The Game of Life: A Critical Review.

My wife thought this was funny. She printed it out and left it on our 19 year-old's gaming-computer keyboard.  

Here's what he wrote along the margin:

 NOT RECOMMENDED.

(19.5 years playing time on record)

The graphics are phenomenal, and the NPC AI is great, but the gameplay is awful. It's just a repetetive grind, and you're constantly getting dominated by the players that are better than you.  There is no save feature, and you only get one life, and since there is danger literally everywhere, this is not a good feature.  The only real way to succeed at this game is to be part of the "Rich Family" closed beta, which only a select few were able to get into.

2/10, would sell to GameStop.

Almost There!

Two months & many heartaches later...

Kitchen remodel is coming along - would have been done last month but one of the cabinets was damaged in shipping.  The dishwasher should have gone in yesterday but - guess what? Damaged in shipping.  That's right, most of you probably aren't aware of the "shipping orangutan", a low-level employee (no benefits) who's tossed into the trailer with a length of iron pipe just before the doors slam shut for its long-haul.  At least that seems to be accurate, based on the evidence.

Down To The Studs.

Brave little stove, standing guard by the scary hole even the cat won't explore.

I spent this past Saturday tearing my house apart.  Literally.  I tore out the 34 year-old press-board cabinets, hauled them to the backyard fire pit, set them ablaze, then started on the drywall.  We now eat off paper plates until the new cabinets can be installed.  Denver took one look and said "I don't like it - put it back"!  The boys aren't comfortable with change. Tammy is in charge of picking out new cabinets and countertops; I'm in charge of paying.  I don't know how much you know about cabinetry, but I've learned by examining the different costs that they're all apparently gold-plated.  It doesn't matter; it's time.
Rumor has it that at one time there were 23 "internationals" living in this little 1400 square-foot house.  That may seem crowded, but that's not taking into account the, oh, I don't know, maybe 4 million cockroaches sharing the same space, all of which died behind the cabinets when we hired the exterminator after we first moved in.  The showering of carcass husks when the cabinets began to peel away was, let's say, an unwelcome surprise. The vision still haunts my dreams.

Here I Go.

I just surfaced from reading all 380-odd pages of my Uncle Stewart's memoirs; I'm not sure I could have stopped if the house had caught fire, they were that good. One of the most captivating stories is the last illness and death of my amazing 98 year-old Aunt Alta:


Shortly into the New Year, 1997, my dear old aunt collapsed in her lovely Royal Oaks apartment and was whisked away to the Emergency station of Boswell’s Hospital.  She was still conscious when we arrived.  She who always seemed to have a smile, gave Liz a small, whimsical smile as she whispered, “Here I go.”  (p. 304)


As we were driving to the gun range I tried explaining to Denver - my 14 year-old - why they enthralled me the way they did; I came up short.  "It's not merely 85 years of world or U.S. or even just my uncle's history, it's all that plus my history - and your history - an intimate look at our genetic timeline, past and future.  It shines light on my father and grandfather, and their fathers and grandfathers, that reveal facets I had no idea existed. That knowledge affects me and you directly because they are part of us."  He watched the passing scenery for a moment then said, "Huh."  I could tell my explanation fell short of the passion I felt for the subject, which held no fascination for him at all.  For one thing, Denver doesn't know my Uncle Stew, shares no immediate context with me for what a smiling, teasing, truly joy-filled man he represents in my memories - he's as mythical to Denver as my Aunt Janet is to me.  For another, Denver's sphere of interests do not include genetic traits such as he and his brother's tallness or slender build (which, after reading Stew's memoirs, I suspect comes from their great-great grandfather Hugh Stewart).  Perhaps one day he'll care, in which case the Memoirs will be there, thanks to Uncle Stew's efforts.

We were headed to the gun range in part to try out a beautiful old .22 target rifle inherited from Denver's maternal great-grandfather and also because I was inspired by the Memoirs to take a half-day from work to spend more time with my boys. Work, for multiple reasons, has usually held the highest priority for me; today, at least, I wanted that priority to change. I also looked forward to shooting the Kalashnikov I'd bought as a favor from an out-of-work neighbor two years ago; it had been collecting dust in my closet since then.  It's hard to find a rifle range near a big city but I'd recently taken a concealed / carry handgun class and the range we qualified on was only 45 minutes away, just across the border in South Carolina (perhaps the most gun-friendly state this side of the Mississippi).  I bought a family membership to the range and this was our first opportunity to use it.

The owner (Stony) and a sleepy-eyed pit bull met us and showed us around.  The range was arranged on 50 acres of woods and featured places to practice pistol, rifle, shotgun, and archery shooting.  We were the only ones there on a workday afternoon.  Stony and the dog left us on the rifle range and headed back to the office shack.  We walked downrange to place our targets at 50 and 100 yards then mounted the steps to the upper level of the two-story firing line shed.  We screwed in our ear protection and after a quick safety briefing Denver and his .22 immediately started blasting the 50-yard target with uncanny accuracy.  I had nearly 300 rounds of old 7.62x39 ammo I wanted to use up with the AK-47 so I started blasting too - for three rounds, before it jammed.  The humidity was making the bullets 'sweat' and they weren't sliding into the chamber all the way. I had to pull back the operating handle between each shot to manually load the round.  I fired 14 more rounds before the pin securing the firing hammer worked its way loose and the whole hammer twisted sideways under the bolt cover from the tension of the wire wrap around its base . Denver, meanwhile, was merrily blazing away with his ancient - and apparently indistructible - .22.  "I thought these things were built by the Russians to be tough!", I thought with frustration. I flipped it over.  "Manufactured in Monroe, NC.".  Nuts. I spent 25 minutes disassembling the gun and investigating the malfuction while Denver happily shot through his box of 50 rounds.  Later, I asked Stony why my Kalashnikov broke when it had such a reputation for ruggedness. "It's not as famous for durability as it is for being easy to fix when it breaks,which it does all the time.  That's the design you go to when you need to make 50 million guns in a hurry and hand them to teenagers to fight your war for you - it has to be idiot-proof".  Well, I felt like an idiot for not being able to fix it but with Stony's (and Google's) help we figured it out. Even though I didn't get to shoot as much as I'd hoped I still felt like I learned a lot and it was a productive trip.  Denver loved it.

I mused the whole way home about little moments like these that make up a person's Memoirs. Almost every moment of my life I feel like a failure but today Denver and I made a lifetime memory.

I want to make more of those.

When he was my age Uncle Stew made the firm decision to create memories with family trips.  His Memoirs have inspired me to pursue more memory-making outings with my family.  I want to live so that when I feel that inexorable slide toward death I won't fight and wail "Not yet!"; I want to smile serenely and say with anticipation: "Here I go!"  

"Oh, wait..."

"One more thing..."

"...You can have my Kalashnikov - it sucks."

On It Like Oxford.

I just started school for my BSN - with the focus on the BS - so I read a lot to clear my head of nonsense.  Just finished Craig Mullaney's outstanding book on becoming an Army officer and fighting in Afghanistan, The Unforgiving Minute. 

Mullaney attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and explains that it's completely different from school in the U.S. - you don't study for your degree, you read for it. Essentially they hand you a library card and tell you to go crazy.  When I look at the stack of books I finished over the last three weeks I think I might be on track for my Oxford degree in Random Historical Trivia. Here's the list:

Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris (Reagan, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) showcases Teddy's presidency.  I read it simultaneously with Truman by David McCullogh and their leadership styles were fascinating in juxtaposition.

While I drive I listen to audio books - the miles vanish in visions of glory and wonder!  A friend loaned me Ken Follett's 40-hour Pillars of the Earth, a story of cathedral building in Medieval England - it was so engrossing I hated to arrive at my destination.

I had to listen to its sequal, World Without End, which takes place 200 years after the end of Pillars and featuring the descendants of the main characters who now want to build a steeple on the cathedral to make it the tallest, most glorious building in all of England - absolutely absorbing!

Dovetailing with the time period was a book my brother loaned me Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom, historical fiction about a little-known (I didn't know about it) period in England under Cromwell when the monasteries were dissolved and razed - 400 years of tradition leveled in 4.

To take a trip back even further into English history I read The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell, a rousing account of the uneasy occupation of Northern England by the Danes just after the death of Alfred the Great.  It's such a popular book series that BBC is premiering a TV show this fall based on the books.

I listened to a mildly amusing book by Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) called Earth: The Audiobook. It's a tounge-in-cheek description of mankind's life on earth as described to aliens who've arrived after we've all gone extinct. It's a primer on pop-culture and sarcasm.

On a more serious note, I've always wanted to read a first-hand account of the conditions healthcare providers endured in New Orleans hospitals during hurricane Katrina; Code Blue, by Richard Deichmann, M.D. was a study in ingenuity, endurance, and bureaucracy.  Fascinating read.

I also enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut's short story 2BR02B, a dystopian future reminiscent of Brave New World.

No one writes better short stories that Poppa Hemingway; he's a study in evocative style and dramatic action.  I've been dipping into his stuff for 30 years - it never gets old.

Finally, I started a new series that's popular not only as a book but more recently as a TV show: The Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon.  It takes place both after WWII and in Medieval England - it's a time-travelling adventure.  It's no Game of Thrones, but it's OK so far.

I don't think my eclectic taste in books would find approval for a degree at Oxford but as much as I'm reading about the turbulent history of the island it inhabits, it almost feels like I'm on it.  Does that count for anything?

Killer Lag.

My boys spend years online playing team warfare games with their friends.  Occasionally I’ll hear a screech emanate from the back room, “Lag. Lag! LAAAAAGGGG… oh no - Noooooooo!!!!!!  … (softly, bitterly) I’m dead.”  I look at my wife and we chuckle.  Ah, the innocence of youth, believing that screaming at the computer can improve its refresh rate.  “Lag” means that the normally fluid motion of your on-screen character has become suddenly halting and jerky, while the rest of the virtual world continues to stream by in real time, creating a strobe-light effect; the distant enemy you were lined up to snipe has, while you were frozen in place, suddenly jumped to three feet away. You might catch a glimpse of his K-Bar plunging toward your neck before lag strikes again and by the time your aging computer or dribbling internet catches up to real time your character is a lifeless, bleeding bundle of loser.  It’s a feeling of powerlessness during a high arousal state that makes you want to kick the wall, pull out your hair, and weep. It’s so infuriating there’s a meme circulating the internet claiming “Guns don’t kill people.  Lag kills people.”

                I was struck by this while editing a clinical skills checklist the other day.  The skill was oral suctioning, a routine, 15-second task wherein you grab a plastic wand called a Yankauer, turn on the suction machine, insert the wand in someone’s mouth to suck up excess saliva & whatnot, rinse out the wand & turn off the machine.  It’s as simple as vacuuming your windowsill.  This checklist broke it down into 39 steps, each step deeply researched and verified as “best practice” which means if you skip a step you obviously have no business caring for patients.  Seriously, skipped steps are what regulators drill down for when auditing charts and the punishments usually far outweigh the “crime”.  I imagined how this checklist would flow as an instructional video, maybe a 5-second clip for each step, and I chuckled when I realized what the finished video would look like: Lag.

                I sobered quickly when I made the mental leap to patient care in general and I sucked in my breath when I realized this is why healthcare is so slow and providers want to kick the wall and pull out their hair – checklist-driven healthcare regulation and the fear of litigation is causing patient care lag!   Your 4-hour visit to the Emergency Department consists of 30 minutes of actual hands-on care and 3 ½ hours of doctors, nurses and imaging specialists slumped in front of a computer protecting themselves from censure and litigation by checking every box, dotting every i, crossing every t. With government-mandated EHR (electronic health records) - which consist entirely of checklists – for civilian medicine, this lag and its accompanying frustration is only going to get worse.  Time magazine this week includes an article on doctor burnout and suggests a solution might be talking out their frustrations with a trained counselor or spiritual mentor.  Would that work for my boys after an infuriating lag session, I wonder?  I can’t imagine it would, if they went right back into the virtual battlefield with the same slow processor.  What they require is not a sympathetic ear; it’s no lag.

  In my experience military medicine (I don’t know about the VA – I’ve never worked with them)  is much more fluid than civilian because they globally standardize their training, globally standardize their checklists, keep checklists to a minimum, trust their providers with broader scopes of practice, and - perhaps most crucially - give care without concern for lawsuits.  Without the crippling regulatory burden and the cross of “patient satisfaction” carried by civilian healthcare they’re remarkably more limber and dynamic when they engage with damaged humans.  Even they, however, could benefit from a technology upgrade.

We’ve already moved to voice-recognition software for doctor’s dictation, what if that was combined with motion-recognition (think Wii or XBOX Kinect) and instantaneous actionable feedback (think Laerdal’s HeartCode instructorless CPR class) for real-time virtual charting and skill verification?  Add “best practice” skill sets culled from millions of real life videos coalesced by informatics gurus to create one global motion-capture database and voila – no more need for human healthcare workers – everything can be done perfectly by robots, just like making cars or bottling beer!  Sigh.  Maybe one day.  I wonder, would patient satisfaction scores would improve?

Of course, we’d all be out of a job, but we wouldn’t be slaving under the sword of Damocles, so we’d have that going for us, which is nice.  Maybe I’d just hang out in my underwear and play video games all day on my virtual reality headset.  I’d be poor, so it would have to be an older model though, bought second-hand.  Nah.  Couldn’t do it. The lag would absolutely kill me.

There's A Hole In My Bucket-List.

I did something this past weekend I've been wanting to do for nearly twenty years: I took a three day Advanced Wilderness Life Support course.  It was eye-opening.

It opened my eyes to the fact that bucket-lists should be revised from time-to-time, to keep up with the changes in body and mind that come with age and experience.  When I first added an AWLS class to my bucket-list I was obsessed with mastering the wild places and feeding a hero-complex.  Most of the 38 students in the class last weekend fit that same mold; lean, hungry, happy, playful, young doctor-gods dreaming of medical triumph, drivng Subarus and Jeeps draped in bikes & boats.  I, on the other hand, am a pudgy, middle-aged, shy, cynical, slightly neurotic male nurse dreaming of napping and solitude, driving an 11 year-old truck with an REI sticker on it.  I realized I'm a wanna-be who no longer wants-to-be.  If you fall of a cliff while hiking, you had it coming, you knuckle-head; I'm not going to save you - it's too much work and you'll sue me anyway.  This runs counter to the philosophy of the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine, the sponser of last weekend's class, whose actual motto is "Disrupting Natural Selection Since 2007".  It's run by some pathologically optimistic doctors who literally vibrate when they're forced to stand still, hands still curled around imaginary kayak paddles or bike handles, eyes darting toward the mountains and woods like opiate addicts in line at the pharmacy.  They reminded me of Henry Benton's wild creatures, "finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.  They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other nations".  Some people's bucket-lists include visiting other nations: mine does not.  I've already been to other nations, they're lawless and smelly.  As I proceeded through the course I concluded much the same thing about the "victims" I was supposed to rescue and was shocked by the realization that 1.) I already know how to do this stuff, 2.) I have an extremely low desire to actually do it.  The self-image I'd spent a lifetime cobbling together fell apart. The other nations are thrumming to fanciful visions of heroism, this one has been unspooling a strip of ribbon wire at the 38th parallel and shutting down the grid. Other than that life-altering observation, it was a great weekend.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go scrub out my bucket and put a patch on it, so reality won't leak out.

ConFrencherate Revolution?

I love reading history.  This month's Imprimis - the erudite monthly newsletter from Hillsdale College - features an outstanding article by Wilfred M. McClay, professor of history at University of Oklahoma. You can read it here: (https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/)

McClay's jeramiad is the fragmentation of American history into ever-tighter sub-cultural histories, kicking out the foundation stones of a national memory uniting us and replacing them with subjective, angry, politically-correct tribal histories.  The article brings to mind the warning undertone of Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, a reminder that united cultures build luxury cars with robots, while tribal cultures kill each other over who owns a tree. Both the article and the book are outstanding; I highly recommend reading them along with, of course, historian sans pareil David McCullogh.  History provides context for present; without it we're adrift and infantile.

The problem with reading and loving history is that very few people share your enthusiasm and your pithy additions are met with glassy-eyed yawns.  Also, if history is all you care about, you will live in poverty.  At least math majors (another yawner) can build rockets or manage an index fund.  But history teaches those of us living in a democracy that we cannot escape our civic duties.  We must educate our civic leaders (or become one ourselves) with history or they will absolutely doom us to repeat it.  McClay provides a thought-provoking correlation between the current Confederate flag flap and Robespierre that will make your hair stand up (if you know who Robespierre is).  Read it!

A Poet Named Pancake.

A worldview dark as West Virginia coal dust.

A few years ago I came across a skinny book at the resale shop written by an author with an intriguing name.  It was an example of why browsing resale shops is fun: every now and then you find a treasure.  This Pancake could write!

Breece D'J Pancake grew up in West Virginia; its bleak, haunting history leavens his writing.  One local describes Milton - Pancake's hometown - thus: "It stinks.  It's beyond stink. It smells dangerous, and it stays with you."  Pancake's stories and poems reflect the danger he felt from the hills and people of his home mixed with an unaccountable, aching love for those same things. In essence, his words beautifully capture the discord and incongruity of life. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize posthumously, after escaping the dissonance by a bullet through the brain in 1979. Author and University of Virginia professor John Casey (Spartina), Pancake's teacher and mentor received a letter from Kurt Vonnegut (another of my favorite authors - Slaughterhouse Five, The Piano Player) after Pancake's death.  Vonnegut wrote of Pancake: "I give you my word of honor that he is merely the best writer, the most sincere writer I've ever read.  What I suspect is that it hurt too much, was no fun to be that good. You and I will never know."

Poison Tree

One of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets.

I have not yet outgrown the molten, juvenile desire to see my foe outstretched.

A Poison Tree
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

In a Nutshell...

This week's writing assignment: "In a nutshell...".  Totally fiction and totally fun!

“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” – Hamlet, by Shakespeare

In a nutshell: Don’t mess with me. I’m your worst nightmare.

That’s a funny phrase, “in a nutshell” – it’s like “long story short” only more picturesque.  What happened was in a picturesque place, could be considered a long story told short, and it definitely involved nuts.

It started the usual way: I was down in lovely Robbinsville, enjoying the camaraderie of Cheerwine and a burger at The Kickstand.  I was chewing thoughtfully, trying to figure out where to make some extra cash, when two bikers sauntered in, gray ponytails down to their patch rockers, faces burnt from flaunting North Carolina’s helmet law. The filled the doorway, paused a moment to scan the room, found an empty booth behind me and thudded into it, vinyl cushions whoofing under their weight.  The booths were joined and the guy behind me, flopping down, bumped mine forward dumping Cheerwine all over my lunch.  Crushed ice speckled my fries, now stained red.  I swore bitterly, surveying the ruin.  The bench jolted again as he heaved himself out to investigate.  “Oh hell, brother, I’m sorry”, he growled, seeing my leathers.  “Forget it”, I said, wadding up my napkin and throwing it on the soggy plate with disgust.  I scooted sideways and made to get up but he put a hairy-knuckled hand on my shoulder; “I feel kinda bad”, he said, “Can I make it up to ya?”  That’s biker code for “You wanna make some money breaking the law?” He squeezed my shoulder a couple times like we were friends, making the leather creak. I looked up into his sly, smirking eyes, realized where this was going and said to myself, “Why not?” 

Bikers like to do bad things, because they think people expect them to.  They like to do those bad things in groups, because individually they’re fat, hairy cowards.  Two’s company and they wanted me to make it a crowd, knock off the Kickstand’s register and escape down the 11 mile, 318-curve Tail of the Dragon, where a bike can go twice as fast as a police car and the Tennessee border beckons at the other end.  Either they planned to lose me, or wreck me on the Tail. Their pea-brains made three critical miscalculations, however.  One, they assumed I was a brother biker, probably because of my ponytail and leathers.  Two, they assumed I wasn’t local because no one lives in Robbinsville – it’s a tourist town for leaf-peepers and bikers.  Three, they assumed I was lonely, bored, broke, and stupid.

I heaved to my feet with a glint in my eye.  “What’s the plan”, I muttered.  “Right here”, he whispered.  “We’ll hit the register then hit the road to Tennessee”.  “Down the Tail?”  I feigned nervousness.  “Heh, heh. Sure - why not?, he grinned; “Don’t be scared - ain’t no one can catch us on the Dragon!”  I shrugged.  With no further ado he hit the register, the cashier hit the silent alarm, and we hit the road, smokin’. 

I rode behind them, gauging their skills on the turns - they were confident but sloppy.  They didn’t know the road as well as they thought and I’d been riding the Dragon nearly every day of my life except the six years in I spent overseas with Delta.  Screaming sirens behind us lent wings to their speed as they caromed around the slower traffic, owning both lanes with reckless abandon.  The paper sack stuffed with money peaked out from the leader’s saddlebag.  I knew a softer curve was coming up that hardened quickly; I saw my chance and took it.  As they clamped their brakes, I twisted my throttle and gunned between them.

  I’d spent the last two years jamming a 1,250 cc V-Rod Muscle engine into a 1958 Harley Duo-Glide, pairing that with anti-lock brakes and 240 mm of rear rubber that looked like a fat anaconda swallowing its tail – the bike ran like a cannon shot and cornered like a cat.  I snatched the money sack as I thundered through, gearing down to a throaty wail while pointing the front wheel at the tightest part of the turn, throwing my weight toward the inside corner and mashing the front brakes hard, still going 90 mph.  My knee gently kissed the macadam as the Harley drifted gracefully, smoke boiling from the howling rear tire as it slid around the curve like a cartoon road runner trying to catch up with itself.  When the tires lined up I snapped off the brake, leaned forward, eased off the throttle until the anaconda bit down, cranked it again and let the torque punch me forward like a carrier-launched jet. The two in back were blinded by smoke and nearly missed the turn but they slowed to a crawl and waddled around it using both feet like kids learning to ride.  They seemed angry.  They spotted me 200 yards ahead, hit the gas and gave chase.  I slowed up to give them a chance and in their rage they took huge risks on every corner to gain ground. I thought they would wreck and I wouldn’t get to carry out the rest of my plan but they showed a cunning tenacity that made me smile. Within three miles they were 100 feet back and breathing fire, which is just how I wanted them.

I slalomed off onto a rutted two-track that I knew led to a rarely-used hunting cabin.  I jolted and bounced up the lane, giving my spring-slung saddle a workout but knowing it was harder on them.  After a mile I pulled up to the clearing around the cabin, shut down the bike and vaulted off into the bushes.  They came roaring into the clearing a few seconds later, skewed to a stop and hopped off on numb and trembling legs, staring in all directions.  I was behind a pine 15 feet to their rear, hefting a sizeable rock.  I threw it into the trees across the clearing and launched as they spun toward the crackle and snap.  I was on the leader in less than a second but he heard my footfall and whirled back toward me, legs spread, reaching into his waistband with a snarl.  I never broke stride and kicked him with everything I had - and a two pound, black leather, ring-step boot - right in the credentials. He abandoned his waistband and clutched himself, doubling over with a groan.  Still moving forward fast and skirting his hunched figure, I palmed the back of his head and shoved off like a pole-vaulter, toward his partner who was now swinging his extended right arm toward me, gun in hand. In my peripheral I saw the first guy face-plant into his sizzling engine block and go still.  I was in the air, flying toward the second guy at top speed, laughing maniacally, swinging my bent left arm out in a Kenpo block and reaching for his throat with my right.  He was bellowing with fear, terror written on his grizzled face, trying to back up, his feet tangling….

I won’t bore you with the details, but the police never found the thieves, nor their bikes. I’m back here at the Kickstand, enjoying another burger and Cheerwine.  I can eat free here, now, whenever I like.  I’m chewing thoughtfully, trying to figure out what to do with two hot Harleys and two sets of leathers (slightly bloodstained).  I probably won’t have bad dreams about it, but those two large-livin’ lunkheads - they will.  In a nutshell, I mused: don’t mess with me; I’m your worst nightmare.

Passed My Prime.

There's a curious passage in a book I just finished, British poet Robert Grave's autobiography Goodbye to All That, addressing the diminishing effects of the endocrine system on soldiers fighting in the trenches along the Somme during WWI:
"Having now been in the trenches for five months, I had passed my prime.  For the first three weeks, an officer was of little use in the front line; he did not know his way around, had not learned the rules of health and safety, or grown accustomed to recognizing degrees of danger.  Between three weeks and four weeks he was at his best, unless he happened to have any particular bad shock or sequence of shocks. Then his usefulness gradually declined as neurasthenia developed. At six months he was still more or less alright; but by nine or ten months, unless he had been given a few weeks' rest on a technical course, or in a hospital, he usually became a drag on the other company officers. After a year or fifteen months he was often worse than useless.  Dr. W.H.R. Rivers told me later that the action of one of the ductless glands - I think the thyroid - caused this slow general decline of military usefulness, by failing at a certain point to pump its stimulating chemical into the blood.  Without its continued assistance the man went about his tasks in an apathetic and doped condition, cheated into further endurance. It has taken some ten years for my blood to recover."  I don't want to denigrate their sacrifice, but since I go about my tasks in an apathetic and doped condition, I can only logically assume that my stress is equivalent to that of an officer after a lengthy engagement at Ypres - although I do enjoy the luxury of mustard on my hot dog rather than in my lungs.

I started reading a book about another WWI soldier, although that's not what he's best known for:

I'm not terribly far into it, but this is my fourth McCullough book and he's rapidly becoming my favorite author du jour.  I finished his fantastic history of the Panama Canal with several schoolboy myths dispelled and a new appreciation for mosquitoes that don't carry yellow fever (I confess, any appreciation for mosquitoes must be classified as new).

I wish I could say I also developed a new appreciation for Douglas E. Richards' writing but, alas, although I just read his bestseller Wired last week I can't remember much of anything about it.  It cropped up on several science fiction favorites lists but those lists may have been written by teenage boys, the apparent target demographic. Richards, a molecular biologist by training, is a bright writer with intriguing ideas regarding genetic manipulation but I just couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to suppress my yawns. I prefer the suspense of history, I suppose, even though I know what's coming.  I guess I'm getting old.

Just Because You CAN....

I went to a Hepatopancreatico Biliary conference this week.  Yes, its a real thing!  I learned a lot.  Did you know you can remove half of someone's liver through a one-inch incision in their belly?  Now you do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX8lx77kfSs

A Bibliophile in Banner Elk.

Last weekend I helped Tammy with her booth at an art show in Banner Elk.  'Helping' consists of two hours of heavy lifting bracketing 3 days of sitting in under a sunny blue sky surrounded by green mountains and reading; it's like heaven.  I brought two thick books but they were so engrossing I gorged myself and had to trade them for two more at a coffee shop halfway through the weekend.  The two I brought with me were excellent, the two from the coffee shop were... free.

Stephen Sears Landsape Turned Red leads us through the Civil War battle at Antietam Creek (Sharpsburg, if you're a Southerner) like a triptych of blunders and horrors. Having been to the battlefield I saw it all unfold in my head like a movie, the kind where you shout at the screen "Don't go in that dark basement alone, you idiot!" and no one can hear you and they go anyway and terrible things happen.  Pride and fear are the most ferocious and formidable of opponents, and they battle in us all.

Speaking of pride, my takeaway from Trevor Rees-Jones' fascinating The Bodyguard's Story is that extreme wealth creates a disturbing mentality of casual superiority to the proletariat - the rules of the 99% simply don't apply to the 1%.  Trevor Rees-Jones was Dodi Fayed's bodyguard at the time when Dodi's billionaire father Mohammed Fayed was orchestrating a romance between his son and the recently single Diana, Princess of Wales.  The elder Fayed reveled in the overwhelming attention the relationship garnered in the press which - in the mind of a shipping mogul - equated free marketing for him.  That level of attention became lethal, however, on August 31st, 1997 when Dodi, Diana, and their inebriated driver were killed in a car crash while fleeing the paparazzi; Trevor was the only survivor.  He wrote the book several years after recovering from the crash not only to pay his hospital bills but to defend himself from increasingly hostile, frantic, and fantastic attacks in the press by Mohammed Fayed alleging that Rees-Jones was part of an international conspiracy to eliminate Dodi and Diana. Delightful look at a normal guy inside an elite sphere.

I was reminded of Fayed's 1% mind-set when I read Predator's Ball by Connie Bruck, the story of Michael Milken's rise to the throne of junk-bond king in the 1980's.  The fulminating brew of risky capitalism incubates predators and prey like a Jurassic swamp; Bruck's detailed account submerges you in its fetid stink.  Books like this create dissonance in my gut because I want the lubricious life wealth brings without its attending corruption, while history tells me the two are inseparable.  Sigh. No Bentley for me, I guess.

I needed to take my mind off my status as prey so I cracked open the mindless fun of James Swain's Sucker Bet and learned nothing except the myriad and creative ways people cheat at games of chance.  I did enjoy the refreshing change of a protagonist in his sixties who's confident enough in his skin not to succumb to navel-gazing.  I also like stories that take place in Florida - the birthplace of goofy. Florida seems like America's appendix: a dangling fixture that collects toxins and causes all sorts of problems.  But I admit, it's easy to be critical when you're basking in the high-country of Banner Elk.

Elbow Greece.

O Greece, you idled in your cradle, 

guzzled panting from Tsipras' ladle,

sunk your debts to Agean's hadel, 

the grasshopper from Aesop's fable, 

blaming ants for an empty table,

refuse to work - although you're able,

loud, proud, hungry - lives unstable.

Now substitute 'Greece' for 'U.S.', 'Tsipras' for 'Obama's', 'Agean's' for 'Atlantic's'.

The troubles in Greece could happen here.  Stop reading this nonsense and get to work!

Bones and Blood.

Finished reading RN by Jane Carpineto.  She follows three nurses who represent different aspects of the profession over several months and documents the highs and lows of hospital nursing.  It was written in 1992 and I was struck by how little had changed.  Here's a few excerpts that jumped out at me:

"There's something weird about this profession....  None of your friends on the outside see death as an everyday occurrence. For them, it's an extraordinary event."

" I think you're right... that the best and brightest are leaving this profession.  A few of them become private home-care nurses.  They feel they'll be more respected that way, even if they make less money.  I'm envious of the autonomy they have."

"You know what I hate most?  It's when people say, 'Oh, you're a nurse, isn't that nice.  They don't say that to doctors."

"It's funny how they want us to take even more of our time to write down how much of our time our tasks take."

She remembers the personal power she felt almost two years ago when she entered the medical world as a genuine medical professional, and she can recall that inner voice that told her that she had been granted a special invitation into others' private lives.  Some people had been grateful for her presence, had turned to her in need and desperation, while others had withdrawn from her as time and illness advanced.  Like Arthur, they increasingly had used her as the target for their frustration.  The more control they lost, the more they tried to control her, the more distance they put between themselves and her. Eventually they couldn't remember her name.  Then she would find herself withdrawing, too. Mustering sympathy became more difficult.

"I don't see them (doctors) with the patients very often.  They're always in the charts.  The patients ask me so many questions that I can't help feeling there's a communication breakdown somewhere. It seems like there are about sixteen people between the patient and the doctor."

On the whole, though, the SICU nurses, in concert with their peers elsewhere, express the same standard complaint; too much to do, too little time to do it, too few people to get it done.

"The trouble with academic types... is that they lose their trench perspective.  Teaching skills and doing skills are different.  The more they move into teaching, the further away they get from doing.  You get to resent it when the CNS (clinical nurse specialist) comes up to you after four hours of horror in the trenches and suggests that you should try doing something a different way."

Staff nurses see the caretaking functions of nursing, the very functions that attracted them to the profession in the first place, eroding day by day due to an onslaught of managerial and fiscal priorities.  And they don't like it.

At the end of a day, most professionals, businesspeople, service workers, and artisans will have gone about their daily affairs without so much as a glimpse or thought of death, but nurses will have thought, seen, and felt its constant presence by the end of every day.  No one, not even physicians, will have been exposed to it so unremittingly.

Often it is the climate of emergency and high pressure that is apt to precede death, more than the death itself, that takes a toll on them. They have learned to accept the inevitability of death, to regard it more as destiny than tragedy.  They mourn it, but they don't personalize it.  They understand that disease can be a force more powerful than human ingenuity and modern technology combined.

"I struggle more these days with feelings of futility than with feelings of grief."

The closer she comes to the suffering of others, the further she travels from her own.  Usually the only conscious reason she voices for choosing to be a nurse is her desire to be helpful to suffering people, but that is partly an illusion.  What she doesn't know and doesn't say is that continuous caregiving is a selfless activity that affords her an extra layer of protective coating against experiencing her own personal pain.

No matter what strategies we as a society devise to counter it, the truth is that capitalism and caring for the sick are incompatible marriage partners.

Exhaustion and stress were such intrusive visitors to her daily life that they sometimes made her feel that she had nothing left for caring....  Too few nurses, not enough money, more and sicker patients, and who cared anyway?  Do politicians care?  Do hospital administrators? Some of them, perhaps, but not enough to make a difference. Do voters care?  Do patients care? ...it looked as if not caring was spinning so far out of control that if nobody else was going to care, why should they?  But put the nagging questions to sleep for awhile, and in the morning these nurses care again.  Can't get away from it.  It always comes back, this caring business; like it never really left, just felt like it did.  It's in a nurse's bones and blood.

Just Got Back From Chile.

I didn't really go to Chile; Sara Wheeler's travelogue of her adventures in Chile - Travels in a Thin Country -  made me feel like I was along for the ride.  Of all the things in my life I haven't spent much time thinking about, Chile (the country) is close to the top of the list.  Turns out, that's Richard Nixon's fault! Chileans substitute his name for Hitler's in conversations about maniacal tyrants and they aren't overfond of North Americans in general. Bet you didn't know that, or that Charles Darwin thought Chile was nearly unmatched for beauty, or that much of Chile is still living under a feudal system! Ms. Wheeler brings the earthy reality of this spine-shaped country to vivid life in a thin, highly-readable journal of wild beauty and wrenching politics.
Thought-provoking.

Things My Father Taught Me.

The number one song burning up the pop charts these days is Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon. I hate it.  Which is odd, considering it has the kind of catchy, driving rhythm I usually like.  It niggled why the song repulsed me until I realized it's because I was taught that telling someone to shut up is rude; I don't like Shut Up and Dance because it's rude.  Also vapid.
That got me started to think about other things my dad taught me that stuck.  There's too many to count, honestly, but here's a few that came to mind:

How to split wood.
How to find the North Star.
How to drive a stick-shift.
How to start a fire.
How to change a tire.
How to kill and skin and animal.
How to plan and plant a garden.
How to bale hay.
How to shoot a gun.
How to ride a horse.
How to change spark plugs.
How to clean battery terminals using water and baking soda.
How to identify edible plants.
How to mend fence.
How to make do with little.
How to keep my temper under control.
How to forgive foolish decisions.
How to be cheerful under duress.
How not to be afraid of the dark.
How history is important.
How to love road trips.
How the military is a valid option.
How to appreciate the Bible.
How to help others.
How to play football.
How to say 'please' and 'thank you'.

Thank you for all you taught me, Dad - Happy Father's Day!

A Man, A Plan... Nicaragua?

Manly men doing manly things in manly ways on manly adventures.

I finished Tim Cahill's delightful little travel book Jaguars Ripped My Flesh and was casting about for another well-written book about man vs. nature when I came across David McCullough's in-depth study, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870 - 1914. 

 I haven't finished it - in truth, where I am in the story they haven't even started digging yet - but the preliminaries are fascinating.  What's even more fascinating is that 100 years later China is building another canal through Nicaragua, following the route that was originally decided on - then discarded - in the 1870s.  You can read more about that here:

 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-31936549.
 
Oh, China - is there nothing you can't do?  Tammy asked me why China thinks it can just build islands

( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/chinese-mischief-at-mischief-reef.html?_r=0)

and dig canals all over the place; I said it was like the old joke: "Where does an 800 lb gorilla sit?" Wherever it wants.  The last thing we need is to upset 1.3 billion indoctrinated people who know Wing Chun and can hack our defense system; it went badly in 1950's Korea.  I wonder how it will be under their rule when they take over the world?  Will they let us use their fancy canal?

Why?  Because it's there.  Closer to us.

The Fantastical, Fruity Pursuit of Zero.

I heard an NPR segment a couple years ago featuring a physician / author arguing that there was no reason a visit to the hospital couldn't be analagous to a dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  I had to turn off the radio; I felt physically nauseous.  I wanted to grab that pseudo-doctor by the lapels of his ( I imagined) Brooks Brothers tweed and shout "What are you doing!  Actual, un-informed people are listening to your tripe and think it's true!"  You can't compare a fine-dining experience that people willingly and briefly partake of to an unwilling stay at a cinder-block instutution packed with suffering - it's apples and oranges!
Unfortunately, the incomprehensible and incomparable nature of today's health care cries out for a parable to render it relevant and last Friday I attended a healthcare simulation conference where they trotted out their Sermon on the Mount of analogies: the airline industry and its incredible safety record.  Capt. Chesney Sullenberger and his miracle bird-strike landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River always gets plenty of play (although he admitted he'd never practiced that scenario in the simulator).
Any high-risk organization likes to utilize simulated scenario training to increase safety: the military, nuclear industries, healthcare, and flight - indeed, airlines have set the standard for simulation and very nearly perfected it. Simulation is a powerful and adaptive winnowing tool, incredibly effective at producing near-realistic arousal states and responses in a safe environment. The fighting soldier, the suburbanites dwelling in the nuclear silo's shadow, air travelers - all are much safer today than the mid-20th century, in large part because of the rigorous simulator training, but also because of better protocols, procedures and communication. There are also personal investments to consider: 3 people sit in the cockpit flying the plane and each is enthusiastically motivated to have a precisely equal number of take-offs and landings - U.S. airline disasters have fallen to nearly zero. This number is held up as a shining target for the U.S. healthcare industry since, alas, hundreds of thousands of people are dying in our hospitals!
Because that's where people go to die, you tweedy, ivory-tower-hunched, statistics-blind cretins! 
I love healthcare simulation, obvously, since it's my profession.  I think it's invaluable and I can't wait to see it evolve into a more realistic, more refined, more flexible tool.  But you can't compare the training that makes a mechanical flying machine driven by three people safer, to the training of a few worker ants that scuttle around the anthill of a hospital - it's apples and oranges.  A better analogy might be; a hospital is like an enormous kennel run by veterinarians and their assistants and business partners that outnumber the animals 2:1, but that falls short too, because the 'patients' - while fed, sheltered, medicated, their diseases treated and heads petted - can also be caged, controlled and legally euthanized.  A street poll of most humans would reveal this to be unsatisfactory healthcare.
I don't know that there is a good parable to unpack the complexity of western medicine, so I'm uneasy with the slavering after an unattainable goal like zero airline fatalities should equal zero hospital fatalities, despite some truly outstanding presentations on the topic by people I highly respect.
People want to board an airplane and pay good money to do so with an expectation that, allowing for a few variables, they will fly through the air to their destination by harnessing the immutable laws of physics to overcome the immutable theory of gravity. Now that we know how to do it, it's an expectation that's almost always met.  It's largely done by a machine - as long as the cold, dumb parts don't fail, you'll get to Kalamazoo.
People do not want to enter a hospital but usually have to, accompanied by the unrealistic expectation of a rapid and glowing return to normal health. 60% of the time they have no money to pay for services but receive them anyway thanks to the onerous burden carried by the rest of us. 90% of the time (this is a real statistic for abdominal pain), despite the best technology available, some of the most highly-educated humans on earth can't reach a definitive conclusion as to why the person is suffering but don't want them to leave empty-handed so offer a palliative medicine for that suffering that is then trumpeted on the cover of TIME magazine as the gateway to the downfall of civilization. In our instant-gratification, media-saturated society, healthcare can't win - the immutable laws of physics and chemistry cannot overcome the immutable law of biological decay.  It's important and exciting to create simulated scenarios that prevent unnecessary deaths, but there's no simulation that can bring the death rate to zero. Perhaps patients themselves could reduce that rate a little if they spent less time peering through their tobacco smoke to excavate the last pork-rind in the bag and more time enjoying fresh apples and oranges,but I'm no doctor - just a realistic sim geek who, in the face of humankind's relentless fatalities, is trying to put the care back in healthcare.

Blessed.

This week's writing assignment: "I am blessed."

“Bless me, father, for I have sinned.  It’s been years since my last confession.”
“What sins have you committed, my son?”
“I am spiritually bankrupt, father.  I have nothing to offer our Savior.  I am starving for righteousness.”
“Our Lord tells us to seek, and we shall find.  We have but to knock, and the door to the Kingdom will open.  Have you sought?”
“With all my heart, father.  I have wandered the earth, devoured the wisest of writings, intercoursed with the most knowledgeable of teachers, given alms to the poorest until I, too, was one of the poorest, broken my health against wickedness, wept with anguish at death, and cruelty, and avarice, provided succor to the victims of those vices and felt hollow and unworthy of their gratitude.  All my efforts crumble to dust under the onslaught of shame at their shallowness.”
“What did you find, in your search?”
“That no matter the pureness of my heart, I am the most unworthy of sinners.  That I am as revolted of myself and the plight of the victims as I am by the machinations that produced them.  That the wisest teachers and soundest philosophers are crippled by vanity the instant they rise in esteem among men. That the world of men is a tortured place, filled with inverted logic and selfish ambition. That the hard, bright desire burns within me to murmur peace among them but my voice remains too meagre to sound.”
“What would you have to amplify your voice, my son?”
“In my travels it is universally acknowledged that health, wealth, wisdom, family, skill, knowledge, honor, luck, peace, comfort and dignity are the blessings bestowed by our Lord.  I would have these, father, as proof of His face smiling upon me, of His acceptance of my worth so that others might see and believe.”
“Alas, I fear the words of men have misled you.  While such things are admired and sought, they will not bring conviction nor are they proof of the blessings of God – for that we must turn to the words of our Savior.”
“What words, father?  Where are they found? I must know!”
“You already know, my son; you are already blessed! I will read you His words from the Gospel of Matthew and as I do, reflect on your life and see if this is not so:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Go, my son, continue on your search, continue doing those things for which the world reviles you – it is through their revulsion you may recognize the ineffable blessings of Jehovah.  Go, and remember me to Him - His humble servant – when the keys to the Kingdom are placed in your hand!”

I knew what awaited me....

Writing assignment: " I knew what awaited me..."  

I had a vague notion - enough for the color to drain from my face - what was in store for the rest of my life when she held the plus-sign up to my eyes - it shimmered red in the dim foyer light.  This notion was more accurate than the notion I’d had when she’d called 30 minutes earlier to say we needed to talk. 

It was early fall and I’d been wheeling my bike out the door to see my friend; we were working on plans for a Pacific Crest Trail-hike after graduation.  While hiking, we’d formalize our partnership and sketch out the foundation for a school in Ouray, Colorado modeled on the Oregon Extension.  We would open the school and spend the rest of our lives cracking the windows for young, suffocating Christians. I was literally bouncing with excitement when I answered her call.  She sounded subdued, but I had a notion she was simply tired, I figured I’d pop by to cheer her up then roll on.  But she, and a train, and a dump truck, and a judge’s gavel all met me five feet inside the door; 30 seconds later the bounce abandoned me as I looked away from that damning plus-sign and surveyed the wreckage of my dreams.  The vague notion, and the buzzing fear , blended together in roaring certainty:  “I guess we’d better get married, then”, I heard myself say faintly, launching the first of many impulsive, enormous, sideways jumps onto rocky and untried paths.  My crushed spirit knew what awaited: syrupy condolences, congratulations and prayers covering iron-clad ex-communication from “righteous” fellowship, my mother’s tears, morning sickness, hasty plans for a bitter-sweet ceremony, the frantic search for housing, the snickers and whispers from un-stained classmates, the relentless responsibility of parenthood, the grind of survival, and the endurance of a life-time of shame.

What I didn’t know was the clutch of tiny fingers, the giggle of a little throat, the generosity of my parents arranging for us living those first numb months in their home, the later joy of throwing rocks in the ocean with a bright, happy boy who thought I hung the moon, the smiling gurgles of his baby brother and a second set of clutching fingers, the pride of watching the older one graduate high school magna cum laude, get his first car to drive to his first job while the younger one is renowned for his generosity, joie de vivre, and affability.  I couldn’t have known that the struggle for survival would lead me to Coast Guard Medic training and teaching life-support courses, which would lead me to nursing, which would lead me to an award for best nurse in the nation, which would lead me to directing the simulation lab program for a multi-national organization. 

I knew what that damp, red plus-sign meant – my destruction.  What I knew turned out to be true, and it was all horrible, but I didn’t know it would only jolt me sideways, bringing my life scattered, brilliant diamonds of joy - destroying my juvenile dreams, not me.   In the end, I knew nothing of what awaited me - a surprise gift from a wise, patient, loving Creator.

Diapaga.

Writing assignment: a short story a la Hemingway. Like Nick Adams, this is fiction, based on fact.

“We need water”, Whiteman said with a low curse. John looked at Jeff, who looked at his shoes in the gravel at the side of the road.  The native woman with the withered baby sat placidly in the bed of the scalding truck.  She hummed quietly and rocked.  The open hood blocked John’s view of the vitriolic Swiss girl in the cab but he bet she was sweating, and cursing too, in French.  “There’s a lake over there, through the scrub”, John said.  Whiteman looked glum, but handed him a cracked pail and slumped against the shady side of the truck where the engine ticked behind his head like a patient bomb.  “I’ll be right back”, John said, hesitating a little when he squinted through the scrub toward the lake.  “Don’t dawdle”; we’ll melt!” Whiteman guffawed. Soft, vehement French dribbled out the open truck window.  The black lady rocked and hummed under the sun, her head drooped over the baby like a prayer.  Jeff put his hands in his pockets and drew circles in the gravel with his toe, glancing blankly at the yawning compartment where the engine ticked metallically.

                John wove through thorny scrub that scratched against the pail like fingernails. He thought about the guavas they’d eaten for breakfast at the mission, plucked warm and giving from the tree like a kiss, but he was only 18 and didn’t know about things yet, only that guavas were warm from the sun, and soft, and sweet.  The Australian ladies at the mission had laughed too much over the meager dinner in the lamplight the night before, the sahba rolled into balls and dipped into spicy peanut tikpindi.  They had laughed about the puppies that chased over their feet, calling them silly burkes but their eyes said they were glad about the puppies.  He remembered when they’d left for Diapaga, the native lady with her bundle climbed aboard silently and no one said anything so he sat with her and glanced shyly at her while she nursed. No one saw one of the puppies sleeping just in front of the back wheel as they rolled away from the mission. John saw it writhing behind them after a slight bump that could have been just a root to the others but John knew was not a root.  He said nothing about the puppy but his stomach felt ill, and the woman’s baby with its dull eyes looked listlessly at him. 

Diapaga has waterfalls, and cliffs with baboons, and miles of waving millet fields that would be a nice break from work, Whiteman had told them, his mouth full of tikpindi - it was worth the drive. The French girl distractedly said she knew some people in the village and they would be glad to kill a chicken and perform the drum circle.  John thought Diapaga would be good. He liked exploring. He liked to ride in the truck bed and stand facing the wind. Once a bug hit his eye at speed and he just rubbed it hard, blinked the tears away and smiled as they slowed for the boys herding goats across the road, their slingshots hung around their necks, their cries of “Ca va!  Ca va!  fanned by short, happy waves.  The single paved road that ran from Liberia through Burkina Faso to Niger stretched ahead of his grin in a straight, diminishing line like a bullet’s track.  Once, as they chugged along, a black Mercedes hissed past, rubber tires singing, hurrying to where there was a great need - or because the passenger had a great need.  John hoped the driver knew about the boys, and the goats. That was when the fan belt broke and the radiator erupted hot in his face.

He felt dizzy from the heat. The lake was further than he remembered, lost beyond the scrub, and he hurried because of the baby under the sun, watered by tears, and humming.

Oh, Brother.

 A Band of Brothers at the BB&T Ballpark.

My brainiac brother came by for a blistering baseball bonanza - brilliant!  The Charlotte Knights moved last year to a stellar stadium uptown where a hot dog comes with mac & cheese on it and costs more than a ticket to the game - and both are worth every penny.  The Knights lost 2 of 3, it rained, the seats were hard, it was hot, crowded and redolent of beer.  It was a great weekend.

 Sunny Charlotte.

Rainy Charlotte.

Charlotte Knights, swimming against the Norfolk Tides.