april 04 2011

Dear everyone, College acceptance season is on us. I have seen the Facebook page with Hannah sending in her acceptance letter to Pomona. (Speaking of Facebook, we finally saw The Social Network. Is Mark Zuckerberg really that Asperger-like? How Machiavellian is he, really? None of the characters in the movie come off very well, from the pretentious rowing twins, to Eduardo Saverin. After having been in a number of depositions myself, I totally sympathize with Zuckerberg’s contempt of the lawyers). Nicola seems to be undecided between CMU and U of Chicago. I hear that U of C has too many liberal professors, so perhaps she will be better of in an engineering school. It certainly didn’t harm Isaac or Danica (well, to be honest, I don’t know what Danica was like prior to CMU). Cindy and Nikki are going to visit CMU this weekend for an acceptance weekend, to see if that helps Nicola decide. I must admit that I am also puzzled by the difficulties the G3s have had getting into ivy league schools; my guess is that 1) the pool of applicants is much larger than it once was, and 2) these schools have so much money that they really don’t care if they piss off alumni.

Last week I took a few days off for a ‘stay-cation’, while Cindy took the kids to Universal Studios in Orlando, mainly to see the new ‘The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter’. They were lucky to have chosen the only two consecutive weekdays without significant rainstorms, arriving in a downpour on Monday and departing during the severe weather and tornados on Thursday. The Harry Potter area is in the Islands of Adventure portion of Universal Orlando. Two rides were renamed and co-opted into the Hogsmead Village setting. There is one new ride to make you believe you are flying a broom with Harry Potter. The line winds through Hogwarts and there are talking paintings, holographic images and various items from the book/movie to distract you as you wait. The ride itself made the kids slightly nauseous. It might have been all the ‘butterbeer’ they drank (some kind of cream/caramel soda with butterscotch froth). The kids also spent much of their time riding rollercoasters. The new coaster at the Studios portion starts by going straight up in the air. Lucas managed to lose his backpack in the Orlando airport at the beginning of the trip. It had his cellphone, his school work, ipod and his new Nintendo 3DS. I was called that evening by someone at the airport indicating that they had his backpack. They called Cindy, who arranged with them to pick it up when they flew home on Thursday. However, when they got to the airport, the Southwest people had sent the backpack to Dallas. Cindy continued to try to track the missing item and today we got a call from the cellphone inside the backpack assuring us that it had been found. The peripatetic backpack should be in Lucas’ hands by the end of the week.

I spent my time re-reading “The Name of the Wind” and the new sequel “The Wise Man’s Fear” by Patrick Rothfus. The first book was better. The second was overlong, and had too many events for explicit reason of ‘character development’. I hope the next one is better. I also went into work a couple of times, which was good since it kept me from getting too far behind. Unfortunately, I seem to have pulled my right trapezius (doing Tai Chi?) the Saturday before, which has made daily life, especially sleeping, somewhat harder than usual. While everyone was away, I also saw a Korean movie called “Mother”. The plot is about single, middle-aged mother, and her slightly mentally deficient son. The son is accused of murder, and the story is about how his mother investigates the case without police help. It is amusing and bittersweet. The ending is a bit of a surprise. She puts any Jewish mother to shame! It’s subtitled, but I thought it’s worth watching if you want a recommendation.

I had to go in to work this weekend, and the computer system was down (again). So, I looked at all of the cases and wrote little cryptic notes. It took me about three hours. Then, this morning I dictated all of the cases, and signed them out on the computer. This took another two hours. So now I know that about 40% of my time is spent on clerical work not important to making a diagnosis (but important to getting the word out, and the all important billing). After work I went to the grand opening of my dojo’s new location. It is about 30% larger for close to the same rent, in an area with more foot traffic. It seems like it will be successful. http://www.acenterforthemartialarts.com/wordpress/?page_id=2

We have been playing the “Settlers of Catan” a lot lately. This is an award winning German game that’s about 15 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_of_Catan . Pretty good for the over 10 set.

Love, H.