What's in a Google? WHERE

Here's something I started a couple of weeks ago on RSBR, cause as we all know, the weekends are slow around here. I call it "What's in a Google?". It's simple really; type one word into Google and see what the magic bot suggests for you. Once in a while, you can get some pretty funny suggestions. What's crazy, is I'm pretty sure that it means these are the most common searches.

Word: Where

Top suggested searches:

where's my refund

where do i vote

where the wild things are

where is chuck norris

where to vote in arizona

where's waldo

where the heart is

where to vote

where

where the red fern grows

I've highlighted my favorite. I often wonder what Chuck Norris is up to these days and where to find him. When I actually searched for Chuck Norris, I came up with this screen:

That's enough for me! I'll be going into hiding now :)

Flash Me Friday - "The Fridge"

There is officially no Flash Me Friday today, but I'll be making up for one of the two that I've missed leading up to this point. In late May, the Flash Me called for pictures of our refrigerator but I didn't get the memo until I was walking out the door for a family trip. To see the cold boxes of others, please click here. Our fridge is pretty typical, and in a perfect world, would be bigger, but such is life. I do the best I can to keep it clean and organized, but as you'll see in the pictures, this doesn't always happen :)

What you see is what you get...although the water and ice dispenser come in handy for late night drink runs :)

Can you spot the Pulmozyme?

From top to bottom (must haves): Eggs/Powerade, Diet Mountain Dew, Cup Cakes, Yogurt, Hamburger, Bacon, Pizza Sauce

From top to bottom (in terms of organization): Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, [empty], Frozen fruits/vegetables/cheese, Meats, Grains

Side fridge: Full of ice packs and coffee

Are you interested in participating? This brainchild of Jen over at The Groettum Family blog is a weekly series in which we have to take a picture of her choosing without any cleaning up whatsoever. If you want in on the action, please visit here for the "rules".

What the _____?: August 5th, 2010

A while ago we started a little contest on this blog in which I post a picture and whoever comes up with the most clever/funny/witty/etc caption gets put into a drawing for prizes at the end of the year. Still don't have everything figured out as of yet, but we do know a couple of things 1) There will be multiple prizes 2) I love the participation so far 3) If you think your submission is inappropriate for others to see, you can always email your answer directly to me at ronnie@cysticlife.org :) 4) I've literally LOLed all weeks so keep it coming!

This week's picture:

Alright, what do ya got!?!?

Last week's photo with the winning caption:

Winner: "I'm so desperate, even a one handed hooker will do"

submitted by Allison

2nd: "Unfortunately, she is the best he can do..."

submitted by Amara

3rd: "At least this 'woman' is solid and won't pop like my blow-up doll!"

submitted by Kati

Dancing Through The Decades w/ CysticLife

Here's the question: How many of you live in the Phoenix area AND have no plans this Saturday? Please, not everybody speak up at once :) Well, it's worth a shot to at least give you guys the info on this cool little painless fundraiser that's being held with all of the proceeds going to CysticLife. Here are the details:

August 7 · 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Tempe Center for the Arts Theater

700 W. Rio Salado Parkway

Tempe, AZ

Fred Astaire Arizona is proud to present “Dancing Through The Decades” – A benefit performance for CysticLife. Both Fred Astaire students & teachers will be dancing numbers and routines to music throughout the decades to the songs that have inspired us, made us laugh, or just want you want to dance. The show is filled with novelty numbers, ballroom numbers, and Latin numbers for the audiences enjoyment. We would LOVE to see you there!!

Not in Arizona? You can still purchase a ticket just to donate to the cause!

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS:
http://tca.ticketforce.com/ordertickets.asp?p=815&backurl=default.asp

I would absolutely love to see you guys there and like the blurb said, if you can't come but would still like to buy a ticket, the money is going to a great organization. CysticLife's sole mission is to make an immediate impact in the lives of CFers and their families. Every dollar that we raise can help CL fulfill that mission.

Thanks guys!!

Another Day, Another Drug Study

Can I just say, I love me some drug studies! I'm pretty much on a schedule now of doing drug studies back-to-back-to-back and so on and I'm already plotting the next one I'd like to do. I figured though that I'd fill you guys in on the one that I started today. Actually, I misspoke, I sort of started it today. I went in to give blood and urine so they could establish a baseline to compare the rest of the data with. Friday is the big day in which I actually get to take one of two doses of the drug or a placebo. I of course hope I get the real deal, but hey, somebodies got to take the sugar pill right?

Ok, so what is this drug? Since I'm no medical mind and although I have a pretty good idea of what it is supposed to do according to my doc, I still won't attempt to answer. I will however let Clinical Trials Feeds give you their answer:

Official Title: “A Randomized, Double Blind, Parallel Group, Placebo Controlled 28 Day Study to Investigate the Safety, Tolerability and Pharmacodynamics of SB-656933 in Patients With Cystic Fibrosis”

Study Drug, SB-656933, is a selective CXCR2 antagonist in development as a novel, once-daily oral anti-inflammatory agent for the maintenance treatment of Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). We want to find out if this experimental drug will help decrease inflammation and slow the progression of lung disease. This study compares how well different doses of the experimental study drug (SB-656933) control inflammation in patients with CF. Two doses of the study drug will be assessed against placebo to see which dose works best.

And how will they know if this stuff works? Well, we have to go to ClinicalTrials.gov for that:

Primary Outcome Measures:

• Safety and tolerability of SB-656933 in subjects with cystic fibrosis, including, adverse events, vital signs, clinical laboratory assessments (hematology, chemistry, urinalysis, and VB-1),electrocardiographic (ECG)parameters,and exacerbation of CF [ Time Frame: 28 days and followup ]
  

Secondary Outcome Measures:

• Sputum microbiology at 28 days as measured by bacterial colony counts of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus [ Time Frame: 28 days ]
  
• Induced sputum neutrophil number (cells/mL) and percentage (%) [ Time Frame: 28 days ]
  
• Induced sputum inflammatory markers: (e.g. but not limited to: NE, MPO, total protein). [ Time Frame: 28 days ]
  
• FEV1 and FVC [ Time Frame: 28 days and followup ]
  
• Serum and plasma markers of inflammation: (e.g. but not limited to: fibrinogen, CRP, CC-16, MMP8, MMP9, SP-D, CXCL8 (IL-8)) [ Time Frame: 28 days ]
  
• Daily Respiratory Symptom Diary for Cystic Fibrosis (Self Reported Version (Exploratory)) [ Time Frame: 28 days ]
  
• Plasma SB-656933 concentrations and pharmacokinetic parameters including area under the plasma drug concentration vs time curve (AUC(0-24), AUC(0-infinity)),maximum observed plasma drug concentration (Cmax)and time to maximum observed plasma drug consent [ Time Frame: 28 days ]

So needless to say, I'm hoping this sucker works cause inflammation is definitely something I battle. I will keep you guys posted on how it's going and let's all hope that this can be another gun in our arsenal in the next handful of years. I guess I better go read the disclosure clause in the contract now :)

Slacker Monday

I know I know, I'm horrible because it's 11 am AZ time (meaning for many of you folks it's 2 pm) and I'm JUST getting a blog up.

As many of you know, I have been in San Fran all weekend for the CFRI conference. It was a BLAST. It was great getting to put faces to so many names and voices and to meet many people I didn't know before. I will admit, I have SEVERE small talk anxiety, so the thought of making small talk all weekend made my heart race and my palms sweaty. But as soon as the weekend was kicked off, I was chatting away sans racing heart and sweaty palms...everyone was so nice and comfortable that it made small talk bearable - even enjoyable!!

Some personal highlights - in pictures:

I finally met Lisa Greene, a CF mom and parenting guru in person after MONTHS of talking on the phone and working together!

I got to spend time with some great people in the CF world, some faces of Genentech, Novartis and Blooming Rose Foundation (BRF)

Some GREAT women - CF moms rock my socks.

A pair of FUN CF parents that I finally got to meet in person!

Grandma Bev has been around the CF community forever and runs CF Pharmacy in FL - she's a real spark plug and who I want to be when I'm grown up.

Kat from BRF again - on the right, Rose, a freakin' awesome cyster and it was soooo awesome meeting her in person after watching her over and over again on the Breathe video (in the middle is her BF)

This smiley lady is my hero - CF mom and incredible person. I'm lucky enough to see her quite often, but having her at the conference made it that much more enjoyable. She's a riot. (Can you spot Jerry Cahill?)

Finally after talking much on the phone and respecting all that she does, I got to meet Carroll Jenkins, CFRI executive director, in person.

More CF moms - These ladies are the best!

What's in a Google?

Here's something I started last week on RSBR, cause as we all know, the weekends are slow around here. I call it "What's in a Google?". It's simple really; type one word into Google and see what the magic bot suggests for you. Once in a while, you can get some pretty funny suggestions. What's crazy, is I'm pretty sure that it means these are the most common searches.

Word: How

Top suggested searches:

how to tie a tie

how to train your dragon

how to

how i met your mother

how to kiss

how to draw

how to destroy angels

how stuff works

how to boil eggs

how to write a resume

I've highlighted my favorite. How to destroy angels? I'd like to know where they're finding the angels that they're destroying. Maybe google could tell me that.