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Dear god,
Hope you got the letter,
And I pray you can make it better down here.
I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer,
But all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet,
cause they don't get enough to eat

From god,
I can't believe in you.

Dear god,
Sorry to disturb you,
But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
cause they can't make opinions meet,
About god,
I can't believe in you.

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too?!

Dear god,
Don't know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
As crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it aint and so do you,
Dear god,
I can't believe in,
I don't believe in,

I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You're always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'll perceive,
That my heart's here upon my sleeve.
If there's one thing I don't believe in...

Its you,
Dear god.

"Dear God" Music and lyrics by XTC

Good job

Congratulations, a pat on the back, and this "Laurel and Hardy" handshake to my friends Carissa Gump (hey Pooky!) and Natalie Woolfolk (and everyone else on the US Olympic Weightlifting team) for a job well done in Beijing. If you (and Zack) make the team in 2012 then I'll definitely make the trip to London.

Another "good job" to whomever made this vid. Found it on Fark.com.

Picanha and Fraldinha

Last night I went to Em Chamas for a nice birthday dinner. Delicious. Incredible. Un-fucking-believable. I've been one time before (last summer after I passed state boards) and have been dreaming about it ever since. If you like grilled meats then you'll like Em Chamas (unless you're some weird pinko commie vegetarian). Hell, even my non-adventerous brother-in-law liked it.
Anyway, the basic concept is you pay one price ($30) for a gourmet all you can eat appetizer/salad bar and as much grilled meat as you can eat--beef, lamb, turkey, pork, sausage, salmon, chicken. All the meat is served to you at the table, sliced right off the skewer and onto your plate.



Random grumblings.
Just me, but I think the Olympics lost a little something when they added:
Basketball
Baseball/Softball
Ping-Pong
Badmitton
Horseback Riding (unless they give the medals to the horse)
2 kinds of Volleyball (they can keep womens sand V-ball though)

Oh yes, FYI
Picanha
Fraldinha

Ouch!

Ouch.
Yes, it's true. I had some serious chigger bites on my under carriage last week. Bad enough that I got slightly worried when the lymph nodes in my groin swelled up and hurt just to touch.

Olympics.
I love the Olympics. Have ever since I was a kid--the pageantry, the pomp, the back stories that tug at your heart strings. I believe that sport can, and many times does, transcend politics. That being said, I kinda wished the entire world had let the Chinese spend all that time and effort and money building all that infra-structure and then everyone had boycotted. Then again, I watched the opening ceremony last night and they were awesome. On the other other hand, to put it bluntly, China is an economic, cultural, and population juggernaut.

More ouch!
I was at the gym earlier today and spotted some young guy doing a lift incorrectly so I went over to help with some friendly free advice. Unfortunately, he was a dumb athlete and failed to let go of the bar when it started to come down. The bar was overhead, he held onto it as it came down in front of him, and both his hands got pinched between the bar ( total weight ~60kgs) and the bench. First I thought he might come out okay, then I looked at his hand. His left thumb had a good two inch long gash that went down to the bone. I quickly took my towel and squeezed it onto the wound. I walked him over the a clear area and had him lay down. A cursory glance at his other hand showed a missing finger nail. All in all not too bad. I grabbed another towel and told him to make a fist with that hand to put pressure on that finger tip. After I bandaged up his thumb with the gym's first aid kit I took another look at the finger. When I peeled back the towel the little flap of skin holding on the nail came off in the towel. The sight I beheld will haunt me for the next few hours. It looked like the tip of his finger had been chewed off by some rat. I could see the ragged edge of what was once the tip of his finger and a little tip of bone poking through the raw meat. Whew! I wrapped it up quick with some gauze 4x4s and cotton wrap.
Last I saw him he was headed to the nearest ER.

I did something similar several years back (cause all athletes are dumb sometimes) but I managed to luck out. Long story short I dropped a 140kg barbell on my knee when I missed a jerk at a local weightlifting competition. Got away with just a bruise but could have very easily sheared off my patellar tendon. Live and learn I guess.

Playing Catch-up

Jeebus, I suck a blogging. Anyway...

Beer and Batman.

Batman.
I went and saw the new Batman on opening night. Loved it. Now, some people are talking "Oscar" for our dearly departed Heath but, in my humble opinion it wasn't that good. Don't get me wrong, he was great as "The Joker" and played it to the hilt but, I think all this speculation is 'cause went and got himself dead.

Beer.
Does this mean Budweiser is an import and now I can drink it? Naaah. Drinking Budweiser is like having sex in a canoe--it's fucking close to water. (Ba-dump Ching) I don't really like Bud but, I feel for the employees and the city of STL. I mean ultimately it was a dick move on the part of A. Busch to make a little more money by selling off some stock. Because we all know you can't make it in the good ol' US of A on only 7 figures a year. He sold off enough stock so that the family was no longer the controlling interest in the company and the tricky dicky Dutch company UniBev went and bought it. Whatever. I don't like Bud and I rarely drink it but, as a homebrewer I do have to give the brewers props for turning out millions of bottles of beer that all taste exactly the same. That's some serious quality control.


Beer and Ambien.
Not so juicy a story. After working the night shift for about 2 and 1/2 years I made the switch to days when I moved to the ER. Well..kind of "days," I work the split shift from 11AM to 11PM. Anyway, knowing that even when I'm tired I rarely fall asleep before 6 or 7 in the morning I got a Rx for some Ambien. Here's how it went down. I worked Sat. night from 7PM to 7AM. Got home Sunday morning and forced myself to stay awake until 11. Went to sleep at 11AM and got up at 3PM. Stayed awake the rest of the evening. Had a few beers, watched some TV then popped an Ambien at 11PM. Slept from midnight 'till 4AM then sat bolt upright like I had just drank a Venti double shot. I then watched infomercials until time to go to work at 11AM on Monday. What a crock of shit. Ambien is the suxors.

Catharsis

This past weekend I was appalled.

A fellow nurse treated a patient with such disrespect and with such apathy as to border on contempt. The tone of voice, the attitude, the rolling of the eyes, the fake exasperated sigh: I don't think the RN touched him all night, not even with a stethoscope. Hell, I had to go over and put his leg back in bed after it had become lodged between the mattress and the metal side rail.

After a brief perusal of this patient's chart, the only pertinent medical history I could find was Parkinson's Disease.

I began to wonder, why even become a nurse if you, seemingly, hate your patients? Then, fighting back tears, I began to wonder what if my dad had to go to the ER? What if my dad had to go to this same ER? What if he had this particular RN? Would he be treated the same?

A few days ago, just before leaving for work, I found out my dad has Parkinson's. Looking back, it started a year ago with an occasional twitch in the right hand and progressing over a few months to a shaking in the right arm. In the past month he has progressed to a rhythmic spasm on the entire right side of his body in what I can only assume is the swan song of his motor neurons.

Why him?
A devoted family man who loved and provided for his family
Deployed overseas multiple times
Served his country in two wars
Attends church regularly
Ministers to families with loved ones serving in Iraq
The list goes on....

If you're not already an agnostic or an atheist it's shit like this that leads you to it.

So tonight I'm off work and we're getting together as a family--my sister doesn't know yet.
H.C., I hope you'll understand if I can't make it to the shindig. Perhaps another time.

Thank You Continental Congress...

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
--The Declaration of Independence

..if only we had such courage today.