Sunday's trip to Plymouth

The Plymouth Rock of popular imagery.


The Plymouth Rock we saw.

Here's what Miles recalls from the visit:
- Plymouth Rock is "so small there's no way the Pilgrims could have landed on it..."
- Climbed on a cannon in Plimouth Village
- Held a real Native American battle club
- Watched a man in Native American clothing use a bow drill (which Miles had learned about in Wilderness Awareness Camp)
- Stood in a replica of Miles Standish's home and held replica wooden toy sword
- Arrowheads in the gift shop are cheaper than at Harvard museum gift shop

Phone call from home

Miles was most excited today to get a phone call from his good friend Nicky, back in Seattle.

Thanks for calling Nicky, you really made Miles' day!

RiverSing 2007

On Sunday night, Keith Miles and I walked down to the Charles River to welcome fall with RiverSing. RiverSing is an annual event that marks the Autumnal Equinox with th ecommunity gathering on the shores of the Charles River near the Weeks bridge and singing along with the musicians, singers and puppets performing on the bridge. Miles took all the photos of the event and happened only to capture jet contrails in the sunset (he's not a fan of vocal music). So please take a look at the FLickr photos that others took of RiverSing 2007.

Understanding neurons - a Eureka moment

Finally, a Eureka moment in my pursuit of how the neuron works. Much of what I’ve been studying, through lectures and reading, is actually pretty straightforward, and pretty much anyone who has time to sit in class and read textbooks could get the gist of it. But I’ve always been stumped by the electrical part. Electricity is what kicked my butt out of physics back in my freshman year, and it’s been befuddling me this fall. I could always see the logic in the equations that represent current and voltage. But it’s so hard to visualize what’s actually happening. Neurons function by creating an “electrical potential.” And tonight I finally can see how and why that happens. I’ve re-read the textbook chapter several times, and I’ve even taken to reading other textbooks on the topic, to see if they explain more clearly, and one of them did, by going into greater depth (instead of trying to simplify and gloss over the details).

Basically, the complexity of neurons (and all biology, really) comes from a series of chemical reactions that happen in chain-reaction form, cascading one after another. For example, you end up with: the 12 steps to transform molecule-A into molecule B; or the seven steps in moving K ions and N ions. I’m not attempting to memorize all of these, or any of them really. But it is exciting and rewarding to understand what’s involved. It’s sort of like learning how a car’s engine works: If you don’t work on it regularly, you won’t remember the details, or even all of the vocabulary, but you’ll retain a general sense of how it works, and an appreciation of what’s most critical and what can go wrong. And if something does go wrong or needs to be changed, you have a context to at least discuss it. That’s how I’m starting to feel now about neurons and synapses.

How hard is it to open our front door?

See for yourself. We always need to add a few minutes to our departure time to allow enough time to open the @#*! door!

Problem Sets, Assignments, Exercises...

No matter what you call it, it's just homework. It feels vaguely familiar and foreign at the same time. Sort of like finding an old pair of shoes in your closet that you didn't remember, then putting them on your feet and finding they still go on the feet, but they aren't quite comfortable. Were these really my shoes?

It's not that I don't like doing the work...it's just that I'm a bit slower at it than I used to be. Rather than breezing through the texts with laser focus, I find myself reading all the footnotes, looking up terminology, and exploring random sidebars (i.e., Dewey's education theories or Piaget's notion of assimilation), even if it's only minor background for the main ideas of the reading. And then, of course, pausing to blog about it instead of working on my assignment.

I wonder if the professional students have these problems.

Can Keith handle med school?

Today in my Neurobiology class, I had my first episode in a long time of squeamishness over medical topics. The guest lecturer was a neurologist (who is currently working at a local biotech co.). He brought with him a man in his 40’s who has Multiple Sclerosis. And they walked through the man’s medical history, starting with the onset at age 38 of some mysterious symptoms – numbness on one half of his body. His primary care doc couldn’t make any sense of it and thought it was probably nothing, but sent him to a specialist. He went to three specialists, including an ophthalmologist, before seeing a neurologist. They ran him through an MRI and found signs that “might” be MS. He says he was in denial for about six months, hoping they just had it wrong. But the episodes kept recurring. I guess MS tends to flare up every few months. It’s a disease that hits certain spots in the nervous system, almost like a bruise. If the spot is in your neck, you get numbness below that point. If it’s in your brain, it may affect your vision. He’s been taking drugs that prevent new occurrences, although the existing ones keep getting worse. MS causes the insulating layer of cells around nerve connections to decay.

I had to leave before further discussion of his case, to make it on time to my Biology class. But I was ready for a break anyway. Why did this bother me in a visceral way? I think I was empathizing deeply, and imagining myself having a sudden and mysterious onset like that. Whenever I get squeamish, it's because I'm imagining myself being the victim.

Brazilian Independence Day

Over the weekend we went to the Brazilian Independence Day celebration. Large portugese sausage was enjoyed by all

Swinging in the Willows of Boston Commons

We went to Boston Commons a few weekends ago and rode the swan boats. Miles found that the willow trees there are great for swinging.

Keith's first week of classes

The first week of classes (at MIT; Harvard starts two weeks later) had all the nervous excitement you may remember from being a freshman, except moderated (thankfully) by a little maturity. I was happily uncaring about all the social aspects that fight for your attention as an adolescent. And I really didn’t care much if anyone wondered what this old guy was doing in their classes. I could just sit back and purely enjoy learning. It’s like having a full-time job of going to City Arts and Lectures events. Already, the biology and neuroscience classes are filling gaps in my knowledge, even though they’re undergraduate and introductory. Part of me feels they could move a bit faster, that I’m more advanced than the undergraduates, and hey, I don’t have to worry about mastering all the equations and vocabulary. But I’ve met some resistance from the graduate neuroscience program at MIT; the course director (Earl Miller) doesn’t want any outsiders, since it’s meant for incoming doctoral students. I guess it’s their big bonding moment. Anyway, he was quite dismissive and that annoyed me. I am participating in a graduate course at Harvard Medical School. It’s an intro to neurobiology, where half the class is second-year med students and half is incoming PhD candidates through a different neuro program. Those lectures were great – very meaty, but I was able to follow. But the class meets for three hours, three times a week, and it overlaps with the Biology class that I think is really fundamental (since the only biology I got was as a 10th grader). So, I’m attempting to go to the first 40 minutes of the med school class, which is held on a different campus, across the river in Boston, and then hop a train-bus combo to get to MIT in time for the biology lectures.

Walking home from school takes hours

Today was Miles first day at Baldwin School. He seems to like it so far. He made a few friends (four to be exact) and was anxious to introduce me to them after school (I think he had playdates in mind).

It's kind of neat that Miles is going to the same school EJ went to when his family was there (though it was called Agassiz at the time). It took us 2.5 hours to walk home.

Why so long? Well along the way home we found lots in Harvard Square:
- water/washroom break at the Harvard Law School student center (very nice!)
- stopped for some Gelato at Cardullo's
- peeked into the Coop
- got a "first day of school in a new city" gift (a small Totoro plush) at a fun store called Black Ink
- browsed books at Curious George
- purchased key caps and poked around in Urban Outfitters
- sipped Iced Tea at Peet's Coffee & Tea
- purchased printer Paper at Staples
- cruised through Tokyo Kid
- stopped at the Farmers' market on the Harvard Campus
- purchased a few groceries at Broadway Market

Whew!!! Such fun to have so much to do and see on the way home from school.

How did we get so lucky?

For the past two weeks, I have been overwhelmed by how kind and generous everyone has been. My Mom took time off work to pull a marathon packing and cleaning session. My neighbor Jan treated me to an amazing breakfast and strong black tea after the last cleaning marathon. Rosa and Michael let Miles and me stay at their place (and catch up on Flight of the Conchords). Kelly Jo and Chris let us stay at their place spa for five nights. Hans pulled together the nicest send-off I ever saw in my 12 years at MSNBC. Jen, Ryan, Tessa, and Vashon helped me get out of my office (have you ever packed up an office you've occupied for 10+ years?). Travis and Kim had dinner delivered to our apartment in Cambridge tonight which was a real Godsend. And then there are the kind words and good wishes of so many wonderful friends, people from the neighborhood, and friends from work. I don't think we could ever thank everyone enough for all they have done. I'm left wondering how Keith, Miles, and I got so lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

Coast-to-coast Day 6 - NY and Mass.

The Falls are awesome, truly, despite all the commercialism. A genuine Wow moment. We pass through Buffalo, on to Utica (cute but not much to it). Then Albany, with an unusual capitol building, which seems to be modeled on Parliament. Pull off in Kinderhook, NY, enticed by a sign that Martin Van Buren’s home is here, but we can’t find it, and it’s getting dark. Onward to Cambridge.

Moby Dick? We're into the long discussion on species of whales and how they should be classified -- fish or mammal. We're not going to finish it, but at least we have 140 pages of sampling.

(For scale, note the tour boat in the lower right.)

Coast-to-coast Day 5 - Michigan, and Canada

Stuck in a major traffic jam, first thing in the morning-- on a Sunday?! Turns out there were some major storms, almost a tornado or hurricane, a couple days ago, and the freeway was washed out. We get detoured down Calumet Ave through south Chicago, back to I-90 (which we’d left). We decide to take the Northern route, bypassing Indiana and Ohio. Next stop Lansing, MI. These towns in Michigan are hurting, just like Michael Moore told you. A drab capitol, bland college town. Everything has an old and about-to-be-abandoned look. The state was built to serve the big American automobile, with a vision of green parkways linking cul-de-sac towns. Sounds nice (perhaps) but there’s no scenery, just an endless, wide highway area lined with trees and shrubs. You can’t see farms, hills, villages. Nothing. At Port Huron, we cross a big bridge into Ontario. Half-hour wait at the border. It’s flat, too, but prettier – rolling farms, red barns. Why are barns always painted red? Dinner in London, a good sized city with a big park at the center. Massey’s Fine Indian Cuisine. We spend the night in Canada, at Niagara Falls, arriving at 10:45 pm. Spray and mist in the air everywhere.

What NOT to do when moving

One big no-no is to hire a rude and ineffective cleaning company to clean your house.

We used Elbow Grease Organics, they were recommended by a friend (who hasn't used them, but knows the owner). If I were writing their ad, it would say "Elbow Grease Organics — We provide the Organics, YOU provide the Elbow Grease."

Thursday night I stayed up ALL night (yes that means zero sleep) to get the house packed and ready for the cleaners on Friday morning. My mom showed up, packed until Midnight, slept for a bit and got up at 5:00AM to finish things off. Needless to say, we were exhausted!

One of the first things Liz O'Donnell, owner of Elbow Grease organics, says to my mother is,"How can you see through those glasses, I just want to take them off and clean them." Then she started ripping on the house. My instinct was to send her home right then, but I needed the house cleaned because the renters were moving in the next day and I couldn't take the day off.

My mom was there for a bit while I was at work and got to hear Liz make other professional comments like, "When I clean rich people's houses there isn't this much clutter."

I should mention here that we were in the midst of MOVING and that most everything had already been packed up and stored or sent to Boston. There were some things still in flux, of course. But we told her that would be the case when she came and gave a bid. The house is literally echoey because it is so emptied out.

Unfortunately, I not only did not send her home, I also wrote her a big fat check in advance of the house being finished. Big mistake!!!

I got home after work to find the house was NOT clean. Some small amount of cleaning had happened...but there were three people cleaning and it didn't look a lot different than it did when I left in the morning (other than my stuff having been moved around to random locations).

So I stayed up until 4:30AM cleaning and sorting through all the bags they had dumped my stuff into. Miles, bless his heart, refused to go to sleep until around midnight. He insisted on staying up and helping me clean. At eight years old, he could see how bad the situation was...and how bad the cleaning was!

The house looked great by the time we were done. On the plus side, I found a nice hoodie to use as a rag to clean the toilet (ooops...hope it wasn't yours' Liz). And the renters have moved in and seem to be very happy there.

Moral of the story: Avoid Elbow Grease Organics

Coast-to-coast Day 4 - Minn. to Chicago

We get a later start – too tired to be up at 6 again. Hit Twin Cities, and do our usual driving tour, but this is a bigger city (or cities). It’s Sat. morning, so things are quiet. We find the University of Minnesota across the river from downtown Minneapolis, thinking we’d find some restaurants, have a nice brunch. If it exists, we must have missed the street. We drive all around the campus, though, and end up back in downtown Minneapolis. The university is huge, with three campuses in the area. At one point, we're on an overpass and look down, and find ourselves right above the crumbled pieces of the I-35 bridge. Giant blocks of concrete, looking as if it had been deliberately demolished. Not finding any eateries, we head for St. Paul and find ourselves stuck in traffic, at the entrance to the Minnesota State Fair. The state capitol building is grandiose and impressive. This must have been a wealthy state in the mid 1800’s, trying to prove itself to the Eastern states. Lunch at the historic Mickey’s Diner (slow, but hey, it’s got character -- the guy at the info desk at the capitol told us it's where Jesse took Arnold for lunch).

On to Madison, WI. It’s off the freeway. I can see why people love this town. It’s the perfect merger of capitol and university town. The city planning was fabulous, with a big capitol building on a knoll, and a spoke pattern, with boulevards radiating out, one of which heads straight to the Univ of Wisconsin. Lively pedestrian area between the two. We chew up a few more miles after dinner and decide to skip Chicago, but stay in a southern suburb called Harvey, IL, on the Tri-State Tollway. Comfort Inn.

Coast-to-coast Day 3

From Miles City we set our sights on North Dakota. We stop-off at Teddy Roosevelt National Park in the Dakota Badlands. It’s like a smaller scale Grand Canyon. Maybe it was bad for farming, and bad for trying to navigate on horseback. But amazing scenery. Prairie dogs, prickly-pear cactus, bison, and scoria (that’s a geology term we learned). The park is built around the historic western town of Medora (beware of the $5 coffee). On to Bismarck, ND – a sad capitol city, maybe the ugliest either of us has seen. DQ was the best we could manage for lunch. Then, dinner in Fargo, which seems to be the end of Western landscapes and Western style towns. It has a kind of nice, reviving downtown. Dinner at Sammy’s Pizza, which boasts “#2 Pizza in the U.S.A.” (as rated by some New York outfit). It’s been there for 50 years and has a unique crispy crust. Worth the stop. Onward to St. Cloud, MN, Days Inn, check in after 9 pm.

Jake really liked these kiosks in Fargo

Coast-to-coast Day 2 – Montana

Up at 6 am! No more tarrying. Breakfast in Missoula, at The Shack (boysenberry pancakes that sure sound good now). Drive around town looking for a decent bookstore, and find Birds Nest Books, where we pick up an old paperback copy of Moby Dick. Neither of us has read it. It’s perpetually on the list, but never makes it to the top. Theme one emerges – gotta check out the college campuses. We circle around the U of Montana. At Butte, we set another pattern for the rest of the drive. We exit the highway, find the main drag, spend 15 minutes getting a feel for the town and looking for a decent cup of coffee or lunch, and head out. Impression? A hard-scrabble mining town on a hillside. Next stop: Bozeman, home of Montana State (not much of a university area). Excellent coffee milkshake at the Leaf-and-Bean. And a drive-through of Livingston, MT – the old gateway to Yellowstone, a smaller version of Bozeman. At some point this afternoon, we start reading aloud Moby Dick. We discover it’s comedic! And it has something of a 20th century sensibility (published in 1851). Dinner in Billings, at a brew pub. Bigger town, but not much going on. End a long day at 8:45 pm in Miles City, MT, almost across the state, at the War Bonnet Inn.

A town named for Miles!

Packing...

...is consuming all of our my time...no time for blogging...just packing. Keith is en-route to Cambridge with a packed mini-van and his friend Jake along for the adventure.

In two days the renters are moving in. Thank God my mother called and offered some help. Thanks, Mom!

Coast-to-coast Journal, I-90 (with deviations)

My good friend and college housemate, Jake, aka Chris Madden, has signed up for the road-trip. There’s something about a road-trip that’s fundamentally attractive. And, I discovered when some people reacted to this with surprise and others with envy, it’s one of those things in life where either you get it or you don’t. I had several friends later tell me, “I wish I could have come, too.” That’s despite the fact that it’s long and there’s not much time to spare (sort of like a reality TV show: We have six days to make it to Boston, before Miles and my mom arrive by plane).



Day 1 – Wed., Aug. 22, 2007. -- We get a late start – there’s too much to do. Not just packing up the van, packing the house. The yard. By 11:30 am, we’re passing under Seattle’s “Portal to the Pacific,” heading East. Lunch in Ellensburg.
A pit stop at Gingko Petrified Forest (state park) – thought-provoking and memorable, every time I’ve been there. Giant trees made of stone. Jake’s never been to the region before and Grand Coulee is screaming to him from our map. Detour #1. We skirt Soap Lake (I summarize the story I did for NPR), and enter an incredible canyon country – the coulees. They’re remnants from ancient, monumental floods. Again, forces of nature so vast that you can't help but feel Awed. Grand Coulee Dam? No longer the “Mightiest thing ever built by a man,” but still a landmark. Dinner in Spokane, where we realize we’re desperately behind schedule. We had planned to get to Missoula. But it was already getting dark. We started calling ahead to hotels and found Missoula is totally booked. We settle for Wallace, Idaho, arriving at 9 pm. The only room left is the Presidential Suite – huge and overpriced (essentially like a room in a Days Inn with enough square footage for leg-wrestling) (which we did not attempt).

Sitting on a piece of petrified forest.