I have to go potty!!!
We were flying to SoCal for my step- brother's wedding. We were late and had to run through the entire terminal. Devin stops 100 feet short of the gate and grabs his crotch: "I have to go potty!" he screams at the top of his lungs. I looked at my watch. The flight was scheduled for 6:20. It was 6:18. I yelled across the terminal: "Run, Devin, Run! You can go potty on the plane!" People began to stare. Devin didn't budge. In the end, we made it. Southwest rocks! they waited for us!
Moving
I'm finishing up here in SoCal, and Lara moved into our new place in Oregon.
The truck took a while to get there, and Devin and Lara had to spend a night on the floor.
Our new place has a beautiful back yard with a creek that backs up to forest.
Devin was so excited when his toys came!
SLO Days
We went for a walk in downtown SLO - we raced leaves down the creek and fed bread to the ducks. Devin saw some girls using sidewalk chalk, and just walked up and started talking to them. He charmed 'em, and next thing you know, they're all painting a birthday cake!
ED Mnemonics
Here are a few mnemonics I picked up that helped me out...
HAD CLOTS: PERC Rule - Risk factors for PE
Hormone use
Age >50
DVT/PE History
Coughing Blood
Leg Swelling - Unilateral
O2 Sat < 95%
Tachycardia
Surgery/Trauma History - Recent
AMPLE: Important history items in trauma patients
Allergies
Medications
Past Medical/Surgical History
Last Meal/Last Menstrual Period
Events/EMS/Environment
PHAILS: Toxins that cannot be decontaminated with charcoal
Pesticides
Hydrocarbons
Acid/Alkali
Iron
Lithium
Solvents
DUMB BELSS: Cholinergic Toxidrome
Diarrhea
Urination
Miosis
Bronchospasm
Bradycardia
Emesis
Lacrimation
Salivation
Sweating
ME DIE: Differentials for Osmolar Gap
Methanol
Ethanol
Diuretics (Mannitol, Sorbitol)
Isopropanol
Ethylene Glycol
MUDPILES: Differentials for Anion Gap Acidosis
Methanol
Uremia
DKA
Paraldehyde
INH, Iron
Lactate
Ethanol, Ethylene Glycol
Salicylates, Starvation, Solvents
AEIOU: Indications for dialysis
Acidemia
Electrolytes (Potassium)
Ingestion (Drugs)
Overload (Fluid)
Uremia
I STUMBLED: Toxins that can be removed by hemodialysis
Isopropanol
Salicylates
Theophylline
Uremia
Methanol
Barbiturates
Lithium
Ethylene Glycol
Depakote
AEIOU TIPS: Differentials for Altered Mental Status
Alcohol
Endocrine
Insulin
Opiates
Uremia
Toxins, Trauma, Tumor
Infection
Psychosis
Stroke, Seizure, Shock
Living Connected
I'm writing this post from my iPhone using the WordPress app. It's nice to be more connected. I'm also using a cool FTP picture uploader to send photos from the iPhone to my gallery. Look for more up-to-the-minute updates and photos from wherever I am!
Here's a photo of us at Disneyland yesterday. There's more in the gallery!
Recycling the Lifedrive
After getting the iPhone, my wife and I had some toys that went into obselescence. One of them was my old Palm Lifedrive. Although the touchscreen was getting a little worn out, it still has a lot of life in it. It has a decent battery life, a bright 480X320 screen just like the iPhone, wifi, bluetooth, and a 4GB hard drive.
I ran across an interesting program - TCPMP. It has since been discontinued, but here's a link to the Palm version: TCPMP
I loaded up the Palm with videos for my son, and bought a cheap $4 set of headphones for him. I even have the car charger, so he can watch videos on long car rides.
The only downside was that it can't handle some files with high bitrates (above about 1000k/s). I use Avidemux to transcode the files and resize them to the Palm's native 480X320 resolution.
COMLEX II Percentile Table
The three-digit COMLEX score is often difficult to interpret. This table converts your score to a percentile so you can gauge your performance against that of your peers. This table is based upon the 1995 to present three-digit score with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 83. Passing score is 400.
Camaro time bomb
My wife's Camaro just went into self-destruct mode. It seems like all at once, everything broke. The thing is 8 years old but it has low miles, and we take good care of it. The windshield cracked, the brakes warped, the differential's making noise, the speakers blew, and the battery gave up the ghost.
The most challenging repair was the speakers. She has the premium Monsoon sound system, and it has some crazy components. The front 6½" speakers have separate inputs for the woofer and tweeter, with the crossover in the head unit. My first thought was to simply frankenstein together some aftermarket speakers by bypassing the crossover in the speaker, but I was horribly wrong. It turns out that they used 2Ω woofers and 4Ω tweeters! Most aftermarket speakers have 4Ω voice coils, which would mean crappy bass response. I looked up the price of the factory replacement speakers, and they were $90 EACH!
A quick internet search found that many people had suffered this situation and found a solution with Infinity's Kappa speakers, which have 2Ω voice coils. I picked up a pair of 60.9cs component speakers, and wired 'em up. The main dilemma came when I read a little on impedence matching. It turns out that most amps can easily drive speakers with higher impedence than rated, but using a lower impedence speaker can damage your amp. I was worried that the 2Ω tweeters would cause problems. The increased power would also mean overwhelming highs. You could solve this by going to your local RadioShack and wiring a couple 1Ω - 10 watt resistors in series with the tweeter, but I chose to just hook up the included crossover to the tweeter and use the -6dB button to reduce the output (RadioShack was out of the resistors I needed).
The Kappas sound awesome, and they're loud enough to drown out the horrible noise coming from the rear end! Let's just hope nothing else breaks!
Bachelor Chow
I'm in Bakersfield right now, and I thought I'd write about one of my favorite pastimes: cooking.
While most of my bachelor meals consist of microwaved corn dogs dipped in sri racha, I do go on a culinary kick once in a while. Here's a quick guide to one of my favorite dishes served up bachelor style.
