Body Worlds 3

Sus and I headed up to OMSI in Portland last night to see the Body Worlds 3 exhibit. It’s an anatomy exhibit of the plastination work of Dr. Gunther von Hagens – a German anatomist who has developed a really cool way of preserving human bodies. “Plastination is the process of extracting all bodily fluids and soluble fats from specimens, replacing them through vacuum forced impregnation with reactive resins and elastomers, and then curing them with light, heat, or certain gasses, which give the specimens rigidity and permanence.” Admittedly, I’m not a big follower of anatomy, but the exhibit was fascinating.

There is a mix of showcase displays and display cases. The display cases are mostly of organs, cross-cut sections, bones, etc. These are interesting, but pale in comparison to the showcase displays. The showcase displays had full-body plastinations in various poses, each designed to highlight a muscle group or to display the alignment and association of our organs. In some cases the bodies are pretty much ‘intact’ but in other cases certain bones, muscles, etc have been moved to the side to show what’s underneath. It is both artistic and informative.

When I first walked into the display hall, I felt a certain amount of apprehension just because I didn’t know how I was going to react to seeing bodies on display. There is also a very faint smell – I’m not sure how to describe it – that I noticed at first that wasn’t very pleasant. But it didn’t take long until the fascination of seeing bodies in such a state of preservation took over and any qualms were long gone.

One of the most interesting sections was of the blood movement through the body. The process they use is to inject a plastic into the specimen, wait for it to harden and then remove all the non-plastic material. What is left is an imprint of all the blood vessels. They had a hand, a foot, and various other body parts. It is incredible to see how many (and how tiny) vessels are in your hands and fingers.

Also interesting was a partial timeline of anatomy that was displayed in drawings and writings. The main contributors they highlighted were Galen (AD 129), a Greek physician who studied the anatomy of dogs and pigs and extrapolated those findings to humans. In some cases, he was pretty close, but in others he was way off. His ideas were challenged by Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 1564) a physician born in Brussels. He wrote the book De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body) and is considered the father of modern anatomy. They also talked about many of the means used to preserve bodies and how plastination has really been a breakthrough in the preservation of color, mass and shape.

If you have the chance to view any of the Body World’s exhibits, I would highly recommend it. For any further reading – see Body Worlds

Building the shed - days 2-4 (9/23-26/2007)

Day two was a shorter day, so although it doesn't look like we got much done, we kinda did.

We started on the stick frame for the walls with Susie and i alternating between hammerring the studs. I did a pretty good job on the wood, but Susie kept getting confused by which 'stud' to hammer, so i have bruises all over.







At the end of day 2, we had the two back walls up and in place.



Day 3 didn't see too much progress either - we both had to work a little late, so we only had about an hour to work on the shed. We did get another side up. And get this ... i had looked the night before on craigslist and happened to notice a free vinyl window. I emailed and it was still available, so i went a total of 4 blocks to go pick it up. Ka-ching - freebie window!!! Granted one of the glass panes is broken, but it's dual pane, so we'll need to fix it at some point, but for the immediate future, it keeps rain out.





The end of day 3 saw three walls in place and one window placement ready.





Day 4 was actually just my lunch hour today - i was working from home and was getting a little peeved at some people, so i decided a working lunch was best; just not working for HP. I got the last wall up including the door frame. I have one more trip to make to Home Depot tonight, so i'm off to spend some more money.

Building the shed day 1 (9/22/2007)

The next project on the list is a shed - we decided on the back right corner of the yard. Scott (Susie's oldest brother) drew up some plans and although i have tried to follow them as best i could, the last lineitem (DeWalt heavy duty 12" double-bevel sliding compound mitre saw and stand) wasn't approved by procurement. So i did the best i could with the tools available to me.



I started out with getting the 6 concrete pier blocks level and square to one another. This is a task that i would not wish on my worst enemy - it took forever.



But finally with some patience and a lot of time on my knees with a small shovel and level, i believe i got everything done correctly.





Once the pier blocks and outline were in place, it was time to add the supports.





Sus had to demonstrate that everything is actually attached and not ready to fall apart.



Then came the base OSB



And voila, we have the base to the shed



At the end of day one, the base was complete and level ...

San Francisco AVP stop

and now for the exciting finish to the San Francisco blog posting ... the AVP tournament stop.



The tournament was held on pier 32 or 34 - just under the Bay Bridge. It was a little overcast in the morning, but quickly burned off and turned into a wonderful day. It would have been fun being there for each day of the tournament, but we had so much other stuff to do and see that we just went to the final day. I don't recall who was in all the games, but the first was a mens game to determine 3rd and 4th place. The second was the women's equivalent and it was a blow-out. After an hour or so break, it was the men's final followed by the women's final. Toby could probably tell who all played, or i could post a link to the AVP site, but i'll leave that up to anyone who's interested.







So here comes the funniest part of the day. We were being pretty good about drinking water throughout the day and so invariably the time came to run to the restroom. Right as the men's final completed, Sus and i headed down to the porta-potties. We got down there, and there was a huge line already formed, so we hopped in line. I had grabbed the camera just in case we saw any of the players close up and after a little while of standing there, here comes a lady with a Hilton shirt and fake tattoo on her arm (a tattoo for Hilton) - obviously one of the players. She headed through the line and went to the players tent which was in the corner. She looked around for something, then started heading back - so being the paparazzi that i am, i pulled out the camera and was doing my best to sneak a picture of her. No dice, the camera was trying to decide what to focus on, and didn't take the shot. As it turns out, since i was so madly trying to get her picture, a hole opened up in the line in front of me and she walked right through. I don't recall exactly what she said, but i responded with something like "yeah, and i didn't even get the shot off" - so she asked if i wanted to have my picture taken with her. Of course i did, so Sus took the camera and snapped a pic of the two of us. Once we're done, i sheepishly admitted that i had no idea who she was. She comes back with, "i'm a coach". Doh ... after all that, all i get was a picture of me with some coach. After taking care of business, we went back to our seats and i told Toby and Lynne'e about it. They laughed at me and the situation. At first i thought she was the coach for Misty May and Kerri Walsh, but after further review, figured she is the coach for Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh. Once i got home, i did some looking online, and found her name is Liz Masakayan - she's a really accomplished volleyball player. So in hind sight, it was really cool to meet her, i just wish i had known who she was in the first place ...

Weekend in San Francisco, part 1

Toby and Lynne'e are pretty big beach volleyball fans, and a while back they invited us to join them in San Francisco for an AVP tournament and just to hang out - either that or we invited ourselves, i don't recall. Anyhoo, we got in touch with Shannon (one of Lynne'e's college roommates) and she graciously allowed us to descend on her place for the weekend. We flew in on Friday morning and spent a while getting from the Oakland Airport to San Francisco on the various means of public transportation. I'll take this as a moment to say that i really like well-organized public transportation. Back to the subject at hand - we beat T&L there, but after chatting with them a couple times on the cell decided to meet them downtown once they got in. In our wanderings around, we saw Coit Tower, and then the Fog City Diner. Once we met up with T&L, we wandered down to pier 39, then drove to the Presido, then headed to Shannon's place. The next day we got up early (ok, not really) and went to the Legion of Honor, then headed down to the Embarcadero and hit the Saturday Market. Inside, T&L were amazed at something i said which doesn't really surprise me. We also stopped in at the South Beach Yacht Club to hang out with Toby's cousin who's a member there and was volunteering at the bar that day. We had a great time hanging out in their beautiful new club house. On the way back to Shannon's we had to stop by the Cheesecake Factory. I'll post next about the volleyball tournament.

Sunriver in September

Not that i don't like children, but let me just say that the best time to go to Sunriver is after Labor Day, once school is back in session. It was so nice to be in Sunriver and not have a bunch of kids everywhere you go.

For those of you that don't know, my cousin Bart has a place over in Sunriver that he generously lets us use if no one else has the house rented. It has been a boon on years that the vacation funds (like this year) are low. Susie and i had been talking about a week / weekend over there, and the weekend of the 6th through the 10th came up. Thankfully the house wasn't rented, so we were in like flynn.

Funnily enough, my uncle, aunt and cousin (other side of the family) were in the house right next to us. We were able to hang out with them a little bit, but uncle Mike had caught a cold, so he wasn't feeling the best. It was fun to see them, and to have good neighbors.

This is the bridge over the Deschutes River right near Bart's place



There is a mountain bike trail that Phat Eddie introduced us to a couple years ago (Phat Eddie was a roommate in college) that Susie and i had to ride since we were there. Usually we take 2 vehicles, drop one off at Inn at the 7th Mountain, then drive back to a point on the trail and just ride one way (around 12 miles) but since we didn't have 2 vehicles, we decided to start from Sunriver and see how far we could make it before i ran out of steam. Surprisingly, we went all the way there and back (40 miles roundtrip) and there was only one uphill stretch that i had to walk up instead of ride. This is a picture along the trail.



The next day we went fishing at Devil's Lake, right across from the starting point of the trail to the South Sister. Last time we fished there, we slayed em - this time, not so much. It was really windy and we weren't catching fish, so we didn't stay all that long. We did some driving around looking for other fishing options, but besides a cast or two here and there, didn't come up with anything great.



We took a ride around Sunriver on the bike paths - another 20 miles on another afternoon. We took some paths we hadn't been on before and saw some of the sights of Sunriver.



We were tempted to ride the bikes at Bart's house, but not knowing what to expect, we took our bikes. Of course we had to give his old-school rides a spin.

part 2 of Labor Day weekend - the fire pit

The house has a huge deck off the back (sorry i don't have a picture of it as it was) that is nice, but not used a whole bunch. What better than to add a fire pit off the corner then? We started a couple weeks back by cutting the outline and seeing what it looked like under the deck. Quick jump back in time ... the lady that lived here before us had a shaggy dog .. and we're back - the deck had a whole mess of long dog hair in the cracks, worked under the boards, etc - GROSS. After looking under there, we decided on a good approach to changing the support beams, where to put the anchor blocks, etc. This weekend was the next part of the metamorphasis - changing the supports and setting up the fire pit base.




This is the area once the main section of the deck had been removed and the change in support had been made. Susie helped me a lot with all this, then i bailed to the garage to work on some other projects while she worked on the stonework.




Susie did a great job with making the area look like we had imagined. She used flagstones that had been on the side of the driveway - the same flagstone she's used for the path.



Susie surveying her handiwork (after having a shower and some food).



Of course Ned had to give his approval.

Labors of Labor Day weekend

This will have to be a 2-part post, we got a lot of work done this past Labor Day weekend.
The first set of work was to install the new microwave and oven ... not a difficult task right? If you answered 'yes', you've never worked with me on a project - no matter how big or small, it always turns out a little more difficult than expected (or at least that's the excuse i use).



This is the old microwave and oven. The oven was a gas top, gas oven setup. It wasn't all that pleasant to be around as it would tend to gas you out when you were cooking. I don't think it ever reached a dangerous level, but it sure was annoying. Of course since the old oven was gas, the outlet behind it was only 110V. The new oven is gas cooktop, convection oven, so it needs 220V. Step in Mike the electrician (this is the part where things seem to get difficult). After a couple trips to Home Depot i'm armed with the right cables, outlets, etc. I fight with the insulation for a while, then decide that another trip to HD is in order to get a fish tape. That helped things tremendously. I got the outlet in, then started working on the microwave ...



According to code, the microwave should be 18 inches above the cooking surface. A quick check with the tape measure let me know that we were too close by about 1 3/4 inches - so instead of just slapping the new microwave in, i have to raise the cabinets (see some of the difficulties are not brought on by me, but by sloppy house building - thanks Conser Homes, and may i never buy another product of your 'craftmanship').



Anyhoo, after some moving around and some mis-aligned hole fixes, we got both the microwave and oven in place.



Then decided pancakes would be good - seeing as it came with a removable center griddle ...



Susie is happy about her almost-completed-kitchen :)