We rented "White Chicks" from Netflix...

and now return it to the ether to lie in wait for the next group of unsuspecting souls.

Jen! Stop this crazy thing!

Whew! I just need to catch my breath a little. A synopsis of the past few weeks (since May, really):

I saw a friend of mine from high school, who was visiting Vegas with another mutual aquaintance from high school. They decided to drive to LA for about 36 hours to say hello. The highlight for me was the Nature Attacks! quality to the short hike along the hills of Mulholland Drive. A large snake AND a swarm of bees.

I worked my tail off in a class directly related to my thesis work: an in-depth look at the computer science and algorithms behind the scenes in genomics/proteomics research. I plan to TA this class next year, and it's career-choice-affirming to have done well, but... an A+? Eep!

I am going to a parasite conference in September and it's in Alghero, Italy. It'll be great to visit Europe again, and this is luckily one of the little tiny parts that would be hard to think to go to from the US. Alghero in on Sardinia, an island north of Sicily. The conference center *is* a refurbished 13th century monastery. I managed to convince Jen that we should pretend to afford her airfare, too. I won't get to see her much during the days and early evenings full of science, but at least she will get to experience Mediterranean fish and wine, too.

Oh, and I borrowed clippers and cut all my hair off two weeks ago. The bleach and blue dye job for the LA marathon had faded to yellow and green patches that was beginning to bug me. So, I buzzed it all to one inch... first time my hair has been this short in about 14 years. I'll post a photo as soon as I can.

In summary: Booyah!