for once the heat got to me and i couldn't fall asleep. usually no matter how hot it got during the day, it was always much cooler at nights. it didn't seem to be the case last night. there also wasn't much of a breeze, and the humidity made me stick to my bed sheets. i almost got out of bed in the middle of the night to take a shower just to cool off.

the primary care department at mount auburn hospital was ready to give me an appointment today when i called them this mornings. true, it was still only with a resident doctor, but when was the last time you called to make a doctor's appointment and they ask if you can come in that day? i told the receptionist that i'd need at least a week to transfer over my medical records. so the appointment i ended up making was for next next monday, with a nepalese doctor (judging from his last name), 2 weeks earlier than my cambridge hospital appointment.

i called my health insurance one more time to update my primary care practitioner, then the cambridge hospital to cancel my other appointment.

not sure how long it'd take to transfer my medical records, i decided to bike down to MGH and get the paperwork started. it was a humid 80+ day and i was in a race against a large western storm front heading towards boston. i arrived at the hospital dripping with sweat.

i headed upstairs at the far side of the building to founders 8 to the records department. the woman who worked there had a very belligerent attitude. "what years do you want?" she asked me. confused by her question, i told her i wanted all my records transferred. for some reason she couldn't do it unless i gave her a specific timeframe. i peppered her with questions, and surprisingly, the more i asked, the nicer she became, like she suddenly remembered that her job was to help people. she ended up only finding my records from 2004 to present, and some 2002 records. anything that wasn't entered into their computer was probably lost, including old records that i'd transferred from new england medical center.

i thought she'd send my files electronically to mount auburn hospital. however, that wasn't the case. for one thing, MGH's record system isn't compatible with MAH's system. she ended up printing everything out (how primitive!) and handing me a large packet. "if you want your scans and x-rays, you'll need to visit the imaging department," she told me.

i had nothing to lose and was curious to get my hands on my broken foot x-rays from last year 2 years ago, so i went to the sub-basement of the bigelow building. i wasn't sure if i could get it today, and i wasn't sure if i had to pay. the man who helped me said he'd put everything onto a disc, and that he could do it while i waited. what i thought would be a quick wait ended up being almost 45 minutes. the big hold up were the MRI scans, which i already had a copy. was he downloading the images via 1990's modem technology? i also learned that if you request the images for personal use then you'd have to pay, but it's not seriously enforced, and if you just make up a doctor, you can get everything for free (they give you the disc anyway, they don't mail it out).

i came home via the charles river bike path. it was a longer route but i wouldn't have to deal with traffic and i could just leisurely pedal back to cambridge. there was some road construction at the intersection of putnam and western avenue, but i easily went around it since i was on the bike. approaching the cambridge public library i began to feel rain drops. i stopped by star market to get some juice before finally coming home.

my motorcycle battery was delivered via USPS. i don't know if i can use it yet because i still haven't received my trickle charger yet. i bought it from amazon.com and a check of my account shows that they haven't even shipped it out yet even though i ordered it on monday. in the meantime, my scorpion brand battery (cheesy chinese branding) is just an expensive paper weight. later my 2 terabyte internal hard drive arrived. i couldn't resist, saw a deal for $100 (without rebate hassles and free shipping) and bought it this week. it should last me for about a year, storage for all the shows i download. i formatted it as NTFS and use NTFS-3G to access the content in OS X. problem is the file transfer speed seems painfully slow, taking more than an hour to transfer 30gb worth of data via USB. i'm hoping an update of the NTFS-3G extension might fix the problem. there are also commercial solutions but they all cost money (NTFS-3G is free).

the torrential rain didn't come until later (4:00). i went around the house closing windows. i called my sister to check the belmont basement but she wasn't home. i never called back to see if the basement flooded again. the rain only lasted briefly, and the sun came back out after it was over. the only evidence were the numerous reflection puddles.

i made some macaroni and cheese for dinner, while my roommate made some sort of angel hair spaghetti dish with eggs and tomatoes.