It's 2009 already??

Where does the time go??  School is going well.  Knee deep in the Vietnam war. I had never been that aware of France's colonial involvement at the genesis of that quagmire. Maybe I wasn't paying attention in school, but my history classes never really went into it. Interesting....

Speaking of those pesky French, I just finished my little research paper, and realized that my vocab could use some work. When a professor asks you for 6000 words, there are only so many times you can write "Becuase, you know, like, France is like, totally anti-hegemonic."  Ugh. Happily moving on....

...In case anyone was wondering, my husband has one of the coolest jobs ever.  When he's not taking a field trip to the Supreme Court....

Or jumping out of black hawks...


He's backseating in an F-15 plane.

Truth be told, I wasn't all that excited about it.  The prospect of vomiting in the back of a $30 million rollercoaster is just not one of the things I look forward to in life. But when I showed up in the F-15 parking lot to take photos of him upon arrival, I have to say it was a pretty amazing feeling.  And I didn't even make it into the air!!

So yeah, go to law school kids...see how much fun it is to be a lawyer??

John is back in the states for 3 weeks so Gunner and I will be spending a lot of quality time together, cleaning the guest room as we prepare for Masumi and Scott to get here in April. He's promised to clean up all the mini-Gunner dust bunnies as long as I give him hourly rubs.

ADHD and one too many projects

Turns out I have massive Adult Onset ADHD.  This is self-diagnosis, of course, as I'm not going to waste the air force's medical resources just for them to tell me that yes, I bounce around a lot and need to learn to concentrate. On one project. At a time.  Clearly they don't know me at all.

I just completed a final on GeoStrategy that kicked my behind. What is geostrategy, you ask? Well since the entire class was only NINE DAYS LONG (two 16-hour weekends and 1000 pages of reading), I stored all the info needed for my test in my short term memory compartment, which I promptly dumped all over an US Weekly the minute class was over. (US Weekly is the girl version of beer, just dumbs you down in a really comforting way.) So - sorry, you're going to have to go to Wikipedia for the definition because I can barely muster the word. 

So now I just need to write the paper for that class, but I swear, I cannot summon the intellect. I tend to stick with subjects I understand (hence that dramatic hole where math and science should be on my transcript) but this class was just a little too much.

Anyway the point was (see how I drift?) that I have been a horrible blogger lately because of other commitments.  Actually that's not true, I've been blogging, just not here. I guess I never really mentioned it, but last year my friend Judi and I started another blog - Creme de la Mode - with an eye towards fashion and design. It's gradually getting more readership in the design-field which is great.  I think with the demise of certain magazines, like the recent shut down of Domino, there is an opportunity for taste-makers in the blogosphere.  Anyhoo, if you are so inclined, you can read it here:  thecreme.wordpress.com

Other than that, I have another midterm tonight. (But instead of studying, I'm writing a blog.) Just heard confirmation that my friend Masumi and her BF are coming to visit us in April.  Astonished by this news as even my family has made no mention of visiting prospects.  Oh and John and I are heading to Kyoto next week for a much deserved mini-honeymoon.  I will be sure to take lots of photos.  Jewelry designs due in the states March 1....other jewelry designs due in Tokyo mid-february...John has a mini-trial set for mid-february....it's a busy little factory over here at the Preston-Tomans! 

Oh and BTW, it's about 80 degrees without a cloud in the sky.  Don't you wish you were coming to Okinawa?

The Erin Brockovich of the Auto Industry

Hi Everyone.  I've been so busy with school that my blog has been tragically neglected.  But I thought this warranted special attention - my mom is being awarded tonight for Consumer Advocate of the Year for her decade of work trying to make cars safer.  Thought I'd share the article with you.  Isn't she puuurty?

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Paula Lawlor, a former legal assistant, now independent contractor to attorneys nationwide who represent victims of automobile rollovers and the founder of the non-profit People Safe in Rollovers will receive the Consumer Advocate of the Year award from the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego at the Annual Awards & Installation Dinner at the U.S. Grants Hotel in downtown San Diego on Thursday, January 29, 2009.

The dinner and program, in the Presidential Ballroom will begin at 6:30 p.m. Other award categories are Trial Lawyer of the Year; Legislator of the Year; Judge of the Year and the J. Alexys Kalafer Award.

For the past 10 years Lawlor, who sees herself as a "social entrepreneur" -- one who believes that "to get things done and change society, you must be willing to go outside the normal channels" -- has been on a mission to fight for a stronger roof strength standard and to inform the motoring public about the devastating effects of "roof crush" while alerting consumers about the ramifications of the proposed inadequate Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, FMVSS 216.

Due to the efforts of Paula Lawlor and Kevin Moody, a father from Oklahoma who lost his son Tyler to injuries sustained from "roof crush" in a rollover 6 years ago, and Senator/Dr. Tom Coburn, there was a June 4th, 2008 Senate Oversight Hearing on Vehicle Roof Strength in Washington, D.C.

Despite the fact that every year in the U.S. 10,000 die in auto rollovers and 24,000 are catastrophically injured, the roof strength standard has not changed in thirty-six years and the deadline for a new roof strength standard has been repeatedly postponed. The July 1st, 2008 deadline imposed on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, was derailed by the June 4th Senate Hearing because both Republican and Democrat Senators alike objected to the new weak standard proposed by NHTSA and the insertion of a preemption clause that would have robbed litigants of their constitutional right to sue and preempted all common law liability for manufacturers.

A new deadline was set for October 1st, 2008 and missed.

A second deadline was set for December 15th, 2008 and missed. The third deadline for the new roof strength standard is now April 30th, 2009.

It was while working with attorney Michael Piuze on the Robbie Lambert vs. General Motors trial in 2000, which resulted in a $25.7 million verdict for rollover and roof crush victim Robbie Lambert, that Lawlor realized that General Motors was not only aware that its roofs would not hold up in a rollover but that General Motors wrote the woefully inadequate standard to ensure that its own vehicles would pass the test.

Lawlor wanted the public to know what she knew and what juries were hearing: American auto manufacturers are fully aware that there is no occupant survival space built into many of their vehicles in the event of a rollover. The problem was that the documents Lawlor unearthed were protected and went back into protective status after trial and were not allowed to be given to the press or others to inform the public.

So Lawlor changed course and began urging attorneys to help her get documents free of their protective claim. She persuaded Alabama attorney Dana Taunton, to ask the judge to declassify the videos and test reports of the early GM drop tests from the late 1960's. Taunton walked out of court with a judge's order in her favor. The visual evidence of the early GM drop tests provided proof that GM knew its roofs would not hold up when subjected to forces in a rollover. Yet these same vehicles passed the government's static strength test FMVSS 216.

Then in 2006, Lawlor with Dallas attorney Todd Tracy, gathered the "roof crush" documents that Lawlor had worked to declassify and wrote Deadly By Design (which is linked to www.PeopleSafeInRollovers.org).

For Lawlor, it has been a battle every step of the way with setbacks, roadblocks, threats and intimidation from auto manufacturers and others opposed to her mission to change the standard for roof strength and save thousands of lives annually.

NHTSA's proposed rule, which now appears to have been categorically rejected, would only save 13-44 of the 10,000 people that die annually in rollover related accidents. "This," says Lawlor, begs the question, "Who is protecting the people?"

My foray into socialized medicine

I don't like going to doctors or hospitals, and tend to try to cure my ailments with "Eastern remedies" as john would call them.  This can mean herbs, vitamins, acupuncture, a serious anti-oxidant diet, or really just letting the old immune system do its job, even if I have to wait it out. (Note to reader, never try this with an aching tooth.  Your immune system will not "fix" it.  And you will find yourself crying in an oral surgeon's chair begging him to rip it out.) Generally, my health is pretty good, and managed to dodge some medical land mines when I went home (flu, colds, poison oak).

I can't remember going to the doctor when I was young, except to get my ear pierced. It's not that I dislike doctors, I just have very rarely had decent medical insurance, and it semed like more of a hassle to go to one than to just stay home. Sometimes, though, the garlic/spinach/eye-of-newt concoctions I whip up at home just can't crack the problem, and so off to the doctor I go.  

This was my first time using the socialized medicine that the Military so graciously offers its active duty and their dependents.  I called up at 7am, said I'd like to see a doctor.  "Ms. Preston, how does 8:40am today sound?"  Sounds like good service to me.  Within an hour I was out, on my way to get my prescription (in the same building).  I asked the pharmacist how much I owed him for the little brown bag, and he says "surely, Ms. Preston, you must be new.  Your medical care is our first priority, it's all on the house!" Imagine that. Medicine that is timely, free and doesn't drag a sick person through the mud in order to just get in her car, drive home and go back to bed.

Okay, I left one little part out.  When I was waiting for the MD to come in the little room, a "tech" (not a nurse, but a very early 20's young lad) had to run down a list of my medical history with me.  Typical questions: 

Q: Are you a smoker?  

A: Not for a year now. (yay!)

Q: Do you drink coffee? 

A: Not for about 5 months now. (another yay!)

Q: Do you drink alcohol.

A. That would be a yes.

Q: How many drinks would you say you have a week?

A: (let's see, one while making dinner, one while eating dinner, a few at the club, a beer at the beach....boy am I glad I quit drinking for New Years) "I'd say ten.  About ten."

Q: I'm going to go ahead and put down 3.  3 is a much more acceptable Air Force Number. 

Excuse me? Acceptable Air Force number?  What exactly does that mean?  I have visions of being summoned to AA meetings by John's commander. Who exactly sees these records anyway? Does HIIPA even apply?  What about doctor-patient confidentiality?  Who is this kid anyway, he doesn't even look old enough to work here.  Is there a camera in this room?  I start to glance around. What if my illness is directly related to the number of alcoholic beverages I consume weekly, and because you are trying to shield me from Big Brother, the doctor might never find the cure for me.  This is how episodes of House begin.

All in all, I'd give socialized medicine an 8 out of 10.  Especially when I think of the various times in my life when I did not have insurance. Yes, the Big Brother aspect of it creeps me out. But it's better than sitting at home sipping that stinky garlic tea waiting for my immune system to kick in.

Back to school, back to school

I started classes again today!  Tonight's class was contemporary Foreign Policy with Dr. Bosworth, who is a really great teacher and all-around interesting guy.  I went to Coffee Casa, a Japanese coffee shop about a block from my house to start my reading. Reading "Rise to Globalism" by Stephen Ambrose & Douglas G. Brinkley.  It's highly readable and a good recap of the last 70 years of US military actions.  It seems the more I read, I feel like the less I know. How does one accumulate so much knowledge that they feel like they can speak authoritatively on a subject?  I was thinking that today when Dr. Bos was teaching - granted he's got about 15 years on me, and an PhD.  But will I ever get there? I read one author and think - yeah, that argument totally makes sense, and then I read another author who disagrees with author number one, and think - no wait, he's right, clearly.  Being "smart" used to mean acing tests. Smart it a whole other thing now.  Sometimes the smartest people are dead wrong (also reading Halberstam's the Best and the Brightest re vietnam). How can I begin to have an opinion that would be worthy of writing something scholarly (which I will have to soon) when I am still so unsure of my own opinions? I'm in this class that is pretty much 90% active duty military officers.  Wouldn't they clearly know more about foreign policy than I? I guess I'm just taking it all too seriously tonight.  That and because we dealt with the Spanish-American War tonight - an event that mysteriously escaped my 18+ undergrad history classes. Sigh.

So anyway, I was in Coffee Case, a lovely wooden cafe, drinking some tea, listening to an American Jazz compilation on the speakers, and reading an interesting book.  I got this swell of happiness that I have not gotten since 1. I returned to UCSD to graduate; and 2. I was studying at Dartmouth.  It is a warm contentment that is better to me than even Christmas Bonus Day (basically, I can't buy it).  I love being a student.  I love using my brain every minute that I'm a student.  I love hearing theories and trying to disprove them. I love the freedom of a student - instead of having to have my derrière in a seat 8 hours daily even if my mind is turned off.  I'm so lucky right now that I can be a student while still having this incredible overseas adventure.

Cortney's BF is in town, so john and I are going to go over to her place tonight for som e zesty beverages.  She's trying to break my new years resolutions, but I will not be broken.

Happy 2009!

Wow, 2009 already! We are sitting around just lounging on the couch today, contemplating New Years resolutions. Here are some photos from yesterday...

Gunner bunner and me.

A typical weekend morning pose.

Last night at the New Year's eve party

Sadie, my friend and trainer - can you believe she's 5 months pregnant?

Becca, Jen, John and Cortney

Packing....

...on my way to my California Tour 2008!  I leave tomorrow, and can't wait!  I am leaving John and Gunner and Deuce Fishalo Fish Gigolo (our beta) for Thanksgiving and am feeling very guilty about this.  John already has about 6 invitations to various holiday parties without me.  I've also heard him make secret plans to have Guitar Hero parties with his friends which will involve beer, pizza boxes and couch-sleeping.  

It's about 70 degrees today which is a great deal colder than it has been (November?  I thought it was still August.) I'm looking forward to a crisp clear San Francisco trip and am packing accordingly.  Can't wait to see all my friends and family!