Quarter Break - Part I

Quarter Break – Part I
I decided that I ought to do something with the blog since I have been on my Quarter Break from teaching for a week now. Just because I was on a break does not mean that I was slothful or sleepy. I did some things this past week.

I did manage to download and successfully both the Vista Service Pack II and the Office 2007 Service Pack this weekend. So far, I have not experienced any crashes or unforeseen problems. I will admit that I did not sit around and gaze idly at the completion gauge while the update process ran; I pushed the run button and then drove off for lunch with Doug.

That is an accomplishment I believe.

I am still waiting for my former coworker and friend Sharon to arrange for a lunch with our old CFO. If I was fasting while I waited, I think my weight would be down to less than 125 pounds by now; assuming that I was still alive.

I managed to not get called for jury duty this past week. This means I am off the hook for a couple of years. Maybe I will be too old to serve when my number comes up again.

The school sent me my tentative teaching schedule for the coming term. As I had expected, I will be teaching only two classes; Microeconomics on Wednesday morning and Market Research on Thursday morning. These are fun classes and ones that I have taught before. The only preparation will be typing up some lesson plans for each course. The lesson plans ought to take about two hours each to complete, primarily because I am a slow typer.

I saw new STAR TREK film during the week. I really liked the film. Of course, it is unfair to compare it with the original STAR TREK film because of the improved computer generated images and technology.

I found the film interesting since it filled in a lot of the back stories and fleshed out some of the character relationships. The new version is obviously not my STAR TREK but it is a film that I enjoyed although some of the story line, the stranding on Delta Vega for example, seemed to have been inspired by another film. I was thinking about the ice planet Hoth in STAR WARS and Luke’s adventures in the snow with the creature.

The weather for the first week of my break has been crummy. It has been overcast at the beach with only a hint of sunshine here and there. Today, for example, the sun was out from 4:00 to 6:00 PM with intermittent patches of clouds.

The Park Next to My Building
The park next to my building has opened up its camping season. The park allows overnight camping with no outdoor cooking permitted. It is popular since it presents a glimpse of the outdoors for people who live in the city. So far, the campers have been quiet after the sun has gone down.

Usually, there is a flock of crows that inhabits the park from around April through June. This year that has not happened. I did see a couple of crows in the park when I returned from having lunch with Doug yesterday. A couple of crows is a far cry from the usual thirty or forty that have shown up in prior years.

I wonder where the crows are.

I don’t miss them too much because I have enjoyed sleeping in on the days that I didn’t teach school in the last term and on the weekends as well.

Dr. Karen and Me
I went to see Dr. Karen on Friday for our regular every three week visit. Actually, in terms of time spent, it was the best visit on record. I was in and out and home in less than three hours.

True, I did have to go back later on to pick up my prescription. Who wants to sit on hard and uncomfortable benches in a hospital full of sick people for three or so hours while waiting for the prescription to be filled?

Certainly not me.

Dr. Karen changed my prescription for Xeloda from seven, 500mg pills a day to six pills a day. That may not seem like much of a change to you. It was a major change for me. Xeloda has a rather nasty side effect of drying out your hands and feet, mostly your hands.

On Wednesday, I found a story on BBC.com that reported on a Singaporean man who had taken Xeloda for three years and had lost his fingerprints. I was going to mention this to Dr. Karen since I have been taking Xeloda for a year and a half now and even made a copy of the article for her. She had already heard of the report; I guess the report was a high interest story in the oncology world this past week.

My hands are very dry and cracking. I will definitely enjoy the lower dosage.

My appointment or time with Dr. Karen is getting shorter, largely because I am in a maintenance phase where there is not much new happening. That plus the fact that I am very organized and plan all of my questions in advance so the discussions can be very focused and not wander about.

I asked Dr. Karen about Dr. Lisa Wang’s idea of putting me back on Oxaliplatin in Round Three of my chemotherapy. Dr. Karen said that she had no plans to go back on Oxaliplatin because of my peripheral neuropathy condition that the drug caused previously. She said that if I do have to go back into major aggressive chemotherapy that she would probably use a different drug combination.

Dr. Karen also told me that she has requested another MRI series. I should have these tests done in late June or early July if my procedure scheduling guess is fairly accurate. MRI is a noisy and chilly procedure that ought to last about an hour.

Lunch with Doug
Doug and I met for lunch at Albertacos in Mission Viejo for lunch on Saturday. We had our usual meals of two soft beef tacos, rice and beans and a medium drink. We ate there because the food would have been cold if we drove back to his mother’s house.

The food was great. I added a couple of scoops of pico de gallo [diced tomatos, onions, and cilantro] sauce to my rice and beans.

Doug found Albertacos when he was going to Saddleback Community College. The college is across the street from Albertacos.

We were talking about films. I said that I had seen STAR TREK and really enjoyed it. Doug said that he had seen it twice and this is a major statement for Doug since he rarely sees a film twice. Doug warned me about some faux IMAX screens. He said they were not true IMAX screens; there were only slightly larger than regular screens and the theaters charged an unfair premium for that.

Doug said that he had seen DRAG ME TO HELL, a new horror film by one of his favorite directors, Sam Rami, by himself. He thought it was a great, excellent horror film. Apparently, his friend Megan does not like horror films all that much. He said that he and Megan were planning on seeing the new PIXAR film UP on yesterday.

The photo of Doug and me was obviously not taken at Albertacos.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors. Traffic was up slightly from the prior week to 640 visitors who looked at 908 unique pages.

I happened to check the visitor traffic count today just out of curiosity. I do this every once in a while since I can only check the most recent 100 visitors. When I first started blogging, that traffic was close to a week’s visitor count. Now, it is sometimes less than a day.

Today, Finns accounted for 36% of the traffic while Americans only accounted for 17%. This has only happened a couple of times before back in 2007 when the Germans swarmed the blog for two or three days and then they disappeared.

Paulina Garces
I saw a new Paulina Garces infomercial today. It was very enjoyable since it was sunny when the infomercial was filmed. Her partner who wears the really short skirts apparently has gotten engaged since she seems to be wearing an engagement ring. She wasn’t the last time I saw their infomercial.




That has been my Quarter Break so far.


Be well and stay happy.

Cleaning up after the weekend and looking ahead

Cleaning up after the weekend and looking ahead
Doug called me on Monday to wish me a Happy Memorial Day. I told him that I had experienced a good Memorial Day that included some time, a couple of hours, spent in reflection. We talked about getting together for lunch next Saturday. I suggested that we should go to Albertacos and get, “two Numbers 8s and two medium drinks for here.” Doug thought that was a good idea.

Going to Albertacos with Doug will be a good way to end Chuckay.

Doug wanted to know if I was going to see STAR TREK while I was on quarter break. I said that seeing the film was one of the planned ideas or activities. I asked if he had seen TERMINATOR: SALVATION. He said not yet but that he planned to see it during the week. His friend Megan did not want to see the film.

Having lunch at Albertacos with Doug will work out well for me. I have to visit a former student and give her an updated and improved letter of recommendation. Since she lives in the same city as Doug, I will see my former student in the morning and then lunch with Doug.

I may stop by my friend Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store since it is only two blocks off of the freeway and it is directly on my home to the beach. It ought to be warm next Saturday so some ice cream would be perfect for the day.

I went to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf this afternoon for an ice blended drink. I had hoped that the Coffee Bean had brought back their Mocha Mudslide for the Summer. Alas, they did not.

Tihana was working today and she greeted me with a, “Hi Chuck, where have you been and do you want your usual?” I said that I been busy with finals and grading papers. Tihana did make a perfect ice blended drink for me, just like she always does.

I have a visit with Dr. Karen on this Friday. Friday will mark the beginning of Cycle 10 of Round 2 of my chemotherapy treatment. After I finish this Cycle, I think Dr. Karen has plans for me to take a series of tests.

Dinner with Elaine
I had dinner with my friend Elaine on Wednesday. We went to my favorite local casual restaurant, the L. A. Food Show. Dinner was perfect as usual. Elaine was really generous and passed on my offer to share the dessert, ice cream with some hot chocolate fudge.

Mostly, we talked about how our lives have changed since the last time we got together. Elaine thought that I looked really well for someone who was fighting cancer. She thinks I make a perfect teacher; that’s nice after getting the evaluation based purely on numbers and not necessarily on reality from school.

We had a great server Tina, from Redondo Beach, and, no, I do not know Tina. I will definitely ask for Tina to be my serve when I go back to the Show.

Summer Break for Me
The next two weeks are what passes for my Summer Break. I will be back in the classroom beginning with the week of June 8th. I plan to take some time off to rest and do things around the flat.

I also get to participate in jury duty. It is not too bad but it is still timeout of my life. Jury duty selection used to be based on voter registration. That didn’t work out so well because people discovered that not voting and missing jury duty was a good idea. Now, the potential jurors are culled from people with drivers’ licenses or state identification cards in California; that covers everyone except those who are in the country illegally and they can’t serve on a jury anyway.

Teaching
I found out why my teaching schedule is still up in the air on Thursday. The school has changed its instructor evaluation criteria and it now considers student completion or passing the course to be the most significant factor in evaluating instructors. The new changes came out in Week 9 of the last term and this complicated scheduling.

It seems that I am a poor instructor in one of my classes, State and Local Government. My completion rate is well below the school's national averages. As such, I can no longer teach that course. I can still continue to teach the other twenty one courses that I have taught over the last three and a half years.

I can find a certain degree of irony in this outcome. State and Local Government is one of my favorite courses to teach. I guess that I am too intense perhaps with this course because I believe that having a solid understanding of our form of government is so important and I sometimes tend to get carried away with the material.

Not being able to teach State and Local Government in the coming term presented the school with a scheduling problem since I was scheduled to teach both sections of the course. The associate dean has said that I will be teaching Microeconomics and Marketing Research and he will try to find some classes to make up for the ones that I can no longer teach. If the associate dean is unable to find replacement courses for me, I will certainly understand that result.

Visitors
We had a slightly greater visitorship during the last week. The blog had 575 visitors who viewed 960 unique pages. Two pages amount to 80 to 85% of the unique page views. As usual, most of the traffic was from outside of the United States.

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

Be well and stay happy.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day
This weekend, Americans will honor the war dead and deceased veterans at every national cemetery. It is important that we never forget that freedom is not now nor will it ever be free. It has always been provided by those who have served in our Nation’s forces and by those who have paid the ultimate price and made a final sacrifice.



If you have enjoyed your freedom this weekend, be sure to thank a veteran.


God Bless America and All Who Serve in the Armed Forces.

Chuckay - Part 4: Dinner at Morton's

Chuckay – Part 4: Dinner at Morton’s
Doug and I celebrated my birthday with the traditional at Morton’s The Steakhouse. We have been going to Morton’s for sixteen years now. It was another perfect Chuckay dinner; I always knew that it would be a perfect meal.

Morton’s is becoming more customer oriented and focused on providing a better overall experience. I guess this is a product of the recession that we are having in the United States. Fine dining is expensive and I could tell that guest count was down from a year ago.

Morton’s created a special menu for the event for me. Actually, they just printed “Happy Birthday Charles” across the top of the regular menu. Still, it was a nice touch. Morton’s had one of the hostesses come by our table and take a group photo of use and then the senior staff signed a Happy Birthday greeting for me.

Sweet; but not as sweet as Morton’s Chocolate Cake.

Doug invited his friend Megan to join us and I invited my friend, the International Lady of Mystery or ILoM for short. My friend highly values her privacy so I agreed to her request for anonymity.

Easy enough for me to do.

We all had a wonderful evening. We spent about two and half hours enjoying our meals. The ILoM and I had rib eye steaks. We shared some spinach and mushrooms and that went very well with the steaks.


Doug, breaking with tradition, had a whole lobster. His friend Megan wisely chose a small steak.

I also broke with tradition and shared my dessert with the ILoM. I do that sometimes when the occasion warrants such action.


This was the first time that the ILoM and Megan have been to Morton’s. I do hope they will join us again.

Doug and I had our usual photo taken. The ILoM thought we looked better when we smiled. Doug said that we had to preserve tradition and be serious. Sometimes, you have to bow to tradition because it just makes sense.


Teaching
It looks like I will be teaching only four classes in the coming term. After thinking about my schedule, I have to say it is a good one. I have a morning class on Tuesday, State and Local Government, a morning and evening class, Microeconomics and State and Local Government, on Wednesday and a morning class, Market Research, on Thursday.

This means that I can have a four day weekend anytime that I want or need one.

Perfectomundo.

I will not have to prepare any lecture notes since I have taught all of the classes before. I think I will have to prepare a new lesson plan set for one class; easy enough task for me to complete.

The potential fifth class in the new Paralegal Studies program is still up in the air. I am not certain if they have enough students enrolled in the program to be able to offer the paralegal courses. Any new students who signed up for the program would take the general education courses until they reach the required threshold.

On the plus side, I should have more time to write and post in the blog; whether that actually happens remains to be seen.

I spoke to one of the department chairs today after a staff meeting at school. He said that I was very popular with his students and that they have come to him to specifically request that I teach certain classes for them.

Really neato for me.

I didn’t get the new Paralegal Studies course; it went to a practicing attorney so I don’t feel too badly now. I am highly confident that I will have more opportunities with the program in the coming quarters.

Armed Forces Day
May 16th was Armed Forces’ Day in the United States. I’m not exactly certain why we have this holiday although I should know since I am a veteran.

Armed Forces Day stems from the creation of a unified Department of Defense in 1949. It replaced the individual forces celebrations of their founding in order to more represent the new military force establishment. All of the services have dropped their individual celebrations except the United States Marine Corps. The Marines still celebrate their founding on November 10th.

Semper fi Marines.

Anyway and more to the point, the neighboring city Torrance has one of the largest Armed Forces Day parades in California. I marched in it one year when I was in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Naturally, traffic is a mess. I knew about the parade so I was able to plan my travels around it.

One of the big features of the parade, after the Marines of course, is a flyover by the Navy, Marines, or Air Force. This year was a combined flyover. The parade featured Navy or Marine F/A 18 Super Hornets and an Air Force B-2 bomber. I suppose the Army felt a little embarrassed by the flyover since they only fly helicopters and a helicopter is just not as impressive as a flight of four jet fighters in close formation flying low and fast over the parade route.

The military jets are very noisy and last year I was trying to sleep after I had a round of chemotherapy infusion on the day before. Sleeping was out of the question then as well as yesterday.

I like to think of the sound of the Navy and Marine jets as the sound of freedom.

That works well for me.

Visitors
We had a level week in terms of visitors to the blog. 565 visitors managed to find the blog but they visited far fewer pages at only 784. The country of origin split remains fairly constant at about 35% coming from the United States and the rest coming from everywhere else.

I think that number would shift a bit more if those from Texas were counted as coming from another country. Texans have a state of mind where they often think of themselves as being from another country.

I do appreciate all of you who took time to visit the blog in this past week.

Paulina Garces
My collection of Paulina Garces photos is now at thirty. Great for me. I will run out the remaining and newly downloaded photos and then recycle the presentation so I can make certain that I did not unintentionally exclude any images.

Here are two of the new images.



My Old Fountain Pen
I went to Staples over the weekend to pick up some new folders for my classes next term. While I was there, I checked to see if they had any replacement pen points for my pen. Unfortunately, Staples did not have any replacements for any brand of pen. I could have, of course, purchased a new fountain pen but that would have defeated the whole purpose of getting a replacement.

I think my old pen cost me less than a dollar and, yes, I know that, with inflation, a straight replacement, if one was made any more, would cost much more than a dollar. The whole point of replacing only damaged part is not to spend a lot of money on a new fountain pen that I will only use to sign my name.

I won’t live long enough to wear out a pen that I will only use to sign my name. I used the old pen for note taking and test writing through my undergraduate degree and four graduate degrees. I do not believe that I will become a student at any time in the foreseeable future.

4.7 or 5.0 Richter Scale earthquake
I was shaken and not stirred by an earthquake that happened to pop my area at 8:39 PM and some seconds on Sunday. Fortunately, I am fine and so is the flat. I will have to spend some time tomorrow rearranging some water colors that I have framed. They were all aligned so nicely and now they are all askew. Nothing seems to have fallen from a shelf and that is nice.

The building was hit with a sudden jolt that was followed by a rolling motion. This rolling motion did not last very long. I think the earthquake lasted about 10 or 15 seconds.

The quake was centered about ten miles north by north east of my flat on the Newport Inglewood Fault line. This quake was the first major activity on the northern end of the fault line in over 70 years. The fault lines runs close to my flat and I think it is no more than a few miles away.

But, then, almost all of Southern California is near a fault line.

As is usual in events like this, the local television news readers were in over their heads. One local station kept a closed loop of the seismograph tracing running while the news readers read the latest bulletins. They also exercised less than brilliant judgment in taking telephone calls; this same station took two phones while I was viewing that came from fifty miles away.

Here’s a great local news idea; take calls from people who were closest to the epicenter.

Today, we had either an aftershock of Sunday’s quake or a new quake on the same fault line and at the same epicenter almost. The preliminary estimates placed the earthquake’s magnitude at 4.1 on the Richter Scale.

If it was an aftershock, then it was a big surprise to many including me because there was a 3.5 magnitude aftershock on Sunday about twenty minutes after the first earthquake. Usually, aftershock intensities decline with the passage of time and not increase. On the other hand, if it was a new quake, then the northern end of the Newport Inglewood Fault has just become very active after over seventy years or relative quiet.

Life is becoming interesting for me.


That was my weekend and part of this week.


Be well and stay happy.

Leftovers

This Posting should have gone up on May 13th. I was, apparently, very distracted that day.

Leftovers
These are the leftovers from my Sunday posting to the blog. I was busy with things on Monday morning, lecture notes for my Tuesday morning class and then on Tuesday afternoon I was running around and chatting with my friend Ling.

Ling and I have been chatting on the Internet for almost six years and we have never met. One day, we may just meet; I have no idea of when or where that meeting might take place.

It looks like my fountain pen that I have been using for over forty years has finally given up the ghost. It no longer lays down a smooth line of ink any more. I suppose that I could look for a new nib assembly and add it to the old case. I’m just not sure if I want to spend the time running around looking for a new nib. It is Summer in Southern California now.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors again. We had 604 visitors stop by the blog and they viewed 1,830 individual pages. The most common pages account for upwards of 80% of all the blog traffic.

Visitors from the United States account for a third of the traffic; everyone else is from all over the world.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by the blog.

Teaching
Well, it is half way through Week 10 of an eleven week term. I have a tentative teaching schedule for the coming term. I will be teaching four classes for what seems like a near certainty. These classes are all ones that I have taught before; two sections of State and Local Government, Microeconomics and Market Research.

The school is starting a new program in Paralegal Studies and the department chair has asked me to teach one of the classes. I told him I was happy to each the course. I will see what happens when the final schedule comes out.

I let my Tuesday morning class spend some time in the computer lab so they could polish their final presentations. Some other students came into the lab. One of them asked me, by name, if I was teaching State and Local Government. I told that I was teaching the only sections of the course so she would be in my class. Now, I have never had this young woman in any of my previous classes and I obviously don’t know her name. I wonder how or why she bothered to learn my name or why she was so relieved to find that I was going to be her instructor.

All I have to do is wait a couple of weeks, last week of this term and term break, and I will find out who she is.

Paulina Garces
I cruised through her web site over the weekend and found some new to the site images of her. I also caught her infomercial on television on Sunday morning. It was a rerun from the prior week; it was still worth watching.

These are some of the new photos from her web site.



Drinks with my friend Lisa
I met my friend Lisa and her girl friend Cleo for drinks after work on Friday at a restaurant in Glendale. The almost forty mile drive to the venue was not too bad for a late Friday afternoon. It took me close to an hour and forty five minutes; about as long as I thought it would take to drive there.

Cleo is from T&T [Trinidad & Tobago] just like Lisa. They both have an engaging Caribbean accent and have been friends for a very long time.

I had a wonderful time with the ladies, the restaurant was on the noisy side until happy hour ended and then the noise seemed to depart. For some reason, I had no interest in having any alcoholic beverage. I guess that must have been Dr. Karen’s influence on me. We shared a cheese pizza since it would divide easily and some really good French fried sweet potatos or yams. The sweet potatos were served in the lower portion of a brown paper bag.

A woman at an adjoining table came over to us because she was curious about what was in the brown paper bag. She ended up joining Lisa and Cleo is singing happy birthday when our server brought out a scoop of chocolate ice cream and a topping of whipped cream. It was a wonder way to end the meal.

Chuckay – Part 2.75
I had planned to go to Fatburger for my Sunday. This would be a scheduled Chuckay meal event; I would go to Fatburger and place an order to go. I planned to have a Kingburger with cheese and everything else and fat fries and wash the food down with a Kona Brewing Company Longboard Lager.

Perfectomundo.

The plans went out the window as soon as I left the building parking garage. There had been a head on collision in the street just east of the building. I don’t know if anyone was hurt or not; I am guessing the drivers and any passengers were taken to the local hospital as a precaution.

Weather was not an issue in the collision. It was clear and dry.

If I had to guess the cause, I might guess distraction caused by using a cell phone.

The police from Redondo Beach and Torrance blocked off the road while they investigated what happened. I think I counted twelve police cars. Most of the officers were talking; one officer seemed to be doing the investigative work. Because access to the building was blocked off, I ended up eating my dinner at Fatburger.

Doug hadn’t bothered to tell me that Fatburger had changed its menu. It is now looking more like In n Out. They no longer offer a Kingburger. I had left my glasses home so I couldn’t read the menu mounted on the wall. I ordered what I thought was a near Kingburger; it wasn’t.

All was not lost on Sunday. I got a coupon for a free order of fries at Fatburger. I can go there next weekend, Memorial Day Weekend and get my proper meal to go. The Longboard Lager will still be well chilled in the refrigerator.


Be well and stay happy.

Surprising Dr. Karen

Surprising Dr. Karen
I enjoy a good surprise as well as the next person, especially if I am not the target of the surprise. I got to surprise Dr. Karen on Friday. It was the most animated that I can recall seeing her.

Perfectomundo.

We had what has become our usual chat or discussion. I ask her a bunch of questions and she indulges me and answers them with a smile. All of my regular blood tests were fine; my liver and kidneys are functioning normally.

Dr. Karen was surprised that I had lost some weight; about five pounds since my last visit. This was unusually since this is Chuckay and I tend to consume more food. I said that I hadn’t felt all that hungry lately and that I been snacking on healthy foods and not empty calorie foods.

I asked if she had any indication of what the July meeting with the colorectal surgeons was about. The appointment was news to her. I gave her Doug’s analysis of this would be a preparatory meeting for a colonoscopy procedure. Dr. Karen agreed that the timing would be about right for a one year follow up.

Then, it was time for my surprise.

I told her that Doug and I thought the colorectal surgeons have me confused with another patient.

Dr. Karen naturally asked why.

I said it was because they believe that I am not in favor of surgery to reconnect my colon. This was the first time I have seen Dr. Karen speechless. She recovered quickly.

“What.” I’m just not sure where to use an exclamation point or a question mark. “That can’t be right. You’ve always been in favor of the surgery.”

It was my turn to smile. I said that Doug and I clarified things with the surgery resident. I told him that I had been pushing for a reconnection since I entered the oncology program at the hospital.

Then, it was my turn again to make Dr. Karen smile. I said that maybe by July the surgeons will be able to find my Tumor Board report for last year. Dr. Karen said that they should since the surgeons prepare the Board reports.

I outlined my thoughts on how the treatment should go forward. I thought that with the likely colonoscopy in July and an MRI in June that she could move my case forward to the Tumor Board in August or September. And, assuming that I remain cancer free, that I could look forward to the reconnection surgery in the First Quarter of 2010 because I saw no need to make a mess of the holidays with a surgical procedure.

Dr. Karen thought for a moment and generally agreed that this was a workable schedule.

Then, we talked about the current treatment plan. I found out that I am starting Cycle 9 of my Second Round of chemotherapy. I never paid any attention to how many times that I have taken the Xeloda; I just I have taken the medicine a lot. Dr. Karen plans to take me off of the Xeloda after the 10th Cycle which ought to be in mid-June. This is in preparation for the MRI.

Being Nice to the Nurses
I have found that being nice to the regular staffers is very beneficial to me. This is something I learned when I served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. Being a Navy officer and having never served with Marines, I asked my sergeant what I needed to do to be successful.

My sergeant said, “Well zur, you first need to take of your snuffies and then you need to complete your mission. Everything else takes care of itself.”

“What is a snuffy?”

“A young Marine zur.”

“Aaah.”

I make it a specific point to be nice the nurses because they have great control over my care and how the office visits work out for me. I am reasonably certain that there are few other patients like me in the clinic.

I was scheduled to see Dr. Karen around 10:30 AM on Friday. But, I was the first patient that she saw around 8:50; I was in and out of the hospital before my original scheduled appointment time. The saved time meant a lot to me.

Nurse Vhrunda just calls my first name and smiles when they call the patients for vital signs check before seeing the doctors.

I said, “Hello Beautiful,” when she gave me my patient identification card. Vhrunda grinned like a Cheshire cat. Wendy and Vhrunda took my vital signs and asked why my blood pressure was on the high side.

I said that it was because I was alone in a room with two beautiful women. They both giggled blushed.

Excellent.

Vhrunda and Wendy said I was bad because their scrubs were not fitting as well after eating the brownies. I said that I didn’t force them to eat the brownies. Vhrunda said if that was the case, then I shouldn’t have bought the brownies in the first place. They do have a valid point there; but, I strongly doubt that they want me to stop bringing sweet treats.

The hospital has a scheduling program in the computer system. This program is designed to insure that patients are given a fair chance at having an early appointment from time to time. My next appointment was scheduled for 10:30; one of the nurses changed it to 8:00 AM.

Life is good for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Chuckay - Part 2

Chuckay – Part 2
After my bad car karma experience, I needed to treat myself to something nice yesterday. I made a couple of stops on my way home from behind the Orange Curtain and I arrived at my flat around mid-afternoon.

I decided to skip lunch extra for a small snack, a banana and a handful of cashews. That meat I would be having an early dinner.

I ended up going to the In n Out Hamburgers’ location in Torrance. I hadn’t been to In n Out in well over a year for several reasons. First, this is the nearest location to the flat and it is too far to consider takeout food because it will be cool by the time I would get back to the flat. Second, Doug doesn’t care to eat at In n Out anymore; he prefers the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers, Fatburger, and the Counter Grill now.

I think I was motivated to go there because the local television station that I watch for news said In n Out was voted the best hamburger in California. I wonder why Doug and I weren’t invited to participate in the judging. We certainly know what a good hamburger is; we’ve eaten enough of them over the years.

I particularly enjoy their Double Double Cheeseburger [two beef patties and two cheese slices] combination that comes with French fries and a medium drink with unlimited refills. In n Out serves hamburgers prepared with only fresh, not frozen, beef, real tomato slices, real onion slices, and real lettuces leaves. Most of the other hamburger providers only serve a diced or shredded version of the extras. Since I was hungry, I had a Double Double combination and an additional cheeseburger.

My niece the Nutritionist is probably going to yell at me for such bad eating habits, especially at my age. In my defense, I would say that I really over indulge in hamburgers and steaks only once a year during the traditional Chuckay Celebration. Just like the Princess only goes to Morton’s The Steakhouse when I visit her for her birthday celebration which the Nutritionist attended and very much enjoyed her steak.

I would be remiss in not stating that the avatar is a humorous image and does not reflect her personality is the slightest. She does care about what I eat and I do appreciate her efforts to save me from eating poorly.

My hamburger was excellent. It came out of the kitchen in the old style of a paper wrapper. It was a little on the greasy side but I didn’t care because I had a lot of paper napkins. Everything was fresh and tasty; the onions and lettuce were crisp and the tomato slices were ripe. I washed everything down with Coca Cola.

Perfectomundo.

If you ever visit Southern California, I would strongly recommend In n Out Hamburgers for a simple, old fashioned, freshly cooked meal.

I probably have a photo of the Double Double Combination somewhere; just not really handy for me right now.


Be well and stay happy.

Bad Car Karma

Bad Car Karma
Things were going well for me on Monday until I went to leave school after my evening class. The class was a good one for me.

I have a car alarm on the Prelude as well as the Pathfinder. I went click on the alarm controller just as the tiny battery in the device failed. I could open the car door but I could not start the engine. I knew or should have known the battery was dying because I had had trouble in getting it to function a couple of days before it died for ever.

I guess this was bad car karma from my previous cars that I have had and enjoyed catching up with me.

I ended up calling the Automobile Club and their driver was out to school in about twenty minutes. He was expecting a usual, for him at least, dead car battery trip. He said the only thing he could do was to disable the battery and I would be able to get home.

The decision was fairly obvious, disable the alarm. The Prelude is, after all, twenty years old. It doesn’t seem to have a lot of attraction for car thieves I think. The alarm disabled; I was home a little after 11:00 PM. I went to bed about an hour later.

Tuesday was not a good day for me. I had less than six hours sleep the night before. My morning class went well for me.

After school, I drove out to Doug’s and dropped off some mail that had been delivered to my house. On my way home, I had thought about stopping at Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store. I decided not to stop since she would not have been there. I helped her find another permanent job.

I did sleep very well Tuesday night.


Be well and stay happy.

I must be getting old. I forgot Paulina Garces.

I must be getting old. I forgot Paulina Garces
I should have done much better. Forgetting to mention or post images of Paulina Garces is a tragedy I think. I saw her twice today; it was the same infomercial for a local car dealership. It was a good infomercial for watching her although the other actress – model in the infomercial seems to have more on screen time but less of a speaking role.



I have not made a record of which photos have been posted to the blog. Of course, I could go back over the last series of posts and figure that out.

But, why bother?

The worst possible outcome is I end up posting the same image more than once. That is a completely acceptable risk to me.

Watching Paulina was an excellent way to start my day off.


Be well and stay happy.

I must be getting old. I forgot Paulina Garces.

I must be getting old. I forgot Paulina Garces.
I should have done much better. Forgetting to mention or post images of Paulina Garces is a tragedy I think. I saw her twice today; it was the same infomercial for a local car dealership. It was a good infomercial for watching her although the other actress – model in the infomercial seems to have more on screen time but less of a speaking role.

I have not made a record of which photos have been posted to the blog. Of course, I could go back over the last series of posts and figure that out.

But, why bother?

The worst possible outcome is I end up posting the same image more than once. That is a completely acceptable risk to me.

Watching Paulina was an excellent way to start my day off.


Be well and stay happy.

Chuckay - Part 1

Chuckay – Part 1
The month long celebration of all things Chuck got off to a very good start on Saturday with a lunch with Doug at the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers in Westminster, California and not England.

We had planned to meet for lunch around 1:00 PM. Doug called me because he got to the parking lot and I wasn’t there. I got delayed leaving school after my morning because a couple of students wanted to talk to me about the course and some of their other class work. One student who is not part of the class wanted to talk about her plans for her immediate future after graduation in a couple of months.

Doug had a double chili cheeseburger and fries and a Cherry Coke for his lunch; he was eating on the light side since he was doing something last night. I had a Mega Combo, a meal I have two or three times a year. It is, by any reasonable measure, sheer overindulgence.



My niece the Nutritionist would be horrified if she saw me eating a triple chili cheeseburger with chili cheese fries and a large regular Coke. She might say that the Mega Combo might be appropriate if one was getting ready to run a marathon or other long distance race.

The Original Tommy’s used to pour only Pepsi Cola or at least they have been for as long as I can remember. I guess Coca Cola made the company an offer that it could not refuse.

I had talked to Doug about my thought of stopping at Giuliano’s on the way home and picking up a small salad for my dinner last night. He thought it was a good idea; in the end, I decided to pass on the stop because I properly reasoned that it I went into the delicatessen I would end up buying a rich chocolate dessert. That made no sense to me after the meal I just finished. It was still settling in my stomach.

Excellent decision Chuck.

Visitors
We had a much better month for visitors in April. We had a total of 2,980 visitors for the month; this is the fourth best month for visitor traffic. The page view count was even better. The blog had 4,586 individual page views. This was the third best month for page views. Last week, we had 636 visitors to the blog.

Visitors are coming from around the world to the blog. This is good. The blog had one visitor who logged in from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, home port of the Great Pacific Fleet.

BZ shipmate.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by and spend some time with the blog.

My Friend Sunny
If you recall, I recently spent some time helping my friend Sunny with her term paper for one of her classes. I don’t do very much now to help Sunny. Mostly, I work on American idioms and punctuation. I made some style changes to make the paper reflect modern American English instead of the classic English she learned from a textbook in China. The paper was an interesting one about how income and job status affect happiness for Chinese citizens.

Sunny’s English writing skill has improved tremendously since she came to the United States for graduate school. She writes better than some of my students who are native born English speakers and writers.

Since I was such a big help to Sunny with the paper, she asked me to help her revise her job search cover letter. Since I teach an advanced writing course that features writings used in finding a job, I was able to help her. Sunny had done a good job and only needed a little help with the organization.

I hope Sunny is very successful in finding a job in America and won’t have to return to China.

Lexmark International Call Center – Part 2
I had the occasion to dial up the Lexmark International Call Center on Friday because my printer suddenly stopped working. Naturally, I hoped that I would end up with Darleen. I wasn’t that lucky.

Kath helped me through my trouble.

Kath was excellent.

She found the problem quickly and it was not with the printer or its software either. The problem was with the Norton Internet Security software program. The firewall function decided on its own to stop allowing me to send a file from the laptop to be printed on the Lexmark printer.

This struck me as being really odd and out of place since there had been no known changes to the system between the time I printed out a document and when I wanted to print out another document. I think the elapsed time was no more than fifteen minutes.

Kath had to take control of my laptop in order to fix the problem. It is eerie to see the cursor move about the screen while your hands are in your lap.

I really appreciated her effort and I ended up leaving a voice message for her supervisor that praised Kath’s skill and ability to solve my problem.

I hope Kath gets some recognition from my message.

This and That; These and Those
The Prelude rolled over to 355,000 miles on my way to class on Saturday morning. I didn’t see the odometer actually roll over to 355,000 miles because I was driving fast on the freeway, there was very little traffic on the freeway at the time and the sun was in my eyes as well. I knew it would roll over on my way to class.

I wore one of my Tommy Bahama silk shirts to class on Saturday. On Saturdays and during the Summer, instructors get to dress in business casual. I also wore pants and shoes as well. One of my female students thought I looked cute in the shirt and she suggested that I ought to wear it more often. This is me in the Tommy Bahama shirt.


I am finally joining the social networks. I signed up for LinkedIn after one of my former students sent me and invitation to join. I have a Facebook page but I don’t use it very much; hardly at all if you thought about it.

I am thinking about starting another blog to comment on the financial meltdown and banking. It seems to me that there are a lot of people out in the ether of the Internet who think they know the causes but have never been a banker themselves. That strikes as me as being foolhardy at best.

Anyway.

That was my weekend.


Be well and stay happy.