The 4th of July was this past Monday. The lab was closed for the day, and I went golfing with Tom (he hosts the other Pinhead Interns in the San Diego area) on the Coronado Golf course. It was a great morning, the sun was out and it was neither too hot nor too cold. We played with two other guys from the east coast who regularly visit San Diego. Tom let me borrow his spare set of clubs. Prior to playing on the course, we practiced a little on the putting green next to the clubhouse. The driving range along with hole 9, were closed for people, who were setting up their tents and what naught, in order to enjoy their 4th of July. It was incredible how fast the range filled with people who wanted a prime location for the fireworks. We played the entire course, apart from hole 9, and then went for lunch at a Mexican place called Rubio’s. The food was okay – I am not a big fan of Mexican food – but it was a lot better than some of the other places around UCSD.
For the evening, my host lady invited me to the La Jolla Country Club. There I ate a lot of food (the food was incredible – especially the barbeque was spot-on) and met a lot of different people, hearing many stories about Harvard and Yale in particular. It was interesting because numerous political views collided and there were some heated debates about whether or not Trump would “Make America Great Again.” The highlight of the evening was definitely the fireworks. After that, it was time to leave. Once I was back at my host lady’s house, I grabbed a flashlight and a bucket and headed for the beach. I was hoping to fish some grunions, these little fish that come onto the beach in the middle of the night in order to spawn. There is only one rule concerning these fish, you have to catch them by hand. According to what I have heard, they pop onto the beach thousands at a time. But it is very localized. By no means is the entire beach covered, rather a small patch. They spawn right after high tide. Grunions are small fish – they are usually only a couple of inches long. Sadly I wasn’t able to find any – I would try again over the next couple of days in vain. The grunion schedule can be found online with the times when grunions are most likely to be found.
For the rest of the week I continued to work on projects at the lab. On Friday afternoon, I went to listen to a seminar about siglecs. Heinz Laeubli from the University of Basel presented his paper and the latest on the effects siglecs have on an cancer associated innate immune response. Much of the talk was above and beyond from what I know but I was able to get somewhat of a big picture of what Laeubli and his team is doing.
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