A god among fish
Today we say goodbye to Mike Fahay, a man, a legend, a bird watcher, a man who loved fish babies... a naturalist.
Last night saw me in a baking frenzy as I completed fudge peanutbutter swirl brownies, funfetti cake mix cookies and then started wondering whether I should make cornbread too. Don't worry, I preserved my sanity and didn't make cornbread. I ran out of corningware to do the baking in. Even if I'd had it, it would have been more cleaning. I am completely against that.
The morning went by pretty slowly then after lunch we all basically did nothing but eat. The cookout was nice, and afterwards we went inside for several presentations. First Mike went and he had some interesting comments. He made a powerpoint presentation that had several slides concerning the literature output of the lab over time as compared with the number of dogs associated with the facility. He thinks we work better with dogs around. I'm not inclined to disagree. He then went on to tell us that he had locked all of his asparagus notes in the shell exhibit. Since he's the only one with the key, I believe that those notes will probably be in there for quite some time and throw off anyone looking at the shells. In anycase, I now know where to find fresh asparagus. If I didn't mind getting poison ivy at the same time.
Linda gave a cute photo presentaion that was all photos from (oh my god) the 70's and 80's. It's strange but in those old photos, everyone is ridiculously young. The lab has a high turn-over rate, and I think they hardly ever get any new faces. I wonder if it's a cycling thing. Then Mike's advisor gave a speech that was quite funny, explaining how he'd been given Mike's manuscript to look over, even though he wasn't really qualified to do so. He then went on a tirade on fish babies and how he expected that Mike might have made some of them up (yes, well, there are quite a few incredibly bizarre looking fish larvae), and how every page of drawings was labeled page "1". He showed us the manuscript and it was a stack of papers about a foot and a half high. He placed them on a cart and started pushing the cart out of the way and purposely felled it. "OOPS!" he proclaimed, "well, don't worry, I found page 1!"
I still consider myself incredibly lucky to have met this man. He is a real hero to the science of ichthyology.
Also, my cookies were delicious.
Last night saw me in a baking frenzy as I completed fudge peanutbutter swirl brownies, funfetti cake mix cookies and then started wondering whether I should make cornbread too. Don't worry, I preserved my sanity and didn't make cornbread. I ran out of corningware to do the baking in. Even if I'd had it, it would have been more cleaning. I am completely against that.
The morning went by pretty slowly then after lunch we all basically did nothing but eat. The cookout was nice, and afterwards we went inside for several presentations. First Mike went and he had some interesting comments. He made a powerpoint presentation that had several slides concerning the literature output of the lab over time as compared with the number of dogs associated with the facility. He thinks we work better with dogs around. I'm not inclined to disagree. He then went on to tell us that he had locked all of his asparagus notes in the shell exhibit. Since he's the only one with the key, I believe that those notes will probably be in there for quite some time and throw off anyone looking at the shells. In anycase, I now know where to find fresh asparagus. If I didn't mind getting poison ivy at the same time.
Linda gave a cute photo presentaion that was all photos from (oh my god) the 70's and 80's. It's strange but in those old photos, everyone is ridiculously young. The lab has a high turn-over rate, and I think they hardly ever get any new faces. I wonder if it's a cycling thing. Then Mike's advisor gave a speech that was quite funny, explaining how he'd been given Mike's manuscript to look over, even though he wasn't really qualified to do so. He then went on a tirade on fish babies and how he expected that Mike might have made some of them up (yes, well, there are quite a few incredibly bizarre looking fish larvae), and how every page of drawings was labeled page "1". He showed us the manuscript and it was a stack of papers about a foot and a half high. He placed them on a cart and started pushing the cart out of the way and purposely felled it. "OOPS!" he proclaimed, "well, don't worry, I found page 1!"
I still consider myself incredibly lucky to have met this man. He is a real hero to the science of ichthyology.
Also, my cookies were delicious.