Beautiful downtown San Juan

After missing our flight to Saint Lucia, us honeymooners shacked up at the San Juan Best Western: "the only hotel and bar at the airport"! The hotel is good. Strangely enough, we had sushi for dinner. While the sushi was average, the mojitos were great.

It's official

Well, we made it. Karla and I finally got married...and we survived. Although we did have numerous snags to deal with:

#1 Yesterday morning I realized that I had forgotten the wedding music. So my brother had to manually copy all of our songs from Itunes onto a CD. These were on two computers, which made matters worse. In the end, the DJ didn't use any of our music, but we didn't care. We were way too tired.

#2 Karla's grandfather Irv was supposed to walk her down the aisle (Karla's dad is deceased). On my way to the wedding, I got a call from the best man that there had been an accident. Turns out that Irv had a heart attack while driving and then crashed a block away from the church. It was a scary scene, and no one was quite sure if Irv was ok. We all ended up at the hospital in our wedding stuff, waiting for news. Irv was in stable condition, so we went ahead with the wedding. But wow, talk about an emotional rollercoaster.

#3 Karla's brother got sick at the reception. He may have been stressed from the day's earlier events, or he may have had a bug. Either way he was donating to the prcelain god for most of the evening.

Well that's it. It was a really long day, but we made it. We were super tired, and Karla is still sleeping. Everyone was really great at the wedding -- it was so much fun. It's too bad you Madison folks couldn't go.

Modern phytolith paper, Journal of Biogeography

Take a look at my recently submitted manuscript here.

Get your phenology/taxonomy kicks on Bascom Hill

Now that spring has finally arrived, the plants around campus have begun to sprout their leaves and/or flowers. You might have noticed that spring has come a bit late this year. This has caused the plants to also be late in leafing out. There is a study out there called phenology, which studies the timing of growth patterns in plants. Phenology can be of great interest to historians. For example, let's say that you happen to find a bunch of historicl documents from Roman times. These documents are from a vineyard near Naples. According to the records, the vines sprouted quite early in the year 410 A.D. You could infer that it must have been an early spring in 410. So...good for the vines, but overall a very bad year to be a Roman in Britain.

Phenologists have also noted tundra species sprouting earlier just about every year -- a harbinger of warmer springs.

Enough of the history lesson. I took a tour around Bascom Hill today, as required for my Plant Geography course. I focused on a few interesting plants around the hill:

Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) - This is a very primitive flowering tree. At one time, it was thought to be the most primitive. This species is from SE USA, while the other species in the genus L. chinense, is found in the far east. These two species are closely related. In fact, the two species can reproduce together, even though they have been separated for 10 million years. There are many closely related species which are only found in SE USA and in China. For a long time scientists couldn't figure out why so many of the species were related, despite the fact that they are so far apart. Eventually researchers discovered that the type of vegetation which grows in SE USA and China (deciduous forest and subtropical forest) was very widespread in the Tertiary (around 20-30 million years ago). After the Tertiary, the global climate started to cool down as we slowly headed for the Pleistocene (the time of ice ages). This global cooling greatly restricted these formerly vast forests to small refugia - in SE USA and China. There was also a refuge in Europe, but the ice ages killed that one off. The closely related vegetation between SE USA and China is called the Arcto-Tertiary flora: meaning that the forests once covered much of northern North America, Europe, and Asia during the Tertiary.


Trillium - Part of the Lily family. This plant is an example of a spring ephemeral which takes advantage of warm spring days before the tree leaves have come out. Trillium usually sprouts, flowers, and produces seeds all before the trees have fully leaved out. This is another example of an Arcto-Tertiary relict.

Magnolia tree - one of the most primitive flowering plants. The Magnolia family reaches back over 100 million years - before advanced dinosaurs were around. Another Arcto-Tertiary relict.

Jack in the Pulpit. I don't know much about this species, other than it's a spring ephemeral. Notice the interesting, modified leaf which the plant uses as part of it's flower.

Gingko tree (Gingko biloba) - This tree has been found in the fossil record during the time of the dinosaurs (Jurassic), and was thought to be long extinct. It was discovered in China. Another Arcto-Tertiary relict, although there are no close relatives found in North America. Gingko biloba is the only species left extant in the genus.

Dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) - This is truly a living fossil. Like Gingko, fossils had been discovered of the dawn redwood long before it was discovered in China in 1941. Another Arcto-Tertiary relict, it is now confined to China. It is related to the Sequoia tree, which itself is restricted to the Pacific Northwest. The dawn redwood is actually deciduous - it drops whole "twigs" of leaves each fall.

It pays to be a phytolith analyst

I would like to take this opportunity to brag a little bit. Recently I was awarded the Ross Research Award from the Geological Society of America. You may view my grant proposal here.

"When it's Joel" by Van Halen

I have been hanging out in my office all weekend working on a paper. At 2:03 PM today, I observed Joel arriving at his office. In honor of this occasion, I have rewritten the lyrics to the song "When it's Love" by Van Halen. Enjoy?

Everybody's lookin' for some [map projection]

Somethin' to fill in the [whitespace]

We think a lot but don't talk much about it

'Til [figure-ground ratios] get out of control

How do I know when it's [Joel]

I can't tell you but the [algorithm's] forever

How does it feel when it's [Joel]

It's just something you [geovisualize] together

When it's [Joel]

You look at every [choropleth] in a crowd

Some shine and some keep you guessin'

Waiting for some [cartogram] to come into focus

Teach you your final [Joel] lesson

How do I know when it's [Joel]

I can't tell you but it [autoscales] forever

How does it feel when it's [Joel]

It's just something you [geovisualize] together

Oh oh oh oh

Oh when it's [Joel]

Oh oh oh oh

You can feel it yeah

Oh oh oh oh

No [cartographic element's] missing

Yeah

Oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh

Nothing's missing

How do I know when it's [Joel]
I can't tell you but it [autoscales] forever
How does it feel when it's [Joel]
It's just something you [geovisualize] together

When it's [Joel]

When it's [Joel]

[This map'll] last forever

When it's [Joel]

You and I

We're gonna [make] this [flow map] together

When it's [Joel]

When it's [Joel]

You can [project] it

We'll make it [geovisualize] forever

When it's [Joel]

Reyerson eats babies?

Recently my across-the-hall rivals in 412 have accused me of eating babies. This is true. I eat the following babies:

Chicken eggs
Bean sprouts
Baby corn
Various seeds (sesame, beans, peas, nuts, etc.)