life events – Page 21 – linsenbardt.net

October 17, 2009

Let’s Do The Locomotion

So, tomorrow I’ll be embarking on my first train ride. Not to say that I haven’t used light-rail metro systems, but this will be the first Amtrak system that I hit up. I’ll be leaving (eeeaaaaarrrly…) for Chicago to attend this year’s annual Society for Neuroscience meeting. 2008’s was in Washington, D.C. and 2007’s was in San Diego, so Chicago is considerably less interesting to me, but perhaps a train ride will make things a bit more interesting.

We basically decided that, rather than waiting at the airport and flying, we may as well take the 5.5 hr train ride instead. As I understand it, these trains have quite a bit of leg room (compared to the Coach area of a plane) and a snack car, so it should be more comfortable.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the trip. We’ll probably get a chance to head by a few “sights” while in Chicago, as it seems that there is relatively little to see at the meeting on Monday and Tuesday (I present late on Wednesday). It looks like they put the majority of Parkinson’s-related research on Saturday (when I’m not there) and Wednesday (while I’m also presenting it), so we’ll probably dabble a bit in some posters and then go to Shedd Aquarium or something.

This will also be my last formal presentation of data at a meeting like this, certainly while a grad student at SLU. I at least think I’m going out with some good work, and the poster looks pretty. I’ve got some fluorescent images on there to add a bit more color to otherwise boring graphs (I had Brooke help me with some of the color choices, of course, as my Mom saw fit to give me color-blindness…).

Also, as this is my last trip as a grad student, I’ll also be hitting up the NeuroJobs portion of the conference, seeing if I can land a job somewhere. I’ve sent the resume to a few places, but haven’t really concentrated on it much yet because of various school-related things, and, well, doing experiments and such. After this week, I’ll be hitting that up in earnest.

Regardless, it doesn’t look like the busy-ness of the last few months is going away anytime soon. Guess I should get used to it.

September 9, 2009

I Now Have Fewer Platelets

I had a call waiting for me on the answering machine yesterday from the Red Cross requesting my platelets: the nucleus-less cells in your blood responsible for clotting. Apparently, because my blood is A+, which is very common, my platelets are also useful in “times of need” like now. Anyway, they called back a second time later last night, so I knew they must be serious: I went ahead and made an appointment for today.

For those that have given blood before, you know that they take a pint of blood through a relatively large needle. Well, to take your platelets, they usually need to take more volume of blood than you can actually give in a single sitting. That means that they need to attach you to a contraption that carries out apheresis, which ends up removing some of your blood, spinning it down to get the platelets, sending the platelets up to a large bag (much like your usual blood bag, but bigger), and then putting your blood cells and plasma back in your body. To do this, the machine uses a smaller needle than you usually use to give blood, and it requires that you maintain a reasonable pressure of blood coming out of your body, related more to how fast you’re closing your hand and less to your typical blood pressure.

So yeah, it was supposed to take about 1.5 hrs, and ended up being more like 2 hrs. The poor girl removing the platelets had to re-set the needle multiple times (not fully remove it from my arm…just move it further in or a little bit out) in order to avoid a valve in my vein, which was causing abnormal changes in the pressure going to the machine. Every time that would happen, an alarm would go off and the machine would stop going, prolonging my stay in that chair. Eventually, I started pumping normally and I got done, but I ended up doing half of what was intended. It was kinda neat seeing a bag of platelets, though, as they look quite a bit different than a regular bag of blood – whiter, cloudier…just kinda funky, in general.

Regardless, I’ll probably do it again, eventually. My arm is just fine and I came out of it unscathed, but the 2 hr time commitment is a bit more difficult to deal with on a regular basis. Apparently, you can give platelets every 7 days, as you replenish them within a day or two of giving.

It’s a good way to help some folks out, if you’ve never done it! Just take a magazine with you… 🙂

September 6, 2009

Opa!

Every year since we moved to St. Louis, we’ve said we should go to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in the Central West End for their annual Labor Day Greek Festival. Since this is hopefully the last year we’ll be in the area, we went ahead and made plans to go this weekend. Unfortunately, it rained ALL day Saturday, so we went after church today.
We took a tour of the church and listened to a couple of dudes talk about their faith and the symbols throughout the church. Even though I have been to Greece for the sole purpose of understanding the religions that have been important throughout their history, I really didn’t have a clear understanding of what makes Greek Orthodoxy all that different from Catholicism, except the priests’ pointy beards and funny hats (turns out that the priest at St. Nicholas looked and dressed a lot like Pastor Paul at St. Andrews Lutheran, not the priests I encountered in Greece…). However, there are a lot of differences, most that Andy and I sat there and nodded our heads in agreement to, like not using philosophy to define parts of their faith, just going by the scriptures and acts of Christ, not praying to or through saints (in fact, in every depiction of Mary, Jesus MUST also be present), and not having a hierarchy of leadership (no pope, or one person in charge who has some sort of “divine” connection). Of course, there are lots of parts that I don’t agree with, such as the role (or lack thereof) of women, having 7 sacraments (we only have 2), and the whole saint thing in general.
Anyway, we really went for the food, so after the tour and listening to their choir “chant,” we waited in line for about 35 minutes for some gyros, salad, Greek fries (not as good as the ones in Greece, unfortunately), and baklava. The gyros were great and the salad as good as you’re going to get when they’re serving thousands of people in a tent outside. We were too full for the baklava, so brought it home for later. It looks really good and fresh, though, unlike others I’ve had at local restaurants (my baklava standards are pretty high!).
So, in memory of the soon to be deceased Reading Rainbow, here’s my pitch: If you live in St. Louis and have never been to the Greek Festival, you should definitely go. They’ll be there until 9 tonight and from 11-8 tomorrow!

September 2, 2009

Wait…what just happened…

So, Brooke and I discussed a few months ago that as we draw closer to moving on to the “next stage of our lives,” we ought to consider combining our two blogs into a single one. Now that there’s a baby on the way, and that we’re going to be job hunting pretty soon, it makes sense that we should both post in the same place so that any time either of us have a thought (or concern…), it can be found easily!

So yeah, I think this is the theme we’ll stick with for now. So far as I know, everything is still here, including all of my own posts and all of Brooke’s posts as far back as 2005, as well as all photo attachments (for the most part…I’m sure I missed a few…).

For the record, WordPress made it stupid easy to export all of the blog posts and images, and then import them into this new blog. I commend them on excellent, free, software!

August 24, 2009

2010 will bring a few new experiences!

So, when I said “I have a feeling this school year will have a ‘whirlwind’ feel to it,” I was indeed talking about something a bit more specific (but wasn’t discussing much publicly yet). Liz requested a bit more information on such things, so I figured I could go ahead and bring everyone up to speed. 🙂

As most of you already know, or found out Friday via Facebook, Brooke is pregnant.

We actually found out toward the end of June, and told our respective parents/sisters around the July 4th holiday. At that point, we were about 6 weeks into the pregnancy and, as many of you know, that’s a bit early to go around telling people, as the chances of miscarriage are still a bit high at that point. We did wait, however, to tell our ‘rents until we had confirmed with Brooke’s primary care doc. We made another appointment with the OB/GYN doctors at SLU to get that ball rolling, as well, around the 8 week point. Once we hit 10 weeks, I told people at the lab; Brooke told people at her office a little before that, as it’s difficult to explain all these doctor appointments without giving some reason (especially when you’ve got a lot of stuff to do!).

Anyway, we finally got to hear a heartbeat on Friday afternoon (now at the 13 week period), and that’s when I put the news up on Facebook. We’re told that once you’re able to hear a heartbeat (usually around 12 weeks?), the chances of miscarriage drop dramatically. So far as we know, everything’s going splendidly! We’ll be doing an ultrasound on September 24th (~18 weeks), where we’ll hopefully be able to see the gender of the baby.

The baby is due February 24th. So, hopefully, I’ll have a newborn in time for him/her to witness my graduation!

So yeah, that’s basically it. Brooke has been feeling surprisingly well throughout this whole deal, with the exception of some headaches. She usually takes ibuprofen or naproxen for such things, but acetaminophen is all you can take when you’re pregnant (without a prescription for something more powerful, but still relatively safe for mom + baby). Brooke has noticed that she’s eating more for lunch now, and seems to be craving a few odd things here and there. I’ll keep reminding her to post things on her blog that are more specific to those points, though!

At any rate, 2010 is looking to be a pretty memorable year. My graduation, likely moving to a new town, having a kid…

What’s the worst that could happen? 🙂

August 18, 2009

School is getting…”interesting”…

A few quick points, as I’ve been very, very busy recently. I had a committee meeting today that went pretty well, I think. For those that don’t know, your dissertation committee is basically the group of people that say “you’re ready to graduate,” so these meetings are pretty important so you can keep them apprised of your progress toward (eventual) graduation.

Anyway, I went over all my recent data, much of which I obtained last week after fighting with some assays and finally getting them to work. Either way, the committee was pretty pleased with what I had to show them. Suffice to say, I now have a list of stuff to complete and, assuming I complete that list (or the vast majority of it) by December, then my Dec. meeting will be my last one before my actual Dissertation Defense next Spring.

So yeah, basically, this is a good indication that I’ll actually be able to graduate next May, provided nothing catastrophic happens. The list of stuff I have to complete, for the most part, is pretty straightforward and shouldn’t include the learning of any new techniques (and that’s usually what ends up causing “hiccups”).

On another, semi-related note, I’m the Course Director for Drugs We Use and Abuse, the undergraduate-level class that we, as graduate students, teach in the Fall each year. Because of this, I’ll be the person coordinating all of the lectures and deal with all the undergrads give their lame excuses for why they can’t attend class. It isn’t a huge responsibility, provided you delegate the duties, but it will make me busier than normal during the Fall semester. I’m very much looking forward to this, as I intend on teaching once I find (read: apply for) a permanent position post-graduation.

I have a feeling this school year will have a “whirlwind” feel to it.

And I certainly have my work cut out for me.

July 27, 2009

That’s kinda neat!

untitled-1

So, I’m officially a published author now. I heard a few weeks ago that the manuscript I’d been working on (for, like, a year…) was accepted to Neurotoxicology, a bi-monthly journal published by Elsevier, but I didn’t want to post anything here until it was up on Pubmed. I should be receiving proofs sometime this week so I can look at the final version of the document (i.e. what it’ll look like when it’s actually in the journal), so maybe I’ll put up a picture of that, too!

Either way, I decided to search for “Linsenbardt” in Pubmed today and see if I was there. And I am.

That’s kinda neat! 🙂

Unless you have access through your university, you can’t actually read the paper yet. Elsevier is pretty annoying about such things, making you pay for access otherwise, but because NIH funds were used to pay for the work done in the paper, it’ll have to be made available, free, to the public sometime eventually.

I’m starting my second paper now (as in, as we speak…), and my PLAN is to get that submitted by October somewhere. But, as some of you know, that last paper took me FOREVER to actually get out and submitted. October is when the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting is, however, and it’d be nice to tell prospective employers that I have one paper published and another one on the way. Also, for the purposes of graduating, getting two first-author papers is a good thing (as in, typically, if your name is first on the list, then you either did most of the work, or wrote the whole paper yourself…not always the case, but usually it goes something like that…so “first-author” is pretty important).

July 15, 2009

The 11th Street Hill

11th-st-hilll-90 This hill was to the side of Ma and Papa’s house in Louisiana, Missouri. Well, actually, I’m quite sure it’s still there, but it doesn’t seem as big as it did to us back in 1990 when the picture above was taken, but anyway…. We spent hours on this hill riding (while sitting) skateboards down and avoiding cars. There was also a hill next to Papa’s service station that served the same purpose, but had a nice grassy area at the bottom to stop us. One of my favorite memories of Papa is of him riding down the hill next to the station on his wheely thing for working under cars, then falling off and Ma getting out the Bandaids to patch his skinned knees.