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The Park
It’s balmy for December. Sena and I went for a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail and ran into our neighbors doing the same thing! Seabirds were diving headlong into the lake. We’ve never seen them do that. Maybe they were fishing for minnows. About a week ago we saw a hawk. It might have…
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Follow the Trail of the Woolly Bear Tale
Sena and I went for a walk on the Clear Creek Trail today. It’s been about a year and a half since we last saw the place. A few things have changed, but one thing has not. You can nearly always find a woolly bear caterpillar somewhere along the trail, especially in the fall. I…
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What You See is Not Always What You Get
A couple of days ago I thought of Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon, the one with the toggle switch in a passenger airplane cabin seat with the message “Wings Stay On; Wings Fall Off.” I googled it just for fun and found that it spawned a lot of web articles obviously trying to reassure the…
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Random Thoughts on the Iowa vs Wisconsin Football Game Today
OK, I know it’s in the books. Wisconsin won the football game with Iowa today, 27 to 7. Anybody can have a bad day. Iowa quarterback, Spencer Petras scored the only touchdown for Iowa. We hope the best for Wisconsin player Clay Cundiff, who had to be taken off the field in an ambulance after…
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Moderna Booster Jab Today and Mindful Zombies
I got my Moderna Covid-19 booster jab this morning. That was quick. A guy (probably about my age, I’m not sure) waiting for his booster behind me chuckled and asked, “Did she even let you sit down for it?” I was in and out that fast. It’s the same as the primary series, only half-dose.…
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Congratulations to 2021 UI Physicians Clinical Awards Winners
I was so happy to see the winners of the 2021 University of Iowa Physicians Clinical Awards winners. I have a special bias for a couple of them because I worked with them for years in my capacity as psychiatric consultant in the general hospital prior to my retirement in June of 2020. Dr. Kevin…
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Can Cribbage Cultivate Congeniality?
Sena and I have been playing cribbage since late 2019. It’s a two-hander card game played on a board with pegs for keeping score. It’s been around for about 400 years and some have asked whether it’s a dying game, played mainly by codgers in retirement homes. The question is whether it can promote positive…
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Stretching Our Legs on the Terry Trueblood Trail
We got out on the Terry Trueblood Trail today to stretch our legs, feel the breeze, and free our minds of the daily news, which is usually bad. It’s nice to just listen to the wind and the birds on the lake. We see something interesting every time we walk the trail. Caterpillars were pretty…
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Waiting for Another Jab
I’m still waiting for my Moderna booster, which has to be blessed by the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Every time I check the schedule for their next meeting on October 20, 21, I still see a draft agenda. The CDC still does not recommend heterologous boosting, although last week the FDA advisory…
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Music Beat
We listen to the Music Choice Channel almost every night on our TV. I know that must sound odd, listening to a music channel on television. What makes it more interesting are the biographical sketches. The Light Classical Channel bios occasionally have typos and word usage oddities as well as eyebrow raising facts: Mozart’s full…
Go Retire Psychiatrist 