A day for the ages!

Attention everyone!

I forgot to mention the other day that I was very appreciative of the birthday wishes the coolest of you bestowed upon me via Facebook.

Birthdays are a bit of a mixed blessing these days. One the one hand, it's always great to receive the well-wishes of such fine and upstanding people.

On the other hand… is the finger of the doctor, which goes in my butt during my annual exam around this time of year (and is it just me, or does your doctor seem to search with more and more diligence each year. I mean, you'd think I was trying to smuggle a smartphone into Ft. Leavenworth fer crissakes).

It's just the consequence of me failing to live the rock-n-roll lifestyle and dying in a helicopter crash while OD'd on smack and Jack.

I figure I'm like most people: After (and before) a certain point birthday's seem to lose their luster.

When you get past the point of "wishing" for "gifts" (I just buy myself whatever I need these days) and being surprised by "parties" (like most people, I've become anti-social in by dotage), it really comes down to spending a few hours hanging out with the family and hitting up Joe's for some ribs and beer. That really is as good as it gets... and it pretty damn good if you ask me.

Butt on the hole (sic), we take the good with the extremely uncomfortable. I've always said getting older really sucks, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative (well, full disclosure here, I haven't always said that... its only been for the last 20 years or so I guess.)

So thanks again, everyone! Happy birthday to all you sinners out there. 

Aegrescit medendo ...

...but I might try it anyway.

You might claim you’d do anything to reverse baldness, but the “vampire treatment” puts that sentiment to the test.  Scientists use injections of “platelet-rich plasma” to combat aging on the face and hands and can use the same process on the scalp.

Yes, the “vampire treatment” involves extracting your blood and re-injecting it into your scalp.  Volunteer attempts have proven successful, with many subjects experiencing significant hair growth in spots that have long gone dark.

Researchers believe that the treatment works by stimulating stem cells below the skin, assisting in the re-growth of hair.

I mean, when you think of if, it's really not all that different from pro cyclists banking their blood for later use in the Tour de France... except you're (hopefully) regrowing your flowing locks instead of sitting on a tiny bike seat for six hours a day.
 tagged: science, health, blood, baldness, vampire, cycling

Graze anatomy

It's not something I talk about, but I'm not afraid to say that I'm not nearly the man I used to be.

You see, a couple of years ago I went through a weight-loss regimen. I never really got the hang of political correctness, but I believe the proper term for my body-type was "fatus-boombalatus," and I'd come to that point in my life where you've gotta either get busy livin' or get busy dyin'... Aw hell, it wasn't all that dramatic. I just wanted to see a lot less of myself.

So I did. I dropped about 40 lbs and never looked back.

I didn't really want to make a big deal about it, and I still don't. So I'm not going to go into the whole process right here/right now (maybe some other time). I only bring it up by way of introduction of what I do want to discuss.

You see, part of getting rid of 20-percent of myself was eating smaller portions but higher-quality food. Of course if you're consuming fewer calories, you want to get more from each individual one. So you look for good ways to eat nutritious food.

Well, a few weeks ago I stumbled across a Tumblr post about a new service/web startup called Graze. This service married my passion for being lazy by shopping from home over the internet with my passion for eating delicious low-calorie snacks.

Well, here's how they explain it:


So I like what I see, and I sign up to pay five bucks a week for a box of healthy snacks that get sent to me in the mail. Sounded like a good deal to me. I mean, I spend more than that on coffee each week.

About a week ago we get the first shipment. (which was free, btw. Yeah, your first and fifth boxes are free when you sign up. Sweet!).

When you enroll for the service, you pick the four snacks you want included. For me, the toasted pistachios were a no brainer (FTW!). I also opted for a dried raisin/apple/almond mix ("Eleanor's Apple Crumble"), and a Fruity Mango Chutney (with black pepper dippers).

I also got the "Yin & Yang" a mix of almonds, raisins dried cherries and chocolates. I'm not crazy about chocolate, but I thought the women in my life might like it. (I was correct, of course).

All of the food is really tasty, especially the apple stuff which  was gone within a matter of hours. And all of the portions are low-calorie (the one with the chocolate was 217 calories for the entire serving).

I can hear you asking... "But, hey. You ordered food through the internet? Was it any good?"

Well, when the box arrived, I opened it and put on the dining room table. Between me, my Supermodel Wife and two daughters, it was empty within two and a half days. So, yeah it was good.

Looking forward to the next box coming in this week. There's a kind of granola bar-type snack that I'm eager to try out.

Anyway, if you're looking for a nutritious, low-cost and (most importantly) lazy way to get good snacks, check out Graze. Since they're sill in a beta soft-launch, you'll need an invitation code. You can use mine if you want: TNPZWDP

If you sign up, let me know what snacks you tried and what you think.

tagged: diet, health, nutrition, snack, food, Graze, weight loss

End zone

Let's face it. In the grand scheme of things, sports American style, aren't all that important.

To misquote my good friend Rick Blaine, "The problems of grown men playing a child's game don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

But then again, in the grand scheme of things, what is important? Spending time with friends and family? Getting the most enjoyment of what little time we have together? Accepting that life is suffering, and it's better to do it with people we love than alone?

Curtis Kitchen has a great post today. It's about an old story. A tragic story that happens over and over, and will happen to all of us eventually. 

Still, there's something to be said for an old story well told.

Five of his sons were in the room, as were a daughter-in-law and an infant granddaughter, a full group that would spend the next week together starting the next day, nearly 24 hours per day, in a hospice care facility. The NFC Championship game was on the hospital television, and while the volume had been kept low for the most part, it was turned up as a replay was analyzed. The camera flashed to San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh, who clearly disagreed with the replay call on a disputed completed pass.

As his morphine intake increased in a morbid race against his body’s increasing pain, Dad had spent recent days mostly asleep, only waking when his failing body demanded water, or when a nurse would attempt to move him in his bed. However, as it turned out, that replay moment came in the middle of Dad’s last rally, and he had gone as far as to sit up a bit in bed, fully alert, enjoying both the company in his room and the game.

That’s when, despite his voice being mostly a loud whisper by that point, Dad let the 49ers coach have it.

“Shut your mouth, Jim Harbaugh!”

tagged: life, sports, football, NFL, death, family, cancer

Who wants to live forever?

A few months ago, I caught this interesting tidbit on The Slate and stuck it in the "to blog" file in the back of my mind.

But in the way that thought gives way to thought and day give way to day, I just sort of left it on the mental back burner. And frankly, this whole blog has been on the mental back burner for a couple of weeks, so I figured now's a good time to dust off this topic and see if it has any legs left.

The story from The Slate was about how human life expectancy is getting much longer. It's happening not just in developed countries, but all over the globe. People are living longer, significantly longer. In fact according to the article, when we turn 50 most of us will still have more years ahead of us than our grandparents had when they turned 40.

This development comes with an argyle sock full of difficult socio-economic problems that someone will have to deal with: How do you feed all these old geezers? How can an already broke-ass Social Security system handle our additional years of geezerhood? Is Larry More really going to live long enough for me to have to watch him as a 3-D hologram?

I can't really answer these questions. Probably something for the upcoming young people to deal with the way my generation had to deal with cleaning up the Grunge music mess.

But when I first read the article I happened to be going through a bit of an existential funk, thinking about how quickly the first few decades of my life seem to have gone by and how even 100 years doesn't seem like nearly enough time to do everything that you want to do.

I know, I can hear what some of you are thinking. "Who wants to live to be 100, anyway?" And to be completely honest, I probably said idiotic shit like that back when I was young and stupid myself. Of course the answer to "Who would want to live to be 100?" is "Anybody who's 99."

As I've "matured" I've found that I love life. Sure it's crappy sometimes. There's always some jerk with an Apple logo sticker on his rear windshield who speeds up in rush hour traffic to block you from making a lane change. There are still people in the checkout line at the supermarket who insist on taking 15 minutes to write out a check (that's 15 minutes that I'll never get back, btw). The world, our culture and everything is pretty much going down the toilet.

But dammit, I really want to be around to enjoy this crappy world for a long, long time.

I love my family and I want to spend lots of time with them. I love seeing my kids grow up, even as I'm saddened to see them pass through the various stages of getting older. For every a-hole that doesn't hold the elevator for you, there's a glorious sunny spring morning, there are beautiful and priceless interstitial moments with your Supermodel Wife, there's your daughter with a death grip on your finger as she learns to walk, rather than crawl, down the stairs.

Everything just seems to be happening so fast. When I consider my own mortality, I think about how sad it will be to get to the end of the road and look back to see how short of a journey it was after all. Maybe life has a way of wearing you down as you age to the point that, by the time you get to the end, you're ready for it. But that hasn't happened to me yet. So when I read about increased longevity, I say bring it on.

It seem at this point that I would need 300 or 400 years to really absorb everything life has to offer, do everything I want to do, suck all the joyful marrow out of life's cold, cracked bones. Even that's just a guess. I'm sure that when I reached 399, I'd be thinking another 150 years or so would be nice.

I'm kind of just rambling on now, just freeforming this thing (that's what happens when you get old). I know I'm not alone and these are hardly original thoughts. Poems, songs, books, hell entire religions have been built around this subject. One could argue that the contemplation or our own mortality is central to what it means to be human.

So let me put it to you. Am I just stuck in a mid-life funk here? Can it even be considered mid-life given the longer lifespans? How long do you want to live, and more importantly, how long should Larry More be allowed to geezer up the airwaves?




Note: If you're reading this from an RSS reader, you might want to click through to the page to participate in the embedded poll question, if you can figure it out, ya old coot!



tagged: life, expectancy, science, society, Five For Fighting, family, mortality

Another million dollar idea to start out the year

Lots of people know that I come up with a couple of brilliant million-dollar ideas each quarter. It's just part of what I do.

Whether it's indicator plastic wrap, cargo-style dress slacks, or my excellent idea for Tixaqyll, each and every one of these gems is guaranteed to be solid gold.

Well this year the inspiration came early as we were watching some generic New Year's Day football game. We began mocking all the advertisements pushing special deals on gym memberships and special meal plans to help people loose those extra pounds and keep their New Year's resolutions.

And as conversations go, one thing led to another. We talked about how people should just start exercising more instead of sitting around watching generic New Year's Day football games. You don't need a gym membership, do you?

That's when it clicked. Combine something that people need but don't want (in this case exercise), with something they love but don't need, i.e., sitting on your ass watching a big screen playing mindless programming.

Put them both together and you get… The Gym Theater.

You know how AMC has been building out their Fork and Screen concept? Where you go and have a real meal at a table and everything while you watch the latest lame-ass chick flick?

Well this is kind of the opposite of that. Instead of sitting there watching Zack Galifianakis while you eat your way toward looking like him, you instead hop on a stationary bike or treadmill or elliptical machine and burn a few hundred calories.

Sure, you might need to provide audio jacks for headphones or ear buds or something to overcome the noise of the machinery. But from what I understand, people typically listen to iPods or something while they work out anyway.

The beauty is that theaters could sell this as a monthly membership fee deal, so they would be locking in a regular revenue stream.

Okay, AMC. There's the idea. I'll let you take this one and run with it. But I think a finder's fee of 10% is reasonable and customary, right?

tagged: theater, gym, idea, exercise, weight loss, New Year's Resolution, work out Zack Galifianakis, Hans and Franz

Demon nights

So I'm laying in bed, fast asleep at the quiet dark hour of 3:30 this morning when suddenly and without provocation a demon from the very pits of hell sneaks up on me and jabs his white hot pitchfork deeply into the muscles of my right calf.

Laughing like pure malevolent evil, the archfiend began to rotate his blistering fiery pitchfork of maleficence as if to draw my eternal soul out of each fiber of my triceps surae like so much hell bound spaghetti.

Some how, some way I was able stifle a bone chilling scream that would have roused all of the people in our house, our neighborhood — even the entire city — by grunting loudly through clenched teeth.

Bolting upright in bed and gasping, I clutched at the monkey fist that my muscles had become, trying in vain to rub the knot out and relieved the pain.

I jumped out of bed, my foot twisted by the cramp into a spastic, crippled claw. I stood on the floor and leaned against the bedpost using my body weight to force the muscle to stretch. After a minute or two that seemed like centuries, the calf muscles released their contraction and I began to breathe easier.

Sweat dripping from my forehead, I sat down and massaged my leg, which had ceased to be excruciating and was now merely aching. Eventually I returned to a fitful sleep, restless in the knowledge that just one wrong move would summon the charlie horse demons again.

tagged: night, sleep, cramp, muscle, calf, demon, pain

YouTube Tuesday: Summer cold remedy

From what I'm hearing the summer cold season has started in earnest. In my opinion, summer colds are the worst kind because not only do you have to put up with the coughing, congestion, runny nose, aches, pains and fevers, you have to deal with this during 105-degree 105 percent humidity days.

Luckily, I haven't contracted the summer cold yet, but it's really only a matter of time. As a public service to my coworkers and cotwitterers who are fighting this disease already, I'm sharing my recipe for my favorite remedy -- a little concoction I like to call NyquiFed.

All you do is take two hits of Sudafed (or your pseudoephedrine of choice) and chase it with a double shot Cherry NyQuil (the original stuff, not that worthless non-drowsy daytime shit).

Next, put on Just Dropped In by Kenny Rogers, sink back into your couch and enjoy the ride.



tagged: YouTube, Tuesday, summer, cold, NyQuil, Kenny Rogers, Sudfed, health

Can able

A few years back my favorite convenience store chain, QuikTrip, removed 12-ounce cans of soda from their coolers.

Oh sure, they still stocked the big 12 packs of 12-ounce cans, but you couldn't buy a single, cold 12-ounce Mountain Dew from the refrigerator case anymore. Coupled with that, they also removed the 12-ounce cups from their soda fountain.
So, if you wanted to buy a nice refreshing soda beverage, basically had to commit to drinking 22 ounces of carbonated sugar water to quench your thirst and spike your triglyceride levels.

Round about this same time, I noticed that the break rooms where I work removed virtually all of the 12-ounce soda options from the vending machines. You basically were limited to Coke or Diet Coke if you wanted a 12-ouncer.

So yeah, it sucked. I basically chalked it up to another conspiracy hatched by the soda-industrial complex designed to force us to buy more MellowYellow than we actually want. It's just another step in making Americans fatter and lazier and easier to manipulate when leading them to the slaughter.

Now fast-forward to a year or so ago when I started to see small cans of soda appear on supermarket shelves. Finally, I thought, some of my domestic sleeper operatives in key government regulatory agencies are getting something useful done (aside from the "substance abuse and promiscuity" of some of my agents. I tell ya, good help is hard to find these days).

Now I don't want to take all the credit for soft drink makers putting these more reasonably sized portions back on the shelves. I think it's important to give credit where it's due, and I'd like to encourage the bottlers to sell these smaller 7.5 ounce cans in more locations, including the vending machines in my office.

There are several good reasons why they should.
For one thing, most of us don't want to drink 20 ounces of soda at a time. If you're like me (and god help you if you are, you poor bastard), you typically leave about a third of the soda in a typical 20-ounce bottle unconsumed, only to throw it away when you get to the office the next morning.

This is just wasteful. Forget about the number of plastic bottles that are littering the landfills and creating a floating island of plastic out in the Pacific Ocean, do you know what all that acidic, carbonated sugar water can do to your office trash can when it spills in there? It's a gawdawful mess is what it is!



And then there's the whole nutritional side of things. Not only do we not want a whopping 20 ounces of soda, we shouldn't drink that much anyway. It's just not good for you.

Granted, we all have to drink soda because of the addictive additives used by the secret cabal of high-fructose corn syrup producers (of which Ted Turner is the reigning imperator, btw) to control the population. But it's a well known scientific FACT that we don't need more than about six ounces to maintain our minimum levels of mind-control substances. Anything beyond that and you're just adding weight around your middle. And nobody needs that. Am I right, people?

But there is one reason, above all others, why we need to keep these "mini" cans on store shelves. There is one benefit above all, one advantage beyond the health and environmental advantages, of buying these 7.5-ounce cans.

I love the way they make me feel like a giant when I'm holding one.

They're just so darned cute!


tagged: Coke, can, soda, size, food, waste, environmentalist

René and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war

Growing up, our neighbors -- I'll call them René and Georgette Magritte (to protect their anonymity) -- had a dog that was... well... it just wasn't quite right.

Oh, it was a nice enough dog. You could pet it. It would fetch you all kinds of stuff -- even stuff you didn't need or want.

But it had this funny quirk. If you waved your hand in a large circle, like you were drawing a pie on a big chalkboard, the crazy mutt would begin running around in circles chasing its tail. And it would just keep running around and around and around until it got dizzy had to lay down on the ground. It would lay there panting with these crazy bulging eyes like it was high on pot-laced Milkbones.

But then, after a 20 minute recovery period or so, you could make the dumb thing do it all again with the same wave or your hand. This went on for years.

The crazy canine never learned.

I thought of that crazy dog when so many people started celebrating another historic Obama win last weekend. Politicians waved their hands in the air and Americans went crazy running around in joy.

With the stroke of a pen, Obama yet again changed the game -- this time solving the health care problem for every last person in the nation.

Well, yet again, I have to remind you crazy dogs that nothing really is going to change.

Oh sure, there will be people who now will be forced to buy health insurance even if they don't want it.

And some people who do want health insurance will get it -- subsidized by the rest of us of course. I don't really have a problem with that per se -- I mean, no more of problem than I have with any of the other bajillion subsidies taxpayers pay for. Hell, at least in theory the subsidy doesn't go to a rich Goldman Sachs exec (in theory).

But all this really does is extend and strengthen the system we already had in place. A system whereby health insurance companies take monthly premiums protection money in exchange for the promise of taking care of you should you get sick or maimed.

Because the price of health care has been rising faster than Smiling Bob's jockey shorts, insurance company dons executives have raised the price of premiums and deductibles to keep their "profit margins" intact.

Luckily for them, they're about to get 30 million new customers. That should pad their profits nicely, even after all the kickbacks to Obama, Pelosi and their droogs.

So because legislators cautiously avoided taking any action to do anything about the costs of health care, which nine months ago everyone seemed to agree was the problem in the first place, we can expect more and more expensive health care, which in the end will lead to higher debt levels.

Yes, we have been told that there are provisions in the bill to pay for the additional costs through new fees and taxes. We've been told that the bill will decrease budget deficits. We've been told that costs will go down because government regulators will now have a better handle on insurance companies.

But then again, we've been told all these things before. And we chased our tails in excitement. The truth is, that dog just ain't right.

tagged: politics, health care, insurance, Obama, Pelosi, Enzyte Bob, Obamacare

Death of a blogsman

It's only natural that when a man reaches advanced age, he begins a more serious consideration of his own mortality.

In the case of XO, a person who basically has one foot in the grave already, that consideration made him reconsider his "end of life" plan. And it's a surprisingly good plan. For someone of XO's questionable mental state it shows some unexpected clarity of thought.. even something resembling logic, which is new for him.

But my BFF's mom started talking about how her sister was going to donate her body to science and how they would pay for the cremation and send your ashes back home...

... instead of paying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to a funeral home to host a maudlin weep-fest, all my survivors need to do is make a phone call.

So yeah, donate you body to science so med school students can cut you up and learn about surgery by removing all of your internal bits. Finally, XO will be contributing to society!

But -- not to throw a monkey wrench into the plan -- I'm not sure if XO has looked at the option of promession.

From what I can tell it's a pretty new thing, patent pending and all. But for people like XO, it may be just the scratch for that end-of-life itch. It has the added bonus of being "environmentally friendly" -- and let's face it, incinerating a corpse isn't exactly kind to Mother Nature, what with all of the ashes and soot, not to mention the amount of carbon it takes to produce enough energy to burn a body completely, believe me I know.

Essentially the promession process consists of freezing your corpse in liquid nitrogen, then shattering your frozen body, T-1000-style, with a sudden vibration.

Your shattered mortal remains are freeze-dried to remove any residual moisture, then any metals are removed (including those two titanium hips that XO received a couple of years ago).

Now, XO is nothing but inert organic material -- which is pretty much what he is now -- but when he's buried, this material is readily biodegradable. The nutrients are returned to the earth to be used as worm food, plant food, or even marijuana fertilizer.

Now that's what I call dust-to-dust.

Anyway, just wanted to put this option out there. It still seems overly complicated compared to my own plan, which is to just have someone toss my bloated corpse out of moving pickup into a ditch along a lonely county road somewhere in Northwest Kansas.

tagged: death, burial, cremation, promession, corpse, body, environmentalist

My international influence widens

Just a quick update on my diabolical Plan to Take Over the World:

In 2009 I made a series of moves whereby I placed some of my minions in the upper levels of key international governmental and quasi-governmental organizations. No need to get into too much detail. Suffice it to say that when the time comes, you'll know who they are.

But be that as it may, it's always good to run a few test scenarios to make sure your organization is functioning well. And I'm just going to let you in on a test I ran recently to illustrate my point.

You may recall back in 2009 there was a worldwide freakout about a nasty little virus we knew as Test Virus 1108 H1N1, or the Swine Flu. Now of course I'm not going to take direct responsibility for the production and release of this viral strain (at least not in a public forum like this, wink wink). But I will say that the presence of the Swine Flu gave me just the opportunity to test my moles in the international governmental organizations.

Last October, when I wrote a post about getting a flu shot, I included a clandestine message...

They started out a few years ago with the "Bird Flu" (later called "Avian Flu") that was killing people in Asia. Nobody was scared of it when it was just called "H5N1." But when the media got it's talons on "Bird Flu" -- well, there's a hook you can build some hysteria around.

This year it's the Swine Flu -- very catchy. Gets the media excited. Gets the citizenry in an uproar. Gets some much needed demand for the pharmaceutical industry right in the middle of a consumer recession.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. It's How to Survive a Recession 101: Create A Demand For A Product For Which You're The Only Provider.

And I'm happy to report that one of my operatives (codenamed "Wardog") in the European Parliament picked up on my message and has spearheaded an official inquiry to investigate the whole Swine Flu scam.

The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.

So there you go. Phase 2 of my Plan to Take Over the World is well underway as my operatives move to seize control of the World Health Organization and the Kansas City Missouri Parks Board.

tagged: Swine Flu, Europe, H1N1, Big Pharma, pharmaceutical, pandemic

Protection racket

I have to hand it to the Obama administration. They have really renewed the faith I have in our federal government.

Not that my faith was faltering in any way. Thanks to the Clinton and Bush administrations, I've had a very strong faith that our federal government can take on any bad situation and, through incompetent meddling and corrupt special interest influence, make it even worse.

My Obama loving friends told me more than a year ago that this administration was different. This time they would get it right, they're changing the political paradigm. But I never lost my faith. And now this administration ends the year with the worst first-year approval rating of any president ever.

That's due in part to the recent hot mess that is the so-called health care reform bill. It's pretty much universally reviled -- even by the most ardent Obama supporters -- as a special interest sellout. But some, even as they bemoan the terrible legislation, still want to give credit to the administration for doing some kind of reform.

But here's where I point out that putting the word "reform" in the title of the bill doesn't make it a reform bill, just as putting the word "Patriot" on a bill doesn't make it patriotic.

In fact, it's clear even to the most casual observer that rather than reform a broken system, this bill actually makes it more corrupt. And I'm not talking about the millions of kickbacks and earmarks some Senators are bringing home. Not a bad gig when you can get hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money for voting for terrible legislation. This is not an exaggeration.

Of course, the real sweetheart deal goes to the very insurance industry that is one of the main root causes of runaway health care prices in the first place. The "reform" bill requires EVERY PERSON to buy health care insurance -- the so called individual mandate.

So, almost overnight, the government is creating millions of new customers for an industry that is already raking in record profits. Is it a surprise that insurance corporation's stock prices spiked the day after the Senate attained bought a key vote on cloture?

Personally, I wonder how the individual insurance mandate is even legal. I mean, how can it even be constitutional for the government to order me to by something that I can't afford or don't want? What, are they going to fine me money that I don't have then throw me in jail if I don't pay it? Seize my house, car, digital TV converter box?

Is this the America we live in now?

Oh yeah, I forgot. I guess it is.

tagged: Obama, health care, insurance, legislation, reform, politics, corruption

Gravity check

So I'm cruising easily down the K12, the quadruple black diamond run at the exclusive ski resort where our family traditionally spends our Thanksgivings.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the snow was... well, sitting lightly on the mountain side. It was truly bucolic and I basked in the bucolicness as I passed through 20, 30, 40 miles per hour down the mountain.

I was basking all bucolic-like when suddenly I saw out of the corner of my eye a little white snow bunny dart out from behind a tree, right into the path of my slicing skis. It was only my expert skiing ability that saved the delicate rodent creature from certain decapitation, as I executed a triple-axel-reverse-front-gainer to avoid dealing the death blow.

But as bad luck would have it the tip of my ski lightly clipped an overhanging spruce limb, throwing my equilibrium off just enough that I landed slightly askew on my left foot.

The pain was instantaneous as all my weight combined with my downward and frontward momentum transferred and compressed on my left ankle. I heard a sound like the cracking of knuckles, and while I remained upright on my skis, I made the rest of the run down the mountain in severe pain.

Yeah. That sounds pretty good. Pretty heroic and not at all stupid like the actual true story.

You know, the actual true story where I decided not to wake up our six-month-old daughter, instead carrying her to the nursery to sleep. Then, since I was carrying her and unable to see where I was going, I don't realize when I get to the bottom step of the staircase that there is actually one more step to go.

Then I step out to walk down the hall, but there's no floor there and I end up tipping forward, landing on the side of my foot, having it fold under my ankle and hearing that tell-tale knuckle-cracking sound that (I find out three days later) is also the sound of foot bones fracturing.

Yeah, falling down the stairs is totally lame.

tagged: ski, story, K12, stairs, broken foot, fracture

What the healthcare

These days, opinions about healthcare in America are a lot like genital warts. Everybody's got one, and they're all ugly.

While I've pretty much stayed clear of the public debate, we've had some discussions on the subject in the emawkc household, including one heated argument where my Supermodel Wife's Supermodel Sister pulled a switchblade and threatened to perform a DIY tracheotomy.

I've watched some of the president's remarks in press conferences and talking heads shows. I tried to sit through the infamous address to congress, but I get too impatient with all of the standing ovations (when will politicians realize that if every ovation is a standing ovation, then standing ovations have no meaning).

So, yeah. I'm about as frustrated as anybody on this. There's plenty to be frustrated about.

After I gave up on Congress' Standing Ovation to the President, I decided to just go get the propaganda straight from the horse's website. So I hit up www.whitehouse.gov to see what the president's plan entails.

The answer? There is no plan.

Like pretty much all of Obama's campaign proposals, what he considers a plan is merely a list of goals. A set of preferred outcomes.

There's no actual plan. This is your plan? This? Hell, Wile E. Coyote had better plans for how to catch the Road Runner!

Anyway, it's all beside the point because 95 percent of the national discussion about healthcare has been about how we can get everybody covered by insurance. So right there we've already gone off track.

Insurance coverage isn't the root problem in healthcare. Yes, it is a problem. But it's not the problem that needs to be solved.

The problem we need to solve is prices.

The president has given passing attention to the problem of prices, but it's always been in the context of "eventually bringing down the price of healthcare" -- like it's a long-term goal that will happen someday if we let the government take care of everything.

In my view, it's the one thing that we can do something about relatively quickly that will have an impact. When you get a medical bill that charges $90 bucks for a 70-cent IV, or $129 for a mucous recovery system (that is, a box of Kleenex) you know it's bullshit.

These unreasonable and unrealistic prices are why people need insurance in the first place.

Look, an MRI doesn't cost $5,000. Hell, it doesn't even cost $400. In Japan, you can get an MRI for about a hundred bucks.

So fix the issue of prices, make them more in line with costs, and you eliminate a big chunk of the need for insurance because most people will be able to pay most of their bills without help from the government.

Yeah, we won't need the government to take our money from us in order to take care of us...

... which means less for the government to do, which means less control of the citizenry at large which is why this entire post has been a complete waste.

tagged: Iran, Europe, nuclear, Wall Street Journal, EU, Bush, environmentalist

Go to health care

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about (thanks for bird dogging this, jdoublep).

It's clear that to make a mostly free-market plan work, those with chronic illnesses need to be protected. Fortunately, the template is already in place. About 30 states, usually those without requirements for community rating or guaranteed issue, have high-risk pools that automatically enroll people with pre-existing conditions. Their premiums generally can't exceed 150% of the average plan within the state, even though the patients may actually cost far more. The full costs of the high-risk pools are covered from state income- and sales-tax revenues.

It seems like so much of the so-called discussion on this issue (and pretty much any issue of public policy these days) is of the either or nature. Either you're in favor of the government completely taking over health care and providing everything to everybody, or you think health care is fine the way it is and that government should leave the situation unchanged because socialism is teh suck.

It's rare to have people take a look at the entire scope of the problem, think outside of the party lines, and propose options other than the two extremes. And even though health care reform this year is dead, hopefully we'll start to see more of this kind of thinking.

tagged: health care, reform, Obama, Shawn Tully, partisanship, politics, policy

Swine flu over the cuckoo's nest

These days, with all of the modern touchy-feely parenting techniques that focus on "feelings" and "self-esteem" and "proper dental hygiene," one very effective motivational device gets woefully overlooked.

Of course I'm talking about fear.

Fear is a great motivator when used sparingly (if you over use it, your kid gets desensitized and then it stops working). Anyway, it occurred to me that this recent swine flu mania was a good opportunity to get in some good parenting moments.

So when I brought The Kid home from kindergarten the other day, I took her immediately to the kitchen sink.

"Okay, the first thing we need to do is wash our hands. It's more important than ever to wash our hands a lot these days," I said.

Of course I received the expected and inevitable answer in the form of a question.

"Why," The Kid asked.

"Well, there's a really bad flu going around," I explained. "It's so serious that people have died."

Ah yes. The fear of death. That should get her attention. But first things first.

"A 'foo'? What's a 'foo'?"

"Not a foo," I explained. "A flu. It's a virus that can get into your body and make you sick. It's kind of like a germ."

"Oh. And people die from it?"

"Yes. They have had people die from it. But as long as you was your hands a lot and make lots of suds, you should be okay."

For the next few minutes we washed out hands together. I told her how important it is to use warm water, make lots of suds with the soap and wash the front and back of you hands, between your fingers and even up around your wrist.

The next day on the way to school, NPR conveniently played the latest tragic news about the flu, and I conveniently turned up the volume for The Kid to conveniently hear. When I picked her up from school that afternoon, I asked if she washed her hands a lot during the day.

"I tried, but the soap here doesn't make suds very well," she said. "Also, my friend Carly doesn't care if she dies."

"What?"

"She didn't believe me when I told her she had to wash her hands so she doesn't die from the flu."

tagged: family, parenting, swine flu, health

Ticking away

Returning to my my ancestral home, as we did last weekend for an Easter McBash, is always inspiring. I always seem to come away with a good idea or two.

That was the case this time as well. And as usual, one of the best ideas was inspired by the smallest of creatures.

I've mentioned the prevalence of those small, blood-sucking arachnids, ticks, in previous posts. Well, since it's now spring, they were out in force again in the woods along the river near my parents' house.

Both my dad and my Supermodel Wife (among others) found themselves picking the crawling little critters off their skins. But luckily I escaped the weekend bloodletting unscathed, as did our Jack Russel Terrier.

It was that last bit about the dog that led me to my next million dollar idea.

You see, our dog gets a monthly pill to protect him against fleas and ticks. I'm not sure what kind of chemistry is involved to make it work, for all I know there's some kind of magic pixie dust that wards off sanguivorous creepies.

That's not really the point. The point is, if they can make this kind of pill for dogs, why not make the same kind of pill for people?

I mean people and dogs share a similar physiology, right? Sure, there are obvious differences (dogs have the four legs, much more hair and the ability and irresistible desire to eat poop), but both are warm blooded mammals. Both can catch a ball, chase the mailman, and roll over and play dead.

Heck, our vet has even recommended giving our dog small doses of Pepcid for his occasional discomfort caused by a sour stomach. And if a dog can take human medicine, why can't people take the magic pill to repel ticks (and heck, fleas too)?

So if you're an aspiring chemist/pharmacists who's tired of the meth production game, or some kind or R&D guy at Bayer or some other pharma company, give me a call and we can talk about you buying my idea. Because as of this moment I hereby claim a copyright on Tixaqyll* and any other drug that performs as described.

*As always, consult your physician to see if Tixaqyll is right for you. May cause daytime drowsiness and sensitivity to sunlight and garlic.

tagged: tick, health, sanguivorous, Bayer, Pepcid, medicine

No man is an island

I first met George about two years ago.

It was a week or two after we moved into our house. I was in the back yard trying to do something about years of overgrowth and neglect by the home's previous owners. George was in his backyard, raking his tidy, well-kept grass.

We met at the chain-link fence and introduced ourselves. George and his wife are the original owners of the house next door to ours. They're retired and split time between Overland Park and their house "down at the Lake" of the Ozarks.

I saw him frequently outside, tending to his yard and house. When we had our siding replaced, he asked for a couple dozen of the cedar shingles we removed. He used them to patch holes wood peckers had made in the cedar siding of his house.

We always took time to greet each other and spend a few minutes talking. He'd ask after our family. He made friends my parents and in-laws.

A guy couldn't ask for a better neighbor.

I became a little concerned when I stopped seeing him so much. The lat time I saw him was in September or so. We were talking about various home repairs when he mentioned, with a smile and a chuckle, that "I just don't seem to be getting around as easily as I used to."

I told him in parting to take it easy and have some red wine, then went on with my mowing or raking or whatever I was doing at the time.

Then October and November passed. December, January and February. I knew he and his wife liked to spend time at their lake house. They were also prone to flying south in the colder months, wintering in a condo in Florida or taking a Caribbean cruise.

Finally, this weekend George was out in the back yard again. I was glad to seem my friend again, but I almost wished I hadn't.

George had lost about 50 pounds since I'd last seem him. He moved slowly and his voice, low and smooth six months ago, had become raspy, like there wasn't enough breath behind it.

George was polite as ever, but he did say it hasn't been a good winter. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October and has been on chemotherapy for six months.

The clothes he wore as a healthy, paunchy 195-pound retiree look like they're going to fall off of the 50-pound lighter version of him.

I awkwardly gave encouragement and inquired as to his prognosis. He said the doctors have told him you never really get rid of pancreatic cancer -- that you can hope for another year or maybe two.

True to his from, he was positive and upbeat. He said he would enjoy each day as much as he could. He is determined not to give anything up.

But even though it is apparent that he is still the same strong and healthy person in many of the ways that really count, I can't help but feel worried and sad for my friend.

tagged: pancreatic cancer, health, neighbor

Dentally unstable

So I'm rushing around at the office at about a quarter past two yesterday afternoon.

I have a 3 p.m. dentist appointment and I know it will take at least 30 minutes to drive, find a parking place and run up a long flight of stairs to the office. On top of that, I have a conference call that I can't miss from 2-3 p.m. I know I'm cutting the timing close on this.

I print out the spreadsheet for the meeting, dial in to the conference on my cell phone and begin shutting down my computer. I have to be in my car in 15 minutes if I'm going to make my appointment.

Twenty minutes later I'm on the road, hands-free phone on mute, spreadsheet in one hand and steering wheel in the other. Yes, I've become that guy. On a meeting, driving down the highway, referring to a lines on a spreadsheet that are too small to read and speeding to try to get to my appointment.

Luckily, I don't kill my self or anyone else in an auto accident. I find a parking place right in front of the door to the dentist's office and run up the stairs with enough time to grab a quick sip from the drinking fountain and still arrive three minutes early.

So I had a frantic trip to the office. Keep that in mind for a minute or two.

I sit down in the exam chair and the dental hygienist pulls out a blood pressure cuff. Evidently in the six months since my last cleaning, this office has decided that blood pressure checks are a vital part of dental hygiene. Is this new? Does your dentist do this? I can't decide if my dentist is on the cutting edge of dental care, or just pretending to be a real doctor.

Anyway, the blood pressure reading comes in slightly elevated. I chalk it up to the craziness of the last hour or so, not to mention a bit of anxiety about being at the dentist in the first place. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have any kind of pathological fear of the dentist. But come on, does anybody really look forward to having their gums probed with sharpened steel implements? Really?

As a quick aside here, let me just pause to reiterate my incredulity that here we are, living in the future, where modern medicine is performing miracles like giving site to the blind and allowing men to have babies, yet dentists are using technology that is little changed since medieval times. Come on dentists! Where are the fricken' lasers to clean my teeth!

Anywho, Jabby McStabyourgums commences the teeth cleaning, noting she'll just take another blood pressure reading after the cleaning, when I've had a chance to relax. As if 10 minutes of having stainless steel hooks scraped across my teeth and under my gums is the equivalent of smoking a joint while getting deep tissue massage.

The exam/cleaning is finished. I have no cavities (of course) and I get a nice little parting gift of a new toothbrush, floss and toothpaste (travel size, the cheapskates) as I get up. McStabyourgums forgets to recheck my blood pressure, and I don't remind her.

I think it' s a pretty safe bet that it was higher.

tagged: dentist, gums, blood pressure, medieval, torture