Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Stay Tuned For... The Rest of The Story

Paul Harvey passed away over the weekend. If you don’t know who Paul Harvey was, shame on you. Go and Google his name and find out why 22 million people used to listen to his radio broadcast everyday.

I was introduced to Paul Harvey by my grandfather. He would listen to Paul Harvey twice a day, everyday. Noon and 5:55 pm. Sitting at the kitchen table with the big AM/FM/Shortwave radio he would tune out the world and tune into Paul Harvey’s unique cadence and folksy spin on the day’s news.

I loved my grandfather and therefore anything that captivated his time was worthy of mine also. When he passed away, I inherited his car -- the Grey Ghost. A 1988 Ford Thunderbird LX. It was my first car. My grandfather was a large man and he had a tendency to “land” in the driver’s seat more then sit in it; therefore the seat was in a permanent state of recline…I was pimped out before pimped out was cool. He also parked it under a large oak tree that dripped sap on the car which over the years had taken the clear coat paint off and left the car a dull grey…personality I thought. Best of all, it only had AM radio. Here I was as a high school senior and college freshman and my sweet ride only had AM radio.

But that really didn’t bother me too much. I got to listen to Paul Harvey everyday…twice a day…and sometimes three times a day. Even after I sold that car I still tuned into WBAP twice a day to catch up on my News and to find out the Rest of the Story.

But that Thunderbird’s AM radio was special for another reason. I listened to a lot of Texas Rangers Baseball games on that AM radio. I have wonderful memories of driving around Dallas and Waco on warm summer nights listening to Eric Nadal and Marc Holtz calling baseball games. I remember exactly where I was when Nolan Ryan struck out his 5000th batter. And I remember driving west on LBJ freeway, passing Valley View Mall, when he completed his record 7th no-hitter. I remember listening to Pudge Rodriquez hit his first homer as a rookie with the Rangers. To this day, I would still rather listen to a baseball game on the radio than watch one on TV any day. In fact, I would rather listen to a baseball game on the radio than listen to most anything else. There was never one moment when I knew that I would marry Becca but when she put up with listening to baseball while driving those weekly trips between Dallas and Fort Worth…or when she knew the Texas, New York, Chicago, and St Louis broadcasters by name…or when she knew the call letters of all the play-by-play stations…well, those were REALLY good signs that this might work.

I miss Paul Harvey. I miss my grandfather. I miss my Ford Thunderbird. I’m glad I can still tune into a baseball game most summer nights and be reminded of some wonderful things.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

My Personal A-Rod Story

In 1997 I was teaching middle school in New York City and Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod or A-Fraud) was hitting home-runs alongside Ken Griffey Jr. in Seattle as part of the Mariners Baseball Club. Alex has a suave and debonair brother who happened to be romantically involved with a fellow teacher’s sister at that time. She arranged to have Alex come and speak to our school and more specifically to the classes on our floor. Alex agreed in large part because our school was 89% Dominican and he was born in the Dominican Republic before immigrating to Miami. He could relate to our kiddos and our students to him. His story could one day be our student’s story.


Our principal at the time was a wonderful Latina who earned her doctorate in education from Harvard University. A definite rarity in the education world. She met Alex early in the day, before the assembly, and later introduced him to the school. When he opened his remarks to the school, he started with something I have never forgotten: “When I met your principal she asked for my autograph but after I learned that she was like me, an immigrant, and that she was a doctor from Harvard, I asked her for HER AUTOGRAPH! She is a role model for me and she should be for you to! Work hard and stay in school. I wish I had.”


When A-Rod signed with the Texas Rangers for ten years at $252 million dollars I defended the signing. It was the largest contract ever but then, the game had never seen a player with his power, speed, grace, range, and ability. I defended him as Texas finished last the 3 years he was with the club. Then he was traded to the New York Yankees. I hate the Yankees and yet, even as I heckled the player of A-Rod, I defended his character and separated his off-the-field behavior from his collapses and failures to perform on the field.


Now we find out that he injected himself with performance enhancing drugs. He used illegal drugs to gain an unfair advantage over unsuspecting players and then was dishonest when questioned about it. And every day it seems that we find one more part of the story that doesn’t add up. I didn’t know what I was using. I got it on the street or over the counter in the DR. It wasn’t “illegal”. I just used it every couple of months. It was just an “energy-booster”. I can no longer defend this man that I once put before my students as a role model. He is now the anti-idol. Everything that I don’t want my students or my own kids to become is embodied in this man.


Those regular season collapses in Texas. Those magnificent collapses in October in New York. Those are nothing compared to the collapse he has been as the idol of hundreds and hundreds of young men and their parents. Sure, he was always aloof but at least he was honorable. Now, I can no longer say that. He has lied. He has cheated. He has been dishonest. He has not been true to his word.


On the other hand we have people like his Seattle teammate, Ken Griffey Jr. A player raised by an All Star and World Series Champion father. A player who learned to play the game the right way: tough, gritty, hard. Sure, he wore his hat backwards and his shirt un-tucked but he would also dive headlong to make a catch, run full-speed into the wall for a ball, hustle out every single, and slide into an opposing player, sacrificing himself for his teammates.


In 2000, after 11 seasons with the Mariners, Griffey Jr. asked to be traded to Cincinnati, the same team his father had been a stand out player for and a team much closer to family and relatives. He left on excellent terms and the Mariners received more than adequate compensation. He promised the city of Seattle he would never forget them and would return if “God was willing”. Two days ago, after a tough, injury-plagued journey in the mid-west, he signed a one year contract with the Seattle Mariners, at below market value, for what will most likely be his last professional baseball season. He kept his word.


He returned to Seattle. A team with no chance to win. A team, and a city, that loves him. There has never been a single bad word spoken about Griffey. Never a hint of performance enhancing drugs. Just a sweet, natural, left-handed swing. Teammates love him. Managers love him. Condoleeza Rice named him a special envoy for US foreign affairs. He has three kids (one adopted) and supports numerous philanthropies. Oh, and as a player he is merely fifth all time on the home run list, has 13 All Star appearances, 10 Gold Gloves, 7 Silver Slugger Awards, and a season MVP award…not bad!


I think I found a new role model for my kids.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Norman the Pig, The Crock-A-Saurus and One Heck of A Fight Between Sleeping Beauty and Zurg

Jake and I “fight” a lot. In fact, if it were up to Jake we would fight all the time. Jake is my 4 year old and his idea of fighting is tickling and wrestling around on the bed while pretending to be various superheroes. Tonight, Allison, my 2 year old, wanted to join in. Jake had already claimed SpiderMan and proclaimed me Zurg (the villain from ToyStory) so we wondered what Allison would be. Her response? Sha-Booty. For those who don’t speak 2 year-old that translates to Sleeping Beauty. I just started to explain that Sleeping Beauty wasn’t a superhero and wasn’t a villain but Jake just spat out, “OK, You’re Sha Booty…now let’s get Zurg!” It turned into a 15 minute fight that was the ultimate cross-promotional cameo-filled event that would have made Hollywood proud (Marvel Superhero vs. Disney heroine vs. Pixar villain).

I’m glad that I didn’t get a chance to say anything. Sometimes we grown-ups make the mistake of limiting those fantastic imaginations. Sometimes we just get in the way by insisting certain things are always certain ways. Thousands of books and seminars are held every year as managers try to get their employees to think “outside the box”. But what if we just allowed our kiddos to keep stretching their imaginations? What if we stopped insisting that certain thoughts are “conventional” or “acceptable”? That there is only one way to do some things?

I thought about it for a minute and quickly thought of two pieces that were in the back of my mind.

The first is from Robert Fulghum’s Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door:

A Kindergarten teacher I know was asked to have her class dramatize a fairy tale for a Teacher's Conference. After much discussion, the teacher achieved consensus on that old favorite, "Cinderella." The classic old "rags to riches" the story that never dies. "Cream will rise" is the moral of this tale - someday you may get what you think you deserve. It's why adults play the lottery with such passion.

"Cinderella" was a good choice from the teacher's point of view because there were many parts and lots of room for discretionary padding of parts so that every child in the class could be in the play. A list of characters was compiled as the class talked through the plot of the drama: There was the absolutely ravishing Cinderella, the evil stepmother, the two wicked and dumb stepsisters, the beautiful and wise fairy godmother, the pumpkin, mice, coachman, horses, the king, all the people at the Kings ball - generals, admirals, knights, princesses and of course, that ultimate object of fabled desire, the Prince - good news incarnate.

The children were allowed to choose roles for themselves. As the parts were allotted, each child was labeled with felt pen and paper, and sent to stand on the other side of the room while casting was completed. Finally, every child had a part.

Except one.

One small boy. Who had remained quiet and disengaged from the selection process. A somewhat enigmatic kid - "different" - and because he was plump for his age, often teased by the other children.

"Well, Norman," said the teacher, "who are you going to be?"

"Well," replied Norman, "I am going to be the pig."

"Pig? There's no pig in this story."

"Well, there is now."

Wisdom was fortunately included in the teacher's school bag. She looked carefully at Norman. What harm? It was bit of casting to type. Norman did have a certain pigginess about him, all right. So be it. Norman was declared the pig in the story of Cinderella. No one else wanted to be the pig, anyhow, so it was quite fine with the class. And since there was nothing in the script explaining what the pig was supposed to do, the action was left up to Norman.

As it turned out, Norman gave himself a walk-on part. The pig walked along with Cinderella wherever Cinderella went, ambling along on all fours in a piggy way, in a costume of his own devising - pink long underwear, complete
with trapdoor rear flap, pipe-cleaner tail, and a paper cup for a nose. He made no sound; he simply sat on his back haunches and observed what was going on, like some silently supportive Greek chorus. The expressions on his face reflected the details of the dramatic action. Looking worried, sad, anxious, hopeful, puzzled, mad, bored, sick, and pleased as the moment required. One look at the pig and you knew. So very "there." The pig brought gravity and mythic import to this well-worn fairy tale.

At the climax, when the Prince finally placed the glass slipper on the Princess's foot and the ecstatic couple hugged and rode off to live happily ever after, the pig went wild with joy, danced around on his hind legs, and broke his silence by barking.

In rehearsal, the teacher tried explaining to Norman that even if there was a pig in the Cinderella story, pigs don't bark. But as she expected, Norman explained that THIS pig barked.

And the barking, she admitted was well done.

The presentation at the Teacher's Conference was a smash hit. At the
curtain call, guess who received a standing ovation? Of course, Norman, the barking pig.

Who was, after all, the REAL Cinderella story.

Word of a good thing gets around, and the kindergarten class had many invitations to come and perform Cinderella. Sometimes the teacher had to explain what it was about the performance that was so unique.
"It has a pig in it, you see?"
"Oh, really?"
"Yes, the star of the show is .... a BARKING Pig."
"But there is no barking pig in "Cinderella."
"Well, there is now."

-------------

The second piece is a piece of music from Billy Crockett. Billy is a Christian musician that is very popular with young people but has that amazing ability to provoke adults to think deeply while entertaining all ages. The piece I am thinking of is from his live album, In These Days. (Fabulous!) I have tried to insert a mp3 clip but haven’t figured out how. So, in lieu of that, here are the lyrics from Crock-A-Saurus. If I figure out how to get the clip uploaded I will.

--------------

Crock-A-Saurus

The handed out the crayons to each of us first graders,

Then the teacher passed between us and gave each a piece of paper.

“Put aside your problems,” she said,

“Feet flat on the floor.

We’re gonna have some fun now and draw a dinosaur.”

So I quickly grabbed a crayon and drew his big green eyes,

The purple on his earlobes,

His polka-dotted thighs,

The pink and orange spikes that ran all down his tail and

As I colored in his toes the teacher turned quite pale.

“The colors are all wrong,” she said,

“That isn’t how look.”

Then she held up some grey monster that she’d found in a book.

“If you wouldn’t draw so fast,” she said,

“You might learn a lot from science.”

She really didn’t want my art,

Her interest was compliance.

Well I finished up his toenails

And I drew in his moustache.

I decked him out in pinstripes

And yes I flunked the class.

But that teacher is extinct now

And the scientists are dead.

I still have my Crock-a-saurus

He’s dancing in my head.

Friday, January 16, 2009

RSV Hits the Kinkade Home (With an ER Perspective)


RSV (respiratory syncitial virus) has hit the Kinkade home! We just got back from Dallas/OKC and now have three feverish, coughing, snorting, snotty, dripping, oozing kiddos. As if the dozens of kiddos I see in the ER weren't enough, I now get to come home to the same thing! The best part is...they all seem to wake up at different times in the middle of the night coughing and hacking. Poor Becca is worn out (I was working overnight when the mini-epidemic hit!).

So, what is RSV? It is a ubiquitous (is everywhere) virus in the winter. It affects kiddos from birth to several years old. It causes bronchiolitis, an infection of the bronchioles (unlike bronchitis (the bigger airways) or pneumonia (the actual lung tissue) it affects something in-between...the brochioles are the smallest airways before the actual lung tissue). Not all bronchiolitis is caused by RSV...adults can get bronchiolitis from other sources as well...but in kiddos RSV is the most common cause.

RSV causes a fever, bad rhinorrhea (runny nose), a mildly productive cough, wheezing, and in extreme cases difficulty breathing. Most kiddos do well...they get sick (and definitly act like it!) but most do very well. In the youngest kiddos (birth to several months) or in kids with other problems (severe asthma, cystic fibrosis, etc..) it can be tough on them and they may need to be admitted to the hospital. For parents, one of the toughest things to handle is that it comes on gently (rhinorrhea and fever) and then gets much worse (wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath) before getting better.

Because it is a virus, antibiotics are of no use...the only thing you can do is "supportive" therapy. By this I mean sucking infants' nose out with a blue bulb and saline, using humidifiers, using cough medicines and decongestants and giving anti-pyretics (fever medicines like Ibuprofen and Tylenol)(some providers tell parents to avoid antihistamines because it dries you out too much but this is a personal preference). Nebulizers and steroids have been given in the past but most all the most recent studies tell us that this does not alter the course of the disease at all (unless a kid also has asthma). In those few severe cases that need hospitalizations the only thing we can do is give supplemental oxygen and in extreme cases put a small tube down the throat and attach it to a ventilator (this is VERY, VERY rare and usually only in those otherwise "sick" kiddos). If the kiddo is having trouble breathing it is worth a trip to the pediatrician (and in extreme cases the ER) to have their oxygen saturation checked (that little red light on their fingers). What is trouble breathing? If your kid is "retracting" (showing their ribs when they breathe), using accessory muscles to help them breathe (those muscles up by the neck/collarbone), have "nasal flaring" (the nose is opening up a lot trying to allow more air in), are "grunting" (self-explanatory), or if they are breathing too fast (more than about 55 times as a newborn, more than 50 times as a 6-12 month old or more than about 40 times as a toddler).

There is a vaccine for kids but is very expensive and we really only use it for kids at high risk (premature babies, kids with CF or other underlying lung disease). It has a really cool name: Palivizumab.

I plan on blogging about more ER/medical topics that are relevant to parents and the general population. Let me know if you have any thoughts/questions.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Penultimate Thoughts on The Loss of Written Correspondence

Was flying back from Dallas a couple of days ago and found a kindred soul in Kimberly Garza, a feature writer for Spirit, the Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine. Enjoy:


Why Save Your Email
To archive your life, avoid Delete.

By Kimberly Garza

My nose was pressed to the display glass, but I had to squint to read the slanted scrawl. Clearly, Evelyn Waugh's talents hadn't included penmanship. One snippet read:

I don't think I have ever had the chance to say either in public or private how much I admire your novels…?. Let me now salute your novels as works of high genius…?.

Waugh wrote the letter in 1947 to another English novelist, Graham Greene, and it now sat at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, with numerous other possessions from Greene's estate. Reading it, I was dazzled by the thought that the writers I studied, writers long dead and even longer admired, had once scribbled sloppily on paper. The English major in me thought, Greene saved that letter until he died, and because he did I can read it today. The pack rat in me thought, I guess I should drag that e-mail I sent to Elissa yesterday out of my Hotmail trash. It'll come in handy when I get my own exhibit.

Thanks to a constant stream of new and improved technology, Americans over the past few decades have traded their ballpoint pens and stationery for emoticons and BlackBerrys. I can count the number of handwritten letters I've received this year on one hand (let's be honest—one finger). Meanwhile, my inbox is packed to its gigabyte limits with birthday wishes and notes from far-away friends. I'm a stuff-saver by nature, so the idea of deleting any of these e-mails—from the lowliest Google Alert to Dad's latest funny forward—seems absurd. Someone's sent me a message on Facebook? Save. The travel itinerary for my trip to Vegas last January? Still sitting in my main folder. The notice earlier this year from our company's IT department warning me that I'm one of the 20 staffers with the most crowded inboxes? In my crowded inbox, naturally.

It was that last electronic letter—with my name in all caps printed among 19 other guilty offenders—that got me thinking about saving e-mails. Anyone with an inbox knows that the tech types advise us to clear out the junk and archive the important stuff. But who judges what's junk and what's important? John Adams penned a flirty letter to his future wife, Abigail, during the first stages of their courtship in 1762, calling her "Miss Adorable." The letter now sits in the Massachusetts Historical Society, along with some 1,100 other pieces of correspondence between the two. An uncorrected manuscript of the first Harry Potter book sold for nearly $34,000 at a June 2008 charity auction in London to none other than the new James Bond, Daniel Craig. When Adams was nothing more than a Massachusetts lawyer and Harry Potter just a thought in J.K. Rowling's head, neat-freak types might have considered those documents junk, too.

But e-mails have become our letters, and with that change in medium comes a whole new set of etiquette to learn, like "all caps equals rude shouting," and "for heaven's sake, please don't include 'LOL' in a professional note." Uncle Sam seems to share my opinion. In December 2006,
the U.S. federal courts changed their rules of procedure, making it clear to companies that e-mails fall under the same category as paper documents when it comes to record-keeping and potential evidence. IT consultant David W. Tschanz described the government's view on e-mails in a June 2008 article in Redmond magazine: "No matter how you choose to do it, e-mail archiving and maintaining compliance with legal, regulatory, and business mandates is as important an aspect of your messaging infrastructure as the servers you use and how they're configured."

The court's verdict affected the corporate world, too. Now most businesses accept e-mailed receipts and itineraries as proof when reimbursing expenses, as do accountants during tax season. Your flight confirmation e-mail may take up a milligram of space now, but it could mean the difference between $500 out of your wallet or in it. I learned that the hard way when I deleted my bank statement before our accounting manager asked me for proof that I had actually bought those stamps for the office. Luckily, I hadn't followed our IT guru's advice and emptied my trash—as he had begged me to do with an e-mail just that morning.

My IT guy apparently doesn't agree that e-mails are just as valuable as their paper counterparts. And he's not alone. "Deleting fast and well is actually one of the most difficult skills to master, since it requires you to be straight with yourself starting from the moment a new message arrives," writes Merlin Mann on the site 43folders.com. "Just remember that every e-mail you read, re-read, and re-re-re-re-re-read as it sits in that big, dumb pile is actually incurring mental debt on your behalf." But Andrew Flusche, a Virginia lawyer and blogger, says, "I never delete an e-mail that has value. Anything related to my clients or other business pursuits is saved indefinitely."

:-)

"But," he continues, "I don't advocate anyone saving pointless little e-mails," like "SuperPoke!" "Digg!" "A payment posted to your account."

:-(

That day in Austin's Ransom Center, browsing the rooms between lunch and Spanish 341K, I saw things that many might have considered "pointless" at one time: handwritten notes from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein taken during conversations with Deep Throat; Jack Kerouac's journal that he kept before he wrote On the Road; script drafts from Gone With the Wind.
Today's writer knows, as Kerouac and Greene did, that a successful piece arises from the ashes of countless earlier drafts. Poet Ezra Pound riddled drafts of T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land with notes in the margins. But unlike in Eliot's day, most of this rewriting now happens in Microsoft Word. Without the e-mails between editor and writer, the entire shifting, complicated process would vanish into the ether—bad news for the Ransom Center should Spirit's own Mike Darling become the next Mark Twain.

And the same is true for non-writers. With e-mails taking the place of Post-its and love letters, those Times New Roman notes now serve as time capsules—yes, even the most trivial "Hope you're having fun in Australia, don't forget to bring me a boomerang" preserves a memory you can relive with every read. Say goodbye to the days of dusty file cabinets and pressed papers: Now preservation merely takes a point, a click, and a nanogram of a computer chip capable of storing thousands of digital letters. Billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made his own e-mail address public in 2000 and confessed on his blog that he has kept electronic correspondence dating back to the 1980s. "I had always wanted to keep each and every e-mail I ever got, figuring that it would be a history of my life that my kids and their kids could look back at just as I loved to look at old postcards, letters, and pictures of my parents and grandparents," he wrote in March 2008. "Each day I say goodbye to my little e-mail friends [by deleting], I feel like I'm cheating the future."

That sounds about right to me. Sure, it's probably safe to say the five-hour IM chat I had last week with a buddy in Guadalajara doesn't need to be transcribed for posterity. And maybe Perez Hilton won't be sharing his latest David Beckham blog posting with future grandkids—at least, not the way my grandmother shares with me her wedding photos, yellowed from age and the loving strokes of her fingers. But the cheery e-mail from my cousin Rob, thanking me for the care package and joking that Iraq's only slightly hotter than South Texas, isn't going anywhere. And neither is the electronic announcement from an old friend, telling me the baby is happy and healthy and looks just like her daddy. I'm keeping my own responses to those e-mails, too, no matter how many Top 20 Offenders lists I make. You never know when the Ransom Center will call.

Kimberly Garza is an assistant editor of Spirit.

----"Miss Adorable"? Who knew our second president was a flirt? You can read through the preserved letters of John and Abigail Adams here.

So Kimberly Garza convinced you of the wisdom of saving emails. Now what? These two sites offer tips on preserving e-mails in bulk. If you need more space to store your archived correspondence, check out this PC Magazine page on storage drives, or look into saving your data online.

Even more evidence that saving your correspondence could one day pay off big: Four letters James Bond author Ian Fleming sent to his "Miss Moneypenny" —Jean Frampton, his secretary—sold in April for more than $25,000.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

More Than Just A Catch; A Dissenting View On The Loss of the Truly Written Word

I was at one of my favorite places, Barnes and Nobles, tonight and saw the book, More Than Just A Catch. It is written (with assistance) by David Tyree, the special teams specialist/wide receiver on the 2008 New York Football Giants playoff team. He was the player who made the remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime, up-against-the-helmet, can-you-believe-what-you-just-saw catch that continued the game-winning drive for the Giants. [View it here if you desire] If you remember, they upset the undefeated 18-0 Patriots to win Super Bowl XLII. The book is about 250 pages (complete with 12 pages of photo reproductions) all centered around this one moment in time. Ostensibly, the book, according to its subtitle and dust jacket, is also about Courage, Faith, Hope, Second Chances, and Achieving the Impossible.

I have not read the book though I did read reviews and blurbs about the book and apparently it has to do with David Tyree's journey of faith which culminated in the divinely-assisted catch. I am sure it is well written and is wonderfully encouraging but I have to admit I have my doubts since it has already hit the paperback market less than 12 months after the world-shaking event happened.

Actually, with only a very cursory search on Amazon, I have found 8 more books centered on the Super Bowl Champion Giants of 2007-2008. One from coach Tom Coughlin, one from Eli Manning, and several from various sports journalists. The one I am most excited about reading is Giant: The Road To The Super Bowl by Plaxico Burress. Yes, he of the self-inflicted gunshot wound. This leads perfectly to my point: maybe I should not be so quick to lament the loss of the "written"/"published" word. Maybe some things are never worth sacrificing trees and ink to print.

Just a thought...now I gotta get back to my Plaxico book.

(Aside: The blog is not about the fact that an entire book (or at least >1/3 of the book) is about a single 7 second football play (who said you needed a full 15 minutes of fame). Nor is it about the fact that David Tyree gets credit for a play that really was made by Eli Manning. Nor is it about the fact that Burress shot himself in the leg while withdrawing his handgun from the pocket of his sweatpants (!!), later stating that he was carrying the gun to protect his "bling" while clubbing. Really? Clubbing with bling, sweatpants and a loaded gun in your pocket? No, this is a post merely centered around the issue of the merit of putting thought to page and then archiving those pages.)