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Off to the Races

Well, another semester is starting and I am off and on my way. Wish me luck, as I will likely be damn tired, and my voice will be worn out after not speaking in that manner for many, many weeks.

PipeTobacco

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Damn TMJ




I have had temporomadibular joint (TMJ) disorder for a helluva long time... decades. Typically I notice no effects because I am religious about wearing a bite splint. The worst of the symptoms if I wear my bite splint is typically just having a tired jaw at the end of the day. But, for the last week or so, my TMJ has been a thorn in my side. My jaws ache, and it affects my ears and neck as well. It hurts so badly right now that I can hardly stand it.

I do not know why my TMJ is acting up so much. I am not more stressed than usual. My only inkling is that perhaps I have a middle or inner ear infection that is quite severe. My reasoning behind this is that both my wife and I came down with identical colds upon our return from the Grand Canyon in July. Both of us took a while to feel better, but now about 2 weeks ago, my wife came down with severe ear infections and has been on two courses of antibiotics. I am wondering if I am experiencing the same thing... and also if it may be a result of something we were exposed to on our trip?

I am not sure, but perhaps I should go to my doctor to have my ears examined. I strenuously resist going to the doctor, but am thinking I may do so in the morning if this does not subside.

PipeTobacco

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As Expected



The following from Science News confirms my opinion that politics is assinine. I had thought that with Obama in the White House, there would not be the sort of b*llsh*t lying about science and scientific information... but it is just the same old crap. The government report a week or two ago suggesting that most of the Gulf oil spill has dissipated and even "evaporated" is just an outright lie.

My science knowledge made me question the report when it first came out. It sounded completely the oposite of what one would anticipate scientifically as the impact of the spill. But, I decided to wait and see if the government news stories aligned with actual science. They do not.

Politics is simply, pure, utter b*llsh*t. I do not see why I vote. It really makes not a damn bit of difference.

Here is the article:

Most BP Oil Still Pollutes the Gulf, Scientists Conclude: Breakdown is Proving Slower than Expected
by Janet Raloff on Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Oil plumes from the BP oil spill appear to be slow to disperse, as researchers found in June when a submersible vehicle (yellow) mapped a plume of oil 1,100 meters below the surface that stretched 35 kilometers long. Dana Yoerger/WHOITwo new analyses report that huge plumes of oil generated by the BP spill continue to roam deep within the Gulf of Mexico and appear disturbingly stable. Although some natural breakdown of hydrocarbons in the oil is underway, both new analyses report evidence that this biodegradation is very slow.

These findings contradict an Aug. 2 report by the National Incident Command, a largely federal group that has been coordinating management and cleanup of the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout. An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil (almost 206 million gallons) escaped from the damaged well before it was successfully capped on July 15. Some 17 percent of the oil was captured before it fouled the water, the NIC reports.

But in testimony August 19 before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Ian MacDonald of Florida State University in Tallahassee cited data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that he said showed only 10 percent of the spewed BP oil “was actually removed from the ocean” and that only “a fraction, perhaps 10 percent, will have evaporated.” The remaining oil still fouls the Gulf, he said.

New analyses by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the Georgia Sea Grant at the University of Georgia in Athens also suggest that much of the BP oil has not been behaving as scientists would have expected.

For instance, in a paper online in Science August 19 the Woods Hole team describes data from a June cruise that mapped a huge plume of diffuse hydrocarbons more than 35 kilometers long. As this cloud of oil flowed roughly 1,100 meters below the surface, it maintained a configuration that was roughly 200 meters high, up to 2 kilometers wide and traveling at about 6.5 kilometers per day. Over the entire span of the plume studied, the cloud’s height “only varied by tens of meters,” notes Woods Hole team leader Richard Camilli.

Researchers cruising the Gulf in early June aboard a NOAA ship, the Gordon Gunter, also found evidence of that hydrocarbon plume. Like the Woods Hole team, these scientists collected much of their data using an autonomous underwater vehicle, in this case a torpedo-like chemical sensing laboratory developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

“We were in the same area as the Woods Hole group,” notes John Ryan of MBARI, and similarly found a hydrocarbon plume below 1,000 meters.

“We’re not sure why this plume set up at this depth,” says Camilli, “but it appears to have persisted for at least several weeks or months. And it appears very stable, but we really don’t know why yet.”

“I’m not shocked, but actually pleasantly surprised [by these data],” says Roberto Camassa, who directs the Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the laboratory, this fluid dynamicist and his colleagues have been studying oil plume formation. He says the buildup of stable deep plumes make sense, based on the evolving science of interactions between high-velocity oil and cold, slow-moving waters.

“In our lab experiments, things mainly get trapped based on their density,” Camassa observes. “So I would expect to find a somewhat sharp transition in density down there, and with such stratification the oil could persist for a long, long time.”

Oil in the plume hasn’t ascended to the surface, he explains, because if droplets are small enough they become neutrally buoyant and move with the water. Camassa’s lab studies suggest that the high-velocity spray of oil from the BP blowout would essentially have atomized the crude oil into microdroplets.

New modeling analyses of the BP oil spill by researchers at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University also largely predict what the WHOI team has just reported, notes Robert Hallberg of NOAA.

His group’s findings — due to be published soon in Geophysical Research Letters — forecast not only that much of the oil spewed at great depth will break up into small particles that quickly become neutrally buoyant, but also that the breakdown of oil by microbes will proceed very slowly. The bugs will eventually eat the hydrocarbons, but temperature can dictate how quickly they scarf oil down. “It’s analogous to leaving a sandwich on the counter versus putting it in the refrigerator,” Halberg says.

The NOAA-Princeton team’s computer analyses also suggest why deep-sea plumes can hang around for months or longer. Currents at great depths, two-thirds of a mile below the surface, move far more slowly than those near shorelines or the surface. So don’t expect deep hydrocarbon plumes to swoosh rapidly out into the Atlantic, Hallberg says. They’re more likely to slosh back and forth with the tides and in response to local eddies. Indeed, his group’s modeling data suggest “they will stay very much confined — within, say, about 100 kilometers of the spill site.”

He predicts that if the Woods Hole team resurveyed the plume site three to nine months from now, it would likely still find much of the oil there. By then, microbes may be dining on the hydrocarbons in earnest, locally drawing down oxygen levels. In the deep ocean, Hallberg notes, oxygen isn’t replenished quickly, so any losses tend to accumulate over time. "According to our simulations, these [very low oxygen] areas will be peaking in October," he says, potentially making some portions of the northern Gulf inhospitable to sea life.

The Woods Hole team wouldn’t speculate about how much of BP’s oil and methane has ended up in the plume they measured, or how many similar plumes might be snaking along the Gulf’s seafloor. But an August 17 report by the University of Georgia in Athens and Georgia Sea Grant attempts just that. The Georgia analysis estimates that between 70 and 79 percent of the BP oil is still in the water.

A panel of experts convened by the Georgia team calculated what share of subsurface BP oil has likely degraded and now estimates it could be just “8 percent of the total oil released into the water.”

Oil that has resisted dispersion and evaporation likely will “remain potentially harmful for decades,” MacDonald said at the congressional hearing, adding: “I expect the hydrocarbon imprint of the BP discharge will be detectable in the marine environment for the rest of my life.”

* * * * *

Why cannot politicians be truthful?

PipeTobacco

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Quick List

It has been a day, not good, nor bad. Just a day. A day filled with lots of little things. Here is a list:

1. Awoke at 5:00am.

2. Walked again for the 701 st day in a row.

3. Worked on a bee hive (Actually it may be a hornet's nest or some other such social insect. It is not the typical honeybee.) that has invaded a portion of the eaves on one corner of my home. I have been working at getting the damn insects out and plugging up all sorts of creavices they may get into for the past 3 days.

4. Went to the U's gym to lift weights (to try to build upper body strength). This is so I can look like this fellow... Paul Teuetl. I am joking, but I would like to build my upper body strength to be able to successfully do 10 chin-ups in a row.

5. Got into my office at the U at 8:30. Did some work for the start of the semester next week and some reading for my research.

6. Left the U around 1 pm.

7. Went to a framing shop and ordered 5 special mattes to be cut for some art my wife and I wish to hang in the home. I can successfully cut matte board for smaller prints, but these are too large for my abilities.

8. Bought some mulch for around the bushes etc around the house.

9. Bought some wall anchors so I may be able to hang the art when I get the mattes back.

10. Worked on repairing one of the railings going up to the second floor in our home.

11. Packed up dinner and ate at a park with the family.

That is the basic rundown of the day.

PipeTobacco

Dose and Repeat

This is an essay that I posted about a week ago, but did not receive any comments. I am editing it a bit and posting it again as a Saturday essay of one that I liked but thought was perhaps overlooked. If this goes over well, I may do that regularly on Saturdays with essays I liked or found valuable but they were overlooked:

An interesting question was posed to me a few days ago by a student. He asked me how I had decided to become a biologist. I gave him a general, very typical (although accurate at a certain level) sort of answer. I stated that I became a biologist because I wanted to study life, and I was curious about living things in a scientific way.

Yet, there is a whole aspect of personality and psychology that I believe shapes how a person becomes. I have been thinking about all the various "jobs/careers" I had strongly desired over the years, and really all of them all point in a way to what I have become in my life... even though at first glance it may seem each of the different choices for career are incongruent:



1. Used/New Car Salesman (from the age of four till ten) - This is the first sort of job I told my parents I wanted to be when I was young. I have always been fascinated with mechanical things, but especially automobiles. I could tell various automobiles apart very easily as a very small child of four. I thought being a salesman of automobiles would be one of the most fun and amazing jobs as a kid.



2. Bus Driver, or better yet, Manager of a Bus Terminal (from the age of four to seven) - Accompanying my love of automobiles was my fascination with busses. City busses, school busses - it didn't really matter. The thought of driving a bus was very appealing to me, but even more so was what I guess could be thought of as a "manager" of a bus terminal. I learned numbers and how to write numbers at a very early age, and I remember writing in a small memo book between the ages of 4-6 the numbers of all the busses I would see. It was a bit of an obsession with me. I carried the little memo pad everywhere, and when I would see a bus, I would have to find some identifying number for the bus and write it down.



3. Archeologist (ages 6 - 13) - I used to read all sorts of books about the far flung travels and adventures of various archologists as a kid, and watched programs on television about them as well. My passion for archeology was a strong driving force for me to travel all around the county where I grew up looking for fossils, remnants of bone, or remnants of various earlier people who may have been in the same area hundreds of years before. I and my friends (who I convinced we would find amazing treasures) used to spend hours digging holes all around our neighborhood, and later, I became more "wise and sophisticated" and realized ditches that had been dug had done most of the hard work for me, and I would trapse around and in ditches everywhere I would go, looking for anything of interest.



4. Tobacconist (ages 8 - 25 and sporadically as a daydream ever since) - My dad, a venerate pipe smoker, would plan regular trips to two or three of the various tobacco shops in our area to look at and buy pipes, pipe tobacco, cigars, matches, etc. I always enjoyed those times where I was able to tag along with him. The atmosphere and warmth and camaraderie I always felt when I was in those shops with my father were very appealing and inviting to me. The aromas, the genteel demeanor of most of the workers and patrons of the store, and the homey, inviting nature of the place made it seem like a great time. I had always been fascinated with my father's pipes... looking at their shape, and sizes, and textures, and found watching him smoke his pipe fascinating.



5. High School Teacher (ages 10 - 15) - I began to see some very real joys in a life of teaching as I made my way through school. Not only was my father a teacher, but I found I really looked up to my teachers (and my father) in a way much different from other people in other careers. I did not really realize it then, but I think what I admired was the aspect of "service" being a teacher entails. For the most part, teachers strive to make the world a better places, and while there are other careers that also do that, this was the career I regularly observed that "striving to do good things" as a career. My wanting to be a high school teacher faded early in high school... not because of any loss in respect for my teachers, but because I saw how obnoxious many of my fellow classmates could be in high school and I resented that the teachers had to devote so much of their time to discipline instead of teaching.



6. Scientist (age 10 and up) - As I stated above, I loved machinery (cars especially, but damn near anything mechanical). I quickly realized I liked virtually anything having to do with any aspect of science. In my younger years I especially enjoyed things related to engineering, physics, and chemistry. But by the time I had gotten into my teens, I was more fascinated with biology and psychology.



7. Professor (age 15 and up) - when I quit wanting to be a high school teacher, I becamse more aware of the role of a college professor. It seemed wonderful... I could teach and do research.



8. Writer (age 17 and up) - a few times in college I thought of chaning my major or having a dual major in English as well as in biology. And, there were several times when I thought a career in writing would be very appealing. Yet, the instability of the stereotypical life of a writer (think most writers, or even some of the greats... Hemingway for example) was a bit too nerve-wraking for my tastes. I craved (and still crave) stability and consistency.



9. Medical Doctor (age 17-18) - a large array of the adults in my life at this age were suggesting and encouraging me to become a medical doctor... as it was considered a pinnacle of sorts in careers, and my interest in science and biology would make me a good candidate for getting into medical schools. Yet, even though I very briefly toyed with the idea during my Freshman year in college, I knew in my heart and in my mind that it was a horrible, wretched, and completely wrong choice for me. The responsibilities for other's lives, and the weight of those responsibilites on the mind and shoulders of a doctor would be horrid to have. And, while I believe most good medical doctors develop a jaded edge to these responsibilites in order to survive and strive as a medical doctor, I do not think my own personality is well suited to developing that "jaded edge" that is a sort of protective mechanism for those in the career. So, I was forutnate enough to know that though I loved the science of medicine, practicing medicine was not something I would find physiologically or psychologically healthy for me.



10. What I Am - I am a professor, and in reality, the job is far more than my earlier impressions of the career. It really embodies ALL nine of the above career choices to one extent or another. But this post is already long. So, I shall leave the discussion on how I am ALL Of the above for another day (if there is interest).

PipeTobacco

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Day 700




Today is the 700th day in a ROW that I have walked and/or jogged 4-5 miles each and every day. I am pretty damn impressed! Not because walking and/or jogging 4-5 miles is all that amazing a feat... I am impressed because of the consistency I have shown in doing this. To me, consistency is something I VERY HIGHLY value, probably because I find consistency often very difficult to *do*. That is what impresses me...that I have been so consistent.

In the above image, in case it is not easily readable, it says:

"Knowing harmony is consistency. Knowing consistency is enlightenment."
- Tao Te Ching

PipeTobacco

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Illusions and Pipe Dreams



We have taken to watching most of the television shows we watch via tape. We do not watch a huge amount of television (perhaps 1-2 hours an evening), so I end up taping the shows we potentially are interested in viewing on the VCR and we typically watch them a week or so later.

Last night, we watched the season finale of "Work of Art." This show is on Bravo, and is a competition reality show about a selected group of 14 artists who compete in various artistic challenges to be selected as the winner of the challenge and eventually the winner of the season.

This show is my favorite show on television. I am exceptionally enamored with art and artistic pursuits. I find people who devote their live's career to art to be fascinating as well. The winner was a fellow named Abdi (a photograph of his work is what is shown at the top of this essay). Two other finalists, Pearigrin and Miles were also featured and also had exceptionally impressive art.

Why do I find art and artists so interesting? Some of it is probably envy. In some way I always have had an idealized dream of being a true artist. Yes, I have talked about the art of science in other essays, and there can be artistic beauty in anyone's work... but I have always found the people who feel compelled to create art to be fascinating... be it in fiction writing, sculpture, photography, or any of the various other forms of traditional "art."

At various times in my life I have dabbled in one form of art or the other... but while I enjoy creating art, I do not seem to posess the stamina or the willingness to make it a life-long pursuit. In many ways, I wish I did. Yet, it appears to be only another of may pipe dreams I have.

One final side note... if my parent's were alive, today they would be celebrating their 64th wedding anniversary. Perhaps they are in heaven celebrating... I hope so.

PipeTobacco

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Dog Dead Tired

It was a long day today and I am dog dead tired. I wish I had something creative or remotely interesting to say, but I do not. I did a lot of work at the U, and then had a family gathering to attend in the early afternoon at FRA.

PipeTobacco

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Muscles

A very interesting article about muscle growth in Science News:

Muscles Remember Past Glory : Extra Nuclei Produced by Training Survive Disuse

By Tina Hesman Saey

Muscles hold memories of their former fitness in nuclei (green, shown on muscle fiber) that help the muscle bounce back to fitness when training begins after a period of inactivity.Courtesy of J.C. Bruusgaard/University of OsloPumping up is easier for people who have been buff before, and now scientists think they know why —muscles retain a memory of their former fitness even as they wither from lack of use.

That memory is stored as DNA-containing nuclei, which proliferate when a muscle is exercised. Contrary to previous thinking, those nuclei aren’t lost when muscles atrophy, researchers report online August 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The extra nuclei form a type of muscle memory that allows the muscle to bounce back quickly when retrained.

The findings suggest that exercise early in life could help fend off frailness in the elderly, and also raise questions about how long doping athletes should be banned from competition, says study leader Kristian Gundersen, a physiologist at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Muscle cells are huge, Gundersen says. And because the cells are so big, more than one nucleus is needed to supply the DNA templates for making large amounts of the proteins that give muscle its strength. Previous research has demonstrated that with exercise, muscle cells get even bigger by merging with stem cells called satellite cells, which are nestled between muscle fiber cells. Researchers had previously thought that when muscles atrophy, the extra nuclei are killed by a cell death program called apoptosis.

In the new study, Gundersen’s team simulated the effect of working out by making a muscle that helps lift the toes work harder in mice. As the muscle worked, the number of nuclei increased, starting on day six. Over the course of 21 days, the hard-working muscle increased the number of nuclei in each fiber cell by about 54 percent. Starting on day nine, the muscle cells also started to plump up, adding an extra 35 percent to their volume. Those results indicate that the nuclei come first and muscle mass is added later.

In another set of experiments, the researchers worked the mice’s muscles for two weeks and then severed nerves leading to the muscle so the tissue would atrophy. As the muscle atrophied, the cells deflated to about 40 percent of their bulked-up volume, but the number of nuclei in the cells did not change.

These results contradict previous studies that show lots of cell death in muscles during atrophy. Gunderson’s team examined individual cells in the wasting muscles and found that there is apoptosis going on, but that other cells are dying, not the muscle fibers or their extra nuclei. The extra nuclei stick around for at least three months — a long time for a mouse, which lives a couple of years on average, Gundersen says.

“I don’t know if it lasts forever,” he says, “but it seems to be a very long-lasting effect.” Since the extra nuclei don’t die, they could be poised to make muscle proteins again, providing a type of muscle memory, he says.

“That’s fascinating thinking, and there’s nice proof in this article to support it,” says Bengt Saltin, a muscle physiologist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “It’s really novel and helps to explain descriptive findings that muscles are quick to respond upon further training.”

The study is likely to provoke strong reaction from some researchers, says Lawrence Schwartz, a cell biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“It does fly in the face of a lot of peer-reviewed, published data,” he says. But the selective death of just some of the nuclei in a muscle cell would require a special kind of apoptosis. “The conventional wisdom doesn’t make much sense from a cell and molecular perspective,” Schwartz says. Gunderson’s group has come up with an explanation that seems more plausible. “Their data just feels right.”

If the results hold up in people, sports agencies may want to reconsider how long they ban athletes suspended for taking steroids. Previous research has shown that testosterone boosts the number of nuclei in muscle cells beyond the amount produced by working out. “If you have nuclei that last forever, then you would also have an advantage that could last forever,” Gundersen says.

Well, maybe not exactly forever. As people age, their ability to build muscle mass declines. The new study suggests that pumping muscles full of nuclei early in life could help stave off muscle loss with age. “This could be an argument for mandatory physical training in schools,” Saltin says.

* * * * *

So very interesting.

PipeTobacco

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Electronics

I spent the day across town helping my inlaws route wires around for their cable television and in moving furniture for them as they had new windows installed in their family room.

PipeTobacco

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Emotions Run Deep



I ended up donating my parent's 1988 Buick LeSabre to charity today and its brought back all sorts of very sad emotions that I had thought I had worked through since my mother passed away in 2007. My father bought the vehicle new in 1988 and it was the last vehicle he purchased. He died in 1994 from cancer induced by asbestos. My mother kept the car and when her health started to fail in 2000, I began to drive her around exclusively in that vehicle. In 2002, with her health in a more fragile state, she moved in with my wife, me, and our kids.

It has been an enormous struggle for me and for my family to work through our loss of her, and it has been even more problematic because I have found it very difficult to change the house to any appreciable sense. It was about 1.5 years before I rearranged her bathroom and we began to use it again. It took about 2 years before I was able to go through her bedroom and make it into a room we use again and 2.5 years before I changed her sitting room into a library room of sorts.

One of the last big issues I had to try to figure out was what to do with her car. It was not in great condition, but it had so much sentimental value. Yet, it really was unwieldy for us to try to keep it along with our vehicles, especially because during the last 3.5 years, we drove it perhaps twice a year.

Part of what has happened in my family (probably due to my emotions and sense of loss) is that I have found it hard to throw things away or get rid of things... this has been going on for a long time, but especially so since 2007. I have been struggling with my wife's help to declutter our home, and to organize our lives so that instead of me always living in the past, and thinking about all the emotions I have about people who have passed away in my life... instead of that... I can be more focused on NOW, and seek to be more loving and present for my wife and my kids. I want to immerse myself in joyous, happy times with them, instead of feeling the pain and sorrows of all the emotions of loss and sadness I have been literally drowning in.

So, today I think was another, VERY BIG step for me... I could never wrap my mind around selling my parent's car. I felt guilty even thinking about it. Yet, it was an impediment to my striving to be a person living in the present, and towards my primary aspiration/goal of being as good and mentally present a father and husband as I can be for my family. I ended up donating the vehicle to my region's National Public Radio station. It seemed like a way to have the car end up doing something good that would be in keeping with how my parent's raised me. I am hopeful that what I did in donating the vehicle honors them and is something they would approve of for me to do.

I had originally planned to try to donate the vehicle in mid-May, but kept hemming and hawing, mostly out of feelings of sadness and hesitation. It took me until last week to make the actual call to get the donation process rolling, and I kept working through my emotions... telling myself that I was doing this to help make my family's life better, that I was donating the vehicle to try to help others, and that I was really doing something that my parent's would approve of. Still, I felt like I had gone through a wringer of emotions.

Yet, I knew I really could not keep the car... I could not successfully store it any longer, the cost of keeping insurance on the vehicle was a financial burden for a vehicle driven only twice a year, and even though it hurt like hell emotionally, I *knew* mentally that I *needed* to give up the vehicle so that I could grow in the way I wanted to for my family.

When the people came to take the vehicle this morning, I was taking pictures of all different views of the vehicle as it sat in my driveway. I had tears rolling down my cheeks, and probably looked like an utter fool to the fellows who came to get the car. But, I *did* donate it, and I *did* watch it drive away this morning. I admit I still feel very sad, but I also know I did an important thing... another step to help me be a better father and husband to my family.

I think I will go and visit my elderly father-in-law this afternoon. I think that may help elevate my emotions a bit. I hope so.

PipeTobacco

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What I Wanted to Be



An interesting question was posed to me a few days ago by a student. He asked me how I had decided to become a biologist. I gave him a general, very typical (although accurate at a certain level) sort of answer. I stated that I became a biologist because I wanted to study life, and I was curious about living things in a scientific way.

Yet, there is a whole aspect of personality and psychology that I believe shapes how a person becomes. I have been thinking about all the various "jobs/careers" I had strongly desired over the years, and really all of them all point in a way to what I have become in my life... even though at first glance it may seem each of the different choices for career are incongruent:

1. Used/New Car Salesman (from the age of four till ten) - This is the first sort of job I told my parents I wanted to be when I was young. I have always been fascinated with mechanical things, but especially automobiles. I could tell various automobiles apart very easily as a very small child of four. I thought being a salesman of automobiles would be one of the most fun and amazing jobs as a kid.

2. Bus Driver, or better yet, Manager of a Bus Terminal (from the age of four to seven) - Accompanying my love of automobiles was my fascination with busses. City busses, school busses - it didn't really matter. The thought of driving a bus was very appealing to me, but even more so was what I guess could be thought of as a "manager" of a bus terminal. I learned numbers and how to write numbers at a very early age, and I remember writing in a small memo book between the ages of 4-6 the numbers of all the busses I would see. It was a bit of an obsession with me. I carried the little memo pad everywhere, and when I would see a bus, I would have to find some identifying number for the bus and write it down.

3. Archeologist (ages 6 - 13) - I used to read all sorts of books about the far flung travels and adventures of various archologists as a kid, and watched programs on television about them as well. My passion for archeology was a strong driving force for me to travel all around the county where I grew up looking for fossils, remnants of bone, or remnants of various earlier people who may have been in the same area hundreds of years before. I and my friends (who I convinced we would find amazing treasures) used to spend hours digging holes all around our neighborhood, and later, I became more "wise and sophisticated" and realized ditches that had been dug had done most of the hard work for me, and I would trapse around and in ditches everywhere I would go, looking for anything of interest.

4. Tobacconist (ages 8 - 25 and sporadically as a daydream ever since) - My dad, a venerate pipe smoker, would plan regular trips to two or three of the various tobacco shops in our area to look at and buy pipes, pipe tobacco, cigars, matches, etc. I always enjoyed those times where I was able to tag along with him. The atmosphere and warmth and camaraderie I always felt when I was in those shops with my father were very appealing and inviting to me. The aromas, the genteel demeanor of most of the workers and patrons of the store, and the homey, inviting nature of the place made it seem like a great time. I had always been fascinated with my father's pipes... looking at their shape, and sizes, and textures, and found watching him smoke his pipe fascinating.

5. High School Teacher (ages 10 - 15) - I began to see some very real joys in a life of teaching as I made my way through school. Not only was my father a teacher, but I found I really looked up to my teachers (and my father) in a way much different from other people in other careers. I did not really realize it then, but I think what I admired was the aspect of "service" being a teacher entails. For the most part, teachers strive to make the world a better places, and while there are other careers that also do that, this was the career I regularly observed that "striving to do good things" as a career. My wanting to be a high school teacher faded early in high school... not because of any loss in respect for my teachers, but because I saw how obnoxious many of my fellow classmates could be in high school and I resented that the teachers had to devote so much of their time to discipline instead of teaching.

6. Scientist (age 10 and up) - As I stated above, I loved machinery (cars especially, but damn near anything mechanical). I quickly realized I liked virtually anything having to do with any aspect of science. In my younger years I especially enjoyed things related to engineering, physics, and chemistry. But by the time I had gotten into my teens, I was more fascinated with biology and psychology.

7. Professor (age 15 and up) - when I quit wanting to be a high school teacher, I becamse more aware of the role of a college professor. It seemed wonderful... I could teach and do research.

8. Writer (age 17 and up) - a few times in college I thought of chaning my major or having a dual major in English as well as in biology. And, there were several times when I thought a career in writing would be very appealing. Yet, the instability of the stereotypical life of a writer (think most writers, or even some of the greats... Hemingway for example) was a bit too nerve-wraking for my tastes. I craved (and still crave) stability and consistency.

9. Medical Doctor (age 17-18) - a large array of the adults in my life at this age were suggesting and encouraging me to become a medical doctor... as it was considered a pinnacle of sorts in careers, and my interest in science and biology would make me a good candidate for getting into medical schools. Yet, even though I very briefly toyed with the idea during my Freshman year in college, I knew in my heart and in my mind that it was a horrible, wretched, and completely wrong choice for me. The responsibilities for other's lives, and the weight of those responsibilites on the mind and shoulders of a doctor would be horrid to have. And, while I believe most good medical doctors develop a jaded edge to these responsibilites in order to survive and strive as a medical doctor, I do not think my own personality is well suited to developing that "jaded edge" that is a sort of protective mechanism for those in the career. So, I was forutnate enough to know that though I loved the science of medicine, practicing medicine was not something I would find physiologically or psychologically healthy for me.

10. What I Am - I am a professor, and in reality, the job is far more than my earlier impressions of the career. It really embodies ALL nine of the above career choices to one extent or another. But this post is already long. So, I shall leave the discussion on how I am ALL Of the above for another day (if there is interest).

PipeTobacco

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Old Habits and/or Pipe Dream



My wife and I both played hookey from our work today and spent the day together. We enjoyed each other's physical company, and then we went driving around to a few different places, and ended up at the local bookstore & coffee house. It felt good. It felt special.

Old habits about work die hard. Both of us had a few moments where concern about work crept in, but we both worked to push them aside. These casual times togehter are something we both want to implement on a weekly basis. It will be hard to not let the tendrils of work infiltrate our time together. Yet, both of us felt so much more whole after today that I think we are both willing to put up a good fight to push back work to a more managable and more suitable level in our lives.

I just hope this goal is not a pipe dream.

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The Mosaic of Life



Yesterday was a very hard day emotionally. I think Jane (who commented on yesterday’s post) was correct in that I did *know* why I was feeling so down, but I was unsure how to fix or ameliorate the emotions. What had happened started on Sunday, and it involved changes in plans, and discussions with my wife. My wife was not in a happy mood on Sunday. My goal on Sunday in dealing with my wife’s mood was to not become angry, but instead to try to talk through the emotions with her. I did this, but it was exhausting, and it left me feeling isolated, lonely, misunderstood, and perhaps most importantly, without a plan, without a notion of what to do in terms of tasks, goals, and efforts. When I do not feel my wife and I are on the same page, it easily leads to me feeling all out of sorts.

Fortunately, yesterday, after I arrived home from work, my wife and I talked a bit more, and then (I think this is the key) we worked together on some of the goals we have had all Summer. In this particular instance, we worked together to clean out the cabinet and the closet for our Master Bathroom upstairs. It was a daunting task as we had let the storage areas go for a number of years. But we persevered and worked together as a team and both felt very good about it afterward. Our bathroom is now efficiently organized, and it will be a time saver for both of us in many ways... the weekly cleaning, knowing what we have and what we need to restock, and simply being able to get ready in the morning. This organization will give us more time to be able to spend together as a couple and as a family, and this made me feel wonderful. After completing this task together, I felt aligned mentally and emotionally with my wife, and I felt we were both working at something we mutually wanted... to find more time for us, and more time for our family... and is part of the bigger goal I have been trying to have us focus on all summer... to have our jobs be de-emphasized... not that we do not want to do them... but that we want them to be in the proper perspective... they are a single slice of who we are, not the all consuming aspect of our lives that runs and governs everything else we do.

What I am trying to do and what I have been trying to get my wife on board about to is something that I call "Family First". Simply stated, I want both of us to make our work lives something that we enjoy and are not controlled by. Both she and I have felt during the last few years that we are akin to fragile kites, being buffeted about by the winds that are our work. It has felt like work responsibilities and tasks have grown enormously in the last few years for both of us. In my case, it has been about trying to do everything and being a "superhuman professor" while I am at the U. For my wife, her tasks and responsibilities have been mostly about "being a team player, and getting people to like her". Neither approach is particularly fruitful nor is either approach giving us the happiness we both crave. But it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks, and so both of us are struggling with figuring out how to work AT work the way we want.

The way I am trying to reform myself at work is as follows:

1. Set very specific, attainable goals for each day, and to STOP having as an overarching mantra in my head... "I will work, and work until I get it done."

2. I will work very hard to isolate myself from the day-to-day idle chit-chat that is so rampant in my Department... it eats away enormously at the time I need to do my preparation for teaching, conduct my research, and give my service.

3. I will strive to not allow myself to get caught up in the middle of argumentative people and/or groups on campus who are fighting and arguing to change things. Often the heart of the matter is that too damn many people on my campus are TOO DAMN polarized and are unwilling to compromise. I am a good mediator and good at finding compromises... but I am sick and tired of devoting the huge amount of time and emotional energy to get people around here to compromise. It may be for the good of the U when I do this sort of work, but it sure as hell isn’t good for my own individual and family happiness.

4. I will not let other people’s crises usurp my time nor my schedule. Whether it is a student crying in my office because he/she is failing my course (because he/she did not study), or if it is a faculty member or administrator trying to feel me out on an issue, I will be rigid in my own time line and my own goals.

For my wife the goals are along the same vein, but specific to her line of work:

1. Setting attainable goals where she can feel a sense of accomplishment each day and not feel like she "never gets anything done".

2. Not getting involved in the griping sessions and gossip that are so rampant where she works.

3. Not trying to be a push-over and bending over backwards to "get people to like her".

4. Putting us first and family first.

It is so strange how something as mundane as cleaning out a few drawers and a bathroom closet had the ability to make me feel tremendously better about my life and my lot, but it did. I felt connected to my wife, I felt connected to my family, and I felt my wife and I were both on the same page in regards to our goals and aspirations.

So, what had started out as a truly "lemon" sort of day became lemonade instead. I went to bed last evening feeling content and happy. With the added bonus of my wife allowing me to service her, I slept beautifully and awoke refreshed this morning.

PipeTobacco

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All Out of Sorts

Not a helluva lot to post today. I am feeling emotionally all out of sorts. I feel like curling up and hiding away the whole day. I would probably sleep if I were to do that. I feel sad, angry, and hopeless. About what, you say? I wish I knew. I also wish I knew how to make the emotions dissipate.

PipeTobacco

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Friday Lawn Service



Not feeling in a particularly "professorial" mood this morning (meaning... I did not feel like going to the U), I decided to stay home during the morning and focus on yard work. After a few hours of toil in the yard (and after my 5:30 am walk (day 6 ) I felt good, showered, shaved my neck, and went to the U to do some "power organizing"... my way of getting crap off my desk that has accumulated in a clutter for too long. After that, I did a few things in my research lab... cleaned a bit, washed some dishes, organized a schedule for my research students for next week, and made some cultures.

Now, I think I will head out and visit my elderly father-in-law and try to enjoy the afternoon.

PipeTobacco

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Tomato



Instead of my usual Thursday drive to the cemetary to leave a flower at my mother and father's grave site, scheduling issues in my family necessitated our switching our routines for Wednesday and Thursday. So, yesterday I went to visit my parent's grave.

As I wrote earlier this week, I had been thinking about my mother a great deal, especially after seeing the local farm offering their first giant tomatoes of the season. My mother loved these tomatoes and every year would cut thick slices to put on toasted, coarse-grained bread with Miracle Whip Salad Dressing and pepper. She so enjoyed these sandwiches, and during this time of year when I could get her these wonderful, locally grown tomatoes, she would sometimes eat them for both lunch and dinner.

I did take one of these beautiful tomatoes out to my mom's grave site yesterday. It was late afternoon when I arrived. I placed my usual rose as well as the tomato on the headstone, and sat down and talked to (with?) both of my parents for the better part of an hour.

In the talk, I tried to tell them about the highlights of the past week with the other members of my family, and I asked them to both help me in whatever way they could as I tried to be a better father, husband, son, and sibling. I also told them that I hope I am showing that I do try to be a good, kind, generous, and gentle person in my life, and that I try to be a hard worker, both at my job but also in my community. I ended my conversation with them stating that I hope my efforts in life are one's they both could be proud of, and that I love them both and miss them terribly. I also asked them (as I always do) to please consider if they could find a way to do so, to speak to me at least in my dreams while I am sleeping.

I then drove back across town towards home.

PipeTobacco

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Sometimes the Obvious...



In this interesting article published in Science News on Friday, July 16th, 2010, studies suggest that some people have a gene that will lead them to drink more heavily when in a group drinking setting than when alone.

Now, at least for me, this seems to be so damn obvious that at first glance it seems like a foolish thing to study. In my own mind, I am much more interested and finding enjoyment in drinking when I am around people I know who are also indulging. But, then again, I gess there are solitary drinkers, so who knows.

DNA Variant May Make Heavy Boozing a Team Sport : Carriers Imbibed More Around Hard-Drinking Partners

Here’s some not-so-sobering news for party people, barhoppers and clubgoers. Individuals who inherit a particular gene variant that tweaks the brain’s reward system are especially likely to drink a lot of alcohol in the company of heavy-boozing peers.

That’s the preliminary indication of a new study directed by psychology graduate student Helle Larsen of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Adults carrying at least one copy of a long version of the dopamine D4 receptor gene, dubbed DRD4, imbibed substantially more alcohol around a heavy-drinking peer than did others who lacked that gene variant, Larsen’s group reports in a paper published online July 7 in Psychological Science.

“Carriers of the long gene may be more attuned to, and influenced by, another person’s heavy drinking than noncarriers are,” Larsen says.

Her study provides the first evidence that a gene influences human alcohol use in social situations.

Scientists have yet to decipher the precise brain effects of DRD4’s long form. Larsen hypothesizes that in the presence of heavy drinkers, the gene variant may increase dopamine activity in brain areas that amplify alcohol’s appeal as a rewarding social activity.

“If this gene-environment interaction stands, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t, there is every reason to expect the effect would extend to drugs besides alcohol, as well to many motivated pursuits,” remarks biopsychologist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who was not involved with the new study.

Sociologist Michael Shanahan of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill lauds the new study for ruling out the possibility that carriers of the key gene simply like to drink a lot of booze and tend to do so with other heavy drinkers. Instead, alcohol use jumped among volunteers with a long DRD4 gene who happened to see a stranger imbibe heavily for a brief time.

Larsen and her colleagues asked 60 women and 53 men to evaluate advertisements for an alcohol-abuse prevention campaign. Each volunteer entered a room that had been furnished as a typical Dutch pub, accompanied by a person of the same sex who the volunteer thought was another participant but who was actually working with the researchers.

In between two 10-minute evaluation sessions, volunteers and the researchers’ confederates were given a break. An experimenter asked them to sit at a bar stocked with peanuts, beer, wine, soda and mineral water and to drink whatever they wanted.

As instructed, confederates took the initiative and drank either two sodas, one alcoholic drink and then one soda; or three alcoholic drinks for women and four alcoholic drinks for men over a 30-minute period.

DNA analyses of saliva identified 31 volunteers as carriers of the long DRD4 gene, which contains an amino acid sequence that repeats seven times.

When confederates stuck to sodas or drank one alcoholic beverage, long-gene carriers and noncarriers alike limited themselves to an average of less than half a glass of wine or half a bottle of beer.

When confederates quaffed multiple alcoholic drinks, carriers of the gene variant consumed an average of almost two wine or beer servings, versus almost one serving for noncarriers.

These results held for men and women, all of whom said they drink socially, regardless of how much alcohol they reported drinking weekly.

Deceptive research techniques can backfire if volunteers see through them and don’t admit it to researchers (SN: 6/20/98, p. 394). But when interviewed after testing, none of the participants guessed the study’s real aim or the confederate’s agenda.

Other researchers need to confirm these findings, Larsen says. Some attempts to replicate findings from other studies of gene-environment interactions have yielded mixed results, including follow-up work on a study by researchers from Duke University in Durham, N.C., that found that another gene variant promotes depression in people who experience stress.

* * * * *

Still, an intersting article. I must be more like what this article says.

PipeTobacco

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Thoughts On Living



Sometimes I feel very lonely at work. Not alone... hell, I get more people trapsing to my office and lab door than I can stand most days. But I do feel lonely. What I mean is that I had always envisioned my career as a Professor to be one of exploration, guiding, and discovery. And, it has at times over the years been very much like that. However, for the last 5-6 years, this has not been the case.

Since perhaps 2005 or so, work has become mostly a pressure cooker of activity where we are in a time of extensive growth in our majors, so much so that we as a faculty are stretched beyond normal capacity. Additionally, our physical spaces are literally bursting at the seams from over use and over activity. And, of course the last few years have seen a nosedive in the economy, so our budget has been whittled down as well.

All of these pressures have made people more touchy, cranky, and aggitated than they had been before in my Department. I know that *I* personally do not feel particularly appreciated for the work that I do and strive to do damn well. I know others in my Department feel the same way. And, yet, instead of banding together as a tighter knit "family" of sorts, we grouse and grumble at each other more as well.

It is simply a disappointing situation. I know I am powerless to change others, so for me to find happiness in this current environment, I need to change myself. Yet, at the moment I am unclear on how to do this. I want to feel appreciated, I want to feel appreciating... and I want to be able to explore and discover again... and help others to see that beauty as well.

PipeTobacco

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Monday Meanderings



Just trying to keep my mind uncluttered with thoughts as much as possible. I am trying to clean out the basement which has become overrun with "stuff".

On my way home from the U, I drove by the farm where I used to buy my mother a variety of fresh, farm-grown tomatoes. She loved to eat tomato sandwiches from them. I miss her, and I miss being able to see the happiness in her eyes when I would bring them home. I am thinking I may buy a beautiful tomato and leave it along with the flower I bring every week when I visit her gravesite. I do not know if I should, but something inside me wants to do that.

That will be on Thursday, so I have some time to contemplate the idea.

PipeTobacco