The Script

When in Rome...drink BEER!

First for those I haven't been in touch in a while, I took a trip in Europe in March with my friend Jon and met up with my other friend John who's stationed in Germany.  I will write up the trip a bit more later but briefly we went to Prague, Berlin, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Pompeii.

I know it sounds weird and almost criminal to drink BEER instead of vino in Italy.  And I will be the first to confess that I always thought Italy is a wine country.  But Jon and I were in Italy for 8 days so on our last night of the trip, we were craving some beer...saw a recommendation on my Lonely Planet called Bir and Fud in Trastevere (across the Tiber on the side most tourists won't venture out to)....and it's really a short walk from Campo di Fiori, just across the bridge, make a right off the small piazza across the bridge at Via Benedetta, 23.  I know IPA is an American invention but Bir and Fud managed to have the most delicious microbrewed IPA I've ever had in my lifetime.  And the bartenders were happy to let us sample a bunch of different beers that night, but I kept going back to the IPA.

Funny thing was, the owner must have felt that we can appreciate a good beer and he actually recommended us to go across the street to this hole in the wall place called Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa'....loosely translated, Why Do You Bother to Come Here.  So Jon and I went to dinner after our stop at Bir and Fud and visited the bar later that night, unfortunately we ate too much and can't enjoy as many beers as we'd like. It sure is a cool place to hang out and they have a great selection of beer. 

Door

We ran into this couple from Arizona and the guy told us apparently this bar was ranked the world's best beer bar in 2009.  Who knew?  He ordered this 26 year old sour beer that comes in a special basket.  I later found out it's called Eylenbosch Gueuze 1984, while it was a cool experience to drink such an old beer, both Jon and I will say we wished we hadn't sampled it.  All that food and beer + sour beer = terribly upset stomach and a long night before flying home.  Nevertheless, it was cool to run into people who actually made the trip just to visit this bar, and meanwhile we just stumbled upon it serendipitously.  

I guess the moral of this story is that when we travel, we need to just drop our preconceived notion of what each country should be like...this is my third time in Rome and it's only on this trip that I discovered Italy actually has great beer and bars.  Don't get me wrong, the vino is great too, but it doesn't hurt to explore and diversify a little bit.

I'll try to post more stories from the trip later.

Possum Drop 2010

Finally, my dream of making it to the possum drop came true this New Year.  It was probably not the best year to go due to the colder than usual weather and the rock slide on US64, causing an extra hour detour to get there.  But it was well worth it.  For those of you not familiar with the possum drop, visit Clay's Corner's website to find out more about it.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves.  It's a 4.25 hr drive from Nashville (would be quicker if Jon didn't have to go to bathroom twice on a 4-hr drive).  So I would imagine it's much quicker if there wasn't a rock slide making us go through Knoxville instead of Cleveland, TN to get there.

The festivities start around 10 PM on New Year's Eve with the Blues Bros escorting last year's Possum Queen and the unfortunate possum in a cage to the stage. Being in Brasstown, North Carolina, of course there was the mandatory blessing of the possum and firing some guns

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After the possum was hung, it was time for the Drag Possum Queen Contest.

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Unfortunately, I missed Beyonce's Single Ladies performance because I had to go back with Jon to his truck and reload and had to wait for him to take care of his bidness. Well, Jon's from the South so he fits right in.

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Then there was a fake rodeo and we sang a lot of hymns until it's time to drop the possum.  They have a bluegrass band leading and there was a screen with lyrics and all, who knew hicktown is going high tech?  I just realized I didn't take a picture of the band, well the band members look like each other.  I guess we are in the South after all.

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OK, so the lyrics were running about 10 seconds behind.  It was quite obvious that Kim and Rodney aint's Southern Baptists.  But apparently Jon got it in him, I've never heard that boy sing until that night. He must have been led by the "spirit". 

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Yeah, did I mention it's a bit cold that night?  So the moment came quickly, time flies when you are having so much fun.

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Happy New Year!

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Isn't she a beauty?

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After a brief but adventurous trip to Wal-Mart, it's time to get back to the Holiday Inn Express for the after party.  No there's no Wal-Mart or hotels in Brasstown, we had to drive over to Murphy, NC.  We brought our own champagne.

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Celebrating New Year can be tough work...OK Jon drove down there so I'll give him a break.  See, Rodney must have felt the same way, he's nice enough to feed Jon.

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Well it's always good to see that he can eat on his own.  Now as to this "ice cream" from Wal-Mart, it didn't melt after 8 hours at room temperature.  What was it that we bought?

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I've spent New Year in New York, Atlanta, DC, Tampa...I must say this is the best New Year ever!  Yes, it's red neck and I was sad to report that I wasn't the only Asian there.  Strangely, I feel like home, it's my kinda thing to do.  Is it true, have I become too comfortably assimilated to the South?  Will it be long before I end up marrying an overall-wearing cousin who's missing 5 teeth?

Well, will I see you in Brasstown next year for Possum Drop 2011?

Remembering 2009

It's the end of the year again. I've found it helpful in the past few years to review the following questions to help me chart the course for the new year.  So I'll share these questions with you, maybe you'll find it a productive exercise as well.

• What was the smartest decision you made in 2009?
• What one word best sums up and describes your 2009 experience?
• What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2009?
• What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2009?
• Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2009?
• What was the biggest risk you took in 2009?
• What was the biggest surprise in 2009?
• What important relationship improved the most in 2009?
• What compliment would you liked to have received in 2009?
• What compliment would you liked to have given in 2009?
• What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2009?

Thoughts on Christmas

I have to work this Christmas day, guess diseases and infections don't take the holiday off.  Actually it's pretty slow and I'm grateful for that.  I can finally catch up on emails and return messages and respond to my friends on Facebook.  Also gives me some time to reflect on this Christmas.

In the midst of busy holiday season, it's so easy to forget about the true meaning of Christmas. I've been to Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, and Louisville this December for all sorts of meetings, it was definitely the craziest holiday season I've experienced.  I've been preoccupied, worried about buying enough gifts and not forgetting anyone, gifts for friends, gifts for dirty Santa, gifts for coworkers.  The stress was getting to me.

But Santa has been good to me this year.  Many wonderful presents, including a BB gun from the residents.  I think they are trying to make fun of my shooting skills...oh and they've made a mug with my Mokism sayings on it.  Actually it's pretty funny but I'll get them back.  And as much as I fear getting a Snuggie, I actually didn't end up with one.

This year has been rough and I've been challenged to the max at work and in my personal life.  The year flew by so quickly yet at times so slowly.  It's a year of laughter, a year of sweat, a year of tears.  It's a year of growing and learning.  I was so ready for 2009 to be over.  I was caught up in my own life and forgot how all these things are just temporary in the big picture.

Not trying to sound too deep, but with each passing year, I get older and the meaning of Christmas has been changing.  Pastor Jeff yesterday reminded me why we celebrate Christmas.  We've already been given the most perfect gift.  It's up to you to receive it.

"For to us a child is born, 
to us a son is given, 
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" 

Merry Christmas!  May the spirit of the Lord bring you joy, peace, and comfort this holiday season.

A Long Recruiting Trip Comes to an End

Whew 7 days on the road was quite tiring...it was hard to maintain pleasantness for such a long period of time. But we did meet many good prospects so it was worth it.  And I got to hang out in Atlanta with Quentin and shoot guns with Jon (one of our current residents) in Wedowee, AL so all in all it wasn't bad. I am just so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

In between the showcases in Georgia and Alabama, I had a little downtime.  Spending some time in Atlanta was great (see earlier posts)...and I visited Wedowee to pick Jon up after he spent his weekend at his family reunion. Of course, he was so thrilled to have me shooting some guns when I stopped by his family's property--he erroneously thought I am afraid of guns...son, bring it on! OK, to be honest, I was actually looking forward to it on the drive there.  Hey I am open to new things, how do you know you don't like something until you try it.

Gun

So I'm not very good at the shot gun but I was more accurate with a pistol, weird...but no, I am not rushing out to buy some guns any time soon.  Jon's family has some cool land in Wedowee, check out the creek and the waterfalls...I am tempted to trespass their property when it gets warmer.

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It's definitely not all play, recruiting is hard work!  Taking care of business at our booth:

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Jen, unfortunately doesn't have much to give away, so she's just handing out her corporate Kool-Aid:

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Oh the eating continues, nice dinner at Amsterdam and lunch at Momma Goldberg in Auburn.  Even on the drive from Auburn to Birmingham, we had to stop by the Peach Park to get some peach cobbler a la mode.  And the dinner at highly recommended Bottega in Birmingham was DISAPPOINTING!  Jen's pork tenderloin was dry and Jon's cannelloni was burnt.  My creme brulee was burnt and cold at the same time, didn't know dessert was supposed to be bitter. We finished the trip up with lunch at Dreamland BBQ before driving back to Nashville, I love the warning sign at Dreamland, definitely applicable warning for the ride back in the Mini Cooper:

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So what's the final damage after all this eating?  8 pounds!

Dialog in the Dark

My friend Quentin and I visited an interesting exhibit/experience called "Dialog in the Dark" in Atlanta today. It was quite an interesting, eye-opening (bad pun intended) experience.  Basically the premise is that you go to the exhibit and there is no light so you lose the benefit of sight.  You go through the whole thing in complete darkness.

The tour guides are blind and you get to go through the whole experience up close and personal with the guide.  Our group has only 4 people and it was a unique and intimate experience. I don't want to spoil the experience for those who may go in the future so I won't go into the details...you go to different rooms to learn what it's like for a blind person to experience things we have taken for granted.  You have to rely on your hearing, smell, taste, and touch to figure out what you are doing.  The best part was to have some time to sit down and talk with your guide and learn a bit about how they live.

I will have to say both Quentin and I suck as blind people, we were hitting people and all sorts of things with our walking sticks and walked around in circles.

I know the website says it will change the way you look at blind people for marketing purposes but let me tell you, it's absolutely true, I have a better understanding of the challenges blind people face and it was humbling to have my sight taken away and had to rely on my other senses to get around.  I was so helpless and if it weren't for the guide's help, I would have gotten nowhere. It was also interesting to note your other senses becoming more acute when you're not being distracted visually.

I highly recommend this exhibit for everyone wanting to learn more about the life of the visually impaired and to awaken your other senses

Work Road Trip and Eating Around the South

I am half way through the college recruitment road trip, taking me from Nashville to Atlanta, then Auburn, Birmingham, and back to Nashville. Sounds pretty ordinary except I am gaining about 2 pounds each day!  Eating in the South has gotten out of hand. 

Thursday
Jon and I left Nashville on Thursday and we stopped by City Cafe Diner in Chattanooga for dinner on our way to Atlanta.  This restaurant has a menu the size of the book, not being too dramatic here but you can check out the menu yourself here.  I first learned of this restaurant, interestingly on a road trip to Atlanta, thanks to my friend Susan's recommendation.  Plenty of options and the portion size is ridiculous.  I had a chicken sandwich which sounds benign enough until I saw it deliver to me with 2 breasts and about half a pound of parmesan cheese. Jon had three stuffed chicken breasts and both meals came with all the fixings.

One of the major draw to City Cafe Diner is its extensive dessert menu so of course we have to partake.  Check out the size of this Oreo pie:

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Friday
Since we had a late dinner and I could barely keep it down my esophagus on the drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta, breakfast was skipped and I went to work out in the gym in the morning instead.  For lunch, we went to the Tavern at Phipps Plaza.  I had a broiled chicken salad so all in all pretty healthy. Jon had a filet mignon salad that looked pretty good.

Dinner was at Chick-fil-a, which by the way, was my first negative experience with surly employees.  The one on Piedmont Road by Lindbergh should be avoided unless you want your chicken sandwich served with a side of attitude.

Saturday
Today did not start off too bad with a relatively healthy breakfast at the hotel.  Quentin came down to join me later for a short weekend and we had dinner at Nino's Cucina Italiana on Cheshire Bridge Road (which by the way is a street full of sleazy strip clubs).  Maybe we got our hopes up too much by reading all the positive reviews on Yelp, the meal was disappointing.  We had the stuffed mushrooms for appetizer but it was mushy and tasteless.  The veal was fine enough but not that great.  I will say it was nicely trimmed and not too fatty.  Oh the worse part was the spaghetti, not cooked quite through and the bite was a bit much and the sauce, tasted like it's out of a can.  You would think that an Italian place could do better on pasta.

To save the night, we had to get some ice cream to reverse the disappointment.  We went to Morelli's ice cream in East Atlanta, it was listed as America's top 10 ice cream and I would agree it was good.  Did not have the ginger lavender as recommended.  I went with the pecan praline since I am in Georgia after all.  I was hoping sweet potato was a flavor offered but they don't have it that night.  Would have to come back some other time.

Sunday
What trip to Atlanta can be complete without a breakfast or brunch at the Flying Biscuit?  So that's what we did after Buckhead Church (by the way Andy Stanley preached there which was unexpected).  Quentin had an eggwhite omelet while I had some eggs over black bean cakes, both served with a biscuit.  They were awesome and the wait was not too bad.

Brunch had us so full that we didn't eat again right until it was almost time for Quentin to leave.  So we went to the Varsity for some more bad for you food.  It's a grease pit but it's an Atlanta tradition so chili dogs with some O-rings were what's for dinner!

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Looks like I ought to eat better for the rest of the trip and tomorrow morning - a run in Piedmont Park to run it off!

Inappropriate Drug Company Giveaways

Let's look at some dumb stuff drug companies were giving away last year.

Nexium is a drug for heartburns...hmmm let's give away a cooler that fits a 6-pack perfectly.  You'll remember the drug when your stomach hurts from all that drinking.  Wait, aren't you supposed to avoid alcohol if you have GERD?

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This is a great one - Lovenox is a blood thinner, patients are not even supposed to participate in contact sports due to bleeding risks.  Let's give away some sharp scissors.  Which marketing genius came up with that idea?

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Levitra is an erectile dysfunction, or impotence in everyday terms, treatment.
Here's the pen closed in its neat, tiny package.

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Here's the pen extended, ready for use

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I am going to take the high road and leave it at that.

So I've Been Thinking A Lot About Life Lately

Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, I've been thinking..  Over this past week, I've been thinking a lot about life lately. 

Maybe it's the fact that there's been a lot of bad stuff happening to the people around me.  Surgeries, car accidents, loss of family members, loss of pet...these all happened to my coworkers and friends in the past week. One of our best techs, an immigrant from Ethiopia with no family stateside at all, just had a liver mass removed (and it's sounding like a tumor). 

Maybe I've been spending quite a bit of time running in the park thinking in solitude.

Maybe it's sharing of my life story to a new friend.

Maybe it's the same homeless man I've been seeing on West End.

Regardless, I've been up at night thinking a lot. I've been worrying quite a bit about life's what if's....what if I get into a car accident?  What if it's me with the liver mass?  What if I need surgery (and it's not unlikely with the troubles I've been having with my knees)? 

I've been thinking if these things happen to me, what would happen?  It's sometimes so easy to find your family annoying or irritating, but it's always there for better or for worse. One of my favorite quotes from Tolstoy is the first sentence in Anna Karenina:

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

But nevertheless a family is family, it's a safety net in some ways.  Not having a family, I am having so many insecurities with these what-if's.  Sure, I've got short-term and long-term disability insurance and other resources saved up.  But if I need surgery or some sort of rehab, who really would be there for me?  Will I become that headache that the social worker has so much trouble with regards to discharge planning at the hospital?  I can very well become that homeless man on West End.  What if I just drop dead?  Will I be buried in the city's unmarked cemetery with nobody to claim my body? (of course, I would probably care less since I would be dead anyway)  I know, some of these worries are silly, but some are very real.

I am very grateful for all of my friends and I know many will be happy to help out in case of these what if's, but they are not family. I can't rely on them long term nor would it be fair to them, after all they got families of their own to take care of. I don't think it's that easy to convey the source of my worries and anxieties, but trust me it's been bothering me quite a bit and keeps me up at night quite a bit.

It's especially hard spiritually for me to be this anxious because the Sermon on the Mount keeps coming up in my mind (Matt 6: 25-34):
 

I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?....And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?...But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and ^{all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.}

Man, it sounds like a relatively benign teaching of Jesus but who knew it would be so hard to follow?  I haven't quite been able to rid myself of these worries and anxieties. It's not just something I can will away by my own power.  Friends, please keep me in your prayers during this tumultuous season of life.  Of course, please also keep my friend, B, in your prayers that all the malignant mass had been successfully removed from his liver and that there's no spread to other parts of his body.

The Devil Wrote It!

We've recently had a computer upgrade at work and I am pretty sure Satan himself wrote the programming code.  What is supposed to be a 3 hour upgrade turned into a 7 hour ordeal.  I am not saying it because I am bitter about having to spend the Saturday night/Sunday morning to babysit the upgrade, trying to catch a nap on the floor of my office in my sleeping bag.  Of course that was virtually impossible when you have a pneumatic tube switch directly underneath the floor of your office.  Every time someone sends the tube into the system, the floor vibrates and my spine rattles along with it.  I was planning to get home at 6 or 7 Sun morning but it was not to be, the evil system did not come back up until 10:30.

Now the part where I am convinced that Satan is involved is the flawed programming.  We can't discontinue any drugs on patient profiles, even if the doctors decide the patients don't need it.  We have to hack into the system to get rid of those drugs.  How can this be an upgrade?   Not to mention the allergy screen, any computer "upgrade" that hides the allergy information can't be good for anybody.  I don't know much about patient care, but is it bad if the nurse or doctor can't see the dose of drugs on the computer?

And the really evil part is after the upgrade, when we call in the issues, they are well-aware because they happened somewhere else before.  Who, other than the devil, would push this upgrade out if they knew it's buggy?

So of course, everyone at work is complaining to me like I am the person who ordered the upgrade.  People need to realize we work for the man.  And when the man wants to stick it to you with this "upgrade", you just assume the work position and take it.  I've been praying the serenity prayer a lot lately and I think I am going to post the first part of it at work, next to these evil computers:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Maybe we can perform an exorcism on these computers or better yet, dunk them into some "holy water" to fix the problems.