May 01, 2006

Out West

I'm out in California for a fun-filled week of project planning. I'm hoping to hook up with Cypher and DW for dinner, but otherwise I'm just taking it easy. Can you say Netflix?

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April 20, 2006

Alternative Medicine Manners

This morning I went to see an accountant about a tax issue – a long, unrelated story involving a mistake on my 2004 schedule D – and after getting the tax information, I was emotionally assaulted by this accountant. Perhaps "assault" is too strong of a word, but given how much it has upset me today, I can’t help but feel it’s appropriate. She certainly meant well, but she did harm, and she should have known better.

To put it in context, my father died of cancer eight months ago. I was very close to my father, and rarely does a day go by that I don’t find something that I would want to share with him. I would have to say I’m still grieving him.

So, towards the end of the session with this accountant, after I had gotten the information I needed, we fell into the chit-chat common of a service provider trying to find ways to sell more service to the customer. Bear this in mind. She was trying to drum up business, trying to be polite.

We got to talking about families and some of the money issues involved, including my mother’s health and the eventual estate issues that will result when she dies. My mother is not at death’s door or anything. It’s just every day I expect a phone call that she has died from a massive heart attack. She has all the classic warning signs but does not manage her health well.

At this point in our conversation, I said, "Dad, on the other hand, managed his health very aggressively. He had diabetes, so he really stayed on top of it. But then he got cancer and died last year."

She replied, "I had cancer four years ago, but I made it."

I nodded. "Unfortunately, they didn’t find Dad’s until it was in stage 4. They never even found the primary tumor. By the time they detected anything it had already metastasized throughout his body. Still, he lasted for two years, a lot longer than the six months they originally gave him."

She then said something about how unless our government did something, unless we "demanded" that our government do something, we were all going to die of cancer because of all the pollutants in the environment. My crackpot alarm was starting to ring, so I started trying to extricate myself, but I didn’t do it clearly enough because I didn’t want to be rude. That was my mistake. If I’d just cut her off with a "Well, perhaps, but I must be going," I would have saved myself from the resulting onslaught.

Instead, I replied with a greater level of optimism, something like, "Maybe, but I’d like to think that we’ll crack it in my lifetime."

She asked me, "What would you say if I told you there were already cures to cancer that had been shelved?"

At this point, my crackpot alarm went on full alert, and I was making for the door. "I’d want to see the data," I replied. Big mistake.

She replied with a full force lecture on the wonders of Dr. Royal Rife, of his amazing microscope, of how he could view a virus with this purely optical microscope, of how he could selectively kill viruses with his specially tuned "beam ray", and how this was so important because Rife had proven – not merely believed, but actually proven – that cancer is really just a virus. She told me how she had purchased one when she had cancer and that she was living proof of its efficacy. It would be in common use if only the government and other powers that be weren’t keeping it out of the public mindshare, if only people were not so foolishly close-minded. She told me to look it up on the internet, spelling out the name to help me get the search correct. She said more, but beyond that point it's fuzzy. I was already pretty upset.

I don’t remember what I said at that point. I know that I kept my cool and did not rip into her. Instead, I said some pleasantry and walked to the car.

For those of you curious about Dr. Rife, a Google search will turn up several pro-Rife sites such as this one, but the better information can be found at the Royal Rife Wikipedia entry which begins with:

Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 - August 11, 1971): a fraud and quack well-regarded in a small and unreliable subsection of the alternative medicine community with uncritical applause for his incredible claims for his 1933 "Universal Microscope", an optical microscope claiming an impossible resolution and cures of terminal cancer patients using his "Beam Ray" device in 1934.

Now, I’m not opposed to alternative medicine. In fact, I’m fairly open-minded to alternative approaches. Many of the remaining maladies we face are chronic and systemic, things that Western medicine’s reductionist approach often has problems with. My own experiences with massage therapy and meditation have provided me with personal anecdotal evidence that not all cures come via a pill from the doctor. However, I’m still a scientist at heart, and while I will point out shortcomings in parts of the Western approach to medicine I fully embrace its demand for results that are both reproducible and independently verifiable. Some alternative approaches have been submitted to such rigor, and those that have passed are being gradually assimilated into mainstream Western medicine.

I state my openness to make it clear that the offense I took was not at being presented with information on alternative medicine. The offense was the manner and timing of that presentation. If there are any alternative medicine advocates out there who don’t yet see the problem, let me make it crystal clear:

When someone says, "My father died of cancer last year," you are supposed to say, "I’m sorry for your loss." That’s it. End of story. You are not supposed to launch into a lecture on how some other therapy that They are repressing can cure cancer. You do not talk about how everyone who tries it is still alive today. You do not imply that those who fail to embrace these therapies are close-minded fools to be pitied. You do not, under any circumstances, imply that the lost loved one would still be here today if only they hadn’t been so stupid.

This is the second time since my father died that I’ve had to endure this type of assault from an advocate of alternative medicine. Both times I have restrained myself because I felt that social custom required me to be polite. Well, fuck that. The next one who does this gets both barrels.

A taste, just to get today’s anger out of my system:

Look, lady, I’m glad you survived your cancer. I’m glad you feel that your Rife Beam Ray helped you through it. I’m really happy for you, but your poor grasp on science is rivaled only by your lack of manners and sensitivity. The data you are citing is not data at all. It’s a random collection of anecdotal evidence with no numerical backing. There was no peer-reviewed clinical trial. The supporting proof you’re claiming is nothing but pure fantasy that you’re too ignorant to recognize. Further, you don’t know anything about my father’s case. You don’t know the type of cancer. You don’t know where it was in his body. You don’t know the therapies we tried. And you don’t know the pain I felt watching a vibrant man slowly slip away over two painful years.

YOU. DON’T. KNOW. SHIT.

Now, I know that these advocates who pressed on me so during a time of grief are the exceptions. I know several such advocates, and all the others have said the appropriate things, and I have taken comfort from their condolences. I do not wish to paint them with the same brush I use for this woman. Still, I offer it as a warning to them. Never give such advice after the fact. It will go beyond adding insult to injury. Rather, it will add injury to injustice.

Sufficed to say, this accountant won't be getting my future business.

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April 02, 2006

First sunburn... end of vacation

Well, I've apparently finished off my vacation with my first sunburn of the season. I did just a little bit of yardwork late this morning, and I did it without sunscreen. Hey, it was overcast, and I knew I'd be at it for only about 15-20 minutes, but I guess that was enough for my complexion. At least I was wearing my hat to keep it off my face.

Looking back on the vacation, it was pretty good. I got to goof off, watch movies, go on a first class trip with MAW (first class = no kids), extend the patio, relax in my new hot tub with MAW, and I even made good progress on building the my first shower unit for Flipside.

But tomorrow it will be back to the grind for real. At least this time it will be for just 40 hours instead of 70.

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March 29, 2006

Hot Tub Anticipation

After such a long push at work, I decided it was time for MAW and I to reward ourselves with a hot-tub. This seven-seater was delivered yesterday and hooked up this morning. The water is now at 70F and warming at a rate of 4 degrees per hour.

Zero-hour should be about 9pm tonight. I'm literally aching with anticipation.

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March 26, 2006

Aggiecon

Well, I just got back from Aggiecon, and I'm now into the second half of my vacation. I did fairly well at the art show, selling Intercession, Invoking Power, and Two Sides. MAW ended up taking the kids back home to stay with the nanny, so we actually got a real vacation out of it.

But tomorrow it's back to the grind: watching movies, playing games, pushing my kids on the swing... I just hope I can keep up with the pace.

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March 18, 2006

Terrell Owens signs with the Cowboys

Terrell Owens has signed a 3-year $25 million dollar contract with the Dallas Cowboys. My brother called to ask if I was serious about an earlier threat I'd made, and I have to say that I am.

Until T.O. stands in front of the crowd in Texas Stadium and apologizes for what he did as a San Francisco 49'er, I will not be watching the Cowboys play as long as he wears their uniform.

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March 17, 2006

Vacation

Work is done.

I'm on vacation for two weeks... sixteen contiguous days of not working. This hasn't happened since I took my sabbatical.

Or as MAW put it, "Now we begin the deprogramming."

A few things on tap for my vacation:

Let the deprogramming begin.

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March 02, 2006

Sweet, sweet justice

I almost always obey the speed limit. Typically, I set my cruise control for about one or two MPH over the actual limit just so that I can't be accused of "not even going the speed limit!!!" by other drivers or passengers. Still, on a lot of roads, that makes me the slow-poke, annoying a lot of other drivers. * It's not because I'm a complete square. Let's just say I'm doing penance for youthful indiscretions in this area.

There's a new 2-lane country road near where I live, and in my opinion, it should have a limit around 50mph or even 55mph. It's nice and smooth and straight. However, the speed limit is only 40mph, perhaps an omen pointing to the eventual residential development the area is destined for. Most drivers are speeding like crazy on that road, doing 50 or 60 and passing me with honks, even though the entire stretch is marked no-passing with a double-yellow line. It frustrates me because I generally feel that laws should either be enforced or repealed, not ignored. In fact, with everything else adding stress to my life, this little bit was causing me grief well out of proportion.

Well, this morning there was justice. I was driving home from the local elementary school doing my usual 41mph, and another car zoomed up on me and then tailgated me for about a mile and a half, honking and swerving to look around me. Finally, he decided he'd had enough and jumped out into the oncoming lane and punched it, blowing past me at well over sixty. He even put his hand out the window to flip me off as he pulled back in front of me, racing down the road with only the other hand on the wheel.

He must have still been doing at least sixty when he drove past the sheriff’s car tucked behind a mesquite tree a quarter mile down the road. I'd already spotted the sheriff, and I'm sure that she had seen the entire incident. I managed to catch up to them as they were pulled over but before the sheriff had gotten out of her car. I drove past very slowly -- for safety, of course -- and managed to catch the eye of the driver.

I waved.

Ah yes... sweet, sweet justice.

[* Note: On downtown highways, I edge things up to be going closer to speed of traffic as that is actually safer in such a crowded environment, but on other highways, you'd be amazed at how fast you move doing this kind of cruise control thing. In the Austin areas that have a 65mph limit, a lot of people end up doing only 60 or so. I can just set myself in the left lane and rarely have anyone come up from behind me.]

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March 01, 2006

Ash Wednesday and Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent on the Catholic calendar. While I'm not Catholic, I decided that this year I'm going to do a little purification ritual of my own. That's right, I'm going to give something up for Lent. Choosing what to give up took a lot of soul-searching, but after thoughtful reflection I've made my choice.

Overtime.

Yep, I'm going to give up overtime for Lent. It's going to be tough, given that I've been binging on it the last six months, but I think with the support of my family and the community I should be able to make it. I just ask that you all keep an eye out for me. If it looks like I'm surrending to temptation, remind me of my committment to giving myself some fucking slack for a little while.

Yeah... this'll work.

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January 27, 2006

You know you're on a death-march project when...

I'm out in California this week, and it's super-crunch time, but things are at least looking better these days, and I'm getting past concerns of stability to focus on performance tuning instead. But still, it's a lot of long hours, which inspired me for...

You know you're on a death-march project when...

But no, I'm not feeling burned out or bitter. Not at all.

(Feel free to add your own entries in the comments.)

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January 04, 2006

New Year's Resolutions

I'm not actually listing them here, but I thought I'd talk a little about last year's. My resolutions aren't the typical "I must change my entire life" plea that ends by February. They're more like the kind of performance goals your boss sets for you in your annual review. For 2005 I came in at 47.7% success, which was down from the last two years of breaking through the 50% line, but it was a rough year.

A few key successes in 2005 included:

But of course, 47% doesn't come without some failures:

We'll see how I do this year. Maybe this will be the year I break through 60%.

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December 13, 2005

Travelling

I'm out in California again this week, which sucks pretty hard. Work is in super-crunch mode, which is why I'm here, so it's not like I'm even getting the chance to do cool San Francisco things.

However, I did get a little coolness on the trip out. On the plane I sat across the aisle from a guy returning from an Alamo Drafthouse festival, their annual BUTT-NUMB-A-THON. I've never been, but it's apparently a 24-hour marathon film festival with several cool films including a few not-yet-released films. Usually, at least one of them is a surprise. This year it was the upcoming V is for Vendetta which will be released sometime in 2006. My fellow traveller was flying the film back to LA after the screening, with the film canisters taking up the other two seats on his row.

Apparently, that's his main job, flying movie prints around the country for advanced screenings. I guess they don't considering the shipping companies secure enough. But how cool of a job would that be?? You travel all around the country and even the world and go to film festivals, getting to see lots of films in advance of everyone else. I'll admit, it's not the best job for a family man, but he was young and likely single (I saw no wedding ring), so it must have been as good of a grunt job as you can find.

So, now I return to my previously scheduled, non-glamorous nose-grinding.

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December 03, 2005

I do not have cancer

As you may recall, one of the low-probability explanations of my stomach problems was stomach cancer. This was considered a very, very low probability, i.e. on the order of 1 in 15,000, so I was suprised to learn this Tuesday that when they did the endoscopy, they took a biopsy.

So, for a couple of days there, I'm wondering, "Well, what did the doctor see that made him do that? Did something look suspicious?" Anyway, the biopsy came back clear, so I do not have cancer.

It's also not a bacterial infection, and that was the real reason for taking the biopsy. However, my stomach lining is showing quite a bit of inflamation. It's not an ulcer, though, at least not yet. "Not yet" was what they said.

Here's the doc's plan:

In other news, I did manage to finish off my NaNoWriMo bit. I'd say more, but the test just finished on my work computer. Maybe later.

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November 18, 2005

Netflix

Oh my god, I actually maxxed out my Netflix queue. Apparently, you can't put more than 500 disks in the queue. I went to go add "Altered States", and boom: "You must remove some movies to add this one."

Yes, that's right. My queue is currently sitting at 500 DVDs. Man, I seriously need to stop working so hard, kick back, and just watch movies for a while.

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November 16, 2005

NaNoWriMo, Day 15

Actually, it's day 16, but I'm posting the progress as of yesterday. The work schedule has been extreme as of late, typically 12+ hours per day, including Saturday. Sunday is more of a half-day at 4 to 6 hours. Somewhere in there was even an all-nighter. and I'm way too old to be pulling that shit anymore. As such, it's no surprise that I'm behind schedule on NaNoWriMo.

After 15 days, I'm at 17,222 words, or 1148/day. To finish, my daily average needs to be almost twice that at 2185.

Charts below the fold...

nano2005_progress15.gif

As you can see, on the days that I actually get to write, I'm making decent progress. It's the days that I haven't been able to write that have been the problem. Two of these were from a camping trip that I sort of "budgeted" for, but most have been from days wehre the work demand was just too consuming. When you're finishing up work at 11:30, knowing that you need to get up at 6 the next morning, there's not a lot of energy to pile on in.

About the only good news is that I'm actually making good progress when I'm writing, around 1000 words per hour.

At this point, I'm entertaining thoughts of asking MAW to handle the driving at Thanksgiving and just getting in four hours of writing each way.

Two unrelated notes:

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November 15, 2005

Stressed

As mentioned in a previous entry, I've been having some stomach problems. I'm starting to suspect more and more that it's at least partially stress-induced.

More health stuff below the fold...

I say this partly because I've had stress-induced health problems before. About ten years ago I was diagnosed with pleurisy (inflamation of the pleuritic sac around the lungs causing difficulty breathing and severe chest pain), and my doctor determined it was stress induced. Apparently I was pulling in my left shoulder and holding it tight, thereby agitating the pectoral badly enough to irritate the tissues around the ribs all the way down to the pleuritic sac. Ever since then I would always feel my left pectoral start to burn whenever I was stressed.

And now, in the last week or so (as I'm now on my 9th straight 12+ hour day) I've been feeling that burn. At the same time, my stomach has been getting worse and worse.

Blech!

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November 06, 2005

Back from Workside

I spent the weekend out at the new land for Flipside. It was a work weekend, and while we wielded no shovels, I'm still quite spent. Mostly it was a group survey, and I helped with the team that was checking out the existing infrastructure and seeing what needed to be repaired or replaced. My quest for adding showers looks a little more feasible, though we're waiting on word from the land owner on some issues, both in terms of permission and also to better understand the fire-suppression requirements.

All in all, the land looks very good. It's big, and it has a real beauty that was lacking at Recreation Plantation. However, it's also dangerous. We're making it a high priority to add some safety features to the land, marking out the danger zones, but I cannot stress enough that this land is dangerous, mostly due to numerous cliffs and other sharp elevation changes. There were perhaps only 100 of us there, and even then we had two injuries: a sprained ankle and a broken wrist. So on that note, some were suggesting that we have found our theme for Flipside 2006: "Culling the Herd"

And on the subject of this odd community, I was sitting around a campfire with someone, and he mentioned that he had a friend living on ten acres nearby. And I was thinking of how conenient that will be for this friend. "Is he a Burner?" I asked. He thought it over for a moment and replied, "No, he's pretty stable."

(Oh, I know I promised NaNoWriMo charts. The first will be on the 10th. At present, I'm a little behind due to work and camping, but it's not really NaNoWriMo unless you've fallen behind in the first week.)

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October 31, 2005

It's official... NaNo 2005

It's official. Tanya and I sealed our NaNo2005 suicide pact this dark and stormy Halloween, and I decided to start from scratch rather than continue on my other novel-in-progress.

Wish me luck. Expect charts!

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October 30, 2005

Generic Update

It’s been a while since I’ve done a generic update, so here it is:

LHS83L29SS02048XLSO299892-XLS93L1::883S.2

And for those who need a bit of help interpreting the summary…

And that’s about it. I should probably go for a walk.

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Travelling the time zones tonight...

A little lame and a little weird, but...

I'm staying up late working tonight, and I'm looking at two computers I have here in my office. My personal machine is on Central time, while my work machine is on Pacific time. Normally they're always two hours apart, but at the moment, my personal machine has already switched to standard time while the work machine is still on daylight savings time.

So, when you're approaching 2AM for the second time in one night, it's best not to stick around for the third and fourth times.

Off to bed.

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October 26, 2005

To NaNoWriMo or Not To NaNoWriMo?

It's almost Halloween, and that means my mind is turning to the National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo). That's right, it's the time of year when thousands of would-be writers, manic-depressives, and masochists say, "Yeah, I'd like to try to write an entire novel in one month." Hey, at least they don't try it in February. The question I'm struggling with is, do I do it again this year?

I did it last year, and while I did succeed, the whole experience was a mixed bag of good and bad experiences. So, I'm enumerating some of them in hopes of reaching a conclusion. Also, both Marvin and Tanya did it last year, and I'm curious as to where they are on some of these issues as well as the larger question of NaNo2005.

Good: It was an insane goal, but I did actually crank out the required 50,000 words in 30 days. It had a nice sense of accomplishment.

Bad: While I met the NaNoWriMo challenge (50K in 30 days), the novel itself was not finished. It's now a 65,000 tale that stops right in the middle of Act 2.

Good: Hey, I was actually writing for a while there, and that's a good thing. I like to think I have a lot of creative ideas, but they're also like little demons, constantly chipping away at my ability to concentrate. Getting them out into concrete form is a form of exorcism.

Bad: Did you see the Exorcist? Yeah, well something like that. When I'm writing, I tend to have much more vivid dreams, at least I remember more vivid dreams... but also nightmares. It can be a little stressful working through that stuff.

Good: While I haven't actually shown my NaNo2004 output to anyone, I think it's actually pretty good. That is, I think I was actually putting out something pretty good, so if I ever finish it and edit it, I think I've got a real novel on my hands.

Bad: Yeah, and if I do the same thing this year, I'll now have two really good, really unfinished novels in the closet.

Neutral: I could, of course, try to finish NaNo2004 as my NaNo2005 effort, but that's sort or cheating. I sort of did that last year since I was already a little bit into the novel before November, but it had stalled out several months earlier. I still did the 50K, so it wasn't really cheating, just sort of. But I don't think I'm up to diving in with the necessary fresh energy to pick up on something that stalled out last December.

Bad: It took a lot of time last year, time I could have spent with my family, or on my job, etc. The same will be true this year. Plus, time is even scarcer this year since I've planned one weekend trip and Thanksgiving is going to involve travelling this year, making it that much harder. I can probably just whack five days out of the calendar.

Good: Last year I was trying to do it while I was also sick, and with the exception of some ongoing stomach issues, I'm feeling pretty good.

Bad: I was also thinking about a 12-part rendering project to do in November, and that would be tough to do as well as NaNo.

Good: I've got a plot idea that should do fairly well. It won't require a lot of advance research, and if it goes really badly, I don't have a lot emotionally invested in it so far.

Bad: I snacked incessantly while writing last year, a habit that lasted through the winter, making me about 15 to 20 pounds heavier than I was last year. I can't have a repeat of that.

Good: The cameraderie of it was fun, being in it with others that I knew as well as anonymous strangers on the NaNo forums.

Neutral: Work is being really demanding right now. I say this is neutral because while it's really eating into my personal time, it's also consuming me, and I could use a distraction that's at least moderately healthy.

Well, I'm not going to tally it up, and I haven't really reached a decision. It's tempting, but I don't know if I have it in me this year. In the end, I think a lot of it will depend on whether friends do it and on what MAW thinks.

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