Guns, Guns, and More Guns

About 5 years ago I was sitting in a restaurant with a friend when the place was robbed by an armed robber.  I think he got away with something like $85 from the till.  Fortunately for me, he didn't look my way.  I suddenly felt very helpless and defenseless.  It was a strange feeling.  I'm not exactly a towering giant of masculine force, but I've never been left feeling defenseless.  For some reason, this experience really set off a chain reaction in my brain.  I'd always had guns.  I grew up in PA.  They give you a Terrible Towel and a .30-06 at the border when you move there for crying out loud.  I passed the hunter safety course at age 12 and went out hunting with my dad a few times, but I never really felt compelled to do much hunting.  It just wasn't for me.  I did enjoy shooting the rifle and shotgun though.  That was always fun.  The deer rifle was expensive to shoot though. I thought about getting my Washington hunting license, but that involved a big complicated process of online courses and field training.  I just wanted to shoot things. So I looked at some guns at a store and learned a bit, and during this time, Washington State passed some very draconian gun control laws.  (I'm not a gun nut, but the law, I-594, can't be enforced, has no way to ensure compliance, and really does nothing to prevent gun crimes.)  I felt if I wanted to get into guns, now was the time, or I'd need to find another way to scratch this itch.  While researching guns I found videos on YouTube from Ted's Holdover.  I discovered that 'BB' guns had grown up since I was a boy.  No longer was the Daisy Red Rider BB Gun the pinnacle of air powered weaponry.  There were now .50cal airguns pushing, massive amounts of lead down range with enough force to take down MASSIVE game animals.  Elk, wild boar, bear, FREAKIN' BEARS!!!  The more I watched the more interested I became.  Here was an option that I hadn't considered.  I could shoot a gun for which there was no deafening 'BANG', there were no legal restrictions, and the projectiles wouldn't send me to debtors prison.  I started researching. 

Umarex PX4 Storm

I started out buying a knock-off Beretta PX4 CO2 pistol.  It's really fun to shoot, but the CO2 powerlets are expensive.  I kept reading about guys shooting PCP rifles and I had no idea what that was, well, aside from a drug that gave people superhuman strengths...I learned that PCP rifles are Pre-charged Pneumatic air guns.  They have a reservoir on-board that stores a charge of compressed air allowing a number of shots from each charge without having to re-pump or prime the reservoir.  It seemed to be a pretty good system.  The guns had a HUGE range in prices, features, calibers, performance...where to begin with learning?  I read, watched videos, read some more, watched some more videos and eventually arrived at a few potential options.  The Benjamin Marauder by Crosman was simple, reliable, and common.  It was the Toyota Camry or Ford Taurus of the PCP gun world.  No frills, but it got the job done.  The other option I looked at was the Hatsan AT-44.  That one looked like a good option on paper, but it had little or no history at the time, so I went with the Marauder.  

But man, even this is still really expensive...$650 for the gun, $100 for the scope, $200 for the pump...$50 for the case...$15 for ammo... so I waited...and waited and watched, and waited...finally I found an angle to get all the pieces I'd need at a reasonable price.  I've had so much fun shooting this gun.  For $15 I can shoot 250-300 rounds.  I eventually purchased a used surplus SCBA tank from eBay and built my own filling station for the gun, so no more pumping for me.  I also learned that my PA Hunter Training certification from 1987 was portable and valid in WA! I got my small game license and I'm in business.  I read through the regulations and learned that I can't take any game with an airgun in Washington...Grrrr!  OK, so now I need a small caliber rifle.  I'm not ready to hunt deer yet.  I start shopping around looking at .22 caliber rifles.  I finally find what I'm looking for at Bi-Mart: a Savage Model 64 .22.

Savage Model 64 .22LR

It's compact, accurate, semi-auto and FUN to shoot. Within two weeks of buying it, I've burned through about 300rounds! I had to purchase gun locks, a gun cabinet, rifle cleaning equipment, scopes, cases...man this is expensive.  But fun.

The Stock Market is Baffling

I posted before about Genspera (GNSZ).  I think that it is a really interesting company with a compelling product.  Today (9/9/15) Genspera announced that their Phase II trials of their lead candidate drug shows promising results against not only liver cancer, but also brain cancer and solid mass cancerous tumors in general.  You'd think that would be a positive bit of news, right?  Apparently not, as the stock nosedived 25% in short order after the announcement.  Baffling.

Genspera (GNSZ)

I am really excited about this stock, and this company.  I first read about them years ago in an article at Gizmodo.com I believe.  The approach that they were taking seemed radically different to what other researchers were working on.  They've created a drug that is completely toxic, derived from a plant that is known to kill anything that eats it, but it can travel through the body harmlessly until it bumps into a specific protein which only forms on the surface of cancerous tumors.  In other words, it's like a smart bomb.  It travels through the veins and detonates at precisely the correct moment and location to cause maximum damage to the target and minimize collateral damage.  They just wrapped Stage II trails with very promising results and are about to begin Stage III trials.  It's a dirt cheap stock currently.  If Stage III trials go well, I'd imagine it can only go up.  I'm excited for the concept, I'm excited for the results, and I'm excited for the potential.  If I can get rich off of it in the process....all the better.



Press Release:

SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- GenSpera Inc. (OTCQB: GNSZ) today announced the encouraging results of a Phase II study of mipsagargin (G-202), an investigational agent for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The results will be presented today (12:00 to 2:00 p.m. PST, Abstract #301) in a poster presentation at the 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California. 

The Phase II results demonstrated that mipsagargin appears to be effective and is well-tolerated by HCC patients. Mipsagargin targets the enzyme prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), which is highly expressed in tumor vasculature and prostate cancer cells. The Phase II study results (n=25) demonstrate that the prodrug effectively stabilizes progression of HCC by reducing blood flow within tumors while not affecting blood flow within normal tissues. 

"We are very encouraged with the positive results from this Phase II trial that demonstrate the tolerability and show indications of effectiveness of mipsagargin in advanced liver cancer patients," said Craig Dionne, PhD, chief executive officer at GenSpera. "Mipsagargin is a first-in-class agent with a novel mechanism of action that is unlike any other drug being tested in patients with advanced liver cancer. Based on the results of this study, we intend to move forward with a large, global Phase III trial."

Mipsagargin's targeted approach differs from other vascular targeting agents by destroying established tumor vasculature rather than slowing the growth of new tumor blood vessels. The PSMA-targeting agent is designed to minimize side effects commonly observed with other therapies, while maximizing activity against tumors. 

"These results demonstrate the potential that mipsagargin has to treat one of the world's deadliest cancers," said Devalingam Mahalingam, MD, PhD, an oncologist at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and principal investigator of the study. "In addition to observing prolonged disease stabilization in some patients, we noted anecdotal evidence that patients had improved performance status with much less fatigue and side effects associated with other anti-cancer therapeutics."

With Phase II complete, GenSpera is designing a large, international Phase III study which will further define the anti-tumor potential of mipsagargin in liver cancer patients. More information on mipsagargin (G-202) can be found at www.genspera.com.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common form of cancer that originates in the liver. In the United States, more than 33,000 new cases will be diagnosed in 2015. Globally, liver cancer is a primary public health issue with more than 700,000 people diagnosed and more than 600,000 deaths annually. It is the most common type of cancer in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. A liver cancer diagnosis is often subsequent to other liver disease, making treatment of a highly compromised patient population particularly challenging.

Data Establishes Foundation for Continued InvestigationThe Phase II study (Abstract #301) of mipsagargin was a multi-site, single arm study designed to assess time to progression and response rate to treatment. The study measured disease progression in 25 patients with advanced-stage liver disease and poor liver reserves who had failed first line treatment with sorafenib. Patients were administered episodic dosing of mipsagargin on the first three days of each treatment cycle. Study participants experienced a median time to progression of 4.2 months, nearly twice the time demonstrated in prior studies with placebo or ineffective agents. Thirty-five percent of patients received 5 or more cycles of treatment with an average time on study of 7.1 months.  Additionally, mipsagargin demonstrated decreased blood flow in liver tumors as measured by DCE-MRI.

About GenSperaGenSpera Inc. is a San Antonio-based biotech company that unlocks conventional thinking to conceive, design, and develop cancer therapies. GenSpera's technology platform combines a powerful, plant-derived cytotoxin (thapsigargin) with a patented prodrug delivery system that provides for the targeted release of drug candidates within tumors. GenSpera's lead drug candidate, mipsagargin, was granted Orphan Drug designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 for evaluation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).

Being Alone

Being alone by yourself is so much better than being alone together with someone else. In the first situation you're physically isolated, while in the second you're actively ignored. The first situation is lonely. The second is painful. 

Where's the Inflation?

I keep reading about economists predicting out of control inflation in the US.  They've been predicting it for 4-5 years now.  Mathematically, they have reason for concern.  To stem the bleeding of the 2008 financial collapse, the US government "printed" enormous sums of money.  Ordinarily, that would result in out of control inflation. Except it is now 6 years later and it still hasn't happened.  Why?  The government didn't actually print anything.  They made a few computer keystrokes and created and transferred money that didn't exist before .  They did this to balance the books of over-leveraged under-capitalized companies.  This new money never actually went into circulation.  As of yet, it hasn't touched the hands of the average American.  Instead, it went into the coffers of corporations and the fantastically wealthy.  For them (the 1% folks), it didn't really change anything.  When you have a net worth of Billions of dollars, a few hundred million here and there doesn't really change anything.  They weren't forced to sell a home, or a fleet of expensive cars.  That money was fictitious for all intents and purposes.  Eventually, that money will leak into the public stream and it will cause problems though.  Until then, the poor are still poor, the rich are richer, and everyone in between is still in between.

2 Days in the Valley

I spent 2 days alone with Ender this weekend.  It was bitter cold one day, and then we had 12" of snow the next.  On the first day it was too cold to leave the house except to run to the car.  On the second day we almost couldn't leave the house.  We managed to make it to the movie theater two days in a row and watched Frozen on Saturday and The Lego Movie on Sunday.  Frozen was good, but it could have been great if they'd just left out the song and dance numbers.  The Lego Movie was just plain fantastic.  I strongly recommend it.  We spent almost all of the rest of our time making things with Legos.

I'm feeling a bit isolated recently.  I don't really get out much and I don't really have any close friends to do much of anything with.  Everything that I want to do seems to be scheduled specifically to coincide with every single thing that my wife has scheduled for several months in advance.  Hockey on Monday?  Wife has a poetry group.  Hockey on Thursday?  Wife has a book club.  Hockey on Sunday?  Wife has weekend away / some writing workshop / some random thing that has her out of town until just after I need to leave to get to hockey on time.  Beer and Science Night?  There's always something that keeps me from going.  It's getting really frustrating.

Hard About! Hoist the main sail!

Every once in a while I get a tingly feeling when I read about a company. The tingly feeling is usually accompanied by a desire to purchase stock in said company because some type of change of monumental scale is afoot. I'm getting that feeling about Yahoo. I feel that they finally have someone in charge after nearly a DECADE of foundering and flailing about in vain. It seems that they have a direction. Their horrible management of the last 10 years has left them no choice in their direction. They could have been a force to be reckoned with, but they were like a sledge hammer with a finite number of swings available to them. The swings were all spent in fear and desperation instead of focused on a single goal. They gave away much of their talent when they let Microsoft take over their search operations. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "Agreeing to work with Microsoft is like agreeing to a dinner date with Hanibal Lechter. You might as well role in spices and jump in the oven." Yahoo isn't dead yet though. They have extensive global operations...operations where they're actually doing their own search. It will take them a while and it will involve re-inventing the company yet again, but they might pull out of nosedive and become a respectable company yet again.

A 'HelpDesk' is a resource to turn to for help. It is not a 'Do-It-For-Me' resource. I think that if I could get that point across to more people my desire to kill myself daily would diminish dramatically.

I was discussing finances with some people last night and we talked about how different people reacted to the recession. Some people sold everything and hoarded their cash in low-interest investments. My personal feeling was that the stock market was on sale. All of it. I increased my retirement savings by about 50% in 2008. I figured so long as I have a job and I don't have an immediate need for this money I'd better make use of this once in a lifetime opportunity. I looked at my standard IRA returns a few days ago and I saw just how dramatic the swings in the market were in 2008:

Personal rate of return 01/31/2012
1 year : 3.3%
3 years : 19.8%
5 years : 2.5%

That doesn't mean that I made a fortune in 2009, but rather that I lost a fortune in 2008 and things recovered in 2009-2011...and then some. But in addition to that, I maxed out my IRA contributions, started a ROTH IRA, and made some large (for me) investments in individual stocks while things were down. I bought GE, C, BAC, USB, and F all at incredible discounts. GE is now almost 100% above where I bought it at. C continued to tank and is still in negative territory, but I'm confident that it will recover eventually and earn a profit for me. F is doing well. BAC was doing well, then tanked. I don't know when or if that will recover, but if it does I should do pretty well there too.

I remember a time not that long ago, maybe 3-5 years ago, when I liked my job and looked forward to going in. Now I feel like it is death by a thousand paper cuts. In the last 3 years my responsibilities have tripled, my pay has been flat, and I've lost vacation time. My benefits of been reduced. When I do take a vacation, I'm still on-call. When I wake in the morning I can feel my psychosomatic gland whipping up a flu, sore throat, stomach ache, head ache, etc in an effort to convince me to call in sick. I used to tell myself "be thankful, you still have a job". Now I'm starting to think that my job is killing me. We shouldn't live to work. We should work to live. My job is not enhancing my life in any way. It is interfering with my life and my health. The worst bit though is that I feel trapped, helpless and powerless. I can not just look in the paper and get another job. They don't exist. So on I go a little closer to giving up everyday. Damned Protestant Work Ethic. Mazlow would use me as an example. At 1 day shy of 36 I'm clinging tenaciously to the first stage of Mazlow's Hierarchy and I'm pretty sure that my job is trying to take that from me too.

5 weeks of a sick child has left me exhausted. Ender went through a long string of symptoms and is only now starting to act normal again. He has spent about 1/6 of his short life with a cold. Poor guy. I hope that he rebounds quickly.

This is a long shot, but it might be time to invest in Palm. They've essentially taken the brains from Apple and they are re-inventing the company. The stock price is fairly reasonable, and I suspect that they are going to see a bit of a resurgence against all odds...just like Apple in the late 90s. Jon Rubenstein is the current 'top dog' at Palm. Jon was chief of hardware engineering at Apple and helped to conceive and create the iPod. Fred Anderson is on the board of Palm and Elevation Partners and he was the director of Finance for Apple. Avie Tevanian just joined the board of Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that is a major investor in Palm. Avie Tevanian was the lead developer of the NeXT OS that later became OS X when Apple purchased NeXT. He worked as the head software developer at Apple until 2006. Elevation Partners was co-founded by Fred Anderson (see above) and Bono (of U2). Much of the staff of Palm and Elevation Partners seems to be ex-Apple employees and seems to be a ring of brains around Palm that aren't likely to allow them to fail. It just seems like too many planets and stars are lining up to ignore.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10433198-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
http://www.elevation.com/EP_port.asp
http://www.elevation.com/EP_IT.asp?id=112
http://investor.palm.com/committees.cfm

I do find it to be interesting that U2 has shilled for both Apple and RIM (Blackberry), but not Palm, despite the fact that Bono is a major shareholder of Palm through Elevation Partners.

When I wake up in the morning and I hear Ender crying or whining I'm a bit annoyed that I'm now completely responsible for him until my wife wakes up. I credit being groggy with sleep for this emotion because it is out of character for me. Once I walk into his room a miraculous transformation occurs. He immediately stops fussing and smiles the most incredible smile at me. Suddenly I feel privileged to be responsible for him. I'm now awake, happy, and ready to start my day.

Ender is just a few days over 4 months old. As he stared up at me while sucking down yet another bottle this morning I thought 'this is probably as close to being a god as I'll ever come'. At the same time I felt utterly insignificant. I had helped to create a new life--something that has been aptly referred to as the 'Miracle of Life'-- yet I am well aware that this "miracle" has occurred at least 7-10 billion times in the history of the world. That makes it hardly a rare occurrence but it doesn't make it any less a miracle somehow.

In the book 'The Age of Intelligent Machines' Ray Kurzweil argues that humans build upon their technological developments and this causes the technological developments to increase in frequency. He argues that within my lifetime computers will exist that exceed the storage capacity of the human brain and which will also exceed the computational power of the human brain. That doesn't mean that a smart machine is anywhere on the horizon in my opinion (though Ray Kurzweil disagrees). Ender was born as an essentially unfinished fetus with a brain that was a blank slate. For three months he finished developing while outside the womb and NOW he is starting to become a human. I see the scientific process at work in his brain before he even knows what science is. Observe, create a theory, experiment, review, integrate results into next experiment, form new theory, repeat. He is creating a framework from which to hang his personality on. He is learning how to learn. Think about that for a few seconds. It is a chicken/egg conundrum yet he doesn't let that bother him in the least. Simple tasks such as watching my wife drink from a glass are revelations to him. From that single observation he is learning about fluid dynamics, gravity, muscle control, biology, leverage and who-knows-what-else. It is really amazing to see how a human brain learns how to learn. When a computer finally learns how to learn, beware -- Terminator 4(5?) can't be far off in the future.

Today we leave for Seattle on the first leg of our trip back to Pittsburgh. We're staying overnight with a friend who lives very close to SeaTac. Then we leave in the morning for Pittsburgh. It is the first time we're travelling with the little man. We will be just as confused by the experience as he will be, maybe more so. There are different rules for the FAA, airline, TSA, and the 'unspoken' rules for the random TSA inspectors. I'm sure that at some point someone will make us get rid of something, but we don't know what, so we're trying to plan for every contingency to guarantee that we have diapers and formula no matter what they ask us to leave behind. We have to arrange to have car seats available everywhere. At least this will be the first flight where the screaming inconsolable child that everyone curses will be MINE! Mwah ha ha ha ha!

Last night my wife and my in-laws and I went to see Bill Cosby performing live at Central Washington University for their homecoming. I wasn't really sure what to expect. He delivered an hour and a half long monologue about his experience with getting his daughter through high school and college. It was an interesting experience. I didn't expect 1 long topic. He really managed to drive home the point of view of a parent. His speech was clearly targeted at the audience (college students and their parents) but also managed to reach any parent with a child in college, or graduated from college. What was interesting to me is that my child is 3 months old and I already was able to relate to his words about a parent's love being unconditional. I only have unconditional love for a handful of people in this world, and my son has earned it within a short 3 months. To be honest it happened in only a few seconds after he was born.

Ender has grown quite a bit. On his last visit to the doctor they told him he was in the 99th percentile for height, but because of his height, he was in the 45th percentile for weight. He looks like a 2 year old with a baby's head. It is a bit awkward looking honestly. Still unbearably cute though. He is a happy kid who loves to smile and giggle. He graduated to his crib a few weeks ago because he was simply too big for the bassinet. We're getting ready for a week long trip back to Pittsburgh and that is a daunting task with a 3 month old child. I guess that we'll just have to wing it. The TSA and the airlines have so many rules for traveling with a child.

I rode this bike about 12 miles last week. It is a pretty cool bike. It is an A2B Metro from UltraMotor. It is an electric bike capable of going 20mph for about 20 miles. It came pretty close to meeting those claims. I only managed to average 17MPH for about 14 miles but I suspect that it would have gone the distance if I'd peddled a bit more. I was considering buying one to replace my motorcycle. The problem is that the bicycle barely can reach its claimed top speed, and barely went the distance that it claimed it could go. As a bicycle it has 7 gears, but it weighs almost 75lbs because of the batteries. That doesn't make for a pleasant pedal bike. The biggest obstacle though was the cost. It lists for about $3000. The one that I was looking at was on close-out for $1800, the cheapest price in the country I've learned, and that is still too much. I can buy a NEW Honda Rebel motorcycle for $3000. It gets 60MPG and will go 60 MPH easily. The A2B Metro is a good start, but it is just not quite ready for mainstream in my opinion.

OK, the last 4 days have been nice for me, hell for Kodiak. Ender has been sleeping almost all night long, except for a short 20m break around 3 for diaper and milk. Great! Everyone gets a full night of sleep. Except he wakes up HUNGRY just as I'm leaving for work. By the time I get home Kodiak is drained from trying to placate the child for 10 hours and he is just now starting to wind down. She is exhausted as she hands the kid to me and I get the tired, content, loving child who thinks that I can do no wrong. Hardly seems fair, but I'll take it.

Sleep has become an issue of contention in our household. I'm now the primary earner. Kodiak took time off to raise Ender. I need to keep my job, which means I need to be able to do my job, which means I need a certain amount of sleep. Having said that, Kodiak is sleeping in 2 hour shifts because the little man has a voracious appetite. We're trying to find a balance, but it is tough. At most I get 4-6 hours of sleep. Kodiak might get the same amount, but it is broken up throughout the day making it not very fulfilling. I try to give her a nice chunk of un-interrupted sleep every few days, but it is tough during the week. Her mother has been helping out during the weekday mornings, but she will be going back to work soon as the summer comes to an end. We'll figure something out, but I'm hoping that Kodiak doesn't go crazy first.