nothing in particular

A return

2009-09-18T01:32:00.000-05:00

Back in Austin manana evening (I wish I knew how to get a tilde on that manana over there.) Get excited.

Black Cab Sessions

2009-08-27T21:38:00.002-05:00

The Black Cab Sessions are all kinds of cool.

This is a website started by some UK indie film producers as a contribution to a pre-existing cause that has to do with the cabs used in London. Unbeknown to I and likely you there is a struggle going on in the UK to phase out the classic black cab which is a type of hackney carriage common to the UK. The idea likely being a logical one about the lack of mpgs earned by these old classic buggies roaming the streets of London. This movement comes out on the side of the classic emblems of the town.

What this particular group has done about it is get indie musical artists, mostly of the folks with guitars variety (but not all) to come to London and put on a "one song, one cab, one take" mini concerts in the back of these cabs. Its funny bc they have the cabbies introduce them likely not having any idea who they are. Some of my faves are the Bon Iver (above linked), Martha Wainwright, Lykke Li, Calexico, Fleet Foxes and Ryan Adams shows. Check it out, the biggest name they went for is probably Death Cab, but check it out and you might find a new interest.

It would be like if they tried to throw out all the yellow cabs in NY and replace em with Honda Fits.

Google Reader

2009-08-27T15:43:00.002-05:00

There is a new and improved subscribe link over there on the upper right. Just hit it up and then pick the google reader (if you have a google account sign in) and boom easier spot to read all blogs/feeds or other nonsense.

This new one should work better than the previous one built into the bottom of the page, so change it if you are one of the few already subscribed. Then I recommend this if you know Melita and this is you are pals with either of my sisters. Cool.

I'm not into action movies

2009-08-21T01:43:00.003-05:00

. . . Buuuuut . . . much like I had to admit after Star Trek came out, District 9 (a Peter Jackson joint (he's the Lord of the Rings guy)) was pretty good. The aliens looked like shrimp (but they were supposed to), the bigotry parallels were a tad heavy handed and obvious, and there are a million things that don't make a lick of sense logistically about some of the plot elements. . . . buuuuut. . . .

I liked it, very original sort of story with a very original way of laying it out. It was an odd sort of hybrid between the two extremes that usually exist in action/thriller films. Most choose the big epic beautiful panning shots filled with mystifying graphics and cinematography or they leave that to Lucas and go "raw" and shoot 3/4 of the thing handheld poorly lit and with the camera up some actors heavily breathing nose the whole time. District 9 went to some effort obviously to meld these techniques and I think it all came out seeming very new and, dare I use the cliche, fresh.

I told Mark at the beginning of the flick that I didn't know much about it but I was pretty sure it was "like Lord of the Rings 4, or something." I told him after I couldn't wait for LOTR 5.

Non-accidental

2009-08-20T19:23:00.004-05:00

This month I am on my pediatric intensive care unit rotation. This is big time hospital work, this is where the sickest kids in the hospital are sent and where some of the brightest docs in the joint work insane hours to keep them all on a path to recovery. All the while I fumble along behind them trying to act as if I understand maybe a quarter of what they are doing. It has been awesome.

I have said to those that ask that one of the reasons I am attracted to peds (when I type that it is pronounced [pEEds], I will say otherwise if I am talking feet) is that 99% of the time the pediatric patient played no role in acquiring their affliction. This could be read two ways: I am either a compassionate soul striving to help the innocent fight something that is more often than not much larger than us all, or I am a judgmental cynical ass who just cannot seem to muster an ounce of sympathy for the slobs in adult medicine who are fighting every effort made on their behalf by health care every step of the way. I say it is a mix, you say what you want but keep it to yourself.

Anyways, you can't do this rotation and not come away with a sad story you want to tell everyone. A few days ago a girl came into the ER, went to surgery, and was sent to our unit. The report to us began as follows, "4 year old female with non-accidental trauma . . . . . . . . . ." I didn't hear anything after that because that was the first time I had heard the term and I had to decipher it for more than a few moments. Sounds innocent I suppose when spit out by the ER resident in amongst a rapid list of medical jargon. Then you think about it and realize this young girl was seriously injured and it was NOT an accident, it was on purpose. I won't go into the gruesome details but basically a sad sack of a mother left her daughter in the care of her "partner" who is in fact scum of the Earth and as my mother used to occasionally say, "A complete and utter waste of skin."

The girl was admitted with multiple abdominal bruises in various stages of healing and a large subdural hematoma, which is a bleed in the brain (think the mom in Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany). She is downstairs now, with half of her cerebral tissue dead and necrosed the other half spotted with ischemia, with a large piece of her skull removed to prevent the swelling from increasing intracranial pressures and cutting off the circulation to the remaining dabs of living brain tissue she has. She is hooked up to a brain monitor that has been flat lined since the OR.

Her mother's partner has been arrested and trial awaits the likely cessation of this young girl's life, as the prognosis is abysmal at best. The astounding part is that the mother is still in the room, I see her walking up and down the hall ways and laughing with friends in the waiting room. She put up a sign on the room's door labeled "My angel!" with a photo of herself and her beautiful daughter.

I am sitting now in call room a few floors up awaiting the start of our night rounds. I don't have anything amazing figured out by witnessing all this. I know I spend a lot of time just staring in from outside that particular room, I know that this sort of thing is not as rare as we wish it was.

()

2009-08-02T21:22:00.002-05:00

I love parentheses. I like them especially when used in excess. You are all going to have to get used to that (unless of course you don't want to). While on the subject I would like to acknowledge the fact that I write like a tangential schizo with no respect for proper clause structure and I use commas, like they're, going out of stlye,. It's not that I don't see the error, its just that it seems more the way I speak (and thats what I'm going for).

(you should all do this, its fun)

Just as I thought . . .

2009-08-02T18:18:00.005-05:00

Remember a little over a year ago when I thought it would be fun to have a blog? Do you also recall (or see below) references made to the fact that I predicted having little to offer and not really knowing why I felt the need to "blog"? Well I was correct, and was just remembering that this thing existed and couldn't resist making another lame attempt.

I thought, "Hey! I could try this again, but with a twist that might actually be interesting, or at least less embarrassing."

Then I questioned, "Do I have any 'twist' ideas?"

I was then forced to admit, "Nope."

C'est la vie.

back in a proverbial saddle

2008-07-14T21:12:00.003-05:00

Welp . . . summer happened. In said time I took a huge test, lost an inspiration in my Grandma Sue, spent a week working at a pediatric oncology camp, reunited with a certain friend who spent way to much damn time away from us all in the Far East, watched a good friend and my sister fall in love, and drank far too heavily (largely due to that last point). All of these items are probably worthy of "blogging" about but who really cares? Not I . . . well maybe later, because I know you all want to hear about why I now, by law, have to hate Mark Jung.

In the coming weeks I will be doing another camp (this one will be kiddos with diabetes) which I am very excited about for very obvious reasons, and also doing my first "real" rotation at a family medicine clinic in Austin (more obviously reasoned excitement there). All my pals are already neck deep in the seemingly excruciating rig-a-ma-roll that is 3rd year while I am just barely easing my ankles into the situation. I'm OK with that fact. I hope you all who have summers are enjoying them and you all who don't I hope you are coping with that bit of real life appropriately.

big day

2008-05-09T01:47:00.003-05:00

At 9 am tomorrow (technically today) I will take my last lecture-based-course exam ever. It has been a long haul. There is a real temptation to ignore the obvious fact that it only gets harder for the next 5 years for me and just be giddy about the fact that my days, while much more untenable, will no longer consist of merely sitting through power points and then regurgitating them.

interesting discovery

2008-04-27T04:09:00.000-05:00

as it turns out, i have very little to offer

This is a good thing.

2008-04-14T01:05:00.003-05:00

iConcertCal

OK so you go there and you follow the directions under how to install.

Then you open iTunes and check it out (under visualizations). What this thing does is look through all of your music and tell you if any of your artists are playing anywhere in a certain radius of you, also it will tell you when any of your artists have new CDs coming out.

All kinds of useful.

a book

2008-04-07T00:29:00.003-05:00

do yourself a solid and take a scroll around this map

its pretty funny, and theres a book if you agree

"The purpose of satire has been rightly stated as to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cozy half truth" -MF (plus there is bound to be something about making people laugh)

Venting . . .( like relaxing but with a whiny attitude)

2008-04-03T16:39:00.005-05:00

This is the latest in a long gripefest about the bottom rung health insurance the UT system supplies (read: requires we pay for) if we are no longer supplied insurance through our parents.

{Logical point being made by many: You could sign up for any insurance you want, they simply suggest that one and only require that you have something.
Logical counter: True, but the max govt. funding for students on loan is calculated using this insurance as the model and other private insurance policies (that are worth a damn) are more than 400% more per year.}

Anyways the policy provides 1,000 smackaroos per year for prescription coverage, this is probably fine for most but does about a third of the job for someone who may or may not be insulin dependent. So I hit this limit, not a large shocker to anyone who has talked to these people that they care very little for any inconvenience (read: hospitalizations) this may cause. So last year when this happened I was working in an Endo. office and the doctor offered to supply me with medications for the summer until my limit reset. Only one small problem the ladies in charge of the fridge of supplies do not like the look of a white/male/Caucasian/in a white coat mooching off their supplies that are normally meant for those less fortunate than I, I cannot say I blame them.

So this year there is a new plan in the works: drug companies, because no-one feels bad about taking from these a-holes (and they have to give away X amount per year for tax purposes). They merely require my 1040 (supplied proving I made a whopping 900 dollars last year) and a sheet from the insurance company saying they are no longer providing me with prescription coverage. Easy.

My phone tells me I was just on the phone for 2 hours and 11 minutes. During this time, I talked to upwards of 6 six different offices, multiple layers of management, I used varying degrees of anger/frustration/despair/civility/outright disbelief in my voice and got absolutely nowhere. There was a thrilling conclusion when Karen from MedCo Management told me that I had been incorrectly transferred to her and that in fact the people I had just been talking to would help me and she would be happy to transfer me back to them. At this point I begin "I am afraid they told me the same thing . . . ." I then hear the transfer button pushing and sigh to myself . . . . then . . .dial tone. She accidentally hung up on me after over two hours of getting nowhere.

Good God Almighty, why on Earth does this system exist.

Point being that these companies will tell you until they are blue in the face that their policy does not provide the help you need, what they won't do is put a piece of paper in your hand that says that is the case. Leaving the whiny to whine to their friends who care plenty but are really quite tired of the very similar stories being spit out for weeks on end.

Here's something funny to make up for all for all of that you may or may not have just read.

starting small

2008-03-31T19:44:00.004-05:00

I have made a crucial error. I stumbled upon the, 'hey come build a blog' spiel online and resolutely decided that was something I needed to do. I then filled out the forms, questionnaires, background checks, supplied a urine sample and was in fact given an actual blog spot (a pride filled moment for us all). You are now noting that I forgot a critical element of the planning; I never devised any purpose for the aforementioned blog. That being said, welcome to 'nothing in particular'.

some FAQs:

Do I have any reason to think anyone will look at this?
None whatsoever (although the smart money is on 'my mom will love it')

What will I say, place, or do on this valuable chunk of interweb real estate?
I have no idea

Is anyone interested thus far?
Likely not the case