Busy, Busy

Ahmad and I have been very busy these last couple of weeks. He had several tests which of course were all scheduled the same week and I have been working a lot lately.

This is all in preparation for our trip to..........Malaysia!

We are going for two weeks of uninterrupted sun, sand, spicy food, and snorkeling/scuba diving.

Did I mention we are also going to do a couple of day trek through the Malaysian jungle? There are Asian tigers, wild boars, vipers, leopards, orangutans and even elephants. The likelihood of us actually seeing most of those animals is remote, as the jungle is huge and the animals are naturally skittish and hide deep in the jungle, but I can dream, right?

We will probably see lots of very large insects and a lot of leeches! Apparently, they are pretty much everywhere in the jungle and from all I have read, they are fantastic at jumpling onto you as you walk through the trails and then wriggling their way up to who know's where to attack themselves and drink. Sounds like fun, huh?

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and there is great diving in Malaysia with lots of turtles and sharks!

I hope we will have lots of interesting stories and photos to post after we get back....but until then we have two more months of work and school before we leave.

Home Work

It's been a busy week here in the Cardin/Almasarweh household, which doesn't really differentiate it from any other week. Too bad none of what we have been doing is really that interesting. I have been working on a new research project which is really neat, but unfortunately I can't disclose what it is on the internet! Anyway...

I thought I would post some pictures of our house since most of you have never seen it. We only have 2 more years here, so like I told Stephanie the other day, you better get busy making plans to visit if you want to see us here!

Ahmad and I have done a lot of work on the house since we bought it. One of the big projects was building a patio for the backyard. Mom and Dad came up to help us last summer and we worked for two days solid on this project.

As you can see, the guys did most of the laying of the stone so we could blame them later if it didn't turn out right. Mom and I carried every single piece of stone to them, though, so over the course of the day, we moved a ton of stone together. It was hard work, but we had a lot of fun, and as you can, the finished product is amazing. We've already thrown several cookouts and the patio is a big hit.

The patio turned out great. And this picture also illustrates the huge cherry tree we have in the backyard which in the spring fills up with cherries that are bright red/yellow and taste delicious.

The jungle (see the previous post) is also visible, as is some of the landscaping we did on the back yard. My project for this year is to landscape around the patio. I can't wait. I have to admit, landscaping and working outdoors is my favorite part of home ownership.

And here is the landscaping we did on the front of the house. We have single handedly kept our local Home Depot in business!

Lastly, Ahmad remodeled one of our bathrooms. It was sorely in need of a lot of work when we bought the house. Here's the before and after pictures.

More Political News

Our illustrious governor, Eliot Spitzer, was apparently caught on tape soliciting a prostitute in a prostitute ring in D.C. This, after he ran as a champion of removing corruption in our oh-so-corrupt New York state government.

While everyone seems to be really shocked (he apparently had everyone fooled into thinking he was squeaky clean), I am not. Not because I have some inside info on Spitzer, but mainly because there is no one I trust less than a politician.

Two things I don't understand:

-Why, oh why, would you solicit a prostitute if you were the governor? Can't you just have an affair or get a divorce and sleep around or something, besides PAYING for sex?

-Why would his wife go on stage and stand behind him while he gives a press conference confirming what everyone already knows at this point, that he not only cheated on her, but it was with a prostitute in a prostitution ring? Why would she stand behind him and "support" him while he announces to the whole country how he screwed a prostitute and now his career and possibly his marriage are over? Wouldn't it be better for her to have her own press conference where she announced to everyone what a jackass he is? At least, that is what I would do.

Read more about this story here.

And the campaign rolls on...

Mom sent me this funny cartoon and I had to post it. I don't know how much more of this election I can take!

Courtesy of Walt Handelsman from Newsday.com.

Robotic Training

As I stated in my last post, I went to Hackensack New Jersey for a davinci robotic surgery training course this week. Since I am always talking about robotic surgery, I figured I would give a little course of my own. Seriously, if you want to see what I am talking about when I say "robotic prostatectomy", here you go.


This is the general set-up for a robotic prostatectomy, courtesy of Boston.com. The surgeon (that's me), sits at the console and performs the surgery via the robot, which is that big thing towering over the blue drapes in the background.


First the ports are placed into the patient by the surgeon, similar to any other laparoscopic surgery. Then once all the ports are in place, the robot is wheeled over to the patient and is attached to the ports. Long instruments are placed through this ports and they can be changed depending on what the surgeon needs.

A camera is placed through one of the ports. It actually has two lenses or cameras in one, so that the image the surgeon sees through the console is in 3-D. The image is magnified about 10 times normal so that all of the structures are very clearly visualized making surgery a lot more precise. This allows us to see vessels and nerves that are difficult to see during a regular surgery.

Finally, as you can see in this picture, we use two funny looking contraptions to operate and move the robot inside the patient. It allows better movement of the instruments than even our own wrists and fingers could. There are also 5 pedals that we use to do various things.

So, that's the robot in a nutshell.