Lift Up Your Hearts!

This is for my dear friends who will soon be travelling to Spain:

When I was in elementary school, we were taught, drilled and tested on the formulas for converting temperature measurements between Fahrenheit and Celsius. Celsius was known as Centigrade back then, but they both begin with C so it doesn't matter. :)

F = 9/5 x C + 32

C = 5/9 x (F - 32)

It was an all but useless exercise. How often do most people need to do those conversions? In the science lab, we use Celsius; otherwise, Fahrenheit. Except at our house, when I was young. The thermometer that my father bought and installed outside our window read only in Celsius, so I was kept busy converting it into the more familiar numbers. Even so, I never really learned the conversion formulas; I never could remember which way they went. How liberating it was, many years later, when I realized that I could easily figure that out, knowing 0C = 32F (water freezes) and 100C = 212F (water boils).

It wasn't until I was more than 30 years outside of elementary school, vacationing in New Zealand, that I discovered even greater freedom. All temperatures there are in Celsius (as they are in most of the world), and those old formulas were just too clumsy. So I amused myself by developing a much handier formula that was just fine for my purposes.

When you are visiting the Celsius world, and you hear that the outside temperature is 25 degrees, and you're wondering if you should wear short sleeves or a heavy jacket, just multiply that temperature by 2 and add 30. Easy to do in your head, and it quickly tells you that the temperature is about 25 x 2 + 30 = 80 degrees. Definitely short sleeves.

F = 2 x C + 30

It's easy to remember, easy to work out in your head, and accurate to within a few degrees over the range a tourist is interested in. (Just don't plan to visit Antarctica.) If you want to be more accurate, just remember that the result of this formula is exact at 50 degrees Fahrenheit, a little too high for higher temperatures, and a little too low for lower ones.

For Celsius users visiting the United States (is there anywhere else that uses Fahrenheit?), the formula C = 1/2 x (F - 30) is almost as easy to use.

Get your news first, from Crickler! Their nifty little puzzles often alert me to interesting news stories, which I follow up with my favorite overall news source, Google News. Today's intriguing tidbit has been a little hard to pin down, as the full story at Salon.com requires a subscription. Supposedly you can get a "one day pass" to read it if you watch an advertisment, but I sat through the thing twice and still was asked to register, so I gave up and will wait till a free news source covers the story. However, since I was asked my opinion, I'll quote the beginning (free) part of the story:

• It is some sort of security device, like a bulletproof vest, or an "explosives sniffer," or something else that for obvious reasons he wouldn't want to advertise.
• It's a medical gadget for relieving back or shoulder pain.
• Unbeknownst to both the Secret Service and CBS News, the President was kidnapped by terrorists and now wears a bomb strapped to his back.
• Some graphic artist had too much time on his hands. (I no longer believe everything I see; I've seen too many lies told with pictures.)
• If the President wanted to cheat on this "exam," he should have asked a high school student for advice on how to be more effective and less obvious about it.
• If it's possible to "hear" advice through one's back (or shoulder), this should cause a greater uproar in the Deaf community than cochlear implants. (It's hard to believe that anything audible to Bush's ear would have been neither heard by someone else nor picked up by the microphones.)
• The election year political scene is squirrelier than our backyard!

We're watching the lunar eclipse. The first time I saw that beautiful phenomenon, my father awakened me in the early hours of the morning, and we drove to a place where we could see the moon well. I was cold and sleepy. But it was worth it: to see the moon, and to have that special time with my dad.

Once upon a time, I thought it would be good to learn HTML and how to create a web page. What does a computer specialist-turned-homemaker, who has been out of the job market for 25 years, do when she begins to think about earning money again? What field has changed more in the past quarter century than computing? My knowledge of punched cards, JCL, and PDP-12 assembly language might qualify me as a docent in a History of Computing exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution, but no more. But web pages, now, and HTML: that would be fun to learn, and certainly there's a market for that. Or maybe not.

Well, it was fun, but my priorities shifted when I realized that my efforts would do nothing to increase my marketability. Too many recent college graduates would know far more in that area than I could ever (or would ever want to) learn. Before I could recover from that realization, it became all to clear that there were even more hot-shot programmers in Bangalore, India who would do more and charge less than I could. So much for all my web page ideas....

It's a few years later, and all has changed again! It's not just HTML I have to learn, but SHTML and CSS and Javascript and PHP and MYSQL and who knows what other acronyms. But this time, I don't care. What I want to to is make a personal webpage, and all I care about is learning enough to do that. I wade through a two inch thick HTML book, hopelessly outdated, but a place to start. I start playing, and asking questions. With every new addition to my page, I learn something new. It is really, really fun.

And then I discover blogging. What writer can resist the chance to present his ideas where the whole world can see them? My webpages become somewhat neglected as I explore this new venue.

I know that there are standardized blogging formats that allow one to publish without much knowledge of computing, and webpage design programs that stand between the designer and the actual code. That would make my pages would look better, and do more, but where's the fun? I have to know, at least on some level, what I'm doing. I couldn't have redesigned the format of my blog if I hadn't had the HTML and CSS experience of designing my webpages.

Nor could I have navigated these strange new seas without the help of Jon Daley, Andy Flowers, and David July, my primary guides, and Salem's Attic, which provides the ship in which I sail.

This is my kind of learning: a few reference books, some human beings available for questioning, other people's work to study and copy, a useful project to work on, and the opportunity to experiment and play and test my new knowledge in a non-hurried, non-threatening situation.

Did you know that? Do you care? Probably not, unless you live in Boston.

When the story broke, Kerry handled it well, pointing out that he had never actually claimed to be Irish, and took advantage of the opportunity to endear himself to another part of his constituency, proudly acknowledging his Jewish ancestors.

What difference does it make? Certainly none in this election. Boston voters can easily understand how someone might want to appear Irish, and as easily forgive him for the sake of his political views. Nonetheless, in a political culture that ferrets out, dissects, analyzes, and trumpets every insignificant detail of a candidate's history, proclaiming by word and action the triumph of trivia over larger truths—in such an atmostphere I'm astounded that I haven't heard more on the subject. I know about it because we lived in Massachusetts when the story broke, and it was a big event at the time.

Even Christianity Today, in an article on Kerry's eclectic religious background and beliefs, failed to mention the family's conversion to Catholicism, which surely must have played a part in the formation of his world view.

The Boston Red Sox are in the World Series! Will he let his intellectual knowledge that the universe is not run in such a way that his viewing habits can really affect the outcome of a baseball game overcome his gut feelings? Not tonight, anyway: we have a concert to go to.

I'm rooting for the Sox, too. How can you pass up a personal connection? Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek was in Porter's Sunday school class, and he graduated from our own Lake Brantley High School.

I've added a statistics section for the blog (thanks, Jon!). It's not as accurate as I would like, as apparently it only considers a post read if you've clicked to it directly: clicking on "more," "comments," "permalink," or one of the direct article or comment links on the sidebar, or coming from a search enginge -- anything that gets you to the article itself. For some reason, the computer can't tell if your eyes are scanning an article on one of the pages that shows you several at one time. :)

Mitch Altman to the rescue! The 48-year-old Silcon Valley inventor and entrepreneur finally turned his attention to one of his greatest annoyances, and invented the TV-B-Gone, a tiny universal remote control. Altman's black plastic keychain fob looks innocent enough, but wherever he goes, TV sets mysteriously darken. Here's a form of guerilla warfare I can sympathize with! Altman considers this the most helpful tool he's worked on, though he admits it isn't a cure-all:

Watching people staring past their beers in bars, spacing out behind the wheel at red lights and ignoring one another on the bus, it was clear that it would take more than a gadget to snap people entirely back to reality.

"What I really want," Altman said, "Is Life-B-Here."

...to make a man. Or at least it improves the odds significantly, according to a study by Dr. Karen Norberg, a clinical associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "When parents were living together before the birth of one child, that child was 14% more likely to be male than when the parents were not living together before the birth," she reported, according to an article in today's Guardian.

Charles Darwin noted similar findings in 1874, giving some credence to the article's statement that this "is certainly not an effect of any bias from parents against daughters." Otherwise one could easily imagine single mothers preferring to raise daughters; not everyone, but enough to skew the statistics. Sex-selective abortion is frowned upon, but that doesn't prevent it. And it can have a huge impact.

A study of premature infants suggests that delaying the clamping of the umbilical cord can reduce the need for blood transfusion in babies who are born too soon. A delay of only 30 seconds to two minutes was sufficient to provide significant benefit.

The food itself was variable. Between us, we experienced

• New Zealand: Green Lip Mussels (so-so; the preparation was good, but the mussels themselves were not, and certainly not up to the quality of the dish of the same name we enjoyed in Auckland.
• Ireland: Guiness Stew (a rather ordinary beef stew, but the flavor was quite good, and somehow comforting)
• Scandinavia: Cold Poached Salmon (one of the best, with a delicious lemon cream sauce)
• China: Dan Dan Noodles (all right, but bland); Chicken Sha Cha with Peanut Sauce (almost tasteless; were there any peanuts in the sauce at all?); Akadama Plum Wine (good, made the food more interesting)
• South Africa: Durban Spiced Chicken (wonderful! best dish of the day; lots of flavor)
• Italy (regular pavilion, not a Festival booth): tiramisu and chocolate mousse (both good, but the mousse triumphed)
• New England: free taste of Vermont Cabot sharp cheddar cheese (just about worth the price, not sharp at all)
• France: Escargot Provencal (almost as good as the Durban Spiced Chicken), Crêpe au Fromage et Jambon (not bad but nothing special)
• Poland: Nalewka Babuni Cherry Wine (recommended to us by someone who obviously never had to take cherry-flavored cough syrup as a child)
• Canada: Cheddar Cheese Soup (delicious, at least in a small portion, with detectable wine, bacon, and onion flavors in addition to the cheese)

Having run out of meals and appetite, we saved some other interesting pavilions (Southeast Asia, India, Morocco, and more) for another trip. Next time we’ll know to sign up early for the Twinings tea tasting.

We went to a high school football game tonight. It was a great night for it, cool enough for long pants and a sweatshirt, our first cool weather in months. We actually went to see the halftime show, which I understand is pretty good despite the efforts of four hurricanes to thwart practice. But there was no halftime show: the Marching Patriot Band played their music from the stands. Why? I'm not sure, except that it's technically Fall Break, and a significant portion of the band was elsewhere. (Why the sports teams, band, cheerleaders, and associated people should be deprived of their Fall Break time is another issue.) Even so, it sounded pretty good. Too bad those people at the gate thought we paid our $12 to see the football team.

Ah, well, it was a fun night anyway. We had friends to talk with during the first half, and the second half had several exciting plays, exciting even to me, whose interest in football is something less than one of those mathematical epsilons.... Besides, there's nothing quite like a Band Booster hamburger.

Whatever the answer—and it's bound to be something complicated, rather than a single solution—it's a question that hasn't had the priority it deserves.

One recent study suggests a link between food allergies, asthma, and vitamin supplements for infants. The increased risk was greater for blacks than for whites, and for formula-fed babies than for those who were breastfed.

I have been working on a project that involves gluing two sheets of cardstock together, then laminating the result with clear contact paper. It's a bit of work, but seemed more reasonable than purchasing a $200 laminating machine.

Maybe not. I had been pleased with the results, but noticed that the rubber cement seal was coming apart in some places. No problem, I thought, I'll just slip in a little extra rubber cement. That appeared to be a fine solution, until I returned to my work an hour later and discovered that the solvent from the rubber cement had apparently penetrated the card stock and dissolved the adhesive on the contact paper, leaving a mess of wrinkles and bubbles. :(

Time to figure out Plan B.

Research by a team of Italian researchers suggests a genetic link between homosexuality and fertility.

A study of 98 homosexual men, 100 heterosexual men, and their relatives (4600 people) indicates that female maternal relatives of homosexual men tend to have more children than female maternal relatives of heterosexual men. This was not true of female paternal relatives.

The lead researcher, Professor Andrea Camperio-Ciani, of Padua University, attributed to his 15-year-old daughter the idea that there is a genetic factor linked to both homosexuality and high birth rates. This, she suggested, could help explain the anti-intuitive persistence of genes, such as the so-called "gay gene" (Xq28) that apparently contribute negatively to the production of offspring.

Prof. Camperio-Ciani stressed that his study explained only 20 per cent of the variance in sexual orientation of males; otherwise homosexuality would be much more common. "The remaining 80 per cent has yet to be understood," he writes. "It could—and in fact partly is—due to cultural and individual experience, or even by undiscovered biological factors."

Most intriguing is the conclusion that the incidence of homosexuality can be expected to be greater in societies with declining birth rates, because the influence of this genetic factor is more significant.

At the service we usually attend this is rarely a problem, but today we went to the later service because it was Porter's turn to close up afterwards. Alas, I had forgotten to bring the earplugs that are of necessity my nearly constant companions these days. I survived until the offertory, during which I observed an interesting psychological phenomenon. At first I felt claustrophobic, as I was trapped in the middle of the pew, bombarded with increasingly painful sound. Then I started to shut down, closing off as much as possible all awareness of the world around me. It almost worked—until I decided that that wasn't a very sane thing to do, and was certainly no way to worship. At that point, I stopped caring what other people thought, and simply put my hands over my ears until the song was done. Then I was safe until Communion, after which I was conveniently able to slip outside until the drums and guitars ceased.

That's not how I customarily describe our houseguests, but this one is a friend from Rochester, NY whose purpose in visiting is primarily to work for the success of the man I would like to see defeated in the upcoming presidential election. Are we "giving aid and comfort to the enemy"?

Well, an opponent does not need to be an enemy, and I have to admire our friend's willingness to work for what he believes in, giving up his vacation time to boot. I haven't actively campaigned for someone since I worked for the Humphrey-Muskie ticket, and that was before I could vote. That's a little embarrassing, since we have a friend who ran for the U.S. Senate, but it's the truth. We vote, we talk, we provide financial support—but Don's actually down there at headquarters, working. You have to respect that.

And the dinner-table discussions are definitely stimulating!

Since then, we've enjoyed flu-free years, a blessing even for the young-and-healthy. This year, with the loss of half of the U.S. flu vaccine supply due to the Chiron debacle, it seems prudent to leave the remaining supply for those who need it most (source: Centers for Disease Control):

• People 65 years of age and older
• Children ages 6 months to 23 months
• Adults and children 2 years of age and older with chronic lung or heart disorders including heart disease and asthma
• Pregnant women
• Adults and children 2 years of age and older with chronic metabolic diseases (including diabetes), kidney diseases, blood disorders (such as sickle cell anemia), or weakened immune systems, including persons with HIV/AIDS
• Children and teenagers, 6 months to 18 years of age, who take aspirin daily
• Residents of nursing homes and other chronic-care facilities
• Household members and out-of-home caregivers of infants under the age of 6 months (Children under the age of 6 months cannot be vaccinated.
• Healthcare workers who provide direct, hands-on care to patients

It appears that we are both too young and too old. We're not qualified for the FluMist™ vaccine (live, attenuated influenza vaccine), which is not recommended for

• persons aged <5 years or those aged >50 years;
• persons with asthma, reactive airways disease or other chronic disorders of the pulmonary or cardiovascular systems; persons with other underlying medical conditions, including such metabolic diseases as diabetes, renal dysfunction, and hemoglobinopathies; or persons with known or suspected immunodeficiency diseases or who are receiving immunosuppressive therapies;
• children or adolescents receiving aspirin or other salicylates (because of the association of Reye syndrome with wild-type influenza infection);
• persons with a history of GBS;
• pregnant women; or
• persons with a history of hypersensitivity, including anaphylaxis, to any of the components of LAIV or to eggs.

We could probably get the regular vaccine if we tried hard enough. Yesterday, our local Publix was still handing out flyers advertising its vaccine program, and I gather that many non-medical sites are relying on people's own determination whether they need the immunization or not. But we are healthy, have no small children in the house to worry about, and have little exposure to schoolchildren (a highly-infectious population). Unless and until sufficient supply is available, it's better we abstain. My main concern will be for the people we visit this winter...not enough concern to stay home, however.

I understand that doctors' offices are being strict about who gets the vaccine and who doesn't, not trusting in people's general good sense and good will (probably with good reason). However, I will admit to hoping that the supply is sufficient to cover two additional populations:

• nursing mothers who would prefer to be their babies' primary source of immunization; and
• college students whose schedules make them both more vulnerable to infection and less able to handle disruption.

I suppose we should be watching the presidential debates tonight. But I already know how I'm going to vote on that race. (We need to have debates for the local races, where I'm not yet convinced.)

Nonetheless, Porter—after a grueling week of work—was in the mood for a mystery story. I checked out Blockbuster online to see what we might expect, and found a good assortment of Agatha Christie, Inspector Morse, Rumpole of the Bailey, P.D. James, even a couple of Dorothy Sayers. (Alas, no Father Brown stories, nor Ngaio Marsh.) Thus encouraged, we paid a visit to our local Blockbuster store.

We did browse for a bit, then left emptyhanded. "I'm cured," Porter said. There was nothing. It was nauseating, in fact, even to look at most of the titles and cover pictures.

Actually, there was one movie we might have rented, had we been in the mood. Not a mystery. I suggested The Mission, and when Porter asked what it was about, I replied, "It doesn't matter; it has some great oboe music." Then again, we can hear plenty of great oboe music without sitting through a movie, so we left it behind.

There was no kindergarten in the Pullman School system and I started first grade at the age of five, my sixth birthday coming before the new year and in time to let me start. I went to the Franklin Elementary School, which was about a half dozen blocks away. This gave me a rather short walk compared with that of many of the students. There were no school busses to the elementary schools in those days. I do not remember much about my first four years in school, although in 1980 I did find it easy to remember that one of my teachers had said that Mt. St. Helens was an extinct volcano.

While waiting in line at the grocery store today, I picked up a Reader's Digest and read an article about several traditional first aid measures that are no longer approved. Some were ones I've known for a long time, such as putting butter on burns; my mother knew half a century ago that cold water was a much better choice. However, I did not know that hydrogen peroxide is no longer recommended for cleaning wounds. Hydrogen peroxide kills germs, but apparently it also damages healthy cells, and inhibits healing. The proper way to clean a wound? With clean, running water.

Not that I consider Reader's Digest to be the ultimate medical authority, but I wish I could have read that article a year ago, before I had a small, basal cell carcinoma removed from my face. Following the dermatologist's instructions, I cleaned the wound frequently with hydrogen peroxide. It took a long time to heal, and left a nasty scar. Since I normally heal well and quickly, it's hard not to think there's a connection there.

I don't remember if we have the Olympics or the hurricanes to thank for this, but for one of those occasions we had the television on long enough to hear an advertisement for the PBS show, The Question of God with Dr. Armand Nicholi. It caught my attention because Dr. Nicholi's popular Harvard course of the same name was featured in the Boston Globe while we were living in Massachusetts.

One consequence of having had to keep a weather eye out for hurricane news is that our television set was on quite a bit recently. I'll save my comments on the generally repulsive nature of what we saw for another time.

Alas, the stories were much better off in Roueché's hands. Medical Investigation suffers from bad acting, bad writing, and contrived, embarrassing attempts at social commentary. The subplots amongst the main characters, no doubt an effort to give the series more continuity, are distracting—and detracting. Nonetheless, the appeal of the medical mysteries is so strong that I actually enjoyed the two and a half shows I watched, in spite of the defects.

Thanks to a great deal of help from Jon Daley, I am venturing into the world of the Blog. It sounds rather like something from an old science fiction movie. My first step in having an online presence was the making of my home page, which I greatly enjoy, and which I've used—among other purposes—to keep friends and family informed of our adventures during Florida's recent hurricanes. I could be content simply to keep expanding my webpages; there certainly is a lot to learn and much that can be done. However, what I really like about the blog software is its ability to let other people add comments. Since I hope this will become a forum for the exchange of ideas as well as information, it seems a worthwhile project.

I am only splashing in the shallows of these waters as yet, so please be patient with problems and changes as I set out on this new adventure.

Friday, October 1, 2004. 7:30 a.m. Again, I don’t know who gets the credit for this; it appears to be circulating unattributed.



A few random notes:

• Our grapefruit tree still has most of its fruit!
• We had no trouble (except psychological reluctance) getting Heather and Jonathan to the airport yesterday, and the made it safely home.
• All the plywood is off of our windows, and we are rejoicing in the fact that for the first time in eight weeks the Tropical Weather Page shows no hurricane threatening to come our way.
• While life is essentially back to normal for us, there are still people without power, with “boil water” alerts, and of course with major damage.
• Porter is almost finished with what turned out to be a much bigger job of roof repair than he had planned. In some places, enough shingle parts had come off that the next rain would go right into the attic, so he bought a bundle of shingles and set out to make repairs. Once up on the roof, however, he was not content with that, but replaced the shingles that had only had their tabs broken off (rather than simply patching with roof tar, as he had done after Frances). Eventually this required another trip to Home Depot for more shingles.... And he is very stiff and sore from the unnatural effort of standing for so many hours on an inclined surface. Aspirin, extra doses of vitamin C, and many sessions with the electric massager are gradually improving the situation. He did a beautiful job, and we expect that as a consequence we can afford to wait to do the roof replacement at a more convenient time. By the way, this is one advantage of having a single-story house. Of course I was nervous with him up there, but when I think of my own father doing similar work on top of our three-story house, or of Jon and Heather’s four-story home...!!!
• Porter also repaired our garage door opener yesterday, which **sproing** broke one of its supports. Unrelated to any hurricanes, however.
• We have been pleased with our insurance company, Amica. They were not as generous as they were years ago when our roof was damaged in a hail storm, but they were certainly prompt.
• My brother in the insurance business has been sending me interesting hurricane data, which indicate that our recent bombardment is a “statistical correction” to our having had far fewer hurricanes than we should have expected in recent years. Before this, Peninsular Florida went 38 years with only one major hurricane (Andrew) making landfall. So there is no need to cry “global warming!” (at least, not in this case), nor to fear that this is the result of some major climate change. We can’t expect the peace of the previous quarter century, but neither should we worry that this year’s experiences presage what hurricane season will be like from now on.