Sunday, August 20, 2006
Bad Vibrations
I've been thinking about my dad quite a bit again lately, don't really know why. There were many things I did for him both large and small, and yet there were also a few small little things I didn't do for him that nag at my conscious and until today I hadn't really known why. The small things nag at me not because there weren't good reasons at the time that made them impractical, but because my father was at my mercy for realizing these requests. Perhaps he thought the few things I didn't do were from neglect and not from impracticality. If he were reasonably able bodied he could have taken care of them for himself, or at least discovered they were not easily obtained and decide for himself how much time and energy to invest.
I once had a vibrating razor I had used once while visiting my dad. I had picked it up at a dollar store in the mid-80s. It used regular razor blades and a single triple-a battery. It worked fairly well. Between visits it broke. Sure enough on that next visit he asked if he could try it, suspecting it might make shaving with his arthritic hands easier, but it just wasn't possible since I no longer had it. I looked in several stores after that visit, but never again found a vibrating razor. This was long before Google.com or Ebay.com so this is one simple thing I was unable to do for my father. Maybe it's fresh in my mind again as Gillette has recently brought its own M3Power vibrating razor to market. Such a simple thing, such and inexpensive thing to bring my father a little joy. I let him down. Strange that this almost brings tears to my eyes today.
Changing the subject to Nian and myself. Our change of agent fee has finally been received by the USICS (formerly INS). It took a full 6 weeks for them to accept and cash the money order. I had made several phone calls inquiring about the hold up. In the end they said they were sending me new forms, but in the delay waiting for the new forms (which were also taking too long) they found my agent fee forms and money order. Now I have to wait for proof of finance forms. That should just about be the last step before Nian's interview in China for her visa, though that is still a year off due to J-1 restrictions.
"Suicide, Suicide, Suicide!" the words come screaming from the TV set in the same voice used to announce Monster Truck Rallies on "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!" I can't believe in how bad taste this commercial is, advertising a lawyer's service for an upcoming class action suit against some drug. The words "SUICIDE" dominate the screen, to their right is the still image of an obviously distressed and emaciated male along with a list of drugs, assumedly with this side-effect tendency. Some kind of deep gothic chant music pounds in the background. Fox News is running this commercial in high-rotation. I thought after the first day it would certainly get yanked as "insensitive" -- but no. Maybe it is a local cable feed commercial -- I'd have to believe this thing would spark larger condemnation if released on a larger scale. The first time I viewed this I thought it was some kind of poor taste parody, but no -- poor taste reality instead.
The weekend has been spent buried in a GRE study handbook. I will sure be glad once I get it over with.
I wish everybody would shut up about John Karr and the JonBenet Ramsey murder case (damn, and now I'm talking about them). The DNA evidence will be in soon enough. Just SHUT UP already. All this damn speculation won't change one damn thing.
Word of a Chinese AIDS vaccine trial has finally hit Slashdot.org and Western news outlets, Nian informed me about it a couple of days ago. Here is a Chinese news release.
I posted an idea for simplifying liquid explosive detection to a Slashdot.org discussion, but I got to the discussion late and I doubt many have viewed it. Slashdotters seem to be of the opinion that airport security measures are overblown and mainly a cynical political ploy by those in power. I myself don't know. Interestingly Nian feels the security is perhaps NOT good enough in America, as her experience in her native China is of much tougher and thorough security.
One last little nit with Blogger.com, my login and password have defaulted to log me in for years, now it tries to override my default and take me to a blogger account based on my Gmail address name. I'm not sure if this an attempt by the people at Google to be helpful or insultingly intrusive.
Oh, wait, one more last last thing, there is an addendum to my last post (far out as it was).
