Well, we made it to LA. Here is Lucas watching Dodger baseball with grandpa. He got a sweet Dodger outfit (complete with sweat wrist bands). So awesome. He got his first baseball too, a home-run ball from pre-game batting practice at Dodger stadium. See no pressure... my kid can like another team than the Lakers. The trip down was nice, Lucas did not make a peep. He slept most of the way. I had to entertain him for about 20 minutes of the 5 hour trip. Now that is a pretty good deal. I am nervous about the trip home- likely the inverse will happen. Nice to be down south, I'll take traffic over 100 degree days... 

Ahh, relaxing by the pool... Clearly, Lucas enjoys it as much as I do. After the research snafu, it was time to regather myself and move on... poolside.
I haven't posted in awhile, let's see... Friday was our 5 year anniversary- pretty sweet. It was also Lucas' 4 month old "birth"day. We went out to Putah Creek in the afternoon. I suprised Rachel with an anniversary gift- some black Chacos (fancy stream/hiking sandals). She was excited. We then were getting out at the creek when she saw the second gift I intended to give her later. Oh well... She opened it there, a nice diamond necklace. She felt bad for not getting me anything- I keep dropping the plasma tv hint... That night Reverend Bone and fam took the kid and we went into Sacramento and dined at Cafe Marika. It was really good Hungarian food. Rach had Gulash, I had Paprikash. I just like saying Paprikash. At the end of our nice dinner, I attempted to pay the check with my credit card. Apparently, they only took cash... We scrounged up enough for the bill, but were a few buck short on the tip. I felt bad, but seriously what dinner restaurant doesn't take credit???? I mean even Jack in the box takes credit cards!?!?!

Enough for now. We are heading to LA on Wednesday for a few days. Rachel is throwing her sister a wedding shower. It will be nice to visit down south. Nice to escape the 100 degree heat! Lucas is freaking out, so until next time...

So little did I know I would return to that Carl's Jr so soon...
Too tired and pissed to talk about it in depth now, but after weeks of setup and preparation, stressed days of trying to collect animals in the midst of performing two experiments, and preparing the family for a four month old to venture into the wilderness...

With one fell swoop- all was canceled. The reserve manager approved my application apparently without reading it. After accusing me of lying, he waited until I actually started the experiment and exposed the animals to pesticides- before the professor came in and shut down the whole experiment. Basically told me it was a mistake and there is no way this experiment could be done there at a natural reserve. Nothing I said changed their mind.

So home we are...

So pissed.

On the road...

Heading for Mendocino in our geeky matching shirts.

Ouch

Good thing I changed the brakes. They were completely gone!

So last night was truly a beat the clock moment. Done with my tad readings at 4:40pm, I had until 6pm to do a complete brake job so I could get a labmate to bleed the brakes for me before she left. Little did I know how thrashed the brakes were! Luckily, I have changed a ton of brakes in my career at Joe Kerby Auto Repair. So despite spending 30 minutes dealing with a frozen caliper I completed the job at 10 to 6pm. That was close!

Today I spent basically running around like a complete lunatic. My undergrad help got called into work early so I had to call in Rachel and Lucas for help with the tadpole weighing. I spent the rest of the time gathering experiment needs. Thank god I have a great wife to take care of packing the clothes and food. I just spent the last hour calculating concentrations for my experiments. Usually takes only a few minutes but my brain is on overload. I thought I would never use the chemistry I learned...

Today went well. I had special assistance from Lucas. Here he is overseeing the crayfish hunting in his outfit I purchased at the Natural History Museum in Washington DC (first souvenier I ever bought for him). I didn't actually end up doing any of the measuring, but I did get crayfish and made it to Ace. Tomorrow will be fun, add to the previous list everything I didn't do today and... replace front brakes on the explorer! The pads are completely gone on one side. Probably not good to take on a 4 hour drive. I guess I will fit it in between the 4 and 6pm readings???

This is what I will call my organizational blog... I need to think out what I have to do in the next couple days to prepare myself for the haunted shack research vacation.
Tonight: Figure out how to work this $50 headlamp I just bought- 8 modes, one button- question: anyone know the purpose of a strobe light on a headlamp???
Tomorrow: 9am- Crayfish checks. This is where I stand over 20 tubs and mark where crayfish are in the tubs- trust me its important and fascinating stuff.
9:45am- Trip out to the American river to capture 40 crayfish for the experiment. One of these days I am going to go out and catch then fur eatin'
11:45- Stop by Ace hardware and get 8 feet of PVC pipe.
12:00pm- Bring them back to the lab and measure and weigh each crayfish. Think that's boring just wait...
1:00- Cut PVC pipe into 3" segments. Still not the boring part...
2:00- Change the water on the tadpoles and count out the number of each. Then separate into groups of 10 and weigh them. Yeah, you guessed it- non stop excitement.
3:00- Another crayfish check.
3:20- Back to the tadpoles...
5:00- Call it a day- and head out for a concert at the zoo... I love free babysitting. THANKS Annie and Susie!
Wednesday: Just shoot me now.
8am- Tadpole check. This consists of checking the location and activity of tadpoles in 30 ten gallon aquaria. Trust me its important and fascinating stuff.
9am- Crayfish check.
10am- Tadpole check.
11am- Crayfish aggression assays- this is real science but actually what most boys would do with access to crayfish. This consists of dumping a piece of sardine into the afore mentioned tanks and recording every time the crayfish fight over it. So awesome...
12pm- Tadpole check.
12:40pm- Back to the crayfish
2:00pm- Tadpoles...
2:45- Realize I haven't eaten anything all day long.
3:00- Check email and beg for equipment to use.
4:00- Tadpoles again.
5:00 Wonder why I created the methods for the experiment this way.
6:00- Tadpoles again.
7:00- Call Rachel and reassure her that I am alive.
8:00pm- Last tadpole reading- thank god!
9:00pm- Crayfish check.
9:30pm- Head home.
10:00pm- Realize all the stuff I forgot to do.
10:30pm- Feed Lucas- the highlight of my day.
10:40- Put Lucas to bed, and wish I were going there too.
11:00pm- Review manuscript that was due 2 weeks ago.
5:00am- Wake up on the couch, and head for bed...

Thursday-
8:00am- Take final tadpole reading.
9:00am- Crayfish check.
9:30am- Begin takedown of experiment. Consists of emptying the 30 tanks of water, while collecting the tadpoles. Then weighing the tadpoles.
5:00pm- Curse the experiment for taking so long to take down.
5:30pm- Freak out about all the details I have forgotten to take care of. (obtaining a water quality meter, contacting the pesticide analysis lab, creating datasheets, packing up crayfish and tadpoles, finding the bubblers, finding the adaptor for the water filter, etc.)
8:00pm- Decide I will just go home and do the rest in the morning.

Friday-
Pack up and head out for Mendocino!
I am not even going to try and guess a time table with a 3 month old baby in the mix...

Hopefully I will remember and send another blog from the road. Cell phone blogs are cool...

Here is where I slept last night and where I will be staying next week. Hope it doesn't collapse on us... 

On the road back from nowhere.

Isn't photoshop cool? This was Rachel's mother's day gift. 

Quality time... 

Welcome to my blog! This is new and exciting... Or I am bored and tired after doing 11 hours of observations with 2 more to go. I hope to post photos of my exciting life, mostly of my boy Lucas because he is just so handsome. Feel free to comment!

-Jake