On Second Thought

On Second Thought
On second thought, I decided to not begin the Woman of the Moment Encore postings. If I did that, I would feel compelled to be here almost every day during my vacation. That would be wrong for me. Instead of Eiko Koike, I will drop in the Hankook Tire Girls from Korea. This is a good solution in my mind.




Be well and stay happy.

Taking a Vacation

Taking a Vacation
I will be taking a vacation of sorts for the next two weeks. School is out except for final examinations this week. I’m planning on enjoying my time away from school with some well deserved rest and recreation. I won’t be posting as often as usually and my posts will probably be shorter.

Woman of the Moment Encore
I will make a serious effort tomorrow to start off with the Woman of the Moment Encore. I will bring back Eiko Koike first; primarily because she is on the same CD as Faline Song.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - February 24th

Weekend Update
It was a cold and overcast weekend so I stayed inside. I did go to class on Saturday and I had a good class.

I enjoyed another hot shower today. Doug was over for part of the weekend and he wrapped my arm. I can’t tape myself up because I can’t see on the far side of my arm. I also can’t wrap the saran wrap around my arm. I would love to stand under the hot water spray for ten or fifteen minutes but I don’t want to run the risk of getting my dressing wet.

The Princess and the Golfer are making good progress on their drive to Seattle. They are on their schedule so that is good for them. I wonder how the dogs and cats are doing on the drive; hopefully, they are doing well.

Recovery – Part 16
I went in for my third infusion on Friday morning. It was a routine event for me. One thing about an infusion is that it knocks me out for a day or so. I took a nap or rest on Friday; I rested for about three hours.

One of the results of the infusion is increased sensitivity to cold. It has been cold or what passes for cold in Southern California. The sensitivity makes it difficult for me to type. For that reason, this will be a short posting today.

Visitors
We had a good week for visitors this past week. There were no first time visitors during the week. We had visitors from United Kingdom [10], Israel [2], Canada [15], Germany [10], France [4], Austria [2], Spain [2], Hungary [2], New Zealand, Vietnam, Poland [2], India, Japan [9], Indonesia [2], Slovakia [2], Thailand, Texas [2], Malaysia [4], Ireland [2], Korea, Singapore [4], Australia [2], Mexico, Czech Republic, Iran, China, Italy [4], Bulgaria, and Sweden.

We had some visitors who stopped by for a longer time. Two visitors stopped by for 23 minutes, one for 22 minutes, one for 19 minutes, and two for 13 minutes.

As of today, February 2008 will be the third best month for visitors to the blog.

I do appreciate all of you who stopped by to visit the blog

Faline Song
I might as well end with Faline Song and call it a good day for the blog.





Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Preview - February 21st

Weekend Preview
I have a dull and gray and probably wet weekend ahead of me. The forecast is calling for rain over the weekend that will start on Friday night.

Wonderful.

My Saturday class will be a short one since it is the next too last one. I don’t think the students will want the class to drag on. Next week, it will be a simple project turn in. Then, I will have to read all of them.

I went to the clinic this afternoon for my regular blood test. My left arm is looking like I am a junkie with needle tracks all over the arm. Tomorrow, I will go to the clinic for another infusion, number three in a series of six infusions. I will spend several hours in a chair as I get my dressing changed and sit through a two and a half hour drip.

I am hoping that the Baby Blues, Glenda and Jennifer, will be there and that they will change my dressing. I do enjoy it when Jennifer rubs my chest. If I am going to go through chemotherapy, I ought to enjoy myself.

Life is good for me.

I suppose that I will do some cleaning and laundry on Sunday. If I don’t do the work, it won’t get done anytime soon. This is one of the drawbacks of living alone I guess.

Doug and I made our last ice cream run for another week and a half. We went to Ice Pan in Redondo Beach. I had some chocolate ice cream made with whole milk, I need the calories because of the chemotherapy, and I added some chocolate chips to go with it. Doug opted for a sensible choice, banana ice cream made with soy milk. I think I may have exercised some undue influence on him because he had some chocolate ships added to his ice cream.

El Gringo and Merit the Server and Alana the Busser
It’s Thursday so I went to El gringo for my dinner as usual. I am a creature of habit and going to El Gringo is one of mine.

Merit the Server was working tonight and that made dinner all worth while. It is so nice to be greeted with, “Hello Charles, want an Arnold Palmer?” Just like Cheers only nicer servers and bussers. Merit introduced me to the new, for tonight anyway, busser Alana. I didn’t have my camera so I couldn’t take a photo of Alana.

Full and fair disclosure, I never had a photo of Isabel the Busser or any other busser for that matter.

I had a light dinner tonight. I had a late lunch and then I had the trip to the Ice Pan to fill me up. I managed to consume two soft chicken tacos, some chicken, lots of lettuce and tomatos with two kinds of cheese. Almost healthy for me. I also had some chips with salsa.

Merit spent some time talking to me tonight. Traffic in El Gringo was on the slow side, probably because of the intermittent rain tonight. Merit asked me what I did today and I just gave her the best part of the day, aside from seeing her, and that was the run to Ice Pan.

It turns out that this was a good idea on my part because Merit loves ice cream almost as much I as do. I think Merit will be going to the Ice Pan sometime in the next few days. I even think that Alana may go as well. I hope they like their experience at the Ice Pan because Merit said she would be telling me how she liked the Ice Pan next Thursday.

For a moment, I thought that Merit wanted me to stay at El Gringo much longer than usual because she kept forgetting to give me my check for dinner. Eventually, Merit recognized her error and gave me my check.

Faline Song and the Woman of the Moment Encore
I hope Merit doesn’t get too upset about the Woman of the Moment Encore postings. I think it will be acceptable; after all, I am a man and, like many men, I enjoy these images that I downloaded from Faline’s web site.






Be well and stay happy.

I'm Back

I’m Back
Yes, I’m back to pounding out another blog posting. I don’t think that you missed very much while I was away.

Well, you did miss two Woman of the Moment Encore postings of Faline Song.

Monday was a holiday here in the United States so I just sort of loafed around and didn’t do very much. A book that I had ordered from Barnes & Noble arrived. That was good because it is a history book and therefore a naturally slow reading project. It will be perfect for the Friday infusion session and dressing change at the oncology clinic.

On Tuesday, I went to school for the regular class session. On balance, it was a good class. I had good attendance because I went over the final examination. Hopefully, the students will have benefited from the review and focus their review and study sessions.

I stayed at school after class because I went to the quarterly in-service session. This is a school sponsored program to help make us better teachers. I’m not certain that the program will help us since it is based on an unproven concept. The program assumes that we are teaching adults. All well and good except that many of my students are not adults. Chronologically, the students are adults but emotionally and intellectually they are still minors.

All almost of my students can not arrive at class on time for example. I wonder how their future employer will react to their inability to arrive at work on time. I know how I would solve the attendance or tardiness issue. I would simply terminate the employees and find ones who wanted to come to work on time. The terminated employees would also make excellent examples of how not to behave.

I tried a new recipe for chicken last night. It turned out rather nicely and it was easy to create. I will probably add it to my cooking cycle.

The weather has turned crummy. It rained off and on yesterday. It was raining this morning when I got up and this pattern of off an on rainfall continued for most of the day. I am certainly glad I did not wash my car. It was very windy when I drove home from school tonight. The Pathfinder was bouncing around as a result of cross winds. Fortunately, traffic was heavy so I couldn’t go very fast; the likelihood of loss of control was minimal for me.

I phoned the Princess to wish her a safe trip to Seattle. She starts out on Thursday and plans to take a week or so to arrive. We got to talking about the 15th Annual Douglas Reinhardt Birthday Dinner at Morton’s, an event formerly know as Douguary 2008. The Princess said that we should invite Sara the Bridesmaid because Sara likes parties, loves to eat fine red beef, and is a generally very fun person.

I sent Sara an email invitation. Doug and I hope that she will accept. If Sara declines, then there will be a little more elbow room at the table.

Perfectomundo.

I got my final teaching schedule for the next quarter today. I was disappointed that I am only teaching three classes instead of the four that were in the original plan. I am still teaching Microeconomics, a class that I have taught before. I have two new courses; one is an advanced writing course that does not excite me. The other new course is a course on public speaking and how to create and present a PowerPoint presentation.

Faline Song
I will add a few additional Faline Song images to compensate for missing two days of postings.







Be well and stay happy.

Recovery - Part 15 & Weekend Update February 17th

Recovery – Part 15
I am in the middle of my first chemotherapy cycle. I get a dose of the medicine every three weeks. My next infusion, as the medical profession calls the treatment, is this coming Friday. Infusion sounds like an odd term for an injection of a cancer fighting drug. It sounds more like something you get done to your hair when you go to the salon.

Speaking or writing of hair, I still have it. It is gray of course. It doesn't seem to grow as fast as it did before I started my treatments. The stylist who cuts my hair is not all that thrilled about slow growing hair. Personally, I think slow growing hair is much better than no hair at all. I did tell her that if my hair starts to fall out, I will let her shave my head.

I saw the oncologist resident last Friday. I see the doctors every three weeks. The oncology clinic is at a teaching hospital so I get to see a new resident with each visit. All of the residents to see me have been females and three were Asian American.

How about that for a coincidence?

Friday's resident was the first one of the four. I have seen who didn't ask to see my scar. That was a very pleasant surprise for Doug and me.

I also made her day or at least made her happy because I had gained a kilogram or about two pounds since my prior visit. Doug said it was because we had been making a concerted effort to visit the local ice cream stores.

The doctor gave me a sort of overview of the CT scan that was done a couple of weeks ago and the regular blood tests. The hospital computer network was acting up so she had some difficulty pulling the information off of the servers. My blood test results were all within the expected ranges and that is very good. It means that I am tolerating the medicine and it is not causing me any trouble.

I think I told you that my first CT scan when I had the operation showed a two centimeter [about the size of a postage stamp] spot on my liver. It is still there but it is not any larger. I think this is a good result. Doug thinks that with only one infusion that it is too early to expect any results. The current thinking is that, at the end of the first chemotherapy treatment, my condition will be evaluated. It is likely that the doctors will opt for a surgical solution for the liver and remove the part with the lesion on it. Fortunately, the liver will grow back. The surgery is likely to be less complicated than the one in October.

About the only thing I don’t like about my recovery so far is the need to use an electric razor. I have shaved with a blade for almost all of my life. I am used to it. The problem with a razor blade is the chance of a cut that could lead to an infection because of my reduced immune system strength. It just takes forever to get the shaving job done in the morning. Oh well, I will endure this very minor burden.

I feel good and I am happy. I like to joke with the nurses when I am in the clinic. I am enjoying my life and I expect to be doing this for a long time to come. Life is good.

Glacier Gelato
Doug and I went to Glacier Gelato on Thursday. We were both looking forward to the trip and we were not disappointed at all.



I had three scoops of coffee flavored gelato. I do love coffee and ice cream and gelato. Doug had some Oreo Mint ice cream. We plan to go back to Glacier Gelato in a couple of weeks after the next cold sensitivity from the chemotherapy wears off a bit.

Faline Song
Normally, I would post the Woman of the Moment Encore feature towards the bottom of the blog. Since this is a holiday weekend, I see no reason why Faline can’t be moved to the top of the blog.




It is nice to see that Faline is an Angels fan.

The Princess
I phoned the Princess on St. Valentine’s Day. She is the middle of boxing stuff up for her move to Seattle. I am glad that I don’t have to face that task anytime soon.

The Princess was disappointed with her Dad because he was spending the Day by himself. She felt that I should be out and about. The Princess said I should consider online dating sites like Match.com.

I don’t know about online dating. It seems that people are not who they present themselves to be. I don’t want to go out with a woman who claims to be well educated only to find out she is one of the dimmer blubs in the house or duller tools in the shed.

Maybe I will give online dating a try after things settle out with the treatment program.

My Friend Sharon
My friend Sharon called me on Friday to thank me for a news story I sent to her. The story was about her former employer reporting a loss for 2007. I think the loss is related to the overall decline in housing industry in California; the company was big in mortgage lending.

Then, Sharon nagged me about not having a girl friend. She thought I should be out dating if only to have someone sitting in the theater seat next to me. By way of explanation, I have some season seats at two theaters so I can attend around ten or twelve performances a year.

Being nagged by your ex-girl friend about not having a girl friend and not dating is not much fun.

Sharon went on to tell me how things are at her current job. She is overworked and under too much pressure. She needs to take a break or rest. We are supposed to have lunch in March when school is out of session.

Weekend Update
Let’s see. What did I do that was note worthy over the weekend?

Nothing really. I went to school and had a good class. I spent most of the class period tossing out jewels to help the students complete their major project which is the bulk of their grade.

I was bummed out when I picked up a Butterfinger candy bar from the vending machine. The price had gone up from USD$0.75 to USD$1.00; that’s a 33% increase. It looks like I will be consuming fewer Butterfingers in the future.

I went to the market this morning because I was almost out of food.

Visitors
We had another good week and we are on our way to the third best month ever for the blog. I do appreciate all of you who come to the blog on a regular or irregular basis.

We had visitors from Canada [13], Switzerland [3], Iran [3], Norway [2], Belgium, Germany [7], Philippines [2], Japan [7], France [10], Mexico, United Kingdom, New Zealand [2], United Arab Emirates [2], Australia [4], Singapore [3], Georgia, Finland, Argentina, Peru [2], Brazil [4], Spain [5], Turkey [5], Romania, Sweden, Indonesia [3], Netherlands, Italy [6], Hungary [2], Venezuela, Bulgaria [2], Israel, Poland [2], Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea [4], Macau, Texas [3], Ireland, and Chile.

This was the first time that we have had a visitor from the Republic of Georgia.

We also had some visitors who stayed to admire my ability to selection interesting photo images. We had visitor each stop by for 24 minutes, 16 minutes, 15 minutes, 12 minutes, and 11 minutes.

Programming Note
I won’t be posting an entry to the blog on Monday. I will, instead, observe the Presidents’ Day holiday. Tuesday is problematical for a post since I will be in school all day; in the morning to teach a class and in the afternoon to participate in instructor training.


That was my weekend. I hope you had a great weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Bonus Feature - February 15th

Weekend Bonus Feature - Faline Song
Here it is the weekend already and I have the Weekend Bonus Feature, just like in the old days before my operation and the decision to phase out the Woman of the Moment feature. I still have plenty of Faline images, most of which came from her web site, http://www.miss-faline.com left to post.







Be well and stay happy

End of the Week

Happy St. Valentine’s Day
Since I do not have a friend who is a girl or woman or girl friend, I will be spending tonight at home alone. It is not so bad, being alone. I know for sure and certain that I won't make a bad decision on a gift for her.

End of the Week
It is the end of the week for the purposes of me spending time writing a blog entry or fishing around for images to post on the blog. This is going to a single topic set of comments.

I talked to the Associate Dean today about my classes. There was a slight chance to accommodate my chemotherapy on Fridays. That was considerate of the school. I will still be teaching four classes; Group Dynamics on Monday evenings, Microeconomics on Wednesday afternoon, and Professional Presentations [PowerPoint’s and Public Speaking] and Portfolio Development [How to find a good job], both on Saturday.

Group Dynamics and Professional Presentations are new courses for me. They ought to be fun to teach plus they are unlikely to have a final examination. Going forward, I will only have two courses to create lesson plans for.

I stopped at the oncology clinic on my way home from school today; the clinic is just slightly out of my way, to get my dressing changed. The nurses all said that I looked very handsome in my brown suit. That made me feel really good; the suit is eleven years old and it is still in great shape. I keep hoping it will finally wear out so I can justify buying a new suit from my tailor in Hong Kong.

Dinner was at El Gringo as usual. Merit was there and gave me a big hello. It’s so nice to be welcomed in a genuine, warm manner.

I decided to have something different for dinner tonight. I had a Zacatecas salad. It is a big bowl of lettuce, black beans, onions, a couple of kinds of cheese, tomatos, multi-colored taco chips, and pollo asada. Pollo asada is spicy chopped chicken; really very good and on the hot side. It was more than I could finish off so I ended up taking about a quarter of it home. I think I will be having salad with my Giuliano’s sandwich tomorrow night.

Doug and I decided to put off our trip to Glacier Gelato until tomorrow. It was too cool today to think about gelato.

Faline Song
We have to include some Faline Song images as part of the end of the week blog. To pass on Faline would be so wrong.






Be well and stay happy.

Ice Pan

Ice Pan
Doug and I went to the Ice Pan for a chocolate ice cream in a cup with chocolate chips added to it for me. Nothing like going for the good stuff.

This is really good stuff. I really enjoyed my ice cream. Doug had some banana ice cream with pineapple topping. It looked really good; he said it was when he finished his cup. The store is located at 623 North Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach. The company’s web site is http://www.icepanusa.com. There is another new Ice Pan in West Hollywood at 7100 Santa Monica Boulevard, Unit 135.

The ice cream is made be freezing the milk on a highly chilled steel pan. Then, it is scraped together and needed until it reaches the desired consistency. I had my chocolate chips mixed in with the ice cream. Next time, I think I will be happy with them being poured on top of the ice cream.


Doug didn't get out of the picture frame in time.




This is Doug's banana ice cream with pineapple topping.

Amber the Stylist and Natalie the Receptionist
Today was my haircut day.

Since my appointment was for 12:30 PM, I didn’t bother Amber with an appointment reminder. I assumed that she would be awake and at work by then. I was correct; Amber was there, waiting for me. This appointment marked my one year anniversary of having Amber cut my hair.


Amber gave me a hug when I gave her the St. Valentine’s Day card and candy. She liked the personalization on the Dove milk chocolate wrappers. I’m pretty sure Amber liked the candy; she quickly consumed one of the candies. Amber was not optimistic that the candy would last very long.

I think she is right.

I also had a card and box candy for Natalie the Receptionist. This is Natalie.


Natalie gave me a hug when I stopped by where she worked in the Molly Moon Salon. I was not surprised when neither Natalie nor Amber was interested in reading the food nutrition label.

I really like Natalie. She has the most intriguing voice. I think I could listen to her for hours on end.

Well, maybe, if I had enough time, maybe a lot of time, to think about the premise of listening to Natalie, I could probably find at least one situation where I might want to revise my earlier thinking.

I spoke to Amber about my impression that my hair had not grown as much as it had in the past. She ran her fingers through my hair and agreed with me. My hair is thinning somewhat now, probably from the chemotherapy. Amber said that my hair seemed thinner but that it had good texture and body.

Amber told me that she caught up on reading the blog. She said she told Natalie so I assume that she has read or will read the blog.

Maybe I will be able to keep my hair. If my hair starts to fall out, a likely possibility from the chemotherapy, I told Amber that I would let her be the one to shave my head. I’m not going to wear a wig or have a really cheesy comb over.

Since my hair had not grown as much as usual, I asked Amber to give me a trip around the ears. When I go back in a month or so, my hair should be longer and at a length that I want.

That’s something to look forward to for me.

Faline Song
Amber asked me about the Woman of the Moment feature. She remembered reading in the blog somewhere that I was dropping the feature. I said that I was merely appealing to the blog readers. Most of them come to the blog for the Woman of the Moment feature. In the January evaluation period, the top three or four blog pages were ones that featured one of three women.





I said that since this is my blog, I got to make exceptions to my rule. This is why I am currently featuring Faline as the Woman of the Moment. Faline has been the only Woman of the Moment to have ever sent me about posting her images. Faline liked what I had said about her.

You have to like a woman for that.

Of course, there have been some Women of the Moment where I do not expect any comment. Some of them, like the Hankook Tire Girls or any number of Asian actresses and models, probably do not read English so the blog would not be of any interest to them.

Oh well, life happens.



Be well and stay happy.

Another Great Day For Me

Happy Birthday – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States and great American

Another great day for me
Today was a great day for me.

I had a good day in class today. All of my students were in class today so I didn’t have to phone them. We had a good discussion on ethics and human resources management. I was also a nice instructor and went over today’s homework assignment and gave them my thoughts on how to address the questions posed by the case study.

After class was over, I spoke to the associate dean about my tentative teaching schedule for the next term that begins in March. He has me set to teach four classes including two that I have taught before. One of the classes is on Monday night and that is fine with me. I won’t be missing any American football on television. I am scheduled for two classes on Saturday. I’m not sure how I like that. It does sort of put a real crimp in any non-school plans for eleven weeks for Saturdays.

Overall, I am very happy with the schedule outcome, tentative and iffy as it may be now.

I got a phone call from Natalie the Receptionist at Molly Moon Salon. She was calling to remind me that I had an appointment for a haircut tomorrow with Amber the Stylist. I said that I knew and that I was looking forward to seeing both of them tomorrow.

Natalie the Receptionist is always a pleasure to talk to.

On my way home from school, I stopped at a watch store in the Del Amo Mall in Torrance. I had wandered into the store when I was shopping for St. Valentine’s Day cards and for some birthday cards. I wanted to see if they could fix my old pocket watch.

I picked up the pocket watch for not very much money when the good ship Leonard F Mason pulled into Hong Kong in November 1967. I wanted to get a pocket watch because I didn’t want to ruin my good Rolex watch. Some of my duties on the Mason had me getting soaked in salt water, covered with black oil, lubricating fluids, and jet fuel, and being tossed about when the ship pitched as she made her way through the seas.

Anyway.

A bunch of years ago, the Princess or Doug over wound the mainspring so that the watch wouldn’t work any more, it would not run. The watch was also very dirty so I was interested in having the mainspring fixed and the watch the cleaned. I also wanted to be able to wear because I wanted to hang my honor society key from the watch chain.

After explaining my situation to the store clerk, I handed her the watch. She opened it and said it was running now.

This was a very big surprise for me.

She reset the watch and asked me to wait for a few minutes to see if the watch could keep time. I waited ten minutes; actually, I went to the card store next door and picked up some more cards.

The watch had kept perfect time while I was gone. The clerk had been able to wind the watch. I guess I had somehow jarred the jammed mainspring sometime this morning.

I left the watch with the clerk and asked to have it cleaned. I told the clerk that I was not in any hurry to have the watch cleaned. She said she would call me when it is ready.

Doug’s friend Natalie
I got a call from Doug this afternoon as I was fixing my lunch. He said he had a text message from his friend Natalie [I’m not sure if this is the way she spells her name]. Natalie also reads the blog so she knows about my last round of ice cream indulgence with Doug in tow last month.

Natalie said that I should go check out a new ice cream store in Redondo Beach called Ice Pan. She said it provides healthy, low fat, low calorie, low sodium, low cholesterol ice cream. Doug said I ought to check the web site out.

Ice Pan’s big marketing hook is that the ice cream is made fresh when you order the ice cream cone. They give you a choice of milk, all the way from whole milk to soy milk. There are ten flavors of ice cream and fifteen flavors of topping. Ice Pan offers both chocolate and coffee flavored ice cream and chocolate chip toppings; I’m going to be there with Doug.

I will probably order the ice cream to be made with whole milk because the key reason for me to eat ice cream now is the calories in the serving. Chemotherapy patients tend lose weight and a desire to eat. Ice cream helps with the weight loss and almost everyone I know likes ice cream so that makes it easier for us to want to eat.

Thanks Natalie.

Faline Song
Faline Song is my favorite Woman of the Moment so here we have some Faline images. This is a nice way to end the blog.






Be well and stay happy.

Not Too Much To Say

Not too much to say
Today was an odd day. It started off odd as soon as I turned the television on to the local news show at 6:10 AM. I indulged myself this morning since I wasn’t going anywhere until after my doctor’s appointment at 9:00.

For some unknown reason, the two news readers kept referring to today as Presidents Day, a national holiday. That’s great except that today wasn’t Presidents Day. It is next Monday.

I’m not saying that the news readers are lightweights or rather dull or dim witted. I guess their brains were still not engaged when they were on the air.

I knew it wasn’t Presidents Day because I didn’t see any advertisements for Presidents Day sales in the newspaper. I did see a lot of advertisements for St. Valentine’s Day sales; but that was to be expected I guess.

I wonder how many people skipped work because of what the news readers said. It would be fascinating to know that fact.

We used to celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday when I was in school. Their birthdays were in February. Some years, they fell on a Monday of Friday and that was epic because it meant I had a three day weekend. Some years, the holidays fell in the middle of the week

A while ago, our Congress passed a law that combined the observation of the Washington and Lincoln birthdays as well as recognizing the other presidents to be the third Monday in February.

I went to see my doctor for my annual checkup. For the most part, it went well for me. He didn’t nag me to lose weight. I did that after the operation. I told him that I quit smoking so I was off the hook there. My left arm is beginning to feel like a pin cushion since that is where the medical assistants go to draw blood for the blood tests. I won’t know how I am until my doctor gets the lab tests back; that ought to take a couple of weeks. My doctor talked to me about a future operation to reconnect my colon and remove the colostomy bag. That certainly would be sweet for me.

While I am waiting, I will be seeing the oncology residents on Friday. I am seeing more medical professionals now than I have in my entire life.

Faline Song
I ran out of things to say. Besides, one picture is worth a thousand words so then, three images of Faline Song ought to be worth three thousand words and that would be a ginormous blog posting.






Be well and stay happy.

Recovery Part 14 - Happy Days are Here Again

Recovery Part 14 – Happy Days Are Here Again
Happy days are here again!

I went to the oncology clinic this morning for my routine dressing change. The change was routine; it should be after all. Changing consists of slowly taking off the old tape and cleaning my skin. Then, the nurse tests the PICC line to see if it is clear; she draws a little blood. Next, the nurse tapes everything up and covers the PICC line with a protective cover.

Simple.

Today, Nurse Myrna told me how to take a shower with a PICC line in my arm.

That was epic news.

I have to wrap my arm in saran wrap and tape over the potentially open ends to prevent any leaks. Myrna gave me a roll of waterproof tape so I won’t get any leaks.

I am so looking forward to a long, long, hot shower this weekend.

I also saw one of the Baby Blues today. I almost didn’t recognize Glenda because she had her mask off of her face.

This was great way to start the weekend.

El Gringo
I went to El Gringo for dinner on Thursday as usual. Merit the Server was there to greet me.

Merit introduced me to the new table busser, Isabel.

That gave me an opportunity to toss out one of my old word jokes from the early 1970s. I turned to Isabel and asked, “Is a bell necessary on a bicycle?” I think I got that from one of my ex-wife’s co-workers, Patti. Isabel laughed and giggled; Merit had a blank look on her face; perhaps she wasn’t paying any attention to me.

That, not paying attention to me, is easy to do. I sometimes see that in class.

Since I had a large lunch, I decided to get my dinner to go. That way, what I didn’t finish would ready to pop in the refrigerator. I ordered a chicken burrito; it came with some taco chips and salsa.

I was the only customer in El Gringo. It was early in the evening so I may have missed the crowds. I sat at a table and waited for my dinner while I talked to Merit. During out discussion, we came to the mutual conclusion that we both think Arnie Morton’s is the best place to go for great beef. I also learned that Merit used to be a waiter at McCormick & Schmick’s. I assumed that she worked at the one in El Segundo. I suppose that I should have asked which McCormick & Schmick’s location but that did not seem like really relevant or necessary information at the time.

I got home and ended up finishing the burrito. I really had no stomach for the taco chips. They just seemed to be too oily based on their smell.

The Shower
The shower was so wonderful today; I can’t describe how good it felt to have hot water pulsing down my chest and head and back for a change.

It also felt very good to be cleaner than I could get with a bath. Even in a bath, I had to be careful not to get the dressing wet. That limited what I could do with my right arm. Being right handed made things all that more difficult for me.

Doug did a good job of bandaging me up with saran wrap and the tape the nurse gave me. I think we put the saran wrap on a little too tight because I had trouble bending my arm. In any event, the wait and the inconvenience of not being able to bend my arm now seem all very inconsequential.

Doug
After I finished my shower, Doug and I talked about the next few visits to the oncology clinic and the testing schedules. Doug now skips the blood testing trips. This is an in and out procedure that is now almost routine with me.

We also firmed up the invite list for the Douglas Reinhardt Birthday Dinner, an event formerly knows as the Douguary Dinner. It looks like guest list includes all of the usual suspects and familiar faces.

Doug asked where I wanted to go for ice cream this coming week. He said that I ought to be over the cold sensitivity. I said that, right now, I was leaning towards Coldstone Creamery or Glacier Gelato. The weather forecasts are calling for temperatures to be in the 70s F – 20s C next week, perfect weather for ice cream or gelato.

My Friend Sandra
I had a surprise phone call from my friend Sandra. It took me completely by surprise. I think it has been a couple of years since we talked so I didn’t recognize her voice. She also has the same first name as my brother’s wife so when she said, “Sandra,” I was still in a daze.

Anyway. I recovered and we had a good long talk. A really good long talk for two hours. I hope Sandra will be able to cleverly explain that charge on the phone bill.

Sandra and I have been friends since I hired her in 1998 to work for an airline credit union where I was the Chief Operating Officer. We needed to hire a manager for the busiest office; that would be in Houston. I had made several trips to Houston to interview candidates and none were worth writing home about until I interviewed Sandra.

Sandra was the last candidate that I interviewed. I think our interview lasted a bit over ninety minutes. We only spend twenty minutes talking about her professional skills and job related tasks like that. Sandra knew that stuff cold.

We talked about movies and the cinema. We both love films. Sandra used to call me on Mondays when we worked together to see what films I had seen over the weekend. This was back when Doug and I used to send out a long email; we would use a blog today, called Doug and Chuck Go To The Movies where we played critics.

I used our interview in my Human Resources Management course as an example of how things don’t always follow the textbook. Some interviews can get off track quickly and can stay off track.

Hiring Sandra was one of the best hires that I have ever made, period.

I could always count on Sandra to come through when I needed her to complete the duties and jobs. One of the nice side benefits of working for the credit union was that she met her future husband while at work.

Nice fringe benefit for anyone.

Getting back to the call, Sandra wanted to know how I was doing and what was going on in my life. It was a great way for me to end the week. I probably could have talked for another hour but Doug showed up and then I checked my watch and could see it was close to dinner time in Houston.

Regrettably, I had to end the call. I told Sandra that I would call her next.

Faline Song
As a side note, Faline Song’s Weekend Bonus Feature ranked as the number three most popular blog page this weekend. That was a great show of support for Faline, I appreciate that. Here are some more Faline images.




Visitors
This was another good week for visitors. The month got off to a slow start and traffic volume is increasing. We should have another good month.

We had visitors from Thailand [2], Canada [15], Germany [11], Singapore [4], Italy [2], Texas [5], Malaysia [4], France [5], Romania [2], India [2], Slovakia, Japan [5], Korea, Indonesia, Philippines [2], Brazil, United Kingdom [4], Turkey [3], Hungary [2], Australia [4], Mexico [2], Argentina, Hong Kong, Switzerland [4], Puerto Rico [2], United Arab Emirates, Guam, Colombia, Sweden, Iran, Vietnam [2], Poland, Netherlands [2], Ireland, and Czech Republic.

This was the first time that we have had a visitor from Guam. Guam, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the island, is an unincorporated territory of the United States. It is a major Pacific military base and communications hub. The United States acquired Guam from Spain following the Spanish American War. The islanders enjoy a relatively good standard of living with an annual per capita income of over USD$15,000.

I have some fond memories of Guam. I landed at Anderson Air Force in 1967 when I was on my way to the Philippines to join the good ship Leonard F. Mason in Subic Bay. I can also remember having the Mason stop in Apra Harbor to take on fuel when we returned to Long beach from my first deployment to the Western Pacific Ocean during the Vietnam War.

We also had some visitors who stayed for a while at the blog during the week. We had one stay for 21 minutes, another for 17, one for 16, two for 13, one for 12, and one for 11 minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who take time from your busy days and stop by to visit the blog. Be sure to tell your friends about the blog if you enjoy it.


That was my weekend. I hope you had a great weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Bonus Feature - February 8th

Weekend Bonus Feature - Faline Song
I thought I would post a Weekend Bonus Feature for a change of pace. I hope you all have a good weekend.

This is my favorite image.




Be well and stay happy.

It's almost the Weekend

It’s almost the Weekend
Yes, it is almost the weekend and I am so looking forward to it. The weekend means I am one week closer to the time when I can go to Coldstone Creamery and suck down some really rich ice cream.

The weekend also marks the halfway point of this chemotherapy treatment.

I was dinking around with Sitemeter.com yesterday. I was curious about where the visitors came from; beyond the weekly visitor listing I attempt to create. I think I am pleased that about 30% came from outside of the United States. This seems like a good volume since most of my writing is about my life, a relatively narrow subject, and what is happening where I live in the United States.

Most of you know that I follow Korean soap operas that are broadcast in the evening on a local Korean language channel. I believe the soap operas provide some insight into the Korean culture and people. I know that some aspects are dramatized for theatric reasons; otherwise, the shows would be incredibly dull.

It is Christmas time in the current show. I could also say it is the end of December in the current show. The programs are all broadcast in the native Korean with English language subtitles. I found it fascinating that when the characters were in public settings, the background music was English language Christmas music. Somehow, I find it difficult to imagine Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” or “Hark, The Herald Angels” in the background.

I couldn’t get away from the idea that the songs could have been translated in Korean for the program. I know there are Christian churches in Korea and it strikes me as being highly unusual that they would not have hymnals that feature the classic, traditional Christian songs so someone could sing the songs in Korean for public broadcast.

I suppose in a week or so I will be hearing “Auld Lang Syne” in the background when the timeline moves on to New Year’s Eve.

Fascinating.

Faline Song
I’ll end the blog with some Faline Song images. This is an excellent way to end the blog.






Be well and stay happy.