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Kris finally arrived last Wednesday (and there was much rejoicing). She was pretty much dead tired from lack of sleep, which is bound to happen when you have a 5:45am flight.
Overall the arrival went off pretty well. I had flowers set out for her when she walked in the door, plus a bottle of champagne chilling. For dinner I prepared salmon in a salt dome, which came out very well... but the next time I do it I will definitely be starting with much less fish. Or inviting over ten of our best friends to share with.
I am overjoyed to have her finally here, but of course now all the real work starts. We are both very used to living alone, and we need to learn each other's rhythms and find out how to blend them. And of course right now I am sure Kris doesn't feel much at home. She doesn't know the area, doesn't have a car even if she wanted to go explore, and the apartment itself is pretty much optimized for me. She has done quite a bit of unpacking, and that helps. As things get shifted and placed, and as her personality begins to fill the space, I hope she will begin to feel less like a visitor and more at home.
So today I am supposed to dive back into work, and right off the bat I am completely blocked for the project I am working on. I have two different parts I could be wrapping up, but on the news side the type code I need in the database isn't there, and on the promotions side the profile control is blowing up because of bad data. In either case I am dead in the water until someone on the DB team gets to work in Seattle. Either one of my blocking issues can be fixed in a matter of minutes, but I'll probably lose 2-3 hours of work time thanks to the difference in time zones. It happens less often than you might think, but when it does it's pretty dang frustrating.
Oh, here's some cool news - this morning the National Alliance for Autism Research announced the launch of the NAAR Autisim Genome Project ( you can read about it here ). More than 170 top genetics researchers from around the world are pooling their resources for this project, which is using a new technology called a DNA Microarray that will be able to scan large numbers of genetic samples quickly in order to identify common genetic mutations among them. The sample set contains more than 6000 samples from 1500 families, making it three times larger than any previous genetic study for autism.
The first phase is scheduled to take six months, but the people at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (which is performing the actual scan) think it will probably only take them around three months to complete. Even a year ago a similar scan would have taken years to complete. The target of the first phase is to identify the general areas in the genome to focus on (the current thought is that as many as 20 different genes may play a role in autism), and if phase one bears fruit than a second phase will focus on the identified target areas.
At the moment there is no biological test to identify autism, it is instead diagnosed entirely by observation. This study will very likely change all that. I don't know what this will mean for Ben. I suspect that the end result of this research will probably lead to ways to prevent autism, but I doubt if there is any such thing as a cure. Who knows, though - the advances in genetic research in just the past few years have been breathtaking. There's a small part of me that really wants to beleive that someday there could be such a thing as "genetic therapy" that might just unlock Ben from his prison.
Overall the arrival went off pretty well. I had flowers set out for her when she walked in the door, plus a bottle of champagne chilling. For dinner I prepared salmon in a salt dome, which came out very well... but the next time I do it I will definitely be starting with much less fish. Or inviting over ten of our best friends to share with.
I am overjoyed to have her finally here, but of course now all the real work starts. We are both very used to living alone, and we need to learn each other's rhythms and find out how to blend them. And of course right now I am sure Kris doesn't feel much at home. She doesn't know the area, doesn't have a car even if she wanted to go explore, and the apartment itself is pretty much optimized for me. She has done quite a bit of unpacking, and that helps. As things get shifted and placed, and as her personality begins to fill the space, I hope she will begin to feel less like a visitor and more at home.
So today I am supposed to dive back into work, and right off the bat I am completely blocked for the project I am working on. I have two different parts I could be wrapping up, but on the news side the type code I need in the database isn't there, and on the promotions side the profile control is blowing up because of bad data. In either case I am dead in the water until someone on the DB team gets to work in Seattle. Either one of my blocking issues can be fixed in a matter of minutes, but I'll probably lose 2-3 hours of work time thanks to the difference in time zones. It happens less often than you might think, but when it does it's pretty dang frustrating.
Oh, here's some cool news - this morning the National Alliance for Autism Research announced the launch of the NAAR Autisim Genome Project ( you can read about it here ). More than 170 top genetics researchers from around the world are pooling their resources for this project, which is using a new technology called a DNA Microarray that will be able to scan large numbers of genetic samples quickly in order to identify common genetic mutations among them. The sample set contains more than 6000 samples from 1500 families, making it three times larger than any previous genetic study for autism.
The first phase is scheduled to take six months, but the people at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (which is performing the actual scan) think it will probably only take them around three months to complete. Even a year ago a similar scan would have taken years to complete. The target of the first phase is to identify the general areas in the genome to focus on (the current thought is that as many as 20 different genes may play a role in autism), and if phase one bears fruit than a second phase will focus on the identified target areas.
At the moment there is no biological test to identify autism, it is instead diagnosed entirely by observation. This study will very likely change all that. I don't know what this will mean for Ben. I suspect that the end result of this research will probably lead to ways to prevent autism, but I doubt if there is any such thing as a cure. Who knows, though - the advances in genetic research in just the past few years have been breathtaking. There's a small part of me that really wants to beleive that someday there could be such a thing as "genetic therapy" that might just unlock Ben from his prison.
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