Plugs and Sockets

What is it with these engineers? Why can't they leave stuff alone?  It's been bad enough learning where all the wretched plugs go into the TV sockets at the back over the years, but then when we've just about got it down they go and change things.

We had to change our TV the other day - the old one developed some nasty sort of disease.    I installed the new TV, and I even managed to get the remote re-programed which was a major coup.  But then came time to add on the DVD player and the stereo tuner.  As far as I'm concerned the previous system was complicated, but not too much.  Now in the interests of simplification, the rules and the wires have been changed again.  I'm getting to the stage where I hate change!

Slippage

We're close to putting these things away for the season, but not quite.  They are anti-slip devices to stop you falling in the snow.  I usually fall down once year, but made it almost though February before I went base over apex.  We put these boots and "chains" on if it snows and we want to walk the dogs, and they are very efficient. However if a snow plough has gone through and then snow comes down to cover his tracks, it's likely that you won't see the danger and these won't help you on ice.  I was striding along confidently when whoosh down I went.  I've developed a sort of crouching fall to save my shoulders which I've damaged a few years past, but unfortunately this time it caused me to wrench my knee.  Ah the joys of aging.

Video - CPR

This is a video sent to me by my brother-in-law, Tony.  It's about five minutes long,  but it may help to save a life so watch it if you can. http://ahsc.arizona.edu/node/730

Sunday's Column - Pomona Coolege of Art

This week concerns a visit to the Pomona College of Art.  It's a manageable place with very modern paintings.  I was most interested in a group of four paintings by Kristen Eckenberg which were quite stirring. You can read the entire piece at http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_22855147/look-at-pomonas-museum-art

Right Track - Obamacare

The full effects of Obama's socialised medicine are not yet to be felt.  But I can report on one problem.  My doctor is likely to go out of business.  He runs a very efficient but small practice - two nurses, a receptionist, who helps with the paperwork and I think someone in the back office to do the lion's share of the forms.  In order to be compensated for his patients on medicare - quite a lot of us as we live in a retirement area - he has to update all his paper records to electronic ones.  This is to allow the government to audit his charges on line.  Don't totalitarians love control!  Well, the cost of this update is well over $150,000 and not surprisingly he can't afford it.  His choice?  Leave the hill and work for a large HMO plan down there, or more likely close his practice and work for another doctor.  Progress????

Tirade - Sequestration

Now let me see if I've got this right.  We can't agree on how much to cut or spend, so the President decides to take such a punitive amount out of the economy that both sides will buckle and listen to reason. Now neither side has listened and so the cuts are in place.  Four days before the event Homeland Security decided to let up to 3,000 illegals prisoners out of jail.  Remember when Castro did that?  Also Saddam Hussein?  Of course, that was done to create chaos.  Come on People!

Music Track - Winwood

This was playing in the gym the other day.  It took me back to the 80's.  I think it's pretty good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j6g_uUhH2c

Medicine

As I reported recently I took a fall on some ice and wrenched my knee.  It became progressively painful and I was at a loss to know quite what to do.  As a refugee from British socialist medicine, I, along with my fellow citizens, have been trained to avoid doctors' offices like the plague.  Even if you can get an appointment, unless you are actively hemorrhaging or a piece of you that you deem important is looking like it might fall off, you keep away.

 

But I'm in America now and things are (for the meantime anyway) different.  So I went along, got the first appointment the next day, ahead of the walking dead who are always there first.  After the intitial weigh-in and blood pressure check - all in order there - I was seen by the doctor in five minutes flat.  He looked at it, prodded it and went out to return with some needles.  One to see if an anaesthetic would work, then after it did, another, followed by a third deeper in. 

The entire process took about ten minutes which gave us plenty of time to talk about the world and to catch up. 

After a ten-minute stop-over to pick up some pills for the next four days, I was already 50% better and by the evening 90%!  Ain't American medicine wonderful!

Spring!

Spring begins officially on Wednesday the 20th.  So as usual there is a change to the color scheme of the blog - I hope you like it!

TV

Like most Brits of that age, we didn't have a television until 1953.  That was when the coronation took place at Westminster Abbey; the Queen had assumed the title immediately her father King George VI died a year earlier.  So we went to the shop in the town that sold TV's, but they were very expensive and way outside my father's budget.  Therefore we did what most Brits did under the circumstances, we rented the set.  It was a nine-inch Murphy as I remember and it had two knobs on the front and about four round the back.  My father was always twiddling to get the vertical hold right and also the horizontal.  It used to drive my mother crazy.  There was one TV station, the BBC - that was it.  It usually began at 7:00 in the evening and shut off at 11:00, but we thought it was great.  There were two transmitting stations that covered the UK, one in Sutton Colefield and the other in Alexandra Palace; if you were outside those areas, you'd had it.  But we all had the radio anyway, which up to then had been our main form of entertainment.  Around 1955 a new channel opened up, this was the commercial channel where adverts were played, and they were quite good as I remember.





Video - Mindreader

My friend Kevin sent me this video.  It's pretty scary and you need to watch it to the end.  There's no hiding place left, it seems. http://www.youtube.com/embed/F7pYHN9iC9I?rel=0

Sunday's Column - Cruise Ships

This week we look at some of the problems that have happened on cruise ships recently.  They have been fairly brutal with perhaps the worst being toilet problems!  Believe me you don't want to be in a situation with unlimited food and blocked toilets!  So there are a number of things you can do beforehand and in the column we cover some of them.  You can read the entire piece at http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_22808389/survival-tips-when-cruise-ship-vacation-goes-terribly

Right Track - Clipping on Evil Republicans

I'm grateful to my friend Kevin for sending me this newspaper clipping of a supposedly genuine letter to a newspaper.  Obviously this fellow is one of the "low information" voters who are keeping idiots in power.

Tirade - Manners - again!

Normally on tirades about social mores, my venom is directed at the younger of our community.  This time however, it's against my own generation. 
With the departure of winter, it seems more people are turning up at our excellent gym.  Perhaps a glance down at the aged and crinkling bodies has shown them that too much time has been spent at the lunch counter.  Anyway these old people are going around their circuits using equipment on very low levels.  Instead of moving on to the next station, and letting others use the piece of equipment, they sit, and sit, and sit.  Sometimes they play with their iPods; even get out their phones and make a call. Perhaps someone of the younger generation could tell these pathetic old people that the seats are not there to rest on.  Come on People!