NY Times: Johnson & Johnson Ticking me off

NY Times Article

Like I was saying earlier, things like this just makes me mad!  Johnson & Johnson taking the easy way out!  They say they did everything right when in fact, they took their sweet time (6 years!) in releasing what they found out about their own product to the public!

Johnson & Johnson will be on my first anti-pharmaceutical list!  If I can boycott their products by buying a different brand I will!  You can go suck an egg and stay in the corner, Johnson & Johnson!

Talking about Injustice

I don’t know what started it… but we were coming back from our Connection Group meeting from church when we started talking about how expensive insurance is even for us Americans and how you can’t get good medical care these days.

That started a rather passionate and heated talks between Soojin and myself about that.  And then it reminded me of how pharmaceutical companies are greedy b*****ds for taking only money.  You see, while in Ethiopia, and through the book, There is No Me Without You, I discovered and came to realization how greedy and injust these pharmaceutical companies are!  Medication to treat AIDS/HIV has been around since late ’90s yet the company that developed it did not want to let go of its patent(s) and so generic medications couldn’t be made by a 3rd company.  This meant that the price of medication was even too expensive for middle income families of America, let alone the poor $1-per-day income families of Africa!  I was so furious and mad that it brought back that sheer anger and madness at such injustice!

We met an infant at Haregewoin’s orhpanage who looked so much better thanks to the generic medication that is now finally available.  You see, the patent expired few years ago (finaly-freakin’-ly) and now it costs orders of magnitude less!!

Erg… if you know who these pharmaceutical compan(ies) are, let me know…  I want to do something… at the least, to make people aware of these selfish injustice around the world.  To put more value on money over people is not just injust, but inhumane.  I am still mad thinking about it….

Anna’s Ballet Class

This is Anna’s ballet class that she attends once a week.  She’s the 2nd one from the right.  And she loves it.  She still dances and does ballet stuff at home.  This is also mainly for a friend of mine, Yu, who also has a daughter.  Hope this helps your daughter get into it!!  😀

Changes at work: CFD Lead Engineer

So since the predecessor at work left a year ago, I have pretty much picked up the slack.

However, it was assumed that the replacement would be not too far.  Well, the primary candidate failed.  The secondary possibility wanted too much money.  So in some sense, by default, I became the lead CFD engineer.  While that may not sound like I deserve it, I have done quite a bit.

While I may not be at liberty to say, I have enabled us to be capable of running a new CFD code now at work, while maintaining two relatively new projects going.  And I will be in charge of training two new guys.  The thing is that those two are higher in terms of levels than I am.  But my manager assured me that I am the lead.  In fact, I will be traveling to Huntington Beach next week as Houston CFD Focal to represent Houston.

Wow.  If you had told me that I’d be here now few years ago, I’d have laughed at you.  Don’t jump the gun and ask for free lunches or dinners ’cause while it is a “promotion”, there’s no pay increase…  at least not yet.  That means, more work for same pay.  Oh well.

I am thankful still, even if I am at where I am by default.  I really do enjoy what I do now.  I thank God for allowing me to get where I am today.  Ironic thing is that I had been thinking about possibilities of moving… but not so sure anymore.

Anyhow, I am getting busier at work so please understand if I don’t write back sooner than I’m used.  😛