Rachel's wedding

Alex and I had a truly, wonderfully, spectacular, outstanding time at a dear friend's wedding a few weeks ago. We dropped B off with my parents and then drove down to Atlantic City. Timing was getting a little tight, so I ended up doing my hair in the car, and taking photos of the back of my head while I tried to get it all pinned right!

After whirlwind formal-wear-donning, Alex escorted his two dates (Sara and me) through the casino to find seats for the outdoor ceremony. There was a beautiful chuppah and many, many elegantly dressed people! The ceremony was lovely and Rachel was absolutely glowing.

Dartmouth '03! Plus Marc, who is now adopted into the group.

The reception was a gala event...the dance floor was set up over a pool, and there was a swinging 10-piece band.

Lots of dancing...in between lots of eating of delicious food!

All us Dartmouthians, plus dates, were at the same table. It was a great flashback to good times in Hanover!

And it was really fun to have some grown-up party time.

After we closed down the reception, we moved to one of the bars in the casino, where we got to spend some more time hanging out with Rachel and drinking yummy things. It was a delight of an evening...mazel tov, Rachel!

Corn maze!

Just a Theory

This was going to be a letter to the editor back in late August, when Gov. Rick Perry was the new hotness in the GOP presidential field, and had just concluded his first sweep through the Granite State. I set it aside for later editing and polishing (and cutting down to 300 words or less), and BAM! six weeks pass. Rick Perry is down, Herman Cain is up, ever-flexible Romney just keeps chugging along. For the purposes of this letter it doesn't matter much: the entire Republican field, more or less, has demonstrated great disdain and naivete about science.

According to Rick Perry, global warming is an unproven theory created by scientists to secure grants, and evolution is "just a theory that is out there" with a bunch of gaps. In these statements, Rick Perry has shown not only a profound ignorance about science, but also his disqualifications to be President.

To say that a scientific theory is "just a theory" is as understated and naive as saying that the Presidency is “just a job”; as though such labels carry no weight. For a theory to be labeled as such, it needs to withstand considerable and continuous rigor. A theory is a comprehensive body of work. It is a self-consistent explanation of observed phenomena that allows us to both understand and predict how the world works. This is an important distinction from the oft-conflated term hypothesis, which is a tentative explanation that has yet to be thoroughly tested and verified. Theories are never fully proven: they become established over time by consistently standing up to evidence. The more places you can find that evidence, and the more places you can apply the theory, the better. Theories can be modified and extended without forfeiting their essentials. Theories needn't be gap-free to be accurate statements. Newton's Theory of Gravity, for instance, is not a wholly accurate theory for black holes, nor did he posit a mechanism for action at a distance. Nevertheless, Newton's gravity is excellent for predicting the motions of the planets or landing on the Mars.

If Governor Perry thinks that General Relativity is just a theory, I ask him to hand over his GPS. Try explaining to an earthquake victim, or the entire oil and gas industry for that matter, that Plate Tectonics is just a theory. If Quantum Mechanics is just a theory, well, please give up all your electronics. If evolution is of no use, please sit by the bedside of someone dying of MRSA.

Theories can be falsified: we have formulated, accepted, disproven, and discarded more theories than we have kept. But neither evolution nor global warming have been broadly disproven. That is not just my belief: that is what the overwhelming weight of the evidence and majority of the global scientific community says.

Much of our present strength rests on science. Our future as a nation and global society will be determined, in no small part, on science and technology. You don't get to pick and choose what science to believe, and what science to casually reject. Nor do you get to enjoy the benefits of past science while blithely ignoring the consequences of present science. If Governor Perry thinks so little about science, then he is simply not qualified to be President.

Anyone else wish we could see a science debate in 2012? I won't hold my breath.

Slice, Chop, Repeat

Although we try to eat with the seasons, and eat locally where possible, we still use 1-4 peppers a week for much of the year. In winter, they come from greenhouses in Mexico and Holland, and that just doesn't sit right with us.

But it's not quite winter yet: it's harvest time. Even though peppers are supposed to be a summer crop, here in New Hampshire they don't start turning colors until mid-September. We've still got a whole slew that are racing the end of the season with lots of green still showing. But, amazingly enough, we have gotten some from our garden already, and have stocked up when possible at the Farmer's Market. We cut them and freeze them for later use. Break out the whetstone - I like a sharp blade for this kind of work!

Before:

After:

Siri

I haven't got an iPhone 4S, and probably won't have one anything soon. Hilary's contract is up sooner, she might get one to replace her aging 3GS. I am, however, very intrigued by the neat addition: Siri, the voice-recognizing, speech synthesizing personal assistant. Ask her a question in natural english, get an answer. It's not a new idea (a mainstay of sci-fi for the last 75 years, I'd say). It's not new to personal electronics (Android has had something similar for a few years now). It isn't even new to Apple (my powermac G3 in college, sporting OS 9, had a short list of speakable commands). But this appears to be the most sophistocated and natural implementation to date. David Pogue has a good writeup here.

But, of course, it wouldn't be new whiz-bang technology without being (mis)used for lowbrow fun and entertainment. I present you with this compilation of odd conversations Joshua Topolsky has had with his iPhone recently. Example below from his blog:

Orlando

Almost as soon as Alex got back from the Pyrenees, I was off to Orlando for the family medicine chief resident conference, which is held in conjunction with the American Academy of Family Physicians Scientific Assembly.

My co-chief Shauna and I got to meet with more than 200 other chiefs—which was great—as well as attend many of the sessions at the continuing education conference. But the highlight of the trip was an evening that the AAFP rented out the Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios...which includes the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Shauna, who is not a huge Harry Potter fan, was a really good sport about the whole thing.

We started off with a great dinner in the park:

Heading into the exhibits:

They had these lights up on many of the big walls in the park. It was a good night to be a family doctor!

Here I am with my butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks. It's like really, really sweet cream soda with a marshmallowy head on it. Brynna is going to LOVE it when we eventually bring her.

In Weasley's Wizard Wheezes wiht an extendable ear:

Though there are no photos, I swear I spent most of my time in windowless rooms discussing leadership and brushing up on a variety of medical topics. And I ran a 5K race at 6:30 in the morning, cause it was too darn hot to have a race at any other time of day.

But the day we left, I decided it was finally time to sit out and have a drink by the pool. The hotel even had a Lazy River to float inner tubes on!

Good times. But I bet it'll be even better the next time I go to Orlando, cause I hope it'll be with Alex and B!

Pitch Pine Tri

This past Saturday was our last triathlon of the season.

The day started out well—we had to wake B up at 6 AM to head up north for the race, and she just yawned and stretched and said, "Is it time for the race?" What a good little sport she is!

This race was also the New England Club championships, so we had a BIG turnout from our awesome team. Alex and I got to set up in transition right across from each other, and he was sandwiched in between two more teammates.

For the second race in a row, I felt really comfortable in the water...though this time I had to cope with Alex's wave storming by me at the second buoy! (He was right out there in the front of that wave along with a couple of other familiar faces from the team.) The bike was fun, though not as many hills as I'd like. And the run was partly on dirt roads, which was very pleasant, and though out-and-backs are a bit boring, I got to see TONS of teammates out on the course, including Alex.

Alex would like to note that hiking in the Pyrenees (or perhaps more precisely eating rich French food in the Pyrenees) is not the best preparation for a 5K run.

Our team won second place overall, and I turned out to be third in my age group and brought home a cute glass mug as a prize.

Here's our fabulous crew:

Time to start training for next season!

Packaging FAIL

I swear, I just opened up the box and took the photo. Seriously, Amazon???? Seriously????

Yes, that's one tiny Timex watch box, stuck in one corner and surrounded by plastic balloons.