this biochemical life

Liz, one of my best friends from college, recently started her own blog, “Loving this Life“.  She’s the mother of four, and homeschools.  How she finds time to blog I’ll never know! Liz and her husband and I had some great times in college.  They’ve since moved across the country, but I’m glad to be able to follow up on them and see how they’re doing.  If you have a moment, stop by and say hello!

On Saturday the E-man got his first ice cream from the ice cream man.  There’s an ice cream truck that travels around the area during the summers, and we finally though the E-man was old enough to take him out for an ice cream.  Needless to say, he loved it.

I just finished my last class as a first-year law student.  I have 4 exams over the next two weeks, but the end is in sight.  I can’t believe how incredibly fast the year has flown by - I guess school just kept me too busy to notice!

In 2006, the Keeseville Volunteer Fire Department in Upstate New York led a 10-day rescue effort for a rafter who was missing in the Ausable River.  They continued their search long after other agencies had given up.

The father of the rafter wrote an essay (available on the website) to nominate the Fire Department for a $100,000 grand prize in the Circuit City firedog Across America contest.  Anyone can go and vote for the department until May 13.  As a bonus, each and every vote counts as $1 for the fire department!  I highly recommend going and voting to help money get to fire departments that can really use it!

This is a little belated, but I thought the pictures were too cute not to post them. The E-man loved hunting for Easter eggs!

A cake made by Grandma for her grandchildren’s second Easter (you can see a picture of the cake she made last year here at “Easter Part II“). Notice the two candies missing in the lower left-hand corner - the E-man couldn’t wait!

The average high on April 22nd in my city is 59F.  Today, the temperature topped out at almost 80F!!  In April!  Less than a week ago school was canceled due to all the snow from a Nor’easter.  In light of the excellent weather we decided to have an impromptu barbecue.  My family came over and we had roasted chicken breast with pesto and red peppers, roasted corn-on-the-cob, and potato salad (not roasted, of course).  The E-man played outside the whole time.  He had the time of his life.  All the life forms, the worms, the bugs, the dandelions, were new to him.  He spent hours exploring and digging through the dirt.  It was an incredible spring (or summer?) day.

I’m ready, where’s lunch?

And finally, the perfect end to the perfect day:

During the month of March my wife and I recorded every word that the E-man knew and used. We didn’t include words he only said once during repetition, but did include words that he used regularly and seemed to understand what they meant. For a list of the words, go to the new page, “The E-man’s Words“!

I went and got a haircut this afternoon.  As I’ve passed the ‘30′ mark, I’ve begun to monitor my hair a little more closely.  Not how it’s cut or combed, but the overall ‘level’ of hair.  Is there less of it?  Has my forehead been gaining ground?

Today, however, the lady cutting my hair only said one sentence to me while she was working: “You have thick hair.”

Thank you.  Every time I’ve gotten my hair cut by someone new they’ve remarked at how thick my hair is.  I haven’t heard it in the last year or two (probably because I’ve been going to the same place), so I can’t tell you how happy I was when she told me that.  She made my day.

The E-man loves “Finding Nemo”!  There’s fish, sharks, whales, and birds.  All the favorites!  I was just wondering though, am I the only one who skips the beginning of the movie (when the shark eats Coral and the other eggs)?  In the E-man’s world, Marlin is single and has a single child for no apparent reason!

If you’re a parent, it’s probably happened to you.  You’ve finally found the toy, in mint-condition, that you played with as a child, but when you present it to your toddler she only uses it once before it becomes the property of the closet.  Or you take your child to see a park or a monument that you vividly remember visiting when you were just 10 years old.  Instead of expressing amazement and wonder your child asks if he can go back to the car to watch a DVD.  My son is only 23 months old and I’ve experienced a situation just like this.  As parents our fondest wish is that our children will have a childhood that is as happy or happier then the one we had.  We want to share our memories with them, to foster the same interests and loves that we value so dearly.

But as we all learn, you can’t force your children to have the same fond memories of childhood that you have.  You probably can’t even recreate the same situations in the hope that they will grab onto the same memories.  Maybe they don’t care about picking out the perfect Christmas tree or playing with that toy you found for only $150 on Ebay.  All we can do as parents is to give them the opportunity to create their own memories.  Each child is different and has their own preferences and desires.  I’m sure that when we look back in 20 or 30 years we’ll be amazed at the things that our children associate with their childhood.

Here are two great articles (here and here) from the Wall Street Journal that talk about the disappointment parents can feel when their children don’t have the reaction they expected.

A while ago, for fun, I calculated the percentage of my and my wife’s Irish ancestry. It’s a rough estimate but as accurate as I can make it. My percentage is roughly 16% while my wife’s is roughly 20%. So I wanted to wish a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to 16% of my ancestors!

I was on much-need spring break this week and got to spend some great time with the E-man.  The other night I introduced him to Play-doh for the very first time.  He loved it of course, and played with it for almost 2 hours.

Today we went to Target for a little shopping spree.  I bought “Stranger Than Fiction”, which I really enjoyed.  The E-man got a “Diego” video.  Then we went to the pet store to check out the animals.  We loved the fishes and the birds and the cats!  The small mammals were all missing though.  Hope nothing terrible happened (like a snake got loose!).  Then we went to Price Chopper to get some supplies in case coming Noreaster gets too bad.  He feel asleep on the way home.  We had a great day.  I really wish spring break wasn’t almost over.

Here are a few pictures:

Last week I completed my final task as a graduate student.  I had to stop in at the lab to sign a release for my last paper, which will soon be published.  That signature was my last obligation to completing my graduate work.  I was both exciting and a little sad.

In total, I finished with five papers, a very respectable number for the school I went to.  To see a list, see Pubmed (there’s only four right now, the fifth hasn’t been added yet).  I was a supplementary author on two of the papers, but for the other three I worked my a** off and as a result I am the first author.  The review I wrote as a qualification requirement (which, by the way are seldom published!) has been cited by over 50 other papers since it was published! My second first-author paper is the data paper that I spent years doing experiments for.  Ironically, that paper will get the fewest cites!  My last first-author paper is a review of my research topic (a certain human protein), so I expect that will get a number of cites over the next few years since so little is currently known about it and I think it has a huge role in mammalian cells.

So, I’m glad to be finished.  No more waiting for acceptance decisions or reviewer’s comments.  Instead, I have a ten page paper legal memo to write!

Yesterday after classes the family went out with my wife’s cousin’s family to the local Chuck E. Cheese (a children’s play place with games and lots of things to keep the kids busy). Here’s a few pictures of the fun!

This picture wasn’t taken at Chuck E. Cheese’s, but it was too funny not to include!!

This week we decided it was time to upgrade our digital camera.  We had an HP Photosmart 935 camera, and we’ve taken over 6000 pictures with it since we bought it in October 2003!  That’s over 150 pictures per month!  It was a great camera and it took fantastic pictures.  Truth be told I’m going to miss it a little.

These days, with so many options, picking out a digital camera can be a long and arduous process.  We had a few important criteria including quick writing speed, long battery life, both automatic and manual controls, and positive reviews.  I spent a few days doing some research before we finally settled on the Canon PowerShot A540. It is both a point-and-shoot and a manual camera, allowing us to take traditional pictures and try some new things.  We’re looking forward to taking lots of great pictures!

Here are a few early ones (actually, these are pictures #33 and #35)!!