Friday, May 30, 2008
Midlife Crisis Underway
Delta checks out the new "furniture" in the family room, then goes looking for earplugs.
The drumset is on long-term loan from Dave E. Thanks, buddy!
The drumset is on long-term loan from Dave E. Thanks, buddy!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Paris Metro Nudes
The story in the Telegraph (UK) about Jam Abelanet's book "Fantaisies Souterraines" -- which has fifty images of naked women in Paris Metro stations and trains -- reminds me of one of my crazier travel stories.
We were in Barcelona, Spain in 1991. It was a sparkling clear summer day, and Jane and I were in line to explore Antoni Gaudi's famed Sagrada Familia Temple. We noticed a strange pair in line with us: a guy with lots of camera equipment around his neck, accompanied by a beautiful woman -- with a very careful coif and makeup -- wearing what appeared to be a lab coat and sneakers. We had a hunch as to what was afoot, and decided to follow them.
They quckly climbed the spiral staircase of one of the highest towers. Eventually the woman walked out onto one of the bridges connecting the towers as the man readied his cameras. (The bridges can be seen clearly in this photo.) We peeked at them from a small window in the tower; the summer sky and the city of Barcelona formed a perfect background as the woman tossed off the lab coat -- as you might expect by now, she had nothing on underneath -- and the guy snapped photos. As fast as it happened, the woman slipped the coat back on and the pair hustled off the bridge and down the stairs. We laughed and laughed -- we think we were the only ones who saw the whole episode.
For months and years afterward we kept our eye out for nude photos on the Sagrada Familia. This was before the Internet and Google Image Search, so the best we could do was look in books of Barcelona photography. We never found out what became of the photos, but we got an hilarious travel memory from the day.
We were in Barcelona, Spain in 1991. It was a sparkling clear summer day, and Jane and I were in line to explore Antoni Gaudi's famed Sagrada Familia Temple. We noticed a strange pair in line with us: a guy with lots of camera equipment around his neck, accompanied by a beautiful woman -- with a very careful coif and makeup -- wearing what appeared to be a lab coat and sneakers. We had a hunch as to what was afoot, and decided to follow them.
They quckly climbed the spiral staircase of one of the highest towers. Eventually the woman walked out onto one of the bridges connecting the towers as the man readied his cameras. (The bridges can be seen clearly in this photo.) We peeked at them from a small window in the tower; the summer sky and the city of Barcelona formed a perfect background as the woman tossed off the lab coat -- as you might expect by now, she had nothing on underneath -- and the guy snapped photos. As fast as it happened, the woman slipped the coat back on and the pair hustled off the bridge and down the stairs. We laughed and laughed -- we think we were the only ones who saw the whole episode.
For months and years afterward we kept our eye out for nude photos on the Sagrada Familia. This was before the Internet and Google Image Search, so the best we could do was look in books of Barcelona photography. We never found out what became of the photos, but we got an hilarious travel memory from the day.
Labels: art, barcelona, photography, Spain, travel
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Ted Kennedy Brain Tumor Coverage
A friend asked me what I thought of the New York Times coverage of Ted Kennedy's brain tumor. I wrote a long, fast email, which I'm also posting here:
They gave the general tumor type (glioma) but not the specifics. There are several types of gliomas, including astrocytomas, glioblastomas, and oligodendrogliomas. Also four grades, from I to IV (the higher the number, the more aggressive). Malignant gliomas are grades III or IV, though so-called "benign" ones still cause lots of trouble because the cranium is an enclosed space and anything that squeezes the brain in that space can cause trouble. Jane's tumor was a mixed astrocytoma-oligodendroglioma, grade III.
They gave the location of Kennedy's tumor as left parietal, and said that area of the brain was involved in sensation, motor control and language. Would have been more accurate to say USUALLY involved in language. Not always. Whether or not often depends on handedness. Jane was left handed, and had her initial tumor in the left occipital and parietal lobes. (Toward the end it spread to the frontal lobes and into the right hemisphere.) Frequently, left-handed people have their language more distributed between the hemispheres than right-handers, but still centered largely in the left hemisphere. Jane had a Wada test that determined that her language was almost entirely in the right hemisphere. (She never did play by the book!) This allowed for a much more aggressive left-hemisphere surgery back in 1998 and 2000.
I have the videotape of Jane's Wada test, by the way -- I remember it as strange and fascinating to watch, but I haven't viewed it in years. I also have a photograph of her open cranium.
One article quoted Keith Black, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai in LA. He's a rock star among brain surgeons, more famous but NOT more sought after than Jane's surgeon (Mitchel Berger). Keith Black was written up in TIME magazine a decade or so ago, I think.
One article rightly says that age has a lot to do with prognosis. Getting a malignant glioma at age 76 is not a good thing. Another article rightly says that the disease is "treatable but not curable."
The articles refer to the disease as brain tumor and not brain cancer. The distinction is subtle; generally, cancers can metastasize to other tissues, but brain tumors cannot. (You can't get a brain tumor in your lungs, but you can get lung cancer in your brain.) Doctors will very rarely say "brain cancer" in my experience, probably because to do so is imprecise, but a lot of brain tumor patients and advocates (I'm not among them) prefer to use the term "cancer" because, I think, it sounds more urgent. A tumor sounds like something that can be sliced off, like a wart. Brain tumors, especially gliomas, tend to have lots of tendrils and stray cells throughout the brain; it's rare that they're encapsulated. (One NYT article said this, in a roundabout way.)
They gave the general tumor type (glioma) but not the specifics. There are several types of gliomas, including astrocytomas, glioblastomas, and oligodendrogliomas. Also four grades, from I to IV (the higher the number, the more aggressive). Malignant gliomas are grades III or IV, though so-called "benign" ones still cause lots of trouble because the cranium is an enclosed space and anything that squeezes the brain in that space can cause trouble. Jane's tumor was a mixed astrocytoma-oligodendroglioma, grade III.
They gave the location of Kennedy's tumor as left parietal, and said that area of the brain was involved in sensation, motor control and language. Would have been more accurate to say USUALLY involved in language. Not always. Whether or not often depends on handedness. Jane was left handed, and had her initial tumor in the left occipital and parietal lobes. (Toward the end it spread to the frontal lobes and into the right hemisphere.) Frequently, left-handed people have their language more distributed between the hemispheres than right-handers, but still centered largely in the left hemisphere. Jane had a Wada test that determined that her language was almost entirely in the right hemisphere. (She never did play by the book!) This allowed for a much more aggressive left-hemisphere surgery back in 1998 and 2000.
I have the videotape of Jane's Wada test, by the way -- I remember it as strange and fascinating to watch, but I haven't viewed it in years. I also have a photograph of her open cranium.
One article quoted Keith Black, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai in LA. He's a rock star among brain surgeons, more famous but NOT more sought after than Jane's surgeon (Mitchel Berger). Keith Black was written up in TIME magazine a decade or so ago, I think.
One article rightly says that age has a lot to do with prognosis. Getting a malignant glioma at age 76 is not a good thing. Another article rightly says that the disease is "treatable but not curable."
The articles refer to the disease as brain tumor and not brain cancer. The distinction is subtle; generally, cancers can metastasize to other tissues, but brain tumors cannot. (You can't get a brain tumor in your lungs, but you can get lung cancer in your brain.) Doctors will very rarely say "brain cancer" in my experience, probably because to do so is imprecise, but a lot of brain tumor patients and advocates (I'm not among them) prefer to use the term "cancer" because, I think, it sounds more urgent. A tumor sounds like something that can be sliced off, like a wart. Brain tumors, especially gliomas, tend to have lots of tendrils and stray cells throughout the brain; it's rare that they're encapsulated. (One NYT article said this, in a roundabout way.)
Labels: brain tumor, health, Jane, language, medicine, people, politics
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Diablo Magazine Clips
I'm catching up on posting some older stories. Here are two I wrote for Diablo Magazine:
The Illusionist - a profile of magician and Alamo resident Lee Grabel - January 2007. Snippet:
The Shark Whisperer - a short item about John Valentine, a Pleasanton man who nurses sharks in his huge home aquarium - December 2006. Snippet:
The Illusionist - a profile of magician and Alamo resident Lee Grabel - January 2007. Snippet:
His den is covered with playbills and pictures of Grabel and his wife, Helen, onstage. Files overflow with newspaper reports of their performances in the 1950s, when Lee was America’s preeminent magician.
The Shark Whisperer - a short item about John Valentine, a Pleasanton man who nurses sharks in his huge home aquarium - December 2006. Snippet:
A money manager for wealthy clients, Valentine began keeping reef fish in 1999 to unwind. In 2000, he adopted an 18-inch whitetip reef shark when a customer reneged on a deal with a Danville aquarium-store owner. The shark grew to four feet; Jigsaw now stars at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
What's Worse Than One Annoying Company?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Mountain View (Cemetery) People
I happened across a cool blog today: Michael Colbruno's Mountain View Cemetery Bio Tour. The name says it pretty clearly: Colbruno photographs the graves and gives biographies of prominent people in Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery.
I did some Googling to find out about Mr. Colbruno. I'm not sure if the keeper of this blog is the same Michael Colbruno who is an executive with Clear Channel and a board member of the Chabot Space & Science Center. I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who runs the MikeOpera blog. (If you see this, and it's you, let me know!)
I plan to spend some more time with the blog when I'm able to come up for air. Meanwhile, I was up at Mountain View last night, freshening the flowers on Jane's niche (the heat is already taking its toll) and noticed that the new gates are almost complete.
I did some Googling to find out about Mr. Colbruno. I'm not sure if the keeper of this blog is the same Michael Colbruno who is an executive with Clear Channel and a board member of the Chabot Space & Science Center. I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who runs the MikeOpera blog. (If you see this, and it's you, let me know!)
I plan to spend some more time with the blog when I'm able to come up for air. Meanwhile, I was up at Mountain View last night, freshening the flowers on Jane's niche (the heat is already taking its toll) and noticed that the new gates are almost complete.
Labels: blogs, history, Jane, people
Friday, May 09, 2008
Brain chemistry, gliomas, and neurodegenerative disease
Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University may have found a brain chemistry connection between brain tumors and neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer's. It's good to see people taking creative tacks toward the unraveling of these problems.
The full article from Physorg.com is here.
[Researcher Paul B.] Fisher and his colleagues were interested in identifying how the promoter region of the EAAT2 gene controlled the expression of glutamate in a group of brain cells called astrocytes. Using molecular biological approaches, the team examined all the regions and sequences in the promoter region and systematically eliminated them to then define which region was necessary to respond to ceftriaxone.
According to Fisher, this led the team to a critical transcription factor called nuclear factor kappaB, NF- kappaB, which regulates many functions in the brain and other parts of the body. This is a central molecule involved in regulation of genes controlling cell growth and survival. Once they identified critical regions in the EAAT2 promoter that might regulate activity, they found that alteration of one specific NF-kappaB site by mutation in the promoter was responsible for up-regulation of EAAT2 expression and consequently glutamate transport by ceftriaxone.
“This work not only has implications for the field of neurodegeneration and neurobiology, but may also help us more clearly understand brain cancer, including malignant glioma, an invariably fatal tumor, and how it impacts brain function,” said Fisher[.]
The full article from Physorg.com is here.
Labels: brain tumor, Jane, medicine, science
Thursday, May 08, 2008
New Reader's Digest Book Out
I recently got my author copy of Save $20,000 With a Nail, a Reader's Digest book. I researched and wrote the Home Appliances chapter. My friend and colleague Aimée Oscamou also contributed to the book. (Aimée, I know you check this blog occasionally; what chapters did you end up doing? Honk your horn in the comments.)
The book was packaged by Gonzalez Defino in New York, and provided me with a welcome opportunity to work with the brilliant and kind Joseph Gonzalez.
The book was packaged by Gonzalez Defino in New York, and provided me with a welcome opportunity to work with the brilliant and kind Joseph Gonzalez.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
CIO Digest Returns
After a brief hiatus, Symantec has resurrected its CIO Digest magazine. for the current (April 2008) issue, I interviewed three healthcare IT leaders, asking them about their challenges with device management, enterprise security, storage, compliance, and communications. The article, entitled Best Medicine, can be found here (pdf).
Labels: clips, health, marketing, medicine, science, technology, writing
Catching Up on Clips
The new issue of Boalt Hall Transcript (the UC Berkeley law school alumni magazine) is out, and I realize that I hadn't yet linked to articles from the last issue, published in Spring 2007. I had two:
Does Money Talk? discusses the research of Professor Eric Talley, who's done work linking creative executive compensation to securities fraud.
Patent Trolls Take Their Toll talks about patent reform with Professor Pamela Samuelson.
Please check them out, and share your comments. For the current issue of Transcript (which I'll link to when it's live online) I profiled Howard Chao, a prominent Silicon Valley attorney who does private equity work in China.
Does Money Talk? discusses the research of Professor Eric Talley, who's done work linking creative executive compensation to securities fraud.
Patent Trolls Take Their Toll talks about patent reform with Professor Pamela Samuelson.
Please check them out, and share your comments. For the current issue of Transcript (which I'll link to when it's live online) I profiled Howard Chao, a prominent Silicon Valley attorney who does private equity work in China.
Labels: clips, law, technology, writing
