Point your browsers to The Resplendent Mango!

Welcome back, Katie!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:19 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 14 words, total size 1 kb.

The New Blog Showcase moves HERE next Monday.

If you're a new blogger who wants some publicity, or know someone who is, direct them to the link above for information on how to join in for next week.

This week's Showcase is hosted by The Paladin.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:54 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 52 words, total size 1 kb.

Mom and Dad arrive tomorrow, just in time to go to one of our favorite places for dinner (yummmmm....piggy.....)

I had to do an hour-plus power point presentation for tomorrow's class. Learning and Memory.... Need to do two more for Wednesday and Thursday and then make a test for Friday....

I'm baking a cake for Dad's birthday...

Need to bake banana bread tonight before the bananas completely die....

Need to build a 50 minute presentation for my defense

Public defense seminar on the 23rd, followed by party....

Need to make a list of people to email about the defense...

Text corrections from committee members need to be added to my dissertation and done in time to get all my paperwork in before I leave.

Moving van comes on the 29th

No (firm) job (for either of us right now), no house. Just winging it.

Mom and Dad leave on the 30th

We leave on the 1st.

Must Pack. Must Clean. Must finish graduation requirements. Must get mail forwarded.

Sleep??? Ha. I need no sleep. Bring me caffeine!!!!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 187 words, total size 1 kb.

You may recall that back in February I started a little pool about Deep Throat.

Well, we did have a winner.

kennnthomas predicted W. Mark Felt would claim to be Deep Throat, and he was correct. Congrats to you, sir! As I told you before, if you ever decide to share your unique perspective with the rest of us, I'll be more than happy to link you!

Thanks to everyone for playing, and for visiting my little corner of the blogosphere!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

Those 12, blind, ignorant F*CKS moved to Santa Maria.

I can see not convicting him on the conspiracy or the molestation. But I thought for sure they'd convict him on the "Jesus Juice"...

Oh well, at least they didn't take up residency in Redwood City before the Peterson trial.....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 05:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 57 words, total size 1 kb.

You asked for it, you got it.

Parkinson's Disease strikes the neurons of the Nigrostriatal pathway, that is, the dopamine-releasing neurons whose cell bodies reside in the Substantia Nigra and synapse in the striatum (also known as the caudate/putamen). You generally have to lose about 90% of those neurons to get any symptoms. Really. The CNS covers its own a$$.

Interestingly enough, Huntington's Disease strikes the reciprocal connections, from the caudate to the SN, and elsewhere.....

Here's a brainstem cross-section of a PD patient and a person who died from something else. Not surprisingly, the substantia nigra is the black band near the bottom-middle.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

Class seems to be going well. I like my students, for the most part, and they seem interested. I try to keep the class going with lots of clinically relevant tidbits, so they understand that it's not just colored lines on a diagram, and they make the connection between brain on paper and brain in head.

Would y'all like me to post some of those interesting bits from time to time?

Anyway, copier notwithstanding, the test went pretty well. If it was my own class (alone and long-term) I would be really happy with the way it came out. Because I'm only teaching it this semester, I need to fit it in with how the other tests given by the other TA came out. My spread skewed a little lower: 10 A's, 14 B's, 10 C's, 2 D's. Hers had more A's and B's, fewer C's. So I think I'm going to give them the opportunity to get some of those points back by making corrections. Probably 1/3 of the points they missed.... That could be a whole letter grade for the lowest folks.

Today's lecture is on neurodevelopment (Yay!) and this week's paper is about the famous case of patient HM, as I will discuss memory tomorrow.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 09:44 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 218 words, total size 1 kb.

1 I'd love interesting bits.

Posted by: Deb at June 13, 2005 10:31 AM (8n5zS)

2 I'd love to hear the tidbits. I enjoy collecting odd trivia

Posted by: vw bug at June 13, 2005 10:39 AM (n+JjT)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Here's what my sitemeter said 5 minutes ago:

Yesterday it said this week's hits were 932.

Somebody's math isn't quite right..... And it ain't mine.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:33 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 31 words, total size 1 kb.

So sorry for the multiple trackbacks.... don't ask me what MT did, but when I went back to fix a couple of typos, it posted the fixes as new posts....

I've been meaning to do a link roundup for a while, but I haven't had a lot of time. Here's what I've been looking at in the last couple of days:

Did you know Baldilocks is a white male? No really. She is. At least according to How-weird Dean...

SMASH has a roundup of reactions to this morning's SoCal earthquake. The consensus: Nothing to get worked up over.

Jay Tea at Wizbang reports on the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of NH. An Eagle scout with a BB gun.....

Michele has one of the coolest SW fan films ever. I didn't know Chewbacca played the axe, much less such an awesome one....

Rosemary takes the morning off to go see her niece and nephew baptized

Dean asks: What is your idea of the Perfect Album?

The Llama Butchers unearth a rare artifact: The Blogistan High Class of 1984 yearbook. Glad I'm much too young to have been in THAT class. Whoa.

Boudicca has been blogging a whole year!! Go wish her a Happy Blogiversary!

VW Bug had fun at Lion Country Safari with the Tater, the Tot, and some friends.

Anita has some thoughts on recognizing exceptional achievement

O my! Christina is guest-blogging for Sadie this weekend....

Pam has a sweet (tissue warning!) story and a funny story from this week....

Solomon made his first trip to the Zoo ever, and came home with some thoughts about Fathers....

Sean has an interesting take on Gay Pride Month

Laurence has been messing with the template again, and has some more questions for the cats....

I think that's about enough for now....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 03:15 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 304 words, total size 3 kb.

Craig of MTpolitics and the Spousal Unit are the new parents of a daughter, Kiran Lee, born in the wee sma's this morning....

Go congratulate them and check out the pictures!

She couldn't ask for nicer parents....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 47 words, total size 1 kb.

Which Tree did you Fall From?

WALNUT TREE (the Passion) -- unrelenting, strange and full of contrasts, often egotistic, aggressive, noble, broad horizon, unexpected reactions, spontaneous, unlimited ambition, no flexibility, difficult and uncommon partner, not always liked but often admired, ingenious strategist, very jealous and passionate, no compromise.

And quite appropriate seeing as how my tire swing was in my Grandmother's enormous Walnut tree. I fell quite a few times.

(h/t Songstress7)

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 79 words, total size 1 kb.

I saw this over at the wonderful blog News From the Great Beyond, home of the lovely Songstress7, who coincidentally is hosting this week's Carnival of the Recipes.

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time....

A visiting minister during the offertory prayer:

"Dear Lord," he began with arms extended and a rapturous look on his upturned face, "without you we are but dust..."

He would have continued, but... more...

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 123 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, we're officially moving.

We've contracted with a moving company. For the charming price of 60⊄ per pound, these lovely people will load their truck with my stuff, drive it to CA, and unload it for me. All I have to do is pack and unpack.

They even solved a big problem for me. They told us that they can't guarantee a delivery date until the end of July. Which is fine. See, our friends are trying to move out of their house into a condo. We're trying to move into their house. But the landlord of the condo is giving them the runaround. The actual landlord is out of the country on vacation, and the management company won't do anything about them wanting to move in until this lady gets back. Meanwhile they're getting married and going on their honeymoon.... So we wouldn't be able to move in until they get back from Hawaii in the middle of July at the earliest, even assuming all of the variables fall into place and they are approved by the condo owner and we are approved by the house owner... Anyway, if the stuff doesn't come until the end of July, that's fine by me, now.

It's times like this that make me INCREDIBLY happy I own an SUV. We can haul enough stuff across the country on our own that we don't need to have furniture for a month. And we can stay with family and friends if we have to. We were planning on spending a good chunk of July in Fresno anyway.

Today's other good news: We went to Costco to pick up the dog's prescription and found exactly what we needed for a reasonable price. They had a "deluxe moving pack" from Allied, and it contains 30 boxes (most of them 18x12x12, which is great for books), 5 rolls of bubble wrap, 4 pounds of packing paper, 36 foam sleeves, 3 dividers for glasses, 3 rolls of packing tape, 2 tape dispensers, and 2 markers (not that we needed the markers....) for $50.00. Not bad considering that in the packing stores around here the boxes sell for more that $1 apiece and they really gouge you on the other stuff, like paper and bubble wrap.

The current plan is to have the stuff shipped to Fresno, and then we can UHaul it down to Pasadena when we know where we're going to live.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:41 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 415 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Sounds like a good plan. There's one only one problem: when it's all over, you'll end up living in California.

Posted by: Xrlq at June 11, 2005 12:59 AM (4/bIn)

2 Hey, from where I sit that's the good part. But I'm in Massachussetts, so there you go.

Posted by: Deb at June 11, 2005 01:05 AM (8n5zS)

3 NC is similarly evil in some ways.... Like roads that curve in 4 directions and have at least 3 names depending on which street you've just crossed. Not to mention the dearth of alternate routes.... I wish you luck, Deb, in your possible upcoming move. I can't imagine trying to move with a somewhat mobile toddling rugrat....

Posted by: caltechgirl at June 11, 2005 01:12 AM (UNuTU)

4 Darn... I could use those boxes. You wouldn't want to move to Florida instead?

Posted by: vw bug at June 11, 2005 08:19 AM (n+JjT)

5 Thanks. It'll definitely be interesting. Luckily Sadie is a pretty cooperative kid, generally speaking. You know, I got all misty-eyed when you posted about streets laid out in grid patterns and people who know how to use left turn lanes. Left turn lanes? I soooo miss left turn lanes.

Posted by: Deb at June 11, 2005 10:30 AM (8n5zS)

6 Good luck with the move. Usually, I'd say don't move in, we don't have any water for you to drink! But considering you're a native, I think we can make an exception this time.

Posted by: Bill at June 12, 2005 01:13 AM (x0SOn)

7 Two extremely valuable pieces of advice: 1) Public storage is a wonderful thing, and relatively cheap. Put a large fraction of your boxed stuff (that you can move yourself) into a storage unit near the new place. It's a LOT easier to unpack without having to work around boxes. 2) The best moving boxes for any breakables are liquor or wine boxes. Very heavy duty cardboard with heavy duty dividers. Several sizes available, and liquor stores will be happy to let you have them. You just have to find out when deliveries are, because the stores tend to flatten the boxes very quickly after unloading them.

Posted by: Ken Summers at June 12, 2005 11:13 AM (YElNr)

8 I liked Cali believe it or not. But I was in a small town outside of Palm Springs :-) I hope the move goes well. I know that can be a pain!

Posted by: Sissy at June 12, 2005 10:59 PM (uXS+O)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Ben the Exgaucho turns the big 3-0 today! Drop by and wish him the best.

He needs it. He's a poor pathetic OLD man with no job, no life, and a PlayStation 2.....

Just kidding.

He's breathing so he must have a life

In honor of your special day, dude, one of your favorite Simpsons songs and much love from both of us. There's some Southern Season love and a Tar Heel championship shirt waiting to see you in CA.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 07:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 87 words, total size 1 kb.

Ok, it's **technically** next Tuesday, but in honor of my wonderful Dad's 71st birthday, I thought I'd post a recipe for one of his ALL-TIME favorites, Chocolate cake. This one is written for a bundt pan, which is great because I have some really cool ones....

Super Fudgy Chocolate Cake

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased 12 cup Bundt pan.
3. Bake for 5 to 55 minutes or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half, invert and remove from pan. You can top with a dusting of powdered sugar if desired.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 04:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 188 words, total size 1 kb.

The Queen asks the following:

1. Can you name two Democrats and two Republicans that you could really vote for in 2008? Basically, pick the ticket.

2. If you voted FOR Kerry, name one Democrat, a viable candidate for president, that you could never support in 2008.

3. If you voted FOR Bush, name one Republican, a viable candidate for president, that you could never support in 2008.

I said:
1. Joe Lieberman (a class act) and ABH (anyone but Hillary); Condi Rice and TBA.

Honestly I hadn't thought about running mates. And I would LOVE to see the reaction of the MSM and certain traditionally democratic constituencies if a BLACK WOMAN ran for President on the GOP ticket.... Maybe throw in Liddy Dole as a VP candidate just for the hell of it. No, wait, Senior senators from NC don't have a great track record in running for Veep....

2. N/A. Duh. I voted for Bush.

3. John McCain

Six to twelve months ago he was on my short list for "the guy after Bush" but he has run his course. Waving your schlong around in public (even metaphorically) too much is bound to get you in trouble..... Especially if you start playing both sides against each other.

So what do you all think?

Posted by: caltechgirl at 02:42 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 219 words, total size 1 kb.

I just wrote the first of 2 tests that I have to give in the class I'm teaching.

65 multiple choice, and 43 fill-the-name-in-the-diagram questions.

In 90 minutes. Shouldn't be a problem.

The REAL problem is the M**^(^F&%^*$G COPIER that won't do more than 40 sheets at a time before the roller heats up and the pages stick......

And it's always THE SAME F*)^%$$@G PAGE!

ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

Did I mention it's past midnight?

So I'm here blogging and checking mail waiting for the stupid bitch copier to cool down...

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:47 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 94 words, total size 1 kb.

WhyTF would anyone want to live in LODI???? I mean COME ON. What a hole.

I suppose it doesn't surprise me that terrorists would pick an out of the way sh*thole for laying low while they plot to kill the rest of us.

As you can imagine, several Bear Flaggers are all over this one...

CA Mafia picked up the story first

Not Dale Gribble has a pretty good round up of reactions including this from California Conservatives

Well, I guess these two guys aren't stuck there, although they sure as hell weren't walking out of town....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 05:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 105 words, total size 1 kb.

According to this new study, it's unsafe for kids under the age of 15 to ride in the front seat.

Therefore in some states, it's legal to drive a car before it's safe to sit in the front.

Hey, I've got an idea. Let's make the airbags adjustable. It is possible. The technology exists NOW. You can even have them removed in 2-seaters ifyou have kids. The driver just flips a switch: Adult setting and the airbag is armed, child setting, and it isn't. Of course in this day and age you have to sign a waiver saying that you accept responsibility for failing to protect an adult or a child adequately.

Then we could put rear facing child seats in the front for small babies again. That's been shown to be FAR safer than a rear facing seat in the back since it's a little hard for the driver to check on a baby they can't see.....

Posted by: caltechgirl at 11:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 176 words, total size 1 kb.

Gone too soon...

Anne Bancroft, the legendary actress who brought Mrs. Robinson to life in The Graduate, and wife of the incredibly awesome Mel Brooks, has died at age 73 of uterine cancer.

Born Anna Maria Italiano in 1931 in New York's Bronx borough, she got her start in movies in the 1950s.

She won an Oscar for her 1962 film "The Miracle Worker," where she played Annie Sullivan, the extraordinary teacher to blind, deaf and speechless Helen Keller in the movie directed by Arthur Penn.

Over her long career, she garnered a further four Academy Award nominations for "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964), "The Graduate" (1967), "The Turning Point" (1977), and "Agnes of God" (1985).

She also won two Tony Awards for her work on the Broadway stage, including one for the stage version of "The Miracle Worker" in 1960.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 187 words, total size 1 kb.