The Immortalist

This summer has been a quieter time at CI, but it has certainly not been a period of inactivity. Dr. Pichugin was on vacation in Ukraine for the month of July and I spent much of July in China. Nonetheless, CI took on its 66th patient in July, thanks to the efforts of Andy Zawacki, Robert Ettinger and our co-operating funeral director, Jim Walsh.

CI's 66th patient was a woman in her 60s suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and after being hospitalized apparently choked and was declared brain-dead. An autopsy was never performed so although the cause of brain-death was somehow related to the MS, precise details are lacking. The family decided to have her cryopreserved and we were contacted. The patient was heparinized, cooled down, removed from life-support and transported from the hospital to our facility.

We have been preparing for the Annual General Meeting of the Cryonics Institute, which is to be held on Sunday, September 19, 2004. All CI Members and their guests are welcome to attend. If you do want to attend we request that you inform us of this -- e-mail CIHQ@aol.com or phone (586) 791-5961. As of this writing 30 people are expected to attend, which means we could get as many as 50 or more people attending the meeting.

Four Directors of the CI Board are to be chosen at the September meeting. Two of the incumbents are stepping down: John Besancon and Edgar Swank, but two new candidates have expressed their desire to be Directors: Alan Mole and John Strickland. The incumbents Royse Brown and Jim Fitzgerald wish to remain in office. Thus, an election may have been averted.

During my trip to China I attended my first conference of the Society of Cryobiology - which was held in Beijing (attending at my own expense). The article I wrote which should appear elsewhere in this issue is largely the product of my latest bout of cryobiology study. I hope to attend the Society for Cryobiology conferences annually in the future.

To cope with the poor micrographs we have gotten using Dr. Pichugin's vitrification formula we have purchased a high quality microscope with digital camera to assist in CI Research. This will also give Dr. Pichugin more opportunity to brush-up on his microscopy-preparation skills, which may have been part of the problem. And it will give us more rapid feedback on our solutions, aside from saving on the costs of an external lab.

Tax-deductable donations to the Research Fund are a welcome assistance to our efforts. [E-mail CIHQ@aol.com if you have questions about donation -- or phone (586) 791-5961 with questions or your credit card number.]

On Thursday, July 28th a meeting of cryonicists and fellow-travelers was held in Vancouver's West End which was more than twice as large as any previous such gathering ever held in British Columbia -- seven people, including the three locals, Chuck Grodzicki, Brent Young and Doug Skrecky attended.

The Russian cryonicist Mikhail (Mike) Soloviev, a CI member (currently visiting Canada from Switzerland) came with his wife. (who is a microbiologist) Mike's wife is devoted to him and wishes to be with him for as long as he lives -- including a greatly extended lifespan -- and to assist him in fulfilling his dreams. Chuck suggested that finding Russian wives might be a good idea for some of the rest of us.

Some mention was made of the anti-cryonics law in BC and how that law claims to only be against the "marketing" of cryonics -- and of the "comfort letter" received by Olaf Henry to the effect that there would not be persecution or prosecution for practicing cryonics. However, I pointed to the one cryonics case in BC in which the family of a young girl who died of leukemia were treated very harshly by hospitals, medical personnel and funeral service people.

In the best of cases, BC organizations will insist on consulting lawyers before committing themselves to involvement in a cryonics case -- and the lawyers are likely to give their typical paranoid advice (insofar as lawyers are professional paranoids). If anyone wishes to practice cryonics in BC I believe they will have to do a lot of consulting ahead of time with lawyers, hospitals, funeral directors, medical personnel and common carriers to ensure complicity in a timely manner.

Some members of the group expressed concern that there is too much private communication between the Toronto cryonicists which does not appear in the CSC list. . I said that we in Toronto often do not wish to presume to be Canada, and that we don't wish to pollute cyberspace with meeting-plans, etc. that apply only to Toronto and not the rest of Canada. Chuck said that it is an inspiration to see our planning, activity and organization even if it is physically remote from BC.

However, as reported in FLORIDA TODAY, there’s much more to consider, than just tossing them in a drawer. And it depends on who you listen to. Dan Koster, Web content manager for Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina, be-came a minor celebrity after reporting in the spring of this year that 15 to 20 percent of the 2,000 CDs in his properly stored collection suffered, from what has loosely been called CD rot and would no longer play.

The library of Congress and National Institute of Standards and Technology are running "accelerated aging" tests on CDs and 'DVDs. Though results are premature, Michele Youket, a preservation specialist, says the poorest- quality CDs may last only four or five years; the best, more than 100.

PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY (with the July issue which is at the printers now) will in July have two major wholesale distributors. We have added a second wholesale distributor in New York. (the wholesale distributors each have about 100 or so retail magazine stores they sell to).

But the big news is that a sample copy of the July issue of PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY will go to 600 new wholesale distributors. From this mailing we expect to pick up at least 50 to 100 additional wholesale distributors for the October issue. Even if we just add 50 wholesale distributors and each one of them places PHYSICAL IMMORTALITY in 100 retail magazine stores that will be 5000 magazine stores carrying our magazine. This is in addition to our direct subscription list.

With the possibility of a very large increase in readership we are considering adding 4 to 16 more pages to our magazine. Our present distributors feel that it would sell best at around 40 + pages. We need submissions from those of you who are practicing immortalists - people who don't want to die and are doing something about it. If you are signed up for cryonic suspension, you are probably a practicing immortalist.

We also need artwork, humor, fiction, poetry.. Please send your submissions to our editor, Mike Perry, now, so that he has time to give consideration to every submission. You don't have to be a leader in the cryonics movement. You don't have to be well-known. Don't be shy. We know there are a lot of good ideas out there and we want to help get these new ideas to the general public.

It will be, as long as there are people like Steven Teeter around. In the LETTERS section of FORTUNE, Steven Teeter comments on a recent article about Aubrey de Grey. De Grey is a proponent of anti-aging research, and is a researcher at Cambridge University’s Department of Genetics.

Aubrey de Grey is working to keep people alive for 5,000 years ("This Man Would Have You Live a Really, Really, Really, Really Long Time, June 14). So these people will enter the workforce at 25, retire at 60, and spend the next 4,940 years collecting Social Security and Medicare. They can enjoy Seinfeld reruns while civilizations rise and fall around them.

Robert Ettinger, author of The Prospect of Immortality (1962) and Man Into Superman (1972), was kind enough to meet me at his home and at the Cryonics Institute (CI) in Clinton Township, MI on Aug 3-4, 2004. Mr. Ettinger is a hero of mine for his successful efforts to introduce the concept of physical immortality and cryonics to a wider audience.

During my overnight stay with Mr. Ettinger, I was fortunate to have about 2 hours with which we talked about such topics as "Death = Oblivion", the question of "Heat Death" and the possible creation of "Artificial Life." CI purchased their 7,000 sq/ft facility for $300,000 outright.... actually, the day I was there was CI's 10/yr anniversary at that location in Clinton Township, MI. Before Aug 1994, CI was situated in a smaller facility located closer to downtown Detroit... I'm not sure how long CI was at this smaller facility.

In a recent FLORIDA TODAY article, Sarah Aravanis, director of the Washington D.C. based National Center on Elder Abuse, commenting on elder abuse, elder scams and elder neglect, said “This is a very big issue, we don’t know how big it is across the country. But people on the state and local level tell us these types of situations are increasing.”

1. Sudden changes in bank account or banking practice, including an unexplained withdrawal of large sums of money by a person accompanying   the account owner.
2. The inclusion of more names on the bank signature card.
3. Unauthorized withdrawal of funds with the person's ATM card
4. Abrupt changes in a will, or other financial documents.
5. Unexplained disappearance of funds or valuable possessions.
6. Substandard care being provided or bills unpaid despite the availability of adequate financial resources.
7. Discovery of the person's signature being forged for financial transactions or for the titles of his/her possessions.
8. Sudden appearance of previously uninvolved   relatives claiming their rights to the person's affairs and possessions.
9. Unexplained sudden .transfer; of assets to a family member or   someone outside the family.
Source: Natlonal Center on Elder Abuse, Washington D.C.
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The rate of technological change is dizzying, and it's only getting faster. In September at Stanford, the Institute for the Study of Accelerating Change is acknowledging the trend with its second annual Accelerating Change conference. The 2003 confab was billed as the first in the world to focus on multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a techno-logical singularity." What is a technological singularity? A moment when runaway ad-vances outstrip human comprehension and all our knowledge and experience becomes useless as a guidepost to the future. WIRED Sept 04
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We have previously reported in The Immortalist on the ingenious ways funeral homes are branching out into related areas to increase revenue. (Oversize caskets, themed funerals, videotaped memorials etc.) If Costco, the nationwide warehouse club is successful in their latest venture, perhaps the funeral homes should start selling washing machines and furniture. As reported in USA TODAY, Costco has started selling caskets in two suburban Chicago stores. They carry six models all priced at $799.99. If successful, the concept could conceivably expand to all 324 stores.

A while back, John Bull offered to run a profile of me, for an issue of , The Immortalist. Although I was very flattered by the offer, I had put the issue on hold for a while. Maybe it was because I just didn’t know how to write about my life in a way that would sound interesting to others, or maybe it was stage fright. Anyhow, I’ve been giving the idea some thought, and figured it couldn’t hurt too much to give this a try...

As for the basics, I was born in London, Ontario, Canada, February 12th, 1973 and have spent most of my life living within an hour or so from Toronto, Canada. My parents emigrated from Portugal in the mid sixties to London Ontario, where they met, . During elementary school, I attended an enrichment program offered to “gifted students” and actually skipped grade 8, going from grade 7 to high school. At the age of 14, I joined the Air Cadets, and from early on, my interests were mostly in military or law enforcement careers, I didn’t actually become interested in medicine until becoming an army medic later on.

When I turned 17, in 1990, I joined the Canadian Army, (reserves). I spent 2 years in the Lorne Scots Regiment, an infantry unit, as a field medic. I was actually the first female to join (and make it through boot camp) in “C” company, which was based in Georgetown, Ontario.

In the Canadian military, women can participate in front line occupations, and actually train together, with men - there aren’t separate “women’s corps” there. I then transferred to the 11th Field Artillery Regiment, out of Guelph, where I worked for another 2 years. Briefly, before resigning from the army, in 1994, I joined an Intelligence Company, based out of CFB (Canadian Forces Base) Downsview, in Toronto. During my time in the army, my favourite task was handling weapons, and I actually distinguished myself as an excellent marksman. (As you can tell from the huge smile on my face) I can honestly say that the experience of being in the Army gave me a tremendous amount of confidence, and taught me that, cheesy as it sounds, anything is possible if you want it badly enough.

I made a trip to a US army recruiting office, in Buffalo NY, but I couldn’t work out the necessary immigration hurtles to join the US army. I went to George Brown College, in Toronto, too, for about a month, for Hotel Management. Alas, I decided, during an accounting class, that this really wasn’t the job for me, so I actually got up out of that class and walked out, never looking back.

OK...before I am labeled a total airhead, I must say that I did end up going to college, in 1995, and chose to try my hand at a nursing career. I had met my long time boyfriend, Andrew in 1993, and he and I ended up going to school together- he took Automotive Marketing, and I took nursing- both 3 year programs. Part of that decision was based on my experience as a medic, and part of it was influenced by the fact that Andrew’s mother was a nurse, thus exposing me to that potential career. It was during this time, that I finally got my hands on a personal computer, and the Internet, and got the chance to indulge my growing interest in science, and medicine. I became fascinated with cloning, nanotechnology, and other “Discovery Channel” type topics on life extension and transhumanism. There was a TV series at the time, (1997) hosted by Gillian Anderson, called “Future Fantastic” that I was riveted by.

This fuelled my interest in high tech biology and physics. Somehow, and I am not sure how this actually started, I ended up doing some reading on cryonics. As long as I can remember, I have had a genuine dis-interest in dying, but I cannot recall when this interest solidified into a genuine interest in cryonics.

It was then, when I lived in Barrie, Ontario, going to college, that I first spoke with Ben Best. At first, we had only had a couple of phone conversations, which got me a few strange looks from Andrew, but he was getting used to my ideas on science, or at least remaining quiet about his skepticism.

Then, for a while, Ben and I lost contact completely. I graduated from college in 1998, and at this point, moved to Texas with Andrew. He went there to get a BBA, in a school in the Dallas area, and I went along for the adventure, and to try my hand in an American hospital. In 1998, nursing jobs in Canada were few and far between. I ended up getting a job on a medical floor, which was a good way to start as a new grad.

He had emigrated once, from Russia, in 1991, and wasn’t really interested in doing it again. If I remember correctly, I did have a couple of conversations with Ben Best while in Texas, but if so, they were few and far between. Lucky for me, when I returned to Canada, the nursing job market was looking a little better, and jobs were opening up. I worked for a year doing visiting (home care) nursing.

In July of 2000, I saw an ad in the paper for full time ER positions at North York General Hospital, in Toronto, which included full training in critical care and an extensive internship. Since becoming a nurse, the area of nursing I wanted most to work in was the ER, so I did everything I could to get this job. I was hired in August of 2000, and so began a 3-month in-class and on the job orientation, to prepare me for the hardest and best job I have ever had. Here I got my fill of what the busiest ER in the city, and one of the busiest ER’s in the country has to offer. We got our gang bangers, drive by shootings, drug dealers, you name it. I actually learned several handy phrases in Cantonese, quite a bit of conversational Russian- well, mostly bad words, and mostly from Andrew, and assorted words in Farsi, Hungarian and Mandarin.

We actually had what we called theme nights, where for some inexplicable reason, everyone would seem to show up with the same symptoms.. We had “croup nights”, “drunk nights”, “abdominal pain nights”, and even once, we had “prison night”. This was on one particular Saturday night, when a fight had broken out at a local high security prison. We had twelve separate groups of “guys in leg chains and orange jumpsuits- with two cops a piece” show up with various injuries. Besides scaring the heck out of the other patients, it actually looked very comical. There was another night that stood out, where a large group of Russian gang members had a sword Besides scaring the heck out of the other patients, it actually looked very comical. There was another night that stood out, where a large group of Russian gang members had a sword fight in a nearby park. We had a lot of guys show up that night with holes in their bodies, and very vague, inconsistent stories to go along with their wounds.

I worked at this hospital until February of 2004. As many of you know, our hospital was host to one of the two SARS epidemics that ravaged Toronto in 2003. Our doors were closed for 3 months, as we tried to deal with the onslaught of this disease. I posted many updates on Cryonet during this time, describing the ordeal in as much detail as I could. We re-opened in late August, but it left a lot of scars, both on our institution, and on us as individuals.

On a positive note, in August of 2003, in an attempt to encourage tourism to our city and send a message to the world that SARS was going away, we hosted a huge outdoor concert in Downsview, Toronto. It featured twelve hours of big bands, including the Rolling Stones as the headlining band in a concert that saw more than half a million spectators. As our ER was still closed, we got the opportunity to staff the huge (200-bed) field hospital at this concert, which was located in an airplane hangar behind the stage. The area hosting this concert was an old military airfield that actually hosted the Pope’s visit the summer before, for World Youth Day. Incidentally, that event brought together over a million spectators, in the same airfield. If you are interested in seeing more photos of this concert, that photo album is on the same site as my SARS photo albums, and some photos from my California road trip that I recently posted...http://community.webshots.com/user/christinegaspar1

As far as my involvement with Cryonics goes, I became actively involved with the Cryonics Society of Canada, around November of 2002, when our group assisted with the suspension of a lady in Toronto. She was the first person from Toronto to ever undergo the process, and is now safely tucked away at the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan. We had the opportunity to meet this lady, three weeks before her deanimation, and I learned some valuable lessons about co-ordinating cryonics arrangements with palliative and home care medical professionals. For a better description of this experience, see Ben’s article:
http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/toronto.html

During the time I have been involved with the CSC, and namely with a sub-group of the CSC known simply as the “Toronto Local Group”, I have watched a small, lesser organized group of cryonicists blossom into a larger, more cohesive unit, with a growing potential to assist Canadian cryonicists through the uncharted waters of cryonic suspension.

I’d like to hope that my involvement had some, albeit small influence on this, and I am honoured to know such an amazing group of people. In early 2003, while dealing with the craziness at work, I was elected to be the president of the CSC. I was surprised, and touched that our group would want me in that position, as I felt as though I had just arrived on the scene, and had the least experience out of everyone there, with cryonics and its development.

As president, I did get the chance to do a speaking engagement, with others doing a panel type presentation to the Unitarian Church of Toronto. A journalist, Peter Walsh attended this presentation, from the CBC, who had intended on doing a story on cryonics, (although I didn’t hear much more from him after that). I also did a television interview for a show on Global Television Network called “TKO” which is aired primarily on Canada’s west coast, and is a 30 minute weekly show on what’s new in science and technology. They did send me a video of the episode I was featured on, and I can say that it turned out to be a positive, informative look at the basics of cryonics.

I am not yet signed up with either Alcor or CI. I had great difficulty, last year, securing life insurance to finance my cryonics arrangements, due to the suddenly high risk work environment I was in (SARS again). Going back to last August (2003), just as my hospital announced its re-opening, Andrew and I broke up, ending a 10 year, mostly good relationship. This was a huge shock for me. It was at this time, after surviving the epidemic at work and the personal loss, that I decided I needed to make some real changes in my life, and decided, after all, that I wanted to do some travelling. I had never really put the idea of going to California completely to rest, and decided that there wasn’t going to be a better time to try it out. My only real regret from having made this move had been the physical distance I put between me and my family, and my friends at the CSC.

I moved to my parent’s house at the end of January, then made my way (for the road trip from hell) to California, with
my sister and two cats in tow, on February 9th. 10 days, and 5000 km later, I took possession of an apartment in Huntington Beach, California, and started my new career as travel nurse. My sister stayed with me for about 6 weeks, and then I flew her home. I did a 13-week assignment, in an ER in Huntington Beach, then got a new contract to work where I am now, in Oceanside California, which is about half an hour north of San Diego. I flew home for a visit the third week of June, to attend my mother’s birthday. It was at this time that I had the opportunity to join my CSC friends at one of their monthly meetups, in a restaurant in Toronto. The photos of this, as well as previous get- togethers are posted on my webshots site: http://community.webshots.com/user/christine_csc

As for my plans, as continuing to be president of the CSC, well I guess that’s up to the group. I’m not really sure how long I am going to be in the US for. I realize that it isn’t very helpful to have a president that is so far away, but a lot of what we do is online.

If I do end up managing to get a job in the Northeastern US, I will take Rudy Matic’s example, and make frequent enough trips to Toronto to be an active presence with the CSC. Even though I do not regret making this move, I am finding myself very isolated from those that I care about, and cannot see being this far away from home forever.

Before I left Toronto, I had a lot of ideas for the direction I saw the CSC going. I’d still like to follow through with some of these ideas, as I really believe that the CSC is a huge, untapped potential. Its members are diverse, intelligent and genuinely amazing people. I don’t want to see what they have accomplished or can accomplish go to waste. While I am in California, I want to try to finalize my own arrangements as soon as possible. That process is already underway, and hopefully very soon, I’ll be able to make myself a full-fledged participant. I recently met Peter Voss, in Los Angeles, who is a member of Alcor’s Southern California standby team. I’d like to get to know this group better, and learn from their valuable experiences. I’d also love to go to Arizona and meet the Alcor people. It is my hope that while I am in this part of the world, I can learn as much as possible from the wealth of experience Alcor has there.

At this point, I do want to clarify a point that I have sometimes read on Rick Potvin’s chat rooms, or on Cryonet. The CSC is not officially linked with CI. We are a group that contains Alcor and CI members. The fact that Ben Best was recently appointed to head CI is unrelated to CSC events or business.

When the CI member was suspended in Toronto, both CI and Alcor members of the CSC participated in facilitating her suspension. I think that this is one of the CSC’s many strengths- that it doesn’t take sides, and tries to support members of either organization. We ultimately have the same goal, and it would behoove any cryonicist to lend a hand where it is needed- our numbers are too small to squabble over semantics.

I hope that I was able to make this bio at least slightly entertaining. I’d like to thank John Bull for giving me the opportunity to share some of my life with you. I am pleased that some of you enjoy the fruits of my newest hobby - digital photography, and have enjoyed seeing some of the photos I captured of CSC social events.