PD: Day 105 - Capoierra or how do you sing that

Today we headed over to the Owl Palace to learn some songs and how to play instruments used in Capoeira. X has been taking lessons and hopefully one day will be able to do things like this



He already has a nickname that I can't pronounce but translates to "head butt" because he likes to stand on his head a lot. He also did a great job with his solo. An added benefit is he will learn a good deal of Portuguese.

PD: Day 104 - On the Couch

Today, I mostly sat on the couch and watched man movies on TNT (I had to wash the vestiges of He is Just Not That Into You off or I would probably start over analyzing things). I also went for a walk to return the movies and forgot how relaxing a walk around the block can be. I of course would really like to see rain. It hasn't rained in Texas since we went to Kansas - where it is raining all the time. The aquifer if going down and soon we will all smell bad and be covered in dust. Oh well back to the TV.

PD: Day 103 - Picnic

I realize, I am a wee bit behind on the blog and hopefully I can get caught up over the holiday weekend. Don't worry I'm writing this post from the future until then I will be busy writing a paper and contemplating my navel, which is always an exciting activity to engage in. Today, was the company picnic, which forced me to go out onto the surface of the sun, in order to eat a hot dog and drink light beer - followed by copious amounts of water. I got to watch the water balloon toss and the limbo. I also tried to hulu hoop, but failed miserably. I got home and we had cold cuts and assorted cheeses. I stopped by my arch nemesis redbox and picked up a couple of movies. He's Just Not That into You and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I liked the latter one more than the first but it was way too long.

Mosquito Coast Buzzes With Rebellion

I wonder if this will be a situation similar to Peru.

From the Nica Times.

Tensions grow between gov’t, separatists amid labor strike

By Tim Rogers
Nica Times Staff | trogers@ticotimes.net

BILWI, PUERTO CABEZAS – A political showdown between indigenous separatists and the Sandinista government appears to be steaming toward a larger-scale confrontation in this sultry Caribbean port town, following several weeks of mounting tensions and spats of violence, including unconfirmed reports of six people being shot.

for more info

PD: Day 102 - RIP Michael Jackson

In order to commemorate the King of Pop, this weeks Music List Thursday it to choose one of your favorites from the list below or voice your own. Vote in the Comment Section or on the side bar if you want to remain anonymous.

ABC - Jackson Five


Don't Stop Until You Get Enough - Michael Jackson


The Way You Make Me Feel - Michael Jackson


Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson


Man in the Mirror - Michael Jackson


Thanks for the music MJ!

PD: Day 101 - A day of rest

Not really, but do you ever wonder what the president does on his 101st day in office. I imagine it is somewhat similar to what he has been doing for the previous one hundred. So in honor of the number 101 - the most ignored number in the year - I'm going to continue to work. So what did I do today. Sometimes when you work in large collaborative groups, you don't see the whole picture but when you need to write, you need all the info - so when you go to write a paper it may be difficult. So basically collecting data was what I did and then of course, I want to be able to replicate the stuff other people have told me about so I got about doing that. Plus, I keep having problems with a bayesian analysis of 407 SNPs, so basically doing 407 to the 407 power fills up the computer very quickly. Then home for a quick bite to eat and watch some TV and bed. Snore.

PD: Day 100 - Wow, already one hundred days

So I have been doing the postdoc diary for a hundred days now. So what have we learned, one I like lists (either making them or working off of them), two my wife can cook and three it is sometimes very difficult to get things published in the biomedical field. This is because most journals are in search of novel results and not necessarily into results that are confirmatory or negate previous findings. At least that is my opinion.

The other thing is that currently genetics is married to association studies even though they often lack replicable results or too not meet statistical significance under multiple testing - this in turn leads to false discoveries that are unable to be confirmed. Another thing that is ignored - often by most journals and genetic associations are health disparity populations. Let's take Type II Diabetes for example, according to the CDC, this disease impacts 8.7% of the European population, whereas it impacts 18% of the American Indians, 13.3% of African Americans, and 14% of Hispanics over 20 years of age. Now the problem is most of the association studies done to date, have only been done on European populations and the associations are not replicable in these other health disparity groups. A problem that is often ignored or not reported in these studies is populations stratification, meaning that different groups have had different histories and therefore the underlying population structure as well genes impacting complex disorders are going to be different. This is not rocket science but common sense, that is often ignored. Oh well, onward and upward.

Worked on a few things today, getting some data, and then running the script (see yesterday's list) which took a little longer than I thought it would. But I did get it to work and it ran swimmingly. Then home to eat and sleep.

PD:Day 99 - Post Dad Day Blues

So back to work. It has been a while since I threw up a to-do list. Here is what I'm working on at work.

1. Submit Manuscript proposal
2. FAX grant info
3. Run SNP script on LD for LIPC
4. Look for genes around LIPC for possible follow up grant
5. Write Heart Rate Manuscript
6. Chibchan Y- paper - on back burner until all else is finished
   
7. Finish LIPC BQTN
8. Run new LIPC BQTN on ranch

I get the manuscript proposal off and I should here about that by the end of the month. One down a bunch more to do. I go to work on the grant info and compile 145 pages to fax. Wow the things I will do to get something done. This takes most of the morning and afternoon. I also get some info on Heart Rate that I need to include in the manuscript. I work a little on the BQTN, I'm learning my way around the ranch, 3086 processors of genomic goodness (soley dedicated to genetics). So I get that running - so using that will take the analysis from a week to over night, which is super cool. So I get that running over night.

J is having a bit of a difficulty with the kids. I can't imaging chasing four toddlers. So I pick up some treats and even punish myself by stopping by the Redbox and pick up Bride Wars for J and Gran Torino for her. I also heard this great song and the radio and so this is dedicated to my wife for everything she does.



I get home eat, and we start watching a movie but I decide to distract them for a while so I take them upstairs to get clean - they have been playing in the dirt outside. As I'm doing this some solicitor comes by and stays forever trying to sell us a vacuum cleaner. I mean come on, I'm not buying it so why waste your time and ours. During this time we get C and X to sleep, apparently Animal Planet is the nemesis of X. C wakes up and I put her to sleep until we both crash.

PD: Day 98 - Father's Day Campout #2

So last year we became the unofficial ritual of the annual father's day backyard camp out. However, this year it was decided that because we live on the surface of the sun (Apollo says what's up) that the camp out would be held inside. Seeing as we have no furniture due to the esteemed movie company we placed the tent in the dining room, right next to the tepee and the firehouse. Everyone was super excited but only X made it almost all the way through the night, he even beat dad who went in search of a bed - the floor is not comfortable. So X is our super camper of the year - granted even he went search of a bed about 6 AM. Overall, it was a nice mellow father's day - no gifts but just lots of hanging with the kids.

The tent in the dining room
The participants in the camp out. L was excluded as she still needs to eat during the night.

PD: Day 97 - WWII Saturday

Today was mellow. We woke up kind of late. J and I had been up watching movies. The first Paul Blart Mall Cop was as you would expect funny but not great. Then we watched Valkyrie, the Tom Cruise epic about the July 20th, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. OK, is it just me or is Tom Cruise just not believable as German officer; one who has been blown up in North Africa. There are a few factual errors, such as von Stauffenberg was not the author of the plan. Also they completely ignored Rommel, who has probably the only person in the entire west, who is known for being executed for knowing about the plan. So we were up, had breakfast, I was just being pretty mellow and finished my next book, Silesian Station, the next in a series about a journalist-turned-spy for just about everyone involved in WWII. I also watched a documentary on the Hunt for Hitler. Shortly after the war the fate of Hitler was unknown and the Russians believed (or at least said he escaped) and it wasn't until the mid 1990s when the Russians opened their files to the west that he was confirmed dead. Apparently, they didn't want his remains buried so that it might become a shrine, so they had sent his teeth and a portion of his skull back to Stalin, and then the KGB cremated the rest in the 1970s and threw it in the river. J went out and picked up Defiance, which is a movie worth watching as it about the Bielski brothers, four brothers who protected over 1,ooo Jews from the Nazis in Belarussia for over two years. They never sought recognition for their efforts. I actually liked that one quite a bit. I have no idea why I'm on such a WWII kick lately. I've always been interested in it, as my father fought in the Pacific from 1941 until 1945, but lately it seems to be on TV a lot. Hopefully, someone in Hollywood will actually make a decent film about the American war in the Pacific but until then I guess I'll keep reading about the European theatre.