Happy St. Andrew's Day: Scotland Sucks!!

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Cheeeeeers, Happy Friday, and more importantly, Happy St. Andrew’s Day to you all!!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAeMIEj2_jL9t9QZwEKgkQH4SrESw0dqQYbqgIrmSrO-reGfHcLf0O8w58DuE7NZU5jpoioaUscosIghzXSjLy_PTsdVf7YInt1jLFwxBHis5nOAKaRsv7d8bhS0PaUbbqv9rXKfkznE/s1600/Sexy+Scotland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAeMIEj2_jL9t9QZwEKgkQH4SrESw0dqQYbqgIrmSrO-reGfHcLf0O8w58DuE7NZU5jpoioaUscosIghzXSjLy_PTsdVf7YInt1jLFwxBHis5nOAKaRsv7d8bhS0PaUbbqv9rXKfkznE/s400/Sexy+Scotland.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>What?  You didn’t realize that today is St. Andrew’s Day?<br /><br />Hell yes my friends, and today, 5.2 million Scots already are, or will be, engaging in drunken celebrations in honor of St. Andrew, the patron Saint of Scotland.<br /><br />Drunken, whorish, Scottish ladies sporting plaid skirts, white stockings, and no underwear, will spend the day and night being hunted down like sheep by drunken, whorish, Scottish men sporting plaid skirts, white stockings, and no underwear.<br /><br />One might say that today is going to be Tartan-Palooza in the great country of Scotla----er…um…the great nation of Scot---…oh wow, um.<br /><br />Scotland isn’t really a country is it?  Not a nation unto itself either really, it’s more like…let’s see…It’s like Canada, yeah that’s it…It’s like Canada!!<br /><br />Well, no I guess not, ‘cause, I mean, c’mon…<br /><br />Canada has its own currency…its own armed forces…its own Prime Minister.  Canada is even allowed to fly their own flag, field their own Olympic teams, and negotiate directly with other governments.<br /><br />The Scottish government and her people?  What are they permitted to do on their own?  Not a damn thing other than beg for scraps from the table of the once mighty nation of Britain.  It’s sad, pathetic really.<br /><br />Oh sure today, on St. Andrews Day, the Scots will sit around the pubs of Edinburgh and elsewhere, juiced up on warm ale and tales of the glory days that lie fossilized in their collective consciousness, and scream…<br /><br /><i>“Death to England.  Death to the Queen!!”</i>, and then…<br /><br />Saturday December 1st, like most other days for the Scots, they’ll wake up on their bathroom floor with a hangover, a skirt over their face, and incoherently mumble…<br /><br /><i>“We drank the country…er nation…er…whatever we are, dry last night; could somebody please call Prime Minister Cameron down in London and plead for a new allotment of ale?”</i><br /><br />Yep, sad indeed.<br /><br />On St. Andrews Day, every Scot parties, yells, and engages in Scottish braggadocio with the gusto, courage, and fire of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, and then?<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Gh9p1-FhRUAiwiB96Bgu7X3MkmTkFxd8KvEX8vkzR4mZcUjSM-_m0kE2km9veWYriXb41mdyTHt2eCRLkzWUbfuoIxx2DoR20BUgN_UJFl1RqMHI1pwGRieJNAJ3yeE9qEld3uFtEKg/s1600/Sexy+Naked+Scottish+Woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Gh9p1-FhRUAiwiB96Bgu7X3MkmTkFxd8KvEX8vkzR4mZcUjSM-_m0kE2km9veWYriXb41mdyTHt2eCRLkzWUbfuoIxx2DoR20BUgN_UJFl1RqMHI1pwGRieJNAJ3yeE9qEld3uFtEKg/s400/Sexy+Naked+Scottish+Woman.jpg" width="281" /></a>The next day when their collective eyes clear, their liver discharges, and drunken remembrances of their salad days have wilted and turned gray, their bluster and nationalism will sound more like Oliver Twist in all of his girlish, pre-pubescent voice asking dutifully of the Prime Minister…<br /><br /><i>“Please sir, may I have some more?”</i><br /><br />When I think of these things, I say to myself…<br /><br /><i>“Braveheart is one of my favorite movies, but if it was based on today’s Scotland and her people, it would be called Gayheart.”</i><br /><br />Scotland sucks, and you know what?<br /><br />St. Andrew is too good for you guys.  You should adopt a new patron saint.<br /><br />Perhaps…<br /><br />St. Richard of Simmons, or…St. Mike McQueary, or…St. Cowardly Lion.<br /><br />I truly want all of you Bobby Burns loving Scots to enjoy your day today, but man…<br /><br />When you wake up tomorrow, while your alcohol induced hangover will recede over time, the hangover of knowing that you are not nearly as tough as even the Canadians will never leave your head, and knowing that fact is harder to swallow than a plate full of haggis.<br /><br /><i>Cheers!!</i><br /><i>Matt-Man (A Descendent of the <b>Free</b> State of Ireland)</i><br /><a href="mailto:mattmaniws@ymail.com"><i>mattmaniws@ymail.com</i></a><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/MattMan_IWS" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: blue;">@MattMan_IWS</span></i></a></div>

Happy St. Andrew's Day: Scotland Sucks!!

Cheeeeeers, Happy Friday, and more importantly, Happy St. Andrew’s Day to you all!! What?  You didn’t realize that today is St. Andrew’s Day...

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Marvel at the marvellous things!

<span style="font-size: large;">The Marvel Room is back!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Every Christmas, The Marvel Room is opened in Brown Thomas.   The nicest gifts are chosen and put in to The Marvel Room.  It is such a nice experience to take a wander through the store and marvel at the marvels!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgteQrINb8PeST7_kgsOl1bs2PUnJ08S_swNOmu-gZXGK0_Pk2u6an1adVeZ1tC_bYDhlDouo1DKFkGWP1aaP_TbHUdhXcwLv9Po5S647M9D1cKBdctaI-eRBtVdk3x9Ke1eWUa2w80FOaY/s1600/IMG_2642%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgteQrINb8PeST7_kgsOl1bs2PUnJ08S_swNOmu-gZXGK0_Pk2u6an1adVeZ1tC_bYDhlDouo1DKFkGWP1aaP_TbHUdhXcwLv9Po5S647M9D1cKBdctaI-eRBtVdk3x9Ke1eWUa2w80FOaY/s320/IMG_2642%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>                               <span style="font-size: large;">Marvels for him!                             Marvels for her!</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1cCk51H0X2x-ZTbagWJrA22BufEl3Jk5t9lKO47ZNP2FEi9F0UqhLmskLWlxNjBLkzo8BsNULeWZKPPtqxhFhWmWt0r_p5WVtzYScQoOwnxGWTobxV6mlV_14f6_KBW_zQRge-xk9hHO/s1600/IMG_2644%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1cCk51H0X2x-ZTbagWJrA22BufEl3Jk5t9lKO47ZNP2FEi9F0UqhLmskLWlxNjBLkzo8BsNULeWZKPPtqxhFhWmWt0r_p5WVtzYScQoOwnxGWTobxV6mlV_14f6_KBW_zQRge-xk9hHO/s320/IMG_2644%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTLuaOG_CUc5ZEMO8SG9e86NpuUbHEdO1GEcf91qyJDZk9MYgJSbkkurBn-TE-5BAIMd7ca9qelfmrAqjmTghPV3vdcmZPQ3Ze8uR4jMhuv5O1opc1HYGELYW56Kb-MLC5oQ122XyaM0cS/s1600/IMG_2643%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTLuaOG_CUc5ZEMO8SG9e86NpuUbHEdO1GEcf91qyJDZk9MYgJSbkkurBn-TE-5BAIMd7ca9qelfmrAqjmTghPV3vdcmZPQ3Ze8uR4jMhuv5O1opc1HYGELYW56Kb-MLC5oQ122XyaM0cS/s320/IMG_2643%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2VwNA0ggvXCfCCV8rKV9hUdW62ghYbhIvhLjWjBz3o1cN8WOwCPKwVObVtF0uCBDM1I3P5Puo5rMo_hgIEVPzfFTZB739Xjtx5xqJjZy5hZjTJxsQ3FaNMdzYZfzlfaQSkkfI7KbkU_e/s1600/IMG_2647%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2VwNA0ggvXCfCCV8rKV9hUdW62ghYbhIvhLjWjBz3o1cN8WOwCPKwVObVtF0uCBDM1I3P5Puo5rMo_hgIEVPzfFTZB739Xjtx5xqJjZy5hZjTJxsQ3FaNMdzYZfzlfaQSkkfI7KbkU_e/s320/IMG_2647%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvXhlw6t2HgBduRJZzyFZYXABnPcZ5-fzI8kPj8kYTtnft4V8PRPj9Wgs3jjHwTM3X0Pr17EXG3godZuzJkhOatobFuYa6TBgwNBOxupBzh7iDtUVIszqiIaG7RLXR6j7FqvkhcFKi_Ad/s1600/IMG_2645%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvXhlw6t2HgBduRJZzyFZYXABnPcZ5-fzI8kPj8kYTtnft4V8PRPj9Wgs3jjHwTM3X0Pr17EXG3godZuzJkhOatobFuYa6TBgwNBOxupBzh7iDtUVIszqiIaG7RLXR6j7FqvkhcFKi_Ad/s320/IMG_2645%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QOHYxe8ltkpUtQRYN8KFQ6rLaWXbMrz5cixqRdWT1g6hW6UI4J2d-wOEFuKa2hOdFPm4e_jr4HnGcbNjDDZY3_6A9HynP73acuV4-4w1ytcK4g_Kq6dLJAMM63d_JxYPw2si9P4mDKhA/s1600/IMG_2648%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QOHYxe8ltkpUtQRYN8KFQ6rLaWXbMrz5cixqRdWT1g6hW6UI4J2d-wOEFuKa2hOdFPm4e_jr4HnGcbNjDDZY3_6A9HynP73acuV4-4w1ytcK4g_Kq6dLJAMM63d_JxYPw2si9P4mDKhA/s320/IMG_2648%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvimjkWYy_ak8quZgBG2jj8L3rZsAv2-2mqobpJBu1AH3kL1-kmYHuTllI8KpxB15VdQ0AUD6cyKj_PfHXi8Ig8ytULhNBUK0GT_XJbmbgI70ByZXNUqlMyTQVP2ayWpHupm5YfYHNqXP0/s1600/IMG_2649%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvimjkWYy_ak8quZgBG2jj8L3rZsAv2-2mqobpJBu1AH3kL1-kmYHuTllI8KpxB15VdQ0AUD6cyKj_PfHXi8Ig8ytULhNBUK0GT_XJbmbgI70ByZXNUqlMyTQVP2ayWpHupm5YfYHNqXP0/s320/IMG_2649%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>

Marvel at the marvellous things!

The Marvel Room is back! Every Christmas, The Marvel Room is opened in Brown Thomas.   The nicest gifts are chosen and put in to The Marvel ...

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Public Services Librarian - Asnuntuck Community College

<strong>Public Services Librarian -</strong> <strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Asnuntuck Community College</span></strong>, Enfield. Educational Assistant. Position: Part-time Temporary Public Services Librarian. Anticipated Start Date: January 25, 2013. Minimum Qualifications: MLS/MLIS degree, reference service experience, library and office technology abilities/experience. Responsibilities: The Public Services Librarian will provide reference, circulation and other duties as assigned. Hours for this position will be Monday - Thursday, 4:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. for Spring 2013 semester. Minumum Salaray: $29.88 per hour– no benefits. Deadline: <span style="color: red;">December 28, 2012</span>. Application Procedure: Send cover letter, resume and Board Application to: Human Resources, Asnuntuck Community College, 170 Elm Street, Enfield, CT 06082. Or e-mail to <a _fcksavedurl="mailto:AS-HumanResources-HR@asnuntuck.edu" href="mailto:AS-HumanResources-HR@asnuntuck.edu">AS-HumanResources-HR@asnuntuck.edu</a>. Asnuntuck Community College is an Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity Employer, M/F/D/V. Protected group members are strongly encouraged to apply.

Public Services Librarian - Asnuntuck Community College

Public Services Librarian - Asnuntuck Community College , Enfield. Educational Assistant. Position: Part-time Temporary Public Services L...

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Webinar recordings: 'Bring Your Own Device – does it work?'

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgS1ipOxS3xqRBO7lwYdfkFwBYj7vYX6XiidqDoKna_Fo6BYyEAehKfrIKEL7_HZrYFeMmwcrWLJnG_SCorrGSFDwQ3Bq6Z3uoNqBNkcerj9VwmBw1ZlDkSE1zshzaW65ryfuysojPYRo/s1600/BYOD2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgS1ipOxS3xqRBO7lwYdfkFwBYj7vYX6XiidqDoKna_Fo6BYyEAehKfrIKEL7_HZrYFeMmwcrWLJnG_SCorrGSFDwQ3Bq6Z3uoNqBNkcerj9VwmBw1ZlDkSE1zshzaW65ryfuysojPYRo/s320/BYOD2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this webinar we discussed BYOD (<i>Bring your own device</i>) which is a current buzz word. Basically instead of schools going to the expense of buying and maintaining technology devices the students are encouraged to bring their own devices from home – smart phones, laptops or tablets of one sort or another. What is your opinion on this? You would imagine that something like this wouldn’t work because of perhaps teacher skills in managing different devices or students forgetting their devices at home or not owning a device. Our two ladies in this webinar tell us what they have experienced at their respective schools..</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Our two presenters</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nina Adams is the Innovation head at St Cyprians in Cape Town and she is responsible for technology integration throughout the school. Michele Botha is the Head of the Intermediate Phase at Somerset House Primary in Somerset West and she is also responsible for technology integration at her school. In this webinar they each relate the ins and outs plus successes of introducing the BYOD approach at their schools. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you to these two ladies. (Adobe Connect can be troublesome at times but these two ladies persevered). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Nina Adams from St Cyprians in Cape Town </b></span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vgq4sgteg6ln3JFDER27GIz6SjaOptV3ezsG3RCg0-VqV_fVWAiTHbApLmKGI0KU5EiGO5bYLm8TTsDujSnOYJ0g7bvWVmla_0GVHvGLtVvGeHC9Wz9YbJoXDJ2VGvWg0L-J1KfoaP8/s1600-h/image%25255B4%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiipKAAOFkx3kC7r1n3eLTgGFCmkieuk_6MKfwB1R03UzXjY4EVsd-qflqFn5VidBGiPvGCQlrITOcZLcAmyRPy0osvC5ynHgopmw-1BD0Kp0eF7cALqLF10gtYy14Ul_9ewffp5GVREr0/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Title</b></u>:‘To BYODly go…’</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Webinar recording</b></u>:<a href="http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p67ctfy140o/">http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p67ctfy140o/</a> (23 mins)</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Prezi Links</b></u>: <a href="http://prezi.com/mqzvyevtmkv4/to-byodly-go/" title="http://prezi.com/mqzvyevtmkv4/to-byodly-go/">http://prezi.com/mqzvyevtmkv4/to-byodly-go/</a></span> <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Michele Botha from Somerset House Primary ‘ </b></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="356" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/15438127" style="border-width: 1px 1px 0; border: 1px solid #CCC; margin-bottom: 5px;" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="427"> </iframe> <br /><div style="margin-bottom: 5px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Schoolnetsa11/byod-our-grade-67-pilot-michele-botha" target="_blank" title="BYOD? Our Grade 6&7 pilot (Michele Botha)">BYOD? Our Grade 6&7 pilot (Michele Botha)</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Schoolnetsa11" target="_blank">Schoolnet SA </a></strong></span> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Title</b>:</u> Bring Your Own Device Pilot Project”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Webinar recordings</b></u>:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Part 1</b>: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p7djdadlj3g/">http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p7djdadlj3g/</a> (3 mins)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>Part 2</b>:<span style="color: #6fa8dc;"> <a href="http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p2pioozxfja/">http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p2pioozxfja/</a> </span>(9 mins)</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u><b>Presentation</b></u>: Slideshare presentation can be viewed above.<br /><u><b>Presentation Link</b></u>: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/Schoolnetsa11/byod-our-grade-67-pilot-michele-botha" target="_blank" title="BYOD? Our Grade 6&7 pilot (Michele Botha)">BYOD? Our Grade 6&7 pilot (Michele Botha)</a><b> </b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><br /></div></div>

BYOD webinars Webinar recordings: 'Bring Your Own Device – does it work?'

In this webinar we discussed BYOD ( Bring your own device ) which is a current buzz word. Basically instead of schools going to the expense ...

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Library Media Specialist - Niantic Center School

<strong>Library Media Specialist - </strong><strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Niantic Center School</span></strong>. Provides the school with an enriched library-media environment containing a wide variety and range of materials that will invite intellectual probing and growth, and to guide and facilitate the learning process. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Other duties may be assigned. Instructional Services - Plans instruction to enable students to make full and effective use of a library-media facility. Diagnoses entry level skills and knowledge of students. Coordinates library-media instruction with the classroom teacher to support and supplement the curriculum. Uses evaluation instruments or procedures to obtain information to monitor student progress, evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, and take corrective action. Provides a library-media center environment conducive to students' learning and interacting. Provides opportunities for instruction in new media or delivery systems for students and faculty. Prepares bibliographies and mediographics as appropriate or required. Informs staff of new materials related to their areas of instruction. Library-Media Center Management Prepares a library-media budget. Establishes accounting procedures for monitoring the budget. Selects and acquires library-media materials to support and enrich the curriculum. Implements a process for accountability of materials. Establishes methods for scheduling classes and individuals into the library-media center. Coordinates and supervises the work of library assistants, volunteers and student helpers. Maintains statistics and issues reports as required. Interaction - Communicates effectively with students. Encourages students to feel free to express their opinions and respect the opinions of others. Is sensitive to and provides for individual differences among children. Cooperates with area school and public libraries in resource sharing and networking. Encourages and maintains the cooperative involvement and support of parents and the community. Is aware of and uses community resources when available and applicable. Professional Growth and Responsibility - Is knowledgeable of and demonstrates the Connecticut Teaching Competencies. Is involved in school and/or district-wide issues or initiatives. Demonstrates responsibility for self-growth, professional improvement, and ongoing self-evaluation. Follows the policies, procedures and curricula of the school district. Criticizes the system via the proper channels in a constructive manner. Supervisory Responsibilities: Supervises library assistants, volunteers and student helpers. Qualification Requirements: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Education and/or Experience: Master's Degree in Library Science or Instructional Technology. Two years teaching experience, K- 12 media certification from the State. Language Skills: Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public.Ability to work with mathematical concepts such as probability and statistical inference, and fundamentals of plane and solid geometry and trigonometry. Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios, and proportions to practical situations. Reasoning Ability: Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form. Certificates, Licenses, Registrations: Connecticut certification in School Library-Media. Other Skills and Abilities: Ability to apply knowledge of current research and theory to instructional program; ability to plan and implement lessons based on division and school objectives and the needs and abilities of students to whom assigned. Ability to establish and maintain effective relationships with students, peers and parents; skill in oral and written communication. Additional duties are performed by the individuals currently holding this position and additional duties may be assigned. All interested applicants are requested to apply online at <a _fcksavedurl="http://www.applitrack.com/eastlyme/onlineapp" href="http://www.applitrack.com/eastlyme/onlineapp" target="_blank">www.applitrack.com/eastlyme/onlineapp</a>.

Library Media Specialist - Niantic Center School

Library Media Specialist - Niantic Center School . Provides the school with an enriched library-media environment containing a wide variet...

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Jump Start by Robb Armstrong

<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFO3_JNphAQYtCf8Pc03ieBN9KtzAKVMmli2V0_kpvy8ESdQsxbIL48JWuM4mmLHOVyvO8nFDp1ySae6C3rDttfmlI2yFNWAFCL8NyLIhECrP-FRK_vBZDDgTmt5lgDFw01v6mrvgvhY/s1600/28-701758.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5816184595548613378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFO3_JNphAQYtCf8Pc03ieBN9KtzAKVMmli2V0_kpvy8ESdQsxbIL48JWuM4mmLHOVyvO8nFDp1ySae6C3rDttfmlI2yFNWAFCL8NyLIhECrP-FRK_vBZDDgTmt5lgDFw01v6mrvgvhY/s320/28-701758.gif" /></a></div>

Jump Start by Robb Armstrong

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Mitt Romney Shocked He Lost the Powerball

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><b>This is an IWS World News™ exclusive…</b><br /><br />Calling it “more like WEAK-Ball, <i>amIright</i>?” Former GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney is reportedly “shocked” that he didn’t win the $500 million dollar Powerball Lottery. Romney is so stunned in fact, that he is refusing to acknowledge the loss while huddling with his advisors and family. There was a large crowd of mostly middle aged and older white males who had gathered at the Super Stop and Shop on Everett St in Boston, where Romney bought the ticket, to help the former Massachusetts governor celebrate, but they are mostly sad and dejected. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdWuo0k0GvZU23N0PqUzAv6s8qoBv9TPGjatvp6sF8kcUnSOBT2-n8tEODpIF8cR3RoKD16wd_uhTjoy5_uFlNqXCW3PuyVwmSHwn6-wlBK0w-Mq2ziH-PR-Epn_K_v8WtJvV8Ut5_Ks/s1600/sad+romney+supporters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdWuo0k0GvZU23N0PqUzAv6s8qoBv9TPGjatvp6sF8kcUnSOBT2-n8tEODpIF8cR3RoKD16wd_uhTjoy5_uFlNqXCW3PuyVwmSHwn6-wlBK0w-Mq2ziH-PR-Epn_K_v8WtJvV8Ut5_Ks/s1600/sad+romney+supporters.jpg" /></a></div>“We’re all just stunned” said one aid who asked to remain anonymous because he’s embarrassed to be associated with the Romney’s, “we’ve got all these Asians who all have PHD’s in statistics and mathematics and stuff, and they assured us that we had the right numbers.” Others are still holding out hope though, some have pointed out that the drawing isn’t official yet and they have a team of lawyers ready to roll on Mr. Romeny’s order.<br /><br />Going the legal route isn’t without risk though. One member of the Romney team pointed out that they have to worry about public perception too. “What if the winner is a black or Hispanic single mother? It would be an absolute public relations disaster to go after someone like that. We have to be careful.”<br /><br />But, there are still other supporters who think it’s worth a risk. Conservative firebrand Todd Akin says a minority single mother is the perfect target to go after and take the $500 million from. “She’ll just blow it on birth control and sexy toys,” says Akin. “That’s all those people think about, you know. It’s just disgusting. I think America would be absolutely appalled to see an irresponsible woman with loose morals win something as important and pure as the Powerball.” <br /><br />Even Mitt Romney’s supporters in the media are at bit red-faced tonight. Conservative columnists Michael Barone and George Will both predicted that Romney would win the drawing. “When the ping pong balls have all come bouncing down that plastic and metal slide and lined up in an orderly fashion, Gov. Willard “Mitt” Romney will have won $500,000,000 American Dollars. I’m convinced it will happen. If it doesn’t, I’ll eat my bowtie,” said the Dean of the Washington Punditry, George Will.<br /><br />Fox News’ Dick Morris couldn’t be reached for comment this evening. He has been the most vocal over the last couple of days in certainty that Romney would win. “Unless this thing is fixed, Romney has it nailed down. I’ve been running the numbers all day in my head and I see no scenario in which Romney loses.” Morris isn’t without his critics though, Matt-Man and Jayman, hosts of the wildly popular #1 Comedy Show on Blog Talk Radio “<a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid" target="_blank">I’m With Stupid</a>” have both pointed out that it was Dick Morris who once went on The O’Reilly Factor and declared that there was “no way whatsoever the Maginot Line can be penetrated by the Germans.”<br /><br />Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) who was Romney’s running mate has been pretty quiet. “I’m not a numbers guy, you know. It’s all just a bit too fancy and complicated for me,” said Ryan. “I’ll just concentrate on helping to put together the 2013 Federal Budget and let them work this out.”<br /><br />IWSWN™ will stay on top of this story and bring you the latest updates as we learn them.<br /><br />Jayman<br /><a href="mailto:Jayman3768@gmail.com">Jayman3768@gmail.com</a><br /><a href="http://www.twitter.com/jayman_iws" target="_blank">@Jayman_IWS</a><br /><br /></div>

Mitt Romney Shocked He Lost the Powerball

This is an IWS World News™ exclusive… Calling it “more like WEAK-Ball, amIright ?” Former GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney is reportedly...

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Customer Support Engineer (Troubleshoot | Diagnose | Customer support) (# 108390)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="WordSection1"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Position:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Customer Support Engineer<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Location:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> ADE Vancouver, WA<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Duration:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Full time<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Req #:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> 108390 & 108498<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Job Description:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Primarily responsible for customer service activities associated with updating, troubleshooting, diagnosing and repairing of highly complex capital equipment at customer sites and trade shows. Represents the company to the customer and assumes accountability for customer satisfaction with service. Assures operational quality of system equipment. Coordinates actions with customers to minimize down time. Provides assistance to Installation Engineers and CSE's 1-3 in resolving problems. May perform duties associated with Technical Support Engineer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Preferred Qualifications:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p>1) Evaluates, analyzes, diagnoses and troubleshoots technical equipment problems via telephone or at customer site. Ensures equipment enhances customer production.<br />2) Repairs and updates equipment at customer facility. Evaluates equipment to determine type and extent of problem. Repairs involve board problems which can be performed using standard procedures as well as system level problems which have multiple causes and for which no standard procedures exist.<br />3) Focus on Account Management and customer satisfaction. CSE will avoid creating basic customer issues.<br />4) Uses skills as a seasoned, experienced professional with a full understanding of industry practices and company policies and procedures; resolves a wide range of issues in imaginative as well as practical ways.<br />5) Repairs of system level problems are based on CSE's technical knowledge, education and training.<br />6) CSE's may access and determine the problems existing in customers' processes such as chemical leaks or contamination, and as a result may recommend shutdown of customer fab due to unsafe conditions.<br />7) Conducts customer orientation and technical training on all aspects of equipment maintenance support for user applications.<br />8) Prepares field service reports on customer support activity and provides documentation to other supporting functions supporting functions on re-occurring problems.<br />9) Prepares quotes for customers based on labor, travel expenses incurred and parts needed. CSE's use discretion and assist regional admin in preparing quotes based on reason for equipment failure, time to prepare etc.<br />10) Cross trains and assists other field service engineers as appropriate. Provides guidance and technical assistance to Installation Engineer on installations at customer sites or on installing/dismantling demonstration machines.  Also provides guidance to less senior CSE's.<br />11) Travels by car or commercial transportation to customer facility.<br /> </o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Basic Qualifications:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Master's Level Degree with at least 4 years of experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">OR<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Bachelor's Level Degree with at least 5 years of experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Kindly send your resume to <a href="mailto:raju.balaji@kla-tencor.com">raju.balaji@kla-tencor.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div>

Customer Support Engineer (Troubleshoot | Diagnose | Customer support) (# 108390)

Position: Customer Support Engineer Location: ADE Vancouver, WA Duration: Full time Req #: 108390 & 108498 Job Description: Primaril...

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Melt's Spreads

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T624_h83qV8/ULZdG-7jtzI/AAAAAAAADZo/EA7PM1WGjPQ/s1600/Melts%2Bspreads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T624_h83qV8/ULZdG-7jtzI/AAAAAAAADZo/EA7PM1WGjPQ/s320/Melts%2Bspreads.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">I'm a member of Swaggable, and I was invited to try the Melt's spreads for free! </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> What's Melt's spreads? It's a healthier alternative to butter! The flavors that I received was honey and original. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> I am all for it trying out new products, especially when it's healthy and tastes good! I haven't tried these yet, but have heard great rumors about them! </div>

Melt's Spreads

I'm a member of Swaggable, and I was invited to try the Melt's spreads for free!   What's Melt's spreads? It's a healthi...

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Book Review: Building: Louis I. Kahn at Roosevelt Island

<a href="http://www.aperture.org/shop/barney-kulok-building-book"><b><i>Building: Louis I. Kahn at Roosevelt Island</i></b></a> by Barney Kulok<br />Aperture, 2012<br />Hardcover, 80 pages<br /><br /><img alt="book-kulok.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/book-kulok.jpg" title="Building - cover and spread" /><br /><br />Last month the <a href="http://www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org/">FDR Four Freedoms Park</a> finally opened, close to 40 years after Louis I. Kahn's death, at which time he had completed most of the design. Alongside the pomp surrounding the opening came a number of reviews (all very positive) and lots of photos along the lines of <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2012/10/todays-archidose-628.html">my two</a> <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2012/10/todays-archidose-628-part-2.html">batches</a>. While photos focusing on the completed park and memorial are important, documentation of the design's realization is also valuable. For that we can thank photographer <a href="http://www.nicoleklagsbrun.com/kulok_home.html">Barney Kulok</a>, who was given access to the construction site about a year ago to document the construction.<br /><br />What I really like about the 49 black-and-white plates collected in this handsome book is the way the construction is not documented through wide-frame images capturing large swaths of the place, but through small-scale details that border on painterly abstractions. This is not a book like Brian Finke's <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2012/11/book-review-two-photography-books.html"><i>Construction</i></a>, which<i> </i>focused on the people constructing buildings; rather, <i>Building</i> attempts to give a sense of the whole by examining its parts. Yet, it's not as simple as saying that the essence of the design is found in its details, because many of the details that Kulok documents were subsequently buried or removed.<br /><br />The sum of the photos in <i>Building</i> is akin to poetry, where interpretation is open-ended because the shots don't settle for easy presentations of what we think of when we think of "construction site"—very little machinery is present, for example, and tools appear as aesthetic objects more than useful objects. I like to think that even the most mundane detail—a guideline tied to a piece of rebar driven into the earth; a haphazard assemblage of wire, cloth, and more rebar closing a hole in a chain-link fence; a piece of wood resting on concrete steps—reveals something about the specific construction process on Roosevelt Island. Each photo is a trace of human action, even as only three of the nearly fifty plates have people within the frame; they tell stories beyond the immediate moment captured.<br /><br />The most interesting plates border on the composed, and not just in terms of photography—angle, framing, aperture, etc. I wonder if a cubic piece of stone teetering on the edge of a much larger piece of stone was found by Kulok as he traversed the job site, or placed there intentionally, perhaps inspired by something he saw but manipulated to make the ideal photo. Images like these may turn on my skepticism radar, but in the end I don't think it matters if they're staged or not, because they still serve to reveal the construction. A "clean" pile of dirt on stone pavers says just as much about the filling in of the voids between stones as does a "dirty" pile of dirt on stone pavers (you'll have to trust me on this one). But the former is just a better photograph, a piece of poetry rather than part of a documentary.<br /><br />For those interested in hearing Kulok speak about the book, he'll be <a href="http://www.aperture.org/event/in-conversation-barney-kulok-and-joel-smith/">in conversation with Joel Smith</a> this evening at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, 547 West 27th Street, NYC. The event is free and a book signing will follow the conversation.<a href="http://www.aperture.org/event/in-conversation-barney-kulok-and-joel-smith/"><br /></a><br /><br /><b>US: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1597112259?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1597112259&linkCode=xm2&tag=aweeklydoseof-20" target="_blank"><img alt="Buy from Amazon.com" border="0" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/buy-from-tan.gif" /></a> CA: <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1597112259?ie=UTF8&tag=aweeklydose02-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=15121&creativeASIN=1597112259" target="_blank"><img alt="Buy from Amazon.ca" border="0" height="28" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/buy-from-tan-ca.gif" width="90" /></a> UK: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1597112259?ie=UTF8&tag=aweeklydoseof-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=1634&creativeASIN=1597112259" target="_blank"><img alt="Buy from Amazon.co.uk" border="0" height="28" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/buy-from-tan-uk.gif" width="90" /></a></b>

Book Review: Building: Louis I. Kahn at Roosevelt Island

Building: Louis I. Kahn at Roosevelt Island by Barney Kulok Aperture, 2012 Hardcover, 80 pages Last month the FDR Four Freedoms Park final...

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Development Coordinator (Full Time) - Hartford Public Library

<strong>Development Coordinator (Full Time) -</strong> <strong><span style="color: #48286d;">Hartford Public Library</span></strong> seeks creative and flexible individual to provide support to the Development Office. Responsibilities: the development coordinator is responsible for assisting the chief development officer with all aspects of a fund development, fundraising events, and supports all other development activities. Manages donor management data base system, responsible for raising unrestricted annual giving from individuals and corporations, donor cultivation, and prospect identification. This position supports the advancement and implementation of various development and marketing initiatives and is responsible for coordinating their execution. Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in Marketing or Communication or a related field and a minimum of five years fundraising experience in non-profit or for profit sales preferred. Microsoft Office expertise required. Knowledge and experience using Raiser’s Edge and database software is needed, Familiarity with social media and Adobe Design Suite desirable. Valid CT driver’s license required. $21.40 to $31.30 per hour Job description and application are available online at <a _fcksavedurl="http://www.hplct.org" href="http://www.hplct.org/" target="_blank">www.hplct.org</a> or Administrative Offices, Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103. Applications accepted until <span style="color: red;">December 28, 2012</span>. Equal opportunity employer. Hartford Public Library requires a Criminal Background Check and Pre-employment Drug Testing on applicants who are selected as a finalist for the position. Applicants will be provided a copy of any positive drug test results. A criminal record does not necessarily eliminate you from employment with Hartford Public Library. Each conviction will be reviewed with respect to the offense, circumstances, seriousness and the position for which you apply.

Development Coordinator (Full Time) - Hartford Public Library

Development Coordinator (Full Time) - Hartford Public Library seeks creative and flexible individual to provide support to the Developmen...

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Blast Flip Stick

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://img.bzzagent.com/image/blastflipstick.jpg?Type=activity&Activity=8685210688&Campaign=1937617816&Uid=1264101&token=cc5309d2355d9e9b2d76825488da898f" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://img.bzzagent.com/image/blastflipstick.jpg?Type=activity&Activity=8685210688&Campaign=1937617816&Uid=1264101&token=cc5309d2355d9e9b2d76825488da898f" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> I am so excited to be a part of this campaign through Bzzagent!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> I absolutely love Cover Girl products! I love the new shades that come in the Blastflipstick!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> Most of all I love how it's a two shades on one lipstick! So creative and you don't have to buy more than one lipstick if you want more than one color! </div>

Blast Flip Stick

 I am so excited to be a part of this campaign through Bzzagent!  I absolutely love Cover Girl products! I love the new shades that come i...

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santa's work is done

I know at this time of year there are more gift guides than Justin Bieber tweets, but you can stop the hunt. <a href="http://toandfrommagazine.com/" target="_blank">to & from</a> has the very best one. Remember when the Sears catalog would arrive in the mail when you were a kid and you'd go thru each and every page of the toy section? This is just like that, only way better stuff.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-TN29QJ_UfHyrgMWIiioxk7QCMqSgAqRoBrdfjl3-Oe3I9Xv3SnGgfFhjsJYSiE7B9IXTFcCJsguFbqLyW7RlJyMg9A2jy-5kXhexpYfxE8SCreFS2VV-v_w-Vwp78GUKQRkfT3vVSkFV/s1600/toandfrom.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-TN29QJ_UfHyrgMWIiioxk7QCMqSgAqRoBrdfjl3-Oe3I9Xv3SnGgfFhjsJYSiE7B9IXTFcCJsguFbqLyW7RlJyMg9A2jy-5kXhexpYfxE8SCreFS2VV-v_w-Vwp78GUKQRkfT3vVSkFV/s320/toandfrom.tiff" width="252" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2gxeXOFxqHyRob1Na6QkPGhVX1R6C8UgzcLAYhyBJDVpN0uYsMWttryG2z6ZArSUfI4hNlPKKG-I7mjVtDrq-q5wahSJHYv1RH3CFkcQn_l42QCpUGcpBDvBwdDo-sFjZkuqApg8gTyR/s1600/toandfrom2.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2gxeXOFxqHyRob1Na6QkPGhVX1R6C8UgzcLAYhyBJDVpN0uYsMWttryG2z6ZArSUfI4hNlPKKG-I7mjVtDrq-q5wahSJHYv1RH3CFkcQn_l42QCpUGcpBDvBwdDo-sFjZkuqApg8gTyR/s320/toandfrom2.tiff" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLMKtN4-CcZk07X7YXZeHBx68j1uLmnCGC46i1AsiZNfQR5-vam2e6LWGYOzi8JFczlNpLXXJoZW7gX4i9-cxQGYKBZkSicXA6xFaKKTU8utlzTgwUbt4_muhl9RCrZ30LNN9rW8aWkyha/s1600/toandfrom3.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLMKtN4-CcZk07X7YXZeHBx68j1uLmnCGC46i1AsiZNfQR5-vam2e6LWGYOzi8JFczlNpLXXJoZW7gX4i9-cxQGYKBZkSicXA6xFaKKTU8utlzTgwUbt4_muhl9RCrZ30LNN9rW8aWkyha/s320/toandfrom3.tiff" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcw_ZYWbaGser0NWIlBg-31PjY9l3pm69BsHXd6HtUfPW1jm7fhDycrGMrSJSeTJBn2krXpLe2VI4whWOTRpunCcKqK2c7k4DV2g9eCJh_O97zWgTxxx-3srXdzGnzPkw0s37RuoUDkQ2/s1600/toandfrominside.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcw_ZYWbaGser0NWIlBg-31PjY9l3pm69BsHXd6HtUfPW1jm7fhDycrGMrSJSeTJBn2krXpLe2VI4whWOTRpunCcKqK2c7k4DV2g9eCJh_O97zWgTxxx-3srXdzGnzPkw0s37RuoUDkQ2/s320/toandfrominside.tiff" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">All images via <a href="http://toandfrommagazine.com/" target="_blank">to & from</a></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://issuu.com/toandfrom/docs/holiday2012/97" target="_blank">Check it out</a>. It covers absolutely everyone on your list.</div>

santa's work is done

I know at this time of year there are more gift guides than Justin Bieber tweets, but you can stop the hunt. to & from has the very bes...

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Prosthetic Arms a Complex Test for Amputees - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><nyt_text style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div id="articleBody"><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">After the explosion, Cpl. Sebastian Gallegos awoke to see the October sun glinting through the water, an image so lovely he thought he was dreaming. Then something caught his eye, yanking him back to grim awareness: an arm, bobbing near the surface, a black hair tie wrapped around its wrist.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The elastic tie was a memento of his wife, a dime-store amulet that he wore on every patrol in Afghanistan. Now, from the depths of his mental fog, he watched it float by like driftwood on a lazy current, attached to an arm that was no longer quite attached to him.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">He had been blown up, and was drowning at the bottom of an irrigation ditch.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Two years later, the corporal finds himself tethered to a different kind of limb, a $110,000 robotic device with an electronic motor and sensors able to read signals from his brain. He is in the office of his occupational therapist, lifting and lowering a sponge while monitoring a computer screen as it tracks nerve signals in his shoulder.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Close hand, raise elbow, he says to himself. The mechanical arm rises, but the claw-like hand opens, dropping the sponge. Try again, the therapist instructs. Same result. Again. Tiny gears whir, and his brow wrinkles with the mental effort. The elbow rises, and this time the hand remains closed. He breathes.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Success.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"As a baby, you can hold onto a finger," the corporal said. "I have to relearn."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">It is no small task. Of the more than 1,570 American service members who have had arms, legs, feet or hands amputated because of injuries in Afghanistan or Iraq, fewer than 280 have lost upper limbs. Their struggles to use prosthetic limbs are in many ways far greater than for their lower-limb brethren.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Among orthopedists, there is a saying: legs may be stronger, but arms and hands are smarter. With myriad bones, joints and ranges of motion, the upper limbs are among the body's most complex tools. Replicating their actions with robotic arms can be excruciatingly difficult, requiring amputees to understand the distinct muscle contractions involved in movements they once did without thinking.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">To bend the elbow, for instance, requires thinking about contracting a biceps, though the muscle no longer exists. But the thought still sends a nerve signal that can tell a prosthetic arm to flex. Every action, from grabbing a cup to turning the pages of a book, requires some such exercise in the brain.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"There are a lot of mental gymnastics with upper limb prostheses," said Lisa Smurr Walters, an occupational therapist who works with Corporal Gallegos at the<a title="The center's Web site." href="http://www.bamc.amedd.army.mil/departments/orthopaedic/cfi/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; "> Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center</a> in San Antonio.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The complexity of the upper limbs, though, is just part of the problem. While prosthetic leg technology has advanced rapidly in the past decade, prosthetic arms have been slow to catch up. Many amputees still use body-powered hooks. And the most common electronic arms, pioneered by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, have improved with lighter materials and microprocessors but are still difficult to control.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Upper limb amputees must also cope with the critical loss of sensation. Touch — the ability to differentiate baby skin from sandpaper or to calibrate between gripping a hammer and clasping a hand — no longer exists.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">For all those reasons, nearly half of upper limb amputees choose not to use prostheses, functioning instead with one good arm. By contrast, almost all lower limb amputees use prosthetic legs.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But Corporal Gallegos, 23, is part of a small vanguard of military amputees who are benefiting from new advances in upper limb technology. Earlier this year, he received a pioneering surgery known as targeted muscle reinnervation that amplifies the tiny nerve signals that control the arm. In effect, the surgery creates additional "sockets" into which electrodes from a prosthetic limb can connect.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">More sockets reading stronger signals will make controlling his prosthesis more intuitive, said Dr. Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, who developed the procedure. Rather than having to think about contracting both the triceps and biceps just to make a fist, the corporal will be able to simply think, <em>close hand</em>, and the proper nerves should fire automatically.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In the coming years, new technology will allow amputees to feel with their prostheses or use pattern-recognition software to move their devices even more intuitively, Dr. Kuiken said. And a new arm under development by the Pentagon, the <a title="The DEKA Arm research Web site." href="http://www.dekaresearch.com/deka_arm.shtml" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">DEKA Arm</a>, is far more dexterous than any currently available.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But for Corporal Gallegos, becoming proficient on his prosthesis after reinnervation surgery remains a challenge, likely to take months more of tedious practice. For that reason, only the most motivated amputees — super users, they are called — are allowed to undergo the surgery.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Corporal Gallegos was not always that person.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">His father, an Army veteran, did not want him to join the infantry, but it was like him to ignore the advice.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Corporal Gallegos grew up in Texas, raised in poverty primarily by his divorced mother. He was smart, ambitious and a bit of a know-it-all, said his wife, Tracie, who attended high school with him. A college scholarship seemed assured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But the idea of military service called louder. "I felt I was too immature to go to school and be some brat in college," he said. The Marine Corps seemed the perfect challenge.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">He loved the corps, and the corps seemed to love him. Before deploying in 2010, he was made the leader of a three-man fire team and was sent to learn basic Pashto, the language of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">His unit, Lima Company of the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines out of Camp Pendleton, arrived in Helmand Province that September and immediately faced some of the toughest fighting of the war, losing 25 men in seven months, most from improvised explosive devices.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In October, Corporal Gallegos was walking second in a patrol through the Sangin district when he stepped into an irrigation canal, heard a boom and blacked out. When he awoke, he found himself anchored to the bottom by his body armor and weaponry. He tried to pull himself out with his right arm, not realizing it had been virtually severed just below the shoulder.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">On an evacuation helicopter, the corporal glimpsed his intact arm wrapped in bandages, giving him hope that doctors could reattach it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">That hope was dashed at Brooke Army Medical Center, where he began the long process of recovery. His attitude, he admits now, was negative, influenced by another Marine who rarely used his prosthetic arm because it was so uncomfortable.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But then Corporal Gallegos met an Air Force amputee who was among the first at Brooke to receive targeted muscle reinnervation surgery. The airman warned him that rehabilitation would be frustrating and painful, but that the payoff would be huge.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"You wouldn't notice, unless you were looking right at him, that he was missing his arm," Corporal Gallegos said. "I was like, 'I want to be better than him.' "</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">First, though, he had to learn to cope with phantom-limb pain. A pulsing sensation like having a tourniquet applied to the arm, the pain was sometimes powerful enough to keep the strapping corporal in bed, leaving him unable to concentrate or converse.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"He's in constant pain," said Ms. Gallegos, who is in nursing school. "But he just won't complain, because he doesn't want people to ask, 'Are you O.K.?' That question really bugs him."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Over time, medication and surgeries dampened the pain enough that he could throw himself into practicing on a robotic arm. The device, he found, was a brain teaser, frustrating his efforts to make it obey. More than once, he threatened to throw it out the window.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">To motivate himself in those moments, he thought about his Marine Corps friends. Eventually he had a skin-tone silicone sleeve for his prosthetic arm engraved with the names of all 10 Marines from Lima Company who died in Sangin. Now, when he needs a lift, he looks at the arm — in the very place he once wore his wife's hair tie — and recites their names like a personal prayer.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">As he began wearing mechanical arms longer each day, his prosthetist, Ryan Blanck, decided that he might be ready for targeted reinnervation surgery. The procedure works off the natural ability of muscles to amplify nerve signals. By rerouting nerves into healthy muscle and reshaping the tissue to bring it closer to sensors in the prosthesis, the procedure strengthens the brain's signals, and hence its ability to control the machine.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Wearing the same type of prosthetic arm he had used before, Corporal Gallegos noticed the difference almost immediately. No longer did he have to think so hard about contracting various muscles: when he wanted the arm to move, it did, faster and more fluidly.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">That did not mean, however, that it behaved as he wanted. He still has problems with "cross talk," where certain nerves dominate over others. If a wrist nerve dominates, for instance, a patient may have to think about bending the wrist to make the hand close. But with repeated use, the nerves sort themselves out and the need for trickery fades, Dr. Kuiken said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">For all his gains with the prosthesis, Corporal Gallegos has not overcome the embarrassment he feels when wearing his robotic arm in public. Once the hand fell off in a crowded restaurant, eliciting gasps from a nearby child. In darkened movie theaters, the Terminator-like sounds his arm makes draw startled whispers. And to this day, he will not wear short-sleeve shirts to restaurants.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"Even if it is 75 degrees out, I'll wear a jacket just to avoid getting stared at," he said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">For a year after nearly drowning in Afghanistan, Corporal Gallegos could not go near water, any water, even the River Walk, a restaurant-lined path along the San Antonio River. But a therapist pushed him to overcome his anxiety, first by swimming, then kayaking, then surfing.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Ben Kvanli, a former Olympian who runs a kayaking program for disabled troops, said Corporal Gallegos was an ambivalent paddler at first. But his technique was good, partly because the prosthesis forced him to use his core muscles more. And he was fast.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Fast enough, indeed, that Mr. Kvanli is encouraging him to try out for the national <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/paralympic_games/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about the Paralympic Games." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Paralympic</a> team next year.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"Independence is a big part of this," Mr. Kvanli said. "He is proving something."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Fiercely self-reliant from childhood, Corporal Gallegos has struggled with losing independence after losing his arm. Suddenly, he had to ask for help with buttons, zippers and shoelaces. And he loathes asking for help.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">There are holes in his living room wall that testify to his failed attempts to hang things using his prosthetic arm. And he still cringes at the memory of barking orders at his wife while she assembled a living-room furniture set that he could not assemble himself. "Stuff is a lot more complicated," he said. "I'm still figuring out what my norm's going to be, just on a day-to-day basis."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">For that reason, he no longer makes big plans for the future, as he once did. Keep it simple, he tells himself: Get out of the Marine Corps. Go to college. Learn how to tie his shoelaces with a robotic hand.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">And maybe, just maybe, become a Paralympian.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">So there he was one recent afternoon, kayaking down the sun-dappled San Marcos River, using the wrong prosthesis because he had broken his kayaking limb while surfing. Normally he is at the front of the pack, but today his arm kept slipping off and he seemed in pain as he struggled just to keep up.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Yet he said nothing that could be heard as a complaint. And at the end of the six-hour trip, he went over the 14-foot Graduation Falls, the first time he had done so in a boat. After dropping vertically into the frothing water, his kayak momentarily disappeared beneath the surface before popping out like a cork.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Eyes smiling below the brim of his helmet, Corporal Gallegos paddled to shore, hefted his boat onto his good shoulder and started the trudge upstream.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">He did not ask for help.</p><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></nyt_text><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; "></span></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/us/prosthetic-arms-a-complex-test-for-amputees.html?src=me&ref=general">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/us/prosthetic-arms-a-complex-test-for-amputees.html?src=me&ref=general</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Prosthetic Arms a Complex Test for Amputees - NYTimes.com

After the explosion, Cpl. Sebastian Gallegos awoke to see the October sun glinting through the water, an image so lovely he thought he was d...

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30 Days of Google #10: The versatility of Google Docs via @soxnevad

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love exploring Susan Oxenvad’s amazing blog </span><a href="http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cool Tools for Teachers</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> – do visit it and also follow Susan on Twitter. On her blog I came across a post</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> with this this brilliant representation of ‘<a href="http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/2012/03/heres-glog-to-create-visual.html" target="_blank">Great ways of using Google Documents</a>’. Not only does she illustrate how amazing and versatile Google Docs is for learning in the classroom, but she also demonstrates a fabulous way to use a Glogster for giving out information visually.  If you click on each part of the glog you will be taken to a post explaining that particular section of Google Docs. I have looked through those and they are great posts.  I am SO impressed with this! How about you? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Susan's glog gives the option to embed, so that is what I will so! Don't forget to visit the original post <a href="http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/2012/03/heres-glog-to-create-visual.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br /><br /><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="758" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://edu.glogster.com/glog.php?glog_id=2673930&scale=58" style="overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe></div>

30 Days of Google 30 Days of Google #10: The versatility of Google Docs via @soxnevad

I love exploring Susan Oxenvad’s amazing blog Cool Tools for Teachers – do visit it and also follow Susan on Twitter. On her blog I came ac...

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I Need a Ten Day Surrogate!!

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Cheeeeers Chuckleheads; Matt-Man here for <i>I’m With Stupid</i>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnS6XJajWitzh4vVCfSBONV8x4YukETT2PYYRKRTQpopFO0cflTEpUMkY8bL-FZ4hY0Cn61-rgYVOHpt77kQlUzb9RR_BSPbI3_rJ33h8_Yjkzd4C6EMegqyH20MncRyj6FprI1dIdol8/s1600/Schmoop+Sleeping.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnS6XJajWitzh4vVCfSBONV8x4YukETT2PYYRKRTQpopFO0cflTEpUMkY8bL-FZ4hY0Cn61-rgYVOHpt77kQlUzb9RR_BSPbI3_rJ33h8_Yjkzd4C6EMegqyH20MncRyj6FprI1dIdol8/s400/Schmoop+Sleeping.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>As many of you know, my BFF/OSP Schmoop, is awaiting to go under the knife of <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2012/11/hes-not-even-black-but-dr-rawalpindi.htm" target="_blank"><i>Dr. Rawalpindi</i></a> on December 14th in order to have parts of several of her less than stellar performing internal organs removed.<br /><br />As we await to see if we will have unemployment money coming in so we can remain in the Bagwine digs, we are making logistical plans in order to make this lifestyle upheaval relatively painless in spite of the cutting and gouging upon her gizzards and innards. <br /><br />Her brother will take her to the hospital and remain with her through her three to seven hour surgery as well as her seven to ten day post-operative stay.<br /><br />Schmoop, should she receive her unemployment benefits as she should, has already informed ODJFS to deposit her money grab of socialism directly into her bank account.<br /><br />She and I have discussed household bill payments, food stockpiles, and my transportation issues to and fro work as the car will be in Columbus with her brother as he remains with her during her traumatic nearly two week stay at OSU Medical Center.<br /><br />We seem to have been very practical and thoughtful in our considerations as to what needs to be in place prior to her departure, however, there is one infinitely more important item of business that overrides all of the aforementioned particulars that should be in place prior to her gutting…<br /><br />I Need a Ten-Day Surrogate!!<br /><br />That’s right.<br /><br />Both Schmoop and I have agreed that I need supervision while she is gone, so…I am looking for a woman to come and be my companion for ten days and help me make it through this difficult time by offering emotional and moral support, as well as performing,<i> “other duties as assigned.”</i><br /><br />I wouldn’t ask this of any of you except for the fact that Schmoop being in a foreign hospital bed, surrounded by foreign doctors all what with their hands up inside of her, performing major life-saving surgery on her is one thing, but having it take place around the Christmas holiday?<br /><br />Can you imagine how that makes <i>ME</i> feel?<br /><br />More often than not, it’s all about the patient, while those like me, sit at home wondering if the love of his life made it through surgery, all the while searching for that elusive can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli in the cabinet, and desperately longing for a caring and friendly, feminine shoulder upon which to cry.<br /><br />Seriously?  I don’t need that hassle, and more importantly, it’s just not fair.<br /><br />Schmoop all gassed up, will be having highly trained medical professionals rummaging through her body, and afterwards will receive an adjustable bed, and catered meals.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5FvYoWZpbSW7W4ZuVvbXZQ8IlCD49fHOlafWt8zrX2mQfy_YkSqlq2Bo8ymtOGV4v5WUEbY-1W3swtZnqzQit-wI1tvnrN7GWsWriIR1WbEO54dajb-jDI0LN64mmtfOKE3gqgSz2LIw/s1600/french+maid+hot+sexy+nude.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5FvYoWZpbSW7W4ZuVvbXZQ8IlCD49fHOlafWt8zrX2mQfy_YkSqlq2Bo8ymtOGV4v5WUEbY-1W3swtZnqzQit-wI1tvnrN7GWsWriIR1WbEO54dajb-jDI0LN64mmtfOKE3gqgSz2LIw/s400/french+maid+hot+sexy+nude.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />And what will I be receiving for my worry and longing for her to be home? Uh-huh, that’s right…<br /><br />Heartache!!<br /><br />So, if you are a woman between the ages of 35 and 55, are able to make a good sandwich, can do laundry, light housekeeping, and can pop a top off a can of beer while wearing very little clothes while watching football with me, contact me.<br /><br />I have a position open for you.  While it may last only ten days, if you really put out a good effort, it could be a temp to hire full-time position.<br /><br />Send your resume and references to the following addresses…<br /><br /><i>Cheers!!</i><br /><a href="mailto:mattmaniws@ymail.com"><i>mattmaniws@ymail.com</i></a><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/MattMan_IWS" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><i>@mattman_iws</i></span></a></div>

I Need a Ten Day Surrogate!!

Cheeeeers Chuckleheads; Matt-Man here for I’m With Stupid . As many of you know, my BFF/OSP Schmoop, is awaiting to go under the knife of Dr...

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Architecture on the Edge of Darkness

In 2011 I served on the jury for the <a href="http://www.evolo.us/category/2011/">eVolo Skyscraper Competition</a>, an experience I recounted about a year ago in <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2011/12/book-review-dynamics-de-realisation-and.html">a review of the massive <i>eVolo Skyscraper</i> book</a>. One thing in particular that I mentioned then was "the visual <i>darkness</i> of the entries, the apparent gloom that seems to accompany thinking about the future." Upon receiving the <a href="http://shop.evolo.us/product/evolo-2012-skyscraper-competition-poster">eVolo Skyscraper Competition Poster</a>, which features stamp-sized renderings of over 600 entries, I had the same thought. But actually looking at the front and back of the whole poster, below, it seems that maybe lightness is more prevalent than darkness; an optimistic turn in one year? <br /><br /><img alt="evolo-poster.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/evolo-poster.jpg" title="eVolo Poster" /><br />[eVolo 2012 Skyscraper Competition Poster | image <a href="http://shop.evolo.us/product/evolo-2012-skyscraper-competition-poster">source</a>] <br /><br />While I attributed the darkness in eVolo entries to dystopian visions of the future where skyscrapers remedied the environmental ills we created, a similar darkness is found in some of the winners and finalists for the <a href="http://krobarch.com/winners.asp?winner_year=2012">2012 Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition</a>, or KRob for short.<br /><br /><img alt="krob2012-4.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/krob2012-4.jpg" title="KRob 2012" /><br />[Winner - Robert Gilson's Best in Category - Professional Digital/Mixed | image <a href="http://krobarch.com/winners.asp?winner_year=2012">source</a>] <br /><br />Darkness does not pervade the majority of the drawings featured this year—and it's probably less of a defining characteristic of the drawings than terms like mixed-media or moody—but where I found it, it was fairly heavy, damp even. The above winner is a case in point: The sun is out, but the shadows are deep, the air is smoggy, and the tree-like overhead constructions sit over broken-down caravans; all of it adds up to a fairly bleak scene.<br /><br /><img alt="krob2012-1.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/krob2012-1.jpg" title="KRob 2012" /><br />[Finalist - James Blair, Cornell University - Student Digital/Mixed | image <a href="http://krobarch.com/winners.asp?winner_year=2012">source</a>] <br /><br />The finalists above and below are from fairly subterranean vantage points, natural places for darkness to be a companion. In each case light filters down, but not enough to escape the heavy blacks and grays. <br /><br /><img alt="krob2012-2.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/krob2012-2.jpg" title="KRob 2012" /><br />[Finalist - Joshua Harrex, University of Technology, Sydney - Student Digital/Mixed | image <a href="http://krobarch.com/winners.asp?winner_year=2012">source</a>] <br /><br />The last example below, which comes from my alma mater, is basically a dusk or night scene where the darkness is made even thicker by the driving rain. It's like a film noir, and we are taking shelter under the canopy; we notice the building across the street but also the clock near us and the man who is holding an umbrella. The architecture is almost secondary to the feeling and the setting, both of which are much heavier than the typical rendering.<br /><br /><img alt="krob2012-3.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/krob2012-3.jpg" title="KRob 2012" /><br />[Finalist - Justin Pohl, Kansas State University - Student Digital/Mixed | image <a href="http://krobarch.com/winners.asp?winner_year=2012">source</a>]

Architecture on the Edge of Darkness

In 2011 I served on the jury for the eVolo Skyscraper Competition , an experience I recounted about a year ago in a review of the massive eV...

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Health, Medical, and Science Updates - Stone Hearth News

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; ">Health, Medical, and Science Updates, a newsfeed of sorts, concierged by Stone Hearth News, selectively tracks and reproduces fresh and reliable news and information about health, medicine, science, and the social sciences. </span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; "><br></span></div><a href="http://www.stonehearthnewsletters.com/">http://www.stonehearthnewsletters.com/</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Health, Medical, and Science Updates - Stone Hearth News

Health, Medical, and Science Updates, a newsfeed of sorts, concierged by Stone Hearth News, selectively tracks and reproduces fresh and reli...

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Non-compliant puppy

<span style="font-size: large;">Every year I photograph Bones for our Christmas card.  Over the years he has posed in various Christmas accessories.  This year, however, is different.  He has not been compliant at all!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">First off I tried him with two little antlers.  No good, he shook his head until they flew off.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Then I bought a little mini clip on santa hat.  This had pretty much the same result as the antlers. </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Next up was a little Christmas jacket.  He just sulked in this one.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I had to enlist Ciaran to bribe Bones with some ham for the final outfit and we managed to get one usable picture.  I won't show the picture so that you can get a nice surprise if you receive a card in the post from me!!!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Here he is ignoring me and refusing to sit up! </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqQBUWlzBSW6siZuYV2BknOEp4wdwvPi7JbvLY8hOxjVFaP8p8HoE5tZti_Rtpfg7EOVdP7GTmuKfeFaQAwstW2nyqBfLn3gMuBRt7-ojnVhAtEeRF-UJUfWfV237UZgzXlxeA8ieTqUa/s1600/IMG_2593%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqQBUWlzBSW6siZuYV2BknOEp4wdwvPi7JbvLY8hOxjVFaP8p8HoE5tZti_Rtpfg7EOVdP7GTmuKfeFaQAwstW2nyqBfLn3gMuBRt7-ojnVhAtEeRF-UJUfWfV237UZgzXlxeA8ieTqUa/s320/IMG_2593%5B1%5D.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>

Non-compliant puppy

Every year I photograph Bones for our Christmas card.  Over the years he has posed in various Christmas accessories.  This year, however, is...

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End of the Line in the ICU - The Brooklyn Rail

<br><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 30px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Last year I graduated from nursing school and began working in a specialized intensive care unit in a large academic hospital. During an orientation class a nurse who has worked on the unit for six years gave a presentation on the various kinds of strokes. Noting the difference between supratentorial and infratentorial strokes—the former being more survivable and the latter having a more severe effect on the body's basic functions such as breathing—she said that if she were going to have a stroke, she knew which type she would prefer: "I would want to have an infratentorial stroke. Because I don't even want to make it to the hospital."</p><p style="margin: 0px 30px 20px 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She wasn't kidding, and after a couple months of work, I understood why. I also understood the nurses who voice their advocacy of natural death—and their fear of ending up like some of our patients—in regular discussions of plans for <span class="caps">DNR</span>tattoos. For example: "I am going to tattoo DO <span class="caps">NOT RESUSCITATE </span>across my chest. No, across my face, because they won't take my gown off. I am going to tattoo DO <span class="caps">NOT INTUBATE </span>above my lip." <br><br>Another nurse says that instead of <span class="caps">DNR, </span>she's going to be <span class="caps">DNA,</span> Do Not Admit. We know that such plainly stated wishes would never be honored. Medical personnel are bound by legal documents and orders, and the <span class="caps">DNR </span>tattoo is mostly a very dark joke. But the oldest nurse on my unit has instructed her children never to call 911 for her, and readily discusses her suicide pact with her husband. You will not find a group less in favor of automatically aggressive, invasive medical care than intensive care nurses, because we see the pointless suffering it often causes in patients and families. Intensive care is at best a temporary detour during which a patient's instability is monitored, analyzed, and corrected, but it is at worst a high tech torture chamber, a taste of hell during a person's last days on earth. <br><br>I cared for a woman in her 90s whose family had considered making her a <span class="caps">DNR,</span>but decided against it. After a relatively minor stroke that left her awake but not lucid, Helen* went into kidney failure and started on continuous hemodialysis. Because she kept pulling out her IV lines and the feeding tube we had dropped into her nose and down to her stomach, we put boxing glove-like pillow mitts on her hands. When I approached with her medicine, Helen batted at me with her boxing gloves, saying, "NO. <span class="caps">STOP.</span>" She frowned, shook her head and then her fist at me. Her wishes were pretty clear, but technically she was "confused," because when asked her name, the date, and her location, she failed to answer. During the next shift, Helen's heart stopped beating. But despite talking with the doctors about her advanced age and the poor state of her health, her family had nonetheless decided that we should "do everything we can" for her, and so Helen died in a frenzy of nurses pumping her with vasopressors and doing chest compressions, probably cracking several ribs. <br><br>That was a situation in which a patient's family made a decision that probably caused Helen to suffer and did not help her. But there are circumstances where it is the healthcare team that chooses to push on with intensive interventions. And there are circumstances where bureaucracy, miscommunication, and the relatively low priority, among very busy physicians, of making decisions about how far to pursue medical care cause patients to linger in the <span class="caps">ICU </span>weeks past the point when any medical professional thought meaningful recovery was possible. <br><br>Consider another example, of a patient with advanced cancer, in this case an elderly woman with a well-informed husband who knew his wife was dying and that she didn't want to end her life with an extended <span class="caps">ICU </span>stay. After her last tumor resection this woman developed an infection, and during a meeting with her husband the attending physician explained that the main problem we were immediately dealing with was the infection, which was bad and could well be something she would not recover from. The patient's husband explained that he knew that his wife didn't want to be there and that her underlying diagnosis plainly meant that her life was going to end, that they both understood this and didn't want to painfully draw things out. Then he asked if he had any decisions to make—in effect being as blunt as he could without simply insisting that they withdraw care then and there. <br><br>The doctor said no. She said that the patient needed to complete the course of antibiotics to see if the infection could be cured, after which they could approach the question of whether to continue with intensive medical care. I imagine the doctor saw some distinction between letting the patient die of her primary, terminal diagnosis and letting her die of a complication. So the husband's efforts to stick up for his wife went unheard, and she stayed in the <span class="caps">ICU, </span>comatose, for about two more weeks—quite the opposite of her stated wish—before everyone agreed to let her go. <br><br>On the other side of the spectrum are the poor forgotten patients, the ones who linger because nobody will speak up for them and the medical team is not legally allowed to decide to do anything short of maintaining life, day after day. One man with a severe stroke languished over a month while his family members dodged the responsibility of visiting, witnessing his condition, and making a decision about his care. Every morning the health care team rounded on him and we discussed the various states of decay of his body—he had severe diarrhea, frank blood in his urine, and ventilator associated pneumonia—and then moved on to discuss the efforts being made to contact his family and impress upon them the need for action. The <span class="caps">ICU </span>had nothing to offer him, and someone needed to choose: he would either have a tracheostomy and permanent surgically placed feeding tube in order to be moved to a ventilator dependent nursing home, or have his care withdrawn. <br><br>Similarly, we had a homeless woman with a severe brain injury. CT scans of her brain showed an undifferentiated mass of swollen tissue—this is very bad. We were draining cerebrospinal fluid out of her head because the swelling had obstructed the flow of this fluid, causing hydrocephalus and increased pressure within her brain. Her pupils did not react to light, and she had no corneal reflexes—that is, when you touched her eyeball, she didn't flinch. What kept her from being brain dead was the fact that her ventilator was set to "pressure support," meaning that she initiated breaths, and she still had a cough reflex. <br><br>The first day I took care of her, when she'd already been there over a week, I was told that there was a plan to seek a court-appointed guardian to make her health-care decisions. Any friend or relative could have become her decision maker, but this woman was alone. A few days later—why did it take that long?—the social worker presented the patient in court and a lawyer became her official guardian. This lawyer was unwilling to withdraw care. Further, he was unwilling to make the patient a NO <span class="caps">CODE.</span> If her vital signs became unstable and she started to die, we would have to use vasopressors, chest compressions, and defibrillation to keep her heart beating and keep her alive. <br><br>After this, she remained in the <span class="caps">ICU </span>for over a week, and the medical team began itching for ways to get her off of the unit, because she began to be seen as a living corpse taking up a critical care bed and its associated resources—things that could save a different very ill person. Eventually, their only objective was to wean her off of the ventilator and move her out of the <span class="caps">ICU, </span>so that her continued care would be someone else's issue to deal with. <br><br>These four patients had different injuries and different circumstances. What was common to them was that they all suffered the bodily harm and indignity of being physically invaded in every sense, robbed of their integrity entirely, and pinched and poked continuously during the last days and weeks of their lives. Since nobody at the time thought they were going to get better, the people doing this to them—myself and other nurses—had an overarching question: Why? <br><br>All of us love the opportunity to help save a life. That happens in intensive care, and it is exciting and miraculous. But in the instances I've described, and many, many others, nobody involved is under the delusion that a life is being saved. This is where we become cynical, and where many nurses choose not to reflect on the painful purgatories trapping our patients. Rather, they express their opinions succinctly in wry conversations about <span class="caps">DNR </span>tattoos, and they master—or bluff—an exquisite segregation of the mental and physical work of caring for these patients from their own emotional energy. They do this in order to be able to continue working. They get over the absurdity of certain circumstances, and they manage not to care. <br><br>I've not accomplished this. The absurdity weighs me down, and so I want to describe it to you. Medical science can do incredible things. But you would not believe the type of life these life-sustaining treatments often allow. <br><br>People who are at the end of their life and are being kept alive artificially have a way of shutting down. Fighting this process is not a peaceful act. Most of the patients I've described were on ventilators, with plastic tubes pushed into their mouths and down their tracheas in order to provide respiratory support. The tubes are taped to their faces, and patients who can move at all are usually both tied down by their arms and sedated when on a ventilator, because it is so physically uncomfortable that patients will use their last ounce of strength to pull the tube out of their mouth. These patients were already comatose due to their injuries, but other critically ill patients who were previously awake and responsive become unable to speak while on a ventilator. Once intubated, patients are unable to clear their respiratory secretions—phlegm—and so we stick smaller rubber tubes connected to suction into the breathing tube, down their trachea and towards the entrance to the lungs themselves, in order to vacuum the secretions out of their lungs. You can imagine that this too is uncomfortable. <br><br>Patients obviously can't eat, so they will have had a feeding tube pushed up their nose or through their mouth and their esophagus, down into their stomach. This often takes a few tries, requiring us to pull up the bloody tube, re-lube it, and push it back in at a different angle. If a patient is ill long enough, these instruments will be replaced with a tracheostomy in the neck rather than a tube down the mouth and a feeding tube going directly into the stomach rather than down through the nose. These are for patients who aren't expected to be able to eat or breathe independently in the long term. <br><br>These patients often develop diarrhea, sometimes simply because of the liquid food they receive—cans of smelly, nutritionally balanced tan colored slush—and sometimes because they've acquired a very hardy and aggressive bacteria, C. difficile, that is widespread in hospitals and causes profuse, foul stool. If they have diarrhea several times a day and their skin is exposed to it, the skin begins to break down, and so we place a rectal tube in their bottom, held in place beyond the rectum with a small water filled balloon. The diarrhea drains into a clear bag that hangs on the side of the bed. Sometimes when a patient is very sick, as in the case of the man whose family avoided him for over a month after his stroke landed him on my unit, they lose their rectal tone and the tube falls out. This is how I found myself up to my elbows in diarrhea with another nurse, struggling to clean the crevasses of his body and tape an ostomy bag around his bottom, the last hope to contain the flow of stool so that the patient wouldn't sit in a continuous puddle of it while permission for his death was pending. <br><br>Breathing tubes, feeding tubes, and rectal tubes are only part of it. The patients of course have urinary catheters and IVs, often larger IVs that are placed centrally—threaded straight toward the heart to allow us to push drugs in concentrations that would damage smaller veins. Healthier hospitalized patients complain sometimes about their IVs and frequently about their urinary catheters—a rubber tube up your urethra isn't pleasant. If the patients I'm describing could talk, though, I think the urinary catheter would be the least of their complaints. <br><br>In addition to the invasion of tubes, <span class="caps">ICU </span>patients live in a world of bright lights and loud alarms, continuous stimulation. People pry open their eyes and shine flashlights into them, then pry open their mouths. <br><br>We treat most patients with small shots of heparin in their subcutaneous flesh, in order to prevent blood clots. This makes them bruise easily, and patients who've been with us for a while are often peppered with tiny bruises from the shots. Then there are the bigger bruises caused by painful stimulus given by doctors and nurses who are monitoring the arousability of the patient, the depth of their coma. If he doesn't wake up when you shout, or when you shake him, what about when you pinch and twist his trapezius muscle, or grind your knuckles against his sternum for a while?<br><br>It's been said that dying is easy, and it's living that's painful. Not so in the world of intensive care. Patients who have a hope of recovering from their injury, genuinely surviving it, may be fighting to live. For them the torturous days as an <span class="caps">ICU </span>patient are required in order to surmount their injury. And there are always cases where nobody knows what the outcome may be, where the right thing to do is maintain physical function and give the body time to heal. Many patients will survive with deficits, will not return to their former selves but will be able to leave the hospital, go to rehab, begin the hard work of adjusting to another kind of life. But time and again we care for patients who are fighting to die, and having a very hard time of it, because in the <span class="caps">ICU </span>there are only two ways to die: with permission, too often not granted or granted too late, or in the last-ditch fury of a full code blue. <br><br>We are not helping these people by providing intensive care. Instead, we are turning their bodies into grotesque containers, and reducing their lives to a set of numbers monitoring input and output, lab values, and vital signs, which we tweak to keep within normal ranges by adjusting our treatments, during the weeks and days immediately preceding their death. This is the <em>opposite</em> of what should be prioritized when a person is known to be nearing the end of their life without the hope of getting well. <br><br>I want this to change. People who choose to do the work of caring for the gravely ill must concentrate on monitoring and responding to changes in their vital signs, administering their medications, examining all of their physical systems, coordinating their various tests and procedures, bathing them and cleaning up their bodily messes, dressing their wounds, keeping them comfortable, and communicating with their families. I don't think that we should also have to deal with feeling that our work is morally questionable and at times, reprehensible.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 30px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Americans have a lot of work to do in developing a more sensible, fairer, and less wasteful healthcare system. That work needs to include taking a hard look at the conditions of patients whose lives may end in intensive care, both at the level of the entire health care system and at the level of the individual—our wishes for ourselves and our family members whose health is failing or has already failed. Our goal is to help these people, and assuming that prolonging their lives for the longest time possible is the only way to do this is a foolish and harmful mistake.</p><a href="http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/11/express/end-of-the-line-in-the-icu">http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/11/express/end-of-the-line-in-the-icu</a>

End of the Line in the ICU - The Brooklyn Rail

Last year I graduated from nursing school and began working in a specialized intensive care unit in a large academic hospital. During an ori...

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