Dylan and I went on a 10 mile bike ride yesterday. We did a fun downhill mountian bike trail in Forest Park, then rode into town. It was freezing, so we stopped at a French bakery for a chocolate croissant and hot chocolate. After that we rode across the river to the Rose Garden to get tickets for the Lumberjax lacrosse season opener that night. I stepped out of line to call Shannon to see how many tickets to get, then some lady came up and gave me 4 tickets and wouldn’t take any money for them. The game was great. Lumberjax got an early lead, other team came back, Jax scored right at the end to send it into sudden death OT. Jax won on their first posession.

Finished the year out at a paltry 1833 miles. Goal for ’07: 3000 miles.

Fun quiz from yesterday’s wsj (I answered about half correctly):

In China, 2006 has been the year of the dog. Here in the U.S., it’s been the year of the donkey, as Democrats gleefully planned to take control of both houses of Congress. But from the beginning of the year to the present day, many other events and personalities were vying for a niche in whatever cells control your long-term memory. We offer this quiz to test your recall, at least for now, of times recently past. (Answers to follow)

1. “I knew he loved Elvis — I didn’t realize how much he loved Elvis,” said one June visitor to Graceland about a companion. Who said it? About whom?

a. Barbara Walters joking about Donald Trump
b. Barbra Streisand referring to Supreme Court Justice David Souter
c. Donald Rumsfeld speaking of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
d. George W. Bush referring to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
e. Hillary Rodham Clinton talking about Charles Schumer

2. In April, word came that China had banned foreign magazines on all topics except two. Choose the permitted duo:

a. science and technology
b. religion and philosophy
c. business and finance
d. arts and literature
e. politics and government

3. In the White House lexicon, “The Way Forward” has replaced “Stay the Course” as an inspirational slogan in matters regarding Iraq. The new mantra, certainly not original, is also employed by which of the following?

a. the Roman Catholic Church, in a bid to attract new priests.
b. the Boy Scouts, to promote diversity
c. Ford Motor Co., symbolizing its restructuring to stem declines in North America.
d. China, summarizing its efforts to repopulate rural areas.
e. the AARP, denoting a campaign advocating free prescription drugs for seniors.

4. True or false?

Jewelry given to Ellen Barkin by her ex-husband, financier Ronald Perelman, fetched slightly under $11 million at a Christies auction.

5. Among the year’s honorees were the following five individuals. Each one was awarded a coveted prize in his or her field, but none is yet a household name. Match each of the five with one of the 10 listed awards.

Orhan Pamuk, John Lloyd Young, Rachel Weisz, Claudia Emerson, Kiran Desai

Tony for best actor in a musical
Pulitzer Prize for poetry
Oscar for Best Supporting Actress
Man Booker Prize for fiction
Olympic Gold medal (snowboarding)
National Book Award (nonfiction)
Grammy (best new artist)
Country Music Award (best female vocalist)
Nobel Prize for Literature
Heisman Trophy

6. The Centers for Disease Control recommended that people between the ages of 13 and 64 should be tested for which of the following:

a. HIV
b. plague
c. E. coli
d. mumps
e. avian flu

7. In the U.S., Philips Electronics NV, Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. risked offending certain sensibilities by teaming up on store displays for the DVD release of what movie:

a. “Apocalypto”
b. “An Inconvenient Truth”
c. “World Trade Center”
d. “Lady in the Water”
e. “Brokeback Mountain”

8. Mutual funds began to offer BRICs to investors interested in emerging markets. The acronym indicates the name of four such markets. Name the four.

9. John Snow and Lawrence Summers have in common that each served as a U.S. Treasury secretary, Mr. Snow under George W. Bush and Mr. Summers under Bill Clinton, whose daughter, Chelsea, has something in common with both former cabinet members. Earlier this year, each of the three:

a. campaigned for Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton
b. was fired
c. took a professorial post at Yale
d. joined a hedge fund
e. received an honorary degree from Stanford

10. In the congressional elections, much was made of the fact that a victory for Nancy Pelosi would put her second in line of succession to the presidency. What’s the title of the individual who is third in line?

a. secretary of state
b. chief justice of the Supreme Court
c. president pro tempore of the Senate
d. Senate majority leader
e. to be decided by special election

11. Match each sum with one of the descriptions.

a. $85 million
b. $17 million
c. $15 million
d. $345 million
e. $8 million

1. fine paid by CA Inc. ex-CEO Sanjay Kumar for securities fraud
2. CBS anchor Katie Couric’s yearly salary
3. price paid by Ronald Lauder for a painting by Klimt
4. Viacom Inc.’s severance payment to fired CEO Tom Freston
5. cost of making the film “Borat”

12. Michelle Bachelet made news around the world. Who is she?

a. Canadian skier who won 3 gold medals at the Winter Olympics
b. U.S. writer whose first novel won the Pulitzer Prize.
c. Chilean politician who was elected president of her country.
d. French actress who tried to sabotage the Cannes Film Festival.
e. Vietnamese businesswoman whose diamond empire collapsed.

13. The book was lauded, then trashed by Oprah, sparked lawsuits and reader returns and generally scandalized the publishing industry. Name it and its author.

14. Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer Inc., Burger King Holdings and Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. are all traded on the Big Board. What else did they have in common this year?

a. shareholder revolt
b. called on the carpet by Senate hearing
c. fought off a hostile takeover
d. ousted a CEO
e. moved headquarters

15. Exiled ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London, died of exposure to the radioactive element polonium 210. In the course of the investigation, the poison has been found in all of the following places, with the exception of:

a. British Airways planes
b. London’s Ritz Hotel
c. Itsu, a London sushi restaurant
d. a home in Hamburg
e. London’s Millennium Hotel

Christmas Eve we finished delivering gifts, went to church, then went and had dinner and hung out with friends.

The kids started stirring before 6 AM, but let us sleep until 6:30. Santa was generous, especially to me. I got a Nikon D80 with a couple lenses: takes breath-taking photos. I’m signed up for the Nikon DSLR class in Seattle next month. My 2nd generation iPod turned 4 on Christmas. Still going strong. I’ve talked to lots of people with dead or dying iPods. Shannonn’s 2 y/o mini needs a new battery. A couple months ago our ancient PS2 died, so we got a new one for cheap the day after Thanksgiving. Then Gavin got the old one working again. They were still excited to get one that allows more than 2 players, plays ALL the new games, plays DVDs, etc. Last week we found out about Dylan’s eye issues and video games, so the timing wasn’t great for him.

We spent Christmas night with some friends we met in SF who have since moved up here. Got to check out their Wii.

Merry Christmas!!

It’s been a busy, fun week leading up to Christmas. After two weeks out of town (IN DEC!!) it’s been great to be home. Just got back from seeing”The Pursuit of Happyness” with friends. Great movie, but really puts you through the wringer emotionally. Took the kids to see “Night at the Museum” this afternoon. Really fun show! The audience applauded at the end. I don’t think I’ve experienced that since “The Incredibles”. We discovered that Playstation and TV interfere with Dylan’s vision therapy. He had been working at it really hard, so for positive reinforcement we let him play more. The therapist noticed he was regressing a bit. Everyone is cutting way back to be supportive. We’ve been playing alot of card games and doing puzzles. It’s fun, but not as easy as vegging in front of the TV.

Yesterday I took Grace to see the Nutcracker on our 3rd annual trip. We both had a great time. Grace lasted thru both acts and understood what was going on since she’s been watching a Barbie Nutcracker DVD.

Shannon was brave and hosted white elephant gift parties for 10 boys Wednesday and 6 girls on Thursday. Discovered that boys are LOUD and that DRAMA swirls around girls. Dylan had his hockey playoff this week. His team was the 1st place seed and won the championship game, All the games were close and fun to watch. Dylan scored, but was moving especially slow that night. I took the boys to “Eragon”. They liked it, I thought it was OK, but seemed to borrow heavily from “Lord of the Rings”. Checked out the BYU-Oregon bowl game with friends. It was cool to see BYU play well, but Oregon was a BIG disappointment.

Our science museum has a cool Star Wars exhibit going on, All kinds of models and costumes from the movies and lots of interactive exhibits. Big hit with the boys in the family.

Grace had her first piano recital last week. She did great. She took Dylan’s spot with the teacher Gavin started with a couple years ago. Gavin played “Silent Night” at the church Christmas party.

Best new Christmas CD this year: Sarah McLachlan: Wintersong. She has an amazing voice.

I spent last week in Austin, Texas at a national sales meeting. It wasn’t actually in Austin, rather a luxury Hyatt resort 20 miles outside Austin. We did make it into town one night. The company rented Buffalo Billiards and a cool local band for the night. Even the band that played the sales banquet was 100x better than any of the cheesy bands that usually play for our corporate events. There was even a band playing at the airport. Very cool town.

The trip home was more exciting than it needed to be. I connected thru Denver. Right as I was checking to see if I could get on an earlier flight they cancelled both of the flights to Portland that night due to weather. There were 80+ mph winds at the airport. I got on a flight to Seattle. They were having high winds, too. As we were leaving they told us we may be spending the night in Boise if the wind got worse. We landed, took a big gust of wind from the north, then made it to the gate. Parked at the gate, the plane was rocking like a boat from the wind gusts. Never experienced that before. I had just enough time to drive a rental home and go into work for a couple hours. There were at least a dozen huge pine trees that had fallen onto I-5. They were using snowplows to clear the trees and debris off the road. Got pushed into the other lane by the wind a few times. Our power was out for 12 hours. The outside Christmas lights got banged up a bit, but no other damage.

This winter has quite a body count going. It’s sad: the dad from the Bay area that got stuck in the snow, the climbers on Mt Hood.

Dylan had his hockey playoff game last night. They went in as the 1st place team and won there game. He scored a goal, but was moving in slow motion the whole game. Too many late nights and not enough food before the game, perhaps.

Gavin was bored at church, so Shannon told him to write out a list of family rules. He could only come up with two: no Nintendo or PS2 on Sunday and no flips on the trampoline.

Spent week five in Loma Linda training a new pharmacist. Hopefully next month will be my last trip down there. At least it was 80 degrees and sunny. All the travel has put a damper on my cycling. I won’t even break 2000 miles this year.

We got the Christmas tree Thursday night and decorated it Friday night. Nasty weather was threatening all week, but we managed to be south of the worst of it.

I have a bigger external hard drive this year, so the “Christmas” playlist on the iPod comes in at a whopping 12.4 hours. I’ll add the instrumental-only and bump it up a by a couple hours. Back in the day I remember stacking 4-5 records on the turntable. That was good for 3 hours, but it didn’t shuffle.

Found out that the lady that cuts our hair had a nuclear medicine scan with a dose from our pharmacy. I hardly ever see the end results of our work, so it was cool to hear her story. She was having horrible stomach pain so she went to the doctor. Doctor couldn’t find anything, but suspected it was her gallbladder. She was refered to a hospital we service and was injected with Tc-99m Mebrofenin. Most scans are normal, so the doctor can be forgiven for being excited about her failed gallbladder. Plus he is a world renowned expert in the field. She had it removed 3 days later and felt better right away.

We might participate in phase II clinical trials for a drug that is synthetic scorpion venom. It has the unique property of crossing the blood brain barrier with radioactive iodine in-tow to blast brain tumors. Phase I showed promising results.

Saw the new Bond movie yesterday…best one in a LONG time. I knew I was in good hands when the theme song started and it was Chris Cornell of Audioslave. Great song, great movie.