JT leaves on his mission to Japan today (after a morning lacrosse scrimage). He starts in the MTC where he’ll spend 3 months learning Japanese (<2 miles from home), then at the end of January he flies to Japan for 21 months. Saturday was his 19th birthday. We drove to UT last weekend for his farewell. Good Luck, JT!!

This summer I was actually able to crack open a few books on the houseboat at Shasta, in the camper on the San Juan Islands, trips to Loma Linda, etc. Here’s a review:

I’ve been working on this for a couple years, what with it’s 800 pages and #4 font. Excellent book. This guy was Washington’s right hand man during the Revolutionary War, signed the Declaration of Independence, was key in cobling together the federal government, writing the Constitution, co-wrote the Federalist papers and set up many of the key economic systems we continue to use such as the Federal Bank. As the first treasury secretary of the under Washington he directed many of the other departments such as State behind the scenes. He seemingly single-handedly rescued the US from bancruptcy after the Revolution by establishing foreign investment. Hamilton and Jefferson HATED each other. All this from a guy with the worst possible childhood imaginable: “Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: thier father had vanished, thier mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, 16, and Alexander, 14, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. At every step in their rootless, topsy-turvy existence, they had been surrounded by failed, broken, embittered people. Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths, scandals, and disinheritance. Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being-that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen-seems little short of miraculous.”

This is an interesting take on the future of medicine. The author’s friend broke his neck skiing at Sun Valley. X-rays showed that he had an inoperable tumor at the base of his skull. This potentially fatal tumor, that would have otherwise gone unnoticed was treated and killed off. The author then develops a tenderness in HIS neck and worries it might be cancer. His background is managing hedge funds in the tech industry, so he wonders why medicine can’t get the benefits of scale that are so common in tech: over time tech gets smaller, faster, cheaper. I’ve wondered the same thing. He sees medicine becoming better at predicting disease and treating it earlier. Being proactive instead of reactive. There is lots of research into finding markers that precede disease. An area of nuclear pharmacy called PET figures prominently in where he sees medicine heading.

My brother loaned me this book about Beck Weathers. He was climbing Everest in ’96 when that storm killed~12 people in one day. This guy was dead when they checked him, but he came back to life. Ended up losing both hands and most of his face. The book ends up being mostly about his depression that got him into climbing at the expense of his family.

lois loaned me this book. I’m about 1/3 the way into this one. Great details on 9/11. This guy needs to be president.

This summer was amazing in the NW. It was sunny and warm (even hot sometimes) ALL SUMMER. June is usually wet, July hit or miss and August is money for being nice. This summer it was dry and warm THE WHOLE TIME. Fall has been gorgeous, too. This week it has been upper 70s, low 80s all week with cool nights. It was great being back in town after spending another week in Loma Linda. I’m on my third week of working early and day 12 of a 19 day run, so I’m tired, but invigorated by the great weather.

Grace is back at it with soccer. She is so fun to watch out there. Once again she is the smallest, but that doesn’t stop her from being the most aggressive and most determinded player out there. She scored two goals Wednesday night. Dylan is back into roller hockey. He’s gone from being the oldest to the youngest, so it’s more challenging and more competitive. Gavin is about half way through his football season. They finally won one last Saturday.

Shannon and I saw “The Illusionist” this week because it was showing at the right time and had decent reviews. It was a cool movie: great acting, a little slow-moving, great scenery and an interesting story.

Another week in Loma Linda meant another trip to Fogo de Chao and another trip to Ameoba. Found more cheap DVDs including a great one called New York Doll, which is about the bass player of one of the most influential punk bands of the 70′s and how he ended up working at the family history center at the LA LDS temple. Quite a story!