Unencumbered

Kahlil Gibran on the subject of death in his, "The Prophet":

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Bur Sur on Thanksgiving

Instead of putting up with all the typical Thanksgiving hastle this year, I went backpacking with friends Ryan and Bob. We went up to Sykes camp along the Big Sur River near Monterey, CA. It's a 10 or 11 mile hike in with a huge reward: hot springs! There are 4 pools of hot and inviting water to soak in right along the river. This time of year the river itself is absolutely freezing, but the springs are heavenly. It was too cold for the battery in my camera to work well so I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few.


This is me reclining in one of the pools that's right along the river.


This is Ryan and I right after we took a dip in the river itself, polar bear style. Brr!


This is a shot of the Big Sur River itself.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beer-Holder

The above formula was recently developed by researchers at Manchester University to calculate strength of what is commonly known as the "beer goggles" effect (cleverly depicted by beta in the equation). In the formula, An is the number of drinks consumed, S is the smokiness of the room on a scale of 1 to 10, L is the luminance of the 'person of interest' measured in candelas per square meter, Vo is the Snellen visual acuity, and d is the distance from the 'person of interest' in meters.

The formula can work out a final score, ranging from less than one (where there is no beer goggle effect) to more than 100. According to the researchers, a score between 1 and 50 would mean a person you would normally find unattractive appears less "visually offensive". Non-appealing people become suddenly attractive between 51 and 100. And at more than 100, someone not considered attractive looks like a super model.

So apparently it's not just the beer that makes the beauty. There are other factors involved. This research was commissioned, not just funded, but commissioned by Bausch & Lomb PureVision. Why they would care is beyond me. Though it would be an interesting and amusing little side project, I'd hate to be the scientist who has to put my name to such trivial research. But now that the beer goggles phenomenon is all worked out, the researchers can finally get on to more useful work, like why some people see half full glasses while other see them as half empty. And why do some people get to see the world as if through rose colored glasses while the rest of us get stuck with the plain old ordinary-colored world. Those are the questions that really need answering!

Inside Out

This is the type of thing I work on at my job. I try to make kidney tissue look pretty and have different colors light up different structures. Then I take pictures of it under the microscope and write programs to extract information about the pictures. Sometimes I want to quantify the amount of scar tissue present. Sometimes I'm looking to differentiate between different types of collagen in the tissue. Sometimes I'm interested in the integrity of cell membranes, or in the density of cells and nuclei present. Other times I'm looking for the presence of viruses and correlating that information with patient outcome. All the tissue I get is from kidneys either at, or at some time after a kidney transplant. In a strange way, I find the stained sections almost beautiful. It's amazing to see how we're built and what makes us work at a microscopic level.

Patience

Here's a photo of my most recent painting. I'm on an India Ink/water color kick right now. I call this one "Patience."

This I Believe

I enjoy listening to NPR at work. One of my favorite segments is one called, “This I believe.” It’s part of national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives. The segment airs on Mondays on NPR, and the whole collection of essays can be found at http://thisibelieve.org. Many of the essays chosen to play on NPR tend to be impressively insightful, or moving, or curious. Many often bring me to tears. This Monday’s essay was not necessarily anything more special than the rest, but I thought I’d share a few snippets and encourage people to check out some of the essays, either on NPR or the This I Believe homepage.

Sgt. Ernesto Haibi, Medic says:

“I believe in mankind -- not gods, not devils, not angels, and not spirits. I saw man's bravery from both soldier and civilian, and I saw horror and destruction from them, too. … I saw hate and loathing from all sides, and I saw caring for children, rebuilding of hospitals and schools, and feeding the poor. Not by a government, but by individuals, by one man helping another man. … I don't justify our reasons for this war -- that's not a soldier's luxury -- and I don't justify what the insurgents have done to the Iraqis. But the passion of all sides -- Iraqi, American, ally, and insurgent -- shows that if man can redirect his energies to one of acceptance and not intolerance, we can bring the zealot, the politician, the soldier and the outsider to a place where man is just that: man. … I believe that by striving for a world that accepts its oneness, we can transform wars, intolerance, religious persecution, and political extremism into memory, and maybe even folklore.”

Stop!!! Now Wait Your Turn!

Apparently, the majority of people are too simple minded (aka dumb) to keep track of the order in which they arrive at 4-way stop signs. At least 5 times tonight I was at a stop sign where someone went out of order and cut me off. It's infuriating! I’ve noticed that it seems to happen a lot more now that the sun goes down earlier too. Evidently, darkness makes it more difficult to keep track of such things, and with the rush hour crowd all pulling up to 4-way stops in the dark, order infractions are occurring at an astonishing rate. Grr. It’s going to be a long winter.

Couple of Monkeys

Bob and Ryan hanging out in the trees when we went backpacking last weekend.

Does a Chris Poo in the Woods?

Answer: Yes.

I went backpacking this past weekend in the San Gorgonio Wilderness with friends Ryan and Bob. We arrived at the trailhead around sunset on Thursday night and hiked 4+ miles into Alger Creek trail camp in the dark. I was still fighting the remainders of a post spinal tap headache, so I just took it slow. We set up camp, made some warm drinks, and went to sleep. It felt good to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city, and it felt even better to have fresh air and trees all around me. Unfortunately the euphoria didn’t last long.

When I woke up the following morning, I felt horrible. The headache that I had been bothered by for over a week was gone, but I had developed a stomach bug of some sort. I tried to do a little, easy day hike and couldn’t have made it more than ¼ mile before I had to tell the guys to go on without me. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon squatting behind trees and throwing up along the trail. Not a pleasant experience. I couldn’t eat or drink anything. Everything came up or out one way or another. By the end of the day Friday, I was beginning to wonder if the one roll of TP I brought into the woods with me would be enough. This is the point at which silent panic sets in.

Luckily, by the time I woke up on Saturday whatever had gotten me sick had passed (and that’s a very nice, and literal way of putting it.) I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the weekend. (I didn't really take many pictures, but I posted a few at the end of this entry.) The highlight of the trip would have to be something that happened while I was cocooned in my sleeping bag, unable to get out.

On Saturday night, Ryan and I decided to abandon out tents and sleep outside in just our sleeping bags. Of course, this is after a brief period when it actually snowed Saturday night, which meant it was pretty chilly out. Not liking my nose to be cold, I completely mummied myself in my sleeping bag and had the top cinched closed so that there was only about a 2-inch air hole at the top of my head. Ryan was sleeping next to me in his bag with his head poking out the top.

Around daybreak, I was drifting in and out of sleep when Ryan shoves me and yells, “Get out of your bag NOW!” It didn’t sound like merely a friendly suggestion. It sounded more like, “There’s a mountain lion about to eat you,” than like “Hey, check out the pretty sunrise.” I struggled to free myself from my cocoon, but was so twisted around in my bag that I couldn’t even locate the zipper. In the mean time, I heard Ryan yelling at something in our camp to “Get the heck away from here!” At this point I figured we had company of the bear persuasion. Knowing I was stuck in my bag, I decided it was best not to move and draw attention to myself, so I froze until Ryan could unzip me. Apparently he woke up that morning to find a full-grown black bear standing less than a meter from our feet. He yelled at it to shoo it away, tried to get me to get out of my bag so I could get a look at it, and then continued to shoo it off. The bear turned out to be a momma, and her and her cub scampered up a hill at the far end of our camp.

Previously this summer when camping in Sequoia, I had encountered my first-ever bear in the wild. I looked on for about 30 minutes as the male black bear ate berries along a stream just down a ravine from me. The bear, unaware of my presence, eventually started walking up the ravine and got within 20 feet of me before noticing me and choosing a different route to wherever he was going. I remember the adrenaline rush of having the bear come so close. But that was nothing compared to this. Unfortunately, I was stuck in my sleeping bag the whole time and only got out in time to see some indistinct, large, black object disappear into the woods. But it’s still crazy to know she came so close! Black bears aren’t known for aggression so typically won’t attack unless they feel threatened. The idea of a bear in the campsite, therefore, isn’t really frightening, more like exciting! Had we been sleeping in our tents we probably wouldn’t have ever known the momma and cub wandered through. Makes me wonder how many time’s I’ve been in the proximity of black bears and just didn’t know it because I was asleep and bundled up in my tent. Probably a lot more than I previously thought. Anyway, if you want to hear Ryan’s account of the bear encounter (and see a funny photoshopped impression of him as the famed Grizzly Adams) check it out at ryangwillim.com.

One Big 'n Nasty Please.

My mom is funny. Especially when she doesn't know she's being funny. I talked to my father on the phone today and he told me a funny story. Him and my mom were trying to get some holiday shopping done at the mall last weekend and stopped at McDonalds for lunch. My mom walked up to the counter and ordered a "Big 'n Nasty." Of course she meant to order a "Big 'n Tasty" but her subconscious must have taken over. I wish I could have been there to see the look on the cashier’s face.



On a related note, it may as well be called the “Big ‘n Nasty.” The thing has 470 calories! Couple that with a large fries and coke and you've got an artery-clogging 1350 calorie meal! That’ll put your waistline on its way to “Big ‘n Nasty” status real quick!

Thanks for the Headache Doc!

I've had a headache now since Saturday night. It's at its worst when I try to stand up, and it goes away when I lay down. When I try to walk around too much I get nauseous (and sometimes actually get sick). Funny thing is that this headache is a complication from a diagnostic test the doctors ran last Friday. I was hospitalized on Wednesday with what doctors are now calling a complex migraine (though they're really more throwing their hands in the air than anything). It affected my vision and my ability to speak...pretty scary stuff. Since I've never had headaches before, the doctors ran every test imaginable. They wanted to rule out stroke or MS or anything serious like that. Friday's spinal tap was to rule out MS. But the complications associated with a spinal tap include a headache than can last anywhere from 3 days to 6 weeks, with the longest reported case lasting 19 months. (Please, oh please be on the short end of the scale!) So the gist of it is that I wound up in the hospital for a migraine, and the doctors gave me a perpetual headache...just to make sure it was a migraine and not something else. Thanks!

I appreciate their thoroughness, but think the spinal tap was a bit unnecessary. They could have at least warned be about the possibility of the PSTH (post spinal tap headache) and let me make an informed decision as to whether I wanted it done or not. To make it even more likely that I get the PSTH, the first doctor couldn't get the spinal tap right and I wound up having TWO spinal taps in the same afternoon. Yippy!

In the mean time, I've found I'm function only when I'm on a cocktail of 2 alieve, 2 extra strength tylenol, and two caffeine pills. Couple that with a high salt diet and I can walk around without constantly wanting to throw up.

Altruism

In case anyone was wondering what types of things run through my head when I’m waiting out some process in the lab (or when I’m laid out with a headache that only lets up when I’m laying down, as has recently been the case) here’s a briefing on one of the recent offenders.

Altruism. E. O. Wilson defined it as “self-destructive behavior performed for the benefit of others.”

The whole notion of altruism is rather contentious in philosophical, religious, biological, and sociabiological circles. First off, there is the question of whether or not it actually exists or if what we think of as altruism is really nothing more than enlightened self interest. This would be one type of reasoning an evolutionary biologist would likely put forth because the existence of altruism would present a challenge. It cannot be accounted for by the drive of individual genes to perpetuate themselves. The biological processes of evolution are, in fact, opposed to expression of altruism.

A second dilemma of the evolutionary perspective has to do with continuity. There must be, at some level, continuity between the behavior of humans and that of other primates. No domain, not even our “moral code” or the collective value we place on self-sacrifice can be excluded from this restriction. To that end, there must be some evidence of the building blocks of morality, a moral code, and altruistic self-sacrifice in the animal kingdom. There are a few researchers working in this arena. In particular, some researchers are positing that human morality is an extension of general primate patterns of social integration. However, our very own vocabulary makes it difficult for us to stomach the idea of attributing even basic building blocks of morality to other species. As humans, we pride ourselves on being humane. We’ve adopted our own species name to describe charitable tendencies thus establishing morality as the hallmark of human nature. Animals cannot be human, but can they be humane?

Many theists point to seemingly altruistic acts as evidence of a God that has some interest in the lives of human beings. They theorize that if altruism cannot be explained away through physical, biological, or natural processes (ie. evolution) or through cultural artifact, then its presence can only be accounted for by some power outside of the natural world (ie. a God). C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe-no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or command trying to get us to behave a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions.”

So those are the basics of what my brain has been trying to wrap itself around lately. Is there really such thing as altruism; self-detrimental acts performed with no conscious or unconscious expectation of future benefit, not matter how slight? If altruism exists, can it be accounted for in some way by purely evolutionary processes? If not, does that mean that the theory of evolution breaks down when it comes to collective styles of moral behavior, or could the theists be onto something? It’ll probably be a long while before I can come even close to drawing any conclusions about altruism, its existence, or what it may or may not point to. But it sure is challenging and interesting to think about.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering."

Written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer shortly before his execution in Nazi Germany for his roll in a plot to assassinate Hitler. He had voluntarily returned to Germany from the United Stated in WWII to keep what he felt was the "real church" alive while the much of the organized Christian chrurch had chosen to side with the Nazis. He was hanged only three weeks before the liberation of Germany.

What is striking is his recognition of the necessity of suffering to the human experience. We would do well to remind ourselves of such when faced with times of personal despair or difficulty.