I've lost my voice completely over the weekend. I can't speak, can't sleep, can't sit still for five minutes without heaving all my energy into coughing for my dry throat. What started out as a harmless sore throat on Wednesday, got worse as the week(end) progressed. So the first thing on my agenda for Monday morning was to see the doctor for a dose of anything that would let me sleep and kill this sore throat.

I've been on the phone for 2 hours whispering my condition in my hacked non-voice. First was a call to the office of my PCP. She was on vacation, I found out. Ok, so how about seeing anyone else that was available? No one, I was told. Try urgent care. Well, if I wanted to go to urgent care, I wouldn't have waited till Monday morning! So I called another clinic within the same group. The receptionist said she couldn't see me at this clinic, since my PCP didn't belong here. So my question was, how do I go about seeing SOMEONE/ANYONE for my condition without enduring four hours at urgent care (that term is a misnomer in this country). She said call back your original clinic and ask to leave a message for the doctor on-call. Oookkkk, so why wasn't I given this option the first time? So I call back, croak my problem over again, get DISCONNECTED, have to call back AGAIN, and am told the same thing- no appointments. Can I leave a message please? Yes sure, the on-call doctor will call you right back. So I'm waiting for a call from the doctor, and the receptionist calls right back. Magically, an appointment has opened for later in the evening. So do you still want to speak to the doctor (because of course, this comes for free, an appoitnment doesn't). I say yes, and I'm still waiting to here from the clinic. I think I might have (sort of) worked the system this time, but not without losing out somehow.

So the lengthy passage is the prelude to my complaint. The state of health affairs in this country is just deplorable. You have to jump hoops to see someone for something as common as the common cold, wait forever on the phone, go and wait forever in the clinic, its endless. They have fancy systems like urgent care and emergency rooms set up, and the health care people coax you in that direction without batting an eyelid. There are some ailments that are less urgent than urgent care, and hardly qualify as emergencies, and sometimes you just need to speak to a doctor, that's all. And they cost so much more than regular visits to your PCP, that both you and your insurance end up paying a heavy price for these services. The health care industry exploits the insurance system, with utter disregard to the patient. And its people with a sprained foot, cut fingers and croaky voices that have to pay the price!

I didn't realize how much I love my work until I came in this afternoon. Its become such a strong part of my identity, that I think I'll be lost without it. I feel a sense of purpose with it, and it fulfils my need to "contribute something meaningful". Sometimes, it also helps to lock the chaos outside.

Also, Happy Birthday Smee.

And I love you Dad! A whole bunch...

We've had a lot of babies in our friends' circle recently...and four other couples we know are expecting in December/January. Which brings us to a very interesting topic of conversation- baby names! Most parents these days strive for "unique" names, because their bundle of joy is undoubtedly one-of-a-kind. So they go trolling baby name websites, Hindu (and Greek!) mythology, the meaning of flower/song/princess in foreign languages and whatever else they can lay their hands on for inspiration. I'm sure we'll end up jumping all the same hoops when we have a baby. But the most coincidental thing is that we now know SIX girls, all under the age of 2, three of whom have a Slavic rendition of the name Anna, and another three that have the Greek translation of poppy.  Quite something huh? And I thought my name was common!

Another major criteria for choosing names is how easily others can pronounce it. In the US, that's a big deal, because the wrong accent on an alphabet could perhaps turn your son from a prince to a frog..metaphorically speaking! So my husband's colleague has something that really caught my attention...its called the "Starbucks test". Take your name for a cup of coffee...if the barista can pronounce it easily, its yours, else go back to the drawing board. Ingenious, I tell you! :)

I just got back from a guest lecture by Marc Smith of Microsoft who researches community technologies/social networking environments. He mentioned the different tools available for social networks, like mail, newsgroups, blogs, flickr, del.icio.us, etc. All these most of us use, and find indispensible in some sense. Now don't get me wrong, Marc was smart and witty, but when he threw at me - MoSoSo, SNARF, AURA and a whole bunch of other Micorsoft acronyms, I'd never even imagined, I was lost! Could this be *it*? Is this what we all have been looking for to improve the quality of our already information-overloaded lives? Perhaps....But what do you have to say to BodyBugg, the little thing you strap around your arm that tells you you've been a couch potato today. Do I need BodyBugg to tell me I'm a lazy ass (sometimes...)  There was also SenseCam which you put around your neck and it'll take pics throughout the day everytime you change context (sit/stand, etc). Great for Alzheimer's patients (and studies prove so). But do I want to carry this on my vacation to Italy? Thanks but no thanks.....I'll take my own pictures that aren't shot at neck level randomly.

So the point is, we have HUGE research going into social networks, and the re-emergence of the Net with user-created content, and now that we have all this content, we need to have tools to organize this, and its endless....I'm beginning to lose the distinction between what we need and what we *think* we need. Maybe my view is over-simplified, but wouldn't it be worthwhile engaging in more meaningful research like... I don't know....computers consuming less/alternative power...what with cheap Linux boxes thrown into HUGE data centers radiating enough heat to give the sun a complex. Electricity is getting scarce you know...our recent heat wave's proven that! Oh, maybe that would be another area of research- changing weather patterns and its long term effects. You know the boring, mundane stuff! We already do that you  say...hmmmm maybe then we do have time freed up to think of how to tag and annotate the entire web world for a meaningful, contextual experience!!! You tell me.

Inspiredink.net was supposed to be a wedding gift to my sister with all of our mom's recipes put in a handy, convenient place. I'd hoped to breathe life into it progressively. Obviously, my ink hasn't been as inspired as I'd expected, so I'm going to try and revamp the pages on it in the coming weeks, I hope.

Also, I'd been waiting for an as-easy-as-pie plugin for blogging. I'd tried using WordPress a few months ago, but lazy as I am, I hardly bothered with learning to set it up nicely. So for now, until I spend some time figuring that out, I'm happy with the 360 tie in that Yahoo small business has introduced. At least now I won't have excuses to publish on my own website.