Praxxus

The in-laws called me early this afternoon. They left Bloomington this morning en route to Ohio for a relative's graduation party. They said that roads were closed ahead of them, and being closed behind them, with cars and houses under water all along the way.

Here's MSNBC:

A hearty congratulations to Sameer Mishra of West Lafayette, IN, winner of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The winning word was "guerdon."

I'm sure the Journal & Courier will have a writeup soon, but in the meantime, here's the Associated Press report.

And here's what's up at The Indianapolis Star.

Lastly, here's Sameer's 15 minutes --or 1 minute 15 seconds, at least-- of YouTube fame:

From today's Journal & Courier, a writeup about starting another wind farm in Benton County. As much as I dislike the guy, even Not-My-Man Mitch played it appropriately, showing up on a motorcycle instead of in a motorcade.

"Welcome to Indiana. America's Green Energy Capital. Mitch Daniels, Governor 5/29/08" is what the state's chief executive wrote on the blade that will be part of 222 wind turbines that comprise the first phase of the wind farm.

Phase 1 of the project, developed by BP Alternative Energy and Dominion, will produce 400 megawatts of electricity and is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

Phase 2 is expected to generate an additional 350 megawatts of power, and construction could begin as early as next year.

When fully operational the project will generate enough electricity to power more than 200,000 average homes.

As of right now, Benton County is where it's at in terms of the Windyana scene. Turbines are bustin' out all over, it seems:

The Indiana Wind Resource Map produced by the U.S. Department of Energy shows Benton County is one of only several counties in Indiana that has wind speeds adequate to power large turbines.

It is the location of two other wind farm projects. One is in operation, the other is being planned.

In April, Benton County Wind Farm -- the state's first operational wind farm -- began generating electricity from sites near Earl Park, in Richland and York townships.

The Orion Energy Group erected 87 wind turbines, which are designed to produce 130 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power approximately 40,000 homes.

Duke Energy has begun buying up to 100 megawatts of electricity from a portion of the Orion Energy Group turbines. Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana has added 30 megawatts of wind energy from the project to its generation profile.

Indianapolis Power & Light Co. has reached an agreement with enXco to create the Hoosier Wind Project, a 100-megawatt wind farm near Fowler that is projected to go into operation next year.

The wind farm is expected to involve 67 turbines that will generate enough renewable electric energy to power 468,000 customers in Marion and surrounding counties.

Fan-freakin'-tastic, sez I! The greener the better.

Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.

<snip>

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.

Oh sure, this is a major breakthrough and heralds great things for people who have lost limbs or suffered head and spinal injuries (e.g., returning veterans). All fine and dandy.

The problem, as I see it, is that now the cyborg monkeys can use their robot appendages to expedite the design and construction of new and better monkey cyborgs! Then those will turn around and build even better cyborg monkeys! Next thing you know it will be Planet of the Goddamned Apes all over again, only this time writ robotic!

And scientists wonder why people don't trust them.

Tonight, thanks to Mrs. Praxxus agreeing to stay home with Things 1 & 2, I had the chance to go see Barack Obama speak at Jefferson High School here in Lafayette. For those of you unfamiliar with the Greater Lafayette Area, West Lafayette, IN is home to Purdue University."

There were 2500 tickets handed out yesterday in two separate locations. News reports say that they were gone within 90 minutes. Today I arrived at Jeff about 20 minutes after the doors opened, and only had a 10 minute wait in the rain to get through security. Watching the news reports later, they mentioned people standing in the rain for "hours." Ooof.

As a cruel joke, people had to leave their umbrellas at the door before they went through the metal detectors.

Once inside, the place was about 2/3 full already. For some inane reason I kept walking along the bleachers toward the stage, and my illogical thinking was rewarded when I found an open spot in the front row of the bleachers (there were a few rows of folding chairs on the gym floor in front of me, then the "Press Cage" and the podium), about 25 feet from the podium!

The people around me were all very nice. There was a recent 18 year-old there with his 15 year-old friend. The 18 year-old said he has been following this election earnestly, as it's the first one he can vote in and he wants to make an informed decision. His friends don't understand why he's so into politics. I congratulated both of them for their involvement. There was a ~47 year-old woman behind me, later joined by her daughter. I know she is about that old, because she told me she went at age 7 to see the last presidential candidate to pass through this part of the country, and got to shake hands with Bobby Kennedy. There was an older couple --in their 70s-- next to me, that didn't have a lot to say.

The 40-ish lady behind me is a volunteer, and has been calling ("I had a 72 year-old man tell me that of course he was going to vote for Obama. It made my heart glad"), registering voters ("We've registered hundreds"), and even putting up a yard sign ("I live in a duplex, and I made sure and put my sign on my side, because my neighbor . . . well, he's an old country boy. The other day he came up to me and said he wanted to talk to me about my sign. I thought, 'Oh, here we go,' but he said, 'Why don't you go ahead and move that over to the middle?') She was great to talk to.

The crowd was diverse...lots of high school and college students, middle age, my age, old age, black, white, brown, and most skin hues in between. The way they had they gymnasium set up, the 2500 ticketed people + press and VIPs filled it all up rather well:



After some local folks did the warmup routines, Senator Obama came out. From what I have seen of his stuff, it was a pretty standard stump speech, but it was good to see a Lafayette, IN crowd getting excited about it. It seemed to me that he got the biggest applause when talking about the Iraq war. He mentioned his recent encounter with Petraeus and Crocker, and how they didn't want to leave until everything was perfect. He then said (paraphrasing):

My plan is to get out of Iraq gradually, which will give the Iraqi government time to become able to take care of itself. I'm only talking about drawing down troops at a rate of one brigade per month. At that rate, it will take almost two years to get us out of there. If they can't take care of themselves after seven years, and we stayed because of that . . . well, before long it would be 14 years. And if they still couldn't take care of themselves, next thing you know it would be 21 years, and if they still couldn't, this could go on and on and . . . pretty soon we'd be talking like John McCain, about having a presence in Iraq for 100 years!

The McCain jab was well received. I do believe he got a standing ovation at that point in the speech.

For another writeup of tonight's event, see motbob's diary over at The Great Orange Satan.

So enough about that. It was a great evening. Lafayette ♥s Obama, at least for tonight! Hopefully I will someday get to tell my kids about going to see the President speak at the high school gym, and getting to shake his hand. :-)

For the pics: My poor camera's flash was underpowered, even at the relatively close range. So I have a selection of mostly in-focus shots that are too dark, and well-lit shots that are a bit fuzzy. But some of them are pretty good.



You can also visit the full Flickr Set.

Here's the opening "stump speech" segment from tonight, at the stunning 320x240 resolution my little camera provides:



Here's my wee video of the one question from the audience that got Senator Obama off of his standard "stump" points. It was the last one, when a woman asked him about selecting Supreme Court justices. Watch the video to hear him discuss his "philosophy about the Supreme Court."



Here's the late-night writeup from the local paper, the Journal & Courier

Remember when I wrote this:

On May 24th my mom was officially diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It wasn't a complete surprise, as she had been going through a gauntlet of tests that all seemed to be pointing that direction, but until you find out for sure you can at least hold out some faint hope that maybe all the tests are wrong. She started chemo treatment almost immediately, and has undergone radiation therapy for a mass that had wandered to her spine. She got tired of waking up with clumps of hair on her pillow, so had her sister come over and give her the cueball treatment. She keeps applying temporary butterfly tattoos to her scalp. She is tolerating the chemo well so far, and her spirits remain good even on the days right after chemo treatments.

Well, the chemo "didn't take," and in early April she was hospitalized with a fever and shortness of breath. Two days later she was on a ventilator. We all came down that weekend to see her, and she was in good spirits but very tired and got drastically weaker just over the course of the weekend. On April 15 my siblings and I met at the hospital and had her taken off of the ventilator, as per her wishes.

She lasted maybe five minutes after that. I hope they will always rank as the worst five minutes of my life, because I really don't think I can handle anything that would top that.

I had wanted to do a writeup for Mom like I had done for Dad, but am still too emotional about the whole thing. Then I realized that the eulogy my uncle gave at the funeral, pieced together from e-mails people had given him sharing their memories of Mom, was a far better writeup than I could ever hope to do. So here it is.

---

While I was collecting the information for this eulogy I found Mother Praxxus was a special person to many people.

You've heard the saying "If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade?." She did the best job of following that advice of anyone I know, but then she had more than her share of lemons to practice with. Through it all, her upbeat attitude was a reoccurring theme when I was collecting thoughts from different people she knew during the many facets of her life. She certainly enjoyed being with people.

She made "lemonade" of small things, too. A turn onto the wrong street while driving with a friend instantly became "the scenic route," the road to a new adventure. She wasn't as much a slave to the clock as most of us are.

Anyone who knew her at all knows she was a fanatical St. Louis Cardinals fan. I'm sure more than one of you has tried to talk to her on the phone when a game was on. That was a lost cause, except during commercials. Even a trip to St. Louis to take in a game in the middle of a school week wasn't unheard of. I'm glad she got to see them win the pennant [sic] last year.

----------------------Club
One of her many activities was the Friendly Neighbors club. She attended their meeting a month or so ago where she spent an hour cutting out quilt blocks, which would be used to make a quilt for a family that had been burned out. She spent some of her time and energy helping others right up to the end.

------------------------------Church
She enjoyed seeing everyone at church and especially looked forward to the secret sister get-togethers and participating in the area-wide singings. Again, she was remembered for always being "up" with time never being spent wondering "why me."

----------------------------Theater
She enjoyed everything about the theater. If she didn't have an acting role, she would help with lights, sound, costume changes or whatever was needed, just so she could be part of it.

These are some of the thoughts shared by those who participated with her in the Avenue Theater and other productions:
-Mother Praxxus was a truly kind, loving and patient person that never had a harsh word for anyone. She battled a horrible disease and she did it with dignity and grace. Whether she was working crew or acting on the stage we all knew we could rely on her to give it her all. I will miss her kindness of spirit.

-She was so kind and giving- always thinking about others and how she could be helpful. She was never judgmental and always caring- a true lady. She will be missed.

-I only had the opportunity to be a part of Mother Praxxus's life during the mystery dinner theater, but I can surely say she inspired me with her great talent and warmth to all cast members. She was indeed a friendly personality and would do most anything for anybody. I did see her for the first time in a play at the Avenue Theater, I believe it was "The Diary of Anne Frank." She was wonderful in character on stage. I thought during that production she was a talented actress who performed graciously with a smile.

-Mother Praxxus played her roles with professional acumen. She was always first, it seemed to me, to know her lines. She is missed.

Others remember her patience when working with children in the plays, her bringing her knitting to do while she waited until it was time for her part in the practice, her unfailing good humor and never complaining and the cookies she sometimes brought for everyone. Her caring extended beyond play practice to soup for the ill, birthdays remembered and phone calls to those with illness or other needs in the family.

I know she was proud of her world-class witch's cackle, which she used not only in appropriate plays and Halloween celebrations, but on at least one occasion to frighten a son who was greeted by that cackle rather than "hello" when he answered the phone on Halloween. She did love the fun of Halloween, from the costumes to the cackle.

------------------Call in radio quiz prizes
Even the radio people with the shows that give prizes for answering trivia questions will miss her. Sometimes when no one gave the right answer after several phone calls, she would call and say "I'm not eligible for the prize, since I've already won this month, but the answer is."

---------------Battered women shelter
She was a co-founder of the Emerald City shelter for abused women. Because of her own experiences it was near to her heart, even after her health forced her to stop her daily work with it.

----------------Teacher
She taught in several area schools for many years. Her son Praxxus shared these memories:

-Mom was rightfully proud of herself for finally getting her college degree. She was discussing her pending graduation date with someone, and said, "I dropped out of college to get married and have a kid. Now four kids and twenty years later I'm finally going to finish."

-When Mom got her first full-time teaching job, she was appalled that there were kids in the class that couldn't tell time on an analog clock. She promptly took down the digital clock in her classroom, and replaced it with an analog one. The kids did learn to tell time with it, probably because knowing when recess starts is REALLY important

I believe after that, whenever she took over a classroom she made sure the clocks in the room were analog as a matter of course.

One person she taught with shared these memories:
-As I look back to my earlier days at Glenwood, I can remember Mother Praxxus in the Special Ed. room having a great time with her kids. Her caring went beyond the classroom and even to the extent of taking students home and always taking time to talk to parents and co-workers. Better yet, she took the time to listen---really listen and care!

If she was ever in a bad mood, she hid it well. The spontaneous smile and spring in her step always cheered me up. I truly enjoyed Mother Praxxus in her many adventures at the Avenue Theatre and was amazed at how well she could remember those lines! She and I were late bloomers as we tended to family first and then began our educational career later in life.

All who were privileged to know Mother Praxxus consider themselves richer because of her. She will be missed!

Another who not only taught with her, but went to school with her while they were getting their teaching degrees, remembers that she worked hard in school to make good grades. When she became a teacher, she expected the same of her students. But, she always enjoyed school and did her best to make it enjoyable for them. She was well liked by fellow teachers and her students.

Others who taught with her remember her caring for the kids and doing neat things with them. She even wore funky hairdos and colored her hair as a way of having fun in the classroom and with life. One remembered her own children enjoying Mother Praxxus's class because she read to them a lot. Her voice and ability to make words come to life served her well in the classroom as well as the theater.

She was also remembered as a friend one could call and say "I'm down in the dumps today. Talk me out of it." That's pretty high praise for anyone.

Her upbeat attitude, ever present smile and zest for life that made her fun to be around were mentioned by almost everyone I spoke with no matter which facet of her life they were a part of. Her strength of character carried her through good times and bad.

----------------------Family
Our youngest sister did something this week I thought was neat. She went on a "remember Mother Praxxus" outing to their favorite thrift stores and included a stop by the Dairy Queen for their traditional strawberry milkshake.

She also recalled a 6:00am phone call this past winter.
"Have you had breakfast?"
No.
"Want to go to Amvets for pancakes, sausage and gravy and biscuits ' all you can eat ' ?"
Mother Praxxus, are you aware it's 23 degrees and snowing outside.
"So?"
They ate at the Amvets that morning.

-----------------------Mother
First and foremost she was a mother and a grandmother. This is from Praxxus:

-In 10th grade I was the alternate on the Quiz Bowl team, which meant I didn't get to participate much during matches. It was really frustrating when we lost in the regional tournament, because it seemed like every time someone on our team didn't know the answer to a question, I was sitting there in the crowd clicking my imaginary buzzer and muttering the answer under my breath.

The next school day everyone on the team got a balloon delivered to the office, congratulating us for a good showing in the tournament. I was still sour about the whole thing until I read the card attached. The balloons were from Mom, and my card read, "They also serve who sit and wait." I still don't know why exactly, but that really did make me feel a lot less frustrated. [It takes a pretty wise mother to come up with a plan like that.]


-I'll never forget how hard she hugged me on my wedding day.

---------------------------------------------

-She loved her grandkids. We got to spend a weekend with her in St. Louis just this last February. [Baby Praxxus was 4 mo and Little Praxxus 2 yr old at this time]. She got to meet Baby Praxxus, and she, Little Praxxus and I walked all around the bottom floor of the Siteman Cancer Center. She chased Little Praxxus around the columns, and they shared some butter pecan ice cream. She and Little Praxxus both slept really well that night.

The couple of times we ate at Applebee's while we were there, Baby Praxxus sat across the table and yelled at her, because that's what Baby Praxxus does sometimes. Mom loved every minute of it. She also insisted on picking up BOTH boys (one at a time), in spite of our efforts to get her to take it easy. Picking up grandchildren is apparently a God-given right, and no cancer or physical frailty was going to keep that particular Grandma from exercising it.

---------------------------------------------

-Mom was subject to, "Ah, that's Mom" moments from time to time. One Saturday morning in California she called me just to talk. At 7:00 AM. I pointed this out to her and questioned her proper use of Timezone Math. Her ready reply was, "Oh I know. I figured it's early enough you could go back to sleep when we're done."


And finally, this event, remembered by her daughter, captures the "essence of Mother Praxxus" best of all.

-Mom never minded a road trip, especially if there was family at the other end.

For example, when my daughter was born, I didn't expect much company. I was in Little Rock, and the rest of my family was in the Ozarks. What's more, my then-husband had taken paternity leave, and we were in a really small rental house, so we didn't need extra relatives coming to stay. I expected to hit the road and go visiting when the baby and I were up to it.

But I had forgotten that this was the first grandchild, and I had seriously underestimated Mom.

The day after my daughter was born--a weekday, mind you, when certain teachers and teenagers should have been in school--I woke up from a nap to find Mom and my 15-year-old youngest brother in my hospital room. I was surprised, but touched and pleased. The baby was brought out, passed around, and properly admired; gifts were given and opened; and so on.

Then, after about half an hour, Mom said, "I know you need your rest. We'll go now. We just had to see the new baby."

And that's what they did: they headed right back to Missouri. Mom had spent over eight hours on the road for a thirty-minute visit--but she had been the first relative on either side of the family to hold HER new grandbaby!

---------------------------------------------
As one person expressed it, the picture puzzles that are our lives, now have a big piece missing.

Mother Praxxus, you are missed.

Riley Children's Hospital in Indy called yesterday, and we have a consultation with a neurosurgeon in just over four weeks. Of course they scheduled it for Little Praxxus's birthday because that's the way our luck runs.

But at least we have an appointment now.

The wee Praxxi both had their well baby checkups on February 8. Little Praxxus was fine, minus his usual double-barrel ear infection. He weighs 29.5 pounds, and is 35" tall. He's on some sulfa to clear up the infections, and we might get his hearing tested after they clear up to make sure we don't need tubes. Based on his ever-expanding vocabulary, I'm honestly not that worried about his hearing.

Baby Praxxus is huuuuuuge: 26" long and 17 pounds, 11 ounces. Chubby, happy, and healthy as you please. Then Mrs. Praxxus asked the pediatrician about this crest he has, starting just above his nose and running back to his very small soft spot, and she felt his head and went to get one of the other doctors in the practice.

After some poking and feeling, they said that he might have Metopic synostosis, a form of craniosyntosis. There's also a chance he might JUST have a little crest on his forehead, but they're going to schedule an appointment for us at Riley Children's Hospital in Indy (#11 children's hospital in the country, thank goodness) ASAP for some X-rays and CT scans to see for sure.

If it's just a crest, they'll monitor it to make sure it doesn't develop into metopic synostosis. If it is metopic synostosis, they'll operate to correct the problem.

Mrs. Praxxus had a friend look up some info on Craniosynostosis while we were driving to St. Louis that evening (to visit with my mom after her latest chemo treatment) so that we could get to the hotel and have some information at our disposal rather than taking the extra time to look stuff up.

Craniosynostosis is a congenital deformity of the infant skull that occurs when the fibrous joints between the bones of the skull (called cranial sutures) close prematurely.

Metopic synostosis begins at the nose and goes back to the sagittal suture. Premature closure of this suture leads to a condition called trigonocephaly. This may cause the baby to have a pointed forehead, midline ridge, triangularly shaped skull, and eyes that appear too close together.

We could be lucky, and Baby P's case could be minor enough to not require surgery. However, if it does need surgery, they will make an incision across his head from ear to ear, peel back the front of his scalp, remove the front part of his skull, re-shape the bones, and reattach them with plates and screws. The procedure is done by a team consisting of a neurosurgeon, a cranio-facial plastic surgeon, and various assistants, takes 3-6 hours, and leaves the patient's eyes swollen shut for a couple of days afterwards.

Needless to say, this is weighing on our minds just a little bit. We have found a couple of links to pages made by moms who have gone through this before with their own children. That made us feel a little less spastic about things. A little ... Of course it would help if we could just get the stupid appointment scheduled at Riley, but since it isn't a life-threatening emergency it doesn't seem to be a priority to them or the pediatrician's office. So we don't even know how much we have to worry about yet, which is of course worrying in and of itself.

Personally, I'm tired of worrying about shit. Seriously, WTF? When do we catch goddamn break around here? First it was the never-ending drama with Little Praxxus's foster parenting, then both of my parents got sick, and my Dad died. Things seemed to be turning around after that, with Baby Praxxus being born, and my Mom finishing her chemo. But no, the fucking chemo didn't get rid of the cancer, and at this rate she's going to waste away before she can even finish another course of treatment. Or worse, be too weak at the end of it to withstand the stem cell transplant necessary to finish things off. Yay!

And now we're looking into whether or not they need to cut off the front of my baby's head? And I'm supposed to go to work every day, function normally, interact with people, and care about their stupid work problems? Sure!

Well, I understand you are having problems printing, but I really can't give a shit right now because I'm worried about them cutting off the front of my baby's head.

No problem! Piece of cake! I'll just sit here and smile and fix your stupid shit, and then everything will be a-fucking-okay, right? Your printing/e-mail/broken server issues are foremost on my mind, I promise!

:-P