The weekend has been far too short. That probably has something to do with the 60 hours I worked last week and the 10 hours I worked yesterday. The good news is that things could be a lot worse for me. I guess that being a member of the wealthiest society in the history of the earth has its advantages.

One of those advantages is abundant food. Today I made homemade granola, and it turned out fantastically. The secret, it turns out, is a fruit puree.

Recipe: mix together the following ingredients. For most items, I didn't really measure a quantity: just add as much as what tastes good to you.

6 cups rolled oats
2 cups whole almonds (then chop them)
honey (maybe 1/4 cup)
vanilla (maybe 1 tbs)
cinnamon (maybe 1 tsp)
brown sugar (maybe 1/4 cup)
fruit puree or apple sauce (maybe 1/4 - 1/2 cup)
optional: shaved coconut

Spread an even layer on wax paper on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 until the mixture starts to brown (maybe 15 - 20 minutes). Mine smoked a little but never burned. I wouldn't worry about smoke. It probably won't hurt you very much. Anyway, remove it from the oven and let it cool. As it cools, the granola will dry out further and become crunchy and truly fantastic. Once completely cool, add dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, whatever) or chocolate chips (my favorite) or whatever you want. DO NOT OMIT THE FRUIT PUREE. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container or ziploc bag. Supposedly it will last for a long time, but I think you'll eat it long before then.

I've been working a lot the last few weeks, just trying to stay on top of all the research we're doing this semester in the lab. Some of the projects we're working on may turn out the be interesting, but the results are pretty inconclusive at this point.

I like my classes pretty well so far this semester. My favorite so far is probably neuroscience. All the things we're learning so far are somewhat related to what you learn in 10th grade biology (e.g., how DNA works), but everything seems pretty new. I'm not sure if I'd like it quite so much without the professor, who is probably one of the best I've ever had.

That is all.

From the "police beat" of my hometown newspaper:

NORTH BRANCH — North Branch Police took at (sic) 27-year-old man into custody Jan. 15 for reportedly violating a personal protection order after his ex- told police he tried to run her Comet off North Branch Road with his Saturn.

 Tried to run her Comet off the road with his Saturn? Is that some sort of innuendo, or did you grow up in space?

News headline today: "Experts: Sitting too much could be deadly." Sounds scary. As it turns out, the research says, those who sit those most tend to be the fattest. And those who are the fattest tend to have heart disease. And those who tend to have heart disease tend to die. Therefore, sitting makes you die. And I don't want to die!!

Screeeeeeech! Wait a second! If sitting makes you die, what about reclining!?!?! What about laying down?!?!?!?!? I like laying down!!!!

Maybe we should think a little more critically about this. I wonder if there's anything special about sitting that leads to heart disease? Maybe, but it's more likely that the problem is simply that sitting a lot really reduces the number of calories you burn during the day. It's this reduction that leads to heart disease, which leads to death. It's much simpler, then, to stop fear-mongering and say that heart disease, caused by eating too much (shocker!!!), can lead to an untimely death.

How about this for a headline: "Researcher extracts head from butt, remembers that correlation isn't causation, redacts misleading conclusion, suggests instead that eating proper amounts of food extends life."

I guess that would be a little too wordy.

The weather down here was fantastic this weekend. I think it got up to almost 70 today, and it's likely to be even warmer tomorrow. We took Barney to an off-leash dog park yesterday so he could expend some of his copious energy. He sprinted around for an hour straight, running from person to person and dog to dog, trying to make friends and get someone to chase him but never stopping long enough to actually make it happen.

I managed to spend most of the weekend relaxing. I only read two chapters out of my neuroscience textbook and then took the rest of the weekend off. This is something I could definitely get used to. Too bad every week isn't as laid back as the first week of a semester. That's all for now.

As it turns out, a student from good 'ole Calvin College was sitting right next to the Nigerian extremist who tried to blow up the plane in Detroit. You can read his whole interview with Chimes, the student newspaper, here.

There were two things I found particularly striking. The student, when he smelled smoke, moved the guy's blanket, sending out a plume of smoke, alerting other passengers to the danger, and perhaps interrupting a process that could have taken down the plane. The student also had this to say about the Nigerian, "He had extremist views and he wanted to kill us all, but he didn’t seem like that bad of a guy."

Hilarious quote on the hand, sobering truth on the other. Extremists are people too. Hatred and clouded clarity strike us all at different times. We would all vehemently argue that we would never blow up a plane full of people, but circumstances are surprisingly powerful. If you could save 1,000,000 people in New York City from a bombing by flipping a switch that caused a bomb-laden plane to divert harmlessly into the ocean but killing all 300 passengers aboard, you would probably think long and hard about the consequences of any action you might take.

The Nigerian probably thought he was helping people too.

Getting back into the swing of things has been ok so far. My classes look like they'll be a pretty fair amount of work (fair as in just as in right as in acceptable as in fair) this time around. I'm going to have to do a lot of reading, as per the usual, but I think I'm getting better at handling the volume (read: getting better at skimming for useful information and skipping the 98.4% that isn't useful to me in any way).

The professor that I'm TA-ing for this semester is only two years older than I am. It's a good thing he's a nice guy, knows a lot more than I do about psychology, and isn't really requiring a whole lot of me (grading, copying, and a few lectures), or I probably would have had an aneurysm at some point.

Speaking of aneurysms, the dog is ticked that we've resumed leaving him home alone all day again (and so are the cats, I'm sure). I know this because, yesterday when Sarah got home, he was so happy to see her that he peed all over her when she picked him up. I'm sure he claimed it was because of excitement. I suspect revenge.

It's funny listening to the news reports about the weather here in the South. Today the high temperature is expected to be somewhere in the range of 28 degrees, and the windchill will go as low as -4. Granted, that's cold weather. The coldest, in fact, in about 15 years in this part of the South. But relatively speaking, it would be considered a heat wave in some parts of the country this time of year, e.g., where I've spent the majority of my life.

So it's starting to get a little annoying the the "latest on the Arctic Blast" is not only the top story on the news, it is the only story on the news. Yesterday, they had a reporter stationed at a nearby school bus yard who was reporting on how it was cold, but on how there was nothing wrong with the buses and that there didn't appear to be any ice in the parking lot.

Really? No ice? This is news now?

Back to the routine.

We rang in 2010 with a bang. When I say bang, I mean that we gorged ourselves on homemade jalapeno poppers and seafood gumbo. And ice cream. Oh, and Ding Dongs. But mostly gumbo. In sum , the "bang" may or may not have been a giant gas ball from all the food. I'll leave that for your speculation.

The long journey back to the South begins tomorrow. Neither Sarah, nor I, nor the dog, are looking forward to 23 hours in the car. Hopefully it will only be 23 hours. It's been a good vacation. Like all, too short.

School starts for Sarah on Monday. I don't have to go back until the next Monday, but I'll probably have to spend most of my extra week cleaning out the cat boxes. I'm sure they're going to be overflowing. Nothing like 4 giant boxes of excrement welcome you home.