100th Post!

This is The Nine Lives of Kat's 100th blog post! To celebrate I think this post should contain (or explain) some of my favorite subjects. These are the subjects that seem define my thoughts and activities over the last year or so. There just happen to be nine. I think you can say that between them all, I'll pretty much sum up my life.

1.) Fish- I am studying to be a fisheries biologist and it is no secrete that I find fish amusing and facilitation. My thesis topic is coho salmon juvenile life histories. Below you will find a picture of a lovely dead coho salmon; I have handled many of these over the course of my career and graduate studies, and will no doubt handle many more for the remainder of my life. I suppose you could say I was a very lucky lady! So why am I interested in other kinds of fish? Isn't one really awesome species of fish enough to be obsessed with? Maybe I just have an obsessive personality, but I love learning interesting things about interesting organisms, and, in my opinion, fish have the most widely interesting range of evolutionary derived characteristics and adaptions.

Each time I learn something new about fish, I think it is wonderful and amazing, and I tend to want to share it with people. By sharing I hope that they find it wonderful and amazing too! This has become a pattern, and I bet it will continue for the rest of my life. *hopefully*

2.) Crafts- I love doing crafts. I don't get as much time to devote to these as I would like, so lately I haven't been able to post as many "Look What I Made" blogs. But rest assured they will eventually return. I have a very long list of crochet projects to make, pictures to paint, mixed medium art to attempt  and various other craft projects to devote time to... when I get the time. Right now all my materials are in a different city than I am, and I'm renting a room that doesn't have room for many projects. As soon as my living situation settles down and I get a real place to live, the crafting blog post will make a return. I just can't help bragging about what I make. Even when what I am making occasionally leaves a little to be desired.

3.) Nature- I am a nature girl. I've always been drawn to the natural world, mostly to the forest and the beach. When I was a very little girl I wanted to grow up to be a mermaid or a fairy. Now that I am older I figure a fish biologist is a pretty close compromise. (Don't tell any male field biologists you happen to know that I think their job could be done by a fairy.) My nature love is mostly expressed by hiking and taking random pictures of trees that I think look awesome. In the past I have enjoyed backpacking and kayaking trips and plan to do much more of those in the future.

4.) Food- Who doesn't like food!? I love food. I'm a kind of picky eater since I don't eat meat. But being a picky eater has make me appreciate a greater variety of food than I did before I stopped eating meat (Almost 7 years ago now!) I love to experiment with baking and cooking, and really enjoy eating out at a variety of different places as well. I get happy when I find something new and tasty so I like to share that with people.

5.) Books- I like to read a lot. I don't get enough time to read as much as I would like to, but that doesn't stop me from acquiring books to read when I might have that time in the future. I like to keep track of what I read and occasionally share books that I find interesting or engaging.

6.) Nesting- One of my number one dreams for the future is to own a house with a deck and a yard where I can have a garden. I spend way too much of my free time dreaming about this imaginary future house, and it's imaginary future garden. Until a time that actually happens, I've been collecting ideas for home decorating and gardening. I call this my nesting instinct, and I have it bad!

7.) Awesome Pictures- I really love to post awesome pictures  and maybe my favorite pictures to post are supper cute adorable animals. I might just be saying that  now, I love all kinds of awesome pictures equally, but just happened to find this baby hedgehog picture, and wanted to include it in my 100th post!

8.) Working out - Because of my love for number 4 I've made a real effort to continue and expand my love for exercising. Mostly this is in the form of running and yoga.
Running- I've signed up for a half marathon training class for next term and am looking forward to what I can learn from that class!

Yoga-I've taken one term of yoga and plan to take another class next term. I think the awareness of my body and my increase in flexibility are great benefits.

9.) Science-All around science is awesome.  Enough said.

With the 100th post and the time I took to sit down and actually split my life up into  9 "lives" I've introduced labels to my blog. From now on (maybe) I will be including labels on each of my blogs (or trying to when I think about it) that will categorize the blog post into one of the nine subjects outlined here. I will try to keep it at nine, but can see a time in the future where I might have more interests and thus more labels!

Five Optimistic Fish

I've been in need of an uplifting exercise and thought some optimist fish stories would be fun to share. During class today I brainstormed five different instances of fish behavior that I found optimistic. I was able to do this and still pay attention, in case you were wondering, number two just happened to be the topic of the lecture.

1. Elephant Nose Fish are some bainy fish, they can be trained to do tricks, and are the only fish to conclusively show play behavior. If a ball is dropped into their cage they will bat it around with their nose, apparently just for fun. Plus... isn't that nose super cute!

2. Cleaner Wrasses - The Mahatma Gandhi of the fish world. "Peace is its own reward." - Mahatma Gandhi

These adorable little fish provide a service to everyone on the coral reef. They hang out at "cleaning" stations, and large predator fish of all kinds line up to get cleaned. The Cleaner Wrasses pick parasites off of the larger fishes body, even inside the mouth of the predator, all without ever getting eaten itself. They are so important to the ecosystem that if they are removed from the reef, biodiversity goes down as larger fish leave to go find a reef that still has cleaning stations.  

3. True love last forever. Most fish release their gametes willy nilly into the water without much thought to mate choice. Courtship behavior is seen in a lot of fish, but only for the duration of the matting. After mating both parties goes their respective way, then hook up with the next fish on the reef. But the Deep Sea Angler Fish has none of that callousness going on. Male fish swim great lengths to find a female at the great depths of the deep deep sea, and once they find her they are not going to let her go. Instead they attach themselves to her body, in a true-love-lasts-forever scenario, and become the only species of fish to mate for life (as long as you exclude fish that only mate once, and I am.)

4. Parenting behavior in fish is one of those things that I find really remarkable. There are many instances of fish protecting and caring around their eggs, or even staying involved after they hatch by protecting the babies until they grow big enough to fend for themselves. My favorite are the cases where the males are the parents providing for the offspring, especially the seahorses, because the pregnant males seem so cute. One of these days I would love to write a book posing an alternative human society where the males of our species carried the children and provided human babies with their post-conception care.

5. Shrimp and Goby Fish will live together and find the situation mutually beneficial. Shrimp have very poor eyesight (and this sucks when very big things want to eat you) but they are great at digging and make awesome homes. Goby Fish have great visual abilities to see food or predators, but don't always have a place to flee too. The two organisms have developed a great partnership, where the shrimp will dig a hole large enough for itself an a Goby Fish friend. The Goby will then set outside the nest an keep watch for the shrimp. The shrimp uses its antennas to stay in contact with the fish, and when the fish sees a predator and bolts, the shrimp know it's time to go into hiding too. Both then flee to safety in the cozy den dug by the shrimp.

And they lived happily ever after!

To be continued with part two... "Pessimistic fish behavior" - Lying, cheating, and steeling happens to fish too. 

One Year Anniversary of Nine Lives!

11.9.11 - First blog in Nine Lives of Kat

This one year anniversary gives me a good opportunity for reflection. I started this blog to give myself an outlet for self-expression as well as an opportunity to explore thoughts on aspects of my life outside of work and studies. Through the year I was occasionally successful at this. Blogging has been very relaxing, and I'm looking forward to continuing. I hope to post even more in the future about the many different kind of  things that I find interesting.

Throughout this year I've regretted deleting my old Livejournal blog (and my Myspace). There are so many posts I remember putting together for it that I would have liked to revisit. I've learned a lot since that time about things that are and are not appropriate to put on the internet. I look forward to creating more diverse and interesting blogs to scrapbook my interests for the future. I'll probably create a lot of boring and uninteresting blogs as well, so if you are one of my three regular readers I apologies in advance.

You are all awesome!

And I am as awesome as THIS GUY!

Boozy Fruit

I'll admit that this project is 100% an experiment and I have no idea how they will turn out. My father has some grape vines that are doing splendid this year, so I picked a large batch and was thinking of ways I might be able to preserve them. I stumbled upon a "Brandy grapes" idea that I thought I would try.

Grapes!

I added the grapes to Mason Jars and decided to experiment. Some jars I added sugar to, and some jars no sugar. I added mulling spices to a couple jars. And one jar is full of spiced Rum instead of Brandy.

Brandy Grapes in Jars 

Grapes in Jars Before Brandy 

Even if they don't turn out I guess they will look pretty setting on my shelves for a while. According to the internet they will take around three months before they are "done". I think the worst-case scenario is that I filter the solids out and have flavored alcohol.

Vodka Pomegranates! 

While I was experimenting I decided to try some smaller jars of Vodka soaked Pomegranates. I sure hope these turn out well!

Neat Tree

I was walking through a nature hike loop when I found this area. It was full of the neatest looking trees! I don't know what makes these growth like this, but they sure give the trees personality! 

I want this one in my front yard!

They remind me of really old ladies with saggy bulgy bodies. They looked comfortable, like my grandma. If a tree was ever going to set you down and give you home made cookies, these trees would do it.

First Half Marathon

Today I ran a half marathon for the first time. That's 13.2 miles. I'm pretty impressed with myself. This was the Runaway Pumpkin Half Marathon which raised money to benefit ABC House. My plan is to train all winter, run another half marathon next spring, and hope to see improvement! 

I'm impressed with Matt and TJ because they finished too! 

Here are my stats!

Time: 2:02:41
Pace: 9:22
Place: 242/840
Female 30-34 Division Place: 22/88
Female Place: 111/588

Stormy Sky

I just thought that the look of this sky over the empty field was amazing. My camera didn't quite capture everything that was going on up there. But I think it conveys enough of the idea that it is still worth sharing.

Frogs at Finley

One day hiking out at Finley I found this beaver dam! The dam is the biggest one on this small creek, and it had a little pool behind it, where the rest of the creek is dry. These pictures are from a few weeks ago, when Corvallis hadn't had any rain for months. The pool is only an inch or so deep, and just chalked full of huge tadpoles. 

I fond the tadpole situation amusing and depressing, they were all clinging to life in a shrinking pool with no chance unless it rained soon. As amazing as it was to see so many in one spot, I really felt bad for the little guys too. I am happy to report that just a few days later the rains hit, and now they are all swimming around happy in a much bigger pool.  Now that I know these tadpoles lived to tell their tail, and the pictures aren't foreshadowing a mass pond extension I though I would share them with the world.  

The Beaver Dam

Tadpole picture #1

Tadpole picture #2 

Here is a video that gives you a better idea of just how shallow the water was. These guys literally had nowhere to go. 

Reflections

I took these pictures of trees reflected in a still puddle. They put me in a reflective mood, and in that kind of mood I like to search for quotes. These are the ones I found today that resonate with me in some way. 

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?” 

― Bill Watterson

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” 

― Søren Kierkegaard

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” 

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“There is music in words, and it can be heard you know, by thinking.” 

― E.L. Doctorow, Homer & Langley

“The girl in the mirror wasn't who I wanted to be and her life wasn't the one I wanted to have.” 

― Francesca Lia Block, Pink Smog

“A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

A Walk Through The Woods

Just a few quick pictures from a nature walk today at Finley. 

I love the look of this boardwalk heading off through the trees now that most of the leaves have fallen. 

 The snake is a Rubber Boa, which I had never seen or heard of before. The day was really cold so we were able to play with it a bit before encouraging it off the path into some grass where it would likely be safer. 

I also got to see an old bear den and an old elk carcass that had been brought down by some kind of predator! It was a pretty exciting day our there.  

Ig Nobel Prizes

It's Nobel Prize time again, and that always reminds me to check out the Ig Nobel prizes, a parody of the Nobel Prize. I haven't  read much about the real winners of the Nobel Prize yet, but I did look up the 2012 winners of the Ig Nobel prizes. The Ig Nobel prizes go to scientist for achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.

I picked the three I liked the best to share here.

The prize in literature went to the US government accountability office for a report called "Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Coasts of Reports and Studies." As the Ig Nobel people said
"for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports." Sounds like the government to me.

The prize in neuroscience went to five psychologists for the paper titled: Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction  for "demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere — even in a dead salmon." I have extensive experience with dead salmon, and also thanks to my statistics classes, know the importance of correcting for multiple comparisons. This paper was a smart way to point out how important those statistical corrections are when you are doing science.

My favorite prize was the anatomy prize. It went to a couple of researchers from the US and the Netherlands who published a paper with the gripping title: Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception. They showed that 'chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually from seeing photographs of their rear ends." I'm a sort of armchair anthropologist with a slight obsession with primates and human evolution so I found this article really thought provoking. I actually recommend reading this one, especially the introduction and discussion.

Finley National Wildlife Refuge

Finley National Wildlife Refuge is located just south of Corvallis. It is the location that the Field Studies class I am involved with travels to to conduct their field research. They mostly proved habitats for water birds, especially the Canadian Geese, but the area has been teaming with interesting wildlife each time we have visited.

I ended up getting swarmed by yellow jackets as I was taking this picture. Not the most serine view you can imagine.  

I'm excited about spending one day a week out there for the rest of the term, and am happily bringing my camera along to capture any memorable moments. I've also just learned I will have the same position through the winter, so I will be able to see the refuge change as the seasons change.

First Day Biking to School

For the past month I've been walking to work/school in the mornings. This was the first time I've lived close enough to my destination for self transportation since I was in college the first time (easily 7 years ago now, where does that time go!) I've been enjoying the experience immensely. The commute is two miles each direction and takes me just shy of half an hour walking. The time commitment didn't seem that harsh since I use to drive a hour each way, and I've been benefiting form the extra exercise.

With fall showing up, and the temperature dropping dramatically in the morning, walking has gotten a little less relaxing and so today I took the leap and jumped on my 'new' bike for the first time. I say 'new' because its about a year old. Last January TJ and I hung out in Eugene and got our bikes. At the time I was suffering for intense knee pain, and was worried I would not be able to start running seriously again. Since that time I've only ridden a hand full of times, and still find it a little awkward in traffic. Riding to campus this morning was a fun experience, and I know I'll get more comfortable with practice. I'm excited about being a bike commuter!

Moon Tree

Oregon State University has a moon tree on campus! I found out about this for the first time when I was here as an undergrad in 2003. I read an article on the NASA's Moon Tree Page about a the moon trees and trying to locate them, and was surprised to find that there was one right here in Corvallis. The article had a brief description about the location of the tree, and I had looked for the tree at the time. I wasn't ever sure I had found the right one, since it wasn't labeled (you would have thought it would have a label!) 

Well that was almost a decade ago! And things have changed since then! When I was telling Eric about the Moon Tree when he visited this week, he said he wanted to go see if he could find it too. Well it was much easier to be sure this time around, since the have a plaque and everything now! The reason for the new plaque is that OSU is dedicating theirs next week! 

Eric and I spend some taking pictures of each other in front of the tree. It was fun, but the light was all wrong, and ended up with a lot of the tree halo effect, which I thought was hilarious.