Negative floors in the US

Back in 2008 I commented on the awesome floor numbering system in an Israeli elevator, where ground level was the 0th floor, and underground floors got negative numbers. Well, when visiting a doctor to follow up from my gallbladder adventures, I saw this elevator:

This is the first time I've seen this numbering system in the US. While it's not as cool as the 0th floor in that they use L (presumably for "Lobby" even though there wasn't one), their underground floors got negative signs!

Writing

With my thesis defense date looming (August 1, for those playing along at home), I have been writing my thesis in earnest (my blogging will be lighter than usual over the next 6 weeks). A bit over a month ago I decided to keep track of my daily progress. If you want to follow along, you can check it out here.

Growing Garlic

The other day my garlic was growing on its own so I decided to stick them into one of my houseplant pots. They grew quite a bit at first, but then a few weeks later they died - despite very responsible watering. A few weeks after that I dug up the dirt and look what I found!

They were tiny - but delicious.

Down a gallbladder

To make a rather long story short, last Thursday night I spent the night in the ER getting poked and prodded. It turned out, I had an inflamed gallbladder full of gallstones, which had to go! So now, I am one organ down, and recovering pretty well.

Unfortunately, they didn't let me save the gallstones, although I asked. And they wouldn't take out my appendix while they were in there, either, although I asked.

Frying eggs in the sun + magnifying glass

Below is the TV the previous tenants generously left at my apartment on their way out.

It did not sell on craigslist despite my best attempts:

"This TV will most definitely impress any lady who has been living under a rock for the past 15 years. It has also been suggested by my roommate that it would make a nice aquarium."

The front of these old rear projection TV's includes a humongous fresnel lens.

I waited for a mostly sunny day...

And fried a few eggs (thanks for your help Amos)

Here is one of the eggs, mid-fry. The light was so intense that the black pan and surroundings are nearly invisible.

One batch, after cooling.

Timing:

• It took about 17 minutes to cook two cold eggs on a room temperature pan.
• It only took 5 minutes to cook 1 room temperature egg on a pan that had been preheated for 4 minutes.