A forest riding I go.......

This is Louis, my brother's overactive friend.

He runs his truck on propane so it has more power at ALL angles.

Then he attacks logs laying down.........

and logs on their way to lying down, with his help.

He is a true friend to the environment.

My brother Bruce and I with the his BAJ (Big Ass Jeep).

So I had to learn something about my brother's hobby as I come back home to spend time with the family. So I learn the complicated sport of mudding and log/rock climbing. I learn the terms--like my brother telling me he had 38's, but now he has 44's, but some day he would like 48's or 52's. The number being how tall his tires are, and therefore the size of the logs he can run over. Dana 60's are good (type of transmission axles) but military top loading Rockwells are better. He once let me drive. I did fine going through massive mudholes, but I ruined the front axle CV joint thingy. He wasnt too happy at this as he spent 3 hours one day finding the parts to fix it and then 4 hours the next day ripping everything apart and replacing the broken parts (as I mostly slept at home). He then he wrecked the BAJ that same day even worse than I could. Poor guy.

RIP ROBERT JORDAN

First, my condolences to Robert Jordan (real name James Oliver Rigney Jr). I first picked up his book when I was a pimply teenager of 15. His book, Eye of the World, let me escape into a world with beautiful sorcerer's and struggling wizards. Every boy sees himself in his main character of Rand Al´Thor. Especially a pimpled boy of 15, who was going through puberty later than everyone else, and the closest he had every been to a girl was tripping into one.

But alas to my rant, as I have been reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of time series for 15 years now----waiting for the final book to come out. The covetted BOOK TWELVE. I have to know how it all ends--I've purchased all the books!--sometimes even the expensive hardcovers--me, and millions like me--all left waiting, forever. Wondering what becomes of that deeply engrossing fantasy world he created. When you read that much literature from one man (each book is about two inches thick), you start to care. But now science fiction nerds around the world will probably have to make do with a fake book twelve, writtin by another author, who we all suspect really didnt know how it was really suppose to end. A sadness comes over me, and a forlorn walk home I shall have.

RIP ROBERT JORDAN

Dear Anonymous, Terry`s do not die.

terry´s do not die
like terry´s cannot cry
sometimes he can fly
sometimes he likes pie

so person you are high
to think a terry can die
he`s a tough kinda guy
no matter how hot the fry

So did Terry die?
NO! we must deny
this outrageous lie
my answer to your reply

The very, very month of.....August?

Here I sit six inches away from a cliff that plunges

down over a thousand feet. The picture taker kept saying

just a little further back....a little more.....

I dont know what happened to August. I think I put it in one of my many wallets that I have lost over the last decades, never to see again.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I have to make and give many a seminar every week this last month and that always take a lot of time for me. I think my average for seminars is one hour of preparation per slide. When you have twenty slides to give (which in truth isnt even that long) it takes all the brain power I have for a couple of days. But on to the fun stuff.

So a couple of weeks ago I went to Hirschegg, Austria. Depending on how you get there, it is a full day trip. Me and some of the chinese graduates students went down there by the cheapest method possible. Only taking the Regional train. What would be a 5 hr car ride was 10 hrs by Regional train. With the intercity trains it would be only 6 hours, but this costs 70 euros vs 7 euros Regional.

But the trip was actually quite fun. The graduate students brought so much food along with them that the train ride was a constant picnic of peaches, apples, canned meat, and strange chinese food concoctions--like sweetened dehydrated orange peel. Not so delicious to me, especially as it looks more like grey mold, but the chinese girls really liked it.

We arrived in Hirchegg, Austria sometime in the evening and we had a beautiful Mountain Sunset. Hirshegg is a very popular ski resort in the Winter and a hiking Mecca in the summer. They are the greenest mountains I have ever seen. The fellow chemistry students and I went up the mountain for seven hours, and then took the gondola down. That was only 20 minutes and a much better idea.

I just came back from three days in Munich where I was shown some proper methods and techniques on how to work with siRNA and cell culture. My experiments have been failing in this area so I went for more professional help. Unfortunetely when I showed up, my expert was gravely ill and couldnt come to lab. That wasnt a problem though--it just gave me more free time to hit the city center in Munich.

I went to a famous brewery in Munich called the Hofbrauhaus. It has been operating for some 400 years and originally made all the beer for the aristocracy. Do you know what this brewery has learned in 400 years of beer drinking? Large pipes in the bathrooms. They have a special sink that flushes in the bathrooms there for all the men that puke in there. The pipes are the size of a soccer ball to make sure everything neatly drains. It reminds me of the vomitoriums that were once in Rome. Eating one meal just wasnt enough--just like drinking 2 liters of beer isnt enough--one needs to make room for more.