MAR-B-7
AN IDYLLIC DAY
OF WONDERFUL ACTIVITIES
CAPS OFF THE
TAHOE “FRONTIERS IN SURGERY”
CONFERENCE,
WITH AN AFTERNOON ON THE DOWNHILL SLOPES, AND MY CLIMAX CONFERENCE ON SURGICAL
ENDOCRINOLOGY, BEFORE ADJOURNING FOR TAHOE CITY
CARRY OUT
CHINESE FOOD WITH GOOD FRIENDS AT FAREWELL TO THE TAHOE-TO-TAIWAN TRIP
March 23--24, 2004
A phrase that seems to have been repeated several times during the course of my brief, but rewarding 48 hours in Squaw Valley, after the prior 48 hours in Tahoe or enroute to it, is that of Alden “It don’t get no better than this1” The grammatical games we have used to describe it seem to have employed the term “pluperfect” a lot—even if I am not sure what it means, a bit like Virginia’s description of me as the “uniquest” after having graduated from being just “uniquer.” The high point of the day was at 8200 feet, with all of the Squaw Valley and Lake Tahoe spread out beneath us without a cloud in the sky—an ideal high intensity day from the valley to the top, in the conference and on the slopes. It was an alpine shush of ideal conditions, in a warm bright day with spring skiing at its best on the groomed slopes of the Squaw Valley on their Olympic Course. We still do not know when those winter Olympics were held, since it was just before it went to every other year, and at the every four yeas that both summer and winter games were in the same year.
We could see the heroic slopes with steep drop-offs, with a small sign near the precipice off into a lot of terminal velocity space that simply said “Caution.” Twice I found myself downslope staring at a sign that said “Advanced Only.” What is wrong with this picture? Somehow I survived, not only, but did not wipe out, and actually enjoyed the schussing down the slopes with what I could remember of the last time I had been on the sloes—which happened also to be with the Harkens. They expressed the remembrance that this was at the time that Alden had had his ankle fracture when he had tripped over the previous Buffy (Buffy IV has just been initiated into the family, with a new Jeep obtained along with other accessories to accommodate him. He came up to Tahoe but went back when Melissa went back to the Airport to return to San Antonio to get back to teaching school, and Buff IV is now sitting with a dog sitter.) I might be someone who could understand the need to obtain new vehicles to accommodate livestock!
We had a very good day on this the alpine skiing day in addition to the very wonderful Nordic day we had yesterday afternoon. I had scrambled after the lectures in the morning session to deliver you what had transpired so far at Tahoe, and went to the Business Center where after each attempt to “attach” the disc message, “this screen not found” would appear at the last step before “Send” and everything was lost each time I tried to send you the Mar-B-series. So, after this futile try, I called to find out whether my mortgage loan had been wire transferred as promised into my account. Exactly one week ago today, I closed the sale of my house to myself, and am being charged the interest rate at $70+ per day, and I knew they would do whatever they could to avoid having the money transferred as I leave the country and another three weeks worth of interest would be due from me and no money would have been transferred from them—so the bank could have their cake and eat it too. This is not a small detail, but amounts to the difference between my paying interest of about $850 and not earning interest of the same number so it is a double loss which is about the cost of this trip to Tahoe if it were recognized as such. So, I was annoyed to hear that “No, no funds had been transferred as assured by the close of business on Friday.” So, I called the lawyers’ office and found that Laurie who deals with such matters is not that there, but that she had no information on it either; the message went forward to Dan Kennedy, who sent back the message through the secretary that he would take care of it—so I hope upon my return, I do not find myself paying on an interest-rich loan while not having received any of the funds to knock down the other interest I am paying on the renovation funds written as a loan against the securities account on margin. I foresee the worst of both worlds, all of which I had attempted to avoid, but with a weekend and St Patrick’s Day intervening, it seems that they will be able to stretch the full week I must be paying them, to several weeks in which they have never paid me. Working the “float” is a good way for banks to make money around the margins.
THE CLIMAX
LECTURE FROM ME ON SURGICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY, BEFORE ALDEN AND I GET THE CHINESE
CARRYOUT FOR THE STAFF OF THE “FRONITERS IN SURGERY” CONFERENCE
I scurried down the slopes and turned in my skis and boots as the “Dating Game “was being projected on TV. As I unlaced the boots, the beautiful high school types were being interviewed an quizzed—such as the best moment in their lives was when she was elected Miss Ohio, or he won the soccer teams final goal, etc, but then each of four were asked what the long string bean of a country called Chile was on the West Coast of which continent? This question was not one that gave an advantage to either side to avoid their wearing the “dunce” cap, since all four of them got it wrong! Just how many continents are there? I used this later as an example when I was in my lecture, saying that teenagers might be able to list the endocrine glands as they think of them, but that is because they have more hormones than brains at that age.
I had almost enough time, and I was on my own dance floor, so I must have performed since the group was abuzz as I left and the audience was in rapt attention when I was giving my endocrine surgery lecture about what the future might hold in the status of the art—the kind of thing Alden likes to review with such a conference. So, it was a bit of a bellwether lecture, following which Alden and I drove over to Tahoe City and got carryout Chinese food for a group of his staff, including Nancy EJ and others from the former University of Colorado group that put together his previous Horizons in Surgery conferences in places like Breckenridge. There were a couple of people there who would be giving the next lectures including a surgeon from Louisiana in Salt Dome country who was a hunter, and we talked about his fishing boat, a Whaler, and the chance to catch redfish and a few other species and then the talk turned to waterfowl hunting and the deer harvest in Louisiana. I was delighted to take up his suggestion that I would be invited to come hunt and fish with him when and if I come to the ACS Clinical Congress, which will be held this year in New Orleans. This is the first time it is being held there since the three years ago when I attended the Congress there since I was going to be presenting at the conference, and not many people came since it was within a month of the 9/11 disaster. I do not yet know if I will be there, nor do I know if I will be able to go elk hunting in Colorado coming in at least a day late since the ELDP program is in its send day of the two day weekend on the opening day. I might be able to make it out there just as late as I could arrive on Saturday night, but I left this information along with the application for the territory as yet unknown until it is later scouted by Gene Moore and Reg with Rob the horse outfitter. If that works I will go, but I don to know if Reg will be able to go since Sue just had here test which shows they will be expecting a girl in five more months. I left all this information along with an application at the front desk for Reg to discover this morning, since he arrived late last night to talk today. They will no doubt be skiing today, four months pregnant or not.
LEAVING TAHOE
AND SQUAW VALLEY AT DAWN
MAKING MY WAY
THROUGH RENO TO LAX
AND LAUCH THE
LONG FLIGHT TO NARITA
ON NWA #1
I got up at 4:30 AM and packed out to load the rented Lancer for the drive in the dawn light through the spectacular countryside up to Reno. I saw the setting which I did not previously see since I drove in after midnight. I threaded my way along in what promised to be a colder, even snowy rest of the week, although it had not snowed in a month before my arrival. I thought the spring skiing was far nicer than trying to ski in bitter cold and blurred scenery in snowstorms, but I would be a spoiled Sybarite if I were to add any other requirements to the “pluperfect” pair of days I enjoyed in Squaw Valley with such good company. I pulled out at “Boomtown”—what a name for a tacky town which consists mainly of a line of casino fronts on the highway—and filled the vehicle with gas. The price of gas for me was rather low—only $1.98 per gallon, whereas at Tahoe City it was $2.39 or higher for the cheapest grade, crowding up to the three dollar mark. If the tank would be field at Thrifty Rental, they would charge $4.91 per gallon, without even looking sheepishly like they are trying to gouge the customer, since that labor saving maneuver comes at a cost that should be obvious!
I got a valet to come with me from the off airport Thrifty office, and I went through Alaska Air check in all the way to Taipei three flights and two days away, I got the last of my messages as the cell phone died of a starved battery, and then made my last stateside call. I then took off for LAX crossing over the top of Mono Lake and the other areas of the Eastern Sierra I had explored before, I had to leave the Security area to go to Terminal Two at LAX, which meant that I was treated to the whole Security Screen again, complete with Search and shoeless scramble to board the NWA 747-400 awaiting me for the longest haul of this trip—the trans-Pacific jump to Narita ten and a half hours on the watch, and a full calendar day off the schedule.
NORTHWEST #ONE
LAX TO NARITA
TOKYO,
ON BOARD FOR
MY “ORIENTALIZTION”
ACROSS THE
DATELINE
I am typing this to you now from 34,000 feet over the Aleutian chain of Alaska’s Bering Straits islands, as we begin our Great Circle turn left after flying up the Pacific coast line toward the orient near land masses of Asia. That I have energy in my laptop comes to me –and through this text to you—of the male flight attendant whom I showed the note in the NWA onboard journal which gave instructions in how to service the chargers for standard laptops. I told him I had about thirty minutes worth of energy in the machine and about two hours worth of material to be typed and would be gong a very long way on the NWA 747 “bottoms” over the next very full day that actually measures to calendar days as I am crossing the dateline in an hour. He said he would see if there was a seat in Business Class, not to upgrade me, about which I had not made a request, but to carry my laptop up to that section and plug it into an empty seat. After the rather perfunctory dinner service of a small portion for my only meal of the day, he came back to say there was such a seat, and he carried my battery-flat computer forward and a half hour later carried it back to me charged up. So, thanks to him I can get this far into the end chapter of Mar-B series to round out the Tahoe experience.
It was an exhilarating and wonderful time with good friends in an idyllic setting, which would have been better shared in the family vacation that many participants make of it. I had a bit of a damper the first two days as guest of Sammy Gorman in her idyllic family chalet, which I could not leave awaiting the imminent delivery of the bags that took forty eight hours to find their way to me. But eventually I did manage to get two runs in along the steep hills tunneled through deep snow canyons, the residual of the winter’s snow fall. Surrounded by al the clothes and skis and snowshoes one could wish, I had none of my won stuff to carryout to the slopes however close they were, so I simply sat on the deck and savored the sunny view over Lake Tahoe with a snow blanket on the surrounding mountains.
Once moved over to the Resort at Squaw Valley, things happened quickly as soon as the Harkens knew that I was there. I found myself on Nordic skis within an hour of arrival and had a wonderful ski tour of the Squaw Creek Valley on a very pretty day in this stunning setting of the Squaw Valley Resort. I gave two lectures that were well received and met one of my medical school classmates Bob Toumajian and one of my resident mates Ed Nathan. I had quite a response from a couple of the members of the faculty of the new Highland University of California East Bay Kaiser affiliates of which Alden is now chairman. There are seven hospitals, two of them Kaisers, the new highland hospital, a children’s’ hospital and a VA. He is happy with his job and fifty two residents.
We then spent the exhilarating “pluperfect afternoon” in Alpine Skiing on the lifts and slopes of 8,200 feet Red Dog Mountain and schussed down the slopes in Spring Skiing. It was near perfect as a buildup to my last lecture, and the farewell dinner by Chinese carryout. After a pre-dawn takeoff in the rental lancer return to Reno, I have made my Alaska Air and Northwest connections to now be one quarter of the way west across the Pacific, just about to lose the calendar day March 25, and on the far side of that dateline, I will begin the new series of Mar-C-series in Taiwan. It has been a magnificent Tahoe prelude to Taipei and on to Nanhua!