Resolutions

"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

That's from Lord Henry in Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. I thought it was amusing, if not completely cynical. It seems like a lot of people are cynical about New Year's Resolutions, as if it was a complete waste of time to even make them. Even though I know I won't accomplish many of them, I still feel an irrestible compulsion to make them. Maybe it has something to do with my list-making obsession, but I think it has more to do with really wanting to be a better version of myself. And it's not like January 1st is the only day in the year I set goals. It's just a convenient time to reset the slate. I also though it noteworthy that most of my resolutions this year were roll-overs from last year, indicating that they really are just ongoing goals, and maybe 2010 will be the year (or at least the decade) where I finally pull them off!

2009

This will be my last post in the year 2009, and in the oughts decade for that matter. It's been a pretty good year as far as blogging goes, and by that I mean I've actually done it fairly consistently. There were a few dry patches here and there when school and med school stuff became too overwhelming. It's been a whirlwind of a year, and I'm looking forward to the good intentions and failed executions of 2010.

How have I spent the last week of the decade? It hasn't been that exciting, to be honest. My job in the nematode lab ends on January 3rd, so I've been working as many hours as I can find things to do in there. I'm trying to wrap up experiments to get my last morsels of data, and I've been working on the manuscript that my professor wants to publish. I really like writing, but for some reason it's been difficult to find motivation to write about plant-parasitic nematodes. One nice thing about working in the lab is I can blare my music through the loud speakers. 2009 has brought a lot of good tunes into the world, and it's been very relaxing to give them all a listen. Ashton wants me to stop downloading music as a New Year's Resolution. Anticipating the major withdrawals I will likely encounter, I have downloaded about 50 albums in the last few days. It's like when I was getting ready to leave for Ukraine. Rather than wean myself off Babylonian music, I binged till the last drop.

It's been a good week otherwise. We watched Fantastic Mr. Fox with Alpha on Sunday. Incredible! Best kids movie of the year. Best movie of the year, for that matter. I was in love with every minute of it. It had all the wonder and charm of any Wes Anderson movie, plus the whimsical imagination of Roald Dahl and the dry delivery of Daniel Ocean. Zinger after zinger. Pure bliss. I've been reading the book to Samuel every night before bedtime, and the movie follows the novel reasonably well.

On Monday we partied with the Thompson's in Payson. Good food, good family and Christmas chimes with Grandma. Tuesday night we busted out the paper making kit Sarah gave to Ashton and turned our kitchen into a recycling factory. Who knew a pile of newspapers and a kitchen blender could lead to so much creative energy? Wednesday Ashton, Samuel and I went snowshoeing. There's something about snowshoes that makes you feel invincible. We headed up Rock Canyon Park because it had been snowing all day, and we were able to enjoy some relatively untouched snow. Samuel was a pretty good sport, and despite the cold, he actually fell asleep. To cap the night we watched Cool Hand Luke, Paul Newman's finest.

And tonight we'll celebrate New Year's. Part of that celebration will be reminiscing about the good times of the last twelve months. Here are some of the highlights, in chronological order:

1. Finding out we were having a boy
2. Seth getting his mission call to Auckland.
3. Some amazing summer rock climbing
4. Finishing the MCAT
5. Getting a road bike
6. Seeing Bon Iver live
7. Playing at Burraston Ponds
8. THE BIRTH OF SAMUEL
9. Saying goodbye to Seth
10. Presenting research in Park City
11. Finishing at the nursing home
12. Camping at Silver Lake
13. Going berry picking
14. Laying Galya to rest. Sniffle.
15. Graduating

Yeah, it's been a good year.

Christmas

Christmas was great this year. Exhausting, but really fun. We went up to Bountiful on the 23rd to spend time with my family. The house is pretty chaotic with all the family in town, but it was awesome to spend time with them, especially since Sarah had come out from Chicago. We went out to eat that night at Buca’s in Salt Lake to celebrate my graduation and afterward went to Temple Square to see the lights. It was bitter icy cold, however, and it didn't take very long before we were back in the car headed home. I tried to put on Christmas Vacation but no one was interested in watching it. I guess Chevy Chase just doesn’t have the same effect anymore.

On Christmas Eve we went and visited the Fishers and their new townhome in Farmington. Samuel spit up all over their nice micro suede couch and they treated us to some delicious caramel wassail. They sent us home with a ziplock bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter, but we’ve seemed to misplace it. We got home in time to do "Chuck’s Deli" with Sarah. Bacon makes every sandwich better. And muenster cheese is amazing. I actually begged for a second because the first was so delectable.

After lunch we hit the back hill for some dangerous sledding. We tried to smoothing out a mound of snow in front of the railroad ties to save our tailbones, but it ended up making the wipeouts more brutal at the bottom of the hill. I almost killed Sophie on one run. After a while people became wary of the treacherous slope and decided to go to the old stake center for better sledding. I stayed at the house with Ashton and Samuel and made some delectable wassail using a Lion House recipe from Alpha. It was super potent stuff. It burned in the throat and boiled in the belly.

In the evening we had potato soup in breadbowls, always a good time and very filling. I think I’ve become accustomed to eating small portions of food at our place because I have a hard time stuffing much in my stomach anymore. We finished the evening by exchanging sibling presents. Sarah totally spoiled us this year. She gave me the book "Caps for Sale" and a box filled with amazing caps for me and Samuel to wear. She also gave Samuel a super charming vest. My folks gave us all pajamas and photo calendars, both of which have become favorite traditions, and they gave Samuel a sweet “shutterfly” photo album. Ashton and I gave my folks this brilliant clock with a goofy photo of everyone in our family in place of each of the numbers. It just happened that there are twelve us of right now, including the dog.

Samuel had a rough night Christmas Eve, so we were ready for everyone to wake up the next morning. We started opening presents around eight o’clock and didn’t really finish until noon. It was quite the marathon. My parents have a hard time keeping track of how many presents they’ve bought. I guess that’s what happens when you start Christmas shopping in February! We were very spoiled, and I got a lot of awesome stuff. My favorite gifts were books, my gray Vans, my bike pump, a framed photograph by my cousin Daniel and this ridiculously awesome remote control helicopter called the Silver Bullet. It’s about the size of a hummingbird and it is a hoot. It’s pretty much impossible to fly without crashing. Samuel got a lot of sweet loot as well, and Ashton made off like a bandit. I almost feel guilty when Santa brings me so much Christmas booty. I’ll just have to remember to pay it forward.

After the present party we had a nice salmon dinner and then took off back to Provo to spend time with Ashton’s family. Ashton’s poor siblings waited all day to open presents with us, and by the time we got there our nephews (who hadn’t napped all day) were pretty wired and nutso and we kind of rushed through the opening of presents in a frenetic whirlwind. We got some great presents there too and doubled our carload. I got the essential Roald Dahl set, which I’m very excited to read with Samuel later, and some base liners for biking and climbing. I felt spoiled last year, but this year was even more outrageous. We hung around for a while after and played Scattergories. I forgot how stressed out that game makes me.

Graduate

I am officially a college graduate. Friday the 18th was the last day I could call myself a BYU student. Now I'm a BYU alumnus. The reality of that distinction hasn't hit me yet, probably since it's still the weekend. But after Christmas, when the cold, dark days of unemployment arrive, I'll know what it's like to be a grownup.

Final went all right, all things considered. Two of my classes wrapped up before finals week, so I didn't have to worry about them. Conservation Biology, about which I was the most excited, ended up being kind of a drag. It was really for all the wildlife range management and environmental science kids. We still learned some cool things, but as a pre-med student I was definitely out of place. I took the class to learn more about climate change and sustainability, but we barely glanced over that at the end, and by then I had lost a lot of interest.

Cell Biology, which ended up being the biggest thorn in my side, ended on Monday, when I turned in a nasty take home final in which I had to dissect three scientific papers about obscure cellular processes like clathrin coated pit formation and epithelial mesenchymal transition . . . a real snooze let me tell you. The teacher was pretty cool and I learned a lot of interesting stuff, but the weekly problem sets caused me a lot of unnecessary stress. It was nice to get that class over with.

Biochemistry, which is by far the lamest class I've had at BYU (and that includes Humanities 201) was a joke. The professor never taught us anything in class, and I hardly ever did the reading. I took the last midterm for the class before finals week and got a 100 on it. It would've been more impressive if I hadn't figured out how my teacher writes his tests. He basically uses a big question bank because he's too lazy to write new questions, so if you memorize all the homework, quiz and sample test questions, you'll know 80% of the answers on the tests. His final was the same way. I took it in 15 minutes and got a 93 with minimal studying.

My organic chemistry lab, which was supposed to be the bane of my existence, according to most students, ended up being a delightful breeze. Sure the lab write-ups were tedious and the quizzes annoying, but the professor liked me and I pretty much rocked in that class. It ended with a scheduled final on Thursday morning.

Evolutionary Biology, which was supposed to be one of my favorite classes, ended up being a disappointment. I learned a lot, and it was interesting, but my professor's style started to grate on me and my classmates. He was always soapboxing about how lame anyone is who doesn't believe in evolution. He often got carried away with tangential diatribes that really killed the mood in the class. The real kicker is that his exams didn't really reflect an understanding of the material we covered. In order to make them difficult my professor would include lots of obscure and esoteric questions, and if a question was poorly worded or there were multiple possible answers, he refused to admit he'd made a mistake. The man is awesome outside of the classroom, but his class was really irritating. It was by far the hardest final to study for because there was so much material and we had lost our motivation to care. Walking out that final was definitely a satisfying feeling. It not only marked the end to an obnoxious class, it marked the end of an exhausting and challenging semester.

So now that I'm a graduate and have some time on my hands, I think I want to catch up on every book I've wanted to read but haven't had the time to. In that regard, it feels like my education is just beginning.

Gargle

Manhood

This morning I completed my last rite of passage into manhood. I changed a flat tire.

The tire actually went flat on Tuesday night, but because I've been so swamped with homework, final projects and exams, I wasn't able to get to it till this morning. Knowing the icy cold that awaited me, I bundled up with a coat, scarf and fur hat, and I downed a mug of hot chocolate to super heat my core. I was sweating by the time I got my shoes tied, and I stepped out the front door to meet my challenger.

I'd watched my dad and friends change flat tires a number of times, but I've always had a defeatist mentality toward any kind of repairs. I'm clumsy with tools and every time I take something apart to fix it, that something inevitably remains in pieces in a box because I can't remember how to reassemble it. I'm the kind of guy that gets taken advantage of in auto shops.

It turned out to be simpler that I thought it would be. Remove spare from trunk. Place jack under car. Crank jack with cool twisty rod. Pop off hub cap with crow bar. Unscrew the lug nuts . . . this is where things got messy. All the nuts were rusted and stuck, and I couldn't for the life of me get them to budge. I tried every angle, every position and every curse word until I had to just give up. There was no humanly possible way I was going to get those lug nuts off without slipping a disc.

I called Quinn. Quinn seems manly enough, the kind of guy who can fix things. I don't know what I was expecting him to tell me, but he actually imparted some brilliant wisdom, and it came from our physics class, of all things. Quinn was a physics TA, so I guess it's second nature to him. To increase torsional force you just have to increase the distance from the center of rotation. Basically making the level longer makes it require less effort to move it. I needed a longer crow bar.

I went into our backyard, cautiously tiptoeing around the overripe plums from our neighbor's tree, looking for a long metal pipe. I found such a pipe buried in the leaves along the back fence. I slid the pipe over the crow bar and pulled it toward me. I was amazed at how easily the nut came unscrewed. Chalk that up as an important life lesson.

Once the nuts were off it was no problem to pull the flat tire off and slide the spare tire on. As I tightened the last nut and lowered the jack, I felt a strong sense of manly pride. I no longer felt like a vulnerable school girl who just got her license. At this point my toes were totally frozen, as was my snot, so I went inside to gloat over my victory.

U

I'm back on the U of U medical campus, but this time it's not for Samuel. I'm currently sitting in a second year medical school class learning about angina pectoris. I've already had one interview this morning at 8:30, and I'll be having another this afternoon at 1:30.

I've wanted to go to the U of U medical school since I decided to be a doctor. Everything I've done to prepare to be a physician was based on the high requirements of the U of U admissions committee. I've worked in a nursing home, volunteered at the hospital, shadowed physicians, worked as a writing fellow, mentored abuse victims and spent way too many hours studying for classes I didn't care about because I need to have good grades. And it all comes down to today. Based on the scores I get in my interview, my packet will move on to the selection committee, who will debate my acceptance and give me the stamp of death or propel me into the magical world of medicine. No pressure, right?

Although I've always wanted to go to the U, I can't say I've ever really had much confidence or hope that I'd get in. I'm a white Mormon male from BYU, a demographic not super high on the admissions committee's priority list. Now that I'm here and I've seen the gorgeous campus and beautiful facilities, I'm praying for a miracle.

Bladder Better

So a while back we were concerned with Samuel because he was pretty much always crying and never sleeping. We took him in to the doctor and they suggested avoiding wheat and dairy, and they took a urine sample. Ashton stopped eating breads and milk and pretty much anything that tastes good, and Samuel started sleeping more and having less gas. Two days after the doctor's appointment the health center called and informed us that Samuel had a bladder infection and that was probably responsible for his discomfort. He was on antibiotics for ten days and everything seemed fine. The doctors were concerned, however, because it is exceptionally rare for a little boy to get a UTI. Something about all that internal tubing. Apparently there's an anatomical condition typically associated with infant male UTIs, so they wanted to do a bunch of tests.

Keep in mind, Samuel's urine was sampled by putting a plastic bag on his male part. Not super sterile. I work with bacteria in a laboratory and all it takes is looking at it the wrong way to get contamination. So I didn't have much faith in his initial diagnosis to begin with. Samuel had to go up to the health center and get an ultrasound of his kidneys. He handled that like a champ, and the tech said she didn't see anything wrong.

Then we had to go to UVRMC to have a VCUG test run, where they run a catheter up to his bladder and inject a bunch of dye to take a contrast photo. That was last week. His appointment was at noon and he couldn't eat anything after 8, which is pretty much impossible for him. We got there at eleven to check in and get everything set up. The nurses were cool (except the nurse practitioner, who spent most of the time texting her family because her kid stuck some corn up her nose). They took us back to the overflow of the ER to get his IV and EKG tabs set up. He didn't even mind when they stuck the needle in above his wrist. They gave him some versed, which made him a little loopy. From there they wheeled him back to the scanner room. They had to strip him down for scan, and when they tried to hold his legs down he got mad. He pretty much screamed through the whole procedure. I can't say I blamed him. It was all really ludricous. My favorite part was when he peed on the nurses and techs. They got all the pictures they needed and informed us that they didn't see anything unusual.

The scans and ultrasound were sent to the doctor at the health center who called to let us know Samuel has a mild trabeculation in the wall of his bladder. Random. They were looking for reflux into the ureters and kidneys or a shortened urethra, which they didn't find. He urged us to go see a pediatric urologist to make sure everything was okay. So yesterday we drove up to Salt Lake to Primary Children's Medical Center to meet with a specialist. She informed us that everything looked perfectly normal (surprise) and that she wasn't worried about him. Then, as a reward for his visit, she gave him a cheap plastic hippo made in China, saying he could suck on its head. What kind of pediatrician gives an infant cheap plastic made in China? Honestly.

So Samuel's bladder is better, although I'm not convinced there was ever anything wrong with it. We're glad we made sure, but we're not looking forward to the medical bills on the horizon. Just another example of unnecessary care and procedures to save a physician from a malpractice lawsuit.

RNAi

When I explain what I do in the Nematode Evolution Lab, it either goes over people's heads or makes their eyes glaze over with boredom. I've posted about my research before, but this last week I got to do some really cool gene knockout experiments. All of my research has been on nematodes who are immune to the effects of RNAi, but before I can submit my data for publication, I have to validate that they really all are resistant. That means I get to feed all of them special bacteria that express double stranded RNA to see if it knocks out any genes in their offspring. To make sure the bacteria is still viable, we have to try it out on the wildtype strain, which is not resistant to RNAi. That's what I did this last week. In most cases I couldn't see a crazy phenotype, but one of the strains had a gene knocked out that affects growth, and I ended up with a plate covered in little tiny nematodes. At first I thought they were just in the larval stage, but a few days later, they were still super small. I felt like I had accomplished something significant. I manipulated the gene expression of an organism and created midget nematodes!

Lumberjack

Last Saturday I fulfilled a major dream of mine. I got to ride in one of those cherry picker/bucket trucks. We went up to Lehi for my grandpa's 88th birthday to help clean up the yard and garage. I thought we were going to be clipping rosebushes and raking leaves, but then my uncle drove up in an enormous bucket truck. He drove right onto the sidewalk and parked next to a lone tree in the lot next to my grandpa's house. My grandpa informed us that Keith intended to finish what he started a couple years ago and chop down that final tree. My grandpa doesn't even own the lot, but the guy who does is a crotchedy ornery old guy who lives in Bountiful and never comes down to look after it. It had become a high school kegger kind of gathering place, and my uncle decided he was going to clear the lot. For some reason one tree had survived the holocaust, and my uncle had come to finish the job. My dad and I were wondering where the heck Keith got a bucket truck from. Apparently he bought one.

My grandpa walked over with me to greet Keith when he got out of the truck, and he told Keith he had promised me a ride in the bucket. Keith pulled out a chainsaw and asked me if I wanted to cut or drive. We climbed into the bucket, which had a few inches of water from a previous night's rain, and he showed me where the joystick was for maneuvering the gargantuan robotic arm. It took a bit to get the hang of, but in no time we were at the top of the tree, hacking it down limb by limb. With the exception of almost getting tangled in the phone lines, we made it back down to the ground without incident, and I climbed out with my soggy shoes and pockets full of sawdust, and I decided I could do this lumberjack thing for a living.