Kyllan and I would like to wish a happy father’s day to our dads William Sr. and Larry Brown.
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Author: William
Drip, Drip, Drip…
It rained Wednesday, and we know what that means!!! More water damage for William. The water is actually getting into the air duct for the restroom and dripping right out of the vent. It is also seeping through the ceiling in the bathroom and utility closet (pictured right). The apartment complex doesn’t seem to think this is a big deal. (They have repaired this leak twice before.) I called them before I went to work on Thursday to remind them to empty the bucket catching water when they came to survey the damage. Of course I came home to a floor covered in water and my downstairs neighbor is now complaining about water leaking into his apartment. It only took them three months to “repair” this leak after Katrina. I wonder how long it will take them this time… Did I mention that rent is cheaper in Denver? The boss is actually in Denver this weekend house hunting with his wife. They are planning to stop by a few apartment complexes I found on the web and let me know what they think. I am not planning to go down until later this year.
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Good bye New Orleans
I’ve have known that this deal was in the works for several months, but it now appears to be coming to fruition. At the end of the year the lab will be moving to the University of Colorado. A few months ago, one of the preeminent Pseudomonas researchers in the country asked my PI to apply for a position opening. My PI once described this scientist as being his personal hero in the field, so of course he obliged. None of us, including my PI, thought that they would make him an offer, being that they already had one of the top minds in the field in their department. No doubt they would like him, but surely they would decide to go a different direction. First interview, second interview, third interview…What do you mean Tulane did not counter?… Now they counter?… Wait, they call that a counter? Bam. William is now collecting card board boxes to pack his things. I can’t complain. Colorado made him a really good offer and the facilities are top-notch (NMR, Mass Spec. BioCore, Spinning disc confocal microscopes, EM… the list goes on, and that is just in our building.) I have been instructed not to say anything negative about the current state of our facilities at Tulane… so I will just say that I am positive my PI would have taken this offer even before the hurricane.
How does this affect William? I am taking the qualifiers this summer (delayed due to the transfer from Cornell and hurricane Katrina) and that means that I will get my PhD from Tulane regardless of the move. The move also means a lot of down time. Tack on at least three months to that mysterious date known as graduation (Actually, that would be my dissertation defense. Graduation will just be a ceremony that takes place some time after I receive the degree).
I’ve been in this city a long time. After 4 years at Xavier and the two years I’ve been at Tulane, it really did feel like a second home. DID. This city is not the same and I am not convinced that it ever will be. 2/3 of the city looks like it did the first time I returned after the hurricane. The boats and abandoned cars haven’t even been moved out of the medians (we call them neutral grounds in New Orleans). Every single person I knew from undergrad has left the city. Phone, cable, internet? It may work, it may not. Restaurants? good luck finding one open. Grocery store? Good luck finding more than a fruit roll-up. Rent? It went up? Hole in the roof? Still there… blah, blah, blah. And I am in better shape than most. Still, I think it is time to leave.
The new lab will be in Aurora, just outside of Denver, on a former Army base (Fitzsimmons, named after the first American casualty of WWI). It was closed during the last round of BRAC in 1995 and then was brought by the University of Colorado. We will have more space in the new lab and it will be in a brand new $500 million dollar building. The university is the midst moving the medical school and research from the down town campus to the Fitzsimmons campus in Aurora. In total they plan to spend $1.5 billion over the next 5 years. Our current plans are to move during November or December of this year. The two post-docs plan to stay. The MD/PhD student who was going to join the lab this summer, is no longer joining and the other student is undecided.
In other news, we just got our official Tulane Hurricane evacuation plan today, which includes full evacuation of the facilities 48hrs before a Cat1 makes landfall in the gulf. I think it is safe to assume that if New Orleans receives a major hit this season, we will pack everything up and move immediately.
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Upgrades, schools and posters
How do you guys like the new site banner? I am running out of things to add. I think a Cody Report icon for the address bar will be next. Maybe next weekend. It appears I owe my father an apology. He did in fact post his pictures from the reunion on his flickr site. He also removed some of the more graphic photos of his trip to Haiti, so those with a weak stomach can now take a look.
In other news, I somehow missed the Newsweek report on the top U.S. High Schools. Check out #5. It’s seems Stanton has slipped since my days as a Blue Devil. (It was still ranked #2 as late as 2003)… I could spend hours discussing my opinions on why Stanton is dropping, but I will save that discussion for when it falls out of the top ten. The #1 school is in Dallas. This list is made up of only public schools. I’ll leave it up to Kyllan to speculate where Hockaday would be on a private school list. The last person from Dallas that asked me where she went to high school let out small whimper and gave a look of awe when they heard the name.
You heard the story in a previous post. Below is a picture of my ASM poster. After conferences we put old posters in the hallways of the department. If you would like to hear about the research, give me a call.
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Cody Reunion Wrap-Up
Kyllan and I had a great time at the reunion this past weekend in Memphis. I really have to thank my parents for inviting her up. So far this year we have managed to see each on about the monthly basis. Hopefully we can keep this up. My parents and I hung out at my grandmother’s house on Friday until it was time to pick up Kyllan from the airport. Saturday was the Civil Rights Museum and the family banquet. My mother’s mother and her three sisters still live in Memphis and joined us that evening. (My parents met as college students at Memphis State.) In between we checked out Beale Street. We also caught “The Da Vinci Code” movie. The book was much better than the movie. (I’m not sure what all the controversy is about. The book has never claimed to be more than fiction and one of the overall themes was that faith is worthy of its’ own sake.) Sunday was church and an afternoon cookout at my grandmother’s house. The air conditioning was out at my grandmother’s house and it was HOT! As always, you can check out more pictures on my flickr site. Most of my pictures are of my immediate family, which now includes Kyllan, and Beale Street. My Dad took a lot of pictures at the reunion events, so we will all have to wait for him to upload those… if he ever does.
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Cody Family Reunion
Kyllan and I will be spending Memorial Day weekend in Memphis, Tennessee where my father’s family is having a reunion. I probably won’t be updating the blog while we are there, but I should have plenty of pictures to share after our return.
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ASM Rap Up
These last few days have been exhausting. The poster presentation went great. It was really nice to have a chance to discuss my work with some of the top names in the field. It was even better that they liked where the project was going… On a side note, this discrepancy over the name of the gene I am studying is a little frustrating. A decade old pissing contest over which of two names should be used was resolved earlier this year. Apparently a few people were not aware of this and tried to take a tinkle on my leg. What’s the deal people? I am going by the sequenced genome. The name thing was resolved in the literature. What more am I supposed to do? Oddly enough, the major player on what was the opposing side liked the project and offered some resources from his lab for future studies. It looks like things are really going to get exciting over the next few months. (I am reluctant to name the gene or protein simply because I don’t want random researchers to google these names and happen upon my blog.)
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The Poster
My lack of posting to the blog this past week was due to working on my poster for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting (ASM). It’s 70in x40in and had to be taken to a printer. The lab took our two posters, a post-doc is also presenting, to Kinko’s Wednesday. They told us they could turn them around in 24 hours. Thursday they gave us one poster. The resolution was horrible. It was pixilated and illegible. Of course we tell them that this was unacceptable and to redo the job, including the second poster. Friday they call us and tell us to pick them up at 3pm. When we arrived, they just kind of shrugged their shoulders and told us 6pm. At 6pm, they told us 8pm. At 8pm the guy running the printer told us he was going home and we could pick them up Saturday. Keep in mind that you have to apply to present a poster at this meeting and if you fail to present at the meeting, you are banned for 3 years. We had a 10am flight Sunday!!! Not being able to participate in ASM meetings is not something I want to explain to future employers. 9am Saturday my PI calls Kinko’s about picking up the posters, and they have no idea what he is talking about. He reminded them. Noon Saturday they call my PI and tell him, “We can’t do them.” Of course every other graphics company in New Orleans was A) Not reopened since the hurricane B) Closed on Saturday C) Closed on Election Day (Nagin won re-election, by the way.) In a mad dash to the lab around 2pm, to discuss our options with my PI, I saw two guys putting graphic decals on a car in front of a shop. I pulled over and asked if they could do large format printing. Turns out they are the largest in the State. They do all of the signs and posters for the Superdome. The owner had stopped in to pick up some papers, and I caught him just as he was walking out of his office. He took me to the production floor and printed both posters in a little over an hour, while I waited. Stumbling by this place may have been the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me, other than meeting a very pretty girl while taking out the trash…
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106th General Meeting
I have just arrived in Orlando Florida for the American Society for Microbiology’s 106th general meeting. I will be here until May 25th. This is going to be an exciting week. I have a poster presentation on Wednesday, but other than that I will be checking out symposiums and keynote speakers. I will also be spending a lot of time at other posters. Just for the record, getting my poster printed was hell… I’ll get to story later. I have to go pick up my registration pack.
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Seminar and ASM
If you don’t know the real reason I started this blog, it was because I had a seminar presentation coming and needed something to do while procrastinating. Well, that seminar has now come and gone. I presented a good portion of what will become the first specific aim of my thesis dissertation to the department yesterday. Even though I waited until the last minute to prepare for it, it went pretty well. I usually judge my presentations by the questions I receive afterwards (including those from my PI). If I get none, I lost everyone in the audience. I probably got a few more than I was expecting, but they were good and everyone seemed interest. I’ve been scrambling to produce data for the American Society for Microbiologist (ASM) General Meeting, which will take place May 21-25th in Orlando. I still have two more experiments I would like to complete for the poster presentation I will give there. I know I can get one done before the poster goes out to print, but I am unsure about the second… I will be working on those this weekend while catching up on video game time… What happened to my gamercard in the bottom right hand corner? I will have to fix that this weekend.