Category: Colorado

Even toys like spring

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It’s starting to feel a lot like spring here! The birds are singing in the mornings, the sun is looking less winter-y and the trees are getting buds on them. Yesterday, Cobalt and I went for a walk and I didn’t have to wear a jacket! To show off the lovely spring weather we’re getting, I thought I would post some silly pictures of inanimate objects enjoying the sun. The picture up there shows off a horse I found on our walk. PS – If anyone is missing their plastic purple horse, I found it.

This past weekend, Cobalt and I were visiting our friends in Boulder. The weather was pretty much the same as in eastern Washington except slightly more dry. We celebrated the spring weather there by playing on slides with our 19-month-old friend, going on walks with our older friends, eating lots of tasty food, going to see an amazing play and taking my stuffed taco on a trip to Chautauqua. :D

Do you have spring weather yet?

And it’s June!

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Hellllooooo everyone. Sorry I’ve been away forever. Part of it was lab/work but part of it was that I had been away for so long, it was hard to get back into it. Every time something cool happened to me, I thought “Oh ho! I should post this on my blog!” and then I thought “… but it’s not Tuesday and that is my day of posting and I just remembered I have this super important thing to do right now that may or may not actually be important but I have to do it right now and I’m lazy and I’ll just post something about it next Tuesday…” Well guess what – it’s Wednesday and I’m posting! Plus it’s summer and there are a lot of crazy things happening so I kind of have no excuse to post anymore.

So I thought I’d post a list today of some exciting things and then we’ll pick one of them for next week.

  • The Bolder Boulder is an annual 10K here in Boulder on Memorial Day. This year, Cobalt spend the spring getting in shape and then ran the whole thing in under an hour. Whoa! Call me impressed.
  • A dose of Science Policy, please! At the end of April, I got the opportunity to go to Washington DC to spend a day on Capitol Hill talking to the kind representatives and senators (read: mostly their staff members) from Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri about funding for NIH. The NIH, or National Institutes of Health, funds biomedical research and it (and its basic research friend, the National Science Foundation) gave me the funding to attend grad school, which was extremely useful. During my trip to the Hill, I got to be a scientist who knew statistics like 1) how many jobs the NIH funds in the Congressperson’s state/district and 2) how much money we spend to treat vicious diseases vs. how much we spend to do research on how to cure them. It was an amazing and inspiring experience and I loved every second of it. We young scientists were paired with Biochemistry faculty members from around the country. My faculty member and I had a Fitbit battle all day (lots of walking between House and Senate office buildings). I totally won but it might be because he was crazy tall and because I was in a suit with a skirt and had to take at least two steps for every one of his. Anyway, there’s clearly a lot to talk about here so I will post more on this in future posts.

    Potassium with Boulder’s representative, Jared Polis
  • Add to that a strong dose of Science Communication! Since the last time I wrote, I officially accepted a position in the UCSC Science Communication program for the fall! So Cobalt and I are moving to CA this September and I am (finally) gonna be a banana slug! I am excited and terrified all at the same time but I think it’s going to be a fun adventure. P.S. If any of y’all know anything about housing in the Santa Cruz area, any advice would be greatly appreciated! Stay tuned for fun updates coming from here soon!
  • Exploration part 1 (of ??)! Because Cobalt and I are escaping from Colorado this fall, we decided that we really need to make this last summer count and explore the whole state/area before we go. For those of you who don’t know, while Colorado is pretty nice year round (depending on your fondness for random snow storms any time between September and May), summer in Colorado is amazing. Our first adventure took place last week – we went down to NM to see some of our friends/Cobalt’s family and then headed up into southern CO to see Mesa Verde, Durango, and Telluride. Turns out that that part of Colorado is beautiful! Cobalt and I took the most ridiculous route back to maximize seeing prettiness. It was amazing. More posts on this soon too!

    Cobalt and I had fun taking pictures of Mesa Verde’s Cliff Palace through the lens of a viewfinder.
  • I started getting a monthly subscription to Scrawlr Box, which is an art supply box that comes from the UK. It’s awesome (and well worth the money)! Every month, I get cool pens/pencils/etc and a “Scrawlr Challenge,” which challenges to me actually use all my new stuff to create something! The challenges so far have been “Spontaneity” (which included tea to paint with!), “Manga Yourself” (which included a Gelly Roll pen woooo 7th grade!), and “Write ScrawlrBox” (which has been by far the most challenging for me but also the most fun). It’s been really inspiring and great for me to flex my creativity a little bit.

    This is the result of my “Write ScrawlerBox” Challenge. Let me know if you want to see the results of the other challenges (warning, there is definitely a shark theme).

Soooo what’s going on with you guys? Anything amazing lately? What trips do you have planned for this summer? What did you do for Memorial Day? Any of those things up there sound like something you want to learn more about? Vote for what I talk about first in the comments!

Spring Thoughts

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A Friday post?! No way!

Potassium and Tarantula pondering life one evening.

Hellloooooo everyone! I hope you are doing well! Sorry these posts started to get infrequent again – I wasn’t kidding when I said that adding teaching my class into the mix was going to make my life insane! But it’s almost spring break now and I am finally coming up for air.

Here are some things that are interesting me right now:

  • Mimivirus. This virus infects amoebas and can also cause pneumonia in humans. This virus is HUGE. You can see it under a light microscope (note: you can see most bacteria but NOT viruses this way). The mimivirus also has a huge genome. Most viruses have a few genes but the mimivirus has more genes than a lot of bacteria! Just a note, the HIV virus (causes AIDS) has ~10 genes while the mimivirus has ~1000 genes. What is it doing with all of them?! Who knows… but it has them!
    In addition, the mimivirus has its own “immune system” in that it has a system set up where it can recognize DNA from other viruses that might try to infect it (yeah… viruses can infect other viruses AHHHH! What is this ridiculous world that we live in?!). Bacteria also have systems like this to protect them against viral infections. This is all super interesting because the mimivirus and its family members (including an even BIGGER virus called the mamavirus) are challenging the idea that we scientists had of viruses not being “alive.” I can go more into that if you want – it’s kind of an interesting philosophical question except also with science.
  • Science rhetoric – that’s right. Let’s talk about how to talk about science. That’s like a million levels of nerdy in one sentence but still. It’s so interesting to me. I have been loving the class that I am co-teaching because it is opening my eyes to so many cool ways of talking about science! Plus I get to hang out with college students and have them debate things like: who is responsible for sharing science with the general public (all scientists? some scientists? journalists?, etc)?
  • Science Communication – Speaking of talking about science, I’ve been accepted to the Science Communication program at UC Santa Cruz! It just keeps getting better and better! It’s big decision time! Life is getting exciting and terrifying.
  • So Metal – This Tuesday my friend L and I drove down to Colorado Springs to see Nightwish and Delain in concert. There was much head-banging and jumping. Wednesday was a hard day…
  • Soccer – I finally got to play soccer last week. I’ve been having some major IT band and bursitis issues that were initially flared up by doing Insanity workouts last summer but I think they also initiated drama from an old soccer injury. But I got the OK from my PT to start soccer again and spring season started on Sunday. Our team lost 5-2 but I was so overjoyed about being able to play again that I barely noticed. Also I assisted on the second goal so WOOT.
  • Inclusive Excellence- It’s a big deal right now on CU’s campus as we try to shift the campus climate to be more inclusive and welcoming. I’ve been playing my part by drafting a document for the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee I serve on and by moderating a meeting between the Chancellor of the University (!!!) and the group I co-founded called CU Café.

Craziness… I swear I am still working in the lab on top of all of that!

Okay, let’s talk about some future posts. Do you have any preference? I could write about my life in general, life as a postdoc, previous trips (like how we went to Germany last October and I haven’t talked about it at all?!), race, cool science topics, science communication, etc. How’s your spring shaping up? We’re getting our traditional “pre spring break” snow storm right now… perfect because my PT has also cleared me to go snowboarding!

Tianjing and Jared got married (sneak peek)!!!!

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Hey everyone! Long time no see! Hopefully I’ll have some time to update you on all the fun going on in my life but for today, let’s celebrate my two dear friends Tianjing and Jared who got married last weekend at the Chapel at Red Rocks here in Colorado. It was a beautiful wedding on a beautiful day (the rain waited until we were safely inside for the reception) and I had the honor of being their photographer (along with my friend Jem!). Having a second photographer made all the difference compared to the first wedding I photographed where I was the sole photographer. I feel like Jem and I just waltzed in and took control of the situation by taking awesome pictures. I got to be extra bossy – not only did I tell Tianjing and Jared what to do, but I also requested shots from Jem too (we split up the work so that we had different lenses on our cameras to get a wide variety of shots without having any downtime to change lenses). Plus it was a lot of fun to be working with someone instead of just running the show by myself!

Aaaaaaanyway, let’s talk about the bride and groom! I’ve known Tianjing since the first week of our graduate program here in Colorado. Tianjing showed up late so she missed the annoying 2.5 weeks of orientation that we all had to go through but we were fast friends anyway – I think it was our combined love of eating and being silly that did the trick. Ever since then, we’ve been getting together randomly to cook or go out for delicious food (one example is our trip to Aspen)! One day when we bumped into each other in the Cell Culture Facility at school, Tianjing told me she’d met a guy…. As she told me more and more about him, I knew he had to be someone special and I couldn’t wait to meet him! I finally did and as I sat across the table from Tianjing and Jared at a Korean BBQ place, I couldn’t believe how perfect they were for each other. I had this thought over and over again pretty much every time we hung out after that and it was definitely at the forefront of my mind on their wedding day.

I truly enjoyed taking your pictures, guys. It was so fun capturing all the giggles, smiles, and kisses that made up your wedding day. I wish you two all the happiness in the world. :) Stay tuned for a deluge of pictures!



That’s it for your sneak peek, folks! I hope you enjoyed them. What’s that? You want just onnnneeee more? Okay….

Eric and Clara got married (sneak peak)!!!

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This weekend, my friends Clara and Eric got married! Eric works in the lab next to ours and has helped me a lot with my complicated data analysis problems and Clara is his crafty bride. Every time I see her, she is making something awesome (a new wallet, cute stuffed mice for the children she nannies for, etc etc etc). One time, Clara and I escaped from a party to go to Michael’s Crafts and get painting supplies. It was an awesome adventure. Anyway, there’s something special about these wedding photos I’m sharing with you today. I often bring my fatty DSLR to weddings to take pictures of the bride and groom but this time Eric and Clara asked me to be their official wedding photographer! WOW! So Cobalt and I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park this past Saturday with my DSLR and all three of my lenses! It was epic – generally I think photographers get more than 2 days notice about photographing people’s weddings so this one was a lot of playing everything by ear and herding family and bridal party members around to make sure I got pictures that I thought Eric and Clara would want. Overall I think it went smoothly – it was a beautiful day at the park and Eric and Clara were so happy and fun to photograph. They had a short ceremony in the morning and the rest of the day was spent frolicking with family and friends (and lots of eating). It was a great day and I feel so honored that I got to be such a big part of it!

Now onto the pictures! I took over a thousand pictures that I am going to be slowly editing when I need a break from science this summer but for now here is a sneak peak so you can see for yourself how beautiful this day was! :)





Because this was my first wedding ever, I thought I would write a little about my experience and give (myself and anyone else who is interested) some reminders/tips. First of all, I LOVED photographing the wedding. I’m not going to lie; it was kind of fun being bossy to get everyone positioned for pictures. Also, I relished all the thinking I had to do about poses, lighting, where I should be, etc. I was so happy and in my element being creative!

Finally, two lists to sum up my reminders/tips:

First: what to bring for a “survival kit.” I brought bandaids, tissues, water, and hair clips. I should have also brought sunscreen because we all fried to a crisp out there. >_<

Second: some things I think will be important to remember when prepping to photograph a wedding/engagement session.

  1. Get to know the bride and groom – I think this was easy for me because I work with Eric and I see Clara a lot too. This is really important though because I want to take pictures that capture the couple’s essence and I want to put them into poses that seem natural for their personalities
  2. Ask the bride and groom beforehand for certain pictures that they definitely want – this part caused some stress on my part during this wedding because I didn’t know which family members had come and I didn’t know who wanted to be photographed with whom. Also I think if the bride and groom and the photographer have an idea about the “set list” before the wedding, it helps the photographer plan the shots and the timing needed to get all of them beforehand.

That’s all! I hope you liked the pictures! I can’t wait to photograph more weddings/engagements/special events! Let me know if you want me to do something for you! :D

Family trip to the zoo!

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Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well! Last weekend, my sis in law and the kiddos came up to spend their spring break with Cobalt and me! Cobalt and I had to work a lot of the time but on Friday, we both took the day off and everyone went to the Denver zoo! It seems that everyone else in the state of Colorado wanted to go to the zoo on Friday too because it was packed. I think it was because it was one of the first really nice days of spring…

Once we finally made it to the zoo (after parking a half mile away), my SIL and I both broke out the big cameras. It was fun having a camera partner in crime! My niece and nephew kept stealing my phone so they could share in the picture taking fun. Now I have a bunch of phone pictures from the zoo too. Anyway, it was a really fun time, though by the end I think we were all a little dehydrated and over-sunned so a nap was in order by the time we arrived back in Boulder… -_-

Above this text and below are some of my favorite pictures that I took at the zoo. Comments are of course included. :)

I really like this one because of all the reflections off the glass – and yet the kitty is still so in focus. I think it’s kind of artsy.

We have Canadian geese everywhere so this goose isn’t part of any exhibit in the zoo. I just liked that it has a little nest.

Peacocks were everywhere too – I think that is kind of standard in the zoo.

I liked this frog on the glass. Also I like that it looks like it’s saying “wut up?!”

I love cowfish. I also love this picture though I am also kind of mad at myself for cropping the fish’s tail….

I am apparently also obsessed with these cute little sharks. This one was fun to watch and its home is so colorful!

This is quite the orange frog! And it was just sitting there, waiting for my SIL and me to take its picture!

I loved this puffer fish. Such a silly grin on its face! :)

It was fun trying to catch these guys in flight!

More flying…

This bird is eyeing you suspiciously… what did you do?!

Tell me what you think! Do you have a favorite? What is your favorite animal to see in a zoo/aquarium? What is your opinion on zoos in general (this was an epic topic of discussion yesterday during my physical therapy appointment…)? Did anyone stay up late to watch the eclipse last night?

Cabination!

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Wow! It’s been forever since I posted again… Sorry you guys… this semester has been really busy what with trying to graduate and the hurt ankles and all… It’s been a rough month for this Potassium, that’s for sure.

Anyway, there have been some good things that I’ve been photographing and not posting so let’s talk about that! Last weekend, Cobalt and I went camping with our friends The Chocolate Pudding and her husband the Millionaire Space Accountant and J and her husband K for K’s birthday. Before you freak out about what kind of people would go camping in Colorado in March, let me tell you that by camping I mean sleeping in a warm cabin while it snows outside. Yay! So yeah, we drove up to the cabin on Friday evening and settled in for the night. The cabin had a firepit and a picnic table in front of it so we set about making delicious hobo packs for dinner. Yum!

Now the thing about TCP, MSA, J, K, and Cobalt and me is that we are pretty much the best of friends. We can talk forever! So we brought games and other activities but did we do any of them? Nope. Suddenly it was really late and J and I were falling asleep sitting up. So we went off to sleep in the comfy beds in our cabin! In the morning we were going to do some hiking/walking around for Potassium and her messed-up ankles but it started snowing like crazy right as we were packing up the cars (see that top picture!) so we ended up just leaving. Still it was a fun weekend and I can’t wait for more cabin/camping adventures as this year finally warms up a little.

Below are some of the pictures I took while everyone else was toasting marshmallows!

First up, we have K and J looking awesome with their headlights!

Now we have MSA roasting a marshmallow while TCP supervises. I like the way the fire illuminates their faces.

For this picture and the following two pictures we were playing with “light painting.” I put my camera on a tripod and then put the shutter on the “bulb” setting. With this setting, I tell the camera when to open and close the shutter so it’s really good for night time photography (especially star pictures… too bad it was cloudy for us…). Anyway, then we took K’s headlight and “painted” J and K with it while I had the camera shutter open. I think it has a really neat lighting effect. Also it’s a bit like taking pictures a long time ago because you can’t move while you are getting painted or you will be blurry…

After J and K’s picture turned out so well, we all wanted to try it!

MSA and TCP. :D

Now it’s your turn. Tell me about an adventure with your friends. Doesn’t have to be camping related though. I’m excited to hear your stories! Also, tell me what you want to hear me talk about! It’s been hard coming up with ideas lately when I am so busy/stressed out. Maybe we should have a “blast from the past” and I can talk more about my trips out of the country (France, Germany) last year? Let me know! :D

Everything is tired!

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Cobalt and his Andy Warhol Campbells Soup can puzzle from the Andy Warhol exhibit

Hey everyone! How are you? Sorry it’s been forever since I posted on here. Hopefully the following will help explain some of my absence. Two weekends ago, Cobalt and I went to Fort Collins, CO for a date day. It was a lot of fun! First we went to my favorite French restaurant for brunch. Mmmmm crêpes and macarons… Then we headed to the Fort Collins Museum of Art to see the Warhol Exhibit. Cobalt loves Andy Warhol’s art and it was cool to have him teach me all about screen printing! Later, I found a recipe book for making a variety of macarons. Mmmmm so excited to try those out! When we got back into town, we decided to do some bouldering at the climbing gym. That’s when the day took a tragic turn because on the last climb, I fell off the wall and ended up spraining not one, but both my ankles!

Ankles getting iced the night of the fall…

All last week was spent figuring out how to use crutches and getting over some serious pain (and a cold). The pain is a little better now but my ankles are still pretty swollen. Yesterday was my first day back in lab and it was epic. Just getting to the bus stop made me exhausted… Then we had a fire alarm in the middle of the day (my lab is on the 3rd floor…)! We’re supposed to have snow this afternoon so that should be interesting. Hopefully the swelling goes down soon so that my life can get back to normal… :(

Now it’s your turn. Tell me about a time you were injured. Did you ever sprain an ankle?! How did you deal with the pain? It’s funny, ever since I fell and hurt my ankles, all I have wanted to do was go for a run. Booo…

PS: In case you couldn’t tell, my post title is a play on the “Everything is Awesome!” song from the Lego Movie except it describes how I felt when Cobalt picked me up from lab yesterday…

Horses, plant homes, and more!

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This poor plant still isn’t doing so well but I really like this one flower…

Hey everyone! Looks like I’m sticking to this once a week on Wednesdays post schedule for a little bit. Life is crazy with trying to graduate and all…

A lot of stuff has been happening though so I’ll give you a mini update!

So first of all, two weeks ago, Cobalt and I made a plant home in our office! Look at those happy plantys!

Plants enjoying the last of a sunny day. Also pictured: a buffalo and Jörg the German sheep

Second of all, it’s been snowing a lot…. Not a fan. But at least this picture is pretty.

I’ll admit it. When the snowflakes look like this, I am still a little mesmerized by them. Even when I am grumpy about having to clean off my car to go to work…

Finally, last weekend, we made dumplings with some of our friends for the Chinese New Year! :D This year I got to learn how to make the wrappers too. It was fun rolling them out into perfect circles. I also love folding the dumplings into these cool shapes. This year we put almonds into a few for good luck. Because four of us making/eating the dumplings are hoping to graduate from grad school this year, we decided that eating a dumpling with an almond in it meant that we would definitely graduate this year. We all got almond-filled dumplings so hopefully we will all graduate! :D

Happy year of the horse!

Anyway, in science news, yesterday I finished the last of my repeats for the first part of my project! So minus a few tweaks or running the assays I designed for other people’s experiments, that means I am done with the first part. Now I finally get to focus on the more nebulous and less thought out second part of my project! Things are coming along (even though they are slow)!

Your turn. Tell me about life. It’s February! Is the weather looking any better there because it’s cold and snowy here… Did you watch the Superbowl last weekend? Got any Valentine’s Day plans for next week? Let’s discuss! :D

Celestial Seasonings and What Followed

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Hello everyone! I hope you had a great MLK weekend! I had a lot of fun with my SIL, her kiddos, and Cobalt. We went to IKEA (I’ve got a plant project… more on that later… like when I actually do the project), Cobalt’s favorite record store, our favorite bookstores, the park (it was so warm this weekend!), the movies and to Celestial Seasonings for a tour of their plant. That is where the above picture comes in: we all had to wear hairnets to go on the tour but Cobalt and the other bearded guys also had to wear beard nets… hahahaha. It was funny. We giggled at him a lot. Regardless, the tour is really cool! You should definitely check it out if you’re ever near Boulder (also, you need to visit me… duh)! After the tour, my niece and I got matching shark and whale finger puppets. :D I named mine Rosabaya and Arpeggio after two of my favorite Nespresso flavors (I know…. super nerdy all of a sudden)!

The shark and whale finger puppets hang out…

Anyway, that’s all for now. Things are busy as usual. At least my niece and nephew got to help me set up for Monday’s experiments Sunday night. We all had gloves on and I taught them how to set up everything. It was kind of amazing. Made Monday’s experiments way happier knowing that we set it all up together…

In other news, I’ve been working on making our lab webpage super awesome so when I finally get time to work on this blog, I am kind of tired of typing… So I apologize for posting lags…

What are you guys up to right now? How are those new years resolutions coming?