Shoe Money Tonight

Occasional ramblings by an anesthesiologist/mother (and sometimes her husband).

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Mel, you're too funny.

Mel Gibson has a really amusing sense of humor. If you don't believe me, download the trailer for Apocalypto from Apple's website. Watch the whole thing first. Then when your done go to the part with the monkey scream and go back frame by frame. You'll know the joke when you see it. If you can't find it/or do frame by frame email me or Peter and will send you the screenshot we took.

Hat tip Warren Bell at The Corner.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

This guys needs some hits

Posted without comment.

(ES1 is sitting next to me and is too tired to think twice about chucking something heavy)

See her post below

A thought on lifestyle

It's interesting how people immediately get an idea about your lifestyle based on what you do. What really amuses me is how often their perceptions are wrong. First you say you're a doctor. Now you have to deal with the thoughts that you make tons of money, you're on the golf course (or tennis court or at the country club) every day. Your days are short. And oh yeah, you never ever ever make a mistake. Then you tell them your specialty. In my case, anesthesia. Now I get to hear how I don't really do anything, but sit in the OR and read the paper/do the crossword. Never mind that every day and in every case we take responsibility for a patient's life.
I was on call last night. I'm in one of the few fields where it's not only the residents who take in-house call. Now, I know that doesn't happen in every hospital, but we do take call. Even if your call is "beeper call" you don't get to leave until the last case is done.
At 3am, I was in an elevator with my attending and a surgery intern. We were taking a kidney transplant patient to the SICU. While we were there, she noted how tired I was (having been in the OR since 7:30 am with almost no breaks). She then made the following comment, "And people think we do this for the lifestyle." Now, I'm not complaining about having to take call, or being on call. I got to the hospital at 6am yesterday, worked straight through unitl 3:30am, got paged at 4 for a code. Then I went back to my call room, slept from 4:30-6:15. I finished my post-ops, grabbed some breakfast in the cafeteria and handed off the code pager to the first person I saw. Then I went home and slept until noon.
I'm too tired to say anything else, at least anything else coherent.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Steak Fajitas

In order to promote the general welfare of humanity, I have decided that if I come across a good recipe, I will share it. If everyone could cook, the universe would be a better place and the food network wouldn't have to show infomercials in the morning. This recipe includes a marinade that Nicole, the eternally snuggly one (ES1) developed.

Steak Fajitas
Ingredients:

1 lb flank steak
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 large, or 2 medium onions
1 habenero (optional)
flour tortillas
Guacamole

Marinade:

Ingredients:
Apple Cider Vinegar
Red Wine Vinegar
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Worcestershire Sauce
Honey
Tabasco® Chipotle Sauce
Paprika
Ground Cumin
Turmeric
Cayenne Pepper
Garlic Powder
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Dried Minced Onion
Oregano
Salt
Pepper

Eyeball the quantities to taste. Adjust if necessary.

Marinate the flank steak for a few hours.

Saute peppers & onion until crisp tender (approx. 3/4 heat on a stove for about 8-10 minutes(ish)). Add 1 chopped habenero for extra heat if desired.

Grill steak (grill pan or very hot pan) for 3 minutes per side.

Place tortillas between 2 damp paper towels and microwave for 30 seconds.

Assemble.

Eat.

As always, we highly reccomend Busha Browne's Pukka Pepper Sauce. It is, essentially, scotch bonnet jelly.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Which Star Trek Character Are You?

Got this link off of freeperland. One of the questions was "Are you a big scotch drinker?" After that, I should've suspected how this was gonna come out. See also my wife's results.


Your results:
You are Mr. Scott
































Mr. Scott
70%
Geordi LaForge
70%
Spock
64%
James T. Kirk (Captain)
55%
Beverly Crusher
55%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)
55%
Data
49%
Will Riker
45%
Jean-Luc Picard
45%
Uhura
45%
Chekov
45%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)
40%
Worf
30%
Mr. Sulu
30%
Deanna Troi
30%
You are a fun-loving foreigner with an
amazing ability to get any job done on time.
Often described as a "Miracle Worker".


Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Random Quiz Results

So I was a little bored and took some quizzes. Here are my results. Share yours in the comments section.

Which Star Trek character am I?
Your results:
You are Beverly Crusher
































Beverly Crusher
95%
Chekov
70%
Deanna Troi
70%
Uhura
65%
Will Riker
55%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)
55%
Spock
50%
James T. Kirk (Captain)
50%
Jean-Luc Picard
40%
Mr. Scott
40%
Geordi LaForge
40%
Worf
25%
Data
22%
Mr. Sulu
20%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)
15%
A good physician and a caring parent.
You are devoted to your children
and to your occupation.


Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test









Which Finding Nemo Character Are You?




You're BRUCE, the big, not-so-bad fish, once they get to know you.
Take this quiz!








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Which Harry Potter character are you?




You are Hermione Granger! You may be a study-aholic, but you have a grip on reality, and sometimes your friends need a reminder of that reality. You are level-headed in a crisis, and care very much for your friends. You are popular with teachers, and don't always make friends very easily. However, when you do make a friend, you and him/her are next to impossible to seperate.
Take this quiz!








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Fezzik

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti








What Romance Movie Best Represents Your Love Life?




I'm sure it's no big surprise to you that your romance is The Princess Bride. A heartwarming tale of "Twue Wuve" that has giants, Spainards and swashbuckling. You really do think that love can overcome anything. You may be a touch naive but your heart is certainly in the right place. You've probably got one of those relationships where proper nouns have been replaced with "Snookums" and "Pookie Pie". Eww. Beware a cuteness overload.
Take this quiz!








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Which 80's Song Fits You?




"Sweet Dreams" (by Eurythmics)Sweet dreams are made of thisWho am I to disagree?Travel the world and the seven seasEverybody's looking for somethingSome of them want to use youSome of them want to get used by youSome of them want to abuse youSome of them want to be abused
Take this quiz!








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Friday, April 21, 2006

Duh

So, the other day Peter and I were watching House, MD. I was actually paying attention to the closing credits. The show is executive produced (and occasionally directed by) Bryan Singer. This is the gentleman who gave us such wonderful movies as: The Usual Suspects (a personal favorite - highly recommended), The X-Men , and the upcoming Superman Returns . His production company is called "Bad Hat Harry Productions". Now, I have seen/heard the end title countless times. While the logo is visible, a voice says "That's some bad hat Harry." My husband finds it amusing to repeat this over and over in the same silly voice.

I finally got the reference and boy, don't I feel like an idiot. That's only a line from my all-time favorite movie. For those of you who don't know me that well, this should fill in the blank: "You're gonna need a bigger boat". This movie started an obsession with me, but I wasn't afraid of the water. Did you ever have those moments where you just feel stupid? That was definitely one of mine.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

The Shiny New Toy

I promised a few weeks ago that I would blog about the new toy soon. I've now had a few weeks with my shiny new MacBook Pro, and I've had enough time to piece together some thoughts.

First off, a brief list of the computers I used prior:
Apple ][+
Apple ][e
Apple IIgs
Performa 600
PowerBook 1400cs 117
PowerBook G3 Series Rev. 2 266
iBook G3 600

Each of these computers was an older, lower-end model when I received it. I have never been at the cutting edge of hardware, since neither my needs nor my finances were right for it. Furthermore, I found that I pretty much replaced a model when it was a little over 4 years old. I had known for several months that I was going to need to replace the iBook sometime soon. Even though I had upgraded it with a 60 GB hard drive and an 8x SuperDrive, it was starting to get a little long in the tooth.

I create all of my daily lessons and worksheets in Pages, since what I really need is a page layout program, not a word processor. I never liked Word, and Pages just worked better than AppleWorks. The problem was that Pagess isn't exactly optimized for the G3. I was getting little slowdowns all over the place, and MenuMeters was telling me that I was pretty much flatline maxing out my CPU just moving items around in Pages while listening to iTunes. Plus little annoyances like not being able to watch h.264 encoded videos in Quicktime (although for those still on a G3, VLC Player will handle non-iTunes Music Store videos on a G3 quite nicely) The time had come for an upgrade. The question was what to replace it with?

I've always been an early adopter. Though I've never had cutting edge hardware, I at least upgraded software as quickly as possible. I used OS X back in the early days when it was slow and didn't fully support my PDQ 266. Once I had tried it I simply couldn't go back to OS 9. I've always pushed my hardware to the limit and had no problem dealing with occasional hiccups for the fun of being on the cutting edge. The basic point being that if I was going to plunk down over a grand for a new machine, I was not going for a PowerPC Model. Any intel model is going to give me more years of use now than a PowerPC.

If the rumor mills are to be believed, Apple will soon be releasing the successor to the iBook, apparently a 13.3" widescreen to be dubbed "MacBook." My first thought was that the consumer model should be sufficient for my purposes. I then checked Mactracker to see what the current model of PowerBook was at the time I got my iBook. I realized that if I had that machine now, it would probably be at least a year or two more before I needed to upgrade. Bottom line - the pro machine would give me more active service.

My wife & I then trotted off to our local Apple Store. We flagged down a familiar looking clerk who asked me if I was ready for my MacBook Pro now. After replying in the affirmative I walked out with a shiny new 1.83 GHz model.

The Screen: Gorgeous, bright, and spacious. I was worried that it might take some time to get used to, but it didn't. It is a huge help when I'm throwing together lessons and have to have the worksheets, calendars, and state performance indicators all in front of me.

The Backlit Keyboard: it's taken me a bit of time to get used to. Being slightly larger than the keyboard on my old iBook, muscle memory has had me hitting the wrong key on occasion. But it has a great feel, and my wife no longer gets annoyed when I play with the ambient light sensors and the backlighting.

Front Row: unqualified coolness. Having such easy access to my movies and photos is a lifesaver. So many times have I had to crouch on the floor to activate an iPhoto slide show while running my iBook through the tv. Now I can just plug in and use the remote.
The remote itself is amazing. I've found that I can pretty much point it at any part of my MacBook Pro from any angle and it will register. About the only thing the signal won't go through is the screen. The flexibility is great.

MagSafe: a magnetically attached power cord is a life saver. I once sent my 1400cs flying because someone tripped over the cord. I had to bend the plug to get a charge, and further attempts to repair it myself ended up frying the motherboard. To those who complain that it's too easy to accidentally pull out without noticing, I have 3 words: just pay attention.

Scrolling Trackpad: I lived without this how?

Bottom Line: The big part about the experience of a new machine, at least one from Apple, is how easy you get used to it. Migration Assistant brought over all my data and applications flawlessly. I was up and running by the time I had finished making dinner. When I went back to my old iBook to clean it up and reformat it so that a certain USN Officer Candidate can use it I realized how spoiled I had become by the screen.

I expect this machine to render me flawless service for many years to come. The Apple experience is about the care they put into every detail. It's the sort of care that you simply don't see from other manufacturers. Everything just works. If you haven't tried it, go to the Apple Store and play around. You might like it.


********
An aside from dr. nic - Is it a bad sign that most of the clerks at the apple store know us?

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Talk about Art imitating Life - FREAKY

So right now I'm watching House. This goes on record as one of the few medical type shows I still watch. Beware of spoilers to follow. In tonight's episode the disease of choice is dum-da-dum......


Bubonic Plague

So why is this freaking me out? Click on this link and see.

That is all.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Happy Easter !!!!!!!

A blessed and happy Easter to all of you. Peter and I went to the Vigil mass last night, and celebrated the end of our Lenten sacrifice (no take-out or restaurant food) by hitting McDonald's on the way home. Yay. And we went to breakfast this morning. Here's a round-up of my favorite religious blogs:

Nunblog
Benedictus qui Venit (by the same nun as Nunblog)
Whispers in the Loggia

I keep the RSS feeds of these blogs bookmarked. They're worth looking at.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

They just don't make them like this anymore

Right now, my husband and I are watching Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments . And I am once again reminded that they do not make movies like this anymore. There is an opulence about this movie. There were 14,000 extras. Now, CGI is used to create crowd scenes, not extras. It takes its time to do everything, luxuriating in every pan of the camera, every landscape. Watching today's films, you sometimes get the idea that all directors have ADHD (or think all moviegoers do). Almost no one dares make a film this long (Peter Jackson being one notable exception). Even Warner Brother decreed that none of the new Harry Potter films (after the first two) should be more than about 2 hrs long. And they were lesser films because of it. Taking a 734 page novel and turning it into a 2 hr movie can do damage. Goblet of Fire had a manic feel to it, largely because of the time constraints. It's why I almost always refuse to see a movie based on a Stephen King novel, unless it's a 2 - 4 night miniseries. Only something 4-8 hours long can do a large novel justice.

So why don't they? I think one reason is that the bean counters have taken over. They assume no one will pay to see a movie that long (obviously they have overlooked the success of Titanic). They also can do some math. A shorter movie can be shown on the same screen more times in a given day (5 versus 3 or 4) and can therefore make more money that way. But where does that leave the classic epic film? Look at the Lord of the Rings movies. Peter Jackson hacked the films to pieces to get them on screen and put them back together in their original form on DVD. And who among us hasn't seen a "Director's Cut" of a movie that wasn't significantly better than the theatrical release? There my be hope yet for moviemaking. It's just the theaters that might be left out in the cold.

Baking again - Pinze

It's the first day of my vacation. I decided to do some baking. This time, I'm making my grandmother's recipe for Pinze (Easter Bread). I've made it with my mother for many years, but this time marks my first solo attempt. It seems to be going well so far. I've been at it since about 11:30 am and first loaf (of 3) won't be hitting the oven for another 1/2 hour or so. Thank god for mixers or I'd have been kneading bread by hand.

I love this bread. So does my out of town family, to whom my mother ships several loaves every Easter. She made a triple batch (each batch makes 3 loaves) of the bread and is baking it off today. Tomorrow morning, she'll be at UPS/FedEx/USPS (I forget which one she uses) to ship them out for guaranteed Saturday delivery. I always knew it was a lot of work, but I don't think I truly understood until I actually did all the work today.

I'll let you know how my attempt turned out.

Update! (5:51 PM) As per request, some pictures.

Update II! (5/10pm 4/14) - yes that is a hard-boiled egg in the braid.

Update 3 - 8/25/07 to fix image links

Monday, April 10, 2006

Busy me

Sorry about the lack of recent posting. On April 3rd I started at a new site. Since that time I have had one late call (8 pm) and two 24h calls, plus my usual regular schedule. And did I mention my 24 hour calls were Friday and Sunday? Plus I'm on call again tomorrow (24h). So that explains the lack of posting. But I get a week of vacation starting Thursday. YAY!!!!!!!

A note about anesthesia call. It is an unusual thing. It's possible to have a 24h Sunday call and not do anything. That happened to a colleague of mine last week (lucky son of a @%#!). Depending on where you are call can mean - intubating people/responding to codes, emergency surgeries, putting epidurals in pregnant women, c-sections. Each hospital has its mix of some or all of them. The site I am at now is not a trauma center so the occasional emergency comes in (an appendix for example) but does transplants. There's no OB, but we do elective intubations/codes. My Friday call was great. I didn't do anything but read after 9 pm. Yesterday I saw pre-ops in the am and was in the OR from 1 pm until 2:30 am. And then I had to give a presentation at 6:30a. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I love what I do. But I was really tired when I got up this am. And I have to do it all again tomorrow.

Anyway, that's the reason for the lack of posting. I'll post more when I'm on vacation.

TTFN (for you non Tigger fans that means ta-ta for now).

Monday, April 03, 2006

Random Silliness

I found this website via Free Republic. Its called 213 Things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the US Army . I laughed for about a half an hour reading this (I had to stop several times to catch my breath). This prompted me to look through the "Complete Silliness" folder on my bookmarks bar. I also rediscovered the following three things:

1. For the Harry Potter fan: Naked Quiddich
2. For the Dog Lover: The Kitten Cannon
3. A game to play: Guess the Dictator or Sitcom character .

Explore and have fun. Feel free to share links to other silly websites.

Please, I know I have some cat lovers who read this blog, don't hold #2 against me. It's a good tension release.

April Fools?

I love a good April Fool's Day joke as much as anyone. Granted, I spent the lead up to this particular day hoping that my favorite company was going to celebrate it's 30th anniversary by releasing an item or two that I might be forced to buy to go along with my new toy (more blogging on that one later), but I still look forward to the silly pranks.
This year, I encountered 2 in the areas of the blogosphere in which I lurk. One was just plain hilarious. Another was also pretty funny, but then my wife started reading some of the comments and started to wonder.
You see, most of the commenters knew right away that it was a joke. My wife, however, worried about how many people were going to think that it was real. I started thinking about how people will believe anything if it fits their pre-conceived notions (which is much of the reason why I could only tolerate 1 year studying history at our major local university). The eternally snuggly one was worried about giving fodder to the tin-foil hat crowd. I thought about it for a little bit.
Then I realized I didn't give a flying squirrel what the gorram loonies think. It is the task of any serious individual to hold serious beliefs. It is also the task of the serious individual to be able to accept serious challenge, and to laugh when challenges are made in a funny way.
There are things I accept on faith that cannot be fully explained in a scientific way. Attempts to do so tend to have results that are either frightening, or downright hilarious. I also have a few core philosophical and political beliefs. I am very open to debate on their practical application to the world, and which people are best suited to apply them. But the core beliefs hold. To focus oneself so narrowly that you believe that anyone who disagrees with your position is either insane, evil, or a fraud is just downright sad.
Don't compromise your core beliefs, but question them. Question your heart. But, for the love of all that is good and holy, if you ever find yourself taking yourself too seriously, I can suggest several ready remedies.