wyn157: January 2009

we got 3 inches of snow last night and it continued to snow all day. when i left work a little after 5pm today i noticed my car had streak marks on the windshield. i was really confused for a few moments, wondering why it looked like someone had been driving it.

but then my medical assistant, who was standing nearby, yelled "i cleared off your car because it had 3 ft of snow on it!"... the same medical assistant who got picked up from work today and yet saw my car sitting there covered in snow and decided to help me out a bit. i still had to scrape a little ice from the back windshield but it saved me 5-10 minutes. it was so sweet. i've met some really nice ppl out here. :)

for my job i get compensated for miles, but the way the miles are calculated is weird. beachwood is my 'home base' even though i'm rarely there. it's 10 miles away but the drive sucks b/c i either have to take the local roads (w/ lots of stoplights) all the way, or go out of the way on a packed freeway. i don't get miles for going there, but when i work at a different health center i get the difference between the two, based on a mileage matrix they gave me.

for 3.5 months i was at willoughby hills, which is 10 miles from beachwood but 15 miles from home. logically i should've gotten paid for 5 miles (home to willoughby minus home to beachwood) since i don't get paid for driving the 10 miles to beachwood, but they told me to follow the mileage matrix and use 10 miles/leg, so it was a little more cash in my pocket!

but now i've been driving to elyria which is 20-25 miles from home... the drive, despite being 30 mins, is decent b/c there are so few cars headed that way. the kicker though, is that it is 45 miles from beachwood, since beachwood is east and elyria is to the west.

i was feeling bad about getting compensated for 90 miles/day, since that's a pretty far cry from the 40-50 miles i'm actually driving. so i asked our secretary if i should still use the mileage matrix. she immediately understood my point and called around to various payroll ppl.

in the end i was thanked for my honesty and told that yes, i should just keep using the mileage matrix b/c having ppl calculate mileage from their homes would get "confusing." um...ok... if you want to give me $50/day for driving 50 miles that's your loss! i like the extra money (i didn't even know about this when i took the job!), but every day i feel a tiny twinge of guilt while filling out the miles form, even though i'm doing exactly what they told me to do.

after using my dell PDA for the last 6 years the battery life was such that it died if left uncharged while i was on vacation. so i decided to replace it w/ a PDA that runs palm OS, which is compatible w/ more free medical stuff.

so i bought a palm t/x sometime last month but just got around to setting it up yesterday. i know, who the hell uses those anymore w/ smartphones on the market? well i'm not a fan of smartphones or any other oversized phone. i don't text or surf the internet or even take pictures w/ my phone, so i'd rather have a small cell phone to tote around for personal use, and a PDA for work.

however, i got syncing error after syncing error, only to find out it doesn't work w/ 64-bit windows vista! there are pages and pages of online forums that address this, and one solution was to create a micro-environment on the desktop. um, no thanks. i don't use outlook or documents, but i need to sync epocrates. as it turns out though, epocrates doesn't do 64-bit either! my solution was to use gopooh's laptop which runs windows XP.

this was my own fault -- instead of looking into it carefully like i usually do w/ purchases, i just bought it b/c i'd been thinking about it for awhile and no one i know had mentioned any problems. i'm not that surprised about epocrates since medical ppl aren't exactly known for being technologically advanced... but you'd think that palm would try to keep up w/ technology. i mean, more and more ppl are getting 64-bit computers, and if they want to keep selling their treos or whatever, then they're going to have to make their products more compatible. geez.

i passed my boards. yay! *sigh of relief*

i haven't been formally notified yet, but i randomly logged into the board's website during a lag at work today, and it said i was certified. nothing changes of course... i still have the same job and all that... but i don't have to worry about another standardized test for 7 years. or 10 years if i do certain modules... i think. whatever. i'll worry about that later hahaha.

we had a great time over the holidays. LA was going through a cold weather spell or smthg, since believe it or not, cleveland was warmer than LA for the first couple days! oh well, what are you gonna do.

one day gopooh and i drove down to carlsbad to meet up w/ C & A and R & N. and another day we went w/ my family to santa barbara since none of us had ever been there before. other than that, we did the usual lounging around, shopping, and walking along the santa monica pier.

for new year's eve we went to see jay leno at casino windsor (gopooh bought tickets from someone off craigslist). it was basically a 1.5 hour monologue, which was a great deal considering both times we saw jerry seinfeld, there were openers that took up time. don't get me wrong -- seinfeld is funny too, but if i pay to see a particular comedian then i'd rather see more of that comedian instead of someone else.

after new year's we spent the rest of our time hunting for after christmas sales and meeting up w/ friends and family. we had a great time, but now we're back in cleveland and back to the grind. doesn't it seem unfair that the vacation days fly by so quickly? it was sooo hard getting up early and going back to work today.

2008 was a fantastic year with many adventures and travels. 2009 isn't going to have as much traveling, but i'm sure it'll be a great year nevertheless. happy new year!