My neighbor was carjacked yesterday, a few blocks from here, on the other side of the freeway. It’s the nature of our neighborhood that I didn’t recognize her talking head on the 11 p.m. news, didn’t recognize her common name, and only knew it was her when they flashed her distinctive vanity plate toward the end of the report. Ah, well.
What made this carjacking newsworthy, as opposed to all the others in the Naked City yesterday, was the fact the perps were pre-teens. Srsly. One was about 11 and the other about 12, and my neighbor said her first reaction, when they demanded her keys, was to tell them to run along. Then one showed the gun in his waistband, and life imitated “The Wire.” She said when they drove away in her big Escalade, they could hardly see over the wheel.
Without blaming the victim in any way whatsoever, this is why I would never drive an Escalade, or any other luxury SUV, without Kwame Kilpatrick’s security detail rolling on backup. Not in the stolen-car capital of North America. Just too tempting. Three or four years ago, their last Escalade was stripped of all four of its tires and wheels (replacement cost: about four grand) in their driveway, by one of those Nascar-type theft crews that can get the job done in the time it takes you to pour a cup of coffee. Nice ride, but not worth the trouble.
Insurance is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Which is why it costs so much.
I once asked a local cop who’d done time on the car-theft task force what happens to all the stolen cars around here. Are they rolled into shipping containers and sent off to Moscow? Stripped in chop shops? Stacked on car carriers and taken out of Michigan entirely? Hardly. Most go a few miles into Detroit, where, depending on the thief’s skill and connections, they will be parked somewhere and ineptly hacked at, like a buffalo carcass on the prairie. Kids take the tires and wheels, because they’re easy to get off and you can roll them to the local shops that will buy them, no questions asked. Other thieves remove the air bags, the scrappers go underneath and saw off the catalytic converter, the electronics and sound system and so on find other buyers, and finally the carcass turns up crippled and worthless, maybe torched. A chop shop requires skilled labor, he said, and a network of buyers. Just as James Bond-style cat burglars were outnumbered by strong-arm home invaders, so too is the chop shop more a fixture of the movies than reality. Although they do exist, as our own J.C. Burns, whose 10-year-old Honda Civic disappeared from his Atlanta driveway a few years back, can tell you. Those are reliable, long-lived cars. Parts are valuable, and decade-old antitheft devices easily detoured.
So that was yesterday in my world. What about yours?
Which seems a good segue into the bloggage. In a dispatch from that other capital of criminal weirdness — South Florida — we meet a man who settled a grudge with a squirt bottle of Roundup:
In the front yard, Ewing gunned down flowers and bushes, the report stated. To get to the plants in the backyard, he filled water balloons with the weed killer and tossed them onto his neighbors property. Ewing estimated the landscaping damage to be about $250.
The victim owed him about $200, so it sounds like he got his money’s worth.
Have you ever watched a surgeon operate? I have. The first thing you notice is how all that “delicate hands of a surgeon” crap is just that. It’s more like stuffing a turkey, as this DetNews story on the life of a Motor City trauma surgeon points out:
Patton’s most important tool appears to be his right index finger. That digit acts as his probe, his periscope, his divining rod, his cork. He can remember on more than one occasion saving the life of a gunshot victim who arrived at the hospital in the back of a sedan. He simply plugged the hole with his finger.
“Feeling is believing,” Patton tells a glassy-eyed intern as he fishes around in a knife wound in the back of a man’s knee, trying to augur whether it’s damage to the vein or the artery.
Anything else? Doesn’t look like it. Now to hop to the shower — more office hours. Today I’m bringing a lunch.
ROgirl said on October 7, 2010 at 9:21 am
The sprayer’s neighbor owed him money for drugs, according to the article.
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brian stouder said on October 7, 2010 at 9:53 am
…we meet a man who settled a grudge with a squirt bottle of Roundup
When I read this, I was expecting something more elaborate, and less prosaic; maybe organic graffiti. “FYYFFM”, or maybe some cryptic threat or one or two word denunciation written across the lawn in large letters. Screenwriters and authors in the crowd should take note of that bon-bon of a news story, I think.
Many years ago, I had occasion to work on some equipment utilized for a similar non-selective herbicide, and a week later, my footprints – dead zones in the grass – appeared across our lawn. (This scored no points, especially since they meandered from the driveway to the flowers and then to the front step)
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Deborah said on October 7, 2010 at 10:12 am
Where do you find this stuff Nancy? I have a friend who uses the term “little known facts for Catholics” when she comes across some obscure news item or other. “Round-up drive-by” has that ring.
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nancy said on October 7, 2010 at 10:12 am
Thanks for reminding me, Deborah: That item was passed along by none other than Dexter. He gets the hat tip.
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Julie Robinson said on October 7, 2010 at 10:24 am
Don’t you wonder what he’d been smoking when he came up with the Round-up Drive-by? As Dave Barry used to say, you can’t make this stuff up.
I’ve been up to my eyeballs in costumes for a local high school production of Meet Me in St. Louis. It’s been much fun watching the current generation of casual dressers have their first experiences with 1904 fashions. The guys do better than the girls who are stumped by crinolines and up-dos, as well as the proper way to sit whilst wearing a frothy confection of a gown. I’m hoping it’s also a good compare/contrast history lesson, but that may be too much to hope for.
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coozledad said on October 7, 2010 at 10:33 am
There’s a good reason surgery makes you sore. At one point a physician suggested I look into getting corrective surgery for scoliosis. When I was in college, the student bookstore sold step by step procedural manuals for a variety of surgeries, including the one where they put a truss rod in your spine to straighten it out like the neck of a guitar.
I asked a friend of mine who worked in a hospital if he’d ever seen the operation. He had. He told me the osteopath climbs up on the patient’s opened back and has at the spine with a mallet and a chisel. Those assisting stand around and wince.
I decided to try yoga instead.
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Joe Kobiela said on October 7, 2010 at 10:37 am
Flew a trip out of Palwaukee Ill last night out to Des Moines Iowa for Mesaba, know we have some people from Chicago on the board,just wanted to say, coming across the lake at 1:00am on a clear night like last night, you all have a great looking city. It was sparkling like Oz.
Pilot Joe
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brian stouder said on October 7, 2010 at 10:48 am
Joe – I remember having exactly the same reaction to flying into Chicago; a very beautiful, close-packed collection of glittering towers, seemingly on a prairie
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A.Riley said on October 7, 2010 at 11:10 am
Thanks Joe & Brian! We think our city’s beautiful too. Years ago I got an airplane ride in a little two-seater, and we did some sightseeing above the Loop soon after dark. It was *gorgeous.* I’ll never forget it.
As for the Roundup story, my insane sister-in-law did that to a neighbor’s front-yard tree a few years back. She thought the neighbors had hurt her dog (her dachshund had a backache one morning) so she killed their little flowering tree. Sprayed it with Roundup one dark night. Insane.
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Sue said on October 7, 2010 at 11:41 am
From my days as a surgical technician (now called technologists, I hear):
Of course a trauma surgeon would be a hack artist, emphasis on the artist. It’s like trying to separate a bowl of spaghetti, for crying out loud. Doesn’t mean that eventually the delicate part doesn’t come to the forefront, and then the surgeon either hands the patient off to the specialist waiting his/her turn, or really shows his stuff.
I didn’t like orthopedics, Cooz. Too many power tools, for one thing. Same with brain surgery, scary in its delicacy but also too many power tools, along with all those predictable “there goes sixth grade” jokes when something is removed or sucked away.
“delicate hands” really comes into play in some of the finer specialties. I hated the hair-thin suture complete with tiny, tiny needles (on each end!) used for some of the vascular stuff. You had to keep the needles separate and make sure the suture didn’t bunch. Then you run into a vascular guy who doesn’t have delicate hands and you have nightmares for years at the work you witnessed.
Oh, and speaking of nightmares: drinking and motorcycles don’t mix – the trauma that sometimes ensues is unbelievable. Don’t do it, folks.
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Deborah said on October 7, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Sue, you know what they call motorcyclists that don’t wear helmets? Organ donors. An old “joke”. My husband used to have a BMW touring bike a few years back, he totaled it stone sober, going around a bend on “Blood Alley” south of St. Louis. His helmet split but he only had a few cracked ribs. Super lucky. I was supposed to be riding on the back that day but at the last minute I had something come up and couldn’t go. It probably wouldn’t have happened had I gone, because I’d never have let him go that fast around a bend.
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brian stouder said on October 7, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Just a week ago a colleague of mine was going fast around a bend on his sexy-fast bullet-bike, and a deer ran in front of him.
He swerved and missed the deer, but he smashed into a utility pole; got a ride in a helicopter, and now has some titanium in his arm and foot.
Even when I was a young feller, motorcycles never looked like a really good idea to me; too many variables in traffic, with one BIG constant – in any accident, you lose
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Crabby said on October 7, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Sue @ 10 – I was a Surgical Tech about 40 years ago. I’ve seen orthopedic surgery using tools from the hardware store – standard bit-and-brace type drill to insert pins and screws. At the other end of the spectrum watched vascular and plastic surgeons working through binocular surgical microscopes to put mangled hands back together.
Surgical microscope:
http://www.dremed.com/catalog/images/leica_wild_sm.jpg
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Jeff Borden said on October 7, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Brian,
It’s the same way with bicycles but in spades. I generally rode without a helmet until a few years ago, when a cab cut in front of me downtown and missed my front wheel by a few inches. I got such an adrenaline buzz that I pedaled after the bastard as fast as I could, caught up with him as he deposited a passenger at the Palmer House, and unloaded a series of coarse remarks. He looked at me like I was a bug, shrugged and drove off.
Since then, it’s been all helmet all the time. I’d have been tossed to the pavement hard and while my wife occasionally notes that I am thick-headed, I do not think this is what she means.
Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone else has read about the story The Nation is breaking on noted anti-illegal immigrant guru Lou Dobbs. Like the Internet billionaress running for governor in California, who was caught having employed an illegal immigrant for almost a decade as a housekeeper, it turns out loud-mouthed Lou has kept several illegals in his employ, where they tend to the horses on his daughter’s farm and to his multi-million-dollar estate.
I’ll go to my grave never understanding the staggering hypocrisy of people like this. This asshole helped whip up a tsunami of anti-immigrant anger in this country, but when it came to his own properties, those dirty, filthy, undocumented Messicans were just fine by him.
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nancy said on October 7, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I did a story about a year ago on a woman who had one of those ginormous-but-benign brain tumors. The first step was doing the vascular reroute of the feeding blood vessels, an 18-hour procedure in and of itself, followed a few days later by excision of the tumor itself. It gave me a new appreciation for brain surgeons, if nothing else.
Cardiovascular technical respect came when they introduced minimally invasive robotic techniques at my local hospital, and the surgeon described operating the machine for a quadruple bypass — “like a video game,” he said.
The real wowser, though, was the fetal surgery on a kid who had a chest tumor. The mom goes under, the uterus is opened, the kid is partially delivered (staying on the placenta), then his chest is opened and the growth removed. He’s closed and put on the ECMO machine, the cord cut and he is “born,” whisked away to NICU. Then the team closes up mom and everybody scrubs out. I asked the docs what was the most challenging part of that one, and they said staying out of each other’s way. Mom and kid each have a full team attending, nearly 30 people in one ER.
(This technique was depicted on a “House” episode a while back.)
But general surgery really can be turkey-stuffing. I shadowed one guy a few years ago, and I remember him removing a woman’s appendix during a gall-bladder procedure, and this was before laparoscopic techniques. Putting her large intestine back in place was certainly a poultry-rific motion. But you have to respect these guys and gals, Dr. Blood’n’Guts, all.
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coozledad said on October 7, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Jeff Borden: Over at World O’ Crap they were asking for people to come up with a show to replace Parker/Spitzer after its inevitable cancellation. The only thing I could come up with was Dobbs/Bobbs, where Lou Dobbs is set adrift in the Gulf of Mexico with nothing but the corpse of Bob Novak as a floatation device.
Too early?
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Sue said on October 7, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Crabby, it’s got to be boring to be a surgical tech or nurse these days, with all the computer and laparoscopic techniques. Way easier for patients, safer and generally better all around, but the finesse you used to need to anticipate your surgeon/assistant/anesthesiologist probably isn’t as necessary anymore.
I imagine the ‘putting up with assholes’ part of it hasn’t changed though.
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paddyo' said on October 7, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Well, speaking of chop shops . . .
I agree with Cooze and Sue @ 6 & 10: There’s a video/doc/program that used to air on PBS stations a decade or so ago, showing an entire hip-replacement operation. It looked and sounded more like some guy down at Midas replacing a muffler, minus the grease. All hammers and drills and saws . . .
I had complete knee replacements for both my osteoarthritic knees about 2-1/2 years ago (seven weeks apart). I had been seeing a 60-something orthopedic guy periodically over a decade’s time for checkups and reality checks about when it finally would be time for new knees.
But when I reconnected with him three years ago, he begged off, saying he no longer did knees and hips — too strenuous, a younger-man’s game, he said. He referred me to another surgeon in his practice: A very skillful 30-something, muscular and about 6-foot-3. When my hips go (and they will), I’ll be seeing him again.
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Jeff Borden said on October 7, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Cooz,
I love the concept, but am not sure how long the dessicated corpse of the Prince of Darkness would remain afloat.
My contribution would be Lou Dobbs or Meg Whitman are thrown into a tank filled with hungry sharks. Illegal immigrants stand around the tank with ropes while Dobbs and/or Whitman try to convince them why they should be rescued by illegals. This would be a show where I’d happily root for the sharks.
No Parker-Spitzer for me. I threw in the towel on CNN when they started to embrace the worst elements of Faux News. Let us not forget, either, that CNN used to be home to Glennda Beck.
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Colleen said on October 7, 2010 at 1:32 pm
I’m in surg tech school right now. It still surprises me how…not delicate…it can be at times. And ortho…yikes. Hammers and screwdrivers and chisels. Oh my.
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paddyo' said on October 7, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Speaking of unlovable Lou, anybody catch him as Cover Boy in the latest issue of The Nation? “American Hypocrite,” indeed . . .
http://www.thenation.com/article/155209/lou-dobbs-american-hypocrite
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Peter said on October 7, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Cooz – you sure about the Novak part? I thought nothing that evil ever really dies.
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Jeff Borden said on October 7, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Also on the goofy hypocritical front: Two advertisements for GOP candidates in West Virginia and Ohio feature homespun “real Americans” talking about their dissatisfaction with the Obama administration and why they must support the Republican candidate. The problem is that all those in the ads are actors. The ad for West Virginia actually was filmed in Philadelphia, where actors who looked “hicky” were requested. It says something about how the Republican deep thinkers view the average guy, eh?
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Dexter said on October 7, 2010 at 2:42 pm
A co-worker who was just too damn cold and detached to be called a friend once told us how he had been on a Pennsylvania motorcycle trip with 3 other guys on cycles and he had hit a deer. His femur was cleanly broken in two and protruding several inches out of his skin. His buddies helped him mount one of their bikes and he rode to the hospital like that, he said it must have been twenty miles to the next town where they saw a sign for a hospital. With any body else I would have though “balderdash and grandiosity” but I just know he was telling the truth. He was never obtuse or vague.
A great feeling is returning home , your final approach to your destination airport, seeing the grid of your city laid out as your altitude and airspeed decreases quickly.
Cleveland and Chicago are really great-looking from the air, big lakes make the scenery contrast so nicely.
I remember the first time I landed at LAX, in January, 1970. It was a smoky smoggy filty looking place from the air. I know the smog isn’t thick like that anymore…is it?
I still clearly remember flying over Tokyo at night, descending towards Yakota AB. The lights went on forever and ever. It was more impressive than my first descent into LaGuardia, NYC.
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Catherine said on October 7, 2010 at 2:52 pm
My sister is an OB and she winds up doing quite a few c-sections on severely obese women. OB in general requires a lot of precision and a fine touch, but she says with the obese patients, the challenge is digging through layers and layers of fat to find the uterus.
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coozledad said on October 7, 2010 at 2:52 pm
What do you reckon McCain would have done?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/10/president-obama-to-pocket-veto-bill-that-might-make-it-easier-to-foreclose-on-homes.html
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mark said on October 7, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Actors used in campaign ads? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. Republicans are dirt.
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coozledad said on October 7, 2010 at 2:57 pm
I disagree. Dirt is useful. You can grow stuff in it.
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Jeff Borden said on October 7, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Oh Mark, I just thought it was funny that they couldn’t find an authentic West Virginia or Ohio teabagger or two willing to say stupid things. And I loved the idea that the actors chosen for the West Virginia ad were advised to look like “hicks.” It certainly underscores how the deep thinkers feel about the residents of the Mountain State.
And what Coozledad said.
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Jean S said on October 7, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Once saw most of an open-heart operation–basically everything but the “opening,” thank you God.
And the news from a friend of mine is that one girl stabbed another girl at her son’s high school in the San Fernando Valley. Geez, in my day, girls just pulled hair when they got into fights.
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Jeff Borden said on October 7, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Oh, happy news indeed.
Joe Lieberman, the unctuous creep, is going to get creamed if he decides to stand for reelection. His favorable/unfavorables stand at 31%/57%. Couldn’t happen to a nicer douchebag.
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Julie Robinson said on October 7, 2010 at 3:17 pm
In support of helmets: my brother-in-law was hit by a van and didn’t have a scratch or bruise anywhere on his body. His brain received all the trauma and the family spent 10 wrenching days making the decision to let him go. They are hot and dorky looking, but helmets can give you a second chance at life.
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Dave said on October 7, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Yes, and as I think I have related before (sorry, I can’t remember), my brother-in-law ended up underneath a car with his motorcycle 10 years ago this month, was kept in a induced coma for roughly five weeks, still alive today but oh, the damage. Fortunately, no brain damage but he lost a kidney and he walks stiffly, was on dialysis for a number of years because of the decreasing function of the one remaining kidney until he got a transplant just this past July. He was wearing a helmet but it was mostly a concession to his wife, not because he especially wanted to.
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Sue said on October 7, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Jeff Borden, I wonder what the chances are of Lieberman attempting to run as a Republican?
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MaryRC said on October 7, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Didn’t Lou Dobbs claim that illegal immigrants had brought a leprosy epidemic to the US? And continued to claim this was true long after his numbers turned out to be bogus.
Whitman may have had a few things to say about illegal aliens since she entered the race but Dobbs was on CNN night after night for years, opposing illegal immigration. To think that he hired illegal aliens himself is mind-boggling. It would be as unbelievable as a conservative guy who opposes gay marriage and calls homosexuality sinful, turning out to have a for-hire boyfriend. Oh, wait …
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Tom M said on October 7, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Had a plastic surgeon remove a tumor in a salivary gland, the guy is/was good and has the best hands in town.
Motorcycle accident doing 30mph and ran into a car coming the other way on an unmarked back road. The helmet was shattered as was my leg. Lost the leg but made it through. Without the helmet, even at such a low speed, ewwwww.
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JayZ(the original) said on October 7, 2010 at 5:47 pm
My favorite Lou Dobbs moment was the night he appeared on The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart welcomed him to the set with a mariachi band.
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moe99 said on October 7, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Brian, specifically thought of you when I read this, but it’s of general concern that this sort of stuff is being published in recognized military journals these days.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/29/richard_kohn_fires_a_warning_flare_about_a_joint_force_quarterly_article
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Deborah said on October 7, 2010 at 7:50 pm
As I’m writing this Obama is about a block away at the Drake Hotel for a fund raiser for a candidate with a name I can’t spell or pronounce. Traffic getting home from work was horrendous. I didn’t have to cab it today thank goodness, my husband picked me up on his way back from his student’s midterm reviews at IIT. If my foot was OK, I’d walk over as close as I could get to see if I could spot the pres. Little BIrd’s boyfriend works nearby and swears he saw him earlier. I’m getting out my binoculars to see if I can spot any secret service guys hanging out on any of the rooftops nearby.
On another note, I’m off tomorrow for the fall trip to Abiquiu, NM where I’ll turn 60. We’re having a party on our Mesa Sunday afternoon and you’re all invited. Little Bird is on a train heading out that way now, she hates to fly (24 hours on a train? No thanks.). We’ll pick her up in Santa Fe tomorrow. Not sure how much I’ll be able to connect with you folks, although with my fractured foot I won’t be doing any hiking, so I may have tons of time to loll around on the internet. Having a decent connection is another story.
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basset said on October 7, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Mesaba, Joe? Are you flying live passengers now?
Mrs. B. is a surgical tech and seconds Catherine’s comment about obese patients – she has told me about cases where the “retractors” (devices used to hold the skin and fat back out of the surgeon’s way, think of a stainless steel back-scratcher) were too short to reach past the fat and had to have extenders added.
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Joe Kobiela said on October 7, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Basset,
Nope, we do charter for a lot of the small reginals. If a jet is broke, we will haul their mechanics or parts. Most trips are at night. I usually get called between 10pm and 2am and never know where iam going until the last minute. Last night I picked up a electrical switch in Chicago and flew it to Des Moine, called at 11:30pm and got home at 7:00am. I have gone as far west as Denver and as far as San Antonio Texas. Lots of trips into Alabama and the Carolinas. Newark and Philly.
Pilot Joe
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Linda said on October 7, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Jeff Borden:
Loved Tbogg’s take on the Lieberman poll:
“Respondents were also asked this question: “Generally speaking in 2012 will you vote to reelect Joe Lieberman or would you rather replace him with someone else?” The answer was only 24% to re-elect him, against 66% who would vote to replace him.
The other ten percent just wanted to kick him in the nuts.”
That says it all.
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brian stouder said on October 7, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Moe, thanks for the link. That story was interesting, and following the link to the original article was, too.
An article like that, if it appeared in the United States Naval Institue’s Proceedings, would have been penned by some safely retired captain or lieutenant.
That an active duty Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps would write that dreck is genuinely remarkable; one assumes he just killed his promotion prospects.
That LtC has probably read about George Brinton McLellan and his simmering disobedience, but one wonders if he’s read about Major General Fitz John Porter, and what happened to him.
Suffice it to say that crackpot “thinking” like our modern LtC Marine diplayed isn’t new, and that when a military person once decides to be disobedient, the consequences quickly spiral beyond their control (and to their inevitable harm)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 7, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Deborah, say hello to Pedernal for me.
I suspect you might well have heard this when it ran two weeks ago, but if you didn’t, or hadn’t seen the slideshow that went with it (or the sidelight blog post), it’s another angle on the Chama Valley for you.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2010/09/17/129936835/discovering-a-composer-in-the-desert-and-mercy-at-a-monastery
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MichaelG said on October 7, 2010 at 11:51 pm
“extenders” Yeah, Bassett, there was a woman across the aisle from me the other day who needed an extender for her seat belt.
Open invitations? I’ve got a whole sack full of free roundtrips from Southwest. Actually only three, but I’m liable to show up anywhere.
And happy birthday, Deborah. Welcome to today’s sixties. I’ve loved those Mies apartment buildings since I was a kid. I’m jealous. And IIT too. You guys are Mies all the way.
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moe99 said on October 8, 2010 at 12:52 am
Hoo boy does the WaPo need a decent proof reader. See if you can spot the errors. And in a review of the Secretariat movie no less:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/secretariat,1158958/critic-review.html#reviewNum1
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Dexter said on October 8, 2010 at 1:53 am
Deborah,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FO7XaDs_8Y
Happy Birthday!
Trains are great if one can afford a private bedroom. I have had my fill of trying to overnight in a coach seat. I can’t sleep and I wake up feeling sick.
Once the train to Chicago was over-booked and there was a bedroom open so the conductor put my wife and I in there for the four-hour journey. I had packed gourmet cheese spreads, crackers,and wine and we had a great ride. 😉
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mark said on October 8, 2010 at 7:38 am
Looks like the Nation piece on Lou Dobbs was kind of bullshit. They found a few people who claim to be illegals who claim to have worked for companies that worked at Dobbs’ home? Would he also be a “hypocrite” if his dry cleaner had someone who claims to be an illegal working in the back? Do any of you check the bona fides of your plumber, siding contractor or lawn service workers?
Dobbs wins this one.
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brian stouder said on October 8, 2010 at 8:44 am
Dobbs wins this one.
A bit of a Pyrrhic victory, I think. Granted, Dobbs didn’t personally recruit the illegal immigrants to do his groundskeeping work. Still, one wonders how this sun-tea story will taste to the highly energized, scowling rightwing crowd that Lou plays to. You know – the crowd that thinks that “those people” are taking jobs away from THEM, personally. Will they think, “By gosh – this illegal immigration thing makes me firin’ mad! I want MY chance to shovel up all that horse shit at Lou Dobb’s estate in Florida, dammit!”
It just lacks that invigorating populist tea-party zing, y’know?
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mark said on October 8, 2010 at 9:09 am
You’re really stretching, brian. There are much better examples of misbehavior that you can then generalize to all the people that dare to hold a view that differs from your own. Lots of people think illegal immigration is wrong and a problem, in addition to being, of course illegal. But I’m sure the ridicule and name-calling is winning independents and moderates to your cause. Keep it up.
The Nation piece had nothing to it. Dobbs did nothing wrong.
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coozledad said on October 8, 2010 at 9:52 am
Don’t give it another thought, Brian. By “independents and moderates”, Mark means incontinent Fox News viewers. I love the Republican tactic of pissing minorities off, and then curling into a weepy little ball and whining about how everybody’s pissed off at them. Poor little bastards.
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