Melanie's Blog

Hey! I fixed my password

2008-06-06T11:03:00.001-07:00

Anyone out there?

Beeebosity Bui

2007-05-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

THE ROCK

better pictures to come

The best way to gain weight!

2007-02-12T16:16:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was my friend Amy's older sister's engagement party and as usual Amy made her wonderous Spinach Artichoke Dip. She jotted down the recipe for me and I made it the next night for my boss' lab party where I was asked for the recipe. I brought the leftovers to work today and they're now all gone. It takes a bout 25 minutes from opening the first can to taking it out of the oven. I used my new cassarole dish from Kara & Joel for the first time and it did a splendid job.

Spinach Artichoke Dip Recipe

1 Can Chopped Artichoke Hearts
1 Can Spinach
½ Cup Plain Yogurt
½ Cup Mayonnaise
2 Cups Grated Mozzarella Cheese
Garlic Salt to taste

Mix

Sprinkle with Grated Mozzarella Cheese

Bake at 375F for 20 minutes

All measurements are approximate.
Can use Italian Cheese instead of, or with, the Mozzarella.
Can add a little chopped jalapeno pepper if you like.

The Good Ol' Days

2007-01-20T17:46:00.000-08:00

How awesome is this picture Risa sent me? Do you have any of me & Risa at home mom?

I hosted an MSTP applicant dinner last night and I have enough food left over to last for a month! So no shopping needed. Also, I gave lab meeting on Thursday morn and interviewed 4 applicants on Thursday afternoon. I'm on the admissions committee and I've found that reading the applications is the hardest part since they tend to be about 40 pages each. I was really busy last week but now the biggest thing on my agenda is to play soccer tomorrow night. I'm a lvl 48 now by the way. :)

Fun in the snow

2006-12-21T16:03:00.000-08:00

My water heater is broken.

Denver Christmas Blizzard of 2006

2006-12-21T15:43:00.002-08:00

22-36 inches.

So we're all stuck now. Me. Bebo. Rhea. Bryan. Jeff. No flights for most. I thought I was the most screwed since I couldn't reschedule until the 24th but it looks like I'm actually the least screwed since neither Bebo nor Rhea have even been able to speak to a living person. They're just getting "If you would like to make a call..." after 12 minutes of selection menus or messages saying they can no longer leave messages since the in box is full. The airport is closed until noon tomorrow so it looks like I'll be one of the lucky few to make it home for Christmas. I am certainly grateful for that. Here are a couple pictures outside my front window.

Denver Christmas Blizzard of 2006

2006-12-21T15:43:00.001-08:00

Where's Baby?

2006-12-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

Melt-Down Munchkins Part 2

2006-11-30T15:50:00.000-08:00

It seems that visiting the family was a hit not only for the individuals involved but also for the ongoing experiments left to their own devices in Denver. My MLR worked!! With P values like 0.00068, everybody's a winner! Bebo even submitted his long awaited journal to Nature Structure & Molecular Biology yesterday. Yippee!

Though this isn't from last weekend, I thought it was a great flash-back anyway...

When life gives ya lemons...

2006-11-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

Melt-Down Munchkins

2006-11-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

Bebo and I had a wonderful time in Roanoke visiting Mama & Dada & Auntie Mo & the Melt-Down Munchkins for Thanksgiving. Here is an example of the wonderful food we were treated to for the holiday...

We had a very relaxing break and rejuvinated ourselves to get back to the bench for some quality researchin'. The munchkins were adorable as ever and were on their bestest behavior. Big little Aidan progressed from "Auntie Melody" to "Auntie Melanie" and even allowed me to cuddle & kiss him, and hold his hand & carry him around. I have the distinct advantage of possessing uncanny Kara-esque appearance and voice characteristics allowing for quick acceptance from the knee-highs. Auntie Melanie took advantage of Aidan's naughty time punishments to soothe him and sneak in even more kisses and squeezes! They were actually both very well behaved and I only have 2 naughty pictures to share out of 200. That means they only mis-behave 1% of the time, right?

To be continued...

MLR

2006-11-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

I'm trying my second MLR today. The first one I did didn't work. This is a 3 day process so I'm hoping it works. We'll see since I didn't start it until after having two bluemoons with an orange slice to celebrate the end of the dictatorship. I just don't see how a democracy can function when there are no checks and or balances. Therefore I am delighted that the one-party system is dented. It is encouraging to see that Bush doesn't seem to be taking the unilateral approach to dealing with the new house and senate leadership and can only hope that his actions actually follow his words. I think it was obvious in this election that the voting public was responding to the obvious examples of absolute power corrupting absolutely. I heard some people only vote against incumbants purely for that reason. Interesting concept. On a more local note, Bill Ritter won governor and that will probably mean a raise in my stipend which is long overdue considering of all the significant cuts in state funding, higher education was cut the most. And of all cuts in higher education, the Health Sciences Center was cut the most. We're a public institution pumping out doctors, nurses, dentists, physical therapists, etc. but apparently that is not an priority which is sad considering it only increases the cost of health care when there are already shortages of these professionals. Anyways, as a public institution, we actually pay more in taxes than we receive back from the state. We would be much better off being a private institution. Many private institutions actually get more in state funding than our "state funded" school. But, in lean times, higher ed gets cut first and we're certainly feeling it. I know of several students who couldn't find labs willing to fund them since money is so tight. "Bye-bye." Ha ha. My rant is over. I don't have funny baby stories so I talk about annoying politics. Well, after my visit to Roanoke I'll be much more interesting.

Mommy

2006-11-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

Grandpa!

2006-11-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

Aidan's so Pretty

2006-11-05T01:01:00.000-08:00

Famous Little Guy!

2006-11-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

Basement Remodel Recap

2006-10-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Quotes from las casa de Melanie

2006-10-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

"Tie-Breaker"--Bebo. "It wasn't a tie"--Melanie. "Semantics"--Bebo.

"You have a great bum. Footrests have to be square."--Bryan

"Oh. My underwear's still in my pocket."--Amy

Bebo: "I like that show." Melanie: "Well, it's a good movie." --Discussing a book.

update

2006-10-19T17:02:00.000-07:00

so bebo left for montana this morning to fish with a buddy. apparently for his comps meeting (to OK his intended comps topic) he received comments like "ya know... comps are supposed to be hypothetical. ..not so much based on real data..." and "you get this published & I'll give ya a PhD let alone comps!" and "don't tell him that!" So Bebo's feelin pretty good about himself. On another completely related note. One of the comps committee profs informed Bebo that a collaborator at Harvard had similar data on the same gene & that he better get his butt in gear or he'll get scooped. So Bebo's feelin pretty stressed to get all his confirmation experiments finished.

It snowed yesterday.

She's my friend!

2006-10-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

Nailing Jell-O to a Tree.

2006-10-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

So I just returned from a very disheartening encounter with some resident orthodontists located 3 buildings to my East who informed me that trying to fix my oral problems with invisalign would be "like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree."

Oral Problems:
1) Tooth grinding due to a lack of "Guidance," a result of my uncaring left incisor.
2) Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Click on both sides.
3) Right front snagle-tooth.
4) Over-jet (commonly confused as over-bite).

Why should I fix problems stated above?
1) prevent cavities
2) prevent waking up after just grinding off a piece of tooth which I can feel floating around my mouth.
3) prevent waking up at 80 with my brand new teeth in a glass next to my bed.
4) prevent headaches, migraines, facial pain, neck and shoulder pain, sensitive or loose teeth, ringing ears, jaw pain, numb fingers/arms, worn or cracked teeth, & depression. (All which can be attributed to suboptimal jaw alignment, aka TMJ)
5) Get first rate care from doctors rather than assistants at less than half the price of private practice, a univeristy discount, and a payment plan with no interest.

Why not to fix problems stated above?
1) Two years of ugly braces.

Quiz: Should Melanie get braces?

What can happen in 4 minutes?

2006-10-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

#1: Spilled frozen peas on keyboard of laptop while googling whether or not drywall required primer.

#2: Discovered basement was flooded.

#3: Said flood ruined un-hung drywall laying on basement floor.

Recap:
Peas + Laptop = Not Smart Combination
Roots + Sewer Drain = Backup into Basement
Drywall + Water = Useless

Hail to the Victors!

2006-09-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

ShowOff

2006-09-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to show off my new beautiful bed that Randy made me. I am thrilled with it and I think Randy forgot to post his pics cause his are way better than mine.

Weekend Relaxation

2006-09-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

This is Bebo showing off his "Ups." We went to a friend's house to play volleyball and I pulled my rectus femoris again, which I keep doing. So then I went inside to watch us KILL Notre Dame! WooooHoooo! We're still working on the drywall. Mudding takes forever. Who knew? After another ~3 coats we'll be on to painting and when that's done I'll put down the fake hardwood linoleum floor! Pesto! One in home workout gym.

Guest Blog: "Dr. Ywall"

2006-09-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

Before Drywall, but Following 200 Bullet Driven Concrete Nails:

One Bloody Thumb and Several "Discussions" Later:

Time to Fill in the Holes:

Melanie and I have been hard at work the last couple of weekends trying to finally make some progress on her plans to finish the basement. While the project, in theory, appeared to be rather straight forward, the act, as is often the case, turned out to be quite challenging. In order to hang the drywall, as well as mount the outlets/switches etc, we needed to first fasten wooden slats to the concrete walls. This involved using a nail gun that fired gunpowder driven nails through our boards into the concrete (ok, yes, despite the blisters, that part was fun). Unfortunately, problems arose as we discovered the walls were not square, or smooth, or flat, or straight, or even concrete in places... but we managed to figure things out and are now close to finishing the first room.

Seeing as we have an agreed upon system in place for these initial stages the rest of the basement should come into form smoothly... Now that is just asking for it..

A penny saved is still a penny.

2006-09-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Here is my burgeoning penny collection established in mid-August. This collection includes one gold-plated penny from 1993.

These are my old pennies. These will be cataloged and shipped for storage in my safety deposit house located in Roanoke, VA.

Forever Young

2006-09-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 9/3/2006, 4:04 PM

26 y.o. female MD/PhD candidate answers phone in her mortgaged home with the greeting, "Hello?".

Telemarketer uses honeyed tones to ask "Is your mommy or daddy there?".

Reply: "No."

Where's Meldo?

2006-08-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

I may not be wearing red and white stripes but I look dorky in my own way.
http://www.uchsc.edu/immuno/

Low Blood Sugar

2006-08-23T19:25:00.000-07:00

I played soccer today with Bryan, Shawn, and Jenny and the rest of my team: Celluloid Apocalypse. My thoughts on our team name are quite profound. It sucks. My suggestion was "I love lamp," which I thought was catchy and humerous. I can't even take credit for this overruled suggestion being that it was the name of a previous indoor team I used to play on. I guess I could have suggested Gubernaculum, another previous bui team name, but the non-med-students crowd probably wouldn't have appreciated the humor of being represented by the ligament that pulls the testis down into the scrotum. Not that humor seemed to be an advantage considering the dark bent my fellow soccer players seem to prefer.

We went through Sports Monster and they set it up. One of my team mates is from Grand Haven and graduated in 2002. Such a small world. He scored our only goal.

I played very well but needed to take 3 puffs total from my stupid white inhaler. We still lost 1-2.

-the end.

Dr. Berta

2006-08-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

Your Scholastic Strength Is Evaluating

You are great at looking at many details and putting them all together.
You are talented at detecting subtle trends, accuracy, and managing change.

You should major in:

Statistics
Speech
Conflict studies
Communication
Finance
Medicine

What Should You Major In?

Apparently I should publish an epidemiological study in JAMA about how what people say to eachother when fighting about money affects their relationship.

I am Berta.

2006-08-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them!

You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you

You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil

How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Vicious video game war

2006-08-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

The other day I went up a flight of stairs to see what Bebo was up to directly above my head all day. Turns out he was playing Diamond Mine. I watched him play a game which he quickly proceeded to lose with only about 400 points at which point he informs me that he's gotten over three THOUSAND points and wasn't that impressive. So I asked if I could play and got 7500 points on my first try and went back downstairs to work. The next day I recieved an email entitled "ha ha!" with a pdf entitled "Take That!." Bebo had racked up a formidable 8545 points and was rubbing it in my face. Who does that!? Well the answer my dear family, is me. Unbeknownst to Bebo I had just completed one D.M. quick loss and one D.M. not so quick loss and had already snapped a pic of my score for future gloating purposes. Well the future was ahead of schedule and with my proof already downloaded I immediately replied to "ha ha!" with "Re:ha ha!" and attached a jpg of "in your face."

Vicious Cuteness Puppy War

2006-08-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

So on Sunday Bebo and I actually went to the gym. After that I made him take me to the mall to look at these adorable puppies and then to the movies. We went to the gym again yesterday and I'm already 12x more in shape than I was. It isn't looking good for today though cause my friend Heidi is leaving for a year to South America and the girls are getting together for a going away dinner so no gym tonight unless somehow I pull it together late night. Here are those puppies I was talking about. None of them stood out enough for me to buy one but I though the tail biter and bitee were quite cute...

2006-08-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

"I like rice when I'm really hungry and I want two-thousand of something."

Las Kalamayork Park, New MichiVado

2006-08-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

Sept 16th I am supposed to be in Estes Park, CO, Las Vegas, NV, New York, NY, and Kalamazoo, MI. Unfortunately, I will only be able to occupy one location that weekend.

Perpetual Pipetting

2006-08-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well, Mommy and Randy left and now my planned summer visitors list has been completed. I think I must be sad about it cause I've felt like crap all day and have a headache. Either that or I'm having a delayed hang-over/sugar crash from numerous wine and ice-cream drinks. I need to turn in a abstract for the Tumor Immunotherapy Conference by the end of the week so I'm trying to get some results so I look like I've actually acomplished something. Gonna be a late night...

Scientific MADLIBS

2006-08-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

Randy has requested a scientific blog next so I’ll explain my BIG FAT experiment in 20 sentences.

--Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.

1. I am conducting pre-clinical testing of vaccinations for the prevention of escape mutant induced MOMMY resistance. 2. There are three mutations I am going to vaccinate against, THEO, AIDAN, and JOEL point mutations. 3. The THEO mutation changes the P-loop domain of the MEGAN kinase on KARA so that MOMMY no longer binds. 4. The AIDAN mutation is the worstest mutation due to the fact that it not only confers resistance to MOMMY but also to all second and third generation small molecule KARA kinase inhibitors that have been developed to date. 5. The JOEL mutation changes the amino acid in the LEANNE domain necessary for self-inhibitory binding to the PONCHO therefore preventing the KARA protein from taking on the inactive state required for MOMMY binding. 6. The vaccine will eventually consist of about 400 amino acids of the JASON, LEANNE and PONCHO of KARA that has been mutated to encode the three MOMMY escape mutations mentioned above. 7. The human and mouse MEGAN orthologs of this region differ at two amino acids which must be mutated to conform to the mouse ortholog in order to prevent confounding immunization in mice against the human and thus foreign form of the protein. 8. I have succeeded in subcloning the JASON, LEANNE, PONCHO of KARA from the MSCV expression vector into the smaller pBlueScript vector for QuikChange mutagenesis. 9. Each of the five necessary mutations has been produced and sequential mutatgenesis is underway to create a construct containing all five mutations. 10. Once this has been accomplished the construct will be sent to CHRISTINA for production of the yeast-based vaccine, which has been dubbed RANDY for RANDY. 11. CHRISTINA calls their yeast-based vaccines BEBO. 12. Until this vaccine is made I am using peptide based vaccines to determine whether mice possess functional T cells specific for any of the three escape mutant epitopes we are interested in. 13. So far I have immunized 28 mice with either of two AIDAN nine amino acid peptides or a MELANIE junctional (JCN) control. 14. Several of the mice died after the booster injection of peptide for reasons that are under investigation. 15. Some of the remaining mice are currently being challenged with either target peptide or irrelevant peptide in vivo. 16. The results for these CTL assays will be available tomorrow afternoon. 17. T cells from the remainder of the mice will be assayed for epitope-specific cytolytic activity in vitro on Monday. 18. QuikChange mutatgenesis is also being conducted to produce expression vectors carrying the escape mutations so that leukemic cells carrying KARA MOMMY escape mutations can be used as target cells in CTL assays. 19. Kavita is my rotation student and has assisted with many of these experiments. 20. She also does not wish harm to the little mousies and would probably have used the sticky paper but wouldn’t have suffocated them cause she can barely touch one without jumping 12 feet so I have to catch them all for her and do anything that has to do with live little mousies. –The End

14er #3

2006-08-01T23:19:00.000-07:00

Always ask the good questions.

2006-07-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

CONGRATULATIONS!

2006-07-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Bebo for being awarded one of only three prestegious Molecular Biology Training Grants!!!
You go Bebo!

Lazy Day in the Lab

2006-07-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Alison at St. Mary's Glacier
So today my big goal is to finish writing my CRI grant application. This would get me $25,000 for next year which actually wouldn't mean much for me but would make my boss really happy. I wouldn't even get a raise but then I can put it on my resume. Isnt' that better anyway? I would get to go to NY again for the Cancer Vaccines Conference and I really want to go to that--especially if we can score some Daily Show tickets!

Monday night I went camping with my lab. I brought Bebo along and he went fishing. Ritsuko, a post-doc, and I were in charge of dinner. I brought brats and buns and condiments. Ritsuko brought baked potatoes, corn on the cob, grilled vegetables (paprika, onions, peppers, and sliced hot dogs), potatoe salad, Inari-sushi (home made & crazy good!), sweet bread, and octopus mushrooms. I haven't downloaded the pictures of our hike up the mountain yet so I'll fill you in on that later.

Yesterday I bought some shelves and a peg board for all my tools. Then I cleaned the basement. You wouldn't believe the difference! I'm pumping myself up to drywall one of the rooms so now that everything is clean I don't have any more excuses not to just do it. Watch out! That's Melanie with a nail gun!!!!

Meeeeegggaaaaaannnn!!!!!

2006-07-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

AAAAAaaaAAAHAHhahhhh! You are driving me crazy! You are a POOPer! You will not call me back and now I'm supposed to be leaving to climb a 14er with you and you are not even in COLORADO! Should I go anyway? or should I stay here in case you get a new flight and I need to come pick you up at the airport? What is going on?????????????

Happy Birthday to Aidan!

2006-07-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

To my favorite brown eye-ed nephew--

I would like to wish you the best 3 year anniversary of your day of birth EVER!! I hope it brought all the joy and excitement of the original celebration! Cheers to you!

-Your loving Auntie who misses you tons and acres!!
Auntie Melanie

HaCkER!

2006-07-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

I have succeeded in screwing up everyone's links so they now come to my blog!!!! (evil tone..) HA, ha, ha! Computer illiteracy strikes again!

Cutest!

2006-07-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

2nd Post

2006-07-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm at work on my lunch break. Just read my last post and I sound 14 ("stuff and things and stuff"). I think I heard somewhere that details are what make writing interesting so maybe I'll try and add some of those. Last night me and Bebo and Haggard played a little 3-handed euchre and I womped them! Bebo was in the negatives for the entire last game. That's always fun. I made goulash. We're tyring to cook all the food in the house to save some cash. The night before I made yummy yummy pork-chops and the night before that Bebo made that chicken that mom made last time she was out here. We really need to skimp of the spending since I only have one roommate for next year (Rhea my friend in the micro deparment). I'm excited for her to move in Aug 1st. She has a kitty named Dakota. I always want to call her Alabama. Bryan and Jeff are moving out which is fairly depressing. They're moving in with a work friend out to Wash Park--the "cool" nieghborhood for young, popular adults. I'll miss them cause I know we won't see eachother half as much as we do now. Lunch break is over so I'm off to mutate some DNA!

Busy Bee

2006-07-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

I have been busy lately with things and more things. We had our 21st Annual National MD/PhD Student Conference on Kara's Birthday weekend (Happy B-day to the biggest sis). Largest turnout ever with 280 registered attendees. It was a hit! I'm still getting compliments. Once I got back from Keystone Alison came to visit and we went to the Stampede, played euchre, went to the Art Fair in Boulder, Went hiking up to St. Mary's Glacier, went fly-fishing, had a fish-fry, saw Pirates of the Carribean II, hiked at the flatirons, and stuff. It was so great to have her in town, I wish she lived out here! Megan is coming to visit next. We're going camping with my lab and hiking a 14er. Then Mom and Randy are coming out for a week. I have lots of visitors planned. As soon as I get a chance I'm going to Roanoke to visit.

Work has been going pretty well. I've been so busy with other things but seem to be getting things accomplished anyway. I have a rotation student which helps. I need to register for the Immunology retreat in Breckinridge and write a grant application but other than that I've been chuggin away trying to get some clones so I can get my vaccine made. I'm having peptides made now so that we can immunize with those until the vaccine is made. Hopefully I can get some results by the time I need to turn in my grant application.

That was a quick catch-up. Next time I'll try and make it more interesting or possibly even funny.