Janel's Place

Lewis Carrioll was a brilliant man. He invented words.

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
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God is ubiquitous, like ADF/cofilin. I'm confused most of the time and have bad hair, like a Polish chicken. Andrea Bocelli is singing about his monkey again. I wonder what I'll be doing 25 years from today. Probably writing this chapter.
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I Felt A Funeral In My Brain
by Emily Dickinson

I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,
And being, but an ear,
And I and Silence some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here.
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"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Isaac Newton


I've just met a Yellow Beret. A great storyteller, a cool, inquisitive person, a brilliant scientist... Dr. Tom Reese. Sometimes the coolest lecture of all can just be a scientist telling his story.

http://history.nih.gov/articles/YellowBerets.pdf
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If you are trying to figure out if there is influenza virus in your horse's stall bedding, you need to set up a 2x2 table of influenza by poor bedding and look for the strength of association with the odds ratio. Don't stratify your data on the basis of influenza virus presence or absence. It just doesn't work that way. You get zeros in your table and get all confused and it's really messy.

Fruit flies are commonly known as vinegar flies and can fly up to 6.5 miles in a day.

Moravia and Bohemia are now incorporated into the Czech Socialist Republic. The Czech Socialist Republic arose upon the split of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovakia ("The Velvet Divorce," Jan 1, 1993).

Transcription factors and microRNAs perform conceptually similar roles.

Baked beans are high in fiber.

Good advice can turn a bad situation into a golden one.

Shingles is a Herpes virus that can make you go blind.

Nieces are always girls.

If you have a hunting accident you will only receive sympathy if you are not Dick Cheney.

Avian flu has hit Denmark.

Keeping your mouth shut when provoked is an interesting exercise that in post-situ analysis reveals the meaningful truth that had you opened it you would have accomplished the same result that you did with it shut: nothing. Previous experiences wherein the mouth-open option was chosen were therefore colossal wastes of words.

MacDonald's habitually gives away apple pies when custard pies are requested.

You can't judge character by quality of dancing.

Men and women usually have the same number of ribs -- 12 pairs.

Why did I buy a book about rattlesnakes?

Thaovi is the name of a flower in Vietnamese.

There were definitely ping pong balls associated with Captain Kangaroo.

A venti coffee has unpredictable effects on the brain.

I have to go.
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According to my sources, Paul wrote his letters in an era wherein female subservience was simply the cultural norm. His words should not be taken literally as applicable to today's standards of gender equality. I, therefore, propose that the command to "do all things without murmuring and complaining" was before the scientific movement and the invention of jobs involving large quantities of fruit fly sorting and maggot manipulations. Sigh! What a wonderful release it is to liberate yourself from difficult commandments by simply outdating them!

...Careful peoples. We have to try to remember that we have small brains.
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I found this in my collection of forgotten laptop files. I believe this was done after that infamous committee meeting where in the space of two hours my "excellent proposal" was somehow transformed into a basket-case needing rewriting within 3 weeks. Poe was an old creepy man, but this poem is awesome, even with fly-room and rooster modifications. Very haunting. Why did the raven say "Nevermore"... only Poe knows.

Modified from Edgar Allen Poe’s “Nevermore”

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of published lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my fly-room door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my fly-room door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying larva wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost report,
For the rare and radiant ideas which the committee threw out the door,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my fly-room door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my fly-room door.
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my fly-room door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;---
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
Report?, This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
"Report!" Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the fly-room turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,
"Surely," said I, "surely, that is something at my window lattice.
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
" 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately rooster, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, sat above my fly-room door.
Sat upon a crusted box of fly food, just inside my fly-room door,
Sat, and stared, and nothing more.

Then this rooster beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance he wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient rooster, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the rooster, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his fly-room door,
Bird or beast upon the crusted food above his fly-room door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the rooster, sitting lonely on that placid box, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,---
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never---nevermore."

But the rooster still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and box and door;
Then, upon the woven sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the chair’s woven lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose woven violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath
Sent thee respite---respite and nepenthe from thy memories of that report!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost report!"
Quoth the rooster, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore:
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me I implore!"
Quoth the rooster, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted thought, which the committee will not throw out the door---
Clasp a rare and radiant idea, which the committee will not throw out the door?
Quoth the rooster, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the box above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the rooster, "Nevermore."

And the rooster, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the crusted box of fly food just above my fly-room door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted---nevermore!
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Woe is science. We claim to use "the power of genetics" with this system, yet sometimes the genetics just aren't powerful. Sometimes they're downright weak and useless. I need to have a good laugh right now. Perhaps I can cough one up. This morning in class the prof was talking about the "matching" experimental design and how that can be applied at all levels, even to the level of matching left front teats on cows in a mastitis study. I hadn't had any caffeine yet and have been on the scope a little too much... anyway that's a possible explanation for why I began to worry about how you would track it if the teats rotated. Kind of like objectives on a scope, you know? Okay that worked, I laughed. That's just weird, and it would be sad to be a cow with rotating teats. Along that line of animals, hip-hip-hooray I gave shots to a goat this morning. That incredibly strong feeling is coming back... that inner deep certainty that I was meant to begin my workday in a barn, not a lab. Ah yes, but the easiest way out is through.

My laptop is living, sporadically. It finally came on around 5pm today, then Hee Jin touched it and it died, then it came on again about 20 min later and it is still on. Proving it's worth to me by playing music -- the only thing it can do without being touched. I have some old Arabic songs from Lubna on it, if I had 3oz. of energy I could get up and belly dance. I had so many good times with that girl, the good memories are fun to visit sometimes.

I'm approaching a vegetative state. The ADF chapter is lurking around the back of my brain whispering words of doom, but my brains are too limp to bother with them right now. The fridge is fighting them off. I am one with the fridge again. Gotta wake up and go to Bible study. Andrea Bocelli wants me to stay and learn Italian so I can know what he's singing. HA! Star Wars is now playing. I should call up Aaron-boy and see if he got his Vader message this morning. Ta-ta.
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