Research

Does light quality and duration effect seed buoyancy on five brackish SAVs found in the Chesapeake Bay?
Doing research in the library. Miss my computer and my dog, and dear iPhone no service in the building.

good bye

Indy,
I named you after the film "Raiders of the Lost ark" so i could be like Marianne and scream "Indy!!!". There are very few things in my life that have been next to me no matter what and for fourteen years you have always been there for me. I will miss our walks, playing fetch, and the sound of your feet on the stairs. I will always remember your first swim, the day you had a kid land on your head, the way I looked at you coming home from dads funeral and sobbed. You were a very very good dog. Thanks for not making me take you to the vet too much. But I am not going to be home for the summer and I know you haven't been eating and sad I'm not home. So go travel well my pup. I was blessed to be ur owner and friend

Party Palace

Birthday Bash is today! I'm spending the morning straightening up, making appointments, paying bills. Then it will be time to head to the Super Sweet Sixty Party for Big Daddy. Spent yesterday at the palace helping get ready for the party, TNT made dinner and we had a nice time. However, BIG in Japan and I were very exhausted but roomie carried the evening with fun conversation. His car did get broken into however, does paranoia fit into this perspective is reality thing? I'm not sure. epiphany in Baltimore has left. LEFT his blog to start another. Who does that?

Home for a few

Wow! Chesapeake Bay Teacher Research Fellowship. Orientation week at Solomon's Island was so much fun!
Today I got to...
:Hold a sea squirt
:Catch a white choker fish with my bare hands
:Smile at a comb jelly through a microscope
:Dredge for oysters
:Trawl for fish and crab
:Dissect an oyster heart
:Identify Diatoms
:Watch a Barnacle eat
:Photograph a Sea Anemone
:Dig through mud from the bottom of the Patuxtent
:Remember invertebrate zoology and phyotplankton classes
and lastly
Nerd Alert~:Collect DO, temp, salinity, and depth with the coolest probe ever.



Lesson Idea #1
Compare water quality and sedimentation between streams Upper Bay, Middle Bay, and Lower Bay.

geocaching!

Spent most of the day in the lab. SAVs turtles oysters and fish labs. Had so much fun. It was interesting and fun. We had a great dinner on the pier with Italian wine and linguini con vongole. Yum. Then we went geocaching for the first time! Can't wait to do it again!

Its a date!

Interesting lesson in the morning on mapping and remote sensing, gps and gis. Then we went kayaking! Restored estuarine meadow on the patuxtent river. Near a nuclear power plant that paid for the restoration. After an oil spill in 2000. I really have found a new and fantastic hobby. I met the coordinator of the lab I'll be working at for the next seven weeks and she's an awesome kayaker. Learned a few secrets of paddling etc to make it easier. So beautiful , peaceful, and fun! Then we met a turtle man who talked about the interestiing long life cycle of a diamondback terrapin. They live for a very long time if they dont get run over by a speed boat. For some reason I was scared of the turtles. Biodiversity study of plants with the hoola hoops :) and a slight sunburn. Folowed by seining for fish and it was crazy how many fish were there. Comb jellies, Crabs, anchovies, perch. Glass of wine, dinner of overcooked salmon, and movie "Chesapeake a twilight estuary" I show to my classes so was tired, but the film maker was there and some of the people in it were too.

I left iPhone home today but took my camera. 31 hope ur arm and rib feel better and thanks otterbutt for the blog comments! George Carlin texts and a few emails to ask...Dog sitting anyone? He'll be outside today so drop him by some water if u can...

Engagement and Exploration

The 5E Lesson plan. Yesterday morning was all about the 5e lesson plan and how to engage your students. Floating can, crushing can, balloon on an erlymyer flask. Who was erlymyer anyway? The Chesapeake Biological Lab is in the oldest building on the island and used to be a laundramat. I'm the only one without a computer! But luckily roomate and I both share loves of iPhones , cooking, and teaching. Also she has a food blog and can't wait to add her link.

Afternoon was spent on the St. Mary's college campus where we did a stream survey and leaf pack experiment will be cool to do next year. Ticks, leaches, and frogs oh my! Caught some different invertebrates than I'm used to seeing probably because it is mid summer and I'm usually stream surveying in the spring or fall. The t own is 300 years old and we saw an Indian reservation, the first church of maryland 1667 and archeological dig of prehistoric firepit! Everything is built on top of oyster shells.

Fancy dinner at a martini bar, I had the chicken. The hummus to start was delicious. Also they had , drum roll please, Kendall-Jackson. Upon 3rd glass, everyone raised their glasses and said "and we have to wishes Adam a happy anniversary today" and I said " no way! Me too" followed by my life story that was something like we got married in niagara falls last year and then when we got home from honeymoon "he went out for comic books and never came back". Creative non fiction?

Also real roomie says the dog hasn't eaten in two days. Oy vey!

12 Hours home and on the road to the bay.

Well everyone. It has been a year... I'm speechless

BIG in Japan, forgetting how to fold a paper crane at Hiroshima! I'm speechless.
http://www.krentzk.com/blog.html
Kudos to Team iron horse for picking me up and hanging on my only night in Charm City.

Home for twelve hours and I have a few more things on my list to do before I can head down to Solomon's Island. I need to be there by 5:30 at the latest. Hello Humidity, my old friend, I've come to sweat with you again. Putting on the deet bugspray, while my head and arms get cold and damp. And the vision, of teaching summer school fades... I'll stop there.

iPhone was amazing on the airplane (with a very nice "good bye" text feature, must be a new app). Figured out the damn thing was set on repeat song so simple of a solution I couldn't figure out in the Prius. But last night after the Raven Inn... let iPhone rest and said hello to my computer.

Plans?

©2008 Douglas Pulsipher
As I'm preparing for my departure, I remember what I did last Thursday when I walked off the plane, saw the mountains, and smiled. I laughed a little at how happy I was and how it felt like the mountains were actually hugging me and welcoming me home. Then I couldn't wait to run into them, crawl on them, make a few footprints in their trails. And today, I feel I need to sneak under the shadow of these mountains, sneak away before they notice I'm gone. I'm always shocked each time I come home that the jutting edge of the granite cliff of Mt. Olympus hasn't changed yet, or the one tree on that one tree hill is still there, lonely, or the red butte, the snake rocks, or the hippo have not changed form. Unlike me, they remain here, remain unchanged, remain solidly blocking the view and impedeing the path to the east.

Thursday was spent doing normal summery type things. Naps, tans, swimming, movies. I liked Breech and Oceans 13, perfect summer movies. I went to Gramma's again and then met my sisters for a quick glass of wine before Otterbutt went to reading and Thirtyone went to work wedding "reception, glass of wine in her hand". I sat on the back porch with DiscGolfer watching the kids swing and enjoying the weather. Very lovely. Then went out on the green with Econtrario, who contrario to popular belief, may actually not be dead inside.

Friday Maestra and I (when the party from the night before actually ended) went up the canyon to do some shopping and a little lunch and a big bottle of KJ. We had a wonderful time and I spent a little too much on kayaking clothes, but it was fun. It was so sad to be standing in a TJ MAxx parking lot where I used to look over my favorite meadow at the base of Park City. A little sad I didn't buy a plot of land there in 1976 and a little sad that it is gone, replaced by malls and parking lots. Immediately back to nap mode, I actually slept during the day for 1.5 hours. Thought someone was with me when I woke up, but nope.

Then went shopping with Z and Otterbutt, made 7 layer dip for the family party. Sat on the porch with family, minus the men plus the cousins, and laughed and drank port after the sun went down. Cried a little too much or too little.

The iPhone would like to remain silent due to self incrimination. But I could mention that the iPhone is cool because it can send emails, photos, text, google, and make calls.

Sad to start packing

Please forgive me dear iPhone... I did not mean to be disrespectful yesterday. Thanks...

Benefits

Hooray for Iron Chef Mushroom! I cannot describe the smells, the smiles, and the smattering of mushrooms that fell upon Thirtyones house last night. It was fantastic. See her Thirtyones blog for the menu. I wish we could cook like that every day, ha ha wallets. But it was divine. A Divine Day. Even with kids falling down on slides and off beds, a spattering of dimpled chads lost in the state of Florida, and an unofficial election resulting in burning of ballots! What fun! Otterbutt used her inlaws beautiful kitchen or it may have been a little tight with only four burners, but we shared and presented some lovely meals. I learned so much from my sisters on how to cook last night. I also learned about why we each are so different despite our tripletness. Approaching each project in our own way we can sometimes collectively display an air of simplicity and delight. I am proud to be a part of it. (not apart)

Thirtyone's fancy plates and simple scallop changed many peoples minds about scallops, including mine, so I declare her the victor on that note but also give nod to Otterbutt's risotto having each and every element you want to order in a risotto, including the desire you could eat the entire bowl. Both these chef's made their meals on the cuff in two hours without consulting a recipe. I did need to read about 50 recipes for 4 days and memorize a lot of things, however, liked the lamb. Gramma said repeatedly a movie quote today "He's vegetarian? So I'll make lamb".

Early morning tv with Thirtyone followed by hiking today with Otterbutt = a lovely morning. Neff's Canyon. I swear, they said in high school that canyon always had snakes... Anyway, the river was running so fast and despite my totally improper east coast outfit, I managed fine.

My massage with Diana Troy the empath demon fixed me more than even she helped me last time. She yelled at me, made me cry, said thank you when I said thank you, and said "you're amazing" when I said "you're amazing"! I don't think I can really explain what happened in the room today, but I know she knows. And I know she fixed me. At one point she said, what are you thinking about, I said "Going to Grammas". She said in the gentlest voice "we don't all have to have a baby." And then I cried, and she let me stay for an extra hour as she washed my feet again. And I SWEAR she fixed me.

And Gramma had some wonderful advice. She didn't tell me I needed a baby or a man. She just told me about her children and her men. It was quite the story. It is not her perception of me that made me stress, it is my perception of myself. This may ruin my argument for perception vs reality. Oh Well.

So iPhone saga people. 3 sports score texts, One clear straight forward phone call rejection, one email with response, and... delightfully, 2 hours of the iPhone turned off while I was blessed by a healing goddess.

Three

"Eat, pray, love" I have been reading for the last three days. Mostly because I have seen this book on the night stand of all of my friends and it was at Maestra's BnB. The author talks a lot about the significance of 3. And she goes to Italy, India, and Indonesia for a year. Then I read an article about the top 3 things you must do. Then I went out to dinner with my sisters and we discussed the best trip we could each take. So naturally, we should make a list of the top 3 places we would visit if traveling for a year with unlimited funds, perhaps by some person who pays people to blog about their travels, and then you would need to find a theme for your travels so it could be a book...

Speaking of 3's... We made it 3 days without fighting.
It took me about 3 minutes this morning to put my (sober) foot in it. I actually was trying to apologize about being short and rude. Perhaps we should follow 3 new rules in this family...
1. Only respond to what people actually say about how they feel, not what you assume.
2. Our family deserves at least as much energy and kindness as our friends and colleagues. This may look phony, but maybe we need it.
3. Separate checks (this will occur if we follow rule 2).

These rules are up for negotiation. I have heard an alternate solution that includes not speaking. Perhaps a 3 drink maximum. Also an ellipse has 3 periods...

iPhone is mostly getting in trouble with music, "Are We Family or What" Tragically Hip. It has played this song 3 times.

BIG in Japan

A portion of Team Iron Horse is leaving for Japan today. The rest of the team is jealous that we're not going. I don't know if I could handle the 13 hour plane ride. But I can't wait to hear about the trip. Unfortunately, he doesn't have an iPhone to blog and email about the trip...

Team Iron Chef has been postponed. Crazy! I still have to look for the proper protein item now because I have a couple extra days to look. Econtrario has now volunteered to be a judge, he says he TiVos the show which I found shocking.

Kayaking was awesome. So was the porch. So was the Wii. So was the steaks by the stream. So was the green. So was the stay at Maestras BnB.

iPhone ...
1 text, 3 phone calls, 1 unannounced visit, 1 announced. 0 emails.

Kayaking Day

First we're having a picnic and kayaking at Little Dell... Then it is Thirtyone, Otterbutt, and KJ's Iron Chef Cook OFf with the secret ingredient being Mushrooms!~ I'm so excited.

Yesterday, Maestra and I went for pedicures, lunch at TGIFs, grocery shopping, then I went to Thirtyones to make Red Snapper with ginger lime sauce, quinoa and baby artichokes. It was a small meal but I think everyone enjoyed it. They probably ordered pizza when they got home.

Played the Wii with nephew Crash. Indiana Jones game was fun.
The Girls had fun swinging and with balloons. So Cute!
My toes are painted the shade "Niagara Falls".
I finished reading 1 book.

iPhone saga continues...
2 emails of questionable reasoning sent, 1 good call from roomie, 5 good mushroom recipes saved, 1 facebook message, 1 picture of the kayak on the jetta, 2 unanswered texts.

Whether the Weather Floods the Iowans

"Is your family safe and dry?" Not that I particularly care, but it seems nice enough to say.

And the flowers on the side of the mountains are...
Cutleaf Balsamroot and Blue Lupines. However they blue ones could be Blue Penstomon.

BIG Day out... asleep by 9 (11 EST)

Woke at Maestra's Beautiful BnB. Coffee with nectarine, soft boiled egg, and toast. Drove the Prius to work. Called my Grandma. Then went to the 7 at the base of big cottonwood canyon for a bottle of water, and hiked up Fergeson Canyon. It has been 20 years since I went up this canyon for the first time. The river was flowing quite rapidly compared to the slow Maryland streams I am used to jumping in of late. The spring wild flowers were out in full force, I once new the names of the yellow ones and the blue ones, but that will work for now. Possible research later.

Then I went to grocery store and iphone store. Home to lay out by the pool. Then a lunch with the pretty rich people thirtyone knows. Very fun, but I did start feeling a little out of place. They actually laughed when I said my friends only spend 20 and then have to leave a bar, you could tell they thought this was an impossible task. The wild salmon with sauteed veggies in tarragon butter was absolutely exquisite. How funny that the city by the sea can't make salmon, but the salty desert town has it down pat...

Then to Green street to sit on the porch on the most comfortable first day home. KJ and Maestra created some tears, home in one song in the Prius... Asleep in my clothes by 8:55-to 3:00 mountain standard time

Evidence from iphone...
5 unanswered texts, 5 drunk dials to teachers and desperation, 3 calls and 1 message to roomate, and 1 message from team iron horse that we won trivia tournament...

BIG night of fun

at airport without glasses or cash. I swear I must have been robbed. Last day of school recap... Breakfast margaritas at chilis 11:00 with my bio girls. Packed. Big daddy picked me up to meet my boys at padonia station, 2 iced teas. Screamin freeman retirement celebration with all who came to Canada minus Karen plus tim. Free glass of wine for teacher appreciation day! Home for a costume change and to get luggage for 7 weeks. Owl bar next for wine, absynthe, and the worst salmon ever with mom dad superman leprechaun and his girl. Then Walked to mid town yacht club but they didn't have karaoke on Wednesday night but saw creepy guidance counceler. Then to the gay bars with team iron horse where we got out of immdiately because no gays go out on Wednesday it was like Sunday in Provo! So onward to 13th floor. Beautiful view of the city and the best espresso martini ever. On to the waterfall bar by the lyric for cosmos. Followed by a 3 hour tour of the city due to iron horse losing the car. Big daddy picked us up at 2 on the corner of Maryland and pratt. Slept at the mansion, woke by big daddy at 6 to throw rocks at iron horses window to go find his car, my luggage, and get to airport...

5 texts unresponded to from pga, 4 glasses of water, 3 unanswered phone calls from number one, 2 calls from roomie in the am, and one very very empty wallet

summer revised

Ok. It was too hot. It wasn't that bad because a lucky cold front came in and caused a cool thunderstorm of the ilk from the west. I saw actual lightning. I'm glad I have a room with ac but it is crazy still. The principal gave a 10 minute talk of quotes and inspiration. He's new, he's mathematical, he's about the pennies. But his first quote was "Preach the gospel; and if need, use words" he defined this as leading by example. I, who am the number one new principal fan, was offended. In Utah, that would have been sacrilage in a faculty room. Now, I understand, he was making a point. But he was mostly preaching that good teaching is good teaching to a room full of good teachers, so the fact that he displayed his religion (irish catholic JFKesque) so out there... I was perplexed.

Then I went to a scrabble game with the girls and Mrs T's who's husband just passed. My two mom's in baltimore and my best friend had lovely cheese and crackers and wine, with me partaking more in both. We were celebrating two new jobs and a new retirement and a new fellowship. We had a great time. Coach p came and joined us after for a couple games of scrabble. Then he and I went to meet roomie and his new life guard friends. It was nice. Met new girl, she seemed nice and a tad on the anne frank side. However, may be really nice, and roomie looked happy.


PS That was just today. Summer will be full of fun blogs... If apple figures out how to let people blog on the iphone, it freaks out with the typing in blogspot for some reason... Work on it people, your new version will not be bought by the one's who have sold iphone's and dressed as them for halloween.

Summer Almost

This is a great time of year. It is going to be hot this week to close out the school year. Going through drawers and cabinets reflecting on notes, drawings, promises, and work from the students. My favorite folder is one called memories, filed under M mysteriously, and has at least something from each of my 7 years teaching. I also like planning my first week of lessons and change them all summer long. It's like I spend 3 months on 3 lessons that is all. This may be a bad use of my time, I haven't even graded the juniors exams yet. And I have to move all the stuff in my room to a secure location because summer school is in my room. This includes moving 9 computers which is a pain.

On the summer plans... I'm excited to go to the city of salt and play with the fam. However, I am a tad apprehensive for the fellowship. I got my itinerary in the mail and it will be fun, hot, and a little boring. Kayaking, boating, fishing, oystering...that's all on the first week! I also have to room with someone which makes my snoring and recreational habits quite scary.
http://www.esep.umces.edu/index.php?area_id=3#

Roomie is apprehensive for the pet sitting. I hope Indy doesn't make too much of a mess, but he probably will. He's been so good since October, really, only a couple of accidents. When the Green Hornet was here he had an accident every day. But it is still pretty gross.

I'm also very reminiscent of last June to my peril. I've been rotating friends for happy hours all week, each ending in some long speech about how I must forget number 2. Yes, yes I should. But I'm a little slow. K took me to a bull roast last night for county school coaches. I didn't know anyone. Again I ruined a pseudo flirting situation with mentioning Canada. It was not my fault, the guy was a hockey player -eh.

I should be cleaning the house, doing laundry, buying supplies, and getting ready for my summer away. One of the coaches last night said of my apprehension, "We always ask our students to step out of their comfort zone, and now its your turn! You will make great friends and remember it forever". Ok, maybe I should coach, these people really know how to make a sound bite... Do I challenge my students? I don't know. It was very nice of Senior Presidente to mention me at graduation, it means the world to me, and I am sad I missed it, but hearing every ones congratulations and versions of events has been quite flattering and nice.

Well that was quite the ramble.

book list

From Otterbutt's post "The top 100 or so books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users."

Bold the books you have read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary **Opera
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion is this
There is Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everythingZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield