Where did the year go?

Where did the year go?
It seemed like only yesterday that I was in the hospital for surgery to have my colon reconnected after having to use a colostomy bag for two and half years. But, of course, that happened at the end of January.

After recovering from surgery, Doug joined my fraternity in April when my old chapter was reinstalled. Doug will be the first to admit that he was luke warm to the idea of joining a fraternity. After going through the initiation and participating in some of the ceremony, he was very glad that he did.


Then, I got my not so new MINI Convertible in the middle of June but I had to wait another week until the dealership fixed some factory defect. Since the car was assembled in the United Kingdom, I was not surprised. I don’t think they understand the concept of quality control very well.

I have owned two cars that were assembled in the United Kingdom. Both came with factory defects. That is not a very good track record.

I do love driving the MINI. I have put over 8,000 miles on it since I finally took possession of it.

Summer was sort of a blur since it was one of the coldest or maybe coolest Summers on record for Southern California. It was not good driving with the top down weather for me. I did manage to catch a nasty cold; possibly from too much top down driving, that lingered for almost two weeks.

For some unknown reason, I started to write a science fiction novel this Summer. I managed to finish it and it has something over 600 pages, which was way more than I thought I could write.

I even started to write a sequel to the first novel. Right now, I am at Chapter 11 of 20 Chapters and I have just over 400 pages written.

When I finish the second novel, I have to go back and add perhaps as much as 150 pages to the first one to provide more narrative and background material. So far, I have plotted out, in varying degrees, ten sequential books. Obviously, the far out books are mere hints of a skeleton outline now.

I am going to have to take a break from novel writing for a day or two while I write my Christmas Letter.

Where did the year go?

On holiday probably.

Second Opinion
On Wednesday, I drove out to the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California to receive a second opinion on my current colon cancer treatment plan. The City of Hope in a nationally recognized, highly ranked cancer center.

Doug had thought about going with me until I told him my appointment was at 7:30. He decided that he could wait and get my version of the opinion.

I got up at 4:15 AM that day. I wanted to make certain that I arrived on time. It had been raining the day before and one never knows what the morning freeway traffic will be like. My drive was very nice to Duarte. I should certainly have hoped so. Leaving so early, the freeway onramp traffic flow meter was off so I was able to drive on to the onramp and then swing around a curve at full speed in the MINI.

It felt very nice to lock up the seat belt tensioners as the MINI held the curve like it was on a Disneyland ride track

Needless to say, I was very early for my appointment. Fortunately, I had the day’s newspaper and my Kindle with two unread books in it. The waiting room chairs were soft and there were few patients waiting with me.

Excellent.

I saw Dr. Julio Garcia-Aguilar. He is the Chief of Oncological Colorectal Surgery; that’s a mouthful of titles.

The short version of his opinion is I ought to have the lesions on my liver biopsied at a minimum. He would prefer to cut that portion of my liver out and be done with any worry about the lesions. The liver is one organ that will grow back I think he would like to remove any more of the old tumor that is next to my left ureter. He also recommended that I have a specialized CT scan done of my liver.

I will see Dr. D. in a week or so and we’ll talk about what to do next. I also have an appointment with the colorectal surgeons at Harbor UCLA Medical Center and I will see what they have to say about the second opinion.

Teaching
I have my teaching schedule for next quarter. I will be teaching five courses as of now. Things can always change up to almost the last minute at ITT Technical Institute. The nice thing about my courses is that I have taught them all before so my preparation time will be minimal.

This week, I learned that our long term Dean of Academic Affairs had left the school. Depending on who you spoke to, he retired, resigned, or was fired. The method of his separation from the school doesn’t matter that much to me. I will miss him. He was a steadying influence on the instructors.

Thanksgiving
I had my Thanksgiving Dinner with Doug and my ex-wife at her house on Thursday.

They had a turkey with all of the usual side dishes and snacks. I really enjoyed myself. My ex-wife cooked the sweet potatos differently than I do. She mashed hers with chunks of pineapple. It was an interesting combination. I think I will serve my sweet potatos in my usual way with brown sugar and spices when they come to my flat for Christmas dinner.

We had a long discussion about what to have for dinner at Christmas. Doug is somewhat of a selective eater; he will eat tuna belly but not Honey Baked Ham. It made him sick once and he swore off it since. He will eat Spanish style cured ham.

I said that he shouldn’t hold his breath because some Spanish style ham, from Spain of course, costs USD$1,200 for a five pound ham.

His mother was shocked.

I told that I would look and see if I could find a lesser priced Spanish ham for him. I will also cook a turkey with homemade dressing. I’ve already started picking up my ingredients this week. I just have a few items left to purchase now like a turkey and some vegetables.


Be well and stay happy.

I used to think I was smart

I used to think I was smart
I used to think I was smart.

Really, I’ve earned four college degrees; three of which were graduate degrees. I missed honors for my MBA by only 0.03. I earned honors in classwork for my doctoral degree. I teach college level courses now and have been doing so for four years.

My belief in my intelligence seemed reasonably well founded to me.

Then, I had to find a Medicare Advantage health care plan.

Naturally, you are generally left to do this on your own and at 65 just to make matters even worse. There must be literally dozens of plans, probably more. You have to wade through pamphlets and books that are written in governmentese which is unintelligible to most of us.

The plans are almost identical so making a choice is difficult.

I made a choice and selected a plan based on how close the doctors would be to my flat. Hardly the most intelligent or logical selection method that I know of. At least, I can change my mind in a year.

Being able to correct a mistake is a good option except for the fact that I will get buried under new solicitations from the insurance companies that operate these programs for the rest of my life.

So much for conservation and the environment.

MIA
I know that I should have been posting more frequently to the blog. I would feel badly but I don’t because I know that 80% of the blog readers go to January 1, 2007 as their only entry and exit point. This date is noteworthy only for the access to the month’s Women of the Moment feature that I used to have.

The first two weeks of the month I had a nasty cold that wouldn’t go away. I tried everything I could think including chicken soup. The soup was nice and tasty but it didn’t help me very much.

In the end, I finally got rid of my cold.

October by the Numbers
The numbers for October were nice.


The MINI reached 6,695 miles on the odometer. I had a total of 18 hours driving with the top down for the month and a cumulative total of 82.50 hours with the top down.
The blog had a total of 787 visitors who looked at 1,126 pages. This was one of the best months in the last year.

Halloween Candy – “Oh my gosh Charles!” and “Holy Moly!
Alex and Molly definitely liked or more probably loved the Halloween candy I sent them. I knew they would.


I sent Alex some personalized M&M candies. They were black and orange for Halloween, naturally. The orange M&Ms were personalized with Alex – Sales Pro. Alex enjoyed the idea that I remembered her. I think she also liked the personalized M&Ms so it would be difficult for her co-workers to help themselves to her rewards.


Molly loves chocolate. She has a Hershey’s Chocolate tee shirt. I sent the salon a very large box of Hershey’s miniature candies. I ordered a 25 pound box because most everyone at the salon loves chocolate and the box arrived early in the month. Since Molly is the owner and my stylist, she helped herself to most of the Krackel bars and the Mr. Goodbars. That left the rest of the staff with the peanut butter cups, milk chocolate bars, dark chocolate bars, and kisses. Everyone was happy.

Surprisingly, the salon still had some candy left when I went in for my November haircut.

Teaching
I have my tentative teaching schedule for next quarter. I will be teaching five courses again. All of my courses are repeat ones from before so I will have a minimal amount of preparation work this coming quarter. I only have two morning classes; one on Monday and one on Saturday. I also have a Friday night class.

The Friday night – Saturday morning classes are not so bad because we can dress in business casual. Since it is our Winter, I can wear some of my flannel shirts.

Dr D and Me
I went to see Dr. D. this week. She said I am fine and everything in my last lab test was beautiful.

I said, “just like you.”

I don’t think I upset her judging by how she smiled after I made my comment.

Dr. D. is pleased that I am going out to City of Hope, a major national cancer center, for a second opinion this week. She was very happy that I will see the chief of oncological surgery. Hopefully, we will be able to talk about the second opinion at our December appointment.

I do not share her enthusiasm for the appointment since I will be getting up at 4:15 so I can be on time and allow for unforeseen problems on the roads.

I had left a jar of Hershey’s for the nursing and support staff of the Oncology Clinic for Halloween as well. I was pleased that there were only a few left when I had my appointment this week.

Tracings from wandering the Internet
I found a rather interesting factoid from wandering the Internet the other day.

There is a city in New Zealand called Lower Hutt.

Would that make Jabba the Honorary Mayor of Lower Hutt?


Be well and stay happy.