Category: Uncategorized

So I just got off the phone with ATT/SBC/Yahoo/whoevertheyare, setting up my new DSL account so I can blissfully dropkick roadrunner across the room.  Griped to the guy that I was reduced to working in coffeeshops.  The guy asks if he can sell me the service that lets me log into the AT&T hotspots (places like airports, and Barnes and Noble).

I hadn’t done so because, well, I feel like I should be supporting the businesses that give out wireless access for free.  But he tells me that the AT&T thing costs 2 bucks a month. 

Who knew?  I’d always assumed this would be a much more expensive service.  For under 25 bucks a year, which I’ll feel was worthwhile just for the chance to surf while waiting to get on flights at IAH?

Yay technology. 

Meanwhile, think I’ll pack up and relocate to a coffeeshop that has better music playing.

I kind of knew when I embarked on the current career path that somewhere in there I’d start having people approach me about jobs (rather than the other way around). Thus far, the only flirting has happened locally, and with jobs that weren’t really more attractive than the one I already have.

Just had a head-hunter approach me about a pretty high-level position in a major corporation. The candidate description they sent fits me awfully well.  The job is out-of-state and probably wouldn’t allow for a clinical practice.

Suddenly I’m being faced with a fork in the road.  If I really want to make a top-tier career in my area, I should probably go for this job.  If I place my career secondary to other concerns – like living in a city I love, surrounded by people I love – it’s not as attractive of a job.

Sigh.  Soul-searching time…

Of course, it could turn out that there’s tons of people far more qualified than me for the job, and that I haven’t a snowball’s chance of getting it anyway.

In the background is playing some lovely piano by Brahms.  Which is great, except that something kept triggering a “I know that song!” feeling in the back of my head.  It would follow perfectly my memory of the tune, and then suddenly veer off in the wrong direction – so I knew I wasn’t actually just remembering the Brahms piece.

Thought back on albums I recently listened to and realized I was hearing big bits of the song “Love of my Life” from Santana’s grammy-winning album Supernatural. OK, so that’s why I knew the tune.  Doesn’t look like Santana acknowledges Brahms anywhere on the album; Google tells me that many people found that offensive. I don’t suppose Brahms cares much, really – he’s dead and all.

No real point here, just feeling clever that I noticed it and bemused by how hard it was to place the song out-of-context like that.

I’m redesigning the forms people fill out when they come into the clinic.  There’s two reasons for this:  first, the existing forms are confusing and somewhat redundant.  Second, I want paper forms that easily compare to the electronic forms so that we can easily move back and forth from people filling out computer forms directly, or filling out paper forms that a staff member transcribes to the computer.

So I was looking at the various questions we ask: Marital Status, Who lives with you, Profession, Education.

Found myself thinking “what’s the purpose behind these questions?” I’m not planning to judge anyone, after all.  So the real questions are actually things like “are you having sex with anyone, because if so I should consider pregnancy and STDs as possible diagnoses when you’re sick”, and “when you’re really sick, is anyone there at home to call 911 for you?” and “Is it possible to do your job with the symptoms you have”, and “are you likely to understand what I’m talking about when I discuss your diagnosis with you”….

And those questions sort of miss the point for a lot of people.  A high-school educated lab tech understands more biology than many PhDs in areas like art or literature. Married people sometimes live alone.  Homosexual patients may live with a life-long partner, but only “single” technically applies. Heck, the most accurate box for me is technically “divorced” even though I’ve lived with K now for longer than I was ever married.

So redesigning, to avoid being all judgemental and not asking what we really want to know, how about things like:
Describe your living situation: (checkboxes for “I live alone”, “I live with one or more roommates”, “I live with a spouse or partner”, “I live with my children”, “I live in a nursing home or assisted living facility”…  maybe “I live in a dorm”

So the question is – what new set of things am I missing with my new questions?

Was sitting at the edge of the cat-apault (formerly known as the treadmill) putting on my sneakers, when I felt something tickling my arm.  Sure enough, there was the Koshka cat, exploring the treadmill.  She seemed remarkably unconcerned.

K says she was smart enough to realize that it wasn’t on, and that she’s safe if the motor isn’t running.  I am not certain he’s right, but she did skedadle when I stood up to stretch.  So hypothesis 1 is that she understands the on/off thing.  Hypothesis 2 is that she thinks it’s safe if I’m sitting next to her but isn’t willing to try it on her own.

Interesting to watch her make new connections about the world in that furry little brain of hers…

I stopped at the grocery on Thursday night – I was in the mood for something fresh for dinner.  Standing in line with my little basket of veggies and meat, I observed the customers around me.  The four other people in my line were young men between the ages of 20 and 35 (I’m guessing).

Bachelor #1 was buying:  Two large boxes of Wheaties.  A jug of milk.  A half-gallon of ice cream.
Bachelor #2 was buying: Two foot-long premade sandwiches.  Two 2-liter bottles of diet Coke. A bag of corn chips.
Bachelor #3 was buying: Large box “success” brand rice. Large-size can of something (couldn’t quite see what).  Large bottle generic cola.
Bachelor #4 was buying: Bottle wine.  Two packs beer. Box Hamburgur helper (no actual meat – assume he has some at home?)

Made me wonder what bachelors ate 100 years ago, before there was so much pre-packaged sustenance food available…

So I’m doing my routine computer hygeine maintenance stuff (backing up files, etc) – long overdue, of course.  I was reminded by this AM’s thunderstorms.

And I keep coming across all this stuff about the various ways you can keep your PC/Windows machine all clean and spiffy.  I never see stuff like that for the Mac.  Do Macs have problems with registry errors, spyware, malware, etc?  At minimum I’d think a sniffer for duplicate files would be useful. 

Any Mac users out there, who can point me to good Mac hygeine tools?

Several of my flist have noted they simply don’t want to discuss this topic because they are upset – so I’ll put my post behind a cut.

Title on a draft for a journal submission, written by someone whose English is known to be a bit questionable:

“On the importance of G Strings for strong binding”.

Hmmmm….