News and Views

Gisele and I are spending next week in Ottawa, Canada.

I’m presenting at the annual meeting of “The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections” in Ottawa, Canada, on some databasing software I’ve developed in collaboration with ASU.

Should be a fun trip. The weather there looks nicer than here (about 75 degrees there vs. about 100 here).

Not me, but Gisele and Devon left last night for Taiwan. Devon will spend the summer there, studying Mandarin. Gisele will be there just 2 weeks.

I was thinking of going too, but Derek is going through finals and Apollo is wearing a “cone of shame”, so I have too many responsibilities here.

Here’s an interesting GoDaddy commercial. You may recognize one of the actors.

Golddigger from Jet Pictures on Vimeo.

Devon has decided to pursue graduate studies in Applied Physics at Cornell University, in Ithica, NY. Cornell is ranked 7th in the nation for Physics graduate programs (US News and World Report), so he could have done a lot worse.

He had originally applied for the PHD program in Physics, but later regretted it, feeling that the 6 or so years it would require were too much. When they offered him admission to the MS program instead, he jumped at it.

In the mean time, he has given notice at his job in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and is preparing to spend the summer in Taiwan intensively studying Chinese and having fun.

(Interesting note: Mom has traced our ancestry back to the Cornell family. We apparently are distant cousins, many times removed, of Ezra Cornell, the founder of the University.)

Apollo had a seizure again last night, the first one since October. The vet said that unless they happen more than once a month, nothing needs to be done.

I caught much of it on video and was going to post it here, but both Derek and Gisele were disturbed by the idea, so I won’t.

I have had Earthlink DSL for 10(?) years now. It was about the best I could get when I started, and over the years they have slowly increased the speed, from around 768 kbps (down) initially to about 2.5Mbps (320 kbps up) the last couple of years. However the price has stayed high ($50/month) and the speed is now relatively slow.

So I finally upgraded to cable (Cox). Wow — what a difference! I get 12Mbps down regularly, at times up to 20Mbps. Upload runs around 2Mbps, at times up to 3. And it costs slightly less than DSL at $47.

Maybe I can start streaming Netflix movies with reasonable quality now.

Here’s from a few minutes ago:

Devon is in Rochester, NY this weekend where he was invited by the Rochester University Institute of Optics.

This is one of the universities he applied to for Graduate Study. They accepted him, and he’s there now to review their offer.

The Institute, funded partly by the US Department of Energy, has one of the most powerful lasers in the world. Devon did most of his under-graduate work on high-energy lasers, and is interested in their programs. He has some other offers he will consider too, and it’s possible he will put off graduate school for a year in order to travel and be a young man.

Devon gave notice at his job in California as he prepares to take the summer off and decide his future.

This semester Derek has been training to be an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). As part of his training he worked a shift in the Emergency Room at Banner Desert Hospital (used to be Desert Samaritan) in Mesa.

It sounded very interesting, as he shadowed a certified EMT on his job, treating wounds, taking vitals, and working with Doctors and Nurses.

Most EMTs end up working either Emergency Rooms, or riding in Ambulances or Rescue Vehicles. The course ends in May, and at that time he may have to decide what sounds most interesting, or see what’s available.

Many EMTs eventually work up to Paramedic, Nurse or Physician. These are options for the future, but who knows?; this may just be a temporary side trip en route to another unrelated career. But it’s a good skill to fall back on if he needs it.

I still play basketball usually 4 times a week, and it happens that some of the regular players are physicians.

This morning I ran into someone’s elbow with my face (it really was my fault), and the edge of my glasses cut a long deep slit in my cheek. Blood was running down my face as I ran to the bathroom to get paper towels.

After I came out, huddled around me in conference to determine the best way to proceed were three physicians : an anesthesiologist, a gynecologist, and a general surgeon.

They all had their opinion, but in the end I went with the surgeon who put in three stitches. I’m going to have a black eye for a few days and probably a scar, but otherwise I’ll be fine.

I’ve had similar injuries before and usually just put on a butterfly and band aid, but this one seemed a little deeper, and it’s nice to have professional help when you need it.

Gisele’s sister Angela was in town, so we took her to the Grand Canyon. She had never been there, and we had not been there in the winter.

We went on Wednesday, and they had received over a foot of snow on Monday and Tuesday. It was enough time that the roads were all clear, but the snow had not started melting, and was still covering everything. It was beautiful.

There was a light snow falling most of the time we were there, but it was light enough that the roads stayed clear. It did reduce the visibility into the canyon much of the time, but it let up enough to see the river and north rim much of the time.

The snow reached about 1/3 of the way down to the river. The south rim is about 7000 feet, and the river about 2000, so it looked like it had melted below about 5000 feet or so.

Here are some pictures taken with my Droid. This first one shows the rim:

Here’s Gisele getting ready to take her own pictures. She unfortunately had to take her gloves off to press the shutter button.

And here’s Angela and Gisele. Notice the ice on the sidewalk behind. It had been spread with some kind of gravel so it wasn’t slippery in most places. But you still had to be careful. Slipping while standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon can make your heart skip a beat.