sakura & sunshine

i hesitate to say it, but it seems like the weather in seattle has hit a turning point. it's supposed to hit 60 today, and the sun is shining. hooray!

and while the cherry blossoms in front of my apartment are now just a pile of pink petals (rapidly turning brown) on the sidewalk and the trees are leafing out, the trees down by the waterfront below the health sciences building are in full force. i stopped to snap a few shots yesterday on my way from one lab to another... data can always wait for sunshine and photography.

in other news... battlestar galactica! the season finale was a-fracking-mazing. i'm in the process of re-watching season 3 - just finished episode 4 last night - and in the interest of avoiding getting spoilerrific for my lovely readers who have not seen it yet, let's just say that information learned in that episode throws new light on many of the events earlier in the season. i'm not sure i'm super-stoked about the identities of the 4 cylons revealed at the end of the episode - but it's an interesting twist and i'm definitely holding my breath for season 4 (DAMN them for making us wait until Jan 2008!). i think i might get the miniseries and seasons 1 and 2 from netflix soon.... rewatch the whole thing to tide myself over.

and in other geeky news, i got my issue of Buffy Season 8 #1 yesterday and quickly devoured it. way too short. but hey, joss & co have figured out a way to get me to shell out $3.50 a month for the next couple of years, since you bet your ass i'l be reading the whole series.

in other, other news: t minus 72 days until graduation!! fracking finally.

solitude

i just realized that i haven't seen another person all day, at all. and i haven't uttered any words that weren't directed at my cat. reminds me of an everything but the girl song... "if no one calls and i don't speak all day, do i disappear?"

some days i thrive on solitude. i cleaned a good part of my apartment today, tidied up the kitchen and the dining area and the bathroom, just in case someone were to drop by. i got a good head start on the reading for this week (classes start monday) and watched a lot of buffy. i also blew my nose a lot - to the point where i ran out of kleenex - stupid sinus infection. i think my cough is getting better, though.

one more quarter. 77 more days. then i'll finally be done with my damn undergrad degree, only 2 years late.

what is wrong here
what is wrong here
where is your head?

do you ever get movies from netflix and then procrastinate on watching them? i do sometimes, especially if it's a movie that i've heard is really good, but depressing. i did it with hotel rwanda - i think i had that movie for a month before i watched it. i've had boys don't cry sitting on my coffee table for at least two weeks, but i just got around to watching it tonight. i'm glad i did, but damn! what a downer. though it's true, hilary swank really did deserve the oscar for that performance. she's so believable. anyway, if you haven't seen the movie, rent it, it's good. rent it and think about it, about what our society does to people who don't fit the gender binary. then think about all the ways in which you yourself don't fit the binary - things you do, or things about you, that are stereotypical for the opposite gender. no one fits perfectly into any binary - or at least, no one remotely interesting. and, well, i guess it's an understatement to say that brandon got hirself mixed up with the wrong crowd... especially if the movie portrayals of her "friends" are accurate... but still. no one deserves to die for being who they are. gender is nothing but a label society gives us. who are they to tell each of us who we are?

repeat after me: gender is a social construct. nothing more.

it's late; i should get to bed.

in which i refer to my cat's bathroom habits

So the Great Kitty Potty Training experiment is fully underway. I've had the citikitty doodad on my toilet for about a week and a half now, and I just took away her regular litter box on Wednesday, leaving her no option but to use the new litter box on the toilet. She's adapting pretty well... no accidents thus far (knock on wood). The only downside is that having litter at the height of the toilet means that she can throw it that much farther when she paws around in it. I think I've swept my bathroom every single day since Wednesday. But, she's using it consistently for both #1 and #2, so hurdle number 1 has been cleared. The next step, which I'm supposed to undertake on Wednesday, is to remove the innermost ring from the doodad so she has a hole to use. The hole gets gradually enlarged until there's just a ring of litter around the edge, and in the process, the cat is supposed to learn to stand on the seat, instead of in the litter, to use the potty. So, in about a month, we should be litter-free and fully toilet trained. I'll keep you posted on how it goes, because I know the internet is just dying to know what my cat's bathroom habits are.

afternoon delight

last night, the light from the sunset reflected off the safeco building in such a neat way. it's definitely spring. it'll be summer when the afternoon light bounces off the building and fills my apartment with warmth. but now, even though it's 50 and raining every day, it's definitely spring... and it's only going to get lighter.

work hard don't stop

so it's officially spring break, and i'm back from the Northwest Developmental Biology conference at Friday Harbor (hence the pictures earlier). It was fun, but I left right after my last final, and spent 3 days thinking about science. And now I'm home and ready for a day off before I get to work on my research over the break. I need to go buy food, but I'm running low on cash since I went out to dinner a few times this weekend, and I'm kind of stuck on the couch blowing my nose every 5 minutes. The cold is almost over, but it's left me with a lovely sinus infection. i don't want to have to get antibiotics, but I'm not sure what else can be done against a sinus infection. (And yes, I know it's an infection... I could share details here about the fluorescent color of my snot, but I don't think you want to hear about that...) Ugh! I feel fine except for the fact that my head is full of green gooey goodness.

So spring break means new quarter, and new quarter means new classes and new textbooks. I'm only taking 2 real classes, but they're not going to be easy, and I'm also trying to crank out some data for my project, mapping and characterization of my zebrafish mutant. That means that I'm going to need to get at least one pair of consistently breeding heterozygote pairs of fish, something I have had trouble with the last few months. Grragrh, the fish better start giving. My 2 real classes are 3rd quarter biochem and a genome informatics class, neither of which is going to be a walk in the park. Biochem is a ton of reading and memorization, plus 9 freaking quizzes this quarter (as opposed to only exams last quarter), and genome informatics is a programming assignment a week. Hopefully they won't be too difficult and I won't be too far behind in the programming aspect, since I haven't written even a snippet of code in probably 4 years. I think it's mostly Perl though, and from what I hear Perl is pretty easy to learn.

I think I'm going to give myself the afternoon to watch some Firefly and blow my nose some more. Cause I haven't done enough of that today.

half irish, full suburbs

Stanford is known for producing a lot of successful and talented people, in business, science, and engineering... hip-hop has not traditionally been one of their strongest fields. But graduating with the class of 2007 is K.Flay, a white girl from Illinois calling herself the Suburban Rap Queen. She's got a bunch of songs available for download from her website - you should check them out. My favorite is probably "Hey Ladies" - but I also like "Work". Definitely worth a listen.

friday harbor

more here, and more later.

ok, this is awesome

check this out: the moon's transit of the sun, as viewed from the STEREO-B spacecraft.
here's the explanation. I was completely unaware of the STEREO program, but it looks pretty cool. (found via this site)

more sakura

so it's sunday before finals week, which means it's apartment-cleaning weekend. (isn't it funny how it always works that way?) it's also laundry weekend... though at this point it's just all rounded up into the hamper and waiting by the door with the detergent; i'm considering putting it off until tomorrow in favor of... uh... studying.

the fun part of laundry day is always what you get away with wearing. i spent most of the morning in yoga pants (after doing hardly any yoga at all this morning), and when it was finally time to get myself to the grocery store, i rounded up the nearest pair of semi-clean jeans - ones i haven't worn in months. it wasn't until i had them on that i remembered just how flared these pants are. i've pretty much sworn off boot-cut/flare jeans, seeing as that's the word from On High, and in the last 8 months i've acquired about 4 new pairs of pants, all in the straight/skinny leg tradition. so it was weird to me to see my tennis shoes swallowed by gaping 14" maws when i'm finally getting used to seeing the skinny cuff all scrunched around the tops.

it must be finals week; i'm waxing prosaic on my wardrobe. god save me.

one more thing: go tell Starbucks that you don't like their decision to put Discovery Institute crap on their cups. for details, see pharyngula - he's got a good rundown of the situation.

meme time

ok, so you all know i don't do this stuff very often, but this one seemed cool: it's a list of the most significant scifi and fantasy of the last 50 years. in bold are all the ones i've read.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

i would have guessed i'd done better than that... but i can't say there are any glaring omissions from my point of view. maybe a couple of gibson short stories, like the whole of burning chrome, but hey... i didn't make the list, i just posted the meme on my blog. (mad props to pz for his impressively-bolded list.)

saturday

listening: imogen heap, speak for yourself. the voice behind frou frou is equally strong on her own. i just love her voice, and her songs are perfect background music for studying time.

just finished watching: the season 7 - aka series - finale of buffy. it's a bit of a letdown to finish an epic, but since i know now that it's not really the end, just the end of the tv show, it's not as hard as it might have been if i'd been watching it on network tv in 2003. today also marks the 10th anniversary of the buffy tv show - it was picked up by the WB midseason in march of 1997. buffy was more than just another tuesday night drama - it was such a powerful story that has impact far beyond the realm of tv. joss whedon has said that he intended for buffy to live on in her fans, to become a part of every woman on the planet, and i think he succeeded at least a little bit. there were so few positive female role models on tv, especially tv geared at teenagers, before buffy came along. and it was a show that wasn't afraid to take chances. case in point: "once more with feeling" - the musical episode. "hush" - the episode where no one is able to speak. "the body" - the episode that chronicles the 24 hours after buffy discovers her mother dead on the couch. if ever there was a more influential tv show, i have yet to see it. so here's my advice for anyone who likes butt-kicking, funny quips, or hot girls, or for anyone who enjoys battlestar galactica, or serenity, or anyone who likes reading comic books or watching action-packed anime. start at the beginning - "welcome to the hellmouth" - and stick with it. those who are able to make it through the first season will surely not be able to quit after that - all 7 seasons come together as a fully fulfilling story, an epic tale of a postmodern hero, a female fighter we can all embrace.

and with that over, i am empowered and inspired to geek out on my textbooks for the next 4 and a half days. wednesday morning, it's all over. wednesday afternoon, i'll be in friday harbor, up in the san juans, surrounded by the beauty of puget sound and all the pacific northwest has to offer. and when i get back on sunday, i'll have an entire week off from school. woohoo!!!

a couple of awesome sites

first: brainmaps.org. Tons and tons of visual data from brains of various species, including our own. Zoom in to the cellular level on many of the images. Sweet stuff, plus it's all open access. (via cognitive daily)

second: the cochlea homepage. Lots of awesome images, plus a good primer on cochlear anatomy and function. (this one's via retrospectacle)

sakura

grr... arrgh

sigh. dark horse has pushed back the release date for Buffy Season 8 #1 until the 21st. this is the second time this has happened... it should have been out today. joss... what's the holdup?

home again, home again

trying to get back into the swing of things after a week off of classes is hard. trying to get back into the swing of things after a week in the most picturesque location in the world, with some of the most amazing people you've ever met surrounding you 24 hours a day, and coming back to the last week before finals, one or two lectures behind, and with a dose of apathy a million miles wide, is harder.

apathy's not the right word, either. it's not like i don't care about classes, it's just that i'm nearly completely caught up, and i'm sitting in a good place, if i just put in the work. i think i can 4.0 the quarter, but i'm having trouble focusing and buckling down due to other forces afoot.

focus. not on real ultimate britney, or plotting random acts of folly. especially don't focus on buffy. focus on biochemistry. your final is a week from today. focus for one more week, then for one more quarter.

and we're back...

so i'm back from my canadian sojourn, a bit behind in classes and with a stuffy, achy head and throat and general fatigue. if it's flu i don't want to know, i just want to keep plodding through this last week of classes without falling further behind.

this is the iconic mountain that is on all the postcards of Banff. it's not the one with the ski area (i was also surprised to learn that the Banff ski area is small and Lake Louise is far preferable to most locals), but right above the iconic Banff hotel. the name escapes me at the moment, but i have to post this picture of it because it is so amazing in person. the canadian rockies are incredible in general, but this particular mountain is especially cool because it is so easy to see how it formed. the whole area is formed of rocks that used to be seafloor in the Cambrian era, pushed up and broken into craggy mountains. see how one side is so smooth, and the other is a jagged series of layers? it's awe-inspiring to imagine what sort of a huge event caused this formation. so, so cool.

this is the view from the gondola from the base of the lake louise ski area. incredible view. amazing powder, good trails... a good day of snowboarding.

left to right: the weiglator (scott weigle, our mentor and professor, and all-around awesome dude), katie (testing her radio) and tim, not realizing i'm taking a picture and hiding behind his skis.

nels, ben and i on the gondola. good times.
as always, there are more photos on my flickr site.
in other news, insert vague reference to some sort of huge development afoot in my life. it turns out persistence, patients and guts pay off, occasionally. more later... maybe.

canadian rockies

mountains!

wikimapia is awesome. so will be lake louise, i predict. check out those craggy mountains! i can hardly wait. t minus 9 hours until departure...

hypoxia 2007

t minus 1 day, 9 hours, and counting until we leave for lake louise, for the 2007 international hypoxia symposia. i am really excited about this trip... it should be amazing. i'll only be gone for 5 nights, but it's going to be 2 *full* days of driving, 4 days of science, scenery, and skiing, and 5 nights of debauchery and fun with my white mountain buddies. woohoo!

check out our route. google maps makes it look like it's going to be hella pretty. i have never been to the canadian rockies before, but i was looking at pictures and satellite images online and it looks like i will not be disappointed. evidently they're some pretty impressive mountains.

so i'm sure i'll be taking lots of pictures, and there's wi-fi at the hostel, so i should be able to flickr stuff on the fly. the one thing that's going to be a bit harsh is the weather forecast - one day (tuesday?) the predicted high is -12 degrees C. that's like... 10 degrees Fahrenheit. BRRRR!!!

and now, for something completely random, my hand on a plate in negative color!

1,001!

i didn't even notice that my last post was the 1,000th to this blog.

oysters!

my friend kevin (whose couch i slept on in new york last summer) was in town for a microsoft interview, so he called me and we had dinner last night at elliot's oyster house. mmmm! oysters are tasty. we sat at the bar and chatted with the oyster guy (i'm sure he has a fancier name than that) about shellfish and seattle. he hooked us up with the last two of the ones on the bottom, the pretty round ones. they were super-tasty. but the icing on the cake was the champagne stuff in the middle. it's this icy, peppery really tasty frosty stuff made out of mumm's champagne and some other stuff. (sorry, i am so not a foodie... i should be able to describe that better.) anyway, it was yummy.

the picture was taken on my new camera phone. after the camera saltwater tragedy i figured it was as good a time as ever to upgrade my cellphone, especially since i was up for a contract renewal. so i signed my soul away to cingular for another 2 years, but i got a sweet sony ericsson w810i for just 75 bucks. it's got a 2 megapixel camera, which is the same as my old camera... slightly less zoom power, but definitely smaller. plus, it's two gadgets in one. plus, it's got video capabilities with a microphone, something my old camera was lacking, and it takes good pictures at high resolution. the downer is that it takes memory stick instead of SD (damn you and your proprietary formats sony!) so my 1gb SD card is no good, and i'm stuck with 128 mb unless i want to buy a memory stick. overall though, i have to say i am impressed. it's a great phone, and a pretty decent camera to boot. :D

sweaty basketball players

george takei is awesome. (tim hardaway is not, obviously.)

what good is half an eye? plenty!

From the Guardian's blog, an interesting tale about a bionic eye turns into an effective argument against Intelligent Design. (via Evolving Thoughts)

Part of the reason that ID is such a seductive argument is the way that adaptation is often referred to in popular culture. No natural history documentary script would be complete without a description of the polar bear as "perfectly adapted" to its habitat or a eulogy to the "exquisite camouflage" of the arctic fox.

But nature is much more interesting than the Discovery Channel would have us believe. Look closely and much of it wouldn't be winning any design awards. Rabbits, for example, have an inefficient and frankly gross way of digesting their food. Your furry pet has a side branch to its gut that is full of enzymes and bacteria. By munching on half-digested morsels from this side branch that have passed out of its backside the rabbit's stomach and intestines have a second go at extracting nutrients. It works, but from a design point of view it is crazy.

Despite looking pretty impressive, the human eye itself is put together in a way that a fairly unintelligent designer could improve on. The rod and cone cells that gather light and convert it into electrical impulses destined for the brain are wired up "back to front". So light hitting the retina has to pass through a maze of wiring before it reaches the light-gathering rods and cones. And anyone with a bad back could be forgiven for cursing our knuckle-dragging ancestors who gave us a spine that is not well designed for upright support. The point is, though, that all of these bad designs, with their echoes of ancestors long since gone, are good enough.

And as to the old creationist argument that half an eye (or half of any complex structure) would do no good, well, consider that one BUSTED. A rudimentary light-sensing patch with 4x4 resolution is far better than no light-sensing equipment whatsoever; a cochlear implant with 16 channels is better than no hearing at all. It's easy to see how just a single cell with the ability to sense where the light is conferred a huge advantage on the organism that posessed it. So too with the first animal to evolve a two-celled light sensing organ. Two becomes 4, 4 becomes 8. Add some protective extracellular material, wire up some neural networks, and add a couple hundred million years of hardcore selection for the ability to sense one's environment more and more acutely... poof! the vertebrate eye!

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." T. Dobzhansky

Molecular basis of neural activity

A primer on membrane potential, ion channels, and neurotransmitters.

Part I.

As you may have learned in your introductory biology classes in high school or college, the fundamental unit of the cell membrane is the lipid bilayer. A double leaflet of phospholipids, with their charged phosphate group pointing towards the aqueous inner and outer environments, and their nonpolar, hydrophobic tail groups clustered together, protected from water, the lipid bilayer is the perfect selectively permeable membrane - if a molecule is small enough, or nonpolar enough, it can simply float through the bilayer, but if it is too large, or highly polar or charged, it cannot pass without the aid of a specialized transmembrane protein. In this way the lipid bilayer forms a selectively permeable barrier - the cell can effectively choose what gets in and out and when. It's not hard to imagine that a cell needs many different types of transmembrane proteins specialized for the translocation of some species from one side of the membrane to the other. Some of the most basic, and most important of these are the ion channels and pumps. Together, these two types of proteins form the basis for many cellular processes, from blocking the entry of more than one sperm into an egg, to neurotransmission, muscle contraction, and exocytosis of vesicles containing hormonal signals. So, what are the basics?

1. Cells expend energy to establish and maintain a gradient of several ion species across the membrane. Your brain uses around 40% of your energy - and a large proportion of this energy is consumed by the Na/K ATPase, or sodium-potassium pump. This protein couples the breakdown of a molecule of ATP (the energy currency of the cell) to the transport of a few sodium ions out of the cell and a few potassium ions in. The result of this transporter's action is that sodium ions are present in higher concentration outside the cell, and potassium ions are present in higher concentration on the inside. Calcium is also higher out than in, though cells may also sequester calcium inside membrane-bound organelles such as endoplasmic reticulum, or sarcoplasmic reticulum in muscle cells.

2. Cell membranes hold an electrical gradient as well. The interior of the cell contains a number of negatively-charged species, such as phosphate groups and organic acids. In terms of classical E&M physics, the cell membrane acts as a capacitor, storing up charge without allowing it to pass. The extracellular sodium ions are strongly attracted to the negative inner membrane surface and build up along the membrane, making the extracellular face of the membrane highly positively charged. This adds up to a potential gradient across the membrane of around -70 mV in most cells. By convention, this number is negative when the intracellular environment is more negative than the extracellular.

3. By controlling the flux of ions across the membrane, a cell can harness the drive of cations to flow into the cell. Ligand-gated and voltage-gated ion channels are the two most important classes of transmembrane transporters that allow ions to flow down an electrochemical gradient and to be harnessed for intracellular signalling. Ligand-gated ion channels, those which are opened by the binding of a particular small molecule such as dopamine, open in the presence of neurotransmitters and allow sodium and (to a smaller extent) calcium ions to flow into the cell. Voltage-gated ion channels of many different types open and close at certain membrane potentials, forming the basis of the action potential, the fundamental unit of neural activity.

In summary, the ionic basis for neurotransmission can be thought of in terms of an equation straight out of high school physics: V=IR, or I=V/R. I, or current, is the flux or net movement of charged particles; in our case, it's the flow of ions across a membrane. V, or voltage, represents the gradient across the membrane. This gradient has two components: chemical and electrical. A higher concentration of sodium ions outside than in, combined with a negatively charged intracellular environment, in effect form two forms of "motivation" for a sodium ion to cross the membrane. R, or resistance, can be thought of as the path by which a species can cross the membrane. Ions are far too big and charged to cross the membrane without the assistance of a channel; without a channel present, R is very high (if not infinite), so no matter what V is, there is no I or current. The presence or opening of channels across the membrane lowers the resistance, thus increasing the current.

OK, that's enough for today. Next time I'll try to get into the mechanics of an action potential, and the roles of voltage-gated sodium and potassium ion channels. As always, wikipedia is a great place to learn more. Here's the article on lipid bilayers, in case you want to know more.

best weekend evar.

this morning i woke up, sat up, and saw the pacific ocean. that happened yesterday morning too. yesterday afternoon i spent in full rain gear, out on the tide flats, digging up razor clams with the entire citizenry of moclips, wa. i love the ocean.

after an entirely grey, rainy day, as i dug up my 15th clam (the limit) the sun broke through the clouds with an amazing deep pink-red sunset. the entire horizon, as well as the glistening sand on the beach and the waves as far as the eye could see, absolutely burned with this beautiful fiery red. it was amazing.

later last night, in between rain showers, i saw the milky way.

the only bummer of the weekend was my stupidity in not listening to brock's recommendation to leave cameras in the car when digging clams. i was patting down my pocket to reassure myself that the camera was still there when i felt something drop and saw a splash, then my camera about an inch underwater. FUCK. i took the batteries out and gave it to my friend who had a pocket that fastened better... but i still haven't tried to turn it on yet. salt water is not good for electronics. i'm holding out absolutely no hope for its resurrection; i figure that way i can only be pleasantly surprised if it still works.

so i need to buy a new camera now. i think what i might do is buy a new cellphone with a 2 or 3 mp camera (my old one was just 2 mps), and then when i graduate (or maybe before, depending on financial situations) buy myself a canon rebel xt. my aunt let me play with hers over christmas, and it was awesome. it's a perfect entry-level digital slr - and with the new version (the xti i think) out now, the older model is coming down in price. i found one online the other day for somewhere in the $200 range for the body... and i can get the lens that comes with the full camera package for like $150 off of ebay. like 400 bucks for a full-featured digital slr. fuck yeah.

delta(regime)

read this.

it's a very concise, well-written version of what we've all been thinking for the past 6 years. fuck the bush regime, fuck authoritarianism. mad props to the former republicans joining the ACLU. mad jeers to the man behind the curtain, dick "is a killer" cheney, and to several spineless senate democrats.

the 2006 elections didn't change anything about the president's willingness to ignore the rule of law. the fight has really just begun.

also: bring our damn troops home. yesterday.

so after i got all excited about my kenneth cole order, i log back onto the website and it doesn't show up in my account. i think the website lost the order. and of course none of the things i ordered are still in stock.

FUCK. if they fucked up my order, i am going to be SUPER FUCKING PISSED.

oh wait, i already am.

edit: i should have known it was too good to be true. i bet they messed up their pricing system and cancelled my order because of that. oh well... bleh.

um OMG

OMFGWTFWOOHOO!

WTF is with all these great bands from the past deciding to reform this year? first the police, now the fucking smashing pumpkins? 2007 is the best year EVAR.

(thx jrad, o btw cn i hv my mrtni glssz bck?)

aaaah

i just bought almost $500 worth of clothes from the kenneth cole website.
wide-leg slate grey high-waist pants (SO all over the runway this season). original price: $148. i paid: $17.98.

knee-length grey skirt with voluminous pleats. original price: $148. i paid: $19.79.

army green jacket. original price: $198. i paid: $16.19

HOLY SHIT.

total charged to my visa: $68.

i am the MASTER of bargain shopping.

nurdz.

Charles: IM IN UR MUNE ZYSTEM KILLIN UR LUKOCYTES

awesome video.

DNA wrapping and replication animation.

(via pharyngula, my favorite scienceblog)

a new adventure

so i've been thinking about this for awhile, and i've decided it's time... to toilet-train my cat.

citi kitty makes a toilet-trainer doohickey that is highly recommended across the internets, with plenty of photos and youtube videos of cats that have been trained with the citi kitty doing their business. hey, if i never have to scoop again, i would be a happy camper.

i'll let you know how well it works. and i will post pictures of my cat using the toilet, once she gets the hang of it.

ugh

i am NOT getting sick again.... i am NOT getting sick again. i am NOT GETTING SICK AGAIN.

maybe if i keep telling myself this, the tickle in my throat and the icky in my nose will go away.

because i can't be sick! i have too much to get done this week. especially before wednesday.

w00t!

after biochem lecture today, i found myself walking at the same pace and direction as the professor for the first half of my biochem class. we'd learned in class that the exam was graded, the mean was 52 and the median was 53. (out of 100.)

me: "hey dr. parson, i was wondering if you knew what the high score on the exam was."
dr. p: "oh, i think it was a 92 or a 93. very impressive."

fast-forward five minutes of walking toward health sciences, the brown spot on my nose growing by the second. i admit it, i was schmoozing. anyway, fast-forward to me, walking out of the biochem office and out of sight of my classmates picking up their graded exam. i unfold my exam and look at my score...

92.

that's right, bitches. hate me. :D

proenza schouler? must be thursday.

it's those pants again! (style.com.) must get me a pair like this! i could wait and hope they put something like that in their FW07 line for Target (if they're doing a FW line for Target) or i could buy vintage. must go thrifting this weekend! i hit jackpot at the buffalo exchange last weekend and found a pair of shiny black trousers AND a pair of faded black jeans, both in straight/skinny leg, for a grand whopping total of $27. i was proud.

so, am i officially a geek yet, or am i going to have to pre-order this? that's right, joss whedon is writing a new comic book series that takes place after season 7 left off. the slayer epic continues! issue #1 hits the shelves on march 7, and he says he's shooting for a 25 to 30 issue series, with monthly issues. sweet! and then, there's this: a compendium, a veritable series of tomes of the buffyverse comics. That doesn't come out until july... actually, just 3 days before Deathly Hallows*. Plus, it starts out with a *faithful* comic-book adaptation of joss's original screenplay, the one that was produced as the B horror movie starring kristy swanson. i'm anxious to find out what joss really intended the story to be like. eeee! it's going to be an awesome summer.

hoom de hoom, don't be hasty. i'm trying to savor Season 7 of Buffy, since i know it's all the great live-action Buffy we'll have, at least for a good long while. but it's so hard, when the show is just so awesome. and what with my midterms over for the moment and me thoroughly ahead of the curve in all my classes, i have time for a little s&s (staking and slayage).

*I've been reconsidering my position on the does-Harry-die issue. I saw a quote by JK Rowling the other day that said something to the effect of, "I knew Harry's story would come to an end after 7 books." hmmmmmmmmmmm. maybe he does die. but probably not really DIE-die... or does he? *squeal* can't wait!

gadget!

so i actually got this a few weeks ago, but i just thought i'd post it because it's damn cool. it's a 4GB iPod nano, product[red] edition.

i'm not exactly sure why i decided to go for the red one, but something about the combination of the color, the vague social conscience connotations, and the fact that it was exactly the same price as the other 4GB nanos, but knowing that a whopping $10 from my purchase went to fighting aids in africa makes me feel... not good, but better, about my privleged place in the world.

if you can read that, you're overeducated*.


*ok, i'll tell you what it says. in the genetic code, in which DNA base sequence codes for amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), this sequence of bases codes for Lysine-Alanine-Threonine, or, using standard 1-letter codes, K-A-T. that's right, bitches, this is my iPod.

one more

ooh! michael kors.

seriously, what is not to love about this dress?
and what's with giving the hottest model on the catwalk the weirdest outfits? i guess just because she's the only one that can pull them off?


(from new york magazine this time)

on another note, i'm thinking about doing my hair like aygness. i've been considering going blonde again for awhile.. out of a box this time, instead of in the chair, cause i'm cheap...

**edit**
just came across this one. be still, my heart!

(from hermes, spring 2007, via style.com)

in which i continue the superficial trend from the past three days

Narciso Rodriguez and Betsey Johnson had just about the only looks that caught my eye from yesterday's shows.
from Narciso: I loved the simple lines on this one...


and i'm not quite sure what agyness has here on her front, but it's definitely... interesting.


Betsey Johnson had a few cute looks, especially when she deviated from her trademark little dresses...

but, for the LOVE of GOD, what is this???

and i've seen a variation on these pants on several different runways this year. i might have to find me some (for $20 at buffalo exchange, not $1000 at a boutique)

and, one more trend i am NOT in favor of: onesies.


that is all for today. (once again, all images are from style.com.)

spring is the new fall

...according to isaac mizrahi.


in the last 24 hours: marc jacobs, isaac, carolina herrera, and jovovitch-hawk, to name a few.

marc jacobs seemed pretty boring to me, though i did like this one:

the rest of the collection looked like something my grandma would wear... plus a few weird dresses and some godawful sequined blouses. agh! no!

carolina herrera had some cute looks, but i kept being baffled by these skirts:

is it just me, or does it look like pajama pants?

see the rest at style.com.

hauteness

february is upon us, and that can only mean one thing: new york fashion week. hell yes!

i don't exactly have time to flip through all the style.com slide shows, but i took a quick glance through Tuleh and DKNY - labels that I've loved in the past - and have to say, loving the fall 2007 looks so far. There was a lot of black and grey all around, especially in DKNY... but there were also splashes of color. And thank god fashion has gottten over the frilly victorian bent they've been off on for the past few years. (All images that follow are from DKNY.)

i love the lines on the top part of this outfit... the skirt is cute, too, but not something i'd ever wear. if i could just get the shirt, i would be happy.

love this one:

and agyness deyn is the hotness, so i had to include this one, even though it's not my favorite look of the show:

128 days.

128 days until i get to put on a goofy outfit, sit through 4 hours of speechifying, and walk across a stage and shake someone's hand, then get a piece of paper congratulating me for working my ass off for the past few years. it's hard to believe i'm getting so close, after having been in and out of college for the last 6 years. i'm hoping i can finish my Ph.D. in less time than it took me to finish my damn undergrad.

not likely, but i can hope, right?

NMDA receptors and hypoxia

(Note to my regular readers: A while back I toyed with the idea of starting a science blog, where I'd muse about the scientific questions and problems that float around in my head. I quickly realized that I do not have time to keep up a new blog, and given the infrequency with which I post to this one, I figured I could just kill two birds with one stone, and publish the occasional geekiness. If this post makes your eyes glaze over, I apologize.)

My scientific interests are pretty far-flung; I'm getting my bachelor's degree in Cellular, Molecular and Developmental biology this June, but I'm also interested in biochemistry, biophysics and physical chemistry, and neuroscience (from ion channels to systems neuro to the nature of consciousness). I read a lot for fun; today, I'm reading Hypoxia Enhances S-Nitrosylation-Mediated NMDA Receptor Inhibition via a Thiol Oxygen Sensor Motif, by Hiroto Takahashi et al down at UCSD, published in the January 4 issue of Neuron. Hypoxia is another of my random interests; any of you who have heard about my experience last summer on White Mountain know that. That said, this paper isn't exactly about high-altitude physiology, it's about the brain's mechanisms for protecting neurons in the hypoxic conditions that come about during stroke. in hypoxic conditions, it is logical that a system would want to attenuate NMDA receptor activity. Why is that, you ask?

NMDA receptors are one of the brain's types of glutamate receptors; glutamate, though it's less well-known than some other neurotransmitters, like dopamine or serotonin, is actually the central nervous system's major excitatory transmitter. The NMDA receptor has been extensively studied as a model for other neurotransmitter receptors; it's one of the best-characterized of the ligand-gated ion channels. It's also expressed in almost every region of the brain, indicating global importance in CNS function.

So why would the brain want to shut down NMDA receptors during hypoxic conditions? Consider that molecular O2 is absolutely necessary for brain function, but it also creates an oxidizing environment, leading to free radicals that can damage proteins and cause brain damage. The brain thus keeps its oxygen levels carefully rationed and controlled. PO2 in ambient air is around 140 mmHg; pO2 in the brain is closer to 10 mmHg. So there's very little room for error; O2 use must be controlled. In stroke, regions of the brain are cut off from the blood supply and thus have limited O2 resources. Oxygen is critical for ATP formation; ATP is consumed by the Na/K ATPase, or sodium/potassium pump, the membrane ion transporter responsible for establishing the transmembrane potential that is required for all ion flux and thus any neural activity whatsoever. NMDA receptors are ligand-gated ion channels; they create a path for ions to move down the concentration gradient established by the pump, thus requiring more ATP to re-establish the gradient and allow for further neural activity. If oxygen supplies are low, ATP cannot be produced in excess, and so the ion concentration gradient must be preserved in order for neurons to survive. It's a bit like how when the power is out, you keep the refrigerator door shut, unless you want all your food to spoil. It takes energy to establish the gradient (in this case, electricity establishes a temperature gradient across the door of the refrigerator), and by creating a path for the transfer from one side to the other, you destroy the gradient.

So what did Takahashi et al discover? They knew from previous work that there was a pair of cysteine residues in the NMDA receptor structure that formed a disulfide bridge under oxidizing conditions, but existed in a dithiol form under reducing conditions. So they solved the crystal structure of this part of the protein, and studied it under nitrosylating conditions, and discovered that the dithiol can be nitrosylated, but that in and of itself does not inhibit the enzyme. However, nitrosylating these two cysteine residues does make another cysteine residue more prone to nitrosylation as well, and it is this third site that actually inhibits the enzyme.

Interesting paper - I love to see structural biology tied in with ion channel physiology. It's also interesting to learn more about the importance of nitric oxide (NO) in short-range, short-term neural signalling. Considering that 20 years ago, we thought that NO was just a component of pollution, we have come to discover that it is critically important for everything from regulating blood pressure to neurotransmission.

osashiburi ne.

insert standard been-a-long-time apology, swear to blog more from now on, blah blah. i know, i know, heard it all before. what can i say? i have more important things to do, it seems, than blog. and i've been keeping a paper journal for the majority of the last year, one that's actually consumed one notebook and is doing serious damage to another. i find it cathartic; the fact that none of you out there on the Internets can read it means that i can write whatever the fuck i want without judgement. which is nice. but it doesn't do you, Dear Reader, any good, if you've just thought, "gee, i wonder how kat is doing" and surf over to my blog and i haven't written anything in months.

it's been a wacky year, that's for sure. 2007 has some great stuff in store, though, i am sure. one thing that's weird: i have a crush on someone. like, a giddy, goofy, secret crush that no one knows about but i've had for months. (okay, a few people know, but it's a closely guarded secret.) and i dare not say more than this, but... man! it feels good to actually *feel* something for someone..... even if it's someone i see less than once a week.

graduation: it's finally within my grasp. only 135 days left... until i will no longer be a damn undergrad. fuck! i need to figure out what i'm going to do after that. i have ideas, plans; as of yet, nothing concrete. need to start kissing professor ass.

been reading: lots of biochem. yesterday in lecture, i was the only one who knew the answer to a question the professor asked; i don't think he could see who it was who answered, but i nailed it and no one else was speaking up. that's my M.O. - i know the answer immediately, but i always wait at least a moment or two before i speak up, to let anyone else who knows have a chance. but today, the prof asked the question (what cofactor do amino acid decarboxylases use) and no one answered, he went on to the next slide, then asked if anyone had come up with an answer. so i said fuck it, and in a confident voice, "pyridoxal phosphate." ding! score one for me. yes i am a super lame dorkface, and everyone in all my classes secretly wants me dead.

been listening: the arcade fire. both funeral and the ep. how had i not really heard this band before, despite having heard them tons of times? also, the new shins album. just got it off of itunes, and am on my third or fourth listen... and it's good. it's really good. i really like the track "sea legs" - it's got a killer breakbeat (what?) and makes me wanna dance. and the rest of the album is great as well. obviously the shins are a band we can trust. i need to get my hands on a copy of oh, inverted world... it's the only one i don't have.

been watching: buffy. hardcore. (when i'm not studying.) (god, i'm a doublenerd!) i'm on season 6, and buffy is not so thrilled about being alive. but this is the season where buffy and spike get together, and let's face it: spike is the best damn character on the show. also just started angel - i've watched the first 3 episodes so far. it's pretty good, but my tolerance for david boreanaz angel is low. (i have nothing against the actor per se, just the broody character grates on me after too long.) but i am digging the comic-book-action-hero vibe... it's a different world than buffy's world, and angel has some sweet tricks up his sleeve (literally). and, spike. i love spike.

at risk of sounding even geekier (is that humanly possible?), and while i'm on the subject of television shows, if you're reading this and (BSG SPOILER ALERT) you are NOT on the edge of your seat wondering if a certain* fighter jock is actually one of the final five cylon models, (END SPOILER) you should be watching Battlestar Galactica. i've said it over and over again, but BSG is THE best show on TV right now. start with the miniseries from 2003, then watch the first season and you'll be hooked. it is smart, sexy, action-packed, full of intrigue, and just an all-around awesome show. give in, geeky is sexy anyway.

right-o. back to... microbiology prelab. (lab classes are pain-in-the-ass-y, but they're a necessary component of my education... or something.) leave me comments; it makes me more inclined to blog.

*extremely sexy

new pictures

new pictures up on my flickr site - i know, it's been forever. i've been taking mad pics, but not having internet at home* cripples my ability to upload them.


me and my little bear-kitty. :)

oh, also: just wanted to send out a teeny bit of condolence towards jared and tessa for the loss of their kitties. not TOO much condolence, mind you, since i still Officially Dislike both of them**, but maxwell and edward used to be my kitties too, so i'm sorry they're gone.

*do i mention this in every post? i think i do. i should shut up and order the intarweb, shouldn't i?

**though this might expire in a few weeks - i find it hard to hold a grudge for more than a year, especially when i am So Over it all. whatev.

suddenly it's 2007.

so it's been awhile... and it's a new year, and i completely missed a whole month of blog-posting. ah well. today marks the start of winter quarter, and i'm taking a full(er) load (than last quarter) - 3 real classes (2 lectures, 1 lab) plus research. whee.

maybe i'll start posting more once i break down and buy the internet. i think i might be able to squeeze a clearwire subscription into my monthly budget... but i'm delaying so i can think about it some more. especially since i want to upgrade to a more expensive phone plan (and give cingular the big fuck-you).

blergh.

peril!

so it snowed last night, and then it got really cold. so the sidewalks and streets are perilous this morning... but it's really pretty! the forecast is for it to get up to a whopping 33 degrees today, and down to 19 tonight. brrr! 6 people showed up to my first class (usually, there are more like 20 or 30) and seattle schools, uw tacoma, and uw bothell all had classes cancelled today. but not us. grr.

pictures later today, or tomorrow, once i get them uploaded. it's icy!

FINALLY.

someone in my building put in an unsecured wireless network. hallelujah! now i can spend all hours of the night watching a four-year-old play the drums. my life is now complete.

ah! but i could also see the new harry potter trailer. tasty.

i could probably even ramble in my good old trusty blog about stuff that's going on in my life, you know, like a blogger might do. like all the projects i have for school, or how the research is going, or how stoked i am to hit the slopes on friday.

instead, i am going to do the sensible thing and go to bed. with any luck, this internet will be here in the morning. (woohoo! i mean, don't steal internet!)

but first, here's one never before seen on the internets...

blyaaargh.

so, another week down. i'm confused; the weeks keep flying by, without my permission. this was the 5th week of the quarter, meaning that autumn quarter, which seems to have just begun, is actually half over. according to my countdown widget, i have 218 days until graduation. that's not so far at all.

le sigh. how does time keep going so quickly?

things i am happy about today

1) it's thursday. this means friday is tomorrow.

2) LICK tonight.

3) cute girls at LICK tonight.

4) kate bornstein before LICK tonight.

5) the rain. i know, i've changed my tune since yesterday, but i was prepared for it - i'm wearing my galoshes (galosh, galosh) today.

things i am annoyed about today

1. rain. not so much that it's raining, but more that i was stupid and decided to wear my pumas instead of my rain boots today, and now my feet are soggy and will undoubtedly smell like shit when i finally get home and take off my shoes. this is unhelpful in the battle against fungus-feet.

2. other people. from the annoying girl who always sits next to me in one of my classes and proceeds to talk through the whole class, asking me questions about stupid shit and not getting that my silence means that she annoys me, to the people who flood into the classroom for the next class at 20 after, when we're still packing up our tons of stuff and trying to get the fuck out. this is especially annoying in classrooms that have just one entrance. people, just fucking wait two fucking minutes.

3. the fact that i'm going to be here until at least 7 if not 8 trying to get my fish counted, lysed, and into a water bath.

4. a stupid fucking study abroad fair in mary gates commons. if i can't study in MGH between classes, where the fuck am i supposed to go? that's what i do... i go there for an hour and get work done. so i'm sitting on a motherfucking bench in johnson hall, instead of at a nice table in MGH.

5. my mary gates scholarship essay. it doesn't seem to want to finish itself.

6. a certain other undergrad who may or may not be in my lab. his very existence annoys me sometimes. what will annoy me even more is if his bullshit proposal gets funded and my real research does not.

7. the fucking plug on my stupid computer. it's getting more and more difficult to get it to stay in. i hope i'm not killing my power cord by looping it under the computer like this; if i have to buy a new power supply i'll be out $80 (thanks, apple!)

8. i'm sure there's more. i just need to get back to that fucking scholarship essay, as it's due on friday at 5PM...

ablablabla

yeah, yeah, so i never blog anymore. i think it's mostly because i don't have internet at home, and most of my rambling writing comes after 10pm. so i've been filling up paper journals at an unprecedented rate, but my blog is being neglected.

things are going... this quarter is shaping up to be fucking nuts. only 3 real classes, but that's misleading, because i'm also taking a seminar (for credit/no credit, but still an assload of reading) and 5 units of research. found out today that i can only take 1 more unit of research to count toward graduation... oops! i think i can still take units to count toward being a full-time student for the next 2 quarters, but they just can't count to the 180 credits i need for graduation. not that i need any more credits.

only taking 3 classes was most definitely a life-saver... but most of my work this quarter is not for classes, it's for research. but the next 2 weeks are deadline-packed, for classes and non-class stuff. let's take a look:
next monday, oct 16: physiology midterm
friday, oct 20: mary gates scholarship essay due
monday, oct 23: not one but TWO midterms: development and biochem

at least my first set of midterms aren't all on the same day this quarter. in fact, neither are my second set: those are m-w-f of the same week. not terrible; not ideal.

i'm feeling pretty good about biochem. it's interesting material, and it's much more intellectually stimulating than the last quarter of o-chem was. man, that instructor was shitty. but the prof we have for biochem is at least interesting and knowledgeable about the subject... almost makes up for it being at 8AM. yuck. that's going to be rough come december.

development is another story. the professor is literally crazy. and he's swiss, so his english isn't 100%, and so you're left wondering what he is trying to get at every time he says something. yargh. at least i know and like the TA in the class, and trust her to not grade unfairly. anyway, that's the big wild-card in my schedule this quarter. it's an interesting class, i just feel behind since i don't have the "recommended" prereq and the testing seems to be largely based on hypothetical experimental methods. bleh... i'm sure i'll survive.

anyway... just a quick update from the life of kat. no, i haven't died; i'm just internets-deprived.

r.i.p. democracy

I'd say it myself, but Lindsey over at Venus Envy said it better than I could:

i was gonna go to class...

this is the elevation i slept at last night: 14,242 feet. 4341 meters. REAL fucking high.

we left shortly after lunch yesterday, packs loaded up, and headed up the mountain.

from left to right: cait, jenny, charlie, amy, me, and steve g. we're standing in front of barcroft lab, our home away from home, at 12,470 feet. note the address above the door: 5150 is the police code for someone who is criminally insane or a danger to themselves or others. we're all a bit nuts up here.

so we set out around 1:50, and arrived at the summit hut at 4:30. (well, that whole group in the previous photo didn't make it up at the same time, we split up along the way, but steve and i arrived at 4:30, making it a 2:40 summit. not bad time.)

here's a view of white mountain, from near the observatory just above barcroft. the hike is approximately 4 3/4 miles, start to finish... with a nearly 2,000 foot elevation rise. i think this may have been the hardest thing i have physically ever done. but it was SO worth it.

here's me, about 3/4 of the way up, with the summit in the background.

the building you can barely see is the summit hut, our tiny little home away from home away from home. it has 4 bunks and a stove, and a workroom, and little else. there were 12 of us spending the night up there, so we were 2 to a bunk, with some people in tents outside (boy, i'm glad I got a bunk! it was freezing!) but it worked out just fine. unfortunately, my lame camera batteries died shortly after arrival (should have taken fewer pictures on the way up, but whatever) so it'll be a while before i can get pictures of the rest of the day. needless to say, the sunset was spectacular, the stars were even better, and we had a blast.

i'm stealing this picture from sciencecenter.net, because it's the closest approximation i can give you to the view we had from the roof of the summit hut last night after the sun set and before the moon came up. i honestly don't think i've ever seen as many stars as i saw last night - and the milky way stretched across the entire sky. several of us climbed up onto the roof, where there is pretty much no man-made light, and snuggled under a few blankets, huddled close together because it was SO DAMN COLD, but it was 100% worth the cold to see the stars.

this picture is a composite stiched together from probably 100 pictures taken by Axel Mellinger, partly here at Barcroft. widely regarded as the best picture of the milky way ever taken. ok, so our view wasn't quite this spectacular, but we could definitely get the feeling of being extremely tiny in the galaxy as we lay there, 7 of us snuggling as close as possible, watching the stars, the satellites, and the shooting stars (we counted 23 in our time on the roof). definitely one of the best, if not the best, night of my life.

anyway, more pictures will follow, once i get them from other people. in particular there's a group shot of the 12 of us at sunset on the summit. for now, it's time to get back to work on my paper (oh yeah, this is a class and we have to do "work")... barcroft out!

more pics

ok, just a few more pictures before i log off.

an old bristlecone pine at sunrise

said sunrise

september eleventh

it's hard to believe it's been five years. and that means i missed my five-year bloggiversary not too long ago. anyway, a moment of silence in memory of those who died, and another in memory of those civil rights and liberties we are continuing to lose as a reactionary result of that tragic day.

.

anyway, back to happy stuff. i'm here at barcroft lab, near the summit of white mountain, and i feel like i'm getting acclimated to the altitude here (12,470 feet; 3800 meters). it's been interesting: getting into and out of bed, climbing a flight of stairs, just walking 50 meters up the road can really knock the breath out of you. but i'm making some great new friends and having a fucking blast, and i really wish i didn't have to leave this place on thursday.

tonight a bunch of us are walking up to the summit (14,247 feet; 4324 meters) and spending the night up there. (theoretically. i am still reserving the right to turn around and come back down before bed, but i figure if i don't at least try to sleep up there i'm going to regret it.) there's a hut at the summit with a few bunks, and even if i don't get a bunk (or a bunk to myself) it's still out of the wind and cozier than sleeping in a tent.

anyway, without further ado: some of my pictures. (more here.)


here's me in front of a bristlecone pine; unfortunately, not the largest one in the world, which is right behind this one. these trees are fucking amazing: they live to be 5000 years old and are the oldest known living organisms. they're pretty cool too because they can die off parts of the tree while the rest keeps on living. pretty amazing adaptation to the harsh conditions up here.


here's a taste of the scenery. like being on the moon.

anyway, more pictures from the summit hike to follow... barcroft out!

hello from owens valley!