botany jobs

For those of you into botanizing, I just noticed these 2 job openings: http://www.highsteadarboretum.org/

confessions of a consumer

Since I initiated consumerism boycott, I thought I should fess up on my spending habits. 1st was the fake finger/hook I bought for my boss - he was with me when we found them and is missing 2 pinkies, how could I resist? Made in China, 95 cents. I bought 2 museum catalogs of the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at Union Station. I'll never see them again, the info was a bit overwhelming, my best friend in PA loves archaeology. Yes it was a book, but not a novel, $5 each. Dog treats - bought a bag at the Merc - the Good Dog brand made locally by homeless people. I also buy them at the farmer's market. So in sum, the finger is the only frivolous thing. Oh - and the 25 cent cheapo headband at the rec center. Forgot my scrunchie, miserable in aerobics with hair hanging down, had to do it.

On another note, I put my 35 gal. rain barrel together yesterday afternoon, and it's full. Once I make sure it's not leaking, I'll make my 50 gal. one. The back yard turned into a small pond of water, along the fence line which the dogs run, so I can't put my rain garden in the pooliest parts of the yard, but it's right next to it. Check out this ironic dog rescue:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/may/07/rain_forces_road_closures_across_county/
Rescue teams from Douglas County and Osage County help Gail Jackson and her dog "Rocket" into a rescue boat at the FOB range near Lone Star Lake. Rising water stranded six women and five dogs that were part of a Boxer rescue program which used the site as a retreat over the weekend.

Some things I missed...

My picture that won that award got published in the most recent issue of Invertebrate Biology. But I may have mentioned that already.... I've been really out of it the last month or two and haven't commented on anything lately, but I wanted to congratulate a few people so I thought I would do it really quickly here.

So congratulations to
Irene for all the major life changes in her life recently (but particularly for the baby)
Cathy for getting engaged. That is super exciting!!
Heather for successfully defending (though that is no surprise)
Molly for getting to go to Turkey and Austria and landing (what sounds like) a good post-doc position

And Good Luck to Jennifer with all her job interviews, which is probably super late and may not do any good at this point (did you end up doing flatworms or Cnidarians?). I don't know about anyone else, but it would be awesome for me if you were somewhere in Ohio.

And finally, I'm very glad that Erin suffered no adverse effects with her brush with a tornado. Hopefully, no one suffered any effects of tornados in Kansas in the past few days (it seems that they mostly hit western Kansas).

I think that's everything. If I missed something, I'm sorry. I'll try to stay more on top of it.

Beautiful Flowers

Anyone know off the top of their head the name of this flower. I can look it up, but I thought someone might just know.

Thanks!!

Gardening

After going to the farmer's market this morning and buying three tomato plants, I was inspired to do a bit of gardening this morning. I cleared out the weeds in my vegetable patch, transplanted a couple of coneflower plants, and planted my tomatoes. In addition I planted seeds: basil, sugar-snap peas, and Alyssum.


The lettuce and spinach are growing well - the lettuce is a bit happier than the spinach.

Lettuce

Spinach

There are also buds on the larkspur and spiderwort that were left by the previous tenant.

Larkspur

Spiderwort

Well - back to exam writing. I wonder if my tomatoes have grown any.

2 Months of GBKD

Our little blog is 2 months old, and I believe it is serving a useful purpose so far. In two months we have had 1 pregnancy, 1 marriage proposal, several jobs offers and interviews, several hair cuts and lots of fubulous spring flowers. A busy two months.
I want to encourage all of the Gorgeous Biologist Knitters not to wait until you have big news to post. Obviously we are thrilled to find out when friends have great life changing events (LCE?). But, by their nature, life changing events don't happen all that often. Interesting knitting conversations are often based around the random (most marmosets are chimeras) and the practical (my hard drive just crashed, remember to save your data) and style questions (what to knit for beachware?) as well as the important. Echinoderms are cool is probably my favorite post so far (and the post where GBKs identified a blurry bee from a plant photo-- I was way impressed). Keep us updated with the little things as well as the big.

news from DC

Just wanted to share my news-- especially since I now know what I'm going to be doing with my life for the next 2 years...
First off, I did not get the WWF fellowship, but in an unusual twist, received "honorable mention" and so am going to get $2000 in travel money to be used in the next 6 mos. So, I'm tagging along with my old AMNH boss an a field trip to eastern Turkey and then Austria. I am really excited to go, because I've always wanted to learn more about how to dig up bee nests and learn more about nesting biology from my old boss... and I'm super excited about getting to see Turkey. I'm hoping I'll get to at least spend a day in Istanbul as I have been dreaming about seeing the Hagia Sophia. In Austria I will get to meet with the world expert on another parasitic bee genus-- which is great because I just found out last week that I have a two-year postdoc at the Smithsonian working on the molecular phylogenetics of this very genus. The postdoc starts June 1, and the Turkey/Austria trip is probably between June 25 and July 16. The only thing I regret is not being able to witness the weddings of either Beth or my best friend from high school :(
Last weekend I was in Claremont, California at my 10 year college reunion. (Cathy, I saw Don McF., who says hello, and who wants us to start using the field station in Costa Rica which Joint Sciences is now running). You would think that out of a graduating class of 130 I would know pretty much all of my classmates... but no, I knew hardly any of them (partially because few of them took science classes). Anyway, I had a really fantastic time and now feel like I have gotten to know some pretty phenomenal women. Which is wonderful, considering I wasn't even planning to go and was worried that I wouldn't have a good time. I was struck by how beautiful the Scripps campus is... it makes me wish I could go back and do another year as an undergrad. It was also fun to see other Scripps women who are living in Lawrence, like the two women who own the Raven bookstore... I knew that they were almunae, but it seemed strange to see in them in CA rather than KS!