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Using Playtime to Avoid Anesthesia in Children With Cancer
When pediatric patients are given radiation treatment for cancer, they often get scared or nervous because they do not have an understanding of the process and the machines involved. To remedy this, anesthesia is used in many cases, though the long-term side effects are still unknown.
BY Allie Casey
PUBLISHED June 29, 2017
When pediatric patients are given radiation treatment for cancer, they often get scared or nervous because they do not have an understanding of the process and the machines involved. To remedy this, anesthesia is used in many cases, though the long-term side effects are still unknown.
Instead of relying on anesthesia, Danielle Crump, BSN, RN, worked to develop the Pediatric Training Program within the Radiation Department of Johns Hopkins Hospital. This initiative saves time and money while avoiding any risks or complications that might come from administering anesthesia to a pediatric patient.
Why is it so important to avoid anesthesia, especially in children?
What we found was that we had no standard; we were just basically signing kids up for anesthesia because they were anxious, because of the unknowns. We had complications happen under anesthesia and radiation. Another component was that it was taking up a lot of time. Now, with this program, we can avoid the risk and complications that come along with anesthesia as well as give back that precious time to the family. Kids get stressed staying in radiation too long.
The other thing is, if a child gets anesthesia over the course of six weeks, we don't really know what the long-term effects of that are.
What is the training program that you've developed, in place of aneshtesia?
Instead of anesthesia we go through a pediatric training program where we acclimate the patient and the family to our department so they can see what's going on in the department, so they can become familiar with what we do. We don't really cause pain—what we do is the "Mannequin Challenge," this is, staying still. Anybody can do that if you train them. It's really acclimating the patient and family: This is what we do, these are the tools we use, these are our machines. Just to get them comfortable.
What are some specific things you do with the child during the program?
We have a simulation room, where we create the immobilization devices. If we're treating a child with brain cancer, we will make a hand-mold first, to slow things down. We're not going to make a mask immediately. We'll do a little play, we'll show them everything that's in the room, we'll show them our hot-water bath, where we put our beginning mold into the bath and they can see how that changes. And then we'll make a hand-mold, so they can feel the sensation on their skin. Sometimes, they're not ready for it, and there's no rush. If this is going to be successful, we need to be patient. When we get to the point where we're ready to try it on their face, we explain what we're doing the whole time. It can be really warm and wet, so we'll take cold towels and help to dry the mask quicker, and cool it down, so they're not so anxious.
How important is it to have family there with the patient?
We really are focused on the patient- and family-centered care model, where we have families come into the room with the patient when we get them ready for the radiation session. We have a planning session where we create that immobilization device for their treatment. Sometimes siblings can model for us, and kids are more apt to do it, because they see that their sibling is doing it and that there's no pain, that the sibling isn't afraid. And it's nice because you do have the encouragement of the family right there throughout the whole process.
How long is a child typically in the program?
Every child is different. The simulation sessions are one hour, but if we see they need more time, we can schedule more time. The longest I've done with a patient is maybe two hours.
We never want to push anybody to the point where they're feeling upset about it and they're completely stressed out. We also will send home one of the masks, and they can do some home training. Parents are open to this, because they know it will benefit their child by avoiding complications. And it's going to free up some of their time. If their child needs anesthesia, they're going to spend two to three hours with me, Monday through Friday over six weeks. That motivates them.
What are the outcomes of the study?
When we started in 2011 — and we were just experimenting with some idea — that year we had 60 percent of our children, aged 3 to 12, were able to do radiation without anesthesia; so, for 40 percent, we still had to give anesthesia. And then in 2012, we treated 90 percent of the patients without anesthesia. So only 10 percent each year, up until 2016. In 2016 we had no anesthesia. That's a huge drop. I plan to keep that going with our Child Life Specialist.
I really press to get all the kids treated without anesthesia. There's a joke they say to me, "If you could get a six-month-old to do it, you would." I'm not that crazy, but I would try, if I could.
What would you say is the main takeaway of this program?
I think it's knowing that this is a time-saving initiative, it's cost-effective, and it also helps the family and lets them feel a sense of autonomy and accomplishment. They're doing this. This is huge. And we do celebrate this at the end of every treatment—we have a huge party, we have a bell-ringing. I just think that it's the way to do it if you can.
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I am highly suggestible, so it's thanks to this tendency that I got into capsule wardrobes. Stuck in a rut and without anything to wear despite a HUGE wardrobe that groaned under far too many coat hangers worth of stuff, I did the silly thing when I wanted to start again and thew out basically everything in one go. I'm an all or nothing kinda gal, to my detriment at times. Learn from my mistake, kids.
Now I know there has been a bit of a backlash with the whole minimal living and keeping small wardrobes – fad thing for hipster wannabes and yet another criteria to judge others against. The benefits I found in trying to live better with less have been ten fold though, particularly once you realise what disorder I thought was normal. Some people thrive in organised chaos (my mum is a brilliant example) but at heart that type of living never sat well with me, and I have vivid memories as a child of being incredibly disheartened with my surroundings because I could never make sense of it. The philosophy behind capsule wardrobes (and minimal living in general), is applicable to anyone wanting to bring their material possessions under control.
For the uninitiated, capsule wardrobes are meant to be a finely curated and well maintained collection of clothing that doesn't go out of fashion (i.e. pieces that date well) and can be matched in indefinite combinations since they will be of a basic but complimentary style. Some people live with a year round capsule, others choose to dress as the season dictates (i.e. storing away summer clothes during the winter months and vice versa). The aim is to own enough, swapping out or updating as required, without being excessive. Sound like way too much effort and a bit too try hard? You may be right, but clothes are universal and having too many is definitely a first world problem, regardless of whether you're living in New York or residing in Moonah.
Now I say I'm not a shopping junkie, but I would inevitably tire of my clothes about once every 2-3 years, which resulted in a huge online shopping spree costing a few hundred dollars as I tried to "refresh" my wardrobe. And while I never followed trends, the clothes I bought were inherently trendy – being the latest cut, colour, or style immediately and conveniently available. Added to this, I would simply accumulate each time I shopped and never threw out a significant amount to make way for the newest batch. The result was a mess of clothes for all sorts of occasions, real or aspirational, which I couldn't make sense of or apply realistically. I was the sartorial equivalent of the Junk Lady in The Labyrinth.
We'll cover my capsule journey in later posts, but what I can say now is that buying with more intention really helps you keep perspective and forces you to actually comprehend and consider what you buy. There are plenty of places in Tasmania that cater towards intentional purchasing, and we will cover them and hopefully discover more as we go.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bigboss1029 on Aug 14, 2016 wrote:Moon does need some love, idk about shifts, they look ok. A problem with moon magic is you get stuck in that form and can't do anything else. Maybe you could make it like a bonus deck. Example, you are a storm wizard and you morph into a treant or something. Maybe make a spell tab to go from the life spells and your storm spells, also temporary mastery, and your usual stats. Basically moon magic would turn into a temporary addition of a certain school to add to your own arsenal for a few rounds. This would also fix the stats issue of using a level 60 card in a level 105 situation or a level 30 situation.
Spark Plasma on Aug 15, 2016 wrote:I feel like this would introduce an entirely new set of problems.First, this could obsolete mastery amulets, especially for life because both the life polymorph have really powerful healing abilities that most non-life wizards do not have access to without treasure cards. Plus, the polymorphs also grant access to spells that don't even have treasure card versions because they are unique to the polymorph or are usually monster-only spells.Second, adding a side deck of cards and allowing yourself to pick and choose what stats you want to have for each round doesn't make any sense. What your proposing with that kind of change to the moon school, is to reduce or possible eliminate any sort of risk with using polymorphs. You can't polymorph into a draconian and suddenly decide you want to act as a storm wizard all of the sudden the moment things take a turn for the worst. A better solution would to give each polymorph a moon spell that ends the polymorph early, rather than switch between two sets of statistics.Third, I suggested level scaling for the polymorphs to help with using a level 60 card in Polaris or some place much higher level.
Bigboss1029 on Aug 18, 2016 wrote:These problems are acceptable. Think about it, there are three astral schools. One adds damage or pierce/accuracy with no risk, while the other one at worst gives you a more incoming damage. Given this, I think it would be fine to change between schools when things go south. Your stats would stay exactly the same besides power pip mastery. That means that even though you can now quickly cast some OP healing spell, you won't have the large outgoing/incoming healing stats a real healer would have to make it effective. Same goes if you're using a different school for damage. Chances are, you won't have the stats to deal a lot of damage for that school unless you planned your gear to split schools. And if your gear is split, that makes you less powerful for your primary school, so its a good tradeoff as good gear seems to be focused on your primary school. For instance, does ice WW gear care about storm damage? That's the riskIt would make mastery amulets less desirable, but not obsolete. Its like only having a maycast wand for a loremaster spell you want to train. Its kind of good but not as good as the real thing. Keep in mind that unless you really go into the zeke quests, you only have so many training points. We need all these schools to be roughly equal priority. This may sound overpowered but it seems about equal to adding damage/pierce/accuracy/pips with little consequence. As for the really overpowered moon spells, we can add that later down the line, so OP heals for example are only for those deeply invested in moon magic. It has to be worth it to sacrifice proficiency in some other astral school in order to train multiple moon spells.When I first saw moon magic, it seemed to be meant to streamline RPG roles. You can turn into a tank, a healer or a hammer. Basically for team use only. Your ideas of scaling and early change back would be better than now, but probably not useful enough for non-group questing wizards to think it's worth their training points.
Spark Plasma on Aug 18, 2016 wrote:While you're right about the other schools, Moon is all about change and transformation, both literally and figuratively. While changing power pip mastery is fine and dandy, if you also keep your own stats while morphed, you're basically just making it a mastery amulet and a temporary deck. I feel like this is too forgiving on the player, because there is little risk to using these. Polymorphing into a monster of fire that can somehow completely resist an attack of the opposite school just doesn't sit right. I don't want the risk to be that you can't deal as much damage, or you can't output giant healing spells; that's a pathetic risk and easily mitigated with charms and traps. No, I feel like the risks currently associated with polymorphing now is fine, but the benefits of polymorphing need to be scaled with the risks as you continue to higher and more difficult worlds.Also, I do a lot of questing solo with polymorphs, and I have found plenty use out of them; especially when fighting my own school or when my health is in a critical condition. So while they are usually better in team play, I've found plenty good use out of them while questing solo, considering I've already trained the 12 polymorphs and plan to train the 7 shift spells later, with only sacrificing proficiency in most of the star school, by only training Fortify and Amplify.
CUTEHORSEY on Aug 19, 2016 wrote:Moon Spells would be a lot more usable if you could determine how long they stay on you. Most of them transform you for a number of rounds (4 or 6 I believe), and you are stuck in that form all that time. If you could choose when to end the transformation, they would be a lot more useful. For example, lets say you are a life wizard fighting a myth monster. You transform to Polymorph Pteranodon, which is storm based as has a specific set of spells. You stay in that form for a round or two, and cast one or more storm spells. Then lets say in the third round you decide you don't want to stay in that form anymore. You could end it and return back to your Normal self. The transformation would take a round, but being able to end it when you wanted to would give you more flexibility. It would not be the same as having a mastery amulet. It would let you be a lot more flexible in your tactics and combat strategies.I would even go so far as to suggest that you only lose a round on the initial transformation. There should be a button once you transformed that allows you to end the transformation immediately on the start of your next round, and would still allow you to choose an attack as your school once the tranformation is complete - i.e. you don't lose a round on ending the transformation - only on the initial transformation. That would make people more likely to use Moon spells.
coron003 on Aug 19, 2016 wrote:Moon magic is the least used in the game, and for a good reason: it completely changes the wizard, ignoring all the stats and spells. I remember the first time I cast Treant polymorph, and how awful I felted when a simple attack hit me with full force. The idea of changing my deck for a few turns was magnificent, even though I knew that I wouldn't be able to attack too much. But because it ignored all my wizard stats, after that battle I took the spell from my deck.Now we have seen how KI have revised some old spells, and they have done very good improvements. Moon magic should be next, allowing the stats of our wizards to mix with the polymorph spell. That will open up many new playing styles and it would revive one of the most unique school of magic. I got some minor improvements ideas for the polymorph spells:- Gobbler: 35 resist to all, 20 boost to fire- Mander: 10 attack to all, 20 boost to all, except balance- Cat Bandit: 20 storm attack, 150 storm critical, 20 boost to life and myth - Ninja Pig: 15 death attack, 120 critical block to all, 20 boost to life and storm- Draconian: 15 fire attack, 110 fire critical, 20 boost to ice and storm - Treant: 25 outgoing heal boost, 25 life critical, 30 resist to life, 30 boost to death- Colossus: 40 ice attack, 70 ice critical, 80 resist to ice, 20 resist to balance, death, life and storm, 40 boost to myth and fire- Fire elemental: 40 fire attack, 90 fire critical, 80 fire resist, 40 boost to fire and storm- Storm elemental: 40 storm attack, 15 storm pierce, 45 storm critical, 80 storm resist, 40 boost to myth and life- Jaguar: 40 outgoing heal boost, 25 life resist, 40 boost to death- Pteranodon: 25 storm attack, 175 storm critical, 50 storm resist, 40 boost to myth- Icehorn: 40 resist to all, 80 resist to ice, 40 boost to fireI believe these changes will make all the spells useful in many situations, and many players will find Moon magic to be part of their decks once again.
Spark Plasma on Aug 8, 2016 wrote:The least used Astral school and probably one of most difficult to use because of it, the Moon School is an interesting choice for wizards to train; and it's mostly useless compared to the other Astral schools. One of the issues with this school, is while you can use it to fill in roles like healing if you don't have one, it's better to stay in your normal human wizard form than it is to Polymorph. I would like to remedy that and make the Moon school a more viable type of magic to train, and I have a couple suggestions that could improve the usefulness of the school.This list talks about mostly the Polymorphs, not the Shift spells.1.) Let player gear stats have some influence.While polymorphs get their own appropriate stats, they start to fall off around Avalon. I suggest allowing player gear have some sway in the polymorph's respectable stats. For Example, maybe add the wizards fire damage to the Polymorph Draconian's fire damage bonus; have player resistances reduce the damage boost from certain schools; have player resistances add resistance to schools while polymorphed, etc.Now, I'm not saying have 100% of player values, but some influence would be nice.2.) Add a Myth Polymorph, and maybe Astral PolymorphsThere's a polymorph for all the primary schools but Myth. While this isn't game changing, it would be a nice addition to the School.Now as for the Astral polymorphs, I feel like these are a grey area. On one hand, you have access to spells that are otherwise unobtainable (Like Moon Shield. -50%,,), and will possibly be able to do Astral Damage. However, on the other hand, I don't feel like they would add anything or fill any roles. Treant and Jaguar fill a healer role, Gobbler can tank, Ninja Pigs debuff, Mander & Icehorn buffs, and Storm and Fire polymorphs do damage in their own way. (And so would Myth) Astral polymorphs, I feel, would fill a hybrid role, not particularly adept at any one task.3.) Increase or modify the polymorph's base stats.An increase to the polymorph's statistics would help them out with scaling as you use them in later worlds.4.) Allow the use of Astral spells from your own deck while Polymorphed.While we know that polymorphing changes everything about our wizard, allowing the use of astral, or adding astral spells to the decks of polymorphs, would help them out in their respective roles greatly. In addition, it will also add some variation to their spell decks.In conclusion, I think these things will help out the moon school. I feel like their scaling and overall use would be improved, and they might be considered worth the training points.- Issac Legendwielder, Level 68 Currently doing the Moon School Challenge.
tyrant405 on Sep 2, 2016 wrote:About the couple of points you made about player scaling and modifying polymorph stats. KingsIsle may already be working on this (which approach they take I don't know of.) You should go look at the polymorph trainer in storm riven and check out the polymorph fire elemental spell. Interesting enough, the description of that spell is different from all the others. Most notably, there is a "+% universal damage" modifier on the bottom of the card. I've asked another wizard about this already and they said it shows for them as well. This could be a bug, but I'd like to think it's a hint towards future content.Now as to how scaling could actually be accomplished, I think I have a good idea on how this can be accomplished. Following the moon school style of change and transformation, the developers could just add a multiplier to the stats available to the respective polymorph. I'll use health as an example. You get the Mander polymore at level 52 and it has 2000 health. If you use a formula like this, "New Health" = Health * (Your Current Lvl/Spell Lvl), you could add scaling to wizards that use these spells. This is obvious a very dumbed down version of what would be needed for the formula and other variables would need to be added in to prevent unfair stats at lower or higher levels (a level one wizard with this formula would have a 38 health mander for example.) This is just a very basic idea of how scaling could be added.Lastly about player stats contributing to polymorphs. I don't really care for this at all since it takes away from what the moon school is all about (which is transforming into really cool things for one turn or several.) I'm glad to talk about the moon school with someone else and I'd be happy to answer questions any of you might have about the moon school or my comments above. Peace- Michael Shadowblade, Level 110
Bigboss1029 on Sep 4, 2016 wrote:This is actually a pretty good solution. I think the polymorph should improve by levels. For instance, at the level you would unlock a certain sun or star spell, it would throw it into the move set of the moon spell. And later, it would upgrade the sun spells and add more star. For player stats contributing, that's so your stats don't go down the drain. I think a good solution is to make every polymorph have decent stats unrelated to your own, like if you were using a high level morph, every one would have universal resist, decent damage, good pips, ect. There already a system where your stats slightly improve as you level up, that should be added to morph.
tyrant405 on Sep 4, 2016 wrote:Personally, I don't see it as the player's stats going down the drain. I always saw my stats as protection from when my polymorphs decided to end. When even I took a large hit while in polymorph, I could always recover once I switched back to my wizard (even when fighting mobs in polaris mind you though not bosses cause they're too hard.) I made a little tweak to my formula for the mander's health. Formula: New Health = 460 + (x * lvl)X is some multiplier that I've yet to figure out, but it would allow the mander's health to be the same at 52 while preventing the health to be unrealistic at low levels. I chose 460 to be added to the multiplier so that the new health will be around balance wizards level 1 health.
Bigboss1029 on Sep 7, 2016 wrote:I think there should be default health until levels after you get that spell. At levels after it should be 2000(1.(2*lvl difference)). So if you were to get a 2000 health mander at level 60 and you were using it at level 70, it would be 2000(1.20) to equal 2400 health. If max level (110), 2000(2)=4,000. That happens to be an almost purely support morph btw. if it were a tank morph with say 3,000 health at level 60, and you were maxed, it would be 3000(2)=6000 health. I think that's a good formula. The problem is you need you consider power pips, resist, sun spells, ect. To solve that I think they should use what they use for your wizard already which is to mildly improve your stats as you level up. Also as I said before, there should be milestones where they throw in some new spells into your morph deck.
tyrant405 on Sep 9, 2016 wrote:The idea with my formula was to possibly balance moon spells at lower levels. I found out after testing the formula that the mander's health would be kind of underwhelming at max level (not even 4k, that's pretty bad.) Though yours isn't without it's flaws either. Your formula assumed that the spell is learned when executing the formula. How would treasure cards and item cards work into the equation. If a level 10 wizard got a treasure card and used it at level 20, the health would be the same as the level 70 in your example. It actually would be the same health if that level 10 used it at level 110 too (2000(1.(2*(110 - 10))) = 2400.) Though both our formulas are kind of fail one way or another, it still stands that level scaling would be a great addition to moon polymorphs.Considering other stats, a milestone system would probably work best for the spells and not really the stats. Programming level scaling in games for things like stats works best with a formula as opposed to the level milestones which would be just adding levels in a list along side what want to add on the respective levels. From experience, it's just better that way. For spells, the addition of new spells would require ditching some other spells. Otherwise, you'd eventually end up with a deck larger than most and only 6 turns to search for what you want. I also disagree with the addition of sun spells. Our wizards are the only ones that use them (with a few exceptions) and polymorphing makes us someone else. A couple star spells would be alright though since almost every creature outside of Celestia uses them. Though if the stats are getting scaled, the polymorphs spells might be fine as is. Idk. I'm just waiting until next patch where they'll most likely add new moon spells for me to mess with.
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vmkping: Tricks You May Not Know for ESXi Jumbo Frame Troubleshooting
The vmkping is a built-in tool for troubleshooting connectivity in ESXi. It's very similar to the normal ping command. The typical usage is as simple as: ping
Before getting started, you want to find an ESXi server with SSH service open. If the ESXi is in lock down mode, you can easily unlock it from vSphere Web Client. When you can ssh to the ESXi server, you are ready to move forward.
Time to learn how to "Google" and manage your VMware and clouds in a fast and secureHTML5 App
1. List VMKernel NICs
In most environments, you will find multiple vmkernel NICs for different usages: management, vMotion, vSAN. To test out the connectivities for the vSAN, for example, you want to use only the NIC for vSAN. To list the names of the NICs, you can use the esxcli command: (if you want to learn more about the esxcli command, check out my other article.)
[root@hq-esx001:~] esxcli network ip interface list vmk0 Name: vmk0 MAC Address: 30:e1:71:51:6f:dc Enabled: true Portset: vSwitch0 Portgroup: Management Network Netstack Instance: defaultTcpipStack VDS Name: N/A VDS UUID: N/A VDS Port: N/A VDS Connection: -1 Opaque Network ID: N/A Opaque Network Type: N/A External ID: N/A MTU: 1500 TSO MSS: 65535 Port ID: 33554436 vmk1 Name: vmk1 MAC Address: 00:50:56:60:cf:10 Enabled: true Portset: DvsPortset-5 Portgroup: N/A Netstack Instance: defaultTcpipStack VDS Name: dvsStorage2 VDS UUID: 50 3b 74 28 20 9e 97 6c-e1 3e bb fc 9e ba cc 1c VDS Port: 5 VDS Connection: 1050942085 Opaque Network ID: N/A Opaque Network Type: N/A External ID: N/A MTU: 1500 TSO MSS: 65535 Port ID: 83886088 vmk2 Name: vmk2 MAC Address: 00:50:56:61:ed:e1 Enabled: true Portset: DvsPortset-4 Portgroup: N/A Netstack Instance: vmotion VDS Name: dvsMigration2 VDS UUID: 50 3b e3 77 77 b6 2a 91-01 12 04 46 aa 5d b1 c6 VDS Port: 6 VDS Connection: 1344398988 Opaque Network ID: N/A Opaque Network Type: N/A External ID: N/A MTU: 9000 TSO MSS: 65535 Port ID: 67108872
2. Pick a NIC for Testing
You can find the NIC names and pick one for your vmkping command. In my case, I want to test out the vmk1, so I use the -I option followed by the vmk1 as the interface name. There are two more options: the -s is to specify the size of the packet. If you want to test out the jumbo frame like 9000, you can use a size slightly smaller than that because of the additional header; the -d tells the command NOT to split the IP packet.
The -d option is very important for testing the jumbo frame. If you don't have this, every size will work. For example, if you don't have MTU for jumbo frame, the larger size continues to work. That will mislead you think the jumbo frame data path works.
[root@esx001:~] vmkping -I vmk1 -s 8972 -d 192.168.252.111 PING 192.168.252.111 (192.168.252.111): 8972 data bytes 8980 bytes from 192.168.252.111: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.208 ms 8980 bytes from 192.168.252.111: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.188 ms 8980 bytes from 192.168.252.111: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.188 ms --- 192.168.252.111 ping statistics --- 3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
3. VMotion issue
The vMotion NICs need a special option to work, otherwise the normal vmkping does not work due to different netstack. To find out what net stacks used, you can use the following command:
[root@hq-esx001:~] esxcli network ip netstack list defaultTcpipStack Key: defaultTcpipStack Name: defaultTcpipStack State: 4660 vmotion Key: vmotion Name: vmotion State: 4660
For the vMotion NIC, you will need -S option with vmotion as its value as follows.
[root@hq-esx001:~] vmkping -I vmk2 -s 1500 192.168.101.11 -S vmotion PING 192.168.101.11 (192.168.101.11): 1500 data bytes 1508 bytes from 192.168.101.11: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.271 ms 1508 bytes from 192.168.101.11: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.108 ms 1508 bytes from 192.168.101.11: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.113 ms --- 192.168.101.11 ping statistics --- 3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 0.108/0.164/0.271 ms


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We're down to single digits now in terms of weeks. So, on one hand, two months feels like ages but, on the other, that's quite soon, especially when I pause to consider how much is about to change.
I actually feel pretty amazing compared with my last two pregnancies. In fact, I keep forgetting how pregnant I am until someone mentions that I'm huge. I wind up making plans that seem perfectly reasonable at the time and maybe not so great afterwards.
Because I'm tired. I feel energised and like I can do anything between 8am and 2pm but suddenly this strange, chemical exhaustion sweeps over me from there on.
Still, even with a bit of a stiff and sore pelvic girdle, I'm not in agony changing position in bed and I don't have to plan going up and down the stairs as carefully as I did by this point last time.
I wonder if part of it is that I just have to get on with things. Or maybe it's all those postnatal osteopathy sessions from last time. Or maybe it's that Ophelia is walking a lot more than Talitha was even at months older than she currently is. She's definitely encouraged by having a big sister but she also just loves to be on the move. Or it could even be that I can drive this time, which means I'm not walking (or running after trains and buses) as much. Pros and cons to that last one.
In some ways I feel healthier in this pregnancy. I'm more aware of what I need to eat to feel good, two kids means I have to keep moving, I'm a lot more disciplined about going to bed on time even if I could be more so and now that the cloud that's been hanging over me for most of this pregnancy is lifting, I'm able to think more productively and take more action to protect and feed my inner life.
I mentioned being low on iron and deficient in vitamin D in my 28-week pregnancy update. I've increased my over-the-counter vitamin D and have made more of an effort work it into what we eat since. We also have had so much more sunshine recently, which has felt glorious. Don't we all feel differently moving out of winter?
I tried taking the iron prescribed for me by the GP but even though it was a relatively low dosage and a syrup meant to be gentler I just found the side effects too unpleasant so have gone back to taking iron-enriched water and focusing on iron in my diet too. I feel like both changes have had an impact and while I'm still tired, I'm not feeling desperate most of the time.
That said, Laurence is working away in London at the moment. He's coming back on the weekends and I know it isn't a lot compared to what many have to cope with but it isn't our normal and it's made me realise just how much I rely on being able to just wander into the kitchen on an evening and catch up, having a second pair of hands picking up the house and another nighttime parent for when one of the girls wakes up.
I'm waking up a lot regardless. Baby movements, needing to wee at 3am or just feeling hot, I've moved into the stage of pregnancy where my body is getting ready for erratic newborn sleep. Funny how it didn't occur to me last time that sleeping well during the last trimester indicated that Ophelia was a sleeper.
In fact, I kept waking her every two or three hours after she was born, concerned that she get enough milk (I so didn't want to have another low milk production situation) until her prodigious weight gain and the fact that she started refusing to wake up to feed stopped and reassured me. Not so with this one. I'm pretty sure this baby is a lot more like her eldest sister in terms of waking. Certainly, she seems the most active of my babies. It'll be interesting to see what it all means, if anything at all.
We've reached a place where we're fully looking forward to meeting her. In that respect, two months feels a long time to wait. I've started imagining holding her, feeding her, wrapping her in a sling, seeing the girls with her, watching Laurence carrying her little body skin-to-skin. He's said too that he's excited about her which has been beautiful to hear when it's taken both of us a while to wrap our heads around the idea of having a third child.
Funnily enough, I now feel like we were always meant to be a family of five. And that we already are.
Read more updates from this pregnancy with baby number three:
28 weeks pregnant
25 weeks pregnant
22 weeks pregnant
20 weeks pregnant
18 weeks pregnant
16 weeks pregnant
12 weeks pregnant


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I don't even know how to say how happy I am that he was born.
it's this guy's birthday
12.30.2009 | Posted by kathy w. 3 comments
the 12 days of christmas, truncated and backwards (or, some christmas #'s that make us happy):
3. Our third Christmas as the Wests. (Also, our last Christmas before the Wests become a family of 3 and not 2.)
2. The second annual Christmas Eve family variety show.
Instead of drawing names to give presents to cousins, we put together a little talent show on Christmas Eve. I like this new tradition; instead of thinking about what everybody wants and what we have to buy, we get to appreciate who everybody is and what's been important to them in the last year.
This year, we listened to musical performances and written thoughts, saw artwork and fancy cupcakes, watched a yo-yo show, etc. I showed off some needle-felted crafts I made and C. showed off his muscles by doing push-ups.
1. One move, 35 miles up the road.
If you must move, I recommend doing so at Christmas time. We have boxes and boxes of books to open once we finally set up our bookshelves. We like the books we have, so opening them up later will feel like opening presents.
Also, if you must move at Christmas time, I recommend setting up decorations first—before unpacking anything else. Now, if I could only find some socks.
12.25.2009 | Posted by kathy w. 7 comments
Labels: holidays
wish him luck on his toughest final
My finals this semester seem a little more reasonable than my husband's. I'll hand in a written portfolio at the end of the week while he'll have to regurgitate massive chunks of information—one of which is this little instruction I encountered on his study guide while quizzing him for his chemistry final:
"Know what hormones are and in general terms how they act."
Really? I can't help but feel that the study guide's a little vague. And absurd. Surely it can't mean ALL hormones? Especially when that's just a single bullet point on a three-page study guide. Right?
Personally, I think C. should receive 100% for that section of the test before he even shows up for the final tomorrow. I mean, he lives with a pregnant woman. He certainly knows what hormones are and EXACTLY how they act.
12.14.2009 | Posted by kathy w. 8 comments
Labels: school
making peace with provo
Six years ago, I thought I was moving away from Provo for good. I couldn't WAIT. I packed up fast and by the time I hit the freeway entrance, I was flying. I almost shouted out the window: see ya', suckas! And I was never coming back.
Then the universe laughed at me and sent me to Provo again two years later.
Good thing it did, too. When I lived here the first time, I worked and spent most of my free time in a different city, while spending the rest of my time rolling my eyes at Provo stereotypes.
Not until the second time around did I discover that this supposedly boring, stifling city is home to some of the most interesting, intelligent, wonderful people I've ever met. I know they didn't hide from me before; I just never bothered to look for them back in the day.
On Saturday, I'll move away from Provo again—this time, in a very different mood. I'm thrilled about our new place for so many reasons (can we say washer and dryer?). But I now know that I'll miss the apartment and the streets and the campus and especially the people who have made me feel so at home here.
Goodbye, Provo. Goodbye, little house under the stairs.
And to all you suckers who ARE sticking around this good little town: you can't get rid of me that easily. I'm not saying goodbye for good. I've made my peace with Provo and she says I can come to visit.
12.13.2009 | Posted by kathy w. 8 comments
Labels: Provo
Tomato Christmas
We have drinken (drunk. K goes crazy when I use that word) a lot of eggnog lately. I even put it on my cereal.
School ends next week. I haven't posted lately because of the craziness. But I want to wish you all a merry Christmas. Here is a card that I made from tomatoes from our farmer.
Today I had a Christmas Miracle. I accidentally deleted all of my iTunes music, because I'm kind of an idiot. I was making a picture in photoshop, and it said that I needed more room on my hard drive. So I started deleting things like crazy. The next time I turned on iTunes, all of my songs had !'s next to them.
I wrote Apple and begged for forgiveness. A girl named Sarah wrote back an hour later and said that I could download everything again. Hooray!
Which brings me to a thought: I think once you buy a song or a movie, you should own it forever. If a new form of holding the song or movie develops (blu-ray, laserdisk, etc.), then you shouldn't have to buy it again, you should just get it for free. Okay, maybe the company wouldn't be required to send you a brand new dvd, but you should forever have rights to the data, so you could burn a new copy on whatever newly developed format. A lot of companies keep track of your purchases for a long time, so if your kid decides to put your dvds in the oven, you should be able to just download it again. That would be a real Christmas miracle.
Well, that's enough for utopian dreams. Merry Christmas.
p.s., I made a Christmas playlist, you can find it on the sidebar.
12.10.2009 | Posted by Mr. Christopher 2 comments


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Why visit the city of Dubrovnik? Perhaps because of the rich history that it offers, the fact that since 1979, the city was taken under the protection of UNESCO, or because of the open
- Home »
Croatia's popular cities
Pula is the largest Istrian town located in the southwestern part of the Istrian peninsula, and has remained the administrative center of Istria from the ancient Roman period. This beautiful city
The history of Split is over 17 centuries long, and it started when the Roman Emperor Diocletian built a palace on the peninsula near Salona where he spent the last years of his life. The city was
Located in the very heart of the Adriatic coast, there is a city with a rich 3000 year old history, having numerous cultural and natural beauties, exquisite cuisine and a wide range of tourist
Zagreb is the capital, largest and most populated city in Croatia. It represents the political, administrative, cultural, economic, scientific and transport center. It is located in the
Croatia's popular islands
Brač, one of the largest Croatian islands, can be reached from Makarska or from Split. The beautiful island adorned with houses made of Brač stone, a magnificent view of Vidova
The island of Pag is located in the Adriatic Sea, between the islands of Vir, Olib and Rab. Pag is the longest island and one of the largest islands in the Adriatic Sea. It is characterized by
Island Krk is the largest and most accessible island in the Republic of Croatia. Its excellent connections with the rest of Croatia (buses, boats, planes) were even more improved
Cres is located in the north of the Kvarner Bay. It is connected with Lošinj via bridge. It is rich in wildlife. The north of the island boasts thick forests of hornbeam, elm, oak
The island can be reached from the island of Cres, since they are connected with a small bridge, or from the mainland by a ferry to the town of Mali Lošinj. Lošinj Island is known worldwide


text: Family units are ever changing with challenges along the way. Whether you are newly married, having children, or responding to aging family members the decisions that come along with these are difficult to navigate. Challenges might include how to plan and align goals as a couple, planning and paying for college, assuring the future of an individual with disabilities is secure, or funding needs of the elderly. All of these needs fall under estate planning, which a financial advisor can help navigate. Seeking help can alleviate the confusion and frustration along the way and an objective eye can bring clarity to many situations.


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mind games are possible because the mind is the greatest weapon in our possession. like any handgun, self-inflicted casualties are likely when this weapon is handled without care.
with a bit of circumstantial evidence, gut feelings, suspicion, and a piece or two of hard evidence, the mind can spin a narrative so convincing, we believe it as if we witnessed it. to doubt its validity makes us question our judgment, and challenge the reason we dismissed in the process of crafting the narrative. and as if it held a gun to our temples, we refuse to disregard that story our speculative sleuthing has written, because our minds have convinced us it is true. or else.
things are only as important as we think they are. we assign value and meaning to everything around us, and treat those objects and ideas according to their worth. but the danger is a fearful mind; no weapon so powerful should be handled by something so irrational.


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These days, there is much discussion of how blog content can be optimized for search engines in order to receive better rankings. But have you considered how your blog template can be optimized too?
There are many themes available for WordPress users which are intrinsically styled for SEO. Unfortunately for those who use Google Blogger, such resources are few and far between.
Over a short series of three posts, I'll share some of the tricks I've discovered which you could use to optimize your Blogger templates for search engine spiders, and achieve better rankings in search results.
In this part, I'm going to start from the top by explaining how your blog's URL, title and meta tags can be easily optimized with a little thought and some slight changes to your Blogger template code. I'll also explain how your blog's title can be best optimized, even when using an image in place of the title and description text.
URLs, Title and Meta Tags
These are often considered the three most important components of search engine optimization, and can be easily optimized for Blogger powered blogs.
Your Blog's URL
Whether you are posting on a BlogSpot subdomain (e.g: yourblog.blogspot.com), or have chosen to use the custom domain feature (e.g: www.yourblog.com), the URL of your site should reflect the content of your blog.
Choose your blog's URL wisely, and if possible ensure this contains a keyword or two which is relevant to your content. If you are writing about cats, for example, a URL such as "thedogsdinner.blogspot.com" will do you no favors with Google, whereas a URL like "thecatswhiskers.blogspot.com" almost certainly would 🙂
The Title Tag
The <title> tag is a very important feature of any website, and is displayed most in search engine results.
In Blogger templates, a title tag is generated for each page of your blog (including the main, archive and post pages), which differs depending on the actual title of the page.
The title tag is called in your template like this:
Your home page will only feature the actual title of your blog, whereas post pages will feature your blog title, plus the title of your blog post.
When writing titles for your posts, you should bear this in mind to ensure your titles are keyword rich which will help your posts be indexed more easily by search engines. Try to place the most important keywords close to the beginning of the title, as many search engines limit the number of characters which are used in titles, both in their listings and in search results.
If you don't mind hacking your template a little, you could even choose to display the title of your blog post before the blog title in post pages. This technique would ensure that keywords in your post titles would be indexed much more easily, and can result in far better search rankings for your posts. For this, you should read Widget Based's post: Changing the Blogger Title Tag for full instructions and the appropriate code to use.
Please note: For some reason, Blogger does not now support the hack I mentioned above. If you have already used this method in your template, this will continue to work for you. However, you will not be able to edit your blog's template while this is still in place and may well get an error message explaining that a  is not permitted within the  tags. I can only assume that Blogger have somehow changed the way templates are parsed, and will be sure to update this section if I can discover an alternative method.
Meta Description and Keywords Tags
Many SEO experts argue that meta description and keywords tags are being depreciated in search engine results. Google for example, generally ignores the meta description tag and generates it's own description. However, many search engines do still make use of these tags so it can be useful to include them anyway.
Meta description and keyword tags are not automatically generated for Blogger templates. Since we have full access to the HTML markup of our Blogger templates, we can add these manually below the title tags.
One important consideration you should understand before adding meta description and keyword tags is that search engines look for different descriptions and keywords for each page of your site. If you simply add these to your template in the commonly accepted form, the same content will be distributed across all pages of your site, which search engines may well regard as spam.
So here's the trick: only use these meta tags for your home (main) page!
This is easily achieved by wrapping your meta description and keywords in conditional tags which will then only appear on your main page.
For example, if I was writing a blog about cute cats, I could include meta description and keyword tags like this:

<meta content='Cute cats and fluffy kittens for feline friends.' name='description'/>
<meta content='cute, cat, kitten, fluffy, feline' name='keywords'/>
The parts highlighted in bold are those tags which prevent the data between them from being generated for the item and archive pages, so you can be sure not to spam search engines with repeated descriptions and keywords for your blog.
The example above could be used as a basis for adding your own meta description and keywords, by simply changing the values to those which are better suited to your blog.
Optimizing your blog's title heading
Headings offer search engine spiders useful references about your content when indexing your site. You will probably be aware of the hierarchy of heading tags, which ranges from
 through to
. Of these, the
 tag is considered the most important. In Blogger templates, the H1 tag would usually contain the title of your blog.
Blogger allows us to upload an image to the header section, which can either be used as a background image, or instead of the regular title and description text.
Those who choose to use an image instead of the title and description will not have the H1 heading tag present in their template. So if your blog title uses keywords which would be relevant to search engine results, you would be missing out on an important factor of SEO!
Luckily, this can be easily remedied! Provided you are using an image instead of the title and description in your template, here is how you can solve this dilemma:
- Go to the Layout>Edit HTML section of your Blogger dashboard, and ensure you have checked the "Expand widget templates" box.
- Look for the styling code for the H1 heading in the  portion of your template. This may look something like this, though there are variations across different templates:
#header h1 {
margin:5px 20px;
padding:45px 20px .25em 10px;
font: $pagetitlefont;
- Within this portion of code, you need to add the following line:
display: none;
Here is how this could appear when added to the style declaration above:
#header h1 {
margin:5px 20px;
padding:45px 20px .25em 10px;
font: $pagetitlefont;
display: none;
- Next, you will need to add the
 heading tags within the header widget. For this, you will need to locate the following section of code:

<!–Show just the image, no text–>

Your Blog Title

You'll notice that I've added the H1 heading (highlighted in bold) where it should appear in the template code. As we have set the style of the H1 heading to "display: none;", this ensures that the H1 heading is present in the HTML markup of your blog pages, but that the title itself is not visible to the casual viewer.
This technique ensures that your blog's title will still be indexed as effectively as if you had used the image as a background instead. Furthermore, by adding this H1 heading manually, you could even expand on your title slightly with a short description which contains keywords relevant to your blog content.
Note: if you use an image as the background to the title and description, or do not use an image in your header at all, you don't need to worry about this issue, as the H1 heading will already be present in the mark-up of your pages!
Allow search engines to find your blog!
Finally (and most importantly!) you should ensure that search engines are able to crawl and index your blog.
The easiest way to check this is to look in the settings of the Settings>Basic section of your Blogger dashboard. Close to the bottom of the page is an option to "Let search engines find your blog". You must set this to "Yes" if you want your site to be crawled and indexed by search engines.
If you have mistakenly set this to "No", Blogger will add a "NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" meta tag to your blog mark-up, like this:
<meta content='NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW' name='robots'/>
Such a tag will prevent search engine spiders from ever indexing your site.
This may seem obvious to most of you, though you'd be surprised how many people have not checked this setting!
Further resources
Here are some useful sites you may like to refer to for further information about the tips suggested in this post:
- How to use HTML meta tags
- Critical components of optimizing a site
- Web page title tags for SEO and web usability
In the next installment of this mini-series, I'll explain how all of the links in your Blogger template (including those contained in widgets) can be optimized for search engines and better rankings.


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Sitting room with deep comfortable armchairs, flat screen TV, maps and guidebooks, double French windows opening onto the garden.
Bedroom with kingsize (5ft) bed and new and very comfortable pocket-sprung mattress, kingsize duvets, both medium-weight and lightweight, pure cotton bedlinen, wardrobe, chest of drawers, hairdryer. Double French windows opening onto the garden with views up into the canopy of a wonderful old oak tree, draped in lichen.
Fully equipped kitchen with new electric oven and ceramic hob, new fridge with freezer compartment, new microwave, toaster, cafetiere.
Bathroom with bath, new electric shower and washbasin. Separate WC with washbasin. All linen and towels are provided (but please bring your own beach towels).
All electricity and heating (electric storage and convector) and constant hot water are included in the rent. Electricity is from 100 per cent renewable sources.
Broadband is available just outside the front door - and usually just inside! Mobile reception is generally OK.
Outside there is masses of space for sitting outside and enjoying the sunshine and birdsong - garden furniture provided - or for sitting in the shade of the wonderful old oak tree outside the cottage. Although the cottage is attached to the main house, it is otherwise completely independent from it and is very private and not overlooked (or walked in front of!).
Car parking is at the top of a short shallow slope that leads down to the cottage. There is one shallow step at the entrance to the cottage. The cottage inside is all on one level.
The cottage has a number of Devon guidebooks, field guides to birds, wildflowers and trees, lots of leaflets from surrounding tourist information offices, and Ordnance Survey maps for walking (Explorer series) and driving (Landranger series) for South Devon and Dartmoor.
The cottage is non-smoking throughout. It is not suitable for children. As this is a nature reserve, we do not allow dogs.
Guest comment:
'The cottage has been perfect for our week's honeymoon - quiet, warm and just remote enough that we felt we'd escaped from the rest of the world.'


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Don't know what Western States is? It's the Mecca of running for a lot of ultrarunners. You have to run SUPER fast in another 50 or 100 miler of adequate difficulty to get in automatically, and then you have to run one very fast to even qualify to gets into the lottery. And I think only like 10% of the lottery entries actually get a spot. Anyway, you have to be fast, you have to be lucky, and you have to be fast and lucky. Neither of which I am by the way.
From their website,
"Western States if one of the oldest ultra trail events in the world and certainly one of the most challenging. The Run is conducted along the Western States Trail starting at Squaw Valley, California, and ending in Auburn, California, a total of 100 miles. The trail ascends from the Squaw Valley floor (elevation 6,200 feet) to Emigrant Pass (elevation 8,750 feet), a climb of 2,550 vertical feet in the first 4½ miles. From the pass, following the original trails used by the gold and silver miners of the 1850's, runners travel west, climbing another 15,540 feet and descending 22,970 feet before reaching Auburn. Most of the trail passes through remote and rugged territory, accessible only to hikers, horses and helicopters.
The Run begins at 5:00 am on Saturday of the last full weekend in June at the west end of Squaw Valley. Runners must reach the finish line no later than 11:00 am the following day in order to be eligible for an award. Due to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the trail, the Western States Endurance Run differs substantially from other organized runs. Adequate mental and physical preparation are of utmost importance to each runner, for the mountains, although beautiful, are relentless in their challenge and unforgiving to the ill-prepared.
Approximately 1,500 dedicated volunteers help out at each Western States Endurance Run. They are truly the life-blood of the Run and will do everything possible to make your day a success. Many spend more hours out on the trail than do the runners themselves."Well, Ambassador Peter helped coordinate the group and communicated with the race director to find out where the Ambassador group would volunteer.
|The American River at the Cable Crossing location
|I'll be at the Rucky Chuck location in the lower left.
From Greg Soderland, the Western States Race Director, describing the volunteer job:
"It's basically escorting the runners onto and off the cable on each side of the River. It's a night shift that runs from 4 p.m. on Sat. to 5 a.m. on Sunday. Would ask your volunteers to work either the whole shift or the 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift. If they work the whole shift, they'll get nap breaks and a dinner break. Dinner is provided by the Cable Captain. We will make arrangements for everyone to rent a wetsuit if they don't have one since many will be standing in the river for a few hours (hip to knee deep at the most). There is no cost to rent the suit. Everyone receives a "Cable Guy" volunteer T-shirt when they arrive."YES! I get to stand all night in a frigid river, in a wetsuit, to help tired runners at mile 80, across a river. Of course, it may also mean I'm making peanut butter sandwiches at that aid station for 13 hours instead, which will still be awesome because either way I'll be helping these demigod runners of ultrarunning.
Here's a video from the 2010 race of the Rucky Chuck location:
I'll get to swoon over the fastest runners - the gods of running. And my friend Josh who I ran with Saturday is running it, along with my coach Jeremy who is his pacer, so I will get to see both of them!
It'll be a hard weekend but so memorable. And that's why I can easily decide the plane ticket cost is worth it. Plus, helping through the night, I won't have to pay for a hotel room, LOL! I'll fly in midmorning Saturday, Peter's picking me up at the airport, off to Sacramento, work and laugh and help, then back to the airport for a Sunday afternoon flight. And I can NOT wait!


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There is good pizza... and there is great pizza. This, my friends, proudly represented the latter. I'm not sure that it was the most mind blowing pie I've ever had. It may not even top some of the deep dishes that I've eaten in Chicago, but it certainly lived up to every expectation of what a coal oven New York style pizza should taste like!
|Large pizza at Lombardi's in New York City
I met some good buddies from LSU, Adam and John Robert, who currently live in NYC, at Lombardi's Pizza in Manhattan. Fortunately we got there right as they opened so we had no line to wait in. Rumor is that this place builds up quite the crowd on a weekday lunch. While it attracts its fair amount of tourists, multiple locals gave their support for Lombardi's as one of THE places to go for an authentic New York slice.
|Lombardi's Coal Oven Pizza
As if he hadn't been back to Louisiana in a while, John Robert asked if it was too early to start drinking. I smiled and said of course not! We ordered a pitcher of Brooklyn Lager to help wash our pizza down!
|Brooklyn Lager
|Authentic New York City Pizza at Lombardi's


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Insurance is a way of managing risks. When you buy insurance, you transfer the cost of a potential loss to the insurance company in exchange for a fee, known as the PREMIUM. Insurance allows individuals, businesses and other entities to protect themselves against significant potential losses and financial hardship at a reasonable and affordable rate.
Contact one of our agents and find out which policies will meet your needs and provide the security you deserve.


text:
Now showing items 1-10 of 26
The formation and electron transfer of covalently crosslinked cytchrome [sic] c Peroxidase and cytochrome c complexes
(Northern Illinois University, 2005)
Characterization of a putative human 5-lipoxygenase activating protein sequence encoded in Arabidopsis thaliana
(Northern Illinois University, 1992)
Lipoxygenase is a ubiquitous enzyme that can oxidize free fatty acids containing a cis, cis -1, 4- pentadiene structure. This action forms fatty acid hydroperoxides which are precursors to compounds of medicinal importance. ...
The effect of follicular fluid on pregnenolone accumulation and 3B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activity in porcine granulosa cells from small ovarian porcine antral follicles in vitro
(Northern Illinois University, 1986)
Progesterone (P₄) secretion by porcine granulosa cells (GC) from small (1-2 mm) ovarian follicles is enhanced by incubation with charcoal treated and filtered fluid from large (6-12 mm) porcine, ovarian follicles (LFF1). ...
Construction of a Synthetic Dihydrofolate reductase gene
(Northern Illinois University, 1992)
The goal of this research was to improve Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) as a selectable marker in a maize transformation system. To do this, molecular, tissue culture and transformation techniques were used to transiently ...
Modification of cytochrome c peroxidase with hydrogen peroxide : characterization of the endogenous decay products at pH 8.0
(Northern Illinois University, 1988)
The endogenous decay products of compound I at pH 8.0 were studied. Analysis included activity towards the model substrate, ferrocyanide, hydrogen peroxide titer, amino acid analysis and peptide mapping. The composite decay ...
A new protocol for assaying ornithine decarboxylase activity in whole tissues : use of this protocol to study diurnal ODC rhythms in the liver and thymus of male rats following an acute injection of dexamethasone
(Northern Illinois University, 1987)
Ornithine decarboxylase (E.C.188.8.131.52, ODC), the initial and rate-limiting enzyme in the synthesis of polyamines, has been used extensively as an indicator in studying: a) RNA, DNA and protein synthesis; b) cell proliferation ...
Effects of formate binding on the catalytic core of bovine heart cytochrome c oxidase
(Northern Illinois University, 1993)
Two separate optical conformers that are referred to as "430 nm" and "414 nm" are known for cytochrome c oxidase. Another two separate conformers are observed upon the binding of cyanide and are referred to as "rapid" or ...
The infeasibiblity of isolating chick DNA photolyase gene by direct transfection of cosmid library
(Northern Illinois University, 1989)
Recent work has suggested that the Pyr(6-A)Pyo lesion, a minor component of the DNA lesions generated after exposure to ultraviolet light, may be more mutagenic than the dominant (5-6) cyclobutane dimer. Testing this ...
Binding of antizyme to mammalian ornithine decarboxylase and the influence of changes in the enzyme protein structure
(Northern Illinois University, 1989)
Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC; E.C.18.104.22.168), is the rate-limiting enzyme of the polyamine biosynthesis pathway in eukaryotic cells. Its activity responds to a variety of hormones and other stimuli that control cell growth ...
The development of a partial physical map of Bacillus megaterium
(Northern Illinois University, 1990)
The techniques that would lead to a physical restriction map of B. megaterium were investigated. Methods of isolating whole chromosomal DNA were determined and optimized, and parameters for separation of large DNA molecules ...


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Winter is almost over, and I can start thinking about going outside again. Winter here in Canada can be pretty rough. And long! But when it comes to Summer we have it made. This is a fantastic time to get out and shoot. For nature people like myself, it's particularly amazing. Sunrise starts around 5 in the morning, and doesn't go down until around 10 at night. So making the most of the days is paramount.
This is one of my favourite places to shoot in the Summer. And sunsets always make great shots 🙂
This is a really wide shot from up on a boulder. I love how the forced perspective gives an even grander sense of scale. The other thing I tried to focus on here is the colour. I love colour in my photos. Rarely do I process in Black and White. Not to knock it, I just really appreciate the warmth it can bring. Makes things pop a little more.


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WOW! It is Friday, pop the bubbly and lets celebrate. Last night I was telling Mr. Beau how excited I was that it was the weekend, what a long week it has been. He then reminded that yes it was and that for the past five weeks we have had long busy weeks, hahah. Yep, I guess he is right, every Friday I start to fancy more and more! This week was a big exciting week with the launch of my new shiny glittery business Glimmer & Threads, please pop over to the site and look around. For now I am heading out to Friday to celebrate in the weekend ahead! In honor of my new business I am sharing some of my favorite glittery things I have seen recently. Happy Friday! xoxo
1. Blush Gold Sequin Linen - One of my linens available of hire. Isn't this the prettiest! This just happens to be my wedding as well, I so fancy it.
2. Champagne Is Always The Answer - I think I need a pack of these coasters to frame on the wall!
3. Sequin Flower Girl - I saw this idea of having the flower girl throw sequin down the aisle instead of flowers and honestly love it!
4. Glitter Carnations - Sparkling linen {we carry this gold & white chevron cloth!} with smile sparkling vases with inexpensive carnations. I really love the way carnations look all grouped together…..and they are cheap!
5. LK Bennet Dottie Glitter Heel - So I think these are calling my name. Worn with skinny jeans or your wedding dress, these ombre glittery heels are just plain out pretty.
6. Confetti iPhone cover - I think I need to order this phone cover, pronto. Simple but kind of like having a party on your phone all of the time.
7. Pop The Champagne Tshirt - I really love this tshirt and am thinking for an upcoming event with a big tulle skirt it may just be perfect.
8. Glimmer and Threads - Please check out my new site! Yes, I am asking…..and if you need any glittery linens for an event, do send me an email!
9.Gold Glitter Bow - I am loving everything about this glittery gold bow. I think in my hair or pinned on my coat it is a necessity for my wardrobe.
10. Marshmallow Cocktail Sugar - Yes, you read correct. Sugar that tastes like Marshmallows, hello delicious!
HAPPY FRIDAY! xoxo - Rebecca


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Friday, Jan 20, 2012, 9:29 am
Harlem Gives Occupy Tense Reception
In a single day, President Obama raised $3 million from wealthy New Yorkers for his re-election bid during a tour of three Upper East Side audiences, including one at director Spike Lee's home. Singer Mariah Carey and retired Knick Allan Houston reportedly paid nearly $36,000-per-ticket for the event.
The evening culminated with a trip to the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem where Obama delivered his stump speech.
"I am here tonight not just because I need your help, I'm here because your country needs your help," said Obama.
Occupy Harlem's Nellie Bailey told the Daily News that the swank fundraising events in Harlem represent "a profound disconnect the sitting President has with poor and working class Blacks that constitute his core base of support."
Occupy Harlem was one of the groups behind the protest that occurred across the street from the Apollo while the president was inside, singing Al Green's "Let's Stay Together."
Christina Gonzalez, 25, from Rockaway, Queens said she attended the protest because she was sickened not only by some of the president's recent policy signings, but also the exorbitant fees attached to seeing the president speak in public.
"I'm outraged that the president of my country, who I voted for, who hasn't done a damn thing for this country, has the nerve to come to the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem and charge $100-to-$25,000 for a seat to hear him speak - about what, I don't know, because I can't afford to get inside," she says.
Gonzalez also expressed her anger at local policies that disproportionately affect young people of color.
"Meanwhile, in this city right now, the NYPD are using these [Stop And Frisk US 250] forms, which is basically the new Jim Crow, which says that they have the ability to go out and stop people in the streets, almost 700,000 people they stopped in 2011, 85 percent of them were black or brown men. There's something wrong with that," says Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, along with a handful of other Occupy Wall Street protesters, were handing out photocopies of the Stop And Frisk forms with the words, "THE NEW JIM CROW" written at the bottom of the sheets.
A common grievance among the protesters was Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that allows any citizen to be indefinitely detained without trial and without due process.
"While we were all celebrating on New Year's Eve, he passed the National Defense Authorization Act that says I can be considered a terrorist for handing our subversive information," says Gonzalez.
The hodgepodge of different causes and ideologies is a familiar fixture of OWS, and actually it's the movement's big tent structure that many credit with Occupy's popularity. By being all-inclusive, the group guarantees that more sympathizers will join its ranks.
However, embracing radically different, though generally leftist, ideologies sometimes leads to utter chaos at protests, and the Apollo gathering was such an event.
The usual movements such as OWS and MoveOn were in attendance, but so were the so-called "LaRouchies," followers of Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas, and a movement built on a foundation of paranoid conspiracy theories.
In terms of Occupy's history, the LaRouchies are perhaps most famous for handing the right-wing ammo to level charges of anti-Semitism at OWS whenever they parade around giant banners depicting Obama as Hitler.
And it's not as simple as dismissively saying "LaRouchies aren't part of Occupy" because that's actually not true. They, like the 9/11 Truthers, have been at the OWS meetings and voting with the group since the beginning, so the majority non-Larouche following Occupiers found themselves in an awkward position last night when a small group unfurled a banner of Obama donning a toothbrush mustache.
Occupy couldn't exactly kick out the LaRouchies, so they instead shifted the OWS protest several feet down the sidewalk to create space between themselves and the banners that quickly became a much-loathed target for some of Harlem's residents, though many individuals seemed annoyed anyone had turned out to protest the president, regardless of their ideological stripe.
"Get the fuck out of my home!" one young Harlemite screamed at the protesters before he tried to scale the police barricade.
A row of Harlem residents lined up along the sidewalk and alternated between passively observing the activists and heckling the protesters. Varieties of "shut up!" and "get out!" emanating from local citizens became part of the background of the event.
It seemed as though the protesters confidently marched into Harlem without taking into account the city's tense race relations, particularly in Harlem, which has been undergoing a radical demographic shift for the past decade, or so, leaving black households sometimes in the minority.
But where the protesters stood, 6 in 10 residents are black, and many have long witnessed the president weather attacks, some valid, but others rooted in ugly, undeniable racism (see: Show Me Your Birth Certificate).
There was little room for nuanced debate at the Apollo protest, and to many Harlemites, it appeared as though a bunch of people, most of them white, had shown up simply to give the first black president a hard time. The Obama-as-Hitler banner seemed to seal the deal. After all, calling one's political opponent "Hitler" doesn't really leave much room for intelligent debate.
Gonzalez had traded some words with pedestrians who commented she was lucky to live in a country where she can protest, a dismissive remark she attributes to lack of awareness about issues threatening the majority of Americans.
"They don't know about SOPA and PIPA and all these four-letter acronyms that are flying around right now, that are taking away more and more of our freedoms. They obviously don't know. I love that we have a black president, but I will not be fooled that because he's a black man that he's the best thing that ever happened to this place," she says.
Lost in the chaos of badly handled race relations were important messages of bank bailouts, foreclosure epidemics, and rampant unemployment, particularly in the black community (15.8 percent).
Dawn Aromo, who said she was at the protest with MoveOn and Occupy Wall Street, showed up to oppose a corrupt political culture that "doles out $156 billion to banks," while homes are foreclosed and corporations refuse to pay their fair share in taxes.
Aromo was hoping the protest would become a starting point for a larger conversation about accountability.
"Let's just open up a communication and talk about these things. Let's get it out there," she says.
Like everyone else at the event, Aromo had a laundry list of complaints agains the government, including the Citizens United decision. Aromo stressed that if the government insists on treating corporations as people, that should include how corporations are treated by the justice system.
The example she uses are the slave-like conditions Monsanto keeps its Argentinian workers in.
"[The employees] are working 16 hours a day and they have to buy things at inflated prices to eat. These corporations, if they are going to be considered people, then we should be able to take them to court."
The fact that Aromo and Gonzalez's valid grievances were lost in the chaos of the protest illustrates two points: First, whenever America congratulates itself on becoming post-racial, we should all enjoy a good, collective laugh. There are deep, profound racial injustices in this country, which ironically, OWS was hoping to discuss at the protest. Stop And Frisk, widespread unemployment in the black community, and the subprime disaster are all byproducts of institutional racism.
However, when a majority-white group plans to march into Harlem, site of arguably the most important black cultural renaissance in US history, and "educate" its citizens about the poor decisions of the first black president, there needs to be some community outreach done beforehand. Otherwise, there's zero room for discussion, the whole thing dissolves into a screamfest, and if the LaRouchies show up, man, it's over.
Side-note: Accusations of the white, male hijacking of Occupy have been prevalent for a while, and the issue is complicated. The media did a very poor job of highlighting a variety of OWS voices, particular those of women of color, leading many to believe there simply aren't Occupiers of different races, which is patently false. However, as one long-time OWS supporter told me last night, white men do have a habit of deeming themselves facilitators at Occupy meet-ups, which gives the false impression that OWS is led by white men simply because, in that moment, a white man chose to seize power and lead. In his words, it's "like witnessing the mindset behind colonialism."
Second, there is a direct correlation between Occupy's popularity and the timeline of Obama's reelection bid. Everyone loves dissenters when they don't threaten the system's normal state, but as we near election time, Occupy's presence at Obama events will be less a novelty and more a very real threat, especially in the minds of diehard Obama supporters (in Nov 2011, black voters gave Obama a 91 percent approval rating).
Last night seemed a failure of imagination: failure on the part of Occupy for underestimating tense race relations and Obama fervor leading up to the re-election, and failure on the part of some Harlem residents to imagine that maybe - just maybe - Obama hasn't made stellar decisions at every turn.
Allison Kilkenny
Allison Kilkenny is an In These Times Staff Writer and the co-host of the critically acclaimed radio show Citizen Radio. Her blog for In These Times, Uprising, focuses on efforts around the world to address the global economic crisis.


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General Motors is making it easier for military personnel to save money when they purchase a new vehicle. The American carmaker recently announced that it will be extending its military discount.
The General Motors Military Discount now allows military members to take advantage of the discount for up to three years after discharge. This means they can potentially save thousands of dollars on a new vehicle. Previously, this discount was only available up to one year after discharge.
"Supporting service members and their families is truly part of our fabric at GM," said Steve Hill, vice president of U.S. Sales, Service, and Marketing. "Extending the discount to three years post-service allows military families to settle back into civilian life and take the time they need before purchasing a new vehicle."
This discount is available for all active duty, reserve, and retired members of all U.S. military branches, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and National Guard. It applies to all GM brands and is available now on most 2018 GM vehicles, most 2017 vehicles, and the new 2019 models.
You can find a comprehensive list of vehicles that it can apply to here. To use this discount, simply go to the GM Military Discount website, selected the best price available, get an authorization number, and find the nearest participating dealership that has the vehicle you desire.
For more details about this exclusive discount, call us at El Dorado Chevy.


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Use the "Forgot password" button on the login page for your MoodleCloud site, just as you would do for any Moodle site. This will also reset the password you use on the MoodleCloud Portal. They are always kept the same.
I've forgotten my password, how do I reset it?
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Today marks the end of this year's Banned Books Week celebration. This campaign, promoted by the American Library Association and Amnesty International, celebrates the freedom to read and aims to address the issue of book censorship. These 10 very different books have one thing in common: they are all banned for sending powerful messages that authority figures fear will negatively influence the readers. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that if a whole system is threatened by a couple of books, then perhaps the books are not the problem.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Criticized for "homosexuality, date rape, masturbation, and the glorification of alcohol use and drugs," The Perks of Being a Wallflower has been removed from the curriculum at many high schools. Chbosky has stated that he does not want his book to be banned or challenged, but the legitimate issues that high schoolers face must be addressed and "the more conversations we have about these things, the better."
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 is a futuristic novel about a society that bans and burns books. Ironic much? The eventual burning of the Bible and some derogatory lines about Christianity are some of the most common reasons for the banning of this novel. However, it's mostly because a novel condemning censorship doesn't sit very well with people who want censorship.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Bridge to Terabithia, the book that made your 8-year-old self-sob for days on end, is banned because of references to witchcraft and atheism, as well as some profane language. I mean who cares that this novel teaches young readers the importance of friendship and inspires them to use their imaginations, right?
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is a coming of age story that follows Margaret Simon as she goes through puberty and learns about religious issues and conformity. Critics challenge this book because it features "too many periods," which is apparently too heavy a dose of reality for some people.
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
This book! How? Well, apparently it "glorifies Satan" and "encourages children to be disobedient." But wait, there's more! This beloved poetry collection also "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them."
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Flies, a required reading at many high schools, has been challenged for portraying people as "savage" or "primitive" when it comes down to survival. It is a violent book, but the reason it has agitated critics enough for it to be banned is that it suggests that the capacity for great evil lies within us all.
Looking for Alaska by John Green
John Green, a popular name in YA literature, is known for writing profoundly meaningful novels that pertain to everyday adolescent life. Looking for Alaska has been challenged for "offensive language" and "sexually explicit descriptions." Green, however, believes that complaints only come from those who have failed to find purpose behind his words as "text is meaningless without context."
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
A school district in Wisconsin banned this book because "If there's a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?" Of course. Why not erase the systematic eradication of Native Americans from history, so that we can feel better about ourselves?
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beloved is banned for bestiality, racism and sex, as it narrates the post-traumatic effects of slavery. Much like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, opposition to this novel is proof of America's discomfort towards confronting its history of racism and its continued effects that are still being seen today.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
Last, but definitely not least, the Harry Potter series remain to be some of the most banned books. The controversy arises from wizards and witches being portrayed in a good light, which comes in direct conflict with some religious teachings. However, I think it is safe to say that banning Harry Potter has not had too much of an effect on its success.


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Spun from 100% finest cashmere yarns from Kashmir, these over sized scarves have a haute-artisanal touch that is inspired by an opulent floral embroidery and softest of Cashmere.
LuxQ Cashmere scarves are beautifully hand embroidered with creeping vines and blossoming flowers, alongside the brand's signature paisley. Each piece is handmade using the softest Cashmere and time-honoured embroidered techniques.
Delicate and refined, each piece carries the artisans initials discretely embroidered in the corner.


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I have the
terrible wonderful habit of browsing the books for sale whenever I'm in a thrift store or library; I like inviting serendipity. I don't remember where or when I found this biography, but it was definitely serendipity; my taste for personal histories, especially of women, would have been enough to pick it up, but the ability to justify it as a possible source for research – and, better still, a source for the sort of details of everyday life in historic Europe that are so hard to come by – made it an easy sale.
Any reservations I had came from the fact that Andrea di Robilant is Lucia's descendant. On the one hand, there's romance in the "long-lost story discovered in family archives," but on the other – mightn't it be vanity publishing, making a book out of nothing very much? It was, however, cool that the portrait on the cover is indeed of her – a portrait that was deemed lost until he tracked it down. (This would be a bit too much National Treasure if it did not become apparent in the telling of the story that, because it was not a major work, nobody had ever bothered to go looking before.)
But, anyhow, I bought it and read it and enjoyed every minute of it, and it vastly exceeded anything I hoped it would be. I also found myself confronting a number of common myths about the past and even discovering a few surprising facts we don't often consider at all. Here are a few: Continue reading "Book Review: Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon"


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I'd like to use the my Android phone to control Edison, so I went to the Intel website to search some info. Luckily, I found an article named COMMUNICATE TO ARDUINO CODE WITH YOUR ANDROID* PHONE BY BLUETOOTH SERIAL PORT PROFILE (SPP) ON INTEL® EDISON which is written by FRANKY H. is very suit for me.
In this tutorial we'll get the command that input from SPP in the Arduino code, and control a Relay. Meanwhile, a button can also decide the Relay state.
You should insert the Base Shield board to the Intel Edison for Arduino board, and connect Grove – Button to the D4 port, Grove – Relay to the D3 port. Just as below picture shows.
Then you need to get a table lamp, and had to damage it.
Clip one wire and connect to the terminal of Grove – Relay, as shown below.
1.Download the file Bluetooth-sersvice.tar.gz
2.Copy Bluetooth-service.tar.gz to /home/root/Bluetooth and extract it
mkdir /home/root/bluetoothcd /home/root/bluetoothmv /home/root/bluetooth-service.tar.gz ./tar -xvf bluetooth-service.tar.gz
3.Copy Bluetooth-spp-pin.service to /lib/systemd/system
cp bluetooth-spp-pin.service /lib/systemd/system
4.Enable the system service
systemctl enable bluetooth-spp-pin
5.Reboot your device
6.Double check the service
systemctl status bluetooth-spp-pin

We assume you have connected your Edison for Arduino board and computer well with USB.
Congratulations, you have already completed the most of the work.
There are many ways to do this, but I think the article written by Karthik M. is easy enough. Please put hand on here to learn more.
You can press and hold the button down to customize. The result is just as picture below shows.
Now you can remote control your table lamp by using Bluetooth SPP APP, or you can also press the Grove - Button to turn on/off the light.
This project is made as an Open Source Project. It's a starting point. Let your creativity go wild with the mechanical, electrical and software design. Make the demo your own. Decorate it. Improve the work. No matter what, write a recipe about it.
To share and progress together.