Product Review: Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Sea Salt & Vinegar potato chips

Before he got married, my Uncle Derek accompanied my nuclear family on several summer vacations. On one of those vacations (I can't remember which, but it was either the trip to Oregon or the trip to Alberta), he introduced my nuclear family to Cape Cod potato chips. We were ecstatic about them. In my memory they were so good. I don't recall what flavor he shared with us, but we devoured them. (However, it's entirely plausible that we would've enthusiastically emptied any bag of potato chips he decided to share with us, regardless of brand.[2]) It's not an easy brand to track down in Utah, but I rediscovered it while we were in Wisconsin.

Henry Villas Zoo

When my sisters Melissa and Ashley were visiting a few weeks ago (when Lincoln was born [1]), we tried to go visit the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and Bolz Conservatory.[2] The website said the grounds were open until 8 PM, so we went around 4:30 PM. When we got there, it looked like it was closed. Unbeknownst to us they had closed early because of a severe storm advisory. But not all of the gates were closed, so we found a way in. We'd only been wandering around the gardens for a few minutes when it began to rain. So we slowly began to make our way back to the car. Then it began to pour. We were all soaked, including Lilli (but she didn't mind because I caught a toad and let her hold it [3]). I thought I could drive around Lake Monona and reach the hospital, but I got lost. We didn't get there until dinner time, so we stopped and bought some pizza from Pizza Hut. Needless to say, the visit to the botanical gardens was a bust: we didn't have time to see very many of the plants or take any pictures. So the next day we went to Madison's Henry Villas Zoo.

Matt's Trip to England

Last week I went to Norwich, England (which they pronounce NORR-idge, mouse over for IPA) with my boss for a conference related to the research I'm doing with rhizobia and cereals.[1] I was supposed to depart at 7 am on Saturday the 14th but I missed my flight because 1. my cab was 40 minutes late and 2. I forgot my passport. T-Mobile service in Madison is pretty shoddy, so my calls kept getting dropped. It was just as well, I suppose, because the first four tellers I talked to wouldn't let me keep the original flights I'd purchased tickets for. They all wanted to sell me new itineraries for an additional $1100 to $2300. The fifth teller put me back on my original flights and just sold me a new ticket from Madison to Detroit. (Leann brought me my passport.)

22nd NASNFC

Last week I attended the 22nd North American Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation Conference.[1] This time it was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota (my first venture into that state). I've also attended the 21st North American Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation Conference, which was held in Colombus, Missouri in 2010 [2] (I brought back two ticks with me from a day trip we took at that conference) and the 16th International Congress on Nitrogen Fixation, which was held in Big Sky, Montana in 2009.[3] I presented a poster at the meeting based on the research I've been doing since I started a postdoc in Wisconsin earlier this year.[4][5] There were lots of interesting topics covered, including identification and characterization of key plant and bacterial genes involved in the development of root nodules, genetics of rhizobia, genetics of legumes, genomics, and a fascinating talk from a fellow who is part of the N2Africa project funded by the Gates Foundation.[6]

Petting Farm

As part of Lilli's birthday celebration [1], we took her to Eugster's petting farm [2], which is about 20 minutes southeast of us in Stoughton. The staff was very friendly and inviting and so were the animals.

A Brief Return to Bachelorhood

A few weeks ago Leann's parents came up to visit and then when they left they took Leann and Lilli with them. They were in Texas for two weeks, but I had to stay in Madison for work. Here are some of the things I did while they were gone (and when I wasn't working).

Move to Wisconsin

Well, dear readers, it's been over two months since I last posted, but with good reason. I was spending my time wrapping up my research and writing a >200-page dissertation for my Ph.D. And Leann was busy packing and making arrangements to move to Madison, Wisconsin, where I had arranged a position as a postdoctoral fellow. My timeline was contracted [1] so I ended up renting a moving truck the morning of my defense, packing for a few hours, and then getting ready for my oral presentation and closed-doors meeting with my committee. After that I finished cleaning up my bench in Dr. Griffitts' lab, went home for the last bit of packing, and then drove the truck to my parents' house where we stayed the night.

Hogle Zoo

This last weekend we took Lillian to the Hogle Zoo.[1] We've been waiting for her to be old enough to enjoy it. A few months ago we took her to a pet store to see if she'd be interested. She had a good time but didn't give any video-worthy performances. And her attention span ran out pretty quickly. So we waited a little longer before taking her to the zoo. We were accompanied (to the zoo) by Leann's sister, Jennie, and her family, and Leann's old roommate, Maggie, and her family.[2] This year there was a new attraction, called Rocky Shores. Here are some of the animals we saw:

Picnic on the South Fork of the Provo River

This Friday I took Leann and Lillian up Provo Canyon to do some picnicking.[1] At Vivian Park we went up into the mountains, following the South Fork of the Provo River. There are two parks up that way and when I've been up there before I haven't seen very many people, so I thought we'd have the place relatively to ourselves. But both parks were full (and both had weddings being set up). We went to the park farther up (Big Springs Park) and had our picnic anyway—we just had to watch out for flying footballs.

Peach Days 2012

I grew up near Brigham City, Utah, but I only made it to the city festival, Peach Days, a couple of times. This last weekend was Peach Days, and Leann has wanted to see it for the last several years, so we drove up on Saturday. We also wanted to go through the open house for the new Brigham City Temple, which is going on from August 18th to September 15th of this year.[1]

Trip to Texas

After my trip to Cold Spring Harbor, New York, to attend a research conference [1], we decided to make a trip to Texas to visit Leann's side of the family. This is convenient for me because whenever I go on a trip that's longer than a few days, my bacteria die out and I have to retrieve them from the –80°C freezer. It takes them about 3 days to come up so a 5-day vacation is essentially an 8-day vacation. Thus two separate trips represent more lost time than two sequential trips.

Trip to New York

While I was attending the 2012 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meeting on Bacteria, Archaea, & Phages [1] with my professor and the other two graduate students in the lab, we wanted to see New York City. So the day I presented, after that session was over, we cut out and caught a train to New York to see the sights. (As I wrote that I realized that I could've put sites and still had the sentence be grammatically and informationally correct.)

2012 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meeting on Bacteria, Archaea, & Phages

This last week I haven't posted anything because I've been at the 2012 Meeting on Bacteria, Archaea, & Phages.[1] It started on the 21st and ended on the 25th. I submitted two abstracts, one about the work I've done on the effect of certain accessory plasmids on host range in Sinorhizobium meliloti [2] and another about the work I've done on identifying a phage receptor in Sinorhizobium meliloti. I was asked by the organizers to give an oral presentation about the former and to present a poster about the latter.

Reed Family Vacation 2012

From July 26th to July 30th we traveled to southern Utah for what may be the last Reed family reunion.[1] Out of 107 descendents 90 were in attendance, which was pretty respectable. We stayed in a cabin at the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort [2], just west of Mount Carmel, Utah. Lilli was particularly fond of the ceiling fans (she'd point at them and wave her hand around and say fuh! fuh! [3]) and climbing up and down and up and down and up and down the carpeted stairs to the second story.

The Solipsist

You may recall that about a year and a half ago I participated in an online fiction contest, held on the website Writers on the Loose, that was held by the President Emeritus of the BYU 38th Ward Book Club. My submission was called Quaver.[1] Since then Jonathan, tired of the squabbling on the site, has ended his membership. But the biannual contest lives on, now overseen by another member of the site, who goes by the handle 'deep water'.[2] I haven't participated in the last few contests, but the theme this year actually incited me to write not one but three stories.[3] The suggested them was "…something fictional on the 2012 world-ending scenario; it could be in the realm of science fiction, crime, comedy, etc." When I first approached the prompt I wanted to have the world end, but not in a way that has been done before (e.g., nuclear holocaust, devastating disease, alien invasion, zombies, asteroid, the Rapture, etc.). This is what I came up with.

Free Fishing Day

This last weekend I went up to Idaho for free fishing day with my dad, my brother, Nathan, and my brothers-in-law, Mike and Luke. In years past we've gone up for Wyoming's free fishing day or stayed here for Utah's free fishing day. This year Utah and Wyoming had their free fishing days on June 3rd, but several of us were busy.[1] So we went to Idaho's instead, which was on the 10th. We went up Friday evening and stayed with my aunt in Star Valley, Wyoming. The next morning, after helping her out with a few things, we headed over to Tin Cup Creek in Idaho. I forgot to bring a camera, so I had to use the dinky camera in my phone—which means all the photos are really tiny.

Spanish Fork Fiesta Days Rodeo

While Lillian was still in the hospital, we attended the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days rodeo. Under the circumstances, we wouldn't have chosen to do this, but we had already purchased the tickets since we didn't anticipate her early birth.[1] Much to our surprise, one of Lillian's nurses (in fact we had her as a nurse for most of that week) turned out to be the wife of one of the organizers of the rodeo.

An Afternoon Drive

Last Friday, when I got home from school/work, I picked up my girls (wife and daughter) and we went for a drive up Provo Canyon to see the fall leaves. I didn't really plan it this way, but we made two stops: Bridal Veil Falls and Squaw Peak. I'd never been to Bridal Veil Falls and Leann had never been to Squaw Peak (every time she's tried before now the road was still snowed in).

Out of the Old and Into the New II

The week after Lillian was born [1] I was rear-ended by another driver while on my way home from campus. I reached an intersection and was going to turn left. A pedestrian entered the crosswalk [2] and since there was no turn lane, I stopped in the intersection. The driver behind me [3] wasn't looking and slammed into me going 30–35 mph. Thankfully, neither of us were injured. After my car was examined by a commercial appraiser and two independent appraisers (one from my insurance company and one from his) it was declared totaled.[4] So we bought a new car.

Free Fishing Day

Last Saturday was Free Fishing Day in Utah and Wyoming. For the last several years I've gone with my Dad, my brother, and my brothers-in-law up to Star Valley Wyoming to do some fishing in the Salt River and in the Grand Palisades Reservoir. And for the most part we've been skunked. This year we opted out of going to Wyoming and chose to stay in Utah, instead.