Yes, more Titus videos

These are just a couple of short videos of Titus from the weekend. 
Josh's birthday was last week, so we had a stack of cards on the end table.  This card, from my Mom, had a sticker on the end.  The ceiling fan was making the envelope move a little and Titus wasn't too sure about it.
Titus and birthday card

The second video is Titus "getting the rag."  Mom and I started teaching him this trick when I was living in NM a while back.  We don't mind playing ball with Titus, but his ball gets pretty slobbery.  We have designated slobber rags just for this purpose.  Here's Titus getting the rag for me from his toy box.  He hardly ever brings it all the way to me on the first try, which is why I think it's so funny. 
"Bring me the rag."

For those of you wondering about Titus' leg- it is wrapped because he got bit or stung my something several weeks ago.  We came home from work one day and he had this big, red, bald spot on his leg.  It has been about 90% healed twice now, but then he gets to it and licks it raw and we start all over again.  This is the one area where a kid would be easier to deal with than a dog.  Kids love to wear bandaids- dogs, not so much.  Titus got to the wound again yesterday, so we have several more weeks of the wrap routine.  I try not to make him wear the pitiful e-collar all the time, but it's getting to that point.  Such a little stinker!

Lab Quote Friday #5

I just have a couple of quick quotes from this week.  Part of lab this week involved a lot of fire because we were doing flame tests.  This is one of the students' favorite labs because we get to turn lights off and see pretty colors.  For those of you who don't know about this (I certainly didn't), here's a 3 sentence lesson from our lab book:

"When electrons absorb specific amounts of energy, they can attain higher energy levels.  In order to return to the lower, more stable energy levels, electrons release energy.  If the energy released corresponds to an energy of visible light, the emission produces a color that can be detected by the human eye." 

So basically, I make some solutions and the students dip a piece of wire in them and then stick the wire into a flame.  Before the wire causes an orange flame, they should see another flame produced as the solution is burned.  This flame can be any color of the rainbow (including orange) depending on the element in solution and only lasts a couple of seconds.  Sounds like fun, right?  It is!

So with this lab, we get a LOT of "oooh"s and "ahhh"s.  We also hear, "It's blue!!  It's green!!  Oh, wow, it's red!!  Was that purple?"  It's all very exciting.

After the students test 8 different solutions, we give them 2 unknown solutions that are a mixture of 2 of the previous solutions.  They should see 2 colors before the orange flame.  One group was working on one of the unknown solutions.  It was a mixture of copper and calcium which produce green and red flames respectively.  One group shouted out "Ooooh, it's like CHRISTMAS!!"

A couple of the solutions just produce orange-ish flames, so it's hard to differentiate between the solution flame and the wire flame.  Either way, the students are seeing an orange flame, so they should assume that particular element is producing an orange color.  Instead, you hear comments like, "I don't see anything!" and "I guess it's just an invisible flame."  I ask them, "You don't see anything?"  They say, "Well, it's just orange."  Me: "Then write down orange!" 

Happy Birthday, Josh

Just wanted to blog a happy birthday to Josh this morning!  I love you! 
(Just think- you're almost halfway to retirement age!) 

Critters

I just thought I'd write a little blog about some of the critters around our house that you haven't seen yet.
A few months ago I opened the back door and found this in the doorway.


















Josh had just been outside about 2.5 hours earlier.  I was pretty amazed that such a huge beautiful web was created in such a short time.  It spanned the entire doorway and was about 3 feet tall.


We've also discovered that we have at least 2 species of frogs in addition to our toads.  Here's our little leopard frog...

And our big bullfrog...

We have the usual bright green preying mantis, but we also have this camo version

Of course things are bigger in TX, right?  Check out this moth!  Wingspan was at least 6 inches.

For a good chunk of the summer we had this hummingbird nest hanging over our driveway.  I couldn't believe how it was just sitting on top of a small pine cone.  Eventually 2 babies were born and we could see their little beaks sticking up out of the nest too.  Three hummingbirds living on top of a pine cone where we could see them everyday- that's good stuff!

The ACU Ecology class is in the process of setting some small traps around our property too. It will be interesting to see what they find!

Another edition of Titus vs. ...

Last night while I was watching Amazing Race (hooray for another season!), Titus got restless and wanted to play.  I told him to go get a toy from his toy box, but instead he pointed at the bottom of the TV cabinet.  I figured there was a ball under there so I looked and only found a plastic cable wrap that had popped off our cords.  I gave it to Titus to play with, but I guess he thought it was alive or something.  He did NOT like it.  Here are the videos I tried to take without laughing too hard.  I'm sorry they're so dark- I need to remember to turn more lights on!
Titus vs. cable wrap, part 1
Titus vs. cable wrap, part 2
Titus vs. cable wrap, part 3

 Victorious!

Lab Quote Friday #4

This week is a little lacking in humorous quotes because I didn't spend much time around the students during lab.  I'll try to do better next week, but next week's labs are kind of easy and don't actually require much time in the lab at all.  So, if you have some funny lab quotes (and I know some of you do), please send me a separate email and I'll work in your quotes when mine are lacking.  Thanks!
(Remember, my thoughts are in this color.)

So the water in our labs is sometimes extremely aerated.  Extremely, as in fill up your beaker and 3/4 of it is bubbles.  It always surprises the students and it's funny to hear their reactions.  

Lab Girl:  What is wrong with this water!?!

Professor:  It's just got a lot of air in it.  It's fine.

Lab Girl:  It's, like, vaporizing!!

If our cold water is vaporizing, we've got serious problems!

Students had to dry their filtered product in an oven for 45 minutes.  The oven was set at about 190°C (~350°F)

Lab Boy (at the end of 45 minutes):  I can just reach in there and get mine, right?  It's not too hot. 

Me:  No, you need to use the tongs and oven mitt.  It's pretty hot.

It's an oven!!!  Surely your Mom didn't let you reach into hot ovens as a child!

As I was walking down the hall during the first week of labs this semester, I overheard:

Lab Boy (to professor):  What's the most exciting thing we're going to do this semester?

Keep this boy far, far away from the bunsen burners!

See?  Not too funny this week, sorry.  While writing this, I came up with an idea for next week's post since it has the potential for being weak.  Stay tuned...

Fair Comparison

Last Friday night we went to the West Texas Fair and Rodeo.  The last time we went to this fair we were dating, but not much had changed.
1.  Sadly, I'd have to say that Washington had a better fair as far as animals go.  Washington had entire buildings dedicated to different animals.  There was the pig barn, cow barn, sheep/goat barn, poultry barn (you'd be amazed at how many different kinds of chickens and ducks there were!) and other miscellaneous animals like rabbits and guinea pigs.  WA petting zoo was also superior.
2.  Texas definitely had a better rodeo.  Several contestants had bad luck with their animals, but overall they were much more skilled than the cowboys in WA.  Here's a good ride.  Our friends, Jeremy and Kelly, had NEVER been to a rodeo!  I think they enjoyed the mutton bustin' the best.  A tiny little 4 yr old stole the show and was the only kid that hung on for the full time.  The rodeo clown was cheesy, but not annoying.  The bull fighters were also pretty fun to watch.  Here's a video of the clown and bull fighters teasing a bull at the end of the rodeo.  The bull was not impressed.  I love the staredown at the end! 
Washington had better tractor displays which is very important to a certain hubby of mine!
3.  TX has better food than WA (but not as good as the food I usually get in NM.  You just can't beat good Indian Fry Bread- mmm, mmm!)  We ended up with some German food from Fredericksburg people.
4.  WA had better food/craft competitions.  Some of the ribbon winners at the TX fair were just ridiculous.  I never knew you could just pull some weeds up from your yard and win a competition- maybe we'll have to enter next year!  Another entry was just a piece of framed wood.  The wood grain kind of resembled an eagle, but you had to use your imagination.  I think Josh and I could win something at this fair!  (Evidently, when Josh was younger he won 3rd prize for his brownies.  He doesn't think the recipe was special enough to share even with me, so I guess it really doesn't take much to impress these judges.)
5.  TX had some interesting agriculture displays with some fun information.  They also had a cotton gin to play with.  However, there were no giant pictures made out of beans- WA wins there!
6.  I can't comment on the rides.  I refuse to pay tons of money to risk getting on a ride that can be put together or taken apart in less than a day. 
So we had a really good time.  Here are a few pictures from the evening.  (more on our flickr page)

At the petting zoo... this mama cow was suspicious












"Get away from my calf!"















 Jeremy and Kelly with some donkeys








This little calf was my favorite.  Look at the curly hair on his forehead- too cute!






Josh's Mom and her mutton bustin' student.






Who let these people in?
(Shelly, I finally got to wear my rodeo shirt with the flappy sleeves!)