Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record
Back when I was in school teachers would always scare me with stories of how my exploits would end up in my permanent record. I believe this is it! – Geoff Fox
Katie Haffner had an interesting story about blogging in this moring’s New York Times. I always thought (and Helaine will confirm) I’d gone off the deep end with blogging, but this article makes it seem like I’m not so bad. There are others who have been bitten far worse.
Thanks God for small favors.
About a year and a half ago, one night for no apparent reason, my upper lip swelled to the size of my thumb. I think I was riding in the car when I felt the first tingling. By the time I got home for dinner, I looked downright scary.
I wasn’t in pain, but I certainly couldn’t go on the air. People would be calling the TV station wondering what had happened to me. Children would lose sleep or get nightmares. It was that bad – this is no exaggeration.
I spoke to my doctor, Steve.
Let’s stop here for a second. It drives Helaine a little nuts when I refer to a doctor by his/her first name. Doctors should be doctors – not Steve’s. I understand the logic. But, I’ve known him for nearly 20 years. He’s a great guy and recognized as a great doctor. He’s Steve.
The lip subsided. Still, Steve ran me through every test known to man. Nothing.
Meanwhile, since the major swell-up, I found myself getting itchy on my palms and the soles of my feet. My fingers would swell. Sometimes my toes would itch. Of more concern, there was, what I surmised, was constriction in my wind pipe. Would this condition block my flow of oxygen?
I tried going to Google to see if there was medical knowledge that would help me. Without going into too much detail, you’re not going to get a lot of medical help by searching for “swollen lips and fingers.”
Helaine and I went on vacation to Las Vegas. While taking golf lessons I started inflating and deflating – fingers and lips swelling and subsiding. It was scaring the living daylights out of me.
There was no apparent reason for this internal body change after 50+ years. I was eating different foods in a different climate, drinking and bathing in different water. My total environment had changed but not my symptoms.
Steve spoke with a colleague, the head of the Allergy Department (it has a much more complex name, but you get the idea) at our local, major teaching hospital. If this was an allergic reaction, there would be no one more qualified to find it. I went to visit him.
I remember our first meeting. It might have been in his first paragraph to me when he said he probably wouldn’t be able to tell me what was causing my troubles… but he’d be able to control it. And, he did.
Religiously, I have been taking antihistamines every day. Amazingly (except one day, months ago, when I missed my pill), I have been symptom free.
I know I will be on this, or a similar medication, for the rest of my life. And, I will also be going to visit this doctor… forever. Truth is, I need the prescription and he’s entitled to get paid for keeping me swell free. So, we go through this medical charade where I go to his clinic at the hospital, tell him I’m symptom free, and get a prescription. He’s a smart guy… fun to chat with, though I assume there are others, sicker than me, waiting for his expertise.
Today was my day to visit. I’ll be back in June.
Our 20th wedding anniversary is coming up tomorrow, so I am rushing to finish my school assignments so the day can be free and dedicated to celebrating.
It’s funny, but in the beginning of the school year, Severe Weather was the tough course. Now, it’s Statistical Climatology.
Tonight, doing some homework necessary for a quarterly test, I worked for a half hour on a problem only to realize the data was split between two pages, so I had left half of it out. This problem had dozens of individual little steps. And, after a point, everything became dependent on what you had previously calculated.
When I realized how long it would take to redo everything, I went a little crazy. If only I knew how to do it on a spreadsheet!
I tried getting my friend Bob on Instant Messenger. He’s Mr. Meteorology (actually Dr. Meteorology) and a math wiz. Nothing. So, a quick call to Paul in California who has used spreadsheets for years to do budgets… but never stat work and never using any functions other than add, subtract, multiply and divide. I needed to do square roots and other obscure functions.
As I was hearing about Paul’s limitations, Bob answered the IM call. I hung up on Paul and phoned Bob. In two minutes I had accomplished as much as I had before I discovered my error earlier!
I don’t want to sound like George HW Bush at that Grocery Convention a few years back¹, but I have no experience with spreadsheets. They were, after all, the first ‘killer app’ for computers – beginning with Visicalc. I should have a working knowledge.
It is astounding what I was able to do, accurately, and in very short order. And, to do the simple stuff was fairly easy. I should be able to go back without trouble.
I am using the spreadsheet built into OpenOffice.org, which is a Microsoft Office look alike/work alike… and it’s FREE! I would like OpenOffice.org more if it was supported by books. There are dozens of books on Microsoft Office but hardly anything to buy on OpenOffice.org.
With the homework now finished, tomorrow I can take my tests (actually, later today).
Visiting the exhibition hall of the National Grocers Association convention here, Mr. Bush lingered at the mock-up of a checkout lane. He signed his name on an electronic pad used to detect check forgeries.
“If some guy came in and spelled George Bush differently, could you catch it?” the President asked. “Yes,” he was told, and he shook his head in wonder.
Then he grabbed a quart of milk, a light bulb and a bag of candy and ran them over an electronic scanner. The look of wonder flickered across his face again as he saw the item and price registered on the cash register screen.
“This is for checking out?” asked Mr. Bush. “I just took a tour through the exhibits here,” he told the grocers later. “Amazed by some of the technology.”
Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, assured reporters that he had seen the President in a grocery store. A year or so ago. In Kennebunkport.
Some grocery stores began using electronic scanners as early as 1976, and the devices have been in general use in American supermarkets for a decade.
From The New York Times
I was surprised to see a half page ad in today’s Hartford Courant from the air staff (members of AFTRA) at WFSB in Hartford. Their union negotiations have been contentious, to say the least, over the past few years.
Some long time employees have worked for Travelers Insurance, Post-Newsweek and now Meredith as station owners.
Travelers was local, which always makes a difference. And, at that time, the money was flowing in like water, to a station that had cost them a pittance to put on-the-air.
Post-Newsweek was a print oriented company and, though many people felt they weren’t as employee friendly as Travelers, the station continued to be a good place to work.
Meredith is also print oriented but it’s a different situation from Post-Newsweek. I am not involved in their labor negotiations, but I have heard that Meredith declared an impasse and implemented their last/best offer. There’s not much the union members can do short of walking out.
Today’s ad said the anchors and reporters would all wear black as a sign of solidarity – and they did. The ad also listed some of their grievances. A friend called me from their newsroom to say the tension was high and management had spoken to some on-the-air people.
Meredith is going to have to make a decision on how they value the folks on-the-air. Considering the preponderance of research that says, to a large extent, people watch TV stations because of whose on the air, I will be interested to see how far this goes.
This isn’t a grade school fight. Would Meredith really cut off their nose to spite their face? Will the union cripple the station by walking out and risking their own jobs at the same time? Are there more job actions to come or will cooler heads prevail? How can it benefit any company to be at war with their own staff?
I work for the competition and I want to win, but not by default against a crippled opponent. This time, the news will be from the newsroom.
(The Hartford Courant featured an article about the situation, which is attached below)
I get my hair cut at work. I know. That’s one of the most decadent priveleges my job affords me. In the last 15 years my hair has been cut outside of this building once; on the morning of my daughter’s bat mitzvah,
Today, I was sitting in the men’s dressing room with Francine (Queen of Hair) giving me a little trim.
By the way, if given half the opportunity, Francine would work on my hair for hours at a time, until each individual folicle was where it belonged. But, even when I rush her, she’s unreal.
So, Francine is clipping away and the door is open to the hallway. I tend to look at the mirror and call out to people who are passing by. A tall figure walks by, stops, and sticks his head in.
Jesse Jackson.
So, what do you do when you’re sitting, with a ‘bib’ on, trying to keep hair off your clothes with a woman spraying water on your hair? Is there anything clever to be said at all?
The Reverend Jackson and I do not see eye-to-eye on all issues… in fact, maybe not on most issues. However, I must admit he is a charming man… very approachable and seemingly without pretense (in our short meeting). There is no doubt, he is one of the most recognizable, revered, and reviled, people alive today.
I am astounded by the number of people at the station who say they’ve met him before. He is a person who makes loads of one-on-one contacts. That’s a major strength.
He is tall and a little rumpled in his dress. He was accompanied by, though not surrounded by, a group of tall and large black men.
I’m sure he needs bodyguard protection, he is a controversial figure with a lot of enemies. But his ‘protectors’ were not at all menacing or threatening or even overly cautious here in the television station. But, they were big. I’d feel safer.
I wonder if he’ll remember meeting me? I will remember meeting him.