Cranky-D

83% Geek

Created by OnePlusYou

I’m a little disappointed that I couldn’t do better. I mean, I have a piled higher and deeper in geek, for frel’s sake.

There is a petaflop supercomputer currently running at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Awesome!

There is at least one supercomputer being built in the U.S. at any given time; at least, I’m pretty sure of this, since that was what was happening when I was an intern at one of the National Labs. It seems like there is a trade between Labs with respect to who gets the next one. A supercomputer requires special facilities that include enough cooling ability (the new petaflop computer needs 3 Megawatts of power to run it, and that means a lot of heat is generated) and also the required security. This can take a while to build, and of course the computer itself takes a while to build.

These supercomputers are used for simulations of a classified nature, and when they are operating the room is closed of to those who don’t possess the required security clearance. The simulations allow for scientists to understand, for instance, what happens to nuclear weapons as they age without actually having to set samples of them off.

The fact that these supercomputers exist allowed the U.S. to agree to not doing any live testing since they make testing pretty much unnecessary. They probably have other uses but I prefer not to speculate about things not publicly admitted to; I did not have the clearance so I don’t know and even if I did I would say nothing. Some secrets exist for a reason.

The older supercomputers to not go to waste by any means. They can be used for less intensive computations. Also, at the facility I visited they had set aside a portion of the older supercomputer for anyone’s use. That was pretty much the only time I did any parallel programming.

By the way, apparently Bush was behind the initiative to get the U.S. back in the supercomputer business and currently we have the fastest ones on the planet. I don’t agree with a lot of his domestic policies, but this one was a good one. The U.S. is about high-tech, and we need to keep up on that front, lest we become a country that only exports entertainment. That would not be a good thing.

Link found in the sidebar at ace of spades hq

Orson Scott Card has an essay about Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I recommend you read the essay whether or not you have any interest in seeing the movie, as Card makes some very good and well-reasoned points.

I have not seen the movie yet, but the main point is that the scientific community has become somewhat closed to new ideas. In this case, Stein was seeing what the results were for trying to get Intelligent Design (ID) taught in school. ID is a theory that there is ultimately a Watchmaker, as it were, responsible for the creation of life. I agree with Card that it does not belong in school as part of a science curriculum, since it is not a scientific theory. It cannot be proven or disproven, and there is no overt evidence pointing to a Watchmaker. The fact that I believe in G-d does not mean that I think G-d belongs in science education.

Perhaps Stein was ill-served by choosing ID as his point of contention, since it creates a lot of problems on its face. I think using anthropogenic global warming would have been a better choice, since the academy is almost as closed to any arguments against the AGW religion. Still, the point of the movie was apparently more about violating any of the established barriers to other ideas than trying to push ID.

Science can only survive as long as inquiry can continue. If anyone states any scientific result as being “settled,” or that there is a “concensus,” avoid that person because they are not talking about science any more, they are talking about dogma. Science is most certainly not about concensus, it is about forming a hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis with repeatable experiments.

If they perform experiments but will not share their data, they are probably promoting an agenda. In cases where the data cannot be shared due to privacy concerns, they had better prove their model on data that can be shared. Otherwise, the results remain suspect.

Scientific inquiry must remain open to new ideas, or else we will miss too many things. No one should be afraid to examine an idea just because it goes against what they believe. If no one is willing to do that, nothing new will ever be discovered.

Updated: Pretty much re-written on April 27

This election season has brought with it the most blatant example of identity politics I can remember seeing. This is mostly due to the fact that the Democratic candidates, Hilary and Barack, are very busy playing the victim and race cards, respectively, whenever they get in a jam of some kind. The difficult situations they manage to get into are usually the result of their own political ineptitude, which I assume is tied to a belief that the press will give them an easy time when they make a mistake, like they did in the past. However, because the media are also divided on which candidate they support, much of it does not get ignored for very long, and if it does get ignored we have the online masses who are willing to lay on a beat-down as appropriate. The media and the liberals are starting to see that the Clintons are serial liars. Many are also realizing that Obama is pretty much an empty suit, spreading the idea of hopey-changiness wherever he goes while remaining something of a cypher on substance when he isn’t outright reversing himself on policy positions he supposedly held dear not that long ago. Some pundits have been calling fellow Democrats racists or misogynists when they don’t want to vote for their indentity candidate of choice.

The schadenfreude can be very tasty.

Right now the utility of all this beyond the entertainment value is minimal, and I am tired of the whole thing. However, it isn’t going away soon, and I see an opportunity to show the average citizen, who cares little for politics, just how ridiculous and destructive identity politics can be. Therefore, I want this behavior to continue right up to the general election, when a lot more people will be paying attention. The only way this can happen now is for McCain to nominate a black man or woman as his vice-presidential candidate.

On the surface, I hope you find the idea of playing identity politics right back at them distasteful. You should. However, there are probably enough qualified candidates that I think McCain could make a good, sound choice of running mate such that the person is appropriate for the position and, oh, by the way, happens to be black. I want the candidate to be a solid conservative, so someone like Condoleeza Rice or Colin Powell are right out. I would be thinking a Michael Steele or J.C. Watts here, and I’m sure others have their favorites. A conservative candidate should also help to bring some of the base back to McCain, which is how I would argue it to him (of course, he may not care about that).

The nominee must look as qualified on paper as anyone else, and be more qualified than Obama. This is necessary because the very first salvo would include the charge that the nominee was chosen because he or she is black (ironic but completely expected), and the response must be to show that the nominee is as good a choice as any, and certainly as good as the one the Dems have put forth. The technique should be effective even if Hillary somehow gets the nomination, since Barack will not be forgotten soon even if he gets shunted aside, and Hillary’s qualifications are mostly hinged on being the wife of a former president.

Since a black Republican by definition has left the progressive identity plantation, expect the calls of “Uncle Tom” or the more vulgar “House N..r” to soon follow. The pivot point will be that somehow the Democrat’s black guy is intrinsically better than the Republican’s black guy, and that therefore the charges of racism for not voting for Barack (they will be everywhere) will somehow be justified in sticking in some unhinged minds, even though people would be choosing between pairs of candidates which both include black men. Those deep in the identity politics dungeon can twist their internal logic to follow this kind of reasoning, but most people cannot.

While “Uncle Tom” type charges have been used before with respect to Powell and Rice, they have generally been confined to editorial cartoons and the like, which most people never see. I think this time those patently racist slurs would be much more likely to end up out in the open. I want the light to shine on this stuff, so at least some people will see more clearly that automatically placing everyone into identity groups is an ignorant thing to do. I have no idea how many people would pay attention, but I think some would.

It isn’t likely we’ll have another chance like this any time soon to show identity politics in its truest form. I would like to see McCain take it. That way perhaps something positive could come out of this election.

Obama:

“It’s not surprising then that they [Pennsylvanians] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Ace responds:

The trouble is, those stupid Bible-thumpin’, shotgun-pumpin’, outhouse-dumpin’, sibling-humpin’ morons [in Indiana and North Carolina] don’t realize yet that Obama was talking about them too, and I’m not sure how to inform these degenerate inbred racist cannibals of that.

I don’t speak their language of grunts, backwoods mumble, genital-itching, and racist spree-killings.

How do I reach them?

If only they could read English, or any language, apart from the crude pictographs of elk-hunting and gang-raping they inscribe on the walls of their bone-littered and Bedazzler-studded caves.

The real reason I posted this is so that I would have my own copy of that great string of words.

However, the fact is that this kind of condescending attitude is exactly what I would expect from any Democrat presidential candidate. They have demonstrated it time and time again. They claim to have the solid cultural and religious values that typify America, but then demonstrate that their only G-d is expedience. They can change their morality as fast as a cuttlefish changes color. They also seem to think that the electorate has the brains of cuttlefish as well.

Look, I am often an intellectual snob, and if you hang around me long enough you’ll see it. However, I also have know some great people, like my late Uncle Don, who were great men and women worth listening to even though they never went to college or had any other kind of “official recognition” of their abilities. Where someone lives and what they do for a living has nothing to do with how smart or well-informed they are. However, the left-liberal mindset would have you believe that this is not true.

The thing is, I really don’t care if a presidential candidate is an elitist. I would vote for an elitist, as long as that person held enough positions close to my own and was going to pretty much take us in the direction I want to go (and more important, not take us in a wrong direction). What I really don’t like is someone who pretends to be and average joe or jane when they are nothing of the kind. You cannot eat a Philly cheese steak sandwich or bowl a bad game or whatever and have that somehow give you street cred with me. I doubt it gets you anywhere with anyone.

Presidential candidates all: no voter thinks you’re one of them, because we know you’re not. Quit pretending otherwise.

I ran into this and this a few months ago, but never got around to pointing to them. They are both from the same author, and are definitely worth reading. High thee hence, or something like that.

Read this. Read it and wonder. Read it and take heed.

I wrote a little blurb about the direct to disk movie over at Protein Wisdom. There are also plenty of old posts over there whose linkiness changed at some time, so they are no longer linked properly in my archives, but you can find them, if you’re interested, by searching on my handle, “cranky-d.”

Basically, my day consists of reading blogs, watching some teevee, playing RPGs on various Game Boy incarnations, and writing code (the last one is what pays the bills). Mostly it’s writing code and reading blogs, but some days, like today, it is more reading blogs and writing code.

Anyway, I bought a DS a while ago, and I finally started using it last week after I completed yet another run-through of Dragon Warrior III. Right now I’m playing Final Fantasy III. It’s an amusing little RPG. I find myself using the touch screen a lot, since the game kind of encourages it. So the screen is smudged and will likely remain so for some time. I have no idea how long the screen protectors are supposed to last, but you definitely need them. I have seen no reason to use the stylus so it’s just naked oily fingers instead.

What’s sort of funny is that I have started about four or five final fantasy variations and have yet to play one to completion. This has more to do with what interests me about the genre than me not being able to finish anything. Once you’ve done all the pre-requisites, the only thing left is to level up enough to tromp the last “boss” and win. I only finished DWIII this last time because I thought there was supposed to be more coming afterwards. I guess I took a wrong path or something. However, I played DW I-IV on the 8-bit system and finished them all many times so I already know what happens. Obviously I get replay value from the series.

FFIII is probably not supposed to be a complete level grinder but sometimes that’s how I play these things. Today I had to go to the laundry, so I used that time to grind away to increase the stats. Oddly enough, I have never played D&D, and I have only played a smattering of computer-based RPGs; that probably puts me in a minority among my peers. I’m still considering moving on to WoW. I would probably like it, and when I bought the laptop I’m using to write this I made sure it could play WoW just in case, but it seems that I don’t have the time since I waste too much of it doing other stuff.

If that’s wasting it. I’m not sure.

Anyway, if you like RPGs you could do worse than get a DS. The graphics are pretty nice, the screen is bright, the unit is small but is still okay for adult hands, and it plays GB advantage games as well so there’s a catalog of games you can play. Plus, there are walkthroughs on the tubes if you get stuck, and the ones I’ve seen are usually pretty good. I have found that ebay is a good source for older games, but I tend to buy new if I can because then I know that the cartridge hasn’t been in and out of the unit a lot of times. There are a few titles out on the DS right now, and it looks like Dragon Quest IV will be released in the US fairly soon (DQ IV is the same as DWIV which was on the 8-bit NES); someone has already discovered that the chip released in Japan has an English translation already on it. I’m hoping they follow with DQV and DQVI, which I have never played but look forward to. They are definitely going to be released in Japan, but I’m not enough of a fanboy to deal with a Japanese-only version of the game.

I still have DQVII and DQVIII to play on the still-unused PS2. Maybe when I get back home “for good.” Somehow I think I’ll still be here in S0-Cal a lot more than I was before. Such is life, I guess.

So. My sister is working for H&R block this tax season. She wanted to look at what her schedule would be this weekend, and it didn’t show up properly in firefox. We’ve all seen sites like that, and we all know the solution. Use explorer.

Of course, explorer wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Instead, MSN explorer was parked in its slot, and it wanted to set me up with a new email account and stuff like that. Bye. I had to dig through the menus to find explorer, which I consider odd since we’re talking about the dark empire here. Still, this is on XP Home, which is a sub-optimal O.S. in my opinion. Don’t even attempt to “repair” the dlls if you know what’s good for you. Trust me. I did it once, and it was such a disaster I wondered if I could get the machine working again. I haven’t touched it since.

The amazing part was, my sister had no idea how to type a URL in. Seriously. She apparently uses google all the time to find things, and then pulls the URL out of the list google presents you. The whole process of typing “myblock.com” in the topmost bar was shocking to her. Even though I just showed her you can do that, I’ll bet it never happens again.

What’s really scary is she is actually pretty intelligent. One wonders what the stupid people do. Bang on the keys and hope for the best, or only go to sites that are in the browser history, I guess.

Yesterday marked the end of winter for me. I left the upper Midwest and flew to my father’s house in Southern California. I won’t be returning until the end of March, and by that time I doubt there will be any sub-zero temperatures. On the other hand, right now it is wet and rainy and I think it’s in the mid 40s out there. Yikes. Still, compared to what I left this isn’t too bad, and I know it will get better again very soon.

When I got here, I found out that the cat had finally gone to kitty heaven. When I left 10 days ago, she was not doing all that well and couldn’t use her back legs. That had been an ongoing problem that seemed to be helped with steroids, but they had finally stopped working. She had finally let me touch her to help her on and off the bed, since she couldn’t jump up on it any more. As it turned out she had cancer in her spine. I don’t know all the details, but my dad footed the bill for the MRI and an operation that was not successful. We are pretty sure the cat was about 23 years old or so. She had survived many challenges, but this one was too much. My sister has yet to pick up her ashes.

My father is slowly getting better; he is the reason I’m here in the first place, of course. With me here my sister can go to work, and in general it takes some of the load off of her since she can also go places without worrying about what might be happening. I’m fairly content to not go anywhere. It’s enough to just try to get a useful amount of work done so my employer doesn’t regret hiring me.

I was only home for 10 days this past break, and I spent a lot of time catching up on stuff there. It was more of a vacation being there than being here. Since the beginning of December, I’ve only been home for 20 days total. I decided to make this trip longer since I don’t have anything planned back home, as I did for New Year’s and for a blues concert during my last stay.

Only today, my father decided it was time to open his Christmas gifts. I took them to him in the hospital on Christmas day, but he wanted nothing to do with it. I can understand that. There were only a few items; we have long since stopped exchanging presents, since it usually turned out to be all of us exchanging lists and buying stuff on the list. I suggested that we could all buy the stuff ourselves and cut out the middleman. I guess I’m not particularly sentimental. I still send money for the kids gifts, since they have no way of buying things themselves.

That’s life, such as it is. Boring, really. Lately, that’s a good thing.

I just got home from my Monday night outing. I was approached by a young man at one of the train stations, asking me for money. I told him I wouldn’t give him any. He said something to the effect of, “You better make sure I’m not on the station where you get off.” Well, that pushed me over the edge just a tad. I approached him on the platform to let him know I wasn’t afraid. I entered the train in the exact same door he did. I told him that if he wanted things that way I would accomodate him. He apparently backed off, because he did not get off at my stop. My best friend, who I didnt’ think would get involved in my stupidity, let this guy know that there would be trouble. I really appreciated that.

I don’t like confrontations, but I know how this shit turns out. I was immediately in his face, but I gave him an out. I said that he could just walk away from it and that would be that. He did not get off the train when I did. Smart thinking on his part.

Maybe I’m wrong. I can understand if I am. However, this man threatened me. He thought he could get away with it. He didn’t. I won’t let that happen. Ever. Even though right now, my right arm is almost useless and could hardly back me in a fight. The nerve ending that fires the right shoulder muscle is dead, and I await its re-growth. And still, I wouldn’t be sorry to have taken that shit on.

I cannot figure out what’s wrong with boys/men these days. I think they don’t have fathers to teach them how to be men. I really wish I could help them. On the other hand, I don’t care much for the average person, so who cares?

Update: I wasn’t clear. The boy in question was white. The one man other than the rest who got how things were and talked with me about it was black. Just so you know.

Last weekend sucked ass. The two football teams I wanted to win their division championships lost. Sure, the Chargers didn’t really have much of a chance, but the Packers should’ve been able to pull it off. Also, the only presidential candidate that actually got me a little fired up, Fred Thompson, tanked in the primary and decided to pull out of the whole thing a few days later. I’m not sure if this means I’m some kind of jinx, but apparently if you want to win a contest it is best to not curry my favor. In fact, since the candidates I like the least, McCain and Huckabee, are still hanging in there, with McCain the supposed front-runner if you squint while viewing reality through MSM-colored glasses, currying my disfavor may indeed be a way to succeed.

In the mean time, one of the nurses that comes to change the weird foam vacuum pump wound-closing thingy on his chest drives me nuts. She is a nag and she has the proper nasally nagging voice to go with it. Every time she tells my father that he has to wear shoes around the house because he doesn’t have feeling in his feet (type 2 diabetes). And every time he does not wear shoes. You would think by now she would figure out that he isn’t going to wear the shoes, and leave it the heck alone. The other nurses who come to change that foam thingy are pleasant and do their thing. This nurse is also always asking about what he’s eating and if I hear about “carbs” one more time when it isn’t referring to something that sits on top of an internal-combustion engine I might wig out.

I hate nagging. My mom was a nag. Drove me nuts. One of the myriad of reasons I am not married, beyond my incredible lack of social skills, is that I know somehow I would end up with a nag for a wife and no basement to call my own to hide in. And that would be much worse than the way things are now.

Yes, I know, I lack focus. Deal with it.

McGehee, a regular commenter at protein wisdom, has announced the formation of a new political party, the Get Offa My Lawn Party. With the end of Fred Thompson’s campaign, I feel there is no alternative but to join the GOMLP.

A sample of the party platform:

You want to tax me for the bribes you’re offering people to vote for you? GET OFFA MY LAWN!

I also wish to add, “And you kids, pull up your damn pants!”

The last I said anything my father was still in the hospital. Now he is home.

Dad:

I spent from December 2 to December 29 at his home in Southern California. He was supposed to be home during that time, but events didn’t work out that way. So, instead, I stayed at his place and visited him in the hospital every day. Most of the time that month he was in some kind of trouble. One complication after another, and the pain relief wasn’t enough in my opinion. Eventually they seemed to stop screwing up, and he was able to slowly start getting back on his feet. Then the problem became him being really weak from being in bed too long, and not getting enough exercise. Since they didn’t want him to get up on his own, he was kind of stuck. The hospital he was in had a special rehab floor he was on during the latter part of the month. When I left, that’s where he was.

Some of the time I was actually able to get work done, since wherever my laptop goes I can do some coding. I didn’t get fired, at any rate.

Me:

I was back home in the upper midwest from December 29 to January 8.

I had what has become my typical New Year’s thing, with a twist. I had dinner at my monday night haunt (a college bar I starting going to in grad school), hot wings and beer, and then drinkies at my friday night haunt downtown. Nothing special, but I was not disappointed either. The night ended with me having a nasty pain, probably a muscle pull of some kind that seems to hit randomly as I get older. While at the time death would have been a release, and I thought it might be time to call the ambulance, it got better as soon as I could lie down. A few hours later it was gone, and hasn’t showed its face since.

Otherwise, I did some of that household stuff that always needs doing, emptied the mouse trap of one dead undesired roommate, found that both full pistachio bags had been found and chewed open with the contents otherwise untouched, paid the bills, etc. It was weird, because this trip seemed more like a vacation than going home. I had already bought tickets to return to Southern California under the assumption that this time my father would be out of the hospital. The idea was for me to be there so my sister could go to work. I can work anywhere.

Dad:

My father finally got out of the hospital on January 7th. I arrived in Southern California on the evening of January 8th. Going from the mid 20s to the low 60s did not hurt my mood, though the flight was not a lot of fun. I was in the middle seat and couldn’t read because there wasn’t enough room for me to hold the book properly. Therefore I played “Dragon Warrior II” on my advance SP. It helped to pass the time.

He was pretty weak, and would not eat very much. We have had a parade of nurses and therapists going through. The nurse comes three times per week to change the sponge and tube on this vacuum pump thing that is helping a chest wound close faster. The physical and occupational therapists seem to both do exercises, so I really cannot tell what the difference is. I know intellectually, but in practice the difference is slim.

He is getting stronger slowly. We gave him a break the first week home, but this week we make him do exercises on the days the therapists don’t come. He is finally starting to eat more, though he isn’t gaining any weight. He lost about 30 pounds in the hospital, though some of it was probably a good thing. He could probably stand to eat more still. His diet has been more restricted for some reason I cannot fathom. I would think that he could just go back to eating like he wants to. He is 81. The fact that he survived this whole thing is a miracle. That second surgery he had almost killed him. It certainly left him in horrible shape. And now he cannot even get some reward for going through with the bypass and the consequent crap.

Later this afternoon I will take him for a walk. Before the surgery he could go all the way around the large loop his house is on. We’ll be lucky to do a third of that distance. And he will probably be annoyed with me for making him go.

Me:

In the mean time, I managed to damage a nerve in my shoulder. I got my arm in a bad position without realizing it (alcohol was involved) and stayed that way too long. The mid deltoid in my right shoulder will not fire, so I cannot lift my arm very high. Otherwise it works fine, I can type and stuff and moving it with my other hand doesn’t cause any pain. There are times I have to use my left hand for stuff I normally use my right hand for, but I’m ambidextrous so that isn’t a huge problem.

I have had this kind of thing happen before; after a surgery in 1990 in which they tied me to a board with my arms outstretched (the last thing I remember before the amnesia took hold) the bicep in my right arm didn’t work. I went through an MRI and a bunch of other diagnosis, and they told me, “Yeah, you have some nerve damage. The nerves will grow back in time.” They told me 6 months, and I know it got better much sooner than that though I cannot remember how long it took. One day it simply started working again. So this time I have not gone to a doctor, since they will very likely tell me the same thing. Also, my deductable is over $2K and I cannot see spending the money for a diagnosis I probably already know. The muscles in my neck (which was already a problem the day I flew in) and shoulder and arm hurt a bit, especially after sleeping all night on that shoulder (it is worse sleeping on the other side, and i cannot sleep on my back), but that is getting better every day. I take Ibuprofen for that, and stopped drinking any alcohol as a result to avoid interaction problems.

I may change my mind and go to a doctor when I get back home. My flight leaves on February 2. I have not scheduled another flight to So-Cal yet. I would not be surprised if I end up coming back here. If I’m here for the bulk of February and March, I will entirely miss the worst of winter. One plus in this whole mess.

I received a domain renewal notice way back in August, and I thought I had renewed properly. However, last week my domain expired. I was kind of surprised as there was a placeholder domain there instead. For a moment I thought someone else had taken my domain, which I thought odd as I cannot see why anyone else would want it. Looking closer, it appeared to be an automatically generated page that tried to guess content from the URL. So, briefly, this domain contained links for bicycle parts.

I tried to renew Friday night, but it took until today for them to finally get off their butts and process it. For those few days I was annoyed that I couldn’t get to my site, though I rarely update.

Boring, yes, to all but me. I wonder if anyone else noticed it was gone for that short while.

Lately I have totally gone insane with geekiness. I bought a gamecube, ps2, advance sp, and a ds. I already had a regular advance, but the last time I went back to Southern California I bought the SP because I hated the incredibly dim screen on the advance. At first I thought that was a bad move, but as it turned out, the DS will not play game boy games and I have a lot of game boy games.

The DS is the latest purchase. It just arrived today. The gamecube is cool because I also bought the adapter off ebay that plays gameboy games on it. The ps2 is there because I wanted to play all the final fantasy games and they are mostly exclusive to the ps2. I also got the grand theft auto 3-pack. So I went from pretty far behind in console land (8-bit nintendo and sega genisis) to one step behind the curve. One step behind means the consoles are pretty damn cheap to buy.

The DS has a nice bright screen. I think I’ll use it a lot. If not, so what? If I use it just a little while, that pays for it. Plus there are a lot of new role-playing titles that will only be on DS. For some reason I really like those kinds of games. I will replay them just for fun. I play all four Dragon Warrior games on the 8-bit nintendo when I had my surgeries so long ago. They really helped pass the time and make me forget about my body which was not doing very well at the time.

I haven’t been getting much sleep, since I’m worried about my father. I’m constantly tired. I hope that goes away eventually.

My father is still in the hospital. Last Monday they cut him open again because he had a blood clot that the cardiologist was worried about. Now we found out that it was associated with an infection. My father is still under some kind of drug that keeps you out of it, but he comes out often enough that we know he is aware somewhat of what’s going on. He is on antibiotics to get rid of the lingering infection.

When we started this whole thing, we were told that the chance of complications was around 2%. That sounded like pretty good odds. What has happened since then seems to indicate that the complications estimate was really low. I am very displeased with how things have been going.

I am going there this Sunday. Less than four days from now I will be close enough to see what’s really going on.

Here’s one of my problems. Perhaps the biggest one I have, even before any woman telling me what to do. And that problem is anyone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Never try to do that. I consider it an insult to my intelligence, and since I have a very high opinion of my own intellect, that is a major transgression. The doctors (priest-kings) think that what they say and do is gospel, and their priests (nurses) use appeals to authority to bolster their claims. This has been going on almost continuously since my father first started having problems the very night after his initial bypass surgery.

I got this same bullshit when I was in the hospital around 18 years ago. Actually, it was right around my 25th birthday. I had a surgeon who I didn’t know didn’t know what he was doing. He maneuvered me into his hospital so he could practice cutting on me. I know this because he screwed the surgery up and a year later I had to have another surgeon who really knew what he was doing fix the first guy’s mistake.

No, I didn’t sue. Perhaps I should have.

Anyway, I tend to not believe doctors all that much. In my opinion, they are technicians. They work totally in the realm of the law of averages. Statistics are their friend. They can never treat an individual because they can never know the stats of an individual.

They are the equivalent of auto mechanics. They see symptoms and they suggest fixes. However, anyone who has ever owned an old car knows how to keep that old car running. People as they age are just like those old cars. You can talk statistics, you can talk averages, but the only people who really know how to keep that old car running are those who are closest to it.

That’s why I will continue my sister’s advocacy when I get there, if necessary. I truly think that we know my father better than they do. And we know a lot of what it takes to keep him alive.

My father is in the hospital recovering from a triple bypass. He is 81. No spring chicken, but his mind is still good and his health overall is really pretty good for his age. I am not with him right now, but my older sister is. My brother was able to visit last weekend and will visit again this weekend. I will be traveling to be with him the entire month of December. Since I work for a software startup company, and I am already far from the owner of the company anyway, it doesn’t matter where I work. I have my laptop, will travel.

We tend to keep a close eye on our family when they are in the hospital. We track what they’re getting in the I.V.s. We make sure that it looks like the nurses know what they’re doing. We tend to spend a lot of time near whoever is in there. For instance, I was in the hospital 18 years ago, and most of the time my family was around, often in the room, even when I was in ICU. The nurses learned to live with it.

I tell you this not to elicit sympathy or concern, but merely to set up what happened the other night.

Apparently the night nurse on Sunday was inexperienced. A few others showed up. They were all fiddling with my father’s temporary pacemaker (which has since been removed) and asking each other if what they were doing was correct. That made my sister worry, so she found the supervisor and asked why these trainees were taking care of my father. She was first informed that they were not “trainees,” but in fact R.N.s. My sister corrected her; sure they have a degree, but that doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing yet. Somehow she decided that my sister should talk to a social worker. My sister, assuming that this social worker would have something constructive to say, agreed.

The first thing the social worker asked was if my father had a living trust. Yes, he does. My sister informed him that she has power of attorney for his medical issues (I have it for the financial side). He then told her that she was too close to him. He also told her that at his age every day he lives is a blessing. She told him that she would continue to be there, that my brother would be there again, and that I would be there the entire month of December to help take care of my father. My other sister will be there in January.

The social worker was stunned by this. Here, then is where my rant begins.

I think I can safely assume this social worker guy is a liberal. I have never met one who isn’t. Apparently we’re supposed to just stand by while The Doctors ™ and The Nurses ™ do their thing, and thank our lucky stars they will do their jobs. And, of course, when they are through The State ™ will take over to make sure our aging father will be “well cared-for” for the rest of his life. Presumably so we can go on about our lives and not even think about our parents as they slowly drift off.

What a crock of shit. The way I was raised, family comes first, before all other concerns (except perhaps G-d, but I think He understands). It is not a burden at all to be there for him. I’m happy to do it. He took care of me, and in fact still does sometimes when he can and I need help. I sure as hell won’t give up on him yet, like I am apparently supposed to do.

These are the kind of people who want to decide things for us. They make me sick. I told my sister that if I had been there, I probably would have punched the guy out. Certainly, in my current mood, which isn’t great due to a lack of sleep, my concern, and a previously emptied patience tank, it is very possible that I would have done my best to break his jaw. If not, perhaps a nicely bleeding broken nose would have sufficed. That’s about as much concession I have in me.

One final note. My sister, annoyed that my father’s primary care physician had yet to visit him, called him up and left a message to the effect that he had better get his act together. He didn’t go in person, but he did call my father. My father informed him that after he gets out he is coming after the Doctor with a baseball bat.

That made me proud.

But after that conversation my father did indeed feel better, less abandoned. It doesn’t take all that much to make a difference. I think the fact that the family is there can be the difference between recovering and giving up.

They would just as soon you stayed away. You know how quick the left, easing into their culture of death (over the top? you be the judge), are happy to throw the pre-born and the old to the wolves.

This was cross-posted to protein wisdom

You may recall (or scroll down to the previous post) that I have been having mouse troubles. This mouse will not eat the peanut butter and therefore end his little life.

The mouse and I were at a kind of equilibrium. He would rustle around in my crap (the floor is partially covered in junk that I never seem to feel like cleaning up) and I would yell at him to stop it. Every now and then I would chase him out to watch him skid around on the floor as he ran. He even visited downstairs once; the owner of the duplex saw him, or at least saw a mouse. I went away to Chicago for five days, but the mouse was still here when I got back, and the traps remained unsprung.

Every night when I go to sleep I hear him digging through my stuff. Last night I hear a thump. Then silence. Thump. Silence. This was a new noise, so I got up to check. Thump. I turned on the kitchen light. Thump. Thump. Closer together. I looked inside a small, empty trash can I had left in the kitchen. There he was, inside. I have no idea how he got in the trash can, but he couldn’t quite jump high enough to get out. He jumped a few more times when he saw me, but couldn’t get as high as the rim. I put a small box on top to keep him in, and took him outside, barefoot. Not a good idea when them temp is 30 degrees, but I wanted to get him outside quickly.

I took him a little way from the house, but didn’t feel like taking him really far away. I let him loose in the neighbor’s back yard, and he dug his way into some dead leaves. I kind of hope he moves into their house.

Sure, I wouldn’t have minded him dying, but I wasn’t about to throw him in the trash or something like that, nor did I think I could figure out a way to grab him to kill him. Besides, my heart really wasn’t in it.

If I’m lucky, he won’t return. But I’m not holding my breath.

Update: There is a mouse in here, I don’t know if it’s the same one I put out last night. Sheesh.

Update II: The cheeky little bastard wandered right out where I could see him and sat there cleaning his fur. I have re-baited the traps with Skippy Natural Style Chunky in hopes that he ignored the Reese’s because he’s a health nut.