Thanksgiving

Willy and I are sort of starting a tradition in our house: a Tofurkey dinner together sometime around Thanksgiving. With his job and mine, usually one of us is working the day of, before or after Thursday making it hard to fit into traditional plans. With this year we had our friend Benny over and watched a movie together, Noise. This year turned out well. We're thinking of next year having more friends over.

Image from lifehacker's post on how to prepare tofurkey. Yes concerned carnivores it does not look like the real thing. And yes thoughtful vegetarians a real veggie meal would not have a meat substitute. But dang it - tofurkey is GOOD!

Check out the movie too it's fun. It has one of the most intense opening scenes:


Oh and I made my first keylime pie from scratch. It was fabulously tart.

This was really fun.

Willy and I were in Tampa FL last week. I was attending the ONS Institute of Learning Conference. We flew home Monday, but before that we drove across the State to Titusville - a small town across from Cape Canaveral - and watched the shuttle Atlantis launch.

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This is the kind of thing Willy comes up with. It's nice to have that in a life partner: geek suggestions that I don't even know I'm interested in yet.

The above picture is everyone waiting for the launch. We watched the countdown on Willy's iPhone and they guy behind us had a radio with the Nasa countdown. That was great to hear - so atmospheric - the gurgling radio sounds. The picture below was just after it launched:

I took some really bad video of it - it's short because i always worry that I'm not really experiencing something when I'm looking at it through a camera lens. And the video really doesn't capture the sensation of watching the launch at all. Notice that there is no sound of the launch - that kicks a few minutes later because we're 7 miles away and the sound has to travel. Very intense.

So I just put the camera down and watched. If you get a chance to watch one of these I highly recommend it.
Here's a better video.

Paul Nicklen: Polar Obsession

Heard this on NPR the other day. The pictures on The Picture Show Blog are beautiful. The story is interesting too.

Transferring to a New Unit

Details: the new unit I'm moving to is going to be leukemia, thoracic and telemetry. I have just recently figured out how to properly spell t-h-o-r-a-C-i-c. I want to put an S where that C is. But that's wrong. See how open to learning new things I am at this time in life? Thought I should take advantage of that impulse and push some more info into my brain. Expand my knowledge!

The new unit will open at the end of January. I don't know yet when or how I will train for it. That should be interesting. I went to a get-to-know each other meeting the other day and was pleased to hear one of the ice-breaker questions brought up The Office.

Oh I love The Office, someone else said. And then someone else. And then someone else! Yay! My new co-workers and I have similar t.v. tastes. That is always a good thing. I love you G-9 Lymphoma, my current floor, but I just cannot get into Dancing With The Stars AT ALL.


via videosift.com

Changes

Well I'm back from my hiatus. Sometimes I need to disconnect from the internets. I'm sure most people get that.

There are some interesting changes going on in my life right now. I'm moving to a new unit at work. It's leukemia, thoracic and telemetry. So I'll be learning new things.

Willy and I are also going to Tampa for an Oncology Nursing Conference which should be fun. More on this later.

I'm really into work right now. Probably a large part of why I'm not posting. There is always tricky issues to consider when posting about anything work related. But right now I'm really enjoying what I do. It's a great feeling. Not that I didn't before - but it's different now. I'm actively seeking out challenges.

I like this time.

American Nurses Association Endorses President Obama's Healthcare Reform

So how does one follow up a speech to a joint session of Congress? By chatting up nurses of course.

ANA Nurses Answer Call to Support Obama’s Stand for Health Care Reform
ANA President Patton and members of ANA joined President Obama today at the White House to demonstrate their strong support for the President and his speech to the joint session of the U.S. Congress last night urging action on health reform that would provide more security and stability to those with health insurance and guarantee access to affordable health care for those without it. video of the event complete with cute nurses in scrubs and lab coats. His comments about nurses in his life are really touching.

In this speech he mentions a blog I like by Theresa Brown, an oncology nurse.

Yay nurses!


photo by Doug Mills / The New York Times

Today in my Kitchen

Roasted vegetables with rosemary and a cauliflower casserole.

Bicycle Storage

Now that the weather is cooling off a little.... low 90's instead of high... I'm riding my bicycle more. I made a space for the bikes right by the front door so they're easy to get in and out. But I'm always looking for the ultimate indoor bike storage that's going to... I don't know... be easy to access when I'm ready to go and out of the way when I'm at home.

Wonder how this one is from uncluttered (via Swiss Miss. I love the simplicity of it. And it's cheap too - less than $14 on amazon right now.

For a little more this looks nice too from the art of storage.

Like that little shelf. But that one probably won't work for mine AND Willy's. Well. We'll have to see. For now the bikes just stand on their own behind the sofa by the door.

sam rey write up on The Daily Meaux

Want to point out this nice mention that sam rey got on the Daily Meaux in a post by Cecil Doyle:

"No commercially available recording has arrived yet from Sam Rey. Neither have they gigged much (having to my knowledge, performed maybe just once or twice in public, thus far). But this should in no way deter you from searching out one of the area's best kept new secrets. Like ominous smoke rings lifting from the ashes of Bluerunners (the band who in my humble opinion were most emblematic of the sum of everything musical about the Lafayette area for the past twenty-something years), Mark Meaux and Will Golden ARE Sam Rey. When they debuted recently at The Blue Moon Saloon, a small gathering of locals witnessed a truly unique musical experience. Sitting comfortably side-by-side near the front edge of the tiny stage, an antique lamp table (complete with working lamp) between them serving as platform for their accompanying effects / drum machine; they wailed a brief set of down home, blues-informed dittys that bore little resemblance of the dance inducing rhythms that fueled their former long running vehicle. Meaux's Dylan-by-the-way-of-Grand Coteau-esque vocal delivery stews perfectly with the duo's rootsy musical plate peppered to the fullest by multi-instrumentalist Will Golden on a variety of stringed instruments (steel & slide guitars, banjo, etc.). Every tune sounded like home.....even the spacey, transmission static employed on great original numbers like "Satellite Lights" (perhaps because that particular tune leaves me feeling like I've just walked on the moon!). Besides being able to catch fleeting moments of their tracks regularly on my own weekday radio program on KRVS; about the only other way to currently catch a batch of Sam Rey is by checking out their MySpace page (www.myspace.com/7samrey) or just 'google' or 'bing' them up on your computer and something is bound to happen. Try and keep the feet still with "March On" or wonder just when the New Orleans Tourist Commission will catch hold of and use their new track, "Meet Me In New Orleans" and slap it on every television and radio commercial they produce over the next five years. Expect pure brightness from Sam Rey!"

Of course you should look at the original post because Mr. Doyle has interesting things to say about other local music coming out of Southwest Louisiana. If the music of SW La is not part of your listening pleasures, well it's time to start.

photo shoot for sam rey at Frank's

Saturday Willy and I met Mark over at Frank's studio to shoot some images for Sam Rey, their new music project. Damian, another photographer friend of the family was there as well. Frank and Damian have worked as photographers in Houston for a long while and their work is amazing.

When I was in high school and used to pour over this free weekly called Public News for interesting things in Houston my sister Patti and I would talk about how cool the Texas Junk ads were. I learned years later that was Frank - my future father-in-law. How small world is that. A young Willy was in some of those pictures.

It was interesting watching Damian and Frank work. They really knew their way around lighting - often the thing that makes pictures their best. They would manipulate it over and over until it was just right. And some of the images they ended up with were really gorgeous.


Another great thing about Frank's studio: it's a circus of curiosities. I never tire of looking at the things he's collected. And I always find something new I never saw there before. I've been visiting this studio on and off for 15 years now and it never fails to be interesting.

The camera above is a perfect example. This was a nice Cannon camera of Franks that was in their beach house when it burned down.

Another favorite is in the bathroom. It's a collection of polaroids and at the bottom it says: 61 lies about 63 people.


A young Willy is in one of the polaroids:


And his little sister Emily:


And a bunch of other curious looking people:




Remember earlier when I said I always see something new? Well this time it was the hairbrush holder in the bathroom:

Note the scrunchy on there. And the squished dried frogs.

A few other details:


Gorgeous old clocks:



An interesting day.