archnemeses...

the USGS Research Vessel Grayling, the boat i went out on for my recent research cruise. no, i haven't been out on the boat all this time (although that would have been a good excuse for neglecting the blog updates for quite a while).


no, this blog is not dead like gwen stated this evening ("oh, you mean your blog that died?") things have just been a little crazy and random as of late and as usual (as with several other blogs floating around) the updating suffers. ah well, i know you all probably did something really productive with the time that would have been spent reading this anyway.

so there are three archnemeses i would like to bring up this time around:

the first, and longest running is me and rakhi...it's been an ongoing thing since she was a student in the 2003 biology of fishes lab...who else would dare to PURPOSELY mis-ID a longnose gar, even after i said it was my favorite fish??? who would possibly start asking me questions during a field trip on the ride back, such as "so what do you do besides study fish?" or even THINK of suggesting that the entire class go to Ashley's for hot chocolate (and/or drinks) after the mid-term and final. yes, absolute villainy.
anyway, things have calmed down a bit since our jerry vs. newman exchanges, but we still have conversations like last night covering topics such as 'what is the thickest type of indian bread? naan, roti, chipati?' 'why north indians are fake indians' 'who has seen the better indian movies' ' who knows more about priyanka chopra' who knows more about saif ali khan' and 'is what i do really cooking?'...and so forth. good times.

we made sure to get the gar (Atractosteus spatula in case anyone was wondering) on the wall in the pic with rakhi and me

second, myself and ly. we were recently able to pick up our newly established 'weekly' chess battle...this started back in june and was on a hiatus for most of july given she was in peru...and did NOT bring me back any fishes (there were some stories about dolphins and iguanas which were somewhat amusing, but not the same as fish stories...). anyway, given our mutual interest in x-men (and the release of the movie somewhat soon before our first game) we have developed the alter-egos of prof X and magneto. i'll let you guess who is who. needless to say, the bad guys have not been doing so hot in this ongoing struggle. that and it's been entertaining since our games have lasted upwards of 2 hours each, but always prove to be entertaining...petrified scones, caffeinated beverages, hyper-paced conversations and hard-to-open & close chess boxes have all added to this.

the latest twist was switching the venue...from the usual coffee shop (beaner's near state street, which is actually a pretty nice place) to ashley's (see previous entry about my love/hate relationship with this establishment). so yes, we actually played chess at a bar. surprisingly we didnt get a lot of strange looks, but then again i wasn't paying much attention to that. instead i was taking my rook on a tour de force of slaying pawns...which of course proved fruitless in the end. i HATE to lose. ah well, there are other competitions coming up in the near future which i'm sure i'll be able to win, so i can accept losses in this one for the time being.

can you get kicked out of a bar for playing board games? i mean, this wasn't leopold's or anything...

and lastly, the weather. more specifically the temperature, and most recently the heat. temp fluctuations and i definitely do NOT get along. i don't think we ever have, but it's been quite noticeable in the past several years. i seriously hate when the temp drops below 70F, and find it too hot when it gets over 75F or so. i can take +/- 5 degrees around this range from time to time, but anything more and i'll start complaining...or overheating. perhaps it stems from some of my best friends, the fishes...they can be sensitive to outside temperatures since they (generally) don't regulate their own temps (keep in mind tuna and great white sharks can, but i don't want to get too technical with you kids here), and my sharing metabolisms with hummingbirds, pocket mice, and dwarf puffers. once food and/or temp start to fluctuate i seriously start to burn up. freakish i know.

anyway, today this last nemesis was beaten as we were FINALLY able to make a trip out to one of my favorite venues in ann arbor...you guessed it, Dominick's. it's been about a month since i have been there, and it's not without trying. the last time i was there was for rashmi's going away (to india) party...yeah, going away on vacation party...damon and i discussed this the other day and have decided we are going to have parties whenever we take off for vacations too. nice try rashmi. ah well, you're back in the states as of today so you can defend this later.
anyway, as gwen put it, it seems like everyone was going away and having parties at dominick's so she lost track (i didn't since i am cursed with being able to remember all dates and details for events).

either way, it was a 'crisp' 73F outside, and we got to dom's around 730pm. the infamously long and infinitecimally paced line moved along much faster than normal, we got our sangria, the place was not terribly crowded and there were no 'reserved' sections. pretty much a perfect dominick's evening. no particular event scheduled or reason to go other than we had been wanting to visit for a loooong time, and the weather was finally perfect.
the danger here? some of you may remember, and some of you may have only heard. the year is cyclical my friends, and if last year (and the year before that) were any indication of pattern, this is the beginning of the fall outings. the rapid pace of dom's to brown jug to charley's with a mobile entourage of friends happened far too often at the beginning of the school year/end of the summer last year. i believe ron, julia, AJ, hal, kara, and damon can all remember that. good times for sure, just absolute craziness in most cases in retrospect. we'll see how things go, since this month and next will surely be a little different than last year around the same time...

and now some pics from various dominick's outings over the years...definitely one of my top spots in ann arbor:


ok well that's all for now, i've gotten into the habit of working 7-8 hours at my job each day, just not at consistent start/finish times. monday i went in at 8am, and that was far too strange to me, so i tried 11am today. i'm thinking 10am may be just right. stay tuned, and i'll try to keep this beast a little better updated. on tap for the upcoming weekend/weeks ahead: the third outing to the indian movie theater in novi (more on that movie soon too), another bollywood movie night at The Tank, the david family mini-vacation to Chicago (sure to be a classic exercise in insanity), and all the randomness in between. good night and good luck <:><

music:

"Take It Or Leave It" - Jet

"The One That Got Away" - Natasha Bedingfield

random pic:

quite possibly the greatest cover band ever (very successfully pulling off selections from Queen, Bon Jovi, Journey, Earth Wind & Fire, and others)...from last friday night out at Live.