Sunday, October 19, 2008
Camporee
This weekend my troop (me jd)went to a district camporee at Monkey Bell Park. The theme was Great Adventure Race. We left Saturday and set up camp. The temperature was surprisingly chilly. Our dinner took a while to cook but it was nice and hot( Kielbasa and potatoes). For breakfast we had burnt bacon, scrambled eggs, and half-done biscuits. Then after a while the camporee people gave some quick brush-ups on orienteering, gps-ins, and canoeing. We would use these skills on a 10 mile, 15-point, orienteering course. My group of me and 2 other scouts left early and we started bush-whacking. As we tried to get to our first point we veered of a little and ended up at point 4. So we tried to find the road that led to points 1,2,and 3. But the road was nonexistent. So we ended up bush-whacking to get there. We found point 1 and tried to reach point 2. We couldn't find it, but ended up a a cool look out tower. After eating a quick lunch we started bush-whacking again for point 3. We never found it. It turns out the first group to go had taken some of the markers. So at that point we were a little frustrated. We had been out there for at least 2 hours with almost no success. So we decieded to head north to the lake were we knew there was canoeing activity we could do. So we bush-whacked up to the lake and got a canoe in. We canoed to the other dock on the opposite side. There we completed a fire building challenge and continued to the next station. There we did the GPS station. We had to find 2 flags using the GPS. It turned out that the origonal coordinates were wrong. So the teams before us had spent hours tring to find flags. Fortunately, on our turn we got the correct coordinates and successfully found them. Then we canoed across the lake again. By the time we got back to camp we had hiked for 7 hours and 11-12 miles. So needless to say, we were pretty tired. Before dark we broke camp and headed out. We all had had fun and felt accomplished from our adventure.
Favorite Uncle
On my trip to San Diego, I was appointed favorite uncle (on my family side) for my newest nephew. (I suppose that this appointment was primarily based on my being the first uncle to see him, but I think it was my gentle touch and reassuring voice that put me over the top.)
He looks a lot like his older brother, who is doing well as well.
Our time together was unfortunately shortened by the San Diego fires, which I never actually saw, but heard about on the local news reports. There was a period from 11:30 to 4 pm on one of the conference days that was scheduled in the conference for a break. So my brother had planned to drive down from LA to pick me up and go over to La Jolla to see the aquarium at the Scripps Institute and then to hit the beach at La Jolla shores. He called at 12 pm to say they were running a bit late and were about 50 miles away. Then I waited and waited and around 1 pm they called to say they had moved 3 miles from where they had been previously. It turns out that I-5 had been closed down to fight the Camp Pendleton fire. So they didn't make it to San Diego until 2 pm. But we still went anyway.
Hopefully I can post some pictures of the aquarium and of the beach. The Birch aquarium is quite small, but it did have two nice tanks with small sharks. Nephew M (4 yo) was more obessed with cranking the arm on the penny smashing machine than on seeing the fish. We also had a good time at the discovery area were you used blocks and things to change the river channel, then float small toy boat down i to see what happens.
Although time was running out, we took a quick visit to the beach. Unfortunately, due to my overeagerness to hit the nearest section of beach, we landed on a portion of the beach that turned out not to have any bathhouses, so we just had to get wet in whatever we were wearing. But it was lots of fun to go body surfing in the waves and I would recommend La Jolla beach over Mission Beach.
He looks a lot like his older brother, who is doing well as well.
Our time together was unfortunately shortened by the San Diego fires, which I never actually saw, but heard about on the local news reports. There was a period from 11:30 to 4 pm on one of the conference days that was scheduled in the conference for a break. So my brother had planned to drive down from LA to pick me up and go over to La Jolla to see the aquarium at the Scripps Institute and then to hit the beach at La Jolla shores. He called at 12 pm to say they were running a bit late and were about 50 miles away. Then I waited and waited and around 1 pm they called to say they had moved 3 miles from where they had been previously. It turns out that I-5 had been closed down to fight the Camp Pendleton fire. So they didn't make it to San Diego until 2 pm. But we still went anyway.
Hopefully I can post some pictures of the aquarium and of the beach. The Birch aquarium is quite small, but it did have two nice tanks with small sharks. Nephew M (4 yo) was more obessed with cranking the arm on the penny smashing machine than on seeing the fish. We also had a good time at the discovery area were you used blocks and things to change the river channel, then float small toy boat down i to see what happens.
Although time was running out, we took a quick visit to the beach. Unfortunately, due to my overeagerness to hit the nearest section of beach, we landed on a portion of the beach that turned out not to have any bathhouses, so we just had to get wet in whatever we were wearing. But it was lots of fun to go body surfing in the waves and I would recommend La Jolla beach over Mission Beach.
California Dreaming
This past week, I (sd) went to a interesting conference in sunny San Diego. The conference hotel was right on Mission Bay, so I spent a lot of time looking out over the water at sail boats and other water craft, as well as surfers on the ocean. I've decided that learning to sail a boat and surfing a big wave definitely need to go on the bucket list.
From what I understand, my dad was a pretty good sailor when he was growing up, and one of the hardest things for him and his family when he converted was his not going out with his family on their Sunday sailing trips, which was one of their big family past-times.
I suppose the love of the sea is something I inherited from my dad's side of the family as my general impression from my mom over the years (she may correct me on this) is that she is not much of a water person. (Although she attend our swim meets faithfully for many years.) I learned to love swimming from my dad, with his early morning sojourns to lap swim at the pool. But I think the pull of the sea is something that is not taught, it simply burns deeply and inconsolably within you as a natural inheritance.
For those of you who know my phobia of sharks, this may seem rather strange, but the two go hand in hand. My obsession over sharks comes from my utter fascination of the way that they can rule the ocean with their perfect adaptation as hunters. To stalk silently, stealthy their prey and they to unleash in a split second one of the most lethal killing attacks in all the animal kingdom. Of course, mostly here I'm thinking of great whites and tiger sharks, not sluggish ones like nurse and leopards, but even have that cool, calm poise of a top of the food chain predator. The only real threat to my all-time favorite animals, the dolphins and whales.
So sitting by the bay and on the beach also led me once more to consider how to find a good paying gig close to the ocean. The conference I was attending was called Beneficial Microbes, and most of the conference was focused on the role of gut commensal/symbiotic bacteria in human health and disease. But a portion of the talks were on the role of commensal/symbiotic bacteria in other systems (this is part of the one health initiative from the NIH, which finally recognizes the human health is intimately tied to healthy relationship between microbes, animals and humans.) Apparently one of the oldest branches of symbiotic bacteria studies looks at the role of commensal bacteria and sea sponges. Since most studies of human and animal commensal bacteria involve studying fecal matter, the speakers studying sponges took great delight in pointing out how much more attractive it was to go SCUBA diving to collect samples than it was collect poop. If only I had known earlier! Maybe I can convince the NIH that studying obesity/atherosclerosis in dolphins is a better model organism than mice. But of course, that would necessitate keeping dolphins in cavity, which would not be very soothing on the conscience.
On the subject of bacteria, one of talks that might be of interest to some of you was a talk on the role of H. pylori in the rise in asthma and allergic diseases. H. pylori is the only major bacteria that colonizes the stomach and is the major disease pathogen in stomach ulcers. But this speaker showed very interesting data which suggests that H. pylori eradication is a two-edged sword. For thousands of years, H. pylori used to be completely endemic in all human population with nearly 95% of human having it. In the past one hundred years or so, H. pylori presence has fallen to about only 5% of population. In the studies this person showed, the absence of H. pylori in a number of studies with twins and other matched population correlated with greater risk for asthma and other allergic diseases. Then in animal studies they were able to show that H. pylori tipped the response of immune cells from a Th2 response which favors allergic responses to a Th1 response. So he proposed that we need to consider that H. pylori is beneficial in the early years of life, to about 30, after which its benefit begins to wane and then become harmful. This hypothesis, a part of the "dissapearing microbe hypothesis" has replaced the "hygeine hypothesis" as the most favored explanation for the rapid and precipitous rise in allergic disease.
From what I understand, my dad was a pretty good sailor when he was growing up, and one of the hardest things for him and his family when he converted was his not going out with his family on their Sunday sailing trips, which was one of their big family past-times.
I suppose the love of the sea is something I inherited from my dad's side of the family as my general impression from my mom over the years (she may correct me on this) is that she is not much of a water person. (Although she attend our swim meets faithfully for many years.) I learned to love swimming from my dad, with his early morning sojourns to lap swim at the pool. But I think the pull of the sea is something that is not taught, it simply burns deeply and inconsolably within you as a natural inheritance.
For those of you who know my phobia of sharks, this may seem rather strange, but the two go hand in hand. My obsession over sharks comes from my utter fascination of the way that they can rule the ocean with their perfect adaptation as hunters. To stalk silently, stealthy their prey and they to unleash in a split second one of the most lethal killing attacks in all the animal kingdom. Of course, mostly here I'm thinking of great whites and tiger sharks, not sluggish ones like nurse and leopards, but even have that cool, calm poise of a top of the food chain predator. The only real threat to my all-time favorite animals, the dolphins and whales.
So sitting by the bay and on the beach also led me once more to consider how to find a good paying gig close to the ocean. The conference I was attending was called Beneficial Microbes, and most of the conference was focused on the role of gut commensal/symbiotic bacteria in human health and disease. But a portion of the talks were on the role of commensal/symbiotic bacteria in other systems (this is part of the one health initiative from the NIH, which finally recognizes the human health is intimately tied to healthy relationship between microbes, animals and humans.) Apparently one of the oldest branches of symbiotic bacteria studies looks at the role of commensal bacteria and sea sponges. Since most studies of human and animal commensal bacteria involve studying fecal matter, the speakers studying sponges took great delight in pointing out how much more attractive it was to go SCUBA diving to collect samples than it was collect poop. If only I had known earlier! Maybe I can convince the NIH that studying obesity/atherosclerosis in dolphins is a better model organism than mice. But of course, that would necessitate keeping dolphins in cavity, which would not be very soothing on the conscience.
On the subject of bacteria, one of talks that might be of interest to some of you was a talk on the role of H. pylori in the rise in asthma and allergic diseases. H. pylori is the only major bacteria that colonizes the stomach and is the major disease pathogen in stomach ulcers. But this speaker showed very interesting data which suggests that H. pylori eradication is a two-edged sword. For thousands of years, H. pylori used to be completely endemic in all human population with nearly 95% of human having it. In the past one hundred years or so, H. pylori presence has fallen to about only 5% of population. In the studies this person showed, the absence of H. pylori in a number of studies with twins and other matched population correlated with greater risk for asthma and other allergic diseases. Then in animal studies they were able to show that H. pylori tipped the response of immune cells from a Th2 response which favors allergic responses to a Th1 response. So he proposed that we need to consider that H. pylori is beneficial in the early years of life, to about 30, after which its benefit begins to wane and then become harmful. This hypothesis, a part of the "dissapearing microbe hypothesis" has replaced the "hygeine hypothesis" as the most favored explanation for the rapid and precipitous rise in allergic disease.