Favorite Horse Ever

   Look at the expression in his eyes. This is what a gentle giant looks like. (He is 16.2 hands tall.)
When I go to the field, Prince knows who I am and he walks over to check all my pockets. He knows I have raspberry alfalfa treats for him.

   You don't need a shrink for real therapy; you only need a good horse!

Boy Scout Chili Extravaganza!

   The Boy Scout Troop in Dover, Arkansas, has an interesting fundraiser every year. They host a chili dinner, titled "Chili Extravaganza," where they serve an entire line of chili made from different animals. This year, there was chili made from beaver, deer, elk, raccoon, buffalo, bear, squirrel, antelope, and beef.
   They also served cake and lemonade, which made for quite a tasty and economical meal for $5, considering you could eat as much as you want.
   I asked someone why they didn't serve Girl Scout cookies for dessert, and I was told that the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts "are big rivals here. They don't get along."
(???)

This is what a crazy bitch looks like...

***Note the haircut on this woman. I have known three crazy bitches with this same, black-colored, straight-"I-have-absolutely-no sense-of-style" bangs. It must be a sign, so beware!***

   Today, a female professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville shot six of her co-workers, murdering three of them on the spot. (One of them had been my former anatomy and physiology professor.) For a while, the media was emphasizing how distraught Dr. Bishop must've been to get denied tenure. But she was denied tenure nearly a year ago. This could not have been a crime of passion. And, she sat through a faculty meeting for at least 30 minutes before opening fire on her unarmed co-workers. How insane is that?!

   Did the victims know that this woman was crazy? No one knew (until now) that she had shot her own brother in the chest with a shotgun in 1986. Her mother helped convince local police that it was an accident, so the young Dr. Bishop never went to court for what she did. Holy crap! How does a U.S. citizen shoot and kill a family member without ever paying a price? Where's the justice here?

   UAH is currently missing 6 biology professors. Three were shot dead, one is in critical care, one is receiving medical treatment, and one is in jail. The campus will be closed for a week. As a former student from UAH and as a current biology instructor, I send out my heartfelt sympathy.

Space Shuttle Launch STS-95

T-minus 10 minutes to lift off! Here I am standing on the shore at Cape Canaveral, just minutes before the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery and my diatom payload.

   I was 22-years-old when I flew my first experiment on the Space Shuttle. The mission was STS-95, which just so happened to be the John Glenn-return-to-space flight. AND, if that wasn't exciting enough, he was the astronaut trained to operate the hardware for my experiment!

   I was an undergraduate at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which is a Space Grant University. I had decided to go to school there because of all the exciting space activity associated with the University. 

   In 1997, I traveled with a group of engineering students to the NASA Johnson Space Center, where we spent two weeks training to fly ourselves and an experiment on NASA's KC-135, aka the "Vomit Comet." The following year, I flew with another experiment on the KC-135. During October of that same year, 1998, I flew a biological experiment with diatoms (golden-brown algae) on the Shuttle Discovery (although I did not get to fly with them, sadly!)

   My experiences as an undergraduate were incredible; my mentors at UAH gave me the invaluable opportunity to work with three separate microgravity experiments prior to graduating from college. I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Douglas Feikema for allowing me to participate in the KC-135 program for two years in a row. I am humbled and thankful to Dr. Charles Lundquist for his guidance and the opportunity to design and fly my own experiment on the Space Shuttle. And I am grateful to Dr. Marian Lewis for her science advice, and for allowing me to use her lab space and equipment.

Homemade French Bread

   I made French bread for the first time. It took all day, but was suprisingly simple. And it makes a very nice addition to any dinner party, since most people don't have the time to make fresh bread.
   It is essentially the same as white bread, but with sprinkled cornmeal and an egg white brushed on the outside to make the tasty crust. I'm not going to share the recipe yet, because I'm going to tinker with it a bit, like add some olives or rosemary to the mix. I also think it would be wonderful sliced, with cheese and olives baked on top.

The Arkansas Blizzard of January 2010

I went for a walk Friday and saw people sledding near the road . They were ridiculously happy!
We accumulated about 3 inches Friday night. It made for a very nice, wintery weekend.

Ruffian in Command

I've been depressed all day. I saw real video footage of a 3-year-old filly break her leg open on a racetrack and try to keep running on it.

This horse, named Ruffian, was born to race. Her father was a half-brother to the mighty Secretariat, and Ruffian, true to her blood, never lost. She had a perfect 10-0 record. In every race, Ruffian would sprint out of the gate to the front of the pack, and continue to distance herself from the other horses. She was absolutely phenomenal!

Ruffian's jockey, Jacinto Vasquez, said she had an aura about her, "like Marilyn Monroe, or Raquel Welch." She was tall, elegant, and glistening black. She was everything a race horse should be, and she was insanely popular.
Ruffian's eleventh race was a match against a Derby-winning colt named Foolish Pleasure. This was the first time she would race against a male horse. Ruffian's trainer, Frank Whiteley, was apparently not a fan of match races. Two thoroughbreds racing together will sprint at top speed for the entire mile and a quarter of race track. This is very dangerous for the animals, who are competitive by nature. Whiteley said in an interview that Ruffian's owners told him they would "have to do this sooner or later."
This equine "Battle of the Sexes" between the top two horses in the nation drew thousands of spectators, but it ended in the worst way possible. During the race, Ruffian pulled to the lead, as she always did. Suddenly, she slowed down as her right leg snapped in two. She continued to run, pounding the exposed bone into the ground. Vasquez tried desperately to slow her down. Surgery was done to set her destroyed leg, even though her veterinarian said she had less than a 10% chance of recovering. Ruffian began thrashing around after awakening from anesthesia, and she broke another leg. She was euthanized on July 7, 1975.


"It was one of the most incomplete, unsatisfying experiences that I've ever had. It was...the unfinished symphony of horse racing..." said Bill Nack, a journalist who covered Ruffian's races. "For me, it lost...the glow of romance that the sport had for me, since I was a kid."


Ruffian's entire body is buried at Belmont Park in New York, where she died. And she is facing the finish line.