Nucleotides, genomes, structures, missense v. mismatch, carbon structures, proteins, amino acids, and more, found here:
http://www.portlandpress.com/pp/books/online/glick/search.htm
Nice break we had for Thanksgiving. Nice respite though I know the semester is soon over and next one to start. This learning component of my life is fabulous! Love it and given last week's news, can hardly wait to see how I do just being a student.
I have another exam looming in biochem. Luckily, I know most of the material pretty well. Now to master it and finally, have some REALLY great news to live on for a bit.
What a journey this has been. Thanks for traveling the road with me!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
By Helping A Neighbor, Or Even A Stranger...
Something for all of us to think about. As already noted, I'm especially thankful for the strangers who happen upon this blog, send me notes of support and encouragement.
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
THEN ALL AT ONCE INSIDE THAT NIGHT
HE SAW IT ALL SO CLEAR
THE ANSWER THAT HE SOUGHT SO LONG
HAD ALWAYS BEEN SO NEAR
IT'S EVERY GIFT THAT SOMEONE GIVES
EXPECTING NOTHING BACK
IT'S EVERY KINDNESS THAT WE DO
EACH SIMPLE LITTLE ACT
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
THEN ALL AT ONCE INSIDE THAT NIGHT
HE SAW IT ALL SO CLEAR
THE ANSWER THAT HE SOUGHT SO LONG
HAD ALWAYS BEEN SO NEAR
IT'S EVERY GIFT THAT SOMEONE GIVES
EXPECTING NOTHING BACK
IT'S EVERY KINDNESS THAT WE DO
EACH SIMPLE LITTLE ACT
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Postal Mail
Not very good at opening it. Sometimes I go for weeks without bothering to stop at the mail box. Generally, when I do there are 20 magazines, a bunch of junk mail, and other assorted trash included. And for the past 20+ months, foreclosure notices, late payment notices, and the ultimate sheriff's sale notice.
The foreclosure prevention services offered first by the Bush administration, and then painted with a prettier face in Obama's administration did little to help those that really needed it. A friend of mine had a mortgage under $100k, they had no income, no unemployment as they've never worked, and five kids. They got help. Government and the TARP money spent for them, did in fact, keep them in their house at a reduced rate. I was thrilled for them!! Someone aught to get help.
My situation was very different. I'd worked for 16 years making well over $100k a year and in a few of those years, in excess of $250k. I was never late on my mortgage, never missed a tax due date, never ever thought I'd get behind.
And then I, vice president internal audit whose job it is to make sure the SEC filings are accurate, told my boss he really needed to consider opening the financial "books" back up and restating the financials. He was livid. He yelled at me. And then he got my badge access denied. I was unemployed. Doing the right thing, saying the right thing, relying on the right people for my own decisions, I was fired. Then the company denied my unemployment.
Then they slammed me in the industry supplanting lies and deceit to anyone who would listen - and coming from a still in position executive, "he" had to be right and me wrong. Defamation crossed my mind but it is a hard thing to prove, and harder to pay for lawsuit when one is quickly running of liquid cash.
Immediately I called Wells Fargo, asked for help. At that point, I'd never missed a payment... a $4200 a month payment. I asked to have some leeway in the escrow that I really did not need as I've always had over 30% equity in the house, always carried insurance on both buildings, and always paid my taxes. Wells Fargo said, "Screw you."
For the next 24 months they have and they did.
So, one can imagine I was never exactly happy about getting my mail. Never excited to see which offers might come my way because none of them were either legit or helpful.
Until ... I opened up the latest and greatest from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
Inside the white envelope, for reasons unknown to me, my mortgage had been reduced by almost $2000. The principle had been anchored back to what I originally owed before that fateful December, 2 years ago.
I'm no longer wondering how I will live as a homeless person and no longer wondering where I can go. I'm no longer worried about how to pay for storage and or moving expenses as I am no longer in foreclosure.
To my closest friends who have known all along how bad things were getting, and how hard things were getting on me, and how terrified I was inside but kept calling and kept encouraging me and kept me on the path to med school:
This is my public thank you.
I could not, and would not, have made it without you.
I am truly blessed and absolutely, over the moon, thankful.
Make it a great day!
The foreclosure prevention services offered first by the Bush administration, and then painted with a prettier face in Obama's administration did little to help those that really needed it. A friend of mine had a mortgage under $100k, they had no income, no unemployment as they've never worked, and five kids. They got help. Government and the TARP money spent for them, did in fact, keep them in their house at a reduced rate. I was thrilled for them!! Someone aught to get help.
My situation was very different. I'd worked for 16 years making well over $100k a year and in a few of those years, in excess of $250k. I was never late on my mortgage, never missed a tax due date, never ever thought I'd get behind.
And then I, vice president internal audit whose job it is to make sure the SEC filings are accurate, told my boss he really needed to consider opening the financial "books" back up and restating the financials. He was livid. He yelled at me. And then he got my badge access denied. I was unemployed. Doing the right thing, saying the right thing, relying on the right people for my own decisions, I was fired. Then the company denied my unemployment.
Then they slammed me in the industry supplanting lies and deceit to anyone who would listen - and coming from a still in position executive, "he" had to be right and me wrong. Defamation crossed my mind but it is a hard thing to prove, and harder to pay for lawsuit when one is quickly running of liquid cash.
Immediately I called Wells Fargo, asked for help. At that point, I'd never missed a payment... a $4200 a month payment. I asked to have some leeway in the escrow that I really did not need as I've always had over 30% equity in the house, always carried insurance on both buildings, and always paid my taxes. Wells Fargo said, "Screw you."
For the next 24 months they have and they did.
So, one can imagine I was never exactly happy about getting my mail. Never excited to see which offers might come my way because none of them were either legit or helpful.
Until ... I opened up the latest and greatest from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.
Inside the white envelope, for reasons unknown to me, my mortgage had been reduced by almost $2000. The principle had been anchored back to what I originally owed before that fateful December, 2 years ago.
I'm no longer wondering how I will live as a homeless person and no longer wondering where I can go. I'm no longer worried about how to pay for storage and or moving expenses as I am no longer in foreclosure.
To my closest friends who have known all along how bad things were getting, and how hard things were getting on me, and how terrified I was inside but kept calling and kept encouraging me and kept me on the path to med school:
This is my public thank you.
I could not, and would not, have made it without you.
I am truly blessed and absolutely, over the moon, thankful.
Make it a great day!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Yippee! Break!
So plans for all of you this coming holiday?
Big dinners, happy festivities, lots of shopping?
Me?
I'm alone this year so right after I pop the turkey into the oven, my little white truck is taking me to the local high school to help with the meals on wheels program. Seems like the right thing to do - help others and my own life will seem so much better. Focus on others and my plight will be lessened.
Part of the journey to med school, for me, is learning to live with times that are not easy and not fun and not quite happy. If this is a test of my determination, volunteering is the PERFECT answer.
I simply cannot wait to help!
Big dinners, happy festivities, lots of shopping?
Me?
I'm alone this year so right after I pop the turkey into the oven, my little white truck is taking me to the local high school to help with the meals on wheels program. Seems like the right thing to do - help others and my own life will seem so much better. Focus on others and my plight will be lessened.
Part of the journey to med school, for me, is learning to live with times that are not easy and not fun and not quite happy. If this is a test of my determination, volunteering is the PERFECT answer.
I simply cannot wait to help!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Apparently, Someone Else Thinks Getting Old Is Funny Too
Story of a Challenged Senior
I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud..
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.
I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused but I never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.
I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud..
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.
I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused but I never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
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