Videos for Saturday

Try not to get a headache from the overwhelming cuteness:







They're the modern day Penn and Teller: Rosie just sits there, mute, deer-in-the-headlights like you'd imagine a 5 year old might, while her 8 year old cousin, the incredibly bubbly Sophia Grace, does all the talking.

This is funny too:


Daddy butter? Left handed washing glove? Mormon disco ball? Ron Paul workout video?

Dogs are the best:

So that's disappointing...

Geron, the first company to have an embryonic stem cell clinical trial approved by the FDA, is closing the trial in order to focus its efforts (and $$$) on cancer therapies. Hmmm...so that's a bummer. Obviously, more people suffer from cancer than from SCI so the market to recoup R&D dollars is bigger, but for such a high profile, famous trial to pull the plug is disheartening and can't be good PR for the Cure SCI movement.

Silver lining? There are plenty of other therapies progressing everyday, now research monies and charitable gifts won't continue going to a therapy that doesn't work, etc., but this still hurts.


To cheer you up:

Working 2 Walk 2011

Here are a few great blog posts from the 2011 Working 2 Walk conference, held in Rockville Maryland October 16-18.

The first is a breakdown of many of the speakers, with a refreshing amount of the author's opinions thrown in. There were several promising presenters at the conference, therapies which offer promise moving forward, but also several disappointments, organizations that are either hung up by the FDA bureaucracy or spinning their wheels wasting time and money on therapies unlikely to succeed.

One company, InVivo, shows promise, with a therapy that creates a sort of scaffold to bridge the damage in the spinal cord and fill in the gaps with stem cells. I admire the founder's tenacity, which you can watch below, and it's obvious it will take people like this to get this thing cured once and for all.



The second post is a blow by blow breakdown, kind of haphazardly posted but available, on the Care Cure blog. Ironically, Dr. Wise Young, a hero of the SCI community and founder of the CC site, comes in for some criticism in the first link I posted for his trials currently occurring in China. Basically, there's no evidence that what he's doing in China, umbilical cord stem cells combined with lithium pills, is working. So that's disappointing.

So for the 'cure warriors', as that first link calls us, the news is both good and bad. Progress is occurring, albeit it plodding, due to both structural and scientific problems. There is a lot of hope, smart people, funding, prayer - all you should need, which means this is just a matter of time... but when that time is, no one knows. For now...I dunno, buy stock in InVivo and hope the FDA quits dragging their feet long enough to get some of these trials moving. (And here, not overseas, where all the good researchers are headed to escape the hyper-strict policies in the U.S.)

Cute doggie.



Yesterday's game was not quite as good as this one, but was pretty fun nonetheless.

Great Video

Here's a great video from CBS News. The doctor at the 3:35 mark encapsulates my motivation for training so hard in a neat, little sentence. Basically, until there is a cure, why don't we get people up and walking and exercising, so when the cure does arrive, they're ready. Makes perfect sense to me - I'm gonna be ready.

And now, some funny pictures:

Ummm...

Please, God.

Possessed.

Best friends.

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs

The legendary CEO passed away Wednesday at age 56. Think about how the products he invented and their effect on your life - the iPod, iPhone, iPad...how about the personal computer? A product he first created in 1976, you now can't live your life without it. If the measure of a man is in his legacy, in the mark he left on his fellow human beings and the world in which they live, then Jobs was a remarkable, unforgettable person. And I'm a PC guy!

Here's a recent, very personal look at the man, the myth, the legend himself.

UPDATE: This man truly was a genius. Here are some of his best quotes - the one where he predicts the impact of the Internet in 1985 is the best.

Rock on

Headed down pretty soon for the 5th installment in our September October in Ann Arbor series. This looks to be another romp - look for Denard to throw the ball better (maybe rack up 200 yards passing and 100 rushing), the defense to be aggressive (a few sacks would be nice), and for me to be cold (an average of roughly 3 shivers per minute is expected). Prediction: UM 35, Minn 10.