It's A Nerdy X-Mas!

With Mara having a brain full of anatomical jargon, we decided to revisit the Body Worlds 3 exhibit that was being shown in St. Louis (about 4 hours away). No better way for science nerds to spend X-Mas Eve! We headed out at about 8am and got to St. Louis around 12, and found an awesome Indian Cafe to eat at. The exhibit will soon be in Milwaukee and Mara and I URGE you to go see it. It is one of the BEST things you can do to see human bodies in their most preserved state. Absolutely fascinating, even for the non-science oriented. There were quite a few people with kids, parents, friends, so anyone can go. Some people didn't quite get the idea behind it, but it really does make you think about yourself in a different light. And YES, they are real bodies...like the picture in this post.
The exhibit is the 3rd installment of the touring shows. The first we saw in Chicago on our honeymoon, and the 2nd we saw on our 1 year anniversary. We were really glad to see it again on X-Mas eve!
We did find some time to walk around the prestigious Washington University (WashU), while sipping on some Starbucks of course, before we headed back to Kirksville. It was a solid 9 hours in the car that day, but worth every second!

Sorry for the "All-At-Once" blogging, but we've been busy! :) Scroll down to see the last few days of blogs...

Happy 30th Birthday Josh!

(The most recent picture I have of Josh, practicing the "baby thing" with our nephew, Sam.)
Mike & I went up to wish Josh a happy 30th birthday in Ottumwa, IA on Sunday, 12/23. I can hardly believe Josh is 30, it seems like just a few years ago he was pinning me to the ground and letting spit dangle to my face only to slurp it back in at the last minute, demonstrating a face wash on me with some freshly fallen snow, or teaching me to swear and then telling on me when I did...ahh, what wonderful memories of the "big brother"! All kidding aside, he's a pretty great older brother:)
It's really nice having Josh, Debora, & soon-to-be Baby Bacon only 1 hour away. We haven't really had too many opportunities to visit with our crazy schedules and their jet setting but we hope to take advantage of the closeness in the future. It will be really nice to have a nephew close by since the next closest niece/nephew is 4 hours away. Love those nieces/nephews! So fun to spoil and give them back:) We can't wait to meet Thomas!!!!
Josh and Debora have the house nearly ready for baby Bacon, they are too cute!
It was a nice evening and the weather cooperated, no crappy roads or loss of power! Josh & Debora's had gone out the night before for a few hours. IA/MO's way of losing power is quite foreign to this Wisconsinite, I can't remember the last time we lost power in WI not due to lightning!

Icy Hike

When we had another 12" of ice/snow coming our way, we HAD to get out of the house and hike a little before we were stranded indoors. I'm not sure who had to get outdoors more, us or the dogs! We went back out to Thousand Hills State Park on Saturday (12/22) and hiked around our favorite lake. It was a little muddy, but we brought extra clothes to change into. We were so desperate to go outside we were willing to brave the wintery cold rain (34°C), muddy trails, and brisk wind. The dogs could care less, and they actually got their first taste of a frozen lake! Lucy was deterred only for a minute until she got her footing figured out, then we had to yell to keep her from the middle of the (barely) frozen water where it was so thin we could see the water rippling under her feet as she was walking! That was a pretty eerie site.
We went for about a 5 mile hike, and then turned back when the rain started to get a little heavier. The dogs were a little tired when they get back. My parents and Grandma were supposed to come down from Eldridge, but with the inclement weather they (wisely) chose to head to Wisconsin instead. We only ended up getting about 2-3" out of the whole storm, but North of us got some high winds, and Wisconsin ended u p with another 8" or so. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up with them sooner or later... :)

Winter Break has begun!

It's only been 4 weeks since Thanksgiving break, but we are very ready for the longer winter break. It's amazing how much information they can cram into a month. We had exams in 4 classes and 3 practicals in the last week. This quarter is a little busier than first quarter.
Hopefully this break will be more relaxation and more family time!

New Bat-Phones! (Same Bat-Numbers)

You gotta LOVE the retention departments! These are departments that cell phone companies set up to retain your business. They are authorized to give you pretty much whatever you want, just to keep your business. You do sometimes have to bargain with them, but with that not being my strong point I was still able to haggle new phones, unlimited data pack (surf the internet, e-mail, etc.), unlimited text messages, nights & weekends at 7pm, and a bunch of other services for FREE! These companies can do it because it make sense from a business standpoint. If you give someone $200 in free equipment and services (I'm sure it cost Sprint even less than THAT!), and sign them to a 2 year deal for ~$75/month, your still making $1600!
The phones kick butt too! They were just released a week before we bought them, and should have cost $500 each! I am usually on the forefront of technology, but normally don't want to spend the money to use it, but if it's free...hell yeah.
Mara likes it for the PDA and calender functions, and I like the nerdy techy stuff. It even has GPS so we can find where we are when I get us lost at Thousand Hills State Park...:)
Blogger also has a cool function where we can upload our photos, videos and text messages directly to a blog so whenever we are out and about, we can rub it in that we're having a great time! (Or how boring our life of studying can be...)
Instead of cluttering this blog with pointless photos and such, we are also going to have this blog: http://syringmobile.blogspot.com/. You don't have to memorize it, there will be a link on the left hand side of our blog if you want to check it out sometime. It probably won't be updated too often, but since it's a fun, new toy to play with, I'm sure we'll mess with it a little bit. I uploaded some fun picture of Mara and the puppies...:)
If you ever change phone companies and want to know what to say to get free stuff, just call me and I'll give you some hints. We've already got the same phones and plan for friends of ours here. Since they've already given it to us, they HAVE to give it to whoever asks for it (or at least the equivalent). And it you don't have to have Sprint to do it either, every company has these department, you just have to ask the right questions...

Holiday Season

It's hard to believe that it's Mid-December and the holidays are nearly here. We've been so busy lately and up until this last weekend, the weather has been mild, 50s and sunny, so it hasn't seemed like winter or Christmas yet. It finally (yup, that's sarcasm) snowed last week, just in time for holiday parties. Mike had a couple of holiday parties this last week through ATSU. The study break was welcome and we enjoyed getting dressed up and having some appetizers and a few glasses of wine with professors. As you can see we wore matching orange:)

We Love Missouri

Iced in...between last nights 1" of ice and tonight's forecast of 1.5", we'll be covered in 2.5" inches of solid ice by tomorrow morning. Milwaukee (well, WI in general) prepared us for cold wintery weather, but we definitely weren't prepared for the ice storms that are common winter weather around here.
We are so glad we have a fireplace and a garage! The fireplace has been awesome to study and warm up by, and best of all, if we lose power (as predicted...), we'll still be cozy warm. We ordered a full cord of wood (4'x8'x16') 2 months ago, and still have over 2/3 of it sitting in our garage, nice and dry. We've seen plenty of people ice-picking their way through their wood pile, but not us! Our car is also sitting in the garage, dry and ice-less. It's nice to drive to school and see everyone who had to scrape a little 2'x2' window in their windshield, and our car is spotless.
We both got the day off of work/school since they canceled classes at KCOM, and Mike didn't have to work since ATSU is part of the same college. He did have a final at Truman today, which still held classes. I think Truman was the only school still open, all public and private were closed today and I'm sure a few will be tomorrow. Seems kind of funny to have an "Ice Day" instead of a snow day, not that we're complaining.
We saw something interesting on our way home from Truman. We stopped at Hy-Vee to get some food for supper (mmm...meatloaf) and I noticed a tree smoking. One of the branches had fallen on the power lines and was starting to smolder and smoke. We called 911 from across the street and while we were on the phone with them the tree caught on fire. A few seconds later the line started buzzing and then snapped, landing on someones front porch. The police showed up soon after, but it was really neat to watch (from a safe distance). That power line is one of two downed lines we saw within 0.5 miles of our house, I'm sure it's only time before one is close enough to take out our power.
The icy weather kind of stinks but the trees behind our house look pretty...

Happy Solar Minimum!

OK...that doesn't have the best ring to it, but right now the sun is at it's least active state. There is a satellite orbiting Earth called SOHO which has been imaging the sun for the last 12 years. The sun has a solar cycle that has to do with activity such as sun flares & coronal mass ejections (see other post). Anyway, SOHO took images in the ultraviolet wavelength, which is a good indication of energy, over the last 11 years, capturing the complete solar cycle. The most activity was seen in 2001, which means we are on the other end of the cycle now. Solar flares are what can cause really nice auras (Northern Lights). I would like to make a trip up North to see them someday, but Alaska will have to wait until after school...:)
You can check out Astronomy Picture of the Day for a better explanation

Hope this nerds up your Tuesday!!!

Worth Every Mile

Well we haven't had a millennium car trip in a while so we figured one of the busiest weekends of the year was PERFECT! :)
We started out Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning at 5:30am and drove to Eldridge to see the Bowers/Syring family. It was a nice surprise since only Jennifer & Michelle knew we were coming. It was really great to see our nieces & nephew again since we are holed up in Kirksville for a while. We did get to play an AWESOME prank on Michelle. We had told her that Mara was going to wear a purple, velour jumpsuit as a joke. Michelle was very skeptical of the joke, but played along with it nicely! We called her ahead of time and she went an changed so her and Mara could "present" the joke together...couldn't have been funnier! Her exact words were, and I quote, "You're Dead". :)



We could only stay at Jennifer's house until about 2:30 since we had a long drive to Baldwin, WI to see Mara's sister Sally, and for her son, Sam's baptism on Sunday. The traffic wasn't too bad and we got to Sally's around 9:30 or so. Unfortunately Sally got a bout of cellulitis and had to get antibiotics at the hospital. Since it was somewhat of a sudden onset they wanted her to stay the next day/night in the hospital to make sure it wasn't more serious. It wasn't, and Sally got to go home Saturday morning. We had a lot of time at the hospital to chat, hang out with Sammers, and catch up with Sally.
We did get a chance to head outside and hit some holiday sales on Saturday. I think after being cooped up in a hospital the last few days made us all a little stir crazy. We got to introduce Sally to Indian food, which she seemed to like; we'll see if Sam likes it as much...
Sam couldn't have been a better kid at the baptism; and Mara and I's presence didn't make the holy water boil at all! :) We even got some good pictures of us with the little tot:



We did have to leave right after the baptism since we still had a 7+ hour drive back home, and it was already 12:30. Traffic was pretty good most of the way, but picked up around Des Moines. We got home around 8:45, and had some time to watch football, do some laundry, study, and stretch after a long ride! Our final trip totals were 1078 miles, ~18 hours, and 4 states!


View Larger Map

We had a GREAT time with both families, and now it's time for Mara to start her 2nd quarter of school! Physiology is the newly added course (on top of everything else!). She's looking forward to her Clinical Biochemistry course as well. Should be a fast month or so before x-mas break. Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!

It's A Puppy Thanksgiving!

We decided to have a dinner for some friends that stuck around Kirksville on the Tuesday before Turkey Day. It turns out our friends Sasha & Josh were the only ones still around so we invited them and their dogs to come play.
Sasha and her dog Abby (Jack Russell / Weiner Dog) came with Josh and his dog Dixie (Some Sort Of Spaniel). The dogs all got along REALLY well, and Abby & Dixie were a riot to play with!



Dixie did find time to heed the call of nature...all caught on film...:)

10 Miles Of F-U-N

Apparently I am not a direct decedent of Magellan. Last weekend Mara, our friend Sasha, and I decided to get out and enjoy the fact that Mara and Sasha had a week off med school. It was awesome hiking weather (60°F & Sunny), and we had wanted to explore the 7 mile hiking trail at Thousand Hills State Park. Armed with a crappy map, lunch & trail mix, and our puppies Linus, Lucy, & Abby the wiener dog.
We set out around 10am and dropped our car at the end of the one-way hike at the Big Bear Conservation Area. Sasha then drove us to the start of the trail inside the state park. The dogs were in their element for sure. Lucy was chasing whatever she could find, Linus was freaking out at every leaf that blew in the wind, and Abby got some much needed exercise chasing our dogs around as well.
Lucy, of course, made us laugh for about 10 minutes while she was fetching a stick. Watching her little brain try and figure out what was holding her back. Pure Lucy...



We got a little side tracked when we mistook where the trail split. We thought we had just lost the trail and spent about 2 hours trying to find it. We were never "lost" since we knew we could always find where we left the trail, but our stubborn ways kept us searching for a trail that wasn't there. Apparently we hadn't gotten to the part of the trail where it split and left the trail early. This led us to hike an additional 3 miles of untrodden terrain which was fun, but left the dogs with quite a few burrs, not to mention the leaves:



All in all it was a lot of fun to be outside with the puppies, and the walking was a great stress relief for Mara & Sasha who start classes again on Monday. Here is a map of our super hike (detour included in red).

View Larger Map

It was a great way to tour Forest Lake!

2% Of Your Brain My @$$!

Mara's using WAY more than that!!!
Mara's been hitting the books REALLY hard the last 2 weeks in preparation for finals week this week. Monday she had Anatomy Lecture, Today she had a D.O. written exam and an Anatomy Lab Exam. Tomorrow she has her D.O. Practical, Thursday her Biochemistry Exam, and tops it off on Friday with an OTM Exam! She may have to celebrate a little bit for getting through so much!
She was so into her Anatomy that she decided to teach some to the puppies (since I was putting up quite a fight!)


Lucy tried to catch on, but thorasic MRI's proved to be her nemesis:


After pulling an all-nighter, the dogs just couldn't take it anymore, and crashed...


After Mara got done teaching the dogs about Anatomy I think they are up to using 0.0003% of their brains!

We did find some time to go out to dinner with a group of friends since tomorrow's D.O. Practical won't be so hard, but Mara still has to geek up for her Biochem Exam on Thursday.
It's still nice enough to golf here so I got a quick 9 in before we went to dinner...I love my golf membership! :)

Leafers!

I got so excited about comets I forgot to post our hike! :P
2 weekends ago we took the dogs for a nice 8 mile hike to check out the leaves, and get out of the house on a day it was almost 70. We took a new trail at Thousand Hills State Park that we had seen when we were kayaking this summer. It winds around the North and West side of Forest Lake towards the dam for the lake. It continues around, 14 miles to the other side of the lake, but we didn't have that much time that weekend; Mara has to study!
The trail was awesome, and the dogs (and us) REALLY enjoyed being outside. The leaves were just starting to turn that weekend, and peaked about 2 days after we were there, and everything was brown by the next weekend, so we don't have any great leaf pictures. Here are a couple of the dogs. Lucy, of course, is in the water, and Linus, of course, is just being a spaz...

We did find time to take a nice family photo along the lake. As usual...the dogs are looking for squirrels or bunnies and not paying attention...

It was a REALLY nice day to be out and enjoy the sun & fresh air. But for now...back to working & studying!

Fun With Comets!

Who knew astronomy could be fun!?!? In the last few weeks there have been some really cool astronomical events. OK, fun & cool in a nerdy way, but fun & cool none the less.
First comet Encke was hit by a solar flare from the sun. Solar flares are large "earthquakes" from the sun due to fluctuations in the magnetic field that usually keeps them in.





This is a good representation of a solar flare & it's prominence relative to the size of the Earth (remember a million Earths could fit inside the sun). This gives you an idea of the magnitude of these things. A solar flare pointed at earth in 1989 completely shut down Quebec with a sudden burst of electromagnetic radiation, and more recently (but less destructive) in 2003, Detroit & New York.
Smaller flares are what causes the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. But I digress.







The solar wind generated from these solar flares travel at an astounding 900,000 miles per hour! Normally we don't watch the wind, since it really isn't that exciting to watch solar particles travel in the open vacuum of space. About a month ago astrophysicists were doing some measurements on a little known comet called Comet Encke, when a blast of solar wind hits it and rips off it's tail! It quickly makes a new tail and returns to it's normal look. No one had even heard of this happening before, and to catch it on film it amazing! I posted the video below. The flare moves quick so you may have to play it a couple of times to catch it all.


The other comet related news was from the Comet Holmes. Also a little known comet, it all of the sudden brightened over a million times in a matter of 2 days! It is now about as bright and large as Jupiter in the sky! They think the comet is breaking up and the debris is causing the increased brightness. The comet has also changed color from gold to green, and also developed a blue ion tail. No one is quite sure what is going on with this comet, but it should be fun to watch it develop!
I won't say it's "easy" to pick out in the sky, but it can be done. Around 8-9pm, if you look straight East and find a cluster of stars called the Pleiades Cluster. It's a cluster of a few hundred stars in a very small area. From there you can look straight left and find the comet. Or from Orion (near the horizon), you can look North to find Mars, then left to find the comet. They give good directions to find it at this website also: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10862521.html.
Here is one photo of the comet and it's relationship (in size, not location) to Jupiter...



You can click on the image to get a short animation of the comet growing brighter.



Happy Sky Watching!

Déjà Vu

Michelle had sent me an awesome e-mail with some satirical motivational posters the other day. But I saw one that looked very familiar, and I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I checked our blog to see if anyone had left any new comments and I saw my déjà vu...



I'm still not sure which one I am laughing at more...:P

Go Hawks!

It's been a couple of years since I've been to an Iowa Hawkeye game so my friend Tim set it up and got us tickets to the IA/Michigan State game this last weekend. It was a cold 40°F when we got up at 6am to get parking next to the stadium, but the sun came out around 10 an warmed it up to a perfect-for-tailgating 70°F.
Although IA has had a disappointing season they still managed to pull 70,000+ fans! They did not disappoint!
They were looking pretty crappy in the first quarter, with a miserable -6 TOTAL yards of offense! There were a lot of people who picked up and left, when the halftime score was 17-3, expecting IA to get steamrolled. In the second half they got some great rushing from their running back, Albert Young, and ended up tying the score, then going ahead in the 4th quarter! Michigan State got some GREAT calls and they marched 70 yards in 90 seconds and tied the game with a field goal. In overtime they both scored on their first possession, then IA scored on their next and held MSU scoreless to go on to win! The place went NUTS! I lost my voice at the game too, but it was worth every scratchy word today!
People that leave games THAT early always confused me. Why would you leave when it's only 2 touchdowns?!? IA had them back on their first drives of the 2nd half, and all those people could do was listen on the radio since you can't come back in once you've left! We saw people do that at Brewer games A LOT this last year. They would leave in the 5th inning when the Brewers were down by 4 runs, then miss the dramatic finish! I think staying and watching some great games far outweighs the 20 minutes you saved getting out of the parking lot before anyone else. Oh well, their loss I guess!
Go Hawks!!!

Webcam Fun!

My Dad was having issues with his webcam and we were trying to figure it out. I thought the problem was on my end because I couldn't see his camera. Michelle was around so I asked if she could make a video call to test our connections. Well it worked. Bad news...Dad, I think you need a new webcam (or at least uninstall/reinstall yours). Good news...Michelle never fails to entertain...(click the pictures to see the larger versions)...

Michelle Talks To Our Dogs...Thoroughly Confusing Them (Noted By The Head Tilt)...
Michelle & Jackson Watched Our Dogs Eat One Another...


Michelle Plays With Jackson On Her Head, And Then Introduces His Toy Dog...I Apparently Got Excited Also...


Michelle Then Decides To Play With The Dog Herself...And Being Very Entertained...Me As Well...


Never A Dull Moment...Thanks Shell!!! :)

Flood Plain

Sally called this morning to see how we faired with the heavy rains. We got some serious rain here this last week! The worst was on Wednesday when it rained off and on; but after we got home from work, it started to pour!
For those who haven't been to the house, we have a creek running through our side yard. It's a very shallow creek with maybe 5 inches of water in it on average. The banks are really high though, probably 6 foot at the peak. I used to wonder why they had it banked so high...now I know. The last time it rained a decent amount we got about 3 foot of water flowing pretty quick through the creek, but this last Wednesday it rained MUCH harder.
About 7:00 I took the video below. You can hear how hard it's raining, and in another video (not shown) you can see the "sheets" of rain blowing across our yard. We sat down for dinner, 10 minutes later, we looked out the window and saw how much it had risen. My guess would be 5-6 foot deep. I've never seen a creek flood that fast! It really was quite a site. The time stamp on the first video was 7:01, and 7:11 on the second. I wish I would have just watched the creek for 10 minutes, instead of eating. It would have been really cool to see it rise that much, that fast.
Lucy wanted to play in it, but I really didn't feel like a water rescue that day... :)

Busy Bees!

Wow have the last 2 weeks FLOWN by!
We've been crazy busy with school (Mara much more than I). Mara had exams in Biochem, Osteopathic Theory & Methods (OTM), and Histology last week, not to mention her first standardized patient encounter, and an OTM practical. To top it off she had an Anatomy exam Monday, so that pretty much ate up every waking hour since her birthday! She also found time (somewhere/somehow) to stop into the lab and begin work-study with Dr. Singh.
I've had it easy compared to that! I've had tests in my Stats & Bio classes (which really were not that tough), and other than that I've been working. I feel really lazy when I compare my schedule to Mara's!
I have found time to golf with friends (Brian & Joe) & professors (Dr. Sexton & Dr. Fellows) and I have been playing racquetball with my bosses (Dr. Singh & Dr. Sargentini). We have a really nice country club here, so when anyone comes to visit, be sure to bring your clubs! We should be golfing well into December, something that wasn't possible in Wisconsin (except for last December!).
We hope to get out and hike this weekend (barring any bad weather). We were thinking of going down to Sugar Creek Conservatory or Long Branch State Park by Macon. I think some R & R for Mara would be a really good thing, especially with a really shitty November lurking just around the corner...The week off for Thanksgiving will be MUCH needed!

I hope Larry & Deb are enjoying their condo lifestyle! Sorry we couldn't be there to help, and sorry Shell couldn't pick up the slack... :D

Best family & friends ever...

Thank you to everyone who called/emailed/sent cards. I had a wonderful birthday, even with 2 quizzes! I had a full day of class, work study, a quick run, and dinner with Mike (mmm, mexican), and then a full evening of studying (a lot of biochemistry, and a little histology/anatomy).

(The picture above is from a get together with friends a few weeks ago. I just like it so thought I'd post it.)

Indian Cave State Park

Hey everyone! Mara and I got a chance to get out for a weekend. Mara has been studying really hard, and had a week coming up without any tests, so we set up a camping getaway with Nate, Tim & Allison. Nate suggested Indian Cave State Park in Shubert, NE, and it was perfect! The weather was excellent (83F during the day, 60F at night), and the trails were just what we needed. We went up and down a dozen or so large bluffs alongside the Missouri River, and hiked probably close to 10 miles.

We were all a little hungry when we got back, but after a quick nap, everyone was up and ready to go again. We had epic games of bocce ball, and plenty of refreshments...:)
Tim and Nate were, as always, spectacles. First, Tim demonstrated his self-taught samurai skills:


After our hike, we needed to cut some logs down to size so we could burn them. Tim had some issues, so Nate took over...
(I Fixed The Sound Issue. Does Anyone Have More Fun Than Us?)

Despite all this fun, Mara still found time to study anatomy...


















She also downloaded some Histology & Anatomy lectures to her MP3 player so the 4.5 hour drive was filled with descriptions of the brachial plexus, arteries & innervations of arm & shoulder muscles, and cellular landmarks of leukocytes. How Exciting! I think we won the battle of "Nerdiest Car On The Road" this weekend!

A Little Piece of Milwaukee Delivered To Our Front Door

As many of you know, Mara and I have been eating a lot of Indian cuisine in the last 2 years or so, especially North Indian.

One of our favorite grocery stores was a little Indian Grocery & Spices store near Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee. We've been craving Indian food since we moved here. On our way down from Milwaukee we took a different path and ended up driving through Fairfield, IA. To our surprise, they have a Maharishi University, and have 3 Indian restaurants in a podunk little town in IA! A couple of weekends ago we took the 2 hours drive and ate at one. It was really good, and it satisfied our craving at the time, but not worth the 4 hour round trip.

We finally broke down and went to the Indian Grocery store's website (found at the top of our blog) where you can order prepackaged food you just boil and eat! If you order $70 worth, you get free UPS shipping too! The free shipping is nice because our order came to 27 pounds!

We ordered it Thursday, it shipped Friday, and it arrived here today:







This should last us quite a while!

Can you tell I'm happy?!?!?










Since they are only about $2/dinner, we got enough to feed us for quite a while for $70.
We were so happy to have it we had some tonight for supper. I had the Channa Masala, Mara had the Paneer Tika Masala, and we spit a Lemon Rice, and a Masala Rice. YUM!!!

If you ever want to try some, just come and visit and let us know!

The Many Talents of Linus

Linus demonstrated yet another talent that wouldn't help him in the realm of Natural Selection. Apparently he is such a die-hard peanut butter fan that in order to get to the sweet nectar at the bottom, he tries to dislocate his jaw to get his tongue all the way down. Luckily he has a tongue like a hummingbird and he can reach the bottom.

Of course we were taking a break so we got it all on video. Hope you enjoy!

Stuffed peppers!

Awesome!!! Especially when the weather is chilly, high was only 65 today. Since school is BUSY and I don't do much outside of school, today's post is our stuffed pepper recipe (serves 4):

• 4 Medium yellow, red, orange, or green peppers (we like orange the best)
• 1lb lean ground beef (the leaner the better, or drain the grease)
• 2 cups dry Wild rice mix (this adds a nice nutty texture)
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 can diced seasoned tomatoes
• 1 can corn
• 1 can black beans
• 1 egg (or eggbeaters)
• Grated cheese (we like the premixed varieties)
• Salt/Pepper/Garlic to taste

Cut the tops off the peppers, clean out the seeds, boil until tender, drain, and set aside. Brown the beef and set aside. Prepare rice according to package. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Once rice, beef, and peppers are ready, open the cans, drain the corn, beans, and diced tomatoes (if you don't the stuffing will be runny). Mix beef, rice, paste, diced tomatoes, corn, beans, and egg. Stuff as much as you can in the peppers and place in a glass baking dish (foiled lined makes for easier clean up). Put the extra stuffing in another baking dish, place in oven for ~30 minutes or until bubbly. Sprinkle stuffed peppers and stuffing with cheese and cook until melted (2-5 minutes). Remove from oven and enjoy!

If you see Daniel Bacon...

...wish him a happy 60th birthday! This picture is from the 5k day we did in April, as you can see he's keeping young! Happy birthday dad, wish we could have been there.

And, Happy Grandparent's Day! (His first, and mom's, too!)

No Squirrel Is Safe

Well, Lucy took her hate for squirrels to a whole nother level.
They used to be safe when they went up the tree, but now Lucy is mastering tree climbing...


As you can see, Linus has more of a "spotter" role, and probably won't be climbing any trees soon.

Painting Your Soul

I was just skimming CNN's technology & science section and I came across an AWESOME article of a scientist/artist who will take your DNA fingerprint and put it on canvas! How cool is that?!? OK, you might not think it's that cool, but 2 science nerds couldn't ask for anything more!

Check these out:




It would be so cool to have your DNA hanging above your bed!
Not only is it orange, but it even has the appropriate molecular weight markers on the ends! Every scientist knows you have to have standards and controls... :)
This is an even COOLER idea!
You can put you and your spouse's DNA next to each other! You can have them individual or have them emphasize areas that are similar.

This is just too nerdy to pass up!


While this is really cool, it will have to wait a while. The company that does it, DNA11, charges $400 for an 18"x24" of just one person's DNA, and the 24"x72" of both of our DNA is about $1000.
It's pretty simple how they do it. If you've ever seen a CSI episode, or been implemented in a crime where they had DNA evidence, it should be familiar. They send you a kit that contains a Q-Tip you swab your mouth with, you send it back, then they extract the DNA. They then cut it with things called restriction enzymes that cut at specific parts in the DNA, then run it on a gel that separates things by molecular weight (size). Since each person it unique, when the entire genome is looked at, there won't be any 2 alike.
Maybe in 20 years you can expect this as a birthday present from us...or maybe we'll just send you a picture of ours... :P

Canoe Trip

Mara and I heard of a deal where Thousand Hills State Park was giving half priced canoe rentals if you were there before Noon. We figured we'd fight the Sunday crowds and try it out. Turns out, since we live in the heart of the bible belt, no one goes on the lake before mid-afternoon.

We pretty much had the 573 acre lake to ourselves!

I took a 360º panorama of "Lake Syring". If you click on it you can check out the full resolution photo. We were only allowed to upload 1/2 of the actual picture size (it's a full 360º!). You'll be hard pressed to find another boat/swimmer/kayak in the picture, and you can see 90% of it in the full photo. It was eerie...



We canoed for about 2.5 hours, and it cost us about $10 with sodas! 2 poor students can't ask for much more than that! We didn't take the dogs out because we were not sure of their boats, but there would be PLENTY of room for them! Can't wait to maybe try it out again this weekend, it's supposed to be mid-80's and lots of sunshine.

Oh, and we went off the beaten path (go figure) and I found some poison oak/ivy/sumac. I am pretty much immune to the poison leaves in IA & WI, but apparently not MO. So on top of my tick bites, I have some nice, itchy hives. Looks like more anti-histamines and calamine lotion for me! Woo-Hoo!

One week down...

I survived the first week, relatively unscathed. The one casuality is my cell phone...while it is still functional, I no longer have a screen. Which wouldn't really matter if I actually remembered numbers and didn't rely on my trusty address book (in the phone, of course!) and I can no longer text, although I figured out how to forward my text messages to Mike without seeing the screen. Other than a crappy phone, I had a great week!
Classes are, as expected, crammed with a ton of information, some I'm vaguely familiar with, some I'm not. I have 6 classes this quarter, with labs for all of them. Generally I will be at school from 7am-5pm with an hour for lunch, the hours are pretty much what I'm used to but definitely more brain power required! My first exam is already next Wednesday, September 5, in Biochemistry. So far, I have been studying at home, inside and outside (even in the hammock,with my coffee!)for at least a few hours everyday. Hopefully I'll stay on top of things!

Don't get me wrong, studying does take up a lot of my time, but we've found some time for fun as well, but that is for another post!

Linus' Crack Run

Our friend Pete first coined the phrase "crack run" to refer to his dog, Fala's frantic running for apparently no reason. Linus has done these quite a bit in the past, but since he has not been familiar with the layout of our house in Kirksville, he's been hesitent.
So we decided to set up to "encourage" him to freak out (now you know why Linus is the way he is...). With Mara in the living room & Me running the camera in the bedroom, we got a good perspecive of his first real crack run in Kirksville.

Grandpa Genes

Mara and I both have carpentry in our blood. Grandpa Bacon whittled and made awesome carvings and a bookshelf we still use. Grandpa Hansen made amazing cabinets,and he's made a rocking chair for each great-grandchild . Grandpa Syring made about 1000 letter holders and gave them to about everyone he knew.
Now Mara and I don't have the practice, nor the patience, that our Grandfathers had. Nor do we have the tools they had. We probably don't have the design skills they possess. And our workbench has been downgraded to a fold out card table. Pretty crappy, I know.
I was looking through a magazine and saw a picture of a neat butcher block. The idea was pretty much a box with enough bamboo sticks to support knives




Now we don't have $125 to spend on a "European pine" and bamboo block of wood, so we decided to put our genes to the test....















We went to Home Depot and found a REALLY cool scrap piece of poplar wood for about $3. We then bought enough L brackets to frame a house, and a small can of polyurethane.
The brackets we got were a little shorter than we needed, so Mara came up with an AWESOME design that really looks slick. By overlapping the wood on one end we could use the brackets and still have a solid perimeter:








The outside of the block with Mara's design of joining the wood with alternating colors.



















This block could survive a nuke...











Next we needed enough skewers to fill the damn thing. The dollar store yielded nothing but a 6' dog leash for Linus, and a trip to Wal-Mart gave us 200 sticks; about enough to fill 1/5 of the block. Hy-Vee yielded the rest of the roughly 1000 bamboo skewers it took to fill the block enough to support our heavy knives.
Here is our final product...

This was the test knife. A 7" Santoku knife that is about the heaviest we own.

And then we added the rest of our knives...

We were REALLY happy with the way it turned out. I knew we had those genes for a reason!

My fingers are a little sore from breaking all of those bamboo skewers. I sliced myself pretty good with one.

So 1 trip to Home Depot's scrap yard, 12 L brackets, 1000 bamboo skewers, and 1 band-aid later, we have a new home for our favorite kitchen utensils!

Tick Watch Update

Well we got the dogs into the vet and they gave them Frontline, which is an oil that you put on their shoulder blades and it causes ticks that bite them to die, and they should fall off within the next 24-28 hours. In the meantime the puppies will be sleeping in the garage to avoid a tick infested bed.

For me it's been a different story. Yesterday my legs felt like they were on FIRE! Turns out I had quite a few tick bites. It's been a nightly dose of benadryl and calamine lotion for me to avoid cratching my legs like a crack addict. Here is a snapshot of the tiny welts on my feet:







You may have to click on the picture to see the bites, they are REALLY small, but there are hundreds of them!






It's pretty much like that all the way up my calf as well. Mara was "lucky" and only has about 10-20 bites on each leg. I think my freaking out about it made the ticks bite me more...:)