An Ode to a Grecian Urn

In case you were wondering, the title was inspired by Keats and this is read in the style of Ernie Kovac's character Percy Dovetonsils.

"O Grecian urn! you sit there
  on your august marble plinth
  your skin is red and dusty
  and you've got numerous crackth and denth [you talk about a rhyme scheme!]
 your persons are black and flattened
 as they fight two-dimensional beasts
 paper thin swanths theem to fly away
 followed by paper thin black thable geethe
 a lonesome thought enters my mind
 as I sit in pensive reflection
 could it possibly be your artist had no visual depth perception?"

The cost of higher education

I thought the article in The Times-Dispatch was interesting and slightly alarming. One trillion dollars in debt is considerable. But considering most of the colleges I visited all had huge campuses with several facilities, something tells me that if federal funding was reduced they wouldn't just look around and say, "Welp, guess we'll have to mothball a couple of the departments and slash coaching salaries." Aaaand I think that's a good guess as to why student tuition has increased. But the most interesting point of the article was that the benefit of having an undergrad degree has diminished in that it may not prepare you adequately for a job straight out of college.
I can definitely relate to that. Getting a degree in Biology helped critical thinking skills and problem solving, but working in a lab? Data collection? Statistics that go along with data collection? Designing experiments? Managing a lab budget? Nope. The one thing it did prepare me for, unfortunately, was just going to grad school.
I think it'll be interesting to see if colleges redesign their curriculum or refocus their efforts on better preparation for after college. But the question is, will they do this before or after student debt becomes insurmountable?

Deep Thoughts

Lara and I were in Bon Air's Total Wine the other day with the muzak playing softly in the background. Phil Collins's "Easy Lover" came on and I said to myself, "Finally! It's been so long since I've heard some decent elevator music!"

Haste makes waste

It's an old saw, but it's true. Life has started moving at a slightly slower pace and I'm definitely noticing it. Instead of being given several minutes notice for some ridiculous tasking, only to have me cranking out some ill-prepared product and then be told it's no longer needed, I'm able to approach different problems and determine the best way to go about them. Instead of dreading the commute to work in the morning, I enjoy it and review what I've learned (vacuum tubes were an early way of rectifying currents, overdrive on cars allow their engines to operate at lower rpms). And I'm definitely noticing an improvement in woodworking. I'm better prepared and my technique overall is improving for sawing, planing, jointing, you name it. But it's not limited to just that. I'm no longer making mistakes that require me to go back and rework or start over again.
Sometimes if you want to speed things up, you need to slow things down.

Deep Thoughts

Whenever I drive into work, there's always a large sign with the "e" burned out that says "CONG STION AHD" and I'm always hopeful that it's really just telling me that there's a conga station ahead, but whenever I pass by the construction workers they're usually busy scratching themselves and not forming up into a dance line.

Felonious Vandalism?

I've always known that it's been a crime to vandalize buildings and such. But a felony in Richmond? To me that just seems a tad extreme!

AAFS 2012 Convention

I just got back from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Atlanta. And I learned A LOT. I didn't actually go there with any sort of preconceived notions, but the scope that forensics covers blew my mind. It started off kind of slow, but I at least got to walk around a lot, which was nice coming directly off the ship, and see the different disciplines of forensic sciences and some of the posters that they had up. Some of the disciplines I had expected (pathologists, biologists who worked exclusively on DNA extraction and genetic fingerprinting, entomologists, ballistics guys) but there were a lot that I hadn't even thought about. Odontology, forensic anthropology, a TON of lawyers and guys with Juris Doctorates, biologists who studied plants and soil composition in different geographic areas to understand taphonomy and root action on remains, questioned documents (I kinda thought most banks had a fraud department, but these guys were experts and worked case by case), forensic veterinarians who determine if animals have been abused, behavioral sciences and psychiatrists, and digital forensics guys were all present at the convention.
Without a doubt, the largest group there were pathologists/biologists. The majority of their work was dedicated towards cause of death and DNA analysis (DNA fragments, mitochondrial DNA, trace DNA, etc), but there was one lecture that stood out in my mind that discussed a case study where a car crash victim displayed retinal hemorrhaging similar to shaken baby syndrome, but only after 24 hours had elapsed. Upon concluding his lecture, a person in the audience stood up and said semi-jokingly that he should formally document his findings and get them published by the end of the night.
Toxicology was pretty interesting to me. I managed to sneak into an open forum that they were having and was immediately seen by one of the organizers who asked me what I was doing there. "Oh, I'm actually in the Navy, but I never studied toxicology so I figured I'd use this opportunity to learn more about it." "Really?! Wow, that is great!" That scenario played out several other times, with people slightly impressed that I was making an effort to understand more about their different fields.
And I can completely understand why they were impressed. I've forgotten a pretty good portion of Biology (after all I haven't used it in 4 years or more), but going through and listening to the lectures helped jog my memory for anatomy, physiology, chemistry, anthropology, and for some reason epidemiology (hey, I was curious as to how prevalent some of these things were!). But being in the room with all these toxicologists (who had a minimum of an MS in Tox) was without a doubt the dumbest I have ever felt. The conversation went something like this:

"You know, I couldn't help but notice in my lab we were having issues with extracted 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone and its stability. When we went back later it had completely degraded." "Well, you really have to salt it out, because of the nature of these compounds they don't keep very well in the freebase form. So, you'll have to protonate that pyrrolidin type functional group." "Yes, and thank you, I think you bring up a valid point. We've had to do that with some cathinone that was being extracted from khat and sold online by some Israeli company. So, if you've had issues with that, I'd highly recommend converting it into a hydrochloride form."

At that point I was sorely tempted to turn to the person next to me and ask, "I'm sorry, but can you translate that convo into English for me?" Looking back though, what in the world did I expect? These were all highly educated, highly experienced professionals at a convention with other equally educated and experienced professionals. Oh well. I did glean a little bit from the open forum, but the most enlightening wasn't their discussion on how to keep stable compounds, but just the fact that so much of their discussion was on synthetic cannabinoids, MDMA, MDPV, and cathinones because all of these toxicologists' time were being taken up by dealing with kids who'd overdosed on these compounds, or they had so many samples that contained these compounds. And that's what really got me thinking about epidemiology and if someone was actually studying this usage in the US. But there weren't too many epidemiologists there, so I never got that question answered.

After a long day of looking at various case studies, getting tips on resumes/CV's, and listening to different lectures I went to the overpriced and trendy bar that they had in the hotel and started playing with Lara's Kindle. One of the lawyers who worked pro bono for the prosecution on the Casey Anthony case sat down and started discussing the case with me.

Overall, I thought the convention was very interesting and it definitely opened my eyes to the scope of forensic science.