B+, down a pint

No special plans on this Memorial Day weekend (for non US folks: We have a three day weekend; Monday is off for shopping mall sales to remember war dead.)

I was finally able to give blood; my attempt on 5/9 was aborted when they put the needle through my vein.

Yesterday the charge nurse abdicated to one of the LVNs who was amazingly skilled; she had to play the needle back and forth in the vein. It was an opportunity for me to breath, soft-belly, into the pain. Just as I saw exasperation on her face, the other nurses watching gave a collective, "whoa!" and dark color filled the tubing on my arm. I filled the donation bag quickly, as well as the 8 vials for various tests including qualification for apheresis (finally!) Once I qualify, I will be able to donate platelets twice a month. Whole blood is every 54 days.

The LVN called me kiddo and I said, "Anyone who calls me kiddo when I'm 40 is my new best friend." She put her face next to mine, peered closely and said, "I would never have guessed" and then they other nurses came by to cluck agreement. Up-righting her self she threw her head back and announced, "You have a youthful look. You always will." I laughed and said, "My immaturity shines right through."

It was a light hearted time; earlier when the health history nurse was taking a sample for the hemoglobin reading she said, "will you pass the hemoglobin test?" I suppose she asked based on my pale face. I said, "absolutely." The reading was 15g/dl (just fine) and she raised an eyebrow, "What's your secret?" I replied, "Beef. Lots of red meat. A side a week."

On holiday weekends, the Stanford Blood Center gives away t-shirts to encourage donations. I had never seen it so mobbed. Who knew people will donate blood for a t-shirt? I now am the owner soft beige shirt from American Apparel that has the green-arrow recycling logo on it and the text: I recycle life (Stanford Blood Center.)

It may seem silly, such a small thing, but it brings me great joy. To give - something - to help. I am still on sabbatical from hospice and there's a gap in my calendar for volunteering. I'm debating a few options - working at the local domestic violence shelter, visiting in-bound elderly, literacy for adults. I have a time budget of four hours per week.

If you have volunteer ideas, I'm all ears. Uhm, eyes ;-)

Recent data crunching music

Listed over at my play list blog:
What Science Sounds Like.

Enjoy.

Next week looks statistics heavy; I suspect there will be more frequent play lists.

Is it summer yet

It's been a very busy month; my apologies for not updating more frequently.

Not much is going on:
- Mrs. is still very ill; we're seeing experts at Stanford University and have seen minor improvement. Keeping fingers crossed.

- This week is the last week for teaching; taking on a second class (with a colleague) after the original instructor had a heart attack was a far greater time commitment than anticipated.

- As could be expected, my poker game went to crap with all that's happening. Just starting to get back in the swing of things. Poker is an gauge of my mental and physical state - if I'm tired, if I'm upset, if I can't concentrate - my game gets sloppy. Given that poker is by nature a narrow margin pursuit, that's costly. Fortunately I'm still in the micro limits and my coffee budget exceeds what I spend on poker. My ROI since I began playing in September 2008 is 26% on Full Tilt (don't get me started on PokerStars) but I'm -9% for the last 120 days.

- I'm just into the black on stocks - though I would have been much more profitable had I not second-guessed myself and sold a railroad stock when I initially wanted to pull the trigger. An expensive but useful lesson. Of course, I'm talking small time dollars compared to many of my friends. Got to start somewhere.

I joke that I was raised by wolves; my parents are loving people yet had some serious issues while they were raising me and somehow I missed out on some of the basic life skills. This has motivated me to considering mentoring youth graduating out of foster programs, or perhaps becoming a foster mom, myself.

All of this is contingent upon the Mrs' getting better - and, when she gets better, if she decides to stay in the marriage (I don't want to go into detail here, but she's thinking of leaving.)

In some ways, life feels like it's in limbo but I'm pushing on.

Tidepool and Sailing

Saturday I had the opportunity to do visit some tide pools and go sailing on a 70ft ship.

Picture time!

Davenport, California


Standing on a rock


Our guide holding a sea star


The underside of the same star



Sea anemone eating a turban snail



Sailboats racing



Me and my gal - note she is wearing a thin sweater and I am wearing *3* layers.

Work video

Our company co-founder and product manager (and yes, he's been here more than 5 years and is under 30 years old) discusses how our product works with CNET:



The tiny square device he's holding? I blow those up every day; I'm in charge of reliability.

If you like to invest and are on Twitter

...and you like to see what *not* to do, check out:
Stock Twits

Catching up and remembering faith

What a hectic week. Let's see if I can provide a quick recap.

- Monday - Work + Solid state materials! I took my class through the solution of the Schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom into band theory. The highlight of the lecture was covering a lovely observation by the author of the text - macroscopic properties like cohesion energy, crystal structure, and bulk elastic modulus can be calculated, quite accurately, simply using Schrodinger equation - extrapolating from bonding energy, atomic spacing, and bond stiffness (fit a parabola at the minimum of the 1s curve dE/dx = -Kx.) So very cool and exciting.

The students seemed less moved than I though one came up to me afterward and said, "the more I think about this, the more confused I am." I recounted the famous Feyman quote "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." I've been confused about quantum mechanics for 22 years and it just gets better all the time. The beauty of just how well the equations work brought tears to my eyes while lecturing. I'm sure the students think I'm completely batshit crazy.

- Gym on Wednesday, plasma physics on Thursday (co-teach). My counterpart is a genius and decided that for the last half the semester the students would teach themselves. I was skeptical and most pleasantly surprised by outstanding presentations, complete with nifty PowerPoint animation. Good news that morning via the orthopedist - my knee won't need surgery just some tissue damage under the cap. Best course is to strengthen my quadriceps. Also - no squats, doctor's orders. Happy dance.

- Friday was completely crazy - hectic day at work, then attending a student's MS thesis proposal, and then catching a comedy show. I laughed for two solid hours.

- Today I spent ten hours at work crunching numbers then went to the gym and brought everything to a close with dinner at...the International House of Pancakes. The IHOP next to the Our Lady of Peace - a 32ft statue of the Virgin Mary that my coworkers refer to as "Our Lady of Highway 101" and my Mrs. calls "Our Lady of Pancakes."

The church is very traditional with a large Filipino (Pinay) population. They have perpetual adoration and the doors are always open. It's quite busy; you can find people in prayer in front of the statue day and night.

It's as well known as my first marriage, but yes, I was Roman Catholic for a few years. My Lutheran mother just about had an aneurysm when I told her of my plans to convert, considering our family was "Lutheran" before the ink had dried on Melanchthon's Augsburg Confession (and you thought Luther wrote it!)

My grandmother, attempting to still the 4'10" tornado occurring in our living room asked her simply, "Jesus said that there are many rooms in his Father's house. Which of them are Catholic? Or Lutheran? Or Orthodox?" My mom wiped her eyes and walked away.

My whole life I have struggled with the question of God and the atheism of my very young teen years finally won out in my thirties. Is there a God? I don't know; I'm skeptical. There is something transcendent and I found that in the music of the Lutheran liturgy. I found it in the beauty of the Roman Catholic mass. I see it in nature, I play with it when doing science. It exists in the every day miracle of breath. Is transcendent supernatural - beyond what we know to exist in this world?

Does it matter?