Sydney Day 0

Part 1- Lakers Championship

So, it occurred to me quite early that if the Lakers went to game 7 (which of course they did) this would put me in a less than ideal situation concerning my trip. As it turned out, in what was one of the biggest games in Lakers history, I had to get up and walk away from it with 5 min left in the 4th quarter. And even that was a negotiation. Luckily, it was on radio so I turned it on in the car for the ride to the airport. Sadly, the ride was much too quick as my father dropped us off with 90 seconds left to go in the game. Luckily, I borrowed an old walkman from my mom and had the game tuned in. So, as I unloaded the car I heard Wallace hitting a 3 and killing our 6 point lead. I walked in to stand in line and then remembered why AM radio is nearly obsolete. My reception went to pure static once I entered the building. Like nothing. So I put the suitcases in line and left Rachel there with the luggage (apparently missing a huge Artest 3 pointer). She was waiting in line staring at me with daggers through the window as I sat outside with bated breath to see if Sasha could make 2 free throws. Well we all know how long the last 60 seconds of an NBA game lasts... especially game 7 of the finals! So Rachel made it to the front of the line and the game was still going on. Through 10 years of dealing with me, I was able to tell her across a crowded airport via hand signals just to wait at the front of the line and let people pass until these precious final seconds clicked away. And they did. And we won. And I am still so happy. I'll never forget me relaying the call to the two random LAX workers that were staring at me for any piece of information. Down at their cell phones, back at my face... it was awesome. Seconds later they announced it over the intercom. THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS are the WORLD CHAMPIONS! Funny that they call it world champions, considering no one over here seems to care anything about it. Something called World Cup has their attention... whatever.

Part 2- VISA

So we get our luggage checked in without a problem and we walk over to security. The lady there says that we do not have boarding passes but something else and to back and wait in that huge line to get our passes. Of course, being from LA we do not bother with the line but go back to our attendant to tell him that he forgot to give us boarding passes. He looks at the paper and says that she is wrong, go back and tell her these are boarding passes. So, we go back and there is a different woman who waves us past. We wait in that long line (this is LAX after all) and when we get to the front notice that we do not have a bar code to scan on our "boarding passes." So Rachel runs back over to the desk to another person and he says that we need visas. Uh oh. Jake didn't think that one needed a Visa to go to Australia. Hmmm, plane leaves in 90 minutes. Ok, so we go back to our friend (cutting that long line for the second time now) and he says... oh, you need visas!" He hands us off to another old guy who is helping like 15 people at once. We tell him about our visa dilemma and ask if he can help us. He tells us to hold on. Not, no problem just give me a second, or sorry you guys are screwed. Just, hold on. So we wait. And wait. And then I start thinking about our bags going to Sydney, and we will not only be out of trip to Australia, but also have no clothes for a week. And then Rachel cannot take this anymore and so grabs another lady and asks if she can help us get visas. She says, "Well it will cost you $25 each." Like that is some huge price to pay for erasing an entire trip to Australia. She gets us our visas and we are home free. Wheh. Count them, that was two huge times to hold my breath in under half an hour. Sasha's free throws and visas.

Part 3- the plane ride

So, I have some sort of expectation that if there is going to be a 14 hour flight to somewhere, then the seats will probably be a little more roomier, the seats will have power outlets, there will be wifi available... and when I entered the plane I saw those first class seats with all those amenities. Then, I walked back to economy. Nope, just the normal tiny seats with no leg room. The only bonus being that there were 4 movies instead of 1. Whatever, I am going to Australia and the Lakers won- who the heck cares??? Four hours later, I can no longer feel my knees. I remember my dad saying something about developing thrombosis on those long flights. I am sure that I have no idea what thrombosis is, probably my dad himself doesn't know exactly what it is either- but I should probably walk around. I head off to the lavatory and somewhat stumble given the lack of blood in my feet. No worries though, besides a butter stained shirt from dinner- I am still doing good. Watched Alice in Wonderland, wrote an outline for an NSF grant, read a few chapters of my book. Still 10 more hours to go! Hmm, maybe I'll sleep. Slept for a few hours in and out, and then was awake and couldn't fall asleep... still 4 hours more! Turns out it is pretty far to Sydney. We finally get there and I realize that Saturday the 19th will never exist for me. While I am paradoxically typing this blog on that day, it is actually Sunday, Father's day, for me. Only thing stranger is when I time travel to return. I will arrive in LAX 4 hours before I leave Sydney... Magic.

More about Day 1 in Sydney tonight (with photos)... now it is time to experience Day 2!

Ball handling skills

I am a horrific blogger these days... oh well. I realized that I never got around to blogging my return trip experience from Christmas break. So let me set the scene for you. My family and I were in sunny Southern California for 6 weeks while all of our friends and neighbors were suffering through another South Dakota winter. So this is karmic justice I suppose. By now, the challenges of flying halfway across the country with two boys under 5 are old hat. Even managing them with 7 pieces of luggage and 6 carry-ons is not that big a deal. (I'll also note that we shipped 7 large boxes as well- Christmas is crazy eh?). So, we land in Omaha on time... which actually was a victory considering we were stuck in Omaha for fours hours one time waiting to head out to CA. We get the boys off the plane, grab all the luggage and stake out a nice spot by the window for Rachel and the boys to wait for me. I hope on the shuttle and head out to long term parking to pick up our car. I should have known it would be bad when it took 5 minutes just to find the car in the parking lot. I jumped out of the shuttle, and grabbed the driver's snow shovel and started digging. After a couple minutes, I found I could get to the car door and jumped into it. For those that don't know, I own a 1993 Ford Explorer with nearly 200,000 miles on it. It has been sitting for six weeks now, and the outside temperature is roughly 5 degrees. I stick the key into the ignition and turn. Now, it isn't what you might expect it to be- just a completely dead battery. No, instead it cranks and cranks and cranks and cranks. Every few seconds there is a slight hiccup where it sounds like it is going to catch and fire up.... but no luck. I get the shuttle driver to call me a jump from the parking lot service truck. Meanwhile I keep on digging out the car while I await him. I call the wife and let her know that the car isn't starting, but I am feeling like with just a little extra juice it surely will. After 10 min, I finish the digging and the truck shows up. He hooks up the cables and we wait a few minutes for him to charge the battery. I jump in and crank it again. It sounds like it wants to start, but it doesn't. I crank again, and it sounds like it really is going to start... but still nothing. I try again and again and again... then I wait about 10 min for it to charge up. Still nothing. After doing this for about 45 min, the truck driver tells me that he has a call to jump someone else. I get him to let me try one more time... and still nothing. So, I tell him to go jump the other car and come back and we'll just let it charge for a bit without any cranking. He says he'll head back, but is not sure how long it will take. So he leaves and I call Rachel with the update. At this point, we are nearing two hours post landing and mind you my poor wife is stuck at that window seat with our boys. She literally cannot go anywhere because of our 13 pieces of luggage... After roughly 20 min of waiting, I decide to come up with another plan. So I catch the shuttle again and head back to the airport. I grab 10/13 pieces of luggage and get back on the shuttle. I load up our car and now at least my wife is free to roam with the boys. I get back on the shuttle to head back to the airport. While getting off the shuttle I notice the service truck driver getting onto it. I ask him if he came back for me while I was gone, and he just looks at me like he has no idea not only who I am- but also has no idea what I am talking about. Apparently, he had no plans of ever coming back for me. So, I continue with my plan and jump in a cab. Where to? A parts store of course. The cab driver drives me 10 miles to the "closest" parts store. With the meter running, I go in and grab a half inch wrench, a 10mm wrench and a flash light. I then head to the counter and wait patiently in line trying to not think about the dollars leaving my pocket as I wait. I finally get to the counter and ask for a battery. Luckily, there is ONE more left that will work in my car. I jump in the cab and head back to the parking lot. So, $150 later I pop the hood and start taking out the old battery. Battery terminals come off no problem. Then I reach down to the base of the battery to unscrew the bracket holding the battery down. Turns out, it is not a 10mm. Thankfully, I had the foresight to also by a crescent wrench (that is one of those adjustable wrenches for all you tool illiterate folks). I set it to the correct size and start turning. First 10 turns, no problem. This thing is coming out in another minute or two... right? NO! Suddenly the bolt gets tight. I try to pull the battery out. No go. So I unscrew it a bit more. It is so tight though that I can only to 1/4 turn at a time and it is taking a lot of hand strength to do it. Mind you, it is now dark and the temperature has dropped below 0 at this point. I do not have gloves on and I am wearing dress shoes while standing in a foot of snow. So after about 10 min of turning this one stupid screw I really start getting scared. What if this bolt is stripped and just stuck? What if I am just turning it but it is not coming out? Did I really just drop all that money for nothing and now am going to have to get a cab to stay in an Omaha hotel with two young boys? NO! I keep at it, ignoring the ringing of my phone- knowing it is my poor wife desperate for an update. Finally, it just feels like the screw just will not turn anymore. So I give the battery a strong yank... and it pops out! I was sooooo relieved. I get the new battery in and hooked up and jump in the car. Key in the ignition, and I turn... and nothing. Car still will not start. I try again. Nope. It is still cranking but just will not turn over. This is where I nearly start to cry. And then I decide that this damn car is going to start. So I turn the key and just hold it down for like a full minute. I keep thinking, this is a brand new battery it is not going to die on me. The engine just needs to warm up a bit and it will catch. So I just keep holding the key down and psychically will the car to start... and it DOES! I cannot tell you how happy I was. Finally!!! This ended up being 4 hours after we landed- luckily we landed at 2pm and not at 7pm! So I head out and get to the booth. It is then that I realize despite me having nearly all of the luggage, I do not have my bag with the parking coupon. Normally at this point I would just saw screw it, but since we were gone for 6 weeks- this ends up being an $80 coupon! So, I tell the lady in the booth that I have a coupon and I promise that I'll bring it back from the airport. She says that she has to attach the coupon to their copy and she just cannot give me the discounted price without it. I think fast and ask if it is ok if I just leave my credit card with them so they can be assured that I will return. She agrees, and I am on my way to the airport. I pull up to the terminal, but am not certain where Rachel is since she is not bringing the boys out in the -5 temps. I get to the end of the terminal when my phone rings and Rachel tells me that I passed her. So, I tell her I am waiting at the end for her. Now at nearly every other airport I have been to- the nazi airport police would chase me off for stopping longer than 10 seconds. Yet this never happens in Omaha... until that night of course. The officer motions me to move out, and I get outside of my car and tell him that my wife is coming out of the doors 100 yards away. He looks briefly, says "I don't see anybody", and then pulls out his ticket book! I say "she is right there!" He tells me if I don't move my car immediately, he is going to write me a ticket. I again insist that I can see her and he opens his book and starts to write me a ticket! So I say "OK OK!" and jump in my car for a lap around the airport. Rachel calls me again asking why I am driving away, I explain and then loop around. While doing the loop I flip on the windshield wipers... but no response. Oh well. I get the bags in the back, install the car seats, load up the boys in full winter gear. Poor kids were just in 65 degree CA weather. We pull away and am feeling great to have made it. Now just the 2 hour commute home! After about 10 min, I realize that the car is just not getting warm. The windshield wipers at least fired up now. I pull over to check the radiator. Of course I get drenched in radiator fluid since the system was pressurized, and try to add some water... but it is full. So I jump back in the car and we drive home in -10 degree temps without a heater. They boys are fully bundled up. Rachel puts their gloves and hats on and we just shiver for the next couple hours. I suppose the positive was that when we returned home our 50 degree house seemed warm to us! So there you go, my intense return trip from Omaha. A day or two later the thermostat unfroze and the car started warming up and the heater works fine now. Intense. I have had some intense experiences in travelling, but this one (I hope) goes down as the most harrowing.

So, I am down in CA for the holidays. I am working out of my in-laws house to try and get stuff done. The boys were supposed to go down for a nap, so I told Rachel to go ahead and go shopping. Of course, neither would sleep so I had the great idea of just heading to McDonalds to work. They can play on the play structure, and I can work in peace... and even get some food. So I had a McRib and pulled out my laptop to work. About 30 min in, my 4 year old screams at me "I gotta go poop!" My two year old is somewhere buried in the playland maze. I yell for him to come out immediately, he says "No Daddy." So what do I do? In a quick judgement, I close my laptop, throw it in my bag, and then just leave my 2 year old, Ben, in the play structure to head for the bathroom. So yes, I apparently value my laptop more than my 2 year old. I then get to the restroom, pull down Lucas' pants, and get it smeared all over my left arm, all over his legs, on the floor, even a bit on the wall... I clean him as fast as I can, then abandon Lucas on the pot to see if Ben has been stolen yet. Mind you, my laptop bag is on my back this whole time. Not even the best trained kidnapper could coax my Ben from this maze- so of course he is still in there. I begin my hostage negotiations and somehow convince him to come out. I think he figured out that something was wrong with Lucas, so he came out. We then headed back to the bathroom. I am sure he is still in there- because I don't care how sick you are, nobody was touching that shit smeared kid. So, I lock the bathroom door and finish the cleaning. Underwear were beyond saving, they got pitched in the trash. Spent about 5 min cleaning it all up without vomiting, although I felt worst for Ben. He kept saying "Daddy! I want out! I don't want to smell Lucas!" It was so much fun. Despite it being a nightmare... I still think the previous McDonald's crap my pants experience was worse...

Out on the river can be quite an adventure.  Today was  a doozy so it has surpassed the threshold that actually requires that I blog about it.  So after a tremendous day of amphibian hunting yesterday (30 toads in less than an hour), we headed out on the river to find more amphibians.  No big deal.  I have gone out on the river 5-6 times and nothing happened.  

Well we search for hours and find not a single toad.  Let me rephrase that, we cannot CATCH a single amphibian.  Heard a Cricket frog laughing at us... even saw a Leopard frog twice but it was gone in a second.  We keep driving in the boat and are all looking at a poten

tial spot for toads.  Then out of nowhere, I hear a huge splash.  I am thinking something is wrong with the boat, and then something large smacks me in the thigh.  My heart is racing only to discover a huge fish had JUMPED INTO THE BOAT!  After spending a full day out on the lake trying to catch fish with my brother, randomly a fish jumps into my boat!  I have no idea what kind of fish this is... so let me know if you happen to know.  

I just know it is an ugly fish.  So, after that choas  we pull up to a sweet spot with lawn chairs on a beach and find a couple toads.  Here is my favorite shot of one.  

We swab those guys for disease and decide to call it a day since Thunderstorms are threatening.  So I have my new Masters student drive the boat over to where I am at.  Apparently, she had never driven a boat before that moment.  No, she didn't lose the boat or anything crazy.  She just took awhile to get it over there.  And it was only a couple feet of water deep at points so it was a challenge to navigate.  I lounged in the lawn chair while hearing the engine rev up a bit too high at times.  Whatever.  She'll learn.  She gets close enough, and we jump in the boat.  I start crossing the river to the deep end and am cruising along and the engine dies.  Weird.  So I try to restart it.  It goes for about 30 seconds then dies again.  Sweet.  Mind you we have not seen a single boat on this stretch of the river the entire day.  I am stuck.  I call a grad student to come rescue us, but he is 2 hours away.  I call another grad student who comes to our rescue.  Of course we are waiting on the river for an hour for him to arrive.  I turn on the weather radio.  "Late Afternoon thunderstorms expected with heavy rains and quarter sized hail.  Potential for tornados to develop."  I turn off the weather radio.  Finally, the grad students arrive.  Apparently, there is a water port that spits out water to cool the engine and it was plugged from all the burnouts in the mud.  They brought a nifty air compressor and blew it out.  After that, no problems.  I high tailed it home.  Tonight was date night, and I was to not be late.  So I arrived home 15 min before the babysitter coated in sweat and suntan lotion.  A quick shower and all was good.  Just a regular day catching frogs.

Gearing up...

I got my boat, I got two Masters students, I have an undergrad, and stuff is finally starting to roll! I've even recruited a few researchers across the state to join in collecting data for me! I have a week of school left, and then have to deal with grading term papers and finals- but then I'm preparing to jump in full bore with a summer of active research. Lot's of planning to do, and lots to manage, but it should be fun! I'll be incredibly busy this summer trying to get as much data as possible to prepare for my first major grant submission next summer. Lots of work will be done out on the Missouri River- catching frogs. I took the boat out for the first time last week. I was a little concerned, it being the first time out- but the thing handled like a dream. Having handled my dad's ocean boat for so long- it took a bit to adjust to how little and light my boat is. So easy to pull off and put on the trailer! Engine purrs. Even a random guy on the dock commented on how quiet it was! I hope to take it out on the river for a trial run ASAP. Weather and availability of an experienced river captain are the limiting factors. Once I get comfortable running on the river, it'll be off to the races!

I have it parked in the garage right now. The boys love it! Climbing up here and there running around. Hopefully the weather will be nice for a trip up to the lake next weekend!

Staring at the tombs...

So yesterday I thought I would try out my new 2-way radios with Lucas. As I was outside waiting for him to put his shoes on, I started off the head up the bluff that we live next to. He was taking forever so I just kept on going up the bluff until I got to the top. What was up there? The Vermillion cemetary. I think that I knew it was up there somewhere, but it is like right above us. So I started touring around the graves and then came upon 4 or 5 like full fledged tombs. (Quite suitable for Easter). These things were built into a small hill on top of the bluff and the entrance to them look out over the landscape below with the Vermillion and Missouri rivers off in the distance. Quite a spectacular view. Unfortunately, now as I sit on my front room sofa- I can sit out and stare at the 15th green on the nearby golf course, but more directly I can see these tombs through the trees. Not sure how I never really noticed them before, but now that I know they are there... that is all I can see. I keep thinking about Return of Living Dead movies with zombies piling out and chanting- "Brains.... BRAAAINNSSS!" Perhaps some day 10 years from now my pair of bolt cutters will go missing and an hour later Lucas will come back saying... "Dad, I accidentally locked Ben in the Brookman tomb."

I now have a twitter.  i don't know why, but Kobe and Shaq have them, and that is reason enough for me.  I can now update my status as much as I want without feeling like i am annoying my facebook friends too much... HA!  I have added a feed to the right- you can read along there for updates or "follow me."

I am off tomorrow to Missouri to see my dear old friends Bryndyn and Taina.  I am not looking forward to driving through hellish weather- but it will be great to see them!

Nothing major going on, just thought I should blog since I have not in awhile.  I am typing on my new laptop- an HP Elitebook 6930p.  It is a "business class" notebook.  I finally figured out that my laptops might last longer than 2 years if I actually bought a durable one that was actually made to withstand 8 hours a day of abuse.  The cute thing it has is a keyboard light.  You know when you are typing in a dark room and the screen is plenty bright but then you try and hit some keys you don't normally use (numbers) and realize you can barely see them.  Apparently, this geeky light solves that problem...  The real treat with this laptop is that it comes with Vista.  I have yet to actually use Vista heavily until this laptop.  I have to say that I actually really like it.  Of course there are things that are different and take some more time to figure out.  But, it just seems "smarter" - much more Mac-like where you just plug something in and the computer figures it out for you.  Have not had to go in and find all these obscure menus to get something simple to work - like say a printer.  So, I give it a big thumbs up.  I think they have fixed all the major bugs that everyone had issues with.  

What else... selecting grad students is much harder than I thought it would be.  I have been really successful at selecting undergrad students to do research with me.  Perhaps it is the ability to meet them, but more so I am thinking that there was always a limited pool.  I found someone that was good- went with him/her and that was it.  Well this time around I, at last count, have 26 students interested in working in my lab.  Not 26 students that are interested in applying to our program generally, but 26 that want to work with me specifically!  So that of course makes me feel good.  Especially when I go seek others advice and their reply is "In my 8 year career I might have had 20 interested total."  I'd like to take all the credit, but it pretty much is what I do.  Everyone loves that I actually am trying to save the frogs and not just study them for science sake.  So after going through resumes, transcripts, GRE scores, and letters of rec- I just get overwhelmed with all the data.  I literally spent almost all day Friday in the front office going through files.  In the end, I think I have selected a top 5 for sure, and perhaps have two favorites.  The applications are not actually due until March 15, and I thought that I might have them selected ahead of time, but apparently I need to run my choices by the committee first before saying anything.  I am looking forward though to having students of my own!  Not only because it'll be cool, but because I keep getting involved in new projects and cannot possibly do all the work myself.

The grant has been submitted!  Which grant you ask?  A $300,000 request that will allow the department to purchase fancy molecular devices that do all sorts of cool things with DNA.  When bringing up the idea of submitting this grant to the rest of the faculty, I naively thought that they wouldn't make the frog guy write it.  Well... turned out that they overwhelming thought it was a great task to give to the new guy.  Which is awesome considering I have so little else to do.  Nonetheless, when requesting help 3 weeks ago, I was met with very little help or input.  In fact, at one point a professor suggested we just quit and submit it later.  Which actually sounded like a great idea to me because it was like moving a mountain trying to get anything going.  So, I told everyone that we were just going to wait 6 months and submit it then.  Well after taking a couple days off and feeling really good, I checked and realized that the grant was only offered once a year!  So I had to go around to everyone, and muster up support to get a grant that had basically nothing written to a full bore submission in a little over a week's time.  Of course, this week was also the week we started classes to add even more to the chaos.  So I basically spent the entire week writing, editing, hounding, getting signatures... working every second during the day, and well into the night to get this thing done.  In the end, everyone stepped up and helped, but it was exhausting.  I literally walked into my ecotox course at 11am and talked about playmates and pesticides for an hour, went over to the Dean's office for a signature, ate lunch while reading my teaching evaluations (more on that below), printed out the 81 page document to proof read, showed up at my graduate level class- Foundation in Ecology- literally without having ANYTHING prepared.  Apparently the grad students are used to it, and praised me for having buttoned my shirt correctly (commenting on how another unamed prof was in complete disarray when submitting his grant).  Somehow I managed to pull something together on the fly and headed back to my office for the final proofreading.  And now... it is submitted!

So to clarify some comments- playmates in class- I was discussing linear trends and found an interesting one that I knew the students would rememeber-

Teaching Evals- So I scored a 4.5 out of 5.  Which I would think is pretty damn good for my first go at it especially.  But, after some magical statistical adjustment it drops down to a 4.1 which is just average...  No idea why, but apparently it weights things like if the students are motivated to take your course then it penalizes you?  Since they are likely to give you good scores?  If you teach a course no one likes (like statistics) then it bumps up your scores.  Totally lame.  So the message I am getting is to teach crappy courses that no one wants to take.

I am taking tomorrow off since I worked all of MLK day and have missed this entire week- the inaguration, and even the season premiere of LOST!  Of course, there is no rest for me.  I swear ten seconds after I submitted the grant- I got an email from a journal giving me a second notice that a review I have to do is overdue...  Never ends!