Taylor's First Modeling Gig and My first publication!

Yesterday was a day of two important firsts for the Ashton girls (aka Ashton's Beauties according to daddy!). I learned that a chapter I co-wrote for a text book on DNA Sequencing had been published and was being sold. This is my first real scientific publication. Throughout my career, I have contributed to a few scientific publications that have been printed in Nature and other scientific journals but never a real book The book is called DNA Sequencing: Optimizing the Process and Analysis and it retails for $99.95 on Amazon and other retailers. Click on the word amazon to see the book online. My chapter is Chapter 12 Good laboratory Practices, Good Manufacturing Procedures, and Quality Assurance in the DNA Sequencing Laboratory.

My name is listed as Thalia Taylor though because when I originally submitted this work to the other co-author I was not Mrs. Ashton yet. I guess you could say I did this in my former life. That fact shows how long a process it really is to get a book written, edited, published and distributed. The last I had heard prior to yesterday was that the book was going to be submitted for actual publishing last August 2004. I submitted my work in early 2002. In the world of science and technology-3 years is almost a generation. I am sure some of the methods particularly in other chapters are obsolete at least in the world of Big Pharma and high tech genomic research venues such as Celera. I must also note that this was written for the good of science for students to learn and apply this knowledge to their research. I made no $ from this or will from the sale of this.

Taylor's first happened last night when we went to Sears to pick up the photographs from the kids first photo shoot together. While we waiting James noticed Taylor's photos in a collage on display on the wall of the portrait studio. Her photos were a part of a larger wall display that had some photos of professional models and some real people. We asked the clerk and she said the manager had chosen to put them up even though they did not ask our permission. The collage is really neat. They zoomed in and edited head shots taken from the other photos we had done. It is a bronze photo with a rose tint in a mat. Unfortunately, like her Mommy, Taylor was not paid even with a free photo for her work. It may not be such a big deal but we are proud. After we scan the photos we will post them for viewing on James' site and Taylor's site.

Update9/20/05 I have a copy of the photo collage that is displayed at Sears I will try to get it scanned this week and put up on Taylor's site.