…10/7-09: comfort music

54º in ABQ; 64% humidity at 6A…GAQ; a Sustiva dream: interviewing the Prince of Wales; ABQ has a new mayor in Richard Berry, wants a smooth transition, wants to get resources to battle city crime: did well across the Duke City, wants to meet with the City Council; eight special shape balloons arrive in ABQ, but are some damaged; dropped ID led to forgery arrests; wet, Wednesday warriors at the Balloon Fiesta; a healthy 28 year old man in Lea CNTY has died from the H1N1 virus; the new Duke City mayor will be sworn in on 12/1/09; new Paseo del Norte interchange could displace mobile home owners; another day, another gun shot or fist fight at an ABQ school; QWEST donates $50K to ABQ schools; overnight rain at The Beach;

return to working on the ‘blue forms’ & PICN; Code Purple at 6:30A; PEDS waiting room finished Rounds by 7:30A; we now have people with influenza being transferred from other hospitals; any UNMH patient is getting a Tamiflu vaccination;

Loveland, CO ski resort opens; ABQ storms & temps mentioned on ABC AM News; wind & rain in NE US, Pittsburgh, JAX, New Orleans, Boston to DC; deadly floods in India, typhoon strikes Japan; TS Henri in the Atlantic poses no threat, it has 50 mph winds, moving W at 13 mph; wet along the MA Pike, in Albany, parts of I-95 & I-20, AR to AL; showers in Charlotte, Philly & Bangor; MT snow; gusts in Erie reached 51 mph; temps from 50s to 90s;

Paula Dean, the Queen of Southern Cooking; will DC soon allow same–sex ceremonies?; more people supporting Obama, while less like Congress; Liz Taylor in admitted with heart problems; the TX drive thru flu shot; airlines will retain their $10 surcharge during holiday travel season; art using X-rays?; for sale: the $200K V-8 amphibious car; when deadly home invasions strike small, rural towns; naked Louisiana burglar also cooked a meal & took a shower; weird: FL mayoral candidate arrested for waving a firearm at his daughter because she supported another contender; new health proposal would cost less, cover 94% of Americans; 54 million working Americans do not get a paid sick day; Liz Taylor in the HOSP for heart surgery; 33% of Detroit resident are out of work; pipe bombs found in CT car; snow globes might contain nitroglycerine; ‘whatever’: the annoying word; the Silverdome Stadium in Pontiac, MI is for sale; DELL cuts 905 jobs; by the end of the day, pocket laptops could put a strain on your eyes;the war in AFG is eight years old, America has spent $300 billion fighting in that country, and 900 soldiers have been killed in the conflict; ‘strategy before resources’; Obama wants a ‘modest’ buildup of troops; get ready for the new bunker busting bomb; GITMO may not close by January, 2010; an infrared ring around Saturn?; more Americans win Nobel awards; the Himalayan glaciers may be gone by 2035, although the world may end in 2012; oil is $69.32 per barrel; 7.3 & 7.8 quake near the Solomon Islands in the S Pacific trigger tsunami warnings; new formation found near Stonehenge; at what price another war?: what would happen if planes flew from Iran to Israel over Saudi Arabia or Iraq, or even Turkey?; will a rocket fired into the moon cause permanent damage to our satellite?; gold is $1,044.40 an ounce; huge dinosaur prints found in France;

…10/6-09: new doorways, to older worlds

57º in ABQ; 31% humidity at 6A…GAQ; Creamland: the milk of NM; yesterday’s balloon incident makes today’s ABC AM News; the $33 million NM wine industry; this will be a close Duke City mayoral race: winner must receive 40% of the total votes; bogus automated calls telling people the wrong polling places to cast their ballots; first H1N1 vaccinations should arrive in NM next week, the first shipment will contain 12K doses, total for NM: 1.2 million; early AM blaze near WY & Academy as former meth house caught on fire; fine parents for children’s truancy?; the person who fell from the gondola has a dislocated hip; special NM legislature session will be held on 10/17/09, and hopefully last just one day; I-25 crash shuts down the interstate near Rio Bravo; return E-mail from Phyllis; 19% are still undecided who they will vote for the next ABQ mayor; the mail order medicine arrived; Chewy is thinner, but feeling better; the Prince & Princess of Spain visit Santa Fe; suspicious package located & detonated in Bernalillo;

MGR out until next Tuesday; remember the new PICU forms; time for me to help myself; no CTI Admits; some balloons relatively close to UNMH: Code Purple at 6:30A; almost everyone in the PEDS Clinic waiting area is wearing a mask; finished Rounds by 7:30A; news paper stands moved away from PEDS Clinic; TES shutdown at noon;

N Plains snow, two feet fell in Red Lodge, MT; cold rain in the Midwest; wet & windy in Cleveland, Nashville, Dallas, Chicago, parts of OK, MO & AR; from rain to snow along parts of I-90 & I-94; fires still burn around Williams, AZ; a low pressure is heading to the E Coast; showers in the Twin Cities, Detroit, Miami & New Orleans, from MI to TX, and stretches of I-35; snow in Billings, MT; major CA blaze is only 30% contained; still, a Tropical Storm & Typhoon are aimed at Asia; temps from 40s to 90s;

schools cutting back on sodas & sweets; tortoise race in Tulsa, OK; homeless in MN learning new skills in the TV industry; race car made completely from Puma clothes; the biggest vaccine campaign in history: even those who have had H1N1 shout be inoculated; the DOW ends up; CNN has reported the ABQ balloon incident; MD driver drives through bedroom wall; will fans accept apology from Letterman about his indiscretions; using body language to detect a terrorist?; Tom Delay forced to stop ‘Dancing’; Bank of America says it will halt its interest rate hikes; man gets mauled by tiger after walking into its zoo cage; a view from NATL Airport shows heavy traffic crossing the Memorial Bridge; 550 contract jobs will be cut at NASA, these are the people who helped build & repair the space shuttles; weed choking cotton field, and stopping combines; and another weird: after biting a teacher’s arm, an OH student had to be pried off; the US Supreme Court will decide is filming pit bulls fighting is legal; OH doctor accused of having sex with male patients, paying them in cash or drugs for their silence; GA school bans a boy who wants to dress as girl; tainted water found on airplanes?;

in a worldwide poll, the US is the ‘most admired nation’; the debate over more American forces in AFG continues; N Korea to resume nuclear talks; oil is $71.29 per barrel; gold is $1,040.00 an ounce;

…10/5-09: old doorways, to newer worlds

59º in ABQ; 80% humidity at 6A…Brad’s AM Chiro visit; GAQ; leftover fiesta food donated to charity; now, some special shape balloons are stuck in S Korea & Japan; Duke City police get protection from ‘spit spray’; bingo games forced to shut down at Apache casino in S NM; Chewy is sick, probably from eating something strange during his walks; now, gas is $2.35 per gallon; suspicious packages force the evacuation of a downtown Duke City FED BLDG, the bomb squad was called in to investigate; Brad & I traded shoes; male passenger fell twenty feet from a gondola before the balloon he was riding in made a rough landing, the female pilot was unharmed, the story makes COMCAST News; Rio Rancho firefighters are ‘tough enough to wear pink’ for charity; the Prince & Princess of Spain are visiting ABQ; several children were injured when a school bus fell off the embankment of a single lane road near Chimayo, and plummeted 25 feet; in the Duke City, several injuries reported when a car crashed into a bus containing inmates; Las Cruces residents do not want a wastewater treatment plant in their neighborhood; ghost house in S NM near Elephant Butte Lake is for sale on E-Bay, the starting bid is $10K; road rage turns into a shooting;Hell Week, Day 2.5; finished Rounds by 7:30A; if you look for mistakes, you will find them; Code Purple at 11:20A; how long will overtime last; it is hard to avoid making some mistakes; two year old was kicked by a horse; end of overtime; Champus does not cover dieticians, some plans will cover their first visits as consults; we have a patient from Herndon, VA;

parts of the N Rockies could see two feet of snow; CA winds finally in firefighter’s favor, blaze has burned 7,500 acres, and an entire town was evacuated; ABQ temp mentioned on ABC AM News; rain & floods in Central TX; snow in Aspen & Yellowstone NATL Park; super typhoon targeting Japan; very wet in the S US, the Carolinas, N NY & N New England; along parts of I-10; showers for JAX, Tallahassee, Dallas, San Antonio & ATL; rainy conditions for Charlotte, Houston & New Orleans; forty miles of I-90 in WA was shut down by dust storm; temps from 40s to 90s;

were all the bailed out banks financially sound?; Pittsburgh won; there are more premature births, and cases of autism, than previously reported; father delivers baby in parking lot; for some occupations, there is the lack of qualified candidates; female underwater cave diver; Obama will meet with Chinese leader first, then the Dalai Lama; Coach INC says TARGET handbags are too similar to its item; fatal NY speedboat crash; a GA microbrew made from rainwater?; gunman on FL campus?; the NATL AVG price of gas is now $2.47, down 3¢; the end of Gourmet magazine; three Americans won the Nobel Prize in Medicine; Internet addiction can lead to ADHD; the DOW ended up; credit card companies increasing monthly payments, before a new law prevents them from doing so, even to customers who have never been late: so, should banks pay at a faster pace the money they owe the FED GOVT; another weird: AL mother lets her child ride in a box on top of her car; 60% of the people polled are uneasy about getting the H1N1 vaccine; 250 million doses, costing $2 billion, and some are coming to a clinic near you; man concealed health condition of cadaver parts; cities pull out smelly Gingko trees; ‘All My Children’ moving its filming from NYC to Los Angeles; even porn is affected by the recession;McDonald’s will be serving art patrons in the Louvre?; UK man has been recuperating for a year after his foot slipped out of a bungee cord and he fell into the water below; hot air balloon passed under the opened Tower Bridge; US troops were outnumbered against Taliban forces; is the AFG was getting worse, military forces vulnerable, positioned in a valley; British construction workers put on ballet outfits for charity; suicide bomber attack killed five people at UN office in PAK; gold is $1,017.80 an ounce; oil is $70.41 a barrel;

…10/4-09: friendships that never end

50º in ABQ; 86% humidity at 6A…Brad continues his painting; trying to create a Blog entry by adding the pictures first, then the dialogue; a view of the balloons from the top of The Beach; NM GOV spoke to the KOAT team, before flying in a balloon: he thinks more of the special shapes will arrive by midweek; his future goal is still to see every baseball park in the US; some Fiesta events were cancelled last night; hopefully, I sent Phyllis a picture of Dawn Patrol for her B’day; slight delay because of winds, then the Mass Ascension got a green light, as several groups of balloons were launched, some ‘splash & dash’, quick trips that sometimes end on the Rio Grande; strong winds mean no balloon glows tonight; Brad prepared Broiled Tomatoes, which were quite good; Fiesta fireworks will take place; one gondola made a hard landing in Rio Rancho; for the first time in fourteen year, the America’s Challenge race has been cancelled; NM woman murdered in HI; NM has ‘widespread’ cases of H1N1; per COMCAST, film being produced in the Duke City provides food for the homeless;we have Navy vessels named the USS NM, Albuquerque & Santa Fe; what price for health INS, will it become to costly for American?; an increase in cyber security; Danville, VA dog on skateboard brings business to his owner’s car dealership; men, not women, buying less new underwear; high boots for women are ‘in’; so are female roller derbies: elegant violence; Universal Studios will host The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween; haircut cutback during hard times; recession also hurts restaurants; empty billboards along highways; Greenspan grim on future of US economy; the five minute preview of ‘2012’ is awesome!; there is a pumpkin shortage in New England; Patriots won, so did Denver; billions of dollars spent on self improvement techniques; San Bernardino CNTY residents told to evacuate; conflict over an African American Barbie?; four people in a car are killed when their vehicle slides under a semi on I-95 in Philly; Obamas celebrate their anniversary in DC;

eight US soldiers were killed in AFG battle, the deadliest attack in a year; Chinese premier meets N Korean leader; Dubai: the city on the edge of tomorrow; computer glitch delays UK flights; do Israel’s nuclear missiles ‘scare’ Iran?; the smell of death, as US soldiers become ‘bullet magnets’; Socialists win in Greece elections;

…10/3-09: freedom with fun, fitness with friends

51º in ABQ; 29% humidity at 6A…a very clean comforter!; a 17 year old Chaves CNTY girl has died from the H1N1 flu; this is the thirty-eighth year for the Balloon Fiesta: more than 550 balloons will be participating in the event, whose theme is ‘Mass Happiness’; Brad prepared a Peach Pie; good AM weather for flying in Mass Ascension; cable ‘burped’ this PM, causing the TV to go quiet, and resetting the color scheme of my PC; Brad made a tasty Stuffed Peppers meal; China’s holidays delays special shape balloons from reaching NM before the start of the fiesta; ABQ man charged with hitting a child with a hammer; NM Bookmobile on Wheels makes COMCAST News, the only state to have a facility; Rail Runner collided with a truck in Valencia CNTY; children & meth found in Alamogordo home, three people arrested; a great day for the start of the Balloon Fiesta;man guilty of interstate stalking an ESPN reporter; the Red Sox are going to the playoffs!; Los Angeles burglar makes physical contact with his victims, including kissing them; controlled burn that became out of control threatens Williams, AZ; people fear side effects from H1N1 vaccine; bank failures in MI, MN & CO, bringing the total to 98, and costing the FDIC over $293 million; a newborn who had been abducted from her TN home has been safely found in AL; today’s children could live 100 years; H1N1 can affect dogs; Krispy Kreme will start serving muffins, bagels & cinnamon rolls; Kennedy Space CTR workers may face layoffs; Phillips recalls 5,400 defective defibrillators;another storm bearing down on the Philippines; dinosaur eggs found in India; Rio de Janeiro has an ‘emotional appeal’: this had been the city’s third attempt; Iran has the capability to build an atomic bomb?;

…10/2-09: quiet along a corridor

45º in ABQ; 21% humidity at 6A…GAQ; ‘ABQ Aloft’ this morning, the unofficial event to start the Balloon Fiesta; movie auditions for horror movie; healthy Rio Rancho child, and Roosevelt CNTY baby have died from the H1N1 virus: adults have some form of immunity; Navajo–Gallup water pipeline gets the green light; why won’t Duke City schools keep a record of H1N1 cases?; attendance at the NM State Fair was up by 1%, better than expected; today was ‘wear purple day’ to combat domestic violence; the hotel Andaluz had its opening ceremony; mobile ATM machines at the Balloon Fiesta Park;

Hell Week, Day Two; into the Heights for comics; worked 93 Psych TES edits; Code Purple at 6:30A; overtime has returned for next week; lots of traffic on I-40W at 4P; finished Rounds by 7:45A; nobody cares about Closing; ran for buses, arrived at home by 5P;

snow in the Rockies, parts of I-70 closed in CO; TX saw 80 mph winds yesterday; heavy rain for the TN & MS Valleys, along some stretches of I-95 & I-20, from MI to the Gulf Coast; Red Flag warnings for NV & CA; severe weather in the Dakotas; wet in Pittsburgh, Miami & Chicago; showers in Houston, Seattle & Mobile; chance of tornadoes in MS & S Louisiana, and along parts of I-10; temps from 50s to 90s;

David Letterman was being blackmailed for $2 million for having sex with a female staff member, extortionist arrested; Sully soared again; two TX men want to get divorced; why are people surprised that auto sales are down in September: the Cash for Clunkers program is over; taxpayers may lose up to $200 billion in TARP loans; jobless rate is now 9.8%; personal bankruptcies reach a four-year high; 263K job cuts in September, unemployment losses for 21 months in a row; soldier who faked abduction get dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private, and spend three years in jail; the DOW ended down; Disney Museum opened in San Francisco; why should the H1N1 vaccine be mandatory for health care workers?: why not include hotel staff & all parents; MS cat survives after being shot in the head by an arrow;

Iran will ‘co-operate’, and allow inspectors; deadly mudslides in Italy; one last bid for Chicago to be the chosen city for 2016, some protest the use of money for campaigning, instead of more important reasons; Obama is a ‘faithful representative of the American people’; 6.3 earthquake shook Tonga; and the winner is…Rio!; Chicago was last, and Rio is ready!; is the Olympic committee anti-American; oil is $69.89 per barrel; gold is $1,005.20 an ounce; [I wrote that ‘one last bid’ comment hours before the decision was made];

…10/1-09: come the morning, when the headlights fade away

51º in ABQ; 23% humidity at 6A…GAQ; will ABQ schools face budget cuts?; KS fugitives caught in NM; high winds mean high fire danger; Farmington faces an 8.4% unemployment rate; our property MGR has a new beau; a ‘car free’ night in Nob Hill; foreclosed homes in NM will be renovated; there is still a snag in the special shape balloon incident; Rio Rancho student has died from the H1N; robber shot & killed near a NW ABQ Walgreen’s, putting a daycare CTR under lockdown; Brad picked the last tomatoes for this season, and trimmed his oregano plants; near freezing temps in the Duke City; new VIP caterer replaces Garduno’s at the Balloon Festival Park;

Hell Week, Day One; the ‘fast track’ shift; have the new forms arrived?; the Locksley issue is not over; Code Purple at 6:30A; finished Rounds by 7:45A; kept missing buses, jumped from the PM Blue R/R to the Central; patients & their parents are wearing face masks;

T’storms & twisters in the Great Plains; CO wildfire caused by exploding transformer; MT, NV, OR flurries; rain from MN to TX, the Twin Cities, Dallas & KC, and along parts of I-35; N Rockies & Sierra Nevada snow; frost & freeze advisories for the Great Lakes region, and the OH Valley ; wet for N NY & N New England; Nashville, St. Louis & Albany; temps from 50s to 90s;

MI faces massive budget shortfall, nearly forced to close state offices; choices of colored lights for the Empire State BLDG causes controversy; 5.1 quake shook central CA; TX women fried & ate goldfish after a domestic dispute with her common-law husband; more gay & lesbian characters on TV shows; is it really a good time to take advantage of great deals?; 47% of Americans do not pay FED taxes; today, the DOW dropped more than 200 points; war funds diverted to pet projects; extending unemployment benefits faces opposition in Congress; is penicillin becoming obsolete?; job losses more than expected; the ‘pride ride guide’; Newt Gingrich takes back ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award presented to TX strip club; TARGET pays the price for selling toys which contain lead, it also removed flashlights which could overheat & melt; the ‘Twilight Zone’ is fifty years old; seasonal flu supplies may be delayed; NM is one of many states whose hospitals could handle the amount of people infected with the H1N1 virus; NY man saves boy from burning BLDG;Communism in mainland China is sixty years old, parade honored their space program; another 6.8 quake shook Indonesia; warning systems are too slow, tsunamis are too fast; 1,100 deaths from the triple Asian tremors; pigmy hippo baby is no bigger than a leaf; oil is $69.73 per barrel; gold is $999 an ounce; is the world recovering quicker than expected from the current recession?; ‘isolated’ Iran against ‘The Big Six’; ‘constructive’ talks with that nation; full facility accessibility of its nuclear facility within two weeks; another tremor, this time registering 5.5 on the Richter scale, has shaken American Samoa; the four million old female humanoid has been found in Ethiopia; no city in S America has held the Olympic games; money is the key to the world’s stress;