The Arc National Convention 2009, or, Why I braved TSA, butt numbness, a brisk run from concourse C to A and rain-soaked luggage

Last night Charlotte and I took a stroll around the house. "Stand up... come on, stand up," I cheerily urged her on. She stood up on her own, but nervously whined for me with outstretched arms. With me behind her holding on to her little hands, she took slow and deliberate steps, her tiny naked toes pressing down firmly, her tiny feet pronating slightly but still sturdy and sure. Oh, these moments, I thought. Mom helping child. Child feeling safe in mom's steady hands. She could walk on her own, but she either gets scared or she simply just doesn't care to try. If she only knew that she doesn't really need me... she could take off, untethered, unaided, unhindered.




But, I ask, what glory is there in not needing someone? :) ~Need needn't be a negative!~

*****

Charlotte was born with Down syndrome. Her first few weeks were spent in NICU while she recovered from what would be the first of many procedures. During that time, I pondered what changes this would bring to my life, to our family, and how her life would be different from that of the typical child I had been expecting. I didn't spend more than a few days grieving that theoretical “typical” child because it only took a few days to realize what a truly special person Charlotte already was, and was destined to become.

That was over two years ago, and I can honestly say that this beautiful girl has left nothing but happiness and changed lives in her enormous wake. She doesn't walk, or talk much yet. She doesn't do a lot of the things a typical 2 year old does. She does different things. Not better, not worse... different. And, more importantly, she doesn't let that trouble her. As long as someone can help her.

Now obviously, we don't want Princess Charlotte to be carried around forever. She will have to learn to do some things on her own eventually. But for the rest of her life Charlotte will need a little assistance. Her outstretched arms won't always indicate "help me walk" but it's fairly certain that Charlotte will always need, in some way or another, the assistance and kindness of people.

So, that's not really any different for the rest of us. We all need interdependence in some way. Why would we want to give up this gift of needing others? Being dependent does not negate one's creativity, competence, or individuality. It certainly doesn't negate worth. In fact, in many ways, being dependent only strengthens all these things. It gives us a model for human civility and it gives us confidence to face our challenges. We all have limitations and it's only when we acknowledge and accept our need for interdependence that we can really know ourselves.

So, it is with pride that I carry out the role of one of Charlotte's helpers and with honor that I pursue ways to help Charlotte achieve whatever she wants. I'll be in Pittsburgh this week for the Arc's National Convention where I will learn how I can guide Charlotte, and others like her, to be as creative, as individual, and as competent as I know she is.

Charlotte's little feet may not be carrying her places yet, but her sweetness gets her wherever she wants to go!

More of this and that

Some cool blogs:

Typo of the day for Librarians -- saving the world by pointing out common typos by relating them topics including science, medicine, history, current events etc.

Fluro* (for Flourescent, Flourine, etc.)
On December 19, 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law a bill banning the incandescent light bulb in the United States by 2014. This century-old workhorse is being replaced by its newer, greener counterpart, the compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb.

Babel's Dawn -- a blog about the origins of speech.

Me Tarzan. — You Jane. Could anybody have ever really talked in that super-simple manner?
Most syntacticians (I believe) still hold the view that syntax must have come as an all or nothing package, a proposition I consider an evolutionary absurdity.

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No bathroom breaks on this evolutionary journey

Ok, you know it's cool:

These oogly little creatures that we'd rather not have as guests actually have lots of guests of their own. They play host to some waste-product-lovin' microbes and the relationship is so efficient that cockroaches have no need for potty breaks. One needs the other as much as the other needs the one. Ahh, symbiosis.

"To survive in hostile environments, cockroaches rely on their own vermin: Blattabacterium, a microbe that hitched a ride inside roaches 140 million years ago, and hasn’t left since.

Researchers who sequenced the Blattabacterium genome have found that it converts waste into molecules necessary for a roach to survive. Every cockroach is a testimony to the power of recycling — thanks to their microbes, they don’t even need to pee."

Wired Science: Cockroach Superpower No. 42: They Don't Need to Pee

Flu, Ew, and Flu

A bit of mish mash.


Funny:

Swine flu provides foolproof excuse for slackers

Sick students or paranoid professors?
But the biggest temptation for faking swine flu might lurk on college campuses, many of which have been hit hard by the H1N1 virus.... nearly 40,000 cases have been reported since August. ...

“Students can e-mail their professors whenever and say, ‘I’m too sick to come in, and I don’t need a doctor’s note, and there’s nothing you can say about it.’”

At Texas A&M University, the student health center was so overwhelmed by sick students seeking excuses that health workers there composed an all-purpose student excuse form and posted it online, no signature required.

For educators ... it can be frustrating to have to take a student's excuse at face value. “Several students, they’ve gone three or four class periods without coming to class, and they‘ll come back and say, ‘Oh, I had swine flu.’ And I don’t know how to handle that,” Jackson says. “I’m basically being told to believe everybody.” But to really pull off the excuse of swine flu, which tends to linger, students would have to miss a week's worth of classes, which, some students realize, is really more trouble than it's worth."

Just skimming through the article, I first thought it was funny in the way ridiculously stupid minor injustices are funny. I thought, hmm, I've already admitted to being injected with 60 micrograms of antigen (four times the effective dose required to develop immunity) so if I make the above claim then you know whatever's going on that dictates I skip class is too embarrassing to tell the truth.

But when I re-read it this part in particular gave me pause...

“Last week I pulled the swine flu card to get out of a blind date,” says Ellie, a 21-year-old student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

The swine flu card? Ugh. I am sure the thousands of people who have had the flu and the families of the 43 children that have died from it so far wouldn't find "pulling the swine flu card" to be funny in the slightest, especially since that card was stacked against them.

Still, an interesting article on human nature.

_______________________________________________

Name that pink stuff!

Could it be:

a) ice cream
b) that denture glue stuff
c) meat
d) hint: it's c

Yepper depper. Mechanically separated chicken that ends up being hot dogs. Mmm. Now, I tried for about 10 minutes but couldn't confirm the origin of the photo. I saw t his through a FB post that linked to a blog so it's anyone's guess, but I reckon it could be true even if it is being piped into a cardboard box, which seems very odd -- I want to believe that's what it is because otherwise it probably isn't very funny.

Which leads me to...

_____________________________________________

Many thanks to DC today who warned me about the impending platypus flu pandemic (though apparently this is old news)

Platypus Flu Outbreak Info:

(Crotch Lake, Ontario Canada) In yet another outbreak of the maddening platypus flu, the Center for Disease Control has issued an alert warning health care providers to be on the look out for any new outbreaks of the influenza. Shown here Anita Lay displays some of the characteristic symptoms of the strange disease. While the disease ultimately leads to dementia, loss of memory, and end in apparen t brain death, one the initial symptoms include bugged out “crazy eyes”. In addition, patients will continuously attempt to make their lips look like those of a platypus, which gave the disease it’s cruel name platypus flu.

In the usual quiet town of Crotch Lake many parents are heard warning their children “If you don’t watch it, your face is going to freeze like that forever.” Platypus flu is limited to adolescent and pre-teen children, usual

ly appearing as early as 8 or as late as 17. While patients may already be suffering the later stages of the flu at 18, there have been no new outbreaks in patients older than 18 years. One of the difficulties in early diagnosis of platypus fever, as it is also called, is that the symptoms resemble so closely to children just “horsing around.” Typically the only way accurately rule out just plain old tom foolery is a Magnetic Resonance Image of the cranium, or as parents have always referred to it, “getting you head checked out.”

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Koramchad

_______________________________________________

And I just had to add one more, because you people just don't laugh enough! :-D

We think we're done with the flu... and other stuff

Charlotte has been quite sickly lately. The poor lass has had 104 fevers, has been coughing, sneezing, shivering, trembling, fussing, crying, and feeling just generally miserable. I'm 99% sure it's the flu, and since about 95% of the flu that's being circulated right now is H1N1, then we're fairly sure that's what she had. It has definitely struck our little town, with numerous kids out of the elementary school (some from A's classroom in fact) and with the middle and high schools having significant numbers absent as well. We've also come into contact with some other people who reported back as having it a few days after we saw them... so... that's what we're figuring.

I won't say 100% though until I see how it spreads amongst our family.

*Ugh, as of Monday she's still sick. Doc says could be a few more days still.

Anyway, here's how Charlotte does sick-time:


I did manage to get a smile out of her for this shot but it was the only time she smiled in about a 48 hour period!

A few days before:______

Daddio/Grandad with the sproutlings. They were making hats for him and forcing him to play the MASH game, while he demonstrated how to use fancy-dress suspenders. Yeah, I don't know.

______

Madison and Andrew playing in the water... during the rain. I guess it falls under the whole "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."


Andrew filling up his hat with water.

Now putting water-filled hat on.

Thumbs up for Hat 'O Water.

AP Report re: tracking for side effects of H1N1 Vax

Article

Swine flu shot: Intense tracking for side effects

By LAURAN NEERGAARD (AP) – 6 days ago

WASHINGTON — More than 3,000 people a day have a heart attack. If you're one of them the day after your swine flu shot, will you worry the vaccine was to blame and not the more likely culprit, all those burgers and fries?

The government is starting an unprecedented system to track possible side effects as mass flu vaccinations begin next month. The idea is to detect any rare but real problems quickly, and explain the inevitable coincidences that are sure to cause some false alarms.

"Every day, bad things happen to people. When you vaccinate a lot of people in a short period of time, some of those things are going to happen to some people by chance alone," said Dr. Daniel Salmon, a vaccine safety specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Health authorities hope to vaccinate well over half the population in just a few months against swine flu, which doctors call the 2009 H1N1 strain. That would be a feat. No more than 100 million Americans usually get vaccinated against regular winter flu, and never in such a short period.

How many will race for the vaccine depends partly on confidence in its safety. The last mass inoculations against a different swine flu, in 1976, were marred by reports of a rare paralyzing condition, Guillain-Barre syndrome.

"The recurring question is, 'How do we know it's safe?'" said Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic.

Enter the intense new monitoring. On top of routine vaccine tracking, there are these government-sponsored projects:

_Harvard Medical School scientists are linking large insurance databases that cover up to 50 million people with vaccination registries around the country for real-time checks of whether people see a doctor in the weeks after a flu shot and why. The huge numbers make it possible to quickly compare rates of complaints among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, said the project leader, Dr. Richard Platt, Harvard's population medicine chief.

_Johns Hopkins University will direct e-mails to at least 100,000 vaccine recipients to track how they're feeling, including the smaller complaints that wouldn't prompt a doctor visit. If anything seems connected, researchers can call to follow up with detailed questions.

_The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing take-home cards that tell vaccine recipients how to report any suspected side effects to the nation's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting system.

"We don't have any reason to expect any unusual problems with this vaccine," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of Hopkins' Institute for Vaccine Safety, who is directing the e-mail surveillance.

After all, the new H1N1 vaccine is a mere recipe change from the regular winter flu shot that's been used for decades in hundreds of millions of people without serious problems. Nor have there been any red flags in the few thousand people given test doses in studies to determine the right H1N1 dose. They've gotten the same sore arms and occasional headache or fever that's par for a winter flu shot.

But because this H1N1 flu targets the young more than the old, this may be the year that unprecedented numbers of children and pregnant women are vaccinated.

Then there's the glare of the Internet — where someone merely declaring on Facebook that he's sure the shot did harm could cause a wave of similar reports. Health authorities will have to tell quickly if there really do seem to be more cases of a particular health problem than usual.

So the CDC is racing to compile a list of what's normal: 25,000 heart attacks every week; 14,000 to 19,000 miscarriages every week; 300 severe allergic reactions called anaphylaxis every week.

Any spike would mean fast checking to see if the vaccine really seems to increase risk and by how much, so health officials could issue appropriate warnings.

Very rare side effects by definition could come to light only after large-scale inoculations begin — making this the year scientists may finally learn if flu vaccine truly is linked to Guillain-Barre, an often reversible but sometimes fatal paralysis. It's believed to strike between 1 and 2 of every 100,000 people. It often occurs right after another infection, such as food poisoning or even influenza.

But the vaccine concern stems from 1976, when 500 cases were reported among the 45 million people vaccinated against that year's swine flu. Scientists never could prove if the vaccine really caused the extra risk. The CDC maintains that if the regular winter flu vaccine is related, the risk is no more than a single case per million vaccinated.

So the question becomes, Is the risk of disease greater than that?

Mayo's Poland cites a study in Chicago that found the rate of preschoolers being hospitalized for the new H1N1 flu last spring was 2 1/2 times higher than that possible Guillain-Barre risk.

However the flu season turns out, the extra vaccine tracking promises a lasting impact.

"Part of what we hope is that it will teach us something about how to monitor the safety of all medical products quickly," said Harvard's Platt.

On the Net:

• CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/H1N1FLU/

For Dad -- "A Glorius Dawn" (Cosmos tribute)

This video has been making the blog rounds I see and I am dutifully perpetuating it -- though I first heard about it on NPR.


Long ago, a very young and intellectually curious kind of guy, my dad, introduced a very, very young me to the poetic wisdom of Carl Sagan.

And then Carl Sagan introduced me to the realm of space and time that expands out as far as the mind is capable, and then some. It is with profound fondness that I recall watching Cosmos with Dad in the living room of our home in a then still fledgling Trussville, Alabama. Our house was new, part of a neighborhood of only a handful of houses, flanked by woods on nearly all sides. So on cool spring nights, Dad and I could be found stretched out on the back deck atop the aluminum chaise-lounge chairs with the woven vinyl piping stuff, enjoying the unfettered view of the night theater. It was the first time I recall that heady feeling of my mind "stretching" and it was because of Carl Sagan and these nights of sky watching that I became addicted to curiosity itself.

I distinctly remember these Saganisms like "I believe our future depends on the how well we understand this cosmos, in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky."

How well I remember that first time I pondered the "simplest thought like the concept of the number one..." (and of course, that moment when I realized that not everyone's number one was like mine) and taking that singular one and turning into a googol. I was struck with both wonder and horror when I realized that "World" could in theory, be little more than what fits on that speck of dust floating in the morning sky. Because after all, the brain has its own language, testing the structure and consistency of the world, because the brain does more than just recollect, it generates abstractions... and in my astonishingly young mind, I suddenly found myself wondering...is my whole world just an abstraction???

As many universes as there are grains of sand on all the beaches, and all that. That's very heady stuff for a five year old (was I really only five?). And I'd lie if I said all this deep thinkin' didn't produce some fairly frightening nightmares. Recurrent ones, actually. Recurrent dreams of lying in my bed in a room with no roof, vulnerable to the unfathomable darkness and infinity of the universe. To be fair, there was also that pesky one about the volcano in the backyard forcing me to lock all my stuffed animals in the bathroom before speeding away in my aunt's hideous purple Ford Galaxie. Interesting. Was it really a Galaxie?

Anyway, there ya go. It's no wonder I have a fondness for dear Carl. He was one of my first teachers, I guess you could say. And so it follows that I always put Dad and Carl Sagan together in my mind. So, I thought of you, Dad, when I saw this.

And since that show first sparked my curiosity "billions and billions" of tv shows ago, I have learned, and am learning still, that there are indeed as many worlds as grains of sand -- within our own world, each within another world, within that one, and so on. And it reminds me that, as the late great Wonderer said:

"A still more glorius dawn awaits, not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise. A morning filled with 400 billion suns. The rising of the milky way..."



Yeah so I've been very girly about all this and cried through it almost every time I've watched it. I think it's because it takes me back to a time when I was that child filled with wide-eyed wonder, with the whole world spread out before me, full of endless possibilities. I thank my dad for having the foresight to make sure we watched this show, and for taking to time to talk to me about it afterward. Life has finally brought me back to that place of wide-eyed wonder, and I know without question that the world really is full of endless possibilities.

(and it has just occurred to me -- I may have figured out the reason why I totally dig guys who wear turtlenecks and blazers! ♥)

CAP flight to Albertville

CAP flight from BHM to Albertville

____________________________

The Pilot. Meezter Harvey

The Antagonist. Also the photographer (except in this case)

_____________

The rest of the photos are leeetle, because it was taking too long to upload. But you can click on any for big view. Muchas gracias for visiting today.

Always. ;) He's so Chuck Norris, man!

This tie-down bears the Anthony Harper seal of approval, I would think.

Pre-flight check. See, the idea here is to appear busy (by say, taking photographs) so you won't be asked to help.

Check.

Check.

Actually, I was surprised Harvey let me have a headset at all. Usually about halfway through the flight, he's telling someone to yank out my headset wires. Don't even know why! :)

East Lake.

Property. Dodge City, AL.

Property.

Property.

Temporary set-up. And guess what... this is from 3000 ft. with a not-even-very-powerful zoom lens. So yeah, I can see you when you sunbathe nude, people.

Wallace State College, Hanceville, AL.
Hardly any of these are in good focus -- hard to hold the winder open and click the camera at the same time, ya know.

Hay, bales of.

Cattle around a pond.

Chicken houses. A give-away that you are flying over north central Alabama.

Final approach.

Short final. The best landing ever, Harvster. Almost as good as my three solo landings!!

I love the patterns you see from the air that can't be seen from the ground.

Ok, so I thought I had uploaded lots more of the cool pattern photos. Apparently not.

Inland Lake.

______________________

Ok, tell me what you think. And to all you old fossil Luddites (you know who you are!): yes, you can figure it out. Click on "comment"

H1N1 Vaccines

From Just the Vax:

They have put together a super report on the H1N1 Vaccines that have been approved. Please go see the entire post because it's a good-un! They follow up with some information about Guillain-Barre that is interesting.

________________



MedImmune's Monovalent H1N1 FluMist:
Description: FluMist is a live, attenuated vaccine administered intranasally manufactured on the same platform as their seasonal trivalent vaccine, FluMist. Each pre-filled sprayer is a single 0.2 mL dose that contains 10^6.5-7.5 FFU of the live attenuated influenza virus reassortant of the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus: A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v, 0.188 mg/dose monosodium glutamate, 2.00 mg/dose hydrolyzed porcine gelatin, 2.42 mg/dose arginine, 13.68 mg/dose sucrose, 2.26 mg/dose dibasic potassium phosphate, 0.96 mg/dose monobasic potassium phosphate, and 0.015 mcg/mL gentamicin sulfate. The vaccine contains no preservatives.

CSL Limited's Monovalent H1N1 Injectable:
Description: The 2009 Monovalent H1N1 Vaccine is an inactivated split-virion vaccine manufactured on the same platform as their seasonal trivalent vaccine, Afluria. CSL H1N1 vaccine is prepared from influenza virus propagated in the allantoic fluid of embryonated chicken eggs. It is formulated to contain 15 mcg HA per 0.5 mL dose of influenza A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v-like virus, contains 4.1 mg sodium chloride, 80 mcg monobasic sodium phosphate, 300 mcg dibasic sodium phosphate, 20 mcg monobasic potassium phosphate, 20 mcg potassium chloride, and 1.5 mcg calcium chloride. From the manufacturing process, each dose may also contain residual amounts of ≤ 10 ppm sodium taurodeoxycholate, ≤ 1 mcg ovalbumin, ≤ 0.2 picograms [pg] neomycin sulfate, ≤ 0.03 pg polymyxin B, and <25>Indications and Usage: CSL H1N1 Monovalent Vaccine is indicated for adults 18 years of age and older against influenza disease caused by pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus. Adults 18 years of age and older should receive a single 0.5 mL intramuscular dose.

Novartis' Monovalent H1N1 Injectable:
Description: The 2009 Monovalent H1N1 Vaccine is an inactivated sub-unit vaccine manufactured on the same platform as their seasonal trivalent vaccine, Fluvirin. Novartis H1N1 vaccine is a sub-unit (purified surface antigen) influenza virus vaccine prepared from virus propagated in the allantoic cavity of embryonated hens’ eggs inoculated with a specific type of influenza virus suspension containing neomycin and polymyxin. It is formulated to contain 15 mcg hemagglutinin (HA) per 0.5-mL dose of the following virus strain: A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v-like virus. Each dose from the multidose vial or from the prefilled syringe may also contain residual amounts of egg proteins (≤ 1 mcg ovalbumin), ≤ 3.75 mcg polymyxin, ≤ 2.5 mcg neomycin, ≤ 0.5 mcg betapropiolactone and ≤0.015% w/v (weight/volume) nonylphenol ethoxylate. It is available in 0.5 mL single-dose, pre-filled syringes and contains trace amount of thimerosal (≤ 1 mcg mercury per 0.5-mL dose) left over from manufacturing. It is also available in 5 mL multi-dose vials containing ten doses. Thimerosal (an ethylmercury derivative), is added as a preservative and each 0.5 mL dose contains 25 mcg (micrograms) of ethylmercury.

Sanofi Pasteur's Monovalent H1N1 Injectable: The 2009 Monovalent H1N1 Vaccine is an inactivated split-virus vaccine manufactured on the same platform as their seasonal trivalent vaccine, Fluzone. Sanofi Pasteur H1N1 vaccine is prepared from influenza viruses propagated in embryonated chicken eggs. The virus-containing allantoic fluid is harvested and inactivated with formaldehyde. It is formulated to contain 15 mcg hemagglutinin (HA) of influenza A/California/07/2009 (H1N1) v-like virus per 0.5 mL dose. 0.05% Gelatin is added as a stabilizer. Each 0.5 mL dose may contain residual amounts of ≤100 mcg formaldehyde, ≤0.02% polyethylene glycol p-isooctylphenyl ether, and ≤2.0% sucrose. It is available in 0.25 mL or 0.5 mL single-dose, pre-filled syringes, single dose 0.5 mL vials and contains no preservative (thimerosal). It is also available in 5 mL multi-dose vials containing ten doses. Thimerosal (an ethylmercury derivative), is added as a preservative and each 0.5 mL dose contains 25 mcg (micrograms) of ethylmercury.

Various topics for the day

I've stopped working on my tediously-emotional post titled "The One Year Anniversary of my Death" in order to bring you some amusing and some interesting snippets from around the blogworld. Maybe I can manage to finish the aforementioned in time to rename it "The Second Year Anniversary of my Death"

Here ya go:

Think you're a Libertarian? Or maybe starting to lean over the fence a bit? Here are some signs you might not be a Libertarian. The post is funny, but the real entertainment can be found in the comments.

"We often think of scientific ideas, such as Darwin's theory of evolution, as fixed notions that are accepted as finished. In fact, Darwin's On the Origin of Species evolved over the course of several editions he wrote, edited, and updated during his lifetime." Someone has built an impressive graphic representing how Darwin's work was edited over the 13 years since the first publication. Interesting.

And lastly but most importantly:
If you are convinced that government is out to depopulate via vaccines, , or that you can avoid the swine flu by popping Vit D, or that the H1N1 vaccine is a completely new and deceptively toxic formulation and will be jabbed into people's arms before it has been duly tested, then don't bother reading this article. But if you were curious about the vaccine manufacturing process, and like fact-based reports, then you will learn a lot from Science-Based Medicine's blog post. Also check out this one.

A great way to spend a weekend...

______________________

...is to spend it with lots of cute boys:

Andrew preparing to target practice

Isaac smushed in the middle of the Scout, about to go adventuring down the hill.

Alex practicing with the baby bow.


And this guy. :)


And that guy. :)

And this guy. (?)

And that guy too (Sorry, Harvey, no photo available!)

I'd love to now include a poem about Alabama weather but I can't think what rhymes with "pleasantly unpredictable."

Fall is approaching and I've been struck with a new obsession so I have been feeling the wide-eyed anticipation for bow season to begin. But first, some preparation is necessary. I should insert here that Harvey is positively super in the way he can accept and accommodate last-minute change of plans in stride.

This weekend we invited friends to come spend the day at the property.
It was beautiful weather for trudging through the woods or just basking in the sunshine. Some sat around enjoying the uncharacteristically cool breeze, some did target practice, and others of us spent the day hacking through the tangles of blackberry briers in an effort to find last year's trails, and ended up making news ones altogether. And in the end we may have come back with at least one busted lip, some aching muscles (thanks to the bushwacker thing we fondly call Agent Orange!) some bruises and lots of evidence of having lost a battle or two with the briars, but man has indeed triumphed over nature in the short term, and there are a few trails cut. More to be done though.

Annie Oakley getting ready to practice with the BB gun.

Is it just me, or does this tree look like it's about to tip over on all those under it?

Riding down the steep trail to the valley. Photo doesn't tell how steep it is. Going to look for evidence of deer activity.
DEER! We did expect to find tracks around here where water overflows from the creek and so of course we did. Next weekend: more hacking through blackberry and construction of a stand! :)

We all went back up to the top and while the boys played with the BB and pellet guns...

(it is only a BB gun, people --and no one killed anything that day but few tin cans -- so please don't bother to write flaming comments) ...for the rest of the day, some cut trails, some shot, some rode horses, some walked the road around the property. I shot the compound bow up until I popped my arm and left myself with a thump-ripe hematoma -- which I wear like a badge of honor since all good (ok, all bad-on-the-way-to-good) archers have to go through that.
We found an awesome paper wasp nest under a rock overhang, and then later we finished up with later with a big pot of spaghetti. Thanks everyone for a great weekend!

Not hornets, but we still gave way.

(And one more gratuitous shot of the, uh, horses of course. :)

The Town Hall Meeting; aka The Giant Straw Man Convention

From the Representative's website:

CONGRESSMAN BACHUS SAYS TOWN HALL WAS AMERICA AT ITS FINEST

WASHINGTON – Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL-6) today thanked citizens in the 6th District for their participation in his Town Hall on Health Care.
A crowd estimated at two-thousand people filled the Cahaba Grand Conference Center in Birmingham during the meeting on Monday.
Congressman Bachus made the following remarks.
"The Town Hall was American democracy at its finest and I hope the spirit of fairness displayed will serve as a model for the nation. People on both sides of the issue spoke with passion, but were treated with respect and civility by a large crowd. I am opposed to a government takeover of health care because it will lead to rationing, reduce quality, and raise costs. But the meeting raised areas where we can find common ground, including making private insurance more affordable and accessible, curbing fraud and waste, and making sure illegal immigrants don’t participate in any taxpayer-funded program. I want to personally thank the two-thousand people we estimate were in the room, as well as hundreds of others who wanted to attend. Your participation is vital and by speaking up you have already made a difference."

********************
Well, okay, there are some things about this press release that are true. There were indeed over 2000 people in attendance. It was an amazing turnout. We arrived 30 minutes before the doors opened to find the line already wrapped around the complex all the way to the back. The seats filled quickly and many, like me, sat cross-legged on the floor between the stage and the front row or between aisles while others stood wherever space could be found. As anyone who is familiar with central Alabama might guess, the crowd was maybe 95% white, comprised of mostly professionals (we saw many attorneys and doctors -- and I was thrilled to see my favorite history professor, now retired). While in line, it was interesting to listen in while groups of men in company polos and khakis conducted frat-boy type posturing, each in turn giving his generalized projection for the future state of affairs. Now and then a sign-bearer would slowly stroll by, saying nothing but hoping someone would read their message. Close behind would follow a card-bearer in flowing skirt and sport sandals or a bearded and braided man donning some t-shirt message about constitutional rights, passing out web addresses for their grassroots organization. It was the most civil demonstration I've ever witnessed.

And sure, the Town Hall Meeting is American democracy at its best. However, I wouldn't say that this town hall was democracy at its best. This was a rally, plain and simple. Still, it was comparatively civil. But, this is Alabama -- people don't get real fired up unless you insult their mama or their Jesus, or try to take away their gun rights. Well, and as we will see, the topic of illegal immigrants.

I do agree the main themes of the night were as he stated, "making private insurance more affordable and accessible, curbing fraud and waste, and making sure illegal immigrants don’t participate in any taxpayer-funded program." In fact, they seemed to be the only themes -- with emphasis on the last. And unfortunately, anyone that wished to introduce anything other than those three topics was quickly boo'ed. The problem with the three themes is that they all had to do with changing the system that's in place now, not about how these ideas would be addressed in the bill.

Now, I am not a Republican, but I can respect this man and was honestly impressed with Rep. Bachus's ability to diffuse anger. But mostly I was impressed by how craftily he developed a straw man in response to questions, particularly those made by proponents of this bill, so large and blatant you could just sense the fire danger. Quite impressive skill there, I must say. And although I know that comes across as sarcasm, I genuinely do admire good debate skills and he certainly does possess them.

And as the night went on, our flammable friend only got bigger. If the question had to do with the problems with the current insurance system, he'd throw up a chart representing how many of the uninsured are actually illegal aliens. In response to a multi-part question regarding how this bill will affect the elderly, the ballroom erupted in raucous applause when he shouted, "If you are here illegally, you don't get health benefits!" When someone asked whether this bill could be repealed in the case it is passed, he responded with more about illegal immigrants.

Ok. Can we burn this straw man down already? We get it: illegals bad. But it would seem Rep. Bachus would have us believe that if only we could change immigration law, we'd have a perfect health system. So, as in the case with other Town Halls across the country, it's clear this one didn't accomplished much of anything, other than to further underscore the divide between the two sides. Still, way to go District 6 for a relatively civil meeting rally.

Andrew's lizard that he sho... uh, I mean... found.

"Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story."

~The Tell-Tale Heart~

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Andrew spent some time up at the property in Dodge City, AL the last few days. He has been practicing his aim with his pellet/BB rifle, mostly at a hay bale target (can hit the bullseye from 75 feet away with the .177 and he's really not bad with a bow either!) but occasionally he aims for something a bit more, uh, moving.

The property is located roughly between Birmingham and Cullman, in the north central part of the state and represents what is truly great about Alabama: rugged, thick, unspoiled, pine-speckled deciduous forest home to all sorts of cool creatures. This bit of land is mainly comprised of a section of a valley, and a stream runs through it with the occasional waterfall. We've tracked deer and big cats, have seen turkey and owls and identified all sorts of snakes. Below you see Andrew pointing out bobcat tracks from a few months back.

But for now, we're going to talk about this unfortunate guy that Andrew shot out of a tree:

Now, with our little lizard friend there on the table, you can't get a full appreciation of Andrew's freakishly keen hunting skills so take a gander at the following photo:


This child has something like 20/5 vision which makes him both entertaining and scary at times. Truly.

He brought his little friend home and after he and Madison subjected the poor thing to the miniature world of Hasbro Land...


...and after denying my twisted sister knowledge of where I keep the invisible fishing line (thus preventing the youtube video of a "dancing" lizard that would have resulted) we instead prepared a surface for dissecting (a brown paper bag with a slab of clay on top). A few sewing pins and one Xacto blade later, we were ready.

First Andrew demonstrated bullet trajectory:

Then we pinned.

And no lizard dissection is considered proper until you've also pinned down the tail (according to Andrew). So pictured below is our lizard-friend pinned and already cut.


Andrew and Madison were very intrigued with the heart, since we three had just dissected a cow heart two days earlier. Alex walked by and stopped only long enough to point out that our friend has a three-chambered heart.

Alex actually provided us with a good bit of information about our cold-blooded friend, proving that he actually did learn something in 9th grade other than how to be an unruly adolescent. And actually, his presence proved quite helpful in other ways as well as he demonstrates here his skills at quieting Mr. Grumpy boy-child.



Speaking of hearts... and back to the lizard...

...we were all equally shocked when Madison suddenly let out a shrill cry and pointed to Lizards's three-chambered organ and noted that... (for best results, please use William Shatner voice when reading the following) ...it... was... still... beating.

"... hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! ... here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

So in reality, it ended up being a super science lesson, especially since they got to observe a beating heart.
Madison and Andrew were great students and as we probed around we were able to identify this lizard as "Miss" Lizzie. Andrew narrates:




After he thought about it, he decided it was best to not mention how he obtained his lizard. (too late now, right?)

So, here's "Andrew's Lizard / Take Two"

Be aware there will be some very loud "singing" towards the end from an opera-loving 2-year old.

And if all that wasn't strange enough for you, then I submit what is probably the strangest thing I have done lately... (at least in the last two weeks anyway)

...I sewed her up.

What do you think, Dad? Promises to be only minimal scarring, eh?

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BY THE WAY...



Lizzie is a sceloporus undulatus, a Fence Lizard.

Eastern fence lizards are found in grasslands, shrublands, and the edges of pine or hardwood forests. Eastern fence lizards live under wood piles, logs, and rocks where they can be protected during the evening hours. During daylight hours eastern fence lizards can be found basking in the same areas in which they rest: on fences, logs, rock, and tree trunks.

Eastern fence lizards eat primarily insects and other arthropods, including ants , beetles, weevils, lady bugs, spiders, and centipedes. They also sometimes eat snails . Some plant matter like cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and needlegrass (Caproni stipa) is sometimes consumed. Females tend to eat more insects during the spring months, in order to save energy for egg-laying. Lizards generally forage twice daily. (Behler, 1979; Johnson, 1966)

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Let us know how you like Andrew's Lizard that he sho.... er, uh, found on the ground.

Cellphone + microscope = Cellscope!

I don't always repost on the cool things I come across but this was worth it, even if KC and Harvey are the only ones that will really share my enthusiasm.

The folks at Fletcher Lab in Berkeley have fitted a light microscope to an ordinary cellphone. It can snap a photo of a specimen which can then be zipped off through the ethereal radio waves to a clinician for review. Great application for regions not served by hospitals or clinics.




"The CellScope project focuses on the development of a modular, high-magnification microscope attachment for cell phones. Due to its portability, affordability and functionality, the CellScope will enable health workers in remote areas to take high-resolution images of a patient's blood cells using the mobile phone's camera, and then transmit the photos to experts at medical centers. This device can reduce both the cost and time of performing critical disease diagnoses, as well as provide early warning of outbreaks in poverty-stricken regions in the world.

The CellScope team is developing a range of prototype lenses of varying lengths, giving either low or high magnification, depending on the lens and the application. The team envisions that the final product, after the optics are optimized, will be only a few inches long and weigh less than a pound. Already, they have successfully imaged malaria and tuberculosis (TB) using the CellScope system with image quality comparable to standard diagnostic microscopy. Their current focus is on developing applications to tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and monitoring. Over the next year the team plans to carry out a pilot field study in collaboration with partner and begin the revision of the CellScope based on field test data."

Visual-Spatial learning -- for KC

For KC

This is an excellent article on the differences between visual-spatial learner and auditory-spatial learner. I wish I had time to comment on it, and hopefully I can come back later and do that.

"Visual-spatial learners are individuals who think in images. They have multi-dimensional perception, which means that they can transform images in their mind’s eye, seeing them from many perspectives. It takes more time for visual-spatial learners to translate their mental pictures into words, and word retrieval may be problematic, so they usually have difficulty with timed situations. They learn all-at-once rather than step-by-step. Their learning takes place in great intuitive leaps, when, all of a sudden, they see the big picture. Since they do not learn sequentially, they are at a distinct disadvantage on class and state achievement tests that require them to show their work. They may have a poor sense of time, but a superb awareness of space. Deadlines may escape them. They learn best by understanding relationships, not by memorization. Complex concepts are easier for them to understand than simple, sequential skills. They may master calculus before their times tables. They are highly intuitive, but organizationally challenged. It is easy to see why these children suffer in school. They tend to be late bloomers, getting smarter as they get older."

...

"As I spent more time observing visual-spatial children, I realized that they saw the world differently, three-dimensionally. They saw through artists’ eyes, and some demonstrated artistic talent. Some were scientists and mathematicians, able to see the complex inter-relationships of systems. Some were computer junkies. Some were dancers, actors, musicians, imaginative writers. Some were highly emotional, extremely empathic. Some were spiritually aware and psychically attuned. Most were pattern-seekers and pattern-finders, excited with each new discovery. They pursued their interests passionately, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else. [;)Heh heh] They definitely marched to a different drummer."

...


"For thousands of years, school has been primarily dedicated to the education of the left hemisphere. Children enter school with more balance between their left and right hemispheres than when they graduate. They begin Kindergarten with a vivid imagination that expresses itself in their block play, their pretend games, and their dress-up corner. By first grade, they are taught that playing is something they do at recess in organized games, and school is where they work. Children with good phonemic awareness, who learn to read on schedule by the phonetic approach employed in most primary grades, are considered good students. Children who struggle with reading often develop poor self-esteem."

and

"As it is currently structured, school is an unfriendly place for visual-spatial learners, and they do not demonstrate their full potential during the school day. It is a much better match for auditory-sequential learners. But I predict that in the near future, schools will become more welcoming to visual-spatial students. Every day there are more and more computers in schools. At the college level, notes are taken on laptops, and homework is turned in and corrected via email."

Anyway, have a read. I'd love to read your thoughts, although I can already guess what you'll have to say! :) This just reinforces that your kids are so fortunate that you provide an environment that is conducive to their particular blend of learning style.

*I just realized this was also linked to the Gifted Development Center site so you may have already seen it.