X-Message-Number: 18412 Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 14:16:31 -0700 From: Jessica Lemler Sikes <> Subject: This Week at Alcor Week of January 21 through 27, 2002 The following can also be viewed on our website at <http://www.alcor.org/>http://www.alcor.org Jennifer Chapman, Membership Administrator CUSTOMER SERVICE It was my pleasure to provide assistance to a multitude of Alcor members and applicants this week, although these activities left little time for other engagements. My membership tasks included processing address updates, sending emergency wallet cards, assisting with insurance changes, reviewing funding documentation and membership paperwork, sending notices of pending cancellations, and processing cancellations. My applicant tasks included sending and reviewing membership paperwork, processing insurance transfers, reviewing insurance documentation, sending applications, and processing applications. Joe Hovey, Accounting Manager Finished the 1099's. Submitted payroll. Working on tax records for membership, detailing dues and donation payments for 2001. Has to be finished by the 31st of the month. Hugh Hixon, Facilities Engineer Friday, various e-mail. Do calculations for solutions to be used for the OR data collection test. Monday, various e-mail on Southern California operations, last minute cases, tour. Catalog work on neuroperfusion box. Chase down parts order and reorder. Tuesday, staff meeting. Curse Windows. Legal conference. Mixing of "perfusates" and final setup of OR data collection test circuit. Wednesday, help with tour. With Jeff Benjamin, run (with Mike Perry, take an LN2 delivery) a test of the OR data (noodle with Jeff on neuronal structure and the nature of memory) collection system. Clean up. Help with a class tour. Extended late night conversation on an info request (he was working off the old Omni ad). Thursday, Assorted administrative stuff. Look at our DSL bandwidth. Minor cleanup. Minor equipment maintenance, Work on some ceiling lights. Work a little on the neuroperfusion box. Mathew Sullivan, Facility Operations Manager Facility Operations: I have focused most of my time again this week working on various computer issues. I have installed new hardware and software, troubleshot problems, network issues, installed updates and patches. I have also installed a few new network cards that will increase our data transfer rate from 10 mega bits per second to 100. With all the downloading and file transferring I have been doing here lately, my interest has peaked for increasing the data transfer rate to improve my efficiency. Worked with our pager Rep to upgrade our pagers at no additional charge. Those getting new pagers will be able to send text messages back and forth. Each of the pagers comes with a mini flip top keyboard. Tom Brown's employment will be starting next week, so I reprogrammed his phone extension. I purchased office supplies, stocked, and submitted my receipts for reimbursement. Jessica Lemler Sikes, Administrative Associate/Webmaster I have learned the value of my notary seal this past week, as I have done numerous notarizations. It was wonderful to be able to help a member in the sign-up process notarize his paperwork, and is very convenient to be available to notarize various documents for fellow staff members. In additionally to my usual administrative responsibilities, I attended a marketing meeting which gave me some insight into what needs to be done to help Alcor with regards to marketability. The gentleman we met with has some great ideas for Alcor, and it should be exciting to work with him. Dr. Jerry Lemler, President, CEO Once again, my week at Alcor was punctuated with visitors, some from out of town, and others from nearby. On Monday, we hosted a Funeral Association Delegation from the Chicago area. They toured our facility, and were most pleasant to be with. They asked many pertinent questions, especially regarding how funeral directors and mortuaries can one day reach the goal of cryosuspension services as a routine alternative third option to conventional burial and cremation. Thanks go to Hugh Hixon for helping me guide our undergraduate visitors Wednesday from Joni Adams s Death and Dying (?redundant) class at Ottawa University. Joni brings her class biannually, and this was the largest (20) group we ve met with to date. Each semester with these students (and others) we fulfill our community educational service requirements to sustain our 501(c)3 status, and the students refreshing inquiries and comments are a pleasure to engage. One of my favorite (and the most attractive) Board Members, Dr. Kat Cotter, and her most engaging husband, Dave Kekich, have announced an exciting event for life extension enthusiasts I d like to help promote. It s called the Longevity Bootcamp, and it will take place on April 27-28, at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can learn more about this intriguing even by accessing them at http://www.maxlife.org/bootcamp/index.htm. As a sidelight, it was exactly a year ago today, January 25, 2001, that after three and a half days, with two cars, two dogs, and three cats, our caravan of ragtag drifters from east Tennessee, pulled into Scottsdale, Arizona, and settled into our new home. It s been, to say the least, quite a year! Mike Perry, PhD., Patient Care Assistant This week for me was taken up with writing projects, a bulk nitrogen fill, and some interfacing with the rep from Media Architects who wants to redesign our website and do other things for us. The writing projects include a "For the Record" column on cryonics history and related topics. This time I decided to do one on Robert Prehoda and his 1969 book, *Suspended Animation*. Prehoda occupies a strange place in the cryonics arena. He did not support the practice, thinking the prospects of reanimation were hopeless, even allowing for future advances in technology. Still, on occasion he did get involved, as in the freezing of James Bedford, and he strongly advocated research in cryopreservation and human hibernation. He was also a proponent of antiaging research and thought aging would be cured eventually. He was quite knowledgeable and a good writer. But I think his views alienated him both from the scientific mainstream and the cryonics community, and he never did get the research going he was aiming for. (As far as I know, he is still alive now, though getting along in years and retired.) I also think his story has a bearing on our efforts today, both on the research and promotional ends. But watch for my column when it appears. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18412