Child health and women's asset ownership

Flag of Papua New Guinea

Several years ago, Yana Rodgers (Rutgers University) contacted me about applying for a contracting project with the Asian Development Bank using the 2009-2010 Papua New Guinea Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). Of course I said "yes" to such a great opportunity and we were offered the project soon thereafter. We worked on the project for about a year and a half. Now that the report is done, we are using the data to address research questions that came up during the report. We have several questions, each likely a stand-alone paper.

Our first paper, Women's Asset Ownership and Children's Nutritional Status: Evidence from Papua New Guinea, was recently presented at the 2017 Biennial International Health Economic Association (iHEA) Meeting (Boston, MA) and submitted to a journal for publication. We are also hopeful for a presentation at the 2018 American Economic Association Annual Meeting. You can see the iHEA presentation slides here and the draft of our paper here. The abstract is here:

This study uses household survey data from 2009-2010 to examine how women’s asset ownership is associated with children’s nutritional status in Papua New Guinea, a country with some of the most severe child malnutrition in the world.  Women’s sole ownership of assets is expected to strengthen their bargaining power within the home, which increases investments in children’s health.  Results from ordinary least squares regressions point to beneficial effects of maternal asset ownership for children’s height-for-age, weight-for-height, and weight-for-age Z-scores, even after controlling for household characteristics.  Additional results from detailed quantile regressions indicate that these effects occur primarily at the median, although in some cases the strongest impacts occur at the lowest portions of the distribution.

The primary issue addressed in the paper is the impact of mother's asset ownership on the health of her children in Papua New Guinea. The HIES data offers the opportunity to examine this issue at the individual level. Six assets are identified, along with individual ownership status, in the survey: livestock, poultry, fishing equipment, agricultural equipment, furniture, and housing. A factor analysis grouped these into what we termed assets related to 1) food production and 2) shelter.

The WHO definitions of wasting, stunting, and underweight are used to quantify child health. Surveyors took these measurements in each home for children under the age of 5.

We employed OLS and quantile regression to estimate the impact of mother's asset ownership on child health, using the z-scores for each child health metric. OLS estimates capture the "action" at the mean and the quantile estimates capture the "action" across the distribution. We used the 0.05, 0.10, 0.50, 0.90, and 0.95 quantiles. Assets entered our regressions in various, separate ways, including several indexes we devised to reduce multicollinearity.

The results suggest that mother's asset ownership matters, in a positive way, to her children's health particularly at the middle of the distribution.

Conference participants and colleagues who read our paper offered a few comments which we will likely follow up with in a future paper. Those comments included:
1) What is the impact of the father on child health?  (NOTE: Father's education was not significant.)
2) Does the father's view of female autonomy matter?

If you are interested in more details about the paper or the results, please read it using the link above.

We would appreciate your input,

Gangsters, Scoundrels, and Thieves: Teaching Economics Using Nefarious Historical Characters

This weekend I am giving a presentation at the UNCW Economics Teaching Conference regarding using the Gold Rush confidence man 'Soapy' Smith to teach the notion of product differentiation. Telling stories is an excellent way to engage students and add some fun to your lecture (for both you and the students!)

You can find my slides for the presentation below and a copy of the paper, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Economic and Finance Education.

Gansters, scoundrels, and thieves – teaching economics using nefarious historical characters from Alice Louise Kassens

Read the full article here (the working paper version.)

A few economics statistics regarding Brexit

Tomorrow morning I will be on Good Day Virginia (WFXR, Fox) to talk about the economics of Brexit. I pulled some data and created some graphics during my preparation this weekend. Since I cannot share the visuals on TV, I thought that I would post them here. You can click on them to enlarge.

I will post a link to the interview later, or you can watch it live around 8:00 am on WFXR (Fox)!

See you tomorrow morning,

Organized crime murders in Chicago, 1894-1930

Ever wonder how many murders were tied to organized crime in Chicago? Perhaps an odd thing to think about for some, but not for someone researching a book regarding the economics of crime and Capone's Chicago.

Northwestern University School of Law digitized Chicago homicide data from 1870-1930 and made it available to the public. I pulled those homicides related to organized crime and sorted by method. There is no record of an organized crime related homicide in Chicago until 1894: Gus Colliander, shot outside a polling place by an unknown man November 6, 1894. According to articles from the Chicago Tribune archives, Colliander was shot during a gang raid of a polling place at No. 117 Oak Street.

Source: Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1894 (online archives)

Organized crime homicides in Chicago thus began long before Al Capone. The number of organized crime related homicides drastically increased during the Capone era (at his peak between 1925 and 1930.) The most common methods of organized crime killing was the infamous "hit," or murder for hire, followed by drive by shootings. The table below shows these two methods over time, with the Capone era marked off by black lines. The peak year for mob hits during this time was 1930 with 28 incidences; the total number of homicides recorded that year in Chicago was 763 (of which 56 were mob related.)

Source: "Homocide in Chicago" and author's calculations

One soul among the 28 hits in 1930 was Walter Wakefield. Wakefield, a known Capone gang member, was shot in his home (2900 South Wells Street) by Frank 'Dale' Delbano on April 20, 1930. Two other men (Frank Debra and Joseph Special) were also shot and killed. Delbano was arrested the following day, but no charges were ever filed.

What would you like to know about the Capone era in Chicago?

Economic history of Chicago: Part I

I am in the early stages of working on my first book. The book will examine all things Al Capone through an economist's lens (Gangster Spirits). Clearly such a book must provide context: the economic and social setting of Chicago and the US in the 1920's and 1930's.

Luckily others before me collated socioeconomic data from various government agencies for Chicago from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century. I have been cleaning and merging these databases and using some basic statistics to flesh out the stories of the era.

Below is a look at the relationship between the economy (as measured by the unemployment rate) and the marriage and divorce rates in Cook County.

The earliest date available for the marriage and divorce rates at the county level is 1890. County level unemployment data is not available until 1990, so the national metric is used. For the periods that national and county level data is available (monthly, 1990-2015) the national unemployment rate explains 92% of the variation in the Cook County unemployment rate, so the national measure is assumed to be a strong proxy for the county level measure in the period shown in the chart above.

The graph suggests a couple of things:

1) marriage and divorce rates "move" together contemporaneously in Cook County

2) marriage and divorce rates appear to move cyclically (inversely with unemployment)

Correlation coefficients provide additional support for these observations. The correlation coefficients between the unemployment rate and the Cook County marriage and divorce rates are -0.42 and -0.27, respectively. That between the marriage and divorce rates in Cook County is 0.33.

Finally, two simple linear regressions generate the following estimates:

The sample size for each regression is 84 and all estimated coefficients are statistically significant at the 0.05 level or better. The negative signs for the marginal effects support point #2. The values are interpreted as:
a) for each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, the Cook County divorce rate falls by 0.07 percentage points.
b) for each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, the Cook County marriage rate falls by 0.16 percentage points.

This negative relationship is supported by other research done at the state level.

Why? First lets look at the divorce rate. As the economy worsens, couples are less likely to divorce in Cook County. Perhaps hard economic times is associated with couples bonding together and fighting for their marriage. Or...its too damn expensive (explicitly and implicitly) to get a divorce.

The marriage rate estimates can be explained similarly. When times are tough, getting married is financially less attractive. Additionally, people could be spending more time looking for a job and a way to get by than looking for a mate.

During Prohibition and the heyday of Al Capone the average values for unemployment, and Cook County marriage and divorce rates were 8.6, 11.8, and 2.4, respectively. Compare these values to their pre-Prohibition values (1890-1919): 6.7, 16.5, and 1.2.

Of course more robust analysis is required, but it appears that Prohibition was a period of higher unemployment and divorce rates and lower marriage rates than previously experienced by Cook County residents.

Do you see any other patterns or have other explanations for the estimates and trends shown above?

Enjoy,

May 2015 Real Estate Index

My report on the real estate market in the Commonwealth came out this week. Several questions concerning the real estate market are included in the survey used to gather data for the consumer sentiment report. We (the amazing people in the Roanoke College PR department) try to spread the releases out by about a week.

Virginians are generally optimistic about the current and future real estate markets. An interesting find is that buyers in Southwest VA are quite positive, likely due to a belief of housing surpluses from departing Norfolk Southern employees.

Black line indicates "robust" market

You can read the report here. The Roanoke Times wrote an article about the report (found here) and I interviewed with WVTF.

Consumer sentiment remains strong in Virginia

My latest consumer sentiment and inflation expectations report came out two days ago. You can find the report here. Things are particularly strong in Southwest Virginia and the Tidewater. Southwest VA has apparently absorbed the departure announcements from Norfolk Southern and USPS, while the Tidewater is looking beyond the effects of sequestration.

Consumer sentiment values (y-axis) by region; current value=orange dash,
 regional average=blue dot, standard deviation=black line.

I am thankful for the interviews by WVTF, WFIR, and the Roanoke Times on the current release. You can listen to the WFIR interview here.

Feeling optimistic,

Economic Rockstar Interview

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to do a podcast with Frank Conway of Economic Rockstar. We chatted for well over an hour about economic pedagogy, research interests, and running.

The interview was released recently and you can listen to it here.

Enjoy,

The Management Institute 2015

For the past five years I have given a session on health care and the workplace from an economic perspective for The Management Institute at Roanoke College.

Tonight I taught the class of 2015. These sessions largely focus on the ACA and how it will impact employers.

I often learn more from the students than they learn from me. I get to hear first-hand accounts of how the legislation is impacting their place of work. Some of them are owners or managers and they share the harsh realities that they deal with on a daily basis.

Below is my PowerPoint from the session tonight. I wish that I could include a video of the great insights these folks had, but alas, you will have to make due with good ol', dismal economics.



See you at the banquet TMI Class of 2015,

The economics of the employer mandate

Last fall I was invited to write an essay for a publication. My contribution was to comment on some aspect of the ACA. I decided to focus on the employer mandate and potential effects on the US labor market.

Writing/presenting about the law is always a challenge as it 1) seems to constantly change and 2) there is very little data available since many aspects of the law are just beginning. I gave it a fair shot relying on economic theory and what little we do know as of now.

You can read the draft of my essay below.

Economics of the ACA Employer Mandate by Alice Louise Kassens

Virginia Real Estate Index Report is here

This week the Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research released my Real Estate Index Report for the first quarter of 2015.

Overall the market is looking strong, with sellers more optimistic about the future. The table below shows the February 2015 index values for Virginia. An index value greater than zero means that more people are optimistic than pessimistic.

Virginia Real Estate Indexes 

You can read the report here and/or watch an interview I did for WDBJ7 below.

Consumers optimistic about 2015 real estate market

ASSA/AEA Presentation (Boston) - Health, crime, and violence in Papua New Guinea

I am presenting some selected results from my project with Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (Rutgers University) tomorrow at the ASSA/AEA Annual Meeting in Boston.

We have used the 2009-2010 HIES to examine gender differentials across a variety of dimensions in Papua New Guinea. Based on these results we made policy recommendations to reduce these differences and promote economic growth in the developing country.

My presentation tomorrow will focus on some results concerning health, crime, and violence.

You can view the presentation below.


Yana and I plan to develop several papers using more robust methods of analysis.

Do you have any suggestions for us?

From a city currently overly saturated with economists,

NETA 2014 Presentation - Using Twitter in the classroom

Earlier in the year my paper "Tweeting you way to improved #writing, #reflection, and #community" was published in the Journal of Economic Education. The paper discussed how I used Twitter to improve writing in my principles of macroeconomics course. Since then, several other economists have joined in the literature regarding using social media in the economics classroom. Data analysis regarding the effectiveness of the pedagogy remains sparse.

In an attempt to fill that void, Dr. Michael Enz and I collected data across three economics classes (two intermediate micro and one principles of macro) in an attempt to measure the effectiveness of the methods detailed in my work in my 2014 JEE article.

We are presenting some of the results from that data collection today at the National Economics Teaching Association's 10th Annual Economics Teaching Conference in San Diego.

The PowerPoint for the presentation is below.


Happy tweeting,

August Real Estate Index: The market is strong

Each quarter, in addition to the Consumer Sentiment and Price Expectations Report, I also produce the Real Estate Index using the methodology developed by the Sienna College Research Institute.

The figure below illustrates views on the real estate market in Virginia.

A measure of zero indicates an equal share of respondents feeling optimistic as those who feel pessimistic about the housing market. Perceptions of the market remain strong since the second quarter of 2014 with the only loss occurring in beliefs about buying in the next year. The Fed is likely going to raise rates in 2015 which is a potential determinant of the loss in optimism. 

You can read the entire report here.

The next set of reports will be released in November,

Two weeks of aqua training, lots of writing, and the start of the new school year

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines...I need them. Luckily I had deadlines for two projects. One was the second draft of the gender inequality in Papua New Guinea for the ADB. We turned in a 131-page document on Friday. Whew! The project and results are interesting, and considerable inequalities exist in the country across a variety of issues. One that I analyzed was the gender differences in mode of transportation to health facilities. Below is one of the graphics I generated:

Of particular interest was share of urban male patients with TB taking public transportation. At advanced stages TB is quite contagious via coughing/sneezing, thus taking the bus puts others at risk. What else do you notice in this chart?

The second deadline was the August Consumer Sentiment Report which was released last week. An earlier post discusses the findings. Interestingly this report generated interest from some new media outlets including Clear Channel in Richmond, the Roanoke Times, and the Roanoke Star. The Times actually did their own write-up about the report rather than just reproducing our report. 

The 2014-15 AY began this week with faculty contracts beginning the prior week. I was elected the Faculty Moderator for the year so I had two obligations over the last two weeks: our first FAC meeting (which I Chair) and the first Faculty Meeting of the year. There is something terrifying about standing in front of a room full of Faculty and speaking, but once the first few minutes were over I was more relaxed. Thankfully there were no major goofs.

Training in the pool continued to be fun and challenging. I am going to swim in a small meet next Saturday in Asheville, NC, so I sought out help for my start and turn. It has been over 20 years since I last started off of the blocks. I found a great resource in the Roanoke area: the Gator Aquatic Center. I had two sessions with Brett Fonder and it is amazing what a more efficient turn can do for your time! He totally changed my turn, so that I push off from the wall on my back and do not roll over (freestyle) until I am away from the wall. We also worked on my start off the blocks. I am no longer terrified:) During a series of 50 free's off the blocks we got my time under :34 so I am hopeful that I can swim 32-ish in the meet next weekend. For real swimmers that is slow, but hey, I have been out of it for a long time! I am also entered in the 100 which will be a PR because I have never raced the event. 

Training over the last few weeks included several weight sessions (I can now do single leg squats on my leg that I had surgically repaired which is promising), AJ workouts, and swimming. Since I have missed a week, I will not bore you with two weeks of a daily training log, but I did have several sprint oriented swim workouts from Brett in preparation for the meet. I got in over 16,000 yds swimming this week, but a bit less the week before due to a crazy work schedule.

Here is to my goggles not filling with water in my races next weekend,

Consumer Sentiment in VA hits a record high

I have worked with the Roanoke College IPOR to produce the quarterly Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations Reports since November 2011. Although the report has a short history, it is exciting to see new records (in the positive direction). The history of the Virginia Index of Consumer Sentiment (VAICS, shown by orange bars) against the US measure (produced by the University of Michigan, shown by blue line) is shown below. The 2-period moving average of the US measure is shown in black. The national number is generated each month (that's what happens when you have a HUGE budget!).

You can read the full report here.

Things are better in VA. If you live in VA, do feel that way? If you live elsewhere, how are things where you are?

Confidently yours,

Cross training week #6: Swim test and paces

My knee continues to improve overall, although after my workout on Tuesday/Wednesday I had a bit of a set back. I discuss the workout below, but afterwards my knee swelled noticeably and was uncomfortable walking/going up and down stairs, etc. I took Thursday completely off other than some stretching-focused yoga. Friday my leg was much improved and by the weekend it felt better than at the beginning of the week: a week-over-week improvement. Dr. Moore told me to expect some periods of swelling and soreness as I get back into things, but it was nonetheless worrisome.

The day off did give me plenty of time to work on my Papua New Guinea project. I spent several days working with a file covering detailed questions on perceptions of security. The focus of our report is gender differentials, and there were substantial disparities regarding fears of particular crimes. For example, women are considerably more concerned about walking at night and walking to the market, which could perpetuate labor market and income differentials between the genders. Disputes are more common in rural areas, particularly land and water disputes. Women are considerably more likely to seek help for theft in urban areas, suggesting they feel more comfortable with authorities in cities. Could this mean that there are more possibilities for equality in urban settings? What do you think? 

My training week was as follows (the paces will make sense after reading about the 200/800 test at the end):
MONDAY - AJ 54:00 w/ 3 sets of 5 x 1:30 hard, :30 easy; swimming 3,400 yds. w/
300 pull
400 kick
400 paddles/fins
4x100 (25 hard, 25 easy, repeat)
200 pull
4x50 (25 hard, 25 easy)
200 pull
8x25 hard
200 pull
400 kick (fins)
400 back (fins)
100 cool down

TUESDAY - swimming 4,000 yds w/ 200/800 test

WEDNESDAY - AJ 62:00 w/ 3 sets of 4 x 2:30, :30 rests

THURSDAY - DAY OFF

FRIDAY - AJ 66:00 w/ 3 x 1/2/3/2/1 sets, 1:00 rest; swimming 2,600 yds. w/
Warm Up
200 choice @V2, 20RAS
2 x 100 @V3, 15RPS, 30RAS
4 x 50 as 25 kick/25 swim @VM Effort
Main Set
6 x 100 @V4, 20RPS, 60RAS
600 Start @V2 & build to V4 effort, 60RAS
Cool Down
200 kick @VM effort, 20RAS
4 (2 x 25) kick-swim @VM, 20RPS, 30RAS
400 swim with paddles and fins @VE

SATURDAY - swimming 3,500 yds. w/
Warm-up
400 choice @V2, 30RAS @6:52, did 6:39 (still figuring pace out)
200 drills @VE, 30RAS
8 x 50
- odds (15 m kick/35 m build swim)
- even (35 m easy15 m build swim)
Main Set
1 x 600 @V3, 60RAS @10:21, did 9:54
3 x 200 @V4, 20RAS @3:14.3, did 3:18, 3:15, 3:17
6 x 100 @V4, 10RPS /50 free @V5, 15RPS @1:35.8/42.8, did 1:36, :46, 1:35, :44, 1:33, :44, 1:35, :44, 1:34, :44, 1:35, :44
Cool Down
400 swim/drill mix @VE effort (used fins/paddles, 6:31)

Upper and lower body lifting (TRX, med ball, etc)

SUNDAY - AJ 71:00 w/ 6 x 5:00, 1:00 rests, 10x:45, :45 rest; 60:00 deep tissue massage

WEEK TOTALS: 253 minutes AJ, 13,500 yds (3,375 per swim)

The 200/800 test was an exciting challenge: swim 200 yds. hard, 1:00 rest, swim 800 yds. hard. The purposes of the test were 1) determine my paces for various workouts, 2) find my strengths/weaknesses. As far as training paces, it is similar in function to finding your VDOT when using a Daniels training plan. I recently purchased a Garmin swim watch, so I did not need to worry about recording the distance/time. I did the 200 in 3:00 and the 800 in 13:21. The time differential per 100 yds. is about 11% suggesting that my endurance needs work. Looks like I will be doing a lot more longer reps:) Without showing how paces for my workouts are calculated (coach's secret), here are some of my paces for workouts:

Another week down,

Research, cross training week #3, and arthroscopic partial meniscectomy-eve

This week was a mix of search committee meetings, research, the pool, the pool, and the pool.

I will wait until the search is over to say more about it, but it was a productive week for the Papua New Guinea project with Yana Rodgers. We are on our second draft after getting comments from the Asian Development Bank. There are some fascinating gender differentials, including the following:

Health expenditures include those for hospitalizations, other health care services, and medications. We look at household health expenditures by national household expenditure (proxy for household income) quintile. The population is split by urban status and gender of the head of household. The bars in each graph illustrate the mean health expenditure (measured in the local currency, kina) while the lines represent health expenditures as a share of total expenditures. In urban areas, male headed households spend more on health care, particularly in the upper quintile. Female headed households are more likely to have a single head of household and less likely to be living with an adult male and be employed for wages. Access to health care by rural households is particularly challenging due to deteriorating infrastructure. We plan to use more powerful statistical approaches to analyze the gender disparities further, but the summary statistics are compelling. What do you see when looking at the charts?

I have continued my cross training. The week looked like this:

Monday - aqua jog (AJ) 2 sets of 6 x 1:30 very hard, 30s rest, 2:00 between sets (46 minutes total); swim 3,000 yds :

WARM UP 

300 pull 

10 x 50 odds kick, evens stroke (choice) on 1:00 

200 pull

MAIN SET

6 x 50 free on 1:00 

100 back active recovery

200 paddle and buoy

4 x 50 free on 1:00

100 back active recovery

300 paddle and buoy

2 x 50 free on 1:00

100 back active recovery

400 paddle and buoy

COOL DOWN

100 free kick, 100 back 

Tuesday - AJ 2 sets of 5 x 2:30 very hard, 30s easy recovery, 2:00 between sets (52 minutes total); swim 2,000 yds:

500 easy

400 kick

300 pull

200 progressive

5x100 on 2:00 (hit 1:38-1:40 for each)

100 cool down

Wednesday - 50:00 straight swim (2800 yds.)

Thursday - 1:00 strength session with Coach Carl Blickle 

Friday - AJ ladder with Carmen Graves (1:16:00 total time)

3 sets (14 minute sets)

1 min VERY HARD

1 min easy

2 mni VERY HARD

1 min easy

3 min VERY HARD

1 min easy

2 min VERY HARD

1 min easy

1 min VERY HARD 

1 min easy

2-3 minute float in between sets

Swim 3,300 yds:

WARM UP

400  (pull , kick)

MAIN SET

3x300 (1 hard, 2 moderate, 3 hard)

3x150 active recovery (buoy, paddles)

3x200 (1 hard, 2 moderate, 3 hard)

3x100 active recovery (buoy, paddles)

3x100 (1 hard, 2 moderate, 3 hard)

1x150 active recovery (buoy, paddles)

COOL DOWN

200 

Saturday - 50 minute yoga session

Sunday - AJ 4 x 5 minutes HARD, 1 min rest in between each, end with 5 x 45s all out with 45s easy (52 minutes total); swim 3,500 yds:

WARM UP 

200 pull, 200 kick

MAIN SET

500 DPS

3x200 descending

400 DPS

3x150 descending

300 DPS

3x100 descending

200 DPS

3 x 50 descending

COOL DOWN 

200 yds

WEEKLY TOTALS:

226 minutes aqua jogging

110 minutes strength, yoga

14,600 yards swimming

This is the last week before my procedure. I have a pre-op appointment on Monday and the procedure Wednesday afternoon. I plan to go to two Without Limits swim practices (my first swim practices since I was 18 years old!) early in the week. Who knows when I will be able to get into the pool after the procedure. I will keep you updated.

Your aqua-beast,

Update, update, update

It has been a while since I actually typed up a detailed blog entry, so this is a stab at updating my running, research, etc.

Research
This has been a productive spring/summer on the research front. Other than the reports for IPOR, I have primarily focused on a project with my former professor and now running buddy and friend Yana Rodgers (Rutgers University). We were contracted by the Asian Development Bank to analyze the Household Income and Expenditure Survey from Papua New Guinea. In particular we are looking for evidence of gender differences across items including health status, employment, disputes, and assets. Without disclosing details we have found some substantial differences in some areas. We submitted our first draft to the ADB this week, which was a milestone for such a large project. I am reminded through this process how much more enjoyable it is to co-author work with a diligent, and intelligent friend.

Running
This area of my life has been odd. I focused on shorter distances (1500-5000 meters) this spring because I needed a break from marathon training and was looking for a challenge. The exciting part was that I consistently hit paces on intervals that I have never run before. The addition of hitting the weight room several times a week certainly played a part. It was a relief to know that at 39 years young I can run faster than ever over 200-800 meter intervals. The frustrating part was that after some great races in February, including an indoor 3,000 PR, my races did not reflect my training. Perhaps I relied too much on my marathon base from the fall? For the first time in many years I was gassing out over the last half to third of each race, regardless of distance. This happened consistently from March-May.

I have already signed up for the California International Marathon in December and have plotted out a fall racing schedule. I am hopeful that the speed I rediscovered this spring, when coupled with marathon strength and endurance, will result in some fast times. Getting my mileage back up over the hot southern summers will be a challenge, but a necessity. I am still chasing that sub-2:55 marathon.  I hope to use this blog to update my training and hold myself accountable through the fall. I tend to be my worst enemy when I hit a rough patch in training and lose my confidence. By typing out what I am doing and thinking maybe I will see the bigger picture!

Other
In other exciting news, I have a new member of my family. Meet Zoey, a sweetie that I adopted from the League for Animal Protection. She is almost a year and a half and I am completely in love with her. After a few weeks she has found her place in my pack and seems happy.

My little Zoey

Zoey calling an audible

Keep training,

By demand: Printable Prezi from TMI

The same presentation that I posted earlier today is now available in a printable pdf version. A warning: it is 125 pages (yes, that is how many "slides" we went through last night).

2012 TMI Health Economics Presentation

Enjoy,