What I Did Over Christmas Break

well, christmas "break" started out fairly normally. chad and i headed over to his parents' house on christmas eve, where we had a yummy traditional christmas dinner followed by gift exchanging and festivities with the rest of his family. we spent the night with the in-laws then drove over to my granny's house early christmas morning for gift exchanging and festivities with my family. we opened presents first thing then had another yummy traditional christmas dinner. my brother (damien), sister-in-law (amber), and 7-month old nephew (dylan) arrived sunday night from knoxville for more gift exchanging and much oohing and ahhing over the baby, who really is the most adorable child. here, have a look.

baby dylan with his proud mama and papa.































this mini-vacation turned sour on monday, when my grandmother's nurse arrived to change the bandages on her leg (a sort of chronic wound thing). that actually wasn't the problem. the problem was that when the total soccer mom nurse was leaving in her army tank of an suv, she backed into the driver's side door of my car. yep. completely smashed in my door, shattered the window, and even moved the whole car over a little (there was a little mound of dirt around my passenger's side tires that attested to that). it wasn't that she hit it very hard, it was that she didn't realize she'd hit something and just kept backing up for a bit, with the increasing pressure causing the glass in my driver's side window to shatter... and most of the glass ended up in the driver's seat. yeah, and to make things even worse, chad and i were just about to be on our way back to mobile so we could do laundry and go grocery shopping when it happened. i was waiting for the nurse to leave so we could say good-bye to everyone. but no. instead, we had to sit around my granny's house and wait for the nurse to contact her insurance company and try to make arrangements for a rental car for me and a tow truck for my car. let me tell you, these things are a huge pain in the ass when they occur on a normal day, but it was made doubly worse by the fact that it occurred on a holiday when nothing was open. no car rental places, no body shops, no nothing. nothing was open. and, since we were in century, florida but we live in mobile, the insurance company wouldn't pay to have the car towed all the way back to mobile. so, my car had to go to a body shop in brewton, and they couldn't get it there until the day after the chick hit my car (yesterday). so, chad and i were forced to borrow a car from his parents in order to get back to mobile at all on monday (which we had to do because he had to work yesterday) since there were no car rental places open.

it gets better, too. we decided to stop at best buy on the way home from my granny's (we watned to purchase a hi-def tivo, which there is a $200 rebate on), and chad's mom's rodeo started acting funny - as in, when chad put it in park, it shut itself off and wouldn't crank again.
we just had to laugh. anyway, we went ahead and went in, but they were sold out of the tivo we wanted. when we got back in the car, it still wouldn't start. chad called his dad and talked to him, and he thinks it was just bad gas. anyway, the rodeo eventually started, and we made it back to our apartment about 5 hours after we'd intented to.

so, i got a rental (a navy blue 2005 pt cruiser) yesterday morning, and my car was towed to a body shop yesterday. i found out today that, at the earliest, my car will be fixed at the end of next week because they have to replace the door, and they have to order it. how much does that suck? this is such a pain in the ass. then, we have to drive all the way to brewton to pick up the car when it does get repaired (but we do have to head over that way to return the rodeo to chad's parents anyway). oh, yeah - and we just paid my car off a week before christmas. so, a week after my car gets paid off, some half-wit in a tahoe comes along and smashes the hell out of it. damn.

anyway, damien and i had made plans for dylan to come and stay over with me and chad last night before the whole thing with my car happened, which he did. my little sister (sammi, for those who don't know her) came along, too, and we had a blast. my frustration over the whole car situation made the baby giggle, which made me giggle, which relieved a little stress. he's a very happy baby - it doesn't take much to make him giggle. he's so cute. actually, damien, amber, mom, sammi, and dylan all rode over here yesterday afternoon. i made chili, and we watched the day after tomorrow. then, damien, amber, and mom left. sammi, dylan, chad, and i watched robots, and chad laughed at the way sammi and i played with the baby like he was a toy. it was fun, though... until the kid woke me up at 5:30 (after waking me up at 4:30 in need of a bottle) for a diaper change and refused to go back to sleep. he wasn't fussy, though. he just wanted to stay up and play and talk to himself. so, i decided that as long as he wasn't crying he'd be fine, stuck him back in the play pen with a couple of toys, listened to him talk to himself for a while, and went back to sleep. he must have eventually fallen back to sleep, though, since he was sleeping when the alarm clock went off. chad said he liked the baby when he was sleeping. he liked the way dylan randomly curled his fingers and toes when he was asleep. i think he just didn't like him when he was awake because the first time i plopped the baby on him, he cried (the baby, not chad). the kid likes me, though. i make him laugh a lot... plus i fed him and changed his diapers for a day, so how could he not like me? anyway, damien and amber picked up their kid around lunchtime and headed back to tennessee, and mom and my aunt jo picked up sammi around the same time. they stuck around for a little while, though, to eat pizza and watch secondhand lions.

everyone is gone now, and as soon as chad gets home from work, we'll be driving over to pcola (possibly in the rental car) for the ice pilots game. hopefully, things will feel normal again soon.

Merry Christmas to All!

so, vanessa made the drive over to mobile yeterday, and we had ourselves some christmas festivities. she gave me a flyers replica jersey (the black one, which is my favorite of the flyers jerseys), which i was totally excited about, along with a really pretty set of glasses complete with pitcher for me and chad. i gave her a really cute set of makeup/travel accessories bags, which i hope will get some use on road trips this year. after the gift exchanging, we had lunch at jericho cafe, a really cute little middle eastern/greek place near the university. the food was yummy, and the waiter didn't suck (unlike the one i traumatized at outback a couple of weeks ago). he had a really fun accent (and a unibrow), and he had that whole "do your job and leave" thing down, which made us both happy.

after lunch, we'd planned on seeing the family stone, but there was time to kill so we hit the mall. man, was that ever nuts. the place was as crowded as i've ever seen it, but what did i expect two days before christmas eve, right? anyway, vanessa bought this great sweater at hollister, and then we had a sisterhood of the traveling pants moment at new york & co, where we both bought the exact same jeans (on sale, of course), despite our completely different bodies. they have officially been dubbed my ass jeans, as my bum looks spectacular in them. i also picked up a really cute button down shirt with teal and blue stripes (also on sale).

after completing our purchases, it was time to head for the theater, which was cheap and not at all crowded (just the way i like them). chad and i long ago decided that the carmike on government is the theater to go to in mobile, as it has the exact same schedule of movies as the one on schillinger, but it costs far less ($4 for matinee, $5 at night as opposed to $5 for matinee, $7.50 at night on schillinger) and is never crowded. there were maybe eight people at the movie, including vanessa and me. the family stone was completely wacko, but very good. i had a few WTF? moments where things just came out of the blue, but overall it was very funny and kind of sweet.

after the movie, deva joined us for a trip to see the christmas lights at bellingrath gardens (after more gift exchanging - she gave me a really great knitting book and lots of fun yarns, and i gave her a cosmopolitan-making kit). of course, i bundled up with lots of layers complete with scarf and gloves (yeah, it's mobile, but the low last night was supposed to be 29!). i still froze my ass off... somewhat literally. my bum got quite cold, though my torso area was toasty. anyway, the display was quite pretty, and the three of us had a great time.

after the lights, it was back to my place for little caesar's pizza and the flyers game on my sexy tv. it was good times. vanessa finally got to see the best of antero niittymaki and ben eager (whose ass i'm told she'd be willing to tap - he is fairly hot... he's got the kind of face that the more you see, the more you want to look at it), and she seemed impressed with r.j. umberger. oh, and now she can see that it's not just me - derian hatcher is a twit. he was directly responsible for at least one senators goal last night, screening his own goalie and failing to clear out a rebound. the game was made better by the fact that simon gagne returned to the lineup and had a great night with a goal and an assist. the flyers came out... well, flying and took a 4-0 lead over damn ottawa. vanessa and i were elated, and then the damn senators just had to come back and give us heart attacks - all because the flyers have no penalty killing abilities. it turned out fine, though. the flyers won 4-3, defeating damn ottawa for the second time this season, much to our delight.

so, overall, it was a good start to our christmas festivities, and i'd like to wish everyone a merry christmas (and a happy hanukkah to my jewish friends), as this will be my last post before heading to the 'rents' place for the holiday.

Ryan Craig's NHL Debut

that's right, folks. former pensacola ice pilot (and current springfield falcons captain) ryan craig made his NHL debut with the tampa bay lightning on saturday night. seeing this led me to tivo the flyers/blues game rather than go watch it on the other tv while chad watched the lightning game. chad doesn't really remember ryan craig, but i do, and i was bouncing off the walls because a former pilot was playing in his first game in the NHL (along with another former pilot, evgeny artukhin, who has been playing with tampa bay for most of the season). it was a little strange that chad didn't even remember craig from the falcons/phantoms game we went to last year... and i pointed him out and everything (and of course, i have pictures - here, i'll post one). the only former pilot chad's gotten really excited about seeing in the NHL is brian eklund. him, chad remembers... but what pilots fan doesn't?

















anyway, tampa bay ended up losing to the detroit red wings 6-3, but up until the 3rd period, it was a really good game (sounds familar, doesn't it, fellow pilots fans?). anyway, the best thing about it was that ryan craig scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game on the detroit red wings. how sweet is that? i was quite excited for him. he actually saw quite a bit of ice time, playing on several different lines throughout the game (including one with tim taylor, which was the line he was planned to be on, and he actually saw a couple of shifts with brad richards). his goal came in the second period when the game was tied 2-2, and it temporarily gave tampa the lead. of course, detroit is apparently just warming up before the 3rd period, and the wings came back big time in the final period of the game, but it was exciting just the same.

the flyers game turned out a little better for me, with philly beating st. louis 5-2 despite a long list of injuries, including one of their best rookies (and next flyer captain?), mike richards, who suffered a concussion in thursday's loss to vancouver. their only other rookie who isn't playing for the flyers right now due to injuries (jeff carter) was also injured in the game (he took a puck to the side of the head), but he just went and got stitched up and returned to the game. one more note from the vancouver game - ken hitchcock pulled robert esche (the goalie) and put in antero niittymaki about 8 minutes into the 3rd period. esche has really had some problems lately, and i hope he comes out of his funk soon. it's a good thing niittymaki is playing really well these days, first full NHL season or not.

with all of the important guys out of the flyers lineup, a couple of other notable rookies (called up from the phantoms due to injuries) stepped up to fill void. saturday night in st. louis, rookie r.j. umberger scored 2 goals... and it was the first game in which umberger scored a goal and the flyers didn't lose. umberger had 3 NHL goals prior to saturday night, and the flyers lost both of the other games he scored in (the one against tampa in which umberger scored his first goal, then another against the islanders, in which umberger had the flyers' only 2 goals). i can now officially end my "umberger must not score" campaign. he is a really good player with good speed and good moves, and i can now once again root for him to score. ken hitchcock put together a really good line saturday night, playing umberger with fellow rookie ben eager (whose name i absolutely love) and former dallas star jon sim. eager made an absolutely beautiful pass that resulted in umberger's second goal of the night, and his physical play and willingness to go to the net are quickly making him one of my favorite flyers.

mike knuble also tallied two goals against the blues, with sami kapanen (gagne's temporary replacement on that line) picking up a couple of assists. kapanen was denied a goal in the second period, due to a supposed (but completely bogus) goaltender interference penalty on mike knuble. how can it be called goaltender interference when knuble is backing up when the goalie dives into him? he was obviously trying to avoid contact, and it wasn't his fault that bacashihua flung himself into knuble. anyway, this extremely bad call negated kapanen's goal and the ensuing power play resulted in the blues' second and final goal of the game, much to the dismay of all flyer fans.

niittymaki saved the game in the third period, in which the flyers had all of 3 shots, while the blues fired on niittymaki 16 times in the 3rd. as anyone who reads this blog well knows, i am a huge niittymaki fan, although i am also rather fond of robert esche. but like i mentioned earlier, esche is having issues lately, and i think they're mental. but perhaps he's still hurting from the groin injury of a couple of weeks ago.

anyway, branko radivojevic (who i firmly believe has the best name ever) scored on st. louis's empty net to clinch the game, and the flyers picked up yet another win with a vastly depleted roster (though brian savage was back for the game).

Holy Lack of Motivation, Batman!

well, now that i've spent most of yesterday afternoon and all day today studying the structures and toxic effects of pesticides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and other toxic substances, i became a little curious and decided to see exactly how low of a grade i can aim for on my ecotoxicology final to come out of the class with an A. well, in doing this, i guess-timated a couple of grades and have come up with a figure that probably underestimates my current grade in the course. in all of this frantic calculation, i have discovered that if i do not take the final exam at all, as in make a 0% on the final, i will have a B in the class. yeah, as of right now including a 0 for my final exam grade i have a nice round 80 for the course. how's that for motivation to study? and, despite having a B with a 0 on the final, i would still have to make a low C on it to keep my glorious 4.0 gpa that has followed me throughout my college career. it would be such a shame to give it up now... but man am i ever not motivated to put in 4 or 5 more quality study hours with my notebook tonight so i can review all of the old material. i think i have a pretty good handle on the new stuff. go on - ask me what the structure of a pyrethroid looks like (it's basically a triangle of carbon with a bunch of functional groups hanging off, in case you were wondering). you can even ask me how bipyridylium herbicides work (they damage photosynthetic membranes via the generation of reactive oxygen species like superoxide). ha! take that, ecotox!

now, all that super basic stuff from way back in the beginning? yeah, i don't quite remember all of that. maybe enough to wing it, though. at least enough to make a C. probably even enough to pull out a B on the exam. but do i really want to put in the extra effort to know everything through and through just so i can say i made an A on the final exam when a C on the exam would get me the same A for course? probably not. well, i'm off to study for another hour or so before the flyers' game starts - they're playing vancouver tonight, and i definitely don't feel so motivated to study a little more that i'm going to miss it.

oh, before i leave you for the night, i must make a short comment on the ice pilots game last night. wow! that pretty much says it all. they had, like, no offense (until collins finally decided to shoot instead of making a pass with about 3 minutes left in regulation time), but the D played surprisingly well (notice that aldoff and heid were both out for the game), and ford kicked ass. and our #1 goalie for now (until freddy makes his return) even tried to kick a little literal ass. corey was involved in a little scrap with two gladiators, all by his lonesome, and ford decided that just wasn't right and decided to step in himself since no one else was around. he ended up falling on his ass, but the fact that he went over and jumped on a guy entertained us all. oh, and i must congratulate jacquo on that spiffy new A on his jersey. i was excited about it. anyway, back to the game and todd ford... the pilots held gwinnett (a very good team, for those who don't know how significant pensacola's not getting killed was - the last time gwinnett played in pensacola, they shut us out 6-0) to only one goal, and they didn't get scored on in the 3rd period for the first time all year (!). vanessa and i asked for a shootout, and that's what we got. it was a good one, too. ford stopped all five shots, and the new guy pete gardiner, who has a flair for the dramatic, was pensacola's 5th shooter in the shootout, and the only player to score in it. yeah, i went in saying, "so, how bad are we gonna lose tonight?" and walked out grinning and a little shocked that my team managed a win.

How Sweet Is This?

my favorite little hockey player (pensacola's chris st. jacques, if you've been out of the loop... or just don't pay attention) leads the league (ECHL) in something. and it's not a bad something! he leads the league in shorthanded goals... and shorthanded points. i've actually known this for a couple of days, but as you might have noticed, i've been a tad on the busy side with vanessa's graduation festivities on saturday, the pilots game saturday night, catching up on my flyers game on sunday, grocery shopping, fighting the HPLC at USA (which i chose not to post about monday afternoon, though i was tempted to let off a little steam), and cramming for finals. oh, and i'm knitting a shawl for my granny for christmas, so i've been trying to find some time to work on that, too. christmas is getting kind of close, eh? next weekend, it is.

anyway, back to jacquo. i'm glad to see him leading in some area. i just wish he was doing a little more of his scoring at home. didn't i have this problem last season, too? he always scored on the road then, as i recall (but mississippi was still active then, so i actually got to see a few of his road goals last year). he had a few at home, but most of his goals were on the road. i did get to see a beauty of a shorthanded goal by him earlier this season, though. i guess i should be glad for that. i'm pretty sure i mentioned it in a previous post. anyway, perhaps his spiffy new "i want to be alex ovechkin when i grow up" tinted visor will act as his good luck charm and lead to a little more home scoring from him. as you should all be aware, i'm quick to poke fun (even at players i like), and i totally enjoyed giggling over the new visor and making "maybe he's trying to hide who he's passing to from the other team" comments. chad thinks it's the new brighter lights in the hangar (aka the pensacola civic center, the ice pilots' home arena, for those who didn't realize). he thinks jacquo is getting blinded by the light's reflection on the ice and needed sunglasses to see the puck right. i don't know. i'd rather think he wants to be like alex ovechkin. he's not a bad guy for a hockey player to look up to (even if the player who's doing the looking up is a couple of years older than his role model). his first NHL season has been pretty impressive thus far.

speaking of the NHL, it's almost time for the flyers to kick the crap out of the columbus blue jackets (i hope - to do otherwise would be a huge embarassment), and my new plasma is calling. even with gagne out for the next couple of weeks and brashear out for the night, they should be able to take columbus. come on, they're like the second worst team in the entire NHL.

all right. off to watch the game - my treat for studying for 8 1/2 hours today.

The End Is Finally In Sight

so, the end of this semester is (finally) almost upon me, and instead of studying for my final exams, of which i have two this week, i am doing everything possible to avoid cracking open a notebook. my freshwater ecology notebook has actually been with me all day, and it was open in front of me for a brief period this morning, but so far all i've done is stare at the same page for half an hour without absorbing anything. i've been really fidgety all day, and every time i make an attempt at studying, i get the overwhelming urge to get up and do something. i feel like friday will never arrive. that's right - friday. dr. rice has oh so kindly decided to allow those of us who wish to do so to take our ecotoxicology final on friday instead of on monday (the exam date set by the university). so, all of this pretty much means that the next three days of my life will be spent cramming my brain with science. yeah, the last day of class is technically tomorrow, but i've already made up my mind to skip. the whole skipping class thing is made necessary because the same geniuses who decided to extend the semester a week after hurricane katrina also failed to include a dead day in the extension. so, the last day of classes is tuesday, and my freshwater ecology final is wednesday morning. yippee.

all right, i'm seriously going to study for a while now... if i can make myself sit still.

A Retraction

i am now forced to take back my former declaration regarding antero niittymaki's inability to handle NHL snipers one on one. he was absolutely amazing last night against calgary, particularly in the shootout. yeah, that's right. after going 23 games without a shootout, the last two flyers games in a row have been decided this way. but after losing to nashville in a shootout on saturday, the flyers managed to beat the flames last night.

you wouldn't think that a scoreless game through three periods and the overtime could be so exciting, but despite the goal drought the game was highly entertaining. it had simon gagne totally going after robyn regehr after regehr knocked him into the boards without a call... very unlike simon, if you ask me. i would expect to see mike richards attack a guy after something like that, but not simon. he took a roughing call for it, but it was deserved. i guess he's getting a bit frustrated by the opposition's constant "shut down simon gagne at all costs" objective, especially since it's been effective in the last three games. every time he touches the puck, he gets absolutely swarmed. in addition to simon kicking ass, the game featured amazing saves by both goaltenders, but i have to give miika kiprusoff credit. he absolutely made the best save of the game... with his elbow... from flat on his back... with puck heading over him in the air, not sliding on the ice. i have no idea how he managed that one, or if he just got lucky, which both goalies did a time or two, as the posts saved their asses. also, the flyers' 30th ranked penalty kill was phenomenal last night. they were very together, and calgary only had 4 shots and maybe one good scoring chance over their 6 power plays. but even not allowing a power play goal two games in a row wasn't quite enough to bring their penatly kill out of the basement. however, if they have one more game where their penalty kill looks good, they should be able to overtake carolina and move up to 29th.

i was quite worried about the state of the flyers' penalty kill last night after learning that joni pitkanen will be out for 4-6 weeks. my fears were worsened when eric desjardins injured his shoulder early in the first period. the few remaining flyer defensemen really stepped up and played well, though. even freddy meyer, the AHL defenseman called up to replace pitkanen, played well. of course, derian hatcher still made his usual stupid mistakes, giving the puck away at least three times. and i don't mean he gave the puck away in a situation where he had a flame on his back and lost it. i mean he gave the puck away in a situation where he was all alone and basically made a great pass to the wrong team. he also made some good defensive plays, though.

by the time the shootout rolled around, i was really excited about it. niittymaki had been strong all night, and after he'd handled a jarome iginla breakaway earlier in the game, i wasn't too worried about him. i was, however, a tad concerned about the flyers' shooters, as mike knuble and simon gagne had both failed to score in the shootout in nashville. ken hitchcock (the flyers' coach, for those who don't follow them in the same obsessive way that i do) went with the rookies, though. mike richards scored on the first shootout attempt, but jeff carter didn't. it didn't matter, though. niittymaki was awesome, stopping kristian huselius (a recent calgary acquisition from florida), jarome iginla, and former teammate tony amonte. of the three calgary shooters, i thought that amonte had the best chance of beating niittymaki. but my favorite NHL back-up goalie was ready for him, and he was largely responsible for his team's win.

One Quick Rant

i realize that i've been through a period of relative blog silence recently, and for that i apologize to those faithful readers who so sorely miss my quick wit and random ranting. i have no real explanation for my lack of posting other than i just haven't felt the urge, that pissed off or super excited feeling that leads to most of my posting. my last few blog entries have been a little half-hearted and rushed, so i will strive to make this a good one... and one about hockey, which i haven't been writing much about as of late.

actually, there isn't a whole lot of ranting that i can do about hockey right now. both of my teams (the flyers and the ice pilots) are doing pretty well right now. the flyers lost to nashville saturday night in a shootout (the flyers' first of the season), but man was that ever a great game. i watched it sunday morning (which was necessary, as the pilots played at home last night, and the game was delayed an hour). nashville so does not suck this year. acquiring paul kariya was the best move they could have made, as he is as impressive as ever. the predators' sole objective in the game seemed to be shutting down simon gagne, which they accomplished. however, they couldn't stop the two mikes (knuble and richards) and derian hatcher (whom i don't really like) from scoring. the flyers and the predators seemed very well matched overall. antero niitymaki and thomas vokoun were both excellent in goal, but niitymaki's relative inexperience with NHL snipers showed a bit in the shootout. paul kariya totally had his number. the loss was a bit disappointing, but it was an exciting game anyway.

as usual, the ice pilots give me a little more to bitch about than the flyers do. that's not to suggest that i'm as pissed off about their performances as usual, though. their record over the past week or so has been vastly improved, although they are once again below the 0.500 mark with a win percentage of only 0.474. however, i can hardly complain about their winning 2 out of 3 over the weekend and having actually managed to put together a three-game winning streak over the past week, particularly when i consider that this team once had a win percentage as pathetic as 0.250. i guess it's a good thing the pilots played sucky bakersfield three times this weekend instead of a team that's actually good. the condors played a pretty tight game against the pilots, though. the high point of the weekend (for me, at least) was probably adam courchaine. man, is that guy good. he's a great playmaker and a great finisher. we can definitely give deep thanks to the houston aeros for assigning him to pensacola.

and now for one quick rant. there was an awful lot of dirty play going on in pensacola this weekend, by both bakersfield and the pilots. pensacola has a very small team this year, and bakersfield's players are lot bigger than ours. the condors used their size to their advantage, too... illegally. they repeatedly pushed our small guys (which is about half the team) down and held them there, laying on top of guys when they collided and forcing our guys to their knees. little dallas steward and jacquo both seemed a little pissed off about their rough treatment, though steward was the only one of those two to take a penalty for it. jacquo just took out his aggression via legal hits. saturday night in particular was rough for jacquo. the best example i have of his mistreatment took place in front of ryan cyr, as one of the condors (i don't remember which one) got his stick up in a hooking motion that hit jacquo at about nose level (so that could have been called either hooking or high sticking) then hooked him again around the waist... and neither infraction was called by the ref. slashes also abounded without being called, and shaun landolt carried out several of these himself. i've decided that he's not that great. maybe he just had an off couple of nights, but i've lost count of the number of times that jacquo made a great pass to landolt only to have landolt do something really stupid instead of shooting... or shooting about three feet high every time he did manage to get a shot off. landolt does have some value as a physical presence, but i was not impressed with him this weekend. our dear captain also was less than impressive, but that is becoming a trend with him, so i wasn't that surprised.

all right, guys. i'll try to put more thought and feeling into my posts in the near future, and keep the random quizzes to a minimum.

HPLC

today i have a date with an HPLC... as a matter of fact, i have to leave in like 10 minutes. for those who don't know, HPLC stands for high performance liquid chromatography, and the machines that do this type of analysis tend to be bitchy. yeah, i said it - HPLC's are bitchy. i spent two months getting things right on the one i used for my undergraduate research, and now i have about a week to get the new one figured out so i can get some results for my directed study project. yay. the problem is that the "new" machine is actually really freakin' old, and it hasn't been used in three years. to make things even better, no one who is currently at USA has ever used this particular piece of equipment. i had a guy from pennsylvania come down and help me with the one i was using two years ago (which was borrowed from the chemistry department), but it looks like i'll be pretty much on my own with this one. anne (my undergraduate advisor, current committee member, and user of HPLC in her grad school days) is going to try to help, but i'm still thinking that this is going to be a pain in the ass. this is a really useful technique for identifying phenolic acids in my seagrass samples, and the new machine allows me to use a better solvent system that should allow me to identify even more components of my samples than i already have, but i think that the next couple of weeks are going to be a headache.

Look, I Did Good

Your Blog Should Be Green

Your blog is smart and thoughtful - not a lot of fluff. You enjoy a good discussion, especially if it involves picking apart ideas. However, you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

well, i certainly hope i can pass 8th grade science. if i couldn't, i'd have absolutely no business going for a doctorate in the field. perhaps the people who designed this quiz should learn a little spelling, since on one question they say "neuron" when they mean "neutron"... otherwise the question doesn't make sense.

Ice Pilots and Early Christmas

wow, so the pilots went 2-1 this weekend with an overtime win in columbia and a shootout victory in greenville (those bastards) and a 7-1 shellacking by gwinnett saturday night (glad chad and i decided not to go that one). i'm impressed. jacquo had goals in both of the wins... let's hope this trend continues tuesday and wednesday on the road trip and back at home next weekend. the win one, lose won pattern is a huge improvement over the lose, lose, then lose some more pattern we're all so familiar with.

and now for some more exciting news about an early christmas present chad and i decided to buy ourselves. wait for it... we bought a plasma! as in a 42" plasma tv. i'm so excited. as many of you may know, chad and i are frequent visitors to best buy, where i especially enjoy drooling over the 50" plasma tv's. well, while we were at his parents house on thanksgiving, we did some perusing of their sale papers for "black friday," and we found a deal at best buy that we couldn't resist - a 42" magnavox plasma tv with a built-in HD tuner and all kinds of other stuff that chad was really excited about for $1499. when i first started drooling over plasmas, a 42" was going for around $7,000. prices have been steadily dropping and are now usually in the neighborhood of $2500 - $3000 for a good 42". and we bought ours for around $1500. it appears to be a really good tv. well, it will be. we don't actually have it yet. when we arrived at best buy around 9:45 friday morning, they'd sold out, but the nice salesman informed us that he could order one for us that we can pick up tuesday, we just had to pay for it friday to get the sale price. sweet. so, day after tomorrow, i'll be watching the flyers play on my new plasma!

My Paper, She Is Published

*sings*: i'm so excited, and just can't hide it... *does a happy dance*

i have just received the confirmation email informing me that my paper was published in the scientific journal Marine Ecology Progress Series (MEPS) on november 21. *excited squeal* this is so awesome! i just visited the USA library website to have a look at it. it was so sweet to look up my paper. if anyone has access to MEPS (if you're at a university, i'm betting that you do) and cares to have a look at my name in print (first author!), the title is: Seagrass–pathogen interactions: ‘pseudo-induction’ of turtlegrass phenolics near wasting disease lesions, and it can be found in Marine Ecology Progress Series, volume 303, pg 123-131, published november 21, 2005... available online in pdf form.

I am a Lion, Hear Me Roar!

You are a Leo, the star of the Zodiac. You're fun,
confident, enthusiastic, warm, powerful,
generous, creative, loyal, charismatic,
sensitive, and a natural born leader! Of all
the animals in the world you are most like a
lion! You are noble, royal, and as brave as
a lion, and every once and a while you
"roar" to show everyone your strength
and pride!

-Your lucky colors are orange and gold, the colors
of the sun

-your metal, is gold, but not any gold PURE gold!!

-your precious stone is a bloodred ruby

-you day of the week is sunday, get it SUNday

-the planet you are ruled by is the sun, which is
not really a planet but a star, just like you

-your element is fire

-the parts of the body that you rule are you back,
spine and HEART

-your true love matches are a your own leo, an
aries, sagittarius, libra, or a gemini


What is Your TRUE Astrology Sign? (for guys and girls with incredibly detailed answers and incredible pictures+READ MEMO PLEASE)
brought to you by Quizilla

hmm... i have always generally thought that the crazy astrology definition of a leo, my birth sign as well as my "true" sign, apparently, fits me. is it because my element is fire that i always seem to set things ablaze? and my lucky color is orange - a possible reason for my attraction to the philadelphia flyers (although i really hate their orange jerseys - i like the black ones)? oh well. i'm really becoming a little too quiz-oriented these days.

Good Morning, Internet

how strange is it that my mood is so often tied to the weather? i'm sure that you all get very tired of reading about the weather in mobile. perhaps i seem a little obsessed with current and future meteorological conditions. well, the weather outside is actually pretty crappy right now - cold and gray, yuck. however, i have just learned that thanksgiving day should be sunny with a high temperature in the neighborhood of 74 degrees. how awesome is that? looking forward to a beautiful and not freezing thursday might even make me hate the cold and windy tuesday and wednesday in between a little less. though my throat is still a little sore and i still have the sniffles, the last few days have been all right (despite my recent anger at NHL referees).

friday afternoon i met lindsey at the lab, and we finished our collections for freshwater ecology. that's right. we each have 60 specimens all identified and labeled and preserved in ethanol - with no harm to the local waterfowl. four of my fish (that found their way to me courtesy of susan and charlie) are not technically freshwater fish (a bighead sea robin, a spot, a sand seatrout, and an atlantic midshipman, which is one of the coolest fish i have ever seen), but as they are all bay species (and they came from the mobile/tensaw delta, which runs into mobile bay), i'm pretty sure i can talk mccreadie into accepting them. plus, juvenile bighead sea robins actually can live in fresh water. anyway, now linsdey and i only have to log onto google earth and get gps coordinates for our collections sites, and we're finshed for good. yippee!

this weekend was also pretty good for hockey, if i forget about the flyers' overtime loss on friday. they went on to defeat pittsburgh 6-3 on saturday, with the fabulous simon gagne scoring two goals to reclaim the NHL goal-scoring lead and both rookies (mike richards and jeff carter) putting the puck in the net. chad was pleased to learn that tampa bay managed to hand the hot carolina hurricanes their second home loss of the year last night, and we were both excited about pensacola's third win of the season. yeah, it definitely sucks to go into the pensacola civic center expecting the pilots to lose... but it's nice when they win. dare i hope for two in row?

all right. i might not have a class today, but i do have an assignment due tomorrow for ecotox, and my laundry is in desparate need of washing, so the procrastination ends now (until later).

Hey, That's Pretty Accurate!

You Are Pecan Pie Soda

Sweet, but totally nuts

What Jones Holiday Soda Are You?

*Thanks*, Refs

who knew how much you desired a win for the atlanta thrashers? well, you certainly must have wanted to ensure a thrasher victory, or at least ensure those bastards a point, since there were two of you out there, both supposedly watching the play (i.e., the puck), and you failed to call the hook or trip or whatever you wanted to call it that brought simon gagne down in the last 20 seconds of play as he was heading straight for atlanta's empty net. it was such an obvious call, dudes. even the seemingly anti-flyers tsn announcers thought that big fat trip should have been an automatic flyers goal, meaning that philly would have won that one in regulation. i actually would have settled for a two-minute minor that would have taken away atlanta's two-man advantage (with a flyer in the box and michael garnett out of the net). but no. neither of you freakin' idiots noticed the stick that brought simon down as he crossed the blue line into the thrashers zone. he would have walked the puck straight into the empty net because he was no doubt breaking away from the thrasher defense. but they couldn't have that, now could they? and neither could you. god forbid that the flyers play a shitty first period, totally redeem themselves in the second, continue to play well in the third, and pull out a win after being down 3-1 after the 1st. nope, you didn't want to see that happen. so you let the trip go, and freakin' atlanta would move back to philly's end and score with 7 seconds left... and then manage to win it in OT. dammit. atlanta should not have had so much as a single point from that game, but instead they come out of it with two points that should have belonged to philadelphia. i blame you, refs. i blame you.

Stupid Canadian Air

stupid, stupid cold, dry canadian air. it's freezing outside, and i hate it. i hate the cold. can i just skip class this morning? it's too cold to go out... and windy to boot. boo, cold and wind. maybe i wouldn't hate cold weather so much if the wind would stay away. i hate waking up to temps in the 30's... and it will be in the 20's tomorrow. yuck. at this rate, i'm going to be sick for the next four months. stupid changing weather. stupid weather man talking about the cold, dry canadian air invading the south. stupid canadian air (but canadian people are all right - i just don't know how they deal with the freakin' cold). yeah, laugh if you like at the little southern girl sitting in alabama, next to the gulf of mexico, freezing her ass off, and it's not even thanksgiving yet. i know, compared to many places this is not cold. but for mobile, alabama this is cold. i would die if i lived somewhere colder. heaven forbid that i should ever have to actually deal with snow. then i think really would hibernate all winter. okay. time to venture out (though i'd like to put it off for a few more hours until it's slightly less cold out) and go to class like a good grad student.

This is What My Life Has Come To

sorry, guys. i've been reduced to posting random quiz-things. nothing else is really happening... i haven't been honked at in the recent past, but i might have something better for you tomorrow.

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy

In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh. You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum. Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

maybe this explains why i crack up every time someone unexpectedly gets hit by a bus in a movie... you know, like in final destination and mean girls. seriously, i laughed my ass off. yeah, i might end up insane, but i'm definitely going to have fun along the way.

Well, it was the color of my prom dress...

Your Power Color Is Indigo

At Your Highest: You are on a fast track to success - and others believe in you. At Your Lowest: You require a lot of attention and praise. In Love: You see people as how you want them to be, not as how they are. How You're Attractive: You're dramatic flair makes others see you as mysterious and romantic. Your Eternal Question: "Does This Work Into My Future Plans?"

What's Your Power Color?

West Mobile Boys DO Like 'Em Dirty

that's the going theory, anyway. and the farther west you go, the more boys will honk. it's crazy, but that doesn't mean it's not true. lindsey and i went collecting today at big creek lake (among other places), and the number of honks directed at us while we were doing this collecting was insane. apparently, lindsey + latina + grungy field clothes + pony tails + jeans rolled up huck finn style + a couple of sexy dip nets = smokin' hot. apparently the wolf-whistle a couple of weeks ago at that random stream on grelot rd. wasn't just a fluke thing. the honks began when the two of us were getting the nets out of lindsey's car. many more followed when we actually made our way down into the shallow part of the lake and tried not to sink up to our knees in mud (we weren't so successful at that a couple of times). do normal people just honk at random girls they see from an overpass? it was nutty, really. i guess there's just something about the combination of me and lindsey that triggers the honking reflex in guys.

oh, and just for laughs here are a couple of band names we came up with based on random phrases we've said because of freshwater ecology. wouldn't this make a great flier?

Don't Miss
Lindsey Timmerman and the Undescribed Chub
Opening for
LaTina Steele and the Intoxicated Waterfowl

sounds exciting, right? the intoxicated waterfowl thing came when i was a little frustrated with the number of specimens we were able to collect yesterday (though i did get this one big ass mussel, and it was awesome), and i suggested that we throw a duck (not a canada goose this time) in our giant jar of ethanol and use it for our collection (we aren't really allowed to do that - the only vertebrates we can use are fish). then we speculated about mccreadie's reaction when we pour out this huge, soaking duck that, rather than being pickled by the alcohol just got drunk, and starts wobbling around the lab. we imagined it going a little something like this: mccreadie says, "what is that?!?" then i reply, "intoxicated waterfowl." then came the, "hey, that's a great band name" from lindsey, ending the speculation about mccreadie's reaction and leading to a whole new line of craziness. we'd already decided that undescribed chub is just weird enough to work as a band name after lindsey identified one of our fish, and it turned out to be an undescribed chub (though it was very well described, right there in the book she used to i.d. it).

anyway, despite the giggles (of which there were many), it turned out to be a pretty productive day. i'm glad we skipped two classes to go to big creek lake instead. i haven't skipped a class in a while. it was ok. mccreadie said it was all right. he knew what we were doing. we went to freshwater ecology, asked him if we could pick up our tests from last week (i made a 97 again - sweet) and then go over to big creek lake, and he said it was fine with him. so he also knew where we were when we skipped his lab later in the afternoon (we were just identifying specimens anyway).

so, that's all folks!

Somebody Kill Me, Please

shoot me now and put me out of my misery. i thought this whole sore throat sickness thing was gone, then i woke up this morning feeling like my brain had been scrambled like an egg and someone had been doing cave drawings on my tonsils with a chain saw... and i had to go take an ecotox exam. i just want to sleep... and then sleep some more. but instead i had to dope myself up and go take a classic dr. rice test (one that takes 15 minutes longer than the class period to finish), which was enough to induce a headache all by itself. at least mccreadie took pity on me and cancelled freshwater ecology today... well, it wasn't really all because of me. he was supposed to be gone to a conference in florida today, but it was cancelled due to damage from hurricane wilma. he forgot to change the syllabus, though so it still said there was no class today. of course, no one bothers to check the syllabus, so we all thought we had class, and everyone showed up anyway. lindsey and i talked mccreadie into letting us go do other stuff, though. anyway, now i can just stay here and sleep all afternoon. yay, sleep.

ok, going to take a nap now, since no one wants to shoot me.

It's All Chris Heid's Fault

except it isn't really. that heartbreaking loss to columbia last night was actually corey's fault, since he's responsible for columbia's game-winning goal, but i'd rather blame it on heid. he certainly didn't turn out number one star last night, now did he? i still don't see how the guy was first star friday night, what with coming out of it a -2 and all. i stand by my original heid sucks opinion. and i take back what i said about fulghum growing on me. he screwed up a lot last night, too (despite scoring a goal). to steal chad's nickname for luke, he looked like an uncoordinated monkey out there, especially in the third period when there was a complete and total defensive breakdown. he had that whole butterfingers thing happen again, and the guy couldn't keep his stick on the puck to save his life (darth totally would have won that fight), and forget about him getting it to where it needed to be. chad and i both agree that he needs to do the pass-accepting egg drill from the mighty ducks.

this won't surprise anyone who reads this blog, but the one ice pilot who didn't completely disappoint last night was my favorite little hockey player, jacquo. he worked his ass off out there, and he scored that shortie all by his lonesome. too bad he cramped up and couldn't play in the 3rd period... and all because he had to go back to canada to get his car and was off for a week. that was not the smartest decision. but anyway, i've got no beef with st. jacques. he played a good game... and don't think i'm just saying that because i'm biased (which i freely admit that i am). he actually deserved to be named 2nd star last night. and don't go thinking that even if st. jacques screwed up i'd still say nice things about him. i'm an equal-opportunity smack-talker. if jacquo screws up, you'll read about that too.

now, let's talk some smack about the flyers... they actually managed to win against atlanta last night, but they still sucked (except gagne, he never sucks). it was the thrashers, for pity's sake. if they'd lost that one, i would have flown to philadelphia just to bash some heads together. it seems that the only person on that team who can score these days is simon. i was proud of him and his second career hat trick. he was most definitely the best flyer last night. forsberg scored the flyers' only other goal, and gagne managed an assist on that one, too. once again, the flyer penalty kill was pretty non-existent after the first period, and even their power play wasn't that great (though they did manage two goals on two different 5-on-3's). but freakin' atlanta just kept coming. i'll give the thrashers that - they never gave up. but the flyers' skating and puck-handling abilities deteriorated throughout the game. every time the camera focused on a flyer, he fell down or ran himself into the boards or coughed up the puck in a really bad spot. they actually looked really bad throughout the whole game. even esche made some iffy moves out there - you know, the ones that make you swear you're having a heart attack, even though you're only 23 and not a hippo and you know your blood pressure is normal. i was very relieved when that one ended. the flyers have really got to stop taking penalites when surely they know by now that they can't kill them off. i hope to see better play from all of those guys on tuesday against boston - that one's on OLN, so i shouldn't be the only one around here who watches it.

ok, this procrastination has to stop now. my ecotoxicology notes won't magically commit themselves to my memory.

1st Star?!?

wow. was that ever funny. i can't believe they made heid 1st star last night. chad laughed his ass off at my "what?!?" reaction, since i'd been talking smack about heid the whole game (but so were the guys in front of us). he wasn't just a star of the game, he was first star. *shakes head and laughs* i don't know if i should say here that he proved himself, or if i should go on not liking him. you have to admit, he made mistakes last night. they weren't as huge as aldoff's mistakes, but still. the guy scores one goal that just happens to turn out to be the game winner (when i swear i didn't think he was the one who scored it, but i could have been wrong), and they give him first star credit. what about fulghum? ford? they both played a good game last night, too. geez. i don't care. i'm still gonna talk smack about heid until he plays better in his own zone. i guess maybe with the suckage of the rest of our guys, heid looks good? whatever. but now that i think about it, i didn't like materuhkin at first either. but he grew on me. luke (i am you father) is growing on me, too. there was a lot of trash talk about that guy spewing forth from my mouth those first few games, too. now he seems to have picked up his level of play. he's finally lost the butterfingers thing and learned to accept a pass, and he's stopped hitting post with every shot (which i guess takes a certain level of talent in the first place). ooh, and what about brian collins? man, did he play well. i haven't been impressed with him thus far (though i knew that he could play better than he was), what with all the repeated falling down and turtle-skating and all, but last night he was back in top form.

so, the guys looked good last night - and columbia definitely did not. this is the first place team in the division? wow. my hope for a decent season has been magically restored. let's hope for a repeat performance tonight (minus the couple of crazy goals in the beginning). *jacquo* should be back on the ice tonight (too bad he wasn't playing last night), and i hope he'll have a good game... score some goals... land some hits... i like this trend of team improvement with every game. they should definitely keep this up.

Bow to the Brilliance that is Simon Gagne

man, do i love that guy. he played a huge role in the flyers' 8-1 whipping of the washington capitals last night. i swear, he pick-pocketed alex ovechkin (the caps' dynamic, high-scoring rookie) every other shift. chad hates ovechkin since he's gotten to the lightning (yep, right under their skin like our old pal digger the dermatophyte) every time the two teams have met. alex wasn't a problem for the flyers, though. eric desjardins was assigned to alex-patrol (until he left the game with a concussion, joining captain keith on the head-injury list), and he did an excellent job. no one really got physical with the rookie, though. they just skillfully poked the puck away from him. anyway, ovechkin was shut down, that's the point. it was really funny when, on the way to a commercial break, one of the caps' announcers said (as the camera focused on ovechkin), "and the flyers lead alex 2-1 here in the first..." not, "and the flyers lead the capitals" but "the flyers lead alex."

the flyers did a good job of taking as few penalties as possible (which they haven't really been good at so far), and they didn't allow a single power play goal. that may have been the first game all year in which they've killed off every penalty. but the flyers capitalized (ha ha) on the caps' penalties with two power play goals of their own. i'm glad to see the improvement in philly's special teams. i was worried at the beginning of the season when they ranked 24th on the PP and 29th on the PK. their PK still sucks (it's 27th in the league), but the PP is in the top half of the league now (11th). they do, however, still lead the league in short-handed goals, and jeff carter scored one beauty of a shortie last night. he totally faked out brett johnson, i mean he had the guy sprawling, and just flipped the puck right in around him. it was the flyers' prettiest goal of the night.

and now let's talk about simon. he and forsberg are so good together. one of the caps' announcers said they're like two players in one body. it really does seem as if they read each others' minds. forsberg was the best acquisition that the flyers made from the free agent pool. bobby clarke did a great thing when he swooped in and scooped up peter the great. he always finds a way to get the puck to gagne when simon is in great scoring position. and being himself, gange can usually find the net. his two goals last night prove that. every member of the forsberg/gagne/knuble line scored last night, and none of the goals was the result of a weird bounce (like forsberg's first two goals of the season were). it was excellent.

you know who else was excellent? jeff carter. for most of the season, i've been far more impressed with mike richards than i have with cater as far as flyer rookies go, but last night carter really shined. first, there was that absolute beauty of a short-hander, then he managed to strike again with a less pretty goal (one that was totally cap goalie brett johnson's fault - he just couldn't control his rebound, but he went down and tried to get the puck anyway).

so, now it seems that the flyers will be injury-plagued once again, as both captain keith and top defenseman desjardins are out with concussions, and johnsson is out with a pulled groin (he should be back in the line-up soon, though). i don't think it's really going to be a problem, though. the flyers have such a talented pool of young guys to pull from that i think they can pull out a good season, injuries or no.

now we just have to worry about the pilots. i'm hoping for a good game tonight... and maybe even a win (chris heid or no).

I Know We Needed a Defenseman...

but did it absolutely have to be chris heid? as i'm sure you remember (but here's a reminder, in case you didn't), i am not exactly the president of the chris heid fan club. maybe i was a little too hard on the guy, but he contributed to the ice pilots' crazy-awful playoff performance last year. since he was a new addition for the playoffs, he was easy to blame. plus, he did really stupid things in the defensive end. some defenseman, eh? anyway, now heid has once again been assigned to the pilots from houston, and i don't think i'm happy about it. they are in desperate need of defenseman... and scorers... so i guess anyone should be welcome at this point, but i can't help it. until he proves his defensive skills to me, i don't like him. so there's your challenge, chris heid. prove me wrong. prove to me that you don't suck and that you deserve your position in pensacola (not to mention being signed with an AHL team).

Do a Happy Dance!

this is my last post today, i swear. i'm just excited... about hockey, if you can believe it. i've been so down on my teams this weekend that the flyers' recent win over damn ottawa makes me even happier than usual. i was all prepared to see them lose. but no, they won 5-3, handing the sens their first home loss of the season. this brought them redemption in my eyes. they scored three power play goals on the "all-mighty" hasek (read this with sarcasm, please), and they totally shut down dany heatley (too bad they couldn't do the same to chara, the big giant ostrich man, who had 2 of the sens' 3 goals). the senators never had a lead. it was awesome. hatcher still pissed me off, taking three penalties, but one of them actually wasn't his fault. that was another incident in which a flyer was penalized when his stick was nowhere near the guy he supposedly tripped. the flyer penalty kill still sucked, though. they gave up two power play goals, and their kill % is still stuck in the 70's. the PP just gets better and better, though, so that's something.

so, after that gem of a flyers game, i turned it over to the ducks/coyotes game just in time to catch a pre-second period interview with none other than dave farrish and his shiny bald head. i had actually gone into the kitchen to get some dinner when i heard, "...dave farrish" and rushed back into the living room to see pensacola's former coach on fox sports west. it was pretty sweet.

and with that, i will have happy dreams tonight.

Minnow Trap Adventures

i'm feeling wordy today, so allow me to share with you the tale of the latina and lindsey minnow trap adventure. as many of you are aware, lindsey and i have to create a collection of 60 freshwater specimens for our freshwater ecology class. we have been on many collecting adventures together since august, and we have now reached a point at which our collections are about half finished (i have 31 specimens identified so far). we have many a tiny dead critter sitting in alcohol in the lab, but many of them are duplicates of specimens we have already identified. so, we need to collect more creatures. i was supposed to join in on a boat trip into the mobile/tensaw delta with some people from my lab on friday, but the trip was called off due to extremely low water at the dock. so, lindsey and i decided to set some minnow traps around town yesterday afternoon in hopes of catching some tiny fish, and we had ourselves quite the little adventure.

we decided to use moldy vienna sausages to bait our traps (moldy so they'd be nice and stinky and attract lots of fish), and we think that's going to work out pretty well. anyway, from our very first attempt at setting a minnow trap (which both of us have done before, mind you), the day turned into an adventure. the only rope/string we could find to tie our traps down with was kite string, and we had a bit of a dilemma when deciding whether to double up the string. the decision was made easy after tossing the first trap into the pond next to the library on campus. i held onto the string (so we wouldn't lose the trap) while lindsey let it fly into the pond - only to have the string snap while the trap was in midair. so we lost the trap anyway. anyway, being ourselves, we proceeded to burst into loud, girly giggles (at ourselves). there was a girl pulling up to library at this particular moment, and i'm sure she thought we were freaks. so, on the next trap we doubled up the string, and there were no more lost traps.

after the library pond, we hit a few more spots on campus before heading out and about in mobile looking for a suitable spot. we decided on a random little stream next to a snooty neighborhood (as i call them) off grelot rd. we set the first two traps there uneventfully, and then came the canada geese. lindsey and i decided that it would be good to move upstream a bit along some (wobbly) rocks to set our last two traps. so, i took one, and lindsey (with her mad rock-walking skills) took the other, and we picked our way over the rocks. i set my trap uneventfully (but we had lots of giggles between the library pond incident and the canada geese), but lindsey had a little trouble. her string kept getting tangled in random weeds and rushes (from which all sorts of crazy something-scary-moving-around noises were coming), and as she was fighting with the string, i noticed some ducks in the distance heading toward us. as they got closer, i noticed that weren't ducks at all but canada geese. anyway, when the geese were almost on top of us, i suggested that lindsey give up trying to untangle the string and put the trap in shallow water. well, she did, but by then the geese were upon us, honking like mad... and they tried to eat the green vienna sausage from lindsey's trap. they kept diving down, messing with the trap, and one came up with the securing string in its beak. we couldn't just let the geese get tangled up trying to eat gross green random beef parts, so we're yelling and stuff trying to get the geese to leave, and they're just getting pissed off and honking at us, so linsey picked up one of the wobbly rocks and threw it into the water in the general vicinity of the geese. but alas, they still wouldn't leave. so lindsey and i gave up and left. we're going back to check all the traps tomorrow afternoon, so we're hoping we won't find a big dead canada goose there.

the final part of this adventure came when we were walking back to lindsey's car. keep in mind that we were wearing gross field clothes (jeans and t-shirts covered with rust from the minnow traps, lindsey with a ponytail, while i had a bandana keeping the hair out of my face), and i hadn't showered yet 'cause i was just going out to get all gross. anyway, as we were walking, this guy in a jimmy drives by and wolf-whistles at us. so lindsey and i just look at each other and burst into giggles (we're very giggly together). we look ourselves up and down, and lindsey says in disbelief, "really?!? you can barely even tell we're female in this." anyway, this fostered tons of giggles and random giggle-inducing comments about how west mobile boys must like 'em dirty. leave it to the two of us to turn a field excursion ino a giggle-fest.

Hockey Frustration

boy, has this ever been a depressing weekend for hockey... the pilots lost a game on the road in a shootout - a game they should have won. i was happy they got a point, though. how sad is that? the flyers also lost a game on the road friday night - a game they definitely should have won. they gave up two separate two-goal leads and ended up losing 8-6 to carolina. i blame two men for this disappointing flyers performance: derian hatcher and mike rathje, the two 'big additions' to the flyers' defense this season. both of these guys scored goals friday night, but it seems as if they abandoned their roles as defensive players to do so, and at least two carolina goals were a direct result of bonehead defensive plays by hatcher and rathje. i've said it many times, and i'll say it again - i am not impressed. a couple of completely bogus penalties called against the flyers didn't help matters, either. bill mccreary, a veteran NHL referee, called tripping on donald brashear upon seeing erik cole go sprawling. the thing is, brashear wasn't even touching cole when he went down, and neither was his stick. this call was replayed repeatedly, and even the pro-carolina commentators agreed that the call was bogus. the real kicker is that this power play opportunity resulted in a goal for carolina (their first of the game) and turned the momentum in their favor. i can't blame the whole thing on bad referees, though. the flyer penalty kill leaves much to be desired (only atlanta is worse in this department), though their power play is improving (they've improved from 24th in the league to 12th over the past week). if the flyers don't improve their defensive play (i mean the team as a whole here), there is no way in hell they can beat damn ottawa later today.

...and then there was the ice pilots game last night. i was quite excited to discover that *jacquo* had returned to pensacola upon walking into the civic center, and he played pretty well. it made me remember why i like him so much in the first place. he was hitting people like crazy (even though a few of the hits weren't quite as successful as he planned), skating with a lot of energy, and trying to make things happen out there. but even with some roster changes, the pilots still couldn't manage to pull out a win. the new guy, brendan cook, actually takes some shots, which is more than i can say for a lot of our other guys. the team looked really good in the first period, and i totally got my hopes up. we went into the second period with a two goal lead - the worst lead in hockey according to the always-entertaining barry melrose. so, long story short - we lost 3-2 in regulation. it sucked, man. i really thought they could win this one. they actually outshot the lynx after being outshot by greenville 61 to 20-something friday night. i guess that's something to be happy about.

i'm beginning to get the same feeling about the pilots this season that i had when i worked for the mobile wizards, the short-lived arena football franchise. at the beginning of the season, the wizards sucked. every game was a total blow-out, and i went to every game early on knowing they were going to lose. then, the team made lots of changes - on the roster and in the coaching staff. there was a vast improvement in the level of play after that, but they still could not win. the difference was, i really thought they had a chance in those last few games. they were so close. it almost hurt more at the end when they were playing decent football than when they sucked ass. anyway, the wizards went the whole season without winning a single game. they went 0-16 on the season. pathetic. so, after the ice pilots got blown out by greenville, i knew they sucked, so i sort of expected the blow-out the next night against gwinnett. but last night, they played so well in the first period that i really thought they could take augusta. good players were added to the roster, and the whole team appeared to be playing better - but they still couldn't win. that loss hurt way more than the blow-outs of last weekend. but maybe this a step in the right direction. we were playing with only three defensemen, forcing turek to play with the blue line boys, so maybe when sutton returns and we get a couple more defensemen assigned, the pilots will start winning. keeping my fingers crossed.

Such a Nerd

yeah, i get excited about the nerdiest things. for instance, right now i'm in a state of absolute euphoria that is making it next to impossible to write my proposal for ecotox (which is due the day after tomorrow), and it's all because i just came from anne's office, where we finished going over the proofs of my paper from marine ecology progress series (MEPS). after making copies for both of us, anne stuffed the proofs in a big manila envelope to send back to the journal, and i walked out with a giant smile on my face. it was so awesome to see my paper in MEPS format... now i just have to wait a couple months, and it will actually appear in the journal. i feel like this is a huge step in my career, and since my research is sort of at a standstill for the moment, it's nice to have something to be excited about.

Drunken Mens' Room Conversation

now, obviously i am not in the habit of hanging out in mens' rooms at bars, so the story i am about to relate had to come to me from my husband. there are three characters in this story: drunken southerner, drunken brit, and unidentified hockey player. so, last night after an atrocious ice pilots game, chad, vanessa, deva, and i headed over to mcguire's for food and maybe a glimpse of some of the players. well, we saw a few players, all right, but chad definitely had the most interesting story about them upon returning from the restroom. the conversation he overheard went a little something like this:

drunken southerner, upon seeing unidentified hockey player (imagine the southern accent, with a bit of slur): "man, you guys played like crap - like a bunch of homos out there."

unidentified hockey player: disgruntled look, like he really wants to kick the guy's ass

drunken brit (again, imagine the accent): "so where are you guys going after this, sammy's? wait, of course not - you're a bunch of homos."

unidentified hockey player, replying to such digs from a stall: "even homos can go to titty bars."

of course, the relay of this story cracked me, vanessa, and deva up. even homos can go to titty bars... that's funny stuff. there's one thing i have to admit, though. seeing the players at mcguire's just isn't as exciting when they suck - and sucking is about the only thing these guys do well.

and now for the rant you've all been waiting for. i am going to point out all of the things that are wrong with this season's ice pilot team (an amazing feat, i know). they're slower than flippin' tortoises out there, they're afraid to take a shot, god forbid that they should try and drive the net, they refuse to lay a hit on anyone (but they have that duck and cover thing down when an opposing player hits one of them), they can't pass for shit (yet that's always what they all want to do, unless it's the smart thing to do, then they'll shoot into heavy traffic and give up the puck), planting a guy in the crease in the offensive zone must be taboo for them, and when they do get a guy down there and make a smart pass, the guy waiting by the open net can't handle the puck (*cough* fulghum). it's like they're afraid of the puck or something. they pass when they should be shooting, and they inevitably try to pass to the guy who has two players covering him instead of the guy who's open. maybe they like seeing the other guys skate all over them and score 6 goals a night on their goaltender. what their mothers did to them to give them that attitude, i'll never be able to fathom, but there it is just the same.

no, i'm not finished yet. our guys fall all over themselves (*cough* collins) and stay down on the ice for an eternity, praying for a penalty call (though even with all of the power plays we've had, including a few 5-on-3's, they have yet to score a power play goal). then, they're so slow on their skates that it's like we're down a man until the guy who fell catches back up to the play. the one guy on the team who actually has wheels (dominic noel - aka "the body" by fans of the female [or homosexual male] persuasion) unfortunately thinks the puck is coated in crisco and can't keep his stick on it, so the breakaways for us will be few and far between. to top this off, our "enforcer" doesn't understand the concept of enforcement, though he can pick fights. his idea of his role on the team is to beat up the opponent after they've thoroughly kicked our asses on the scoreboard instead of getting in their way and keeping them from killing our players. and the one aspect of our game that should be good (goaltending) because we have three really good goalies on hand is falling apart, too. but i guess that freddy has always had a good team in front of him, fostering our vision of him as a kick-ass goalie, and with this shitty group out there, he just can't handle it. freddy's good. i'll give him that, but he is certainly no roberto luongo. he does not possess luongo's uncanny ability to be excellent when facing 50 shots a night with one of the worst teams ever in front of him. luongo's getting a break this season, though. the panthers don't suck this year. but back to the pilots, in my oh so humble opinion, trevor cunning should have gotten the start in goal last night. freddy wasn't exactly great friday night (he allowed 6 goals for crying out loud), and cunning deserved a chance.

obviously, i don't have the highest opinion of most of our guys this year. i would be glad to see nearly everyone go elsewhere. there are a few current ice pilots i would like to keep around, however. turek has been playing fairly well, and corey is probably the best defenseman we have (which is kind of sad, because he isn't very sharp right now). but the best guy we have right now is dallas steward. how sad is it that our best player is my size... and i'm not exactly a 6 foot 5 hulk who could just run down anyone on the other team to get to the net. no, our best player is 5' 3 1/2" and might weigh 140 pounds. but he's feisty. man, is he feisty. but a guy that small just can't do it alone. i hope to see some major roster changes in the near future.

boy, this is going to be a long season. at least the flyers are improving. their game last night in toronto was much better than the pilots game. gange is still on a roll, and radivojevic finally scored a goal... but the best part of that game was mike richards's short-handed goal - when the flyers were down by 2 guys. it was amazing. he's definitely one of the best rookies in the league.

ok. more hockey talk soon, i'm sure, but for now i'm outie.

First Biloxi, Then Beaumont...

now estero? is it the goal of the current hurricane season to take out as many ECHL cities as possible? hurricane wilma (the first W name ever, i think) now has the lowest recorded atlantic hurricane pressure ever (another cat 5), and it appears to be headed for south florida... dammit. not that i would rather have it head this way or anything, but come on - can the south division of the ECHL really handle any additional schedule rearranging? perhaps wilma will head for extreme south florida, where the only hockey team it could really destroy would be the NHL's florida panthers. not that i have a grudge against the panthers or anything (i honestly don't), but the city of sunrise is sort of on the other side of florida and probably wouldn't be quite as totally destroyed as the gulf-coastal city of estero, florida were it to be hit by wilma. egad!

mmkay. that's it for this morning. catch ya later.

Road Trip(s)

so, chad and i have formulated a new road trip plan for this hockey season. we will have two (maybe three) road trips spread throughout the regular season. the road trips will begin with a trip to the gwinnett center on saturday, 11/26. the next trip will be (maybe) to the phillips arena in atlanta on saturday, 1/21 to see the thrashers play the tampa bay lightning. our final planned trip of the season will also be to atlanta, but this time we will be seeing the philadelphia flyers on saturday, 3/18 (the last weekend of spring break). this plan has been modified from the original one, which had us going to tampa to see the lightning play the flyers, due to pricing. the same seats in tampa that we paid $70 each for two years ago will now cost us $99 each. seating in an equivalent section in the phillips arena will cost us $65 per ticket. chad is also convinced that we won't need to stay overnight in atlanta. while it is a little closer to mobile than tampa, i'm not so sure about this. best case scenario, both games start at 6:00 central time, end at 8:30 central time, and we make it back to mobile in 5 hours. that means we get home at 1:30 am central time at the earliest. i'm going to bet that it's more like 2:30 or 3:00 am. i dunno. chad thinks he can drive that. he does have funny sleeping habits when he doesn't have to work the next day... and it would save us the money we'd spend on a hotel room. i think that's really why he doesn't want to spend the night. and that's where the "maybe" regarding the atlanta/tampa bay game comes in. he would rather let me have what i want and go see atlanta play philly in march than go see tampa play in atlanta in january. isn't that sweet? we could go see both games, but he's kinda cheap. plus, he'd watch it on center ice anyway... and we'd be missing another ice pilots game. oh well. we're definitely heading to gwinnett next month, so we can worry about atlanta later.

The Procrastination Queen is Back

i've really been on the ball this semester. i've barely put anything off at all compared to my usual ways. i've studied for exams days in advance... unheard of for the queen of the late-night cram session. i even wrote a lab report three whole days before it was due. but here i sit, breaking a promise to myself. my goal for the week was to work on my ecotox proposal presentation today (which i've gathered some references for but haven't actually begun), but i really don't want to. i'm just not in the mood to work on a proposal for a project that will never actually get done. but, seeing as my presentation is tuesday, it needs to be done - at the least planned. chad and i are going to the ice pilots' first preseason game tonight (we're tivo-ing the flyers and lightning games tonight and tommorrow night, so don't spill anything about the flyers/penguins game when you see me on saturday, nessa), then heading to flomaton after the game so chad's dad can help him install a toolbox on his truck on saturday, then going from the 'rents' place to saturday's game. obviously, that doesn't allow for time to work on my proposal any (because of course i don't do school related work at mom's house)... but i will have all day sunday... then monday morning to practice... ok. i have formulated a new plan right before your very eyes. i will generate a general outline of the presentation and read some of those references today and put it all together sunday. sounds good to me.

mmmkay. off to do some work i guess. then, later tonight - hockey, of course! i can't wait to see all the new guys. lay-tah!

Hockey: The Best Form of Entertainment

thanks to NHL center ice from directv, i have been catching bits and pieces of tons of hockey games lately. chad and i have of course been watching all of the flyers and lightning games, and i have made full use of the unlimited hockey access provided by center ice. last night while chad was taking a shower i watched the first period of the montreal/atlanta game, which wasn't all that entertaining. i thought that ilya kovalchuk would vastly improve the thrashers play, but i was dead wrong. they were not impressive.

the washington/carolina game was light years more entertaining. it was action-packed, and i got to see several players i really enjoy watching, but who are no longer members of the teams i keep up with religiously, including former flyers rod brind'amor (carolina), justin williams (carolina), and dainus zubrus (washington), and former lightning player corey stillman (carolina). how convenient that williams and stillman are still wearing their old numbers. anyway, despite the fact that i only watched the second period of this game, i managed to see the play with the greatest entertainment value. it was fantastically horrible for the player involved. carolina had pulled ward (the goaltender) due to a delayed penalty on washington. the hurricanes had just scored to tie the game 1-1, and the upcoming power play would give them the perfect opportunity to gain the lead, right? well, it didn't quite work out that way. since there was a delayed penalty, the moment a capital gained possession of the puck, play would stop, so even if the puck found its way into caronlina's empty net the goal wouldn't count. unless the player putting the puck in carolina's empty net was one of carolina's own players. and that is exactly what happened. i have no idea what niclas wallin (of the hurricanes) was thinking. it was so bad. he had control of the puck in the offensive zone, then zubrus kept putting pressure on him, trying to get it out of the zone, when wallin turns toward the empty net and lets the puck fly - right into his own net. every other carolina player on the ice was in the capitals' end. there was no one to receive this "pass." it was just so bad. i'm sure he felt like a big idiot. he put his team behind again at a time when they had a fabulous chance to take the lead. well, carolina did score on that power play to tie things up again and regain their momentum - and they eventually won the game 7-2. so carolina actually scored 8 goals in that game. only one was in their own net.

man, do i ever manage to catch the good stuff, or what?

Bad Week

i decided this morning that i'm having a bad week. and it's only wednesday. blah. i guess it could be worse, but i can't shake this sense of gloom. maybe it's the crazy fog this morning. or maybe it's a build-up of "little things." or maybe it's that i found out over the weekend that my grandmother has skin cancer... and that yesterday in ecotox the lecture topic was carcinogens. no one in my family was really surprised at the news about my granny. she's had this funky place on her upper arm for about 2 years that her doctor has been telling her to get checked by a dermatologist. yet, every time the doctor made an appointment my granny called and cancelled it. crazy old lady. i think she was afraid to find out. anyway, she finally went for a biopsy last week, only the doctor she saw took one look at her arm, said it was cancerous (it's grown from quarter-sized to 5 1/2 inches in diameter over the past year or so) and that he saw no reason to cut twice, and scheduled the surgery to remove it for early in november.

and, to make this week even better, today begins those four or five days every month when i hate being a girl. like i said, blah.

moving on, the flyers game last night didn't help my mood any. they lost to the freakin' maple leafs, and damn ottawa beat montreal. badness all around. eshce's goals against average is going to suck. just guessing, but i'm gonna predict that nittymaki starts in goal on friday against the penguins (and former flyers mark recchi and john leclair). esche allowed another 4 goals last night, including a screened power play shot by freakin' eric lindros. why couldn't it have been anyone but lindros? on the upside, gange continues to impress as he picked up two points last night, with one coming on a short-handed goal late in the 2nd period. and the one toronto goal that i wasn't so upset about was former st. john's maple leaf kyle wellwood's first career NHL goal. it was really kind of sweet. he looked so happy. it's not often that you see that kind of sheepish grin on a hockey player's face. i was kind of happy for the kid (in a bittersweet sort of way, since his first goal came against my favorite team). he's a cutie, too... too bad he plays for the enemy.

after the game, chad and i wallowed in the current suckiness of our respective NHL teams. after impressive starts from both philly and tampa bay in '03-'04, they are both getting off to awful starts this season. tampa bay lost to boston monday night 4-2, and philly lost to toronto last night by the same score (and just fyi, that was the same score in the ottawa/montreal game last night). yuck. both of our teams play pittsburgh this weekend, so maybe they'll pick up a couple more wins. philly also plays the islanders. these games may be tivo-ed, though. i really want to go to both the ice pilots' preseason games this weekend, since chad's shoulder is still bothering him, and he isn't playing in the rugby game on friday night. i think i have him talked into going to pensacola friday and saturday, so expect to see us, those who will be at the games.

ok. it's time to go and work on a proposal for ecotox... i have to give a presentation on it next tuesday.

I Believe in Antero Nittymaki

if you're sitting there thinking antero who???, he is the flyers' number two goalie this season. last season, he was the number one goalie for the calder cup champion philadelphia phantoms of the american hockey league (because neil little sucks). and the season before, when the flyers' goalies (robert esche and jeff hackett) were both laid up with injuries, leaving the team to depend on AHL goalies neil little and antero nittymaki, nittymaki played three games with the big boys, coming away with a goals against average in the NHL of 1.00 - including one impressive performance against the rockin' new jersey devils. yep, he allowed only one goal in each of the three games he played. the funny thing is, the flyers started out with neil little instead of nittymaki, realized that little sucks much ass at the NHL level, and put in nittymaki. and now nittymaki sits on the bench in the wachovia center instead of across the street in the AHL building. i'm glad to see him there as esche's back-up. when chad and i went to tampa last december to see the phantoms play the springfield falcons, i was desperately hoping to see nittymaki in action up close and personal. but alas, the phantoms started little for that game.

but now i'm seeing nittymaki in the NHL. he started last night when the flyers played the devils. that was the plan even before esche allowed five goals against the damn rangers wednesday night. i must say, that game did not start out well. a couple of bad moves put chris therien (i'll talk about him a little more in a bit) in the sin bin and resulted in a couple of power play goals for the devils. the flyers' penalty kill needs much work. well, one of those goals nittymaki should have stopped. but the puck shouldn't have been near him. anyway, the flyers were scrambling, even when they didn't have a man in the box. their passes weren't working, and they had no puck control skills. and then the lovely simon gange put some life back into the game with one pretty goal and one goal that might not have been a goal (i was really surprised that they called it a goal - they didn't have an angle where you could see the puck, even though i was pretty sure it was in the net). the controversy turned out not to matter, as the flyers went on to score three more unanswered goals in the third period for a 5-2 win. needless to say, they got their act together. they really started clicking about midway through the second period. passes were getting through, their puck handling was better, their penalty kill improved by miles (turner stevenson even netted a short-handed goal on his former team), and they started getting a lot of shots through to marty brodeur. simon gange was awesome, as usual, and i think that knuble is going to work out better on the line with gange and forsberg than jeff carter did.

now let's talk about chris therien. i was a little surprised to see that guy back in philly, especially since he'd been traded away in the '03-'04 season. i wasn't sad to see him go then, and he's still making the same kinds of mistakes. now, he doesn't completely suck. he has some good qualities in a defenseman, particularly his size, but sometimes he makes bonehead decisions on the ice that cost his team big. he was making bonehead plays in '04, and he's still making bonehead plays now. but when he's on his game and thinking about what he's doing (and how hooking that guy or cross-checking that guy, or taking out the wrong guy will affect the team), he's pretty good... but the flyers definitely have better defenseman than therien. my biggest problem with him is that ken hitchcock keeps putting him on the ice with the most dangerous players from the opponent. so i guess that's an issue with the coach, not therien. but anyway...

obviously, i was quite pleased with last night's performance by the flyers. nittymaki came up with some great saves, and even though he wasn't particularly spectacular, i think that kid's gonna make it.

chad was not so lucky with the lightning game. i watched pieces of it (during the flyers' intermissions), and i'm really surprised at the skill of the florida panthers. the game was scoreless until there were 2 minutes left in the game, when the panthers finally got something by grahame, and it was a really tight game as far as play. the lightning came really close to answering right back, but vinny couldn't get a stick on it, and boyle just didn't get enough lift on the puck to get it by the impressive roberto luongo... then an empty-netter by olie jokinen clinched things. disappointing, i know, but i was so happy about the flyers game that i didn't really care.

well, that's all for now. i'm sure there will be more soon. lay-tah.

Hockey and Happy Birthday

so, yesterday was chad's 24th birthday... and it was also the NHL's opening night. so many hockey games, so little time. chad spent the day playing hockey on his playstation 2 and donating blood. i spent the day studying and setting up another ecotox experiment.

...and then it was hockey time. it makes me sad to say that the flyers/rangers game was a huge disappointment. it would have been fine if the game had ended at the end of the second period... but it just didn't. or maybe it did for the flyers. freakin' jagr... he was making crazy mistakes all night long, and i was having a great time laughing at him (especially his interference penalty - somebody should really tell him you aren't allowed to play the puck from the bench... gotta have a skate on the ice, buddy), and then came the third period. two goals from jagr back to back... and then one from freakin' marion hossa's little bro. it's almost as bad as marion hossa himself. and where the hell was esche? he fell apart in the 3rd too. but forsberg made a couple of nice plays, and i was fairly impressed with rookie mike richards. they'd better step it up friday night against new jersey.

the tampa game turned out better for chad. they dominated carolina for most of the game, and i had fun watching vinny lecavalier's inner figure skater. have you ever noticed that he really likes the spinning back-hand shot?

ahh, then we flipped over to the anaheim/chicago game for a look at former ice pilot coach dave farrish behind the ducks bench... and a glance at nikolai khabibulin. he totally felt esche's pain after that game... 5 goals each scored on two of my favorite goalies all in the same night. yikes.

and let's not forget the history making damn ottawa/toronto shoot-out. yup. we watched that, too. we were watching the post-game action on OLN, when i noticed the scores scrolling across the bottom - that game was in OT, so we tuned in and witnessed history. i am not a fan of either team (despite toronto's pensacola affiliation - when one of our former players sees some ice time, i'll pull for the leafs), so it didn't really hurt that much that the damn senators won. at least havlat missed his shot... and so did eric lindros (ha!). i freakin' can't stand lindros. if it had to be anyone who clinched the win for damn ottawa, i'm glad it was dany heatley and not one of the senators i really hate.

as you can tell, it was a hockey-filled night here in mobile last night. it was awesome. i so love NHL center ice.