Life Spoke

here are the before and after pictures of the bar i built in New York. there wasn't much but plumbing and a fridge when i started. i sunk the fridge into the wall and moved the plumbing around for the new sink. i built the back bar including: a sink, counter space, mirror, wine rack, switch operated lighting (i installed my first switch!) and power and cable on the wall where the TV will hang. the bar was pretty basic with some intricate molding around the bar top and a recessed ice bin. the whole project got stained with serious help from my mother-in-law, Pat (i hate staining).

i'm really happy with how it turned out. definitely looking forward to some nice family parties down there, watching football games and playing foosball.

i got out for an hour bike ride yesterday. rode about 25 miles on the bike path that runs along the river in Eugene. the old bike i'm riding needs a new derailleur and the spokes keep 'pinging' because they're loose.

i also wanted to mention that i met a young woman on one of my flights last week. i mentioned my fundraiser and she told me she'd had Hodgkin's Lymphoma when she was in high school. i had no idea that Hodgkin's Lymphoma is a form of cancer. it's amazing how many people have had cancer and how many different types of the disease there are. she told me about her chemo and the long-term worry that it may return.

all these people with cancer, all this worry in our society. the unanswerable health questions seem daunting and yet our soceity flirts with known carcinogens on a daily basis. we apply them to crops, dump them on the ground and in landfills, clean our houses with them and build basement bars with products that offgas them. we even put them in the air from car and truck exhaust.

it's illogical that we accept being exposure to carcinogens. the risk of developing cancer is out of sight and out of mind. even if we are conscious of carcinogens it's inconvenient to avoid them all. it's not like putting on a seat belt or wearing a bike helmet. you'd almost need to step out of mainstream society to avoid them altogether.

i'm not being alarmist or suggesting this system comes to a screeching halt. it's the way we live. change happens lethargically. research like exposure studies into human health effects may over time, help determine how much of a carcinogen will trigger cancer. the numbers are tricky though, because every single human on the planet has a different tolerance. it's difficult to nail down how much exposure to A or B chemical will trigger cancer. right now our best estimates are just 'avoid and/or minimize exposure'. in the long run, companies have excuses to keep making carcinogens and we have excuses to keep surrounding ourselves with them.

all this is not to say that exposure to chemicals in the environment is the only way a person can develop cancer. so even if we reduced exposure down to zero we'd still be seeing people develop the disease. for now, we've got to focus on the disease. the funds we raise for the American Cancer Society will be allocated toward research, toward helping people who have cancer and supporting the sad and scared people who love them. every single one of us who has donated is helping society understand cancer. we're helping to find answers to our current unanswerable questions.

thanks to everyone who donated!
Andrew