Jeff's family at Thanksgiving

Week 1 of MBR experiment 3
I started my experiment over again this week for the third time. Its a 12 week experiment so for those of you too afraid to ask, that means I'll be done in the lab at the end February instead of my original plan of being done by Thanksgiving - yep, that's three months behind. But, I have a new experimental plan and I've banned anyone other than me from even thinking about my reactors let alone touching them so I predict a perfect experiment or a close to perfect as things can get in the lab.

I'm dusting off my positive mental attitude. When I was a cheerleader my freshman year of high school (yes, I was a cheerleader), I got an award for having a positive mental attitude - called appropriately enough the PMA award (my dad asked if they really meant to give me a PMS award. Wasn't he funny?). After I realized high school cheerleaders suck and quit cheering, I forgot about my PMA and graduated to teenage angst ridden Adrienne, followed by stressed-out, over-achiever college student Adrienne. During my Master's studies, I became angry, advisor hating Adrienne then finally, everything came together. I got rid of that shitty advisor in favor of my current advisor who is great. I started my PhD research on a topic that I love. Jeff and I figured out how to live together happily. I discovered the best way to use martial arts as stress relief. Now, I'm about to get a kick ass job as a consulting engineer after 12 years of graduate education. I just have to finish this last experiment. I can't think about having to start over again so.......meet PMA cheerleader Adrienne.

I plan to give a blog play by play on this experiment starting with week 1: Reactor start up - the growth of the filaments begins. Running an MBR with readily-degradable substrate in a CSTR configuration is a really great way to grow filametous organisms (and tiny protozoa but that's another story). Its the perfect demonstration of the principles I just taught in my lectures on biological wastewater treatment - microbial growth and competition. All six undergrads who have worked with me have gotten the (usually long-winded) explanation about why this happens. Then, mean boss that I am, I force them to explain the concepts to some else to make sure they understood what they'd learned.


We played Cranium with Jeff's sister and cousins in Toledo at Thanksgiving.
Can you guess what clue Jeff is acting out Charades style? (roller coaster)