There was a moose, and he drank a lot of juice way oh way oh

Yes boys and girls this week marks the final instalment of protein chemistry. This also marks the last lab based course I will ever have to take. Yes friends and neighbours this researcher and one time lab technician is hanging up his pipettes for good. I’m still going to be a science nerd so fear not; I just won’t be getting my hands dirty so to speak. I guess I shouldn’t be getting ahead of myself though since I still have to finish up my newly designed smog filter report and present it on Friday. If any of you folks out there are interested in what’s in your air and how it’s affecting you let me know and I’ll talk about it otherwise there’s no point in putting all 7 (yes my readership is growing whohoho) to sleep. Also have a couple of assignments to hand in but I’m floating on air because soon this boy will be out in the wild blue yonder.

Friday night the lovely Nikki is going to come down to Toronto and we’ll begin assembling everything we need for camping. Early Saturday morning Ruben is going to pass by and we’ll set out for Killarney Provincial Park for five days. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lady friend to bring along to keep him company but there’s always next year. The pic I’ve posted up on the left hand side is at the top of this huge rock peak that they call, yes you’ve guess it “the crack”. I wonder how the rangers keep a straight face talking about the crack all day. They have one thing right though it’s probably one of the most beautiful cracks you’ll ever see (It'll be up by tomorrow night). The pic on the left is Georgian Bay off one of the trails. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun. Highlight’s of last trip include me asking Ruben “Where’s the gas lighter” only to find ten minutes later that he’d left in the actual oven which now had 4 foot high flames coming out of it. Thankfully it’s nothing throwing it into the lake couldn’t handle.

I really enjoyed the trails as well but this year I’m hoping to see a bit more than foxes, racoons, snakes and frogs we saw last year. If we’re lucky I think we’ll see a moose or perhaps a bear. If not I’m already super lucky to have Nikki willing to canoe out into the bathroom less wilderness and spend five days with me.

I’m trying to put together a list of the necessary stuff that I should bring. Among them are some of the books you folks have suggested (Thank you all so much, it’s much appreciated). What I’m asking of you great people this week is suggestions of things to bring along. You see I’m an absent minded molecular turtle and I’m making a list but there are tons of things I know I’m going to forget without your help. On top of that what are a couple of things you just couldn’t go without and I’ll give you toilet paper and food freebies. Oh and any suggestions for what makes up a good trail mix or perhaps some good snack for the trails, Jin this one is definitely your area. Another thing is what’s some great camping food?

Return Of The Bunny Suicides

The weeks seem to fly by these days and the summer seems to have gone by in a blink of an eye. I guess that's what weekly presentations, tests and labs do to you. This week’s presentation was on opium and metabolic engineering of poppies to accumulate the good stuff at the cost of the bad. So if you want to know how to turn morphine into heroine in one easy step I’m your man. Who says you don’t learn anything useful in school these days? The task over the next few weeks is to come up with a design for a Smog filter either using enzymes of normal filter materials. On the off chance that any of my vast readership (That means all four of you!) knows anything about filters or materials or even enzymes that take care of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, or ozone drop me a note.

Although my summer has passed by I’ve had a great weekend. The wonderful Nikki came to visit me and she came bearing gifts! From out of her tickle trunk (or more accurately a stylish laptop tote), she brought out what has to be the greatest book of all time. Yes, you’ve guessed it, 'The Return of the Bunny Suicides'. Each page is filled with ingenious ways with which our furred friends come up with ways to put an end to their pellet filled existence. Expect the next few entries to have pictures from the book.

I also made it out to the zoo with Nikki, Steve, Konrad and his gal pal Stefani which was entertaining. We discovered that our tiger friend who we had seen rockin and rolling 103 days before (wow how’d you guys know that was tiger gestation time) had given birth to cute kitties. It’s amazing how much like us they are. For example the Tiger dad was passed out in the den while the mom was off in another room taking care of the babies. If you want to check out the tiger baby web cam click here. The zoo also brought out the fact that Nikki and I often have different perspectives on things. For instance while checking out the new mother orang-utan and her baby Nikki commented on how cute the baby was. My comment was “Check that out the mom keeps shoving her finger up her bum look how far that is!” I also got to check out some quality B movie material this weekend in the war of the gargantuas. Highly suggest it if you’re into bad voice overs, scared asian people, painted backgrounds, and Tonka trucks masquerading as real vehicles.

I’ve also started to plan my camping trip to Killarney and just now have come to the realization that I’m seriously lacking in reading material for the trip. It would be great if you let me know of any great books that I should pick up along the way. I’m a big fan of Thompson, Vonnegut, Adams, Stevenson and Goodkind (hangs head in shame) to give you some idea of my tastes. Keep in mind though that I’m by no means set in my ways so feel free to suggest anything that’s you think is good.

What Do You Do To Relax?

After last week I realized I really need to put more time into relaxing and looking after myself. I’ve gotten back into my fitness regime and hope to continue with running at least 20 km a week and lifting weights for at least 4 days. Then I starting thinking that stress is something that people deal with everyday. Chances are that you folks reading this right now are stressed. Out of duty to you my readers I sought out a method for you to determine if you’re so stressed that you need a vacation. The stress test here meets my stringent criteria. On another note if anyone would like to share their personal tips on how to deal with stress and ways to de-stress after a long week let me know.

So you had a bad day, you ran 14 k, then you smoked a J

I thought that the above title would give an accurate representation of the previous week. That is if we switched the bad day to bad week, kept the 14 k and switched smoked a J to ate 5 pepperettes. I hope the title meets Daniel Powter ‘s lyrical expectations. This entry is pretty much a way for me to document the week so don’t bother reading further to hear about my complaining about my week. Things of note that happened: Upon entering my car and turning the key my car started emitting a high pitched beeping sound, following this the turn signal died. Upon faced with paying a billion dollars for getting it toed to my house I decided to face the commute home. One hour of high pitched beeping and a million lane changes without signals later I arrived home to have it die. Thankfully it’s been resuscitated. I also encountered a cute never before seen feature of PowerPoint. After working on a presentation for about three hours I saved it, saw it on my desktop and went to get a glass of water. When I returned the icon was gone, so I went to recent documents tried to load it and was told it couldn’t be found. After searching my computer it was still gone having been taken my underpants gnomes seeking to expand out of their niche market. To relax I decided to watch my newly acquired fishy friends. Leopold had committed suicide, although funny in its manner it was not a needed addition to my day. He had somehow managed to bury himself head first into the gravel of the tank. That was just in one day. For the view of the week add in tests, assignments, and 17 hours sleep. I finished off my week my emptying my brain and running 14 km as I’m apt to do when I need to relax. Leopold you will be missed.