Some Things Learned from Behind the Spurs' Bench

For our one year anniversary the wife and I decided to go all out and leave the East Coast's random weather for sunnier days in Maui and then San Antonio.  Maui itself is self explanatory. But why San Antonio?  Simply put, the wife is a huge Spurs fan.

Since she's been pounded down and tested by work in her first year of residency, I decided it was best to lift her moral and help her live out one of her all time dreams: to sit court side at a Spurs' game.  Some of the cooler things we saw/learned from our seats.

• These guys love their coach.  I always thought that Coach Pop was one of the best.  But these guys really listen to him.  Its amazing.  As big as egos are now a days, the Spurs seem to have the combination of great team guys and a great coach.
  
  
• Drew Gooden is a bonehead.  Its confirmed.  I've always suspected it.  He always seemed like he was doing his own thing in Cleveland's offense a couple of years ago.  I watched this guy drool at the Spurs' dancers as they performed their routine.  Then to top that, he spotted my wife and blatantly checked her out top to bottom for several seconds.  The nerve of the guy! The wife was a bit taken aback to say or doing anything but once she regained regular thought she asked if she could wave next time.  Whatever!
• From this down low you can see everyones faces but you also risk your view being blocked by a coach or referee.
• You don't have to get up for food because you have your own waiter down here.
• We could actually hear some of the conversations, like Coach Pop yelling at Tony Parker and a little bit of trash talking between Chris Paul and Coach Pop (all playful though).
• The so called basketball statisticians seem to just talk on AIM the entire time.  NOTE: not entirely sure if this was the stat guy or not but there was a lot of talking on AIM going on.

It was a great game overall. We lucked out and it went into overtime. The wife says its one of the best experiences of her life, falling behind our Wedding Day of course! Mission accomplished!

UPDATE: Bill Simmon's went ahead and confirmed my suspicions of Drew Gooden. In his own words:

Know when I knew it was over for the Spurs? When they signed Drew Gooden. Good rebounder, decent inside scorer, total knucklehead. He grew a mini-beard on the back of his neck three years ago. He let down LeBron so many times that LeBron developed an actual "Drew Gooden disappointed me yet again and I might have to kill him soon" frown. When he went to Chicago, Cleveland immediately became a better team. The Bulls dumped him and they immediately became better. He's exactly the type of player the Spurs NEVER sign: someone who looks better on paper than he actually is. I just thought it seemed like a desperate move. And it was.

What Books Would Be Good For Self-Study in Bioinformatics?

Despite my lack of commitment to this site, it seems that I'm still getting comments every now and again. And I appreciate the interest. It really helps me realize the potential interest in the kind of things I've written about here.

Most recently, I got a comment from Sudhang requesting books for the computer programmer who wants to self-study in the field of Bioinformatics. The following is my list. It may seem like its a bit everywhere but that's kind of what you get with the field of Bioinformatics.

• Molecular Cell Biology. One would get glossy eyed trying to read through this book, but you need to have a good reference to some of the Biology that is described in Bioinformatics. Of course, wikipedia is becoming more and more of a reliable source now a days as well. You could also ask the questions here at biowhat so that we all learn together, but the getting the answer is dependent on my time. 4/19/09 UPDATE: Madunca has recommended Alberts’ “Molecular Biology of the Cell” in the comments for aspiring Bioinformaticians. You may want to check that out as well as its always good to have options!


• Biostatistics: The Bare Essentials. When I started my Masters of Bioinformatics, taking statistics was one of the requirements. Personally, I didn't have a great experience with it in undergrad so I was a bit intimidated. A friend of mine, who is an MD/PhD, recommended that I freshen up my statistics knowledge with this book. It was a great recommendation! With this book the authors attempt to make learning Statistics an entertaining experience. Though this is a daunting task, they are highly effective.


• An Introduction to Bioinformatics Algorithms. This is probably my favorite book on this short list. It gives a little bit of everything. It gives a brief Biology Primer and then dives into what I love as a computer scientist, Algorithms! The authors look at various important Algorithms and how they apply to Bioinformatics.

Well, this is my list. Its short, but it gives you three books to what some may consider to be the cornerstone of Bioinformatics: Biology, Statistics, and Computer Science. If anyone has more recommendations, please leave them in the comments. Keep the questions coming!

The Fuss About Cotton and the Monument 10k

NOTE: I wrote this about a week ago, but since life has been rather hectic with work, my birthday, and vacation planning it wasn't a priority to finish the post.

Lets Talk About Cotton

Since my Ate Joy decided to show me what she calls "link love" (ie - the practice of linking to one's blog) last week, there was quite a bit of fuss about me wearing cotton sweat pants during my runs.  Actually most of the fuss was from Ate Joy.

I justify my running in my sweat pants for several reasons:

1. Running gear is expensive! I just started my running a couple months ago and didn't want to waste my money on something I wasn't sure I was going to commit to 100%.  And if that isn't enough, think of the economy people!
2. They're comfortable.  I love being comfortable.  Some of my best work gets done when I'm wearing sweats or a hoodie.  This is especially key, when I'm starting something new and uncomfortable to me (ie - running long distances).
3. Its been cold the past couple of months.  This point relates to my first one.  Its been cold, so I've pretty much compensated by throwing every piece of clothing I had on.
4. I'm old school.  I love physical play in basketball, strong defenses in football, Galaga, Transformers, the Original Trilogy of Star Wars, the click noise old keyboards make, etc.  Forget all this new school updated stuff!  I mean its not like running was invented with the tech/dryfit clothing lines.  People still ran in cotton 20+ years ago.  Heck, the first Marathon was before 1 century AD, you think people were worried about running in cotton back then?!

This is what I ran in a couple weeks ago:

Now some of you new-age running extremists (this is mostly directed at my Ate Joy as she is the only one that reads this blog) might cringe at the sight of this, but it fits my basic criteria: cheap, readily available, and warm.

Now, I ran 5+ miles with this on.  You know what my pace was?  8:45 mins/mile.  This may not seem fast to some people, but I've only been doing this for a couple of months.  So I think a time like that is awesome.  I'm awesome!  I'm not doing this to look cool or run extremely fast.  I'm doing this to finish something I said I was going to do.  Will I wear this kind of thing on race day?  Heck no!  Time matters on those days.

Monument 10k

This past weekend I ran the Monument 10k.  It was my first race.  Well first race as a distance runner, I used to run sprints in high school.

My wife, the Doctor Lady, and my cousin David (AKA JoyCuz-D) were in attendance.

I wasn't nervous at all.  This is probably because I just thought of the event as a benchmark of my progress towards completing the Richmond Marathon with my cousin, Ate Joy in the family challenge.

What made it especially relaxed were the numerous costumes at the event.  I saw ninja turtles, a swimmer (in just a speedo), and best of all Indiana Jones (scroll down to see the pic from the link)!

The run itself wasn't too bad.  I was in the wrong coral for the time I wanted, but I think it helped my confidence more than anything.  For the first part of the run I was well below my usual pace but this was recommended by my training group as they noted that zigging in and out of people tends to waste a lot of energy.  I just took my time and waited for the gaps to open.

Towards the end of the run (about the last half mile) I decided to kick it in a higher gear and finish strong like I've been practicing.  This is the part when my mind was tested the most.  It was especially disheartening when a kid who had to have been 10 years old kicked it into an even higher gear and made me look like I was standing still.  I like to justify this with the thought that he started in a much earlier coral, but I have no proof for this.

What was my time for the race, you may ask?  I ran a 52:58 or what is equivalent to around a 8:31.3 pace.  That's about 15 seconds faster than my usual pace per mile, and I was stuck in the wrong coral!

So in my strong opinion people should train in whatever clothing they want.  I mean its running.  Its supposed to be as low maintenance a sport as they get!  For those fashion police out there, I challenge you to run in cotton for a couple of weeks.  You'd be surprised how much a little change of clothing can help improve your time.

As a bonus for actually reading this blog.  Here's my morning race day dance, courtesy of the Doctor Lady.

Blood, Sweat, and No Tears (Yet)

So, I've been doing this running thing for a couple of months thanks to a family bet with Joyrun.  I decided to start with Richmoond's Monument 10K and eventually work my way up to the Marathon level.

I haven't posted anything on here about my training as I thought it was rather uneventful.  Well a couple of days ago I got my EVENT!

I was going on mile 4 and started to notice extra drippage from my nose.  At first this didn't really bother me that much, as the weather it was a little chilly so I figured I just had some basic sniffles going on.  Then the streams came.  I had a FREAKING BLOODY NOSE while running. So, I had to kill the rest of my run and do a quarter mile walk of shame home, with blood dripping all over my clothes and shoes.

Now I have to give up my favorite sweats! I've had these for over 10 years.

Thankfully, this didn't happen on race day. But it led me to think, what does one do when this happens? I'm not medical expert, but I think you pretty much have to stop your run and get the nose to stop bleeding. But there is no guarantee it won't start up again. Considering that none of us want to stop a run, the best bet is probably to prevent this kind of thing from happening with a little preventative medicine

According to Dr. Cunha in his article on nosebleeds [Medicine Net]:

Nosebleeds can occur spontaneously when the nasal membranes dry out and crack. This is common in dry climates, or during the winter months when the air is dry and warm from household heaters...  The incidence of nosebleeds is higher during the colder winter months when upper respiratory infections are more frequent, and the temperature and humidity fluctuate more dramatically. In addition, changes from a bitter cold outside environment to a warm, dry, heated home results in drying and changes in the nose which will make it more susceptible to bleeding. Nosebleeds also occur in hot dry climates with low humidity, or when there is a change in the seasons.

So for those of us that live in good old Virginia we're pretty much screwed as the temperature and humidity fluctuate all the time.  I mean how do we get 8 inches of snow and 70 degree weather in the same week?!

The good news is the fix is simple.  Dr. Cuhan states that

If you are prone to recurrent nosebleeds, it is often helpful to try lubricating the nose with an ointment of some type. This can be applied gently with a Q-tip or your fingertip up inside the nose, especially on the middle portion (the septum). Many patients use A & D ointment, Mentholatum, Polysporin/Neosporin ointment, or Vaseline.

So how about it runners, what would you do?

UPDATE:  I was able to salvage my favorite pair of sweats by using a combination of hydrogen peroxide and laundry detergent to take the blood out.  I mean they've survived winter storms, undegrad, grad school, ex girlfriends, hurricanes and flag football.  What's a little blood going to do?

About LCDs

For the majority of the past 8 years I've been a professional student. What does this mean? No money. So with my empty pockets I decided to completely ignore everything that was happening with flat panel displays. I mean, why drool over something that you can't have?

Now that the money is flowing in regularly I've decided that maybe its time to have one of those ultra cool computer setups as seen on Flickr's Pixel Rigs Group. Well maybe not so extreme.

Problem was, I had no idea what were the pros and cons between the various LCD technologies. Enter a couple of threads on hardforum. One gives an excellent overview on the current TFT LCD technologies and the pros/cons between all of them. The other provides an almost complete index of all the LCDs currently out there and the kind of technologies each of them uses.

I'm still probably going to go with my original choice of a Dell Ultrasharp 2408wfp, but it was nice to learn about the various technologies out there.

Learning Cascading Style Sheets

Recently, I've decided that it was time to do a Winter cleanup on all my web content. Who knows maybe this will be a yearly tradition! The first step for me though, is changing the look of my home page. The thing looks abysmal:


So I've been dabbling around with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). I've played with it a couple times over the years, but unfortunately, its one of those things you got to work with constantly to get really good at.  Considering this, I decided it was best to go back to basics.

First google hit for CSS, is the site Cascading Style Sheets which provides an awesome index for websites that will help you learn CSS.

Ruby on Rails

Just wanted to post this guide a guy I had a couple of classes with during graduate school.  Seems to have a lot of useful links on learning Ruby on Rails.