Saturday night – Burnt Lake

Beautiful day ! .. Gabe, Sam, Diane , Nova and I hiked up to Burnt Lake in the Mt Hood Widlerness. It was a clear cool day. 

 

Later on we went to Ben’s for a yummy dinner.. He turned us on to the reality show “Squid Games”.. briaght me back to our days on the Colony !

nite all, nite sam 

-me

Friday night – Microscope core

Last night was SO fun ! We had done most of the cleaning last night since we had so much help.. today we did  the last bits of getting the furniture back to the neighbors

It was a beautiful day so gabe, nova, diane and I headed to teh 1000 acre dog park.. one of our favorite places.. and definitely one of nova’s too !  It was a beautiful fall day.. the sun was gorgeous.. great views of Mt Hood too

Later that day Gabe’s housemate James took us on a tour of the Microscope Imaging core.. which is a shared resource at the Knight Cancer center at OHSU. James is an amazing scientist.. and is an expert in all sorts of imaging technology as well as cellular anatomy. It was so cool to see all the gear and what James and his colleagues could do with it. THey had so many different types of microscopes.. optical, scanning electron microscopes, confocal microscopy and CryoEM microscopes. I was particularly excited to see the CryoEM technology because I’d done a project with MIT and U MIch on data prep for these incredible machines which can cost up to $5 million each ! THe devices are so sensitive that they’re mounted on a separate piece of flooring separated from the rest of the building   which is supported on pylons which go 300 feet into the earth !

CryoEM is used to image molecules and show their physical shape. Every picture you’ve ever seen of the covid virus and it’s ‘spike protein’ were made by CryoEM.. Here’s some pictures thatthese machines have taken of various biological molecules 

 

James is such a great tour guide !..

 

James spent time showing me the sample grids they use in their cryoem tools. it was a rteeat for me because I have spent so much time looking at Electron micrograph images of these things.. but never seen the real thing !

From there we took a quick walk around the knight center.  where Gabe works . such an amazing facility !

 

 

Nova was home waiting for us.. here she is watching us drive up

 

Another great day ~!

note all, nite sam

-me

Thursday night – Friendsgiving !

Today was Thanksgiving. and  have so much to be thankful for !. We spent the day getting ready for the Friendsgiving dinner that Gabe and his roommates were putting on.. They were expecting about 30 folks.. I think there were actually more  than that !

We pulled everything table and chair like in the house and in both the neighbors house to make a super table.. Check out the prism light !

 

 

Max , Becky and Violet called in to say happy thanksgiving.. great seeing them

  • Folks started filtering in around 6. .. and soon we had a crowd !

I’d given gabe a small tesla coil gun id found on allibaba.. it was the hit of the dinner i think !

Shawn closed dinner with his signature “gronShandin’.. a shot of whisky and a cup of milk.. ick !

What a great gathering !!!!

Later in the evening I spent some time perfecting my menorah-matic.. its a fun LED project I did for project Onboard that I’m helping lead.  Its coming along really nicely !


I’m feeling very thankful.. hope you all had a great day too. !

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – donate life !

17 years ago today, Sam’s strong orgas helped save 4 peoples lives. Organ donation was a wonderful part of a very sad story. We knew that Sam would want to help others in any way he can.. and this was his ultimate gift. 

The most important part of organ donation is to have the conversation with your family. If that situation should ever occur in your life,;.. and I hope it never does.. its important that your family knows what you would wish. In those time critical hours  when organ donation is possible. your family will have to make the decision..a nd knowing what you would have wanted imakes it so much easier. 

Please honor Sam and all the other organ donors by having that conversation with your family. 

 

Nite all, nite Sam

-me