Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, October 28, 2005

Over the last couple of months I've found myself becoming more and more interested in following the various sets of work regarding the lastest strain of the flu. My interest began after reading a book titled, "The First Horseman" where a terrorist group gets ahold of live 1918 flu virus and mutates it to be more resistant to the body's immune system. I read the book several years ago but it picqued my interest in the topic and I've been sort of curious about it since.

This summer I picked up an excellent book titled, "The Great Influenza" that chronicled the course of the 1918 flu and its effects both in the states and on worldwide diplomacy during and following the First World War. The best part of the book, in my mind, was the description of how flu works and how the medical community struggled (amd most often failed) to deal with it. What you learn is that flu is really, really hard to contain for a lot of reasons. What you also learn is that the latest bird flu strain has a lot of similarities to the 1918 strain.

This brings us to the Avian Flu reporting in the media and the media's tendancy to claim the sky is falling. This strain will mutate and become a human flu strain. I have absolutely no question about this. I also believe that the chances are that, unlike SARS, it will be almost impossible to contain this thing once it gets started. The question is, how deadly will it be? Since we as a species have absolutely no immunity to this strain, there will be a large infection rate with real flu symptoms that will knock most people who get it out for two weeks and a lot of people will get it. What is unclear is whether it will be as virulent as the second wave of the 1918 strain. The first wave of the 1918 strain made a lot of people really sick and may have ended WWI due to the Germans not being able to get enough troops moving (the British had the same problem) but it actually didn't kill many people. Somewhere the strain mutated to something much deadlier and the second wave was really deadly.

Right now the media is beginning to build to a fever pitch on the spread of the avian strain. There is some basis for this as the mortality rate when the virus does jump from birds to people is around 40%. But this isn't a human strain. When the strain mutates and becomes human transmitable it remains to be seen what will happen. Right now there are no vaccines at all for this strain and none seem to be forthcoming. However, the mutation may happen tomorrow or it may happen three years down the road (though I tend to think it'll be sooner than later). If we get through a winter before it mutates we may have enough time to work up a vaccine.

How bad will it be? Listen to the media and it may sound like the world is coming to an end...that sells papers and ad time. A truer estimate is that the nation's care care system will be heavily taxed and stretched. This doesn't have to be the case. If the media spent as much time educating the public as it did alarming them we'd find out that you really don't need a hospital for a lot of the flu cases. Unless you are seriously affected by a secondary infection such a pnuemonia there's not much a hospital can do that you can't do at home. But that doesn't sell papers.

The best thing we can do right now is to get educated and prepare. Stock up on ibprofen or Tylenol. Get lots of electrolyte fluids and easy to digest foods. Bolster your immune system by eating right, taking your vitamins, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly. Save your sick leave from work and make sure friends and relatives have a care system in place so that if they're struck they can be helped. What if it does get as bad as the 1918 pandemic? There's not much you'll be able to do to get much help beyond that. The hospitals and health care system will be overwhelmed by the number of critically ill peoople. Just like in the 1918 event, hospitals will basically resort to lining people up in the hallways, trying to give them comfort and IV fluids and taking away the dead. Being educated about how to stay healthy in the first place and what to do in the event you get the virus will be a lot more effective that relying on an overtaxed health care system.

As with so many things, those who take the time and make the effort to get educated will stand a much better chance in dealing with a "nuclear strain". Also, take what the media says wiht a grain of salt. This won't be the plague that kills 30% of those who get it. The 1918 strain had an extremely high mortality rate and it was less than 1 in 20 in most places. While the world may grind to a halt for a few weeks, those who have prepared will find that they'll have plenty of food and supplies to weather any crisis. The question is, will the media's sky is falling coverage cause many to believe that they're just waiting for the next disaster and that there's nothing they can do. That would be most unfortunate.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, October 24, 2005

Bob Dylan's song title seems to accurately describe my weekend.

Friday afternoon I went up to see my new parole officer. I was feeling pretty negative about this as my feelings of an unfair process were reinforced by my wife's getting a $93 fine and nothing else in a series of tickets she received two days before I got mine from a State Patrol officer up in Cobb County. I was frustrated that the justice system could produce such varied results. Anyway, I had had to reschedule my appointment due to a conflict with a class and the lady who would be overseeing my probation had told me to come in "anytime Friday afternoon". Given that I would be traveling on bike I told her I'd be there around 3:30. I arrived within minutes of that time and entered the room to find no one at the desk. I politely called back and received no answer. I waited until I saw someone more behind the mirrored window and called back again. Still no answer. There were several signs posted about not yelling back or knocking on the various doors so I oblidged and waited, growing frustrated in the process. At one point another person came in and, being less patient than I, banged on the doors quite loudly. This brought the lady out into the lobby where she yelled at the other person and then me. I had enough. I explained in that voice I use for the most offensively clueless students I have that I had made this appointment at this time by her request. She looked at me and immediately backpedaled into her "space". She was used to pushing around poor, black folks and here was an obviously articulate white guy who she had treated very, very poorly. She tried to cover it up by acting all efficient and professional but I wasn't having any of it. In my interaction with her I let it be known that she was in the wrong and had acted poorly. We concluded our business and I left to ride home. The hour trip back gave me time to cool off and get a bit of perspective back.

Friday night I had plans for my wife and I but those were postponed because she was bone tired. Due to the frustration that caused and my attempts to deal with all the other frustrations I've had over the last month I was unable to sleep for most of the night. Saturday I tried to get a few things done and take a nap but even that was a trial due to unclear schedules. When we tried to spend time together Saturday night, my wife and I ran into a communication problem that just brought everythign to a halt. I spent another frustrating night tossing and turning, growing both angrier at the injustice of things and more dispondent with it all.

Sunday morning we went to church at an old congragation in a city nearby. The worship time was good, especially communion but I was saddened in the space. Designed to hold 300, there were maybe 60 people in attendance. The building was beginning to show signs of deterioration that the congregatioin wouldn't have the money or peopel to fix. They had a young pastor but few younger parishoners. It was a difficult thing to see that this beautiful church had been left behind in the rush to the "contemporary" church when it had so much to offer. Churches build these soulless buildings now that look more like office spaces than churches when this church could offer so much.

We had a good lunch with a friend and then we went to a mountain bike course in the town. I used to train on this course weekly a few years back but I had heard that it had been allowed to fall into disrepair whent he ATV community had decided to use the trails without permission. Word was out that they had been run off and that the trails were back in better shape. The course is a challenging one with lots of up and down and some technical challenges. What I found out was that the trail was back in operation but it wasn't in very good shape. Many of the trail markers were gone leaving confusion in their wake, the trails were badly rutted and there was more sand than at Daytona Beach. All of this made for a frustrating and challenging experience. When my wife asked my how my ride went, I relied, "The trail sucks and I wish I could learn to ride the damn bike." The good thing is that it pushed my abilities which I need to work on if I'm going to compete on the MTB next year after taking this year off.

Finally, on Sunday evening, things got better. My wife and I got some of our communication issues worked out and learned about ourselves in the process. Maybe I'll write more aout that in a later post. We also watched Batman begins with the same friend the we had lunch with. Excellent movie, though the theme of brokenness runs through that as well, especially with respect to Gotham. The one thing that doesn't seem broken right now is my marriage though I spent a goodly portion of the weekend wondering about that. I'd like to catch a bit of a break here if I can. I'm hoping that we've passed through the nadir of our trials and that things will begin to look up. My belief though is that there's a lot more work to do before we see much improvement on some fronts.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Friday, October 14, 2005

Well, I've always thought of myself as being a pretty law abiding guy. I generally paid my bills and kept my nose clean and all the rest. That is until yesterday. Last month we were pulled over for an out of date tag. It was something we kept meaning to do and kept forgetting. The officer gave me a ticket for an expired tag and for attempting to conceal the identity of a vehicle. The tag had been on our Outback and in not updating the tag the query came back as the tag belonging to the Outback. It was a big violation. $712 worth. I thought it was a little excessive so I went to court to ask that the charge be dropped.

I lost.

Not only do I have to cough up the dinero, the judge suspended my license for six months. It could have been worse; the sentence is usually for twelve. Since I couldn't pay the ticket I'm now in probation.

Nice.

If I was going to have this happen maybe I should have done the DUI thing or something. That's what I feel like right now, the same sort of societal bottom feeder that recklessly endangers good, decent people who happen to have the misfortune of driving on the same road they do.

This really sucks and it's my own darn fault. Now my wife gets to be my personal chauffer and I have to try not to become too burdensome with my requests. How often is she going to want to go to Dauset Trails on a weekend day so I can ride my mountain bike? Maybe she won't mind getting to be on a first name basis with the zoo critters there. Riiiiigggghhhhtttt.

I hope that whatever bad karma I'm paying for is done now. I didn't kick babies or anything...really. On the bright side I get to ride my bike a lot more often. You'll see me riding along with all of the other reprobates and derelicts who lost their licenses.

Crap.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, October 10, 2005

As many of you know, this hasn't been a particularly good year in terms of cycling. Lots of work without many results. I had some results early in the year and then I started working for Nationals. That's when I got to get personal with a really big truck and the bottom fell out. The entire second half of the season has been trying to recover from the injuries sustained from my close encounter of the truck kind.

I didn't really expect to do much racing after the crash, especially after trying to find some climbing legs and realizing the closet seemed to be empty. That's when I found out that there was going to be a State Time Trial Championship after all this weekend. I decided that if I could get Spinblade back I'd give it a try if I could. When everything came together I signed up.

I didn't really expect to do really well. My outside goal was to medal but I really expected a mid-pack finish. As I did some testing the week prior and I found that I had a little power but I couldn't get my heart rate up over 172 very reliably which is about 12 bpm less than I usually run in a long TT. I showed up at the course near Rome, GA and drove the course to get a sense of it. Things didn't look very good. The course, which had been described as flat, actually had a lot more elevation change, especially the climb right after the turn-around. All of the sudden I felt a lot worse about my chances since I haven't been climbing very well.

About 45 minutes before my start time I started my warm-up and felt pretty good. The day was just a little windy and drizzly and after my warm-up I had a bit of trouble staying warm as I had sweated pretty good on the trainer. As I rolled up to the start line I began to dial into the zone. I counted down with the official and powered away fromt he line. I started in one too big a gear but soon got up to speed and settled into my aero bars and began to power. Almost immediately I knew that I wasn't going to get my heart rate over 172. I decided that I couldn't worry about it and that I'd just do as well as I could. The course was challenging in terms of a lot of shallow climbs that sapped the legs. I passed my 30 second man at mile 3, my 1 minute man at mile 4 and my 1:30 man at mile 6. As I hit a harder climb at mile 9 I was caught by the best pro TT man in the state, Tony Scott. No worries I fugured as I wasn't really racing Tony and I could use him as a rabbit. For the next four miles I held him within a 100 feet until he finally dropped my on the false flat after the big climb out of the turnaround.

By mile 16 I was really beginning to suffer but I was holding it together. I kept looking back to see if anyone else was catching and no one was. At mile 19 I really started to try to give it everything I had left. As the pain increased I focused on my breathing and that worked until about two miles out when I began to beg to see the finish line. I was groveling but I kept giving it all I had left until the church where the start/finish line came into view. The whol last mile was a long 2% uphill grade and I powered towards the finish. Over the last 300 meters was a somwhat steeper ride and for the only time in the ride I stood up to get more power and I gave it everything. As I finished I nearly collapsed on the bike. I had ridden hard but I wasn't sure if I had given it enough to end up with a medal. Maybe but I wasn't sure. As I checked my time I had something around 55:45 for a 23 mile course. I had ridden at around 25 mph so I had met a goal I usually set for my long TTs.

After about an hour wait the results were posted. I was stunned to find that I had won my class and had finished withing the top 7 overall including the pros with a time of 55:32. Absolutely unbelievable! To have suffered the accident, the skull fracture, the long recovery and then to still not only compette to to actually win the state championship is just amazing. My mind is still trying to comprehend the fact that I won. I'm sure that God had a lot to do with all of this, if only in the fact that I'm not dead when I surely deserve to be. There's still a lot of work to do to get ready for next year but for the next week I get to rest and recover which is something I need. I haven't hurt after a TT like this ever so I guess I really left everything out on the course. After the week off I'll go back to base miles and see if I can get back to building my LT back to into the 180's.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Once again we have reached the midpoint of the semester and this year, more than any since I've been here, I'm hearing the tales of woe from the faculty about the students. While the data is anecdotal at best, it seems that more of our studnets are withdrawing from classes, failing their mid-terms and/or skipping class on a regular basis.

I'd really like to know why.

In my allied health physics classes I started with 31 and now have 12 and in physical science I have gone from 31 to 19 prior to actually grading the mid-term exams. One colleague who teaches Western Civilization said that his class started with 31, 20 actually take the mid-term and only 10 passed it. Another who teaches Organic Chemistry started with 24, had 20 take the mid-term and had only 5 pass it.

What is going on?

I really thought we'd start seeing an improvement in our students with the implementation of end-of-subject exams at the high school level here in Georgia. Maybe that's going to take more time for us to see the results of but man these kids are bad. Even my good students aren't that great sometimes. Usually, in every class you have a couple of studnets who really nail your course. Right now I don't have anyone doing better than about a 92.

Since I sit on the Executive Board of the College this year I'm going to bring this up for discussion and see if we can get some hard data. I'd like to know what our DWF (drop, withdraw or fail) rate is compared to years previous in both the freshmen and sophomore classes. I know that many of my colleagues are somewhat demoralized by the performance of the students and I'd like to know if there are grounds to feel that way or if the problem is more in our perception of our students' performance.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Monday, October 03, 2005

Well, I wish I could say that our weekend was highly productive but in terms of getting things done it really wasn't as productive as it probably needed to be given how busy the coming weekend will be. It was, however, a good weekend in terms of quality time spent with my wife. Friday night we went down to a little greek restaurant in Thomaston called Aviano's. It was really similar to a place we have here in town except that the service was about ten times better. The downside was that the meals really weren't worth $25 as they were a bit too salty for our taste. I might go there for lunch sometime but I'm not sure I'll return for dinner unless it's to try out the pizza (a very real possibility since good pizza is either way too expensive or has to be arrived at through enduring the previously mentioned poor service).

On Saturday I got a really strong ride in, my first at true race pace. I had some help from the wind so I'm not sure if it's really indicative of my form at the moment but it was nice to average 22.6 over 56 miles on my regular road bike. I managed to get some yard work done before the lawnmower ran out of gas as well but not quite as much as I had hoped. That night I took my wife dancing at this little club down in Macon. We had never done this before and it was a lot of fun. I'm haven't ever been much of a nightclub kind of person preferring instead to go to blues clubs or pubs (or something that is a combination of the two). One reason is that I'm a bit shy abou asking people to dance and I'm not too fond of the meat market mentality where the person you're dancing with always seems to have an eye somewhere else on the dance floor looking to see if there's something better. Going with my wife removed all of that and so I got to enjoy spending time with her and dancing as well.

The only problem with Saturday night was that we didn't get home until after 3 am on Sunday. I tried to piece sleep together over the course of the day but it was hard to do given what I needed to finish. I mostly finished up the yard work and got a recovery ride in but I didn't do too much else. I honestly can't understand how my students can do anything like this and still function as students. I only had a couple of beers but the late night wiped an awful lot of Sunday out for me. If I had had to study I can't imagine I would have gotten too much done. Granted, they're 20 years younger then me and can probably sleep through the sunrise but I'm still feeling the effects of the evening today. I can't imagine how bad off I'd be if I had gotten blotto and/or stayed out until 4 or 5 or 6 am by running to Waffle House and then Wal-Mart and then dropping a friend off and then...

So now it's on to the week at hand with meetings, visiting close friends, a Rosh Hashanah service to help coordinate and attend (yes, even as a Christian I celebrate Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover with my Jewish friends; it is what we hold in common) and a championship race to train for. It's a lot to do along with Mid-Terms (something I'll try to write about tomorrow) this week. We will have lots of travel over the week and into the weekend. Given the fact that gas seems to be rare around these parts right now that might be an interesting thing. When I went to fill the car on Friday only two local stations were carrying regular and when I went to find gas for the lawnmower on Sunday I ran into the same problem. I was able to find gas each time without too much trouble but spotty supply has me a bit worried for our Sunday travel up to the TT in Rome on Sunday.

Anyways, I hope you had a good, restful weekend and that your week goes well.

The Physicist   Link Me    |