I'm from a city. Doesn't make any difference what city; all cities are alike.

Alternative title was: "What have the Romans ever done for us?"



Ruins are cool, and all, but I did not care much for Rome. Too much traffic and too much graffiti.

Florence also had too much traffic and too much graffiti...and too damn much pornography. Here's a picture I like to call: "Nico with giant naked man (with small penis)".

344 pictures, many of them blurry. Here are a few of my favorites:

1) Old woman in Siena. I made her famous (people with better cameras decided to take the same picture after I shot this one). All the buildings in Siena lean up against each other--please notice the support arches crossing the alley at the top of the frame. Our tour guide in Volterra would have called these Etruscan arches, but in Siena they are Roman arches.

2) Rainbow over Ponte Vecchio (Florence). By the time I figured out how to adjust the camera for proper rainbow photography, the sun, the rain, and the rainbow had all disappeared.

3) Under the Tuscan moon, AKA: View from the roof of our hotel (Florence).

4) A short film I have titled: "Bicycling is for suckers". Really, for not that much more than a tandem tour of Italy, you can take a Ferrari tour of Italy.

Forgive me if I don't post again for a couple of weeks...

Rome

I am certain I will be getting in trouble over this...

I have been told that the key to effective management is to have absolutely no sense of humor; the risk of making any sort of joke is that some (or most) of your coworkers (anyone know a word for people you are, sort of, temporarily supervising?) will take everything you say seriously...most likely because they either 1) have no ability to recognize a jest, or 2) are accustomed to very stoic bosses.

P.S. Coworkers (and management): before you get offended by anything I have just written, I was not attempting to insult anyone's lack of a funny bone. The above post was meant as an explanation to the Mrs. about why I will likely never be running a large (or even small) company.
____________________________________________________________________
From: Lasko, Michael B
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 7:57 AM
To: xxxxxxx, xxxxx
Subject: RE:
My standard spiel starts off with telling them that most drugs are no longer manufactured in the US. I explain that the facilities, manufacturing process, and drugs are all FDA approved/inspected. If they are still concerned (which is everybody who bothered to call in the first place), I let them know that we do keep track of all the lot numbers that go through are pharmacy, so we’ll be able to alert them to any problems that might arise.
After that, my choices are:
1) Recommend they contact their congressman (or FDA) to complain
2) Imply that they are racist
3) Explain the many benefits of Indian produced drugs (such as lower risk of mad cow disease).
_____________________________________________
From: xxxxxxx, xxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 7:49 AM
To: Lasko, Michael B
Subject: Hi Lasko
What do you tell pts who have issues with the manuf Aurobindo which is based in India?
xxxxx xxxxxxx, Pharm D.
Rx Solutions
Consultant Pharmacist

Calcanealtendonrupturephobia

I have been suffering from achilles tendonitis since before the San Diego Marathon. Well, maybe suffering is not the correct word...it's really more of an irritating discomfort I have been living with. But anyway, I have developed this irrational fear that my left achilles tendon is about to break. When an achilles tendon ruptures, the feeling is usually described as a sensation of being kicked in the back of the calf. Although I had been waiting patiently for this to happen to me since the SF Marathon, I was still quite surprised when a phantom kick knocked me down during yesterday morning's walk. "Nico will kill me if I can't bicycle in Italy," thought I.

Off I limped to the doctor, who assured me that my achilles tendons are still nice and tight. Bicycling in Tuscany is still allowed, though he recommended I get travel insurance...presumably to pay for the expensive Italian orthopedic surgeon I might have to see.

I often wonder: When did everybody around me learn Yiddish?

John Glenn brought the word to the English Language. Is there nothing he can't do?

Word History: Although glitch seems a word that people would always have found useful, it is first recorded in English in 1962 in the writing of John Glenn: "Another term we adopted to describe some of our problems was 'glitch.' " Glenn then gives the technical sense of the word the astronauts had adopted: "Literally, a glitch is a spike or change in voltage in an electrical current." It is easy to see why the astronauts, who were engaged in a highly technical endeavor, might have generalized a term from electronics to cover other technical problems. Since then glitch has passed beyond technical use and now covers a wide variety of malfunctions and mishaps.

Tuscany in Training (AKA T.I.T.)

Do those Team in Training people go by TNT? I wonder if they hired a branding consultant...

We picked the second hottest day of the year (Saturday) to bicycle from Newport Beach to San Diego. I always say I am never going to ride back from San Diego again, but I never listen. So we picked the hottest day of the year (Monday) to ride back.

All this riding because Bill McCready said we should be able to ride 100 miles flat or 70 miles with hills before next week's trip to Italy. Newport to San Diego is 90 something miles with a couple of decent hills. Hopefully, we will not be the slowest tandem in Italy.

Sorry this post has been boring. I bicycled 190 miles this weekend, and today I started working at 6:30 AM. I am in need of much beauty rest.

Disclaimer: I would like to start off this post by writing that I am in no way an advocate of date rape...unless we're talking about the Sublime song.

I get a lot of junk email from the University of California, at Irvine. Maybe junk is not the correct term. Let's just say I get a lot of email from the University, that I really do not need to read, such as: firings of department heads I have never heard of, receptions ocurring at 10 AM (that nobody with a real job could possibly attend), and updates on ongoing legal problems at the Med Center.

Rarely, (we are talking about Irvine) these emails include warnings about recent crimes reported on campus. Even in Irvine, I suppose it would be good to know that you should use caution when walking to your car at night. However, I am nearly 100% confident that I will never, ever meet anyone at a party, invite him (or I guess preferably, her) back to my place of residence, thereby placing myself at risk for sexual assault. I'm just saying.

On August 25, 2007, at about 3 AM, a sexual assault was reported to
have occurred in an apartment in Vista Del Campo Building 624. The 21
year old suspect and the victim, both UCI students, had met earlier at
a party hosted by a mutual friend.

UC Irvine Police Officers responded to the area of the assault after
being called by the victim. The victim was interviewed and treated at
a local hospital. A search of the Vista Del Campo housing complex was
successful, resulting in the arrest of the suspect. The suspect was
transported to the UC Irvine Police Station for investigation and
booking procedures. He was later transported to Orange County Main
Jail and held on three felony sexual assault charges.

The suspect was released from Orange County Jail over the weekend
after posting bail. The incident is being reviewed by the Orange
County District Attorney's Office and locally by the UC Irvine Dean of
Students' Office. The sexual assault incident is an individual
event, and there is no known direct or additional threat to the UC
Irvine community.

This timely warning notice is being distributed to inform the UCI
community about a serious incident on campus and increase public
awareness.

Paul Henisey
Chief of Police

In addition to being a top pharmacist, I am also the top Michael Lasko...so says Google, at least. Do you have any idea how many times I have had to type "Michael Lasko" on this page to make this happen? Look's like I'm 6th for Michael B. Lasko. We'll keep working on that.

I'm sure you all know that I am one of America's Top Pharmacists. Evidently, I have much in common with the Drugnazi. I'm thinking it might be a bad idea to continue reading the Drugnazi's blog at work...