Even cyborgs need periodic battery replacements

I’ve been recovering from heart surgery since Feb. 16. It was Valentine’s Day Week and it seemed like a good time for it. Heart surgery has an ominous sound. Thoughts go to quadruple bypasses and aortic valve replacement. I just needed a replacement generator in my chest to stop any signs of ventricular fibrillation which can lead to death. The gadget is filled with microchips and wires that connect to leads that snake down into my heart. I got my first one ten years ago after a widowmaker heart attack that almost did me in. Because it took too long to get help for my stopped-up heart, it sustained some muscle damage which in turn made my heart less effective. Up until January 2013, my heart had been very good to me. In high school, it pumped like a champ as I ran down the basketball court or when a girl looked at me in a certain way. Got me through my adult years until I hit 62 then BAM! Damn…

So the first one wore out and I needed a new one. I am on Medicare and have secondary insurance that pay for the $23,000 gizmo and attendant expenses such as doctor’s fees, OR fees, nursing services, etc. I am lucky to have health care insurance that keeps me ticking. Health insurance is a right and should not be optional. I see that our esteemed GOP state legislators have once again torpedoed Medicaid expansion that would insure thousands of Wyomingites. A widowmaker strikes and you need help? Tough luck, buddy. For the GOP it’s all about the cruelty. They didn’t used to announce their cruelties for all the world to see and hear. Now they shout it from the rooftops.

Back to my trip to the operating room. It’s called the CRMC Cath Lab and it’s where the electrophysiologists work their magic. I was under conscious sedation, like the kind you get for your colonoscopy. In this case, the surgeon applied a topical anesthesia and then pumped me with Fentanyl but not too much. He then cut into my chest, removed the old battery and in with the new. Then he sealed me back up. Before you know what’s going on, I'm being whisked off to recovery.

So how does my electrophysiologist keep track of the signals beamed from my Abbott Laboratories ICD? I used to have a Merlin Home Transmitter the size of the big black phones you used to see in 1940s movies. It sat by the side of my bed and beamed my readings to the CRMC Device Clinic. My new monitor is a Samsung device, smaller than a smart phone, that I can take anywhere. Pretty slick.

My new machine should last 5-7 years, according to the pamphlet that accompanied it. I plan on lasting at least that long. Seven days post-op and I’m doing fine.

Thank you, modern technology and surgical expertise. 

Two years ago I reviewed a nonfiction book about ICDs on WyoFile. It's "Lightning Flowers" and written by Wyoming author Katherine E. Standefer. She needed a device while still in her 20s and then set out to find the its origins. A great tale, whether you're a cyborg or not. 

I contemplate generational conflict in the blogosphere

Daughter Annie has been chronicling her graduation experience on her blog. She graduated from Laramie County Community College on May 14 and will head to UW in Laramie in mid-June.  She intends to be an English major. I have done my best to change her mind. "How about something useful, like pre-med or accounting?" or "Have you thought about a career as plumber?" 

Nevertheless, she persisted. She is a chip off the old block, offspring of an English major. I posted about the graduation here. She speaks openly about her long haul and her not always pleasant experiences along the way. I admire her honesty as I tend to skip deep feelings and fall back on humor to lighten life's heartbreaks. A generational difference, I guess. I am a first-wave Boomer and Annie is a second-wave Millennial. We share interests in reading, writing, classic rock, and movies. But we look at life through different lenses.

She knows more about my generation than I do hers. When I look at her generation, I see bright people looking on in disbelief at the chaos we older generations have wrought. I may have looked this same way in 1969 when the best and brightest wanted to kill me and millions of others. Annie has many artistic tattoos and introduces me to new music by changing the dial on my car radio. In reality, she doesn't need my car radio because she has her own car and car radio and myriad tech devices that pull in music, videos, and possibly signals from Tralfamadore. 

See how much fun you can have with generational conflict?

When I first signed on with Blogger in 2001, I admired the fresh voices, honest as the day is long. Not one of the bloggers I followed in those early days would use "honest as the day is long" (air quotes) which is, as you know, "as old as the hills." They were much more creative. In 2006, I gravitated to lefty political blogs which led to my selection as Wyoming's official embedded blogger at the 2008 Democratic Party National Convention in Denver where, at 57, I may have been the oldest practitioner at Blogger HQ outside the Pepsi Center. I received a scholarship to Netroots Nation 2011 in Minneapolis. I traveled in fall of 2011 with fellow nogoodniks to present a panel on progressive blogging at the University of South Dakota. Those were heady days. We were the future. I tied in with regional lefty bloggers and started posting and reposting on Daily Kos. Social media was in its infancy but pretty soon grew into the monster we know today. 

I started a blog for my workplace and a year later was called into the director's office to ask why I started a blog without permission. I said, gee, all the kids were doing it and he agreed that I should stop doing it immediately. At career's end, I was lord of our Wordpress blog and social media manager. My Millennial kids thought this was hilarious and I tended to agree.

So here we are in 2022. Blogs did not birth a thoughtful, more progressive, America. 

I blame myself.

Read part two of Annie's "How I got here: my time at LCCC.

Where does one get Micro Kale and Wasabi Arugula in the midst of ski season?

We move our lives indoors as frost and snow shuts down another outdoor growing season in Cheyenne. Yesterday, I plucked all of my tomatoes and brought them inside to finish ripening. I found some purple pod beans lurking in the foliage. I snipped off my basil, oregano, and rosemary and stored them in the freezer. I'll use them in sauces throughout the winter. 

This is usually a somber day for me. Winter is coming! October through March is when I spend more time thinking about gardening than actually gardening. What grew well this year and what am I going to tackle in 2022? Thing is, much growing has moved inside. Locals have built small backyard greenhouses. Some of us take advantage of big south-facing windows to continue the process during the dreary months, just as our rooftop solar panels reach out to the sun dipping into the southern latitudes.

Just read an Inc. Magazine article about vertical farming operations around the U.S. Former industrial sites in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have been transformed into hydroponic farms. Vertical Harvest in Jackson grows greens and tomatoes year-round in its three-story farm built on a strip of land adjacent to the city parking garage. Teton County visionaries found this unused bit of land, a rarity in Jackson, and then planned, funded, and built VH. Now, according to the Inc. article, it's going nationwide with facilities planned for Westbrook, Maine, and North Philadelphia, Penn. VH's mission from its early days was to employ people with developmental disabilities, which they are doing, a mission VH promotes on its packaged produce: "Sustainably produced by community members with different abilities." 

This fascinates me. I am a gardener and cook. My daughter has "different abilities." I volunteer at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. Botany is not my trade -- writing is -- but I've always been interested in growing things. I'm moderately tech-savvy but am intrigued with ways that tech can change ways we grow our food. Computers, efficient L.E.D. lights, and robotics are feeding what Inc. calls "the future of the $5 trillion agriculture industry." Outdoor gardening has its thrills but also drawbacks in hail, pests, and diseases. So-called urban farming impacts all of this. It also addresses climate change variables: hurricanes, deluges, drought, massive wildfires. In southeast Wyoming, we look forward to this week's snow because the summer and early fall have been so dry. Meanwhile, Northern Italy last week was swamped with almost 30 inches of rain in a 12-hour storm. 

The Inc. article wraps with mention of a book by botanist Stefano Mancuso, "The Revolutionary Genius of Plants." Mancuso posits that not only have humans been nurturing plants for some 10,000 years, but "plants have brought us along on their evolutionary journey, employing us as a means of transportation." Now we bring them inside, away from most of their pests and plagues, and refine them along the way. A photo in the article shows Irving Fain, Bowery Farms founder, behind a crop of wasabi arugula. Some diners already consider arugula pungent, but a wasabi mix? Holy moly. Some crops are brand new and some are being resurrected from the dustbin of history. 

Tech and business brainiacs are in the mix with Micro Kale and Beet Greens. Lots of start-up dough is going into these projects. "Geeks and quants" are involved, says Inc., and I think I know a geek when I see one but a quant? That's what the Internet is for. According to Investopedia, it comes from "quantitative (quant) trading" which "involves the use of algorithms and programs to identify and capitalize on available trading opportunities." Quants do this. They read pubs such as Poets and Quants which, as far as I can tell, has more to do with the latter than the former. Bowery's Fain might be a quant as he says this: "The question for me is, can tech generate scalable opportunities and an exponential increase in outcomes." 

It's a good question. There's another way to put it:

Salad on table/Where to find arugula/That inflames the tongue

Just asking for a poet friend.

1969 moon landing memories linger on the beach and in The House of the One-Eyed Seahorse

I like to think that I was a witness to history during Moon Landing Week in July 1969.

I witnessed the launch from the beach the morning of July 16. The Hartford Avenue beach approach in Daytona is located 62 miles northwest of Cape Canaveral. The Saturn 5, NASA's largest-ever launch vehicle, lit up an already bright morning and its sound waves seemed to ruffle the smooth Atlantic. The rocket arced into the sky and out to sea. It was visible only a few minutes. When it was gone, we went back in the water. Or maybe I was in the water already. I forget, as I saw so many launches during my 14 years in Florida. They merge into one big launch that shows the U.S. commitment to space exploration in the 1960s and into the 1970s. JFK showed the way with his 1961 speech. Congress shoveled money at the program as it took seriously Kennedy's vow of a man on the moon in 1969. An American man on the moon. Take that, Russkis!

It was all about the Cold War. The USSR ambushed us with Sputnik, Laika the Space Dog, and Yuri Gargarin. We fought back with Mercury and Alan Shepard and Gemini and finally Apollo. We won the Space Race with the moon landing. It was important to win something in the mid-60s, since we were losing in Vietnam and young people were lost to their elders and some of our biggest heroes were gunned down by assassins in 1968.

My father was a rocket man. He didn't fly them or test them. But he was a contract specialist with General Electric and later NASA. He worked out deals with suppliers of nuts and bolts and many of the gadgets that went to the moon. He could look at a launch with pride and announce that the big hunk of metal ferrying Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin to the moon was partly his doing. He and thousands of other Americans had worked together to get the U.S. first on the moon.

But all was not well in Rocketland. Workforce cutbacks had started two years earlier. One day, GE honchos told Dad that his services were no longer needed in Florida. He accepted a transfer to Cincinnati where GE was building all kinds of new and wonderful things. He said he would go on alone and the family would join him when school got out in June. Dad didn't like Cincinnati and we couldn't sell our house in Daytona as hundreds were leaving and  it was a buyer's market. This well-educated workforce that had come from New York and Ohio and New England in the fifties and sixties were no longer needed. It hurt Daytona. It was not exactly the Silicon Valley of the 60s. Most jobs were in the service industries that fed the tourist industry. I worked some of those jobs. Busboy, bagboy, laundry pick-up guy for beach motels, worker on a beach float stand. My brother was a gremmie selling suntan lotion by a hotel pool. One of my sisters was a nursing assistant taking care of old people who flocked to Florida's Promised Land. The engineers who made the rockets (and their families) would be missed by local businesses and schools.

But Dad grew tired of city life and found a job with NASA back on Daytona. I was happy because I had just made my high school's basketball squad after a year's worth of practice and visualized a bright future as a power forward.

On the afternoon of July 20 when Apollo 11's Eagle landed near the Sea of Tranquility, I was parked by the Atlantic Ocean with my girlfriend K. The radio news followed the ship's descent which we only partially listened to. When "The Eagle has landed" was announced, we paused our kissing and fondling for several minutes to let history wash over us. It rained heavily and the beach seemed deserted, odd for a July afternoon. Minuscule waves broke on the sandbar 50 yards in front of us. No surfing today. Once the announcers returned to just talking about the landing of the Eagle, we returned to our previous engagement.

I know the exact spot where this happened. When I'm in town, I walk by it and remember that historic afternoon. I see my rusty red Renault Dauphine with the light blue door that replaced the original, sheared off in a hasty back-up from my garage. Two people are inside, at least I think it's two people, as the windows are fogged. The spirit of that day drifts over that spot as does the memories of an eighteen-year-old me. This presence remains at the beach even when I'm back home in Wyoming. It may still be here when 68-year-old me and then (God willing) the 78-or 88-year-old me toddles down the beach, cane poking holes in the soft sand. When I'm gone, will the ethereal presence remain of the radio broadcast and the automobile and the young man and young woman, their thumping hearts and hopes and dreams? I like to think that beachgoers in 2069, parked in the same spot in their futuremobile, will pause their canoodling to listen to the voices of astronauts landing on Mars or orbiting Saturn. Maybe in the background they will hear a faded voice: "The Eagle has landed." 

That night, in The House of the One-Eyed Seahorse, I joined my family to watch Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. The video feed was grainy but I could make out Armstrong and then Buzz Aldrin cavorting on the lunar surface. We watched on a TV that struggled to pull in signals via antennae supplemented by a coat hanger and a broken channel changer replaced by vice grips. Nine kids are tough on TVs, even ancient ones that received but three channels. We no longer live there, haven't in a long time. My brothers and sisters and I carry around those memories. Fifty years ago, we were plotting our escape. Now, in quiet times, those memories swirl in our aging heads. They also exist somewhere in the house that almost burnt down in August of '69. We could have lost everyone but for the quick actions of my sister Molly. I was on a date and running late so I salvaged one of the cars, the other one burned to a cinder in the garage where the fire started. My memories would be vastly different as a lone survivor.

This all will be on my mind as I watch film of the July 16 launch and the July 20 walk on the moon and the July 24 splashdown.

Where is the Wichita Lineman when we really need him?

I am a lineman for the county...

In the late-60s, I loved that Jimmy Webb song, a chart-topper for Glen Campbell. It's a fine song. And it mentions Wichita, a place where I did some of my growing up. It may be the only song that equates hanging power lines out in the sticks with aching loneliness for a loved one.

When I think power lines I think telephone pole. I have been passing telephone poles since I was a seventh-grader in Wichita, probably before that. It's many decades later and I'm still looking at the ranks of telephone poles that march up and down the streets of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Thousands of similar poles were toppled or rendered useless in hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Linemen/women from all over the U.S. and Canada are working on the outage. They are climbing telephone poles that their daddy or granddaddy knew. maybe even worked on. We desperately need these people because they are trained well to do a dangerous and necessary job. We can't just grab our gloves and spikes and shinny up our local pole to fix a problem. It can get you killed.

Some power company contractors were in my neighborhood yesterday. They dug around the base of the telephone pole that sits on the southwest corner of my lot. I was just having my second cup of coffee, searching for excuses to avoid the TV news and start my daily writing ritual. So I grabbed my coffee and went outside to chat. The supervisor was a friendly guy, but busy. He said that he and his crew were inspecting power poles to see "if they would last another ten years." We bantered about other crews like his fixing power lines in Florida. He said he'd be finished with this job in three weeks and be off to Florida. I wished him well and got on with the business of the day.

I wondered how much high-plains wind would it take to topple our poles. We don't get hurricanes. But winds have been clocked here over 100 mph. We easily get 50-60 mph winds each winter. How would my neighborhood poles fare? And why do they need to last 10 more years. Is something magical going to happen in 2027 to replace these poles with something more tech-savvy? Our smartphones need no telephone poles. If you have satellite TV, you don't require a cable strung from a pole into your house. Why can't our electric lines be buried as are lines for gas and sewer? Is it really necessary for power to go out for millions when the poles come crashing down?

I write this as everyone is abuzz about the Hyperloop One Global Challenge. Yesterday, 10 demonstration projects were selected for a transportation system that basically involves putting passengers into giant pneumatic tubes and speeding them to their destinations at 700 mph. One of those projects involves a segment from Cheyenne to Pueblo, Colo., via Denver International Airport. If I could get to DIA by tube in 12 minutes without driving I-25, I would do it in a hyper-second. But we will have to wait until the next decade to see if this happens. Meanwhile, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has agreed to conduct a feasibility study on the 360-mile route. CDOT is the first governmental entity to form a partnership with Hyperloop One. Nothing yet from the State of Wyoming.

Meanwhile, I write this post on a laptop that connects with the worldwide web via cable lines that are strung on wooden poles that may (or may not) last another ten years.

When AFib comes to town

The Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Telemetry Lab staffer called me Friday. She wanted to know how I was doing. I said "fine" but knew that this wasn't a courtesy call. The Telemetry Lab monitors my Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) remotely. I have a home transmitter at the side of my bed. It picks up my heart signals and transmits them to the lab, which then takes a look to see if I am in sinus rhythm, which is what we want, or in atrial fibrillation (AFib), which we don't want.

The lab said I was in AFib on Thursday morning. "Did you feel anything?"

"Yes," I said. "I was light-headed all morning."

"Anything else?"

I had to think about it. "I just felt weird all morning. Had a hard time at physical therapy, was tired and out of sorts all afternoon."

The Telemetry Lab person (sorry I don't remember her name -- blame it on the irregular heartbeats and lack of oxygen to the brain) told me that I needed to be aware of these symptoms as a long-duration AFib is dangerous. "Next time you're feeling that way, please send me a manual reading from your monitor."

"OK," I said, feeling a bit scared. I tend to ignore my heart difficulties most of the time. I exercise, take my meds, maintain a good attitude, am kind to animals, etc.

She made me an appointment with my cardiologist. She is able to access my MyChart files at CRMC which shows a calendar of my appointments. She puts me down for a March 15 appointment with Dr. Nienaber. As long as I'm dealing with a CRMC physician or group, my records are online and we can carry on these types of conversations. It's a bit spooky, all this electronic data-keeping and accessibility. My fiction-writer self thinks of all the ways that this system can be abused. Let's say a U.S. politician has an ICD with a bedside monitor and someone, say, an ISIS terrorist, wants to murder that politician. He hijacks the signal and causes the ICD to shut down. Even scarier, he causes that ICD to activate its defibrillator. Bam! -- a big shock to the heart to get it back into rhythm even when it doesn't need it. And another shock and another and pretty soon, the heart gives up. Remote-control assassination. Because I am postulating this as sci-fi means that the possibility already exists and the U.S. or the Russians or even ISIS may be preparing an attack.

For me, though, right now, the threat is more from AFib than it is from some shadowy hacker. AFib can cause strokes, blood clots, heart failure. My heart attack of three years ago created the cardiac scar tissue that sometimes misfires as AFib. My pacemaker activates to get me back into rhythm. If catastrophic heart failure threatens, the defibrillator will kick in with a debilitating jolt. This has never happened to me, and I hope it never does.  I could be driving down I-80 at the time. Or I could be napping. Anything is possible.

A big thank you to the CRMC Telemetry Lab. A big shout-out to the researchers and engineers and technicians who put these gizmos together. I freakin' love science.

To watch AFib in action, go to the American Heart Association web site. You can compare an AFib animation to one of a normal heartbeat. My heartbeat was normal for 62 years. Cholesterol and inflammation and stupidity led to my heart attack, which almost killed me. I was pulled back from oblivion by EMTs, cardiologists, surgeons, and nurses. I'm 65 now, retired, someone who knows how blessed he is every day. Or almost every day.

Reflections on a new knee

Funny how surgery can throw you for a loop.

Fifteen days ago, I had a knee replaced. Pulled the 1950 chassis into the OR, went to sleep and woke up with a new part. The old knee saw me through 64 years. Not bad for original equipment. I could say that they don't make them like that any more, but that's not true. Blood and bone and sinew continues to be manufactured into humans on a daily basis. Thanks to modern medicine, the old, worn-out stuff can be replaced. Knees, shoulders, hips, heart valves -- all available for the asking and the affording.

I took the long route to replacement. Despite daily pain, I had the left knee scoped the same weekend Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I watched round-the-clock hurricane coverage almost guilt-free. The weather was glorious in Wyoming and I would have felt awful staying inside to immerse myself in tragedy. But I had an excuse. For the next decade, I relied on exercise and Alleve and occasional steroid injections. Finally I got the word from my orthopedic doc. I had four options. I could do nothing, always a popular option for us procrastinators. I could rely on the calming ministrations of Alleve. More injections. Finally, surgery.

This is elective surgery but should not be undertaken lightly, especially if you're a heart patient, as I am. Dr. Shannon sent me to my cardiologist and my family doctor. After a battery of tests, including a stress test that wasn't too stressful, they cleared me for surgery. Meanwhile, I wrecked my car. There was no replacing parts in my Ford Fusion. Totalled. Not something you want to hear about your favorite car or favorite human. So, I got a total car replacement.

Until Jan. 2, 2013, I had been a stranger to hospitals. I was ten years old the last time I was a hospital patient. I was 62 when dragged to the ER with a heart attack. A five-decade hiatus -- not bad. My heart attack and subsequent surgeries made me comfortable with hospitals. I almost look forward to visiting them now.

Almost.

Knee replacement surgery takes less than an hour. The surgeon applies a tourniquet so staunch the blood flow. The experts work fast. Soon I'm in the recovery room wondering what the heck happened. I'm hooked up to oxygen and IV. My left leg was being flexed by a CPM. Must move that new knee -- no rest for the stunned.

So here I am -- 15 days out. The pain is lessening. Dr. Shannon's assistant removed the 32 staples that sealed the incision on April 8. Doctor's orders say I must keep moving and keep recuperating.

OK, doc.

Psychiatrists aren't crazy about living in Wyoming

They story had me at the first line:

In many parts of Wyoming, it’s impossible to get mental health care.

Darn near impossible in rural areas. Nigh near impossible in settled areas. Close to possible in cities such as Cheyenne and Casper. 

Federal granting agencies consider Wyoming a pioneer state. The entire state, all 98,000 square miles. That means wise heads inside the beltway look out and see a square state filled with yokels in need. That's good news when it comes to getting grants. It's also bad news too, since state-based governmental entities or non-profit orgs or faith-based communities need to fill out the paperwork (or apply online). They often don't. The need is there but the people-power can be lacking. Who will write the grants? And who will manage the grants?

And who will clients turn to when they need a therapist?

The turnover rate for psychiatry in the state, and other providers, is very, very high.

That's PJ Treide being interviewed by Willow Belden on Wyoming Public Radio. PJ is with Health Link Now, a company that provides telepsych services in Wyoming. It lets patients connect with doctors who live elsewhere, using video conferencing.

Treide says Wyoming needs telepsych because it’s next to impossible to convince skilled psychiatrists to live here.

I'm not a psychiatrist, although I sometimes play one on TV. Health Link Now is providing psychiatrists for online sessions. The psychiatrist can be in Brazil, such as the one interviewed by Belden, and the patient can be in Bairoil, which is in Wyoming in case you didn't know.

Thing is, there are psychiatrists in Wyoming that are doing telepsych sessions. My shrink has a video screen the size of his entire wall. When he's not dealing with my psyche, he's delving into the psyches of clients in rural areas or even Rawlins, which has driven more than one doc back to his/her urban roots to get a decent cup of coffee and attend an occasional performance of Aida. This is a rural-urban issue. A recent story in Colorado's 5280 Magazine said that 80 percent of all of the state's mental health providers live in Denver and Colorado Springs. Hugo and Simla share the other 20 percent with La Junta and Craig and all the other less-teeming burgs.

If there's ever been a state made for telepsych, it's Wyoming. It's happening now. But few insurance carriers are on board, insisting that patients actually see someone in-person before they fork over the dough they've been deducting from your paycheck for several decades. I could see myself holding sessions via telepsych. There have been times in my bouts with depression that I've needed a real person in the room. "You gotta help me, doc. I see everything twice!" But not now, not when I'm cruising along on a pretty mellow mixture of psychoactive meds. "I'm OK, doc. I see everything once."

Read more about telepsych here.

Cardiac Chronicles, continued

I get my implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) on Monday. It's an ingenious little gadget, weighing only 70 grams and 12.9 mm thick. Your average chicken egg weighs 70 grams. The belt holding up my pants is about 12.9 mm thick.

The docs will cut a slit just beneath my left collarbone, slip some leads through the vein to my heart, connect the leads to the gadget, jump-start the ICD (they told me to bring my jumper cables), sew me up and send me away, a new man. Partially new, anyway.

The ICD will correct dangerous arrhythmias and prevent sudden cardiac death. I'm at risk for these because my heart muscles sustained some damage when I had my Christmas holiday heart attack. Sudden cardiac death is what people mean when they say "He dropped dead from a heart attack. Boom -- just like that!"  

Boom -- just like that.

Not me, thanks. Not now.

Got a lot of living left to do.

You must be young to be a bone marrow donor

Did you know that if you're older than 60, docs don't want your bone marrow?

I found that out by perusing the web site for the Be the Match Registry at the National Bone Marrow Program. Transplant doctors are thrilled to work with your bone marrow if you're from 18-44. They might use your precious bodily fluids if you're from 45-60. Over 60? Forget it.

I understand the reasoning.

The age guidelines are in place to protect donors and provide the best treatment for patients:

• Donor safety: As one ages, the chances of a hidden medical problem that donation could bring out increases, placing older donors at increased risk of complications. Since there is no direct benefit to the donor when they donate, for safety reasons we have set age 60 as the upper limit. It is important to note that the age limit is not meant to discriminate in any way.
• To provide the best treatment for the patient: Research shows that cells from younger donors lead to more successful transplants.

My 60-year-old brother Dan needs bone marrow. He was diagnosed with leukemia in December after checking into the hospital for a routine gall bladder surgery. His blood counts were abnormal. His doctors performed additional tests and discovered the leukemia. He underwent treatment at his local hospital in Florida, and then transferred to M.D. Anderson in Houston, well-known for its extraordinary care and facilities.

My brothers and sisters submitted samples to test their compatibility for donations. I wasn't involved because I had a heart attack during Christmas season. Heart disease and age ruled me out. Never have I felt so old or so left out.  

My sister Mary was a perfect match. She is the youngest of nine children, younger than me by 15 years. Not in the 18-44 range, but close. Family matches are preferred because it cuts down on rejection by the body to the new, implanted cells.

While Mary was going through the usual battery of donor tests at M.D. Anderson, cancer was discovered. Now she's going through treatments while my brother Dan is going through his last batch of chemo to prepare him for a bone marrow transplant from someone other than Mary.

So, if you have ever thought about being a bone marrow donor, go to the Be the Match Registry and request a donor kit. All it takes is a cheek swab or blood sample to be tissue-matched. The next step, donating your marrow, is not painless. But the life you save may be that of your brother or sister. Or someone else's brother or sister.

Mary Gillgannon conducts self-publishing workshop April 2 at the Laramie County Library

Writer Amanda Cabot sends this reminder:

If you're interested in self-publishing, either in e-book or print-on-demand format, you won't want to miss Mary Gillgannon's workshop at the Laramie County Library in Cheyenne next Tuesday.  She'll be covering the pros and cons of self-publishing as well as the issues associated with cover art, formatting, distribution, marketing -- in other words, everything you need to know about this important subject.

Tuesday, April 2

6:30 to 8 p.m.

Cottonwood Room (first floor)

Memo to Rep. Hunt: With more population comes more Liberals and inevitable change

The U.S. Census Bureau shows that Casper is the eighth fastest growing metro area in the U.S. while Cheyenne is number twenty. Some Natrona County businesses aren't so sure that the boom is here to stay. Stewart Moving & Storage reports that its ratio of move-ins to move-outs is about 50/50. This is probably due to the recent downturn in the energy biz since the Census numbers were tallied in mid-2012. Cheyenne, however, is a different story. This was in today's Casper Star-Trib:

People are moving to Cheyenne to cash in on the city’s transformation as a technology hub, economists and demographers say.

“I think the main reason is we had that super computer open last year,” said Wenlin Liu, a senior economist with the Wyoming Division of Economic Analysis, referring to the National Center for Atmospheric Research-Wyoming Supercomputing Center. “There’s also the plan to open the Microsoft data storage center. These created an image about Laramie County, I think that helped. People probably moved in.”

Before the supercomputer and Microsoft Corp. eyed Cheyenne, there were other high-tech companies doing business in the city. Those companies paved the way, said Randy Bruns, CEO of Cheyenne LEADS, the Cheyenne-Laramie County Corporation for Economic Development.

From Cheyenne, EchoStar Corp. flies satellites, has an uplink data center and a data storage center. Green House Data has a storage center. Aside from four outlet stores, Sierra Trading Post sells outdoor clothing and gear online. “The technology behind all of their Web work is right here,” Bruns said.

When high-tech companies observe other high-tech companies' success in a region, they consider it as a place to relocate, Bruns said.

John Shepard, a senior planner for Laramie County, knows firsthand about growth. He moved his wife and three children from Slayton, Minn., to Cheyenne for his new job in November. He believes the relatively low cost of doing business in Cheyenne is attracting people.

“People who would be priced out of the Denver market can have a small business or machine shop,” he said.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to Dean Dexter. He's the founder of Gizmojo, a company that builds "seriously cool exhibits and graphics," designer of the education exhibits at the new NCAR/UW Supercomputing Center east of Cheyenne. Gizmojo just merged with Warehouse 21. Warehouse 21/Gizmojo staffers work among the bare bricks and exposed pipes of a renovated warehouse on Snyder Avenue. Gizmojo is renovating the old garage space in the building as a place to design and assemble its displays.

Dean moved his company from Huntsville, Ala., a few years ago. He tells the same story that I heard from Microsoft's Gregg McKnight at the Wyoming Broadband Summit last fall. The city's business leaders welcomed him with open arms. "Western hospitality," you might say, although I'm not always clear on what that means. Cheyenne LEADS as put out the read carpet for the Wal-Mart and Lowe's distribution centers, as well as various data center and the NCAR/UW project. This sort of public/private partnership has helped spawn a boom in Laramie County, boosting our population 2 percent since 2011, making Laramie County the home to 16 percent of the state's population. Our population is nearing 95,000. Wonder if we'll throw a party when that reaches 100,000?

Some of us will. The Tea Party, anti-Agenda 21 crowd may hold a wake. To them, growth means change and the threat of more Liberals rolling in with the data centers and small businesses and an unreasonable expectation to fund the arts with public money. They will want change. You know, more coffee shops and brew pubs and public transportation and the filling in of the downtown hole. Heavens to Betsy! Just like Rep. Hans Hunt's response to a Cheyenne Liberal during the most recent legislative session. "If you don't like Wyoming the way it is, move back to the Liberal Shangri-la you came from." I'm paraphrasing here. I doubt if Rep. Hunt knows James Hilton's book wherein Shangri-la dwells. There you go again. Just like a know-it-all Liberal to think that a guy that represents rural constituencies in Weston/Niobrara/Crook counties doesn't (or can't) read.

OK, I'm guilty. Rep. Hunt's letter ticked me off. Talk about your conservative know-it-all.

But I digress. I bid welcome to all of you newcomers. I know that for every 10 Republicans that move into the county, there will be five others that are Democrats or have Democratic sympathies. That's the ratio of Ds to Rs in Laramie County. They may not arrive in the same truck or minivan (alas, some will drive a Prius), but come they will, followed by an inevitable push for change.

3-D printing transforming us from passive consumers to active creators

Amazing stuff. This 3-D printing technology may be an immediate threat to manufacturers but what about artists and crafters? Our work may be covered by copyright, but that hasn't prevented online purloiners from lifting digital images and written work from web sites. The music world faced this a decade ago and they seem to have reached some sort of compromise, one that walks the line between getting stuff for free and paying for it.

"Creating science from sewage" is one benefit of new Cheyenne zero-carbon Data Plant

Science! It's a gas -- biogas, that is. The City of Cheyenne and UW and Microsoft and Fuel Cell Energy Inc. are building a pilot project east of Cheyenne to see if methane produced from sewage treatment can provide efficient zero-carbon power. A $7.5 million Microsoft Data Plant is the test case. The plant will use 200 kilowatts of energy from the fuel cell to power 200 computers. Any excess energy will go back to the Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility to defray its electric bills. After an 18-month test period that will begin in the spring, Microsoft will give the facility back to the city and the university to use as a teaching lab. This is part of the deal, as Microsoft has to provide a "public benefit" in trade for taxpayer funding that's going to the project. Sounds like a win-win to me, a great public-private partnership. Read more about it here. 

The Western Research Institute is housed in the Bureau of Mines Building on the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie. WRI CEO Don Collins was instrumental in landing the project for the state. Said Collins:

“Microsoft is developing it as the first zero-carbon Data Plant in the world, and it will be in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Even Bill Gates had a tweet about how excited he was about this project.”

When Bill Gates tweets, people pay attention. 

Collins also said that:

...CO2 that comes out of the fuel cell can be captured and used for enhanced oil recovery in the state.  Wyoming currently does not have enough CO2 for such operations, he says. A company using a fuel cell in this manner could sell its CO2 at $25-$30 per ton to oil companies and make approximately $2.25 million, Collins says. That business scenario could make it more attractive for more fuel cell use in Wyoming.

“There might really be a strategic advantage for Wyoming for all energy-intensive companies that sell CO2 to cut costs,” Collins says. “Our goal is to turn CO2 into a valuable asset rather than something that must be disposed of at a high expense.”

At a recent meeting Collins attended in San Jose, Calif., Microsoft indicated its desire to keep the Data Plant in Cheyenne “as a long-term demonstration facility,” Collins says.

Use of a demonstration facility enhances opportunities for UW and WRI to secure competitive funding from the federal government and the Wyoming Energy Conversion Technology Fund, Collins adds.

Your taxpayer dollars at work. And I'm not being snarky. This sounds like an excellent use of state and federal funds.Microsoft may eventually use this technology for its cloud computing centers that are springing up all over the U.S. The City of Cheyenne and the State of Wyoming could do worse than having Microsoft for a partner.

Wyoming Broadband Summit: New generation of Microsoft data centers to be tested in Cheyenne

Microsoft's Gregg McKnight was in Cheyenne today talking about a pilot project for a new kind of data center. He was a speaker at the first Wyoming Broadband Summit at Little America.

Asked McKnight: “Who would have expected Cheyenne to be the place where the next generation of data centers would arise?”

Not me. Maybe not you, or your neighbors. And possibly not McKnight, not until he visited Cheyenne a few months ago.

He was greeted warmly by officials from the University of Wyoming, Cheyenne LEADS, Board of Public Utilities and other members of the community.

“This was a dream” he said, adding that, over the course of several days, he discovered that Cheyenne “was the ideal location to do business.”

Microsoft wants to build a $7.6 million data center that will run off of methane produced by the city’s Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility. To that end, the city of Cheyenne will apply for $1.5 million from the Wyoming Business Council's Council’s Business Ready Community Grant and Loan Program. Three weeks ago, the Cheyenne City Council’s Finance Committee gave its approval to move the request forward. If approved, the grant would cover up to $1.5 million of the project’s total cost, with Microsoft providing the balance.

According to officials at the computing giant, the project would consist of the data plant, which would be connected to a fuel cell. Both would be in close proximity to the water reclamation facility, which is located on Campstool Road just south of Interstate 80.

The fuel cell would collect excess methane gas from the water reclamation facility’s biodigester and would then convert the gas into about 300 kilowatts of electricity. The data center itself would require only 200 kilowatts to run. Not sure where the remaining 100 Kw would do. Presumably it could be used for other energy needs in Cheyenne.

The plant will test Microsoft's new “siliconization” process, which utilizes silicon to move beyond the era of the microprocessor. McKnight gave a quick explanation which went way over my head. He showed a slide that illustrated this formula: “Si Systems + Fuel Cells + Modularity=Reimagine the Data Center.” Sounds cool to me. Faster technology is needed for the 200-plus cloud services Microsoft now provides. “There will be a twelve-fold increase in the amount of info that flows through the optic fiber backbone in the next five years,” McKnight said. He called the Cheyenne experiment the next step in “the evolving data center.”

The fuel cell data plant is separate from a $112 million cloud data center Microsoft has proposed to build to the west of Cheyenne, near the recently-opened National Center for Atmospheric Research supercomputing facility.

McKnight is quite happy with Cheyenne. And why wouldn't he be? The state of Wyoming has pledged $10.7 million in grants and incentives for the cloud data center project. Microsoft is making an initial $78-million investment and plans to go up to $112 million, according to Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, who also spoke at Tuesday's summit. He's a big believer in data centers. And I'm beginning to believe that he's on the right track. All of this will change Cheyenne for the better. New technology. New ideas. New people moving in. New energy mixes with old energy. Not sure what the formula is for that, but it could be a heady mix.

Onward and upward (and sometimes downward and dumbward) as Wyoming lurches into the future

American Bison at Utah's Hogle Zoo

The following comes from a University of Wyoming press release that appeared on Friday. It talks about Wyoming's and UW's commitment to the future in the form of computing power and connectivity. It's refreshing to see such forward-thinking planning on the part of a university that last summer removed a campus sculpture that dared to question global warming ("Carbon Sink"). But it's also the same university that opened a huge new visual arts building at the end of last year, and began raising funds to match a legislative appropriation for a renovated performing arts building. And remember Bill Ayers, the firebrand education reformer and one-time antiwar radical that UW tried to stop speaking on campus a few years back?

Okay, UW has a split personality, not unlike Wyoming's.

You gotta love this place for that. And sometimes, well, you gotta think of Nobel Prize winning writer William Faulkner. As the story goes, Faulkner was at a book signing in Montana when a woman said that she wished that Montana writers loved Montana like Faulkner obviously loved Mississippi. Faulkner's reply: "Madam, I hate Mississippi."

That probably left her speechless.

You don't have to love a place to write well about it. And you don't have to love a place to wish it a fruitful future.

So the new NCAR Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) was dedicated today. Go out and visit the new education center, which is open to the public on weekdays. After this week, you won't be able to visit Yellowstone, the new supercomputer, unless you have an appointment or you're running for president.

This is only one of the surprising bits in this article. DYK that the huge fiber-optic cable that laid the ground for the NWSC is called the Bison Ring (not to be confused with Wagner's Ring Cycle)? See above images for an explanation. And that another big computer has been installed at UW in Laramie with the name Mount Moran, after a peak in the Teton Range? I kind of like this trend that attaches Wyocentric names to tangles of wires and metal and electrons. Microsoft is building a new regional data center in Cheyenne. Wonder what its computer will be called? I suggest "Vedauwoo." Or possibly "Crazy Horse."

Here's the first few paragraphs of the UW release:

It began with laying hundreds of miles of fiber-optic cable, much of it buried under the ground along stretches of interstate that traverse the mountains and plains of Wyoming. Next week, the state’s evolution from primarily pulling minerals out of the ground to a sky’s-the-limit outlook for supercomputing will be complete.

The $74 million NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC), with a primary focus of atmospheric research, is slated to open Monday, Oct. 15, with a ceremonial dedication. Located at the North Range Business Park in Cheyenne, the $30 million supercomputer, dubbed “Yellowstone,” will be used by multiple University of Wyoming researchers and their students to model detailed simulations of hydrology, carbon sequestration, planet formation, efficiency of wind turbines, and much more.

Read the whole thing at http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2012/10/supercomputer-opening-caps-years-of-effort.html

Laramie County marches forward into the future with new NWSC and visitor center facilities

Two building dedications take place during the next two weeks in Laramie County. They point the way toward a future that local Know Nothings and no-growthers and Agenda 21 wingnuts are trying to stop.

The first and most spectacular of these buildings is the new NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) in the North Range Business Park just north of the gigantic Wal-Mart Distribution Center and just east of the Big Wind-Power Farm on the Prairie. The building is a marvel of energy efficiency, taking advantage of Wyoming's weather to super-cool the super-computer. The facility will get at least 10 percent of its energy from wind power.

The NWSC will be open for initial public tours from noon-4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16; and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17. Thereafter, self-guided tours of the visitor center will be offered 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. Large groups are asked to call ahead to make reservations at (307) 996-4321.

This comes from a UW press release:

The visitor center contains several display stations, which will focus on science, supercomputing and the NWSC, plus a section dedicated to younger visitors.

The science section will focus on science and research from NCAR, the University of Wyoming and the atmospheric sciences community. Some examples include climate models, wildfire simulations, wind shear studies and carbon sequestration. How these examples affect people’s everyday lives, improve safety, and help inform policy and decision making will be included.

The computational science display will provide an introduction to computational science; convey challenges and research, including limitations and explorations of new frontiers; university collaborations and programs; and the role of computational science in everyday life.

Finally, the exhibit also includes a section about the societal impact of research conducted at the NWSC. Climate, microbursts, wildfires, winds, aviation safety, solar phenomena, extreme weather and advances in forecasting are among the subjects covered.

There will be a center dedicated to younger visitors. It will have touch screens and a video of a mini-tornado simulation that kids can play with. There will be a station that measures how quickly you can swipe your hand across a sensor, and then tells you how many calculations the supercomputer can do in that amount of time.

Gizmojo, a Cheyenne company, was chosen to create and build the visitor center.

The second dedication is for the Southeast Wyoming Visitor Center. It opens for public inspection at 3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 12. The $13 million center is on I-25 at the new High Plains Road exit near the Wyoming/Colorado border. It's a LEED-certified building with some of its power coming from solar panels and some from aerodynamic windmills atop the rise leading up to the building. On the building's northeast side is an art installation by Laramie's Stan Dolega. Stan thinks big and works big. BTW, his sculpture is funded through the state's 1% for Art Program, in which a percentage of a public building's costs go toward exterior and/or exterior art, often (but not always) created by a Wyoming artist.

Inside the visitor center are exhibits. One if a Columbian Mammoth cast. These also are hands-on stations for kids, wildlife exhibits and video displays. You can also peer through the many windows at the snow falling outside, the traffic zooming by, and the huge McMurry Business Park sprouting up on the other side of the interstate. One will be able to see the sprawling tank farm for the storage of oil being pumped via fracking out of the Laramie County underground. Another aspect of the state's multifaceted energy economy.

Sometimes all of this new development seems a bit haphazard. You wonder if anyone in the city and county are planning for the future. Growth is good, but there should be a plan.

If I did have a “hummingbird mind,” I could rule the world

A few weeks ago, a commenter on these pages made a snide comment about my brain. I am as capable of taking snide comments as I am in dishing them out. Actually, if I were to talk blog talk, I’d have to say I am good at snark, as snide has fallen out of favor in this new hyper-tech era.

The commenter, who was of the conservative persuasion, said that me and my readers must have brains the size of a hummingbird brain. He was inferring that we are peabrains, as a hummingbird brain is the size of a pea.

I can accept this criticism. But the comment did cause me to seek out information on hummingbird anatomy. The pea-brained hummingbird has the largest brain-size-to-body-mass index in the bird kingdom. It’s is approximately 4.2 percent of its body weight. If my brain were 4.2 percent of my weight, it would weigh 9.66 pounds. My head would be the size of a pumpkin but much more lethal. The late Kurt Vonnegut used to say that most of the world's ills could be blamed on the fact that human brains are too big for our own good. Imagine if they were three times bigger!

If my body weight were to be consistent with human anatomy, I would have to weigh almost 700 pounds. This would cut down on my mobility. But my huge brain would allow me to control puny-brained normal humans. They would do my bidding. I would command them to build a mobility device that allowed me to flit from food source to food source. I could hover hummingbird-like over this food source (McDonald’s, for instance), dart in to snag a Big Mac with my long forked tongue, and then dart out again, hovering over the local McD’s, never losing my place. I could exhaust the entire Big Mac supply of the McD’s on Yellowstone Blvd., and then dart over to the one on Lincolnway or College Ave., here in Cheyenne. I would always know where the food was located, and whether it was ready or not. All the while, I could locate a mate, if any were willing to date a big-brained, 700-pound winged human male with huge eyes, a long beak and forked tongue. I’d also be able to fight off any rivals who arrive on the scene. If I was forced to smite a rival, I would have to take a few minutes away from feeding. But not too long – hummingbirds eat a dozen meals per day, consuming many times their own body weight.

How do I know this? I found this info at on Ron Patterson’s excellent Gardening for Wildlife web site:

In a study that appeared in Current Biology, Susan Healy and Jonathan Henderson of the University of Edinburgh describe their fieldwork with rufous hummingbirds in the Canadian Rockies. 

Can a hummingbird's brain actually think? 

Tallying visits by three male rufous hummers, the researchers found the birds could distinguish between the 10-minute and 20-minute “flowers” and remember their locations and when they had last drained them. Over several days, they reliably returned to the “flowers” just after they had been refilled; once again, a matter of what, when, and where. 

It makes sense for hyperactive birds like hummers to maximize their foraging efficiency. Return to a flower too soon, and the nectar won’t have been replenished; too late, and a rival may have beaten you there. 

With a long migration route and a short breeding season, rufous hummers can’t afford to waste time and energy in the search for food. 

Healy and Henderson point out that their male hummers were able to track the timing of nectar supplies while defending their territories and courting females. So you have not only episodic memory but serious multitasking. Several studies show hummers know when a flower is ready. 

All this when a hummingbird's brain is smaller than a pea. 

No one knows how large a hummer's hippocampus is, absolutely or relatively. But the bird doesn’t have a whole lot of neurons to work with. It may not the size of the hummingbird brains that enables these kinds of mental processes, but the complexity of the wiring. Smaller does not necessarily equate to dumber: the minuscule brain of the hummer appears to have the bandwidth to do what it needs to do.

One of the great things about Ron’s site is the Bible quote he puts on each page. I’m not a Bible reader or a quoter, but I like the fact that he writes with such scientific detail and such passion, but also finds time to dig up verse to punctuate his narrative. He’s a serious multi-tasker, just like a hummingbird. Here’s the quote he provided on the page about hummingbird brains:

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Not a jeremiad in any way.

In conclusion, I’d like to say this: Do your homework before making comments on this site, especially as it relates to the lives of hummingbirds. They are amazing creatures, preferable to snarky humans in so many ways.

Sources:
http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/anatomy.php
http://www.gardening-for-wildlife.com/hummingbird-brain.html 

http://www.hummingbirds.net/hainsworth.html

WTE Online: CRMC offers psychiatric service through computer

This is a great idea for a rural state (Wyoming) which has high risk factors for suicide, domestic violence and substance abuse -- and one that serves its 580,000 residents with just 30 psychiatrists (one per 19,333 people), most located in cities: CRMC offers psychiatric service through computer -- Wyoming Tribune Eagle Online

Creativity is Occupy Movement's middle name

I didn't see "Cheyenne" or "Wyoming" flash on this building but maybe next time...

Here's what this is all about:

One of the most impressive moments of yesterday's Occupy Wall Street marches, was when someone projected a giant 99% "bat signal" on the side of one of lower Manhattan's skyscrapers as thousands of people swarmed across the nearby Brooklyn Bridge. New Yorkers know the Verizon Building as the windowless, concrete eyesore that looms over the bridge and mars the downtown skyline, so seeing it used is such a way certainly got a lot of attention. 

But who did it? And how were they able to project the stories-high words on the building just as the protesters made their way over the span? Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin spoke to Mark Read, one of the Occupy Wall Street organizer who pulled together a team of friends and artists that arranged for the projection to happen. 

Read says he got help from two video projection artists, Max Nova and JR Skola, who used a 12,000 lumen projector and programmed the software needed to properly program the message. He also found an apartment in a nearby housing project from where they safely angle the projection on to the building. He says he offered to rent the apartment from a single mother of three, but when she found out what they wanted to use it for — and saw what happened during the eviction of Zuccotti Park — she refused to take their money.

Music by Hans Zimmer, To Know My Enemy. 

Some of this is new to me. There is now a category known as "video projection artists?" And a 12,000-lumen projector? It must be huge.