Category Archives: weather

medical personnel, weather

Preaching to the Choir

1 Comment

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?

memorial day, weather

Memorial Day

4 Comments

It rained off and on here all day. (Hooray, water!) L has headed back to the mountains and I am listening to an old Richard Lewis tape. I always find it amazing how well standup comedy works on audio tape with no visual references.

Since this is the first time in several years I haven’t been a speaker at one of the Memorial Day services, I figured I’d take the opportunity to publish the text of my last Memorial Day speech. Enjoy.

Memorial Day Speech (from 2008)

We are gathered here today to honor our comrades, friends, and family members who have given their lives in defense of our freedom.

In 1868, when General John Logan (the namesake of this county) officially proclaimed Memorial Day as May 30th of each year, he was recognizing the very human need to honor and remember our dead, to reconcile our hurts and come together to honor those who gave so much for us during the Civil War. To quote from General Logan’s General Order No. 11 proclaiming Memorial Day:

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather round their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those who they have left among us …

From the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and all other actions between and after, brave men and women have given the ultimate sacrifice for us. We must remember them. We owe them a debt of honor that can never be repaid.

Over the years there have been changes, for better and worse, in the ways we observe Memorial Day. The attempts at healing of the post Civil War divisions by General Logan was the beginning. WWI led Moina Michael to respond to John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

And she went on to found the national poppy movement using the traditional red poppies to honor the blood of heroes spilled in our defense on Memorial Day. The late 1950’s saw the beginning of the tradition of placing American flags on the individual graves of our fallen heroes. The fourth Monday in May was officially established by Congress as the date of remembrance in 1971. This service today continues this tradition of remembrance and honor.

Through all the changes, the importance and meaning of this day has not changed. It is the day we remember and honor those who have fallen for us. We must remember them. We owe them a debt of honor that can never be fully repaid. Let us honor and remember them today and throughout the year.

beauregard, Molly, thoughts, weather

Have You Ever …

2 Comments

Have you ever wondered what is going through the mind of your pet? Do you ever wonder if they think along lines recognizable by the human thought process? I do.

This particular revery was brought on by Molly the dog’s reaction to the thunder this evening. We had a couple of pretty good booms after a quiet day of overcast. When the booms happened, Molly sprinted into my office, put her paws on my leg, and stood up with her head buried in my chest. She was literally shaking like a leaf. So my first thought was that she was frightened. But then I began to wonder if that was just my human brain thinking. What makes me think that the thought processes of a dog should follow my expectations of human norms?

In any case, Molly has not ventured more than a foot from me since the incident. I suspect she can still hear subsonic rumbles from the now distant storm. If I stand up, Molly is right there with me. If I sit down, Molly is laying at my feet (but only after first pawing my leg and making sure she is not going to get more head rubs first).

The “attached at the leg” syndrome makes me think back to the Son’s toddlerhood when there were the days that you could not be separated from him by more than inches without a fit being initiated. I am sure that all parents have been through those tag-a-long days where there is no relief from the continuous attachment of the young ones. Somehow, it is a bit more tolerable when it is your child attached to you than when it is your big strong dog. Not only that, but this is a new behaviour for Molly compared to last year. So this summer when the thunderstorms really fire up should be an interesting experience.

Back to the initial topic. I am really curious as to what goes through the mind of Molly. Given she is at least partially a herding breed, it is tempting to attribute thoughts to her as she sits with her ears alert scanning the yard. Likewise when she is trying to herd the squirrels on the powerlines in the alley.

Oh well, at least Molly hasn’t picked up the habits of her late predecessor, a Bassett Hound named Beauregard. Beau used to go out in the back yard and come back with his jowels full of crickets, which he would then carefully release alive in the house. Once Beau finally caught on that the crickets were verbotten (Bassetts are not the worlds brightest dogs, it only took him about five years to get that idea), he switched over to bringing the occasional live toad in and letting it go in the house. So far Molly has been much better behaved than that.

I’ll leave you with this picture of Molly huddling at my feet:

garden, thunder, weather

Another Hot One

2 Comments

This afternoon it was sitting at 101 degrees at about 3pm when the thunderheads started rolling in. Within moments the temperature dropped ten degrees to a balmy 91 and the breeze made it feel pretty good. So it was over to Mom’s to continue planting the garden. Today was more beans, rutabagas, radishes, kohlrabi, winter squash, some of the summer squash, cucumbers and some other plants. So hopefully tomorrow we will get the rest of the drip system hooked up and continue on with the planting of various squash.

We had to stop removing weeds from the one squash bed today because we had too many weeds pulled to fit in the garbage until after tomorrow’s pickup. This was the second dumpster load of weeds pulled from the non-rototilled parts of the garden. I figure we have about one more dumpster load of weeds to pull in the garden area (and probably half again as many to remove form the flowers). mom finds out tomorrow if she can get rid of the boot and start getting out and about a bit. She can use the walker part time now so she at least escapes the wheel chair a bit now and then. On the other hand, she can’t manuver in the soft soil area yet, so i suspect it will be an ongoing project for me to keep the weeds down and do the needed thinning. Oh well, at least some of the crops will begin yielding before too long.

Remember up at the top where I mentioned the thunderheads? That is pretty typical weather out here on the plains. Heat building all day until mid to late afternoon, then all the thermal energy starts fueling thunderheads. They rise quickly to amazing heights, 10-20,000 feet. That brings on the thunder and lightning but rarely any precipitation. Later on in the year,  we may get hail storms, but generally not a lot of rain. But when the thunder clouds pass by, the shading and subsequent drop in air temperature causes gusty wind that I have loved all my life. The wind causes screens to sing in the breeze, a sound that is the harbinger to cooling and pleasant memories in my mind. I’ve talked before (here, for example) about how I loved that sound when out on the farm. Tonight was the first such occurance of the year here. I loved it!

Well, time to get cleaned up so I can mosey down to the radio station in the morning. At least the weather critters are predicting a bit cooler day tomorrow.

friends, medical students, random, trackball, weather

Random Thoughts For A Friday

Leave a comment

Today was one of those days full of random thoughts that lead nowhere but are too good not to blog about. Thus, you get to suffer right along with me.

Random Thoughts For a Friday

I was reading a Dave Berry column and was struck by the aptness of his discription of much current music: “it sounds like angry men clubbing a yak to death with electric guitars.” Beyond the fact that Dave Berry is one of my favorite humor columnists, the way he captures the true gut level feeling of things is great. Besides, who else has the entry to their web site feature the quote “If you leave this web site, I will kill this defenseless toilet.”

My trackball is nearing the end of its life. This one has lasted five years and through several computers, so I guess i shouldn’t complain. Trackballs are getting harder to find in the size and variation I like, but I dread the idea of going back to the three button + spin wheel mouse. Once you get used to having 7 buttons and a spin wheel plus the trackball, you really hate to go back. Not to mention it lets one avoid certain variants of carpal tunnel syndrome. Maybe I can cobble together one working one from the 5 or 6 carcasses I have stored around here. Twenty years of mousing technology encapsulated via the broken remnants. (I am a pack rat. I knew you’d never guess that.)

It was windy here for the third straight day. 30 mph with occasional gusts up to 70 mph for days on end gets annoying, a bit like the Santa Ana wind when we lived in LA. In any case, the wind killed off going to nursery for some plants and other such oddities. (Mom is still in the wheel chair and decided that using the handicapped van in the wind was not her idea of fun. Since she was the plant picker outer, no need for me to go if she didn’t.)

I had an odd call from the CU Medical school this afternoon. They are bringing a group of medical students out here for a program and called to ask me to set aside an afternoon to speak to the students. I suspect it is for their rural medicine rotation, so it should be interesting to talk to the students. I figure I’ll find out more in the coming weeks. Be interesting to see how the medical students differ from the pre-med students I used to teach college physics to long ago.

The Son left a really strange telephone message last night. I assume it was an incident of butt dialing while he and his house-mates celebrated their last day together for this year. Not often you get a non-butt dial at 2:25 am, hence the diagnosis of butt dial. We’ll have to see if he remembers the call this weekend. (I stored the message away for use in future embarrassments.)

A good friend called and invited L and I over for Italian sausage and an evening of fine conversation, but it was too late when I got home and retrieved the message. L has client meetings in the mountains for the weekend, so it would have just been the trio of me, myself, and I that could have attended. Given that the friend cooks really good sausage and brats, it would have been tasty. Oh well.