3/4 of the way!

This morning we are at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for Roanne's 6th (of 8) chemotherapy infusion. So, it is pretty exciting to be approaching the 75% done milestone! We just met with the Oncologist who said that everything was looking good, next week Roanne will have some ultrasound imaging done in advance of her meeting the surgeon on Feb. 23, it will be exciting to get the surgery scheduled (hopefully in late March after the last chemo treatment on March 8).

Yesterday Roanne and I went "back to school" shopping, since I now have a job (that I will start tomorrow, I would have started today if not for Roanne's chemo appointment). Roanne thought that I needed some new clothes so that I can look respectable. The back to school shopping was a resounding success, with trips to several Nordstrom Rack stores and lots of clothing tried on. I learned that about 95% of size Medium shirts have arms that are too short (darn this positive ape index of mine!), but pants are a little easier if you look for ones that are designed to be hemmed before wearing (the only drawback here is that these are usually the more expensive ones). After we finished the shopping marathon I got out for a bike ride around Mercer Island.

Finally, I hit another 2010 record on the weigh-in this morning, if I can keep this up I should be able to meet my goal even before my first ski race of 2010 (the Gatineau Lopppet)! Just to clarify the rules of the game, to have met my resolution I need to have a weekly average that falls at or below 160 (not just one day where I have tremendously lucky weigh-in).

Weight: 160.6

Mount Margaret

On Saturday Emily and I decided that it was time for a backcountry ski adventure, so she stopped by our house in the morning and at 8:30am we packed up and headed for Snoqualmie Pass. We decided to do a tour up Mount Margaret, so we exited at Hyak and crossed the highway to the Gold Creek Sno-park. We were delighted to find that the trail head was over run with snowmobilers, and so our first pleasurable moment of the outing was opening the car door and breathing in the hazy fog of blue smoke and hearing the musical sounds of them all rev'ing their 2-stroke engines.


We suited up and headed down the trail, happy to leave the noise and stench behind (at least temporarily, until the went roaring past us). The route starts by following an unplowed road for about 3km, which is a little unpleasant since it is about 20 feet from I-90 making it very loud. Eventually the trail switchbacked up and away from the highway, and the snow quality started to get a little better also (it was pretty warm out and really slushy where we parked).

Eventually we left the road and headed up through a clear cut which was a lot more fun, since we were no longer on the snowmobile tracks. Here is a picture of Emily heading up, with Keechelus Lake visible in the background below:


It had been a sunny day when we left Seattle, but as per usual as soon as we neared Snoqualmie Pass it became socked in with fog. Ah, the joys of the PNW! We continued through the clear cut, and at about 3900 feet the forest began again and we reached the ridge that would lead us to the summit. All of the trees on the ridge were completely encrusted in snow, making for some splendid white scenery as shown in the photo below.


We continued along the ridge, which first led to a false summit then descended briefly and continued on to the true summit at 5600 feet. It was pretty foggy, but we could tell that the ridge was heavily corniced and dropped off sharply to one side. Emily is peering over the edge of the abyss in the photo below:


The guide book we were using had instructed us to start our descent before reaching the summit, but I immediately recognized how ridiculous that would be so we continued on to the summit before de-skinning and prepping for the powder feast that lay before us. We then headed down through the trees, traversing towards our ascent route when the trees were too tight and then making turns down through open sections. The snow was pretty good considering how warm it had been down low, there was definitely good powder to be had though it was considerably heavier than other deep snow I have skied in (after being spoiled by the dry and fluffy champagne powder in Utah, this was my introduction to the soggy cascade concrete). Here I am with a big smile on my face since we just found a nice steep open shot through the trees that was just begging to be skied:
Here is a shot of Emily freeing the heel and freeing the mind:


And then finally one of me heading down with my patented pole flying pole technique:


Eventually we emerged back at the base of the clear cut, which we headed down to connect with the snowmobile track that we had taken up. We then bee-lined it down this section, skinned along the final flat section of road, and were back at the car. What a great day! Shown below is a topo map of our route with our GPS track plotted on it. We started on the left by I-90, and the loop near the top is because we descended along a different route than we had climbed up.


The total elevation gain for the day ended up being 3100 feet with 17.5km covered, not too bad for leaving Seattle at 8:30am and being back at the house before 5:00pm. The elevation profile is plotted below:


This was a lot of fun, much better than the previous tour I had attempted in Snoqualmie Pass (Mount Amabalis with Fras and Beno over Christmas) so it left me excited to explore more of the Snoqualmie backcountry options. We drove back to Seattle where we met Roanne back at our house and then were joined by Andrew who drove up from Tacoma for a really fun dinner. Good times!

Finally, it is time to sum up the weekly weigh-ins, I had a 2010 record weigh-in this morning with a 161.0, so that was good news. However, the weekly average was a little lackluster as I came in at 162.1, just 0.4 lbs less than last week. Oh well, I will redouble my efforts for the coming week. The one thing that may work in my favour this week is that I now have a job, and during the week I will no longer be able to sit around the house eating cookies all day.

Celebratory Cake

In my post on Tuesday I talked about how I had a job interview at Synapse, which had gone well (at least from my perspective). I didn't hear anything back until Thursday morning, when they called and asked if I could come in for another interview at noon (I guess they were sufficiently impressed by my misguided application of Laplace transforms). This was definitely more of a personality test, and involved going out to lunch with five other people from the company, a mix of mechanical engineers, software engineers, and project managers. We went for sushi which was fun since I rarely experience it (Roanne has a general dislike of fish, so convincing her to eat raw fish is tricky business indeed). The only drawback was that I didn't get to eat much since I was talking the entire time, but it went well and they were friendly and easy to talk to.

I received another call from Synapse that afternoon, a few hours later, asking me if I could come in again the next day for another interview. So I showed up on Friday at noon (by now it seemed like I already worked there since I was going there every day), and was ushered into a conference room where I met with the CEO who was one of the founders of the company (back in 2000). He was a really nice and well spoken guy and we had a good conversation. One cool thing about him: he is married and runs a 50 person company, and he doesn't even own a car! He uses the bus and/or his longboard (skateboard) to get around, pretty awesome! He asked a lot of higher level questions like "What skills will you bring to the company that we don't already have", "What was the last book you read", "What is the worst mistake you have ever made", etc. He seemed happy with how I handled the questions, and about 5 minutes after he left the VP of Engineering came in and offered me a job! After a little back and forth on the details we arrived at a point we were both happy with, and I left with the offer in hand to think it over.

I called Roanne with the good news, and after talking about it for a while we agreed that it was a great opportunity and I decided to accept the job. They actually wanted to me to start Monday, but since I Roanne was a chemo transfusion that day I called them back to let them know I would start on Tuesday.

So, another New Years Resolution ticked off! There are a lot of great things about not having a job (riding my bike all day, skiing all day, etc.), but there are also some not-so-great things (expectations that I will actually work on our home renovations during the day, having a one-way back account, etc.), and since this sounds like such a great company to work for I am actually really excited to start. Since my "No dessert" new years resolution has a Special Occasions clause, I took full advantage last night and enjoyed a large slice of chocolate fudge cake to celebrate. Delicious!

Yesterday's weight: 161.4
Today's weight: 161.8

Most memorable moments of 2009

As we move further into the year 2010, I think it is a good time to reflect on my most memorable moments of 2009. While 2009 had a lot of exciting events, perhaps the most memorable was my run-in with an 1850s replica pogo stick. Many of you have already heard this story, but even if you have, you likely haven't seen the photos so feel free to skip ahead to those (Warning: Graphic Content!). Here is my recollection of this most exciting moment of 2009:

A few weeks after we moved into our Seattle house, I noticed a wooden pogo stick in the alleyway leaning against our back fence. We suspected it had been left behind by the previous occupants of our house (along with myriad other bits of flotsam and debris), and I gave it a few bounces and then moved it into our backyard since you never know when a wooden pogo stick can come in handy. It had a brass plate mounted on it that was inscribed "1850 replica pogo stick" or something to that effect.

Anyways, the pogo stick lay dormant for a few weeks until American Thanksgiving weekend (at the end of November, not the real Thanksgiving which happens in early October) when Fras and Carla were down visiting us in Seattle. We spent Friday doing some yard work outside, and since the pogo stick didn't escape our notice Fras and I took turns putting it through its paces, with one of the more notable moments being Fras attempting to pogo up the steps leading to the back gate (a valiant but unsuccessful effort). The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and at 10:30pm we were in the living room getting ready to head up to bed when I happened to glance outside and see the pogo stick lying on the ground. At this moment I had a flash of inspiration: wouldn't it be uproariously funny if I were to sneak outside and then go pogo-ing through the back yard so that the others would have the unexpected delight of viewing a late night pogo-man through the back window? Brilliant!

So, I headed outside and began bouncing on the pogo stick. This had the expected effect as Fras came to the window and was obviously very pleased with my course of action. However, on about the 8th bounce something went wrong: at the bottom of the compression phase, the block of wood holding the top of the spring in place split in half, and instead of the spring transferring its compressed energy back my 165 lb mass to propel me back up into the air, all of the energy stayed in the 1.5 lb spring as it shot up off the shaft, and hit me directly in the face. Well, not directly, as I was afterward able to ascertain: it first hit me on the chin (as evidenced by the gash that needed a few stitches), then hit me in the mouth (as evidenced by the chipped tooth that I spit out after I picked myself up off the ground), and finally hit me in the right eye.

Let's take a short side trip through Newtonian Physics and calculate how fast the spring was moving when it hit me in the face:

\Begin{Science}
Mass of Cam: M_cam = 74 kg
Mass of Pogo Stick: M_pogo = 2 kg
Potential Energy of Cam and Pogo at top of bounce phase (assuming a bounce height of 0.5 m): PE_cam = (M_cam + M_pogo) * G * H = 76 kg * 10 m/s^2 * 0.5 m = 380 J
Assume all of this potential energy was transferred to the spring, as I ended up on the ground and the spring shot up to hit me in the face (at a height of 1.85 m)
Mass of Spring: M_spring = 0.6 kg
Potential Energy of Spring at height of 1.85 m (at my face): PE_spring = M_spring * G * H = 0.6 kg * 10 m/s^2 * 1.85 m = 11 J
Kinetic Energy of Spring at height of 1.85 m (at my face): KE_spring = PE_cam - PE_spring = 380 J - 11 J = 369 J
Now, since KE = 1/2 * M * V^2, we can solve for the velocity of the spring: V_spring = sqrt(2 * KE_spring / M_spring) = sqrt(2 * 369 J / 0.6 kg) = 35.1 m/s
Finally let's put it in units that we can relate to a bit better:
V_spring = 126.4 km/hour
\End{Science}

Ouch!

It was a really hard impact and I must have been in a mild state of shock, but I remember being pretty worried that I wasn't going to be able to see out of my eye. Fras quickly sounded the alarm and came out to help me into the house so we could head to the hospital, while Roanne came running downstairs where she had been getting ready for a quiet night of sleep. We started out the front door for the car, but I was feeling pretty lightheaded at this point, and I fainted just as we were about to head down the front steps. Luckily Fras caught me (thanks Max!) and sat me down on the front step while we figured out to do. We decided to call 911 for an ambulance since we didn't know how serious the injury was, and in the meantime Carla ran next door to knock on the door of our neighbours (John and Josie) who both happen to be doctors. John came out looking a little sleepy, but immediately took control of the situation by lying me down, putting gauze on my eye, and advising us to ask the ambulance to go to Harborview Hospital and ask for a plastic surgeon since they have a Level 1 Trauma Center. I must say that those words were not music to my ears, but it was at least good to know what we should be doing.

The ambulance arrived pretty quickly, and the EMTs helped me down the stairs, onto a wheely-bed, and into the back of the ambulance. Roanne rode up front, Fras and Carla followed in their car, and we headed off the hospital. This was pretty exciting since it was my first ride in an ambulance (which cost $800 in case anyone is thinking of using this mode of transportation, thank you Microsoft for my health insurance!), the EMT shone some light in my eye and asked me some questions like "What is your name?", "What year is it?", etc. I remember thinking "Man, these questions are stinkin' E-A-S-Y, is that all you got?" but I guess they were just trying to make sure I didn't have any memory loss. We arrived at the hospital (about 10 minutes away) soon after, and I was wheeled into the emergency room. Roanne mentioned to the ambulance driver that it was my first ride in an ambulance, and he apologized profusely for not putting the flashing lights on for me, he said if he had known it was my first ride he definitely would have used the lights and siren.

We didn't have to wait too long before an ophthalmology resident came by to have a look at me, he quickly ascertained that I had a serious cut to my eyelid which had a section that was "flapping in the wind" as it were, attached only by a small string of tissue (good thing I didn't lose it on the way to the hospital!). Here is a photo of me soon after arriving at the hospital, with some preliminary cleaning efforts having been performed on my face but still looking a bit messy:


In the photo above you can see the cut on my chin which had been the initial impact but wasn't nearly as troubling as the final impact to my eye. Since I know you want to see it, here is a close-up view of my eye. You might be thinking "Hey, something doesn't look right!", and you are correct: if you look carefully you can see that one section of my eyelashes is perpendicular to the others.


The ophthalmologist was really nice, and performed a number of tests to confirm that my eye had not been damaged (at which point I breathed a huge sigh of relief, this is why I look so happy in the photos shown above). He then assured us that it was a simple matter to fix, and he would just need to put in a few stitches to put the section of eyelid back in place. He put in a number of lidocaine shots around my eye, which had the effect of making my eyelid puff up a lot so that he could commence sewing without worrying about hitting my eyeball. The shots were pretty painful as the eye happens to be a sensitive area, but he did a good job numbing it and then went to work. After about 10 minutes of work he tried to open the damaged eyelid, only to have the section he had just repaired invert on itself. At this point I heard "Hmm, maybe this is a bit trickier than I had thought", and I began wishing for a more experienced eyelid tailor. He must have read my mind, because he decided to call in a more senior resident to have her do it.

This second ophthalmologist was sleeping at home (on call), so it took a while for her to arrive. When she did finally arrive she was all business, first complimenting the first ophthalmologist on his wonderful work before ripping it all out and starting over again. The effects of the initial lidocaine shots had worn off by this point so I once again had the pleasure of having multiple needles jabbed into my eyelid. She then began stitching, and seemed to be just finishing up when I heard the following verbal exchange:

Opth. #2: "Wait a minute, is this Vikrol thread?"
Opth. #1: "Yes, I think so."
Opth. #2: "Actually, I think it might be nylon."
Opth. #1: "Oh stinker, I could have sworn it was Vikrol."
Opth. #2: "I guess I'll have to take it all out and start over. Oh well, there were a few stitches I wanted to change anyways."
Cam: $%&#*!!!!

Just kidding about the last line, I maintained my pleasant disposition and made a good-natured remark about what a lovely time I was having. So ophthalmologist #2 tore out all her stitching, and by the time she was done the second round of lidocaine had worn off, so for the third time I had a series of needles thrust into my poor eyelid, which was by this time begging for mercy. She then proceeded to sew the eyelid up for the third and final time, and seemed pleased with her work when she finished. Here is a picture of the results of her handiwork:


We then had to wait around for the results of a CT scan that I had had earlier in the night, so when we finally headed out it was about 5:30am. Here is a photo of me on the way out to the car, looking pretty tired but happy to be all stitched back together again:


It felt great to go home and get into bed, the stinker for Roanne was that she had a Doctor's appointment that morning at 8am, so she only slept for about an hour before heading off to the doctor (sorry Rosie!). My eye stayed sore for a while, but I was really happy that my vision had not been affected. Here is a photo of our protagonist with the reminder of his folly, the now 2-piece pogo stick:


Weight: 163.0

The Double Helix

Last night I finished reading my third book of 2010, The Double Helix by James Watson. James Watson along with Francis Crick discovered the double helical structure of DNA in 1953, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. The structure of DNA, with the sequence of nitrogenous bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine) coding for the chains of amino acids that make up protein is at the root of all life (at least all life that we know of), so this was a pretty amazing discovery. It was an excellent book, and even though I knew how it would end it was still suspenseful to read about the race to be the first to determine the structure. It was pretty short (220 pages) and a fast read, highly recommended to anyone who has an interest in science.

There are some great quotes in this book, one of my favourites being: "One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.". I think this is an excellent point, as some people seem to think that if an individual has some letters after their name (MD, PhD, etc.) then everything they say is true, even if it is not in the subject area in which their expertise lies.

The sunny skies of yesterday have been replaced by clouds and rain today, so it looks like another day of working on bathroom trim for me.

Weight: 162.4

Sunshine and dry roads

This morning I had the job interview that I mentioned yesterday, which seemed to go pretty well. It had the format of a graduate school qualifying exam, with me standing at a whiteboard and four people seated around a conference table asking circuit questions that I had to work through. I think it went pretty well, though it is always hard to think when there are four people staring at you. It can make you do funny things, like try to use Laplace transforms to show that a step voltage applied across an inductor leads to a linearly increasing current (a simple time domain integration would have done the job with much less effort). I guess I'll find out in a few days whether they were sufficiently awed by my frequency domain antics to ask me back for another interview.

The interview didn't last as long as I had expected, which worked out well since it was an amazing sunny day here and that meant I could get out for a great road ride in the sun (see photo on the left, paying special attention to the blue sky). It was super fun to ride my bike again, I haven't done much riding lately since I have been mostly skiing, but as long as it is warm and dry the riding will probably be way better than the skiing, so I might as well go where the money is! When I arrived home from my ride Roanne was just completing the puzzle, and I was lucky enough to capture this exciting moment on camera.


Weight: 163.2

Job Interview

It turns out that the meeting I had with a company on Thursday was just a pre-screen to see if they wanted to do a full interview, but apparently it went well because they asked me to come back for a full interview tomorrow. The company is called Synapse, and they do contract electronic/mechanical/industrial design for a number of large companies, some of the more interesting ones are Nike, Philips, and MSR (Mountain Safety Research). It seems like a great place to work, they have a great office space right downtown with an in-house half pipe and climbing wall (seriously), and indoor bicycle parking as soon as you get off the elevator on their floor. I am pretty excited at the possibility of working there, so hopefully the interview goes well.

The rest of the weekend after my big ski on Saturday was pretty quiet, Roanne and I just hung out around the house working on a puzzle, reading, and baking delicious cookies. Hopefully I don't eat all the cookies this week and bomb my weigh-ins!

Weight: 162.4