Hemex Health has released their Sickle Cell Disease diagnostic product (PDF brochure here). It is a big deal because it is inexpensive and fast (10 minutes) compared to previous methods of diagnosis. This product will save lives through early diagnosis. I was fortunate to develop some of the enabling technology for this product, for a brief period as a volunteer and later on as a contractor. Congratulations Peter, Patty and the whole team for this successful product release!
My brother-in-law, Tío Lauro, is a painter with a fairly large and growing body of work. He works in oils, acrylics, and etchings. Yesterday, he started up a blog: lauropedraza.art. His plan is not just to put show his art, but also talk about some of his previous works and what he was thinking and doing when created them. In addition to all this, he has in the middle of the creation of a different kind of art, the creation of an atelier that is uniquely his style. That atelier is located right next to Allende, Nuevo Leon, the pastoral and classically Mexican pubelo of his ancestors. He started with a very much rundown, but quite old home in a quiet area close to the river that is not quite in the country, but not really in the city either. The atelier is really taking shape–after getting some basic work and reshaping done on the house itself, he has been working mostly on the gardens for the last little while. I expect to see pictures of the atelier, life in Mexico, food, and music in addition to his always stellar art.
Lorena and I try to never miss any of President Trump’s press conferences on the Chinese Corona-virus. This seems to be a historic time not only in terms of this current plague, but with the feel of the times. It all seems very apocalyptic. God seems to be working in ways that might not be easily understood, but at the same time, it is not too difficult to believe the world is in dire need of a moral and ethical reset and God has done this many time before. I am reading in Isaiah and it is full of the kinds of admonishments that appear to be warranted in a time such as this. My hope in all this is that this will serve as a wake-up call for a society that is hedonistic and needs to be more reflective.
We are thankful to President trump that he takes US seriously enough that he is willing to give us daily, very personal updates.
The retirement PhD project is moving right along. We actually think we have stumbled onto something that might be important. We have had opportunity to work and reflect on what we are doing at a deeper level than might have been possible if we were still living life before the Chinese Corona-virus. We think it has paid off. Today we pretty much came to an agreement on what will be necessary to finish my PhD research. It is a good bit of work, but there is not too much science left because we have already done the heavy lifting in that regard. There is still the significant burden of the taking of classes, passing the prelims, and writing it all up, but that is just work, not invention. The graphs in the image are the result of our special insight. Now all we have to do is see if the NSF or some other funding agency buys into what we believe we have discovered!
Strange days. We listened to President Trump’s talk about the China corona-virus this afternoon and learned his advisers have recommended we stay in self-quarantine through the month of April. That is really fine with us on a micro level. Lorena and I enjoy being together in the house. I have my work and school. Lorena has plenty of cooking, painting, and cleaning projects she not only does, but enjoys doing. The kids seem OK, too. Both of them have their jobs, but are getting a little stir-crazy staying in their apartments, albeit their apartments are very nice. Still, life seems somewhat surreal. Tío Lauro, who always seems to have his finger on the zeitgeist, paints a self-portrait that really captures the spirit of the moment. We love his art.
My reading of the prophesies of Cyrus the Great in Isaiah 44 and 45 have heightened my sense that something monumental is in the works. Somewhere around 150 years before it happened, Isaiah prophesied of the liberation of Israel by Cyrus to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Isaiah actually used Cyrus’s name in the prophesy. The archaeological record appears to strongly back this up and even Josephus pipes in with confirmation of what was believed about the event in the first century. This seems to be one of those kinds of things. At the same time, my Aunt Fern (99 years old and going strong) talks about this very same feeling people had during World War II. This might be the same thing.
But maybe not.
I had a long talk with Andrew, my buddy and colleague from our Raleigh days, yesterday. It was really good to get caught up. We talked about many things, but Andrew made mention of my journaling habit. I thought about it a lot after the phone call. Journaling–blogging in this case–really helps me stay on track with things that I want to accomplish. The writing helps me refine my thoughts and consider things I would not have considered if I were not writing about it.
I need to stay organized on several things that might actually be of interest to a few people, but that would certainly be improved with some writing to give myself some direction. I have talked about this before, but now that I am into a couple of projects, I can talk about them in more detail. I do not want to try to do too much so I am going to try to focus on just three things. I have talked about #1 and #2 before, but have really just started getting into #3. The things I want to talk about, but in more detail are these:
I am doing this all for selfish reasons–it helps me stay organized and motivated. It also helps me decide if/when I am done or when it is no longer worth it. All good things.
I am currently fighting slovenliness as there is no end in sight to our self-quarantine. All our church meetings (Sunday morning, Wednesday Bible study, and Gospel meeting) have been cancelled. Everyone with whom I work at my day job in Boston works from home whenever they can which usually only leaves one or two people in the home office each day. Even at University of Nebraska, all classes are currently being delivered remotely. The UNL remote class thing might work well for me because it might allow me to take some of the required classes I need online as opposed to the current minimum on-campus component. The picture is my new online meeting, scruffy, work-from-home look. Lorena is in rebellion about this.
Kelly showed me yesterday the university where she works has the oldest epidemiology program in the entire world and they are focused very heavily on helping solve the Coronavirus problem. She does not have any special insights to what they are doing, but she is working near a lot of people who work on it. Maybe she will learn some things as we move through this period of upheaval.
The Chinese Coronavirus is cause for lots of reflection on a lot of things. One of those things is what people are saying about having to have their children home with them because the schools have closed for weeks and in one case (Kansas) for the rest of the school year. It is sad to me that people view this as a burden. I understand all the economic reasons why this is difficult and I have some empathy, in most cases, for that. But the idea that having ones children around is a burden is completely foreign to Lorena and I. Why even have kids if you do not want them around.
The corollary to the above issue is hearing that people do not feel equipped to teach their children and that a trained teacher is required to do that properly. That makes me crazy. The very thing that helped our kids to start to succeed is to get them away from “trained teachers” if what one means by that is teachers trained at teacher education programs in colleges and universities across the USA. My honest belief is that kind of thinking is both selfish and lazy.
Lorena took this picture this afternoon. A couple of days ago we woke up with a blanket of white on the ground. Really looking forward to seeing some leaves on the deciduous trees. With the Coronavirus lurking around every corner, it will be nice to have some sunshine to give us hope for summer and health.
Lorena and I did some (very minor) home improvement projects this weekend. We moved a sofa downstairs so Lorena can join me when I am down here working and we mounted Kelly’s and Christian’s diplomas to the wall in the upstairs main bedroom. The consist of:
We plan to add my diplomas here–all but the worthless one from my wasted time at the government high school in Newberg. God willing, Lorena will be able to add an Associate Degree pretty soon and I might finish my PhD in a few years. Maybe this will serve as inspriation.
It is a beautiful snowy day in Centralia. The view is from my office. Western Washington State is kind of a crazy place to be right now. The current count for the coronavirus for the state is 37 dead and 568 infected. Kelly and Christian in Baltimore and Boston, respectively, have both been instructed to work from home until things calm down a little. As for me, I have been asked not to visit our home office in the Boston area for the same reason. That does not change much for me. It is nice to be home with Lorena, but we get cabin fever with no one going to the store unless they really need something.
The situation does lend it self to allow me work on my PhD project and I am making good progress. Since things are moving forward nicely on the doctoral front and I have the time, I thought it might be nice to start writing again. I will try to write several times per week going forward. There are lots of changes taking place in the world right now and it will be nice to have a place to comment on those things, too.
Christian flew into Boston yesterday afternoon to look for apartments before he starts work at MIT next week. We went to California Pizza–the same place we went when we looked for an apartment in Tempe when he started his PhD at Arizona State University. After dinner, I gave him a tour of Thrive Bioscience where I work. He liked it a lot. The part he liked best was the instruments I showed him that we build. He designed one of the most important algorithms we use in the growing of stem cells. It was really nice for him to be able to see where his algorithm is being used. It is hard to overstate how import was his work in this development.
Christian has been home with us for the last several weeks, but now it looks like he fleeing the nest. Actually he has been paying his own way since he left for his PhD when he was 18, but now, it feels like he is gone for good. When he was in school, we could squint our eyes and semi-believe he was not gone even though he really was. Now though, he does not really need us hardly at all. We like to think our cheer leading is something (and it probably is), but he is truly on his own and making his own way now.
He is now a scientist in the very best meaning of that word at one of the most prestigious institutions of science in the world. It is, in our humble yet biased, opinion much more that just MIT. It is the part of MIT solely dedicated to research, unencumbered with training new young minds, in the very areas Christian studied. We feel somewhat melancholy, but also grateful and humbled that Christian has made it to this level.
He will leave next week and almost certainly never come back except for visits. That is a good thing, but we are in somewhat of a state of melancholy.
We went to my cousin, Tim Mecum’s memorial service last night. It was amazing. There were 100-150 people in attendance and we got to see a lot of people we had not seen for years. It was a fitting good-bye to a very sweet spirited man who played a significant role in our family when our kids were small. I hope I am remembered as fondly as Tim when my time comes.
We had some time before the service so we drove buy the home in North Albany where we lived for five years and that we remodeled more heavily than any home we have lived in. We were kind of expecting to see something small and run down, but were surprised. We STILL love the house and all the work we did. It was nice to remember some of the goodness we experienced there.
There are never too many deer to watch. We had three wander around the house for several hours this morning. Finishing up the contractor part of our bathroom remodels and heading off to a funeral for a few hours. We are saying good-bye to my cousin Tim who played a big role in our little family when the kids were in elementary school
Juquitita, our favorite restaurant in the area formerly had only one restaurant in Chehalis, but has added a second branch in downtown Centralia. When we came here, we were told by some that La Tarasca was authentic and good. In our opinion, La Tarasca is a mere shadow of the goodness and authenticity of Juquilita. Who ever had the idea that chips and salsa are not a real thing at restaurants in Mexico? We spent the last two weeks in Monterrey eating our free chips and salsa appetizers in a wide variety of restaurants in Nuevo Leon. When you get tacos at Juaquilita, make sure to get tortillas a mano (by hand) rather than de paquete. You will thank me later.
Everyone is back home from Mexico now. Kelly and I have already started work. Christian is waiting for administrative work to be completed so he can look for an apartment near his new job. Tomorrow, Lorena starts the last class she needs to graduate.
This trip had some challenges, but God has his hand in everything. Those challenges turned into time for discussion and reflection that would not have occurred if everything went smoothly. Out of that reflection and discussion came some ideas to explore about what we should do over the next few years.
The setting in Monterrey was just amazing. There was a very small amount of rain and otherwise spectacular weather. There is no city quite like Monterrey with its multiple mountain ranges around and through the city. The video above shows only a minor piece of the city and some of those mountains.
After several carnes asadas, we did note that it would be very nice to figure out how add a charcoal/mesquite grill to our patio. We are working on that now. There were other, bigger ideas that we are actually working on pretty hard that have to do with our home here in Washington and some possible opportunities in Monterrey and its environs.
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