Sam and I Fought Off Two Lions in My Backyard

Last night my dog Sam was barking in the backyard. I went outside to find a lion cub on the deck swatting at Sam with paws the size of dessert plates. I yelled at Sam to get in the house and immediately began to fear the presence of the parents of the lion cub. Sure enough, below the back staircase to the deck was an enormous, adult, male lion. Sam barked like crazy at it, and the lion bit at his face catching his lip in his giant fangs. People were calling at me from inside the house to get inside, but Sam was in trouble. Barely thinking, I climbed up on the railing of the deck and jumped off it drop-kicking the lion in the shoulders (seriously). Immediately I realized the futility of my actions and panic sat in. I thought about how I wished that I just slid down the back staircase, grabbed Sam's collar from behind and ran him back up the stairs. Then, with the thought in my head, next thing I knew, I had Sam's collar in my right hand and we were on our way up the deck.

And then I woke up.

Dream / Jobs

Last night I had a very, very long dream. In words, it is too long to type, but too good not to mention the primary features.

1. I made friends with a real live gnome about 5" tall.
2. I could fly like superman.
3. I wore a deep sea SCUBA suit.
4. I was late for middle school.

Today I applied to BioTeam, a hardcore consulting company that custom builds solutions for life-science businesses. A coworker who knows one of the directors referred me to them. It's a long shot since the team is extremely elite, but if I'm lucky, maybe they're looking for a code-monkey with a background in molecular biology and user experience design.

To date, I've applied to 6 jobs at MIT's Broad Institute, and I'm beginning to fear their careers page is a black hole for resumés. I've got to make some calls.

Two More Jobs at Broad

I applied for two new positions today...

Software Engineer II - Tuberculosis Database
Associate Computational Biologist - Genome Biology Program

...follow up phone calls tomorrow.

Romance on the Road

Today 3 deer crossed right in front of my car on a back-road in Lexington. They politely waited until I came to a complete stop, then crossed to the other side where 2 of their friends were waiting.

On Sunday I took Ashley out to dinner at The Old Salt in Hampton. It was a cold calm night, though the wind at the beach was stirring up the surf. We drove up to New Market where Antje Duvekot was playing The Stone Church Meetinghouse. She played a great set with a new love song, and an old one called Merry Go Round that Bank of America recently paid her $50,000 to use in a commercial. (Listen). Meanwhile, Ashley and I doodled in my sketchbook as we listened.

I love nights like these, and I've been in dire need of a touch of romance as of late. I'm hopeless - I know. I offer no excuses, and yet it's still not enough for me that I write all this down. Driving home, Ashley sang me the first line of a song she wrote. That line has had me on cloud nine for three days. Here's to February and more pleasant surprises!

Oh my lover, won't you write me a love song?
With passion of clover, won't you paint me fields o' green?
Inspire my heart with sweet breath from your lungs.
I'm not coming home 'til you speak love to me.

The Best Idea I Ever Had

Last night I formulated the best idea I have ever had. I say this with no exaggeration. Here is how it formulated in my brain...

"If I could only listen to one album for the rest of my life it would be Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E." I was thinking about how Alyssa and I were talking about our favorite music after dinner with Kevin. She liked Minus the Bear.

And then this phrase formed in my mind because I've had work on my mind lately, "If I could only work for one company for the rest of my life it would be..." I had to stop and think. Because working for one company would be a huge thing. Would my life's work be in building computational tools to make experimental biologists' work easier and thus permitting breakthroughs in science? I like doing this type of work because it's the type of thing that helps people cure once-thought incurable diseases. However, it's a roundabout way of helping mankind.

Then I thought of A Christmas Carol (seriously), and how when Scrooge speaks of "good business" Marley tells him that "mankind was his business." This is a profound message, and whenever I see the play it gives me chills up my spine. So I thought again about my answer and finished the sentence: "If I could only work for one company for the rest of my life it would be mankind."

But what I like about advancing science is that it can help people on a greater scale. Yes, helping just one person is a great enough scale for that person, but in my head I wanted to be of more help. I thought, "I can't afford to help those less fortunate on a significant scale." Then I thought, "Some wealthy people can't help themselves despite their wealth." And so I came to the solution:

"Help the wealthy to help those less fortunate than themselves, and therefore, help themselves in doing so."

Of course there's a big difference between helping people in third world countries and just throwing money at them. This would have to be an up close and personal experience if anyone would come out better in the end. Nevertheless, all specifics aside, this is the best idea I have ever had. I write it here for two reasons. One, I don't want to forget it. And two, the best ideas should be given away so anyone can make them work.

Weekend, Interviews, and Photos

Tonight I have many scattered and relatively unimportant things to write, nevertheless I shall write them as they come to me.

First off, the Patriots are going to the Superbowl again! My whole family gathered together on Sunday and watched both games. I love this tradition. Speaking of traditions, Sunday also marked the finale of The Amazing Race. Ashley and I have been rooting for "the hippies" Rachel and TK from the start and they freakin' won! w00h00! Rest assured, soon enough we will applying for our chance to travel the world and win a million dollars! Saturday, the roomies and I threw a massively successful '90s-themed party. Good times were had by all who attended. Today (Monday) was strange, lots of little ups and downs that manifested themselves inside my head and my aching, feverish body. I'm happy to say, it is ending on a high note. I took a nice 2 hour nap and some ibuprofen around 7:00pm, and now I feel like a million bucks! Go figure.

This week has gotten off to a slow start, but I've still got a lot to look forward to. Tomorrow morning I'll help Silvi get started with my hexadecane research. Then Nick and I are meeting for lunch and our 3rd Matlab/C++ tutorial session.

On Wednesday I have a phone interview with the Imaging Platform at MIT's Broad Institute. The research group there built a piece of software called CellProfiler which helps biologists perform automated phenotyping of thousands of images of cell plates. This type of stuff is extremely interesting to me so I really want this job. I don't usually get nervous for interviews... this one I'm very nervous for.

Thursday I have another phone interview with eScription, a privately held company that leads the market in speech recognition software for medical transcription. I was actually contacted by the manager of the speech recognition and natural language processing technologies group about a software engineer role they are trying to fill. I'm very confident for this interview, but I really need to see what kind of company they keep before I seriously think about working there.

I'm trying to get an interview with The MathWorks for a position working on their SimBiology product. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one because I've heard this is a great company to work for, and the nature of the work is right up my alley.

Lastly, I've posted some new and old photos on flickr. Here are a couple portraits of girlf'iend...

Miscellany

I skied Waterville yesterday with Mike Baier and his friend Missy. Conditions were beautiful, no lines, and the park was a blast.

Last night I joined LinkedIn, a professional networking site, to help bolster my connections to people in my industry. I was surprised to find a LOT of people I've worked/studied under on here. Thanks much to Will at Brontes for linking me in!

Money is still painfully tight right now. With each day my bank account tightens like a noose around my neck. Rent was due yesterday, and I post-dated the check to when I get paid... never done that before, but my landlord said it was okay. I need to really start selling my unneeded books from college.