller Center so they should be cheesy.

I'm off

to see the wizard....

Well, I'm off to D.C. for the weekend. My mother got tickets to Wicked so we're taking the train up to NYC together to see the show and visit my brother's girlfriend. He's also going to be up there for the weekend preparing for job interviews so we'll do some quality family time as well. I'll be at knitting early tonight but then I've got to leave early and run to the airport.

I'll post about the trip when I get back.

What happens when I go out to the field.

So as many of you know, I went out a few weekends ago to do field work (ie. collect data from shrubs people have been watching for nearly 30 years). We have a site that is just north of Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert. I went out with my boss and one of his first students, the current provost of UMass. These guys are quickly closing in on 60 (well, one is already there) and apparently suffer from a bit of hearing loss. We come back to our camp at the end of a day and I hear a rattling noise.

Of course, I leap back making funny "I'm scared out of my mind" noises causing the guys laugh at me (rather loudly I must say). Until I point out that the cause of my behavior is a mojave green rattlesnake that has decided that our tanks of nitrogen gas might be interesting prey (they track heat and giant metal tanks get very hot in the desert sun). Even after I pointed the thing out, they still couldn't hear it.

Now, I've worked in places where these snakes are before. I even came with in a few inches of stepping on one once. However, they have all been very relaxed snakes. This one was on caffeine and speed, in full strike position and rattling its butt off.

Snakes in general are not so scary. This one is though. Its venom includes the usual run of the mill stuff that other rattlesnakes have as well as a neurotoxin which apparently can cause you to stop breathing within 15 minutes of being bit (don't quote me here, this is all stuff I've been told by other non-herp scientists).

Given that they've led long lives, the guys offered to deal with it. So using one of my tent poles they began to try and move it.Of course, it immediately went under a bush which made grabbing it that much more exciting.
Eventually though, they managed to get it into a paper bag to carry it away... using the tent pole of course.
Here are my heroes carrying the evil villain snake off into the sunset.
And a last shot of Bruce with the snake safely deposited too far away to crawl back overnight and surprise us when we're working at 2 am.
Bruce's wife insisted that I walk ahead of everyone once she heard the story since I was apparently the only one in the group who could hear the thing! So their chivalry and machismo died a quick death. At least no one was bit and we didn't see it again for the rest of the trip.

Oh and did I mention that it was 113 degrees F in the shade? Every day?

I love being a scientist.

spinning tonight!

Just a quick post for those who go to the Monday spinning group. It's at Mary's (the big farmhouse on Glenn Annie north of Cathedral Oaks). Feel free to email or call for directions if you need them.

I'll be there late because I have my usual Monday night knitting group AND a softball game to play before I can go (not in that order fortunately!).

Oh, yeah, did I mention work? I got a big grant proposal in on Friday so that's calmed down a bit and I will have time for all of my evening activities for once in a long time. I'll post photos and stories of all of the other happenings tomorrow night probably.

This weekend I go to D.C. to visit Mom (both of our husbands are out of town (the country) for July so Dad sent me a ticket. We're going to hop on a train up to NYC and have tickets to Wicked!!!! I'll definitely post about that trip when I get back.

Hope to see you tonight!