It's always interesting going to a hospital.  This time, I was the patient, not my dad.  I took a cab to the hospital and went  Emergency.  It wasn't busy and I saw the triage nurse within 5 minutes.  He took the usual information down.  I explained the problem and the medication I needed.  He made a few notes and walked me into the emergency room right away.  It was the same thing the last time. 

Within minutes two nurses (one was a good looking Chinese guy), a doctor and a student came in.  One person hooked me up to monitor while another stuck an IV in me.  They explained what they needed to do and what to expect.  I nodded and told them I remembered how it was last time.  They gave me my meds through the IV line and pushed it through.  I spent the next hour or so under observation.  But I know there wasn't much they were really going to do.

So I spent the time pondering and observing.  I watched patients getting hauled in.  One person didn't speak English that well and came in by ambulance from a nursing home.  When the nurse tried to put an IV into him, he let loose a torrent of Italian swear words.  Another patient started to cough really bad.  A nurse came in to help clear a lot of mucus.  They closed the curtain so I couldn't really see.  But they all wore masks and gowns before entering.  In the bed right in front of me, a woman had what I overheard was a gallstone or kidney stone.  There were 2 women who must have stayed up all night with that patient.  They both had very rumpled dresses and tired eyes.

The brief bed rest was an opportunity again for life to tell me something.  You become aware of your mortality when you sit in a hospital bed.  I started wondering what I did with my bucket list.  I mean, this wasn't a life threatening incident and I wasn't close to death.  But it's still the emergency room. I wanted a note book to jot down my thoughts.  But there were just questions.  What's worse, I was stuck in the quiet section of the ER.  The elderly man was now sleeping.  The coughing guy was quiet.  Another woman who came in with her husband was resting.  Everyone was quiet.  It was too much for me to handle. 

This was almost 3 weeks ago.  It seems so far away now. 

Lost

Dreams I've had when I was younger

We were inseparable

Laughter, fun times, a good life, exploring the world and exploring myself

If found, please contact the author of this blog

Wow... what a storm!  My power came back about 30 minutes ago but my sister / dad and my brother are still down.  A lot of streets are flooded, subways and commuter trains aren't working in certain lines.   I hear sirens every few minutes.  Even though I have power, I can't even get to my dad's place because a lot of the streets are blocked / closed. 

http://livenews.thestar.com/Event/Severe_thunderstorms_in_Toronto

Dear Lord,

I know you're busy trying to heal the sick, eliminate poverty, stop wars and preventing humans from being the worst enemies to themselves.  Could you just squeeze in one more thing on your agenda?  If I could just ask you to get the crazy drivers off the road, I would be eternally grateful.  Yeah, I know I speed a bit here and there but for the most part, I am pretty careful.  But yesterday I drove behind the slowest BMW M3 driver in the world.  He almost succeeded in getting my blood pressure to a record high.  On the way home, I almost got clipped by a van.  The driver was on my left lane and I was in the middle lane.  But she was so nervous driving so close to the retaining wall that part of her van was in my lane.  When I honked at her, she decided to just dive into my lane instead.  Even F1 drivers have better road manners.  I honked loudly but refrain from saying any nasty words.  

So if you could just throw some lightning bolts on those crazy drivers, that would make me real happy. 

Finally, and I know I'm pushing my luck; if you could give the Xanga 2.0 fundraising a gentle nudge, that would be great.  A lot of folks would be happy.  You can even disregard my earlier plea about crazy drivers.  I'm willing to make a sacrifice.

Matt

#WeAreXanga

We’re just over the halfway point for donations in the Xanga Fundraising Campaign (link).  Yet, aside from a couple of posts from the Xanga Team, the level of communication is less than what I had expected.   I can only conclude that they are overwhelmed with the work before them and simply don’t have the cycles execute a coherent communication plan.  As with any corporation or organization going through a significant change, you need a solid change management plan which includes a communication plan. 

With less than 3 weeks to go, I hope the Xanga team really step up the communication. 
 1.  Take advantage of the Front Page.  Feature the Fundraising Campaign more prominently in the Front Page.
 2.  Send out mass message.  I'm not the first to suggest this.  Jose mentioned this the other day.
 3.  Change the login so that when people log in, they get a reminder about the Xanga fundraiser and the link to it. 
 4.  Move out the top blogs so that @Edlives, @RoadLessTaken, @Saintvi and anyone else who is actively helping get permanently featured there until we meet our goals.
 5.  Ask the community for help in executing your communication plan. 
 
Many members of our the community who have jumped in.  Joel (Edlives) has done a good job of describing Xanga 2.0 and how it will be radically different than we see today.  Alex has spent quite a bit of time hosting a radio show on www.blogtalkradio.com/roadlesstaken with Xangans (past and present).  One of my favorite bloggers (Chris) will be on this Thursday June 27th at 8:30PM EST.  Check Alex's blog for the schedule.  There’s been so many good ideas expressed on that show.  Saintvi has a fundraising campaign.  Many others have offered suggestions on fundraising and alternate pricing models. I hope Xanga is listening.

Despite my concerns about the need for more communication from the Xanga team, I still have faith in the next version of Xanga.  I’ve pledged some time ago and will stay to see what the future looks like.  I've gotten a lot of support from my subscribers both past and present.  I've grown and learned a lot here.  I started my Xanga simply as an online journal.  But it's more than a journal now.  I have no idea who will be here with me.  I know some of you are moving on and I'll find a way to stay in touch with you. For those of you who are still on the fence, I hope you’ll make a donation.

Pledge Here: https://xanga.crowdhoster.com/relaunch-xanga

#WeAreXanga

corrected tag for Alex / Roadlesstaken & Joel / Edlives

It's almost 4AM and I'm wide awake.  My sister phoned me at 2 AM.  Dad fell down and wasn't able to get up. She wasn't strong enough to lift him up and she called me.  I was out the door within 10 minutes.  I got him off the floor and into the bed.  He kept apologizing for getting me out.  I smiled and said it was fine. He wasn't in any pain.  But I told my sister to call me in the morning to see if he could get out of the bed.  I will have to check to see if there's any techniques he can use to get himself off the floor. 

I probably won't be able to get back to sleep so I'll just have to do with a couple of hours of sleep today.  So much for getting to bed early to catch up on my sleep. 
This probably the only time the streets outside my condo is quiet.  The traffic has quieted down. The people have gone home.  It's just me and my noisy thoughts. 

Maybe I'll read a bit.

I've been getting updates from my cousin sporadically.  My aunt is still in ICU and my cousin isn't able to get out that often to send emails.  Today's email wasn't encouraging with just a glimmer of good news.  Every email seems to be a roller coaster of emotions.  If she gets better, she starts chemo immediately.  All of this is opening up memories of my mom's last few weeks in the hospitals.  These are memories that I've buried and sealed.  But now they are coming back.  I had to catch myself several times today just to stop the emotions.  What's also eerie is timing, my mom went into the hospital almost to the exact day 8 years ago. 

Between this, my dad and work - maybe life is trying to tell me that I need to pay more attention to living. 

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”  George Bernard Shaw

I came across this while procrastinating. 

My Happy End from Talking Animals on Vimeo.

I wish I had a happy end or an appendage that was my friend (this is not sounding right). 

Sometimes I think it's better for me to just quit my job and forget about the financial pressures that will inevitably follow.  Maybe I can just sell everything I have, move to some small town and live a hermit like existence. 

Such is the state of my mind nowadays.  Everyday at work (including weekends) is just a stomach churning, morale sucking experience.  I used to joke I'm a corporate whore.  Now I really feel like one. 

Maybe I should become one in real life.  A rent boy?  I'm too old for that.  Maybe I can do erotic blogging.  You hire me, I'll come to your place, you can watch me blog and hopefully you'll get turned on by that.  I suspect my market will be very limited (close to zero).  But I'm sure there are some really rich, kinky people that will hire me. 

I can only dream.  I better get to work in my real life.  But please spread the word for me. 

Hong Kong:

• as I kid I was mesmerized by the Star Ferry.  I was fascinated by the gates on the ramp to the ferry, the bell ringing, boarding the moving ferry, the wooden seats, windows and watching the city scape.  I even enjoyed watching the water churn a brilliant white / green foam as the ferry docked
• the crowds
• and they all spoke Cantonese, I thought it was just the language of my family and relatives
• the food
• relatives, no matter how old you are, they still treat you like you're a kid
• bringing flowers to the cemetery for departed relatives
• horse racing
• domestic workers out on Sundays
• temples

Credit: Javin Lau 500px.com/proletariat

I don't have much to write about today.  There are too many thoughts flying around in my head.