Jared Ottley

Update: Removed the now expired video clip from Hulu

I’ve started watching a new summer show on Fox: Mental.  It is has been somewhat intriguing thus far.  It is, however, formulaic:  Dr. solves problems in an “hour”, but can’t solve his own problem(s) during a season or ever on the show. (Think House, another Fox show … which I enjoy because Dr. House is such a jerk.) [You can catch both shows on Hulu.]

In the second episode of this inaugural season of Mental, the two residents are sitting down for lunch in the hospital doctors lounge. As Dr. Suarez sits on the couch next to Dr. Artis, the camera pans to catch the coffee table in front of the couch. Here is the screen capture:

You may want to click on the image to get a better view, but check out the book.  That’s right …. a 1997 Que, Special Edition of Using Microsoft Visual InterDev.  Now I know there are Drs. out there who have development skills.  In fact, my kids’ pediatrician is one.  He and I have talked about his hacking on his office’s Patient and Records system, customizing and writing extensions.  But why would any prop or set person drop a 1997 Visual InterDev book in this scene?  And even worse the book was horrible, I had it at a previous job. You don’t have take my word for it, check out the reviews on Amazon.

I keep meaning to post more on the things I read, listen to and watch.

I watched the dramatization of the play My Boy Jack by David Haig.  It is the beautifully told story of Rudyard Kipling and his son Jack.  Jack was extremely myopic, but wanted, like every other young man his age, to join the war effort.  Kipling did all he could to help Jack become an officer after Jack had failed to get in twice.  Jack was declared missing in the Battle of Loos. It was nearly two years before Jack was declared KIA.  It was after this that Kipling wrote the poem My Boy Jack.

My experience with Kipling and author authors of WW I literature goes back to working at the BYU Library.  I was asked by Librarian Robert Means to help create a web site to go along with an exhibit he was putting together as an Anthology of World War I Literature.  While the web site is nothing to yell home about (I was just learning),  the content is great.  I’d recommend anything found on the site.

My sons have fallen in love with PC Gaming.   (They play Wii and XBox, but not with the same obsession as PC based games.) They used to just play the flash based online games from websites they would visit (cartoonnetwork.com, nickjr.com, etc.)  Then their uncles introduced them to StarCraft and WarCraft.  And they are hooked.  One of the nice things is that I have been able to recycle some of my old games (RollerCoaster Tycoon, Sim City 3000, Nox).  It has been fun seeing them explore these new virtual worlds.  Taylor is super excited about the upcoming release of StarCraft 2 and dreams of one day working at Blizzard.  Andrew wants to be a game designer.  Everyother day they ask me how to write programs.  These conversations lead to discussions on basic algebra, physics and even Object Oriented Programing.  (Anyone interested in providing pre-release games for them to test or review?)

Today I thought that it would be fun to install one or two games on my machine for those times that I need at little escape.  Big mistake.  I installed a First Person Shooter (Return to Castle Wolfenstein) and within 5 minutes knew why I stopped playing.  I loved first person shooters.  I used to play network games with the guys I worked with at the Courts.  It was a great break from work and a fun team building exercise.  From time to time I would get a little motion sick.  But today I got very motion sick.  I am still suffering from a huge headache playing the game brought on.  The quick jolting motion just seemed to much for me.  Man I am getting old.  Maybe if I take some motion sickness pills next time…..

My flight out of Islip was delayed for weather.  Once we hit the gate in Atlanta, I had two minutes before my connecting flight to Salt Lake was to leave.  Needless to say, I didn’t quite make it.  I hate the Atlanta Airport.  I always have.  I have yet to have a connection in Atlanta where first and second legs were both in the same terminal. (Try running with two kids in a double strolle, with all their carry-on, plus your own across 2 concourses.  Not fun.)

So they put me up in a Comfort Suites.  Not the nicest place, but it is a bed.  Up at 5:30 to get my shuttle back to the airport.  Now waiting for seat confirmation.  I want to be on this flight.  I am ready to be home.  It is funny, I can complain about the noise the kids make…all the time….at home.  But these trips bring home to me that I wouldn’t want it any other way.  The quiet of the hotel gets to me.  I love being able to sit down and have one of the kids to talk to.  I love in the morning have Olivia come into my office, give me a hug, and ask for breakfast. I love talking computer games with with boys, or playing Go with Taylor. I love having Adrienne next to me.  I miss her the most.  It will be good to be back home.

I’m going to try to hit on a couple of topics, mostly dealing with system inefficiencies. (I think I understand some system inefficiencies…I worked as a Systems Analyst for the US Federal Courts…let’s just say they are ripe with them.) These were all exposed during a visit to my local pharmacy.

Pharmacy

Here is a suggestion to streamline my interaction with you:

First, you are a huge nation wide chain, with interconnected systems, to allow transfer of valuable data between locations. This is awesome. No matter where I am in the country, if I need a refill of a prescription, by answering a few questions I can get that needed chemical for whatever ails me. But your work with my personal information is…well…dismal. I myself have not had to have a prescription filled in quite sometime. But I am a father of 6. I need lots of drugs for sick kids, and their mother. Pregnancy has never treated her well. It has, in half of the cases, been a violent, near death experience for mother and/or child.

In the last three years we have moved 3 times (across the country, across town and across the valley). There have also been three job changes, and three insurance changes.

My insurance company knows I have dependents and knows their relationship to me and it would be valuable if you did too. If you did, I wouldn’t have to expend valuable time each time I go to you for you to update insurance and address information. If I come in and tell you I have an insurance change, instead of changing it for just the individual I am filling a prescription for, ask me if this change needs to be applied across all the dependents (and myself) in the system. It is a simple enough database transaction across the records. It would be easy enough to even allow for the use case, where I need you to exclude changes to specific individuals. But over all, you get to cut down on the 20+ minutes I wait while you update an individuals records.

Ugh, this irks me. I am the owner of this information. I am an authority on this information, use my knowledge and my proximity to you at this point in time to update your records and improve the overall customer experience. I am willing  to spend the time with you to do this once so I won’t have to do with each visit I make.

The insurance company

Now I am grateful to have insurance, and while the insurance I have now is not nearly as good as what I have had in the past, I am more grateful to have than to have not. However….I trust you, insurance company, magnitudes less than I trust my physician (especially my children’s pediatrician). I understand that you are trying to save me money, by saving you money. But, if my Physician, who I know and interact with, prescribes medication for my son to help him stay out of the hospital, saving you (and me) money, don’t second guess his recommendation and tell me I have to get a different prescription because you think that I should have one drug before I can have another.

You are a nameless, faceless machine. I have no trust relationship with you. You have in interest in my well being that keeps you in the black. But your primary interest is in your bottom line. You provide a valuable service. Thank you. But my physician is someone I have built a relationship of trust with.  He take the time to help ensure my health and well being. When I see him outside of the office, he takes time to say hello and ask about me and my families well being. He has earned my trust so that I still drive through two different cities to see him.

You are a phone number, a card, a PO Box, a deduction on my paycheck, and a different voice each time I call for information or try to dispute your denial of my care. Please learn to trust my physician and maybe I will learn to trust you.

In July, Adrienne and I were up in Park City, for a weekend without the kids.  We stopped at a bookstore…yes we like books…and found a LEGO advent calendar.

It has been a big hit with the kids.  One that I hope will become a family tradition.

What are things that you do during the holidays, to express your, or your families inner Geek?

From Rands In Repose:

Here is an audacious goal for your resume: to get you to a point in your career where you no longer need a resume. It’s the point that in your chosen industry people know who you are and what you are capable of. And they want you doing it at their companies. [link]

Amen.

When we started discussing names for Parker we ran through a bunch. We tried to figure out if we could continue on the mnemonic device that we stumbled upon with our kids names, TACOS (if you go by what we call them) or JACOB (if you go by given names): Taylor, Andrew, Cameron, Olivia, Sawyer or Jared, Andrew, Cameron, Olivia, Benjamin. But there just wasn’t anything that sounded right.

We agreed early on that we liked Parker, and had settled on Mathew Parker. About a month ago, Adrienne came to me with a suggestion, earlier this year I lost my grandfather, and Adrienne suggested that we change the name we had chosen so that we could honor my grandfather. It wasn’t a hard decision. We hadn’t told my step-grandmother about the decision to change his name. I got this forward, written by my step-grandmother, to me by my mom today:

I was so moved to learn that Jared and Adrienne named their son Parker Forrest Ottley. Jared has always been so good about keeping in touch with his Grandpa. It means so much that he has honored his Grandpa in this way. Please tell him that I love him.

Another good day.  It started a little off, Parker is severely anemic.  They want to avoid a transfusion, because of the complications that could accompany it.  Double this with Adrienne also being anemic.  She received another two units of blood.  That helped her perk right up.

Parker’s pediatrician thinks that he could be coming home soon.  He may be going under bilirubin lights tomorrow for a bit.  He is started to look a little jaundiced.  It is highly likely that he will be coming home this weekend.

Adrienne’s doctor discharged her tonight.  Now the tough part begins: getting her to stay off her feet.  We went straight from hospital a to hospital b to see Parker.  It was the first time she had a chance to hold him.  I thought I had taken a movie with the camera, but it doesn’t look like it saved it.  Adrienne was able to feed Parker.  He latched right on.  They were worried that he would not have developed his sucking reflex yet.  He ate for close to 20 minutes.  We will go back tomorrow a couple of times for feedings.  In the meantime Adrienne will continue to pump for him.

Cameron, Andrew and Olivia were still awake when we got home.  (Olivia keeps running into the bedroom to say “I love you mommy!”)  It will be a big surprise for Taylor and Sawyer tomorrow.

Adrienne just discovered two staples that were left in her.  We tried to remove one with tweezers, I was trying to convince her to let me use wire snips to pop the staple in order to pull them out.  She is not to keen on that idea.  One of the two is a lot tighter, so she just wants to go see her doctor tomorrow to have him remove them.  It’s too bad, I think it would be fun to pop them out with a pair of needle nose pliers and wire snips.

It has been a great day for Parker (and Adrienne). Parker was taken off of the CPAP machine this morning. He is breathing on his own and doing well. He is eating (through a tube) and keeping it down. Tomorrow his pediatrician will take over his care from the neonatologist. I went up and spent some time with him this evening. He looks a lot like Cameron. He has spikey hair and lots of it. We finally have a length for him: 19 inches. If he went to term, he would have been out biggest baby. We are hoping that he will be home by the end of the week. I have updated the pictures on the gallery with ones I took this evening of him.

Adrienne is also doing well. She got two more units of blood, but they took the IV out (of her right arm) after they finished. She is still getting liquids by IV (in her left arm). I took the kids up to see her today. They were all happy to see her and I know she loved the company. The doctor has put her on more pain medication. It is painful for her to move around. The doctor said that it could be months before she is fully recovered. He also indicated that if she continues her upward trend, the earliest she could be home would be Wednesday. It will be nice to have her home.