Friends in High Places

My dad and Laurel were out last week, giving us a reason to knock a few more things off our Boston to-do list. We went to the top of the Prudential Center (on the left) which afforded nice views of the surrounding area. You can see Cape Cod on a clear day, according to the wise-cracking guy with the thick Boston accent on the audio tour. I'm not sure if the dark smudge I saw on the horizon was the cape or my imagination, but since nobody can prove different I'm going with cape.
Since it was Patriots Day, the totally necessary vacation day Bostoners get to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concorde, we headed out to Concorde and saw the bridge where our ancestors finally stood up to the king's minions and said "No More." The insurgents were stockpiling cannons and guns at some guy's farm out there so the Redcoats went out there to confiscate them. Our boys got wind of it and were waiting for them, trading a few volleys of musket balls and then chasing them all the way back to the city. Then everyone was all like "Oh, it is so on." So they went under cover of darkness and set up some defenses on this hill next to Bunker Hill and the British were all like "Tsk Tsk, poor form, can't have that now, up the hill then chaps, stiff upper lip and all, we'll be home in time for tea. Cheerio." And the Americans we're all like, "Oh no they didn't, are those eye whites? Pew! Pew! Pew! Ack-Ack-Ack!" Although our guys were ultimately routed after they ran out of ammo, they did some major damage, killing 50% of all the British officers who died during the whole war in that single battle. The British officers were all like "Ooh dear me, I fear these bright red coats and fancy hats are attracting sniper fire," and the colonials were all like, "Ha ha, we didn't even want that hill," and retreated via zip line to Cheers, where Sam Adams was passed around, Samuel Adams having been notorious for his willingness to do almost anything in the name of troop morale.

Later, we walked up 294 steps to the top of the obelisk and were treated to this view:













Someone also hauled the sister cannon to the one the Britts were after in Concorde to the top. It was apparently designed to shoot around corners. Liz could barely contain her excitement over having walked up 294 stairs.







Our Twins didn't fare much better in their two-part battle against today's Boston residents, although good times were had by all in attendance despite some early rain and the fact that licking the green monster would probably have tasted better than Fenway's hot dogs and nachos.

Graft Update

It became clear last week why the grad student felt he needed to grease the academic wheels with things remembered. The kid did his coursework here in Boston, but returned to his home in Houston to work on his thesis. On Tuesday, he sent me the first and only draft of his paper that I'd seen with sincerest apologies for the time I was taking to be his reader. Aware that his deadline was Friday, I asked him how soon he needed my revisions. He ignored that question and informed me that his final draft was in the mail, arriving here Thursday, and would it not be too much trouble for me to drop it off at the registrar for him. So he was essentially asking me to sign off on his project no questions asked. The best part was his resume was attached to the paper which stated that he possessed "excellent time management skills." It also said he was a concert flautist and had experience analyzing semen but who am I to judge. My boss told me he'd probably deny the kid graduation, but also said that most kids in this program do a library thesis, essentially a report, whereas this kid had done actual genetic sequencing lab work. Also, he'd have to pay another semester of student fees and his other committee member, a genetic epidemiologist whose stature in the field dwarfs mine, had already signed off on it. So I told him he'd basically shown bad form but I'd sign anyways. I went to the registrar to drop off his stuff, the women there took a look at the name on the envelope and said, "Oh, this kid isn't graduating because he failed physiology last semester." "Did he know that," I asked? "Yes."

As my boss succinctly put it, "What a dumbass." Turns out the program he was in is a basically a masters program for people who need a little extra ammo in order to get into med school. So who knows how many lives were potentially saved.

I saw a guy biking today with a homemade scrolling, flashing LED sign on his back saying "See Me." He was heading towards MIT.

Last Few Weeks

It's been a while since we updated and for that, to the seven or so people who read this, I apologize. It's not that we haven't been doing anything interesting, just not anything particularly interesting to people who do not happen to be us, which most of you are not. So, starting back and working forwards, we had our MN peeps over for Sunday dinner a few Sundays ago. They brought their 1.5 year old over for some crab risotto and cupcakes. The last time we'd seen him he was wearing a spider costume and begging for candy in laughably poor English. His grammar and diction have improved considerably since Oct. We were especially impressed with his ability to differentiate between his height-disparate moms. To their chagrin and the delight of everybody but the hardest of the hard hearted social conservatives, he calls the taller mommy "Big Mama" and the shorter mommy "Baby Mama." It's doubly funny since Baby Mama is also the biological Mama so Big Mama also calls her baby mama Baby Mama. The cupcakes were universally lauded.

I sit in on a meeting for an Alzheimer's disease grant being submitted by some higher ups my department. My coworker and I are not directly involved in the grant, but the boss likes us to sit in since we will probably be involved with it at some point down the road. Since we don't have any explicit responsibilities at this point, we usually sit there and crack wise about aspects of the research and a certain eccentric member of the grant team. To wit, I have a love hate relationship with zombies. I hate them because I generally have about 3-4 nightmares a year in which I am being chased by them. I'm sure a second year psychoanalysis student could tell me what that means about by deepest darkest fears but I probably wouldn't want to know. On the other hand, I love zombies because they are awesome and it is fun to discuss strategy for surviving the coming zombie apocalypse with others who know the mythology. Anyways, back to the grant committee--part of the project involves obtaining brain samples from people who died of Alzheimer's disease from the Boston University Brain Bank. It's like a sperm bank but for brains. My coworker and fellow zombie enthusiast and I discussed whether a very enterprising zombie might have the mental capacity to climb the ranks of academia with its zombieness undetected and eventually land the holy grail zombie jobs--brain bank curator. I mean, the usual zombie M.O. for brain acquisition is to just lumber about in a large group and overwhelm victims with sheer numbers. Surely at least one zombie from the right tail of the zombie intelligence bell curve might have thought:

"What am I doing? I wander around 24-7 with all these other decaying shlubs, attracting the attention of the shotgun wielding living and for what?! MAYBE one bite of brains if I'm lucky enough to be one of the first on the scene of a fresh kill? F-that, I'm gonna enroll in night school and get my degree in neurology. Five years, I'll be swimming in brains."

Flash forward five years...
Boss: "Johnson, where are those new samples? You said you'd have them cataloged by Tuesday!"
Johnson, wiping mouth: "New samples?"


The issue also arose as to whether the available brains were frozen or preserved in formalin. This begged the question as to whether a zombie brain bank worker would have a preference. Most zombies probably wouldn't care, but remember that this zombie is the smartest and presumably most sophisticated zombie in the world and might be a true connoisseur of brains. "Ah yes, 70, no wait, 71 year old female...above average intelligence...and I'm getting just a hint of vascular dementia on the finish." Then we realized it was a pointless discussion since zombies only crave the flesh of the living.

I also was given what I believe to be my first bribe from a master's student whose thesis I'm grading.
It is from Things Remembered.

We went to the Museum of Fine Art last Saturday. The art was considerably better then the art in the Museum of Bad Art we visited earlier. Paintings of chubby naked 18th century broads abounded.

Which brings us to last night, it wasn't exactly like being at the dome but it wasn't exactly all that bad neither. Liz insists that I add the disclaimer that this picture was taken after a vigorous workout and there's absolutely no way she'd be caught dead, much less photographed, scarfing hot dogs and swilling beer on a Monday otherwise. If the Twins fail to win the world series I blame Morneau getting called out at first on that rocket off the pitcher's glove in the first inning of the first game of the season. Just sayin'.