Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street

Come and play
Everything's A-OK
Friendly neighbors there
That's where we meet

Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street

It's a magic carpet ride
Every door will open wide
To Happy people like you--
Happy people like
What a beautiful

Sunny Day
Sweepin' the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame street...
How to get to Sesame Street
How to get to...

Superfast Laser Turns Virus Into Rubble
By Alexis Madrigal

A physicist and his biologist son destroyed a common virus using a superfast pulsing laser, without harming healthy cells. The discovery could lead to new treatments for viruses like HIV that have no cure.

"We have demonstrated a technique of using a laser to excite vibrations on the shield of a virus and damage it, so that it's no longer functional," said Kong-Thon Tsen, a professor of physics at Arizona State University. "We're testing it on HIV and hepatitis right now."

Tsen and his son Shaw-Wei Tsen, a pathology student at Johns Hopkins University, came up with the idea while strolling in the park and discussing the need for antiviral treatments that go beyond vaccinations. Tsen senior has long experimented with ultrashort-pulse lasers (USPs), devices increasingly used outside of physics.

Raydiance, a USP laser manufacturer, signed a deal with the FDA in July to explore laser therapies. As Wired News reported earlier this year, an FDA official estimated there could be a hundred medical uses for USP lasers, from common laser eye treatments to cell-by-cell tumor ablation.

In the latest research, Tsen and his son demonstrated that their laser technique could shatter the protein shell, or capsid, of the tobacco mosaic virus, leaving behind only a harmless mucus-like mash of molecules.

The laser shattered the capsid at low energy: 40 times lower, in fact, than the energy level that harmed human T-cells. Other types of radiation, like ultraviolet light, kill microbes on produce, but would damage human cells.

The virus-deactivating laser works on a principle called forced resonance. The scientists tune the laser to the same frequency the virus vibrates on. Then they crank up the volume. Like a high-pitched sound shattering glass, the laser vibrates the virus until it breaks.

The USP laser releases energy in femtosecond pulses -- one millionth of a nanosecond -- at a time.

"The extreme brevity of these pulses is creating a physical effect that traditional lasers and other types of non-laser approaches can't do," said Scott Davison, president of the venture-backed USP laser company, Raydiance. "What we see is a new wave of exploration and discovery in applying USP in a whole bunch of industries and applications."

Unlike lasers used to burn through flesh in surgery, USP lasers don't generate a lot of heat. Tsen says the technology could provide immediate benefits for clearing viruses in blood stored in blood banks. Some viruses, like HIV, have a window during which they are very difficult to detect.

"This technique will be very useful to disinfect all the viruses, known or unknown," Tsen said. "This will make blood transfusion very safe."

The Tsens' technology has seen success only in test tubes. It must be tested in animals and then humans. Treatments are still far in the future. But with more strolls in the park, anything seems possible.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/11/laser_virus

WOO HOO!

I seldom bitch and moan, not here anyway....but I don't know what else to do.  I'm so fucking sick and it just doesn't get better and my stomach hurts all the fucking time.  I'm sick like a dog and I am frustrated beyond words.  What the fuck else can I do?  I try so hard to do right by myself and I've finally come to a place in life where I AM content and happy and full of Joy and then this illness comes along and fucks my whole world up quick.

I'm sick of the shit and crying doesn't help

doesn't help a fucking lick.

Writhing on the ground in pain as I clutch my gut, well that doesn't seem to help either.

Perhaps after I throw up again I might be able to sleep....but then again the pain creeps up and the gas and bloating and nausea keep me in their grip.

I'm scared I will never feel well again. and I'm scared of every single what if.  I no longer feel strong.

I feel fucking mad. 

Just leave me alone.

I hold my breath and forget to breathe and the pain gets so intense.  I forget to breathe and then I try but the tears start coming and I try to stop and then I forget to breathe again.

I'm sad....and I'm fucking mad....like I want to hit.  Make blood spurt from something in gushers and flows.

It's not healthy I know but I'm just so fucking sick and I'm sick of being sick.  Now the nose is stuffed from crying and I try to breathe but I can't.

I've lost a lot of weight and I don't want to lose anymore but I can't see how to eat.  It all comes back to haunt me and leave me in pain or ends up in the toilet over and over again.  and it hurts.

I used to be so cute.  Not so much anymore, though I do try to pretend but I can't tonight because I'm sick AGAIN.  I know I said that before but I'm going to say it again and again because that's how it is.  Over and over again.

I'll call the doctor in the morning.  I should have called him today but for a second there I thought I might be alright so I decided to wait.... and now I'm sick AGAIN.

i'll just pound my fingers on this board and let it all out.  It's not healthy to be mad but it's ok.  I don't hold on to it anymore I let it spit so I can breathe and soar.

One day I will be a miracle.  This I do believe.  I'll suffer and writhe and put up with this shit but I'm expecting something back.  You hear me? 

I'm expecting, something back.  No, I take that back.  I'M DEMANDING SOMETHING BACK!

Yo Yo Xanga all up in da' house!!!  Please take time to enjoy my very first ever video blog.

Written, Directed and Acted BY ME!  JoAnn.

BE WELL.

I just learned this morning that my dear Uncle AL passed away this past week.  Wednesday I guess.

I just had a candle lit for him last night, something I do often because Uncle AL had not been well at all this year.

Uncle AL was not my real Uncle as far as being related.  Uncle AL was a term of endearment that everyone had for Mr. AL FRANTZ.  To know him was to love him and to love him was to feel supported, loved and cared about.  The true markers for BEing a wonderful Uncle.

I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a few weeks with Uncle AL in NYC.  Uncle AL had a way of making the big, scary city less intimidating to me.  I never grew up with mass transit so having to take buses and subways scared the bejeezus out of me.  Uncle AL drew me a handy little map and explained the city in such a way that my fear quickly dissipated.

Uncle AL was a true QUEEN and Manhattan has lost a wonderful man.  I was fortunate that Uncle AL was the only person to ever answer my request for a proper birthday present.  I always tell peeps I wanted a parade for my birthday but nobody ever delivered and I don't know why.  It would be easy to do and wouldn't cost a thing to have friends and family parade around in my honor wearing big, goofy hats and making lots of cheery noise.  Anyway...... I have never got my parade until this past year when my dear Uncle AL sent me this card.....

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't energized. 
Energized while I materialize a new twist of fate.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. 
Scared of success beyond my mind of late.

I'd be lying if I said I've never been here before. 

Familiararity breeds boredom.

Boredom is like cancer to me.
When it circles like an 8, forever surpassing infinity.

I'd be lying but only I would know
Then where would I go?

Why you need to be lying anyway?

I'm just not well.  Not well at all.  I spent the last few days in the hospital, sick as sick can BE.

I've been diagnosed with Diverticulitis.  A disease most common in the elderly.  I try not to dwell in the thoughts of "what's next?" and try to be in the NOW.  But the NOW sucks and I'm nauseous, in pain and totally not well.  Perhaps I shall linger in the sparkly remembrance of yesteryear.

My recent illness, which is still lingering like the stench after a fire, has managed to mess with not only my body, but also my psyche and my Spirit.

This too shall pass.

BE WELL.

I can barely RE-member what it was like to BE me a couple of years ago.  It's like a far away dream that doesn't really feel like it BElongs to me, not on this plane of consciousness anyway.  I have Evolved.

Perhaps you wouldn't know it, BEcause I did work hard to hide it and deny it, which is easier to do on the Internet than in the flesh.   In fact, it is impossible to hide in person so, I spent a lot of time locked in hell.  I kept myself hidden BEhind closed doors and refused to even pick up the phone or answer the door.  I call these the Lost Years.  The years when I was either drunk, hungover or obsessively thinking about when I could drink again.  I was so ashamed.  Hopeless.

I have grown up with alcoholism my entire life.  My parents are alcoholics, their parents... my youngest brother died in a drunk driving accident and I lost myself into the swirling abyss of hell know as alcoholism.  The pain of alcoholism was immense in my family and enormous in the lives of my friends and their struggles with alcohol.  Alcohol has robbed so much from our lives.

I truly just wanted to die during the last few months of my addiction.  I tried everything to quit drinking but nothing would quell that insatiable craving in me.  AA was not my cup of tea and counseling and abstinence never did work to remove my craving.   I could hardly abstain for one week, BEfore I was back drinking myself into oblivion.  I did pray.  I prayed often that GOD would remove my craving for alcohol BEcause then I knew I would BE able to handle my lot in life.

GOD answered my prayers when he made me aware of Rhonda Lenair.  Rhonda was the answer to my prayer and Life has just been one BEautiful thing after another since I saw her.  Not once, in the two years since I saw Rhonda Lenair, have I craved alcohol or wanted to drink.  Drinking alcohol makes absolutely no sense in my head anymore.  My desire was completely removed simply by letting Rhonda place her hands on my head.  She told me things about myself that she could not possibly know, she never asked me any questions about anything.  The things Rhonda spoke of were things I vaguely remember as bringing Joy to me, or experiences I had that connected me to other levels of consciousness, very personal experiences.  I struggle to not call this a miracle, for as Rhonda states, "there are no miracles in a realm of infinitie possibilities."  Even today, as I type this, I strive to understand how this is possible.  My quest to understand Rhonda's work has led me into many interesting readings, teachings thoughts and sciences.  Teachings that I understand in a way that I cannot verbalize.  I understand on a completely different level and have no way to articulate this understanding other than to twinkle and feel supported by having this deep knowing in me.  To feel connected.

If you need visual proof of my evolution here is a side by side of my driver's license.  The first picture was taken one month after seeing Rhonda for alcoholism, which BElieve it or not, was an improvement from a couple of months earlier.

I realize today that I AM known and Loved by the Universe and that my soul purpose is to BE HAPPY!

I AM.

I could never thank the person that wrote the article about Rhonda Lenair, that my husband read and gave to me to read, enough.  My way of thanking GOD for the gift of Rhonda Lenair is to help spread the word of her work and to support her in all that she does.  Rhonda is like nobody I have ever met BEfore.  She is the most humble, gentle, loving person I have ever known and she has a very visible glow around her.  She works and speaks from a dimension that I do not understand, but my soul does and that is all that matters.  One day Rhonda's work will BE commonplace, I AM convinced of that.  Rhonda states that this force she works in is available to all of us and is infinite in it's power.  I BElieve.

Today I AM not Powerless over alcohol, I AM EMPOWERED.   I have absolutely NO FEAR of ever drinking alcohol again.  I wish the same freedom for all who suffer from the ravages of alcoholism.  If you or someone you love is suffering with alcoholism, There is HOPE!  Freedom without shame, guilt or pain.

JOY!

BE WELL.