All posts by djones

birds, weather

The Birds

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Today we had another late in the day weather change from sunny to thunderstorms and windy, marking the onset of some cooler weather. It is only supposed to get to 60 or so tomorrow. Oh well, summer can wait.

One of the curiosities that has always made me scratch my head is the way birds like to settle on telephone wires before a storm arrives. It is not uncommon to see 10 or more between a couple of utility poles, just sitting there very quietly as the storm builds and approaches. Many times, the silent sitting birds are the first warning of an impending storm. Then the sky begins to darken and the clouds begin to explode into thunderheads and the lightning begins to flash. And if we are lucky out here, it also rains.

Now if I were a bird, I can’t picture why I’d go out and sit on a high wire with no cover if I thought it was going storm. Why sit on a high, wet wire in a rain and lightning storm? But the birds do it. I’ve always wondered how hard it is to stay anchored by a pair of slick claws to a smooth and possibly wet sheath of insulation. I think I’d be cramped up tight after hanging on for the 45 minutes it takes for the wind and the lightning to pass. And you notice that you never see one of the birds hanging on to the wire upside down. That tells me they must have one heck of a grip on the wire.

So today as the thunderstorm brewed and I headed over to do XXX’s therapy, I pondered the birds sitting on the phone wires and what a strange life it must be. I know that sometimes the wind becomes too much for the birds: they are the ones found dead on the ground after the storm. I also know that just as soon as the wind has calmed a bit, they are off and flying around. The robins are on the ground trying to catch the earthworms forced to the surface by the sudden downpour of water. The crows head off to scrounge for their favorite foods. And I am left to wonder how and why they do it.

medical personnel, weather

Preaching to the Choir

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Today was a day where I got to preach to the choir so to speak. The CU Denver medical program has a group out here who have indicated that they want to be involved in medicine in a rural area. So I was one of the speakers for their intro to the area today. It was funny to see such a mix of youngsters. (I’m approaching that age where everyone looks like a youngster to me. I am informed by both my Mom and MIL that it only gets worse the older you get.) The program has everything from medical students to physicians assistants to RNs to … attending.

Since others were covering economics and existing programs in the area, I concentrated on the adaptation to living in a rural area. I started by asking for a show of hands of all those who grew up in area of 10,000 people or less. About 6 out 30 raised their hands. I then told the group to remember who raised their hands because they will undoubtedly have questions for them.

One of the big social differences in practicing rural medicine is the fact that medical staff and patients know each other outside of the medical relationship. Thus I know my doctor, where he lives, his kids, his wife, and I’ve even met his father once. On the other hand, he knows the same information about me. He sees me doing my walking and I see him coming back from the gym before 7am as I walk to the radio station on Wednesdays. In metro area medicine, you don’t have that same personal contact. So I went through a little of that with them.

Then I touched on the issue of retention. One of the big problems in retaining medical personnel in a rural area is the spouse or SO. The medical person is having the time of their life, seeing and handling things over a broad range that they might never see in a metro practice. But the spouse is feeling like an outcast and quite possibly cannot find work in their chosen field. So in a couple of years, the resolution comes down that they will move to a metro area together or the spouse is going to move alone.

For the singletons, I also brought up some of the limitations of social events. As I used to warn engineers we were recruiting, “I can’t ask if you are single or married, but be forewarned that if you don’t like family oriented activities, church sponsored events, and/or cowboy bars, you may find your social life a bit sparse.” One of the program coordinators asked about sports. I told them that yes, there are city sponsored leagues for about anything that can be dreamed up, but that many of the teams are sponsored by the aforementioned groups. It makes it a great place to raise a family, but a somewhat harder road for the unattached singleton.

And now for something completely different. (With apologies to Monty Python.)

This evening, we had our first official tornado warning of the season. The tornado stayed well north of town, but the warning sirens were blaring and the police and fire were driving up and down the streets warning people to take cover. Ah spring! We’ve had one tornado touch down in town in my memory, but you have to call wolf every time one is nearby just to be safe.

When I was a little sprat, we lived in town in Nebraska that got hit with tornadoes so often that some people started building their houses underground. I can remember riding in the car from Nebraska to Colorado and being able to see several funnel clouds in the sky at once. I thought it was interesting to watch then, now I’d probably be a bit more worried.

So how was your day?

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Sunday Yet Again

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L has left on her return to the mountains and Molly has retired to her bed to mope. Pretty much a standard Sunday evening here.

Today was one of those days that it is good to be out on the plains. In Denver and environs they had 5 tornadoes this afternoon along with the severe thunderstorms that covered the whole eastern half of the state. Fortunately not too bad as far as problems, with plenty of warning. Mostly property damage in limited areas. This was different from most tornado occurrences since it was a result of cold air settling over Denver and then the normal afternoon thunderstorm build up accelerating as the cumulus clouds breached the top of the cold air layer and expanded rapidly, releasing a lot of stored energy. In fact, the national severe weather center had predicted *no* severe weather for today in Colorado. Just goes to show you can’t trust those weather critters. {*grin*} Another interesting part was that the process generated a band of thunderstorms from Denver all the way out to the Nebraska border, about 170 miles, that dropped hail from 2 to 3 inches in size. That is hail larger than a baseball! Fortunately the storms went north and south of us here and all we got was some really loud thunderclaps and a brief flood of rain.

Today as I perused the Denver Post’s Arts and Entertainment section heading for my beloved crossword puzzles, my eye was caught by small photo in the fashion layout. My first thought was “That looks like Summer of Le Musings of Moi!” So I sent her a copy so she could see that she was nearly famous. {*grin*} See if you don’t think it looks like Summer in her fashion poses:

 
(From 6/7/09 Denver Post)
 
Other than that, a quiet day. What was your day like?
a day in my life, bpw, tasks

A Day In My Life

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I got the lawn mowed with no interruptions today! Hooray!

This morning L got ready to head back out to the Annual Conference of the Business and Professional Women (being hosted here) where she was a speaker and a judge. So I headed out into the jungle that is the lawn and whacked it to a more reasonable length. After cleaning up the mower and trimming, it was time to get on to the task of repairing the garage door opener..

I had to journey to the hardware store for the bolts I needed to repair the garage door opener. I couldn’t escape running into someone I knew there. Pat had just returned from a multi-month sojourn in Belgium on a consulting assignment, so we had to spend a few moments catching up. It is always interesting to see Pat. He was one of the early employees we recruited to our company close to 20 years ago. At that time he had been operating a liquor store in California. We recruited and trained him to do customer service and he hasn’t looked back. Pat is one of those guys that will try anything – skydiving, bungee jumping, you name it. All with an impish Irish grin.

Came back and fixed the garage door opener. It only involved about thirty trips up and down the ladder. So tonight my feet ache from hanging off the rungs. No one designs ladders for people with size 16+ feet.

It was then time to head over to Mom’s for some gardening. Some of the plants weren’t ready, so did some checking on the squash, replanting what wasn’t germinating. We’ve had huge (for us) amounts of rain in the last week, so the weeds are growing like wildfire. Makes me suspect it will soon be time to hoe my way to fame and fortune.

L got done with the conference and we headed to Taco Bell for supper. Colorado Taco Bell’s offer 4 tacos for a buck the day after the Rockies score 7 or more runs. (You have to buy a drink as well.) It has become a family tradition for L and the Son in the mountains to have tacos when they can. So L and I parked and walked inside, placed our order and then had a chance to visit with the gentleman and his wife who farmed and eventually bought our farm. It is amusing because he was (unknown to me until after we had been in business for quite some time) the best man at the wedding of one of my aunts (before I was around). He has been a Rockies fanatic since the franchise started, so he never misses the Rockies Tacos events. He was overjoyed a few years ago that the Rockies made it to the world series at least once in his life time.

We gathered our tacos and came home to eat. Then we headed over to do another therapy session for XXX. Then it was time to fix the toilet at the MIL’s and finally return home. That is where L and I suckered ourselves into re-watching one of the Home Alone movies. L sat in the recliner with the heating pad on her back since it has been out of whack all week and I sat in an arm chair fending off Molly the Dog who thought she should be petted for the entire movie. A nice time that is all too rare in our hectic lives.

Finally got showered and sat down to write this. Thus it is a wee bit later than normal.

aisles, people

Meeting A Lot Of Acquaintences

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Today was one of those days when it seems like too many people know who you are and have something to tell you.

At noon, L and I went to the BBQ fund raiser for Relay for Life. One of the local accounting firms has been sponsoring the event for years, making it one of the more successful events. Probably 500-600 people eating a hot dog or hamburger and some sides, watching the dunk tank (which I was not in this year – thank heavens – two balls for a buck). From the time we arrived to the time we left it was one person after another saying high and talking. Since L is so seldom in town during the week, all of her acquaintances and friends were saying hi and likewise without the excuse of absence for me.

So after a visit to XXX to remove the nerve block canula and a therapy session, I headed to Wally World for groceries and to fill some prescriptions. I swear that there were people lurking in the aisles just waiting for my appearance.

I went first to the pharmacy to drop off the prescriptions and ran into Steve, who I haven’t seen in close to a year. Steve is someone who went to high school with me and is not noted for being the crispest cracker in the box. A nice guy, just very dense between the ears. So a conversation with Steve oft times is like trying to talk a river into running uphill – the information is present but not ingested. The clerk is trying to explain to Steve about the pricing of his prescription and his insurance coverage and made the mistake of telling Steve to work out which way of filling his prescription is best. This left Steve trying to decide which was better between $119 for 60 days or $57 for 30 days twice. I left off my prescriptions after talking to Steve. He was still standing by the counter trying to do the mental arithmetic. He was still standing there more than an hour later when I finished grocery shopping. I took pity on Steve and told him he could save $5 if he accepted the clerks 30 day version. That made him happy.

Then as I am heading down another aisle, I ran into Terri who wants a full update on how the Son is doing and how L is doing and what I am doing. Then she wants to plan a get together of the old club that L was a part of. I finally escape as her ice cream begins to drip out of the box and onto the floor.

The story was repeated aisle after aisle as I shopped. Most of them were people I hadn’t run into in months. I usually count on losing 40 minutes or so on any visit to the store as someone will want to talk about city business, But today it was at least an hour of just random “How are you?” conversations with people I haven’t seen in a while. Pleasant, but it shots the heck out of scheduling.

The whole effort is complicated by the fact that our Super WalMart is being remodeled and so nothing is in the same location two days in a row. Add to that the fact that I have two grocery lists in hand since Mom is still not up to hitting the store yet. I dream of the day when I can organize the lists so I can just walk a straight path from item to item and be done. Only another 30 days or so according to rumor. Of course, rumor had it that the bakery part of the remodel would be done two weeks ago (OK, not a rumor, but a sign on the plywood construction barrier from Wally World themselves.). It’s still not done.

Hopefully I can mow the lawn in peace tomorrow.