Doug – Page 13 – Wilcox Family BLOG

April 11, 2006January 23, 2022

Mostly Mummies: Our MFA Trip

Never visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston without being accompanied by Debi Costine. Back on February 27, we got to do just that.

Nichelle spent the three days before the trip in “intense rest,” hoping to be well enough to go with us. (I hadn’t seen her so determined to do anything major since singing in the Christmas program in mid-December.) Thankfully, she was able to go, although by the end I wished I insisted she use a wheelchair for at least part of it. (In the weeks since, her condition has gotten worse, and I don’t think we’d even try such a trip now.)

We also weren’t sure we could convince David to come. He seemed fascinated, several years earlier, by the mummy at the Museum of Science in Boston, but in the interim years, that fascinating had turned to fear. I spent three weeks trying to psych him up, but it was Debi who spoke to David the night before and convinced him that he would be fine. By the end of her call he was eagerly anticipating the trip.

Above: Debi Costine provides an introduction to ancient Egypt.

What a wonderful trip! The kids loved it, John especially favored this museum over the science-centered ones that I typically drag him to.

Outside the Egyptian wing, Debi sat us down, gave us handouts, and introduced us to things to look for in the Egyptian artifacts. Among them was a cartouche—generally an ellipse with a line on one side, that would be marked with one or two sets of hieroglyphs. This would indicate the name of a god or a king. We also learned about the burial and afterlife beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, including the false door that the spirits would use to retrieve food offered to them.

One of the things Debi stressed was the grain of truth that many cultures preserved after the Flood in their understanding of spiritual things. It was very interesting to see how a proper understanding of death and eternity became corrupted over the years.

Above: Pointing out the hieroglyphs adjacent to a cartouche, indicating the name of a god. (Note Debi’s red hair.)

One of the ideas I found fascinating was that the existence of one’s name carved in stone allowed the existence in the afterlife to be perpetuated. In some cases, pharaohs or other leaders who fell out of favor were “eliminated” after death by having the names chiseled out of their places, as well as statues destroyed. One pharaoh ordered his name hieroglyphs to be carved especially deep. I wonder if it occurred to them to carve it someplace and then hide it.

Above: Barley (along with a crude mortar and pestal) dating from up to 6,000 years ago.

When Nichelle and I attended the MFA last year, we were awestruck by the Egyptian artifacts. They project such a feeling of age. It is truly amazing to walk among them. The barley shown above is a small thing, but it’s astounding to find it preserved for five or six millenia.

Above: King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen (possibly Khamerernebty II).

I absolutely love this statue of King Menkaure and his queen. This couple is elegantly and lovingly rendered, and it impresses me that the artists were able to perfectly recreate the effects of sheer cloth in a stone statue. Note that they are actually clothed, at least in the custom of the time. The statue is unfinished. (There is no name on it; the king’s kilt pleats are not carved, and the base is unfinished.) There are more photos, a write-up, and an audio piece here at the MFA site. Note the folded napkins in Menkaure’s hands. These were authority symbols. Some later statues had rectangular napkins that look more like blocks of wood.

Above: The Egyptian kings would place these stories about their conquests on the borders of their lands. Debi was able to explain the story carved here in much more detail than the museum plaque next to it.

Above: Check out the cartouches on the base of this statue. These have the hieroglyph pairs we were hunting: a sun with a bird, and a bee with a sedge plant. David just told me, “I was the first one who found that one!”

Above: All the geeks in ancient Egypt used these these snazzy pocket protectors. Seriously, it’s a scribal palette, belonging to “The royal draftsmen of the Lord of the Two Lands, Amenemwia.”

Above: The center of the Egyptian funerary room. That’s a bolt of linen in the left foreground that is over 4,000 years old. Amazing!

The funerary room was astounding. It offered much more than the few things we think of as stereotypical Egyptian art surrounding the funeral rituals. Interestingly, the Egyptians were quite reluctant to change the formulae of their rituals, even over the centurals. So, even when the custom of removing the organs and storing them in jars had changed, faux jars were still placed in the burial chamber.

Above: These ceremonial eyes were painted on the sides of coffins to allow the body entombed within to see out.

Above: Debi noticed something about this mummy mask that she had never seen before: It has a beard. This mask (dating from the time around Joseph’s life) may show the result of a Hebrew influence, as the Egyptians didn’t wear real beards, perhaps as a result of Joseph’s revelation of his origin and rise to power.

Above: You’ve read the Old Testament many times, but always wondered what Baal looked like. Now you know! (This one is missing his weapon or thunderbolt. Maybe it was a child’s action figure. It’s about the same size. “Hey, kids! Collect all the Canaanite deities!”)

Above: This Hittite stamp-cylinder seal was impressive, as were the other seals and commercial artifacts, including a set of balance weights and numerous cuneform tablets.

Outside of the Egyptian area, was one of the things we were all really looking forward to seeing: A fragment of a plate (probably smashed by the forces of Alexander the Great) from one of Xerxes four palaces. Debi likes to encourage her students to imagine that Queen Esther herself may have touched it.

Above: Fragment of a Royal Plate
Southwest Iran (probably from Perseopolis, Palace of Xerxes), 485–464 B.C. Diorite. Queen Esther just might have used it. (My photo is blurry, so I’ve linked the image to a better one at the MFA.)

By the time we got to the few more modern things we looked at (much of the 1st century A.D. art, especially from Corinth, is, shall we say, inappropriate for children), they just couldn’t compare to the marvel of the ancient Eyptyian work. They all seemed so … recent.

Above: This painting contains owls hidden within it. I was terrible at finding them, but the kids did well, and really enjoyed the task. This photo isn’t perfect, but I couldn’t find the painting this evening when I searched the online MFA database—even though I found it a few weeks ago.

I’ll also include what is one of my absolute favorite paintings in the MFA. When I first saw it, during my company’s “Winter Thaw” event, I was struck by how beautiful it was. The color is amazing, and it seems photographic in its realism. It really stands out.

Above: Portrait of a Young Woman, possibly Countess Worontzoff, by Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée‑Le Brun. French, 1755–1842.

And David, the little weasel, announced that his favorite part had been the mummies.

April 3, 2006

Millions and Millions? (Answers in Genesis – MVBC Conference)

Yesterday evening the boys and I attended the Answers in Genesis conference hosted by Merrimack Valley Baptist Church, featuring Dr. Ken Ham. (See event details, including driving directions here.)

There are two more sessions this evening. I highly recommend attending. Dr. Ham is an excellent presenter, and teaches in ways that are both fascinating and amusing.

I’ve now attended three different Creation Science conferences: Dr. Ham’s presentations are on par with the excellent work of the Institue for Creation Research. (There is a third, very well-known Creation Science presenter I’ve seen whose seemed to go off-topic at times, and who left me feeling he was a bit loopy when he did so.)

There were a few things which were of particular interest to me, although everything was interesting:

Not a single point mutation ever studied has resulted in an increase of genetic information: They have all (all that we have studied so far, at least) removed information. It turns out that the things we dread, like bacterial resistance to antibiotics, are due to genetic information being lost from the strains. (In one specific example, mutation removed the ability to produce an enzyme that converted the antibiotic to poison within the bacterium, making a particular antibiotic ineffective.)
The explanations of how specific breeds of dogs show subsamples of a more genetically diverse gene pool were excellent. He referred to his wife’s expensive-to-care-for hypoallergenic poodle-type dog as, “my wife’s degenerate, mutant dog.” I have always been fascinated by genetics, and enjoyed this part of the presentations immensely.
During an explanation of ¹⁴C (Carbon 14) dating versus K-AR (Potassium-Argon) dating, Dr. Ham presented a find from a mine in Australia, where samples of fossil trees (not petrified) were found embedded in the bottom of a basalt layer. The layer was K-AR dated at 36 to 45 million years old, while the wood was radiocarbon dated to about 45,000 years old. They can’t both be correct, especially as ¹⁴C isn’t supposed to persist in measurable quantities for more then 100,000 years.

Dr. Ham has blogged about this conference himself here.

Enjoy.

March 31, 2006

Big News: Doug Bakes … from Scratch

Last night, Doug mentioned that he wanted to make banana bread. Now this is major.

So, after dinner, he and Naomi headed out to the neighbors to get 1/2 cup of shortening. He tried a few homes before getting some. The only thing I had to do was put out the ingredients, and he and Naomi did the rest.

The finished product looked great and tasted great. I was very impressed. I told him, “This is just the beginning, just think of all of the things you can start making.” He wasn’t all that keen on that idea, but this morning he mentioned to Naomi that they can make more this weekend.

Doug’s teaching techniques are quite unique, too. I found him telling Naomi, “You have to let go your aggression on the bananas … feel the hate,” when they needed to be mashed. Waaaaay too much Star Wars influence here. She had a lot of fun, and Doug commented that it was fun working with her, too. Naomi also likes to help me cook, so she now gets the teaching from both of us. Which is of course helpful for her to be well rounded.

March 25, 2006

A Friday Night Date with My Wife: E.R. Live!

Friday night Nichelle and I determined we hadn’t been out together in a while, so when I got back from the Museum of Science with the Quinlans, we decided to go someplace somewhat exclusive and very fancy, that we’d never tried before.

We were impressed with the curbside service—a staff member actually came out to the door and showed us in, which is a level of service far above that to which we are accustomed.

Once inside, we disocovered there would be quite a wait—this place is popular—so we settled down to wait a bit in the lounge. We were impressed by the obvious expense that had gone into the venue. Millions of dollars had been spent on making this place stand out from its competition, and everything looked beautiful, even though some parts were still being renovated.

We were at the renovated (but still expanding) Southern New Hampshire Medical Center‘s emergency department.

Nichelle had been in severe pain from Thursday afternoon on, and by Friday evening it had gotten unmanageable.

After a brief wait (only about 4 hours)—next time Nichelle will need to be either bleeding profusely or pregnant to ensure rapid attention—they got Nichelle checked in, and administered a couple of different drugs by IV, the second of which actually helped. She was still having severe, stabbing pain in her ribs every 5 to 10 minutes, but most of the other pain was significantly reduced.

At 5:00 a.m., she’d been released, and we took a trip through our favorite drive-through: Brook’s Pharmacy, and watched the sky brighten with dawn. How romantic!

This morning Nichelle is feeling much better. The grip of the pain seems to have lessened, and she’s able to move around again without difficulty. She even made me a breakfast sandwich (when I finally got out of bed around 11:30), and played a few rounds of Burnout 3: Takedown with Isaac, David, and I, which she hasn’t done in months!

This brings me to an interesting, if merely anecdotal, observation about the pain she constantly suffers, which varies in severity. It would seem, based on how much better she was this morning, that the medication delivered by IV interfered with a feedback loop that was keeping the pain severe and inceasing it in severity. In short, stopping the pain temporarily led to stopping the pain for a much longer period. Fascinating.

March 6, 2006

Hope Deferred (for a Day)

¹²Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12 (KJV)

Despite our best planning, we spent from 1:30 to 6:00 today not being seen by the endocrinologist. (But it’s not really his fault.)

¹³Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:13-15 (NIV)

What happened was this:

Nichelle and I arrived at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Manchester about 9 minutes behind schedule. We’d made one wrong turn, which cost us about four minutes. We tried calling, but no one answered before we were actually headed up the driveway.

For the record, until we actually arrived there, we didn’t know we were going to a medical center. We thought our destination was a doctor’s office of some kind. That was our undoing.

We rushed inside (guessing on an entrance) and started waiting in line. In less than a minute, Nichelle asked a staff member for where we should go. She directed us to another counter down the hall. When we got there, the counter was unstaffed. We decided to follow the signs to the main lobby, and met another staff member on the way who said we needed to register.

We were served fairly quickly at the registration desk. They only had to correct Nichelle’s first name and her last name (yes, Michelle Wilcott :: sigh ::), and look up the insurance three times, ask for her birthdate twice and mine once, then run the co-pay.

Then they sent us upstairs, where we checked in again and sat down. After a few minutes, Nichelle was called, and the nurse explained that we checked in too late for the appointment. I was struck instantly by an unusually strong mixture of extreme disappointment and rage. I actually turned and walked away for about 10 seconds.

They did say that if the next patient did not show up, they would let us in, so we waited. Nichelle spent the next 15 minutes with her head down and eyes closed. I spent that 15 minutes reading, rubbing Nichelle’s back, wishing there were something I could do to help, and mentally reviewing verses about God’s sovereignty.

The nurse came out, and told us the next patient had arrived. She listened to our story, and noted that similar problems had occurred recently, and went back in to find us the number for the medical center person who handles such problems.

During the ride home they phoned us to make another appointment; we were grateful able to get one tomorrow—at the same time of day, but in Concord, rather than Manchester.

I’ll have to take another afternoon off from work, but can make up the time later in the week, or take it as sick time (our company policy allows this; I’m not being a weasel).

God knows what He is doing. It is comforting to know Nichelle will be seen by someone who doesn’t squeeze patients in, but rather insists on giving them proper attention and time.

Nichelle has a new symptom. We’re not sure what they are caused by—they might be tiny hemmorages under the skin—but in several places she’s had tiny, dark brown, circular freckle-like spots appear. She noticed a few yesterday. This morning there were more, and this evening still more. They are definitely increasing in number. One that seems to be just forming (based on location and size) is a reddish color, which leads me to think that they are indeed tiny spots of subcutaneous bleeding. There’s also no external irritation or rash present near them.

The other symptoms, pain, dizziness, fatigue, difficulty walking, burning sensations, severe edema, stabbing pains, painful pressure in the head, etc., all continue for much of every day.

February 21, 2006

Geek Humor @ H0//3

Tonight I was reviewing science notes with Isaac (click-and-drag to highlight my answers with your mouse to reveal them):

Q: What’s the densest element?
A: Osmium (actually, it’s a tie between Osmium and Iridium)
My answer: Fifth graderum.

I also dug up Tom Leher’s famous “The Elements Song.” You can hear it attached to a clever Flash animation here, or download the MP3 yourself.

And we had some fun because Isaac couldn’t remember:

Q: What is the most commonly occurring transuranium element?
A: Plutonium.

… which led to me mimicking bits of Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from Back to the Future.

Doc Brown: “I’m sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 1955, it’s a little hard to come by.”

Then Isaac confounded me with this one:

Q: What kind of tree did the mad scientist plant?
A: Chemis-try!

So I added:

Q: And what kind of tree did his mathemetician wife plant next to it?
A: Geome-try!

February 15, 2006

Pain

Beyond the significant swelling, Nichelle’s life seems to be defined ever more by pain. On Valentine’s Day she had a “good day”—the pain was only mild for much of the daylight hours, and she enjoyed being able to do some work around the house. By suppertime, though, her pain had started to return. Walking became markedly difficult. By 9:00 or 10:00 the pain was steady and even more severe.

Tonight was particularly troubling. Nichelle was feeling pretty good until late afternoon, and was looking forward to attending the midweek Bible study. At 5:30, she announced that she needed to get dinner on and then take a nap. By the time I left work, she determined that she wasn’t going anywhere. By the time I got home to pick up the kids for church, she was having severe pain in her left leg, and remained virtually immobile during the two hours we were out at church, because she (and Nichelle is not one to exaggerate) was afraid if she got off the couch, she’d fall down and not be able to get up.

About the time the kids were being put to bed, the pain became extreme. She took two of the pain medications she has been prescribed, but normally does not use. They didn’t do much. The pain in one leg spread to the other.

Then the head pains started. These were awful.

For ten minutes at a time, over the space of more than half an hour, Nichelle is racked with sharp head pains that almost defy description. Every few seconds she convulses, stiffly curling up, and manages somehow to stifle her cries of agony. Tears well up in her eyes. Her breathing becomes rapid. For a few minutes these pains subside, and then they return.

I kneel beside her, gently clutching her hand, my own body heaving with sobs I cannot control. “I love you,” she whispers quietly when the pains relent for a few moments. I weep even more.

After what the clock says is only an hour, the stabbing pains have passed. Nichelle sits up for the first time all evening.

Perhaps the rest of the night will bring some degree of comfort.

Editor’s note: Thankfully, attacks this severe don’t happen every day, but they do seem to come a couple of times a week, and similar attacks of lesser severity do come every day. The tiring, debilitating pain is there almost always, though. Nichelle took the kids to Wal*Mart on Monday night, for a very quick trip. When she got back she said, “You know, there’s no way I could make it through the [grocery] shopping.” (I knew that—it’s why I’ve been doing the grocery shopping for the past few months.)

Keywords: Fibromyalgia, swelling, severe pain

February 15, 2006

Waste!

Am I wrong, or does this strike more of you as pointlessly wasteful?

Happy Birthday Dear Fido, Fluffy and Polly
Tue Feb 14, 2006 08:23 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – They already have their own designer clothes, health insurance and therapists. Now more and more American pets are enjoying their own birthday parties.

A surprising number of pet owners host birthday parties—complete with party hats, cake and guests–for their dogs, cats and birds, according to a survey released Monday by California-based Veterinary Pet Insurance.

The firm reported that 58 percent of its policyholders who responded said they had hosted birthday bashes for their pets.

Veterinary Pet Insurance, which marks the occasion by sending each insured pet a birthday card every year and a coupon for free food, said other surveys have calculated that about six million American dog and cat households celebrate birthdays.

Three Dog Bakery, a specialty store in upscale Newport Beach, California, gets about 20 requests a week for pet birthday cakes, said owner Sandy Deem.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

I have nothing against pet ownership, but it seems to me that when one is at the point of having birthday parties for pets, it’s time to evaluate spending habits. Imagine how many orphans the costs of six million birthday parties for pets would feed, clothe, and house annually, or how many missionaries the money could support.

Don’t even get me started on pet psychotherapy …

February 4, 2006

Isaac, the Biographer

Isaac is now in fifth grade. He wrote this biography of Naomi for one of his homework assignments:

My Sister, Naomi

My little sister, Naomi, a cheerful little girl. Being two years old, she has different rules of posession: “If I saw it, it’s mine,” “If I didn’t want it, and saw you playing with it, it’s mine.” And Naomi’s special, “Every loli-pop I see is mine.” Naomi likes to sing along with many songs: “Jesus Loves Me,” is one of them and all the songs of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” She is very bouncy, loud, cheerful, and her vocabulary is very good. The day after her [second] birthday she greeted my dad with a “Hi, Slacker!” She constantly stands on objects and says “Look, I’m taller!” I’m glad to have a sister as Naomi is.

January 13, 2006

A Conversation with My Geek Girl

Background: Naomi loves her new Geekwear. For Christmas, I bought for her a Version 2.0 T-shirt and a new Geek in Training T-shirt to replace the one she’d outgrown.

She loves the shirts! She calls the “Geek in Training” one her “Mouse Shirt,” and asked for it every day several times a day when it was in the laundry. While that was being washed, she tried the “Version 2.0” shirt. (I suppose it really should be a Version 2.4 shirt, or maybe 2.3, depending on whether John gets—as the software equivalent of a buy-out—his own version number.) She went around showing people at church, pointing at the logo, and saying, “Version two oh.” Nichelle observed:

At Christmas, Doug bought Naomi two new geek shirts. She loves them. Yesterday, I was putting her laundry away and she spotted her V2.0 shirt and picked it up and hugged it. She was already dressed so I told her she could wear it to bed. She quickly took it and put it under her pillow and remembered to get it when it was bedtime.

At any rate, Naomi’s speech is becoming much more complex (even beyond calling me a weasel or a slacker). I called home one day, and she wanted to talk to me.

NaNi: Version 2.0

Dad: Your Version 2.0 shirt? I’m very glad you like it.

NaNi: Thank you, Daddy!

Dad: You’re welcome.

NaNi: Love you, Daddy. Bye!

She melts my heart!