SCEFC Set List: March 4, 2012

On Sunday I’ll be serving as the worship leader at State College E-Free Church. The sermon will be addressing busyness and thirsting for God.  I’ve been thinking about satisfaction and desire recently, so I made a list of some of the songs I’ve been playing.

Prelude: (G) Forever – Chris Tomlin

(A) God You Reign – Lincoln Brewster | Mia Fieldes

(A) From the Inside Out – Joel Houston

(E) None but Jesus – Brooke Fraser

Communion Song: (E) All Who are Thirsty – Brenton Brown | Glenn Robertson

Closing Song: (E) 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) – Matt Redman | Jonas Myrin 

Iridescent Shark for Dinner

Last week I mentioned that I picked up swai fillets (see post here), which could also be called iridescent shark fillets. I’ve tried several different methods of frying and baking these fillets with good results. Tonight I repeated one of my favorites.

I started out by making a base. I cooked long grain white rice in a chicken broth and water mixture. While this was happening I briefly fried peas and chopped carrots in olive oil, then added the rice when it was ready and threw in a bit of soy sauce.

As a vegetable side I chopped up a chayote squash and fried it in butter with some salt and pepper. Then I turned up the heat and added in some pureed ginger. Wonderful. The squash was left over from a horticultural systematic lab last week, so hooray for edible lab materials once again.

Chayote squash after chopping.

Chayote squash after frying and ginger-izing.

The main course was the aforementioned iridescent shark.

An iridescent shark fillet before chopping.

Moments later.

I fried the fish in a dash of olive oil. When it was cooked through I added some hoisin sauce left it sizzle for a few minutes.

The iridescent shark coated in hoisin sauce.

So the finished product looked like this (I’m afraid the quality of this picture does not hold up when it is enlarged. I think I was less than steady when I took the picture with my phone):

Dinner is served.

I like this entrée. In fact, I like it enough that I made it for the first time on Saturday and then remade it again tonight. I am now prepared to say–with no reservation or coercion–I like fish.

State Patty’s Day 2012

Today is the annual State College non-holiday State Patty’s Day. While some would argue that there is some merit to its observation, it is really just a day dedicated to irresponsible drinking.  People from far and wide come to State College. It’s bad enough that Penn State has made the decision to refrain from bringing potential students to University Park for tours on this weekend.

State College and University Park decided to enforce parking policies that were more strict and expensive than usual to cut down on drinkers leaving their cars in municipal and university lots and garages. This meant many drivers were seeking alternative parking. Many of them ended up in commercial parking lots on Friday night (presumably intending to leave their cars there overnight). I’m not sure how commercial parking lots that forbid overnight parking, like major grocery stores or department stores, are normally policed. If a car is left in a lot for a weekend, how is it caught?  It seems very labor intensive to scan security camera footage or go car to car and track license plate numbers.

But then something happened last night that changed everything. It snowed in State College. Saturday morning every car covered in snow was revealed as an overnight guest.

And the tow trucks had a field day. I stopped by the Wal-Mart on Atherton this morning and there were busy tow trucks all over the parking lot.

When I got out of my car I noticed a group of guys walking from the bus stop to the parking lot. One of them loudly exclaimed: “Dude, your car is gone! They towed your copulating car!”  (Okay, so they didn’t exactly say copulating.) I looked around and I realized there were people all over the parking lot making the same discovery. Evidently the bus that had just unloaded had been full of people returning from a night of partying. Many of them now were facing the reality that their cars had either been raptured, stolen, or towed.

Sometimes snow covers things. Sometimes snow exposes things.

I suspect the storm last night made today one of the most profitable days in the history of John Tennis Towing, Inc. Happy State Patty’s Day.

Weighing Chipotle Burritos

This afternoon I stopped by Chipotle, giving me an opportunity to weigh another burrito (557.9 g). That makes a total of five Chipotle burritos that I have weighed. Here are the numbers:

Presented graphically:
Based upon these data the mean weight of a Chipotle burrito is 596.2 grams (1.32 lbs).

So now if you hear the question “How much does a Chipotle burrito weigh?” you’ll have an answer.

Using ImageJ for Root Analysis

Today I spent some more time getting acquainted with ImageJ. I’m running version 1.46g. My primary task is to calculate root lengths in the scans I have collected.

When ImageJ opens it has a very simple interface. I have a dual monitor set-up, and I use the second monitor for ImageJ. The leaf background on my monitor occupies far more space than the program. At first it is just a compact menu.

The ImageJ interface.

When an image is opened it appears in another box, which can be sized as desired.

An image open for analysis.

ImageJ works by measuring pixels. If you want to convert the numbers it calculates into another measurement you need to set the scale by defining the measurement of something in the image. In the scan above I have a scale bar to the right of the rhizotron that identifies one centimeter.

After calibration the next step is to trace the area to be measured. You can use all sorts of tools to do this, the best choice depends upon what measurement you are seeking to determine. The best method I found for determining root length is a freehand line. I found a plug-in that measures the line and labels it (appropriately called Measure and Label), leaving a thick light-colored line behind. This is helpful because it makes it evident which roots have been traced.

Tracing a root system.

In the picture above the roots I have traced are indicated by the lines. The data are in the box located in the upper left corner of the screen. The area measurement is worthless to me, since I am not trying to accurately trace the thickness of the roots.

All in all it’s a rather painless process. A bit time consuming–but not that bad. (It is yet to be determined if my opinion will change after analyzing all my images.)