Where Was I?

When last we heard from our intrepid hero he was about to go see the doctor about a ganglion cyst on his wrist That was way too early Tuesday morning. Saw the doctor, though the cyst had magically reduced itself down to smaller than when I had first noticed it about a month ago. He suggested aspirating it, which he did. With a moderately long needle. It didn't hurt before I went to the doc, now it does. Poking a hole usually does that.

That was all done in 10 minutes, which left me the rest of the day with nothing to do. One of the things on my circular enabling device list was to upgrade to a faster netbook, assuming I could find one for about the same $ as the last one. Did some browsing online with the Samsung I already had, and found several which met the criteria. But talk about pears and turnips! About the only thing they all had in common was 1GB of RAM. I needed 2GB, but that's easy enough to buy and install myself, I figured. It's what I did for the last 2 netbooks. Narrowed it down to the latest Samsung, a Toshiba and an Asus. The models I was looking at all had the same processor and more than enough HDD space, and 802.11N wireless. The Toshiba used DDR2 memory the other two use DDR3. But the Toshiba's bus is 30% faster than the other two.

Browsing the web, the price was the same (or within $10) anywhere, and all the retail stores were offering an upgrade from Win7 start to home premium for $20, so I checked for availability and the huge Best Buy in East Palo Alto had them, so I headed there. I played with all three for a bit, liked the Toshiba best. Very sharp display, good battery life, fast, and has a cobalt blue top.

So most of yesterday was spent setting it up, transferring all the files from the Samsung (did that at home over the N wireless network with Win7 Easy Transfer) and installing software. This is being written on it.

After the transfer, I opened up both memory panels and swapped. They both use the same DDR2 RAM, so now the Toshiba has 2GB and the Samsung has 1GB. Too easy.

After installing MS Office, I was amazed to see Outlook had retained all my email info after the transfer. Major WIN. 

Cardio

Which brings us to today. Alarm went off at 5:30 am, because the instructions from the cardiologist said finish breakfast by 6:30. Breakfast was mandatory, it needed to be light, and without protein, fats or caffeine. They said oatmeal would be fine, so that's what I had. The appointment was not until 8:20, so I had plenty of time, but LJ was down so I played on FB and watched CNN & MSNBC until the attack journalism made me ill. When you bring an expert into the studio, trying to get him/her/it to make rash, sensational, unfounded statements which have no basis in fact is not the way to run a newsroom.

Everyone is focusing on the nuke plant in Japan, but the real story is elsewhere. Here is email I received this morning from a friend in Tokyo:

Yes, "gaman".  
 
I have returned to Tokyo yesterday.  Transportation system was smooth.  The sight from the train was darker than usual. 
Because of Fukushima, we have water problem.  It is risky to use tap water.  Water is sold out at every supermarket I went to.  So my mom in Kyushu prepares for water for me I hope, I cannot believe this situation.  But you know, this situation is much better than the suffered area. 
 
One of my friends and I talked about that this crisis could change most people's thoughts and values.  How hard people worked and earned profits, disaster destroys them includes people's lives in a moment.  We have to think what is most important.  So then we should have fun by just doing what we want to.  This idea sounds lazy though. 
 
I will get back to work tomorrow :(  It was two weeks that I am out of office.   (Stay-home for over one week was company's direction)

Off to the doctor, it was all nurses and PAs this time. First stop was radiology ( cut for medical TMI )

So now I am in the Mary Ave Starbucks, which is the nearest one not in Mountain View, seeing what the Toshiba's battery life really is. Definitely not as good as the Samsung - but I'd bought an extended life battery for that. Been here for 3 hours, I'm down to 40% battery. So not the 6 hours they advertise. But more than I would normally have the box on without power.

There has been a lot of eye candy, but also lots of pre-schoolers. Unlike my local branch, mommies here are staying just long enough for the kids to have a little treat, it isn't the day care center my local one can become.

The sun is out, it's almost warm outside, I should get some Vitamin D.

Two Projects Done

Did not buy any frozen foods when I was at Lucky's picking up bread & fruit, because the freezer part of the fridge looked jam packed last time I peeked. Wanted to finish off the crab which meant I may as well pull everything out of the freezer, reorganize it, and put it back in some semblance of order. Was surprised to find more raw chicken, steak and parsnips than I remembered, and a whole huge bag of frozen veggies I didn't know I had. Now everything is nice and neat and easy to find, the crab has been et, as well as the half-full container of chicken soup (there are still 5 full ones plus 2 Tom Ka Gai - Thai coconut chicken soup). Freed up another container which was half filled with cooked wok-able beef chunks, which I mixed with a bag of caramelized onions. Only ate 2/3 of that, bagged the rest for the fridge. Domino loved the bits of beef I broke off for her.

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Updated my Outlook calendar and a doc that I keep on the iPhone with all the data for my upcoming Reno trip.  That took a lot more time than it sounds.

Plans for tomorrow:
Deposit unemployment check
Ranch 99 - buy a better wok, and get crab eating utensils.
Buy a ream of printer paper
Carousel curtain time is 8 pm - have to be there by 7:30. I am pissed that light rail circumcised its schedule, and no longer has a train running after the show is over, so I have to drive. Traffic between Mountain View and San Jose is a nightmare between 5 and 7:30.  Maybe I'll go around 2 pm and visit the Tech.