November 2000

    AMIA 2000 Fall Symposium / Sun in the Southland | Film: Le Temps Retrouvé (Time Regained) | Film: Aimée and Jaguar | American Thanksgiving | True Canucks

  • True Canucks
    Dorami-chan and I drove all the way from Portland to Vancouver to see the Canuckleheads play the Disney Ducks of Anaheim again, this time in "The Garage," the new GM Place arena. Talk about hockey-crazy Canucks! Neither Kariya brother was particularly effective this game. The real story was Vancouver goalie Felix Potvin, who stopped the Ducks and never let them build up momentum. Before heading home, we picked up some Timbits from Tim Horton Donuts. The U.S. border guard looked at us strangely but let us pass once we told him the score of the game. We found out the next day that the Canucks had sent Steve Kariya to the minors.

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    ( November 2000)

  • American Thanksgiving
    Dorami-chan wanted to learn how to cook a turkey, so we went up to Seattle to learn in the kitchen of the master, Chef "Bill". We stuffed and got stuffed.

    We had planned to go shopping the next day without realizing that it is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year in America, as retailers kick into Christmas sales mode. Some stores actually open their doors at 6 a.m. -- and shoppers are actually waiting outside! As it turned out, this year wasn't too horrendous, perhaps an indicator of the slowing economy.

    We drove up to Vancouver B.C. to visit some friends, and heard temperatures reported on the radio in Celsius for the first time in a while. Since moving to Portland, Dorami-chan has never been quite sure what temperature it is outside, unfamiliar as she is with the Fahrenheit scale. On the way back, we bought Dorami-chan meat and oven thermometers with Celsius markings so she can cook her first turkey without getting confused.

    On the way home, some searching around the radio dial found what is now Dorami-chan's favorite program, The Troubleshooter, a phone-in consumer activist show.
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    ( November 2000)

  • Aimée and Jaguar (Germany 1999) ****
    A true story of forbidden love in Berlin during World War II.
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    ( November 2000)

  • Le Temps Retrouvé (Time Regained) (France 1999; Dir: Raul Ruiz) ****
    Based on the final volume of Marcel Proust's epic novel A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), this dreamlike film portrays a dying author's memories of his life. The central thesis is that events in one's life have no significance at the time they are happening, only when one remembers them (or records them in a homepage diary! ;-) ).

    Given that plot revolved around World War One, it was appropriate that I saw this film today. In Canada, the Armistice that ended the Great War at 11:00 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 is commemorated as Remembrance Day. In November, many Canadians wear poppy pins to show their respect for the sacrifices of the dead in that war and others that have followed. Do you know how this came to be?

    Remembrance Day is called Veterans Day in the United States. This year marked the dedication of a new monument on The Mall in Washington D.C. to the memory of the Internment and the Nikkei soldiers who served in the US Army in World War Two. It should have been a day of satisfaction for all Japanese Americans, but some were opposed to a particular inscription on the memorial.

    The wartime experience of Japanese Americans is not just Asian American history, but also mainstream American and, further, human history. Everyone should be aware of the lessons learned, and a monument (in whatever form) serves as a reminder.
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    (11 November 2000)

  • AMIA Fall Symposium 2000: Are We There Yet?
    The keynote speaker at the American Medical Informatics Association's 2000 meeting was Michael Millenson, a former medical news reporter and author of Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age. He took medical informaticists to task for their abundance of theoretical work and prototypes but lack of large-scale working systems that can deliver better health care on a population-wide basis. He is right: the computer field in general is making galloping advances, but medical informatics is (relatively speaking) stuck in the mud, largely due to the chaotic and fractured nature of the "medical" part.

    The theme this year was "Converging Information, Technology and Health Care", but much of the infrastructure is still not in place yet for any of that to happen. This was my third AMIA Annual Symposium, and I got the feeling I have been learning less and less each year. I think it is because I know more and more, but that begs the question, "Is that all there is?" We medical informaticists need to create more knowledge!

    You can read about the rest of my trip to California on my Sun in the Southland page.
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    (04-09 November 2000)

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