You say citron, I say Cthulhu

WHAT in the name of all things holy is THIS!?

 (Yeah yeah, you can call it Buddha's hand all you like - I aint buyin' it!)

L'amour est bleu

Behold! Baby Blue, new love of my life. All the cozy nights we'll spend together; I can hardly wait!

And you brought me flowers too! Oh, you shouldn't have...

[Tihi!]

Flowers for Father Frost

November 11th is Veterans Day in the US, a day to honor armed service veterans such as my kind friend and colleague Scott. Cheers to you, Scott! It is actually a federal holiday, meaning that we are free from work tomorrow. Extra cheers to that!

At the same time, Sweden celebrates Father's Day. Although I'm currently far away from my father I acknowledged the day by buying a nice bouquet of flowers. ...for myself. But I think about you when I look at them, pappa!

A German escape

Now that the election madness is over I can finally sit down and report about my latest adventures. The last weekend was spent in a surreal location in the middle of the Cascade Range, barely 120 miles East of Seattle, in the enchanting town of Leavenworth. This old timber community was greatly affected by the relocation of the railroad in the 1920s, leading to economic difficulties for many years until the Project LIFE (Leavenworth Improvement For Everyone) Committee successfully transformed the city into a pretend Bavarian village in 1962. Nothing odd about that. Shani and Scott come here annually with a bunch of friends, and this year the crowd was bigger than ever, with 14 jolly characters (I being one of them) brought together at the Icicle Inn for two nights of munching and tomfoolery.

Scott, Shani and I quit work early on Friday and arrived a couple of hours before the rest of the group, giving us time for some wine and cheese tasting before meeting up at Gustav's for dinner. A few pitchers of beer later the whole gang moved on to the Post Office for karaoke and further merriment. This time I did not bail out on the singing...

Saturday started with a minigolf tournament, a tradition that aroused a lot of passion and strong emotions; some could not care less about the outcome and others were more serious. Guess which category I fell into. I did score a hole-in-one, however! That must count for something. Shani decided that she would try “something different” at one of the holes on the course, leading her on an interesting excursion into the terrain (and lots of laughter from her husband and me).
 

More wine tasting ensued, along with lots of food and sweets. And glühwein! Good old glühwein. Compared to authentic Bavaria the food in fake Bavaria was considerably more vegetarian friendly, and for the first time of my life I had a “real” veggie wurst with mustard and sauerkraut. Not too bad! Not too good either, but I enjoyed having the possibility to try it. After lunch, we continued cruising around among the many knick-knack shops, and I may or may not have bought some sparkling ornaments at Kris Kringl, “Where it's Christmas All Year Long!”.

 

The whole gang at Andreas Keller Restaurant. Say käse!

Every now and then, the illusion of actually being in Germany was somewhat transparent...

...but then the moment passed, and the feeling of authenticity returned. Das ist gut, ja!

Still, Leavenworth is more than just kitsch and flakiness; before hitting the road back to Seattle on Sunday I took a walk along the river in an effort to document the stunning scenery that surrounded the village. As I walked among the trees a constant rustling sound from falling, bright yellow leaves filled the air, and clouds gently embraced the mountain sides. A perfect end to another great weekend.

 

Breakthrough Breakfast

I have a hard time trying to figure out a better way to start a Friday than what I managed today. The Puget Sound Business Journal sponsored a first time ever breakfast event at a fancy hotel downtown, where donors could "meet the scientists behind breakthrough research that is saving lives around the world and learn what their future holds in their effort to eradicate cancer". Sounds great, right? Luckily, there were 50 complimentary tickets available to Fred Hutch employees and a friend and I quickly snatched two of them.

The program included feasting on a plated breakfast while listening to a panel of four distinguished FHCRC scientists: Larry Corey, M.D., president and director; Harmit Malik, Ph.D., world-renowned evolutionary biologist; Jim Olson, M.D., groundbreaking pediatric oncologist; and Linda Buck, Ph.D., Nobel laureate. I had no idea what to expect from this event, but I am so glad I got to attend it as it was truly inspiring. It offered a lot of knowledge about the kind of questions Fred Hutch researchers wrestle with, as well as insight into the features that make this institute so successful.

And I got to do a really silly thing before leaving. Well, it felt silly at the time, but I'm actually quite proud of what I did: I worked up the courage to go over to Linda Buck after the panel discussion, introduced myself and told her what a great inspiration she is to me. Goofy, sure, but honestly: how many shots do you get at interacting with a Nobel laureate!? That's right. So I did it. Hah!

Wham bam thank you ma'am

Sometimes the smallest things can cheer you up. I've been grumbling over the totally useless dishcloths they have over here; either they're made out of cotton or other cloth (i.e. icky) or they completely lack absorption capacity, meaning that you end up simply shoving around water from one place on your countertop to another. Yet another thing I've tried to find is decent butter knives; not even IKEA had any. Weird and annoying. So when I opened my mailbox and found an envelope containing the following items, I can assure you that I was suddenly happy as a clam at high tide.

Tack mamma!

Halloween Harlequin

Being a big fan of masquerades I've always wanted to experience Halloween in the US, a wish that finally came through this weekend. Well, Halloween itself is of course on Wednesday, October 31st, but the big day for costume parties was on Saturday and I had the pleasure of going out with a bunch of friends in the vibrant Capitol Hill district. I actually started out with dinner at a restaurant downtown, and although our costumes initially attracted some attention no one seemed to think it was weird at all. After a while several other groups of dressed-up people arrived, further enhancing the festive atmosphere.

For women the whole point of this holiday seems to be an excuse to dress extremely scantily in public; google "Halloween costume women" and you'll get my point. I did my best to adapt to this cultural tradition by combining various odd pieces into a Harlequin inspired outfit that turned out pretty okay, considering the rather small amount of money I was willing to spend on it.

Before leaving home I tried to hastily document my getup (indoor/outdoor version) but when I looked at the pictures afterwards it turned out that I apparently only have one photo pose. Unfortunately, it is a rather awkward one. My apologies.

Yesterday, the weather suddenly got very mild and I took a nice two-hour walk looking at cute kids going trick-or-treating in stores and cafés around town. A very nice gesture from the shop owners, also enabling children who live in apartment buildings to go hunting for sweets.

So what happens now? My guess is that the display windows will be rapidly cleared from spiderweb and jack-o'-lanterns directly after Wednesday, and that Christmas trees and candy canes will start popping up in their place... And I can hardly wait. 'Tis the season to be jolly!

Head over heels

Being a runner in Seattle is somewhat interesting at this time of year, and I'm expecting it to be even more so as the darkness of winter progressively takes over. "But it's darker yet in Sweden!" you might respond. Sure, that's absolutely true. But in Sweden, a modern invention called "street light" generally illuminates the way. Unfortunately, that kind of cutting-edge technology has not quite conquered the parks or streets over here, making a late afternoon run quite perilous as dusk turns to complete darkness around you.

After endeavoring a couple of wobbly evening runs, I decided that buying a headlamp may be a good investment. It seemed to be the way the locals did it, after all. Said and done, I got myself a lamp and tried my first run with it the other day.

Look at me! All happy and excited.

And the lamp was a hit! It illuminated the way so brilliantly that I boldly dashed into the woods on a small dirt path I had used many times in daylight. Tra la la!

What I learned next is that simply being able to see the road ahead apparently isn't enough; in addition, you have to stay focused (i.e. not shining your light back and forth in the surrounding woods because it looks cool and scary) and lift your feet sufficiently high above the ground to actually evade objects that may be in your way. (I hope you're taking notes.) Let's just say that I ended up doing a beautiful belly flop, sliding smoothly (not really) on hands and hips in the muddy gravel a couple of meters before coming to a full stop at the base of a tree. Luckily, my pride got the worst bump, and the rest of me (including my beloved headlamp) was practically unharmed.

Perhaps I should stick to the main roads in the future, although I must admit that it takes some of that intense Blair Witch Project-feeling out of the equation. Who would have known that running with a headlamp could be such an adventure?

On the shoulders of giants

Saturday, October 20, 2012, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas passed away at the age of 92. He was a founding faculty member of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a Nobel laureate; a man whose contributions to modern day cancer therapy cannot be overestimated. As the father of bone marrow transplantation he played a crucial role in enhancing survival rates from practically zero to up to 90 percent for leukemia and related blood cancers. Because of his work, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved worldwide.

It is with pride and honor that I take the stairs up to the third floor of the Thomas building at the FHCRC campus each day, to work in projects that utilize the very techniques Dr. Thomas once pioneered. If I'm lucky, my contribution to society will one day be a fraction of what he managed. All my respect.

Read more: In Remembrance of Dr. E. Donnall Thomas.

Back in the game

Yesterday I had the privilege of following Scott and Shani to yet another Sounders game, this time against FC Dallas at the final regular-season match at home this year. Compared to my last visit at CenturyLink Field, this time the weather gods were not as kind. Luckily, Scott had brought a radiant orange "emergency poncho" and a set of chemical hand warmers for me, so I kept warm and relatively dry the whole time. After 15 opening minutes of hard rain things improved considerably, and our spirits were held high by the fact that Sounders beat FC Dallas with 3-1, thereby avoiding the first round of the Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup playoffs . (Very important, if I understand things correctly.)

Me and Shani at the start of the game. Cheers to the emergency poncho!

The three of us after the game. Happy faces! Well... Shani was actually quite cold at this point, so her smile may be a bit more forced.

Speaking of FC Sounders, Erik Niva at Aftonbladet apparently wrote a blog post regarding the record breaking game I watched two weeks ago: What Do You Hear In These Sounds? Pretty fun to read! (Thanks to Mikael P.)