Saturday, July 26, 2008
I would rather be walking a bird... So I have been told...
Well, I have been Mr. Slacker lately on here. To be honest, I'm just not finding anything funny to me. Not sure if it’s my sense of humor that has changed or if the world is just real serious right now. I had planned on doing some research on a subject that came up on Friday, but alas... motivation got the best of me. So, instead of writing about the previous subject (you don't even want to know what it was about lol) I think I will take some time to actually write about myself...
I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family... lol couldn't resist!
Honestly. Lately thing have been lost in my endless pit of a brain, as those close to me call it. I'm trying to reach back in the corners of my mind and I’m finding myself losing memories. Not too sure where they are going. I can still describe to you the Duran Duran video that got banned from MTV back in 1982... I can here 3-4 notes from a Beatles song and tell you what it is and what album it was on... I could probably even accurately reenact the intro scenes to the T.V. show M.A.S.H. But for the life of me I can't remember much about a subject that came up recently… high school. I gave a sort of lecture a few weeks ago to a young student who has the opportunity to be anything they want to be. No joke, we are talking about one of the fine young up and coming minds in our country. I found myself basically turning this positive "pep" talk into a "do as I say, not as I do" speech. Reflecting back as I spoke to this person, I really pissed away my chances in high school.
I would never try to rank myself as one of the smart kids, or the jocks, or the "in crowd"... I was just myself. I wore cowboy boots with tore up jeans, a black OXYmorons t-shirt (which I still own) that I got from an improv troupe, and I would top it off from time to time with a hand me down sports jacket. Sickeningly, almost a Miami Vice look with less pastel... EW... shivers just thinking back on that one. I listened to everything from DRI, Skinny Puppy, and Ministry all the way to Dwight Yoakam, The Judds, or George Strait. I didn't really have one of those John Hughes labels that got slapped on all of the brat pack movie players, or at least I was unaware of one if I had. I just swam in the sea of youth, drifting from class to class. Doing what little I could do just to get by. There was no place for me in school. I refused to cut my hair, so sports were never an option. The coaches would look at me with distaste wrapped around the repeated comment, “cut it and come back!” Sure, I joined a few academic teams to compete against other schools, but to be honest… I don’t recall why. The bare minimum was just fine with me. I was quite content hitting Club FX or catching the OXYs in the dusty old theater they called home. Looking more towards the last bell or the Friday mad dash than tending to my studies. I really didn't have a vision of what I wanted to do with my life.
Looking back, the anger continues to boil. To think, the potential that we will never know, that I could have achieved. Would I change anything? No way. You see, I started reading books about projectile and astrological physics when I was about 13 or 14. I really got into it. This lead to me researching time and space theories and chaotic physics more commonly known as the chaos theory. There was a time when I had aspired to devote my life to physics... where did I lose that sight. How did I misplace that desire... I truly have no one to blame but myself. Once I got my driver’s license I became the big man. I can do anything, I’m free... nothing to bind me down. Maybe that’s how I lost it. Sad thing is, every now and then I feel a little spark. Something inside me that makes me want to fly to the nearest library to hide among the pages, burying myself in the words from the brain trust of scientists, the greatest visionaries our planet has ever known... Then my cell phone rings, an IM shows up on my screen, or my mind is jolted back to the reality that I have to be awake in a few hours to earn the daily bread. The break neck turns in my mind flashing from the now to the what could have been... Again, would I change anything? Not at all. I would lose my amazing children and my uncompromising wife... my sole energy for pressing on and reason why it is easy to forget what could have been. My passion for researching physics and mathematical problems that I lost so many years ago... that void now being filled by my "workaholic" ways. I have never known the 9 to 5 work day. I'm always early to show and late to leave. Nothing gained in the way of monetary compensation or self satisfaction, just the fact that I am unable to let go. Is this a disease? An infection of the personality that I have become? Can I be or do I need to be cured? My mind grows tired of trying to justify my ways. I am who I built myself to be. Not a better man or a lesser one. Just the molding of choices from yester year.
In reflection, to those I have hurt... I am sorry. I have no excuse, none could be created to justify my actions in the past. Moving forward, I am a better person. Changed in ways that have left scars deep inside me that I will carry for the rest of my life. Why is it the memories you wish to shed, shine bright, blinding your thoughts, but the fond recollections that allow smiles to the surface are tarnished and hidden away. I have past the point of worrying about myself, but I know that in my stumbling through life I would not change a thing. My children are my legacy... my wife is the foundation I so desperately need. I make it a point these days to try to laugh. Help others laugh with me. If I'm the joke, so be it. I don't mind. Laughter is the soother of the soul. If there is anything that I wish to instill on the people around me, it's the power of a good deep painful laugh. That would be the only exception to the heart of my speech that has now come full circle, do as I say... not as I do.
Oh and by the way, there was a waitress waiting as patiently as she could while the guy was dawdling over the breakfast menu. He says, being a smart ass, "I usually never return to a restaurant unless one of the sausages I'm served with my eggs is a match in size for my own."The waitress replied, "In that case, sir, perhaps you should be looking at the children's menu."
LOL Didn't think I could finish this on a serious note did you? :-)
I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family... lol couldn't resist!
Honestly. Lately thing have been lost in my endless pit of a brain, as those close to me call it. I'm trying to reach back in the corners of my mind and I’m finding myself losing memories. Not too sure where they are going. I can still describe to you the Duran Duran video that got banned from MTV back in 1982... I can here 3-4 notes from a Beatles song and tell you what it is and what album it was on... I could probably even accurately reenact the intro scenes to the T.V. show M.A.S.H. But for the life of me I can't remember much about a subject that came up recently… high school. I gave a sort of lecture a few weeks ago to a young student who has the opportunity to be anything they want to be. No joke, we are talking about one of the fine young up and coming minds in our country. I found myself basically turning this positive "pep" talk into a "do as I say, not as I do" speech. Reflecting back as I spoke to this person, I really pissed away my chances in high school.
I would never try to rank myself as one of the smart kids, or the jocks, or the "in crowd"... I was just myself. I wore cowboy boots with tore up jeans, a black OXYmorons t-shirt (which I still own) that I got from an improv troupe, and I would top it off from time to time with a hand me down sports jacket. Sickeningly, almost a Miami Vice look with less pastel... EW... shivers just thinking back on that one. I listened to everything from DRI, Skinny Puppy, and Ministry all the way to Dwight Yoakam, The Judds, or George Strait. I didn't really have one of those John Hughes labels that got slapped on all of the brat pack movie players, or at least I was unaware of one if I had. I just swam in the sea of youth, drifting from class to class. Doing what little I could do just to get by. There was no place for me in school. I refused to cut my hair, so sports were never an option. The coaches would look at me with distaste wrapped around the repeated comment, “cut it and come back!” Sure, I joined a few academic teams to compete against other schools, but to be honest… I don’t recall why. The bare minimum was just fine with me. I was quite content hitting Club FX or catching the OXYs in the dusty old theater they called home. Looking more towards the last bell or the Friday mad dash than tending to my studies. I really didn't have a vision of what I wanted to do with my life.
Looking back, the anger continues to boil. To think, the potential that we will never know, that I could have achieved. Would I change anything? No way. You see, I started reading books about projectile and astrological physics when I was about 13 or 14. I really got into it. This lead to me researching time and space theories and chaotic physics more commonly known as the chaos theory. There was a time when I had aspired to devote my life to physics... where did I lose that sight. How did I misplace that desire... I truly have no one to blame but myself. Once I got my driver’s license I became the big man. I can do anything, I’m free... nothing to bind me down. Maybe that’s how I lost it. Sad thing is, every now and then I feel a little spark. Something inside me that makes me want to fly to the nearest library to hide among the pages, burying myself in the words from the brain trust of scientists, the greatest visionaries our planet has ever known... Then my cell phone rings, an IM shows up on my screen, or my mind is jolted back to the reality that I have to be awake in a few hours to earn the daily bread. The break neck turns in my mind flashing from the now to the what could have been... Again, would I change anything? Not at all. I would lose my amazing children and my uncompromising wife... my sole energy for pressing on and reason why it is easy to forget what could have been. My passion for researching physics and mathematical problems that I lost so many years ago... that void now being filled by my "workaholic" ways. I have never known the 9 to 5 work day. I'm always early to show and late to leave. Nothing gained in the way of monetary compensation or self satisfaction, just the fact that I am unable to let go. Is this a disease? An infection of the personality that I have become? Can I be or do I need to be cured? My mind grows tired of trying to justify my ways. I am who I built myself to be. Not a better man or a lesser one. Just the molding of choices from yester year.
In reflection, to those I have hurt... I am sorry. I have no excuse, none could be created to justify my actions in the past. Moving forward, I am a better person. Changed in ways that have left scars deep inside me that I will carry for the rest of my life. Why is it the memories you wish to shed, shine bright, blinding your thoughts, but the fond recollections that allow smiles to the surface are tarnished and hidden away. I have past the point of worrying about myself, but I know that in my stumbling through life I would not change a thing. My children are my legacy... my wife is the foundation I so desperately need. I make it a point these days to try to laugh. Help others laugh with me. If I'm the joke, so be it. I don't mind. Laughter is the soother of the soul. If there is anything that I wish to instill on the people around me, it's the power of a good deep painful laugh. That would be the only exception to the heart of my speech that has now come full circle, do as I say... not as I do.
Oh and by the way, there was a waitress waiting as patiently as she could while the guy was dawdling over the breakfast menu. He says, being a smart ass, "I usually never return to a restaurant unless one of the sausages I'm served with my eggs is a match in size for my own."The waitress replied, "In that case, sir, perhaps you should be looking at the children's menu."
LOL Didn't think I could finish this on a serious note did you? :-)
Monday, July 21, 2008
Doc: It's ok, your gonna live... Check please!
I know I am pretty hard on the medical care system here in the states... but how friggin bad is it in the UK. (How bad is it?) It's so friggin bad that surgeons are given bonuses if their patients live. WTF is that all about? Thou shall not allow your patient to DIE cause the bonuses will stop? I guess its time to amend the Hippocratic oath to read "I will saw in a strait line as long as the cash is rolling in."
Surgeons are to be paid bonuses based on the number of lives they save, in radical plans being drawn up by hospitals across Britain. For the first time, they will receive performance-related pay according to the results they achieve on the operating table, with levels dependent on how well patients recover. Patients' groups said those facing surgery would be "horrified" by the proposals and questioned why doctors should be paid a premium for fulfilling their basic duty.
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