Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Thirteen Candles
A B&W redux
I had been trying to think up a fun topic for tonight’s post when I remembered Kakabekia. Then I had the thought, “Kakabekia is such a neat story, I’ll bet I’ve done this before,” and crap, I was right! When I found my old post — one of the Thirteens — I had so much fun rereading it that I decided to post it as a redux. Hopefully y’all will have forgotten it as well as I had, all the better to re-enjoy it.
A note on the Kakabekia story: I learned about this organism in a biology class I took during med school. Early Evolution of Life, or some such. I remember I wrote a pretty cool term paper for that class, suggesting that within the genetic code of most life on earth (not all life forms share the same code, although all codes are quite similar) one could demonstrate evidence that the code itself is a product of selection. My teacher liked my term paper so much he suggested I write it up for publication, which I never did. This would have been, oh, 1988 or 1989? And guess what, on that Wikipedia page I just linked to, there’s a link to a paper published in 2003 making just that point.
I can’t tell you how many times this happened to me back in those days. I would have a great idea — perhaps something theoretical, like this genetic code bit, or perhaps something technical, like a way to fish for genes encoding promoter-binding proteins. Someone in authority would say, “Hey, good idea, get to work on it,” and I wouldn’t. There were always other things to do. My ideas were top notch, but my ambition, or perhaps my sense of perspective, insight into what was REALLY important, whatever . . . sucked.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to turn this into a kvetchfest. I was meant to be a doctor, right? Not a scientist. Or, if I was meant to be a scientist, it was only after skipping over all that dull gruntwork as a grad student or post-doc. Yup. Go straight to the finish, have my own R01 and scads of my own post-docs and grad students doing my bidding, turning my fine ideas into realities. Shame life doesn’t work that way.
Below the fold: thirteen cool microorganisms. (And, hey! It’s even Thursday!)
Just one question: where did I find time, in the old days, to write such detailed posts?
Seven things to look forward to in the Big Bake
I might as well start getting psyched up for it, right?
1. Worst air pollution in the country (for particulates). What does not kill us makes us stronger. So if the Bake’s air doesn’t kill us, we are going to be amazing.
2. We’ll be only two hours away from Angeleno food. I’m looking forward to eating, once again, the best Chinese food in the world. Period. Chinese people fly from China just to eat this food. And no one makes Mexican food like the people of Los Angeles.
3. Old friends. Thank Facebook for that — I’m starting to hook up with a lot of people I haven’t heard from in 30 years or more. Lots of ’em still live in L.A. One writes an LA blog.
4. My sister lives down there, too.
She’s grown up since then.
5. A big house. Cheap real estate in Bakersfield, don’t ya know, and we’ll be buying into the low (or near-low) of a buyer’s market. I won’t surprised if we can have a whopping huge guest room, one of those “mother-in-law” thingies. Hint, hint. What, not obvious enough? COME VISIT!
6. Financial security. Yes, this is a long-term thing. I mean, I have to put in my time, right? I’m not gonna be instantly secure all at once, RIGHT? But at least now I’ll be on the road to a secure future. Not like in Crescent City, where we were treading water most every year.
7. Familiar turf. Being the only ENT for a particular population is comfortable territory for me. (Yes, there are other ENTs in Bakersfield, but I’ll pretty much be the only one for the Kize.) There are certain advantages and disadvantages to that situation, and while it’s a mixed bag, it’s something I know very well.
Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a Thirteen, but I’m fading fast. Seven down, six to go.
D.
The trick with call . . .
is to steel yourself for a stress-filled sleepless night.
As you’re eating dinner, you know you’ll be interrupted and you’ll have to fress cold noodles later. After you’ve bolted all your food, undisturbed by your pager, you’re pleasantly surprised.
As you’re checking into your hotel*, you know you’ll just barely get your bag into the room before the ER calls with a lip laceration or a peritonsillar abscess or some deep neck pus. But that’s okay, at least you’ve checked in. But they don’t call. You check your pager, and all the bars are full on the battery indicator.
You begin to wonder if no one loves you, but then you remember that (A) you’re only two hours into call, and (B) you really don’t want to be called, do you? Not before your shower.
The shower is never as nice as you expect it to be, even with all that nice hot water and strong water pressure, because you’re asking yourself: would I hear my pager over the water?
Okay, so now you’re blogging and you figure, I’ll just barely have time to finish this before the pager goes off.
You realize in horror that Motel 6’s cable package includes neither MSNBC nor Comedy Central.
You know you’ll be up all night . . . and as you drop off to sleep, you’re wondering when the fun will begin**.
D.
*Motel. Motel 6, to be exact. I have a heater, a comfy bed, a hot shower with good water pressure, a TV, and internet access. What do I need with Marriott?
** I haven’t had a night call since early August of ’08. Does it show?
The Pee Post
A probing, prodigiously particularized post penned by your perennially puerile protagonist, um . . . Pwalnut.
This idea came to me in the wee hours of the morning. If my muse has found a topic which interests her, I’m not about to argue, even if the inspiration was painfully obvious.
Before we proceed, I have one administrative detail for you. Yes, the contest is still open. Scroll down, check it out. It’s fun! It’s easy! How can you not participate?
Onward to the Pee Thirteen . . .
Thirteen reasons I’m looking forward to Santa Rosa
Yeah, I know it’s not Thursday.
In no particular order . . .
Thirteen musical memory triggers
Anduin* writes:
List thirteen songs that when hearing them, take you back to a moment in your life.
Never one to say no to a beautiful woman, I thought it would be best to comply.
I should never have looked at my stat counter
Good thing I’m depressed. Otherwise, my seriously tanked stats would depress the hell out of me. As it is, my emotional reaction to a paltry 147 hits today is, “Oh. Look at that.”
Corn Dog and Erin O’Brien are doing it, so I thought I would, too. Here are the highlights from the last few hundred hits . . .
1. “pebbles and bam-bam tickling”
2. tight bikini lesbian
3. prairie muffin
4. keith olbermann gay?
5. lazy sex positions (HEY! Why are y’all looking at ME for that one?)
6. how to use tampons
7. horrible diseases (that one I can understand)
8. lorazepam holywater
9. headlice hotsauce
10. carrie underwood nude
11. penile botox injections (um . . . why? I think I’ll have to google that one myself)
12. hippocratic pelvic massage (upon my oath!)
and
13. this image (found by searching “dragon cleavage”):
See? I even snuck a Thirteen in on you.
D.
Thirteen photos for my mom
As y’all know, I decided the other day that I would put together some sort of photo montage for my mom for Mutti’s Day. (She hates it when we call her Mutti. I have no idea why.) Why not kill two birds with one stone and share those photos with you?
If you’ve seen some of ’em before, well . . . sorry.
Thirteen moves
Ugh. I hate moving.
And it keeps getting tougher every time.
I have boxes in my garage which have remained unpacked since our move from Texas in ’98. That garage . . . man oh man I have nightmares about that garage. I can’t wait until we hold our yard sale, because maybe after that I’ll feel like I have more real stuff than junk. Right now, junk wins, no contest.
Thirteen (or more) moves, below the cut.
Road trip
Short one tonight, since we’re on the road. Tonight, we’re in Garberville, where the streets are paved with marijuana bricks. Which looks a lot like asphalt, actually; you have to get down on your knees and sniff to smell the difference.
Jake and I had dinner at Calico’s Deli, a quirky little place that impressed the hell out of us a few years ago, last time we made this trip as a family. I had pesto, Jake had gnocchi. Jake didn’t like his gnocchi, so he had pesto, I had gnocchi. We brought a BLT back for Karen, who was resting in the hotel.
Another two hundred miles tomorrow. We believe in civilized driving, Karen and I. None of this “500 miles in one day or you’re a sissy” stuff like dear old Dad used to do.
Hey, let’s see how fast I can do Thirteen Road Trips:
- 1964, LA to Boston (Exciting! Everything is exciting when you’re two.)
- 1960s and 70s, various times, LA to Las Vegas (Short of Boston, my parents’ favored vacation destination. *Yawn*)
- 1970, LA to Boston (Exciting! Still too young and dumb to know better.)
- 1972, LA to Boston (By now, I knew better.)
- 1979, LA to Berkeley, I-5 (Boring!)
- 1982, Berkeley to LA, Hwy. 101 (Grueling!)
- 1982, Berkeley to Tahoe (My first and only skiing adventure. I didn’t break anything.)
- 1983, Berkeley to Palo Alto, my first ‘big’ move (Not that big.)
- 1984-1990, Palo Alto to Monterey (The annual Cancer Biology retreat at Asilomar. Best conferences ever.)
- 1990, Palo Alto to LA (We drove the truck. The snakes stayed in pillow cases.)
- 1997, San Antonio to Canyon
LakeMudhole (That’s how desperate we were to see water.) - 1999 and after, Crescent City to San Jose down Hwy 101 (Nice drive. We’re reliving it.)
- 2004, Brookings to Portland (Hwy 101 north of Brookings: kicks ass. Some of the nicest coast line you’ll ever see.)
No lurve, lurvlings. Don’t know when I’d find the time.
Wish us luck 🙂
D.