Christmas 2016

C  h  r  i  s  t  m  a  s      2  0  1  6

A few days before he was due to move into his dormitory at College Park, Graham received a diagnosis that he had a Lyme disease infection. Terrible news, but at least we could now explain the mysterious aches and pains in his joints that had gotten worse over the course of the Winter of 2016. The primary organism causing Lyme’s symptoms, Borrelia burgdorferi, prefers synovial fluid as its home in mammals, which in turn is why it can lead to arthritis like symptoms. Way back in January of 2016 Graham had been the picture of a healthy 18 year old setting a personal best bench press record of 235 lbs. At 150 lbs he was then 10 lbs heavier than me, but half the body fat! This record had come through hard work and determination to stay on a diet and work out regime designed to build muscle. He has now not worked out since roughly May due to the lethargy, aches and pains that accompany the infection.

I also had a bit of a health scare this year. It ended with me waking up in the emergency room seeing a nurse coming up each pant leg with scissors. Yeah! Not an unusual dream, but in this case it was no dream and my pants were soaked in blood. As they tossed the jeans aside I recalled fainting as I was checking myself into the ER. Apparently, I made a bloody mess all over the receptionist’s rug. She also almost fainted! Regardless, I highly recommend this approach to those not wanting to wait endless hours in the ER. A few minutes before passing out as I was walking into the ER Donna, who dropped me off, said “are you, OK” to which I replied “yep”. I was, but only long enough to tell the receptionist my name and that I had had a colonoscopy that morning. 

All had gone well after the routine colonoscopy until a few hours after getting home when I got my first period, so to speak. Ugh. That didn’t happen with my first colonoscopy years before. There was no mistaking the sight of bright red blood where it shouldn’t as a problem that needed solving. A couple of phone calls to the doctor later and it was clear the only thing to do was go to the ER. All’s well that ends well, I reckon. Kudos to the ER staff and intermediate care nurses who treated me like family for the several days I was in hospital. So, much for preventative medicine, but I still encourage you all to have a routine and hopefully uneventful colonoscopy.

On a more positive note, Graham finished high school well enough to receive a President’s Merit award at the University of Maryland which provides $20k over four years of study. Given his interests in hormones, metabolism and the differences in individual outcomes on the same training regime, he has started a degree in the chemistry-biochemistry program. That meant a typical tough first semester with chemistry and calculus, but it seems he has in the end done well and will continue in the program next semester.

Meanwhile at Towson University, and only about 20 minutes from our home, David also had a good semester in their business program. Unlike Graham’s interest in biochemistry, he is not sure if wants to continue in a business curriculum. What is certain is that his health has vastly improved on humira allowing him to also move out into a dormitory and to focus on school in a way he could not before. He is hoping to transfer to College Park in the Fall and next semester’s grades will tell the tale of whether they let him in or not. The University of Maryland is quite competitive being ranked just below the University of Washington, which was the other school Graham was accepted to.

With our nest cleared out, we relaxed a bit and went on our first Empty Nest Tour. This took us in to Croatia in October. First to Zagreb where I spoke at a Lost in Translation event – yes, I’m always working – and where we made it to Mirogoj Cemetery, one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world and Plitvice Lakes a UNESCO heritage site of stunning beauty with hundreds of waterfalls. From Zagreb we flew south to Cavtat for a couple days, and then Dubrovnik – Lokrum for a few more days, the latter two of which are filming sites for Game of Thrones. 

In Dubrovnik we stayed with a long time acquaintance, Miško Ercegović, at his Sesame Inn and dined at his restaurant that makes no doubt the best beef carpaccio in the world … best in the world! Donna, not one to try anything exotic, went out on a limb and loved it. She even had the octopus carpaccio, which was delightfully light compared to the beef carpaccio.

Lokrum island was not quite the same as in July when I am usually there and when there is a deafening drone of cicadas, which evokes fond memories of my childhood in the South, but the island was still beautiful and still over run with peacocks. Fortunately, it was still warm enough to swim. On our last day in Dubrovnik we had an absolutely terrible meal at one of the side streets restaurants which I knew were hit or miss. A miss for sure, but we had nice company – a retired German teacher - and a bottle of Croatian malvazija, a white wine in the style of sauvignon blanc. Naturally that meal was followed by a nap, and then drinks in the Sesame’s bar with some exotic, local (odorous) cheese and homemade bread before dinner. All of this courtesy of Marina, a Cordon Bleu trained chef. Dinner saw another bottle of wine consumed. This time a Croatian red – a Plavic Mali. And, just as we were finishing along comes Misko, who was done hosting for the night, with a bottle champagne. It would have been rude to say no. So we three finished that too. Fortunately, all the walking we did meant there was never a hangover in sight!

Meanwhile back at the Baltimore brownstone, Donna got a new couch. It was only her third in 30 years, which seems to coincide with her new car every decade. Those new cars though are much too painful – for her body, as each prior one has been totaled in an accident that she walked away bruised and battered from along with my bank account – for me to discuss. Anyway, Trixie, who formerly ruled the old cloth couch, is not happy with the new leather one because she can’t quite get a grip to stay put, but no doubt she’ll adjust. With the empty nest, Donna is also back in the gym being trained by the stout young, handsome Dan who no doubt reminds her of the former much taller and handsomer me. Erh, well maybe.

Anyway, she is in fact glad to be back in the gym, which is good for all of us. We also made it once again to Seattle this year and this time for the wedding of Sonia Ting, a former programmer in my lab at the University of Washington. Was great to eat and drink with many of our old friends from our rainy Seattle child rearing days, many of whom also are now empty nesters. …  and at long last after years of discussion and before leaving Seattle, Donna got a tattoo! You’ll have to come for a visit though to see it. With the boys mostly away at University, we mostly have two vacant rooms with adjoining baths only 10 minutes walk from Baltimore's Penn station from which WA DC, NYC and Philly are a short ride away. So, feel free to come for a visit.

 Merry Christmas from the Baltimore Goodletts!

Dave and Mint at Mint’s 20^th birthday dinner.

Graham and Donna at Mint’s 20^th birthday dinner.

Mint, Mom, Dad, Graham, Donna and Dave at Graham’s high school graduation.

Donna in Seattle.

Dave on the Iron Throne on Lokrum island.

Dave and Donna at Mirogoj cemetery, Zagreb.

C A U T I O N    T R U M P    T R A I L E R
 

P.S. Its inescapable that I would close the letter without a comment on Trump’s victory. One thing for certain is that many of his election promises were idle ones. Spoken simply to win and now having done so he has started walking them back. Among others, why not investigate Clinton? Surely that will eventually bear fruit so that she can be locked up. Sadly, its much more likely that his attacks on the press will reinvigorate the spirit of Watergate resulting in his impeachment rather than her being locked up. But, before that happens I really hope someone takes away his twitter account. Geezus. He can't leave criticism alone, can he? As shown in the Frontline piece, which was possibly the most balanced piece of reporting all season on he and Clinton, rightly or wrongly he was (bigly) trained to double down on any and all criticism. That trait seems like a disaster waiting in the West wing, so to speak. Anyway, he is our President now. So I hope he is successful. As a conservative I know said "I survived Obama. So surely you can survive Trump". Let's hope so.

 

c h r i s t m a s 2 0 1 5

La famiglia relaxing at the Mariners versus Orioles game in Camden yards. Go M’s and for that matter Go Hawks!

The year started and ended for me with trips to Amsterdam. In January I spoke at a chromatography event (www.scm-7.nl) about our surface acoustic wave nebulization (SAWN) technology being commercialized by Deurion, LLC of Seattle (www.deurion.com). This company was set up in 2011 by me and Pat Langridge-Smith of Edinburgh. Its built around technologies developed as part of the RASOR consortium in Scotland. Unfortunately, the highly successful RASOR consortium has no web footprint outside of a mention on Pat’s website; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIRCAMS. 

Dave’s Subaru buried in Baltimore’s snow where the year started with a heck of a lot of snow. Not as much as Boston, but a lot.

In January Amsterdam was freezing cold, wet and overcast and in December the weather was different only in that it was not yet freezing. This last time I visited to speak at the Professorial inauguration of longtime friend and colleague, Garry Leander Corthals, at the University of Amsterdam; http://hims.uva.nl/shared-content/events/symposia/2015/12/casa-seminar.html. The Dutch take very serious the appointment of Professors as the inaugural lecture was given from the pulpit of the local church. It was a bit like an American church wedding in that the family was escorted out after the new Professor and then the attending Professors and then the general audience were allowed to leave. Even the after event had a line in waiting to speak to the new Professor just as we have for the bride and groom. 

December 2015 with Garry and Dave preparing for his inaugural address at the Academisch-cultureel centrum at SPUI 25 in Amsterdam (www.spui25.nl).

By midyear it was once again time for the annual Mass Spectrometry in Biotechnology and Medicine Summer School in Dubrovnik, Croatia (www.msbm.org). For me this is like Christmas in July because by July – just like December – I’m usually mentally exhausted and need a bit of a break. Most of the effort to set the event up takes place in the first couple of quarters of the year. So by the time we arrive most of the preparation is done leaving some time to relax with colleagues and the students. It is though still a bit chaotic with 45-50 participants and two dozen faculty. However, this year we had close to a record number at nearly 60 participants which was a bit much logistically. We managed, but having around 45 is some how a much easier number to organize food and exams and excursions for. Next year will be the tenth version of MSBM, but it hasn’t been held every year until recently. The first was held way back in 2001 in September. I was in Korea on 11 September that year and intending to fly to Croatia for the first MSBM. Was just as well because I could not come back to the US any way for about another week. At that time Dubrovnik still had the scars of war with many homes in the old town still having large holes in their red tile roofs from the bombs lobbed from the adjacent hill into the city. 

Above is the view from across the harbor in Cavtat looking out from Hotel Croatia, which is just to the South of Dubrovnik and much less crowded making it a better getaway than Dubrovnik.

At work the year ended with establishment of a Baltimore based company, Pataigin, LLC, set up with long time microbiology collaborator Robert Ernst to commercialize technology to more rapidly identify bacteria direct from specimen. In 2016 we plan to add more intellectual property to address needs in development of vaccine adjuvants and anti-inflammatory therapeutics. Erik Nilsson, whose origins are in the ethnic Swede-Finn minority of Finland, has been busy in 2015 running both Deurion and Pataigin from Seattle and at least for the moment does not seem sorry our paths crossed, but he has been over run with work by these startups. Without someone like Erik who has made a career of starting companies neither startup would be possible as I don’t have time to do it and legally can’t as a Professor at a state owned University.

David with nearly a year’s worth of hair in attendance at his maternal great grandmother, Reba Roberts Robinson's funeral.

While in Finland in early April seven hours ahead of Baltimore I had a text from Donna that she and David were in the emergency room. Appendicitis they thought, but I suggested it might be from Crohn’s. A typical emergency room story followed in that they were ignored for hours and hours and hours. Finally an MRI showed it was not appendicitis but lesions from Crohn’s threatening to rupture. Doing so would mean septic shock could set in quickly which is often fatal. So, while they suffered hours of being ignored, I cut short my trip to Turku and headed home. It would be my 55^th birthday on 2 May before surgery would remove a foot a his small intestine too riddled with lesions to heal even after nearly a month on a pic line as his only form of nutrition. If you wonder what a pic line is then see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripherally_inserted_central_catheter.

David rollin round da ER

A couple months after surgery and in Seattle for the Summer he started humira. This treatment, which we worried about being too powerful and dangerous, has proven to be a miracle drug. With the TNF-a under control he became a new person reborn from years of being inflamed putting on 30 lbs by end of Summer. This Fall has seen him enjoy being at Towson University and doing very well in an economics program after having to go through medical withdrawal the prior Spring. 

The Goodletts formerly of Montgomery, Alabama reunited at Cecil Lewis’ wedding in June.

Actually on his 19^th birthday on 27 April while at the end of his pic line therapy, the 2015 Freddy Gray riots ensued. As we live in the heart of the city, cars and stores were burned and looted within a mile of our house. Closer still – within a few blocks – if you only count looting. Richard Sherman had the prior year railed against use of the word thugs to describe his legion of boom, but Baltimore’s black Mayor did not hesitate to describe those trying to destroy the city as thugs. As usual very few bad actors caused most of the problems and the same can be said for the police in the Freddy Gray and other cases. Most police do their jobs well with good intentions while being overworked and underpaid. Most police departments are dealing with the ramifications of Reagan’s dismantling of the mental healthcare system.

The Milwaukee chief of police has summed up the difficult problems several times in the last year better than I can. If you care to read about it you can do so here http://www.headlinepolitics.com/police-chief-goes-lack-coverage-black-black-crimes/ and/or here http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/caused-dramatic-tipping-point-deadly-shootings/. No matter where, after many generations of social disparities implementing solutions is difficult. There is actually no shortage of solutions, nor good people trying to help, but cities like Baltimore lack an appropriate tax base to implement solutions. The parts of the city worst hit in April are the same parts that have never recovered from the riots of 1968 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_riot_of_1968). That was the beginning of the end of civility in Baltimore. Today, its common to hear people screaming epithets at each other in person on the street or into their phones. So its no wonder that Baltimore’s murder rate has sky rocketed this year along with Milwaukee’s and Chicago’s and other formerly great cities.

Graham R and David M Goodlett at the wedding of their first cousin Cecil Lewis’ in Alabama.

Both boys once again spent a significant part of their Summer in Seattle. David working for a friend's catering business and Graham for a friend's construction business. Graham, now 18, is doing better than well in his international baccalaureate program at Baltimore City College High School. In short, he has excellent grades and SAT scores. His interest in body building and a detailed weight lifting program have led him to an interest in metabolism; the differences between individuals and outcomes for the same training effort and food consumed. As such he is considering studying chemistry and or biochemistry at University. While he has and will apply to a number of schools (Univ of WA, Northeastern, Johns Hopkins, and UM College Park), he is most interested in UM College Park where he and I spent a day in September touring campus. His lifting and dieting plan (he weighs all his food to precisely calculate nutritional content) has him now at about 14% body fat capable of benching 235 lbs at 5’5” and 154 lbs. By contrast, at 5”6” and 152 lbs I have about 20% body fat and can't bench 235 lbs! Don’t want to either. Looks heavy!

Graham benching 235 lbs.

In hindsight it seems Donna spent much of the year repairing this old house. A ruptured sewer pipe on the outside back wall had to be replaced. A rotten old wooden door to the basement needed to be replaced. The gate to the patio had to be replaced. The koi pond had to be drained and cleaned. A dead willow tree had to be removed. The sprinkler system in the patio had to be repaired. The chimney for the living room had to be cleaned, but to get it to where we can use it is another $5000 that we don't want to spend at the moment. The shared wall in the back of the house needs to be repaired as brick and mortar in many places are in danger of coming down on us when dining outside, but the neighbor is so far reluctant to spend the money. Me too, but its my head that its gonna fall on. So we may have to pay to repair it ourselves. C’est la vie!

Donna’s constant companion and sleeping buddy when I’m away Trixie in what use to be my chair.

Outside of being Mrs Handyman and driving the boys, neither of whom has a driver’s license (C’mon guys!!!), around town she more or less started and ended the year well relaxing with friends in Seattle. In February I needed to be in San Francisco for an NIH (www.nih.gov) review meeting. So, she went along as far as Seattle where we spent a few days visiting friends. Then in September I needed to be in Vancouver BC for an international meeting (www.hupo.org) and she spent an entire week there with me joining for a few days at the end of the week to visit friends and Deurion which is located on the University of Washington campus in Fluke Hall which houses an incubator for startups. Seattle had the driest Summer ever recorded this year but I feel sorry for all those (20,000) folk who have just arrived to work for Amazon because that was no normal Summer. I can remember Summers that lasted no more than one month – August. My last graduate student, Lucas Monkkonen, graduate from the University of Washington this year. So, the only ties there now are our friends and Deurion. 

View of the Space Needle in February from the Chihuly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly) glass exhibit.

Happy Holidays from the Baltimore Goodletts: Dave, Donna, David and Graham!!!

The 2014 Letter

The short story on us this past year is that we are well and adjusting to life in Baltimore, which compared to Seattle, feels not just like a different city but a different planet. We have grown accustom to a number of places and people here who have made us feel at home. Thanks to the staff at the Bolton Hill Bistro (www.b-bistro.com) who almost know us by name which reminds us of the hospitality of Corino at Mondellos in Seattle. Thanks to Neal and Joey at Neal’s the Hair Salon (nealswebpage.com) who provide the boys with a pair of ready made “Uncles” and provide endless entertainment. Thanks to the Ladies at The Spirits of Mt Vernon (www.spiritsofmtvernon.com) who provide us with smiles and a lovely Seattle-esque place to have drinks and to buy nice wines. Fortunately, the Mariners play the Orioles. So, we can catch them there and if we don’t mind a bit of driving we can see the Seahawks when they play the Redskins in Landover, MD. I even found an amazing Pale Ale made in Mt Vernon, which is the neighborhood next to ours and where the first statue of George Washington (mvpconservancy.org/history/) in the country stands, called The Brewer’s Art (www.thebrewersart.com/#!/page_home). 

 Graham at the Sesame Tavern in Dubrovnik July 2014

As for the family, Graham is in his junior year of high school learning the rigors of study in an International Baccalaureate (www.ibo.org) program with physics bringing new meaning to what it means to understand the world. It’s an intensive program that will see him take an international standardized IB exam during his senior year. If passed this will help with scholarships beyond the state of Maryland where his tuition is covered. He has also continued to work hard in the weight room. Even with some set backs due to lower back problems that prevented him doing some of the heavy lifts he had been doing early in the year, no one on the beach in Croatia, where we were in July for MSBM VIII (www.msbm.org), thought he was in high school. This might have in part been due to the combination of beard and six-pack. Regardless, to the astonishment of his Mother he has consistently moved his body weight (with % body fat being the goal) between 135 to 150 lbs on command by controlling his diet. 

 David's 18th birthday

La Famiglia @ David's High School Graduation

David, the budding graffiti artist, just finished his first semester at Towson University in the art program. About a week ago he said he was contemplating taking a semester off. This led to some simple calculations regarding how much money one needs to pay for cell phone, wifi, food, clothing, insurance and rent. That in turn led to the coefficient of friction on the wheels of reality being exceeded and the train leaving the station. As I recall from the early 80s when life was cheaper and I was finishing my nearly useless degree in chemistry. Useless because the economy was not in good shape and there were few jobs to be found. At the time I decided to go to graduate school because the pay was good or at least better than not being paid. Still it was shocking when I first realized what life cost. Now, David has to go through the same exercise. Hopefully, he can figure out how to make money with a hopefully not so useless art degree. He'll figure it out, but again as I recall I couldn't really make up my mind until I was about 25 and met Donna, which sort of helped with the process.

 Graffiti - pink

In truth the uncertainty that David has is not his fault. Science has shown that the male brain does not mature enough to make important (IFTTT = if this then that) decisions until the mid-20s. Finding this out made me feel better about the malaise I felt in the first half of my 20s. Donna though didn't have time to struggle with any of this and women probably sort it out much more quickly. In her case she worked two jobs, paid her Mom rent and paid her own tuition.

 Graffiti - gray

The boys each spent part of their summer of 2014 back in Seattle with friends, while we - in honor of Donna’s 5 January 50^th birthday - spent New Year’s Eve there.  While there, we managed to pull off a surprise appearance at the annual 29^th Avenue West New Year’s Eve soiree held at la mason de la Lallaison. Was good to see many of our former neighbors and friends. While we won’t make it this year, we probably will visit at some point. We even made it to Alabama this year for my niece’s wedding in April. That was the first full family trip in years and was nice as we stayed in downtown Montgomery (aka Moan-Gumree) where Donna and I met. 

 Aubree, Graham, Donna and David at the Red Barn post-wedding shindig

As expected our house is looking great thanks to Donna’s sense of style. All ready for Christmas here. What follows are four vignettes on our experience with Baltimore’s finest this past year. It is a tough job the police do and we would not want to live in a world without them. After the most recent riots, deaths and police actions, moving forward let's hope for dialogue and respect from all parties.

Happy Holidays from Ballmore! Dave, Donna, David, Graham and Trixie.

Jesse James Gang of Baltimore. In February in Finland there only a few hours of daylight and given the cloudy/snowy time of year one is unlikely to see the sun for weeks which can make for a depressing visit. Waiting for the sauna to warm up I was about to get some depressing news to go along with the mood there when a text from Donna came in. “Call me. Graham got jumped at the bus stop”.  

Cell phones are easy to pawn. So they are an object of thieves every where. These days most kids don’t wear watches. So, when six kids loitering outside the YMCA asked Graham what time it was, he didn’t look on his wrist. He pulled out his iPhone which led to immediate excitement in the “we wonder what time it is” gang.

Making it to the bus stop at the end of the block Graham found a couple of other kids with Baltimore City College Uniforms on whom he didn’t know but who confirmed his suspicion “yeah, those kids want your phone” … Fortunately, the bus arrived at that moment and they piled on.

However, before the bus could leave the curb, the “Jesse James of Baltimore” gang jacked a panel open on the back of the bus disabling the hybrid. The bus driver, not knowing what was going on, called for a backup bus. In the meantime Graham calls Donna, “can you come get me? I think I’m gonna get robbed when I get off the bus.” Before she arrived though the second bus arrived and they were all forced off the first bus.

As Graham and the two other City College kids tried to enter the second bus the “would be phone jacking” gang attacked them. There was no “gimme yer phone or you’re gonna get whacked”. They just started beating on the three of them. This caused the second bus driver to close the doors to the bus because of course he doesn’t want any of those kids on his bus. As the six on three melee ensued at the side of the bus with bars and fists flying, Graham escaped into the street. Once there a stranger in a pickup truck who watched the whole melee transpire shouted “hey kid – get in!”. Realizing he couldn't out run the kids, he jumped in and this very kind man delivered Graham to the house. Unfortunately, Graham was too stunned to ask his name. So we couldn’t thank him, but we were able to thank the two City College kids who took a beating with Graham.

In one action, Graham, the only white person in this story caught a glimpse into the good and bad of Baltimore. Kids he did not even know from his school stood with him and a complete stranger drove him home. The kids who wanted his phone fumbled the robbery because assuming they would beat it off him never even asked for it. At least one was caught by the police, but not surprisingly Graham failed to recognize any of them in a police lineup. So, Graham, a white kid from a very white city – Seattle - learned that people can be good and bad no matter their skin color.

 Graham relaxing on Lokrum July 2014

The Graffiti Body. I’m not sure if the police are aware of it, but the graffiti street code states that if a building is abandoned then it’s OK to tag it. This certainly happened in Seattle with abandoned buildings in good neighborhoods being tagged in broad daylight. Here life is a bit rougher than there and we worried that the police might not care about the code. Still after months of looking for an appropriate abandoned building to tag, David found one not too far from the house. He had been several times when one day he decided to exit via a new route through the woods that looked closer to the light rail he needed to ride home. Shockingly, there in the low grass and just a few feet off the trail was a decomposing human body.

Once home he mentioned to his Mom what he had found and they decided he should call the 311 non-emergency number. I mean it's a decomposing body. So it is not exactly an emergency. Right? Well the 311 Operator only heard “dead body” and transferred him to the 911 Operator who asked if he could meet the police at the site. So away they go with six police cars, a fire truck, an EMT truck, and the fire Marshall passing them on the way. After repeating his story to half a dozen people each in turn, which must be police protocol to make sure they story does not waiver, he was allowed to leave. That was a few months ago and still no news about what happened to this person. The detectives were granted an early Christmas wish when he agreed not to report this to the news agencies. Not sure we will ever know what happened there.

 David at the final Baltimore City College Concert

U Cain’t Fix Stoopid. While in Seattle the police will write you a ticket for jaywalking, in Baltimore if you aren’t jaywalking then you stand out like Graham at the bus stop near the YMCA. Here when a local decides they want to cross the road, they don’t walk to the corner and wait for the light to change. Instead, they just head across the road.

It works like this. If it's a two-lane road then you wait for the lane closest to you to clear and then move to the middle. Never mind that traffic is zipping by now in both directions (behind and in front of you) just wait in the middle of the street until the next lane clears. If it's a four-lane road, same protocol. Wait for one lane at a time to clear and move ahead. In neither case does “clear” really mean clear in a normal sense. Rather, it just means that once you are in the road anyone who hits you is now responsible for hitting you regardless of the fact that you are too stupid to use the light at the corner. This behavior is so much a part of culture here that a local once asked me as I pushed the button to trigger the light to change for pedestrians to cross “whuh duzz dhat doo”? As I started to explain, he moved on into the road dodging oncoming traffic. Ugh!

This cross the street whenever it suits your mindset coupled at times with a Baltimore shuffle that can break into a stiff legged hobbled run can give the impression you are in an episode of the walking dead. It also means that drivers are so accustom to having pedestrians in the road and not the cross walks that the rules of the cross walk are not obeyed or even considered by drivers. So, when I complained to the campus police about drivers speeding out of West Baltimore – a one way street - on to MLK while I was in the cross walk with the right of way, I was told to use the other side of the street. Really? The other side is safe? Well, yes because there is less traffic and drivers cant get up as much speed when they come through the cross walk. Remarkable, but it is quite apparent that neither the drivers nor the campus police care about pedestrians. I once approached the cross walk with a pregnant woman who even though she had the right of way was so afraid of the on coming cars she wouldn’t move off the curb even holding on to my arm. Only when she didn't have the right of way, but the way was clear, did she venture across the street.

Unfortunately, the campus police refuse to monitor this intersection because MLK is a city street crossing campus. Actually, across the entire city the police have abdicated control to drivers many of whom appear to have never passed a driving exam. Not long after my complaints to the campus police one of our pharmacy students was hit in the intersection and hospitalized with nonlife threatening injuries. Later in the year another pedestrian who yelled at a driver who almost hit her found herself chased and beaten by the driver who then tried, but failed, to steal her phone while she was calling the police. This is the pedestrian life in Baltimore where I walk three miles round trip every day to and from work. So far, so good.

 

 David, Dave and Graham at the Red Barn south of Montgomery

Donna and the Judge. At the beginning of December Donna was chosen for jury duty. It’s a murder trial where jurors were selected only if they had never heard of the case. Having been here only a year and a half made her a perfect choice. Plus, she failed to take my sound advice “behave rudely and go off about your believe in the death penalty”, but Maryland doesn’t have the death penalty and even if we did she doesn’t believe in it.

For the first 11 days she was alternate #1. However, the very pregnant woman that had been selected before her did not last. So now, Donna is juror #8. She of course can’t talk to anyone about what is going on, but says she is learning a lot about criminology. Fortunately, she received the jury duty request in early November and decided to finish 90% of her Christmas shopping by the day after Thanksgiving. Still it's a bit much right at the Holiday season to be called on to serve the community. ...  As of this morning though the judge declared a mistrial. So you can now read comments in the Baltimore Sun from Donna and the other jurors who were questioned on leaving the courthouse; see http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bal-second-trial-in-phylicia-barnes-murder-ends-in-mistrial-20141222-story.html

There’s more, but that is probably enough to give you a flavor of the Baltimore life. It's a patchwork of good and bad. Where some cities practice effective socio-economic segregation, the nature of Baltimore does not allow this. I'm not complaining. Diversity is good, but would the nut job who broke the brass water faucet off the front of our house leaving water squirting out into the street please return it?

 Dave and Jace celebrating the Seahawks 2014 Superbowl win.

c h r i s t m a s 2 0 1 3

What with moving the family, the company (www.deurion.com) and the laboratory (https://persephone.rxlab.umaryland.edu) 3000 miles from Seattle to Baltimore, it was a bit of a busy year. Stress gradually turned to complacency on about day three of the six-day drive by which time we were all in a routine. Chris Cornell emerged as my most often listened to artist and his “I am the Highway” the song of the trip. I started working on a cover of this tune played down a minor third to accommodate my vocal range, but for the moment am still not happy with it. This distraction from work life is part of my general attempt try to resurrect music in my life. Stay tuned. Perhaps there’ll be something worth sharing by next year or not as all this music activity reminds me of why I became chemist not a musician.

Fortunately, summer here was not as hot as promised and our patio (see photos link below) complete with koi pond became an outdoor sanctuary where I worked as often as possible. It was hot enough though that I rediscovered cold beer in frosted mugs favoring the local National Bohemian aka Natty Boh (http://nationalbohemian.com). In October, while on one of my quarterly visit to Finland, the Academia of Finland and TEKES who sponsor my research their made a film of me as well as all other Finland Distinguished Professors. The so-called FiDiPro program (http://www.fidipro.fi/) seeks to bring academic talent into Finland to focus on various research projects. Along with a description of the research this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfOOMNJivvY ) features short segments of my instrumental arrangements of Autumn Leaves, I’ll be home for Christmas and I am the Highway. Also there is a short segment of me front squatting 135 lbs. This may not sound like much to some, but the front squat requires a bit more finesse that I’m still working on.

One of our biggest anxieties about moving here revolved around our desire to live in the city and the poor reputation of Baltimore’s public schools. To our delight the school system put both boys into Baltimore City College High School (http://www.baltimorecitycollege.us/) which, founded in 1839, happens to be the third oldest school in continuous use in the country. Of course it started out as a college for boys, but now is a premier city high school where entry depends on merit. Fortunately, from an academic perspective the boys were in a normal (i.e. academically unchallenging) public school in Seattle that left them with top level grades. So, when Baltimore saw those high marks they immediately put them both into City, as it is known locally. This has really worked out well for the boys and the constant negative remarks from my colleagues here about Baltimore schools as we discussed out loud our desire to live in the city proved Churchill’s phrase “…there is nothing to fear but fear itself….” right again.

Of course the generational memories of a blighted Baltimore ridden with crime will take a few more generations for the locals to overcome. Many are trying to change the city to make it more livable and for the moment they are doing pretty well I’d say. In the end an urban environment can’t be reborn if people consistently choose to live in sparsely populated suburbs coming into the city only to work. That means folk have to make an effort to live close to work. For now there are signs around the country that the white flight of the 60s and 70s that created urban blight in our city centers is being reversed by young (and old in our case) professionals who prefer not to live in their cars getting to and fro work.

The other big concern – where to live – was answered during a whirlwind week long visit to Baltimore at the beginning of May this year. In Seattle our Magnolia house – five miles from downtown and my lab – sold in a week in a hot market without an open house and for more than the asking price, but in Baltimore the market was still simmering from the economic collapse that happened toward the end of the Bush presidency. The home search took some effort because Baltimore’s socioeconomic neighborhood distribution is best described as a patch work quilt with good next to bad throughout. Because of this most professionals choose to live in the county suburbs and drive 30-45 minutes one way to work. As we experienced firsthand with our first real estate agent, this lifestyle is pervasive among working professionals. A year before when our family came out to visit Baltimore we asked the real estate agent to show us “row homes” in the city because I wanted to walk to work and Donna wanted to be close to the homeless communities she anticipated helping. The classic row home designs found in the Bolton Hill are a good example of city living here (http://www.boltonhill.org/neighborhood/n_scrapbook-tour.htm).

In hindsight, taking into account the attitude towards living downtown that many professional have here, we should have expected that the real estate agent would ignore our request to look in the city close to work. After touring the country club living of the county Donna, who used to do real estate, noted that had we been Chinese and the real estate agent taken us to the Asian communities or Black and likewise, then this would be the case for a lawsuit. It is of course illegal to steer clients according to perceived ethnic preference. This steering was our first experience with thinly veiled racism that runs through society here and elsewhere in the country. During the nearly 20 years in Seattle, we had forgotten about these issues, but Baltimore has never had the chance to forget. Regardless, we found a real estate agent who enjoyed living in the city and we purchased the property at 1431 Bolton Street that puts me just 1.5 miles or thirty minutes by foot to work.

David at first refused to join the City College marching band figuring there was no reason to do it for only a year or perhaps that it would rightfully cut too much of his precious xbox time. However, knowing that with only one year of high school here that this was his only chance to make local connections, we insisted. No surprise, he has loved it. The band is about 99% black which means in this case the marching band does not just play, but dances while playing. Here is an example of the band (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1KtZPBkp_I) doing their “tunnel” entry dance through the drum line with David second from the left on snare facing away from the camera.

Given that most whites in the city send their kids to private school and that Baltimore is about 65% black, public schools are predominantly black. City College High school, being one of only three high quality public schools in the city, sees stiff enrollment competition making it 95% black. So far so good for David who has more than a few young ladies of the majority ethnic group enamored with his enamel novelties. It’s really no surprise that he has assimilated because for reasons unknown to us his Seattle mates all referred to him by an alias equivalent to a racial slur here. Perhaps the alias came from the incessant rap music he listens to or the graffiti art he draws. Or, maybe it was just the way he dressed with baggy shorts that look as though you went poo in your pants combined with the flat brimmed caps that gained him his Seattle alias. At City the kids have to wear a school uniform which you can see in the photos link below makes for some conformity amongst kids who cant all afford to buy the latest fashions.

College applications have been rolling out like waiting on Christmas and it would appear that Christmas will arrive before he is accepted anywhere or even applies. C’est la vie. He does have several choices in the city that are appealing to him because they have video game curricula. As he never intended to go away too far to school preferring community college for his first two years, it will work out in the end. This means though that he’ll probably be living at home attending either the University of Baltimore (http://www.ubalt.edu/index.cfm) or Towson University (http://www.towson.edu). The former is only ten minutes walk from the house, but the latter will require him to finally get his driver’s license! These are small schools that are on a list of ten Universities where my employer the University of Maryland Baltimore (http://faculty.rx.umaryland.edu/dgoodlett/) offers faculty dependents tuition remission. 

Graham just missed having straight A’s on his first reporting period by about a half point. C’mon Man!!! Along with David he has stepped up to the academic plate and done really well. At the start of the year hoping to get an easier ride he went into his AP literature teacher and told her that he felt he was not qualified to be in her college credit class. To this she replied “Graham – you scored the second highest of all the students on the quiz the first day of school”. We don’t know exactly what he said, but I’m sure his face was a mix of confusion and intrigue. This is the class that kept him out of the straight A category, but never mind. He is working quite hard and learning a lot about composition and the logic of reviewing other’s work.

Graham has continued his weight lifting training and can now squat about 185 lbs at least once and dead lift as much as well. These are not too far from my one rep max lifts. So for someone who is a couple inches shorter than me and 10 lbs lighter, that is pretty good. For now he has taken a step back on going heavy and is focused on a high rep German lifting program that has one do ten sets consisting of ten reps each. Exhausting is the only description for this. Before school started this Fall Graham began working in my lab with the lab informatics person to help out with our websites. For the moment his interests lie in the science of aging. While there are ageing experiments he can do with bacteria, which our lab works with, there is no time to actually come in to the lab. Perhaps he can fit this in next summer.

Donna does not know it but she is the envy of many of my female colleagues. All the female lecturers I teach with in Dubrovnik (www.msbm.org) sighed when I told them she was redecorating an entire house. The 1890’s row home we bought was covered ceiling to floor in period style wallpaper that has since been nearly entirely stripped by her perpetuating a lifelong “dislike” of wallpaper. In its place are bright modern colors and bold prints hanging on the walls that make us feel at home (see photos link below). This work which she loves, most of the time, and all the other more onerous activities of moving a family has meant that not much has happened for her on the social action front here, but then the house is 4000 sq ft including the basement and over 100 years old. So it should be no surprise that maintenance is ongoing, but ceilings that occasionally fall down can be demoralizing when you thought you had "finished". Given that our Seattle house was only 1800 sq ft, it may be awhile before she finishes decorating here. She did though finish redoing our outdoor sanctuary - the patio - before winter arrived. 

It was there while relaxing after finishing up our dinner one night with the kids that we heard a rapid “pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop” racket that Graham and I assumed wrongly was a skateboarder not the sidewalk. After Donna checked the police twitter account we learned someone had been shot in the leg a block from our house, but don’t be too alarmed. For one thing these are huge city blocks with alleyways between the long narrow row homes and as I said all good neighborhoods here are next to bad ones or vice versa. Not to be too flippant about this, but the seven fired rounds only hit someone once in the leg. Fortunately, these are not trained professionals out there shooting each other. Despite some of the toughest gun laws in the country, Baltimore has a drug problem and this has to be cleaned up before the violent drug based crime will decrease. In short, this is Baltimore where there are twice as many sunny days and twice as many murders as Seattle. 

In closing we hope you are all as well can be and that you have a wonderful 2014. You’ll find some photos of us from 2013 here in this google album –  

https://plus.google.com/photos/105356506624905769204/albums/5961159555174593825?authkey=CNz1m6LayL_3swE

From the Baltimore Goodletts Dave, Donna, David, Graham and Trixie