Lunch with Doug

Lunch with Doug
Doug and I met for lunch on Thursday at Morton’s The Steakhouse in Santa Ana. It is our favorite restaurant; we have been going there or to another Morton’s for seventeen years. That is a nice record.

We talked about a wide range of ideas at lunch. Los Angeles Lakers basketball was one of the ideas that interested. He thought the Lakers had to resign Lamar Odom if they want to repeat as NBA Champions. I thought Odom was somewhat of liability since his performance seemed to vary widely from game to game this past season. I often wondered which Lamar Odom would show up.

Doug, on the other hand, felt Odom was one of the keys to the offensive successes of the Lakers, especially when he considered the weak play of Bynum. He had a strong point there. Doug called Odom a “free spirit.” I thought that was a generous call. He should be happy that the Lakers and Odom reached a new contract agreement yesterday after our lunch.

Doug asked me what plans I had for the flat. I told that I was thinking of replacing the existing carpet in part with wood flooring and carpeting in the bedrooms. Doug urged me to consider putting in wood flooring everywhere except the kitchen and bathrooms. I was still undecided when our meals came so I put off making a decision.

I had a Morton’s Prime Burger with Swiss cheese, tomato, onion, and French fries. I also had a Morton’s Salad so I have something that was modestly healthy for my lunch. Doug had a grilled chicken sandwich because he is cutting back on his beef consumption now and he wanted to control the amount of fish he eats as well.


The Morton’s Prime Burger was excellent. It was cooked to perfection, medium with a touch of pink in the middle of the beef patty. The Swiss cheese sort of flowed down the sides of the beef patty. I think having some pickles would have been nice but that was not an option.

All in all, it was a perfect lunch for both of us.

Checking flooring prices
I went out today to get an idea what the proposed flooring would cost me. I went to Lowe’s and Home Depot because it seems likely that they would a better price based on their volume purchasing activities.

Checking flooring prices was a real eye opener for me.

First of all, there a very large selection to choose from when it comes to wood flooring; the same can be said for carpets as well. I thought that Lowe’s had a better selection of wood flooring and carpet compared to Home Depot.

I did some rough estimates based on the assumption that I would pay for professional installation which includes moving furniture around and hauling away the debris from the project. If I went with Doug’s all wood floor idea, I think I would be spending around USD$6,000 which struck me as being rather pricy for my modest 900 square foot flat. Replacing the carpet would run around USD$3,500 or so, depending on the carpet grade I pick.

If I put tile on the kitchen floor, that could add another USD$1,000 or so. But, if I put in a new tile floor, I might as well put in a new granite counter and backsplash in the kitchen as well.

This was about the time that I decided I needed to go home for the day. What seemed like a simple and modest project grew substantially for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Doug came over on Sunday

Doug came over on Sunday
Doug came over on Sunday after going to an engagement brunch in Santa Monica. His best friend Robin is getting married sometime next year. Doug gets to be the best man.

I’m not sure how thrilled Doug is about wearing a tuxedo to the wedding. He is more of jeans and tee shirt guy.

We talked instead of me writing the blog for Sunday afternoon. One of the big topics was how does one handle the group meal where some drink more than others and then want to divide the bill evenly instead of proportionately. This is one of those questions that does not lend itself well to a simple answer. Sometimes, it is better to pay your more than fair share for the sake of long term friendships while it is better to make a stand for your principles at other times.

I suppose the third option is to develop friends that do not drink very much.

Other Odds and Ends from a dull Weekend
I was reading the press release from the Princeton Review about which college is the biggest party school. Our, the Princess and me, beloved University of Utah didn’t make it into the Top 20 Party Schools. I suppose that this is a good idea; after all, one goes to college to learn.

Utah did not land on the list of the Stone Cold Sober Schools. BYU landed on this list at Number 1 for the twelfth straight year. Way to go Cougars.

I spent some time writing in my other blog yesterday. I wrote about how much the federal government could be exposed to as a result of the bailouts it has gotten involved in. I found the USD$23.7 trillion maximum exposure to be a staggering amount. This works out to about USD$80,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. You can read more at http://bankingmadesimple.blogspot.com if you like reading scary stories.

I signed up for online banking at one of my banks. It is free and easy to use. The bank has thought out the security aspect very well. They want to make the site as secure as possible.

In the end, I think they failed.

The bank failed because I ended up writing down my password. In order to make the system secure, I had to select a password that didn’t contain any combination of letters from my name or initials. I guess the bank felt that I would only be using one financial institution so it would be easy to remember my password.

That is a false premise. I have passwords all over the place ranging from three different ones at school to my email password. It is close to impossible for me to remember all of them so I write the more obscure ones down.

So much for security.

The bank did have some bizarre security questions like where was my grandmother born or when did I meet my now ex-wife. Those are good ones I suppose. To the bank’s credit, I was able to use a common, for me, user identification word.

Today was a busy day for emergency vehicles outside of the building. It seemed like there was an ambulance or fire truck going by about once every two hours or so. I was out on the balcony reading this afternoon when a Redondo Beach Fire Department truck pulled out of the park next door’s parking lot and rushed off somewhere.

Today was not a good day for naps.


Be well and stay happy.

What I Forgot

What I forgot
I can’t believe that I haven’t mentioned the air conditioning system at school. How could I have done that, especially since the temperatures have been in the 90Fs/32Cs?

The school is in a two story building and each floor as its own air conditioning unit. That makes some sense to me.

The unit that cools the first floor failed a week or so ago at the start of what looks like regular Summer here in Southern California. Actually, it had a catastrophic metal failure in the blower section. The blower section pushes the chilled air into all of the classrooms and first floor offices; simple enough. The fan assembly had a catastrophic metal failure where the fan, in essence, disintegrated.

The twenty seven year old unit, because of its size, was custom built for the building. That means you can’t just run over the local Air Conditioners R Us and pick up a replacement right off of the shelf. The replacement has to be fabricated.

Fabrication takes time as if you didn’t know that already.

This is a problem for the building owner which is only now gathering bids to fix or replace the unit. Either option is going to be costly; I would choose the replacement option since that will have a longer life. It will also cost more, probably USD$200,000 or more.

I had been told on Wednesday that the replacement or fix was only going to take about another two weeks. That was before I learned that the building owner has taken over the project. I am guessing that the project will last into the Fall. I suppose that, if I looked long and hard enough, I could see the irony in having the system fixed by the Fall just in time for Winter except that the heating part doesn’t want work the way it was designed to work but the cooling works just great.

Oh well, it is not my problem. I can wear wool suits and sweaters to teach in.

Verizon equipment
I use Verizon for my DSL service. They are my local phone company. I won’t say it is composed of a bunch of retired bandits but it sure seems that way. I used to have Verizon set as my long distance carrier on the land line. I make almost all of my long distance calls on cell phones because of unlimited in-network dialing. Verizon was charging me USD$5.00 a month just for not making any calls.

Being charged for not making a call sounds ridiculous.

Moving along.

I purchased a Verizon DSL modem when I got my DSL service. It failed on Tuesday morning. Three plus years is a good life for a modem. I drove over to Best Buy to buy a new modem. I picked up a simple, low-end Verizon modem and then drove home.

I unpacked it from the box and found the software CD had a nasty, star shaped crack in it. That would make it unusable I think. Back to Best Buy and returned with a new modem.

After I had lunch, I figured that I could install it by myself. After all, I was using Windows Vista SP2 with IE 8.0 for a browser and Outlook for email.

Nothing complicated there.

So much for grossly unsubstantiated enthusiasm on my part. It took the Verizon tech support lady 55 minutes to get my laptop and the Verizon modem to play nicely together. That was not what I wanted or expected. I had to plug in the cell phone battery charger so I could continue the phone call.

Guess who won’t be buying another Verizon DSL modem?

Visitors
Vacations are killing the blog traffic count right now. I am assuming that the visitor traffic count is down because of vacations. Last week, we had 145 visitors who viewed 187 pages. That was a nasty drop off but the total for the month will still be strong.

The blog ought to reach its 50,000th visitor sometime in August. That is an accomplishment.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by the blog, when you are not on vacation.

Molly the Stylist
I went to see Molly the Stylist this afternoon, after my morning class on Marketing Research. It was that time of the month for me to get my haircut. This haircut was a little earlier than normal because Molly is getting married next week. I normally get my haircut in the last week of the month.

I had thought about asking if she could change her plans but realized that was out of the question. I can remember how inflexible the Princess was in the weeks before her wedding.

I was early so I had time to sit and think. Everyone in the salon was female so there were very few opportunities for conversations. I would have preferred to have a chat with Natalie the receptionist but she was too busy.

It was then when I realized that it had been thirty five years since anyone had cut my hair perfectly. Thirty five years ago I was in the Marine Corps Reserve. I have to have a Marine Corps hair cut, “a high and tight,” for drill weekends. That was easy for any barber to do.

Nevertheless, Molly was very pleased when I told her that her stylings were the best haircuts that I have had in thirty five years.

Today was the first time that I could recall that Molly was wearing low shoes. High heeled shoes for women do create an illusion of height.

Molly introduced me to a new stylist. Her name is Rachel. Rachel seems like a nice young stylist but I plan to stick with Molly for now. I am too used to the way she styles or cuts my hair. I am certain that Rachel is well qualified but I do not see a reason to make a change now.

As Doug might say, “why mess with success?”


Be well and stay happy.

Friday's leftovers

Friday’s leftovers
The Friday post was all about Dr. Karen and me and the cancer. I thought it best to focus on the main or primary subject. There were some leftovers from Friday; this is to be expected.

As most of the regular blog readers know by now, I do not like taking the Xeloda pills and I am not very fond of some of the side effects like loss of fingerprints. I did discover that the prolonged usage of the Xeloda has almost completely removed a bunion that I had on my left foot. This was a very nice side effect. I knew the bunion was shrinking because it has not been causing me any significant discomfort over the last few months.

I was reading on either Thursday or Friday that Apple was making its iTunes service incompatible with the new Palm Pre smart phone device. Maybe incompatible is not the proper word but the end result will be Palm Pre users will have a more difficult time downloading music from iTunes. You all know that I have very limited technical skills. I suppose this is an attempt to preserve the iPhone device’s market share as it faces competition from Blackberry and the new Palm Pre.

Isn’t it absolutely fascinating that Apple is using the same tactics that Apple accused Microsoft of using to preserve its market share just a few years ago?

Full and fair disclosure, I only have a four year old Samsung cell phone device and a three year old Nokia cell phone device that I use to talk on. I don’t take pictures although the Nokia can do that. I don’t text very much; last month, I sent and received four text messages. Both phones use the clam shell or flip phone form function. I am highly likely to continue to use them until I am no longer able to find replacement batteries.

So much for technology and me.

Doug and I were talking on Friday about getting together for lunch at Morton’s while we waited to see Dr. Karen. Doug said that he was not going to be having any beef for lunch; he was cutting back on red meat again. I guess that will leave with a choice of some chicken dish or salmon or other fish dish.

Personally, I plan to have a simple lunch, well simple for Morton’s. I plan to have a simple salad and a Morton’s cheeseburger and French fries and maybe some ice cream for dessert. Right now, I think a very cold Heineken’s beer would be a perfect way to wash my meal down my throat.

Of course, time can change the outcome and the meal plans.

Last week was a bad week for visitor traffic; we only had 440 visitors who looked at 622 unique pages. I think the Summer holidays had something to do with the fall off in traffic since the European volume was off significantly.

From time to time, I take a detailed look at who the visitors are. We had some interesting visitors; well, I think they are interesting. It is comforting to know the blog draws a wide range of viewers. We had visitors from the United States Patent Office, Harvard University, Google, Iran, and the United States Navy.

I do continue to worry about the Iranian visitor or visitors if there were a bunch crowded around a terminal, viewing attractive young actresses and models in bikinis. I don’t think the imams would approve of that conduct. Of course, none of the actresses and models was from Iran or were Islamic as far as I know, just Westerners and Asians.

On the other hand, it is very comforting and reassuring to see sailors in the United States Navy are coming to the blog to view the same young actresses and models in bikinis. This just reaffirms my faith in the Navy and the sailors, some things never change.

Fair winds and following seas shipmates.


Be well and stay happy.

Date with Dr. Karen and Me and the Cancer

Date with Dr. Karen and Me and the Cancer
I had my regular appointment with Dr. Karen on Friday. Doug came with me for this appointment because she would be giving us the results of the MRI and CT tests.

Friday’s appointment, from start to finish took less than three hours. Doug was amazed at how fast the time went by. He could remember the times when we spent five or six hours at the hospital. This time doesn’t include waiting time for the prescription to be filled, just the time it took to drop off the prescription.

Anyway, back to the story.

As usual, I had prepared questions for Dr. Karen in advance. I had ten questions or matters that I wanted to touch on for this appointment. Usually, I only have two or three questions; I had more because of the MRI and CT tests. I like this approach because I do not forget anything at the last minute. I think Dr. Karen appreciates a patient who has taken an interest in his or her treatment plan and prepares for the appointments.

The appointment began with Nurses Wendy and Vrunda taking my vital signs. Wendy asked me the same questions about how I was feeling, was I allergic to any medicines, and did I smoke. Wendy was upset with me because I had a cigar last month for Fathers’ Day. I told Wendy that this was my first cigar in over a year.

Wendy let me pass with a strong warning of, “don’t smoke anymore.”

Vrunda took my blood pressure. It was down to 129/74, lower than the last time. Vrunda said I was a good boy.

The Test Results
My regular tests were all fine; my kidney and liver functions are normal. This is good because the Xeloda can adversely affect the kidneys. All of the results were in line with my prior tests and Dr. Karen was pleased.

The MRI and the CT showed nothing new. This is obviously good for me. My lesions on my liver have not changed size in almost 21 months. They are both on the small side; one is about a centimeter across and the other is less than a centimeter across. The tests did not detect any signs of new cancer or cancer that was spreading.

Perfectomundo.

Dealing with the Colorectal Surgeons
We told Dr. Karen about last week’s visit to the colorectal surgery clinic. Dr. Karen just shrugged as if to say, “oh well, that’s colorectal surgery for you.”

We did talk about the long term treatment plan. Dr. Karen wants to go forward this Fall with a recommendation to the Tumor Board to approve a reconnection of my colon reconnection procedure. I’m certain there is a fancy medical term for the procedure; I just don’t know what it is called.

Then, we got off on a tangent of when would be the best time for the procedure. I felt the first quarter of 2010 would be ideal for me because this would be good with school and would not interfere with the holidays. Doug was all in favor of doing it as soon as possible; easy for him to say since he wasn’t going under the anesthesia and the knife. Dr. Karen was for waiting and seeing how things developed further after the upcoming colonoscopy.

At least there is some good timing ahead. My next visit to their clinic is a week before one of my regularly scheduled visits with Dr. Karen and we would be able to discuss the visit results.

Don’t play poker with Dr. Karen
I think Dr. Karen must be a great poker player. She never changes her cheerful expression. After we finished talking about the possibilities of a reconnection surgery schedule, Dr. Karen mentioned, rather casually and in a so by the way manner, that once the operation is performed, she will take me off of the Xeloda and probably put me on something else.

What a dilemma for me.

Dr. Karen knows that I dislike taking the Xeloda. Just because I willingly take 3,000 mg of Xeloda a day doesn’t mean that I like to do that. I take the medicine because it kills cancer. I don’t like the Xeloda because it has been making my fingerprints and hands dry up like the Mojave River in August.

Now, I am going to be faced with a decision to have the surgery as soon as possible or wait until next year and suffer more dry skin.

So where do I stand now?
Actually, I am sitting at my desk right now as I type this blog – email.

I am in good condition according to Dr. Karen. My body is functioning normally I am having no trouble with food. She giggled when I said that she could see that from my weight gain over the almost last two years. The MRI and CT tests were unable to detect any signs of new cancer. I am optimistic and feel good about my future.

Life looks very good to me.


Be well and stay happy.

The CT Scan

The CT Scan
I went in for my periodic CT scan this morning. This is not one of my favorite procedures; but, I do prefer it over a colonoscopy procedure.

The procedure starts off with the patient or victim, depending on your point of view, swallowing just about a liter of barium sulfate. Barium sulfate is a marker dye. It has the consistency of runny wallpaper paste and tastes about as vile.

Today’s mixture had a slight hint of an apple taste. It was just enough to taste but nowhere near sufficient to overcome the taste or after taste.

So much of bans on cruel and unusual punishments.

The CIA should have used the barium sulfate instead of water boarding. It would be just as effective and hardly traceable.

Then it comes time to run you through the CT machine donut. It is painless for the most part. You also get another trace drug through an IV.

Setting up the IV was a problem. It took the technician three times and three needles before he could find a vein that he could use for the IV solution. This was an uncomfortable process. I did have a choice though; I could let him have a third stab at one of my veins or I could wait three hours for an IV specialist nurse to show up and insert the IV drip line. I so did not want to wait three hours plus I would probably have had to swill down the barium sulfate again.

Wonderful.

The IV drug makes your body warm up; don’t ask me why. It just does. These two drugs attach to any cancer cells. When they are bombarded by the CT emissions, the cancer cells with the drugs attached to them light up like Christmas trees.

When I had the test done in January, Dr. Karen said the results showed no signs of cancer in my body. I thought that was very nice.

But, after reading part of The Black Swan, I now realize that Dr. Karen should have said the test could not find any signs of cancer in my body.

Dr. Karen will give me the results on Friday.

Doug
Doug called this afternoon as he was coming home from a short vacation to check on the CT scan. I told him it went as well as they normally do.

We talked about the appointment notice that I got yesterday from the colorectal surgeons for a Friday in mid-September. This is going to be a pre-colonoscopy procedure appointment. I told Doug that I was thinking about changing the appointment since I have another one scheduled a week later on Wednesday.

I didn’t see any good reason to possibly ruin a weekend. I also told Doug that I was going to ask Dr. Karen what she thought about combining the two appointments when we see her on Friday. He thought that was a good idea.

I also plan to ask her about all of the tests the colorectal surgery clinic wants to run on me.

School
I was checking my school email before I finished on writing the blog entry. I got an email from my department chair about turning the coming year faculty development plan. I think the year started July 1.

So much for keeping on top of things.

I will talk to him tomorrow. Oh joy for me.


All things considered it could have been a worse day for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Nothng Much Happened The Weekend

Nothing Much Happened This Weekend
Nothing much happened this weekend for me.

The weather finally got its act together and warmed up. We finally had temperatures above normal after being below normal for sixty or sixty five days. Today it was 80F/27C at the beach with a mostly sunny sky. It does cool off nicely at night.

I found a fascinating advertisement over the weekend from a company that sells a grammar and spell checking program. The company had a survey done on the importance of proper writing in emails. Accuracy had a score of 96.8%; Clarity had a score of 96.8%, and Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation had a score of 95.2%. The scores are based on combining the survey results for the response choices of Extremely Important and Important.

I wonder how many of my students realize this.

Of course, one can discount the survey as being self serving since it is likely to help the company sell its product. That being said, I don’t think the results are all that far from reality.

I talked with the Princess on Sunday. She was enjoying her Princess M&Ms as I knew that she would. We talked about Hershey’s Chocolates ending their telephone and online sales of custom chocolate products. The Princess was devastated by the thought there would be no more Hershey’s Halloween chocolate tins, a tradition that has lasted since 1994.

We both thought that the company could have raised the prices to cover its costs since it was selling a premium product that was not available from local merchants. That would make good business sense. I think we failed to consider the company closed the venture because of lack of sales in the current economy. Closing a money losing operation in these current economic conditions is also a very logical business decision.

On the other hand, the Princess did say there always were Fairy Tales Brownies and M&Ms. I did remind her of Ethel M’s Chocolates as well. The Princess did allow that Ethel M Chocolates were yummy.

I was reflecting on my Internet chat partners as I was sipping on a glass of single malt Scot’s whisky over the weekend. Almost all of the chat partners that I regularly speak with are Asian born women who found me while searching for a native English speaker when they were in college in China.

I don’t count Rita in this group because she is from India and speaks or rather writes in the Queen’s English. Rita is probably better at speaking English than I am because Americans tend to readily adopt new words and phrases, even if they are made up words or phrase.

Having you ever wondered how movies get rated? I started to think about this concept when I read the local newspaper today. It has a list of televised films together with a star rating of one star to four stars with four stars being the highest rating. John Ford’s classic Western, THE SEARCHERS, received four stars and that seemed to be very correct to me. Then, I saw that BABE, a 1995 film about a talking pig, received four stars as well while the 1960s classic LOLITA only earned three stars.

Doug would probably say someone rigged the votes and stole the election.

The United States is launching an old vehicle recycling program, nicknamed, Cash for Clunkers. Since I have two older vehicles, I took a look at the program. The USD$4,500 credit towards the purchase of a new vehicle would be very nice.

The Prelude doesn’t qualify for the program because its fuel efficiency is too high. Its rating is 25 MPG and the maximum rating to qualify for the program is 18 MPG. So, the Prelude stays in the car park for now.

That left me with the Pathfinder. It fully qualifies because it has crummy mileage ratings. I could qualify for the maximum government credit and I could apply that towards the purchase of a MINI Cooper. That would mean that I would only have two small cars. I would have to rent a large vehicle if I wanted to buy something larger than a breadbox or a couple of bags of groceries from the weekly market trip.

I guess that I will stay with what I have in the car park for now then.


Be well and stay happy.

A Day of Despair

A Day of Despair at the Hospital
Wednesday was a day of despair for me. I could have just called it “Woeful Wednesday” too. It was not a good day for me at all. The real challenge is trying to determine an excellent starting point for my tail of travail and disappointment.

Chronological is the easiest choice.

My Wednesday started off great for me. Traffic was light going to school and the class went well for me. I had expected class to go well since it was also the class before the mid-term examination and the day of study review.

When I left school to go to the hospital for an appointment with the colorectal surgeons, my day started to fall apart rapidly.

Normally, the drive from school to the hospital takes about 40 minutes or so. It took almost 75 minutes. There was a three car wreck on the freeway that I had to take to the appointment. I found out about the wreck after it was too late to make a simple course and speed correction. I was stuck in the backed up traffic. I did finally get off and have to make a more complex correction on surface streets. I got to the hospital about 15 minutes before my appointment.

Doug was even worried about me because he was there and I wasn’t there yet. He even called me but I didn’t answer him because I was on the freeway driving at about 70 miles an hour.

My appointment was scheduled for 1:00 PM. One of the nurses called me fairly close to 1:00 to take my vital signs. I was normal. That was nice. Then, I sat around until a little after 2:00 PM when I was called by a doctor.

Actually, I was called by a fake doctor; she was a Nurse Practioner. Based on the comments she made during a simple examination of me, she was not very experienced with patients who had colon cancer. She said she was supposed to be doing an evaluation of me with a view towards going forward with a reconnection surgery.

Dr. Karen and I both know that the colorectal surgeons have never done a complete evaluation of me.

What was purported to be an evaluation was a simple review by Doug and me of the historical facts and what had transpired before. The fake doctor took the information down and then left to consult with her supervisor.

Doug and I sat in the exam room for maybe fifteen minutes when she returned and told us to go wait in the waiting room because she needed the exam room for another patient. After waiting an hour, Doug got bothered and so did I.

I spoke to the fake doctor when she was at the admitting desk. When I asked how much longer I had to wait, she said they would mail me a new appointment notice.

Obviously, she had no answer when I asked why I had to sit and wait for over an hour only to be told that the hospital would mail me another appointment notice.

Since I was at the hospital, I decided to have my blood tests taken. I drove to the main building to look for a parking spot. I couldn’t find one so I drove home and changed. I drove back later and found a parking spot with no trouble at all. I was in and out of the blood test in about twenty minutes.

While I was waiting for the blood test, I decided to go out for dinner since I had no lunch, what with the colorectal surgeons and the blood testing. I chose Bob’s Big Boy in Torrance as a good venue for my dinner.

Bob’s Big Boy in Torrance Failure to Cook Well
I didn’t need a fancy meal, just some good tasting simple food. Bob’s Big Boy let me down or failed which would be a much better word.

I got to the restaurant early so I could get in and out quickly. There were very few customers inside when I arrived.

I should have recognized this as the omen of doom that it was.

I wanted a bowl of chili and beans with onions and cheese, a Big Boy combination with French fries, and a salad. Not too much of a challenge; at least, that was what I thought my dinner would be.

I was wrong. Oh, the chili was perfect but then it came in a can and only required heating, diced fresh onions, and grated American or cheddar cheese on top.

My server was Araceli and I strongly believe she had absolutely no interest in seeing me have a good meal. Her gross lack of concern was naturally reflected in her non-tip. The salad was so watery from water clinging to the lettuce that the croutons were soggy. Not a great eating moment.

The French fries were overcooked. I know what properly cooked French fries taste like and Bob’s Big Boy didn’t serve proper French fries.

It would have been nice to have some mustard with my hamburger. There was no mustard on the table and Araceli never even asked if I wanted any before she disappeared to talk with another server.

I asked for an Arnold Palmer [half iced tea and half lemonade] to drink. Araceli brought me one that was only one quarter iced tea, marginally acceptable. Then, she brought me a refill that was all iced tea.

Naturally, she didn’t ask how my meal not that I could have answered since I had a mouthful of hamburger to chew on.

At this point, I was only mildly furious. Bob’s Big Boy still had a chance to avoid this flaming review had either Araceli shown any interest in me or the supervisor and one of the other servers even bothered to ask. Araceli had disappeared for all I know but I didn’t care anymore so why bother.

I stared at the supervisor and the other server, who were both involved in a conversation that probably was not about customer service, in order to get their attention. Twice, they looked at me and ignored me only to return to their personal conversation.

After ten minutes, I gave up and walked to leave. The server who had ignored me for ten minutes asked how my meal was. That was when I unloaded on her and told her that it was horrible and that horrible was the only descriptive term that I could use in mixed company. I told her that the salad was watery, the French fries were overcooked, and that the sever ignored, the same way she and the supervisor had ignored me.

She blinked and opened and closed her mouth, much like a mute puppet and said nothing.

It goes without saying that I won’t be going to Bob’s Big Boy in Torrance ever again. It is definitely a place to avoid at all costs. I would have rather had a box of MREs instead of what I endured there on Wednesday night.

Other Ironies of the Day
I got a call from school while I was waiting for my chili to be served. One of the department chairs was looking for someone to substitute that night. I explained that I was not dressed to teach and that I was not at home. The earliest that I thought I could be at school would be around 7:30 PM, just in time for the break.

I had to decline the request. I was tired and not in the mood to fight rush hour traffic for a theory mile drive to school.

Visitor traffic dropped off sharply last week. I think this had something to do with the 4th of July Holiday weekend in the United States. We had 545 visitors who viewed 795 unique pages. I do appreciate all of you who stop by and visit the blog.


Be well and stay happy.

Still Cool

Still Cool
It is still cool in Southern California. Usually by this time of the year, I have hung up my long flannel pajama pants. It is too cool for me to give up on long pants just yet. Maybe by the weekend I will be able to shift to my shorts for the Summer sleeping.

Medical Tests and Stuff
I had my MRI on Monday. As MRIs go, it was nice. The building waiting room is still too cold. The building management needs to do a better job of balancing its cold air supply. The MRI machines need to be cooled for them to effective. The cold air spills out all over the building.

On the plus side, my shoulders did not hurt after being stretched over my head while I was in the MRI tube.

I watch “House” which is a medical show on television from time to time. On the show, the MRI always has a large opening and never has any of the loud noises a real MRI does. The staff gives you ear plugs to deaden the noise. I ought to ask for one of those quiet machines the next time I go in for a MRI scan.

After the MRI, I went to have my eyes checked. I figured that my prescription for my glasses was close to two years old and needed to be updated. I also wanted to get all of my examinations out of the way in one month.

Jessica was the staffer who took care of me. She did all of the non-doctor tests. I did enjoy it when she adjusted and then held my head in place when she took photos of the inside of my eyes.

I so did not enjoy the blinding flash of light when Jessica took the photos.

Jessica convinced me to get a new set of frames to go with my new lenses. She thought that I should try ones that were narrower than what I had been buying over the years. My last two pairs were in a modified aviator style. They were not as large when measured vertically. Jessica thought they looked more sophisticated.

I was easily led astray by an attractive young woman.

Because the lenses are not as tall, the area where I have to look through for close up reading is narrower and, thus, harder to find. I will get used to the new lenses soon enough.

The next set of lenses will be back to the old style.

The doctor said that my eyes were fine and there was no sign of glaucoma. That was nice. She did notice a slight enlargement in the size of my optic nerve. It has changed very little since 2000 and the difference may be a result of using different technology to take the images.

I did the doctor to send me a set of the inner eye photos so I can forward them on to my regular doctor since he is treating me for diabetes. She said she would and hopefully it will not take seven months to send me a murky and illegible set of photos.

Prelude
I took the Prelude in for its annual smog equipment inspection and certification today. I have to do this every year because it is a very old car by California standards; it will be 21 years old in September.

The Prelude passed the test this year although one test was on the marginal side. Next year, I will have it tuned up just before I take it for the annual smog check just to be safe. There is no sense in taking a chance and spending extra money.


Be well and stay happy.

End of the Holiday Weekend

End of the Holiday Weekend
I had a good weekend. I enjoyed the local fireworks although I was dressed warmer than usual. I made some more progress on my dissertation. I did some cleaning around the flat.

For those of you with Southern California envy, cheer up. All is not sunny in Southern California. We have had almost sixty days of below normal temperatures and this is July that I am writing in. Most of the time, the temperature has been four to five degrees below normal. I had to wear my South Carolina Gamecocks hoodie sweatshirt to watch the fireworks display at the beach.

So much for global warming.

This was a very good local fireworks show; one of the best in several years. The fact that there weren’t as many low clouds last night made the show even better. I think best fireworks display was in 1968 when an ammunition dump at Da Nang blew up. Actually, it exploded for a full day or so. It wasn’t very much of an aerial display but it sure was loud

June was a good month for the blog’s traffic. We had 2,917 visitors to the blog for the month. They viewed 4,188 unique pages; January 1, 2007 is still the most popular page.

For some strange reason, three Iranians visited the blog one day last week. They were interested in the January 1, 2007 blog page. For those of you who have not gone to this page, it is the most popular because of the large number of images of young actresses and models in bikinis.

I don’t think viewing this page would be considered something a good Muslim would do.

I wonder what Iran’s Guardian Council would say about this.

One of the areas for my cleaning was the laptop. It has been a while since I cleaned it up. I took some time on Friday “to dump all trash clear of the stern.” That was a standard Navy phrase that was piped at the end of the work day. I dumped almost 3.0 GB of data into the ether. The 3.0 GB represented about seven percent of my in-use space on the C drive. I would like to say that the laptop is performing better but I can’t really tell if it is or not.

Oh well, I feel better for cleaning up the hard drive.

One of the other cleaning activities on the laptop was dumping Internet Explorer 8. I hated IE 7 and readily embraced the beta version of IE 8. I loved the beta version; it was stable and responsive.

The beta version was the first beta version that I have ever knowingly downloaded and used. I downloaded the beta version because it would have to be better than IE 7 and, if worse came to worse, I could always go back to the restore point or load Firefox.

I gave up on the final version of IE 8 on Friday morning. It stopped functioning.

That was an excellent reason to give up.

IE 8 had problems with stability for me prior to my decision. Most of the stability issues were merely inconveniences. I could accept them because I use Microsoft software.

I went to bed on Thursday night after checking my email and sending out one or two jokes of questionable quality to some of my friends. I put the laptop into the Microsoft Sleep mode; just like I had done all week before. I also slept very soundly on Thursday night.

Friday morning when I went to check my email and news the laptop could not connect to the Internet. I tried power cycling the laptop and the modem twice with no success. I checked the phone line and it was fine. The modem indicator lights seemed to show no problems.

In the end, I phoned Verizon tech support. The tech support person tested my line from his end. Surprisingly enough, the connection problem disappeared almost immediately.

So far, I am very happy with Firefox 3.5 as my new web browser. It is smaller and seems to be faster than IE 8. It allows web site owners to have their logos displayed next to their web site in the favorites and bookmark section, making it easier for me to find a web site.

One of the nicer features about Firefox is that it doesn’t require a great deal of masthead space. IE 8 required a full line just to display McAfee’s Site Advisor ratings. Firefox simply slides the Site Advisor rating into the line at the bottom of the page where the space is being used by several other applications.

Less wasted space and more visible space for me to enjoy.

Perfectomundo.

I had one of my former students email me with a request for help with her thesis on Friday. She is struggling right now because writing is not an area that she is strong in. I think she may also need help with her topic and research as well.

I will help her but she will ignore most of my advice. That is her way of handling complex tasks.

On the subject of school, my substitute teaching on Thursday evening was a bust of sorts. For some strange reason, the instructor told the students that they did not have to come to class.

So why ask me to substitute then?

Obviously, the cancellation of the class is something that an instructor cannot simply do on his or her own. I think it requires the approval of at least the academic dean or the school director. It’s something that I have never seen before.

Oh well, it is not my problem.

This being Sunday, I went to my local Coffee Ban & Tea Leaf. It was an off-day at the Bean since Tihana wasn’t working today. Life happens and we move on.

When I was loading web sites’ logos into Firefox yesterday, I took some time to wander around the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf web site. One of the features was some new ice blended coffee products. I decided to give one of the new products, Tiramisu, a try today. On balance, the Tiramisu is not an all together great product. It is a good product but nowhere close to the discontinued Mocha Mudslide classic from 2007 when Doug introduced me to the drink.

When I go back next week for my regular run to the Beam, I hope Tihana is there and that she will make me a most excellent large ice blended, decaf, half mocha, half white chocolate, with whipped cream, and made thick drink for me.

That is near perfection for me.


I hope you all had a great weekend.


Be well and stay happy.

Fourth of July
Today is the 233nd anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from what was then know as Great Britain. I very thankful every day for the freedom that I and my family and friends enjoy.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember that freedom is not now nor was it ever and will not be free. Freedom is purchased with the blood and sacrifices of patriots and their families.

Be well and stay happy.

Tis a black, black day for me

Tis a black, black day for me
I got an email today from one of my favorite online stores, Hershey’s Gifts. They sell all sorts of Hershey chocolates; a product that has always met my expectations.

Hershey’s Gifts is closing at the end of July.

I have been a loyal customer of Hershey’s Gifts since the Princess went off to college. My first purchase was a ten pound tub Hershey chocolate miniatures for Halloween in the Princes’ freshman year at the University of Utah.

Since then, I have probably purchased several hundred pounds of chocolates with absolutely no complaints except, after all of the chocolates were consumed, some mumbled about tight fitting clothes.

I wonder why that happened.

I really liked their Halloween tubs of chocolate, personally and as gifts to others, because they always made the season better.

I ordered some chocolates so I would have something for Halloween. The chocolates are always chocolate but they will not be in jack-o-lantern shaped metal tubs now. I will miss that.

So what do I do going forward.

I have two choices it seems to me.

I can continue to buy from Fairy Tale Brownies with their almost quarter pound, dark Belgian chocolate calorie cluster bombs. Those have always been popular. Nurses Vrunda and Wendy both enjoyed the brownies I got for them in April.

I can order from M&Ms and have customized candies in special colors. I think I will order some red and white M&Ms with the words “Go Utes” and “Beat BYU” printed on them. That is a favorite of the Princess and me.

The only trouble is my choices are limited.

One of my doctors would say that giving up the chocolate is not necessarily a very bad thing. It would be good for me to do that.

Fortunately for me, I have some sugar free Hershey’s dark chocolate in the house. They will help me get over this disappointment after dinner tonight.


Be well and stay happy.