After HIMSS

Well, turns out that even if one practices moderation in drink and bedtimes, being in smoky environs and yelling at parties (with the music so loud, the default conversational tone is "yell") and excessive schmoozing were enough for "The Ick" to re-enter the body, and by Thursday I was back on my back feeling terrible.  My sensible and lovely wife Pamela reminded me that it is not actually NATURAL for a cold to last for over 3 weeks, and for heaven's sake will I just go to the doctor?

A quick visit later I had a Z-Pak in hand and was starting the powerful antibiotics.  The doc had a good idea that while this might have started viral, it's likely that it went bacterial, so let's try to kill that.  And 5 days later, I am thrilled to say I really really feel better.  My guts are turned inside out due to the Z-Pak's power, but acidophilous you are my friend and you will rebuild my flora.

Bella had a swim meet this weekend and she's getting better and better all the time - it's fun to watch her getting the choreography and hitting the marks on the music.  And she's just so good in the water...   But of course Isaac and I didn't spend the whole day at the meet - we had a Dad's Day together, with me back at Lifetime Fitness for the first time in 3 weeks, then some Pei Wei, and a bunch of great quotes which I posted to Facebook...  but I'll repeat here because Facebook is temporary and this blog is forever:  I actually used the blog to help me remember something from 2009 (about the bird sanctuary and aquarium I visited on a business trip...)  So the quotes please:

Isaac held his arm up to the brown wood wall at the restaurant and said "look - I'm blending in" and yes the color was pretty close. I said that was so cool and held my hand up and said "look - I don't blend in as well as you do". 

He said "don't worry dad. I know what you can blend in with: a light bulb!"

AND:

I was waiting for Isaac to finish a drawing at pickup today and he said "I'll just be a minute - why don't you check your phone while you wait?

Anyway.  

I'm back in Jersey for part of the week:  Tricky travel day:  Started at 4:43 (2 min before my alarm) when the airline texted me to alert that the flight was delayed for 90 minutes.  So I reset the alarm for an hour later, got up, had a leisurely morning until the airline texted me with a "never mind, it's only delayed 60 min" which had me bolting out of the house with my toast half-eaten and my coffee sloshed into a travel mug.  I pounded the coffee on the way, and discovered that a fair amount had dribbled down my chin onto my shirt.

I'm TSA-Pre now, so I don't wait in lines that mortals do anymore, so I breezed past, got some club soda and worked the stain.  With 5 days on the road, I really don't have a spare shirt, and was hoping to make this work.  In the end, the tie covered the remnant of the stain well.  Got into Newark in just enough time that if I got into a car and hit the road immediately, I'd be 5 min early for the meeting (of course I had planned on a hour of cushion in travel, but we know where that went).  

I didn't plan on missing a fork in the freeway and being taken 15 miles off course...  so I did make the meeting but was 15 minutes late.  GOOD TIMES.  At least I was only attending, not leading.

It's a strange project where I have been brought in to sort of provide oversight as two vendors actually provide the services - I'm supposed to keep the two vendors from getting in each other's grills, and make sure there's a coordinated plan across the 6 months...   but I'm not sure if I'm actually superfluous or not.  We'll see.  In the meantime, I had some goooood New Jersey Italian:  A slice of pizza and a dish of penne and red sauce with sausage...  it was entirely too much food, and incredibly delicious, and it came to about $10.  RIDICULOUS.

I'll be headed down to Philly for a social evening on Wednesday and then up to Boston Thursday for some meetings Friday and a flight home.  Interesting detail:  Round Trip ticket to Newark Mon-Fri was $500 more than a one-way to Newark, a train to Boston, and a one-way from Boston to home.  Not sure what that is all about.

The Boston meeting will be interesting - Another sales guy in our company made the contact, and it turns out that the guy (Arvind) is a fellow I've run into many times in the past 12 years, and we've always got along.  So they got the meeting on the condition that I come along.  I'm bait.  But I'm ok with that, because I have an evening in Boston now, and I'm going to USE it.  Maybe go to Panera, YEAH.

Circling way back:  There were two additional details from the show:  

1)  One of the tech blogs made a big deal about complaining about being ignored by vendors in their booths who seemed more absorbed in their smartphones than looking for customers.  One of the companies he called out was a Minneapolis company and I know the guys.  And they are totally chuckleheads who were immersed in their phones when I dropped by too.  It was just funny.

2)  Turns out after I got that great demo of Epic tools, another of my team got asked by JUDY what we thought about what we saw - I wasn't there.  Apparently my colleague said something like "meh, it's ok".  And then she told ME she said that.  I almost died, and wrote Judy a note to relate my own thoughts about the tool - I was just mortified.

I understand sometimes wanting to play it cool, but this was seriously cool stuff:  I had written up a full page email to our whole company explaining just how cool it was.  I don't know why we wouldn't just tell Epic they had done a great job.  People are just so...  so...  frustrating some days.

Ok, that's the update for tonight.  Off to bed - got a long day of meetings on deck tomorrow.

Everything is amazing

I had a great time at the trade show yesterday, and got to spend some time looking at some very cool new features coming from Epic....  my favorite company.  Three times I had people come up to me and thank me for my nice blog posting from 18 months ago (where I got all mushy in love with Epic).

But it was a loooong day and it segued right into a long night with vendor receptions and the annual invite-only "event" from HISTalk, which is basically Gawker for Healthcare Technology - a snarky blog filled with rumors, but also an excellent place to find out useful information.  I made the invite list (and many did not - rumor had it tickets were being traded for $50 outside the event).  The MC for the night picked me out early and insisted that I participate in an Elvis Lookalike competition during the big show.  Of course I said yes.

Naturally the competition was rigged, a "real Elvis" crashed the stage halfway through, so I decided instead of crooning "blue suede shoes" as was requested, I started singing "Don't you want me baby" by the Human League.  Not really sure why, but people liked it.

Later on, our whole gang went to find a bar, and found it impossible to get a table - they were all roped off... unless you purchased "bottle service" - a $200 bottle of vodka gives you a booth for you and your friends.  I did the math, and actually it wound up being a really good deal - They brought cranberry, soda, and tonic, and a big bottle of Chopin, and that had all 10 of us set for 2 hours - everyone (but me) had 2-3 drinks - so you figure 10 people, 2 drinks at $12/each, the bottle was actually a good deal.  Plus it made me feel like some sort of high roller.  People were looking at our table with envy.

Las Vegas:  People can SMOKE there.  That's still a strange thing for me to process.  My entire wardrobe has been encased in plastic bags and will not be removed until it's ready to be washed.  STINKY.

I'm proud to say I didn't go overboard at any point - no hangovers, not a single cent gambled:  But so much time in loud bars has shredded my vocal cords, so we'll have to have me sound nice and husky.

The title of the post refers to Louis CK's monologue about watching someone get frustrated because the in-flight internet is busted - and I am totally using the inflight internet right now.  It's amazing.  And now we're descending and I'm going to be picked up by the family and we're having dinner out together - and THAT's going to be REALLY wonderful.

Fairyland

I'm at the big HIMSS trade conference for healthcare - it's in Las Vegas and I'm at the Venetian.  This is my first time in Vegas since my dad took me here for my 21st birthday:  I will say this is not the same town I visited those 23 years ago:  I believe that I am on "the strip" which is completely unrecognizable... not that I remember that much about my trip so many years earlier (with the possible exception of the floor show we saw with a lady magician who "made her clothes disappear" - I later discovered that she actually does the trick with her twin sister, who I guess was on boob duty.  That's a strange family dynamic right there.  The disappearing top bit was just the end, the rest of her act was actually a pretty decent magic set.)

Anyway, I'm still not feeling GREAT, so I've been taking breaks and marshaling my energy for my bursts of interaction.  Last night we had our big reception, and almost 200 people showed up.  For followup purposes, I wrote down the details of about 25 conversations I had across the 3 hours.  It was exhausting, and my voice is fried - I sound like Kim Carnes.

I do love this show, and in 90 minutes, the real fun starts:  The trade show floor opens.  Up to now it's been meetings and "educational sessions" which I really can take or leave.  But let me loose on a floor of vendors with the latest in healthcare technology, and yeah, I'm happy.  I have meetings set up with a few, but have left a few hours to just prowl.

As to the rest of Vegas - I did step OUTSIDE the hotel complex to get some fresh air and find the Starbucks, but it's mostly indoors.  I've been walking right through the casinos - I have no desire to play a single game - I'm not really wired for gambling, which is good.

Time to catch a few ZZZs before the trade floor - then it's a pretty intense day going into the evening - two big parties I'm invited to that will be good for networking.  Then it's an early flight home tomorrow and not a moment too soon.  I'm missing the gang.

I do want to come back to Vegas with my sweetie pie, however.  It's pretty wild.

On Drama

I just came off of a 4 day "solo dad" stint with the kids and dogs - Pamela was up at a scrapbooking retreat, having a wonderful time. I took two "work at home" days to be available to the little ones, and we did all the classic dad stuff... Ate well, danced a lot, played a lot fewer videogames than you'd imagine, and read a lot. Also I attacked the sock pile, and finally filled all of our sock drawers with happy matches.

It was a wonderful time to recharge, after a few weeks of more travel than I've been used to, and a few more coming up. I'm on a plane right now to DC to visit my best man Erik. Well, technically I'm going out to do some work for a hospital in Fredericksburg, but I'm looking at it as an excellent opportunity to see my good friend. Take these moments when they're given, I say.

I took my late evenings with the dogs at my feet, the kids asleep, the socks sorted, and I got caught up on some media: I finished up the first season of Homeland - a manchurian candidate like show that won Claire Danes the Golden Globe, and she earned it, for sure. Damian Lewis also was very good as a frustratingly opaque POW who may or may not have been turned by to a terrorist in captivity. I'll leave the plot points at that, because at least one dear reader is just 2 episodes in, and the DVDs will be released in a few weeks and I want the REST of you to consider watching it. WARNING: This is a showtime series, therefore there are boobies. Move past the boobies (nowhere near as many as Game of Thrones, btw), and you'll be in good thriller-land.

I read an interview with one of the creators of Homeland Alex Gansa - he was a showrunner for "24" for a season, so he knows how to build tension... but I can reveal in a spoiler free manner that Claire's character is certainly no Jack Bauer - I think she holds a gun about once in the show... but is no less destructive in her own way. Two things struck me about the interview - first was the fact they're set up for a season 2 (or more), which leaves me with an odd feeling: When the last moment of episode 12 flashed by, I thought "now THAT's an awesome way to end this". I felt like every character had a great arc - we saw everybody's low and high, and the "situation" played out well for 12 episodes - there was a strong arc... I just don't know how that can be done in a second season - and I'm not sure I want to know what happens next. But I suspect I WILL want to know before long...

The other thing I read was that while they had an overall arc for the series, that on and episode by episode basis they were pretty much making it up and seeing where it goes. He revealed that even on 24, when there was a mole, they usually picked the mole right near the end based on the person whose activities were most likely to have been mole like. That means they were counting on a mole existing, but didn't know WHO until the last minute.

This sits WRONG with me: I don't think it's too much to ask to have these things actually plotted and planned out... but apparently series television is a lot looser than that. I guess it comes down to my ultimate disappointment with X-Files, where it turns out they really had no cohesive overall arc - that they were making it up as they went, and in the end tried to retrofit a conspiracy into there... but there were many episodes that didn't gibe with the big picture - where a person who is later revealed to be a traitor actually risks his/her life to save the person they were secretly undermining...

In Homeland, I can vouch that they DID make it all make sense - there's no "hey but why did he then..." moment at all - it's very consistent, but almost in spite of itself. In the interview it's revealed that a very key plot point was established through improvisation... which was a bit amazing to me. On the other hand, I have to respect that even though they had an arc in place, they were able to start to refocus parts of the plan based on strengths you find in the people playing the characters.

I was thinking of this more with last night's Downton Abbey - a show that is quite wonderful, but the episode last night was just a bit of a turd, with the ridiculous "Martin Guerre/English Patient" subplot - you KNOW that wasn't in the big arc planning sessions.

My other media completion was Neal Stephenson's REAMDE, which I loved beyond all reason, despite the fact it took over 50 pages to truly HOOK me. But as I've written before, Stephenson meanders a bit before letting the story start to go: In his 3000-page Baroque trilogy, it takes fully 200 pages to find a plot accelerator. REAMDE deals with a virtual world, but also about Iowa farm people, Idaho survivalists, Russian mobsters (and former Spetznatz heroes), Chinese hackers and street vendors, Hungarian IT support, MI6 spies, and Islamic Jihadists. It really gets roaring.

What's fun is that the main villain is not so much a criminal mastermind as much as a very good situational improviser: He doesn't think more than one move in advance, and as such is unpredictable and unstoppable. You can't root for him - he's just too terrible - but he's FUN to read, which is a great thing.

And so, I got caught up on media, and will be dong REAL work for a while, I suppose. Sigh.

Scraps

Pamela is hustling and bustling getting ready for a long scrapbooking retreat that she's going on this weekend coming up.  She's got special scrapbooking cases, has ordered a ton of pictures from our iPhoto library, and has started pre-making a few things:  Apparently she's gunning to be the honorary president of the scrapbooking sorority - Phi Beta Scrappa.  So I'm not asking a lot of questions about the plaster of paris drying in flower pots.

That means it'll be a long weekend of solo-daddy stuff this week - which was ALMOST a problem with some travel I had planned, but fortunately I was able to move some things around, and now Pamela can go have her fun free and clear.

Work is a bit crazy right now - In addition to my own work, I have been charged with growing a special business line around my geek knowledge of business intelligence (data warehousing and analysis).  Well, I've been doing a few small engagements in my "spare time" over the past year, but this year, it's feeling as though things are possibly warming up - I have two sold part time engagements and have a third in the hopper - the goal is that all three will have someone else working them longer term, but right now Feb and March are looking pretty busy - especially considering the other work I still have in Philly AND my main work in Minneapolis.

I had the Avengers over last night, and it was a wonderful lineup - a couple of old Highland Parks, a couple of Lagavulins, an Ardbeg, a Glenfarclas, and some japanese thing I can't recall the name of...   all were somewhat rare bottlings, and it was a delightful lineup.  We finished with a Todd Margaret marathon - watching Season 1 straight through.  This is a fine "downward spiral" comedy in which at every turn, the protagonist (played by David Cross) digs himself in deeper and deeper...  Great if you like Cringe Comedy.

In other media, I'm trickling my way through Homeland from Showtime - Claire Danes is fantastic as very fragile genius (?) and the manchurian candidate soldier is really well played too.   That, along with Fringe ad Downton Abbey have my TV needs down (though I do fill in with an occasional episode of Community).

For books:  Bella and I are 2/3 of the way through The Hobbit...   and boy I just had forgotten a lot about this ripping yarn - it is VERY fun, and Bella is thrilled every night with our chapter.  And in Dad reading, it took about 50 pages, but Neal Stephenson's REAMDE has finally set its hook in me, and I'm being carried along at a brisk pace.  Stephenson has a way of meandering at the beginning of his books (for my taste) and I'm always looking for the "moment" the book takes off:  In most of his, it takes 100 pages...  I just need to be patient.

The kids are asking to go for a walk, so off I go!

Centurions and Bunnies

Another Dream:  For context, we have a house full of relatives, and Pamela let me sleep in this morning.  This dream was a late morning, need to wake up dream:

A newly revitalized Roman Empire has conquered the United States, and the US is currently being overseen by a Centurion.  As a part of being conquered, I've got a job to go around outstate Minnesota to "spread the word".  I'm in a middle school building in St Cloud, and I have my "celebrate victory" stuff to put up:  I'm in the main auditorium, and need to string up the "HAIL CENTURION" banner across the proscenium.

Of course, people aren't terribly happy about having been conquered, but aren't so much actively resisting as just NOT being helpful.  So I'm all alone in the auditorium, and I can see annoyed staff peeking through the windows, shaking their heads.

I'm wildly unprepared for this task - I don't have a ladder (they didn't give me one), nor do I have a hammer or nails, so I'm trying to work out how to string this banner.  I have scaled the ornate woodwork up about 10 feet, and have one end of the banner stuffed into my pocket.  I'm checking to see if there's any way to wedge one end of the banner into a crack in the woodwork, and an realizing that the banner is actually just crappy crepe paper printed with "HAIL CENTURION" over and over - much like you might have a cheap party store "Happy Birthday" banner...   Man, Centurions sure is cheap.

At this point in the dream, I realize I'm having a dream, so I need to wake up.  So I wake up, grab my bathrobe, and come downstairs.  Walking into the dining room, the whole family (with house guests) is sitting having breakfast and they turn to face me in unison:

They're all wearing handmade silk bunny rabbit outfits, with drawn on whiskers.

At this point, I realize I am still dreaming.... and then I REALLY woke up.  I think.

Jim's Crazy Dreams - Collected

For my dream connoisseurs:  here are the links for my insane dream posts:

The Playpus Dream
The Batman Dream
Duran Duran Barbershop Quartet Dream
Apartment Rental Dream
Botswana Abduction Dream (Scroll to 3rd section)
Strange Biography Dream
British Prison Break Dream
Sailing the Skies Dream
And the newest:  Strip Club Dream

Enjoy!

The Strip Club Dream

I had this dream last night, woke up and remembered the details...  and I share it with you now.

I am walking up Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis on the seedy block with the strip clubs on it - the 90's, Brass Rail, and Augies.  I am walking behind a strange man who I remember from downtown in the 80's - a mentally disabled man we called Jer-Bear...  who I hadn't seen for years.

He turns into Augies - it's 11 in the morning, and I'm seized with curiosity - just what the heck could be going on on a strip club at 11am?  Truth be told I've never been in a strip club (true), so I was maybe a little curious about what they're like inside.

I walk in, and it's a pretty average bar, no dancers anywhere, and at the back of the bar is a maitre d' podium and a velvet rope, with two bouncer types standing there.  I walk up and ask if I can see what's back there.

They ask if I've ever been there before.  I say no, and they say "why don't you take a look around?  You can have nine minutes for free".  They hand me a large wall clock so I can keep track of the time.  I walk past the rope and look to the right.

There is a large open area with a clump of sectional couch pieces.  There are about 6 people stretched out on the couches, cuddled up with person sized teddy bears.  They're all napping.

Immediately to the right there's a stairway down.  I go down to find a big open space with about 15 circular couch setups - it's run down and a bit dirty, but well lit with high ceilings.  In each of the couch areas, there's a different "thing" going on.

Right by the stairs are a group of people dressed as cats playing with large balls of string.  Off to the left is a group of people laughing and playing with balls or balloons - they're batting them back and forth.  I can't recall all of the other things I saw, but they're similarly innocent.

I walk a ways in, and find a group of overweight computer-guys with short sleeve oxfords and beards, and they're on their hands and knees with blissful looks on their faces.  In the middle of them is a huge mess of cell phones, power adaptors, and computer cables, and they're trying to find the matches for each.    I watch as one grabs a phone, finds the right adaptor, plugs it in, unplugs it, then tossed it back on the pile with a laugh.

I look at my clock and realize my 9 minutes are getting close to up, so I wander back upstairs and hand the guys the clock back.

"Did you see anything you like?"

"Yes, but I just don't have the time" is my reply.

And then I woke up.

Isaac and Pork

Driving home with Isaac:
"What's for dinner Dad?"
Pork tenderloin.
"I don't like Pork."
You do like Pork.  You like Bacon and Ham, it's the same thing.
"No, Pork comes from a different part of the pig, and pigs roll around in mud".
They clean the pig before...
"Before they stick the pig?  Before they kill it?"
Um.. yes....
"We shouldn't do that to animals, do you understand?"
I hear you...
"But I asked do you UNDERSTAND?"
Yes, I understand.
"Dad, Pork is OFF THE MENU.   FOREVER!"  (with a dramatic wave of his hands)
Ok...
"Pigs.... they just need to SURVIVE".

45 minutes later, Isaac was happily munching on a big strip of bacon.

The Mode - Part 1

Depeche Mode Albums and my strongest memory of each, first in a series...

First a full confession, it took me until 1983 until I started getting into synth pop at all...  

Speak and Spell (their first album, 1981)
Sitting at camp in Colorado in summer 1983.  A kid from LA was telling me all about "synth pop", and let me hear a tape on my walkman...  side 1 was Depeche Mode Speak and Spell, side 2 was something by OMD.  To my virgin ears (and the low quality tape player) it sounded too tinny and awful.  It wasn't until 1985 that I truly revisited that album.

A Broken Frame (their second album, 1982):
It took until 1987 - second half of freshman year, at a party.  The record was on, and I barely recognized it - I had leapfrogged over that album back in the early 1980s, since I started with Construction Time Again.    I remember telling the host that it was "cool that he was into Depeche, but man this is their worst album, isn't it?"  The host took it as a bit of an insult, and was right to.  In the months that followed, I finally went back and listened to the album, and realized that while not perfect, it really had some great tunes.  

Construction time Again (their third album, 1983):  

Sitting in my living room, perhaps in 1983, listening to a documentary on public radio about the new "electronic sound" - Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk were featured.  My friend Jeannine and I each vowed to buy one album from each artist - she picked Kraftwerk, I picked Depeche, and bought Construction Time Again...   and truth be told I didn't actually LIKE it at first, and was very jealous at Jeaner's Kraftwerk.  It wasn't until a year later that I gave it another listen....  and finally got it.

Moments in IL

We're relaxing at last down in Palatine - it's been a long few days of travel and family excitement, and we're finally on a "down day".  The dogs have been doing well on their visit too, adjusting well to apartment living.

Isaac and I took off for a quick runabout earlier today - all of the holiday mayhem had us both needing a break, but also stewing a bit in our juices.  So we went off to Pinstripes for a little bowling action:  Of course being the day after Christmas, it was PACKED.  But the hostess offered up a lane for 25 minutes...     which was exactly enough time for one game of speed bowling. 

Isaac has been playing a fair amount of Wii:  He loves Super Mario of course...   but there's a little limitation:  When playing one player, you can only be Mario, but if you play two player, the second player can be the other characters.  Isaac has decided he only likes playing if he gets to be the Blue Mushroom guy...  which is ok if I'm playing with him...   but when I am busy, he has a "method" to play the blue guy that sort of disturbs me:

Basically he plays as two player, and lets Mario die over and over.   It disturbs me.  But then I'm probably reading too much into it.  I did make a comment about it, and now he's having the blue guy carry Mario along with him.

Bella has been spending most of her time with Papa working on art:  She got a book on how to draw dragons, and has been drawing drawing drawing.  Her cousin Lilli gave her a crazy wolf hat that she's been wearing non-stop, and her other cousins have her a hot pink snuggie blanket.  Also, Isaac gave her a pair of ladybug head hugger headphones.  I just caught her hunched over a drafting table tracing dragons, listening to reggae on the headphones.  It's pretty amazing.

In my traditional role as tech support, I have helped the in-laws with their technology.  This trip, it involved helping them buy a new TV and Blu-Ray player, upgrading their cable internet to a faster speed model, redoing their wireless network, adding  a DVR and upgrading the cable to HD...   Well that was fun!  Also, they got a new iPad too, and I got that hooked up too.  Earning my keep!

Oh, and here are some pictures

Three Isaac Quotes

Three quotes from Isaac in the past 2 weeks:

Quote 1:  With Mom at Breakfast (Reprinted from Pamela's Facebook Post)
Breakfast at Perkins with Isaac before school this week.
His order came. Pancakes with whipped cream and sprinkles and a side of bacon. His "usual".
He looked down and asked "Mom, who chased down this pig?"
"What Isaac?".
"Mom, I'm serious. Who in here chased down this pig. Was it hard to catch him? Was it HER? (points to waitress) Was it hard to get it in here? Who killed it?


Quote 2:  In the Car with Dad
I was driving with Isaac the other day and he announced "Dad, I know of a way to take off a penis"
WHAT?
"Actually I know of TWO WAYS to take off a penis".
Ok, what are they?
"Scissors, or a sharp knife"
ISAAC, WE WILL NEVER TALK OF THIS AGAIN.


Quote 3:  in Bed
Isaac has been great about his potty training, and the one time he still wears pull-ups is at night.  He has been asking about when he can stop wearing them.  Our agreement is that if he goes 3 nights with a dry pull-up, he can go commando.  


So when we were in bed on night 3 after 2 dry nights, he said "ok, tonight, no peeing.  Keep it all in until I wake up and go to the toilet".
I replied "yes, that's right"
"Dad, I wasn't talking to you.  I was talking to my penis".

And now some education

From: Breay, Jim
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 2:58 PM
To: imfo@edina.ci.mn.us
Subject: Street Naming Question

Hello!

We live on Scott Terrace in Edina, and our 5 year old son was wondering if it would be possible to change the name of our street from “Scott Terrace” to “Super Mario Galaxy Street”.  I told him I would ask the city whether that might be possible, and what the process would be to move forward.

For my own part, I’d suggest we change the name to “Megalodon Shark Terrace”.  I think that really either one would really provide some additional “curb appeal” to the coveted 5-7 year old boy demographic.

Thank you!

Jim B-Reay

---------------------

From: Steve Kirchman
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 15:42:16 -0600
To: Jim Balabuszko-Reay
Subject: RE: Street Naming Question

Jim:

City ordinances contain no provisions for renaming streets. If all homeowners on Scott Terrace submit a request to have the name changed to another specific name, staff will prepare a report and recommendations to forward to City Council.

Steve Kirchman, Chief Building Official 9www.CityofEdina.com ...For Living, Learning, Raising Families & Doing Business

Another day of learning

As you all probably know, I'm happiest on a project when I'm learning something new.  Today I spent time learning about a new thing:  Laboratory Services.  This is where they send the blood and samples, and they run the tests and grow the cultures and press the slides and look through the microscopes.  But here's what I didn't know:

It is a magic land of robots.

Practically every test involves spinning something, or raising or lowering the temperature, or adding a precise amount of some agent, and then spinning it again, and then adding another re-agent.  Over and over.  And they have built very interesting machines that do all of this for us.  The human measures the sample into a tube and places it into a machine.  The machine moves the tube around, spins it, then a needle attached to the end of a robot arm squirts something in there, and then the tube moves some more...  And the human watches a screen and notes the numbers that are shown.

I don't know how much fun the actual people are having, but I bet would be LESS fun to be doing all of the repetitive tasks that the machines are doing.  And I was hypnotized watching these machines.  I was on a simple introductory tour and kept finding myself lagging behind the group because I had become transfixed by yet another robot.  I was imagining manic xylophone music, too.

On the tour was a visit to the blood bank:  They had a retina scanner for entry (I did try, and the prim british voice said "pull back, come forward, forward, back a little, back a little, ACCESS DENIED").  They had "plasma shakers" - things that looked like glass doored refrigerators, but that had racks and racks of milky plasma in bags, and the racks moved back and forth constantly, shaking the plasma so it wouldn't gel or something.  The red blood, that just sat in fridges.  But plasma is ALWAYS ON THE MOVE.

I put on a disposable lab coat and went through the virology lab:  I saw a clean room where a man was inspecting samples that had been deep frozen and had a thick layer of frost over the labels.  I was hopeful that no alien spores were in there... though to be fair, if they were spores, that would be the mycobiology lab, not virology.  I passed several robots that were not moving and dark, with sleek glass enclosures and giant monitors next to them indicating that their DECONTAMINATION CYCLE had 3 hours remaining of the 8 required.  8 hours to clean a robot at high heat.

I had to take a call and missed the genetic testing, stem cell, and pathology lab walkthroughs, but I'll have another chance next week.

The system I'll be helping them pick is not robotic, nor does it shake anything.  It's the computer system that sits behind it all, tracking the orders for who gets what test, keeps track of who belongs to what sample, and what their results are, and then forwards that info along to their medical record.  The organization behind the robots.

And so it was a fun day.

The Reformed Addict...

I must confess that my lack of blogging is working hand in hand with my lack of motivation on language learning and a general fallow spell on writing music as well.  The past year has been one of recovery and reconnection from my extended time on the road, and I think I've been trying to do a couple of things a little better than before:

When I'm home, I try to really be home and present for the family.  Isaac needs to be played with.  Bella needs to be read with.  But more importantly, Pamela needs to have time with me in the room (and I need to be with her too) to decompress at the end of the day.  It just doesn't seem right or fair for me to disappear upstairs to be working on my Japanese pronunciation or tweaking a bass drum track.

Which isn't to say I'm not pursuing geeky pursuits - I'm reading a lot and still getting caught up on old Doctor Who episodes... but these are things I can do with some earbuds in, sitting and looking at Pamela as she does whatever she's doing (recently it's been research on the 1990s for a set of posters for a Girl Scout sleepover.  These girls have no idea what Color Me Badd have in store for them).

I have been spending a fair amount of time at the Gym...  but there's a good reason:  Isaac LOVES the kids club at the Gym, and asks to go EVERY SINGLE DAY.   I try to go every other day.  Knowing that he WANTS to play for 90 minutes keeps me on my toes and encourages me to really get a good workout in - I'm running around 4 miles a session now.

Sometimes I bring Bella, but she's much more interested in reading and drawing than dodgeball.  Pamela's also in the mix, coming along 3 times a week for her group fitness team...  we're all working on health, here.  It's good.  I'm starting to recognize the crazy guy who used to teach fitness classes...  and I think I may actually be in slightly better shape now than I was back then.

So that's what I've been up to:  I'm just not quite in a writing state of mind.  I'm spending a lot more family time, and more free time is taken up with exercise these days.  I'll get there again, don't worry.

Time warp

A good day in Philly, but had a very odd thing happen.  I was here 2 years ago, and I had produced a set of recommendations that I have figured out they really haven't acted upon.  When I got re-engaged, I was reviewing my emails, and found one status report from 11.19.09 that I had sent to my immediate boss, but that may not have reached the rest of the team.  So I forwarded it along.

Today I had a full hour meeting to discuss what I had put into that email two years ago, and what we should do about it.  We went point by point through the email and they explained how this one thing wasn't an issue any more, and how this point was still a problem, and what should we do?

But the strangest thing was that really for most of the document, my recommendations were still valid - they just hadn't gone and done it yet.  The whole place was more or less in the SAME PLACE I left them back then.

So I'm actually now looking at the potential for getting a resource engaged with this client to actually go ahead and do the things that I specifically told them to do over 24 months ago, only this time, really make sure they DO it.

Walking out of that meeting, I ran into my old boss from the earlier time who has moved to a different area.  Ken was a research librarian who had been put in charge of a cardiac center with lots of opinionated physicians.  He always seemed happiest in his office with a whiteboard full of concepts about standardizing diagnosis codes or categorizing procedures - he remained a librarian at heart.  Well his new job is doing JUST THAT - standardizing codes and things.  And he seems happier.

And though he didn't actually do anything with my previous recommendations and that frustrated me a little, I was happy that he was doing what he wanted to be doing in life.

Fascinating stuff.

These things happen

I'm back in Philly at the Children's Hospital again.  I still have my full time job in Minneapolis, don't get me wrong, but there's something about Philly that keeps drawing me back.  It takes me from my home, makes me miss my kids, my wife, my dogs.  I should be happy in Minneapolis, but I keep getting drawn back.  I have tried to figure it out...  and today I got the flash:

I go there because I think they're doing good work for the world, and I think I can help them.

At one meeting today, I had my agenda, the person showed up, we talked, and within 5 minutes, we had figured out that my questions had been answered.  This area will not be impacted by my project (which incidentally is to select a patient monitoring system for the pediatric cardiac cath lab - where they fix kids' hearts).  I should have stopped the meeting, but the person said something about their plans for 2012, and I just sat forward in my chair:  I think I can help her.  I had seen that very thing attempted at my previous client and I just wanted to share some insight.  We talked for another 15 minutes pinging around ideas that had nothing to do with my project, but that will hopefully help her deliver HERS more successfully.

Later in the day, we were sitting in a final meeting to determine if our company will help them select a new laboratory and pathology system:  The project manager and the lab guy from my team were there - I was there for continuity only - I won't be doing the work.  But halfway into the meeting, I felt myself leaning forward in my chair.  I couldn't help it.  I THINK I CAN HELP THEM.  I raised a few questions and found myself wanting to help them solve this problem.

I think there's something about this client that really triggers some sort of endorphin reward for me.  I'm not sure it's entirely healthy, but I will say the client seems to really appreciate it.  Fear not, I'm not hitting the road here - I have forcibly limited my involvement to every other week, just a few days here and there.    But I wanted to share this.

Related topic:  In the last 2 years, I have been called upon as an expert in the following subject areas:  Digital radiology image storage and review, speech recognition, inpatient electronic medical records, patient registration and billing systems, web-based personal health records, rehab documentation systems, echocardiography review systems, cath lab procedure recording and reporting, long term non-radiology medical image storage, and clinical and financial analytics.  And i'm about to learn more about anatomic pathology, pathology slide scanning and retrieval, bedside barcode systems for lab specimen collection, and much more.

I think that these opportunities are amazing, and I'm grateful every day that I'm "allowed" to learn things like this, and become an "expert" as needed.  I think I have some pretty unique wiring, and am lucky to have a life that indulges that.  Every opportunity to learn and share gives me a boost...  and that's probably why Philly is so rewarding.

I've got a meeting with a gang of Cath Lab nurses at 7:30am tomorrow, so it's off to bed.

Entertainment

Bella and I have started a new book: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. This was a read-aloud book in my home growing up - the four of us would sit by the fire and read the story aloud, with great drama and flair: As we kids got older we would take turns reading a few pages too. I don't know if we did it twice or five times, but certain things just became part of our language growing up - "Inconceivable!!!" "I am not left handed either!" "As you wish!" "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to DIE!"

Right now I'm doing the reading, and it has been fun for me to act out the parts - I've got my spanish accent for Inigo, my Wally Shawn nasal voice for Vizzini, my big Andre voice for Fezzik. Now in our house, we pretty much stopped the story every time right after the Man in Black defeats Vizzini. Part of the reason I think was that even after the rescue, Westley is none too kind to Buttercup, and there's a lengthy Morgenstern interlude in there too... sort of grinds to a halt. But we powered through the other night and we're right in the middle of the Fire Swamp now.

Bella LOVES this book, and she is guffawing at the funny bits - Bella has developed a hearty laugh that I go out of my way to provoke - it just fills my heart with happiness to hear it.

In other MEDIA news: I finally got caught up on my Marvel movies: Thor and Captain America. I loved both movies - very different movies to be sure, but very enjoyable. Neither were encouraging deep deep thought, and both were refreshingly light. There wasn't a moment of either one that I would have been upset if the kids had walked in during. Not something I'd say about Dark Knight.

And that's about it for the media update! More postings as they happen.

Conversations before sleep

Isaac: 98...99...100... want to know what comes after 100? One hundred and ONE! 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109... what comes after 109?
Me: One hundred TEN.
Isaac: ONE HUNDRED TEN! Then what?
Me: What comes after Ten? Eleven. So after One hundred TEN, come One Hundred ELEVEN.
Isaac: NO WAY!!!! THAT IS CRAZY! I'm going spend ALL DAY tomorrow counting. I'm going to count to ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN tomorrow. Should I start NOW?
Me: No, let's get our rest. Time to go to sleep now, Isaac.

2 minutes of silence.

Isaac: Daddy? How many babies can be in a mommy's tummy?
Me: Usually 1, sometimes 2, and very rarely 3 or more, up to 6 or 8. But that's very rare.
Isaac: It would be pretty bad for a mom to have too many babies right? You know how many would be REALLY bad for a mommy? A MILLION. They would bury her. They would reach all the way up into space, and the ones at the top would say "mommy mommy!" and then they'd die because you can't breathe in space. You can breathe on earth, though.
Me: Yes. A million would be too many for one mommy. Go to sleep now Isaac.

5 minutes of silence.

Isaac: DADDY: Want me to tell you about all the scariest types of bats there are in the world?

TIME TO GO TO SLEEP ISAAC!!!!!

Generally - Utter Madness

Hola amigos, been a long time since I rapped at ya.  Here's the short version - work is rewarding but not particularly hectic.  Home life is good.

The evenings have been stretching longer for the past month - from longer reading sessions at night with Bella, to Isaac demanding later bedtimes, to a lot more homework coming home with Bella.  By the time all is settled, I'm looking at the clock and realizing it's already TEN.  What?  WHAT?

Fortunately, work is very achievable right now - for the past 4 weeks I've only had one client, and that client won't pay for more than 40 hours a week, and I'm not working more than that.  So it's been good.  Starting next week, I add a Philly client back into the mix - I'm helping them pick a system for Cardiac Cath Lab, and there will be 5-6 trips in the next few months, but only 1-2 nights at a shot.  Plus, I do love Philly.

With a little extra time on my hands, I've been trying to use up my bank of sessions with personal trainers I bought last year, but never used (thank you Cleveland).  I am feeling strong these days, able to lift furniture without stress.  Which will come in handy as we attempt to nuke our basement this weekend.  The combination of poor potty training for both a puppy and a little boy across the past 6 months has rendered our basement approximately 50% dried pee.  A few weeks back we had a scotch tasting down there, and "mildly like pee" was a prominent tasting note.

So I pulled the TV out, set up the living room for living, and we're going to yank out EVERYTHING down there, and do a s**t-canning to beat all.  This is what I've been training for, people.  It's going to HAPPEN.

Bella is loving her guitar lessons, and her teacher took me aside and said "this is an instrument that really speaks to her".  I pulled up a fake piano on my iPad during her practice two nights back and we played a two part round of twinkle twinkle little star - it was her idea to do the round... and she just BEAMED.  It made me want to move the keyboard downstairs and play duets with her every night.  I might just have to do that.

We finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this week, and she was just over the moon.  She loved the denouement at the end, and wanted to memorize the kids names.  She thought "Scorpius" was the best name EVER.

Saturday is circus day, and Isaac is so excited about going to class... and I'm so excited about the possibility of finally going to Cecil's deli for an Attazoy afterwards - this year his class is from 10-11, and so it's perfect for post-lesson lunch.  Attazoy.  ATTAZOY!!!  (it's a roast beef sammich on a kaiser.  No biggie, people).

Isaac is finding things HILARIOUS:  Pamela used the term "Ridonkulous" as an intensifier for "Ridiculous"and it had him in tears.  Also, somehow I was idly threatening the kids with "sending them to Juvie (aka Juvenile Detention)" and he was unable to speak for minutes as he pondered "Juvie".  Bella on the other hand wanted to know how on earth kids could do crimes requiring being sent to Juvie?  Being a kid is great, and you don't need anything because parents take care of you, so why would you steal or hurt people?  It was such an innocent moment.  I really didn't know how to answer.  I may have pointed at a dog on the sidewalk and shouted "LOOK!!!!".

I read a great book called "The Postmortal" - the concept is that the cure for aging is discovered in 2019.  It follows a guy who gets the cure at age 30, checks in every 20 years, and shows how the world is and how he's getting along.  I have to say that up to now, I'd always had this idea that sometime around 2050 I would upload my brain into some sort of matrix and continue to walk around either virtually or in an android body.  Reading that book made me want to just make the most of the time I have and not reach out for too much more.  And yes, I know it was fiction, but it made some great points.  I do recommend the book highly.

And finally, I sat down and watched Thor this week, and was so happy to have a great mindless superhero movie.  It just delivered and delivered and delivered.  I thought that the stylistic touches were very Jack Kirby, and the man playing Thor was simply incredible.  Happy media.

Ok, I'll do better about updating.  This every three weeks thing is just ridonkulous.