Spring and softball

I love spring. I love the warmer but not too hot weather and all the flowers and trees blooming. Mostly I love spring because it means the beginning of baseball and softball season.

Wayne and I love Cardinals baseball and catch the games when we can. I just had my first softball game Thursday night. Wayne plays on Friday nights and started pitching this season, and pitched a great game this past Friday. I am playing on two teams this season (Mondays and Thursdays...Monday was rained out), despite Wayne’s wish for me to only play one night because he has such a hard time with Trinity. I wasn’t able to play much past the first half of last season due to the pregnancy, and I haven’t been to any practices yet this season, so I was a little nervous about how rusty my skills were. Fortunately, I have been giving fastpitch pitching lessons for the past two months, so my arm has been worked out several times. However, I was right to be nervous about rusty skills, at least offensively. I fouled out three times. Not good. Defensively I was solid, though, which I am pretty happy about.

Speaking of pitching lessons, I love giving them, especially when I see results. The girl I am teaching is mostly a beginner, but she knew the basic mechanics when we started. After 8 lessons, she has significantly improved her mechanics, which has led to a faster fastball.

We had another lesson today after a rough session last week. I gave her some things to work on through the week to help her help herself improve. Apparently this is paying off in ways I couldn’t have foreseen. For example, today I noticed that she can throw her fastball as a drop pitch. This is FREAKING AWESOME! The first time she threw it today both her parents and I had to pick our jaws up off the floor because the ball literally looked like it dropped off the edge of a table, and it was over the plate. I think this pitch is similar to what is called a peel drop pitch, but I haven’t taught her that (yet). I showed her how to throw a turnover change-up (although, admittedly, way earlier than I should have) which drops quite nicely when thrown correctly, so I thought maybe she was turning her wrist over when she snapped the ball, but that wasn’t the case. Whatever it is, I am all for it. Every good pitcher needs a good drop pitch. So I was very excited to see this naturally from a pitcher I am coaching.

I love softball.

Other peoples' lab skills, or lack thereof

Sometimes I hate the fact that some of the experiments I do require other peoples’ help. Not because I don’t like working with other people, but because I don’t like relying on other peoples’ lab skills, or lack thereof. I am not saying that mine are perfect, but I do have some good lab skills thanks to extensive experience working in a few different labs before becoming a graduate student. If my advisor were to pick one student out of the lab to try a new protocol, it would be me. I know how to do a lot of stuff, and I know how to do it well.

Recently I pulled out some frozen homogenized tissue samples to thaw, or what I thought were homogenized samples. It turns out they weren’t as homogenized as they should be, as in there are LARGE, clearly visible chunks of tissue that I wouldn’t have missed had I been the one doing the homogenizing. The strange thing is that all the samples that have this problem were processed on the same day, but I can’t figure out who has crappy homogenizing skills. Even if I did know who the culprit was, it wouldn’t make any difference…pointing out the fact that they have potentially screwed up several samples isn’t going to make the samples any better, nor is it going to make the person feel good. The only potential good I can see from pointing this out is that, in the future, the person might pay closer attention to make sure the whole tissue is homogenized, and that may not even matter because I have no way of knowing if the person is ever going to homogenize tissue ever again.

I do realize that at some point in one’s career, you have to take some necessary risks to get some things done. I consider one of these risks to be allowing others to help you do lab work. In order for this to happen without bad things occurring (i.e. ending up with crappy samples), these people need to be properly trained. Sometimes the training takes a long time. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes. Homogenizing tissue with a tissue tearor (basically a dremel tool with a fancy attachment) is one of the 5 minute lessons. It isn’t hard. Really, a five year old could do it. All it takes is some manual dexterity and good eyesight. And your eyesight doesn’t have to be THAT good to do it. Hence, my frustration at having unhomogenized tissue samples.

One also realizes at some point in their science career that the more samples you have, the better, and in my case (and especially lucky for the non-homogenizer), I have samples that can replace these that have been properly homogenized. Murphy’s Law strikes again.

Organic shampoo Review

So I have recently switched to using baking soda instead of using shampoo, but I thought I would review two organic shampoos that I tried before making the switch.

I have a horribly dry, flaky scalp. As in if I let it go without some kind of dry scalp shampoo, it looks like a blizzard hit my head when I brush my hair. So in the past I used Head and Shoulders Dry Scalp Shampoo Plus Conditioner. It worked ok, but I always had a low level of flakiness, probably due to the hard water we have. But then I started being more conscious of the chemicals I put on my body and decided to switch to an organic shampoo.

I went to Walgreens to find a replacement shampoo and conditioner. They have a good selection of products that are more natural than regular shampoos. After looking for awhile, I decided to try the Jason Tea Tree Scalp Normalizing shampoo and Yes To Tomatoes conditioner. I chose these products because it says on the shampoo bottle, “Say goodbye to dry, flaky, itchy scalp”, they have less nasty chemicals in them, and they were on sale. Plus the shampoo has a cute koala on the bottle. The first couple times I used the shampoo, it worked fine, but after a week I noticed it made my scalp more flaky and itchy than when I used the Head and Shoulders, even with the conditioner. Next.

I decided I would try to find something at Clover’s Natural Market instead. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Clover’s has a huge selection of products. Which means a lot of ingredient reading. Remember, just because something has “organic” or “natural” on the label, that doesn’t mean it is free of harmful chemicals, and Clover’s has plenty of examples.

I looked at probably 15 different shampoos. For me, it isn’t just a matter of being chemical-free, but it also has to be a price I am willing to pay. I found the perfect combination: Organix South Thera Neem Shampoo. It claims to be “perfect for those with sensitive scalps…” I decided to try it out.

This shampoo is thinner than most, and you are supposed to massage it into the scalp, then leave it for 3-5 minutes. It smells ok, and it does keep the flakiness of my scalp to a minimum, but there is still flakiness when I use this shampoo.

Most recently I have been using baking soda to clean my hair. I just make up a paste with water, massage some into my scalp, and rinse. Right now I am following with Yes To Tomatoes conditioner, and the plan is to switch to apple cider vinegar when the conditioner runs out. This works just fine for cleaning my hair, but the flakiness persists. It is less flaky than ever before, but I think I am just destined to have a dry scalp forever. But I tried, and now people who read this blog have a handy review of a couple “organic” shampoos.

Treehugger

I have been called a treehugger twice in the last week. By my husband. I told him I wanted to make my own butter so we wouldn’t have to buy margarine in plastic tubs (reducing plastic use) or butter (with PFOA lining the paper—read about PFOA here), and he called me a treehugger. And not in a good way, in the usual derogatory tone that accompanies the word. This really hurt my feelings, and he later apologized, saying that he is just overwhelmed with the amount of information I have about chemicals.

In addition to trying to use products without harmful chemicals, I have been inspired to reduce our plastic use recently, so I have been trying to find ways to eliminate using things with plastic packaging, make my own stuff that normally comes in plastic, or try to find items packaged in glass. The reason I don’t want to use plastic is because it doesn’t biodegrade. Ever. And I think about the amount of plastic used in this country (it’s everywhere) and how much we consume and throw things away, and it makes me sad. Hundreds of millions of tons of plastic are in the landfills and ocean (see here). And it doesn’t biodegrade. It will break into smaller and smaller pieces over a long, LONG period of time, and did I mention it doesn’t biodegrade?

I never really thought that trying to reduce consumption, protect my and my family’s health, and protecting wildlife were bad things. Apparently, though, this makes me a treehugger. If this is the case, then so be it. I would rather be a treehugger than be an ignorant, narrow-minded, not-interested-in-protecting-the planet-that-supports-our-life {insert catchy term for anti-treehugger}. Not saying that my husband is one, because he is trying to be more conscious, but he doesn’t need to insult me about it.

Incidentally, the second time he called me a treehugger, he was being more sarcastic and joking, and it didn’t hurt my feelings.