Mar 16
Last week, the Huffington Post had this link up on its Science section, nice to see something other than the anti-vax idiocy. I quickly recognized it was only the old ion-engine design. This was used recently with a probe or two but it has never been thought of as practical with passengers. The story does mention the biggest factor holding this back is a power source.
I think propulsion is a lower priority with going to Mars. Keeping the crew alive from all of the Sun’s dangerous byproducts (radioactive flares) our atmosphere normally shields us from is the biggest unsolvable problem, something recently brought up by NASA’s current boss Charles Bolden. Personally, I think the first mission to Mars will be a small town full of people going and the plan will involve them staying there for at least a year.
Mar 14
It seems the medication the nurse (not a PA or doctor) prescribed for Somara wasn’t enough. There was some slight, brief progress after Tuesday evening but a huge regression happened yesterday. I don’t know how severe it is until I get her to a specialist or at least a full-fledged doctor tomorrow morning. I’m not blaming the nurse from last week. She did the best she possibly could based upon the data available, etc. Medicine doesn’t always get it right on the first attempt unlike Star Trek and medical dramas. However, I thought the free-market was supposed to solve the issues of expertise/availability as per the Right-Wing Noise Machine. Obviously, it’s not true since most doctors in America are Nine-to-Fivers like everybody else. No wait, I’m using anecdotal experience as evidence as the many critics of Canada’s system like to use, never mind the statistics and facts contrary to those claims.
Personally, I prefer the Bismarck model so I don’t know why my opponents always point to our northern neighbor.
Either way, we’re hoping for a better, more hopeful diagnosis because the steroids didn’t work (or they’re perceived as failing) and if it doesn’t clear up soon, I will be the exclusive driver of our new car (and probably the old one too), which our friend Juliana will be overseeing the final details on!
Mar. 16, 2010 Update: The doctor had nothing useful to report. Immediate results from the blood test reported everything as normal. Somara received some stronger motion-sickness medication (dramamine on steroids?) and we’re off to a specialist in two weeks. Meanwhile, I had the honor and thrill to drive her pickup truck on its final commute today. I did alright, I gradually got the hang of taking it out into first gear without grinding it too much by the time we arrived at Apple. I hope her medication kicks in by the time we go to the Honda dealership tonight. I feel Somara should give the ol’ S-10 its final drive.
Mar 14
This was achieved back on Tuesday but I didn’t get around to ripping, cataloging and inventorying the material until today. Of course, you’re probably thinking, “CDs? Does anybody buy those anymore?” Guilty. I’m not quite the musical Luddite as those caught up in the vinyl resurgence as much as I loved my 45s in Seventies and LPs in the Eighties, I will never miss their downsides regardless of the 180-gram stuff being manufactured now. I prefer to have a hard copy of what I buy and the CD (a format which is now over 30 years old) works best since I’m a music nerd who actually skims over the booklet looking over the details about the record’s production: location, guests and producer. Trust me, sometimes the right producer can help you make a decision on buying material from a band you’ve never heard of: the most famous case in 20 years would be Ric Ocasek producing Weezer’s 1994 debut.
So which album received the honor of being number 2500 in my collection?
The new Peter Gabriel release Scratch my Back. I fudged the data entry to give it to him, most people wouldn’t recognize the majority of my recent purchases. Besides, he turned 60 this year. It’s the least I can do.
This definitely puts more urgency into getting Alexandria going because I really want to show off what I’ve been collecting and enjoying for 28 years (23 of it on CD).
1690
Mar 14
My friend joins the Prime Number Club today!
What a great way to kick off Spring Break. Well, it’s Spring Break in Austin which means the UT students leave so all the jackasses with ponytails and cell phones can enjoy SXSW at our expense.
As for Nelson, he should celebrate with a birthday pie because it’s also Pi Day, 3.14 but he should kick off with breakfast at Einstein Brothers’ Bagel Co. since it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday. Lucky him. He got a genius who made some of the biggest contributions to Physics since Newton, I have the last dictator of Italy before Berloscummy.
If you know my friend, wish him well via e-mail or a phone call.
Mar 12
Yesterday wasn’t very pleasant. I’ve been fighting off the beginning of a cold with a sore throat and I managed to get the afternoon off; take an opportunity to sleep it off since I felt the worst of it was over.
Right before lunch, my iPhone went off and it was Sam (our Honda salesman) telling me the car arrived. I was under the assumption he would call when it was being unloaded from the boat in Long Beach, CA. This was then an automatic punt to Somara because it will be mainly her car and the hold up is getting the title to her truck.
The short story and conclusion to this all: the title should be in my hands today, the car isn’t completely ready (the dealership has to install a couple of the features we requested), I have to get our insurance amended to prove its covered and we go seal the deal Tuesday night.
The next step is getting the playlist together for the iPod when we take the Fit out on its inaugural cruise. This is what we have in mind, suggestions are very welcome:
- “Drive” by the Cars
- “Drive my Car” by the Beatles and covered by the Donnas
- “Driving” by everything but the girl
- “Drivin’” by Pearl Harbor and the Explosions
- “Car Song” by Elastica
- “I’m in Love with my Car” by Queen
We’re open to others as long as it doesn’t involve a particular model (hence “92 Subaru” by Fountains of Wayne or “Car Trouble” by Adam & the Ants are out).
Mar 12
My brother turns the big 4-0 today.
I hope he and his family have a nice, big three-day weekend planned to celebrate. Meanwhile, I did find a funny card, it will just be late due to Somara’s dizziness and my pre-occupation of other things getting in the way.
May the Chicago-area weather be pleasant too.
Past birthdays of his I remembered when we were kids:
- 1981: Dad taking us to the Aladdin’s Castle where we saw Berserk for the first time, a videogame that talked. Yeah, pretty impressive in 2010.
- 1985: Celebrating at the house we were leasing in North Dakota; I promise to finish the big story on ND soon.
- 1979: All the cool Star Wars stuff he got while we were settling in our new house in Springfield, IL.
Maybe we’ll even have a conversation over the phone.
If you know him, drop him a line.
Mar 10
Somara even having such a problem was news to me when she told everybody at breakfast on Sunday. Namely her ongoing issue of it for 4-6 weeks. I’m not going to discuss the why at this point because it’s irrelevant now.
Somehow it hit critical mass yesterday, enough to make her want to go to the doctor before her follow-up on the Mayo Clinic program we’re in (I’m winning on the weight-loss/exercise part). So she scored an afterwork appointment with Austin Regional Clinic and we rushed down MoPac to get there.
The good news is that the nurse found the probable cause; some kind of weird crystalizing in the ear canals which are involved with balance. Then through some yoga-esque turning of Somara’s head and torso, we learned about how the dizziness tended to manifest more often when she turns left. Thankfully it’s an infection, not the genetic thing her dad and siblings have with deafness; this also affects their balance, ask Jose about my father-in-law’s driving in the Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood) parking lot. I blame our cat Nemo since we had been battling something in his ears for several months and he tends to sleep in my region of the bed while I’m away.
Currently the plan is some powerful antibiotics, saline solution to rinse out and the yoga lite. Somara read other details of this via the Internet about vibrations near the troubled area helping. On the drive home I joked about renting the paint shaker at Home Depot to help her out. I don’t think anybody uses nor builds those silly weight loss machines from old-timey movies. You know, the devices resembling an outboard motor with a belt on it.
We should see results (or not) in a week. I’m confident the drugs should do it. I’ve had nasty blockage behind the ears in the past. Thankfully, it was only painful but I could still drive.
Mar 08
How I totally forgot about this development is a testament of how pre-occupied I was with a couple other things because last year CAMPO (Austin’s mass transit organization) finished constructing the Howard Lane stop around this time. I’ve been pretty excited to take a trip downtown with it since it’s fairly close to my house, I would say around three miles.
I already knew about its downsides:
- It only runs Monday thru Friday.
- It only runs seven sessions in the morning and another seven in the afternoon for the commuters, namely people who live in the Northwest (Leander, Cedar Park) and work downtown: lobbyists, bankers, lawyers and the few gov’t employees that actually own houses. Personally, I have rarely met anyone with a job near downtown unless it was with UT.
- It can handle just a mere couple thousand people.
- It’s probably cheaper to just drive into the city. I think a pass one way is over a couple bucks plus CAMPO has been cutting back and raising rates thanks to the (Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush) economy. Yet I won’t have to deal with parking!
There are plans to have it expanded to have a line to the airport. At the rate everything happens in America, I will be nearing retirement when it’s completed.
Which leads to me to this little tirade so forgive me now.
Of all the editorialists in the New York Times, the one I can’t stand is Thomas Friedman. He is one of the biggest corporate apologists (The Earth is Flat my ass) but I agree with him (and oddly so does his more liberal counterpart Bob Herbert) on America’s crumbling/lagging infrastructure. This tiny stretch of light rail took practically a decade to happen and it was built on existing rail lines, aka MoPac. Over 2000 years ago, the Romans built a ramp to attack Masada in six months without the aid of dump trucks, earthmovers or any heavy machinery; yes, I know the enslaved people to do it. My point is that the Romans didn’t sit around bickering for several years with committees, lobbyists and studies about population growth forecasts. Hell, many of the institutionalized systems in New York, Paris, London, Boston and Chicago were built faster than the debacle ours has been.
I hope to ride it soon and post my experience about it.
Mar 07
Last night was my co-worker/friend’s turn to pick a concert and a while back she chose Brandi Carlile who always gives me a Johnny and Rosanne Cash vibe; this is a good thing. I’m not even sure how well known this singer is outside of the Austin and probably AAA radio circles (WXRT, KGSR and World Cafe stations).
It was good to take in a show at the Hogg Auditorium too. I haven’t been there since David Byrne in 2004 too.
Anyway, on to Brandi.
The evening was an entertaining set of hits from her three albums, primarily the current release Give up the Ghost with singles like ”Dying Day” (done acoustically and without microphones, amplifiers and monitors) and “Looking Out.” Brandi must have been reading my mind regarding the Cash Family thing too because she closed up with a cover of “Folsom Prison Blues.” Besides Johnny, she and her very talented band did Dylan’s “The Times Are A-Changin’,” Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”
Mar 06
The playoff picture is heating up in the AHL as well as the NHL for us in Austin. Our Stars remain in fourth place but they won a critical game agains the Rockford Icehogs (farm team for the Blackhawks) to stay in the running.
An overtime victory is always exciting yet what made it sweeter was the return of inaugural captain Landon Wilson returning to the lineup. He also scored two of the team’s four goals! That’s twice I’ve seen him in action with a pair of goals. Oddly, he got into a fight so I was hoping he’d get an assist to give us fans a Gordie Howe Hat Trick.
This weekend, Somara and I hope to have a dinner with our friends Tina and Jeremy to work out the season-ticket plan for next year. The Stars’ near future is looking so good we will have to include the playoffs next month.
To kick off the excitement, I installed a little poll plug-in on my site. Throw in your two cents. I included a category for the uninterested.
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