dave goodlett's blog: December 2018

For our 31^st wedding anniversary we traveled to Italy and Croatia, two places we both adore. While there I spoke twice at the Croatian Biophysics Society Summer school held in Split, which is where the Roman Emperor built his retirement palace. It was originally more like a fortress of course (www.diocletianspalace.org) which the modern city grew up around and into. Now melded seamlessly, the two are difficult to distinguish. We stayed at Marmontova apartments (www.marmontsplit.com/) run by a lovely family that put us only five minutes walk from the promenade where we consumed lots of sea air, wine and coffee at the many outdoor cafes.

Split's food fresh and prepared

From Split we flew to Rome and took the train to Florence where I spoke at a workshop at the International Mass Spectrometry Conference (www.imsc2018.it/). We had both only ever been in Florence for one day each but not together. As time at the conference permitted we explored from a base at hotel Brunelleschi (www.brunelleschihotelflorence.com/) in the old town very near the Duomo. We skipped the Duomo tour due to long lines but went through the museum next to it, which contains loads of stone carved frescos from the original Gothic façade to the cathedral. Well worth the visit just to see how folk use to learn about what was in the bible. LOL ... For example, I learned that Noah was fond of wine and going commando (lower right panel below where the actual caption was "Drunk Noah" LOL ... and just above you can see that Eve really did come out of Adam's side).

Old and new art of Florence

From Florence we spent a day in Rome and then were off to Dubrovnik to visit with the Master Hotelier of the Sesame (www.bbsesameinn.com/en-gb/photos), Misko Ecergovic. He always hugs Donna straight away on exiting the taxi ignoring me while collecting her baggage. Because he is one of those people who instantly make you feel like family, most nights he took the time to buy us nightcaps at a local seaside café. Previously, we would just sit at his place, the Sesame (www.sesame.hr), where is partner Marina is the head chef and have drinks. Now though he has leased it out to better enjoy his family, but with Marina in place as chef the food remains delicious. The "retired" and well-seasoned Misko has lots of stories and opinions about life. For example, he favors the Socratic form of education which is difficult to accommodate in the modern education system. Adding to Misko's world view is the time he and his son were interred in a “concentration” camp during part of the Croatian Independence War (1991-1995). The Sesame Inn and restaurant are both in a stone building long owned by the family with the rooms decorated by artwork from when the lower floors were an art gallery.

Dubrovnik scenes

No visit to Dubrovnik would be complete without a stay in Cavtat, which is the village closest to the airport. If you can afford it, Hotel Croatia is the place to stay (hotel-croatia.cavtat.hotels-hr.com/en/). An all-inclusive resort built during Yugoslav times it was briefly occupied by Montenegrin forces during the war. A short stroll around the bay takes you to one of our favorite restaurants, Bugenvila (bugenvila.eu/). The harbor water is so clean and clear that you could literally jump in for a swim after dinner or maybe just to float around.

Scenes from Lokrum

Scenes from Cavtat

Meanwhile in Baltimore, other things happened that kept us occupied in 2018. Some good. Some, not so good. In my case, I continued to search for a new home for the lab. Insert the politics of academics, which makes everything more complicated than it needs to be, and the best I can say is that we love living in Baltimore but my job - not so much. I can only say here that the power brokers of academic politics are often outside the reaches of the normal legal system leaving Professors to fend for themselves. Hopefully, the situation will resolve in 2019. On the bright side of 2018 at work, six students graduated from the lab with their Doctor of Philosophy degrees (aka PhD = piled higher and deeper). This was really a great bunch of students who either began in year one or two after our move here in 2013. When I first started in academics in 2004, Sam Miller - a colleague in Seattle who was a few years ahead of me - said that students keep you young. Absolutely true. In many ways they are like adopted children who grow into young adulthood while with you. It's a blessing to have so many of them to enrich my life.

Baltimore scenes

In January Graham, having been at College Park for only a week of his 4^th semester, was back home unable to go on. After three semesters of success in math and physics and chemistry, he had just been admitted to the very competitive Chemical Engineering program at the University of Maryland. Going back to his start, the night before starting at College Park in Fall 2016 he received a Lyme disease diagnosis and started antibiotic therapy. However, by January 2018 his symptoms were worse to the point where he was dealing with so much pain that he had to drop out being unable to use his hands except like you might with no opposable thumb. For him, 2018 went by going through various therapies, but his symptoms did not resolve. We are now more convinced than before that his symptoms are not due to Lyme and have begun the process of going through various specialists to try to sort out this medical mystery.

Mint and Ham

Mint (aka David Minter) continued the year at College Park without his brother and in their kinesiology program and will probably also end with a minor in business from his time at Towson University. We think he’ll finish Fall 2019 and then who knows. Medical school? Graduate school? Physical therapy school? Time to decide later because like his second grade math teacher explained to us during a conference “this kid will never die of a heart attack”. At least in public he never seems to lose his cool, which is an admirable trait. This though cannot be said of his watching Auburn University football games. Given the team’s woes this year, the curses flew fast and furious at the TV. So animated were he and I during games that Trixie usually left the room after just a few minutes into the first quarter. War Eagle, damnit!!!!

In a story line that might be heard in a country song, the dog - Trixie - cost me at least $2000 when one of her toes was remove due to a malignancy. We were told this was cheaper than chemotherapy. Chemotherapy? For a dog? Yep. It's a thing. So, I thought to myself - self - this is thousands more than the standard American veterinary care in the back country that my Grandpa administered as needed. Not long after the toe was removed, she went in to have a tooth removed. Back home, she was missing five teeth! When I asked how much that cost, “you don't want to know” was the reply. However, it had to be cheaper than the crown put on one of my molars recently. When I told Donna this would cost $340, she growled “why didn’t insurance pay@#$%!?” to which I replied “they paid half”. LOL. C'est la vie. I still don't know how much the dog’s dental work cost, but more than mine I bet@#$%^&*!

Donna continues to work at Sunlight Natural Health (sunlightnaturalhealth.com/) helping out in the office. She also spent the year as a patient of Arivale (www.arivale.com), a company founded by my former boss Leroy Hood (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Hood) at the Institute for Systems Biology (systemsbiology.org). Arivale use massive amounts of patient specific data they collect along with lifestyle surveys to reshape your biochemistry by reshaping your interactions with the world. This is certainly one version of the future of personalized medicine that I recommend keeping an eye on. As an aside, early in the year Donna received the results of her 23andme genomic analysis (www.23andme.com). As expected given our geographic genealogy for the last couple hundred years she was mostly Irish, English and Scot but there was a small % of Finnish of all things. No idea where this came from if not from some Finns involved in the Viking raids of the UK. I'm waiting on my kit but I'll be shocked if it is much different than hers save for perhaps the Finnish component.

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram (instagram.com/davegoodlett/) and twitter (twitter.com/goodlettlab1) and for now in Baltimore but who knows where we might be this time next year. We are only 20 minutes drive from BWI airport and 10 minutes walk to Penn station, which takes you to WA DC in 45 minutes or NYC in a couple hours. So, please stop by when you are in town.

Happy Holidays from the Baltimore Goodletts ...