The Cause of Gray Hair, or, Scientists Is Stoopid!

This proves that researchers and scientists can be dumb as rocks.

Read:

Why Hair Goes Gray
Study Blames a Chain Reaction That Makes Hair Bleach Itself From the Inside Out
By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Feb. 25, 2009 -- Scientists may have figured out why hair turns gray, and their finding may open the door to new anti-graying strategies.

New research shows that hair turns gray as a result of a chemical chain reaction that causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out.

The process starts when there is a dip in levels of an enzyme called catalase. That catalase shortfall means that the hydrogen peroxide that naturally occurs in hair can't be broken down. So hydrogen peroxide builds up in the hair, and because other enzymes that would repair hydrogen peroxide's damage are also in short supply, the hair goes gray.

Putting the brakes on that chemical chain reaction "could have great implications in the hair graying scenario in humans," write the researchers, who included Karin Schallreuter, a professor clinical and experimental dermatology at England's University of Bradford.

The study appears online in The FASEB Journal; the FASEB is the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

That's just silly.

EVERYONE knows that children are the cause of gray hair.

Buncha dummies.

So much for me thinking that scientists and researchers are smart.

I'm glad there were no engineers mentioned, I'd hate to have been lumped in with this know-nothing bunch.

The Biggest Orange I Ever Did See

One of those really cool, cheesy, but fun roadside pieces of Americana that is along US1 in Melbourne, Florida.

Although this one is well taken care of, so many things like this have disappeared over the years.

I love stuff like this.

When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies, it seemed like we saw all manner of goofy stuff along highways.

You don't see this kind of thing near as much now, and to me, it's sad.

National Groundhog Abuse Day!

Well, chalk up another win for the animal abusers of the world.

That animal travesty known as "Groundhog Day" is today, and as has happened since the 1800's a bunch of schmucks in black coats and Abe Lincoln style top hats ripped a poor, hibernating beast from his peaceful winter's hibernation and woke him with the cheers of 13, 000 mentally deficient animal haters.

According to the perpetrators of this ancient pagan rite, there will be six more weeks of winter because the poor little fella saw his shadow this morning.

Let me get this straight.

They pull this hibernating wonder of God's creation from his toasty warm hole and loft him up above the cheers of thousands of idiots who should have still been in their warm beds if they had a lick of sense, and because it was sunny enough for the groundhog to have seen his shadow, this somehow means that there will be six more weeks of winter?

I think next year I'm gonna round up a bunch of my PETA friends and take a trip to Pennsylvania to throw red paint on all these vicious animal haters.

Morons.

Do groundhogs not have teeth?

I really did like the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray though.









(Just kidding, people. I don't have any PETA friends, since I'm a life-long omnivore.)

It's Freezing in Palm Bay!

This has happened only 4 or 5 times in the twelve years we've lived here.



I actually wore my denim jacket yesterday. I haven't worn that since we went to Louisiana in December of 2006.

Though of course I wore a short sleeved shirt under it, because when it gets below 60 degrees in Florida, the masses overreact and crank up the building's heaters.

I spent part of my work day yesterday fanning myself because they had the heat up so high inside.

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On a separate note, I went yesterday and had my second of three shots in my back.

They don't help with the back pain, but it almost totally knocks out the leg pain for a while, so I'm happy with that.

If the procedure itself wasn't so uncomfortable, even with the anesthetic, it would be a wonderful thing.

It's just a mental challenge to walk in there knowing that they will hurt you, but that in a day or so you will feel much better and that it will last a couple of weeks.

In all, not a bad trade-off; a day of pain for two weeks of pain relief.

A Mini Van Adventure

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning, Monday, in Merritt Island, Florida.

Interstate 95 is a pretty potent death trap. I have driven the 10 miles or so of it between home and work many times, and have seen the aftermath of several auto accidents.

Yesterday morning, there was an accident in the northbound lane right where I needed to exit.

You can ask Lovely Wife, taking alternate routes to anywhere is not my strong suit.

My modus operandi is to learn the shortest/easiest/fastest path to any destination and then I DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE KNOWN PATHWAY.

But, with the wreck there slowing the off-ramp traffic to a standstill, I thought I'd go north one more exit, just a couple of miles, and circle back through town to US 1 from which I could get back on my original road.

Alas, there was a wreck blocking the southbound exit onto US 1 where I needed to go! The cops were waving people past, and I had no choice.

(By the way, the paramedics were working on a man laying spread eagle on the road next to his motorcycle. I've never seen a fresh motorcycle accident like that, it was quite disturbing.)

The added horror was that I was now on my own in a strange location far from known roads. both of my know pathways to this doctor's office were blocked.

What's a guy to do?

After submitting myself to the fear of the unknown for a few seconds, I called the doctor's office to tell them I'd probably be a few minutes late.

Then I thought I'd just find the biggest road that would take me back south from my present location, and after a while, actually found my way to the doctor's office, but it was definitely touch and go there for a little while. Way out of my comfort zone as they say.

That's one good thing about totally flat terrain like here in Florida, most roads run pretty much north and south, east and west, because there are no hills to necessitate winding roads.

I saw the doctor and got some prescriptions.

They made three upcoming appointments for some shots in my lower back to hopefully lessen the pain in my left leg, starting Wednesday. That's "tomorrow" Wednesday, for the first shot. I've got scar tissue from four back surgeries down there so they usually end up having to work the needles around a bit to get them into the location they want to release the injection. Yes. That feels just about as bad as it sounds too.

But. If the overall effect is pain relief, then it will be worth it. I don't sleep well much any more, mostly because of leg pain.

And I keep picturing the guy from the motorcycle laying on the side of the road, and was glad I was driving a mini van.

Then I went to work.

Well, I didn't say it was an EXCITING mini van adventure now did I?

A Late Happy New Year to All

First, Happy New Year to all of you. God bless you all and give you a wonderful 2009!

Several years ago, Number Two Daughter decided she'd like to learn to play the guitar.

But if you're left-handed and want to learn guitar, your options are limited. You can either learn to play guitar right-handed, or pay a lot extra for a left-handed guitar (it's absurd how much more a left-handed guitar costs than the equivalent right-handed guitar), or you can convert a right-handed guitar to be playable by a left-handed person.

Number Two Daughter is very left-handed, so I searched for a reasonably priced left-handed guitar, and in the meantime, I looked for an inexpensive electric that I could convert to being left-handed (I remembered that Jimi Hendrix seemed to do pretty well on a right-handed guitar that had been converted for left-handed use).

Turns out that a guy I knew at work had a nice Samick brand electric guitar that he only wanted $50 for. But when I went to his condo to look at it to see if it was a guitar I thought I could work with, I was blown away by this lovely cherry sunburst, stratocaster-styled guitar. Of course I bought it.

I took it home and played it a bit, and looked it over again and fell in love with the grain and color of the mahogany body of the guitar.

But, the guitar wasn't for me, so that night, I took off the strings, removed and reversed the nut, put on new strings and intonated the guitar so that it would play in tune for a left-handed person.

I left it sitting out in her room that night where she could see it when she woke up in the morning.

Later that year, for her birthday, we bought her a nice, true left-handed guitar from an online store called Rondo Music. (They have a great selection of good quality left-handed guitars for incredibly low prices. I own several of their electric guitars and an electric bass from there.)

After she got the new, left-handed guitar, I took the Samick and re-converted it to right-handed playing, and I've played it since then.

With my back being so screwed up the past few years, I'd almost completely stopped playing guitar, and a few weeks ago, I started leaving one of my electrics beside my recliner in the living room. So now when I watch TV, I can practice chords and scales and whatnot on an unplugged electric which is quiet enough that I don't bother others in the room.

Many mornings my back wakes me up pretty early and I go sit in my chair, leaning on a heating pad to help relive the pain. Right now, the early morning sunlight comes into the room and shines for a few minutes right where I stand the guitar.

One morning I went and grabbed my camera because I loved how the warm morning sunlight enhanced the grain and beautiful colors of this $50 guitar.

Merry Christmas (Eve) to All

It's hard to believe that it is Christmas Eve, even harder to fathom that it's Christmas Eve of 2008! (Dig our Yukon Cornelius ornament. I always loved his shopping list "Cornmeal, gunpowder, ham hocks and guitar strings!")

My blogging has been really spotty this year. A heavy work load over the summer and fall, and health issues pretty much robbed me of my desire to write.

I've really missed it, because, the way my mind works is that I'm always trying to frame even my passing thoughts into words and phrases that would be good writing. I'm ALWAYS thinking of stuff, but this has turned out to be a year in which it has been more effective to just keep my nose to the grindstone where work is concerned, try to deal with my chronic back pain and other body problems as best I can, and to sleep as much as possible, because that's the best way I've found to deal with stressful times, simply making sure I sleep as normal a night as possible. Lack of sleep is the number one thing, for me at least, that will push me over the edge and lose my ability to just deal with things.

By far the hardest thing for me was losing Rosie, one of our poodles who got ill and died within a period of 12 hours. This was in early November, and she was such a part of our every day lives that it has been very difficult for us to even think about her. Almost every move we make around the house reminds us of something she used to do that would either make us laugh or say Awww. Every night when I would sit in my recliner, and all four of our small poodles would jump up there with me, Rosie would climb up and lay curled up on my chest for as long as I sat there. I miss that.

I'm not really one to be affected much by certain dates going by; New Year's Day and my birthday are just regular days to me. But the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons tend to make me recall times past, loved ones that are gone and still badly missed, so I definitely do take the time to reflect on the year that has passed and to try to envision how I'd like to do things a bit different in the coming year that may help improve my life.

But today being Christmas Eve, I just remember being so excited as a kid as to what I might be getting on Christmas morning. And especially trying to figure out which "one present" I'd like to open on Christmas Eve night.

As a kid, it was important to strike a balance in my Christmas Eve One Present opening. I didn't want to open something lame, like socks, that I KNEW would be under the tree, but I also wanted to save the really good stuff for Christmas morning, you know?

Now Lovely Wife's and mine's kids are 20 years old and above, so there's no more worrying about having to wait until like 1am to be sure they are asleep before I begin to assemble the "some assembly required" toys they invariably wanted as kids.

Also, with money tight, we look for the best deals we can get, and since those we buy for mostly want books, music CDs, and DVDs of movies, we usually end up buying almost everything from Amazon.com, so going out and shopping for all kinds of different items is almost nil. I miss going out for a big day or two of shopping, but when you're in pain, it's just a relief to shop online and get hard to find stuff easily and for great prices.

But all in all, I'm thankful that we made it through the year. I truly am thankful because as soon as I even begin to think I have it tough, or to feel sorry for myself, I begin to remember the billions on this earth who literally have nothing. On days when my back is hurting particularly bad and I stumble into work anyway, I usually soon stumble upon someone who is limping with an artificial leg from a Vietnam wound, or see the lady with the heart problems getting out of her car in the handicapped spot and realizing she works on the second floor of a two story building here, and that building has no elevator. So I know she climbs those stairs every day with a bad ticker and also with zero complaints. In fact she is one of those people who brightens the days of those around her with her good cheer.

It has been a tough year for me mentally and physically, but overall, I'm very, very blessed, and am in generally good health, and so is my family. Who am I to complain? So I won't.

But I hope to be able to blog some more in the coming year, it does help clarify things when I take the time to put thoughts down on the computer or on paper.

And I hope that all of you out there who occasionally drop by to see if I've written anything new will have a merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. I appreciate all of your comments, even the harsh ones by the gutless person known as Anonymous.

God bless all of you with good health for you and those you love.

John