Over the last two weeks, I had the entire inside and outside of my house painted, the bedrooms carpeted, the bushes trimmed the lawn sodded and I pressure washed the concrete. We packed cleaned and staged the entire house for photos:

What have you done in your life that you are most proud of?

Earlier this year I was at a Med School interview and the interviewer asked me that question.

This just in from Nicholas Kristof’s NY Times Column explaining the results of the President’s Cancer Panel “Avoid meats that are cooked well-done.” Hmm, probably good advice but given that we are also told to cook meats well-done to avoid e-coli infections we lose both ways. I suppose avoiding red meat is the answer .

I remember when I was in Hebrew School, we would often wonder whether anyone would ever find the lost tribes of Israel. In hindsight, it seemed highly unlikely. Where could they be hiding? Wouldn’t we know about a tribe of Jews in a foreign land by now? Wouldn’t we have even known in 1970? Of course we would.

I picked up Vox Day’s Irrational Atheist at the library with hopeful expectations. I like Dennett and Dawkins and don’t know the other authors Vox writes about. But, if Day dislikes them, I’m inclined to read them.

If I told you, I’d have to shoot you. Well, probably not, but I could be fired from my volunteer job at the Stanford Emergency Department.

Last night I experienced a series of firsts. Some trivial, some interesting, some fascinating and many protected by confidentiality. In this blog entry, I’ll discuss the two I cannot really go too deep into because of confidentiality.

A recent article in the NY Times spoke about the health benefits of walking a dog over walking with friends or other people. It turns out in this University of Nebraska study of older people who walked with other people would often find excuses not to go. However, those who took a bus to pick up a dog at a shelter, stuck with the regimen and showed marked improvement over five weeks. Dogs always want to go for a walk.

Last night, I was hurrying with my family to an Academy Award Party on Skyline up in the hills above Palo Alto. We had left Sacramento early from a different party, hit traffic on 80, so switched over to 5, and looked like we would arrive just in time for the opening of the show. While I was giving my votes for the contest to predict the winners, I missed our turnoff. No problem, the GPS said we could take Alpine Rd and still arrive on time.

In Men in Black, the supermarket tabloids present true stories of alien living among us. It’s hilariously funny, since most of us know that the Enquirer and other tabloids  present fictitious stories. But no more.

The National Enquirer is up for a Pulitzer prize for its investigation and coverage of former Presidential candidate John Edwards’ affairs. They reported that he cheated on his wife and fathered a child outside of his marriage.

… and they were right.

While I was growing up if someone wanted to let all of their friends know something like the birth of a child or invite them to a party, they would either call each of them or mail an announcement to each of them.

I remember school phone trees. One mother would get a call and they would know the next mother to call. It was always the mothers, but that’s a different reminiscence. That all got replaced in the late 1990s with e-mail.