Friday, March 30, 2007

Short and Funny Story

So this evening I was going through emails and started reading old emails between Sherry and I. Most of which were either about Narnia or explaining why we didn't mean to upset each other. Then I read this one that had a really short story that I found very funny at the time, but didn't have a blog at the time to allow me to share with everyone.

So basically with the "Hiplate" project that I work on we spent quite a bit of time in the Memphis, which of coarse requires us to sleep in hotel rooms. Frequently we get penthouses so that during these long stretches we can have two people per room, but there are two rooms so each on has there own separate room (basically it is cheaper for the penthouse then individual rooms). Anyway, there was a former PhD student that was working in Memphis and during his time there he shared a penthouse with 3 professors that are on his committee (group of 4-5 professors that decide if you become a doctor). Then Sherry told him that if he graduates (he did graduate) the only reason would be that he slept with his committee members.

Now that I wrote that I don't know how funny others will find that, but I thought/think its funny.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Happy Birthday TC!!!

Renee', Dad, Me, and Teresa back in the day.

Happy Birthday TC and thanks for keeping an eye on me when we were younger.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Optimization

Today I was sitting in lecture listening to how the percent volume of red blood cells in your blood can either increase or decrease the amount of oxygen being delivered to various parts of your body. See the more red blood cells the more oxygen the blood can carry, but the more red blood cells there are the more viscous the blood becomes. Therefore one can determine a certain level of red blood cells that allows for enough oxygen to be delivered while minimizing the work required.

So since it is a Biofluids class we went ahead and solved for the optimum level that would minimize the work required to deliver the appropriate level of oxygen to a given part in the body. For those that are nerdy like myself...the answer is about 43% volume should be red blood cells. Then as a side note the professor pointed out that it just so happens that this is the level for a health human and that it is almost as if it was designed that way. How amazing that we were able to get lucky and just have the exact amount of red blood cells in order that our body would be able to work at the optimum condition...wow what are the odds.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

March Madness

College basketball is just flat out better than the NBA. While I rarely watch a single game of the regular season for NCAA basketball, I will catch every single game I can for March Madness. And every year I'm reminded just how much better college basketball is than the NBA. Now don't get me wrong, I love the Pistons and I'm just thankful that they are one of the few teams in the NBA that actually play basketball. So with that in mind I give you my top 10 reasons why March Madness is awesome (in no particular order...even though I'm ordering them)...

1) It is the only time of the year when you can have the potential of watching 4 significant buzzer beater games within 20 minutes.
2) There will always be an underdog to cheer for.
3) When watching a game you see a full game played at full intensity by both teams (in the NBA they they play pretty lazy until the last couple of minutes).
4) College players are well coached so when there is a close game and it is coming to the last minute...the players actually manage the clock well and give themselves a chance of winning.
5) If you filled out a bracket for a pool...every single game you have someone you want to win (even if some nobody school knocked off your team...well then that Cinderella team is now your team).
6) It is a perfect reason to sit around, watch basketball, drink beer, and relax with friends.
7) No one every questions who the NCAA men's basketball champion truly is or that some team didn't get a fair chance at the title.
8) Team basketball
9) You can't beat a single elimination tournament (series are alright but the excitement of a one and done tournament is so great).
10) College basketball doesn't have special rules to prevent defensive play.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

All Nighters

While I'm taking a minute to clear my mind I figured I would write a quite post. Now when I work all night my mind changes into a new mode...I may figure out solutions to problems I've never been able to do, but simple stuff will be wrong. On that note I'll point out that almost certainly I will have misspelled words in this post and there is a good chance that my sentences won't exactly make sense.

I just went and got some breakfast from McDonalds (I actually really like their hash browns and cinnamon buns, but never am up early enough to get them). This morning happens to be really beautiful...it is an early spring morning. I just love it when you're outside and it isn't cold but there certainly is a chill in the air.

I have thoughts but there is no way to organize them...how was able to get so much work done without being able to combine different thoughts? Actually periodically during the night I'll be working on a problem for a couple hours then I get confused about something and before I know it I don't even know what the problem is anymore. I then have to go back to the beginning and reread the problem statement, refocus, and then I can continue.

Welp...how's that for a useless rant?

Friday, March 02, 2007

Jesus Tomb

This past week the world was told that the tomb of Jesus was found and the “documentary” by James Cameron will be released shortly. My gut when I heard that the same guy that produced Titanic was making this was that it was just for the money. However I figured I should look into it since one Christian poll had 16% of Christians believe Jesus’ tomb was found…it really frustrates me how many people will believe whatever mainstream media tells them. So in hopes of letting someone one in the world realize how big of a scam this is I will give everyone some facts.

This tomb was first excavated in 1980 and then 3 years later it was completely debunked and ruled out as having a chance of being Jesus’ tomb. However in 1996 the BBC tried to resurrect this story (I felt like using the pun) but was shot down immediately for the same reason it was shot down originally. So here a few key points that were used by archeologists to consider this an unlikely location for Jesus’ tomb.

(1) The names in the tomb were the most common names at that time period. There are nearly 100 tombs in that region with the name Jesus and 21% of all females were named Mary.
(2) The family in the tomb was quite wealthy, but Joseph being a carpenter from a small town would not have had much money.
(3) James, the brother of Jesus, tomb was known and often visited during the first century following Christ’s death.
(4) It was known that Joseph died earlier then the rest and was buried nearly Galilee, which is not near this tomb.
(5) The tomb is no where close to where the family lived, which makes it very unlikely that you would have a multigenerational burial site for a family that wasn’t close to where they lived.
(6) The ossuary labeled Jesus is currently debated whether it says Jesus or a different name that is close to Jesus.

I’m sure there are more points, but that gives you a flavor of the problems associated with this find. So obviously since James Cameron won’t just be bringing up an old, outdated story to make a buck he must have found new evidence that supports his belief that this is actually Jesus Christ’s tomb. The new “scientific” evidence that he brings to the table is DNA analysis…what!?...seriously? How in the world could DNA analysis give any new information…unless he picked this because it sounds scientific and everyone will believe things that sound scientific…no certainly not James Cameron, I had better look into how DNA analysis magically cracked this case.

So according to Carney Matheson, the scientist that did the analysis, dust from Jesus’ ossuary and Mary’s ossuary weren’t related. I use dust because there weren’t any bones and Carney was only given “bits of matter” from those ossuaries. Then since they didn’t match Cameron went ahead and concluded that Mary and Jesus were married. Note that they never even bothered to check the DNA of any other individuals to find out if it was even possible to get a match for anyone. Perhaps I’m a little bit slow here but I struggle to see how this “evidence” in anyway addresses the original problems that debunked the tomb in the first plate. Heck even one of the original discoverers of the tomb, Amos Kloner, was quoted as saying “I don’t accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family, the documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film.”

I actually think this years attempt to destroy the Christian religion bothers me even more than last years. See last years, The Da Vinci Code, was a lot closer to laughable because it was obviously a fictional story. In fact the only thing that truly bothered me about it was that Dan Brown was labeling his book fiction then telling everyone it was non-fiction (if you don’t believe me check out Brown’s interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show when asked how much of the book was based on reality in terms of things that actually happened and Brown said “Absolutely all of it.”). Sadly even with such an obviously bogus story many Americans believed it was true. However this year James Cameron is selling it as straight up fact…dishonest to say the least.