welcome to spiceland.

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Help cure cancer and other terminal illnesses by allowing Stanford University to use your computer when you aren’t using it!

According to Stanford.edu, “What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology’s workhorses — its “nanomachines.” Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or “fold.” The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery. Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. ‘misfold’), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.”

They have develped a computer program that runs on your computer. When you’re not using your computer, the program downloads proteins, studies them, and sends the results back to Stanford. Here’s how to do it:

Windows users, download this! Still stuck with Windows 98 or ME? use this one instead! Linux users, use this program.

Download it to your desktop, or another location where you won’t forget to run it everyday! Run it. Enter 12912 as your team number and linuxChique as your username (if you don’t want to create a new one). Then agree to everything else it asks you. Let it do it’s thing! You’ll be working toward a cure for cancer and other genetic terminal illnesses!

To make this program start automatically when you boot windows, go to Start menu -> [all] Programs -> Startup submenu. Then just make a shortcut from the Folding@Home****.exe file into that menu.

Linux users, just add it to your /etc/rc.d/rc.local!

The longer the program runs, the more good you are doing! You can let it go for days at a time. This program runs on my computer constantly, and I’ve completedly 2 work units already. Thank you for listening, and please let me know if you actually do this!

Here’s my progress so far:

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My friend, Troy, strapped a wireless camera to his RC Airplane and flew over the Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville, AL. I found this video after you showed his plane to me. Tru and I are going to join him on one of these flights someday since she loves planes so much.

Here is a link to the video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDpL8aQlCDA

(Troy, sorry for ganking it and just linking to your video on YouTube. I got lost trying to get the embedded code from YouTube.)

Get the Flash Player to see this video. If you are seeing this from facebook or some other site, click on the link to watch the video on our site.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. If you are seeing this from facebook or some other site, click on the link to watch the video on our site.

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We went to Abby’s 4th birthday party this weekend! Everyone loved the kitty-cat theme, and as always, Mara’s gourmet, designer birthday cake was amazing! Here are the pictures!

Also new today are pictures of Tru playing house. I was mopping the kitchen floor, when she asked if she could help. I couldn’t resist snapping a few pictures! Here are those pictures.

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Here are some new photos from when we visited Papa and Nana’s lake house in Hot Springs. Enjoy!

Click here to view the pictures