Early to rise, editing, a neuroanatomist analyzes her own stroke, STC meeting, and exercising…

I was up bright and early this morning, and got right to editing. I also sent out a reminder that my request for the writers’ editing needs for 2Q08 were due by COB tomorrow, since I sent the request out last Friday and haven’t received one (from 20 writers) request back yet.

I got some push-back from one of the Tivoli Directory Integrator team members today about my marking up using an acronym to reference their product in their documentation. My manager stepped in to try and nip it all in the bud, which is good.


I didn’t report on my gold investment yesterday (and I probably won’t again unless something drastic, one way or the other, happens), but it earned its keep yesterday. Today, there’s an interesting article (despite the typo in its title): Five Way [sic] To Ride Gold to $1500, which includes the very stock my financial advisor bought for me.


Recently a friend of mine—my age—had a stroke, which among other things alerted me to the fact that if I had to make a phone call because I was having one, I’d have to crawl from my upstairs master bedroom across the hall to my guest bedroom and try to reach the phone that is not only on my desk, but even higher, usually sitting on top of the printer that’s sitting on top of my desk.

My friend said it took him 40 minutes to get to his phone and make the call that saved his life. In this story below, she said it took her 45 minutes to make her call. As a result, I’ve started keeping my cell phone on the nightstand by my bed.

With its relevance to me in my life right now, this approximately 19-minute long video at TED (superior stuff, in my opinion) was both fascinating and touching to me.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened—as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding—she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.


Starting this video from within LiveJournal has been taking a really long time for me. Here’s the the link to play it directly from TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229


I attended an STC-Carolina (Professional Society for Technical Communicators) meeting tonight, which was a “Web 2.0 Show & Tell.”

Sheila presented on Flickr (Flickr? You flickr, you brought her!) and Flickr from within Facebook, and Jenna presented on some ways to use Facebook for teaching and business. She talked about four Facebook applications: My Documents, My Files, My Office, and Slideshare.

At the end of the meeting, I asked if anyone else was considering the People to People China trip. No one was, but Larry K. gave me the name of someone who went on the previous one, so I’m going to e-mail her and ask her if she wants to meet me for coffee some day or night, so I can pick her brain about her experience.


Tonight was the latest night—from 9:00–10:00—that I’ve worked out since starting working out on January 27th. It was a cardio day, and I half-listened to slate.com podcasts and half-read subtitles from Desperate Housewives. Of course I’ve heard tons about that show, but I’ve never seen it. What caught my attention was that there were gay people on it.

Today’s workout statistics:

Exercise Type
Minute Duration
Calories Burned

Cardio (Elliptical)

60

1029

After my workout, I stopped in the Harris Teeter right there and bought:

  • 2 Granny Smith apples
  • 2 navel oranges
  • 2 bananas
  • some celery
  • a cantaloupe
  • a quart of sliced mushrooms
  • a bag of baby carrots
  • a box of Weight Watchers Giant Cookies & Cream ice cream bars (because they were $2.00 off—I’ve never had them before; I hope they’re good)
  • a can of pineapple tidbits
  • a bottle of Light Thousand Islands dressing
  • some “seriously” sharp Vermont white cheddar cheese (“seriously” was the sharpness indicator on the package—and in the display case, it was to the “right” of the mild, medium, sharp, and extra sharp varieties, so it had better be sharp!)
  • some Swiss cheese

Thanks for reading my grocery list.

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