OakMonster’s Den

Hotel Belamar

I get to be one of the lab rats for them. Will report in on VIBE and possibly the hotel stay later.

Los Angeles Times: Steve Lopez: The Right to Die Is a Personal Matter

Steve said exactly how I feel.

(Can’t you tell I’m not working very hard at all today?)

USC Trojans Football begins training

3rd championship or not, I have faith in Pete and Matt. We’ll havea great season! Then again, we can’t possibly do worse than 1998-2000, also known as Paul Hackett’s Reign of Terror.

Also for the record, Brandon wants to be kept alive for 30 days of no improvement before having the plug pulled. Just so we’re all clear on that.

Just watched The Incredibles. Super fun! Damn tired though. I’m wayyyyy past my bedtime. I blame my last surge of energy on Jamocha Almond Fudge.

In response to Rude Cactus’ recent post about this whole Terri Shiavo thing.

I hereby join in with other bloggers in making it public my intention (which my husband already knows):

If I ended up in a vegatative state, brain dead, or any other kind of ailment that left me incapable of making my own decision, remaining unconscious, and/or 100% dependable on mechanical assistance (i.e. breathing machine, feeding tubes) for a prolonged period of time without a realistic chance for recovery other than putting me in suspended animation or cryogenic freeze, please do me a favor and pull the fucking plug.

If I bonked my head and became sleeping beauty with no way of knowing if I ever come back, keep me a week just in case, and let me go. If I got hurt so badly I can’t survive on my own, keep me a few days–or as soon as my parents can get over here to say goodbye–and let me go.
And once I die, if I ever find out in the after life that I was kept alive more than I needed to be, I swear I would haunt whoever is involved in keeping my alive longer until they stop forcing their decisions down anyone else’s throat.

Being a Buddhist, I believe that we are born to suffer. Every time you are born as a human, it is your chance to do karma, to work at getting closer to nirvana. If you can’t do it in this life time, you do enough good karma that would enable you to come back again as a human next time so you can have another shot at it. When you die, it is for a reason. Your time is up. Your suffering ends here. You start all over again.

May be it is in Terri’s karma that she has to suffer this life on tubes. But who are we to hold on to her longer than she needs to be alive? It is definitely not the government’s place to make that call.

You have the right to live. And you have the right to die.

Another thing. I’m uneasy about letting her starve to death. If it is humane to ease the pain of a lethal injection, why can’t it be humane to ease Terri into her long-postponed death? Can’t they just mix in some morphine–okay, a lot of morphine–in her “last meal” and then remove her tubes? But then again, if starvation is the final thing she has to suffer to get to a well deserved death, so be it.

That’s my 2 cents.

P.S. 1. Speaking of living will and all of that legal+death stuff, if you need help setting up wills, dying or living, contact my good friend Lawyer Kate.

P.S. 2. When I die, I’d like to have any viable organs of me donated. Milk me for all I’ve got. I won’t need the body where I’m going. Besides, I will be cremated (according to Buddhist rites) anyway so let’s not waste perfectly good organs. My ashes should be scattered at a few places: over the forest of Red River, NM., over the USC painted grass at the end zones of the Coliseum, and off the beach at our old family vacation home in Bang Saen. If anyone wants to keep some, take some. The rest will get “sunk” into the Choa Phrya River where my grandmother’s ashes lies.

This morning I was rudely cut off twice by the same guy, the lead grey Ford Escape. I usually don’t get that vengeful and road rage-y over people cutting me off, but this guy got my goat.

First, as I was in line getting on the metered on ramp like everyone else, the Escape came speeding up in the carpool only entrance, and despite the lack of space between my car and the car in front of me, he stuck his nose in front of my car, inches from my left corner bumper, with no signal what soever, and of course, forced his way in front of me.

And then at the 2 car per green meter, the Escape, busy on the cell phone, being the second car, didn’t follow the car in front of him when the light turned green.

AND THEN once on the freeway, I was on the second from the left lane. The Escape was somewhere on my right. Lo and behold, when my lane came to a stop, with no signal, and barely enough space, the Escape stuck his nose in inches from my right bumper. At this point I layed on the horn like a mad woman which detered him for a second as he turned back into his lane. But of course, the moment the car in front of me rolled 2 inches forward, he forced back in front of me. And then on to the fast lane, continuing to tailgate the car in front of him the whole way.

Yes, I kept track of where he went the whole way from the 405 to 110 N until he pretty much drove laterally across all 3-4 lanes of the 110 to get on the 91. Guess what? No signal.

If the way people drive determine the driver’s personality, this guy is a grade A asshole.

And between those 2 incidents, some big ass bird dropped a bomb on my passenger’s side window, obscuring my side mirror.

Can’t you tell I’ve had a LOVELY Monday morning?

Lawmaker Seeks to End Sexy Cheerleading

Here’s the first Horseman of the epocalypse of the Home of the FREE. Texas is quickly becoming the spawning point of The Handmaid’s Tale’s Republic of Gilead. Scary.

One of those moments that make me wonder about W. Bush sometimes…

A plane just flew by my window, dragging behind it a banner:

1-888-Hot-Babes
Girls - Girls - Girls

Right through corporate Downtown LA. Nice.

4:45 a.m. - Woke up to get ready to get to work by 6:30 a.m. Ahh, the special once a month board member meetings my company has.

5:45 a.m. - Exit Adams. Swung into McDonald’s and had me a McGriddle. Didn’t think I’d like the sweet pancake like substance with the salty sausage and egg since I don’t like mixing my syrupy pancake with other things, but surprisingly I do like this McGriddle crap.

6:15 a.m. - First one in the office.

6:30 a.m. - The rest of Investor Relations dept. (read: all girls) arrived. We packed up and headed a block over to set up the meeting at the California Club.

10:00 a.m. - We returned back to the office.

12:00 p.m. - I discovered that rosemary sourdough bread is something the devil would’ve squeezed out, and the cheddar wedge I wanted to eat with my apple slices was just starting to get moldy. So no real lunch for me.

2:15 p.m. - Since I stayed late yesterday, I’m off the clock 45 minutes earlier on an already early day.

3:00 p.m. - Got home. Changed. Took 2 suit jackets to get altered. Shopped for vitamins for mom at a few places. Got beef for St. Patty’s Guinness Stew. Grocery shopped. Ran back to the alteration place to retrieve my jackets as we realized $165 is too damn much.

6:00 p.m. - Brandon picked me up just as I returned to go get our taxes…which we owe the Feds HUGE. What I thought was my extra money I could put into savings is actually belong to the State of California. B & I stopped to get cheap-o dinner. After I finished that, I made the Guinness Stew. We’re having our friends Rhonda & Eric, and Big Eric over for St. Patty’s. I will not have time to cook for them fresh tomorrow so I made the stew tonight which will be reheated tomorrow.

9:00 p.m. - Stew was done. I watched most of the new West Wing.

10:00 p.m. - Went over the books of Boren Consulting.

11:00 p.m. - I’m going to go put the stew in the fridge and finally go to bed.

…longest day so far this year.

I was going to start keeping count of how many helicopter I see flying by my window each day. I would count a pass i.e. the same helcopter went by twice, I’d count that as 2. But I haven’t really looked up enough to accurately count them lately.

And then of course this morning I have to hear the radio news about possible terrorist threats from private planes and helicopters since the smaller airport security is not as good as the larger one.

Great. Now I get nervous every time I spot a ghetto bird. Not that being on a 34th floor has already made me uneasy or anything.