Inaugural Post

I meant to start this blog last year, but just didn't get to it. However, better late than never. I'm excited to be able to ride in the MS Bike Tour this year. With the move last year, I didn't get sufficient training rides in and wasn't ready for the 2006 ride. I hated to miss it, since it would have been my 7th in a row, but hopefully I can begin a new streak.

I have been training, but I need to increase the length of my training rides. I'm finding some good roads around here to train on. It's pretty flat too, which is nice. What I find interesting is that eastern North Carolina is flatter than central Kansas. So, I dealt with more hills in KS than I do here. In Kansas I generally rode by corn, milo, and cows. Around here, it's soybeans, corn, and tobacco. I have only seen a few cows on my rides thus far.

My research at East Carolina University is generally focused on couples and multiple sclerosis. It hasn't evolved as quickly as I would like, but I am making progress on a couple of projects. I'm looking forward to more progress this next year. I was excited to see the announcement this week of the progress in identifying genetic components of MS. The genetic component remains a relatively small piece of the puzzle of who gets this illness, but obviously it is an important one. Hopefully it will lead to more effective treatments for MS.

Well that's enough for the initial post. More to come...