Ligand Analogy

Constructing a Ligand is a lot like building a vehicle.  Each vehicle has a particular purpose.  If you want to go fast, you build a racecar.  If you want to carry a lot of stuff, you build a dump truck.  If you want to knock something over, you build a bulldozer.  If you want to fly, you build an airplane.  If you want to go underwater, you build a submarine. 

Yet, none of those vehicles can do what they are designed to do without a driver/pilot.  This is similar to the relationship between a ligand and a metal ion.  We spend a lot of time and effort designing ligands to have certain properties.  But, much like a car without a driver, the ligand is not going to be able to do its job without the metal ion.  So, designing and synthesizing a ligand is much like designing and building a car.  The ligand can’t do its ultimate job until the metal takes its place in the “driver’s seat”. 

In addition, not any old driver will do.  If you want your airplane to fly to the best of its designed abilities, not any old pilot will do; you need a top gun.  For your racecar to win the Indianapolis 500, someone off the street isn’t going to do it.  You need a professional driver.  The same is true for ligands.  You can put lots of different metals into most ligands.  Yet, only one or two will give the maximum performance for any one job.  Interestingly, some ligands will be very good at one job (reaction) with one metal ion, but can be very good at another reaction with a different metal ion. 

Daniel's Game

My oldest son (11), though always big and strong for his age, has never found a team sport that he really liked or, to be honest, was very good at.  He loves the water and is a strong swimmer, so he's been off and on our local YMCA swim team.  But he doesn't really like competing, and I have no experience to offer in competitive swimming.  He is very bright and also an excellent musician, so his competitions now consist of 5th-grade quiz-bowl and piano contests.  I'm quite proud of him and, at least with quiz-bowl, can offer him tales from my high school quiz bowl accomplishments.

My younger son (9), however, is more of an athlete than I'll ever be.  He could climb a rope 20 ft by age 5, something I have never been able to do.  We had him in gymnastics for a year or so, just long enough for him to master a back handspring, before he wanted to move to more competitive team sports.  I've always assisted with his team sports, either officially or unofficially, until his YMCA basketball team needed a coach.  This was the first (and likely last) time I've taken on the head coaching duties for my kids' teams.

We were woefully outclassed by every other team--we were a combination of young and not-very-good basketball players.  My son, the oldest and easily most athletically gifted, was by far our best player.  The first game, I have him at point guard, but have no choice but to have him play defense (man-to-man is required in the league) on the opposing big man, who is, I kid you not, a good foot taller.  My son took that challenge and ran with it.  He fought for every rebound, fouled hard when he needed to, got a plethora of floor burns, and took several elbows to the face--and that's all on defense.  On offense he scored all of our points, even though we got easily doubled up in scoring. 

By the end of the game, he was so hyped up, so adrenaline filled, and so emotionally and physically exhausted, that after we got into the pickup to drive home, he just had to cry for a few minutes to let it all out.  This was one of the most intense efforts I've ever seen on the court, and it was by my 9 year old son.  I told him how proud I was of him, and then I said you go ahead and cry.  I was very nearly doing the same myself.

Being Human

There is a new show on SciFi called "Being Human". I'm watching a DVR'd episode right now. (Yes, I'm multitasking.)

Here's the premise (and its a doozy). A 200 year old vampire (Aiden) who is trying to quit killing/drinking blood cold turkey, meets a newly minted werewolf (Josh) at the deadend hospital orderly job they both use to hide from society in. They decide to move in together and make a go of living ordinary human lives. Unbeknownst to them, the apartment they end up renting is haunted by a ghost (Sarah) who just died a few months ago when her fiance (Danny, the apartment's owner and the guys' new landlord) pushed her down the stairs. I know, you were just working on a script for a pilot with exactly the same setup, right? Actually, I think this was the original premise for "Three's Company" before the network got ahold of it.

It's really an ok show, but the reason I'm watching is because this is the Americanized version of the BBC original series of the same name, which I've seen two short season's of on BBC America. Probably it's because I'm turning into a grumpy old man, but the original just seems so much better. It's only a couple years older than the new version, so it's not really nostalgia that makes me think the new version isn't up to the original. Just in case your
interested, here's my list of why I prefer the BBC version:

1. The British accents. In my work, I've made three trips to England for a week or so each time. I watch BBC America more than the average American, probably because it reminds me of my time in England, which I uniformly have enjoyed. But more than that, I think I like my monsters with a little spice. My son says that women are more attracted to men with British accents (where an eleven year old gets this kind of information is beyond me). I think I'm like that a little--I prefer my vampires and werewolves and ghosts with intriguing foreign
accents. Don't you?

2. The casting just seems better in the original, but this might be where my old man disease (that's how it was and we liked it!) might be coming into play.

Original vampire Mitchell with the long greasy hair, Scottish accent, leather jacket, and average body just seems so much more right than SciFi vampire Aiden, with no discernible accent, black T-shirts, smoldering eyes (must be for the ladies), and ripped pecs, abs, and guns. Can anyone tell me why a 200 year old vampire needs to be in that kind of shape?

Original werewolf George with the close cropped hair, rapid fire stream of consciousness soliloquies, anal retentive/OCD tendencies, and weakling getting sand kicked in his face at the beach look is way more entertaining to me than SciFi werewolf Josh who is basically the same guy, only slightly slower talking, slightly less nerdy, and slightly less wimpy. In terms of acting skills, the BBC guy is markedly better as well. In the original version, he
is easily the most talented actor in the show. In version 2.0, the Josh actor is close to being the weakest.

Original ghost Annie is the weakest actor in her series, but she is exotically hot (I have no idea what ethnic group(s) she represents), believably flighty and moody and girly, and clearly conflicted about her ex, explaining why she hasn't passed on. The SciFi ghost Sarah was obviously cast to give us the same characteristics, and the actress has the same exoticness, the same weak acting skills, but lacks the hotness and endearing femininity and believability.

3. The thing that has me somewhat intrigued, but is also turning out to be somewhat puzzling is the decision to tell almost exactly the same story line episode for episode in the new series as in the original. I'm not sure why you would want to do this. Granted, a few details are different each episode, but the basic plot, such as Sarah learning to manipulate matter from a male mentor ghost who then passes on at the end of the episode, or Josh learning how to better manage his nights as a wolf by packing a bag of clothes to wear in the morning and providing the wolf with fresh meat so it doesn't kill anyone, are EXACTLY the same as in the original.

I guess if the goal is to expose an American audience to a good story that most would never watch because of the British accents or the general ignorance of BBC America's very existence, then I sort of understand. But, doing the exact same show over again, but just not as well as
the first time, has to be at least a little bit disheartening to the whole cast and crew. They are actually a fairly talented group, at least to my critical eye. I guess I would just
like them to have the opportunity (and maybe it's just me who selfishly would like some new material to be entertained by) to do their own show.

Why am I Blogging?

As a kid, I could always write pretty well. At least my writing was good enough to get mostly A's on written assignments in school. But, I don't ever remember writing for fun. I think part of the "problem" was that my handwriting is not very good. It was never easy for me to put a lot of words on paper.

As a Freshman in high school, I was in the first class at Hanston High School to take Typing on a keyboard instead of a typewriter (yes, I am that old). Of course, being Hanston High School, we had Apple knock-offs called Franklins. This was pre-Macintosh (yes, I am even that old). While not a typing whiz, for a guy in the HHS class of '90, I was pretty good. Typing, maybe word processing is a better term, made writing less of a chore for me. While I didn't start my first novel, I was more open to the idea of putting my thoughts down.

I think the next big step in my development as an eventual blogger came with my first email account as a graduate student at KU in 1995: thubin@falcon.ukans.edu, I believe. It turned out I could write a thousand word email in no time at all and send it out into the ether. It's like it didn't really count if it was never printed on paper. I could write as much as I want! Even today, I find myself apologizing for the lengths of my emails in the last sentence or so before I send them.

Writing scientific papers, a book chapter, and an entire thesis have given me practice on the long forms of non-fiction. I've also had a lot of opportunities to write minutes, committee reports, and responses to administrative actions. Most recently, I've been getting practice with persuasive scientific writing through a series of grant proposals.

All of this writing for work, however, hasn't given me an outlet for more personal writing. Late last year, I took a "Letters from Dad" course through my church, where I wrote my wife and each of my kids a personal letter telling them why I value them and love them, among other things. This experience, along with my recent addiction to Joe Posnanski's uber blog, has made me think about starting a blog several times over the last year or two. I recently got onto facebook, but find the word limit on posts constantly restricting. Don't even get me started on the idea of the 140 character limit of twitter (although I must admit it does sound like an interesting challenge to try to communicate with such a limit).

So, there you have it. That's why I'm blogging. We'll all find out together if I have anything interesting to say, and if I do, if anyone is listening.

Test

This is a test post to see if this thing actually works.