There is that...

Tonight I turned on the evening news to find out that a Canada-related political story was near the front of the headlines.  Now, typically, to say that Canada is even on the radar here (even in this, one of the most liberal states in the country and a state only 3 hours or so driving from the Quebec border) would be inaccurate, so I was pretty pumped when I heard this.  Would it be a story about softwood lumber, explaining the Canadian perspective on this trade dispute?  Perhaps clarifying that the 9/11 terrorists did NOT cross from Canada (something that about 30% of Americans apparently still believe?)  Maybe something about how Canada is supporting the U.S. in Afghanistan?  Maybe the fact that we are America's biggest and most important trading partner?  Or, even better, something about how our two countries can disagree politically while at the same time sharing a common heritage and values?

Nope.

Peter MacKay, our interprid potato-farming, Belinda-broke-his-heart-romantic foreign affairs minister, and Condoleeza Rice, American secretary of state, may be dating!  Aww, aren't they cute together! <cue anchor fawning>
Condi loves the Maritimes!  Condi loves sleeping in the Atlantic Breeze!  Petey takes her for a spin around his home town!  That handshake and alternate cheek kiss certainly looked "hearty"!
Newscaster inserts joke that Peter MacKay proposes development of "bilateral relations" <cue hearty chuckle>

Yep, that's the important information you need to know, right there. 

Sigh. 

And we wonder why so few people in either country knows anything about and/or pays any attention to so many of those "less important" issues, like, say, trade, public safety, and world affairs.

OK, after driving through Harvard Square to do some shopping tonight, I have been reminded of three of the things that irk me about living here - and what purpose does a blog serve if not to allow me to vent to nobody in particular, I ask you?

* ORGANIC STUPIDITY - Let me be clear: I am all for buying some organic foods when it makes sense from a health perspective (although it often really doesn't) and is economically reasonable.  However, I am convinced that most people here buy "organic" anything without even thinking about what they are buying - all while paying twice as much for the privilege.  The two examples I noticed today: (1) I passed an "organic furniture" store.  So, what you're saying, is I can buy furniture that's made out of all-natural stuff like, say, wood and leather and cotton fibres?  Kind of like ANY PIECE OF FURNITURE YOU BUY ANYWHERE?  And you're charging me how much?  Wow, sign me up!  (2) I noticed a used box of "organic plastic wrap" in a recycling bin.  Now, seeing as I do have a PhD in chemical engineering (specializing in polymers no less), I spent considerable time trying to figure out how plastic wrap was "organic".  Then it hit me - it's made of oil!  All natural baby!  Takes up the same space in the landfill, but makes you feel better about yourself!

* ADVERTISEMENTS FOR HEART SURGERY - Here in the land of not-so-free medicine, most hospitals are private, for-profit entities engaged in the free market and thus have to drum up business from their fierce hospital competitors.  So, the logical thing to do is to advertise your services.  However, I have always been a bit confused how advertising that your hospital has successfully bypassed the most arteries is actually an effective strategy.  As I understand it, the operating assumption (oh, bad pun, I apologize) is that while you're having a heart attack and are suffering in severe pain, fearing for your life, you are supposed to spit out "take me to , I saw their ad and they look tremendous!  Besides, they take Visa!"  Even more interesting is the fact that the two places I have seen these ads are the subway ("stop walking around and exercising - take the train between nearby destinations!") and close to a series of street hot dog vendors ("clog your circulatory system by eating heavily preserved meat cooked by minimally regulated mobile restauranteurs!")

* CELL PHONES - Unlike neighbouring New York and Connecticut, Massachusetts does not have a "no cell phone conversations when driving" law.  As a result, I think every frustrated New Yorker and Connecticutter (that can't be right - sounds kind of like a state full of tree pruners) drives through Boston daily just to get their fix.  Even more impressive are the grocery stores, particularly the one I went to tonight (which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the closest store to Harvard).  I would estimate that roughly 1 out of every 2 shoppers I saw (most of whom were maneuvering full-size shopping carts through crowded aisles, cutting other shoppers off at a rate of roughly 1/10 seconds) were yapping away on their cell phones.  More specifically, most people were yapping about such crucial, time-sensitive topics as how many calories are in each available variety of hummus (and there is an entire shelf of hummus, so this conversation takes a while).  How could one possibly wait 10 minutes to find out this critical information?  How else would life go on???

There.  I feel better already.

DISCLAIMER: Actually, I must admit that two weeks ago, I got a cell phone call (one of the five I have received, in two months) while shopping for ground beef.  Since it was my most direct supervisor at MIT talking about how to purchase chemicals I needed, I too was (just once!) one of those people standing and chatting animatedly to myself in the meat aisle.  However, I think I can defend this singular lapse given that the guy I was talking to was in California and the choice was, quite literally, either talk to him there or wait five days to order chemicals I needed.   Also, I stood in one spot while I was talking and was therefore not a serious injury risk to those around me.  It will never happen again, I promise.

A bunch of stuff that happened to me this week, none of which deserves its own post:

- So, on Thursday night, I was invited to the worship team practice at my new church to "observe" and see if I want to be involved.  By the end of the night, I was the lead pianist for this Sunday.  This means either (a) I am insanely impressive or (b) they are highly desperate.  Seeing as I learned later in the night that there is only one other pianist and that guy can also play bass guitar and drums (neither of which would have otherwise been covered this week), I think (b) is definitely the most probable of the options.  However, it was a lot of fun (and somehow we pulled off a very upbeat song with no drummer, which was pretty fun).  Even though this is a Baptist church (technically), there is some serious movement in the pews at this church which may actually be construed as dancing (yikes!), so it's kind of fun to get caught up in the energy of the worship time when you're playing.

- Another multiple choice question for you.  The situation: on Friday, I was asked by the closest person I have to a supervisor at MIT to co-write a research funding grant with him.  Does this mean (a) I am gaining his trust with my scientific insight or (b) I have a gigantic "sucker" sign on my back?  For those of you who have never seen a scientific grant, they are roughly 100 page, single-spaced documents outlining/defending a research idea and the associated budget required to perform that work which is aimed to convince the US government (which is being much stingier than the Canadian government with funding these days, unless you want to do Department of Defence research to find out how to kill more people more effectively) to give you a million dollars.  Needless to say, this requires an insane amount of work, which I have now... volunteered to do even with no direct benefit to me.  Hmmm, once again (b) is looking like the correct answer, thanks for playing!  However, even though the Canadian grant applications are quite a bit different (typically 5 pages instead of 100, which is oddly often harder to write), this lab is REALLY good at getting research grants.  Therefore, this is probably a great opportunity to pick their brain on what to say and how to say it in order to get the funding you need to do what you want.  At least that's what I will keep telling myself repeatedly as I whittle away weekends working on it. 

- I went shopping for a wedding gift for Mike and Larisa on Saturday and had two totally Canadian moments.  First, I was in the amazing games and puzzle store in Harvard Square browsing (I almost bought "Anti-Monopoly", the game of cooperative capitalism, for Mike, but that was just too obvious :) and overheard a guy ask the proprietor whether or not he carried crokinole.  The guy had no idea what it was (how sad, a life without crokinole).  Perhaps I should make it my objective to colonize New England with the wonders of crokinole before I leave.  Second, I was at Quincy Market an hour later and ran into a busker.... whom I had watched perform in June at the Dundas BuskerFest.   Unfortunately, he wasn't that great (if you are reading this Kevin, it was the first guy we saw), so I didn't stop to watch his mediocre act again... but it was kind of cool nonetheless.  Actually, the act on the other side of the market was much better, although much more bizarre - a group of dancers (I guess?) who were putting other people on their heads and then spinning those people without actually holding on to them... I have no idea how the centripetal forces didn't totally win the battle with these guys, but it was impressive to watch.

- I also found one of the coolest stores I have ever been to (not surprisingly, also in Harvard Square) - the Museum of Useful Things (website).  Their motto is "The Beauty of Function", which pretty much describes the store.  I am a big fan of architecture and design (the sole vestige of actual engineering interest I have, thereby validating my professional existence), and this store features a bunch of products of, admittedly, highly variant usefulness in real life which are also designed to look great.  My favourite product was the "humane mouse trap", comprised of a Y-shaped plastic tube and a ping-pong ball.  Here's how it works: two ends of the Y (the bottom and one of the top branches) are closed with air holes throughout the tube, while the other branch of the Y is blocked by a ping-pong ball.  You place the Y on its side and put cheese in the main tube (the bottom of the Y).  The mouse gets pumped up about the cheese buffet and walks into the Y branch which is blocked by the ping-pong ball, pushing the ping pong ball up the tube and, when it gets to the Y junction, behind the mouse.  When the mouse runs toward the cheese at the bottom of the Y, the ping pong ball falls back down the open tube, blocking the mouse's exit (with the air holes in the closed tube keeping the mouse alive, hence the "humane" aspect of the trap).  Very cool, although what you do with the mouse afterward is not entirely clear.  I actually bought part of what is probably the strangest wedding gift of all time there, and I suspect I will be back.

I have learned over the last several years that I have a strange gift.  Although I was once called "surprisingly athletic" (talk about a veiled compliment if there ever was one), I fear I will never be called on to kick the game-winning field goal, pinch-hit in the ninth inning, or cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon (although I think I have driven over the finish line - does that count?).   However, when it comes to obscure sports and/or leisure activities, I am pretty much invincible.  Got a marginal sport? (ultimate Frisbee, ping-pong)  Got a local game that few people have heard of and/or played? (crokinole - I have a 13-YEAR winning streak against my dad, and he is actually pretty good)  Got a board game collecting dust in the closet? (Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, etc.)  Got a rainy day activity to pass away the time? (puzzles)  I will probably be extremely talented at it.  However, unlike talent in real sports (which has the obvious side-benefits of promoting personal fitness and health), the major benefit of my talent is an ability to tick off friends who engage in these activities with me.  As you might imagine, this is a somewhat less exciting outcome.

The latest installment?  Last night, a sweep of victories playing Brett and Courtney in crokinole, Clue, and Speed Scrabble.  (note: this was my debut Speed Scrabble, a highly entertaining version of Scrabble in which you start with seven letters, try to rearrange them to form words on your own, and then call "go" when you have incorporated all of your letters into a puzzle - each time somebody yells "go", everybody has to pick up one more piece until the winner has completed his/her puzzle and all the tiles are gone - it is now right up there on my favourite (modified) board game list).   I would say that I didn't want to win all the time, but hey, let's be honest, that's not really true... I am as competitive as the next guy once the rubber hits the road.  I guess I am consigned to either finding friends who are extremely understanding (thanks Brett and Courtney) or finding MANY friends so when I depress one group with my dominance, I can move on.  Sometimes amazing gifts aren't all they are cracked up to be.

You may have noticed that the blog posts have been pretty spotty over the last couple of weeks (scroll down and you will see I have attempted to make up for that tonight).  Well, I have a good excuse.  My parents were visiting, which was the first good reason.  The second good reason is that my mom discovered the wonders of e-mail and thus I had difficulty actually accessing my laptop in order to write blogs.  However, it was fun to have my parents here and show them the wonders of Boston (and discover a few wonders myself).  We had planned to visit Cape Ann (to the north), downtown Boston, and Cape Cod, but decided to ditch the Cape Cod plan as being far too ambitious.  I had mixed feelings about posting pictures, fearing that it would dissuade visitors from bothering to come (i.e. "we already saw it on your blog!"), so I have compromised and posted more of a tempting cross-section of Boston pictures to pique your interest - check them out here if you like.

In other news, I have finally started doing lab work, which has been really fun actually.  I hate feeling not useful in general, and now that I am in the lab, making stuff, and getting a couple of neat (if not groundbreaking) results already, I am beginning to feel useful again.  Unfortunately, to purchase a chemical at MIT, you almost have to donate a kidney to facilitate the process, which is holding me (and many others) up a bit.  I have become convinced that MIT is a success in spite of their best efforts in many cases.  Also, when you come to work at a "top" university, the whole "big fish in a small pond moving to be a small fish in a big pond" analogy definitely comes into play (I can't count how many times I heard that from the guidance counsellors in high school, coming as I did from the middle of nowhere).  It really does take a bit of time to really find your footing and, in a sense, regain your confidence that you are really good at what you do and it makes sense for you to be there.  It might sound stupid and/or pompous, but it's true - so much of research (and academics in general actually) is about being confident in your ideas and what you are trying to achieve.

I have also more or less decided on a church - the small, disorganized one in my neighbourhood (although, to be fair, it seems to be much more organized than my initial impression would suggest).  Again, consistent with my desire to be "useful", I think that is the place where I can participate the most and the best in a church here in Boston - also, it is a very friendly church which takes both its sense of community and its scripture very seriously, which I like.  I am headed to my first worship team rehearsal on Thursday night - based on what I've seen so far, it ought to be extremely interesting!  But, strangely enough (besides the people), playing on worship team is one of the things I miss the most about Hamilton, so it will be good to get involved again.  There is also a 20-something small group and I met the Baptist chaplain at MIT today who apparently runs a post-doc group during lunch at MIT, so that is another thing I might check out. 

It's also great to have Brett and Courtney in town now -- it is entirely odd that all three of us went to McMaster and the same church in Hamilton and all ended up in Boston through a totally independent mechanism (unbeknownst initially to each other!)  Having friendly and familiar faces around in a new city is always huge, so I think it will be great for all of us to have some "instant friends" here.  We did a progressive dinner last night (after the ball game, scroll down for the story) to show each other our apartments, which was a lot of fun.  So, lots of stuff is slowly coming together.  I am very much somebody who likes routines, and I'm starting to get into the rhythm.

I've read a couple of really interesting stories in the last couple of weeks furthering the stem cell issue I wrote about last month.  First, the really interesting news: last week, scientists announced that they had developed a method of collecting an embryonic stem cell from a growing embryo (8 cells large, the size grown for in vitro fertilization procedures) without killing the embryo (indeed, the embryo can be successfully implanted with the same rate of success observed in normal in vitro fertilization procedures).  If the results of this study can be replicated (and it seems likely given the success reported in this paper), I would be very hard-pressed to drum up any opposition to the use of embryonic stem cells in research.  Again, assuming this is true (and removing the reason all these embryos are sitting around in the first place), I have difficulty identifying a moral problem with taking a single cell from a "living" organism if you do not compromise that organism in any real way (we do it all the time to ourselves - think blood tests, throat swabs, etc.)  However, the Catholic church is still not impressed, suggesting that this method amounts to killing two embryos instead of just one.  Scientifically, I don't understand how this argument makes any sense whatsoever.  I can't help but think that we as Christians continually shoot ourselves in the foot in so many ways when commenting on moral issues or scientific issues like this.  Through sheer ignorance or a deep mistrust of science, we have often taken what was a very legitimate moral debate (such as the destruction of embryos for harvesting stem cells) and then blown our credibility by refusing to acknowledge when a good scientific solution to a moral barrier to scientific advancement has been achieved.  Next time we raise the flag on some very important and legitimate issue in this field, maybe people won't take us as seriously as perhaps they should. 

Want an example of such an issue? (cue perfect seguay)  Check out this story about athletes who are essentially farming stem cells (not embryonic as was originally stated - sorry for the editing error) from their kids' umbilical cords just in case they have an injury and the stem cells can be used to reconstruct the tissue they have damaged, enabling them to continue their athletic career.  Essentially, they are wanting to use their kids' cells as a personal "repair kit" to prolong their highly lucrative jobs.  Although it should be noted that we don't know enough about stem cell signaling to actually make this happen yet, this is pretty scary stuff.  The purpose of having kids shouldn't have anything to do with generating "spare parts" for yourself; however, that could very well happen in this case.  On the other hand, just to illustrate how not black-and-white any of this debate is, there is a thought-provoking quote at the end of the article from one of the advocates of the idea: 

"There's a kid who's giving 70 per cent of his liver to his father in the hospital (in Toronto).  What if he could say, `Want some stem cells from my umbilical cord blood, we can grow you a new liver here?' Which is preferable? Is it ethical to give his father his liver surgically but not to have some of his umbilical cord blood?"

A fascinating question - I don't know how to respond really.  Making decisions on rules for using this technology which prevent abuse but also do not defy common sense is not easy. 

As a sidenote, I was talking to one of the stem cell researchers in our lab who is (for some reason) trying to generate oostcytes (egg cells) from stem cells (to me, this seems to be reverse engineering at its most bizarre).  I can assure you that even some of the people doing work in this field have mixed feelings about it, even without the religious perspective. 

I saw this Budget moving truck in Salem - it made me laugh anyway:

I'm just glad James didn't see this prior to helping me move down here... oh what havoc would have ensued.

I am a HUGE baseball fan.  This is not a hyperbolic statement - indeed, I would say that I know an unhealthy amount about baseball.  (sidebar: have you ever wondered if you took all the useless information out of your head such as sports stats, pop song lyrics, etc. and replaced it with "useful" information, how quickly may be able to solve all the world's problems?  No?  Think about it!  I bet half the actual bulk information I know is totally useless for any constructive purpose).  I could name you the starting lineups of every team in major league baseball.  I could name the top minor league prospects for most teams.  I am obsessed with our Philpott fantasy baseball league (although, sadly, am always the bridesmaid, never the bride - thanks James and Jason).  I have watched Field of Dreams (my favourite movie of all time) roughly 10 times and cried each time Kevin Costner and his dad play catch at the end.  I also played baseball as a kid (and was pretty decent - I could flash some serious leather from the shortstop position).  So, naturally, while living in Boston, a visit (no, make that pilgramage) to Fenway Park was pretty much a mandatory experience.  Furthermore, as a HUGE Blue Jays fan, it only seemed natural to see the Jays play the BoSox (actually a hated Jays rival, my major difficulty with living in this city).  So, this Saturday, in the face of Hurricane Ernesto, I went (with Brett and Courtney) to Fenway to watch the game.  It is incredibly small and obviously very old (you can't hide the fact it was opened in 1912), but for a baseball fan, you really don't care - you are at one of the three shrines of baseball (along with Wrigley Field in Chicago and Yankee Stadium in NYC) and that's all that matters.  The game was great (Jays won it 5-1 behind a great pitching performance from $55 million man A.J. Burnett) and the entertainment in the stands was nearly as good.  One thing I will give Red Sox fans credit for is their passion - they are seriously hard-core people.  Indeed, out of partial naked fear, I take great pains while talking to Bostonians to emphasize our mutual hatred of the Yankees as opposed to any loyal Jays fan's strong dislike of the BoSox.  However, when you sit in the bleacher seats at Fenway, loyalty apparently is occasionally interchangeable with insanity.  Below is a picture of group of kids (and poorly supervised ones at that) who became, let's say, "unhappy" in the 8th inning when the Jays took a 3-1 lead and three slightly obnoxious Blue Jays fans (right in the bottom left corner of the photo, I cut the most obnoxious guy out of the picture unfortunately) got somewhat happy about it.  The kids responded by pelting them with peanuts and popcorn for about five minutes, including some fairly heated pointing. 

With an assist from the beer they had clearly consumed, the Toronto fans proceeded to taunt the popcorn throwers (whom the Red Sox could have used on the mound yesterday) by counting out the score with their fingers, prompting a rousing chant of "USA! USA!" from the kids (and some of the surrounding bleacher people).  At this point, we were slouching deeper into our seats to avoid attracting attention to our obvious Canadianness.  However, after about two batters worth of flying food, Fenway security finally clued in to the potential for a 100 little people-on-3 big people riot and intervened, moving the Blue Jays fans closer to the field and out of the arm range of the pint-sized mob (much to the mob's dismay it must be added)... 

Of course, this did not shut these guys up (particularly as the Jays tacked on two more runs in the 9th), but it did diffuse the situation slightly.  As a charming final gesture, the Blue Jays fans waited in their revised, closer-to-the-field row after the game was over as all the kids were filed out to say "goodbye", to a chorus of extensive heckling and, from this one kid, a "thumbs down" (I really love this picture).

Actually, we were kind of glad the Jays fans waited in the safety of the stadium.  We were scared that if they had left first, outside of the Fenway security auspicies, that the kids were going to hunt them down.  Sort of reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode where a bunch of karate kids take down Kramer in a back alley.  Brett was actually talking to one of them, at which point we were invited out to some sketchy bar in Boston to "celebrate" with other Jays fans... somehow, we managed to decline that all-too-tempting invitation.  So, a great day baseball, history, and a near child brawl... just another day in the bleachers at Fenway Park (and yet another reason that I love baseball). 

(more pics on my Flickr site)