St. Louis magpie

I'm sure I saw a magpie near I-70 in St. Peters on December 10th, 2011. It looked so similar as the kind of magpie found everywhere in China, but it is a different species, the Black-Billed Magpie.

According to following online resource, the magpie has not yet been reported in this region:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/black-billed_magpie/id

Forget the red bird, the Magpies are coming! Everything will be Black'n White then!

Cloud and sky

Cloud and sky a video by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

High wind, fast moving cloud. High color saturation

seen on Taylor street

Museum wall

Museum wall, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Outside Missouri history museum

Shot with "sepia" effect

Giant flag up

Giant flag up a video by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

At the intersection between Lindel and Kingshighway, the flag was raised by two fire engines. Color saturation mode was on when shooting.

Nov 5, 2011

street colors

Cyan - scooter on Euclid street




Yellow - handsome VW by forest park ave

Yellow (2) - school bus on taylor street

White - abandoned vehicle on forest park ave

walking with dad

walking with dad, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Red bird

Red bird, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Congrats, Cardinal!

Posing

Posing, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Family enjoying the day by the Arch

pink bus

pink bus, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Apartment building against sky

Apartment building against sky, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Shot on Euclid street

Trucks by the Inn

Trucks by the Inn, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Lucky the hotel didn't get burnt down

Downtown building

Downtown building, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Wonderful sunlight rendered amazing contrast, even by the Kodak Zx5

precious metal

precious metal, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

metal are precious if they carry valuable memory

Coffee shop near medical school

Coffee shop near medical school, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

A feast!

A feast!, a photo by Xin Zhou on Flickr.

Hotpot dinner at friend's place

This post is made by "sharing on Blogger" function on Flickr, which is cool! But why Blogger doesn't take Flickr-exposed image URL?

snapshots, genetics retreat

Jim Skeath declared the procedures to notify overtime speakers: an iPad with words "2 min left" on the screen, and an anti-Ting Wang device: a miniature gong. It's just ordinary and uninteresting but it appeared so funny in that occasion. Jim could hardly conceal his complacent in that.

(anyone being in 2010 genetics retreat would understand what "anti-Ting Wang" means: the three talks from our lab [Ting, Brett, me] were all severely overtime, and we collectively ignored the warning of timer)

When I talked, I was so nervous that words just gushed out like a drain pipe out of control. None of my deliberately designed little jokes worked -- or merely not uttered at all.

Learned to play ultimate frisbee, in that calm, cool, beautiful afternoon on the backyard slope of Oak Creek. Everyone was yelling and chasing the flying disc like mad, several with bare foot. The water-laden cloud hovers above us, gazing at us.

That night at bar, Kevin, in the middle of traditional, unconventional, beer-drenched ping-pong game with Gautam, yelled at me how he admired my talk and work, all those restless weekends, ... stuff. I was so pleased at the comment that I got six Schlafly in, 300% over capacity, stumbling to my room before falling into slumber.

I was little disappointed that Jim didn't make more jokes during his closing remark. But I'm really thinking about filming such and his opening remark at all the future events.

Be solemn for a day

It has been a solemn day. I watched the memorial event at Ground Zero live over internet. Though I missed President's readings, I got to watch most of the victim families' remembrance over their loses. I recorded a few of their words, some are especially moving to me:

    "for my mother, a firefighter, you are part of New York"
    "for my amazing father, we love you, please keep watching over us"
"may there in, comfort you"
"alphabet of names, in a green field, in a warehouse of memory"
"to my uncle, we miss you more than words could describe"
"to my great husband, your little daughter turned 20 today, you'll be so proud"
"your dad, your three children, we'll never forget you, we miss you"
"I'll pass on your legacy, I will teach the children everthing you've taught us"
"we miss you so aweful, but we knew you're watching us, we'll meet again"
"we live every day in your honor"
"my dear dad, I hope I can play a round of golf with you"
"the world is a lesser place without you"
"it's been ten years, but it's still not easy without you"
"Danniel, we want you to know you'll always be our baby boy"
"Daddy, I wish you could see me now, because everyday, I try to make you proud"
"Steve, I still see you face every single day when I look at Hanna and Hannous"
"And for my father, who I never met, because I was in my mother's belly. I love the idea of having me, I wish you can be here enjoying with me"
"we keep you in our heart every day"
"we never found you, we never recovered you, but we know where you are"
"dad I'm still learning to cook, I'm working on it, we miss you"
"thank you for the pennies, Ketrina and I love finding them"
"dad I love you, your spirit lives on with your five grandchildren"
"to the world you've just been one person, but to me you are the world"
"I believe Teddy, and all those beautiful souls, have been walking around us here today"
"and my brother, a family man, a navy man, a holy man"
"my father, everyone knew you were lucky, and everyone you loved were blessed"
"for my dad, I wish I could have known you better"
"my dad, I know, everytime I'm in the woods, or catch big fish, you are there smiling at me"

 In the afternoon I attended a memorial event organized by Wash U students:

Genome browser paper accepted

Boss walked out of his office door, with excitement he declared, "Xin's paper is accepted by Nature Methods!"

I jumped up and rushed into his office, glanced at his correspondence with editor, and hugged with him. After been overwhelmed for 1 second, I was back to normal, and concluded succinctly, "this is a good start."


****  flash back  ***
paper submitted around first days of June, before I went to Newport for meeting. Got Decision and Reviews back on the night my friend lidaof arrived at St. Louis (7/28). Revised in one week and re-submitted, and kept waiting till just now.

Je ne comprends rien

New blog for Human Epigenome Browser

I created a new blog for Human Epigenome Browser

http://washugb.blogspot.com/


Here's a snapshot, of its current appearance, in case it changes in future...

Support for KEGG

I'm showing my THANK and SUPPORT for KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) here as I have made use of their service at various occasions, and am currently benefiting from that in my on-going genome browser project. I've sent comments through their comment form and I've made tweets about the support (#WashUGBrowser).

European press

There is a hot water heater in the break room which used to serve us well, where tea other hot drinks can be instantly made by pulling a handle to get the hot running water, as long as you don't put your hand down there. But recently it's not working anymore, and it's left there unfixed for about two month, well, until now. Fellow workers who are used to a hot drink once in a while expressed their frustration by putting tags on the tap saying "my name is BROKEN!". Just now I saw two plumbers bending over the thing working on it.

But I got to use a French press I had in possession during this period. Soon after the incident, coffee makers starts to appear on breakroom table one after another, and I'm the only one who uses a french press (I use microwave to heat it). In the beginning I had no idea it is actually called a "French press". One morning while I was using it, a lady walked by. I think she is European, but I never confirmed that. She said to me, "emm, a nice French Press there you have". And I replied with correction: "yes... ehh, acutally it is made in Germany,".

The lady showed some surprise, then quickly turned to normal and said, "well, then that's a European press!"

temperature

We are getting frosted morning tomorrow. According to weather report, temperature will be low to 38F.

Man, that's FROST, in May 4th. Are we in Siberia?

And we had a 70F warm & humid day around December 20th, 2010. I don't remember exactly which day that was. There was tornado warning that day.

Excess of snow this winter, latest snow fall in April when the temperature was around 80F.

What's happening there?

Horrible weekend

I just learned that one of my coworker was almost ran over by a car last Saturday afternoon, when he was walking pass a busy road in front of the park I jog daily. AND he was pushing a stroller with his few-month-old son in it. The car barely missed him, but the tire ran over his foot and injured spring. All the luck, his son was not hit. Later we figured out that I was actually running nearby at that time. But I didn't notice them, because my attention was attracted by a car accident right at that time, when a green Camry was hit by a white sedan on the right side, rear door. I remember that slightly damaged Camry pulled over in front of me and a man ran out of the car to meet his accident mate. One young child was sitting in the backseat of that Camry looking out of the window, seemingly calm.

While on the other side of the globe, a man was killed in a Surgical Raid by the US force who has killed +3000 people in US ten years ago.

Join the chat

I made a feature request to Google Talk, basically to set up a chat group, so whenever two guys in the group start chatting, other people in the group will notice that they are talking through their contact panel -- e.g. the two talkers are placed next to each other, their status icons are changed from a green disc to animated face, or even a vibrating curve connecting the two faces... And guys in that group can request joining the chats they see.

And that's it.

So yes... I will continue writing on this blog, perhaps all in English.