Planned unplanned time. Yar.

Avast and shiver me timbers, September be slippin’ away. We be facing yet o’nother National Talk Like A Pirate Day in a few wee hours, so I thought I’d start a practicin’

The fair port ‘o Santa Cruz has seen many a visitor in the last fortnight. The scurvy knaves, Sarah and Stephanie, came down from the afar isle o’ Berkeley, and we played at the beach,

(No fun at the beach or ye'll walk the plank!)

threw the discs, (Aye, a confusing hole. No one found the refrigerator)

ate up greek food and ran obstacle courses on the playground. All trainin’ fer bein’ a buccaneer.

Q: How much does a pirate pay for corn?
A: A Buccaneer!

And the next weekend, the landlubbin’ parents (what is pirate for parent?) sailed through, and we ate,

(Yar, the mighty Cap'n Snell with his most fearsome weapon, the veggie peeler)

paddled the mighty seas in search o’ the birds,

(The swarthy birders debate)

and they went home with plenty ‘o Santa Cruz' finest booty (and a bottle of rum). Yar. Much swashbuckling done by all, and no one had to walk the plank.

Q: What does a pirate say on his 80th birthday?
A: Aye matey…..

September madness (also known as canning/harvesting/picnicking/holy-crap-I-only-have-3-weeks-to-do-everything-I-said-I’d-do-over-summer season)

(The front yard harvest)

September in Santa Cruz is a glorious thing. The weather is beautiful, the fog disappears for a bit (before the rain rolls in for winter), and the produce goes crazy, so everyone has been busy making the most of the last few weeks before students reappear and the pace of life jumps up a few notches.

(Dai captures the Dinner Harem on film. How does he do it?)

It is harvest season, and as the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But I don’t have lemons, just a whole lot of asian pears. I’ve never heard of pear-ade (I’m sure it exists by now). So instead Rachel and I made a day of canning other pear products.

(Rachel on quality control duty)(if only I knew how to juggle....)

I’ve never canned anything in my life. My only training came about a month ago, when I helped Sora can various peach foodstuffs (salsa and jam). I will admit to being very inspired by how hard it didn’t seem, and by reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I highly recommend it, but be prepared to start spending a lot more time in the kitchen. She can even inspire a person to want to make their own cheese. I’ll save that adventure for a later date however.

(the stove, hard at work)

The grand tally came to ~10 quarts of pear chunks, 6 pints of pear jam, and about 3 pints of pear puree. Oops, I think I just gave away Christmas.
Things I learned:
1: the house gets really warm when you have the stove on all day in September.
2: Hearing the POP that tells you the cans sealed is very satisfying.
3: Having a few cans that DON’T pop is even more satisfying because then you get to quality-control the goods (pear jam is really good on waffles).
4: Pear puree tastes just like applesauce, but you don’t have to add any sugar.
5: And last but not least, you sleep really well after a day of canning, assuming you left the skylight open to let out all the warm air.

Good? Or Good Enough?

(Glimpse of a rare sunset while at the lab)

I spent last weekend and week back in the lab down south. After comparing notes on the state of our studies with a student I once crashed with, I’ve come up with a new way of thinking about finishing projects. Research is kind of like limits; I mean the math kind (I know, I know, bear with the geeky analogy). When I learned about them, I was told to imagine standing a few feet from the wall. Go half the distance between you and the wall. Then go half the remaining distance. Repeat until you finally – oh, nope, you won’t reach the wall that way.

This project feels a little like that. Hence the concept of Good, or Good Enough. It seems like the most successful researchers are the ones who can identify when a project is good enough, they write it up, and move on. Sounds easy enough, right? But as a project evolves and changes direction, it feels hard to just let it be finished, despite every other part of me that wants it to be done. Everything takes longer than I thought, so then the project must be extra good because it has taken so long, and then Improvement #1 returns something unexpected, and trying one more thing will make the project even better… Devilish logic.

(the science magic in action in the windowless basement lab)

At any rate, the week in the lab went quite well, in fact it was probably the best trip I’ve ever had. Data looked good, my samples were clean, and my pseudo-advisor encouraged me to apply for one of the postdoc fellowships they offer! Yay! That brings the tally of applications/proposals for the fall up to two, and I need to finish off this dataset and paper (I’m starting to sound like a broken record with that goal). And see how much I can get done before fall quarter starts and TA’ing begins again. But having things at the next step to apply for does a lot for helping with the feeling of Good Enough.