Mahalo.ne.Trash

I'd like to start an association called Scientists Against Green On a White Background. We'd have semiannual SAGOWB (pronounced Sag-o-wab) meetings at AAS each year. We'd apply for NASA and NSF funding to go around to various departments and teach people not to plot their data as green on a white background. We'd talk about how when you use green on a white background in the figures in your paper, the data become invisible when printed on a black-and-white printer. It would be a heck of a movement. No more would the colloquium speaker have to say, "And as you can see from this figu--uh, oh. Well, it doesn't really show up, but if you could see it, my data clearly show that..." To demonstrate the problem, look at the following figure and squint your eyes slightly to simulate a typical computer projector. As another test, click on it and print it out on a B&W printer. Hilarity will ensue!

Erin: "Have you talked to your parents lately?" Me: "Yep, talked to my dad yesterday." Erin: "Oh yeah, what's he up to?" Me: "He's in Memphis." Erin: "What's he doing there?" Me: "Walking." Now, I thought this was an absolutely HI-larious answer. My dad was Walking in Memphis. Too funny, right? But Erin didn't get it. So I tried to explain by singing the chorus, "You know, the famous song! It goes: I was walkin' in Memphis, mmmm mmm mmm my feet ten feet off of...um...the street... " Erin: "Oh yeah? Exactly what category of music is that?" Me: "What category?! I don't know, Bruce Springstein!" So it was off to Google for us. I found the lyrics and tried to sing them again to her, but the light still wasn't coming on. InTARnet, help us! A quick search of YouTube turned up this video of the famous Marc Cohn song . Now, I don't know if this video/slideshow is a joke, o...

here are a few more favorites from the botanical garden: Owen beneath a giant ficus tree big old leaf where's owen? at least once a week, we head to the honolulu zoo, often with our neighbor and owen's partner in crime, noe: no trip is complete without climbing on the baby elephant statue or a stop at the keiki zoo to chase the goats i love this photo!

Pumpkin patch 10/21/07: Owen at the petting zoo "That one REEally heavy" "Owen making brown shoes" (note his shoes were blue before) Botanical Gardens 9/23/07 Walking with sticks Acting silly "Hmmm. That's a big leaf"

everything eventually morphs into the way the world is -gene kahn, founder of cascadian farm a couple weeks ago i found myself struggling to stay asleep. on multiple nights i awoke at 2:30, and fought to get back to sleep. the problem? i was worried about making the right food decisions for our family. i've always tried to make conscious food choices, preparing plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and having a few meals a week that don't involve meat. after reading barbara kingsolver's latest book, animal vegetable miracle , i started thinking a lot more about what is in what we eat. then i dove right into michael pollan's book, an omnivore's dilemma . i also started doing some research on green living, especially in regards to common household products that are harmful to us and mother earth. can you see where i'm going with all this? after the fourth night of wacky sleep, or non-sleep, john saw the need for an intervention: "you know, you've real...

Sunday, we packed up the diaper bag, saddled up Sandyanna Lakshmi , and set out for the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay to see the big airshow. Owen has been pretty stoked about the concept of "airplane really fast" ever since the Thunderbirds were in town last month, and this weekend's two-day air extravaganza promised to be even bigger. We parked and rode the "shuttle" (a commandeered school bus) down to the flight line and arrived just before the Blue Angels were set to take off. We found our friends Adam, Marsha and Scarlett near the climbing wall and sat in the shade of a sparkling new Mazda SUV that was for some reason on display amid the recruiting tables and beer stands. Sign up for your guided tour of Iraq and check out the new line of Mazdas while you're here! We stood around chatting, catching up on the latest parenting news until "Highway to the Danger Zone" began blaring from the speakers and the jets started warming up (becaus...

On a chilly June evening in San Francisco, way back in ought 1 (or was is ought 2?), I stood in line at the Bottom of the Hill with a group of friends waiting to see one of my favorite bands, Rainer Maria . As was our custom, we showed up an hour and a half after the doors opened so we wouldn't have to endure the first opening act. Some anonymous band was finishing up their set and we grabbed some cheap beers and chatted. Then something amazing happened on stage. The second band marched up, announced tersely "We're the Thermals " and proceeded to explode in a brilliant, white-hot flash of awesomeness. And that was my introduction to the pseudo-punk trio from Portland, Oregon, and I've been in rock-love ever since. I'm sure Rainer Maria was great, but I can't say I remember much from the headliners that fateful evening. I've seen The Thermals live three times and their energy is infectious enough to get even the emo-est of emo kids to throw off their ...

one of our favorite games lateley is "daddy run". here's how you play: owen says "daddy run" owen does the count off, counting from one to twenty owen and daddy run from one room to another once in the new location, sit down repeat steps 2-4 until daddy is dripping with sweat & gasping for breath at one time step 2 only involved a count-off of 1, 2, 3. owen would count this as "five, four, five, four.. GO!" we had to alter the length of count-offs because owen learned to count to 20 thanks to ernie and sesame street's "123 count with me". nah, really we had to up it to 20 so we had a chance to catch our breath! here's some footage, but you've gotta be patient, we had to get creative and hide the camera to catch the action :)

i was feeling somewhat self-conscious today that our family and friends were starting to think i've been lax in cleaning since we moved. this occurred to me as i was thinking that we never shared what our native hawaiian friend told us before we settled here: "everyone has roaches. it doesn't mean you're dirty or your neighbor is dirty. they are everywhere and so you just do your best to keep the kitchen clean and food put away. but they'll still find their way into your house." any doubts i had about the validity of her statement were clearly dismissed when i came accross this as i read "the hawaiian alphabet" to owen toinght: they even glare at you from the picture, don't they!

Today I downloaded some time-lapse photography software and I feel like I just got a new toy for Christmas! One of my first test runs was a time lapse sequence of our lunch today. Today's menu: Bagels and lox.