For as much as I complain about this area I will say there is some excellent community driven events here. See you at the Tri-Con.

On my way back from the Maryhill Museum of Art last Saturday I decided to stop by the Maryhill Loop Roads. At the intersection with the highway a coyote had been hit. Looked pretty recent. On the way back I had to steer to avoid the carcass. Looking over at it again I noticed the coyote had an inordinately large penis. Looking again it was obviously a plastic or silicone phallus. Just plain disturbing. I debated putting the picture here, but finally decided just to link it so you can decide if you want to view it or not. Poor Coyote.

What I find most disturbing is that someone took the time and expense to place a dong on the animal. While this is disgusting and disturbing, at the same time I am curious at what was going through their mind while they were doing it. In the twisted part of my mind I can see some kind of humor, but at the same time I see the lack of regard and respect for the animal. Did they see it and they come back or did they happen to have a dildo with them? Last time I check there weren’t any sex toys in my car. Well, not unless you wanted to improvise. Maryhill is kind of remote and gets at lot of through traffic and tourists which makes this whole scene odder.

So I share this with the world and let it decide for itself. If you want to see some more pleasant photos see my other pictures of Samuel Hill’s creations in the Maryhill area.

Ordering supplies is annoying. To fully appreciate my irritation I’ll explain how we order things at my company. There are two ways to order supplies . Anything that must be listed in the chemical inventory database is ordered through our online space and safety management system everything else is done on the old paper-based system. A few weeks back they changed the ordering policy and non-chemicals, like proteins and plasma, can no longer be ordered on the online system. The online system is usually faster and everything ordered through the system is sent to one person ina building who notifies you when your items comes in (after they’ve entered it into the inventory system). With the other ordering system the package is just dropped off to the room you specify with no notification that it’s arrived.

A few weeks ago I ordered my antibody. Yesterday I got a phone call from one of our sample prep staff members (she’s in the lab daily) saying a package had been on my bench for the last day. When I got down to the prep lab I found my antibody, at room temperature. This is death to an antibody. I called the company and the product manager confirmed my suspicions. So there was $1560 down the drain and I ordered 3 more boxes of 10 tubes. Later in the day I get an email saying that the price I listed for the antibody was for the small box of 5. I had specified the box of ten. I’d gotten the price from my previous order, which meant either I ordered the wrong box or who even input the order into the system made an error. When I went down to the lab and checked my antibody I found I had 15 botched tubes. So, had I not ordered more antibody I most likely wouldn’t have noticed that I only had half of the materials that I needed and I’d have 30 botched tubes instead of 15. It takes a least a week to get supplied in and it will take me 2 weeks to finish analyzing my experiments.

So, I wasted $1.5 K, but now I have everything that I need. At least it worked out in the end.

Oh, almost forgot, Happy Valentine’s Day.

A friend of a friend tells me that the caption roughly translates as: “Toilet visit from the north. Large (species?) relieves itself in the Bogstad Lake. Burnt-out cheek annoying, but just a little”

The reason for my post. If you are even stranded in the Chiacgo O’Hare airport seek out the cot farm near security screening. You might get a spot if you get in early. I tried to get my 4 hour power nap started around midnight CST. At 4 am they will start clearing out the cots while every body is still asleep. In all fairness a woman did warn me there was a 4 am wakeup call. Below is about half the cots that were set up, most were full when I woke up.

The execution of all of the pieces was flawless. Finisterra was simply in-sync with each other. You call tell when a group has chemistry. All of the artists have a level of physical expression and you can see that they are just enjoying every moment of their performance, just a joy to watch. This carries over into their musical expression and each piece of the evening has a life of its own. Beethoven never disappoints as you would expect. The Davoraek I had not heard before and was six “fleeting thoughts” inspired by Eastern European folk music, but of his own composition. The gem of the evening was the work by Hagen, an American composer who has studied with other greats such as Copland and Burnstein. The work chronicled the life if the matriarch of the family who commissioned the work. The first half of the work centered around a Southern hymn (remicent of some of Edgar Mayer’s work) and they migrated in to a purely modern work. Quite good, you can hear it for yourself on Finisterra’s website.

I expect a bright future for this ensemble. They are young and eager to share their passions with audiences and you should catch one of their concerts if you have a chance.