New Obsession!

My son has been studying Greece in school and has learned about the Spartans. When he saw the advertisement for the movie about the Spartans, "300." He insisted that we had to see it. At first I sighed because I don't exactly relish spending my weekends watching the juvenile fare appropriate for preteens. However, when I saw this show with my son, my interested was piqued immediately. Wow! I became a fan of Gerard Butler with his performance in "The Phantom of the Opera" and have now cataloged him as one of my favorites. I REALLY appreciate his dedication to the role of Leonidas by honing in on that amazing physique. It is worth watching that movie just to see Gerard's rippling thighs as he stalked toward his opponents. Aaah, I swooned.

My office is a mess!

After I took a picture of Kimmie in my office, I just had to take pictures of the whole thing. I knew that there would be those of you who would appreciate just how cluttered my space is nowadays. I don't have any amazing students who are willing to help me make sense of the mess like I used to, so sad :( I think that this is a real cry for help! The question is however, is anyone listening?

Notice:
- the 2006 Calendar on the wall from JWo that I have been too busy to replace
- the wholely inadequate ball calendar on my desk that is more mobile
- the ever present Diet Coke
- the scattered papers of research
- grant documents
- my blackberry (which is really a cranberry color, ha ha)
- 4 computers (all necessary)
- numerous presentaton posters
- makeup bag with makeup I don't use
- weekend reading stacks (my social life is so sad)
- phallic looking bookend (again, my social life is so sad)
- VR system and dissertation materials
- huge ass beanbag for my tired body and mind, mostly my mind!
- NYC Jekyl and Hyde artifact (can you find it Bre)

Hello Old Friend!

I just have to do a shout out to an old friend! He is the greatest in every way! With as peripatetic as my life has been in the past, it is nice to know that I have made some lifelong friends along the way. This is difficult to do with today's mobile and transient culture. I am now in the strange situation of being the one who stays put, geographically, and have others move in and out of my life. In doing so I have made some fabulous new friends that have stayed in contact with me. How fun! My friends are the spice of my life!

Virtual Project a Reality

I want to provide a status report on the Virtual Reality (VR) project to teach techniques for local anesthesia. We have finally completed phase one, which is the development of a "proof of concept system" that allows for the manipulation of 3D objects in virtual space for the inferior alveolar (IA) injection only. Tatiana is our model demonstrating the system. She is wearing the head mounted display (HMD) as well as a tracker on her head and handling the sensor embedded syringe while she palpates our anatomical model. We had to simulate haptics with a real anatomical model covered in liquid rubber due to budget constraints.

This is a picture of the computer to show what the user sees in the virtual world. The 3D cranium has several layers of obfuscation to promote iterative learning of spatial and dimensional relationships of the anatomy. This is really cool to see demonstrated live!

Here is Bob reviewing the system. You can see our boxy "flock of birds" in the background, which is our electromagnetic human tracking system. Very swanky!

I am very pleased with our deliverables at this point! Yeah!

Puppies!

Amanda and Isaac have been waiting for six weeks to get their puppies. We were able to bring them home this weekend. Both dogs are Dachshunds, Amanda's dog, Coco, is chocolate and Isaac's dog, Mohawk Junior, is the traditional black and brown. We are really enjoying them!

My nephew, Jack, is trying to feed Coco a leaf. ha ha. Below is picture of Jack after playing with the dogs.

American Dental Educators Association (ADEA) Annual Session

Our research project was on Emotional Intelligence and Success in Dental Hygiene Student Clinical Practice. This was a huge project that involved a lot of data and we had to work hard to pull it together in time to present at ADEA.
With this being said, just image how diappointed we were when we discovered that our flight to New Orleans was cancelled. Delta assured us that they could fly us out the next day, however, this would ensure that we would miss our presentation. Yikes! We decided to try to catch any flight possible throughout Sunday and Monday. To make a long story short, we all had to fly seperately and got very little rest in over 24 hours. With all of that we still missed our presentation time. However, we worked it out with ADEA to present at another time the next day. Yeah!
After we presented, we indulged in some much needed relaxation and fun on Bourbon St. I had never been to New Orleans and so was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was. Plus, the French Quarter really looks good, they have worked hard to rebuild it since Katrina.

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2007

I have to say that my students represented well, we had three oral presentations and two posters. However, I think that we could have done better had they not been so preoccupied with thoughts of their national board which is tomorrow. It is unfortunate that the UR symposium always lands on the day before dental hygiene board exams. We will have to trouble shoot how to strategize for next year.

I would like to see the UR Symposium supported better with other students and faculty. As it was, there was limited support for the presenters. Although, thanks to Angelique and Yeunjong for your time and support especially the day before boards. Very Cool!

New Orleans with Friends!

I am going to start posting again to my blog!!! Yeah, yes, I know that you are all so pleased. This is just a quick start. I went to New Orleans for a conference and had an absolute blast! I have great colleagues, friends and students!