I have some awesome photos of Lucas in his Halloween costume, I will have to post them here and on the web site. I just had to make a statement announcing the start of the Lakers season tonight. Ahh, life is good...

I also finished re-creating the lab website- check it out. There are a few bugs I need to fix. Especially on my page... Gotta give those potential search committees something to look at. Two more job apps out today. I don't even know how many that makes now. Real question is how many interviews will I get?

Just a quick second to blog... Brother came up this past weekend, always a good time. Smoked cigars as always, but this time my bro picked up a tobacco pipe and we switched the inlet of lung cancer causation. The best part of his visit was the search for a pipe. We at first went to a place in Pullman, and quickly realized that it wasn't a glass shop for like windows, but rather an elaborate bong shop. They had everything there, even scales! It was funny that I had to ask the guy if there was a "regular" pipe shop nearby. He directed us to Moscow, Idaho about 10 miles away. So we took the trip out there and got the speal on what to look for in a pipe by a nicely girthed women who kept leaving us to puff on her cigarette she kept by the register. Oh yes, it was incredible. From the 80 year old guy with the oxygen tank coming in to pick up some cigarettes, to the guy they made wait outside because only two people were allowed in the humidor room. I became aware of the fact that Idaho has a very low tax on tobacco, or rather CA has a high one, because the prices for everything was substantially cheaper. My brother spent $40 in the tobacco store on $100 worth of goods. I then took him to WinCo which is nearby to do some grocery shopping. He was perplexed by why we were going there to buy groceries and then to Safeway afterwards (because they have specific things we wanted- like corn bread). Once we went inside WinCo, my brother was dumbfounded by the cheap goods. So much so that he literally bought two sticks of deodorant because they were so cheap! LOL. I had to hold him back, but apparently when I go down for Christmas he will be sending me on a trip for cheap tobacco and toiletries...
The other cool part of the trip was the football game. Clearly the Cougs got killed, but Lucas sat on his uncle's lap for the entire first half. Which is quite remarkable since he never sits still for any reason longer than two min (save if Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is on TV- and even then he has to get up to dance to the Hot Dog song at the end). I am sure that it was because Matt gave him an Elmo doll he was convinced that Matt must be Elmo's dad and that he had to be cool... ha. Ok, enough blogging and back to work. Oregon game this weekend, Rachel's friend from high school, Jen, and her husband Darren are coming out. Should be fun!

Big time... It is funny when I go here to blog something and then realize no one really will know what the hell I am talking about. Anyway, here it goes! I might get to be a PI on 2 million dollar grant with some big whig scientists. PI stands for Principal investigator- and just means that you are one of the main thinkers behind the grant. What it really means is that I will be able to put on my resume that I am PI on a big grant with some big names, and that should turn some heads. Since all these big schools primarily care about are big money grants, it will give me some credibility that I am serious business. We'll see what happens. I need to file some paperwork through the school since it is unorthodox for a post doc to be a PI (and hence why it is special), and get the other PIs to agree to it. Which I hope won't be an issue considering one is my PhD advisor and the other is someone I know pretty well already. It also means I am cutting my Thanksgiving short, flying down on Monday instead of Friday like we originally planned, but that is fine because I can only handle my sister out-law Amy for so long anyway :). Being a post doc is fun!!! haha.
On another note, I am also fired up because my brother is coming to town on Friday. We are going to see the Cal-Wash State game and smoke lots of cigars. Should be interesting considering it was in the 20s last night. Might be time to start smoking in the garage... He is bringing Lucas an Elmo doll as a bribe to break the ice. Once Lucas sees that thing, Matt will easily be his favorite person in the world. Either that, or he will cry and grab onto my leg in absolute fear... Hopefully I can get my crap together and put some photos on here. Oh wait, I think I do have one from the last game we went to: USC vs Wash State. My best friend from high school came up, Jason. It was great to see him and hang out. It is really nice have a big place and an extra room. Good for guests, hint hint.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. So many decisions. Where do I apply? Where coud I live? What do I want to do? There are a lot of good jobs out there this year. And now with this post-doc I feel like I have a legitimate shot at them. Of course, in this field, you can never really count on anything. So I won't be surprised if I get interviews at most of them, or none of them. Okay, I might be surprised if I didn't get an interview at one! I just found a job opening at Loyola Marymount in community ecology. Close to family, close to study sites I have been working at for the past 12 years, small school like Pepperdine. I actually took a chemistry summer school course there! So we'll see how that pans out. There is also a behavioral ecologist position at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. A bit further from family, but on the ocean... that is nice. They have a masters program as well. Then there are cool places all over the country- Texas, Connecticut, New York. At this stage, it is tough to get excited about any one place because it is hard to know where I'll get the call from. So more so, I am just enjoying my time here. The pay is tough with Rachel staying at home, but it is worth it considering how much I am learning and the opportunity that Rachel has to stay at home. Admittedly, I was a bit bummed to get so many interviews last year and not land the jobs I wanted- but I can see now how much more I have grown by this experience. It really makes a lot more sense to me why search committees kept going with the post-docs over me. Hopefully, that will work to my favor this time around. Ok, my DNA elutions should be warmed by now, time for some nanodropping!!!

It's my birthday! I spent the morning doing molecular biology, preparing 3 plates to run PCR on. The plates will be done in an hour and then I get to run some gels. It has been fun learning all these techniques- I thought it would actually be a bit harder, but really so far it is just a bunch of "recipes". After today, I'll be able to tell for sure which salamanders were infected with virus and which were not. Before, I would just look to see if they looked diseased- but now that I am big time we clip a piece of the tail, extract the DNA from it and amplify a particular region of DNA that the virus has and the salamander does not. If nothing shows up in the gel, no virus. If something does- it has it. Not sure if you care, but there it is.
Yeah, so been pretty busy. Running an experiment and now analyzing it, writing up the doctoral research, creating a lab web site, applying for jobs, learning molecular biology techniques, reading up on disease ecology, and having a family. Pretty much had no time to relax. It is fun though and I am enjoying myself. The weather here is going to turn soon apparently. Tomorrow's high is in the 50s and it will stay that way through the weekend. Windy too. I had to break out pants today... ha. I know I am going to totally geek out when it snows here. People are going to have to calm me down. Anyways, got to grab lunch now (I get to eat out for my birthday!). And lasagna for dinner tonight... mmm cannot wait!!!

Sorry for the delay in posting- it has been a long few weeks. Most of it has been dealing with the massive experiment. We took it down finally on Wednesday (16 hours) and Thursday (11 hours). It was brutal because it just wasn't me working those hours but almost the entire lab. We pretty much had 6 people at once working on Weds (9am-midnight), and 3 on Thurs (9am-7pm). Now comes the analysis of everything, 2 months to do the bloodwork, 2 weeks for the DNA analysis, another couple weeks to count white blood cells, not to mention a week just to catch up on all the other data that has not been entered in. I am supposed to be planning the next one for a couple months from now. I think that I am going to go a bit smaller this time...

In the midst of all this, we finally sat down to figure out our finances. Turns out that we have no money. After rent, household expenses, student loans, we have like $10 a month to stash away for plane tickets home. Ouch. Good thing Pullman is so glorious we never want to leave it anyway. So it is somewhat of an adjustment for me to not have ANY spending money. Hopefully I will be working so hard that I won't have time to to spend money. I just hope that Rachel survives it. If I were at home all day every day and could not buy anything... I think I will just go get a Franciscan tunic and go with the whole vow of poverty theme. Of course, torturing animals with disease and pesticides might not be very Franciscan. I'll have to find another order...

Our last luxury item for a long while arrived on Saturday. It is our King size bed. It is so comfy! I literally laid down for a short nap and woke up 3 hours later. I cannot even feel Rachel move in bed at all- so it is super nice. So instead of searching for the latest deals on slickdeals.net I am going to be sleeping from now on.

Finally, the job hunt has begun once again! Nothing in SoCal unfortunately so far. There is a job at Sac State that I have a chance at for all my Davis friends. There is also a job at Univ of Oregon that would be pretty sweet. We'll see how many bites I get this year. Considering I got 4 phone interviews without a degree last year, this year SHOULD be even better with a post-doc experience. We shall see. Of course, I'll keep you posted. Ok, back to the edits on my dissertation. Gotta get this thing signed off on already!!!

Nexel Shelves.... the worst customer service I have or ever will encounter.
So the other day my boss is talking about remodeling a room and I suggest to him we use the shelves we had at our last place. They are sturdy and easily adjustable. He tells me to look into it. Here is the humorous saga that ensued.

"Nexel shelves, can I help you."
"Can I talk to a sales rep about shelving? I have specific needs and want to figure out the best solution."
"Have you looked on our website? Everything is listed there. You can put together an order and enter it into the web form and we'll fax you a quote."
"Yeah, I am on your page and have put together a possible order but I just want to talk to a sales rep to be sure that I have it right."
"Well, what are you concerned about?"
"I will be putting aquaria on it and want to be sure that I order the correct type to be sure it will not rust and can hold the weight."
"Okay, well that info is on a pdf on the website. Go to the top of the page and click on catalog. On the third page it will tell you the weight loadings. Then enter it into a form and we'll fax you a quote."
"I would rather just talk to a sales rep."
"Just look at it on the website first then send us the info and a sales rep will call you."
"Uhh, ok."
"Ok, good-bye" Dial tone.....

Now continues the email dialog that continued-
The web form data I submitted:
We need 9 48" wide, 24" deep, 72" tall shelving units each with 7 > shelves on them. So my count is 63 shelves and 36 poles. Their most demanding function will be to hold 10 gallon aquaria filled with water. I think the EP series is what we will need. In essence, we have three walls 144" wide and are looking for the best solution that will support aquaria. Can you please give us a quote including tax and shipping? I tried calling to talk over options but was met with an abrupt woman on the phone who insisted I use this web form. If there is a salesperson that can call me, I would appreciate it. We are budgeted to spend $2000 including tax and shipping, so the closer you can get to that number, the more likely we will choose you to order from. THANKS! -Jake

The reply:
Not a good application for this shelving 10 gallons = 110 lbs including tank

Yeah, that's it. No phone call, no fax, no alterative solution. So I follow up...

"Nexel Shelves"
"Can I talk to a sales rep?"
"Have you been to our website?"
"Yes, I have. I submitted an order but was met with an abrupt reply that was not helpful. I would like to just talk to a rep to figure out a solution."
"Maybe I can help you?"
"Ok, well I need shelves for aquaria. I used your shelves at my previous University and they held up well so I just need a quote. The catalog you sent me to said that the shelf could hold 600 lbs and even by your estimate I can only fit four tanks on a shelf so this comes in at 440lbs. Truthfully they will not even be completely full, so this is worst case scenario."
"Well that estimate is for an evenly loaded shelf, so they are not designed for supporting aquaria"
"Well I would have four aquaria on a shelf evenly loaded?"
"Um, ok- well just resubmit a form with your order and I will make a note. Where are you from?"
"Washington State University"
"Ok, bye"
Dial tone.....

So here is the SECOND web form:
I emailed earlier about ordering some 48" shelves (see below). I have used these shelves for water before at my previous lab (UC Davis with Andrew> Sih- perhaps you could verify the order even). They seem to hold up fine and by my estimate we'll only be able to fit 4 10 gallon tanks on a shelf so if there were full (which they typically will only be half >full) would weigh less than 500 lbs. The shelves are rated for 600lbs, so by my calculation they should be fine. If you could fax me (509-335-3184) a quote (including tax and shipping) I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks, Jake Kerby Washington State University

The reply:
PLEASE FIND ANOTHER VENDOR FOR YOUR SHELVING / THANK YOU

That is it... Nothing else...
Then 3 hours later another email.

PLEASE FIND ANOTHER VENDOR FOR YOUR SHELVING / THANK YOU PS 500lbs x 7 shelves = 3500 lbs on a shelving unit that is rated max load even distribution of weight across each shelf total 4 shelves in a unit = max per unit 2400 lbs not 3500 lbs Again you are taking a very risky chance and if your doing it now on existing shelving better take extra precautions a disaster may be on the way!!

Ummm.... So since I am using a web form and not talking to a person- they don't know that I am ordering 7 shelves so that we can alternately use them to put small cups on for certain experiments. It is not even possible to fit 7 shelves of aquaria on the order I submitted. So I reply once more a bit frustrated...

Are you kidding me? Please just send me a quote! This could have gone much faster if I were able to talk to a sales rep like I requested last week! We are ordering 7 shelves because we will primarily be using smaller containers that are much shorter (that will weigh much less because of far less water). You cannot fit 10 gallon aquaria on 7 shelves... Again, I am estimating a worst case scenario but our tanks are typically only half full and so this falls far under the weight limit if we use 5 shelves (although most typically we will be using four shelves when aquaria are on them). Please just send me a quote...
Jake

And their reply:

Sir
I am Not Kidding You
Again Please find another vendor for your shelving.


You think it is time to give up? I have never encountered a company that worked so hard to not get my business.

Sorry for the delay in blogging- lots has been going on. I'll start by finishing the satellite story, since so many of you seem amused by my obsession with it. The Dish network folks came out last Thursday and hooked it all up. I thought it was going great until I realized I wasn't getting a bunch of my High Definition channels. So I went out there myself and adjusted it to pick up most of them, but not all. So they are coming back out on Thursday to adjust it right. Why is this so hard????
Now for the real drama. I thought I was going to get fired last week. So there is an undergrad that has been planning an experiment for her honors project and raising animals for the past 2 months. This means spending 9 hours every Weds to change the water on nearly 700 cups. Well, despite my caution in calculating the proper pesticide concentration for the experiment, I screwed it up by a factor of 10. So basically 120 animals died the next day. I nearly totally ruined the entire experiment but luckily had lobbied to make the different dilutions by 10x instead of 2x. That is just science talk to say that instead of ruining everything I only ruined a part of the experiment. I was totally pissed, devastated, depressed, you name it. I really thought that I was going to get killed by the prof I am working with and by the undergrad. Needless to say, they were both disappointed- but they have not killed me yet. So dumb. It was the one thing that I had to get right and I screwed it up. Ahh, I am still not over it.
Other than that, I have been working on getting everything flowing smoothly. Working on revamping the lab's website. Working on getting this dissertation over with. Working at home. - I mowed the lawn for the first time!!! We bought a lawn mower and I assembled it and put it to use this past weekend. The novelty made it fun- I assume that will wear off quickly. Rachel has been working on the planters. Pulling out the weeds that the management promised to do. We bought some plants yesterday- we'll see if she got to put them in today. I'll have to post some before and after shots of the yard. Rachel did an amazing job. Our bed is coming on Friday. We should have found a place up here to get it. We were so worried that this place would be total hickville and we wouldn't be able to find anything. It clearly does not have the selection, but so far we have found everything we need not too far away, if not in town. The people here are incredibly nice. We have gone to a few churches now and all have been welcoming. I think they are pretty used to new people coming into town and do a good job of welcoming them. Rachel actually was supposed to do something today with a mom from one church and another mom from another church. So hopefully Rachel enjoys their company. That's it for now. Hopefully you all are doing well. Shoot me an email at jkerby@wsu.edu or just leave a comment.

You gotta love this... Fishing in Idaho. We went out this morning to a fishing spot about 30 miles away. Rachel caught a whopper. 6 inch Sunfish! Photos are on the site. Life is going well up here. It's our 6th anniversary today- right now everyone is taking naps (I just awoke). It is hot up here this weekend (100) and sucks not to have A/C. We are keeping the house mild but it is still in the 80s in here. Work is going well, we are starting an experiment on Wednesday. It will be insane, but should be pretty cool. Disease, herbicide, insecticide- poor suckers don't have a chance. If we find some interactions between disease and pesticides, that will be big. Not many have even examined it in amphibians so this is cutting edge stuff... I might finally get my HDTV picture on Thursday. That is when my new appointment is. If they don't have the dish by then, I might just stay with Directv because this is crap. We also should be getting our King Size bed this week- so quite a busy week! We have been sleeping in the guest room on our old bed. I think that I actually like that room better. It is not as bright in the morning and the window is by your head so it stays nice and cool at night. Plus there is no attached bathroom- didn't think about how that might be annoying with Rachel and my different sleeping schedules. What else? Our garage is nearly cleaned out. I brought all my stuff to my office and set it up so now there are just some random things in there. I will hopefully move them to the basement tomorrow and then have some room in there to do some car maintenance. Ok, that's enough. I am going to upload some photos now. 

Evolution of the dish... So I got the directv guy to come out and give us a free local dish upgrade. Luckily the guy was nice and mounted it on an old pole for us- so no more blowing over in the wind! Problem temporarily solved. Now if only Dish network were so helpful...
I plan on posting photos of the house with our stuff in it- I have added a link below (also under photos on the site). Going in to meet with the boss now- so my life as a post-doc officially begins!

http://www.jakekerby.com/Thenewplace/index.html