May 26th, 2006, 7:05 pm PDT by Greg
As many of you know, Kat doesn’t drive much. It’s a positive feedback thing: she drives less, get less accustomed to driving, navigating, etc, and then wants to drive even less. She’s going to have to drive, at least occasionally in NC, so something had to be done.
One of the problems can be solved with technology: navigation. We just got a Garmin StreetPilot c340 GPS navigation thing. I have to say, it’s pretty cool. Basically, you suction-cup it to the lower-center windshield, plug it into the cligarette lighter, and off you go.
So, you’re driving around and it says things like “In point-two miles, turn left onto Main St.” Very handy. it has been named “Blinky” after a damn fine Simpson’s episode. “Old Blinky here will find a way.”
It also has a big list of built in destinations: stores, attractions, etc. We realized it had already become very integrated into our lives today (day one of ownership). We knew we were somewhere in Raleigh, and were about to get to a Starbucks. We had no idea where we were, and would have been hard-pressed to find our way out, but there was the Starbucks.
Advice: Don’t get a built-in GPS in a car. The one we bought is easily small enough to pack if we’re going somewhere and getting a rental car (say, Oli and Tina’s wedding). I also read a review site somewhere that the built-in ones tend to have less features for more money.
Posted in Tech | Comments Off on Old Blinky here will find a way.
May 25th, 2006, 7:59 pm PDT by Kat
Everywhere I look I now see House Finches (HOFIs). And today, I finally did it. I put up my first feeder in a wooded area. I’m a field biologist! Actually, I carried the feeder out and had the lab’s tech, Adam, put up the feeder. Ah, I love being a post-doc (being short doesn’t hurt as I couldn’t actually reach the branch that the feeder is on!).Hopefully it’s still there tomorrow morning.
Posted in Science | Comments Off on HOFIs everywhere, and finally a feeder
May 24th, 2006, 5:24 am PDT by Kat
I’m extremely jealous of Greg getting to go home. I’m actually extremely jealous that Greg gets to pack up our place (you all should know about my love of putting things into boxes and containers by now!). I’m sure Greg isn’t thrilled about packing, though. Kinda funny how that works out. Too bad I can’t somehow catch birds here and still go home in June. For anyone that ends up helping Greg pack, make sure he doesn’t toss any of my stuff!!!! If the banister rails were still there, then yes, he could have tossed those, but luckily I got rid of those already! Now I’m down to the stuff I really want, so nothing goes!
I’m on the road to start catching birds. Tonight I’m going to try to find natural colored rope (as opposed to the fluorescent blue stuff we have now). Then tomorrow I’m going to come in early, set my traps, and cross my fingers! Anyone know if a squirrel can fit into a Potter trap? That’s my one fear now – squirrels getting into my trap and eating my birds. However, Dana said that the only squirrel that got in to one of their traps came in through the top. So, I have to make sure that’s totally secure. I think their heads are too big to fit into the funnel parts. I think!
We’re also attempting to buy a car. It’s just another process that is slowly driving Greg insane. All of the cars are either bought by the time we call (which is usually on the same day the ads were posted) or bought before we’ve had time to see the car. So, Greg is slowly developing an anurism while I’m worrying that I’ll be left here alone and stranded without a vehicle. I guess I still have my bike, but I’ve got a couple of late nights in the next couple of weeks (HPLC optimization) so I’d rather drive home than try to bike home if it’s starting to get dark. So, cross you fingers and do a little car dance for us!
Posted in General Life, Moving, Science | Comments Off on I want to go home!!!
May 23rd, 2006, 7:14 pm PDT by Greg
Many thanks to Kelly and Paul for working out the final details of our new place. I was right: she didn’t really know that I wasn’t in Vancouver. After some explaining, they managed to convince her that I was alright and she took my deposit.
My old landlord had an in with movers and offered to get me a good quote. He emailed today: $2600 for moving and packing, $1300 for moving only.
Considering we paid $400 when we moved into that place, I don’t really think $1300 for the move only counts as a “good” quote. I’m pretty sure I could pay anybody I know $1000 to pack everything I own into boxes, and the same company $400 to move it four blocks. Look, I just cut the price in half.
Seriously, what would the packing be? Maybe two days work (alone) if you had all the boxes and stuff?
I have asked for a couple of other quotes online. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll end up packing everything myself. [shakes fist again]
Posted in Moving | 2 Comments »
May 21st, 2006, 10:08 pm PDT by Greg
I am cautiously optimistic that we have found a new place to live in Burnaby. It’s only about 3 blocks from our old place. Kelly and Paul looked at it tonight: 2 bedrooms, (small) kitchen and living room open to each other, shared laundry, clean, to be painted, etc. Cheaper than our current place too.
All that remains is to get the landlord a deposit—Kelly and/or Paul should be dropping it off tomorrow. The landlord is an older-sounding Chinese woman. Communicating by phone has been a bit of a challenge, but I think we understand each other. I’m still not sure she totally understands that I’m not in Vancouver, though.
That’s a load off. Now, all I have to do is get a plane ticket, book movers, forward the mail, buy a car (for NC), figure out how to get to the airport, and actually get some work done at some point. [shakes fist in the direction he imagines his current landlord to be]
Posted in Moving | Comments Off on New Place!!?!?!
May 20th, 2006, 12:24 pm PDT by Greg
Okay, this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we should do very often, but we thought a good chunk of our friends should watch the Evolution of Dance. (6 minutes)
Kat suggests picturing me doing the dancing. I don’t understand why that would be funny. It’s a good thing I didn’t have anything in my mouth to spit at my screen around 2:45, though.
Posted in Links | 1 Comment »
May 19th, 2006, 11:48 am PDT by Kat
I just took a 2 hour walk around the UNC Campus.
I walked by the gym, through the campus cemetary (will take pictures on the next excursion, I promise!), around the cemetary, to Battle Park (a wooded park managed by the UNC Botanical Gardens), and through what is called “Forest Theater”, which is a stone amphitheater set in the woods that I think is included in Battle Park. I saw lots of cardinals (yes, Oli, I will take pictures next time!), starlings, robins, Eastern bluebirds, some sort of wren, Carolina, probably, the local thrasher (don’t remember which one that is at the moment), brown, maybe, northern mockingbirds, what I think was a red-headed woodpecker, a female eastern rufous-sided towhee, and … wait for it… HOUSE FINCHES!!!! They exist!!! I spotted a pair flying from out of a shrub into a tree at the edge of the cemetary. Then I saw about 4 more males and two more females hopping around in the grass and around headstones in the cemetary. On my walk back I cut through the woods near the university’s stadium and saw another pair. The stadium is pretty much right next to the Biology buildings! Yippee!
On another positive note, I got clearance from the director of the university’s grounds department to hang feeders and traps in the wooded areas. I just have to tell them where the feeders will be, they draw them on some map, and then present that to the groundskeeping guys so they don’t disturb them, or so that they can inform me when they have to do maintenance nearby. This is great!
So, I think I’ll be hanging some feeders on Monday. Have to still contact the grounds guys, so I think this weekend may be out of the question, but we’ll see how fast they get back to me.
Now all I need is a car so I can get here after dusk and before sunrise!
Posted in Science | 2 Comments »
May 18th, 2006, 5:52 pm PDT by Greg
We’re here now. My blog has been combined with Kat’s and I’m hosting myself with WordPress. Sorry if I’m breaking anybody’s bookmarks–any of my students know I hate that.
It still needs some gussying-up, but that’s the easy part, right?
Posted in Meta | 2 Comments »
May 17th, 2006, 5:53 pm PDT by Greg
We spent a little more time today making traps. I did manage to finally take a ride around Carrboro and Chapel Hill with our digital camera.
Rather that writing about it, I have captioned the pictures in our gallery, and I’ll point you to that.
One other story from today: At one point during the tour, I was waiting to walk across an intersection and there was a crazy-looking, toothless old guy standing there too. “Great,” I though, “he looks like the kind of guy that will start up a crazy conversation for no reason”. I was bracing myself for something like “All the chipmunks are plotting against the Mormons, you know.”
Just then a young, well-groomed guy carrying groceries walked over. Apropos of nothing, he said something like “Not everybody could carry these groceries, good thing I’m such manly man. Dang, you know it.” He had like three bags. He went the other way across the intersection.
Toothless and I looked at each other, smiled, and shrugged. Just goes to show, you never can tell.
Posted in North Carolina | Comments Off on Biking around Chapel Hill
May 16th, 2006, 10:53 pm PDT by Kat
That’s what I hope my birds will be soon. Since I haven’t seen a bird in any of my traps, I decided to make new ones. Funnel traps, they’re called. I got specs from Dana, but didn’t have any materials.
So, off to the hardware store. Had to have greg help with this one as I wasn’t totally sure how to go about building these things. I had Greg meet me at the hardware store. He travelled by bike, me by bus. The local hardware store is great! They had everything and had very helpful people. We also went to the grocery store to pick up sunflower seeds (a 10 lb. bag). After making our purchases, we had to somehow get them to school. Since greg had his bike, we piled the seed bag over the middle bar, and greg balanced the roll of chicken wire between the handle bars, and off we went – walking along the bike trail to school. It wasn’t actually that far, and the weather was nice today, so it wasn’t too bad. For pictures see the gallery.
The build started out with paper models (so as to not waste the precious chicken wire). And, by the end we ended up with two funnel traps complete with 4 doors each! Not bad for an afternoon’s work.
We finally left school around 7:00. I realised I had been at school for over 12 hours. Can’t complain though. Spent most of the morning blogging as I was waiting to see whether any birds would use my old traps. They didn’t. Now I get to sleep in tomorrow! Yippee!
Treated Greg to Japanese dinner for all of his help. “Treated” is funny because I haven’t gotten paid yet, and Greg actually paid my last credit card bill! Hee! Hee! Anyways, there’s a nice sushi place just down the road from the apartment! We braved the sushi combo, and it wasn’t bad. Will update tomorrow if badness kicks in tonight!
Posted in Science | Comments Off on Trapped