A Day of Despair

A Day of Despair at the Hospital
Wednesday was a day of despair for me. I could have just called it “Woeful Wednesday” too. It was not a good day for me at all. The real challenge is trying to determine an excellent starting point for my tail of travail and disappointment.

Chronological is the easiest choice.

My Wednesday started off great for me. Traffic was light going to school and the class went well for me. I had expected class to go well since it was also the class before the mid-term examination and the day of study review.

When I left school to go to the hospital for an appointment with the colorectal surgeons, my day started to fall apart rapidly.

Normally, the drive from school to the hospital takes about 40 minutes or so. It took almost 75 minutes. There was a three car wreck on the freeway that I had to take to the appointment. I found out about the wreck after it was too late to make a simple course and speed correction. I was stuck in the backed up traffic. I did finally get off and have to make a more complex correction on surface streets. I got to the hospital about 15 minutes before my appointment.

Doug was even worried about me because he was there and I wasn’t there yet. He even called me but I didn’t answer him because I was on the freeway driving at about 70 miles an hour.

My appointment was scheduled for 1:00 PM. One of the nurses called me fairly close to 1:00 to take my vital signs. I was normal. That was nice. Then, I sat around until a little after 2:00 PM when I was called by a doctor.

Actually, I was called by a fake doctor; she was a Nurse Practioner. Based on the comments she made during a simple examination of me, she was not very experienced with patients who had colon cancer. She said she was supposed to be doing an evaluation of me with a view towards going forward with a reconnection surgery.

Dr. Karen and I both know that the colorectal surgeons have never done a complete evaluation of me.

What was purported to be an evaluation was a simple review by Doug and me of the historical facts and what had transpired before. The fake doctor took the information down and then left to consult with her supervisor.

Doug and I sat in the exam room for maybe fifteen minutes when she returned and told us to go wait in the waiting room because she needed the exam room for another patient. After waiting an hour, Doug got bothered and so did I.

I spoke to the fake doctor when she was at the admitting desk. When I asked how much longer I had to wait, she said they would mail me a new appointment notice.

Obviously, she had no answer when I asked why I had to sit and wait for over an hour only to be told that the hospital would mail me another appointment notice.

Since I was at the hospital, I decided to have my blood tests taken. I drove to the main building to look for a parking spot. I couldn’t find one so I drove home and changed. I drove back later and found a parking spot with no trouble at all. I was in and out of the blood test in about twenty minutes.

While I was waiting for the blood test, I decided to go out for dinner since I had no lunch, what with the colorectal surgeons and the blood testing. I chose Bob’s Big Boy in Torrance as a good venue for my dinner.

Bob’s Big Boy in Torrance Failure to Cook Well
I didn’t need a fancy meal, just some good tasting simple food. Bob’s Big Boy let me down or failed which would be a much better word.

I got to the restaurant early so I could get in and out quickly. There were very few customers inside when I arrived.

I should have recognized this as the omen of doom that it was.

I wanted a bowl of chili and beans with onions and cheese, a Big Boy combination with French fries, and a salad. Not too much of a challenge; at least, that was what I thought my dinner would be.

I was wrong. Oh, the chili was perfect but then it came in a can and only required heating, diced fresh onions, and grated American or cheddar cheese on top.

My server was Araceli and I strongly believe she had absolutely no interest in seeing me have a good meal. Her gross lack of concern was naturally reflected in her non-tip. The salad was so watery from water clinging to the lettuce that the croutons were soggy. Not a great eating moment.

The French fries were overcooked. I know what properly cooked French fries taste like and Bob’s Big Boy didn’t serve proper French fries.

It would have been nice to have some mustard with my hamburger. There was no mustard on the table and Araceli never even asked if I wanted any before she disappeared to talk with another server.

I asked for an Arnold Palmer [half iced tea and half lemonade] to drink. Araceli brought me one that was only one quarter iced tea, marginally acceptable. Then, she brought me a refill that was all iced tea.

Naturally, she didn’t ask how my meal not that I could have answered since I had a mouthful of hamburger to chew on.

At this point, I was only mildly furious. Bob’s Big Boy still had a chance to avoid this flaming review had either Araceli shown any interest in me or the supervisor and one of the other servers even bothered to ask. Araceli had disappeared for all I know but I didn’t care anymore so why bother.

I stared at the supervisor and the other server, who were both involved in a conversation that probably was not about customer service, in order to get their attention. Twice, they looked at me and ignored me only to return to their personal conversation.

After ten minutes, I gave up and walked to leave. The server who had ignored me for ten minutes asked how my meal was. That was when I unloaded on her and told her that it was horrible and that horrible was the only descriptive term that I could use in mixed company. I told her that the salad was watery, the French fries were overcooked, and that the sever ignored, the same way she and the supervisor had ignored me.

She blinked and opened and closed her mouth, much like a mute puppet and said nothing.

It goes without saying that I won’t be going to Bob’s Big Boy in Torrance ever again. It is definitely a place to avoid at all costs. I would have rather had a box of MREs instead of what I endured there on Wednesday night.

Other Ironies of the Day
I got a call from school while I was waiting for my chili to be served. One of the department chairs was looking for someone to substitute that night. I explained that I was not dressed to teach and that I was not at home. The earliest that I thought I could be at school would be around 7:30 PM, just in time for the break.

I had to decline the request. I was tired and not in the mood to fight rush hour traffic for a theory mile drive to school.

Visitor traffic dropped off sharply last week. I think this had something to do with the 4th of July Holiday weekend in the United States. We had 545 visitors who viewed 795 unique pages. I do appreciate all of you who stop by and visit the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

Still Cool

Still Cool
It is still cool in Southern California. Usually by this time of the year, I have hung up my long flannel pajama pants. It is too cool for me to give up on long pants just yet. Maybe by the weekend I will be able to shift to my shorts for the Summer sleeping.

Medical Tests and Stuff
I had my MRI on Monday. As MRIs go, it was nice. The building waiting room is still too cold. The building management needs to do a better job of balancing its cold air supply. The MRI machines need to be cooled for them to effective. The cold air spills out all over the building.

On the plus side, my shoulders did not hurt after being stretched over my head while I was in the MRI tube.

I watch “House” which is a medical show on television from time to time. On the show, the MRI always has a large opening and never has any of the loud noises a real MRI does. The staff gives you ear plugs to deaden the noise. I ought to ask for one of those quiet machines the next time I go in for a MRI scan.

After the MRI, I went to have my eyes checked. I figured that my prescription for my glasses was close to two years old and needed to be updated. I also wanted to get all of my examinations out of the way in one month.

Jessica was the staffer who took care of me. She did all of the non-doctor tests. I did enjoy it when she adjusted and then held my head in place when she took photos of the inside of my eyes.

I so did not enjoy the blinding flash of light when Jessica took the photos.

Jessica convinced me to get a new set of frames to go with my new lenses. She thought that I should try ones that were narrower than what I had been buying over the years. My last two pairs were in a modified aviator style. They were not as large when measured vertically. Jessica thought they looked more sophisticated.

I was easily led astray by an attractive young woman.

Because the lenses are not as tall, the area where I have to look through for close up reading is narrower and, thus, harder to find. I will get used to the new lenses soon enough.

The next set of lenses will be back to the old style.

The doctor said that my eyes were fine and there was no sign of glaucoma. That was nice. She did notice a slight enlargement in the size of my optic nerve. It has changed very little since 2000 and the difference may be a result of using different technology to take the images.

I did the doctor to send me a set of the inner eye photos so I can forward them on to my regular doctor since he is treating me for diabetes. She said she would and hopefully it will not take seven months to send me a murky and illegible set of photos.

Prelude
I took the Prelude in for its annual smog equipment inspection and certification today. I have to do this every year because it is a very old car by California standards; it will be 21 years old in September.

The Prelude passed the test this year although one test was on the marginal side. Next year, I will have it tuned up just before I take it for the annual smog check just to be safe. There is no sense in taking a chance and spending extra money.


Be well and stay happy.

End of the Holiday Weekend

End of the Holiday Weekend
I had a good weekend. I enjoyed the local fireworks although I was dressed warmer than usual. I made some more progress on my dissertation. I did some cleaning around the flat.

For those of you with Southern California envy, cheer up. All is not sunny in Southern California. We have had almost sixty days of below normal temperatures and this is July that I am writing in. Most of the time, the temperature has been four to five degrees below normal. I had to wear my South Carolina Gamecocks hoodie sweatshirt to watch the fireworks display at the beach.

So much for global warming.

This was a very good local fireworks show; one of the best in several years. The fact that there weren’t as many low clouds last night made the show even better. I think best fireworks display was in 1968 when an ammunition dump at Da Nang blew up. Actually, it exploded for a full day or so. It wasn’t very much of an aerial display but it sure was loud

June was a good month for the blog’s traffic. We had 2,917 visitors to the blog for the month. They viewed 4,188 unique pages; January 1, 2007 is still the most popular page.

For some strange reason, three Iranians visited the blog one day last week. They were interested in the January 1, 2007 blog page. For those of you who have not gone to this page, it is the most popular because of the large number of images of young actresses and models in bikinis.

I don’t think viewing this page would be considered something a good Muslim would do.

I wonder what Iran’s Guardian Council would say about this.

One of the areas for my cleaning was the laptop. It has been a while since I cleaned it up. I took some time on Friday “to dump all trash clear of the stern.” That was a standard Navy phrase that was piped at the end of the work day. I dumped almost 3.0 GB of data into the ether. The 3.0 GB represented about seven percent of my in-use space on the C drive. I would like to say that the laptop is performing better but I can’t really tell if it is or not.

Oh well, I feel better for cleaning up the hard drive.

One of the other cleaning activities on the laptop was dumping Internet Explorer 8. I hated IE 7 and readily embraced the beta version of IE 8. I loved the beta version; it was stable and responsive.

The beta version was the first beta version that I have ever knowingly downloaded and used. I downloaded the beta version because it would have to be better than IE 7 and, if worse came to worse, I could always go back to the restore point or load Firefox.

I gave up on the final version of IE 8 on Friday morning. It stopped functioning.

That was an excellent reason to give up.

IE 8 had problems with stability for me prior to my decision. Most of the stability issues were merely inconveniences. I could accept them because I use Microsoft software.

I went to bed on Thursday night after checking my email and sending out one or two jokes of questionable quality to some of my friends. I put the laptop into the Microsoft Sleep mode; just like I had done all week before. I also slept very soundly on Thursday night.

Friday morning when I went to check my email and news the laptop could not connect to the Internet. I tried power cycling the laptop and the modem twice with no success. I checked the phone line and it was fine. The modem indicator lights seemed to show no problems.

In the end, I phoned Verizon tech support. The tech support person tested my line from his end. Surprisingly enough, the connection problem disappeared almost immediately.

So far, I am very happy with Firefox 3.5 as my new web browser. It is smaller and seems to be faster than IE 8. It allows web site owners to have their logos displayed next to their web site in the favorites and bookmark section, making it easier for me to find a web site.

One of the nicer features about Firefox is that it doesn’t require a great deal of masthead space. IE 8 required a full line just to display McAfee’s Site Advisor ratings. Firefox simply slides the Site Advisor rating into the line at the bottom of the page where the space is being used by several other applications.

Less wasted space and more visible space for me to enjoy.

Perfectomundo.

I had one of my former students email me with a request for help with her thesis on Friday. She is struggling right now because writing is not an area that she is strong in. I think she may also need help with her topic and research as well.

I will help her but she will ignore most of my advice. That is her way of handling complex tasks.

On the subject of school, my substitute teaching on Thursday evening was a bust of sorts. For some strange reason, the instructor told the students that they did not have to come to class.

So why ask me to substitute then?

Obviously, the cancellation of the class is something that an instructor cannot simply do on his or her own. I think it requires the approval of at least the academic dean or the school director. It’s something that I have never seen before.

Oh well, it is not my problem.

This being Sunday, I went to my local Coffee Ban & Tea Leaf. It was an off-day at the Bean since Tihana wasn’t working today. Life happens and we move on.

When I was loading web sites’ logos into Firefox yesterday, I took some time to wander around the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf web site. One of the features was some new ice blended coffee products. I decided to give one of the new products, Tiramisu, a try today. On balance, the Tiramisu is not an all together great product. It is a good product but nowhere close to the discontinued Mocha Mudslide classic from 2007 when Doug introduced me to the drink.

When I go back next week for my regular run to the Beam, I hope Tihana is there and that she will make me a most excellent large ice blended, decaf, half mocha, half white chocolate, with whipped cream, and made thick drink for me.

That is near perfection for me.


I hope you all had a great weekend.


Be well and stay happy.

Fourth of July
Today is the 233nd anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from what was then know as Great Britain. I very thankful every day for the freedom that I and my family and friends enjoy.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember that freedom is not now nor was it ever and will not be free. Freedom is purchased with the blood and sacrifices of patriots and their families.

Be well and stay happy.

Tis a black, black day for me

Tis a black, black day for me
I got an email today from one of my favorite online stores, Hershey’s Gifts. They sell all sorts of Hershey chocolates; a product that has always met my expectations.

Hershey’s Gifts is closing at the end of July.

I have been a loyal customer of Hershey’s Gifts since the Princess went off to college. My first purchase was a ten pound tub Hershey chocolate miniatures for Halloween in the Princes’ freshman year at the University of Utah.

Since then, I have probably purchased several hundred pounds of chocolates with absolutely no complaints except, after all of the chocolates were consumed, some mumbled about tight fitting clothes.

I wonder why that happened.

I really liked their Halloween tubs of chocolate, personally and as gifts to others, because they always made the season better.

I ordered some chocolates so I would have something for Halloween. The chocolates are always chocolate but they will not be in jack-o-lantern shaped metal tubs now. I will miss that.

So what do I do going forward.

I have two choices it seems to me.

I can continue to buy from Fairy Tale Brownies with their almost quarter pound, dark Belgian chocolate calorie cluster bombs. Those have always been popular. Nurses Vrunda and Wendy both enjoyed the brownies I got for them in April.

I can order from M&Ms and have customized candies in special colors. I think I will order some red and white M&Ms with the words “Go Utes” and “Beat BYU” printed on them. That is a favorite of the Princess and me.

The only trouble is my choices are limited.

One of my doctors would say that giving up the chocolate is not necessarily a very bad thing. It would be good for me to do that.

Fortunately for me, I have some sugar free Hershey’s dark chocolate in the house. They will help me get over this disappointment after dinner tonight.


Be well and stay happy.