Because Prohibition Worked SO Well

There is a lot of chatter out there about the Second Amendment, Obama's executive orders, or purported orders, regarding firearms laws, restrictions and the like, psychiatry, national security, school security, and everything in between in recent days. Individual states are coming up with their own versions of increasingly restrictive firearms regulations and any outcry against that is dismissed as right wing extremism.

It shouldn't need to be said, but stating the obvious is something I'm good at, so: the events that took place in Connecticut last December are nothing short of horrendous.

And they have nothing to do with firearms law.

Guessing that second statement is going to lose me a few friends :-P

The reactionary statements demanding more gun control, fewer high capacity magazines, bans on certain types of firearms, better background checks are just that: reactionary. They have no teeth when it comes to actually preventing the acts of evil and demented people

Sorry, guys. The world's a screwed up, messy place. Bad stuff happens. Kids starve to death every day. Babies are abandoned to die because they're female. Children are sold into sexual slavery. A few words on some paper, signed by the all of the dignitaries in the world, are not going to fix that.
And new, stricter, gun control laws are not going to prevent someone from committing further tragedies in another elementary school, or a middle school, or a playground, or anywhere else where groups of tiny humans get together and think they're safe.

It's an old adage, but it's true: if you make guns illegal, then only criminals will have guns.  I don't know how to get this thought to actually engage in the minds of society at large, but the fact is that people who don't care about the legality of their actions are not going to suddenly change their minds when you pass a new law.  Seriously.  If you speed when the speed limit is 60, why would you suddenly decide to slow down when the sign changes to 55?

Laws do not inhibit the actions of people. People inhibit their actions.  We all have a choice to make every day.

This blog was actually mostly inspired by a "quote" from George Washington that I ran across earlier today - it wasn't an actual quote, but there is an actual quote from which it stems:
A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies.

I expect that most people will simply dismiss that as antiquated and possibly even too complicated to understand, or at least no longer a necessary thought.

I'll simply state that America today is barely armed, regardless of what the left would have you believe. If it came down to it, an uprising could be quashed in less than 48 hours by military forces without much difficulty. Weapons technology is leaps and bounds above what even the most hardcore militia has access to (interesting, when you consider the purpose of the second amendment...)

Of greater concern, however, is the lack of discipline we have. We are well on our way to over half of our population being obese. I'm a member of that statistic. Not something I'm proud of, but true nonetheless at this point.

There are no fat revolutionaries, which brings me back to my Zombieland manifesto on life:

Rule #1: Cardio
Rule #2: Double tap

Just out of sight

Yesterday, I went exploring.

First, I brought my car to a body shop for an estimate (it was vandalized last week) On the way, I noticed some pretty intense icicles near an historic landmarker. I decided to stop by on my way back to take a closer look.

 I should mention that these things are HUGE. Well over my head. Once I got out of the car, I noticed that the landmark was actually for a Spring. And the woods were pretty much alive with the sounds of running water with more icicles and awesomeness to explore.  I don't know what it is about rocks and water that just demand attention...but I embrace their demands. While I played mountain goat, I saw some pretty awesome stuff....

Snowy moss and lichens

A single snowflake caught on a strand of spider's web. I seriously need an actual camera instead of my phone . . .

The view from the height of my exploration

And my trail back down.

I go back to work tomorrow...settling into a regular schedule from now until mid December - Wednesday through Saturday 10 hour shifts with Sunday through Tuesday off to recoup, explore and wrangle my critters. I actually left Rocky free to roam the apartment when I went to the landromat today. I came home to no disasters! Aside from a bath towel mysteriously on the kitchen floor, my dynamic duo seemed to stay out of trouble. Of course, now that George has figured out how to get onto the fridge, there's no telling what sorts of things will happen . . .:-P

Note the computer power cord running through the door handle. Yeah. Not only is cell signal limited in here, but there's a shortage on outlets. . .

Culture Shock

I knew when I moved to Minnesota from Virginia (affectionately…or not…known as “yuppieville”) that there would be differences to which I would need to adjust. I was right. The east coast go-go-go is not so readily embraced in the mid-west. There’s time to think. Time to enjoy being alive. Time to not sit in traffic on 495 for hours on end.

Even so, it wasn’t a huge adjustment. Minnesota is home. It’s always been home. I know the lifestyle there. I just had to learn a different hospital, different ER, different set of protocols.

Contrast that with the move to Montana.

Dear goodness.

IV setups are completely different. We do not use extension sets at all. Just the hub on the catheter. Boom. They also use a different sort of IV catheter than I’ve ever used…fortunately veins are the same.

The hospital is small, so the ER doc is the admitting doc. They write the admission orders when they get to it, and then the patient is transferred to the floor. Which is actually called the “ward”

The biggest difference of all, though, is there is NO DILAUDID.

None.

Zilch.

Zippo.

You may now cue the Hallelujah Chorus.

There are other differences. I’m sure I’ll end up writing about them at some point, but they aren’t really forefront to my brain at the moment.

Yesterday I went to Kalispell – it’s a really cool city. I might actually look for a permanent job there, since there’s a bigger hospital. I explored their outdoor gear store and got a pair of North Face hiking boots on clearance - $120 down to $60. Score one for awesome. It started to snow around 5, so I decided to head back to the apartment (a 2 hour drive through the mountains along Glacier National Park) The roads were pretty decent and there was still some daylight, so about half way home, I stopped at a river access and took Rocky for a 30 minute hike. It was absolutely gorgeous. And Rocky loved the chance to run around.

I have yet to see much wildlife around here. A patient told me about the cow elk he shot, but I haven’t seen anything besides a few mule deer – and that was on the drive out here.

The rest of the drive home was slightly more treacherous, though my car handles snowy conditions like a champ. Even so, I didn’t really hear much of the audio book I downloaded for the long trips for groceries – Stephen Abrose’s “Undaunted Courage” the story of Lewis and Clark.

Today I dug out my car to trek to the post office and the Laundromat, cleaned the apartment (I got a hand vacuum yesterday: 1 dog + 1 cat + small apartment = fur everywhere :-P) and now I have a honey mustard chicken and rice cooking in my cast iron skillet – complete with lid, for my wondering mother ;-)

More adventures to come – after two night shifts…which are kinda adventures themselves….

I am tired. This is short.

Thoughts of the day:

Watching a cat jealously watch a dog chew on an apple core is somewhat hilarious. And adorable.

Lazy people are annoying.

Rain blowing in from the mountains is cold. Like, might-as-well-be-snow-because-my-face-is-numb-and-my-glasses-are-fogged-up cold.

Apparently the ten hour shifts on my contract were a misprint. It’s back to twelves after this Friday.

Most prominent thought of the day:

Leadership changes the tone of an organization completely. If your leadership is less than dedicated, distracted, or just not interested, chances are, their team will be the same way. This is especially true in the ER.

I miss my docs.

Orientated

I am going to preface this with sincerely saying that all of the people I met today were very nice. I think that working at this facility will be great….eventually.

Let’s follow that with the fact that I didn’t realize the Public Health Service was technically a branch of the military, the Indian Health Service is an off shoot of that, and go from there.

Holy cow.

If ever I doubted the rigmarole of bureaucracy, my eyes have been opened.

Today was my first day on the job. Except that the people who were supposed to run orientation weren’t there. So other people stepped in after over an hour of standing around wondering what I was supposed to do. After sitting through abbreviated orientation lectures, we were informed that we would have to come back in two weeks for “real” orientation.  Then I got the tour, and gave myself an extended tour as I went from ER to IT to Employee Health to Registration to IT to Registration to Admin to ER to Lunch to ER to Registration to IT to Employee Health to IT to Admin to IT to ER. I ended up needing two copies of the same information to give to different people for different files. I was fingerprinted (any of you contemplating asking me to help you rob a bank…sorry, I’m out) after nearly 3 hours of wandering from department to department, phone calls, forms, other forms, more phone calls. And I got computer access from a woman in an office with more paper than technology who had to switch a single computer monitor between two computers because her additional monitor was being used in the OR. (no, I’m not kidding. Apparently the OR had technical difficulties)

When all was said and [finally!] done, I got to go to the ER, where I couldn’t technically do anything because my fingerprints aren’t cleared yet. Tomorrow I get to scrub up and actually work. Maybe. Hopefully.

Today was not all frustrations. I’m actually excited about the charting software. Apparently it’s been around for almost thirty years, but it’s been updated along the way and is not only logical, but user friendly (ask me again in a couple of weeks if I hold to this).  I got to go home over lunch break and see Rocky and George (who were all too eager to check out my empty yogurt cup).

When I got home this evening, I was approached by a stereotypical inebriated individual who regaled me with tales of bullriding while asking for spare change.

After extracting myself from that situation, I came home to type this on my non-connected laptop in hopes of transferring the text to my phone and finding some miraculous data connection reliable enough to post it. Rocky and George are alternatively playing hide-n-seek – one hides under the bed while the other bounces around on top of the bed trying to figure out how his adversary disappeared.

Riding Shotgun

Today was move in day. I met my landlady, an elderly woman who moved out here from Chicago 25 years ago after injuring her knee. Inher words "They told me to go on disability, I didn't want to get bored and figured I've done plenty of crazy things, why not this." She also introduced me to her two dogs-a big black mutt appropriately named Muttsy and a smaller white and brindle whose name I honestly can't remember at the moment :-P

Once I signed the paperwork and got the walkthrough (which did not take long. This place is pretty much a small motel room with a kitchenette attached) it was time to finish out the furnishings. This meant a trip to Walmart, either in Kalispell or Great Falls. Since the weather was really drizzly and cold, I opted for Great Falls - Kalispell is a drive through the mountains that I would rather save for nice weather.

Rocky sat shotgun for the trek - a welcome change for both of us, since he's been riding in the kennel during this trip. It was absolutely hilarious to watch his reaction to the windshield wipers. He launched at them every time they swooped across, yipping in frustration when he couldn't make them stop. On the way back, I splurged on McDonalds and realized that my dog is all too capable of becoming a snob in record time. Give him fries? He's thrilled. Give him a nugget? He must be in heaven. Give him fries after a nugget? Who eats those? [let it be known that I do not regularly eat fast food, nor do I endorse giving greasy fare to pets....especially since they get spoiled that quickly :-P]

Tomorrow is my first day at the hospital...jitters are definitely on the docket tonight. And distraction is difficult since my apartment is apparently a black hole of wireless connectivity.....

Exploration

I woke up this morning, sorted out the hotel confusion, and headed out to see the sights.

Right when I turned onto the street I came in on, I caught my breath. There was a MOUNTAIN in front of me. I knew there would be, but it was still rather sudden. And beautiful.

I started driving. And realized I was driving toward Canada. I ended up turning around about 10 miles from the border. I'm going to save the actual crossing for a day when I have an adventure planned with a little more foresight.

This is where I decided to turn around :)

I think I'm gonna like it here

So tomorrow is move-in day, and probably will involve a trek back to Great Falls, or maybe Kalispell, we'll see how things go. Tonight, I will enjoy the luxury of DirecTV, snack on the last of the burritos given to me by a thoughtful Dean and deal with the wrestlings of George and Rocky.