Preakness Prep

If you’re a horse racing fan, you know that The Preakness Stakes is being run in Baltimore this Saturday. And while that’s a cause for a little celebration in its own right, Roomie is also coming into town — AND as Roomie lives in Maryland, we knew we really had to do race day right. Naturally, that means figuring out the right cocktail for the event.

Now, if we were watching The Kentucky Derby, that answer is easy: Mint Julep. Done. The Preakness though doesn’t have such a storied cocktail tradition. In many circles, the drink of the Preakness is supposed to be The Black-Eyed Susan — named for the blanket of flowers the winner of the race receives. The traditional recipe is:

Black-Eyed Susan 

• 1 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. Mount Gay Eclipse rum
• 3/4 oz. Cointreau
• 1 1/2 oz. fresh-squeezed orange juice
• 1 1/2 oz. pineapple juice

Build in a Collins glass filled with crushed ice. Add a maraschino cherry, an orange wheel, a pineapple cube, and a lime wedge for garnishes.  Squeeze the juice from the lime wedge into the drink.

Now, I like Charm City well enough, but doesn’t that drink sound more like it should be served in a tiki bar than at a horse race in Maryland in May? Apparently, The Preakness itself thinks so, too, because their website shows this year’s “official” Black Eyed Susan that’s significantly different than the one above.

This was clearly made up by a hipster last week

Lemongrass and blackberry? As you know, I’m all about craft cocktails, but again I think this drink misses the mark and was likely made up by some be-vested hipster bartender about a week ago.

This left me with somewhat of a conundrum. I wanted a real “Maryland” drink as well as one that was evocative of the Triple Crown. Stumped, I turned to my cocktail library. Yes, I have a cocktail library, and so should you.

I had the idea to look in The Happy Table of Eugene Walter — a collection of stories and recipes (all the recipes are either drinks or food made with booze) of the southern writer, gourmet, and general man-of-the-world rascal. And what did I find? A recipe from the 1790s for the Maryland Julep.

His recipe calls for a mixture of brandy, sugar, cognac and mint (with the dew still on it) and for making a sweet mint tea and using that as part of the eventual cocktail. I created an adaptation using a prep more similar to that of a traditional Mint Julep.

The Maryland Julep

• 3/4 oz. simple syrup
• 3/4 oz. brandy
• 3 oz. cognac
• Fresh mint

In a glass, muddle the simple syrup and brandy with 8-10 mint leaves. Let sit for a few minutes. Add cognac and stir. Fine strain over a julep cup filled with crushed ice. Stir until frosty and top with more ice. Garnish with mint sprig.

Reporting For Duty

From the taste test that The Beloved and I had, I think we already have a winner for Saturday — the drink is similar enough to the Mint Julep (made with bourbon) that there’s a good connection, but different enough to have its own distinct flavor that distinguishes it from its more famous (for now) cousin. And having the recipe be more than two centuries old conveys that sense of tradition that I was looking for. 

Maryland, My Maryland

See you at post time!

n of 1

In a scene of the film A River Runs Through It young Norman writes an essay for his father. His father reads it, marks it up some, and then says, `Now make it half as long.’ Deflated, Norman leaves but later returns with a new essay. The father reads it, marks it again, and says, `Again, half as long.’ Through repetition, the father is honing his son’s writing skills, with the end result being something worth keeping — or made pointedly in this exercise, not.

Doing science often echoes the scene above. There is a certainly a sense of joy and excitement when you get good results from an experiment: data that is precise, well-controlled, and is straightforwardly interpretable. In the flush of that, the natural impulse is a little self-congratulation and thinking about what’s next. But the actual common response though is: okay, do it again.

Why is that? Well, one of the foundations of the scientific method is that experiments must be repeatable. You can never publish a scientific paper or give a scientific presentation where you essentially say, “We only did this once, but it looks great!” because the results of a single unrepeated experiment might be artifactual. In science jargon, the number of times you do an experiment is usually termed n. An n of 1 is a nice start, but ultimately not good enough. n = 2 is better, though an n = 3 is generally preferred. Through repetition, you create results that you have more confidence in — that you could present to anyone with little worry about being incorrect.

I guess I’ve been thinking about “n of 1” a lot over the past month, ever since the bombing at the Boston Marathon and the way both news media and social media treated the event. Think back to all the things you saw in your twitter or facebook feeds or on Reddit that were hearsay or simply made up: the guy on the roof, the “Saudi national” that was in custody, that cell phone service had been shut down in Boston to prevent any other remote detonations (that never happened), the whole set of unexploded bombs (there weren’t any), the New York Post saying 12 people had died, the terrible incorrect accusation of Sunil Tripathi. All these things were reported,  “shared”, and “re-tweeted” literally thousands and thousands of times.

Man on a Roof

In the face of actual news and tragedy, everyone seemed like they were in some sort of panicked rush to be the first to “share” information — whether they knew it to be true or not. The 48 hours after the event had to be the worst unwitting misinformation campaign in human history. I suppose that in a world where you can get to-the-second sports scores on your phone that we’ve reached the point where we expect to have instant-analysis news as well. Everything must be known immediately. How could we not know (within 10 minutes? an hour?) how many people were dead, how many injured, and whether there were any other devices? And instead of being content with gaps in our knowledge, we filled in the blanks with our best guesses (especially ones that fit our sociopolitical worldview) and who cares if they went viral? A few hours into that torrent of wrongness, I gave up. I turned off all my feeds. A couple times a day, I would read or watch an update. And you know what? I didn’t miss a thing — and I got better quality information because I wasn’t hanging on the latest “breaking news”.

What made me think about this and science is that so many people — journalists included — were essentially putting all their faith in an n of 1. It was more important to shout out something that might be correct quickly than it was to be patient and collect information, verify it, and report it.

New York Post Headline

The thing is: I like being connected. I love being able to be able to reach out to so many people that are in so many different places on the globe. But this was ugly — this thoughtless re-sharing of crap that no one bothered to check before they hit send. I know the Presidential election also had its share of falsehoods and misinformation willingly forwarded (which is also depressing), but this seemed different to me.

I guess what I’ve decided for myself is to turn things off more often — I mean, you don’t really need to know what’s trending ALL the time, do you? And that when I’m tempted to share something (especially if it’s news and super-especially if it’s politics) to remember to take a little extra time and verify the information and maybe even try and collect an “n of 2”.

I know…I know… that will take a little longer than a hair-trigger re-share, so what I post might seem a little “out of date”, but hopefully it won’t be just noise.

Chien avec la moutarde

Orange Getaway

The last post dealt with the mechanics (and electricals) of getting to and from our weekend in Riverside without going into a lot of the details of perhaps its biggest question: why the heck would you ever spend a getaway weekend in Riverside?

If you’re not a Californian, Riverside sits near the eastern edge of the Inland Empire – the giant sprawl of towns and suburbs east of Los Angeles. There’s a lot of concrete. And houses. And highways. And airborne particulates. Pretty romantic, right?

Of all the places in California that I’ve been to, Riverside most reminds me of the Rust Belt in the northeastern US. A once-great area that has lost its influence because of shifts in the national and global economies in the 20^th century. And like those places, you could see the remnants of it in the gorgeous buildings and arcades of downtown.

Arcade

One of those great landmarks is The Mission Inn, which I learned is the centerpiece of the Mission Revival Architectural Movement at the end of the 19^th century.  And really, even without anything else, The Mission Inn is a good enough reason to make Riverside a stop. It’s a gorgeous property that’s a lot like an MC Escher painting: Lots of hidden courtyards, stairways, and balconies that all seem to intersect one another in surprising ways.

The Mission Inn

Mission Inn Interior

Rotunda

Bride in Mission Inn Chapel Courtyard

We spent a good part of our first afternoon just exploring it. Dinner in one of the courtyard restaurants didn’t have a bad view, either.

Hers & His Dinner Cocktails

Dinnertime ceiling

But when did Riverside enjoy its moment in the sun? (Actually with only 10 inches or rain per year, most of its moments are in the sun, but you know what I mean…) You might be as surprised as I was to find out that in the 1890s, Riverside had the highest per capita income of any city in the nation. And the engine behind those riches? Oranges.

Great California Ladies: Beloved & Tibbets

In the 1870s, Eliza Tibbets received the first navel orange plants and within a decade, the area became covered with acres and acres of citrus groves. Citrus remained a vital force in the area until the end of WWII when suburbanization made houses more valuable than trees.

Orange Stand

And while the groves are nearly completely gone, the State Parks system has its own testament to it: California Citrus State Historic Park. The park has nearly 400 acres and over 75 different kinds of trees for you to walk around in. Besides, how can you not go into a park that has a giant orange as its gateway? We managed to go there on a day the museum and shop were closed, but it was still a great place to walk around and get a little sense of the boom-times a century before.

Groves

Fruit

And a good excuse to go back some time.

Open Road Buzz

April marks our 1-year anniversary with Buzz — and the half-way point of our 2-year field trial with our ActiveE. For the first year, Buzz has been a fantastic around-town car for us, but we’d never gone outside of San Diego County with him, so we decided a little road trip was in order to commemorate the one-year mark. But where should we go?

Well, a few months ago, The Beloved had some business in the Inland Empire and stayed at the beautiful Mission Inn in Riverside, which was interesting because I had stayed there nearly 20 years ago when I interviewed at UC-Riverside for a position in their biochemistry department. When she’d come back, we’d said we’d have to go back there together sometime. From our house, Riverside is just outside of Buzz’s normal range and the Mission Inn seemed like a good destination for a weekend.

Let’s Go!

A mild Santa Ana was coming on Saturday when we left — clear skies and hot temperatures — and we drove without a ton of regard for saving battery usually going ~75 mph. From checking EV maps, we knew there were a couple of charging stations in the town of Temecula. At half-way between our house and Riverside, that seemed like a good place to stop, have lunch, and grab a charge. Pulling into town, we found two empty chargers at the top of the municipal parking garage. Sweet. Upon our return, the other was taken (Volt) and we had a note from a Leaf-owner asking us to plug her in when we left. No problem.

First Stop

EV Brotherhood

We got into Riverside with ~25% charge left on the battery and figured even with a slow 110V-charge overnight we’d have almost a full charge by morning. When I made the reservation I mentioned our car and charging needs, and while the hotel didn’t have an EV-charging station, they said that we could charge from a spot in their parking structure since we had our adapter. Sadly, the concierge that told us that was err — completely and utterly wrong. They had one outlet, about 50-feet away from one spot, and no extension cord that could support the charging power needs. So, no recharging for Buzz in the garage overnight.

Plan A Fails

But we figured that wouldn’t be too much of a problem because Plan B was to charge during the day at one of the Riverside Municipal garages — each of which we could see had a couple of EV charging stations — while we walked old-town Riverside and grabbed coffee/breakfast, etc. Well, guess what? All the Riverside municipal parking structures are CLOSED on weekends. Whoops — the ChargePoint app doesn’t mention that.

So — okay. For Plan C, we managed to drive around for a bit and find one open garage near the UC-Riverside Law Library that had a ChargePoint station. We swiped our card, plugged in, and got charging. Whew. Except that upon our return several hours later, we learned that the station inexplicably lost power 20 minutes into our session and that I never received the text from ChargePoint that I was supposed to about having my charging interrupted. ChargePoint fail on all levels.

Plan C Works For 20 Minutes and Then Fails

Plan D? Well, I didn’t think we needed a Plan D, but since we were down to a pretty uncomfortable ~15 miles in the battery, we needed one, so we called over to the folks at BMW of Riverside (eight miles away), who were happy to give us a charge and a lift back over to town (not to mention a tour of an X1 that the Beloved might be starting to have an eye for). Let’s just say that I’m glad we didn’t need a plan E.

We headed back yesterday with no problem, stopping again in Temecula (though at a different lot) for lunch and getting the extra charge that we needed to make it home. Temecula clearly wins the I-15 prize for EV charging facilitation!

Temecula Wins

So, was the road trip experiment a success? I’d say a qualified one. Not being able to get a charge until late on our second day in Riverside kept us from being able to go see one of the things we wanted to, so that was a bit of a bummer (and it was closed on Monday). It seems to me that more precise information about where and when stations are available could have saved us some time and frustration.

Welcome Home

And, of course, most importantly, it was just really fun to get Buzz out on the highway and go. No second guessing that!

Friday Drabble: Pictured

A drabble is a very short story of exactly 100 words. Feel free to join in and write your own drabbles on Fridays and tag them with “friday drabble” and on Twitter with the hashtag #fridaydrabble.

Pictured

The picture is old. Black and white from a time that I think should be in color. I am the same age as the picture, but I am not old.

You were always old to me. As a boy, you were a grown man. Whiskers and strong arms and dark hair. As a grown man, you were an old man. Slack skin and bad hearing and cancer.

I hold the old picture. A fragile thing now saved on disk and drive and cloud that will endure. In it, you are younger than I am now. And I am not old.

What Would YOU Charge?

Something that likely went under most peoples’ radar this past week was that the FDA announced the approval of a new drug for multiple sclerosis, Tecfidera, from Biogen Idec. That’s pretty good news for a disease that generally doesn’t have a lot of good news associated with it. Here’s some disease-progression data for it compared to placebo. Looks pretty good.

Looks like it works

After the approval, Biogen Idec also announced the price — $54,900 per year, which seems like a pretty big chunk of change to me. So what’s the deal? Is Tecfidera some sort of stem cell technology derived super-medicine? Maybe some sort of advanced gene therapy? Or a hard-to-isolate protein? No. Not really. Here is the structure of Tecfidera:

Dimethyl fumarate

If you’re thinking that structure looks decidedly low tech, you’d be right. And if you got your degree in chemistry, you’re probably thinking, “Isn’t that just dimethyl fumarate?” — and you’d be right again. From Biogen Idec’s prescribing information, the yearly dose of Tecfidera is about 2 grams. Now, from that screenshot, you can see that I can buy 100 grams of dimethyl fumarate from a chemical supplier for about $56. That breaks down the cost-of-goods for a yearly prescription of Tecfidera to about a dollar. Yow.

Should you be surprised? Should you be outraged? Maybe. But probably not for the reasons you think.

First off, putting Tecdifera though clinical safety and efficacy trials probably cost Biogen hundreds of millions of dollars. Literally. Hundreds of millions. And that money is all spent before they found out whether the drug would even be approved. If the FDA had said “no”, then all that money is out the window (and I’ve been on that side of an FDA decision in my career — the aftereffects ain’t pretty). So yes, Biogen has a LOT of investment in the compound to recoup before they make a penny of profit on it. I think most people can understand that.

The other aspect is probably a little harder to comes to terms with — and that’s the fact that drugs are a commodity. Like oil. Like coffee. Like cars. Like smartphones. Like houses in a desirable neighborhood. As a seller, you charge the price the market will bear. Apple can charge $400-600 dollars for an iPhone. Why? Because people will pay it. The selling point for your house will be determined by comparisons to others like it nearby. Drugs aren’t really that different. For example, Biogen placed their yearly price for Tecfidera about $4000 below that for Novartis’ competitor drug, Gileyna. For better or worse, you could say that $50-60k per year is the market price for a front-line MS medication.

Of course, when you NEED medicine, you’re more likely to take a high drug price more personally than say that of an iPhone because you’re probably a lot more attached to your health than your phone. Though these days, I’m not so sure about that. And hearing prices like that, whether justified or not, always prompts a discussion among those of us that work in the drug industry: What is the appropriate profit for a beneficial or life-saving medicine?

And of course there is the justified finger pointing between the medical community, patients, insurers, and government about the high cost of healthcare, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. My question to you is: If you had spent $400,000,000 on developing a drug that you could sell to a small patient population and your nearest competitor is selling their product at $60000 per year, what would you charge?

A Little Muscle Stretching

It was a busy second half of March here at The Aerie. Well, actually it was a bit of a crunch time at work that precipitated a bit of neglect here and elsewhere online. The good news is that things are getting back to normal so I hope to be caught up with everything soon. Can’t let these blogging muscles atrophy too much!

Let’s Go!

One good thing that came through during this busy stretch was Daylight Savings Time — shifting sunset later made it easy for Penny and I to take a ramble on the chaparral practically every evening. It’s completely a win-win — she gets to run after a day of being at home and I put computers and experiments and the grid aside for just a little while stretching my own legs a bit.

Four Off The Floor!

It’s been a pretty transition to Spring on Mount Miramar. The grasses, which mostly grow here in the winter, have already started to go over, and we’ve had wonderful wildflower blooms.

Plenty of Yellow

Pretty good activity for both your brain and your muscles, I’d say.

Nonfiction Notes

I don’t read a lot of nonfiction. Actually, that’s not true. I read a good deal of nonfiction in the form of science journals for my day job, so when I read for pleasure I prefer fiction because I’m usually looking for a bit of escapism.

However, a couple of months ago, I read two nonfiction books that I thought might be of interest to some people.

So, if you went up to random people and asked them to hum something “classical”, I bet mostly everyone would almost immediately go, “Duh-duh-duh-DUMM!”, don’t you think? In The First Four Notes, Matthew Guerrieri scrutinizes what is arguably the most well-known musical measure in history: the famous opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Looks pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Now, a whole book about four notes might seem a bit tedious, but Guerrieri opens by looking at musical history and the forms that might have influenced Beethoven while writing the symphony, which is kind of cool. He then moves on and describes the impact the symphony’s opening has had on Western culture — starting from its debut in 1808 up through the current day. For example, early on it was postulated that the measure represents Fate literally “knocking at the door”. To me though, what was perhaps the most interesting realization is that so many political and philosophical movements tried to co-opt it for their own purposes, including both sides during the Second World War. Today, I think it’s hard to listen to the Fifth Symphony strictly as a piece of music. It’s so culturally ubiquitous that it’s almost transcended music to something that’s always been with us.

The First Four Notes is probably of prime interest to anyone intrigued by the intersection of music, history, and society, and perhaps those who are interested in how thought and criticism evolve over time. Though not exactly a page-turner (I read more about late 19th century existentialism than I thought I ever would voluntarily), I learned things and a renewed appreciation for a piece of music that I figured no one could illuminate anymore.

One thing though, even if you’re not interested in the book, I suggest that you take a half hour and turn of your phone and turn off your feeds and just listen to that symphony and try and hear it anew. It really is remarkable.

Three stars out of five, perhaps an extra one if you have Beethovophilia.

In a much more down to earth book (Piano Lessons: Music, Love & True Adventures), Noah Adams, who is perhaps best known as the former host of NPR’s All Things Considered, recounts the year in which at age 52, he decided to buy a piano, learn to read music, and learn to play it.

Adams describes his long interest in learning to play and how it was something he “just never got around to”. Well, that’s a feeling that I know pretty well, because several years ago (when I was 41) I decided to do the same thing: get a piano, learn to read music, and learn to play it.

Adams is a good storyteller and does a great job describing the uncertainty that can come in the wake of the decision to purchase a piano. Questions I knew very well: how will I know which piano to get? How much should I spend? What if I decide I don’t like it, or am absolutely terrible? Where do I even start?

The story is told in 12 chapters and covers his successes and setbacks each month. For me, I liked comparing it to my own experience. It was interesting to see that he was too self-conscious to take a class and/or lessons (which is what I did) but first tried to use computer learning (the book is set in 1996, so computer-learning was still a thing in progress and there was no internet to speak of). That was largely unsuccessful though, and Adams turned to the extreme of an immersive “getaway piano camp” week, which given my discomfort for playing in front of people sort of turns my stomach.

Of course, it was really fun to read someone perspective on something so similar to what I had done, though because he worked for NPR, Adams gets to spice things up by interleaving stories of famous musicians that he was able to meet and interview during the year. The closest I can get to that is saying that the Beloved’s cousin is the drummer for Toby Keith’s band and I met him once three years ago.

Piano Lessons is a short, but charming story about an old dog learning new tricks. And that’s something I can completely endorse.

Four stars out of five.

Making An Impact

Last week, I was blissfully unaware that a giant sinkhole could open up underneath my house and kill me while I was watching tv. But does that mean that I was blissfully ignorant of danger? Not at all. Last week, I was thinking about the possibility that something from the sky could crash into my house and kill me while I was watching tv.

No, not weaponized domestic drones. Rocks. Rocks from space.

I mean, let’s think about it. A few weeks ago, we were all waiting for asteroid 2012 DA14 to make an uncomfortably close pass to Earth, when BOOM goes the central Russian morning sky! Rocks from space! Explosions! Windows shattered! It was like an asteroidal bait-and-switch. What kidders.

Oh — and did you know there was another asteroid flyby just the other day just a little further out? And that researchers in Antarctica found giant remnants of what was probably a huge meteorite strike back in the day?

And then came the news this week that there is a small (but distinct) possibility that the planet Mars will be struck by a comet next year. And I don’t mean anything like those little Russian rocks, I mean a giant ass comet. A 30-mile wide hunk of ice and rock that if it was plowing into Earth instead of Mars would almost certainly be a Torino-10 Extinction Level Event. Yeah, so good times out there in the solar system these days.

Now, I’ve always been interested in Near Earth Objects (NEOs) ever since the asteroid-killed-the-dinosaurs theory became known. I’ve written about it before. And even tried to imagine it a little what it might be like to make the realization that the Big One is coming. My outlook wasn’t a very optimistic one.

Of course, I’m not the only one that’s thought about this stuff. Hollywood has used asteroid impacts as a central plot device many times with the films varying both in quality and optimism.

So, as a public service, here is my unscientific analysis of those films in my worst-to-first quality rating.

Meteor
The 1970s had a strong run of disaster movies of increasing scale (Airport, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake!) culminating in the terribly bad Meteor in 1979. This Cold War film focused on the tense (and I use that word loosely) drama between America and the USSR agreeing to use their previously unadmitted-to space nukes to deflect an incoming killer meteor. You’d think a film with Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, and Henry Fonda would be pretty good, right? You’d be wrong. OUTLOOK: Everything can be solved through cooperation.

Armageddon/Deep Impact
1998 treated us to not one, but two asteroid-impact films which really have to be considered together as a pair, even though you knew Deep Impact was less plausible because it had a black guy as President. In each film, the deadly space rock is discovered and a desperate shuttle mission is sent to destroy it. In Deep Impact, there’s a lottery to see who gets to go in bunkers in the mountains to maintain civilization after the dust clears. In Armageddon, everyone just looks at the skies in rock music montages as early arriving rocks improbably strike only major cities. In each, the shuttle crews make selfless choices to avert disaster, or in Deep Impact’s case, minimize it.OUTLOOK: Salvation through sacrifice.

When Worlds Collide
The granddaddy of all impact movies. This 1951 film featured spectacular special effects for its day as civilization grapples with the knowledge that not one, but two rogue planets are heading towards Earth. In the film, the government hustles to create a rocketship to take a small number of people selected by lottery (Deep Impact should have had to pay royalties) to try and settle on the second planet. There’s love and sacrifice and even some dealing with corporate greed as the first planet inexorably draws close. In the end, I mean The End, there’s a very Noah’s Ark feel to the whole thing.

When Worlds Collide

OUTLOOK: Mankind is doomed, but the righteous will (re)inherit the Earth.

Melancholia
This 2011 film was a remarkable meditation on depression that was set against the backdrop of the end of the world. Upon reflection, it was probably the best film I saw in 2012. In it, a rogue planet is approaching and there are conflicting reports of whether it will pass by or crash into the Earth. Rather than follow the panicked masses, Melancholia focuses on an isolated wealthy family, particularly the manic-depressive Kirsten Dunst, who had wrecked her own wedding day on the same day the rogue planet was discovered. Fantastic performances, great writing, and wonderful effects make this a fascinating film. OUTLOOK: You’re f#$&d.

Well, there you go. How many of these have you seen? Which are your favorites? I guess I’ll put my hard hat back on and go watch some television.