Turning into my Advisor...

I'm not sure how many times over the years I've come out of a meeting with my advisor or a lab meeting thinking, "Man, he has some wild theories about stuff."

After some thinking in about the general topic that I work on, experiments that I did and work that I've read in the literature I came up with a wild theory of my own. If my hypothesis were true (and I really hope that some of the junior grad students working on this topic in my lab will do some of the experiments that I have in mind to test this idea) it would be a semi-major paradigm shift in Enterococcus biofilms. But before you all get your hopes up I need to remind you that at the moment it is still just a wild idea.

BUT

Where this gets a little funny is that this morning I shared my crazy idea with my mentor just to see what he thought...and so that hopefully someone will pursue those experiments once I leave. After I was finished he said, "I've been thinking about a scenario a lot like that."

So apparently I've become a lot like my advisor...right down to independently coming up with the same crazy theories about stuff. I guess it really is time to graduate!

Suit up!

Barney Stinson, my favorite character on the TV show, "How I met your mother" is always encouraging his friends to "Suit Up!"...which is something I have NEVER done before. So I was pretty happy to finally have the opportunity to use that phrase early Monday morning before leaving for my interview.

The interview went well. I have no idea if it was in part because of my fantastic suit or not. But I had Kevin take a few quick pictures before I ran out the door because I knew that at the very least my Mom would be interested to know what I look like when I suit up.

I was lucky!

As an update to the new tire post I found out that the "slow leak" I had assumed was from corrosion of my aluminum rims was actually caused by a 4 inch nail in that tire. We were all shocked that the tire had never gone completly flat and that it had lost air so slowly over such a long period of time. I'm just really lucky that it never went flat while I was driving somewhere! Thankfully the old tires and the nail are now long gone and hopefully I won't run over another nail anytime soon. I'm sure I wouldn't be that lucky twice.

New Tires

It's time to buy new tires for my car (2004 Mazda 3). It's both good and bad. Bad obviously because tires are expensive! But good because the tires that came with my car are horrible in the snow...and since I drive around MN and WI a lot that's a problem. Kevin did a bunch of research on tires for me and found me the best tire for my needs at the best price. I'm so glad that he helped, I normally love online shopping but the idea of trying to compare tires just didn't sound interesting, plus I was pretty busy putting together an interview talk. This weekend I'm going to go to Sam's Club to purchase the tires and have them put on. The other nice thing is the Sam's guys said that they would grind down my rim and add a sealant on the one tire that has had a slow leak for the past year. By Saturday afternoon I should be ready for whatever winter in the Midwest is going to throw at me.

Why I love Aaron Rodgers:

That boy can take a hit or 50 (and since he's younger than me I can call him "boy"). The Packers offensive line was missing a big piece (literally and figuratively) of their offensive line with Chad Clifton out with an injury. His replacements (yes, that's plural because his original replacement got injured too) were no match for the D-line and Jared Allen of the Vikings. Aaron Rodgers isn't going to be able to play when he's 39 if he keeps getting beat up like he did tonight.

Still despite the loss it was nice that the Packers kept Adrien Peterson from being a factor in the game. It was also nice to see Aaron Rodgers step up and make some great throws despite getting no protection. That takes what the Spanish speakers would call, cajones.

At any rate it was still a loss and that stung. However unlike some teams fans that I know of that have to get extensions from the NFL to sell out their PLAYOFF games Packer fans are loyal. We know how to support our team through the high times and the low times. And that my friends is why I will still wear my Cheese head with pride next week, as will the rest of the Packers' faithful.


Oh and again, even though it stings, Congrats to Favre for now having won against every team in the NFL. That's kind of crazy.

Better Luck Next Year...

Better luck next year Gophers. ON WISCONSIN! (Photo from the UW Football Website)

MN vs WI football weekend

This weekend the Badgers play the Gophers (Sat) and on Monday the Packers play the Vikings! A big football weekend for me. What's too bad is that MN's teams are better than WI's teams this year and so it is very likely that both of them will lose. Which will be a total bummer, but such is life. Kevin has tickets to the Packer/Vikings game. One of the random dealers that take him and his coworkers out places every so often got tickets for him and his coworkers. So I'll be at home watching on TV and he actually gets to go. Although if it turns out to be a blow out it might not be so bad to be at home. For those of you who were wondering: YES I will be wearing my cheesehead on Monday (as I do for all of the Packers Monday night games). I am so ready for some football right now!