Check Out the Big Brain on Brad!

Just flew back from Hawaii, and boy are my arms tired.

Sunday morning, G and I took a hike to the top of the Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail (say that five times fast), which gives a nice view of the valley, Waikiki, and Diamond Head. It also gives a view of the other side of the island, but things were a bit foggy up top. At the end, there's a rope climb that's steeper than the end of Half Dome, and it gets a bit muddy up there, too, i.e. you really need to use the rope to reach the top. Thus the tired arms.


Here at the beginning of all things


Diamond Head peeking out


The valley, with Gina's ridge on the right


Approaching the steep peak


G pulling herself to the top


I would have raised my arms in triumph if they weren't so tired


Here at the end of all things

During my trip, we also did some tailgating at the Hawaii/Idaho game, which the good guys won 68-10. In the four Stanford games I've been to this year, we've scored 60 points combined (and 83 total for the season), and in one warm and breezy evening at Aloha Stadium, the home team scored 68. It was nice rooting for the winning side for once.

Gina took me to a new (for me) Japanese restaurant one night, though mostly I stuck with old standbys Curry House and Zippy's. We also watched The Prestige, which is a trippy movie about rival magicians that unexpectedly goes sci-fi at the end. Like The Departed, I really enjoyed the build up but didn't like the ending.

An unexpected distraction on the trip was the Nintendo DS game Big Brain Academy, which I bought for Gina to serve as an occasional quick study break. It has a bunch of mini puzzle games that fall into five categories, like Compute and Memorize and Analyze, and you can do the test mode that runs you through all five categories and calculates the weight of your brain based on the speed and accuracy of your results. Each test takes about five minutes, so it's not supposed to be time-consuming, but with brain weight superiority on the line, we got sucked into the competition. So far, Gina has proven to be the bigger brain, by 7 grams (1881 to 1874), but it's been only a couple of days, so our brains will surely grow in the days to come. Now I just need to get a DS of my own.


I'm back at work now, but it's Halloween, so I've been able to ease back into things with an easy day. Lots of cool costumes, but nothing that rivals the genius of Gerald.

God it's cold out here.

A Flight to Hawaii w/Kevin Smith

No, Kevin Smith was not on my flight to Hawaii, at least not in person.

To kill some time on the flight, I brought along An Evening With Kevin Smith, a collage of Q&As from his university speaking tour. Despite being a huge fan of his movies, I wasn't really aware of this collection until Gerald sent me a segment floating around on Google Video, where he talks about his involvement in the Superman project. It is hilarious, and the closing punchline kills.



It was enough to compel me to buy the DVD and check out the rest of it. The guy is an amazing storyteller. It's hard to stop watching, but I've got plenty to keep me busy out here, so I'll finish it on the flight back. I'm not even halfway through, and I've already ordered Volume II to have it waiting for me at home.

Week 2 Experiment Results

This week I used the red route home, which took me to San Antonio to get on the freeway. On average, it was almost identical to the blue route, which pretty much tells me that I should take the blue route when the left turn light on Rengstorff is the first to turn green, and otherwise I should take the red route.

Last one to test is the local route, and hopefully it wins decisively and renders the previous decision moo.

Table 2: Red Route Results

Day	Time
Monday	9' 29" 44
Tuesday	9' 02" 37
Wedensday	9' 18" 36
Thursday	8' 53" 28
Friday	9' 54" 16
Average	9' 20" 81

Earthquake!

After living in California for 6 years, I consciously had never felt an earthquake. I don't want to say that I felt that I missed out on that experience, but it's interesting that I only felt my first one a little over a month ago here in Hawaii. I think it was a small one and caused nothing more than the windows to rattle. At the time, I actually thought that a bird had flown into my window. But I suppose it should be no surprise that earthquakes occur frequently Hawaii, albeit with a magnitude that usually is not felt by humans, since we are near a fault line and have hot spots with active volcanoes both above and below sea level.

On 10/15 at 0711 Hawaiian Standard Time, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck. I was sleeping in bed when the rumbling woke me up. It felt like being in one of those massaging beds. My wall pictures were creaking on their hinges. I immediately thought "earthquake!" and jumped out of bed to stand under my doorway as was taught to me back in Cali (note: most of the people I talked to and who were interviewed lay in bed the whole time!). But I couldn't see with my bad eyesight, so I ran to get my glasses from my dressor and by then the rumbling stopped (I guess that wasn't the smartest thing to do in retrospect). Overall, the earthquake probably lasted anywhere between 10-20 seconds.

I turned on the TV, and the usual programs were going on. Not noticing any damage, I thought the earthquake minor and flopped back onto bed. I definitely felt the 6.0 aftershock a couple of minutes later and then we lost power. For some reason, the entire island of Oahu experienced a black-out and was the last to regain electrical power even though islands closer to the epicenter had their power restored more quickly.

Thank goodness for the radio which was our only means of learning what was going on. My dad actually went to deliver a wreath for a funeral that day which he later learned was cancelled as it was announced on the radio. It seems ridiculous, but Oahu didn't experience much damage. I think only several homes had some damage, but the roads were intact, and there weren't any fatalities or major injuries.

Since the epicenter was located around 20 miles from the Big Island of Hawaii, it understandably had the most damage. It's amazing that with quakes of such magnitude that there wasn't more damage to property and life. The Big Island is generally rural. Also, if an earthquake had to hit, it hit at the perfect time when most people were at home and when there was some light already in the sky.


On the Big Island


On the Big Island


Bridge on the Big Island

As for me, the day was spent studying (woohoo); I actually got a lot done, considering there was no internet or TV. Thank goodness my Nintendo DS was charged, and I played some Cooking Mama. :) Unfortunately, we did not have any gas stoves or heating plates, so for lunch, I ate bread, chips, and a cookie. For dinner, my parents and I would have had canned tuna on chips if not for some family friends down the street who had a gas stove and cooked us a feast with salad, shoyu chicken, sashimi, unagi, rice, and coffee ice-cream. We definitely will invest in one of those gas hot plates: I highly recommend one! I then came home and studied by flashlight. The power did not end up coming back on until after 11 P.M. that night.


Power slowly coming back on


These tourists have the right idea! At least, the weather is nice
and not freezing like in New York

It definitely was an experience to remember, and thank goodness no one was seriously hurt. Happy Belated Birthday to Dean (a.k.a Pansies in fantasy football) whose birthday was on the same day. Thanks to all of you who were concerned about me and my family!

Aiya, now the Big Island is experiencing flash floods.

Week 1 Experiment Results

Table 1: Blue Route Results

Day	Time
Monday	8' 31" 52
Tuesday	9' 05" 92
Wedensday	9' 07" 68
Thursday	10' 27" 00
Friday	9' 38" 24
Average	9' 22" 07

What Year Was Kenny Rogers Born?

There are 15 trivia questions below. How many can you answer correctly?

As many of you know, I've always enjoyed absorbing random facts and regurgitating them in a know-it-all fashion, but ever since reading Ken Jennings' Brainiac, I've been jonesing for a competitive outlet for all this trivial information stored in my head.

You see, Jennings' book goes beyond the requisite tracing of his meteoric rise on Jeopardy. He also details his travels across the country as he explores various incarnations of trivia, including the annual three-day trivia fest in Wisconsin, college quiz bowls, and tavern trivia nights.

It was his description of this last one that piqued my competitive interest. He relays the story of how he joined a team of friends for their weekly trivia contest at the local bar, and he covered his face with a hat to remain incognito (he's a celebrity among trivia geeks, the ultimate ringer). Of course he helped them win.

Now, I'm never going on Jeopardy, I don't live near Wisconsin, and my college quiz bowl eligibility is exhausted. But this, the tavern trivia night, actually sounded accessible. The only question was, where to go? My knowledge of the local bar scene is...limited, you might say. Well, as luck would have it, my coworker Dave asked me just this week if I would join his group for the weekly Wednesday night trivia contest down at Katie Bloom's Irish Pub in Campbell. Are you kidding me? What are the chances? I finish Jennings' book last week, getting me all excited about trivia, and a few days later my coworker asks me out of the blue to join his trivia team? Brilliant!

So tonight was my first time out, and I was anxious to show that I could contribute. The team is a powerhouse and regularly finishes top three, with two Jeopardy-worthy guys (Ed and Jim) and a couple of other solid triviaphiles. I'm teammate number seven. Lucky number seven, I hope.

There are about 15 teams competing tonight, and after the first couple of rounds, it's clear that we're in a three-way race for first, with the top team getting $50 knocked off its tab, and second place getting $25. But the most important thing at stake is pride (which, if you think about it, we abandoned when we decided to participate in a weekly bar trivia contest in the first place, but hey, we're nerds).

The contest has 5 rounds of questions, with teams submitting their answer sheets after each round and getting updated standings. Our team has a strict ban on cheating, but to prevent other teams from cheating as well, Dave has a device that knocks out cellular service within a large enough radius to cover the entire bar. Hehe, suckers. :) Of course, the joke's on him. He probably has testicular cancer from that thing.

The first round is ten questions of general knowledge. It's always the easiest round, and we know most of the answers right away, but we get stuck on two: 1) Who was named Esquire Magazine's sexiest woman in 2004? (Angelina Jolie) 2) Who first described our government as being "of the people, by the people, for the people"? (Abraham Lincoln) No one knows #1, so we decide to go with Halle Berry, but at the last minute I convince them to switch the answer, and I'm right! My first contribution! I'm relieved, because I'm the newbie, and it's the first time I put my neck on the line. As for #2, Jim and I know the answer beyond any doubt, but we are voted down by the other five in the group, who are convinced that it was from the Declaration of Independence. Actually, they all just follow Ed's lead, which is almost always the right call when you don't know the answer yourself, but not this time. Ugh! 9/10, one behind the leader. We should be perfect.

The second round is insane. Twelve questions on musicians, my weakest subject. I contribute zilch to the team. There is a list of ten musicians next to a scrambled list of the ways in which they died, and we have to match them up correctly. I've only heard of one of the guys on the list, Michael Hutchence, and I don't even know how he died! I would have only gotten one right on my own, and it would have been an educated guess (matching the rapper-sounding name with the shooting), but we manage to get an impressive 8/10, mixing up only two of them. By "we" I mean Ed, who does the whole thing by himself. The other two questions are also tough, but Ed nails them both as well: 3) What year did Buddy Holley, Richie Valens, and JP Richardson die in a plane crash? (1959) 4) How old was John Lennon when he was killed? (40) 10/12 for the round, 19/22 overall, and we're in first place by one!

The third round always has a theme, and tonight's is pretty creative. We are given ten dates and datelines, and we have to guess the famous news events associated with them. We nail all ten to stay in first by one. I am able to contribute one that no one else knows: 5) October 27, 2004, St. Louis, MO (Red Sox end the curse). Some other interesting ones: 6) November 17, 2003, Sacramento, CA (Arnold sworn in as Governor). 7) December 22, 1984, New York Subway (Bernhard Goetz shooting).
8) May 28, 1997, Red Square, Moscow (Matias Rust lands Cessna). 9) December 19, 1998, Washington, DC (Clinton impeached). 10) June 5, 1981, Los Angeles, CA, CDC Journal (first reports of HIV).

We get tripped up in the fourth round, which is the visual round. We are given seven pictures of famous people and a city and country in South America that we need to identify. We nail the geography questions but are only able to come up with four of the famous faces, dropping us back into a three-way tie for first. Unbelievably, two of the three that we miss are Johnny Depp and Venus Williams! The Johnny Depp picture is small and grainy, and he is wearing a beanie and half-covering his face with an outstretched hand. I still can't see the resemblance even now that I know who it is. We guessed Ron Jeremy. :) The Venus Williams picture is just weird. I obviously know what she looks like, but this looks nothing like her. We guessed Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child. Like I said, weird. Dang, now that I think about it, we should have followed Ken Jennings' 1st Principle of Trivia: don't give the first name when answering a question! Williams!!!

So now the final round is for all the marbles. Ten general knowledge questions, with the difficulty level ratcheted way up. They are worth three points each, but that's irrelevant, because the top three teams are tied and way ahead of everyone else. In case we're still tied after this final round, there is a tie-breaker question, and tonight's is the titular "What year was Kenny Rogers born?" Yikes! The only thing I know about him is that he had a Roasters chain that was featured on a Seinfeld episode. I suggest we answer 1964, since I'm pretty sure that was when Kenny the pitcher was born, and the question doesn't specify, but we decide that won't fly, and after much thought, we guess 1939 (well, Ed does). Let's hope we can win this thing outright and it doesn't come into play.

Somehow, Ed and Jim know 11) what 1970s glam rock star was arrested after child pornography images were discovered on his computer when he took it in for repair (Gary Glitter...who the fuck is that?). I'm so out of my league. I do know 12) the school at which Will Hunting works as a janitor (MIT...most want to go with Hahvuhd, but thankfully Dave insists we switch to MIT), but we inexplicably miss 13) the two most Southwestern European countries in NATO (Spain and Portugal, which Jim and I know, but the group follows Ed again and goes with Spain and Greece), and we don't know that 14) in 1996, Saddam stopped the practice of chopping this body part off of army deserters (ears, we guess head, hehe). Lots of tough questions.

We end up getting only 6/10, but it's good enough for a tie for first with one other team! That means it all comes down to Kenny, and the other team has guessed 1940. Unbelieveable that after 71 possible points, our teams are tied at 52, and our tie-breaker guesses are only a year apart. The correct answer? 1938! We win!!! Of course, if we had been the ones with the later date, I would have pulled the pitcher card for sure. :)

Even though Ed is responsible for 80 percent of our correct answers tonight, he still feels redeemed for winning us the tie-breaker, since he cost us a couple of points earlier that prevented us from winning outright. That's like Shaq feeling redeemed for hitting game-winning free throws at the end of a game in which he scored 60 points but missed a few free throws earlier. Ed is the Shaq of Katie Bloom's Irish Pub trivia. Jim is Kobe. I'm Rick Fox. Or maybe Derek Fisher. We definitely had a couple of Madsens on the team.

My trivia jones has been sated for now, and I got $7 off my meal to boot. Great fun! Can't wait to do it again. Trivial Pursuit night, anyone?

Now it's time to watch Lost and find out if Sun got involved in any hanky panky back in Korea. Here's a final trivia question for you: 15) what did Sun's bald Korean friend (lover?) study in college? (you'll have to find this one on your own)

Life and Death

The country feared another terrorist attack today when a small plane crashed into a high-rise in New York. NORAD immediately put fighter aircraft into the air over numerous U.S. cities. Turns out it was actually Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashing his Cirrus SR-20 after experiencing fuel problems.

It's crazy to think that had the Yankees defeated the Tigers in their divisional playoff series, he would have been preparing for a game today instead of flying to his death. I'll store this one away for the next time someone tells me that sports isn't a matter of life and death.

When Lidle was struggling on the mound in his last appearance, and the commentator said that he was so wild he couldn't hit the side of a 50-story high-rise on Manhattan's East Side...he was wrong.

Too soon?

Commute Experiment Update #1

I won't provide daily updates, but I wanted to provide one after the first day.

First some variations on the experiment. For the Blue and Red routes, as I drive down Oregon towards Middlefield, I am giving myself discretion to turn left just prior to Middlefield (on Ross) or just after (Cowper) depending on the light situation. It's like having discretion over lane changes. I am not going to add those left turn variations to the experiment, because I will not pin myself to any one of them anyway. I will always choose the one that best fits the situation.

This week is devoted to the Blue route, and today I used the Ross left turn, which worked out well. One other thing of note: there was a car pulled over by a cop on the highway, but it didn't seem to have a material impact on traffic flow. Even if it did, I suppose that's part of the risk of taking the highway, right?

Total Time: 8' 31" 52

The Departed

I cannot write a comprehensive review of The Departed because of the potential for massive spoilers, so I'll just say this. It had me totally engrossed for two hours with an intense setup that was hugely entertaining, and then the floor dropped out below and took me completely out of the moment. I'll leave it at that.

I still recommend the movie, but I thought I would like it a lot more than I did. My expecations were sky high.

Not surprisingly though, the acting was excellent. And among a crowded list of stars headlined by Leo, Jack, Matt Damon, and Martin Sheen, it was Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin who stole the show. Wahlberg was hilarious in a natural return to his Boston roots, and Baldwin is now a parody of his Glengarry character in every movie he does, which is fine by me.

Next on my must-see list: The Prestige, aka Batman vs. Wolverine, featuring the traitorous Alfred the Butler.

Say It Ain't So

There are rumblings that Google is in negotiations to acquire YouTube. I will refrain from commenting on the strategic aspects of such a deal, but from a user standpoint...NOOOOOO!!!

As a fan of the many copyright-protected videos that show up on YouTube, it will be a sad day when they are acquired. Legitimate business = no copyright violations. I suppose an acquisition was inevitable, so if it makes business sense, it'll be cool if Google seals the deal, but will I still be able to share my favorite Daily Show clips?

Better take advantage of it while I can...

Lost For a Third Time

The season premiere of Lost was shown again on Waikiki Beach this past Saturday. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend due to celebrating 2 of my friends' birthdays (I told them that my being there at dinner showed how much they meant to me and blah blah blah...heehee). Apparently, all the cast members showed up this time (unlike last year), and there was an even bigger crowd than last year! Check out some of the pics:

http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/01/news/story04.html

At any rate, I loved the first five minutes of the show and was hopeful that it would be a good indication of how the season would play out. The remainder of the episode was good, and we understand more about Jack's and his father's relationship. But as far as the overall plot line, I don't know any more than I did at the start of the show. Hopefully, it will pick up more next week. What do you all think?

Scientific Method

Problem

Ever have more than one path to a location and wonder if you're taking the best one? I take the same route home from work every day, and I ask myself the same questions each time. Is this the optimal route? Should I take local instead? Or should I try getting on the freeway one exit up?

It's time to get some answers. Nothing definitive - that would take too long - but I want a more informed decision. Three choices, which is the best?



The blue route is the one I take now, and it is the one recommended by all the major online map services. 101 from Rengstorff, exit Oregon, left on Middlefield, right on Colorado.

The green route is the local one. Charleston to Middlefield, then left on Colorado.

The red route is the same as the blue one, but one exit further up the 101, from San Antonio.

Hypothesis

I expect the local route to be the shortest by time. It is more direct than the freeway routes, and the big benefit of the freeway is negated by the traffic and clogged on-ramps. The busiest intersection I would run into with the local route is a right turn onto Middlefield, so it isn't dependent on the light. Most of the other lights are usually green. This route also allows me to avoid the worst intersection I run into on the other routes, the Oregon/Middlefield left turn.

The freeway is most clogged between Rengstorff and San Antonio, so I think it will be faster to enter the freeway from San Antonio.

1. Green
2. Red
3. Blue

Materials


        2001 Honda Accord EX

Experimental Design

From 10/9 to 10/13, I will use the blue route to drive home.

From 10/16 to 10/20, I will use the red route to drive home.

From 10/23 to 10/27, I will use the green route to drive home.

Devoting one full week to each route should dampen the effect of traffic fluctuations as the week progresses (e.g. Wednesday is more crowded than Monday).

I will drive the way I normally drive. My speed will pretty much be dictated by traffic, as there aren't really any opportunities to speed, but I will take any lane-change opportunities that I think will shorten the drive.

I will time each drive from the moment I u-turn onto Charleston to the moment I park my car at home.

The lowest average time per day will be deemed the best.

Results

Stay tuned! First update on Friday the 13th!

2 down, 4 to go

It's nice to see sunlight again! I just finished my 7-week rotation in general surgery this past week. Although the hours were long, I actually had a fun time! Most of my patients were elderly, so I really enjoyed working with them and didn't mind getting into work at 0400... well, most of the time. I didn't realize how general surgery is composed of majority of bowel issues. Also, as a medical student, you aren't really allowed to do too much in the surgeries, other than cutting sutures and retracting. If I got to close a skin wound, I was lucky. I had the opportunity to take two overnight trauma calls, which was exciting but not up my alley; the fast pace was a little too much for me.

An issue that was interesting was having my old high school classmate as my intern. I actually had gone to school with him since kindergarten. I was never close to him at all, but let's just say that things overall worked out okay. I've been lucky so far in that a lot of my friends have been in my rotations, and we've all been working really well together. There aren't any Christina Yangs in my group! For the most part, I've really enjoyed the surgical attendings and residents, but I was very disappointed that the experience didn't even come close to that on Grey's Anatomy (hehheh). Here is my usual list of things I learned on the surgery rotation:

1) Farting is a good thing (ahem, Chang)
2) When a meth addict asks for ice, don't assume he means ice chips
3) Crocs are very fashionable in hospitals
4) It is possible to fall asleep standing up
5) I don't know how surgeons can drink coffee and not have to pee during the procedures
6) Gallstones can be souvenirs

My block 1 OB-GYN group


My block 2 Surgery group


This is pretty much what happens as soon as we sit down


On to medicine for 11 weeks!