Delphi files for bankruptcy – Oct. 8, 2005

This was predicted.

Yesterday I was honored to be the speaker at a lunch meeting of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine for their Emergency Medicine Interest Club. I talked to them last year, and inexplicably was asked back again this year.

One thing’s for sure: you can get medical students to show up for anything if there’s a free lunch, so it was well attended. I spoke about why I think EM is the best career for a physician, and what med students need to do to prepare for an EM career, and what it’s like actually doing the job. And, plenty of gross pictures.

It was well received, and I enjoyed talking to a nearly-captive audience. I had two surprises after the talk: a student told me he actually reads this blog (!) and I met a young woman on Navy scholarship, who was happy to have met anyone who had been where she’s going.

I enjoyed myself, and hope there’s a class of EM docs in their future.

Okay, you’re now on the new Movable Type version of GruntDoc.  It’s not that TypePad was bad (it wasn’t), it’s just that I got tired of not having to deal with the issues of having your own blog on your own shared hosting server.  And the Tinkering (noodling, my wife calls it).

What you should notice: not much, really.  The best thing about this change is that I’m back to the native MT search function, which works terrifically well, much much better than the Technorati or Google blog searches.

There are things that don’t work perfectly well (yet), like the blogrolls not appearing in the category pages.  I’m working on it.  That’s why I switched back! 

Oh and the new NavBar above.  I’ve updated the About page, and the Archives look a lot better.

Please let me know about significantly broken things. 

Well, I didn’t post a thing yesterday, and it’s because I’ve been distracted.  (Inner voice: the blog is a distraction, all that other stuff is life).  (Other inner voice: quiet, you).

I’ve been tinkering with restarting my MovableType hosted blog, and it’s ready to go.  It’s so ready you shouldn’t notice the change, as it’s very nearly identical to what you’re seeing today.  If I can get a plugin to work it’ll have some nice editing features for both me and commenters, but it’s in the ‘debug’ phase.  Yes, I was glad to go to TypePad, but miss the frustration of fiddling behind the scenes.  The reason I haven’t moved over yet is that I get non-stop 500 errors with rebuilding, and I don’t trust the blog to be hosted on MT until I can do the rebuild without serial crashes.  So, there’s some of my time.

And, I just got a mini-mac.  It’s pretty slick, and it is different.  I’m not ready for the Kool-Aid, but it’s a neat computer.  But, Safari won’t import OPML?  What the heck?  And, apple-heads, what are you using as an RSS reader?

Anyway, that’s why there’s not much going on here.  Again.

Azygous on the untimely passing of a friend: Mary (spankysplace.blog-city.com).

It took me the better part of the week to write about this.

I was stopped in the hall and asked if I knew?

Knew ?what? I asked?

Oh, Mary was found dead in her home last night.

You mean Mary the hospice nurse?

Ya, that Mary.

It’s a touching remembrance.

Now, one of those senseless apologies.

I’m in the midst of a long, long string of shifts, the AC project isn’t finished, so there’s a great hole in the wall (still), and I am noodling with Linux distros.  I need to ‘geek up’ a bit.

So, nothing really jumps out at me to blather on about.  Inspiration will come soon.

The Cheerful Oncologist is now at http://thecheerfuloncologist.blogsome.com . Update your bookmarks accordingly.

First, I’m sending replies to everyone who submits a link for this week’s Grand Rounds, so if you don’t get an email from me after about 12 hours, please send it again.

Second, I’ve added another layer of spammer-be-gone technology in the comments. It should be transparent to you, but if it blocks your comment please send me an email with your comment and what the malfunction looked like.

Google now gives factual answers to questions at the top of the results page, with a link to the blog from which the answer came. Google just keeps getting better and better.

One of my favorite questions is: “How tall is the Eiffel Tower?”. Per google, the answer is

Eiffel Tower
Height: 300.51 meters (986 feet) (+/- 15 cm depending on temperature)
According to http://www.paralumun.com/moneiffel.htm

Cool.

I have just posted my 1,000th entry on the blog. That’s an amazing number to me, especially since I have yet to say anything.

I’m the monkey trying to type Shakespeare, 1,000 pages done.

Waco has a lot to ba happy about today: SI.com – 2005 Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament – Lady Bears win first ever women’s hoops title – Tuesday April 5, 2005 10:57PM

The Baylor Lady Bears simply wanted to be a shining light for a university that needed something to applaud. One dazzling national championship ought to do.

Way to go, Baylor!

(Public Service Announcement) (Reprise)

Yes, tonight you either a) lose one hours’ sleep, or, b) get to church in time to shake hands as everyone else leaves. (Sorry if that leaves your religon out, but the joke works better that way).

There is a much more interesting history to this than I had thought, and in a rare event, I must admit I was wrong! In a recent conversation with my son he was right and I was not, the idea was originally Ben Franklins’!

For an interesting and comprehensive look at Daylight Saving Time, go here.

It seems I’m easy to impress, or Google is the most impressive thing around.

Latest: Google Local, which is a nice way to narrow your searches to your local area. Though it’s labeled ‘beta’, it worked well for me.

Try it, you’ll like it!

I was reminded this afternoon that there’s an Airshow in town this weekend, featuring the Blue Angels. My reminder was watching them practice this afternoon. They looked good from the road, I’ll be it’ll be better from the stands.

Admission is free, and “…reasonably priced food and beverages are available…”.

I hope to go, but I’m working nearly incompatible shifts.