On the way home, I remembered having seen a sign for an urgent care clinic at 500 Calaveras Blvd. in  Milpitas, so I went there.  The sign was still in front of the building.  I parked behind the building, where another sign said the clinic was in suite 100.  There was also an “urgent care” sign right outside suite 100.  I entered and went to the desk to sign in.  The receptionist asked if I had an appointment, which of course I didn’t.  She seemed surprised, and said that occasionally people drop in thinking that is an urgent care clinic, but it isn’t.  It’s a doctor’s office for cardiology and internal medicine.

Geez, what do you suppose might cause people to drop in without appointments expecting urgent care?  Maybe all the signs saying that it is an urgent care clinic?

She said that she thought there was an urgent care clinic somewhere on Main St., but when I got home and did a Google search I didn’t turn up anything.  It appears that the clinic in Cupertino still exists but has moved a few miles from its old location.

And they wonder why so many people go to the emergency room for non-emergency care.

I ordered the PAS410B-5V and it arrived yesterday. I was hoping it would awaken me this morning, but I woke up well before its alarm went off, so I don’t yet know whether it will be satisfactory. For the last year or so I’ve gotten out of the habit of wearing a watch, and I never used to wear one to bed, so it will take some getting used to.

The watch displays the phase of the moon, sunrise and sunset times (rounded to the nearest five minutes), and the times of the moon’s upper, lower, east, and west transits. You have to enter your longitude, latitude, and GMT offset (time zone) for that to work. In addition to displaying that information for the current date, you can have it display them for any date from 2000 through 2039. It has five separate alarms, each of which can be set to occur every day, or on a specific day of the week. It also has a stopwatch, and allows storage of up to 40 “time memos”. It is rated water resistant to 100 meters.

The backlight can be activated by pressing a button, or can optionally be configured to activate automatically when the watch is moved into a viewing angle.

As far as I can tell from the manual, the only difference between the fishing and hunting is whether the display has fish or pawprint icons.

I’ve only seen mine on an ultrasound, and that’s as close as I hope to ever see it.

• Catnip (Nepeta cataria) — ten times more effective than DEET — available as Catnip Oil Insect Shield
• Lemon Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus citriodora) — more effective than low concentrations of DEET, available as Repel brand spray
• Thai lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) — easily grown, and web page includes instructions for making your own repellent from it

I have not tried these, so I can’t personally vouch for their effectiveness.  DEET and natural substances can cause adverse reactions, and are not recommended for young children.  I have no connection to any manufacturer of mosquito repellent products.

Researchers have found mosquito repellent compounds naturally produced by some humans and frogs, but they have not yet been commercialized.

1. get exhausted during the day
2. drink way too much water with dinner (but not to this extreme)
3. go to bed two hours earlier than usual
4. fall asleep
5. wake up in an hour
6. get out of bed
7. urinate
8. go back to bed
9. fall asleep
10. wake up in an hour
11. get out of bed
12. urinate
13. go back to bed
14. spend an hour trying to fall asleep, and fail despite still feeling exhausted
15. get out of bed
16. read email for 15 minutes
17. watch American Dad episodes for an hour
18. play computer games for a half hour
19. urinate
20. go back to bed
21. spend two hours trying to fall asleep
22. get out of bed
23. urinate
24. go back to bed
25. finally fall asleep
26. sleep through alarm
27. wake up three hours late

Furthermore, the health claims regarding second-hand smoke have been greatly exaggerated; there is actually very little scientific evidence of even minor harm associated with second-hand smoke.

However, the Colorado ban has had one result that I’m happy about: someone in my family has chosen to quit smoking, with the help of Colorado QuitNet. As a non-smoker, I can only imagine how difficult quitting must be, but I’m very proud of her, and very much hope that she is successful.

While the dangers of second-hand smoke are exaggerated, the dangers of smoking are not. Studies have shown that even after many years of smoking, quitting will allow some of the lung damage to be reversed, and will increase the former smoker’s longevity and decrease the risk of cancer and other smoking-related ailments.

One of my coworkers is a bit squeamish about shots, and he was immediately after me in line. I waited until just after I’d received the actual shot, then shrieked to freak him out. He was startled and said “Don’t do that!”, though he knew I was just joking around. Ain’t I a stinker?

It is advisable to take precautions to prevent your automobile from acquiring a taste for blood. If automobiles turn feral, they may have to be put down.

One of the more common manifestations of automobile aggression involves the automobile’s use of one of its retractable doors to maul a human finger. An example of the results of such an attack can be seen in photographs of a human finger attacked by an Ipsomobile Accura (click photos for larger view). In this case, the automobile suffered no harm, but there have been more extreme cases in which the human counterattacked.

Human young are more frequently the targets of such attacks than mature individuals, possibly because they are perceived by the automobile as being more vulnerable, and because they have not yet learned to exercise caution in their interactions with the automobile.

Since I was bleeding, they treated me right away rather than making me sit in the waiting room for a long time. The finger was such a mess that the doctor had a hard time telling how much of the fingernail was left, so I had to describe it. After getting it cleaned up a bit, he explained that he was going to cut away most of the remaining exposed nail in order to be able to suture the laceration and because it would help the nail grow back more evenly. Although he wasn’t actually sure that it would grow back, and said that if it does, the result may not be all that great.

He asked his assistant for a particular instrument to cut the nail, and it turned out that they didn’t have one. He discussed it with another doctor and it was decided to not remove any of the nail, but to stitch the suture through the remaining portion of the nail.

I was given four or five shots of lidocaine (aka Xylocaine) anaesthetic to numb the finger, then the doctor stitched it up. It required six stitches. He sent me for an x-ray to determine whether I’d broken the bone; it turns out that I do have a fracture. Since it’s an open wound, there is risk of a bone infection, which is really nasty and can necessitate amputation, so he prescribed an antibiotic.

The nurse put a dressing on it, and I’m instructed to return tomorrow to have it examined and the dressing replaced, and in seven to ten days to have the stitches removed. In the mean time I’m supposed to keep it elevated to minimize bleeding. I think it is still bleeding slowly, as the dressing is starting to show blood. But it’s not fast enough to cause any problems from loss of blood.

The lidocaine wore off after an hour or so, and as expected it hurts quite a bit now. Not as bad as when it first occurred, but worse than it felt before treatment. I’ve been given a prescription for painkillers too, but I’m reluctant to use narcotics any more than absolutely necessary, so I haven’t taken any yet, and probably won’t tonight unless it keeps me from sleeping.

Parents always warn their children about being careful not to slam their fingers in doors. My mother says that she doesn’t recall my ever having done that as a child. It surprises me a bit that after nearly forty years of safely entering and exiting cars that I’d manage to do this to myself now, but I suppose accidents will happen. Familiarity breeds contempt. But you can bet that I’ll be more careful henceforth. I suppose I’m lucky that I didn’t catch more of the finger in the door, or multiple fingers.

This makes it a bit difficult to touch type; my left ring finger is having to do double duty. It’s not great, but I’ve gotten somewhat used to it, and it’s still better than hunt-and-peck. Anyhow, I’ve still got seven others to use (nine if you count thumbs), so as long as I don’t lose more than one every forty years or so I suppose it won’t be too big a problem.

Too bad I forgot that my cell phone has a camera. Usually I’m pissed off that they don’t make phones that work better as phones, rather than adding all these ridiculous features to them, but today it would have been useful. Maybe I can get a photo tomorrow when they remove the dressing.

My regular doctor, cardiologist, and the other doctors who have treated me lately all are really great people, but I’d still like to see less of them in the future than I have lately.