March Dumbness

This story is over a decade old at this point, but I still hate class basketball.  The reason I bring it up now is because one of our rivals from high school made it to the state finals this year, and apparently because of their recent success in the class tournament they are being moved up to the next highest class next year.  I believe this is a new(er) rule as I've never heard of this until this past week.  Apparently the rationale is that since they have had such success in their current class they should be moved up to the next class so they can face better competition next year.  This makes sense on the surface, but the problem that I have with this rule is that we already had a system in place where a team would face increasingly better competition with each round of the tournament.  It was called a one class system.  The only reason why this "issue" even exists is because people went and screwed with something that was perfect as it was.  What's really sad is that I am one of the youngest generations of people who even remember the one class tournament.  Pretty much everyone younger than me grew up with the multi-class system and don't even know they should question it because it is all they've ever known.  I still think it sucks.  I won't miss any sleep over it, however.  I haven't paid any attention to high school basketball since I graduated from high school.

The Indycar season kicked off today with a mostly uneventful race in St. Petersburg, FL.  The early story for me has to be the question of can anyone challenge Penske this year?  Kanaan managed a podium, but otherwise the Penske team dominated this weekend.  I think it will be an ongoing struggle throughout the season, much like the field versus Mercedes in F1.  Glad to see Ferrari take the fight to them this weekend in Malaysia for the win.  That should spice things up a bit.

What, For Free?

If I had to list my favorite type of music, I would say rock or alternative or whatever label you want to apply to a small group of guys who play guitar and drums and occasionally piano.  I have some artists that I like and listen to who fall out the traditional rock band realm, music I call "guilty pleasures." Most of these artists I don't go out of my way to listen to, but at the same time if they're on the radio or TV I won't change the channel either.  Probably my favorite artist that falls in this category is Rihanna.  I don't even try to hide this guilty pleasure.  I'll tell anyone who will listen that I am a fan of her work.  I think her music is catchy and fun to rock out to.  Anyway, I've kind of been waiting for her to come to our city for a concert while on tour (I'd fit right in for that crowd, right?). Then to my surprise it was announced she would be coming near by.  Not on tour, but instead as part of a promotional concert for free.  I briefly thought about going, but the more I thought of the logistics of such an event the more I thought it probably wouldn't be worth it, and I have since decided not to go. 

How could something free not be worth the trouble?  For starters, the concert is being played in an open field setting where essentially they could pack people in like cattle for the show.  Secondly, she is playing in a concert with several other people and there is no schedule (at least none that I'm aware of), so I would have to potentially sit through a day long concert just waiting for her to go on stage.  Thirdly, I'm guessing you get what you pay for and I am half expecting her to perform just a few songs before they move on to the next act.  You know what?  I'll pass on this despite being a big fan.  I would rather buy my $100 ticket to (a) get a reserved seat, (b) not have to listen to hours of other acts I don't care about, and (c) ensure I get to see a decent show.  I am starting to get old and grumpy.

Outdoor Illumination

Now that we've officially started spring (despite forecast of snow tomorrow), I've come up with a list of a few small projects to work on for the outside of the house, which is mostly my domain.  One of which is adding outdoor lighting for the mulch and house.  Luckily for me, the previous owners had two low volt transformers already installed and wired.  The problem is the current lights don't work.  A friend of mine came over last weekend with a volt meter and we determined that the wires appear to be conducting electricity fine, so it must be the fixtures themselves that aren't working.  Or it could be the bulbs, but to be honest they only had a few fixtures and they looked rusted/corroded, so I decided to replace the few fixtures they had.  So Saturday I went to Lowes and bought three LED light fixtures.  I'm a rookie at this type of project so I wasn't sure exactly what to get in terms of strength of light.  So with that being said I only opened one of the fixtures.  It has a clamp that attaches to the wire from the transformer, transmitting power from the wire to the light.  Should be simple enough.  However, when I connected the light nothing happened.  I played with the timer and switches on the transformer for a while and still couldn't get the light to work.  Then it was time to feed the kids and put them to bed.  Then it was getting dark so I had to delay the project for another day.  Having two young kids definitely can throw a wrench into any plan.  Some people online were saying sometimes you have to disconnect the clamp and re-connect it somewhere else in order to get rid of a possible bad connection.  I didn't have time to do that yet but it is next on my list of problem solving solutions.  Hopefully I can get it to work because I do think it makes the house and yard look nice at night.  Plus it adds some security as well.

Jeremy Clarkson Cannot Be Replaced

Love him or hate him, you cannot replace Jeremy Clarkson.  You just can't.  That experiment has actually been tried here in America and was called American Top Gear and was awful.  Despite being essentially the same show, it was unwatchable.  The reason?  Different hosts.  And it's not just Clarkson.  Hammond and Captain Slow are pretty much irreplaceable too.  It would be like replacing Bob or Tom. It's just not the same.  So I hope the BBC and Clarkson can resolve their fight soon.  I'm already ready to see new episodes of the best car show ever.

Staying with car news, the FIA F1 season kicked off this past weekend in Albert Park in Australia.  I think several things can be taken away from this race (and really, they were mostly apparent after qualification).

• Sadly, Mercedes AMG is the run away favorite to win the constructor's championship again, and one of their drivers will win the driver's championship as well.  It will be a fight for who finishes #1 but there are only two people in that race and they both drive for Mercedes AMG.  I say sadly not because I don't like the team, but because I'd like to see 4-5 drivers really fight for number one.  
• While Mercedes AMG is the clear #1, several other teams, including some of the lower level teams like Sauber seem to be much more competitive than in recent years past.  This could be a fluke, and time will tell, but I hope it is not.  While #1 is pretty much locked up, the other top spots in the field I think are wide open at this point.
• Infiniti Red Bull seem to have taken a step backwards while Ferrari has taken a step forwards.  I think overall this is good for the sport.
• Several rookies had impressive qualifying and racing finishes.  If this keeps up it will be the most impressive rookie class I've seen in F1 in my >10 years of watching.
• The attrition rate in the first race was atrocious.  Only half the cars that were supposed to start finished the race.  This cannot continue in any such fashion for the season to remain interesting or relevant.  It looked a bit like amateur hour, which is a tough pill to swallow with the high budgets carried by F1 teams.

Being Punctual

Before I get into the reason behind this post I should mention that I hate being late.  Subsequently I do whatever I can not to be late.  I prepare, look directions up ahead of time, etc.  So whenever people are late it irritates me.  It's a sign of immaturity, not caring, and being self centered.  Now I understand circumstances happen, but overall being late isn't something I tolerate well. 

I had two new patients show up 20 minutes late to their appointment yesterday and we asked both to reschedule.  One did reschedule, the other stormed out of the office mad.  I realize you may be thinking that 20 minutes isn't too late and asking what's the big deal?  I can tell you.

In medicine, especially primary care, we are increasingly asked to accomplish more in smaller time frames.  With that being said, it is imperative for people to arrive to their appointments on time for everything to work well.  My new patient appointments are 40 minutes long.  It takes approximately 10 minutes to go through the EPIC (our office's electronic medical system) check-in process for the first time.  Because of this we ask all new patients to arrive 10-15 minutes prior to their appointment.  I'd say one out of twenty new patients actually do this.  The overwhelming majority arrive right when their appointment is supposed to start.  We don't say anything in this circumstance and just accept that the appointment is going to start late.  But when you arrive 20 minutes past when your appointment is supposed to start (making them technically 30-35 minutes beyond when they were asked to arrive), add10 minutes to get through the EPIC check-in process, and another 3-5 minutes to get vitals and visit info, that gives me 5 minutes to get through an annual physical.  Not to mention that a lot of visits come with a "oh by the way" moment which tacks an additional 5 or more minutes onto the visit.  (I had a great example of this yesterday.  Guy comes in for a follow-up visit.  At the end of the appointment he decides to inform me that he has been having periodic chest pain that last several minutes.)

Showing up 20 minutes late to an appointment affects all parties involved negatively.  It's unfair to the patient for someone to have to rush through their preventative care in 5 minutes (not to mention impossible).  It's unfair to me to be forced to rush through the rest of the day just because someone decided not to show up on time.  It's unfair to my office staff who undoubtedly will have to stay late as the rest of the day we will be behind schedule.  It's unfair to the rest of the patients who actually show up on time to have to wait 40 minutes because now I'm behind. 

If something happens and you're going to be late all you have to do is call and reschedule.  It's as simple as that and this simple action will benefit everyone.  One thing I've learned in my job is that the average person is irresponsible and self-centered.  I can tell you one thing: I'm not going to drop what I'm doing and ruin the whole day just because someone decides to randomly show up.  If that makes me the bad guy then so be it.

Internet 101

If you were teaching an introductory course to the internet, say for senior citizens, and you were discussing internet safety, probably one of the first things you'd mention is to never click on emails from unknown people or on suspicious ads that look like games.  I'm embarrassed to say that I broke that rule today.  Fortunately it wasn't on my home computer but instead on my work computer. 

We get minimal spam through our work email and I work for a large company and frequently get emails from people who are unknown to me.  So today when I sat down at my computer and saw an email from an unknown person labeled "accounts summary" I didn't really think much of it when I downloaded the file and opened it.  That changed when I immediately received three more emails labeled "accounts summary" but from different people.  By that point it was too late and the damage was done.  I wasn't the only person in my office to open this email and I'd say likely 100s of people across the network did the same.  We called IT and were instructed to unplug the computer for them to pick up tomorrow, presumably before it explodes.

A friend once told me you could easily tell someone's knowledge of basic computer skills by noticing if they inappropriately single or double click items.  It could probably be argued the same skill set could be noticed by people who inappropriately download email attachments from unknown people.  Quite silly, really.

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.