letter jan 18

Dear Everyone,

Cindy has just come back from taking the boys to see Hotel for Dogs. They said it was cute, but unrealistic. “You are cheering for the kids and the dogs against the mean, stupid adults” says Cindy. The dogs were very nice. I was watching the Cardinals cream the Eagles in the first half of the semifinal game, and was joined by Nicola to watch Cowboy Bebop (recorded on our DVR) during the halftime. We aren’t sure if the DVR is truly working correctly, a couple of times it hasn’t recorded stuff we thought it was supposed to, and we have had to reset the whole system a few times (by unplugging the DVR) as well.

I am feeling a bit sore; I was at an aikido seminar yesterday, the mats were hard, and the room was cold. The floor space was also a little limited, and I took some hard falls to avoid hitting other people on the way down. On the other hand, my ear is feeling much better. It turns out that I probably didn’t have an external ear infection in Mexico. My feeling of deafness and numbness continued for several days after our return, and so some friendly ENTs set me up with the chief resident. She examined my ear through a microscope, and then spent the next 30 minutes pulling 7-8 years of debris from my canal; wax, hair, dreck. I felt better immediately. I think the physician at the resort tried to do this, but she obviously didn’t have the tools (or skill) to do so. My guess is that I created an impaction when I went SCUBA diving. Maybe next year I will try to get a prophylactic cleaning before we go! Anyway, they gave me the ‘secret’ recipe for ear cleaning fluid - -1/2 white vinegar, ½ rubbing alcohol. I think this is what Joan uses already. It’s pretty vile stuff to put in your ear. I feel like Hamlet’s Dad.

Work is going okay; there is a rash of papers that have been percolating along that the other authors have finally finished with, so maybe I will have a few publications this year. We have had some temporary faculty turnover, and I have had to shuffle people from one rotation to another, and double up the work on some people. We seem to moving along in trying to increase the efficiency of the laboratory. The big project right now is to try to print small batches of slide labels at a time. These are special xylene resistant labels that can be put on the slides as soon as tissue is put on them, prior to going on the slide stainers. Then we won’t have a huge batch of several hundred stained slides that need to be labeled each morning.

Tonight we will watch the Steelers play against the Ravens for the third time this year, and we will sup on Uncle Bub’s hot Buffalo wings in honor of Nicola’s 16th birthday. Nicola needs to spend some more time behind the wheel of the car – maybe we will make her drive there.

Love, H. Steelers win!