Hadn't seen this yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJX2FiW-ik

Hey fellas!

Time for another round of blog posts?!?
I'll start with a short update from Sluisland. I just joined the lab that I'll be in for the next 4+ years, so that's exciting. I'll be doing work with Maize, mostly focusing on plant development, how tissues are formed, phyllotaxy (leaf patterning), and fun stuff like that. Which means I get to use a bunch of really expensive and fun microscopes, which is just about ideal. I've got my own mutant to work on and everything. I had intended on joining a different lab, but that dude just took a position at Ohio State (Boooooooo!!!!) which pretty much just confirms everything I've ever though about that shithole (well, everything but James, of course). That said, I'm still pretty happy with the way things are going. Berkeley especially is pretty awesome, and if any of you came to visit I guarantee some good times. Also, I think a bunch of us from the program are gonna do Burning Man, not this summer, but the next, if any of you are interested in losing your mind. Oh, and one more thing: the last final I'll ever take (provided you don't count quals as a final) is next week, and promises to be super easy (grad classes are a joke!), so yay!

Things have definitely chilled out a lot around here, so depending on what semester I get pegged for GSIing, I'll be doing a football game no doubt. But if I get stuck with fall semester, we'll have to think of something because I'd really like to see you guys. Would a summer reunion of sorts work out? I'm guessing that because there aren't classes it might work out a little better for the Med/Law school crowd, though now that I think about it, it's internship/residency(?) time, so probs not. At any rate, I've been living well within my means, so can easily make a trip or two out east.

Law school updates,
Med school updates,
Real world updates,
go.

All the best,
Sluisy

DC

Hey fellas,

So James is trying to convince me to come to DC for the weekend of the 25th because it seems that all of you are going to be there. So far it's looking fairly good for me being able to go. I simply need to know if I have a place to crash and a ride to/from the airport (public trans is fine, I just don't know what's out there). So let me know what the situation is, and what days you all are going to be around.

My plan would be to fly in Thurs night (or maybe Fri afternoon) and leave on Sunday.

Hope you all are enjoying the winter. I know I am :)

~Sluisy

SNOW!

hey roomies ;)

we just survived the snowpocalypse here in michigan. we were supposed to get 15-25 inches overnight tuesday and something called thunder snow and everybody freaked out. every school in michigan was cancelled, even michigan state (for only the third time in its history and first since 1975). every school except good old michigan that is who continued its policy of staying open during blizzard warnings because "it owes it to its students." seriously the email i got was insulting--instead of saying stay home if it's too dangerous, it said you MUST come to class, no excuses, you can only stay home if you try driving and get stuck. it really warmed my heart out here in farmington to know they were concerned about my safety.

snowmageddon was actually a big let down though. we only got 8 inches overnight and places like chicago got hit wayyyy worse. i slept through my 9 am class and then came in for the afternoon. the roads were pretty bad but not terrible. instead of three lanes on the highways the plows had made one lane. however, since they were drunk while doing this the lane they made through the snow swerved in and out of the lines and multiple times would switch from the middle lane to the right lane for no reason. which meant if you were passing someone in the cleared lane by driving on the snow-covered right lane, you had to be careful because the cleared lane would lead right into where you were with no warning. even worse was parking in ann arbor. my devious plot of never paying for parking and parking on streets like white was foiled by the mountains of snow the plows had put in those spots. after getting stuck twice i decided to park in a structure and support the city of ann arbor.

what else is new? oh last week michigan's basketball team (the men!) beat some team from east lansing IN east lansing for the first time in 11 years. i went with suzanne to prom med school gala last weekend at the motor city casino and got a lap dance from one of wayne's doormen who decided to drunkenly crash the party. he kept telling me i was the most beautiful man alive, so i decided he had earned the right to give me a lap dance.

jamesy, i like your reunion plan, the only problem is that it's right in the middle of my (and probably Nathan's) summer gigs. which means it would be hard for us to get away, even for a weekend. i suggest august or may, although i don't know the exact date of the program so other times may work too. also, wear the ref's jersey with sunglasses, duh.

props to you and jake for keeping up the blog. hope everyone's doing well.

puppies,
bill

The blog...its alive!!

Hello sybil,

Jakey nice work on getting the blog going again. Umm lets see life in Ohio is pretty boring (shocking I know) and school is still kicking my ass so not a whole lot is new on that front. I'm guessing everyone is reeling from the big storm (yeah Sluis remember that day it rained last week?). In Columbus we got freezing rain for two days and then a bit of snow to make it harder to see where its icy so its basically treacherous to walk anywhere but the nicely plowed sidewalks of campus right now and will be like that til probably it thaws in a few weeks. However, since we have a bit of an angled driveway and some of the cars were sliding i did get to use a sledgehammer yesterday afternoon to break up some of the ice so there were at least places the tires could get a grip. If you haven't used one before, i highly recommend it. It was probably the most satisfying day of housework in my life haha.

In other HUGE news, i'm coming to DC in a few weeks! So i'm flying in on Wednesday, February 23rd and i'll be around til Sunday the 28th. I'm staying with my sister but shes working that week and likely some of the weekend (Nathan and Bill i'm guessing you cant wait for life after law school haha) so i should have some time to head out towards places you guys are at or we can have a mini sybil reunion in DC or Bmore (yes Duke i'm inviting myself and am almost done with the facebook invite). Jakey can this be your late Bday party? Nathan isnt it time you visited your parents and let them combat your hangover from a sybil reunion with breakfast?

Also Mr Eggnog (keeping that alive) mentioned summer reunion ideas. So i have this awful exam that basically tests everything you learned over the past two years and determines where you can go for residency (no pressure right) on June 24th and then i was planning on heading down to Florida to my parents place in Naples for a few weeks til rotations start. I was thinking it might be fun if we had the reunion there? Warm sunny beaches filled with old wrinkly ladies!! Sadly that probably sounded appealing to everyone but Sluisy. Obviously this is super early but could be super fun if anyone is interested!

In an attempt to get blog activity going here I have a question for all of you. I'm still coaching disability hockey down here in Columbus kinda like i did at Michigan but now its with little kids. So the kids have wanted to do an intermission show at one of the OSU hockey games and we finally got called last week to do one this weekend. I had fully prepared to cheer against Ohio state at the game BUT then I found out this weekend they are playing Michigan State...who do i cheer for? Should i bring out the ref jersey halloween costume and just cheer on my favorite ref?

I miss you all and cant wait to hear from you soon and for you east coasters see you soon!

Hearts,

James

HAPPY 2011

Hey everyone,

Been a while since anyone posted so I figured it was time to start the blog up again since i don't know what anyones up to! Bill and Nathan halfway through lawschool already?! sheesh hope you two are surviving. Liadis you got an extra year ahead of you but even you're almost halfway done holy cow. Is it too early to discuss a sybil reunion for the summer already? I sure hope not. I already saw Dutch( you should all go visit his place in Baltimore its pretty sweet) and bill a couple months ago but I've missed out on seeing the rest of you since our last reunion. This needs to be rectified.

Anyways, my life has pretty much stayed on course, though i have some pretty unbelievable stories that will have to be saved til we are all in 1 place and can appreciate the ridiculousness of it all together. Suffice to say, I'm enjoying myself in the city. Despite the Jets hard-fought loss, im headed out to vegas in a couple weeks for the superbowl and I'm pretty pumped about it. Its right before my birthday (sorry no repeat birthday in atlantic city) and post bonus, so I expect I will drop more money than i should on food, gambling, alcohol, clubs, strippers and anything else i can get my hands on in the sin city the two days that im there. Look forward to more stories from this trip. I may have a trip to ann arbor coming up soon, maybe i'll run into one or more of you there.

Thats about all I got for now. I'm looking forward to hearing whats up with all of you since you last posted. Peace out kiddos.

-jake

Greetings from Charm City

Founded in 1729, Baltimore is a major U.S. seaport and is situated closer to major Midwestern markets than any other major seaport on the East Coast. Baltimore's Inner Harbor was once the second leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States and a major manufacturing center. I'd continue to copy and paste from Wikipedia but we all know this place so well. There are hints of the Wire everywhere. Dark shadows behind my house surface images of Omar's shotgun. Certain crackheads I swear I've seen before. The segway police in Fells Point (where I work) are a far cry from McNulty, however. I moved to Canton a month ago now - a few blocks away from the Natty Boh Tower.

I'm also close to the Canton square, which I must say reminds me a lot of South U. Work is stellar. To give you a better idea of what I'm doing, I'd say it involves a good deal of Excel (sweet), math (my worst grade a Michigan) and finance (help me Levy). I'm learning a lot and enjoy the people I work with. We're getting embossed fleece vests for Christmas - jealous?

No? What about now?

I hope more terrifying pictures will surface on facebook soon. Halloween weekend in Durham nearly rivaled Ann Arbor dominoes, ghostbusters, stuck-on-you, etc. Everywhere I turned I had women on my Gumby-junk trying to get a picture. You'd think the non-breathing polyester and mesh eyeballs that gave me the vision of Nathan without contacts would have taken away from the experience, but it made for a trippy night.

- Sluis, your first few weeks in California sound like a mix of animal house, the hangover and ... the Arb. Live it.

- Jake, congrats on passing the final exam. I'm interested in hearing more about what exactly your doing. Perhaps in AA on the 20th? If not, and this goes to all, I'm thinking NYC for New Years (again!).

- Bill, post something exciting. Like about the kid you and Suz are having soon (Buzanne?). I'm calling you this weekend to discuss football tickets. At least 4 of us will be driving up, with at least 3 of us going to the game. Two weeks, "i so scared."

- Nathan, congrats on the girl. I spent ten minutes stalking her after I read "Her name is Carolyn..." before I finished the sentence about the stalking bit - spot on. Back for Thanksgiving?

- James, I will buy that shirt. Come to the Wisco game!

An open invitation to mi casa in Baltimore.

Many loves,

Duckface

California knows how to party

Sorry this took so long, things have been rather busy here on the west coast, and a lot has happened, so this might be a doozey of a post. Suffice it to say that I've been having a good time.

I'm living in a nice little apartment that I'm paying too much for, but it's not a bad deal by Berkeley standards. My roommate is a fellow PMBer (PMB is my department) and a really cool guy. He kinda reminds me of Lipshaw in that they're both short, have Jewish last names (Steinbrenner, though he's not Jewish), and get geeked about things like tea and craft ales. At any rate, he's a really kick ass guy and we get along like peas and carrots.

By far the best part about moving here has been my fellow first years. Without exception, everyone is super nice, super smart, and about a good half of us get blackout on a regular basis, so super fun. Everyone gets along really well, and we're all working together and doing some kickass science. I've never known so many nerds, let alone socially well-adjusted ones. Pretty much everyone just wants to have as much fun as possible, which is super easy to do in Berkeley. There's also a ton of people into hiking/camping, and while we haven't gone on any good trips yet, it's inevitable.

School is fairly tough, but it hasn't been too ridiculous. We only have one real class that's split up into 3 modules per semester. I just finished the 2nd one today, and they've both been rather easy. There's a couple people who already have fellowship money, so grades don't matter at all to them, and they just sleep through class. It's actually kinda rude because there's only 10 of us, but the point is that classes aren't emphasized. It's all about lab work. I'm nearing the end of my first rotation, and feel like I've accomplished nothing. That's not quite true, but it hasn't gone too well. I've been working on generating a DNA library to send of for sequencing, but nothing has been working for me. It should be fairly straightforward, but everything has been a problem. It should work out, but it's kind of a drag. My PI is awesome though. He's probably the only person I've ever met that I'd actually say is a genius. He's probably got some idiot-savant or polymath going on. I met with him for half an hour yesterday and it was all I could do to keep up with him. He does this thing where he pauses, kinda like a stutter, and then just blurts out a sentence. It makes it hard to keep up, especially because his mind moves so fast. Just as you're catching up to what he's talking about, he's two or three steps ahead of you. It's good though, and damn impressive. Dude just pulled down a 2+ million dollar grant from the NSF. He gets shit done.

In terms of time, though, I really haven't had to put much in for school. In fact, three weeks ago or so I went 6 for 7 on getting blackout drunk and high. The first night was supposed to be a chill movie night, but as is all too common, it turned out to be blackout fueled by tequila. The next night I went into SF for metal show that fucking ruled, and the next night was a house party for the first years and anyone else that wanted to come. That in and of itself would have made my week. At one point there was a smoking circle with over 20 people in it, with 4 joints lit at once. Other highlights included mix drinks made with lab equipment, dance party, and the end of a 3-year long relationship (drama!). It was an event. At that point, I planed to chill out for a while, but there was this thing in SF called Hardly Strictly Bluegrass going on. My friend convinced me to go, armed with a dozen beers and something like half a dozen joints. It was held in golden gate park, and was all free. It's exactly like what I imagine Woodstock was like, just on a much smaller scale (although still huge, probs bigger than Michigan football crowd). It was tons of fun. At one point, this hippie was tripping his ass on E, running around dancing. He had on these weird pants-things that came off in the course of his reverie. He was just running around the crowd for a good 5 minutes before he got himself dressed again. No one gave. a. fuck. So chill. Most of the stereotypes you hear about the bay area are dead on. It was out of this world. The next night I did some shit that I don't really remember, but it was fun. Two days later I saw Dead Meadow (DC natives I think) and that capped off one of the most ridiculous weeks of my life.

Shit hasn't been that intense the whole time, but I've been having a blast. The other highlight was the departmental retreat, which was supposed to just be moderately fun, but mostly about hearing research talks and the like. Well, it took place in Tomales Bay, which was about an hour drive from Berkeley in this beautiful part of California. I'm talking really scenic stuff. Anyway, three of us killed a 750ml bottle of Whalers rum (from trader joes, of course) before we even got there. I was just high on life the whole fucking time. We started playing frisbee in this giant circle, and I was running around like a fucking hippie. I almost beaned Pat Zambrisky in the head with the disc (senior faculty, discoverer of agrobacterium, national academy member, and general badass) but thankfully didn't. She did comment that she was impressed that I was able to throw so well despite how obviously wasted I was (this was bout 4 in the afternoon). Alcohol was plentiful the whole time, so things just deteriorated from there. After the keynote lecture, I got about 5 words into a question before I forgot what I was going to say, so just awkwardly stalled until someone finished it for me. This was pretty much my introduction to the department, and such an auspicious one. Brian Staskawics (another academy member and research thug) gave me the nickname "Sluisinator" for that, and that's pretty much stuck. Everyone who went to the retreat remembers my name, so I guess it's not all bad, but it was out of control. After the actual talks, we all just went to a big field and drank, smoked, played guitar, etc. There were several hookups, though sadly I was involved in a triangle situation that wasn't the good kind, meaning one too many dudes. Although, in retrospect, I planted a seed that has since developed into a plant that's very likely to be fucked. Oh, and Staskawics? I smoked him and a few other profs down on the second night, one of whom is my next rotation PI. Other highlights included going to a beautiful beach for a good nap, with oysters on the way back, and a drunk, horny old professor that hit on all the hot female grad students. Apparently people kept trying to put him to bed, but he would escape and get into more shenanigans. I'm not making this shit up, this weekend was legendary. It took a solid two weeks of exchanging stories until I could remember most of what went down, and even then most of it is a blur.

California is a hell of a good time, and you all need to visit. It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to make it out for a game this year, but I promise to make it up at some point. To Duke and Naynay, prop 19 didn't pass, but I'll be getting a card, so you two will have to check out the Cali bud. I've gone through half an ounce since I've been here (I've been sharing a lot) and have a kick-ass bong that you guys need to hit. There's always fun stuff going on, and San Francisco is a short BART ride away. The best weather is supposedly in Sept/Oct, so it's getting somewhat cooler and more rainy (it didn't rain the first two months I was here) but there's still lots of nice weather. It was 74 and sunny today, and I went on a nice bike ride up into the Berkeley Hills, looking over a sweet sunset on the bay.

Peace kids, hope to hear from you soon!
-Sluisy