Not The Best Week for My Daughter.

My daughter's birthday was yesterday. I got a phone during the middle of the day from the school nurse saying that she didn't feel good. She had a headache and stomach didn't feel very good. Since the Swine Flu virus is going around, the nurse showed me that they all received a memo regarding the outbreak and recommended that I take her home.

She was asleep when I went to pick her up and had a low grade fever. I gave her some OTC medication and of course she perked up after about an hour.

We had planned to go to Disneyland after school but her illness canceled that. Around 4:00 she asked when we were going to Disneyland. Once I told her we weren't going, she freaked out crying and begged me to still go. Then she screamed "this is the worst birthday ever" and ran off to her bedroom. Of course the Tylenol wore off and she was feeling sick again.

Tuesday, she comes home from school complaining of flea bites all over her body. We just washed her bed sheets the night before so It thought this was odd. She complained that she itched all over, pulled up the back of her shirt and thousands of red dots were all over her back. I said, "chicken pox". We went online and looked up images of flea bites and they looked just like her back. So it's flea bites, right?

Wednesday, the school sends her home because she and 4 other students in her class were sent home also....with the chicken pox! So my daughter will be staying home this week with no soccer because of her chicken pox and sore ankle from an injury 2 weeks ago. So now on top of this Swine Flu pandemic scare in the news and all that has happened, my poor daughter has just about had it with illness.

Sorry Folks!

Man I'm really sorry I'm having a dry run here. Almost debating starting a totally different blog since I have a few x-ray techs around the states who follow this blog for it's radiology rant humor. I guess I just don't have much to say that's already been said before.

Let's see, I'm looking for a new camera...boring. Work has been extremely stressful since we're under construction.

Health: Hand is still hurting, not getting better. Now both hands hurt everyday and have to take a small handful of meds just to get through the day. I don't even have to pick up the guitar to trigger pain, just daily living (like opening bottles, tying shoes, holding the steering wheel, etc) which is everything.

I developed plantar fasciitis which is very fun. I'm wearing arch supports from morning wake up to going to bed. All the meds I'm already taking for my hand don't even help the inflammation from that pain. I'll probably get Iontophoresis done on the area next week. I'm stretching constantly, icing whenever I can. But I've been told that it does take some time to go away. I'm to blame for this one since I wore some really old shoes the whole week I was off on vacation and there's hardly any cushioning left. I was just too cheap to replace.

So are you sorry you checked my blog yet? I'll have something better soon. Hey at least check back when my header has changed (those are fun).

More Images from Santa Barbara, Bronze Statues in La Arcada.

Images from Santa Barbara, 3-14, The Courthouse

Sent An Email To My 4th Grade Teacher.

A few events occured this week that sparked the initiation of looking up my 4th grade teacher, Mr. Horton.

Mr. Horton was probably my most influencial grade school teacher ever. This was back in 1973-74 when teachers had the green light to teach in a way that is very broad, involving art, music, frequent field trips, and story telling. Mr. Horton was an amazing storyteller. Like a Garrison Keilor of elementary school. He once read out loud to the class, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". I remember taking this book home and thinking it was the story itself that was entertaining. My mom started reading and I was already upset because she was not reading the book right. The story was right, but Mr. Horton would have the whole class just completely focused on the story.

He lives up north now and is a Superindentent of their school district. Upon learning of his status within the School Board, I'm very curious how a teacher like Mr. Horton survives in structured classtime, teaching the test, and "No Child Left Behind" rules enforced by our Federal Government. We'll see if he responds to my email.

My email contents? I just basically thanked him for his time, patience, and that his love for teaching us kids back in that school year of '73-'74 was and will never be forgotten. Mr. Horton lives in me to this day. I've used the same principles while rasing my kids. Here's to Mr. Horton!

The Toshiba Is Gone!

Our hospital is finally switching over to digital x-ray. This transition is bitter-sweet to me. The machine in the image above is a Toshiba DST-100A, one of the last machines that I trained on when I was an x-ray student. The Toshiba was the first x-ray machine installed when the hospital was first built back in the 80's.

It's a real workhorse. I rarely ever had to call this machine in for maintenance. But now replacement parts no longer exist for the Toshiba. I knew all the ins and outs of this x-ray machine. So many quirks came along with it. Over time parts started breaking (or were no longer available). You had to compensate for certain luxuries that were no more. That meant you had to think and be aware of everything you were doing on that unit. I liked that. I felt like I had total control over this machine. In return, it produced some of the most amazing images that will never be again in the analog world. The detail I was able to get was phenomenal. All the techs would comment. You could see the striations of bone formation in the bone, the term we techs use as trabecular patterns. It just popped off the film.

It looked old, console looked very complicated next to more modern LED lit touch screen units but we got along very well. I'll really miss the Toshiba. Farewell my friend.

Deja Vu from Dreams: What Do They Mean?

Have you ever seen something in real life that you dreamt about prior to seeing. Sure we've all dreamed about places we've been before, but what about places we've never been before?

I guess it was sometime last year, I had a dream about something that of course now escapes me. But there was this section of landscape with benches and and I was waiting for someone, I think my children. I remember they were little in the dream (ages 3 and 6).

Anyway, I've totally forgotten the dream....until this last weekend. The family packed up and spent the weekend in Santa Barbara for my sister's wedding. We made reservations at the Sandman Inn on State Street. After checking in, we drove around the property to get up to our room location. And there it was, the exact same image that I had seen in my dreams a whole year or so ago. I stopped dead in my tracks racking my brain if this was someplace I'd been before. Nope, never been here or even stayed in this motel before. The image above is exactly what I remember from my dream, detail for detail. I didn't take a picture of the larger two story building behind me but that too was in my dream.

So what the heck is that all about? Other than my sister's wedding there was no other significant reason for this landscape recognition. But really weird, huh?