December 30, 2009 Health Update

The plan is for my surgery to be done in the latter part of January, after Elizabeth's birthday party, and after Diana's going back to school.

By then, the doctors expect my hemoglobin count to be at or above "normal" (it was slightly below normal when last tested), and my protein level (measured as blood albumin) to be "normal". My procrit (hormone that tells my bone marrow to make hemoglobin) dosage was increased from 4500 units twice a week to 5500 units twice a week, and I am continuing the protein supplement (30 grams of protein = 5 scoops of Beneprotein in a fruit smoothie) every night.

The surgery is to remove and replace the aortic valve in my heart with a pig valve. While they have my chest open and heart stopped, they will also handle a couple of partially blocked arteries while they are in there (kind of like your mechanic doing the main bearings on your car engine at the same time as the valve job since the engine is torn down anyways).

Because of the difficulty of opening up and working with a beating heart, the surgical team will necessarily stop my heart in order to do the work on it. This will be done through the miracle of Cardiopulmonary Bypass (CPB).

NOTICE that I did not write that the surgical team will kill me dead. They are only going to make my heart stop beating and me stop breathing.

The question, then, is this: since I am not breathing and have no beating heart, will I be "dead"?

I had this discussion with several people - will I remember being "dead"? At our family Christmas Eve dinner I told my niece, Noreen, that when I am "dead" that I would communicate with her. We agreed that I would cause one of her books ("The Lovely Bones") to fall out of her book shelf.


Disclaimer: SORRY - This is only what I know from my point of view. No lies, just what I see as the truth.

War-fighters and peace-time pilots don't like Jane

Recently I wrote about the war-fighters and peace-time pilots at Northrop Grumman.

What I noticed was that these guys have a certain antipathy towards Jane Fonda.

What P*SSES these guys off are these photos from 1972 taken of Jane Fonda during her visit to North Vietnam. These guys know what it is to be shot at, they know guys who were shot down and killed, who were shot down and spent time in POW camp. They don't like the idea of Jane Fonda being friendly to those who would do pilots harm.

There has been much written about Jane Fonda on the internet - see what snopes.com has to say about Jane Fonda. Snopes.com actually investigated who said what.

In 1999, when Barbara Walters honored Jane Fonda as one of the '100 Women of the Century,' there was a big fuss.

Friends and relatives of POWs who had spent time as guests of the North Vietnamese thought that Jane Fonda was unworthy of such an honor, and that people should be reminded, because in their words, "This is for all the kids born in the 70's who do not remember, and didn't have to bear the burden that our fathers, mothers and older brothers and sisters had to bear."

They started up that email that is still being circulated today with the subject line "Never Forgive a Traitor". Read what people had to say.

The POW Network has a lot to say about Jane Fonda, not much of which is flattering.


Disclaimer: SORRY - This is only what I know from my point of view. No lies, just what I see as the truth.

Warfighters at Northrop

First, I will state that I have only admiration and gratitude for those in our military, past and present. The following might seem trite - I believe it to be very true: "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." Our military is trained by our government to kill people and break things on our behalf using the very best technology that a lowest-bid contractor can provide.

When I started working at Northrop Aircraft Company in 1978, there were a number of warfighters in the Systems Analysis Group.

At that time, Northrop had in its employ a number of pilots from World War II, Korean War and Viet Nam War to form the Operational Analysis group. The idea was to have a bunch of guys who actually were in war time situations and knew exactly how air commanders would deploy aircraft and pilots in battle. This made the "what if" analysis more plausible, and the analysis would stand up to the scrutiny of those who were veterans of those wars.

This is in contrast to what has been done recently, where the analysis is done with some computer model that the war-fighters would not understand, and the person running the model is some twenty-two year college graduate who never seen the inside of a war plane. Sometimes we will have the situation where the young analyst gets to decide how the war is to be fought, how many and what aircraft are to be deployed, etc. without consultation with a war-fighter types who would otherwise offer a "sanity check".

I talked to these war-fighters as the new young guy with the idea of learning what it was like to have fought in a war where people were trying to kill you while you were trying to kill them, or doing your best to avoid being killed.

What I remember the most about the war-fighters was how I was impressed with the sense of humility of the typical war-fighter. I got that they knew that better men than they had died and not survived the war. Sometimes it was a matter of luck that determines if one lived or died. There was no rhyme or reason as to who died and who lived. There were also accidents that would kill them just as dead.

Then there are the peace-time Air Force and Navy pilots who have been hired by Northrop Grumman because they can "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" when they are dealing to the Air Force or Navy customer. The peace-time pilots have only fired weapons as part of training and proficiency exercises, and not to intentionally kill. There's only the possibility that they have accidentally killed somebody.

The life-or-death situations these peace-time pilots face usually involve somebody being stupid, careless, or negligent - these things will get a pilot killed just as dead. In my opinion, this is different than the situation where the enemy is trying to kill you while you are trying to kill them, or trying your best to avoid being killed.

However, I don't always get that sense of humility that I had found in the war-fighter in these peace-time pilots. This is not a knock on the peace-time pilots, it is what it is.

In either case, Northrop Aircraft Company and later Northrop Grumman Corporation has had its war-fighters and peace-time pilots.

What they all have in common is their willingness to risk life and limb in the performance of their work during their service with the government. We all should be thankful to them for this.


Disclaimer: SORRY - This is only what I know from my point of view. No lies, just what I see as the truth.

I have no sense of humor?

This is one of my most vivid memories of my employment at Northrop Grumman.

It happened when we were in Pico Rivera in Building 216. Systems Analysis was part of the Advanced Technology and Development Center (ATDC).

We were out in the large unclassified bay where various groups had their cubicles. Along one wall was the managers' offices, as they had a real office with a door that opens and closes. Ordinary employees enjoy the open to the world airiness of two-person cubicles with partitions that came up to nose-level on many people. Not too much privacy ion these cubicles. There were perhaps 60 - 80 people in this bay.

David Rausch was telling a joke with this set-up line, "How do you revitalize the city of Los Angeles?"

David Rausch's punch was, "By dropping an atomic bomb on South Central Los Angeles."

(Laughter???!)

As I do not have a sense of humor, I was clueless why David Rausch thought that this was so funny. I had to ask, "Why is that funny?"

David Rausch was evidently insulted to have somebody ask for an explanation of why his joke is funny.

I went on in the discussion of why his joke was funny. Is it because only Blacks and Latinos live in South Central Los Angeles? Why would THAT make the joke funny?

Is the idea of extra-crisp "crispy critters" what makes this joke so funny? Atomic bomb explosion temperatures reaching 7000 degrees Fahrenheit in 0.1 milliseconds would produce "crispy critters" almost instantly, if they are not close enough to be vaporized.

David Rausch obviously did NOT want to discuss the humor of his joke. He drew himself to his full height (he's well over six-feet tall, and I am just a little Asian guy seated in a chair) and shouted, "Drop it! It's just a joke - drop it!"

At first, I wanted to continued the discussion, so David Rausch again repeated, "Drop it! It's just a joke - drop it!"

By this time, I noticed that the entire bay got real quiet - none of the normal chatter, etc. that one would normally hear.

I got real quiet myself. I was thinking that David Rausch was going to TEAR MY HEAD OFF, or do other GREAT BODILY HARM to me.

I was also noticing that I did not like 1) getting shouted down by a big angry white guy, and 2) being physically intimidated by a big angry white guy standing at his full height towering over me in my seated position - you do not want David Rausch to get angry at you, as Ron Cote advised me, "He's a big guy." I would also add that that David Rausch is a VERY UGLY person when he is angry at you and is shouting you down.

As I am of such a sensitive nature, I let this episode upset me in such a manner that was noticeable to others in our group, so much that somebody reported this to our manager, Randy Yates.

Like any good manager, Randy Yates wanted to head off any potential conflicts between personnel in his group. He called both David Rausch and me into his office for a clear-the-air talk.

David Rausch apologized for losing his temper.

I apologized for not having a sense of humor. Smile-while-you-eat-shit. Go along to get along. Be a "team member".

NOTHING was said about the inappropriateness of this joke in the work environment.

NOTHING was said about the relative value of the lives of our Black and Latino citizens residing in South Central Los Angeles.

Being the type of person that he is, David Rausch pretended that I was the invisible man whenever we were in the same vicinity - he would LOOK RIGHT THROUGH ME as if I did not exist, let alone speak to me.

Of course, whenever he NEEDED something from me, he would speak to me as if he was a normal human being.

Being a survivor ("Smile when you have to eat sh*t." Go along to get along. Be a team player.) I would pretend that I did not notice David Rausch had given me the invisible man treatment, and very polite provide him with whatever he needed.

Mike Petka, who was working at Northrop Grumman at that time, and who is a white guy, thought that while dropping an atomic bomb on South Central Los Angeles might be a good thing, thought that an atomic bomb on Dana Point would not be a good thing.;

The Black people I asked about the humor of this joke did not give me a response. They would just shake their heads for some reason.

Romeo Allen was one Black guy at Northrop Grumman at that time who did not give me an answer, but told me of his encounter with a white Sheriff's Deputy who had an odd sense of humor. The Sheriff's Deputy stuck the MUZZLE of his shotgun into Romeo's mouth, evidently thinking that the potential of blowing a good portion of Romeo's head off into bits of bone, flesh, and brain tissue to be funny.

My youngest daughter who was nine-years old at that time, understood what an atomic bomb was. She did not think that this joke was very funny, and in fact, seemed to be distressed about an atomic bomb being dropped on any part of Los Angeles, as we live in Los Angeles.

My sister-in-law's two brothers, being very polite Chinese guys, at first pretended to laugh at the joke, but agreed that it was not a funny thing at all.

In summary, these white guys got one funny sense of humor that I STILL don't get, and many other people don't get.

I hope that NONE of our Black and Latino Northrop Grumman employees reading this gets the wrong idea about the white guys at Northrop Grumman.


Disclaimer: SORRY - This is only what I know from my point of view. No lies, just what I see as the truth.