Hello friends.

This may be the end of phdinsd. I am starting some new projects including a more robust personal site. I will update you all when that happens.

In the meantime I suggest you all head on over to TweetOutCancer.com to learn more about what I’ve been doing lately and to see some of the cool stuff I’ve become a part of.

Hi friends! You may remember that I’m running the Marine Corp Marathon to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Well to reach my goals and have a little more fun at the race I’ve setup a new website that I’ll be updating throughout the weekend and even DURING the race. Please check it out and tell your friends!

www.tweetoutcancer.com

A few weeks back I had stumbled upon an event that was being held for the first time in San Diego.

The Ignite Series is a very unique idea and it sparked my interest immediately. The idea is simple. If you had five minutes to give a presentation, what would you say and how would you present it? What if during that five minutes you could only have 20 slides and those slides auto-advanced every 15 seconds? Being a fan of presenting, and public speaking in general I thought of this as a great challenge to go out and drop some learnin’ on a few dozen of San Diego’s smartest and innovative people. So I rattled around some ideas in the ole’ noggin and decided to talk about something that has really piqued my interest as of late: Social Networks and Health (more on that in a bit). I wrote up a quick little synopsis of what I wanted to talk about, sent that via electronic mail, and was quickly informed that yes, I would have the honor of stumbling over my own words for five horribly short minutes.

What was the night like? Well here’s a quick five word snapshot. Cool. Free Beer. Twittertastic. Geeky. Not enough? Read about some of the the other talks from that night:

CHRIS RADCLIFF – My secret life as a spaceman
Space… is awesome. The galaxy, the solar system, and even our own backyard are full of wonder. It’s so awesome I’ve dedicated my life to going into space and taking as many people as I can with me. The last decade has seen lots of new space participation by amateur astronauts, weightless fliers, and shoestring scientists, so now is the time to get involved.

STEPHEN LARSON – Reverse engineering the brain, online
Neuroscience is undergoing a revolution in information technology. New online tools bridging neuroscience and computer science have the potential to bring scientists, students, educators, and even the public together to reverse-engineer the structure and function of the brain. This talk will provide a brief overview of this trend and what can be expected coming down the road.

DAVE BROWN – F*ck the Recession: 20 people doing 20 great things
There’s an army of us out there who are not going to let this recession bring us down – we’re going after what we believe in and what we’re passionate about. This talk will inspire you to do whatever it takes to make your dream happen.

And then there was mine:

ERNESTO RAMIREZ – Social networks and health: Can Facebook save your life?
Social networks are become more important in our understanding of health and related behaviors. Recently, social network researchers have examined how obesity (and happiness) can travel through a social network. This talk will help examine and explain how social network technology can be beneficial from a health perspective.

After a few days of putting together slides, practicing my best micro-machine man speed voice, and wondering why I tend to pile more work on top of my already busy schedule, I was ready to present. Then I found out I was the second speaker of the night. Then I found the free beer and promptly had two cups. I would say pints, but this was high-school party style red cup action. Ignite San Diego is nothing if not high class. With God’s (and Airdayle Brewing’s) gift of social lubricant flowing through me I delivered what I thought was a decent talk.  See for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

Video

Slideshow Only

“Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.”

-Helen Caldicott, author and peace activist

During the Spring of 2009 I had the opportunity to co-teach an undergraduate course with a fellow PhD student. We were assigned Epidemiology, a field I was slightly unfamiliar with, handed a textbook, given some outlines from previous semester lectures, and told to get to it. Having taught previously at Arizona State, I was pretty confident that I could handle teaching at SDSU. Well, that confidence morphed from a solid formation to a jello like substance the first night when I walked in and found 95 student staring back at me. During my two years as an instructor at Arizona State I had never more than 35 students at a time. On top of that we were expected to keep them engaged and intrigued for 2.5 hours during a class that began at 7 PM on a Thursday night. Lets just say I had my work cut out for me.

As the semester progressed and I became more comfortable with the material, the students, and the delicate nature of co-teaching I was able to feel more and more at home in the classroom. My teaching style tends to be wordy, talkative, sarcastic, sometimes brass, humorous, and full of analogies, metaphors, and other methods to get students to understand information, ideas, and concepts in a way that makes sense to them. One of the key aspects of this class that I really enjoyed was being able to explain how semi-complex mathematical equations and statistical calculations can be quite easy to do once you understand the reasons “why” you need an answer.

As you know from your own experience as a college student, at the end of the semester you are required to fill out instructor evaluation forms. SDSU is a bit different than most universities as they require all evaluations to be done online and will not release a student’s grades until they are completed. This also means that instructors quickly receive their feedback. Well, it would if our web-interface weren’t built like IKEA instructions written in Japanese. Good thing I have friends who know there way around the system and were able to show me how to access our data. All in all, we were evaluated very well with an average score across different categories of ~4.4 on a scale of 1=bad 5=good. I was also able to access and read the qualitative responses, or write-ins as they are commonly referred to. Instead of going on and on about them I offer you a few of my favorites and a neat little image called a wordle (make your own at www.wordle.net) based on all my write-ins.

“The instructors were a key component in the success of the class. They were hyperactive and happy to be there.”

“Expecting student participation in a 7PM class is unreasonable.”

“The two professor taught class was something I have never seen in a college level, but Professor Ramirez made it an extraordinary experience. For my first two semesters at SDSU, I have only had one professor other than him who made you BELIEVE. Even though the topic was dull and uninteresting, he engaged your interest simply by presenting the information, not reading off the information. He made the difference in a class that is really not that exciting.”

“He talked way too much.”

Click for larger image.

Well that’s enough of a “pat on the back” for me. Hopefully the state of California can figure out their horrendous budget issues so I can get back in the classroom.

Till then…..

Dear Internet Friends,

I apologize for the delay in writing. You see, I’ve been quite busy over the last fortnight. I have neither the time or energy to properly update you on my various ongoings. Please be assured that I fully understand your frustration with my embarrassing consistency in regards to my communication via the Great Information Portal. In order to satiate your need for news about my life I have written a list of topics I will soon cover and included it below.

• Facebook Will Save Your Life (with video)
• Hey Professor, Your Presentation Sucks!
• The great migration to towards the Pacific Ocean
• Alternative modes of transportation and why they are awesome
• CALIT2: Its what I image being and Imagineer is like
• Sleep: Apparently its overrated
• GTD
• How I learned to stop worrying and love Twitter
• Hair: A little or a lot?

I hope to provide you with a worthwhile update in the near future. Please remember that I value our relationship and I trust that we will continue to share.

I leave you with this. Enjoy.

I have nothing to say. No interesting anecdote. No funny commentary on my life. No updates on my training (as I write this my achilles is tightly wrapped with an ice pack). But I want to keep things moving on this old blog o’ mine so I thought I might send you off to your weekend on a happy note. This week the San Diego Zoo (still haven’t been) had the pleasure of celebrating two amazing events for their brood of Pandas. A birthday was celebrated and then a few days later the birth of the 14th Panda currently residing in the United States. Enjoy some pictures from the Panda Party.

You’re Welcome Laura.

It’s Sunday evening.  A perfect time to go for a nice long twilight run. Unfortunately I’m stuck inside due to a bum achilles tendon I injured on my Tuesday run. But enough about me, let’s get on with the show.

I finally had the time and money to purchase an external hard drive so I could gather and store all the stuff I’ve been keeping on my old computers. File, music, images are now all safely housed in one place. Why does this matter? Well, it allows me to take a look back at things I’ve done, seen, and written about over the past five or so years. This leads me to tonight. While combing through all my pictures I ran across a few that I almost forgot I had. A while back I made a point to sit down and sift through the plastic bags that house our family’s photographs. I took a few and used the scanners and computers at ASU to make myself some digital copies. Here are some those pictures. Enjoy.

Beatrice Ramirez. My Grandma (dad's mom).

Dolores Garcia. My Grandma (mom's mom) aka "Mamo".

Adan Garcia. My Grandpa (mom's dad) aka "Papo".

My dad being...well...my dad.

My mom acting silly.

My Mom and Dad. The two that started it all.

My younger brother Vicente (baby), me, my older brother Javier, and Papo.

Me. Can you see why my dad still calls me Gordo?

My older brother Javier.

Vicente, Me, and Javier getting ready for America's Favorite Pastime.

My little brother Mario.

My younger sister Monica

Monica, Me, Javier (on tricycle), and Vicente. One of my favorite pictures.

One of the best memories from my childhood. "Walk like an Egyptian" themed birthday party . Yes, I had a 80's Pop Song themed birthday party. And It was awesome.

Newsflash. I’m a geek for gadgets and technology in general.  To give you somewhat of an idea of the type of obsession I have I’ll let you in on a revealing habit of mine. Here is an example of my daily routine:

1. Wake Up
2. Restroom/Shower/etc
3. Get dressed
4. Check email on iPhone
5. Check Twitter on iPhone
6. Make breakfast
7. Eat breakfast while looking on Internet and visiting these sites in order:
   1. Gmail
   2. UCSD (work) email
   3. Gizmodo (gadget blog)
   4. CNN
   5. New York Times
   6. Twitter
   7. Facebook
8. Leave for work

It shouldn’t surprise you that I even incorporate technology into my training for the Marine Corps Marathon. My favorite training tool in the arsenal is my Garmin Forerunner 405.

This little guy is a GPS and heart rate enabled sports watch that helps me keep track of my distance and pace. I can even use it with the Garmin Training Center software to create custom workouts. One of my favorite aspects of this little device is the ability to load, analyze and share my workouts. If you follow me on Twitter or are a friend on Facebook you’ve no doubt seen random updates from me with links to my workouts. This is accomplished with the slick Garmin Connect website.

I’ll be honest, this is a great device, but I’m already itching for the newest version.

The Forerunner 310XT is a considerable upgrade with increased battery life (20hrs!), automatic sport switching for the duathletes or triathletes out there, and finally they’ve made it water proof.

If you are looking for something to keep you on track (pun intended) and help you manage your workouts I highly recommend a Garmin device. What’s that? You do a lot of treadmill running? Well good for you then and Garmin can help you track that too! They have a foot-pod you can use for those time when an air-conditioned run in necessary.

What do you use when you workout to help you keep track of your exercise, runs, bike rides, etc? Let me know in the comments!

Want to keep track of my workouts? Well take a look up there on the right and you’ll find a link to my Garmin Connect Activities.

Happy Trails

Hello World.

Big news over here in the sunny (but not hot) southern California. As some of you may know I have signed up to complete my first marathon. I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t this happen last year? Wasn’t there a half-marathon I was training for and never completed? Yes, and yes. But this is different. Let me point out the reasons.

1. I’m motivated and ready. Ever since I moved out here to San Diego I’ve been searching for something to do, something to take the place of what I used to be and do as a cyclist. Running is quickly turning into that something. With my schedule and commitments its hard to fit in the 20 hours on a bike that I need to be competitive, but relatively easy to fit in the 25-50 miles a week I need to run a good marathon. Plus, I have a goal I want to reach.
2. I have a goal. I’ve never been one to just go out and do something for the hell of it. When I choose to participate in an event (especially an athletic one) I aim to do my best and push the limits of what I can do. While I have never run farther than 11 miles I am confident that I can achieve my goal of running a 3-hour marathon. For you number people out there that’s 6:52.213 mile pace.
3. I’m not just doing this for me. I chose to sign up for the Marine Corps Marathon for two reasons:
   1. I wanted to do an event that I could do with my father. The only time I have run competitively was in the 8th grade when I joined the middle school track team after an unsuccessful attempt at making the baseball team. I ran, and ran, and ran that spring and my dad seized the opportunity to enter us both into the Statesman Capitol 10k in Austin, TX. It was a great time, and I fondly remember the nightly 4-mile training runs around our block. Fast forward about 13 years and the spoils of retirement have started to take their toll on my dad. So I hatched a plan: Sign him up for a race, something that he would get excited about and cause him to change his habits and start being more active. Enter the Marine Corps 10k (run in conjunction with the marathon). The marines hold a special place in my dad’s heart (a story for another day) and it just so happens that I know he can’t resist taking part in something that benefits his favorite branch of our armed forces.
   2. When I went to sign up I had unfortunately missed out and the marathon had already filled it’s registration quota. This turns out to be a very good thing. One of the ways that you can participate in a sold-out event is to become a charity runner. As a charity runner you find a charity that is taking part in the event, has registration spots, and is willing to sponsor your registration in exchange for fundraising. It was an easy choice for me as I’ve done this before. My first real cycling event was a 100-mile ride  10 years ago that I completed as a member of Team in Training. I raised over $2000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, trained a ton, and in my own little way helped with the fight against cancer. 10 years later that fight is still going one and once again I’ve chosen to take part. I’ve signed on to raise money for the American Cancer Society a wonderful organization that is dedicated to all aspects involved in the fight against cancer.

I will be setting somethings up on this blog to help you track my training, my fundraising progress, and efforts towards reaching my goals.  Also, I will try to keep the blog updated more often over the next 14 weeks to keep everyone up to date.

Now, you knew this would come, and I understand that in this economy its tough to ask for money, but I would like your help. Your donation to the American Cancer Society will undoubtably help someone with their own personal battle with cancer. If you know someone, knew someone, or have had a personal experience with cancer please consider donating.  You can donate by visiting my Personal Donation Page or by clicking the image below.

Feel free to circulate my link, this blog, or my email address (if you have it) to others you feel would like to be a part of my effort.

Okay, 14 weeks to go and many miles to run.