Dispensing care in the Mississippi Delta....

St. Paddy's Weekend

We rolled the streets of Jackson in green with the 29th Annual Mal's St. Paddy's Parade this weekend, and it was as fun as ever.  We meet up with a group of friends down and throw responsibility to the wind for a few hours, and it is well worth it!

Therapist and I needed the break too.  We hadn't been out of town since we got married a couple of months ago.  Warm spring sunshine had been teasing us at work, and we were itching for a road-trip.

Enjoy the slide-show!

Looking back...

My first venture into writing in a blog/journal style was immediately following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when I was deployed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for response and recovery efforts in the days before the storm, and for months after.  I wrote a series of ongoing emails to friends and family, so they would be aware of my situation, and as a way to record my own thoughts and observations during that time.

Sometime in 2007, on another website, I started writing "publicly".  I hadn't fully jumped into the blog world until I decided to start this blog in October, 2008.  Recently, I took time to look back to those early days, way back four years ago, to find my old writings.  I discovered that today, March 17, is my blogging birthday!  So, to celebrate, I've decided to share some of those early posts with you.  In the coming months, I'll share others from 2007.

These first two were posted on the same day, March 17, 2007.  They reflect my thoughts on two rescue calls we made sometime near that date.

6:36 AM, Alone

6:36am, and a wonderful night's sleep is broken by the dispatcher's voice through the pager.  Just down the street, an unknown medical emergency, the caller hung up but sounded very distraught.  Only one thing causes such reactions at 6:36am.  Someone has died.  Alone, in a room, unable to plea for help.  The wails of a mother who found her adult child still echo...the miracles of modern medicine rendered unimportant...

What was just hours ago a quiet street is filled with the cars of those paying their respects, those who were shocked by the news, and mournful family members from other places.

The rituals of death will be this family's friend for the coming days, then, again, someone will be alone...

What do those eyes see?

"Rescue 1 - child vs car on a county road"

A young boy and his brother were only looking to help an elderly gentleman with yard chores, but he already had help so he sent them on their happy-go-lucky sunny-Saturday way.

One brother's eyes now see something I can't see.  But his eyes saw us, I guess.  Or were they seeing something else?  Something much more bright and fair, or more dark and sinister?  They weren't focused on us, but to somewhere, further beyond - through - us, to something we cannot know yet.  Those eyes weren't focused on the deputies, or the undertakers.  Maybe (I hope) his eyes couldn't see his parents, from whom I had to turn my eyes and hide them behind tinted glasses...as we his were hid behind the white cotton sheet, clean and bright against the dark pavement.

What do those young eyes see?

Personal Privilege

I think this will be a first for this blog....but I want to take a moment of personal privilege and ask you to visit the Caring Bridge site for my young niece.  She was born with cerebral palsy, and will be having extensive orthopedic and muscular surgery to mitigate some of the effects of the CP.

Three blonde ladies have stolen my heart.  I'm married to one.  My niece and her twin sister are the other two.  Take a moment to visit, if you will.

Thank you.

Swag

Conference swag, should be quite useful for the pool this summer.

Heroes doing a job

We regard these men and women as "heroes", but they'd say they were just doing a job, and scared to death while they were doing it.  The truth is, there aren't many of them around any more, and we need to learn as much as we can before their voices pass into history.  Watch....

New Shoes!

We ordered each of us pair of Vibram FiveFinger Bikila LS shoes after a friend purchased a similar pair.  We weren't too sure about them at first, and did an appropriate amount of research before ordering.  These things are COMFORTABLE!  It's what this tenderfoot needed...light, comfy, and easier on the feet than being barefooted.  Therapist says she's wearing them to work...that should get some interesting looks from the residents at the nursing home.  I'm looking forward to summer with these shoes.

A Digital Life...

A lot of my digital life is tucked away on some nameless, faceless server in Google's domain.  My blogs, my email, some documents, my contacts, my calendar, an experimental website that hasn't been shared yet, heck even a phone number are all under Google's umbrella.

Last weekend Google had a hiccup.  It seems that around 150,000 GMail users couldn't access their accounts - absolutely no part of their Google life.  Google has stated that they're working to resolve the problem, and that all the data does exist and will be restored.  That may well be true, and for those users who were affected, I hope it is.  Thankfully, my account and my data weren't in that group.

The event has caused me to reconsider how I structure my virtual world.  It is very nice to have fewer papers, smaller filing cabinets, and years of financial and legal data stored on a device the size of my thumb.  But what about those more fluid things like the calendar, email, and contacts?  Where do I turn if they're suddenly not available to me?  Have you asked yourself that question?  Think about your contact list...when was the last time you picked up an old-fashioned phone book to look up someone's number?

Last night the emails out on Google's servers was downloaded safely to a hard drive in my house, along with contacts and at least a portion of my calendar (the important parts).

Now there is a decision to make.  Do I jump off the Good Ship Google?  Or do I increase the frequency of data backups?  Not only should I backup the data more often, to mitigate another Google snafu, but there's this line in Google's user agreement:  Google reserves the right to terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without notice.  Hmm, makes one think, doesn't it?

In the short term, I've set up an email on one of the domains that I own.  While I haven't decided to make the migration to that new email, I've put a life raft in the water, so to speak.  I'm looking into options to move my blogs to another host, with cost being a major factor in my decision.  Calendars, contacts, and online document storage are another issue that I haven't quite resolved yet.  If I choose to switch over to new services, you'll be the first to know.

Do you have an "emergency plan" if your online presence became unavailable to you?  Have you backed up your information regularly?  Think about the volume of data - years' worth of contacts, emails (which may include bills, proofs-of-payment, etc.), work or personal calendar items....what happens if your lose it?

A helpful link, if you're a GMail user and would like to back up your GMail: Lifehacker.com - Back Up Your GMail the Easy or Cheap Way