NC Museum of Art: Part 1

Took a trip over to the North Carolina Museum of Art this afternoon.

This first picture is of the current museum and was taken from one of the many trails on the extensive park grounds.


There has been a massive construction project under way that is billed as a museum expansion. They would have us believe that what is being constructed is a new building for both exhibits and art storage, but I think the truth is obvious from the photos below. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a building to house art; no, this is a greenhouse for growing human-alien hybrids.

An Agnostic at a Tent Revival Meeting

Back from Greensboro where I saw Springsteen.

Don't know what's gotten into me lately, but this is the third concert I've been to in the last two weeks. I saw the Connells two weeks ago, Mike Watt + Dinosaur Jr. last Monday, and Bruce tonight. I'd have to search back years in my memory to remember the three most recent concerts I'd attended prior to two weeks ago. Plus, I have tickets to see Steve Earle in Carrboro in June and tickets for U2 in Raleigh in Sept or Oct (I'm too tired and lazy to look up the date). At this rate, people are going to think that I'm something other than a cranky, boring old dude.

As for Springsteen, it was a good show. Not great, but good. For one thing, the show came five days after that incredible performance that Mike Watt put on: it would be nearly impossible for a coliseum-sized show to come anywhere close to the energy level of a three-piece punk band playing fast and loud in a small club.

Beyond that, when it comes to Bruce, I'm somewhere between a casual fan and a fanatic: I own all but two of his albums and like most (Nebraska being the one that I absolutely love) but am not so familiar that I know all of the lyrics. And it turns out that his concerts are sing along affairs to a surprising degree. So while most everyone around me screamed all of the words to "Badlands," "Born to Run," "Thunder Road," etc., I just sort of took it all in and wished that I was enjoying the show half as much as everyone else.

Despite those minor issues, though, it was still a good show and enjoyable enough for me to actually move some... moving in time to the music being a much more accurate description that to say I was dancing. Oh, and I clapped along where appropriate, keeping much better time than most: a coliseum of white people (there were far more black folks in the band than in the entire audience of ~20,000) can't find or keep rhythm worth a damn.

The band is incredibly tight, although I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, especially after spending a good portion of the last year on the road. I thought it was interesting that Clarence Clemons gets the biggest applause for his solos; he's quite good, but Nils Lofgren impresses me far more. And Max Weinberg's 19-year-old son, Jay, took about half of the drumming duties, and that kid is also pretty impressive.

Springsteen is every bit as engaging as I'd been lead to believe. He spent a few minutes at one point tonight talking up the Food Bank of Eastern & Central NC and an anti-death penalty group. He seemed sincere enough without overdoing it, preaching to the audience, or coming off as self-righteous (unlike Bono the last time I saw U2 many years ago... although, to be fair, I was in a rotten mood that night, so he might not have been nearly as annoying to 99% of the audience as it seemed to me... but that has nothing to do with Springsteen, so why am I bringing it up here?).

With the hour-plus drive back to Raleigh on my mind, I cut out early, a bit before 11:00, which was 2 hours and 45 minutes into the concert. That part impressed me: I knew he was known for 3- and 4-hour concerts back in the day, but I assumed they were probably a couple of hours these days (the dude is turning 60 this year, after all: that's a lot of work for someone who's been on the AARP mailing list for a full decade). So I was disappointed that I couldn't stay for the whole show but I was dreading the gridlock exiting the parking lot and trying to get back to I-40. And as tired as I was by the time I hit my exit back in Raleigh, I'm glad I did: that's not a long drive at 4:00 in the afternoon, but when you've driving back at midnight on a Saturday night and most other drivers seem to be having problems staying in their lanes and/or trouble maintaining their speed, it makes for a tense and exhausting 75 minutes at high speeds.

Overall, a good evening. Glad that I can say that I've seen him but I don't think I'd go out of my way to see him a second time unless I somehow drift over into that obsessive Boss fanatic territory where I find myself able to recite scripture with the other true believers.

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Hey, Kids!

Hat tip to Undercover Black Man.

How Does This Christian Mom Make $5K per Month?

I'm not certain how she does it, but if I had to guess, I'd say she probably sells heathen children into slavery and prostitution.

Why I Love Fark

In response to these mug shots, the third comment in the Fark thread was,

Man, Bert has really let himself go.

That's just beautiful.

Ridiculous

To spoil the story by giving away the ending before I even start, I'll quickly say up front that I just got a clean bill of health from my doctor: I am perfectly fine (physically, anyway; my mental health might be a whole other story at this point).

I've only been back to work for three days following a badly needed break, but already I feel like I need another holiday.

I came back into the office Monday morning and started listening to last week's phone messages. One was curious because it was from somebody at the local hospital's blood services unit, where I've been a regular donor since I moved here. They've contacted a few times in the past to ask me to come in when supplies are low or they're having a slow day. But earlier this year, I started donating platelets which is very different from whole blood donations: for one, I can donate every few days up to 26 times in a year. Since I was already scheduled to donate every other week through May, I thought that it was a little strange that they would be calling me, but I didn't give it much more thought.

Later in the morning, I returned the guy's call and was surprised when he answered by giving his name as Doctor so-and-so. I was even more surprised when he explained that he was the director for the blood services unit and needed to confirm that I'd donated blood back on March 25 and was scheduled to give again on April 8.

Well, you probably see where this is going, don't you? I sure did, and my gut and sphincter reacted appropriately.

It seems that I had tested positive for Hepatitis C on that last visit. That result was from the initial reactivity test that is designed to be hyper-sensitive. At that point, they ran a second test known as RIBA, which is where the first test results are usually either confirmed or shown to be false positives. Unfortunately, or maddeningly, really, sometimes that test gives an indeterminate result, and that's exactly what happened with mine.

The doctor explained that I needed to follow up with my regular physician ASAP and that as a result of these tests, I am now deferred as a donor. It turns out that the definition of the word defer is different in that world than it is in mine. I asked how I go about becoming eligible once more, assuming that further testing with my primary care provider shows that I'm OK. Well, it turns out that it doesn't work that way. FDA regulations state that a single positive test results for Hepatitis prevents that person from ever donating again, even if that one test is followed by 1000 consecutive negative results; for that reason, I am now on the deferred donor list. Thank you very much, have a nice day, please do NOT come again.

As you'd expect, I was on the phone to my doctor immediately after that call and got scheduled for an immediate exam and new round of blood tests.

The wait since that first phone conversation has been strange. On the one hand, I've felt pretty confident that I was OK: I'm not in any of the high risk groups, my blood is being tested regularly since I'd been a loyal donor for many years, and I've been getting annual physicals since I hit 40 and the most recent one was back in January which showed no problems on any of the blood work, including on the liver panel.

On the other hand, I was already trying to rank the most likely sources for the transmission, with my mind constantly going back and forth between the new tattoos I got last fall (at a licensed, reputable shop, so that didn't seem very likely) and the many blood donations (even less likely than the tattoos). Plus, I was trying to figure out my next steps, should the results come back positive. I'd go through a couple of minutes of thinking like that before I'd remind myself that the odds were extremely high that a false positive on the hospital's test was causing a huge amount of unnecessary activity and worry. But then my mind would wander back into that whole dark territory once more and I'd have to try to refocus again. And on and on.

That is, until late this afternoon, when I got the call from my doctor that the test results came back fine: I don't have Hepatitis C and there was nothing at all indeterminate about those results.

So that just leaves me pissed off. Yes, I should be relieved, and I am, but more than that, I'm angry that I'll never be able to donate blood ever again. I can understand and appreciate erring on the side of caution, but this just seems ridiculous to me. Test my blood every other month for the next year, during which time I'm deferred as a precaution: that seems like a sensible solution. But a lifetime ban is just over the top, especially for a regular, faithful donor and especially considering that this is due to a single result that may have come from a botched test or from testing an accidentally contaminated blood specimen. Utterly ridiculous.

Sheepshifters

Hat tip to NoneFor.Me for the video ("Men playing with their sheep," as NoneFor titles his post, drawing upon his family's history of animal husbandry to make the joke work)...

The Black Plague Is Stalking Me!

I'm still not totally sold on the whole Twitter thing, but I'm having some fun at its periphery.

As I mentioned in a previous post, someone has used my email address on his or her Twitter account, so I'd been getting notices that people (some I know, some I don't) thought they were following me via some Twitter account that I don't control. So back on March 19, I sent an email to Twitter Support alerting them to the problem.

On April 2, I got an email back from Twitter Support to tell me that... well, that they hadn't even looked at my message, yet:

Since then, however, I have two new people not following me on Twitter. This one from Friday is great just because of the person's Twitter name:

And now this bit of disturbing news:

The Black Plague is actually a friend of mine who created the account just to mess with people (proving the tremendous potential for Twitter after all, I guess). Check out this page.

What the Hell Is This?

I stayed at an incredibly nice hotel Friday. But I admit to being somewhat perplexed by the bed. Take a look at the black and white pillow in these pictures. What purpose does this thing serve? In addition to being ridiculously big, the thing is rock hard, so it wouldn't make for a comfortable pillow. Its size also prevents it from being able to support your neck (unless you're got a seriously messed up cervical spine or you're looking to get one). Does anybody do anything with this except throw it on the floor before going to bed?

I was similarly confused by the greenish fabric you can just make out at the foot of the bed. What purpose does that small bit of fabric serve outside of surprising drunk people who try to pull it up thinking it is a blanket? Really, the only purpose it might have served is if I'd suddenly found myself in need of a sash for a night on the town.