Internet or Bust...

This is Greg Rutter's Definitive List of the 99 Things You Should have Already Experienced on the Internet unless You're A Loser or Old or Something

I am...

...resting!

RIP, Jerry Sternin

Jerry Sternin left us last week. He was my friend, teacher, mentor, father, advisor, guidance counselor, match-maker, and most of all, a good human being. My time at Tufts would have been a lot different without Jerry and his sense of humour. Heavens, I might have taken life seriously! 

In the following weeks, months and years, there will emerge a plethora of stories about how "jerry was amazing to do this" and "Only a good soul like Jerry would have done that", and more. It's already emerging: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/hbreditors/2008/12/jerry_sternin_an_appreciation.html All the brilliant facets of this diamond named Jerry will show themselves gradually, as was his style! On a related note, it makes me wonder that if the good people leave early, then this world is going to go to the dogs pretty soon.

I read the following at his memorial service:

Jaatasyahi Dhruvo Mrityuhu Dhruvam Janma Mritasya Cha
Tasmad Apariharyerthe Natwam Shochitum Arhasi

It's from Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita, Verse 27. 

It translates into: 

For one who has taken his birth, death is certain; and for one who is dead, birth is certain. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.

We are awaiting your next incarnation, Jerry! 

Jerry, however, would have liked to have Lex to read this out aloud: 

“Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ... WOW! What a ride!”

Now, that's more like his style! :)

Walking the path...

A relationship is all about sharing the path of life, easing each other's burden by sharing the "load" of your stories. 

I had to put this down before i forgot ;)

After all, one does not share gems like these all the time, or do I?

Then how are you this evening... Mrs. Darcy?... :)

...Are you completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy? 

;)

Google just sent a "Googly" our way...

... and we need "Mail Goggles" to see it coming! It's not even April Fool's Day.

Obama or McCain - What is the World Opinion?

The economist conducted a worldwide poll, designed to match the system of the US Electoral College, to assess world opinion on the candidates for the President of the United States.

These are their results. There cannot be a better contrast with the opinion polls in the country. My question on November 4th: WWAD? What Would America Do?

In your honour...

Passion makes the old medicine new:

Passion lops off the bough of weariness.

Passion is the elixir that renews:

how can there be weariness

when passion is present?

Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:

seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

                                            

                                               - Rumi

My Chrome...

...is losing its shine. Too many crashes, too many interrupted sessions :(

I am going back to Firefox. Au Revoir, Chrome-osome!

A word of caution...

...is the message of this multimedia presentation from the people at Wired. It's a gallery of "retired drugs", or drugs gone bad, or simply, "did you make enough money of these medicines to salve your shredded soul?"

Disclaimer: I would add that I am not as cynical about new drug development as I come across in this post. Hey, I'm a doc, I welcome better therapeutic options over not-effective-but-it's-the-best-we-have medicines. But these examples warn against the let's-go-ahead-because-these-are-nameless-fears attitude that appears to only be driven by greed and the bottomline. Last's principle of biomedical ethics - beneficence ("doing good"), non-malfeasance (avoidance of harm), autonomy (integrity) and Justice/Equity (most to whom who needs it the most)  - do not figure in this equation.

Ah, rant ends. Back to our normal programming...

"Who let the dogs out?"

I came across this interesting blog post by Juan Carlos Lopez, the editor of Nature Medicine. 

Check out the front and back cover of the latest Nature issue, in a PDF format. 

If you don't see it as soon as you open it, zoom out to 50% and flip the page 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Do you see it? Sorry, y'all, those who do not have access to Acrobat Professional, and therefore, cannot flip pages. But despair not, I have just the solution for you - Do as I did:

1)  Stand facing the computer monitor, lining up with an imaginary line 3 inches from its right side.

2) Raise your left leg sideways till it's parallel to the floor. 

3) Bend sideways at the waist (to the right) till your "held-straight" upper body is parallel to the floor. This pose should fit you like a "T". hahaha

4) Try to keep your eyes open through the pain of cramping muscles.

Now do you see it?

The Story of the Red Icing

The story began at the last Icing Age, many eons ago. When vacating the premises, residents of an apartment in Brookline left behind a tube of Red Icing. Last week, the second Icing Age began, with the discovery of the discarded tube by our roommate Bettina. Subsequent carbon dating, and name analysis revealed that one of our ancient ancestors by the name of Betty Crocker had created this concoction. During the course of the week, Bettina decided to bake a cake for her labmates and it was suggested by a worldly soul (ahem ahem) that she use the historically important icing because, "after all, it's only sugar and some chemicals, how can it possible go bad". Other roommates opposed the stand taken by this worldly soul (ahem ahem), and eventually the idea of using the icing was discarded by the wayside. *sniff sniff*

This week was Bettina's farewell dinner, and this worldly soul (ahem ahem) decided to surprise her with a cake and sunflowers. The cake was a Trader Joe's Rasberry and Lemon cake. Trying to prove a point re: the use of icing, he used the icing to print "Auf Wiedersehen Bettina" (Goodbye, Bettina) on the top of the cake's plastic case. This way it would not put off those-among-us-who-shall-not-be-named who objected to this historic piece of Icing Age memorablia. It looked like this:

Puzzle for the Day: Unscramble "Auf Wiedersehen Bettina" from this jumble

And this breakdown pic dispalys the worldly soul (ahem ahem) 's ingenuity:

How does this story end? No one ate the icing, including worldly soul (ahem ahem)

This narrative is brought to you by the Society for the Study of the Icing Age - An Era of Sugar and Bright Colours

Genes, the ones you wear, inside...

.... i'm hoping some of my work can be a "cog" in the big picture wheel when we "gear" up to upgrade to "Personalized Medicine" from your run-of-the-mill average Joe medicine. And I have to hand it to the Prez Bush for pushing and passing  the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008  Well, it's a small step and i'm hoping to ride the wave when this storm comes ashore :)

We need more laws like this, all over the world, as the capacity for abuse is vast!

My Chrome is shinier than yours...

I am now testing out this Chrome thingy to see what the fuss is all about. Significantly faster browser load time, page load time, flash load times, even when I run it on my office computer through theVPN on my ancient home computer (as I'm doing now). Given that I am a fanatical user of the Windows Task Manager (i just like ending processes!), the browser task manager felt like a cool trick. As was the pull out tab to a new window idea. I didn't take long to move to Mozilla from IE, when Firefox was noticably better. Only Time will shine the light on this Chrome :) 

It took them 105 years to think of this?...

... and i was there this weekend, to see and hear (They have an "Engine Room" where sound clips of HD engines created through its history can be heard... some idling, some revving up... all 100% adrenaline, Amazing!).
G, my housemate of old, got hitched to D in Milwaukee this weekend - the land of cheese, beer, bratwurst and Liberace! We stayed at the Hilton Milwaukee River, on the banks of ... you guessed it.. the Milwaukee river, and our room overlooked the flowing green waters... yes, green!... Milwaukee is only 90 miles north of Chicago, but we decided to stay in WI for this trip. S and I had an afternoon to kill outside the wedding festivities, and we headed to the HD Museum for some V Twin cam fun! Both S & I did not take our cameras, but S got some good shots on his phone camera, especially one of me sitting on a HD moped (yes, moped... and that is a priceless shot!).
The wedding went well and both bride and the groom are doing well :)
Back to work we go...
Oh, and i'm buying this sometime... embedded below:

And this takes me back many many years...

...

When in China...

... do as Google does?

Check out this useful map of Medal winners in the 2008 Olympics...

Bris without the K

I was one of the non-invitee in A&S's son's brit milah this morning (it is a tradition to not "officially" invite guests to the Bris, so as to not risk offending the prophet Elijah who, I am told, is present at every Bris). There were prayers, speeches, explanations, the actual bris, and food. In the middle of the morning, I l'chaim-ed the mom and dad, the elder sister and the newborn, and all of their family with Laphroaig and Sherry! :) Needless to say, the day is going verrry slooowly :)

Crime and Punishment - the Boston Franchise...

...much more from the Boston boonies...

---Initial parts of this post were composed three weeks ago. Adjust chronological descriptions accordingly!---

Health, or the lack thereof
My last week was spent in bed, the days punctuated by bouts of high fever, shivering and cough, and the nights filled with more coughing! As a rule, I am loath to take anything more than supportive therapy, because most of these nagging illnesses are viral and subside by themselves; unless they are of bacterial origin, and I know that I will not be able to function at more than a sorta-vegetative state without antibiotics. well, I was at that point and it took three different antibiotics and 10 days to subdue this relatively "simple" upper respiratory tract infection. No more rales and rhonchi, S!
I wonder how others in this country would fare? my limited observations (friends as patients, mainly!) has led me to believe that there is an over dependence on the medical system when you have insurance, and an under utilization when you do not. I want to be out there in the field, providing free health care, using my god-given knowledge and skills (as they mentioned in med school - "god only knows how he finished medical school" :) ) . But I am unable to do as I please, for a variety of reasons - economic, residency, immigration. "Patience, patients, patience", I tell myself! :) Massachusetts has a mandatory health insurance requirements for all its residents, but the expected increases in health care coverage among those whom the plan was intended for - the low income group - has been minor. Still, it's early days yet!

Who let the dogs in?
Someone broke into our apartment this week. Nothing that was stolen was irreplaceable, but it made me seriously think of a guard dog, heck any dog! I also had a unique experience of watching a poor man's CSI detective at work (a.k.a real life detective) - charcoal fingerprint kit, underfunded, understaffed, and no, the DNA analysis is not available at the touch of a button. Detective MM, was polite, courteous, and full of suggestions on making the house and electronics (which items were stolen) safe. Quite a contrast to the traditional stereotype of a Boston Police Officer, but then, we live in Brookline (the Genteel Suburb), and the Brookline PD is known for its politeness!

Fame?
In recent news, my quote was featured in the Boston magazine article on a Cambridge churches tour. One of my friends, L, asked me to join her on a "Cambridge Churches as Agents of Change" tour, and I got asked for my opinion of the tour. Me being me, I had to sound deep and knowledgeable, and all-knowing, and ended up sounding pretty pretentious in the article. That will teach me!

Heading down to NYC this weekend, to catch up with the Maitra and Lo (behold! - sorry, could not resist)! Given my string of luck (My numerology number is 4), I probably risk getting mugged, or be a part of a finding-a-bag-full-of-money-and-then-get-chased-by-the-FBI-and-the-Mafia adventure!
Bring it on!

Jerry turns 70

I have come to the conclusion that I am a closet superhero, so closeted that it hasn't even dawned on me that I can leap tall buildings in one bound ("it's called an elevator, dumbass!")!! To put it simply, i have a superhero inside of me, struggling to come out. My roommates, looking at my ever increasing "size", have affectionately titled the superhero, "The Incredible Bulk".
One of my good friends and mentors, Jerry (one half of the Monique and Jerry fame) turned 70 over the weekend. Monique planned and organized a whole bunch of surprises for him, all cloaked within the seemingly simple dinner that was held to celebrate the occasion. Friends flew in from Amman (Jordan), drove in from Philly, took the train from Brookline, etc; friends from his childhood days, his Peace Corps days, his Save the Children days, and also his current PD days came together under one roof to celebrate 'The Jerry'. Songs were sung, Jerry Jeopardy was organized, poems (full of jerry-esque bad puns) were composed and recited, Jerry stories were recounted, and Sam and Bob canoed into the lake and floated 70 candles in his honour. Bob, Monique and I put together a "Life of Jerry Sternin" movie, based on photographs from all stages of his life, childhood to present. We called it "Ghost of Jerry Past, Jerry Present, and Jerry Future..." And I squeezed all this in during Lo's visit (a lovely weekend which will be told through partly through the 600 pictures she took during her Northeast trip...Hmmm...) And also sneaked in some some data analysis. My point exactly. Superhero. Bulk.