Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Finish this sentence: location, location . . .
We looked at real estate in the Seattle area today, and Jake radiated disappointment in great, mighty waves. How dare they charge this much for this little? seemed to be his feeling. Problem is, we visited the Olympia area first, and of course you get more for your dollar there. A lot more. Twice as much, seems like.
So, no, we didn’t see any homes we fell in love with, not that it would make a difference; no matter where I go, it’ll be a few months before we’re ready to buy. CREDENTIALING! Hospitals don’t give just any shmoe privileges. Well, sometimes they do (hey, Leann, you reading this?) But even when they do, they still have to go through the credentialing process, and that takes time.
Back to the homes. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have the agent drive us around the various neighborhoods, but by the second hour of this (in the back seat of her Beamer — and why exactly did I go into medicine instead of real estate sales?) I felt sick. Perhaps I wasn’t in the best mood to look at homes.
Deep down, I agree with Jake. I understand the location3 rule on an intellectual level, but my gut still isn’t down with it. I should be less of an idjit about this, though. After all, if our present home weren’t on the ocean, it would be worth about $39.95.
D.
PS: Here’s where we ate tonight. Mmmmmm.
Sentiment
Bloggin’ on the Blackberry tonight, so this will have to be a short one.
Driving to my interview this morning, I remembered something I hadn’t thought of in years. The hospital’s impressive size jarred the memory; that,and the inevitable comparison to my little 44-bed (or whatever) hospital.
We had just moved to Crescent City a scant few weeks before, and Jake had just had his third birthday. While walking with me through our hospital’s foyer, he said, “I like your hospital, Daddy. It’s very nice.”
I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it choked me up a bit to think of it. “My” hospital. There’s such innocence there, and such sweetness in the sentiment.
We had dinner with my friend Stan last night, as I’ve mentioned. His baby girl took a shine to me and insisted I spoon-feed her her dinner. I haven’t done that in a long, long time. So maybe that’s on my mind; maybe I’m remembering Jake at that age; maybe I’m thinking about how much he has changed in the last nine or ten years.
It seems like such a long time . . . and it has gone by way too fast.
D.
Wish me luck
Interview #1 is tomorrow (Wednesday). Today, we looked at real estate & saw some amazing homes. Then we caught up with our friend Stan and his new baby girl, Jayna, and ate at a great Chinese restaurant (Shanghai Garden).
Over dinner, Stan said, “You have nothing to worry about. The most difficult question they’re going to ask you tomorrow is, ‘What happened to your hair? What is that, chemo or something?'”
I love my friends 🙂
D.
Monday Evening Snippet
I’m exhausted from traveling, so I’m gonna pull a fast one on you. A really fast one. I’m posting a short excerpt from my WiP, She Came From Earth.
Here’s what you need to know: Lisa and her baby brother Billy Ray have been abducted by an extraterrestrial cyborg Brad Pitt. She’s not sure what they want with her, but she’s figured out why they want Billy Ray: extraterrestrial cyborg Angelina Jolie wants to adopt a real human baby!
Meanwhile, extraterrestrial cyborg Steven Spielberg is busy directing a rip-off of Lost and he’s keeping Lisa nearby because all the cyborg actors want to steal glances at the Real Human Girl.
Lisa’s has had just about enough of all these extraterrestrial cyborg pseudo-Hollywood types, but she’s held captive by two burly Roon Vissars named Rolf and Kevin. Roon Vissars are . . . well, you’ll figure it out.
And not even a good fake
What’s wrong with this picture?
Write your answers in the form of questions and cue appropriate music. My question below the fold . . .
Dig the frog
Sighted this morning, perched atop our algae-overgrown tub “pond”:
My best guess, this is Rana aurora, the Northern Red-legged Frog, indigenous to Del Norte and Curry Counties. I saw two of them this morning, but the smaller of the two was camera shy. Nothing could perturb this big fellow.
The call doesn’t sound familiar, though . . . and that means we have another species lurking about. Probably several.
***
We are NOT in transit to Seattle. Karen had some severe abdominal pain last night, so we spent the evening at our friendly neighborhood ER. Nothing serious, she’s fine, but we decided to scrub our Saturday departure date until she felt better. Current plan is to depart Monday morning. Since my first interview is Wednesday, we still have some wiggle room.
***
Coasting on 2.5 hours of sleep, I have this overwhelming desire to do nothing but veg out playing some old computer game — Civilization III, perhaps, or Diablo III. Both of those games are mindless and endlessly replayable. I never could get my head around Civ IV; Leonard Nimoy’s voice-overs were fun, but the slow, tedious, and bloodless gameplay made Civ IV a yawn-fest. Someone decided to make military conquest nearly impossible in that game. Not my idea of escapist fun.
***
A patient’s husband picked up my tab for breakfast this morning. That’s never happened to me before.
I liked it.
Live blogging tonight? Maybe, if I’m not too sleepy.
D.
The meta post
Wear a shirt like this,
and it’s inevitable you’ll meet someone who has never heard of blogs or blogging*. “It’s like a diary,” I said, “except it’s out there for all the world to see.”
He wanted to know the URL. Who knows, he could be lurking here even now.
***
Note fly zapper in the background. I may be kinda sorta almost vegan these days, but that doesn’t prevent me from taking pleasure in the sudden death of flies. So unBuddhist of me.
***
We’re traveling tomorrow. Thank heavens we’ll be leaving this heatwave behind us —
Doh!
D.
*If you can’t read it, the shirt sez, “I’m blogging this.”
I never talked like that.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Hollywood has decided that scientists are, um . . . funny?
Science with a laugh track: The Big Bang Theory. More here.
D.
Covers redux: Mama Told Me Not to Come
The radio is blastin’
Someone’s knocking at the door
I’m lookin’ at my girlfriend
She’s passed out on the floorI seen so many things
I ain’t never seen before
Don’t know what it is
I don’t wanna see no more— from Mama Told Me Not to Come, by Randy Newman
My first reaction: Randy ‘Don’t Want No Short People’ Newman wrote this song? Are you kidding me? But it’s true. Newman was about 24 when he wrote it. According to Wikipedia, the song satirizes the late 1960s Los Angeles music scene. But then, Wikipedia also claims “(t)he song is loaded with the black humor, sarcasm, and double entendre that made Newman famous.”
Meh. I don’t see it.
YouTube has a number of the song’s covers. I can’t find the original by Eric Burdon & The Animals, but they have the Three Dog Night version, of course. Too white trashy for my taste. I prefer the funkier version cut by Wolfgang Press, but damn it, I can’t find that on YouTube, either. (You can hear a tiny bit of it here, at Amazon. Track 3.) Harmony’s cover doesn’t veer much from Three Dog Night’s, but dig those striped pants. The Slacker’s cover is just plain lame.
You know who has the best feel for the song? Don’t laugh. Please.
Tom Jones.
This dude keeps impressing me.
D.
Layers
Today was bloody hot here in south coastal Oregon: 86F, a high for the state. Of the three positions I’m evaluating, Wunderground sez:
Santa Rosa, CA: 89F
Olympia, WA: 63F
Seattle, WA: 63F
If we decide in favor of Washington, weather will be a huge consideration.
Next week, I’ll be going to my interviews in Olympia and Seattle. I was freaking out earlier today about clothing. What should I wear? My nurse anesthetist, whom I used as a reference, told me they asked him all the usual questions (does his head explode on a regular basis; have you ever seen him kill a man with his bare hands — you know, stuff) and they also asked, “Does he dress appropriately to work?”
“I don’t know,” Bill said. “I only ever see him scrubs.”
Which is, if you think about it, the right answer from your nurse anesthetist. But it got me thinking: do they care about clothing that much? My God, what should I wear?!
I left a message with the recruiter. He called me back a little while ago and told me to err on the side of conservatism. If I were an orthopedic surgeon, I could show up in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and they would still want me; ENTs are in demand, but not so rare that I could get away with that sort of nonsense. Suit and tie, he recommended.
So I scrambled to find my suit. I recalled the coat being in good shape, the pants not-so-good, and I was right. These pants are so thirty pounds ago. When I put them on, I look like a balloon animal that’s been squeezed in the middle.
“You HAVE ANOTHER SUIT,” Karen said. I insisted I didn’t. She insisted I did.
She was right, of course.
By now, I had stripped down to my briefs. I pulled on the pants (which are tight, but not nearly as constricting as the other suit pants), put on the coat, and buttoned the top button, creating a plunging V which showed off my salt-and-pepper chest fur.
“Take a picture of me,” I said to Karen. “This looks good enough to blog.”
“I don’t get you. You’re freaking out over what to wear, but you’ll put an absolutely humiliating picture of yourself up on the blog.”
“I’m a man of many layers.” Which is true, but I suppose the CEOs of the hospitals who might hire me should find that out in small doses. “Anyway, what I really need is a white suit.”
“A white suit. Uh-huh.”
“And a pastel tee-shirt.”
“I see.”
“No. You don’t.”
They would have to hire me.
D.