kindproject

world book day chapter II

Posted by jonathan - 26/04/08 at 07:04:30 am

Here at google aka neverland ranch, they have a great authors series where guess what authors come to speak about their books. Not only that, they give books away and in return the author gets some youtube video exposure. In honor of world book day on Wednesday I finally made it to a session, Authors@Google NYC Presents: Kelly McMasters, “Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town”. I intended to see some others earlier, but last minute capachinos and google terminology investigations always managed to trump them.

I had briefly heard about some environmental issues in long island, obviously not as much as LoveCannal, but as most jersey peeps I tend to ignore anything on the other side of the east river. The author, Kelly was nice and friendly, I could associate with her cast in the shadows of the hamptons mentality as I grew up bordering an open sewer, barely in the boundaries of a super wealthy town.

For anyone who suffers from a chronic illness like myself, there are times when the grass looks greener in the reflection of the medicine cabinet, making another illness appear easier to deal with. This common feeling was confirmed in an article about morgellons I read a few months back, but Kelly’s book has helped me shake these thoughts. Previously I guarded a twinge of jealousy at the success of breast cancer awareness. The pink ribbons, the walk-a-thons, the stamp, all the attention in a zero sum game could only be distracting from the potential cures for my disease. Two days and a book later and I no longer harbor any jealousy of other peoples diseases.

That was a good book!

World Book Day

Posted by jonathan - 23/04/08 at 09:04:07 am

For some unknown reason I’m all into days with causes lately. Next week I’m looking forward to nopantsday, which should have a good flickr stream. I have been preparing my daughter to squirm around in diapers only.

But for today, world book day, I had to pick up a new book at the suggestion of an overly generous colleague Sean Harvey, published author of The Rough Guide to the Dominican Republic 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides). My quick trip with Emma (babies and libraries are an unpredictable mix) over to the Jersey City Free Public Library [wow flash intro pages from 2002 were a bad idea] ended with me picking up Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.

What are you reading for world book day?

PBS Tuesday night lineup

Posted by jonathan - 23/04/08 at 08:04:21 am

PBS has captured my attention on Tuesday nights with its primetime line up of Nova and Frontline. Yes I watch tv on tv and I don’t own a tivo, how old fashion of me. Luckily for you pbs, frontline, has a nice online archive of shows for you to watch on your computer. Yesterday’s hot politics earth day message, did not provide many new tidbits for me, but last weeks Sick Around the World did.

Sick Around the World compares our healthcare system with 5 other developed nations, Japan, UK, Germany Switzerland and Taiwan. Most interesting to me and why I want to move into healthcare information management is that the US spends more money as a percentage of gdp on healthcare but we consistently stack rank in the 30s in terms of health care delivered. Moreover our administrative costs for healthcare usually run in the teen to twenty percent range while other developed countries run at a much leaner 5-6% administrative costs. Every time I fill out an almost identical form at the doctors office I am reminded of how last century healthcare delivery is compared to other industries. The battle to modernize not only healthcare administration, but delivery of better care through user generated content is a battle worth fighting.

Book critique: The last three miles by steven hart

Posted by jonathan - 22/04/08 at 03:04:15 pm

In any location I like to read about the physical and social surroundings of times past. I daydream of different eras and what life would be like if I walked and lived in the past. History has always afforded me this comfort of escapism. The last there miles, while not a masterpiece is a good starting point into the 20th century Hudson county that was formed of blood, sweat,concrete and steel. Chronicling the construction of the pulsaki skyway, the book meanders is way around jersey city personalities curiously wandering into some back alley back stories. A quick read, a couple hours at most, it helps explain why the local bombed-out roads embarrass me as I drive my 2nd world mother-in-law over parts of America that no immigrant never associates with the DREAM. Like the Soviet emphasis on inner city transport as a means to control people the highways of America were used to control the work of the masses from the 30s through the Eisenhower highway era.

Some other first iteration designs of the skyway to note were the lack of a median, (the jersey barrier was introduced years latter), the slippery concrete surface and the use of left lane entrances which quickly solidified the roads nickname, deathway. The use of left hand entrances was a simple oversight of railroad engineers who had not experienced the user controlled merging which took shape with automobile traffic in a railroad ambidextrous entrance into the main path was of no significant difference.

National Psoriasis Walk, NYC May 18th

Posted by jonathan - 21/04/08 at 10:04:27 am

Continuing the annual tradition, I will be doing the new york national psoriasis walk for awareness to raise money for psoriasis. The past two years have been difficult to treat my psoriasis as it has taken a back seat to my continually detaching retina. Somehow living with itchy flaky skin is more tolerable than losing sight in one eye. I am convinced the detached retina and psoriasis are related, but comorbidity is a tough place to be in today’s siloed specialized health care environment. With both of these problems I am in the anecdotal area of modern day medicine far beyond the glacial pace of clinically statistically medically proven solutions. Psoriasis, one of many auto-immune diseases are the type of chronic illnesses that are inversely related to infectious diseases and will require creative solutions to combat for the 21st century.

Take out the wallet, make a donation or better yet join my team, you know you’ll feel much better if you do.

your test results just came back

Posted by jonathan - 18/04/08 at 11:04:33 am

My pearl does not have the best camera, but this box makes me glad my lab work does not go to shiel. Shouldn’t there be a better way to transport bodily fluids between doctor’s office and lab. These little white boxes don’t inspire much trust.

“The lab test indicated abnormal newspaper consumption.”

nothing to write

Posted by jonathan - 07/04/08 at 07:04:22 am

What is there to write when you done won’t to be seen or heard?

axman the google version, beware of the falling trees

Posted by jonathan - 02/04/08 at 10:04:40 am

Super weird vibe at the office today. No email explaining how anything will go down, the good bye emails are flowing and everyone is huddled together waiting to be called to the manger’s office.

I got the middle ground, 6 months with a severance after that so we’ll see how things go.

no netflix, no problem

Posted by jonathan - 25/03/08 at 07:03:47 am

Yesterday I popped over to netflix to peruse the fringes of their streaming service for any gems to distract me while emma was having the fits, only to find that their site was down. Apparently it was down for more than 12 hours and it reminded me of times when I was young and the power went out. I had that fleeting sense of anxiety wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my night, but then I made some tea, swaddled emma and curled us up to the tome I’m reading, David McCullough’s John Adams.(It bothers me that the cover of this book now has a picture of paul giamatii as john adams rather than plain old john adams)

I wonder what kids will do these days when the power goes out. Seems like we have gone to an extreme where micro-boredom is considered a scourge, but we don’t allow for unstructured time where kids can develop the creativity to occupy themselves without electrical stimulation. If your interested in this subject go spend the couple bucks on a subscription to the week, and read the last word column for this week, “in defense of boredom”.

“In this era of incessant text messaging and two-minute sitcoms, idle moments are going extinct, says The Boston Globe’s Carolyn Y. Johnson. But what if being human means having time to think? “- The week

onehanded activities

Posted by jonathan - 16/03/08 at 08:03:13 am

Week two of fatherhood has my girl emma exercising her lungs until she is picked up and cuddled in daddy’s arms. Therefore, the last week involved many more experiments in onehanded activities. Opening bottles and scooping leftovers into the tupperware have become easy, but the one difficult task has been logging back into the computer. ctrl + alt + delete was meant for two hands. Here is an explanation of why I have to contort my right hand like a crippled person in order to log in to my computer.

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