Thursday, April 27, 2006

Kaboom car!


Stuntman Bozic hurtles amid explosion. He was injured in the stunt and hospitalized --barely clinging to life.

One must wonder why someone would do such a thing, but what a picture!

Friday, April 21, 2006

Jadyn 04/21/2006



What is art?













Friday, April 14, 2006

Pulled from the reverie...

I was sitting at my desk lost in thought, or perhaps just lost, when the phone rang and a stranger asked to speak to a co-worker. This co-worker does not "co-work." She works another shift.

The incessant need to leave a message betrays the bill collector. Telemarketers quite often eagerly shift towards whomever answers the phone, but a bill collector leaves a "message" that invariably includes some 1-800 number and an extension. A loan officer seeking business might use an 800 number, but they don't leave pointless messages that have little chance of being relayed.

"Can I leave a message?" she says. There was a time when I dutifully took and delivered such messages, but the specific co-worker stated certainly not to bother.

"This is," I say, "a business." Bill collectors are funny little things. They must be businesses like any other, but they are odd. Either they have her home number and she blows them off -and if so are doubly wasting their time "leaving messages," or they do not have it. Yet these pushy creditors --"Oh, I see that she works nights. Can I leave a message?"- will not call here the hours that the person actually works.

Of course they could be receiving no response from her directly at night, which means they are attempting to get her in trouble with her boss, and they are misguided because her boss has an entirely different number.

"You can't call her at home," I question. She asserts that she doesn't have her home number. She relays an 800 number and some extension. I don't even note a single number.

"What's," she asks, "your name?"

I answer, "Bob." Call me Bob. You know it's kind of funny, I pulled from my mind a name that belongs to no workers in our general area. It is also the brief nickname that a childhood friend had. I can't remember how or why he got that name, but thinking about it, I laugh as I imagine the bill collector relating to my co-worker that she left a message with "Bob."

Angel

"You spend all your time waiting for that second chance, for a break that would make it okay. There’s always one reason to feel not good enough. And it’s hard at the end of the day. I need some distraction, oh beautiful release. Memory seeps from my
veins. Let me be empty and weightless and maybe I’ll find some peace
tonight." -Sarah McLachlan

There are moments and times when one must become empty to survive. This is especially true of unfulfilling jobs. It is about finding balance.

Sarah's talents lie beyond her incredible voice, her words --puntuated by me as I interpret them (Songs are typically punctuated in lines leaving sentence structure less clear... and consequently the meaning even less clear)- are powerful. Who hasn't felt the need to escape and become free of the fetters of care?

I would gladly recommend that everyone purchase the iTunes version of this song, Angel. Sarah's voice is incredible and intimate. Often production creates this "perfect" song free from the emotion and power that the artist is capable of. After hearing Sarah's "iTunes Originals," I'm forced to conclude that sometimes raw is better.

"In the arms of an angel, fly away from here, from this dark, cold
hotel-room and the endlessness that you fear. You are pulled from the
wreckage of your silent reverie. You’re in the arms of the angel.
May you find some comfort there."

"So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn there’s vultures
and thieves at your back. And the storm keeps on twisting. You keep
on building the lie that you make up for all that you lack. It don’t make
no difference: Escaping one last time. It’s easier to believe in this
sweet madness --oh this glorious sadness- that brings me to my knees."

"In the arms of an angel, fly away from here, from this dark, cold
hotel-room and the endlessness that you fear. You are pulled from the
wreckage of your silent reverie. You’re in the arms of the
angel. May you find some comfort here."

2, 10, 15 minutes, an hour, or three? Notified or not?

Re: "If I die in a fire, sue M. D. Anderson."

I've decided that this occurs frequently enough that it should be noted. And while I'm joking at the moment, should it really occur, the constant fire alarm "drills" do nothing but desensitize employees to the alarm bell. This occurs because it is M. D. Anderson policy to hear the alarm and everyone must act as if nothing has happened and "wait" for the follow-up announcement with instructions.

Occasionally they should have drills where certain floors are instructed to take some action, but instead alarms run for often close to ten minutes and sometimes longer, and then silence greets employees for more minutes until the "all clear" --if it is not somehow overlooked- sounds.

I understand there are certain difficulties when it comes to patients, but practice runs with empty beds might be prudent. After all, the logistics of moving 100 patients' beds would be a more fair approximation than the general guidelines everyone is aware of. How do we know that the guidelines will work unless we attempt to measure them?

While I'm at it, let's discuss the "Emergency Broadcast System." Every now and again we hear obnoxious beeps announcing "a test." We are informed that in the event of an actual message, we will all be instructed to make final penance before God. I say this because anyone listening to a radio or watching TV during a major storm or Hurricane gets frequent, even frivolous information, about conditions and what to do.

The only conclusion that can be made is the only time the system would be used is in the last minutes of a catastrophic, surprise nuclear-assault, and we should be asking ourselves: "If we had only two minutes left to live, would we want them to be a frightened, stress-filled moment, or would we want to continue happily and ignorantly on towards our imminent, utter destruction?"

Let's say it was 15 minutes or an hour, that itself might not even be time to gather up your family around you. Not to mention the crippling traffic on ALL roads as nearly every driver attempts to find those closest to themselves.

And you are as likely as not to not be wrapped in either television or radio at any given point of any day. Sure we all watch more television than we should, but let's be completely honest. Even if a TV is on in your house most of the day, how much do you really "watch" it? We are truthfully as likely to be sleeping when such a message would be conveyed.

Given imminent and immutable destruction, to what extent would you really want to be informed?