That's One Hot Lap!(top)

So over the course of my Black Friday, wherein I cooked an amazing dinner for my amazing wife's visit, I purchased a laptop off of Amazon. The Acer Aspire V5-171-6422 which has pretty good bang for the buck based on what I paid.

It was a busy week when it first arrived and I only had time to start playing with it about a week later. I managed to load much of my data and gave the machine its first full day of work from home. I programmed all day long on a script for my research when I had a thought about keeping all my work on Dropbox instead of syncing it all the time to a hard drive to take back and forth from work. It was a fleeting but good thought and I told myself I'd get to it later.

Cut to a few hours later when I was Skyping with my wife. We had decided on some things for her upcoming move here to Seattle when I received another call from my older sister. We were busying talking about my little nephew when suddenly the screen went blank. I couldn't figure out what happened but the laptop was clearly not turning on anymore!

Things seemed to be charging, but when I pressed the power button, the light would flash briefly and then... nothing. Looking over the entire unit for a problem, I suddenly saw this little hole - which I had previously thought was a noise-cancelling microphone. A closer inspection, however, told me it was not meant to be there.

So unfortunately, all the data I had accumulated over the day was lost because I did not follow my idea of linking to my Dropbox account!

Fast forward over a couple of weeks of emails, and phone calls and I was at a crossroads with Acer Corporate and Amazon. Should I return the machine to Amazon and let them deal with it or pass it on to Acer to repair. I hadn't really had enough time with the machine to know if I truly liked it or not. More importantly, my data was on the laptop AND there was not way to remove it without breaking my warranty!

In the end, I made the tough decision to pass it along to Acer just before Christmas. Their customer service was very nice and helped me to arrange its transport back. I was told that due to the possible safety hazard, they would require an engineer in Houston to take a look. At least this was an interesting situation! Well, a few days later I received another call saying the laptop would be fully replaced (say goodbye to my data!) AND they wanted my permission to send it along to another set of engineers in Taiwan for inspection.

Unfortunately the laptop arrived in Seattle while I was back home in Toronto but this is definitely the most interesting incident involving one of my electronics. I should note that for some reason, things have a habit of breaking on me. A quick laundry list includes

1. Galaxy Nexus: 2 months after buying it, the motherboard exploded. Fully replaced by Samsung, but I lost my cool photos.
2. iPod Nano (3rd generation?): simply died one day, after 3 years. Never figured out why.
3. Acer laptop (my first!): motherboard died after a year.
4. Hard drives (at least 3): definitely died due to random failures.
5. Toshiba LCD TV (another first!): died a couple weeks before my wedding. Puzzling that it chose to die mere months after the 4-year extended warranty.
6. Canon SD400 camera (also my first!): Dropped it about 1 foot from a well-carpeted floor. Never turned on again... also died just months after its long extended warranty was up.

I'm sure the list will continue to grow but a melted laptop screen definitely sits at the top now. And that's the story of one hot laptop.

It's Clemen-time :)

So it's been busy at work the past few weeks but I wanted to note that Clementine season is upon us! I already ate a small bag last week and "mistakenly" picked up a huge bag yesterday at the grocery store.









It will take me at least 3 days to eat through all of these... maybe 2. I also love eating these because they are much easier to transport in my bag than bananas. They may roll around a little but unlike bananas they don't bruise, get mushy and potentially explode all over your things. Even if exploding was a possibility, I can still bag them unlike my bananas. Aside from the more pragmatic aspects of the clementine, I just really love the taste! Little miniature oranges, sweet and tangy. Great for dropping in your pockets as a quick snack when you go out for a brisk afternoon walk!

I also forgot to post this amazing mushroom picture from about a month back. It was just growing outside work on the grass by the side of the street where cars park all day long. I only discovered it because we saw some folks pointing and taking pictures of something on the ground on day. We couldn't see what it was since it was behind a parked car so I ventured down for a look and was richly rewarded!

Check out that Mario-style mushroom! aka Amanita muscaria

Unfortunately, it was gone a couple days later. We suspect that it was perhaps taken for it's possible hallucinogenic effects. I would rather not try since the list of other symptoms really sound unpleasant. Of course, I'm really not looking for a good hallucination either.

Speaking of getting melty, I have a great story for another day but I'll wait until I resolve some issues before posting pictures. I will, however, leave you with this little gem I found parked on the street. Kinda... surreal. Those windows have been open for a couple of days now... and it's been raining. Hope their stuff is okay...

Stay classy Seattle!

Just a small footnote...

Today I visited the University of Washington IMA. The University of Toronto's Athletic Centre, pales in comparison although the running track is only 1/9 of a mile (175m) versus the 200m track at the AC. The weight room, however, feels like it's as large as the entire field house at the AC so I'm going to enjoy getting a membership there (only $70 per quarter).

So today, for my 31st birthday, I did 31 laps on their track with my new running Pro Grid Omni 11s :D It felt good and I think I did it in decent time for my age...

I'm also surprisingly decent on my pullups still since it's been 3 months since my last visit to the gym. Didn't feel like benching after my run, but I'll pick up that term pass soon enough and then I just need to find a partner to go with me to do weights (in the mornings of course!)

Any takers?

On another note: Google Android 4.2 downloaded to my device last night (after a few forceful tries). The improvements have been rocking my world thus far. Good job elgooG!

Failing to Conquer...but Succeeding at Surviving

Putrid Pete's Peak is situated West-Northwest of Mount Defiance. I was invited by my labmate to climb it Saturday morning. Originally I was going to hit up Green Lake for a run as the weather was forecast to be clear and warm (enough). It was a great day for a hike.

We arrived early at the trailhead sometime around 7am with the clouds still out and just the smallest amount of snow coming down. My labmate, Dan, is a well-prepared climber and had all the right gear for a colder day, including some wicked looking (and apparently heavy) boots. I had my ailing pair of Saucony runners; Omni Pro Grid 9's for that extra stabilization - when you're running at least. He lent me a larger bag to help carry some extra supplies as well like Yaktrax, which are essentially snow-chains for your feet (just brilliant, by the way!). You just slip them on your feet and BOOM, you've got additional traction :) I didn't think we'd need them, but he thought they might be useful once we hit the rocky section.

At the trailhead to Putrid Pete's Peak. Although it's not listed because the trail breaks off from the main section early on.

So we set off from the trailhead to climb to the peak! The first half or more of the trail was within a forested area and despite a lot of switchbacks, the trail remained much steeper than previous hikes. We finally broke from the forest and ended up hitting a somewhat perceptible trail that climbed steeply upwards through rock outcroppings. It wasn't too bad, although the storm clouds had remained and now a little more snow was on its way down. I stopped briefly to take a picture of a tree stump, to show to my wife that I had gone "winter" hiking.

See - just a little snow coming down. Nothing to worry about!

And then the snow started coming a little harder...

And then, the snow REALLY came down. And it wasn't flakes anymore but small, round, balls - not hail but more like small Lego men were fashioning their own snowballs in the clouds. We pushed onwards for a while thinking it would die, but we soon realized, the sparsely viewable path was getting covered in snow; just enough to be slippery and certainly not enough to tromp safely along.

Check out all that snow! And we were sooo close to the summit.

You can see the upper ridge in the top left corner. I'm not sure if that is the true summit, but it must've been around there somewhere.

Given my inexperience, the diminishing amount of visible path, and the continuing snowfall, Dan made the call to turn back and I totally agreed. No need to die to see a summit with the name "putrid" in it - even if we were just a few hundred feet of elevation from it. We navigated to some forested area and donned additional gear - more gloves (my pitiable mittens had soaked through and Dan had extras), walking poles (super handy for feeling out the snow covered ground ahead) and my borrowed Yaktrax! Did I mention how amazing they are? We roped up together with some harnesses and made a plan to head back down the mountainside through as many trees as possible. If one of us slipped (ie Me), then it would be a shorter tumble before hitting some trees rather than a long tumble down dangerous rocks.

We eventually made it back to the trail and I noticed the same tree I had already taken a picture of - except it was now buried. By then, the snow had also stopped. My feet were cold, wet, and we still wouldn't be able to see the path back up properly. Once we got back on the wooded section of the trail, I noticed deep footprints in the snow, headed back to the trailhead. Dan recalled the Jeep we had parked beside and we guessed that whomever it was, had gone up ahead of us and was on their way back down when the snow hit. They must've taken another path back down to avoid slipping on the rocks too. It made my life easier from there to just follow the mysterious footprints back down the path :)

Our snow covered stump. Notice the clear skies way in the background?

So we survived! And frankly, it took a lot out of me to navigate down a partially snowed-out mountain. There were slips and I ended up engaging my calves and quads extra hard. Not to mention me being in runners, which means no ankle stability. All-in-all a fun adventure and I'm sure I'll have a chance in the spring to try for it again...

This crazy long felled tree will probably still be there next year.

One last thing to note about the climb - when we arrived back in Seattle? A perfectly sunny day... not a drop of rain had come down in all the time we were gone. Go figure...

Friday Explorations!

So having been in Seattle for a little more than two months now, I finally made it up close for a to the Seattle Space Needle. I was volunteering for the Life Science Research Weekend down at the Pacific Science Center which is just adjacent to the Needle itself. So my trip began with a ride down Aurora and I exited at Denny Way. Lo and behold, I found myself face to face with this fine beauty!

What is this Elephant's story?

It was quite interesting and I guess I'll have to explore more into the lore of this pink elephant, but on with the exploration! Unfortunately I hadn't thought to bring my camera with me for this visit, so I ended up taking everything on my phone. Next up? I meandered my way underneath the "vast" heights of the Space Needle. I guess the name was appropriate at the time, since they didn't expect the CN tower to burst onto the scene a decade later :D

Not quite the CN tower, but 1/3 the height is not a bad effort...

If you live in Seattle, have kids, and want a nice weekend afternoon, definitely check out the Pacific Science Center. Some fun times could be had there although I'm not sure of the price. The Life Sciences Research Weekend is part of an annual event that exposes the public to science research groups from around the Seattle area. It was definitely a fun morning representing the UW Department of Genome Sciences! Our exhibit was on Genetic Diversity being the Spice of Life.

 

Yes the chairs really are that big.

Here there be dinosaurs!... Yar...

The adventures don't end there! I also visited Bob's Corn Maze Friday night.

Two things to note: it was my first time in a corn maze, and it was the last weekend of the season. Let me just say that at the end of the season, when the rains have been coming down for a week, a corn maze retains it's shape but it's base is not longer stable dirt, but gooey, dripping, life-sucking, shoe-swallowing mud. Meanwhile you're trying to navigate this crazy maze (which comes with a map!) while trying not to slip or sink into the mire surrounding you. Still, it was an adventure!

Looks like this maze consumed yet another sole... probably not its first nor its last.

The maze entrance and exit are directly across from each other so you pretty much come out where you went in. Overall, we managed to actually make it out in a decent time except that we exited from the entrance without realizing it. It goes without saying that the condition of the maze allows for some mistaken shortcuts to be taken in the dark.

Pumpkin-tossing at the end of the night's trek.

One last thing: there's a pit stop in the middle for you to rest and relax at a nice bonfire. I spoke with some of the workers there and they gave an overview of the entire process. Basically, Bob (yes there's a real Bob), will plan the maze for a couple of months. In the spring, he stakes out the entire field into a grid system, spray paints the maze and then plants the corn. After a bit of growth, they trim down the fields and keep the paths cleared. They'll maintain it a few more times, before they open late September or early October. Eventually when they close the maze, it all gets turned into mulch as it's made of field corn, which may be fit for some types of human consumption but not worth processing I guess. They do make $12 a head on the maze anyways!

One last thing: they have a general store open all year long. I bought some delicious pickled beets, a jar of raspberry jam (to pair with my peanut butter and toast!) and a mysterious item called garlic ketchup.

Next year I'll go back to check out the maze, at the BEGINNING of the season :D 

I forgot! ...

Happy Hallowe'en!!!

I saw this last weekend on a stroll! It looks, however, like the spider had to make a small sacrifice for it's meal...

Tongue-tied

So a couple of weeks back I saw beef tongue at the market for a decent price. Well it was actually pricier than the beef shank, but still affordable at about $13 for 3.5lbs.

So I used the handy-dandy internet to help me with the next part but it basically went like this:

The tip of the tongue is really crazy. I'm not sure what the spikes are for except maybe to puncture the grass so the cow can lick it up.

1) Clean the cow's tongue thoroughly with nice cold water (I used a toothbrush)
2) Leave it to soak in cold water for a couple of hours. Change the water a couple of times during that duration. I kept it in the fridge during this time.
3) I used a pressure cooker, for about 1.5 hours to cook the tongue with some onions, jalapenos, Thai basil, salt, and water.
4) Prepare some ice-cold water and when you're done cooking the tongue, dunk it in and let it cool. At that point, you can peel the skin off the gonue and skim the fat from the remaining stock in the pot.
5) From there you can trim off the tendons and fatty parts that you're not interested in. I cut up the back half into chunks for use in a stew, and the front tip I used in a stir-fry. There was so much stew, in fact, that I had to freeze down half of it for later!

Give it a try! It's such an interesting organ to look at and very tasty!  More photos below!

The skin gets very wrinkly and comes off quite easily.

It appears very much like a regular tongue after the skin is off

Lots of interesting parts but it all seemed a little fatty and tough at the back...

So I trimmed it down, leaving mostly muscle.

Cut it all up and enjoy!

 

A "Bridged" version of my week?

Well I guess this is really in relation to the last couple of days but at the institute, I've got a sweet window seat. Usually I'm privy to seeing long lines at the Agua Verde, ravens having the run of the parking lots, rowing teams out on the lake, and the occasional parking attendant ticketing unsuspecting owners. This view also gives me full view of the two bridges that cross from the North side of Lake Union over towards what I think (not sure though) is the Capitol Hill area.

One of these bridges is known as University bridge and is a double-leaf bascule, which basically means it can open up when larger boats pass underneath. Luck for me, I finally saw the bridge raise! Unfortunately, the picture isn't very good but you can get a sense of the coolness.

Hopefully I can see it on a brighter day (not that there will be many here in Seattle for a while). Next on my list! I bought beef tongue today to see what I can make/Mok from it...?

I'm out!

Still learning to appreciate the little things (like RNA)

I've always been more of a DNA-guy myself but I attended a great seminar at work today on long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs)! Dr. Howard Chang is doing some very interesting work with lincRNAs and had a great example of how fibroblasts (skin cells) might give rise to different characteristics depending on where they are located on the body. The mechanism comes down to lincRNAs playing a role in the positive AND negative regulation of closely situated genes.

What I really keyed in on for the talk was that in some cases sequence means less than structure. lincRNAs (and other non-coding forms of RNA) form secondary structures and a lot of great bioinformatic work has been done to predict this aspect of RNAs. Some of Dr. Chang's work, however, also shows that only a few key residues are important to the apparent function of these lincRNAs. It poses a very interesting quandary in that a classic bioinformatic approach to finding important segments of the genome includes using sequence similarity. lincRNAs, on the other hand, could be liberated (to some degree) from these specific similarity restrictions so just comparing sequence between say zebrafish and human genomes to find these features won't necessarily be fruitful. In other words, discovering functional aspects of lincRNAs will require investigators to hunt "function orthologs" by more than just sequence similarity! Don't quote me on this, of course, but go check it out for yourself!

/end of nerdy thought

In other news, a neighbourhood church is helping to run a mobile clinic. I don't know exactly who or where they'll be going around to but I truly hope they can bring help to those in need.

Today I also learned that British Columbia does not have an official provincial police force. Well, they used to up until the 1950's but then it was replaced by the RCMP. I was used to seeing the OPP here and there in Ontario (always more often in rural areas). I think I only ever really saw Mounties at parades and special events, but I've been told by my new labmate that they run the show in BC. Kinda cool! Let's hope they can figure out what really happened at the border the other day.

/end of Canadian thought

Raindrops and Spiderwebs...

Working on a fellowship application can drive you a bit stir crazy and you think it's all worth the work until you get a rejection letter. It's been a while since I've had to seriously apply for money but a rejection letter still manages to sting a little. Let's hope for better reviews on the next one :)

In other news: FALL and more spiders...

The changing leaves definitely make me miss Toronto but despite the overcast weather, it's been relatively warm at about 15C. I wonder, however, how I will hold up against the rain?

Here I am, and finally comes the rain..

My first 43 days of Seattle have come and gone with nary a drop of rain. Until today that is - gloomy weather and wet leaves. I haven't even stepped out the door yet but I should be focusing on an fellowship applications anyways.

I've been told by many of the locals that the rainy season has begun in earnest and from here, there won't be much sunshine until next year rolls around. I've been lucky enough to participate in a couple of hikes since I arrived and last weekend was simply amazing. An 8-hour hike around Buckhorn mountain in the Olympics. The final summit was beautiful and I can't wait to head back to mountains, although I will need to invest in some nice hiking boots. Running shoes can only take you so far... My tip to avoid blisters: avoid wet feet with dry-fit socks. My first hike was on a cold and rainy day but I wore those and had no real problems. Last weekend's hike was dry, warm, and I had a crazy blister from wearing ordinary socks.

Oh, and if you are wearing a pair of Sauconys it's actually much easier to do a light run when coming down the summit. I've been told that you should put your weight forward to avoid slipping backwards so I adopted a dopey-looking style of running down the slopes. I may look like a giant penguin but I definitely made it down without any big issues.

The view from Marmot Pass, before our final hike up to the summit of Buckhorn Mountain

The amazing view from the summit of Buckhorn.

So you're thinking, "What's the deal?"

What are you going to be talking about all this time? I'm really not sure. Experiences from life in Seattle, and life in the lab I suppose. Observations, recipes, and foibles about life, like this one:

 

Spiders!

With the fall I've been noticing some crazy large spiders in the neighbourhood. The webs seem larger and their abdomens appear to be well-laden with something. Perhaps little eggs?

I'm starting to appreciate my phone's camera more and more for those unexpected moments :)

Cheers