The Last Lecture

I’m reading a book right now that has really spoken to me (not literally of course or else I’d be taking the book on a tour of the US and make millions of dollars…but rest assured should it choose to speak I’ll post a video) but I digress.  The book is called ‘The Last Lecture’ by Randy Pausch and if you read no other book this year, take the time to read this one.

Carnegie-Melon has what they call a last lecture series.  Basically the speaker is supposed to ruminate on the end of their days and what would they tell the world with their last time.  The title of the series has been changed to Journey’s now but the theory is still the same.

And for those of you who have never heard of him, Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie-Melon University as well as a sufferer of pancreatic cancer.  He was slated to do the last lecture series and about a month before he was to speak was told that his cancer had spread to his liver and that it was terminal with only 6 months to live.  Where most people would give up and die Randy decided that instead he was truly going to give his last lecture.  Both as a message to the world but primarily as a message to his children.

I won’t give anything else on this except to say  you should go buy the book and watch the lecture today.  It’s very thought provoking and if you don’t take anything away from it after you’ve read it…then you’ve probably had a frontal lobotomy and should go back about your business of drooling all over your shoelaces.

Go see Randy’s last lecture here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

And go buy his book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch/dp/1401323251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244518135&sr=8-1

Do it now! Because Frank said so!

13 Songs I’ve Had Stuck in my Head at Various Points in the Week

At almost any given moment I have a song stuck in my head, I picked the first 13 that came to mind when I was thinking about this week.

1. White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

2. The Decemberists – Mariner’s Revenge Song

3. The Decemberists – The Rake’s Song

4. Presidents of the United States - Kitty

5. Survivor – Eye of the Tiger

6. Rupert Holmes – Pina Colada

7. Crystal Waters – Destination Calambria

8. Ill Scarlett – Nothing Special

9. Flobots – Handlebars

10. Everclear – Volvo Driving Soccer Mom

11. Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta

12. Dropkick Murphys – Upstarts and Broken Hearts

13. Flogging Molly – What’s Left of the Flag

Short Attention Span Theater

I was looking at things on the Amazon Kindle Store and stumbled across an interesting short story.  I’d glanced at it at first and didn’t think much of it but I began reading the user reviews of others.  And many of them said it was a good story but horribly violent or “inappropriate” to be on Amazon's top listings.  So of course once I saw these I had to read it.  The explanation behind the story made me even more interested as well.

I’ll say a little about it but I don’t want to say too much and risk giving it away.  The saying is you should never hitch a ride with someone because that someone may be a psychopath.  Conversely, other saying goes that you shouldn’t pick up a hitchhiker on the road because the person you may be picking up may be a sociopath. So what would happen if a psychopath picked up a psychopath….and hilarity ensues.

Ok well maybe its just hilarity to me because I’m fucked in the head…don’t judge me.

The way the story was written is intriguing as well. The story was written by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch.  They’re both horror fiction writers and my impression is they do suspense and slasher kind of stuff.  The story was written by email over five hours, and was broken into three parts.  Part 1, was written by Kilborn, with Crouch writing the second part. Part 3 was written by both of them while going back and forth in email in 100 word messages.  Neither knew the other’s earlier writings so it gave a interesting dynamic to the whole story.

I found it here for the Kindle and spent some time looking for it for the rest of you and I found it!

Go to http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780446535939.htm

in the bottom right hand of the page is a section labeled ‘Book Extras’ that’s where you’ll find the story.

Go read it and let me know what you think, in the meantime I think I’m going to look into these two authors and see what all they have to offer.

13 Random Facts About Me That You May or May Not Know

So I’m a little slow tonight and I can’t come up with a topic to write about so I thought I’d do something that just came off the top of my head.

1. I don’t like clowns.

2. I play the violin….Not well but I can do it.

3. I can juggle.

4. I always wanted to work in a submarine but I’m too tall for it…not to mention the whole not being in the navy thing.

5. I don’t usually take the same route somewhere more than 3 times in a row.

6. I’m not as crazy as people think I am.

7. I am however just as forgetful as people think I am.

8. Anytime I get a song stuck in my head it will almost drive me crazy.

9. I hate repeating myself.

10. I tend to always wonder if I’ve made the right decision.

11. I’d really like to go to med school but I’m too burnt out on school to go for that long.

12. My pets mean the world to me they are truly part of my family….but I wonder how well the three of them will get along together.

13. I’m an applause whore.

 

Well there you have it, 13 random things you may or may not have known about me…what is there about you that others might not know?

Killer Bees and Earthmovers…What Do They Have in Common?

The Answer is…..absolutely nothing

Made you look.

Shoppers in a Gamestop in New York got a shock the other day when there was a swarm of bees that were keeping them stuck inside the store for a number of hours there was even a sign posted that said “Look!…Closed due to bee infestation”

So this begs the question exactly what is there in a gamestop that attracts a swarm of bees?  Oily Faces? Lots of computer games? Sno-Caps?  Actually Sno-Caps are pretty awesome I can see why bees would swarm for that, and what held their attention that long especially in Manhattan.  I think we need to study these bees, one to find out their attraction to video games, and two what made them so highly organized…Who’s to say that the bees won’t form some evil coalition and begin renting cars, driving to people’s houses, ringing the doorbells then when they answer begin relentlessly stinging them to death.  Or get a rifle and become bee snipers..then they’d really be killer bees.

And it all started with a video game…lets see the hippies work something with that!

And on to the other strange news in the world, a 3 year old bought an earthmover on an auction site.  A mom in New Zealand(I’m still sticking with I want to go to New Zealand even with something like this…though sounds like what I’d do) had bid on some toys then layed down to take a nap.  While she did her 3 year old got on the computer and was still looking at toys and put a bid in for a digger.  When she got on later she found what she’d bid on and discovered she was in fact now the proud owner of a digger…only instead of a toy digger she got a $12,000 real earthmover…so really still a toy just on a grander scale.

Long story short she called and got it all straightened out…but I had to wonder what is up with kids nowadays.  When I was 3 I was interested in playing with toys and not doing anything constructive..and now a 3 year old can work not only a computer online but function on an auction site?!  You’ve got 8 year olds who can probably hack into NASA and remotely pilot the space shuttle at the same age as I was learning to tie my shoes…its just not right! What are they going to be like later on when they start rebelling…instead of staying out late and the like they’re gonna be programming cyborgs to take over the earth or make cars drive themselves or some crazy shit like that.

I say we take them and take their skills and put it to good use.  Like coming up with new models for space exploration and finding out why my Doritos's are nacho cheesier.

Because seriously…its good but I want to know why there’s got to be a reason behind it!

Collateral Damage

I’m sure this one confused some people, those on my facebook and myspace got the same title but in a status….and as I forget people aren’t in my head I didn’t realize that others would think something very bad happened. So my bad for that one, I’m still the normal Frank…Big as life and twice as ugly!

But onto the explanation of me being collateral damage.  Those of you who know Todd know that he’s been in an ongoing war with the universe for quite some time now.  Sometimes he’s ahead, sometimes the universe is ahead but its usually been pretty even overall.  Well lately the universe has been kicking the shit out of todd and just being relentless about it…not sure why its doing that I guess it just got its universal panties in a bunch so to speak.  There was a brief lull in this and then the universe began its assault again. With the stuff from the weekend he’s been pretty sore anyway, well todd’s truck begins acting up the other day as well. That’s where we’re at in his current war with the universe.

Today I’ve learned just how far the universe is willing to go in its war. Today after I am down at epicenter I’m leaving and my transmission begins to go bat shit crazy in my truck, it won’t shift in drive nor will go into gear from park to drive.  I limp it back to st. albans shifting on the column and finally make it back after about an hour and a half of driving and get it parked.  As I was sitting on the porch I had time to reflect and realized that I’d become collateral damage.  In its offensive assault on Todd something must have missed him and gotten me instead. And the truck that hasn’t given me a days trouble, minus some body damage that was my fault(and another story…beware of the yellow poles in the concrete they’re ninja like stealthy and very evil) So now they are striking not only at Todd, but at those around him…this is a new level I’m not sure if they’re trying to draw us into the fight with him or what, I guess that remains to be seen.

Be sure to go check out Todd’s Blog and listen to his latest updates about his personal war with the universe at http://thetragiccomedy.blogspot.com/

If you like mine you’ll like his too…and if you don’t like mine, well first…why are you here reading this in the first place…and second you should still check out his blog you may still like his style.

Be sure to send him a message and tell him Frank sent you…and that he needs to blog more damnit!

Friday 13 – Tuesday Edition

I apologize for the sabbatical, as most of you know its been a hell of a week, wrecked a squad, sore, and so I spent most of the weekend drinking beer and playing with the dog…hell of a recuperation if I do say so myself!  But I’ve not felt much like blogging in the last few days so I’m trying to plunge in feet first to get things moving in the right direction again.

Last week, well week before last, I wrote about 13 people I’d like to meet or hear speak in real life, but then if I had to branch out to all of history who would I include.  So with that in mind, I’m writing the 13 people in the past who I would like to speak to.

1. Mr. Wizard – because by god I think he’d be interesting to talk to.

2. Julius Caesar -

3. Alexander the Great -

4. The Caveman that discovered fire (I shall name him…Ug)

5. Douglas Adams

6. Albert Einstein

7. Winston Churchill

8. Vladimir Lenin – To get the other side of the story

9. Mr. Rogers – To get the parts no one else has heard about.

10. William Wallace -

11. Ernest Hemingway

12. W.C. Fields

13. My Grandfather – My Pap died when I was young and we never really got to talk much anyway but what little we did get to inspired my love for the law, I can only imagine how I would be today if we’d gotten to talk more.

So who would you want to talk to in history?  Everyone has their own groups so who is yours? And why?

Never go Against a Sicilian!

Kuhn and I were talking about a couple books in japanese military tactics today and how they applied to his poker game.  He said that after he read the art of war his poker game increased dramatically.  At first I didn’t get it but as we were talking more it later became clear to  me. He described it as to play poker well you had to be a level 3 thinker.  Level 1 being what do I have, level 2 is what does my opponent have, and level 3 is what does my opponent think I have and so on and so forth.

To be honest I was impressed to learn this.  I had always thought of poker as a complex game but more as a mathematical problem with a little bit of watching a persons response.  To think of the complexity of having to think of what they think you have, as well as what they think you think they have is astounding! and to think of the potential strategies you can use.  Aside from my standard of set the table on fire…I think that one would get moved back to the reserve or last resort section now.

So I was thinking how useful it would be in other facets of life if you read the art of war and the book of five rings.  It’s already taught in most if not all of the us military academies and some business schools even.  But you can really apply it in everyday life.  In everyday work with your co-workers and customers, patients, and in any game from poker to chess to yahtzee.

Ok I’m not sure how you could use it in yahtzee, but there’s probably a way, if not that’s a prime candidate for the set the board on fire approach.

What Would go on your Postcard?

I was reading the other day about Frank Warren's address to St. Marys college this weekend at their commencement. For those of you who haven't heard of him he's the creator of Postsecret. And if you've never heard of him chances are you've never heard of Postsecret so we'll start there.

Postsecret is a long term art project wherein people write out or design whatever they want on postcards and send it in to him anonymously. The project is up to almost a thousand pieces of mail a week, spanning a tour 5 books with a 6th one in the works, and numerous speaking engagements(side note, this was one of the ppl I forgot to mention on friday that I'd like to hear speak)Its interesting to think about, what some people reveal with the cover of anonymity, both good and bad.

But I digress.

He vistited the campus the month before and asked each student in the graduating class to write something on a post card, but not his usual secret he asks for, but instead had them write down something that they and they felt the other graduates needed to hear that day.  The results were quite surprising, I’ll share with you some of the most interesting ones here.

Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks.

It’s better to be pissed-off than pissed-on.

My friend believes they will change the world, and I believe them.

It’s okay to fail – learn from it and you will succeed.

and one that really rang to me

I know some of us are going to walk off this stage today with no idea about what comes next – embrace it, find something that makes you happy, and follow it wherever it leads.

I know I need to learn to follow that one personally, and I think we all can.

If you’ve never seen it go check out Frank’s project at http://www.postsecret.com

and get a book or two of his, he deserves the support he’s doing a great thing.

 

So if you were in that class what would you have put on your postcard?

Sluggy Freelance

I scour the world to see if there’s anything that catches my attention and in the time I’ve found some strange things, but today in talking with Kuhn I remembered a comic I stumbled across last year and now I’m going to have to re-read them because I forgot just how funny they are.

It’s called Sluggy Freelance, its one of the first and longest running comic strips online at over 11 years now. To break it down to its simplest form its about two friends that have a psychotic rabbit that carries a switchblade and hilarity ensues.

That’s the most I can say about it for the rest you just have to check it out.

Go read it here http://www.sluggy.com

Let me know what you think.

The Blind Leading the Blind Leading the Blind Leading the Blind…..

While I was at work today on the way back to the station we passed a woman with a blind woman who had a seeing eye dog walking down the street….shortly after that we got a call, which we ran, finished at the hospital, and was once again on the way back to the station.  We pass the same spot and across the street we see the same two people!  Not a block away, across the street!!

So I put some thought into this and I think I’ve figured out what could make someone move that slow at the rate of about 20 feet an hour and I think I’ve figured it out.

A blind person is at a slow pace because of the seeing eye dog, so since the seeing eye dog is moving slow that means that it is using a seeing eye Chihuahua .

The Chihuahua has poor eyesight too so its got a seeing eye rat.

The seeing eye rat has a seeing eye bird.

The seeing eye bird had a seeing eye fish. And that’s where the problem lies.

Because a seeing eye fish doesn’t lead very well on land, unless you were carrying it in a bowl and even then it couldn’t signal very well. 

Not to mention that its common knowledge that fish don’t make decisions by themselves well so it would of course be a committee decision…and it would likely be betta fish so they would just fight when they got together in a group…much like a real committee now that I think about it.  So everything slows to a crawl and it leads to the person screaming along the road like a herd of turtles at the top speed of 20 feet an hour.

So there you have it.

13 Living People I’d like to Meet and/or Hear Speak.

Todd and I were talking the other day and we were discussing people we’d like to see speak in person one day, and it gave me the idea for this weeks Friday 13 as well as I’m curious to find out who you would like to meet.

1. Stephen Hawking

2. Steve Jobs

3. Kevin Smith

4. Bill Nye: Because Mr. Wizard is dead…thanks to Kasey for pointing out my failures

5. Pauley Perrette

6. Bill Clinton

7. Donald Trump

8. Robin Williams

9. Steven King

10. Stephen Spielburg

11. George Lucas

12. Dalai Lama

13. Dr. Jack Kevorkian

I’ve also included some alternates because you never know what can happen tomorrow

1. Pope Benedict XVI aka…the nazi pope

2. Nelson Mandella

3. Charlie Manson

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger

5. Fidel Castro…probably outta bump this one up in the list not sure how long till he gets moved to next week.

 

Now its your turn….Who would you like to meet?

Sometimes it Requires a Horny Manatee

Short one today….I’m tired.

We didn’t sleep much last night at work and as such I go crazier than usual.  Todd and I were talking about random things and the site hornymanatee.com popped into my head.  I don’t know how many of you have ever heard of it but its an interesting story.

In 2006 Conan O’Brian was joking about the manatee mascot for the show and that it had a webcam site called…you guessed it…hornymanatee.com.  Well NBC’s standards and practices, worried that as this was an unregistered site, someone would purchase it and put something in poor taste on it(though I’ve no idea why with a name like horny manatee) and it would reflect on NBC since people would associate it.  So they purchased the address for 10 years, and then Conan decided to put a real site on it!

So if you get a few minutes check out http://www.hornymanatee.com its definitely worth a laugh!

The Penguathelon and Other Oddities in the Universe.

 

Today has been a day of reading strange events; Some of which are funny, some of which are not funny, some of which are downright  scary. 

We’ll start with the funny, and I can shorten this entire paragraph to two words: New Zealand.  There are many reasons why I want to visit New Zealand. It’s been described as the most beautiful place on Earth, though in the immortal words of Lewis Black, after you spend 23hrs on an airplane, any land mass is beautiful.  And I think the people of the country would be interesting too as most of them strike me as insane.  Proving this fact is that this month is the first annual Penguathelon.  Essentially its described as a penguin olympics including frisbee, surfing, and waddle races, in addition to people being invited to participate in these events while wearing penguin feet themselves.  It’s described as a interesting way for the public to get up close with them while understanding more about penguin welfare.  I am, however, at a loss to under how watching a penguin throw a frisbee accomplishes this.

On the not funny side, you may have seen that McDonald’s restaurant recently began offering free wi-fi in their restaurants in an attempt to increase their business.  This has worked a little too well, it has increased the amount of traffic inside their restuarants, but now they’ve found that people are hanging around too damned long afterwards. The average person is there for 30min where it used to be only 10.  This has begun a small war against the internet squatters and they’ve begun corralling them in certain areas, to limiting the amount of time they sit there, to playing god-awful music over the loudspeaker, which is like killing a mouse with a rifle….which my dad once did when I was a child….but thats another story for another day.

And onto the downright scary side.  There’s a cemetery in Imperial County, California (anyone ever notice that all these strange things seem to come from california? It’s not just the cheese outta the state) that is currently in foreclosure.  This is scary to me on many levels.  For one, how the hell does a cemetery go into foreclosure!?  I thought they had a financial base for these places to prevent this kind of thing from happening.  And for second….If they get foreclosed on and someone else purchases them, do they kick out the ‘residents?’

What do you all think about these things?

When Pigs Fly

I couldn’t resist, that title is just too funny for this blog.

You had better watch out if you’re near Palm Bay, Fl.  If you think running from the cops will get you free then you’d better look twice.  When most people think of flying police the first things that come to mind is in a helicopter, or maybe a cop that decided to earn some extra money as a man shot out of a canon.  What you don’t think of is paragliding.  The city is in a rural area without many roads which of course makes it difficult to get anywhere quickly, and helicopters are not very cost effective to operate especially on the scale required. So the forward thinking chief decided to invest in paragliders.  They cost only about $10,000 a person including equipment and training, and costs over time would not be too bad I’d imagine.  The real question would be how cool would your job be to be a paraglider cop!  Not to mention how odd would it be to call the police and look outside and see one of these come up to you.

I for one think its a good idea, not just for police work but it could be adapted for searches for missing people, securing an area like a wide patrol, and I’m sure there’s a way this could be adapted for tactical response.  Not to mention a rapid response for medical personnel in the same token.  If it takes a cop 45 minutes to get somewhere then it would also take 45 minutes for a medic.  And if someone decides to jump on this idea I’ll go there and be the first one to sign up for it!

 

On a sad but still quite interesting note, Martha Mason of North Carolina died last week.  I’m quite certain you’ve never heard of her but her story is really quite astounding.  Martha was the longest recorded person to survive on an iron lung.  To geek out for just a minute; an iron lung is a non-invasive negative pressure ventilator.  In layman’s terms its a giant tube thats sealed everywhere but the head, the pressure in it lowers under the pressure in the lungs causing the person to breathe in, and then raises the pressure causing the person to breath out.  It gained fame for treatment of polio patients who were left with their diaphragms paralyzed.  It also had the advantage of being very easy to operate for the normal person so a patient could live at home, and being non-invasive it prevented infection like you get from a trach or intubation. 

Long winded explanation I know I kinda ran off with it.  Nevertheless it was an interesting case, Martha could run her own household with only two assistants and even graduated high school and college!

Imagine what your life would be like if you were restrained to a big metal tube for your entire life, would you be able to stay as upbeat as she did?

Salute to the hardest working people in the world.

By this I, of course, mean all the mothers out there.  It’s a job so difficult and so important that it has its own day to celebrate them.  You’ve got President’s Day(I guess one could say they’ve got a difficult job but nothing compared to moms), Christmas(I think everyone can say he had a hard run too), and Mother’s Day.  And in my opinion they’ve got the hardest job around.

My mom has been there for me my entire life and has taught me a lot of the things I know, not to mention putting up with things that Kim and me both got into.  She put up with me turning my hands dark blue for days with a chemistry set, blowing up the toaster, when Kim and me were horseplaying and got a big hole in the wall…actually I think that one happened a few times.  She helped me when I was sick all my life and took care of me, even when I was stuck at home and couldn’t do much while I recovered from surgery and when I had the ocular funk she would come down all the time to check on me and bring me things because I wasn’t able to go outside.  That’s just a short amount of the things that she helped me with, if I were to go through the entire list I’d be writing for weeks.

I’ll never be able to repay her for all the things that she’s done for me, the most I can do is hope to one day have as much of an impact on my future children as she has had on me.

So for all of you make sure to hug your mom today, they do more for you than you’d ever imagine.

And Mom….thanks, I don’t know where I would be without you.

Houdini Dog Strikes Again

I didn’t get a chance to write about this yesterday as I had the Friday 13 blog to work with and didn’t have the time to write a 2nd piece.

Most of you know about my dog Riley. He’s a german shepherd/lab mix that is pretty well mannered if not a bit jumpy, but very intelligent. There are days I think that he’s smarter than me!  I’ve told the story before of how he escaped from his smaller cage once and I thought it may have been a stroke of luck but wasn’t sure.  However yesterday I confirmed it…

I have a houdini dog.

I'm getting back to the house yesterday and as I pull up all the dogs are out running around and I see Riley running around the car so I’m confused as I put him in the cage myself.  I walk around to the garage and I find the front door folded down inside and about that time Riley comes back in and looks at me.

You may be thinking whats so impressive so I’ll explain. In order to get through this cage you had to release two snaps on the top of the door by pushing up on the top of the cage while pulling on the door.  To further complicate this the snaps were also on the side and you have to manipulate the cage around these hooks as well.  Once you get all of these off then its a fold down cage. So you have to pull the front door in and fold it down which leaves less than a foot inside.  So somehow Riley unlocked the top, unlocked the side, pull the door in, and get away while the door comes in and then get out.  I think I’m going to put a webcam on there and figure out how he’s getting out. To try to keep him inside though we used bailing wire to wrap around the snaps on the cage.

If he gets out again we’re going on the road with a straight jacket and a water tank.

13 Things I will Do Before I Die

I was flipping through the channels the other day and stumbled on the across it just as The Bucket List is coming on.  I had seen it before last year and it’s a really good movie but has some morbid overtones and a bit of a sad ending but even with all that is still a great movie.  The basic premise of the movie is two men find out they have brain cancer and get an idea to complete a bucket list, essentially a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket. 

So it g0t me thinking, with what happened to Kim it made me realize that this life is a lot shorter than any of us would like to believe, and we have to learn that we have to stop worrying about being alive, and start to go out and live.  So…this weeks Friday 13 I decided to write 13 things that I will do before I die.  I challenge all of you who read this to comment with your own list of things that you will do before you die.  I want you to put your list in the comments of here and maybe we’ll all get some new ideas.

Besides…it never hurts to think about tomorrow today, because you never know just how many more tomorrows you have left.

1. Go Skydiving

2. Learn to play the bagpipes

3. See the Aurora Borealis

4. Go to Oktoberfest in Munich

5. Visit the Vatican

6. Write a Book

7. Learn Sign Language

8. Learn to sail a boat

9. See the Earth from space

10. Go diving with sharks

11. Ride to the Grand Canyon

12. See Ireland and visit the land of my ancestors.

13. Be someone’s mentor

Well there you have it, I’ll add to this list from time to time as I have a lot more things I want to do, this was just a random pick of some of them.

Here’s your turn, every person who reads this, I want you to add in the comments section 10 things from your personal bucket list.  And if you don’t have one or have never thought about it, now is the time to start.

Don’t forget, the purpose of making this list is so you can cross things off so you should make an effort in your life to do these things so once you’ve made your list you can start crossing them off!

Sequestered Swine and Soiled Carpets

Its almost 3am, I’m at work, exhausted, but can’t sleep.  I’m also watching a movie called Twilight, not the vampire one.  This one I guess is a bad detective book that was made into a bad detective movie. It’s got a great cast in it but they all seem to have blown it with this one.  I’m stuck watching it out of curiosity to see if it can get any better. It sure as hell can’t get any worse!

But I digress….so on to the blog that I’d been writing today before I got interrupted by sick people.

Chalk another one to swine flu frenzy, which I have come to believe is far more infectious than the swine flu itself.

According to my memory, a little over 1,000 people People in Afghanistan are so concerned about the swine flu and the possibility of them catching it that they have taken measures and quarantined their pig, they’ve even built a special room in which to house it!

I’ll give you a moment to let that one sink in and see if you caught it.

That’s right, they’re only pig.  The Kabul Zoo is home to the only pig in Afghanistan, it has very little contact with humans as for members of Islam you can not touch or eat  pork, so mostly it walks around in its pen and is stared at by the passing masses who, I can only assume, none of which have been to Mexico in their entire lives.  But these people are terrified that the ungodly pig, in its perpetual solitary existence, will somehow develop, mutate, and transfer the swine flu to them.

I’m not sure how long this will go on, at the rate that information seems to reach the public the pig may die of old age first.

 

Now onto a side question.  I saw a commercial a few min ago for a vacuum cleaner that has all these fancy gadgets….but the one that really stuck out in my head is there is a light that turns on on the top of the vacuum that tells you when your carpet is clean.  The question is, do you really need an indicator light to tell you that your carpet is clean??  I mean the only way you couldn’t tell would be if you were blind, in which case an indicator light wouldn’t be very effective.

On a better day I would be able to come up with something tosay about that…but I’m not that fucking funny.  Maybe tomorrow will bring something in which case I’ll post about it.

 

Oh back to the movie part….I just want to tell everyone that I was wrong….

It did get worse.

Serial Novels, Not to be Confused with Serial Killers

Which are entirely different.

Serial novels are a novel that has is published one page or one section a day or some time frame.  Its a very intriguing method to publish something and I hope it becomes a more used system.  The two books I’ve seen published this way are Machine Man and Dracula; I’ll explain them in more detail below.

Machine Man can best be summed up in the following excerpt, page 1 in fact.  It also holds the Frank award for most entertaining intro and the reason that I suffer through the page a day publishing schedule.

“One Tuesday afternoon my left leg was severed. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Well, it was. It was agonizing. There was a lot of screaming and flopping around and trying to tear my shirt into pieces to stem the bleeding. While I was busy with this, my co-workers stared through two-inch polycarbonate security glass and beat on the door. They couldn’t get in. It was sealed for their safety. I had to apply my own tourniquet and try not to pass out for eight minutes. While I lay there, waiting for the time-release, I could see the top of what used to be my leg poking out from between two thick slabs of steel, gently dripping blood to the floor. I felt sorry for it. My leg hadn’t asked for this. It had been a good leg. A faithful leg. And now look at it.

But in the weeks afterward, as I lay in my hospital bed, I came to see the bright side. I remembered that expression: A setback is just an opportunity in disguise. I decided that was true. Because while I was sad to lose my leg, now I could build a better one.”

The only thing I have to say is damn! Is that not the most awesome opening page you’ve ever read!

While Machine Man is a new novel for a new world, being fed a story a piece at a time leaving you wanting more, Dracula is a timeless classic being adapted to a new vehicle.

In case you’ve lived under a fucking rock your entire life, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, written by Bram Stoker (I couldn’t help myself) is the story of a man who has a personal encounter with Count Dracula himself. I’m sure I could have come up with another way to write that….but I’m not that creative so don’t judge me. It’s written in the format of a series of journal articles and letters written by several different narrators throughout the story. The first entry in the book is that of May 3, which just so happened to have been yesterday. I would have written about this then but I stumbled across it this morning in my perusal of my news feeds while I’m at work. The author of the blog is posting the book in realtime. Meaning that when things were written in the book, so they are posted online. Its only 2 postings into it so far and I’m already hooked, I’d suggest you all check it out. I’ll include links to both of these at the end of the posting, as well as rss feeds you can copy and paste into your newsreader.

Machine man you can find the site at http://maxbarry.com/machineman/

And the rss feed is http://www.maxbarry.com/machineman/feed.rss

For Dracula the site is http://dracula-feed.blogspot.com/

And the rss feed for it is http://dracula-feed.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

So what are some books that you would like to see given out in serial format? I’d be partial to something like fight club or shogun, but they abandon the date format through most of the story so it wouldn’t work.

And Now a Word From our Sponsors

Well not really, but I’m having some trouble today getting my brains gears moving properly so I thought I’d take the chance to write about some things that have grabbed my attention lately.

1. Twitter – This is a microblogging platform because the universe really hasn’t heard enough of my ideas on here so they should get the random ideas that cross my little brain as well. Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/kfdfiremedic70

2. Tweetdeck – Continuing along this line is tweetdeck.  Its a twitter client for the computer that gives you basically sensory overload if you can’t handle multiple streams coming at you. But if you can its a great system especially if you keep up with a lot of people on twitter. Go check it out at http://www.tweetdeck.com

3. Otterbox Defender Case – This is the most awesome case in the world, I think it protects the phone just by the force of its own awesomeness but the case itself is a good cover, most people wouldn’t buy awesomeness in a box, unless it controlled your mind by some sort of awesomeness telepathy. http://www.otterbox.com However you can get them on ebay for far cheaper.

4. Awesomeness – The word just came back to mind so I figured how many times I could use it in the last section.

5. Google Latitude – This is something some of us at work have been playing with lately and it’s pretty cool. Its basically friend lojack. Its tied into both google maps and igoogle on the website.  You set it up with your friends and it will tie them into google maps and show you where they are.  You have to have a gmail account so you all should go sign up for one and add me on there, user name kfdfiremedic70

Side note – If you have an iphone you’ve gotta wait a while for it to come out for you.

6. Youmail – Many of you have called me and, as I never answer my phone when any of you call, have heard the voicemail system I have now that calls you by name. Its called youmail and its a great system. They have their own application as well for teh blackberry but I prefer the program vymail. Its independently created and a far better program.

Go check out youmail at http://www.youmail.com

And Vymail at http://www.joekrill.com/vymail/

7. Shock Top Beer – Its a good competition for Blue Moon and produced by Anheuser Busch as well. Its best description is an unfiltered beer so it has the cloudy look about it but an excellent taste, especially with a twist of orange.

Check it out at Outback in Barboursville, be sure to ask for it!

 

Well thats all I’ve got for now, What are some of the best new products you have found lately?

13 Things I Hate for no Good Reason

1. When my phone rings and I can’t remember who’s number it is.

2. alcohol free beer

3. The Pontiac Aztec

4. Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute

5. The Craig Ferguson Show

6. Billy Mays

7. Earwax

8. The letter Y

9. Spiders

10. Red Apples

11. The fact that there are no B batteries

12. Mother Nature being a cock tease

13. Taking Vacations

Ask a Drunk Guy

I’m going to be resurrecting Ask a Drunk Guy very soon.  So if you have any questions either post them here or email me at kfdfiremedic70@gmail.com with them and I’ll answer them the next time I’m shitfaced drunk.

New Identities and Lojack

Fell asleep yesterday before I got a blog written so today is the extra special just like every other day edition.

Got my bike parts ordered last night, after spending a shitpot of money(1300 dollars to be exact) but when I’m done I’ll have a damn near brand new setup on the bike.  New Pipes, New seat, engine guard, highway pegs, new grips, and throttle boss.

If you’re gonna be a bear be a grizzly.

On another note, there’s a new thing in google maps call latitude. Few people at work have been playing with it today and its cool its like friend lojack, and it ties into google maps so its easier to work with, without all the trouble we had with loopt.

Only things with it, you have to have a gmail account so go set one up, and then it works with the blackberries and on igoogle on the computer.  So what does that mean you ask?

It means if you have an iphone…then you can suck it because blackberry has you beat on this one.

The Stoppable Force Meets the Movable Object

So I solved the case of the kidnapped coat today. It was my coat I left in logan during ride time for cct class and then about a week after class ended finally picked it up from logan....then forgot it in the cct truck. So after receiving a well written ransom note I finally orchestrated a trade off and was reunited with my jacket.

On the 90 degree day.

But I digress...the main point of the blog is today is those calls that you just have to chuckle at the strangeness of it. We had a call with two patients, a father and son, who were playing softball. Both dive for a catch and run into each other, ones knee hits the other in the head and knock him out and both collapse. One has an open compound leg break and the other had a broken toe bad enough the entire foot had swollen up. Which led me to giving the most morphine I'd given to a patient(he was the one with the leg break) and I was impressed he was still awake but I probably would be too in that case. Nevertheless the guy was a trooper about it even as we immobilized his leg and all that.

I was impressed.


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Zen-Like

I got to spend most of the day riding my bike.  I managed to spend about 6 and a half hours or so in the seat..and have decided I need to buy a backrest and highway pegs. LOL

Two of the things that I love to do are Scuba dive and ride my motorcycle. These are what I call Zen activities because the performance of them requires a focus unto itself and you’re in an almost meditative state.   Thats how today was, I rode all day in the sun, but when I got back to the house I was tired but refreshed at the same time.  Something about the wind in my ears that helps to clear my head(that is until a rock flies in my nose like today)

However…must order a backrest and highway pegs in the next couple days.

Some days you can't finish anything

Not much to write about today. I've been at work and its been a day of incompletes. Couldn't finish a nap. Couldn't finish a poo. Couldn't finish a movie. Couldn't finish a meal.

Had a sad moment with an autistic patient. Her parents had called because they said she had gotten violent and they didn't know what to do. Seems to me they'd reached their wits end and didn't have any more ideas. The girl, sensing this, was even more stressed about the whole thing and that made her act out more. Once we had her in the back she calmed down a bit but still would shout out for her mom...who was behind us in her car. It was sad

And my mind kinda just spaced out and I lost my train of thought...can't even finish a blog today.

Damn.

13 Personal Heroes in no Particular Order

There may be some typos in here or disjointed words, I’m finishing this while I’m very tired so I’ll look at it later to see if I’ve messed something up, probably the history stuff lol.

As always, I welcome your comments, they’re better than anything I can write.

 

1. Teddy Roosevelt – One of the greatest presidents in US history. He was a rough rider, then rode into Mexico, later became president and used his gruff mindset across the world but he made a difference with it.

2. Mr. K – One of the best businessmen to learn from. I covered him in a business class and he really made an impression on me. He owns a pharmaceutical company, and ran his business that everyone was in business together so you take care of people. When one of his salesman came back and had negotiated a very severe contract with a supplier he made him go back, apologize, and renegotiate it with better terms for the other company.  Later when there was a shortage his company was the only one to get their supplies from them.  All business should take a page from the book of Mr. K.

3. Warren Buffett – The greatest investor in the world. He’s very careful and researches all his companies, as such his company has lost some money in the stock market but compared to other investment firms they’ve not lost much at all.

4. My Grandfather – He instilled the love of the law in me and although he was truly a workaholic, he always made sure his family was provided for and past up some amazing opportunities because he could make more money for his family in private practice.

5.  Napoleon – He had one of history’s most well known battle plan and one that I practice in my day to day life.  It was a two part plan.  First, we show up….then we see what happens.

6. Takamori Saigo – He was the samurai that the Katsumodo from ‘The Last Samurai’ who led an uprising against the government of Japan

7. Mr. T...because he pities the fool

8. The 47 Ronin – They show just what a group of people who are devoted to revenge can do.  It’s a great story read about it.

9. Rip Torn – Because his name is awesome

10.  Oliver Cromwell – From a nobody who lucked into the parliament to Lord Protector of England.  And a man who so infuriated the opposition that after he died and they returned to power they had his corpse dug up from Westminster Abbey, executed(so to speak), then put his head on a pike outside of the hall.  Not to mention Monty Python did a really funny song about him.

11. T. Boone Pickens – The man had an idea and absolutely would not keep quiet about it until everyone heard it.  The politicians may have not a care about his energy plan…but they had to say something about it and most of them had to meet with him.  Only a crazy Texas billionaire has that kind of mentality.

12. Dad – He’s inspired my love of business and values, taught me that doing a good thing for others is better than anything you can ever do for yourself.  But he’s also taught me from his mistakes, to always spend time with family and to cherish the time we have because we never know when it will run out.

13. Kim – Ever my protector, Kim did anything she could through her short life to help me, right down to when I was in the hospital as an infant she put her plush dog in the crib with me so I wouldn’t be alone…I still have that dog and I think about it often.

Now its your turn…what are some of your heroes and why?

You can’t even avoid the telemarketers on Mount Everest!

I read today that Nepal Telecom is planning to put cell service on Mount Everest, which means that one of the most severe climates on this earth, you can still get a call asking you to change your long distance provider.  Not that they still do that much but its the first one that came to mind…I think the new equivalent would be that your car warranty is almost up and you need to renew through them.

Seriously, is it really necessary to get service on Mount Everest?  One would think that you would be more task oriented about not fucking running out of air and dying than the need to check your email or voicemail. Aside from that, I’ve got friends that live in the city in Baltimore and DC that barely get service in their own apartments, you’d think we should probably work on the more populated parts of the world first before we try the outer limits. Boulders don’t make phone calls.

Not even the really smart ones.

Another thing that I noticed today is the in Japan the unemployment rate is at its highest point at 4.4% so they’ve begun extreme measures to get it down.  Their solution is to offer a buyout of sorts.  For those of Japanese origin but were born abroad(called nikkei) they’re giving $3,000 to move away.  The first thought that occurred to me is what a great problem it is if you’re unemployment rate just spiked to 4.4%!  Here in the US recent numbers show almost 9% of people are unemployed, in WV its only 7.7%, I assume because we were behind to begin with this recession is only recently hitting us.

Now to the other point…they’re paying off people to leave the country, not that I’m against the idea mind you, I happen to think its a good one, but Japans an island country, I don’t think a paltry $3,000 would do it…now here on the otherhand…

 

What do you all think? Should we be paying off people to leave the country? And what about cell service on Mt. Everest?  There goes my plan of going crazy and starting mountain climbing to avoid the phone…now I just have skydiving.

Don’t forget to comment thats where the best parts of a blog come into play!

Also, special thank you to Freakanomics, I don’t know how to tag properly yet…I got a lot of the information from this on there and it’s a great read if you’ve never seen it before.

Test 4

Test 4
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Test 3, I’ll get it working sometime

Test number 3

Test blog

Test blog for twitterfeed
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Achievements, Rain, and Deep Thoughts

Gonna be a short one today, haven’t had much to write on still working on the writing every day thing.

I passed the CCT test! Got a 95 on it, I heard it was the highest in the class but I’m not certain whether it was or not, but usually the grapevine is pretty accurate. I’ll probably have a hand running some of the cct calls now so I’m looking forward to that as soon as I can.

Finally got to get back on the bike too, it’d been forever…still runs well and learned some new tricks in that motorcycle course…Looking forward to the warmer weather..pricing crash bars, highway pegs, and a backrest too so I can ride long ass distances again.

Also side thought…had something come up today I didn’t expect to hear…not sure what to do about that one yet…didn’t think it would happen…still don’t know if it would happen…don’t know how it would go if it did happen.

How’s it gonna be

So I had another therapy session today and it gave me an idea.  I’m going to take the blogging idea and grab it by the horns so to speak.  Starting…well today with this one…I’m going to write something in my blog every day…I don’t have a minimum amount but every day it will be something.

Another thing, every friday I will be posting 13 things on whatever topic I come up with that week…I welcome all help and ideas with that, as well as any blog ideas you may have or anything you’re curious about for my point of view.

So until Next time….

13 Things I Learned in CCT Class

So I've decided to do a new thing here on the blog...every Friday I'm going to write 13 things about whatever comes to mind or whatever anyone mentions to me.

We finally finished the CCT class and I decided to share a few of things I've learned in the 3 weeks, 72hrs of class time, 40hrs clinical time, and 24hrs of ride time that I went through.

1. If you give Cerebyx, Mannitol, or Decadron too fast it makes your taint itch.

2. There is a cranial nerve responsible solely for crossing your eyes.

3. An injury to spinal nerve s2, s3, or s4 can cause anal wink.

4. Yes...Anal wink...so funny I had to mention it twice.

5. Chickens have dark and white meat because of myoglobin, the legs need more o2 so they have more myoglobin so are dark meat and the breast have less myoglobin so they are white meat.

6. A ruptured appendix or ectopic pregnancy can cause pain in your shoulder called kehr's sign.

7. The heart likes to repeatedly pound one out....not only when you're pounding one out.

8. If you shit your pants and somehow spread it around at a party you would be best to keep it to yourself. (Special mention to someone from LEASA for that one)

9. Sometimes the most effective tool when sticking an artery is a flashlight.

10. They still make Choco-tacos.

11. One of our prime responsibilites as CCT medics is to rescue patients from the outlying hospitals they come from.

12. They now make blue twizzlers...which are pretty good

13. Indian food and soda does not a happy frank make.

So there you have it...13 random things I learned in CCT class...I'd like to give thanks to spence for helping me remember some of these and a big thanks to chris and jason and the rest of the group from air evac lifeteam for letting me be a part of the class...it was intense but still fun.

Hell is Other People

Well this is technically true, in this case its actually hell is working for free….AKA clinicals.

I’m in the CCT class which has gone very well and really fast paced…which I like except for the clinicals.  We have 40hrs to do in the hospital plus 24 hours of ride time on another CCT truck.  That wasn’t bad because I’m used to the shift but being in the hospital just tends to drag on.

Oh well at least it’ll be worth it in the end and I’d much rather work my ass off and stress for 3 weeks rather than work my ass off and stress for 3 months.

But as the song goes…I can’t complain but sometimes I still do.

Easter

I don't like holidays anymore.

It's been 4 months since Kim has been gone and I still wait for her to call...it feels just like when she worked in Maryland. I wouldn’t hear from her for a while then out of the blue she’d call or text me to see how i was.  I miss a lot of what we had, not just the good but the bad days.  No one could fight quite like she could, and we could have a knock down drag out argument then go eat dinner.

I know a lot of people saw Kim as a difficult person and trust me she was….but it was the stubbornness that was just as endearing as the fact that she would do anything within her power to help anyone.

I’d been back and forth with this lately.  Some times I would have good days and seemed like things were going better…sometimes things would be bad and I felt like I was dragging a bit…sometimes I think the worlds crushing down upon me and I’m not sure I can I can handle it all, those are the days I just want to retreat back into myself because at least then things can’t get me.

I think this post rambled more than I usually do…but today is a mix between a bad day and a crushing day….I did have some fun in the PICU but mostly because I spent the majority of the day with a 21month old watching buzz lightyear and reading charts….Hard to be in a bad mood when a kid hands you his froggy.

Until next time here’s something to think about,

What’s your most effective coping mechanism…is it failsafe?

New Blog

This is my new blog, I had one at wordpress but I never used it because it was too much of a pain to post to mobile. When I found out blogger lets me post by email from my blackberry I knew immediately that I had to switch over.

Keep an eye on me, i'll post about anything or nothing at the regular schedule of whenever the hell I feel like it but if you'd like notified of when I do post let me know.

Also if there's anything you'd like my opinion on just send me a msg.