futuristic

I hope the powers that be see this in my future.

First Day of Summer 2008!

For the first day of summer 2008 I swam across Payson Lake with friends!



Joe, Briana, Georgiana, Hannah, Sophie, Jason, Adam, and Tess were there.



we ate Chinese candies!



And Joe brought camping supplies!


Summertess 2008!



Sophie and Jason/



A different kind of s'more: roasted pineapple.



other kinds of s'mores:




Vanessa, mallo baby! and Eli.



This is how much fun everyone had!!!



mint!


The Orange Peel Fungus (Aleuria)



Happy Summer Solstice :)

unfounded fear

I have this bizarre, unfounded fear that when walking into a public bathroom I will see a dead person in one of the stalls :(
That actually could definitely happen, but not the way I imagine it. In this case, a dead person is very dead and mummified with part of the skeleton showing as if they were just dug up.
I have had this fear since I was very young and I remember thinking about it at Disneyland, Sea World, Knott's Berry Farm, and the airport.

duck poster

I recommend making a duck poster for your room with this photo:

Shiitake

Guess what I found in my closet?!
My shiitake (Lentinula edodes) mushroom bag from Fungi Perfecti!
I went to Paul Stamets' Gourmet and Medicinal Mushroom Cultivation Seminar back in November and had forgoten/ignored my shiitakes growing on woodchips since then.



looks like there is something inside....



A few good mushrooms!
So perfectly grown and with no bugs :)



The woodchips are quite decomposed.



Fungi are beautiful:

I ate the fresh ones and they were delicious.
I've been meaning to get going on my mushroom cultivation skills...When I am finally and completely graduated (two more weeks) I will.

Shape and color

I love the shape and color of this design!

My work

I work at an herbarium.
This is the kind of thing I do:

Herbaria are a mix of library, museum, and research archive. We keep dried, pressed, mounted plants in vaults for future scientific use.
My herbarium is at the Bean Life Science Museum at BYU.

I love it!

Briana

My sister Briana is the strongest and funniest person I know. Even if she is very small.

Here are just a few of the funny things I catch her doing.















:)

road trip!

Provo was greening up (and so beautiful),


but we felt like going to California. Allan needed help moving some art work from Claremont (where he went to Graduate school) to Provo. J.P.Haynie and I came along!


We stopped at the weird mad Greek in Baker.



Here is the "Verbal Building" in the downtown village of Claremont.


we wandered around the graduate studios at the school and found some beautiful art. Here are a few of my favorites. Unfortunately, I don't know who made them, sorry artists.

This one is my favorite!


I do know who made these: Chelsea, our friend, who is very nice.


thumbprints


green take over. there is a hidden tomato plant.


bringing out the baggage in everyone's attic.


so pretty:


we walked around the 8 "Claremont Colleges" campus and saw a fun vegetable garden as well as other great plants.


We went all over L.A. and saw Korea town, China town, Amoeba Records, and even saw the new Indiana Jones (magnetic) crystal (alien) skull.

On Sunday we drove south down the coast to stay at my parents' house. It was part surprise.

We went to the beach!


And found that Candice shrank one inch this last year.


My brother grew a sunflower tree.


we hung out at the harbor with some old friends. A stranger took this picture.


Jordan, Ian, and Allan.


Allan's mom went to the same high school as my dad! we looked through the year books and found both of them. Here is my dad, Brent, at 16.


Thanks, family, for having us and for all the good food :)
I miss you!



On the way home we visited friends in Cedar City. We ate pizza with Jefferson, Abigail, Ellen, and Jared.


(kind of a lot of pictures, but that is how road trips go)

Blaine Furniss

I graduated in Integrative Biology, but took botany classes as opposed to zoology. My first plant class at BYU was Plant Diversity, taught by Blaine Furniss. He was such an enthusiastic teacher who brought me to see the wonder of the photosynthetic world. I took every class he taught and owe my knowledge and love of plants and fungi to him. Thank you so much Mr. Furniss, you mean a lot to your students.