The Bauer Confidential

OK, not an invasion really. My family is coming to visit us, all the way from Nebraska. They fly in tomorrow, and arrive in SF around midnight. I think with the two hour time difference, by the time we get their luggage and get them to our place, they’ll be silly with sleep deprivation. And one other tiny little thing, there are five of them, all coming to stay in our two bedroom apartment. Granted, our apartment is quite spacious, especially for Berkeley, but there’s going to be a lot of couch crashing and air mattress occupation. It’s a good thing public transit is so convenient in our area, because there’s no way to shove all seven of us into our Mazda3. I’m really excited to show them the area. Most of them have never been to California, so I think the visit will be educational, at the very least.

I’ve been using this visit as a good excuse to finally get off my hiney and do some spring cleaning. The house is looking pretty good, if I do say so myself, and I do. I’m trying to decide if hardwood floors are more or less work than carpet. Now what to cook for seven people? I’m planning lasagna, pot roast, and maybe chili, but after than I’m lost. There’s always take-out!

If you don’t hear much from us for the next week, we’re busy playing tourist in the bay area! Watch out beaches, here we come!

I’ve been thinking about my career these days, and I started wondering, what was it that I wanted to be when I was little. Then it occurred to me, why is it that people like to ask little boys and girls what they want to be when they grow up? I inevitably do this to my niece and nephew even though it’s a absurd question. I’m 32 and I still don’t know what I really want to do for the rest of my life, and I’m pretty sure a ten year old (or even most 18 year olds) isn’t really going to know either. But people ask little kids anyway, and for the most part little boys always say the same thing. They either want to be a police officer, a firefighter, President or (the correct answer) they don’t know. I also find it funny that most kids want to grow up as fast as they can, and most adults will gladly do about anything to be kids again. I don’t want to be a kid again, but that’s a different story. Anyway, I remember my first answer to that “what do you want to be” question. I wanted to be a veterinarian. Growing up on a farm with approximately a thousand hogs, thirty chickens, ten cats, and a hand full of dogs, my father and our vet were well acquainted. I remember taking our sick dog “Lady” to her. A few days later, we would go back and Lady would be as good as new. A vet was, to the eyes of a child, a magician. Plus, and even to this day, I really like animals, and fixing them up when they’re broken was very appealing.

I am not a veterinarian, and I can clearly remember the incident that really affected me. I don’t remember how old I was, but what happened was that a really sick cat hid in my dad’s workshop. She was not only sick, but mean as hell. No one could get close to her. She would hiss, scratch at you, run away, and all the time foamed excessively at the mouth. A mean as hell foaming at the mouth sick cat … rabies anyone?

Someone trained in dealing with rabid animals showed up and caught the cat. To determine the cat’s problem (in the 1980’s anyway), the veterinarian had to kill the cat and dissect out its brain and perform tests. All I understood was that a veterinarian took our cat and killed it. This incident must have taken place before I discovered why my dad had so many hogs, because the murder of this cat devastated me, and my view of veterinarians at that time dramatically changed. Of course, now I understand completely, but as they say, this is now and that was then.

That’s not what scared this young kid from being a vet. It was what I was told would happen if the cat tested positive for rabies. As a precautionary measure, I would need to get immunization shots. I remember being told that rabies immunization required around 20 shots into the stomach area. HOLY SHIT!! 20 shots! I remember asking my mother if veterinarians have to get shots like that as well, in which she said something similar to “you can’t be a veterinarian without getting shots.” I hate shots, and I hated shots a lot more then. So, lets examine the logic of an child.

To be a Veterinarian = getting shots
Shots = Pain
Thus logically
To be a Veterinarian = Pain.

Even though there maybe some truth to that last statement, the logic was a bit off. Not that it mattered because I had that logic in my head, so I didn’t want to be a Veterinarian anymore. I don’t think I was ever told what was actually wrong with the cat, but I never got those shots.

Of course, as I grew up and become more educated, the negative connotations tied to veterinarians was lost completely. This occasion in my life probably did have some long term effects though because becoming a vet never appealed to me ever again. I imagine that being a vet would be one of the most rewarding occupations. Of course, a Vet’s job is also probably one of messiest (digestive tract problems for example) and having any domesticated patient die under my care would probably wreak havoc on my emotions. I guess you eventually get kind of numb to it, but do I want to get numb to it? Yep, even though the logic of a child was completely off, I think NOT becoming a Vet was probably the right choice for me.

To this point, I would say I’ve been lucky, maybe even extremely lucky with this pregnancy. Yes, I had about three solid weeks of continuous nausea, but I never had to pray to the porcelain gods. I’ve been really fatigued, but extra sleep has taken care of that pretty well, even if my activity level has dropped a bit and the housekeeping suffered. My sweet tooth has diminished severely, which isn’t really a bad thing, though I’ve probably more than made up for it by cravings for salty/fatty things like chips.

But last night, I think I paid for that luck, at least a little. I have a pretty robust digestive system. Of course, I come down the stomach flu from time to time and have my share of feeling queasy even when not pregnant. In the past I have been lucky enough to avoid heartburn. Well all that changed last night when I tried to go to sleep. It’s my own fault, I just didn’t know it at the time. I put a pork shoulder roast in the crock-pot with barbecue sauce before leaving the house for work, anticipating a tasty and easy meal of pulled bbq pork for dinner. And that’s what we had. I also had a nice salad with balsamic vinegar and a tall glass of lemonade. And I paid for it; I’m actually still paying for it. It turns out that progesterone secreted by the baby’s placenta affects the smooth muscle of the digestive tract, allowing the valve that usually keeps digestive fluids out of the esophagus to leak, causing a nasty burning sensation. I took Tums, I drank milk, and eventually gave up and went to sleep. I didn’t realize that my dinner was, as Matthew so eloquently put it, “a recipe for an acid time bomb.” Apparently vinegar (which I had on my salad and was in the bbq sauce) and citrus (like lemonade) are really bad inducers of heart burn. Perhaps any one of these things alone would have lead to a bit of discomfort, but together, they were pretty excruciating. Upon Matthew’s advice, I propped myself up in bed this morning and dozed until the lead brick in my stomach felt more like a regular brick. And that’s about how it still feels now. I’ve learned my lesson! I’ll be more careful of acidic foods in my diet from now on!

As you would expect, April and I are pretty excited about the baby. We’ve seen the doctor several times, and each time they test for something, the result are always (thankfully) “negative for (name tested condition).” When they look at vitals, it always falls in the “normal” range. I never thought I would love the words “negative” and “normal” as much as I do right now. I hope this trend continues!

As a scientist, I am trained to do research on the subject I have questions about. In the subject of being the expectant father, I’ve been doing literature research. For most of the week and especially today (slow day at work), I have been looking up literature, and I’m not having much luck. There are a ton of books directed towards expectant mothers, as there should be. What about me, the expectant father? Well, I found a fair number of books but, unfortunately, the local libraries don’t carry any of them. I also don’t have the cash to shell out on a library of books. I have to be selective if I decide to get any, and I do have a potential few picked out. If any fathers out there have a recommendation, please give me a heads up.

This Saturday I took a class at a cooking school just down the street from our place, Kitchen on Fire. I’ve taken one other class there, an evening dedicated to cooking in the Mexican style; not tacos and burritos or other fast-food staples, but quality and delicious foods like Tamarind Pork Loin Roast with apples and fresh churros. I really enjoyed that class, and the food I learned to make there, and I have been wanting to go back for another class for quite a while. Well, I finally got around to it this weekend, along with another post-doc from my floor and a grad student from another lab, who also both really like to cook or at least want to learn to cook better.

The class we attended though wasn’t really a “cooking” class, as we didn’t cook or bake anything, instead we learned to “Slice and Dice Like a Pro.” This was a beginning knife skills class, where we learned basic knife safety (i.e. don’t hand a knife to someone with the tip pointing at them), as well as some not so obvious tips, like don’t ever put a knife in the sink, where if it’s forgotten, it could easily do a lot of harm. We also learned how to take care of and properly maintain knives, as in using honing steel and having knives sharpened on a regular basis. We also learned how to hold a knife properly. I thought I had been doing it right all along, but I was wrong! We learned how to make even cuts, how to keep the hand holding the food from getting cut up, and how to do a few more complicated cuts.

All in all I would say the class was well worth it. It wasn’t quite as exciting as the other class I took, but in many ways I think it was more useful. I actually have homework to do for this class. I’m supposed to practice the skills we learned. I bought a whole bunch of veggies to practice on, so I think we’ll be having vegetable soup for dinner! I would really love to take the 12 part cooking series offered at The Kitchen on Fire, but it’s a tad too rich for my blood. Maybe someday!

Image Credit

When was it? I think it was about 3 years ago that I became aware of podcasted programs, and I immediately love it! My thought was, “now I don’t have to wait and tune into the radio at a specific time on a specific day to listen to my favorite program.” For instance, instead of waiting for 11am on Friday to listen to the “Science Friday” show, now if I miss it or I’m busy I can wait until the next day, down load it in a podcast form, and listen to it whenever I want on my iPod. I soon found that it opened up a whole new realm of choices than the conventional radio. The variety of topics I could listen to was just amazing. Whatever you like, there’s a podcast about it. First, it was recorded radio shows like Science Friday. Magazines got into the gig by having interviews with people that will be featured in the upcoming issue. Universities started podcasting classes for students (or anybody) to download in case they need to hear a lecture again (or if they’re a masochist). In the meantime, thousands of people were creating their own podcast on any topic they felt like, or no topic at all. For those who have not listen to a podcast, you have to be a bit careful on what you choose. There are no censors, no FCC, no employer to appease, so anything can go. All in all, I think podcasting is good, but the problem was that I started to subscribe to more podcast than I could keep up with (subscribing is free be the way). So, I had to start getting rid of the ones I didn’t listen to that often. In addition, I wasn’t listening to as much music as I used to, and I really like music. On a side note, since moving to Berkeley, I’m finding it difficult to discover new music* now that I walk everywhere and iPods lack radio receiving ability. It’s even harder to find new music that I like. I bet there’s a podcast that will help me.

As of right now, here are the choice few that I listen to regularly:

• Science Friday
• NPR’s wait, wait, don’t tell me
• The chronicle podcast: Movies with Mick Lasalle
• Slate’s political gab fest
• On the page: Screenwriting (It’s more entertaining than you’d think)

What podcast do you enjoy?

Read more »

I’ve been thinking about what I should write in this blog. Two activities that I spend a fair amount of time doing is read (work related science articles mostly) and watch movies. I made a New Year resolution to take more time to write, so those topics will probably be the bulk of what you’re going to get from me in the beginning. Some of you may be thinking, “Why would you make such an odd New Years resolution?” Well, that’s a good question, so thanks for bringing it up. It arose due to a post-doc related experience. Last year, I was involved in writing two scientific reviews, one of which was published in Cell. It was during this time that I realized writing isn’t necessarily my strongest talent, but as with all things it should get better the more I practice. Since I like movies a lot, I played around with the idea of writing a movie script. I got a couple of books and I read up on story and story structure, which I found intriguing. I still might try this, but I’m starting to question my ability to “make up” a story that is at all interesting. Science writing and fiction writing seems to require a different mindset, and I have never wrote anything fiction before (except for parts of my dissertation one could argue). April and I have been talking about starting our own webpage/blog for a very long time, so here it is. Thus, along with keeping family and friends up-to-date on our activities, it gives me a forum to practice my writing. There is still work that needs to be done in getting this site fully active, but right now my biggest challenge is setting aside time dedicated to writing.

Image credit

So here it goes, my first post on our new website. All props have to go out to Matthew, who set this whole thing up, and I think he did a great job. We wanted a place where family and friends could check in on our lives. Being so far from a lot of the people we care about is difficult, and I hope this will be a place where they can check in on us and see what we’re up to.

A little info on us: we’re mid-westerners who’ve been transplanted to Berkeley, CA. Both Matthew and I are post-doctoral researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. We are both scientists, though we study different things. We met while grad students at the University of Missouri-Columbia, married in May of 2006, and moved to California soon after.

We’re still working out the details of this site, but I’m hoping to have a nice selection of my favorite recipes up soon (with pictures). We also recently got a new camera, so I’m hoping we’ll be sharing some nice pictures with you as well. Some are already up, but there will be more!

I hope you enjoy our blog/site and please leave comments so we have an idea of who’s checking the place out!

Welcome to our little space on the Internet. This is site that April and I will post updates about our lives, pictures that we take on our life journey, and our thoughts about anything and/or everything. There is no theme except what is going on and what we think about it. I hope you enjoy.