Drano's a joke and your plunger is broke

The workbench looks largely as it did last week. I did manage to finish cutting out half the lap joints for the costume rack, but you'll notice something else prominent in the scene that took up most of my free time this weekend.

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Fever when you hold me tight

Summary of CDC briefing by CDC Director Thomas Frieden:

There has been no significant genetic drift in H1N1 so far so the H1N1 vaccine should be extremely effective. It is being produced the same way the seasonal flu vaccine. Last year over 100 million doses of seasonal flu were given out from the same facilities as will be distributing the H1N1 vaccine.

People with underlying conditions, kids, and pregnant women. CDC will be sponsoring school based clinics to help distribute, which they don't normally do.

Mythbusting
You cannot get the flu from the vaccine. It is a dead strain.
The flu is not necessarily a mild disease.

One of the challenges is that the first batch of vaccines is coming at the beginning of Oct, the second batch towards the end of Oct. Warns that early to mid Oct it will be difficult in some areas to get the vaccines.

Takes the position on "The Canada issue" that there is no current peer reviewed data indicating a problem of effectiveness when getting both the H1N1 and the seasonal flu vaccines. I think that's an accurate but misleading statement. There is a study that is in the publishing queue* which makes exactly that claim. I would like to see the study published and reviewed by the veritable army of medical researchers that will pounce on it to reproduce and or determine any methodological or analytical errors in the study.

On being questioned again about the Canada issue he states that he can't even think of a plausible mechanism for one vaccine to impact the effectiveness of another. I assume he has no background in virology, immunology, epidemiology or cell biology. simple and sensible explanation of one possible mechanism by which it would interfer. And of course anyone who has ever had to take multiple medications at once understands the concept of drug interactions. Anything you put in your body, including a vaccine, has the potential to interact with anything else in your body, including other vaccines.

*Thanks to the archaic publishing practices of many organizations the flu season may well be over before it comes out.

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You give me fever

Update on the flu issue from David Dobbs: short version is that some yet to be published research indicates that getting the regular flu vaccine might increase your risk of getting swine flu.

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Doctor doctor, mister MD

So there's some concern about the upcoming flu season and in particular H1N1 (please don't call it swine flu, as it's not).

• Steinn Sigurðsson PhD (Astrophysics) on H1N1 on campus.
• Orac (surgical oncology), inimitable as usual on Anti-Vax fanaticism
• Dr. David Gorski, MD (surgical oncology) on why you should still get a seasonal flu vaccine
• Dr. Tara C. Smith (assistant professor of epidemiology) on Why I'll be getting my kids vaccinated
• Dr. Mark Crislip, MD (infectious disease specialist) on Flu Woo
• Dr. Peter Lipson, MD (internist and teaching physician) on Gearing up for flu season.

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If I had a hammer

This is a leg for a costume rack that I'm building for the girls to replace the woefully insufficient (both structurally and volume wise) first one I made them. I'm hand cutting lap joints because there's clearly something wrong with me. And I like working with hand tools. And they're too deep for single passes on the router and I hate doing multipasses. And I don't have a functioning dado setup (and even if I did: multiple passes). Have I mentioned that there's something clearly wrong with me?

This is the first in what I intend to be a regular series of photos on the state of the workbench. This will provide a point in time view of projects and serve as motivation to always be moving forward. I encourage woodworkers, and crafters of all sorts, to take a snapshot of the state of the projects on a regular basis.

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Here in my car

It has been 12 years since I lived in Hell A. Not a lot has changed. It was pretty easy picking up all the landmarks and remembering all the streets. The only place that is significantly different is Hollywood/Sunset from La Brea east just past Vine, which has been cleaned up a LOT. When I moved to L.A. I thought what a disappointment it must be to tourists who come to see Hollywood only to find that it's a run down ghetto with nothing to see. Now it is much improved and definitely highly enjoyable to the tourists. I'm a tad confused at the traffic cops directing traffic along with the traffic lights, but I guess that's to keep tourons focused and alive.

I actually liked Hollywood even when we lived here lo those many years ago. There's just a character to the area that appeals to me. I could live there again I think. It felt very comfortable. There is a sentiment in L.A. similar to that in St. Louis where a lot of people who live in The County (or in L.A. The Valley) view The City (or West L.A./Hollywood) with some degree of horror and are afraid to even visit it except for special events and even then they rush to get to the event location and get back out as quickly as possible to avoid any contact with any 'undesirables'. In both cases I find the 'undesirables' to be way more interesting and friendly than the people who can't even see past their preconceived and largely wildly inaccurate notions.

And oh the traffic. I'd forgotten how truly miserable traffic is here. Astoundingly bad. I don't think I'll complain about traffic in STL for some time. Two blocks of Santa Monica in mid day with no construction or accidents can easily take 15 minutes. And the parking! There is almost no free parking anywhere. Residential streets, sure, but most of those require a special permit. A strip mall with 30 stores will have 11 free parking spaces and after that you're on your own to find an open meter. And parking is not cheap.

It reminds me why we never went out dancing in L.A. As poor twentysomethings the idea of spending $40 cover and another $20 to park the evening was over our budget even before we had our first drink.

Ah, but the beach. That makes up for a lot.

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He split the racket

While I'd like it to place higher in the google, the article by Ben Radford pointing out how the Dugard case highlights how useless psychics are is still on the first page of results.

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