Depending on grant money

Work is going ok, challenging though. The other technician in the lab is here for her last week and I am learning all of the dissections and experiments she does so I can take over. I am going to be really stressed out, possibly, when she is gone and I am doing the work of 1 1/2 people-2 people at times. We are finishing the project she is working on, but we are not quite done so I have to finish.

When the lab shrinks down a little more, we can get by with just one technician. But as it is, it's still just as big with 5 post-doc fellows. My boss got a few little grants so we are doing somewhat better, but he will still have to let more people go soon. The grants are too little to pay salaries, just buy supplies. I wish my boss would let me know the full picture, as it is I don't know who will be let go next.

Seattle

My favorite part of Seattle was the Seattle waterfront and aquarium. The octopus was fascinating. They gave it a jar with a fish in it and the octopus opened it and ate the fish.

As BB said, we go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium all the time, but they don't feed their fish by scuba diving with the fish. BB and I were watching this wondering if the small sharks (not in picture) ever bit too hard on the diver, mistaking him for fish???

BB hated this picture, but the seals were performing tricks for us and of course, this is not Sea World, so there wasn't bleachers or anything. You watched from behind the fence. I didn't know seals could be trained to jump up and touch a ball like a dolphin or orca.

Puget Sound has several pods of orcas that live there year-round, probably because of the extensive seal population there. We didn't see any orcas, but I got to ride a pretend one.

As BB said, I loved the market, mostly because of the gluten-free bakery that had fabulous muffins!!! But it was the most sensational farmers market I have ever imagined or seen. It was 6 city blocks long with some of the cheapest floral arrangements you will ever see!

I loved our waterfront cruise. BB and I were wondering why so many ocean fish lived there, then we found out it is mostly salt water, even though it's 80 miles from the ocean. How does that work???

I thought this was cool because I have never seen a policeman on a horse before. I asked BB where the poop went and who cleaned it up. The answer was apparent in a few feet. It laid there and no one was cleaning it up. Yuck! I am torn between the green aspect of saving the economy with the disgust of it. Absolutely, one fabulous weekend and too short.

Eagle Creek in the Columbia River Gorge

Today, I went on a hike that we could never do as a family because Woogy can't handle a hike over 1.5-1.9 miles. I hiked 5 miles and I am quite sore, pushing Nibbles up rocky hills. I have heard about this hike and wanted to go so when BB and Woogy went to the church kickball tournament, I decided to head to Eagle Creek. It has very steep drop-offs so it's not very kid-friendly. And it was very rocky, but beautiful.

After a two and a half mile hike, you descended sharply to a gorge with the creek and waterfall. It was about 20 degrees cooler down there, but a nice place for lunch. Being only about 70 degrees with cold mountain water rushing by to a small waterfall, it wasn't the ideal place to get in the water. But Nibbles did try.

Nibbles loves playing in the water. We stayed at the bottom of the gorge for an hour and a half before she would leave.
They call this Punchbowl Falls. It was only a few hundred yards from where we ate lunch. People were jumping off it to the creek below, so it wasn't a huge waterfall. I stood on top of it to take this picture obviously.

The hike back finally reached ground level again and Nibbles played for another 45 minutes or so, this time where it was 90 degrees so the water was a little more enjoyable.

It is always nice to just hike with Nibbles without all of the complaining my son does. Maybe someday he will learn to love hiking as much as I do. Obviously, Nibbles loves to hike.

Trip to Mt Saint Helens Volcano

This trip was another one that I had been pushing BB to do, like the trip to Eastern Oregon in April. I don't know how many people we told of our failed trip exactly a year ago, but I have been wanting to go back ever since. Last year, I didn't research which way we should take first so one Sunday last June, we just set off, following the directions in our hiking guide. When we got up to the mountain, the road was gone, huge crater in its place. Wiped out by a landslide during the heavy rains. So this time, we made it.

This is Coldwater Lake, one of the lakes created during an eruption by Mt. Saint Helens. Mt Saint Helens is a very active volcano, erupting 16 times in 400 years.

You could actually walk out on the lake. They don't know which eruption blocked up the valley and filled it with water. Spirit Lake and Crystal Lake were created the same way.

This shows some of the destruction of the landscape. Where there were trees, they were dead but there were some very small trees. At one stop, we saw where the landslide and lava flow had basically turned a valley into rock. We saw a bunch of elk down on this plain, but only in the viewfinder so no pictures of that.

This was taken from the Johnston Ridge Observatory, the farthest you can drive up to the volcano. The ridge gets its name from a man named Johnston who was a geologist stationed there to watch the volcano. Apparently, an earthquake in March of 1980 was what probably awakened the volcano and they started to see lots of earthquakes and activity so they were watching the volcano for two months before it blew. The lava dome that is currently building is in the middle of the crater. You can see where the lateral blast eruption blew out the side of the mountain.

You can hike past the Observatory on the ridge for 2 miles, but we only made it about half a mile out, there were huge snow drifts to climb over, yet it felt like 90 degrees outside. It was a barren landscape, no trees. You can see in the valley behind me the huge craters made by the landslide caused by the side of the mountain blowing out and the lava flows that came later. The large peaks of rock that stayed in the valley from the mountain are called hummocks.

This picture shows a lot of what looks like steam coming off the crater. It is probably landslides, according to the films and information we read in the two observatories we visited. The unstable landscape causes almost constant landslides in the summer. But the forest ranger we listened to said there is ash and rock still being put out every day, one large truck worth.

The eruption caused three huge events to occur, a huge landslide where the mountain blew out. This landslide they believed traveled at 150 mph. It was diverted by Johnstons Ridge, where we were, and continued down the Toutle River Valley where we saw the elk. The blast cloud followed next of gas, rock and heat and traveled 300 mph. This killed all wildlife and vegetation for about 20 miles in the blast zone. Then, the intense heat of the blast caused water to boil underground near the crater and caused huge geysers to erupt where there are now craters in the ground. Then the intense heat caused the snow and glaciers to melt on that mountain and surrounding mountains causing massive flooding. The dead trees filled Spirit Lake completely and I believe, Coldwater Lake was filled by the massive landslide. Then about 24-48 hours after the eruption, the ash started to fall. The ash even reached Portland we are told.

So that was our trip to Mt. Saint Helens. One beautiful, but exhausting day.

Job Woes Part II

Here is the scoop. Only 3 people are being asked to leave within 1-2 months. My boss is being very selective and secretive about who he tells to leave. I am only finding out when the person tells me what's going on. So either the situation is not as bad as my co-worker J was told in her meeting with our boss, or he is taking his time deciding what to do. I was told by someone who was asked to take this job they have been offered at Johns Hopkins, that eventually, my boss wants it to be just him, myself and one other post doc who is more like a junior PI. So I am not very worried at the moment. Things may change soon.

Job Woes

I'm not sure I like having a job dependent on grant money. Something big happened today. All of the PIs (Principal Investigators) at my job found out that they were all turned down for the big NIH grants, called RO1's. Not one of the PIs (6 of them) were given these big grants so everyone is going to have to fire people, including my boss. Apparently the economy is making Congress cut way back on the money set aside for research. My boss is letting go 55% of the lab within a few months with potentially more to follow. I'm not sure of the time-table yet, but they are all leaving relatively soon too. I am not being let go, yet.

Things are pretty shaky. My boss is not sure how he will pay his own salary, or run his lab on the money he has now. If most of the lab goes, I'm not sure what I will be doing anymore either. I am sure if we lose over half the lab, my job description may change a little. So this is pretty huge. I am kind of in shock that all of these people that I admire and love working with are going to be gone soon. Apparently, things have been bad for 6 months but my boss has been waiting to let people go until he heard about the grant reviews due out today. And the worst of it is, even my boss's boss is losing his grant money and if all of the PI's labs shrink, Legacy may close down the Dow neurobiology labs altogether. I am not sure if this is really possible, but everyone is talking about how Legacy is nit helping out the PI's and giving internal grant money. Some of the people in my lab think my boss may be forced to go somewhere where they give the PI's more help.

The worst part of all of this is, I heard all of it second-hand. My boss told all of the people the situation that were being let go yesterday, like my junior research assistant, J. She told me everything today. She thinks he doesn't want to tell me so that I don't start looking for a new job. I am sure he doesn't want to lose both of his research assistants and me, his lab manager. So, now I have to decide if I wait to see what happens or start looking for a job. I think I will consult the Lord about this alot. J thinks that if my boss leaves Portland, he may ask me to come with him. Alot of the PI's try to take their head assistants/lab managers with them when they leave so they have someone who already knows how to run their lab. I don't want to leave Portland though.

Has summer arrived in Portland?

We have been waiting so patiently, 9 months of waiting for the rains to stop. We thought they had stopped last month, because we had a week of good weather before our vacation to Kansas. But we came back to cold temps and rain, at least rain 5-6 days of the week. We have seen a few good days of sunshine, but they have been few and far between this spring. And when June arrived, temps were in the 50's everyday with rain. Quite depressing. In KC, Woogy's birthday was always celebrated in air conditioning with 100 degree temps. Two days ago, it was 50 degrees at the park and cloudy. But it's Portland and people came to the party anyway.

Yesterday, the forecast was for 5 days of sunshine and 70 degree temps. Dare I say summer has finally arrived and the rains are stopping? I am almost afraid to because as soon as I do, we'll get rain. But I can't stop hoping. Now I know why Portland schools just got out two days ago and doesn't start until after Labor Day. Because summer hasn't started so why not keep kids in school.

I know this comes as quite ironic considering that most of my readers live in the Midwest and are being barragged with rain and have had record flooding. That is an interesting comparison. We are entering the dry season and they the rainy season. Well, let's hope that soon, we will take off the jackets and strangely, wear shorts or even short sleeve shirts. And what about sandals? I don't miss the air conditioner running all the time, but I do miss wearing short sleeve shirts. If BB starts blogging about hikes every weekend, you know summer has begun. We shall see.