LIVING WITH MCL

At least that's how my boss refers to me. That's because I get paid more for what I know than what I do. Which is also very fortunate since, and I'm sure Becky and a few others at work would attest to, I don't do that much. But I digress. Anywaze, when I got up this morning I was intending to go for a bike ride. I hadn't ridden since last Saturday, because of the rain and working yesterday, so it was paramount I get out today. The bad news was, which you may have noted, had you read my Current State of Mind (right side bar), I was not a happy camper when I discovered it was only 40°F, which is right at the borderline of do I, or don't I go for a bike ride. Fortunately [I can say that now], I didn't succumb to any of the numerous excuses I called upon, not to go for a ride, and left the house at 6:50 AM. But as I was riding down my street, chasing down the group (I was running behind schedule), I started thinking to myself, this is stupid. It was fre...

I don't how many others watched the interview with the FBI agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein, on 60 minutes last night, but if you did, and you're not as outraged and pissed off as I am right now, you must live on another planet. What our not so illustrious president George Bush has accomplished with the US attack on Iraq, is to play right into the hand of Iran, by doing exactly what Iran had been unsuccessful in doing for the past 20+ years, and that was to eliminate the one impediment to Iran's goal of dominating the entire middle east. In that regard, Saddam Hussein (as loathsome as he was, and what many now use to rationalize the attack on Iraq) was actually doing our bidding. By perpetuating the lie about weapons of mass destruction, he was acting as a stabilizing force in that region, essentially looking out for our best interest. What our attack on Iraq did, was open Pandora's box , taking away taking away whatever stabilizing force there was in the area. ...

Although Sunday started out nice, the rest of the week did not fair as well. On top of the seemingly relentless rain and cold, which only allowed me to get out on the road Wednesday of this week (Monday and Friday I did spinning classes), hassles at work due to unreasonable customer requirements, and a long time friend and tandem/triple riding partner passing away yesterday, I would not call this a particularly good week. But even in the midst of a hurricane, if you so happen to be in the eye, there always seems to be that one glimmer of optimism to be found [even for the consummate contrarian/pessimist that I am]. And today was such a day. If you've read my "Current Mood" plug-in on the right, you'll note this day didn't start out that good either, but after forcing myself out on the bike (something that often perks me up) things started to turn around. First off, Rene and Amy (part of the old gang ) were on the ride today. That doesn't happen too often any...

I still believe Kaiser Permanente has the best doctors, and offers the best health care coverage of any health care organization. How many other emergency room doctors, do you think, would bother to call a patient at home in the evening, after receiving notification of an elevated white blood cell count, to make sure that person was feeling ok? Well at Kaiser they do, and this wasn't the first time. This was at least the third time, I've received a call from an ER doctor checking up on me. It seems every time I have my blood checked late in the day (which occurred yesterday), after all the doctors in the office are long gone, I get a call checking up on me. While that may seem like a little thing to some, and I wouldn't have thought any less of Kaiser or the ER doctor, had the doctor not called, it is comforting to know someone actually cares about their job and their patients. You don't find that too often any more in todays hectic, "it's all about me...

Well, it's 38.3°F this morning, and I doubt I'll be going out for a ride at my normal time, so I thought I'd take the extra time to do a little rambling. First off, as most of my regular visitors should have already noted, I've finally decided on a new theme. There are still some more improvements I need to make, as time goes on, but for now I am happy with it. Yesterday, Edie got a letter in the mail, formally denying her transplant. That wasn't unexpected, and may actually have been welcome, if you remember from my last post . She also had an appointment with her oncologist yesterday, where they discussed how to proceed. Edie is in at least a partial remission, so they both decided it's best to stop all treatments for now, and see what transpires over the next several weeks/months and hopefully years. This should give the neuropathy more time to improve, and the heart damage to reverse itself. There is strong evidence for both this will occur. So here ...

You rationalize it away of course. Everyone does it. Well...., at least I do. I did it two weeks ago, when I couldn't keep up with the group on a Thursday ride , chalking it up to the fact I had ridden hard the last two days, and just didn't have it. Then this past Saturday, after getting my second flat within about 5 miles, and not being able to do the hammer zone portion of the ride, I rationalized I was tired, and needed to conserve my energy for the Sunday Palos Verdes ride, which is a pretty intense ride. Now, while there was some truth to those excuses, I thought I was feeling good that Thursday, and I really did want to do the Hammer Zone on Saturday, and besides, it's never stopped me before from riding hard two or three days in a row. But then yesterday, Edie got news her scheduled transplant was a no go. It seems she has experienced some heart damage, which I believe was the result of the Doxil ( a drug I posted on just recently ) she had been taking. I'...

OK, as some of you may have noted, I've reverted back to the old theme. I guess I wasn't really happy with the new theme either, so................ In the interim, while I work on a new and improved design, I thought I'd give everyone an update on what has transpired, over the course of the past month, with Edie and me. I'm pretty much still the same, although my lymphocyte count did take a big jump, from 86 thou/cum in November to 106 thou/cum in December. I have been as high as 95 thou/cumm in previous months, so that's not as big a jump as it might appear at first glance. The good news is my hemoglobin and platelets were stable, even improved some, from November, so my bone marrow still appears to be functioning, at least partially well, leading me to believe the test may have been a fluke. It is known that when the numbers get that high, the variations also increase. I'll know more next week, when I have my next blood test. As for Edie, she is curre...

It's not a simple task changing themes. There's a lot of modifying of code, changing images, adding widgets for all the little extras in the sidebars, and just general tweaking of the theme to make it look perfect. I'm sure for most experts at this it only takes a few hours, but since I'm still learning all the ins and outs of PHP and XHTML, it typically takes a couple of days, and depending on the complexity of the theme, as in this case, it can take several days or even weeks. Now while I still have some more work to do, I am generally pleased with the outcome, but........... Edie just informed me she doesn't like the theme. After all that work, tonight she tells me she doesn't like it. Jeez, what's a cat to do! Any comments, suggestions or even criticism would be appreciated.

Here it is Wednesday morning, the sky is totally overcast and the temperature is about 45°F. It was 42°F when I got up, so I didn't go for my usual Wednesday ride with the club. The ride leaves at 7 AM from the marina, which means I have to leave the house by 6:45 AM to get there in time. On days like this that's just too early, considering the sun (when it decides to get up) doesn't even rise until 6:58 AM. So here I sit, contemplating riding on my own, trying to motivate myself. I don't want to wait too long, because the wind picks up as the day goes on (and I don't like the wind), but I do want to wait till it warms up some. One thing I do know, it's way too easy sitting here doing absolutely nothing, and the longer I do that, the more likely I'll end up doing absolutely nothing. I just don't know, maybe I'll go to the gym and do a spinning class. There's one at 9 AM.

Not sure how much this might relate to having cancer, or in its treatment, but in every day life, and in the world of football, it's a sure fire way to guarantee a loss. I saw it about a month ago when Baltimore lost to New England in the final seconds of the game, and you can see it for yourself, in the body language of Hines Ward, as my beloved Steelers lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars last night. After being down by 18 points, in the 3rd quarter, the Steelers played brilliantly, gaining the lead by one point, with just over 6 minutes remaining in the 4 quarter, using a varied attack of short passes, and the occasional run. But with just over 3 minutes to go in the game, the Steelers resorted strictly to their running game, in an attempt to run the clock down, and ended up giving the ball back to Jacksonville with 2:38 to go. The rest is history , but I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned. Never second guess yourself. Your first instinct is usually the right one. An...

posting on what seems to be an almost daily basis. Not sure exactly why that is, especially after threatening to stop posting all together back in September, but oh well, here's goes my 3rd post of the year, and it's only the 4th of January. I just hope I'm not boring too many people. It's on days like this, when it's raining, or threatening rain, or I don't plan on riding, or doing much of anything at all, I like to go over who's visiting my blog. I don't get names, or personal information, but I do learn where everyone is from, and how they came to visit my site. I was surprised when I reviewed the stats from the last few days, not because of where visitors were from (85% US, 5% the UK, and the balance from Canada, Germany, China, Romania etc.), but because of how they came to visit my site. It seems about half the visitors stumbled across my site through the Huntington Beach Blog , which linked one of their posts on the happenings on New Years ...

My performance on the bike today was just pitiful. I was so embarrassed. Normally I wouldn't ride on Thursday, as that is one of the two days I go into work (Tuesday being the other day), but the plant is still shut down for its Christmas/New Years break, so I had the day off. And since the rain is supposed to come in with a vengeance starting this evening, which means it's unlikely I'll get much riding in the next 3 days, and in spite of the fact this was my 3rd day in a row riding, and the Thursday ride is a speed workout, I decided to do the Thursday club ride. Besides, I'm a strong rider, I was feeling good, and the weather was cooperating. There was no wind to speak of, and temps were in the high 40's (°F). It was a nice morning for a ride. I just don't know what happened. Maybe it was the past two days of riding (although I didn't think I worked that hard those days), or maybe it was the fact three or four of the strongest riders in the club were ...

When I awoke at 5:45 AM this morning, I was shocked to see the temperature was a balmy 58.8°F. Considering yesterday was 40.5°F, around the same time, you can certainly understand my delight at the thought of doing the traditional New Year's Day bike ride, without any winter gear. It was a little windy, but nothing that was unmanageable, especially with about 400 other cyclists shielding me from any wind that was blowing. Today was the kind of day you just dream of, and can only be described as a day that comes as close to perfect as possible. (Keeping in mind nothing is ever perfect.) As we headed south towards Newport Beach, the pack was operating like a well oiled machine, reaching speeds approaching 30 mph, sometimes even in excess of that. There were 3 minor crashes (one in front and two in back of me), which is to be expected when there are that many riders, and there are traffic laws to obey, but nothing more serious than some minor bumps and bruises, and best of all, I w...

Well it looks like my domain and website have been successfully transferred to my new web hosting service . At last all the gyrations I have been going through the past couple of days are over. Hopefully there won't be any more bugs* occurring, but even if there should be one or two more, my new found knowledge should help me straighten them out easily. Anywaze, the best to everyone, and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! *NOTE: It appears that my post notification plug-in is not working, so if you do so happen to get notification of this post, or received several notifications of this post, please let me know.

They say experience is the best teacher, and changing web hosting services has easily proven just how much truth there is to that old adage. When I decided to switch web hosting services, I thought it would be a simple task, with the new web hosting service guiding me, and essentially doing most of the heavy lifting, so to speak. Well they certainly guided me, but they didn't do any of the heavy lifting. But what is so exasperating is there really isn't much heavy lifting, and the process isn't that difficult, provided you have all the necessary information before starting the process. It also helps to understand all the terminology involved in domain hosting. I only wish I knew then, what I know now! The most important thing I learned is make sure you know who your domain registrar is, and how to log on to yhe registrars website to update all your domain information, including name, address and especially what nameservers (DNS) your domain is pointed to. Determining your ...

I have decided to change my web hosting service, due to some problems I have had, and still having, and since the contract with my current hosting service is up next month, this seemed like the perfect time to switch. So this is just a warning, should the site go down for any length of time, it is probably due to the transfer. But don't fret, I will be working night and day to get the site back up with minimal disruption.

Now, while that is true in a lot of cases, life doesn't have to be a bitch. It can actually be pretty damn good, at least from my perspective, and you're still going to die. Sometimes sooner than later. Today I was just reading about Michael Klein , an investment manager dying in a plane crash, while vacationing on his own private island near [in] Panama, along with his 13 year old daughter. Here's a man that had pretty much everything going for him. He founded two companies MIBEK Corporation and Transoft Networks, both of which were acquired by other firms, the latter being Hewlett Packard. And most recently he was the CEO of Pacificor, LLC . Now I didn't know Michael Klein, nor anything about him before reading this news article , but this just struck me as tragic. He was only 37 years old. And I only bring it up because it just goes to show how fleeting life really is. We are all vulnerable, and when our time is up, it's up. At least he died, I assume bas...

In keeping with my complete disdain for the US health care system, I thought I would bring you this very recent story about the death off a teenage leukemia patient. It's so easy to surmise from this story, that the sick and infirmed have no place in the US. For if that weren't the case, then what other possible reason could there be for US citizens continuing to support, and even praise, a system that not only condones the actions of insurance companies, in denying health care to individuals, but actually rewards them for doing just that. This the most recent example (one of many) involves Cigna Health Care, but it certainly shouldn't be construed as unique to this company. It is the mission of all health insurers to deny and delay care as long as possible in order to increase profits. Eventually Cigna did relent, but it took significant protests by 150 people outside the offices of Cigna, and an internet campaign orchestrated by the DailyKos website and other blog...

Lemons and tea go even better together than their popularity might suggest To get more out of your next cup of tea, just add juice. A study found that citrus juices enable more of green tea's unique antioxidants to remain after simulated digestion, making the pairing even healthier than previously thought. Lemon juice caused 80 percent of tea's catechins to remain, the study found. The study compared the effect of various beverage additives on catechins, naturally occurring antioxidants found in tea. Results suggest that complementing green tea with either citrus juices or vitamin C likely increases the amount of catechins available for the body to absorb. Although these results are preliminary, I think it's encouraging that a big part of the puzzle comes down to simple chemistry. Eating fish is good for you, especially if you drink lots of alcohol. Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are just that; an "essential" part of the total fat intake necessary for a healthy huma...

Just when we get a reprieve from two weeks of temperatures in the 30's, now the rain starts. So here I sit, surfing the net and rambling on my blog. No bike ride for me today. :( I just don't know how people back east and the midwest, cope with even worse weather, and I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. I did manage to get a lift though, after reading some Gilda Radner quotes . Check them out , especially the last interview with Jane Curtin. Who knows, it might even improve your day as well. Gilda was one of the best!