Snowing snowing snowing...

It's a beautiful day to stay indoors!

I should be on campus by now, as my first class started 6 minutes ago. But, it's cold. -13 F, to be exact, and we're supposedly getting about 2"/hr of snowfall. Combined with some rare fog and our charming high winds, that means limited visibility, snow-packed highways, and trucks pulling other trucks out of ditches. This is the weather that gives my commute the reputation of most head-on collisions per mile in the state, although I don't honestly know if that's true. I have seen a couple every winter, though, and I sure haven't seen many anywhere else!

So my car can stay put a little while longer.

I hear it's not nearly as bad in Boulder right now, but I really hate driving during rush-hour when the weather's like this. Actually, 93 has one major advantage in bad weather: It's reputation scares all the non-local drivers away! So it's usually just other daily drivers who know how to drive in the snow and are in AWD cars with good snow tires.

Got to brave it sometime, though. Probably pretty soon, I think the winds are dying down...

Stem Cells- The Better of Two Bad Odds

It's one of those 'controversies' that makes me bang my head against the wall: Why are we NOT researching stem cells? This article does a great job at defining where embryonic stem-cells come from, although it shies away from emphasizing why they're important and instead notes that other companies have used adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be 'pluripotent,' meaning they are able to produce multiple kinds of cells within the tissue they are a part of, but embryonic cells are 'totipotent,' meaning they can turn into any kind of cell within the entire body. Also, stem cells in adult tissue are sparse, especially in the nervous system, leading to the origional beliefs that after a point your brain can't regenerate itself (not true! It just takes a damned long time because there are so few stem cells there). So, the idea is to take totipotent stem cells and make them pluripotent neuron stem cells, then inject a whole bunch of them into the area needing to regenerate. Since adult stem cells do not replicate themselves- when they divide they create one stem cell and one differentiated cell- it's a lot harder to produce more of them. There are just so many things we might be able to successfully treat that we can't imagine another treatment for- like spinal cord injuries- using stem cells.

The only real medical concern I've heard voiced (although I'm sure there are many more that I haven't heard yet) is in regards to cancer. A leading theory on cancer is that it origionates as a mutation in the stem line of the tissue, so increasing the number of stem cells in any type of tissue would increase the odds of a mutation occuring in one of them and thus increase the odds of getting cancer. Still, which would you rather have: the inability to use the lower half of your body and a nearly 50% chance of getting cancer (which is the going rate here in the U.S.), or greatly increased mobility and the potential for an increased risk of getting cancer, maybe something like 70%?

More research is needed, so let's fund it and get started catching up with Asia in terms of medical advances!

Friends and Men

I have this horrible habit of setting up all my single friends with people I've barely met, but luckily this madness stays safely tucked in my mind and spares my reality.

Classes are going. Cell will actually require that I read the textbook before and after lecture, mainly because I can't seem to follow the professor's train of thought and his power points are pretty useless. Bio of Cancer is awesome, and the professor's great. He's very... S. American. Jeans just tight enough to prove he has an ass, and the inability to pronounce "heritability." Chem and both of my labs seem like they won't be too different from in the past, although cell lab might be pretty interesting and will definitely take up more time than genetics lab did.

I've been riding a fun horse lately. He was nearly choked to death with a cribbing collar (which landed him here) but he clearly has a ton of nice training and he's a really lovely horse, two years and lots of horse cookies later. He's hard to get a bridle on, for obvious reasons, but under saddle he's a complete joy. Clearly trained through 1st level dressage, we'll see what else as he gets back into shape. We walked over some poles during out cool-out chill time yesterday and he perked up and picked up his feet like a pro. He just seems to thrive on mental stimulation- he tosses his head like crazy on the long side unless you ask him to extend or collect, or throw in a lot of 10 and 15 meter circles or practice counter-bending. Then he's golden. He hasn't been ridden much since he came, so I'm trying to go really slow- limited trot, mainly walking patterns and doing transitions, canter a half way around each direction just for the transition.

Good times.

New haircut!

I'm getting used to the 'sweeping bangs' and so far really enjoying the cut. Helmet hair, however, is significantly amplified with all these layers!

Skiing yesterday was a blast, as usual, in spite of high winds and below-freezing temperatures. No lift lines anywhere but the base, and smooth packed-powder on all the more protected runs. Anything above treeline or otherwise exposed was a sheet of ice, but that's really to be expected. Stephen had a mighty fine crash doing some moguls, making me very glad to have doctor's orders not to do any bumps! He had a line, then apparently saw another one he liked better and tried to get over, caught an edge, flipped around and smacked down face-first. Poor Stephen!

We may not know who the fellow on the right is, but it was a wonderful New Year's Eve spent amongst just about everyone I've ever known in Boulder (thank you, Catacombs, and your magnetic tug to people who worked at the bookstore, rode at my barn, went to Boulder High, and lived with me at the Farmhouse! You managed to wrangle quite a selection!)

Mostly December...

Lunch on Peak 9

Mike Graduated!!!
Next year he'll even get a swanky velvet hood! Which is totally the reason to finish grad school...

Driving Home from Denver- Hwy 58, near Coors

Cows in the Hay Field at the Horse Rescue

November- Hwy 93- The leaves still on!
No Halloween Snow- wtf???

Psychology Grad Students will FEAST UPON YOUR SOULS!

A Very-Merry Christmas

For the first time in several years, I'm thinking 4 or 5, we had a nice, casual, at-home Christmas with my family. After my head injury there were several holiday seasons with me not present, several with my sister and/or mother gone mad, and a couple with Gram sobbing on the balcony in St. Thomas. Mike usually flies to Houston just before Christmas to intercept his sister's visit with their parents- she lives in Tokyo and this is her long vacation to fly to America- and my family often goes to St. Thomas to celebrate with my mother's family.

This year, I asked Mike to stay for my birthday (Christmas Eve) and leave Christmas evening, so he could have the full holiday experience with my side. I asked my family to spend Christmas Eve helping me at the horse rescue as a birthday gift, and for a Christmas morning kringle and bacon feast like we had when we were kids.

I may have missed all the 'big' birthdays- 18, 21- thanks to PTSD etc, but 23 made up for it! We woke up and Mike brought in the gift from his family- a really, really nice orange Le Cruset (sp?) dutch oven that I've been drooling over for years! The moment we walk into my parents' house, they made Mike 'bacon master' based on their ironic sense of Jewish eating. I'd ordered a couple kringles since I knew I wouldn't have time to make them this year, so we ended up having bacon and kringle two mornings in a row. I think I gained 10 lbs! My mom and Katy made a cake and Gram and Alyssa came over to help us eat everything and play some charades.

At 3, we drove up to the rescue and I introduced the horses. Mike's horribley allergic, but he couldn't resist petting Princess, the obese mini, before heading home with Katy to play video games. My dad fell for Winston, who I want to adopt but think he'll find a better placement in the spring. He's just so friggin' cute, and has such a personality! My mom mixed grains (and accidentially gave everyone their morning suppliments, I knew I shouldn't leave her alone...) while my dad helped me throw hay. It was a balmy 25 degrees and my parents had dressed appropriately, but they still whined mildly about the cold. Seriously- it's been in the teens and snowing the past couple of weeks! But they don't usually spend a couple hours hauling feed through the snow... so the mud seemed awful.

Dinner at "George W Bush's favorite Chinese restaurant!" where you have to ask for chopsticks and they look at you funny when you do, but the food's pretty good and pretty cheap. All in all, a wonderful day with the people I love!

Christmas morning Mike and I drove back to Boulder for more kringle and bacon. Mike was shocked at all the gifts under the tree, and even more shocked that a good fraction were to him! With a big family, the numbers add up quickly, and I think he finally understands the massive shopping list each winter! Great t-shirts from the St. Thomas diving club (Kiersten), bizzare hats (Cindy and Pete), and picnic/car blankets from my parents were group highlights. Katy got a microphone for school and money for a keyboard when she gets back (no point in buying one here!) and I got coveralls and a possium wool sweater from Tasmania that's fatally soft! We got mom some bath stuff that she adored, and dad a tie and polo shirt with kangaroo logos that he can wear to AWWA 'casual' events or whatever. My mom 'casually' mentioned to Mike several times that if he decides to really become a part of the family he'll get in on even more gifts. No pressure, of course, but wouldn't he like to officially be my family...

I took Mike to the airport before dinner at Laurie and Alden's. They sold their farm and bought another, and are extremely excited about everything! Alden's sick of growing hay, so their new property will be pastures only, once they re-do the barn. The new owners of their farm are boarding their horses for as long as it takes to get everything done and keeping the boarders that are already there in return for Alden and Miguel, the barn hand, helping them figure out the details of the operation and what hay farming actually involves. Anyhow, it was a nice Christmas dinner after a glorious day.

Today, a long hike to begin re-shedding these pesky holiday pounds!