Last Post of 2008 - Happy New Year

Last Post of 2008 – Happy New Year
Well, this is my last posting for 2008. I don’t think that there will be anything that will happen in my life in the next nine plus hours to warrant another posting. This assumes, of course, that I will be able to stay away until midnight.

One of my students said she was going to call me at midnight. I doubt that she will; the student is big on talk and very low on performance.

I had to fill the Prelude up with gas on Tuesday as I drove to see Molly the Stylist for a haircut. I did some mental calculations on the fuel economy over the last tank load which was primarily high speed highway driving. The Prelude managed to average between 29 and 30 miles to the gallon. I am confident that I could have achieved more fuel efficiency if I had driven with more care and less pressure on the accelerator pedal. Even so, the fuel economy was impressive for a car that is over 20years old.

I saw Molly for my regular haircut. She said my hair was sort of long and ragged; it was crawling over my shirt collar. It has been five weeks since Molly last cut my hair so it should be on the long side.

Molly tried a different hair goop after she finished up with the cutting. She also put the purple rinse in my hair. I think it looked very nice when she was finished. Unfortunately for me, I did not have my camera with me so I could get a photo of me with my hair all styled and such.

Since today is Wednesday, I went to the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for my usual ice blended drink. Tihana was working there today and she made a perfect drink for me. I went there at mid-day and the store was almost empty. Most of the time, the store is full of laptop posers and sometime students.



Celebrate responsibly.


Be well and stay happy and come back to the blog in 2009.

Getting Ready for New Year's Eve

Getting Ready for New Year’s Eve
Getting ready for New Year’s Eve is relatively easy for me this year. Since I have no plans presently and it seems highly unlikely that I will develop any plans between now and the 31st, I am ready for the event now.

Of course, I may take a shower and brush my teeth that. I might even shave but there is no reason to do so.

My tutoring session Saturday morning went very well. My former student was a mess of anxiety and nerves over her bachelor’s thesis. It seems her instructor hasn’t talked about the project yet. That is unfortunate for her and the rest of the students.

I came up with a suggestion for a structural framework that would solve two problems for her. It would provide a sound intellectual basis for her thesis and a source of additional peer reviewed material and articles. I also gave her a simple methodology for formatting her paper.

We met at Doug’s favorite Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf because it was convenient for her. After the tutoring session, Doug and I went to lunch at the local Original Tommy’s Hamburgers. Doug had a Number 2 combination with chili cheese fries and a double chili cheeseburger. He had a late breakfast.

I had a light breakfast because I knew we would be going to lunch at either Tommy’s or Fatburger. I probably overate with a Mega Combo with a triple chili cheeseburger and chili cheese fries. Oh yes, you also get a giant drink as well. You need it by the end of the meal.

On my way home, I swing into my friend Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store. The store is just off of the 405 so it was an easy stop for me. The cold chocolate ice cream helped to settle my stomach and that was good. Gloria was out and I enjoyed my ice cream in relative silence.

I seem to be writing about food a lot today.


My friend Sharon took me to lunch today. Of course, I had to drive about 65 miles to her office for lunch. The traffic was light so I could cruise along at a comfortable 70 miles per hour. I know that I ought to convert the old Imperial measures into their metric equivalents. I don’t feel like that tonight; maybe tomorrow.

Anyway.

Sharon took me to the Elephant Bar at the Tyler Mall in Riverside; primarily because I have never been to an Elephant Bar restaurant before. Sharon had her usual order of chicken medallions; she really likes it.

I decided to be adventurous and try a special on the menu. I had crushed macadamia nuts cover some mahi mahi that was served with rice and an assortment of vegetables and a vegetable salsa. It was very good and filling for me. I added some soy sauce to the rice because the white rice was only white rice at the end of the meal.

Sharon passed on dessert but she did agree to try a bit of my ice cream mud pie. An ice cream mud pie is coffee ice cream in a chocolate cookie pie shell and topped with whipped cream and crumbled Oreo cookies.

I should have taken photos of our meal. Oh well, there is always tomorrow or the next time for photos. I did have a new photo of Sharon and me together taken today.

We had a great server Dominique. She had a great sense of humor and tolerated our silliness and side bar humor Dominique took the photo of Sharon and me and then Sharon took the one of Dominique and me.

It was my lucky day for photos.

If I was to go to this Elephant Bar again and it is possible I suppose, I would definitely request Dominique as my server. I would even consider changing venues if she wasn’t working then.

I read in my online news feed that Utah’s head football coach Kyle Whittingham got a five year, USD$6 million contract extension from the school. Obviously, everyone is very pleased with his results.

If you happen to be in the United States on Friday with nothing better to do, tune into the Sugar Bowl game and root for our Utes. The Princess and I will be doing just that.


Be well and stay happy.

Me and the Cancer and Dr. Karen

Me and the Cancer and Dr. Karen
I was going to post this blog entry on Friday but I got side tracked with other things and then on Saturday there was the tutoring and then lunch with Doug at The Original Tommy’s Hamburgers.

I was shocked when I spoke to the nurses about how they liked the candy I left for them a week prior to this visit. Vhruna and Wendy said that the can was only half empty. That was a great surprise for me. The usual response is something akin to a feeding frenzy in the shark exhibit at an aquarium. I saw they had the can closed and placed on a high shelf. It seemed that they were intent on sharing their chocolate gift on a very limited basis.

Excellent planning ladies.

I went to see Dr. Karen on Friday, the 26th. On balance, she said I was doing fine and my cancer was still stabilized. She said my potassium was down a bit on my blood test the prior Friday. I said I missed my Rice Krispies with a banana that morning.

Dr. Karen asked how things went with the urologists. I said that they agreed my kidneys were normal and that was about I was expecting from them. Dr. Karen laughed and smiled.

Dr. Karen also adopted this avatar as her official Balancing Checkbooks avatar. I think it captures her personality well and it made her happy.

We talked about my visit to the colorectal surgeons. I said there was no visit or consultation because the doctor could not find the Tumor Board report about me. The report, created last June, was an agreed upon plan of treatment for me over the next fifteen to eighteen months. Every one of the key players, including me, had bought into the plan.

Perfectomundo.

Dr. Karen said, “That’s odd. Dr. Ho’s note from the consultation said she discussed a January 16th liver laperotomy [exploratory liver surgery] and then a [insert here a fancy medical term for cutting out my liver lesions here] with the patient.”

My mind quickly went to several perfectly good Anglo Saxon phrases to use for chronic disbelief. I’m certain that you can pick one of your own choosing to insert there.

Dr. Karen opened her mouth and nothing came out. That was the first time I caught her speechless for a moment.

That was not the response that I was looking for from my oncologist.

Anyway, Dr. Karen moved on and recovered very well. She suggested that since Dr. Vora and Dr. Ho were so anxious to cut me open, she would order some more tests, a MRI and a CT scan. Then, she proposed taking my case back to the Tumor Board for a six months review and to reaffirm the June treatment decision.

I said she could slap the other doctors over their heads with the correct playbook.

Then, I pointed out to Dr. Karen that if I am scheduled for surgery on the 16th that she can come visit me in the recovery room for our regular visit. I will be in the hospital and unlikely to be going anywhere soon after surgery.

Judging from the look on her face, I think my attempt at humor with her failed.

So, where does that leave me with the treatment?

My cancer is stable and that is good for me.

I have no complications with my kidneys and that is good for me.

My case is going to get another thorough review by the experts and that is good for me.

Dr. Karen decided to take me off of the Xeloda for the next two weeks in the remote possibility that I will have surgery. She didn’t want the surgery to happen right after a chemotherapy session and that is good for me.

Dr. Karen likes her avatar and that is very good for me.

I need to work on my joke delivery and maybe have Doug write some good jokes for me.

When Dr. Karen finished her examination of me, she excused herself. This is normal; she usually speaks with the head of the oncology clinic before coming back and giving me a final verbal checkout and saying the prescription and appointment notices were being prepared.

She was frustrated when she returned about twenty minutes later. Dr. Karen does not do frustration well at all. “I have been trying for twenty minutes to talk with Dr. Ho or some other doctor over there and no one will come to the phone or return my calls. This is so frustrating for me.”

I smiled and nodded knowingly. I was going to say something like it is comforting to know the colorectal people treat the professionals as well as they seem to do with the patients. I thought better of my comment and left it at the nod and smile.

I wished Dr. Karen’s University of California Berkeley Bears a victory in the Emerald Bowl on this past Saturday. Her Bears won and so she ought to be smiling more today. Dr. Karen went to the University of California Berkeley as an undergraduate.

Doug didn’t come up for the visit because neither one of us were expecting anything significant to come out of the visit. We talked about the surprising revisionist view of history that came from colorectal surgery. Doug said that this seemed to be a continuation of the pattern of colorectal surgery to lose or misplace important documents. This wasn’t the first time that something was lost.

On the plus side, my next appointment with Dr. Karen is at 1:00 PM so Doug will be able to come to it if he wants to be there. That was my visit to see Dr. Karen.


Be well and stay happy.

Happy Boxing Day - Happy Kwanzaa

Happy Boxing Day – Happy Kwanzaa

University of Utah Football – Go Utes
I guess the team is in New Orleans now to practice for the Sugar Bowl against the University of Alabama on January 1st. Our Utes are a ten point underdog; nothing new here, we have been underdogs before and still prevailed at the end of the day.

Head Football Coach Kyle Whillingham came in third in the Associate Press poll for Coach of the Year. That put him in some very rare company.

I have a miniature football that is autographed by Coach Kyle Whillingham and that is cool.

Visitors
We had a fall off of visitors as expected last week. We had 717 visitors to the blog. I think the fall off in visitor traffic will continue until many of the regular visitors recover from their New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Perfectly normal expectations.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by the blog periodically. I know that you generally do not visit the blog for the great writing or thoughts.

My Christmas
I had a great Christmas this year. I went out to my ex-wife’s house and had Christmas with her and Doug. They came to my flat for Thanksgiving. My Brother sent me a box of fruits and nuts; I shared that when I visited my ex-wife and Doug.

My niece and her partner sent me a pound of almond toffee. I did not share the toffee. Dr. Karen would be proud and pleased as I consumed some of those sweet calories. I felt the like the character in the cartoons where he has a good angel or advisor on one shoulder and a not so good angel on the other shoulder.

I think I saw Dr. Karen as the good angel who was encouraging me to have some more of the toffee. The other character was my regular doctor who kept shouting, “Noooooo; think of your diabetes.”

I listened to Dr. Karen.

The Princess and the Golfer sent me, among other items, a book by a favorite author. I started reading it yesterday and finished it up after dinner today. It is very hard for me to put down a book that I really enjoy reading.

Other odds and ends
I did go see Dr. Karen today. I will have more about my visit over the weekend. Dr. Karen picked out her new and permanent avatar [see above]; she was pleased and happy with. I was too; I also gave her a choice of no avatar in case she wanted to remain private.


Be well and stay happy.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Rainy Monday and Posted on Tuesday

Rainy Monday and Posted on Tuesday
It was raining when I rolled out of bed this morning; not a strong or hard rain, just enough to make a mess of the roads. And, my potential drive to Riverside for my lunch with Sharon.

Sharon called me this morning. She sounded horrible; Sharon has a nasty cold and is on antibiotics right now. That is not good at all. She was calling to say that lunch would have to be a bit later today since she had to take her dog Bianca into the veterinarian because the dog has a mass somewhere.

I don’t know much about her dog other than it is small and it barks a lot. I remember from when Doug and the Princess had their dog Nelson that it required a lot of care. She will be spending more time at the veterinarian’s office than she planned to do today.

I think Sharon was hurt when I suggested that we have lunch next Monday. I didn’t say the delay was prompted by my guess that she would spend more time with the vet. I suggested that I need to be careful about my exposure to germs because of the chemotherapy treatments. This is true and a very acceptable excuse.

Lunch is now next Monday and things are likely to be less hectic then.

[It’s Tuesday now]

I took a break from school work and drove to Westminster to see my friend Gloria at her frozen yogurt and ice cream store. It was also a break in the weather and the roads were dry.


For those of you who have never driven in Southern California during poor weather, our drivers are generally among the worst in the world. They drive too fast and do not allow enough space between them and the vehicle in front of them. Of course, some are still talking on their hand held cell phones even though that has been illegal since July 1st. raindrops on the windshield frighten them.

Gloria’s store was empty as would be expected in the middle of December and on one of the last shopping days until Christmas. That gave us more time to catch on what has happened in our lives.

You all know that nothing significant has happened with me in the last six months.

My drive home was very nice because the roads were still dry and most of the traffic was on the other side of the freeway divider.
Be well and stay happy.

Winter Break

Winter Break
I am on Winter Break from classes right now. Our school takes its break in the middle of the term unlike most schools on the quarter system that observe the Winter Break at quarter’s end.

So what does this all mean?

I will be taking a break from posting as frequently as I have. I know some of you will say that I haven’t been posting very often this month.

This month, I have been spending more time at the hospital and labs. That takes away from my posting time; I had six visits this month. I am also busy with writing lecture notes and lesson plans for my three new courses. It takes about three hours to prepare one lesson.

Natalie
I got a Christmas card from Natalie this week. This is normal this time of the year. Natalie thanked me for the customized M&Ms that I sent her. Her special M&Ms were red, green, and white, seasonal colors. I had the words merry Xmas, Happy New Year, and Natalie printed on them.

Natalie said that she loved M&Ms and I listened to her. The box weighted in at five pounds so there should be some left when I see Natalie on the 30th when I go in for my haircut, styling rather with Molly.

That made sense to me since the box was being delivery to her at the Molly Moon Salon. It would be very difficult to say that the candy belonged to someone else.

I should probably ask Natalie for a new image of her when I see on the 30th. This image is close to two years old although she has not changed much except for her hair style. I have found that women like to change their hairstyle with great regularity.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitor traffic. We had 811 visitors this past week. Traffic usually falls off in December because we are off doing other things with family and friends.

Looking ahead, I have two significant to me milestones that I should reach in 2009. Sometime in 2009, I will post my 1,000th entry; I had 885 posting through today. Then, the blog will also pick up its 50,000 visitor. We are at 31,626 visitors now. I wonder where he or she will come from. I ought to be able to reach both of those goals this year.

I do appreciate all of you who took time from your busy days to visit the blog. If you enjoyed your stay here, be sure to tell your friends.

Lisa and the Movies
My friend Lisa from the bank emailed me on Thursday about going to the movies on Saturday to see the film MILK. I said sure. Doug and my brother had both seen the film and had thought highly of it. I told Lisa that I would be willing to drive out to the O. C. where she lives for the film.

Perfectomundo.

Friday, I got up and sent Lisa the film times for shows out in her area and asked her to pick a theater.

Then, around 4:00 PM on Friday, Lisa called me. She was out on the Westside of Los Angeles seeing her doctor. She had just finished. Lisa said why don’t we go see MILK tonight. I said of course because Lisa is fun to be with. We agreed to meet at a theater close to my house; that was a real gas saver.

I got there early and bought the tickets; I qualify for a senior citizen discount. I never used to think too much of senior discounts because I haven’t been going to the cinema much lately. Doug has said it was a poor year for films. I ended up saving us USD$7.50 and that was very nice.

After the film, we grabbed a light dinner of appetizers at the L. A. Food Show which is in the same complex as the theater. We split an order of the Avocado Bacon Chicken egg rolls and an order of blue crab cakes. We love the egg rolls and almost always order then when we are there.

The blue crab cakes came with a white and black bean salsa that included diced tomatoes and onions along with some cilantro. We really enjoyed this item and I think we will probably have it again when we go to the Show. The Princess would like the crab cakes as well.

MILK
MILK is a very powerful film about the beginning of the gay rights movement in the United States in the 1970s. It is a largely biographical film about the role San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk played in the movement.

This is not a film for everyone as it contains suggested homosexual sex, violence, and a number of other adult themes. It is rated “R.” All of this aside, we both agree that this is a film that is well worth seeing.

We both thought that Sean Penn gave an Oscar worthy performance in his role of Harvey Milk. I thought it was Penn’ best performance in his career to date. With the exception of Josh Brolin, who plays Supervisor Dan White, most of the cast seemed to have been selected for their resemblance to the characters that they played. One thing that I did appreciate was the closing credits were used to update the audience on what happened to the supporting characters after Milk’s death.

Doctors and Me
I had another clinic appointment on Thursday with the doctors in the Urology Clinic. This was a follow-up visit to the removal of the stent that had been in left ureter. I had an ultrasound examination of both kidneys earlier this month.

Once the doctor found the ultrasound report, everything was great. I had only spent 90 minutes waiting for him to find the report. It appears to have gotten misplaced between Radiology and Urology.

Wonderful, not.

But, in the end, the wait was worth it. The doctors said both kidneys were fine and normal; that is about the best I have found that you can get from a doctor in terms of how you are. I have no scheduled follow-up with Urology now and one less thing to worry about for me.

This will be something that I can talk to Dr. Karen about on Friday. I can also ask Dr. Karen whether she likes this avatar or not. I can always ask Ziying to give me a link to another set of Chinese avatar cartoons.

I also have or am getting over a sinus cold. This is something else that Dr. Karen can dwell on. This is the first cold in about two years for me. I ought to be over it by Friday.

I had a blood test on Friday. It is one of my regular tests that I have every three weeks. Since I was going that way, I also dropped off some candy for the Oncology Clinic staffers. Wendy and Vhruna were very pleased to see me when I walked in the door with the large box under my arm. The candy should have lasted at least through the day unless there were a bunch of hungry young residents in the clinic.

Then, I went up to the Infusion Clinic to wish all of the staffers a Merry Christmas. They did a great job of taking care of me when I first started out with my chemotherapy. They all thought I looked so good and handsome.

Obviously, that made me feel very good.

Sharon takes me to lunch, maybe
Sharon may be taking me to lunch on Monday. This assumes that my cold is much better than it is now. If I am not better tomorrow morning, I will cancel out on the lunch.

Sharon has been promising and saying she wants to take me out for lunch or dinner but has never come up with a day and time and venue. This has been going on from before my operation last year; but, this is just Sharon. She has a lot of drama and activity in her life.

I sent Sharon an email on Friday that asked if she wanted to take me out to lunch and she said Monday would be good for her.

Hopefully, my cold will be better and I can go have lunch with her. Anyway, there is always next week if I have to reschedule or later on in the new year if necessary.


That was my week and weekend. I hope you are ready for Christmas and New Year’s.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - December 14th

Weekend Update
I haven’t been posting much this week. I have been busy with school and other things in my life.

I have a new department chair at school this term. Since this is the beginning of my third year at school, I am fairly self-sufficient and know where everything is and how the school works. The new chair gave me my quarterly evaluation. I am doing well and had a much better evaluation than I did in the prior quarter.

The only complaints were some of the classrooms were cold and the computers in the labs were slow. Neither one of those complaints was an instructor related variable.

Wednesday was a busy day for me. I had my morning class which went well. Then, I was off to the clinic visit, more of that later. After the clinic visit, I was back to school to help another instructor launch a new student club. He asked me to help out because there are some areas where he is weak.

I was tired when I stopped at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf after the school club meeting. I needed a large ice blended. It was well made but Tihana wasn’t there.

I finished up my Christmas cards on Saturday except for three or four where I am uncertain if I have correct addresses. I should get those cleared up in a day or so; it is not too significant since they are all Southern California addresses.

We are supposed to have a Winter storm or what passes for one in Southern California could into town tonight. We will get a little rain and some snow in the mountains and mostly be cold for several days. The weather news readers were all in a tizzy about the storm; you would think that they never saw a rainstorm before. One of the weather news readers was apparently so excited that she broke out her mini-skirt for the 6:00 news report. I guess she didn’t want her skirt to get too wet.

My friend Sunny, from China, asked me to help her with her essay for her application to a doctoral program in the United States. She wants to get her PhD here and then either return to China or stay here and work. Sunny has developed a taste for American food.

Sunny’s topic is online dating attitudes. I thought her research and analysis was fascinating and, in some parts, reflected how we have carried on our IM conversations over the last three years. I should state, for the record, we have never met in person. Maybe we will meet some day

It took me about three and half or maybe four hours to go over her paper and make my corrections and suggestions. That may seem like a long time for a 25 page long paper but it isn’t. The first paper I reviewed for Sunny was for her application to a Master’s program in the United States took two days to complete.

I think she did a great job on her paper.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors; 835 of you stopped by in the last week. Visitor traffic is still favoring foreign visitors. There is no specific country that is dominating visitor traffic this month unlike November when the Germans stormed into the blog.

I do appreciate all of you who visit the blog as you take time out of your busy lives.

The Clinic Visit
I had a scheduled visit with the colorectal surgeons on Wednesday. They are the ones who are supposed to stitch me back together this coming Fall.

It was a wash-out.

The doctor I was supposed to see could not find a key report that had been issued back in June. The report was about my planned treatment for the cancer and she wanted to discuss it with me. The party or Tumor Board line was that I would wait until next year and have a triple play surgery; reconnection of my colon, removal of the colostomy bag, and a liver resection to remove the lesions.

This procedure made sense to me and to Doug.

Now, the last oncologist and the new colorectal surgeon want to move part of the surgery, liver resection, up by several months.


I am unaware of any reason or tests that would change the original plans. This was all sort of a shock to me. I haven’t been this anxious since I was on the good ship Leonard F. Mason during the Vietnam War when the bad guys were shooting at us. The photo is probably from late 1968 or early 1969. The anxiety or tension comes close to when I have my periodic flashbacks from the service.

Yes, I have flashbacks; but, then most of us who served in Vietnam do. Mine are fairly mild; at least, I think that they are.

Hopefully, I will get to see Dr. Karen on December 26th and I will ask her what she might prescribe for me if my anxiety gets any worse.

Friday was a Tihana Day for me
After I finished my shopping on Friday, I went to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for a large ice blended. I needed something nice to happen to me.

Something nice happened to me.

Tihana was at the Bean; she made me a perfect ice blended drink. Tihana told me that she finally gotten around to reading what I had written about her in the blog. She thought I was being very nice and sweet.

I asked Tihana if she was working next Wednesday. She will be. Then, I asked her to wear her red tee shirt because I think she looks so much better in red and because I want to have a new or second photo of her for the blog.

Tihana blushed, giggled, smiled, and said sure.

Next Wednesday will be a good day for me.


That was my weekend. I hope you all had great weekends.


Be well and stay happy.

Pearl Harbor Day - December 7th

Pearl Harbor Day
Today, December 7th marks the 67th anniversary of the attack on American naval and army forces in the Territory of Hawaii by naval forces of the Empire of Japan. Almost 2,400 Americans were killed in the attack including 1, 177 on the USS Arizona.




The photos of the USS Arizona were taken in the 1930s and are from the Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center.

We must never forget the sacrifices that have been made by others in defense of our liberties and freedom.

Other Activities at Week’s End
We had some Iranian visitors to the blog again. They had been absent for a while. I wonder why any good Muslin, especially one from Iran would be doing at the blog’s archives and checking out the most popular pages. Most of you know these pages contain images of very healthy young women in skimpy bikinis.

Maybe the Iranians have been off getting the minds and souls purified.

As for me, there is nothing wrong with a healthy young woman in a bikini.

I did some Christmas shopping for me over the weekend with no success. I was looking for a red and white scarf, preferably a long one. I thought this would be easy to find. I went to our University of Utah sports web site. Red and white are the school colors and it certainly is cold in Salt Lake City this time of the year.

None; I couldn’t believe there were no red and white scarves for sale.

I went to NCAA.com and tried to find one from Wisconsin or Oklahoma,; they have the same colors. No luck again.

I guess it is just as well that I live in Southern California and a warm Winter scarf like this is a luxury for me that I can live without.

I finished off my 2008 Christmas Letter. I sent it off to Doug for him to take a look at it and make sure that I did not make any serious errors. Then, all I have to do is address and mail my Christmas cards.

Not too much to write about today; after all, creating lesson plans and quizzes si not very exciting.


Be well and stay happy.

Stood Up, Maybe

Stood Up, Maybe
I went to the Oncology Clinic for the regular, every three weeks date with Dr. Karen. This is what I do on some Fridays.

To my surprise, Dr. Karen was not in. Wendy and Varuna, the nurses who check patients’ vital signs, said that she was not going to be in the clinic and that I would be seeing someone else. I thought for a moment and said, “I guess so.”

Wendy hugged my arm and said that I was the best patient because I never complain or yell or get angry or get mad with them. I only smiled; what else could I do? Getting upset helps no one and I know the nurses go out of their way to make every visit as pleasant as possible for the patients.

When I got home from the clinic, I ordered a festive, ten pound tub of Hershey’s chocolates for the Oncology Clinic staff. I will deliver the candy to them in a week or so. I am highly confident that the nursing staff will enjoy the candy. After all, I think everyone likes chocolate, especially at this time of the year.

I get to go to the Clinic on December 26th next. Dr. Karen should be there then. We can sort out the avatar to sue for her when I see her.

It’s a Tihana Day – Part II
I went to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf after lunch. I was tired and needed some caffeine to pick me up. I was also a little saddened because I missed seeing Dr. Karen.

Tihana was working at the Bean.

Perfectomundo.

Tihana doesn’t normally work on Fridays; she said that she does sometimes to fill in. I was very happy to see her since she was wearing the bright red company tee shirt that I like. Naturally, I did not have my camera with me so I couldn’t get a new photo of her in the red shirt. Oh well, all things in life can’t go the way I want all of the time.

The Bean was busy so Tihana and I did not have much of a chance to talk with her.

My large ice blended was excellent as usual. Tihana took my order and she knew what I wanted from memory. That is great.

Other Odds and Ends of My Life
I remembered a conversation that I had with Natalie the receptionist. Natalie mentioned that she did not like the dark chocolate candy but loved M&Ms. I ordered some customized Christmas M&Ms for Natalie. She will probably get upset with me and try to yell at me. This will not succeed because it is very difficult to yell with your mouth full of candy.

I also ordered some Christmas stuff for me.

Last week, we had 832 visitors to the blog. Sweet.

I was reading in one of my online news feeds that Nokia, my favorite cell phone manufacturer, was coming out with their N97 Smart Phone in mid-2009. It is said to be a direct competitor with the Apple iPhone. I wonder if AT&T or Verizon, my cell phone companies, will be carrying the phone.

One of my students is a Verizon cell phone salesman so I will ask him about the Nokia phone next week when we have a class.

All in all, a generally good Friday for me.


Be well and stay happy.

It's a Tihana Day!

It’s a Tihana Day!
Tihana Days are also known as Wednesdays for the rest of the known world and perhaps unknown worlds for that matter.

As usual, I went to my local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for my large ice blended drink. I stopped by after my morning Cost Accounting and Budgeting course. I’ll write more about my classes later on in the blog or maybe Friday. It all depends on my time.

Tihana was working today and that obviously made my day. I didn’t even have to sound or look like Harry Callahan. [You need to be a film fan to understand that reference.] At first, I thought that Tihana wasn’t working today because I didn’t see her when I came into the Coffee Bean. Then, one of the other employees ducked into the back room and found Tihana.

Perfectomundo.

Naturally, the ice blended drink was perfect because Tihana made it.

Life was good for me this afternoon.

Tihana and I had a brief chance to talk; the store was busy. She needed the blog URL so she could read about herself. I have given her the address before but it seems to get lost in the clutter and drama and other activities in her life. I was very thankful that Tihana gave me a large strip of paper to write the address down and also that she gave me a marker pen; I had left my glasses home.

In addition to everything else going well for me, Tihana was wearing the red company tee shirt today. Red is a good color for her I think.

I should have brought my camera so I could have updated the Tihana image series, a red image would be a perfect addition to the series. I will try to remember to do that next week.

Visitors for November
We had 3,810 visitors to the blog in November. This was our best month ever for visitor traffic. The visitors were a curious lot; they viewed 5, 207 pages with the January 1, 2007 page being the most popular.

The blog continues to draw more foreign traffic than domestic visitor traffic. The difference would be even more pronounced if Sitemeter could track all of the Texans as coming from a foreign state. Texans truly believe that they live in a unique state and sometimes still think it is independent.

I do appreciate all of you who take time to visit the blog.

Teaching
The new school term started on Monday evening for me. This is the start of my third year of teaching at the school.

I have five classes this term and I like all five of them. This is the first term in a year when I will not be teaching a writing class. Three of my classes have small enrollments; Cost Accounting has five students, Marketing and the Internet has nine students, and Introduction to Project Management had seven students. I have had the students in the Cost Accounting and Marketing and the Internet courses in at last five or six other classes before. This will be the third time I have had most of the students from Project Management in one of my classes.

My Economics and Change course has about twenty students; this is a fluid number that changes from day to day. I have had more than half of the students in other classes so that will make it easy for me. One of the students in the class was happy to see me on Tuesday night.

She said, “Oh my God Mr. R., I was so upset at the thought that I wouldn’t have for a teacher anymore and now here you are. I’m so happy now. Do you think Sandra can enroll in the course? What other classes are you teaching this term that I can enroll in?” Sandra is another former student.

It certainly is nice to be liked even if I have a reputation of being a hard instructor.

I am considered a hard instructor because I have high expectations of the students. They have to earn their grades; I do not believe in social promotion. I expect them to come to class fully prepared to participate in the course and the discussions.

One of the other students in the Economics course thought my moustache looked good on me. That helped me feel good about keeping it on. This student was another of my former students.

My Monday night course is going to be a killer for me. I have forty four students on the current roster, that’s as of today and down three from Monday night. Tomorrow is a different day.

I am confident that I can teach the class but I am disappointed with the size because the size will prevent me from providing as much individualized attention as some students may require. I already know that there are three or four and probably more that will require more help than others.

I was originally scheduled to only have around thirty one students.

My class ballooned because some students like me more than the other instructor who is teaching the course at night like me. Some students also transferred because the other section was being offered on Friday nights.

What young person wants to be in school on a Friday night?

For that matter, what teacher wants to be in school on a Friday night?

There was some talk yesterday about breaking up my class and having two sections on Monday nights. That idea ran into trouble and died quickly because there were no available classrooms and there was no available teacher.

So, I will concentrate of teaching to the best of my ability and provide the students with the knowledge they need to succeed.

Looking Ahead a Bit
I have an appointment tomorrow for an ultrasound examination. This is for the Urologists. They want to check on my ureter after the stent removal. Hopefully, this will be a painless process for me.

Then, on Friday, I have my regular date with Dr. Karen where she will nag me about weight loss and then she will, hopefully, continue to tell me that all of the tests she had done last week were all normal.

Not too bad for me.


Be well and stay happy.