Another day in the lowland tropics, and the sun climbs steadily higher from the east. It's 10 in the morning on Saturday. Where are you?

From my perch inside this air-conditioned office building, I watch the forest through the window. Leaves are photosynthesizing sugars from carbon dioxide. Bugs are eating those leaves. Peccaries rustle in the underbrush searching out grubs by smell alone. Somewhere, a male hummingbird defends its favorite nectar tree from a rival. It chirps and squeaks with a vengeance as it dive bombs the offender. A female nearby looks on with disinterest, then nimbly flits over and probes nectar from a few flowers while the males are distracted. Then she flies on to calmer branches. A toxic butterfly calmly bounces through the air, its bright colors advertising a potential poisonous meal to wary birds. A not-quite-so-toxic butterfly rockets past its more relaxed relative and alights on the underside of a leaf, where it might not attract so much attention.

I climbed a tree yesterday. Rebecca and I finally got ourselves up into the canopy, after several days of mental preparation and failed attempts to effectively rig up a tree. Turns out, we didn't have to rig it at all, since a small rope was already in the tree we were trying to climb. There was just the small matter of hauling our big climbing rope up over the higher branches. Cat, our main advisor for this project, took us out and showed us everything we needed to know to get up quick. It was painful for her to watch our first few attempts at climbing. She eventually had to run back to her office and bring us some better gear. In the end we used ascenders instead of rope knots and scurried quickly up to a great perch in the top of the tree, gaining some excellent views of the surrounding forest.

Even though it's the weekend, today I'm in the lab again, waiting expectantly for Jack's email to tell us whether or not we've finally hit upon something he approves of. Cat seems perfectly happy with our plans, but Jack still has some doubts. Hopefully they'll blow over and we'll be able to get underway on this project. More information will be forthcoming, as it becomes available.