Post Christmas Run-down

Sorry it's been so long since I've gotten a post up (as if someone may have missed me). :-)

Our Christmas season was a whirlwind of activity starting at noon on Christmas Eve.

Mom P. made some amazing prime-rib for our Christmas Eve lunch. That afternoon we opened presents with Heidi's brothers & sisters. Heidi surprised me with a DeWalt 4 piece 18V battery tool set! Now I'm ready to tackle projects around the house armed with a hammer-drill, a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, and a flashlight. :-) Very cool.

I played Settlers of Catan for the first time. Heidi & I were a team and we managed to squeak out a win! We spent the night at Max & Mary's and went to church on Christmas morning.

Right after church it was back to Max & Mary's for the Dolly Schick family Christmas. I managed to get a wet/dry vac from the White Elephant grab due to Jason Schick's kind heart! :-) Thanks to Scott for bringing a sweet gift to the white elephant grab.

Friday I worked around the house a little bit sealing up our storm windows. Heidi & I went into Peoria to make sure the camera I got her for Christmas was the one she wanted. We went to Peoria Camera Shop to get educated. We decided the one I bought her was our best option right now. Both our camera's had seen better days, so we're excited to have a camera that functions correctly.

Friday evening was the big Schick Christmas with all of Heidi's great-aunts & uncles.

Saturday morning I went and looked a foreclosure with my dad in Eureka, and at noon we had the Pfaffmann Christmas at Max & Mary's (notice Max & Mary's house got used a lot this Christmas!). We had to leave that Christmas a little early to hurry over to my parents house for the Knapp Christmas on Saturday evening.

Now we've got one more Christmas left on January 3rd. We're making the trek to Lester to have the big Knoblock Christmas. Last year I think we had just shy of 150 people! That's just my mom's brothers and sisters and their families. My grandma will have Great-Great-Granddaughters at this Christmas!

Through it all I stand in awe that our God, the God who breathed the universe into existence, was willing to come to earth and bind himself in the form of a baby. The drastic power difference between our God and a human baby is incomprehensible. Yet our creator loved us that much.

Praise Him!

Counterintuitive Probability

How to better your chances of winning the car!

More Science Experiments videos at 5min.com

What they don't factor into the strict probability logic is your emotional distress for switching doors and then getting a goat knowing you had picked the car first. That would be much more traumatic than sticking with your original door and missing the car.

So how good are you at putting your emotions aside and doing what makes sense? :-)

*YAWN*

The Yawn Explained: It Cools Your Brain
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


Dec. 15, 2008 -- If your head is overheated, there's a good chance you'll yawn soon, according to a new study that found the primary purpose of yawning is to control brain temperature.

The finding solves several mysteries about yawning, such as why it's most commonly done just before and after sleeping, why certain diseases lead to excessive yawning, and why breathing through the nose and cooling off the forehead often stop yawning.

The key yawn instigator appears to be brain temperature.

"Brains are like computers," Andrew Gallup, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Binghamton University who led the study, told Discovery News. "They operate most efficiently when cool, and physical adaptations have evolved to allow maximum cooling of the brain."

He and colleagues Michael Miller and Anne Clark analyzed yawning in parakeets as representative vertebrates because the birds have relatively large brains, live wild in Australia, which is subject to frequent temperature swings, and, most importantly, do not engage in contagious yawning, as humans and some other animals do.

Contagious yawning is thought to be an evolved mechanism for keeping groups alert so they "remain vigilant against danger," Gallup said.

For the study, the scientists exposed parakeets to three different conditions: increasing temperature, high temperature and a moderate control temperature. While the frequency of yawns did not increase during the latter two conditions, it more than doubled when the researchers increased the bird's ambient temperature.

A paper on the findings has been accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behavior.

"Based on the brain cooling hypothesis, we suggest that there should be a thermal window in which yawning should occur," Gallup said. "For instance, yawning should not occur when ambient temperatures exceed body temperature, as taking a deep inhalation of warm air would be counterproductive. In addition, yawning when it is extremely cold may be maladaptive, as this may send unusually cold air to the brain, which may produce a thermal shock."

The parakeets yawned as predicted.

It's now believed yawning operates like a radiator for birds and mammals.

If air in the atmosphere is cooler than brain and body temperatures, taking it in quickly cools facial blood that, in turn, cools the brain and may even alter blood flow. Prior studies reveal yawning leads to a heightened state of arousal, so a morning yawn may function somewhat like a cup of coffee in providing a jolt of energy.

The new findings also explain why tired individuals often yawn, since both exhaustion and sleep deprivation have been shown to increase deep brain temperatures, again prompting a yawn-driven cool down. Yawning additionally appears to facilitate transitional states of the brain, such as going from sleep to waking periods.

Gordon Gallup, Jr., a State University of New York at Albany psychologist, did not work on the study, but, as Andrew Gallup's father, paid close attention to the research. The senior Gallup also happens to be a leading expert on the science of yawning and other widespread evolved traits.

"It is interesting to note that instances of excessive yawning in humans may be indicative of brain cooling problems," Gallup, Jr., told Discovery News, pointing out that patients with multiple sclerosis often experience bouts of excessive yawning "and MS involves thermoregulatory dysfunction."

"Bouts of excessive yawning often precede the onset of seizures in epileptic patients, and predict the onset of headaches in people who suffer from migraines," he added.

In the future, researchers may focus more on brain temperature and its role in diseases and their symptoms. But the new study on yawning changes the popular notion that yawns are mere signs of boredom.

On the contrary, as Gallup said, "yawning more accurately reflects a mechanism that maintains attention, and therefore should be looked at as a compliment!"

Resting in God's Faithfullness

It's almost surreal. Heidi's done with nursing school. It's over. No more Methodist College of Nursing classes. She passed her last final this morning.

Granted, she still has to study for and take her Nursing Boards, but still, today marks a wonderful milestone. She's really excited to move into the next chapter of life. It's really amazing, looking back, how incredibly faithful God has been through her schooling. He's given her amazing grace to balance her school and home responsibilities. I marvel at how deftly she handled her multiple roles, and recognize that it's only in the power of Christ. That's not to say there were no hard times. There were. But they were most often short and isolated.

May we be able to look back on this time in our life and draw strength and encouragement from God's faithfulness.

A big thanks also to the wonderful friends and family God has surrounded us with to give us encouragement and joy in life.

God is good.

Calvin's Business

click the cartoon to enlarge.

Reminders

Sometimes we wonder why we moved from a 2 year old condo to a 50 year old farm house.



And then sometimes, we don't wonder at all.