With no time left

I have too much to write, and too little time to do it. Right now I am trying to piece together a Philosophy of Education, a review letter for a medical journal, a letter to my local representative about furthering the Non-Smokers Protection Act, and a blog post summing up my thoughts on why Davidson County should go smoke free, even in bars.
But now I have to get ready for Speed Sessions in the freezing cold. When is it finally going to get warm around here? Why did that “large squirrel” Punxsutawney Phil have to see his shadow and thus proclaim 6 more weeks of winter?
So maybe tomorrow I will get a real post out.

Random Thoughts and Opinions

So here we are, the Monday post Super Bowl, and internet is a buzz with analysis over every aspect of last night. The questions swarm about Peyton Manning’s “Legacy,” people are debating which commercial was the funniest, and rock critics are even weighing in on The Who’s half-time performance.

Here are my own thoughts on the above topics:

1.) Peyton Manning, as much as I hate to admit this, is a really good quarterback. In fact, my money is on him going down as one of the “greatest” of all time, despite his loss last night. That being said, I am glad the Saints were victorious.

2.) The funniest commercial of the night was only 15 seconds long. David Letterman proclaiming that he was at the “worst Super Bowl party ever!” The pan out of both Oprah, then Jay Leno was classic, and I am glad that they could find a fun way to spin all the drama that has been going on in the Late night world lately.

3.) As far as The Who goes, they will never come close the magnificence of their performance during The Concert for New York City, which took place right after September 11^th. If you have an extra 10 minutes, and you feel like getting your face melted, then check this out! Last night’s performance was pretty good as well. The stage was sweet, Zak Starkey (aka Ringo’s son) was money on the drums, and even Pete Townshend’s awkward midriff showing did not take away from his skills on the guitar.

Overall, I would say the whole Super Bowl was a pretty big success. And as usual the experience is only heightened by those around you.

One more shout out/random thought for the beginning of the week. For those of you out there that enjoy a little Americana music now and then, and are looking for some new music, look no further than the great music of Hoots and Hellmouth. This Philadelphia based group has a good mixture of harmony, folk instruments, and good ole’ down home lyrics that are sure to make your ears perk up and listen.

But as LeVar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “Don’t take my word for it.”

Ba da da.

Six-Word Biography

As I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR yesterday (yes that is what I do at work), I heard an interesting piece about Smith Magazine and their efforts to publish peoples’ six-word biographies. The history behind this legend is that Ernest Hemingway was once asked in a bar to write a story in six words. He thought for a moment and said, “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Now this magazine has gone around to both famous people and non-famous people to ask them to do the same, only to make their six-words autobiographical. Here is a random sampling of some of the examples they gave:

Alzheimer’s: meeting new people every day. By Phil Skversky

I picked passion. Now I’m poor. By Kathleen E. Whitlock

So would you believe me anyway? By James Frey

Anyway, the whole concept got me thinking. To be honest, I usually find myself writing these long diatribes about life, thoughts, history, and a thousand other topics, and I rarely ever think about how to just say things in a concise way. My graduate professors used to harp on this fact on almost every single paper that I turned in to them. What if I had just turned in my analysis on certain historical figures in little six-word sentences, like this:

Crazy, Indian killing, cheese loving, President. By Andrew Jackson

God, are you there, it’s Joan? By Joan of Arc

Okay, maybe not. But the whole idea still got me thinking about what my own six-word biography might be. So far, I have come up with four of them, which are listed below. It is actually a fun exercise to try and shape everything about yourself down to so few words. I recommend, if you read this blog, to join in the fun and leave your own six-word biography in the comments section below.

Learn it, teach it, live it.

Wore a Speedo, no longer shy.

Living in the South, not red.

Drew Jones Part Two: Electric Boogaloo.

Great Idea

The all too common phrase “never let a good idea go to waste,” has been ringing in my head lately. My mind is constantly moving around, thinking of story ideas, picturing stories that need to be told in the movies, and pondering philosophical thoughts about life. It is a wonder sometimes how I get my work done with all these other things running around in my mind.

Go ahead, ask around, and my friends in Knoxville will tell you that I came up with the idea of creating a television show staring the classic duo of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman*, well before A&E created the show “The Two Coreys.” Although I must say that my idea for their show was much better, I wanted them to re-enact all their classic films from the 80’s, only this time as themselves. For example, the real Corey Haim has to get his driver’s license and then take out Heather Graham on a date in his grandpa’s car. And “action!”

Now, just yesterday, I heard that Stephen Speilberg of all people, is going to produce (and maybe direct) a bio-picture of George Gershwin. I have had this idea ever since I bought my very first vinyl record in high school, which just happened to be a version of Gershwin’s epic “Rhapsody in Blue.” On the back sleeve of the LP, it describes the amazing story behind Gershwin creating that 30 minute classical piece for the Experiment in Modern Music forum held in New York in 1924. Not to give the movie away, but his life is one of those classic stories of someone who comes from nowhere, and creates something that no one has ever really thought of before. It really is a great story.

So that is it, I am going to start working on all those other “great” ideas of mine, before anyone else gets a chance to steal them from me again. Next up, a choose-you-own-adventure book for grown-ups.

*Granted, maybe I should not list my idea about a Corey Haim and Corey Feldman show as “great.”

The State of the State…and coffee

I originally was going to write an entire blog post on TN Governor Phil Bredesen’s final State of the State Address last night, but mid-way through my 3^rd paragraph on budget reform and the importance of a stronger education system in our state (and nation for that matter,) I realized that it would probably have gone down as my most boring and long winded blog post of all time. If you really want to know what it was all about, I suggest you read his report for yourself here.

Instead I want to talk about coffee. This morning, Reuters consumer reporting put out a news article that out of all the coffee they sampled in the U.S., the highest rating one cup received was “good.” According to the report, “Excellent” coffee no longer exists! First off, how can I get this job, test random stuff and then write a report on it, talk about easy. Secondly, I beg to differ. I think the people of Reuters need to allow me to make them a cup of java, with the perfect amount of half and half and sugar, and let them sit back and enjoy deliciousness at its best.

To me the best cups of coffee in town are either the “Hazelnut Cream” flavored coffee at Bruegger’s Bagels or, my new favorite, the flavored coffee from Bread and Company, Barefoot n Blend, which contains a hint of chocolate in it. Now mind you, when I make a cup of coffee for myself it resembles more the coloring of a piece of paper than the color of an actual coffee bean, so maybe my expertise might be in question. But besides that, over the years what once started as maybe one or two cups a week, has now turned into an everyday event, with maybe as many as  3 cups a day. Sure, sometimes it causes me to be a little shaky, but it’s not like I am going to be performing surgery anytime soon, so bring the caffeine shakes on!

Interestingly enough, something that the article points out, but does not elaborate on is the fact that a cup of coffee only costs, at most, 26 cents. And yet, the coffee houses of this country charge anywhere from $1.30 to $4.00 dollars per cup. When I hear that, it makes me want to open my own coffee shop, so I can rake in on that cash.

But alas, I will probably just stay here, working behind a desk. Maybe one day, I can get a job where whenever I want a cup of coffee, I can just send out someone to get it. Oh wait, isn’t Bredesen retiring…maybe I should run for Governor.

What I Have Learned…

To sum everything up into one sentence, what I learned this weekend was the importance of my neighborhood community, the significance of helping others, and the sheer fun of flying down the sheet of ice that used to be my street head first on a old school radio flyer sled.

But really, is it always more than that?

Although this ice weekend has kept me inside my house way more than I would have planned, I find it fascinating how much it has taught me to appreciate the small things in life once again. I see my neighbors almost everyday. Sometimes we wave, other times we ask how everything is going, but it is all pretty non-evasive. This weekend I spent time with both the neighbors to the right and left of our house, plus new ones that I never met before. We talked about life, kids, weather (of course) and a 100 other topics, and in the end I walked away knowing more about the people who surround me where I live.

Drew and I also did our “Good Samaritan” duty for the month, if not for the year. There is no telling how many cars we helped push out the way, helped up a hill, and instructed on the proper ways to drive in the snow. This morning we headed out to breakup huge sections of ice and even salted the road on the hill next to our house so that people could have an easier time traversing the street. We met some people that we helped, including the now somewhat legendary Chaz, a teenager who spent most of his Saturday night driving around in his gigantic Jeep Wrangler, pulling up iced roads. Others just gave a nice wave and little honk of grateful acknowledgement. In the end, although I sometimes dreaded suiting back up and heading out into the cold tundra, it always felt good being able to help out someone in need.

Finally in my “Rosebud”* moment of the entire weekend, on Saturday night I used my neighbors old Radio Flyer sled to navigate my way down Bradford Hills Drive. I, like any self-respecting former northern, went with both a running start and head first style that only the hardcore embrace. I also waited until nighttime, when everything had completely frozen-over, to reach both optimal speed and optimal pain level if I needed to bailout. So yes, there is a bruise on my leg, but it was so worth it. Also, best story of today. I watched a girl from my neighborhood take the same .3 mile downhill route this afternoon. Her sled slowed to a stop right by me, she got up, put her purse over her shoulder, and said, I have to get to work, I am late for my shift at Pie in the Sky. How cool, she got to sled to work!

*Rosebud- being a homage to the movie Citizen Kane and his love for his sled.

The Late Howard Zinn

READ THIS!

Although I complained about it while going through graduate school, I look back on that time now with a great fondness. I know now that I will never actively use my brain with such exertion again, that is unless I go for my Ph.D. Sure, the whole process led me to develop a stomach ulcer, I had to miss a couple of weddings of old friends because I had a paper due, and I ended up losing touch with some near and dear people in my life, but I actually think it was all worth it. One of the aspects that I enjoyed most about graduate school was getting a chance to read so many books about history, and gaining an opportunity to discuss and analyze so many interesting facets of the world and its past. Each author or historian brought up such interesting dynamics to the past, but none more so than Professor Howard Zinn.

Professor Zinn passed away yesterday, and you may have either read about it, or heard it on NPR as you drove to work this morning. Maybe even some of you were forced to read his famous book, The People’s History of the United States, and if you have not, I suggest you put it on your booklist for this year. More than anything this book sets out to tell another story behind the history of the United States. Christopher Columbus as genocidal maniac…check, pro communist ideas during the great depression…yep, but Zinn also teaches us that the true history of the U.S. should be followed through the eyes of workers, farmers, women, children, and all other commoners throughout time, not through only those in power.  

Professor Zinn was loved by his students, including Alice Walker who wrote The Color Purple. He constantly protested issues that he believed in, he triumphed the idea that war is a horrible thing (even though he was a veteran of WWII), and he championed people who did not have a voice in society. On the last day that he was a faculty professor, he stood with his students at an on campus nurse’s strike. Even after his career as a professor he continued to give speeches, write persuasive articles, and actively go out to picket lines to protest. In 2005, Zinn was asked to speak at historic Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, a school that had fired him some 40 years early for insubordination. Below is his closing wish for the graduates that year, and it something that I think shows Professor Zinn’s brilliance and dedication to his beliefs.

“My hope is that you will not be content just to be successful in the way our society measures success; that you will not obey the rules, when the rules are unjust; that you will act out the courage that I know is in you.”

Recently

 

Recently, in order to better understand the economics of today, I have been thumbing my way through the periodical Business Week, which has been mistakenly sent to my house over the last year. To be honest, I have never really understood how economics truly work beyond the simple ideas of supply and demand, inflation, deficit, and depression. One article in particular, dealing with lessons learned from a crisis, asked the simple question of what our society will learn from this past years’ hard economic experience. To me, that might be the most important question to ask at this time.

My new fascination with this world that we live in, and what the various “experts” are saying about it, is when did things start go wrong to get the U.S. in the state that it is in today. I have had great conversations about health care, the wars, politics, and everything in-between constantly over this past year. And not surprising, those conversations only created more questions for me and larger concerns to deal with. Right now I am even reading a book entitled, Why We Hate Us, by news producer Dick Meyer, which is furthering my understanding of our present situation. Or maybe it is just confusing me more, I am not sure yet.

Truth and the correct answers don’t feel “right” at a time like this. Whenever some author or news anchor goes off about his or her side being right, and the other’s being wrong, I always find it a bitter pill to swallow. In what I have read of the book so far, Meyer argues that so many of our hot button issues in America can certainly give heat, but they rarely create light. It is a good argument, but how does a country become “un-stuck?”

I wonder what our Revolutionary forefathers would think of us, and what has happened to the country they created. Would they be upset with us that we no longer “tar and feather” the corrupt people for their evil ways and greediness? Would they look down at us, and wonder how we have allowed our government to become so corrupted? Or, would the really smart ones, like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, say that they foresaw this kind of environment happening to the nation at some point?

All that being said, I just not sure that going back to “business as usual” is the right response to our current state of affairs. I would much rather our country (and mainly our leaders) learn from the past mistakes and put into place something to not allow those certain types of corruption and bad money policies to happen again. But then, admittedly, I do not know that much about economic policy.

Wind in My Knee

Runners are an interesting breed. We run in the snow, rain, heat, and whatever else Mother Nature has to throw at us. We run on crowded streets, next to cars, through intersections, and across active train tracks. And we all seem to push ourselves just a little bit farther and a little bit faster almost every time we head outdoors with our running shoes on. To me though, the true mark of runner versus someone who just jogs for exercise is when we get the determination to run through pain, with injuries, and have an unwillingness to listen to a doctor’s advice.

I am writing about this because of some pain that I have been having in my right Achilles heel over the past month. I developed this dull pain because I decided to move from a training routine where I put in about 7 miles a week to regimen of 21 miles a week. Not a smart move when runners are told to only up their distance per week by 10%. So lesson learned, do not up your mileage 200%!

This heel pain of mine got so bad that I went to see a doctor about it last Wednesday night, thus the reason I was not at East Nasty. The prognosis…that my arch is so high you could drive a semi-truck under it, and that my right foot is naturally pointing out when I run on it. So the recommendation is to take it easy for awhile, stretch as much as possible, and try my best to re-orient the direction of my foot when I run. This, of course, is way easier said than done.

Eastern medicine would have a different reaction to my heel pain than the prognosis that I was given by my doctor here. In most Eastern medicine, especially Chinese medicine, they focus on the whole body instead of just the acute injury. My heel hurts, that must mean my hips are not aligned. Or if my lower back is sore, it means that my kidneys are out of whack. I know of one believer in Chinese medicine who claims if your knee hurts while running, it means you have too much wind in your knee, and the solution is to just wear pants. I am not making that up! Now don’t get me wrong, I actually like the idea that all things are connected, but in my mind I think it is best to mix a little bit of both medical philosophies and listen to what our doctors are telling us so that we can get back on the road of recovery.

And yet, even though my doctors told me to take it easy and dial it back on how much I run, I ran both Saturday and Sunday, and I am thinking about running today as well. This brings me back to the beginning, our unwillingness to heed our own doctor’s advice. Perhaps writing this out will at least help me to learn this lesson a little quicker, but probably not.

Top 5 People I Met in 2009 (Part 5)

So the fifth person I picked for this list is not really a person at all, it is more a group of people. As many of you know I returned to Nashville in July, under less than desired circumstances. Not long after my return I contacted my friend Penny over at Kelly Services, who I worked for as a temp. over the past couple of years, and asked her if she knew of any job openings. She did, and within a week I was sitting on the 6^th floor of the 2525 West End Ave. beginning my work as a Research Analyst for Vanderbilt University’s Epidemiology Division, under the Department of Medicine.

Now, like many of you, I did not even know what the term “epidemiology” even meant before I started here, nor was I aware of the enormous size of the Vanderbilt Medical world. To the best of my knowledge “epidemiology” comes from the term “epidemic,” and it is the study of any infectious disease or prevalence of serious conditions that could affect a large portion of the population. Pretty interesting right? I think so.

So basically my job consists of reading all these papers and sets of data on what all these professors and doctors who work for this division think about various aspects to the world of health and medicine. Sunscreen? Might not be that great for you. Soymilk? Maybe not so good either, but they all seem to agree that vegetables and fruit are very important, as long as you eat just the right amounts and not too much citrus acid. I read these papers for grammatical errors and to try and make their scientific analysis more understandable to the laypeople out in the real world. What I take away from these papers is a better understanding of how the body functions, and how the world academic sciences also function. Like I said, interesting!

Each of the people that I now work with have all taught me something, whether it is the way to go after every grant possible, or the correct way to fill out Vanderbilt paperwork. The main reason that I have enjoyed my job here so far is that it has given me something to do, and money for my effort. It may seem simple, but getting up everyday and heading out to a job has made a big difference in my life.

So that being said, thanks to everyone I met in 2009. You have each added another positive aspect to my life, and for all of those that I already knew, you too have helped me grow, learn, and enjoy life. Except, of course, for Craig, that dude’s an asshole.

Okay so I don’t really know anyone named Craig.