that readers will cast my self importance on the dung heap and perhaps sort some value out of my pretense. I grew up immersed in three story telling traditions: Irish, Northwest Plateau Indian, and the nascent field of television entertainment in which my dad worked. One might say that I was never quite sure if my dad was James Joyces' Finnegan, Chief Joseph, or Ronald MacDonald. I also benefited from being a sick little kid; what you CAN do while you're sick-a-bed is read. Then I discovered bicycles and it was like the realization of flying dreams. Suddenly, I wasn't a sick little kid, I was a vigorous guy who lived on a bicycle. Dropping out of high school with a lottery number of eighteen and thinking that Canada was probably more healthful that Vietnam led me to a career as a bicycle racer, and that in turn led me to a pressing need to learn another language when I was sold to a Belgian team -- we took our orders in French. Much later, after many odd jobs, through a series of short sighted decisions, I was admitted to the University of Washington School of Medicine in the Biochemistry Department on the merit of the skills I had developed as a marijuana farmer and as a salesman. That's another story. Now, I am privileged to work as a scientist because I can do two things: I can write and I can stand in front of an audience of scientists