Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Mad Scientist's LiveJournal:

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Friday, July 17th, 2009
2:42 pm	Oh by the way... Hello all...  So for those of you I haven't contacted and/or seen at our reunion...  I am currently pregnant... Surprise!   If you'd like to see pictures of the wee little one (and my big ol' belly), you can find them at... www.jem32.blogspot.com (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
11:21 am	The End of an Era I am basically now done with graduate school.  I have a few minor edits to make to the thesis and then it will be official.  It feels very strange to be so close to the end.  Particularly so because I have no clue what employment I have for the fall.  I have prospects, but nothing confirmed.  If nothing else, I can defer graduation and teach here some more.  Not my top choice, but an option.   On the graduation note, I am having a party on May 16th.  I tried to invite you all, but I may have had the wrong e-mail or no e-mail address.  If you don't think you got an invite, shoot me an e-mail or a facebook message with your current e-mail address and you will be added (or edited).   (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 9th, 2009
8:48 pm	Ode to Panty Hose An Ode to Panty Hose Nude is their color but no color of my naked flesh. Trying to be invisible but needed to be seen. Endless scrunching and the first foot is in. Now the contortionist act begins. How am I now to get my foot in the other leg? With some bending and twisting, my leg dislocates but is now in the panty hose. Either these were made for midgets, or I have some great work still ahead of me. It is now time for the dance of the panty hose! Shimmy shimmy pull shimmy shimmy pull. They are now up to my knees. I spot a few wrinkles at my ankles and manage to transport those to my hips. Ever losing circulation in my legs. The glistening tights are finally sitting right where they should be. With one final tug I attempt to adjust them, RRRRIIPPPPPP! Oh shit. And so we begin again. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 27th, 2008
8:08 pm	I found this beautiful and inspiring.  It is Obama's "closing speech" for the election.  (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
1:36 pm	Oh my god...  this is so me.  PhD comics...  are you spying on my life? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
9:00 am	The New Dirty Words Sarah Palin and John McCain along with their campaigns have introduced and encouraged the country in establishing several new dirty little words.  Arab-  People are claiming that Senator Obama is an Arab as though this disqualifies him from being president.  Last time I checked American born Arabs have all the rights to run for president that anyone else does.  More disturbing is the response that John McCain had to this comment.  While I applaud his effort to stop the ridiculous woman from continuing, he responded by saying "No maam, he's a family man."  Oh I see, Arabs are not family men.  So you can tell he's not an Arab because he's a family man, of course!   Muslim- Again last time I checked, there is no requirement that a president  be Christian.  This is ridiculous as well given that Obama seems to have independently decided to become a Christian and appears to have practiced that faith for a number of years.  I think this is mostly a notion due to his name.  Ironically, people would likely have less problem with him if he was named Keith Ellison (the Muslim congressman from Minnesota).  Does your name really matter so much?  Does your religion? Socialism-Okay so what's wrong with socialism again?  Aren't Christians supposed to be socialists based on the Bible (particularly new testament)?  Furthermore, McCain (and Bush) is clearly for socialism.  What else was the bailout of the banks if not socialism?  So we should have socialism for the rich banks but not for people who need healthcare?  When McCain was asked about the bail out and socialism he said something like the bail out wasn't socialism it was helping people out in bad times...  um...  how isn't that socialism.  Now clearly none of the candidates are for whole hearted socialism where the government is in charge of all production, but most people do not want capitalism without any checks.  Clearly, there are problems with that system (see current financial crisis).  Some socialism is good for capitalism.  For example, we know that having health care for all people makes them more productive and miss fewer days of work.  Go figure.  Thus covering everyone with health care is good for everyone. Liberal- So we all have our different views right?  When Republican congresspeople are making statements like "Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God."  or implying that being liberal or voting liberal is "Anti-American", this is going a bit far.  Why is being liberal now equated to evil incarnate rather than a differing set of political beliefs?  Such ridiculous accusations and the use of these "dirty words".  How many lies can one campaign tell?  How many truths can they stretch?  This is just getting ridiculous!  Current Mood: aggravated (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
11:30 am	End of Summer I don't understand how it is that the first day of school magically turns into fall.  Monday it was 91 outside and Tuesday (when classes started) it was 71.  Today definitely feels like fall.  I am teaching Biopsychology this year, which means that I'm supposed to be teaching these guys all about the brain.  Hmmm....  Maybe I should get on learning some of those brain things.  My first class seemed pretty good.  I don't think that any of the students will bite which is more than I can say for the Obedience class I'm teaching.   Last week my parents, Mike, and I took a road trip up north.  We stayed at the Gunflint Lodge.  It was a blast and so beautiful!  We hiked and canoed and bird watched and watched shooting stars and drank hot cocoa and played games.  I'd definitely go back!  : ) Recently facebook has led me to ponder how there are many people who apparently know you but who you don't know at all.   A girl that I graduated with just added me on face book.  I have no idea who she is.  I looked back at my year book thinking that maybe her name had changed or she looked really different...  her name was the same but she did look really different.  Still don't have a clue who she is.  So does she know me?  Did she just add me because we were in the same class?  Strange.  So many people whose lives we share for such brief periods of time.  (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 15th, 2008
2:38 pm	A decade Mike and I have now been dating for a decade.  More than a third of our lives spent together*.    And still happy. *Together here being more metaphorical than physical as 6 of the ten years were long distance. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
2:31 pm	Adventures in New York Mike and I took a rode trip to New York to visit my brother.  Nothing like deciding to take a road trip when gas is $4.00 a gallon.  Ugh!  Anyway we stopped at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio on the way.  It was an awesome amusement park.  If you like amusement parks, it is the place to go!  Mike's been talking about going for almost as long as I've known him.  :)  They had something like 16 different roller coasters.  The lines weren't bad but it was raining some so  that delayed a few rides.  The only really long wait we had was for the ride called the dragster.   The ride kept breaking down and then stopping for rain.  We waited in line for 2 hours.  I think it was worth it though.  The ride goes from 0 to 120 in 3.5 sec.  Then it shoots you up in the air 410 feet over a little archway.  The catch is that it doesn't always make it over the archway.  If it doesn't, you go back down the ride backwards and they shoot you up again.  That happened to us.  :)  We then went on to visit my brother in Hamilton, NY.  My new nephew Eli was adorable as was Naomi (who is almost 3 now).  We visited the Syracuse zoo and just hung out at his house.  He's got a beautiful property on 15 acres.  Our next stop was Niagara falls.  It was both of our first times there and was definitely worth the stop.  I'll post pictures on facebook soon.  We stayed the night in London, Ontario, Canada, so we also added another country to our "visited" lists.  The next day we drove along Lake Huron to Mackinaw City, Michigan.  We were supposed to be staying at what was listed as a three star resort.  It looked like it was going to be a great place, especially for only $60.  I guess the "Bingo and exercise classes" should have been a clue.  When we arrived, the first sign we saw was for Cedarbrook retirement community.  We pondered whether we were in the right location and finally determined it was the correct address.  A lady in scrubs with a tray of meds came down and said someone would check us in shortly.  So we ended up spending the night in a retirement home/hotel.  The place was a real dive.  It smelled and everything was really run down.  I guess you do get what you pay for.  Now we're back home and gardening like crazy. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
11:14 am	Lies, Damn lies, and Brothers-in-law People make me crazy. Especially people that send you forwards. I wonder if I sent out an e-mail to the people that send me forwards that said President Bush just passed a bill to remove gullible from the dictionary, whether they would pass it on to "everyone in their addressbook". I hate to break it to you guys, but Mars will not be the closest it has ever been this August (as big as the moon!). Glade plug-ins do not cause house fires (or at least not more than any other electrical product). And finally, you will not have a horrible curse on all of you family if you do not send the forward on. This morning I checked my e-mail and found the following about social security and those rascally democrats. ( Social Security E-mail ) Now I should note that this was sent been my staunchly Republican brother-in-law who knows that I am a democrat. I should also note that this is the same man who, when I told him my research topics, sarcastically commented "there's our tax money at work".  If the tone of the forward hadn't been so obnoxious, I might have just left it or only sent my reply to the b-i-l. However, I figured that since he thought it was his duty to "educate" the people he sent this to. That I too should educate them. So I sent them this link that indicates most of the statements are bogus.  So the moral of the story is...  if you don't want someone to make you look like a pud (Thanks for the appropriate word Miranda), check your facts before you send a forward on!   (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
5:00 pm	The prodigal coat The prodigal coat has returned!  After it's journey into another's life, it smells like Vaseline hand lotion...   (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 9th, 2008
7:58 am	Dear person who stole my winter coat,         I am sad and cold.  Please bring it back. Love, Me (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
11:43 am	Random facts for the day... Black dogs get attacked more by other dogs than other colors.  If you get people thinking about things related to old age, they walk slower and are more hunched. Elephants have 6 sets of teeth in their lifetime.  After the 6th set is gone, they die. It takes around 2.5 years for a solar panel to "work off" the amount of energy used to make it. If you ask people for an unusual amount of money (e.g., $0.58), they are more likely to give it to you than if you asked for a normal amount (e.g., $0.25). Strippers get more money (on average $75/hr) when they are ovulating than when they are not ovulating ($50/hr) or when they are menstruating ($35/hr). Now aren't you glad you read this?  :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 19th, 2008
10:11 am	The Ten Things I Love About Minnesota Winters 10.  I always feel like a penguin with my puffy coat and mittens on.  Penguins are totally cute. 9.  You only have to see 1 inch of anyone's body (a small strip around the eyes) so there's no need for make-up. 8.  No runny noses when the snot freezes in your nostrils. 7.  You can't shave your legs because you would be at a greater risk of freezing to death. 6.  It's really funny to watch the dogs try to go to the bathroom without keeping any one foot down longer than a few seconds.  5.  There's always an excuse for hot chocolate. 4.  There are free ice rinks on every block (or nearly so). 3.  With 12 layers on, no one can see those extra Christmas pounds you put on. 2.  Who needs bluetooth? With tight stocking caps, you just attach the phone to your ear with your hat.  Lot's of money saved.  (I've now seen two people sporting this attractive look) 1.  You have to curl up with another warm body just to conserve heat.  :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
9:34 am	You know it's going to be a bad week when you get up and the weather man says "It's -2 outside today but just wait until later on this week when it's going to be really cold."   *cries* (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 13th, 2007
9:32 am	You can has kitty? I'm looking for someone to take care of my cat from Dec. 22nd-Jan 5th. This would not require you coming to my house daily...  maybe every 2-3 days.  We would be happy to pay you a small amount for coming.  It would just be filling up food bowls and scooping litter.  Is anyone going to be around and able to do this?  We are a little desperate because our neighbor who usually does it had to cancel on us.  If you do not have pets (I'm not sure she'd get along with your critters), it might be possible to even take her to your place for the 2 weeks.  She is very mellow and sweet.  She's also really cute.   Thanks in advance. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
1:50 pm	Yay me! So since my last post I have finally become an ABD (all but dissertation) graduate student.  I passed my written and oral exam after much crying and gnashing of teeth.  Even more exciting I have now lost 38 lbs since January.  That is 18% of my original weight.  It amazes me because I never really thought that I could lose that much.  Nor did I think I could maintain it.  I know that I can now.  I really think that my weight loss took into account a lot of things that I learned in animal learning and behavior.  The first is shaping.  Shaping is the idea that it is very difficult to get an entire behavior from an animal (like playing dead).  Instead it says that you should break down the behavior into smaller pieces and work to get the final behavior by building it up slowly (teaching a dog to lie down first and then to lay on its side).  I think the problem with most diets is that they have the assumption that you will change your behavior overnight or never.  I took the approach of slowly decreasing what I ate.  There was no sudden change in my eating patterns so I never felt deprived or hungry.  The small steps made a big difference though.  Most importantly, I am doing nothing that I could not keep doing for the rest of my life.  When I got on the South Beach bandwagon for a brief time, I always knew that it was not something I could keep doing.  You are not going to live your life without any carbs (unless you really have to for some reason).  And really...  why deprive yourself of chocolate?  :)  I also used the Premack principle which requires you to do something that you don't do much in order to have the opportunity to do something that you really like.  So in my case, I let myself eat donuts but only if I had burned a donut's worth of calories already that day.  This helped me to increase my exercise (which I now enjoy for its own sake).  Sadly, this means that I need to buy all new clothes...  hopefully I'll get to that after Christmas sometime.  Until then...  belts! Current Mood: jubilant (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 10th, 2007
5:31 pm	Out out damn wasp So we have a wasp problem.  We've had a colony of wasps that have been living in our concrete step.  Now I must say that this is a very good place to live if you are a wasp because it is nearly impossible to spray wasp killer into the tiny crack.  I was okay with the wasps for a little while, but then we were dog sitting and the dog got stung by a wasp and swelled up like a balloon.  A couple of weeks later, Calla got stung by a wasp too.  Mike and I decided to caulk the step with concrete caulking to prevent the wasps from nesting there.  We caulked it up and the next morning we saw about 15 wasps trying to enter the step.  We were curious about how they got out but didn't think about it too much.  We sprayed the ones that were there with wasp killer and left them.  Last night I was walking around with bare feet and stepped on a wasp in our basement.  It stung me twice between the toes.  Now let me tell you, I've been stung by bees and other wasps a few times, but nothing has compared to this.  I don't know if it was the double sting or the depth of the sting or that the bee stings sensitized me to the wasp sting.  It hurt like bloody hell.  We also discovered about 15 dead wasps on the floor in our basement.  We closed the window and vaccuumed the dead wasps.  I tried every home remedy I could find.  I put vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, neosporin, and cortaid on it (not all at the same time).  I took benadryl and ibuprofen.  I iced it.  The ice and lemon juice were both effective for short durations (about 30 minutes) which meant that I spent the night drifting off for 30 minutes and then waking up to excruciating pain, getting up and replacing the ice.  I got about 1.5 hours of sleep last night.  Today I discovered more wasps.  Turns out the hole in the step opens into our basement.  So we have wasps flying around our house.  I think I might have sprayed it enough to kill them now.  I hope!   (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
1:19 pm	Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Graduating So what have I been up to this past month?  I have been writing a 60 page paper!  I spent most of July and part of August reading and writing my specials paper (aka prelims).  I have about 2 more  rewrites to do before I'm done(ish).  In October I will defend my prelims!  Other than devoting my life to writing, I've been getting my class ready for the semester and reading.  I finished Harry Potter 7.  Was mostly pleased.  I also ventured into Margaret Atwood.  I read the Handmaid's Tale.  It's good but very disturbing (probably because it could so easily come true!).  Now I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman (the author of Stardust) and Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende.  Miranda, if you haven't read it, I think you'd like Eva Luna.  Yes I read two books at one time.  One I read in print before bed and the other I download to my  ipod to listen while I walk to school or work out.  I finally got a new bike seat!   It only took 5 years, but I've got it now.  Actually, my friend stole it out of the dumpster.  It's a perfect seat though!  I got a tune up and have been riding a lot lately.  Next week I'm going to see how long it takes me to ride to school.  Hopefully that's something I can do a few days a week.  Mike also got a new bike so that we can ride together.  So speaking of working out and riding bikes, I've now lost 25 lbs since March!   None of my clothes fit now, which is kind of sad and kind of happy at the same time.  I don't want to buy new clothes though because I think I can lose another 25 lbs or so.   Instead I've been ripping apart my jeans and resewing them smaller (with some added decoration).  This year I'm going to become an aunt x2.  Both Mike's sister and my brother are having second children.  Babies everywhere!  I guess that's about it for my update. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 2nd, 2007
5:05 pm	Exploitation (a rant) So I know a lot of vegetarians.  Some are happy to make their own personal choice about food and to leave everyone else alone, but many others are out to convert the world.  Many of these same people also look down upon my work in animal research.  First if you think animal research is unnecessary, you are deluding yourself.  Without animal research, you would have no progress in the medical field.  Progress on developing new drugs would come to a standstill and our knowledge of the brain would be greatly diminished.  This is not to say that all animal research is necessary for human survival, but keep in mind that much of what we know has come from animal research.  Often times the research informs people in areas that are completely unexpected from the experiment outset.  Any institution that receives any government funding must conform to animal welfare standards (this means ALL universities).  Animal welfare guidelines are actually fairly strict and are reviewed by a committee that includes both scientists and non-scientists.  These guidelines in most cases insure the ethical treatment of animals.  Interestingly, the ethical guidelines for animals have been in place longer than those for humans at many institutions.   A person that I know was very disapproving of my research and also commented to me about how much she disliked zoos because she felt sad for the animals in cages.  This person owns a parakeet.  I wondered whether she felt bad for her poor little bird in its cage.  Which is worse the use of animals to promote conservation (which is the goal of all AZA zoos) or the keeping of a pet for one's own personal pleasure?  Does she think the bird is unhappy?  If not, then why are the animals at the zoo thought to be unhappy?  My suspicion is that if you opened all the cages at the zoo, 75% of the animals would stay or return to their exhibits.  Are feral dogs and cats happier than the pets we lock in our house and yard?  Life is tough.  At a zoo, as a pet, or in research, the animals are provided food and shelter.  These are some of the toughest things to get in the wild.  The average life span of an animal in the wild is half that of an animal in captivity.  Is it really better for the mouse to be torn to pieces by an owl than to be painlessly euthanized in a lab?  Do they have a better life starving in the search for food?  Would animals really choose freedom over an "easy" life?  People have done studies of repeat criminal offenders...  some of them have spent time in the "real" world and struggled...  they can't keep jobs so they start to get hungry...  they choose to go back to jail where they have food and shelter.   Also recall that dogs were once wolves.  In a sense, they gave up some of their freedoms for an easy meal at human campfires.  Are we cruelly taking animals from where they should be to trap them in cages or are we putting them up in penthouse suites?  In truth, this probably depends on a lot of things...  the animal, the environment, etc. We use animals for many things just like we use other resources in the environment.  All living things exploit their environment to survive.  Does it necessarily make it right? No of course not, but it also isn't necessarily wrong either.  We are omnivores.  Our bodies were made to consume meat.  If you choose not to, fine.  If you choose to, that is also fine.  It's certainly true that we are consuming way more meat that we need to or should.  Just look at obesity and cholesterol levels!  I do believe that all animals deserve to be treated humanely.  I think that they should have good living conditions.  I do not think everyone should become a vegetarian.  I like to eat meat.  I have always liked predator animals better than prey animals so I long ago came to grips with consuming other animals.  Most animals kill in quite brutal ways.  Guess what, this is life!  It's survival of the fittest.  We have the option to kill animals humanely so we do.  This puts some people at ease, but is not enough for others...  This is a personal decision though.  Ethics are personal!  Additionally, ethics are a luxury of those who are not trying to survive.  You will never convince the rancher not to kill the wolf if his livelihood depends on the sheep.  All good conservationists understand this and try to come up with clever ways to save the wolf without sacrificing the rancher.   Bad ones like PETA...  just preach about how evil the rancher is to even have sheep in the first place...    Now I'm just rambling...  Grrr.... Current Mood: irritated (6 Comments |Comment on this)