Massive bonfire and more filth, and a crow

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...'cause if you don't you'll miss the HUGE bonfire at Woodhouse Moor! WM is the park right by my house. Every year for Guy Fawkes day they have a massive fire, and set off fireworks. Of course I attended. The Pie went as well. She loves a good crowd! She was very, very happy to see the hundreds of humans gathered around.

Here you can see the fire:

By this point it had collapsed on itself a bit, so its not as big as it started out. They make it out of a large number of pallets. This year they had some real problems getting it lit, but it finally got going when they HOSED IT DOWN WITH LIGHT FLUID FROM A BACKPACK SPRAYER!

I had not intended to stay for the fireworks, but it took so long for the fire to get going that I ended up doing so. Now, apparently many dogs have firework phobia, and spend the evening hiding under beds. Tasha, it seems, has firework-philia. She didn't flinch for any of the bangs, bright flashes of light, etc. In fact she seemed happier than before, and was cruising around with her tail up, wagging happily, and generally seemed to be saying "oh jolly good, I see there are a great multitude of humans enjoying my park, how lovely, truly splendid, yes. Do come again." I didn't let her off the leash though, it was just way to busy swarming with people that she longed to go molest.

After all that several of us went back to my friend's house for a movie and ice cream.


Another newsworthy item is the "bin strike" in Leeds. The bin collectors and street cleaners have been on strike...for something like two months now. In that time there have been occasional trash pick-ups, as the council hires in freelance binmen (or something like that, lol) to harvest the stenching fruits of humanity. Its just not enough, though, and we end up with scenes like this surrounding all the public bins:

I have to admit, though, since I live in a student-y area, its usually pretty darn trashy anway. The students here are disgraceful, truly. Behold, the view behind the two student houses next door to me:

Not very attractive eh?

Now, back to the park. The fire and the masses of people who come to see it, AND the heavy machinery they use to pile up the pallets, all leave a bit of a mess in one area of the park. You can see here the fire circle, and the mud surrounding it, and in the distance the Pie, waiting for me at the edge of the mud. Also there are some crows there...

Here's a close up view of the fire-area. You can see it is CHOCK FULL of nails! From the pallets, of course. And no, I don't think they will clean it up, as it was never cleaned up last year. So, I have to keep the Pie out of there until they recede into the mud.

As promised, here's a crow.

They get quite close to me now. There is a set of three, and a pair of two, that I feed almost every day. This lucky crow has just scored half a dog treat.

Halloween!

For Halloween this year I did all the usual things, well, the same things I did last year anyway, ha! First I carved a pumpkin and roasted the seeds - DELICIOUS. As you can see I carved a crayfish:

I made a costume for myself, I was a traffic cop. The outfit is based off the Japanese traffic cop ladies, I didn't want to look TOO much like a legitimate UK cop. Plus this outfit includes a nifty shoulder cord, vesty vest, and a tie. The hat is the UK hat. I also had handcuffs ;) But in the photo they are on my back where you cannot see them. I enjoyed wearing the outfit so much, I wore it to work on monday, tee hee. Well, most of it anyway!

My labmate's costume was a Wispa candy bar ("chocolate bar" as they say here). We made the costume together using a bedsheet and some leftover foam from the crayfish costumes. Also bits of felt and paper. It was a seriously good costume. Seeing a dancing Wispa bar improved my life significantly, hahahah! And yes she wore brown clothes so she could 'be' the chocolate! And she has brown hair, it was perfect.

For Halloween fun, 13 of us met up at my friend's house and we hung out there for awhile, gorging ourselves on snacks. Then we headed to the Fab Cafe, a bar/club themed on bad horror films, cult TV, and sci-fi. Its THE place to do halloween in Leeds, to be sure. They had a costume contest, fire poi outside on the patio, played fun halloween songs, etc. They also randomly gave us all sandwiches. Needless to say, I ate them. Oh, and at the bar they sell candy as well as alcohol. SOMEONE may have had too many candy necklaces on halloween! But I won't say who, ha!

Here's a photo of the inside of Fab - unfortunately there aren't any great costumes in this picture I do not think... but there were many excellent ones.

Oh yeah, and my guinea pig Conference pear dressed up as her namesake. I can see the ressemblance, can't you?

Chocolate-covered bacon

Yesterday I finally accomplished my goal of making chocolate-covered bacon. Will it taste good? Will the chocolate coat the bacon properly? These were the questions I sought to answer. So, without further ado, here is how it all went down:

I started with a pack of unsmoked thin cut streaky rindless bacon rashers, also known in America as 'bacon.'

I carefully laid out the bacon in the pan so it would remain flat as it cooked.

As the bacon cooked to a very fine crisp, I put the chocolate on the stove to heat up. More on the chocolate later. You can see the bacon is getting very shriveled and crispy - I figured this would be the best state for it to be in to receive the melted chocolate.

Inquiring minds:

Finally the bacon was all done, although two of the pieces ended up not being totally crisp so I just ate them. The others I patted with a paper towel to remove excess grease, and let them sit for a few minutes to cool while the chocolate melted.

I used plain old Cadbury milk chocolate, and melted it in a glass cup sat in a pan of water. I had purchased four bars of it, but only ended up using one...

Once the chocolate was thoroughly melted, it was time for dipping! The chocolate was still quite thick, maybe it wasn't hot enough? I'm not sure. So after dipping each piece I had to wipe a bit of chocolate off on the side of the glass lest it be too chocolaty. Also I broke each piece of bacon in half before dipping, as the chocolate was not deep enough to cover much of a full-size piece.

Here are the freshly dipped bacon pieces, placed on a tray covered in kitchen foil, also known in America as aluminum foil:

After I dipped them all, I placed the tray in the fridge to cool. Here they are after cooling (and after a few pieces have been eaten, heh heh heh):

The chocolate cooled and stuck to the bacon perfectly. As for the eating experience, it was VERY GOOD. It tasted very much like one of those Take 5 candy bars, actually. Mmmmmmmm. Highly successful endeavor!

Good news from Oberlin

I was just killing time at work, so I checked out the Oberlin College website, as I sometimes do. The whole front page was epic! The first thing I noticed was that one of the people profiles they had up was someone who continued the crayfish studies that I started while I was there - just a picture and a short essay he wrote. I don't think I ever met him, but I suppose one could say he is a successor to the Oberlin Crayfish Duke-dom. Or something. Then I saw there was a video interview up with George and the Skritter crew. Way to go, guys! Most excellent. Then also there was a link to an article about Oberlin getting the top grade in sustainability among colleges and universities...in the entire country. Read about it here: http://new.oberlin.edu/home/news-media/press/detail.dot?id=1587518

And of course you can see all of this today on the Oberlin site: http://www.oberlin.edu/

I don't know how long any of this will be up, though. But it was up TODAY. When I was looking at it. It was enough to make me... update my alumni profile, tee hee.

Take-A-Gundam-To-Work Day

Brought to you by Agent Scully. And Agent Mulder...until he gets a little carried away in the lab.



Even Gundam knows not to open strange bottles of chemicals and smell them.


After some explainations and such in the lab, its time for a tea break, also known as 'second-breakfast.'



Remember, its important not to consume too much caffeine. Know your limits.


After calming down a bit, its time to get back to the lab!


And back to the P(olymerase) C(hain) R(eaction)!


HOURS later, when the reaction is done, its time to run the gel to see what the results will be. While it is running we can eat lunch quickly.


I said, EAT LUNCH, QUICKLY!


When lunch and the gel-running is completed, its upstairs to the office to check e-mails and work on the computer for a while.


And when it is finally time to go home, the last stop is the shower down on level five! That shower is the most amazing shower in all of Britain. It has....water pressure.

On the verge of hopefully non-explosive action

Well I don't have any exciting news like buying a car...though I will be selling a car in the somewhat-near future. I do ALMOST have interesting news, it just hasn't happened yet - I've just been working lately.

Tomorrow my friend/housemate from Missouri is visiting, she's in town for a bat conference in York so we're going to get together to catch up. Probably go hiking if the weather is nice, which it is supposed to be. I haven't seen her for two years but we e-mail every now and then.

Wednesday I'm going to some govt agency down in Sheffield to get fingerprinted and other "biometrics"...I don't know what, maybe retina scan, ha ha ha.

Wednesday evening, until NEXT wednesday evening, my labmate and I are babysitting my supervisor's younglings. A 7 year old and a 2 year old. This should be interesting. I'll see if I can tire them out by having them dig a trench or something.

Mobile camera

I took these photos with my mobile phone camera while my 'real' camera was in the shop. I think the lighting looks really interesting though. This is my shortcut home from work, behind the business school. Sometimes I take the Pie there to run around as well. Occasionally there are foxes present when we go at night.

This is a serious charity.

For real! Check out the website!

I see this Land Rover parked along the street on my way to work sometimes. HAD to get a photo!

...

Photo from Peaks walk

Here is a photo of our team at the end of the walk. As you can see, the charity we were fundraising for was the British Heart Foundation. Since Tasha didn't get a t-shirt I let her wear my completion medallion, tee hee.

I just noticed at least one person is missing from this picture, there was another female involved and the other guy who rode up in Carl. Hmm. Where could they be? I suppose they had not finished yet.

I believe that is one the three peaks, Pen-y-ghent, in the background. Not 100% sure though...

And yes, that is a Honda Integra Type R in the background :D It followed us around during the race it seems, it might have been carrying the BHF official photographer or something.

Crayfish costume!

Not too surprisingly, I was hired to manufacture two crayfish costumes for a Zoo. Yes! One of my major life goals = accomplished! Here are photos of the mostly-done costume in the lab:

Front view

Back view:

Crazy person wearing costume view:

'Natural' view:

The costume is made from two inch thick foam, covered in a wool/viscose blend and cotton. The main pieces are the carapace (body), legs, claws, and the tail piece. For the finishing touches, I added detailing to the claws and carapace, but I didn't get photos of that. Also, the wearer is supposed to have a black shirt and tight black leggings...and I'm wearing...not that. And I put it on sloppily! Terrible! So I'm hoping to get some better photos of the next costume!

So, now I have to make costume number two! Yay!

In other news, I went on a massive 25 mile hike over some big ol' hills, for a Heart Foundation charity. It was lots of fun and I took Tasha as well. I didn't have a camera, so no photos, but you can read a bit about the hike route here: http://www.walkingenglishman.com/dales1.htm There was lots of running and mud involved, so overall a good experience. Now my legs are very very sore, but only the muscles it seems, which is good news!

Beautiful life

Today I had a nice quote from Frank Lloyd Wright on my jasmine teabag.

"The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes."

I wholeheartedly agree with his sentiment, being of great cheer myself. Plus, everytime I come home the first thing I see is an adorable guinea pig sleeping in its hammock, followed by the Pie. And everything, really, is so beautiful and fascinating, even a wee scrap of paper is so full of promise. The tea was delicious. And not laced with any kind of mood enhancer, I promise. Unless jasmine is a mood enhancer? Hmm.

In other news, I heard back from Olympus regarding my camera - it will cost about 100 pounds to fix it, so I'm gonna send the form in and have it done.

Finally, this weekend two labmates and I went to Oxford for some crayfish sampling/birthday partying/sightseeing. Both of them went there for undergrad. I will make a post with pictures from the trip later. I have my cameraphone pictures but will probably hold out for when I can get some of their pictures to put up. Here are two they will not have, though -

Carl in the hotel parking lot; looks like someone was getting dangerously close in the night:

Cute van:

I hope you all have a beautiful day!

The filth-bringers and the world's cutest guinea pig

As promised, photos of the park swarming with student-life:

It does get more crowded than this, a bit later in the afternoon.

Now the weather has gone back to normal - cold and damp, so the park is mostly empty again. Its amazing how variable the park population is. Oh, today for the first time I used the toilet at the edge of the park. It was surprisingly clean and well-appointed. For one thing, it was not a bush.

This is my friend's dad's guinea pig that I am looking after, who became very ill a few days ago. I found him at lunchtime lying on his side and twitching, so he got to go see the vet. He has to be hand-force-fed every 5 hours or so, and he doesn't like that one bit. The vet said he was doing surprisingly well now, though. His name is Gandolf (the guinea pig not the vet) and he is also incredibly cute as you can see. There may also be an action figure in the shot. How did that get there.

Foam and Filth

In case you were not aware, I have been hired to produce a crayfish costume. Actually, they have decided they want two. Oh my. For now I'm making the one, they want one by the end of June. "They" is the Bristol Zoo. Wow. So, the costume will be formed out of foam, of the 2 inch thick variety. Here you can see the large, 6' by 7' plus piece of foam, with the crow bag for size comparison.

That's alot of foam! Now here are some of the pieces. There will be two layers for each claw and arm piece, and a single layer for the body itself. Yeah, its kinda messy to carve it up.

Warning: too much foam can be hazardous to your work ethic and is known to be nap-inducing.

Here's the basic sketch of the costume. We'll see how much like this it will end up looking.

Now on to the filth. It has been very, very warm, and SUNNY lately, which adds up to HUNDREDS of students swarming the park. Like a plague of exposed and pasty flesh. They sit around, they have barbeques on these wretched little disposable barbeque things that leave burned patches all over, they drink, carouse, and leave garbage all over the place. There is no responsibility here, folks. This is the morning after a day of use.
LOOK AT IT.

Then the next day you see the park cleaning dudes out picking it all up, just so the same thing can happen all over again that day! It is so...so terrible and illogical and BIZARRE! I simply cannot understand how this is allowed to continue the way it does. Its silly to say it, maybe, but at Oberlin, lots of students always hung out in the grass on sunny days and I don't remember there ever being a problem with litter left behind. Perhaps A cup or A stray sandwich wrapper, but nothing like this. At all. Ever. Well, in the four years I was there, ha ha ha.

Here was a tiny patch that had no garbage on it, this was Sunday, I went over there today and I honestly don't think I could have gotten this big an area with no trash at all from the same area of the park. Also observe my foot.

I shall try to remember to take my camera(phone) out and get a picture of all the people in the park some afternoon. 'Cause it is a sight to behold, truly.

Oh yeah, also today I sent my old Olympus digital camera out for assessment. When I told the dude at the camera shop how old it was he said it was impressive that it made it this long. Wat. It is only about 3.5 years old. Oh well, I guess I can be happy with that statement.