Christmas Gift 2011

“Castanets, right?” the ginger haired boy politely asked David. “I was on cello” he continued. The two had just been part of an extraordinary winter concert at Ballard High School. The choir and orchestra combined with a guest soprano and bass to perform Carmina Buran. If you have never heard this piece, then I urge you to check it out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Burana_(Orff) as it is marshal music at its best. The performance by high school kids was a tribute to their dedication and that of their teachers who directed them. David is in a percussion class along with thirty other kids at Ballard and about ten of them participated in this performance. His role was to accompany the soloists in a de facto duet with a syncopated castanet part. Between the stand out performance and literally standing out in the back row where the percussionists were visible to all, he apparently made an impact beyond La Famiglia. After a nonchalant grin and a nod to ginger, he was back to perusing the video game aisle and arguing with his brother, Graham.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare is mostly where David’s head is these days. For a while he was a Master Sergeant on his team, but resigned after realizing all the organizational work that was needed. It was quickly back to grunt work for him on the team as this allows him just enough time to slip in mostly A’s and B’s at school. Baseball season came and went with the usual mix of mental fielding slipups of a typical teenager interwoven with stellar backhanded, leaping catches. This came along with last year’s Ichiro-style whacks at bat that got him on base, but kept him frustrated that he could not hit the long ball. Not sure what he will do next year about baseball. Says he wants to play and he has started lifting weights to build upper body strength, but his Crohn’s condition really has hampered muscle development. This will simply take time to correct. Thankfully and amazingly to his GI doctor, he’s in remission. This came after a Summer long struggle that restricted his diet. For now the only remnants of that Cathartic diet are the almond milk he drinks with Hershey’s chocolate syrup every morning instead of dairy and his acerbic tongue that found a new voice in his dietary oppression. His tongue also gets a workout eating all that junk food again that forces him to live allowance to allowance as it were spending every dollar earned on food and hanging out with his mates.

In counterpoint to his brother’s often less than witty chatter and spendthrift ways, Graham has developed a steely cool discourse with words and a banker’s appreciation for a dollar. We all know that there is nothing more irritating than being defeated with a simple twist of words. David never admits defeat, but it is there nonetheless and covered up by his own banter. With Graham’s logic there are few flaws and even when wrong he is commanding seemingly logging somewhere why he was wrong. Listening to those two argue is like listening to a Republican debate where Gingrich yammers on and on cycling from one topic to the next without a break or obvious segue against a calm cool logic like that of a Ron Paul type. I’ve threatened to sign Graham up for the debate club when he gets to Ballard next year. “Life’s not a spectator sport” I like to remind him “and since you quit your music studies, making band in high school a moot point, you’ll be doing some other group activity there. Your choice or mine”, I say.

Graham really is quite a determined young man. For example, in less than a year he saved about $1000 to buy a new gaming PC. Industrious too, as he never takes lunch but always eats lunch. When I asked about this he says that most kids bring more food in their lunches than they can eat. So, he simply relieves them of this excess to prevent it going to waste. A humanitarian in the making perhaps, but I hope he didn’t relieve any of those same kids of cash they don’t need. Probably not, as I would have heard about this by now – right? I mean when he suggested to the girl in second grade who wanted to be in his playground club that the only way to join would be to drop her “pants”, we heard about this the same day from the Principal….. Donna blamed that incident on my instructing the boys in the fine art of “pantsing”….. Anyway, regarding the cash he saved up, he did have a bunch of questions about how to use PayPal. However, I put an end to that when it became clear that what he was planning was nothing more than an illegal scheme – in most countries - to free people from their cash. Another example of Graham’s resourcefulness is his Korean social security number, which he required in order to play on a Korean gaming server. I discovered this after seeing him play the PC game Maple Story (http://maplestory.nexon.net/) on a screen filled with nothing but distinctive Korean script (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_script). While he did learn some about the programming language Python (http://www.tutorialspoint.com/python/) this year, I didn’t think he knew much Korean tipping off this alert parent that something was amiss and forcing the question “why are you playing on a Korean server?” Turns out they get all the new game modifications before anyone else. It all looked legal and safe. So, I let that sleeping dog sleep on for the time being.

T’was more of the same for me and for Donna this year. My role as chair of an advisory board in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh et al. ended with the end of that grant, but a new avenue for collaborations opened up at BioCity (www.biocity.turku.fi) at the University of Turku in Finland. So for the next four years I’ll be traveling more to Finland than Scotland to oversee experiments on diabetes and ovarian cancer (http://www.fidipro.fi/pages/posts/international-expertise-for-research-in-service-innovations303.php). That’ll be a nice change of pace, but a company founded with a colleague in Edinburgh will keep my attention in the Scottish lowlands. Meanwhile on the coast of Croatia the mass spectrometry school (www.msbg.org) had its tenth anniversary this year in Dubrovnik and is on again for 2012. And for the first time in seven years I was back in Korea. This time I visited two of the guys who worked for me at the ISB who now have their own faculty positions. It was good to eat in Seoul again where traditional restaurants have a seemingly never ending variety of fermented roots and spicy vegetables.

Donna was once again slave to the Trustees wishes at church and to the S.H.A.R.E. homeless shelter. This church work mostly involved what I call the removals business. These ‘removals’ included the usual suspects from the naked man pleasuring himself in the back garden to the removal of bed bugs from the homeless shelter to the removal of the drugged out dudes in a street brawl during the weekly Saturday soup kitchen. Her exasperation remind me of the end of the poem in tribute to the martyred Good King Winceslas that reads “Ye who now will bless the poor, Shall yourselves find blessing”. If so, then she has got blessings in abundance waiting for her, but probably shouldn’t wait up for delivery. Fortunately, this year a new couple was in charge of the auction which was relief. Please note that I have nothing to do with the auction, nor any home maintenance for that matter, but Donna who does makes the work of one seem like the work of a couple of (groups of) people. These unwitting surrogates helped tremendously to maintain her physical and mental health into the holiday season.

In the end our hearts go out to all those suffering with under employment or no employment. While Seattle is doing better than most, there is talk of setting up parking lots for overnight accommodation for those forced to live in their vehicles. This, in addition to our tent cities that appear to be permanent fixtures, suggest things could be better here. Like the land rich, money poor ‘dirt’ farmers of the old South, these folk have almost enough to get by. Almost, but at least they have their vehicles’ roofs over their heads. So, we hope the new year brings you enough prosperity to be almost satisfied and that any extra that comes your way will be passed along to those in need, many of whom are working right beside you.

All the Best from the Goodletts in Seattle where our contact information remains the same as in 2010 elsewhere on this blog.

Christmas 2010

We celebrated my 50th birthday this year on 2 May at our favorite Sicilian restaurant - Mondellos. About 30 folks showed up to eat, chat and relax. I had told myself I would have six-pack by that day, but only a couple ridges developed. Oh well, as consolation I ended up with a six-pack of scotch. At fifteen years past actuarial middle-age, I’ll keep the unattainable goal just to get me outta bed. The scotch though, I will not keep. Like most my age I am about 10 erh, no 20 uhh, or maybe 30lbs past my svelte high school form. It seems that the trick to removing some of the excess requires a delicate balance between nursing injuries, rest and exercise, but I do not yet want to admit the truth that exercise is not enough. My trainer likes to remind me that “Da Nile” is not just a river in Eygpt, but a state of mind for some of his elderly clients. The lab also gave me a very nice 50th birthday party and as a present a soda stream (http://www.sodastreamusa.com/) carbonated water maker that I love.

Other than my geriatric milestone, the past year seems like a bit more of the same for us ... more school, more music lessons, more travel to the beach and farm in July, more xbox, more complaints about Dad’s cooking, more baseball, more travel for me, more xbox, more complaints about school work, more work for the homeless shelter auction for Donna, more xbox, more gray hair for me, more grants submitted and more manuscripts written and while not bedside reading the latter can be found via a link for publications from our lab webpage http://goodlett.proteomics.washington.edu/. Related to work, we continue to hold the Summer School on Mass Spectrometry in Biotechnology and Medicine each year in July in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This is one of the nicer and more relaxing trips I have made the last few years. Some photos can be found here on the School's website http://picasaweb.google.com/msbm.dubrovnik/. I hope to get the family over there some time as the boys could literally swim all day in the cool clear waters of the Adriatic and Donna could relax in the shade. Only the price of airfare is holding us back.

As mentioned, the boys played baseball again. And once again they complained all the way to the start of the season about being signed up against their will. Teenagers have rights or so they believe. As before they had the chance to sign up for a sport – any sport – but did not. So, we signed them up for the only sport they have ever played. Of course what they are really complaining about is loss of xbox time on the weekends when they can xbox for hours on end as opposed to the school week when they get only one hour per day. As for baseball, they both settled in to the season and did well. For example, Mint was the lead off hitter on his team for the entire year. He learned to wait for the pitcher to throw a first strike before swinging. Make the pitcher beat me was his mantra. He continued his Ichiro style batting style where the ball is whacked down hard to the infield dirt taking an awkward bounce and running the 90 ft. to first base fast enough to get on. However, his throwing arm continued to be a problem from a tear to the pectoral muscle the season before. This injury combined with the intervening off season during which he worked hard, not to rehab the injury, but at “hanging out” and xboxing kept him at second base where even had one spectacular behind the back snag on the run to get the runner out. And Graham too did well, but he is honestly not really in to it like his brother. He did become comfortable in the outfield catching those fly balls that hang in the sky forever. For the first time ever, I coached Mint’s team. I say coached, but this really was back to my high school trainer days as I kept the guys and the dugout organized more than coached.

Mint joined the symphonic band at Ballard High School this year where he is a freshman (www.ballardbeavers.org/) and where they are known as "the Beavers". His photo in the tuxedo above is from one of their performances of which there have been two. In the first he played crash symbols to which Graham snidely remarked “that ain’t hard”. We reminded Graham, who has a bit of a rhythm problem, that in this case timing is everything. The next concert featured Mint as the solo snare drummer performing roll after roll with perfect placement and volume control. Even the conductor gave him an atta-boy afterward. The part that he played brought out for the first time ever - that I can recall - a determination to get the part down. A week before the concert he did not have the part down, but after hours of practice at show time he was his cocky self. Like me he also had a physical milestone this year when half way through the year he was officially taller than me. Not a tall accomplishment by Western standards, but he was happy about it and by Christmas break he had all A’s save for one B in geometry. This is a 180 degree correction from the last several years where he talked more about dropping out of school because it was a useless waste of time. He was fond of saying that there were lots of examples of famous, rich people who had quit school – you know Dad “like Bill Gates and…” – well he didn’t have another example and was confused with that one as Gates dropped out of Harvard not high school. Anyway, all A’s and B’s is good enough for Dad. By the way, Mom and Dad are eagerly awaiting auction night for the Ballard High Beavers, fondly dubbed “Saturday Night Beaver”. Really?

The boys and I made it to the farm again and made a point of going down to Gulf Shores for a few days to see the oil spills and support the economy there. Judging from past years there were half as many tourists. While the water looked pretty clean on the first day, a short walk in the surf left your feet and ankles with an invisible sticky feel. On the second there were work crews out on the beach cleaning up the oil-sand mix with shovels and bags. That morning the boys immediately noticed a scene hearkening back to the Alabama days of my early childhood. A covered wagon full of African-Americans was being pulled on the beach by a tractor driven by a really well fed Caucasian man. It did seem a bit of an odd sight, but I tried to rationalize with them that 1) everyone was being paid – some more than others no doubt - and 2) that there are some jobs that some will not do. A case in point being the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who do the back breaking work to pick fruit in our state that most of us would not or could not do. Thanks to these folk my favorite beach is clean and my fruit is affordable. Speaking of driving, thanks to my Dad the boys have begun to learn the fine art of cow dodging while driving his truck around the pasture. Asking them about the experience, returns teenage boy speak that makes it sound like they have driven for years. Speaking of bragging rights, Mint beat me and Graham two games in a row at putt putt golf and this in the blazing heat at Gulf Shores. That boy has got the trash talk of victory down like none I know. It does not quite work after a symphonic band concert though the same as for baseball. On that note, I have to say that relaying the experience of vacationing with two teenage boys is not really possible in a family letter. There is no distinction between proper dinner table manners and one’s solitary – or what one should keep solitary – thoughts. I will leave this topic with their favorite quip of the year “…that’s what she said” which apparently is appropriate to say after almost anything you can think of, but you’ll have to try it out yourself.

Donna has officially retired as chair of the Shelter board, but will remain on the board to help out the future chair. This means that after eight years someone else will be responsible for planning and executing the board’s annual homeless shelter auction. She will remain though as chair of the Trustees at church to finish repair work she began this year. She also has been busy planning repairs to our home which after fifteen years is in a need of a few face lifts. Trixie kicked this off for us by remodeling the original 1914 front door that had an oval glass pane in it. She had become a bit pathological about greeting the mail man each day to which I remarked to Donna more than few times “...ya know, maybe you should cover that glass with a curtain so she can’t see the him coming up on the porch…” Shortly thereafter, on hearing the mailman come up on the porch but being in the back of the house, she ran to greet him. By the time she went through the glass landing on the porch floor, the mailman – now on the side walk – turned remarking cool as a cucumber, “wow!” and kept on going. She needed a few stitches, but was otherwise fine. She now jumps on the couch and on to the front window pane…hmmm, I'm waiting for the next Trixie prescribed remodel. However, until then the most obvious on the list is the downstairs bathroom that Donna started ripping up back in May of 2009. In June of 2010 I finally demolished the back wall where all the plumbing is and hopefully by Spring of 2011 we will be able to use it again. Oh yeah, Donna - not to be outdone by her eldest at least without a fight - has taken up the drums. In protest to the cost of all these lessons and being results oriented, I am scheduling a family Spring concert at the drum school where we all study (http://www.seattledrumschool.com/). I'll keep you posted .....

By the Monday before Thanksgiving we had enough snow to shut the city down. As usual with some snow here the boys got a couple of extra days off from school. This always leads to sledding down the steep hill in front of our house. On Thanksgiving day there was still enough snow to sled. So up late after a late night of xboxing the boys went out for a few rides before we went to Chandler's for dinner (http://www.schwartzbros.com/chandlers.cfm). Pretty soon I hear Graham come in and go upstairs without a word. "That's odd", I think. So I go up to see why he came in so soon.......it turns out that as Graham headed down the hill on his sled, Mint jumped on top his sled and then on top of Graham riding him - and Graham's sled - to the bottom of the hill. In protest over being ridden so and the subsequent crash, Graham punched Mint in the head, then Mint punched Graham in the head, etc. After a few rounds with no one knocked out or even bloody, they both realized the disadvantages of this type communication - i.e. their heads and fists hurt. So they gave it up for more verbal abuse. Go figure, brotherly love expressed once again. So off we went for our typical all American, happy family Thanksgiving day dinner out.

We once more wish you all Happy Holidays from Seattle: Dave, Donna, Mint, Ham and Trixie. As before we can be found on FaceBook and otherwise reached at david.goodlett@gmail.com, donnamgoodlett@msn.com, minter.goodlett@gmail.com & graham.goodlett@gmail.com and viewed at picasaweb.google.com/david.goodlett/.

Christmas Letter 2009

This was the year for Graham to shine at baseball. He had the first grand slam of the season and of his life in the first game of the season. Bang! Right down the first base line toward the kid in right field who is there because there is no other position to play him. The ball was by “dreaming in right field boy” before he knew Graham hit it. Graham went on to catch lots of pop flies during a stellar season even throwing a kid out at home from center field, a feat previously reserved for big brother. Much baseball later and Graham’s team destroyed the favored league team in a double elimination final. This was his first championship and the first year that he really seemed to enjoy the game.

Meanwhile, in 7-8th grade league play Mint and his mates were not fairing so well. They won two games; one in a rainout and the other in a no show. There were just too many young boys on the team to mount a serious pitching effort. They played close each game until about the half way mark when their few 8th grade pitchers fatigued and had to be replaced with 7th grade arms. Despite this downer season, he had a great time as his coach focused on team play not loss after loss which got old fast with three games a week for six weeks. Not to embarrass him, but “Mr 13 yr old Attitude-Dude am I a boy or a man” walked back to the car in tears after the only game my Dad got to see him play. “What’s wrong I asked? … he couldn’t utter a word as he walked off the field, but finally managed a choked up reply, I really wanted to win that game for Pa.” Thus goes it as boys become men. Unfortunately, Mint suffered the entire season with soreness where his pectoral muscle attaches to his throwing shoulder. This forced him to play second base as his limited throwing motion prevented long throws. Still he once again exhibited the same sort of head’s up play we have become accustom to with ridiculous backhanded catches on the run being the norm.

Graham is now about half way through his first year of 6th grade (www.seattleschools.org/schools/mcclure/) and Mint in his last in 8th grade at McClure. He’ll be going to the monstrous, but new, Ballard high school next year (www.ballardbeavers.org). Whereas McClure is about three miles from home and both boys ride the School bus, next year Mint will need to ride the city bus to Ballard. This will be a non-event as he is an old hand at riding the city bus. Taking it downtown with his buddies to the Seattle center (www.seattlecenter.com) or to the movies, he knows much more about the city bus routes than me.

Graham, once unable to read well at all, has developed into a 6th grader reading on a 10th grade level. Mostly he reads science fiction which goes along with the fact that his favorite xbox game is HALO 3 ODST (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3:_ODST) which is a futuristic first person shooter game where storm trooper types fight aliens for world domination, etc. These and other games that are interactive online basically taught Graham how to read as he needed to know what words and phrases meant in order to do well in the games. I’d say he is mildly competitive, but exceedingly obsessive compulsive; as they say “the apple does not fall too far from the tree”. Mint also plays this game, but prefers Call of Duty which began as a WWII game, but has been franchised into other American war efforts (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_4:_Modern_Warfare). Access to these games is our main source of discipline. :)

Both boys still take music lessons at the Seattle Drum School (www.seattledrumschool.com) where Graham just had a recital. For it he played a couple of songs the most interesting of which was a slow blues tune called Slow Freight where he was accompanied by a professional bass player and drummer on stage to an audience of about 30. Mint’s band, City of Eyes (www.myspace.com/cityofeyes), has not played too much this school year after the grounding – almost for life it must seem to them, but actually only about five months – of the lead singer/guitar player for an offense that would have gotten Mint grounded well into the grave. Enough said about that. :( Soon though they will need to get it together to get ready for my 50th birthday part where they are expected play. Where the boy’s differ is in Mint’s number one favorite activity being “hanging out” which more or less means wandering around a ten mile radius of the house by foot and bus until curfew which is typically 6 PM. While his drumming continues to develop and he keeps up with me playing the blues, he has developed a real passion for “Dali-like” graffiti art which is more like murals than the illegal graffiti you may think first of (www.marcofolio.net/photoshop/graffiti_art_to_boost_your_inspiration.html).

By March this year I felt like my rotator cuff was nearly healed and that only 1.5 years after surgery. Healing came after I hired a personal trainer to get me beyond the limited exercises learned at physical therapy. This was a bit expensive but worth it to regain confidence and strength in my right shoulder. By the end of the year another geriatric condition was revealed to me – a partially squashed L5-S1 disc. This is a common affliction of those who sit and type for a living and is the most common location for disc degeneration as it takes the heaviest load at the base of the spine. With physical therapy the intermittent nocturnal numbness in my right thigh has improved, but unlike the rotator cuff there is no surgically acceptable solution. Eventually stem cell therapy will allow the proteinacious “washer” that is the disc between the L5 and S1 vertebrae to be replaced. but for now it only appears to work in rats.

Between travels this Fall twice to Scotland and a few other locales closer to home, I started music lessons again for the first time since college. Just like in college there is very little time to practice, but this time I am studying jazz theory – not classical guitar - with Graham’s Berkley trained piano teacher Ryan Burns, (www.ryanburnsmusic.com). To date it has been intellectually challenging in ways that my job does not provide. The job though is still going well at the UW and I can think my colleagues, collaborators and the lab folk for that. All are extremely professional and genuinely interested in the two-way research efforts in which we often engage. So, with a lab full of great people from senior staff to students and those who want to be students (goodlett.proteomics.washington.edu/group_members), it is difficult to be bored. Several graduate students – Shawna (Medicinal Chemistry), Sunhee (Molecular Cellular Biology), Soyoung (Statistics) and Pragya (Medicinal Chemistry) - should obtain their PhD’s this year and go off to careers in science. My first students will populate the world a year after one of my PhD mentors – Frank B. Armstrong – passed away. I really need to get a page up on our website that says something about Frank’s influence on me that I have tried to emulate with students because it was his soft handed guidance that allowed me to design, and thus be fully vested in, my PhD project as opposed to the dictation of projects that some mentors practice.

Donna’s highlight for the year was Trixie, a two year old Rottweiler-Mastif mix, who arrived this Fall from an animal shelter – seven years after our Australian Shepherd Dapper died. Initially, when I agreed that this particular “medium-sized” dog would be OK, Donna had said that Trixie was only 50 lbs. Any larger I thought and we might have trouble walking her, etc. However, when Trixie got home she was a rib popping, emaciated, svelt 75 lbs. Now at about 85, I reckon she’ll be 100 when filled out. This is the same Donna who keeps saying she has trouble communicating with me! Fortunately, she – Trixie not Donna - is a bit of a baby as opposed to a guard dog and fairly easy to handle. Had the thieves who recently took Donna’s ipod nano and Garmin GPS unit out of her truck parked right in front of our house come up on the front porch for some more goodies, then they might have been afraid of Trixie except that she greets everyone with a tail wagging where have you been? For Donna it was another year of working on homeless issues and political activism which came with yet another successful auction (www.shareauction.org) for the homeless shelters run by SHARE. She also has continued to keep our finances on track and keep up maintenance on the house for which I am grateful, but the boys – who recently started doing their own laundry - oblivious. They have, however, begun to notice some economic injustice around the home as pertains to their Mother, Banker-in-Chief. For example, Mint wondered recently out loud in the car far away from his Mother’s ears “Dad, why does Mom get to buy dozens of pairs shoes with your money when I have only 3 pair? ……… because your shoes cost over $100 each, I replied, and hers only about $20 each, but what I was really thinking was – good question, but I ain’t gonna bring it up!”

We wish you all Happy Holidays from Seattle: Dave, Donna, Mint, Ham and Trixie. As with last year we can be reached at david.goodlett@gmail.com, donnamgoodlett@msn.com, minter.goodlett@gmail.com & graham.goodlett@gmail.com and viewed at picasaweb.google.com/david.goodlett/December2009#. Additionally, we are now all on Facebook.

Christmas letter 2008

Christmas 2008

What comes to mind as I sit to write this year is the mini-skirt worn by Cheri Merrifield (13Feb09: I recall now that this was actually Melissa Roberts who was "going with" Dean Dambach and not Cheri) in 7th grade algebra class. Like the Matador’s cape, it was red, but too short to flap in the wind. As a result, I nearly failed 7th grade algebra. Completely naïve, I had no clue why the mini-skirt was so bothersome, but I could not get it out of my mind. Thanks to Saturday morning math drills with my Dad, I got through the class and eventually – after failing calculus in my first quarter of college – I aced math and even began to enjoy it as I beat it down rather than it me. I also made a C in chemistry that first quarter and an A in history. A not so stellar beginning, but I was inspired by my poor performance and went on to change from history which seemed a waste of money to pay for something you would get all A’s in to chemistry which was a major challenge and worthy of being paid for.

All this and the mini-skirt comes to mind as Goodlett the Older, aka Mint, is flailing around at algebra generating the kind of scores (i.e. 50%) you get when you guess at answers instead of solve them logically. As a result, he and I are going at it every night now with me promising not to let up with the nightly quizzes until he gets it. He is starting to believe that regardless of whether he thinks algebra useful or not, that I will not let up my request. To a brighter topic now for him, his baseball team this year aced the season with a perfect 17-0 record. Sadly though, it was the first time ever, he did not pitch. There were simply too many better kids on the team who had obviously been practicing in the off season. We talked again about the need to accent talent with skills both in baseball to stay on the mound and at the trap set to do well in music. Maybe the algebra skills will make a believer out of him. Still he had a great year at baseball showing his usual head’s up play in the field coming through time and again as outfielder or catcher in critical moments making the correct decision to get runners out. Although they have no official name yet, Noah-David-Noah (aka NDN) have formed a rock band and recorded a couple of songs in the basement of the guitar player’s house where his Dad’s band has a practice studio. … Good for him, that is, as long as he gets the algebra.

Goodlett the Younger, aka Ham, continued his mastery of computer games to the point where it almost makes no sense to buy him a game as he will be done and jaded in under a week, if not a weekend. … $20, $40, $60 per game of his allowance (at $5/week) used up like a junky’s obsessive compulsiveness. His baseball skills improved this year – that is from his perspective – as he was never hit by a pitcher while at bat. However, the pitchers were so bad (lots of dodge ball at the plate. So there was skill invovled) in his league that Graham only swung a half dozen times all season walking to first most at bats. His lack of interest in athletics precedes him to the field, but anyone who plays make believe games that well should play real games. Notably, he and not his brother is the better strategist when war games break out in the neighborhood gang of a dozen boys or so. In another triumph he ran a mile under 8 minutes at school this year. This came after he and his brother collapsed as we exited a laser tag game on holiday. At that moment I realized they were pathetically out of shape relative to their 48 year old Dad who had just run around for 15 minutes and was not winded. A mile run each of the remaining days on vacation at the farm in July in Alabama was my gift. Another notable for Graham, was that he made his acting debut with a cameo appearance in a Death Cab for Cutie video for their song “No sunlight”. He is front in center of the first kid’s whirlieball team that you’ll see here www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeruvWuVV2Y. It should also be recorded for posterity that his brother, a fashion Diva who must have matching shirt and pant combos, could bring himself to wear the required retro gym clothes for the video. Inspired by this, Graham and his buddies later posted a silly video with him dancing that involves terrorists (huh? I don’t get that part Graham) and dart guns; www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG_c5sDbd1c. You’ll be seeing this again at yer wedding – Hammie!

Despite the tough economic times, or maybe because of them, the Homeless shelter auction Donna helps organize made about $35,000 this year or a cool $10k more than last year. Good job Donna! However, most auctions did much worse. We hear from our friend Gerry Pierce that the Dale Chihuly auction to raise money for seniors to do art took in a few hundred thousand short of normal. You can view some of Chihuly’s amazing glass art here www.chihuly.com. {Hey, Dale Chihuly! Why not donate some glass art to the SHARE auction???} This year, the SHARE auction finally got its own website www.shareauction.org to raise awareness of homeless issues in the community. Also this year Donna convinced our church (www.tumseattle.org) council to participate in the annual One Night Count of homeless which constitutes walking the streets of Seattle from midnight to 4 AM on a single night to count folk sleeping in the bushes are or their cars. This is an increasing problem as it was just estimated that staggering 80% of jobs in the state do not provide enough income to support a family. The One Night Count results go into a report to the city that affects funding for homeless shelters. It is always cold and miserable for these events, but this past year my postdoc at the time, Alex Scherl of Geneva Switzerland, brought coffee and chocolate which to Donna’s delight he produced at the end of the walk. In these tough times though the city now has five roving tent cities that have sprung up. Fortunately, and at the bidding/begging of Donna and a few others, the church finally initiated its own homeless shelter in our gymnasium where select folk sleep and have access to the kitchen and showers.

This year my work took me to Hangzhou and Suzhou in southern China where I toured 1000 year old gardens (whc.unesco.org/en/list/813) thanks to my former Institute for Systems Biology (www.systemsbiology.org) colleague Biaoyang Lin now at Zhejiang University, to Finland where I was in the world’s largest smoke sauna (www.herrankukkaro.fi) thanks to my buddy Garry Corthals at the Turku Centre for Biotechnology (www.utu.fi/en/research/researchs_turku/cooperation_and_openess_are_the_advantages_of_a_small_place.html) , and to Scotland where I played paintball for the first time thanks to my long time colleague and friend Pat Langridge-Smith of University of Edinburgh (homepages.ed.ac.uk/prrls02/prrls.html). I was surprised at how addictive paintball was especially the strategy needed to attack and capture your opponents’ fort. It really was a blast and yes it hurts when you get hit! Some photos from paintball and the manor house where Pat’s group held a retreat may be found here picasaweb.google.com/goodlett.laboratory/ArdgourManourHouse#. Thankfully, our Seattle lab group (goodlett.proteomics.washington.edu/group_members/) has leveled off to an almost manageable size with some notable additions of two hardworking, bright Taiwanese computer scientists – Shannon and Sonia – who write software programs to interpret our data. Software has become an integral part of biology and in fact probably half the group does some sort of software coding to pull information out of our mass spectrometry data. Without these people we would be trudging along in the dark. Also this year, and thanks to all the hardworking folk in the group, I received tenure. It is a bit of a vanishing concept that you have a job for life in academics or anywhere, but as long as I enjoy the job I’ll keep the tenure. That is the key thing in life – to have a good reason to get out of bed in the morning. Currently, for me this is work during the day and the thought all day long of torturing Mint with algebra at night!

Having cast my absentee ballot, I was in Scotland for Obama’s election where the Europeans were at least as excited, if not more so, as Americans. Seemingly setting the stage, Lewis Hamilton, who like Obama is 50% white or black depending on your preference, had just won the world Formula 1 driver’s championship that Sunday. The difference was that while I was happy for Lewis, I did not cry, when he won the driving championship, but like many I was overcome with emotion when Obama won election. This single inspiring act took me way back to 4th grade in Montgomery, Alabama when Bruce and Lionel were bused in from the country side to a formerly all white school. They must have been terrified and I wonder what has become of them as we lost track during junior high days. I know that most of Montgomery’s schools are now nearly all black as the integration tide reversed itself with white flight to the suburbs. More impressive to Europeans and Americans than Obama’s cool calm demeanor and logical decision making, juxtaposed against Bush’s crude ways, is that overnight people of color around the world have hope that their voices may be heard. To paraphrase MLK Jr, we are one day closer to judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. This has to be a good thing for humanity. Regrettably, the US is probably way ahead of the world when it comes to people of color taking the political reins of major country, but there is hope now that we might lay aside superficial characterizations of ethnicity and get on with making the world a better place for everyone.

This year I chose to attempt to be a bit more “green” by not printing out this annual Christmas letter to mail. So, you will only find it here on this blog along with all prior letters going back to 2001. To conclude on a light note in these dark, wintry economic times some of you will have heard that our Governor allowed Atheists to display a placard stating their disbelief in God alongside the Christian traditional holiday display at our state capital. That seemed a bit ridiculous to me at first, but then I recalled the Pagan beginnings of the Christmas tree and their Winter solstice celebrations. Maybe if more atheists and believers engaged in the kind of genetic recombination that gave us amiable leaders like Obama, Hamilton and (Tiger) Woods, then society would be more inclusive than exclusive. In the end, I think our Governor cast this controversy in the right light by allowing a Festivus pole to be erected there as well the aforementioned serious displays. For those who don’t know, Festivus is a Seinfeld-show contrived holiday where the family erects a bare metal pole that they then stand round casting out their grievances with each other from the past year (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus). Families do this anyway. So why not make it joyous with a bit of a celebratory character around a Festivus pole?

Seriously, regardless of your persuasion or grievance(s), we wish you all Happy Holidays from the Seattle Goodletts: Dave, Donna, Mint and Ham. We can be reached at david.goodlett@gmail.com, donnamgoodlett@msn.com, minter.goodlett@gmail.com & graham.goodlett@gmail.com and viewed picasaweb.google.com/david.goodlett.

18 December 2008

This letter, written in late 2004, was certainly the most celebrated to date. I misplaced it after changing computers several times, but recently located it. I decided to post it for the sake of completeness. It should be noted that most people loved the thoughts captured from those turbulent times made more so by the hysteria of fear waged by the Bush campaign to be re-elected. Kerry did not help matters any, but the irony that he actually went to Vietnam, as did Gore, while Bush could not recall what he did in the Alabama guard, still strikes me as a wee bit odd considering the chest thumping Bush was doing back then with the "Mission Accomplished" and "Bring em' on" comments. Nevertheless, those apparently flush fiscal times left over from the success of the Clinton years saw Bush inherit a surplus. This surplus, long since squandered on rebates and war, stands in stark contract to these apparently dim fiscal times being passed to Obama. We will soon see if Bush is the Hoover of our time and Obama the Roosevelt.




Dear Mr. President, Family and Friends, Christmas 2004


Congratulations on winning your first presidential election, Mr President! While we are quite happy the Supreme Court did not have to vote this time, I admit we were dreaming of a Blue not a red Christmas. While most Blue-stater’s supported you in Afghanistan, we oppose your invasion of Iraq. From early 2000 your handlers were determined to get Saddam. 9-11 gave them a reason and before that even Condie, a Birmingham Alabama girl, gave them a name (The Rise of the Vulcans, Mann). Of course you aren’t the first President to go to war over faked circumstances (Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, Moise). Who were the 8 million voters with whom Mr Rove turned the election? In part they seem to be readers of the Bible as interpreted by Revs. Robertson and Falwell (Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media & the Religious Right, Buchanan and McDonnell). Their underlying message of intolerance, hate and God as vengeful is as scary as their hairdos. We ask why pick on homosexuals and why do they want to be part of the failed institution of marriage, anyway? Of course what they really want is social rights. The same social rights mixed race couples struggled and were killed for in the South of my youth and before them Blacks. We suspect that if the Christian right ever gain control of our country, then there will be a mass exodus of intellectuals like the world saw from Nazi Germany while most others will be stuck here. Folk like Einstein who contributed the intellectual capital to make this country what it is today - a military power house – would skeedaddle. So, we were relieved to read that funds for your Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Bomb were scuttled. Aren’t our 10,000 nuclear weapons of mass destruction enough? Yes! And maybe moderate republicans will make your right-wing agenda a lame duck before you are even sworn in again rather than traditionally at the mid-term elections.

I know you like baseball, Sir. So let me tell you about my oldest son, “Mint”. Now in 3rd grade, he surprised us with his ability to pitch last season. Amazingly, he composed himself in front of crowds throwing baseballs straight across the plate without hitting batters. Before games he’d say “Dad, my heart is beating really fast. I can’t breathe well”. The first few times I thought it was asthma and gave him albuterol, but later I realized it was just nerves. David-Minter, more a Greg Maddox finesse pitcher than a Randy Johnson brute force guy, never threw a Mr Snappy that hit an innocent player. Did you ever see one of Johnson’s “Mr Snappy” fast balls get away from him? Ouch! One more thing about Mint, he learned to play drums this year and sang a duet in our church Christmas pageant, but it will be some time before he can finesse drums or voice. Finesse takes time and patience.

I gotta say I was bewildered hearing you say Jesus was your favorite prophet. So to the delight of my pastor, who really rails against your fiscal policy favoring the rich, I searched for your Jesus in my Bible. Having done so, I gotta ask you Mr President, “Can you read?” What I mean is, if you can read, then can you read with comprehension? That is key. I know because Ham, in 1st grade now, is having a devil of a time learning to read. He can remember/memorize most anything though and is as good at or better at math than his brother. And geeze, he didn’t struggle this much learning to ride a bike. He studied it for over a year watching his brother ride, got some tips from GrandPa and then one day, BINGO! Off he rode downhill without a crash. Time and patience served him well. So we sure hope this happens with his reading. Assumin’ heez gonna learn to comprehend what he reads, which passages from the Bible would you offer up for instruction on Jesus? The ones on love or vengence? While I can find lots of occasions of the former, the latter escapes me. So I’m tellin’ Graham, due to no fault of your own other than choice of interpreters Robertson & Falwell, that you have confused Jesus with King David. Because it matters, Graham-Robinson and I will read Martin Luther King Jr (Letter from the Birmingham Jail, King) who mastered change via nonviolent opposition.

Speaking of violent, vengeful Gods, you may recall King Richard the Lion Hearted, who like your Daddy actually went to war trusting in God’s providence. King Richard invaded what is now the “middle east” nominally to free Jerusalem and install his “better” brand of religion and government. Unconvinced, Saladin took up arms and these two sons of Abraham (Abraham, Feiler) worked hard to win God’s favor. By all accounts (Warriors of God, Reston) it really was tough work, but neither minded owing to an abundance of the willing to die for Jesus and Mohammed. And yet, after years of tough, hard work as you say; no diplomacy; and atrocities by both sides much worse than Mr Rumsfeld’s Abu Ghraib (by the way - why does he still work for you?); politics and economics forced Richard to retreat. As I write this Al Qaeda has called for the US to establish a policy of mutual respect and leave the Middle East. According to Craig Unger (House of Bush, House of Saud) you know the Bin Ladens. So why not, like Israelis and Palestinians who also blow each other up, talk? I know 1) this seems ridiculous to most who only know Al Qaeda by the superficial, easy to comprehend “truths” manifested in the massacre of innocent civilians on September 11th, 2) that truth, grasped only by hard objective work, is complicated and 3) blood spills easily. So how long will we continue to spill their blood there before we are forced to retreat? And when ours is spilt again here, while we spend billions blowing up Iraq, who then to blow up and to what vengeful end? Wisdom is direly needed, but there is no indication that staring it in the face, like General Powell’s ignored doctrine (My American Journey, Powell), that it will be recognized by your folk.

After Afghanistan the Vulcans pushed you into Iraq. Instead you might have taken a page from the Israeli’s mission “Wrath of God” that took twenty + years to hunt and assassinate each terrorist responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre of innocent athletes. This operation saw only one innocent waiter mistakenly killed, not thousands as in Iraq. Time, patience and finesse (One Day in September, Reeve) won the day, but not their war. It continues. And without taking time to talk and long after Osama is dead our war will too. Currently, we waste billions in Iraq, engender more hatred of U.S. while Al Qaeda eyes our unprotected cities. Just one wee nuclar’ device in one unchecked cargo container, thousands of which enter Seattle and other ports everyday headed for the heartland on flatbed trailers bearing logos like Maersk shipping, and then what? Actually, I don’t think any amount of money can defend this threat. Note that even a wall around Israel cannot solve their fundamental(ist) problems. For that they, like we, have to throw off the right- and left-wing extremists and talk to our enemy. So why not talk rather than unilaterally make it worse? For the sake of my little men and others’ who play at war, but understand none of it, who will grow up to be drafted to fight a war that will not go away . . . please reach out. Neither bombs in Iraq nor killing Osama will protect us. There is a military adage: Know thy enemy and a Christian one: Love thy enemy. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
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Wow! You must be thinkin’, Dave!!!! it can’t all be bad? “No sir”, I say! I want to applaud you for your call for non-governmental agencies like churches to bear more of the burden of social responsibility than government. Even if we weren’t wasting billions bringing democracy to Iraqi’s who probably can’t use it yet, we know the government can’t do everything. Donna, freshly retired from the real estate business, helped organize an auction for the homeless again this year. They, the working homeless with children and with jobs that don’t pay a living wage, helped raise $16,000 for ownership of port-O-potties and hand washing stations. BTW these tent cities, set up in church parking lots, are protected by a law passed during your Dad’s administration; i.e. religious organizations have wide discretion as to how they use their property. We know because our church was sued by the city of Seattle for hosting them, fined thousands of dollars and we won!

God bless the World and Merry Christmas from a BLUE state!

Christmas Letter 2006

Dear Friends and Family,

It is the day after Christmas and our house, with open door policy in affect, is intermittently full of boys ages 6-11 running in and out bragging about who got what cool gift: iPOD shuffles, PS2 w/ secret invincibility codes, air hockey tables, retro 70’s athletic warm up clothes, heelys (shoes – skates really – w/ wheels in the sole) and debating the existence of Santa. J This gang of about a dozen boys go to school together, play baseball together, battle evil forces on Xbox and PS and have one sleep over after another - together. The good news for parents is that eventually an evening with no kids will arrive at someone’s house.

Again this past Spring our boys played baseball in the not-so-rainy Spring season, but not soccer which takes place in Autumn when the NW gets torrential sideways rain for weeks on end. Soccer Moms here do duty in the mud, wind and rain. L The Spring baseball season saw Mint change his pitching release a bit from previous successful years resulting in elevation issues that decreased his accuracy to 50-60%. His lateral control still spot on meant that he, unlike his mates, never hit a batter. Nice if you are a batter, but the sound and sight of his pitches slamming into the wooden backstop –THWACK! – and the disappointment on his face afterward is etched in my mind. Despite lots of advice he just never sorted it out. Fortunately for his ego, he did a great job as catcher throwing out kids at third, first and even home with deft tosses back to the pitcher. He remains a pretty cool character under pressure. This was born out when he calmly called out to me from the toilet one day after a game “Dad – there’s red stuff coming out when I pee. Is it blood?” “Yikes, I think – blood? that can’t be good!” A look over his shoulder confirms it. “Not to worry”, I say. “Probably from that hit you took today in the game. We’ll go see the doctor tomorrow.” However, after a regular ultrasound, an ultrasound with catheterization by cute nurses to deliver a bladder imaging chemical via the urethra and an MRI, we discovered only that one kidney is 25% the size of the other. None of this helped resolve the blood in urine mystery and none of the doc’s thought it came from the game whacking he took stealing second. However, it did help us decide that, even though he loves playing front yard football with his mates, he should probably not play organized football when he goes to 6^th grade and middle school next year

Graham - at 9 and true to Dad’s genes - is not exactly the consummate athlete, but we encourage him to play some sort of team sport for the experience of friendships it offers. So he once again started baseball season unable to throw the long ball without spinning to the ground in a malformed pirouette. This was quite a funny site making us all crack up in laughter, but also frustrating for him when older brother does it so easily. By seasons’s end though his coaches, Mother, Father and brother had helped him improve drastically. He was no longer falling down and could catch 60% of the throws to him. He even got to pitch once in a game although he admitted afterward that it had looked easier when someone else was doing it. In his first year of kid pitch he took a ball in the left kidney and was adamant that this year he was not going to play because “that really hurt!” So we gave him the option of playing soccer. Fortunately, rather than have his parents stand in the cold rain of soccer season, he decided on baseball and the possibility that he might take a stinging hardball in the back.

This Fall Graham started piano lessons and Mint went back to drum lessons. As with baseball Mint is just more talented. In spite of rhythmic and tonal challenges, Graham really enjoyed playing the piano and with a metronome his notes turned into sweet single finger music which thoroughly pleased him and me. On the trap set Mint continues to quickly figure out syncopated rhythms. Like Graham watching other kids pitch the drumming doesn’t look that difficult to me, but no matter how often I try I cannot play those limb challenging syncopations. In mathematics Graham maintains bragging rights over his older brother, but is still challenged with phonetics and reading. Undaunted by his parent’s hang-ups with his reading he took up the Tolken “Lord of The Rings” series. He also is a much better runner than Mint completing a 5k this year in hare-like fashion: run ahead, rest, repeat.

Donna worked hard again this past year on an auction to raise funds for homeless shelters and as chair of Trustees at church where she oversaw painting of our 6000 sq ft, 3 story high Sanctuary. I’d say the politics of all of this literally wore her out. In general repairing “sacred” religious structures and helping the “undesirable” homeless types brings out weird and irrational passions from both sponsors and folk who hate religion and the homeless. Still a successful tenure provided her opportunity to retire for a few years, but the same politics of church business emboldened her to continue joking about being Mayor when we retire of Moulton, Alabama where my folks live. She has joked enough about it to make me think it is no joke. With an eye to next year she began to put energy into opening our gymnasium as an emergency homeless shelter. Five years of argument over how to help the homeless resulted in a Saturday soup kitchen, but no shelter. The fight within the church to open the gym on nights where weather is inclement is not yet won, but not over either. Me thinks, she will win.

The boys again spent time on the farm with their grandparents and we joined for a few weeks. Of note was a backpack trip with my Dad to the Hike Inn in Northern Georgia where we ate and slept. Graham, who had almost nothing in his pack, ran much of the five miles, while asthmatic Mint had the heat and humidity of a wandering the woods in Summer focus his mind “are we there yet?” Also of note, the trip marked the first time ever I out hiked my Dad and now only because he is finally feeling his age with a knee that needs therapy or surgery. Thanks for letting me beat you Dad! We also waded down the Sipsey river in the Bankhead National Forest which for the first time in a long time was at a safe level allowing us to get in and look for poisonous snakes and snapping turtles. While we did see a wee turtle, no snakes were found. L

I had another great year at work, but the praise band I played in for the past four years at church finally folded and I went back to singing tenor in the choir. Not quite as challenging, but still a nice artistic release and different enough from science to relax. At work six of us from the lab spent a couple of weeks in Europe in August-September giving lectures and recruiting. This was a treat for those who had not been to Europe. Our lectures described work spent the last few years developing methods for finding protein biomarkers. Recently though we began to focus more on individual protein structure determination with hope of passing along information to medicinal chemists with whom we work to design small molecule therapies for bacterial diseases. Most funding comes from NIH which established centers of excellence in biodefense and emerging infectious disease after the anthrax deaths a few years back. Although dreadfully outdated you can read about us: depts.washington.edu/goodlab.

Complaining more than once in past years to my Dad about the neo-conservatives running DC, he wisely reminded me “The American People will decide when things need changing”. It seems they were recently so inclined and in part perhaps because people like Colin Powell among other ex-W cabinet members with moral authority finally began to speak out against a President who over spent his much ballyhoo’d “political capital”. As a former general, sworn to protect the constitution, this must have been pretty difficult for him and likely why it took he and others so long. Thankfully though, the country now seems to be re-centering. If Congress can really work together, then there is some chance that more of our tax $ will be spent for “homeland” projects like the bill to protect our ports that recently passed which, though imperfect, will spawn technological innovation and jobs. I’ll end on this positive note of hope for country and world that our politicians will talk with and not at each other!

Wishing you a Prosperous New Year from Seattle - Dave, Donna, Mint and Ham.

Christmas Letter 2005

Dear Friends, Family and Pastor Robertson,

After laying my heart on the line in last year’s letter, I am sure that many of you anxiously awaited this year’s. J Fortunately, for the faint of politik amongst you, I have had far less time to conjure this one up. BTW: the response to last year’s letter was overwhelmingly positive! Thanks for that. A recent poll ranking Seattle as the most literate American city, may explain some of my rant’s against W last year. This rank does not, of course, equate with intelligence, but it does mean we read enough to think we know what is going on and perhaps it also explains the ubiquitous Impeach Bush bumper stickers in Seattle.

Having established a tradition of sorts last year of handing out an award, I felt compelled to continue only because it helps prevent my being too depressed about the mess the country is in now domestically and internationally. This year’s choice for W award recipient, given out for bungling incompetence of the most ridiculous sort, was not easy. To be a contender one had to say or do something so stupid that it could easily become a Saturday Night Live skit. This year’s finalists were: 1) W himself for masquerading as a leader, 2) his horse judging buddy “Brownie” of FEMA “yerh doin’ a heck uv uh jobe Brownie” fame and 3) Pastor Robertson for pedaling theocracy. No surprise then that Mr. Robertson won, not for masquerading as Pastor, but for: 1) calling for the assassination of a democratically elected foreign leader and 2) condemning Dover, PA by assuring them that God will not answer their prayers because they booted the Intelligent Design promoting school board out. If you know anyone sending Mr. Robertson money, then please ask them instead to send it to their local homeless shelter where they can buy toilet paper and other necessities of life. If not for serious people out there pushing theocracy of the Taliban variety for the US, then this would be a joke. It ain’t no joke.

Speaking of right v. left….conservative v. liberal….my Dad “reckoned” to me during my visit home that many folk don’t even know the difference between liberal and conservative. I don’t recall what I said, but I do recall that there are many things one should not speak too ardently about in polite southern culture lest one insult one’s neighbors or family; e.g. winning the Alabama v. Auburn football game or politics. War Eagle! OK, so I’m a slow learner, but rules laws are made to be broken. Right,W ? .….So, I pondered how best to explain the difference. Given that it tizz the Christmas season, Jesus’ example popped right to mind. You’d better lash yourself to yerh bully pulpit Pat, cuzzz I gotta tell you the truth. Given what we know, Jesus was….ehrr….a liberal. J Of course most prophets are liberals. They present society with options to the conservative comfort zone. What Jesus promoted (helping the disenfranchised, e.g. prostitutes and the socially impoverished, and throwing money changers out of the temple) went completely against the conservative rules of society that kept, then and today, the poor and disenfranchised in their places.

In spite of their liberal parents, our wonderful boys David (9) and Graham (8) had a fairly conservative year in 2005. As in years past they went back to the farm in Alabama for a month in Summer; participated in cub scouts during which time I once again made both of their losing entries to the annual pinewood derby car race; studied Spanish; exchanged far too many plastic toys at birthday parties; cried wolf for numerous reasons known only to their developing senses of social etiquette; and of course played baseball in the Spring. I too continued my conservative ways (doing the same thing over and over again) at work which included writing grants most of which were not funded L; teaching graduate students – which has turned out to be one of the best things ever; lecturing in far off places (Japan, Sicily, Finland, Scotland, England, Canada, Spain) sigh! … near year’s end & in Scotland a 2^nd time, I cancelled on Germany – due to mental fatigue, and returned to maintaining order amongst the fifteen folk in our laboratory who insist on not getting along when you least expect it; and playing in our church’s praise band. Donna also continued many of the same old habits by working hard on the homeless auction board to run the auction, serving as chair of the board of trustees at church, working at the boy’s school, trying to maintain order while I was away and taking on the office duties for another of my ventures where I began work as an editor at Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

David had his musical debut this year when he played wood block with our praise band and again at school in the orchestra on snare drum where there were so many different rhythms I don’t know how he kept track. His pitching confidence improved over last year (see bubble blown during pitch in accompanying photo), but a hitting slump saw him throw a few major league type fits. His habit of slow straight throws across the plate got him lots of defensive plays off the mound most of which resulted in the runner being thrown out at first. BTW: this poise must come from his Pa Goodlett or his Mom. While he has said at times “Dad, I was so nervous….” and he is very shy, it never shows in his pitching. He is supposed to go up a league in Spring where 4^th - 6^th graders play and finally use real (i.e. hard like a rock) baseballs. We hope he can, but over this past year he has been losing weight which may hold him back. Tests show it isn’t Celiac’s disease. Nor is it any other obvious malady. So is it a genetic tendency to slow growth? I dunno. Genetics probably, because in spite of my current weight problem – I weigh 20 lbs too much L – I was a really skinny child as was his Pa Goodlett.

Graham on the other hand weighs about the same as his taller brother and dramatically improved his baseball skills, but oddly without practice. This kid really hates practice - of any sort. The improvement in skills came the same as riding a bike last year – seemingly from no where. After some nonchalant observations, he just started hitting the ball. Bingo! Thar yah go. What’s all the fuss about this coach pitch league? This Fall he started 2nd grade and was allowed to enroll in a 4^th grade sketch class at school where each child made a kind of cartoon flip-O-rama (a’ la Captain Underpants) movie booklet. He loves drawing and has a decent sense of perspective for someone his age, but continues to struggle to read efficiently. However, when pushed his math & spelling skills are as good as his brother’s. Rather than poise under pressure, the defining virtue of this fine young lad is that he feels no compulsion to demonstrate anything to anyone. This, plus other unmentioned evidence, makes me suspect some mild dyslexia, but also some honestly, inherited indolence J – and this from me. Oh yeah, he loves quoting from TV’s “My Name is Earl”, watching Survivor and any bug eating show.

After last year’s letter some of you may think we in Seattle are of the most left-wing liberal variety because we protest the war and support the troops, won’t let our boys have gameboys and embrace the non-hetero types among us. So here is one final story to set you straight. J A couple years ago, after all the older folk (i.e. octogenarians +) at church had become accustomed to non-hetero types sitting next to them in the pews, an odd thing happened that put us back in our mainline liberal place. It was a warm Summer morning for Seattle. And, with not a cloud in the sky it promised to reach the 90’s by the time church got out. Robin, not his real name, strolled in that fine morning looking like he had not shaved nor had a haircut in many years. As we have plenty of homeless who wander in for service no one noticed at first. Quickly that changed though as we all simultaneously realized that Robin, now halfway down the center aisle, was decked out in a beautiful, but far from opaque, lavender sun dress. Effeminate in demeanor, but looking manly in the beard, it was difficult for me to keep a straight face as I approached to greet him. But greet him I did, taking his witness of a woman trapped inside this body. “How could God get this wrong”, he asked? “Shouldn’t the ushers have stopped him gettin’ in”, I wondered? One pew back Miss Alice (90 + yrs old) probably thought she had seen it all since the church had come out of the closet, but she had a sick look on her face as she spied his tightie-whities through the sun dress. I’m sure that, had she gotten over being stunned by this spectacle, she would have lectured him on when to wear a proper slip. Fortunately, for us Robin never returned and we can call ourselves religious and social liberals – as in just left of the center, but not so far left that we meet right. Yuck! L

Google for “goodlab proteomics” and you’ll find my homepage. To find out what others of us are up to please contact us via goosci@msn.com or donnamgoodlett@msn.com or on my mobile at 206.465.6165 or Donna’s at 206.679.7096. BTW: as my niece Alex found out when she searched the University of Washington directory, you won’t find me. Two years after starting I have yet to find time to walk a silly piece of paper across campus. J Finally, and most sincerely, please keep W and his legal team in your prayers. They’ll need it in 2006 and given that Cheney is no Ford, we certainly don’t want a repeat of what befell “Tricky Dicky”. J God bless you all, God bless the world that lost 200,000+ people to natural disasters since I last wrote and God bless the free press’ of the world who are “workin’ hard” trying to keep government as honest as possible

………………..Ciao’ now from Seattle.