Good vs. Well

Cute, Adorable Student: Mr. Plourde, did I do good today?

Me: Yes, you did well.

Student: Well!?!? But, I did all my work today!

Winding Down

It’s a been a pretty dry couple of days, coordinating the WFA course, taking tree cores and studying.  Wednesday night we had a little surprise birthday fiesta for Deniz hosted by Jenny.  There were snacks and punches, we watched the new Weeds, which wasn’t spectacular, but set up episodes to come.  

I fell on my bike today, it was awesome.  It was a super slow speed crash after my boot slipped off the pedal and I pretty much just fell down on my behind.  No big boo-boos.  We cored about 20 trees in LEPS and processed them in the lab afterwards.  Alabama has started doing surveys in the comedor each day.  Today’s

“Mashed potatoes: Mix ‘em with other things on your plate or eat them in their pure form?”

That’s about all I’m going to say.  Team dinner got called off tonight.  Cooking quesadillas for Yanks/Sox on Friday and avocado, bacon and tomato omelets for the game on Sunday.  More coring tomorrow and probably Tuesday will be my last field day.  Sorry for no pictures.

BP

Thunder and The Dark Knight

Working in the Lab

Monday I was quite productive.  First I set the registration process into motion for the club’s Wilderness First Aid course.  Somehow over the last few weeks I’ve become a savvy webmaster and the whole thing is online.  If you want to check it out go to the club site on the right and then click the link and if you happen to be a UConn undergraduate, register, because spots are going fast.  I also sent a bunch of emails notifying and inviting different groups of people.

I’ve recently discovered RSS feeds and that they’re the greatest thing ever.  I have my email program fetch new posts from lots of blogs and then I can read them offline in Mail.  It makes me more productive since I don’t have to check a handful of blogs in a browser every day.  There’s an RSS feed for this blog and even one for the UCOC Blog.  You can put an RSS feed into the new UConn Students page also.  High tech technology stuff.

Also on Monday, I banged through all of MCAT organic chemistry.  In the afternoon we put together a trip to go see The Dark Knight in San Jose.  Tiago drove cutting down on commute time and increasing flexibility.  Scott, Taylor and Ron also came along.  It felt super awesome to just hop in the car and go somewhere with some friends, something I’ve never really done in CR

Once we successfully got to the mall in San Pedro we bought tickets ($3.60!) and hopped over to the food court where I dominated a foot long Subway.  Not totally the same as home, but some good lovin’ anyway.  After dinner we had an unsuccessful hunt for a wiffle ball bat and then waited in a slow line for snacks (caramel corn!) and the long line to get in the theater which was about half gringo.  The movie was as-anticipated and as-hyped, amazing.  

The drive home was interesting by first navigating our way out of San Jose and driving through the dark, curvy, hilly national park.  We were back to La Selva before midnight and hit the hay after checking the Yankees score and reading Mike’s post on the Kasey party.  

Today, I had to cut the field from our plans since I have no access to the map I need to navigate in the plantation until next week.  Spent the morning toying around and showering.  Massed dry samples after lunch and picked up the MCAT books again.  Choppers, Taylor and Fei are out batting in Chilamate tonight.  I’ll probably go to the field tomorrow, Thursday and Friday to core some trees.  Dinner out with the team Thursday night.  Changed the plane ticket this morning to August 4th, 11:50 p.m. arrival at Bradley.  See everyone soon!

BP

And Our Numbers Dwindled

He Gave a Speech!

Singing Hannah Montana

Robert going crazy, Taylor reacting and note Sleeping Brazilian right myeh

Stefanie, Jenny and Justin at Dinner

Gilly, Fei and I at Dinner

Taylor and Robert

The Girls Team, Robert Rocking Bunny Ears

Fantabulous Picture of Fei

Working Really Really Hard Coloring (Soccer Balls are Hard to Draw)

The Men

View of Super Intense Rain from the Porch

Scott, Deniz and Lauren at Dinner

Alabama! Becca, Ron, Pete, Megan, Tiago

Latest and Greatest Propaganda

Anorexic Armadillo

This Picture Emphasizes how Fast I Core Trees

Finally Looking Like the High School Biology Teacher he is

Did anyone say badass??? (If you look closely a reel is jury-rigged to the crossbow)

It’s gotten to the point, as it did last summer when there are no more courses here and researchers start leaving at a much faster rate than new ones arrive.  Just a couple tables filled up at breakfast and lunch.  Friday night we all watched Big Daddy, which only gets better the more times you see it.  I’ve been bombarded lately by mad people asking if I have this movie or that movie...super stressful.

Speaking of dwindling, more and more of my things start disappearing, and I’m sad to report, it comes with the turf.  People just take things.  They don’t have to need it or even want it, but they just take it.  Leave a piece of Glad-ware in the kitchen and it’s gone the next day, leave a towel hanging somewhere and it walks off, a dirty towel nonetheless.  Not really sure where my good flash drive is nor my headlamp, but I still have faith those things were lost by me and they’ll turn up some day.

Saturday morning, Fei went to the field with Vanessa and Rigo (her crossbow-wielding assistant) and Taylor and I stayed in to process samples in the lab.  It all went pretty well except for rebagging the samples because of the discrepancy in oven reservations.  Today, dry samples came out and I put Saturday’s into trays and in the oven.  Beyond lab work I’ve kept busy with a hodgepodge of things, but plan on hitting the grindstone tomorrow to ensure I complete all of my non-research summer tasks before I get home.

And back to Saturday, which was the day of the next party in our schedule, “Bobby to Bocas: A Celebration of Robert Hegna.”  See the wonderful advertisement this time around.  We had epic thunderstorms right around the time we headed to town for shopping.  My new OTS umbrella seems to be defected in that when the rain gets really hard it just collapses onto me and I feel like something in a trap.  

We got everything we needed for the party between La Viña and Palí (the Costa Rican edition of Wal-Mart).  After shopping we met just about every other researcher at Restaurante Mi Lindo for Robert’s going away dinner.  Our numbers were probably boosted by “Cubed Ginger Beef” on the La Selva Menu.  I had really good steak fajitas with a jalapeño sauce.

The funny from this trip to town is that I was entrusted with ordering the patacones for appetizer.  Something in my Spanish must of come out funny, because what ended up at the table was a burger and patacones.  Regardless, it was a wonderful starter and we split the burger into fours.  Back at the station I prepped a mean guacamole, we watched South Park and Entourage, played girls vs. boys flip cup, and all in all had the tamest party yet.  I ended staying pretty late and Robert and I sang a bunch of Hannah Montana songs for Taylor.

Today included an uncontrollably lazy morning followed by a busy afternoon of bussing around wood samples and getting things slightly more organized.  I should be home two weeks from tomorrow, and need to look into getting the plane ticket moved.  Tomorrow is productivity, Tuesday more coring at another plantation and Thursday will be the longest day ever.  Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures!

BP

Simple Life Gone Complicated

Now, He looks like a Pirate

Gil and Taylor Porching It

Fei and I Porching It

Fei, Vanessa and Taylor at Coffee Break

Team Chazdon Coffee Break!

Wowzers, two days in a row.  To make up for 2+ pages of blog yesterday I’ll just update the most recent happenings including the seemingly simple (MCAT, coffee, sports) life getting increasingly complicated (coring, lab work).  We have a pretty good story from last night that we’ve been spreading all day.  Remember man movie night (300) (see above)...

We’re all sitting there watching the movie (completely badass) in the comedor for about an hour when a lady (tourist) walks over from the dorms across the street and asks us pretty nicely to turn down the volume.  Of course this is a movie where the volume needs to be loud for dialogue and quiet for battle scenes.  We squinted our ears for the next few scenes and then there was a battle and another tourist dude comes over and asks us to turn it down, but stresses the fact that he’s getting up at 5:30 a.m. to go bird watching (does that actually require energy?).  And we turned it down lower and started making the dialogue up since no one could hear over the fans and ice machine and whatnot.  Then a security alarm starts going bananas next door and it was about five times louder than our movie, so we turn the movie up of course and slowly more tourists in their pajamas migrate over looking super confused.  The alarm stayed on for hours.

I was up before seven this morning, which was a welcome change of pace.  Breakfasted and hit the trail to Lindero Sur for one more day of tree coring.  The commute was pretty good and we cored 38 trees in under two hours and were back for lunch.  At this point my field work is “over,” but I proceeded to add more fruit to my bowl.  I verbally agreed to help Taryn chop down coffee trees one day (I know, not really me-behavior).  In the afternoon I started emailing to set up and extracurricular project at yet another plantation for next week.

Still, not too much more work until we got to the greatest Team Chazdon coffee break of all time featuring Choppers on the calendar and Vanessa on the PowerBook.  We basically mapped out the next three weeks of field work and lab work.  Amanda will spend next week analyzing data while I’ll do my extracurricular project and core and process wood samples of Vanessa’s additional species.  Looks like three more field days in the next week and one crazy night of lab work Thursday.  I’ll also go to the field one day on the 29th for some more coring where we were today.

And that’s how my life got more complicated, but in essence Vanessa’s wood density work will also be work for my project because I’ll specifically look at radial gradients and carbon concentration.  I’ll probably return home one week early (8/4) and be vacationing starting the first of August.  Fun pictures from the last day on the porch and at coffee break.  Thanks for the read!

BP

Pictures From The Crazy Craze

How I Got Mad Heads to Sug's Party

Robert's Pirate Face

Eyelash Viper on the STR

Gilbert and Robert (my understudies) Cooking Patacones

Birthday Girls (Taylor and Virginia)

At the Bar

More Bar

Fei Doing Up the Garlic Bread

Robert Debriefing (Distributing the Jell-O) the Late Arrivals (Erin, Cheryl, Steven)

This Game Got Quite Loud (This team, of course, dominated the night)

This Is How Everyone Should Look On Their Birthday

Birthday Girls Losing in Style

The Nicole Entourage; Marvin, Julie, James, Nicole and Diane

The Infection That Cost Us A Field Day

Our Door After Many Hours Of Coloring

Taylor, pre-party

The Back Kitchen

The One Where Fei Drops Cake On My Leg (The Healthy One)

@ fiesta espectacular

There’s certainly a lot to go over.  Pretty sure I slept in again on Sunday...I never really did it at all last summer...stupid social life.  Hit up the ole MCAT Physics on my all morning coffee break.  Upon returning to all afternoon coffee break around 1:30 p.m., Gilbert, Taylor and Fei walked up to the station, returning from the weekend in San Jose.  Got the DL on what went down in the big city (nothing epic, so I’ll forego the details).  

Some fellow researchers--Justin, Lauren and Stefanie--were also on a weekend vacation to some of the volcanoes here in Costa Rica.  As they were enjoying a morning dip in a hot spring, some dude walked up and grabbed their bag, mere feet away from the river, and ran with it.  The best part is that Justin took off and hopped in a nice guy’s car and they spent the next hour driving around town looking for the guy.  Unfortunately they lost their wallets, cameras, etc. (I know how that feels).

My Weekend, in a picture

Sunday night started out with some cake and music and manifested into a trip to the bar in the rain (again) for Virginia’s birthday.  During our last bar excursion, Gil and I sold them out of Bavaria Dark (the only beer worth paying for) (and don’t worry there were only five).  But in the week since they hadn’t gotten any more.  Thus nursed a Pilsen for about three hours, worked myself into some pretty crazy pictures and sent Deniz to request the Britney Spears video mix.  Apparently the Baby One More Time video didn’t change anyone’s life as it did mine that first day on TRL (and...reminisce) (...one more time).

Late night, but made it to breakfast.  Choppers (who I’ve decided is my summer big sister) looked at Taylor’s foot and thought it might be infected, so they took off for the clinic in town and Fei and I forewent the field due to the long commute and docked productivity.  Robert tagged along and picked up more party supplies at the store.  The best part of this story is that on their way back in the taxi, Taylor and Choppers realized they didn’t have any money to pay the cabby, so they had him stop at the BCR ATM.  While Choppers was in the bank, the cab driver started arguing with the guy who went before Chops.  It escalated into the cab driver grabbing two big knives out of the car and going at his foe.  Luckily a car pulled up in between and they drove off.  Choppers (and I) missed the whole thing.

The rest of Monday I did some studying, played frisbee, strained my ankle (the one on the bad leg) a bit there and then went to get ready for the party.  Shuttled all the party supplies over to the lounge and started cooking up some a-mazing quesadillas (some of my best work, topped with a simple but spicy guacamole).  Gilbert, Fei and Taylor worked on the moist cake.  We also made nachos, garlic bread, jell-o and patacones late night.  Plenty to eat and drink.

The turnout was pretty great with a lot of people staying pretty late.  We had some really loud games of flip cup, so half of the pictures look like your average American basement party except for the pouring sweat.  Watched the home run derby and Josh Hamilton’s incredible performance.  

The party started dwindling away around one in the morning when it was down to six or seven of us.  Fei decided to proffer up the last piece of cake and girl musta been way too excited because the cake ended up frosting end (business end) on my leg (the healthy one).  My initial reaction was to eat the frosting, but after one lick, I kind of just left it there.  After Taylor beat me up we did some cleaning and it was down to me and a stumbling Marvin who I carried all the way back to the river station...a play (in translation)

Halfway to the River Station, 3:30 a.m., on the bridge over the river, Guard 1 walks up

Ben: Hey, my boy’s pretty drunk.

Guard 1: Be careful.  The river is dangerous.  Watch out for snakes.

Guard 1 exits stage right.

Finally got to bed around 4:00 a.m. and slept in until 9:30 a.m.  Woke and felt a lot like “I cannot brain today; I have the dumb.”  Got around to more MCAT and downloaded lots of new music (new Nas, new O.A.R.).  That night Taylor and I went over to the comedor to use the new TV and watch the All Star Game.  First off, the best All Star Game I’ve ever watched and they’re all good since the AL has never lost as long as I’ve been a fan.  And major brownie points for Sug for having 15 innings of endurance after the night before.  Best moment was every time they showed Derek Jeter telling Terry Francona how to manage and Kevin Youkilis with a sugar-free Red Bull at 1:00 a.m. East Coast.  Not to mention, Dan Uggla’s three errors, three strikeouts and one GIDP.  Also the conflict of emotion when J.D. Drew went yard.

Forgot to mention we had great dinner on Tuesday.  Great rice dish with french fries and got to watch the pregame ceremonies during.  Vanessa joined us and agreed to help us in the field on Wednesday in place of Taylor (not that Sug is replaceable).  Wednesday went well in the field.  We cored over fifty trees before 1:00 p.m. and did all the lab processing that afternoon only to find the oven that I reserved in February was overtaken for the next three days.  Therefore, the samples are air drying in the office until I can get them in the cooker.  

  

Wednesday night we made more patacones, watched South Park (“He make no money”), Weeds and Entourage.  In bed at 11 p.m. and up at 7:22 a.m., the last possible moment to make it across the river for breakfast allotting two minutes to get dressed and rub the eyes and five minutes to walk over with one minute to spare.  Good thing too because they had my favorite eggs.  

Today has been a creative day for Team Chazdon.  Taylor and I made name tags for our door, I’ve been blogging, Taylor is currently making model frogs for Robert, and we’re beginning to brainstorm a good poster for Saturday’s party (we’re the Party Planning Committee if you haven’t gathered that yet) (the cool one with Pam, not Angela’s).  Tonight the women are watching Sex in the City in the lounge and the men (plus Taylor and Fei) are watching 300 in the comedor.  We had “Pasta Chop Suey” lunch today, which boiled down to Top Ramen without the salt.  

This post has gotten long enough, enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading!

BP

Oh Hamburgers I Haven’t Blogged In A While

Just had an oh hamburgers moment so I’ll get to the blogging dealio.  Pretty boring life the last couple of days for this kid.  I’ll pick up Wednesday with our wonderful field day in Lindero Sur with Enrique identifying and tagging.  We got great numbers for a bunch of species and just under one hundred trees total.  Saw my second snake after Enrique pointed it out.  He didn’t know the name of it only that it wasn’t poisonous and ate birds, not people.  A big’un at well over a meter.

We finished work (at the back of the property) around 11:45 a.m. and I was determined to make it back for lunch, which ends at one.  Not only did I make it back, but I had time to shower beforehand.  It was well worth it because they had the best broccoli since I’ve been in Costa Rica and away from Southy.  Coffee breaked a whole bunch Wednesday and listened to the Yanks game later on.  Around 8:00 p.m., a few of us trekked out to the bar in the rain for Diane’s going-away to Nicaragua.  After a few drinks we regrouped at the lounge to watch a pretty ludicrous episode of CSI on the tube.

Slept in, again, Thursday.  I’ve probably made it to breakfast on only 50% of my non field days in the last couple of weeks.  Watched some South Park before going to lunch and seeing Taylor, Fei and Gilbert off to San Jose for the weekend.  Made a pledge to log some serious sleep in their absence and it’s been going pretty well so far, easily 11 hours last night.

Today and Friday I spent the majority of my time studying for the MCAT.  Got through all of the biology and onto the organic chemistry tomorrow morning.  It all feels really comfortable because every concept is on its second or third repetition and most of it was from A & P II, one of my favorite classes.

Tomorrow Virginia’s birthday and I believe there’s going to be cake and an excursion to the bar.  Monday is the beginning of the end of field days for my project and later on “Fiesta Espectacularrrrr para Los Cumpleaños de Taylor.”  Did the shopping for the party this afternoon, forgoing a very very muddy game of ultimate.  Patacones and quesadillas...yum.  The coming week is three long days of field with three long days of lab, so don’t expect blogging wonders, but I will post pictures from the party.

In far future news, I’ll probably try to return to the states early in the first week of August.  And then once the MCAT is done (8/15) it’s all about canoeing, hiking, birthday and Madden 2009 until that school thing gets going again.  For pictures today, a couple winners from field days past.  Thanks for reading!

BP

Houston, We Have A Drought

This time last year the river had flooded and it poured at some point almost every day, but as of now we haven’t had any rain in well over 48 hours.  Every thing is really dry and the grass might start going brown.  Also for the first time I can remember the Yankees last three games have been on TV and they have all been awesome including Sunday night’s tenth inning Brett Gardner walk-off single.

Monday we were all really laid back, probably still recovering from the Fourth more or less.  On that note, we coffee-breaked early morning until 8:30 a.m. when we gathered motivation to get off to the field.  Went out to Lindero Sur near the back of the property and flagged out some tree coring plots.  Went pretty quick and easy and we made it back for spaghetti lunch.

Monday night we had a crazy whack party for Nicole, Julie, James and Diane’s departure to Nicaragua.  I provided some bumping music and a bunch of people brought a bunch of alcohol.  We had a girl vs. boy fight and Gilbert and I agreed that drinking is hard work and the lounge with its two broken fans becomes a sauna when 25 people stop by.  All in all a good night, I might try to track down some pictures.

I got a new roommate, Shea from Washington (the state), and a new credit card, so I can finally buy stuff and stop mooching my butt off.  This morning, I was “dragged” to the field by Taylor to help move flags, which was billed as an obligate three-person job.  I was 100 percent not in the mood for the field after the preceding night and we ended having four people including Robert helping out.  Rather than being “needed” Robert and I served as extra sets of eyes and arms.  Felt like crap most of the time, but persevered.

The rest of the day was an amalgam of coffee, lab work, soccer and the Yanks game, which is in bottom eight as I write.  Tomorrow we’re in the field with Enrique identifying and tagging trees for the last time.  Friday is off as the girls will be in San Jose.  Sometime next week we’re (the manly men) setting a trip to San Jose to hit up Hooters of Costa Rica for wings and to see the new Batman.  I’ll try to post a bunch of pictures soon.  Thanks for reading!

BP

Epic Movie

Contiguous 48 Brownies! Fei and Robert

Bumping Party

Buttload of People

Our sweet ride to the field last week

Revisiting the scene of the accident

My knee hit the sharp part like a hammer on a nail

The barbed wire that caught my boot

Burger-cooking on the Fourth

Thursday was a little better for the knee, but the nagging pain was just as bad as my nausea during Tuesday’s lab work.  Can’t really recall the rest of Thursday, but playing the odds I bet there was a coffee break, dinner was banging and I do remember that the Yankees lost.  We got some slack from the Alabamans for working on the Fourth, but we definitely made up for it.

Friday my knee didn’t bother me at all in the field as long as I stayed up on it.  We cored the last 48 trees at the La Guaria plantations including Dipteryx panamensis, the hardest tree yet.  Taylor and I switched off on getting the corer started in 12 of these beasts.  Yelled “BEEFCAKE” a lot to pump up the team.  In the past ten days we’ve had beef cakes and chile con carne(ival) at dinner on separate nights.  My South Park allusions have hit an all time high.

Getting a ride door to door from La Selva to the plot was a welcome change, especially with the bum knee.  On Wednesday there was a downed tree 800 meters from the plantation so we had some walking, but on the way in Friday, they brought a chainsaw and made quick work of it.  Taylor is sitting next to me and keeps complaining about her sore triceps from coring.  Pretty sore myself, but we don’t core again until next Monday.

After showering up Friday we coffee breaked and then I took in a Tico-dominated futbol game featuring Taylor, Ron, Marvin and some other researchers.  Pretty exciting game.  Taylor was all complaints afterwards about getting kicked at some point by an unidentified player.  That brought us to six o’clock when I headed over to the lounge to get cooking up some burgers.  Burgers were a huge hit done up with some onions, Lee & Perrins, fried egg, and BBQ sauce all on some butter-toasted Musmanni bread.  Gil, Rob and Fei made brownies which were shaped like the contiguous forty eight.  

Lots of people showed up...a fiesta to rival Rogapalooza...we just lacked wiffle ball and fireworks (confetti poppers instead).  Spent the rest of the night watching American Pie 2, listening to lots of rap music, eating Jell-O and brownies, running the pong table and eventually cleaning up the disaster which involved some “fluids” on the floor and a bunch of dishes.  Also found a coral snake (no mimic, no joke) (and nobody poked it, I swear) outside.  Super cool and also the first snake I’ve seen at La Selva in over a month.

I ended up sleeping until noon on Saturday.  Gil, Taylor and Fei actually came to wake me up for lunch, but I escaped the attack and made it to lunch in time.  After lunch Taylor and I worked with the dry samples in the lab and listened the Yankees game (regardless of all negative (jokingly) comments above, Taylor/Sug(ar)/Beefcake is the best lab/field assistant anyone could ask for, including tolerating listening to baseball and the line “Tell a girl like Doritos, that’s ‘nacho cheese’” over and over again).

Of course I had a full day of lab work to do in a half day, but the game sounded good and there was a chance it was on TV.  On the way to coffee, we stopped in the lounge and the game was on we I (Tay napped) watched the fifth inning, got coffee and returned for the last three.  Super exciting ninth capped with the Yanks much-needed victory.  On ESPN tonight too (Joba v. Wakefield).

Great game of frisbee in the rain after baseball.  Got super muddy and wet, so showered before dinner.  We had peccary and Robert brought the BBQ sauce so I turned out to be zoppity.  After dinner Taylor and I hit the lab work hard again and got the hard part done in two and a half hours after being joined by five others in the balance once we put South Park on.  Everything goes better with South Park.

Watched the movie In Bruges (pronounced like rouge).  Kind of dark and weird but hilarious at moments.  Slept in again...really have to quit that habit.  Spent the morning reading 1776 and coffee breaking with Taylor.  Washington’s about to cross the Delaware...it’s the bottom of the ninth and enlistments are up January 1, 1777, exciting stuff.  Lunch was amazing and since then I’ve been blogging.  Time to collect some pictures for this post.

Field on Monday and Wednesday, not too much lab work and a long weekend.  Two or three days of coring in the following week to finish up the project.  Thanks for reading and don’t sign off with out reading Mike’s last two posts (see the links).

BP