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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

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    Thursday, December 24th, 2009
    silmaril
         		11:59a
    The year in review, 2009 edition
     I should have done this weeks ago, I guess, but didn't get around to it. But here we go. First sentence of the first entry of each month in 2009, unless more is necessary for context.

    January: I've already called back to say that I've arrived safely, but, as I was told to do, posting here also: I am safely back from this year's Darkfriendly celebration activities in Chicago.
    February: Sent my father home yesterday afternoon.
    March: Snow day snow day snow day yay!
    April: I have reached Zen---zero to fully-made-and-printed quiz in fifteen minutes.
    May: That went surprisingly painlessly. The propose-propose-review-propose mess of yesterday, I mean.
    June: This year's American-Turkish Council annual conference is being held at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center, at that place that most of the DC-area residents probably know as "That massive resort-looking place you see when you're crossing the river north from Alexandria."
    July: Let's see. Went to the orthopaedist on Monday. Two things: "Start putting weight on it," and "I'll see you in three weeks."
    August: Progress on the 17-minute reference point mentioned in this post from 10 days ago: Now the same distance bearing almost the same load is down to 10 minutes, with no need for pauses to rest.
    September: On my way back from Turkey; I'll be traveling for close to 26 hours door to door probably.
    October: One more hesitant step into the Century of the Anchovy... at least, I think that's the century we're in now, right?
    November: And if The Gathering Storm is nothing else, it is an impressive Clearing of the Rubble.
    December: The theme of this entry was inspired by a discussion that I saw in a friend's journal; I'll ask her permission to name her and edit the entry if she grants permission later. Late last week, she wrote a letter to the ombudsman of The Washington Post; she complained that they were giving too much coverage and media attention to the couple who "crashed" the state dinner at the White House while taking time and space away from, you know, news that might actually matter to more than five people and the Secret Service---or news that people might actually need to know.

    This is actually a fair review of the year: This was the year of the consumerist for me (new computer, new TV, new phone, NetFlix membership) and the first serious injury (and subsequent surgery) of my life; my father visited twice, I went to Turkey once; the one significant thing (~3 months of physical therapy) is not mentioned, but it's there; neither is the new dance/martial art (capoeira), but it's also there.

    Moving on, ahead.
    Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
    silmaril
         		2:30p
    Dragging myself, kicking and screaming, into... something
     I passed another one of those rites this morning: I now have a Maryland driving license. Whee.

    (I have had a Turkish driver's license since 1998. It's written in two languages, so technically it's valid here along with your passport, or something, and it's definitely valid for the first three months in the country, or something, I don't know, the laws change every fortnight and I am very sure it would make cops very flustered and sad anyway, so I almost never drove in the US. The result of the lack of practice was to make me fail the first time I tried the test, yesterday morning---I had Issues with the parallel-parking bit. One late-afternoon and four hours of practice later, no further problems this morning.

    Also, practicing parallel-parking for hours in a rental car whose power steering intermittently fails is very good for your biceps, triceps and pecs. In other words: Ow, my arms.

    Also, I owe Breno quite a bit, for his willingness to stand in the cold and imitate a post for hours on end so that I could practice. All the cones etc. we could find on the sides of the parking lots were, not surprisingly, buried in 1.5 yards of heaped snow earlier this week.)

    So yay.
    Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
    silmaril
         		11:03a
    NO movie night announcement
     Actually, for quite different reasons I have to cancel the movie night for tonight anyway.

    See y'all in January. First movie of the New Year will still be Babette's Feast.

    (Busy day, again...)
    Monday, December 21st, 2009
    silmaril
         		4:02p
    Movie night announcement
     First: I was snowed in over the weekend, along with all the rest of the region, but am fine.

    Second: Movie night, tomorrow Tuesday the 22st of December, Babette's Feast. Please let me know if you may make it, as if no one will, I will cancel it for December and resume in the New Year.
    turnberryknkn
         		3:03a


    After the janitors were done, the room at the head of the ICU hallway was spic and span, shiny and clean. You'd never know that just a few hours earlier, the bed and the floor were slick with blood and bits of human brain.

    The case was probably hopeless from the second the bullet blasted a hole in our young patient's head.

    But they tried like hell anyway.




    One more thirty hour shift in the ICU, and then home for Christmas.



    Sunday, December 20th, 2009
    turnberryknkn
         		1:15p
    Drive-by Posting: Birthdays, December 20th, 2009

    He is one of the merry crew of musical Rennie geek folks that I was lucky enough to fall into the spring evening long ago when [info]silmaril mischieviously asked if I'd like to try this thing called medieval dancing.

    He introduced me to Fluxx.. He wowed us with mad physics demonstrations. We've shared merry fiddle sessions and glorious days at Faire and all kinds of high geekery. And today is his birthday.








    Moving on from Wash U to Hopkins/NIH will, sadly, take me farther from many wonderful friends in St. Louis. It will actually be a net even, distance wise, from family and home in Michigan and my kind friends in Cynnabar. But it will actually bring me *to* many dear friends in Markland. Friends like the musical, merry, generous and gentlemanly fiddler and geek [info]bkleber. And I look forward to much music and adventure and all else in the days yet to come.

    Happy birthday, [info]bkleber. Sláinte!





    Current Mood: happy
    Current Music: Kesh Jig - Trad.
    Saturday, December 19th, 2009
    turnberryknkn
         		7:58p
    Drive-by Posting: Wassail!

    In between back-to-back thirty-hour shifts, a moment of happy rememberance.











    In Cynnabar, where I came from, we called it Wassail.

    In Three Rivers, where I am now, we call it Winter Court.

    And in Markland / Atlantia, where I am going, surely they too ring in the holiday season with a celebration of their own.




    This December has been frustratingly packed with hospital duty, in 13 and 30 hr chunks one after the other, with nary a day or breath for celebrating the season. But I remember better times in days ago, filled with carols and friends. And I look forward with hope to better days ahead.

    So here's to the Wassails of days past.

    And here's to the Wassails of days to come. :-)



    Wassail! Wassail, all over the town /
    Our toast it is white /
    And our ale it is brown!
    Our bowl it is made
    Of the white maple tree
    With the Wassailing bowl
    We drink to thee!







    jsbowden
         		12:52p
    To borrow from Aaron B:
     The Snowpocalypse is upon us:



    This video is a couple hours old now, and the snow is still coming down ridiculously heavy.

    Current Mood: ecstatic
    Current Music: The Hiss of Falling Snow
    Friday, December 18th, 2009
    jsbowden
         		3:20p
    Um...
     The snow that's not supposed to get here till midnight? Twenty miles south. The latest NWS forecast is calling for 14 - 21 inches by the time it stops early Sunday morning. I just don't believe it's going to take nine hours to move from Potomac Mills to here.

    Current Mood: thoughtful
    Current Music: 10,000 Maniacs - Like The Weather
    merhawk
         		12:07p
    larabeaton
         		11:50a
    First, they came for...
     Appropos of absolutely nothing, every time someone quotes that poem, I can't help but recall this little blast from rasfwr-j's past. And my OCD would not let me let it go until I found the exact quotation:

    "They came first for the dry-humpers of octogenarians, and I didn't
    speak up because those people are fucking sick. Really, they've got all
    kinds of elderly diseases, would you touch them? Then they came for the
    necrophiliac animal abusers, and I didn't speak up because I'm allergic
    to cats anyway. Then they came for the dwarves with big dicks, and I
    didn't speak up because dwarves freak me out. I mean, have you seen
    "Don't look now"? Then they came for the genitally pierced indecent
    exposers, and I didn't speak up because the bastard was blocking my sun.
    Then they came for me, but by then there was no one left to speak up for
    me, which was probably a good indication that I should gotten the hell
    out of Amsterdam sooner."


    This invariably makes me giggle, and is a completely inappropriate response to have to that poem, which in turn only makes it funnier to me. See also, the Giggle Loop.
    silmaril
         		6:55p
    And then that happened.
     My Sedai just had oral surgery very recently. Must be the Warder bond: I couldn't sleep all night last night from serious dental pain that laughed at the medium-heavy guns I brought to bear. (Codeine+acetaminophen did Not A Damn Thing. Finally, at around 5 am, I gave up and broke out the Percocet, which put me to sleep as well, which I should have done hours ago instead of the codeine.)

    Thankfully, my dentist could see me briefly this morning, and I am now the proud possessor of a bottle of Amoxicillin (of course it was infected, to hurt so much) and an oral surgery appointment past the New Year's (that was the earliest that they had possible) because it does not seem possible to save the tooth.

    Grpmh.

    Weird thoughts that come around 3:30 am while hoping the pain will listen to the non-synthetic opiate and go away: Epistemology is the study of what we can know and how we can know. Is there a study of what we like and how we can like, that is analogous? What is it called? "Philology" did not sound right, and still does not sound right to my seriously sleep-deprived brain.
    larabeaton
         		10:14a
    Things. Also, stuff.
     For any of you that don't have facebook accounts, I sold my house this week. There was a bit of drama last week, as the buyer and/or her realtor were being extremely nitpicky about the condo documentation. There was also some question about whether or not she was going to get her mortgage approved, which was no small amount of stress, as you can well imagine. A part of me was wondering if she was just stalling so she could look around a bit more, but that was put to rest when we got her the last document she requested on tuesday, and she closed the deal within 2 hours.

    The bad news is that with the delay in finalizing the contract, I couldn't really go shopping for a new place until tuesday night. There's very little that goes on the market in December, I've discovered. And even last weekend, there was something like 300 open houses in the area where I want to live, and this weekend, there's less than 90.

    This isn't as big of a problem as I'm making it, I'm sure. The contract says that I don't have to be out of my place until mid march, however, the buyer has made it clear that she's willing to take it for the end of January if I can find a new place by then. But I really, really, really would like to limit the amount of time I spend out in Burnaby, so getting a place for the end of January would suit me just fine.

    Another problem I have is that in the area where I'd like to move to, the apartments tend to come in two flavors - ridiculously expensive or ridiculously small. Both [info]getrichslowly and some of the environmental blogs that I read say that I should go small. However, I have a difficult time imagining that I would be comfortable in a place smaller than 650 sq. ft. Where would I put all of my books?
    turnberryknkn
         		7:55a
    Drive-by Posting: A Swing at Whittemore House

    The department holiday party was in full swing, complete with white-gloved waiters ferrying drinks, hobnobbing faculty and residents, and a pianist in the corner playing live music. Including 50's swing tunes. And so my friend Jamie (Cups and Courage) mischieviously asked me if I'd like to dance, right there in the middle of the Holiday Party.

    Well, when a gorgeous lady asks you to dance...






    I'm not a very good swing dancer at all, and have very minimal practice at doing it. Haven't had much chance. But I *can* do very, *very* basic swing dance, thanks to kind lessons over the years by [info]silmaril (Teleute and the Doctor) and Jesse (Cloud Gate Swing), in happy dances in days past. I only know a few turns, a few rocks, just a little bit. But enough for a song.

    Noone else was dancing -- I'm not sure, maybe too self-conscious? -- but I've never been one to worry too much about that. Anyway, live music, a hardwood floor, and a gorgeous lady friend -- dancing, I think, is obligatory. And I didn't even step on her feet. :-)




    To those of you for whom the holidays is a time of trial and duty: I wish you strength.

    To those of you for whom the holidays is a time of vacation and freedom: I wish you joy.

    And to all of you this holiday season: I wish you the best of things, now, and in the year to come. :-)





    Current Music: "In the Mood" - Glenn Miller Orchestra
    jsbowden
         		7:26a
    Every time the NWS updates the Winter Storm Warning for our area, they increase the expected amount of snowfall. We've gone from an upper bound of five inches accumulation to an upper bound ten inches in the last twelve hours.

    Bread, milk, eggs. Make sure you actually have some, because you KNOW the grocery store shelves will be denuded of them by nightfall.

    Current Mood: amused
    Current Music: The Wallflowers - Three Marlenas
    turnberryknkn
         		1:55a
    New Year's Plans

    I'm really hoping he takes my offer. He really ought to spend New Year's with his own wife and kids, and not working a cancer floor.



    Holidays always kick our work schedules up a notch; after all, medical need knows no holiday. In fact, if anything, *more* people get in trouble over Christmas and New Years, as people travel and gather and make poor choices that land them in trauma bays and ICUs.

    I have a thirty hour shift today-tomorrow double-covering oncology and neurology/epilepsy/neurotrauma, crash at my apartment overnight, do another thirty hour shift the next day in the Pediatric ICU, crash, another thirty hour shift in the Pediatric ICU, then immediately race out to the airport post-call. I get to fly home for two days for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then come right back to holding down the whole cancer floor and BMT unit for seven 7a - 8p shifts in a row, then jump right into the madness of January in the Emergency Room.

    Over the week of New Year's, I work 7a - 8p on the cancer floor, and my friend Jesse works the night shift. We'll trade off, day for night for day for night, for that whole week, me on days, he on nights.

    And then yesterday, it suddenly occured to me: why am I making him spend New Year's Eve away from his wife and kids?




    In 41 day stretch, I work 38 of them on four different units. I have and will work eighteen days straight leading into Christmas Eve. I literally don't even pay attention anymore exactly when or where or how long because, frankly, it doesn't matter. I just go where they tell me. (It's not so bad -- it's only 90-100 hrs/wk, which is *way* easier than it was just a few years ago. If I hadn't delayed starting residency to do my PhD, I would have been one of the last pre-work hour limits classes, and I would have been working 120-150 hrs/week.) But it does get easy to lose track of days and nights, since, frankly, they don't matter.

    Which is why it didn't occur to me until yesterday that, since I worked days and Jesse worked nights, he'd be spending New Year's Eve evening at work, instead of with his wife and kids. Which, well, why should he be forced to do that... when I could cover it for him? I could, after all. I was working the day shift before and the day shift after; all I had to do was cover the night shift in between, too. It's just another thirty hour call.

    But I remember how important holidays were for me with my parents when I was a little kid -- how important they remain to me now. I remember as a little kid staying up late with my parents playing games until midnight and watching the ball drop, and how exciting it was. And getting up the next day and watching the Rose Parade with my parents. Jesse's little kids deserve that, too.

    Maybe Jesse can spend New Year's with his kids. Or maybe he can get a babysitter, and he can go out on the town with his wife, celebrate the turn of the year with tux and champagne. Brunch with his wife and kids the first morning of the New Year, and watching the Rose parade. Something like that. Point being, for heaven's sake, nobody who can spend New Year's with their wife and kids should have to spend it instead running around like a madman on a cancer floor. Not when someone else can do it for them. Like me. His wife and kids deserve better. *He* deserves better.

    I didn't think of this until yesterday. He never asked, because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't dare ask -- which is why it's up to me to offer. I know I'd never dare ask a classmate to do a thirty-hour call without payback. Which is why I'm *volunteering*. I'm already working 38 out of 41 days, anywhere between eleven to thirty hours in a row. I already have to work until 8PM New Year's Eve; I'm already scheduled to work starting 7 AM the next day. Another eleven hours work in between -- another thirty hour shift -- isn't even going to matter. But Jesse's wife and his kids -- and Jesse himself -- deserve better than to be separated on the holiday. I can help make it happen. And I'm really, really hoping he takes me up on the offer.






    This is my friend Jesse. That's his daughter Evie and his son Sam.

    Our lives may be far easier than those of our predecessors (Work Hours Follies), but they're hard and brutal and grim enough; most importantly in ways that have nothing to do with mere hours. If we don't make it easier for each other in whatever ways we can; if we don't carry each other through this: no one else can. No one else will.



    Thursday, December 17th, 2009
    silmaril
         		2:32p
    Bitties, again
     Problem with not being a girly-girl, really, but attempting to wear fingernail polish while working in a chemistry-lab: You forget and try to do stuff with acetone. Then everything gets red.

    (It's ironic, because the last time I painted my nails, I commented to Breno that the part of the process I found most interesting was how acetone removed the nail polish.)

    Craft Watch, 2009: Yesterday evening, I tied off both the front and back sides of the vest I had been knitting. I also finished half of the front neck line. Remaining: The rest of the neck, arms, sewing the thing.

    Media Watch, 2009: Done with the Viscount of Adrilankha [1], started the pre-Jheegala reread. I like Sethra Lavode, but I was a bit disappointed, because I wish I had a bit more information about her on you-know-what, you-know-that-thing-she-does. But I guess Brust could not do that, really, because people who come to the series late and decide they want to read them chronologically will... well, actually they will have a really hard time with that within the Taltos books, but they can at least unambigously pick the Paarfi books as being earlier, and then that would quite spoil the fun in Orca.

    Weather Watch, 2009: It can stop being sharply cold any time now.

    Politics Watch, 2009: Do. Not. Want. About many things, national and international.

    Bureucracy Watch, 2009: Still Gah. Still cannot say more. [2]

    Music Watch, 2009: You can put in "Nobuo Uematsu" as a seed in Pandora. I really should have discovered that much earlier.

    Work Watch, 2009: There is that and that other thing that I need to finish before next Thursday. Consequently, I hate all of you who keep talking about Christmas breaks lasting two weeks. "Hate" might have been an exaggeration.

    Later Edits in the form of footnotes:
    [1] Apropos, a wonderful discussion.
    [2] Well, actually there were two bureucracy problems, and I managed to finally solve the small one this morning with the judicious application of the phrase "You've been very helpful, but obviously you do not have the authority, can I talk to your supervisor?" But about the big one: Still gah, still cannot say more.
    Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
    larabeaton
         		10:09a
    This is why I love you guys
     I don't know any other group of people who would have a 163 comment discussion on burger condiments with such gratuitous use of the word "monkeyfucker".
    silmaril
         		11:43a
    Bitties
     Heron Watch 2009: I have seen the great blue heron I mentioned here before quite often since then; I also got to see him fly and walk around in the pond he seems to have adapted as his winter home this year. This morning he was sitting, not on the branch he usually sits on, but on the ground on a sunny patch of the pond edge. Cannot blame him---the shallow edges of the pond had a distinctly slushie-look this morning, and it must be warmer on vegetation-covered sunny soil.

    Abs Watch 2009: For the last two days, I have been trying to get back to "mix of 100 ab reps of some sort" routine of days past. So far so good, that is to say, my abs hurt now.

    Media Watch 2009: About done with the Viscount of Adrilankha trilogy. I think that next in line is a partial reread of the Taltos series to remind me of things, then I'll catch up---I haven't read Jheegala yet.

    Annoyance Watch 2009: There is Annoying Bureucracy happpening, about which I cannot really say any more, but it is most vexing.

    That's it for today...
    Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
    merhawk
         		11:40p
    jsbowden
         		10:36p
    Things y'all should know...
     I have a very happy boy right now. He's really looking forward to playing again next week. Assuming you'll let him. He did pretty much own us all.

    Current Mood: amused
    Current Music: How The Earth Was Made
    silmaril
         		12:02p
    Consumerism Re-redux
     I have a new cell phone.

    I have had a Motorola RAZR---the original, the V3, not V3i, not V3m, the V3---for more than three years. It served admirably and was also quite robust, and would no doubt have gone on serving admirably had I not dropped it very forcefully and just at the wrong angle on the very hard tile floor of Dulles Airport this August.

    The outside screen cracked. The phone kept working. A few months later, half of the outside screen went dark. The phone still kept working. As of yesterday, it was still working, but I decided that maybe I would not mind a replacement that much, so I found a RAZR2 V9x.

    Still not a smartphone, or a 3G phone---for reasons of work, Do Not Want, and I don't want to pay for a data plan anyway---but it is new and shiny. So there's that now.
    Monday, December 14th, 2009
    larabeaton
         		9:43p
    larabeaton
         		10:45a
    silmaril
         		3:24p
    The weekend that was
     Got to watch vol.2 of Cowboy Bebop. Still interesting and entertaining. Also, its music is spectacular but I am not wondering whether it is available in soundtrack formal anywhere, because I am sure it must be. The only question is where.

    (Another question is, why is "Venus", in its almost entirety, the city I know as Istanbul? Up to and including that one courtyard in Topkapi Palace where they set the climactic battle? And since I recognized Istanbul that strongly in Venus, what cities am I not recognizing elsewhere in the system?)

    Other than that: Very nice party at [info]lonebear and [info]giraffeaholic's for the combined birthday celebrations of [info]lonebear and [info]badmagic; thanks for hosting, guys.

    Sunday: Went to Silver Spring with Breno. Bought Breno a pair of black boots. Looked at black boots for myself. Did not buy black boots for myself. Had lunch/dinner at Moby Dick, which is Iranian, then went to the place of friends Adrian and Magda to watch The Counterfeiters on their New! and Shiny! 44-inch Samsung. It's an interesting, well-made movie, Austrian/German coproduction, based-on-a-real-story. As part of a economic-warfare initiative during WWII, the Germans got some incarcerated Jews with particular skills together, segregated them from the rest of the concentration camp community, and treated them marginally better---to get them to make counterfeit Allies currency. They made more than 100 million pounds, but dragged their feet on the dollar counterfeiting to delay things on the "let's flood the Allies' economy" plan. This won the 2008 Academy Award for the Best Foreign Movie.

    Also, almost finished the knitting project I'm on. As in, nine more rows then I cut the neck on the back; then it's only the trims and the sewing.

    But now, back to work.
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