vanilla google

When gmail first came out, privacy advocates were all up in arms about how google was going to use the text of your e-mails to target ads to you. And I see their point, but google swore nobody was actually going to read your e-mail and I personally was willing to risk it for the awesomeness that is gmail.

It turns out, I actually like the gmail ads, especially the ones that run in one line across the top of the window. There are so many goofy small businesses that buy ads. I keep seeing one for a website that has nice-looking cheap peruvian yarn. (Of course, now that I *want* to find it, I can't. Trying all kinds of searches in my gmail. Perhaps the ads expired. I did get several other knitting ads. And this, which could be useful.)

Just now I was trying to find my notes from a story I wrote about vanilla, because I wanted to buy some vanilla beans and I couldn't remember the names of the online sellers my sources had recommended to me. I searched and searched and finally found them, but then they were both way more expensive than I wanted. But then I noticed this ad for a store at the top of the window and was like, hey, guess I can check there - and they had the best prices I'd seen. So I went for it. What the heck. I like the google ads, I might as well support the people who buy them. I hope the beans aren't bad.

P.S. Ha! I've blogged about this before! And now I know how to knit...and those recycled silk yarns are still beautiful....

a primate and an angiosperm

The coolest thing happened at work today. Use your imagination a bit here, 'cause I'm not going to actually tell you the organisms involved.

I was talking to a grad student about this animal she did a project on. And we were chatting and I asked, so, what are the pressures on this animal? (It's endangered. What animal isn't.) And she said, it totally depends on the crop of this one plant. In a bad year, the people in the villages around the national park are more likely to go poaching.

And that plant is the topic of the other story I'm working on this month! These are two stories that I had no reason to think were related, and I hadn't even started reporting the plant one, then suddenly the woman I'd called about my other story was telling me all about the villages where they grow the plant. Apparently these villages smell fantastic.

It was totally cool.

center for excellence

This morning Kay Ray and I were IMing while listening to a phone-in press conference about this news (in fact, the guy who wrote that story asked a lot of questions). Probably neither Kay Ray nor I will actually write about this news, but hey, it was something to do on a Thursday morning, and it's good to keep up on climate and ecology research.

One of the scientists' affiliations included some center for excellence on something-or-other.

Kay Ray: man, i need to be a member of a center of excellence

me: I'm creating one now. You're a member.

Kay Ray: awesome.

We added S.Vix to the roster later in the day. Anyone else want to join? It's called "The Center For Excellence In My Office." Kay Ray is excellent at knitting baby blankets, I am excellent at sleeping, and I haven't checked with S.Vix yet on her particular brand of excellence, but I bet it'll be good.

belle isle

I only like blogging when I'm in a good mood, and tonight I'm grouchy as hell. So instead of witty blogginess, you will instead have this nature picture to enjoy:


It's not actually nature, it's from the conservatory at this place, which I highly recommend if you're ever in Detroit (ha!) with a car (there is no other way to be in Detroit) and need somewhere to go hang out for an afternoon. The whole island has a decrepit Victorian pleasure park feel to it.

azaleas! I love azaleas!

my new employer: episode one

Today was my first day! but mostly it was training. My New Employer is an exciting place, yes, but it's also a ginormous bureaucracy with no shortage of things to train you on. Benefits, payroll, how the computers work (unfortunately, no one was around to help later, when none of the three people in my section could figure out how to turn on my iMac), the emergency plan, the library. It did have some special local flair - the lady who was showing us the library's website kept using as her example "if you want to find out how many stories we've done on zebras...." She never actually ran the search, though, so I still don't know.

Fun fact: my window looks out on another building in the My New Employer complex. It's kind of pretty, terraced with landscaping on every roof level. Only today I read a memo from the facilities people saying that the plastic plants on those roofs are being removed. Plastic. The*outdoor* plants were plastic. When you look at them with a more critical eye, you can totally see where some of them have bleached in the sun. They're being replaced with actual plants that carry out photosynthesis.

tree sweater

Somehow I missed the tree sweater when it originally came up on Cute Overload.