Author: William

Random Post #3

William 4 Comments

Other than the site blowing up, not much happened this week. I have been busy in the lab, while Kyllan has been tied up at work and stressing herself out about the wedding.

I finished reading the 7th and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the series. Initially, I couldn’t believe that so many adults were so excited about a series of children’s books. When the 6th book came out, so many of my co-workers were talking about it that I decided that I needed to see what the big deal was and borrowed a copy of the 1st one. (This is where Kyllan would likely tell everyone that I was the kid that read on the playground during recess.) I won’t give any long review or anything; I’ll just simply say that I am glad I took the time to read the books. I hadn’t done any leisure reading since Katrina. It was nice andI think I am going to start setting more time aside.

My cousin Nikki posted some pictures of a family vacation to her flickr.

great picture

…And yes, I am still going to use flickr even though the rest of yahoo is dead to me after the whole “sorry your blog is gone… we don’t why… you should just start over, it was only a year old anyway…” deal. Flickr doesn’t actually generate any revenue for yahoo because of all the storage and bandwith, so it actually feels good to know I am costing them a little bit more money. I should have gone with a company whose sole focus was web hosting to begin with.

My parents will be in town this weekend and Kyllan the weekend I after that. I am really looking forward to their visits. I have two things I really want to get done in the lab before they get here. I should be able to pull it of… I think.

… And We’re Back

William 13 Comments

If you tried to come to the site the past 2 days you probably saw all sorts of wired messages. I am sure no one is interested in the technical details, so long story short, we’re back. (No, it wasn’t something I did. The former host screwed something up. The site is now being hosted by another company.) A few things are still a little wonky. I will fix those over the next few days. Since the entire site was essentially deleted from the server, I had to restore all the old post and comments from a backup I made a few weeks ago. The post about my shiny new bike and the comments about my nephew Drew one day getting a motorcycle are gone. Sorry. The site may disappear and reappear over the next 48hrs as the DNS updates. Please let me know if the site starts doing anything else weird the next few days.

The lost 7/7/07 Post

William 9 Comments

I really meant to make a post on 7/7/07. I was going to tell everyone how it had been such a lucky week for the Cody family. For those who missed it, the 2nd was my mother’s last chemo treatment. On the 6th I found out that I passed my qualifying exam at Colorado. For those that don’t know, I transfered from Tulane to Colorado (it’s just easier now that the lab is here). Passing their exam was a condition of the transfer and I was a little nervous about it, considering that I hadn’t taken a course from any of the professors giving it. I had been waiting for about 20 days to hear back from the university. (If you don’t know what the qualifying exam is, you can think of it like boards for a physician or the bar for lawyers).

Kyllan and I saw “knocked up,” “Oceans’ 13” and “Transformers” in the theaters and watched “Music and Lyrics” and “Stomp the Yard” on DVD while was in town. “Knocked up” was hilarious. It’s been a long time since I laughed that hard in a theater. I thought “Oceans’ 13” was just barely just okay, but Kyllan liked it. “Transformers” was a little campy, but I still found it very entertaining. “Music & Lyrics” was formulaic, but not necessarily predictable. For a chic flick, it was pretty good. “Stomp the Yard” was horrible. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 0.5 (p<.001). I would tell you why it is so bad, but it is not worth my time to even type it out. It's back to work this week. I've been having some success in the lab recently. With the new found motivation that has come with knowing the exam is behind me, hopefully I will experience some more. Below is the mandatory photo from our trip. It is a picture of the board game "Scene It," which I beat Kyllan at three times in a row. More photos of the trip are on my flickr, including a couple of my nephew Drew, who told his Aunt KyKy that the two of them had brown thumbs and I had yellow… He later asked me if I was white..

I can't be beaten

Happy Fourth

William 1 Comment

I made it safely to Dallas. Last night Kyllan and I watched the “Kaboom Town” fireworks. There was all this hype about it being a Nationally recognized show that could be seen all over town… I was not impressed. Kyllan says that the fireworks in Cleveland are much better. The fireworks in Jacksonville are much better, for that matter. Originally, we set out to watch the fireworks from the top of a nearby parking garage. That didn’t last long. We were there for less than 30 seconds before someone went to talk to the security guard and we were asked to leave. I asked him what the deal was, at which point he became very apologetic and looked really embarrassed. Apparently a group of people (less than 20 people on the top level, which probably had about 100 parking spaces) “rented out the space” and they didn’t want us there. What in the world? Were we really taking up too much room? They could have just asked us for $5 or something. We ended up watching from the street. Oh well. Like I said, the show wasn’t that impressive.

Random Post #2

William 5 Comments

So, once again, nothing is really happening. I finished the miniseries and first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica. The third season is coming out on DVD later this year. I am really looking forward to visiting Kyllan next week. This is probably the longest the two of us have gone without seeing each other. We don’t have any special plans for the fourth, but we have some time to figure something out. What are you guys doing for the 4th?

Anybody planning to wait in line tomorrow to blow $500 on an i Phone? I think it is going to be a huge flop. With no 3G and no compatibility with Microsoft exchange sever, business users won’t buy it and the young “hip” crowd that Apple usually markets to can’t afford it. Hell, my Samsung blackjack, which I love, sells for $75. One of those and an 80GB iPod together is cheaper than a 4GB iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, it will sell out on Friday. But, I don’t think Apple will sell many of these after the first month. (Beware of products released on Friday after the stock market closes.)

The weather is finally getting nice in Denver and I am thinking of buying a bike. I know, I know, William hates the outdoors. I have been exercising pretty regularly the past few months and need something to change up the routine. I had no idea how expensive bikes are and am a little hesitant to spend the money. We will see what happens.

Random Post

William 10 Comments

It’s been a week, so I feel the need to make a post. Nothing in particular. I recently began watching the “re-imagined” version of Battlestar Galactica. It is really good and I recommend it not just to sci-fi fans, but anyone that likes a good drama. I’ve been using Netflix to rent a lot of television series recently. Do any of you have any suggestions on what to get next? I still haven’t made it out to see any of the summer blockbusters. I thought Oceans’ 12 and the last Pirates of the Caribbean were horrible, so there is no way I would pay money to the sequels. Shrek the Third received bad reviews, so I am passing on that. I wouldn’t mind seeing Knocked Up though. The guys making it are hilarious and, surprisingly, it received really good reviews. I might also try to see Die Hard 4  this month. I am a sucker for movies with a lot of explosions. I plan to visit Kyllan July 4th weekend, so I’ll see what I can talk her into seeing with me.

Before I forget, my cousin Niki now has a flickr account. Check it out if you get a chance. In the future, you will be able to find a link in the right hand toolbar.

ASM Wrap-up

William 3 Comments

So, I am back from ASM. If you don’t know, ASM stands for the “American Society for Microbiology.” What I am referring to is the ASM general meeting. Last year I had a great time. This year, it was just okay. Seminars, symposiums, keynote speakers, posters… all the same things went on, but they just weren’t as enlightening as last year. I also think think the organization wasn’t so great this year. The Pseudomonas talks were scheduled at the same time as the majority of the Pseudomonas posters. Those were the two things I was looking forward to the most, but I didn’t have enough time for them both. Also, me and the PI got stuck with a Friday morning poster presentation date. Friday is the last day of the conference and is always poorly attended. Last year, we held court and had a lot of interesting discussions about our posters. This year, we spoke briefly to the people that trickled by. Overall it was still worth going. It’s always interesting to see what other people are working on. As a student, it is always interesting to see what things are completely over my head. Next year it is in Boston. (Sorry, no pictures.)

ASM 2007

William 5 Comments

I am currently in Toronto for the American Society for Microbiology General Meeting. If you noticed the lack of posting or my comments the past few days, it because I was gathering data up until the last minute for my presentation. Everything came out pretty well and I am excited about the meeting. I doubt that any of you would actually get all that excited about anything going on here, so I will wait until I return to give a recap. I’ll be pretty busy with events at the conference, so I am afraid there won’t be to many pictures.

The Drs. Lewis

William 2 Comments

Congratulations to Neil and Tami on their recent medical school graduation. You can read all about it on Neil’s blog, The Chronicles of NL. He posted pictures to his website and his flickr. You should also check out the pictures of their son. Other than this post, links can be found in the right hand sidebar. For those who don’t know, Neil is one of my closest friends and will be a groomsmen in my wedding, just as was one in his. (As always, I don’t use full names in post. Eventually the post are indexed by google’s search engine, and I don’t want to help anyone’s ex stalk them. If every there was an occasion, this would be it. Congratulations again.)