Kittens

Harvest Moon, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. Beth, one of the photo club members and employee at the Prichard Art Gallery downtown, mentioned at our last meeting that a student was in town with the current exhibit at the gallery. He didn’t know anyone and was desperate to hang out with people his own age. So we got a group together last night and hung out around the town. I thought the visiting student was an art student, but it turns out he’s actually studying conservation biology and had spent some time working environmental education. And, he’s from Maine. Well…

Somehow, I managed to go to two conferences in one semester. Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Port Townsend, WA along with several other members of the department for the bi-annual Evo-WIBO conference. This is a small, regional conference for evolutionary biologists in the Pacific Northwest. There are only going to be around 200 or so people attending (compared to the 2-3000 at SICB), and there is only one talk session at a time. So lucky me, I got chosen to give an oral presentation. Did I mention it’s a small conference? It begins Saturday morning and ends Sunday at noon….

A few weeks ago, we received our federal tax return, and with the First Time Homebuyer tax credit, we got quite a hefty sum. The bulk of that money is going right back into the property with a few home improvement projects. But we took a small chunk and set it aside to complete the entertainment system. So I went ahead and bought a receiver and a set of speakers. What a difference it makes. I’m not new to the 5.1 surround scene. In college, I had a shelf stereo system that was actually an all-in-one theater system: a 3…

The Palouse, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. Holy Smokes, it’s March already? My how time flies. It’s funny how time goes by when life is mundane and you feel like you’ve wasted the days. On the other hand, when you’ve got something to look forward to, it just can’t come fast enough. I suppose I ought to let you, my readers, up to speed on my future. In January, I received a notice of acceptance to the University of Idaho. So last week, Erin and I went out that way to visit the school and the area. Long story short,…

For the past seven years, I have been living with slow, unreliable internet. In 2004-2005, the Weis Ecology Center was on dial-up service. Camp McDowell in Alabama was also on dial-up service, shared on a wireless network. If you can remember far enough back when dial-up was the forefront of home internet technology, you might also remember how long it took for webpages to load and how it would randomly lose connection, and then the busy signals trying to reconnect. In 2006, those problems had not improved. Ferry Beach had a more reliable connection, though it was still slow. I’m…