Posts Tagged ‘information’

We’re about to go dark.

That means Daylight Savings Time is ending for most of the United States. And you must be thrilled with the money you saved this summer … after all, that’s what DST is all about: saving money. Did you save enough on your energy bills to pay for your holiday shopping? No? A week’s worth of groceries? A tank of gas? Lunch at McDonald’s?

A gumball?

What’s that? You didn’t save any money on your electric bills by having that extra hour of daylight? Well, at least you broke even and the kids had an extra hour to play outside …

Say again? You didn’t break even? Your power bill increased? No, that can’t be right!

Read the rest of this entry »

All three of my cancer diagnoses involved multiple surgeries and treatments initiated in rapid succession. Because of previous health issues, I was used to asking doctors questions, taking notes, making sure to get a clear understanding of what to expect during and after procedures. But the information is only as good as the doctor doling it out. And while most of my doctors have been blessings, a couple were not.

One had the bedside manner of a slab of marble. He resented questions and answered in monosyllables … if he answered at all. He responded to my inquiry about a complicated surgery with a short video. The production, with its idealized cartoon renderings, failed to mention the potential circulatory complications, long-term back issues, and other serious risks common to the procedure. Those I discovered only after suffering major complications that took three years and several operations to correct. So I was surprised after leaving Dr. Marble to discover he’d noted in my medical records that he went over those complications with me in detail prior to surgery. Had that been true, I might have taken a different path.

Read the rest of this entry »

A group of us were sitting around having a good laugh when three disembodied heads flew past the front window in quick succession.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“The Segways,” someone replied. “They rent them downtown.”

Ohhhh, the Segways. Well, it was just a bit early for Halloween.

A Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing motorized vehicle that can transport a single rider in a standing position at speeds up to about 12 mph. Though I’ve never had the pleasure, they look like an absolute blast to ride. But as I watched the Segways roll by and considered the motorized carts supplied by most stores and the ubiquitous ads for motorized chairs, I couldn’t help wondering if humans are unlearning how to walk … and what consequences that might have.

Read the rest of this entry »

Silver skin shining like moon glow, it would have seemed more in place skimming the fast curves of Monaco than crawling the streets of my small American town. The driver saw me staring and noticeably puffed up. We don’t get many Porsches around here, and he was enjoying what he perceived as my vehicle-envy.

I was thinking: DEATH CAR.

Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s one thing all children in the American South have in common, it’s the joy of running barefoot. I was 10 before we moved to a paved street. Until then, I ran free on dirt roads, prickly yards, and sandy lakefronts. In summers, we visited my grandparents in Alabama, and each year I’d wander into a clover patch, step on a bee, and suffer terribly until Daddy pulled out the stinger. But not even my annual bee encounters could persuade me to put on a pair of shoes.

Somehow Southern kids manage to walk, run, tumble, skip, jump rope, ride bikes, and even play baseball and football in our bare feet. But then we grow up, put on a few pounds, decide to get in shape, and suddenly it’s all about THE SHOE.

Read the rest of this entry »

Men … are you tired? Run down? Listless? Do you poop out at parties?

Well, the answer to your problems is not in Lucy Ricardo’s famous bottle of Vitameatavegamin. Oh noooo. The answer to your chronic fatigue may well be lying in bed next to you … masking her evil with an innocent expression.

Read the rest of this entry »

Traffic on the four-lane was bumper-to-bumper, but still moving at a swift 50 mph with no stop lights ahead. Always in a hurry, I was in the left lane, the faster of the two heading west. A bumper sticker on the car to my right caught my eye:

This Is a Really Stupid Bumper Sticker

But You’re Still Squinting to Re …

HOLY COW!! I glanced up to see traffic had come to an unexpected stop. Standing on the brake, I whipped the steering wheel to the left, just missing the back corner of the car ahead as I steered into the narrow median. Caught off-guard by my sudden maneuver, the next two cars behind me also ended up in the grass.

Thankfully, I was maintaining a safe distance from the car ahead and had looked up in the nick of time. Otherwise there would have been a multicar pileup at rush hour … because of a “really stupid bumper sticker.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Bet I know what you’ve been thinking about today.

Mmm hmm. And bet I know what you dreamed about last night.

Decadent fantasies … involving chocolate sauce … and whipped cream …

Huh? Oh, that’s all. Just decadent fantasies of chocolate sauce and whipped cream. People around the world may be talking sex with Sue Johanson, but they’re thinking about food. Constantly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Great. After surviving three cancer battles and several other life-and-death dramas, I just discovered I’m likely to succumb to Death by Sitting.

And I’m probably gonna have a lot of company.

Like many people, I’ve bonded with my computer. We spend our days and many evenings working and playing together. So of course, while we’re working, I’m sitting in a desk chair in my office. And if I’m working or playing on the laptop after hours, I’m often sitting in a recliner. Other times, I may be sitting in a car, library, theater, church, restaurant, stadium, waiting room, friend’s home, or on the dock of the bay.

But I make up for all that sitting by spending, oh, 30 minutes a day on the treadmill or hopping around on the Wii Fit. A couple of days a week, I do a little weight-lifting … a few chores around the house. So I’m active, right?

Read the rest of this entry »

In the film classic The Big Chill, a group of former college classmates try to understand why a member of their clique would end his life. One asks his new girlfriend if it’s true that he was unhappy. “I don’t know,” she answers. “I haven’t met that many happy people in my life, how do they act?”

Now, thanks to a new study dubbed “the first representative sample of planet Earth,” we know that regardless of gender, age, or cultural background, happy people act like they’re content with their … bank accounts?

Read the rest of this entry »