Moving: the junk

It takes a good move to realize how much junk you have- say 12', 16', 22' or 26'? We opted for the 22' of junk truck. Of which we needed say 21.5' of space to contain all of the junk. Some junk did not make the cut to get on the truck to the North. Below you see the truck of the South which came to pick up the junk. I gave him muffins; he took some stuff. My dad took the picture.

Good-bye SC!

This is my last post from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Catch y'all later!

Where is the love?

Apparently it is in Philly- this is Love Park. You may recognize the love logo from one of the years of love stamps- probably one of those good old days when stamps cost in the 20 cent range...

I want you to wish Andrew a happy birthday!

Today our friend Andrew hits a milestone in his life- 30! Doug and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Philly a week and a half ago, but Heather and Andrew were out of town , so we caught up with them (and I caught up with Dave Shaw who was at the conference like Doug) Tuesday morning. We walked around Philly some and then had lunch at a pretty trendy restaurant before I caught the train to the airport. Here we were looking at a fountain somewhere downtown. Surprisingly, Andrew came to town without his camera! It was the first time seriously that I have seen Andrew in the last probably 5 years without a camera. So, I got to take a picture of him for once! You can go to his photoblog to wish him a happy birthday.

Adventures with Megan and Luke: The Squirrels

Two weeks before the wedding. M & L came over for dinner. When they arrived at our house, they found us standing under our tree holding a towel between us. We were trying to catch the baby squirrel who was about to fall out of its nest. To make a long LONG story slightly shorter, at 10 PM that night we had rigged up a large pole and Luke and Doug were alternating on the ladder trying to knock down the nest while Megan and I held a sheet. We miraculously caught the nest and found not 1 but 2 baby squirrels: Epil and Spaz. The story has a tragic end with Epil dying the next day and Spaz dying the following Wednesday. Both of their parents and one sibling had died earlier that weekend of unknown causes, so they may have been ill already or they may have been separated from their mom too long before we got them. Baby squirrels are very cute.

In honor of Danielle...

When driving to Philly last weekend, we saw this license plate in front of us which of course reminded us of Danielle. Maybe Sloth could be baby girl Hollenbach's middle name?

Bubbles.... My Bubbles!

We were blowing the bubbles from Luke and Megan's wedding to see how the animals would react.
Daru liked to eat them and Kina was not quite sure what to do with them but she got upset when one
landed on her and popped.

Pseudo-graduation

MUSC graduated on May 18, but Doug is not officially done with his program until August. Nevertheless, since he was in town, he decided to go to his pseudo-graduation-- as did some other people from his class, but not me! It was a very sunny day even though they moved the graduation inside because of rain forecasts; they were given 3 sets of instructions: outdoor graduation at MUSC directions, in case of sudden downpour directions, and indoor at the Citadel instructions. I guess they are used to rain! I think the middle girl is Laura and I quite honestly should know some of the others but I don't. His class started with 11 boys and 49 girls. I am not sure what the final numbers are going to be.

Its days are numbered

We put our house on the market at the end of April, and on the day of Luke and Megan's wedding we got an offer that we accepted. So if all goes as planned, on June 8th we are closing on the house and moving to Rochester, NY. That's about the extent of our plan right now! If you want to see the house you can visit www.hornerealty.net - the MLS # is 2715395. You can take a virtual tour of the house which is not so much a tour as a slideshow of pictures.

The best man and maid of honor

My first limo ride was from the church to the reception. Here you see Paul
practicing for his wedding day....

Wedded Bliss

Luke and Megan entered into the state of holy matrimony 2 weeks ago almost. We were there to
witness with the whole Ulrich clan. It was a lot of fun for everyone!

In the zone

Paul was very tolerant of our questions and interruptions in the lab, but apparenty others are not so patient.

Paul in the hood

and Paul, well, in the hood.

Paul's Companion

While visiting Paul last weekend, we had the opportunity to spend a few hours in the UGA lab with some trypanosoma, and we also got to meet one of Paul's lab mates. We aren't sure what the status of their relationship is though....he claims not to see her much. It is hard to keep up with him I must admit.

Our "new" camera

 

Everything appears to be working so far with our repaired camera. Daru got a new flippy flopper since she reduced the flippy flopper she got for Christmas in 2005 to a broken rubber ring. I tried to get some pictures of her catching it, but most are pretty blurry. It's hard to throw the frisbee and take the picture too.

Crazy cockatoo!

 
This bird may look calm in this shot, but these aves were crazy when we saw them in Australia. One went off on my sister and me.

This should be one of our last archive shots for awhile since our camera has been returned safe and sound as of today- although I have not tried it yet.

What is up with the weather?

 
We celebrated Easter yesterday with below freezing temperatures in the morning- yes we were in SC. My sister and Ryan enjoyed a lovely picnic in their 70 degree weather- yes they were still in MT. My parents had snow on their picnic with the fam- no they weren't in PA, they were in MD. Weird! We had an indoor picnic since 2 young children attended. This picture has nothing to do with Easter; it's an old picture from the Duck Pond in Boston.

Excessive posting

Okay I know this is twice in 1 day, but Kristine sent me a link....to an otter video. This is not from the GA Aquarium, but we did see Southern Otters like the one below there. I picked the remix of the video so you did not all have to listen to 1:40 of "that is so cute!" though I would be surprised if you could make it through the video without even thinking it. I, as a cynical scientist, followed that thought with, "Well, they must be doing it because otters like to hold on to kelp or wrap themselves in it to keep from drifiting while sleeping." Click on the otter to see the video from YouTube or it is embedded below

The real attraction

Whale sharks! Rhincodon typus! The largest fish in the world! The GA Aquarium has 3 half grown whale sharks (4 until January) in a 6.2 million gallon tank and they say they have room for six full grown ones. GA Aquarium is the only aquaruim in the Western Hemisphere with whale sharks so it was worth the trip I think. They are pretty cool animals to watch though they are not vicious killers. They can grow to be 40+ feet long. Ralph, the larger one of the male whale sharks, died of a stomach infection, but the other male, Norton, is about 20 feet. They hope that the sharks will breed, but that has never happened in captivity and they have to be 25, as I learned in the video below that Andrew sent.

Japanese Spider Crabs

This was one of my favorite animals we saw there (though I did not take the picture since we don't have a camera!) This is a Japanese Spider Crab which lives deep in the Pacific Ocean- this picture was taken apparently at 278 m. They can weigh 15-20 kg and grow to 3m from one side to the other. They are pretty creepy looking, but pretty amazing at the same time. Doug contemplated how many people it would take to eat one.

(picture from http://www.jamstec.go.jp/jamstec/organi/goin4-1.html)