March 23rd, 2012 in Cleveland, OH: Sunny and 70F…. March 23rd, 2013 in Cleveland, OH: Sunny and 28F.

It was a beautiful, chilly day on the Lake Erie shoreline Saturday. Perfect for beautiful, chilly outdoor wedding photos!

Paul and Erin were married by Erin’s longtime friend in front of a small gathering of extended family and friends at the Edgewater Yacht Club.

Cue the tears. Not just the assembled witnesses, but the bride, the groom, the officiant shed a few, and the servers in the kitchen were absolutely bawling. It was a personal, heartfelt wedding ceremony. It was perfectly “Paul and Erin”

After they were pronounced Husband and Wife, Erin quickly pronounced, “Let’s get this party started!” A great meal and fellowship followed. We enjoyed crudités followed by a green salad with a main course of quinoa, mushroom “meat” loaf with mashed potatoes, gravy and steamed vegetables. (Annie, I know the look that would have been on your face, were this presented to you, but it was fabulous and I was disappointed to hear it was the Chef’s recipe and not Erin’s because I want it!) So good! Great choice, Erin and Paul!

Dancing followed!

obligatory Erin’s dress photos;)

The kids could not wait to get on the dance floor for the first requested song, the classic, Mr. Roboto.

The party continued with some delicious cake. Vegan, almond flavored, baked by Erin and decorated by a friend. It was really, really good!

Paul’s dad gave a heartfelt toast roasting the groom and welcoming the bride. The toasts continued with a toast from Erin and Paul to all of their friends and family that helped put on the big celebration. Erin sadly, could not participate in toasting because…. Congratulations number TWO is in order! Erin and Paul are expecting a baby boy on September 4th!

Beautiful wedding, Erin and Paul!!

Any of you have trouble with mycoplasma contamination? If so, what did you do to decontaminate? Any tips you can offer?

Swimming pool filter-induced transrectal evisceration in children: Australian experience.

Moral of the story: WATCH WHERE YOU SIT BY THE POOL!

We were lucky enough to have Thanksgiving in NC again. We had Dr. Channy & M, Dr. Tom & V, and Dr. A, B & Ev join us this year! For the feast, Dr. A made the delicious bird had ham, B made homemade hush puppies, Dr. Channy made it more southern by making homemade mac-n-cheese, loaded mashed potatoes and of course pigs in a blanket for appetizers (there’s no better accompaniment to my famous balls), V made her delicious stuffing, cranberry sauce, and a banana cream pie, while I made gravy and of course the traditional pies! We decided that with the addition of an extra couple this year, we needed one more pie. We had apple, pumpkin, pecan, and banana cream. Yum!

In addition to eating and drinking too much, we did our now annual trip to Q-Shack for takeout bbq and then to Fullsteam for beer. We happened to be there on the same night as their Movember celebration so we were entertained by the mustache contests in support of prostate cancer and men’s health.

Dr. A and I ventured out at 6am for Starbucks and Black Friday shopping! We scored good deals on new clothes for us and were quite surprised by how empty the mall actually was. It felt like shopping on a weekday afternoon.

We also played games, including quite a bit of Scene It. We had fun taking Ev to the park to play on the slides. Although I think the adults had as much, if not more, fun than she did! We also continued the tradition of Skyping with our friends in Scotland, Kristin and Josh.

The only picture I had from the weekend is this gem of Dr. Tom and Ev hanging on the couch. She’s chatting on her remote control phone.

If anyone else has good pictures from the weekend, feel free to edit this post and add them! I know there’s one somewhere of the pies, all the food, and all of us!

It was a fantastic weekend and I’m so thankful all our friends in the area made the drive to our house to celebrate and eat too much with us!

Found out about this site today and thought it might be useful to all you science nerds out there. It’s a compilation of the most recent, top papers reviewed and recommended by over 1000 “faculty” experts.

f1000.com

HYPERBOLIC FREAKIN AWESOME SCIENCE @ ZOMGSCIENCE.NET! (link NSFW-language, not safe for keyboards sensitive to expectorated coffee)

Your mind, it will be blown.

Crunchy numbers

This was in my mailbox, courtesy of WordPress…thought I’d share.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 31 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 71 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 46mb. That’s about a picture per week.

The busiest day of the year was September 2nd with 75 views. The most popular post that day was The Thesis Repulsor Field.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were hoiantoday.info, tips-tools-tutorials.com, facebook.com, writedowntoascience.blogspot.com, and alphainventions.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for theymightbescientists, amy wagers retraction, amy wagers, rascal scooter fat, and nashville in snow.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

The Thesis Repulsor Field September 2010
7 comments

2

My latest NYC purchase… September 2010
25 comments

3

On 10-10-10, I… October 2010
10 comments

4

Retraction Watch blog October 2010
2 comments

5

A Southern Thanksgiving November 2010
9 comments

We are spread all over the earth nowadays! I miss you all and am thinking of you!

Travel safely, if you are, and above all- have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[Raising my virtual glass of champagne to 2011- a year full of publications, funded grants, and ABOVE ALL- thesis defenses!!!]

Muah!

CANCER RESEARCH CAN-10-3223R — Decision Rendered
Re: CAN-10-3223R   Powell AE, et al.

“Fusion between intestinal epithelial cells and macrophages in a cancer context results in nuclear reprogramming”

Dear Drs. Wong and Powell:
I am pleased to inform you that your above-referenced manuscript has been accepted for publication in CANCER RESEARCH….

HELLS YES!!!!!!!!!

This was my PhD-baby, if you will. 70% of my thesis work went into it. Some data I generated just after I joined the lab. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, so I’ll keep it short, but suffice it to say-  It’s been a long time coming and I am SO excited.  🙂

Dr. Tom and I recently made the trek down south to join Dr. K & E and Dr. Channy & M for a good ol’ Southern Thanksgiving. We hit the road on Wednesday afternoon, arriving in Durham just in time for dinner. Tom and I had our hearts set on Q Shack, which serves delicious Carolina-style barbeque. In fact, we talked about our dinner on the road, starting to drool with anticipation about 90 miles out. Om nom nom!

We opted to get our food to go and take it to Full Steam, a brewery hidden away in a sketchy-looking warehouse. But upon inspection, the brewery boasted picnic tables, old-school arcade games, ping pong, foosball and yummy microbrews. Sold! It really reminded us of the Lucky Lab in Northwest.

The boys made sure to take advantage of the games:

The next day was Turkey Day, and we all chipped in to make it a doozy: Matt was in charge of Big Bird (and stuffing therein), and Channy made green bean casserole, corn and crescent rolls. And what a bird it was: 20 pounds!

Matt, basting his turkey. (Not a euphemism.)

Dr. K prepared an age-old Thanksgiving tradition: Balls.

Sausage balls in a ball. What could be more American?

She also made mashed potatoes, gravy and three kinds of pie. Yes, three kinds of pie.

Pecan, apple and pumpkin. I am not kidding when I say I think it’s the best pecan pie I’ve ever had. [Making Homer Simpson drooling noises.]

Dr. Tom and I contributed the homemade cranberry sauce and my grandmother’s Texas cornbread stuffing. So, as you can see, it was a completely reasonable amount of food for six people.

Go Team Thanksgiving! It was awesome.

After dinner, there were games played, and then came the dance party. Yep, a straight-up dance party in the living room.

It was pretty much awesome.

Dr. Tom and I stayed with Dr. K & E until Saturday, watching lots of football, playing games and certainly not eating pie for breakfast.

Thank you to our lovely hosts for a lovely Turkey Day!