Woo Hoo! New toys on the way

My BlackBerry crackled at just the wrong moment last week, causing me to misunderstand a Not instead of the Very Important, and miss a teleconference.  I told said boss the speakers were too noisy.  Get an iPhone, he offered.  And a new printer with a fax (so I don't get customers to send my things to him instead) and a scanner.  Welcome to this century!  So if you tell me the best apps, I'll appreciate the advice.

Fish Barcode Of Life

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/Product-SpecificInformation/Seafood/DNAspeciation/ucm266440.htm
Please visit the FDA Fish Site for just a minute.  There is a Barcode of Life effort underway to post a little bit of the DNA sequence for EVERY organism on the planet.  Considering we have not identified them all yet, this is pretty ambitious.  A global offshoot, known as  FishBOL, http://www.fishbol.org/ collects the Fish sequences. I am working with Jon, and he does the work for this site.  Someone sends them a frozen fish, and it gets Authenticated by an ichthycologist.  Jon photographs the right side of the fish with a color bar.  Then he removes some tissue from the underside of the fish, where it would not show in the photo.  Then the fish heads for the Smithsonian, where it is stored with a code (Vouchered).

So, what happens if you have several individuals of the same species of fish and you find out the DNA sequence is pretty different even though the fish looks the same to the expert?  Some times it gets reclassified as a new species.  That is why it is so important to keep the fish in the museum.   You can get it out of storage, check it all out, and reclassify it.  Pretty cool, huh?

There is also an effort underway to do the same process with zoo animals and bush meat confiscated by customs.  You want to volunteer to authenticate, photograph and voucher a tiger?

Illumination in the Flatwoods

My dear friend lent me this book Saturday, Illumination in the Flatwoods by Joe Hutto Illumination in the Flatwoods A season with the wild turkey http://www.amazon.com/Illumination-Flatwoods-Season-Wild-Turkey/product-reviews/1599211971/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1  It is the story of a naturalist who spent a summer with a flock of wild turkeys.  He lives in the flats of northern Florida, and I have spent time roaming those forests during the years my Grandmother lived in Tallahassee when I would go walking.  I have a flock of male turkeys who drink from my birdbath and often shelter in the shade under my little tree.  So when I got home and opened this book, I stayed glued to it until I finished it later that evening.  I have observed many of the behaviours Hutto describes, but his beautiful descriptions put this all in a new light.  If you are even a casual birder from your window, this is a riveting, fascinating book. 

Finally, some useful information

I'm here in Sin City with 720 of my closest friends.  I wandered into the forensics section this morning and learned about designer drugs like Spice and Bath Salts.  Spice, as it turns out, is largely herbal in composition.  What is not on the label is the tetrahydrocannibinol derivative, or active ingredient of marijuana, that is sprayed on the herbal product.  Once it is chemically altered so that it is no longer included in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it is no longer illegal in my home state of CA.  Bath Salts have derivatives of meth, XTC etc..  So my company makes and sells the analytical instrumentation that makes these analyses possible, but only a few labs have the expertise to even look for these modified compounds.  And that is what our guest speaker came to tell us about today.

But you know, for my buck, alcohol is the drug of choice and it's always legal.  Amazing, though, what you can find on the Internet. 

Something else to be thankful for

I am blessed with a snug house, newly patched paint and an almost new roof.  I have a garden for flowers and one for veggies.  I have a good man who treats me well and with whom I enjoy spending time.  I have an overabundance of cats and currently, a dining room with an abundance of boxes of wine.  Life's good, and I treasure my friends and family. I am rich in the sense that I can buy anything I want as long as I am careful not to want too much.  Dear reader, I hope you too have a list for which you can be thankful.

one more thing - who knew?

We only have two seasons in California.  The rainy season has started.  Now that I don't get a new car from the job each year, my three-year-old windshield wipers were squeaking with the first rain of the season.  Glen told me to go to CostCo and get new ones there.  He taught me how to remove one and told me to take it inside the store.  I did, managed to determine which one to buy, and walked out with 4 of them in big plastic tubes.  The next morning we went out with the 19" wiper blade to determine if it was in fact a correct one for our Fusions.  Glen said Look!  It's too short!  I said No Way!

Turns out the wiper on the driver's side is 24" and the wiper on the passenger side (the one I took inside the store) is 19".  What's up with that?!

Back to CostCo.

Tootsie's new fashion

Isn't this just worth a poor baby?  She has been pacing the room, scraping the plastic collar on all the furniture, trying to get rid of the nuisance.  Just for a couple of days, Sweetie.