http://www.runandtumble.com Diary of a bug farmer Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:47:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Spending the afternoon reminding myself that the excitement of reading through faculty research interests on candidate school websites is, fortunately, not indicative of the excitement felt when actually working on the research interests. http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/06/06/patience/ It's going pretty well in the class I was worried about. There was a slightly rocky period for a few days where I retooled my brain to study for an engineering course (more drills, fewer lecture reviews). The first wave of practice problems really helped me dust off my algebra ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/06/02/environmental-engineering-update/ I'm starting Intro to Environmental Engineering Science today. It's a bit like a quantitative sequel to the Env. Sci. course I just finished. The previous course emphasized the effects of oxygen sag downstream from a wastewater outflow. This course talks more about how much organic matter in a waste stream ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/05/11/new-class-today/ Remember when I mentioned that bugs in the genus Pseudomonas are the Br'er Rabbit of the microbial world, renowned for eating stuff that's meant to kill them? Well, guess what they found in some mouthwash. http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/04/20/antibacterial-mouthwash-recalled-due-to-not-being-so-antibacterial/ Do you know how sometimes you read good news, and know it was real, but were so excited you feel like your eyes played tricks on you and you need external proof? That's how I feel about the GRE. I'm looking forward to getting the official score in the mail ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/04/18/gre-completed/ I'm going to be taking the GRE tomorrow. I'm satisfied with my performance on the practice tests and the amount of studying I've done. There was an initial increase in practice scores as I got used to the test format and dusted off various geometry and algebra facts, but they've ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/04/16/gre-ahoy/ I finished some much needed yardwork over the weekend. My compost bin is now topped off with the copious spoils of a battle with overgrown straw and overambitious blackberry vines. That's enough mass to get the compost into the thermophilic stage; I'm looking forward to seeing it steam in the ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/04/13/hugo-weaving-lives-in-my-backyard/ No long excuses, the Holidays got me out of the update habit, but I'm back. The good news is that I wasn't out of the growing bugs habit. Look forward to reading about my new scope, the fate of my Winogradsky columns, exploding canning jars, adventures in labware, ballistic fungal spores ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2010/04/01/its-been-a-while/ Lab was the pick-me-up I had hoped for. The lab manager accidentally made the Pseudomonas stock broth way too concentrated, so our plates came back covered in the stuff.  They looked like giant, corroded pennies. The pigment was definitely neat. I took a whiff (and even convinced some lab mates to do ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2009/11/19/smells-like-grapes/ I was busy figuring out weird ways to make a cheap, safe manual centrifuge.  The awesome wife said, "We have one of those, it's called a salad spinner."   I'm a lucky guy! Update: This will be for separating, say, milk curds, not making pellets of Vibrio cholerae, so don't worry, ... http://www.runandtumble.com/2009/11/18/this-is-why-shes-called-awesome-wife/