What I did on my Winter 2009 Vacation

I went to Mendoza Argentina to spend the holidays with my wife's family, so technically you really can't visiting your in-laws a "vacation, per se.

Day 1 – Leaving D-Town

    We woke up Sunday morning (Dec 20), packed up and got on the road at 10AM … drove to DTX, parked the car and caught our Northwest flight to Miami circa 1PM … arriving in Miami around 4PM. When we got to the LAN ticket window, they informed us that our 9PM flight to Santiago, Chile was delayed til 3AM Mon, Dec 21.

Movies and Parties

Time flies when you're bloggin fun ... went to see Invictus yesterday with the fam. Great movie and I'm not even a rugby fan ... but there was a powerful message to be learned about getting over prejudices and working together ... bravo Mr. Eastwood. Then we all went to Applebee's for dinner together ... haven't done that for a long time, since the kids are becoming adults and having their own schedules these days. We even had somewhat of a conversation about the meaning of the movie and today ... today .. .Lucas and Mercedes were having a conversation together - without fighting - WOW, maybe the movie made an impression on them.

Tonight, we had the annual MBL.Kines Xmas dinner party ... all were in attendance (Drs. Cartee, Sharma and newly en-doctorated Katsu Funai ... he officially received his PHD today ... along with wives Kristin and Amanda ... George, Jim and Donel ... and myself and Susana) ... except for Anketse Kassa and Steve Ho. Was a lot of fun as usual ... went to Palio and had a little of everything. We gave Greg his yearly bookstore coupon ... which will probably continue unless we get more women of imagination in the lab :)

Secrets

I love secrets ... I think most people would love to know secrets. I mean REAL secrets. Things that just are obvious ... but often around or within you but are overlooked, perhaps we're too busy during the hustle & bustle of our lives to stop and look. Maybe that's one of the reasons I went into science research ... biology is the study of life and physiology is the study of how life works.

Doing my Xmas shopping, I look for themes. I really only buy presents for my wife and kids so it's not that hard ... but you never know what the theme is until you think well about it. Mercedes has been doing a lot of reading this year ... which is cool cause I heard on NPR that reading during the developmental stages enhances the neural flow pathways in the brain. Kinda like the internet ... when you have to assimilate alot of data, you don't want a bottleneck slowing you down. The brain may work in a similar way ... later in life, you may have thought-intensive jobs to do and you don't want to get caught with a bottle-necked neural network.

Anyway ... so I got her a Kindle for Xmas. Aside from the concept of an electronic book is trendy and inspiring, she can download (well, we'll see :) a book in 60 secs and it'll cost about $10 ... from almost anywhere ... it comes down FROM SPACE!!! She's also becoming more of a young woman (God forbid :) so I got her some scented bath soaps/lotions from a friend in Maui. Got the scented gifts for Mom and Susana as well.

Lucas, on the other hand, has been into running (Pioneer cross-country took 1st in 2008 and 2nd in 2009 in Michigan), girls and personal grooming. He's off to MSU in the fall 2009 and I'm always looking for my electric shaver - which I find in his bathroom cause he borrowed it for a fast shave - so his big gift this Xmas is the top electric shaver by Men's Health Mag, the Braun 760cc. And to augment this theme, I got him some Axe stuff. Back to running ... I got him a couple books ... he used to read alot and now he's caught up with video games and hanging out with friends ... not that there's anything wrong with it but I think he could read a bit and it might help him get to know himself a little better. So I put this WISH together with the running theme and got him a couple books on running ... one on the mental aspects of just performing at your best, the Mind Gym, and the other is a non-fiction story about secret running techniques from a mysterious Indian tribe in Mexico ... I dunno ... I read a little of it and it grabbed my attention so hopefully it will do the same for Lucas ... course, Lucas can probably readi it in an afternoon .. but we'll see.

Last on my list, but certainly not least, is my wife. Susana has gotten into reading and training a lot this year. But many of the books she reads are in Spanish (part of her Spanish book club at Nicola's Books) so I didn't get her a Kindle .. yet (maybe for her birthday) ... but she's been taking CrossFit for over a year now and no matter how hard she workouts, she can't seem to get rid of that last little bulge around her waist ... sooooo, I went on a bit of a limb and got her an electrical muscle stimulator for the waist called The Contour. I've seen these things around for years, but interestingly, we recently got some data in the lab that e-stim and exercise are not the same ... they appear to follow mutually exclusive pathways at least in respect to insulin sensitivity - they're additive. SO, I'll give it a shot ... I think if she got rid of that little bulge, it would make her very happy. She also got some very sexy Victoria Secrets pjs and vanilla lace body scents ... just in case she throws the Contour at me :)

Ahhh ... don't you just love secrets :)

Summer 2008 Birthdays

Ok, so I'm 2008 and late ... but these pics bring back some nice memories of my dad. Every year, for at least the past few, our 3 families (Arias's, Picerno's and Nelson's) get together at my parents house to celebrate the birthdays of the 3 girl reps, Mercedes (our daughter), Danielle (Christy's daughter) and Asa (Jessica's daughter). It's great fun eventhough Danielle's bro, Chris, usually turns into a monster-child but overall, my dad always enjoyed seeing his kids grown up raising his grandkids.

Here's a pic of the women working feverishly in the kitchen to prepare for the great feast to come ... Susana, Christy, Jessie, Mom and Dad. Is that a motorcycle in front of dad ??? I don't think so. I'm always amazed at how well all the women in the family seem to get along ... I got a feeling that deep down, or at least when the men aren't looking, they are at each others throats ... but they're pretty good when we're watchin.


I'll miss hanging around outside the house with him ... here's a nice pic of everyone outside getting ready to sit down and feast. Dad, with the monster-man Christopher hisself, Jessie, hubbie Dave and Mom behind with the birthday girls on the right. It turned out to be about as great an afternoon (weather-wise at least :) as you could ask for.

1st doctoral graduate from MLB.Kines

Dec 1st celebrated the 1st yr anniversary of the School of Kinesiology at the Univ of Michigan. This past Wed, Katsu Funai became the first doctoral graduate from the Muscle Biology Lab (MBL.Kines) in the School of Kines. Today we had a post-graduate party at George's house celebrating his competion ... in attendance were Dean Greg Cartee (mentor), lab mates Naveen & Kristin Sharma, Carlos and Katherine Castorena (plus 'sin and 'sin), Donel Sequea, Jim Mackrell & host George Schweitzer ... Horowitz lab mates Sean & Lauren Newsome, Rachel and fiancee Josh, the rest of the Funai's: Amanda, Andrew & Seth ... and a couple others. Katsu did an excellent job during his pre-doctoral term, publishing several papers and a review and contributed significantly toward MBL grants and overall progress of publications and helping his lab mates in their work and exams.

Katsu and family are headed for Washington Univ in St. Louis to do his post-doctoral fellowship. I wish Katsu the greatest success and look forward to his continued progress as a contributing researcher.

I hope Katsu learns to listen more than talk. One problem Katsu has always had was talk before thinking which only wastes the time and confuses those trying to ask a question ... many times to someone else. But a grad student is always taught to speak up, ask and answer questions vs being quite and not getting involved. It's like being a star player vs someone on the bench ... you can't wait to get the ball and do your thing. But a good player doesn't just want the ball but works as a team. Right now, Katsu is a young "Kobie Bryant .. just give me the ball and I'll show you how to score". But I have all the confidence in the world that it'll come to him that success involves teamwork and making others stronger, and he has already shown some of these qualities.

Ganbatte kudasai Katsuhito.

first words

I have no idea what I am going to post here but at this point of my life I am perhaps looking for some therapeutic intervention. Hopefully no one will read this and it'll just act as a release of virtual air.

It is the end of another year ... and at 53 years of age, it's been perhaps the most influential year of my life. The most momentous event was my father passing away Feb 23rd. This, I feel, is the principal event, for my "therapy" as I look forward to Dec 12, 2010 and reread the coming years events.