More jobs; more Bethesda

I confirmed a day or two back that we have another candidate who has signed on the proverbial dotted line, so I would like to be the first to publicly welcome Dr. Kristine Lowe to UTPA. And I'll say it again: Hope you survive the experience...

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Promised that I would describe more of my visit to Washington, but realized there wasn’t a whole lot to say. Let’s see... in addition to all the useful stuff I learned about my electrophsyiology software, Spike2, I learned you can get a vanilla creme at Starbuck's in hot as well as a cold iced drink. I found a great French resto and boulangerie that reminded me of how much I miss good croissants. (French bakeries are another thing in short supply in south Texas.) I had a raspberry with cream cheese crossiant. Yum.

I found an excellent comic store called Big Planet Comics where I spent far too much time looking for something to read in my hotel room that night. I was reminded while I was in there about what “cosmopolitan” really means when a French woman came in with her kids asking what French comics they had. The staffer behind the counter didn't blink an eye and pulled out a bunch of European imports. They had Asterix, but alas, no Blake & Mortimer.

For dinner my last night in Washington, I went to a Rock Bottom restaurant. Arguably a strange choice as I don't drink beer. But I got lucky. My waitress came, and I happened to say, “How ya goin’?” and she smiled and said, “Nobody ever asks me that.” She introduced herself, and I said, “Excuse me, did I hear you right?” I thought I heard her say, “I’m surly,” but I thought, “That can’t be right.” Turned out it was right – or almost. She had an Armenian name, Serli (which means something about love), and the “r” is supposed to be barely pronounced. But nobody could get the subtlety of how it was supposed to be said, which is more like “Say-lee,” so she became “Surly,” as in mad. So when she said, “I’m surly,” I missed the chance to utter Sean Connery's famous Bond quip, "But of course you are." Fortunately, she was anything but. She was a lot of fun, recommended a great desert, and earned a generous tip.

In retrospect, I wish I’d arranged things to have a little more time on Saturday. I got up early, hopped on the metro, and went down to the mall – which I love. I was again reminded of just how far away I am from anything down in south Texas, when within the hour I had to walk around, I passed I don’t know how many museums, including the Smithsonian Natural History museum. I’ve got more pictures, but being a biologist, this one takes pride of place...


I wanted to get down to the west end, which has the reflecting pool – it’s my fave, and I really wanted to get a picture of it. But I didn’t have enough time. I might have been able to make it, except there was construction going on around the World War II memorial (which is being dedicated next month), which would have required a long detour to the reflecting pool. I was kind of in a hurry, but even then I was able to experience art and culture just casually just by walking around the outside of the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art and seeing some of their sculpture garden. The piece below is “The Drummer.”


Arguably you could experience more culture and science in Washington D.C., in a few months than you might get in many years in the Rio Grande Valley. But I’m not bitter.

As I walked out past the modern art museum, I walked through a marathon or some sort of extended run, for which they had closed off the street. Then I was on the L’Enfant Plaza metro station, going on my way back to the airport. Even though I was an hour before the plane was scheduled to depart, they were already warning people to use the washrooms before taking off. There's a relatively new rule that 30 minutes after taking of or landing in Washington D.C., nobody – and I mean nobody – is allowed to get out of their seat for any reason. Certainly not for something as trivial as relieving your bladder. Not when Homeland Security is at stake.

And that was the extent of my trip last week. Very successful intellectually and in advancing the things I’ll be able to do in my lab, and I even managed to sneak in a little fun, as you can probably tell.

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Signs you've been away from home too long: A student asked me if I was Canadian. When I replied that I was, she said, “I’m from Canadia too!”

“Canadia?!??”