Greg and Kat's blog

I’m trying but nothing is going in the traps! Not even sparrows! Dammit!

I think I have three problems:

1) Non-ideal location in our aviary: I think I have to catch somewhere else on campus (but I’m not sure I can do this – have to wait for Keith to get back), or go to Keith’s backyard and set up there.

2) Non-ideal seed: I need to get sunflower seeds.

3) Non-ideal traps: I need to make feeders and funnel traps. Thanks to Dana I’ve got specs and am ready to start constructing.

On the bright side, my starlings are doing fine. I guess worse-case senario, I catch juvenile starlings and work on them… that’s a pretty bad senario though. Not giving up yet!

Everyone cross your fingers and do a little HOFI dance for me! Dance people, dance!!!!

So this weekend was chock full of “stuff to do since we have a car.”

Friday night we set out on an expedition to Super Walmart. Greg was pysched for his “American Experience” – he brought the camera. Sure enough, it was huge. (there should be pics up on the gallery) We started off the “experience” with dinner at McD. Yes, Greg ate meat! Had to get the full experience you see. Anyways, after gorging and feeling not quite right afterwards, we started shopping. Holy crap this place was huge! The experience ended with a slow, cashier. I wanted to pay with traveller’s cheques (to get rid of them) but I thought that might be too much for the poor woman, so we charged instead. Also didn’t want Greg to have an anuerism.

Saturday morning we rolled out of bed out into the Farmer’s Market. Felt like home except there was no chocolatier! The weather in Chapel Hill is probable not so good for selling chocolates. We bought some cheese, strawberries and pound cake and some tarts (one sweet potato and one pecan) from a woman who Greg already described in his blog. She was great! Can’t wait to see her again this Saturday!

Then it was off to Costco in Durham. Also stopped off at World Market (think Pier 1) and bought 3 bottles of wine (gotta love the states where you can buy wine and beer everywhere!). Also went to Bed Bath and Beyond. Was one of the first times it felt like home. Not in the “Chapel Hill is home” sense. More like, this looks like home in Vancouver sense. I think it’ll take a while for this to be like home. It has it’s charms, but it’s not familiar enough yet. Maybe in a few weeks… Anyways, went to Costco (also a homey feeling as all Costco’s look the same!).

Sunday morning we went shopping for a futon. The old tenants left us their futon, but I’m going to use that as my sofa. So, at the end of the summer I’ll need a bed (we’re borrowing the tenant’s bed for the summer). Figured a futon is the way to go (cheap!). Got one on sale (yea!) and it’s set up in the office where we needed a place to sit (to watch stuff on the computer) anyways!

At a loss for something else to do, we went to see a movie. The nearest large movie theater is in Durham. Saw “Thank you for Smoking.” Really funny – go see it!

And that was our last weekend with the rental car.

After two days of being in captivitiy (not even 48 hours – more like 36 hours) I had to change the paper in the cages! So, I think the schedule will be to change the paper Monday and Friday, and maybe Wednesday depending on how gross it gets. Luckily I’ll have a recently graduated undergrad tech for the summer to help me.

Also luck for me, Keith cleaned out the starling pens in the aviary, so I didn’t have to. So now the aviary is ready for my House Finches. Not that there are any yet. Maybe this weekend. Going out to buy seed to put in the Potter traps.

Other than that, nothing really new. Have Vonage now, so feel free to call! Just remember, we’re 3 hours ahead!!!

So yesterday (Wednesday) was my first real full day in the lab. Got in early (before 9:00!) so I could set up my computer (have to register the ethernet card number) and complete the online animal care course (I passed!) so I could at least touch a bird. Right afterwards, the fun started. I moved the 26 starlings (23 males, 3 females) indoors. Keith took some pictures which I’ll try to get from him asap. He just got a new camera, so he’s pretty happy. I think up until now he may have been a little wary of taking me on as a post-doc as I hadn’t really done anything yet. But, when he came in to the aviary, I was in the thick of it (literally – there was crap everywhere!). I had just caught a bird and was about to band it, so there’s a picture of me holding a female with shit on my face. Ah the joys of starlings. I was able to catch all of them in about 2 hours with another hour to fill up water and roll the cart back and forth between the aviary and the animal trailer.

Had a meeting with Keith and Richard Mailman, a prof doing neuroscience research in the med school. He’s going to teach me how to run HPLC. I think Keith was a little worried because this meeting was scheduled for late afternoon, after I was catching starlings. But, little does he know I clean up fast and well. As if I would show up at a meeting with crap on my face. Hello, princess!!!

So, all went well with my first foray into starling work. I only have a few small cuts on my hands from their claws. Hopefully they’re all okay. Going to check on them now. Forgot my camera, but maybe Greg will bring it in this aft, and I can take a 24-hour picture to show how gross is it (I’m scared!).

So I won’t recount the moving experience as Greg has already done a very good job decribing the Target trips. We finally went to bed around 1:00 Tuesday morning from sheer exhaustion.

On Tuesday, I stayed home from work to help clean some more. We have a dishwasher, so we were washing up a storm. Unfortunately we think the dishwasher is making the kitchen smell a little funky. Any ideas on how to make this not happen? Neither of us has ever actually used a dishwasher, so we have no idea!

Took a break in the middle of the day to have lunch at Weaver St. Market which Greg already described. They have a little cafe not unlike the one at Capers on W. 4th where you can get hot and cold prepared food. Then went in to school for the annual ice cream social. A retired biologist who used to work on insects (I think) endowed $$ for a 40-year annual ice cream social. She’s brilliant! It’s actually the 43rd year – the department/faculty have contributed to make the social continue. I’m so doing this in the future!

Then went back to the supermarket where I thought Greg was going to die. He literally looked as though he was going to pass out in the middle of the store. Luckily we made it home and got some soup into him, got him on the internet, and he was fine.

I have my onyen (pronouced like onion). It’s apparently the only number you’ll even need. I can now set up a UNC e-mail account, hook my computer up to the network, and tons of other things that have yet to learn.

In other school news, I’ve set up the starling cages. Took pictures of the room and the cages that will be uploaded to Greg’s gallery sometime later this week. That room will never be this clean ever again.

Holy crap does it rain hard here. It’s nothing like the misting in Vancouver. It’s more like the torrential rains of Los Angeles when it actually rains. We were caught out shopping for household stuffs (pots, cooking utensils, pillows) when the sky decided to open up and pour. Once we got home it was actually nice to listen to the rain, but running through it with bags of purchases was not so nice.

Oh yeah, and Greg sent us into a small panic at the mall. About 40 minutes after we got there, he realized that he didn’t have the car key. Since we have a rental car, the key has the make, model, color, and license plate number of the car on the key ring. So of course, we ran around the mall trying to find the key – stopped back at stores where he tried stuff on, back-tracked to where he took a picture of a chocolate fountain for Suyoko, checked in with a store’s lost and found, and finally went back to the car to see if he had dropped it there. All this was going on, and we realized that Enterprise Car Rental is not even open on Sundays, so if we can’t find the key, there’s noone to call. Even if CAA/AAA unlocked the door for us, we wouldn’t be able to start it up to drive it! Luckily, we found the key lying next to the car door! Too much excitement for 1 day.

Tomorrow we move to our summer apartment!

It’s Sunday

It’s cool and raining.

We were up at 7:30 to eat waffles.

The stores here don’t open until noon on Sundays, and it turns out only 2 busses in Chapel Hill run on Sundays.

I guess this means I really do have to get a bike. Eep!

Just a few quick things:

Greg changed my comments section so that I now accept comments from users that do not have blogger accounts. Didn’t know you had to specify that! Sorry!

Saw a Pileated Woodpecker and a Blue Jay just outside Keith’s sunroom window this afternoon, and a Barred Owl in the trees in Keith’s backyard. Oli, you DEFINITELY have to visit, and we can go birding (i.e., you can ID all of the birds, and I can say “yeah, that’s was definitely a …”

Spent a lot of today outside. Toured the campus after dropping off a bag of “field” clothes on my desk in my new office. Showed Greg “Davie Poplar” which is a large tree in one of the quads on campus. Apparently “as long as Davie Poplar stands, the University of North Carolina will prosper.” This explains why there’s a guide wire from the tree to something more stable as it is leaning to one side. There is also a Davie Poplar Jr. and a Davie Poplar III. I think people are actually realizing that one day this original tree will come down, and then what!

Saw the new apartment, which is pretty nice. Best feature, it has a dishwasher! Yippee! We’re also getting a lot of furniture (a HUGE desk, a futon, some chairs, a couple of bookcases, and some side tables!) from the previous tenant who is ecstatic that we’re taking his furniture off his hands.

Came back to Keith and Sabrina’s for a couple of games of Bocce-ball with Keith and Sabrina and one of Sabrina’s grad students, Lisa, and her boyfriend, Brian. Had a nice little potluck dinner afterwards.

Tomorrow morning Keith’s making waffles!