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.
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.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 6:13 PM
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