NIH Grant, DONE!!!

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while. Suffice it to say that I was preoccupied; I was writing a ‘big’ grant for an NIH fellowship. Big relative to this stage in my ‘career,’ if you will; I’ll be writing much bigger grants in the future. It was due yesterday and I was able to get it in with a whole 11 minutes to spare! The final product was a 42 page PDF! Luckily I did not do it on my own. I have to thank Dave and Jane, my PIs, Marsha Brooks, our staff assistant, and my three referees (those who wrote reference letters; Sean, Joanie, and Terry). Now I can get back to doing graduate stuff, a.k.a research. I am excited to get back into the research, It’s difficult but the challenge comes with numerous learning opportunities. It is my personal belief that learning, personal growth, and happiness are synonymous.

For Thanksgiving, I went to NOVA (a.k.a. northern Virginia) where my brother’s (Shane’s) family were kind enough to host me. It was a great dinner but the best part, as always, was to spend time with some family. I went up there the next week where I watched my Aggies play Georgetown, we didn't win but it was fun to see them play nonetheless.

I will work on my research for a week and a half and then I’ll be heading to NOVA yet again to spend Christmas with Shane’s family (thanks Shane). That is unless I find $600 dollars on my way to school, in that case I’d go back to Utah :).

Not much to this post because all my time has been spent on this grant. Until next time...

(Not me:) but a great picture nonetheless)

So these last couple of weeks I have been writing and re-writing a couple of grants, as I said in my last post. Well, I finally got the first draft of the NIH grant done and will get comments on it back from my PI tomorrow. That’s pretty much it for school.

Yesterday I went on a 50 mile bike ride. I did the exact same loop a few weeks ago and surprisingly felt fine afterwards, save a few sore muscles. This time however was different. I was doing fine until I hit mile 35. I was running out of gas with fifteen more miles to go. I had no choice but to keep on going, so that is what I did. It was difficult and I had a very hard time constantly pedaling (for those who are unfamiliar with road biking that is what you do, pedal constantly). At one point in those last fifteen miles I stopped and got off the bike to stretch. A car was kind enough to pull over and ensure that I was alright. I told her that I was just taking a break. I got back on my bike and rode the rest of the way in. I think that the main problem was that I had not prepared nutritionally before hand and did not bring sufficient food for my travels.

As I often like to do, I will liken this bike ride to life. This journey we are on in mortality can provide us with stretches that are particularly hard to deal with. The hardships may come in a variety of forms. Whatever the case may be, I believe that, for at a few of those trials, they come because of our lack of preparation. I need only to cite the parable of the ten virgins to illustrate the point. Some tough days can be anticipated; these can usually be prepared for to one degree or another. However, some rough times may sneak upon us unawares. But let it be known that these trials can be prepared for just as those we anticipate by living the Gospel as well as we know how to. We need to keep it simple as Elder Ballard emphasized in the last YSA fireside. Read the scriptures, pray, ponder, re-read the conference talks, serve, repent etc. The simple things are what matters most. Some may say, “But I have issue A.” This matters not. Indeed ‘issue A’ may be very difficult but the simplicity of the gospel is not and, with patience, the with the simplicity of the Gospen ‘issue A’ will be overcome.

First we must have faith, “hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Second we must repent. Third we must keep our covenants. Finally we muse seek the Spirit. The Spirit will tell us all things what we should do (2 Nephi 27:3). Simplicity is the key, no if, and or buts about it. The truth is that I simply did not prepare properly for the bike ride; I needed more food, my body was screaming, “I need carbohydrates.” The question then becomes, “What is my spirit screaming for?” Praying and pondering for the answer to this question, no matter if we are a smooth or rough spot, and seeking out that which is revealed will increase our endurance during the rough times in our lives.

One of my favorite scriptures. It doesn’t make a bad song either :)

“In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.” Isaiah 54:8

Grants and a Road Trip

My research has been put on hold as I attempt to get funding through two federal agencies, the NSF (the National Science Foundation) and the NIH (National Institute of Heath). Both these require a grant proposal detailing what I propose to research as a graduate student. The NSF proposal requires a personal statement, previous research essay, and the research proposal, each are confined to two pages. The NIH grant requires a one page detailing the specific aims of the project and a six page research plan. I am done with the NSF one, I’ve gotten pretty good at doing these as this is my third time doing it and my last year of eligibility. The NIH grant is new to me and require much more detail on what I propose. This one is due on in three weeks. So for the next three weeks I’ll be attempting to write a well conceived proposal.

Last Friday my friend, Tennyson, and I took a road trip to the Cherokee reservation in western North Carolina; up in the mountains. It took the whole day as it takes 4-5 hours to bet to the reservation. It turned out that we left way too late and had to reschedule his appointment for latter in the afternoon. This turned out to be a good thing as we were able to stop in Ashville, a town I’ve wanted to visit since I’ve arrived in NC. It is a hippie town with a lot of small shops and restaurants, this is where we ate lunch. We ate at an Indian buffet; it was very good. We then traveled to the reservation. We had to climb a high pass where there was a heavy dusting of snow. We took the trip mainly so Tennyson could go visit the dentist on the reservation. It was great to see the reservation and the mountains of NC. I hope to go back there again.

Yesterday I took a bike ride; it was spectacular as the temperatures were in the sixties and the leaves were at their peak, reds, yellows, and oranges. On my ride I stopped to visit Dave and Jane at their home, which was nicely tucked away in the woods. Their home is very unique, like noting I have seen before. They have a central foundation up from which a steel pole emenates. The main house cantilevers from that pole in a circle. They then have an addition roughly in the shape of a soccer ball, very cool! Unfortunately I have no pictures to show.

These pictures are from the aforementioned road trip. Enjoy.

This was at a cool shop we stopped at that had a bunch of crafts and home-made foods.

NC Snow!

Costume shop, Ashville, NC.

Ashville, NC.

Halloween

This weekend was, as wee all know, the great holiday where we celebrate scary things and eating an abundance of candy. For those unfamiliar with this holiday one usually dresses up for the festivities. As such I dressed up as a zombie cyclist. Enjoy the pictures!

Zach

Wardrobe malfunction. Me and Hayley

Zach, me, Jeremy

Grants and the state fair

In school I have put my research on hold while I take up the proverbial pen and start writing grant proposals. I am writing my third NSF (National Science Foundation) GRFP proposal and it so happens that this will be my last year of eligibility. I am pretty much done with that one because I am using the same documents from last year save a few minor changes. I have also decided to take on a bigger proposal through the NIH (National Institute of Heath) though the amount of money is considerably less. I am doing this one mainly because it will force me to write down what I plan on doing for my dissertation. This will require a lot of thought on my part as well as thought as I discuss my project with Dave and Jane, my PIs. Further, this process will go a long way in preparing me for my preliminary exams, specifically the written portion. Overall, it is a very worthwhile exercise.

This weekend was a blast. I went to the North Carolina State Fair, which is always loads of fun. My goal is to go there every year that I’m here. We saw old-fashioned crafts, a gristmill (powered by a waterwheel!), huge vegetables, and many livestock. We went on Saturday, which was a beautiful day, sunny and the perfect temperature. There was a beautiful garden exhibit. I am bummed that I didn’t take my camera.

The food. We ate at a Methodist ‘diner’ where we had very good food (cheeseburgers, BBQ pork, onion rings, ham biscuits, etc. At the gristmill we had very good hush puppies for free! We then had to try some fair delicacies, deep-fried whatever. This year’s big feature was the KrispieKream cheeseburger where a KrispieKream doughnut was the bun. I did not try that! What I did sample was deep fried Oreos, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, and cookie dough. These were not as bad as I though they were going to be, not that I am claiming they were delectable either.

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death” -- Albert Einstein

The Spill and YSA conference

Sorry for the long time between posts. I’ve had a lot of fun and unfortunately a pretty bad fall. The fall happened while I was going 20-25 mph on my road bike. My tire got caught in a crack, nay, a small chasm in the pavement and that was the end thereof. I am here to testify of wearing of one’s helmet. Without my helmet I’m pretty sure that I would have permanent brain damage. Luckily a passerby took me to the hospital. Luckily Duke was three minutes away and I had enough sense to insist that he take me to student heath rather than where he wanted to take me; the ER, yikes.

While the doctor was looking me over he asked me, “Start at one-hundred, take away seven and keep going.” I quickly responded, “100, 93, 86, 79, 72, 65…” by the time I made it to 44 he said enough and concluded I had no concussion or other mental damage. He also asked if I’d be getting back on the road bike. After I responded to the affirmative he shook his head. Would you expect anything else from me? I experienced the oft-repeated response of many cyclists after a bad fall; “I’ll heal. How’s my bike?” I am happy to report that the damage to my bike and body was all cosmetic. The bike shop realigned a few components and it was good to go. My body had a bunch of road rash as well as a rather deep abrasion on my hip. Not too shabby for going down on asphalt doing 20-25 mph.

This weekend we had a YSA (Young Single Adult) conference. We had a great turn out with people driving from as far away as Atlanta to attend. Friday we played games, had dance lessons, but mainly just socialized. Saturday morning we were split up into teams to do various service projects. Our team spread mulch on one of the many trails running through the Duke Forest. In the afternoon we had several workshops that we could choose to attend; I attended one on humility and one on the commonalities between Mormons and Jews. We then had Elder Gibbons (our area seventy) talk to us. The spirit testified that he was indeed a general authority; it was awesome!

I hope to have a more insightful\inspirational post next time. Until then…

The parable of the bike ride.

This week was nothing out of the ordinary; research, learn, sleep, eat, and bike. Therefore, I feel no need to rehash school related activities; I’ve done plenty of that in this blog. Rather, I’ll focus on the activity that I am growing to love more day-by-day, cycling. I put 100 miles on my bike this week alone.

LOTOJA took place on Saturday (the longest single-day US Cycling Federation sanctioned race) starting in Logan, UT and ending in Jackson, WY covering a grueling 206 miles. It’s hard to believe that it was a whole three years since I completed it tandem with Bryan Bornholdt. I am getting into biking so much now that I am considering attempting LOTOJA again in 2011, this time on my own bicycle. I feel I should share with you an experience I had on my ride Saturday.

In commemoration of LOTOJA I decided to cover 1/4 the distance of the real race, 51.5 miles. Considering the condition I was in I felt this was within what I could do but knew that it would push me. As I have yet to go such a distance here in North Carolina I needed to come up with a route that would take me that distance. Luckily, I found, what I will refer to as, ‘dairyland.’ Indeed, there is a road out there with the name ‘Dairyland.’ This wondrous mass of land is relatively close to my house (a sort 15-mile ride). Dairyland is to cyclists as Disneyland is to children. This is because dairyland is rural, thus there is no shortage of paved road with little to no traffic. What more can a cyclist ask for??

The commemoration ride had to be planned because, as previously stated, I had yet covered the said distance, but also I had not yet experienced the joys of dairyland and thus was unfamiliar with the roads there. Google maps too the rescue (I love Google maps). I used the directions tool within Google maps to set out my course and measure the distance. After trying several alternate routes I found the one that would put me at my desired distance of 50+ miles. I typed up the directions on my iPod so that I could have directions on the road if so needed. As I was in bed that night I gave my best friend a call, I call him dad, and I told him my plans for my ride. Since he was on the computer I had him bring up Google Earth and I took him though my route from memory with no major problems. I was pretty proud that I knew this brand new route from memory!

I woke up early; oddly reluctantly and excitedly simultaneously. Reluctant because it was 5:30 AM on a Saturday and excited because I was going to go on an awesome ride. In the words of Freddie Mercury; ‘ I love to ride my bicycle, I love to ride my bike!’ I knew the route to dairyland fairly well as most the route followed one of my usual loops. However, once I crossed into dairyland proper I was in new territory with nothing save my memory and directions on my iPod to guide me. I was fairly confident in the first 8 miles in the new riding country but then the road I was traveling on, supposedly Dairyland Road, started to turn in a way that I thought it shouldn’t. Did I miss a turn? Was I even on the right road anymore? I stopped to get a drink and look at my directions. Unfortunately, the directions were only text; I had no map. Thus the directions were of no assistance in identifying what road I was actually on. Luckily I was in dairyland, with cyclists aplenty, one of whom was slowing down for a stop sign near by where I had stopped and I took the opportunity to ask him if the road I was on was Dairyland. He told me it was and, although the road was turning in a direction that I thought was not right I had confidence to keep going.

I was back riding, confident with where I was headed as I had confirmed that I was on the right road and just reviewed my directions. As I continued for the next few miles I was looking for my next turn: however, it was not coming. I got really quite nervous as Dairyland Road ended in a ‘T’. When I saw the name of the road that Dairyland ran into I was relieved for I recognized the road, but it was not the road that I had been looking for. This was due to my mistake while writing the directions; I had left out Orange Grove Road. As I turned on the road I was confident that I was on the right road and knew the way back to familiar territory. But wait, wasn’t I just as confident a few miles back just to be surprised that I was looking for the wrong road? However, this time my confidence was true and I found my way back to familiar country and on to my house with exactly 51.5 miles under my wheels.

So, why do I tell you this long-winded story of a bike ride? As I do with a lot of life experiences, I found profound parallels with the Gospel. Are these parallels simply coincidences’? I think not. This experience taught the importance of reading the scriptures and the words of modern-day apostles and prophets. Not only reading, but actually knowing the Word. This experience also taught that here in mortality there are plenty of people to help you but you need to take the initiative and ask, as I asked help from my fellow cyclist. Also, our perspectives may not be correct thus consistent reading of the Word, or map in this mortal experience, is requisite to find our way home. Not only was Dairyland Road turning in an unexpected direction, I was looking for the wrong road! A map here would have cleared everything up. All-in-all I take away from this parable, if you will, that consistent sincere study of the Word is required for us to find our way home.

My route!

View 50 Mile Loop Durham NC in a larger map

School & Cycling

This last week was the official start of classes. As indicated in my last post, this means almost nothing for me; I’ll simply continue what’ve been doing all summer, research. However, I do have a tutorial class on macromolecular x-ray crystallography, which I started on Thursday. It was great; it was me and another student in the lab sitting and being taught in my PI’s (primary investigator) office for about two hours. This will occur weekly throughout the semester.

I found something exciting on campus this week and that is a shower near my lab! Why so exciting you ask? This means that I can take my rides (cycling) in the early morning and go straight into lab. My road bike has become an integral part of my routine, as it is practically the only real exercise I get, not to mention the only exercise that I can stand when there are no mountains to climb. On Tuesday and Thursday I took a ride in the country that lies between Durham and Chapel Hill. A lot of the land is owned by Duke and is known as the Duke Forest, none of which is developed. The rest of the land is made up of estates, horse property and sparkly spaced modest homes. Being in the middle of North Carolina, the land is thick with trees. In other words is gorgeous. (When I tell locals I miss the mountains they retort, ‘I bet its nice to have trees though.’ While it is nice to have trees, to compare having trees to having mountains is like comparing having a salad to having steak and potatoes; sure, salad is substance but surly not as rewarding and satisfying as steak and potatoes.) I also took a ride on Saturday in the same area but made a bigger loop. In all, I put 75 miles on my bike this week; I’m slowly getting back into shape.

I went on a date Friday. I was a half hour late though as I put the wrong address into my GPS. But she was cool about it. We ordered Italian food to go and had a picnic on the lawn of a LDS church. Afterwards I helped her set up for a YSA dance that she was in charge of. I met a lot of new people as most of the participants were from the Raleigh singles ward. It was a great time.

Below are a few pictures that I took with my phone as I was riding out in the country.

School Starts and Poison Ivy

Classes are about to begin here at Duke University, all this means for me is that I will start to attend seminars and begin my one-on-one tutorial on x-ray crystallography. I will be continuing my research that I was doing during the summer. My PIs returned from their summer at their cabin. I talked to both of them about what I was learning and proposed I side project. They were both enthused about what I was already doing and what I had proposed. I will, as always, be busy; I’ll never have to say ‘I wonder what I will do tomorrow?’

I had my first exposure to poison ivy and can say I react very badly to it. I went to the doctor and she prescribed some medicated cream and Benadryl. However, the thing that I think worked the best was a $16 4 ounce tube of poison ivy scrub. It took about two weeks in all to get over it. The only place I can think of that I contacted poison ivy is when I was weeding in my back yard. However, subsequent investigations of the yard have yet to identify any poison ivy. I am a little more tentative about working back there now. Enjoy the pictures below.

The quote for this post comes from last General Conference in which President Uchtdorf gave a great talk on patience in the priesthood seesion:

‘There is an important concept here: patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!

Finally I can write another post! The past three weeks have been hectic with getting ready for my trip to Chicago and Utah, the trip itself, and getting back into the swing of things here in Durham. First I went to Chicago for a conference, the American Crystallographic Association. It was in the heart of down town along the Chicago River. The conference featured talks from three 2010 Nobel laureates. It was awesome to hear of their work and that they we normal scientists with big ideas. The conference had other talks during the day. Poster presentations and social events took place in the evening. I presented a poster on my research that I have been working on for the past year.

Chicago itself was an AWESOME city. I would definitely recommend a vacation to simply visit the city. There are tons of things to do. We went to the top of the Sears Tower looking over the city and Lake Michigan. We went to Navy Pier and watched the fireworks. Also, we rented bikes and rode along the shore of Lake Michigan for about an hour. Millennial Park is definitely a must when visiting Chicago; it’s a neat park!

While there Transformers 3 was being filmed. The coolest part was that it was being filmed right by where we were. In fact, there was a scene set up immediately adjacent to our hotel. We were only permitted through at one point because we were staying at the hotel. As we walked by they were shooting a scene! There was a woman on an overturned bus saying her lines with newspaper blowing all around. The coolest part, by far, was a night when we were trying to go to dinner, as we were walking along the river we could tell that they were about to shoot a big scene. People lined the river. In the river there were boats that had been wrecked and were obviously some kind of props. As we walked a man told up to keep moving because ‘this is not going to be a good place to be in a few minutes. As we got to the bridge to cross the river they were not allowing anyone to cross. We didn’t mind as the tension was clearly building, something big was about to happen! A few minutes later the helicopter with the big camera flew in, maneuvering between the tall buildings like it was nothing. Then it started. The boats in the river were set ablaze and very large, bright, white, flaring fireworks were set off from the top of about ten different skyscrapers. It was clear that a Decepticon was raising hell going after some Autobot. It will be fun to see what it looks like in the real movie.

Utah was great. The first full day I was there I went to the eye doctor to get a prescription. Later we ahd a BBQ at Grandma J’s where I was able to see most the family. Then late that night I picked up my friend from Duke, Jeremy Block, who had taken the old Zepher from Denver to Salt Lake. It was a 15 hour train ride, beautiful but long. I spent the next few days showing him around Salt Lake and the surrounding area. We went to Music and the Spoken Word after which we took a long car ride. We went up Big Cottonwood, over Guardsman’s Pass, and down into Park City. We spent a few hours in Park City browsing though some of the stores on main street and grabbed lunch at Wasatch Brewery. We then went by Jordanelle, Heber, and Deer Creek. We stopped by Sundance to get a drink and then took the Alpine Loop.

Then bright and early, ok, dark and early, at 4:30 AM we started our car ride to the Uintas where we backpacked for three nights. Those who went were Jeremy Block, Christopher Davis, Kyle Metcalf, Sterling Adams, and myself. We stated at the East Fork of the Bear trailhead and hiked up to lake Allsop; a lake I had visited on my first backpacking trip when I was 13 years old or so. Most of the day was spent getting up to the lake and setting up camp. Tuesday we took a day hike to one of the ridges in the bowl that we were in. We hoped to summit Yard Peak but we found this too technical so we just topped the ridge at 12,000 feet and called it good. The ridge provided great views of the canyon just to the west where Priord Lake and Norice Lake reside. Wednesday was a cold rainy day. It didn’t rain a ton but just enough to make you want to stay around the campfire.

Thursday morning we woke up to some high clouds and decided to see what would happen. We took a walk around the lake to take pictures. The clouds were thickening so we decided to go down rather than stay another night. As we packed up and started to head down the canyon the clouds disappeared and it was as sunny as could be, deceivingly sunny. The trip down was slow going, it was not like the other backpacking trips that I’d been on where the trail is so steep that the trail is a factor in helping you get off the mountain quicker. The last half of the decent clouds started to thicken up. Then with three-mile left it started to sprinkle. The last mile and a half was a downpour; Jeremy and I were soaked and muddy as could be. It was not fun being soaked but an overall GREAT trip. Here are some pictures.

Friday We recovered at home taking it easy. Saturday we went downtown to do some genealogy research for Jeremy. As expected we didn’t find much due to repeated destruction by Jewish persecutors of towns where his ancestors hailed from. We then headed up to the Rendezvous Service Ranch where I addressed the boys on how to become successful. All in all, I believe it went well. I was invited to speak again next year and plan to do so if timing permits.

This Last week I’ve been getting back into the swing of things, getting up early, doing research, being social, etc. It is great to be home.

Trip Prep

I have had quite the exciting week getting ready for my upcoming trip to Chicago then out to Utah. In fact, I am sitting at my gate at Raleigh/Durham International Airport as I type this post. My flight was delayed 2 hours!! I’ll be here a while! The main task that had to be done before I left was to get my poster done for the conference that I’ll be attending, the American Crystallography Association (ACA). For those unfamiliar with the scientific research culture, one way in which we present our research is through poster presentations. The posters consist of figures and text. During a poster presentation session one stands by their poster and presents what is on the poster to those who are interested; some people take a quick look and then move onto the next poster. I present on Monday evening. Poster presentations are not the only event that happens at scientific conferences, there are also talks, workshops, social events, etc. This will be my first scientific conference so I am very excited, plus its in Chicago!

I have also been trying to ride my rode bike more; I average two mornings a week and around 20+ miles per ride. I hope to increase both those figures as I slowly get back into shape. An interesting fact is that I weighed myself a few months ago when I was not riding (because I didn’t have my bike) and I was surprised to see that I had gained weight, I was between 145-150, fairly divergent from my consistent 140 that I got use to in Logan. I’m happy to report that due to my return to road cycling, I am back at a happy 140! I found a new route in which I go west of Durham. Although the roads are narrow, there is very little traffic so it’s not too bad.

On my ride yesterday I had a scary moment. I was going down a small hill probably doing 20+ MPH when a car behind me decided to honk for no apparent reason (probably a cyclist hater), I got startled and moved as close as I could to the non-existent shoulder, which was not entirely necessary because there was no cars to speak of around us. Unfortunately, I skimmed the gravel, overcorrected, and lost control as my front wheel was wildly swerving back and fourth. I knew I was going to go down and it was going to be bad! However, help from above helped me recover control. Who says miracles don’t occur?! Despite staying on my bike I did get a small cut on my knee, somehow my knee hit something on my bike (like my handle bars?). It was quite the experience. Aside from that, the ride was great and I’ll be doing it again as soon as I get back to NC.

My garden is looking great save one tomato plant. The garden is surprisingly fairly low-maintenance. My corn, on the good half of the garden, are a good four feet high! I hope to see ears when I return. I have pictures below. I look forward to seeing all my Utah friends and family next week!

Ashley''s Visit

Sunday July 18, 2010

Last weekend my niece, Ashley, came to visit from northern Virginia. We had fun just passing the time with each other. We toured Duke campus and went to see Toy Story 3 on Saturday. Of course, the Duke campus was magnificent, you kind of get use to it when you se it everyday so it is a treat to show someone else around. Toy Story was also magnificent and I HIGHLY recommend it. That night we went into my lab and played Wii Fit Plus. Our favorite game was an obstacle course that you had to run/jump through. On Sunday we went to church, took it easy, then we watched a movie. Monday we went to Eno River State Park and out to lunch. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I decided to escort Ashley back to northern Virginia as well as take my roommate to DC. I then left the next day, a quick trip but well worth it!

The rest of the week was spent designing a poster for a conference that I am attending I Chicago. The conference is with the American Crystallography Association and I leave this coming Saturday. The poster is coming along but is most definitely a work in progress. I hope to finish it up by Wednesday so I can get it into the printing company. I am in Chicago for 5 days then I go to Utah! I’ll be in Utah from July 29-August 9.

Here are some pictures from Ashley’s camera:

Moving

This week I helped my brother, Shane, and his family move from Round Hill to Ashburn, both in Virginia. It was no small move as he has a large home with four children. We did a lot of lifting and moving. It was very hard work! At the end of the days I thought my arms were going to fall off! After many trips between the two homes (about 30+ minutes apart) we got all the stuff moved.

I drove home Friday night so that I could get some work done on Saturday. The drive from northern Virginia to Durham never seems to get shorter. Saturday morning I worked in my backyard weeding the garden, trimming the tomatoes, and mowing the lawn. The garden is looking good, particularly the tomatoes and squash. The corn, unfortunately, is looking half-good, quit literally. One half of my three rows look great while the other half is not growing so good. I hope they’ll perk up soon!

I took some pictures of the garden. Enjoy!

Sacrement Talk

I had to give a talk in sacrement meeting and decided to post it her on my blog. Here you go.

Faith In Jesus Christ and how it applies to my life.

By: Bradley Joel Hintze

Today the Bishop has asked me to talk on having faith in Christ and relate it to my life. But before I begin I want to talk about something that took me many years to learn and that is to be teachable. I believe that this will be beneficial as you listen today, and every week for that matter, in church. In fact, this may be applied outside of church. As we listen to anyone we need to be teachable. By ‘teachable’ I mean let go of all of your beliefs and perceptions about the topic at hand. I have found that you can be taught, meaning someone is teaching you, true principles but you cannot learn, which is your end of teaching, those principle correctly if you have an incorrect view of the given principle. This will inevitably skew truth such that the principle that you take away is not truth at all. Letting go of your beliefs and perceptions is very difficult because, well, you believe them but if we ask for help, from Him where all truth emanates, we can be teachable.

Now onto faith in Christ and how it relates to my life. To give context, allow me to tell you about my physical condition. At my birth there were complications such that I was deprived of oxygen for some time. The doctors had no idea what the future would hold. I could have a myriad of problems such as mental, physical, social etc. Only the future would tell. It took me longer than usual to hit developmental milestones; for example, it took me twenty months to walk. As I grew up it was obvious that I had problems in my fine motor coordination and had a gait in my walk. When I started elementary I went to resource but it quickly became apparent that I had no trouble learning, my problems were limited to the physical realm. As a result the doctors gave me the ambiguous diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is just an umbrella term that doctors use when they see paralysis and have no ideas what else to call it.

As a child my only real limitations were writing, buttoning shirts, and anything that required me to work with small objects. When going through puberty I was hit with an additional condition known as dystonia. This condition was a lot more severe than the one I had grown to know. Dystonia causes the muscles in my neck to involuntarily contract causing my head to tilt and my speech to be impaired. Initially, it was hard to deal with the new condition but, with time, it became just another part of me. While there are some hardships because of my condition, for the most part I am able to deal with it similar to those who are unfortunate enough to have the inability to roll their tongue, it’s simply not a big deal. But, again, there are times of trial because of my disability.

One such trial, which is a just a fancy term for a learning experience, that I recently had was when a few of us in the ward made a video for Mother’s day. In the video we sang the Primary song “Mother I love you.” Some of you may have seen the video or were privileged enough to see the live performance. I think most of us have experienced that shock and perhaps horror when we hear our own voices or observe ourselves on video. Well, I have not seen much video of myself so when I saw the Mother’s day video I was taken aback. Seeing that video actually discouraged me quite a bit because of my awkward dystonic movements. While I am very aware of my physical condition, I have become quite use to it so I really don’t think as myself having such awkward movements.

The trouble I was having with the video was thoughts of low self-worth because of my condition. I am a guy who is always thinking, especially about spiritual matters. As I was contemplating on the situation I realized that something was not adding up. I had lived with this condition my entire life, sure it may have worsened when I was a teenager but that was over ten years ago. I had experienced relatively little distress relative to my condition; something was amiss. So, I decided to ask Heavenly Father for help so that this could be dealt with in a healthy way. As I was on my knees asking for help the Spirit revealed to me that I already had complete faith that everything would be fine and I would feel little to no distress because of what I saw on that video, complete faith. I knew that Jesus Christ had made this burden light in the past and would continue to do so.

The lesson here actually had little to do with my physical condition and how I dealt with it but rather was a lesson in what I will call situational faith. I compared the faith that I had about the Lord helping me deal with my condition to faith I had in other areas of my life and the contrast was stark. The Lord was teaching me that, while I had great faith in the help that He gave me in dealing with my condition, I needed to increase my faith in Christ in all aspects, or situations, of my life.

So how do we increase our faith in Christ? I am afraid the answers are nothing new; however, I invite you to listen nonetheless with an open hart and perhaps the Spirit will teach you something new. In other words, be teachable! I am going to share five aspects of increasing faith in Christ and then share personal experiences that I have had in each of those aspects.

Desire

In Alma 32 we read a great parable on faith where faith is compared to a seed that must be planted in our hearts. We oft times correlate this parable with receiving an initial testimony of the gospel but this parable can be applied by each of us daily to increase our situational faith. We learn that desire is enough to start. If we just desire to believe that Christ will help us in a certain situation you are good to go.

From the earliest I can remember, I’ve been blessed with a sincere desire to do what is right. Consequently, I sought the truth of the church early in my life. After reading the Book of Mormon when I was 14 I followed the council given in Moroni 10 to pray about its truthfulness. Because of that experience alone I can bare solemn witness that the Book of Mormon is true and the stories therein truly did occur. I know that Jesus is the Christ through which all happiness emanates. Desire is always the seed of truth. If we desire a testimony of anything we are on the right path, albeit at the beginning of the path.

Praying

What did I have to do to receive the witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? I had to pray as Moroni instructed. Brothers and Sisters, prayer is a crucial aspect of exercising faith. Satan will try everything in his power to keep you from praying because by doing so he is depriving you of truly knowing your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. If you truly knew Them you would know of the unconditional, endless love that They have for you. Satan does not want us to know Their love, for Their love is the ultimate motivation to live righteously. Pray daily, multiple times, privately, publically, and in your heart.

As mentioned earlier, I’ve always had a deep desire to live righteously. It may sound silly now but the naive boy that I was thought that my biggest spiritual struggle in life would be something like thinking bad thoughts. As I grew up certain experiences taught me otherwise. This realization was devastating to me, and ‘devastating’ here is most definitely an understatement; it hurt like nothing I had felt before. While praying one night when my heart was truly in pain I felt the love of the Lord despite my imperfections. Words cannot describe the love of the Lord. I’ve tried; I attempt to describe his love as greater than the sum of all positive emotions that we can feel but still, this description doesn’t began to describe His love. I know that he loves ALL in the exact same way and invite you to ask Him to feel of His love.

Work

In James 2 we read that faith without works is dead. Just as we cannot expect help from the Lord on a test that we did not study for, we cannot expect the Lord to distill knowledge upon us just because we ask, even if we do so with all sincerity. Whether its gaining a testimony of the Temple or increasing faith in Christ we must work at it. Faith, itself, is a word that should conjure up scenes of action, such as, studying, writing down things you learn, teaching, serving and so forth.

Since all my spiritual examples of work would take to long to tell and are perhaps too personal to relate I’ll tell of a temporal example that certainly can be paralleled to the spiritual realm.

In the fall of 2006 I volunteered at a feed station for a cycling race know as LOTOJA, which stands for Logan to Jackson. It is the longest single-day United States Cycling Federation sanctioned race, 206 miles. As we handed out food and drinks to the 1,000 cyclists, I saw a few tandem cyclists. I turned to my buddy, Bryan, and suggested that we do LOTOJA tandem that next year. He got very excited and said absolutely. A month later I dropped an undisclosed amount of money on a really nice road bike and started training.

The training waned in the winter but picked up again in the spring. Bryan and I put several thousand miles of training in the summer of 2007 in preparation for the big race. We worked very hard in our training. When the day of the race came we were ready to go. We left Logan at 7:45 in the morning. The ride was longer and harder than I had expected. However, The training that we did allowed us to cross the finish line 13.5 hours later.

If one were to say to me that I would complete LOTOJA a year or two before I participated I would have laughed at them on the basis that I simply had not the strength nor endurance to complete such a feat. However, months of hard work proved to provide sufficient strength and endurance for me to complete LOTOJA. Is there any righteous desire in your life that you believe is beyond you? If you work at it hard and long enough you might well find that nothing is beyond you, with the Lord’s help, of course.

Study the words of the Lord

We have been commanded and are consistently reminded to read the scriptures each day. The constant reminders are not meant to nag but are rather a plea from those who care for you and your happiness. The scriptures provide yet another way, a crucial way I might add, in which we can come to know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The words of modern day prophets are yet another resource we must study. Applying what we learn through our studies will increase our faith in Christ as well as His words. In this last General Conference Elder Christofferson said “In the end, the central purpose of all scripture is to fill our souls with faith in God the Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ—faith that They exist; faith in the Father’s plan for our immortality and eternal life; faith in the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which animates this plan of happiness; faith to make the gospel of Jesus Christ our way of life; and faith to come to know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent” (John 17:3).”

A scripture that helped me through my realization many years ago that I would not be perfect in this life is found in 2 Nephi chapter four 17-21.

• 17 Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

• 18 I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.

• 19 And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.

• 20 My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.

• 21 He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.

Experience

The last aspect of increasing your faith in Jesus Christ is perhaps not typically a separate topic covered in this context and that is experience. So far I have covered desire, prayer, work and studying the words of the Lord. Are these not all experiences? We have many experiences throughout our lives, some good and others seemingly bad. We are the ones who get to decide what we will learn from a given experience. It is easy to say I learned a great lesson from a given miraculous spiritual experience but what about the so called ‘bad’ experiences? Here we have a choice. Am I going to learn something of value and move forward or become a tad more bitter and move backward?

In my life I’ve had to learn how to take lessons from seemingly bad experiences that were great trials in my life, trails totally unrelated to my physical condition. In hindsight these experiences, although horrible and painful at the time, were crucial to increase my faith in Christ. D&C 122: 7, although way too dramatic as it relates to my experiences, rings very true to me:

7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

I would exhort you all to keep a journal, a journal in which you are not afraid to pour your soul into. While it is fun to look back and read things that were seemingly trite when they were written it is more important that we write down our spiritual experiences.

Although the following quote from Joseph Smith was directed at leaders of the church it certainly applies to our individual lives.

“Here is another important item. If you assemble from time to time, and proceed to discuss important questions, and pass decisions upon the same, and fail to note them down, by and by you will be driven to straits from which you will not be able to extricate yourselves, because you may be in a situation not to bring your faith to bear with sufficient perfection or power to obtain the desired information; or, perhaps, for neglecting to write these things when God had revealed them, not esteeming them of sufficient worth, the Spirit may withdraw, and God may be angry; and there is, or was, a vast knowledge, of infinite importance, which is now lost.”{To Draw Closer to God pg. 124}

Write down your testimonies no matter what stage that they are at and write it down often. Write about spiritual experiences; write what you learn. These writings then should be read in the future again and again. Doing so, I believe, will do much to increase our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and perhaps increase the faith of our posterity.

Testimony.

Research & Yard Work

Currently, two activities are taking the majority of my time; research, as a matter of course, and yard work. I have been a little stir-crazy now that school is out and I have no mountains to climb. I asked my friend/room mate/lab mate/landlord, Jeremy, if I could do something with the back yard, he graciously obliged. First, let’s discuss research.

In the lab I am working on a program called MolProbity Compare. First, MolProbity is a validation tool used by structural biologist [translation: MolProbity is a computer program that can tell scientists what’s wrong with a protein model that they are proposing, think of this ‘model’ as a virtual Skittle for this purpose. MolProbity can find imperfections in the Skittle]. Sometimes one would want to put two of the ‘same’ protein models through MolProbity; the two models are the same in the sense that they are the same protein but differ in another way (i.e. resolution) [translation: continuing with our Skittle model, a scientist has two virtual green Skittles but surely they are different if you look really close]. It would be useful to compare the MolProbity output of the two models [translation: its useful to compare the two green Skittles.]. MolProbity Compare allows the user to compare two models of the same protein, which will point out differences in the models [MolProbity Compare, which is a computer program, allows the user to compare the two virtual green Skittles thereby uncovering differences in the Skittles.]. This program will be useful in my research for potentially uncovering systematic errors made in low-resolution crystallographic structures [translation: forget it!]. MolProbity Compare will also be useful to others; therefore, I am converting the program to a web application so that anyone can use it.

On to the yard work, my outlet from lab work. This week Jeremy gave me the lay of the land in our backyard. He then said I could beautify as I saw fit. I subsequently mowed the lawn, cut down two trees, pulled weeds, and began to turn the soil in a bed by hand. I quickly found this work very slow and not producing the desired results, I needed a tiller! Looking around the yard I realized the expanse of not one but three large beds and decided to just go ahead and rent a tiller. This morning I spent a good three plus hours wrestling with a tiller. For those who are not familiar with the joys of handling a tiller allow me to explain. Have you seen a child walking an over-anxious dog where the dog is taking the child for a walk? It’s kind of like that. I wish that I had taken ‘before’ pictures but I did not. Here are shots of the beds that I tilled in our backyard.

Quote for this post:

'Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself.'

--W. C. Doane

Shane's, Seminary, and moving

This last weekend I went up to my brother’s, Shane’s, home to visit with him and his family. Shane and his wife Becky have four kids at home: Nick, Gabe, Katie, and Mike. I drove up there on Thursday afternoon; it is about a five-hour drive. Becky was running a conference, so mainly I hung out with Shane and the kids. We mostly hung around the house. Saturday we went to see Robin Hood; great 2-hour prequel, it’s worth seeing. Oh ya, I went to visit my friend from USU, Mary, she and her husband were at her dad's in Manassas. It's always fun seeing friends from Utah on this side of the country!

While up in Virginia, I had the very special privilege to be the guest speaker at an LDS seminary, which is for high school aged students. After my brother introduced me I took the remainder of the time talking about facing, NOT overcoming, adversity. I made it clear that my message was based in reality; I was not there to tell of mystical sunshine and daisies. ‘Overcoming’ is not the word/message that I wanted to share because, while we may overcome a particular trial, we will always face some sort of adversity. I talked about five overarching themes: determination, hard work, being teachable, experience, and, underscoring the roots of reality, the value of failure. I would expound on these but stay tuned and you may see a new blog, by yours truly, dedicated to topics such as these. After the talk I had many of the students thank me; their sincerity was amazing, we have great youth!

In the lab I am trying to find a way to represent differences in MolProbity analyses for two related (identical) structures, one at high resolution and one at low resolution. This means I am comparing the quality of two very similar protein models. So, basically I sit at the computer and code (write computer code) all day. But I’m being paid and get to bike to the lab, which I enjoy immensely. The protein structure I helped with at Utah State, Mtr4, will be published in EMBO soon. I submitted another manuscript describing the software I wrote at USU, ResDe. Hopefully it will be accepted, that would be my first primary author publication!

Yesterday I moved rooms; I now live on the second floor of the house. The move took all day as I was organizing my room as I moved in. My new room is HUGE; by far the largest room in the house. I have a king sized bed and two sitting areas. I took pictures for y’all.

Looking into the room on way.

Looking into the room the other way.

Looking toward the two dormers.

Dormer 1

Dormer tw0; great east-facing window where I read my scriptures in the morning.

Looking back toward the door.

Me desk.

Me.

A wall with sconces.

Weekend Fun

This last Saturday I had very social day. In the morning I went on a ‘hike’ at Eno River State park with a friend, Anchen, and her boyfriend, Jeremy. We went on the Cox Mountain Trail, the longest trail in the park, all 3.75 miles. Also, the map legend said that it was strenuous. It was hardly strenuous, maybe I should stop comparing these trails to hiking trails in Utah.

That afternoon I went to a barbeque that my fellow first-year biochemistry student, Zach, put on to celebrate the end of classes. We had all of our first-year class there except two, Riddhi and Wayne. It was a great party; good food, enjoyable company, and great weather. Zach has 9-year-old twin neighbors and they are not shy. They asked us to play kick ball, we ended up throwing a football around. We (my cohorts) mainly sat and socialized. It was great fun. Here are some pictures.

Eno River

This has been a very hard, stressful week. I took my first take home exam and decided the I much rather prefer the regular exam style. Its over, let's leave it at that.

In attempts to recover from the difficult week I went 'hiking' at Eno River State Park. The quotes around hiking are appropriate because a walk trough the woods with a elevation gain of a whopping 300 feet hardly qualifies as a hike. Anyway, here are a few pictures.

They have a river at Eno River State Park, neat.

The beautiful power line cut through the park.

Some guy on a bridge.

Some guy with a cheesy smile.

A sign marking the trail that I took.

See, I went uphill.