And me, Janet, Suzy, and Leslie. 
The post-run wrap-up is pretty much the best part of the morning as we laugh and talk about how we got lost and tripped up by the logs and ferns and brambles. Here's Leslie and Janet and Mark. 
And finally, the whole gang together. Love it. 
The ALS is a source of synchrotron radiation with a huge storage ring and then dozens of beamlines coming off to do experiments on. We double ran the 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 and I learned to collect x-ray data. Basically we have protein crystals that sit in looped pins in liquid nitrogen to keep 'em cold. Then an amazing robot system pulls the crystals out of the liquid and mounts them into the x-ray beam. Then, you have to push a button inside the hutch, walk outside the hutch, close the door, push another button, walk down and push another button, and then walk around the computer and push another button. All of these controls are because 1 nanosecond of x-ray beam exposure would equal your yearly dose of radiations. Here's the source. It's straight up science fictiony! 
In the words of the technician "you can't commit suicide but you can be murdered so be nice to everyone here." Here's the hutch looking towards the storage ring. 
My great-grandfather actually got his PhD here in Berkeley and wanted to be buried in the hills above Berkeley. They are beautiful, here are some more pictures. 
But I'll be honest, I don't want to be buried in the hills above where I got my PhD. That's Capitol Hill and the most common clothing are six-inch stilettos and feather boas. On both men and women. So, that's out, I'm just saying.
really spectacular but was uh, interesting. In short, it was a PANDEMIC of snow, bad travel, fun family, a bad cold, and the actual game PANDEMIC (pictured here with most of world infected). Seattle got slammed by piles of snow and I was a little worried I wouldn't make it to the airport since I was trying to take the bus. Given that some other buses that day plowed down a steep street and into a barrier, ultimately hanging over I-5, I guess I should be grateful I made it at all. Once I got home, I settled into a nice and deep chest cold that lasted the full 10 days and a bit more. I guess I should be glad it wasn't like last year before when I got food poisoning from who know's what and was throwing up every hour for fourteen hours . . . hum, maybe next year my parents won't have to put up with me being sick. So in short, I spent ten days in bed and right when I started feeling better, it was time to go back to school. But, the weather was beautiful, I got to see some friends, spend time with aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, and my grandmother, and it snowed!!! Some highlights, the kiddos from Seattle all got together to see Suzy who recently moved down to Utah from our town. Here are the cupcakes that she made. She's amazing! 
And then of course the beautiful mountains. People who have never been to Utah's lovely corner of the country picture I don't know what, but I say "It was a fantastic place to grow up, there are two 11,000 foot mountains right outside my front door". This is Cascade Mountain that I had a hard time believing that I actually got to go to the elementary school named after it (seriously, I was REALLY excited when I found out). 
And Mount Timpanogos, which I may never make it to the top again after the 10 hour escapade of last time . . . where I ended up running a bit of the last mile just so I didn't have to be hiking anymore. 
My friend Emily and I are decorating, planning, baking fiends. By that I mean, I think she might actually do a lot of that stuff, I just dream about how much I would like to be doing that stuff. However, neither one of us has a lot of time or reason to be Martha Stewart juniors (without the insider trading or nasty temper). But this morning, we decided to flip on the Christmas music and enjoy the joy of holiday baking. Emily started off with a delicious praline chocolate double layer cake followed up with some enticing ginger snaps. We rounded out the morning with some southern cream cookies and cream cheese icing. Here is the fruit of the last parts of our labors. They'll be perfect for tomorrow's hot chocolate/candy cane lane meander party. We're particularly pround of Emily's brown color for the reindeer. They do not give the instructions on the food coloring box of how to do this. But a little bit of color theory from the bazillion art classes we've had to take due to our public educations, it worked out well.
And since we're equal opportunity holiday celebrators, we added a whole slew of white, light blue, and dark blue frosted stars of David for our friends of the Hannakah inclination. 
So, my co-worker Matt, who I've sat within three feet of for the past three years, is a Dr. Pepper fanatic. He routinely amasses mountains of empty pop cans until they reach terrifying heights at which point the custodian takes them down to the recycle bin. Well it was about time to do something with all that lovely aluminum. This may be one of the best ideas we've had in our bay yet, and believe me, we've had some real winners. To celebrate the Christmas season, I spent about twenty minutes yesterday assembling a Christmas tree out of Diet Dr. Pepper cans with Matt's hot glue gun. Matt made the star and the little package at the bottom for Roland. More fun than making protein. No question. 
