Along with the expertise that I have attained comes a certain smugness. I am certainly sympathetic to those who have difficulty integrating technology into their lives. After all, it really isn’t always so intuitive and easy. I appreciate that most people do not find their TVs, computers, iPods, etc. as transparent to operate as I do. That does not preclude me from enjoying some of the “Tech Support Tales” that you can find on the interweb. These are stories, and in some cases transcripts, of actual calls to technical support phone lines. Here’s one example:

Tech Support: “I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.” Customer: “Ok.”
Tech Support: “Did you get a pop-up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop- up menu?”
Customer: “No.”
Tech Support: “Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?”
Customer: “Sure, you told me to write ‘click’ and I wrote ‘click’.”
Tech Support: “Ok, did you type ‘click’ with the keyboard?”
Customer: “I have done something dumb, right?”

I understand completely the customer’s problem in this case, but it doesn’t make any less funny.

So today I was down in my basement to take a ride on my bike. I normally watch something I have TiVoed to help pass the otherwise boring (but very good for me, yes I know) time. As I turned on the TV, I noticed that there was no signal from the cable box coming through. I looked at the front of the cable box and noticed that the power light wasn’t on. I checked the power cord and saw that it was plugged into and outlet that I confirmed was working. I replugged it in and the power light came on briefly and then went out. I rebooted the TiVo box (which is where the cable box is plugged into) just to make sure that there wasn’t something amiss there. Still no signal from the cable. I also tried plugging the cable box directly into the TV, and still didn’t work.

At this point, I called my cable company’s tech support line. I got through right away. I explained the problem, and the conversation went something like this:

Tech Support: “Do you have the remote control for the cable box handy?”
Me: “Yes”
Tech Support: “Can you press the power button on the remote and tell me what happens?”
Me: “D-oh!”

At some level I would like to believe that I have made my life so much easier with technology that I can no longer figure out how anything actually works. Or it could be that I am just stupid.

It was therefore interesting that during one of these brief nonhirsute times about 6 years after beard onset, I happened to visit my mother. I had been greeting friends during this time and had gotten used to hearing “What the hell happened to your face?”, and “Why would you do such a thing?” and “Who swallowed your chin?” I walked in the door and my mother simply greeted me in her usual manner—showering me with praise and 100 dollar bills—without mentioning what I thought was the obvious change in my face. Only after I asked her whether she noticed anything different about me whilst rubbing my bare chin did she recognize that the beard was gone.

What was clear was that my mother had a picture in her mind’s eye of me without a beard. After all, she had gotten used to seeing my unobscured face for the first 19 years of my life, and apparently the relatively recent addition of facial hair didn’t change how she pictured her number one (and favorite) son.

But I digress.

As those of you who follow my Twitter feed or my Friendfeed page have no doubt learned, the earpieces on my eyeglasses broke last week. As it turns out, I have had this pair of glasses for so long that I no longer had a backup pair lying around. Worse yet, my prescription was over 5 years old, which meant that no one would build me a replacement pair without a new eye exam. To make a long story short(er), I was able to take advantage of cancellations during the snow storm on Monday to get an exam, and I picked out my new frames later that day. Unfortunately, because of the antireflective coating on the lenses, which takes 3 days to dry, I won’t get them until Friday afternoon or Saturday.

This meant that I had to effect a repair of the glasses. The difficulty with this is that once I take off my glasses to repair them, I can no longer see well enough to repair them. Not that that stopped me from trying. I’m not sure if you know this, but crazy glue doesn’t work to affix titanium to plastic (although it does a very nice job of ruining the plastic lenses). Luckily, my wife was able to use clear duct tape to attach the earpiece to the lens. Some of you may have seen the result on twitpic. Here’s a full frontal self-portrait taken with the iPhone:

Attractive, n’est-ce pas?

I have been going out in public like this since Saturday. Most of the people close to me have noticed the change and have remarked on it. A couple of snarky comments suggesting that I avoid walking by empty lockers were expected. What was slightly disconcerting was the reaction of people I know less well, for example the colleagues in my building with whom I share elevator rides and small talk in the halls. Not one of them mentioned the eyeglass changes.

There are three possibilities to explain this:

1. It could be that they didn’t notice.
2. It could be that they noticed but were being polite and chose not to say anything that might embarass me.
3. It could be that they perceived the change, but didn’t notice.

Number 1 isn’t likely (did you see the picture?). Only those of you who know these people will appreciate how unlikely Number 2 is. I have therefore come to the disturbing conclusion that in their mind’s eye, they didn’t notice any difference. Apparently, I have a countenance so nerdy that the addition of tape to the corner of my eyeglasses was unremarkable.

Had I known, I could have saved a bundle on new eyeglasses.

As for me, I think it is safe to say that there are other, less scientific reasons, to discount this possibility. Let’s be honest: Isn’t is obvious that it would be difficult for the world at large to tolerate having more than one me? I think it is safe to say that I have enough “personality” to spare, perhaps enough to obviate the need for a doppelgänger. I would argue, in fact, my personality could support a number of these critters, perhaps as many as three, a Dreiergruppegänger if you will.

So imagine my surprise when one of my wife’s colleagues bought in the label from some coconut macaroons that he had purchased. These are Jennies® macaroons, whose major claim to fame is that they are free of lactose, trans fat, sulfite, soy, wheat, gluten, dairy, and yeast (which begs the question as to what’s left). Apparently, the photo of the namesake of the company, Arnold Jennie, made him think of me. At first, I didn’t quite see the resemblance, but after showing the picture to a number of people, with each person exclaiming “Oh my god, its you!’, I am thinking that perhaps there is a little resemblance.

You be the judge:

But of course the most noteworthy event on this day was the first post of this blog. Those of you who have been following this compendium of wit and wisdom from the beginning will no doubt remember the fine post I wrote where I gave my coveted endorsement to an obscure senator from Illinois. How did that one work out? I’m not saying that I put that skinny fellow over the top, but I urge you to look at his poll numbers before and after that date.

As I alluded to on the occasion of this blog’s 100th post, I will confess to worrying a little bit about appearing to be self absorbed and self aggrandizing. Those who know me well are aware that it is far too late for those types of concerns.

So as I think back on years worth of on and off blogging, I have to say that it has been a lot more fun that I thought it would be. I started this thing mostly as a technical challenge—I just wanted to know how the whole blogging thing worked. I also thought it would be a nice place to put up the occasional interesting link to share with friends and family. What I hope for in the next year is that I can keep up the momentum and maybe even coax a few people to read this thing.

Proponents contend that such life-lists are an efficient way to bring long-lost high school or college friends up to speed, and to take existing friendships to a deeper level of intimacy by conveying new aspects of their personalities or new information about their experiences. “It’s fun facts to learn about people you thought you knew a lot about already,” Carey said. “It’s your chance to kind of share your heart and what’s going on inside you.”

But not everyone agrees. There are some who worry about both receiving and getting too much information about their friends and acquaintances. Still others think that the concept is flawed from the get go.

A big part of the problem [...] is the number that defines the phenomenon. “There’s probably not 25 really interesting facts about anybody,” he said. “You could get 12 really good ones, and then you start hitting the bottom of the barrel.”

I take this as a challenge. For you, my faithful readers, I give you 25 Random Things About Me:

25. I once had a dog named Sparky for dinner. He was well behaved.

24. I have a haircut that requires very little prep time in the morning.

23. My CIA code name is “Barnaby”

22, I once wrote a fan letter to a pig.

21. I have an MBA.

20. I have forgotten more statistics than you will ever know.

18. I don’t count backwards very well.

17. I once competed in a ski race, and would have won my age group if I was an 87 year-old woman with one leg.

16. I’m a joker. I’m a smoker. I’m a midnight toker. Don’t want to hurt no one.

15. I can bench press my own weight 10 times. I only own a 5 pound weight.

14. I still think that I will begin to develop an accent from the old country when I turn 60.

13. I have seen Blazing Saddles over 20 times, and I am a lawyer. Wait, that’s not me.

12. I can make any food item into a Frittata.

11. I vomited in a cab once. Wanna see?

10. I sometimes keep Netflix movies at home for over a month.

9. I have a loathsome elbow disease.

7. I don’t count backwards very well.

6. I sometimes repeat myself.

5. I was the fifth Beatle.

4. My name is “The Other Gordon”

3. I have the hands of a sturgeon.

2. I almost beat Ken Jennings while watching Jeopardy on my couch. Okay, it was a rerun.

1. I make excellent pot holders. What color would you like?

A recent article from the New York Times has given me pause, however, at a number of different levels. The article, written by Pam Belluck, and entitled “Test Subjects Who Call the Scientist Mom or Dad,” reviews how various scientists have used their own children as test subjects. There are a number of choice examples in the article, but here are just a couple:

“You need subjects, and they’re hard to get,” said Deborah Linebarger, a developmental psychologist who directs the Children’s Media Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, who has involved her four children in her studies of the effect of media on children.

“I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable, like I’m invading their privacy,” said Dr. Linebarger, who ultimately set some boundaries. “When you mix being a researcher with being a parent, it can put your kids in an unfair place.”

For the record, I am not picking on Dr. Linebarger here, but the two quotes do get at some of the underlying competing desires of researchers/parents. That said, I’m somewhat amused by the fact that she’s discussing her use of children in studying the effects of media on children in arguably the highest profile print newspaper in the US.

Put simply, I am torn. On the one hand, it is one thing to be a scientist all your life, but it quite another to be a research subject all your life. There are good reasons why getting children as subjects is difficult. It should be difficult. They are kids. That they had the luck/misfortune to be born to scientists who study children shouldn’t make them any more of less able to become subjects in their parent’s research.

On the other hand, I am kicking myself for not thinking about this clearly when my wife and I decided to breed. Imagine all the work I could have gotten done had I only decided to experiment on my children rather than driving them to soccer, baseball, and music lessons. To be fair, however, the wife and I did do a fair amount of experimentation on the kids when they were younger. I’ve mentioned before our liberal use of the Placebo® in the treatment of psychosomatic illness. But sadly, none of this research was of publishable quality and has only served to provide moderately amusing stories in our dotage.

But the truth of the matter is that I know of few parents who don’t experiment on their kids. After all, despite the best efforts of hopeful writers of child rearing books, no one is an expert on raising kids, and no one has the specific expertise necessary to raise a particular child. The best you can hope for is that you and your child will both learn, though mostly trial and error, the optimal ways to communicate your mutual desires. And what is experimentation if not trial and error. The main difference is that most of us don’t have to go through an IRB in order to bring a child home from the hospital.

In advance of those closest to me arranging for an intervention, I have decided to come clean, so to speak, with my problem.

The sentence leading off this post should not be a surprise to those of you know me. I have not hid my fondness for wine, and, in fact, have blogged about it occasionally here. The fact that I actually blog and have a job that almost defines nerdinesss seals the deal on that end.

(Let me add as further proof that when I found that my my spell checker thought that “nerdiness” wasn’t a word, I decided to look it up on the interweb. I eventually found myself at a web site that linked the following ad with the word in question. So all in all I suppose that if the web site is dynamically associating ad content with searches, I am, as a nerd, in good company.)

But let’s get back on track here. It turns out the perfect marriage of the two prominent traits of mine is an online database called Cellartracker. This web site now carries information on about 11.3 million bottles of wine, and has nearly 70,000 uers, of which I am one. This web site not only allows you to track wines in your cellar, but it also has over 750,000 reviews written by the users. I have been using this for nearly 4 years now, and have found it to be an amazing resource for keeping track of wines that I have in my cellar, wines that I have purchased on futures, as well as wines that I have consumed.

Because the information is stored as a database, you can generate all sorts of reports of varying degrees of interest. For example, you can find out from the consensus “drinking window” which of the wines in your cellar should be consumed before they go bad. You can find out how the price you paid for the wine compares to the average of other users of the site. While this particular feature can be used in a post hoc manner to inflate one’s sense of worth (so I’ve heard), it is particularly useful if you consult it before buying the wine.

But one of the failures of this database is that you actually have to be pretty religious about updating it. Well, technically, you really don’t have be that compulsive about it, unless of course you like wine and are a nerd, which we’ve previously established. Anyway, I tend to be reasonably attentive to managing my cellar, and definitely add wines to the database as I purchase them. What I’m not so good at is deleting the wines from the cellar after they’re removed.

So this weekend I decided to update my database. This entailed printing out the database—for fellow geeks, I will mention that Cellartracker provides a great Excel export feature—and then taking it downstairs and going through each bottle in my collection and comparing it to the list. For most people, this would be just as much fun as you would imagine. I, on the other hand, was completely taken with this task. This ended up as an ultimate fantasy weekend for the wine nerd. I won’t tell you how long it took to do this, but the fact that I now recognize that I have a problem should tell you everything.

When I completed the task, I then spent some time going through the different reports. Here are some random facts:

• I have 795 bottles in my collection, with 43 pending.
• In an odd coincidence, I have consumed 795 bottles in the 4 years that I’ve maintained the database. That means an average of one bottle every other day, which sounds about right.
• I bought 335 bottles for my extended family and friends, and gave 64 away.
• 679 of the bottles are from France, with over half being Rhone wines. I was surprised to find that I have almost as many bottles from Spain as from the USA (<20).

So that is just a small inkling of the terribly fascinating information that is available from this database. Not surprisingly, the overall cost for all the wine purchased and consumed can be accessed, and I suspect that this number might well be of greater interest to the reader. Because certain people with whom I share and house and bank account occasionally read this blog, let me say as previous generations of Rosen men have said in the past:

It’s only pennies a day, dear. Pennies a day.

This weekend, we found ourselves on our annual ski weekend at King Pine. Yesterday while driving back to our hotel from partaking in the best that Conway, New Hampshire has to offer in medical clinics, we found ourselves in a long line of traffic, led by a rather tricked out pickup truck. This conveyance, which was adorned with cop-like lights on the top of the cab, various chrome highlights surrounding the bed, and appeared to have significant engine modifications, was traveling at a rate which suggested that the speedometer must have been calibrated 10 miles/hour below the actual speed. As the cars between our own and said truck peeled off, we soon found ourselves directly behind this slow moving vehicle.

Because the road was both single lane and winding, it would have been neither smart nor, technically, legal, to pass, so we were able to follow him for a good 5 miles, which gave us even more time to admire the artistic vision of the auteur that owned this pokey vehicle. We soon noticed an odd attachment dangling from the beneath the the trailer hitch. My heart skipped a beat, as I realized that I had finally witnessed what I had only heard vague rumblings about. Yes, folks, I had seen my first pair of Truck Nuts. (The following picture is only a representation, not the actual truck (or nuts) in question).

I had first heard of these elusive novelties on the The Daily Show (they make their appearance about a minute and half into the clip). I had originally thought that these were something that the funny folks on the staff of the The Daily Show came up with, but a quick search on The Google proved me wrong. There are apparently a wealth of on-line e-tailers that do a brisk business with these. According to these sites, truck nuts are “are the perfect truck accessory,” and warnings such as “Buyers Be Aware: You may see imitations, however you won’t find any equal to our Second Generation Truck Balls! (includes hanging chain and brass lock )” (which would indicate that these are desirable enough that you need to secure them against nefarious bands of nut robbers).

According to Wikipedia, these were first marketed a decade ago. How is that I’ve never heard of them until late last year, and had never seen a pair in the wild until this weekend? To be sure, these could be considered by many to be offensive, and a number of states (including Florida and Virginia) have either banned them outright or are working to do so, so it could be that the areas of the country I frequent have a little more taste than other sections.

But I think it is mostly selection bias. I suspect that pickup trucks make up a much smaller percentage of all motor vehicles in the Commonwealth that other places in the country. Which means that there is a vast untapped market for non-truck adornments, which I now propose to exploit. Take a look at the mockup below, and tell me if you don’t agree that I’ve got a winner on my hands.

I hesitate sharing this dream with my loyal readers. With the exception of two-hour slide shows of Aunt Phyllis’s grandchildren, there is perhaps nothing as annoying as hearing about someone else’s dreams. I am taking the bet that this is just so bizarre that you’ll power through just to see how it ends.

It starts off on a golf course, where I am playing in a foursome, although I can’t recall if they are my usual partners or just some guys. At about the 9th hole on this very lovely course, I tee off and when I get to my ball, I decide to take a nap before hitting my second shot. I climb up on a hill to the side of the fairway, and plop down in the grass.

I wake up some indeterminate time later, and start wandering up to the green, oblivious to the approach shots raining down upon me, in order to catch up with my playing partners. As I get to the green, I realize that it is occupied by another foursome, and that my group has already moved on to the next hole.

I amble over the next tee box, and my partners invite me to hit my drive. I realize that I don’t have my clubs with me, so I excuse myself to go find them. For some reason, they are now in the parking lot, which is, oddly, adjacent to the tee box.

I go over to the where my clubs are, but instead of a golf bag, they have morphed into a mountain bike. Not only has it been transfigured, but this mountain bike, which is tied up to a large SUV, has a Denver boot on it. I find this perplexing. Mind you, although I am apparently nonplussed by the transformation of my golf clubs into a mountain bike, the fact that the bike was parked illegally is getting me all hot and bothered.

Now things start getting bizarre. It turns out that as I am trying to extricate the bike from the boot, Reggie Jackson walks over to me and starts yelling. I had, it seems, indeed parked my bike on his car and he was obviously not pleased. Neither was I, because this was Reggie circa mid 1980s.

I somehow manage to escape from Reggie, and take my mountain bike back over the tee box. I take out my driver and get set to tee off. The only problem is that the tee box is now a parquet floor, not dissimilar from that in the old Garden. While quite fetching, this made it quite difficult to place my tee.

As it turns out, there were some convenient rivet holes in the parquet floor into which I could place the tee. Unfortunately, they were quite deep, so that the ball rested just millimeters above the floor. I tried a couple of drives, but it was impossible to hit the ball accurately. So one of my partners produced what can only be described as a tee extender, which attached to the embedded tee. The only problem was the that the extender was alive, and so the ball would move in unpredictable patterns, rendering my subsequent tee shots even more out of bounds than before.

It was at this point that I woke up.

As I said before, I generally don’t remember my dreams and despite my professional status as a trained “brain guy”, I am no expert in dream analysis. I fervently hope that my loyal readers will help me out here, and provide their insights. I will only point out a few things that might be helpful with your diagnosis. There are fearsome images in this dream that are obvious to even the untrained eye: Reggie Jackson is second only to Bucky F***ing Dent in Red Sox Nation’s pantheon of villains. And believe me when I tell you that there are few things in this world scarier than me with a driver in my hand and the ball on the tee.

So have it, dear reader. I await your insights full of hope and with more than a little trepidation.

I am tempted to leave this as an exercise for the reader, but I am sure that you’ve all guessed the real reason. I am, in essence, quite lazy. It seems that I would use pretty much any excuse to avoid writing. I knew it was bad when the televised version of the World Poker Tour held my interest for nearly a half hour. To be sure, I have had a pretty busy couple of months at work. The past two weeks, for example, were spent preparing four scientific posters for the annual Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting which takes place next week in DC. It takes a fair amount of time to put together an attractive graphic layout, not to mention making up all the data. (To quote Foghorn Leghorn “Ah say, it’s a joke, son”).

Actually, I don’t think I am all that lazy. The truth is that I really didn’t have that much to say that I thought would be all that interesting. What is interesting about the speed with which information now gets conveyed, is that it becomes increasingly difficult to have a thought that is somewhat unique. Like everyone in the US (and beyond, I gather), I followed the Presidential election very closely. Trust me when I tell you that I had tons of pithy and incisive comments to make about the debates, Palin, the environment, elitism (again), etc. But as I began to write them down, I soon realized that they simply weren’t all that original. I understand that not having novel viewpoint doesn’t necessarily preclude one from speaking one’s mind—Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be out of work if that were the case—but it just didn’t seem right to me.

I also found that when I would go on a rant in with my friends and family, it basically turned into a “group think” in the worst way possible. The sad fact is that I live in a part of the country and work in a place and live with people who basically think pretty much the same as I do. (I understand that that might be scary thought for some of you, but rest assured that most of these people are otherwise quite normal.) While it is sometimes nice to get a “call and response” type interaction going, it is less fulfilling that getting a good discussion going among people who honestly disagree.

Which brings me to my in-laws. One of the few good arguments I had about certain aspects of the election occurred when Jim and Dena visited a few weeks back. At one point, we needed to get actual facts to bolster our discussion. I used Cha Cha, which is a free service that allows you to phone in or SMS any question and get an answer via SMS in a few minutes (did you know, for example, that the top 5% of US wage earners pay 57% of the taxes?). In any event, that was fun discussion.

But back to Jim and Dena’s visit. Once we had settled our argument (I won), we decided to go and visit the Institute of Contemporary Art at its new home on Fan Pier in Boston. There was an installation by Tara Donavan that is a must see. She basically takes common objects—toothpicks, plastic cups, cellophane tape, styrofoam cups—and makes absolutely beautiful pieces out of them. I can’t remember an exhibit where all four of us were so smitten.

After we left the museum, we wandered down to Rowe’s Wharf and then onto the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which is the new parkland area built on top of the big dig. What we saw while there gave me hope in mankind. If the people who work on signs have this kind of sense of humor, then perhaps all is not lost.

In any event, I promise to post more often. And the letter is in the mail.

I thought that this was pretty clever, especially when considered in light of the fact that it was apparently put together in 24 hours. I had a suspicion that it wasn’t original, but I couldn’t recall if/when I had seen something similar.

When I sent this out, I got back a link to the following video put together by Chabad House of Bel Air (thanks Jeff):

Hmmmmm. There are certainly a number of similarities between the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” show and this movie. I’m not saying that the “Karma” video stole the whole script–in many ways the Karma movie is actually funnier than the original episode from “Curb”—but the key idea that drives the plot is identical. Still, the Karma movie is a little tarnished in my mind.

On the positive side, I got another link (thanks Ralph) for yet another similarly themed movie.

I have been out of the loop for the past couple of weeks due to a grant submission deadline. I am pleased to say that I was able to mail off the tome (six copies of all 211 pages) earlier this afternoon without sustaining any paper cuts or other visible injuries. This is our last attempt at securing funding for one of our projects—NIH allows you to submit a proposal once and then resubmit two additional times. While we are hopeful that we will successfully convince the review panel of the merit of the proposal, I am not above asking for good thoughts to be thrown our way by my faithful readers.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of writing a proposal to NIH, the process basically involves convincing a group of your peers that 1) the experiments that you are proposing are cutting edge and have a high likelihood of success, and 2) you are the guy to do the work. With regard to the latter, you submit a truncated CV that lists your positions, awards, publications, and current funding that is meant to give the reader a sense of your productivity and reputation. I have worked hard over the nearly 3 decades I have been in the business to establish a reputation as a careful, and, dare I say, notable scientist. Coincidently, just this morning I received the following email, which clearly demonstrates the international level of esteem that I have earned.

I hope this isn’t an omen.

There were two odd events that occurred during the run up to the move that give, for better or worse, an insight as to how my mind works. Before dealing with the initial incident, let me digress. I attended a college that provided maid service once/week where they would straighten up, change our sheets, and make sure that we didn’t destroy the room. “Casa de Rosen” was, I’ve been told, such an ungodly mess that I had to bribe the maid to enter my room. It is safe to say that in general, I am/was considered to be somewhat of a slob.

But that is not an entirely true characterization. I will concede that I can be quite messy, but eventually even I can no longer stand it. I react by initiating what can only be called a “cleaning frenzy” that results in my places becoming habitable. Parenthetically, I will add that it is safe to say that my threshold for action is somewhat higher than that of my wife, but over the years I have begun to recognize the subtle signs she gives me and get myself in gear.

So back to the move. By Tuesday I had spent the the previous 4 days finishing all the packing and purging and cleaning that I could do in advance of the movers. At the end of the day, I decided that it would be a good idea to clean up my desktop. The desktop on my computer. I’ll repeat that: The desktop on my computer.

What on earth was I thinking? Was cleaning my desktop going to make my computer lighter? Was purging old files going to help consolidate things so there would be less to pack? Obviously, I had completely been consumed by the cleaning fever, and simply had to make my desktop spotless.

The other odd interaction happened at lunch on Wednesday. I met with my longtime colleague, Al. He was the foolish man who initially hired me as a post-doc for his lab, and we have been collaborating and sharing lab space since that time. He asked me whether I was a little sentimental about leaving the lab space that we had occupied since 1982. I remarked that I tended not to get too sentimental about buildings (I’ve blogged about this before). What he next said, drew me up short: “I was asking because you’ve spent half your life in that space.”

Yikes. I could quibble that 26 years in one space is only 49.056% of my life, but the point is taken.

For reference, I am putting in some pictures of our space taken before we moved in. Once we’re fully ensconsed this week, I will include some more.

In any event, being on my own, I decided to have a “me” day on Saturday. I got up early, went out for a brisk 25 mile bike ride, did some stretching, and then went to the gym for weight training. I got back, had some lunch, and did a little yoga for an hour or so, before going and doing some food shopping. Had a lovely dinner with an old friend that night, polishing off a tasty Barollo (2000 Parusso Barbera d’Alba Superiore Ornati) and went to bed early. All in all, it was a full day.

I got up on Sunday and was out the door for my usual 25-mile Dover bike ride by 7 AM. Being an observant fellow, I noticed that it seemed to take a long time to get warmed up. An exceedingly long time. Put simply, at no point on the loop did I feel strong, and was remarkably beat by the end of the ride. The only good news was that none of my tires deflated, and I was at least able to walk to and from the golf cart later that day.

I could have blamed this miserable performance on dehydration, but that didn’t fly because I drank about 1.5 liters of water with electrolytes in the 90 minutes it took me to finish the ride. I could try to blame nutrition, except that I had a homemade protein bar before I started. I came to the sad conclusion that I simply can’t expect at my age to be able to sandwich 2 moderately long bike rides between weight training (especially quad and other leg exercises). I reckoned that I didn’t have the same stamina that I had when I was 25.

But I was wrong. As I thought about it, I recalled the depressing fact that I was not in better shape when I was 25 than I am now. If anything, I am in much better physical condition now than I have been any other time in my adult life. This gave me some solace, I as realized that my difficult day on Sunday was not necessarily a sign of aging. But this reprieve was temporary as I realized that my inability to remember what a slug I was was perhaps an even more obvious sign of my rapidly diminishing capacity.

So in short, not being able to perform like you used to is a sign of aging. Not remembering how poorly you performed when you were young is a sign of aging.

I think I’ll just sign off.

Let’s back up for a moment. After 26 of occupying the same lab space, our lab is moving this week. There is much that is good about this relocation: We are moving to a brand new building and we are now housed on the same the floor with other neuroscientists from our department. Our square footage is less that what we have now, but not so much so that it rises beyond a slight inconvenience. But like anyone else who has maintained residence in one place for for such an extended period, there is a tendency to accumulate…how shall I put this…lots of crap once important scientific data that is no longer required for the continuation of our exceptional work. Because we’ve known about the move for nearly a year, we have gone about our preparation in a systematic, and if I do say so myself, pretty intelligent way.

From the beginning of the year, one day each month was identified as “Purge Day.” I recognize that this designation may be a bit florid, and may bring to mind some rather unpleasant associations, but it accurately describes our systematic search and destroy mission for material that we will no longer use. This is not quite as easy as it sounds. When paring down a cloths closet, for example, one can use the rule of thumb that if you haven’t worn the piece of apparel in question for X number of years (where X=3 for me and =10 for my wife), you are required to remove it. Much of what we scientists keep around in a lab can’t really ever be thrown away. Lab notebooks, as an example, are permanent records of our daily work and are absolutely essential documents. Slides that we haven’t look at for years may contain information that would be useful 10 years hence. That said, we were pretty ruthless in our mission and got rid of an extraordinarily large amount of stuff.

Which brings me back for my former colleague. When he departed the lab, he not only left a legacy of fine work behind him, he also left virtually all of his files, the largest portion of which was his reprint collection that numbered over 6000. Reprints are basically copies of scientific articles (either photocopies or reprints from the publisher). This represents the old way of scholarship, as we now gain access to electronic versions (either online or through downloaded PDFs) of all the articles we need to read.

Now remember that I said that he left the lab over ten years ago. That means that the most recent reprint in his file in from 1998, which is, like, so last century. At best, this collection is mostly historical. So what should I do with them? The wise person would have simply tossed them into the recycling bin. But it may surprise you to know that I am just neurotic enough to want to go through all of them to see if there were any gems that I would add to my own collection. I had tackled about half of these a few months ago when we needed to get rid of a filing cabinet. This week I needed to take on the rest.

As I went through each of the remaining 3000 reprints, I began to have very negative thoughts about my colleague. But as soon as they entered my mind, I would find a cool set of reprints that I didn’t have. Some of the best finds were papers from Vic Denenberg, my recently deceased graduate advisor. These will be incredibly useful for the issue of Developmental Psychobiology that two of his former students and I will be editing to honor him. There were a couple of other classic papers in our field that I was pleased to find.

When all was said and done, I found about 100 or so reprints that were worth keeping out of the whole lot. Not a great percentage (< 2%), but some real winners. So I guess I don’t really hate my colleague after all. And now I recognize that the best part for me is yet to come. When I eventually move on to bigger and better things, I can pass on my extensive collection of reprints to the next sucker generation of eager scientists.

But I’ve reconsidered. As many of you know, I have enjoyed a yoga practice for a number of years now. Apart from the obvious physical benefits, it has helped to clear my mind of exactly the kind of self-aggrandizing, ego-stroking, wholly narcissistic exercises that I just proposed in the preceding paragraph. I am simply content to know that, through yoga, I have achieved the kind of inner peace that allows me to simply let this numerical milepost pass quietly with just a slight, barely noticeable, nod to the intellectual power, astute insights. and cleverness that is all too evident in my work here.

All this said, I will allow just this small audio file that was sent to me by a friend to honor this achievement. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but I have been assured that it is appropriate for the occasion.

On my way back from Saturday’s round at Shaker Hills (a disappointing 97 after a front side 45), I was arranging carpooling with my friend Paul for the following day’s round. I mentioned that all I needed was enough time to do an early morning bike ride. Paul asked whether I rode with anyone or went solo. I replied that with my wife out of town, I was mostly riding solo. He wondered whether that was such a good idea, pointing out that if something went wrong, it would be nice to have someone to help out. I chuckled to myself and casually and condescendingly mentioned that 1) nothing ever goes wrong and 2) if something did go wrong, I have a cell phone. “In fact” I said, “should something go wrong during tomorrow’s ride, I will call you to help me.”

So this morning I woke up early and was on my bike by and riding out to Dover by 7 AM. After about 3 miles into the ride, I noticed that I was struggling a little bit: my speed was down from my usual, and it just seemed as if I was riding in sludge. I figured that this was due to the fact that I had worked out the day before and my quads were weakened from the excessive amount of iron pumping that is standard in my typical weight training regimen. At the five mile mark, I finally figured out what it was: I had a flat rear tire.

So I pull off the road and proceed to replace the inner tube on the tire. It needs to be said that I don’t have much experience with basic bicycle repair. If we’re getting technical about it, I actually have no direct experience. In fact, I have ridden over 2000 miles and my bike and have had only one flat tire, and that was while we were on our Vermont tour last year, and so someone else changed it for me. It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to replace the tube, and was ready to go in about half an hour. Just before taking off again, I decided that I needed a little more air in my tires. So I reattached the hand pump, added a few more PSI. When I removed the the pump, I also removed about half of the valve stem and all the air poured out of the tire.

Now things got interesting, because I don’t have another inner tube with me (I had given away my other tube last year to someone I saw broken down on the side of the road). I immediately thought back to my conversation with Paul the previous day, and was all set to give him a call to pick me up, when I realized that he didn’t have a car big enough to handle the bike. So I began my long walk home.

About a mile into the walk, a kind person in a car stopped and asked if I needed some help. I said I would love a ride because I had a rear flat and no extra inner tubes. It turns out this guy was on his way to a bike race in Newton and had an extra inner tube. After about 15 minutes, I was good to go. I profusely thanked the good samaritan as he departed, hopped on the bike and within 10 feet realized the front tire was also flat. For those of you keeping score at home, that means that prior to today, I had a grand total of one flat in 2000 miles. Today alone I had three.

I eventually got a ride home from our generous and patient next door neighbor. About an hour later when Paul picked me up for our round of golf (a pretty good 91 at Blackstone National), I gave him a lesson in scientific logic: 1) I had ridden bikes in Newton without incidence for 3 years, 2) On Saturday, Paul raised the possibility of problems during a ride, 3) On Sunday I had 3 flats in the space of one ride. Therefore, Paul caused me to have problems on Sunday. It is comforting to know that in these uncertain times, the law of cause and effect still holds.

And now I am sitting here writing this blog holed up in my TV room, because there is a bat loose in the first floor of the house. I think I’ll sneak upstairs to bed and try to sleep before I see what else the gods have in store for me today.

This is the big one for me. For years, we’ve been ping-ponged back an forth with regard to what is healthy to eat. First we needed to eliminate fats, but then just saturated fats. Carbs were first a good substitute for too much meat, now carbs are, to put it simply, death. What do these strictures have in common? They were all based on meager (to be generous) data.

People who know me are sick of my harping on this, but ever 2000, when I read “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat,” I have approached much of these guidelines with a pillar of salt (I guess that is my Lot in life. Get it?). Anyhoo, follow the links in the Tierney’s article to see the latest research that once again fails to show any link between dietary fat and serum cholesterol.

2. Your car’s planet-destroying A/C

Once again, I am right. I have argued with my spouse for years about this issue. I have always contended that using air conditioning on the highway (with the windows closed) actually saves gas because it allows for a more aerodynamic trip. I was told that I was simply using this theory to justify my comfort. This may be true, but now there is at least data to support me.

3. Forbidden fruits from afar

Others have pointed out that shipping produce locally sometimes leaves a bigger carbon footprint than shipping from across the globe because longer distance shipping is mostly by boat, which is better than planes and trucks. Interesting, nonetheless.

4. Carcinogenic cellphones

Am I worried that some neurosurgeons are suggesting to the physicians in their department that they stop using cell phonees? I just got an iPhone. I’ll give you my iPhone when you pry it from my cold, dead ear.

5. Evil plastic bags

Apparently it takes more energy to produce paper, as opposed to plastic, bags. This is news to me. Although paper takes up more space in the landfill, I wonder if it still degrades faster than plastic. I seem to recall reading somewhere that most landfills are packed so tightly that nothing degrades.

6. Toxic plastic bottles

As they say down in Texas, I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I know people who do. I guess it is OK that manufacturers are taking BPA out of their products, but I suspect that Tierney is right, and that this is yet another big scare that is based on weak data.

7. Deadly sharks

One fatal shark attack in the world last year. Enough said.

8. The Arctic’s missing ice

This was another surprise to me. I guess it is good news that the melt this year was not as great as expected, but the worry about the long term health of the planet is still probably worth considering.

9. The universe’s missing mass

I don’t know nothing ’bout birthin’ no universe.

10. Unmarked wormholes

I got nothing.

What that means, of course, is that I have neglected the blog (and, I’ve been told, my family and basic hygiene). But that has now come to an end. This week the wonderful folks at WordPress, the developers of the free blogging platform that I use, have released an iPhone app so that I can blog from my phone.

So as you can now see, I can deliver an endless stream of mindless drivel from anywhere.