OUT OF THE OFFICE, ONTO THE RIVER

There's nothing like being stuck in the middle of the Mississippi River while a pair of barges goes around you because your boat is dead in the water. I've heard the phrase in movies and in Deadliest Catch prior to hearing my boat captain utter it over the radio today, and it was just as scary and foreboding in person as it sounds on TV...

...and it was HOT. Really hot. Thankfully, after about an hour and a half, the calvary arrived (another boat captain/ERDC-CHL employee) with some fuel, some tools, and a new boat for us, just in case. So after some trial and error, we sent him home with the busted boat (after towing it in) and took off down the river in our new (working) ride.

We arrived at the chute where we'd GPS-located our desired sampling points, drove in a ways, then turned around and headed back out while taking water (eDNA) samples every 50m or so.

(Mississippi River main channel behind us)

(and now down into the chute)

We made a curious friend (who followed us to 3 different sampling points before turning back)

We took "grab" samples (2L bottles that I dipped below the surface of the water) and pumped sediment samples (water pumped up over marine cloth from the bottom of the chute, where black carp are more likely to hang out and deposit their DNA), and nobody fell overboard.

(Rick and Matt, two of my coworkers)

INTERVIEWED!

Looking snappy as he headed out early to work today for a very important interview!

ERDC AWARDS DAY 2019

Jay received an award today for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Management for his work starting up ERDC's Teach to FISH (T2FISH) program, which trains new hires and young researchers the inner workings of ERDC funding and how to best seek and acquire new projects while making connections with researchers from other teams, branches, divisions, labs, and agencies.

ELG CAPITOL TOUR

Jay spent the week in DC with the Emerging Leaders Group. He met many VIPs throughout the Corps and DoD, visited the Pentagon and Capitol, went out to dinner (and an escape room and a very fancy whiskey bar) with his leadership group each night, and spent his last few hours in town at the National Zoo before catching the plane home. We missed him, but we're so glad he had this opportunity to make connections and learn as much as he could about our upper management.

Here are a few photos that he sent us, along with some that his colleagues shared on Facebook:

CERC TRIP #2

I returned to CERC this week to sub-sample tissue from the 150 or so black carp that have been captured (and turned in to the research lab) in the past year. I didn't have Xin with me this time since it was just tissue splits and no eDNA sampling or water filtering, so I spent my evenings running the local trails (adjacent to campus) and sampling the local beer...

(Flat Branch Pub & Brewing)

Unfortunately, my flight home was delayed (huge storm came through the night before - it was my first time staying in a hotel that didn't have power for many hours - it was very dark), and delayed, and then canceled, so I spent the "night" (about 4 hours) on the floor of the very busy airport (continued storms and tornadoes in the Texas/Oklahoma/Missouri region). I couldn't help but notice that all the men were sleeping soundly (and snoring) on every available surface and in many different positions, while most of the women were awake, pacing, working on laptops, or playing on their phones. I tried to sleep, and think I napped about an hour or so, but it was definitely not one of my more favorite travel experiences. It was really good to get home midday and fall into my bed!