Vancouver, BC

Last week I went to Vancouver for an infectious diseases meeting. Besides having an awesome meeting full of truly riveting conversations, Vancouver is gorgeous. I want to live there.

I took a couple runs in Stanley park: huge trees, beautiful coast line and cliffs; ran across the Lions Gate bridge; and took a rainy, night time hike into Capilano park. The air and the streets there are so clean, and I've never had better tasting tap water in any city, anywhere. They have a large Korean population and I got to have an old favorite / nemesis for dinner one night, and also went to a culinary teaching institute for great meal of bison, wine and tiramisu.

In the evenings I played pool on the West end. I schooled those Canadians three nights in a row, including a very old Peter who was once third in Canada (so said his mistress). My brother and I agreed that it doesn't make me a good pool player; they just suck more than I do.


My colleague and I worked in the convention center right on the water. Out back were the Olympic flames and a block sculpture of a whale (kinda looked like Legos).

We also happened upon the last remaining steam clock in the Gastown district.



While in Capilano park near the suspension bridge and the waterfall, I took pictures of the rushing waters and massive redwoods, but they came out completely black. It was a clue that it was time to head back to take the water ferry into the city. That or my phone doesn't have the same advanced night vision that I do.

Capital Education

I learned today that I'm just wrong. I thought that our for profit system was once the pinnacle of capitalism. We're so far from it now.

For profit business manipulates the markets, the labor and the regulatory environment to squeeze out a profit. Granted they're hefty profits. But it doesn't seem that it matters if the product is a good one or that there is any kind of objective evaluation of worth.

Non-profits on the other hand can't set a price or gouge a competitor. You'd better have a good product, or at least a good concept, because if the market doesn't appreciate it you'll simply go under. That's real capitalism! Producing something new, better, or so far-and-away important that the market clambers for it.

This economy and its players are a mere shadow of our nations' intended present.

Osage Apple?

Check this out. I found it on the ground at the battlefield. At first I thought it was a plastic dog toy. It feels plastic, and kind of looks plastic, but it had a little stem and looked like a fruit. Nearby I found a whole tree of them. Kind of like a large mango type tree but with these weird, bumpy fruit on it. They're about the size of oranges.

A stranger called it an "Osage apple" and said they're poisonous. Anyone? Are they indigenous to here? Never seen one before.

Windy Woman

Wine, but no balloons

Also this weekend was the Long Branch Wine and Hot Air Balloon Festival. I was up til 3am Saturday night helping a friend put wood flooring in her new home, but I managed to rally and enjoy the festival.

A couple friends came out from DC and it was nice to see them. The wine was okay, and there were far too many people for the number of vineyards represented, but we enjoyed sitting in cow manure with our wine and cheese:


We never actually saw any hot air balloons either, which was disappointing, but the weather was perfect. We rolled down a few hills, ate some kettle corn, and managed to enjoy ourselves just fine on the ground. There was even a hay ride to the parking lot!

The Civil War

This weekend the Battlefield park across from work hosted an annual historic reenactment of the Cedar Creek Battle. I was surprised how many people were there and in dress. Lots of big hoop dresses, civil war costumes and tents. People really got into it. So much so that the majority of people I saw had fewer than the requisite amount of teeth ...

Jake got to go and he was a big hit. People just love him, though I think I heard the saddle question at least 10,000 times. Everyone thinks they're so clever. He was very well behaved until the battle began and the cannon's started to ring. He tried to bolt a couple times, but for the most part was painfully manageable. He's so eager to please.

I found $10 dollars on the ground so we got to have fried flat bread and a root beer while we watched the battle. It was really neat, and reinforced the absolute need that I acquire a horse.

Photos:

Lots of people and thousands of tents. I like that in this one there are people with muskets, a hoop dress AND port-o-potties. All the essentials.


A troop. Or a regiment. Or a company. Or a group of actors. Something like that.


The hospital.


The Union encampment as seen from the rebel camp across the battlefield. I'd say the Union fighters were outnumbered two to one on this fateful day. It would have been different if they were playing in Pennsylvania I was told.


Some rebels resting in the shade before their 3pm date with destiny.


Caught red handed: a pringles can in a period tent. They thought I couldn't tell, but a dandy union spy make I.


Troop flags in the Union camp. It was here that a gaggle of girls offered to crochet booties for Handsome Jake Wagmore. Every man had his horse, and the girls loved mine.

Fall Flowers

A frizzy, yellow-haired bird told me that there was no way my impatiens were going to grow as dry as it's been this summer.

Ahem.

Exhibit A.

All I had to do was spit on them regularly as I walked by doing more important things and voila! Impatiens.

Actually it rained. But whatever. Look at my impatiens, bird!

"Soon"

In the last two days I have submitted 10 check requests for my colleague who works in the field. She is unable to submit them herself because her scanner is down or something, so I'm doing hers and mine. This is me whining in a very incomprehensible, corporate way.

Recently the entire company has switched over to a new software for inventory, billing, shipping, the whole nine yards. The management says that the last 6 months of transition has gone brilliantly and that we're a huge success. Yay us.

My spies in the back tell me it's a mess and the whole place is going to melt down like a cheesy sandwich. Fun.

Today when I submitted another check for my colleague the accounting baron told me that they still haven’t figured out how to MAKE checks using the new software.

“When will we be able to cut checks?” I asked, since we're submitting checks to be cut every day and people, uh, you know, like to be paid.

“Soon.” He said, "soon." I told him I thought this was a magnificent timeline. He hamster-stared* at his computer screen in response.

There you have it. The 200th largest company in the world will be able to pay people ... soon. Awesome.



*hamster-stare is a new noun that was created about, oh, now, and I have here used the past verb-tense of the noun in an all together new way. All about the inventions.

The good news is ...

Nessa Rose is coming out of her shell. Or at least, out of her room. Since I put the litter box into the pantry (I like to keep my food and my cat poop in close proximity) she has rarely left her room. She hasn't even been coming out to play on the catnip covered shelving. Granted, this is a large "pantry". She has her own extra bedroom to sleep, play and pee in.

Lately she's been quite vocal and active though. You can see above, she was trying to scratch her face on Jake's incisers. What a gutsy gal.

The bad news is ... I think she's lonely because we haven't seen Shell Quadling, her brother, since Jake and I left to go skydiving. He's either off painting the town red (not that he'd know, blind as he is) or he's dog food. Or hawk food. Or maybe tire food. Hopefully he's not food.

Maybe he went skydiving too and I didn't notice. So far my plummet adventure cost me my hat, two dog bowls, and a cat. Still worth it, but it's getting more expensive. I like that Nessa is more active, but it'll be sad if it's because she's lonely and he's ... flat.


Jake was signing this morning. This one means "Leave me alone, I'm still sleeping. By leave me alone, I mean, get off of me, and stop taking pictures, I'm still sleeping. I'M STILL SLEEPING!! GO AWAY!!" He's such a love.

Skydiving!

I went skydiving with 8 good friends for my 30th birthday. We camped, we partied, we fell, we flew. It was the best weekend of my 30s.



Take off.

Flying through the sky.

Erin, back on the ground.

Trevor, Kiehl, and Rory prepare for their jump. A stranger molests my dog.

Boarding the flight to 14,000 feet.

Plane poops people. (At 120 mph.)

Dogs for warmth. It got down in the 30s at night. Jake wore his new birthday sweater.

Cleve explains to me how I'm going to fall and fly, and not die.

Happy Birthday Jake! ... again

Jake got some gifts in the mail from Grandma Connors. Lucky Jake. He looks pretty snazzy in his new hoodie (hood not included) and he even liked the treats that she bought him (Jake isn't a treat lover unfortunately).

The kid's got a new outfit for his travels this weekend. He's going skydiving ...

Merinoff Symposium 2010: Sepsis

At the end of September I flew up to Long Island NY for the semi-annual Merinoff Symposium held at the Feinstein Institute. This year's focus was sepsis. They brought together thought leaders in Sepsis and Critical Care from all over the world to join forces to declare Sepsis as the leading cause of death worldwide.



It was a pretty impressive affair. They hosted a $10,000 per plate fundraiser dinner and had speakers from all different disciplines to discuss improvements in, and the magnitude of, Sepsis.



It was really exciting to be on the ground floor of such a monumental event. Check it out:



http://molmed.org/merinoff.html

Weird Moth Alert

Dude! Check out this weird moth. It was on my truck the other day as I came out of work. I flicked it off the side panel onto my shoe where it excreted it's diarrhea type guts out.

Weird hairy moth! It was actually really neat looking. I tried to take a close up - eh - you can at least see that it had a striped, tiger-like abdomen.

It wasn't very interested in flying away though, and once my intrigue was over I had to buy it a hamburger to leave me alone. Goodbye weird hairy moth.