Wind for Weekend/Space Center Houston/Remembering Natasha Richardson

HURRICANES AND WEATHER
Still nice and warm for the southern 2/3rds of the country...some 90s in Arizona on Thursday. Cool spot will be the U.P. of Michigan with highs in the 20s and some snow showers. Look for some rain/possibly a few thunderstorms in central Texas and in the southeast--see Storm Prediction Center map at right.

Houston has a Dense Fog Advisory until 10 am Thursday. A weak cold front will graze by the area early Friday. Pressure gradient will tighten and it will get very breezy over the weekend. Temperatures will be cool in the mornings and mild to warm in the afternoons. Look for some showers as early as Sunday with most likely day (s) being Tuesday/Wednesday.

AND MORE
Let's do space of espacio, pronounced s-spahs-EE-oh. The final frontier is espacio and a great place to "explore" it is Space Center Houston.

Space Center Houston encourages children to enjoy math and science and learning languages has been shown to help increase standardized test scores in math and science. Give your child's brain the gift of language--order our award winning DVD for children, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, http://www.dololanguages.com/, http://www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com/, http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.bestbuy.com/, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. For our English as a Second Language (ESL) version, got to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
We had such a good time at NASA's Space Center Houston today...I had been promising Sarah a visit during Spring Break. It was very busy but worth the trip. I don't know how long the kid's playground has been there, but it is the tallest I have ever seen. And there is another big slide outside the restricted kids' play area that Sarah and I went down 3 times. Sarah doesn't like to watch any movies but we still found enough to keep us occupied for 4 hours straight. By the way, that diving act from Orlando is amazing. There is a photo of it on the front page of today's (Wednesday 3/18) Houston Chronicle. That act is outside the dining area.

One of the problems which tends to occur with Sarah's syndrome is low immunoglobulin levels. Well we got some very good news today!!! She has responded amazingly well to her last immune system booster...a pneumonia vaccine called pneumovax. All of her immune levels for about 10 different types of pneumonia are up dramatically. The immunologist did caution that she could develop lower levels of resistance over time. So, we will monitor. Children who have the type of chromosomal deletion which Sarah has, are short one of 2 alleles used for fighting bacteria. Researchers are very interested in the immune system response of children with Sarah's pattern of deletion because it helps them determine what exactly that 2nd allele (Smith-Magenis Syndrome children have) does. Thus, by exclusion they get information on what the deleted allele does. So, in short, children with SMS are like celebrities to immunologists (and highly sought after). For more on SMS, go to prisms.org.

Some thoughts on Natasha Richardson (wife of Liam Neeson), dead as a result of a ski injury--she was one of my favorite actresses. I first saw her in a troubling movie called The Hand Maids' Tale...check it out if you get a chance.

Have a terrific Thursday everyone...don't forget to visit The John C. Freeman weather museum--free admission between 12 and 4 on Thursday.

Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman