LA County Fair 2006

Me and M went to the county fair. We hired a tricycle ride from the parking lot to the entrance. That was a cool way to start an evening at the fair. The entrance fee is a few bucks cheaper too.

The last time I went to the fair was 3-4 years ago with my neice E and her parents. We had a great time. We stayed there the whole day! This time it will be shorter.

We grabbed some BBQ tri tip with coleslaw and a tall glass of lemonade. Yummy. We then rushed over to the photography exhibit. When we got there, there was something odd. Where is the exhibit? I asked one of the usher who pointed us to the end of the gallery. There were only a few wall of pictures and four monitors with thumbnail pictures surrounding them. The monitors were the rest of the exhibit. Pictures were flashed every 5 seconds. I was disappointed as I was expecting prints on walls. I miss standing in front of the photograph and trying to see if it will evoke a feeling. The five seconds alloted for me to view them was sensory overload. I didn't bother to look at the rest of the monitors.

Next stop was the vendors. M ended up getting a $250 orthotics. I kinda talked him into getting one as it works great for me. We then got a microfiber mop and bunch of microfiber rags. It was so impressive that we both got a combo kit. My hospital also uses the same microfiber mop so I'm really sold. On the way out, a couple of women asked us what we are carrying. I told her a mop and she asked what's so special about the mop. M pulled out a rag and blew steam on his reading glasses, rubbed the glasses clean and they sparkled like they came out of the dishwasher. I was blown away. They too were amazed.

I saw a guy selling deep cleaning wax for cars. He told me it will also get rid of micro scratches on my black car. He also has a spray that will give a deep gloss. I was sold, 2 bottles of wax and a bottle of spray.

M haven't tried fannel cake so we ordered one each. He watched it made in a shallow pan full of oil. Yup, deep fried. He liked it but he said it will be his last one. We'll see. I got one with cinnamon. The cinnamon will counter the sugar thus negative effect for a diabetic, nooot. A rare treat indeed.

They were selling everything under the sun in this fair. Home improvement from windows, patios, and central air. I almost got a jacuzzi but the thought of making monthly payments drove me out of the store. Got to live within my means.

The Doobie Brothers played tonight. We saw part of the gig on the wide screenthey have at the food court. it was nice but I can't really relate with the DB's. I'm not a fan. The guitar jams are awesome though. For an upcoming guitar player, I was really impresed, hey they have been playing for decades and they are pros.

M saw atleast 3-4 former students. They were all nice and one was even in his mid twenties and is a coach at a local school. Considering M just turned 50 last week, some of his students from middle school are grown people now with jobs and family. M try to avoid contact from anybody from school as if they are the plague. He can't do anything in a county fair, practically the whole town is in the fair tonight.

We left around 11:30 p.m. Four hours of walking. I was beat and I'm working tomorrow.

Got a guitar.

I finally bought my guitar. After weeks of research and shopping, I found the best value and best sounding (according to guitar players ranking) guitar. It's a Seagull S6. Made in Canada.

The guitar store is located on Citrus Ave in Covina, Ca. It's been there for years but for some weird reason I never knew it was there. It is just a block off the main strip. In the store, I nervously asked if the have the Seagull brand and model. The sales rep is a young guy who is very helpful in terms of service and letting me play with the guitar. He even played it, letting me hear the tonal quality. One thing about being in the store, you get educated about the different models. The sales men didn't pressure me on getting the more expensive models. I wondered what a glossy versus semi glossy finish does to a guitar. They said that the semi gloss has a wider tonal range. I mentioned about the cost of a Taylor guitar. One guy said that the Taylors are just way up there in the quality/cost range and that it will be the dream guitar. It is better to learn with a quality guitar that I will play for years to come and then get a Taylor for that really special time to move up. Taylor is the Benz of guitars. Made in California, USA.

They also have to set up the guitar. This means to lower the strings closer to the frets. This makes it easier to play and I didn't have to press the strings hard. I didn't know they can do that. I will also need to sign up for 1:1 classes to learn how to read tabs and learn how the basics of playing.

While in the store, a young girl and her parents were shopping for a saxophone. After they paid for the instrument, she was left to carry her new sax in a black case. She barely reached the high glass counter as she slowly slid the black case to her chest. She has the biggest smile and probably the happiest child on the planet. There are other kids in the store waiting for their classes. It's band season and the kids are busy learning their instruments.

I can't wait to pickup my guitar and case. It's been 24 years since cousin Edbert taught me how to play. It's time to relearn old skills.

Lavatory upgrade.

Since a new remodel is not in the budget this year, I opted for a lavatory upgrade instead. A non-working sink and faucet is a pain and the guests will not like it. Can't wash their hands in the toilet? No way.

The following are pics of the old setup:





























The new setup: It took 3 trips to Lowe's and OSH Hardware. 7 hours of on and off work. About a few hundred dollars (including a new rotary drill handheld to get the sink mounts out due to excess rust) in supplies. A plumber will probably charge an whole arm for this job.

Three days a week, 12 hour shifts.

The good thing about 12 hour shifts is that I don't have to be at work 5 days a week. The new boss was doing rounds with the nurse educator and she's being oriented to the daily tools of the trade. I don't know how long she last did bedside nursing. She was case management manager before she took on the Chief Nurse Officer job. The former CNO was a critical care nurse so let's see if the case management background can make the hospital's nursing operation a better experience.

Early on the shift a patient was having a hard time breathing. I'm clueless to his status but I heard from the nurses that he and his family are quite a handful. One of the family members has a blog that documents their unpleasant experience here at Casa. I was surprised. People are unhappy in the sacred ground, the miracle place? Many a patients have walked out of this facility from a hopeless crumple of a human remain to a functioning/partially functioning human being. Therapy works and for some in miraculous ways.

Anyway, his parents refuse to send him back to the ER. Stating the last time he was sent there he didn't have to be there. It is common for families to know more than the medical professionals. It's annoying and I can't stand annoying people. Family is one of the biggest hurdles or one of the best friends to medical healing and progress. The doctor disagreed with the family so off to the ER. The rest of the day was quiet.

What surprises most nurses is why this patient choose to stay at Casa. I personnaly will find some other place to continue my rehab. They even refered to the nurses, respiratory therapist and nurse assistants as the three stooges. Now that is ungrateful, pure evil, and totally unnecessary. During the evening report, most of the nurses wishes he doesn't make it back. The supervisor wants to pack his things out so another patient can take his room. LOL, it's funny how Karma works for some people. The patient is paralyzed to the lip down (just pun, no such thing) and has a trach (aka superman C. Reeves) type of status. Perhaps some huge pulmonary infection has taken shelter in his lungs and his already beaten up immune system can no longer take the constant barrage of infections. Who knows? A nursing home is more than happy to take him as a resident. There he can harass the staff until he meets his creator.

Census is kinda low, so the case managers are scrounging to get patients to fill the empty beds. Some are bad choices, like the HIV patient with cancer. He was admitted so he can get his strength back for chemo. Well, he got so sick he was sent back to the hospital. Last word was he was in a coma. We even have a patient who had radiation therapy. No CNA will want to go near her. Ofcourse, she was my patient. At first I was pissed but as the day go on, she wasn't too bad. She hardly calls and being radioactive, no one is allowed to be with her for more than 30 mins. No family showed up for 2 days, the length of his radiation isolation. I love radiation therapy, it keeps the family out of the loop.

Don't et me wrong, there are a lot of great families out there. The stupid ones are the problem. Don't discuss meds with me, it's like discussing transmission overhauling with a mechanic. It's complex and very confusing. Hey that's why I'm the nurse, stamped and approved by the state. The liason between the doctor who doesn't want to talk to the stupid people.

Another one bites the dust.

Chief Nursing Officers come and go and my boss is one of them. After two years, she's gone. I really don't know how nursing management work. I really don't give a hoot how they work. The sure thing is that the ones that treat the nurses well are the ones who get the boot.

Nursing managers have to deal with doctors, nurses, families, and everybody else in between. Ultimately, there is a boss more powerful than they are and those powers don't like nursing bosses that are nice to their fellow nurses. They prefer nasty, hitler types that creates depressed, dissilusioned and frustrated nurses.

I saw this behaviour in Intercommunity in Covina and now in Casa. The nurses think they have a great manager, life is so smooth it can't be real. Next thing they know she is leaving. The grape vine is buzzing about management was responsible for her departure.

This doesn't happen in Kaiser as the managers there are never for the nurses. At Kaiser, it's always the contract, the contract, and the contract. Unions produces managers that are cold and calculating. Ask for a day off and you get a cold shoulder. You give them a suggestion and it goes to the garbage pile. Just go to work and don't cause any problem. Kill a patient and you get a week off to reflect on your errors. Back to work after that.

The new CNO, according to the grape vine, is the manager from case management. Now that is interesting. Case managers don't know how to do bedside. They think they do but they don't. That is why they prefer to push pencils and not meds. I won't judge her before she even starts. Who knows, she might be the next great manager.

Gas saving gizmos.

A few years back a company was marketing a piece of metal that causes a vortex to form within the intake manifold. This they say produces a better fuel/air mixture thus producing better gas mileage and more horse power. They showed test after test that showed marked improvements in both horse power and fuel efficiency.

I was sceptical of the product. If they really work, the automakers whould include this in their cars. This device is attached inside the air intake just before the air filter. The ads stopped airing that year and I saw them sold in Pep Boys. They cost about $50-60 depending on the car. I didn't get one then as I never heard any buzz about this product.

Today, I read this article about devices that people try to attach on their gas guzzler vehicles to save money on fuel.

KZLA 93.9 FM, Los Angeles' only country station is gone!

I was driving to the mall and there was weird music coming out of my favorite 93.9FM. I searched and search for KZLA, wondering what happened to it. I was really surprised that it was gone from the surface of the earth.

So, like any fan, I search the internet and found that last Thursday, the format was changed to Hip hop. Twenty years on the air and they are gone. Even the deejays didn't know about the change until that day.

Here is the article. I will miss the morning show. Goodbye KZLA.

Sept 11 anniversary.

It has been 5 years now since the Twin Towers went down in the hands of the MF arabs. There are a lot of documentaries about the Towers, NYFD Heroes and their families showing up on PBS and other cable and network channels. The good thing is that people has moved on and has made a lot of positive things despite such an evil event.

While watching PBS, I saw a documentary about a young firefighter who lost his life on 9/11. His story and how his family worked to remember him is inspiring.

Back to work.

I don't have enough PTO (paid time off) to keep calling in sick so I went back to work even if I didn't feel 100%. My assignment was not too bad, just routine nursing care. I didn't have to deal with any brain injury patients. They can be challenging.

I found out that the injuried former soldier has moved on to the TLC, transitional care unit. His wife was still in the anger stage of grieving process and she's been stuck on that stage for a year or more. Her behaviour (yelling, disrepectful to the nursing staff, aloof, etc.etc.) has become the subject of the nursing staff. At first I thought it was just me. The more I talk about it the more the other nurses started to verbalize their feelings about her.
It is sad that her husband will never be the same but those are things you think about when you join the military. Anyway, they are gone and I am glad. Let's have a bar-b-que.

Another male patient also moved on tho TLC. He and his family are really nice and are coping well. I admitted this gentleman and now he is moving on. He can't walk yet but I believe he will make it slowly but surely. He has a long way to go as part of his skull needs to be replanted. Right now it sits in his peritoneum, waiting for that day of reimplantation.

The young former nurse is also doing great. She used to be ventilator dependent and now she wheels herself around the unit with a traceostomy collar. The amazing thing about this young lady is that she is always smiling. Her positive attitude makes her a survivor. She was ejected from her car during a car accident. Keep those seatbelts on folks. People like her makes this job a keeper.

The registry agency continue to call. I told one of the schedulers that I have a full time job now and I will call them when I have a spot available.

Re-viewing some old DVD collections.

It's been a rough few days for me as I've been down with some nasty coughing. It felt like bronchitis as my asthma was also exacerbated. When my insurance coverage kicked in yesterday I went ahead to use it to see a doctor in an urgent care center in Montclaire. I came in wheezing so it got me in earlier than the other people in the waiting room.

A really nice physician assistant assessed me and ordered a breathing treatment and a chest xray. I felt 100% better after the breathing treatment. The chest xray showed signs of pneumonia. The PA ordered some inhalers and antibiotic that kills pneumonia bacteria.

I ran over to Costco to buy some fruits and dog food. Last stop was the pharmacy to get the meds. I called in sick for the 3rd time this week but there is no way I'm going to work with all the MRSA and VRE isolation patients at work. I told the night supervisor that I'm out sick and not partying. She was cool about it and wished me well. I slept well during the night. Interrupted only by a full bladder as I've been downing fluids like a fish. This helps move the mucus out of the pipes.

I finally finished my Hill Street Blues DVD collection. It reminded me of the show that kept me up late at night. The show reminded me of the long gone 80's. The clothing, cars, and culture of that decade was fun to watch. Cars were huge, wide lapels on men's suits were common. They used typerwriters, coin operated phones, and the cops carry .38 revolvers. BTW, Hill Street is the first of all the cop shows shot in such a revolutionary way that all cops shows were shot that way since then. The quick zooming and pulling of the lenses in todays cop show doesn't compare to the way Hill Street blues was shot.

Next stop was Northern Exposure. The 90's show of a physician who has to pay his medical school costs to Alaska who financed his education. I often wished I live in Cicely, AK. But, it's a fictitious town shot in a small town of Roslyn, Wa. I probably won't last long in the tundra of Alaska but it's nice to day dream. I've seen people who lived in the back country of AK and it's pretty rough living. It's backwards alright. The niceties of city life is nonexistent. Thank god for shows like this, I can dream of a place where people will pretty much leave me alone.

I bought House MD second season. I miss the cutting edge medicine I experienced in Kaiser cardiac surgery unit. This show kinda reminds me of the intense nursing I used to do at Kaiser. I now deal with patients in rehab. Intensity level is -1. A retirement job for sure. I pray for a code everyday and none ever occur. I guess that's good.

I'm feeling better and the cough is subsiding. Horray to antibiotics.

USC destroyed Arkansas 50-14 in the first game of the college football season.