Two more appointments and a Saturday session

Since my last apheresis update, I have had two more platelet appointments.

The first appointment was exceptional for the speed at which the technician asked me the questions and did the examination of my vitals. Name, address, temperature, blood pressure, iron level, answer questions, sign here, and I was on to the actual blood draw in no time. This was the fastest of the 30+ times I have gone through this.

The second appointment was superior because of the movie I watched, (500) Days of Summer. I enjoyed it more than National Treasure: Book of Secrets from a fortnight before.

At the beginning the narrator states "This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story." I am going to steal this line the next time I relate certain events from my own life.

While I do not have a sister, if I could I would adopt the sister from the movie, Rachel. I love her combination of humor and insight throughout the movie. For example:

Rachel: Better that you find this out now before you come home and find her in bed with Lars from Norway.
Tom: Who's Lars from Norway?
Rachel: He's some guy she met at the gym with Brad Pitt's face and Jesus' abs.

That other session

The Saturday session I attended was about CPR. It was put on by the Huntington Beach Fire Med program. It covered CPR and choking for infants, children, and adults as well as using an A.E.D. machine. While I hope I will never have to use any of these skills, the A.E.D. looks like fun. Slap the electrodes on and let the machine be loud, annoying, and do the work. If you want to know what I mean, take a class like this and you will get the idea. However, if you don't use the machine correctly, you could turn a bad situation into a much worse one; electrical shocks can set pacemakers on fire.

I signed up for a couple of CPR class last year, but they were cancelled because too few people signed up. Now I know what to do in an emergency and have a card certifying my knowledge for two years.

I was going to make a post, but deleted it instead

I was working a on post. I actually wrote most of it two months ago, but I did not have the ending of it until the last couple of weeks. After working on it some more today it was almost finished.

It was titled "The cause is great, but the people are inept." In the post I talked about my experience with a group that did important work but was poorly managed. I asked, should I work with this group to support their mission, or should I forget about the group because they cannot run a meeting or explain how to do the simplest things?

I decided it was not worth my energy and time to work with the group, even if they did important work.

I decided to delete the post. No good will come of rehashing events that make me angry and no one who reads the post will be better off because of it.

If something makes you angry do not dwell on it needlessly. After you have learned all you can from it press the delete button so you can let go of it and move on to better things.

Some of my words and phrases

There are some words, expressions, and epithets I use in a unique way. As they come up I will explain how I use the words and their origin.

Associate
Term I use to refer to my good friend Chris Anderson.

The complete history of and list of similarities between my Associate and I merits a separate blog post. They are as simple as sharing the same first name and as longstanding as being friends since junior year of high school.

Examples:
I will have to direct you to my Associate as he is the expert in those matters.

Last week I went to my Associate's house to met some reptiles.

The mystery was so preplexing I worked on it with my Associate for several hours.

The term became prevalent during late sophmore to early junior year of college.


Unnamed geniuses
This refers to the collective authors of Wikipdedia. Since the true names of who wrote the different parts of articles is not easily known the contributors can be thought of as unnamed, even if aliased. The term has also been used colloquially to refer to Wikipedia.

Examples:
I did not see any references to non-Newtonian fluids in my lab materials so I consulted the unnamed geniuses and learned the fluid's properties.

I don't remember the exact date that happened, I will have to call upon the boundless knowledge of the unnamed geniuses.

According to the unnamed geniuses, you are wrong.

I think this was first used in junior year of college.


Thoust
This is a general purpose pronoun. It can also replace articles. The word has its origins in the Shakespearean era. The usage of thoust depends upon its context.

As personal pronoun:
I went to the bank to deposit a check.
Thoust went to the bank to deposit a check.

As possessive pronoun:
That is my monocle.
That is thoust monocle.

As an article:
As I alighted from the carriage, I found a sixpence.
As I alighted from the carriage, I found thoust sixpence.

I think I started using the term during senior year of high school, but it did not gain wide usage until four years later.


Phrases

The dining portion of this experience is concluded.
This means it looks like everyone is finished eating and we can either continue to sit and talk or go to another place. In practice, when I say this the person (or people) I am with stands up and we leave.

If I am eating with Derek he will not leave until I say this phrase.

our good friend
I picked this phrase up from my high school chemistry teacher Mr. Pucilla. To him everything was "our good friend."

Examples:
To solve this we will use our good friend demitional analysis.

We will then add our good friend potassium permanganate to the solution.

Other things I picked up from Mr. Pucilla are his famous phrases "life is choices," "let's be careful," and "test tubes are free."

My trip to Berkeley

Last week I went on a trip to Berkeley. I drove up on Monday and back on Thursday.

It would not be proper for me to talk about every single thing that happened and every conservation I had. Things people told me about family health problems, long running lies, ill received sex jokes, other people's drug use, mental puzzles about prisoners and a switch, and someone's latest crush are not the types of things I should be posting about for everyone to read. Instead my trip is best framed from the food angle as the story of pizza, red beer, and not getting what I want from restaurants.

Monday
I left home around 7:30 Monday morning. Taking the 405 North to the 605 North to the 210 West to the 5 North to the 152 West to the 101 North I exited and met Rohit in San Jose. We tried to eat at a Cajun restaurant, but they were closed on Mondays. Instead we ate pizza at Pizza my Heart. Afterward I got back on the 101 North and went over to the 880 North to the 24. I arrived in Berkeley and stayed at Sidney's.

Tuesday
Went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with Amanda and then the California Pizza Kitchen. After failing to reach the roof of a shopping center with Amanda, I saw Linda, Shirley, and the Associate. Upon reaching Tommy's Mexican restaurant and finding it closed on Tuesdays we went to Gordo's. Later we went to the Rock It Room where I asked for a red beer and was instead served an energy drink.

Wednesday
I went to San Francisco again, this time to see Monica and go to Ken's Kitchen, a Chinese food establishment. For dinner I ended up in Berkeley at Jupiter's with Carson, Sidney, and Monica where I was excited to order the Red Spot beer. However, they were out. So I ordered something I was told was similar to it. We also ate pizza. When I ordered a second beer I was told the keg just ran out. After Jupiter's I was still hungry and went to Skates on the Bay.

Thursday
Taking the same route south, I stopped to see Rohit again and we went to the Cajun place that was closed a few days earlier. There were some problems. The restaurant did not have Dr. Pepper, gave us the wrong menu, did not have the entoufee ready, did not have cornbread baked, and could not accept credit cards because of a broken machine. I took the 101 South to Santa Barbara to meet Derek. I said I was fine with any type of food except Cajun and pizza, as I had eaten both of them recently. We went to a fine Italian place. They had a weekday dinner special which included salad, lasagna, wine or beer, and dessert. I was pleased they had a Firestone red beer. As I explained my trip to Derek, he realized I had pizza three days in a row. Then I became disappointed I had not ordered pizza and kept the streak alive for a fourth day. Then I went to UCSB, saw Yinbo, and had a few potstickers he cooked for me.

On summary posts
I am not a big fan of writing long summary posts. There is so much that is left out or does not translate well across the screen. I started a post of a Las Vegas trip several months ago but I never published it because it was nowhere close to expressing everything I felt on the trip. I am happy with this post because it focuses on one aspect of my trip and does not have to tell every detail.

Learning History from Shakespeare

My latest reading project is reading the works of Shakespeare. I am working on the history plays. I have read Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2.

As I was at the Huntington Beach Public Library selecting these plays, I saw a colorfully colored book titled Shakespeare's Kings. The book covers English history from 1377 - 1485 and examines how close the action of the plays is to the events they portray. Being a fan of history, I was very excited to find this book and see it was written by John Julius Norwich, who I am familiar with from his Short History of Byzantium.

With these books I have developed a pattern:

1. Read the play by Shakespeare while taking notes to keep who is who straight. In Richard II, Henry is also called Hereford since he is the Duke of Hereford, cousin since he is Richard II's cousin, and later Lancaster, not to be confused with his father John of Gaunt, the earlier Duke of Lancaster. To ease this confusion, the play calls the character Bolingbroke.


2. Read the sections in Shakespeare's Kings that cover the play. I often consulted Wikipedia to make sure I had the important points correct. For several pages I thought Edward III and the Black Prince were the same person. Big mistake on my part.


3. Read any extra sections about the play. Many of the plays come with essays talking about certain features of the play, key characters, or even selections from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, one of the sources Shakespeare used for his history plays.


4. Find images online of the characters and events described in the works. I am putting together a folder of images from the history plays I can use as a screensaver slideshow. If I am going to learn and understand all this history, I want a visual sequence I can use to remember all the important events.


5. After repeating this for a few plays, make a post about them.

After I read a few more Shakespearean plays, I will look into Edward III. It is a pseudo-Shakespearean play but was recently declared to have been written by the noble bard.

Me: The facebook snob

I am old fashioned. Not as much as some people (you know who you are) but still wanting some things in a more established way.

I liked the idea of the facebook when I first joined the site in Fall 2004. It was only for people who attended prestigus universities. Then it became open to anyone who attended a four year college, then anyone who was attending a college, then some companies had their own networks, then high schools were included (though we were told it was kept separate from the rest of facebook), then anyone could join.

Maybe I am being elitist, but if I wanted to join an online social network where anyone could join and waste their life away I would have joined MySpace.

As a response to these changes, I have kept my profile as secret as possible to the world. Unless you are a friend of one of my friends or in my network (I am only in the Berkeley one), a search will not even acknowledge my profile exists. For the past few years, I have not sought out any facebook friends I did not met through school or people I know from school activities.

As a result, I am not friends with anyone I am related to, except my second cousin who I added freshman year. She was my only relative at the time on facebook because she went to Notre Dame. My Mom, Dad, Brother, and all eight of my cousins have since created accounts, but I have not added any of them. Also, no one I have met near home in the past year has been added as a friend.

There is no good reason for my behavior except inertia and persistence in my habits. There is nothing for me to fear; worlds will not collide and result in massive destruction if I add a few friends and relatives. Even if I let myself get caught up in how popular I look compared to my cousins, I have hundreds of facebook friends and pictures of me tagged. Anyone new who sees my profile will learn more about me and be wowed I know so many people.

When I am ready I will add my family and recent friends. Even then, I will keep my profile nearly impossible to find.

The only thing I want to do before adding all these friends is get a new profile picture. My current one is almost two years old.

Before and After Christmas, Poinsettias and Art

A couple of days before Christmas, I went and watched Cal play Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego. I drove Derek and Sidney down and met up with Rohit, who flew down.

The up close seats (purchased by Sidney) were in the eighth row at the end of the Rally Committee section. It was great because we could stand and yell the whole time with other caring people.

The game started out great, with a Cal touchdown followed by an interception and immediate second touchdown for Cal. After that it was like the Big Game all over again, except this time we were the team that had 20 plus unanswered points scored against us. In the end it was 37-27, with Utah continuing their streak of bowl game wins. This is the only picture I took at the game.


I got to the hotel by the 405 South to the 73 South to the 5 South to the 8 East, with a side trip downtown via CA-163. The hotel was close enough to Qualcom Stadium we walked there. The entire trip took 233 miles.

The night of Christmas, I was in contact with David who gave me information about meeting up with him, Salgu, and her brother the next day. We went to the Getty and looked at the photography of Irving Penn, specifically his pictures of people in their work clothes and with the tools of their trade. There are some pictures online about the exhibit Irving Penn: Small Trades for a limited time. Another exhibit exhibited drawings by Rembrant and the students he instructed. There was also some time for the photographers to take an excessive amount of pictures, some of which are on facebook.

One of the more interactive things was a Medieval scriptorium. It was an exhibit that showed some manuscripts and gave children of all ages the chance to make their own manuscript page. Mine is below.


The Latin text is translated "The dog is in the street."

After all this was over we went back to Koreatown for dinner. We enjoyed Korean BBQ with some of Salgu's family and friends, which was wonderful. I heard about the dangers of alligators in Mississippi where Salgu is teaching.

In traveling to these places, I took the 405 North to the 110 North. After making a stop, I got on the 10 West and rode it to the 405 North to get to the Getty. The entire trip took 104 miles.