From the monthly archives:

June 2008

A half-mile with Linda

by cg on June 29, 2008

Chris walking without caneSweet spouse Linda was kind enough to walk with me this morning, despite my very slow pace. Trainer Heidi Engel has been encouraging me to walk longer distances without my cane, and this was my longest jaunt – a half mile.

I’ve been walking without my cane in the house and at the gym, but I’ve been a little nervous about walking outdoors alone without it – it’s still really hard from me to get up from the ground without help, and I’ve been concerned lest I trip and fall.

Linda was just the moral support I needed, however, and we got around the block in a little over 25 minutes. Linda has blogged this, too, noting that a doddering husband is nearly as good company as a doddering dog… photo by Linda Hubbard Gulker…

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A walk through Arastradero

by cg on June 28, 2008

Deer spotted in Arastradero

Thistles in ArastraderoA deer and her fawn greeted me as I made my way along a dirt path through Palo Alto’s Arastradero Preserve this morning. I was much anticipating this, only my third visit to the Preserve since cancer struck. The park’s flora is now in full, gold-and-green summer dress.

I was eager to try out my new muscles and body that has begun to shed the proximal weakness caused by steroid therapy (which was necessitated to treat brain swelling caused by radiation therapy – cancer gets complicated in a hurry).

The trail did not disappoint, with a steep section that proved to be a challenge to descend and then climb back up. I walked a little under 2 miles, took some 9000 steps (2000 more than I would take on a flat path).

I felt accomplished when I made it back to the car almost at the same time as Linda, who had jogged more 5 miles in the same 75 minutes or so. Then it was off to Mike’s for omelettes and coffee…

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On the ‘road’

by cg on June 26, 2008

We’re blogging by iPhone from Peet’s Coffee in downtown Menlo Park, after nearly completing a 1.6 mile circumnavigation of our small town. Cousin Kelly is in town, and we met her and the family at Ann’s coffee shop for breakfast. Her kids Will and Emily had fun with my Kindle while Kelly, husband Jim and I chatted. Fun morning…

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‘My’ stop sign

by cg on June 24, 2008

Stanford stop sign 1 mile from homeStanford, or maybe Santa Clara County, may think it’s their stop sign, but I think of this as my stop sign. It happens to be almost exactly one mile from my back gate, and is the current goal of my thrice-weekly 2-mile walks.

I started walking in earnest a couple of weeks ago, and am now up to 2 miles, which has required 90 minutes to walk the last 3 times out (1.33 mph). My goal is to walk 2 miles an hour (my pre-cancer pace was 3 mph) which means I would be company, albeit slow, for others. Accordingly, rehab specialist Heidi Engel has changed my gym treadmill routine and other exercises, aiming at a swifter pace. At my current speed, toddlers and the elderly easily blow by me…

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Americans, faithful and secular alike, are tolerant of others, despite the strictures of their own beliefs, according to Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Their report, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey “reveals a broad trend toward tolerance and an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict the doctrines of their professed faiths” according to The New York Times. Are we finally going to heal the wounds of the ‘culture war’…?

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A Sunday morning sketch

by cg on June 22, 2008

This bright morning finds me at the kitchen table with a plate of eggs scrambled with a freshly diced tomato, a pan-grilled chicken apple sausage from Biancini’s market, a mug of freshly-brewed Peet’s coffee, a cocktail of ten pills (Lyrica, Keppra, Altace, fish oil, vitamin D3, a ’senior’ multivitamin and Alleve), a glass of water and my new Kindle reader, with its overnight download of the Sunday New York Times. KFOG’s ‘Acoustic Sunrise‘ is providing the soundtrack – Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt – over the kitchen speakers.

As I fix breakfast and eat, the Kindle periodically launches its screen saver, presenting frontispieces from 19th century books and other pretty engravings well-suited to the Kindle’s 4-bit, black and white electronic ink display.

So far we’ve read the Times’ account of the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed by a CIA officer named Deuce Martinez (an officer who refused torture training) and an article about the stalling of agricultural progress in India, without having to wrestle with the Sunday Times’ legendary bulk (the unbundled paper version awaits my paper-preferring spouse’s return from Kansas). An article on small, desirable, ecologically-correct houses is next. The morning stretches pleasantly ahead…

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Hot times in the Bay Area

by cg on June 21, 2008

Linda’s in Leaward, Kansas this evening, meeting with exotic fauna and, yes, watching the Giants play the Royals with girlhood friend Alice Carrott.  At game time (4pm in Menlo, 6 pm in Kansas) it was hotter in Menlo Park than in Kansas City. As I write, it’s still 80 degrees in my garden… maybe Al  Gore is onto something…?

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Cropped, lightened version of MPL lg_6939 imageHere’s a lightened, cropped version of the lower image in the post below, showing no Sol-20 type clumps in the shadow, but clearly showing the ‘mystery blob.’

Re-reading a couple of MPL press releases makes me believe that additional digging was done in the trench pictured on Sol 19, resulting in the images of Sols 20 and 24, showing the now famous ‘disappearing clumps.’

There are also enough differences in the details of the trench itself to make it likely that additional digging explains the disappearance of the blob. But we had fun ‘digging’ through the images… photo courtesy NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona/ Texas A&M University…

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Ice on Mars: first look

by cg on June 20, 2008

Clumps, thought to be ice, in Mars Phoenix lander photo

Large whitish clump, visible lower left of trench in Mars Phoenix Lander photoIce clumps on Mars? The recent announcement, first spotted on the MPL Twitter blog reports that the small grayish clumps visible in the lower left of the trench in the photo marked Sol 20 above, have disappeared by Sol 24, a discovery that is consistent with water ice sublimating into the thin, very dry Martian atmosphere.

My question is, what happened to the larger whitish clump visible in the picture, left, snapped on Sol 19, according to the MPL site. Stay tuned for some digital forensics on the Sol 19 image… photos courtesy NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona/ Texas A&M University

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The Smart way to Caltrain

by cg on June 18, 2008

Smart ForTwo at Menlo Park CalTrain station

Spotted this Smart ForTwo at the Menlo Park Caltrain station when I returned from physical therapy this afternoon. Gotta say that, other than a bicycle, this is probably the best way to get to CalTrain. My Escape Hybrid is good, too… 

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