The Bauer Confidential

The picture is straight. It is the trees that grew at an angle. On the campus of UC-Berkeley.

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Doctor’s appointments can induce a great deal of anxiety. With a baby in the picture, visits to the doctor are even more nerve racking. We had an appointment this morning to discuss the results of our first semester screening, a combination of sonograms and blood protein screening. About two weeks ago, we left the screening feeling pretty good, as the technician had assured us everything was normal, and we saw for ourselves that we had an extremely active baby on our hands. Today we discussed the blood test with our normal doctor. She was very pleased with the results. Our odds for Down Syndrome are something like 1 in 12,301 (it was a strange number) and the odds for trisomy 18 were something like 1 in 22,000. The doctor said these were the best odds she had seen, which made us feel pretty good. All our other screening has come back negative as well, which is also reassuring. There was no ultrasound this time, but we did get to hear the baby’s heart beat through a fetal monitor (it sounded a lot like the clip on this page). The only stressful part was the minute or so it took the doctor to find the heart beat, but once found it was nice a strong.

INDIANA JONES: Your name’s Mutt?
MUTT WILLIAMS: Yeah, I choose it. You gotta problem with that?

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull … what a terrible title! It sounds like George Lucas named this movie, and if so he should be banned from ever naming a movie again. The movie, though, isn’t bad. It may be in a close competition with Temple of Doom as the worst Indy movie, but even the worst Indy movie is still tons-o-fun, and better than most other action adventure movies. The movie contains a lot of what Lucas and Spielberg do best, action sequences. Spielberg is arguably a master of the action adventure movie (Jaws, the other Indy Movies, Jurassic Park, etc), and he tried to outdo himself here. The action was innovative and fast paced. But, by focusing so much on action, there were some sacrifices on all other aspects of the movie, i.e. the plot and story. To clarify, the story wasn’t bad; it was simple, fun, had the necessary (but unfortunately few) riddles, and a bit of family drama mixed in. It is the family drama part that I was a bit excited about. I really liked the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Karen Allen from the first Indy movie, and I was looking forward to that reunion. I have to write, I was a bit disappointed. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Karen’s character was feisty and tough, in The Crystal Skull, the writers just had her drive a vehicle most of the movie and didn’t gave her much dialogue. What a waste! Anyway, I guess I should mention the other people in this movie. There is Shia LaBeouf playing more of a sidekick character, and I think he does well for the part given to him. Then there were Cate Blanchett who did an excellent job playing the villainess, and John Hurt as professor Ox. He didn’t have a huge role, but he made the most of it and was great.

This movie’s biggest negative is the same thing that makes this movie fun, the action. In trying to outdo the previous Indy flicks, Spielberg really upped the action, but too much. For the audience to enjoy this type of movie (or most movies really), there must be a willing suspension of disbelief, but the action is so outrageous and totally impossible it broke my suspension and I got terribly annoyed. In addition, the end of the third act of all Indiana Jones movies has a supernatural tone to it. For example, opening up the arc of the convenient (Raiders), the freaky guy that can rip out beating harts (Temple of Doom), or obtaining everlasting life by drinking of the Holy Grail (Last Crusade). In this, Spielberg tried to make an ending that is even more supernatural than the last three, and again he took it too far and made it unconvincing, a bit confusing, and above all, unexciting.

Yah, I know I’m bitching a lot about the negatives of this movie, so why am I saying it’s not a bad movie? Because it’s an Indiana Jones movie and I love the Indiana Jones character. I don’t care what he’s doing, he’s witty, cleaver, tough, and has a Ph.D. He’s also one of the best movie heroes of all time. You can tell Harrison Ford is having lots of fun playing him, and we’re having lots of fun watching. So, not as good as I was hoping, but hey, it’s an Indiana Jones movie, and if you liked the others, you’ll like this one.

From the Last Crusade

PROFESSOR HENRY JONES: …Junior.
INDIANA JONES: I like “Indiana.”
PROFESSOR HENRY JONES: We named the *dog* Indiana.
SALLAH: The dog?
[starts laughing]
SALLAH: You are named after the dog? HA HA HA…!
INDIANA JONES: I’ve got a lot of fond memories of that dog.

On my trip back from NYC, I had already finished Water for Elephants and still had a 5+ hour flight ahead of me. Though sleep sounded very appealing, I’m not a good travel sleeper, so I knew I’d better pick up something to keep me occupied. I perused the selections at the shop in the airport. I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for, but The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney appealed to me most.

This debut novel is set in the Canadian wilderness at the end of the 19th century. A time of trappers and companies ruled by interests back in England, this story gently reminds us of the environmental consequences of depleting natural resources, both to the world and to human financial interests. At its heart, this is a murder mystery. The story begins with the gruesome killing of a trapper in the small community of Dove River and the discovery of the scene by his neighbor Mrs. Ross along with the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Ross’s son. The intrigue revolves around the search for the murderer, which is undertaken by Company men who are essentially the law in the wilderness. There is much conflict between the desire of Mrs. Ross to prove her son is not the murder, and the certainty of the Company men that they know who is guilty, but only have to find him. Of course this tension leads to a cross-country search for the boy in the heart of winter, followed by a search for more answers at a remote outpost. As in all good mysteries, the truth is discovered to be far more complicated than anyone imagined. Perhaps too complicated.

This is where my criticism of this book lies. The story itself is compelling; the prose is lyric with picturesque descriptions and imaginative details. The narration switches between several characters in the book, giving interesting and varied perspectives on the tale. In having so many narrators, this novel turns into not one but several intertwining accounts. The only problem with this is that each individual narrator brings his or her own questions, and they are not all resolved. The end of the book feels a bit rushed, and rather anti-climactic. The readers is left with quite a few questions, perhaps this is done as a stylistic point but it is a tad disappointing. There are also some tangential stories that feel forced as mechanisms to bring the characters together. It is a good novel, if not completely satisfying.

Rock formations in Bodega Bay, CA along PCH1. September 2007

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To this point, I would say I’ve been lucky, maybe even extremely lucky with this pregnancy. Yes, I had about three solid weeks of continuous nausea, but I never had to pray to the porcelain gods. I’ve been really fatigued, but extra sleep has taken care of that pretty well, even if my activity level has dropped a bit and the housekeeping suffered. My sweet tooth has diminished severely, which isn’t really a bad thing, though I’ve probably more than made up for it by cravings for salty/fatty things like chips.

But last night, I think I paid for that luck, at least a little. I have a pretty robust digestive system. Of course, I come down the stomach flu from time to time and have my share of feeling queasy even when not pregnant. In the past I have been lucky enough to avoid heartburn. Well all that changed last night when I tried to go to sleep. It’s my own fault, I just didn’t know it at the time. I put a pork shoulder roast in the crock-pot with barbecue sauce before leaving the house for work, anticipating a tasty and easy meal of pulled bbq pork for dinner. And that’s what we had. I also had a nice salad with balsamic vinegar and a tall glass of lemonade. And I paid for it; I’m actually still paying for it. It turns out that progesterone secreted by the baby’s placenta affects the smooth muscle of the digestive tract, allowing the valve that usually keeps digestive fluids out of the esophagus to leak, causing a nasty burning sensation. I took Tums, I drank milk, and eventually gave up and went to sleep. I didn’t realize that my dinner was, as Matthew so eloquently put it, “a recipe for an acid time bomb.” Apparently vinegar (which I had on my salad and was in the bbq sauce) and citrus (like lemonade) are really bad inducers of heart burn. Perhaps any one of these things alone would have lead to a bit of discomfort, but together, they were pretty excruciating. Upon Matthew’s advice, I propped myself up in bed this morning and dozed until the lead brick in my stomach felt more like a regular brick. And that’s about how it still feels now. I’ve learned my lesson! I’ll be more careful of acidic foods in my diet from now on!

As you would expect, April and I are pretty excited about the baby. We’ve seen the doctor several times, and each time they test for something, the result are always (thankfully) “negative for (name tested condition).” When they look at vitals, it always falls in the “normal” range. I never thought I would love the words “negative” and “normal” as much as I do right now. I hope this trend continues!

As a scientist, I am trained to do research on the subject I have questions about. In the subject of being the expectant father, I’ve been doing literature research. For most of the week and especially today (slow day at work), I have been looking up literature, and I’m not having much luck. There are a ton of books directed towards expectant mothers, as there should be. What about me, the expectant father? Well, I found a fair number of books but, unfortunately, the local libraries don’t carry any of them. I also don’t have the cash to shell out on a library of books. I have to be selective if I decide to get any, and I do have a potential few picked out. If any fathers out there have a recommendation, please give me a heads up.

Went and saw Iron Man last Saturday, and it’s not as good as Spider-Man 2, which I think might be the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen, but Iron man should rank up there. I only say this because of Robert Downy Jr., who makes this movie lots of fun and does a wonderful job of taking campy one-liners and making them sound more authentic. The movie is about Tony Stark (played by the aforementioned Robert Downy Jr.), the playboy owner of the weapons manufacturing company, Stark Industries. He is also a certified genius, who built his first integrated circuit board by the time he was four and went to MIT at the age of 15. So, he knows his engineering. The movie starts with Tony Stark going to Afghanistan to demonstrate Stark Industries newest weapon, Jericho, to the U.S. military. While there, some sort of guerrilla/terrorist force attacks his convoy, killing everyone and kidnapping Stark. Once the guerrilla/terrorist force recognized they have Stark, they give him an ultimatum, build the Jericho for them or die. It’s obvious that the guerrillas/terrorist have never seen 1980’s American T.V., especially MacGyver or the A-Team. You know the formula; the hero is captured and put in a room full of equipment and parts to make something to attack the people that kidnapped you and put you in the room in the first place. Anyway, this is just the beginning of the movie and is a critical part of the movie’s story, which is built around who Stark is and how his ordeal in Afghanistan changes him. How his conscience begins to change and see the world in a different light. The first half of the movie is very much character driven, and the second half is all special effects. The dry humor Downy puts into his role helps the film in the slow spots, but the bad guy is kind of lame, the fight scene between the Iron Man and the bad guy could have been better, and I still not sure if the ending made much sense. Even with those negatives this movie, given it’s a superhero movie, surpassed my expectation, and due to the well done special effects I’m glad I saw it on the big screen.

Yes, you read the post title correctly.

IT’S A BABY!

And he/she is due 11/23/08.

The big science story of last week was probably the announcement that the platypus genome has been sequenced. There are many reasons why I think that is cool, mainly because the platypus is such a weird animal. It’s got a bill, lays eggs, nurses young, and is a mammal. Such an odd creature!

There was also another article that seemed interesting. Why are some people obese and others lean? An article published online in Science last week looked at the biological aspects of this. Using BMI, the authors arranged two study groups, obese and lean. It was discovered, not so surprisingly, that obese people have a larger total number of fat cells than leaner people. When examining different age groups, it was also found that from early childhood to about 20 years old, the body is consistently increasing the total number fat cells. After the age of 20, the number of fat cells in your body appears to remain constant. The authors suggest that total number of fat cells in the adult body is determined sometime during childhood. What determines that number is a good question, but don’t despair!! We can still loose weight. The authors examined patients before and after gastric bypass surgery to see how they lost their weight. It was discovered that two months after the surgery (and after many pounds were lost), the number of fat cells remained the same, but the fat cell volume was greatly reduced. So adults lose weight by decreasing the Read more »