Navel-gazing
awild | April 26, 2008Jo-anne has made a project of reorienting me towards a more Australian temperament. Her tactics are subtle but persistent. If I send her off to the video store, for instance, she comes home with some Aussie movie or another.
The most insidious of her methods includes buying CDs of Australian bands and playing them until they sink into my subconscious. These are hit or miss. I've not become a big You am I fan. But now and again Jo-anne finds something that takes hold. One of my new favorites is Missy Higgins:
awild | April 26, 2008
The New York Times has a piece on Ansel Adams.
Spot the fake smile!
Get your fix of Cicada Mania.
And finally...Polar Bear Tacos?
awild | April 17, 2008
While googling about for the latest CD by the Rustic Overtones (Light at the End), I discovered that copies of Shish Boom Bam are now selling for as high as $350. Shish is the crappy old recording from 1994 when I used to play trumpet with the band, back when R.O. were all rosy-cheeked teenagers. Apparently the green jewel case is something of a collector's item. Now I can't even remember where I've put my single remaining copy.
awild | February 10, 2008I know this is utterly off-topic for a bug blog, but Human Tetris is so strangely fascinating that I have to share:
awild | January 29, 2008My lovely wife Jo-anne has been in South America the last couple weeks doing field research on Argentine ants while I tend the home fires here in Tucson. I hope she finds it in her to forgive me for the post I am about to write.
Earlier today I got an email explaining why I'm not getting my much-awaited phone call:
I'd call but there aren't any phones at this locutorio and we're on our way out to look for social spiders."
Excuse me? Social spiders? More important than me, your needy hubby?
Ok, I grant that social spiders are pretty cool, if a bit creepy. I remember those things from when…
signout | January 23, 2008Most of my memories of Charles are upside down. When I was a kid, that's how he carried me around--on his back, giggling; under his arm, waving at his knees; or thrown over his shoulder, poking at his armpit. I remember him as big, gentle, and quiet, with his mouth where his eyes should've been.
Charles was diagnosed with cancer around two years ago. With the support and love of his wife, Sara, he fought it hard. Every time I called, he was in another city, at another hospital, investigating another experimental treatment. But the kind of cancer he had wasn't an easy one to fight, much less…
awild | December 17, 2007An image search for one of my favorite ants, the Atta leafcutters, returns a jarring juxtaposition of terrorists and ants:
Google Search: "Atta"
awild | December 11, 2007Light posting over the last couple days, I'm afraid. Our kitten Mingus came down with a little kitty fever this morning of 106º (That's 41ºC for the Fahrenheit- impaired) and is spending the night in the pet hospital, enough of a distraction to derail my blogging schedule.
Don't despair, though, there is freshy bloggy material on the way. I've been writing drafts on a number of photography topics in the background. Things to come include:
Image post-processing (what happens after a photo is taken)
The importance of backdrop
Photographing uncooperative insects
Cameras and lenses for…
awild | December 6, 2007Zut alors! This blog seems to have developed a following of Frenchmen. The shame of it is, I studied French for 5 years in High School and don't remember a word of it.
The French ant-enthusiast forum Acideformik looks like a fine place to hang out on the intra-webs. Most online myrmecology forums are populated by 12 year-olds relating their experiences fighting red and black ants, or trying to trade in their allowance to import a colony of exotic bulldog ants (to kick the butts of both red and black ants, I gather). However, the French are over there having book discussions and…
terrasig | November 28, 2007...and we thank you.
If you look down yonder left, you'll see that my SiteMeter counter passed 100,000 visits earlier today.
To be precise, a visitor from the University of Edinburgh's Moray House Institute of Education dialed into ScienceBlogs' 'Last 24 Hours' channel at 2037 GMT and clicked on my post about yesterday's death of Dr Robert Cade, the renal physiologist who formulated Gatorade. (So that readers don't get nervous, SiteMeter doesn't track in any greater detail than that.).
So, a great many thanks to my Scottish reader for being #100,000. If I knew who you were and could be…
signout | September 6, 2007How could I have been such a fool?
It's been two months since I started feeling empty at work. It started with anger toward some bad systems at my institution. Lately, I've started feeling some resentment toward colleagues who ask for help--a bad sign--and even occasional resentment toward patients who ask for help--a worse sign. Although I usually manage it professionally, it's only a matter of time, I think to myself, before these feelings affect the way I take care of people.
The hospital has started to feel like a prison. I've been walking around the place without any joy and just doing…
signout | August 29, 2007A friend of mine who finished her residency in June just took a job in a non-medical field. I talked to her over the phone last weekend. She is so happy in her new position, she said, so happy.
Sure, I said, who wouldn't love a 9-to-5 job after what you've just finished?
You know, it's not even the hours, she said. It's the respect.
See, apparently, when you're not a resident, people sometimes appreciate the time you spend at work. People consider your feelings when they respond to your ideas. When you do something well in the real world, sometimes you even get praise. Praise!
Apparently,…
signout | August 27, 2007For those of you who check regularly for updates, my apologies. I have been far too angry with absolutely everything about my shitty, shitty job to write anything but screed for the past couple of weeks. And no one comes here to read screed.
Please hold while I attempt to develop a new coping mechanism.
signout | August 15, 2007I was in the olive department at the local market a few weeks ago, when I heard a voice from in front of the Cerignolas. "Dr. Signout? Is that you?"
At one look, I knew who it was--the father of a girl whose forehead I'd sewn up months ago, near the middle of my intern year. I smiled, made chat, inquired after the girl, and cooed appropriately about her impending entry into kindergarten. All the while, I fought the overwhelming urge to bolt, because moments prior--seeing only the rear view of the father and son--I had cursed them under my breath as I'd impatiently maneuvered my shopping cart…
signout | July 12, 2007For those of you craving more more more on the origins, hangups, and favored afternoon activities of the Signout, hie thee over here. Although the ScienceBlogs interviewers call me elusive, I insist that I really am slow-moving, easy to spot, and marvelously accessible, as demonstrated by the thirty pages I received while my intern was in clinic this afternoon.
Slow-moving, I say! Unless good pastry is involved, in which case, get out of the way. I am not even kidding.
signout | July 12, 2007About a year ago, when I was an intern in the throes of my first medicine ward rotations, I got a compliment that shone in my memory for weeks.
We had a rather complicated patient on our team. Her case was such that she often required several family meetings a day, and because I was busy with checkyboxen, those meetings were usually attended by my senior resident, Dr. Tremble. Of a certain afternoon, Dr. Tremble was in clinic, and I attended a meeting in his place. Afterward, the patient's husband followed me out of the room, and asked me--in front of the medical students, no less!--whether…
signout | June 22, 2007Signout has a new banner today. You might not have noticed--all that's missing is a couple of words, after all. I nevertheless ask you to regard their absence with some intention, as the missing words are, "first-year." That's right, children. Signout is a senior resident.
I'm not one of those people who normally gets a deep emotional rush at my own graduation ceremonies; I guess I'm usually just over it by the time they're playing the music and lining us up. But this morning, as I wrote "R1" next to my name on my last progress note for the last time, I could swear I heard a cheer swell…