IC tick list 2010

So it seems that Joe and I are going to Indian Creek. Joe only has about 10 days, and the first two I'll be in Redding for the Cal-Neva AFS conference. Part of me wants to not go, but another part knows that it will be fun. Lots of talks that are interesting to me, fun folks from the Moyle lab, and a collaborator who's presenting on my Paiute cutthroat trout project (and who I'm going to ambush with a post-doc proposal).

Initially I wasn't too psyched on going back to the creek. I was there for 4 weeks last spring, and wasn't climbing that well.  On the other hand, I wasn't climbing well at all last year. Hangover from the whole MS thing I suppose.

At any rate, I'm feeling much better now, climbing strong (for me), and I'd have a solid partner who I'm comfortable climbing with...which is what I really wanted last year when I had more time. Such is life.

So here is the tick list. Bold indicates Joe's choices, both of which require a second since they are more than a pitch. I'm going to get worked...This is merely a rough guide. I tend to balk at the rigidity of a true tick list.
Six star crack
Slot Machine
Ziji (I'm pretty sure I got lowered off of this as a blubbering mess the first year I was in IC...good times)
Pente
Slice and Dice (maybe this year?)
anything new and onsight-able
Broken Brain
T Bones tonight?
anything on any wall I haven't been to

On an unrelated note, a post-doc advert came through the grapevine in Corvallis, OR (OSU). It would be a pretty sweet post-doc: landscape genetics of aquatic inverts and amphibians in desert streams in AZ, but I'd be in Corvallis, and I don't know anything about the town. I did do a googlemaps search and learned that Corvallis is 169 miles from Terrebonne, the gateway town to Smith...which is almost exactly the distance from Davis to the valley. I think another part of the post-doc would be in Seattle as well.

John was making a pretty good case for leaving Davis when I finish, but I don't really know what I want. I'm really interested in California salmonids and the delta issues, and as I've lived here I've definitely become more invested in the issues here. I know that wherever I go I'll there will be many other interesting issues. Sometimes it's just hard to imagine what something will be like until you get there and get started.

It doesn't matter anyway about the Corvallis post-doc - they want someone to start in May 2010, and I probably won't be done until summer 2011. Plus I have this SCEP thing going on here, and I have to put in 640 hours to be guaranteed a job. The work schedule is flexible, but the 640 needs to happen. then again I might work with FWS and decide I don't want to work for a federal agency. Which is the whole point of the SCEP: get your feet wet with an agency without the commitment of a full-time job.

I might float the idea to the PI in Corvallis (I actually met the guy and hung out with him a little bit in Death Valley at the last Desert Fishes Council meeting, he seemed super cool, another reason I'd consider Corvallis) that I'd be interested in a post-doc in a year or two. Sometimes things are more flexible than you think.

There's another guy I'd be interested in working with at Colorado State in Ft. Collins.  I haven't met or corresponded with him yet though, but his research is interesting and apparently he is "super cool" according to a former labmate who works at CSU now.

I haven't done an extensive faculty search, but I primarily am looking at Boulder, Ft. Collins or Salt Lake City. I'd also consider looking at faculty at Berkeley. If something amazing comes along, I'd look at other locations like the Corvallis outreach.

In other work-related news, I'm going to try to extract some DNA from ancient samples of pupfish, which requires going to another lab. Ancient DNA samples (anything older than a couple of decades is considered "ancient") are often so degraded (DNA degrades over time) that the quantities are very small (compared to tissue samples that were collected more recently, with more modern techniques that are probably guaranteed to get you gorgeous DNA). So the quantities are small, and there's fish DNA floating all over the place and covering every surface in our lab, so contamination is going to be an issue (this is standard for aDNA). So I gotta go to another lab. yay. Plus I have to be super meticulous and patient, neither of which I'd rate as my greatest skills. Anyway, there are likely to be some ranting posts about this work in the future, assuming the Cal Academy can part with 10 cubic mm of caudal fin from 20 samples from the 1930s. Fortunately I have contacts at Cal, so hopefully this is something that will happen.

Phew. wow this post isn't accurately named...like the glooove compaaaartmeeent....and everybody knows it...cause behind it's door....there's nothing to keep my fingers warm...