Trust

My sister and I have a great relationship. It is built on communication, blood, sweat, patience, Dr. Pepper, and trust. That's right folks, trust. Mainly trust. While she was visiting me this weekend, I had the opportunity to show her just how trustworthy (they call me Jack T. Colton) I am. In order to print some tickets for a rock'n show that my sister, her friend Jamie, and I attended, I was required to sign onto my sister's e-mail account. (After numerous passwords were divulged, I was able to print out the golden tickets.)

While in her e-mail territory, I did a little "business".

I sent the following e-mail to myself from her account:

>Dear Jay-dub,
>I want to give you a million dollars...or my first born child.
>Love,
>Kekri

Then just so she knew that "she" sent it to me, I responded:

>I will take the million.

I am patiently awaiting a check in the mail. I trust she will live up to her word.

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent. See right there. Trust.)

Tutorial on the World's Most Perfect Fruit

There is a banana plant outside our duplex. This isn't so strange to see in San Diego, however, I don't think I have ever seen one that bears fruit. It is completely fascinating! Here is some intriguing info for all of you who stay up at night wondering how bananas grow.

First get yourself a hot, damp climate with sandy soil and good drainage. Start a crop by cutting growths from the underground stems of mature banana plants. These growths, called suckers, are planted in the ground. (My brother smuggled a sucker with him on a plane after visiting me a month ago.) Three to four weeks later, tightly rolled leaves sprout from the suckers. The leaves unroll as they grow until they look like large drooping feathers. Fully grown leaves are 30 to 61 centimeters wide. (Our land lady cuts off the leaves and uses them to cook with.)

Banana plants are not trees because they don't have a woody trunk. The "trunk" of the banana plant is really the stalks of the leaves. As the leaves grow, they become tightly wrapped in a bundle.

When the plant is 2 months old, a large bud at the end of a thick underground stem grows from the bundle of leaves. The bud has lots of small purple leaves called bracts. (You can see the bracts hanging in the second picture.) After the stem grows through the top of the plant, the bracts roll back, revealing clusters of small flowers. These flowers develop into tiny green bananas (also pictured).

A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.

So get yourself a sucker and you might get a good hand of fingers.

(Pictures were provided by yours truly.)

Blondie - Heart of Glass/Hair of Gold

One of the dumbest things I've said lately had to do with tonight's NBA Lakers vs. Celtics game. (Let me forwarn you that I have been in the lab smelling MTBE/Hexane fumes for 9 or so hours straight, plus I have an eye-twitch that won't go away. I was completely exhausted.) I was told the score of the game about three minutes to the end of the third quarter. (Celtics were killllllling the Lakers by 30 points.) "The game is over." I was told. And then I actually asked out loud without much of a thought in my head..."How many quarters are there?"

Yeah, so this is a picture of me and my new hair cut and color. Note the color. For those of you who share my "light headed complexion"...it is called a QUARTER for a reason.

AWKWARD...

A month or so ago my work had what they advertised as "Sexual Harassment Training" and now I keep getting into these awkward jams.

Last week Greg and I happened to be working with Bruce on a project. We were all in the Mass Spec room waiting to see results of our test injections. Bruce was just sitting there with his arm bent, but I could see his bicep bulging. (And I mean an incredibly large muscle just sitting there in front of me.) I innocently asked Bruce if he lifted weights and then felt his arm muscle. He said no. That was just his natural body. Greg smartly offered to leave "the two of us" alone. (Insert sarcastic ha ha.)

Yesterday Bruce was in the lunch room taking a break talking to a fellow employee. I went to get a drink of water and glanced over to see Bruce's chest...his shirt was unbuttoned one too many for a normal casual button-up shirt. I said "Hey Bruce!" and motioned to his chest. "You are unbuttoned quite a bit there." He replied, "Thanks for noticing."

If the point was NOT to sexual harass one another, they should have named the training something else.

Sugar Shock

My sister introduced me to this flavor of Ben and Jerry's Ice cream called Cinnamon Buns and it is loaded! Composed of Caramel Ice Cream with Cinnamon Bun Dough & a Caramel Streusel Swirl it really packs a punch. Whoa! And how! I think it may be sponsored by the Weiderman twins - you may go into sugar-shock if you get too close. (That is for all of you "Cutting Edge" fans out there.)

I found this interview online and found it quite accurate:

Review: It's like a street gang comprised entirely of Cinnabons ambushed you on a cold night, dragged you into an alleyway and took your wallet, leaving you for dead. But all of that in a positive, tasty and addictive sort of way.

The Return of Jom-Jom

Ah Memories...

Today in the lab Greg went down the hall to go get supplies from the stock room. He came back in the lab balancing a giant stack of boxes. It reminded me of the children's book entitled "Caps for Sale". A cap salesman wears all these caps stacked on his head. (Comedy ensues when the caps are stolen by monkeys when the man takes a nap in a tree.) The conversation naturally led down memory lane as we expounded upon the books we read as children. It is funny the things you remember about childhood.

There are so many classics out there:
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorist
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
George and Martha by James Marshall

One of my favorites was a series of books about a witch named Meg and her cat named Mog. The episode I vividly remember is one when Meg and Mog go to the moon in their "putting" spaceship. I was ecstatic to find a picture of the "put-put" clouds of the spaceship presumably zooming in space, but resembling to me an old broken down pinto that backfires. Good stuff. "Hold Tight! They landed in a crater." Tee hee.

I find that most memories we keep are pleasant, but this is not always so. I also shared with my lab-mates that in 5th grade we had to write our own book. I was the good kid who wrote a cute little story about a duck. The teacher sat me next to the large, mean, foul-mouthed, trouble-maker kid who wrote a nightmare-causing, terrifying book called "A Dog Named Jom-Jom", in which a dog bites people's arms off. I remember a picture of the bloody arm lying in a pile of red stained hay. It still gives me the creeps just thinking about it. I wonder where that kid is today...

It seems like everyone is writing books these days. Heck, even Madonna did it. When I do write my children's book, you can bet mine won't be about a dog named Jom-Jom. (I would hate to be sued by that guy.)