Summer travels

I enjoyed traveling around the west this summer and scouting potential field sites. (From the top, the Laramie River in Colorado; a spot along the road in central Colorado; and the Shoshone River in northern Wyoming.) Aside from having a raccoon take my shoes into the brush overnight while camping, my trips were productive and uneventful.

One of the other nice features of summer in Laramie (apart from the beautiful weather) is the farmer's market, which takes place every Friday. There are a fair amount of farms in southeastern Wyoming and northern Colorado that make the trip to Laramie for these markets, and they provide a nice selection of produce and meat.

The first year

I recently finished my first academic year here, and things are going well. I took several courses, sent out proposals, and had my first committee meeting. More importantly, I've enjoyed the process. As I've thought over ideas and sought advice, the faculty and graduate students here have been generous with their time and opinions - and that's probably been the greatest help to me as a first year PhD student.

April snow

As Erin mentioned, it does tend to snow in Laramie in April. (And also in the other months that don't end in "uly" or "gust.") One of the benefits is a long skiing season.

I'm not an accomplished skier, but I enjoy living close to so many options. In early April, I went skiing at Monarch, just a few hours away in Colorado. Although it was the first week of April, they still had fresh snow and a base of 80".

While winters are long here, they also provide good recreation - and in April, ski slopes can be just as nice as they are in mid-winter but less crowded.

Yet another peaceful feast day

February 10th marked yet another peaceful St. Scholastica Day at the University of Wyoming. Unlike the days-long riot between armed bands of scholars and townsfolk that broke out on this day many years ago in another university town, the tenth of February - like other days - was characterized more by continued tranquility between the town and the university. In fact, there's quite a bit of support and pride in the University and its teams around town; in turn, scholars here generally refrain from throwing alcoholic beverage containers at tavern-keepers while using abusive language and sparking riots. All of which is to say that town-gown relationships here are pretty nice.

Downtown

I've lived in college towns with less than thriving downtowns, so it's nice to see folks in Laramie who care about keeping the downtown area thriving. In the warmer months, there's a farmer's market on Friday afternoons. Recently, downtown has seen a new bar open (which houses one of the oldest bars in the state), a new sushi restaurant open, and a new Italian restaurant is coming soon.

In addition to the mountain west location and amount of outdoors, Laramie's downtown is one of the best parts of the area. The Main Street Program is a good source for information about the downtown area and the shops found there.

Feedback

As I work on refining some ideas for my dissertation, I'm looking forward to getting some feedback from professors and fellow grad students. This Monday, I'll be giving a talk going on some of my research ideas in the Zoology and Physiology Department's informal weekly seminar.

I've enjoyed conversations with grad students in my home department and PiE at seminars and receptions, but I'm really looking forward to having a captive audience of scientists to help sharpen some of my ideas. The Monday "brown bag" series is a nice way for students, faculty, and guests to share ideas and get feedback from folks who have expertise outside your study area.

Up and running

The semester is beginning with a flurry of speakers and seminars. I enjoyed listening to Dov Sax speak about patterns of plant invasions on oceanic islands. Since part of my research involves thinking about freshwater fish invasions, this was an interesting perspective - the patterns are quite different between fish and plants.

Alexandra Rose gave a seminar on latitudinal gradients in clutch size. Again, I found myself thinking about the potential role of latitudinal gradients in my research and the comparisons among taxa.

This week, Peter Groffman is giving a seminar that I believe focuses on smaller organisms and ecosystem processes. One of the reasons I came to Wyoming was the diversity here - plants, birds, worms - which helps keep me from focusing too narrowly within my own work. The seminars are also a nice way to meet some of the dozens of PiE students who aren't in my department.

End of semester

I walk by one of the older buildings on campus most mornings, shown above. With the semester over and campus less busy, I've enjoyed the calmness and the extra time to read papers and work on ideas. (For reference, I'm not in my lab on Christmas Eve, just posting from home.)

Last night, I had dinner at Passage to India, which I think still qualifies as something new and therefore exciting in Laramie. In the past couple years, I've lived in larger college towns (Fort Collins and Corvallis), but Passage to India might be the best Indian restaurant in any of them. (Their naan is certainly the best.) Even if it isn't that new, it still qualifies as exciting.

So after living in Laramie for a semester, my expectations of the town have been exceeded. It's prettier than I thought, and the dining options are quite decent. I'm looking forward to checking out the skiing in the coming year.

Nice, if not magical

I enjoyed reading a recent op-ed about colleges touting themselves as being similar to Hogwarts, the wizard school in Harry Potter. While none of the grad schools I visited thought to do that, and I don't suggest any grad school should, I enjoyed spending a bit of down time during finals week considering how Hogwartsian Wyoming could claim to be.

Faculty I haven't encountered any Snapes yet, nor do they wear robes or extravagant hats. Solidly muggle.

Grounds Actually, mildly Hogwartsian. Currently, the evergreens and stone buildings are white from a recent snow, making a nice comparison to all the winter scenes from any HP movie. A pair of owls hang out on campus as well. Slightly magical.

Feasting Between PiE and my home department, there's actually a fair amount of food accompanying talks and speakers. The department holiday party last weekend had plenty of tasty stuff, although that's because the faculty and grad students can apparently cook well. However, there's nothing inherently magical about that, and we tend to consume it in rooms that do not qualify as great halls. Solidly muggle.

Creatures A nice variety of species are represented, from plants to polar bears, although all are actually real. No Sasquatch research. Solidly muggle.

Housing No castles in Laramie. But my apartment seems to have insulating capabilities verging on alchemy - at times, it's 50 degrees above outside temperature without turning on the heat. A touch magical.

Superficially, then, there's not a great deal here to market as Hogwartsian. But as the high school student writing the op-ed agreed, that's not really why you choose a school.

Shifting baselines

Taking a cue from the other bloggers, I thought I'd mention the most interesting science I've been reading lately. Or rather, the science I've been reading about, since the media coverage seems to have preceded the article's publication (thanks to Newswise's science coverage).

Essentially, it appears our baselines for evaluating species - in this case, fish - can be severely off-target depending on where we set the baseline. Karin Limburg and John Waldman compared shad populations from the late 1800s, where baselines usually begin, and the early 1800s. The baseline levels derived from catches in the late 1800s represented a population that had crashed from previous levels. There's a nice graph of this in Newswise's coverage. (The article appears in the December issue of BioScience.)

In other words, many of our restoration goals could be based on already diminished populations. Fascinating, if depressing.

Cheers and Thanksgiving

How do you become a better scientist? I try to consider that question frequently in grad school. While I don't claim to have a definitive answer, I've found discussing the issue with fellow grad students and professors to be one of the more enjoyable ways to think about it.

Last night, I had a beer with a professor to talk about using my time in school to become a better scientist. It was a good time - nice beer (Altitude has some fine choices) and good conversation. One of the things I've appreciated most since coming here is the openness of the faculty and grad students - if you want to grab a cup of something (cold or hot) and talk about something more or less related to your interests, it's usually not hard.

And since John mentioned it, I thought I'd echo his thoughts - it's pretty easy to travel from Laramie. I spent Thanksgiving with family in Denver, then made a quick trip to Durango for the weekend. It was a bit of driving, certainly, but having spent my formative years within the Capital Beltway, I don't mind the distance as long as the roads are good and the scenery is pleasant.

Fish photo

Several brown trout on spawning redds in Spring Creek. Thanks to the student chapter of the American Fisheries Society for providing the photo.

Another excuse to get outside

Spawning trout are among the surprising things I've found in Laramie since moving here three months ago. I spent part of my afternoon wrapping up the spawning survey the student chapter of the American Fisheries Society has been conducting on Spring Creek.

It's an unassuming creek, located behind houses and across the street from an elementary school, but it has good spawning habitat used by 16" trout. Not bad for the little stream on my way to campus. My labmate should have some photos, which I'll try to post here soon.