HEY! LOOK HERE!

Lancaster, CA - A4620928 (right), a 3 month old male brindle chunky APBT Mix who came in as a stray 8/18. Avail. 8/22, KENNEL MATE is A4620929, a 3 month old APBT mix. Please call the shelter at 661.940.4191 RIGHT AWAY if you are interested in adopting any of the dogs I post. This shelter is a publicly funded County shelter with a high rate of 'strays' and 'owner turn ins' and therefore considered "high kill". if you are interested in any dogs I have listed, I urge you to immediately get in touch with the shelter for their adoption procedure. I have seen it too many times where dog's have lost their lives because someone waited just ONE day too long... When you are networking, tagging, etc. please know that rescue "Pages" do not get notifications when you 'line-tag' them (highlighting the page's name in a 'comment'). If you want a page to see a dog in need, you must post the link to the dog's thread (highlight/copy what is in your browser) ONTO their actual page or 'tag' them in the actual photo! Only 'people' (non-pages) you line-tag will get notified, providing they have this feature not turned "OFF".
Adoption fees at this shelter are $120 or less. There is a $20 license fee which only applies if you are a local resident. All fees include vaccines, micro chip and spay/neuter. Unaltered dogs are released after their spay/neuter, unless they get a waiver due to age or health.
The Lancaster, CA shelter is located at
5210 W. Ave. I
Lancaster, CA 93536
(661) 940-4191
Hours:
Monday – Thursday: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Closed Holidays

Directions:
Take the 14 Freeway and exit at Ave. I,
Go 3 miles West to shelter.

NOTE: I am not a rescue, I spread the word about animals in danger at the Lancaster CA shelter which has a very high kill rate compared to other shelters! I don't collect pledges or PM the people who pledged. The person or rescue who saved the animal is responsible for collecting the pledges. I will post a PayPal address or donation information if provided. If you are willing to adopt or have questions on a dog I post, please call the shelter. I have not met ALL dogs I post personally and I can not always call the shelter on every dog to get updates. When I post "no longer listed" this means a dog was either adopted, rescued OR killed. DO NOT DOWNLOAD MY PHOTOS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! PLEASE "SHARE" THEM ON FACEBOOK ONLY. ANYTHING ELSE YOU WISH TO USE MY PHOTOS FOR: PLEASE BE COURTEOUS AND ASK MY PERMISSION SO I CAN DECIDE IF I AM CONTENT WITH WHAT MY PHOTOS ARE BEING USED FOR. THANKS!

Sharpening the edge of a knife

And now your 25!
When you were 18 you were all hormones and no freedom. You were let out into the world to tear up the world with a lode of dumb ideas. And now you are 25.
Still full of hormones screaming at you to fuck shit up, but with the added benefit of the Ghosts of Dumb ideas past hovering over your shoulder. He's a prick, always there to remind me what I should and shouldn't do. Not like my parents when I was 18 who could only warn me in words. This bastard can just show me pictures and hi-res video.
"What's that?" He asks, "Want to stay out till 3 drinking, smoking, and hitting on women?" Causally, he triggers a thought. A memory of me with a headache telling my boss she's a bitch.
Oh, yeah, right.
"Hey," I tell him. "Imma gonna consume massive amounts of stuff because I'm stressing the fuck out."
In a voice that's almost a whisper he says: "Nateva".
"B-b-but, look at my friends! They go for drinks! On Wednesday!"
"That guy there has more money then you will ever see in three lifetimes. That guy has the body of Apollo and calls himself an artist because he has a job that lets him sleep till 12pm and goes to work whenever."
Most of the time, ignoring him is easy. As Robin Williams once said, "God gave man a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to power one at a time."
My advice: Stay blissfully ignorant of the poets, the artists and the philosophers. Thoreau is the reason why you are hungry and broke in a tent in the woods, Burroughs is the reason why your drunk in a small apartment trying to make it with sketchy women, and Hesse wrote the words that justify your life.
Better yet, no harm has come out of Browning or Tennyson. Rowling, Lovecraft and Tolkien give people harmless fantasy escape. It gives the mind to think, relax, and dream about wholesome activities and magic.
C.P. Snow? That dude is dangerous, making the world think science and art should be one and that ethics should a concern for science. You'll find yourself making videos on youtube about math using tinkertoys before long, when you should be contributing to the machine of society. You will be calling for the creation of affordable solar panels for the third world.
What happens to young trouble makers, the youth that stopped around and demanded change? Mandela is dying, Johnny Rotten is a dick, Bono is an arrogant ass, and the ones who died from alcohol, people and plain bad luck are too many to count.
So raise a glass to the hormones of the young, kick the Ghost in the nuts, and live like Dylan Thomas.

Calcium filler post

Calcium. Not just for milk! What started as a post about the mechanisms of calcium signalling in plants fell completely when I realized how complex it was to read about in a week. There is still some cool stuff about calcium and how it makes the world around us work.
Sydney Ringer has one of best science discovery stories. He was keeping rat hearts in tap water suspensions. That is something out of Frankenstein. He found that the hearts would keep contracting in the tap water solutions, but would slow and stop when in distilled water. After some experimentation with calcium salts, he got it to work again. Man, the best that will happen in my job is mold taking over someone's brain.
It helps with nutrient exchange in plants. It signals mychorrzial fungus for penetration of roots epidermal cells. Build up of calcium cations happens when the plant is stressed due to factors such as drought and aboitic stress.
This doesn't answer my question of why it works though. It's frustrating to think that you've come so far in your understanding of things and then you hit something that's above what you actually know. Damnit. And now for me to plug the fact that I want to read Einstein! Because that bastard said lots of things I don't understand.

Notes from vacation

Find a girl who is afraid of snakes. Find a guy who is afraid of heights. Find someone who is AFRAID. Because the man who fears nothing but death; who laughs at thunder, who races storms, and finds humor in the darkest moments, is a friend of the devil, and when you see what goes on in his head, well son, you best be fucking holding on for dear life. Because it will be ride you will not forget.

Espirit l'escalier part 2

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Ganoderma_lucidum_01.jpg/270px-Ganoderma_lucidum_01.jpg

Reishi, or Ganoderma lucidum to those in the know, has all sorts of stuff to help the blood. Next up on "Questions I wished I had a better answer for" is the anti-inflamatory and anti-coagulants of Reishi mushrooms. Why Reishi and not any of the other mushrooms or anti-inflammatory plants? Because I like the name and it's become sort of famous in the mushroom hunting world.
The original question given to me I felt I did not give justice because I had a problem understanding it, due to my love of loud rock music slowly destroying my ears over the years. I can't repeat the question because of this, so all I can say is it had the terms mushrooms and it's affects on blood in it. My answer sort of touched on reishi because it was the only thing I could think of at the time.
Here's the deal, Reishi, like Red Reishi, has some pretty spectacular effects.  It has complex carbohydrates known as water-soluble polysaccharides, triterpeniods, proteins and amino acids¹ that provide the active blood pressure reducing effect
This is a tough one to research, but it seems like you just need to ask the right questions. The major player in Ganoderma is ganoderic acid, which is made up of triterpenes and polysaccharides. Studies have shown that both chemical strands, by themselves, have quite a few potential effects on health^[2]. By itself, ganoderic acid has pretty effective medicinal properties, which have been studied primarily in China, where the mushroom has been popular for medicine for years. The studies on the effectiveness of the preparations are still under way, but studies since at least 2006 have been positive^[3].
It's used for the treatment of a wide variety of things, like lupus, bronchitis, anorexia, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular conditions^[2]. It's the trierpenoids that have been found to work the best for hypertension, working as ACE inhibitors causing the blood vessels to expand. The polysaccharides have been observed to have anti-tumor and reduces cell damage caused by mutagens^[4].
So there's my best research to try and explain some of the effects of Reishi on the human body and the blood. Man, this was intense. I will be back next week.

Espirit l'escalier

You know what? There are some things from my talk on mushrooms that I wished I handled differently, now that I have had a day to recover and think about it. Mostly, I am thinking of the questions that were asked, but I didn't give an answer that I thought was good.
The question that asked was stereotypical of a talk where people talk about the importance of something. "If x disappeared, how much trouble WOULD we be in?" Of course, I had to think of an answer on the spot, and I wanted to finish so I go enjoy my beer. That was one of the best beers I had, by the way.
Due to the beauty of the Internet, I can give a better answer to that question! I don't think anyone who follows this blog was in Philadelphia at the Frankford Hall when I gave my talk, but part of my inability to advertise comes from still being new at this and still being nervous. As I get older, I'll get better, I swear.
I said it would be bad, and I stand by it. If we lost just the fungus used for industrial purposes, it would knock us on our asses but we would cope. We got this far by being conniving little monkeys who are resourceful beyond belief. We would survive. If all fungus disappeared though. . .
We have yet to categorize half of the biology that exists in this world. Fungus is weirdly specific as well, it's hard to track it down. My aunt is fond of talking of the one that grows on the blond hair of a baby boy. And all of the functions it has is still a mystery to us. We are amazing in that we look at all of accomplishments, pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Nature and the world we live in is too large to be understood in the short amount of time we lived. It constantly shows us something we have never seen and defies expectations at every turn.
I brought up the paper I read during the winter about the research being done on the fungus in the stomaches of mice. Curiosity brought them to the point of eradicating the entire growth of fungus in the creatures stomachs. They got sick. We know there is rain in the rain forest, but we are not sure why. We know the presence of organic sodium particles in the atmosphere of the jungle seed the clouds, and according to a study published in August issue of Science last year, we think it might have to do with fungus. Fungus contributes greatly to soil health, helping with nutrient uptake to the plants, breaking down insoluble minerals for plant consumption, and helping creating humus for a healthy soil structure. But this all really just the tip of a very massive iceberg.
Really, the brilliant minds you see exist based on the work and ideas of the men who came before them. As Newton said, we are all dwarfs standing on the backs of giants. We have yet to see beyond the clouds.

Post!!!

And so ends my 2 month obsession with thinking about fungus and having to talk in front of people. Job is finally slowing down for the winter month, hopefully. Now it's time to sit down and focus on writing to exercise the demons.
Hey, this means this post can be about anything! I don't have to talk about my plans, fears, or desires. I don't have to think about mushrooms today. I can take a break before I buckle down and obsess about about Einstein math.
It's no fun to live in the past. It's fun to visit, but I would never make a home there. It boggles my mind when I hear people my age talk about they would rather live in the 60's because those were times when social change happened and people cared, man! The world we live in now rarely slows down and has enough to be pissed about as well as sights to be happy about. It's in our nature to fight and change the world. We are the earthmovers.
Of course, this has nothing to do with anything at all, today. Sometimes I just think about what it takes to become a strong enough personality to change space and time as we know it. We got to exercise that personality, ya know? Turn ourselves into a beacon that is able to attract the best and the brightest of our peers, and become friendly and down to earth enough that we can say we genuinely enjoy our time on earth. And then our friends will help blow up the world.
You know what? It's fun to be extreme and work for a world that we would like to see exist. One day I will grow old and cynical and, like Aristotle, begin to bitch about children having no respect for traditions or their elders.
I spend a lot of time talking. The only action I've taken though is trying to convince people I'm smarter than I am, and sort of working towards making a world I want to live in. Meh.
This concludes an unfocused piece about the subject of nothing at all. Maybe I'll write up that talk I gave, or at least post the slides, but don't count on it. Enjoy your day, and I'm not dead yet.