Category: Uncategorized

Dad’s back in the hospital. He’s been (dry) coughing pretty badly ever we got him home after his heart surgery at the end of April. He’s also had some alternating fevers in the last month-to-six weeks. We took him for CAT scan on Thursday, which revealed an abscess in his lung. He also has this weird tennis-ball-sized lump of hard tissue at the top of his thigh, right where the scar begins from where they took one of the veins for his bypasses.

His surgeon took one look at it Friday and admitted him back into the hospital. Looks like he’s been fighting an infection ever since surgery. Being a tough guy, he kept ignoring his worsening condition, but his girlfriend noticed that he was burning up last week, and got the ball rolling for this current round of treatment. Saving his life for the nth time.

So he’s going into surgery later today, where they’ll drain the lump in his thigh. They’ll get him on a serious load of antibiotics so that the abscess in the lung will get zapped before it spreads to his heart. Everyone (except Dad) sounds pretty optimistic about this. Dad’ll be in the hospital until Tuesday (7/5) at a minimum. I’ll write more on the dadblog as the situation warrants.

Fixed some links and added some sites to the blogroll (see left), including Gennady’s site Newzspeak. Go there and harass him into writing more. I’m gonna get back to laying out those Pharma profiles. If I post “Is Pfizer Pfucked?” at 3am, ignore it; I’m punchy.

Looks like John Rocker’s walking away from his attempt to return to Major League Baseball, after a not-so-effective stint with the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League (6.50 ERA in 23 games, 19 Ks and 28 BBs in 28 innings).

Last month, I wrote about the time I bumped into Rocker and discovered that his public persona was not exactly the same as his conversational self.

So I’m a little bummed to find that he’s just not able to compete well enough to get back to the big leagues. It would’ve been a nice story, especially if he could’ve demonstrated a little more restraint when confronted with the idiocy and provocation of drunken fans.

On the plus side, this whole episode gives you, dear reader, the opportunity to do something good!

If you head over to Rocker’s website, you’ll find that he’s participating in a 150 km bike-ride charity event for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. If you have a little spare cash and want to pledge some money to the cause, you can do so here. And you get to leave him a personal message.

I clicked past that option too quickly when I made my donation, so I didn’t get to tell him the most important thing: Get a haircut.

I finally have a morning of rest, dear reader. No conference to get to, dinner parties for departing friends, company picnics, or late-starting NBA finals games! I still have a ton of those Pharma & Biopharma profiles to write, but I’m taking today off. The official VM fiancee & I are heading down to a party at the shore soon, but that won’t stop me from dropping some pix from the past week on you! Without Freddy Adu:

Generic crowd shot.

At the BIO conference, there were plenty of oddball sights. I’m still not sure why this guy was dressed like this.

Mr. Kamikaze? Mr. DNA!

The conference consists of lots of regional pavilions, because of the importance of attracting venture capital to economic areas. The Hawaii pavilion was pretty near our booth. After the second day, all the regions start breaking out local entertainment.

Evidently, Canada’s idea of local entertainment was a dude handing out test-tube shots. I should’ve gone over to the Louisiana pavilion in case they had a guy dressed like a hand grenade, giving out shots.

Well, after I left BIO on Wednesday afternoon, I went home for a brief nap, then headed into NYC for a going-away dinner for official VM buddy Bryn. He’s the guy on the left in this pic, which is busy being worth a thousand words. Note: she’s 24 weeks into her first pregnancy.

What’d I tell ya? It was week of preggers for me, as I dined with Mary & Liz that night, and stayed in Philly with my friends Blake & Ines, who are expecting their first kid. Back in the office, we have two bloatinas meandering around. It’s a conspiracy, I tellsya!

Bryn decided to show us his baby, too. I sure love my friends.

Then I get home yesterday and find some young buck just hanging around outside my house! There are no manners anymore!

Nice job by the Supreme Court, deciding that property seizure for private development is Constitutional. I guess I’ve changed over the years, because I never thought I’d say, “I really agree with Rehnquist, Scalia and Clarence Thomas on this one.”

Between this and the retards in the House bringing up that dumb-ass flag-burning amendment again, I almost wish they’d go back to trying to legislate against Jose Canseco.

You’ve probably read this already, but if not, here’s a link to the commencement address Steve Jobs just delivered at Stanford. It’s pretty wonderful reading.

This article about how celebrities are freaking out over being seen in hi-definition TV is pretty funny. It includes a great description of Jewel’s makeup, and the word “frankensteinian,” which is impressive, considering it’s the NYTimes.

It’s a picture, and it’s worth a thousand words!

Evidently, Steven Spielberg believes that his new War of the Worlds flick reflects post-9/11 angst, instead of just being a summertime special effects monstrosity.

I think the movie poster shows that we have plenty in common with these aliens: we both like bowling.

Meanwhile, this makes me laugh more than the other foreign-language posters. Not sure why. Probably because it reminds me of the “Jews In Space” piece from the end of History of the World, Part I: