DAAAAAA BEARS!

In an effort to maintain a "something of everything" blog and also as a way to bite my thumb (in a most Shakespearean manner) at any guys who say girls can't do sports commentary, I have to talk for a minute about how awesome Da Bears are this year. I don't know if anyone else watched Sunday's game against the 49ers but this was quite the play.


After psychotic wind gusts caused another missed field goal, defensive back Nathan Vasher caught the ball and ran it for a 108 yard touchdown - now the longest in NFL history! And since all great blogs must be a sensitive mix of news and introspective thinking, there's a couple things to be learned from this record setting play. First off, take a chance. Vasher's name would probably barely have made the news if he had decided to go the safe route and not leave the end zone - and if you saw it he did hesitate. There was that moment of indecision before he took off, but he went for it and the chance paid off remarkably as his name and picture graced the front page of Sports in all the major Chicago papers on Monday. Secondly, it's okay to change your mind. Vasher sprinted to the 15 before seeing all his blockers on the other side of the field and a quick spin gave him a much more desirable running path. Had he been too set in his ways, too stubborn or inflexible, the result would have been a tackle and a much more difficult stepwise drive to the endzone. Just because you've chosen a direction doesn't mean there's not a more optimal route open to you. Keep your head up and don't be afraid to change your course. Lastly, your teammates are there to help you, stay close to them. The only thing the news is more proud of than the run is the excellent blocking provided by the team. Good lesson here, also, is that even if you're not the one with the ball, your job is still important. You can even tell from the picture that Vasher was amazingly covered by his teammates (yes, that is Urlacher #54 right behind him). Maybe you're the runner who needs to stay close to those who can help you succeed, or maybe you're someone who needs to run your hardest to help someone else achieve the goal - either way, neither would win without teamwork.

The touchdown turned the tide of the game and gave the Bears a 7-3 halftime lead that turned into a 17-9 win - Go Bears! (And although it might be a rarer subject for me, I think I'm pretty decent when it comes to talking about sports and I can for sure hold my own with da boys. In fact, some might say it's even something I was named to be good at.)

picture from Yahoo news article linked above
The biting of my thumb at guys who think girls can't talk sports is a Shakespearean insult quoted from Act I of Romeo and Juliet (come on, I couldn't have too much testosterone in this blog!)

Just Call Me Pavlov

I have a little story to share about the nature of conditioning. This might be one that's gonna disqualify me from ever running for an elected office, but it's equal parts funny and embarrassing so I'll share it anyway. As a quick recap for those unfamiliar with biology or psychology Pavlov was the guy who conditioned dogs to drool by ringing a bell every time he fed them. Ring Bell, Give Food, Dog Salivates - Repeat several times. Eventually ringing the bell alone causes the dogs to drool even without the sight or smell of food. Get it? Got it. Good!

Last night I was over at church with my small group setting up our booth for Market of Hope tonight. Basically we were stapling burlap fabric to a wooden frame to create a mock African hut. Problem was, we miscalculated how much burlap we needed and ran out halfway through the project. Tony was going to run to JoAnn Fabric to buy some more, but he's the tallest in our group and needed to help with the roof assembly, so I went instead but I had to take Tony's car since he drove us to church. So I drove to the store, bought the fabric, checked out, got back to the car, and got in the passenger side. As I tossed my bag into the back seat and reached for the seatbelt, I suddenly realized - "Wait a minute: I'm Driving!" I even had the keys in my hand! I burst out laughing at my own stupidity and was laughing even harder when I noticed there was someone sitting in the car across from me giving me very odd looks as I exited the car and got into the driver's seat, laughing at myself the whole time. (Seriously, I must have looked like a total loon.) I don't know if I was just really tired or if I'm just classically conditioned to get into the passenger side of Tony's car - either way it ranks up there as the stupidest thing I've done* in quite a while. I was still laughing about it when I got back to church so I shared the story with my small group who really enjoyed laughing with me about it, and now you can too (I think that's the sign of a good small group - you can be openly stupid and they love you anyway).

And if anyone else has stupid stories to share to make me feel a little better, I'd love to hear them! Happy Friday!!

*This would probably be the stupidest thing I've done in several months, but over Halloween weekend Emily, Tony and I went up to Spring Grove, IL to go through the world's largest corn maze and I had a hilarious incident of trying to drink a whole mouthful of very hot Hot Apple Cider. I ended up spewing the whole thing all over the ground - accompanied by gales of laughter - in a most unladylike spectacle. What can I say? I'm a spazz.

My Kind of Town...

Been busy this week so sorry for the lack of updates. Meanwhile, I found this while scouring my Inbox for something good to blog about. It's a fun picture from Navy Pier that my dad took on Columbus Day weekend when we were touring Chicago with my grandparents.


Three thoughts:

(1) Even if you work in a city day after day sometimes it's fun to see it as a tourist.
(2) Aren't we cuuuuuute? (Hee hee... Truthfully I was huddling close more cause I was freezing than cause I thought it looked cute but don't tell Tony that! Oddly enough it's about 20 degrees warmer now, a full month later. Chicago weather: *sigh*)
(3) Gotta love the resolution you get with camera phones these days. Yay Motorola!

Dewfeine

I've invented a new word. Dewfeine. It's like caffeine, but better. I figure since caffeine comes from coffee (en francais: cafe), Dewfeine comes from Dew. And that's Dew with a capital D - short for Mountain Dew. Get it? Okay. Say it with me now "Dewfeine. D-E-W-F-E-I-N-E. Dewfeine". Here's what Webster's may someday print:

Dewfeine: noun. (doo-FEEN) The caffeine contained in Mountain Dew, a citrus flavored carbonated soft drink beverage known to cause the jitters, short attention spans, hyperness, and hilarious blogs. (i.e. I'm full of Dewfeine!)

Dewfeinate: verb. (DOO-fin-ate) To consume or to have consumed caffeine from Mountain Dew, approximately 98.6 micrograms per milliliter. See also Dewfeine. (i.e. I am Dewfeinated, You're going to be Dewfeinated, That 32 ouncer from Taco Bell will really Dewfeinate us.)

Except Webster's will print them in alphabetical order. Spread the use of Dewfeine by using this word whenever you consume the Midwest's #1 beverage. (At least that's what this site claims. They also list an official Mountain Dew Addicts Pledge. I should probably learn that one.) And yes I actually calculated the ug/mL of caffeine in Dew. 35 mg of caffeine per 12 ounces, baby!

This page is not sponsored, endorsed or in any way affiliated with Mountain Dew or Pepsi (or Taco Bell for that matter) and I think the names themselves are property of Pepsi (except for Taco Bell which is property of Taco Bell) but hopefully it's cool for me to use them as free advertising of how wonderful their beverage is. Dewfeine, Dewfeinate, and all subsequent dewfeinous conjugations are solely mine (as far as I know) seeing as how they emerged from a very sleep deprived but Dewfeinated mind. Happy Friday and if you can read this you have very good vision or just a really big computer screen.

Squirrel Fishing

Just in case anyone was confused about what Squirrel Fishing is.

Thanks to Lauren for the picture. I opened it in an e-mail this morning and almost fell off my chair laughing.

Shoutout for the Ticos!

Went out to dinner with Tony's family last night then we all watched Amazing Race together. (Side Note: I've given up Reality TV except for this one vice - Tony's family loves it and it's basically the show I married into watching but as far as reality shows go, it's pretty cool.) Anyhoo, they went to Costa Rica last night and it made me think of cool people like Greg and Kate who got to go on a mission trip there last summer!! Three quick thoughts: (1) phenomenally Gorgeous Country - Holy Rainforests Batman! ; (2) You guys (and the rest of your team that may never read this but can get the message from you) rock! (3) I wonder if I can find a picture online of Phil, the Amazing Race host, posing in a Costa Rican Rainforest next to a "Beware Snakes" sign with a goofy look on his face.... (hmmm... guess wishes DO come true!)

Thinking about my traveling friends also got me pondering mission trips in general and the work that my church is currently doing to serve the impoverished around the globe. We're doing an event called Market of Hope next weekend and our whole church will be set up like a third-world market with different booths representing different countries. People can then come and learn facts about these countries, sample their food, and make purchases for people living there (items for "sale" include education for children, occupational training for single mothers, livestock for hungry families, medications, housing, etc. - it's an amazing event, e-mail me if you want more info!). Our small group is sponsoring Rwanda and we're excited about the opportunity but at the same time it's a hard thing to grasp that however much we do, there's always more to be done. I think a lot of people are discouraged by feeling that the little bit they offer doesn't make a difference - but on the individual level, every contribution counts. Instead of feeling like we can't change the world, perhaps we need to just work on shining a light into some little part of it. After all, at the end of the day all we can do is ask - did I do my best to become more like Jesus?

"I wanna be Your hands, I wanna be Your feet:
I'll go where You send me, go where You send me.
And I'll try, yeah I'll try,
To touch the world like You've touched my life,
And I'll find my way to be Your hands."
~Audio Adrenaline, "Hands and Feet"

My Embarassing Cell Phone Story

I got a new cell phone. It's a totally funky Motorola ROKR model with iTunes capabilities built in. Now from the title of this entry you might expect me to tell you about accidentally blasting music during a meeting or maybe making unintentional calls by forgetting to lock the keypad, but my story is even more embarassing than that. I'm usually the first person in my lab in the mornings and I thought it would be cool to use the iPod-like features of my new phone to play some music for myself since there's noone to talk to pre 9:30 am. Only problem is I haven't had the chance to upload any music into the phone yet. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Let me start with the story of how I came to own this choice piece of cell phone heaven. At over $200 you better believe I didn't buy it on my own. Rather I've been gifted enough to be the daughter of a Motorola employee who was on a focus group to test a prototype of the ROKR earlier this year. As a reward for my dad's feedback he got to exchange the prototype for an actual model. However, he and my mom are very much attached to their slimline RAZR phones which meant the ROKR was up for grabs. My other siblings all have cooler phones than me already and seeing as how I'm a train commuter and would make the most use of an iPod-ish device, I got the phone! So back to where I was...

I wanted to listen to some music this morning but the only songs in the phone were songs my dad uploaded into it. Eleven songs in total (just enough to get me through my freaky quiet alone in the lab phase): five from 10,000 Maniacs, two from The Byrds, and four from ABBA. Here's where the story gets embarassing - it was great music. I'm sure many of you that know me as a Bon Jovi, Kutless, Metallica, fan are laughing yourselves silly right now but I was really jamming. I mean, yeah, I've always been one to join the crowd on the floor at weddings when "Dancing Queen" starts but I was really digging the intro bars to "Fernando" and once that chorus hit it... oh my. I needed every ounce of self control I had not to start belting out "THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE AIR THAT NIGHT....." (That would have made this My Mortifying Cell Phone Story - heh heh.) What can I say, though? I have to admit it. I'm an ABBA fan.

I think it goes back to when I was a kid and it was the preferred music of my parents. We'd go on car trips (usually Minnesota to Michigan) - sometimes with six people piled into a six seater "Clown Car" Cadillac - and aside from the Find All 50 States' License Plates game, what I remember most about the actual trips is the music we'd listen to. There was The Moody Blues , Roy Orbison, the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing, and of course - ABBA. Dancing Queen has long been a favorite and all four of us kids would always chime in on the chant-like "takeachance takeachance takeachance" background of "Take A Chance on Me". There's fond memories there and even more recently for my dad's and sister's birthdays we took a trip to Chicago as a family and went to see Mama Mia, the musical based around the music of ABBA.

So what can I say? That's my embarassing story. I confess to the entire blogosphere that I am an ABBA fan and here's my questions for you (answer HONESTLY!):

(1) What do you really think of ABBA?

(2) What songs bring back fond friend or family memories for you?

(3) What's one song that you would say is a MUST DOWNLOAD into my new phone?

Happy November and have fun answering!
...And somewhere in the crowd, there's you.

And I, Jack! - The Pumpkin King....

Boys and girls of every age wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Come with us and you will see this, our town of Halloween!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween! Pumpkins scream in the dead of night.

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene -

Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright!

It's our town, everybody scream - in this town of Halloween!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! In this town we call home everyone hail to the pumpkin song!

Just watched Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. These are the lyrics from the opening song that I now have stuck in my head (I love that movie!!!) and the picture is of the pumpkins that Tony and I carved this year. Mine's the cute little one, his is the big scary one. Happy Halloween everyone!

Guess Who?

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! I loove zee little Cuckoo Birds!!

Awaiting the Death of The Great Radinski

*Sigh*
What
a
day.

A frustrating and tiresome morning has blossomed out into a thoroughly uneventful and down right BORING afternoon. Such are the highs and lows of a research lab. Sometimes it's business and hurried experimental chaos and other days (like today) it's waiting... and waiting.... followed of course by more waiting. I'm working with gravity filtration right now and it's slightly annoying to think that the progress and the pace of my day is being hindered by a small little rate of 9.8 meters per second squared (for those non physics folk that's gravity for you). But on the plus side I suppose this - in it's essence - is the perfect reason to blog.

So now that you know why I'm blogging, you ask yourself, "Self, who the heck is The Great Radinski?" Or for those who know me a little better you may ask "Why is a seemingly peaceful girl like lisa awaiting the death The Great Radinski?" And then those of you that really know me ask "Is this gonna lead to some gross out story about mouse tumors again???"

- Rest assured this story will be mouse-gut free. -

But alas, I am awaiting the death of The Great Radinski. But this is not to reveal some psychopathic side of me. Rather, I'm going to a murder mystery dinner party hosted by and in honor of the birthday of the super spiffy Greg (consider this your shoutout!). Greg's an old college pal and one of the It's Just a Blog contributers - he's also one of the team that started me on my blog addiction (gee, thanks man!). Anyhoo, the evening promises fun and intrigue, murder and mayhem, and overall times much more exciting than waiting for buffer to drip out of columns. I've only been to one other murder mystery dinner and that was back in high school. It was hosted by my long time buddy Lauren (here's your shoutout!) and was a totally fun and crazy time. Actually the craziest part about that one was that I turned out to be the murderer!! That time I was a French wine guru named Bo Jalais (yes, I cross dressed in high school. My, this blog is just full of confessions...) but this time I'm a German cuckoo clock maker named Gretel Auerhahn. You gotta love the punny names too. Beaujolais is a type of wine and today it occurred to me that as a clock maker Auerhahn (Auer hahn... hour hand) is pretty funny too.

Should be fun times and I'm really looking forward to it. And did I mention that I'll be dressed as a cuckoo bird? Wonder if anyone'll have a camera...

Standing Up by Sitting Down

Rosa Parks died yesterday at age 92. She is probably much more an icon of my parent's generation, yet I still remember with wide-eyed excitement first learning of her in a childhood social studies class. I remember the shock of learning that not giving up her bus seat to a white man led to her arrest and it opened my eyes to the tumultuous history of the civil rights struggle. As a child I held the naive view that "All men are created equal" was something our country had always believed and followed. Growing up meant surrendering that ideal to the truth that freedom isn't free and that for many, equality was earned through years of hardship and the blood of many great citizens. Reading today about the life of Rosa Parks, I'm awed most by her humility. She never believed that her actions were going to spark a movement as pivotal as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Although history books cast her as the hero of that cause, she would probably be the first to agree that the only reason it was a "success" was not her actions alone but rather the unity of those affected.

It got me reflecting on how often in life we try to implement change with 10% of the people doing 90% of the work. I can't even count how many service organizations operate within this paradigm. It's a model for getting things done, yes, but it's also a model for breeding exhaustion and feelings of futility of a cause. How much more effective could we be if - as in the bus boycotts, sit ins and other protests of the civil rights era - 100% of the people gave their 1% (walking instead of bus riding) and those able could give even more (their very lives for the cause)? Suddenly with this model 100% is the bare minimum of what can be accomplished.

Unfortunately in today's culture we have too many excuses for not serving others. Sure there are times and places to give. My church had an amazing response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Over three giant truck loads of supplies were donated by our community and shipped to a church in Baton Rouge for New Orleans evacuees. I don't want to in any way put down the generosity of those who contributed to the cause, but what would it be like if every week people bought a case of Dasani for strangers without drinkable water? Would we no longer have to hear about yellow fever in Malawi? Or if every month people would clean out their closets and donate unused clothing - could January's news not include a death toll from exposure on Chicago's cold streets?

Again, my heart congratulates and soars for those who gave to relief efforts for Tsunami victims and Hurricane Relief funds. I applaud and thank you but I also implore you: PLEASE keep up the good work.

"Anyone can be great because anyone can serve:

you only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love."

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

All pictures from MSN article linked above.

Here's another cool article about Rosa Parks if anyone's looking to go a little deeper into her life and faith.

Illini Vs. Penn State

Final Score: 10 - 63.

All I can say is OUCH!

Crack Squirrels!

Okay since I'm in the middle of a psychotic scarf down your lunch in less than 15 minutes if you want a chance to eat at all today I figure I deserve a quick break to put up a post. I got this article e-mailed to me from my brother today. It's about squirrels on crack... literally. I want to dedicate it to anyone who:

(a) Looks back at U of I with fond memory of Quad Squirrels

(b) Has ever engaged in "Peanut on a String" Squirrel Fishing

(c) Wanted to be a member of SAGE*

(d) Believed at one time or another that being devoured by squirrels was a punishment for being late to class

(e) Just needed something to laugh about on a Friday

Happy Friday and Happy Squirrel Fishing!

* SAGE is a wannabe club at U of I it's an acronym for Students Against the Gluttony of Squirrels (the E stands for "of Squirrels")

My Kind of English

Okay... two posts in one day (yeah, I'm an addict) but it's a slow day at work cause of some issues with antibody shipping so I thought I'd post this cause it's pretty funny. (I actually meant to post this yesterday but forgot to). Not sure how I live in Chicago Suburbia with 0% Midwestern speech - but does the Upper Midwesterner part prove my Minnesotan roots? You betcha!!

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

15% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

The OTHER Chicago Marathon

Cancer is horrendous. I sometimes wonder why I work with such an abominable disease and I can barely explain how discouraging some of my experiments are right now. Sure maybe it's the essence of human nature to ask the pathetically rhetorical question "Why am I here?" but I think this is one of those days where I really do wonder why I do what I do. A friend of mine's relative just got diagnosed with lung cancer and as I look around my lab at work this morning part of me just wants to scream in frustration "WHAT IS THIS ALL FOR?" People are still getting sick and dying at alarmingly high rates. Am I really contributing to progress? Is it foolish of me to think that we will find a cure? Foolish - I dunno. Arrogant - maybe. Idealistic - definitely. But regardless, there's times where I just have to get real and face up to the doubts plaguing my mind. And then I have to doubt my doubts. I wanted to post an e-mail on here that I wrote a while ago. (Appropriately enough I wrote it two years ago to the week.) It's a good reminder for me - and hopefully a good insight for you - of why I love what I do. I suppose my frustrations are due to feeling like I'm actually in the thick of "the marathon". It's long, but a worthy read.

Friday, October 17th, 2003
Wow. Since you're all usually asking me "How's work going?", "Any progress?", "Didja cure cancer yet??", I figured I'd send out a little journal type summary of my work life at present. See, there's times when I just really love my job. No, we didn't cure Neuroblastoma yet but our whole lab group has been going to the AACR (American Association of Cancer Research) Special Topics Conference in Chicago this week on "New Directions in Angiogenesis Research" - and yes, I got my name on the abstract for a poster/reserach paper that's gonna be presented, but that's another story.

To translate out of "Scientese", Angiogenesis is basically the term for growth of new blood vessels - which studies have shown is necessary for tumor growth. [The theory is that for cancer cells to multiply they need to recieve nutrients from the blood and in order to continue to be "fed" as they get larger, new blood vessels need to grow.] One of the head researchers responsible for discovering and proving theories of angiogenesis is a guy from Harvard, Dr. Judah Folkman, who has been speaking at this conference. Anyways, there's a whole complex world of the past thirty years where different people have discovered different protiens and different genes (that are responsible for producing proteins) that either activate or inhibit angiogenesis - they either cause or prevent the growth of new blood vessels and thus, in most cases, cause or prevent the growth of tumors.

The latest and probably most encouraging studies about this stuff involve combining chemotherapy with drugs proven to be angiogenesis inhibitors. One of the presentors this morning shared evidence of a stage three (tumors with really bad prognoses) clinical trial where a drug called Avastin, when administered with chemotherapy, was shown to extend the lifespan of patients with colorectal cancers to an average of five months longer than with chemotherapy alone. It was pretty cool news to see evidence of, but the research got a lot of backlash. "What good is five months?", "Five months more of chemo, that's not such great news!", "Is this really significant?", etc. That's when Dr. Folkman stood up and said something really cool (I wrote it down so I could quote him) - "In 1903 the Wright brothers took the world's first trip in an airplane. It lasted twelve seconds and only went fourteen feet in the air. Everyone said that a flight of this magnitude would never be worth anything. Forty years later Linbergh flew across the Atlantic and sixty years later we flew a man to the moon. This - is a first step." It really put things in perspective. We can't discard progress just because it is small. Even baby steps in the right direction means we're moving forward! And it really makes me think that all the work we're doing really can make a difference. Cancer research is a marathon race, not a sprint.

So, yeah, sorry that got so long, but that's me and my work for now. I'm not going to go into all the details of the project I'm on cause it's pretty technical but I will say that more and more I'm confident that God put me where I'm at for a reason. People might think that there's not much glory in being a paid by the hour research tech but I love what I'm doing (and the people I work with!!) and who knows, todays twelve seconds could be tomorrow's trip to the moon!