The winter of 2008-2009 was snowless here in roanoke virginia. According to accuweather.com roanoke was the biggest looser in the nation when it came to the percentage of snow we compared to the amount we should get normally. we only got four inches for the entire winter this year when we normally get about 22 inches. To tell the truth we didn't get any snow at all between the official start and the offical end of winter. we got a dusting in november which was before the offical start of winter and the 4 inch snow we got was after the offical end of winter. even though our officaily recorded snow accumulation for march 1st was about 4 inches there were other places in the city that got almost a foot and here at my house we got atleast 5 inches. This was also the first storm that I have seen it thunder, blowing snow, and hail all at the same time. Hopefully we will get more snow next winter . see yall for  now

I recently purchased a pickup truck from a private dealer. before a bought he told me it needed a transmission and I thought that if I bought it and put the money into to fix the transmission it would be a nice truck but no things just couln't be that simple now could they! nope when he when to pull it off the trailer he had used to haul it over to my house he started it and all the power-steering fluid poured out of it. About ten minutes after he left we started and drove it up and down the street just to see how bad the transmission really was and it wasn't as bad as we thought it was but when we parked it started leaking engine coolant,brake fluid,oil, transmission fluid,transfer case fluid, and also we realized that it needed some interior parts too. so now we are trying to sell the truck and we are having a hard time just giving it away! so, lesson learned, when buying a truck make sure you check out and test everything thoroughly and floor it when test driving it( That is the ultimate test for any vehicle,) STRESS IT OUT!.

stress is a common thing around our house these days because we have a lot going on all at once. we can barely afford to pay our bills, my brother has decided that he is moving to alaska whick makes my mom very upset. I bought a truck that was supposed to only need a transmission but now as you can imagine just about everything else broke on it about 10 minutes after the previouse owners dropped it off at my house. On top of all that my mom is very sick and my grandmother is always gripy about something. Then there are two ex's to deal with. also, our house is messy falling apart and our other car needs alot of work and our yard is messy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. My stepdad has heart problems and my grandmother has fibromyalgia and needs new glass which we can't afford . My mom has a rare blood cancer, diabetes, meneirs disease and stomach problems. on top of all that just to top it all off, all the younger kids are very mis-behaved. Does this sound like a bad situation or what! Think I'm lying, come on over for a visit!

Severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID) is a rare and deadly disease that is caused by a number of different things. In most cases there a mutation in a gene on the X chromosome in the bone marrow   that creates a key part of the lymphocyte, which in a normal person would tell the immune system cells to mature, mobilize, and attack foreign objects that have, invaded the body. It is like a town with a police force that has no guns, no radios, and no cop cars to fight crime with. So how are they going to fight crime? They are not. So without any way of knowing when something has invaded the body and any way of fighting it any way the immune system fails to do it's job and the body is invaded with any disease that comes in. Even if it is just the common cold, which only gives most people, a cough, and a runny nose can be a lot worse in people with SCIDS. I have read about people with SCIDS dying from the cold because it got so bad and the doctors could not stop the infection. You might know SCID best from a movie made in the 1980'sabout a boy called David who lived in a plastic bubble for nearly 13 years. He was placed in the plastic bubble as soon as his parents knew he had SCID because they had already had one earlier son die from it. Unfortunately David also died in 1984 after an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant, an attempt to give him the ability to fight diseases on his own and free him from the bubble he had known his whole life.

                There is no central record of how many people are diagnosed with SCID each year in the United States but the best estimate is that somewhere around 40-100. Not all babies are diagnosed with SCID and die at a very young age each year without any explanation as to why the common cold or the flu killed them when it should have only been a slight nuisance, so the actual number could be much higher than that. If you have a family history of infant deaths due to bad infections then you should watch for symptoms of SCIDS and have all surviving babies tested for and all other immune deficiency syndromes because most babies don't just die from the flu because they got it really bad they die from the flu because their immune system isn't working properly.

                If you have a baby that exhibits having a lot of illness in the first few years of life such as eight or more ear infections, infections that cannot be resolved with antibiotic treatment for two or three months at a time, failure to gain weight or grow properly, and other infections that last longer than they should or cannot not be resolved with normal antibiotic treatment. Also if you have infants that get really deep seated infections as pneumonia in an entire lung or an abscess on the liver. Persistent thrush in the mouth or in the throat is another sign of SCID. If you have an infant with an infection that requires persistent antibiotics then this could also be yet another sign of SCIDS

                SCIDS is caused by a mutation in a gene called IL2RG on the X chromosome. This gene would normal help create part of a receptor on the surface of the lymphocyte the would receive chemical messages from other parts of the immune system telling it to mature, mobilize, and attack when there are foreign objects invading the body like viruses and bacteria. The malfunctioning receptor is called common gamma chain because it is a critical but common component of the lymphocyte cells. It is a very important component in mobilizing the immune system against foreign objects like the cold or flu virus or bacteria. Since this type of SCIDS is a mutation on the X chromosome it does not affect women because they have two X chromosomes and when one is mutated they still have the other one to compensate for it and thus they have a normal immune system. Unfortunately this is not true for men. Males only have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome so when a gene gets mutated there is nothing to compensate for it and there immune system fails to respond to foreign objects and the body is open to a wide array of different diseases.

                There is some treatment for SCIDS but it does not always work. One of the most effective treatments however is the transplant of healthy blood forming cells from the bone marrow of a healthy person. Bone marrow stem cells are used because they can live for long periods of time and can also produce a continuous supply of health immune system cells. One of the greatest chances of curing SCIDS may come from a tissue matched brother or sister. Unfortunately most patients do not have a surviving brother or sister and transplants are often performed from a parent or matched donor although these transplants tend to fail more than the ones from a matched related donor. Most transplants performed within the first three months of life have the highest success rate. In 1990, researchers at the national institutes for health performed the first successful human gene therapy on two girls with SCIDS and the treatments consisted of removing some of the girls own immune system cells and inserting a copy of the mutated gene into them and then growing more of the cells in a culture system and then returning the cells to the girls bodies through a vein. Repeating these treatments led to normalization of the immune system even through they still rely on enzyme injections to keep them normal.

                Over SCIDS is a very disabling disease that affects very few people but the people that it does affect usually does not live long unless they are diagnosed at a very early age and treatments are successful and those things do not always happen. A lot of infants die every year from SCIDS but never get diagnosed because most people think that it is from a severe viral infection, which it is but it would not be a severe infection if it were not for SCIDs. So if you have an infant that gets sick a lot do not just treat the illness take them to the doctor and find out why they are getting sick so often. The earlier that SCIDs is diagnosed the better treatments will work.

The Internal Combustion Engine or I.C.E is the invention that most affects how people live because it nowadays it does most of out work for us. The I.C.E can in some indirect way do almost any type of work that you can think of in almost any place on earth. It can do a wide range of work from turning an airplane propeller to mowing the lawn or turning the wheels of your car. The I.C.E. Can also provide many forms of entertainment including but not limited to powering ATV 'S., Monster trucks, snowmobiles, boats, R/C cars, R/C airplanes, and many types of racing. The I.C.E can produce a lot of power for it's small size and relatively light. There is no animal on earth that could produce as much power and work as fast as an I.C.E. It is also very efficient with the resources it needs to do the work that it can do. The Diesel engine in a locomotive can move a lot of weight a long distance on a lot less fuel than it would food if you were trying to do the same think with horses or oxen. So an Internal Combustion Engine can do almost any type of work in almost  every environment on earth, It has a lot of power available to do that work for it's relatively small size , and it is very efficient at it or it uses few  resources compared to the amount of work it does.

                The I.C.E is one of universal and useful things ever invented because it can be used to do almost any type of work anytime and anywhere you need it. Today it is used to do a wide range of things from turning airplane propellers to turning the blade on a lawn mower. Another reason the I.C.E is one of the most useful inventions because it can be used when conditions are their harshest whether is rainy, windy, snowy, hot, and cold. They can also come in all shapes and sizes. Some have oval shaped pistons and most have round pistons. They can have as many cylinders as you want. Some have small pistons others have very large ones. They can be small enough to fit in your hand or big enough to stand on. Some are powerful enough to move large ship while others are only having enough power to move a small r/c car. Some provide you with entertainment while others indirectly help set the food on your table. I.C.E.'s universal usefulness is the main reason they are so popular. Another way they are universal is that they can use many different types of fuel, some run on petroleum products while others can run on hydrogen and propane. Most do not need much modification when changing the type of fuel they run on except for the fuel intake system. In addition, some fuels have advantages over others. Like gas provides more overall horsepower but diesel provides more torque, that's why big trucks , boats , and construction equipment use diesel to do work but cars and trucks use gas engines because they provide more horsepower and speed which is what you need to get from point A to point B quickly and comfortably. So overall I.C.E's are the invention that has most affected the way people live because it is universally useful.

                The I.C.E. Can produce a lot of power for it's small size and light weight when compared to the manual labor of people and livestock. It can do the lot of what would be very hard work for an animal in a relatively short amount of time. If someone wanted to plow a field and they could either use a horse and a manual plow or a tractor which one do you think they would use the horse or the tractor? Of course, they are going to use the tractor because it is a lot faster and a lot easier when compared to the amount of time it would take the horse. An engines power is usually measured in horsepower. Horsepower is the amount of work done in one minute. For example if you were able to lift 33,000 pounds and you could do it for one minute you would be using one horsepower. In reality, the human body can only sustain about 0.1 horsepower. Therefore, an engine that produces about as much as the human body can is small than an adults hand is. That goes to show just how efficient an I.C.E is when compared to others forms of mechanical energy. It turns chemical energy in it's fuel into mechanical energy and lot's of it. A three horsepower engine on a snow blower can move more snow than any being could ever dream of doing and it can do it in a matter of minutes. So an I.C.E produces a lot of horsepower compared to it's size, weight, and how much fuel it uses.

                Along with producing a lot of power for it's size and weight an I.C.E can do a lot of work very efficiently. The I.C.E can work hard just like we can but it can work a lot harder, a lot faster , and it can do it on a lot less fuel than we could if we could do what it does but unlike people an I.C.E has very few needs. All it needs to work is fuel, oil, and a way to cool down. There are many other advantages to an engine than what I have already mentioned in the above paragraphs. They do not have to be paid, they do not complain, they are cheap to fix when compared to more primitive forms of labor. If you had a horse plowing your field and it broke it's leg it would cost a lot more to take it to veteran than it would to go to the store and buy a new part and put it on. One gallon of fuel can do a lot more work than the same amount of food. The diesel engine in a locomotive can pull 12,000 pounds of freight 1 mile using one gallon fuel, think of how many animals and food it would take to do the same thing. Even a gas guzzling V8 is very efficient for the amount of work it does to the amount of fuel it uses. Another example of this efficiency is your lawn mower: it uses usually less than ½ of a tank to mow your entire yard. How much food, time, and energy do you think it would take to do the same jog with the same quality with a manual push mower? So an I.C.E is does a lot of work very fast and very efficiently only requiring a little maintenance now and then. Basically it turns a little bit of fuel into a lot of work well done.

                The Internal Combustion Engine or I.C.E affects the way people live the most because it makes our lives much easier than our ancestors by doing most of the work that in their time had to be done by hand. It basically does all the work for us all we have to do is guide it. An I.C.E affects the way people live because it can be adapted to any situation that requires work. It can do everything from turning the propellers of an airplane to mowing your lawn whether it's rain, sleet, snow, cold, hot, or wet. They also make a lot of power for their small size and relatively light weight. An I.C.E can do a lot of work very efficiently by using a relatively small amount of fuel compared to the work it is doing. So basically an I.C.E can do a lot of work very fast, under most weather conditions, and at that it can do it without using a lot of resources. That is why I think the Internal Combustion Engine is the one invention that has affected the way people live in a big way.