Shameless Romantic

I’m actually a  horrible romantic.  Rarely to do I bring home flowers, chocolates or other sweet nothings.  I am severly lacking when it comes to ensuring there are gifts on-hand for birthdays and anniversaries.  Lucky for me though, my wife is forgiving, after awhile.  But I’m getting better.

Today, in celebration of the Hallmark Day of Love, I stepped up to deliver a day of romance like none my wife has seen.

First, breakfast in bed of from-scratch pancakes, OJ and coffee.  This was followed by our favorite pastime (not that, get your mind our of the gutter) of couch-surfing.  But tonight, tonight will be AWESOME!

We’re going to the Monster Truck show, followed by dinner at Sizzler.

Oh yes, I’m swinging for the fences with this one!

Movie of the Year

The wife and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire last night.

It. Was. Amazing.

Perhaps the best movie I’ve seen in the last year.  Too bad it will get snubbed for an Oscar.  And to think that Danny Boyle went from zombies and junkies to this.  Amazing.

If you haven’t already, go see it!

Weather Wimps

For a place with such relatively mild weather, we here in Oregon tend to complain a little too much about the weather. I mean really, it rarely snows, it rarely gets over 100 degrees, no tornadoes, no hurricanes, but let me tell you, when something happens it’s like the Apocalypse.

Last month, we had a snowstorm.  Actually several snowstorms, that left at most 16″ of snow over the course of several days.  Of course leave it to the news to label this phenomenon of the *cue dramatic music* Arctic Blast 2008.  Yes, it was a mess.  Icy roads, bitter cold with a biting wind and the town acted like we were transported to the Arctic Circle.  What made things worse was the hysteria stoked by the news media and the inability of our local governments to effectively manage the roads and related infrastructure.  I lived in Flagstaff for 3 years and had several times where we  got over a foot of snow in less than 12 hours, but the town shut down only once and that was because we got 3 feet of snow in a 24 hour period.  That really is near cause for hysteria.  But the only people in hysterics were the tourists from the Valley of the Sun.

But it’s always the same.  Whether it is “Fall Floods ‘07″, or “Heat Wave 2008″, “Arctic Blast” or the soon to come “Floods of 2009″ on the news media whips us into a frenzy.  For days on end the local channels had nothing on but news, relating the same stories ad nauseam and bringing the dire reports of more nasty weather to come. All it takes a little change from the normal for them to start the dire warnings.  One anchor in particular is never happy with the weather.  When it rains a lot she complains about the lack of sun, but when it has been sunny for a long time she complains about the lack of rain.  She always has a snarky comment about the weather.

But I love it.  I was out in the weather on my bike nearly everyday of it.  I rode to work all but 2 days of the storm that I did work.  My co-workers looked at me in disbelief when I walked in head-to-toe in my foul weather gear.  But really, it was just another day.  No weather wimp here!

Yep, Frozen

The wife and I bundled up and braved the elements of our, “Arctic Blast” to hit the store for some necessities.  It was peaceful in a way.  White fluffy snow underfoot, stinging blowing snow freezing gthe face off and the ubiquitous dodging of idiot drivers who think they can drive in the snow.  All I hear when I step outside, besides the howling wind, is the steady thrum of chained up vehicles.  It’s kind of soothing.

I know we have nothing to compare with to say, Fargo, but I live in Oregon to avoid that kind of nonsense.  Usually snow here is easy, it comes, maybe for a day or two, then it’s gone.  But right now it is looking like this nastiness is going to be around for awhile.  They’ve been requiring chains or traction tires on all highways in the Portland metro area and the main road from where I live into work is a solid sheet of ice right now.  Luckily I don’t have to work until Thursday.

The city is trying to shut down, but it’s just not happening.  The second winter we lived in Flagstaff there was a massive storm the day after New Years.  I thnk when the flakes cleared it added up to 3 feet and the whole town shut down completely.  Nothing was open, nothing was running and the town was silent.  People were doing the right thing and staying home.  Unfortunately that isn’t true here.  I saw many people when we were out that were just doing their normal things, which seems kind of unreal.  You actually have a real excuse to stay home, but you decide to venture out.  Makes no sense to me.

The fun is going to be the commute tomorrow morning when thousands hit the the ice to get to work.  And I have to figure out a way to the airport to pick up the Father-in-Law.  It’s going to be a slow, cold  trip.  I can’t drive because the car is rear-wheel drive adn I have no chains for it.  I ain’t crazy enough to venture out in that vehicle in this weather.  It’s going to be fun.

A “Here’s Your Sign Moment”

Was out shpopping with the wife the other night.  During the madness I realized that the holiday season is truly with us.  It was madness.  Crazy busy.  And to help with the increase in shoppers are the ubiquitous temporary seasonal help.  We joked at an old job that the job application for seasonal workers was the “mirror test”.  You hold a mirror up to the applicant’s mouth and if it fogs over, they’re hired.

Gross mis-generalization?  Yes, very much so.  But some of the temps were really that bad at that particluar job.  It didn’t help that brains weren’t needed, just a strong back.

We finished up our adventure and headed for the check-out lanes.  A pierced gent rang us up, not that I have any issue with piercings, but do believe they have a time and a place, and when you’re at work, representing your employer is not one of those.

So the total came up to $13.42.  My wife hands him a twenty dollar bill and 42 cents.  He looks at her completely dumbfounded and says, “But the total is $13.42. You gave me $20.42.”  Totally baffled.

“Right,” my wife responds in her best teacher voice, “I give you $20.42 so you can give me and even $7 back and not have to deal with all the change.”

“Huh?” he mulls it over for a long second, “Oh, right, uh…” as he punches the amount into the till and gives us our change, “Here’s your change. Thanks for shopping with us.”

I wanted to say, “Here’s your sign.” but refrained from doing so.  We laughed all the way to the car.  Such fun.  So much fun.  And we wonder what’s wrong with education in this country when a cashier can’t make simple change on the fly?

Time Spent With Others

I’ve been spending far too much time on-line with Halo 3.  Yes, it’s nearly an addiction.  I told myself the thrill of fragging folks from around the world would wear off, but sadly it hasn’t.  Somedays I actually look forward to the time when I can sit down and play.  Honestly I haven’t felt this way about a video game for a long, long time.  Is it a bit weird that a 30-something would love to do this?

Not at all.  We grew up with this.  Sure I remember the time before video games.  We went outside to play.  But then I remember the envy of the friends who had the Atari 2600, Colecovision, or even an Apple II.  I can remember the Christmas morning when my brothers and I opened a NES from under the tree.  We spent hours in front of that thing.  To this day I still can’t beat SuperMario Brothers, try as I might, I just can’t.

In college, one guy had a N64 that we hooked up to the big-screen TV in our dorm lounge, which led to long nights of Deathmatch in Goldeneye and 4-way racing in MarioCart.  It also led to social alienation from the fairer sex.  It wasn’t just guys geeking out, it was community bonding.

For a long time, I didn’t play on-line.  It was too expensive and the Internet was too expensive and many places I lived only had access to dial-up.  But whenI bought my 360, that all changed.  There is really something incredible about being able toplay the same game as 200,000 people scattered across the world.  It’s amazing that you can play against 7 other folks in an 8-way Deathmatch.  It truly blows my mind.

It is a nice escape.  For an hour I can just sit and zone out, talk trash and concentrate on nothing but trying to survive.  It’s freeing.  The cares of the day drift away and for a moment the economy doesn’t matter, the election doesn’t matter, the price of gas doesn’t matter.  All that matters is the game and the fun we’re having.  Maybe I’m immature, stunted in my growth, but I beg to differ.  I just have different skills than some.

Here’s a couple of screenshots from games I’ve played recently.

Splat!

My Nads!

There you have it.

Stupid Smart People

Our hospital system is in the process of changing our EMR, from our really shitty electronic system to a bright and shiny (and expensive) new system  Granted, I’ve drank the Kool-Aid about the project.  They didn’t have to do much convincing, in reality paper is almost better than what we have.

Part of this process however is to evaluate the model the big computer company has mocked up and then iron out the finer details that pertain to our unique system and needs.  We’ve been having seession about every 2-3 weeks or so to keep at the process.  Some people have been there for almost all of them, others come and go.  But it always seems like the ones that come and go seem to have the most questions and cannot figure out simple concepts.  They have to beat the topic into the ground, always looking for the answer that fits their needs, not neccessarily the needs of the greater whole.

Case in point today.  One gentleman was asking a question about the ability to have medication orders expire after a certain amount of time.  The problem was that we had already coverd this earlier in the session.  He kept asking, even though the facilitators said basically that it was possible to do and that is could be furhter ironed out with input from Pharmacy.  But it’s like he didn’t get it.  So he asked again, phrasing his question slightly differently,  you could hear groans go up across the room.  And he got the same answer as before.

Why is it that sometimes the smartest people are the dumbest as well?

Contradictions

While it may seem stereotypical, it stands that many believe that folks who play video games could care less about the election.  Wrong.

I was playing last night on Xbox Live and nearly all the discussion between games, and sometimes spilling into games, was about the election.  We talked about voting by mail, the lines at the polling places and who we were voting for whom.  It was refreshing.  Of course there were the idiots who just yelled and played music into their mics to balance out the change of discussion.

Can you believe that some places actually give people time off, with pay for Election Day?  I wouldn’t have either.  One guy was celebrating this.  I think it’s very cool.

Staph and the NFL

A little Monday morning football related shenanigans for y’all:  A Slew of Staph Infections Tackles the NFL.

As health-care providers we all see this.  We know staph.  We’re almost all colonized by some variety, many of us probably with MRSA thanks to our unique patient populations.  It never ceases to amaze me though how this little bugger pops up in all sorts of odd places.

There were several telling quotes though from the article that I found both hilarious and frightening.  Now remember folks, the is Time (not Ma’ n’ Paws’ Newsie Magazine).  When talking about the the frequency of staph they drop this gem on us, “were either treated for staph or symptoms caused by the virus.”

Wait a sec’.  Did they say virus?  Uh…, yep.  Gee, I guess that’s why all the anitbiotics we’re throwing at it aren’t working: it’s a virus.  Wrong.  Big time wrong.  We all know staph is a bacteria, a gram-positiive cocci usually found in clusters.  It seems Time never got the message.

I also liked little gem:

In 2003, a team of researchers tracked the St. Louis Rams and found five players who caught eight MRSA infections. “We observed a lack of regular access to hand hygiene (i.e., soap and water or alcohol-based hand gels) for trainers who provided wound care,” they wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine. Other offenses included “skipping of showers by players before the use of communal whirlpools; and sharing or towels — all factors that might facilitate the transmission of infection in this setting.”

Like our infection control folks have been saying for a long time: wash your f*cking hands!  Yes, even big, bad, strong football players need to do simple things like hand-hygeine.  Simple ain’t it?

Plus with the recent news that Tom Brady has to go under the knife again, which sounds like a washout procedure of an infected knee, it shows that anyone can contract this, not just skin-popping junkies.

Open letter to the Duggars

I was being subjected to a show about the Duggar Family on TLC by the wife and mother-in-law.  Yes, I could have left, but I was enthralled by the trainwreck of breeding that is being showcased.  So I decided to craft a letter to them.  Unfortunately though it’s pretty short, as I’m leaving out the extraneous hyperbole and rational thought.  Bear in mind, these folks have 18(!) children.  Here it is:

Stop Breeding.

That is all.