Weather Fearmongering

Somewhat embarrassingly, I admit that I watch 48 Hours on CBS on a fairly regular basis.  I say that it is embarrassing because it is on TV on Saturday nights.  You might think that I would have something better to do or more interesting to do but the overwhelming majority of the time I don't.  My kids are asleep but they're still home and need supervision so we're tied to the house and quite honestly there typically isn't much to do on a Saturday evening, especially if there isn't any good sporting events on TV.  This past Saturday we were watching TV and when the time came I switched to CBS. 

What I found when I switched to the local affiliate on the TV was not one, but two banners advertising a winter storm that was coming to the region.  The first banner was at the top of the screen and was scrolling through various counties that were predicted to be affected by the storm.  The second banner was at the bottom of the screen and was displaying various information regarding the upcoming snow storm in font size large enough to be read across the yard.

A winter storm warning has been issued by the...

to give you an example of the size.  As if this wasn't enough, there was a map displayed in the lower left corner of the screen with the various counties that make up central Indiana.  Each county was shaded a certain color, I guess in an attempt to show us how bad this storm was going to get depending on where you live.  Adding insult is the fact that they started displaying these graphics in some form on Friday evening, a full 24 hours before the storm even started.  All of this for a storm that produced so much snow I could still see blades of grass in my yard poking through and I don't think any schools in our area were closed or delayed.  TV stations do this kind of stuff all of the time and it is ridiculously absurd.  I can maybe understand one banner at the bottom of the screen, but three?  That's way overboard, especially for a snow storm that produced mostly rain.

Ghostbusters 3...Why?

Ghostbusters is among my favorite memories as a child.  I loved the movies.  I loved the theme song.  I had all of the action figures and toys and would play with them while jamming to the theme song on cassette tape.  In fact, my parents still have most of the toys stored in the attic at their house.  I know they've been trying to resurrect the movie franchise for some time now, but with its stars growing older and Harold Ramis' unfortunate passing last year, I figured that project was finished.  I was wrong, apparently, as news surfaced this week of the Ghostbusters 3 movie with an all female cast.  Why would they do that?  It was risky business to begin with making a sequel (to a sequel), but now making one with a completely different cast, and one that is all female and thus nothing like the original, just sounds awful.  Why smash my childhood memories like that?  I'm honestly just going to pretend that this movie doesn't exist, which is basically what I do with 99% of other movies anyway.

On a side note, I no longer have broadband internet available at my house per definition.  Not because I don't pay for it, but because it isn't an option.  Nice to know that a suburb of a major American city is keeping up with the times.  Maybe this new definition will result in an upgrade soon.

The Four Year Router

We've had intermittent internet connectivity issues at home for the past month or so.  What's frustrating is that each episode is different from the previous and there will be a week or so in-between an episode where things are acting fine, making diagnosing the problem difficult.  Looking for a solution on the internet is about like diagnosing a medical problem on the internet - all solutions are possible but none are likely.  As a side note, I feel like anytime I try to look up a solution to a computer problem on the internet invariably it is mentioned that drivers or firmware should be updated.  I can tell you that doing such an update has never solved any computer problem that I've ever had.

It started a month ago when my new laptop randomly quit connecting to the internet.  My wireless strength was full but it was like our ISP or modem was having problems.  All of our other devices connected, however.  I moved my computer from my office and that seemed to help so I thought maybe I was having interference issues.  I gradually moved the computer back into my office and things seemed to work again.

Then a few weeks later all of our devices experienced signal loss from the router for about a week.  We had the people from our ISP come out and check our signal and modem and switches and everything and they said things looked good from their end and that likely our router was to blame.  Odd thing is shortly after things started working again like nothing had happened.

That lasted about a week until I began experiencing frequent connectivity issues again, just like I did originally where it said I had full signal but no service.  All other devices worked.  At this point I got tired of dealing with it and bought a new router.  This is the third router I've ever owned and my first two seemed to last about 4 years before they pooped out, really for unexplainable reasons.  I can tell you router technology has advanced a lot since I last bought one, and so have the prices.  I did some research and decided to get a pretty decent one versus going cheap.  Researching routers is both boring and confusing.  It's difficult to tell the difference in a $100 router versus a $200 router without getting into some technical details.

Looking back, I think we've probably had some connectivity issues since moving into our house.  It would frequently boot people off the network if more than 3-4 people were connected simultaneously, which from what I've read the average home router should easily be able to handle (I think the Apple Airport Extreme said it could support 150 simultaneous users.).  Sarah bought a Windows 7 laptop in 2012 that always had connectivity issues to the point that she now uses an old and heavy 2010 Macbook that we have.  The newness of the computer is the only constant I've been able to find in this whole mess.  While I think the router was in the process of failing, the computers that seemed to be affected the most were our two newest computers for some reason.  At any rate my new router is up and running so I am hoping this will fix the problem for good, or at least until 2019.

We Could Be Cleveland

Discussing the Colts being beat once again by the Patriots kind of makes me feel like a Cubs fan but in all reality it isn't quite that bad.  We got killed yesterday.  Just killed.  At no point was that game close.  The loss itself is frustrating but when you look at the fact that we were one of four remaining teams this season and we were really more like a top 10 team things suddenly don't look too bad.  We have a young superstar quarterback in Luck who more or less carried this team along with TY Hilton and a few key defensive players but otherwise we have an over-matched defensive line and no run game.  We're decent and were beat by a better team.  The stinger is that we were beat by the Patriots.  While both teams have changed a lot of players over the years and we've changed coaches, the two remaining constants are Belichick and Brady, still there to beat us.  Our only hope is that Luck will outlast Brady.  The whole ball-deflating scandal is amusing because it in no way impacted that game.  Why would they even think they would need to do that to beat us?  And yet I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turns out to be true.  I don't put anything past the Spygate Patriots.  If it is true they should face a fine of epic proportions as they are perpetual cheaters.  I agree with Wilbon who said if it proves to be true they should have to forfeit their Super Bowl bid but the NFL doesn't have to balls to do such a thing.  The bottom line is we've had 10-15 years of pretty good football here in Indy (save for the season Peyton was injured and Willie Wonka played) and we had a decent team this year and made it to the AFC Championship and were beat by a better team.  The Seattle vs New England game will make for a better Super Bowl though it is hard to figure out who to root for (Of course the answer is Seattle but I'm not excited about that.)  Hey, it could be worse.  We could be Cleveland.

I Can't Believe I Cheered For Ohio State

Since this isn't technically a sports blog I don't typically write about sports, but here goes.  I can't believe I'm posting a picture of Ohio State's mascot on my blog.  Truthfully I am only doing it to amuse Sarah as she's a fan.  Obviously their win in the national championship game last night is fueling this post and here is why.

College football is my least favorite sport when ranking the nation's most popular sports.  I think it represents a lot of what is wrong with athletics, especially college athletics, and therefore I choose not to participate.  I did watch the college football playoffs, however, with rooting interest in Ohio State.  Being from the Midwest and Big 10 country (or is it the Big 14 now? I can't keep track anymore.  This is one of many reasons why I don't like college football.), I tend to root for Big 10 schools in national tournaments.  I must say, I have found most OSU fans that I have met to be loathsome and generally unlikeable because of their obnoxious rooting habits (The Ohio State University?  Give me a break.).  They may be a-holes, but they're our a-holes, and in situations like this I will support them. 

With that being said, I would rank SEC-worshiping as even more obnoxious.  I'm not even sure it is the SEC's fault.  I blame ESPN (I could write an entire seperate blog about things that ESPN does that annoy me.  I think I've said that before.)  So I was quite happy when one team after another from the SEC lost in their bowl games while the "mediocre" Big 10 schools continued to win.  Then came OSU's first playoff game against mighty Alabama (Nick Saban = generally unlikeable), where OSU won with their third string quarterback.  Third string!  It is unthinkable that a school from the mediocre Big 10 could beat mighty SEC Alabama with not their backup quarterback, but their backup's backup.

Which set the stage for the title game against Oregon, a team from the Pac 12 that I know nothing about and thus have nothing against.  Presumably they're good - they have the Heisman trophy winner and are in the title game.  And OSU steam-rolled them.  The Buckeyes absolutely trampled them.  The only reason the game was even as close as it was is because Ohio State coughed up the ball four times.  The only thing that looked good about Oregon was their uniforms (Which interestingly enough did not contain green or yellow, which I believe to be the school's colors.  Regardless they were sharp.) and their cheerleaders.  Otherwise this game wasn't even close.

And to think that this new playoff format conjured this much emotion and interest from me for a sport that I don't even care about.  Hopefully this will quite the SEC talk and we can hear about some other teams and conferences for a change.  Then again what do I care?  I won't be paying attention anyway.

Managing Expectations During Winter

At least part of my job includes managing people's expectations in terms of outcomes and how well treatments work.  This is especially important in the winter time when we get bombarded with people who mostly have colds that don't really have prescription treatments.  Over the counter symptom management medicines and time treat these illnesses.  Throw in a periodic influenza case and pneumonia and I'm left with deciding if I should treat people symptomatically, with antibiotics, or with antivirals.  From my perspective the decision usually isn't too difficult if I can get a set of vitals and perform an exam.  Where things get tricky is when people call the office and request antibiotics over the phone, which happens several times per week (as a side note, I have never even thought about calling a doctors office and requesting medicines over the phone).  There are so many things wrong with that scenario that I'm not even going to get into it here, but the answer is almost always no.  I'm upfront about it with my own patients so they know what to expect.  Where people are left disappointed at times is when I'm covering for other doctors who do call in medicines over the phone because then they are confused when I won't do it.  I sometimes get disappointment when people come in for an office visit and I don't prescribe antibiotics but usually if I explain the situation (i.e. only 0.5%-2% of sinusitis cases are caused by bacteria) they are OK with it.

Prior to the holidays we may have bad weather but at least there is something to look forward to. Now that the holidays are over there is nothing to look forward to for another 3 months or so until spring time arrives.  This isn't a big deal per se except that the weather sucks.  It took me an hour to get to work on Tuesday (usually takes 30 minutes) due to the snow the night before.  Every inch of skin that I possess is so dry there isn't enough lotion in the world to keep it moisturized.  And this afternoon I am trying to somehow fit a Christmas tree into a bag that is half as big as the tree.  If I didn't have family ties to the area there is a strong possibility I would move to the Carolinas or some place with a more temperate climate.

A New Year Means I'm Getting Older

Welcome to 2015!  I worked a half day yesterday so I decided to pick up some wings on my way home.  Generally after I get off work I proceed directly home to avoid fighting with all of the traffic.  I got 10 boneless wings and some fried pickles which were fantastic.  However I knew before I even started eating them that I would pay for it for the rest of the day.  Over the past 1-2 years anytime I eat wings or pizza or similar type foods I have a predictable and unpleasant response to the food.  It mostly involves feelings of being bloated, belching, and generally feeling disgusting, i.e. dyspepsia.  I used to be able to hammer down food like this and not think twice.  Not anymore, however.  The symptoms extended into the evening.  I tried to have a few beers to celebrate the New Year but I couldn't even stomach that.  I developed a headache around 10:30 and ended up in bed at 11.  What a pathetic performance on my part.  I talked to a few of my friends this morning.  Both of them made it past midnight, though one of them was already in bed when the ball dropped and promptly fell asleep he said.  Obviously everyone is aging every second of the day, but the fact that I am showing physical signs of aging can be somewhat depressing if I really think about it.  But honestly, who has time to dwell?  I woke up this morning feeling great, helped take care of my kids, and moved on with life.

Overall 2014 was a great year and I expect 2015 to be great as well.  I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend.