Wrapping Up Loose Ends

Paulina Garces
I missed Paulina’s commercials yesterday. I had school in the morning and then I had my first Writing Clinic session. The commercials from last week were repeats so that was a loss for me.



I did see Paulina today. She had a new commercial, infomercial actually, for a local car dealership. I almost did not recognize her since she was wearing long pants. I thought she looked very nice in the infomercial but I thought her air time was less than what it should have been.

The only problem with watching an infomercial is that it is a thirty minute long commercial so there are no commercial breaks where you can duck into the kitchen and make your lunch. Today, I fixed myself one of my favorite lunches, melted brie cheese on French bread.

In the end, I was happy. I watched the infomercial as I ate my lunch.

The Writing Clinic
Yesterday was the first session of the Writing Clinic. The Writing Clinic is my project at school to help students become better writers. It did not get off to a great start; only two students showed up.

The two students who did participate seemed to have benefited from the time. I was able to show both of them how to write more effective sentences. I showed one of the students an approach that would let him overcome his tendency to write run-on sentences.

I hope that I will have a better turn out in two weeks when the topic will be “Selecting a Topic and Planning a Paper.”

Finding a Cell Phone Battery
The battery in my Nokia cell phone died on Friday night sometime. I tried charging but it would not hold the charge. I went to my local AT&T Wireless store to see if they had a battery. I purchased the phone at the store about two and a half years ago.

The sales clerk said they didn’t have the battery in stock. This was not what I wanted to hear from her.

I asked her what I should do with my AT&T Nokia cell phone if the battery would not hold a charge and how was I going to use it.

She wanted to test it. She tested it and confirmed it would not take a charge, just as I told her. She said the store would be getting a shipment of supplies on Monday.

That was not good solution because she couldn’t say whether or not the shipment would include my battery. She had no answer to my questions. Finally, someone else suggested that she call around to other AT&T Wireless stores to see if they had a battery.

She did make her calls and finally found a T-Mobile store that carried my battery.

After an overnight full charge of the battery, the phone works fine now.

California Sales Tax Increase
We are going to have a sale tax increase that will take affect on Wednesday. The increase, on a general basis for the entire state, is only 1%. This will raise over USD$16 billion in three years. It will go towards balancing our state’s budget.

I don’t think anyone is really happy about the increase. But, it is necessary.

We lucky Californians who live in Los Angeles County will get to pay an additional ½% sales tax increase. This increase will last for forty years so I won’t have to pay all that much. The increase is supposed to pay for mass transit improvements.

Most of the planned or proposed improvements will never get built. One of the proposals is to connect a freeway directly to Los Angeles International Airport. This would allow travelers to take a light rail car ride to the airport and avoid a lot of traffic.

That sounds really very sensible and logical, something our politicians have trouble grasping as a useful concept.

Our spineless and pathetically weak local politicians will probably kill the connection because it might adversely affect the airport shuttle business. When the freeway was originally designed thirty years ago, it was designed to be connected to and end at the Airport. I think the same thing will happen again.

So why is this all that important?

It allows me an opportunity to rant about our politicians and how pathetic they are. It also allows me an opportunity to point how this sales tax increase is not going to work. People will put off making major purchases. People will drive to the neighboring counties to make their major purchases like automobiles.

Anyway, I saw the other side effect of the tax increase. People were making the big purchases before the tax increase takes effect. Best Buy, a big box retailer of electronics and computers, is next to the AT&T Wireless store. The parking lot was crowded with cars as people were hauling out big screen televisions and computers.

Iranian Blog Viewers
I am troubled, well maybe troubled is too harsh a word, by the growing number of Iranians who are visiting the blog. I am assuming that most of the viewers are male since they go to one of the two or three most popular pages; the pages with lots of photos of young women in bikinis. These visitors are not just stopping by and quickly moving on. They are staying and looking and looking for fifteen minutes, twenty minutes or more. I don’t call that casual or accidental viewing.

I don’t think that this behavior is consistent with being a good Muslim or at least how I understand the Iranian view of relations between men and women.

I thought about removing the temptation by taking those pages down. Then, I realized that in doing so I would be censoring free speech and expression of ideas. This is something that we Americans tend to hold very dear. That would be very wrong.

Besides, how can a Westerner like me have any sympathy for a religion that says it is permissible to beat your wife? How can I have any sympathy for a religion that allows “honor killings” and intentionally limits the potential of women or deny women a decent education?

I will let the images stay up unless some lawyer threatens me to take them down. The rest of the world can enjoy the fruits of my limited labor and support the models and actresses’ careers.

I was going to be a bit more emphatic in my language but decided to tone things down a bit.


That was my weekend. I hope you all had good weekends also.


Be well and stay happy.

Dr. Karen and Me and a Ray of Hope

Dr. Karen and Me and a Ray of Hope
I saw Dr. Karen this morning for my regular, once every three weeks visit. I like to get a professional view on how I am and if I am healthy. Dr. Karen is obviously the perfect choice to give me an opinion.

In Dr. Karen’s words, I am doing fine.

That means that I can say I am happy and healthy and alive and well. All of my blood tests from yesterday were normal. I like to follow the results, especially those that are related to my diabetes. My potassium was normal for a change and my blood sugar was in a normal range. This all made Dr. Karen happy because I was following her instructions and eating a bit better.

In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I did mention that I had discovered sugar free, dark chocolate candy. Dr. Karen was not excited about my discovery; she looked over the top of my file and said that “the chocolates would be acceptable but only in moderation.”

There was a heavy emphasis on the concept of moderation in the tone of her voice. I told her that I am already practicing moderation when I indulge myself with the candy.

I also indulge myself with fresh California strawberries. I wash them off and then eat them right out of the container; no sense dirtying a plate unnecessarily, my fingers work just fine.

It looks like the Peanut Butter Blast from Giuliano’s managed to slide under the blood test radar.


I think the Peanut Butter Blast was mostly cream cheese and peanut butter with some chocolate crumb pieces and chocolate syrup poured on top. The chocolate was the dark chocolate kind so maybe there were some good flavinoids in it.

I asked Dr. Karen if she had any thoughts about my upcoming visit to the colorectal surgeons.

She smiled and giggled.

For those of you that remember, my last visit was not much fun. I didn’t see the doctor but she said that she discussed a possible liver surgery to remove the lobe with the lesions on it with me.

Now, I will be the first to say that I can be distracted just like anyone else. However, I don’t think that I would forget a conversation that included major surgery and a plan to cut me open. I am taking Doug with me as my backup for this visit so there are no missed conversations and no unanswered questions.

On the subject of questions, I think I am one of her few patients that bring a notebook to the clinic and write their questions down in advance. I think I am also one of the few patients who think far into the future. Thinking into the future is logical since I plan to be around for a long time to come.

I asked Dr. Karen if my medication plan would change after I reached the two year mark from the emergency surgery and if my cancer continued to be stable as it is now. As you all know, I just do not like taking seven Xeloda pills a day when I am in the medication cycle. I can tolerate the medicine; it is the number of pills that I do not like.

This was when Dr. Karen tossed me a ray of hope. She said that eventually I will have to come off of the Xeloda so I can avoid complications from taking it. Since I tolerate the medicine so well, it may be a while before I can be taken off the Xeloda. One of the options might be to take me off and only consider putting me back on it if my condition changes adversely.

I will accept any ray of hope.

All in all, it was a good day with Dr. Karen.

Visitors
The blog’s visitor traffic was off for the most recent week. We had 641 unique visitors and the traffic seems to be on the increase. Most of the visitors to the blog come from outside of the United States.

I am somewhat concerned about some of the visitors from Iran. As many of you know, Iran is a conservative Muslim country. So why would someone from Iran want to spend over twenty minutes looking at photos of American, European, and Asian female models and actress in rather small bikinis? I don’t think viewing these images is something a good Muslim man would do.


Of course, one obvious explanation could be that it was a female Muslim who was looking at the photos.

I do appreciate all of you who take time out of your day to stop by the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

My Week Is Improving - Molly the Stylist

My Week Is Improving – Molly the Stylist
My week is rapidly improving after that depressing start on Sunday. This is good for me.

I saw Molly the Stylist this afternoon for my monthly haircut; no, hairstyling. Molly so dislikes the term haircut. I think she considers haiructting to be a primitive form of appearance management. Appearance management that is a mouthful of words.

Molly liked the avatar I picked out for her. This was one of the ones that my friend Ziying from Shanghai sent me last year. Molly asked why I picked this one. I said because the image reminded me of her because of the very expressive eyes. Molly has very expressive eyes.

I think that made Molly happy.

I think I gave her some more happiness or professional pride when I told her the Princess liked the way she was cutting or styling my hair. I told her the Princess said, “you known Daddy, you do clean up very nicely. I like your hair the way it is, straight like mine.”

By now, I think Molly feels very confident and comfortable when she working on my hair. She no longer asks me if she can put some stuff on or in my hair. This seems very reasonable to me; Molly has been doing a great job and I trust her judgment.

This is a photo from the Princess’ birthday celebration the first part of the month. I think I look good for an older guy with stable cancer.


Other Missteps
On my way home to grade papers from Molly’s salon, I stopped at Giuliano’s for a sandwich for lunch. It was approaching 2:30 PM and I had skipped lunch before the styling session. I was hungry and I didn’t want to wait to fix something to eat when I got home.

I picked up a roast beef sandwich; I had half for lunch and I will heat the other half for a late diner tonight.


In addition to the sandwich, I picked up a Peanut Butter Blast. After consuming it, I am now almost dead solid certain that this indulgence will show up on my blood tests tomorrow. I hope Dr. Karen is not too upset with me.

Teaching
I picked up my instructor evaluations for last quarter. I did very well overall. I picked up some very modest incentive pay from three classes. I think the total incentive pay amounted to either USD$600 or USD$800, before taxes and other deductions.

My net is going to be about USD$6 for each hour of teaching.

I knew one class was a lost cause. I had forty five students and this is too large a group for any personalized instruction. Then, some of the students grade me down because I made them work.

Gasp, making students work, how terrible of me.

The students are lazy and are used to instructors who give them 100s for class participation just for showing up and producing green houses gases from respiration. I require and expect actual thoughts and intelligent discussion to get a good grade for class participation.

My fifth class was a disappointment for me. They were all students who I had in other classes and they gave me or at least one student gave me lower marks than I deserved.

That was unfortunate for all of them. I will not be willing to write any letters of recommendation for them. Writing letters of recommendation is something that instructors are asked, but not required, to do.

The Writing Clinic
The Writing Clinic starts this Saturday. I have no idea how it will turn out. I hope it will turn out to be something the students will support.

I am volunteering my time to get the writing program off of the ground. Our students, generally, cannot write at the college level. They should be able to do so. They fail on the most basic of writing skills like proof reading the document before submitting it to me for grading.

If I succeed, I can look forward to two personal benefits. First, I can have future students who are better writers when they are in my writing classes. Second, if the program succeeds, I can expect to be paid conducting the program in future quarters. The pay, naturally, will be modst.


Be well and stay happy.

Depression

Depression
Depression is a terrible way to end the week.

But, that is how my weekend and week are ending. For the most part, Saturday was a less than swell day for me. One of my students who promised me that she would be in class did not make it to class. She claimed that she had to be with her sister at a local hospital who was having premature labor pains. Given all of the other stories she has told me, I find it very difficult to believe her.

Our classes are three hours long with a twenty minute break. All of the students know this; it is not a new procedure. Three of my Saturday students took a forty five minute break. I should have marked them absent for the day.

Sunday was looking up for me.

The Princess called me to return an email I had sent her during the week. This was an unexpected surprise. We talked briefly for maybe fifteen minutes. I would have talked longer but I had to get ready to have lunch with one of my old co-workers at 1:00 PM at our favorite restaurant, LA Food Show.

The Princess said I know you will have a good time there. She wished she could have joined us for lunch I think.

I got the Show early because that is my nature. I believe that it far better to be a bit early then to do be late. Being late is an insult to others you are meeting because you are saying that you do not care for them since you chose not to arrive on time.

I waited for fifteen minutes after our agreed upon meeting time to call my co-worker.

When I indentified myself, she said, “Were we supposed to have lunch today?”

“Yes.”

Then, all she said was, “I’m so sorry Charles,” over and over again.

There was nothing much to do at that point for me. I said something like life happens and there will be other days in April or May when we can try again and then we can include our friend Lisa who also used to work with us.

I had moved on by then.

Since I was at the Show, I decided that I could have lunch there, by myself, at the counter. I found a seat at the end of the counter and looked at the menu briefly. After a brief wait, the server showed up and I gave him my order.

After waiting five minutes in a less than full restaurant for a glass of iced tea, I gave up. I told the manager who was helping get food orders out to tell my server to cancel my order. The manager questioned my comment.

I said, “What part of cancel my order is confusing? I should not have to wait five minutes for a glass of iced tea.” Then, I put on my jacket and walked out.

At this point in the weekend, I was starting to feel badly. I decided to make one last attempt at having something go right for me this weekend. I drove over the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for a large ice blended drink made by Tihana.

Tihana’s ice blended drink was perfect. It was the one thing that went absolutely perfectly for me this weekend.

Frankly, that is a very sad commentary for or on or about me.

While Tihana did an excellent job on the ice blended, it still did not remove my sense of depression and, to a degree, hopelessness. I don’t think I will be completely depressed for an extended period of time.

I didn’t have any lunch today. I just didn’t feel like having any food after the two disappointments at the LA Food Show today. My dinner tonight is likely to be sparse, if at all. In all likelihood, I will probably just go to bed early tonight and sleep.

This was not one of my best posts. It shouldn’t be a good one; I am depressed and I have every right to be depressed; it is my life after all.


Be well and stay happy.

Shorty Shorts - More Signs of Spring

Shorty Shorts – More Signs of Spring
A couple of years ago, Doug convinced me that shorty shorts were a sign of Spring and Summer. His logic was sound so I had to agree with him. Yesterday, as I was driving to school, I noticed several high school or junior high schools aged teen aged girls wearing shorty shorts.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with shorty shorts, this is a photo of Hayden Panettiere wearing a set.


Like the swallows that return to Mission San Juan Capistrano ever year, Spring w as truly returning to Southern California.

Spring officially arrived today; it was cloudy and overcast at the beach all day long. It is likely to be cloudy and overcast tomorrow. Being overcast tomorrow is not so bad for me since I have a morning class to teach. Maybe, the sun will burn off the clouds by the time that I get home from school.

Visitors
Last week was a good week for visitors. We had 727 visitors to the blog and they viewed 1,082 pages. The most viewed page was January 1, 2007 with about 70% of the blog traffic.

From time to time, I do check where the visitors come from. I found some interesting locations in the past week. We had visitors from the Netherlands Antilles, Cyprus, Occupied Palestinian Territory – Gaza, and Woking, Surrey England. I couldn’t help but wonder if Woking is a district that is famous for is Chinese restaurants.

We also had a visitor from the United States Navy’s mighty Pacific Fleet. It is extremely satisfying to see that sailors are still sailors and that some aspects of Navy life never change.


Be well and stay happy.

Lexmark International Call Center Service

Lexmark International Call Center Service
As many of you know, Wednesday is a non-teaching day for me. I tend to relax and do a lot of mundane tasks like going to the grocery store or the shirt laundry; stuff like that. As such, I was pondering what I would write about today in the blog.

Then, opportunity came knocking at my door in the form of a hideous problem or conflict with my new Lexmark X4975 printer and the Windows Vista Business operating system on the laptop.

X4975 sounds so sexy and high tech doesn’t it.

I printed around thirty or so documents on Sunday with no problems or trouble at all except for when I ran out of paper in the paper tray. Today, I wanted to print a letter that I had written to Virgin America Airlines about Flight Attendant Nicole and what a great job she did on my flight to see the Princess.

For some unknown reason, I couldn’t get the letter to print.

I am not technically inclined by any means. I have asked Doug to help me understand some of the setting at blogger.com and explain some other technical applications like sending text messages from my cell phone.

I called the Lexmark Call Center for help. This was my best decision of the day.

Darleen answered the phone.

Salvation.

Perfectomundo as well.

Darleen helped me work the problem through that I can only describe as the two components did not want to play nicely with each other. I’m absolutely certain that Darleen could give you a perfectly clear and technically correct explanation of what happened.

Darleen’s explanation would have been wonderful and I would not have understood most of what she might have typed.

I won’t say how long we were on the telephone but it was much longer than I thought it would be. I thought the problem was something simple. I didn’t care because Darleen fixed my problem and I deeply appreciated her effort on my behalf.

I did end up leaving about a minute long voice message for her supervisor. I said that I really appreciated Darleen’s work. I don’t think he gets too many voice messages like that.

On a scale of 1 to perfect, Darleen ranks at Perfect. She is, without any doubt, the finest call center representative that I have ever dealt with.

I think the primary reason why I like Darleen so much has to do with where the Lexmark call center is located. The call center is located on the island of Cebu in the Southern Philippines.

Darleen speaks a near perfect version of American English and this experience was way beyond what I have received from Indian based call centers like the one run my operating system provider. The difference for me was beyond night and day.

I just wish that more American companies would locate their call centers in the Philippines so I wouldn’t have to listen so hard for and to that clipped British accent you have when you are speaking to someone in Mumbai or Bangalore. I think the Indian based call centers do an excellent job as well and I certainly can’t blame them for not being able to speak American English; they were, after all, a colony for much longer than we were.

That was the big drama in my life for today.


Be well and stay happy.

It's Spring

It’s Spring
I think that it is Spring. Last night, Monday, Disneyland was shooting off fireworks as I left class. This is a practice that has been going on for years; I can remember watching fireworks when I was a teenager.

It was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away when I was a teenager.

I look at the fireworks display as being the start of Spring. The last fireworks display, usually in September, for me, marks the beginning of the Fall and Winter seasons.

Teaching
This is the second week of school and my classes are shaping up nicely. I now have ninety students enrolled in my four classes. This is the largest number of students having in class that I can recall.

I had one student join my Tuesday morning class. He has been in three of my other classes. He said he wanted to be in my class because he liked me as an instructor than the one who was teaching the same class in the evening.

That made me feel good and I think his comments had a positive effect on the other students.

Today was a slow day for me. Some days are just like that.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - March 15th

Weekend Update
Here it is; the end of the week and what do I have to say for myself?

Not very much actually, I think. I only wrote down three or four items to talk about on my note sheet.

My Saturday morning class was somewhat of a disappointment for me. I was missing twelve students including some who slept in and did not wake up in time. This is unfortunate for them because those students get pushed to the bottom of pile when it comes to job placement assistance. The job placement staffers give the highest priority to those students who come to class on time on a regular basis. Of course, those who come to class on time are very happy that they are in the front of the line.

I like the staff’s attitude. If you can’t to get class on time, how will you be able to get to work on time?

That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

My proposed Writing Clinic got approved on Friday. The academic side of the school is pleased with my initiative and they hope it will succeed. The students that are coming out of high school now have such poor and almost nonexistent writing skills that I wonder how they passed the state exit or graduation examination.

I know the Writing Clinic will not solve most or even a small fraction of the high school educational failures that were swept under the rug. This is the result of social promotion and an apparent lack of accountability and concern by a large group of suspects.

Oh well, there is no sense in getting myself upset or worked up over something that I had no hand in creating.

On a more pleasant note, I did see Paulina Garces today when I was channel surfing while my laundry was in process. I went .500 in viewing today; one program was a new one and one program was an older one. I did visit her web site and I downloaded a few images of her that I apparently either overlooked or missed or they were recently added to the site.

Anyway, here are some more Paulina images.



The visitor traffic is continuing to return the former levels. So far in this month, the blog is about 400 visitors ahead of the entire month of February. This ought to be a very nice month for visitor traffic.

We did have a visitor to the blog from Wasilla, Alaska, the home of Alaska’s governor and former Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. I thought that was an absolutely fascinating bit of trivia.

The blog traffic is still favoring foreign visitors by about 6 to 4. Some days it is more and some days it is less. It all balances out in the end.

I did go to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for another large ice blended. Tihana was there and made my drink. It was perfect as usual. She asked why I haven’t been coming around as much as I used to. I had a simple explanation; my blood sugar was significantly elevated when I had my last visit with Dr. Karen.

We talked about the blood sugar reading. Dr. Karen suggested that I ought to cut back on my consumption of both Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s ice blendeds as well as the Arizona Ice Tea Company’s Arnold Palmer drinks.

Reluctantly, I mentally agreed to do as Dr. Karen asked me to do.

She was correct; she was only thinking about my health. Maybe there was an element of professional pride since she stabilized my cancer and she didn’t want me to go down the drain from some other cause like diabetes.

Oh well, cutting back is hardly the end of my life as I would like to live it.

There are always sugar free, raspberry filled, dark chocolate candies that are rich in flavinoids [I think that is how you spell the word. The Nutritionist would know for certain.] to take the edge off of my taste buds.


That was my weekend. I trust you all had wonderful weekends.


Be well and stay happy.

Odds and Ends and Visitors

Odds and Ends
I got an appointment notice yesterday from the hospital. I am going to see the colorectal surgeons again; this time in April. Hopefully, they will have their act together. The last time, they couldn’t find an important report.

So much for inspiring me to have confidence in them.

I phoned Doug about the appointment and he said he would probably come to the hospital also since the appointment is in the early afternoon.

As some of you know, I teach several English writing courses at school. Because of this work, I am always looking for example of horrid English grammar and writing to show to my students. I found one last night as I logged off of my computer. I was installing some Microsoft downloads.

The screen said, “Do Not Turn Off Your Computer.”

While not bordering on horrible, it struck me as being awfully archaic sounding and stilted. It has a stiff sound to it when you read the sentence aloud.

I think it would have been written as, “Do Not Turn Your Computer Off.”

Anyway, I am certain that the gnomes at Microsoft know what they are doing.

Visitors
We had another good week with visitors. Last week, we had 751 visitors who viewed 1,095 different pages.

Impressive and much, much better viewing results.

Most of the visitors are now coming from Asia and Europe; just like before the big drop off in viewership. They are visiting two pages almost exclusively; just like before.

I do appreciate all of you who take time from your daily activities to visit the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

The New Classes

The New Classes
I started up with the new term at school on Monday. So far, my classes seem like they will be good for me. I think I am going to have about 85 or 90 students in all of my classes.

My Tuesday morning Group Dynamics class looks like it will be the most interesting and probably the most fun for me to teach. Most of the students know each other and have been in classes before so there is a lot of participation so far.

Since the class is about Group Dynamics, I broke the class into two groups; six students didn’t make it to class so they will be split up next week. I encouraged the groups to select names for their group. One group composed of three women and a man picked a name of Three Hens and a Cock.

That was so not what I had in mind.

Not by a very, very long shot.

One of the students called her department chair to thank her for getting a good instructor that would be me for the class. That has never happened to me before.

My writing clinic project idea seems to be moving along towards approval. My department chair is very supportive of the idea. The Associate Dean for General Studies is also supportive of the idea and he recognizes the need for the program. I am going to meet with my chair tomorrow and give him a formal proposal and program outline. Then, I will have to wait to see if the administration and school director buy off on the concept and my approach to it.

Printer Shopping
I went printer shopping this afternoon. I was amazed at how low the prices were for black only laser printers. I saw one for less than USD$100. I thought about buying it but changed my mind because I wanted to be able to print in color.
I ended up with a Lexmark printer that only does printing, copying, and scanning. Hopefully, this printer will last for me and that it will be compatible with Windows 7 whenever it launches this year. I will set it up tomorrow after I come home from school.


Be well and stay happy.

Celebrating in Seattle

Celebrating in Seattle
I flew to Seattle on Virgin America Airlines on the first flight out of Los Angeles. I prefer to take the first flight out of town because you have the best opportunity to leave on time and arrive on time, all other things being equal.

On balance, the flight was very good for me. I will discuss one pathetic worthless piece of white trash who sat behind me on the flight later on.

I paid a bit more for what Virgin America calls MainCabin Select seats. You get more legroom, dedicated or reserved overhead bin space and free drinks. I think it is worth the extra price for me anyway.

The flight was on the less full side so one of the flight attendants, Nicole, sat and chatted with me for about ten minutes. Nicole is a fascinating young woman. I learned that she went to California State University Chico and majored in event management. I never knew that you could major in an area like event management.

I took an airport bus from the airport to my hotel which, in this case, was the Sheraton Seattle. It started to snow on the drive in from the airport. Some people on the bus, they must have been from Southern California and didn’t know any better, were saying how wonderful it was to see snow falling.

All I could think about was whether I was going to be able to get out of town on Sunday morning.

The Sheraton is only a half block from Morton’s where we had dinner. As far as I know, it is a good hotel. My room was clean and the bed was firm and I was as far away as I could get from the elevator lobby and ice machine room on my floor.

Perfectomundo.

The Sheraton Seattle is right next to the Seattle Convention Center so it had a large convention crowd of guests. There was a convention going on about university student activity advisors or some such concept like that. I was fascinated to see how the delegates were out hustling each other for some level of advantage and trying to demonstrate how cool and sophisticated they were. In the end, they all seemed to look like lost and relatively powerless low level and middle level managers.

We had the birthday dinner at Morton’s; everyone had a wonderful time. As far as I could tell, every meal was perfect. I am basing this judgment on how clean the plates were. Not the most scientific of measures but an effective one none the less. We also talked and talked and enjoyed ourselves for three hours.


I shared one of my three baked scallops with my niece the Nutritionist. As some long time readers know, I generally do not share my food. But, this meal was family so I felt sharing was proper for me.

The Nutritionist is an ultra runner; she told me that she was planning on participating in a 180 mile run over the 4th of July Weekend. I wanted to ask her why not simply drive around the mountain but felt that would only make me sound silly.

We were missing two of the Seattle branch of the family. The Nutritionist’s husband was out of town on business and the Nephew’s girl friend was with her parents who were in town. I suppose we could have invited the girl friend and her parents to join us but no one mentioned it to me until Saturday afternoon when it was probably too late.

Our big conversation topic for the night was the cinema. It would have been a perfect subject for Doug. The Nutritionist suggested that Doug should come to the birthday dinner next year. I spoke to Doug about making the trip with me next year but he was noncommittal for now.

I woke up early on Sunday and was able to get to the airport earlier and change my flight from a 3:00 PM flight to one that left at 10:45 AM, getting me into Los Angeles much earlier. I had a couple of Bloody Mary’s on the flight; I skipped any food because I was still feeling full from the night before.

I had a perfect weekend in Seattle and enjoyed the birthday celebration immensely.

Pathetic Worthless Piece of White Trash
I had a pathetic worthless piece of White Trash sit behind just before we left Los Angeles on Saturday. I have nothing but utter contempt for this pile of human garbage.

Sounds really bitter doesn’t it.

Well, that is exactly how I feel.

This worthless pathetic scum was crying and complaining about how he couldn’t sit in the seat and how he practically had to pull my seat back off so he could pull himself up. Hey, White Trash, the airlines have not reduced the size of their seats in the last few days. White Trash knew or should have known that the seat were narrow; they have been for at least ten years now.

White Trash whined to the flight attendants about how he couldn’t sit there and that he had to be moved. Naturally, White Trash didn’t want to pay more for a better seat like in First Class. Thankfully, the airline held its ground and White Trash had to pay for the better.

The flight crew said White Trash would have to go out to the gate to pay for the upgraded ticket. White Trash whined again and said he couldn’t walk that far so a gate agent had to walk into the plane to accommodate White Trash.

I suppose that many of think I am being totally insensitive and thoughtless. I’m not.

I was amazed that White Trash sat his fat ass down in the front row of the First Class section. There was no chair in front of him to use as a lever to pull himself up. He didn’t need a chair back to lean on; he could get up from a First Class seat with no assistance at all.

So much for not being to sit in a seat, liar.

Then, White Trash got his sorry pathetic ass up and out of his seat and walked quickly down the jet way and into the terminal when the plane landed.

So much for not being able to walk, liar.

This is a person who deserves to be treated with total contempt and disregard. He has managed to make me totally indifferent to any handicapped person. Let them take their chances with someone else. I see no reason to afford these fakers special treatment.

The real question is how many others, just like White Trash, are out there abusing the system?

Have you ever seen a perfectly able bodied person park in a handicapped only parking space, hang a special parking tag on the car mirror and then run into a building?

Disgusting isn’t it?

Lunch at L A Food Show
I had lunch with an old coworker and his new girl friend on Friday at the L A Food Show. I suggested the Show because I have never had a bad meal in almost six years of going there. Not one of my guests or other friends, like Vivian and Lisa, has ever had a bad meal either.


I want to say his new girl friend because I only became aware of her at the end of 2008. They are a very happy couple and seem to enjoy each other’s company immensely. They were particularly happy with my lunch venue suggestion; everything about their food selections was perfect.

It seems lately that I have been eating out more; Friday at L A Food Show and Morton’s on Saturday and back to the Show a week from Sunday.

My Friend Vivian
My friend Vivian and I used to work for the same bank in Century City until I got laid off.

Lay-offs happen and I am so over it by now.

After I left the bank, Vivian and I and Lisa who worked with me as well would get together for lunch periodically. We have always had lunch on the weekend so we can spend more than an hour over lunch and we have always had lunch at the L A. Food Show because it is convenient for Vivian and me and we love the food there.

Perfectly logical reasons for meeting there in addition to free parking; something you don’t usually find in Century City or Beverly Hills.

Vivian volleyed off an email about getting together for lunch in March. Normally, I would have responded with two or three possible day choice because I have much less going on in my life than Vivian does. I had to demur with my response until I knew if I was teaching a Saturday class.

Now that I know my teaching schedule, we are tentatively going to meet on March 22nd. It should work since Vivian picked the day. One of the big discussion topics will be Vivian’s departure from the bank and relocation to a work site in Century City.

Dumbing Down
We seem to be on our way to ruin with this constant dumbing down of almost everything. This process has even affected food. I had seafood bisque on Friday at the Show as part of my lunch. The bisque was a disappointment for me. It was watery and sort of bland without much flavor to it.

I was particularly bothered by the fact that the bisque was served warm and not hot.

Then, I had a bowl of Manhattan Clam Chowder at the Daily Grill in Seattle for lunch on Saturday. It was served warm as well. I should have avoided the chowder all together; it was poor and this is in a city that prides itself on its sea food cuisine. I have tasted better Manhattan Clam Chowder from a can of Campbell’s Soup.

Are we that stupid that we cannot recognize steam coming from a bowl of soup and conclude that the contents might me hot?

I had a cup of coffee at breakfast on Sunday. It was barely warm.

I cannot accept that we must protect people from themselves. I know that when I was in the United States Navy, some of my men were not very bright. But, none of them ever burned themselves from hot coffee, even in the dark of the Mid-Watch, from midnight to 4:00 AM on a tossing ship.

If my hard working and tired sailors figured out the coffee was hot, then anyone else ought to be able to accomplish the same task.

Whatever happened to personal accountability and responsibility?

I guess they died in an era of cowardice and gross lack of moral fiber perhaps.

Visitors
Last week was another good week for visitors. We had 615 visitors and are now close to averaging 85 visitors a day.

Most of the visitors when I checked today came from overseas. The shift to foreign visitors, including those from the Great State of Texas, are now running around 70% of the traffic.

On one day last week, we had twelve visitors from Indonesia. I think that is a record for Indonesia but nowhere near close to the all time record of over 750 visitors from Germany in three days.

I do appreciate all of you who take out to stop by and visit the blog.

Carbon 14 Dating Myself
I can remember when we used to only put USD$10.00 bills in ATMs. Now, you can find ATMs with USD$100.00 bills, in Las Vegas of course. I guess a dollar just doesn’t go as far as it used to go.

Technology Triumphs and Disappointments
I am still using the Release Candidate 1 version of Internet Explorer because IE 7was so unstable in comparison. The RC1 version still has the problem of switching or disabling web site icons when you place the site in your favorites list.

Right now, for example, the BBC World Service and Continental Airlines are showing the Microsoft Windows flag. This is probably not what either company had in mind when they created their web site icons. At least, they are better off than Yahoo.com which is no longer showing the red “Y” symbol. Of course, this is a transitory problem that only affects some web sites and not others and it changes from day to day.

I currently have an Epson WorkForce 500 combination printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine. I say currently because I am about to consign it to the local municipal electronic waste site. I was printing out some lesson plans Sunday afternoon when it stopped printing for no apparent reason.

My frustration level with modern printers has become so great that I actually long for the return of the near letter quality dot matrix printer. Yes, the dot matrix was noisy and slow and wasn’t very good quality compared to an ink-jet printer but it was almost indestructible and reliable and you could re-ink the ribbons instead of buying costly new cartridges. That was worth something to me.

I am going to stop by the local Staples store on Tuesday after class and purchase a simple printer that only copies, scans, and prints. It doesn’t have to be very fast; most of the time I am in no hurry. There has to be at least one, reliable, dependable printer out there that will meet my simple needs.

The Moustache Poll Results So Far
So far, the Moustache Poll is strongly running in favor of keeping the moustache.


Molly the Stylist is the only one, so far, who favors, very emphatically I might add, shaving it off.

Besides Nurse Vruna, everyone at dinner on Saturday favored me keeping it. The Nutritionist said that I looked very good with it. The Princess said it looked good on me and it made me look more like a professor. She said I only needed to add leather elbow patches to my tweed sports coats and the look would be complete. The Princess said that since it was grey it didn’t look all that creepy. She said I looked creepy when I grew a dark brown moustache. The Golfer and the Nephew were in favor of keeping it, maybe so they can feel safe in growing one as well.


That was my weekend gentle readers. I hope your weekend went well.


Be well and stay happy.

Dr. Karen and Me

Dr. Karen and Me
I went to see Dr. Karen and her support team of nurses today. It was my regular, once every three weeks visit to the Oncology Clinic.

Dr. Karen said that all of my regular tests from yesterday were fine. The harpooners who draw the blood samples do excellent work; there is hardly any pain. I think they are better than the Red Cross nurses who used to draw my blood back when I participated in the blood donation program.

I asked my usual set of questions. I write them down in advance so I don’t forget. I am getting old.

My current treatment plan is to stay on the Xeloda maintenance program for as long as I can tolerate the medication. Since I have not had any adverse reactions to the Xeloda, it looks like I will be taking it for the rest of my life. I’m not sure if I like that result; I just do not enjoy or even look forward to taking the seven Xeloda pills a day during the treatment period.

Our, that would be Doug and me, biggest concern was who was I going to be seeing when Dr. Karen leaves in May or June. Dr. Karen said that she wasn’t going anywhere for while until 2010 when she finishes up her fellowship. I guess Doug and I had misunderstood her.

Perfectomundo.

I also asked some of the nurses if I should keep and shave off my moustache. Nurse Wendy was non-committal while Nurse Vruna said emphatically that it should stay. Vruna said it looked very handsome. I forgot to ask Dr. Karen.

Today was a really good day for me. I will post more when I get back from the Seattle trip.


Be well and stay happy.

The Counter Burger

The Counter Burger
Doug and I had lunch at The Counter Burger [ http://www.thecounterburger.com ] today. This was the concluding event of Douguary 2009. It was also the initial event of Chuckay 2009.

We both agreed that the hamburgers at The Counter Burger were very good and the food was very fresh. They were well cooked and juicy. The Counter Burger is a gourmet hamburger restaurant chain and it does a very good job of it.

The service today was crisp and efficient. We arrived for lunch around 12:30 PM; our wait was about five minutes, much less than the hostess had told us it would be.

The big hook for The Counter Burger is that you can create your own hamburger or other protein based hamburger. You can choose from 10 cheeses, 28 condiments, 12 sauces, and 3 types of buns. Some of you that are mathematics nerds can figure out all of the possible combinations.

Some of the food offerings are on the unusual side. Doug ordered a 50/50 fries plate to share, it is that large. You get regular French fries and sweet potato fries, hence, the 50/50 description. The sweet potato fries were very good once you got past the bright orange look to them.

Doug and I would both recommend The Counter Burger as a fine place for a gourmet burger where you may have a large, juicy burger and not feel terribly guilty; the meal is all organic.


Me out in front the Counter Burger in Irvine.


The menu order checklist form.


The final result; yum yum yum. The sweet potato fries are in the background with the regular French fires.

Odd Visitors
I went to the blog today to see how it is doing. It is doing well with an average daily visitor count of 81 as of today. This changes so it will be different tomorrow. I did notice that we had visitors from some unusual places like the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic, the Azores, Reunion, and French Guiana.

For those of you who are not geographically inclined, Reunion is an island in the western Indian Ocean. It is an overseas French territory.


Be well and stay happy.

Turning in Grade Books

Turning in Grade Books
I went to school today to complete and post or turn in my course grade books for the just ended term. I have a new department chair and he has his own way to turn in the grade books; he wants about five extra reports that I can generate from the online grade program.

The task is not particularly difficult or mentally challenging. It is simply gathering the reports and then assembling them in a logical order. I was pleased when he said mine were all perfect.

I only had three students fail my classes this term. One student did none of the assignments; my chair said she deserved to fail. I said that the student came from his department. He said she still deserved to fail. Another student from my chair’s department failed. I am giving him extra time to make up the missing work because I think he has some serious medical issues that may have contributed to his inability to complete all of the coursework. The third student, I believe, is having some serious personal family problems outside of school that affected his ability to complete the work. I will give him extra time also.

I picked up the one new course book for the coming term. It is for my Group Dynamics class. It is only about 360 pages long and has only thirteen chapters so my lecture note taking will be fairly easy to complete.

While I was at school, I talked to my chair about the idea of me conducting a student writing clinic – workshop. I know from past experience that most of my students will benefit from extra writing help. This would be as close to a remedial program as the school would want to get. I need to put together some sort of a plan or program outline. I think it will do well but I hope not so well where I have more students than I can properly coach.

Visitors for February
The blog had 1,193 visitors in February. I know that number seems low. But, you have to remember that the daily visitor traffic dropped off to six or seven a day in February and now it is back up in the 75 to 80 visitors a day range.

The majority of the traffic is now coming from outside of the United States. When I checked the visitor traffic during the week, it was about 65% from overseas.

I do appreciate all of you who take time out of your day and visit the blog.

Teaching
I picked up a tentative roster for my classes for the next term today. It looks like I will have a total of 80 to 85 students in my four classes. My smallest class is scheduled for twelve students and my largest class is scheduled for thirty students.

That is a nice grouping I think.

Of course, changes can and will occur up into the third week of the term. I don’t like the idea of a student joining the course in the third week; they have missed 20%of the course and it takes them forever to get caught up. Unfortunately, I do not have any control over additions to my classes.

Miscellaneous Thoughts
I was thinking, always a dangerous concept for me, on my way home from school that if I continue to post Paulina Garces photos at the rate of three a week that I will be out of images of her to post in another three or four weeks.

[Note to self] Reduce the Paulina Garces photo postings.

Doug and I will try a new hamburger place, The Counter Burger, tomorrow. It has come to us very highly recommended.

Programming Note
Since I will be on my way home from Seattle at the time when I write my usual end of the weekend blog entry on Sunday, my end of the weekend entry will probably post on Tuesday. Monday is the start of the new term and things will be heretic at school. I also have a Monday night class.


Be well and stay happy.

Douguary 2009

Douguary 2009
Last night, Doug and I celebrated Douguary 2009 at Wolfgang’s Steakhouse in Beverly Hills. It was the traditional end of Douguary Dinner.

Doug had picked Wolfgang’s Steakhouse, instead of our traditional venue Morton’s Steakhouse, because it is reported to be a knock of Peter Lugar, a great steakhouse in Brooklyn, New York. The restaurant was created by Wolfgang Zwiener, formerly head waiter at Peter Lugar.

Wolfgang’s big signature aspect is they literally burn the meat on the grill; it is fired at 1,600F or 870C. Either way you look at the charred meat on your plate, you know it has been well cooked.

Personally, that was a bit too much heat on my steak. My steak was supposed to have a little pink on the inside. The inside of the steak was varying shades of grey.

Wolfgang’s has a very interesting chopped salad that Doug and I both enjoyed. We shared a side dish of German potatos; sliced potatos that were grilled with onions. I thought they were over salted and peppered. Doug thought they tasted just fine.

Doug had a New York Sirloin Steak and I had a Filet Mignon, primarily because it was a smaller cut of meat. I don’t eat as much or like I used to before the operation and the cancer. Aside from the charring, my steak was fine. Doug liked his steak.

The one really bad feature about Wolfgang’s is that it is located in Beverly Hills which is not freeway close to anywhere. The traffic and the parking are horrible. It takes longer to go to Beverly Hills than it does to get to the Morton’s in Santa Ana even though Santa Ana is a much longer drive. Morton’s also has acres of free parking

Wolfgang’s is an expensive restaurant. You get a very high quality meal and very attentive, impeccable service.

Doug and I would highly recommend Wolfgang’s if you were in the area or wanted to take a break from Morton’s or Ruth Chris.

Paulina Garces
I tuned in today to see if I could catch Paulina Garces doing one of her infomercials. I did see her on two programs. Unfortunately for me, they were repeats of the programs that I saw last weekend. I decided to put up some more photos for Ms Garces’ web site. I know some of the reader or viewers will enjoy this.




Teaching
I spent a good part of the weekend grading final examinations and trying to make sense out of some of my students’ course projects. It was a struggle. It was not how I wanted to spend my weekend.

This term is shaping up to be one of my worst in terms of student success; that is, how many students pass my classes. Right now, I have three students who will fail at least one of my classes. They will fail for the same common reason; they did not complete all of the course work.

I may have some students to add to that number on Monday night when that class has its final meeting.

Students must complete all of the course work to pass the course. That sounds so logical and reasonable to me. But, then, I am the instructor after all.

I am thinking about offering a writing tutoring program in the next term for those students who feel they could benefit from additional one on one help in a non-graded environment. I could probably name two dozen students or more who could benefit from such a program. I need to talk to my department chair tomorrow to see if I will have any difficulties with this idea.

The Princess
The Princess returned my phone call, from earlier today, this evening. I had called to see if she had made up her mind where she wanted to go for her birthday dinner. Her cousin Jessie had suggested another venue.

I was noncommittal about the dinner venue because it is not my birthday.

We have traditionally gone to Morton’s when she lived in Atlanta. This was the start of the practice. I explained to her that since I was flying across the country, not an inexpensive journey, and I was taking her roommates with bottomless pits for stomach out to dinner, going to Morton’s was not unreasonable.

The Princess actually looks forward for her once a year dinner at Morton’s. She does love the Morton’s salads and the jumbo lump crab cakes and, of course, the Morton’s Chocolate Cake with Godiva Chocolate Sauce and vanilla ice cream.

The Princess will need to make her mind up very soon since dinner is Saturday and we will be a group of seven. Reservations may be tricky.

I left it with her to make the decision and tell me when I get to Seattle next Saturday morning.

Surprises can be fun.

Asian Television Dramas
The two Japanese dramas that I have been watching had the viewing time changed to the afternoon. At first, I thought this was a fundamentally bad idea. I watched the programs over the weekend in the afternoon and it seems to be a good idea. They have a longer time slot, ninety minutes instead of an hour.

Obviously, I will miss both of the programs because of the Seattle trip. Doug said I should just record the programs and watch them when I come home. I could do as he suggested but the programs take a long time to develop so I ought to be able to catch up on the following weekend.

I stumbled onto a new Korean language historical drama tonight. It seems to be set in the same period as the other historical dramas I have already seen. I am coming in at Episode 7 so I missed all of the required explanation of characters and their motivation. One thing nice about watching these programs is that I get to see some of the same actors over and over again. Some of the acting borders on being just short of over the top. The new program is called The Iron Empress.


All in all, I had a very good weekend. I hope your weekend was great as well.


Be well and stay happy.