The quiet ramblings of a young scientist

Ok, so on Thursday I finally “man’d” up and went and got my wisdom teeth extracted by the team at Mt Eden Dental… needless to say, for those who know me, I was certainly not looking forward to it =)

So, for this procedure I decided to go with so-called “twilight sedation” (TS), which sits somewhere between local and general – basically, they use the same drugs, but at much lower doses. The last time I had TS was about 13 years ago in Hamilton – I don’t remember much, but I do remember at one stage saying to the dentist that something really hurt (I don’t remember any pain though) and I remember I went home and slept for 4h afterwards… so I was a bit worried about this time, but *meh* better than general or local…

So, the day finally arrived… since I couldn’t eat for 4 hours before, I was up before dawn to have a light breakfast… then back to bed to contemplate the surgery. My surgeon was just awesome – and he had a fancy HP tablet, so you know, I had to like him from then on… he went through everything, explained in great detail what to expect etc. and drew lots of fancy pictures to explain what was going to happen. He expressed a bit of concern about my 2 lower teeth – because of their proximity to the main nerve in my jaw, he said I should expect pain and swelling – yay, that’s exactly what you want to hear when you’re strapped to the chair (“oh btw, this is really going to hurt afterwards”). So, then he introduced his two nurses – that was also a relief: for a second I thought he was going to do everything himself, which I would have preferred he not do (rather concentrate on my teeth). Anyway, the nurses hooked me up to an IV and also to blood pressure, and also attached an EEG-type device. This was a new one for me – the last time I had TS, I didn’t have any EEG, so I was curious about it =) Apparently, the EEG monitors your brain state so you remain “just unconcious”, so I was hoping that would work out okay….

So, the drug that is used in TS is propofol, recently made famous by Michael Jackson =/ It’s a white substance, lovingly called the “milk of amnesia” by anesthetists. I was a bit nervous about what effect it would have on me =) So, when they started the drug they told me the world would spin – I was looking at an air vent which had lots of concentric circles… spin it did… wow, that was an amazing effect =) Of course, the mathematician in me was trying to work out the equations of the curves created when the circles intersected each other! Needless to say, I reckon I was asleep in under 30 seconds but quite honestly I don’t remember anything beyond the spinning circles =)

So, in my timeframe, about 5 minutes later I woke up – but in real time it was about 50 minutes apparently. Now, here’s where it gets really interesting for me… I can remember everything after the surgery. I can remember waking up, remember going home and remember that afternoon. I reckon that TS has gotten so good that they can put you out for the exact period they want… nothing more, nothing less =) I was genuinely surprised – I had thought I’d need hours to recuperate, but no, I was bright-eyed and bushy tailed from the get go =)

So, here I am, 4 days post-op and feeling good – still got stitches in my mouth, but the swelling is coming down and I feel quite good… my jaw is a bit stiff, but otherwise all good… all thanks must go to my surgeon, Dr Don McAlister – the man is a genius and an artisan. I truly beleive that it is because of him that my wisdom tooth extraction ranks as one of my best dental experiences – thanks Don! =)

Formula 1's latest fall guy

With this weekend’s upcoming Singapore Grand Prix, it seems almost appropriate to write something about my beloved sport.

Like many Formula 1 fans I watched in sadness this week, almost unable to believe that yet another scandal was rocking the sport. First we had the whole McLaren/Ferrari theft saga, shortly followed by allegations of “liberal rule interpretation” by Brawn (later cleared, and rightly so), followed by McLaren telling Lewis to let Jarno overtake him on yellow flags and now this… I see most of the drivers don’t feel any sympathy for Nelson,as Jenson Button said yesterday, how can you feel sorry for someone who deliberately crashes his car?

I too find myself wondering why, when absolutely every button you push, every setting you change, every radio message you send is recorded, would you try and do something as stupid as cheat? I mean, literally terrabytes of information are recorded at every Grand Prix – if you do something (or don’t do something), they’re gonna find out – it’s only a matter of time. The only way I can think of where you can’t get found out is if the driver themselves is smart enough to figure out what needs to be done, and then just do it. A classic case would be Michael Schumacher May 27, 2006 at Monaco… he crashed. Some say he did it on purpose, he says it was just a mistake. Now, it depends who you believe – as tifosi, I choose to believe it was accidental. But the point is this – whatever happened, only 1 person truly knows – and there is no proof either which way =)

Here’s the thing – I do feel sorry for Nelson… not because he screwed up (which he clearly did), but because I feel he has been targeted by the world media. I mean come on, in every sport, at every level, people cheat (or at least try to)… steroids, blood doping and a whole barrage of other options are available to people in the other sports. Yes, he crashed a multi-million dollar piece of equipment, but it was at a relatively low speed, and seemed relatively “safe” (if crashing a car can ever be thought of as safe)

But what makes me sad is the fact that his superior, his boss, told him to crash. Now, aside from the fact that he should have been strong enough to say ‘no’, I think we’ve all been in the position where a boss, parent or teacher has told you to do something you didn’t feel completely comfortable with. You find yourself in an odd position – to disobey would be gross misconduct, but to follow through would be wrong… so what do you do? Lose your job but keep your principles or lose your principles and keep your job?

“Hello world”… ah, what famous first words… I should point out that I didn’t choose the title of this post. It was originally an example of how to post supplied by BlogTown – but I thought it somewhat appropriate that my first post should have that title

I remember as a student when we did computer science, all of the examples for all the different languages started with this phrase. I deliberately never used it because I didn’t want to be  “conformist”… but more recently I find myself using if often when I am learning/re-learning a language. It really is the simplest way to test whether everything is as it should be – if it compiles and things show up on your screen, then voila, success!

So, after all these years I finally decide to start writing a blog. I’m not sure if the fact that I am turning 30 this year has anything to do with it, but I finally feel old enough to be able to start talking about the things that concern me, amuse me and interest me… and credit where credit is due… it was actually my good friend Mark, and a discussion we had about the movie Ed TV that got me thinking that a blog might be a fun creative thing to be involved with =)

I figure that even if noone ever reads this, the shear process of creating it is actually the point =) It gives me a place to vent about the stupid things I see people doing, the crazy situations that I find myself facing on an almost daily basis

Perhaps this will be like my Twitter experience – interesting, but definitely no long term future… we shall have to wait and see!