No camera

My camera has stopped working today. I can turn it on, and view pictures and even take pictures. The only problem is all the pictures turn out solid black. The lens is no longer seeing anything. The good news is that in the process of fiddling with it, I found a couple of lost pictures that were on the internal memory that I didn't know my camera had. One of them is a good one of Lyndsay from newyears. So, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to spend money on a new camera quite yet, so I'm not sure if you will get to see any more pictures any time soon.

Flagstaff

I'm in Flagstaff, AZ for the summer doing research. I'm staying at this research station with my labmate Cassandra. We drove down together in my car and arrived on Saturday night. Cassandra's dad, Karlton met us here and is staying with us for a week. He came to help out with getting our projects started, but as you'll soon see, we haven't been able to put him to work too much.

So on Sunday we just drove around to look at my sites. It sure is beautiful around here and the trees smell like butterscotch!

The first thing I saw when we drove into the parking lot was the goofiest looking squirrel I've ever seen.


They're called Abert squirrels and they eat the tips of the lower ponderosa pine branches, which makes them look more like lollipops than xmas trees.

Research has been very slow. We're here very early aparently. It snowed like 6 inches on Tuesday night. The gilia plants are just barely starting to bolt, and they haven't really been browsed yet, so there isn't a whole lot I can do yet.

Here's my plant--Ipomopsis aggregata



Here's one that's been browsed



Here's my site covered in half a foot of snow

Mr. Helper

I purchased my soymilk maker from BigCrazyStore via their ebay store for a total of $39.94 with shipping included. The reason I got such a good deal (most soymilk makers are around $100) was because this one was used. It's in great condition though.


The box included an instruction manual, a recipe book, a measure cup, a tooth-brush thingie for cleaning the filter, a soft scrubby pad for cleaning, a tub for soaking the dirty parts in, a power cord, and of course the soymilk maker. The soymilk maker is basically three parts, its got the pitcher part, which is just a metal pitcher. The top lifts off and has the computer and the motor in it as well as the heating element and a couple of sensors. The filter basket on the bottom can be removed to reveal the blades.

How it works:
Soak one scoop of dry soybeans in water for 8-12 hrs. Then with the filter basket screwed on, pour the soybeans though the chute in the top. The reason you can't just put them in the basket and screw them on is because they basically fill the basket and you won't be able to work the blade down in there (trust me, I tried it). Sometimes the soybeans get backed up in this little chute and you have to shake them down, which would be my main criticism of this device.


After adding the soybeans, just fill the pitcher part with water up to the line (1.8L) and lower the top onto it. You plug it in, press a button, and in about 20 min you have fresh, hot soymilk! It even plays some sort of Chinese song when its done!

To clean up, you place the whole top part into the tub that is provided and fill it with water to soak it. Then you gotta remove the filter basket and toss out the soybean sludge (which is a great texture, by the way) and scrub out the tiny holes in the filter with the toothbrush thing. You can't submerge the whole top since it has electrical parts, but you can run them under water and wipe it off with the scrubby pad provided.

The soymilk is great! A little bit of grit on the bottom, but so much better than store bought soymilk in my opinion. It's good hot with sugar, or cold in cereal. I don't add sugar to the whole batch, since its good plain in sweet cereal.

I would highly recommend this device.