Changes in Latitudes

Work is going fine. My boss has given me some lab activities to keep me interested in my work, so I'm testing antibodies. The positive control turned out as expected, but it is such a pretty staining that I have to share the picture. This is an embryo of a starlet sea anemone ( Nematostella sp.) approximately 30 hours old. The green is actin (a protein in cell walls), the blue is nuclei, and the red/pink is clusters of DNA. There are some pretty examples of cell division in this embryo! Also, as of a couple weeks ago I'm officially a published scientist! ....well, the paper has been accepted for publication, so it will likely not be in the journal before next year. The journal is called ICES Journal of Marine Science. Furthermore, this weekend the mountains got a nice thick layer of snow, so I took Pancho up for his first time in a proper bit  of snow (not counting the icy leftovers that were on Jutenheimen this summer). He's now 6 months old and weighs bout 34...

[Happy birthday boy at a cool restaurant in town that had a big selection of beer] Marius turned 30 on Friday (the 30th). In August I sent out invitations for the surprise. He only knew that his sister and our friend Knut would be joining us for dinner. But from 5:30pm, more friends started to show up, even Martin who came from Oslo. I was glad he was surprised and I was able to keep the secret so long! Saturday morning we got up and took Pancho for a hike with Katrine in the rain, hail and wind. The hot cocoa pitstop made it way better. I had planned for us to carve pumpkins as well on Saturday, but had no luck after going to five grocery stores. We settled with watching Young Frankenstein and playing a game instead. We had candy in case of trick or treaters, but none showed (probably because we live in an apartment block). Without trick-or-treaters or pumpkins, I had to try to get a little more Halloween feeling. I found some inspiration online to have Pancho be a beanie baby....

Since the marathon I haven't gotten out for a run longer than 4 miles, but I have gone for lots of hikes on the ridge behind our place with Pancho. We have had relatively little rain this fall, so it will be weird to have a typical rainy week. The morning after the super/blood/eclipse moon, Lydia wandered out of the house and has not been seen since. She has been a part of our family since 1995 and things will feel so different without her. I hope that she found peace wherever she wandered off to for her last rest (if that is what she did). I will miss her dearly, and wish it wasn't the way she decided to leave us after being with us for 20 years. We love you, Lydy pity

Long story short, I missed my PR by 42 seconds. Darn!! But now I'll go back to the beginning. I had some great training weeks logging over 40 miles a week before we brought home Pancho. The last six weeks of training were average, but not stellar; at least not quite up to a standard for a PR as with my half-marathon training. And I think the problem was mainly that and that I didn't have as big of a breakfast as usual because I worried about feeling sick during the race. In addition, I read last night that poor core strength leads to poor posture later in the race thus setting off a chain of events that lead to muscle cramps in the legs. Friday before the race I worked a half day, and Marius and I loaded up the car and headed east to Oslo - an 8 hour drive from Bergen over the mountains. We gave Pancho a motion sickness pill, before we left only to realize too late that he should have taken the pill 90 minutes before we left. So he got sick in his cage, and then I had...

Last weekend (the first weekend of September), Marius and I were invited to join REN (Marius' old employer) on their annual trip. Previous trips that we were both included in were St. Petersburg, Paris, and Rome. This year was Budapest, and it happened about a week after the refugees and migrants made their way into Hungary. It was definitely adding a different perspective to the trip while we stayed in a 5-star hotel and ate a 5-course dinner. Pancho spent the weekend with one of my colleagues who also has a dog. It isn't too hard to find puppy-sitters right now since I work with animal lovers. And who doesn't love puppies? So Marius and I got in on Friday night and took a cab to the hotel with another couple on the trip. The European Cup soccer qualifier was that night, so our driver tried to go around the soccer hooligans and the possible chaos at the train station, but it was pretty quiet. We ended up driving by the train station a couple of times, but it wasn...

I've been bad at updating this, but with a new puppy, work and training for my second marathon I have not had so much time with the computer.  In mid-July Marius and I brought home Pancho and we drove over to Bergen with him. A week and a half later, Mom and Dad flew to Bergen and we all drove up to Gjelvågan to the Engebrethsen's summer cabin in the north. We used 16 hours the first day in the car and 3 the next day so that we could make it up in time to go to Marius' cousin's wedding. We had a great, relaxing time up north with both sets of parents, Katrine, and other family visits. We're already excited for next summer! Here are just a few pictures from Marius' nice camera. We drove through Jotenheim National Park to get the most scenic quick route north to the summer house. Here it was in the low 40s and windy. We even saw people skiing!!! On the way back south we drove through snow flurries...it was July 31st. Exploring snow for the first...

On Friday July 17th, Marius and I picked up our little waterdog. He wasn't quite 8 weeks old, but already so good at sleeping through the night. We love him! He has very few accidents in the house and is already used to driving in the car. I have already trained him to sit and fetch. Today he is 9 weeks old! We are up in Nordland (north of the Arctic circle) with Mom, Dad, Tron and Rigmor. Pancho is learning how to be a waterdog, but the water is a bit cold up here. He'll get used to it soon. We just got back from an easy hike, which really wore him out. Hopefully I have some more patience to sit and write a bit more about the trip. I never got around to Madrid, sorry about that!