I got a catalog (to my apartment -- I get so many scientific catalogs to my apt after ordering some personal lab equipment from Perkin-Elmer) from a place called Braintree Scientific, which specializes in animal-handling equipment such as "decapicone" and "precision brain slicer", has nice covers for their catalogs, which I finally got around to scanning:




Finally my Xmas list went out to my family. I need to buy some crap for them online and have it shipped to BR pre-wrapped, hopefully. I also need to clean up my apartment more. I shipped out an old piece of furniture back to BR today, and I'll throw out a couple old pieces of furniture tomorrow, and whip the place into shape a bit better. Then I'll be working on reading and packing up old graphic novels/comic books to ship back to the house, and the hell out of my way.

I wrote up another abstract yesterday morning and submitted it, on the last day, to AACR for this coming...March or April, I can't remember which. Four of us from the lab are going, although not far. It's in D.C. this year, so no need to room out. Probably we'll end up carpooling, and probably in my truck since it fits six, unless we go with our boss (which I hope we do not). This project I'm poster-izing isn't my most well-fleshed out, but it is interesting and it's in an area that everyone knows a little about, at least. I'm going to also use it as an opportunity, if I can, to go visit the Smithsonian for a few hours. Actually I may see if we can just take the train from Baltimore to D.C. as I've always wanted to do that. Hm.

I bought my tix for Xmas this year, at 500 bones. Thanksgiving was like 750 bones. I really don't think I can continue to justify flying twice in a 30-day span to the same place at a cost of over a grand every year, and on the absolute worst days to travel. Ugh. At least I flew (somehow) first class on the last leg of my trip, even though there was no food and no TV on the flight. I really wanted to pee in the first-class bathroom as well but couldn't get my nephrons in gear.

In other news, I, like apparently hundreds others, made a Furocity account during the latest FA bonk. I guess it'll just be a carbon copy of my FA account..

I bought some collar stays the other day at the mall while shopping for clothes. I wear button-up (or button-down, as you may like it) shirts at least 5 days out of the week to work, and own between 2 and 5 dozen right now. Most use collar-stays, and most come with them installed, and up until recently I always left them in and washed and dried them, leaving them deformed and useless. I never even noticed until recently, that all my collars were curling in in an unattractive manner. I found some in a box and bought them. I took the old ones out, and ironed them flat (a tricky task) for reuse. I haven't mastered the remembering to put them in part yet. So I'm still flat-collared for now.

I finally updated my iPhone to 3.1.2 software, having sat with 2-3 updates back version for awhile. I don't even know what the new one does, but I do know that it takes a looong time to completely refill a 32 gig phone. I lost a crapload of paid-for music when I transferred the iTunes library to my portable HD, but still, a lot.

I drop Freya off at the boarder Wednesday morning, and fly out to BTR at around 5pm until Sat afternoon. Since I never got around to fixing the trackpad on my netbook, looks like I'm bringing the big ol' Mac. After that, I need to do my Xmas online shopping, which means I need to bug everyone for a list yet again. I hope we can downsize the buying this time, it's getting ridiculous.

At AC this year, I saw those fan-based cooling vests that the Lion of the Sun guy was selling. I got to try one of them out, since nobody else was willing to sack up and put one on. I sprinted in my fursuit up and down the hallway and then moseyed around the lobby for a bit and came back, and it really did have a noticeable effect on my cooling. He wanted $250 for it, which I was actually debating paying, but decided to pass. At FurFright I really regretted not buying it since I was roasting in my own savory juices (mostly giblet-based), especially due to the lack of A/C at that con. Anyway, I found it on sale on FurBid and snatched it up for half-price. The seller goes to the Maryland furmeets, so yesterday I met the guy at the mall and got it from him there. He didn't invite me to his furmeet, but I waited until I got home to cry cry cry into several beers (which I drank with panache out of the bar glasses Cougar gave me). I like this little vest. It looks like a cross between a really cheap BC and a fighter-pilot vest. It feeds from a fan housed in a little fanny pack you wear on the outside. I dunno if I'm going to be wearing two fannypacks now, or if that puts me into some sort of uncanny douchebag/homo valley from which I'd be unable to crawl out of without putting out a country-western album. I may post a picture later on if I can manage to find the 'auto fat balance' setting on my Nikon.

I also got a new multi-picture frame from C&B (no T) in which I'm going to put some pics from a few cons, as I have a dearth of pictures around my apt. I need to get some new quality photo ink and paper for my printer to make it happen though.

The gas station at the end of my subdivision finally reopened a couple of weeks ago after several weeks of closure. It was run by a moron who only hired glue-sniffers and parolees, and not surprisingly they ran a loose ship. The place is better now, with food and such that can actually be eaten without fear. I got an ice-cream sandwich and noticed that they'd paid a guy to stand out front in a fursuit and wave a sign at people to try the all-new carwash. He was too busy to take a picture with me, and my camphone is bad at telephoto, but here he is:





Finally got groceries and made some of my experimental meatloaf again, with several tablespoons of various jerk seasoning, curries, Tony's, Masala, Cayenne, Tabasco, and such all in it. It'll be useful to see how long I can keep it inside me. I also made a double-batch of jambalaya, but once again it came out mushy. I don't understand why it's doing that, as it never happened in Texas. I think there's something wrong with the vegetables here. I let Freya lick the dutch oven 'clean'. Next time I'm going to use less chicken stock, and see how it works. It is better in terms of actually having andouille in it this time, though.

I dropped a mint yesterday as well on the upgrade up in this bitch, part what the hell ever. New mattress pad and sheets from BBB (in leopard print, just to dispel any notion that I have class). Also a new TV stand, which I've been needing for awhile since I had this WalMart job which got all banged up in the move and doesn't look right with all my dark furniture here. I really need to clean up around here, as well as go to the dentist. I'm almost certain I've got a couple of cavities, and since I've been paying so much for insurance, I may as well use it.

I guess I never posted a picture of this, but several months ago I was trying to get some work-related business cards printed up in time for a conference I was presenting a poster at. I couldn't find how to get the university printing department to do it as they have two different departments, and I could only find the one that didn't know anything. I emailed the other one and come to think of it, never heard back from them. I brought some of my old grad-school ones with me just in case (lol), but never had reason to hand any out.

Anyway I tried to fab up my own version of the official University of Maryland School of Medicine cards online, but didn't have access to high-quality pictures of the logos and such, so the proofs looked like crap. They have very cheap card-printing deals around online though, so I printed up 250 of my own Furry Fandom business cards for just 6 bucks. I've only ever given one of them out though, as I don't present a lot of posters at Anthrocon. It was fun to play with the fabbing software though.




Isn't it so mod? I feel like American Psycho, or I would if the card didn't get all 6-month-old-candy-from-mom's-purse from sitting in my wallet under a fat ass for so long.

I got up at 6 today because I thought I was meeting my boss for the first time in almost a month. Boss showed up late and isn't talking to anyone. Guess I should just leave early, since I could probably get away with it...oh wait, I have a conscience.

I wanted a little badge to put in my fursuit bag for shits and giggles, so I found a commish on FurBid which was at least a lil bit appropriate and modified it a touch. It's for a (large) badge, and I'm not sure it's one I'd be wearing around a con. I'll just keep it where I keep my suit hanging up. I wish they'd made the bar a little taller though, I look like it's a little cold where I am..




And no, there aren't any versions without the black bar! I'm censored for your protection :P

I decided to wear my black dress shirt and my black tie today because I thought I should dress up for Devil's Night. Then I thought, "what if the Crow comes back for another awful, awful sequel and I have to get beaten to death by another Brandon Lee-lookalike while listening to Mazzy Star?" Bone-chilling, to say the least. Also I ran out of dress shirts in my dresser and basically it was that or a gruddy too-tight Old Navy teeshirt. ...SSSSSSShit, I guess I could have gone as a zombie after all! Oh well, too little too late, I guess I'm dressed as a Ventrue at Senior Day again.





I feel that I should point this out: before you go out with your fruity "Steampunk" Halloween costumes this year to do things only children should do, remember who did fruity Steampunk first --

FrankenBerry.



Pay a little homage to the pinkest clockwork undead around, you punks. Boo!

I got my new 1TB external HD from the UPS store this morning, and it's snazzy. Unfortunately, the 3 external drives I have don't appear to have anything on them I can use. I can't get into the files on two of them due to not having "permission" set to do it. I forgot how to remedy that, so .. who knows what I'm missing out on?

I'm so unmotivated today, I just don't know how to get myself in gear and moving. I wish I could find and press my 'reset' button. Or if I found it, would I just stick a paperclip in there and jam it in place?

I'm just so much better at giving advice than taking (or even asking for) it. Best thing is to keep my head down and hands moving as much as possible.

I just got finished with a meeting with my investment guy from Baton Rouge, visiting clients in the Baltimore area. He showed me some reports that were very encouraging, and I will hopefully be setting things up that will make living here in low-salary/expensive apartment-land more tolerable. As with anything I'll believe it when I see it, but still, a positive meeting.

I have to give a presentation today for a lab meeting at 4, which has wrecked my whole day. I have to meet my boss tomorrow morning as well, so I have to prepare all my stuff in addition to the powerpoint. Ugh.

I've done some things in the recent past that really put my mind upside down and I have to sort of deal with it internally, but I wonder if it's something that I truly had to do, or something I should definitely not have done. I need an upright mind, at least for the next 24 hours. After that, je serais sans souci.

I dropped my fam back at BWI to go back to BTR yesterday. They just bummed around downtown Baltimore, which is what I assumed they'd do since I can't take time off of work to do anything with them. Hope they had fun, I guess. I should book my flights in for Thanksgiving since I guess I'll be going back for it. At least they brought me some andouille and some Blue Runner beans. oh yeahhhhhhh time for some red beans and rice. Or, it will be when I can find the time to cook it.


I'm thinking (again) of buying a sewing machine for use in fursuit building and as a secondary thing, fixing all of the hems on my slacks so I can actually wear them to work if I need to. I planned on doing that about five years ago, but forgot about it. I don't know anything about sewing machines, though, so I'll just have to find one on craigslist or ebay. I'd like to do something creative, as I think it might be copacetic and stress-relieving. I used to do a lot of hand-sewing when I was younger, fixing jackets and socks and jeans, clothes I bought from the thrift store. It's very mind-blanking and repetitive, like when I used to mop the floors at Wendy's in highschool. I wish I had a big greasy floor and some boiling bleach-water to push around on it with a mop, like one of those zen garden things that 1980's CEOs had.

I finally ordered an enclosure for my two 3.5 hard drives. I had two but gave them away without thinking that I might want to use these drives again. One should be enough I guess. I also ordered a new 1TB external drive which I'll use to put my two 3.5 ATA drives onto, as well as my 2.5 external drive. I ordered a male-to-male cable so I can actually use that again too. I must have so much porno on those drives, mmmm. uh, and several thousands of emails and AIM/ICQ/IRC/MUCK chats dating back to possibly 2000, which should be, ehh, fun to read. I want to consolidate everything together. I'll also put all my iTunes libraries together so I won't be using up my work computer for that. And, I can auto-update my work junk a little too.

I ordered some 32P the other day and it arrived. They let me pick it up today late (I didn't know they only let you pick up until noon -- strange hours). If you ever wanted to know what radioactive stuff looks like, take a look-see:




My primers for the EMSA/supershift assay just went out (230 bucks, on my credit card for reasons that embarass me) so they won't be in until Tuesday I guess. I hope they work, as 32P has a relatively quick radioactive decay and I might have to re-order if I have to wait for another set of primers to arrive.

I just found out that there are two conventions in the northeast in the next few months, Furry New Years Ball and Foxmas. I don't know anything about them except that they are supposed to be new and maybe not so huge. Although finding the time off to go would be less than likely depending on how far away they are.

My sister and mother arrive tomorrow afternoon (for what reasons, I can't determine) to stay until Monday afternoon, so I'll be going to work early to do whatever I can before picking them up from BWI (if you've ever been in their arrivals lane you can literally smell the jackboots stomping). Shit, I need to wash clothes and stow my fursuit.

I had some problems with getting a quote on some ex vivo cell line establishment service from one of the companies that does other things for our lab, including transfection products, some time back, and they sent me a survey form, which I filled out truthfully and in which I referenced our not getting the quote.

I got a phone call today from the rep which came and did the transfection products and who relayed the cell business to the other people who would've gone forward with it, saying that my response in the survey caused a big problem and how she's sorry I was so seriously dissatisfied, and that the comment will go to the VP of the company, who will himself be personally calling me to rectify the situation, and by the sound of it, end this rep's career.

I told her I didn't think it was her fault that the cell people of the company dropped the ball, and to have the VP call me and I'd tell him not to blame the rep for what was a failure of the cell guys. I'm going to go see the rep personally tomorrow at the vendor show to reassure her that I didn't mean to stab her in the back. She seemed to be motivated, although obviously with little science background. It was clear to me that the cell guys weren't interested in making a new customer.

I've had bad dealings with this company before (or at least, the original Xfection company before it was bought out by the company I'm dealing with now) in terms of strange tech failures and asshole CS managers, but how strange that one bad review on a survey can cause such a stir.. Biotech sure is a touchy business. Maybe I shouldn't ever consider going that route, no matter how annoying it is where I am.

I got back from FurFright yesterday at around 11 PM. We left at around 4:30, which was earlier than I had really wanted to, but honestly there wasn't a whole lot to do until closing ceremonies at 6, and although I did want to go to the parties and such last night, we had a 5+ hour drive ahead of us to factor in. Luckily, the drive home was actually only about 5.5 hours, unlike the 7.5-8 hours (IIRC) for the drive in, through mondo rain and actual snow. And like 20 bucks in road tolls. I must've eaten 10 pounds of beef jerky, YooHoo, Frankenberry cereal, Slim Jims, and Chili dogs on the ride in. It was comical.

We got in at night (9ish?) Thursday and chilled out for a few, then farted around for awhile in the lobby. I can't remember if we went to the dance, probably so. The dances at FF are far superior to the ones at AC. The music isn't all 'clubby' and techno, it was actual music with actual words. I underestimated how much my recent sickness wore out my endurance, because I was almost passing out from the strain of dancing in a suit. Luckily they have the headless lounge right next door to the main (dance) room, which is an excellent idea. Cougar found himself a new friend to dance with the whole con since I was captain redface McEmphysema and sucked water like a first-time scubadiver.

The parade was also very good, with much quicker 'organization', getting everyone together outside where it was nice and cool, and then marching us all around the atrium walkway and back around to outside for some pictures. The picture line-up could've been better as I'm sure I was hidden behind the people in front of me. But it was cool outside and I got to hang out with my fellow FF skunks, Jouva and Tyco, for a bit. Also I got to briefly meet Tilt Longtail the cheetah and Scape the goat, both cool dudes. I usually don't meet up with people I don't already know at AC so it was rather nice to do so. I don't like to be the dork that makes a point of dropping names but I enjoyed meeting them all. And I enjoyed the little fursuit-making panel that Tilt the cheetah and his buddy Foxwell(?) did although as always I wish it had lasted longer as I am a slow learner.

Programming was sparse at this con compared to others as I understand it, certainly compared to AC but the people who run FF are much more pleasant. I actually enjoyed opening ceremonies as well as the masquerade and the little game shows they ran on Friday. I give most of the credit there to the guy who (I assume) is in charge, Belic the bear. That guy really puts on a good show and unlike some con emcees, actually knows how to work a mic without rupturing eardrums.

I dug the layout of the con, as it was (almost) on one level only, and the bar was well-positioned and the beer was good, good enough for me to take my head off and drink one before the dance. The restaurant was..okay but at least the location was good, and some of the rooms opened to the atrium although ours didn't. Elevators were quick, and best of all, there were a distinct lack of creeeeeeeepy weirdos milling about waiting to pounce upon fursuiters like child molesters (well actually I did get a few creepos but less than I will get at any AC).

I had a couple of wardrobe malfunctions pop up, the worst being somehow getting a big wad of bubblegum on my fursuit which I'm going to have to perform surgery to remove. Also my fursuit head has some kind of splash of coffee or somesuch on the eye I've got to clean, and the feet need some tightening and repair. Also I have GOT to get a harness for this tail as making the belt tight enough to mount correctly just about cuts my torso in half. I need to trim the sleeves a bit too.

Overall this was mostly a 180 from Anthrocon, partially because it's still relatively small and partially because they have somehow slipped quaaludes into the water supply and mellowed everyone out about 3 notches from the word go. I plan on going back next year if possible. This makes now 10 'furry' cons I've been to.

An email I got tonight, and replied to from my sister:

BRB FF

If you want to get ahold of me you prolly already know how but my cell is in my profile page.

I'll be doing some video, which I'll post on Qik (link embed in my profile) or on Youtube (FMephit).

Boo!

The DOW topped 10K today (briefly). Not bad for me and you (if you're smart enough to have bought heartily over the past year and a half). My money man reminded me via email that I should be making contributions to my Roth IRA, which I'd love to do except for 1)I can't afford to at all and 2)I don't have an IRA. I have all the paperwork for it sitting on my desk for a year now and haven't gone through the trouble because of 1) and 3)I don't have the time to go down there and set one up. Sad but at least temporarily true.

My day got a little sadder to learn that Captain Lou Albano died today. He was something close to 80, which for a wrestler is Methuselan. I'd put a couple of rubber bands in my hair if I still had a goatee long enough. Does anyone remember the theme song from the Super Mario Brothers Super Show?

The only drinks from the machine that I can stomach are caffeinated,so I took a couple benadryl and managed to pass out around 1 AM. I went into the microscope room, which is carpeted, and slept on a pile of dirty lab coats with my headphones in. I woke up at around 6:30 and walked halfway to the car shop and cabbed it the other half. Picked up the truck and drove home to shower and cycle the laundry, and brought the dog to be boarded. Her vacation starts a day before mine does.

Looks like my investment guy's flight was delayed, and with my scheduling I don't think I'll be able to meet him while he's in town. I didn't have much to talk about anyway.

I'm surprisingly not dead tired. I had two large coffees already, which helps. I guess I can sleep pretty well no matter where I am if I have to. I'm not looking forward to packing this evening though. I hope I can tidy things up here early enough that I won't have to stay after our lab meeting. I hate doing things so last-minute but it's a hard habit to break.