Tue May 20 20:10:37 MDT 2008
Welcome back long lost readers. It's been so long since an update that my fingers actually forgot how to use VIM. It's been so long I actually stuttered trying to write that last html tag. Eeek. Let me try to bring you up to speed.
- Moved into our new house!
- ICU, PFT's and CPET, bronchoscopy, and sleep medicine.
- Preparing for that silly Royal College exam
- Planning a trip to Kona.
- Dad sails through major cardiovascular surgery.
More to come.
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
-- Noelie Altito
Wed Oct 31 13:56:42 MDT 2007
Well I've started one month of Anesthesia at the RAH and other than the early starts the schedule is fairly schweeet. I zip downtown without fighting any traffic, get my pick of the parking at the RAH, pick a room with lots of cases and start shoving tubes in people. Wicked. It's gonna a be a bit of a shock to start taking real call back at the UAH in just 2 and a half weeks.
We plan to celebrate Halloween over at Joe and Catherine's tonight. I don't have a very clear idea what's on the agenda but it will involve scallops, fondue, and 4 Nintendo Wii controllers. And candy. And I'm going to be wearing girly fairy wings. Photo's to follow.
Tomorrow I'll have been the luckiest boy in the world for 11 years!
Truth... never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the
ignominy of him that brought it forth.
- John Milton
Sat Sep 22 12:35:50 MDT 2007
Long time no chat, dear readers. Things have been a bit busy on this end and I am now thoroughly enjoying my first Saturday moring in some number of weeks. This one is going pretty well. Slept in, eventually woke up to the sweet sounds of The Pipettes courtesty of Sarah, went for a run and workout, and feasted on a delicious breakie of tea, toast and jam, and left over sausages.
Sarah and I are trying to save a little downpayment for a little house so I'm maximzing the hooker call. The extra funds are helping a lot, but it means I get one weekend off this month and zero weekends off next month. :-P We've planned to make the most of this one, so Sarah's in the shower, the cats are rolling in catnip and being scared of Magpies, and the internet radio is turned all the way up. I imagine we'll soon be in the car and the adventures will have begun.
I think we've close to fully recovered from the wedding and have now settled into married life. It's a lot like pre-married life. With more jewlery. And I get to say wife. Wife. Hee hee. Wiiii-iiiife. Woah-iiife.
Check out the pictures posted in the wedding section. I'll get some from the honeymoon posted soon.
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
- Aristotle
Wed Jul 11 23:00:25 MDT 2007
Ah Ha! I bet you thought I wasn't coming back!
Life is good, since you asked. The days are counting down 'till I'm Mr. Sarah Ndegwa. I think most of the major things are out of the way, but that may be my ignorance speaking. Being married is gonna be sweet. Sarah hasn't even called it off yet! (Frequent threats notwithstanding.)
I've been spending my time wandering around the RAH as the new pulmonary quasi-fellow. The days are a little long, there's a bit more responsibility, and since I'm meant to be directing the care of up to 30 inpatients while arranging for about 3 admissions and 2 to 5 consults and 3-5 bronchs daily I feel a bit scattered. It's super wicked though. Air goes in and out, blood goes round and round and never the twain shall meet. Starting the get the hand of this bronchoscopy business. Reminds me of an old videogame called Descent.
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
- Winston Churchill
Tue Apr 17 01:00:32 MDT 2007
I must admit I find myself grumpy and tired after just one week of Senior Medicine at the UAH. You'd think that having 5 young minds under my complete control, uh, I mean guidance would be more fun. 5 little Dom's in the making all running around, doin' stuff. I'm not sure if it's the politics, the sprawl of patients accross the hospital, or the enormous amount of scut, but I'm finding myself wondering how I'm going to get through 3 more weeks.
Coming home to two cats and the world's greatest girl helps a lot, but not as much as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!! Yup... I dug out the ol' NES and Sarah got me a copy of some of the classics from EBay. Since I seem to be pathologically unable to go to sleep despite being on call tomrrow perhaps I'll go a few rounds tonight.
So what's with this Facebook thing?
"Everyone has won and all must have prizes."
- The Dodo
Mon Jan 8 22:52:51 MST 2007
Whooosh. That's the sound of the first week of 2007 whooshing by. Sarah and I are officially back at work and it's going to get worse before it gets better. At the end of this week of ID consults, I'm going to work an ICU extender shift at the Grey Nuns Super-Happy Fun Hospital and then pack my bags and drive up to Grande Prairie for a month of General Medicine/ ICU. Upon my (triumphant?) return it's another busy month of ICU.
New Years was interesting. We went out to dinner at a local indian resteraunt that had a special including buffet, mango champagne (?) and belly dancing. I'm a little fuzzy about the belly dancing etiquette, I must say. Stare at the belly? Don't stare at the belly? Which of either of these is considered insulting? Of this I'm sure; If you allow middle-aged men to fold up small bills to insert into your costume you've crossed over the stripping penumbra. Anyways, this other patron decided she no longer wanted the silk scarve and so tied it around my neck. It got knotted. I'm lucky to be alive I suppose. The chili beef was outstanding. Good time had by all.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
-- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
Sat Dec 30 11:24:19 MST 2006
Christmas is now finished and I cleaned up. Present highlights this year include a USB Missile launcher, great Threadless T-shirts, and Muftak, plus so much more... It was great to see the family and I ate like a king as usual.
I'm back at work now and it seems I didn't actually get much extra time off. Ostensibly, I'm meant to get 5 days off. However, 2 of those days were a weekend, I have to work an extra weekend over new years, and I picked up one extender shift. It seems I only took zero days off. Oh well.
Ooops... getting paged. I'm covering ID at the RAH which has been very busy during the days. A bit quiet today (Saturday I suppose) but I guess I'll have to get to work now.
When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web.... Now even my cat has its own page.
-- Bill Clinton
Tue Nov 28 18:47:07 MST 2006
Sarah's a bit late coming home from work in the freezing cold so the cats and I are enjoying the newly erected Christmas tree and getting caught up on some To-Do's. Concerning the tree, I do think we've outdone ourselves this year. It's the same size, has the same decorations and ornaments, but it seems to have a little more class somehow. More class and a new battery-powered sound-effect producing Star Wars AT-AT. Whoot! (That's what you say on the internet when things are awesome.)
It's another laid back month at work as I spend most of my time in Rheumatology clinics. It's nice, I suppose, that I don't have to do that much call but I don't think clinics and patients who aren't on oxygen are my cup of tea. I covered medicine call at the UAH on Sunday and had a bit of excitement with a patient with respiratory failure which did me good.
Not much other news; looking forward to a trip to Calgary, enjoying the
fire on a cold day, stupid PVR broke down again, thinking about getting a
Wii to play with, gotta go make dinner.
Tue Oct 24 15:38:47 MDT 2006
It's truly amazing how much you can get done when you aren't working like a resident. I started a month of general internal medicine clinics at the Grey Nuns Happy Community Love Hospital. It appears I'll be working ~ 4 days per week with no call whatsoever. And today... clinic was cancelled.
With my free day I've managed to finalize my hooker-call licence and insurance, clean out my bag and mailbox, fax my bank some documents, cook a proper lunch for myself and Sarah, and catch up on TV. Later, I may even clean up the kitty litter.
Other things I plan to do this month:
- Some wedding organizing
- Some critical care extender call
- Finish Star Wars Lego II for X-Box
- Catch up with Joe & Damian
- Not miss one episode of America's Next Top Model
- Take naps
- Finish my book.
Nihilism is best done by professionals.
-- Iggy Pop
Mon Sep 25 20:57:46 MDT 2006
Time flies when you're havin' fun on call. Last thing I remember is dropping Sarah off at the airport and strolling in to the general systems ICU for my Sunday call. Many hours, some worry, some fun and an unclear number of lines and tubes laterI strolled back out again. The leaves had changed. Skulked home, crashed on the couch with the cats, and now it's time to head back again. I think if I end up doing an ICU fellowship the time would just fly by.
Sarah's going to be away training in Ottawa for the next two weeks so I'm all on my own. It's pretty quiet around here and the cats and I don't quite know what to do with ourselves. I'm going to condone myself by eating lots of sushi, sleeping extra post-call, and watching kung-fu/sci-fi movies while she's away.
Gonna have to catch up with some buddies this week and get out of the apartment and out of the hospital. I'm in danger of becoming a borning person.
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
-- Dylan Thomas
Wed Aug 16 23:24:21 MDT 2006
Ahhh... vacation. A mere two weeks outsite of the hospital and I feel like a new man. Sooo much crammed in. Hard to come back.
- Cousin married in Calgary.
- Stayed at Cathedral Mountain Lodge
- Ndegwa family reunion.
- Katie taught me to trampoline.
- Visited west coast of Vancouver island.
- Sea kayaking.
- Flew my new 3.5m Prism Stylus P.4 on Long Beach.
- Went deep sea fishing, vomiting balls off, caught 160lb (filleted) of salmon, cod, and halibut.
Wed Jun 7 22:58:41 MDT 2006
When I have the time, I enjoy ironing. There's something intensely
satisfying about
taking the wrinkly and making it flat. Like walking on fresh snow or
popping a fresh sheet of bubble-wrap. In the mornings, I'm
always rushing to avoid minimize being late. At about 2300, though,
having just finished a cup a' tea and winding down for the night you can
really take your time. Mmmm... flat.
Sarah & I had a great weekend at some cabins in Jasper. A little kitchen, a little fire, plenty of quiet, and the Athabasca 5 meters from your doorstep. It was a bit too short a trip, at just 2 nights, but even a quick jaunt away from the city helps. It makes it hard to come back though... Back to the noise, the routine, the seemingly endless and numbing fatigue. I wish I had pdf files of pre-printed order sheets. I wonder who I would speak to to get my hands on those.
Not on call 'till Saturday. Must catch up on sleep before then.
When one is happy there is no time to be fatigued;
being happy engrosses the whole attention.
-E.F. Benson
Wed May 17 00:00:48 MDT 2006
It's usually each year around this time that I'm reminded how scenic a city Edmonton is. Just this morning, as I strolled to work, some of those pink blossoms were floating down on me from a pink blossomy tree. Then a bug flew in my ear and I had a spaz in front of several people 'cause I hate bugs. But it's nice out.
May go get a suit tomorrow. Maxwell is in town and I think I need a new suit for fellowship interviews in the fall. I've turned into a bit of a girl when it comes to shopping now. Jon Toy isn't any help either, he's more excited about shopping than Sarah. I think I'll need a black suit for the wedding, so for now perhaps... grey
I'm not sure what fellowship I should apply for. Nephrology is great. Interesting medicine, good support, and they take good care of their patients. On the other hand, my favorite medicine is the interesting hemodynamics and physiology perhaps best personified by pulmonary medicine and critical care. Lastly, it's hard to give up the romantic notion of the generalist and general internal medicine. However, it's feeling like more and more of general medicine in a university setting is defined by what the other supspecialties don't want to deal with. (And that is it's specialty.) Will have to decide by the fall I suppose. May just apply to all three and let it come out in the wash.
There is only one terminal dignity - love.
- Helen Hayes
Tue May 9 20:48:59 MDT 2006
Ahhh... so nice to be on nephrology after the past month of geriatric medicine. Acidosis, baffling electrolyte abnormalities, and every conceivable hemodynamic derangement... it all makes me feel warm inside. I was really starting to feel like I was in a bit of a rut, but now I'm starting to smile while walking to work again.
Sarah suprised me with 3 new pairs of cufflinks today! I came home to find the apartment spotless, a fire lit, Sarah and Tigerlily fast asleep after the long day and 3 pairs of 'links in bubblewrap. I've even got a purple pair that will look snazzy with my "Mustafa Toma" pink shirt. I should have married that girl years ago. (Sarah, I mean. Not Mustafa.)
It's Tuesday again so the Bubble Tea place is shut right when I have the craving. I may try to convince Jon Toy to venture downtown for some of the fresh stuff.
Man is a bundle of relations.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wed May 3 19:49:58 MDT 2006
Ahhh... a full belly, an evening to myself and only two days left of geriatrics. It's been interesting, but I'm looking forward to taking care of some people witih medical problems over the next few months. In fact, for the next 30 days I plan on not speaking to any patients whatsoever. Lab, blood gas, and imaging results with brief hypothesis testing physical exam maneuvers only thanks. Shhh... neck veins.
Although the wedding is 456 days away, the planning has already begun. So far the church and hotel are tentitively booked and the photography is nearly decided and we may be ready to be at the church one year early. Almost.
I think tonight I'll try to watch a little PVR. It's been so sweet since I've got it I haven't watched a single commercial.
What's the quote of the day man?
-- Chris Venner
Tue Mar 28 01:27:42 MST 2006
Ahhh like the good old days. Up late, tinkering on the computer with only the hum of the fridge to keep me company. I've been up late trying to organize a presentation on the pathophysiology of severe sepsis, particularly as is pertains to the coagulation cascade for the hematologists at joint rounds on Wednesday. So far I've read some landmark trials, realized I'm too dumb to really understand basic science, and reorganized my desktop for a minimalist look and feel.
In other news:
- I'm as tired as a dog
- Cam we need Dukes... how's this weekend?
- I'm back at running
- My fountain pen currently has pink-purple ink. Hot.
- America's next top model won't be the same without Jon Toy.
- I need a vacation.
- Tiger-Lily the cat kicks ass.
Since I actually have to get up in the morning to do something involving
manual dexterity and, ideally, a consious mental state, I will retire for the
evening morning. Don't let my silence over the intervening
hours fool you. I will be dreaming of you. All of you. It will be a nice
dream with no IL-6 and certainly no recombinant human activated protein C.
Life is a struggle, not against sin, not against Money, Power,...
but against hydrogen ions.
--H.L. Mencken
Mon Feb 27 22:30:17 MST 2006
I'm in a bit of an irritable mood and it may have something to do with computers. You see, I found a great deal on a computer while shopping yesterday and so I dropped $500 and walked away with a P4 3GHz, 1G RAM, 200Gb HD and was planning to be in PVR nirvana by the end of the week.
It was a refurbished model and I have 14 days to return it so I thought I'd take it for a bit of a stress test before I hid it behind my television. I borrowed a monitor from Jon and set about trimming down the fluff. I wanted a lean mean PVR machine. After < 1 hour of use, it just died... *poop* the video and audio stopped and would not start again. I guess if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is...
Now I'm going to have to pack it back up and take it back to the shop. I think I'm so excited about PVR now though, that I think I'm going to have to drop some money on a new one right away.
My life-partner made it.
-Brenden Halloran
Mon Feb 27 22:30:17 MST 2006
The most beautiful girl in the world said she'd marry me!
Mon Jan 16 03:37:39 MST 2006
I've only got 2.5 hours left at the RAH and I'm a'countin' them down. It's been steady all day. I've only left the emergency dept. four times. Once was for a 10 minute lunch and three times was to chat with radiology. I dunno... maybe it's this place... maybe I need a cup of coffee... but I'm starting to get a little frustrated with my patients. The RAH has a... skewed population I suppose. I guess if I'm going to be up all night, I'd rather be at home at the UAH.
In a few hours I'll toodle over to the UAH for my cardiology orientation. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak home by lunch and take care of some important errands. Some serious Fed-Ex-ing... serious.
Hmmmm... I can feel my mood improving. I'm almost finished my coffee from the RAH emergency waiting room coffee robot machine. For the clientele in the RAH emerg waiting room, the coffee robot manufacturers hold nothing back.
In other news I think my new haircut makes me look like Bill Hrynchychyn.
Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Tue Nov 29 20:50:37 MST 2005
Had a great bowl of spicy noodles at Taun Taun with Joe and Catherine just now. The spice, the salt, the satay... it was just barely tolerable... it was perfect. I'm sure I can't adequately describe these noodles if you've not had them before, and if you have then you know just what I mean. Though there's now snow on the ground, my head shall be warm for a week. It's the power of the noodles. Noodle-power, if you like.
Tigerlily the cat is now back home. The place is much better now that my cat is home. She and I were just about to have a cup of tea and sit by the fire. I'm going to read some hepatology, but I suspect she'll just sit there. Lazy. I worry that she's not getting enough attention when I'm away from home for 12 hours a day minimum, and tommorrow I think I'll have to get Jon to feed her as I'm planning to have my ass kicked around the emergency room for the next 24 hours or so.
Gastroenterology continues to be great fun. I could do without the actual endoscopy, but I like resuscitating people, I like the acute illness, and I like the hepatology, especially once other organ systems get dragged into the fray. By the way, if there are any GenSurg residents reading this, General Surgery residents rule. I wish everybody I consulted was a general surgeon. Lately, every Gen Surg staff and (core) resident I've dealt with has been immediately available, capable, reasonable, and conducted themselves like a gentleman. This is how consultative medicine should be, and you don't see a lot of that at the UAH.
I don't dawdle. I'm a surgeon. I make an incision, do what needs to be done and
sew up the wound. There is a beginning, a middle and an end.
--Richard Selzer
Sun Nov 20 21:36:37 MST 2005
Well I'm finished my month of general internal medicine at the G'Nuns. To be honest, I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I had expected to. I've probably rambled before how I'm attracted to the romantic notion of being a generalist, but the practicalities of the actual job for the past month were a bit different.
The internists there are pretty great. Fun, smart, efficient, great role models, but I found the environment just ok. Morning rounds generally take about four hours, but because of the large number of patients and pretty good turnover I found the rounds a bit... what's the word... superficial. You see, there's no senior residents, chiefs, nor fellows so the staff tend to be pretty hands on. We all round on every patient every day and much of the time is spent just rehashing their presentations and waiting for staff who are way busier than we are answering pages etc. so we don't seem to spend as much time on what I consider the be the more interesting parts of general medicine. The diagnostic uncertainty, the interesting physical exam, clinical questions that need to be answered. We just have to keep things moving and not get too bogged down.
Call was great though. Interesting medicine, lots of variety, and spash of CCU.
Next is a month of gastroenterology at the university. I'm looking forward to walking to work for a change. I'm not looking forward to the rectal bleeding as much.
Everyone's bleeding out their ass, that's all I know.
--Anonymous Medical Resident 2003
Mon Nov 14 21:26:10 MST 2005
Just did not want to be at work today. It's been a fun almost month at the GNH, but after the long weekend the return to the wards and impending call was a bit of a sting. I must say it is interesting medicine... A nice variety of cases and a pretty good turnover, but the drive across town is getting to me and I miss the 'ol death star. Damn, I never thought I'd see the day that I looked forward to getting back to the UAH. Maybe I miss the mass effect of the other residents? I guess I'll find out soon 'cause I'm back for a month of gastroenterology.
I've almost finished cleaning out my mail tray on my desk. 3 month old phone bills, 7 copies of CMAJ, 45 patient lists, and some unwatched anime from Pete Wei. It's all here. Soon the tray will be super empty ready for another stint of neglect.
Maxwell is coming to town so I think I'm gonna get some shirts and pants this week.
I'm in a cranky mood and I don't know why.
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
- Dylan Thomas
Mon Oct 3 21:09:14 MDT 2005
Ouch... Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday call has me feeling like Apu. You know, after the longest Kwiki Mart shift ever? I thought I was a humming bird of some kind. Joe knows what I mean. Pulmonary has been a blast so far. Plenty of general internal medicine which I like, but with a nice splash of critical care. Now that my service requirements are winding down however, I have to get my ass in gear and get ready for presentations, exams, research, and... Bah-Ba-Baaahhh... The MCCQE part deux.
Tiger-Lily is rolling around on the kitchen table right beside me as I write. She appears to be trying to roll herself up inside one of the placemats; and I dare say she's close to success. She's very settled in now and good for hours of non-stop entertainment. Cats are freakin' hilarious. If you have the means I highly recommend you pick one up.
Back to the books, dear reader.
"...and opening must be attempted in the trunk of the trachea,
into which a tube of reed or cane should be put; you will then blow into
this, so that the lung may rise again... and the heart becomes strong..."
- Andreas Vesalius (1555)
Fri Sep 23 21:20:53 MDT 2005
Ahhh... the weekend off. Nothing could be finer. I've now finished another chunk of my training and I managed to learn a little something about antibiotics and bugs. Overall I don't think I have any inclination nor aptitude to be an infectious disease speacialist, but this last week in particular was one of the most fun I've had at work in a while. It was a great group of residents and staff and I laughed a lot. I don't think I've laughed until I cried at work before I rotated through infectious disease. Charlie's angels, here's to you.
This weekend should be a good break, but I do have some things I'm looking forward to doing.
- Buy cufflinks
- Look for a cheap shirt drycleaner to starch my shirts
- Put leather treatment on my bag
- Pay my tuition (ugh)
- Go for a swim
- Run through some crunchy leaves
- Fly my kite
- Organize bubble tea
Was she cutting chicken with the knife? Something? No?
- Brendan Halloran
Tue Sep 13 21:36:00 MDT 2005
Well I'm back to work now and it's been quite the blow to my system. It's been slow all day and I'm still wiped out by the time I get home. God help me when I have to start doing in-house call again. Perhaps it's the weather... when I left for vacation it was sunny and hot. Now the leaves are turning yellow and it's blowing cold rain on the way to work. Oh well.
I went looking for some wet shaving supplies at the drug store today. I've been using a brush for a year or so now and like it, but an article I read interested me in trying out an old school double edged safety razor. I must admit, I like the idea of shaving the same way my grandfather did and having to be careful not to nick myself. Besides, fancy new Mach XII turbo-super-sonic-laser cartridges are getting so expensive that I could easily recoup the cost of a fancy razor, fancy pure badger brush and a nice cup to fill fancy shaving cream. Anyhoo, the drug store didn't have any of it. I think I'm going to have to go internet shopping.
Babies haven't any hair; Old men's heads are just as bare;
between the cradle and the grave lie a haircut and a shave.
--Samuel Hoffenstein
Tue Aug 30 02:56:01 MDT 2005
It's late in Calgary and I'm taking advantage of the fancy television before I head back to Edmonton with it's modest no frills cable. Tales from the Crypt is on but I'm only half watching. Threre's something indulgent about staying up late and watching bad television. I've loved it since I was little. Ahh... here we go, Futurama is starting.
I'm now fully two weeks into my vacation and I'm sleeping like a dead guy. Sleep is so freakin' awesome I could just do it forever. After my third day of sleeping in I began to feel so energetic and happy that I felt I could do anything. Sarah and I just got back from some cabins with her family. We saw some animals, played cards, ate like Kenyans, drank like Irishmen, and her brother nearly fell off a cliff but got resucued by an ex-mountain ranger guy. It was fun.
We plan to spend the next couple of weeks back in Edmonton fixin' up the 'partment real purty. That mostly means cleaning up the study and hanging some new art but I'm really looking forward to it. I think at least for the time being I'm also going to join an ulitmate frisbee team and a Go club.:
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless
they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
Sun Jul 3 21:01:30 MDT 2005
Today she is Buddhist Nun Ru,
Yesterday she was Teacher Wang.
Although born to wear silken gauze,
She now wears only the roughest hemp.
Mouths that open and spew out lofty talk
Have no interest in becoming buddhas.
Leap out of the cauldron of right and wrong,
Cut off completely the road of life and death,
Then enter tiger's lair and demon's palace
With a heart that feels not the slightest fear.
- Zhenru
Fri Jun 24 00:48:38 MDT 2005
I'll tell you why I have a sore neck if you promise not to laugh. It was a beautiful 28C and so myself and a few other residents were tossing a frisbee and a football around on a grassy knoll. It was great... the sun, the wind, the grass. This is the stuff we'll long for when it's January. I must say I've never been much good at throwing the ol' pigskin but today the beautiful spirals were coming a little more easily. It was like a damn beer commercial.
Then I saw wobbly pass coming straight for my shoes. I tried to reach for it, but it took a funny bounce forcing me to rear back and flinch like a little girl. It was during this grotesque spastic manuver that I strained my neck to a terrible degree. It seems my muscles are now in spasm and I cannot turn my head to the left.
Otherwise life is good. Finished Emerg. Enjoying the summer. Hope to go down to Calgary this weekend if I can get a few errands out of the way tomorrow.
With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
- Friedrich von Schiller
Wed Jun 8 18:57:45 MDT 2005
I'm now into the second week of my month long emergency medicine rotation. It was really great to have only 8h shifts on average every other day. In the first week I spoke to my banker several times, got a haircut, did several loads of laundry, cleaned out my desk, organized a new filing system, (stop laughing, I have 43 folders) and had meals with several friends. Now that that's all done, I'm going crazy with boredom. Usually my shifts are at retarded hours so that when I'm free there's nothing to do. Today I tidied, made some phone calls, went for a run, watched some useless television and read a free weekly newspaper. The whole thing. All this sitting around... it's kinda wrong feeling.
I'm glad Sarah's coming down this weekend. I wont' see her much because I'm working nights and (hopefully Sarah) sleeping days. Even so, it'll be nice to have her around. Sarah always a little list of things to do which I'm missing.
Tomorrow I plan to:
- Go for a swim
- Hang a mirror and some wall hangy stuff
- Go to academic half day
- Eat an orange
- Empty a box
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
--Dylan Thomas
Thu May 26 17:30:15 MDT 2005
That was a bit of a rough stretch ladies and gentlemen. I just finished a triplit of 1-in-2 call in the CCU. Although very quiet during the daytime, CCU call can sometimes be a little hairy. I've averaged 90 min. snoozetime during the last three calls and I must say it's now caught up to me. Good use of a month though. I'm now comfortable taking care of people with acute MI, my cardiovascular physical exam is a little improved, and at least for today I can read a basic electrocardiogram.
I'll drive down to Calgary this evening, but I think I'd better have a big cuppa coffee for the road. No sleep and 160 minutes of Queen Elizabeth No. 2 highway don't mix so well. I'm looking forward to having a few days off, and I'm looking forward even more to getting taken to Star Wars. It seems like just yesterday I was in the line up with my Dad to see Return of the Jedi. We bumped into a classmate of mine named Rory. I think I was about the same age as my nephew is now. Hmmm... that was fast. Must remember to pay attention every day 'cause we'll allll be dead soon.
On that note, Ivan we should play go. Gimme a call cause I start emerg next and I'll have nothing but hobby time.
But when you have seen, read. And when you can, read the original descriptions
of the masters who, with crude methods of study, saw so clearly.
-- William Osler
Mon May 16 19:58:46 MDT 2005
Today my sides are sore. It's probably half running and half puking. I should have known better than to try to run 10k with the newest Ndegwa. Diana dragged me basically the whole way but by about 8k I just couldn't keep up. We had joked earlier that we'd sprint the last 500m and then puke. I felt like I had a little gas left in the tank for a strong finish, but as soon as I crossed the finish line I realized that granola I had for breakfast was all coming back up. I barely turned to the side to avoid spewing on the race official trying to take my bib number. I vomited five times, felt immediately better, and the crowd was entertained. Yay fitness!
Sarah's still down in Calgary and I'm doing plenty of call this weekend. This means that we'll have to wait to see the Star Wars movie. My last CCU call was pretty hectic, particularly during the evening. I don't mind the busy, but I must say I'm still rather uncomfortable managing a cardiac arrest. This evening I will flip again through my ACLS handbook in an attempt to prepare for the crazyness.
I must say however, that I quite enjoy the intensive care environment. There's lote of data, lots of resources, and lots of cool medicine. There haven't been too many procedures yet, but I did manage to pass a Swan-Ganz catheter. I'm still a little dodgy about the interpretation of the numbers but I'm trying.
It was a hot Saturday and the sailboats on the water were becalmed. However,
about a half-a-mile offshore, I noted a boat with a large spinnaker well set and moving
through the water at a reasonable veclocity.
-- H.J.C. Swan
Mon Apr 11 18:01:34 MDT 2005
Another day of medicine call. I'm reminded of the beginning of Aliens (The James Cameron one, not the kick-ass Ridley Scott one.) A day in the corps is like a day on the farm. Mmmmm-mmmm I love the corps. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be barbecuing, but there's a certain masochistic satisfaction to staying up all night, bumping into your collegues as your paths pass in the emerg at ~0400, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on when everyone's sick and all the smart people are asleep.
Dropped a bit of moolah on some fancy-schmancy networking equipment for the computers. Got a cool little wireless router that you can plug your stereo into so that you can stream music from your computers into the living room. Unfortunately, it appears the antennae in the iBook is crapped out and may need to be repaired. It's a little disappointing, but since Sarah's hogging the eMac I'm managing to barely maintain a connection to the gpu by staying 3 ft. from the router with line of site. Hope it won't cost too much and I can get it fixed up.
In other news, I've apparantly been google-whacked and I'm a smeg-head. I'm not sure what that means.
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
--Wolfgang Pauli
Tue Apr 5 21:31:30 MDT 2005
Ladies and gentlemen, it's official. It's been a long process, but Dominic has transferred residency programs into internal medicine! Those who've been following along will understand how thrilling this is for me. There are aspects about family medicine that I enjoyed, and I will certainly miss the people I worked with. On balance, however, I must say my time in the program was a frustrating period and I'm relieved and excited with the change.
Internal medicine, so far, has been more fun, more educational, more satisfying, more geeky (good), and more awesome-er than I could have imagined. The staff has been great, the residents have been great, the patients have been great and I've never been happier staying up all night. (erm... in my professional capacity.) A few days ago I discussed with the radiologist that we needed a high res CT chest because of our clinical suspician of sarcoidosis and I was *totally serious.* I coudn't believe it, I was really trying to work someone up for sarcoidosis. A few days earlier I suspected someone had new LBBB by listening to the paradoxical splitting of their S2. It just doesn't get any better than this. I'll stop now, but I could seriously spaz out a lot about this stuff.
In other important news; the new apartment is great, Sarah is great, my new place to get coffee while walking to work is great and Dominic is so happy with life that he could cry at any moment.
The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and
something to hope for.
-- Allan K. Chalmers
Mon Feb 28 08:48:00 MST 2005
Moving sucks, but I think we're through the worst of it now. Beginning on Thursday, Sarah and I began packing up our stuff and on Saturday (with a little help from our friends, we shipped it over to the new apartment. Sunday was spent cleaning up the old place, which was... well... it was disgusting. I have no idea how so much filth can get under a bed or a dresser. The place is in reasonable shape now so hopefully we'll get some damage deposit back.
The new apartment looks fantastic and will be even better, I assume, once we get all of the boxes and rubbish packed away. It's got a nice big balcony, great lighting, nice hardwood floors, nice flick-it-on-flick-it-off gas fireplace, and a great kitchen with nice new appliances. Today the cable-guy is going to come and then the place is really going to start to feel like home. Now that we have a reasonable sized space, I think I'm going to finally set up a wireless network.
I've only got one week and 2 calls left on obstetrics. I won't be sorry to see the end of it. Forever. :-)
The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what
direction we are moving.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Sun Feb 13 23:26:17 MST 2005
I'm on a bit of a rough stretch of call at the GNH. The dreaded, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Wednesday. Historically my call on this rotation has been reasonable, but the kall karma has take a turn for the worse over the past couple of days. Instead of the desirable busy-during-the-day-quiet-at-night pattern, it's been dead during the daytime, and hectic at night. I keep trying to take naps during the day, but it's a bit too noisy. The cleaning lady was a bit uncomfortable today when she came into my room around 1400 to make my bed and found me still in it. Like Goldielocks.
It'll be nice when I have this long stretch under my belt as I have some other stuff going on in my "real life." Sarah and I are going to Toronto for the long weekend to visit her sister and family. I stayed with them briefly when I was interviewing in Ontario, but Sarah has never been out that way and is looking forward to it.
We also get posession of our new apartment this week. I'm excited about the place 'cuz it's got a fireplace, and a dishwasher, and in-suite laundry, and a nice big balcony, and underground parking, and it's a literal stone's throw from the university hospital. I think we may have some sort of housewarming thingee once we get settled. Stay tuned.
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head
affirmatively but says nothing.
--Henry S. Haskins
Wed Feb 2 23:10:00 MST 2005
I took a nap today and any day you can take a nap is a good one. I don't know quite why I'm so sleepy these past few days as I haven't been on call in a while. Heaven help when I'm on my next big stretch. I was very confused when I awoke... the clock read 6:30 and it was pretty dark outside so I thought I was late for work. I gradually pieced together what day of the week it was without showing up to work twleve hours early.
I have the coolest nephew. The other day he invited me over to play X-Box and although he's only 4 years old, he understands how to play Mortal Kombat. He knows how to block, he knows how to switch to the sword and slice people up. As a special treat, his mom allowed him to turn on the blood animations for when Uncle Dom came over. And when I looked up the fatalities on the internet and then "finished him" by throwing my razor sharp hat into his head his little jaw nearly hit the floor. Ahhh to see through the eyes of a child.
Nearly through my 4th week of obstetrics. 4 more to go. George Bush vows to spread freedoms around the world while continuing the war on terror. Terrifying. America and obstetrics are making me cranky.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
--Mahatma Gandhi
Wed Jan 26 09:15:52 MST 2005
Call was going reasonably well and then I looked at the screen of my trusty Palm Zire 71 to see a kaleidoscopic Mandelbrot set picture of some sort. Cool, except my palm was turned off. I figure my scrubs twisted around my waist a bit so as I lay on my side in the lounge my poor baby was bareing the weight of my hip on it's delicate screen. Regular readers will realize what a stress it is for me to be without my palm for even a short amount of time. When I'm on call, the situation is more severe. All of a sudden, without the comfort of it sitting in my front pocket, I can no longer remember how to dose tylenol. Somehow I made it through the night.
So yesterday I dragged my sleepy self to Best Buy to purchase a replacement. I began with the Tungston T5 but when I got it home and started playing with it, I realized some of it's fancy features weren't all they were cracked up to be. Although I was able to use the bluetooth radio to sync with my mac, it turns out that palm doesn't support bluetooth to mac email grabbing or web surfing. What's more, the retractable grafitti area and the glowing blue focus area were inconsistantly behaved and I just ended up tapping the screen more often. In the end I took it back and replaced it with the much less expensive and much less featured Tungston E which I have so far been satisfied with. My wallet is a little happier too.
All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total
dependence on the appreciation of others.
--Cyril Connolly
Sat Jan 15 15:55:27 MST 2005
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I get to spend the next two months working at the cheerful Grey Nuns hospital. I don't know if it's the pastel color scheme, the large bright windows, or the speedy elevators, but I find the GNH to be one of the most resident friendly hospitals ever. A nice change from the inefficient lumbering inertia of the university. Theres a certain ease about the place, a certain simplicity to getting things done that I had missed. It doesn't take 4 residents and 3 days to get a consultation done, and you can find out the results of imaging within minutes.
The bad news is that I'm going to be doing obstetrics and gynecology there for the next two months. So far, thank goodness, I've spent more time dealing with post-op care, admitting sick people who happen to be pregnant, and operating than delivering babies. Here's hoping it stays that way. My chief is cool, my preceptor is cool, the students are hard working and reliable, and the nurses... the nurses are a bit rude at times. At least they know how to deliver a baby when the time comes which is more than I can say for myself.
In the meanwhile I'm going to keep my mind off my woes with lots of fun stuff. Today Sarah and I are going to have a bit of dinner with Joe and Catherine and perhaps see that new Wes Anderson movie after. Ivan assures me that it will be the largest amount of "bull-dyke" I may ever see in one spot. I'm not sure what that means.
Imagine that you are a midwife: you are assisting at someone elses
birth. Do good without show or fuss. Facilitate what is happening rather than
what you think ought to be happening. When the baby is born, the mother will
rightly say: 'We did it ourselves.'
--Lao Tzu, the tao of leadership (5th century B.C.)
Wed Dec 29 15:55:14 MST 2004
Ladies and gentlemen, Dominic is lucky to be alive. On Dec 27th around 0845 I was driving towards Edmonton about 10 minutes south of Leduc. I was making a very slight right bend when I felt my rear wheels skid out behind me. I slightly countersteered and started to worry as my rear skidded much farther out the other side, I countersteered once more and felt my whole car begin to spin clockwise...
Now I am looking back towards traffic, travelling somewhere between 110-120 km/h, car spinning. This is bad. Then my stomach lept into my chest as I felt the right rear of my car drop into the center ditch. I think to myself, "I never wanted to see A-pod like this." Then whooooffff I blast through a few feet deep of powder that lined the median ditch, car still spinning. Next thing I know, I'm on the wrong side of the divided highway, facing oncoming traffic... in the fast lane. I turn the ignition, car started right away, pulled over to the side of the road. I took the exit to Leduc in a way I'm sure the traffic planners never intended, drove through town, and then continued my way to Edmonton.
I'm completely fine, my car suffered only some cosmetic bumper damage and a couple of flat tires. The more I think about it now, the scarier it is. I could have easily rolled the vehicle, there could have been oncoming traffic when I landed on the other side, my car might not have started when I turned the ignition to get out of the way. Looks like someone was watching out for me up there.
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
--James A. Garfield
Tue Dec 7 22:21:54 MST 2004
- "My other bag's a Prada"
- "Niblet retrieval in progress"
- "Contents: Starbucks Coffee of The Day."
- "Colostomy? Colosto-YOU!
- "Caution: Bush domestic policy being prepared."
* Adapted from Q-Fever.com
Mon Nov 22 21:02:25 MST 2004
Well, I'm in the middle of my second pediatric call and so far it's been going along swimmingly. I must admit that I'm sort of enjoying the kids, and they've been showing up with cool medicine which I appreciate. Last time I got over 4h sleep so I'm hoping that I can maintain the kall karma for another few hours. Know what's awesome? It's how they spell mortal kombat with a 'K'. Joe, we should play some mortal kombat.
Since I expect to be post-call tomorrow, Sarah and I will put up the Christmas tree. Unfortunately I will be working over Christmas so I have to soak up the spirit while I can. Perhaps on the way home I will pick up some egg nog or some whiskey for Irish coffee. I've got some really wicket ornaments including a death star bobble that lights up. You can't get this in stores man.
Doug and Diana got a dog. She's so wicket. If you really get her excited she pees right on the floor. Usually though, she just jumps up and down. She's a pretty good natured animal and loves to be petted. The kittens who also live in Calgary are a little skepical, but so far there haven't been too many major rows. I don't think I'll be able to get a dog while in residency but I sure like the idea of having something to go for a run with or throw a frisbee to. Maybe I could just borrow my nephew? I don't think he can catch though... I guess it has to be a dog then.
There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children
love hamsters.
-- Alice Thomas Ellis
Mon Nov 8 19:37:23 MST 2004
It's been a lazy day and I'm working up the balls to go to the Kinsman for a swim. I've been trying to get out there a few times a week lately with mixed results. I occasionally feel sorry for myself and decide that I should get to play X-Box for a half hour instead. Today however, I have an X-Box ban for my bad behaivior so I have no excuse. Swimming is actually getting a little easier but it's still so hard it's retarded.
This is my last week of family medicine blocktime. I'm a little uneasy about taking care of people's kids for the next few months or so. For better or worse, I've gotten to the stage in my training where I feel reasonably comfortable taking care of sick adults. I still have loads to learn in general, but with children... boy, I just don't know where to begin. They're so small... and they don't have heart failure or COPD or AFib or anything. I bet hardly any of them are on a statin.. Nope, they have G-tube/Fundo... they have Pierre Robin sequence... they have ridiculous 24 chambered upside-down hearts that only Yashu Coe and Joe Pagano really understand. Here's hoping my senior get's me up to speed quick.
That's it... no more procrastinating. It's me vs. one kilometer of water trying to get up my nose. But I will not succumb! I will not be stopped! I will get a cup of coffee before I get to the pool! By the time Sarah reads this it will be too late to stop me! Yay! Coffee for all!
There's a grade III/VI beat-box best
heard at the right sternal border, 2nd intercostal space.
-- Dominic Carney
Mon Nov 1 11:49:01 MST 2004
Woe is me! I found my computer monitor had suddenly gone dim and my computer needed to be repaired. This morning I dragged the beast into the hatchback and drove to the south side to drop it off. Unfortunately, it's one of those all-in-one jobs so that I am mostly without a computer of my own until Thursday of Friday when it's done. I'm happy that it's still under warranty, but I'm not happy that it weighs about sixty pounds. My poor back is mad at me after lugging it around this morning. I'll be so glad when I have it back... I'll take a soft shammy and clean off all the dust. I'll even take that can that shoots air and clean off the keyboard.
Yay is me! Today is the anniversary of the day Sarah and I started seeing each other. I think that makes it... one million years! Yay! She's wicked busy right now, so I think I'm going to have to get her something nice and treat her to a... a treat of some sort. Damn I suck at getting gifts... Regular readers will remember what an awesome gift giver Sarah is and that I'm totally outmatched. This year though, I may have a chance as she is really busy and has no car. If only I had an idea... stupid brain.
I'm back at the swimming now. I have a new thing. I run to the pool, go for a swim, and then run home. The pool is really nice at Kinsman, and I'm starting to feel like I'm making some progress in re-learning how to swim. It'll be nice to have an indoor exercise to do during the winter. Running is fun, but I think I'll give my shins and my cold nose a rest for a while.
He is the better equipped for life. As for swimming, who has the less to
carry.
-- Apuleius
Thu Oct 21 10:30:06 MDT 2004
It's a dark day for the world wide web ladies and gentlemen. The computing and networking services at the university of alberta has finally removed the server space and accounts of two of their most memorable alumnis, Reilly Smith and Ivan Chebib.
These two markup-maestros have left our fair institution to pursue further training in another city and so the turdburglar's blog and the hidden acid-trip question mark have now been taken away from me. Not clicking on those little links every week will take some adjustment for me and I may not be the only one. Those two useless websites will be missed.
On the other hand, I think these fun sites may have been develped locally and a copy of them may still be sitting quietly on a computer somewhere. Perhaps one day they will rise again, not unlike a turdy Wil Wheaton acid tripping phoenix.
Blockime finishes in about three weeks and then I graduate the wonderful world of in house call. It's been nice having the evenings to myself most of the time, but overall I'm sorry to say that it hasn't been a very happy start to my career. Oh well. Stiff upper lip and all that. Ladies and gents, it's 1 in 4 from here on in. I've just gotten new batteries for my trusty motorola brick and, God help me, I'm looking forward to admitting people. Before that, however, I have some teaching, a conferance on therapeutics, and a clinic or two to wade through. Wish me luck.
The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of
Heaven.
--John Milton
Thu Oct 14 10:29:31 MDT 2004
Today I shall dine on spicy satay soup at the Taun Taun noodle house. There's a skinny jewish OBGYN resident in town and along with a skinny gentile Gen Surg resident we shall sit a slurp noodles and catch up. This sounds like the start of one of those "A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a noodle house..." jokes.
I wasn't sure what this year would be like when many of my foosball playing medical comrades were scattered to the four winds, but I'm pretty happy with how it's worked out. I think I see many of them nearly as much as I did when we were in school. I suppose many of them stil have family ties to our fair city so I've been able to get the occasional sushi, coffee, or xbox sitting out of them as they zip through.
Work continues just the same. My boss had to leave the country for a little while and although I've been taking care of his patients ok, it's not entirely clear to anyone who my attending physician is. This makes some of the offical paperwork a little sketchy. Booo! Disorganized! Boo! Speaking of disorganized, ask me to tell you about GI bleeds sometime.
Everyone's bleeding out their ass, that's all I know.
-- Amy Baker
Mon Sep 20 22:31:32 MDT 2004
Do you, dear readers, every get compared to famous people? I sure do... I sure do. Within the past year even, I have been told I look startlingly like three celebrities.
- Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little Radiohead, but Mr. Yorke is creepy. He's creepy, and he's not handsome. And it's not just a matter of opinion, the man truly is odd looking by any reasonable person's estimation. I was surprised that a near stranger would be forward enough to volunteer that I look exactly like this funny looking man.
- Jamie Oliver aka The Naked Chef. This 20-something British cooking sensation may actually be the most flattering comparison of the year. He's young, he's a good cook, and his eyes are roughly the same size. (unlike celebrity look-a-like number 1) There's a recipie on his website for a nice looking minted pea soup.
- Clay Aiken. This ex-american idol may have been the worst cut of all. I understand, on an intellectual level at least, that there may be people out there who don't actually hate Clay. But surely even the most ardent of his defenders know that they are in the minority... This lady did not. She called out from behind, full of excitement. "Hey... do you know who you look like? Clay Aiken!" she squealed. This is not a polite introduction.
But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?.
I don't belong here
-- Creep, Pablo Honey (1993), Radiohead.
Wed Sep 8 22:35:08 MDT 2004
Oh you should have seen it... it was so beautiful. CAT-5 cable snaking under radiators, power bars overloaded with large plugs, and little flickering green lights symbolizing the packets zipping back and fourth accross my apartment floor. I've been doing a lot of work on my apartment lately, but redesigning the network was my little treat to myself. I picked up a wireless router, but as it doesn't reach down the hall to Sarah's apartment I may not have much use for it. Thats alright, IP masquerading, port forwarding, decent security... it all makes me giddy like a little boy.
Two more days of vacation and most of these little projects I've started will be put on hold for another year or so. I fear the grotesque amount of call that stands between me and my next vacation. I suppose once it begins I'll tell myself that I'm releaved to have a routine back again. I think things will be much more managable now that Sarah is back in Edmonton. It was a rough six weeks when she was gone I don't mind saying. I must get some sushi before I go back.
I've got an infuriating papercut on my right 4th fingertip. I forger about it until every time my finger stabs the letters 'O' or 'L' when the edges release tiny screams. I hate papercuts. I read that papercuts tend to be very painful compared to their size not only becuase of their location but also because the rough edges of the paper damage the sides of the laceration more than a razor would. But I did read it on the internet...
No vacation goes unpunished.
--Karl A. Hakkarainen
Sun Aug 8 22:37:01 MDT 2004
My brother in law has now left my apartment and it's mostly back to normal now. Messy as fuck. I just don't understand it because I hardly do any living here. I hardly cook, I never eat, and I rarely even bathe here. I'm sitting at my desk which I only use for computing and reading and it's covered with junk. There's old sticky notes I can't read, empty pens, empty pen packets, and empty gatorade bottles. I see CD's without cases, stacks upon stacks of medical administrative paperwork, fallen leaves from my little tree and about two kilograms of unopened mail. There's even a little cup full of low grade change. Now that my roomate is gone, I have no excuse. I'm afraid I've let things get to the point where I need to tidy up. Those who know me know this point doesn't come very often. Look out desk, your number's up.
Only
Thursday is my last day of work before I pack up my little purple car and pick up Sarah to head to Salmo British Columbia. This will be our third annual trip to that electronic love-childish hippy-fest and I could sure use the trip. I'm looking forward to not wearing a tie... I'm looking forward to exploring the woods in the dark... God help me, I'm even looking forward to that naked hippy guy we see every year. True to form, Sarah got us tickets ages ago saving us over a hundred bucks. I was a bit worried that I was having my vacation too soon in the year but I must say I don't think I could have waited another six months to take a little bit of Dom time. I think the frustrating aspects of work are harder on me than the busy hard-working parts. After I switch rotations, I think work may be a little busier, so perhaps my vacation timing was better than I thought.
To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and
this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.
--Charles Horten Cooley
Wed Aug 4 10:34:56 MDT 2004
Clinic is cancelled this AM as the boss is busy with grant proposals etc. I'm using the time to have a nice breakfast, to get caught up on some paperwork, and perhaps I'll go find a homebase somewhere and throw down now that I have some time to enjoy it. I'll try to get some buddies together this evening for Noodle House before I go swimming with Elaine and the boys. It should be a good day. Most days with noodles are good days.
I'm a bit stiff this morning... this may be, in part, related to the bit of a run I did last night. I think I went about 29-30k at race pace and was encouraged by the fact that I think I could have gone another 12k if my life depended on it. Hopefully the excitement of the big day will carry me through the last stretch. Now I'm just going to have to find a way to get lots of rest and fluids before the big day, Aug 22. Once it's done, I think I'm going to not run for a while. I think I'll take up television.
It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse.
--Ann Trason
Thu Jul 29 12:31:22 MDT 2004
You know what's awesome? Those stand-up urinals. You know... the ones that go all the way down the the floor. I seem to recall seeing them far more often in the past than I do now. I'm not sure why I like them so much, but I wonder if it's because it more closely resembles urinating on a tree or a post or a rock or something. Peeing at a stand-up-full-length urinal is peeing like your ancestors. Morover, if you aim down your stream strikes the porcelin at an oblique angle virtually eliminating the possibility of splashback.
I had the treat of visiting a washroom in the clinical science building today and I was very impressed. It had my stand-up-full-length urinal, real twist it on-twist if off human style faucets (as opposed to the one handed Alcatraz style pain in the ass faucets) and the floor and walls were covered by those 2cm x 2cm tiles in interesting patterns. You just don't find bathroom workmanship like that any longer...
Don't have to go back to clinic today until 2pm. I think I'll have an extra long lunch and perhaps another cofee.
Happines is like peeing in your pants. Everyone can see it, but only
you can feel it.
--Unknown
Mon Jul 19 09:51:48 MDT 2004
The beginning of another week. I'm a little more tired, my apartment is a little more messy, and Sarah's been away for far too long now in my opinion. I travelled 3 hours north to my parent's home in Cold Lake. My sister and her boys are staying there while their new house is completed in Leduc. The house was fuller still because my aunt, uncle, and cousin came up for a visit as well. It was the weekend of the Cold Lake Airshow so I slapped on some SPF 50 and braved the 30 degree heat to take in the spectacle. It was loud and fun and there was free food and beer! Despite my best efforts to avoid a burn, my sensitive Phil Collins' patches are a little red today. The rest of me, I think, will be ok.
It was a good visit... I stayed up late in the backyard talking with my dad about politics and drinking beer. Then I would try to sleep in only to have my nephew decide that it was time to get up and play Ninja Turtles. I left to come home to Edmonton a little later than planned, but I still arrived before it was too dark and managed to get a few Z's before reporting for work this AM.
But now it's time to get back to work. This week I plan to get in a few runs, clean up my apartment, and open all my mail.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
-- H.L. Mencken
Thu Jul 15 09:39:59 MDT 2004
Well it turns out that I have the rest of the morning off... Boy this family medicine blocktime is killer. No call, healthy patients, random mornings off to do whatever I want... it's tough. If only I could take half of Damian's workload we'd be two normal residents. To be honest, I really like the people I'm working with and the staff seem, on average, to be more interested in making people feel better than many other specialties. However, I have some real reservations about the quality of my medical education... I've been trying to do extra reading on my own because I'm afraid I'm just not seeing enough volume of pathology (as apposed to social issues, psyche issues, reassurance issues) to be able to take care of a critically ill person when the time comes. Also, the physicians I'm working with appear more interested in teaching me about FIFE and patient centered medicine than how to appropriately manage the medical problems patients present with. This may take some adjustment on my part. If I were a smarter boy I'd be using my extra time in a more effective fashion than sitting here bitching about it...
I'm heading up to Cold Lake this weekend to visit with the fam. Elaine and the kids are going to be there too and we may take in the airshow. It's been a long time since I've visited and my parents are starting to think that I don't like them or something. Sarah, unfortunately, won't be able to come as she's working the weekend in Calgary. Perhaps I'll have to bring her back a Cold Lake IDA prezzie.
Happy birthday Ivan!
Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.
-- Plato (427 - 347 BC)
Thu Jul 1 18:33:59 MDT 2004
I slept in till 1300 today after a late night screening of
Spiderman 2 with Paton-Gay
et al. Good movie, better than the first. It barely managed to stay on the
happy side of the thin line between fun comic book melodrama and stinky
cheesy schmaltz. If only every 100 million
dollar summer sequel could fair as well. As I still have no cable I'm
trying to think of another movie to see this evening... although part of
me thinks I should do some pointless reading to prepare for some
real doctoring tomorrow. I'm a little bit nervous as I feel a little
lot rusty after about 8 weeks of being off service. In a way I wish I had a
busy time coming up so that I could get a little call under my belt and
get settled in. When things aren't so busy I just spend more time in that
awkward not up to speed stage.
I booked Sarah for a busride down for the weekend. I'll be glad to have her around. This place just isn't the same without her. I haven't done any cooking or anything. Just seems like there's no point for one person. I'm not looking forward to the next month without her. I'm glad I still have a few buddies in town as it's nice to have someone to hang out with instead of just hanging around the apartment. Joe and Damian, you guys rule.
I have a stack of paperwork one plumber's bag thick. Between parking and immunizations and payment and TD1's and finding a coat and an ID tag I don't see how I'll ever get it done. I'm sure glad I have that bag now... It's funny that during medicine undergrad I had a reputation for never bringing anything with me to class. Now that I usually have so much paperwork along with my stetho-ma-scope, white coat, etc. I'm glad to have a rugged (and stylish) way to get around. I'm so forgetful that having a place for all of my stuff is very helpful. I can take everything I need with me.
Omnia mea mecum porto. (Everything mine I carry with me.)
--Latin saying.
Tue Jun 29 16:31:11 MDT 2004
Today was my first day of work as a doctor. I didn't do too much... I suppose first days are like that. A lot of meet and greet, a lot of people asking questions, a lot of information that I've already forgotton. The group I'm with seems pretty easy to get along with and the secretary and resident wranglers who'll be taking care of us seem pretty great. I'm based out of the university hospital which isn't traditionally a family medicine site but I think it's going to work out great. My supervisor seems to have a large older patient population which I like, inpatients which I like, and sees patients in long term care, which I also like. I'm starting off with 20 weeks of family medicine with a month of vacation thrown in. Not much call; a good way to begin.
I took the pluge and dropped a chunk of change on a new computer. It's pretty great so far. I chose an eMac so it's pretty similar to Sarah's laptop, but it's noticably faster, has a nicer screen, and can burn DVD's. I've just organized my desk to make room for it and now it looks like it's been here forever.
Ouch... it hurts to type. Why you ask? Well I went kiteboarding last weekend and I got very beat up and sunburned and tired. I've flown stunt kites quite a bit over the past few years, but it turns out that was little preperation for being harnessed into a 10 meter wide leading edge inflatable kite and getting yanked out of the water and thrown back in by the wind for hours. I think I may go again this weekend.
Orthodox medicine has not found an answer to your complaint.
However, luckily for you, I happen to be a quack.
--Richter cartoon caption
Wed Jun 16 09:33:48 MDT 2004
Today is my birthday and so far it's been a great day. I drove Sarah to work this morning and it was a great drive. I'm usually rushed and speed a bit because we're so late but today was all different. Every single light was green! Even that brutal one as 32nd Ave. crosses the Deerfoot; the one that burns me every time and makes me wait for 5-7 minutes to pass. We were untouchable... as though we had special birthday pass to easy drivin'. I got a little nervous as we approached a light that was initially red so I took my foot of the gas, took my hands off the wheel and gestured towards the lights (Harry Potter style...) and it turned green right in front of me. We shall see how the trip to meet her for lunch goes.
Yesterday I considered getting a new computer. Sarah's iBook is really great but it's getting a bit long in the tooth now... nearly four years old. I don't usually notice it being sluggish, but I've recently become involved in a small multimedia project Doug & Dianna's wedding and the iBook is only barely hanging on. Some of the effects take a long time to apply and drive space has very quickly become an issue. It turns out that I'll only be able to finish about a third of the project with the drive space I have left. I was considering buying a fancy external HDD but for little over twice the price I could get a lower end Apple desktop complete with a DVD burner to save my project for posterity. Seeing as how I couldn't go to Mexico (damn Irish consulate...) perhaps I could treat myself to this instead? Grrr... I hate deciding to spend large sums of money. I shall think it over.
Watched the election debate yesterday. I sure hate politics... it's time's like this I'm relieved I don't have the right to vote in Canada. I did however start the ball rolling on becoming a Canadian citizen. Perhaps by next election time I'll have a chance to spoil my ballot or something.
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me.
They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of
government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
--H.L. Mencken.
Thu Jun 10 14:31:40 MDT 2004
I now have a fancy parchment that proclaims: Dominic Patrick Carney MD. It's been a long time coming and it's a weird feeling to be a doctor. I still don't feel like I know nearly enough to do the most basic of doctoring so I'm glad to have a few years of residency before they turn me loose on the unsuspecting populace. I've said it before, if you're going to get sick, do it before July 1.
Ahhh the hazy days of summer... they're washing over me now like... like... big bubbles? Each one bursting with a blip so I hardly notice it. I kind of like having days off although I don't seem to get anything more accomplished with my time. I've started playing through KOTOR again so that I may lap Ivan again. I've started to get back into the ol' marathon training a bit more heavily and my shins are reminding me of if every second. I've also started reading a stimulating, if perhaps exagerated, book by the reclusive genius, Steven Wolfram, called NKS. It's a fat but fun read so far.
Sarah's still hard at work. I usually drop her off and pick her up and we can have lunch most days. I'm not looking forward to spending July and August apart. I think starting residency is going to be weird enough without having to do without Sarah.
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so
small.
--Henry Kissenger
Fri Jun 4 10:28:51 MDT 2004
My nose is a little sunburned after a two day hike with Ian and Rob.
We packed in and spent the night around the Ghost river area. It was
pretty fun. We didn't find the trail the first day and ended up climbing
over a 100 ft. old soft forest covered ridge. That was pretty rough, but
when we made it to the other side and found the river it was all worth
it a bit better. Ian brought a water filter and we pumped and treated
our water from the river. No giardiasis so far. *knock knock*
I'm glad we brought Sarah's tent because it rained on us all night in the canyon. I think a lean-to may not quite have cut it. I was a bit gassy after Ian's rehydrated MEC chile, and there was a rock in my ribs all night, but it was nice to have a little adventure and get out of the city. I'd do it again. Next time we'll get a map.
This weekend I have my graduation banquet and ceremony. Soon it will be official. Dominic Carney MD. Rresident extraordinaire. It's weird, I've only been away from the hospital for about three weeks and I feel rusty already. I'm having a nice rest, but I'm starting to look forward to getting back into my routine as well. To that effect, I'm going to see a tailor from Hong Kong today to get a few shirts and pairs of pants. Mmmm... Hong Kong pants.
The trouble with jogging is that, by the time you realize you're not
in shape for it, it's too far to walk back.
--Franklin P. Jones.
Fri May 28 11:04:32 MDT 2004
I'm just about to go meet Sarah for lunch. I'm getting hungry and I'm tempted to try to get some Wendy's. On the other hand, I haven't been getting nearly enough sushi since I left Edmonton. Thing is, Sarah is not a sushi eater. Other thing is, Sarah doesn't like Teriaki too much either since some jerky Japanese place battered it. Now I'm left with trying to find an interesting place to eat, that's close to the hospital I'm picking Sarah up at, and that doesn't server jerky battered Teriaki chicken. Jerks. How do you spell Terr-eee-ack-ee?
More scanning today for the slideshow. I think this project may suck up the last of Sarah's HDD, so I may have found an excuse to go and purchase an iPod. Then I'll have lots of external drive space and a nifty mp3 player too.
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
Thu May 27 21:06:23 MDT 2004
Mmmm... scanning. I've become involved in the creation of a mildly embarrassing slideshoe for an upcoming wedding. There's lots of scanning to be done and each five minute pass of the scanner gives me prescious minutes to update this site o' mine.
Went swimming with Sarah the other day. Sarah's a pretty rockin' swimmer... She was on the national team in Kenya or somethin' so swimming with her or her equally fit siblings is not a great idea. A few summers ago we decided to swim across a lake. It looked like about 1k and Sarah and her brother thought it was a good idea. It was... for them. Dominic barely made it across to rest for a good long time on the other side. The long trip back had me converting to backstroke and getting carried ~500m downshore of our cabin by the current.
Sarah assures me that I look like I have good technique but somehow I'm really tired after swimming <50m. I have a theory... I find it hard to stay afloat unless I'm really givin' 'er. Therefor I try to swim way to fast and end up getting real tired. Maybe if I ever swim again I'll try to relax and go real slowwww.
He is the better equipped for life. As for swimming, who has the less
to carry.
--Apuleius
Thu May 20 11:53:51 MDT 2004
Why is it so hard to get things done? Since I've finished my clerkship my productivity has dropped off the scale. I have all this spare time to get all my errands done and I can only finish one or two things per day. I chalk it up to a few things.
- Sarah not here - It's amazing how dependant I have become on Sarah reminding me what I have to do and generally helping me keep track of my life. With Sarah in Calgary I'm helped only by my palm pilot which, it turns out, is a distant second.
- Lazyness - I've totally got it. I just want to spend the day getting coffee, playing X-Box, and watering my plants. I've had some busy times this year, dammnit, and part of me feels entitiled to spend some time sitting on my ass.
- Almost caught up - I've gradually made significant progress on my TODO list and as it gets shorter and shorter, I feel less behind, less compelled to run errands, and less motivated overall. Perhaps I have reached my TODO steady state. It appears that when I have only three things I should be getting done, I just stop doing. When the list creeps up to five or six items again then it's time to get to work.
[Time is] the most valuable thing a man can spend.
-- Theophrastus (300 BC - 287 BC)
Fri May 14 12:39:41 MDT 2004
Well ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap. Medical school has ended with a pop and a fizzle and I'm going to spend my summer as a man of leisure. I'm still feeling pretty crummy from this fever (Yellow? Dengue? Q? Who knows?) but I'm going to eat a lot of Tylenol and drive to Calgary today. Sarah's dad makes a remedy that's pretty amazing. It has hot freshly squeezed lemons, ginger, cloves, and 7oz. of different types of liquor. It's the nightime coughing, aching, stuffed up, sneezing, wake up on the kitchen floor medicine. I may have two.
I have lots of errands to do before I go but I'm not feeling very ambitious so I think I'll put most of them off. The bare essentials include plant watering, frog feeding, and garbage removal. Everything else can just wait until I come back from the weekend.
I'm still waiting to hear back from the Irish Consulate about my passport. We're a well intentioned people, the Irish, but efficiency and deadlines are not our forte. I have only a few weeks until the Mexico trip so I hope I'll be able to get it in time. It reminds me of that Family Guy Episode where Peter's is explaining Irish history and it flashes back to pre-whiskey Ireland which was a Jetson's like futuristic utopia.
I'm feeling sort of nostalgic about the end of these four years... I'm ashamed to say there are still some people in my class whose names I can't always remember. Oh well... that's regret for you.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like
less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
--J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.
Wed May 5 11:07:39 MDT 2004
Beeeeep-Beeeeep... waittaminnit... not the sound of my alarm. Hey, how come I feel so rested? Oh crap! It's 10AM, I've slept in, and my phone is ringing! "Hello?" "Hello Dominic..." "I've slept in haven't I?" "Yes you have..." I race to the third day of my last true exam of my medical degree and I'm over an hour late. Unfortunately the proctor wouldn't let me sit the exam because univeristy policy states that no one can enter after 30 min. of exam have passed. You see, people are allowed to leave after 30 min. and could potentially clue me in to the questions. I mentioned that no one had left yet but policy is, apparently, policy.
I'm not sure what will happen... Academic Standings Committee may offer me a re-write or maybe just float me through based on my first two days performance. I figure I scored about 75% on the first two days of examination so I could potentially pass without even sitting today's part three. Ughh... I just hope this little stunt won't cause me too much hassle! I've checked my alarm and it appears to be set correctly but just didn't go off... This sucks. Hope they don't fail me.
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life
is serious.
--Dorothy Parker
Tue May 4 16:42:02 MDT 2004
Whew... that was a quick four years. Tomorrow I will no longer be a medical student. I suppose I won't be an MD until I have the diploma in my hand, but it's a pretty significant four years behind me none the less. I had the second day of my three day comprehensive exam today and after tomorrow's final chapter and the MCCQE part one I will be free.
It's been a pretty good four years I'd say and I only have a few complaints about the quality of my education. Overall I feel ok about being set loose on hundreds of unsuspecting patients on July 1. I wish we had a little more emphesis on clinical skills early on, I wish we spent less time on psychiatry, and I wish I had ten more years of experience under my belt. And I wish I had a nicer belt.
We're mostly getting pretty tired of studying and many of us have just stopped. I myself still have quite a few chapters of the Toronto Notes to force myself through before tomorrow. After that, I'll have one week to cram all that useless public health, epidemiology, and medicolegal nonesense into my little tired head before MCCQE part I.
I have got big plans for this summer...
- Trip to Mexico with Ivan et al.
- Finish my first marathon.
- Mod my XBox
- Take Sarah somewhere great.
- Fly my kite.
- Get dumber.
Ok, maybe not that much planned but I've been busy studying and taking care of hamsters and eating oranges.
By the time we've made it, we've had it.
--Malcolm Forbes
Wed Apr 28 00:33:54 MDT 2004
I was just about to tell you, dear readers, about what a shitty day this has been. Between stressing out about how impossible it is to prepare for a three day mystery OSCE and various other mini-crises I've been in a pretty glum state. Today, you see, there has been more than a usual amount of soggy parking tickets, dropped hamsters, exploding vacuum cleaners, money grabbing faculty, and coffee finagling bums. But then... then when all hope was lost I had a breakthrough. My palm pilot started working...
I don't know if you understand, really understand, what it's like to walk around for 3 months with an un-syncable palm pilot in your pocket. You are utterly dependant on it for any sort of organization in your life, and the smallest multi-step tasks are impossible without it's constant aid. And yet, it's a ticking time bomb. It's only a matter of time before it quits on you, and you are unable to reinstall your vital data. Syncing is very important for the integrety of your data as well as your psychological well being. I have been walking around for three months without any means to back up my data and it has been very stressful, but today I was able to sync. Damian deduced that it was my palm and not my computer that was the problem. A quick soft-reset later, I was in data backup nirvana. Don't think me a dolt for not trying that sooner.
Now if I can just get some sleep, pass my exams, not have Sarah give up on me and make it through to May 12 I'll be laughing all the way to the beach.
Life is a zoo in a jungle.
--Peter De Vries
Sun Apr 18 00:41:20 MDT 2004
It's been kind of a fun week being back at class. I don't get to see most of my classmates when were on the wards and we will be split up for the rest of our lives starting on July 1. But now... now we can sit in the back and play Bejewelled. We can walk in and out of Snell Hall without a care in the world. I can show up when I want and leave before the talk is done. Now we're kings.
I usually sleep in and try to get to lectures before lunch. Before I get to the theatre, however, I have to stop for coffee. I dig through my change for $1.87 for a large house-blend from Starbucks in the hospital. I enjoy refusing to ask for Venti and enjoy even more that the baristas have given up correcting me. We're kings here.
The lectures themselves are of dubious educational value. At best they are completely inappropriate attempts to prepare us for our Medical Council of Canada part I exam. At worst they are ridiculous ramblings throughout the world of medicine without any preparation, insight, or attempt to respect the needs of the audience. Boo organizers of the review course.
With my new free time I have finally finished my model TIE Fighter. (See archives:Fri Oct 25 11:42:42 MDT 2002) It's been a long time in the making... sitting there in pieces on my seldom used kitchen table. Now that it's done I'm very happy with it. I've got a couple more ready to be made. But first, more coffee.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy
goodness.
--Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Sun Apr 11 12:27:01 MDT 2004
Hmmm... a lot has happened dear readers since we last chatted. (Or I chatted at you... or something.) My sister had her second baby on Tuesday April 6th. Owen David Ernst is totally cool and riggle-y. He's already trying to hold up his head so I'm pretty sure he's a genius. His brother Sean thought that they should call the new baby Sean too. I convinced him that it would be too confusing. Elaine seems to have taken the whole thing in stride and had me over yesterday for deep-fried turkey. Yup.
It seems there is such thing as a propane powered deep-frier in which you can submerse a large turkey. It only takes 20 minutes and Elaine assured me it was very delicious. She wasn't wrong. It was tender and juicy and had a nice sweet taste because they injected it with some sort of marinade using a syringe. I don't think I have room in my home for a turkey frier, but one day... one day. Elaine, how did you start life 2.5 years after me and get so far ahead?
Studying is not going too well for that pesky MCCQE part I exam. I understand, on an intellectual level at least, that passing my certification exam is important. However, I just can't seem to get into it. Don't get me wrong now, I have done more reading about medicine this year than in the last two years combined. But reading around a case is different, more interesting, more timely. Starting at page one of the Toronto Notes Review just seems so daunting... and boring. So far the review classes have been of dubious educational value (at best) so I suppose I should start displying some dicipline.
p.s. I need a plumbers bag.
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
--Dylan Thomas
Tue Mar 30 11:45:12 MST 2004
Well the CaRMS results are in and I matched to family medicine at the UofA. The very bright side is that it means I don't have to move away in order to start work for July 1. I wasn't looking forward to spending the next two years away from Sarah. Check back to this log in about two years and we'll revisit the issue. There's a really great group of residents I'll be working with too which I'm pretty excited about.
In more important news, Sarah ordered me a zombo.com t-shirt from the internet. It's soooo wicked and it looks just like the zombo.com website. Cam, if you're reading this, thank you for introducing me to the world of zombo.com. I encourage all of you, dear readers, to point your browsers towards zombo and perhaps even consider ordering a t-shirt.
I think today I will attept to clean up my apartment.
Stupidity is its own reward.
--anonymous
Wed Mar 17 10:29:11 MST 2004
I'm now halfway through my peds pulmonary rotation... 10 days left until the end of medical school proper. After that it's just ACLS training, review courses, and exams. It's a little hard to believe that we're actually finishing off. Just the other day I was setting two alams hoping not to miss my first day med school. Now I just use one alarm and I miss all the lectures I can get away with. It's 7 days until match day. 7 days until we find out what sort of Dr.'s they will train us into, 7 days until we find out where we will live for the next 2 to 7 years. Thankfully my fuzzy notion of time and dates is allowing the days to wash over me without too much rumination. Soon the wait will be over...
I've had a terrible respiratory infection for the past 5 days or so. I think the sick kids may have had something to do with it. Apparantly there is some RSV going around the ped's residents and I do have the symptons to match. I also have a strange rash on my left hand, intense fatigue, but I don't think I need to be admitted. Today I feel Sudafed-tastic and I think I may be on the mend.
7 days to go...
Worries go down better with soup than without.
--Jewish Proverb
Mon Mar 8 08:56:45 MST 2004
I've just spent the last hour sitting in the WMC computer lab accross from the library. We just had a very slow paced session on how to use MEDLINE. If Sarah saw me here she'd serve me a beating I'd never forget. Oh well, I guess it's better than working and it gives me a chance to update the ol' 'blog. I'll be spending the next three weeks on peds pulmonology. I have no idea what the hours will be like, but I'm sure it will be better than the hours in Calgary. There are no consults yet, so I'm hoping it will be a quiet time.
So I was walking towards the hospital in the parking lot this morning, whistling as I sometimes do, when a middle aged lady approached me to tell me that I looked like Clay Akin. (Apparantly of American Idol fame.) She wondered if anyone had mentioned that to me before. They haven't, but it's enough to make me consider a different less spiky haircut just the same. I mean, who says that to people they don't know? And Clay Akin??? I dont' know, maybe she liked Clay Akin, but that is not a flattering comparison in most peoples books. Sigh.
Running is seemingly back on track. I went out for a morning long run with the group on Sunday. We trotted along for 29k and my poor body didn't take that too well. Not only did I have the usual aches and pains along with the boredom that comes from running for 3.5 hours but I fear that I may have been suffering from some sort of metabolic disturbance for the last 5k. I was confused and light-headed and my balance was all screwed up. I had to lie in my car for 10 min. before I drove home just to straighten myself out. I don't usually go in for those fancy carb-gels and space age treats, but I think I'm going to test them out for next time... or I might die.
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are
running from, and to, and why.
--James Thurber
Mon Mar 1 12:51:19 MST 2004
I'm sitting in the Doctor's lounge in the Foothills Medical Center in Calgary halfway through my two week elective on the General Internal Medicine Consult service. So far it's been creepy busy but fun and educational too I suppose. Last week, the earliest I left work was 8pm. I can't complain too much as I'm staying with Sarah's parents and, as I likely have mentioned before, that means three types of meat with every meal. There's a ridiculous 1970's Cobalt based computer system in use here and it's necessary to do or learn anything. Want to know someone's meds? Computer. Want to know someones diagnosis? Computer. Want to know someones vitals? Yup, computer. Want to know someones path report? Too bad. There's a new staff person on this week and there's an extra resident on the team so I'm hoping to get out of here at a nicer hour.
In family news, it seems I am to be an uncle again in about two weeks. Elaine has played the ol' pregnancy induced hypertension card to try and weasel out of the last couple of weeks of pregnancy. She also says this time 'round is easier as Sean is around to bring her stuff. That's the trick, you see. If you're going to be pregnant, you just need a little slave to run to the kitchen and bring you stuff.
Marathon training is not going well again. I've missed my last two long
runs and the date is getting closer. I hope to get in a few runs this week and salvage my training before May 2nd. (Which, it turns out, is the weekend
before the comprensive exam... what was I thinking.)
Fri Feb 20 17:00:09 MST 2004
Whew... interviews are done. Now it's all over except for the nail biting heart tearing wait to see if and where I matched to. I think now that the actual doing stuff is over I should be able to relax a little more. It's officially out of my hands and there's no way I can screw this up any more than it may have been while I was doing stuff.
I've got a two week elective in GIM in Calgary starting on Tuesday which should be nice. I have plans of eating dinner with Sarah's parents and the kittens, playing X-Box with Ian, and getting in some runs in the river valley. If I end up in Calgary next year I think it would be a nice place to live for a few years.
I've just finished fixin' up Sarah's computer. Once every two years she
decided that she wants to press the power button on and off repeatedly until
she smells smoke. Thankfully we were still able to repair the disk enough to
reboot into a low level retard mode so that we could back up most of the
data. I didn't back up the proper amount of Sarah's favorite stuff however so
she's working like a Japanese beaver to restore her environment just so.
I promised her next time I'd ask her properly before deleting her stuff :-)
Tue Feb 10 18:53:05 MST 2004
I'm hiding behind the counter in the Miseracordia ED. I've been here for almost 30min. and I haven't seen a single patient yet. It's a strange feeling when things are quiet at work. On one hand, I'm kind of lazy and the idea of walking around, talking to people, doing stuff isn't as appealing as lying on the couch. On the other hand, when it's quiet the time seems to drag on and I feel unreasonalbly nervous that I may actually have to do something at somepoint. When things are steady I don't mind getting one more page and before I know it it's time to go home. I guess I just can't be satisfied.
In other news, I am sorry to report, dear readers, that Pistachio the mouse has passed away. I found him nestled underneath his wheel in his favorite spot. Old age? Hanta virus? Incredible plastic ingestion? We may never know, but I feel he may have lived out the last of his days in the lap of luxury. Here's to you Pistachio, we hardly knew ye. He could never be replaced, but Pistachio is succeeded by Humphrey the hamster. He is much furrier, friendlier, and I dare say more handsome than his predecessor.
Having a hamster sized hole in your heart can be very uncomfortable.
--Patricia Bartlett
Mon Feb 2 20:26:28 MST 2004
I knew there was a reason why I wrote this little site in vi... it was so I could update it from a vt100 terminal running on Debian Woody thanks to the Chirstmas present I got from Ian. (Thanks man!) It's a gen-yoo-wine Pentium 150MHz circa 1994. I had to buy a couple of power cords, replace the floppy, replace the cd drive, I bent the case all to hell trying to open it up, and I think there may be a small animal who has made his home in the fan. I also picked up a 3-button mouse. It's so wicked. Now it sits humming without a case in the corner. So far I've got the web and ftp servers running and I think nfs will come up without a hitch. I tried to get a fancy graphical environent running without any luck. Perhaps the old intel chipset inside just can't take it?
Now that I'm having this much fun I sort of have the urge to replace
the 800MB hard drive with something more usable. I sort of also want to
replace the mother-board and chip... erm and the power supply. And I
do like the case, but it may not have enough glow in the dark
componants or fancy thumbscrews. Can I afford this new hobby? Why are
computers so much more fun when I'm stressed out? Where am I going to
be in July? Stay tuned for the answers to these and many more unimportant
questions.
Tue Jan 27 15:05:08 MST 2004
I'm having one of those stretches where your life is just flying around so fast that it's all I can do to hang on with both hands. There's Emerg shifts, booking electives, trying to book flights, trying to turn in paperwork, trying to organize my life for the next few years. I'm beginning to understand how CaRMS can be stressful :-) I'm just glad that I'm in Emerg and I have more free time to try and get my shit together.
The cold weather has been too much for my little purple car. It made a terrible noise when I tried to start it this morning. I couldn't even give poor Sarah a lift to class so she froze her bottom off waiting at the bus stop. I myself plan to take a cab to the emerg and back for my shift tonight. Hopefully the cold weather will keep the more frustrating patients away.
I was feeling kind of overwhelmed and sorry for myself this morning so I treated myself by installing Debian on the little old PC Ian got me for Chirstmas. I had to buy a couple of power cables and replace the floppy drive (bending the frame all to hell trying to remove stripped screws) but now it's whirring away in the corner. Next I'm going to pick up a cheap router so that I don't have to climb over the desk everytime I want to use the network. Then perhaps I can spend some of the money I'm saving by getting so few interviews on a big fat hard drive. Mmm... fat.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't
matter and those who matter don't mind.
--Dr. Seuss
Fri Jan 16 15:02:23 MST 2004
I'm so much smarter than that mouse it's ridiculous. He fell for the ol' peanut butter in the live trap trick, the oldest one in the book. The only problem was it was too cold outside to let him go. I put him in some tupperware with a sprinkle of salad mix and some Special K. He was pretty hungry.
Today I went to the pet store and got him a proper house with a wheel and a water bottle and everything. He settled right in and started exploring. I had a close call when he jumped for the grated ceiling and squeezed through the bars. I came running and he scampered back inside. I'll have to do something about that when I get back from the weekend. In the meanwhile some nice heavy textbooks on top will have to do.
I think I will call him Pistachio since I found him eating my pistachio nuts. I phoned public health and they said he would be fine to keep so I think I'll keep him for a while. I'm not sure how long mice live, but I think this one might just live out his life in total luxury.
Wed Jan 14 22:32:10 MST 2004
I had a rough day yesterday. Sarah submitted her thesis to the grad office for approval and the kind lady said that the margins needed to be changed. Between Sarah and I, we figured that we could fix the small problems and get the final copies out before the office shut at 4pm.
We fixed the margins, picked up the fancy bond paper and were ready to print. Sarah went to MSB to make the black and white copies and I phoned around to find a copy shop that would print color pages for some of the figures. Would you believe that none of the 5 (five) campus copy shops could help me. They're all, "Well we can make color copies of color paper... do you have any old color copies?" Retards. How can I make a color copy if none of you copy-retards can print the first color copy??!? I finally found a place on the west end and hopped in my car to try to beat the 4pm deadline. Then a cop started following me. He followed me for along time. Then he turned on his lights. I pulled over into a mini-mall. "I guess I don't have to tell you why I pulled you over, do I." He did. It turns out my licence plates were expired. He told me he was supposed to impound my vehicle but followed me for a long time so that he could pull me over next to a driving registry. Nice guy. Then he took my plates, told me to go register immediately and gave me a $230 ticket. Jerk.
I registered and got the copies on nice glossy. They looked great, but now we would never make the deadline. I called Sarah and told her about my criminal misadventures and she made me feel a little better. Then she told me that the office was actually open until 5 o'clock! It was 4:40pm... could I possibly make it? I drove like Jim Bin in the dirty slush, my lights and windsheild were so filthy. I got stuck waiting behind two accidents but finally managed to pick Sarah up beside the Butterdome with 5 minutes to spare. She fumbled with the color sheets as I raced to the office in Mechanical engineering. There was one more trafic jam I bypassed using the ol' two wheels on the sidewalk technique.
The thesis made it in. It's finally done.
Tue Jan 13 02:01:36 MST 2004
Whoever came up with the expression "Quiet as a mouse," should visit my kitchen to listen to the crazed animal banging around my cupboards. That mini-wolverine is keeping me awake. I see him from time to time scurrying along my counter, pooping in my pistachios, or running over my girlfriends foot. The real problem however, is at night. At night, he thinks it's time to squeak his brains out and ram into loud and/or resonant objects repetitively until he's knocked unconscious. I'm not sure about the evolutionary advantage of squeaking in the wee hours. He may be taunting me.
The weekend in Calgary was great. Sarah got to see the kittens who had grown a little, gotten even cuter, and feel asleep in a pile on her lap. She was in heaven. I even managed to get in my runs in the beautiful Calgary sunshine while the rest of the suckers in my clinic were all slipping around on the frozen rain. My only injury so far is one bleeding blister which is getting better. I think I may end up missing a few long runs with interviews quickly approaching, but I'm doing ok so far.
Since I'm up late, I may try to get done some of the computer chores I've been putting off. I have a few disks to burn (Thanks Tino!) a few CD's to copy, and I've been thinking about doing a fresh install of OS X 10.3 as the upgrade has left a few loose ends to tie up and I wonder if I wouldn't like a fresh start.
I'm thirsty for something, but I don't know what...
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
--Aristotle
Thu Jan 8 14:31:40 MST 2004
I rule and I'll tell you why. I set up a two week elective in medical informatics and I still managed to take a vacation. I had a little meeting with Dr. Hayward yesterday and we set up a project for me to do. It should be fun to really flex the computer geek in me for a while instead of percussing livers all day long. The best bit is that I won't actually have to go to work to go to work. Ah the internet. Helping people pretend to work since 1985.
I've been using my time off to get some errands done. Errands are more fun since I got a new fountain pen for Chirstmas. It has a nice screw cap that posts, and some beautiful pear wook trim. I look for excuses to write things down because I love it so much.
In other news, my building has mice. I was sitting at this very spot when a furry block dot ran accross the floor. He's a crafty little guy though, and I haven't seen him at all since I laid down the traps. He'll get his.
Someone will try to honk your nose today.
Sun Jan 4 18:37:41 MST 2004
It's feeling later than it really is in Bernie Lemire's biochemistry lab in the medical science building. Sarah and I are here again finishing off her thesis before the new semester begins. It has become a truly gargantuan project with all the bugs and annoyances that go along with it. The several word files that the thesis is contained in have become corrupt and dodgy, the printers on the local network in the lab have decided to crap out, and the output always looks different depending on which combination of computer, Microsoft Word, and printer we decide to try. We seem to have reached a critical level where more bugs are introduced every time we fix other ones. This document is asymtotically approaching perfection and soon we may just have to pronounce it finished. It will be a really great feeling to have that damn thing done. I'm going to feel so free and relieved and it's not even my thesis. I can only imagine how great it's going to feel for Sarah. Soon her piles of paper, sticky notes, printouts, and tears will be condensed into a nicely bound book that sits on her shelf.
I should be starting my elective tomorrow, but I haven't set anything up. I think I'm allowed to have some vacation time this year, but I don't know how much. Perhaps I could just do one week of something easyish. I feel like I could use a holiday. Some real time to take it easy and not travel too much. I had a great time this Christmas, but all that driving can take it's toll on a guy. If I can spend few days just setting up my apartment I'll be a happy guy.
For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
phone calls taper off.
-Johnny Carson
Fri Dec 26 19:09:12 MST 2003
Well I'm having a great Christmas. I've come down to Calgary to spend the first part of the holidays with Sarah's family. It's been very fun and I've had a great haul of prezzies as well. Some of the highlights include a fancy new fountain pen and an antique Star Wars tank from (of course) Sarah. I got Sarah a Karaoki microphone which plugs into my X-Box. It's totally hilarious. The words flash on the screen and everyone was signing to their favorite tunes. Ian got me a subscription to X-Box Live so that I can go online and download new songs and lyrics. If any of you, loyal readers, are looking for a fun way to spend a Friday night, I highly recommend getting some Irish whiskey and listening to Sarah's dad sing "Amazing Grace" on the Karaoki. The Kikuyu accent sounds sort of like Japanese. Picture Mr. Myagi signing and you won't be far off.
Sarah's mom picked up two little kittens from the pet store today. I'd love to write more, but I have toys and kittens to play with and a cup of tea to drink.
Hope everyone's having a great Chirstmas.
Tue Dec 16 20:53:23 MST 2003
Ivan you're gonna love this. Today on cardiology consults as we swarmed around the wards, we not only examined someone's jugular venous pulse waveforms, but we changed their management plan based on our clinical exam.
The consult asks: This patient has hypotension, elevated JVP, and distant heartsounds and an INR or 1.7. Could this patient have tamponade? Does he need an echo? I had to read up on JVP before I could understand what my boss pulled off next.
We gazed at the pulse as we positioned this unconscious man just so. Now sometimes I'm sure I see the JVP and sometimes I'm not, but this time I saw it. My boss began to explain that because he was a "negative thinker" he thought of the JVP in terms of it's descents, ie. the x and y descents which correspond to atrial relaxation/dropping of the base of the heart and emptying of the atria respectively. In this guy there was (apparantly) a promimant y descent. The x descent, which is normally the greater of the two, was blunted.
He then began a detailed explanation of the the causes of the different deflections of the JVP and how they change in tamponade and constrictive pericardiits respectively. As he had a prominant y and blunted x, this man clinically appeared to have pericarditis rather than tamponade.
We cancelled the echo and booked him for a CT. I'd like to think that James Mackenzie was smiling at us just then, wherever he is.
The trouble with doctors is not that they don't know enough, but
that they don't see enough.
--anonymous
Wed Dec 10 17:58:42 MST 2003
Christmas is coming and it's cold. I had the great pleasure of walking to and from my car twice today, so I know what I'm talking about. Today, you see, I had to drive to the Royal Alexandra hospital for a lecture. As my parking privilidges have been gradually downgraded at all sites, I was able to go for a nice 10 minute walk to my car both at the RAH and UAH sites. It's a 2-3 block walk to the university hospital, and at the RAH site it's closer to park at the local shopping center. For this privilidge I pay $40 per month. I'm an idiot. I should get skis.
Had dinner at Elaine's place last night. She cooked pork-steaks. "Oh Elaine, surely you mean pork-chops." said I. She was quite upset that I didn't appreciate the difference which, to her, is obvious. I'm still not sure I know what makes the difference between a porksteak and a porkchop, but it was a good meal. The night ended with the two of us dragging my Christmas present into the hatch of the Hyundai. It was heavy. Sarah and I took 10 minutes getting it into my apartment. On the way we kinda stripped off one side of the wrapping paper to find our present was a new 27" color television set. Pretty extravagant. Now I am compelled to get her something good for Chirstmas. But what?
In other news, I'm on call again tonight. Not too busy so far. May go
to bed early. CaRMS putts along. Think I may stay in Edmonton for elective
in Januaray and I hate my cable company.
*End transmission*
In order to discover who you are, first learn who everybody else is;
you're what's left.
--anonymous
Fri Dec 5 11:07:27 MST 2003
Been sorta busy with school lately... I was on call Wed and got about 1.5 hours of sleep. It was sorta busy, but was working with a fun resident who loves his job. That makes the night go by quickly. The next morning I was retarded but was able to get our of the hospital by lunchtime. I went to the bookstore to buy a book for Sarah, the sun was shining, I had a warm coffee in my gloved hand; I was in a good mood. You know, there aren't many people lucky enough to go to work for 30 hours and still be able to leave in a better mood than they started in. Makes me feel like I found the right job for me. Now if only CaRMS will cooperate.
I've been keeping my list of consults on a folded up piece of paper in my pocket. Every few days we edit the MS Word file with all the info on it and redistribute it to the consult service. Although I must admit I like the flexability of paper, I was hoping that I could find a way to keep track of patients on my palm so that I could just enter info when I see them and have a list I could export to paper copy if I needed. I looked around for some palm software but I was pretty disappointed.
- PatientKeeper - very cumbersome, very large, very colorful, very useless.
- Patienttracker - ugly, poorly thought out layout.
- Wardwatch - actually, I haven't tried this one. I bet it sucks.
So I've started experimenting with making my own little tracking app useing HanDBase So far it's been pretty easy to set up, but I'm not sure the electronic advantages surpass the overhead of writing info into a palm and not being able to see all the info at a glance. If anyone has any bright ideas I'd love to hear.
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things
they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
- Andy Rooney
Mon Dec 1 21:22:41 MST 2003
Sarah and I put up the Christmas tree in her apartment yesterday. It lucks pretty damn good if I do say so myself thanks in no small part to 3 tiny Ewok ornaments Sarah found on the internet. Ahhh the internet. They hang happily right beneath my Death Star bobble. It just doesn't get any better than this. I'm sick with Christmas glee. It get's better... you'll never guess what else she got me...
Christmas in the Stars is a Christmas album performed by Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Ben Burt as R2-D2 and other sound effects and John Bongiovi (Bon Jovi) when he was 18 years old. That's right, Bon Jovi. Apparantly his uncle worked at the recording studio or something. Bon Jovi's first ever recording was on the Star Wars Chirstmas Album. You just can't find this in stores kids. Choice tracks include "The Odds Against Christmas," "R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Chirstmas," and "What Can You Get a Wookie For Chirstmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)." My collection of ridiculous 1970's science fiction kitch continues. Best girlfriend ever.
Today under the supervision of one of those smart internists, I turned a patient in the left lateral recumbent position and listened to the left ventricular S4 vary with the pressure on my stethoscope's diaphram. Unfortunately it was in pre-admission clinic so I can't take Ivan there to have a listen. I suppose that's probably easier on him anyways. Poor guy, if he ever hears if for himself he may actually crap his pants. Life is good.
Keep your distance, Chewie, though don't look like you're tryin' to
keep your distance . . . I don't know, fly casual.
--Han Solo
Wed Nov 26 14:57:24 MST 2003
I'm having a rough day after having a rough night. Tammy, Sarah's twenty-something year old cat passed away yesterday from kidney failure. He was a good cat. Tammy lived the first twenty or so years of his cat life in Nairobi. I've heard stories that he would chase the guard dogs around and ruled the compound for the most part. There was a nice open area for him to catch mice and plenty of sunshine. Kenya, I think, is a good place for a cat to grow up.
Tammy came to Canada about a year ago to see his family who had moved a few years earlier. He adusted to the change in no time and soon was tearing up carpet in the living room and smelling Dominic's smelly socks. Canada is a bit cool compared to Kenya, but there was a nice warm fireplace and someone to wash his face every day.
After many years of the cat good life, Tammy visited the vet and was told about his aged kidneys. He became sick and after just a few short days went to cat heaven.
Sarah and her mother are, of course, beside themselves. Tammy had a
pretty good life though so I hope they get another cat one day soon.
Mon Nov 24 15:22:08 MST 2003
I'm back in the land of mild and honey. By that I mean I'm back in Edmonton, and I'm on internal medicine. It's my first day back and I'm not even having a rotton week. Those familiar with my rants know that I generally have terrible first weeks, but today was better. The two seniors I'm working with seem nice enough, and one of them has a good sarcastic sense of humor. That helps the day go smoothly. The scheduling seems quite awful. I have many different spreadsheets to consult to deside what I'm supposed to be doing at any moment, but that's life in the big city I suppose. I've already had my call schedule changed twice.
Looking back now I'd say my internal medicine elective in Grande Prairie was very worthwhile. There's a nice friendly vibe in places like that, and the doctors were pretty smart. There was lots of chances to learn stuff, and lots of autonomy compared to what we're used to at the UAH. The only crap part was being 5 hours away from Edmonton. If only the QEII hospital was in Edmonton instead of Grande Prairie.
Now that I'm back I have tonnes of paperwork to do, I'd better stop screwing around and do it.
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo
has lost its status.
--Laurence J. Peter
Wed Nov 19 19:11:44 MST 2003
There's days at work where you feel like you just want to go home, put Star Wars in the VCR, wrap a blanket around yourself and ponder why on earth you ever went into medicine in the first place. And then there's days like today! I saw so much interesting and cool shit today that I want to go home and read Up to Date until my eyes fall out. Days like to today make me happy that I'm applying to internal medicine. I hope there's more to come.
I've got just two days of my elective left, and then it's back to Edmonton to do some more medicine. I think I'm on the consult service at the UofA for most of my rotation. It should be kind of fun. I'm not sure who I'll be working with, but with any luck Ivan and I can get some coffee when we're on break. Congratulations buddy. I finally think I'm beginning to understand you.
It's still very cold at the B&B where I'm staying so I'm really looking forward to going back to Edmonton. I'm even looking forward to Sarah asking me "What are we doing tonight?" (She knows that drives me crazy!) I'm looking forward to having my own toilet. I'm looking forward to using Sarah's iBook. I guess in the end I'm mostly looking forward to Sarah.
And the toilet.
I'm not sure... it's pretty close.
Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier.
--Blore's Razor
Sat Nov 15 23:55:20 MST 2003
It's cold in Grande Prairie. The weather has been ok, but the basement of the bed & breakfast I'm staying at is ridiculously freezing. I thought I liked a cool house. Maybe it was growing up in Ireland where, like most people, we didn't have central heating. Cardigans and hot water bottles were the norm.
Things have changed since then. All the time I've been spending with Sarah has rubbed a little bit of Kenya off on me. Sarah's apartment is usually around 23 degrees C, and very humid. I always complain to her that it's like a jungle but I think I've been complaing less lately... I think I'm getting used to the jungle.
This B&B is no jungle. Dom's in the tundra now. The digital thermistat reads 65 degrees F. I think that's about 17-18 C. That's tooo cold for my recently Kenyanized feet. I'm wearing two pairs of socks, but it's just not enough. I've started sandwiching them between two pillows as well. Still cold. Luckily the hospital is a much nicer temperature. I think I may just start hanging out in the lounge even when I'm not working. There's a TV, the couches are at least as comfortable, and I won't have to pile on the blankets just to ensure keeping my toes from frostbite. 6 days to go.
There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm
champagne, and overexcited women.
--Orson Welles
Thu Nov 13 14:22:03 MST 2003
Another day in Grande Prairie is passing my by. I'm having another good day again today. It's been just the sort of busy I like where there's often something to do but plenty of time for lunch and coffee. I'm waiting to go over another consult with the intensivist (waiting is a big part of my day) but it's an interesting consult so I don't mind.
In other news... nothing. Nothing at all. I wake up I go to work, I go to sleep. Wait... I know. I can go for a run. Yes, I think I shall go for a bit of a run this evening. It's been a really balmy day in GP and there was even a nice pinky sunrise this morning. If it's half that nice when I get out of here today, I'll have no excuse but to go for a trot.
I think I may also swing by the mall today to see if I can get my picture taken for the pesky CaRMS application. It's an obscure size so I hope it isn't going to cost too much trouble, time, effort. All those things are bad.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea,
please bring me some coffee.
--Abraham Lincoln
Wed Nov 12 08:49:00 MST 2003
One week down and one and a half weeks to go in Grande Prairie. I spent the long weekend in Edmonton and it made it sort of hard to come back to work. The elective itself is going well, but I still don't feel quite settled or know exactly what's expected of me. I keep telling myself that if it feels a little uncomfortable it's probably working. I think I have a tendancy to get too devoted to my routine. A little kick in the ass now and then is good for me.
My CaRMS application is slowly coming together. The next batch of stuff is due on Nov 21 and being up in Grande Prairie is making it a little harder to get my stuff in order. Luckily I have Sarah back in Edmonton to run the odd errand for me. (You rule babe)
Well my boss is here, I think I'd better get to work...
18:48:57 MST
I'm done work now. It was a good day. I did a couple of consults and
got some good teaching. I'm feeling a little bit tired but I'm going to be
on call tonight so I hope it passes.
Tue Nov 4 22:43:52 MST 2003
Today was cold. My car is doing some weird stuff. When I reach a speed of ~40kph I hear a terrible noise coming from my console and then the speedometer takes on a life of it's own. It zooms up to 200kph screaming at me like a blender. Great Scott! I'm not sure what kind of grindy-type damage I could be doing, but I think I may have to start running her a bit longer in the morning.
Oncology clinic and Diabetes clinic were a little slow today but I went to do a consult which I always like. I'm on call today so I'm going to sleep with my pager close by. I've never done home call before. I feel so senior. I'll have to soak it up while I can.
The new Matrix movie opens up tomorrow I believe. I wonder if I could grab a few of the other students and residents to go with me? Or should I go by myself. I kinda like going to the movies by myself sometimes. I'm not sure I could even get a ticket. The place might be sold out?
I should be in bed. Goodnight loyal readers.
There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.
--Homer, The Odyssey
Mon Nov 3 22:01:31 MST 2003
I've never really liked first days. Today was my first day of my general internal medicine elective in Grande Prairie. My preceptor seems pretty good but I'd say he's a tough guy to read. He looks like Red Greene, sounds like James Earl Jones, and has the sense of humor of Mr. Spock. (Hi Ivan) I've heard from several people that this is a great place for an elective so I'm going to try to get the most of it. I may even do a little bit of reading. Gasp.
I'm getting billeted at a bed and breakfast next door to my preceptor. The house is pretty nice and there's a little kitchenette for me to make a cup of tea in. I'm sharing the place with a middle aged truck driver named Tony with whom I have already had many conversations about where to find the best [cup of coffee, sandwich, chinese food, dairy products, health care, college girls].
I went for a drive around 'GP' (as I now like to call it.) and I'm starting to get a feel for the place. There's about 40,000 people here and I don't think it would be a bad place to live. The hospital is very nice and the people are friendly. I'm so used to being at the University hospital that I would forget that people weren't used to seeing students and I wouldn't bother to introduce myself. "Have we met?" they would say. "Why no... why would we? What does it matter anyways?" I would think to myself, "Oh wait... people here are normal..." What has the university hospital done to me? Overall I'm feeling a little bit off balance but I'm holding tight to the notion that I'll get into the swing of things in a few days.
My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you
haven't met yet. She's now in a maximum security twilight home in
Australia.
--Dame Edna Everage
Fri Oct 31 17:46:27 MST 2003
I'm so totally jealous... Ivan's lightsaber-rendering technology is far more impressive than I thought it would be. I took a look at "Reilly as a Jedi" and was pretty amazed. I wish now that I had a video camera so that I could send him a movie of myself for him to work his magic on. Maybe if I'm nice Elaine will let me borrow hers for a week or too.
I think it would be cool to make video of Sarah swinging around a broomstick and turn her into a jedi. Then I post the video on some file-sharing network and I would have the coolest girlfiend ever!. And then... then I could start a petition for her to have a cameo in the final installment of the Star Wars saga! And then she would rule! And then we could get married! And I would rule and be a jedi by proxy! Yeah!
I suppose it will have to wait for a while as I'm heading up to Grande Prairie for three weeks. Yup, it's a general internal medicine elective as I scramble for one more potential referance for CaRMS. The whole thing is going to be a huge hassle. I have to track down and provide documents to each of my referances, (one of whom is in Spain) I have to take a perfectly sized photo of myself to fit into a little square, and I have to write somewhere between 4 and 9 personal letters about everything ranging from "the meaning of professionalism to me" to "what I would do with a suddenly given day off." Getting into a good program is one thing, but I think I'm more worried about screwing up the entire application or missing a deadline and failing to match completely. It's bringing me down man. I just want to be a doctor and not have to worry any more about where I'm going to live. Sigh.
Please send pistachio nuts and condolences to Dominic Carney.
Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.
--unknown
Mon Oct 27 20:24:37 MST 2003
Elaine, I took another look at those two wedding files.
They are in fact far to large for you to burn on a CD. I think we will have to take the files to your school eventually so we can stick them on DVD. In the meanwhile, I'll leave them posted on this website. Perhaps you could have your techie guy at school download them directly from here and burn them during the day.
Or you could buy me an iPod and I'll have all the space I need to clear off Sarah's laptop. Think it over.
In other news, group psychotherapy at the university is incredibly wishy-washy. People spend a lot of time looking for insight into why they're so selfish and when there's not enough room I get to sit on the floor. They gave me a cushion. If Dr. Bailey could see me now, he'd give me the speech about how patients will trust me I have to have the better chair and I should never sit on the floor.
You may be an extra in their play, but you can be the star in here.
-anonymous
Fri Oct 24 01:17:08 MDT 2003
I havn't changed the look of the ol' website in quite a lot of time. I wonder if it's time to fix things up a bit? I've had a couple of ideas, but for the most part I just can't think of anything better. I think I've grown pretty comfortable with the layout... I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
Seeing as how I fixed it up with
CSS, it should be a little bit easier to play around and keep the content
mostly intact. I'd like to have a bit more of the ....
break...
22:21:46 MDT 2003
Wed Oct 22 18:29:17 MDT 2003
I think I've decided that I don't like going to drug company lunches. At least the ones with small groups. It has more to do with feeling awkward in those siuations than any arrogant perception that I hold the moral high ground over the "money hungry corporations."
It's difficult to describe. The reps are usually very polite, very well dressed, often attractive, and never strike me as pushy. Still, I can't shake the feeling of insincerity I get when around them. My God, I even saw one laughing at Gudgeon's jokes. I was there. Not funny in that way. It's like when you were in elementary school and the cool kid wanted to copy your homework. You both knew they were being nice because they had to, but the skit continued under a thin veil of mutually accepted assumptions. It feels the same at these lunches. Students know the food isn't there just because Astra wants to be friends, they want a chance to present their side of a story. Astra reps know that students would rather be talking to their friends about lightsaber rendering technology, (Hi Suzie!) and just want the food. Still, no one says it. We just smile. And nod. And chew.
Ivan says he's a bit tired of the holier than thou attitude of many physicians and students and feels drug companies deserve a bit more respect. He makes some great and practical points about the benefits of research as well as doctor's perceived elevated moral and intellectual high ground. Stupid Ivan... making me think when I just want to rant.
In the end I figure I love reaping the rewards of research and innovation, but research is not the raison d'etre for pharmaceutical companies. Profit is. (See No Free Lunch)
- The "Research-based" pharmaceutical industry spends more on marketing and administration than it does on research and development. (Families USA)
- The top selling drug in 2001 was Lipitor. Increase in Lipitor sales contributed more than any other single drug to the increase in drug costs that year (NIHCM). The effect of Lipitor on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality remains unknown.
- Pharmaceutical industry profits were 18.5% of revenue in 2001. For the remainder of Fortune 500 companies, median profits were 3.5% (FamiliesUSA).
- Since 1995, R&D staff of U.S. brand name drug companies have decreased by 2%, while marketing staff have increased by 59%. Currently, 22% of staff are employed in research and development, while 39% are in marketing. (PhRMA Industry Profile 2000; percentages calculated by Sager and Socolar)
- In a study by Avorn, et al, forty-six per-cent of physicians reported that drug reps are moderately to very important in influencing their prescribing habits (Am Journal of Med, 1982).
- In 2000, Merck spent $161 million on advertising for Vioxx. That is more than Pepsico spent advertising Pepsi. ($125 million), and more than Anheuser-Busch spent advertising Budweiser.($146 million). The increase in Vioxx sales in 2000 accounted for 5.7% of the 1 year increase in drug spending. (NIHCM)
- A study by Chew, et al , found that in the treatment of hypertension, over 90% of physicians would dispense a sample that differed from their preferred drug choice. (JGIM, 2000)
- The AMA generates $20 million in annual income by selling detailed personal and professional information on all doctors practicing in the United States to the pharmaceutical industry (NY Times, November 16, 2000).
Tue Oct 21 20:53:25 MDT 2003
I'm in no small amount of pain and I'm wearing a new T-shirt. That's right loyal readers, Dominic ran another race.
I was woefully unprepared for this one. It was a 22.5 kilometer cross country killer named "Tough Guy." I hadn't been doing much running... ok any running since I'd been feeling so lazy, but decided that skipping the whole race would be too much. I dragged my sluggish ass out of bed and headed over to Rundell park for the 10 AM start.
It was a cool morning but I decided to wear a T-shirt and shorts anyways. The first 8k went fairly well, and I started to warm up. I set a faster pace than last time, fell in with a competant reasonable looking group and began to feel like maybe I didn't need to train to run races after all. Yay! Running is fun. I'm outside, getting some fresh air, communing with nature, meeting new people. Fucking-A.
Then we hit something called "Gold Bear." I think it's the name of a park designed to have no flat stretches in it at all. It was simply one hill after another. They were steep hills too... certainly steeper than Ms. Murphy's hill in my neighbourhood. People were falling, tripping, and getting covered with dirt. Well those hills just murdered me. Up, down, up down... By 11k not only were my calves cramping up, but my quads as well. I haven't had a cramp in my quads since Ian took me to the gym. At one point, we even had to scramble up on our hands. I crossed the river so many times I didn't know what side I was on. I had been warm, but was now cold all the way through. You know, like when you're dying?
I was trying to figure out a way to stop... to get out of the race... but it was too far back to the car. I kept going, thoughts of stale bagels and soggy bananas driving my spirit forward. Post race food is a powerful psychological tool. Somehow I plodded over the finish line and sat down. It was about 5 minutes before I could get up and walk off the cramp in my leg. What a good day.
It's been a few days now and my body hurts in places never before known to me. I believe I've learned my lesson. After my body forgives me I'm going to start training for the next one with a little bit more discipline. But first I'm due for some ice, ibuprofen, and sleep.
The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and
miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost
Tue Oct 7 20:44:25 MDT 2003
Today I went to the grocery store and bought my first bag of pistachios.
There's something very soothing about letting your mouth have a mind of it's own.
It works away solving the problem of each individual nut as you devote your other
mind to more important other tasks.
I've got an exam on Friday. When I'm supposed to be reading, I think I'm going to have to get some of those fancy Turkish pistachios from Abdurrahman Ildeniz at www.turkishtaste.com. The Antep, the Slirt, there's a whole world of snackfood crazyness that I've only just begun to tap into.These kind of fancies which work fingers and teeth in a serial mode as parts of a machine, calms psychologically and keeps people from distress.
That's the secret of the pistachio: the effort you have to make to get at them, with its series of tiny delights, the satisfying crack as the she splits apart, the texture of the dry, crinkly skin of the nut itself, the salty residue that clings to your fingertips. Add to these the sporadic little shocks; the nut that can't be split, the sharp, sour taste of the occasional spoiled one and what you have is a bobbing in and out of semi-consciousness that keeps pleasure from sinking into a polymorphous blur.
--John Thorne
Thu Sep 25 14:13:04 MDT 2003
Well you'll never guess what has happened. I found my pen. People have always told my that you don't appreciated something until you lose something. Those preachy bastards were right. But now that I have it back, I think I'm going to write someone a letter. Yes... a letter! On the bright side, I've been introduced to a whole new world of fountain pen freaks. Take a look at Rambling Snail. Now this is a group of people who get really excited about their pens. I heard of this one guy who lost his pen, and he freaked out and killed the whole town.
I'm trying to tie up some errands at the university today. I was meant to do a day of peds ortho, but it looks like the OR was cancelled. I've been spending my time printing off signing my corroborating evidence for the Dean's letter. It's pretty difficult to track down all the necessary people and have them sign the bottom line. I think some of the letters will have to go in without signatures. UGME can bite me. That's right. I'm afraid this CaRMS business may be more hassle than I thought.
Started running again last night. It felt prety nice to be out in the fresh air, but it was a little scary how bad I felt once I came home. I think I may have lost any tiny bit of running fitness I had accumulated. Nevertheless, I've signed up for the Lions 5 Parks and Tough Guy Run on October 19. That gives me only a few weeks to get ready to try and run it without injuring myself. Mmmm... not getting injured.
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having
lots to do and not doing it.
--Mary Wilson Little
Mon Sep 22 23:19:49 MDT 2003
Know what sucks? I'll tell you what sucks. Losing your pen sucks.
Mom and Dad got me a great little Parker fountain pen for my birthday. I don't think it was very expensive, but I was kind of attached to it. There was just something magical about the scratchy, but not too scratchy feel of writing orders with it. It was such a bold silky line and when you got the writing speed just so, it made you feel... smarter?
Anyhoo, in typical geeky short-term obsession fashion I've been looking for a replacement. Staples, Office-Depot, Office-Max... none of them have what I'm looking for. It seems fountain pens have gone out of style.
Lewis Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen in 1884 although writing instruments designed to carry their own ink supply had existed in principle for over 100 yesrs. Things went down hill when a Hungarian journalist named Ladislo Biro invented the first ballpoint pen in 1938. He had noticed that newsprint ink dried quickly leaving the paper smudge free. When he decided to make a pen using the same ink, he had to create a new delivery method as the thicker ink would not flow through a fountain nib. He fit his pen with a tiny ball bearing and the ballpoint was born. The market is now dominated by BIC which was started by a French baron named Bich who dropped the 'H' from his name when he started his company.
It turns out there's quite a bit to know about fountain pens, and quite a bit of money to spend if you're into that sort of thing or have that sort of stuff.
Some relatively inexpensive fountatin pens I like in order of likey-ness
No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or
more wise when he had
-- Samuel Johnson
Fri Sep 19 09:51:45 MDT 2003
I awoke at 0445 this morning. I can remember the days when that was bedtime... Anyhoo, I actually felt pretty good this AM. The past few days I've been very discouraged and nauseated while getting ready for work, but this morning I felt... well... less bad. I'm half way through surgery.
We had fracture rounds a little early this morning so we'd be in time to get to Ortho grand rounds. After that, I snuck off to the university hospital to see Eamonn Quiqly, the eminent Irish gastroenterologist, give a talk in Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Now I hate IBS as much as the next guy, but just getting off site and hearing some internal medicine instead of listening to my ortho residents argue over hardware has put a spring in my step that should last all day.
I think now that I have some downtime, I shall visit the cafeteria to eat a breakfast club sandwich from White Spot. It's like an Egg McMuffin, you see, but it has a hashbrown patty on it as well as some magical sauce. I enjoyed a few of them during O&G, but they started to make Jimmy Long-Dong feel quesy. He likes rice.
Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in?
I think that's how dogs spend their lives.
--Sue Murphy
Tue Sep 16 22:18:03 MDT 2003
At 0507 this morning I felt my alarm going off. I'm not exactly sure when it started. It's always a strange feeling to slowly drift up to enough consciousness and understand there's a noise. Like starting off with the brain of a bacterium and gradually getting smarter and smarter. By the time I swat the snooze button I'm functioning at the level of... a small rodent, perhaps.
Getting ready early is like being a robot. You can keep dreaming as your teeth brush themselves and the shower starts going. I watched myself perpare for work in this half-aware, nauseated, this is too bad to be real state. Everthing went as it normally does and then I walked out the door.
Dark. Cold. Snow. The car windows fogged up. As I reversed out of my spot, the steering wheel had that unmistakable winter arthritis. Traffic wasn't awake yet. I had my choice of spots at the Royal Alex parkade. Small comfortsteering wheel .
The morning began with fracture rounds. This is where the Orthopedics posse reviews the films from the previous night's admissions. If you like getting quizzed in front of a sleepy group in a dim room then this is the place for you. Dubious educational value.
Next, an Oxford knee hemiarthrotomy. Dubious educational value and bone chips in the face. Ortho consult; dubious educational value but managed to spare some poor Ortho PGY-3 the punishment. More OR. Trauma rounds. Total waste of time. Now I'm ready to go home.
I'm tired of ortho and it's only day one. I've gone soft. I miss Urology.
Are you going to listen to a penile bruit with that?
Urology PGY-3
Fri Sep 12 07:49:53 MDT 2003
I don't start work for another hour yet somehow I'm sitting in Dvorkin lounge instead of sleeping in my nice warm comfy bed. It turns out that I'm spending the day in the clinic and not in the OR. The clinic, you see, starts at a much more humane time of the morning, and som I'm left with some time on my hands.
I've been looking around at computer prices (for my new DIY server) looking at building a wiki and trying to get webdav working on Sarah's ibook. Unfortunately it looks like she's unplugged it so I can't get much done from the hospital. (Which is my main gripe about using a laptop as a server...)
That killed a bunch of time, I think I'll go grab a bite of breakfast before clinic. Mmm... breaky.
Every cloud engenders not a storm.
-- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII
Fri Sep 5 09:30:04 MDT 2003
Well here I am in my final year of medicine. It sure has zipped by. Seems like just yesterday I was getting my free hamburger lunch just outside the medical science building. There are very few free lunches anymore, but you can still get the hamburgers. I'm doing two weeks of urology now, and I'm having a good time. Clinic is fun, the residents make lots of dick jokes (and by their third year they've become quite sophisticated) and I'm surviving pretty well so far. The only bad part is the operating room. Yesterday I watched a 5.5 hour laparascopic prostatectomy. It was the worst television program I have ever seen. If I can find a way to sneak out of things like that, then everything will be great.
I'm looking for a hobby for the year and was thinking about putting together a cheap computer to stick in my apartment. Sarah's ibook is a fine machine and a pleasure to use, despite getting a little long in the tooth. However, I've become quite attached to using it as a file/web server which means that she can't unplug it and move it around between apartments. What's more, Sarah's penchant for downloading new and interesting music has left the 10G hard drive bursting at the seems. I was thinking a cheap box running Debian or FreeBSD and a wireless router/card for the laptop would tidy things up nicely. I wonder if I could put the whole thing together for less that $400? I think I'll have to do a little homework to find out.
Or maybe I could try to find a less geeky project?
Microwaves frizz your heir.
--anonymous
Fri Aug 29 01:16:21 MDT 2003
It's late at night in the Peds lounge during my last call of 3rd year. The OSCE is behind me now and I somehow passed which is a relief. Things have been going well, although we have made a terrible mistake with popcorn. We found an unclaimed bag of microwave popcorn and decided that we should microwave it, so that it would pop.
If only we would have read the small print on that tri-folded bag we would have realized that the popcorn was abandoned for a very important reason. Unknowingly I reached into the steaming bag, pulled out four kernels and tossed them into the ol' pie-hole. I could barely disguise my comtempt as I realized the awful truth... the popcorn was covered in sugar!
I'm not quite sure what the fine people at Kettle Corn popcorn company R & D were thinking, but someone needs to tell them that popcorn is meant to be salted. It's not a matter of personal preferance. It's a matter of time honored convention meant to protect munchers everywhere. How would they feel, I wonder, if I tossed a couple of teaspoons of salt in their morning coffee, or perhaps some suger in their beef stew. I bet they'd be pretty darn upset at my lack of respect for convention.
I do feel a bit better now, I admit, after ranting to the web about it. Although, a travesty of this seriousness might require me sending a letter. That's it... a letter.
Ahh... I'm caught in a pornado!
--A UofA Psychiatry PGY-1
Tue Aug 26 15:43:14 MDT 2003
I have that silly peds OSCE tomorrow so I'm naturally sitting at the computer doing everything except studying. I'll be glad when it's all over as it's my last exam of 3rd year medicine. In theory, 4th year is supposed to be much easier. (Except for having to find the time and $$$ to interview for a residency position.) The OSCE itself seems to be pretty reasonable, but my motivation to open a book and prepare for the damn thing is approaching critically low levels. I promise that I'll close the laptop as soon as I finish this update.
Sarah and I finally go around to watching Karate Kid II last night. It was so wicked. I think it may have even been better than when I watched it as a kid. Although the wine may have played a factor. When Ralph Macchio (Ivan, don't miss this link, it's important) realizes the truth behind the drum technique of the Myagi family Karate, the soundtrack comes up, and he beats up on the Okinawan bully I may have felt a little bit of a shiver. They just don't make 'em like that any more. No sirree. (Bob)
Ok, to work. I think if I stop screwing around I can manage to fake my way through tomorrow's festivities. The supercrap thing is that I have an Emerg shift from 1600 to 2400 so I can't go and relax afterwards. That's total ass. At least I have Friday through Monday off before I have to get back for the begining of my last year.
"Naw, naw, I'm not doin' it! I'm not doin' it!"
-- Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso, "The Karate Kid II"
Sat Aug 23 09:01:44 MDT 2003
There's something fun about updating the ol' website on a $13,000 monitor. I'm sitting at one of those black n' white radiology viewing monitors in the peds emerg. It's my first of 3 shifts, and so far it's been pretty quiet. *knock* The other students who have gone ahead of me said it was fun and worthwhile, so I'll keep my chin up and update the ol' blog while I have chance.
I finished my 1 week of neonatology at the Grey Nuns. It was fun to examine all the babies, my staff was really great about teaching me stuff, and I think I really like being in an ICU type environment. There's something about the organization and having a home where you know everyone that's very comforting somehow. Now if I can just find a little time to get ready for my exams next week I'll be ready to enjoy the remainder of the summer.
My sore throat has now become a runny nose and cough with sneezing. Kids suck. They made me sick.
Hmmm ... an arrogant bouquet with a subtle suggestion of POLYVINYL
CHLORIDE ...
--anonymous
Thu Aug 21 17:09:06 MDT 2003
I'm sitting sitting at an IBM Personal Computer 300PL in the ICN. It's standard issue hardware for all healthcare units in the Grey Nuns hospital and the screen is covered with yellow stickies. It's pretty noisy in here. There's some visitors washing their hands at the sink, there's lots of beeps and boops coming from all over, but all the babies are sleeping.
I'm awaiting an Irish pediatrician who I fear may have taken a special interest in giving me a little good natured pimping. I tried to keep my accent in check but around Irish people I slip up a bit. I don't have an accent normally, (I don't think) but nervousness, EtOH, and other Irish people seem to get me going lately. Anyhoo, he said he'd be by shortly to go over an admission, but I think I may try to sneak off soon...
...
Well, it's now 17:21:39 MDT and the pimping has finished, or perhaps more correctly, it never began. That was the quickest and easiest presentation to a staff person I have ever done. I'm going home. I think I want to have noodles for dinner.
I think I'm getting a sore throat. Little buggers are making me ill.
That was fun while it lasted
-anonymous
Wed Aug 20 19:41:18 MDT 2003
Sarah's wicked. We just got in a water fight. I was dozing off to sleep after a hard day's work of neonatology at the Grey Nuns Hospital when she decided it would be fun to strip me of blankets and spray me with the plant mister. I freaked. Immediately I try to grab the mister from her but she reflexively bashes me in the lip with it. My swollen upper lip and I eventually rid her of her weapon and the tide has turned. I turn the nozzle from "mist" to "blast" and begin to shoot her in the face. We're now running around her house slipping on the wet floor. The chase ends in a standoff with Sarah using a blanket as a sheild as I try to snipe her exposed parts. We had to quit when I gave her quite a shot in the left eye at close range. Dom 1, Sarah 1.
I think we'll top the evening off by eating lemon stir fry, renting Zoolander, and nursing our wounds with Japanese beer.
Neonatology is pretty fun. New babies are really sorta awesome. They're so warm and wriggly and little. And when you wrap them back up, you can pretend that you're working in a Donair shop. Cam, if you're reading this, call me so we can go to Dukes.
Jimmy Long Dong threw down the gauntlet yesterday when he challanged to snap a photo of Magneto, a cleaning lady, possibly with the super human ability to alter magnetic fields, who works at the Grey Nuns. So far I've been just too busy to hunt for the opportunity, but I'm hoping that tomorrow will be the day. Wish me luck, loyal readers.
Screw PS2 I'll go straight to cocaine
-- Ivan Chebib
Tue Aug 12 11:52:52 MDT 2003
The dom website you all know and love has undergone a total do over. Welcome to the new and improved CSS driven, vastly simplified dom 2.0. It's been a long time coming, but I am really happy about how much smaller the *.html files have become. It's going to make it really easy to experiment with different looks too. Wheee.
Ivan's Turdburglar log is coming along at a feverish pitch. I'm watching carefully to see what sort of craziness he'll come up with next. The site may be the perfect combination of Ivan, Jesus, and Will Wheaton, but only time will tell. Only time will tell...
Still planning on taking a trip to Shambhala this weekend. Getting there should take about 1 million hours, especially if the crazy fires in Alberta and BC cause us to take a detour through the Yukon. Oh well, if we can get there somehow it promises to be a cool time and Amanda may be able to meet us there.
I suppose I should get back to work. Life in the clinic continues to wash over me and 9:30 to 10:00 AM starts are ruining me for my upcoming surgery rotation. Surgery sucks.
The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey. By diligent effort, I learned to like it. -- Winston Churchill
Sun Jul 27 23:08:36 MDT 2003
Yes, it's true. Sarah has let the cat out of the bag and let the world know that I have recently acquired one Microsoft XBox. I suppose I had been wanting to have a game console of my very own for just over a year now, but when I started to see the TV commercials for Knights of the Old Republic I'm afraid my inner 7 year old got the better of me. Starwars and video games together? What's a guy to do? Anyhoo, a few hundred Rebublic credits later I was running around with a blaster in hand trying to rescue a wookie from Gamorrean slavers. Money and time well wasted.
I'm really having a blast on this Peds rotation. I don't think it's enough to sway me away from Internal Med, particularly this late in what has become in recent years a pretty competitive game. The kids are hilarious, the residents are really good about teaching, and there's no amniotic fluid anywhere. However, since I feel compelled to complain about something, allow me to complain about my ridiculously loud call room. It's about 10 feet from the central freight elevators which get a lot of late night/early morning traffic from residents, nurses, and other creatures of the night. Every time it comes to the 3rd floor it makes a crazy "bing bing" sound. I think I'm woken by that "bing bing" several times a night. That's not all. My call room and the one opposite are joined by a shared washroom. This washroom houses the loudest toilet in the world. Every time I hear it I am re-amazed. You wouldn't think it would be possible to have swishing water and waste make such a terrible sound. I'm going to see if I can sneak into one of the Gen Surg call rooms for next Friday.
Visited Camrose today to see Kendra and meet her new husband Takeshi. It was really great to see them as well as a bunch of other familier faces from undergrad. See Photos section.
Azh nazg durbataluk, azh nazg gimbatul, Azh nazg thrakataluk agh burzum ishi krimpatul!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Tue Jul 22 13:59:24 MDT 2003
Wheeeee... it sure feels good to be done Obstetrics. I must say during that rotation I had the least education, the least responsibility, and the most scut work out of any rotation thus far. Now, I'm happy to say, I've begun 6 weeks of pediatrics. I'm so relieved to be finished O&G that I can't even complain about being at the university hospital. One thing I can complain about, however, is my totally crap call schedule. I'm on call this Saturday and am supposed to race the Moose is Loose half marathon the next morning at 0830. Signover isn't until 0900 so I'm hoping I can manage to get a little sleep and sneak out a little bit early.
Sarah's almost finished getting ready to defend her thesis which means I should be allowed to play on her computer with some more frequency. I sure miss having some time to tinker around on there. Speaking of which, I was doing a little bit of reading about XSLT and I think I may be able to use it to greatly simpify the management of this little site of mine. Currently I ssh into the university general purpose unix which serves up most of the site and edit the html using vi. This works fine as long as I'm just editing the index page or adding a link or two to the links page. However, whenever I want to make grand sweeping changes that involve the whole set of pages I have to edit each page by hand which is a real pain. Hopefully through templates and XSLT XML to HTML transformations I can make the whole think a lot smoother.
Now I'm babbling.
There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes.
--anonymous
Wed Jul 16 00:14:28 MDT 2003
I'm sitting in Sarah's lab finishing up the finishing touches of her thesis with her. She's been working so hard on it lately that I just can't give her enough credit. She's deceptively tough. We brought in the iBook so that we could plug into the Appletalk/Rendevouz network which works very nicely. I just plugged in the laptop and immediately had access to the whole biochem network. Makes me wanna get 10 cheap computers just so I can connect 'em all up.
Alllmost done snatch & catch. I've got 3 more days to sneak through, a couple of exams to fake, and I may never have to catch a baby again. That makes me happy because I don't really like catching babies. A strange radiology PGY-1 said it best I think. "Sometimes you need an obstetrician and sometimes you need a bucket. I'm the bucket."
In other news, I can't remember the last time I wasn't tired, and the Rubik's cube solution is getting warmer, and I continue to drag myself out running from time to time. I have grand plans to run to work at the Royal Alex tomorrow morning. Stay tuned to see if that pans out.
Sometimes you need an obstetrician and sometimes you need a bucket.
I'm the bucket.
--Charlotte Yong-Hing
Thu Jul 3 20:19:21 MDT 2003
I'm sitting in the medicine residents lounge in the RAH. It's been fairly quiet during my call today and I'm hoping that I can get a few more winks tonight than last time. There's not too many people around at this time of night but it's not just time for bed yet.
Luckliy I brought myself a few toys to occupy myself for the next little while. I'm trying to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube so I brought my fake magic cube and a couple of solutions with me. I stuck them on my palm pilot along with a couple of books to read. That should keep me from going bananas over the next few hours.
I also found a group of other students to comiserate with. That should kill some time. I'm wicked at complaining lately.
There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of discovering them over and over and over. -- David Nichols
Wed Jul 2 22:49:56 MDT 2003
Hello again loyal readers. It is time again for another rant from dom. I have been slacking off on the ol' 'blog but Sarah has been hogging the computer in a major way and so must share some of the blame. Someting about a thesis or something. Girls.
When I last left you I was basking in the fumes of GI but things couldn't stay that sweet for long... they just couldn't.
I now have the profound displeasure of being a student intern in obstetrics & gynecology at the Royal Alexandra hospital. Snatch and catch, as the rotation is lovingly referred to by my contemporaries, has been an endless, useless, uneducational, demeaning, waste of time. I really can't think of much to say about it at all. (But I suppose I'm being cranky... I should probably just keep my mouth shut.) The only saving grace is that there's lots of free time so I get the see the rest of my track mates pretty regularly which means I've been laughing a lot more at work lately.
In other news, I finished the Edmonton half marathon in 2'20'' and I didn't die. I even signed up for another one and will try to improve my time. I had a birthday and Sarah got me the Prism Fanatic sport kite. Flying it on Nose Hill in Calgary might just have been the best part of my year. You'll be hearing more about that in later entries I'm sure.
I think I hear someone coming to kick me off the computer... I shall sign off.
New photos in the photo section
Wed May 7 21:20:13 MDT 2003
Third year general surgery is like camping and I'm glad to be home.
It's an adventure and you get to see some pretty amazing things. Mostly, you are completely unprepared for what awaits you when once the camping trip begins. You don't eat properly, and you don't get nearly enough sleep. By day 4 everyone is pretty much at each other's throats. It's probably not a bad thing to do, as an occasional exercise, but only a select few (read: lunatics) would want to camp indefinitely. On balance, the whole affair is just entirely too brutle. In the end, when the trip is finally over, you think back and remember the commeradary, the excitement, all the ridiculous situations you and your buddies got into, and allow yourself a little grin. I've never been a fantastic camper. Excitement and commeradary are nice and all, but they're no substitute for being able to take a dump in your own toilet.
I'm now a week and a half into my gastrointestinal medicine elective with
Dr. Bailey. So
far I'm having a great time. There's plenty of theory, a nice broad scope,
continuity of care with outpatients, and you can do some nifty investigational
and theraputic stuff with endoscopy. Besides, the "things that make
your tummy hurt" will always at the heart and soul of medicine as far as I'm
concerned. I think I might like to do GI when I grow up.
Orthodox medicine has not found an answer to your complaint. However, luckily for you, I happen to be a quack.
--Richter cartoon caption
Thu Apr 17 11:20:08 MDT 2003
Mon Mar 31 14:50:13 MST 2003
I'm happily suprised to see that I have time to make a little entry during the day on general surgery. You see, I'm in precepter limbo currently. My old boss took off on holidays today and don't get a new boss until Wednesday. I called the residents a few times but we appear to be all caught up. (read: I'm a burden and nobody likes me) I think it works out well; I could use a break since I'm on call tonight which has been stupid busy the past few nights. I should be ok as I have Hugo the Hippopotamus to keep me company.
Running is coming along and it seems my shin splints problem isn't getting any worse. I think my body can only concentrate on being miserable about one thing at a time. This Sunday for example, my heart and lungs and big fat belly were complaining about the 9k run leaving my achey shins completely unnoticed. It's been a little tough and I like to complain about my busy schedule (which makes me feel much better) but thankfully I havn't been missing too many runs.
I'm looking forward to visiting Calgary this weekend. Planning to leave on Saturday morning (post-call) so I hope between a few winks during the night and a tall stiff cup of coffee I won't run off the road. I must get Sarah to make me a mixed tape to listen to :-P
Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a
triviality as if it were a disaster.
Quentin Crisp
Wed Mar 19 12:40:17 MST 2003
The 7 pearls of surgery according to David Hochman.
- Eat when you can.
- Sleep when you can.
- Go to the bathroom when you can.
- Call your loved ones when you're on call.
- It's ok to lie to your staff.
- You can never lie to your resident.
- Don't fuck with the pancreas.
Thu Mar 13 22:01:07 MST 2003
I hate being sick. I'm not really sure what I caught but it's really knocking the stuffing out of me. On Tuesday morning I felt kind of ooogy in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on and by that evening I was lying on Sarah's couch sweating, shaking, and feeling like a rotton cabbage. I've not eaten a meal since lunch on Tuesday but Sarah has been forcing me to drink lots of juice. A guy like me feels pretty lucky to have a girl like her usually but at times like this I just don't know what I'd do without her.
Geriatrics final exam and presentation loom tomorrow despite my 1.5 day absence. I have a case presentation to get ready and unfortunately my patient's chart is unavailable. That's what I get for leaving things to the last minute I suppose. I'm going to show up and talk for a while about some relevent papers with a big smile on my sick miserable face and hope that will do in a pinch.
Thankfully my precepter for this rotation has been really amazing. She's brilliant and I don't use the word often, but deceptively so. She's so giving with praise and never showy. Humble even to the point of self-depriciation. She may actually know everthing about geriatrics and most of internal medicine too. Pretty impressive. Made for a fun rotation.
Haven't been running since last Sunday. I suppose it's best to wait until I'm back on my feet to start going out in the snow, but every day I miss makes me wonder if I'm going to get out of the groove and quit or maybe not be able to hack it once I get back from the break. I hope I don't pussy out just because of a little 6-week surgery rotation.
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that
here and there.
Richard Feynman
Sun Mar 9 21:21:48 MST 2003
Those who know of my erm... preoccupation with "old-school" web page editing using vim and doing things by hand may be a little surprised to know that I've been flirting with the idea of setting up a weblog ('blog) in the more dynamic sense.
Using Sarah's ibook to serve it up, I'm trying to set up a site similar in purpose to my original website, but which would allow for a database backend, posting of stories and entries by other people and other sorts of nifty stuff which requires access to perl and databases which the hard working and security conscious folks at CNS would not allow on the gpu.
Bare with me loyal readers as we try our hand at a web-based publishing
system called Movabletype.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
"Ahead warp factor 1" - Captain Kirk
Tue Feb 25 08:07:24 MST 2003
I'm sitting in the lab across from the Scott library. It's kinda early so there aren't too many people here yet. I've got a large House Blend from the Cafe Divino in the hospital and I'm sipping it as fast as I can. It's ridiculously hot and very bitter. Tastes sort of terrible in a way that assures me it's going to carry me through the day with lots of stimulatory goodness. Endocrinology clinic doesn't start until ~0830 today. Wait... this coffee is starting to taste better with every slurp. I think I'm coming up.
I have a feeling today will be an interesting day. After work I'm going to be at the running room listening to the first lecture of my half-marathon clinic. I'm not sure what the expect, but I'm very glad that the weather turned nicer because I think it's followed by a 5k run. First days are always uncomfortable I guess, but I think the first 3 weeks of the clinic should be ok. The elective I'm doing right now is fairly easy going and it's followed by geriatrics which shouldn't be too err.. intense either. After that, however, comes surgery which is a different story all together. Who knows how the hell that will go. Not looking forward. Filled with dread etc. etc.
I'm getting hungry for lunch already. I think I'll have a tube of Sour Cream n' Onion Pringles. Mmmm...
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
-- Sinclair Lewis
Mon Feb 17 19:44:27 MST 2003
Another vacation bites the dust. I've had a whole week off to myself and have managed to get a lot of errands done. It's actually a really great feeling as lots of them have been gnawing at my side for months and months now. I didn't make any big trips anywhere, and I didn't do anything even remotely out of the routine, but I feel better. Next up, endocrinology elective x 2 weeks.
God help me, I've signed up for a half-marathon clinic. I start my training officially on Feb 25th and I have mixed feelings about the date approaching so fast. On one hand, I'm excited and pumped about getting out and getting going and having something to be dedicated to besides school. On the other hand, I'm going to miss having time to eat dinner, sit on the potty and take my time, and not having to rush out the door on Sarah all the time. I think it'll be good for me.
In other news, dear readers, I've recieved links to four interesting websites this week.
- Internet Mammogram - Don't leave without checking out the hate mail.
- 40ozmaltliquor.com - Canada really comes through with this 10% 40oz.
- realultimatepower.net - Ninja's are awesome.
- altermd.com - The pinnicle of modern medicine.
-- anonymous
Mon Feb 3 17:44:40 MST 2003
Things I learned during my first day of Anaesthesia:
- My chest is getting hairier and may one day connect to my beard
- Electro cautery stinks
- I don't respond well to being quizzed
- I don't know anything about anatomy or pharmacology
- Pharmacology is actually important
- Room air is 21% Oxygen
- Everybody should know that room air is 21% Oxygen
- Fentanyl is not the same as Sufentanyl
- Drawing up the correct drug is important
- Internal medicine rules!
To top is off, my would be preceptor cancelled my elective for next week and I'm left with four business days to set one up. I don't think I'm off to a great start this week but it can only get better from here.
To think that I was glad when I finished internal med because I thought things would be more slack for a while. I have a crappy feeling that I'm going to be crying for medicine before these 6 weeks are done.
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
--Paul Valery
Wed Jan 29 09:51:31 MST 2003
Staff guys like to come in late sometimes, it's one of the perks. Since I had to be here at 0800 and my patient load has dwindled over the past little bit I can concentrate on more important matters such as crushing time on the ol' website.
Had a nice visit with Ian and Shyane who were in town yesterday for a book signing. The author had a great big beard, we had great big Quizno's sandwiches, Sarah wouldn't let me eat the peppers, and a good time was had by all. Naturally I didn't really get a great start to my OSCE preparation but the next two days can be totally devoted to it I think. I quickly flipped through the OSCE prep pack and it seems to give a pretty good summary. If I can manage to get through that and pad the edges with some other resources I think I should be able to make it through ok.
To tell the truth, I'm a little more concerned about setting up my elective time which is supposed to start in about a week. People just aren't good about getting back to me. If I can get it handed in in the next few days I think I won't get tooo much static from the UGME secretaries, but I'll get some.
Weather is nice today, so I think I may get to go out for a run tonight.
If it's gummy it's yummy.
--Ian Bergeron
Sun Jan 26 19:40:01 MST 2003
It can be sort of tricky trying to find time to keep this little 'blog up to date. I've had some luck while on call having a lull during the afternoon where I can sit down and tinker. Other than that time's been pretty tight. If my schedule gets any worse I fear personal hygiene may take a hit. That's all going to change for one week however. This week, you see, is exam week. That means that I have so much stuff to do that it's not even remotely feesable that I get it done. That's sort of liberating and allows me to feel like I can spare a few minutes here and there to do other things. Like this little site.
Yes, loyal reader(s), for this week only, you can expect regular and frequent updates to this little journal of dom's thoughts. Come one and all and witness my descent into madness as I attempt to prepare for what is perhaps the most feared OSCE and MCQ exam of the year. Dominic has an appointment with Internal Medicine and I'm pretty sure the digital rectal exam is manditory.
The more I think about it, the more spooked I get. About 80% of what I was supposed to have learned in the first two years of med school plus another enormous chunk that I havn't been presented with at all but was supposed to pick up (in my spare time?) during the block is fair game. Oh well, it's a good thing I'm not interested in Internal Medcine for my residency otherwise... uh oh... waitaminnit... Internal Med is the only thing I'm interested in for my residency. Crap.
Let us live!!! Let us love!!! Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! You first.
Sat Jan 18 15:16:32 MST 2003
I'm happy to say that today will be my last day of call for 9 days. Apparantly I'm supposed to learn some medicine in that time. (You know, with the reading and the absorbing etc.) If everything goes according to plan I'll be asleep by 10pm and can start the week without a sleep deficit for once.
I was just chatting with another student in the lounge felt very lucky to be working with such a great crew. The students, the residents, even the staff are funny, easy going, and efficient. Compared to some of the drama that he was telling me about his service, we're a crazy internal medicine love-fest. Track 3... if you're reading this I won't take you for granted any more.
Briefly worked with a Dr. today who makes all his progress notes on his laptop. Despite my geeky tendancies, I had resigned myself to pencil and paper while working on med related stuff. Paper just had so much more flexability than a computer or palm. He does a pretty slick job though, his progress notes look amazing and when he needs to make an update, he just has to type in the changes. Maybe there's hope to work some gadgety-ness into this career after all.
Managed to drag my soggy ass out running last night again. It's only the second time in as many weeks, but I do believe it felt a bit easier. The first time, every step was a little piece of hell. This time, it was only very uncomfortable. I don't have any referances to back me up on this, but I firmly believe that being outside every once in a while is good for my health. I think I may pick up one of those fancy-schmancy neoprene face masks so that when I'm feeling nutty I can go out when it gets cold.
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
--Edmund Burke
Sun Jan 12 12:27:09 MST 2003
On call again... I rounded with T.K this morning and, as expected, learned a lot about the art from a very intellegent man. All finished now so I may drift down to the cafeteria for lunch and Hoshizaki. I wonder if going out for a run while on call would be inappropriate. If I just stayed close to the grounds I could always be within 5 minutes of a phone and 10 minutes of being ready to see someone. I think that sounds reasonable, but sometimes in a system this big reason isn't the deciding factor. I must remember to ask one of the residents about that... Finding time to take care of yourself is pretty hard in this business. Now I'm officially whining.
Had a great day post-call yesterday. Visited an antique store with Sarah and found lots of super-cool old Star Wars action figures. I remember a lot of them from when I was about 9 years old. I usually had the figures that had no speaking parts, or did not appear in the movie whatsoever. I remember having the Rancor keeper. You remember... when Luke falls into Jabba the Hutt's pit and the monster tries to eat him. Luke closes a door on the Rancor's head and lives to fight another day, but you get to see the monster's keeper crying. Yup... I had that guy. Awesome. Finished off the day with Italian food, Japanese beer, and watching the Muppet Show in DVD. (The Julie Andrews episode was good, but not as good as Mark Hamill or Paul Simon.) So now, loyal readers, you are 100% up to date on the life of Dom. Such as it is.
I think I'm going to sneak down the cafeteria now. I managed to have breakfast this morning, but I'm feeling a little peshy again.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
--Bertrand Russell
Fri Jan 10 21:13:41 MST 2003
Fourteenth(?) hour of call.
Internal Med has been a real mixed bag. I enjoy the sitting down and reasoning out a problem with another student/resident while having lots of resources to investigate weird or interesting presentations. On the other hand, rounds can take a really long time which is hard on my little feet. There's always a sense of urgency about checking patients, trying to remember all the results you have to track down while hoping the really sick ones don't get a celestial discharge. On balance it's my favorite block so far and I think I'll try to get into a medicine residency program. That's what I'd like to be when I grow up.
So I'm sitting here with a Hoshizake killing time 'cause I'm too wired to sleep and too tired to read. I love Hoshizake ... regular water just won't do now; I'm spoiled.
Here are some other Japanese things I'm starting to say at the hospital... not... sure... why...
chin suru microwave it
dokodemo doa It means, "Anywhere Door." This is an imaginary door that can take you to anywhere you wish.
ketsu no ana ga chiisai Ketsu is butt, and ana is hole. So, it means, "small anal." This is used to describe narrow minded and inflexible people. For example, you could say, "Kare wa ketsu no ana ga chiisai"
kattarui It means "tired." It's often pronounced, "Kattarii."
Yup... pretty sure I need some sleep now.
Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work
absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
--William Osler
Wed Dec 25 19:48:38 MST 2002
Merry Christmas! I'm sitting in a small, cluttered and very dark home office at my sister's house. My feet can't seem to warm up despite wearing two pairs of socks. It seems my sister, not unlike my parents, likes to keep the house warmed only to about 15 degrees C. I came in to spend Christmas with Elaine and family as well as my parents who came down from Cold Lake yesterday and I must say Elaine really did an excellent job. There were (and are) plenty of snacks, a huge turkey and ham feast, and I think everyone has been having a pretty good time.
My nephew Sean, I fear, has been irreversably spoiled rotton. There were far greater than fifty gifts under the enormous Chirstmas tree and the vast majority were for him :-) I'm proud to say that the Spider-Man costume with web shooters Sarah and I got for him was a very big hit. It came with two cans of web-fluid-silly-string which he spent in two long streams interrupted only by a quick pause for reload.
Sean was not the only one to be spoiled however. Sarah surprised me with what is perhaps the greatest toy ever created. I am now the proud owner of a voice activated, 40 command interpreting, sonar controlled, heat sensing R2-D2 droid. I couldn't resist taking him how to show my 3 year old nephew who actually thought he was real and started having a conversation with him.
Sean: Hey... R2... You wanna play with my Spider-Man?
R2-D2: Beep Boop Beep Whooo-oooooo (shakes head)
Sean: Ok... Bye!
I'm pretty lucky, and I'll feel even luckier when I see Sarah tomorrow. Merry Chirstmas loyal readers!
If at first you don't succeed, try again.
Then try a couple more times.
Then quit.
--anonymous
Fri Dec 13 13:18:44 MST 2002
The dancing R2D2 is for Sarah who thinks this site is too boring.
Finished Psyche today. It well pretty well as far as exams and evaluations go I guess, but I don't think I'd make a good or happy psychiatrist. The hunt for something to do when I grow up continues I guess. Speaking of which, I'm in the process of setting up a gastroenterology elective. I have hopes that I'll reallly enjoy that. When I first started thinking about wanting to be a doctor, the things that make your tummy hurt were sort of at the heart and sole of medicine as I knew it.
Don't have too many major plans for the weekend. I think I may get together with some of my old foosball buddies on Saturday night. There's also a potluck with another group of friends who I haven't been able to get out to see very much lately. I think I may try to get out to see the new Star Trek movie. I'm pretty crazy about movie theatre popcorn when I sprinkle that sour cream 'n onion stuff on top. Mmmm... And paying $8.99 for fountain Coke is kind of a treat too.
In other news, it's only 11 days until Christmas and I'm just about finished my shopping. Just a few more things to pick up and I'll be in grand shape. It's a good thing too because I don't think Internal Medicine is going to be as forgiving to my schedule as psychiatry was.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for
complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the
philosophy is kindness.
--The Dalai Lama
Mon Dec 9 23:14:41 MST 2002
Staying up late trying to study for psychiatry is making me feel crazy. To top it off I'm listening to The Pogues - An Irish Chistmas Song. If that doesn't make you feel crazy then you might just be nuts already. Man... it's 11:18pm and all I can do is read one seminar's worth of notes at a time. Then I have to soothe myself by switching the wallpaper on the computer several times... and then switching it back. Ahh... the stupid ways I cope. Oh well... beats burning myself with a cigarette. Wheee! Personality disorder is funny.
Speaking of personality disorders, I don't think psyche is for me. Personality disorders suck. I have a hard time with trying to treat people whose problems are fundamentally intertwined with who they are. It's not so much about healing people in some cases as it is about changing people so that they'll be happier better people. To top it off, actually effecting those changes is hard. It's hard to manage all the ugly reactions they bring out in me. The worst bit is I know these people really do need help and wanting to just abandon them as soon as possible kinda makes me feel like a bad person. Dom's dealing with some issues of his own today ladies and gentlemen, go find another psyche student intern.
On the plus side, Christmas is just around the corner. Sarah got me some totally wicked Star Wars tree ornaments. Now the little tree has a scene where Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are dueling beneath a light up Death Star. I know I'm a dork, but I love it. (and I can't help myself) Blame Sarah... she's encouraging me.
"If there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholic man's
heart"
--Robert Burton
The Anatomy of Melancholy 1621
Fri Nov 22 16:48:12 MST 2002
Started working with a new Dr. today on psychiatry. I think it's going to work out really well. She's quite different from the last one who I was hanging out with. All smiles and giggles and she talks reallllly fast. I like when you get a different experience from different people; it makes for a much more rounded experience. Anyways, I'm starting to have fun with Psychiatry which I wasn't at first.
It's still kind of frustrating that people don't seem to get better. From the little I know about major depression and schizophenia, the prognosis is not real good. Not that psychiatrists don't help these people, they're shooting for a different goal. Not a cure necessarily, but not comitting suicide and visiting the emergency room less are important endpoints in themselves. I have to keep reminding myself of that. In any case, it's starting to grow on me. The patients are very interesting, the atmosphere is pretty friendly, and seeing a depressed person feel better is pretty rewarding. I'm just not sure if it's for me.
I was in a great mood when I left today! I was on call all last weekend so I'm really looking forward to this one. No call... the weather has been great... I think I might watch the football game and eat a sub with potato chips on it. If the sub doesn't have chips on it, it's really not worthy of being eaten for the Grey Cup.
In other geeky news my ISP is pissing me off. I had just finished seemlessly linking this site to be partially hosted on the ibook when they went and switched my ip address again. I don't think they want me running Apache without paying a bunch more money for a "Corporate Account" or some such nonsense. Honestly, if the tiny amout of bandwidth I'm consuming (much less than from sent email) is such a burden they could just ask me to stop instead of pulling this passive aggressive bullshit. Maybe if I'm feeling super geeky one day I can write a perl script to have the ibook ssh in to the UofA gpu server and rewrite my html with the updated ip address every 8h or so.
Or maybe I should take the middle way and just suck it up.
Suck it up.
--Damian Paton Gay
Mon Nov 11 21:47:27 MST 2002
It's been one week since I began psychiatry at the Miseracordia hospital Edmonton. It's not quite the ridiculously slack experience for me that it has been for some of my classmates. I suppose I have mixed feelings about that. Six weeks isn't much time to get a handle on a whole area of medicine and I want to get a good taste of it, but at the same time part of me wishes that I had a little more time to sleep in, meet people for coffee, and build my model TIE fighter.
What can I say about psychiatry. Psychiatry is different. Sometimes patients are uncooperative. Sometimes patients are down right scared. Histories are long. Physicals are short. Consults are long. Call is... call is super dooper. Apparantly there's an understanding with the folk in the Emerg'. If a psyche consult is needed after 22:00 they don't call until the morning. Pretty sweet. On the other hand, if you get called at 21:00, you may very well be there until 1:00. On balance, I can't really complain, can I?
The doctors and staff are all really friendly and laid back. Most of them start after 8:00 and are done rounds by 11:00. They even have time for a coffee break in the middle. I'd say the lifestyle is pretty great.
Did you know there's a voice activated R2-D2 robot? He can follow you around, he can understand 30 different commands and he has an intergalactic beverage holder. Every boy needs a droid. I'm a boy. I need a droid.
You can't always have a great banana...
-Andrew Marks
Fri Oct 25 11:42:42 MDT 2002
One rotation down, seven more to go. Right now, though, I'm getting a little R'n'R because I was too slack to get an elective organized in advance. That's ok, I could use the time to catch up on some errands and todo's I've been putting off. In theory. In reality I'm mostly sleeping in, being lazy, tinkering on the computer and building a model TIE fighter. You have to make time for what's important, you know?
Seeing as how my next rotation is Psychiatry at the Mis, I decided to get to work on my beard. Honestly, would you listen to anyone who claimed to be a mental health professional if the didn't even have a beard? Of course not! Everything was going along swimmingly until my lower neck was so itchy that I decided to clean it up a bit. I don't know what I'm doing of course and I have now ruined my beard completely. I was hoping for Jason Lee a la Chasing Amy, but I ended up looking like a Hudderite. Time for a shave.
I'm going to get back to some sort of regular exercise routine starting next week. I've noticed myself getting a little erm... soggy around the midsection and all things considered I'd rather not die of a huge MI when I'm forty. Hopefully it will give me a bit more energy so I'm not so lazy all the time too.
In other news, I'm taking a trip to Calgary with Sarah this weekend. Sarah will be doing a fair amount of studying I think, so maybe I'll do some hanging out with Ian. I like Calgary and Sarah does too. Maybe I'll live there when I grow up. I have a few friends there and it's close to the mountatins and stuff. Not that I'm a real montain-y kinda guy, but hey, you never know.
p.s. New wallpaper in the Files section!
The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed.
--anonymous
Mon Oct 14 17:30:26 MDT 2002
One more week to go... Time sure is flying in Cold Lake AB. Time really goes by much faster now than when I was a younger. I think the longest year of my life was when I was 6 years old, and every year since then got faster and faster and faster. Is that why old people seem to be moving so slowly? Is their world just zipping by them at impossible speed?
Time on this rotation, though, is going by particularly zippily for me. Is it becasue I'm so busy? Is it that my parents hobbitesque routine blends one day into the next? Each and every one filled with A&E Biography, Alex Trebek, and a healthy number of Molson Canadian? Is it me getting slower?
I wouldn't mind taking things slowly for a while. Maybe go for walks, read more books, maybe just sit and think for a few minutes every morning before running out the door. You know... take little dom time. I really like my days on the wards, clinics, and emerg.
It's pretty invigorating learning so much so fast... like your head is spinning... in a good way. But it's making me appreciate the time to eat a bowl of cornflakes, and I miss skipping class to play foosball.
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
--anonymous
Mon Sep 30 20:29:06 MDT 2002
Broadband... need broadband... *choke*... It's soooo hard to update this little blog when I have to dial in and ssh is slower than my typing. I'm in Cold Lake for my Rural Family Medicine rotation and so far it's been a really good experience. The hours are a bit on the long side as I have 3 bosses and when one of them does call, *I* do call :-(
They're a good bunch down here, and any excuse to stay for Mom's cookin' is fine with me. So far I've done a some obstetrics, some surgery, some gastroscopy/colonoscopy, with a smattering of emerg and family med. It's a really great place, but with a surgeon, and internist, an OBGYN, and a radiologist, I don't think it's fair to call it rural.
With any luck I'll make it back to the city this weekend. I'm really starting to miss Sarah. You see, Sarah smells really good. Like, *all* the time. And Cold Lake... well... it stinks here. Oh well. A few more days.
I think the hospital cafeteria gave me the shits.
Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way.
Tue Sep 3 23:35:48 MDT 2002
Whew... It's been a crazy few weeks. I thought that I was having a busy summer until I went on vacation. So much activity, so much travelling, and yes, so much fun packed into such a short time that it may take my old bones weeks to recovoer.
After finishing up as much as I could at work, I threw some clothes in a bag and drove Jackarada Lily to Calgary. The next day we were on our way to Shambhala. It was such an interesting and vital experience that I can't even begin to describe it. I really had a wonderful time and would highly recommend you, dear reader, attend if you have the means next year. I was pretty tired by the end but I had plenty of vacation left...
The rest of my time was spent visiting, camping, visiting, Teddy Bear shopping, eating, and watching late night television. I know... it doesn't sound like much, but it was hard hard work ;-)
I must admit I'm a bit relieved to be back to my Hobbitesque routine. I don't think I do very well when I'm away from home for too long. I started my 3rd year today which was fun, exciting, terrifying, and the time flew by. I'm looking forward to actually learning some useful stuff. I just pray I do my huge screw-ups soon when no one is depending on me :-)
vacation, n.: A two-week binge of rest and relaxation so intense that
it takes a nother 50 weeks of your restrained workaday life-style to
recuperate.
Fri Aug 9 11:54:55 MDT 2002
It's nearly time for vacation. Mmm mmm... doing nothin' is awesome. I'm going to do so much nothing it's sick! But I'm going to spice it up a little bit also. I'm going to insert into the nothingness some junk food eatin', some hanging out, some video game playin', and some movie watchin'.
Now that I have a new car I think I'll spend some time driving it around Edmonton. I can hang out with Andy and the gang, I can go the the movies, and I can roam around aimlessly.
Before I go slack, however, I have some loose ends to tie up at work. I still have to meet with someone to do the magstim trials, I still have to compile the results into a nice LaTeX document, and I have various other school/financial/automotive poo poo's to take care of.
This vacation is coming just in time. I'm sooo beat up from life that I really need to crawl into a nice Hobbit hole, drink tea and eat sandwiches for a while.
Winning an argument on the internet is like winning a gold medal at the Special Olympics -- even though you're the champ, you're still a retard.
--anonymous
Tue Jul 30 10:34:54 MDT 2002
I'm sooo glad the ibook is working again! You see, a certain someone crashed it really, really hard leading to many terrible and catastrophic hard drive errors. It was really very sick. I'm really glad that we had access to another mac as well as a well supplied mac user to help us get the thing running again.
You see, the many terrible and catastrophic hard drive errors prevented the ibook from booting. A computer coma. We were able, however, to boot from the system CD which contained a disk repair utility called Disk First Aid. This interesting utility allows you to identify the location and nature of the errors of your hard drive and then informs you that it is completely unable to do anything about it. I was afraid the ibook was brain dead.
Luckily, a friend had a copy of Norton System Works for mac which is supposedly much better at actually fixing the errors on the drive. I inserted the boot disk and held my breath as the machine struggled to come to life. It was not to be. Apparently that particular version of the boot disk is not capable of booting an ibook. We would need some bigger medicine.
There were a few more ideas to try before reformating the disk to zeros. We could unpack our boot disk, put System Works on it, repack it, burn it, and try to use the utility then. It would be very time consuming, and I have had very poor luck with creating boot disks in the past. We could try to create a ram disk from within open firmware so that we could install system works there. (It turns out this isn't actually possible...) Or we could find a FireWire cable, boot the ibook as an external drive, and then run SystemWorks from the G4 on the external drive.
I scampered to the University bookstore and dropped $21 on the only 6 pin to 6 pin FireWire cable in the place. We hooked the ibook to the G4 heart-lung machine and began the operation.
It took about 4 hours of the ibook on lifesupport, but eventually the ibook booted again. The data was safe, my sanity was restored, and they all lived happily ever after. Back up your shit.
Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
Mon Jul 15 09:34:29 MDT 2002
It's time to buy some new shoes. I've got one pair of shoes right now and they are in really rough shape. Each shoe has at least 2 holes in the toe, the backs of them are ripped out, and I have to hold the left one with both hands while putting it one or it will tear apart. Yup, new shoe time.
At least two pairs of new shoes are about to fall victim to the feet of dom. It will be a sad day for the shoes but a happy day for me. The first pair of shoes will be running shoes. I think I'm going to swing by the Running Room and try on a couple of pairs tomorrow. The other pair is just for wearing around in. I had my eye on a pair of Adidas Shell toes but they've since become so popular that the too cool eliteist in me might want to go with something else instead.
Is it way too pedestrian to be blogging about shoe shopping? Should I have something more exciting to talk about? Damian, for example, sent me a video of himself at the Heineken factory. I don't know what Ivan is doing right now but I promise you it's something absurd. Meanwhile I'm buying some shoes.
On the other hand, I'm buying some shoes and trying to tell the internet about it. That's pretty absurd.
I have no doubt the Devil grins, As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins-- The other kind don't matter.
-- Robert W. Service
Mon Jul 8 17:44:12 MDT 2002
I'm back from my weekend in Calgary and I really feel like ranting. I went and caught John Digweed at the Whiskey nightclub. Music was great. Although I didn't realise it when I was picking up the tickets, the night was a Gold Club series event. This basically means that the Benson & Hedges cigarette company has a tour of dancers, lasers, decorations and, of course, cigarettes and they go around to dance clubs and take over for one night.
They generally do a pretty good job setting it up. There's lots of gold everywhere and even the lasers shoot a yellowy-golden hew accross the place. The downside is the Benson & Hedges logo all over and the completely palpable corporate influence. They pay "beautiful" people to dress in gold outfits and dance on pedistels or in plastic tubes. I used the term dance here in it's loosest form. Ass-displaying perhaps would be better? I digress...
There are cigarette girls wandering through the crowd selling the evening's favorite brand. Drinks flow smoothly and easily and expensively. ($5.75 CDN for a bottle of beer) The majority of people were sort of obnoxious in that hormony-alcholic-gotta-get-layed-tonight kind of way and I was fairly disgusted at the whole affair.
I'm disgusted at myself for paying $15 to give a large company one more set of eyes to market to. I'm disgusted at the whole crowd for watching glorified strippers instead of dancing for each other and themselves. Now entertainment is a commodity to be supplied by a large company; we aren't qualified to do it ourselves. I'm disgusted that Benson & Hedges hass a lot of loyal customers and that they probably have a few more after last night. I'm disgusted that what started as a counter-culture with the best of intentions and it's heart in the right place has become so intertwined with big money and in particular a company which has caused so much suffering.
It's kind of scary and depressing, but maybe it's just my mood...
Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening
Wed Jun 26 13:28:05 MDT 2002
Time for another update of ye ol' website I suppose. Not too much is going on though. I went to a talk by a new post-doc coming to the lab next door and he had some pretty interesting videos to show. His group in London England was using functional electrial stimulation to get spinal cord patients to cycle in a recumbant tricycle. They started off sort of stiff and jerky but after a few seconds it looked like a healthy person cycling. He showed footage of the patient cruising along the bike paths of London at about 20km/h. Pretty cool.
I went to see Minority Report last night. Pretty cool movie, and I think I might want to go and see it again. It was dark and moody, but had a nice happy Spielberg ending and I went away satisfied.
Probably going to go and see Bad Boy Bill at Reds this weekend. Should be a good time. After that, it's time to start looking forward to Motion Notion.
"Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out,
but that is not the reason we are doing it"
-- (Richard Feynman)
Wed Jun 19 16:53:18 MDT 2002
From the sliver of window I can peak out of, it doesn't seem like it's too windy, but when I looked earlier it was. It's a beautiful summer day and I have got to get out there with the kites... Wait... wait... it is windy out there! I can see the trees blowing now!
There's lots to be done in the lab, but I have to wait for some folks to help me do it. I'm trying to document the magstim project in the meanwhile, but I can't seem to figure out Jan's Paint Shop Pro. Even the simple things are so different than in Photoshop. Guess it's time to get to kite flying :-)
I visited my banker today and secured funds for the new school year. It's a strange feeling to have a huge wad of borrowed cash. It's like being rich and poor all at once. In any case, I can now officially start car shopping. It sure will be nice to be able to drive to some places this summer. It's kind of a drag lately, having to limit my journeys to the locations and times of the bus systems. It'll be sweet to have a jalopy of my very own.
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. -- George Eliot
Tue Jun 18 16:52:38 MDT 2002
Well I'm back at work after my birthday weekend in Calgary. I had a really great time and my birthday present was fantastic!
On Saturday, we went out to Pollen at the Shadow lounge. The music was pretty good and the drinks were a plenty. We walked back to Kensington 'cause it was a warm night and it was nice to get to see Ian and Shyanne. Sunday came and I had a mad crazy good brunch at Sarah's aunt's place. There were so many types of food to choose from and they all looked soooo great. I ended up not even getting to try all of them. (And I had thirds!)
I'm back in the lab now after missing Monday. My boss was a little sore at me for not calling in and I got a little bit of a dressing down this morning. There's not much worse than a dressing down from the boss, but I think I'm through the worst of it now and he doesn't seem like the type to hold a grudge. I'm learning to make microwires today. (As punishment?) If you've ever tried splitting hairs (for real) then imagine trying to make a tuft of split hairs and sharpening the ends. It's kind of difficult and tedious and frustrating but I think it's a rite of passage in this lab. The sooner I get the hang of it the better.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that
heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
--Isaac Asimov
Tue Jun 4 16:59:14 MDT 2002
It seems like a while now since I talked about anything super-geeky on this page. In fact, I wasn't even keeping archives when I did my little rant on vi. High time I did something like that again. Today I think I'm going to talk a bit about LaTeX. LaTeX is based on Donald E. Knuth's TeX typesetting language. LaTeX was first developed in 1985 by Leslie Lamport, and is now being maintained and developed by the LaTeX3 Project. LaTeX is available for free by anonymous ftp.
To publish something, authors give their typed manuscript to a publishing company. One of their book designers then decides the layout of the document (column width, fonts, space before and after headings, ...). The book designer writes his instructions into the manuscript and then gives it to a typesetter, who typesets the book according to these instructions. A human book designer tries to find out what the author had in mind while writing the manuscript. He decides on chapter headings, citations, examples, formulae, etc. based on his professional knowledge and the contents of the manuscript.
In a LaTeX environment, LaTeX takes the role of book designer and uses TeX as its typesetter. This is quite different from the WYSIWYG approach which most modern word processor take. Typographical design is a craft. Unskilled authors often commit serious formatting errors by assuming that document design is mostly a question of aesthetics--"If a document looks good artistically, it is well designed." But a document has to by read and not hung up in a picture gallery. The readability and clarity of the document is of paramount importance.
With WYSIWYG systems, authors often generate aesthetically pleasing
documents with very little or inconsistent structure. LaTeX prevents such
errors by forcing the author to declare the logical structure of the
document. LaTeX then chooses the most suitable layout.
Tue Jun 4 14:29:29 MDT 2002
Summer has come at last and I'm having a pretty great time. I can feel myself slowing down, bit by bit. I didn't realize how fast I was moving towards the end of the year, but now I get much less done in a day and I still find myself exhausted :-)
The new lab I'm working at seems pretty great so far. They're a pretty eclectic bunch full of statisticians, physiologists, computer programmers, engeneers, mechanics and surgeons. The lab is chocked full of McGyver-esqe tools of every description. They spend their days jimmy-rigging stuff and thinking up of new gadgets to make. I'm just getting started but already I'm learning a few new skills. They even like coffee. I think it'll be a good job for the summer.
The only other big thing to do is buy a car find some money and buy a
car. I don't really know much about cars but I have some people who are gonna
help me out and make sure I don't get a lemon.
Ahhh summer... Going home at dinner time, weekends off, kite flying,
parties, sun, and free time. I'm trying to appreciate every second.
Wed May 22 14:27:21 MDT 2002
It's almost finished now. I just had my OSCE this morning and it seemed to go OK. I forgot a bunch of stuff, some of it kind of important, but I'm feeling alright about it. It's hard to remember everything on the spot and it's over with and that makes it hard to care.
The last thing I have to do before I go on my last summer holidays (ever) is write the comprehensive exam. It covers everything I've learned in the past two years and I have a great deal left to review before I write it on Friday. The only problem is that it's sooo close to being done that I'm having a hard time staying focused. I just want to quit and go see Attack of the Clones and start relaxing.
This is where I'm supposed to remember how lucky I am to be doing something I really enjoy and learning a bunch about an interesting field. But I'll tell you, I'm really starting to look forward to summer, flying kites, and getting outside.
Life so short, the craft so long to learn...
Hippocrates
Wed May 8 20:30:37 MDT 2002
It's hard to believe I've made it when I take a minute to think about it... There were so many places where things could have (should have?) gone wrong. Now I'm reaching the end of my tour of duty in the lecture theatre. Seven years ago I landed at the University of Alberta and attended my first lecture. I was running late, I drank a huge iced tea, and rollerbladed to English 101 in the Humanities building. I was very hung over from the party the night before and I had to leave the lecture three times for fear of puking. Now, thousands of lectures, labs and seminars later, when I have reached the end, I can't believe how fast it went by.
I supposed the learning will continue, and I know, I know... the learning will be going on for the rest of my life. Whatever. I'm done school. The rest of the learning will be just like the rest of the world learns. Like a new McDonald's employee learns what goes on a Big Mac. Like a foosball player learns a snake. Like someone learns how to play golf. Getting out into the real world; it's been a long time. I hope I remember how it all works.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into
me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
Fri May 3 13:51:24 MDT 2002
Foosball. It's a great game on so many levels. Any game that get's 4 guys laughing and swearing is, of course, a Good Thing TM but foosball is a joy in so many other ways.
The sound of the ball. The Klang! as it's vulcanized body reports against a loosely fastented aluminum plate... the delalyed thonk! as it falls onto the wooden ball return beneath. The tic, tic, tic... as you probe the defense from your 3-bar. It's music.
I guess, in many ways it's a game of skill. But in certain aspects of the game, the difference between skill and luck and confidence blend away. Deciding how to move your 5-bar for example. It all happens so fast, when you're battling against your opponent's, you are both really spectators. Watching your skills unfold and wondering if they are better than his. I'm reminded of the beginning of "Enter the Dragon" where Bruce is explaining the separation between his conciousness and his machine-like Kung Fu skills: "... and when the time is right, it strikes!"
Psychology comes into play also. Have you ever heard the story of how circus elephants were kept in captivity? They didn't have chain's strong enough to hold even an adolecent pachyderm, so they tied up the babies with the strongest chains they had. The babies would try and try, and eventually learn that they couldn't break the chains. By the time the baby had become a giant male, it would only need a rope to remind it that there was no chance of escape. I watched my mind undo me today as I played against some 4th year students who came out of retirement to play in the tournament. Nerves definitely were a factor, and I believe that if I didn't know who they were and we were just playing for fun, that we would have beaten them. Funny thing the mind.
I'm away for the weekend... I wonder if I'll get a chance to play any Fooz? Gawd that's a great game.
Mon Apr 29 10:35:37 MDT 2002
I've started a quest for coffee. I read an article on Kuro5hin called A coder's guide to coffee and it really got me to thinking. I'm not really much of a coder, but I do get a kick out of the occasional perl script not and again. But coder or not, I do like a good cup of coffee.
I did a little bit of reading about what makes a cup of coffee "good" and I've come up with some ideas to get me going. Coffee, apparantly, needs to be fresh. Coffee, once ground, goes stale even within an hour. Deftly marketed vacuum sealed bags be damned. So I have to get myself a grinder. The spin blade whirly grinder kind are quite cheap and durable. Coffee, apparantly, needs to be brewed with appropriately hot water and my Proctor Silex drip maker won't get it up to the proper temperature. I need to invest a few bucks in a French press. As long as I can find some place locally to purchase freshly roasted beans, I should be well on my way to good coffee.
The next step, is to start roasting my own coffee. This is not supposed to be as hard as it sounds and can be done in a hot air popcorn popper. (Which I already own.)
I can feel the Hobbit juices flowing. If only more people would worry about the in's and out's of a good cup of coffee. I'm sure the Middle-Earth would be a better place.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't
mean it's useless.
--Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)
Thu Apr 25 18:59:07 MDT 2002
Ok... now wer're getting somewhere with this Hobbit idea. Reilly has added some suggestions to my guestbook and I am taking them quite seriously. The first idea is to wear shoes with the toes cut out. This would allow my hairy Hobbit toes to feel the breeze (which I am all for.) I only wish my toes were a bit hairier. Don't get me wrong, they are hairy. I daresay even hairier than average. I just don't think I'm in the same hairy class as, say, Atheer is. I wonder if there is an easy way to promote hairier feet... Perhaps an exotic mushroom of some sort?
The second idea involved something called calypso pants. Reilly assures me that they are a sure fire way to get made fun of, but I don't know about that, because I have no idea what calypso pants are. If they really and truly will cause a significant increase in my Hobbit factor, then I might just have to take the abuse. It's all about priorities.
3 definitions found
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Calypso \Ca*lyp"so\ (k[.a]*l[i^]p"s[-o]), n. [The Latinized
Greek name of a beautiful nymph.] (Bot.)
A small and beautiful species of orchid, having a flower
variegated with purple, pink, and yellow. It grows in cold
and wet localities in the northern part of the United States.
The {Calypso borealis} is the only orchid which reaches
68[deg] N.
From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:
calypso
n : rare north temperate bog orchid bearing a solitary white to
pink flower marked with purple at the tip of an erect
reddish stalk above 1 basal leaf [syn: {fairy-slipper}, {Calypso
bulbosa}]
From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:
Calypso, NC (town, FIPS 9760)
Location: 35.15459 N, 78.10501 W
Population (1990): 481 (195 housing units)
Area: 2.5 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
Reilly, if you're reading this, I may
have found some space to host the joust, but only 20M. I tried compressing it, but
could only get it to ~26M. I can't really host it at home for mass downloadage
as my ISP will have a spaz. Do you know any compression voodoo that could sqeeze
it down or do you have a slightly smaller copy?
Tue Apr 23 10:30:35 MDT 2002
My parents are a lot like hobbits. Yup, like I lemming I have just gone and finished reading the Lord of the Rings. It's a little discouraging that it took a Major Hollywood Production to get me to sit down and do it... but now I digress.
Overall I really did like the books, although the descriptions of liniages and locations (all in various languages) were a bit hard to keep track of sometimes. One thing I really did like was the descriptions of meals. You know, the hobbits would sit down with a plate of cold meats, a nice bit of cheese, a cold ale, and a nice bit of leaf to smoke. I think my parents are hobbits. I suppose I may be a hobbit...
It seems hobbit culture and traditional Irish culture have a lot in common. Neither one has very ambitious designs or is particularly passionate. (about most things.) Neither is very adventurous. Both tend to appreciate life's smaller pleasures rather than accumulate with the rest of the rats in the race. Hobbits like ale, gardens, tea, leaf, and routines. Irish - Diddo. Dominic - Diddo. Hobbits are short, kind of round and hairy... me too. Spooky.
S'okay though. I happen to think that the hobbits have their priorities straight in a world where that is pretty rare. In fact, henceforth I aspire to be even more Hobbit like when I can be. Please send suggestions on how I may increase my Hobbityness to dcarney@ualberta.ca or leave a note in the guestbook.
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you.
--Anonymous
Wed Apr 17 10:07:24 MDT 2002
When I sat down to update this page the first two lines which spewed from my fingers were complaints about having to write a Neuro final in 2 days. How pathetic. Surely I can think of something better to blab about? Is that all I have to offer? Have I let things get that bad?
Here is a haiku instead.
tasty incense here
my home of delicious peace;
relax with Sarah
Wed Apr 17 08:44:11 MDT 2002
Well, it's been an interesting weekend what with the debit card duplication and all. What's that? Oh.. yeah.. you are reading the words of a victim of a debit card duplication scam. Apparantly, the scammers have debit card copiers through which they scan your card in order to copy its magnetic strip. Then they sneak a peek at your pin number and they go to town with your card...
I first noticed the charges on Friday and they managned to get about $1000
before I could cancel the card. Starting today I've been trying to clean up
the mess at the bank. With the organizing and waiting and signing and
phoning it's taking forever to get sorted out. Hopefully things will be back
to normal soon so that I can have access to some of my money and get some
food. Oh yeah... and there's that pesky neuro final on Friday. It never
rains...
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Mon Apr 15 17:35:45 MDT 2002
Reilly Smith came up with a great idea for this website. Archives. It seems that even my most ardent fans can't always get to this page to read it every day. I think I'm going to start dating the pages also. That way my many fans can see whether or not to start digging through the archives to find the text of rants gone by.
Dom's tunes is working just find now, but I generally leave the streamer
turned off. In the interests of good security I only turn it on when I'm going
to actually use it. I use Mp3 Streamer and so far it's been working like a charm. There is a version
for PC which I haven't tried, so if anyone tries it out and likes it I'd love
to chat about that. I think
Shoutcast is pretty popular too.
Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.
Mon Apr 8 16:03:41 MDT 2002
I guess I should put something here until I have something to archive...
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
$_='ev
al("seek\040D
ATA,0, 0;");foreach(1..2)
{;}my @camel1hump;my$camel;
my$Camel ;while( ){$_=sprintf("%-6
9s",$_);my@dromedary 1=split(//);if(defined($
_=)){@camel1hum p=split(//);}while(@dromeda
ry1){my$camel1hump=0 ;my$CAMEL=3;if(defined($_=shif
t(@dromedary1 ))&&/\S/){$camel1hump+=1<<$CAMEL;}
$CAMEL--;if(d efined($_=shift(@dromedary1))&&/\S/){
$camel1hump+=1 <<$CAMEL;}$CAMEL--;if(defined($_=shift(
@camel1hump))&&/\S/){$camel1hump+=1<<$CAMEL;}$CAMEL--;if(
defined($_=shift(@camel1hump))&&/\S/){$camel1hump+=1<<$CAME
L;;}$camel.=(split(//,"\040..m`{/J\047\134}L^7FX"))[$camel1h
ump];}$camel.="\n";}@camel1hump=split(/\n/,$camel);foreach(@
camel1hump){chomp;$Camel=$_;tr/LJF7\173\175`\047/\061\062\063
45678/;tr/12345678/JL7F\175\173\047`/;$_=reverse;print"$_\040
$Camel\n";}foreach(@camel1hump){chomp;$Camel=$_;y/LJF7\173\17
5`\047/12345678/;tr/12345678/JL7F\175\173\047`/;$_=reverse;p
rint"\040$_$Camel\n";}#japh-Erudil';;s;\s*;;g;;eval; eval
("seek\040DATA,0,0;");undef$/;$_=;s$\s*$$g;( );;s
;^.*_;;;map{eval"print\"$_\"";}/.{4}/g; __DATA__ \124
\1 50\145\040\165\163\145\040\157\1 46\040\1 41\0
40\143\141 \155\145\1 54\040\1 51\155\ 141
\147\145\0 40\151\156 \040\141 \163\16 3\
157\143\ 151\141\16 4\151\1 57\156
\040\167 \151\164\1 50\040\ 120\1
45\162\ 154\040\15 1\163\ 040\14
1\040\1 64\162\1 41\144 \145\
155\14 1\162\ 153\04 0\157
\146\ 040\11 7\047\ 122\1
45\15 1\154\1 54\171 \040
\046\ 012\101\16 3\16
3\15 7\143\15 1\14
1\16 4\145\163 \054
\040 \111\156\14 3\056
\040\ 125\163\145\14 4\040\
167\1 51\164\1 50\0 40\160\
145\162 \155\151
\163\163 \151\1
57\156\056
# camel code, copyright 2000 by Stephen B. Jenkins
# The use of a camel image with the topic of Perl
# is a trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
# Used with permission.