SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so it was really "snow flakes" ... about 10 of them ... Mother Nature brought them out special for Michael as he was trying to get the front brakes done on the Scout today. But, it was still pretty exciting. I am sure that on December 26th I'll be so sick of snow that I'll take to carrying a blow torch around the yard to get rid of as much of it as I can, but for now, it put a huge smile on my face. Again, I wasn't out side working on brakes, but even Michael was excited. Duke was stoked. He loves snow. The weiner dog... not so much. We took the dogs for their first ride in the Scout today, and I think that the weiner dog was actually trying to burrow under my outermost layers of skin. She is not ready for cold and yet she's about to get a hair cut. She keeps pooing on her fur and bringing her business back in the house with her... its disgusting. We've got a sweater back in Baltimore for her, but she never kept it on for more than about 20 seconds. I have a hunch she may be more agreeable as the temps drop here. The whole family needs new winter coats, including the dogs! I'd get them boots too if I thought they would keep them on. Duke probably would. He loves wearing clothes. Please don't ask me how I know that...

I love the Scout! Its going to be a perfect winter vehicle for me here. The thing drives like a tank, is even more solid that the mercedes was, and it makes you feel a bit invincible driving it. Good thing since I came within about a foot of hitting a dear the first time I drove it. While I'd love a NEW car as much as anyone, they really don't build them like they used to. It glides over these dirt roads like they are nothing, and it needs all of the things that a 32 year old vehicle is expected to need, but all but a few of them will wait for a restoration in the spring. And Michael says this international engine was built to last a million miles. I have a little over 900,000 to go if the odometer is right. Brakes are the highest priority. Michael got the front done today and will get to the back soon. It may be a LOT easier for him in a few days. We went to the tiny auto parts store in larimore today to get a part, and they have a huge shop space in the back for rent. The town is dying a bit and so the price is right (i.e. dirt cheap) if the lady was right about what her husband wants for it. We'll head in and talk to him tomorrow. Its big enough to pull the motorhome into to work on it this winter and anything else that we'd need. Plus, it has heat. :) It would allow him to keep doing all of the work on our vehicles and start a restoration project or two. There are no shortage of classic/vintage/really amazing vehicles sitting in peoples barns out here. I had no idea before I met Michael how much I love old cars, but apparently I do.

Anyway... back to the Scout. Brakes...and then four new winter tires and we'll be pretty good to go. Michael says it will need some exhaust work and a carb rebuild in the future. I'm just excited about the 4 wheel drive and the posi-traction rear end. (Do i sould like I know what all of that means? I don't actually know what posi-traction means, but i think its got it. :)).

Things are good with the lab. I've been busy trying to get the lab up and running. I made a HUGE mistake and placed a very large supply order at the beginning of September. Anything over a certain dollar amount has to go through purchasing and they did a competitive bidding process on all 34 line items. I am still waiting on the stuff, but they may have finally sorted out who gets to sell us what. A bit ridiculous since some of these were $5 items, but this is a state university, and since its one of the only states in the country operating in the black, I won't compain too hard about their penny pinching. Anyway, maybe by next week I'll get this first batch of supplies in! Then I will be able to really get to work. There are students rotating through now though and its pretty exciting for me. I'm working on recruiting a post-doc or a lab tech. I might just hire Michael for the job as he's been coming in with me and doing all of my cell culture anyway! He's gotten very good at it. My student contaminated his first bunch of cells, but Michael's have been consistently perfect. He tells me when i am being careless with cell culture now!

Getting the last of my research from Hopkins published has been a ridiculous nightmare, but I think we're about to resubmit the iPS story to Nature Medicine. Those of you who know how my last year there had been will understand when I say that 1500 miles does little to blunt a tyrant. It just gives them more room for their heads to swell and they take extra care to use a bigger, longer, sharper object to try and beat you down long distance. Am just trying to get through this and not burn any bridges. I've got bigger fish to fry anyway since its time to put my ideas to the test and see what kind of cash I can bring in to really jumpstart my research. I am just finishing my first online study section to review grants for the congressional lung cancer research program. It was a great experience as I am about to start submitting my own. It was a kind of Alice in Wonderland-esque experience to look at grants from the other side. Hopefully it'll help focus my writing.

We're hopefully heading back to Baltimore at the end of the month to finally get our stuff. It'll be nice to have a real bed again. Michael tells me we're going to have to brake down and get a TV to survive the winter. he's probably right, but I have kind of enjoyed not having one. (Shhhh... don't tell anyone.) I'm dreading the trip back and the move and the loading and unloading and unpacking and the whole nine yards. If I didn't have a bunch of sentimental stuff there, i would just leave it in a heart beat.

Ok, going to cut this short for the moment. I made swiss steak and mashed potatoes for dinner and both are about done. Hope it turned out....its late and we're hungry!

c

Random picture taken off of our dumpster back when the weather was real nice.



Took the tow mirror off of the passengers side and removed the headlight buckets to prep them for paint. Kind of like it without them, but prolly should put them back on at some point.



Sprayed the lower part of the truck with spray in bed liner for pickup truck beds. It is textured and dried hard, so it hides the rusty parts pretty good.



Amazing what $11 in quarters will do at the car wash.



This is the day after we brought it home. Notice the black stuff dating back to 2004 covering it?

More pictures! YAY! We picked up a 1977 International Scout II Traveler. It was cheap and runs. I need to clean the carb and get the new brakes on it. Rusty but Trusty. Thats the way things are up here though. Salt on the roads really rusts cars out. We are looking for a better body and we will have a decent looking/running scout. These internationals will last forever if you keep up on maintenance.

You will also see in the picture, the jeep has doors! It has been a cold ride up until now! They are original Jeep doors, so I have to move a bracket so they fit better, but at least I don't have to keep running outside to cover it up with the car cover from a Honda Prelude that came with the jeep! The Scout gets priority right now because Joy doesnt have a car since the Mercedes has been put away...for good. (well, looking for a good donor truck of some sort to transplant the diesel engine from the mercedes into).

Anyway, Hope everyone enjoys the pictures. Will post more when I get a little more time. While we have what is considered a broadband internet connection here, it is still not quite as fast and posting pictures takes about 10 minutes each set.

It is supposed to snow here on Thursday and Friday. Dosen't look like it is going to be a lot of snow, but its still snow! Weather here has been about the same as Michigan in the fall time, maybe just a little cooler this past week. Quite a temperature change though. Just last weekend, it was 80 and sunny and this past week it has been getting down in the 30s at night and 40-50 range during the day.

Well, technology hasn't been my friend as of late. I had my laptop hard drive fail on me and the desktop I have as a backup (hardly used) was acting up, so I haven't been keeping up on this.

I had a ton of pictures that I had dumped onto my hard drive on my laptop that I wasn't able to recover. I had to pull the laptop hard drive and I installed Ubuntu (Linux) on another laptop I had and was able to recover most of my important data, but not a lot of the newer pictures.

Anyway, It is Joy's birthday today and we went to her first auction! It was a lot of fun! We got an antique dresser, a smoker/grill, a stool (that I picked up because I was tired of standing at the auction and needed a place to sit), a water fountain thing and we got a few things for free. All for $30.00 We really needed the dresser so we don't have to hang as much up now. It had a small area on the top that had some water marks on it, so as soon as we got it home I sanded it down and we just got done putting new clear coat on it. See pics.

Other than that, things are about the same. Joy has been putting her lab together and has been doing a lot of reorganizing and cleaning up there. She has a student at her disposal now to help out and learn.

The weather has been pretty steady in the 80's during the day and getting down in the upper 50's at night. Could not ask for nicer fishing weather! I have caught a few decent sized Rainbow Trout in the Turtle River. On the other side of the field, we have access to the river which is actually walking distance (but I drive). It is a lot closer and there are a bunch of deeper areas in the river where the bigger fish have been hiding. I catch a ton of little Rainbows and Shiners every time I go, but only occasionally do I get a decent sized one. I am going to need to get a pair of waders here pretty soon to continue fly fishing. I have a pair of wading shoes that I have been wearing with shorts, but the water temp is getting pretty cool and I have noticed in the past week or two a decrease in water temperature.

The dogs are doing good. Duke has a new friend who's name happens to be Duke also. Gets kind of confusing when I am trying to get our Duke to come in the house when the other one is here. Duke has been spending a lot more time outside playing. The wiener dog is not amused by the other dogs because she feels threatened by them, thinking we will pet them and not her.

Well, here are some more pictures. Some of the sunsets here, some from fishing and some other random things.

Enjoy!

And Even More...

This is the old Philco 49-1609 radio we picked up for $10.00 in Larimore from the antiques lady. It is in good condition. I sanded the case all down and have restained it. I stained the lighter colored parts too, but do plan on going darker with them because it has too much red in it from the mahogany. I have the rest of the staining and varnishing to do on it and then I will replace the speaker grill cloth, cut some pieces for the back of the cubbys on the bottom. I am going to replace the 3 way input selector swith with a 5 way switch. (now it has phono, standard broadcast or AM and FM). The other 2 selections for it will be for an iPod and one for a satellite radio which will be great for those who want to experience the warmth of music being piped through the tubes combined with the clarity of the satellite radio or iPod. Will post more pics of it when I get it done.





YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!! WHY AREN'T YOU PETTING ME????

And Some More..

Some Cool Pics!

The weather here has been interesting.

Things have been going good except for the Mercedes on the road after it has been raining. We went into Grand Forks last Saturday and a transmission cooler line sprung a leak. We stopped at a small used car lot to look at some old cars and when we were walking back to the Mercedes, Joyce noticed transmission fluid pouring out. We got it to the auto parts store and I was lucky enough to have the correct size wrenches and allen wrench to do the job! I happened to have the tool kit for the diesel generator (which is still in Baltimore in storage) in the car. I was thinking of throwing the tool kit in with my tools and for some reason I left it in the car. I am very happy that I left it in there though. There is a hard line that goes from the transmission to the cooler in the front of the car and it is kept from vibrating by a strap to the oil pan. (which is held on by allen bolts) A small chunk of rubber fuel line, a couple of hose clamps and about 4 quarts of tranny fluid later and we were on our way!

We are currently looking for a truck of some sort for the winter. We did stop and look at a 1976 Ford F-150 XLT Extended Cab pickup. It was in extremely good condition. The interior looked like it did when it rolled off of the assembly line and it had factory cruise and air conditioning. No rust and no dents. They were asking $1000 for it. When we got home and I emailed the guy, he said someone was coming from Minnesota the next day to pick it up. See pick of green truck. We will find something cool and different though.

The dogs are still extremely happy! It has been raining the past few days, so everytime the wiener dog goes out, her whole undercarrige gets soaked because she likes to walk through mud puddles and then she is so close to the ground that she picks up little balls of dirt in her hair. Duke loves sitting outside in the sun and laying on his back (a trick he learned from the wiener dog!). Speaking of things learned from dogs...The wiener dog has been the barky one for the most part. We have a neighbor that has a big Malamute. The wiener dog doesn't like it when Mia (the Malamute) is on the porch, so when we let her out, she tears out of the house barking like she is going to attack something! We also have a neighbor that has peacocks that come into the yard a lot and the wiener dog doesn't even notice them, just the other dog.

We went to Devils Lake last Sunday. It was a lot of fun. I forgot to bring my fishing stuff. I have been waiting for a long time to go fishing there and forgot to bring it! Oh well, it was only a little over an hour to get there, so its not like we wont go back. We went to the Spirit Lake Casino while there. We went through the campground there and it was really nice. They offer seasonal campsites there and we are thinking about taking the Wiener Bagel II there next summer for the season. A seasonal campsite was $1400 or around there, so it would be a built in vacation spot and there is a marina at the casino so we could put a boat in the water every weekend and go fishing. The marina also has slips for rent for $675 a year so if we found a cabin cruiser style boat, we could keep it there and have a place to go to and we could stay the weekend on it relaxing and fishing.

Well, thats about it for now. Using Joyces camera now that mine is completely dead. The lens is not working on mine at all on it, but it still powers up. I am just happy that it lasted as long as it did after getting washed and dried!

Meteor showers and bacon

Meteor showers and bacon are two of our favorite new things in North Dakota. Not that either are particularly unique to North Dakota, but I am sure that we would not have been able to see so many bright meteors leaving tails across the sky last night if we were still in Baltimore City. As for the bacon, well, they just seem to do pig well here. Hopefully they do deer well too. We see an average of 15-25 in the fields by our house everyday and a big one strolled down the road this morning while I was waiting for the internet guy. Michael is itchng for hunting season.

Things are going well as we continue to adapt to a new lifestyle. We had propane delivered yesterday as our heat and cooking and hot water depend on that big ugly thing in the yard now. Our internet was connected at home this morning though to keep us in touch with the real world. Still no new cell phones. I know that many of you are frustrated with us because we have almost no AT&T service here except for some pockets in town, but it gets old walking circles around Best Buy talking on the phone or driving back and forth on 29. If they worked in Walmart that would be a different story, but no go. In a pinch, Michael's phone is better than mine, and text messages usually get through within a couple of hours. We've been struggling to find good windows mobile phones on the Verizon network which is delaying our transition. It looks like the HTC touch pro 2 will be released next month though, so I am saving my pennies. I really want to be able to sync to my work contacts and calendar and stuff since I am all grown up with a new job now.

Michael is job hunting. Radio stations, a portrait studio and some alternative energy jobs top the list of his prospects out here. He'll find something so that he can save up his pennies for flight school! We'll see how the cookie crumbles. The lousy economy hasn't been nearly as destructive up here, but its still a recession. Having the internet up and running at home will help. he's been keeping busy though and is re-finishing an antique radio as we speak that we bought for ten dollars. Its a 1949 Philco cabinet radio with a turntable and is pretty cool. He's doing an amazing job on it. We were shocked when he plugged the thing in and it worked beautifully. Michael found an oldies station to complete the effect. It had been gathering dust and spiders in a barn. The lady also has a very nice antique dresser that she's selling very cheap so we'll probably go back and get that too since we actually need one of those. Both the dresser and the radio will look gorgeous with our fold up camp chairs. :) I'll be happy to get our stuff from Baltimore. Hopefully soon.

We've also started looking for winter weather worthy vehicles for me. Fortunately, there are a lot of them up here! My requirements are 4 wheel drive, working heat, and enough clearance to blow through a snow drift or two. :) That'll probably wait until after we finish the move unless we find something extremely cool like an international scout between now and then. Next step will be equiping all of the vehicles with cold weather survival gear in case of a break down. Seems silly to think about when its 95 out today, but well, I'm planning ahead these days.

We've actually had the air conditioning on for the last few days as we've been in the mid 90s. The humidity is much lower here than Baltimore though so it hasn't been too painful. We tried to go swimming in the Larimore Dam yesterday, but both Michael and I chickened out on account of it being a bit too au naturale for us. There is a huge goose population there and they leave a lot of ... droppings... on the beach area. Their poo piles make Duke's look puny and left the water a bit murky. Michael assured me that the huge turtles we've seen swimming by (one of which Michael caught while he was fishing the other day) are not snapping turtles, but between the goose poo and the high algae content, we both only went in up to our knees and then drove to Larimore to see if the pool was still open (nope). Would still swim in the dam before I jumped in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, but guess I'm not completely countrified yet (or maybe I just wasn't hot enough!)!

I've rambled on enough. To those of you on better terms with the Big Man upstairs than I am, if you could say some extra prayers for my friends Kate and Reagan's daughter Hallie this week, it would be much appreciated. Hallie and her twin brother were born 15 weeks ago as extreme preemies. Unfortunately, their little boy did not make it and Hallie is really struggling for her life. She a beautiful little fighter, but well, she and her amazing parents could use some extra prayers right about now.

Lots of love!