The Bahamian Medical System: A View from the Ward - or - Shelagh’s Big Break: Part 1

In the summer of 2015, Shelagh and I went on a Disney cruise at the request of our then 4-year old granddaughter.  We sailed on the Disney Dream and had a blast.  Afterwards, Shelagh requested another Disney cruise as a present for her 70th birthday.  Being a faithful, loving husband I arranged to make that happen, along with one day each at the Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

I got in touch with Cousin Michelle, the world-famous Disney travel agent, to make the arrangements.  Working with Michelle made everything frightfully easy…I don’t think our phone call lasted more than 30 minutes and we arranged everything I wanted: the right stateroom, the right hotel on the Monorail with a room overlooking the park so we could see the fireworks without having to brave the crowds on the way back.  It was perfect.  When Michelle asked if I wanted trip insurance I fortunately said, “Yes.”  And that’s what this post is about: the need for that insurance.

A really cool part of our Disney experience was that when we packed our bags, we put Disney’s tags on our luggage and when we dropped them at the airport, we wouldn’t have to handle them again until we arrived back in RVA.  In this scenario, Disney picks them up at the airport and delivers them to your stateroom.  And when you disembark, you pack, leave the bags outside your stateroom and then pick them up at your home airport.  Pretty neat, in a “I have people to do that for me” sort of way.

We got aboard, unpacked, pigged out at lunch (as one can do on a cruise), went through the mandatory evacuation drill then headed up on deck as we set sail.  We departed Port Canaveral at the same time as the Carnival Sunrise.  The sun was shining and the warm sea breeze blew in our faces with its welcome saltiness.  Brown pelicans were diving for fish all around us and dolphins frolicked just ahead of our bow.  It was wonderful.  We did other cruise-ish things, but I’ll spare you those details.

The next morning, the day of Shelagh’s 70^th birthday, we were pigging out at breakfast (as one can do on a cruise) as the ship docked in Nassau.  We’ve been to the Bahamas a couple of times and set our sights on just two things for our day excursion, both within walking distance of the port: conch fritters and the Queen’s Staircase.

The Queen’s Staircase is 66 steps, carved out of the limestone by slaves.  They were built in the 1790s and later named in honor of Queen Victoria.  The steps were used to access Fort Fincastle.  Fort Fincastle, also built in the 1790s to guard Nassau and its port, offers a wonderful view from its walls.  Or so they say.

We climbed the Staircase and paid for admission to the Fort.  Shelagh and I wandered around the grounds before going to the top.  As I was entering the main building, I heard behind me the distinctive and all too familiar sound of Shelagh succumbing to gravity.

The first time I was present when Shelagh had a skirmish with Newtonian physics and lost was on our honeymoon in Scotland, coincidentally enough, at a castle.  She failed to negotiate the last of some steps she was descending.  I was just a bit too far behind her to do anything about it and watched helplessly as she landed on all fours.  She was OK, but she made an “Ooof!” sound that was unique to her.

The familiar ooof sound she made at Fincastle was followed by a very atypical loud groaning.  I wheeled around and went back out to see her on the ground and writhing in quite a bit of pain.  She had missed a single step down.  As I approached her, doing a scene survey, I caught sight of her injury.

Now, I’ve always known that Shelagh is just the loveliest creature, lovely all the way down to her bones.  That day I got visual confirmation of this: she had a compound fracture of her left ankle.  It’s a good thing I’m a paramedic because that thing was pretty gross.

The staff at Fort Fincastle called New Providence EMS.  While waiting for the squad to arrive, Shelagh was well composed once she figured out that squirming made it worse.  There were many well-meaning bystanders who wanted to help in typically not really helpful ways but I was able to fend them off by identifying myself as a paramedic and Shelagh as a nurse.  They were happy to leave us to ourselves when they got a load of the ankle.

New Providence EMS bandaged and splinted her ankle and took us to Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), whose ambulance entrance is probably less than 300 yards from where Shelagh fell.  

Princess Margaret Hospital

The squad took her to the trauma room and sent me out front to get her registered.  As she sent me to registration the attending paramedic, Miss Carey, said she would make sure the patient representative knew about us.  That was of little comfort.  I am normally a fairly laid back, roll-with-the-punches guy but here I am, waiting to register my wife in a foreign emergency department for treatment of an injury that could cause her to lose her foot while our ride is going to leave in about 5 hours with all our stuff.  My anxiety levels went through the roof.  I could get back to the Dream in about 10 minutes on foot to tell them about our plight and to sort things out, but I wasn’t about to leave Shelagh alone in this environment.

After what seemed like an eternity in the waiting room but was probably only 20 minutes, my name was called.  Miss Sherman, the patient rep, took me back to her office.  I explained what our situation was and she said they handled this sort of thing all the time.  She called the RH Curry Company, port agents for Disney Cruise Lines in Nassau, and told Adrian Albury, the agent on duty, about us.  Adrian showed up shortly and we went out into the parking lot for further discussions.  He explained how these things normally work and put me in touch with Corey Konczal, Disney’s Medical Operations Manager.  Corey said before deciding a course of action we’d have to wait and see if the doctor thought it was severe enough to admit her.  I told him she was definitely getting admitted and described how much bone was exposed and the disturbingly odd angle at which her foot and leg came together.  He no longer needed to hear from a physician…compound fractures need immediate surgery.  He spoke briefly with Adrian again, who said something to the effect of, “OK. I’ll take care of it.”

Suddenly, the magic of Disney sprang into action and came to my rescue.

Adrian took me back to the ship.  As we boarded, he explained to the crew that Shelagh and I were debarking for a medical emergency and they took it from there.  Since we weren’t just day-trippers in Nassau anymore, we were going to need passport clearance and landing cards, so I gave our passports to a crew member for processing.  I was then taken to our stateroom by a lovely Serbian lady named Mirjana who helped me pack all our stuff.  We worked quickly but had a nice conversation and I learned she had just received her Bachelor’s degree in nursing and would be taking her licensing exam in a few weeks.  We left the stateroom and went to the ship’s Guest Services area where there was a short wait for Malisa (from Thailand) to bring me the stamped and validated passports and the landing cards.  I was taken back down to the gangway where Adrian was still waiting for me.

Adrian then started making hotel arrangements for me.  As he was doing that, I had a chance to chat briefly with a Nepali crew member named Rabin.  I asked where in Nepal he was from and his face lit up when I said I had been to his hometown of Kathmandu.  It turns out that he did a brief stint in the army as a Gurkha.  My short chat with him reinforced my belief that while the Gurkhas are generally considered the fiercest warriors on the planet ("If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha."), they are the nicest, funniest savage killers you’ll ever meet.

Adrian booked me in to the hotel and took me to the Bahamian Customs Office.  As we were going in, a taxi driver asked Adrian if a cab was needed and Adrian said yes and that we’d be right out.  He was right.  Because I was with him, all we had to do was go in, they put customs stickers on our suitcases and my backpack and we waltzed out.  Elapsed time in Customs was less than two minutes.  As we exited the building, Adrian pointed to the taxi driver and said, “Go with him. You can trust him, he’s old school.”  Even though my encounter with Adrian was brief I understood that this was the highest-order compliment.

The hotel room booked for me was at the British Colonial Hilton.  It is, to say the least, swanky.  How swanky?  Put it this way: A James Bond movie was filmed there.  Twice.  The British Colonial appeared in both Thunderball and Never Say Never Again.

The British Colonial Hilton's lobby

The British Colonial Hilton's private beach from the 5th floor balcony

Adrian said the hotel was in a good neighborhood and right across the street from the US embassy.  When I got to my room I looked out the window and saw…McDonalds.  Not what I was expecting, but not totally inaccurate, either.

McEmbassy

I sat down briefly to gather my thoughts before I returned to PMH.  What had just transpired was an absolute whirlwind of activity.  It was rapid fire, but well-rehearsed.  To make things right for me, certain activities had to happen in a particular order and with all due haste.  All these things happened, on my behalf, in less than 3 hours, relieving me of half of my problems…and I was just along for the ride.  From my perspective it was nothing short of a miracle, nothing less than the Magic of Disney.  I have an overwhelming amount of gratitude for the people who helped me, not just those who are named above, but also all the others who I didn’t see who were acting on my behalf.  Thank you all!

{Click here for Part 2!}

17 in '17

I decided to do a retrospective of my photographs from 2017.  Knowing that I wasn’t a very active shutterbug this past year I figured I’d still have more than a few favorites.  As it turns out, my first pass yielded 17…quite the appropriate number, no?

I was going to put them in chronological order, but decided to mix it up a bit and be mostly chronological, but save the best for last.  So, without further ado, my favorite shots from 2017:

January

Our dogs, Banjo and Maggie, love to go for a ride in the car (aka rideez).  Maggie really, really, REALLY wants to have her head out in the slipstream so her big hound schnozz can take in all the myriad scents undetectable to us humans.  Banjo also likes to do this but his desire to do so is closer to an average dog’s.  When I take them rideez I will drive around with the back windows down far enough for them to stick their heads out, but not so far that they can easily exit.  When they stick their heads out we say they are navigating by smell (consequently, we consider all dogs with their heads out of a vehicle window to be navigators).  They will run between the windows, sometimes each in their own window, sometimes jointly conferring on our position.  On a relatively warm day in January we went out and when I was stopped at a traffic light they both stuck their heads out the driver’s side window and I managed to get this shot.

Around the same time as the picture above I went out to Confluence Park on the Scioto River to get a shot of the Cbus skyline at dawn.  Even though the sun was rising, approaching weather allowed me to get this shot.  It’s not the greatest skyline picture I’ve taken but I still like it.  And it’s going to have to do since I’m not so disappointed in it that I’m going to make a 16-hour round trip just to give it another whirl.

May

I relocated from Cbus to RVA in May, about a month before we had a house purchased.  One weekend, before the Missus and the pups migrated south, I met with my granddaughter Tara (and her parents, who were kind enough to give her a ride) at the Sylvan Heights Bird Park, a bird sanctuary and research center in Scotland Neck, NC (don’t worry, nobody else has heard of Scotland Neck, NC, either).

I made some friends while we were there…

There’s an area where you can feed budgerigars (canaries) and flamingoes.  Visitors are warned – a lot – to check themselves for hitchhikers before exiting.  It’s easy to see why since they weigh virtually nothing and if you’re wearing a hat, hoodie or backpack, or carrying a purse, you’ll never know they’re there unless you look.

And yeah, you can get really, really close to the flamingoes…

In my free time I also scoped out Pocahontas State Park, just 6 miles from our house.  It’s a 7,950 acre park.  By way of comparison for Toledoans, that’s twice the size of Oak Openings; for Cincinnatians, it’s about 5.5 times the size of Mount Airy Forest; for denizens of Columbus, it’s 4.5 times the size of the campus of OSU; for Manx readers, it’s about 17% the size of the island.  In other words, it’s a really, really big state park.  I didn’t get much exploring done because I spent a lot of time in the nature center and the little but very nice Civilian Conservation Corps Museum.  I did spend a lot of time at Beaver Lake, an incredibly tranquil place, where I got this shot of a red-winged blackbird, tough to photograph but one of my favorites to watch and listen to (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-winged_Blackbird/sounds):

August

Solar eclipse. Carbondale, Illinois.  Spectacular, exhilarating experience.  Details can be found here: http://timerskinephotography.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-hole-in-fabric-of-sky.html and my favorite shots are here:

A few minutes after the start of the eclipse.

Totality.  Pictures don’t come close to capturing the experience of being in the path.

October

I took part in the Kelby Worldwide Photowalk, an outing for photographers to get with a local guide to see the sights and shoot them.  I went to Petersburg where we walked through the old section of the town, the part that was bombarded during the Civil War’s Siege of Petersburg.  My Flickr album from the Walk is at https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5FzUSb.  Here are my favorites from that morning:

  

November

My employer, the Virginia Office of EMS, holds a Symposium annually in Norfolk.  It is one of the largest EMS conferences in the country (like 2^nd largest).  2017 was the 38^th  edition.  With that much experience, it runs like a well-oiled machine, but it is an all-hands-on-deck situation.  I didn’t have too much time for tourism, and the pictures I was taking were less artistic and more documentary, but I did get to see the battleship USS Wisconsin, which is moored two blocks from the hotel.

And then the Missus and I went to Nawlins Looziana (New Orleans, Louisiana) for Thanksgiving.  It was a photo bonanza.  Here are a couple of my favorite shots and the rest can be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/traumastats/albums/72157690345221755

This is a long exposure from our hotel room on Canal Street.  I was hoping for more cars to move through during the exposure, making for more pronounced trails from headlights and taillights.  Sadly, when there was a lot of traffic, it barely moved, negating the effect.  I think this is pretty decent, though.

This is a cormorant on the Mississippi River.  Specifically, it is an immature double-crested cormorant.  It was diving underwater looking for fish, as cormorants are wont to do, and it wound up surfacing near to me after one of its dives.  This was the closest I’d ever been to a cormorant.  The picture itself doesn’t have anything great in the way of composition (it’s a waterfowl in murky water) and isn’t the clearest shot.  But what makes this one special is the way the midday sun (normally not a good thing for photography) gave me a clear shot of its aquamarine eye.  I had no idea that a bird’s eye could be so blue.

I think of this one as “The USS No Smoking” because of the warning in huge block letters on the pilothouse just below the bridge.  It is, in fact, the MV Louisiana, a US-flagged tanker, based in Jacksonville, Florida.  It’s not a supertanker, but it’s still a really large vessel to be operating on a river.  While the Missus and I were catching some rays on the Moon Walk (the walk along the river named for former NOLA Mayor "Moon" Landrieu) I saw it coming around the bend to our left, headed upriver to pick up its flammable liquid cargo.  I walked up to the river’s edge and waited for it to swing around head-on.  My patience was rewarded with this view.  For more information on the USS No Smoking, including its current location, go to

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:3964257/mmsi:338110000/imo:9704790/vessel:LOUISIANA

The Best for Last - Back to the Beginning

At the end of January and the first of February, the Missus and I went with the Friends of Hocking Hills Camera Club to LeClaire, Iowa.  LeClaire is a small town on the Mississippi River, a couple of miles north of the Quad Cities (Moline and Rock Island, Illinois; Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa).  It’s the home of Antique Archeology of “American Pickers” fame, but that’s not why we went there.  It is also near to a lock and dam complex on the Mississippi (Lock and Dam 14, to be specific).  During the winter, bald eagles are there.  Dozens and dozens and dozens of bald eagles.  They are there for the smorgasbord God and the US Army Corps of Engineers provide.  You see, fish in the river go over the dam, through the spillway or through the water circulators that keep the lock from freezing solid and getting damaged.  Not all of the poor fishies make it and those that don’t float to the surface.  Put yourself in the shoes, or rather the talons of an eagle.  Wait, that’s a bad way of putting it.  Let’s try this: Imagine you’re an eagle. When you migrate south, wouldn’t you want to winter over in a place where the fish are fresh, abundant and don’t dive away from you?  Of course you would.  That’s why so many are there.

I took thousands of pictures and some of them were fantastic.  But I picked four of my favorites for this post (you can see the rest of my best on my Flickr account at https://flic.kr/s/aHskQES3Ky).

I suppose I should mention that there was a pair of white pelicans at Lock and Dam 14, as well.  They were there for the same reason as the eagles.

This picture is a prime example of a photography adage that says, "80% of photography is being there."  In this case, there were around 100 photographers at Lock and Dam 14 but there were maybe 10 who were in or near the right place to get this shot.  Of those 10, seven weren't looking around.  Only three of us saw what was coming and got set for it.  Getting this picture was our reward, and it was even better than I had hoped when I grabbed the shot.

This one shows an eagle headed for some trees to enjoy its breakfast, which is tucked under its tail.  The serious look and intensity on its face is the only affect you will see on an eagle.  Whether they are fighting to the death over a mate, courting a mate, have decided to eat your offspring or as they tenderly and gently care for their own, this is it, the bald eagle’s one-and-only mien.  It’s the look you’ll always see and explains why the Muppets’ Sam Eagle is always so stern.

I call this one, “Hey, look!  It’s the Moon!”  I was accused of Photoshopping this one (by someone who was there and clearly mad at himself for missing it) but it’s legit.  Both the moon and the eagle were in the frame, in those positions.  I did use Photoshop to increase the brightness of the moon because it was pretty washed out and a lot less visible, but that’s it.  When I saw the moon more or less over the dam, I anticipated that an opportunity like this would present itself.  It took a long time, with a lot of eagles flying near but not near enough to get both avian and satellite in the frame, but when it did happen, I was ready.

Finally, of all the pictures I’ve taken in nearly 15 years of serious shooting, this one is, hands down, my favorite.

There is just so much happening in this shot!  This eagle was flying from my right to left when it spotted some food in the river.  In order to get to it, it needed to kill off its forward speed and dive while turning over 90 degrees to its left.  To do that it is twisting its tail to roll left; its wings are being pulled back into dive position; in order to turn hard to the left, it is killing off the lift of its left wing, as well as putting the outer half of that wing down to cause drag to bleed off speed; the left talon is extended not to reach out for its prey but to enhance speed reduction and left bank (once it was on course the talon came back up to be extended again when close to the water); and its eyes are locked on target (in the typical very serious bald eagle way).

When the eagle started its turn my finger pressed the shutter release and stayed there until my camera’s memory buffer was full.  So I got the dive but not the action at the surface.  To tell you the truth, I don’t remember if the eagle got the fish it was after.  Doesn’t matter…I absolutely love this shot 💕.

So there they are...my 17 from 2017.

Serendipitous Factoids 2

It's interesting how quickly these factoids can pile up now that I've started keeping track.  Anyway, here's my second installment!

• Last week, the Rome (as in the capital of Italy) city council showed a modicum of humanity and rescinded punishment previously doled out to one of its citizens.  Yes, they thought that one of their predecessor’s exiling of Publius Ovidius Naso was a bit harsh.  I haven’t read why they rescinded the ban, but that’s fitting because nobody knows why he was banned in the first place.  It’s all very curious.  Publius Ovidius Naso is better known to the English-speaking world as the poet Ovid, who along with Virgil and Horace, are considered the canonical poets of ancient Rome.  Yep, ancient Rome.  Ovid was exiled to what is now a Romanian port city on the Black Sea by the Emperor Augustus. In the year 8 (it’s 8 AD, but I think at this distance the 17-year spread between 8 BC and 8 AD is kind of inconsequential).  Nobody knows why and Ovid himself wouldn’t say anything beyond it was due to “a poem and a mistake” (except he said it in Latin, carmen et error, which doesn’t clarify anything).
• http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2017/12/14/rome-revokes-ovids-exile_d1bec182-804e-44c0-81c9-9c34bb602985.html 

• Here’s one that’s a colossal time-suck and a complete waste as none of the sites do anything (hence, the word ‘useless’ in the URL) but I can’t stop clicking the “Please” button!
• http://www.theuselessweb.com/ 

• For a time-suck that you might learn something from, try one of the Wikipedia Wiki-Link Games:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki-Link_Game 

• Here’s a site that was created in 1995 (for some perspective, HTML, the language used to create webpages, was created in 1993).  This site is all about Anabaptists.  It turns out that the Amish are a breakaway sect of the Mennonites.  I  don't know why but I always thought it was the other way around.
• http://www.anabaptists.org/ 

• I saw an EMS journal article titled, “EMS agency responds to call about frozen woman, finds statue.”  I thought it was unusual but wasn’t really surprising for the line of work – public safety service life is filled with WTF? moments – but unusual nonetheless…until I read the inset “Related Article” titled, “‘Homeless Jesus’ statue prompts 911 calls.”
• https://www.ems1.com/ems-humor/articles/370598048-EMS-agency-responds-to-call-about-frozen-woman-finds-statue/
• https://www.ems1.com/communications-dispatch/articles/105029048-Homeless-Jesus-statue-prompts-911-calls/ 

• Acute radiation exposure is measured in rads (radiation absorbed dose).  A chest x-ray will expose you to 0.01 rads. People with acute exposure of 350 rads (roughly 35,000 chest x-rays in very short order) or less may get sick but will recover without medical intervention.  100 rad exposures generally won’t even cause any illness.  Almost all people with exposures over 600 rads will die within a few weeks.  This is according to ‘Chapter 13 - Surviving Without Doctors’ in “Nuclear War Survival Skills: Lifesaving Nuclear Facts and Self-Help Instructions” by Cresson H. Kearny (ISBN 978-09-4248-7015 and free online at http://oism.org/nwss/nwss.pdf).  While this may sound like a 50s Red Scare / Cold War book, it was actually published in 1986, during the Reagan Administration, when FEMA was focused on minimizing civilian casualties when the nukes started flying. Or, as Major TJ “King” Kong said in Dr. Strangelove, “Nuclear combat, toe-to-toe with the Rooskis!”  It should be noted that the units of measure used in this book have since been replaced with an international scale (System Internationale) and rads have been replaced by units called gray (Gy). 

• Our brush with international peace.  In November 1995, the Ohio Chapter of the 8^th Air Force Historical Society, of which my Dad was the President and I was on the Board of Directors, was slated to hold its fall meeting at the Hope Hotel on the grounds of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.  Fate had other plans for us, however.  Another meeting was scheduled at the last minute at the Hope Hotel (named for Bob Hope, famous entertainer of deployed troops) that was considered by the Powers-That-Be to be a little more important than ours: a few bigwigs were going to get together to negotiate an end to the 3½ year war then going on in Bosnia.  For security reasons, we, along with everybody else, were booted.  The staff of the Hope were fantastic, finding us another meeting place that met our needs in the immediate Dayton area, ensuring that hotel reservations were transferred to the new meeting place with no change in cost, and even mailing out notices to our membership of the new venue and accommodations.  The only thing we had to do was produce a set of membership mailing labels for them to use for the notices.  I like to think that (despite the clear lack of say in the matter) our generosity in stepping aside without a fuss helped ease the way to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Agreement 

• A good army trains the way it’s going to fight. For the US Army this includes teaching the troops that when invading another country they are going to have to deal with foreign languages and cultures and all the complicated dynamics that go along with them. To do this, the Army creates entire countries with their own languages, cultures, money and international relations.  These countries include the People’s Republic of Pineland, the Island of Aragon, Attica, the People’s Democratic Republic of Krasnovia, and Atropia. 
• http://mentalfloss.com/article/31437/5-fictional-countries-where-us-army-trained-fight
• And yes, there are war souvenirs: https://teespring.com/shop/atropia-veteran-shirt-6355  

• The inch was originally considered as approximately the width of a man's thumb until the 14th century when King Edward II ruled that 1 inch equaled the length of 3 grains of barley lined up, end to end. 
• https://www.convert-me.com/en/history_of_measurement_faq.html

That's it for now.  See you next time!

Serendipitous Factoids

Growing up I used to read a weekly column called, "Strictly Personal" by Sydney J. Harris.  I was especially fond of his recurring ''Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things.''  The tidbits he put into those columns filled my young head, or as my sister Diane called it, my "trivial brain."

I recalled Harris' work a couple of days ago when I found myself down the rabbit hole of the internet, finding interesting fact after interesting fact, forgetting why I was surfing to start with.  I realized that I should emulate Harris and start keeping track of these things.  So I did, and here we are.

With that, I present to you Serendipitous Factoids, Part I.

• Serendipity...may as well start with that word and its etymology.  Horace Walpole made up the word based on an erroneously recalled story called, "The Three Princes of Serendip" to describe finding valuable or interesting things unintentionally.
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serendipity
• My alma mater was taken over so it would appear I have, in addition to the alma mater, an alma step-patrem.
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-devry-university-new-ownership-20171205-story.html
• Space Fever is a real thing. Being in low gravity causes the human body to have thermoregulatory issues. These can be life-threatening, especially in the long term.
• https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/12/03/astronauts-core-body-temperature-increases-extended-space-missions-12223
• Which is better: PS4 or Xbox One?  PS4 is the better gaming system...if you're a roach.  The PS4 is warmer, roomier and more readily roach-accessible than Xbox One.
• https://kotaku.com/console-repairmen-explain-why-cockroaches-love-ps4s-1794393470
• Huge clouds of dust from the Sahara desert - to the tune of 28 million tons each year - blow from east to west across the Atlantic Ocean, dropping onto the jungles of the Amazon.  It's not the problem one would automatically think.  The dust is loaded with phosphorous, a fertilizer.  This means one of the planet's most desolate places feeds one of the most fertile.
• https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants
• This leads us into World Soil Day, celebrated by somebody, somewhere, every December 5th.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Year_of_Soil
• An interesting method of storing energy: converting potential energy into usable energy by sending a train loaded with rocks down a long hill when energy is needed, and back up the hill when energy is abundant.  The Economist called it "Sisyphus’s train set." Pretty clever (the idea and the title).
• https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21701466-novel-idea-storing-electricity-sisyphuss-train-set 
• Krampus is a thing.  Specifically, it's a Christmastime thing.  Krampus is a half-goat, half-demon acting as the anti-Santa, punishing bad children.  It's a product of Alpine peoples from the pre-Christian era.  Krampus never went away but the internet is allowing the idea to spread outside the Alps.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus
• Finally, in the 12 Days of Christmas, what are calling birds and turtle doves?  Well, calling birds are simply any songbirds, and there are of over 5,000 species of them.  Turtle doves are a bit more specific, but still can be any one of 19 types of collared doves.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptopelia

That's it for now.  I'll have more later.

George's Valedictory Letter

So this is a blog post about a blog post about an open letter to the American people.

Let's start at the chronological beginning of that sentence which is at the grammatical end.

The open letter in question was published some 221 years ago in what turned out to be America's first successful daily newspaper, Philadelphia's American Daily Advertiser.  It was quickly picked up by other newspapers across the nascent country and was also turned into a pamphlet for even wider distribution.

The primary author of the letter had help.  His first unsigned co-author was the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison.  The letter was set aside when circumstances changed and it was temporarily not applicable.  Then, four years later, Alexander Hamilton helped the primary author update and finish the letter.  The author was George Washington.  The first version was set aside when, at the end of his first term, Washington changed his previously made up mind and decided to run for a second term.  The updated version of the letter came about when Washington decided that twice was enough and he wanted nothing more than to retire to Mt. Vernon.  The letter was originally published with the title, "The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on his declining of the Presidency of the United States."  It was later renamed and we still know it today by that name: Washington's Farewell Address.

James Madison, Father of the Constitution, Father of the Bill of Rights, but not of any actual children

Lin-Manuel Miranda, as portrayed by Alexander Hamilton

George Washington, 1st US President, Infamous slaughterer of cherry trees

Pretty much everyone's heard of the Address, and some have heard of one of the more famous passages, an admonition against permanent foreign alliances (if you heard it as entangling alliances, as I did, well, that's actually from Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address, five years after Washington's missive of departure).  But I'd wager that few have read it, and I'd be willing to wager a lot that even fairly fanatic history buffs such as myself have not read the whole thing.

Why am I so sure?  Because Washington's Farewell Address to the nation he helped create and get up and running is 6,144 words of what is to modern ears dense, highly-convoluted prose.  Unless you're experienced with 19th century writing and really determined to read it, it is at times nearly impenetrable.  There's a single sentence near the end - one that's not a run-on or compound sentence - that has 58 words, broken up with 11 commas.  That sentence is actually one of the easy ones to read.

I bring this up because of a blog post about Washington's Farewell Address that I just came across.  It was written 10 years ago by Randall Munroe, author of the nerdy/geeky webcomic, xkcd.com.  In this post, Munroe took the time (probably quite a bit of it) to translate the Address into common, current language. 

The results of Munroe's efforts are remarkable.  The Address becomes understandable to speakers of 21st century English. As an example, here are the first two paragraphs of the Address, as written by George (and Company):

The period for a new election of a citizen, to administer the executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.

Like I said, dense and convoluted writing style.  But the ideas being conveyed aren't so difficult. Here is Munroe's translation:

Elections are coming up, and it’s time to figure out who we wanna give the keys to.  I figure it might clear things up if I take a sec to explain why I’m not running.

Now, I care about the future, don’t get me wrong, and thanks for your trust so far.  I just think me quitting is a good idea on all counts.

I’ve been president twice now, and I didn’t want to do it either time.  I tried to quit the first time, but the country was in trouble and every single person around me begged me to stay on.

I’m glad to say we’re pretty much in the clear now and I can get out of here without getting screamed at or letting things fall apart completely.

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My favorite part, though, is the salutation.  Washington opened with, "Friends and fellow-citizens" which Munroe rendered as, "Sup."

What makes Munroe's translation a must-read, however, is not his entertaining treatment of the work, his breezy style, and the roughly 45% reduction in word count to 2,270.  No, what makes this a must-read is Washington's prescience and how applicable the Farewell Address still is, well over two centuries into the future.

About the only thing Washington didn't foresee was the nullification of his strong and rational reasoning behind the advice against permanent foreign alliances.  Washington (as well as many Presidents after him) were worried that those alliances with major powers like Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands would lead to perpetual servitude of the little, mostly powerless United States.  He couldn't foresee the US becoming the most militarily and economically powerful and culturally dominating country ever. 

There are many other ideas that George did get right and still apply.  I won't list them here because Munroe's translation is so good that I can't do it justice paraphrasing it.  So go to the xkcd blog and read it for yourself: https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/01/29/washingtons-farewell-address-translated-into-the-vernacular/

And if you want to see the original, it can be found at 
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Farewell_Address