X-Message-Number: 18566 Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 16:56:24 -0700 From: Jessica Lemler Sikes <> Subject: This Week at Alcor The following can be viewed on our website at: http: <http://www.alcor.org/>www.alcor.org Week of February 10 through 16, 2002 Joe Hovey, Accounting Manager Played catch up all week. Went back and began updating the accounting for December and January that I was unable to do last month. Met with Alcor attorney Ron Carmichael on Tuesday to complete resolution of a Trust arrangement established by an Alcor member. Everything appears to be solved. Jerry Lemler has been out of town all week, leaving me in effective charge of Alcor in his absence. I have been reclining in my office snapping out orders to all staff, drunk with power, while managing to evade responsibility for any consequences. Is this how the Roman emperors use to feel? This is dangerous. I could get use to this. Mathew Sullivan, Facility Operations Manager Cryotransport: I thought about a Pelican case design for our refractometers and National Instruments hardware. The latest design concept should contribute to resolving a number of issues, and assist with field cryoprotection and cooldown. Our LabView consultant has been in and out this week looking over hardware and demonstrating various software/programming improvements that should be made. I also experimented with a portion of the programming a little to see if I could incorporate the changes into our existing program, but it is incomplete at the moment. Project Future Bound UK and Canada continues as follows: With help from Hugh, I made nine clot filter brackets. Eight brackets were installed on the ATP plates. This completes the ATP plate frames and now the next step will be to construct the tubing arrays for the plates. Facility Operations: I resolved most of the issues with collecting information about our website statistics. Our account was not setup to record statistical data, so I made the necessary changes to obtain that data. After having an opportunity to become familiar with our account with XO, I did a little house cleaning that included removing obsolete email addresses and making some adjustments to our current users. Attended a marketing meeting where the primary discussion was to consider possible logo changes for Alcor. Helped Karla with some car problems. Organized paperwork, including my logged hours and to do list. I spent a couple hours with an ex-member of Alcor who wanted to discuss a variety of issues. Swapped out a couple of lights in my office that were on the fritz. Patient Care: All three copies of the 2001 logbook are now complete. We did not transfer any patients this week as planned due to a shortage of staff available to move our Bigfoot dewars. Jessica Lemler Sikes, Administrative Associate/Webmaster This week I have attended several marketing-related meetings, the first of which was last Friday. We met to decide what we thought should be Alcor's new logo. Earlier this week we met via teleconference with Rudi Hoffman and Dr. Lemler, who is in Florida (see his report), to discuss ways in which we could better market Alcor to the public. We also discussed the possibility of coordinating cryonics interest groups in different areas of the country, and I formulated a letter with the help of Jennifer, Paula, and Karla, to be sent to our members in an effort to bring them together. This is definitely an exciting prospect, and many thanks to Rudi Hoffman for his thoughts on this! Today we're full steam ahead in our reviewing of our monograph, Alcor Life Extension Foundation: An Introduction, to see which parts we would like to possibly place on our website. Karla, Jennifer and I will be meeting later this afternoon to discuss this. It is nice to have a growing female presence here at Alcor. Judy Muhlestein and her sister have been here a few days this week, helping with mailings, and we greatly appreciate their help. Of course we miss Dr. Lemler greatly, but we are still stumbling along and doing what we can without him here! Hugh Hixon, Facilities Engineer Friday, admin stuff. Go to party for selection of new logo (this will be either the fifth or sixth logo that Alcor has had in 20 years). Long huddle with a Labview expert on data collection. Monday, answer some questions about an impending non-standby (a heads-up on an angiography). Look over parts received for neuroperfusion box. Work on shoehorning a lot of functions into a medium-sized box. Tuesday, bank run. Legal run. Talk a bit more with Labview expert. Take an LN2 delivery. Wiring for neuroperfusion box. Wednesday, sheet metal work with Mathew. More wiring. More work with Labview expert inside perfusion pumps. Nibble at reading backlog. Thursday, vehicle maintenance. Read about cat cloning. Work on control box layout and additional parts requirements. Paula Lemler, Volunteer I have been working on mailings, writing checks, and attending meetings. Busy week! Jennifer Chapman, Membership Administrator MARKETING A significant amount of time was devoted to revising the presentation of the headings on Alcor s website. The intention of these revisions is to make it easier for Alcor members and prospective clients to get the desired information, provide Alcor with feedback, get updates on current events, and request more information. As the website is currently Alcor s primary marketing tool and means of disseminating information, these decisions are worthy of careful consideration. For further enhancements, the next several weeks will be primarily devoted to revising the content of the site. DATABASE As previously indicated, it is anticipated that the updated database system will have the ability to generate automated email messages for promoting contact with Alcor applicants. Similarly, the system will provide Alcor with reports indicating when additional follow-up correspondence is needed for assisting applicants with satisfying the various membership requirements. Achieving these capabilities requires a complete review of the application process, a written explanation of all requirements that must be satisfied prior to membership finalization, and a proposal for database checklists. Mike Perry, PhD., Patient Care Assistant Last Friday we had a "logo party" to vote on a new design for Alcor's logo, using some designs created recently by a professional we are working with. The final decision, I understand, will rest with the board. Magazine work: finished a draft For the Record column about Prehoda and suspended animation. Only a minor changes still needed. I also worked some on the Technews column, which reports on new technological developments and covers a wide range of topics. As usual, there is a lot to report on: cat cloning, mouse heart cells from human stem cells, cloning a human embryo for therapeutics, what next? (Every step is helping us toward our worthy goal of personal immortality!) Other work: did picture scanning and processing for a patient we have in suspension, to obtain a high-resolution copy of a color print as protection against fading of the original over time. There was some continuing work to copy pictures for relatives of another patient; that project is now nearing completion. I met with Mathew and an electrical engineer who is also a Labview programmer (not an Alcor member), and who may be doing contract work for us. Dr. Jerry Lemler, President, CEO (from ft Lauderdale Florida) Hi everyone from the sunshine state, where today (Friday) the skies are overcast, and from my oceanside balcony, I can attest to the foreboding presence of numerous whitecaps. It s a rough life, this cryonics business! It truly is! lest you draw an erroneous conclusion that I ve been merely playing this week, please allow me to chronicle just a few of the events which have consumed the vast preponderance of my time. One week ago, I flew from Phoenix to Orlando, rented a car, and then drove to Rudi and Dawn Hoffman s well lit, charming abode in Port Orange (Daytona suburb). If you don t already know this (and I didn t), the Hoffman s are masters of the art of home decoration. No trouble locating their place the entire house, roof not excluded, was lit up in Valentine s Day decor, with a sign out front, personally welcoming me by name. Dawn and Rudi were marvelous hosts for my weekend sojourn, and I surely do thank both of them! Rudi and I drove back to the Orlando area on Sunday for the inaugural Cryofeast. Our gathering of Alcor members and prospective signups was so fascinating and entertaining, it lasted more than five hours. Participants traveled from as far away as Naples to Atlanta! I left the Hoffman home on Monday for the uneventful drive down to Ft. Lauderdale. By now, I have little doubt Dawn and Rudi have swapped the Valentine s decorations for the St. Paddy s Day paraphernalia I saw in the storage shed. I met privately with Alcor members Bill Faloon and David Hayes on Tuesday afternoon, and received a tour of the impressive Life Extension Foundation Ft. Lauderdale facility, courtesy of our host. Our discussions (naturally) centered on various aspects of our involvement and support of Bill s new cryotransport organization. Alcor Treasurer, Board member, and my good friend, Dr. Michael Riskin, flew into town Wednesday evening to join me for the remainder of the week s many activities. Yesterday (Thursday), at LEF, we participated in, I kid you not, an eight hour organizational meeting with Bill Faloon, Saul Kent, David Hayes, Dave Shumaker, Mike Darwin, and Curtis Henderson. I do believe we addressed just about every facet of the structure and organization of the new company. I know I slept quite well after this meeting was concluded. Today, this being Friday, Michael and I are meeting with Mike Darwin to review case performance videos at LEF, while this evening we are dining with Edgar Swank and Jim Yount of ACS. Tomorrow, Saturday, is the launch (not lunch) meeting of Florida cryonicists, publicly announcing the formation of the Ft. Lauderdale-based cryotransport company, followed by a reception at Saul Kent s second home. Michael and I will be returning to our respective homes on Sunday, and as for me, I ll be back in the office Monday A.M. Oh yeah I confess, I put in a little beach time Wednesday afternoon. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18566