My newest find is called del.icio.us. Basically it is a social bookmarking website. Since I don't publicize my name on this blog, my website is del.icio.us/"my juno login (Noncomputer bots should delete the parentheses)".

Finally got my test scores for Step 3. I didn't do as well as I hoped, but I passed which is all that counts. Now comes the painful process of getting my license in Texas. The first step is to apply for licensure in the state of Texas and then I'll need to take my jurisprudence exam. The dumb part about is is that I have to go to Austin (3 hours away) just to take the test.

Weird dream sequence revisited.

I had a dream that I went to a luscious tropical island with a prominent rock. Then in my brain, I started singing a hymn with the words "Cleft of the rock." I woke up excitedly telling my wife that I composed a hymn in my sleep. She corrected me in saying that a hymn by that name already existed, but I have absolutely no recollection of the hymn. So here are the REAL lyrics.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life with the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.

A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
He taketh my burden away;
He holdeth me up, and I shall not be moved,
He giveth me strength as my day.

First day of my ICU month!

My kidney text book has just arrived and it weighs 19.5 lbs!!!! I guess I'm such a nerd for weighing my textbook. Anyway, the goal is for me to have that read.

Will need to start waking up earlier, however I've been working on my paper forever!


John

I have a new goal in mind. This will actually be my new habit for the upcoming month. This is partly inspired from reading blogs like "Success for Today". My long term goal for the moment is to finish reading The Kidney by Brenner and Rector. However, there is no free time in my schedule. In order to free up time in my schedule I will need to wake up earlier. Here is my plan

First month (I will be on ICU)
Goal for the month: Wake up at 5:30 in the morning except when I'm post call
Ways to accomplish this goal
1. Wake up immediately when the alarm goes off
a. Create a subconscious loop in my head that I will automatically get up. (Creating a habit)
b. Start jogging for 10 minutes immediately after I wake up
2. Get to work by 6:15 in the morning
3. After 30 days, gradually shorten the wake up time by 15 minutes to 5:15, and get to work by 6:00 in the morning
4. After 30 days wake up by 5:00 in the morning. Increase exercise time to 20 minutes

Now I'm in July on a consult month (Renal Transplant)
Read 30 minutes of Brenner and Rector on renal transplant. Get to work by 6:30 am.
Read 30 minutes of Brenner and Rector at night.

I'm on my way to reading 3000 pages (300 hours work of reading) for the year. Thus it all starts with waking up early.

J
P.S. I still need to do MKSAP questions and Medstudy reading as well. AAARgh!!!

I had an awesome trip back to California. My goals for my short time there was to learn 5 new dishes and get lots of sleep.

I have to thank my friend Dave for teaching me two new dishes. The first dish was a combination of straw noodles and eggs. The second dish was a tofu dish with Yu Chai. At first I said that it was Yu Choi, but my wife got totally confused. I was mispronouncing the name of the vegetable ;)

The rest of the dishes that I learned was wonton soup, fried noodles, and another tofu dish. It is a good thing that I got the recipes in writing, otherwise I would forget how to cook it.

I also spent the majority of my time sleeping and also viewing trips about Europe. I will blog about my tentative trip a short time later.

John

SWANSON'S UNWRITTEN RULES 1: Learn to say, "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be used often. 2: It is easier to get into something than to get out of it. 3: If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much 4: Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what's there; few can see what isn't there. 5: Presentation rule: When something appears on a slide presentation, assume the world knows about it and deal with it accordingly. 6. Work for a boss to whom you can tell it like it is. Remember, you can't pick your family, but you can pick your boss. 7: Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what they were supposed to be. Avoid Newton's Law. 8: However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best effort. 9: Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement or indifference. Don't be known as a good starter but a poor finisher! 10: In doing your project, don't wait for others; go after them and make sure it gets done. 11: Confirm the instructions you give others, and their commitments, in writing. Don't assume it will get done. 12: Don't be timid: Speak up, express yourself and promote your ideas. 13: Practice shows that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up with the assignment to get the job done. 14: Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports. 15: Be extremely careful in the accuracy of your statements. 16: Don't overlook the fact that you are working for a boss. Keep him or her informed. Whatever the boss wants, within the bounds of integrity, takes top priority. 17: Promises, schedules and estimates are important instruments in a well-run business. You must make promises — don't lean on the often-used phrase: "I can't estimate it because it depends on many uncertain factors." 18: Never direct a complaint to the top; a serious offense is to "cc" a person's boss on a copy of a complaint before the person has a chance to respond to the complaint. 19: When interacting with people outside the company, remember that you are always representing the company. Be especially careful of your commitments. 20: Cultivate the habit of boiling matters down to the simplest terms: the proverbial "elevator speech" is the best way. 21: Don't get excited in engineering emergencies: Keep your feet on the ground. 22: Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions. 23: When making decisions, the "pros" are much easier to deal with than the "cons." Your boss wants to see both. 24: Don't ever lose your sense of humor. 25: Have fun at what you do. It will be reflected in you work. No one likes a grump except another grump! 26: Treat the name of you company as if it were your own. 27: Beg for the bad news. 28: You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100% of what you feel. 29: You can't polish a sneaker. 30: When facing issues or problems that are becoming drawn-out, "short them to the ground." 31: When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one level up in the organization. Your perspective will change quickly. 32: A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person. (This rule never fails). 33: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, an amateur built an ark that survived a flood while a large group of professionals built the Titanic! Postscript: The qualities of leadership boil down to confidence, dedication, integrity and love.

My grand project for my third year will be to finish Brenner and Rector's, _The Kidney_.

This might be the most monumental project that I've ever done. Basically encapsulated within those 3072 pages is the state of human knowledge on the kidney. I figure 1 year is a doable goal if I read at least 10 pages/day.

Things to do to accomplish this goal:

1. Publicize it on my blog. Done!

2. Find the book
Ok, here's the hard part. The book costs $420 and there is no copy in the library. My goal is to find a renal fellow who would let me borrow the book for the year. Another thought is to try to convince the drug reps to buy the book for me.

3. Wake up early in the am to read.

4. Start by doing another doable goal. For example, for this past month I've been very diligent in reading the bible. I have a reminder system by email to remind me to read the bible every day. Prior to finishing this book, I plan on finishing immunobiology within a month. I've already read a third of the book.

5. Since the book is in electronic format, I will try to read random chapters when I'm bored.

J

Due to overwhelming popular demand, I'm going to post on a more regular basis :)

After my licensing exam, I will be going back to California for a little R and R. Unfortunately, my wife is busy working at Goldman Sachs doing American taxes on European investments.

To do list for Step 3

1. Finish 5 practice exams (done with 4.5)
2. Review Ob Gyn again.
3. Reread pediatrics
4. Look at urology and orthopedic surgery
5. Do all the computer exams

To do list in California
1. Do nothing!
2. Look at Rick Steeve's videos on France, Italy and Greece
3. Learn how to cook 5 new dishes

J

Time for another random musing.

I've been on the internet for way too long. It's good that I'm no longer using it at home (I'm quitting cold turkey). However here is a list of recent random stuff I was searching:

1. The first description nephrology. (Aretaeus of Cappadocia - he also came up with the term diabetes).
2. Housing styles in the United States from Octagonal, Italianate, etc.
3. NCAA tournament
4. Increasing productivity
5. Origami project
6. Oregon Nike project
7. Infinite pools
8. Travelling to Turkey
9. Meteora and other cool monasteries
10. Corfu and Santorini
11. Scrabble tournament
12. Design of the colliseum

Oh well, just looking at the list I will need to figure out to concentrate on the essentials.

Later,

J

Dinner

A and I invited Pascal and Kerri over for dinner tonight. Both Kerri and Pascal has quite a bit of experience in evaluating steaks. Kerri is from Iowa where her uncles owned a meat-locker facility, while Pascal used to be a manager for a restaurant. It was the first time for all of us trying the Omaha steaks. I thought it was pretty good, but I'm no steak connisseur. It was definitely a higher grade of steak than the supermarket and it is on par with some of the steaks I've had for weddings. But the best part for me was the cheesecake with raspberry (we bought it) with the special sauce.


J

Reply from cartalk

Thanks for submitting a puzzler suggestion.

If your puzzler is the one about the helium balloon and the car, or any of the
other puzzlers of which we've been sent 55,000 copies of over the years, we will
have no choice but to forward it immediately to the
Jehovah's Witness. Otherwise, we gratefully accept your contribution.

As you know, Ray is in dire need of puzzlers that are somewhat less lousy than
the ones heýs been using of late, so your offer is very much appreciated.

If we use your puzzler on the air, and if you happen to catch us, we will of
course deny everything. If you threaten legal action, you may get a CD or a
coffee mug. Please note that we save all these puzzler suggestions for
approximately six months, after which time we can be reasonably assured that you
will have erased your letter to us and can no longer prove that you sent it to
us.

Again, thanks for writing.

Sincerely,

Tom and Ray Magliozzi
Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers

Hey Car Talk guys,

I have a puzzler for you guys based on a real life experience at the gas station. I bought 12.901 gallons of gas for 2.249 for a grand total of $29.01.

Here's the puzzle:
How many gallons of gasoline (DA.BCD) do you have to buy at $2.249 to come up with a total of (AB.CD).

Hope you talk about this puzzle on the air, especially since it has to do with cars rather than apples:)

JH

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China Trip Christmas 2000. (I found this thru my email to Rob)

I had a great time in China, here is a summary of what I did there.
The flight from LA to Beijing took approximately 12 or 13 hours. On the plane, I
saw the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. The movie, starring James Caan
and Randy Quaid?, were about two quarelling neighbors. The next movie was a
rather strange French movie, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first one. I
fell asleep for the third movie.
The airport in Beijing was really nice. I was actually expecting an old airport,
but this one was fairly new and modern. The tour guide took care of our luggage
and check-in, so he took us directly to the restaurant. For this tour, all the
meals were paid for and there were 8 to 10 dishes/meal. Since I havn't had a
decent Chinese meal in over 5 months, I was really glad to be part of this
trip.
The first stop in our tour was the forbidden city. The forbidden city used to be
the living quarters for the emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasty. The last
person to live there was the last emperor, Pu Yi, who was there until the
1920's. After the communists took over he was assigned to be a gardener at the
forbidden city. What irony! The archictecture was really impressive, my only
regret was that we didn't get to see the palace treasures. The next stop in our
tour was the summer palace. There was a huge man-made lake which helped to cool
the temperature down in the summer. It was almost completely frozen in the
winter with a few cracks here and there. There were some really foolish people
who ventured out towards the lake. It was a pretty comical sight when we saw a
bunch of guards going in the middle of the lake to catch them. The next day, we
went to the most famous cultural landmark, the Great Wall. It is truly an
awesome sight to see first hand. I have no idea why they needed to build a great
wall, since there were mountains in the background. A few of us in the tour
decided to climb up one stretch (about a mile) of the great wall. It was kinda
scary to look down, but I tried to concentrate on the steps. When I went down, I
decided to count the steps so that I didn't have to look down. In all, there
were 1732 steps on the way down.
The next city that we visited was the ancient capital of China, Xian. Xian is
the place for the famous terra cotta figures. Xian also has the world's largest
and oldest remaining city wall. They are not done excavating the site --
according to the guide it will take another 100 years to finish the dig. Part of
the problem is that the technology is not quite advanced yet. In total, 40 years
and 750,000 workers took part in the construction of the mausoleum for the
emperor.
Gosh, this email is getting rather lengthy. After Xian, we went to Shanghai. In
a really short amount of time, Shanghai has transformed itself into a really
modern city. I think that Shanghai may have the edge in the number of
skyscrapers in comparison to Manhattan. The freeways had a lot more loops and
levels than the ones in LA.
We also went to a number of smaller cities (relative to Shanghai and Beijing).
It was really amazing for me to see all the development even in the smaller
cities. Still, there is still a large part of China that I havn't seen. Maybe in
a few years I could go back.
That's about all. Have a happy new year!