Glee

Being married means I watch shows that I wouldn't usually watch, but end up enjoying. We watched the preview for Glee and the concept of the show sounds like Sister Act as a serial TV show, where a teacher both instructs his students and learns himself in the process. I had hope, that it would be something I could enjoy. I still have some hope, but it starting out very predictable.

The most obvious plot point, is the drama with his controlling wife, who may or may not be pregnant, and the quirky fellow teacher who swoons whenever he is around. Its very similar to Jim and Pam from the office or one of a hundred other TV romances. We also have the jock whose tender and loves to sing, any may or may not have a triangle with the female lead and his current cheerleader girlfriend.

I have hope that it will break away from the TV stereotypes and return with a show where the drama is in the struggles of the teacher and students, and not in their love life's, but after Greys Anatomy and Smallville and House, I don't have a lot of hope for TV left.

Penny Arcade Game - On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 1

Attempting to be shorter, this game is a beautiful combination of the online comic world and video games. The art work is like walking through one of Gabe and Tycho's comics. The dialog while often a bit wordy is still as funny as ever. It reminds me a bit of playing a final fantasy version of psychonauts. The only bad thing I can say ... its too short. Good thing the second one is out already.

Gears of War

When my friend first suggested I picked up Gears of War 2 for my new Xbox 360 I thought, great a 50 dollar game that the best I'm going to get out of it is the ability to play with my friend online who is several states away.

I'm glad I was wrong.

It looks like one of a million 1st person shooters out there in the world. I've played Brother in Arms on the original Xbox and the whole point is move forward, take cover, force the enemy to take cover, flank and eliminate. Very similar concept in Gears, except the enemy seems to know where you are. Machine gun turrents don't blindly attack the men you left behind, they turn to force you to take cover too. Enemies break off to from the main attacking force to meet you as you attempt to flank. Cover is valuable here and being able to move smoothly from cover to cover and charge across open ground into cover are very valuable skills. I went back and played the first Gears of War and found a similar experience. Its as if the game developers scoured every article about games similar to their own and attempted to fix the things people didn't like.

As much as I enjoyed the game mechanics I found myself wanting a little more from the characters and exposition. Someone put a lot of thought into creating a back story to the characters and the world. The environment is rich and while the enemy matches your typical Hell/Zombie/Alien enemy the story that seems to emerge is inventive and different, while following similar lines. While all of this work in back story and characterization seems to be put in place the actual amount of information you are given seems to take a page out of John Frankenheimer's Ronin, the audience's imagination is meant to fill in the blanks.

With the metal case in Ronin I understand, the case isn't important, and not knowing only makes you more curious. In Gears of War the holes feel more like plot holes than things to think on. Its as if the game designer thought up this beautiful story but after a few hours of putting it into story boards decided that was good enough. For Example, in the beginning of the first game the main character is alone, locked up in a jail with no guards because everyone has been pardoned ... wait ... what? So in a prision full of people who have done horrible things, one man is left to be slaughtered by the incoming locusts? All you needed was a few guards and inmates scrambling to leave being wiped out before the players eyes by the locusts. Thats all you need to explain why he was left alone, you could also leave a few other inmates locked in there cells destined to suffer the fate that could have befallen Marcus.

Sometimes the measure of a good FPS is not its story or even the regular game play, but its all in about the multi-player. Gears of War has many unique multi-player levels. My favorite is Hoard, waves of Locusts enemies attack in increasing difficulty and you must band together with fellow XBox players to fight them off. Its not just run around and shoot, tactics are key, find a location set people to defend all angles and be ready to come to the aid of your comrades when the enemy attempts to overrun thier position. I haven't had this much fun playing multiplayer since Goldeneye came out on the N64. In addition to Horde there is capture the flag where the flag is a person armed with a shotgun, Defend the leader where you respawn until your leader is killed, and a standard frag match where you can't bleed out, you have to be executed for the other team to get a point.

Despite the lack of exposition and explanation, I found Gears of War I and II to be exteremely enjoyable games. They are not the innovative experience you might find in Psychonauts, Trauma Center, or Goldeneye, but they are well worth adding to your own experience.

Hospitals in the US

I know this goes against the main thoughts evoked by this blog's title. However, I'm the absent minded geek and since its my blog I thought I would write what plagues me today.

I am shocked at the lack of consistency in hospital care. I'm shocked at the conditions I have been over hearing as I sit with my wife in a hospital awaiting further news of her condition.

My wife has Crohns disease. Diagnosed when she was much younger in 1997, she has had two resections, one in 2000 and one in 2004. She has been in remission for 5 years. Just three weeks ago she began to have sharp pains just after eating. We went to the ER and heard the news we feared most, her Crohns was active again.

Since then we have seen her specialist, had blood work done, and this past Wednesday a colonoscopy was preformed. The colonoscopy confirmed the crohns but showed a much less active disease than the CT scan had shown. Crohns, as I'm learning, is hard to diagnosis since from a CT scan it looks like any other inflammation of the bowel. Her past inflammations have caused a thickening of her transverse colon and a stricture, or narrowing of the bowel, where her last surgery brought the small and large intestine together. This means her Crohns could be in remission and still show as abnormal on the CT scan.

Thanksgiving isn't very kind to active Crohns patients, all that yummy food they are not allowed to have. She ate something, not knowing it would aggravate her condition, and Friday she began to have the pains again. Saturday she vomited and it contained food that had been through several stages of digestion(that's a delicate way of putting it).

Now we had a long, but fairly pleasant ER stay at our home town hospital. The moment they brought her into the ER they listened to us when we said she had Crohns and immediately ordered a CT scan and blood work. The longest part about our stay was the 3 hours to get the contrast down and then the 3 hours of ping pong between on duty doctors to specialist pa to specialist doctor all to weigh our options for her best care. At the time we felt it was best that she be comfortable and not stressed. Stress it seems brings on the outbreaks more often than anything else. So we went home and have been working on her active Crohns as out patients.

Which brings us to our out of town ER experience. Saturday with the vomiting we felt it best to get her to the ER. Her specialist at home felt it best that though we had a fairly short drive home, she should get to the ER as soon as possible and stay in the town we were in. We arrived at 9 in the morning and were brought right in to the ER, so far so good. They were quick to draw blood work and the ER Physician felt it best to get X-Rays and a CT scan. Again quick to recognize the diagnostics need to confirm some of Crohns worst symptoms, strictures and fissures. After 2 hours of waiting for her CT scan and no contrast in sight, I was informed by the ER Physician that her blood work was normal and she was being admitted.

Huh? Everything is normal, so far as the diagnostics you have preformed have determined and she is to be ... admitted? Where is the CT scan? Where is the X-Ray?

It seemed the hospital procedures were to admit anyone whose procedures take over 3 hours, ie CT scan with ingested contrast. However, ER patients get priority to the CT scan. So to admit her would push her down the list of people who were getting diagnosed. Broken Arms and sprained ankles would be ahead of her because they required only iv contrast and not ingested contrast and thus they did not require admittance to the hospital.

Now I realize my rant is beginning to attack hospital administration. Its an area I have very little experience and only as a patient's husband. But in the 2 hours that she waited for a CT scan only to be told she had to be admitted couldn't she have finished the contrast (this ER's was a 2 hours not 3 hour solution) and had the CT scan. Over crowding and a lack of staff because of the holiday could contribute to the crossed wired delay in contacting us about being admitted, but it doesn't explain what happened next.

I had explain to every professional that walked in. My wife has crohns, she is being treated by Dr X in Y city, we are from Y city and are just a few blocks from N hospital where the Dr X is located. I want to get her back to Y city so that I can be there for her while ensuring our home and pets are taken care of. My main concern is that there is could be perforation of the bowel and it would not be safe for her to travel.

The internist who is assigned to the ER group we were in comes down and says they were admitting her. I relayed my story once again and asked how would she be transferred if we allowed her to be admitted. Basically Act of God. Medical transportation, requests from the receiving hospital to the current hospital, red tape out the butt. I asked him if her bowel was perforated and he said the blood work was normal so most likely not. In consultation with a family member who works in hospitals I stood firm to my request for a CT scan before admittance. Didn't know that would get us kicked out into the hall.

6 hours later, sitting in a hallway, she gets her CT scan. An hour later, they want to admit, they saw two stricture. The ER internist says its out of his hands and in the hands of a surgeon. We're bounced to the on call Surgeon who rumor is a bit trigger happy and not very good.

Then came the family member, they knew the system. They knew the doctors, we got transferred to a doctor who my wife had seen in 2004, when she was returned home from her last resection. She had developed complications, pneumonia and a DVT, and required to be hospitalized again. They found a stricture in 2004 and wanted to operate, this doctor was called in and determined that operating wasn't necessary.

The doctor looked at her two strictures, one was from 2004. I showed the colonoscopy, the doctor said the main one looked the same as last time. The doctor was concerned about the small intestine stricture. Operation was the last resort, we picked out a gastro doctor to see on Monday and a general group doctor. A NG tube was to be inserted to help relieve the pressure, and after consulting with her regular specialist, antibiotics, anti-inflammatorys, and a steroid were prescribed. Bed rest, observation, and hopefully she can go home Sunday or Monday. Finally a doctor who took her history, talked to her specialist, and made a cautious, educated decision.

I sit here and wondered what went wrong. Should I have ignored her doctors gut feeling and taken her home? Did I just get the worst initial doctor in the hospital? Was hospital protocol so convoluted that unless you have a guide you are going to get burned.

If her family member had not been near by I have no doubt in my mind I would be writing this from the OR waiting room, hoping and praying the hotshot had not killed my wife. What protected others from falling for the traps?

Why is it that her medical records are not centralized. If her records were retrievable by each admitting institution, they would have access to previous CT scans like the one 3 weeks ago. They could compare today's test with all tests done on her, during active Crohns, and when its in remission. There would be no need to jump to surgery, as one of the strictures would have been easily explained in her records. Her current attending physician would have his prescribed treatment for her, and the new doctor would have all of his contact information.

I have come to the conclusion, that hospitals, like other public benefit institutions (like schools), suffer from a lack of technology. I'm sure my small government conservative family sees my liberal sideness headed toward government over site, but I'm headed in a completely different direction.

Who would hold this information? If I'm advocating for free enterprise and capitalism, then I have several options. The first is the insurance agency, they are required for each visit, and they could save money by helping doctors eliminate unnecessary procedures by providing all previous history. Another company could also become involved. Insurance agencies and Hospitals could belong to this company's archive group and then patients would be placed in the system. Institutions belonging to the company's group could peruse a patients previous records. For a small fee the patient could have access to their records at any time allowing them to bring records to doctors who are not members of the group. This would generate publicity for the group and bring more doctors in.

All of this effort requires technology. Computers have the power to unite us in ways we have yet to fathom.

UPDATE 1/09: I have learned from my wife that the hospital her specialists, all belong to the same hospital and that hospital or some group associated with all of them have a way of storing her records and sharing them. Its a good first step.

48 Hour Film Festival

I helped out my friends Paul (Skippy) and Matt this weekend with the 48 hour film festival. They are the two on the bottom left leaning into each other. It was an amazing experience, I learned a little bit about lighting and reflecting light from Miller, I got to create part of the art that went into the production companies logo. Joy was the script writer and put together a really great plot about a guy looking for an apartment and his new neighbors.

Matt Jones played the main character, and almost everyone had a part. Kirkendall played a thief, the required character from the 48 hour film project. His brother Peter played the Apartment manager. Leatherby played the Asian friend of Kirkendall's character. Joy played a next door neighbor with a kid who always hit the toilet seat (the prop required by the 48 hour film festival). Her sister Cassie played the cute next door neighbor/love interest of Matt Jones. Lauren played a giggly/friendly girl. Brett from Paul's youth group played a skateboarder. I even got a little bit of time, I drove a getaway van.

Paul said Joy was going to flesh out a longer script which we'll probably shoot between now and the next competition. August 25th we learn who won what city awards. Its kind of annoying now that I've found I really really like helping out and want to learn more, it doesn't look like they'll be doing any movie making for a little while, to give Paul, Matt Jones, Matt Miller, and Joy time to rest.

The video is online at google.video here

Entry to the blogging world

I'm not sure I'll keep this blog, maybe I will maybe I won't. I suppose the basic intent of this blog would be to talk about what I'm interested in. As I'm very absent minded, my interests change from week to week.