heat index

i know the heat index has something to do with the temperature and the humidity, sort of a reverse of the wind chill, but is there an age-adjusted heat index? i remember 100 degree days where it didn't feel like my brain was melting. and cindy thinks it's because i was driving her convertible with the top down! i'm thinking maybe temp plus humidity plus age plus amount of hair* (*or lack of it) and plug it into some formula and it comes out to...HOT.

oh, by the way

the dinner i just mentioned was not just me and some lady. it was my wife and i and this lady and her husband. i even remember their names! but how we had dinner together was sort of 'european' or something like that.

we had just sat down at an outside table at interurban and they came onto the patio and there were no more tables. there were 2 chairs left at our table and 2 people who needed to sit down so we invited them to join us. what a concept! no pressure, no expectations, we all just talked and enjoyed the meal and the conversating (at least we did, i think they did). i showed her my 'fat kelly' pics and of course we had to talk weight loss for a while...but i really liked the concept of saving points and how it relates to kids and eating. and we enjoyed their company and if we had been our usual selves with our blinders on then we would have missed the opportunity.

saving up points

had dinner with a weight watchers instructor (?leader, coach?) and i noticed she had a couple of glasses of wine and i asked about that and weight watchers. she said she just saved up points if she knew she was going to be going out and then she could use the points on alcohol or dessert or whatever. so...kids are really smart. they've been doing this for centuries. 'you didn't eat your dinner.' 'i'm saving room for dessert.' 'if you don't eat your dinner you can't have dessert.' 'but mom, if i eat my dinner i won't be hungry for dessert!'

kids are brilliant! now when will parents catch on?

modern innovation

in a time magazine article about how 'twitter' is going to change our lives, i found a very interesting and enlightening and gratifying few sentences. sure, i'll probably learn to twitter like i've learned to (at least an old man attempt at) facebook. i may not use it like i do my texting skills, and not to the degree professionally that i use email, but i'll probably learn to twitter. but, the article contains some of the best news for america that i've seen in a long time.

the author is discussing the innovations that have happened to twitter after it was released and how amazing they are, and just sort of throws in this part: " ...Since the mid-'80's, a long progression of doomsayers have warned that our (the U.S.) declining market share in the patents and Ph.D.'s business augurs dark times for American innovation. The specific threats have changed. It was the Japanese who would destroy us in the '80's; now it's China and India.

"But what actually happened to American innovation during that period? We came up with America Online, Netscape, Amazon, Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, Craigslist, TiVo, Netflix, eBay, the iPod and iPhone, Xbox, Facebook, and Twitter itself. Sure, we didn't build the Prius or the Wii, but if you measure global innovation in terms of actual lifestyle-changing hit products and not just grad students, the U.S. has been lapping the field for the past 20 years."

i'm encouraged. the kids i encounter regularly are quite brilliant and are good thinkers. they may learn a little differently. they may need a little pharmaceutical help occasionally to turn their D battery flashlight/not so focused brains into the laser beams they were capable of, but dadgummit, we're still the good ol US of A and we kick butt, and don't let the ninnies at npr tell you otherwise!

glad i'm not in school anymore

at a meeting recently i started thinking...i'm glad i'm not in high school. if there had been texting while i was in school, i would have been the worst! i could listen to the speaker and still text friends, coworkers, relatives, spouse. multitasking is easy. thank goodness i don't have enough time for it now!

maybe it's just me...

maybe it's just me, but i love my routine. sure, it gets old sometimes, but i love it. i've been on more vacations lately than i can ever remember taking, and i have loved each of them. however, when i get back home i find myself craving the regular, the routine. it's a stabilizer, this routine. it's something to look forward to, to anticipate, not to dread.

so...maybe it's just me, but - enjoy your routines.

cell phone sex

ok. i hooked you with the title. this, however, is a true story from this week.

i took a call from mercy hospital monday afternoon while in the room with a patient in the office. they were calling to tell me that i had 2 new babies just born that afternoon. they usually give me the name, time of birth, weight, length, apgar scores, hep b and group b strep status, and whether the baby is a boy or a girl. that takes a while, and i was in a hurry due to needing to answer some questions the patient's mom had. so when the nurse asked me if i wanted all the information on the babies, i said 'just give me the sex, that will be enough for now'. needless to say, i backpeddled a little pretty quickly and said, 'i mean the gender...not sex, oh well...'. i'm sure the mom, who had no idea of what was being said on the other end of the call, was wondering exactly what was going on when i answered my phone 'this is dr. stephens', then the next thing i said was 'just give me the sex...'. 

that's why cell phones in offices should be outlawed. or maybe the hospital should text me with baby info...