Heat Wave

We just hit a heat wave here in San Diego. Since Sunday, temperatures have been exceptionally high with only a minimum breeze. Downtown temperatures went up to 96 degrees (that's 36° Celsius), while we at the beaches got temperatures in the eighties. That's very hot for these parts.

Unfortunately this happens while I have visitors that don't really appreciate hot weather. I have been out and about with them and the heat is a bit draining when walking in the sun and when driving in the car. Yet, we've accomplished quite a lot, we've been to the World Famous San Diego Zoo, visited Balboa Park, Point Loma, Ocean Beach, parts of downtown. We've been to La Jolla several times, the coastlines of La Jolla Cove, downtown La Jolla around Prospect street, been to Pacific Beach boardwalk, downtown PB, the bay, the Birch Aquarium, Old Town, Temecula and ... THREE malls: University Town Center, Fashion Valley and Horton Plaza. And, we were to the Delmar County Fair on saturday. Got some rides, some art, some foods, some animal smells ...

I feel as if I'm allowed to take a little time off after I finished the quarter. And the school year, by the way, also with straight A's! Summer quarter, and my research assistantship, hasn't officially started yet. So, I am juggling work with my free time. Try to spend as much time as possible with my family, make short trips to campus to touch base with my advisor and do the stuff I wouldn't as easily do from home. I have a couple of projects going now: the mitochondrial one that I will try to make into a paper in the next few weeks, and the MS proteomics project I had with Ines and which we are also gonna attempt to turn into a publication. So, all is good.

Otherwise, summer was supposed to be about the good life and it most likely will be. I'm even learning to appreciate our lovely house by the bay with the nice front porch and our little garden plants.

... Johny Cash compared to Michael Jackson

We took ourselves to an outdoors concert last night, in celebration of the quarter being over. As it happens, Baaba Maal was in town, in fact he just started his summer tour. C has been to his concerts twice already, but me never, although I have some of his music. I have however been to Youssou N'Dour's concert and that was one of the most fun, vibrating shows I've ever been to.

Some british guy warmed up for BM, I wasn't too much into him although I guess he was ok, the star Baaba Maal however started slowly with some traditional 'griot' type music, no percussion and I was beginning to wonder where all the fun was. He really wasn't measuring up to Youssou N'Dour anymore than one would wanta compare Johnny Cash to Michael Jackson. I just wasn't feeling any swing. But then, things started heating up a bit, and we finally got the whole package: rythm and beat, unresistable percussion, the bright colours of African costumes, and a couple of female dancers jumping around as if possessed by the devil. It was fascinating. It was just over too soon.

It's an interesting venue where the concert took place, down by the marina. We walked for a little while after the concert and admired the views of the sailboats and the San Diego skyline across the bay.

Where did everybody go?

It's monday morning again and I'm back at work. The same can not be said of other members of my group. I ask myself where everybody must have gone. The only living person I've ran into all morning is this visiting PhD student from Austria who's here for just a brief period of time. I can only assume my colleagues here are taking a break after a tough quarter. However, as far as I know, I am the only one who actually was taking a full schedule of classes. And now I'm on a research assistantship, so I better get some work done. Alone! Well, at least there's peace and quiet. I am not gonna complain.

Although, ... it feels a little bit lonely.

Inconvenient Truth or Lies

Tonight we saw Al Gore's documentary on global warning. It seems like a surprisingly personal movie, and I can't but admire his dedication for this cause. It's not that he looks any more appealing than he did in the year 2000 when he had the misfortune of "losing" his presidential election to you-know-who, I mean, he still looks like a politician to me. But, there seems to be sincerity in his message. And anyway, how is it that the subject of global warming has been disputed so vehemently, there is just something wrong with that.

Climate conditions obey very complex models, yes, but there must be a way for scientists to lay down the facts and depict their predictions together with the assumptions they rely on. And then tackle the subject once and for all. What is there so hard about that? And why is it that some people seem to feel so strongly about the "non-veracity" of global warming that they seem to be ready to fight all the battles it takes to stop the message from reaching us? I mean, even if your profound beliefs told you the message was a hoax, is the cause of stopping measures to counter global warming *that* urgent? Where is the danger, where is the fire? What is the worst that could happen if we put some efforts into trying to stop this evolution and then found out that our concerns had been exaggerated? Would we lose a lot of money? Would *they* lose a lot of money?

I guess those are the important questions. Without the answers to that, none of his whole debate makes much sense to me. And to follow the discussions, as polarized as they are, is frankly exasperating. But that movie is worthwhile, I think. You might not think you learned much you didn't already know, but it does pretty much sum up the debate so far, and maybe put some things into context ...

Do Fish Jump?

Among the things on my agenda for what to do when I would be done with finals was the 'picnic on the beach'. I've totally been longing for that one. The beach is just around the corner from our house, so the logistics of organizing a beach snack are not overwhelming. So, here is what we did: We went to the new spanish food specialties store up on Garnet (actually, they also have a restaurant there that serves tapas, another idea for a night out ...), picked out a slice of sheep's cheese and cured dry sausage. Packed this with half a baguette we had since this morning, olives, grapes, a sliced up mango, and a cheap bottle of red. I grabbed my sunhat and two minutes later we were blissfully sitting on the beach, glasses of wine in hand.

I think next time we might be tempted to bring our portable grill and a fishing pole too, because the bay seems to be swirming with fish. We have previously seen some good sized raies swimming under the walking bridge. Tonight, after the sun went down but before it went dark, we saw long, big fish jumping out of the water. They were longer than my forearm and we decided one of those would be perfect meal for the two of us. We then looked them up and it turns out that these were probably Corvina.

Summer Arrived

I can finally say that summer arrived for me. I've been working night and day to meet deadlines for the past three weeks, and now all finals are behind me, all projects and papers have been turned in, and there is nothing more left to do except take a nice weekend break.

Otherwise, I don't want to talk about school any more for the moment.

My husband will be happy to have me to himself as I finally take my nose out of the books. We haven't even decided what to do with the freetime. Probably nothing, to start with.

And, the weather is even nice! Sunny, breezy, pleasantly warm but not hot. Ah, heaven ...