Hurrican Season

Hey, look! Hurricane season came just a few days early this year!

Welcome to the world, Tropical Depression ONE.

Life is good

On Saturday I graduated from Tulane with my master of science in public health. Also on Saturday I found out that the Tulane grant which will fund my PHD research was approved, meaning that I will be paid to go to graduate school. Life is good.

Graduation Week Dining Guide

Hey all. This week is the lead up to my Masters graduation on Saturday. I will be receiving a Master of Science in Parasitology/ Master of Public Health. This means I get to wear a spiffy yellow hood (for Master of Science) instead of the salmon colored hood that comes with the Master of Public Health degree. My parents are visiting us for graduation, in part because I am graduating and in part because my father, as a member of the Tulane Board of Trustees, is supposed to be present for graduation.

We are going to be dining in some pretty amazing establishments this week including:

Dante's Kitchen
Emerils Delmonico
Herbsaint
Commanders Palace for Sunday brunch

I fully expect to gain five pounds.

In the Navy!

[Ed: this is the post Nora left for me to post. I don't know if it will list me or her as the author. She actually wrote the content. I merely copy-edited.]

Colin got a totally sweet gift from his dad last week.

It is a hat (as you can see) which is a good thing, since Colin somehow lost his Sox hat in the move to New Orleans. However, the neat thing about this gift is not so much the hat itself, but rather the fact that the hat has the insignia of the USS McFaul on it. That is right people, not only do the McFauls practically have their own island, but now they have a ship to get to it as well. the SS McFaul is an Arleigh Burke destroyer ship in the US Navy. It is named after Chief Petty Officer Donald L. McFaul, a Navy SEAL and graduate of the Defense Department language institute in Spanish. Officer McFaul died in combat in 1989 during operation 'Just Cause' in Panama. He was posthumously awarded both a purple heart and a Navy Cross. Colin's dad apparently told Colin about this ship sometime ago, but this hat is the first time I had heard of it.

In other navy-related news, we have proof that the military can cook! NPR has been running a series called How Low Can You Go? in which cook submit recipes for a dinner for four persons that costs less than $10. Well, one of the submissions was a skate recipe from a navy chef named Michael Edwards, culinary specialist first class, and 'Armed Forces Chef of the Year'. Edwards is an enlisted aide to Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He cooks for both the Admiral, and his visiting guests. Edwards says that he joined the Navy shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, because a recruiter told him the food in the Navy was better than Army food.

Friday Cat Blogging: Circle of Life Edition

My apologies for our recent quiet. Nora has been in California on a road trip with her mother, and I've been busy taking finals. She left me a post to put up, but I've been lazy. To make up for that, there are extra pictures of Hodag this week, along with other creatures. It's the Circle of Life, New Orleans-style.

Hodag protects us from the bugs, dogs, and other dangerous creatures. For example, here he is protecting me Tuesday night while Nora is away and can't protect me:


The house protects Hodag from the rain. It rained once this week, and not very much. But I can promise you that the house protects Hodag even when it really rains. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo to show this.

Finally, Nora and I protect the house from the bugs. In this case, the termites. Hodag isn't all that interested in chasing termites, so it falls to us to deal with them. He does, however, like to sniff the termite carcasses after the humans have killed them:


All those termites carcasses are my handiwork. I'm so useful! There was quite a swarm that night. I was working in the office when it hit. Even closing the windows didn't help, as some of the windows don't fully seal, so they are able to sneak in through the cracks. I had to turn off the ceiling light and close all the blinds in order to get them to leave that room alone. Then I could finally kill them all.

The termites that swarm, of course, aren't the ones that eat your house. The real way in which the humans protect the house is that we've been planning to get one more termite treatment for a few months. We finally made the appointment about a week ago, and the guy came yesterday. He found some wood and other termite-food debris under the house, and left it in a "small" pile in the back yard. The wood had some termite damage on it, which he identified as Formosan, the worst kind of termite (and the species that was swarming).


Now, when I say "small," I actually mean exactly enough wood and crap to fill our trash can.



Fortunately, tomorrow is trash day, and we don't have any other trash this week.