SMILES FOR MILES REPORT

Last week was so much work preparing for SMILES FOR MILES. But in the end it was a smashing evening, more than doubling the money raised for diabetes reseaarch. We had a great turnout, all three bands did a fine job, comedian Chuck Montgomery was terrific, and the raffles were well supported. We had a live auction of two items: a signed Houston Texans football helmet, and a Christopher Radko baseball-themed ornament signed by Roger Clemons.
In the end, $4000 was raised - add to that the $1000 in sponsorships on the back of the T shirt and $1100 raised by the Creekwood Middle School kids selling paper sneakers last week with our help, and we are standing at over $6000 - with more than a month before the walk. That is awesome!

Miles

His quarterly endo exam went pretty well. He needs to gain weight. His biggest problem and prayer request is about the pain and nausea caused by gastroparesis. I never imagined myself saying "Diabetes, by itself - those were the good old days..." It's September 6 and he has already missed 50% of school days this year. Hopefully we have nowhere to go but up.

September 6

• Of all places in the world, why here? Who knows? For that matter who ever expected it would make a comeback 25 years after spectacularly collapsing in 2 years? For whatever reason, the DeLorean Motor Company is starting up again, in our own Humble, Texas. They envision rolling as many as 28 cars a year off the assembly line, each with a $57,000 price tag. Attention, Marty McFly: why didn't you tell us this when you got back from the future?

Too Cool - Google Earth Flight Simulator

Stevie Baby had a link to this secret "Easter Egg" on the newest version of Google Earth. I had to download FlightSim.reg (a 25 second task) and restart Google Earth, then hit Ctrl-Alt-A. Here's a picture of me, buzzing over my hometown of Davis. The house I grew up in is actually right there on the screen, lower right corner. This could be a real time stealer. I gotta get back to work. Thanks Stevie Baby!

September 5

• Yesterday was Dad's birthday. We had a good talk and we sang to him over the phone. The link will take you to an article about Dad on daviswiki.org - taken originally from The Davis Enterprise. It's a very inspiring article (to me).

• Imprimis, the outstanding journal of Hillsdale College, has a great feature speech this month on the topic of global climate change and the dubious claim that it is caused chiefly by human activity. The author, S. Fred Singer, is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, a distinguished research professor at George Mason University, and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. So he has the academic clout behind his words. Other recent publishing on a US Senate Committe website also notes the growing dissension from the "consensus" view.

• When will the name-calling stop? Oh, the humanity!