Listen to Dr. Wes Ely on the show Talk Radio Europe as he talks about the devastating consequences of severe disease that results in admission to critical care units, specifically in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The title of the presentation is “Understanding the Long Shadow of COVID and ICU Care.”
This song is by Iowa’s own Kevin Burt. I heard it on the KCCK Big Mo Blues Show. I don’t know anything about music, but “Smack Dab in the Middle strikes me as being about dichotomies, which can be reduced to the old saying, being between a rock and a hard place or being neither fish nor fowl.
But it can be about not wanting to make a choice, or feeling like both sides of a person or issue are important.
I think the lyric “went down to the crossroads” in the lyrics might be an allusion to Robert Johnson, who went to the crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his guitar playing gift.
Give a listen to the Rounding@Iowa presentation “Update on Covid-19 Bivalent Vaccine Boosters. While these presentations are mainly directed to health care providers, they are very helpful for members of the community at large.
Yesterday was the one of those days where everything seemed to happen for a reason. If we had arrived at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area a few minutes too early or too late, we would not have seen the mesmerizing rise and fall of the shore birds on Sand Lake.
I thought of the word “murmuration,” which refers to starlings flying in tight, swirling patterns. I checked the dictionary and discovered that the word “murmuration” refers to the murmuring sound similar to low-pitched noises starlings make as they fly in flocks, swirling this way and that, presumably to avoid predatory birds.
This led to my wondering if starlings were the only birds that form a murmuration.
I wonder of shore birds also do it because we saw them flying in a sort of swirling pattern when there were no visible predators.
We might have missed the light shining just right on a majestic American Sycamore in all its glory, festooned like a Christmas tree with its seed balls hanging from almost every limb. In fact, some people do make Christmas tree ornaments out of them.
We might also have missed the squirrel munching on his lunch in a tree. It was not eating American Sycamore seed balls, probably only because it was not sitting in an American Sycamore tree.
We have walked the Terry Trueblood trail often, in every season, including autumn. We’ve never seen the seed balls before.
And we might have also missed the Subaru Outback with Wisconsin license plates in the parking lot. It was covered with decals. And later I discovered that the word “decal” is short for “decalcomania,” which is exactly how I would describe how the car came to be so heavily decorated—from an episode of decal-co-mania.
A lot happened yesterday which seemed somehow just right. Some people see so-called “glitches in the matrix,” which are events that seem out of place and ill-timed, leading to the idea we’re living in a poorly run computer simulation.
What about the times we see and feel everything occurring so smoothly that we’re surprised by the flow? Maybe we don’t call attention to it so as to avoid interrupting the miracle.
As of November 7, 2022 it has been 22 days since I purchased the Learn to Juggle kit from Barnes and Noble. So far, my learning experience reminds me of a story by Mark Twain, “Taming the Bicycle,” which was published posthumously—obviously after he succumbed from his injuries in the attempt to ride the high-wheeled bicycle in the early 1880s.
Just kidding of course, about his death from the bicycle riding adventure. He did mention using about a barrel of something called Pond’s Extract, which was a liniment for scrapes and other wounds.
Twain was writing about learning something new—a thing all of us are called on to do many times in our lives. He didn’t try to learn to ride the bicycle until he was over 50 years old.
I didn’t try to learn how to juggle until was well past my mid-sixties. How do you account for decisions to embark on new hobbies, adventures, and other nonsense at an age when most people would be content vegetating on the porch or in front of the TV?
I just answered the question, in case you didn’t notice.
Anyway, I am making some progress as juggling, although it’s uneven. It’s hard to believe, but sometimes I think I juggle better as I wander around. I think it might be because there is a natural tendency to throw the balls away from you. That way, I look more adept simply because I’m making a frequently observed beginner’s mistake. But I seem to be steadier even when I walk backward a few paces.
When I stand firmly in one place and attempt to juggle, I can often barely make it past half a dozen throws. Wandering a little, I have made thirty throws.
But then, randomly, the opposite occurs and the theory fails.
Counting the number of each throw seems to help—occasionally. I also notice that unscheduled, short practice episodes for 10 minutes or less work better than struggling along for a half hour or so at set times.
I don’t dread the practice sessions; in fact, I have a sort of itch to juggle at various times during the day. Sometimes I believe I do it to help me collect my thoughts, to keep my hands occupied, or just to pass the time.
I remember learning to ride the bicycle for the first time when I was a kid. I fell down a lot, just like Twain did—until I got the hang of it. Maybe juggling will turn out to be the same.
But I won’t need Pond’s Extract for juggling mistakes—as long as I don’t try juggling while climbing or descending stairs.
Well, it was cold rousting out of bed into the freezing temperatures to get an eyeful of the total lunar eclipse, otherwise known as a blood moon.
Sena still asks me questions about the whole event, including “And why can’t we see Earth?” She told me I could share that.
I was so keyed up about it I didn’t get hardly a wink of sleep. I wasn’t planning to see the whole thing, but since I was awake most of the night anyway, I got up at 2:00 AM and set up cameras out on the deck.
It was a spectacular view (although I admit you can hardly tell that from my pictures). Like I did for the last blood moon in May this year, I took shots with both my Nikon D3400 and Canon Powershot SX610 HS. I tried both on the tripod. I barely know anything about cameras. I just press the shutter button for the most part and hope for the best.
There were a lot of planes out last night in the general vicinity of the moon. I suspect the pilots were checking out the eclipse. I didn’t see any UFOs, but a couple of deer (or a huge buck, it was hard to see because it was so dark) crossed our yard.
I thought it was cold in May, but this morning I had to drag out my winter coat, hat, gloves, and considered building a fire on the deck, but I decided against it.
This event was special for a different reason. I took my first ever selfies with my 7-year-old smartphone. There’s a first time for everything, including tin foil hats.
You should protect yourself with a tin foil hat when you’re watching the sky. You never know what the extraterrestrials are up to, especially during a total lunar eclipse.
Seeing the stars and planets sometimes makes me want to juggle, an urge against which tin foil hats are ineffective.
I took my very first selfie ever with my smartphone, which I’ve had for about 7 years. The occasion is the 2nd total lunar eclipse blood moon I’ve ever seen, which started at about 2:00 AM this morning.
It was so cold outside I had to wear a sweater and my winter coat with hat and gloves. I could see my breath for crying out loud. Temperatures were in the mid-30s out there but the wind made it feel even colder, close to freezing.
I hope my photos turn out. If they don’t, I’m going to be very disappointed.
I just found out this morning that there’s a total lunar eclipse that will be visible starting tomorrow morning. We saw the one in May this year, and we’re excited—about getting up early in the morning around 4:00 AM.
Although you don’t need to wear special eye protection for a lunar eclipse, you will need to get your tin foil hats on. This is to protect you from the extraterrestrials who will be looking for hapless earthlings who are distracted by the eclipse, and hypnotize them into cooking Thanksgiving turkey and dressing for them.
Since the event will be in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, we plan on getting up early to try to get some pictures. Good luck!
I have been diligently been working on my juggling form—and of course it’s no better. But I’m having a lot of fun and even learning a few juggling tricks. Some of them are harder to do than others.
I’ve been juggling different objects, like socks and Blobs. The Blob antennae tend to get lodged between my fingers. I can sort of juggle Christmas tree balls. Christmas always comes early at our house. Sena always has a tree or two to put up and decorate.
There’s a tree up in the sun room and one in the lower level, where I juggled Christmas tree balls. Those are the ones we can do without, just in case I break them.
The tricks are not that hard and they won’t break the internet, except for one, maybe.
I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.
By now, you’ve probably read the digital news article describing how we’re all going to evolve into beings who resemble extraterrestrials (ETs) because of our preoccupation with digital technology.
The authors describe us as eventually developing another eyelid that’ll protect us from the blue light emanating from our gadgets. Our hands will become claw-like and permanently flexed because of the way we’re always gripping our smartphones.
You’ll also develop a third hand that protrudes from your butt so you can catch your cell phone as it slips out of the back pocket of your skinny jeans. Come to think of it, that’ll also give rise to a weird new meaning for the term “butt dialing.”
Of course, the article is a criticism of our preoccupation with our gadgets, but it’s still fascinating as speculation about how creatures, including humans, evolve in response to the pressures in our environment.
This kind of thing makes me wonder whatever happened to Neanderthal. The males were huge, especially their arms, which came from frequent arm wrestling with Sasquatch for the last shred of beef jerky. Neanderthal had a very prominent brow which developed to keep snow and pterodactyl droppings out of his eyes.
And this reminds me of the discovery of the fossil of a giant creature on the Greek island of Crete in 2003 (I think). The skull had a huge nasal opening in the center of the skull. That was probably for a trunk, as in elephant trunk. But paleontologists thought it might have been the explanation for why ancient Greeks came up with stories about the terrifying one-eyed cyclops.
And what about that carp with a human-like face on the top of its head? I saw that one a week ago on the show The Proof is Out There. I thought sure Michael Primeau, the forensic video analyst on the show, would dryly dismiss it (“This video is clearly faked.”). Instead, the other experts thought it was natural. Tony summarized it as an example of the “plastic” evolution, by which I think he meant phenotypic or evolutionary plasticity. These are changes in a creature’s appearance, morphology, or physiology in response to changes in its environment. Regarding the carp, one expert opined that the face would confuse its main predator, the eel, by confusing it.
I still don’t get that one. How would the carp species even begin the evolutionary process? Does the carp just think, “Huh, I think that eel might get confused if I had a face like a human”? I get it that the changes occur at the genetic level, but how exactly does it get started?
Could you google the answer? I couldn’t find anything specific, like x plus y equals human-like face on a fish that many humans would not care to eat.
And how about writing? I wrote this blog post longhand using pen and paper, something I gave up doing years ago but which I am sort of rediscovering gradually. I had an old typewriter for a while, which gave way to something called a word processor, which was a stand-alone device made writing and editing text, and eventually I got a computer—which really messed things up.
The thing is, I can remember getting something called writer’s cramp. If you remember that, then you probably recall how painful it was. Back then, did anyone ever wonder whether that would lead to the evolution of a claw like hand?
Could evolution have consequences pertinent to people who are always looking up at the sky looking for UFOs? Some of them, for some unexplained reason, never seem to have a smartphone with them. Anyway, could their eyes migrate, carp-like, to the top of their foreheads to counter neck strain? And could this lead to the evolution of a third eye in the center of the forehead? It would prevent falling into manholes. There are other consequences from evolving into a cyclops.
We would be adept at forging thunderbolts. We would be very talented at cultivating vineyards and herding sheep and goats. But our tempers would still be pretty bad, even worse. We would abandon courts of law and ignore justice. We would be violent giants, feasting on the flesh of ordinary humans. All this because we kept searching the sky, hoping to see UFOs and see ETs, which we would eventually resemble anyway because of our preoccupation with our devices.
I have a pretty good supply of pens and paper.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 