Week 1 in the Forestry Department...

For a first week of school, things went pretty darned smoothly. I only got lost once in the forestry/wildlife building and only once in the monster buildings collectively called "McCarty Hall". I like all 3 of my classes, especially my botany class, which focuses on plant ecophysiology. Of course, I am a plant ecophysiologist with a particular liking for forests and ecosystem processes.

The only down-side to the week? The beginnings of a cold that's made me decide to stay home tonight instead of checking out the athletic facilities ... and a capoiera/breakdance group on campus that meets on Friday nights. I think I picked up the bug from one of my office-mates, a fellow ecologist who's also based in the forestry department who's been sick all week. Given the nature of the bug, I think I'm also going to be stuck at home this weekend, which is going to really hurt because I haven't gone shooting for almost 3 days... and not shooting for more than a few days has been known to have strange effects on me. Maybe I should swipe that discarded 3-D target or invest in one of those cheap bag targets, mount it on a chair, and start shooting at that when I can't go to the range for whatever reason.

I can't wait to start on a project. Right now I've got lots of ideas, mostly along the line of multi-scale studies on different types of ecosystems. Based on talking to some of the professors, I'm starting to think about looking at the different types of coniferous forests ranging from the predominantly longleaf/slash pines in Florida to the boreal forests out in Alaska and trying to develop a mechanistic model of evapotranspiration and carbon fluxes. I think I even have some strong candidates for my PhD committee... including a professor I mistook for a fellow grad student. Put it this way... a rugby player who runs the flux towers that the forestry (and botany) departments utilize and has worked with many of the people I collaborated with while I was at Cal State LA while he was in Barrow, Alaska.

Time to curl up and let my immune system do its thing so I can be at full juice on Monday... almost...

There's a really nifty video clip on http://www.martinarchery.com Just follow the link on the sneak peek for the 2007 Bengal and there's a little link to a video. Something about it was just rather... intriguing. While most people would rather admire tasteless fashion crap, I prefer the beauty of a well-shot arrow and a clean form. My bias is still much more towards the traditional bows, but there's still a different beauty in a compound bow. Just make sure it's not one of those scary-looking, gaudy target bows.