NaBloPoMo

Send in the clones

May 1, 2009 by kathi

Canine cloning experiments have both fascinated and repelled me since the start of the Missyplicity Project in 1998. I am not a very religious person, but the element of playing God just does not sit right with me. Everyone wishes their beloved pet could live forever, but cloning will never be the way to get there. Genetics is important, but so is environment. There is no way to duplicate all of the external events that helped to shape any creature’s life.

Genetic modification smacks even further of playing God. This week’s announcement of the cloned fluorescent beagles left me with a whole gamut of conflicting feelings. The thought of planting disease-related genes in these dogs makes me very uncomfortable. But the thought that these techniques will be used to find cures for human genetic disease intrigues me and gives me hope. Then my feelings go in the opposite direction when I wonder what would happen if someone with a lot of money, no brains and no ethics wanted to buy one of these fluorescent dogs as a novelty item or status symbol. Notice I do not say “pet.”

Back in 2001 during a visit to Honolulu’s Bishop Museum, I saw the fluorescent mice from an earlier cloning experiment. They left me with this same vaguely uneasy feeling. Again, the technology and science angle was fascinating. The ethical implications, fascinating in a very different way.

I would be so much more able to accept all of this if there was some more public and visible evidence that progress was being made, and to see that we are in fact approaching a cure to any one of the genetic diseases that affect so many human lives. I guess all we can do is wait and see.

(NaBloPoMo | May ’09: 1 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 97 of 274)

Will April showers bring May flowers? (30 of 30/96 of 274)

April 30, 2009 by kathi

With the amount of April showers that we’ve had this year, we should be buried up to our eyeballs in May flowers. Of course, that will mean May allergies as well, so maybe that’s not such a good thing. Those allergies have been bothering me for most of the night, so this post will be rather short.

Another month of NaBloPoMo is now history, and a new one starts tomorrow. See you all in the merry month of May!

Time for a museum visit? (29 of 30/95 of 274)

April 29, 2009 by kathi

One thing that I really love about Chicago is its wonderful museums. I also don’t visit them nearly often enough. With life and my own carelessness interfering, I’ve had to kick myself hard over missing two exhibitions that I would have truly enjoyed.

There is a billboard that I see every work day as I get off the highway downtown. It often advertises the current or upcoming special exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). I am slightly puzzled about the special attraction opening tomorrow, Harry Potter: The Exhibition. Being neither scientific nor industrial, nor even real, it doesn’t seem to me to quite fit in the venue. I am sure it will be very popular, though. It does appear to feature many items from the Harry Potter movies, so I guess if it includes such things as the special effects and animatronics used for the mythical creatures, that’s technological enough to be appropriate for MSI.

Understand that despite the worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter books and movies, I have not read a single one of the books, nor have I seen more than a trailers’ worth of any of the movies. Despite the assurances of many people whose taste and judgment I usually agree with that they were worth a look, I just had absolutely no interest. That makes me fairly unusual, though not unique by any means.

So my visit to MSI might be postponed until the next special attraction arrives. But! Remember those exhibitions I missed over the last couple of years? It looks like I am being given a second chance at seeing both of them at museums within easy driving distance!

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit is at the Milwaukee Public Museum until May 25. That means I’ll have to nail down a date and actually do some non-careless planning pretty quickly. I have always been interested in the Titanic disaster, and even more so in the recovery of artifacts. I had no intention of ever watching the movie, but the underwater scenes at the beginning just sucked me in, and I was shocked to find myself absolutely loving it. The Titanic exhibition was at MSI in 2000 and 2002, so you see I have stupidly missed it not just once, but twice, in Chicago. Milwaukee is only about an hour and a half away, so this is obviously a sign that I definitely have to see it this time.

Indianapolis is about three hours away, and good things don’t seem to happen to me once I cross the state line into Indiana, but it could be worth the trip anyway this time to see Tutankhamun The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Unlike the Titanic exhibition, which I managed to miss totally and completely, I have seen Tutankhamun relics before. I did stupidly miss the current exhibition when it came to the Field Museum in 2006, but I saw the original Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, also at the Field Museum, in 1977. That was also probably the last time I willingly waited in a long line for hours, and wasn’t pissed off about it. I was also fortunate enough to get the opportunity to visit it again the following year on a vacation to Seattle. I understand that the gold death mask is no longer allowed out of Egypt and thus not part of the current tour, so I feel very lucky to have been able to see the original exhibition twice.

Again, the relative proximity of this museum is a sign that I must not screw up again!

Freya’s training notes (28 of 30/94 of 274)

April 28, 2009 by kathi

Due to the wet weather, Freya and I didn’t get very much training in over the last week. We did get a couple of days of nice weather. Those days fell before I had finished printing up a set of rally obedience signs, so I didn’t get a chance to set up a practice course in the back yard.

From AKC's official Rally Obedience Rules

Each sign has a graphic and a few words to describe the exercise to perform at that station. We practiced some of the exercises in the kitchen. The exercises that can, and in fact should, be done in a small space include 270° left and right turns, 360° left and right circles, call front-left and right finishes, sit and halt, and down and halt. So we did get in some training specifically for the rally obedience exercises.

The sunny days were probably not used to best advantage in terms of training, but Freya thought they were just fine with time to play ball and wrestle with Axel.

freya_dscn0097
Here she is in heel position at my left side, wondering why I’m pointing a camera in her face instead of holding a treat or a toy for her.

freya_dscn0098
Here she is right after coming in for an almost perfectly straight front (we have issues with good fronts), wondering why a light is flashing at her instead of my hand signaling her to go around me to finish.

I think we’re ready for a good hour of training at tomorrow night’s drop-in class!

Memories almost lost (27 of 30/93 of 274)

April 27, 2009 by kathi

I didn’t think the upcoming closing of Geocities would have much of an effect on me. Like everyone else who was on the ‘net 15 years ago, I did have a Geocities page at one time. Even back then, it wasn’t my “real” website, but just another free service and another excuse to post some pictures of my Rottweilers (my very first Rottweilers) and a link to my real website. It disappeared a while ago due to inactivity and I barely even noticed.

I help maintain websites for a few friends, and the ones who started out on Geocities have long since moved either to my VPS, to Yahoo! Small Business Hosting, or to one of the many discount web hosts who charge less than $10 per month and whose names I barely remember.

All around the ‘net, people are either wallowing in overly sentimental reminiscences about their first websites at Geocities, or else snarking about how bad the service was. Archive Team is in the process of saving as many Geocities sites as possible. They say they’ve already archived everything from 1999 and before.

I didn’t think any of this affected me. Until I was looking through my Rottweiler bookmarks and realized that one of the sites has a photo and story about my dear departed Jake’s sire Aiko. Obviously that link won’t work whenever we reach “later this year.” I don’t know if the web site owner plans to archive or move his site. I’ve never saved the photo and story (just for personal use of course), and I would be very sad if I could never see them again.

So check your bookmarks and see if anything you cherish is out there on Geocities. Just in case.