Go Retire Psychiatrist

Attack of the Killer Gnats!

A couple of days ago we made our usual spring trip out to the Terry Trueblood trail. The phlox and grasses waved in the breeze and we saw quite a few birds.

There was also a swarm of killer midges or gnats that attacked us. They ambushed us when we got close to the trees on the western side of the trail.

We couldn’t really see them so much as feel them dive-bombing our eyes and ears, marching through our hair and looking for blood vessels.

What did we expect? We were walking around Sand Lake close to the trees and that’s where the gnats are. I couldn’t hold a camera still long enough to film anything because I was too busy flailing at the bug swarm. Swatting at gnats is a tricky business if you wear eyeglasses—you’re liable to slap them off your head on to the cement trail. I’ve done that.

We retreated in abject defeat in full rout away from the trees and were ready to surrender, head back to the car and leave. But the further away we fled, the gnats dissipated. We took a new direction, the opposite of the one we usually take around the trail.

This led to an adventure that we might not have otherwise had. We would not have encountered the family of killdeer with their stilt-legged babies crisscrossing the parking lot and other wonders. It reminded me of the Out of the Woods song (“Optimistic Voices”) in The Wizard of Oz:

You’re out of the woods

You’re out of the dark

Away from the flies

Step into the sun

Escaping the gnats dive-bombing your eyes

Keep straight ahead for the least buggiest place

Off your face the crap from swarming flies

Hold onto to your breath

Hold onto your nose

Hold onto your ears

Stop breathing in gnats and run like crazy…

And then the action picked up along the less wooded section of the trail. People were fishing along the lake’s edge, although I don’t understand how they tolerated the bugs unless they bathed in Deet before arriving.

We never got so many video clips; in fact, we ran the camera battery nearly empty. If we hadn’t taken a different path, we’d have missed the show.

The first picture I took was something Sena thought was interesting far out on Sand Lake. I thought it was a rock, but after we got home and looked at the clip closely, it was a group of three turtles jostling for room on top of a small rock. They could have been fighting or mating; it was hard to tell. There’s a moral in there somewhere.

I think some birds like orioles and redwing blackbirds like the sensation of being blown back in the wind while they perch on slender tree branches. They don’t get motion sickness.

There were several birds on a utility wire which were difficult to identify because of the angle of the sun. It would probably remind some of Leonard Cohen’s song “Bird on The Wire.”

One brief highlight was the aerial “dogfight” between two male goldfinches, probably about territory or females. They were little more than a yellow blur on video whaling away on each other in the air.

The comedy act of the day was the killdeer family farting around the parking lot, crossing and recrossing the streets. We made video of it that you can see in a different post.

The tree swallows were doing their usual aerial acrobat routines and there were probably babies in the nest boxes. A brilliant tree swallow appeared. I’m pretty sure it was a male because of the beautiful blue-green feathers. I think I caught a clip of a female as well. The color of the feathers were more muted.

They were probably gobbling up the killer gnats.

Do We See Each Other?

I know that what I’m writing here this evening is going to sound foolishly sentimental and maybe even a little spooky, but I was struck by this weird experience I had tonight. It was just a little odd and too fortuitous. I’m not going to talk at any length about the politics of it, just the strangeness.

We have these two books by Ray Bradbury, and when I was a kid, I loved his science fiction stories. I read many of them, but never like the one I read tonight.

The way this started was I was looking for something to do. I thought about watching old reruns of The Red Green Show on YouTube, which always struck me as funny when I watched them long ago. I still do, but couldn’t get into it tonight.

I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels which, as always, were reruns. I was not even interested in the X-Files reruns and I’m a fan. And I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing any more in-your-face commercials about total body deodorant.

So, I picked up the hefty paperback of a big collection of a hundred of Ray Bradbury’s short stories, entitled oddly enough, “Bradbury Stories.” I just opened up the book with no particular story in mind and it fell open right to one I’d never read before, “I See you Never.”

It’s all of 3 pages long and it’s about a Mexican immigrant named Mr. Ramirez. He’s been brought by the police to the front door of the rooming house where he’s been living on a temporary visa, which has been revoked. He’s just there to say goodbye to his landlady. He’s being deported and has this sad conversation with her on the doorstep. He just keeps telling her in broken English, “I see you never.” The landlady, Mrs. O’Brian (no accident she has an Irish name, of course) just says repeatedly that he’s been a good tenant and that she’s sorry. Then he leaves with the police. She goes back inside and can’t finish her dinner with her family and realizes she’ll never see Mr. Ramirez again.

There’s a much better summary and analysis than mine written by a professional reviewer. This story was published back in 1947 and is set in the historical context of post WWII America.

I hate politics, and I’m not going to say anything specific about how this little story struck me with its irony given what’s going on this country right now. I was just looking for a little science fiction distraction and instead got irony. I didn’t go looking for this and I’ll be brutally frank—I actively avoid political news and I hate like hell to get reminded of it every day. All I did was open a damn book. I wish I had never seen this story.

I guess maybe that’s what I get for my avoidant approach to certain things. How’s that for a Mental Health Awareness month event?

Why Did the Killdeer Cross the Road?

We hit the Terry Trueblood trail yesterday and caught pictures of several birds including a hilarious family of killdeer herding babies around the parking lot. At first, we weren’t sure how many chicks there were because they were difficult to see in the grass.

Eventually we counted 3 chicks. It was a comical show as the parents, aided by other adult birds trying to be helpful, attempted to round up the youngsters.

Crossing and recrossing depended a lot on the traffic flow and other factors including us. We made them nervous following them around with a camera!

I think most drivers got the hint that we were out filming the killdeer in the parking lot as the adults tried to round up the stilt-legged chicks, who would scatter in different directions. Their only guidance were the calls of adult birds—which we couldn’t reconcile into anything sounding like “killdeer” despite what the books say.

Three Photos to Share for Mental Health Awareness Month

So, I have to hurry up and get these 3 photos posted for today because it’s getting pretty late. Recall the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative calendar along with my photos to share:

The images are important features of events in my life or my sense of humor.

I’m a birdwatcher and many different species of birds visited the fountain. The fountain attracted bluebirds who splashed and even swam in it. That fountain was very heavy. We couldn’t leave it out all winter. In the fall I had to lift the bowls off and move them somewhere else. Moving them entailed lifting them onto bags of mulch so as to reduce the work of hefting them a small distance at a time. The birds were beautiful to watch.

The letter was a class assignment our Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher had us write at the beginning of the class. After we graduated, she mailed us those letters shortly thereafter. We were to write something connected with what we thought we had gained or what we thought might happen after taking the MBSR class. The book might seem out of place, and while I can’t talk much about Gordon Strayer, I did meet him and read his book (which is now long gone; probably lost in a move). I admired him. I don’t think he feared death.

The Chrysler Building reminds me of the Men in Black (MIB) 3 movie, and I included it because my sense of humor is very important to me. In the movie, Agent J and Jeffrey Price have this funny conversation about time travel back to an era that was not the greatest for black people. I know because I lived through it. Agent J is about to use the time travel device which involves jumping off a tall building (it’s a “time jump!”). Agent J is preparing to travel back in time to M.I.B.’s early days in 1969 to stop an alien from assassinating his friend Agent K and changing history. They have this short conversation:

Jeffrey Price: Do not lose that time device or you will be stuck in 1969! It wasn’t the best time for your people. I’m just saying. It’s like a lot cooler now.

Agent J: How will I know if it works?

Jeffrey Price: You’ll either know…or you won’t.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month!

This is May and it’s Mental Health Awareness Month. I just found out about something exciting and it’s the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative.

See the Calendar of Events and the Checklist.

Procrastinate on Getting the Covid Vaccine?

This post is sort of my thinking out loud about whether or not I should get the Covid vaccine ahead of this summer that was approved last year as being appropriate to get twice a year by the CDC—once in the fall along with the flu shot and once to protect against the Covid summer surge that some experts argue has been happening every summer since the pandemic onset.

The trouble is that the dominant subvariant is no longer the JN.1 or KP.3.11. The currently dominant circulating bug is LP.8.1 according to the CDC Nowcast chart.

And what confuses me is that one expert still recommends getting the September 2023 updated vaccine, but recommends getting the “bivalent booster.”

And a recent article from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) says that a preprint study (not yet peer-reviewed) says the current Covid vaccine was only 53% effective against hospitalization and 39% medically attended Covid-19. Most patients got the vaccine targeting the XBB.1.5 variant. I think that’s related somehow to the KP.2 variant. I have a vague memory of hearing about the XBB.1.5 during the CDC meeting in September 2023.

I’m a retired psychiatrist, not a retired virologist. The information available to the public seems confusing to me and I imagine I’m not the only one so affected.

The CDC is recommending the 2024-2025 Covid-19 vaccines, which target the JN.1 variant, which is now 0% of circulating variants on the list. But I’m not sure whether the current vaccines would be as protective against the different variants now dominant.

The CDC April indicators show downward trends for test positivity, ER visits, hospitalizations, and deaths.

On the other hand, an August 2024 article from Johns Hopkins warns that Covid-19 rates have consistently risen in July-August risen since 2020. The author says that it’s still unclear whether Covid-19 will continue to have dual seasonality. Other factors that affect this in addition to the emergence of more transmissible variants are human behavior, such as staying in air-conditioned spaces more and traveling.

My big question is should an old guy get the 2024-2025 Covid-19 vaccine or just wait and see, especially in light of the difficult political situation with HHS sounding like it might require new, placebo-controlled trials of some vaccines before “tweaking” them to target more current variants—which could take several months.

But it doesn’t look like there’s a plan to tweak the 2024-2025 Covid-19 vaccine in any case. I’m probably worrying too much, but I’m on the fence. I’m already too good at procrastinating.

Fart Around for Your Health!

How many farts can old fart fart if an old fart walks to fart? I’m sure you’ve heard that one by now after a recent news article suggested that farting while going for a walk on the street after dinner (or any meal) could make you healthier.

It’s not like the only reason is that you get rid of gas and increase intestinal motility to prevent constipation. Some medical experts say it can help control blood sugar.

But you have to fart walk within an hour of finishing a meal to control the glucose spike. You could call it the fart walk sweet spot. There are social implications, especially if the fart walk becomes a growing trend.

What the heck should you wear on fart walks? Windbreakers.

For some reason, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a lot to say about flatulence, but I usually pass gas over it to move on to other websites to find what might be more reliable information than you get from AI.

While farting a couple dozen times a day can be normal, if you can’t leave your house because of your Frequency Of Odoriferous Farting Impulse (FOOFI), you might want get it checked out.

Eating a lot of fiber-rich foods can lead to digestive problems that can lead to excessive flatulence. Have you noticed that when you’re in a crowd, people tend to sprint away from you? When you’re in an elevator, do people push any button to get off, even if it’s in the basement, or even between floors?

By the way, did you hear about the guy who farted on an elevator? It was wrong on so many levels.

The food choice thing can be the downside of what often happens when you follow the advice of health care professionals who tell you to avoid carbs and eat more fruits and vegetable. This can happen to guys who hit middle age and start to get that big belly. I’m not sure that the diet change will help much, especially since new studies show that guys can produce more belly fat cells as they get older.

What do you call a large, hairy cryptid who eats too much beef jerky? Bigfart.

Certain diseases can be linked to farting, like irritable bowel syndrome, celiac disease, bowel obstruction, and constipation. Funny, I thought farting was supposed to prevent constipation.

What do you say to someone who has made a commitment to daily fart walks? Conflatulations!

How Do Tournament Cribbage Players Play So Fast?

I finally tracked down an American Cribbage Congress (ACC) game from 2017 in Reno, Nevada. It was an hour-long match between just two of the many competitors. They played 4 games in approximately one hour.

What amazed us was that they could play each game in about 15 minutes despite socializing with others, getting interrupted, chatting with others, and shuffling the cards between 5 to 10 times!

The video doesn’t have very high resolution and it was hard to see the cards. The cribbage board they began with evidently had very small peg holes and they finally had to get a replacement. They seemed to almost get in each other’s way tossing the cards they scored back and forth to each other and getting interrupted occasionally, inquiring about beverages and also by officials who asked them to keep track of their activity (probably scores) for some purpose or other, possibly statistics.

We were surprised to see how fast they were at pegging and counting hand and crib scores. The high number of times they shuffled didn’t seem to add much time to the games. We couldn’t hear any shuffling machines clanging in the background. We don’t know why one player had a toy eagle figurine on his side of the board.

We tried to play 4 games in an hour and couldn’t manage it except for the last one, which we did finish in 15 minutes (necessitating supplemental nasal cannula oxygen)—but the other 3 were about 20 minutes each on average. We changed our automatic shuffling routine by using it twice instead of once per deal and also let each other cut the deck after shuffling. The shuffler jammed a couple of times but was pretty reliable. We thought shuffling twice helped mix the cards a little better because we got more variation in the cards dealt. But so far, consistently playing a game in 15 minutes is beyond us.

Would we have been kicked out of the auditorium (which was fairly noisy), tarred and feathered, run out of town on a rail?

Possibly, but we’ll never know.

Cribbage for Turtles!

We’re still turtles when it comes to how long we take to play a cribbage game. And, I think I misjudged how randomization works with shuffling cards using a machine. I checked on line and various sources say, in general, whether you’re manually shuffling or using an automatic shuffling machine, adequate randomization of 52 cards would require shuffling seven times.

We experimented a little using a stopwatch. I can shuffle a deck in about 10 seconds using one table shuffle riffle and cuts. Sena probably takes about the same amount of time although she uses a different manual shuffling method (overhand, riffle). Rounding the numbers, shuffling 7 times would take about one minute and over 10 deals (one game), it would use up about 10 minutes or so.

The automatic shuffling machine takes about 5 seconds to shuffle a deck and doing that 7 times would take 35 seconds. Over 10 deals this would take up about 6 minutes. You can see it in action in our YouTube video, “Cribbage Meets Card Shuffler.”

We also ran the 24 face cards through the machine and it didn’t randomize them at all. Adding more cards didn’t improve it that much. It occasionally jams, but overall, it seems to do the job when you’re playing with a full deck—although I’m now skeptical that it does any better at randomizing cards than manual shuffling. And that probably accounts for the recommendation to shuffle seven times—by machine or manual methods.

This imposes an incentive for the tournament cribbage player to cut the time out of certain phases of the game. That’s because of the rule that you need to be able to play a cribbage game in 15 minutes. We wonder if experienced players might skimp on the shuffling phase.

For reference, the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) official rules about proper mixing of the cards (sec. 2.1) says:

2.1. Proper Mixing The pack must be mixed or shuffled at least three times (including mechanical card shufflers) with the cards face down or otherwise hidden from both players. The shuffler is not permitted to look at the bottom card after the last shuffle. If the shuffler should do so, the nonshuffler is to remind the shuffler of the prohibition and score a two-point penalty. The pack shall then be reshuffled by the offender.

What’s interesting about this is that it looks like the ACC allows automatic card shufflers, which made me wonder about whether mufflers are required. Ours makes a real racket. Note that a table riffle would work well to hide the numbers sides of the cards. It’s also clear you have to shuffle at least three times.

We’ve never been to a cribbage tournament so we don’t know how this works in actual practice. Let’s suppose that the strict 15-minute game time limit is the main rule and players shuffle three times. Then using a machine would take up only 3 minutes and manual shuffling would take up 5 minutes—if you’re not that concerned about randomization.

Manual shuffling means a tournament player might have 10 minutes for actual game play, so there could be an incentive to use a machine. On the other hand, experienced cribbage tournament players probably play every phase of the game very fast.

We take about 20 minutes to play a game regardless of whether we shuffle manually or with a machine. That’s how turtles roll.

The Automatic Card Shuffler for Cribbage!

Today we used the automated card shuffler Sena ordered. I couldn’t find a company name or anything else from the box about where it’s made. We know it’s loud, but it does the job.

We’re not sure why it’s so noisy. It sounds like a bunch of pots and pans falling out of the cupboard during a tornado.

It was our first time using it and, while it felt like it was faster, it probably wasn’t according to my stopwatch. It took 22 minutes for us to play a cribbage game and manual shuffling took 25 minutes the other day (Big Time Bigfoot Cribbage Game). On the other hand, I think it randomizes the cards better than we do manually.

We kept starting to shuffle manually just because we’re so accustomed to doing it. It actually isn’t hard to set the cards into the feeder on top of the machine. In fact, you don’t have to be fussy about squaring up the deck before placing it in the shuffler. It’ll also shuffle two decks at once. It came with a charging cord so you don’t need batteries.

I don’t know if the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) allows automatic card shufflers in tournaments. I’ve never entered a tournament, but in photos the players are packed in cheek by jowl. And if you had one as noisy as ours for thousands of players, the din might be loud enough to set off alarms.