Tongue. Blech.

First of all, this is Ginna. Kris and I have combined our nonexistant blogging attempts, and so now there may be a new entry more often than once every six months!

Tonight we went out for Mexican food. We went to our favorite Mexican restraunt, the Taqueria. Some of you have been there with us, those of you that have will know that it doesn't disappoint. Kris has eaten almost all of the dishes they have at one time or another. Tonight he decided to try one of the dishes he hadn't gotten around to yet. It was beef tongue in green sauce. He said "I keep looking at this and wanting to order it, but I don't. I'm going to DO it tonight!" I was skeptical, but this is the same guy who will eat a pizza convered with octopus tentacles, and not even blink.




He's really brave with food. There's not much he won't eat. Except pate.
So they brought out the meal, and it looked kind of gross, but I thought he was going to be ok. But he started to look a little grim. He had suddenly realized that this was really tongue, and it had like little taste buds still on it, and other anotomical details. I even took a bit to try to encourage him. It was really gross, and slimy and squishy, but I pretended it was fine. He took a bite, and I thought there was a chance he would puke. He didn't, but he couldn't eat it. He ate beans and rice instead.
So that's the whole story. Nothing monumental, like losing his lunch on the floor, but the adventure food man outadventured himself, and that doesn't happen very often.

Moral of the story?

BEWARE THE TONGUE - BBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEECH

Extreme Makeover Bike Edition

With all these great cake blogs, I decided I had to hold my own. Murphy needed a new bike, so I volunteered my services, especially since I can't ride bikes right now.

With the help of a friend, I gave this old Schwinn a sweet makeover. It's a vintage Schwinn Le Tour, built in either 1979 or 1980 in Schwinn's Chicago plant. It was a last ditch bid by Schwinn to compete with the Asian imports. They sold a fair number of these bikes, but ultimatly Schwinn closed it's Chicago plant and sold its branding to importers. Pannasonic was already making a lot of Schwinns by this point, so it's cool to find a Chigaco bike.

I found the bike at a non-profit used bike warehouse in North Kansas City. It had no rust and very few scratches. The biggest problem was all the old hardware weighing it down. The lugged steel frame is quite nice once you get some modern parts on it. I turned it into a singlespeed and lightened it up a bunch.

Nicaragua Pictures

I put up a slideshow on my new facebook page. So go and check it out.

Nicaragua Mission

I just got back from a dental mission to Nicaragua. Thanks to the generosity of many friends and family I was able to travel to a remote areas of one of the poorest places in the world to provide dental service. Most of these people are so poor it's hard to even imagine. We charged 50 cents a visit, which represented a sacrafice for the people and we would try to do as much work as they could safely tolerate in one appointment.

I extracted more teeth in the first couple of days than I did during a six week rotation in our oral surgery clinic. We also did a lot of restorations. The Nicaraguans are good craftsmen and they make very nice dentures. But, you can't wear a denture with a bunch of broken down teeth in your mouth. More than a few of the patients we treated traveled for an entire day just to be treated.

I can't imagine being in a situation where you come to a building to be treated by dentists who don't speak your language and don't understand you at all. We had an interpreter, but there was still very little dialogue between doctor and patient.
It is really hard to put the exterience into words anyway.

New Wheels

It's been a long time since I've posted, so I'd better give a little update. We're almost half way through the 3rd year of dental school and Ginna is getting close to finishing her MBA. There is a very dim light at the end of our school tunnel, so we're getting slightly anxious. We're still trying to sell the house, but that's not going so well. There isn't much interest in it or any other house in the area. Again, there are more leaves on the grass than I could have ever imagined. Each year I forget about the volume of fallen leaves. It is depressing to look up at the trees in the yard and realize that half of the leaves still remain on the branches.

Thanksgiving is a good time of year for us. It's the time when we like to spend money on cars. A little more than 2 years ago we bought the subaru forester. Then, I promptly backed it into the neighbor's car while pulling out of the driveway. That was a nice way to start out the festivities. This year, we bought a new car for our Thanksgiving drive to Utah. It's a Land Rover Discovery. It gives us a little more room for the crew during the long drives. Here is a picture of the same car with some idealized off-road extras. Maybe we can add the roof rack and brush guard some time in the future. For some stupid reason I can't post an actual picture of the one we bought, but you can imagine us in the linked picture in Moab, on our way to Thanksgiving dinner in Utah.

Meanwhile, Max has been doing his best to teach us why it's called the "terrible twos". He's about as opinionated as it gets. His current favorite interest is CDs. We burned him some music and put a little CD player in his room. He really likes to listen to his favorite songs again and again and again and again and then cry when we stop it. Then he carries his CDs around the house, constantly requesting that we listen to them.
He is also in love with the new car. For example, today we dropped off the Rover at the shop for some expected maintenance before the Utah drive. As we were getting ready to leave the shop, Max looked over at the Rover in the parking lot and said, "let's all ride in the new car." We were surprised because Max is just beginning to piece entire sentences together on his own.
Max also loves the red car and will be very sad when we try to sell it later this month.

The most boring blog ever

So this is the most boring blog ever because it is never updated. The reason: check out my latest projects at http://www.pattersondentalcycling.com/
And check out our blog at pattersondentalcyclingblog.blogspot.com

Do I Actually Want To Be A Pediatric Dentist?

I'm back in school now after a small break. Actually, it was a long break but I had to waste 3 weeks of it studying for boards. And it's a good thing I did or else I may not have passed one of the sections. It seems I really suck at anatomy. I new I would have a hard time with it and I was right. Fortunately, I realized before the exam that I sucked at anatomy and I studied enough for it. While the anatomy section lowered my score overall, it wasn't so bad to do any real damage.

Now the question remains: do I really want to be a pediatric dentist? While in Utah, I spent a day at the University of Utah Children's Hospital with the pediatric dental residents. I have to admit that I really liked it. You couldn't help but feel bad for the little kids only 2 or 3 years old in need of full mouth reconstructions. I think it would be really rewarding to do cases like that.

Today I observed in the OR at Children's Mercy Hospital here in KC with UMKC's residents. Again, I really liked it. I have to admit that I would really like to go into a pediatric residency. The problem is that in admitting something like that I have to take on the responsibility of trying to make it happen. I have to hope again that I can get into a competitive program and try to solicit myself somehow.

I guess we'll just have to kind of see how things go for the next little while. Should be interesting.

The Floyd Lowdown

The Velonews posted a decent explanation of some of the legal issues involved in the Landis doping case. You can clearly see there was some shady moves on part of the UCI and the Lab--just further evidence for the Mustache and Beard Conspiracy.

Keep the Faith: Floyd's Real Explainations

Floyd posted a plea on his website asking us, the fans who thought we saw the most amazing cycling comeback ever, to Keep the Faith.

Well Floyd, I'm keeping the faith for you. And not only that, I'm going to offer Floyd's exclusive explanations for the positive tests--soundly based on reliable web research.

Let's just take a quick review of physiology and answer the question of what testosterone does.

"In general, androgens promote protein synthesis and growth of those tissues with androgen receptors. Testosterone effects can be classified as virilizing and anabolic effects, although the distinction is somewhat artificial, as many of the effects can be considered both. Anabolic effects include growth of muscle mass and strength, increased bone density and strength, and stimulation of linear growth and bone maturation. Virilizing effects include maturation of the sex organs, particularly the penis and the formation of the scrotum in fetuses, and after birth (usually at puberty) a deepening of the voice, growth of the beard and axillary hair. Many of these fall into the category of male secondary sex characteristics." Wikipedia

Just based on this description it is obvious to anyone who's seen Floyd that he is the only rider in the pro peleton who displays secondary sex characteristics consistent with high levels of testosterone. Floyd is the only rider sporting the mustache. In fact, the stache is so well developed and strong it frequently spills down onto his chin. So why don't we see more riders sporting the stache? Easy, it takes all the testosterone they have to keep them fit to ride--no excess for intimidating aesthetics.

Additionally, Floyd's cycling bibs are stuffed ful--leaving little to the imagination. The above mentioned hormonal effects are clearly in effect. This guy clearly has a lot of testosterone.

The failure of the test is clearly due to Floyd's physiology. And the French are jealous. The true conspiracy is that the French authorities are actually upset because, although they host the world's greatest cycling race, they haven't been chosen to host a World Beard and Moustache Championship. The French lack the needed testosterone to meet the stringent requirements of a host nation. After years of American domination in their premier sporting event--the US is hosting the 2009 World Beard and Moustache championships--the French can't take it anymore. Floyd is the fallguy.