A while ago, David read The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment, which he found quite amusing. He also felt inspired to try our own set of experiments, so after setting some ground rules (nothing that puts all of the burden on the other person, etc), we started to come up with some ideas that might translate well to an experimental state. Our first attempt, in December, was to be better conversationalists: we had this whole plan, starting from not interrupting and working up to the Navajo pause—a few second wait after the speaker has finished, in case they want to add something—but we didn't get past the "not interrupting" stage. It turns out, being good conversationalists is really hard. Especially in a culture that seems to be doing away with complete thoughts.

January was supposed to be about the art of letter writing, the experiment coming in because we couldn't use electronic media to communicate: no cell phones, no email, no social software, etc. I'm referring to this in the past tense because the experiment was such a complete failure we called it off on the 10th. We may try again, at some point, but for now, we're preparing for tomorrow. And we need a lot of prep work.

February's experiment is to only speak Spanish to each other between the hours of 8am and 8pm. It's an experiment not just because talking in another language can be difficult, but because neither of us speaks Spanish. At all. We got by in Argentina with our half-forgotten, simplified Italian and the occasional Spanish greeting, but neither of us has ever studied the language (and we couldn't "cheat" by studying in January). So, in addition to trying to navigate conversations with family, friends, grocery clerks and what-not in English while remembering to speak Spanish to each other, we also have to learn Spanish. Eeee! I'm so excited!

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

Boise's long-time, active Basque population has a drink called a Kalimotxo. After you see the recipe you may know this cocktail by one of its many names or variations, such as Calimocho or Cuba Libre.

I have invented a variation called the Portimotxo:

1/2 glass of port wine (here the Kalimotxo uses red wine)
1/2 glass of cola
1 lime wedge

Mix these ingredients (in a glass of ice, if you like) and enjoy this very sweet, simple drink...oh, and happy holidays!

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some, the first post after a long gap should humbly explain, recall happenings and generally fill in the lost time. But, I'm just going to skip that part. While there are many charms to writing frequently, each post starts a timer to the next. While I like posting, the next post is a task. And, as time passes, the tasks pile into an unwieldy burden. So, rather than dwell on the posts I haven't written for the last year and a half in Boise, I'm going to just write about last Saturday evening.

When friends get together a few days after Thanksgiving to enjoy a pot-luck dinner, we call it Friendsgiving. It happened again this year. Towards the end of the evening, some friends, Leah and I sat comfortably behind our bellies and talked. The chaotic path of group conversation led me to recall a book I read in Pittsburgh a few years ago.

I shared a section of the book with the group about a particular parasite, which is widespread, but generally unknown. The parasite's life cycle is in house cats, but a large portion of house cat owners worldwide have it. Few know about it because, until recently, the parasite was considered to have little effect on humans. But, it turns out to have a subtle and strange impact on our lives. People with the parasite shop more.

As I talked, I realised that I didn't remember the author's name, or the title. I didn't remember the name of the parasite, where or when the study was done. In fact, I didn't remember enough to sound reasonable. I'd put a kink into thread of polite conversation. Several friends looked at me blankly. Leah glanced at my drink to see if I'd had to much. I briefly started to repeat myself and then trailed off. Pause. The conversation launched in a new direction.

Not surprisingly, I've been wanting to remember the book title since Saturday. Today, after an arduous Google search, I found it:

It's Survival of the Sickest by Dr. Sharon Moalem, and the parasite is called Taxoplasma Gondii. I was wrong about some of the details. The parasite actually infects about half the world; 20% of the US population and 90% of the people in France are infected, for example. Humans acquire it "by eating undercooked meat or poorly washed vegetables or after handling cat litter." Then the parasite establishes itself in muscle and brain cells. In mice and rats, the parasite alters their brain to make them lose their natural fear of cats. Cats eat the rodents and the parasite (which only breeds in cats) completes its life cycle.

In humans, the parasite is largely benign, but may complicate some illnesses--especially in pregnant women. Professor Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague found the correlation that women with the parasite spend more money on clothes, care more about how they look, and are "more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends." Men with the infection are more likely to be "less well groomed...suspicious and jealous and less willing to follow rules." Wow!

I have to admit: I partly wanted to write this post because this is not the first time I haven't been able to think of this title. Now I just have to remember to search my own posts. Nice. I also picked up a copy from the library to re-read it. If you're interested you might want to check it out from your local library, too. Or, I guess if you own a cat, who knows: maybe you'll buy it.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

We got to dissect sheep hearts for the first Anatomy and Physiology (A & P) lab, yesterday. How cool is that?!

It's not quite as intimidating as it might sound for a first lab, partly because it wasn't a true dissection, in the sense that no one critiqued how well we cut into the heart. Mostly it's not intimidating because for everyone else in the class this wasn't actually their first lab. This is the second semester of a two semester course, so yesterday's lab was more a continuation for most students than an introduction. But since I had the first semester about twelve years ago and I don't remember doing any dissections at all for it, getting to poke at a sheep's heart on the first day seemed really exciting and slightly nerve wracking.

I'm disappointed, though, that I missed out on dissecting a brain last semester. That must have been really interesting.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

President Obama and I have something in common: we both started new jobs yesterday. Of course, his job is much cooler (and much, much more difficult) than mine, and technically his job is new to him and I've been at my job for most of my life. But still, I get to say I started school the same day he became president, which makes me giddy (his being president, that is).

School makes me not quite giddy, unless you count the butterflies in my tummy. Is it weird to say I'm more nervous now than when I started grad school? Because I think I am. Other than the three science classes I had to take to satisfy core requirements as an undergrad the first time, I haven't had a science class since high school. And now I have two, and they're hard ones! And they have labs! But they should be a lot of fun, too, and the professors seem both nice and engaging, which is an enormous plus.

The only down side to starting a completely different program, is probably the down side Obama is facing: it's going to be a lot of work. And here I am, finally comfortable with having "nothing" to do, too.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Simona pointed out in her comment, it's been awhile since we've posted. Part of that is because I have developed an aversion to sitting at the computer. I really can't think why, but I'm hard pressed to even check email on a bi-weekly basis sometimes. Sorry about that.

Perhaps more applicable, though, is that part of the reason for not posting is because I feel we haven't been doing anything terribly interesting about which to write. Writing from Madagascar can't fail to be interesting, and even babbling about hiking in New Zealand sounds faintly exotic, so has a guaranteed interest factor, but writing about what we do, or don't do, in Boise seems much less interesting. Which is too bad, because actually we've been doing some pretty neat things.

We've had lots of fun hanging out with friends, snowshoeing, knitting and baking (me), building bat and bird houses (David), and planning our futures. Which are also vaguely interesting, at least to us. David's starting his PhD in electrical engineering at BSU (apparently it finally dawned on someone that the BS in BSU was ripe for all sorts of jokes so they're trying to re-brand the school as Boise State. Whatever.) on the 20th. And I've decided that nope, indeed I have no interest in being a manager, which is what my masters degrees have trained me for, so I got my old job back at the library and I too, am going back to school, this time as an undergraduate in nursing with the goal of becoming a Nurse Practitioner. Oooh, and we get to learn Spanish!

And then we became an aunt and uncle on Thursday, to Quinn, a healthy baby girl born at 10:23 am, who has lots of black, curly hair, weighs 7 lbs 15 oz and is 20 1/2 inches long. We leave on the 15th for a quick trip to Portland to meet her and check in on her parents.

So there has been some neat stuff going on. It just hasn't seemed like it at the time. Except the baby. Babies always seem exciting at the time.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

We had a surprisingly activity-packed weekend. Not that we actually did a lot, really, but it felt like it on Saturday.

With Mama and Papa, we went to the local protest against California's Prop 8, organized by Join the Impact. We also met most of our friends there, since civil rights are something we're all proponents of. The protest was pleasant, though the mic system was not quite adequate for the crowd, so I spent a lot of time cooing over Ben, Alisha's youngest, or talking to Alisha and Amy, while we all enjoyed the sun. David took pictures, naturally, the best of which you can see here:

Prop H8 Protest

And then we all went to lunch, which was fun (though may I say that Bittercreek was a little stingy with its tzatziki sauce on the pita David and I shared).

In the evening, after walking home via Boise State's library, we went bowling, something we always enjoy, but don't do nearly often enough. We were going to meet our friend Ed, but he stood us up, having thought that we were meeting Sunday evening, instead. So he missed my rather nifty game of 145, and the two less nifty games that followed of 86 and 89. Seriously, when you haven't been bowling in awhile, your hand starts to hurt! In fact, David would claim that more than just your hand hurts, since he woke up Sunday morning with a sore backside, but I maintain it was because of the walking, something we haven't done nearly enough of since moving back. Life is just so hard, isn't it?

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

Like many people, this has been an emotional week and it's been difficult to write a post until now. I'm sure everyone's nearly stuffed full of the postmortem analysis, but I still want to write about the election results.

The good. Obama won in an electoral landslide and his tide of dreams swept clean many Congressional seats, which promises hope that the US can pull out of the dark ages of the last eight years. Or maybe the dark ages have been going on much longer. Thomas Friedman pointed out that the American Civil War began in Virginia 174 years ago and, in many ways, ended there on Tuesday. Overstated, but inspiring. Notably for the record turnout, especially among minorities.

The bad. Idaho politics didn't shake the narrow-minded conservatism that bogs down political life here, except in two cases. 1) Voters from four districts that form the core of Boise (including the district in which I live) enabled a sweep for their democratic state legislators. 2) Idaho will be sending one democrat to the House in Washington. He's a true "Idaho democrat," which means he'd be a republican in almost any other state, but still, Idahoans did actually elect a democrat.

The ugly. California, Florida and Arizona approved anti-marriage ballot measures, which undermines the concept of marriage (and the legal protection it provides) by limiting who can and can't be married. According to exit polls (which Nate Silver tells me to distrust) the bulk of racial minorities voted for these hateful measures. If so, it is baffling how, in one day, progress can be made for racial minorities and those same minorities can simultaneously beat up on another minority. But, by far, the ugliest result on Tuesday was the Arkansas' anti-child ballot measure, which hurt orphans by reducing the number of loving homes to which they could otherwise belong.

In the end, maybe Benjamin Franklin said it best, "Democracy is two wolves and one sheep deciding on what to have for dinner."

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, we finished the arbor. Well, no, not actually finished so much as "finished day 2." This involved a lot of measuring and sawing while standing on a ladder (with a broken bottom foot, mind you). The sawing, by David, was successful. The measuring, by me, was less so. Apparently, I am not so good with rulers. Sigh. Day 3, when we lay cross pieces along the top will probably come fairly soon. And then it will finally be time to move the wisteria from the old house to its new home. Given that the wisteria is over twenty-five years old in its current placement, I'm not looking forward to that particular move.

But until all of that happens, David created another time-lapse movie of our Day 2 work, which you can watch below. You know, just to prove that we do, in fact, work. At least on occasion.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

Like me, you may have been wondering about Adrien's newest mechanical knee. A few weeks ago, I went with Adrien to meet the doctor and look sagely at some mysterious metal parts in an x-ray image. With all the medical drama in the last week I almost forgot to post the picture:

From Geekery

Does anyone else think it looks a bit too much like a hammer and sickle?

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chunky bits of snow drifted from the sky today--see:

From Picture a day: Boise

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Thursday I was prepared to write a post about how we had completed the second day of the ninth week of the running program. This was significant partly because the last time we had progressed so far through the routine was nearly two years ago. In fact, it was this day of the routine that was canceled due to my unexpected stent placement, which lead to extended recovery and continued with several grave reactions to a heart medicine. Of course, we weren't able to get back on track until after we traveled around the world.

What took the wind from the sails of victory last week started with an abdominal pain I had after breakfast Thursday. (In truth, I had had a mild intermittent pain for the previous few weeks.) I spent all Thursday in bed moaning while waves of pain broke over me. By evening the pain localized in my lower right side. (If you're a doctor, or interested in medicine, you can probably guess what happened next.) The pain had not subsided by Friday morning, when I went to a local emergency room. An exam, confirmed with a CT scan, indicated a bad appendix. The surgery was later that day.

Continue reading "stupid little things" »

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our original plan, all through the year-long RTW trip, was to spend the summer in Boise, helping Mama and Papa "prep" to move, until about September or so, by which time I would have been offered a fabulous job that would probably involve moving to the East Coast for a couple of years, until we could actually get to Africa. The problem with this plan, is that it would involve moving to the East Coast, which neither of us is at all fond of. But whatever, we're willing to suck it up, sometimes.

But then, after spending about four days in Boise, I realized how much I really do like it: there's so little traffic, and people are so nice. Plus, Idaho has everything we love to do in the out of doors. The politics leave a lot to be desired, but really, other than that, Boise is perfect. So we've decided to stay for a couple of years while we figure out a way of getting to Africa without having to spend a few years back East.

Naturally, however, all of this means we need to be seeking employment. Or at least one of us does, anyway. So as all good decision makers do when making important, potentially life-changing decisions, we played rock paper scissors to determine which one of us has to actually get a job. And sadly, I lost. David wouldn't even go for my best-out-of-three ploy! Can you believe it?

So now, whenever we get around to making the old house presentable to sell, I'll be looking for a job. Sigh. But until then, I won't have one, which is just so much better.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

Picasa recently released a long awaited (by me) third version, offering more editing features and smoother upload interface. All in all, it's a modest, but welcome, upgrade. Online, Picasa Web Albums also has some new extras. Notably, a facial recognition tool to "tag" your pictures. All last night and this morning I sat tagging thousands (!) of pictures. Now when you visit our public albums, on the right side you'll see current (ahem!) photos of people who've ended up on the other side of our camera. Here's a screenshot of part of the new sidebar:

From Geekery

Ah, the joys of computer toys...

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

Running consistently in some random place on the trip was nearly impossible. Now that we're back and somewhat stable-ish, we're on the interval running program again. Actually, we've just finished week six (of 13), but I've hesitated to write a post until now, since we've started and stopped so many times. But, now it's seems that it may stick.

To make the pure act of running in the hills hopelessly dorky, I take along a heart monitor and GPS watch. I download the data to a computer, which I then analyze and relish as only an engineer can. Until recently, I'd used the software that's packaged with the watch, but I stumbled on something much better. It's free, open source and called SportTracks. It's feature rich and provides everything a data junkie would want. It stores heart rate zones, course route (on a Google map), elevation, pace, weather, weight and much more. Here is a screenshot:

From Geekery

Tomorrow we journey for the Oregon coast for a much not-needed vacation. Actually, it's more of a sojourn, since we plan to spend almost the entire time at a timeshare that Leah's parents would have occupied, if Adrien's newest knee installation wasn't smack in the middle of the two weeks.

Now, let's hope we can continue running at the timeshare. That should work, right?

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

In addition to moving, cleaning and "redoing" parts of the old house, there are projects at the new house Mama and Papa want done. So today, taking advantage of a surprisingly cool day, David and I built an arbor. Well, the first part, anyway, which involved renting a power auger, moving dirt around, tarring, mixing cement (660 lbs!) and lots of getting very dirty. All of which you can see in fast-moving 49 seconds:

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

In Boise, yesterday, at Ann Morrison park, was the yearly gathering known as Tour de Fat. Very briefly: it was all about bicycling with a focus on the positive environmental impact of bicycling-as-primary-means-of-transport. Plus beer. The latter because the tour was largely sponsored by the New Belgium brewing company out of Colorado. Everything was free except the beer and 100% of those profits go to a local bike club.

Since I'm a long time bike fan and Leah is also enamored, we made plans to meet some friends and attend. The whole "do" had a wacky, bohemian feel. People wore costumes with no unifying theme. Some costumed their bikes. Some of the crowd looked rowdy but were not, notably during the city-touring parade. After the parade and back at the park, there were a couple of bands and more than one M.C., extolling the virtues of cycling. One person was selected to receive a free bike and give up his car for a year. Someone else won the bike raffle. In the center, was a ring where anyone could freely try many wonky bikes. There were bikes with axles off center, various wheel configurations, some requiring careful balancing and frames that moved in odd ways. Most were difficult or impossible to ride. So, of course, I had a lot of fun. And took far too many pictures:

Tour de Fat

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week we finished moving Leah's parents. At the end of the long parade of possessions were seven large cages of canaries and finches, all of which are now safely installed in the garage, awaiting an aviary that will be built in the coming months.

I know you may have thought we'd finished moving some time ago. No, this whole time we've been moving. Well, not the entire time; there were also projects around the new house--sorting and unpacking, organizing, setting things up, small carpentry projects and, probably, too many days off. But, really, if you plan to move (and clean and pack and recycle and donate and just throw away) the contents of a large, full six bedroom house, I recommend blocking out a bit of time. But, it's done. And the resulting transformation in the two houses carries a reasonable amount of job satisfaction.

Not that we've finished with the old house. In order to prepare for selling, we plan to spend the next few months (less some weeks on the Oregon coast in September) painting, remodeling the kitchen and a bathroom, re-seeding the backyard, installing wallboard in the garage and a lengthy list of other projects and repairs. So we'll still be busy for awhile, but at least it'll keep us out of trouble.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stephen Colbert doesn't need to worry about our having been eaten by bears (if you just want to see the bear section, it starts at the 5:39 mark, although threat number four is hilarious, and the rest are pretty funny, too). And no, despite having posted from Las Vegas weeks ago, and then disappearing, we didn't lose what money we had, so we haven't been hiding in shame. Though possibly that would be better, since at the moment we're both exhausted.

Continue reading "no need for a threatdown!" »

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)