By the light of the silvery moon.

Aunt Jo, Uncle Frank, Lisa, Nate, Dad, and I rented snowshoes and went up the canyon to South Fork. It was a crystal clear night with a full moon and beautiful snow glistening in the trees. We hiked along the river, found an elk bedding, and figured out how those complicated snowshoe straps worked. It was fabulous fun and I'm glad we went then because the next day, I came down with the second worst case of food poisoning I've ever had. So . . . needless to say, I wouldn't have felt up to it.

Ready to graduate? Not so much.

So in making my frankenprotein, I have to gel purify the PCR reactions. In other words, I've made a lot of copies of the DNA (PCR) and now I want it to be nice and shiny and clean (gel purify) before the assembly tonight. So I needed to pour a big, big gel. I was looking at the rectangular gel box trying to decide what volume it was. Naturally, I could have measured it with a ruler and calculated it. Or, I could have just poured water into the box and seen how milliliters it took to fill. Or, I could do what any good graduate student would do and say, it looks like 400 mLs and call it good. Fact was, it was good. When I poured the liquid agarose into the box for casting, it was perfect. As I stood in the cold room admiring my work, I thought, "I'm ready to graduate." Then, the tape on the sides of the casting tray started leaking and about 200 mLs of agarose laden with toxic EtBr went all over the counter. I was laughing pretty hard as I swabbed the entire counter with paper towels. Ready to graduate? Not so much. Ready to go home for Christmas? Absolutely!

It's alive! Bwah-hah-hah!

On July 12th of 2004, I started working on making three proteins in hopes that I could generate two complex crystal structures. After hmmm . . . what is that? Thirty-six years? Anyway, at a later date, namely now, I've given up that venture and am taking a new tack in the form of dum, dum, dum . . . FRANKENPROTEINS!!! That's right. Thirty oligos came in the mail this afternoon and tonight about 8 PM, I got the PCR started that will generate . . . get this: insect leader.MHC alpha chain.linker 1.MHC beta chain.linker 2.MBP peptide.linker 3.TCR beta chain.linker 4.TCR alpha chain. It's at the end of the fourth quarter with 3 minutes to go, so it's a bit of a hail mary.

What are you smiling at?

So, I passed by Roland's office on Monday morning and he called out, "Pre-doctor McBeth, get in here". I backtracked from towards the water cooler and walked through the doorway and said, "Good morning Roland! What can I do for you?". To which he responded, "What are you so happy for?" I replied in a mock depressed tone "Oh sorry. I mean, uh . . . what's going on boss? Is that better?" "Yes, much better." Anyway, just in case you were thinking that Roland is unusual among the realm of PI's. Think again friends. Here is today's comic from www.phdcomics.com (the only coping mechanism many of us doctoral students have). Pay particular attention to the first panel. Read the rest, this is reality and can list off about thirty.six times any of these situations has happened.

Willie says give it a go.

So the top twelve graduate students in the nation are awarded the Weintraub and have their names published in Science, Nature, and Cell. I don't think top graduate students spend time writing on the internet when they should be doing a gel purification, ligation, and transformation in exasperation . . . so my chances may not be good. But I say, wussie pansies never won awards so I'm turning the corner to say, "Hello failure. I've got stuff to do so get outta my way." Actually, what really came to mind when I decided to apply was "Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt" -Wm. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene IV. I absolutely believe that's true so I'm going for it.

Look at the fountain grass Suzy!!!

Tonight for FHE we went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. I was expecting to stroll along and look at some trees that had some lights in them a la Temple Square but less awesome. Instead, we found the entire gardens in full electrical bloom. They make flowers out of string lights and then put up little metal tags next to the displays . . . as if it were summer! Ahhh, what we Seattlites won't do in order to pretend that "summer" isn't just a time lasting twenty-seven days spread out among June through August. No, it was actually fantastic. I mentioned the fountain grass about a hundred times, but Suzy mentioned the hanging baskets three hundred times, so we're even. Here is a picture from the website of the pond. Yup, that's a swan made out of lights. Eat that cheesy take-home tin foil swan.

O come Emmanuel

Wow. Tonight we (Emily, Suzy, Jonny, Steve, Megan, Lisa and I) went to Emily's grandparent's house in Burien for the annual tree-lighting ceremony. After delish appetizers up at the house, we all wandered down the street for the ceremony. What beauty did await our eyes when we saw that the entire neighborhood had turned out to celebrate Christmas. A rock band was banging out "O come Emmanuel" on electric guitars in the gazebo while the words played across a projector screen in the yard. Cookies and hot cocoa were for the taking in the garage and lights bedecked the stored bicycles and even some of the other guests. When the tree was lit, hmm . . . a picture really is worth a thousand words here. I don't think we took any snaps but wow. It looked like someone scrambled to the top, dropped a few tangles of lights on six of the branches and then jumped out to safety. It was spectacular.

That's a lotta cash for a pile of Skippy.

This past weekend, the other graduate student in our lab, Colin, proposed to his girlfriend Sasha. Colin, Matt, and I were chatting about the ring and Colin says, "I didn't want to spend more than 11". $1100 seemed a little low for a guy like Colin to be spending on a ring for a girl such as Sasha so I ventured, "thousand?". Colin nodded. How did this kind of extortion start? I had a roommate whose fiance worked three jobs and slept in a basement room the size of his matress to pay for her ring. Let's review, diamonds can be made out of peanut butter. And that's a waste of peanut butter. Life is unpredictable. $11,000 could go a long way towards medical bills, car repairs, or I dunno, retirement savings? But . . . I'm still a hopeless romantic though so here's what I'd like for the sweet price of $295. (Notice the "." after the first three numbers.)

It's pretty flashy, which always = fun, but c'mon, for that price, it's too hard to resist. Obviously it is way too big for every day wear. How could I dig out the toy cars the kids threw down the disposal with a rock like that blocking the way? My finance and I can spend the remaining $10,705 on a honeymoon to anywhere and still have enough for the black hole (that vast vacuum where money can be saved and escapes only for mortgage payments and ski trips).

Pablo Pichrisso

After racking my brain for twenty.three minutes about what to give my brother for Christmas, this came to mind. I vaguely remembered that my brother liked Pablo Picasso's painting of Don Quixote. So, I painted it. By that I mean I bought a canvas and paint, made a transparency, and painted it. I was really pleased with how it turned out. Feliz Navidad Jefe!

Giving thanks for home.

This past weekend was spent with my family in Orem, Utah. This was a great place to grow up with lots of mountains and rivers to play in. People who think Seattle has mountains are kidding themselves. I think they view the interior as a vast wasteland of tractors. Utter nonsense. Our country's beautiful inside and out. Anyway, it was wonderful just relaxing with the family. We don't chatter away a lot. We just are content to be around each other and make sure that the grandkids are happy. We watched a few movies, went bowling, and made gingerbread houses. Up there is a picture of my mom and Carson decorating their gingerbread house. Down there is a picture of my nephew Colter bowling. I love being home.

rakish \rā-kish\: dashing, jaunty, or slightly disreputable

Our article on 1.D9.B2 (a TCR) got accepted into JMB and when this happens for anyone you usually get to submit figures for the journal cover. Sometime last week, I took in some of the figures I'd prepared to Roland. In short, he thought they were garbage and wanted the TCR shown at a rakish angle. Rakish? Yes rakish. The Snickers commercials phrase: "Wanna get away?" definitely came to mind. Below is one of the four we're submitting with Matt's suggestion on final positioning. It is better than what I had originally posted, so I hope we get the cover . . . but I really need to go home for Thanksgiving.

Cold to the Core

Tonight we went curling at the Granite Curling Club. For a Hamilton, they'll give you about two hours of sliding heaven instruction. The key to an excellent evening curling is to push the stone during the release. Although not technically against the rules, its usually considered to be a lowbrow play. That being said, the stones were not getting to the house without it. Push it. Push it good. Also, there apparently is no smack talking in this game. i.e., the coach didn't seem too thrilled about me yelling "Sweep! Sweep!" to the other team when their stone was already going too fast. It's off to the hot shower for me. After a morning of rain and an evening of ice, call me Coldilocks.

Soaked to the Skin

This morning Jonny, Emily, and I got together to run an orienteering course at Magnuson Park. Two weeks ago at SeaTac Park when I beat Jonny for the first time, I wore a fleece jacket and almost caught the underbrush on fire I was so toasty. This week, I went with an ultra-thin cotton long-sleeved which proved to be just as unwise. Although the in-bed peering-out-the-window weather assessment was gray but dry skies, the second we stepped foot on the course, it started pouring. It was muddy, brambly, and puddly. In a word, delightful. Fleece is too hot. Cotton is too cold. This Goldilocks is on the lookout for a nice breathable rain jacket. As I'm here in lab this afternoon (gotta work hard too) I'm just glad I had some extra-warm jammies to change into.

It really is just the best flavah.

"You're as popular and relaxing as vanilla ice cream. You go with the flow, and get along with all sorts of people. You appreciate peace and simplicity, so you sometimes find crowds and loud noises overwhelming. You are a chilled-out, calming influence on the people in your life, and your friends appreciate how supportive and flexible you are. "

I once ordered vanilla ice cream mixed with vanilla wafers at the local ice cream mix parlor. Really blonde hair, my favorite color is white, are we sensing the trend?

Always a bridesmaid . . .

The pictures from our Halloween costumes just rolled in from Emily. Here we are as a matching set of bridesmaids. I love our bouquets. Suzy and I went to Pikes to grab the flowers.

Twenty bucks later we had secured two huge bouquets of flowers. The men of Seattle have no excuse to not track down flowers for their women. Elsewhere, these would have easily cost seven times that. So, this is actually about how much I love flowers. They're gorgeous and completely impractical. They're going to die and we know it. The point is that they're beautiful and we women think about you whenever we see them. Isn't that what you men really want? Furthermore, there are some flowers that when I see them, even years later, I still think of certain men because they gave me a bouquet of that type. Dear wonderful men, get to Pikes, get to Pikes.
As a side note, while you beautiful men are buying us flowers, treat yourselves to a $2.75 bag of mini-donuts. Don't think about the filthy man serving them, just ponder this donut perfection.

Uh, okay so this eye makeup may be why I'm still a bridesmaid. But how fun is it to just load it on. Ladies around the world will agree with me on this one.

Incandescent Love

Global warming has crossed the line. I applaud some of the side effects such as people being wise stewards of their resources, being aware of their consumption, and planting trees as a family on Saturday mornings. This is stuff they should have doing all along. But they have crossed the line when they want to pass legislation to ban incandescent light bulbs. The warmth and depth of the light that comes from that shining beam of tungsten is visual bliss. Compact fluorescents offer nothing more than the harsh angles of visual scissors. Can you imagine holding a garden party on a soft summer evening with the ambience of a garage workshop? I may act like a crazyface and store up a forty-year supply of Thomas Edison's finest hour.

Happy Carbon Offset Day!!!

Today is apparently the First Annual Carbon Offset Day. If they had really been thinking, they would have named it "Carbon Offset Observation Day" which would of course make it "CO2 Day". Do you see how important it is that everyone just hire me as their consultant? I wouldn't charge a dime because it would be enough to see people's fabulous ideas bloom to their full potential. Things like this carbon monoxide day disappoint me. They were so close to cleverness, they just fell short by about 24 particles. Anyway, Suzy Brambles, Sarah Hemlock, and I planted trees at Pioneer Park in Mercer Island. The best part (besides how beautifully soft the soil in western WA is) was the tree planting diagram. Apparently only partially planting a tree and then covering your mistakes with leaves is not acceptable. You do need to tuck them in nice and cozy though. I think we reduced Seattle's carbon footprint a bit which means orienteering is a viable option for years to come. Hurrah for ulterior motives!!!

Protein Angst

Monday unfolded the culmination of four years/six months of work in the form of the oft-touted seventeen hour work day. Except for a lovely two hours of FHE, I was digging in the protein trenches from 9:30 AM to 4:00 AM. Fortunately there is a thing called NOVA Online (Picture below is of the Andromeda Galaxy which is what the episode I watched was on).


Andromeda Galaxy, Paolo Candy

It definitely helped pass the column running hours. Today finalized the analysis of that work. Result? Nothing. Nada. Nicht. Et cetera. Oh, the pain and horror of it all. Whatever. The only bright side is that three years ago, I would have spent the next couple days sniffing away the tears. Now, this has happened so many times that I went and got some delish teriyaki and watched a movie on my laptop. I feel much better. In fact, I might go back to lab in a few minutes. See how ill grad school will make you?

Social without being social?

Tonight Suzy and I went to watch our fantastic UW volleyball players Jessica and Chantel. Um, we may have watched the first two.five games by ourselves despite knowing that half our ward was six sections away. We just had lots to chat about and weren't ready to mix and mingle. Someday we may regret this antipathy, but not this day.

Vampire O

Tonight, before the Halloween party, Jonny, Suzy, Jonny's parents, and I all went Vampire Orienteering. This is a spectacular event every Halloween where it's a Score O with a few of the people starting out with red flashlights. If you get "bit" by the red light, then you have to give up your score card and take theirs. You probably have to start over collecting a lot of the punches, but it was crazy fun. Suzy and I never got bit and ended up 13th out of about 60+ groups. The best part of the event was that it was at night. It is triple fun running through the dense forest at night with a headlamp. Loved every minute of it. Here's Jonny and Suzy at the McD (a Bingham favorite) after the meet as well as Janet (Jonny's mom) and I.

I heart Jason Smith.

Oh man. I listen to ESPN radio every night when I go to bed and fall asleep laughing. Jason Smith is the all.night sports commentator for ESPN and is brilliant. The other night he was commenting on the OJ Simpson robbery case and said . . . It's like The Juice bursts into the hotel room like the Kool-Aid man saying "Oh YEAH!". Ahh, the visual was too much. It took an extra thirteen minutes to fall asleep that night for that reason alone.

Trip down memory lane

While I sit here in lab waiting for the 8.8DT digest to run out on an agarose gel, the 8.6DT inclusion bodies to spin down, and the TB to cool down so I can grow my 8.6HS and 8.8HS constructs O/N, I am going to post some of the pictures that are sitting on my computer. This is part of the play hard motto whilst I am still working hard or hardly working, at the moment.

First off, here is a picture of Tim, me, Jonny, Danny, Wendy, and John at my 24th birthday party at Broadway Grill. Their creme brulee and sweet potato fries are fantastic.

Here's the rest of the group with Tiffany, Michelle, Seth, Jenny, Marissa, Tim, and I. The missing peep is Cassandra, the picture taker.

Later that fall, the current roommates (Cassandra, Megan, Me, Jenny, and Wendy) went to a masquerade ball. Clearly, not any of us were up for the mask thing and were more for showing off our beautiful selves. Awww, Megan was just a little freshman at the time. Isn't she fabulous in that black/magenta cocktail dress?

Here's where we fast-forward to my 25th birthday. As I was 25, I grabbed Megan, Jonny, and Whitney, rented an SUV with sunroof and 6-CD changer and pounded down to Ocean Shores for an excellent day of surfing. We have tons of pictures from this trip, but all of us would object to posting them. It turns out that (sandy hair + saltwater)^(neoprene) does not equal attractive. Who knew?
I'm holding two of the most delicious little alphabet cookies made. I can never move away from Trader Joe's. Ever. Unless I'm in jolly old England. Then it might be okay.

I told you that people do not look their hottest in neoprene, but it does keep you warm in the frosty waters of Washington.

Here's me apres-party chilling in front of the sweet ride. Actually I really wanted a blue Xterra, but they didn't save my reservation. In a turn of irony, when we returned the rental, it was sitting in the rental garage, newly returned. Hope someone enjoyed my 25th birthday in my dream car. It didn't matter, the car was still super fun and the surfing was great.

So, that night we had a party at our house, here are some snaps. Here's a picture of me with the birthday candles on my favorite dessert, pumpkin pie. I'm not really sure what I'm saying at this point, but these type of odd faces/hand gestures are super-common with me.

This is Tim, Me, and Danny all smiles to be having a good time.

Here's a snap of me and Jonny

And, as if that wasn't all enough, we had a roommate breakfast the next morning. I say, if you're going to turn 25, you might as well go all out.


And finally, the one Halloween in my sum total 26 years of life that I actually thought of something I wanted to dress up as and went for it. I hope its obvious that I dressed up as the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia. Well, it made sense to everyone at the time as the movie had just come out. As I look at the first picture, I think, wow, I look super friendly. The second is Whitney and I as we chilled in the basement at the party watching Harrison Ford be evil for once in "What Lies Beneath".


Okay, actually just a few more pictures. So here we are at the Street Scramble at the Market. Basically, you have two hours to run through the streets of Seattle visiting as many mapped locations as possible. Emily and I were a team against Jonny and Suzy. We basically tied in scores (they had a faster time) but because our division (ladies) isn't as competitive as theirs (mixed) we got a second place ribbon. Jonny and Suzy were spectacular with 11th place out of 92 teams. Emily and I were 14th out of 92 teams. We were absolutely shocked. Everyone was wearing their ultralite REI running tights and jackets. We showed up in our jammies.
Emily and I really don't get ready in the morning when we go orienteering or scrambling. Don't worry about it. We don't have to look like rockstars in order to have our super secret map Emily made help us on to our victory.

Suzy and Jonny, however, look ready to roll.

After the race at the gum wall in Post Alley with our victorious ribbons.

We later did a race at Seward Park where Emily and I took first in our division. Jonny and Suzy got 5th. Orienteering isn't our best sport but for some reason, we roll the Scrambles out. Our team name is Blonde Domination and Gone Too Far. Both appropriate titles for Emily and I. I love Seattle! I also posted the picture of Emily's shins post-bramble encounter at one of the control points. She deserves the sympathy.

Snakes, Rivers, and Leiderhosen

This past weekend we went to Leavenworth to go tubing on the Wenatchee. On our way out, we listened to the soundtrack from Sound of Music (as Leavenworth is our very own Bavarian hideout, or town, whatever). Um, the boys weren't too enthusiastic about our choice of music, but we ladies were all for it. Here's a typical distribution on a trip. Boys all on one side (Ray, CJ, Jonny, Tom), girls on the other (Suzy, me, Sarah). Not really sure why the segregation, but it is absolute in our ward.

We passed by the Reptile Museum in Monroe that houses the world's ten deadliest snakes. When we walked through the door, it was packed and the people were crowding around the boa constrictor that was in the middle of eating a rabbit whole. Wow! What a train wreck that is impossible to look away from. Here's us holding an albino python or something and me poking the cute tortoise. (If you're wondering about the boy-girl order, the photographer actually told us to re-sort ourselves.)


Then, we went tubing and we're excited about being in the sun after a ridiculously shoddy "summer" in Seattle.

Here's us on the bus. Yeah, we were all really happy about the prospects of tubing in the sunny sun sunshine that was sunny. Did I mention it was sunny?


And some snaps of us out on the water. As you can see, these tubes are deluxe. They have a nice back rest and plenty of cupholders.




Then, it was on to Leavenworth for leiderhosen, accordian music, and delicious brats.