Germy

I've written about this before, how music has played a large part in my life (not a unique scenario, to be sure) and how I've always been on the receiving end of a speaker's offerings; always the listener and appreciator never the strummer, key tickler, axe-man or skin-beater. Teenage years, when individuals are trying to be as individual as possible by assimilating to a subsect of culture they wish to identify with, is often when a particular genre of music becomes a part of their persona, too. Thankfully, I've spent time with many different sub-cultures -- as is often the case with skateboarding there exists an umbrella under which all types of people are welcomed and through a shared love of wooden toys with wheels, new aspects of a hitherto unknown culture is known. And as I've grown older, pieces from various times, activities, friendships and workplaces, I keep the music from those times, almost as a vehicle for revisiting and getting in touch with old fri...

Getting old isn't for the young. When I was a youngster, I remember thinking that "old people" must not feel pain in the same way that a young'n would. Perhaps all the talk about a loving and benevolent creator led to this line of thinking. Then again, plenty of discussion concerning original sin and the closely held notion that our bodies are bad and must be punished (sex bad, food good) should have balanced out my feeling on the feelers of old folk. Of course, there is no mercy, even at the end of life, when it comes to pain. I also remember thinking, when I was young, that I would not forget what it is like to be young. Much of childhood is like this. Major advancements on a short schedule. Growing larger, taller. Hair here, other things there. And school, with their precise stratification, serves to magnify this making each year's milestones demarcating lines between all the children. It is difficult to remember what being a teenager was all abou...

During medical school, I had a preceptor who worked at a county clinic serving the least fortunate in Vallejo, California. He once said that the experience working at the clinic "is how Republicans are born." This, coming from him was, of course, tongue in cheek. But, he has a point. The front lines of medical care in this country bring to light the vast and substantial inadequacies in the health of the people, in this country. I could go on, and on about the policies and political decisions that have brought us to this point -- I have no shortage of opinions in this area. I feel compelled to express and assert what is tantamount "end-user experience expertise," leading to a greater insight than most -- yes, it comes from simply being a doctor and working where I work, but also from the many jobs I've worked over the years. I've spent time as a business consultant in health care. There have been large swaths of time spent un- and under-insured.  My opinion...

My parents moved when I was seventeen years old, the summer after I graduated from High School. I moved out a few days after I turned eighteen. There was a window of about thirteen months when I could have written the above list. Most of that time I was working two full time jobs -- with my Uncle installing roofs and then at night and weekends I worked in the kitchen in the Clackamas Red Robin restaurant. I wrote this list, and, then promptly forgot about it, until my Mother found it some years later when she was cleaning out the room. Perhaps it was when the carpeting was replaced, but it must have been ten years or so after I wrote the list. She gave it to me and then, I promptly stowed it away in some shoebox where I have stashed nostalgic stuff from the past. Recently, I moved to Long Beach and going through the unpacking process, I stumbled upon this list I entitled Fifty Things to Do Before I die.  An examination of the list shows how ridiculous some of the aspir...

I'm still trying to write a novel. The outline and overall plot has evolved into a simplified version of what I have previously described on this blog. I still have more than one timeline involved, but I have taken my first scenario, involving the earthquake and subsequent landslide in the Columbia River Gorge and the Native American family caught in it and added a modern day timeline. Gone are the two subsequent sections -- the 'shanghai'd sailor' and the Netanya bombing character. I'm roughly 25% done, concerning word count alone, but feel like I'm missing some key elements that will propel me to the next phase of the story. In the modern day timeline, I have a 29 year old male who is built from elements stemming from my experiences and a few key friends of mine. For the past three weeks I've been working in a hospital in Wisconsin, consulting physicians and some support staff with a new computer set up. I've had plenty of downtime, and I've trie...

Failure is painful. Pain, in general, we avoid. However, like all things we can override our primal drive to avoid pain if we recognize its utility in a cost-benefit ratio analysis. In other words, no pain -- no gain. Recently I was reading about a high-school teacher's experience concerning the differences between students in 1997, 2007 and now, in 2017. She had numerous things to say, but what stuck with me and, what was the primary driving force of her analysis, was that students today are overwhelmingly lacking self-confidence. She tied this to a fear of failure. They are unwilling to try anything challenging or new without a significant amount of one-on-one guidance and encouragement. Of course, in a classroom of more than thirty students it is impossible to give this type of attention. While pondering this perspective I became overwhelmed with situations and dynamics that I have experienced and witnessed. Education, ideally, in my mind is a time where failure is a path to...

In no way can I blame my parents for not forcing me to learn to play a musical instrument as a child. However, there are many times where I wish I did know how to play an instrument or at least read music. Many of my friends do indeed pursue music as a passion and even a career. I've often found myself wondering, in awe, how the fingers of a piano player or a guitar strummer can so effortlessly find their place with such precision movement. The closest thing I have experienced involves skateboarding; repetitive movements -- muscle memory that becomes subconscious in that a conscious decision to execute a larger "trick," or in the case of music, a "tune" or "song," is comprised of a symphony of learned behavior. It becomes automatic. Skateboarding has also been responsible for much of the music I've loved. I grew up in an era which had 411 Video Magazine's monthly VHS offering was eagerly consumed. Each video started with this iconic tune: ...