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Thursday, June 15, 2017

The Widowmaker

It has been a long time since my last post.  I usually don't post just anything.  I wait for a life change or something that really gets my attention.  Things like a heart attack or a new grandson.

Well, I have had both.  In December of 2013, I felt a tightness in my chest and something told me it was not normal.   I waited for my wife to come home and I told her to take me to the hospital.  My wife is a very smart lady and gave me about six aspirins before we left the trailer.

The usual argument took place in the car as to whether I needed to go to the emergency room or just to a local MediQuick.  Melissa won the argument and took me to the ER.   They ran the usual tests (EKG, etc.) and did not find anything wrong.  However, we have some pretty smart doctors in Texas and they also ran some blood tests that indicated I had a heart attack or I am about to have one.

I got my first ride in an ambulance that same day and arrived at the hospital that afternoon.   I was not in pain and did not have what I thought were the usual symptoms.  I guess I was just in denial.  The next morning, three very serious looking doctors came to visit me and told me they were going to take me to surgery to do an angioplasty.   Well, I was new in town and I had no knowledge of this hospital or these doctors.   I balked and told them I needed to have some time to make a decision.

One of my concerns was my insurance was going to run out at the end of the month and I didn't know how much these things cost.   The other question was "What the heck is an angioplasty?"   A very nice nurse brought me some information and my darling wife, Melissa, helped me to make my decision.  I learned that an angioplasty involves a procedure that allows the doctor to place a fiber optic tube in my arm and travel all the way up to my heart.  It is considered the "gold standard" for finding out if you have any artery or heart problems. 

The procedure is done while you lay naked on a cold table and watch five or six people operate "joy sticks" and monitors which record the whole process.  Although I had a valium, I was awake the whole time and found the level of skill and communication involved fascinating.   The doctors found a major artery called an LAD was 98% blocked and decided to do the angioplasty.  Melissa got to come into the operating room and see the blockage.

Wilkapedia says "Angioplasty is the technique of mechanically widening narrowed or obstructed arteries. An empty and collapsed balloon on a guide wire is passed into the narrowed or blocked arteries and then inflated to a fixed size. The balloon forces expansion of the inner plaque deposits and the surrounding muscular wall, opening up the blood vessel for improved flow, and the balloon is then deflated and withdrawn. A stent may or may not be inserted at the time of ballooning to ensure the vessel remains open."

The "LAD" or left anterior descending artery supplies about 50% of the blood to the heart.  Because the LAD provides much of the bloodflow for the left ventricle, which in turn provides much of the propulsive force for ejecting oxygenated blood to the circulation system via the aorta, blockage of this artery is particularly associated with death. In the medical community heart attacks associated with this blood vessel are commonly called "the Widowmaker."



So I considered myself a lucky man for not making Melissa a widow.  After the procedure, I went home the next day and my energy level increased 100%.  I no longer needed to take naps in the middle of the day and I wasn't tired all the time.   I felt great.   I went to classes called "Cardiac Rehab" for a couple of weeks and they monitored my heart while I exercised.   They also gave me a lot of information on how to watch what I eat and how to get enough exercise.

I want to encourage all of you who may be heading for a heart attack to take the warning signs seriously.  If I had waited one more day, I could have died.   Please err on the side of caution and go to the Emergency Room if you have any tightness in your chest or even if it just feels like indigestion.  Your body will tell you something is wrong.   Don't wait for severe pain or vomiting or some other symptom.   Just go and have it checked out.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

The Last Vacation (1966)


While driving home from work the other day and listening to the 60’s channel on Sirius XM, I heard “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful.  You may remember the lyrics…

 


“Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head” 

It immediately brought me back to a happy moment in the summer of 1966 while driving through East Texas with my stepfather, Weldon, and my little brother Woody.   It was our annual (and for me, my last) summer vacation before college.  My sister, Marcia, had already started college and wasn’t on this trip.  Woody and I had been inseparable for the last 11 years of his life.  I was his older brother, babysitter, counselor and tormentor.  
 
With my sister gone most of the time and my mother always working, it was up to me to watch out for Woody and to provide what little entertainment I could in those lazy days of summer.  Weldon divorced our Mom in 1961 and provided support and a once a year vacation for us.  The vacation was always the same. 

We would travel several hundreds of miles in Weldon’s 1960 Ford Galaxy 500 to Lake Charles, LA for a week.  Then we would travel several hundred more miles to North Texas to stay with relatives.  The highlight of the trip was a one day visit to “Six Flags Over Texas” theme park in Dallas.  The week in Lake Charles was often hot, humid and boring.  Weldon’s house had no air conditioning and the attic fan would draw moist air through a window at night to keep us cool.  We would wake up with wet sheets the next morning.  The refineries also provided a sulfur odor to go along with the moist air.  Woody and I took pictures of Weldon in his Border Patrol uniform with his gun drawn like a scene from an old western.  We also posed with the gun.  Mom still has the pictures.




 










The road trips were long and seemed forever.  Weldon was one of those Dads more interested in “getting there” than he was in stopping to see the sights.  We often had to beg him to stop just for a bathroom break.  I remember the “road trip from hell” in 1956 when we drove a 1955 Buick from Camden, NJ to Brownsville, TX in five days without any stops.  I was carsick for 4 of the 5 days.  Weldon wouldn’t stop although I was sick and about to vomit.  He almost wrecked the car when I vomited over his shoulder and into his lap.  I heard a lot of cuss words that trip.

During our vacation in the summer of 1965, we stopped at a roadside park with a tall fire watch tower.  Woody and I couldn’t resist climbing the 20 or so flights of stairs to the top.  That was before lawsuits and locked facilities.  I remember the summer of 1966 was very hot.  Woody and I sat next to Weldon on the front bench seat so we could be close to the small air conditioner unit under the dash. 



 
As boys will do we entertained ourselves by non-stop talking, singing to the radio and picking on one another.  It must have been stressful for Weldon.  At one point, Weldon had enough and shouted “Hot Damn.”   Without missing a beat, Woody and I broke into song by singing “Summer in the City.”  It was a memorable moment that brought laughter to both of us.  I don’t think Weldon got the joke.  It was also a sad moment because it was to be the last vacation and the last of my relationship with Woody for a long time.

My senior year in high school was a whirlwind of activity and I did not spend many evenings and weekends with Woody and his neighborhood friends. No more pretending he was Spiderman and I was the Hulk.  No more playing “torture track” by riding blindfolded on the back of a banana bike while I drove up and over sidewalks and obstacles.  No more practical jokes and the resulting beating I would give Woody and “Jimbo” Kittany when I chased them down the street.  No more laying in bunk beds late at night and making up stupid things to say or climbing out on the roof to cool off.

Finally, the day arrived for me to make my last trip to Lake Charles to start college at McNeese State University.  I said my goodbyes, but as a sixth grader, Woody, expected he would see me soon.  He was wrong.  I seldom came back to Blytheville, Arkansas after I started college.  I worked 2-3 jobs at a time and took a full schedule of courses.  It was the only way I could afford to attend college and also keep my student deferment from the Vietnam War draft. 

I only remember coming home once after the end of my freshman year.  Woody and Jimbo would often sit around and reminisce about the fun we used to have.  Then Woody experienced junior high, girls and other distractions and life moved on.  I worked and studied for five years until I graduated.  At one point, I dropped my student deferment and waited to be drafted.  My draft lottery number was 79 out of 365, so I was pretty sure I would go to Vietnam.  However, the war was winding down by 1970 and I wasn’t called.

Woody became “Woodrow” and dropped out of school.  He moved to Cooper, TX where Weldon had retired and bought a house.  During that time of lost innocence and the hardships of life, we lost contact with each other and, sadly, we never got to know each other as adults.  I was no longer the older brother Woody looked up to and he had learned to take care of himself.  I visited Woody and Weldon in the little town of Cooper, TX one summer at the end of my junior year.  Woody introduced me to “weed” and his friends, but I never chose to go down that path.  I left town disappointed and lonely.

In the years after college, I became a committed Christian while Woody became a committed pagan.  Weldon and I grew closer because I wasn’t angry at the world anymore and forgave my past.  Woody was unreachable and became more introverted as an adult.   Most of my trips to Weldon’s house during the post-college period found Woody was not around.  Weldon and I would sit on the front porch and watch my daughter play in the yard.  Weldon told me he was proud of me (for the first time in my life).   I was a happy man.

Now the song “Summer in the City” brings a bittersweet sadness to me.  I did not know at that time that simple moments of joy and happiness were so temporary.  I did not imagine the closeness Woody and I had would end.  I guess it is true that happiness is a momentary thing and we should enjoy those moments while we can.  Live for the moment and cherish what happiness and joy life gives you.  Value the relationships in your life and don’t let your goals and ambitions cause you to lose them.

And never stop listening to the "oldies."

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

All I've Got Is Leaving On My Mind

I was sure by now God you would have reached down

And wiped our tears away,

Stepped in and saved the day.

But once again, I say amen

That’s it’s still raining,

As the thunder rolls

I barely hear your whisper through the rain,

“I’m with you.”

And as the mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise

The God who gives and takes away.

 [Praise You in This Storm – Casting Crowns]

In this time of warfare and trouble, I long for the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.  Only He can bring real peace to this dying world.  Only He can govern this world.  Only He can restore and heal this world.  My constant prayer has been Revelation 22:20 He (Jesus) which testifieth these things (the Word from Genesis to Revelation) saith, “Surely I come quickly.  (And we say..) Amen.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus!.”  Of course, I sometimes add: “Even so, come (quickly), Lord Jesus!”

Each year, at the Feast of Trumpets, I watch and pray to be found ready for His coming and when He doesn’t come, I say “Maybe, next year.”   So if you see me looking at the clouds and seeming distracted, it is just because I have leaving on my mind.

I have been fighting this spiritual battle for more than 42 years, and to be honest, I am tired.  My only hope is in Him.  My peace and joy only come from His Presence.  This world is not my home.  I am a pilgrim and a stranger in this world.  I just don’t fit in the world’s system.  An outcast that walks, talks and thinks differently from the rest of society.  Thank God, I meet with some of God’s children from time to time.

I have no fear of the world to come.  It is more like home to me than anything in this present world.  I long to be free of the presence of sin and to enjoy the glory of heaven.  Don’t get me wrong.  I know God isn’t finished with me yet and I do have a hunger to obey God and see souls born again and lives changed.  He said in Galatians 6:9:  “And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”  And again in 2 Thessalonians 3:13: “But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing.”   I can understand why He had to tell us that twice.

If your heart is broken and it seems God is far away.  Remember.  He is as close as your breath.  Pray right now to the God who always listens and receive a greater measure of His Spirit and faith.  He will come sooner than you think and then a lifetime of sorrows will be worth it all.  Encourage yourself in the Lord.  And when He has encouraged you, encourage others.



Tuesday, November 1, 2016

HOW DO WE DE-ESCALATE THE VIOLENCE AGAINST POLICE?


Over the first eight months of 2015, American police killed 776 people, while British police killed exactly one. American police are eight times as likely to kill a citizen, and ten times as likely to die on the job, as their essentially unarmed British counterparts.   

It is difficult to compare policing practices in different countries with different cultures and populations.  I respect the dangerous job police perform no matter where they do it.  And to be fair, it does make a lot more sense for every officer to be armed in the U.S., since so many citizens are armed.   London, as a whole, had 114 homicides and 1,662 gun crimes last year, in a population of 8.63 million. It's not even fair to compare.  I just think the tactical methods and training of most of the police in the U.S. has gone the wrong way.  

For example, police in the U.S. are trained similar to the military with the sole purpose to protect the lives of the police.  Yes, their slogan is to “protect and serve,” but in my opinion, their training seems more concerned with hunkering down until it is safe to proceed.   When the damage has already been done, they charge in sometimes using excessive force.  I am not an expert on police training in the U.S., but I think we need to have a discussion about what our response to the police should be and how the police should be trained.   
 
My own experience with police is limited, but when I do get stopped, it is far from a friendly experience.  I was immediately given commands and barked to by the officer without telling me what wrong I had done.  It was a form of intimidation that innocent people find offensive.  All the loud commands and aggressive behavior from the police does not induce a relaxed and peaceful response, especially from men.  I know police are trained to treat everyone the same according to political correctness.   Just like the Department of Homeland Security treats grandmothers and little children as terrorists at the airport for the same reason.  Both methods are demeaning and ineffective to creating a respected police force. 
 
We call policemen and firefighters heroes because they risk their life to save others.  But watching how their safety measures prevent them from disarming a shooter or running into a burning building seems to take away from that heroism.   They are taught not to risk their life for another.  I am not advocating sacrificing police and firemen and we do have too many lose their lives in the call of duty, but I am trying to provide some observations concerning how police practices have changed in my lifetime.  I may be too naïve having grown up watching Andy Griffith on TV policing the fictitious town of Mayberry.  I do like the fact that Andy was approachable and knew everyone in town.
Can we look at other police training practices that may provide a better model?    

Unlike the U.S. model of law enforcement, the British police have a thing they call Policing By Consent, based on the principles of Sir Robert Peel, who came up with the Metropolitan Police in 1829. It states that constables are citizens in uniform "who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence." It's been the guiding principle for close to 200 years.  

Here are Peel’s nine principles:

1.       To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2.       To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. 

3.       To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. 

4.       To recognize always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. 

5.       To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life. 

6.       To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective. 

7.       To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.  (emphasis is mine) 

8.       To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary, of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty. 

9.       To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.  

Do you agree some of these principles should be a part of police training in the U.S.? 

The British police training is designed to teach police how to disarm suspects wielding knives, guns, and foul language.  Each officer is equipped with an extendable metal stick called an asp and a can of “aggressive hairspray” laughably termed CS as if it's tear gas.  According to a London policeman, “one lesson that everyone who ever became a half-decent copper did take on board was that the most important piece of officer safety equipment we ever had was talk.”   Police are generally trained to de-escalate hostile situations and use minimal violence in response to a threat.  For example, the British police have interviews instead of interrogations.  Also, they are not allowed to lie to the suspect about the evidence they have.  

In a 2004 survey, 82 percent of Britain's Police Federation members said that they did not want to be routinely armed on duty, according to the BBC. At least one third of British police officers have feared for their lives while being on duty, but remained opposed to carrying firearms. But for the most part, many British police would like to have a Taser.  Basically, it comes down to the fact that their conflicts so very rarely involve firearms that they simply don't need them.  However, they would be the first to say if every drunk or crackhead I stopped to search had a concealed carry weapon, I would be the first to ask for a gun.  In terrorist or other situations involving a shooter, the British do have SWAT teams with expert snipers that are deployed.  

A police officer does not have to shoot to kill and, in several countries, a police officer does not even have to carry a gun. In Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, Britain, and Ireland, police officers generally do not carry firearms.  Richard Hill, history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, explains that New Zealand police were disarmed for routine work in 1886, following the principle of the British police that: “Constables are placed in authority to protect, not to oppress, the public.” For officers to carry guns would not just be unnecessary, he says, “but also antithetical to the values of civil society.”  

You may say, “But these countries don’t allow guns!”  But what about in Iceland, where there are an estimated 90,000 guns in a population of 323,000?  The country has one of the lowest global crime rates in the world and, the BBC reports, the majority of crimes that do occur don’t involve firearms.  So it is possible to police a population that owns guns and reduce violence too.  

In these countries where citizens don’t have access to guns, the police are rarely taken by surprise by a firearm. There are officers trained in how to handle firearms when necessary, and can respond to reports of a citizen with a gun by sending out an armed police officer. But another key difference between the US and elsewhere is training. Paul Hirschfield, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, points out that US police officers are trained for an average of just 19 weeks. Compare that to police in Norway, who have three years of training before they’re fully qualified.  In Finland, officers have to get permission from a superior officer before shooting. In Spain, officers should fire a warning shot, then aim for non-vital body parts, before resorting to lethal shooting. “In the United States, you only shoot to kill. You only use deadly force,” says Hirschfield.  

It doesn’t help that the law in the United States gives fairly wide scope for police violence. Under the European Convention of Human Rights, police can only shoot if it’s “absolutely necessary” in order to achieve a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Meanwhile, in the US, police officers can shoot if there’s “reasonable” perception of a grave and imminent threat, which is a far more subjective standard. “What defines reasonable?,” says Hirschfield. “We have a society where it’s often considered reasonable to take a black person reaching into their waistband as a threat. The whole legal framework for determining whether lethal force is legal or not is premised on a flawed assumption that officers can determine what is reasonable.”  

“If you only have 19 weeks of training, you’re going to spend those on the most essential things. Unfortunately, in the United States, it’s about what you need to defend yourself. How you’re going to avoid getting hurt,” says Hirschfield. “If you have three years, you can also learn how to protect people, how to avoid these situations from arising in the first place. It fosters a whole different orientation and culture in law enforcement.”   
Just some food for thought, so please don’t accuse me of hating police.  I don’t. 
 
Excerpts taken from:
I Was A Cop In A Country With No Guns: 6 Startling Truths  By Charley Clark, July 12, 2016
How do police handle violence in countries where officers don’t carry guns?   By Olivia Goldhill, July 09, 2016
 


Friday, December 4, 2015

Time Marches On....


I have always been fascinated by time and clocks.  I have owned every kind of wristwatch from Timex watches that use a balance spring to a Seiko that uses a quartz crystal to a Casio that uses an “atomic clock.”  

 




It was fun asking another engineer at work what time it was and then comparing his watch to mine.  It would invariably start an argument as to which watch was the most accurate.  I would smile and say, “Well, my watch is synchronized every day against the atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Fort Collins, CO.  It is accurate to within 1 second per 138 million years. That usually ended the argument.  Only engineers would argue about the accuracy of a watch. 

The NIST operates a radio station, WWVB, which has for half a century been the nation’s official time keeper.  While millions of Americans are fast asleep, clocks and wristwatches across the country wake up and lock on to a radio signal beamed from the base of the Rocky Mountains.  The 60 kHz signal contains a message that keeps the devices on time, helping to make sure their owners keep to their schedules and aren’t late for work the next day.  In 2011, NIST estimated the number of clocks and wristwatches equipped with a WWVB receiver at over 50 million. 

Some manufacturers refer to their radio controlled clocks as "atomic clocks", which isn't really true. An atomic clock has an atomic oscillator inside (such as a cesium or rubidium oscillator). A radio controlled clock has a radio inside, which receives a signal that comes from a place where an atomic clock is located.  At 60 kHz, there isn't enough room on the signal (bandwidth) to carry a voice or any type of audio information.  Instead, all that is sent is a code, which consists of a series of binary digits, or bits, which have only two possible values (0 or 1).  They are sent at a very slow rate of 1 bit per second, and it takes a full minute to send a complete time code, or a message that tells the clock the current date and time.

Once your radio controlled clock has decoded the signal from WWVB, it will synchronize its own clock to the message received by radio. Before it does so, it applies a time zone correction, based on the time zone setting that you supplied. The time broadcast by WWVB is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or the time kept at the Prime Meridian that passes through Greenwich, England.   UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time.

 




Engineer David Andrews (left) and technician Robert Oase (right) are shown by the WWVB transmitter in 1963. Credit: NIST
 

Keep in mind, though, that the accuracy of the watch will also depend on the update frequency, because between updates the watch’s internal clock is running freely, and the overall accuracy is determined by the drift the internal clock experiences. 

Well, enough of the technical stuff because today that has all changed.   It is time for me to get a new wristwatch.  It is called a “smart watch.”  This watch uses a satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) which uses two onboard cesium atomic clocks and as many as two rubidium atomic clocks as backup to accurately determine the location, height and current time.  Smart watches have built-in GPS receivers to periodically set the correct time from various satellites.  This means that GPS can achieve an accuracy level of 50 ns deviation from the UTC.   A nanosecond is 1/1,000,000,000 of a second.   

My wife just ordered me the Samsung Galaxy Gear S Smart Watch for Christmas.  My old Casio watch disappeared when my 2-year-old grandson found out he could reach the lid of our trash can and throw things away.   Keys, cell phones and other items have gone missing from our house.  I am not about to let him play with the new watch.

 The Samsung Galaxy Gear S Smart Watch

                         
The first 4G wireless network-connected watch with a 2-inch curved AMOLED display and interchangeable watch faces allows you to not only tell time, but check emails, answer calls, view GPS maps and retrieve turn-by-turn directions.  It also will track your fitness goals and monitor your heartbeat.   You can also reply to texts with a virtual keyboard along with word prediction and voice command.     It has Bluetooth so I can sync with my car and talk hands-free while driving.  I know to keep both hands on the wheel.

 


 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
I am old enough to remember Dick Tracy and his wristwatch.  I dreamed of being able to talk over the phone by just holding up my wrist.  That was a real miracle at a time when phones were not wireless.  I know this Christmas present is a “toy” but I am always leaving my phone at home or not charging it.  Now I can use the smart watch along with my Samsung Galaxy S5 and I don’t have to be in the same room. 

What a joy it has been to see how far technology has come.  We can argue it wastes time or interrupts our life, but the sheer accomplishment is worth talking about.  Can I live without it…..Sure.  But why not enjoy what technology has to offer.     

Time Marches On!