…9/17-09: positively positive

56º in ABQ; 90% humidity at 6A…more overnight rain at The Beach; GAQ; hail fell on Los Lunas last night; the owner of Club 7 in downtown ABQ faces child abuse charges; five year old leads police to copper pipes that were stolen by her father; flood watch for the Duke City today; Patrick Swayze’s ashes will be spread across his NM ranch; seventeen year old was beaten & set on fire in S NM; AM fog over ABQ; hit & run in NE Heights; storms knocked out signals along the Rail Runner route, the problem has been corrected; rain off & on, all through the day;

training new doctors at 10A & 11:30A; both went well; no PICU admits; suspicious house fire near the UNM campus, where four students lived, no one seriously injured; finished Rounds by 7:30A; patient allergic to strawberries; registered into coding software package; 22 year old man from Rio Arriba CNTY is the third case of Hanta Virus in NM; took nearly two months to respond to a PDI; at 1P, UNMH was in Code Purple;

TN floods, golf ball hail fell on El Paso; in the Pacific, TS Marty has 45 mph winds, moving NNW at 5 mph; rip currents along Key West; the low pressure that will not budge; wet weather for AR, AL, GA, TN & the Carolinas; per the Weather Channel, rain from ATL to Tampa, ABQ to Dallas; lower than AVG temps in ABQ, per ABC AM News; dense fog covers Sydney, Australia; showers for Philly, Charlotte & Orlando; cooler than normal temps from New England to DC; temps from 60s to 90s;

should we tax soft drinks by the ounce; Medal of Honor recipient was from Raynham, MA; Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul & Mary has died from cancer at the age of 72; H1N1 deaths may be no higher than any regular flu strain; night shift = functioning jet lag; after 72 years, the soap opera ‘The Guiding Light’ will air its last episode tomorrow; S IL woman dies after a flash fire occurred during surgery; the latest health plan would cover 94% of Americans, and cost less…but it has little support; Madoff beach house sold for more than the asking price; more hours, less perks, little motivation; Jay Leno losing his audience; 83% of people polled say we are still in a recession; workplace violence at Yale UNIV; air is cleaner inside a plane than an office?; ‘our’ net worth has finally risen; the coach who made his team practice in hot weather is found not guilty for the death of a student: the blame was fever & dehydration; the DOW was slightly down;a missile defense shield will not be built in Poland or the Czech Republic, decision not based on Russia’s opinion; more explosions shook Kabul; gold is $1018.10 an ounce; oil is $72.64 per barrel; cyber crime: the lucrative new business; cat follows couple on their walking tour of S America; Iran is building more short range missiles; tiny T. Rex fossil found; another entry to the world of weird: student in Germany attacked eight students & one teacher before being shot & arrested;

…9/16-09: infinite experience

61º in ABQ; 88% humidity at 6A…GAQ; overnight rain at The Beach; another NE Duke City meth bust: half of the lab was in a car, the other half was in an APT; N NM AM T’storms; former church worker accused of possessing ‘kiddie porn’; ACCION: helping small businesses in AZ, CO & NM; NE Heights SUBWAY robbery caught on camera; HP Job Fair being held in Rio Rancho; I–25 widening from ABQ to Bernalillo, project should take six months to compete; Eunice Fire Chief suspended for inappropriately touching a woman’s breasts?; Bosque Farms police officers, one accused of DUI: the other was failing to make child support payments; we slept through a strong T’storm last night; Brad made two Loaves of Bread; his newest painting is progressing; PM storms on the horizon; $1 billion in funds will be distributed by Native American tribes; neither a trolley nor a streetcar is desired in the Duke City; as first seen on CNN: NM GOV spent $139K entertaining dinner guest, up 63% from the previous year; the $300K ‘zero energy’ home in NW ABQ;

rewrite billing sheets, avoid unnecessary errors, and bad handwriting; Business Job Fair at UNM SUB; finished Rounds by 7:30, very busy in PICU & CTI; Meangel was readmitted yesterday;

NM storms & floods mentioned on ABC AM News; three ‘serious’ storms in the Atlantic; rain: from Memphis to Miami, along parts of I-20, in OK, AR, TN, TX, MS, the Carolinas & VA; super typhoon in the Pacific with 160 mph winds, moving NW at 10 mph; showers in New Orleans, ATL & Tallahassee; N TX floods; showers from NYC to Philly; temps from 60s to 90s;

do people ‘fear’ a PRES of color?; Canadian PM visited the White House; when is an apology not an apology?; ‘man made’ rain creating the sounds of a storms, just by using their hands; fellow lab tech considered a ‘person of interest’ has been arrested in the killing of a Yale student; the baseball that got away, thanks to daughter’s throw; H1N1 is increasing in all parts of the US; Snuggies at the NY Fashion Week; Chicago a possible site for the 2016 Olympics?; what is ‘acceptable’ coverage; the House tries to increase financial aid for students; is Chrysler in worst shape than we imagined?; Yale student died of traumatic asphyxiation; in FL, a naked man was arrested for driving drunk on a motorcycle; OH woman spanks a boy [not her own] after he said something impolite to her; will have enough H1N1 vaccines for everyone…won’t we?; MA soldier received the Medal of Honor; consumer prices are 1.5% lower than this same time last year; Patrick Swayze will be cremated; why would people have to pay for INS that they don’t need?; what is so hard to equip vehicles with the correct floor mats, and prevent unexpected acceleration; TX teen stabbed his mother in the neck while giving her a hug; allow passengers to carry guns on Amtrak?; the swine flu causes bleeding in the lungs; and another weird: CA mother stabbed her two children; did CO man have links to al Qaeda?; ship built from WTC metal; comic Henry Gibson has died at the age of 73; the ‘Newlywed Game’ will have its first gay couple;

VP Biden goes to Iraq; what constitutes an ‘evil’ Bond villain?; oil has risen to $73.33 a barrel; the battle over sending more troops to AFG; gold is $1,020.20 an ounce; deformed snake with appendage found in China; H1N1 cases are increasing in the Asian subcontinent; has Japan found a new, liberal PM?; 100% of the people in Canada are insured, a country where men live longer there, than here in the US; TWINE = ‘The World Is Not Enough’; Hungary will accept GITMO detainee; a rocky planet has been found, located outside our solar system; Belgian farmers dump their milk to protest low prices; cat traveled 3,800 miles before being located; talk about ‘ignition’: in China, a burning bus going down a highway caught on video;

…9/15-09: fire, air, water, life!

63º in ABQ; 72% humidity at 6A…GAQ; five year old Deming boy struck & killed in MX; mother in jail after her one year old daughter was sexually abused this past weekend; NM now qualifies for people without jobs to receive 13 more weeks in unemployment checks, starting next month; Duke City mayoral debate held yesterday; Los Alamos firemen need more training in handling hazardous material; a ban on texting while driving in Las Cruces?; there are times when it feels the world is built on cruelty; new stage at the NM State Fair, cost $2.3 million to renovate; 21 year old Los Alamos CNTY woman has died from the H1N1 virus; Patrick Swayze had film parts of the film ‘Red Dawn’ [early 80s] near ‘our’ Las Vegas, then bought a twenty acre ranch near that city; Red River, NM is one of the top place in the US to ‘play’;

MGR still unpacking; let others lose their tempers; no other MGMT at meeting; UNM Engineer & Science Job Fair being held today at the SUB; our MGR [and others] do not have locks on their doors; if the shuttle no longer goes to 1650, then why not more trips to the Bradbury?; people wanting to know why there are so many duplicate entries; are we a ‘team’?; had to run for a very early AM R/R bus; the name that is equivalent to a swear word; Channel 4 at UNM campus; number of TES edits determined by line entry; yesterday, we has a Coding class with Kay, about the new ICD codes; finished Rounds about 7:30A;

FL & TX floods; 60 mph winds, one inch hail topple semi near SLC; Hong Kong typhoon; showers for ATL, Tampa, Dallas, Grand Junction; AR, Louisiana, MS moisture; wet along parts of I-75; rain from Charlotte to Mobile; more seawalls being built along TX coast; Haboob filmed near Gilbert, AZ; moist in Orlando & Birmingham; hot in Billings & Boise; temps from the 70s to 100s;Patriots won, 25–24, with a final blast by Tom Brady; AVIS will no longer allow smoking in any of their rentals; dog strollers to allow pets in markets & diners; student stabbed to death at FL school; Wells Fargo fires one of its top men for taking too many perks; more politicians losing their tempers; isolated piece of ice fell on Detroit home; Toys ‘R Us will reopen 350 stores for the holidays; the admonishment of REP Wilson; FDA approved H1N1 vaccine; the NATL AVG prices of gas is $2.58 per gallon; an H1N1 vaccine ‘should’ be available for everyone; secrets, intrigue & hidden signs around DC; Blockbuster is closing 960 stores; when racism becomes hate crimes; police stolen car is caught via dash cam; minor injuries from a Boston train accident; pastor wishes Obama would die; how did a healthy five year old boy in TN died from the H1N1 virus, perhaps by a superimposed bacterial infection; retail sales at their highest level in three years; the collapse of courtesy; AFG war support at its lowest; murder by Samurai sword in Baltimore; reduce the color code alerts to three;107 year old Malaysian woman married to husband number 23; shoe thrower released from Iraqi jail; more temper tantrums from tennis stars; another global Ponzi scheme uncovered; gold is $1003.80 an ounce; oil is $69.41 a barrel; AFG junkies could be spreading AIDS?; Prince Harry turned 25 today, and inherited a lot of money from his mother, Princess Diana; Baghdad’s INTL Zone comes under attack;

…9/14-09: avoid clichés

63º in ABQ; 67% humidity at 6A…GAQ; Brad’s AM Chiro visit; could the heavy rains of last Friday caused a garage at The Beach to become flooded?; Farmington to cut sixty more city jobs; two murders in one week in Santa Fe; NM Symphony cannot not afford health INS for its members; a worker at Keva Juice guilty of stealing employees’ ID info; weekend rollover on Eubank toppled a stop light; it’s difficult to find aspirin; I fell like I have a royal audience with the Queen today; more NM residents polled oppose the public health care reform option; water problem not caused by our pipes; porcupine sighted on Rio Grande bike trail; Brad got me a new Thermos bottle; Ghirardelli chocolate contest at the NM State Fair; Valencia CNTY does not want any more rave parties; priceless Native American Powwow tribal outfits stolen from the trunk of a car parked at an ABQ APT complex;; ambulance & fire truck take passenger off R/R bus, the person was wearing oxygen equipment;

1 PM meeting at the Bradbury, have to leave UNMH no later than 12:15P; finished Rounds before 7:30A; patients are becoming infected with the H1N1 virus after being admitted; one patient was struck by lightning during last week’s storm; tiny cubicles, no privacy, thin walls; I am working my TES edits too fast; more I/P flu cases; Katina took us back to the HOSP, since shuttle only picks up at Bradbury on the 35 of the hour; Jenny also watches NCIS; got a tour of the new BLDG; how did I stay quiet…I just kept chewing breath mints;

fog in MN & WI; heavy rains for NY, TX & OK; is former Hurricane Fred getting stronger?; more CA fires; rain in: Miami, SLC, Santa Fe [per Weather Channel], Dallas, New Orleans; wet in parts of AR, TN, MS Louisiana; T’storms in Tallahassee & Tampa; wet in Orlando & ATL; temps from 70s to 100s;

‘true confessions’ by Whitney on Oprah?; one year anniversary of the current US economic collapse; PRES wants more transparency in banks; 80% polled rate the economy as ‘poor’; Mr. Obama goes to Wall ST; a bear as a best man at a wedding; man who robbed banks in IL, IN, KY TN & the Carolinas has been arrested; a body has been found in the basement where the missing female Yale student worked, clothes were found in a ceiling tile, signs point to an inside job; pregnant NC teen was shot in the head and died while waiting for a bus; an H1N1 vaccine could be ready by early October; doctors no longer want to practice their trade; Eli Lilly is cutting 5,500 jobs; Jay Leno hosts prime time show; what happens when families cannot afford to buy clothes that are required by a school in their dress code?; Clinton & Obama do a ‘power lunch’; showerheads can contain dangerous bacteria; school banning ‘jelly bracelets’, stating they have a sexual meaning; McDonald’s in SC gave a gun & marijuana in a bag; NY terrorism plot busted, an group directly linked to al Qaeda, the UN GEN Assembly would be meeting this week ; AL boy fakes his own kidnapping after getting bad grades in school; swine flu stays contagious longer than the regular disease; Patrick Swayze has died at the age of 57 from cancer; no more ‘bloated bonuses’, no more regulations needed…but we are still in a recession;

Venezuela in a ‘weapons for oil’ deal with Russia; Osama bin Laden says PRES Obama cannot stop terrorist attacks against the US; ‘Goldfinger’ was partly filmed in the US, in Miami & Ft. Knox, KY; shop owner fined for going ‘too green’; oil is now $68.79 per barrel; gold dropped to $1,002.40 an ounce; Greyhound bus lines invade Britain;

…9/13-09: my age, my health, my time, my call

60º in ABQ; 74% humidity at 6A…MQ1 drone from Holloman AFB crashed, the device was worth millions; Brad prepared Jerk Marinated Chicken Breast , served on Skewers, and served with a Creamy Cucumber Dipping Sauce; Hispanic Cultural Education CTR named for Pete Domenici; home invasion at Fourth & Candelaria, with $4K taken in cash, jewelry, & electronics: the owner of the house was a Marine who was attending a 9–11 ceremony; cannot wash clothes today: water leak somewhere in our APT, or the one below us, or the garage below that…guest bathroom shower is also ‘off limits’; man kills his girlfriend’s father, charged with voluntary manslaughter; Socorro cemetery vandalized, lack of graveyard security; police car crash with motorcycle at Candelaria & Juan Tabo; a new TV station for NM, Estrella, broadcasting only Spanish programs; NM has a new [D] chairman; a City Different man was found nearly beaten to death near Fiesta de Santa Fe festival; 9–11 memorial dedicated in Rio Rancho Park; prairie dog colony attracted badgers to Duke City school;

Chicago has the Magnificent Mile’; DC protestors chanted. “give me liberty, not debt”; the color of cold in WY; Paula Dean’s pans crack when heated; the 400 pound python found in a FL backyard; after ten years of marriage, people are forming opinions about Obama; Hugh Hefner files for divorce papers, his wife was a former Playboy bunny; the health care ‘public option’ is gasping for breath, the bill will not add ‘one dime’ to the deficit…maybe a billion dimes, but not just one; the ‘gang of six’, three [D], three [R] may be able to finalize a deal this week; instantaneous updates on electronic textbooks; remember: while they are on the rise, the stock market dropped 5K points before it reversed course; as of today, the Red Sox are in second place behind the Yankees, by 7.5 games; another one for the weird book: NJ student threatened to kill a teach if everyone did not get good grades; there are online training camps for terrorists;Sir Elton John wants to adopt a Ukrainian child; two Bond movies in 1983; the horrors of Bagram prison in AFG; the latest celestial phenomenon in space is waste matter from Discovery astronauts;

…9/12-09: energetic experience

65º in ABQ; 52% humidity at 6A…both of us enjoyed a well deserved night’s rest; NM State Fair Parade being held this AM; drug bust in Santa Teresa, NM; police raid Curry CNTY jail, find an odd assortment of ‘weapons’, such as razor blades & spears; NM residents prefer their traditional license plate, and not the new turquoise one; fatal crash on I-25 near Jefferson; Valencia CNTY needs more money to fight crime; two storms converged over Truth or Consequences, flooding the town; yesterday’s bad weather caused power outages across the Duke City; what will the NM GOV do when his term of office is over?; tougher emission standards for NM cars & trucks; the City Different may get a movie studio; the color pattern on the top of this entry was just a whim; there was also a movie crew filming a scene at Central & Broadway just when the showers started turning into downpours; no rain for the Duke City today;
Michael Jordan now a member in the Basketball Hall of Fame; L.L. Bean opens general store in ME; ‘tea party’ protest in DC over FED spending; ‘Iron Chef’ Mario Batali owes $75K in back rent for his eatery; flash floods for the Dallas area; paintings by Andy Warhol, worth millions of dollars, have been stolen from a Los Angeles home; PRES takes his health care speech on the road again; the difficulties being a Muslim in America after 9–11; training session on the Potomac River yesterday proved to be too realistic for some, feared another attack on DC was occurring; the unemployed are turning to grow marijuana for money, think of it as a 'cash crop'; tariffs added by America on ‘some’ Chinese tires; MRSA being found in the sand of W Coast beaches?; get ready for a bigger Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World;French prisoner escapes a ‘high security’ jail by using a cardboard box; Pentagon wants more troops in AFG; Tropical Storm Fred is weakening; 6.4 quake shook Venezuela;

…9/11-09: it was eight years ago, on a sunny NYC day…

64º in ABQ; 64% humidity at 6A…GAQ; the NM State Fair starts today; teens’ ID stolen from job applications; Santa Fe school went into lockdown after a man was seen in the area with a shotgun, he says he was trying to shoot bats [the animal]; in honor of those who died on 9–11, there will a parade in Santa Fe, and a candlelight vigil in the Duke City; why were sexual abuse charges dropped against ‘our’ Las Vegas football students?; NM GOV asking for 4% cuts for all state budgets; on the ENMU campus, a new NM Rehab HOSP breaks ground in Roswell; gas is $2.39 per gallon; the lights are on at Trader Joe’s; the waterfalls from puddles on Central being splashed onto the cars in the front parking area of The Beach; and if anyone who reads this is thinking of having pizza at the NM State Fair…forget it!; the vendors who sell that food thought they didn’t need special fire suppression hoods since pizza is baked, and not fried…well, these people found out yesterday that they assumed wrong!, and these items do not come cheap; traffic on I-40W was backed up as far as they eye could see; NM has the second highest number of uninsured people in the US, with TX holding first place ‘honors’; people were soaked waiting in line at a Nob Hill cinema;someone forgot to tell someone else what ‘teamwork’ really means; revised route for comic quest; don’t pull a ‘power play’; and don’t tell people what to do, after the fact; MGR saw nothing wrong with my billing sheets; finished Rounds by 7:15A; plenty of PM PDI requests; strange E-mail yesterday regarding offsite Coders getting water bottles; took the Green Line to the Red Line to Menaul: then the Menaul to the Red Line, and arrived home after 6:15P; the weather went from sunny to showers to downpours with lightning, then thunder, finally adding wind & hail;

rain for TX, Dakotas, OK, MN, Louisiana along the Gulf Coast, GA & FL; wet from DC to Boston; low pressure that will not budge, bringing bad weather from VA to MA coast; tornado warnings for NJ; showers in NYC, Philly & Baltimore; Fred now only a CAT 1 hurricane; freak flash floods damage Sedona, AZ; temps from 60s to 100s;flu vaccine starts working 7–10 days after being administered; eight years after the fall, could the attacks have been prevented?; memorials & remembrances in Boston, PA, NYC & DC; the [R] from SC should publicly apologize for his outburst [hasn’t he?]; the Yale bride-to-be vanishes; one steel beam still stands at the WTC; how has the US really changed after 9–11, or has it?; MI man started killing people he didn’t like; the DOW went down; did Philly cops stage raids to rob businesses?; Hardee’s now serving bologna in its breakfast sandwich, and people love it; ‘Wolverine’ & ‘James Bond’ star in a two man play on Broadway; three more banks collapse in IL, WA & MN, bringing the total to 92;Discovery will attempt to land in FL, but better weather in CA; world’s oldest woman has died at the age of 115; gold has reached $1010.80 an ounce; oil dropped to $69.09 per barrel; Japan launched a missile, which will bring more supplies to the INTL Space Station; space shuttle lands on the W Coast; the US is open to have talks with N Korea; AFG elections have yet to declare a winner;