Super Mom

Spring/Summer has come quickly and with it lots of new business, which is fantastic. The only problem is I can only do so much by myself. Matt is set to join the business when he graduates, but that is still a month away. My first earthly priority has shown no interest in helping me again since her last Longscape outing. So I moved on to the other female in my life, my Mom. Never afraid of any task she stepped up to provide some much needed assistance. Without it, I simply could not have gotten the projects done. Thanks so much for help.

Pine straw has been on the docket a lot lately and so that is what I needed help with. She has now helped on three such jobs covering 1.5 days, one of which was the same that Rebecca helped with last year. On the first day we put out 95 bales between two yards. Today we added another 30 to our resume.

Lot of straw.

Client decided they wanted some shrubs removed before we put down straw.

Finished product.

What a trooper.

Who wouldn't want to help with this project?

And yes it is as steep as it looks.

All tuckered out.

Day in the Lab

This is what I going to deem a "Mom Post." Meaning, my Mom is probably the only person who will enjoy reading this. So if you're not my Mom just scan the pictures to see if anything looks interesting. The only reason I write this post is to look back at years down the road and remember what I did in grad school.

Part of my thesis involves using radioactive fructose. By using radioactive fructose I can apply it to the plants and then use machines to detect the radioactivity and thus determine if it is in the plant or where exactly it is in the plant. Radioactive particles give off a certain energy that is detectable that allows it to be used as a tracer. Through various methods such as washing, combusting, metabolizing, 14C samples can be collected into small vials filled with liquid scintillation cocktail solution. This scintillation cocktail gives off small flashes of lights when in the presence of radioactive particles. I then put the vials in a Liquid Scintillation Counter which takes each vial and counts the flashes. This gives us a numerical value of radioactivity. If we know how much we put on the plant, then we can say what percentage is in each location. There's a lot more to it, but this is the simple version. Thanks for reading Mom.

I was running some samples in the lab this morning and decided to take a picture of it. This is the Liquid Scintillation Counter.

Gulf Coast Triathlon

Its been a big weekend on several accounts. My whole side of the family including my grandparents are in Panama City Beach right now. The main reason we all came down was to watch Matt compete in the Gulf Coast Triathlon. The weekend also happened to be Mother's Day and me and Rebecca's one year anniversary. So we all came down to the beach for one big celebration. 

The race was on Saturday. It is a half-ironman which includes a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run. If you're ever crazy enough to want to do a full ironman, just double those numbers. Since doing my marathon back in 2006 I haven't done any major event and only a few minor ones. Usually going to watch other people briefly inspires me to want to compete again, but not this one. It just looked painful. Instead, Rebecca and I took up our seemingly normal role at these things, follow Matt around and take pictures at strategic locations, which will be interspersed in this entry. Not as exerting as doing the race but still takes effort. 

Matt's age group started the swim at 7:15. Fortunately the oil slick has not reached PCB and they still got to swim. It was overcast and windy and Matt so eloquently quoted George from Seinfeld by saying "The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli." The swim is out and back so you lose sight of them pretty quick. Dad brought the Whaler down and was out at the turn point to see if he could see Matt. Dad getting to watch us compete from his boat probably a high point for him in our family's sports history. The current must have been strong because some people were coming out a hundred yards down the beach from the "take-out" point. We heard lots of complaints of the difficulty of the sea from people coming out. Matt's quote was, "That was the worst thing ever, I almost killed myself."

We then moved to the road to watch him come by on his bike. G & G (Grandmother and Granddaddy) had strategically staked out a spot where they could see him come by 4 times without having to move. We watched him come by twice on the bike then Rebecca and I drove out to the 40 mile mark to get some more pictures. It was fun to watch all the bikers come by. Rebecca got to play with her new camera some and try some new effects. Matt's quote on the bike when he passed us was, "I'm going to blow by all these people on the bridge."

We got back to G & G's spot to watch him run. Most of the people coming by looked like they were having as much fun as going to the dentist and their gait was slightly above walking. Matt came by a little more spry than most and I told him he had a great time going. His quote at this point was, "I'm in it to win it baby!" 

We made our way to the finish line. The sun had come out by this point and it was pretty hot. Matt's finishing time was roughly 5 hours and 30 minutes. It was good enough for 6th place in his age group, something he was not expecting. 

We were all worn out from the day, even those of us who didn't compete. Rebecca was successful at getting some good pictures and I was highly successful at adding to my farmer's tan. 

No matter our level of exertion for the day we all came back to the condo and took a nap.