MedicineDan

Picked a hell of a time to go into nursing. Started at the hospital right before things got hot and heavy here in the US. I've had to reuse PPE gowns and don't even ask about the masks. I question the county government mandating everyone wear a cloth petri dish over their noses and mouths, but I suppose they figure people will wear them properly *enough* that the benefits will outweigh the risks. I don't trust that, but then again I see healthcare workers wearing masks wrong all the time. My favorite was seeing two CNAs wheeling an iso patient down the hall. One wore the mask properly. One had a mask cover most of his mouth, more or less, but not his nose. The patient didn't have on a mask at all. Yep. That's all kinds of wrong. Even an N95 mask, which are under lock and key at this point, isn't really more effective than nothing unless its worn properly. Anyhow, it's not too bad where I live. Not a huge number of Covid-19 cases. Maybe famous last words, but I've been living on borrowed time for years, so... :shrug: I am worried about my wife, though. I want to thank you also, Keyrock. Keep moving those goods around the country. We'd all be screwed otherwise. Hell, I appreciate the folks at the local restaurants where I can pick up food. My wife has been doing the cooking for the first time in our marriage, and the learning curve has been steep for her.

Hanging on to Don't Starve because it's not demanding and I can play for a short time and then stop for a while. When I get the chance to deep dive into a game, it will be Disco Elysium.

I think Zoraptor is right, except that I'm not sure Biden would lose a general. As far as I'm concerned, a lot of non-pundits I see are simply better than the majority of the pundits in assessing the situation. Predictions before the elections prove these chumps wrong *a lot.* Probably because we're not in a complete echo chamber. I did *not* write off Biden in the bad old days of the early primary. I don't know if I said this here, but I didn't think Biden could win the nomination. I thought he was more viable as a candidate, but the fact is that he clearly has no place running for president. Frankly, Biden is a terrible candidate in terms of mental acumen. In terms of likeability, which is *considerably* important, Biden does have a distinct advantage. On the other hand, Sanders could still win. I think the fact that people are paying attention to his extreme positions over time will be his undoing. Even then, the Democratic base might still put him over the top. Heaven help us all. Trump and Biden aren't revolutionary. Sanders is probably our most revolutionary candidate in decades. Certainly the most if we don't count doomed third party runs.

I'm getting used to staying up until 0700. I had to take the noc shift because of classes. I have advanced nursing practice and advanced pharmacology this semester. With God as my judge, it's not a pecking order thing. Being a specialized nurse with decent overtime might even make more money than a nurse practitioner. It's not that I get to wear a white coat. It's that I'm old. Old enough that I didn't want to go to med school at the time. Old enough that I don't want the physical demands of being a nurse for the next twenty years. Even that's not the case, though. I want as much freedom to help my patients as much as possible without having to answer to someone else. If California goes the same way as about half of the states, I'll be the primary provider and I'll be my own man. I might be a bit of a jackass around here, which I freely admit, but I'm *good* with patients. They respond to me. they trust me. In the past, if I'd posted this late, it would undoubtedly be the result of overindulgence. Now, it's trying to stay awake. Gives me the chance to catch up on random internet jawbonin' about political events. @Guard Dog Keep up the faith, man. I catch up on your posts when I'm here infrequently and feel like we're friends, even if you don't know who I am. Take that as an insult or a compliment as you wish, but I believe you're a decent guy trying to make sense of what I am convinced is a chaotic and capricious world.

It's so funny to see so many pundits writing off Biden's campaign. There were at least a few who claimed his best day in the campaign would be his first and then all downhill. He clearly is diminished in his capacity and I never thought he had as much up stairs as he liked to think, but the rest of the field has always sucked. I think we could probably flip a coin right now, but I bet we'll have a damned accurate picture by tomorrow night. ...Or, put it this way, if we don't know who won at least almost all the races by the time we go to bed on the west coast, we'll still know something to give us a picture. Even not calling most of these races will tell us something about how things are going.

Acute rehab is just a rehab hospital where the patients typically have had strokes or been in car accidents. Stuff like that. Occasionally, someone's primary doctor sends him or her because of overall health and mobility issues, but I think that's a little rare. Ballard was my first choice. Patients can be severely impaired, but you have them long enough to see them improve and go home healthier and more functional. A lot of my peers wanted to do ICU or Emergency, but I know from experience I would rather not have to deal with a death environment. I mean, I'll do what I've gotta do, but I want to go somewhere with the reasonable expectation that the mass of my patients will leave alive. I did my clinicals at this hospital and they recognized me when I interviewed. Don't worry about the donation. Give what you can when you can and they'll be happy to take it. It's about feeling good for what you can do, not guilty about what you can't. I know, easier said than done.

I've had two endoscopies. I'm a big guy and the anesthesiologist screwed up the dosing on one and I was awake and aware and remember the whole time. I was joking with my wife that I could have driven home just fine. The poor anesthesiologist beat a hasty retreat, but I would have told her no hard feelings if she hadn't left. She clearly felt bad about it. Meh, I've had worse happen to me. Meanwhile, I've been running around getting things ready for my first day in acute rehab. Bought scrubs and had them hemmed. Brushing up on some of my core skills that may have been a little rusty in the time I took off between getting my license and starting work. Still working on Advanced Pharmacology, which is a real brute of a class. Touching base with my academic adviser to map out the remainder of my grad school classes. Today, I gave my 80th donation and thus have given 10 gallons of blood to date. Tomorrow is my first day at work. Life. is. good!

Recent posts seem to be about Trump's visit to India. It's a smart move for him and the United States. If India is truly suffering as much as Grom claims, and I agree, then it's to their benefit to court the United States and it's in our interest to work with them. I really just popped my head in really quick because I know a lot of Republicans who think Bernie simply can't win the general. My brother-in-law in particular is gleeful that Trump is pre-ordained to smite Bernie and his bros. I don't think that's true. I think Sanders has baggage, but I think he most certainly *can* win. In 2016, Clinton lost the election. Trump didn't win it. The demographics according to exit polling and, more importantly, the voting statistics don't support the idea that Trump brought out a huge number of extra voters. It supports that Hilary failed to do so. If Sanders can bring out new people, and the results are mixed in the small sample we have in this cycle, he could win this thing. I know this is a bad question for this crowd, many of whom are probably annoyed by my posts, but do mainstream Democrats want Sanders? Do you guys hate Trump so much you'd rather see Sanders in office? Trump didn't really change our politics. Tax cuts and immigration have been political footballs for decades. Other than his desire to tweet apparently every single hour, Trump has done nothing to bring lasting harm to the presidency. Even his comportment, which is sometimes downright funny but often abysmal, is a symptom of the ailments in our society that pre-existed his administration. Sanders is a true revolutionary. I don't think he could get his agenda through, but even winning the presidency would mean something far different than Trump winning. Trump didn't blow things up. Sanders will. FTIW I did read the response to my previous post, and I actually appreciate the give and take, but I can't always do justice to the arguments in a timely manner and I don't want to bring them up several days or more after the fact.

I've been revisiting Don't Starve. I think I have age of giants or some such. I love the game, but it's just too harsh. I've managed to live up to... 90 days? 100? Something like that. I stopped playing a few years ago when eyeplants took over my rather expansive camp after I'd gone hunting for resources elsewhere. Maybe I'll get a really good map and 'retry' if I die for once. I do appreciate the bleak aspect of the game, but the fact that it's *so* desperate I depressing.

The kingdom management started out fun in Kingmaker and then it just got to be a terrible chore. It's the reason I never finished the game. I hope, whatever they do, they tidy it up and streamline that aspect if it's included at all.

I love the Athenian democracy. Truly a standout time for literature and art. The speech that Thucydides attributes (made up, really) to Perikles is an annual read for me. It's beautiful either in translation or in Greek. However, you're entirely right. Athens proved how terrible democracy can be. The creative destruction of freedom is brilliant, but it throws out as much heat as it does light, and that heat typically ends up burning down the Democracy itself. The founders were extremely distrustful of unbridled direct democracy. So far, over our history, we've managed to put that creative destruction to great use. As an aside, it's always good to steal Marxist terms and put them to pro-capitalist use. HA! If I were not Catholic, democracy would be my religion and the Republic would be my church. I assume it will eat itself someday, but what a glorious thing until then!

I don't want to bogart a beautiful drinking thread with recipes and whatnot, but it does take some tweaking. I would start with beer before moving to mead. Beer is a lot harder to completely botch than mead. Also, try a kit. I've never used one for mead. I've just tinkered around the edges. But I've used them for beer and it really helps get a feel for how the process works. Anyhow, right now it's tea. Not Long Island Iced Tea. Just regular ol' English Breakfast. I have Advanced Pharmacology in a few hours. Brutal class. No getting sauced beforehand.

I typically drink my whiskey on ice. Sometimes straight up or with water. I really don't like mixed drinks all that much. Anyhow, I moved mead to secondary a couple nights ago. I typically drink the lees. Even after five weeks of fermenting, the stuff is still throwing out CO2. It needs to age, so it's raw, but the blueberry stuff was actually pretty good already. The stuff will just hammer you. I changed up my brew method with the fresh blueberries and it worked better for the end product, but it means I get less usable product, which means I end up with a lot more in the lees.

bwahahahaha

Whatever the vote is, Bernie lost Iowa. Seriously, even if Bernie wins the votes, he lost Iowa, which might end up fueling his base. They see he got screwed and they're going to make sure other people see it also. So, I guess I'm wrong. Maybe, at this point, Bernie wins Iowa no matter the final vote. The Democratic party is simply shooting itself in the foot. I think it was Carville who came out publicly saying he didn't want the Democrats to become the Labour Party of the United States. I'm genuinely surprised that so many Democrats think the impeachment was dandy. ImPEACHY Keen, to make a pun. It was a loser of an idea in the first place, but the House made a royal hash of it. I've always played it above board in my assessments. It's not about rooting for one side or the other. If the Republicans had done something so monumentally stupid, I would have said the same thing. The thing is, while it was a loser, the Dems certainly could have played it better. The cynical view is that the Democrats were trying to orchestrate something to hurt Republican senators or some such. The reality is that a large credulous segment of the Democrat base honestly thought they had a chance at removing the president. In either case, they failed. Look, the election is a ways out, and you can kill the messenger if you want, but the Democrats need to get some discipline and start doing something other than trying to smear mud on Trump. How the hell would you be able to tell if any of it stuck anyway? Finally, I pride myself on staying cool headed and I should not have made intemperate statements about Romney. He might or might not survive his vote, but, in a lot of ways, I feel sorry for the guy. He has a lot of personal animosity for Trump, and Trump has certainly earned it, but I take Romney at his word that his faith guided his decision. Hopefully, cooler tempers prevail today and we Republicans don't bring out the pitchforks and fiery brands. Heat of the moment decisions are almost always terrible.

I know it's a popular idea in these parts, but I seriously doubt history looks kindly on the impeachment. First of all, history judges failed attempts harshly. Second, impeachment is truly dire and history will likely think this attempt was unfortunate. More likely, we'll have other partisan impeachments and this impeachment (and to an even greater extent, the Clinton impeachment) will be cited as paving the road for trivial impeachments that will almost always impact the country negatively. Third, while people will have their views colored by their dislike of Trump, the attempt was simply shoddy. Regardless of the vote in the Senate, the case was just bad. It was not just bitterly partisan, it was incompetent. Hey, we can argue about what history will say, but there's probably no point. However, from a historical perspective, there's nothing good about this. Put it this way, if you hate Trump, you should resent the Democrats attempting it in the first place. If you really wanted to see any chance of removing Trump, you should resent the way in which they did it. I'm sure my view will be unpopular, but I'd wager my take on how this will play out in the books is spot on. I'll have to concede the floor at this point. I've been worrying about all this political crap today and I have a ton of stuff to finish before bed. However, if you give me a good thumping, which I *always* appreciate, I'll check in on it tomorrow. :rueful grin:

Well, I will own that you're right, Gromnir. Not about the basic assumption. My views of Romney started shifting prior to Trump announcing his run. In fact, I think Romney might have been one of the reasons we ended up with Trump. However, where I think you're right is that I need to take a step back. My post was out of anger, and I will not commit to anything in the heat of the moment. Here's the real hypocrisy on my part, though. I'm mad at Romney because I believe his motives were bad. If his motives weren't bad, then I can't 'convict' him. It goes back to the mixed motive idea where there might be more than one reason for an action and we should accept (even if we don't assume) any reasonable motive that would exonerate the other guy. In this case, although I'm still mad as hell at Romney, I have to concede that I shouldn't assume his motives. My personal views of Romney have been pinging around a lot from the time he ran for president until now, and those views don't give license to thoughtless action on anyone's part. That's about as fair an answer as I can give at the moment. I disagree with the idea that my views need to be straightjacketed. No one's should be. In fact, I'm quite forgiving when other people have an evolution of thought process. Typically, I care more about assessing these things than arguing them, but I'm just as prone to the heat of the moment as the next guy.

Romney will undoubtedly be celebrated by the same people who reviled him in 2012. I concede that he believes he did the difficult and right thing, but that's because he fooled himself. I firmly believe his decision was driven by personal animus and (somewhat rightful) resentment of Trump. After all, Trump has ill-treated Romney for years now. I'm not much of a bomb thrower, but I will join with a lot of Republicans to destroy Romney's political career. I don't know if that simply means contributing to a recall effort (which I don't think they even have in Utah) or his primary opponents. If he lived in my state, I would actively campaign, and that's saying something since going door to door is time consuming and I don't have that kind of time. The president is an awful braggart and bully, but this impeachment was absolute folly and I do not believe a right-minded person would have voted to convict. The impeachment did far more lasting harm to the country than anything Trump has done hitherto. ...And I was against the Clinton impeachment also, so my voice came out of the same side of my mouth twenty years ago. Some have suggested that Romney did this for the adoration of the press, which he'll undoubtedly get because everything is good as long as it's against the president right now. I don't think he did it for that reason. I believe he did it to look good in the eyes of history. People who look at the demographics of the past several decades and think that it shows the so called arc of history haven't paid any attention to the last few millennia. To people who believe this will be a fatal wound to Trump... I'm not going to argue. I'll let time make my argument for me.

Ah, yeah, that's really too bad, ShadySands. I'll pray for your Mother-in-law and the rest of your family. healthcare issues are scary enough for their effects on your body, let alone fearing for your finances. Also, good luck on your business venture, GD.

I laughed out loud. My wife has been a teacher for 32 years. I try not to get her started. :sly smile while polishing my halo:

The funny thing about all this fixation on the Democratic caucuses in Iowa is that it inevitably helps Trump. He's got a lock on the state. If he doesn't win Iowa, it will be a very early night. It could have helped candidates, but it wasn't really going to help Democrats. This probably helped Biden, since the numbers I've seen so far are surprisingly bad for the old codger. I swear, this cycle is going to be insane.

Many thanks!

Gotta own that I'm a Gorth fan, so that might be why I'm defending him even though I think he's ultimately wrong. He's right in that Donald Trump is remarkably predictable in terms of his personality quirks. He's got a pathological need to defend and his only defense is to attack. It's one of the things that gets under my skin. However, he's really tricky about that. It doesn't mean he'll always attack the way you think or the cascade of events will favor the side that goads him. If it were that easy, President Clinton would be irritating Speaker... Ryan? at the SotU tonight. Some Republican Speaker, at any rate. Nancy Pelosi would be hailed for bringing down Trump. Schumer would be toasting his fellow Democrats at the dawn of a successful Senate conviction. I'm actually somewhat convinced that Trump is a god of chaos. We're all going to wake up in a Warhammer universe fighting for our lives against the minions of Khorne.

I usually play it pretty conservative, but I think that approval rating will suffice to put Trump back in office. Usually, the conventional wisdom is that below water means you're in real danger. Trump weirdness changes things up a little.

Just killed off the Ender Dragon in Minecraft. Pain in the tuckus. I thought that end poem was really sweet, but could it have been a *little* shorter? Good Lord! Don't know what else to do in the game that this point. The charm of Minecraft is that you can play it for a very short period of time without having to think much.