Donuts ease the pain.

Since Filipe left us for Portugal over the weekend, there’s been much wailing and gnashing of teeth in mourning in the Alberto Lab. Sara’s immune system completely collapsed, Heidi’s beautiful singing voice completely dissipated, my whole head went numb, and the less said about Nelson’s condition, the better. Then, we remembered that Donuts is tomorrow. And all is suddenly well.

Be there. LAP S185. 10am Wednesdays.

-MLJ

PS->Donuts this week courtesy of Dr. Stefan Schnitzer. Dr. Schnitzer spells his first name the Swedish way, so you can tell he’s a good guy. He’s also a genius, because he figured out that the best place to be during the Milwaukee winter is Panama. While we’re freezing our booties, Dr. Schnitzer is munching fried plantains and thinking about lianas. And then he pays for donuts to remind us all that he’s great. Thanks, Dr. Schnitzer!

Wednesdays are made for donuts.

As anyone who knows me knows, I’m a real creature of habit. I prefer a predictable life.

As a student, it used to be Monday: mountain bike, Tuesday: Rogue Brewery, Wednesday: Donuts, Thursday: mountain bike, Friday: Bier One, Saturday: mountain bike, Sunday: bath. Occasionally I would get work done.

Since there isn’t a forest behind my work anymore, and I hardly go to bars at all, things have changed a bit. There’s more gym days and less bar days, for one. One constant, though, is getting together with my work friends at Wednesday Donuts. It’s so nice to look forward to midweek instead of just the weekend.

You should try it. Even if you don’t want a donut, the weekly chat and coffee is great.

See you there!

Lap S185, 10am Wednesday.

-MLJ

PS->Donuts this week courtesy of Valeria Sitenkova. Val is a pretty, intelligent Russian woman. If my careful studies of James Bond films are any guide, that means that she’s a spy. There’s a distinct possibility that she’s sending microfilms of our students’ lab work to her handlers in the KGB, or whatever they’re called now…

The other possibility is that we’re just lucky to work with someone like Val, who is good at her job and generous with donut funds. Thanks, Val!

Welcome Back, Donuts

Welcome Back, Donuts is a Portuguese television sitcom starring Filipe Alberto and featuring a young Nelson Coelho.

The show starred stand-up comic/ actor/ assistant professor Filipe Alberto as a wisecracking professor who returns to UWM, after the summer, to teach an often unruly group of remedial loafers known as the "Alberto Lab" (The nickname reflected the fact that the remedial classes were held in the basement). The school's president was perpetually absent, while the uptight vice president dismissed the Alberto Lab as worthless hoodlums and only expected Alberto to attempt to contain them until they inevitably got advanced degrees or professorships.

Most of the major characters of Welcome Back, Donuts were based on people from Alberto's teen years as a remedial high school student in Lisbon. As a stand-up comic, one of Alberto's most popular routines was "Biostatistics", in which he talked in depth about his former classmates. The names of three of the four major characters in Biostatistics were changed for the television series: “Mattias Johansson” was inspired by Matthias Johanssen, “Sara 'Boom Boom' Schaal” was inspired by Heidi “Hotsy Totsy” Hargarten; and "Juan Epstein" was partially inspired by Nelson “Bunny Epstein” Coelho; only "Jack Daniels’" name remained unchanged. (However, in Alberto's stand-up routine, this character was always referred to as "Southern Comfort" which could not be used on network television.)

Donuts, like undergraduates, are back in a big way! Lapham S185, 10:00 Wednesdays.

-MLJ

PS->You know who’s great? Linda Whittingham. She’s supporting our first donuts of the semester, because she’s nice. She’s also a fantastic scientist, mentor, and birder. For some reason, she doesn’t eat donuts, though. But that’s the only black mark on her record. 

Wednesday Donut Reception

Now that I’m a married man, and therefore can talk guff with relative impunity (since I don’t have to impress women anymore), I can share with you my opinion that Wednesday Donuts is a lot like a wedding reception. First, the food is good (and it’s usually provided by someone else). Second, you’re surrounded by friends (and sometimes attractive strangers, for the singles). Finally, it goes by way too fast (and doesn’t happen often enough).

If you haven’t been to a reception in a while, or if you have, you should come out to Wednesday Donuts tomorrow and see the reunited cast of “The Alberto Lab featuring Sara Schaal and Friends”.

-MLJ

PS->Donuts provided by Nelson Coelho. Nelson loves lab work. He also loves donuts. And that’s it. He doesn’t love anything else. Except his grandmother, and Portuguese bread. But that’s it. Serious.

Duct Tape, WD-40, and Donuts

Well, I’ve only been back in the lab for two days, doing *gasp* lab work(!), and I’ve already destroyed the lab. Shhhhhh don’t tell Nelson… or Mattias… or Filipe…

I followed all the right procedures and protocols, even yelling, “Stand back! I’m about to do science!!” to  everyone in the lab, which happens to be nobody at the moment (apparently I come back, so everyone leaves). Ok, really, all I’m doing right now is extracting DNA from my kelp samples I collected this summer. It’s pretty neat stuff. While I was out there, I took a small piece from each kelp blade, put that piece in a 2mL test tube, and added a bunch of silica gel to the tube, which rapidly dries out the sample, basically mummifying the tissue and preserving the DNA in it.

In order to extract the DNA from these dried samples, I have to physically break down the tissue. I could chew each sample up, but that wouldn’t taste very good plus there would be too much spit involved. So I use this massive vibrator we have down in the basement to pulverize the tissue. It works really well. Well, today, I went to go use the vibrator, and I blew the fuse (it’s a big vibrator). Not an ideal situation. I need to extract DNA!!

Well, I’m not an electrician, but I remember my daddy telling me anything can be fixed with a little duct tape and WD-40. So I did what any respectable, budding graduate student would do, and duct taped the hell out of the fuse box and the vibrator, and sprayed it down with WD-40. That didn’t work… So I thought, “Hmm… what else might work? Well, Mattias always says donuts are the answer to everything, so I must try donuts next”. I’m not really sure how to apply donuts to electrical stuff… maybe I’ll squish a jelly donut into the outlets… that might work…

-Heidi

PS Donuts this week are brought to you by Dr. Hutz. Dr. Hutz is from Salzburg, Austria. Before he came over to the US, and became an extremely accomplished biologist, he was a mountain yodeler. He holds the recorded for the most mountains yodeled on in Austria (all of them), he can out yodel Julie Andrews, and he once saved a small Austrian village by scaring away a herd of trolls with his mighty yodel.

Indiana Donut

Comrades!! Friends!! Beloved Colleagues!!

As some of you may have noticed, I've been gone awhile, due to my second job working as my alter ego alias, Indiana Donut. This summer, I embarked on an adventure to the distant land of central California to study the elusive and mysterious donuts of the west coast. My goal was to study and learn from these exotic donuts, and bring them back to the donut museum, where others could enjoy and delight in their sugary sweet wonder. My journey was treacherous, fraught with danger and gangs of donut-mongering nazis trying to eat what donuts they could and destroy those they could not, those jerks. Anyways... After many weeks of solo, undercover work, I was reunited with my faithful companions, Short Bread and Dr. Boston Cream, for a short time. Rejuvenated from my companions' visit, I was able to single handedly rescue every single donut from the California Donut Nazis, and even a fair maiden or two from their greasy donut dungeons. Want to know how I did it? Well, you'll have to come to donuts tomorrow to hear the epic conclusion!

Wednesday Donuts. I'll be there. So should you.

Yours Truly,

Indiana Donut

PS Donuts this week are brought to you by Dr. Colin Scanes. Dr. Scanes is a world traveler with a secret alter ego as well. When he's not in the lab injecting chickens with various growth hormones, he's 'oot and aboot' masquerading under the cover of darkness as Sir Super-Awesome-English-Donut-Justice-Dude, fighting for justice, and battling donut haters in donut shoppes everywhere.

Lonely Donuts

With Mattias gone that leaves me very much alone in the lab so I decided to write a song…

Lonely… I’m Ms. Lonely …

I have no labmates for my own…

I am so lonely… I’m Ms. Lonely…

I have all these donuts, but no labmates to share them with …

Now I’m a researcher… a lonely researcher ..

That only wants to have donuts all day long… So come join me for some donuts… Otherwise I’ll eat them all alone and sing this song…

So to avoid breaking any eardrums of hallway passersby please join me at Wednesday donuts this week! Lapham S185 10AM.

-Sara

P.S. --> Donuts this week courtesy of Elizabeth Muslin! Ever catch yourself wondering how your biology lab is set up with such perfection and superiority compared to all other labs… well all thanks goes to Elizabeth Muslin! She’s had to change her email 6 times because other departments send her daily emails trying to recruit her...I heard a rumor that the donuts keep her here :)