14-ish

Sara is just starting to show a bit more now, so we thought we had better start to take some pics before it is too late to compare them!  This was taken around the 14 week mark.

In other news, it is snowing today!  Little while Christmas surprise.

full cup press

A little peaberry coffee for the afternoon homestretch...

consistency and society

This is what happens when you think and study something a lot.  You see it everywhere.  I went and talked to a friend's high school class two days this week and I was trying to get them to think about how we internalize 'social stuff' and then that gets generalized over all our interactions so that our 'social worlds' are much more consistent and predictable.  This all happens unconsciously, seamlessly, and nearly instantaneously.  

Yesterday I was driving home from my impromptu office for the day at a coffee shop and was waiting at a stop light next to a fast food restaurant.  A guy walked out, wearing a shirt and tie underneath a somewhat over-sized sweater.  He was carrying a file folder with him, and as he left he crossed himself.  It caught my attention, because, I thought to myself, why would one cross their self as they leave a fast food joint?  Hope they don't get sick?  Nah, I bet he just applied for a job there.

At that point I stopped.  I think I was right, but the fact that I may be right about some random dude I have never seen or met is amazing.  Think about it.  I noticed him because he crossed himself, basically, in a setting that is not typical for that symbol.  This in and of itself takes an amazing amount of generalized social experience.  That is, I have accumulated a certain amount of experiences in my past that I noticed it, knew it was out of place, and potentially figured out what he was doing at that moment.  And that knowledge was unconsciously applied, without thought, to make sense of a new experience.  

I had to know what it means to cross one's self.  When, where and why crossing one's self usually happens, and that fast food is not the primary association for it.  Knowing what crossing one's self means in the right setting, I am able to figure out what it may mean in this setting.  Additional 'cues' were that people do not usually carry file folders with them, wearing what he was wearing, which was obviously not his typical clothing.  

All of this nearly random background information is instantaneously merged together, without thought, to give meaning to this experience.  Our ability to internalize 'society' brings consistency to my world.  It decreases unpleasant surprises or the feeling of being 'lost.'  It literally makes the world a meaningful place for me (yep, and you).  In other words, my expectations for what will happen is what brings meaning to my life.  Without our ability to 'expect' things and link the past to the present we would be unable to have the experience of a life characterized by coherence and consistency.  

Babies

So just about everyone we know is having kids it seems.  They are all over.  So as to not be out done, we too are having a baby.  Baby Franklin as we call the child... seems better than saying 'him' or 'her' since we don't know yet and also better than 'it'.  Anyway, things are going to be changing I imagine.  We are pretty pumped.  After all, everyone seems to need a native Texan in the family.

Sara even made a stocking for little Franklin.

We're not alone

This week I installed an add-on for both Firefox and Chrome that allows me to see what websites are following me as I use the internet.  It is actually pretty astounding just how many different people know all of the clicks you do on the internet - most of which is probably use to sell ads, but it is stored data none the less.  For example, Facebook likely knows everything you do on the internet even when you are not logged into your account.  Many people, for security reasons, 'register' different computers with Facebook so that both you and them know it is actually you.  On the other hand, this registers your IP address with them, so they can link that IP address back to your anonymous browsing when not logged in.

Check it:

This is a picture of a 'test' browse.  I started at yahoo.com, went to facebook and logged out before leaving, then went to hulu, amazon and pandora.  So I went to 5 web sites (each circle above is a site, ones with a 'halo' are ones I actually went to) and the above web of connections is what resulted.  They were all interconnected and were aware of my browsing activity in addition to other web sources that I never actually went to.

This shows just the connections made by a site 'invisiblehand' that I never actually went to.  They know that I was at both facebook and amazon, and they let google, twitter and some other sites I don't know aware of what I was doing.

This one shows that more clearly.  These are the connections made by facebook.  Not only is facebook telling those 6 sites listed on the left that I was on their page, but they were following me and aware that I was at both amazon and pandora.  So even if you don't have 'social' turned on with pandora, 'social' still knows.  ...I think invisiblehand was a plug in I had (as in I removed it after seeing this) that told me whether other sites had things for a lower price, like books.

Pretty crazy!  Happy online shopping! Since this time I have seen some sites with wayyyy more activity.  One single site I went to informed over 30 other sites that I was there.  Jerks.

Bill Gates is a bad-ass

[found this post in our 'drafts' and thought I would just put it up.]

So I never thought I would think of Bill Gates as a bad-ass, but at least in this instance he is.  Not all that long ago he stepped aside as the one running Microsoft so that he could devote himself full time to philanthropy.  That is pretty sweet.

What is even more cool, however, is that he seems to be attempting to make a difference in unconventional ways.  For example, recently he was at a big tech conference and wanted to make a point.  He released a cloud of mosquitos into the convention center in order to make a point about the dangers of malaria.  He said, "malaria is spread by mosquitoes.  I brought some here... there is no reason only poor people should be infected."  Of course these mosquitoes were not carriers, but still, nice work. 

Farmer's time, a second time

Recently I posted a blog that was apparently overly vague.  Sometimes I shoot for brevity and stuff gets lost in the process... my bad.  Here is the thought in just five sentences or less:

[Farmer thinks] We should preferentially care about poor people; focus on the care and not the cost.  It is hard to get other people to understand that point of view, and it likely takes time more than it takes ingenious arguments.  People ironically complain that it costs too much to preferentially care for poor people, but the same people do not complain that they make too much money.  This may apply to anyone living in the US.  Often we have great reasons and arguments for why we don't care about poor people, as if that in and of itself changes how much they need help.

Cheers.

More to come at another time...

Lou the Subaru

Here is a short video of off roading with the new Subaru.  Lou was pretty bad ass.  You almost need a seat belt to watch the video... but that is a combination of factors, ha.

Farmer's time

I was thinking the other day about how my studies in grad school have been a little bit all over.  The central theme is generally tied back to religion, but I have done work on Bible reading, something akin to cognitive schemes, some criminology, some family stuff, and now I have moved on to sociology of medicine stuff.

This gave me a good excuse to read a classic in medical thought that is more 'humanistic' in flavor - Mountains Beyond Mountains.  The book is about Paul Farmer who seems to be one of those interesting people who is very shallow in terms of not hiding what is going on in his head but also massively deep and guarded so you never really know what is going on.  He is also a fierce advocate for those who are struggling in life and are stuck in a life of poverty.  I have been thinking about a section towards the end of the book when he is explaining to the author why he does not think it is a waste to spend tons on money on a patient who is likely going to die anyways.  He is trying to point out to the author the irony of saying that is a lot of money and possibly a waste but the same people never think about what it means to have more than that same amount of money in excess, sitting in a bank not healing poor people.

Then he has a great line.  I have had the same feeling before, although clearly not to the same degree as Farmer.  Mostly because it is fairly autobiographical for me, I imagine.  He says, "It's just, you know, I never have been able to figure it out. I mean, I've figured it out, but I realize no it takes so much time to get to that point, to explain it, without offending someone."

Sometimes it seems as if we look to easier arguments like political or fiscal expediency to cover the brute response of, "But Lord, who is my neighbor?"

look out below

Well, it has been a bit since the last post.  Lots has happened and I was going to just do a photo dump with short captions and call it good.  I may still do that, but it still takes longer than just writing something quick and short, although not so much a re-cap.  But lets face it... who really likes really long blogs anyways?  The sugar to help the medicine of a blog go down is brevity.

A week ago I finished up SCUBA diving training and got the first certification.  The open water dive was a TX experience for sure.  It was at a SCUBA park that was out in the country:


View Larger Map

Driving out, the view is of rolling Texas nothing with cows grazing.  Stroll through the small town of Terrell, which I think may be best described by the picture below, which is an actual picture I found that someone else took.

The water was super murky, so we could only see like 5 or 10 feet down there.  They did have two boats sunk, but with few fish and no plants and, surprisingly, no coral, the boats are not so much fun.  Apparently the have an airplane under there somewhere, too.  Didn't see that.  Probably touched it at some point though.

Other new experience was fire ants.  They are terrible.  Pain - not so bad.  Itch - thought of having my feet amputated, but had second thoughts that this may be extreme.  Cheers.

brandied cherries

ever bought cherries and then not be able to finish them all?  well fret no more... i bring you brandied cherries.  you can do this with either rainier cherries or the normal ones.  equal parts water and sugar to boil (basically just making simple syrup).  add some cinnamon and the cherries.  simmer a few.  add equal parts brandy.  remover from heat, put in jar, cool, then refrigerate.  you are welcome.

pic

layout

So as you can tell I changed the layout today.  Not sure if it will stay.  It is kind of a fun/different way to display more in a smaller space.  Just click on a post to see the whole thing.  If you want to comment,  scroll to the bottom (after you clicked on a post) and click on either 'view comments' or 'add a comment.'  we'll see... strong preferences?  let us know.

Doctors, culture and patient compliance

My first year at Baylor I wrote a theory paper about what happens within a patient/physician interaction when there is a larger and smaller spread between the two people's cultural background.  So if the patient is very poor and is struggling in life, the world that they know and how it works has a very different feel and nature to it that the physician, whom we would assume is not struggling - at least in the same sense.  I got to thinking about these issues again today at the eye doctor.

Our eye doctor (or mine - Sara doesn't need to go... yet) clearly has a different cultural background that I do.  It is in a very nice neighborhood, in a building whose rent cannot be cheap, and I am betting serves a certain kind of client that is from the upper end of the socio-economic ladder.  Much of this makes me feel uneasy being there - not because I am intimidated by them or something like that, but I feel as though I am merely a dollar sign and has a feel to it like I would imagine a used car lot would.  The conversation they have with me, the words they use, the seemingly memorized lines that are 'answers' to my questions and the assumption that I am more than willing to pay out of pocket for additional and seemingly unnecessary stuff.  The highly visible diplomas of the doc on the wall, despite the fact that she has an office.  The clothing they all wear - stilettos (yes, literally designers super high heels) and matching everything that I guarantee is not at Old Navy.  All of it are symbols that communicate a cultural background foreign to me.

As such, I am on high alert for things that it seems that they are trying to 'get' me on (it happened no less than 4 times today).  Because I am on high alert, I am halfway listening to what they have to say about my eye care (which is only a notch above nothing) and halfway defending my wallet.  This naturally makes the conversation borderline adversarial most of the time, which spurs them to try and reassert their position as the expert in the room.  I am sitting there trying to not elevate their defensiveness because I am aware of the fact that this will not help either of us, but can't shake the feeling of a disconnect between myself and them.

All of this leads me back to the patient/doctor interaction and patient compliance.  We know that rapport with a patient increases the information the patient will supply to help the physician solve and problems or figure out a diagnosis, but past interactions also play in.  If they know the patient from past interactions, it only helps - unless the interaction is breaking down.  This is why continuity is such a big deal when it comes to medical care, but also why attempts to reduce the cultural gulf between patient and physician is crucial.  All of this leads up to the point at which the patient leaves the office or the hospital.  Are they going to follow the advice?  Will they do it willingly or begrudgingly - both of which will impact outcomes for either the better or the worse.  Are they able to follow the advice?  Did they understand the advice given, and relatedly, did the physician know whether or not they communicated successfully?  Medicine is a pretty hard job - because it really is almost never just medicine.

end of an era

yesterday was sara's last day of residency.  pretty crazy to think about.  7 years and surely thousands of hours of studying and even more actual work on top of that.  just the start of amazing things - just watch.  in lieu of deep thoughts, this time, i bring you pictures and videos.

Here is Sara opening the bottle of champagne I got to celebrate the end.  It was her first time opening a bottle and was a bit scared.  Maybe because I made her shake it a bit, too.  Sadly only a little sprayed out.  This was even filmed with her new iPhone.

Here we are with our glasses of champagne.

I made some Velvet Cadillacs with the left over champagne... half Guinness, half champagne.  They are actually really good.

Music

Last night I went to see a concert put on at our church and it was probably one of the best I have ever been to.  I got to thinking about how different music seems now with the advent of the internet and all.  I think that a majority of the music that I listen to as of late is not stuff that is played on the radio or anything like that and I have just stumbled upon in various different ways.  This is really good for many small bands that I am not sure would have been able to exist in the past very much.  This is why Noisetrade.com is interesting.  For the most part, besides bands that get radio time, most others spread through network connections and these connections are more valuable to them than record sales in a certain way.  So, they give their music away for free in exchange for a network connection to me as the consumer.  When that connection is made, they can sell stuff like t-shirts or CDs at a price that allows them a greater return, they keep people updated on shows they play, and very often, these same connections will fund their next record production in return for a free song or two.  Interesting.

The venue is great for awesome shows because it is huge but intimate at the same time and has great acoustics.  I was going to write something about how and why shows like that succeed at producing connections with the audience and producing positive collective feelings and how that relates to/is similar to the feeling of writing an interesting/creative paper or something, but I doubt most anyone who reads this is interested in that.

 The first band was Fox and the Bird. Check it:



The second was Gregory Alan Isakov, which was really great.  Violin (or fiddle, maybe?), cello and an acoustic guitar = win.  Check it:



Anyways, grades are in and summer studying has started. 

Costa Rica!

Here are some Costa Rica pics for those of you who have stayed strong and resisted the commodification of personal information known as Facebook....

 Here is the first place that we stayed... right on the beach!  This also also the beach we went running on in that last post.

 We went caving.  Here is Sara climbing down into the caves...

 which were lovely.

 The last night at this beach we staying in one of the 'tree house' rooms that you can see in the first pic.  It was nice.

 Beach.

 Breakfast was included.  And breakfast was good.  Everyday.

 Then we went to the rain forest.  This is where we stayed there.  On a ranch.

 Then we went to stay near Arenal volcano.  We went on a hike to a lagoon at the top of a dormant volcano, and it was super rainy, steep, muddy, and fun.

 But it was also anticlimactic as visibility was terrible.  But we brought mangoes up with us and that helped.

 Here is Arenal.

 And our trusty little Jimny.  He got us through some tough times.

 Beach at Manuel Antonio.  It was also lovely.

 And we got to see three-toed sloths in the wild!

 And this beach was also very nice.  I am a much happier beach-goes when we have our hammock along.

 There were wild monkeys all over.  Sara was super, super excited about this.

 Sunset dinner and drinks...

 We rode horses to a 'waterfall' and a swimming hole in a river/creek (dry season).

 We also went to Irazu volcano.  It was pretty neat.

And the countryside was also really nice.

I am sure we will have some more pics when Sara gets home with hers.  These were just some of the pics that I had on my camera.

Homecoming

Just a quick snapshot I thought I would share.  When I got home from CR our rose bushed were massively laden with roses.  I trimmed them back in the fall but was going to prune them more.  Weather must have been nice for then when we were gone and it looks a bit late for pruning now.

Runnin'

Uploaded the tracks from the watch this morning and thought I would post a map of this one.  Sara always likes to go for runs on the beach when we go places.  I sometimes don't mind running on the beach.  This one on Playas Samara in Costa Rica was nice.

perfect word count

Check out the word count on this paper I am working on.  I feel like that is a sign that it is done and I should stop editing it.  That has to be good luck or something...

late christmas

My new headphones just came in today.  Pretty excited about them.  I have been looking for some that I can wear for like 6 or 8 hours a day and not be too painful like earbuds or 'on the ear' headphones can be. So I was looking around for some that had some noise canceling/isolating powers and were 'around the ear' so my delicate ears didn't complain.  So far so good.  These are from Panasonic.

(mom and dad - this is what I replaced the others with...)

Dissertate

This week I heard back from some peeps at the U. of Chicago that they are going to let me use a data set that they have.  Kind of big news.  As in, I can now start working on the dissertation big news.  Only downside is they have already published a lot off of it, but I think I can make something work out of it.  

So, now I am all excited to really dive in on the reading and what not.  I was holding off a bit because it would be sad to do all the reading and never have data to run stuff with.  Thus the study couch for the night.  Sara is working, so it is just me and the beautiful coffee porter reading about physicians, beliefs, decision making and everything that will solve the world's problems.  Cheers. 

students

so there are a few funny things about teaching.  I just gave an exam this past week and there were some short answer questions.  One of the students drew me a picture of a ninja and wrote: "this is a ninja holding nunchucks, fighting off your red pen from marking this question wrong.  Proceed with caution.  Ninjas are an example of a counterculture."

I almost gave him like .05 points for creativity.  but then the questions was not about countercultures, and ninjas are likely a subculture and not a countercultre anyways, so I decided against the .05 points.  So close.  So close.

New lens!

I have been saving Christmas and birthday money up for a good bit of time now to get a new camera lens.  We went and got it last week and here is the first picture with it!  Excuse the messy kitchen...

'friends'

Recently a facebook 'friend' went through his entire friend list and wrote something about each person.  This is one of those friends that I never got to know very well but we had some meetings because of a project we were working on together.  Great guy.  Anyways, he did this with his whole list of facebook friends and my first thought was that I was really impressed he was able to do that.  Then my second thought was that it is very sad that I was impressed he could say something about all of his 'friends.'

I hope that the facebook meaning of 'friend' only becomes a term for something specific - a network connection on facebook - and not something more general - real life friends.  Sometimes technology has a tendency to shift our values and perceptions of reality, but I hope that I never am impressed that a friend of mine is able to give a short one sentence description of who I am.

Maps

So one of the classes I am going through this semester is one that focuses on how to do spacial modeling of things.  This is kind of fun because most anything that happens in the 'social world' is also tied to the specific location.  Places have different laws, taxes, different programs with more of less funding, different jobs... you get the idea.  Below is just a quick one I made the other day for class, but is fun because it is a map.  And I made it.

Anyways, this is a map showing the distribution of poverty for people under 18 years old by county.  Children in poverty is tied to a lot of other things and blah blah blah.  Enjoy.  (and you can click on that there map and make it bigger)

Good Day

For Christmas Sara got me a toy to make running a little bit more fun that tracks pace, distance and all that good stuff.  Pretty sweet.  So, naturally I went on a run today.  This is all just a side point because I thought you should know that.

Quite possibly the greatest accomplishment of my day came after the run.  It is warm here today - like 71 or so.  As my Ramen Noodles were making their rounds in the microwave, I am looked through the refrigerator for something else that sounds like a good post-run something.  At first I thought a Dr. Pepper sounded good, but then I thought, no.  A beer sounds better.  It is '5pm somewhere,' after all.  In the end I decided on.... that's right.  An apple.

I felt good enough about that that I thought I needed to write a pointless, rambling blog about it.  Go have an apple.  It won't get those 5 minutes back for you, but it will make you feel better about the loss.  Most likely.