jumbles

1) alan embree, released from the red sox, has been signed by the yankees. :(
2) busy sunday = household errands, how pitiful.
3) oar was sweet :).. and so was pepper! :)
4) grrrrrrrrrrrr argh boo-hiss POO to someone
5) manny ramirez is starting to make me wonder if he's mental.
6) dust accumulates really fast.
7) i need to go visit chattanoogie; i actually miss it.
8) man, the turtle continues to excrete doo-doo.
9) where should i store my printer box?
10) end of july, beginning of august... so it goes.

seeking bodyguard

45-year-old wrinkly men in quaint bookstores are freakin' creepy. i should have a fake story prepared next time. yiiiiiiikes, welcome to DC.

in other news, if there's a fork in the road, which path do you take...? and who takes the other? and where do they lead....?

frist ISN'T the devil

granted, bush is the devil (i'm kidddddding). but frist WAS getting there, what with his proclamations of "Good" and "Bad" and such. senator bill frist (R-TN), a staple amongst republican senators since i lived in tennessee, wasn't exactly on top of my list of "most admired men" -- the resume posted on his senate website still lists his awards from high school -- gimme a break! a certified surgeon and senator, with whispers of running for the 2008 presidential race, frist is a solid conservative, the Senate Republican leader, an avid supporter of the christian faith in politics, (and not terribly cute), and one of bush's "men". in other words, he wasn't getting my vote.

but today, i'm impressed. in a speech to the Senate this glorious gray morning in DC, frist announced that he would support a bill to expand -- not limit -- federal funds for stem cell research. this action is in complete contrast with bush's 2001 policies of limiting money and research. frist is a leader among republicans, and showing that he will stand with his ideals, even if they're in opposition with the president's, is admirable. it makes a difference. stem cell research is important, no matter how controversial; it has huge potential to help us understand and treat chronic, presently-uncurable diseases. so despite his religious beliefs and moral standings, frist is going with his science side today. congrats, and thanks. let's just hope that the white house doesn't succeed with a veto...

veering from bush, frist backs funding for stem cell research

tribute to dali

meet dali. this is turtle-dude who's been keeping me company since i moved here. we transported him/her/it down from boston verrrrryyy carefully. and i think he/she/it has been doing pretty well thus far. here, he (let's just assume dali's male for simplicity's sake, okey?) looks oh-so-innocent.


but in reality, he's a little chomper. here, he tries to bite my finger through the clear wall of the tank.


chomp chomp again. check out the pink tongue!


planning his next moves....


up-close-and-personal.. and crooked. dali likes to squeeze himself between a rock and.. well, a hard place (the clear tank wall again).

in case you can't tell, he's quite happy. he swims furiously towards the tank's corners in the mornings, and he makes futile escape attempts all day long, and he poops whenever and wherever he likes. sometimes, when the sun's shining through the window, he'll sunbathe on top of one of his rocks. man, what a life -- turtles are lucky.

"his family has kidney problems"

i talked to my mom tonight on the phone... and she almost killed me. i fell off my chair i was laughing so hard. in the past few years, conversations with my mom have become increasingly weird.. but unbelievably amusing. maybe she's growing braver in her oldened age.. maybe she's convinced that, now that i'm 22, certain issues should begin to be discussed. whatever the case, i personally think that she's just nuts.

in addition to the usual comments on health and driving and school and poop regularity, she's started to hint/blurt things out about boys. now i dunno about the rest of the world, but there are specific topics that my mom and i talk to each other about. "boys" is not typically one of them. but alas, she's curious and paranoid, so why not?

oh indeed, why not. but her suggestions and declarations are UNBELIEVABLE. she warns, and she states things factually, as if her unreasonable fictional imaginings will actually come about. i.e., tonight, when expressing her concern about a friend of mine, she casually (or not so casually) mentioned that ... "[it'd be bad to allow things to go beyond friendship because] his family has kidney problems."

so now i know. from now on, beware you male specimens, if i meet you, i'll have to 1) tell you that one of my grandmothers died of a heart attack so that you can worry about the future of our kids' health, and 2) ask you about any of your family's hereditary problems .. because well you know, it's always possible that a simple meeting/conversation will turn into a deep trustful friendship, which of course will develop into some intense dating + romance. and then soon after, we'll be married and pop out the 2.5 children. definitely.

as i said, my mom's insane.

you've been fried.

oh the suffering, oh the inhumanity. 106!

tevas&socks, heat, and red sox

okay, so this morning, in oppressive heat (see paragraph below), i walked 12 blocks to and from a biosecurity talk at the national academies. 'twas interesting, etc etc, but as i sat there amongst distinguised experts in the field, i noticed one thing (maybe due to the fact that i was still sweating from my trek over): it's late july, sweltering, and everyone's in suits, women included. blegh! why do we value our "professional dress" over comfort (and common sense, for that matter)?? it's retarded. if we were all sitting around a conference table dressed in t-shirts, sneakers/sandals, and shorts, would the amount of respect we have for each other lessen? well anyway, one of the dudes -- a cute, grumpy dude who obviously knows his stuff -- had on a white dress shirt, brown slacks... and tevas&socks. hahaha. though i can't say that it's the best style sense, he was comfy -- so kudos. :)



yucccckkk. "feels like 101" at noon. this heat wave is not cool at all.. but apparently, it's gonna rain tonight and tomorrow.. and friday and saturday and sunday. haha great. so it'll be cooler but... drizzle drizzle drizzle. i can't decide what's better -- 5 consecutive days of 100+ degrees or 5 consecutive days of rain.






and in case you haven't heard, the beloved red sox are falling left and right... :( sniffle! they're still on top of the AL east (boo-ya yankees!), but yesterday night, in a 10-9 win over the devil rays, matt clement -- the really bushy-beard pitcher -- got hit in the head by a line drive. he crumpled onto the mound and remained still for 5 minutes before being carried off in a stretcher. ruh roh. :( and trot nixon hurt his back or arm or something too. and i read some article about how manny ramirez wants to be transferred. what is all of this?!?! i hope they get better!!

time to strip

mother nature is evil. i didn't move to washington, dc to suffer in sweltering heat! makes me start to reconsider the negative 20 degree temperatures of boston's winters. "feels like 100"? what the hell is that?! not only is it extraordinarily hot, but i can't even enjoy the sun 'cause i'm stuck inside a cubicle. this is tragic.

biosecurity

my rant on my work (yes, 6 weeks in, i can already rant):

the integral problem with biosecurity is that it's so vague and slow. worrying about biological warfare and bioterrorism isn't stupid -- it's smart. anthrax mailings and sarin gas attacks have already occurred; the likelihood that some other pathogen is gonna be released into areas of dense population is probably pretty high. if i were a terrorist, it'd be pretty freakin' smart to release an air-borne or food-borne bioagent. not only would it become a systemic problem (not localized), but it would spread quickly. and be difficult to contain. so why not?

scary, huh?

but as much as there is to worry about, the preventative measures that we can take are... lacking. there are sooo many (like really, hundreds) of agents and pathogens and molecules and diseases that are deadly and dangerous. some are even naturally-occurring, like avian flu and SARS and AIDS and West Nile. hello, those infectious diseases may wipe out the earth without any offensive work at all. imagine what happens where they're purposefully spread. and then, there's not-as-natural stuff, like anthrax and botulinum and smallpox. and the worst? the worst are novel agents -- newly engineered pathogens that can be created, due to our wondrous innovations in biological research that allow us to splice genes and re-insert pieces and make other sections more potent. these new ones -- how can we protect ourselves against things we have no idea of?? we can only react, and react we will... but slowly. reaction against a biological attack will take time -- time to detect it and locate the source, time to identify the molecule, time to characterize it, time to recognize its symptoms, time to determine an approach for treatment and therapy, time to track it, and time to spread the word. that's just too much time.

so we'll presently focus on the ones we DO know about. again however, there are so many -- how does one (and who) decide which ones to create a vaccine against? are there general, overall, sweeping preventative measures?? not really. and biological threats are different than nuclear threats; with nuclear, you have to have the plutonium or the uranium -- you need the materials. with bio, they're pretty much everywhere, consistently available.

great. i feel so safe.

and the other persistent, non-resolved issue is the idea of dual-use. dual-use has been around forever.. but the concerns are reaching a squealing high right now. BSL-3 and BSL-4 (biosafety level) labs are popping up, here and there and everywhere, from the CDC in atlanta to the university of texas to bu and in fort detrick at USAMRIID. these labs are the ones that deal with ebola and marburg, places where researchers quarantine themselves in. BSL-2 (and even BSL-1?) labs play with bacteria -- but even certain strains of E.coli can result in death. so what happens if a researcher accidentally (or not) walks out the lab with the bug? or if the lab tech is evil and steals the protocol on how to proliferate the stuff? who do you allow to work in a lab? who says that native-born americans are any safer than foreign nationals who don't speak perfect english? how much background inspection must one go through.. and what qualifies as "satisfactory"? aiya! what research projects must be stopped -- because they're "dual-use," research that can be applied for good... but for bad as well? science is innovation and communication; are we to halt that in the name of safety? caution? paranoia??

there are a bazillion new offices, departments, directorates, advisory boards, non-profits, and "centers" dedicated to investigating and analyzing this stuff. but where do you even start? how? what do we do with the mounds of money (billions, really. billions) appropriated for these programs??

sigh. i'm working for "peace". haha, it's so.... un-tangible.

shiiiiny

i have shiny toes. haha. compelled by who-knows-what (or ahem, who-knows-who), my toenails are currently painted with clear nail polish. hahaha. i haven't used nail polish since i was... 12. a decade ago. haha, wiggle wiggle.

sunday mornings

i'm staring at my picasso don quixote poster that i haven't hung up on my wall yet. and it seems so.... hopeful. but then again, i don't really know if 'hopeful' is quite the right word. i think i'm still on that serene high from last night.. from last night's calm adventures of exploring the lit-up monuments at midnight. really now, this place is still sooooo incredibly new to me -- i'm not yet jaded about my surroundings, and when i remember to look up during my little lunch-hour excursions, i still gaze upward at the awesomeness of the architecture and history. so that's good, right? i think it's good. there was something amazing and soothing and comfortable about last night... sitting in the breeze, awash in the grandeur of the Mall. neato, i say. and then, coldplay loud on the radio driving back home. not too shabby, indeed.

turtle-dude-dudette, my little friend who's keeping me company during this interesting summer, is swimming furiously from one end of the tank to the other, kicking up some serious poop. i need to clean his tank. sundays are always for errands -- those "to-do" lists that i avoided on saturday and wrote up on thursday nights. but i'm determined to still have fun today.. 'cause really, after sunday, it's monday again. and for some reason or another, i'm just not hopeful on mondays. quiet sunday mornings are sweet.. not hurried, not worried, just quiet and lonesome, in a good way. i love my laptop -- what an ingenious invention, to be able to surf and type and read while still curled up in bed. under the summer covers. thanks willie... haha, yes, it's another whim-ish purchase that i owe to you. :) this reminds me, though, that i need to go buy some new underwear.

okay, off to my sunday excursions.

oh, and welcome. we'll see how this goes. typing's easier than writing nowadays anyway. but which one's more therapeutic?