Restive State

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I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!

It's about time that someone in the Democratic party decided not to roll over for the GOP. Are Dean's remarks a bit abrasive? Yes. Are they a little impolite? Yes. And it's about time.

The Dems have been called everything from communists to pornographers and by inference religion-hating liberals, yet have never come back at the right wing blowhards, dittoheads and ideologues that have been heaping it on them for long enough. It's not like he told someone to "F*ck off!"

Finally someone has the balls to call the kettle black and ignites a shitstorm for it. The worst thing is that he's getting it as much from his own party as he is from the GOP. Most people believe that there really isn't much of a difference between Dems and Republicans and this proves it. While Dean may have his own agena directing his antics I'm all for it. This country has been blinded by the neocons and their servants in the GOP and it's about time someone who's visible and powerful started questioning the status quo presented by them.

That we drink milk. Not from our mothers but from cows, specially bred for and hopped up on hormones and antibiotics to produce mass quantities of the stuff. So this article published today, makes me laugh and go, "well, d'uh!"

You think that drinking milk is the healthy thing to do , but the research shows that kids who drink more than 2 glasses a day are more prone to be obese. They don't mention if that is the effect of the milk itself, or the latent hormones and other chemicals lurking inside the milk that is causing the effect.

Can't wait to see what the Dairy Farmers have to say about it!

I've just started a nursing externship and Sunday was my first day on the job. The hardest thing for me was to make the transition between a student, where you can do pretty much anything, to an extern who has limitations, but greater responsibilty in their scope of practice. Throughout the semester I have been giving meds during my clinical rotations, but now as an extern I can't. It takes a great deal of energy to keep yourself in line and only do what you are allowed to do. Failure results in termination and being reported to the board, thereby effectively canceling any possiblity of ever working as a nurse when you finish school.

The other thing that is hard is talking about my experiences without breaching patient confidentiality. And it's not just here, but even in town. I don't live in a very large town, sooner or later you're going to run into a patient or the family of a patient and if you happen to be talking about the patient, the damage you can do is devastating.

That has its upside as well. The last rotation of the semester I went to both the Health Department and to the Jail to get a perspective on community nursing. Being a small town, when I was at the jail I saw people I knew, and met a lot of people who I would later remember. So I was out with my wife at Blockbuster one night not too long ago, when I saw a guy who looked too familiar. But I just couldn't place him. I was deep in thought as we kept going through and checked out. The moment I walked out the door, the lightbulb came on. Ohhhh, I know where I knew him from: the jail. Not that it is a big deal in a smaller town to run into people in this way, but running into someone outside you frame of reference sometimes sets you back on your heels a bit.

And speaking of law enforcement, to all those who say crime never happens in Flagstaff, I have a bit of news for you. First, in property crime per capita we lead the state. Yep, we have more property crime per captia than Phoenix, Tucson or anywhere else. The highlight of this is that twice in as many weeks, the DPS helicopter has been overhead tracking someone. I moved away from the city to get away from seeing the cops in my neighborhood everyday, and now I have them shining the Nightsun into my window. It goes without saying that you're never really safe.

Until next time...

According to this article, kids who drink caffinated beverages are less attentive and generally have higher Connor scores (a standard measure of ADHD/ADD) than kids who drink decaf. And it took a big study to figure this out. If you walk into any Wal-Mart in the US on a Saturday you see the effects of this right in front of your eyes with kids bouncing off the aisles hyped up on Coke and Super Sugar Bombs. One good thing to come out of it though is the assertion that kids need to be looked at on multiple levels, including diet, for diagnosis of ADHD/ADD.

I guess Mike Judge got it right 10+ years ago!

Some people just don't get it. I mean taking care of yourself should be a given, but most people don't (myself included for the most part.) But hey, I look at it as job security. The worse shape people are in, the better my propects as a nurse are going to be. It's just a sad fact of life.

In relation to that check these stories out:

Type II diabetics refusing to take insulin, even the newer inhaled variety.
Noncompliance of Type II diabetics getting worse. Scary statistics in this one.

After taking a full day of computer training for my internship, this one caught my eye. Like it or not, electronic documentation is the charting of the future. And the message from consultants, doctors and it seems like everyone elese is: don't worry about the standards, just do it!

See you next week!

Yes, it's been a long hiatus, but it was good. I'm fresh and ready to go again. Anyways, on to the headlines...

So you thought Katie Couric and Rudy Gulianai endorsing testing for cancer was a good thing? Apparently not according to an article, posted today on both Medpage Today and Wired News. In fact, getting testing may be detrimental in the psychological and emotional sesnse and may even detract from more serious concerns a patient may have.

And in the just when you thought it was safe to go back to the hospital department, a new study shows that safety in US hospitals, while increasing is still abbysmal. And it's worse if you're poor...go figure.

Until later...

Blockbuster is getting sued for its No More Late Fees campaign. The NJ Attorney General says the ad campaign fools consumers into thinking there are no repercussions for returning the movie late. Which there is, laid out in fine print. But they're claiming the end of late fees which really doesn't jibe with the real deal.

Would really like him to get a load of crap that our local Blockbuster is pulling. While nationally the No More Late Fees program is being implemented, our local franchisee has "decided not to take part in this program." What?! Oh so you can choose whether too or not? The only reason why they won't is because they can make a ton of money off of late fees here in town. It does them no good to implement the program due to the loss of great revenue they get from late fees. So they didn't. Another wonderful thing about living in this damn town.

Stay cool...

Unless you're a very creative thief who masquerades as a legit company. In this story, ChoicePoint reveals that thousands of records have been accessed by identity thieves posing as the real deal. Wait a sec now...a company who collects our personal information, supposedly keeps it secure then sells it to thieves. And we have no recourse, and unless you live inCalifornia, no way of knowing about it.

So if this can happen at a private company, whatt happens when the government (anybody remember "Total Information Awareness"?) gets involved? It goes to show that we have no privacy and no right, in the minds of corporate America to that right. Our information, things that directly affect our lives, can be bought and sold like a prize pig at auction. In the age of information where every decision is based upon you credit rating, including employment, seeing such breaches of trust and security as this is not only outrageous, but devastating. The real question is if this is possible, how can the validity of any of the information presented be verified? Who is it really that you say you are?

As a wise man once said, the only defense against identity theft is having an identity that no one wants...

It seems that our lives outside of work are no longer safe. Weyco Inc. just recently fired 4 employees over their refusal to quit smoking. Not because of bad job performance, mouthing off to the CEO, or smoking while on the job, but smoking at all. Their CFO said something to the effect of "they can smoke, but not smoke and work here." To me, this brings up huge warning signs. The question of where the employee's privacy ends/begins and how far into that realm the employer can reach is paramount. What's next? Banning beer and alcohol? Maybe fried chicken and low-rise pants.

What realy irks me is the reasoning behind it all. While the company maintains that they want "healthy" workers, the things that are hidden from view are the real reason. First, smokers cost more. In terms of insurance premiums and average costs of care they are more than non-smokers. Second, along those lines, they can be less productive due to lost time due to illness. So what it really boils down to is money. Cold hard cash and the bottom line. The company really didn't care about the workers, they cared that they could reduce the expenditures for health care premiums and costs.

Our sciety has become so obsessed with social engineering that we've lost sight of essential rights. It is our right as individuals to do stupid things, right or wrong. Too many places are enacting legislation that does the social engineering for us, call it social engineering by proxy. People, given the opportunity are smart enough to do the right thing, although they usually don't because it is never the easiest thing to do. But what you and I do when we are not at work shouldn't matter. If I come to work and do the best job I can, but eat red meat, smoke heavily and engage in unsafe sex outside of work, that's my deal and I'm going to have to deal with the consequences of my actions. It is not my employer's right to tell me that I can't do those things. Especially if it is only to help their bottom-line. If I'm negligent or incompetent at my job beacuse of it, then yes, go for it, if not, leave me alone. Losing my job because of those things shouldn't have to be a major worry on my mind.

Tell me what you think...

I realize that it has been quite a long while now since my last post. School is more than just insane, work about the same and free time is relatively non-exisitent. Now I should be doing homework, but I can't. There is no way I can do that right now.
The perfect analogy I have heard to describe it all was this: in a 4 year program it's (the information) like drinking from a garden hose. In a 2 year program it's like a firehose. The sheer amount of information that is coming in does no justice to it all beacuse you barely have time to digest it. It becomes a random jumble of facts, figures, patholigies and medications. But when the light bulb goes off, there is a moment of clarity where it all makes sense, if only for a moment.

That moment came to me twice this weekend. The current study topic is cardiac & vascualr disorders. So between the actual disorders and the study of the circulatory system we're having in Anatomy, my head was swimming in information about that system. Friday night I'm checking out my assignment for Saturday clinicals and things are starting to click. I'm looking at the meds going, "ok, that's a diuretic and that's a beta-blocker, where's the ACE inhibitor" and thinking what these drugs were doing to the body. And the light bulb was burning bright. The pieces fell into place as I understood the diagnosis, the treatment and what was going on with the patient. For a moment, the clarity of vision and thought overwhelmed the aching burning of exhaustion.

Of course, when I arrived the next morning, my paitent had changed and all that work was for nothing. The clarity was a farce, nothing more than a glimpse of what could happen. But something far greater happened as a result of that. Too often you have so little time with your patients that you almost become robotic and job focused. You forget that instead of just treating the disease you are treating the person, the whole person, not just a collection of symptoms. That is more important that anything else. If we can't treat our patients, mind, body and soul, we're doing little more than assembly line nursing. It's not always easy or possible, but it should be a goal. My instructor said that we should always try to be present with our patients. To give that little bit of ourselves and our time to let the patient know that we are present with them, regardless. I came to the realization that I hadn't been doing that as well as I should have. Call it one hand on the door sydrome, or whatever, I realized there that I had not been doing that, and my patients could tell. So now it becomes my burden, no, my responsibilty to my patients to be present with them, even if it's just a little.

p.s. this was written over several days and may not be as coherent as I had orignally hoped, but at least something is out there.

The trip to Veags was pretty good. I mean hanging out in Sin City with one's parents is not exactly the most exciting thing, but hey, it got us a free place to stay. As alwasys, there is never enough time to do everything you want to do. There is too much to do there, so much time to waste and so many tacky white trash things that it really blows the mind.

But the trip is done, the hangover is here with the grim reality of a new semester. Say good-bye to free time, good-bye to sleep, and sanity. Once again there is Anatomy which will dominate my waking moments until May with dreams origins and insertions and more. And Nursing is a whole other ball game. I'm not sure if overwhelming is word enough right now. But hey, there's only 3 semesters left...

I've been looking for scholarships to put myself through nursing school and to put it bluntly, the search is a waste of time and is relatively futile. Unless I was disadvantaged, of a different color, or willing to give 2 years fo my life to California there wasn't jack out there for me. I am a firm believer in equal opportunity and all of that but this is a bit disheartening. I work my tail off to live and go to school and because of that I can't get any help. I'm not asking for much, just help to get through school.

Just blowing off steam...

2 days 'til Vegas though!

So it's countdown time...1 week until we hit Vegas. It's going to be strange this time, we're staying with the folks in a time share off the Strip. So we'll actually travel to different parts of Veags instead of staying focused on the Strip. Sure, we'll go to people watch and maybe get some eats, but I'm not dropping a dime into the casinos on there. They took enough last time. But hey, it will be fun and a good trip. The real bummer is that we have no camera as it was stolen on our last trip (to Seattle). I had a strange thought and thought it might be cool to do the trip Ocean's 11/Rat Pack style, but then I realized that I was too normal and large to pull that off. We've got the list and checking it now to see what and where we're going to do....

1973 Super Beetle

I've always been a fan of mixing hip-hop and rock, even though to some it seems like a marketing gimmick. But I've been a sucker for it. Going back as far as Public Enemy & Anthrax's "Bring tha Noize" to more modern stuff like Linkin Park vs Jay-Z. There have been ups...like PE & Anthrax, downs...like "Judgement Night" (half-way listenable soundtrack, but a horrible movie). I was watching MTV today and saw the "mash-ups" show with Linkin Park and Jay-Z. I have to say it was pretty good. I'm a fan of both and the mix of the two styles, while not innovative is fun. One thing that struck me was the grins all of them had while performing. They looked like they were having a good time. And to me, that's what is important.

Which brings me to another thing. I am so tired of stars complaing about being famous. I know that your life is o terribly hard. With tons of cash, everything being handed to you on a golden plate (or in Russell Simmon's case...crapping on a golden throne) and legions of adoring fans. But face it, you chose this life. No one forced it on you. So quit yer' bitcin and enjoy it while you have it...'cause it ain't going to last.

So it is still Friday, and going with the theme, here's 5 hip-hop/rock matches that work...

1. Public Enemy & Anthrax "Bring tha Noize" (the classic, a standard).
2. Jay-Z vs. Linkin Park "99 Problems - Points of Authority/One Step CLoser" (very heavy, great example of why the mash-up works)
3. Onyx & Biohazard "Slam" (cheesy but fun to see hardcore band acting like G's)
4. The Executioners feat. Static X & Mike Shinoda "Its' Goin Down" (turntablism and loud guitars, who can argue?)
5. Run DMC & Aerosmith "Walk this Way" (The orginal and still the best)

Have a good weekend!

Yep, finals are done, over, finished. Finally. So far the results are decent I didn't completely bomb anything and now my life can get back to normal. You get so wrapped up in the drama that is school that everything else seems to fade away. I mean I would say good-bye to my wife on Sunday night and not see her until Friday night...not literally of course, just figuratively. The thing though is that to stay ahead of the game, I have to study during Christmas break. At least I can take a week to decompress, at least until the Christmas celebration with the in-laws.

Well anyways, nothing important to say...yet.

Til later...

So here it is. I had a lull in the madness that is the end of the semester and it gave me a moment to figure some stuff out. I was just making a CD and decided to post a couple of my favorite songs on it.

Black Flag "Wasted"
311 "Down"
Guns N Roses "One in a Million"
Beastie Boys "3 MCs and 1 DJ"
Goldfinger "99 Red Balloons"

and more...

Have Good Weekend!

I figured I would update, just a bit. End of semester is coming, so I won't be updating as frequently as before. Here and there and Five for Friday will be back.

Until later...

Interesting news out today, some things I found.

1st:
When I first moved to Flagstaff I watched a lot of TechTV and kind of got addicted. But then G4 came in basically ran the channel into the ground. Now there are even more changes at the channel. Basically what they have done is taken a great source for all things tech related and ran it into the ground of video game mediocrity. All they show now beisde the sole holdover (The Screen Savers) is video game crap. Not being a 13 year with a single minded obsession with video games I find that I can't stand the channel anynore. It was once a place for decent tech related programming but now it's just another marketing platform for the video game industry.

2nd:
I work in telesales (incoming calls, I don't call anyone) and we have seom fraud that happens but this caught my eye as I was browsing today. Seems fraud related to e-commerce is sky-rocketing and the holiday season is possibly the worst of it. One reason I checked this out is that I had a couple of fraud calls this week and was a little peeved about it.

3rd:
They're watching you...yes, you, the one in the front of the theater with the camcorder, you're now screwed. In the ever vigilant arena of anti-piracy comes the newest and greatest system that scans the audience looking for reflections off of lenses. My solution: charge less. People are more apt to actually go to the movies if it doesn't cost the proverbial arm & leg (last time it cost my wife and I $11 for admission, on a matinee...).

Oh yeah, Five for Friday is still on hiatus, but will be back soon!

Have a good weekend!

So it's been a week. I'm not going to say the W. won or anything like that, but we all know the outcome. Luckily I've had the time to digest it all and think things through. So here's a couple of things I see W. and crew pulling during the next 4 years...

• Reforming tax code even more to benefit the wealthy and tax the poor.
• more legislation about our personal lives, y'know things allowing the feds into our bedrooms, behind the closed doors the typical American citizen treasures
• social engineering through legislation
• futile attempts to keep the economy moving in a positive direction
• appointment of the most conservative Supreme Court...ever
• further erosions of environmental, workplace and economic safeguards
• more spending, bigger deficits and even more national debt
• more persecution of those willing to speak out in guise of "Homeland Security"
• preemptive strikes on either Iran or North Korea...maybe California
• reinstatement of the draft, or complete implementation of the stop-loss program

So yeah, the picture looks real good. The majority of Americans that voted for W. on the pretenses of security, both national and economic, tax relief and moral issues are going to be in for a fun ride in the next 48 months. Remember, y'all voted for the guy. You will reap what you sow.

My $.02

Add... oh yeah, as of today, politics will be back to low-key again and not consuming my thoughts anymore.