Valentine's & More

hello all. i know that it has been unacceptably long since i posted, but i have excuses... good ones. of course, from my last post, you know that i was out of commission with bronchitis for a few days, and as a matter of fact, i still have a lingering cough from it. i feel much better now, though. i ended up alternating napping, studying, coughing, and feeling pukey from the anitbiotic last tuesday, and i went ahead and took my exam on wednesday. i still wasn't feeling well, but i gave it my best shot... with no cough medicine, since the prescription stuff the doctor gave me "may cause dizziness, may cause drowsiness, do not operate machinery while taking." of course, as i am susceptible to all side effects of all medicines, it did make me dizzy and sleepy. so, it was a bad idea to take it and then take a test. so i coughed my way through, and i'll find out how my disease-muddled brain handled it in about half an hour.

on to my second excuse, i have a huge (35-40 min) presentation on friday, not to mention the project outline that i had promised dr. v. this week. so, i had to work on both of these, and as of right now, the outline is dr. v.'s hands and the powerpoint for friday's presentation is finished. i just need to practice and time it now to be sure that my 35 slides will do the trick. in addition to this extra work, i have all of the regular class stuff to contend with, too (you know, readings, class discussions, etc.).

now, i am just bursting with tidbits that i wish to share. unfortunately, time is not on my side. i have class in a little while, and a big pile of stuff (class work, household chores, etc.) waiting for me when i get home. so, i'll share as much as i can now and save the rest for another time. i'll start by wishing everyone a belated happy valentine's day. a totally commercialized holiday designed to sell candy and flowers to be sure, but one that i (along with most women) enjoy nonetheless. chad and i celebrated not with our usual hockey game and dinner (since the pilots didn't have a game at home this year) but by spending the night in a (free) hotel room at the isle of capri resort and casino in biloxi monday night. i know what some of you are thinking - me (who as a general rule doesn't see the thrill of slot machines and is disinclined to fork over tons of cash for things like black jack, a card game that i do enjoy sometimes, poker, or roulette) staying in biloxi? yeah, i did. and it was fun, despite excessive smoke inhalation (which you can be sure exacerbated my lingering cough). chad brought me peach roses monday afternoon before we left (lovely, i tell you, and they smell wonderful), and we headed for biloxi shortly after. the hotel room was free, which made it that much better. we were also curious to see how biloxi is faring in their post-katrina clean-up efforts. most of the folks i know who are from the mississippi coast say that things aren't really as horrible there as the pictures from the news would have us all think. driving down hwy 90 (right along the water), things still look absolutely horrific. that is where all the houses were washed away, with nothing but concrete slabs left, along with quite a few casinos. there is a sign on what's left of the grand casino that says, "may it rest in pieces," which amused me. the demolition crews were hard at work trying to get it cleaned up, though. amazingly, there are houses along the water that look perfectly fine... right next to a slab where a neighboring house used to be. of course, chad and i had to drive down and have a look at the mississippi coast coliseum (home to the sea wolves, one of the ice pilots' biggest rivals - when they play, that is). it actually looks like it's in good shape. there were a lot of people working there, and we did not see a casino in its parking lot (there was one there right after katrina - we saw pics on the news). the workers had air conditioners hooked up, and the building itself looks really good. i don't think it's impossible for them to have a hockey team next season. this feeling is enhanced when we consider that the rest of biloxi doesn't look too bad. yes, there are blue tarps, but not as many as you might think, and you know the prevalent sight of snapped off trees that typically follow a hurricane? well, we saw very few...and there are a lot of people in biloxi right now. the neighborhoods that weren't right on the water don't look too bad. casinos are reopening, and the imperial palace looks positively grand (from the outside). the isle of capri definitely took a hit (there is a gaping hole where part of the parking lot between it and casino magic caved in), and construction is ongoing, but the part that is up and running (including the two restaurants) looks quite nice. all of the hotel rooms have been remodeled, and they look really cute. so, if sponsorship is an issue for the sea wolves, it shouldn't be for too much longer since there are several casinos open.

anyway, there was a couple checking in behind us, and we eavesdropped a little. they were supposed to go to new york for the week, but due to the big snow storm up there, they ended up going to biloxi. how disappointing would that be? anyway, we had a lovely time... lost some cash in the casino (which was to be expected, but it still wasn't nearly as much as the cost of the room, so it was still a fantastic deal with the free room and all), but we got free drinks (pina colada, yummy) out of it. we ate at the buffet instead of the other restaurant because i couldn't decide what i wanted. i ended up eating a little bit of a ton of really different foods (chinese, pesto salmon, au grautin potatoes, asparagus, etc.... then yummy pie), and it was tasty. we planned to order room service for breakfast, but ended up doing the buffet again - and again, because i couldn't decide what i wanted, so i ate a little bit of a lot of different stuff. anyway, we had a good time before we headed home yesterday (i'll spare you any more details that might make you uncomfortable).

ok... i have to go to class now. but expect more soon on the topics of the olympics and a couple of recent phone calls from my brother (and i'll explain why just the fact that he called me is weird). ta ta for now.

Not Procrastinating This Time

i haven't begun to study for my plant physiological ecology exam tomorrow, but this time it's not due to sheer procrastination. i actually have a valid excuse this time. i am terribly ill, and yesterday i even tried to study a little while i was waiting to be diagnosed at the doctor's office (but to no avail - nothing is sinking in, and my brain is a little swimmy). now, i generally hate doctors (the M.D. kind), and i won't go unless there is a dire need. i think that a 103 degree fever (that drops to 100-101 with tylenol), horrible cough that keeps getting worse, and a sore throat that no over the counter medicine can kill and keeps me from sleeping warrant a visit to the evil M.D. so i went, and his exact words were "i don't think you have pneumonia." he doesn't think? damn, i hope i don't have pneumonia. he thinks i have a pretty severe case of bronchitis and an upper respiratory infection. so, he gave me this crazy strong antibiotic that makes me feel like i'm gonna blow some serious chunks (if i'd eaten real food in the last three days, i would have, anyway - as it is, it probably would have just been colorful liquid), something to kill the pain in my throat, and something to make me stop coughing... and he said i should keep taking OTC decongestants. i swear, i'm popping so many pills i can barely keep them straight. the good news is, i actually do feel a little better today, but my back still hurts like hell (a result of all the crap in my lungs), my throat still hurts a little (despite the darvocet), and now that i can actually sleep, it's all i want to do. i am seriously considering calling dr. major and asking if i can take the exam friday instead of tomorrow. she already knows i went to the doc yesterday, and she knows me. i don't just bail on class and miss exams because i have a little cold (not since undergrad, anyway). plus, i think that as soon as she hears my croaky voice, she'll know i'm seriously sick. ok, dudes. i'm going back to sleep. g'night.

No Wonder Chad Likes Me!

You Are Lightning

Beautiful yet dangerous People will stop and watch you when you appear Even though you're capable of random violence You are best known for: your power Your dominant state: performing

What Type of Weather Are You?

Feeling Self-Confident... and Maybe a Little Egotistical

do you guys remember my... incredulity, let's call it, over all the guys that honked at me and lindsey in grungy field clothes last semester? i just didn't get the apparent allure of a girl in dirty, raggedy jeans, a plain old t-shirt, and a ponytail. it just seems wrong that a guy could find a girl at her most appealing when she puts the least effort into her appearance. i attributed this nuttiness to the hicks that live outside the city limits where we were, but now i think that i was wrong. a girl can be at her most appealing when she doesn't try. maybe guys see that girl as one who is low-maintenance... and not afraid to get a little dirty ;) or maybe it's that 'natural beauty' thing. i don't know.

anyway, this turn-around in my thinking was brought about the other day when i put on some jeans, and a long-sleeve t-shirt under a short-sleeve t-shirt, and when i looked at myself and my ponytail in the mirror, i think i saw it. you know, what all those guys saw when they honked at me and lindsey. i said to myself, "i look hot." now, i say that to myself a lot (gotta keep the confidence up, you know), but it's usually after i take considerable time making myself cute. that night, while i was in the kitchen making dinner, chad came in and said, "you know, that's kinda hot." i was like, "cooking?" and he's like, "the t-shirt under a t-shirt." i just shook my head and laughed, but maybe there's something to that. for instance, i am also wearing a long-sleeve t under a short-sleeve t today, complete with raggedy jeans (frayed at the bottoms, with little holes forming at the corners of the pockets - man, are they comfy) and ponytail, and i swear that the eyes of every male in the USA library were on me this morning. this was not imagined, and it sort of creeped me out. i thought that maybe i had a really huge hole on the ass of my jeans or a huge booger hanging from my nose or something, but no. i didn't. i went to the library before class to do some actual work, and while i was making copies three different guys walked by and totally stared me down. maybe they really needed to make copies, too. or maybe i'm just hot in raggedy clothes (well, my t-shirt is kinda cute)... or maybe they were attracted to my bright green purse.

then, when i went over to check my email (i was waiting for a reply from dr. v. about refilling the helium), every guy at one of those computers looked up and kept looking. what's up with that? then, dr. forbes (from the chemistry dept - it's his HPLC i borrowed) saw me and came over to chat, which attracted a little more attention and a little more staring. i did not open one single door for myself today (at USA, anyway). a guy was walking into the library ahead of me, and he stopped to let me through first, another one was leaving behind me and rushed ahead to hold the door for me, another one was going into the life sciences building to get that one for me... you get the idea. it was just one of those days. maybe i should do the jeans, t-shirt, and ponytail thing every day... or maybe i imagined the extra attention. but maybe i didn't. either way, i still think i'm hot.

Joni Pitkanen to the Rescue... Again

i'm getting really tired of the attitudes of all hockey commentators. specifically i'm sick of hearing how the flyers can't score without peter forsberg. granted, he's the best player in hockey, which i don't think anyone will refute, but he is not the heart and soul and key to scoring for the flyers. it isn't like they've lost every game that peter the great has missed (and he hasn't recorded points in every game they've played - and won). captain keith has been their heart and soul for the past few years, but thank goodness they can actually win without him this season (two years ago, primeau missed 30 days, and the flyers did not win a single game the whole time he was out). i honestly think that some of the "philadelphia can't score without forsberg" talk played a role in their atrocious performance against tampa bay. i was scared to death that i'd see a repeat last night against the rangers, and if it weren't for my boy joni pitkanen, i might have.

pitkanen has been my favorite flyers' skater all season (though i haven't devoted as much blogging time to him as i have, say, antero niittymaki or ben eager), and earlier this season when chad asked who my favorite flyer was, i said pitkanen. i was impressed with him his rookie season two years ago, and he's greatly improved since then. pitkanen has become philadelphia's top scoring defenseman (an honor previously bestowed upon kim johnsson), but he makes smart defensive plays too - obviously, a must for a defenseman. he also has a knack for bailing his team out when they're sinking, as we all saw last night against the rangers (did you watch that one, nessa? they actually won on OLN!). it was a repeat of his performance in boston the night brian eklund (the eks man) made his NHL debut. the team is down a couple of goals in the 3rd, pitkanen scores to put his team back in the game, richards scores to tie it up, then pitkanen buries the game-winner in OT. how can you not love this guy? he can score, he can skate, and he plays pretty good D. he missed a good chunk of time (about 6 weeks or so) after abdominal surgery to correct a sports hernia, and he didn't look so good his first couple of games back, but he is certainly in top form now and showing the NHL what he's got. i hope bobby clarke hangs on to pitkanen for a long time.

Disturbing Behavior

dudes, what is up with the hockey world? are they all just out to give me a freaking heart attack? the first big hockey shock of the weekend was discovering that chris freakin' heid has been named the ice pilots captain since corey was traded to florida (personally, i'd have given it to bryson busniuk and left heid with the A). and today i find out that freakin' derian hatcher has been named the flyers captain with captain keith's long-running head injury. have i mentioned recently that i don't think primeau will be coming back for the flyers? i guess they aren't comfortable naming rookie mike richards to the job just yet, though from everything i've heard all season he was the guy everyone thought would be the next flyers leader. how much more can a girl take, huh? the flyers are in a downward spiral, and they all need to get rid of the suck bug they've caught. or they just need to start working for their wins again. after they kicked ass on that monster road trip, they figured things would just fall into place at home, not seeming to realize that winning means working. oh well. at least the pilots managed to squeak out a shootout win last night (i say it's because they went back to blue jerseys - enough of this red and black crap, let's get back to the blue angels connection and wear their colors). that was exciting. i thought they'd lose again. but anyway... let's hope things start looking up for both my teams.

derian hatcher... damn.

ECHL All Star Game

let me start by saying that anyone who can should watch the echl all star game when it reairs on OLN tonight if at all possible. it was an incredibly entertaining hockey game, particularly for me, and it took my mind of philadelphia's embarrassing loss to montreal last night (jan bulis scored 4 goals on robert esche! yikes!). however, i think that anyone who enjoys hockey would do well to watch this game and scout some of hockey's up and coming stars.

now that i've said that let me warn you that i am about to discuss this eventful game, so if you don't want to know what happened in the all star game, STOP READING NOW.

ok, i spent much of the all star game laughing my freaking ass off, but maybe it wasn't really funny. the majority of my laughter was at luke fulghum and his hat trick. oh yeah, that's right. pensacola's one and only all star player scored a hat trick for the american conference. crazy. absolutely crazy. i swear, i have never seen luke (jedi, chad's uncoordinated monkey) accept passes the way he did last night. my reaction to his 3rd goal went something like, "holy hell! there is no freakin' way i just saw that! you couldn't pay him to do that in pensacola! oh wait, they do pay him." he's pretty good at parking himself in a good place, he just misses the puck all the time instead of shooting it into an essentially wide open net. obviously, the boy's got skills. unfortunately, we don't really see them shine like that in pensacola, since he (along with the rest of the team, let's be fair) always finds some way to screw things up. seriously, we know he can shoot and score, so why the hell doesn't he do it more often? is he pissed off because he plays for a losing team? whatever. now i think it's going to piss me off even more when he flat out misses a great pass or doesn't shoot when he's got the chance.

anyway, the other surprise for me in the game was stockton's players. yeah. stockton. as in, the worst team in the league by a pretty wide margin. their goalie was the only one of the six who saw ice time to record a shutout for his period of play, and their other all star, mike lalonde, scored a goal for the national conference. so, why exactly do they suck so much?

the game was of course filled with familiar faces (well, names anyway), despite the lack of pensacola players. i recognized the guys from the south division, you know, the ones pensacola plays a ton. one of gwinnett's players, guillaume desbiens (whose name the PA announcer totally butchered, which was obvious from the way he shook his head and laughed when they announced him), missed the net on a great scoring chance at least once, but his teammate jeff campbell managed to put one in the net. of course, a florida everblade also had to score, so ernie hartlieb scored the first goal for the american conference. well, that was all well and good, but they still lost 7-6 (though it was 7-4 with only a couple of minutes left).

the other part of the game i really found funny was charlotte's goalie, jeff glass, and the way he got lit up in the third period. i was like, "there's the charlotte goalie we know and love!" i found it even funnier since the funny OLN announcer guy kept talking about how his contract is with damn ottawa. 4 goals on 8 shots. that's not so spiffy, eh? maybe i should have felt a little bad for him, but no. didn't happen. i thought it was funny.

anyway, even if i've totally ruined things for you, go watch the game. like i said, it was highly entertaining.

Still Procrastinating... Sort Of

still haven't practiced the presentation for tomorrow. today is an HPLC day (translation - a day where i live in the life sciences building from 8 am to roughly 6 pm and consume 2 meals and an afternoon snack in the lab - don't tell OSHA, k? eating in the lab is a no no), and due to my own strange psychological makeup won't be able to practice for real while i'm here. i find it much easier to talk to myself when there is no one else around for me to talk to and without the fear that someone will wander in and think me a freak because i'm in a semi-dark lab adjacent to the lab where i'm actually supposed to be working, talking to myself. i did print out the power point yesterday and make notes next to all my slides so i remember what to say while i practice, so if it comes down to it, i could go in there and wing it tommorw. not that i've ever done that. seriously, i've never done that. i must be prepared when doing the public speaking thing, lest i become one big bundle of muttering, stuttering, uncontrollably sweating and shaking, no eye contact making, uh-spouting nerves. i do ok when i've practiced, though. and i don't use notes when i give the actual presentation. if i did, i'd just read them, lose my place a few times, get really nervous, and turn into the woeful thing i just described. the notes just help when i'm practicing... which i really do need to do. i should have an extra hour in the morning, though, so really it's no big deal. and i could always run down the hall and get valerie and katie to listen to my talk so i wouldn't feel like i was talking to myself in a public place. nah. i'll make do with running through things in my head... though i tend to get distracted if i'm not actually talking.

oops. the HPLC calls - time to inject another sample. adios.

Procrastinating Again

instead of practicing my presentation for wednesday, i am playing on the internet. i know i promised in an earlier post to cut it out with the quiz things, but it's been a while. i'm telling myself it's my reward for finishing the presentation (even if i haven't walked around talking to myself yet).

You Are a Sprinkled Donut

Flamboyant and flashy, you're easily distracted by shiny things. You're definitely a snazzy number, and you usually catch everyone's eye in the room. And you've got the goods to back it up your colorful image. (Though too much of you gives people a stomach ache!)

What Donut Are You?

At Least They Made A Game Of It

i find it oh so sad that i take comfort in the fact that at least last night's ice pilots game was close. they could have gotten completely blown out by gwinnett, but they really made a game of it and managed to only lose by one goal. maybe that should make it worse since they at least had a chance to win and couldn't pull it out. oh well. braff finally scored a goal, so at least it was a happy night for someone. we can all finally see that all of the recent changes to the team haven't really helped. at least the flyers won yesterday afternoon... finally broke that losing trend. esche looked really good in his first outing since reaggravating the groin injury. i still think that he and niittymaki are going to have to duke it out for the #1 goalie position, though. in my humble, niittymaki loving opinion, the rookie has had a much better track record and looked much better overall than esche this season, and he has proven himself worthy of the #1 position. i'm going to be pissed if hitchcock doesn't at least rotate them. not that i don't like robert esche or have confidence in his abilities. it's just that he's been having kind of an... off sort of season. maybe he will continue to put on performances reminiscent of yesterday, and the flyers will finally have two really solid goaltenders.

as for my plans for this week, i have a presentation on wednesday for my plant physiological ecology class, so i have to finish the power point for (and practice) that before turning my attention to the 35-40 minute presentation i will be giving shortly after valentine's day in my seminar. i'm not sure yet whether i'm going to use it as a basis for the outline of my prospectus or as an excuse to finally delve into the wide world of indirect chemical defenses in preparation for the paper i'm working on with anne and her doctoral advisor. i also have to write a review of the paper i'll be discussing in wednesday's presentation, but that shouldn't take too long. i also have the usual lab stuff and readings for classes. the department chair is giving a guest lecture in my fisheries oceanography class since the prof is in alaska this week, and the three papers he assigned for discussion are all his. i'd better read carefully and really pay attention since he of course knows them inside and out, being one of the authors and all. aside from all the work, it will also be a hockey-filled week since either the flyers or the lightning play every day monday-thursday, there's the echl all-star game wednesday in addition to the flyers game, the ice pilots play friday and saturday night, and the flyers and lightning play each other saturday afternoon. whew. so many games, so little time...

New Link

hello all. i've been muy busy over the past week, with all of my reading for classes plus lab work, so i haven't really had the time for a good post. i still don't, really. i just wanted to alert you all to the fact that i have added a new link under "blogs i dig" - ron kiene's antarctica trip 2006. ron is a prof at the sea lab (he taught me chemical oceanography), and he does a lot of work in antarctica. he has started keeping a blog of his trip this year, and it is actually quite interesting... plus, there are tons of pretty pictures. so, go check out what ron is working on, and see some shots of a cold trip and some nifty penguins. if it weren't for the fact that i would quite literally freeze to death, i might have been tempted to join them.

The Next One

wow. someone out there shares my opinion of sidney crosby. go read this highly opinionated article (or just the first part where he talks about crosby), and see how closely this guy's thoughts mirror my own.

my pals thought i was a little blunt a couple of weeks ago when i called sid the kid a whiny assed baby in mcguire's, but he is. i am not going to deny that the kid has talent (because he does, and anyone who has seen him play knows this), but he seems to have the attitude of your typical spoiled brat who thinks he's entitled to special treatment and that anyone who deigns to lay a hit on him automatically deserves a trip to the sin bin. but maybe i'm just one of those flyers fans who have pegged him as a diver - which he is. i'll admit that derian hatcher deserved the penalties he took for roughing up crosby, but as i've said before, derian hatcher is a twit, and crosby sure was bitching a lot for a guy who drew several penalties against hatcher. not to mention all those times when crosby was the victim of a perfectly legal hit (some that weren't even that hard) and went sprawling, lying there looking at the ref, who obviously wasn't going to call anything (as he shouldn't). it's hockey, kid. you are going to get hit sometimes, and you need to learn to take it better. if it's an illegal hit that doesn't get called, bitch about it. if you had the puck and just freakin' got laid out by a great check, well, you've played this game long enough to know that it happens.

maybe crosby just isn't a physical enough player to suit my tastes (i'm sure you all know that i go for the guys who can hit - and get hit), but for now i'm sticking to my story that he's whiny... and i'm not the only one who thinks so.

Oh My God - They Won

so, i'm at the lab today, and since the ice pilots game was moved to 9:30 this morning i decided to listen while i work... i tuned in during the 1st intermission when the pilots were down 3-0 without much hope for the rest of the game. from the sound of things, the pilots really sucked it up during the first period (thus going down 3-0), and apparently schulz got his ass kicked in a fight again... badly. but man, did those guys ever pick it up in the 2nd and 3rd periods when they totally dominated the south carolina stingrays. steven later scored on a power play in the 2nd, then rooneem and cook scored for the pilots in the 3rd to tie the game 3-3, and then, miracle of all miracles, todd ford held off the stingrays during the overtime and the lovely adam courchaine scored the game winner for the pilots. all i can say is wow. i hope that this is a sign of things to come for pensacola hockey. it sounded like the guys worked really hard the last two periods (and overtime) of the game, and they have finally acquired two more points in the standings. mouthpiece boy (vukovic, a recent pensacola acquisition from florida who repeatedly drops his mouthpiece every game) didn't play due to "family problems" but lehun was there and, though he didn't participate in the pilots' scoring, he seemed to play pretty hard for us. i'm impressed. i really didn't think that this team had it in them to come back from a 3 goal deficit... and not allow the opposition to score after the 1st period. like i said, i hope this is a sign of things to come.

A New Day, A New Semester

this first day of the spring semester finds me in a better mood than when i wrote my last entry. today started off with a beautiful 50-something degree, mostly sunny january morning and is progressing toward a cloudy (blah) 70-something degree (yay) afternoon. i'm not crazy about the cloudy, but i am so loving the high-60's/low-70's forecasts for the next week or so. i absoutely hate the cold, and the windy, 29 degree friday night we just had made me want to hibernate. but that was redeemed by a gorgeous 73 degree sunday afternoon... with more of the same for the next week or so. :) also contributing to my good mood is the feeling of doing something worthwhile with my time and the fact that the flyers are presently leading the NHL in points. a win over the devils tonight will assure that they stay on top.

before heading to my first class of the semester, i arrived at the university an hour early to set up sample extractions for me to run on the HPLC tomorrow. spending some quality time at the lab at least makes me feel like i'm one step closer to a Ph.D.... and i have a meeting scheduled with dr. v. on thursday, which makes me feel like i'm one step closer to getting a prospectus written (a goal that's a little closer than finishing the Ph.D.). that feeling of being stuck in a rut with respect to my career seems to have evaporated for the moment, for which i am eternally grateful.

my one class of the day also seems promising... plant physiological ecology. that might seem like the most boring topic of study in the world to some, but a brief overview of the lecture topics leads me to expect to enjoy the course thoroughly. it also gave me a goal for the next couple of weeks - i have a presentation/paper review to do in two weeks (as usual, i signed up for the first spot), so now i have to find a paper to discuss. i have a couple of topics in mind already, so now i just need to look up an article.

of course, i can't post about a fresh start without a little hockey talk, especially considering all the changes the ice pilots have made recently - firing the coach, losing some players, and finally acquiring some new ones and a new assistant coach. i'm excited about the new players from florida, and i hope they help us out. i'm getting really sick of this whole losing thing they're doing. of course, i miss my jacquo banging the hell out of guys on the ice in pensacola, but i'm really glad he's doing well up in toronto. maybe he'll even get to stay there. they've taken notice of his physical style (despite the small size) up there, and he scored his first goal there in the marlies' last game. hooray for jacquo. maybe the pilots will get it together on the road over the next couple of weeks so the next home game will be better then their last few.

Belated New Year Post

does the thought of a whole new year put anyone else in a funky mood? i sort of feel like i didn't accomplish much of anything in 2005, and that really depresses me. i guess this is just some kind of post-holiday blues thing (with perhaps a touch of pms in the mix for kicks), but i really hope that i can do a little more that matters in 2006... like finally get my prospectus written. i swear, i am absolutely going to die if that thing isn't done this spring. i have the distinct feeling that i've just been... floating, stationary, neutrally buoyant, whatever you want to call it for a year, and i hate that. i've always felt like i was going somewhere, and now i feel like i'm stuck on some fly paper and not going anywhere.

bleh. enough with the wallowing. i did actually have some fun on new year's eve (despite the pilots' disgustingly horrible loss to charlotte that night), just hanging out with chad, vanessa, and deva at steak n shake for 3 1/2 hours reliving the past. maybe the memories contributed to my current funk. oh well, we had a good time then, and that's what matters, i guess. and i still have vanessa's birthday festivities after the pilots lose tomorrow to look forward to (yes, i'm assuming they're going to lose, because of their heavily depleted roster and the fact that they're playing the best team in the division, who they can't seem to beat this season). we always have fun at mcguire's, and it's a birthday tradition for our little clique.

ok, as you all know, i don't really do the down in the dumps posts (but the angry posts are always good ones), and i don't think that they're all that entertaining. so, since i am thinking about disturbing things (like the disturbingly high number of people i have known in my 23 years who are now deceased, etc.), which put me in this kind of mood, i'm going to stop writing before you start to think i've become marvin the paranoid android (you know, from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy). also, i need some distraction from my thoughts (chad is busy reveling in the cotton bowl in high definition). it's a good the thing the flyers play an early game today.

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).