The Daily Tea Biscuit

Macworld San Francisco

2007-02-13T20:02:00.001-08:00

Last month, I was surprised with an inexpensive plane ticket and the opportunity to heed the call of the mothership by visiting MacWorld in San Francisco. For a geek like me, the experience was simply amazing. The conference took place in the Mosconi Center (ironically named for a politician who opposed its construction) and I spent the day and night in beautiful Union Square.

The stars of the conference for me were Apple (yay iPhone), Microsoft, and the modded Macbook with the touch screen. As I sat in front of the huge screen displaying the repeated iPhone keynote, it was hard not to be in awe of how Apple has miniaturized the Mac experience into a tiny iPod form factor. The iPhone could even be said to encapsulate the "best of" the Mac user experience. As the presenter reviewed the functionality, I couldn't help but smile as I viewed bits and pieces of Mail, Dashboard widgets, and other pieces of Mac OS X gracefully glide across its screen. I wish more had been said of Leopard, but I'm probably not the only one wishing that.

Microsoft was another star for me, but not necessarily for the right reasons. I was happy to finally see a long overdue Office update for the Mac. Now, remember, I programmed for the Windows platform for many years. They provided me with a paycheck, albeit indirectly. I WANT to like Microsoft. But post-Windows 2000, they seem to have lost their edge in the computer industry. I am not sure what behind-the-scenes shakeups happened post Win2k, but I can almost always predict when a particular sector of technology is on it's way out or is dying by when Microsoft enters the fray for it. They bought WebTV on its way out. They became the leader in the PDA world, but only because people were not buying Palms since cell phones became more powerful and PDA feature packed. Vista seems another me-too effort, for while they have modernized with 3D acceleration, much of it is altered OS X features.

I think a lot of Microsoft's problems have to do with the fact that as a public company, they have lost sight of the good of the customer to gain the favor of the shareholders and bean counters. When I started programming for a private company, the customer was king. We programmers were "cowboys" and creativity was highly encouraged, praised, and acknowledged, and the useful things we dreamed of integrated into our programs. While this lead to development that might be considered haphazard at times, the bonzai tree of our code was skillfully pruned and managed by our development leader and we won many awards for our innovation. The instant this private company was acquired by a public company, it was a complete 180. A corporate culture of fear dominated our development process. Us "cowboys" came up with dazzling and useful new features, but our creativity was squashed by the fact that features take time to implement and we had to get 17 bosses (for a programming team of 4) all aligned on if something was to be included. The way that costs were implemented on paper, even the smallest change for a patch ended up costing an inflated amount of money. This particular company had gone from private to public in the early 90s, and the lack of any modernization since then reflected in its dated appearance.

I hope that Microsoft does something to become more agile and less like the IBM of the 80s. Apple, while public, seems to have grasped the fact that in order to become wildly successful and please the shareholders in the long term, you have to be brave and not let the bean counters intimidate you. The flat hierarchy of the company that is well documented seems to eliminate a lot of political strife that could potentially mire an innovative product and strip it of any Not Invented By Me features that would make it truly good on the market. Apple also seems to be comfortable in leading, even keeping secrets, and not producing a product by marketing consensus.

One thing I wish that MS would do, but will probably never happen because of the bureaucracy is doing away with 32 bit APIs and rebuilding the OS from scratch, much like how OS X was created. They could have a discrete "classic" layer to ease the transition to a new, improved, more secure set of APIs, like how OS 9 functionality was temporarily supported in OS X. With virtual PCs and virtualization being the big thing, I think it is time for them to do some housecleaning and prune out vintage technology from the 80s and early 90s.

Alive and still kickin'

2006-08-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, I was looking at my blog, and am stunned by how fast time flies. However, I have a good excuse for being away. :-) For the first portion of the summer, I spent my time in the various units of a psychiatric ward in a local hospital. One of the major assignments was to do a journal/blog of sorts about your thoughts and feelings on the events that happened during clinical during the semester. After completing each entry, I felt weary of writing and felt that maintaining two journals was redundant. So, now that the semester is over, here I am again.

I really enjoyed my clinical time this summer, even though I will admit it was probably the most physically and mentally grueling semester I've had this far. In six weeks, we were taken from newbie status to a point where we were literate in psychiatric drugs, able to do a good job at client teaching, and possessing a reasonable knowledge about a huge range of psychiatric illnesses. On top of that, we had to complete several large projects, read 8-9 chapters of our textbook per night, complete reams of paperwork for clinical, and find time to attend various support groups for the mentally ill. Needless to say, absorbing such a large amount of data in a short semester lead to many sleepless nights in a week. Some of my classmates with less stamina actually broke down mid-semester, so we ended up a few people shorter than what we started with.

Despite the demanding nature of the course, I did enjoy it and I learned a lot about myself in addition to mental health nursing. I found out that out of all the units that I spent time on (day treatment, acute, geriatric and overflow, drug rehab, and groups), I actually like working in the acute unit with the clients who are the most seriously ill and actively psychotic.

Anyways, I just wanted to post an update showing I'm still here and hanging in there, so I'll probably continue on in another post about my experiences this summer.

Nursing school - Week 9

2006-03-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm now officially over halfway done with my first semester of nursing school. :-) Today was the big day to find out when we have our psychiatric rotation scheduled for the summer. I'm set up for 6 weeks of intensive hospital training during the first summer session. The second half I have free as a brief respite from school before the adult rotation starts in the fall.

In retrospect, I feel like I've really accomplished a lot this semester so far in the hospital. I can safely calculate med doses, administer injections, put tubes in various bodily orifices, and I'll soon start putting in IVs and administering medications intravenously. Considering that in the beginning, all I could do was make beds and give baths, I've really added a lot to the physical and emotional toolbox I have to help care for my patients. My patients, or professors of life (as I call them), have changed me as well. I've witnessed how terrible it is to judge and stereotype people based on their illness and/or its etiology. If you think about it, all that really separates me from them is the grace of God. I've seen glimpses of how incredibly resilient the human spirit is under circumstances where it appears there is no hope. I've cared for people in isolation being eaten alive by super bugs, people who are dying, and people coping with HIV, terminal stages of hepatitis, and AIDS. I've learned that although I may not be able to help heal all of the people who cross my path, the smiles and hugs they give me and the knowledge I helped make them feel better even for a little bit is priceless.

The next few weeks promise to be very activity packed. I have to learn many more skills and get checked off both in the lab and at the hospital. Whenever I've had time, I've been fascinated by the episodes of a new series on Fox called 'Bones'. The lead character Temperance Brennan reminds me so much of me. :-) I'm glad I'm not the only female nerd who generally likes humanity and has good intentions, but is a bit socially blind on pop culture and interacting with fellow humans. :-)

Nursing School - Week 5

2006-02-13T21:52:00.000-08:00

This Monday marks the start of week 5 of nursing school. Already, the week is starting off with a great deal of excitement. Today, we had to take a medication dimensional analysis math test that we had to pass with a 90% or above. Otherwise...it's remediation and if you don't pass with a 90 the second time, say goodbye to nursing school. While some may think that's harsh, our school has no fear of weeding out the academically weak or undedicated. If you refuse to work to make yourself safe to work with patients, why should the school want you there to endanger the instructors' nursing licenses? Also, our focus on academic achievement has lead to an NCLEX-RN (test that must be passed to gain state RN licensure) passage rate that is remarkably high. The state publishes a list of nursing schools in Texas and the percentage of passing students. My school actually had a higher NCLEX passage rate than the majority of the 4-year school in the metroplex where the tuition in one semester costs 5-20 times my tuition in a year. And yes, we associate degree RNs take the same NCLEX as 4-year BSN students. :-)

Today was also the first day I got to pick, study, and meet a patient. Federal law (HIPAA) prevents me from really going into detail (as it should!), but I will say I got along well with the patient and the family. I was happy because I wasn't nervous, and the exposure to medical terminology from my mom's health care job (not nursing) helped me get oriented faster to the environment faster than some of the other newbies. In a lot of ways, my retail background and job experience has really helped me in dealing with people I don't know gracefully and I'm really glad I chose to do that to earn some extra cash rather than a computer job. Classes are really fun for me, and I think I've found the career I'm meant to do.

My graduation date for school has been set for December 2007. Already, the recruiters from the hospitals are swarming like flies upon my school, even talking to the still "wet behind the ears" ones like me. They are always visiting the school or our classes in the hospital to feed us huge meals, and I'm already accruing quite a collection of trinkets like bags and pens branded with hospital logos. My average day starts at 4:30am and ends around 10:30 pm with very little time for meals, so the food is actually very much appreciated. In addition to the hospitals, our nursing school also has frequent visits from the recruiters at 4-year BSN schools like TWU, TCU, UTA, and Baylor. Since our school has such a good reputation in the area for nursing, it's also opened a lot of doors as far as hospital staff being friendly to us. I'm really grateful for this experience and I'm doing my best to make the most of it.

2006-01-30T19:57:00.000-08:00

Today is the start of week 3 of nursing school. The days in the past few weeks have melted and blurred into one another, a combustion of activity fueled by caffeine. It feels so good just to sit down for a moment and have a chance to breathe.

Two major events happened in my life the past several weeks: the start of a job and the start of nursing school. So far, my decision to switch careers to nursing easily ranks up there in the best decisions I have ever made in life. The blend of intellectual discipline and physical dexterity in my future career fits my personality and skills perfectly. The program is also very academically challenging and interdisciplinary, which obliterates the problem of intolerable boredom I had with the slow pace of university classes when I was an engineering major. In the past few weeks, I've had to study how various pieces of political science, math, psychology, biology, along with countless other pieces come together to form the field of nursing. This upcoming Wednesday, we don the official school uniforms for the first time as new student nurses. I'm so excited to work at the hospital!

As far as the new job goes, quite frankly, I believe I'm locked in the hold of a ship of fools. I really miss my old job, bless my former managers' hearts. Too bad the hours were so terrible there. My new store has to be the most disorganized place I've ever seen. From the severe mismanagement of inventory, to the schedule availability mistakes, to the incessant politics localized to the tiny fief of my department, the issues are too many to count. About the only thing it has in its favor is the proximity to my hospital and the fact the high turnover means as many hours as I want. Oh, and the customers are usually very nice and understanding people. Other than that, I just enjoy the dance of the negotiation of a sale and use the job to whet my hunger and motivation to get someplace better...I'd love to get my LVN license to work as a nurse at the end of the year while I finish my RN.

Well back to studying...

Day before School and T of H Scottish Breakfast Tea

2006-01-16T07:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the first big day of the Spring semester! For 3 classes, I have 15 very large textbooks and have been studying the logistics on how to best haul all that stuff around. God bless whoever invented those rolling bookbags! :-) Today is the big day I start working on the floor at my new job. I was obligated by the new store to leave my old job due to the non-compete requirements, although I think it's kind of silly being non-management and all. :-( However, before I left, I was sure to obtain some great souvenirs in the form of dirt cheap cashmere, some elegant new work clothes and other stuff coming in this week that I bought with my discount to get ready for my new job. I got a nice healthy raise at the new place I'm working and my pay is tied closer to my sales (still not a commission, but closer though), so I have the opportunity to make some very nice money by college student standards if I apply myself while I'm there. A gaping chasm still exists between my current wages and my old engineering job, but every bit helps, and due to my accelerated school curriculum and my long term plans for my nursing career, I know I will soon surpass the wages most any engineer could hope on making in my home state in this economy.

This past month, I have been enjoying some of the imported hard-to-find English tea my boyfriend got me as part of my Christmas gifts (very sweet as it makes me appreciate and think about him even more as I make breakfast each day). The first box I tried is the Taylors of Harrogate Scottish Breakfast tea. If your only experience with British breakfast tea is the Twinings brand packaged in North Carolina (not imported), well, this tea will open your eyes to what a crime it is that retailers label those Twinings bark shavings as any sort of tea. Opening the box reveals a fragrant, dark, uniform, crushed and shredded black tea. The flavor and color of the brewed tea is true to Blue Moon's description: a bright, strong, amber liquor with a very bold, smooth, and malty taste. The tea also has a pleasant, almost flowery fragrance that is quite uplifting in the morning. Unlike Twinings N.C. tea, a prerequisite to this tea, by design, is MILK. Without it, the strong taste WILL wrench off your tastebuds and leave your head spinning, as this is a tea that treads the fine line between tea and coffee. Another plus to this moderately priced tea is that the attractive metal caddy is reusable, so you can just order a considerably less expensive bag of your tea as a refill when you're down to the last cuppa.

Homeless Chic

2006-01-06T01:28:00.000-08:00

Still counting down the days until school begins. This week, my supervisor let me know that my store wants to keep me on as "full-time" part time staff after the season ends. Since the clothing has such a nice discount, my tentative plans maybe keeping the job as a weekend gig and finding another part time position to get more reliable hours during the week.

There has been an interesting new fashion showing in the men's clothing appearing at my store. Apparently, extraordinarily worn and holey jeans are the in thing now. I never have really quite understood the whole Abercrombie "homeless chic" thrift store style. When I was leaving work, I looked in at their front display and saw a line of jeans with enormous holes and even paint stains(!) placed strategically on the pants. Now, I can understand the worn jeans thing as being maybe an expression of individuality since old jeans wear differently over time and tend to mold to the unique lumps and bumps of the person who wears them, but when you flip through the stack of these new "old" jeans, the paint stains and holes are IDENTICAL, like they used a template! Oh boy, I'm going to be an individual, just like everyone else! I told my boyfriend that if one really wanted to be unique and individual, it would be best to dress beautifully in formal tailored clothing like Cary Grant or Audrey Hepburn, have impeccable manners, and take an optimistic view of America, our culture, and the future of the nation. On the other hand, the scruffy fashion has made it easier and kind of fun to guess someone's economic status, as the less well off are more likely to be fresh faced, have immaculately clean and pressed clothing, and neatly trimmed hair than most of the middle or upper middle class customers. And, I can build on a sale of men's jeans by adding our really nice store boxers since the holes in the rear of the pants expose so much underwear.

German Advent Customs and French Presses

2006-01-03T13:45:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years! First post of 2006! Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. Mine was certainly full of work and travel! Today I've been going through my room cleaning out old papers and getting stuff ready for the start of a new semester. I also purchased my advent candle for the next year since Christmas stuff is going on clearance. For those of you not familiar with Advent celebration, Advent is almost as important to those of European extraction as Christmas day itself. My mother's side is half-German and half-British, so everyone had Advent calendars and candles and seeing such things brings back fond memories of Christmases past. We also preserved the German custom of opening gifts on Christmas Eve so we could spend time as a family Christmas day.

If you never have seen an advent candle, they come in two different types. One type is a wreath containing 4 or 5 candles. Starting on the 4th sunday before Christmas, you light one candle each Sunday until you get to the final candle, which is either the Sunday before Christmas or Christmas day (like this year!). The fifth optional candle in the center of the wreath is lit on Christmas day. These types of advent candles are fairly common to find, although I haven't really seen them much here in America except for gorgeous nativity wreaths in churches where the candles are lit before the sermon starts. The other type of advent candle is a tall candle with 24 markings spaced down the candle. Starting with the 24th day before Christmas, you gather as a family each evening and burn down the candle 1 mark until you finish it off Christmas day. These candles are much more difficult to find as this custom tends to be more isolated to the Protestant German community, although some Danish or German import stores on the web have them. Here is what mine looks like. The basic idea of the candles and celebrating Advent is that when you light the candle, it not only marks down the days until Christmas, but, as imparted to me, is also a kind of a time-out to reflect on the meaning of the holiday and the upcoming end of the year. While some might criticize such a custom as keeping a calendar or burning a candle as silly or superstitious, I kind of like the idea of preserving Advent as it encourages family time and its meditative aspect kind of balances out what has turned into the big time capitalist part of Christmas of receiving gifts and being stressed out.

For my birthday next month, I'm the lucky recipient of a gorgeous Bodum Eileen French Press! This brewing method is supposed to make coffee so stout it will walk away from its cup. I can't wait for the big day so I can use it!

Diversity of Thought

2005-12-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

Since I transferred from a 4 year state university to a community college, my eyes have really been opened to the diversity of people in the Metroplex. While my old university had a sizable international population, most of the students came from a few select countries. In my new school, many students from South America, the former USSR, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa have all been in the same class with me (at the same time in a class of <40).

Another noticeable difference I've seen in community colleges is that people are more likely to talk and be friendly to students they haven't had class with before. At my old university, cliques made the transition from high school to college, and the students' sense of community was limited to the same 4 friends they did everything with in high school. These little cells usually aren't very diverse and the group makes it known consciously or unconsciously through barriers put up in their body language that strangers aren't necessarily welcome. Here, it feels like you are surrounded by lots of friendly faces. As many of the students are older and their high school cliques have long been outgrown or left behind, they are forced to outreach to others to form study groups and networks for navigating through college.

The motives for attending higher education tend to be more diverse as well. Many of my fellow classmates here have riveting stories to tell about what inspired them to come back to school or anecdotes of what life was like in their former country of residence. In contrast, at university, the primary goal of most of the 18 year olds was to obtain sufficient training for a job and to party with friends. While these aren't necessarily bad goals, a lot of the students were so burnt out on academics from 13 years of primary and secondary schooling, they refused to do reading needed for class or do any intellectual growth. While this same sense of academic malaise does rear its head in a community college, the increased number of older students contribute a different set of perspectives as well.

One of my former classmates devoted much of his life to doing missionary and volunteer work for a large local charity whose purpose is to help the poor of our local community and metroplex. I asked him about what it was like to do missionary work and he told me about traveling to an Native American reservation. The reservation was remote from any sort of civilization and what few roads went into it were in bad repair. Due to the isolation and poverty, much of the local population had turned to alcohol abuse as a diversion from their problems. The poverty of these people meant they would go and buy cheap hairspray and drink it for the alcohol content as regular alcoholic beverages cost too much. He said although these people were in horrific shape, they were glad to see outsiders and very gracious hosts with what little they had. He said they were highly receptive to the Word and the messages of hope and love their visitors brought. His experiences as a volunteer inspired him to return to school (he already had a bachelors degree) and become a dental hygienist to do volunteer work in the free dental clinic associated with the charity he loved so much.

All in all, I've had a much better experience than I expected when I transferred to put obtaining my nursing license on the fast track. Already, my exposure to multiple cultures, religions, and customs has helped me relate better to people at work and I also hope it makes me a more compassionate nurse when the time comes to pass that I get my license. Like it or not, Texas is a diverse region and if you aren't able to interact with cultures other than your own, it will put a damper on your success in life.

2005-12-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Today, I finally got all my books and supplies in for the spring semester. After a count of 15 books needed for 2 classes and 1 lab, I sure am glad for rolling wheel backpacks. All of my scrubs and whites and lab coats are sewn up with the school patch and washed and ironed for when I start clinicals. The sensation of being in scrubs is like being in PJs, which after having worked in a business casual setting for so long is really rather weird. Some people I know who work in medicine say you get used to it and then wearing "normal" clothing feels weird and constricting if you work in a health environment without scrubs.

The more I progress through school, the better I feel about my decision to leave engineering. Unless you've lived under a rock for the past 5 years and not read your IEEE-USA letters, outsourcing really is hitting hard. I don't blame big businesses for this "creative destruction" of engineering jobs, as if I was in that position myself of choosing to pay high 5 figure or 6 figure salaries or paying a McDonald's fry cook salary to an engineer with the same experience and educational background, I would pick the cheap labor too.

At my old work, managers used to hold sending our jobs off to India over us as a threat, which made us fret and did nothing for us in terms of employee productivity, unless you count in the increase in stomach ulcers. Also, learning engineering in the ivory tower of academics (I was an engineering junior before I made my major switch) is nothing like how you implement things in the "real" world or even just work from day to day. Most engineers I know and myself, we spend long hours on writing extremely long word documents specifying on how a system will work. I never once had to use the many semesters of calculus or physics or higher science I took to address a problem. Unless you work at a smaller company, many firms also discourage and actively squash creativity, as shareholders are notoriously very conservative and want to avert risk, which does not foster the best environment for growing yourself from a professional aspect.

I'm also happier from a personal aspect. I did not particularly aspire to be an engineer as a child. My original love is art and my talent from when I was younger actually helped pay for some of my way through school although I haven't picked up a brush in years now. I'm kinetic and love to work with my hands. I pursued engineering because I fell in love with the clean elegance of math and the intellectual allure of great and efficient design. I have a simple faith and see the work of God's hands in the beauty and simplicity of the constants and equations that guide and shape our daily lives. Nursing is just a better fit for me, as I get to combine my love of science, of working with my hands, and compassion in my work to help make the lives of people better in ways just not available to me in engineering.

Retail job-love

2005-12-17T16:29:00.000-08:00

This week has been a great one work wise. I got recognized in my company's district/regional newsletter for providing outstanding service to a customer. We do random surveys about the customer experience that you can fill out on the internet and it goes to our headquarters. Apparently a customer was so happy with the help I gave that it caught the attention of the district and regional managers of my large company and they put it in there. I just can't believe that the customer remembered my name. :-) Then on top of that, another customer asked to speak to my manager earlier this week and he went on a long speech of what a lifesaver I was after I helped him locate a shirt for a dear relative that hadn't been on the shelves in months. Apparently, I was the only one in the store who remembered the item and knew what it was he was talking about. So after a little job-love from the managers, I've been feeling pretty good this week.

I think everyone should have at least one period of time spent in retail. The philosophical and psychological standpoint you gain about people and their behavior is priceless. I can probably identify the cues of a problem or happy customer from about 100 paces now. Also, you are forced to put aside any remaining shred of ego you have to serve others, which is great training for anyone going into or a caretaking career (like nursing!) or who wants to be a parent or who is just jaded by how self-centered our society is and wants a different view of things. Retail is not perfect and since you give so much of yourself (if you're good) to your job, it can be exhausting. However, as an insight into business and the base needs and feelings of people, it is priceless.

Value of Persistence

2005-12-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." ~ Calvin Coolidge

I like that quote by "Silent Cal." There have been many moments in my life where I've encountered a challenge and what got me around such stones in my path to what I want is calling on my internal pluck and fighting relentlessly to find a way to go around it. Nursing school orientation was yesterday and I received my first clinical rotation assignment. I'm going to work in a huge teaching and research facility that is well known for their neuroscience and cardiology programs. I can't wait to see my classroom theory come alive in a real clinical setting!

Manual Drip Coffee

2005-12-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

Today's post is some notes I made about using a manual drip coffee set. If you haven't seen one, they look like a cone stuck on top of a saucer that covers your cup or carafe. You put a filter with coffee inside the cone, then pour water over the coffee to brew the mix. Mine looks like this. Since the weather has been getting cooler and bringing on my innate desire to hibernate, my cheap little coffee set has seen lots of mileage recently.

Manual Coffee Dripping Do's:

1. Use a gold permanent filter, not a paper filter. For some reason, the paper doesn't seem to let the flavor out fast enough and you get a weak, watery cup. The permanent filters bring the flavor and strength up to a good coffee press strength.
2. Boil water on the stove. For whatever reason, microwaving water to a boil just doesn't seem to produce as great a cup of coffee as H2O boiled in a kettle. I think the kettle helps retain heat and maintain the water temperature better.
3. "Bloom" the coffee. Wet the coffee grounds before pouring all the boiling water in. This seems to help the flavor leach out of the grinds better.
4. Use a bit less coffee for the cup when you brew your first manual drip cup. Since the gold filter lets so much more of the coffee essence pass through, you can easily accidentally OD on caffeine if you are not wary.

Manual Coffee Dripping Don'ts:

1. Don't pour water into the kettle without measuring first. The brewing apparatus makes it difficult to see when your coffee cup will overflow.
2. Don't limit your bean selection to Starbucks. To me, Starbucks is rather nasty and tastes like chemical laced ashes due to how they char the beans rather than roast them. Illy, Community Coffee, and Millstone are commonly available and taste soo much better.
3. Don't overgrind the beans. Normal drip coffee is about as fine of a consistency as you can use with a gold filter. French Press coarseness might also work well. Espresso fineness would result in a cup of sludge.

This week I find out my clinical assignment for my classes in the spring during my orientation Friday. I've been scrambling around town and on the internet finding all my supplies like scrubs, a stethoscope, and nursing shoes. I believe my first clinical rotation will be on a medical surgical unit to learn how to assist surgeons during operations, which promises to be very interesting. I've been flipping through the various medical shows on TV trying to identify the scopes the doctors wear (Ultrascope, Littman, Rappaport-Sprague?) I feel so fortunate right now to be where I am especially knowing what I know about how competitive it is to gain entrance into nursing school right now. Best of luck to any applying nursing students reading my blog!

Future RN!!!

2005-11-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

YAY!!!! Yesterday, I got a letter from my college congratulating me on being accepted into the Spring 2006 class of nursing students! I'm so happy (and relieved and exhausted)!!! Next month I find out what hospital I am assigned to for my clinical rotation working with patients. I thought this day would never come!

Photobooth fun

2005-10-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Fun with Apple's new Photobooth program shipping with the new iMac. The colored pencil filter obscures my identity enough I can post this one. :-)

For those of you not familiar with Photobooth, this application allows you to sit in front of the new iMac's built-in, upgraded iSight and snap a picture with the filter effect of your choice applied to it. A lot of people would consider this application to be a "gimmicky" one. And to a certain extent, the truth of that statement can't be challenged. But what a gimmick! Once you get over your initial skepticism about the point of having a photobooth app, like pringles, once you pop, you can't stop. My boyfriend sat for 10-15 minutes in front of the camera just making faces to see how the different effects would distort him. Photobooth brings a lightheartedness and sociability to the iMac that reminds me of why computers are not just useful, but fun. God bless Apple for this playful respite from the relentless demand for utility that pervades the technology arena!

Nursing Caps

2005-10-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

These past couple of weeks have been pretty good ones. I've been taking a medical terminology class to immerse myself a bit more in the medical field and keep my anatomy and physiology knowledge fresh while I'm waiting for the first week of December. Used up a bit of shoe leather this week going around looking for some seasonal work for some holiday money. I was looking for 'full time' part time work that is school-friendly, but strangely, retail establishments seem to be somewhat wary of hiring someone with the career experience I've had (8 years of engineering). I guess it's true that one can be too qualified for a job. So I'm in the somewhat unenviable position of having to try to tactfully, but truthfully, edit my resume and image to make myself look inexperienced enough to get back into the retail groove. However, after going at it from the seasonal angle, I got some great feedback and interviews lined up, so hopefully I'll get into a new job by next week.

Last week, my parents visited my birth state of Missouri on a road trip. I wasn't able to go as I had job hunting stuff going on (my parents sprung the trip on me at the last minute) and the last remaining set of shots I needed to finish before starting nursing school. Since 13 long years have past since I last visited the motherland, my heart ached at not being able to see my folks since so many of my extended family are elderly now. However, my parents brought me a surprise when they returned. Nursing runs in my family and we have had at least one RN from each generation. Well, my grandparents chose me out of all the grandchildren to inherit my great-grandmother's nursing paraphenalia and sent her 40+ year old (ironed and starched!) nursing cap back for me to be "capped" with when I graduate. I thought I was going to cry when I saw it, I felt so happy and honored. My dad said that my great-grandma would bust a button with pride to see me wear it and carry on the family trade. I would have gotten the probably 70 year old Burge (now Cox) Nursing School pin and graduation paraphenalia she had as well, but no one knew to where they had disappeared.

Anyways, that was a cool reminder of how knowing your family history helps you understand your place in this world and the ties between the generations. In the tea arena, I've been drinking a tea from Bodum called Lapsang Souchong. This tea is truly one of the most unique teas I've had the pleasure to sample. Bodum is thinning out their tea selection right now, so the Lapsang I'm reviewing may no longer be for sale, but much of this review can probably be extended to generically cover this type of tea. Lapsang is unique in that it is smoked over pine or cypress wood. The most salient effect this processing has is when you open the bag, the scent of smoke is almost overwhelming. However, the tea brews up with a pleasantly smooth, but assertive, and almost salty flavor. If you love eating cheese or pickled stuff, this tea complements those flavors perfectly. Lightly flavored foods won't hold up to this tea, and traditionally, lapsang is considered a 'man's tea' in its native China since it accompanies hearty meats. The only drawback to the Bodum tea specifically is that storing their Lapsang is rather difficult. Once you open the bag, the strong smoke scent leaks through almost all plastic containers imaginable. Right now, the only thing keeping the scent at bay for me is a full metal, vacuum sealed container (no plastic rim). Also, another problem with lapsang as a genre is that obtaining a good tea of this type can be rather pricy. Cheap lapsangs, rather than having an exotic smoky taste from the cypress, often taste (and smell!) like you brewed hot water in a used ashtray. Nasty!

Happy tea drinking!

Chocolate's Origins

2005-09-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by the BBC on the origin of chocolate. If you're like me and on a diet, but have a terrible weakness for chocolate, seeing the slave child labor that goes into chocolate farming will definitely nip that sweet tooth in the bud.

Fortunately, some places offer high quality chocolate that is fair trade and cruelty free. Another possible alternative is single plantation gourmet chocolate (a la how some teas can be purchased).

BBC's article on chocolate and slavery.

Annoyance with Creative Zen Patent

2005-09-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm taking a break from reviewing tea to point out some silliness on Creative's, Apple's, and Microsoft's part. They have been fighting over displaying audio files in a hierarchical format. Well, I've found something that proceeds all their players. The HanGo PJB-100!!! It uses a meta-data file (as described in the Powerpoint file on their website) called the Table of Contents to store information about the mp3s as well as a rudimentary hierarchical menu to browse mp3s. The original project to make this player was started by Compaq, who have since seemed to have abandoned the project to the public domain. The iPod, the Zen, and any other player all have roots in this primeval player, even if they don't realize it.

If you want to see more on the background for this (now defunct) project, see here:

PJB-100 Prior Art (?)

Also, I've heard that the Rio Receiver has a hierarchical menu similar to the iPod. Haven't confirmed this though.

Summer Update and Teefilter Review

2005-08-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, the summer has gone by so quickly! :-) After spending May through August in some form of minimester/summer school format of summer school college class, I have FINALLY completed all my nursing school prerequisites. It feels SOOOOOO good. I also managed to get my first post high school degree: an A.A. in Liberal Arts. From an academic standpoint, the degree is not that much of a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's a nice confidence booster because I honestly thought a couple years back that I would never finish any sort of college degree.

In addition to getting my classes completed, I also got my CPR/Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers certification over at Presbyterian Hospital at Dallas. Oh man... When I stepped into that huge building, I knew I was in a place I could work in for a long time, which makes me look very forward to the spring when (hopefully) I start nursing school. Working with and interacting with the staff was a pleasure and I got to informally interview a nurse practitioner on what her college and workplace career was like which was really cool as well. If you don't know CPR, I would highly recommend getting some sort of certification, especially if you have young children or babies. Performing heimlich on a baby or small child without hurting them is not obviously intuitive and your skills (sadly) will probably not go unused as this group is more prone to choking on things and having accidents than adults.

Well, enough of my summer and on with the tea stuff. The item reviewed today is for the tanninophiles who prefer loose tea. One major drawback to loose tea is that tea balls and most other filters perform excellently when holding tea consisting of large whole leaves. However, connoisseurs of finely leaved teas or teas with high amounts of fannings tend to get left with a bunch of nasty tea mush at the bottom of the cup. Well, the same Teutonic ingenuity that brought us high end luxury cars has come to our rescue to save us from fannings. A German company, Finum, introduced a new product called the Teefilter. The teefilter is a rectangular pouch of unbleached coffee filter material about 5 inches long, 2 inches wide. Loose tea slides neatly into the bottom of the pouch through an opening in the top. After pouring fresh hot water into your cup, put the business end of the teefilter into the cup and let the tea steep normally. When the cup is ready, pull out the filter and dispose of in the trash. Since filter paper retains loose tea of all levels of coarseness effectively, no more "extra dietary fiber" resides at the bottom of the cup. If you like the Bodum Honey or Caramel Rooibos, this is the filter for you.

Hibernating...

2005-01-19T20:46:00.000-08:00

Ugh, I just got done with my first big week of school. Right now, life is overflowing with activity. Work to do, people to see, places to go, so I just don't have time to monkey about with a blog much anymore. :)

Peace.

Happy New Year!

2005-01-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

First post of 2005! Hope everyone had a good Christmas, I know I sure did. One of the things I have noticed with advancing age is that time seems to release you from the rampant materialism that has a clutch on kids when young. I remember waking up at 5 in the morning when I was knee high to a grapefruit in order to go open presents. Now, my parents wake up earlier than I do on Christmas day. Ever since I started working at 16, Christmas has been less of a time to get stuff for me and more of a time to take pleasure in giving to others. I enjoy this shift and seeing people's face shine in anticipation of their presents.

One gift that I received that is especially important to me on different levels was the new XM Roady receiver I received from Charles. I *VERY* rarely watch TV, having spent most of my life either coding, outdoors, or with my nose in a book. TV just doesn't excite me...mostly because there is no interaction involved other than passively sitting and absorbing whatever is fed to you. I love my XM because it entertains me, but doesn't suck up my time by requiring my total attention. XM also has an outstanding collection of jazz, 40s music, and classical music and opera, which are all passions of mine. Channels are even devoted to songs in the style of Sinatra and radio drama. The only drawback to the whole XM setup is that indoor reception is horrible (unless you run the satellite receiver outside).

Other than that, I have been quietly working and getting ramped up for school. In the past few weeks, I have been invited to relocate to my company's New York City office by multiple people. They want me to work on projects for some of our nation's largest banks in the NY financial district. However, too many things are binding me to Texas for me to really even want to leave here now. But I do have to admit to being tempted by the siren of big city life... :)

Biscuit of the Day - iPod socks

2004-12-23T20:21:00.000-08:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is iPod socks. Something that not a lot of people know about me is I'm a really good knitter. I prefer difficult items like socks and lace, which require a lot of tracking to make sure the texture of the pattern turns out right. Well, I was looking at the iPod site when the socks first came out and was just amazed at how much they charged for 6 of what was basically sock knitting mistakes. :)

I've been hunting down good yarns to make an iPod sock for Charles. I think I will go with a nice handpainted yarn for my iPod sock. For Charles, I may either pick a handpainted yarn or see if I can find a nice manly plaid pattern that he would like. I have the circular and DP (double pointed) knitting needles I need for socks somewhere in my room, just need to pick out a yarn. Since it doesn't take much yarn to make a single sock, I can get super premium merino or even make something silk. :) I can even do the seamless seal at the bottom of the sock so there are no seams whatsoever in the case, so the main technical problem will be finding the right gauge. (otherwise if the gauge is too big, I'll have an iBook sock)

If anyone has any suggestions on good knitting stuff for guys or has a freeware pattern for their own iPod socks they would like to share, please leave a comment.

Joy to the World!

2004-12-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

Gift wrapping's done!

I got bored of the standard out of the box red 'n green, so this year the theme was blue with snowflakes in a style that would be at home in the 50s. :) I was pretty happy with how everything turned out, considered I'm not the world's best gift wrapper.

I put a little bow on the fish tank too so the fish could join in on the celebration as well. He's swimming down around the red plant trying to figure out what the silly human has done and if the change is edible.

All that's left now is to decide if I'm going to make Christmas sugar cookies tomorrow. Normally, sugar cookies don't appeal to me as they taste sort of mushy, floury, and bland to me. Yuck! :/ However, I found a wonderful recipe several years back that is irresistably delicious! When I made them last year, I sent some home with Charles, and he complained he hardly got to eat any as his family and grandmother had dibs on them first. :) Well, I'm going to go dig up my cookie press and see what ingredients to fetch from the store tomorrow. Maybe I'll make holiday fudge too.

Merry Xmas!

Vacation! :D

2004-12-19T21:59:00.000-08:00

Starting this weekend, I have 7 days straight of vacation! My payroll folks contacted me to notify me that I was at the 300 hour limit of vacation the company allows you to accrue, so at this point it's use it or lose it. Charles is out of town this week in Orlando hanging with Mickey Mouse so I get lots of time to sleep and relax.

I've been contemplating my goals for the New Year and for longer term into the future. Overall, looking back, this has been a good year for me as I've been making awesome grades and really cutting into finishing my associates' degree so I can retire at the decade mark as an engineer and pursue my 2nd career as a nurse. I have a happy relationship with my boyfriend, and we are rapidly working on the 2 year mark of being together. I really don't have all that many material wants or needs. About all I'm wishing for is for time to pass faster, so I can be done with the first part of college.

This week, I hope to catch up on some reading. I want to finish more of the Decline of the Roman Empire and I'll probably post about different poetry and short stories I love (as well as coffee and tea!).

To all that read this post, Merry Christmas, and may you and your loved ones be happy and safe!

Fish Tank Update

2004-12-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Well, my tank finally finished cycling and I figured out what species to put in my tank. I decided on a cute Red Top Zebra cichlid. :) He is a beautiful blue cichlid with black vertical bars and a red dorsal fin.

After transporting him home and getting him acclimated to the tank, he is busy patrolling the perimeter making sure all is well and no other fishes are intruding on his territory. He is also quite industriously working on his own little civil engineering project in the aquarium to excavate the caves in the rocks and make a home for himself. Cichlids love to dig, and every so often, I see him swoop into a cave. After a short pause, he darts out a short distance from the cave and a shower of white sand appears as he spits out the sand scooped into his mouth.

Since my tank is really too small to keep a herd of cichlids, he will soon be joined by some dwarf australian rainbow fish. These guys will keep him company and help reduce any nervousness on his part, as mbuna (the native African name for my Malawi cichlid) are fairly social fish despite their aggressive nature.

It's been fascinating watching my fish patrol and work in his little home. Definitely a great stress reliever.

Biscuit of the Day: An Engineering Joke

2004-12-06T16:50:00.001-08:00

Here's a funny joke at the expense of my profession's need to replicate problems multiple times before we will fix them. Enjoy!

Four engineers were travelling by car to an IEEE seminar. As they went down a fairly steep grade to a hairpin turn, the car's brakes went out just as they reached the bottom and the car went off road into a ditch. Fortunately, the car's velocity was low, so everyone was ok and got out to survey the wreckage.

The chemical engineer said "Obviously, some constituent of the brake fluid has caused this failure to occur."

The mechanical engineer replied "I disagree, I would surmise that a brake component has suffered a catastrophic structural failure."

The electrical engineer also had a theory. "Fools, it is obvious an electrical component has ceased operation, thereby causing the brake malfunction."

The software engineer thought for some time, walking in circles around the mangled vehicle. When at last he spoke he said "Hmmm.... What would happen if we pushed the car back up the hill, got in, and tried the turn again?"

Biscuit of the Day - A Blog a Day....

2004-12-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

Helps keep the doctor away! This tidbit from Wired discusses the therapeutic side of blogging and how this form of journaling has improved the quality of life for Alzheimer's patients. Apparently, blogging has helped out victims of this debilitating disease by allowing them to record daily events and milestones so they can track their lives and leave records for posterity. The article also stresses the role intellectual activity throughout one's life plays in staving off dementia and other geriatric mental disorders.

Another ongoing case study emphasizing the importance of mental activity to successful aging is the study of the Mankato nuns.

I think this research is absolutely wonderful on two points. #1, it helps dispel the stereotypes of the elderly as stagnant beings and that mental decline is inescapable. #2, it's good to see that blogging is good for you in addition to being fun! (Too few things in life are that way!)

Site update

2004-11-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

Urgh... Been sick today from bad restaurant food yesterday. Fortunately, I've been trying to make lemonade of lemons by updating this site and spiffing up the templates and stuff. This template, with its parchment and brown, appears to be the easiest read of all the blogger templates.

I'm waiting on my huge new fish tank to finish cycling. The bottom is covered in fine, white sand like the beaches in Cancun and heavily planted. Right now, its at a junction where one of two decisions can be made. Should I raise clownfish (the fish in Finding Nemo) or electric yellow cichlids (very smart and social, but highly aggressive fish)? Can't do both because clownies are salt water and cichlids are fresh water. Decisions, decisions!

Thanksgiving Reflections

2004-11-27T23:59:00.000-08:00

Oh man, what a Thanksgiving! Cajun-style deep fried turkey, sweet tater pie, and all the other goodies from the south-land were passed round and round my table. Oh, and don't forget buckeyes (an insanely sweet peanut butter and chocolate confection). God bless Alabama and Lousiana style cooking!

Stayed in town this Thanksgiving, so the holiday was a welcome respite from my busy schedule. Unfortunately, few of the remaining maternal relatives I have are still living or in a state they could travel, so we couldn't invite anyone down to visit. My sole maternal uncle enjoyed his first Thanksgiving with his new wife on a huge farm her parents have in Missouri. I heard from my mom that my grandmother was asking about me. Grandma wanted to know when I was going to finish with junior high. (Sadly, my grandmother has very advanced Alzheimer's and doesn't remember that I am 24).

On my dad's family, I have a strange vacuum. For whatever reasons of his own, my father hasn't been in any sort of communication with my paternal relatives since I was a tiny girl. I know I have relatives living on his side of the family, I just don't know how many or even their names. Sometimes it kind of trips me out that I could be walking down the street past grandparents or uncles or aunts or first cousins and never even know it. But anyways, kin is kin and I hope they had blessed Thanksgivings as well, even if I don't know their names or faces.

Spent lots of time with Charles and his family too, which was one of the best parts of the holiday. :) Time to bust out the gift wrap and holiday spirit and get ramped up for Christmas!

Biscuit of the Day - The Incredibles

2004-11-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is the movie The Incredibles! A charming and apt portrayal of family relations, you almost forget they aren't real people. I'm not going into detail on the plot, but I will say it does have a lot of Ayn Rand-ian debates over mediocrity versus your personal best. If you liked The Fountainhead, you'll like this movie.

3 cheers for Pixar! Disney's going to hurt when they finally sever distribution ties with Job's latest success, especially since it seems they've only been releasing sequels to existing titles. Bambi 3: Return of the Mother, anyone?

Biscuit of the Day - More Modern Jazz

2004-11-04T19:22:00.000-08:00

More iTunes links to jazz albums I want to get. This is an eclectic collection that spans the 20s onward.

1. John Coltrane - Another inspiration to the evolution of jazz in the 60s. My favorite albums are A Love Supreme and Blue Train.
2. Wayne Shorter - Juju (Remastered) . Lively, upbeat album.
3. Sonny Rollins - A Night at the Village Vanguard (Remastered). Bluesy jazz, a deeper lead sax than most of the other albums.
4. Coleman Hawkins - Body & Soul. This album has more of a swing influence to it.

On another note, I sure am glad (as we probably all are) that Kerry conceded the election with grace. The election proceedings were great to watch....they were televised almost like a football game! (Up to the minute coverage and instant replay of the hanging chad!)

Biscuit of the Day - Modern Jazz

2004-10-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to feature links to awesome modern jazz bands and artists. If you don't have iTunes, well get it!

This list tends towards modern jazz. If you like jazz of the 20s and Depression era, I'd recommend Fletcher Henderson. I've divided this list into two parts.

Some of the jazz I've got:
1. The Modern Jazz Quartet - This band was strongly influential on the course of modern jazz during the 50s and 60s.
2. Dexter Gordon - Very expressive saxophone.
3. Ben Webster - Yet another strong, sweet tenor saxophone.
4. Rene Olstead - inexplicably classified as pop. Lots of good covers of old jazz hits.

Tomorrow, when I have more time, I'll fill in the stuff I'd like to get. :)

Biscuit of the Day - In Celebration of Introversion

2004-10-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

I had to attend an office party last night and something really hit me. Being an introvert in the land of America is like being a lefty in the world of right handed people.

Since introversion is somewhat maligned by general society, let me say this first. I don't hate people. I enjoy people and people watching and I find their exploits and desires fascinating. I enjoy small groups of people which I intimately know. Introverts don't hate people, we just enjoy people on a much lighter dosage than extroverts do

I always marvel at my extrovert boyfriend and how at ease he is with strangers and being in a large group. He has that magic touch with people that would be called a "green thumb" if he tended plants. I am always amazed at such abilities because it's something that I am not strong at. I can enjoy crowds for a little while, but soon it almost becomes agonizingly overwhelming and I do a quick retreat like a hermit crab into a more intimate place.

But I also remember my abilities. I do not get terrorized when I am alone, as some extroverts I knew in school did, and who ended up with a syndrome of staying in bad relationships so they wouldn't be alone. I enjoy solitude and being able to think deeply on my own and think and work independently without a group. I enjoy my obsession with needing to know everything about a subject that can be known. I am comfortable in my own skin.

At times, I try to ape the outgoing extrovert when it is appropriate or when business requires. But pulling off that false persona at the end of the day has the same relief of pulling off a pair of heels after a long marathon of walking. It always feels good to be back in my own skin. I always wonder when I sit and peoplewatch, who else is doing the same thing? What life would be like and what would I see if society didn't require us to wear masks and conceal our true selves when we were in public.

Since this is a literary as well as personal blog, I'm going to finish this article with a quote:

Quiet people are often found to have profound insights.
The shallow water in a brook or river runs fast:
The deep water seems calmer.
~James Rogers

So busy....

2004-10-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

Ugh... It's been a busy week! I'm having to get my ducks in a row for fulfilling all my nursing school requirements. Hepatitis shots....CPR certification....TB booster updates. The fun and the joy! Nursing is a pretty competitive major to get into in my region since the career field is growing so rapidly. We had close to 400 apply for 80 positions at the nursing school at my school this past semester. So any prayers and kind thoughts for this pre-major are appreciated!

Biscuit of the Day - Napoleon Dynamite Review

2004-10-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

Remember the Brat Pack movies and formulaic teen movies of the 1980s? For instance, cool dude Marty McFly in Back to the Future. The kids in the Breakfast Club who reconciled their social differences and built happily ever after friendships in the feel good 80s. Karate Kid. War Games with Matthew Broderick as the elite teen hacker. Well, take those formulas and turn them upside down on their head and you have the anti-superhero Napoleon Dynamite.

This movie is one of those rare movies that does not easily lend itself to categorization along the traditional Hollywood party lines. My brain searched frantically for genre cues throughout the first part of the movie. Is this a comedy? A tragedy? How do I respond? For much of the movie, one is struck by the pathos in the figure of Napoleon Dynamite. The poor guy has been stripped of almost every attribute that could redeem him in high school society.

He is gawky and has a face who only a mother (who is dead) could love. His clumsiness with girls and pickup lines provoked winces from the audience, being profoundly painful, sad, and funny at the same time. On top of that, the sting of his social and physical awkwardness is not blunted by the stereotypical 'Revenge of the Nerds' blessing of enhanced intelligence. Poor Napoleon could be called an 'innocent'. Although he is probably about 17, he inhabits the world of a 10 year old at best. As far as high school goes, he is destined to be an outsider, teased and forever looking in on the maelstrom of teenage society.

However, all is not totally lost and dreary in this world. His older brother Kip's search for online love and the antics of his uncle/protector turned antagonist alternate between amusing and shocking. The atmosphere particular to small towns was perfectly crystallized in film, as I remember from my childhood how small towns tend to serve as fossilized records of trends long since passed through mainstream society. Even the lack of special effects and casting of 'normal' people is almost overwhelmingly stark and refreshing after prolonged overexposure to CGI and physical perfection.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to those who want something different from the normal Hollywood movie overly laced with the emotional MSG of violence and non-stop action. This would also be a fun treat for late 80s kids like me to induce flashbacks of public school fashion (stirrup pants! sideways ponytails! intentionally clashing colors!).

Biscuit of the Day - Poetry Search Engine

2004-10-17T11:29:00.002-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is a cool poetry search engine I found while browsing around on the web. I thought it would be useful to those of you who are browsing my site looking for Ibn Jakh and other poets for research papers.

To go to this search engine, click here.

And a quick update on my exercise regimen:

Starting week:

Weight: 126.8 lbs
Time spent walking: 30 minutes per day at target heart rate (132 bpm)
Distance covered: 1.20 miles

Middle of week 3:
Weight: 122.0 lbs
Time spent walking: 30 minutes per day at target heart rate (132 bpm)
Distance covered: 1.76 miles

Goal:
Weight: 110 lbs
Time spent walking: 30 minutes per day at target heart rate (132 bpm)
Distance covered: 2.5 miles

Well, slowly but surely, I am losing weight. Almost at the 5 lb loss mark. The cool thing is I am not dieting at all, so if I wanted to accelerate the weight loss, I could go on the Weight Watchers plan. However, with a boyfriend who loves eating out, it's hard to do this. :)

Biscuit of the Day - Providence, Tale of a Caffeine Junkie

2004-10-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is Providence. What is providence? According to an excerpt from Webster's Dictionary, providence is "Theo. A manifestation of the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures; an event ordained by divine direction. "

My little story I will share may or may not be Providence. Either way, I thought it was fun how things turned out.

Yesterday, I was in the middle of the trance-like state programmers enter when we focus our awareness and let code flow out from some deep well of logic in the mind onto the screen. Some athletes call this state of ecstasy "flow." For me, pure productive coding bliss. Suddenly and rudely, the meat carriage that "drives around my brain like a soccer mom" briefly snapped me back into reality to notify me I was very very thirsty. And having a whammy of a caffeine deprivation headache on top of that.

Well, only one way to fix that. My brain in a painful not thinking blur, I grabbed some change out of my purse, enough I thought, for a can of Diet Coke. I walked across the street from my office building to the little gas station run by a small Indian family. Stumbling around the rocky construction work near my building in heels, I started to count change to see what goodies I could get. As I counted, I appeared to have enough so I continued walking. Finally, just outside the station door, I finished counting. Ack, 10 cents short! :(

Well, at this point, there was no turning back. I loathed the thought of wasting that precious time and returning with nothing. My profound thirst was getting worse. After hesitating for a bit, I decided to go ahead and walk in anyways to see what was inside. A man stood near the gas station counter. When he heard the door swing open, he turned around, his mouth arcing in a smile. "Hey, I just won the lotto jackpot. Pick out anything you want in the store and I'll pay your tab. Tell your friends and I will get them anything they want too. "

Oh man! My face lit up once realization hit the neurons that caffeine was on its way. After thanking the man profusely I picked out a 1 liter of Diet Coke and a stick of Starbursts, thanked him again, and merrily skipped back to work.

Talk about good fortune! Sadly, I never did catch the man's name, but God bless him for giving me a small miracle in a time of need.

Biscuit of the Day - Texas in the Fall

2004-10-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

The weather outside has been outstandingly beautiful, considering that Texas's normal weather settings are either hair dryer or ice chest, with maybe 2 weeks of human bearable climate. I've been leaving the windows open to let the breath of the harvest season wander in and caress everything with cool fingers. Even better is unearthing the flannels for the bed to snuggle under at night.

Tea for the fall:

Cardamom Cinnamon Tea - Think chai without the black tea.

Biscuit of the Day - Bodum Tea Store and Rooibos Tea

2004-10-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is a review of the Bodum Tea Store and their Honey Rooibos Red Tea.

Charles and I were walking along in Dallas off Knox Street to go to the Apple store in this area. Next door to our destination was a small store with lots of cool teapots and coffee cups. I asked Charles if we could go in once we were done, and he agreed to let me have a look at the store.

We went in and immediately I was struck by the beauty and airiness of the little store. There were cute teapots and sculptural glassware everywhere, and the interior echoed the inside of the neighboring Apple store, with white wall and lots of glass and light colored wood. Also echoing the Apple store is Bodum's philosophy, 'Give up bad design for good. '

Having been esthetically pleased by the interior, it was time to get down to business and look at some tea. I homed in on the tea shelves in the rear right area of the store. Surprisingly, Bodum stocks a sample jar of tea for each type of tea they offer, this way you can see how the tea smells and looks before opening your wallet to make an investment. Another unusual feature for a tea shoppe is that the gracious proprietress is more than happy to make a sample cuppa of any available type for you to take the tea on a test drive.

I was instantly seduced by Bodum's Honey Rooibos Tea. Rooibos tea is currently en vogue due to its health benefits and natural lack of caffeine. However, my original impression of Rooibos, a South African tea, had been shaped by Republic of Tea's Vanilla Rooibos in tea bags. Unfortunately, the blend was awful (watery vanilla, and a smoky, 'stale' taste). Not even milk helped it, so it stayed in the back of my pantry until I finally threw the nasty stuff out. I thought all Rooibos was supposed to turn your stomach (health benefit as an emetic?), so I shied away from trying any more.

Bodum's tea shocked me by being surprisingly smooth and tasty. The fragrance is honey and flowers, but not so overly floral as to be sickingly perfumed. The red tea element provided depth and staying power to the honey element. Overall, I would rank this as a type I would buy regularly. The best use for this tea would be an afternoon or light evening tea, when you want to enjoy tea, but caffeine needs to be kept at a minimum for sleep. The only drawback to this tea is that it does contain pollen as the honey tasting element, so if you have allergies, you may want to use caution.

The next day after I purchased my Rooibos, I asked my South African coworker if there were any special hints as to the proper preparation of red tea. He said there really wasn't, some preferred their cups with just sugar, he liked his with milk. One cool thing is that he offered to bring back 'real' rooibos for me the next time he went to South Africa. I'm hoping he remembers, because I'd love to review the 'real' thing. :)

Biscuit of the Day - Exercise!

2004-10-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is exercise! Yes, that wonderful thing that lets you work off the cream in your tea and lets you live longer to enjoy more tannin laced goodies. :) I've been walking 30 minutes every day on the treadmill for the past two weeks, and it's already slowly stripping off the pounds. Not too bad, considering I'm an engineer, and as a general rule, our creed of efficiency extends to eliminating excess movement (where's my remote control???????).

I am going to post some stuff I've found that makes exercise more fun:

1. Get a partner. Even if they walk at a different time of day than you, they can still bug you until you get on the treadmill and give you ample feedback and praise when you start losing weight.

2. Get an iPod (mini). MP3 players are the best thing since sliced bread as far as walking for exercise. Fill it with cheesy 80s pop or other bubbly music like club music to get you going at a good rhythm. Fill it with audio books so you can learn during your 30 minutes of pounding the pavement.

3. Get good fitting shoes. Nothing like blisters to make you wish someone would just kill you while you are walking. I found this out the hard way, as I wear an extremely small shoe size (ladies 5). Unfortunately, it took my shredding most of the skin off my toes to crush my dignity enough to accept that I should shop in the kids' dept for a dorky kids shoe that fits rather than wear a 6 from the ladies' dept that looked cool but was too big.

4. Get a heart monitor. I am a numbers and math junkie. To me, the feedback of a heart monitor is the butter that goes on the sliced bread mentioned in point #2. Once you look up your target heart rate, you can make sure you are challenging yourself when you walk. Another tip I have on heart monitors is for people who exercise in a gym. A lot of the treadmills say they are 'Polar compatible'. If you want a relatively inexpensive way to get your heart rate to show on the monitor on the treadmill without having to hang for dear life onto the handgrip monitors, you can buy Polar heart rate transmitters at the PolarUSA store. The next time you step onto the Polar compatible treadmill with one of these strapped on your chest, the treadmill will automatically pick up the signal and show your heartbeat rate.

The only thing that's not been very fun about my exercise routine is severe DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). What's funny is that my soreness is not brought on by my own routine, it's due to my phys ed teacher. The warm up in his routine is practically non-existent and he works us hard, so as a result, I can barely walk (or crab walk) the next day. I haven't really found a very good solution for this problem except for (surprisingly) more exercise of the sore muscles at a reduced intensity. Usually, after this very gentle workout, the soreness goes away within a few hours.

Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Soothing Teas

2004-10-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day are teas that make you feel better when you are sick. I've been pretty run-down the past day or two, so I've been trying to avoid the caffeine and tannin in my english breakfast teas in favor of something lighter on the tummy.

My personal favorite is homemade Easy Ginger Root Tea. This tea is a good aperitif well as a soother for unhappy tummies after a big meal.

Recipe for Easy Ginger Root Tea:

Ingredients:
A big hunk of ginger (roughly about 1-2 tsps)
A well cleaned small coffee maker (or pot to boil water in and a tea filter)
8 oz of water
Splenda or preferred sweetener

Instructions for Coffeemaker preparation:
Take the chunk of ginger and chop it up as finely as patience will allow. Fill a coffee filter with the ginger, making sure to spread it out so the water will have optimum contact with the ginger. Run coffeemaker. Once coffeemaker is done, you should have a pale, fragrant tisane (herbal tea) to which you can add a teaspoon or two of sweetner to taste.

Instructions for Traditional method:
Chop the ginger as finely as possible. Put the ginger in your tea ball or filter and put in cup. Pour the boiling water into the cup. Wait several minutes (probably about 3-4 minutes depending on how strong you like your brew). Remove tea ball/filter and sweeten with Splenda or other sweetener to taste.

And that's it! The tea, when sweetened, has a spicy fragrance and a yummy candy taste to it which is much more pleasing to the palate than trying to choke down TUMS or pepto.

Drink in Good Health,

Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - City Methodist Church, Gary Indiana

2004-09-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is a picture gallery of an old church. I thought it was sad the city of Gary was letting the building fall into ruins.

The beautiful arches and remnants of stained glass must have been impressive during the church's heyday.

City Methodist Church Gallery

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Mutant African Violets from Outer Space

2004-09-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is a cool African violet with mutations from exposure to outer space. One of my hobbies is raising plants. My room is pretty tiny and doesn't get much light (just north sun), so these little ones take off fairly well in the indirect light. Today, a woman in my office gave me an unhappy Optimara Everfloris Violet. This one, the EverLove, appears to be the species I have. They are special in that they are descendants of violets whose seeds were exposed to radiation and gamma rays in outer space and who developed unusual mutations due to this bombardment.

Fortunately for me, the alien violet was pest and illness free, so the biggest issue was pick out and prune the dead growth. Another problem I found as I pruned back further, was that whoever had potted the plant potted it WAY too deep in the soil. So, time to get out the shovel and elevate the crown (the center of the plant) higher up. The last thing to do was to set up the watering system.

The best (and easiest) system I have found so far to take care of plants is the wick watering system. Basically, this equips the plant with a "straw" that it uses to slurp up water as it needs it from a saucer it hovers over. At Lowe's, I found a nice plastic saucer and a fiberglass lantern wick (this will be the straw). I needed a way to prop the violet above the saucer (don't want it to sit in the saucer and get wet feet). After scrounging around, I found caps for furniture feet that were about an inch tall. When I got home, I threaded the wick into the root ball of the violet so it stuck out the hole in the bottom of the pot.

Finally, I put the caps in the saucer, and put the plant on top of the caps. Slowly, I put water in the pot (avoiding leaves), and watched as the water filtered down and wet the wick while flowing into the saucer, starting the wicking process. Already, the little plant is perking up and happily slurping water through its straw in the saucer, as shown by the dropping water level in the saucer. Voila! A happy violet.

Aeryth

Biscuits of the Day - Gallimaufry and Jazz Shoes

2004-09-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is the word 'Gallimaufry'. According to dictionary.com, the word means a jumble or a hodgepodge. Which means I'm gonna write about a few different topics. :)

As with all women, I'm on an ever constant quest to keep weight off (insert monty python coconut clapping here). In my quest, I have become quite addicted to a game called DDR (Dance Dance Revolution). Yeah, it's pretty geeky, but the game is surprisingly fun and for a white girl, I have rhythm! One of the biggest problems with DDR is that I have extremely small feet (women's size 5) and toes that tend to become dislocated pretty easily. Tennis shoes are not an option, as the DDR home controllers are delicate and tennis shoes tend to rip them. (Not to mention the fact I have to shop in the kids section for shoes and it's near impossible to find shoes w/o glitter or excessive pinkness on them).

Some time and several out of joint toes later, I thought about it and decided I needed to find soft soled dancing shoes. I went to a local dance shop, and after some discussion of my plight, the proprietress hooked me up with some soft leather jazz shoes. Let me tell you, for DDR, those shoes are wonderful! They are light, and the support keeps toes in line. Another plus about jazz shoes is that they are good for yoga and pilates as well as they are extremely flexible (better than the sneakers you see in magazines) and keep you in place for matwork. I figured I would document my experiment on here in case anyone ran into problems similar to mine, or wanted recommendations.

This weekend, I plan to do more blog updates as school and work have slowed down, so there is actually time again to read. I have some subjects queued up that I plan to research this weekend and write articles about.

Namaste,

Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Eames Furniture

2004-09-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is furniture by Charles and Ray Eames. They made some incredibly beautiful modern furniture, a lot of which is carried on in spirit by the modern day Apple products. I can picture someone using an iBook in one of these ball chairs.

Eames galleries:
Big list of Eames galleries.
Eames chaise longue
Modern store where you can buy replicas of Eames furniture (including the ball chair)

I've had a pretty busy time in my personal life. One of the cool things I've been doing is learning Korean. The alphabet is one of the less complex Asian scripts, and there are a lot of neat sites written in Korean (especially dealing with fashion).

As an example, check this site out:
Korean clothes store

Regards,

Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Tea Reviews

2004-08-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the day is a tea review website from the UK.

They have an excellent archive of reviews. Most of them I agree with, especially their section on Taylors of Harrogate. Scottish Breakfast is wonderful yummy malty goodness in a cup!

Most of the reviews are very concise and to the point about getting the general impression of the tea across to the viewer. My favorite bad tea reviews compares Bigelow's Take a Break Herb Tea to cheap grade motor oil.

Enjoy!

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Tea Dog

2004-08-19T05:38:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is Tea Dog, a really cute Chinese anime character.

He can be found here. Warning, site in Chinese dialect! Anime characters like these tend to have intricate little stories made up about their fictional lives, and it makes me wish I knew the language on this site so I could translate. However, it appears Tea Dog speaks the international language of cuteness, so that's all that really matters, right?

For the guys in the audience, the same toy company has this toy for you. After doing some research, these are replicas of huge insects called japanese stag beetles that are very popular to raise in Japan for children. All I can say is that my mom would have killed me if I brought one of those home as a little kid. :) Here's a picture of a real stag beetle.
Thanks to this stag beetle site for providing a link to this resource.

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Puto Pao

2004-08-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is Puto Pao, Philippine-style steamed buns. I craved Asian food today and was looking for something different from the normal Chinese stir fry and Japanese sushi that is so readily available in my area. So I found something new to try, steamed buns! Step aside, Krispy Kremes!

Here are some links to general sites about Philippine culture and food.

Discover Philippines->Culture->Food
Evolution of Food Dishes in the Phillipines
Steamed Bun (Siopao) Recipe 1 (with pictures)
Asian Breads (includes Bibingka and Puto Bread)
Puto Pao Mix

There are a lot of great foods from the different parts of Asia that never see the light of day here in the US. I remember taking my diving certification and a sweet young Korean couple cooking stir fry from fresh ingredients they had brought with them for the trip. They kindly offered me some stir fry and sweet kimchi. I wasn't too sure what to expect with the kimchi (fermented cabbage), but I just kept in mind that it was basically Korean sauerkraut as I ate it. Sure enough, to my happy surprise, I really enjoyed it!

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Carnivale

2004-08-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day (in honor of summer school ending!) is the Venetian party tradition of Carnivale. Unlike some of the pictures you find of Mardi Gras in Lousiana, all these links are work and family safe. :)

Carnivale Origin and Traditions

Carnevale: Farewell to Meat, Hello to Fantasy - This site features the origins of Carnevale, as well as the meanings of some of the masks used during the parties.

Carnival season in Europe means fun - This link covers the origins of Carnivale and some of the traditions in other non-Italian countries in Europe.

Carnivale Galleries of Venetian Costumes
Light-fantastic: Carnival in Venice Tour - This link is a photo gallery of some of the beautiful and ornate costumes that can be seen during Carnivale time.

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Mark Twain

2004-08-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is A Dog's Tale by Mark Twain. The full collection of short stories can be found here.

Urgh, it's been a busy week. I'm just about done with finals for the summer semester! Saw a beautiful Italian movie this week, Il Postino. It was pleasantly bittersweet, and the landscape of rural Italy was breathtaking. The lead actor, Massimo Troisi, literally gave his life to make the movie, as he passed away 12 hours from severe heart disease after all the shooting was done. He knew he needed treatment for his heart, but refused to go to the hospital, as he felt the movie was more important.

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Frog Design

2004-08-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day features a small company called Frog Design. Any of you in the audience who use the Dell website, who use Windows XP, or like the bleeps, bloops and beeps in OS 9 and OS X have these people to thank.

It's interesting to see how MS and Dell went after this company to do their design after Frog did work with OS 9. Monkey see, monkey do? ;)

-- Aeryth

An Extra Crumb....

2004-08-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a neat quiz showing you what element you are. It's actually pretty fitting for me.

[Image omitted by Blogger]

Your Element is Night. You're a loner who is very
creative but never show your work to anyone.
You may smile a little but sadness or
loneliness surround you and other can feel it
when they're near you. You have a dark or
unusual beauty that makes you mysterious and
you probably have a lot of secrets that you've
never told anyone. You're beauty is intriguing
and unorthodox but the real thing that makes
you special is your eyes. Something in them
makes them like Diamonds in the Rough.

What's Your Element (girls)? (PICTURES)

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Don Lorenzo

2004-08-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is a website by a British man who is transplanted into the lush landscape of southern Spain. He rents out vacation houses to travelers seeking a respite from the busy world.

He has a wonderful photo gallery of a Spanish gypsy betrothal, as can be seen here. At the bottom is a photo gallery showing how olives are harvested and transformed into the yummy goodness that is olive oil.

I've been extremely busy and haven't had much time to prepare dinner. So I've been busy buying crusty Italian and French bread and putting Lucini's olive oil on it. To make it really good, you can crack fresh peppercorns over it, although the Lucini's is high enough quality and has a bite of its own that that's not really necessary.

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Oscar Wilde

2004-08-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is The Happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde. Many thanks to Short Stories for hosting this nice collection of Oscar Wilde short stories.

This is one of my favorite tales I remember from being little. Enjoy this with a nice stout Irish Breakfast tea in honor of Wilde's Eire roots.

-- Aeryth.

Biscuit of the Day - Bluetooth Political Expression

2004-07-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is expressing one's political ideas through the use of Bluetooth. Normally, being a Lindsaytarian, I tend to stay out of the political fray. Being a party of only oneself tends to let you do that.

However, I can't help but point out this bit of silliness from the Kerry side of the voting population.

Bluetooth Users Against Bush

Basically, the site tells you how to use cellular phones and bluetooth enabled PDAs to make political statements.

Unfortunately, I cannot locate a bluetoothusersagainstnader.com or bluetoothusersagainstkerry.com site, otherwise I would post those too for objectivity's sake.

However, according to this source, they have inspired another site, Blueroots.org where you can start your own bluetooth campaign for your personal pet issues.

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Ibn Jakh

2004-07-25T18:34:00.000-07:00

The biscuit of the day is a poem by an Arabic poet, Ibn Jakh. I've been really interested in the culture of the Middle East (particularly Morocco), and thought I would include a contribution from this area of the world.

Many thanks to this source for posting and providing samples and a nice analysis of the themes in such beautiful poetry.

-- Aeryth

FAREWELL, by Ibn Jakh (11th century, Andalusian) translated by Emilio Garcia Gomez & Cola Franzen.

On the morning they left
we said goodbye
filled with sadness
for the absence to come.

Inside the palanquins
on the camels' backs
I saw their faces beautiful as moons
behind veils of golden cloth.

Beneath the veils
tears crept like scorpions
over the fragrant roses
of their cheeks.

These scorpions do not harm
the cheek they mark.
They save their sting
for the heart of the sorrowful lover.

Biscuit of the Day - Eudora Welty

2004-07-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day features the well-beloved Southern author, Eudora Welty. Unfortunately, I am not able to link to her short stories, as they appear to be still under copyright.

However, here is an article containing excerpts of her writing, so you can get a taste of her writing style. Her books are treasures and good reads, as she does an excellent job of crystallizing people's characters in words, as well as capturing the essence, both genteel and less refined, of the Deep South.

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Frank Stockton

2004-07-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day is The Tiger, or the Lady by Frank Stockton. This featured story is from a collection of shorts located at this short story site (no specific title provided).

-- Aeryth

Biscuit of the Day - Guy de Maupassant

2004-07-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

Today's Biscuit of the Day features the French author, Guy de Maupassant. It's a charming short story called:

The Jewels of M. Lantin

I would like to thank The Short Story Classics: The Best From the Masters of the Genre for providing and organizing such an excellent collection of literature.

-- Aeryth

Coming Soon....

2004-07-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

I am restructuring this blog to hopefully bring in some more focus to my entries and provide some organization since blogger doesn't support doing categories like LiveJournal does. My current blog will be split into 3:

A Day In My iLife - My personal journal of events happening in my life. This will also contain thoughts on computer stuff and that sort of thing.

The Daily Tea Biscuit - An eclectic collection of tea reviews, short stories that go well with tea, interesting news articles, and other things relevant to the tea drinker's lifestyle.

And finally, The Munchkin Review - (This is named as such because I am so short). I plan to review the movies I watch from my Netflix queue as well as dissect popular movies currently in the theater.

As I get everything together, I will put up the links to the new bloglets.

-- Aeryth

British Invasion

2004-07-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Went and saw the movie I, Robot this weekend. Overall, I really enjoyed it and would definitely go to see it again if I had time. I hope to do a more in-depth dissection of it sometime in the future, once my big exam is over with on Monday.

My mom bought and brought into the house a new culinary addiction for me: the chocolate covered British digestive biscuit! After tasting this little bit of heaven on earth, I'm convinced this little biscuit is a British plot of revenge for our American revolution by enslaving us with an addiction to yummy oval crackers. Either way, I think I'm going to have to stop by the store to get some more tomorrow. I guess the best way to describe these little guys is Brit-style Cadbury's chocolate on a semi sweet cracker base.

Diet killer biscuit

Review of different tea biscuits and digestive biscuits

I can't say much about their other food though. Some of my coworkers have gone over there and lost weight because the normal food is not too edible. I've heard descriptions of their salsa as lumpy ketchup. Bleh! I've also been chewed out on the phone by Britlanders for being an American and having dates formatted different from everywhere else in the world. My response was that we kicked their butts in the American Revolution and thus earned rights to format dates anyway we like. Oh well.

-- Aeryth

More Blogs

2004-07-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Added a new blog to my list of links. It's a blog by the "Incredible Hulk" of comic book origin. I like this part:

"Hulk saw movie about bug-man and it was good but needed more smashing.

AND HULK DID NOT GET SNIFFLY DURING ROMANTIC SCENES SO IF YOU HEAR IRON MAN OR THOR TALKING ABOUT IT THEY ARE LIARS."

I wonder how long it will be before Corporate America starts suing the pants off of these people? :( Too bad, because this is way better than anything coming out of the Hollywood scene.

-- Aeryth

Firefox trumps IE, according to Microsoft

2004-07-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

According to Slate *cough* Microsoft, users should use Firefox (a stripped down Mozilla browser), rather than Internet Exploder (did I say that??) ;-)

See the article for yourself --

Firefox over Mozilla, sez MS child company.

-- Speedy browsing,

Aeryth

College transfer joy

2004-07-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

One less day to graduation... Spent the day running back and forth getting ready to transfer credits to the new college I'm going to. I've decided for right now that since I'm working on getting my nursing degree, I'm going to get a 2 yr associate's degree, get some experience under my belt, then head back to university to get a 4 year degree with the RN to BSN program. As a result, since my university doesn't offer 2 year associate's, I'm having to transfer to community college.

I went to the local college and was pleasantly surprised. My current university is showing its age (most buildings on campus were built in the 70s, when the giant box with no windows academic building look was in). The science labs are even more dated (asbestos, the 1960s product of the Future! *cough shredded lung up*). The community college was probably built in the early 90s, has a nice airy feel, and I'm sure the labs are considerably more updated.

Overall, I'm very happy with my decision. I know it's no Ivy League education, but after being out of school for so long and having to pay bills on my own, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to be able to go to school anywhere that is compatible with my full time work now. My mom is really being supportive of me retiring to become a nurse, and she's actually offered me information on classes relevant to allied health (medical coding and other items of interest to med techs). My dad is proud too, mostly because he knows it's not easy going back to school after being out 5, 6 years.

Keep on truckin',

-- Aeryth

Kaffeklatch or Fun With Legal Stimulants

2004-07-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

TGIF! Right now, I'm enjoying some really yummy dessert coffee, Millstone's Chocolate Velvet. Mom got me this nifty little device from Melitta that lets you brew a single cup. All you have to do is boil water, put in a #2 filter in this cone that fits on a cup, and slowly pour in the water (basically being your own coffee maker).

It's not too shabby. I've messed with it a couple of times, and the only alteration I would make is to put in 3 tsps of coffee, instead of the 2 on the label. It's fun for trying out different flavored coffees, that way you can make one cup without forcing the whole household to drink or having to throw a pot out.

My heart is very near and dear to tea, however. I probably have like 15 types of tea between my house and work. Tea is a much more gentle and subtle stimulant than coffee, and also the whole brewing thing is relaxing. You drop in a tea bag, and the water around slowly blooms with color until it fully develops like a picture. The different teas also have distinct layers and an intricacy to their taste you don't find in coffee.

I remember going to Whole Foods one time, and picking up some Taylor's and Harrogate's, an imported tea from the UK. All of a sudden, I felt a tapping on my shoulder and I turned around and there was a tiny, wizened elderly couple. With very distinct British accents and a homesick tone to their voice, they asked me if I was from the UK. Unfortunately, I had to tell them I was from the States, but as I work for a company based in the UK, I was able to talk to them about their county, Yorkshire. They recommended that I go to Betty's, a traditional tea room that hasn't changed much since the early 1900s. Anyways, tea brought us together, and I was happy to bring back memories of their homeland.

Happy drinking,

-- Aeryth

Obsession, or What Separates the Ladies from the Girls

2004-07-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

Day 3 on the Loraine project. She and my 1ghz G4 successfully see each other now, although the G4 software is too new for the poor old SE to mount any shares on the newer machine. I have an NT box that is getting updated so it can run a system 7 style server so hopefully the SE will see that.

I watched the first disc of Serial Experiment: Lain last night. It wasn't exactly the best anime I've seen, but it still ranks up there as pretty good. In it, a young girl seemingly communicates with the dead inadvertently through her computer, aka the Navi. The plot was pretty twisty, but Lain's character metamorphosis from young, popular schoolgirl to obsessive computer geek was pretty gripping and amusing to watch. The movie was filled with Apple and BeOS references. Lain's Navi was from a Japanese company whose name translates to "Orange". :) She had a portable Newton-inspired hand held Navi. There are small computers in the series that look like a sharp-edged iMac.

Lain's dilemma of finding out why she could talk with the dead struck a chord with me as a software engineer. I realized in our field, you cannot survive or do well without an ample dose of obsession. Mostly because the majority of people would find the long hours sitting behind a console typing, testing, compiling over and over to perfection boring or repetitive. However, I've watched my colleagues and myself play siege against a particularly nasty bug for hours on end. Even when the bug is in the OS, the challenge to our programming honor is enough that it genuinely bothers us to have let something go broken or unsolved.

I think this generalization applies to all the creative fields. Artists will take the most mundane things normal humans see no potential in, such as small tiles. They repeat actions over and over to make a beautiful work of art, such as a mosaic. Steve Jobs is notoriously obsessive over his company's products, which are famous worldwide for their beauty and design. The Woz, when he still did work for Apple, was as obsessive over the beauty of the Apple's internal design of motherboards. Lain obsesses over her problems until she transcends them entirely and enters a more beautiful realm of existence.

Well, enough heavy thought for now. I will probably continue obsessing over my herd of Macs until Loraine is online. However, to celebrate me deciphering Localtalk and the version compatibility problems, I have added more movies to the Netflix queue. New on the list are some classic Woody Allen (Purple Rose of Cairo, Sleeper) and Romeo + Juliet.

-- Aeryth

Loraine

2004-07-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm kicking back with a cuppa spearmint tea! It really quenches the thirst and is cooling, so I can sort of see why Southerners are so fond of their mint juleps. Slowly but surely making progress on the old SE. I found out that its/her name is Loraine. :) No files on the filesystem have been changed later than 1998, so it's kind of like a time capsule and sort of ghostly to see hints of the previous users' lives. I think about all the things that have changed since 1998.

* I graduated high school (class o' 98)
* The rise and fall of the dot com industry
* teeny tiny cell phones everywhere (my nokia from the time is like a brick now)
* looming y2k fears are gone
* broadband everywhere (it was a big deal to have ISDN back then)
* a new president
* teeny tiny laptops
* rise of the SUVs
* lowering of pants' waistbands
* IPO fashionability
* the metamorphosis of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears (remember how they used to be cute?)

Most of these things revolve around developments in the tech field. I consider myself blessed to have been able to work with and watch some incredible technology rise, become dominant (and sometimes fall). It doesn't seem like it's been 6 years though... Amazing how time flies, huh?

-- Aeryth

Progress on Macintosh SE

2004-07-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

A status update on my Macintosh SE. It's now connected to my ethernet router through a bunch of localtalk boxes and a localtalk-ethernet bridge. The bridge appears to be running fine. I see the old SE trying to ping AppleShare servers out across the network.

The only problem that I'm running into now is transferring files to/from my modern G4s. I have a USB floppy disk, but apparently those don't support the SE's old 800k floppy format (hey, it's a 17 year old standard, what do you expect?). Also, AppleShare, the file server protocol, doesn't come with the consumer edition of OS X, only the server.

However, I may have a solution for that. Microsoft released their own AppleShare program called Microsoft Services for Macintosh. I'm hoping to be able to install that on a Virtual PC so I can get the SE to talk to the Virtual PC and snag files needed to update the SE.

Once the SE is updated to run MacTCP, it will be able to communicate with its grandbabies, the G4s, in a much more normal way. I'm not sure what I will do with it once this is done, but I think it will make a cool unix terminal for administering and controlling the G4s via telnet.

-- Aeryth

Elderly Macs on the Internet

2004-07-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

Finally took my last test yesterday! It feels so great to have everything done. I have today to enjoy as "vacation", then I'm back at school tomorrow for the second summer semester, Developmental Psychology. This should be a pretty cool class, learning about how little kids and adolescents work. I know enough people who are still mentally teenager(s), that some of the concepts will apply to adults as well. ;-)

I have a fun little sideproject going right now that is keeping me entertained. I have adopted an elderly circa 1987 Macintosh SE. It is currently in the process of being connected to the internet. One might ask why you would want to put a 17 year old machine on the internet, but I say why not? I love the style of the Classic Macintoshes (the "cute" Macs most of us probably remember), and it makes me sad to see old computers abandoned.

-- Aeryth

Modern Rebels

2004-07-02T16:56:00.000-07:00

Taking a brief break from studying... Saw today that Marlon Brando passed away at the age of 80. God bless the Godfather, and hope he is safely in the arms of God the father. In homage, I've added a ton of his movies to my Netflix queue. I loved A Streetcar Named Desire. I actually read the book before I saw the movie. Gritty and emotional pretty much sums up the tone of the book, and passion and impulse is faithfully translated into the movie as well. Considering this movie was released in the 50s (era of the Beav, Disney, rigid conformity, and the Hayes code), the emotional frankness and Brando's burly, unkempt character performance is even more striking.

Also added James Dean, the other quintessential 50s rebel. He just had one really major movie, but I felt it wasn't fair to put Brando in the queue by himself.

My SO and I watched 50 First Dates yesterday. For an Adam Sandler vehicle, it really shined! Normally, I'm not that much into his movies. Sandler tends to concentrate on isolated humorous situations to the point the plot is disjointed and simply becomes a weak attempt to join multiple SNL skits into a movie. However, his romance with Drew Barrymore was sweet without being syrupy and his situational humor was funny without overpowering the story. Bravo!

Well, back to the grind of studying for this test......

New iMac?

2004-07-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

It looks like Apple should be releasing new iMacs this upcoming September. Maybe with shiny new G5s?

http://news.com.com/Apple+delays+new+iMac/2100-1041_3-5255095.html?tag=st_lh

-- Aeryth

Finish line of Summer I

2004-06-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Ughh... Just got done recovering from 2 exams for the same class back to back. This summer I decided to go ahead and take a 5 week Anatomy & Physiology course as it was one of the few remaining classes I have left before I have to apply to get accepted into the nursing school.

In hindsight, I would recommend this only for extremely brave souls. The class requires HUGE amounts of memorization, and the lecture and labs got all out of order, so I ended up having to study twice as much, with no overlapping material. Oh well, live and learn. At least I know for sure now that the ankle bone connects to the foot bone. :) Or, to be more precise, the distal end of the tibia articulates with the talus to form the ankle joint.

But anyways, I'll probably be studying every conceivable chance I get, as I believe the final is comprehensive and we've covered 15 chapters of every bump, knob, and concavity on the human body. So updates will be pretty scanty. Only 4 more days til I can leave the hobbit study cave and wander around in the big blue room outside!

Wheee!

2004-06-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

Blogging has turned out to be a bit more fun than I expected. After looking around, I found a lot of neat sites that let you provide Letterman-style custom lists. There is a link under my Lists category to my Netflix queue so the curious can see what my significant other and I are watching. I've already sent back Casablanca (excellent, excellent movie!!!) and the SNL movie, so the Netflix fairies should be sending Lain shortly. Lain is a Japanese anime movie that is fairly well acclaimed with tons of Apple and BeOS references tucked in amongst the plot.

I'm considering finding a host that lets me post ASP pages so I can do more fun stuff with this little site. Any recommendations on a cheap, but reliable host?

-- Aeryth

Dashboard Confession-al

2004-06-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

For all the Mac-o-philes out there, yesterday was a big day. Yesterday, previews of the new "Tiger" OS were shown to developers at Apple's developer conference (WWDC). Overall, I have to say I was pretty impressed. The new Spotlight technology promises to make finding and correlating data on the old hard drive a lot easier.

The day before WWDC, users on MacRumors.com had the guilty pleasure of viewing some unauthorized "preview" screenshots of the Tiger OS. One of the features whose authenticity was doubted most was the new Dashboard feature. I know there are lots of Konfabulator fans, but anyone who knows me knows I have an extreme distaste for desktop widgets. In fact, I believe desktop widgets are a littermate of the annoying yellow Office agent dog in Windows XP. So it's pretty safe to say that I was praying that the new shots were faked.

Turns, out the screenshots were true. The Dashboard works on the metaphor that we keep objects that we use often but not all the time within reach (or buried within reach in my case) in a top desk drawer. Well, the Dashboard is a special "drawer" screen mode of Expose that is reached by a special keyboard stroke (or probably a mouse gesture as well). Little Javascript driven widgets lay in the drawer and you can manipulate them and close the drawer once you are finished with a keystroke or mouse move.

Personally, I don't like the new feature. IMHO, desktop widgets constitute a violation of many rules of good UI, which is especially tragic considering all the time and energy Apple has put into place into making sure their user experience guidelines are documented and adopted.

Widgets have 4 major problems:

1. UI guidelines protect the user.

Developers should not have access to colors. Anyone who looks at the Windows XP interface can tell you that. XP, the first truly multicolored MS OS has red, blue, orange, green, and other colors thrown around in borderline random areas of the desktop. It has the style sensibility of the late 80s when blinding your fellow man with swirls of neon color was the desired look. The stereotypical computer geek is not an artist, and tends to have poor fashion sense bordering on the color blind. I have seen hideous UIs that were borderline unusable using the common controls in both the Mac OS and in Windows. We have problems as it is making user friendly UIs within the existing parameters. Do you really want to give these people a blank palette?

2. Widgets make the user experience inconsistent.

One of the beautiful things about Mac OS is that you can sit down at any Mac or Windows box and know how to interact with almost any element you see onscreen. Buttons are clicked. Mac programs almost always have a Preferences menu item. There are visual cues in Windows that let you figure out what the keyboard shortcut is to particular functionality. Forms are square, easily tile, and conserve screen space.

Widgets sacrifice all this consistency in favor of flashy looks. I remember looking at QuickTime 4 and trying to figure out how to interact with it (especially the volume control). Windows Media Player with its strange new skin is another example. When the program is onscreen, it takes up way more screenspace than is necessary. You can see spans of empty space used for nothing but just being there. Even with visualizations turned off, the thing is monstrously huge in comparison with what could be done with a simple form. I can see why Apple released the 30" display. If you make extensive use of widgets, you'll need the extra space!

3. Real life metaphors don't always translate very well to the computer screen.

Ok, once again, the Windows release of QuickTime 4. This application was very memorable, mostly for the awful interface. Apple attempted to make the player a true to life representation of a real player, down to a thumb wheel for the volume. However, they did not take into account that humans interact with programs from the front. Try to turn a scroll wheel on a device from the front without using the notches on the side. I can almost guarantee you will throw down the device in frustration, as it just doesn't work well, especially for things requiring fine grained control like volume. I had the same problem with QT4 and quit using QT for a long time afterwards due to the sour taste it left in my mouth.

Another example of failed real world metaphors are the Tablet PCs released by Microsoft. My significant other has dissected this one in detail (even got quoted in a journal for his observations!). To paraphrase him, the writing experience and interacting with the tablet is slow, inaccurate, and such a pain that most people revert to using laptop mode not long after buying their new tablets.

The beauty of standard controls is that they are carefully tested for ease of use, as these are core elements of the OS and the OS developers know better than to peeve their user base. Until we come up with new human interfaces with computers where we can interact with programs from all 3 dimensions, the majority of most ported metaphors will probably fall flat in the usability department.

4. Widgets are redundant and redundant.

If you look at the widgets at WWDC, there are items such as a calendar with the date and the calculator. Personally, it makes me wonder how many calendars a person really needs. The day is stated at all times in the top Menu bar. If you have iCal in your dock, you can see the day number in the month. If you need quick access to the calculator, you can set up keyboard commands to quick launch the calculator (at least in Windows). Why do you need more instances of calendars to tell you the date and time? The only thing I can think of that would be marginally useful is a world clock, but I would rather have that be visible at all times or accessible from the main desktop so I don't have to interrupt my typing to access the "drawer" of Dashboard and see what time it is in Nottingham or Australia.

My favorite pseudo-Widget is a tea timer called Cuppa. It resides in the dock, provides a tiny, unobstrusive view of how long until my tea is done, then bounces in the dock unobstrusively and sounds a chime to alert me that my tea is done. That is perfection. A tiny, configurable program that doesn't interfere with my work, that acts predictably, and provides excellent
visual cues in an ultra small package.

As you can see, I don't think Widgets are that good of an idea. Apple has done us well so far with Jaguar and Panther, but I think they missed the mark with this new feature in Tiger. Apple also had desktop widgets long ago before System 7 was released and they were deprecated. I think someday in the future, they will probably be deprecated again as this new fad of real world metaphors comes and goes and people realize that the new metaphors are a lot more trouble than they are worth.

Modern Day Mythos

2004-06-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

I was digging through the archives of crap on my hard drive and I found a bunch of old games I had archived on a virtual pc on my Mac.

I remember one day my significant other and I were talking about games and how you kind of lose your identity in them. I agree for the most part. You grab a controller or mouse or whatever, and the next thing you know, the magic console fairy has taken several hours of your life irrevocably.

I admit, yeah, games can be a time waster. But, I don't think all games are bad. The ones I found lying around were old Sierra games, vintage early 90s. I remember time as a young girl spent saving babysitting money excited to buy the next parser driven game (for you young folks, that means no mouse, typing in commands on a keyboard). Sierra has always had a knack for atmosphere, something you rarely find in games today, and even rarely in Sierra games post-1996. It is one thing to throw together a bunch of sterile rendered 3d objects and call it a "room", as a lot of games do today... It is another to simulate the heartbeat of life that is present in a real building or city. A lot of the old Sierra games accomplished this by adding incredible amounts of 2D detail, passerbys who were very interactive, and allowing you to interact with objects in the environment even in impossible ways.

My favorites are the old Quest for Glory games, a parody of the traditional medieval hero rpg. They had a lot of humor intended for all ages. Everytime I played, I discovered new humor and inside references to popular media from all times (from Marx Brothers to Casablanca to old time 40s and 50s movie theaters). There were real phrases of Arabic (from the desert lands) and classical references to mythology and mythological creatures. You could also play as thief, wizard, or sword swingin' hero, each solving puzzles in a different way.

In a way, many hours of QFG kind of shaped who I am. It taught me to persevere and not give up, that over time your skills will be refined and you will achieve your goal. It also taught me that sometimes there is no easy answer to hard ethical questions, you just gotta do what you gotta do and take the good with the bad. Yeah, lots of cliches. But also, although I was young, the cultural references made me want to explore the world and read about the fantastic monsters I had seen in the game. The game made me want to be a hero.

But anyways, IMHO, gaming experiences are only as empty as the participants and the authors make them. Well done, smart games can be almost like good books, expanding the imagination of a young player. Bad games are an anathema to thinking, and encourage passivity. Good games don't make you want to escape the world, they make you want to embrace it.

-- Aeryth

Genesis

2004-06-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, time to get the official statement of purpose and introduction out of the way.

My pseudonym is Aeryth. I am a software engineer. My favorite author is Douglas Coupland.

If I was a Jeopardy category, I would be 1980s Vintage Microcomputer Trivia. Ok, maybe Obscure Early Internet History too...

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a geneticist. I thought it would be fun to manipulate genetic code to change how ordinary things look (peaches with real hair!). I settled for working with computer code and manipulating data instead.

I have 4 Macs at home for fun and code on a PC at work (a polyglot, I know C/C++, Java, VB, and all sorts of stuff).

I am a small, white female with ghostly pale skin, big eyes, and brown-blonde hair.

I have a secret life pursuing a nursing degree (few know I plan to retire as an engineer soon).

I hate being called a hacker, geek, etc. and tell people so to their face.

My blog is intended simply for recording random thoughts. Maybe something beautiful will come out of the randomness, like a Mandelbrot fractal in prose.

-- Aeryth