Real ideas can change things

Once again my precinct elected delegates exclusively for Ron Paul just as it did four years ago. 

Last time when I was sitting across a living room from conservative Republicans they told me how much Ron Paul scared them.  After all he was for ending wars, legalizing drugs, changing the monetary system, and then it was all followed up by the typical Ad-hominem attack of him being crazy or anti-semite or whatever.

This year I talked to even more conservative Republicans in our pooled caucus meeting of a few hundred Republicans and almost universally they said "I agree with almost everything he says...I just don't think he can win."

And of course he can't. Ron Paul's ideas are far too exotic for a country that is averse to risk.  It took over four years of listening to Ron Paul after he became a national figure for his ideas to simply not be "scary" to other Republicans.  It would take far longer before the nation would see them as mainstream.

But that day is coming.

He had to stand alone for 30 years to have the credibility to deliver a different message.  He had to be consistent to the point of being called crazy to earn the platform to talk about ideas that he believed in.  Unlike most politicians you actually believe that he believes what he's talking about.

I've have several friends who voted for Obama who read Ron Paul's books and articles far more than I do because they know that you can't just dismiss him as a kook.  There seems to be something there right or wrong. 

It's impressed upon me that true conviction and standing up for something is admirable.  I should've known this all along but now I have a real life example.

...for me...back to supporting Gary Johnson.

Sad and Busy

I've been working lately on the slow process of dealing with my mom's belongings.  Most things require cut and dry decisions...throw away....save....donate...sell.   Figuring out what needs to be done with the physical items isn't nearly as difficult as sorting out the emotional items.

I went through tax returns that covered the last 25 years.  I saw a financial history of my parents struggle to keep their heads above water.  I saw my own income as a teenager added to theirs to bolster what little we had.  It was a walk through the history of my life that I wasn't prepared for.

I never had to deal with many of these types of things when my dad passed away and now I'm handling items that belonged to both of them.  Emotionally it feels like I've lost them both at the same time.  It sucks.

I will be glad when this is over.

Soda Stream–Frickin Awesome

I love to drink fizzy stuff.  I’d drink my own blood if I could get it sweetened with a healthy amount of infused bubbles.  I don’t drink as much as I used to due to the fact that it’s really not all that good for you, but there are times when I can’t resist.

About a decade ago I saw some exhibitor at a local county fair pushing some sort of device that allowed you to inject Carbon Dioxide into your water, add syrup and then you instantly had some awful tasting soda.  It intrigued me and I wanted to buy it though two things prevented me from buying it.

1. I was broke.
2. The whole operation seemed small-time and I knew I’d end up with an obsolete machine without replacement parts or refillable CO2 bottles.

I grew up on all the normal soda pops but found Pepsi to be my favorite.  Since then the formulas for all the major brands have changed enough that none of them really taste all that great.  I celebrated Pepsi Natural only to see it go away and Pepsi Throwback is an improvement over modern formula that is simply awful.  Don’t even get me started on Coke…their problems are legion.

Oh yeah, back to Soda Stream.  Have you seen it? 

Thanks to Christmas it now sits on the counter in my kitchen and I’m able to make all sorts of fizzy stuff.  The Sodastream company manufactures their own syrups which can run from acceptable to uh…interesting but at least are free of corn syrup.

I’ve always wanted to make my own soda syrup and be the soda king of the entire world.  I’m not sure what I’d call my soda but it would be frickin awesome.  It would be so fizzy your mouth and throat would bleed after each sip.  If I had my way you’d be drinking one now while reading this.  Lucky for you my dreams have yet to be realized.

Instead of living my dream I pretend to be a bigtime soda honcho in my kitchen.  It is the beverage equivalent of the Easy Bake Oven.  I’ll be blogging about my delicious lightbulb baked cookies next week.

Hey, where ya been?

I haven’t blogged in awhile lately due to being overwhelmed at work, home and with the additional duties I have following my mom’s death.  I looked yesterday in my Live Writer and found that I had thirteen drafts of blogs I simply never published.  You will be glad  you were spared most of that nonsense.

I will blog more when there is stuff to say.  Here is a sample of subjects I’ve not talked about:

1.  Toys for Tots.

2.  Hey lookit, I’m mainstream!

3.  The Salvation Army is not your enemy, your stupid brain is.

4.  I didn’t want to do this again, but…

5.  Please introduce me to a sane vegan.

Talk to you all again soon.

Talking and Doing

I was reading months back during one of my thousand hospital visits over the summer that people who talk about things they plan to do, usually never get them completed. 
The study indicated that when people announce a goal, they receive immediate satisfaction for simply having the goal that actually achieving it is no longer necessary. 
I’ve seen this in action in my own life and in the lives of people over the last few months.  When my mom was sick and then soon after she died people from all over offered to do “anything” to help.  I am a person who likes to do things myself but there has been a couple of things that I simply cannot do on my own.  Each time I’ve called on someone to help, I realized that people have varying views of what “anything” meant in terms of actually helping.  I can say confidently that I’ve not received any help that I’ve asked for.  Pretty interesting huh?

Now given what I know about this study, me expecting any actual help is my failing, not theirs.   I should’ve known that people who offered were simply being nice.  There’s nothing wrong with this either.  At a low point in my life, people giving me nice gestures was a positive thing.  Things only went badly when my expectations of their gesture were more literal and less symbolic.
So I’ve thought about a few questions that beg to be asked:

1. Is there any use in talking about what you want to do at all?
2. Why not simply meet a need that is in your ability without fanfare?
3. Would you do what needs to be done if nobody ever knew about it?

It goes beyond my own personal example and swells into personal goals.  I see someone announce on their social networking that they’re on a diet and are trying to lose 25 pounds.  The applause that follow in the comments session dismantle the goal before it began. 

I’ve been excited to talk about a few things I’ve been working on over the last year but I do not dare.  Either people won’t care and that will discourage me or people will pretend to care and my brain will put up the Mission Accomplished banner on my project and I’ll start fitting myself for a flight suit.

An evening with Spider-Man and Curious George

The weather was particularly good for Halloween this year and for once it accommodated trick-or-treating.  It’s always a challenge to get the right costume in the Pacific Northwest as the weather is generally cold and pissy.
Last night I was going to walk around my neighborhood with Spider-Man and Curious George.  Each of them had their own challenges that made the next two hours scarier than any horror movie.

1.  Spider-Man has a nervous stomach.  Once in costume he decided he needed to stay inside for the evening while throwing up.  I finally convinced Spider-Man to go with me and George and he could keep his mask half-off in the event he needed to honk.

2.  Curious George is willing to walk but chooses his own direction too often to keep tabs on him at night while reminding Spider-Man to say “thank you” after each visit and pointing out bushes he can puke in.  26 pounds of George will be carried through several blocks.

We get two houses down from ours and Spider-Man starts howling at the leaves on the ground.  I knew he’d get over it so we wiped the gooey strands dangling from his mouth and pressed on.  With tears in his eyes he went to about 6 or 7 front doors with George before Spidey announced that he had to pee and couldn’t wait.

Me:  You’re going to have to wait.

Spider-Man:  I can’t hold it!  I’m starting to pee a little

Our neighbor opened her door to the sight of Spider-Man holding his crotch while jumping up and down next to a giggling monkey.  “You can use my bathroom, come on in!” She said mercifully.

I needed to go in and help since Spidey wasn’t able to get enough of his costume off .  We walked into our neighbor’s downstairs water closet where George started to empty his bucket of treats into the toilet while Peter Puker started throwing up into the sink. 

With my left leg held out I kept George away from the toilet which looked like the neighbor’s had already placed a large tootsie-roll and had forgotten to flush.  With my left hand I got Spider-Man released from his costume and with my right hand I rinsed out our neighbor’s sink.  While the toilet flushes, Spider-Man looks down to button his pants and his mask cascades off of the top of his head into the bowl of now clean water.  So far we’re off to a good start. 

My wife messages my phone and asks if we’re having fun.  Unfortunately I didn’t have a free hand to reply and let her know that Spider-Man and George have nearly devastated the bathroom of  one of our neighbor’s, in less than a minute.

After saying thank you to our friendly neighbors for the use of their water closet, the three of us trudged on into the night without incident.  We returned home about an hour later with about seven pounds of chocolate and high fructose corn syrup.

The Patient Experience

I've written a great deal about my mom and her stay at the Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, WA. My mom's experience there was a mix of great care and disappointing communication. As her durable power of attorney it wasn't always easy to get information from them. Sometimes they called my brother instead of me and often they called several phone numbers instead of the ONLY number I gave them to contact me personally. Then of course there was the matter of their clumsy communication leading me to believe my mom was dead, when she was very much alive.

Her initial experience with the hospital was pretty bad. In fact I filed a grievance against the hospital and worked with their risk management department that led to specific hospital policy changes. I never threatened lawsuits or acted like a jackass. I tried to stay positive and work with them to help them be a better hospital. After all, they're the closest hospital to me and my two children were born there. I actually NEED them to be a good hospital.

They had hired a film crew to come up from California and record different patient experiences for training of their doctors and staff inside their medical system. This was to sort of help them understand what can happen, not just in some theoretical hospital, but theirs. I agreed to be a part in this training and I told my story. I was told by the filmcrew that it was a powerful story. Plus, I got to wear makeup!

The person at the hospital that is in charge of their Patient Experience department has emailed me several times trying to nail down a time that I can preview this video that was made. Unbelievably each time she emails me she asks how my mom is doing. My mom of course died over two months ago, in that hospital. I've yet to reply to her concern about my mom for a couple of reasons:

1. If you're in charge of the patient experience, should it be in your interest at all as a professional to check to see how a person's experience may have ended, especially if they were in the critical care unit for weeks? Seriously, I would likely go check to see how things went or check the social security death index before I went and asked "Hey how is your mom doing? How was her experience in our hospital?
2. I haven't found a way to answer the question without sort of blasting through the obvious and risk making her feel bad...but also part of me doesn't care if she feels bad. What am I supposed to say about her experience in the hospital? Well, glad you asked! Aside from her dying everything went great! Thanks again for asking!

Now I know there is at least one of you out there that is saying in your dumb old head something like this:

"All you have to say is that your sad to let her know that your mom passed away and that you're grateful that she cared enough to ask."

Now if you're this person let me tell you right now that nobody likes you. Least of all me! You think I haven't thought of that? You think you've brought something new for me to chew on? Sometimes a person has to feel stupid for a minute. It helps that little voice most of us have remind us just how obnoxious we should let ourselves be before we should expect to get punched in the face. Please, for the love of all that is holy, listen to that voice before you email me or message me with that suggestion. Okay?

I miss my mom intensely and I still have a hard time getting my head around the fact that she's gone. She was the only family member I talked to everyday and she trusted me completely with her affairs during that awful couple of months. I battled hospitals, filled out endless paperwork, and spent dozens of sleepless nights with the hope that she'd still be here now. So if you work for the stupid hospital and you're in charge of the "patient experience" do a little homework to prove you actually give a bit.

With that in mind I'm simply not in the mood to answer her question. Not now.