December 2006


Medical11 Dec 2006 06:15 pm

I mentioned in a post recently about my wife identifying docs for me when we see them in public. See, she knows them all because she’s a nurse and she works with them, including my own personal docs.

I have so many medical issues I need a team of docs, not just one.

Anyway, she works the night shift. Sometimes she needs to call her patient’s doc if there is a problem, and once in a while they’re less than enthused about being woke up in the middle of the night.

Recently she had to call one of my docs at 2:30 in the morning. He challenged the fact that he was the doc to be called for that patient, and that the issue was important enough for a call in the first place. She just laughed at him. After she hung up the phone, that is!

A few days after that occurred, I had an appointment with him (she didn’t think he realized who she was during the calling incident). I wanted to ask, “So, have any nurses called you recently in the middle of the night, heh heh heh!” But I didn’t. He’s one of those docs that doesn’t create an atmosphere for small talk, so I stuck to business.

Which is fine, don’t get me wrong. I’m not paying him to be my friend, I’m paying him to be my doc! I like him, he’s a good doc.

Family11 Dec 2006 08:06 am

I recorded this (at a very low bitrate!) at the doctor’s office. (46 kb, 0:10)

Music10 Dec 2006 03:06 pm

Awhile ago I mentioned with enthusiasm that the King’s Singers were descending upon Hoosierbilly country. I was pleasantly surprised when their 2nd baritone, Chris Gabbitas, later commented on the post.

We went to the concert at the Goshen College Sauder Concert Hall. Pretty neat venue. It was full, and there were lots of doctors there. The hospital is all tied up with the college in something or other, and the hospital big shots and lots of docs were there. This guy had all the docs stand, and they were everywhere. I looked for my docs but I didn’t see them. Jewel pointed out a few to me, saying “Oh there’s doc so-and-so, and that’s doc whoever,” etc.

It would have been a good place to have a heart attack.

Which I nearly did, the singing was so incredible! The King’s Singers have an unbelievable mastery of blend, intonation, and musicality in general. They have completely conquered the art of ensemble singing.

Which is no small feat. But every tone was perfectly placed, perfectly pitched, perfectly balanced, to create a level of vocal music that is a rare privilege to experience.

I introduced myself to Chris afterwards and got a picture for ITF. Thanks for the great concert my friend!

Thanks to my buddy Benji Mast for help with the pic.

Family&Misc09 Dec 2006 12:26 am

Much to my wife’s glee.

This happened a couple of weeks ago. The tie rod just popped out of the tie rod end, who knows why. Maybe the locking nut had been loose for awhile and it gradually wowed out the threads, I don’t know. Two mechanics and a farmer said they had never seen anything like it.

Fortunately, it happened in the driveway!

ITF Business08 Dec 2006 12:57 pm

One of the many benefits of a blogging platform like WordPress is the comment feed. Any and every blogging system has a regular post feed, but the good ones put the post feed AND comment feed front and center.

Comment feeds are great, because you can easily keep up with comments whether they’re on old posts or new ones. For instance, if you don’t subscribe to the ITF comment feed, you’ve missed some excellent comments. Here are a few good ones.

Remember when I told you the King’s Singers were coming to Hoosierville? One of the King’s Singers themselves found the post and commented on it.

I mentioned David Maddux one time, and awhile later David himself left a comment.

I talked about going to the Gaither Vocal Band concert, and raved for awhile about Guy Penrod. Mrs. Darling left a good comment asking me some pointed questions about my position.

Anyway, I think the comment feed feature is pretty cool. It’s about the only way I keep up with comments on any of the blogs I follow.

ITF Headquarters08 Dec 2006 02:20 am

Here’s what our backyard looks like right now.

We got maybe 5 inches or so today (Thursday). Cold and wet. Slick roads. Miserable.

Family&Misc07 Dec 2006 06:59 pm

I got an email from my sister recently, my nephew Micah just got his first deer. He took him down with a bow at 15 yards.

ITF Headquarters06 Dec 2006 04:28 pm

We’re finally in our new house. We’re in, but there is still tons of clutter all over the place!

I’ve been rather swamped the last few weeks, as you can imagine. But I do have lots of new material for the ecruing masses!

This house is much bigger than where we were, but for some reason there’s nowhere to put stuff. I’m not sure what’s going on with that. I had no idea we had crammed so much paraphernalia in the tiny place we were in.

I was astounded at how soon the spam phone calls started coming. Literally a few days after being activated we were fielding 1-3 unsolicited phone calls a day. I was incensed!

As soon as my DSL was hooked up and operating I cranked up that wonderful website donotcall.gov and registered the new number. I don’t know how long it takes to kick in, but at any rate by now they’ve pretty much quit. Except for a no-answer call every day or so.

Same story at the mailbox, it doesn’t take long at all for the trash to start flowing. Now if there was just a do not call website for junk mail!

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