Sunday, January 30, 2011

Cure

Cure
Doug and I had a follow up appointment at City of Hope Medical Center on Wednesday. I was supposed to see the oncological surgeon. He either must have ran over a prior appointment or had an emergency and I didn’t get see him.

I did see Dr. Joseph Kim who is a liver specialist. The appointment was all about what to do with the two small lesions on or rather in my liver. This topic has been kicked around more than a soccer ball I think.

The lesions have been very cooperative for me, medically speaking. They haven’t changed size since they were first noticed back in October, 2007. That was very gracious of them.

Anyway and more to the point.

The surgeons at Harbor UCLA Medical Center have adopted a wait and see, monitor and watch approach to the lesions. Since I haven’t produced any signs of active cancer since my first surgery, they want to wait before making any big decisions. On the other side of the operating room, City of Hope would like to go in and remove a good chunk of my liver containing the lesions and be done with them. My liver will grow back to its normal size quickly.

Right now, Doug and I are close to going to City of Hope for the partial liver removal surgery.

When Dr. Kim was discussing how he would approach my condition with the surgical procedure, he used the word “cure.”

Cure.

This was the first time that Doug and I could remember anyone using the word cure in a contextual discussion of my cancer treatment and outcome. It certainly gave me something to think about on my drive home from the City of Hope.

Of course, my medical insurance company has to approve the procedure before I can have it. If the procedure is approved and is not an emergency operation, I am leaning towards having the procedure done during my break from teaching at the end of May or early June. Doug will be home from his trip overseas and I will have two weeks to recover so that I wouldn’t miss any classroom time.

Excellent timing.

The MINI and me


I don’t have the final numbers for the MINI and me for the month yet except for my top down driving time for the month. I drove with the top down for nineteen and a half hours for the month. I’m in for the rest for the day so no more driving today. I won’t be driving with the top down on my way to school in the morning since it is going to be too cool plus there is a chance of showers.

Teaching
I was talking with the Associate Dean on Saturday after my morning class about my teaching schedule for the next quarter. He said it looked like I would have five classes to teach and all of them would be repeat classes for me so I won’t have any or at least very much preparation work for the classes to do.

The school called me on Tuesday afternoon and asked me to substitute teach a class in the Criminal Justice curriculum. I had never taught it before but I was available and that was that counted. I feel that I did a creditable job of teaching and the students seemed to have enjoyed my work. One aspect of the class that helped me was that I had taught about half of the class before in one or more classes.

I had a Mr. Chips moment on Wednesday when one of the students who used to think I was a horrible teacher sent me a note, email actually, that thanked me for teaching the class. I felt very good for the rest of the day.

I am subbing again on Monday. I will be teaching another Criminal Justice class in a subject that I haven’t taught before.

eHarmony
I called the Princess since she is my online dating adviser I had many questions for her. I wanted to know the proper protocol for ending a potential match after several exchanges or a conversation.

The Princess thought the simple close out was the better approach since it left me out of the loop. eHarmony sends the notice that I have closed the match. It is more sterile and less painful for me at the same time.

I now have 67 closed matches, mostly because I was too open with my selection criteria when I joined eHarmony not quite a month ago. I am also closing potential matches out faster than before.

I have twelve matches that you could call are active right now. If a match doesn’t respond to a first contact message from me by the end of the week, I will close the match out.

Strangely, four women who I closed out earlier today viewed my profile. I wonder if they were upset that I closed them out or what; not that I care all that much now.

The Princess
We also talked about my now traditional trip to Seattle for her birthday celebration. I picked the weekend of March 11th and 12th. She said that would work out nicely. I will fly up on the morning of the 11th; have dinner with the Princess and the Golfer, my niece Jessie and her husband, and my nephew Rob and his girlfriend; and fly home on the 12th, just in time for the start of the next quarter. I have no idea where we will end up dining; Rob's girlfriend would love to go to Morton's the Steakhouse.

Surprises are good for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Tommy Lasorda and eHarmony matches

Tommy Lasorda and eHarmony matches
I think eHarmony matches are a lot like Tommy Lasorda, the great Dodger and Olympic team manager. He always had a strong starter for the opening day game at Dodger Stadium. But, he also had a couple of relief pitchers who could quickly warm up in the bull pen if the starter was not performing well.

I have been a member of eHarmony now for two weeks.

In that time, I managed to accumulate fifty three matches. Of the fifty three, I have or she has closed the match twenty six times, meaning there is no interest in going further. Some of the closures, on my part, were based on things like age or geography.

This is my bull pen.

I have ten matches that I have some form of communication going on. Only three from this group have active communications going on now. I am waiting for the others to respond to my first message to them. I plan to wait until the end of the month and then close out probably most of the nonresponders.

These are my starting pitchers.

So far, I have had two and a half face to face meetings with my matches.

My first face to face sort of blew up on me.

I went to check on the meeting venue since I had never been there. It turned out the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf was in a market. No hope for a meaningful chat there. I sent the match an email and suggested a new location a block or so away. She said that was fine.

Four hours later, she closed the match.

I guess she was put off my thoroughness and organization since we had only exchanged emails through eHarmony.

Moving on, I had my first face to face during the week. It was, on balance, a good one. She was on time and that was good for me. We seemed to get along well. We had a great deal in common. I think she was trying too hard to make me like herr. She was too eager to exchange phone numbers and wanted to meet again soon.

I had my second face to face yesterday afternoon. The match picked the venue, the Urth Café in Beverly Hills. I suppose the Urth Café is a nice place to eat or have coffee. It was a poor location for a meeting since it was crowded and very noisy. Given my bad hearing, it was a struggle for me to understand what she was saying. There was a much quieter Peet’s Coffee and Tea directly across the street and it would have been a much better venue. On my drive back to the beach, I decided to close this match.

I had a really great tasting Café Mocha Granita at the Urth Café. It is an ice blended drink with mocha, regular coffee, and some strong espresso. I figured it would keep me awake last night. Instead, I was in bed and asleep by a little after 8:00 PM and didn’t move for almost six hours; then I slept off and on in two hour or so stretches until I got out of bed around seven this morning.

So much for the strong espresso.

Looking ahead with eHarmony, I am going to try a phone call with one of the communicating matches. I think this is a great idea since she is not close to me. Maybe I can save myself a long drive, between forty and fifty miles, some money, and avoid a face to face that probably won’t work out for me.

Since I live in Southern California, I figure that I can close out a bunch of the matches and get some more. If I can gather in fifty three in four days, I ought to be pick up twenty to thirty more even if I reduce the size of my search pattern radius from sixty miles to thirty miles.

It’s not like these women were the only ones who could match me

The MINI and me
I drove back to the beach with the top down in the MINI. It was so nice to roll down the 405 on the west side of Los Angeles with the sun on my face and arms. So far, I have logged around fourteen hours with the top down this month.


January seems warmer than usual, so far.

Excellent.

Things I gave up this weekend
I gave up going to a tattoo exposition this weekend. It was paired with a mixed martial arts show or exhibition. Neither of those interested me very much, especially since I would have to drive a good distance.


Be well and stay happy.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Weekend Update - January 16th

Joining eHarmony
I joined eHarmony a week ago. The Princess had been urging me, badgering me, nagging me to join eHarmony or Match.com or Chemistry.com for years now. She found her husband through one of these services.

If I joined, I thought I would be able to end the urging. I had nothing to lose except for some money that I would have spent on either DVDs or books. I might even find someone.

I filled out their questionnaire and personality profile. I didn’t get too specific on what I wanted in a companion, of lack of a better word for now. I was aiming at the upper half of the bell curve; if I was too specific I would be aiming at the outliers.

I pushed the button and went to bed.

When I got up on last Monday morning, I checked to see if I had any matches. I had four and that seemed promising for me. I didn’t look closely at any of them because I had a morning class to teach. When I got home, the number of matches had grown to ten. I thought I was really lucky now.

I called the Princess to tell her how I had done so far.

The Princess was amazed at how many matches I had achieved. She said some of her friends had gone over a week without a single match when they joined. We talked about why I was successful. We developed three hypotheses:

First, I was very open with my criteria.

Second, the women were very open with their criteria.

Third, I am super awesome compatible.

Personally, I believe the third hypothesis as the most likely explanation.

I was finally able to stop the flow of matches on Thursday night. By then, the total had grown to 56 matches.

I felt embarrassed with my success at finding women.

Some of the matches were more aggressive than others. They sent me questions to answer. I’ve had forty or so of the matches view my profile. My profile is only 37% complete. I’m wondering now if I should take the time to complete the profile or not since I seem to be doing just fine as it is.

I did include a photo of me and the MINI with the top down. It’s a subtle hint that I am going to be driving a convertible and I like to drive with the top down. One of the criteria I have been using to winnow the matches down to a workable number is hair length. I figure a woman with short hair is not as likely to object to riding in a convertible as one who has hair down to the middle of her back.

eHarmony has a ritualized communication program for matches. You start off exchanging canned questions and such. You build up to emailing as you get to know something about the other person. I played the question game honestly.

The first match I played questions and answer with seemed interesting. She lived reasonably close to me and had short hair. Perfectomundo. I sent her an email, which was probably out of order, to see if she would like to meet for coffee, at a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, of course.

We’re having coffee tentatively on Tuesday afternoon.

Another match was big on questions. She seemed interesting as well. We exchanged questions and even went to the second level of canned questions before I sent her an email asking if she would like to have coffee sometime soon? She also has shortish hair, excellent.

We’re having coffee tentatively on Thursday afternoon.

As I sit here on Sunday afternoon, I am thinking I won’t renew my three month membership. I have over fifty matches and the odds are long in my favor of finding a companion from the current matches between now and when my membership ends.

Perfectomundo.

Life is good for me.

The MINI and Me
I was out running errands today. It wasn’t cool so I had the top down. It was nice weather for driving. The MINI rolled over 10,000 miles today. I didn’t have my camera with me and even if I did I wouldn’t have been able to take a photo of the blink over.


While I was out driving, I pulled into a car wash and had the MINI cleaned up. I am seeing new women this week so I wanted to have the MINI look nice for me.

Teaching
I got a bonus for good teaching last quarter. It wasn’t very much, only USD$400 before taxes. Still it was nice to get. I had my best quarter yet at the school. I managed to achieve 14 out of 15 goals.

The ironic aspect of the last quarter was that I got a horrible student evaluation in the one course that I earned a bonus in teaching. I had very high positive variances from the norms fro that course.

I had a couple of students who didn’t like me because I made them read the textbook, do the assignments, and I caught two of them plagiarizing their assignments. That earned those two a zero on the assignment and that bounced them off of the Dean’s List. It also earned them a remark in their online records for plagiarism.

This is one group of student that I won’t be writing letters of recommendation for.


Be well and stay happy.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Who are Barbara, Connie, Alise, Mary, Kristen, Joanne, Jean, Pat, Kathy, Linda, and Lynne?

Who are Barbara, Connie, Alise, Mary, Kristen, Joanne, Jean, Pat, Kathy, Linda, and Lynne?
I joined eHarmony.com last night.

The Princess had said that I should try it; she has been saying this to me for three or four years now. I’m a slow listener sometimes. Even my former wife has encouraged me to join some service like eHarmony or one of the other similar programs.

Today was my early morning class at school so I didn’t bother checking my email inbox before I left. I don’t like to be late to class plus I have all afternoon and evening to check the mailbox.

When I got home from school and after my lunch, I checked to see if I had any matches. I had eleven matches including two who wanted to get a message from me. I was not prepared for such a response.

Now what do I do?

First thing I did was the check where they lived. With the price of gasoline what it is now, driving, even in the MINI, can get expensive. I think I may cut one or two from the list based on geography. One of the women lives in Redondo Beach so that is a major plus for me. Another woman lives in the next town over and that is almost as good as Redondo Beach for me.

I was wondering as I was driving home from school if people sign up with more than one of these e-dating services. Would a person sign up with eHarmony.com and Chemistry.com or Match.com at the same time?

I noticed that a couple of the women are cat people and I think I may pass. I have never gotten along well with women who like and keep cats. Dogs, man’s best friend, are much different story for me.

My next step should be a close look at their profiles and see which ones come close to what I am looking for and what I like to do.

If nothing else, I will have some fresh fodder for the blog as I figure my way through this new form of dating.

Cinema
I went to see THE BLACK SWAN last week.

I really enjoyed it. Doug and I talked about it over the weekend. I thought it was a lot like INCEPTION or the SIXTH SENSE where you weren’t sure what was real and what was a part of the dreams. Doug didn’t quite share my point of view. We did agree that it was a very well made film; Doug had it as his best film of 2010.

I was talking about the BLACK SWAN in class today. I said it was a good film if any of the male students needed some chick-flick credits so they could go see TRON with a clear conscience and no nagging from Ms Could Be Right.

Tomorrow, I hope to see THE KING’S SPEECH before it leaves the local multiplex. If things go well for me, I will also get into the multiplex for TRON: THE LEGACY.

MINI and Me
It was sunny and not very cool today. I had to run a couple of errands to the cleaners and post office. I drove around with the top down for part of my driving. I did have the heater on so my feet stayed comfortable.


Be well and stay happy.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Surprised Myself

Surprised Myself
I surprised myself this morning when I stepped on my scale. The last time I weighed myself was on Christmas Day. Today, I weighed a half pound less than on Christmas Day. I was expecting to weigh more since I did eat more than I usually do during the end of year Holidays. I did get that pound of almond brittle from my niece and her friend in Colorado.

Surprises are nice.

Doug called yesterday just to check in with me. We talked about movies to go see. He recommended that I go see BLACK SWAN, TRON LEGACY, THE FIGHTER, THE KING’S SPEECH, and BLUE VALENTINE. Doug said that I shouldn’t see TRON in the IMAX format because it will be too loud for me. The films seemed like good choices. Doug said Olivia Wilde was very good in TRON.

I can see most of them during the week. My school campus is across a parking lot from a multiplex. Since I don’t have to prepare any lesson plans or lecture notes, I can go to school early, watch a film, walk across the parking lot, and make any photocopies that I need for my class.

Perfectomundo.

When you are on break, it is difficult to have any drama in your life. How exciting is it to say the big event was a short drive to the cleaners to drop off two suits for cleaning?


Be well and stay happy.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

The Year and Month by the Numbers

The Year and Month by the Numbers
I forgot to include the numbers for the year and the month in my almost end of year posting. I didn’t have all of the numbers then.

The blog saw a drop off in monthly visitors to 245 for December. December has usually been a slow month for the blog; there are other activities going on. For the year, we had 6,430 visitors and the blog has been visited 58, 221 times since its inception

The most popular blog page is January 1, 2007. The last time I checked it had 60% of the traffic. The number varies but it has been the leader since I started noticing these sort of things.


The MINI now has 9,266 miles on the odometer.

I managed to sneak in 5 hours of top down driving in December. I might have gotten in more time if December had been dryer. In the last two weeks of the month, we had about nine inches of rain in Redondo Beach. Remember, I live on the edge of desert and it is supposed to be a La Nina Year or dry year.

My cumulative top down driving time is 88.75 hours. We also had one of the coolest Summers on record this year.

I thought the MINI convertible would be the perfect car what with all the talk about global warming.


Be well and stay happy.