LabCabinCalifornia: From the LabCabin tour bus

Long time no lab talk! How are youse all? The lab has been on tour and the weirdo-only-in-america stories are racking up fast (as are the stupid questions, sample: On the bus in LA "what language do they speak in Australia?" and wait for it, totally gets better - "and what about in England, is it still English?". I explained that Avatar was actually a documentary film based on Australia and the language can be learnt at university if she was really interested. There was no registering of humour at this point.

I really need to write a lot more on each event but just to keep you posted on what's been going on, dear singular reader, here's an abridged visual array of the lab adventures.

Highlights include:

an earthquake, a bad hair cut, visiting San Francisco, almost dying at the Annual Geophyisics Union conference in San Francisco at the sight of typographic rape (scientists designing posters = design cardiac arrest for me). Staying in Oakland and getting drunk with an Alaskan weapons finger printer who works at a top secret US government facility (hello weapons manufacturing) and who also pissed on the edge of a crater in Area 51 in the desert (she's my hero now), new years eve in the desert (Homme-land, also known as the Mojave desert) partying the new year in with the Sheriff of the town no less!, and strange Texans who fix windmills in the desert, karaoke in the desert singing Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi, fun times at the US/Mexico border, hiking in the desert, woodpecker sightings, no rattlesnake sightings, getting tattoos on Sunset Blvd, yelling a weird LA arty types, crashing parties in LA, snubbed about 100 times because I'm not on face book, celeb spotting, tacos, and relentless 28 degree days. I've even got a tan! Without even trying! I don't even want one!

Anyway…..I'll get to work on writing up some of the more entertaining stories.

Happy New Year by the way!

(art performance at house party in LA)

(golden gate bridge)

(beautiful tree house that I stayed at in Oakland, SF)

(one of these people fingerprints weapons at Livermore, the US Government facility that sounds really scary. Said person also peed on the edge of a crater out in Area 51 in the Nevada desert. Good to know that top secret workers still get on the booze and piss on the edge of craters like we all do every friday night.)

(Jacumba Hot Springs Motel, right on the border of Mexico - literally! Mojave desert [Homme-town])

(anyone for a game of basketball right next to the fence to Mexico? Note the fence running up the mountain to the right)

(the fence between Mexico and US. A charming story of drug runners, drug mules, people getting killed, families split up, a paranoid US government, and totally hot patrol guards.)

(hey I've got a good idea! Let's hike up a mountain in the desert that still has unexploded military devices planted all around! Yay! Fun!)

(where the fuck are these rattlesnakes!!?? I REALLY want to see one. I'm sick of all these Looney Tunes animals, skunks, racoons, woodpeckers etc I want to see animals that can kill properly, not just spray you with a stinky smell!)