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University of Missouri School of Medicine MU Health School of Medicine

Infectious Diseases Fellowships

Mission Statement

The primary mission of our 2-year fellowship training program is to provide advanced educational opportunities in infectious diseases. Our program, within the guidelines established by the ACGME, trains fellows to become familiar with the presentation, natural history, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases through outpatient and inpatient care, divisional and departmental conferences, participation in research, and independent learning. Graduates of our training program are fully prepared to enter independent clinical and academic practice.

Overview of Educational Program

The Infectious Disease Fellowship program at the University of Missouri-Columbia has a long history of graduating outstanding clinical Infectious Disease Specialists. Graduates of our training program are in private practice and academic programs throughout the country. Our program has been structured to meet ACGME requirements which state: "The educational program in infectious disease must be organized to provide training and experience at a sufficient level for the fellow to acquire the competency of a specialist in the field".

The fellowship program is 2 years in duration (as specified by the ACGME and the ABIM). As per ACGME requirements, a minimum of 12 months of clinical experiences is required. The other 12 months of training is dedicated to elective fields of clinical training and to research. The training program is ultimately designed to provide opportunities for fellows to develop clinical competence in the field of infectious disease.

On an average, 1 to 2 fellows per year are accepted. We currently have three fellows. Applications for University of Missouri - Columbia Infectious Disease Fellowship positions beginning in 2007, will be accepted through the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS). We also participate in the NRMP match.

The two-year program is divided into 26 four-week blocks. A major focus is on inpatient consultations from all medical and surgical disciplines at the three major facilities. Outpatient experience is also provided at the University Hospital in a general infectious diseases clinic, an HIV clinic, at the City-County STD clinic and the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital general infectious diseases clinic.

As with most subspecialty training programs, teaching and management rounds are combined in our fellowship program. Rounds are patient-based, in which current cases are presented as a basis for discussion of such points as interpretation of clinical data, differential diagnosis, specific management of the patient, the appropriate use of technology, the incorporation of evidence and patient values in clinical decision making, and disease prevention.

All fellows are also expected to participate in research (clinical, translational, or basic) during their fellowship, under the direction of a faculty mentor. At least 3 months annually of protected time is given for this purpose. Fellows will also be expected to write up their projects in manuscript form, and encouraged to submit it for publication to a peer-review journal.

The Infectious Disease Division has a variety of educational conferences that fellows attend and participate in (e.g. Case Conference, Didactic Conference and Journal Club). During their training, fellows also attend one or more national meetings and conferences that supplement their educational experience.

If you are interested please contact Helen Cook, Fellowship Coordinator for more information.

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University of Missouri School of Medicine MU Health School of Medicine

Susan C. Nagel, PhD

Does fracking contaminate water with hormone disrupting chemicals?

Donate to our crowd funding campaign to help find out.

My research passion centers on chemicals in our homes, air, farms and water that can disrupt normal hormones, which are part of the endocrine system, and these chemicals are termed Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). The endocrine system is required for humans and other animals to develop normally and stay healthy. In my laboratory, we measure EDC activity in water and how EDCs can exacerbate hormone dependent diseases in people. We use cell culture, animal and human models of health and disease to study the effects of EDCs, particularly on endometriosis and obesity.

We have recently identified hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil (fracking) as a new source of EDCs and have identified dozens of chemicals used in the process that disrupt estrogen and androgen action. We also measured endocrine disrupting activity in surface and ground water associated with natural gas drilling. While spills and leaks associated with fracking are common and may contaminate surface, ground and drinking water, fracking is exempt from federal regulations that keep water safe. We found more endocrine disrupting activity in water at spill sites in a drilling dense region of Garfield Co, CO, than in drilling sparse areas without spills (Kassotis, et al., epub Dec 16, 2013). We are the first to show an association between endocrine disruption and fracking and that fracking may be a new source for environmental contamination with EDCs. Increased exposure to EDCs may increase the risk of reproductive, metabolic, and neurological diseases, especially when children are exposed. The Passport Foundation Science Innovation Fund funded this work.

Hormonal disruption during development can alter susceptibility to disease in adulthood. This is one example of developmental origins of adult health and disease. For example, in humans, increased fetal estrogen is associated with an increased risk of endometriosis and breast cancer, while decreased fetal estrogen reduces the risk. Since human fetuses are exposed to hundreds of EDCs, it is essential to determine if exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations increase the risk of disease in children or adulthood.

One EDC that we study is bisphenol A (BPA), a ubiquitous chemical found in polycarbonate plastic, thermal receipt paper, plastic lining of metal food cans, and many other sources and is found in over 90% of people.  BPA can disrupt both estrogen and androgen signaling. Importantly, we examine the effects of perinatal (just before and after birth) exposure to concentrations of BPA within the range of current human exposure on adult health and disease in our mouse model. We have shown that perinatal exposure to BPA leads to adult obesity (Angle, et al., 2013), increased length and decreased strength of femur bones (Pelch, et al., 2011), reduced ovarian follicle reserve (Bromfield, et al., in prep) and altered mammary gland histoarchitecture (Brand, et al., in prep) in adult mice. This work is supported by a grant from NIH.

Endometriosis occurs when the lining of the uterus, the endometrium, grows outside of the uterus. While up to 10% of women suffer with pain and infertility from this disease, the etiology is unknown. To study developmental origins of endometriosis, we had to validate that our mouse model is a good one for human disease. We were the first to demonstrate a striking similarity between the gene expression profile in women and in the mouse model of endometriosis (Pelch et al. 2010 and 2012). Next, we found that perinatal exposure to BPA altered the gene expression profile in the uterus and in endometriotic lesions in adult mice (Bromfield, et al., in preparation). This altered environment may exacerbate the development of endometriosis. NIH, MU, and the March of Dimes have funded this work.

Human obesity, breast cancer, endometriosis, and infertility have increased over the past 50 years. While these are multifactorial, research in my lab demonstrates that perinatal exposure to EDCs may be a risk factor. I am currently assembling a cross campus-interdisciplinary center for the study of developmental origins of adult health and disease at MU.My research interests center on the study of estrogen action. Research in my lab focuses on the body’s own endogenous estrogens, pharmaceutical estrogens and environmental estrogens. We are interested in how estrogens promote endometriosis in adulthood but also in how developmental exposure may increase the risk of developing endometriosis in adulthood.

Selected Publications

  • Kassotis CD, Tillitt D, Davis JW, Hormann AM, Nagel SC. Estrogen and Androgen Receptor Activity of Hydraulic Fracturing Chemicals and in Surface and Ground Water in a Drilling Dense Region. Endocrinology. Epub Dec 16, 2013.
  • Nagel SC, Bromfield JJ. Bisphenol a: a model endocrine disrupting chemical with a new potential mechanism of action. Endocrinology. 2013;154(6):1962-1964.
  • Angle BM, Do RP, Ponzi D, Stahlhut RW, Drury BE, Nagel SC, Welshons WV, Besch-Williford CL, Palanza P, Parmigiani S, Vom Saal FS, Taylor JA. Metabolic disruption in male mice due to fetal exposure to low but not high doses of bisphenol A (BPA): Evidence for effects on body weight, food intake, adipocytes, leptin, adiponectin, insulin and glucose regulation. Reproductive toxicology. 2013.
  • Vom Saal FS, Nagel SC, Coe BL, Angle BM, Taylor JA. The estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) and obesity. Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2012;354(1-2):74-84.
  • Pelch KE, Sharpe-Timms KL, Nagel SC. Mouse Model of Surgically-induced Endometriosis by Auto-transplantation of Uterine Tissue. J Vis Exp. 2012(59).
  • Syrcle SM, Pelch KE, Schroder AL, Nichols BM, Mills MP, Barrier BF, Havey AD, Nagel SC. Altered gene expression profile in vaginal polypoid endometriosis resembles peritoneal endometriosis and is consistent with increased local estrogen production. Gynecol Obstet Invest. 2011;71(2):77-86.
  • Pelch KE, Carleton SM, Phillips CL, Nagel SC. Developmental Exposure to Low Dose Xenoestrogens Alters Femur Length and Tensile Strength in Adult Mice. Biol Reprod. 2011.
  • Stilley JA, Birt JA, Nagel SC, Sutovsky M, Sutovsky P, Sharpe-Timms KL. Neutralizing TIMP1 restores fecundity in a rat model of endometriosis and treating control rats with TIMP1 causes anomalies in ovarian function and embryo development. Biol Reprod. 2010;83(2):185-194.
  • Pelch KE, Schroder AL, Kimball PA, Sharpe-Timms KL, Davis JW, Nagel SC. Aberrant gene expression profile in a mouse model of endometriosis mirrors that observed in women. Fertil Steril. 2010;93(5):1615-1627 e1618.
  • Schroder AL, Pelch KE, Nagel SC. Estrogen modulates expression of putative housekeeping genes in the mouse uterus. Endocrine. 2009;35(2):211-219.
  • Welshons WV, Nagel SC, vom Saal FS. Large effects from small exposures. III. Endocrine mechanisms mediating effects of bisphenol A at levels of human exposure. Endocrinology. 2006;147(6 Suppl):S56-69.
  • Vom Saal FS, Richter CA, Ruhlen RR, Nagel SC, Timms BG, Welshons WV. The importance of appropriate controls, animal feed, and animal models in interpreting results from low-dose studies of bisphenol A. Birth Defects Res A Clin Mol Teratol. 2005;73(3):140-145.
  • Vom Saal FS, Nagel SC, Timms BG, Welshons WV. Implications for human health of the extensive bisphenol A literature showing adverse effects at low doses: a response to attempts to mislead the public. Toxicology. 2005;212(2-3):244-252, author reply 253-244.
  • Jansen MS, Nagel SC, Miranda PJ, Lobenhofer EK, Afshari CA, McDonnell DP. Short-chain fatty acids enhance nuclear receptor activity through mitogen-activated protein kinase activation and histone deacetylase inhibition. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004;101(18):7199-7204.
  • Sathya G, Jansen MS, Nagel SC, Cook CE, McDonnell DP. Identification and characterization of novel estrogen receptor-beta-sparing antiprogestins. Endocrinology. 2002;143(8):3071-3082.
  • Nagel SC, Hagelbarger JL, McDonnell DP. Development of an ER action indicator mouse for the study of estrogens, selective ER modulators (SERMs), and Xenobiotics. Endocrinology. 2001;142(11):4721-4728.
  • Wijayaratne AL, Nagel SC, Paige LA, Christensen DJ, Norris JD, Fowlkes DM, McDonnell DP. Comparative analyses of mechanistic differences among antiestrogens. Endocrinology. 1999;140(12):5828-5840.
  • Welshons WV, Nagel SC, Vom Saal FS. Protein binding interactions: approaches to quantifying "free" and "bound" fractions of genistein and other xenobiotic estrogens in serum. J Med Food. 1999;2(3-4):135-137.
  • Welshons WV, Nagel SC, Thayer KA, Judy BM, Vom Saal FS. Low-dose bioactivity of xenoestrogens in animals: fetal exposure to low doses of methoxychlor and other xenoestrogens increases adult prostate size in mice. Toxicol Ind Health. 1999;15(1-2):12-25.
  • Nagel SC, vom Saal FS, Welshons WV. Developmental effects of estrogenic chemicals are predicted by an in vitro assay incorporating modification of cell uptake by serum. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 1999;69(1-6):343-357.
  • Vom Saal FS, Cooke PS, Buchanan DL, Palanza P, Thayer KA, Nagel SC, Parmigiani S, Welshons WV. A physiologically based approach to the study of bisphenol A and other estrogenic chemicals on the size of reproductive organs, daily sperm production, and behavior. Toxicol Ind Health. 1998;14(1-2):239-260.
  • Nagel SC, vom Saal FS, Welshons WV. The effective free fraction of estradiol and xenoestrogens in human serum measured by whole cell uptake assays: physiology of delivery modifies estrogenic activity. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1998;217(3):300-309.
  • Vom Saal FS, Timms BG, Montano MM, Palanza P, Thayer KA, Nagel SC, Dhar MD, Ganjam VK, Parmigiani S, Welshons WV. Prostate enlargement in mice due to fetal exposure to low doses of estradiol or diethylstilbestrol and opposite effects at high doses. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997;94(5):2056-2061.
  • Nagel SC, vom Saal FS, Thayer KA, Dhar MG, Boechler M, Welshons WV. Relative binding affinity-serum modified access (RBA-SMA) assay predicts the relative in vivo bioactivity of the xenoestrogens bisphenol A and octylphenol. Environ Health Perspect. 1997;105(1):70-76.
  • Vom Saal FS, Nagel SC, Palanza P, Boechler M, Parmigiani S, Welshons WV. Estrogenic pesticides: binding relative to estradiol in MCF-7 cells and effects of exposure during fetal life on subsequent territorial behaviour in male mice. Toxicol Lett. 1995;77(1-3):343-350.
Book Chapters
  • Vom Saal, FS, Richter, CA Ruhlen, RR, Nagel, SC and Welshons, WV, 2004. Disruption of Laboratory Experiments Due to Leaching of Bisphenol A from PolycarbonateCages and Bottles and Uncontrolled Variability in Components of Animal Feed. The Development of Science-based Guidelines for Laboratory Animal Care.
  • Nagel, S.C. and vom Saal, F.S., 2004. Endocrine control of sexual differentiation: effects of the maternal-fetal environment and endocrine disrupting chemicals, in Advances in Molecular and Cell Biology: Principles of Sex-Based Differences in Physiology, Edited by: V.M. Miller and M. Hay, Elsevier Pub. Co., New York
  • Sharpe-Timms K.L., Barrier B.F., Nagel S.C. 2007 Endometrial paradigms: potential assets and deficits. In: Glasser S, Aplin J, Giudice L, Tabibzadeh S (eds.) The Endometrium. Hardwood Academic Publishers, Reading, UK.
  • Pelch, K.E., and Allison, J.L. and Nagel, S.C. Fetal Programming, in Clinical Maternal Fetal-Medicine, Edited by: Winn, Chervenak, and Romero. Informa Healthcare. In review.
  • Pelch, K.E. and Nagel, S.C., 2010. Endocrine Disruption in Mammals, Hormones and Reproduction of Vertebrates, Edited by: Drs. David O. Norris and Kristin H. Lopez. Elsevier Publishing.
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Sasaki Banner Image About

At Yale Otolaryngology [ENT], we believe in a patient-centered, multidisciplinary approach that offers the most advanced care available from distinguished surgeons and specialists. Each of our team members, from every specialty, cares deeply about your physical and emotional well-being. Working together, we provide you with a carefully determined treatment and management plan that focuses on your individual needs and condition.

We understand that you may have many questions and concerns regarding your condition, testing procedures, and treatment and management strategies, which is why our team members take the time to provide in-depth answers to all your questions.

In the tradition of Yale as a laparoscopic center of excellence, minimally invasive surgery is offered for many of our patients. When open surgeries are required, our surgeons use the most advanced techniques available to help reduce recovery time, scarring, and postsurgical discomfort.

Specialties include:

Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven
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LEADERSHIP, SAYS Tom McDonald, PhD, means “getting ahead of the curve of change.” It also means moving from a tactical perspective to a strategic perspective. From March 17 to 20, a group of about 30 planners and hospitality partners gathered at the renovated and expanded La Costa Resort and Spa (see On Location page 54) to brainstorm these topics at the 2nd Annual Insurance Educational Forum and Strategic Leadership Institute, organized by La Costa's national insurance sales manager Carole ...

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text:
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Some of you requested the brownie recipe I used for the Great Brownie Experiment. I have to tell you, it's not my recipe. It's one that I got from Have you ever been to that site? It's fantastic! Anyone can submit a recipe and then people can come back, after trying the recipe and review it, explain any substitutes or variations they tried, and then rate it.
So, when I was looking for a brownie recipe, I looked for one with more than 4 stars and that had lots of reviews. This one has 4 1/2 stars and has been rated almost 2,000 times! And a lot of the reviews were very positive. So we gave it a shot and everyone loves these brownies. Here is the recipe, just in case the links don't work, but I would suggest going to the site if you want to print the recipe up. They have different formats for printing...
Best Brownies
1/2 cup butter (I use margarine)
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour (I only grease) an 8" square pan.
In a large saucepan melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat in cocoa, flour, salt and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes - do not overcook
There is a frosting recipe, but I'm not going to put it on here because I've never used it and so I have no idea how it will turn out. If you do try the frosting, let me know how it turns out!

I will say that when I'm melting the butter, I throw in a handful of milk chocolate chips. It makes them a little fudgier and chewier. If you decide to do it in the mini muffin pans, reduce the heat to 325 and then cook for 15-20 minutes. But, honestly, we probably won't do it in the mini muffin tins again. They just didn't cook up the same...
Let me know if you try the recipe out and what you think of it!

Kimberly said...

Mmmm....I'm drooling here babe!

The Morris Fam said...

Thanks...Now I'll need to make them! The only problem is not eating too many of them.

Magirk said...

Thanks for sharing the recipe, it looks good. :)

Yvonne said...

Thanks, Melissa. They sound delicious. Can't wait to try them.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

I have a no-fail brownie recipe that I love because it's cake-like and not the crusty, chewy kind.

And no, Little Debbie has nothing to do with my special brownies.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

Speaking of special brownies.....I've been in the church for 10 years. I've heard the poop in the brownies allegory about a zillion times.

My oldest told me they did the brownie poop thing again just a few weeks ago in a combined youth activity.

Originality counts, people.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

And I like this template MUCH better than the brick thing that I couldn't even read the text without straining my eyes. Not that you asked, but you know.

Lauren said...

I have never made homemade brownies before, but I'm going to!!!!

Nancy Face said...

I'm a lazy bum...I just buy mix, tee hee! :)

diana said...

what!? you can make brownies without a box? jk. i haven't made brownies from scratch in a long time. these sound pretty easy. thanks.


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Cherishing that Silent Night in the NICU

CHRISTMAS FLOATED AWAY THAT DECEMBER like a snowflake caught in a gust after the birth of our third son, Ray, at Longmont United Hospital.

“Does he look like anyone in the family?” the nurse asked, hopefully.

Minutes later, at about 4 a.m., the nurse practitioner stood at the foot of the bed. And for some reason, I thought she planned to announce the breakfast menu and when the kitchen opened.

Instead, she smiled with a curious compassion.

Something tripped in my brain, and then she asked my husband, David, and me if we knew anything about Down syndrome.

Down syndrome?

None of the non-invasive testing we underwent had prepared me to be “the one” – the one mommy in 54 women statistically likely at age 42 to bear a baby with this diagnosis.

The only thing we knew was that Down syndrome caused intellectual disability. We never knew that about half of the babies born this way also suffer heart defects or that Ray’s first blood draw would reveal another related health complication, a form of leukemia.

I quickly scrolled through my memory bank to put a face on the news.

Only a very faint image of a quiet girl with thin, straight hair helping with my high school’s hot lunch program surfaced.

I’m not exactly sure why I never knew her.

I graduated in 1985 with 80 other students in an Illinois town just 3,900 folks strong. I knew who concocted the best homemade root beer, and that the Dairy Dream on the highway sold it ice-cold in the summer. I knew who played Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Civil War re-enactments during tourist season.

I knew lots of other esoteric aspects of our life together in a 19th century river town once bigger than Chicago and therefore a stump stop for Abraham Lincoln during his presidential bid.

But the only in-focus face of the syndrome I had then in 2009 happened to be the tiny one snuggled into my bosom.

That people outside of the hospital kept baking cookies, going to holiday parties, wrapping presents, writing cards, and stringing lights never occurred to me then for the next four days – even after a nurse pulled a red Santa cap hand-crocheted by a volunteer over Ray’s little noggin.

By Saturday night, I had slept so little and worried so much about my boy’s near-term health and long-term prospects that I shut off the fluorescent lights in our private room – the one with a picture window on the nurses’ station – shortly after the 7 p.m. shift change.

I slumped in the brown Naugahyde La-Z-Boy chair beside his bassinette and wondered about the parents who held vigil there before me. Whenever my cheek pressed against the headrest I smelled the faraway scents of someone else’s hairspray, someone else’s cologne, someone else’s story of a baby in trouble.

Holiday music played quietly beyond our doorway as I dozed and reflected on this birth experience — on how the temperature dropped to 19 degrees below zero that night, on how I never managed to swap my sweater for a gown before our doctor arrived in her Smurf pajamas and slippers to catch the baby.

One push and we met Ray – a brand-new 6 lb., 4 oz. boy all feisty and bawling despite the low muscle tone caused by Down syndrome.

The ruckus echoes in heaven and earth that life goes on!

As I sat in the dark that message finally found me when a song on the radio popped the bubble around my boy and me.

“I Need a Silent Night” by Amy Grant put a new twist on two evergreen carols:

I need a silent night, a holy night

To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise.

I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here,

To end this crazy day with a silent night…

When I took those words to heart, Christmas spun into the room like the snowflake that blew away that first day at LUH.

I noticed the Holy Spirit bending and tending to me as I did the same for my baby, and I sensed the prayers of friends and family freeing me to put thoughts about the phantom child – the Ray with 46 chromosomes, not 47 – to rest.

How marvelous the gift worth cherishing year after year.

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or 303-746-0942.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Earthy ER visit first gift of Christmas

AS RAY AND I WAITED FOR the doctor in the emergency department my boy swiped a hot pink Band-Aid and promptly dropped trou to stick it on his private part.

For several days our first grader with some special needs had been grabbing that area and complaining with his limited speech: “Pee-Nush hurt.”

Did he have a bladder infection? Had he been molested?

I dialed the on-call doctor at Longmont Clinic Friday afternoon. Her nurse screened Ray’s symptoms for anything serious. Then, she advised us to make an appointment Monday with our family pediatrician, Dr. Fan, who faithfully and cheerfully has ridden a medical roller coaster beside Ray since his birth.

However, before we hung up, the nurse reminded us to call Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora if his discomfort mounted.

By Saturday night I wondered what number Ray would say if he could in terms of his pain on the pain scale — 1 being no pain and 10 being unbearable pain.

He kept standing up and sitting down in his bubble bath, a boy antsy with worry and likely a 6 or 7 on the pain scale.

When we called, the nurse told us it could be an inguinal hernia around the testicles, which can become very serious, she said.

Off we went, then — Ray and I — through the night with his hair still damp from the bath.

So, imagine our relief when two emergency department doctors there palpated between his bottom and lower rib cage for the suspected hernia and instead reported constipation with referred pain in the pelvic floor.

That Ray still went No. 2 in the bathroom during this bout had thrown the oncall doctor off the trail in diagnosing constipation without benefit of an exam, they explained. Then, they prescribed a drug store cure — an enema that in the emergency department cost $250 after insurance paid for the lion’s share of our visit.

“We can just feel it in his belly,” one of the doctors explained before disappearing to marshal nurses for the dirty work.

Two soon arrived at the bedside to administer the enema.

The younger man got Ray to smile by lifting his classic ugly Christmas sweatshirt — a bright green sweatshirt with long-tailed mice peeking out Advent Calendar doors — to reveal a baby blue t-shirt featuring Olaf, the discombobulated snowman made famous in the movie “Frozen” for his faithful friendship and goofy smile.

“Can I help at all?” I said as these nice guys rounded the bed.

“Yep,” the older nurse said. “Grab a pair of those purple gloves and when I finish with this saline solution, I want you to hold his butt cheeks closed for 10 minutes.”

Well, that sounded easy enough.

So, I agreed to that and to bringing him in a fireman’s carry to the toilet five feet from the bed when the enema took effect.

But within 2 minutes, three ping pong ball-sized unmentionables the texture of pumice came shooting out with a tidal wave of the solution.

All of sudden, Ray’s body went from zero to 100, went from being dry to being slimier than a salamander in murky water. And I scooped him up in order to make it to the toilet just in time for all the rest.

What followed for the next 8 minutes can only be described as the closest thing a male can experience to understand what women experience in childbirth.

We cleaned up afterward, and I wrapped Ray in a snowy white towel. Then, I covered the rest of him to his ankles with his winter coat and snuggled beside him in the narrow twin bed.

At midnight, as we dozed and watched “Frozen” on the monitor above the bed while waiting to be discharged, I got my first chance to reflect on our emergency department story that night.

Many hands at the hospital helped us deal with our unpleasant problem, and they did it with kindness and some humor — care not covered by insurance.

Odd, but true, that I consider their support in an earthy situation the very first gift of Christmas 2016.

During this holiday season, when so many of us focus on gifts made in factories, our experience in the ER inspires me to remember gifts made in the heart and shared with those of us caught in humbling circumstances.

And that feels good all around.

When our boy of few words flushed the toilet for the third and final time, he waived his hands and hollered: “All done! All done! All better!”

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or 303-746-0942.

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“Turkey Through a Straw” No Deal Breaker

For whatever reason, our family didn't take any photos of the many Thanksgivings that we spent at Fairhaven, the retirement home in Rockford, Ill., where my Grandma Alida G. Mellskog lived from 1973 until her death in 1993. However, this photo — one shot during a Christmas gathering in the early 1970s at her home in Evanston, Ill. — shows her at my side to play with my brother and my cousins. (Pam Mellskog / For the Times-Call)

For whatever reason, our family didn’t take any photos of the many Thanksgivings that we spent at Fairhaven, the retirement home in Rockford, Ill., where my Grandma Alida G. Mellskog lived from 1973 until her death in 1993. However, this photo — one shot during a Christmas gathering in the early 1970s at her home in Evanston, Ill. — shows her at my side playing with my cousins, my brother, and me.   (Pam Mellskog / For the Times-Call)

FOR ALL THE GOODWILL THAT surrounds the Thanksgiving feast in America, my family came to describe our experience year after year in the 1970s and 1980s with one phrase that makes us sound like a bunch of ingrates.

We dubbed Thanksgiving at Grandma Mellskog’s place “turkey through a straw.”

She was a widow by then and lived alone at a retirement home in Rockford, Ill., with a smaller nursing home wing.

But this place never smelled like Pine-Sol.

The pocket lobbies off the curving hallways included chandeliers and wing-back chairs on blue carpeted floors — all of it somehow ever resistant to dust and wear spots.

No wonder the owners named it Fairhaven.

The home also lived up to its name by feeling like Florida in late November despite the Carter administration’s energy crisis measures that called for lowering the thermostat, not cranking it.

Yet, for all this lovely senior living, the Thanksgiving spread served in the family-style dining room tasted mushy every time. This traditional meal already abounds in soft foods — from the candied yams to the cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. At Fairhaven, the fixings — including the turkey — seemed mushier still.

For this reason, the “turkey through a straw” label stuck and brought a welcome undercurrent of levity to our gathering every year with Grandma and, sometimes, with my aunt, uncle, and cousins who met us there in the middle from the other side of the state.

What matters then and now is that we sincerely appreciated her invitation to treat us to a nice dinner at the retirement home when she no longer managed her own kitchen. We wouldn’t drive 86 miles through often crummy northern Illinois winter weather for the food — even if it were a gourmet meal.

One year, just for a change, we must have put subtle pressure on Grandma Mellskog — we just called her “Nanny” —  who lived at Fairhaven for two decades until her death at 95.

That Thanksgiving, if memory serves, she took us out to a nearly empty restaurant with a buffet. Honestly, the food tasted only marginally more textured and flavored, and the atmosphere was less cozy by a long shot.

So, back to Fairhaven we marched for forthcoming Thanksgiving feasts.

I use just about every pot and pan I own these days to unveil an elaborate annual Thanksgiving dinner at home here in Colorado or at my parents’ place in Illinois.

My kitchen turns into a hot mess of lots of things bubbling or baking with two or three timers ticking away the minutes to completion.

One year, though, I misread a recipe and used evaporated milk, not sweetened condensed milk, to make the pumpkin pies.

The crust turned out golden and picture perfect. Nothing about the filling looked suspicious.

But no amount of whipped cream could cover my mistake.

Though the pumpkin pies tasted like flavorless babyfood, everyone at our Thanksgiving table started eating it and kept eating it until I sat down to eat it and announced that it — whatever it was — was inedible.

Something had gone dreadfully, awfully wrong.

Pairs of eyeballs all around the long table rotated my direction at the same moment then, and all of us set down our dessert forks with relief so we could laugh and laugh. Thankfully, that handily broke the Emperor’s New Clothes-like tension at the table.

Both of these stories illustrate something meaningful to me as we close in on Thanksgiving 2016.

For as much as some of us fuss over the feast — and I am happily guilty as sin on this point as a diehard foodie — fussing over family and friends is far more important.

The first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621 celebrated harvest bounty, surely.

But who came to dinner made that gathering an enduring national holiday.

The Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians — groups as different as Republicans and Democrats, post election — made it happen.

If they can do it, so can all of us with a voting record at odds with our relatives — especially if we find a way to bring our sense of humor to the table instead of indignation or smugness.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or at 303-746-0942.

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Down-to-Earth in Brave New World

Our sons tried on 3-D glasses with the Descalzo family to watch the IMAX film, "A Beautiful Planet," at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Sept. 25, 2016.

Our sons tried on 3-D glasses with the Descalzo family to watch the IMAX film, “A Beautiful Planet,” at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Sept. 25, 2016.

FOR ALL THE VISUAL FASCINATION 3-D glasses bring to any IMAX show, the “Let ‘Em In” snippet from the 1976 Wings’ hit in “A Beautiful Planet” rings in my ears as we face this brave new world of underdog U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Sure, Canon cameras likely worth way more than the combined value of my house, car, and life insurance captures thrilling perspectives in the film from the International Space Station.

Ten of us, ages 4 to 49, cozied into our seats earlier this fall at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s theater to peer this way at Earth’s natural features by day, such as the boot of Italy, and by night at the man-made bright spots of world-class cities.

It tickled us to watch the three Americans working and living at the Space Station for six months floating as they cut each other’s hair, sucking espresso from a pouch, and stuffing one another — with Jack-in-the-box difficulty due to zero gravity — into their cumbersome white space suits.

But when their mission wound down, the recording by Wings — a band born famous, thanks to band co-founder and former Beatle, Paul McCartney — drifted into the theater with all the fidelity of the 12-track digital surround sound system:

Someone’s knockin’ at the door

Somebody’s ringin’ the bell

Someone’s knockin’ at the door

Somebody’s ringin’ the bell

Do me a favor

Open the door and let ’em in …

For a few moments, I stopped devouring the visual feast beaming into my wonky 3-D glasses to tune into this unassuming music about answering the door — about listening to knocks and doorbells and answering.

When the American astronauts opened the Space Station’s hatch, elite scientists from former arch enemy countries drifted toward them like helium balloons bumbling along the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade route in New York City.

Slowly, but surely, these astronauts with the best seats on Earth caught one another for an airy hug, for a light pat on the back.

The joy the American expatriates in space felt at this connection with other nationals after six months of seclusion cannot be measured, only savored.

With this political season so peppered with talk of walls and locks, the song around this homecoming in space seemed, well, so refreshingly warm and down to Earth.

I can’t do too much about barriers built or maintained by governments through checkpoints or red tape.

But I can listen for someone at the door during the aftermath of this cold-blooded election.

I can listen for you, and you can listen for me.

So it is with the Descalzos, the friends beside us that afternoon to view the IMAX film with our kids — each couple parenting a young son with intellectual disability related to Down syndrome.

Our friendship reflects ordinary solidarity around an extraordinary challenge — something we Americans living with gravity need more than ever after Election Day 2016.

My late Grandpa Nelson, an undertaker with a famous sense of humor and a mostly closeted generosity, once kept all sorts of kitchey plaques in his den.

One read: “My cow is dead, so I don’t need your bull.”

Another declared: “Relatives and fish both stink after three days.”

But I printed out the words of my favorite one to hang on my fridge because it reminds me — especially now — to come to the door, to open it, and to connect somehow.

That plaque stated: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or at 303-746-0942.

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Lost-and-Found at Rocky Mountain National Park

Tammy Zarn, an old college roommate of mine visiting from Wisconsin, catches her breath hiking up the switchbacks with us to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Tammy Zarn, an old college roommate of mine visiting from Wisconsin, catches her breath hiking up the switchbacks with us to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

WIND OFF THE NEARBY CONTINENTAL Divide by now has erased the footprints our group stamped around Rocky Mountain National Park searching for my lost boy at sunset last Sunday.

But the scramble to find Andy, 8, as we did, haunts me still.

Parents push the panic button when a child goes missing somewhere between frozen food and canned goods aisles at King Soopers.

Imagine losing track of a kid at dusk around an alpine lake that sits at a 9,450-foot elevation in a national park on Oct. 30.

Looking back, I see how this happened.

I figured that my middle son would be safe on the switchbacks up from the Bierstadt Lake parking lot as he hiked between the lead adult and me bringing up the rear with my youngest son, Ray, 6.

Carl, 10, gives little brother Ray, 6, a hug as our group started up the switchbacks to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Carl, 10, gives little brother Ray, 6, a hug as our group started up the switchbacks to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Many times that afternoon I watched Andy hiking above me on the terraced trail — a perspective akin to watching shoppers on escalators zigzagging to higher floors in mega malls.

Andy  circled back to me along the way before pushing on and somewhere going rogue.

When our party regrouped above to hike together to Bear Lake, we shouted for him and only wind whispering through the pines answered.

A very deep and utterly unfamiliar fear gripped me then.

I dropped to my knees to pray, and then we three adults quickly carried out a rag tag search and rescue mission.

Tammy Zarn, my old college roommate visiting from Wisconsin, and Ray stayed at the switchbacks to catch Andy if he returned.

Her nephew, Reed Larson, a soldier stationed at the Fort Carson Army base near Colorado Springs — sprinted around Bear Lake twice.

My oldest son, Carl, 10, and I took left turns at trail forks to veer away from the lake before doubling back to the shore. Every few minutes we cupped our hands to shout, “Aaaaaaaaaaaandeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!”

When we met three college girls, they told us they passed him — a blond boy wearing a red Trout Lake Camp sweatshirt — on the bridge 30 minutes earlier.

“Why didn’t you grab him?” I wondered aloud.

Honestly, though, I don’t think they viewed him as lost. He never asked for help and didn’t seem distressed.

It was about 5:15 p.m. and there — by some miracle — I could call my husband, David, on my cell phone. He called the Estes Park police who dispatched a RMNP ranger.

Meanwhile, Carl and I dashed along the path strewn with rocks and twisted tree roots to overtake Andy.

But he was long gone…

Carl hikes past Bear Lake.

Carl hikes past Bear Lake.

With the inky slime of fear getting in my eyes, I knew we needed to focus on faith instead to stay sharp, swift, and big hearted.

Faith inflates.

Fear deflates.

The most important fork for us that day was not on the trail, but in the soul.

Carl prayed aloud with his fingers laced as we hustled along.

I lifted my hands and breathlessly sang songs to God through those woods and, like Carl beside me, I prayed aloud — in a froggy voice told God all about how I let the chain of custody break. Told him all about my fault.

My faults.

And I asked him to hear my broken heart and to please wrap his lovin’ arms around Andy until we found him.

When a 402 area code call buzzed my phone, I answered, and a smallish faraway voice filled my ear.

“Hi, Mom…” Andy began.

He had crossed paths with a couple from Nebraska, and Andy remembered the ten numbers I have taught him since his preschool days.

How many times have I repeated another preschool-era guideline to myself and my kids — “We are Jell-O, not jellybeans” — whenever we cross streets or shop at Costco or line the holiday parade route in Longmont?

Reed soon caught up to Andy and the couple, and Reed used his tiny cell phone flashlight as they emerged from the woods like miners from a coal mine at quitting time.

At home, Andy scarfed chili by then overcooked in the Crock-Pot. He took a hot shower, and David and I tucked him into his bunk bed above Ray.

Andy’s orange kitty cat, the one he named Bow and Arrow when he was 4, hopped on the denim bedspread to curl up there at his feet as they drifted off to sleep.

Thanksgiving is still weeks away.

But I am ready to celebrate it with feasting today because of what I learned at Bear Lake about mistakes and regrets, about fear and faith, about being lost and found.

And about help — seen and unseen.

Some footprints never leave tracks.

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or 303-746-0942.

Andy, 8, plays with brother, Carl, at the Alluvial Fan in Rocky Mountain National Park before hiking up to Bear Lake.

Andy, 8, plays with brother, Carl, at the Alluvial Fan in Rocky Mountain National Park before hiking up to Bear Lake.

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The Bread-Making Method of Bringing Up Kids

AT   OUR HOUSE WE ONCE called the dinner hour The Witching Hour — a time so bedeviled that my husband often took a deep breath before opening the backdoor by the kitchen after a long day at the office.

This hour gets easier and easier as our three grade school-age sons grow up.

But when a baby and two preschoolers lived under this roof with us, daddy would stroll in at 5:30 and forget to take off his backpack as I squawked over my shoulder while stirring bubbling soup.

I needed him first to change a diaper, then to wipe a nose, and along the way to mop up spilled applesauce, spaghetti sauce, milk, and all the other gross stuff fermenting on the table and tile floor.

“Why are you so grouchy?” he would say.

At this point I wanted to toss my apron in the air and holler: “WHY ARE YOU SO DENSE?”

How ironic, then, that I got therapy at the stove instead of away from it.

There, as I practiced cooking and baking during quieter hours, I began to see something beyond food in the pans.

The rims of my black cast iron skillets transformed to portals into the meaning of all things.

And no, I was not smoking dope here in Colorado when this happened.

I was thinking more about cooking methods that make sense in the moment and applying them to parenting.

No brilliance here, really. Just connecting more dots.

For instance, I know something simple, but true, about cooking oil.

Sizzling oil tells me it needs to get busy to get better. It needs a dollop of pancake batter or a handful of chopped onions to keep the fire alarm from sounding off and to do its part in getting dinner on the table and into hungry tummies.

So it goes with my sometimes hyper boys.

But the best model is the bread-making method of bringing up kids.

Of all the points of this process to ponder, the first one to mention must be “microclimate.”

I may make great bread here in Erie at about a hundred feet shy of mile high.

But the same recipe might frustrate someone baking at an even slightly different elevation or humidity.

The trick is recognizing the impact of microclimates on bread and on family life and tinkering for quality improvements.

To do this without wasting ingredients, I read information published by the Colorado State University Extension office on how to make high-altitude adjustments to recipes written and tested at sea level.

But this, like so many parenting books, is just a guide.

Success comes from understanding the proven chemistry of bread making, particularly at altitude, and then practicing bread making enough in your own microclimate to develop the touch, the art part.

These days, I know how to knead dough enough for it to become elastic, but not tough.

I also know that if I leave it alone too long, it will rise into a beautiful, air pocket-filled bread with a high dome only to collapse with a crater in the center.

Lastly, I can hurry along rise time in yeast breads by placing loaves in toasty places — say, an 80-degree oven with a cake pan of boiling water on the lower rack.

But slow rising loaves develop more stable structure than the quick risers.

Ultimately, all this practice may convert my breadmaking and perhaps my parenting into something closer to perfect.

But who needs perfection when the whole house smells heavenly –even during The Witching Hour — before the bread is fully baked.

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or at 303-746-0942.

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Patty’s Porch Light Shines on Over America

Patty Wetterling is consoled by son Trevor during a news conference after a hearing for Danny Heinrich on Sept. 6 in Minneapolis. Heinrich confessed to abducting and killing 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling nearly 27 years ago, recounting a crime that long haunted the state with details that included Jacob asking right after he was taken: "What did I do wrong?" (Jerry Holt / Star Tribune)

Patty Wetterling is consoled by son Trevor during a news conference after a hearing for Danny Heinrich on Sept. 6 in Minneapolis. Heinrich confessed to abducting and killing 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling nearly 27 years ago, recounting a crime that long haunted the state with details that included Jacob asking right after he was taken: “What did I do wrong?” (Jerry Holt / Star Tribune)

USUALLY, I WRITE STORIES ON our kitchen table — the one so rickety that milk spills from the kids’ cups if you bump it and causes everyone else to eye it with contempt as campfire kindling.

It came from Grandma and Grandpa Mellskog’s home and symbolizes for me the bravery, hope, and hard work they flexed to make it in this country as Swedish immigrants.

It is a “can do” kinda table, and I can’t part with it.

But recent news of a man confessing to crimes carried out against an 11-year-old boy in Minnesota nearly 27 years ago drove me upstairs to write instead where my three boys sleep.

I am sitting with a pillow between my back and the wall by Andy and Ray’s open bedroom window. Nearby, a stuffed Spider-Man slumps in a desk chair, and a white cardboard box holds a jumble of electric train track sections.

How many times did Jacob Wetterling’s mother sit as I am in her boy’s forever empty room?

A masked man abducted her son on Oct. 22, 1989, as he biked home from renting a video at a Tom Thumb convenience store in St. Joseph, Minn., with his younger brother and his best friend.

Images of 200 National Guardsmen vainly combing the fields and woods for Jacob near the family’s rural home about 75 miles northwest of Minneapolis, where I lived at the time, stick with me.

But mostly I remember the boy’s class picture — one of him smiling in a canary yellow cable knit sweater — because he literally became the poster child for all missing children.

As time went by, the Wetterling family through the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center founded in 1990 to promote child safety distributed the poster with that color photo next to an age progression adjusted color image of their boy as a man.

Jacob Wetterling (Associated Press)

Jacob Wetterling (Associated Press)

They also turned on their porch light every night as a symbolic gesture of their hope for his safe homecoming.

“…For us, Jacob was alive until we found him,” Jacob’s mother, Patty Wetterling, told reporters after she and her family attended Danny Heinrich’s Sept. 6 plea hearing.

There, the killer confessed details of his crime in federal court as part of a plea bargain related to his arrest last year on federal child pornography charges.

She now knows that the masked man held a snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson Special to abduct Jacob.

She knows her son asked, “What did I do wrong?” as Heinrich, now 53, handcuffed and stuffed him in a car before driving about 30 miles southwest of St. Joseph to molest him near a deserted gravel pit on Hwy. 23 near Paynesville, Minn.

He shot the boy within about an hour of abducting him and on Sept. 1 led investigators to the grave to prove it as part of the deal that protects him from prosecution in the Wetterling case.

Knowing this caused me to think more deeply about the hope Patty Wetterling first held out at 39 until this month, when she, as a 66-year-old grandmother, learned the truth.

Are all those years of hoping worthless or, worse, foolish to the Wetterlings now?

Well, here is what we know.

We know that it was hope — not fear or dismay or blind loathing — that inspired Patty Wetterling to lobby for The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act.

Enacted in 1994, the federal legislation requires all states to keep a registry of those convicted of sexually violent offenses or offenses against children. States also must verify the addresses of sex offenders annually for at least 10 years. Offenders classified as sexually violent predators must verify their addresses for life.

Patty Wetterling’s porch light shines over America in this way. And though Jacob never again walked through their front door, her message of hope and advocacy on behalf of missing children reached around the world.

Thousands posted photos of their porch lights on Facebook in support of the Wetterlings when the case closed.

Meanwhile, shopkeepers along the main drag in St. Joseph responded with more hope, not less, through sidewalk sandwich board messages.

One read, “If light is in your heart you will always find a way home.”

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or at 303-746-0942.

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Love Without Labor

IMG_2536 (1)

WHEN RAY’S BEST FRIEND IN first grade came over for a backyard cookout last weekend, she presented a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses from her family and a heart full of wedding plans.

Gracie reminded her mother several times that week to send a wedding invitation to our youngest son, her groom, and to uninvite her dad whenever she felt mad at him.

It’s not like her affections caught Ray, 6, off guard.

Their friendship goes way back to preschool. They eat lunch at the school cafeteria side-by-side every day and act like a couple, even without matching rings.

But Ray, like his father, could not give a rat’s rear end about wedding plans.

Our boy refused even to hold the bouquet with her for a 10-second snapshot and instead called Gracie, also 6, to join him at the hole beside the garage that he and his brothers have been digging all summer.

The dynamic felt so familiar.

My husband hoped I would go four-wheeling with him in the mountains on our wedding day and resented the long to-do list I handed him instead. Sure, he wanted to get married and celebrate that through a religious ceremony and festive reception with friends and family.

Honestly, though, I suspect only his anticipation of the honeymoon kept him from jilting me at the altar given the onslaught of directions about multi-tiered cakes, boutonnieres, and folding programs.

David feels Ray’s pain, even in the context of a play date wedding. So, I know what Gracie is up against here.

It is in the genes.

This precious girl nevertheless is fond of our boy in the most innocent ways. He is quite fond of her, too.

And as I watched them play together, it blessed me so to see Gracie’s love rollout without labor — to see the ease with which this very chatty, vivacious girl on the autism spectrum delights in our son’s company.

That moment bounced me back to Ray’s birthday at Longmont United Hospital in December 2009. In the wee hours immediately following his birth and tentative diagnosis with Down syndrome, I entertained surreal thoughts about the future of this boy with the extra chromosome.

For instance, I wondered if he ever would wear a tuxedo — something silly that I now think symbolized the formality of adult traditions, such as getting married.

Ray cannot talk much yet due to his speech delay. As he ages, other developmental delays will cause him to fall further and further behind his peers academically as they navigate the world in increasingly complex ways.

But six years into our life together, I now know something that Gracie and Ray’s fast friendship exemplifies — that actions do speak louder than words and that our presence, not just our performance dripping with sweat equity, provides the invaluable.

Happy Labor Day!

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or at 303-746-0942.

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The Summer Catching His Breath Became Cool

DURING A LEISURELY SUNSET WALK with my son earlier this week, Carl kicked off his red Crocs to sprint what he figured to be 100 meters barefooted.

Then, just before the sidewalk’s straightaway curved east, he lifted his arms and dropped his speed to finish the dash with a victor’s smile.

As he huffed and puffed to catch his breath, I caught up to him thankful for the fairy dust the Olympians in Rio scattered to the ends of the Earth.

Because of them and the hours was as a family spent on the couch watching their televised competitions, Carl, 10, now appreciates the concept of sweat equity a bit more tangibly.

This is the summer that catching his breath — just like the elite athletes in oxygen debt — became cool.

Organizers in the sports world want to tap that enthusiasm by connecting kids, some of whom could become future Olympians, to local training centers via

The very best in the world began this way. They found their athletic talent and built their skills out of public view as children or youth — even Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the sprinter who earned his seventh Olympic gold medal running the men’s 100-meter final in 9.81 seconds.

He left the starting block in that race second to last, but kept his head the whole time.

“I just said (to myself), ‘Take your time, and chip away,’” Bolt told reporters afterward.

He got faster by the second, and Carl watched him go, go, go — something ironically more impressive in slow motion because my boy could see the athlete’s tremendous give to that goal.

Now, Carl likes to ape “the Bolt” — a pose the track star does after winning races by pulling his right arm back like an archer and straightening his left arm to point upwards as a stylized lightning bolt.

We mean to call Kemarly,  Carl’s Jamaican friend who attends another school this year, to congratulate him on his countryman’s Olympic successes and swap impressions of the man’s races at Rio.

But for all the spectacular photo finishes and the timers that can slice a second more exquisitely than any of us can measure beyond the blink of an eye, one athlete’s discouragement made just as much of an impression on me.

Allyson Felix of Team USA won a silver medal in the women’s 400-meter race after Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas dived across the finish line for the gold medal.

Only 0.07 seconds separated them.

Felix spent the next 20 minutes catching her breath and processing the controversial defeat by lying on the track on her back with an elbow slung over her forehead.

As they waited to interview her, NBC commentators shared more background about Felix — the world champion of that race and the most decorated U.S. female track athlete of all time with seven Olympic medals then, four of them gold.

When the disheartened athlete rose from the track to talk with the interviewer, she delivered lines I hold tightly in spite of her disappointment:

“It was tough,” she said. “I was trying to dig deep and find another gear.”

The fluke at the finish line — Miller’s dive that caused her chest to cross the line first — make it seem like Felix failed to find that gear.

In reality, the strategy served her so well.

She surged on the final stretch and caught Miller neck-and-neck, and that success translates to every hard race the rest of us face.

At work or school. In marriages and families. In the midst of addiction recovery or a jail sentence. After a cancer or HIV diagnosis.

That’s why we need the Olympics every four years, not only to show kids like Carl and adults like me the will to win, but to show us the will to try.

Pam Mellskog can be reached at or at 303-746-0942.

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Boy mystery No. 547: Why dig holes to China?

BEFORE ANYONE CALLS SOCIAL SERVICES, I need to explain why my youngest son upon occasion stands in a deep hole in our backyard with an upturned tomato cage over his head.
Please note that Ray, 6, views the wire structure above him as some sort of spaceship nose capsule, not as cruel entrapment. He clearly feels as proud of his spot as an astronaut must feel before blasting off to the moon.
We know this because as soon as both of his older brothers — Carl, 10, and Andy, 8 — lean on their shovels during our backyard dig, Ray scrambles with Chinese fire drill haste into the hole. Then, he helps them fit the tomato cage on its rim before squealing as they applaud.
This drill could provide all of us with endless cheap entertainment this summer if the boys stopped digging.
Instead, they dig every day, and their buddies hop in the hole to help out during visits.
Their friend, Jack — the boy who lives on the other side of the fence from the hole — monitors progress from his little sister’s room when he is grounded or supposed to be spending an hour of quiet time in his room.
We wonder sometimes if he worries about all three of them popping up in his yard, resurfacing with Alcatraz-level jailbreak euphoria.
Jack would not want to miss this — especially since he, too, has spent time digging in the hole.
If you are a boy between the ages of about 3 and 12, you understand the intrigue of this pastime in ways that a mother approaching 50 cannot.
Until this summer, I considered the hole between our garage and the fence a fad — something my husband and I would backfill during our abundance of spare time.
Seriously, though, how could something so boring and labor intensive hold a boy’s interest for so long?
Now that I have read aloud to my kids 26 of the 50 chapters in Louis Sachar’s book, “Holes” (Frances Foster books), the question seems even more reasonable.
The fictitious story features a boy convicted of shoe theft and sent for 18 months to Camp Green Lake — a dried-up Texas lake where each boy does hard time by digging a hole 5-feet wide by 5-feet deep every day in blazing heat.
Our boys launched their voluntary backyard hole dig months before we opened the book, a John Newbery Medal winner.
So, the story has failed so far to stigmatize digging holes, especially after the main character unearthed a monogrammed gold lipstick tube the warden treasured for reasons yet unknown.
The other homespun fun my sons pursue makes sense to me.
Most recently, that list includes filling the tub to put the plastic Navy destroyer out to sea; burying each other on hot days with wet sand in the sandbox; tying twine ropes on the banister to climb upstairs, Indiana Jones’ style; and sleeping in their Halloween costumes.
What a relief that my husband, David, understands something more about them. The kids recently ratted him out — told me that he dug a starter hole for each of them, though they quickly pooled resources to make more spectacular progress on one.
These days, that hole could swallow both Ray and the tomato cage without a trace.
But as it gets deeper and wider, the boys have given me more hints in understanding their hole digging habit, more hints in understanding the importance –even to young boys — of flexing their muscles to dig to China or some place else.
“One reason that I dig holes is so I can grow up to be a strong man,” Andy said.
Pam Mellskog can be reached at or 303-746-0942.

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text:
In my recent article, The No-brainer Investment Strategy to Double Digit Returns, I opined that there is a 34 time period rhythm in the cattle flea market. A 17 yr kine souk is followed by a 17 yr tolerate flea market and that equities and commodities are reciprocally related. Based on this premise, a plan of action could be devised in which equities and commodities are alternately invested with during its decorous event during the time interval. I as well declared that the past equities cattle activity from 1982-200 complete beside the explosive of the net burble and that we are now 5 time of life into the trade goods up-cycle. Finally, I offered investigating to assistance this location and results through 2005. So, how is this proposition performing arts concluded the firstborn six months of 2006?

As of 7/14/2006:

DOW 0.2%

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S&P 500 -1.0%

NASDAQ -7.6%

SOX -14.7%

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CRX 14.5%

GLD 27.7%

The CRX, which may be a new ordered series for umpteen of you, is the Morgan Stanley Commodity Related Equity Index. The label is self-explanatory. Its grades yr to date stand by the study that we are in a artifact interval. Gold lends added championship as it is up 27.7% twelvemonth to day as drawn by GLD (a Gold Exchange Traded Fund - ETF).
Equities are not doing as well. The DOW is up a mere 0.2%. The DOW is an amazing ordered series. A few weeks ago it was inside points of its all occurrence high-ranking. How can an scale of measurement be hot its all time highs once its large components Microsoft, Intel, GM, Pfizer, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and IBM are adjacent multi-year lows? That's a saga for a contrary day. The NASDAQ and SOX (Semiconductor Index) are a great deal pessimistic yr to solar day.

I am not avouchment that commodities will out-perform equities or that commodities will be supportive each year ended the cycle, but on middling commodities should be a well again stick to form riches over the side by side period. The reaching of trade goods correlate ETFs are fashioning it easier for individuals to assist in the artifact souk. Commodity ETFs include: Gold - GLD, IAU, Silver - SLV, Oil - OIH, XLE, Diversified Commodities - DBC.

It is human outlook to be given to the familiar with. This period the used to is property many an down: Intel -28.4%, Home Depot -16.4% and Microsoft -14.8%. It is event to measure out of the support geographical area and transport a someone manifestation at commodities.

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      06.11.2012 01:19
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      A bit disappointing but still a good all round e-reader

      The Kindle is one of the most revolutionary gadgets ever invented. Many so called experts insisted that it was a stupid idea and that it would never take off! Well, who is laughing now!
      The Kindle just keeps getting better and better with each evolutionary step and with the Touch 3G version reviewed here you will see what new features it has.

      We have of course the Kindle itself.
      One set of headphones
      USB cable for charging.

      The Kindle takes approximately 4 hours for a full charge but once charged can last anything from about 6 weeks to 2 or 3 months, depending how regular a user you are. I have found about 6 or 7 weeks use the norm and that is using it most days.

      For the technically minded among you the Kindle has a 6 in Monochrome E ink display with a resolution of 600 * 800 (167ppi) and 4 bit (16 gray levels) colour depth. Being a Kindle Touch you will not be surprised to learn that it is a touch screen and an extremely good one it is with the lightest of touches needed for a seamless transition from page to page.
      It weighs only 7.5 ounces, is 6.8 in high, 4.7 in wide and 0.4 in thick.

      The Kindle Touch also has a password lock facility and stereo capabilities as well.
      There is a flash memory of 4GB although only 3Gb is available to the user and of course it has 3G and wi-fi capability.
      The Kindle supports various file formats, e.g. HTML, PRC (Mobipocket), PDF, DOC, TXT, AZW & DOCX and when it comes to images you can view PNG, JPEG, BMP or GIF files.
      As well as images the Kindle has an audio facility which supports mp3 files.

      For your peace of mind if your Kindle breaks down there is a warranty of one year.

      The cheapest I have seen the Kindle Touch 3G sell for is about £155 but normally it's about £169 on Amazon although at this time of year they are selling out quickly. In fact as I write this I am glad I got mine previously as they are out of stock at Amazon!

      If you had a previous Kindle model with a keyboard you will find that the keyboard is now on screen, saving some weight and space.
      The text is very clear to read and like previous models you can adjust the font size to suit.
      There will no doubt be plenty of people out there who are worrying that before long your Kindle will be covered in fingerprints but you needn't worry as they are almost invisible on the display and a quick wipe with a clean cloth will see them disappear if you are that concerned. Talking about the touch screen, it is quite sensitive and until you get used to it you may find yourself inadvertently turning a page or two. You can also swipe up and down to skip chapters which is a nice added feature.

      The Kindle has a new feature called X-Ray which means that you can instantly see more information about certain characters although only certain books make the facility available.

      While the Kindle Touch has many good features it has to be said that it does have its faults as well. One of the most irritating things I have found is that you sometimes get what is commonly known as a "ghosting" effect with some of the previous page being visible through the new page.
      One way to overcome this is to make sure yours is set to refresh on every page turn although this doesn't always solve the problem.
      Like I have mentioned before the touch screen is good but for those who preferred the old keyboard, the onscreen one may be a source of irritation and it is definitely not as quick as a manual keyboard. In addition you will probably (like me) keep looking for a button to turn the pages and to be honest I would have been happier if they had left the old buttons in.

      While I do love my Kindle and the hours of reading pleasure it provides, the new Kindle Touch is not necessarily any better than the old one and is a classic case of "less is more".

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Unless the name "Queen of England" is actually spoken in the episode, this should be "Queen of the United Kingdom". There is no current Queen of England; England has not had a separate throne since 1707. The preceding unsigned comment was added by (talk) at {{{2}}}.

Where is this even in the episode? I can't find any mention of "queen" or "brainwashing" or anything in the transcript. --OuroborosCobra talk 22:00, May 2, 2010 (UTC)
Fixed. This wasn't in "Change of Heart", this was "A Simple Investigation". --OuroborosCobra talk 22:06, May 2, 2010 (UTC)
"Queen of England" was used in the episode. So that's what it is. -- sulfur 22:14, May 2, 2010 (UTC)
Yup, that's why I was trying to find the episode. Works better when we have the right citation ;-) --OuroborosCobra talk 22:50, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

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Media and Marketing

Media & Marketing

Menlyn creates a quality environment aimed at more than just displaying products and brands to a large of consumers. We aim to create correctly placed works of art in the form of exhibitions that create interaction, awareness and consumer reaction.

Menlyn Exhibitions are facilitated by PrimeCourts, a division of Primedia.

Prime Courts is a leading exhibitions space management agency, focusing on matching brands to promotional courts within shopping centres. With an energetic and vibrant sales team based at Shopping Centres (including Menlyn) and Head Office support team, Prime Courts converts space predominantly regarded as 'dead areas'/common areas into additional revenue for mall owners over and above the Gross Lettable Income (GLA).

Prime Courts has been able to partner with various key national and international brands which always benefits the malls represented by the agency, creating mutual benefits for brands activating in the space and the mall.

The exhibition process is managed by our on-site Exhibitions and Sales Manager, Ruan: ruanl@primecourts.co.za or 012 471 0651.

Primall Media is South Africa’s premium mall advertising company, delivering a range of interactive and static visual options which directly influence purchase decisions in the shopping environment. Mall advertising is one of the fastest growing media categories in South Africa and Primal Media is evolving its offering to meet the needs of astute marketers.

The media and advertsing process is managed by Angela Rodd
Cell: 082 560 8314
Tel: 011 562 6311
Email: angelar@primall.co.za


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Saturday, December 17, 2011

2012 Schedule

I know I said I would not set a race schedule for 2012. And although this might look like a schedule, it's really not. I am currently, not working with a coach, I'm making no "A" races, and I'm just gonna go with the flow. I will not wrap my life around training and racing this year. So here's what I'm thinking about for 2012:

January :

2/12 - Columbus Winter Run 15 miler

2/26 - Last Chance for Boston marathon relay (with Dave)

March: ?

April: ?

5/28 - Dave and Meredith's running adventure

6/2 - Greenswell Aquathlon (1 mile swim/5k run)

TBD - Lakeside to Kelly's Island Swim (2 mile and 4 mile swims)

7/14 - Greenswell Aquathlon (1 miles swim/5k run)

August: ?

September: ?

November: ?

December: ?

LittleRachet said...

YEEEESSSSS!!! *fist pump*

Andrea Hill said...

Hmmm, May 28th is intriguing...

you did decide to do that urban relay, didja?

Laura Wheatley said...

all the aquathlon and swimming races you tentatively have planned are intriguing me... Gotta work on the weaknesses this year... Maybe I'll join you! :)


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Here is the stunning cover, identical twins Camille and Kennerly Kitt (Harp Twins) play their acoustic arrangement of Metallica’s “One” on one harp. Check it out below.

Camille and Kennerly Kitt are American identical twin actresses and electric/acoustic harpists, who compose, arrange, and perform as “The Harp Twins”.

The Kitt sisters have released over 50 singles online, as well as four physical cover albums. As actresses, the Harp Twins have appeared in several films.