Southland - NBC's new cop drama

I love this show. Cop drama following the lives of beat cops and detectives in lapd. It's got a catchy well-lit noir intro, features a quick glimpse of something that happens in the future, and then the show moves from past-present and onwards thereafter. I saw an episode on Hulu.com last week and now I'm hooked. I'm in the middle of an episode now, unforutnetly Hulu only features the most recent 5 episodes so I haven't seen the first and second episodes. 

Funny thing is that I don't even like "cop dramas". Nope. I never got into NYPD Blue, CSI Miami, Law and Order: Whichever. Barney Miller was before my time, but I'll get around to it since the namesake character was featured in a "top 100 characters of all time" on either Bravo or E!... whoops I can't remember which network...

The closest things to cop drama's I ever got into as a youngster were Quincy and Rockford Files, neither of the guys were cops. Southland is great because it basks in a background radiation of gritty LA life: gang bangers, drug dealers, rapists, so forth. However, it's the foreground we're all after - it strives for in depth character development. It's serial not episodic, which is something that turns me off of most crime drama's and their mindless money-making spin-offs. Oh and of course being about cops and taking place in LA there are a few sub-story-arcs or sub-plots about racial and socio-economic divides.

So when is Oakland going to get a successful police drama franchise on Network TV?

Sinus Surgery - Day 8 - Sinus Rinse Fun Time

I'm sleeping at really odd times, like 5AM to 3PM and napping in the evening. It's weird. Ever since surgery... hmmmm.

So yesterday after the doc's visit I picked up a Sinus Rinse as he instructed. I'm supposed to use this rinse daily. In his ultra-space-y-ness he forgot to explain to me what a sinus rinse was and why I needed it, until I probed him further before our "time was up"... skip to this morning... whoops I mean this afternoon. I wake up and whine about how ridiculous the instructions are... can't use tap water, has to be filtered by a 0.5 micron filter, we don't know our home filter size so my sister suggest that I use the drinking water tap, ok that'll work. I microwave some water and add it to room temp water to make it warm then add 8 ounces worth to the sinus rinse bottle.

It's designed to be held to one nostril over a sink... you mix the aforementioned water and a packet of bicarb solution and then squirt about 2-4 ounces of water in one nostril while tilting your head over the sink... the rinse then swishes around your sinuses and spills out the OTHER nostril. SO WEIRD! I did that in both and it was actually pretty neat, not too much discomfort at all and it really cleared out the blood, etc. that had accumulated. Yay.

I want to post photos of this thing in action, its such a simple product and they charge 9.97 for it at walmart and 11.67 on sale at safeway. It's a plastic bottle, nozzle, and packets of bicarb - probably all made in china... for like 10 cents a unit. Man they're making a killing at NeilMed the san raefel company that produces this stuff.

Sinus Surgery - A Week Later (Day 7)

I still need to fill in the gaps with blog posts about the day of surgery and immediately after, it's been quite a ride since last week (and I originally thought my anxiety over the surgery was nuts!) The surgery went pretty well last Tuesday and the doc has said that he hopes to have addressed the "mechanical" breathing problems I've been facing, but the key caveat is that everything needs to heal properly and that's why I've visited his office 4 times in the last week post-operation.

I just had to sneak in a post here because today's ENT visit was near horrific, but had some aspect of extasy whereby I left the exam room bleeding like crazy, but oddly very excited about how I handled myself. If that makes sense...

So the scheduling nurse had already set up this standard week after surgery appointment and my dad drove me as he has throughout this process. We arrive for a 1:15 appointment and as always I'm seen 30-45 minutes late (sometimes it's a longer day). The doctor squirted a set of nasal numbing agent and decongestant and left me alone for what seemed like an eternity (about 15 minutes). He returned and asked me to hold the instrument you see above, a 5 inch long needle looking sheath that has a tine camera on the end which feeds to a TV in a corner of the exam room. I was asked to put my knees together, and that means pain is on the way. He stuck the rigid needle up my right nostril and poked around checking out the passageways between the nose and ethmoid sinus, but not actually through the tiny openings that reach the sinus (that's for next week).

It was super painful! He then moved to the left nostril and by that point I was all tearing up, but definitely keeping my cool. After the left nostril we chatted about my progress, he said he'd corrected a slight lateralization of the left inferior turbinate and I was otherwise healing well. He prescribed me an OTC Sinus Rinse and sent me on my way. I proceeded have a crazy nose bleed and met my dad outside - he'd always joined me in the exam room, but this time I wanted him to wait outside because I thought it was going to be a bit more excruciating. And it was!

I really felt like I handled the pain well and was somehow really excited after. Or maybe it was the hydrocodone kicking in! Those opiate pain killers are dangerous!

Sinus Surgery - Night Before the Surgery

I'm getting up at 4:30AM and will arrive at Fremont's Washington Hospital around 5:30AM for a 7AM sinus surgery. It'll be my first surgery, and I'm definitely anxious, but I'm also optimisitic that the procedure will help reduce the constant pain/pressure I'm experiencing in my sinuses and upper jaw and the frequent recurring sinus infections, nasal blockage, snoring, ear pressure issues,and reduced sleep quality. Whoa those are a lot of issues!

Before I forget I wanted to include some interesting links I've discovered while researching the surgery procedure:

1) A UCSD medical school diagram/flowchart showing the escalation of treatment from the initial acute sinusitus finally to an exacerbated condition that requires sinus surgery.

2) An informative first person account by a patient who underwent surgery for recurring sinus infection that involved turbinate reduction and correction of a deviated septum.

It's taken me quite a while to actually discover I needed surgery, and after that to actually schedule a proper date and get up to speed on what the surgery entails and the outcomes it hopes to achieve. I still feel a little in the dark as I reviewed a lot of qualitiative information about outcomes and risks, but obtained no quantitative info regarding how these surgeries improve symptoms and quality of life. I had a pre-op with my surgeon last Tuesday, CT scans taken the day before that, and a pre-op testing with nurses at Washington Hospital last Friday. I may not have asked the most pointed/specific questions to my surgeon and therefore received pretty vague answers. In fact the first time I saw a list of the actual procedures being performed is when the hostpital pre-op interview nurse asked me to a sign a form consenting that I know what procedures are being performed on me!

They include:

Middle Bilateral Endoscopic total Ethmoidectomy
Bilateral Endoscopic Antrostomy w/ removal of Maxillary sinus mucosa
Right Concha Bullosa resection
Nasal septoplasty (repair of nasal septum)
Resection of inferior turbinates (with risk of atrophic rhinitis which sounds scary!)

I'm also not clear about how my sinus tissues began thickening in the first place! I definintely didn't have chronic sinusitis 8 years ago, but I have always had allergies and asthma. I've taken lots of different medicines indicated for treatment of nasal and lung inflamation and constriction. The topic of allergies deserves a whole separate discussion/post, but anyone who wants to get a refresher on why we have allergies and how the circumstances in the environment create a perfect storm for allergies year after year, listen to last week's Science Friday w/ Ira Flatow and two allergy doc's.

So I'm going to wrap up now, I wrote this post with two aims: 1) kickstarting a few articles that will chronicle my sinus issues, the surgery, and the outcomes (also with the hope of educating others and helping them ask the right questions before surgery!) 2) writing this helps me organize what I've learned and so I get to synthesize the info and it sinks in a bit more.

Wish me luck!

I'm Back in the USA - bank account is poorer, brain is richer? maybe?

I've been back for over a week now. It's not weird to be back even though this is the symbolic end of my escapades around the world. I visited 14 countries and over 35 cities since I left my Google gig back in May 08. I wasn't traveling the whole time by any means, it was more like 6 months of traveling. The rest of the time I spent in San Francisco and other parts of California. Europe was so expensive, I keep telling people I should've visited Europe before SE Asia and India some common commodities are 15-30 times more expensive in Paris and London than on the western beaches of Southern India. But that gripe is mostly a joke, I'm glad the timeline worked itself out the way it did.

The last 3 weeks of my trip were awesome. I stayed with local friends for about a week each in southern france, sw germany (rhineland pfalz) and berlin and it was a much richer experience because of the local contacts.

In the picture above I'm free as a bird, having enjoyed a wine tasting in Sankt Martin and overlooking the town of Diedesfeld. The vantage is next to Hambacher Schloss, famous for being the site of the Hambacher Fest held in 1832, which symbolizes the rise of German democracy. Alleged by locals as the site where the black/red/gold of the german flag was popularized.

Altrip, Rhineland Pfalz, Germany - Why am I here? There's a fantastic explanation.

I met Sabrina briefly in Varkala Beach, Kerala. On Christmas Eve last year. Little did I know at that time that I'd run into her again at Hampi Ruins, Karnataka a few weeks later while travelling with my sister and uncle. Even stranger still - I mentioned to her that I was travelling to Germany with a final destination of Berlin - she generously offered me her family's extra room in their awesome Altrip home. And so I've been here for the last three nights! It's been wonderful to relax, do laundry, have "psuedo parents", and sneak in some amazing german wine, history, architecture all while nestled in the beautiful riparian landscape of the Rhine River.

Altrip is a small village of 8000 inhabitants. It's very close to Mannheim where I first trained in. The post office in Altrip is in the back of a vegetable and pet food store, it's very small, but also very awesome. Believe it or not Altrip comes from the Roman Alta Ripa meaning raised up land next to a river ecosystem. Believe it or not Altrip was founded by the Romans in 369 AD. That's one old village.

We went to Speyer yesterday. Martin Luther officiallly split from the Catholic church here in the 1500s. It has a beatiful main street to the largest gothic cathedral in Germany "Dom". There's also an awesome mideival clock tower/city gate on the other and of the picturesque restaurant and shop lined cobblestone street. Nearby we visited a near 1000 year old Jewish Baths in the heart of the City, the ruins have been turned into an informative museum.

Last night my friend Sabrina's father took us to the SAP ice hockey arena to watch Mannheim proceed to kick Berlin's ass in a best of 5 playoff series. They're 1:1 now, it was a great game with awesome perks such as unlimited German buffet and excellent german beers! Dunkelweisen Jaaaa!

Today I woke up very late and in the afternoon we visited Dr. Burklin-Wolf winemaker. Sabrina's brother Glen's good friend works at the Cellar and gave us an excellent and informative tour from fermentation chambers all the way to bottling. There was a 1937 Vintage locked in a basement cellar-cave - it was preserved - and costs 1000+ euros, but many of it's "mates" were pillaged by American and French troops after they occupied Germany at the end of WWII. We ended the tour by sampling 4 different styles and vintages of Reisling in a well appointed tasting room - all after closing time! It was really a treat! BTW the word for wheat and yeast in German sound exactly the same, "heffe".

I finally watched Slumdog Milliionaire on a perfect transfer pirated pre-release-copy. More thoughts on Slumdog later. Let's just say I'm not sure why it won all those oscars. That's provocative perhaps? Well, germany's provocative.

Day 17: My First Post in Europe

this post should read as follows: dear me and friends, my sincerest apologies for letting myself and my small, but elite group of readers down. I have had ZERO coherent downtime on this trip... till today... in Paris... where I've barely set foot outside my 5th arrondisement , humble hotel's door.

At this point I've burned through 5 cities in 3 countries in a little over 2 weeks. My buddy justin and I are putting together a day by day comprehensive digest of what we actually did do in the last 2 weeks, otherwise we'll forget the details. And oh how many details there are!

Some highlights:

Shared bunks, chocolate, cookies, and stories with Sudanese/Eritrean Refugee's on an overnight train from Milano to Paris.

Uttered Catzo & Figa innumerable times with two great Milanese friends I made while hiking to the hilltop granary in Ollantaytambo, Peru.

Justin and I were nearly incommunicado by one of the above mentioned friends for dining at MacDonalds for lunch one day in Milan (where the local food is second to none, we are very guilty, mi dispiache FP)

Justin, Frank, and I have discovered the most fantastic word in the english language: Chav.

Started dinner with friends at a legitimate family restaurant in Barcelona at midnight. People eat only after 10Pm here...

I took my first mass on Ash Wednesday at San Pietro in the Vatican. Not a bad place to take mass, I have set aside no prohibitions for lent though.

After mass we saw the pope. He was being driven in the back seat of a BMW, there was a rapid street closure as they approached and people barely knew what was happening, they took such a fast turn towards San Pietro it was just awesome. He had the light on and windows rolled down and was waving to anyone who recognized him. They must've been hitting 50-60mph on narrow Roman streets that evening...

I visited the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world.

Have already purchased three expensive Eurostar Train tickets and not yet purchased my EuroRail global pass. Que idiota.

Admired the most expensive marble colummns and perhaps the oldest working lock/key doors in the Roman paladino.

The vatican art collection (see photo top right) is incredible.