i see why lepidopterists are the way they are, sort of

I destroyed the moth i captured last night trying to mount it. My advice to you: if you are trying to mount insects using a spreading board, don't use the shitty styrofoam one that Bioquip provides. It's terrible. the styrofoam facets catch parts while you are trying to move them around, and it's not thick enough for an entire pin to sink into, so you have a bit sticking out of the bottom if you put the insect on the right height on the pin to begin with. I am going to make my own from balsa wood on monday. I really liked trying to mount it though. I don't like moths or butterflies that much but trying to mount them is challenging, and when done well, is probably very satisfying. I feel like i have been a but impatient in my mounting and have taking the specimens off of the spreading board too early.

I have to finish typing up the results of a plant lab experiment (results: miracle gro totally works, for wheat grass at least. it was a pretty boring lab) but I want to build my UV light box tonight because it's warm and I want to try to get some moths and some katydids tonight.

I subscribed to a podcast called "Brain Food" and listened to episode #20 this evening. I would highly recommend it. It uses science and math to explain answer questions about things that listeners write in about, such as why does bleach work to turn things white and what happenes if to spaceships head opposite directions at 75% the speed of light, would they be heading away from each other faster than the speed of light? the answer to that question is sort of ridiculous and made my eyes water. Time/Space is hard for me to wrap my head around.

I gotta get this light box made so I can get the results section all done and sent off to my lab partners. The beaverton farmers market was a lot of fun. We got a venus fly trap, some plum honey, a pupcake (cupcake for beatrice) some INCREDIBLE mustard made by nuns (and i hate mustard and nuns) and some other cool stuff. We plan to meet up with some coworkers there weekly now.

we gave Mijo, one of ours cats, to a coworker because he was getting to be too much to bear, fighting lucy all the time, and there was a rumor that she'd already lost him after a week. She said this morning that last night after she got home from sean's party that she'd put a sweater on him and felt guilty. It seems weird that she would make something like that up to throw us off the trail, so we are happy that he's not dead somewhere, considering he has to have a special diet in order to not get crystals blocking his urinary tract any longer.