Somebody made me smile today

Posted on June 12, 2006
Filed Under Summer, biking, happiness, health, photography |

Somebody made me smile today (well, Sunday to be exact). On account of the brilliant sunshine, and the need to get a suntan*, I went for a cycle with the rough aim of Bull Wall near Ringsend as my goal. I took the long route home via O’Connell Street…as one does. Stopped at the traffic lights outside the Westin Hotel, there was a build-up of pedestrians waiting to cross. it’s one of those intersections where pedestrians are not quite sure what to do. Tourists just wait for the green light to cross (haha). Well, one of them (& a female as well) gave me the once-over. More than once, actually! It made me smile. Considering I was wearing shorts, tshirt etc, ego-boosts don’t come better than that. Does my bum look big in this? No!

Anyway my mind is wandering so here’s some random photos of Bull Wall, Ringsend.

* I’m a vegetarian and I do look like death warmed up. Lack of iron (ferrous/ferric - can never remember). What a dumbo but, in my defence, I’m a biologist and not a chemist. It’s kinda weird because a relative (60yrs+) has just been diagnosed with haemachromatosis (English wiki). Hemachromatosis (American wiki) is a genetic disease which leads to a build-up of iron in the blood. And the treatment? Diet has minimal effect so semi-regular blood-letting is the treatment. Seriously.

What’s even weirder is that it’s very prevalent in Ireland and…Japan! There are three types of genetic mutation associated with this condition. Two of them affect the Irish population and the third (about 5% of 100% diagnoses) are found in the Japanese population.

Weirdest of all is that, in a previous life, I used to advise hospitals on how to use molecular techniques to fast-diagnose these types of genetic disease. One hospital on the Northside wouldn’t take our technology because they couldn’t afford it. The GP’s (family doctors) who used their clinic wouldn’t pay up on time so this clinic spent a lot of their time chasing GP’s for monies owed!

Another hospital took our technology on board because they had a big problem with M.O.M. s*x. M.O.M. stands for men-on-men. Join the dots! I still chuckle, even though I shouldn’t, at this acronym. P.S. I’ve deleted the e in s*x (and wrote M.O.M.) as I don’t want people searching for those words finding me through Google etc. Not that I’m prudish but that’s not part of why I blog - there’s a public and private part to everyone’s life.

Finally, so I can finish on a happy note, here’s my favourite cartoon. The copyright obviously belongs to doonesbury. They won’t sell outside the U.S. but I wonder is someone on ebay has the same issues? Must check. Next challenge is find a 5 year-old cartoon print using…what search terms? My brain isn’t linear enough to figure this out.