Nabisco: Seriously, don't you have a team of people to say things like: "Maybe hiring the Mannings and the Williamses for this campaign might be a bad idea"? Hey, if you're looking for other marketing ideas, I seem to remember Alec Baldwin playing a priest on Saturday night live who loved to "spread the cookie open and lick the creamy center..."

It's the Double Stuf Racing League-a fierce competition to see who's fastest to twist, lick and dunk there Oreo cookie! The league has gained popularity thanks to sports luminary like Peyton & Eli Manning, and now Venus & Serena Williams.

This guy for President:

Arnold Epstein: [Spending too much on care at the end of life] is a big problem. The numbers I've seen put it at something like $130 billion a year. The quip is that the U.S. is the one country in the world where they think death is optional. And we act that way. I think we have to start to deal with that. And the time to deal with it is not at the bedside. It's with a broader group trying to think about standards and piecemeal efforts where we can put things out of bounds. I don't know if that means we say that people don't get dialyzed when they're 97, or bring it back to 95 or 92. Or that certain medications when the cost per adjusted life-year is $500,000, we say that we're really not going to cover them. And we try and change the culture.

Victory!!!!!!!


After a Summer of disappointing (mostly second place) finishes, I sailed to a commanding (2 minutes and 19 seconds) win for the last Beercans of the season. A big thank you to Joe (currently blogless) for your excellent crew work.

In other news, here's my coworker Tom holding a $10,000 purse belonging to another coworker. That was not a typo. The purse has a little lock on the front, so that nobody can steal the valuables that you might keep inside your purse...

The part about the hippo was already there...

Ouabain is used worldwide extensively by scientists for in-vitro-studies to block the sodium pump (Na-K-ATPase). In many non rodent species, low concentrations of this substance (i.e., in the nanomolar range) provide effective stimulation of the NaK-pump. The issue in rodents is more complicated because there are different isoforms of the NaK-pump - some of which are very sensitive to ouabain while others are not. Ouabain is no longer widely used for the treatment of human heart failure. However, in France and Germany, intravenous ouabain has a long history in the treatment of heart failure, and some continue to advocate its use by mouth in angina pectoris and myocardial infarction. There is limited anecdotal evidence for improved efficacy of ouabain relative to digoxin in a small number of patients. However, no well controlled research exists that proves or disproves the efficacy this practice. A sufficiently concentrated ouabain dart can bring down a Hippopotamus. The Galápagos tortoise, however, is immune to the effects of ouabain darts.

Things I did on vacation that did not involve bicycling

1) Sat in my very favorite Vietnamese pharmacist's massage chair. He is too poor to afford a full time masseuse, but not too poor to buy a $30,000 massage chair. Incidentally, I found the chair to be quite uncomfortable, if not excruciating at times...maybe I should see a spine surgeon. In my hand is a book by Richard North Patterson; it was not very good, but he wrote the Lasko Tangent, so occasionally I feel obligated to buy his books.

2) Ate some crumpets...and, my God, we're drinking tea...in Seattle.


3) Watched as several waiters challenged my very favorite Vietnamese pharmacist to eating contests (eg. "There's no way you can eat a 28 inch pizza...")



4) Rented the world's smallest sailboat. You're probably thinking there are smaller sailboats...there might be shorter sailboats, but there are no sailboats with smaller cockpits/lower booms...at least not that you would try to fit two adults in.


5) Paddled around Lake Steilacoom in Nico's friends' divorce boat. The first picture is with the professional kayaker in the boat, the second is without. As they say, "Wherever your relationship is going, you'll get there faster on (in) a tandem". Nico's friends: I'd give you a link, but the security on your site is too tight.



6) Bummed rides off the locals. Here's me sitting next to Rebecca, fleet captain of the Orcas Island Yacht Club aboard her Merit 25...and a shot of her husband Vaughn on the deck...with some other island off in the distance.



I guess I should write about the bicycling some time.

It is probably impossible to be jet-lagged without changing time zones...

Here are some vacation pictures:

1) Seattle

2) San Juan Islands

3) San Juan Island Tandems (It's a bunch of pictures of people riding tandems. Unless you were on the trip, or you think pictures of people riding tandems are really cool, this album might not be of interest to you).

Nico came from out on the Island...

If you have an hour or two to spare you could take the Catalina Flyer, but it case you hadn't noticed, Nico and I don't roll that way...and accordingly, only a 15 minute flight aboard the BonanzaBago would hold our interest.

Here's Captain Marty making sure nobody has put sugar in the gas tank, or something. I am pretty sure he discarded a couple hundred dollars of high performance jet fuel in the process...


If I look nervous here, it's because I am attempting to keep the plane on that narrow strip of air that will allow the plane to not fall out of the sky.


The Airport in the Sky (from the air)--as scary as it sounds...of course, as I told the Captain, I don't even like driving over bridges.


Safely on the ground at the Catalina Airport, we had a lunch consisting of buffalo burgers and regular burgers. I am not sure which was which, though one was considerably better than the other. Here's a photo of Nico and I at the airport. Please notice that we are still alive at this point. Also please notice that there are no photos of us (still alive) back at John Wayne...perhaps because Nico flew part of that leg, and she was not interested in keeping the plane in the narrow strip of air that would allow the plane to not fall out of the sky...


Parting shot of Avalon from the air:

Another line for the resume...

Kayaking class today; brought the (waterproof) camera along. Here are some really dark and stormy looking pictures of my class:

Two Jews walk into a bar

(Alternative title was: "Christ, that's good beer")

If you're into large quantities of wine, the LA Wine Fest is the place to be. I can't remember much about the wine, other than that there was a lot of it. There were a couple decent wineries from the Ventura area, and we met some interesting people...like Jeremy here...from Durban...at the Wine Fest to sell some of his country's liquid wares. (Please take note of my purple teeth.)


Both titles (above) were stolen from the Schmaltz Brewing Company. I would feel bad about stealing their slogans, except they stole the name of their beer (He'Brew) from a Joan River's joke (which goes something like: "You're so goy you think Hebrew is a macho beer"). But I digress, here's me with a bottle of He'Brew. Hey, my teeth are still purple.


I would write something about the tequila and vodka tasting, but things are hazy by then. I have a couple of brochures for what I think are my new favorite tequilas: Dos Manos Añejo and Don Camilo Reposado.

Dinner at comme Ça after the Wine Fest. We took the bus down Melrose, as driving immediately after sampling 60 wines is probably a bad idea. The tarte flambe compared poorly to the several we had in France...Here's Nico at the bus stop, looking way too happy. Why are her teeth so white?

And you guys think I make this stuff up.

Objective To determine from a societal perspective the risk of sudden cardiac death associated with running in an organised marathon compared with the risk of dying from a motor vehicle crash that might otherwise have taken place if the roads had not been closed.
Design Population based retrospective analysis with linked ecological comparisons of sudden death.

Setting Marathons with at least 1000 participants that had two decades of history and were on public roads in the United States, 1975-2004.

Main outcome measures Sudden death attributed to cardiac causes or to motor vehicle trauma.

Results The marathons provided results for 3 292 268 runners on 750 separate days encompassing about 14 million hours of exercise. There were 26 sudden cardiac deaths observed, equivalent to a rate of 0.8 per 100 000 participants (95% confidence interval 0.5 to 1.1). Because of road closure, an estimated 46 motor vehicle fatalities were prevented, equivalent to a relative risk reduction of 35% (95% confidence interval 17% to 49%). The net reduction in sudden death during marathons amounted to a ratio of about 1.8 crash deaths saved for each case of sudden cardiac death observed (95% confidence interval: 0.7 to 3.8). The net reduction in total deaths could not be explained by re-routing traffic to other regions or days and was consistent across different parts of the country, decades of the century, seasons of the year, days of the week, degree of competition, and course difficulty.

Conclusion Organised marathons are not associated with an increase in sudden deaths from a societal perspective, contrary to anecdotal impressions fostered by news media.