PAgent’s Progress

With the advent (finally) of typical winter weather, taking the dog to the dog park has become more challenging. Going after work is no longer an option, because it is already dark and miserable by the time I get home. Standing in the freezing rain is not that attractive, but I have done so in the past and will doubtless do so again, such is my desire to do right by my little furry companion. But all in all packing up the dog and driving him off for recreation and socialization had become less of a pleasure and more of a chore.

We (the dog and I, that is) had been going fairly exclusively to Potso dog park, since the hillside at Gabriel park had become a muddy slip’n’slide. Potso is a good park. It is a fine park. In terms of the dogs and owners that I’ve met there, it has become my favorite.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued to see what the “winter” dog park at Gabriel was like. With the coming of the rains, the “summer” dog park is closed, and reseeded, in hopes of undoing some of the damage done by countless doggy claws. The “winter” dog park is on the opposite side of the trees, near some community gardens. It is roughly triangle-shaped, on a hillside, and sand from top to bottom.

I’ve taken Gus several times now, and the transformation that he undergoes inside the park is amazing. Once through the gate, he begins to run. Whereas he used to jog amiably about until he could convince some like-minded shepherd to give chase, now he starts out in top gear, running back and forth like a dog possessed.

Granted, he’s cooped up a bit more now than he used to be, but I don’t think that’s the reason for it. Rather, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the sand that makes the difference. I think that running in wet sand is just more comfortable than running on other surfaces, and he’s taking advantage of it. Whatever the reason, it’s a delight to see him racing about at top speed, tongue lolling out to one side. He seems to be running purely for the joy of it, and when he’s in his top gear, he’s nearly uncatchable.

After a visit to the dog park these days, we are guaranteed a dog that will lay down and sleep for the rest of the afternoon, such is his state of exhaustion. We are also guaranteed wet, sandy footprints in the minivan, the garage, the kitchen, and all over the house. It’s not that I don’t rub him down afterwards, it’s that it simply doesn’t matter whether I rub him down or not.

Well, it’s a fairly small price to pray for a tired and contended dog.

You have to take time to enjoy the simple things in life. Like giving a dog a spoonful of peanut butter.

This video was created and posted specifically for Lelo, whose dog Wink is apparently unfamiliar with proper canine peanut butter consumption techniques.

If I vanish from the Internet for a bit, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. This year my wife has finally embraced the family’s digital recreation lifestyle. She drank the Kool-Aid. Or bowed to the inevitable. Or both.

The Boy got Super Mario Galaxy and the Girl got Pokemon Battle Revolution, both for the Wii. I got a Wii Zapper, which comes with Link’s Crossbow Training.

If that wasn’t enough, she actually got me an XBox 360, and all three of the games I put on my wish list (Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, and the Orange Box).

I may not surface until spring.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. Between trying to get ready for Christmas and trying to get far enough ahead at work to take a couple of days off, I’ve been busy.

I’ve also been depressed and stressed out. I hit something of a milestone in my career last week. After 15 years in practice, with 7 of them at a law firm, I’ve been threatened with a legal malpractice suit.

The folks at work, particularly my employers, have been very sympathetic and understanding. The general attitude has been “sooner or later, it happens to everyone.” Nevertheless, it feels like a real punch to the gut when one of your clients, someone whom you have been representing and have an established relationship with, decides they might need to sue you. It creates all kinds of conflicting feelings.

The first is invariably (in my case) guilt. You sit and you agonize over everything you ever did for them, wondering if you made the right choices. Then comes anger. You make an effort, you do the best work you know how to do, and this is the thanks you get? It’s only later, maybe much later, that you can gain enough emotional distance to begin to evaluate your situation clearly.

In the meantime, it’s a constant distraction. At a time when I surely do not need any distractions.

I’ve always tried to be conscientious about providing services to my clients, about doing the best work that I can for them. I’m afraid that now I will second-guess myself. That I might become hesitant about pursuing a strategy if I can’t make the client understand it, even if I believe it is the right strategy.

In any event, this is a hell of a way to finish out the year.

Vyvanse is one of the next generation drugs for treating ADHD. The chemical structure of Vyvanse is:

If you want to know why people call drugs by short names like “Vyvanse”, it’s mostly marketing. Well, marketing plus the fact that the official name for the above compound is (2S)-2,6-diamino-N-[(1S)-1-methyl-2-phenylethyl]hexanamide dimethanesulfonate.

Ignore the bracketed structure on the right. That’s the dimethanesulfonate part, and it’s only there to act as a charge-balancing counterion.

The main structure is a protected form of the drug Adderall, which has previously been used to treat ADHD. It’s been protected by attaching the free amino group on the Adderall to a lysine molecule. Vyvanse is a “pro-drug”, which means that it’s taken in an inactive form, but is activated in the body by some metabolic process. In this case, the amide bond between the Adderall and the lysine molecule is cleaved (see the dashed line below):

The result is one molecule of active stimulant, and one molecule of L-lysine, an essential amino acid:

We will be trying Vyvanse with the Girl. Because it is released in the system slowly, it delivers a smooth dosage for up to 12 hours. That includes “homework time”, which has always been an epic struggle for us. Many patients report that Vyvanse helps them remain clear-headed and functional all day.

The Girl’s new psychiatrist doesn’t believe the tics are related to a Ritalin overdose, just a developing sensitivity to the drug. Will they come back? We don’t know. All we can do is try it, and wait and see. But we have hope.

And this latest hope couldn’t come soon enough. Yesterday the wife put a block on the Girl’s meal account at middle school, so she couldn’t keep buying cookies, jerky, and other ala carte items at lunchtime. We’ve also had to put a note in her file that she is not permitted to have breakfast at school. Yes, she’s started eating double breakfasts again.

Just this morning, we discovered that she hasn’t handed in a single math homework assignment all trimester. This is despite the fact that we make sure she gets the daily homework from the school website. I even sat down and worked through her homework on decimals one night, and the Wife has been working with her on fractions. I guess we will have to personally check every problem on her assignment. Yet another thing to check up on, every single day.

She had her first band concert last night. We and all the other parents hunkered down on the wooden bleachers and listened to the sixth graders labor their way through a couple of tunes. Then a surprisingly good jazz band did a few songs, and the concert band finished out the show. As always, there were some squeaky clarinets, missed notes, and solos that seemed to go faster and faster-until-the-damn-thing-was-finally-over. Whew! And, as always, there were a few kids that seemed to shine from the crowd, kids with real musical ability that couldn’t be hidden by mere inexperience.

The Girl played a solo on her trombone, and we were very proud. She messed up a teensy bit, but we tried to assure her that for her first concert, on a brand-new instrument, she did quite well. She was clearly taking it seriously, and seems to really enjoy band.

She had told us that it was tradition for parents to take the sixth-graders out for ice cream after the first concert. The band director also announced this tradition at the end of the performance. It’s a good thing, too. Up until that point I had just assumed the Girl had made it up. That she was taking advantage of an opportunity to scam some ice cream from her stupid parents. Finding that she was telling the truth was a relief, but a bittersweet one. I’d like to be able to believe what she tells me, without constantly looking for independent confirmation, without automatically assuming she has an angle.

Maybe this new drug will help.