Hey--it's blood test day! Nothing new here--CBC, thyroid panel, fasting blood sugar, etc. We can all take bets on how high my adjusted sed rate is.
So, off to Kaiser at 7AM. Two reasons for this--one, I do want to eat breakfast before I get exceptionally cranky, and two, I can usually get the shift supervisor or a juvie nurse on staff to do the honours. The title for this piece is from the shift supervisor.
Why? Because I have shitty veins. As one nurse told me: "you're lucky you have such light and thin skin, because then we can all see that your veins look like curly-q's". Yup--they're small, they curl all over everywhere, and they roll.
I am a blood-taker's nightmare.
The problem starts when some six-month wonder decides that I am a personal challenge. Now, I have a fairly, no very high tolerance to pain, but when someone starts digging for treasure in multiple excavations on both arms, damnit, it *hurts*. Especially when they completely pierce the veins, and I end up bleeding all over everywhere. Oh, did I say I'm slow to clot? Sure! I had one CST nearly in tears, but not before she nailed the pits of both elbows, the tops of both hands, and the top of my right arm. They finally brought someone else in and they took the blood out of my wrist, which then took about 3 weeks to come back to normal colour.
That, BTW, was one of the reasons I switched internists. The previous model was into the "I dunno, let's keep taking blood tests every week" school of medicine. I pointed out that I was never healing, much less getting good information (this guy also had me doing my own blood work sheets--don't ask...). If you aren't a physician, and you are a better diagnostician than your physician, it's time to move on, folks....
So, this morning I get the shift supervisors. After a couple of comments about my shitty veins, she decided to go for the sneaky one that always looks so tempting. She patted. She rolled. She patted again. Then she got up on top of the stepstool so she could hit things from perpendicular, and went for it.
And gloryoski, she hit it on the first time. Three tubes later, I'm getting a pressure bandage and getting out of there. Tonight there's a 1cm bruise around the site and the puncture mark, but that's it. Okay, that I can handle.
They aren't all this easy, and they aren't all that rough. I used to get the blood tests on Fridays, until I realized that this was the day they do outpatient surgery, and they brought all the kiddies who were getting their tonsils out to get the std panels. The phlebotomist always wanted me to get mine done first, so the kids wouldn't freak. I kept having to point out that I am *not* a good example. That's when I found out that the people in pediatrics could do a pretty good job on my veins. And I got a Bullwinkle bandage when I was done. What a deal!
Latest in a series, this one from What D&D Character Are You?
I Am A: Chaotic Good GnomeRanger Fighter
Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.
Race:
Gnomes are also short, like dwarves, but much skinnier. They have no beards, and are very inclined towards technology, although they have been known to dabble in magic, too. They tend to be fun-loving and fond of jokes and humor. Some gnomes live underground, and some live in cities and villages. They are very tolerant of other races, and are generally well-liked, though occasionally considered frivolous.
Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.
Secondary Class:
Fighters are the warriors. They use weapons to accomplish their goals. This isn't to say that they aren't intelligent, but that they do, in fact, believe that violence is frequently the answer.
Deity:
Baervan Wildwanderer is the Neutral Good gnomish god of forests, travel, and nature. He is also known as the Masked Leaf. His avatar is always accompanied by an intelligent, giant raccoon, named Chiktikka Fastpaws. His followers, like him, enjoy the outdoors and work to protect it and guard those who also enjoy it. Their preferred weapon is the halfspear.
Find out What D&D Character Are You?
Detailed Results:
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXX (5)
Neutral Good ---- XXXX (4)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXX (7)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXX (6)
True Neutral ---- XXXXX (5)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXX (4)
Lawful Evil ----- (-1)
Neutral Evil ---- (-4)
Chaotic Evil ---- (-2)
Race:
Human ---- XX (2)
Half-Elf - X (1)
Elf ------ XXXXX (5)
Halfling - (-1)
Dwarf ---- XX (2)
Half-Orc - (-2)
Gnome ---- XXXXXX (6)
Class:
Fighter - XXX (3)
Ranger -- XXXXX (5)
Paladin - X (1)
Cleric -- (0)
Mage ---- (0)
Druid --- (-2)
Thief --- (-2)
Bard ---- (0)
Monk ---- (0)
USA Today has the latest in the low carb stuffage.
Okay, I won't drink any of the malt liquor based drinks in any case, because the full-sugar versions taste vile, and I don't think that swapping out Splenda for the sugar is going to do anything for the product.
Unilever, the folks who bring you Skippy peanut butter, Wishbone salad dressings, and Lawry's steak sauces, are also providing low-carb, Splenda sweetened versions of a bunch of their products. Klondike bars now come in a Splenda sweetened version, as does the new Atkins ice cream bars. Russell Stover is also offering a full line of Splenda sweetened chocolates (I suspect that there is a sugar alcohol in there somewhere, as the Klondike bars use Sorbitol, and the Hershey's products use a mix of Splenda and Lactitol).
You'll notice that I keep mentioning the sweetener. That's because the best thing that could have happened to Splenda is that the late Dr Atkins gave the sweetener his blessing. The low carb crowd is looking for it, and not Nutrasweet/Equal (aka aspartame) in their sweetened goodies.
My response? woo-hoo! I'm not an aspartame fan--the stuff just tastes weird to me. I shouldn't do sugar--feed me a fruit punch and watch my blood sugar go to 300mg/dl before dropping down to 70mg/dl--and all those sources of hidden sugar, which are actually high yield fructose corn syrup, can be annoying to find out about ex post facto.
Interesting thing though, even though the Pepsi spokesman was quoted as saying they were going to ride the low carb horse, even though it might only last for a year, they are still insisting on riding the aspartame horse. At some level, they either don't understand the full Atkins message, or hope that the low carb crowd doesn't. Right now a lot of diet soda outlyers, Diet Rite and Hansens are the two available here in the SF Bay Area, use Splenda (sucralose) and advertise as such. I think that if Coca Cola or Pepsi does a reformulation and markets it to the low carb crowd, they could realize a significant chunk of change. It makes me wonder if one or the other will market a sub-brand with Splenda, and if there is long-term interest, switch the major brand line over.
If I were, given the number of times I've been cut by skate blades (and steel being cold iron's first cousin), I'd have already been reduced to a pile of faerie dust a couple hundred times over.
a question to ask
is it me who you don't trust
or you don't trust you
what i though was depth
turn'd out to be a sinkhole
damn, disappointing
Gonna add the title "Wendybird" to the list of job titles already on the business card....
Trouble is, he's now shorter and older. Hey folks, Harley Earl was *tall*-retrofitting him to 5ft10 so it's easier to film the commercial just doesn't work on so many levels....
Non, Rien De Rien, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
Ni Le Bien Qu`on M`a Fait, Ni Le Mal
Tout Ca M`est Bien Egal
Non, Rien De Rien, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
C`est Paye, Balaye, Oublie, Je Me Fous Du Passe
Avec Mes Souvenirs J`ai Allume Le Feu
Mes Shagrins, Mes Plaisirs,
Je N`ai Plus Besoin D`eux
Balaye Les Amours Avec Leurs Tremolos
Balaye Pour Toujours
Je Reparas A Zero
Non, Rien De Rien, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
Ni Le Bien Qu`on M`a Fait, Ni Le Mal
Tout Ca M`est Bien Egal
Non, Rien De Rien, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
Car Ma Vie, Car Me Joies
Aujourd`hui Ca Commence Avec Toi
And now I know to look for the Mercer St exit on the 99N...
SJC had a chain of events that led to some seriously unhappy people. A Mexicana flight was very late. Apparently it's some configuration that can land at only a few gates. So, an ATA flight was bumped down to the Alaska Air portion of the terminal. Which meant that all the passengers who had already checked in and passed security had to wander all the way down, and pass through security again.
Now, the Alaska Air end of the terminal is not huge--it's set up for four smallish flights over four hours--these guys are flying MD80s and 737's. Whatever ATA flies, it's a heck of a lot bigger. And the people on the flights aren't the usual "geek flight" crowd who take off to Portland and Seattle. I mean, if I'm stinking drunk at 11:30 on a Sunday morning, I'll have a good reason. This appeared to be SOP with these folks....
So, we have a really large passel of polluted, pissed-off customers who are taking it out on the security people. Heck, I don't appreciate taking off the shoes, and once again explaining, that *yes*, I have a Mac and a Windows laptop. But go deal--that's the gig.
So, having a massive line not moving because people are going out of their way to be obnoxious is no fun...
Then the Alaska Air people came and parsed us out of the line and put us into our own security line. Yes! Even with the ATA passengers trying to cut in--and I mean cut in--some cut in right before the security gate with moves that should have gotten them two for elbowing. Those seemed to get the extra special check by the security people...
So, I get through security after explaining that yes, I have two laptops (this cannot be that odd), and yes I have an iPod, and yes I have a cell phone will all sorts of interesting dongles--is it just that I don't look geeky enough?--and sit down for a wait. Since the ATA flight took over 2/3rds of the waiting area and the gate the Portland flight was supposed to have used, we were told that the Seattle flight would board as soon as Portland left.
Which was the cue for the Portland flight to leave late.
And I have someone two seats down from me, bitching to no one in particular that Alaska Air could announce *why* the Seattle flight wasn't boarding yet, yadda, yadda, yadda...
I dunno buddy--maybe they're hoping for higher brain function from their passengers?
So, we load 15 minutes late. The flight's about 1/2 full, and I find out that row 29 on an MD 80 is right across the galley. The flight attendants point out that the seats behind the galley will be empty, and I can spread out after the flight's taken off. woo-hoo!
I have a row to myself, a full can club soda, a nicely filled iPod and the O'Reilly UML book. I am livin' large on Alaska Air!
And the flight makes up all the time it lost up front, and gets into SEA ahead of time.
I have a Mustang with Sirius radio, and it looks like, for a change, Seattle is not going to have weird weather while I am up here.
Let the office trip begin!
My going on 11 yr old Geo Prism started to show electrical problems right before the holidays--when I drove it one evening, the lights dimmed when I came to a stop. Not fun--either the alternator (which I had replaced five years ago) or something between the alternator and battery was decidedly unhappy. When it completely crapped out the next afternoon, I left it in the Big Red A garage, and Chuq and I picked it up, jumped it, and hauled it off to Pep Boys in San Jose.
They proceeded to tell me that it was obviously the battery draining while I had it sitting for two weeks, ignoring the symptoms that I wrote down and told them. Apparently, the local linearity of time meant nothing to them. So, they allegedly (we'll get back to this later) checked the electrical system, charged the battery, and sent me on my way.
And by Sunday, the battery had drained again. Jumped and took it back to Pep Boys for a make good.
Well, this time I get a different guy at the counter, and he tells me that the machine they use to testing has been sent back to corporate, since it wasn't working right. They go ahead and check the battery, just to make sure that it isn't dying prematurely, and leave it at that.
Oh yeah, did I mention that they were supposed to call me both times, and I ended up having to call them?
So, I come in this afternoon, while they are dealing with more than one pissed off customer who either hasn't had their car worked on yet, and were told anyway to come pick up their car, or who had a repair botched. Lovely.
I get the same idiot who tried to tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about on Friday, and after I tell him I'm going to go to the dealer and have them tell me what's going on, he tells me to bring it back in to them tomorrow, when their "master technicians" are on duty.
And what the heck are they going to test it with--a dead chicken?
So, tomorrow I call the dealer (unless someone out there can point me to a killer electrical mechanic in the Santa Clara/Sunnyvale/Cupertino area), and get the car in to have *them* figure it out. I will invoke the name of my oldest brother, who manages a bunch of service areas for the LA Chevy people, and we will see where we go from there.
But it will be a long time before I ever deal with Pep Boys again...
Update: The dealer's mechanics found a 3amp drop across the system, which is something the Pep Boys people should have caught. However, it's not any of the usual suspects, so the dealer's mechanics are now playing "find the pinched wire", which will triple the estimate on the fix, as it's a much more manual process. This is something the Pep Boys crew can't even attempt.
I wonde how many times Pep Boys would have told me I was full of shit, and recharged the battery again--and likely start accusing me of keeping the lights on?
The local newspaper delivers the Sunday stuffers on Saturday, so today was the first crack at the "it's New Years--time for a diet" advertisements.
And if you go by the ads, the bloom is off the low carb rose. Not because no one is offering low carb products, it's because almost all of the food concerns are jumping on the low carb bandwagon. Given what they did to low fat (hello trans-fats and corn syrup), I'm not holding out hope that they will get this right, either.
So, we have Slim-Fast (Unilever) now offering a low-carb drink, Kraft (R J Reynolds) pushing their cheese as a low carb alternative (well, yeah, cheese is on Atkins, that's true), and Lean Cuisine (Stouffer's, which is a subsidiary of Nestle) is introducing a line of low carb frozen foods. All seem to have decided that using a process colour one off of Atkins blue is a good marketing tool. even MorningStar Farms (Kellogg's) is pointing out that their soy goodies are low carb, and tasty--really!
Absent from the fray is Con Agra, who does Healthy Choice. Healthy Choice is firmly entrenched in the low fat camp (and the reason why you'll see a lot of low fat food packaging with an inordinate amount of green), so I'm not sure how they could add a line without seriously impacting their marketing message. I checked their web site, and it doesn't seem to be anything under another.
Heinz is currently sticking with Weight Watchers red, and since Weight Watchers insists on my having Netscape or MSIE, guess I'm not going to check out their site (note to Weight Watchers--get with the rest of the world and support some other browsers. Or maybe it's just that Safari and Mozilla users have better taste than to eat your watery, underseasoned crap, so you gave up on selling to them. Whatever.)
My main worry is that with the commoditizaton of low carb is that the usual pack of penny-pinchers will come in and start mucking with the formulae--better to increase that margin, right? The trouble is, low carb appears to have a smaller margin of error than low calorie or low fat. Start sneaking in half grams of carbs here and there, futz with portion sizes, or start heavily using sugar alcohols (YMMV on sugar alcohols--some people do well on such, some people might as well be chowing down Ex-Lax), and you're going to have a lot of people who can't figure out why they aren't losing weight when they're eating all the "right things".
Which is pretty much what happened with low fat--you had people chowing down an entire package of low fat cookies or hoovering a large bag of bake potato chips, not thinking that just because it's half the calories with 1/3 of the fat, doesn't mean you can eat four five servings of the stuff.
While the Atkins people will tell you that it isn't the calories, but the low carb, underestimate the power of massive rationalization when it comes to chowing down on way too much low carb whatever. If the food companies make it easy to not "count" the carbs, the carbs will not be counted!
Talking to a friend at Purdue--it's 15F warmer there than here, even though it's 3 hours later into night.
This is nuts--snow in Portland, monsoons down here in the Bay Area, and the roads between here and there are opening and shutting like a bad putt-putt on speed.
Nope, this won't do. I don't mind winter, but continual out of bounds conditions annoy me. Time to get the weather gods together for a process review. Seems like every little thing needs a good program manager these days....
And I'm -5 for the month of December. Still 5lb away from a size downshift, but spring clothes buying season ought to be interesting.
The flavourants showed--salty is sour cream, and sweet is maple sugar. The salty is a definite improvment from last month, which as far as I could tell, was based on Kraft Blue Cheese dressing.
I like bleu cheeses. I like a good bleu cheese dressing--I'll use all sorts of veined cheeses, but gorgonzola is nice, and they make some interesting stuff in Oregon that goes well with mixed winter greens. But the bottled "we've added 'blue cheese' flavourings to our mix of corn syrup solids and partially hydrogenated whatsit oil"--uh, no.
BTW, the Gloria Vanderbult summer weight jeans shrunk. The winter weight jeans didn't. And the Ralph Laurens didn't budge a micrometer. Going to have to find a high-end consigment shop for "couple of month" wear, or decide that I'm going to burn through clothes for the time being.
Fried brain sandwiches.
You know, anything that needs that much in the way of condiments is either a lot blander than people are claiming or is just a platform for delivering deep-fried goodness. I've eaten a lot of pork tenderloin sandwiches--you know, the ones that go way beyond the bun and cover the plate--and I do know what that's about. It is a fine thing in its own right, but at least be reasonable about why you're eating it.
Oh yeah, for the record, I willingly eat, liver, kidneys, and tripe. I've convinced the nice people in the tacqueria that yes, I do know what the birria is made of. Or the tacos de lengua (should be lengueta, go deal, I'm ordering lunch here) for that matter. Not like I'm squeamish or anything...
As noted earlier, we decided to take 101 south rather than I5 from Portland to San Jose. One of the things about taking 101 is that you get to see some of the cities along the way. Sometimes *way* too slow, but you get to see them.
Observations:
1. I'd rather drive in deeper snow with people who know how to deal with snow than light snow with those who don't. Driving over the Grapevine in snow flurries and dealing with crazed Angelinos was a lot rougher than 4 inches of snow in Northern Oregon. Portland doesn't get *that* much snow, but the locals don't treat it like fallout.
2. SW Oregon and NW CA have a lot more to do with each other, marketing-wise, than with their own states. The easiest way to check is by looking at the local supermarkets . I watched "Ray's Food Place" appear on the Oregon coast, and continue on through Cloverdale. When we pulled into Santa Rosa, the local was a Raley's. When Albertson's, Safeway, and Kroger end up owning all the supermarkets, that marker will go away.
3. Fred Meyer's (not the same as Meijer's, for those of you in the MichIana region) may not have stores in California, but they've gotten awfully good at building a goodly sized store as close to the state line as they can figure out.
4. Where the heck are the Starbucks in Eugene?
5. Could someone still in Portland tell me what the heck the Mordor Moka sold at Motor Moka has in it? Or was someone just being clever at advertising "one drink to rule them all". I'm rather hoping for a quad or quint mocha.
6. I do love the "wall of syrups" at the drive-through espresso stands I frequent in the PNW. Even though I'm likely to stay with the hazelnut syrup in my "how big can you make that latte, anyway?".
7.Satellite radio is made for the SW OR/NW CA area. Not because there are no radio stations, it's that if I'm going to listen to whatever is syndicated and shoved down via satellite, I might as well have 100 choices instead of 5. I would like to thank the ionosphere for opening up on time--we were dx'ing Las Vegas and LA.
We started the drive back down to SJ yesterday, hoping to keep ahead of the worst of the weather. Since I5 continued to be a problem (no use getting over the Siskiyous to get stuck in Yreka for a long weekend), we decided to cut over to the 101 at Reedsport, and work our way down from there.
Well, the T-Mobile Coverage Map tells the tale. Once I was past Coos Bay, it was all over until I hit about 10 miles north of Santa Rosa. Now, I don't expect to have coverage in the mountains, but given I saw ads for Verizon and Nextel in the Eureka/Arcata area, having something there would have been very useful. Since we stopped in Ukiah, which looks to be about 30 mi shy of the service area, I spent the evening w/o service as well.
Really, unless you're on an Interstate (and even then, it's pretty spotty--hope you don't have to travel I80 anytime soon if you have this service), west of the Mississippi, T-Mobile coverage is pretty awful. And the map looks eerily similar to what they showed me last year, with promises of expanding such "real soon now".
Sorry guys, but when I have a cell phone, I actually expect it to be mobile.