Well it is finally the first Friday of the year, and its been a long week.  The photo for today’s challenge is a double–the bottle and last glass of wine from said bottle.

Now you may not think it’s really anything special, but you have to realize–I don’t drink all that often. This bottle of wine was bought at the end of July last year (as a gift for getting my younger brother through college algebra), open mid-August and now finally finished. I had thought of finishing it off on New Years, but that would have meant that opening a new bottle of wine tonight–and who knows how long it would last with the way the year is going right now.

I only drink wine on certain occasions, and today was one of those occasions–had to go to the memorial service for someone who was both a family friend, a mentor, a colleague, and a teacher. It was for someone who, I will never forget always asking around Christmas and my birthday “did you get a pony yet?”, or in the winter “Do you want to move back to MN?”–though that is where my father is from and I’ve never lived a day of my life in that state (yet).  The best questions were always “Are we famous yet?” and “Did you find the gene encoding stupidity?”

I will always miss those talks, and when I walk by where his office is–I’m sure for awhile I’ll still hope to see the light on and stop by for a small chat. But knowing that those small chats won’t happen anymore, all I can do is try to figure out exactly what I want to do, and then try to pay it forward in helping others determine what it is they want to do, and also to help train the next generation of scientists in the battle against scientific intolerance and illiteracy