The Winter of My Discontent

When I first moved to New Hampshire I was told to get my affairs in order, I would likely die this winter by snow storm. Inevitably at some point during the six months of continuous freezing maelstrom that is a Northern New England winter I would perish in a snow bank, in front of a snow plow, underneath a snow mobile, or inside a giant snow ball. The towns would all freeze over and the wilds would be no refuge. Especially seeing as how they would both be packed with blood thirsty snow men living in snow forts bent on righteous snow vengeance, the worst kind of vengeance.

Instead there was never more than a few inches of snow. Temperatures never got below zero. Only actually got to zero once the whole time. And my snot never froze to my face -- a true indicator of a good winter I am told. January was actually most notable for the amount of drizzle there was. It was an angry drizzle, no doubt, but just drizzle. I never got my chance to break a leg snow skiing, fall through the ice ice fishing, fall through the ice ice skating, fall through the ice snow shoeing, or even to build an army of eight foot tall snowman storm troopers a la Calvin and Hobbes. I was robbed. I was promised an icy death and all I got was a relatively temperate, boring waiting period between fall and spring.

Speaking of spring. It is now springing and I am told to anticipate the start of Mud Season where, from what I can gather, everything gets covered in mud. I'm not buying it, though. I come from a state where it rains mud! Unless I'm swept away in a river of brown goop sometime this April I will be unimpressed.

Not all was lost this winter. We did have enough time to build a tiny late season snowman -- err snowthing.

Part snowman. Part mothman. Trapped in two worlds, he is accepted in none. He will lead a life of tragic irony chasing the light that will one day be his demise. Coming to Lifetime this spring.

Little Laura Goes to War

A short while ago my good friend and former roommate Laura got a letter instructing her to get her gear, she's going to war. Deployment time. Brass knuckles time. Whether it would be Afghanistan or Iraq was still to be determined, but a few things were clear: she would be the first of us to deploy and she'd need to find a way to strap more grenades to her chest. As it would turn out her deployment was not per the usual, however. When her deployment letter finally came instead of being tasked to a forward operating base or major theatre hospital in country hers read: you're going on vacation! Her six months of service to the nation would be an all-expense paid trip to Germany where she'd visit the Swiss Alps, lounge in Bavarian beer gardens, and take in culture and class at many a Baroque Austrian palace or concert hall. Sure she'd be caring for patients and war wounded at the medical center in Landstuhl, but as judged by the constant stream of Facebook photos since, she's mostly there to party.
 
Despite the fact that she had likely ruined deployments for all the rest of us for all the future I decided to pay Laura a pre-deployment this-may-be-the-last-time-I-see-you-alive visit. It was also secretly a visit to the Historic Triangle of Revolutionary America and an excuse to get a tricorne hat. The trip was successful on all accounts.

The trip was not without hardship; however, especially if you like to use the word "hardship" as a stand in for "never ending rain." The rain didn't start till after we set out on our twenty something mile bike ride, but once it started it never stopped coming. Quickly we were soaked, but still we rode on.

Whenever I insisted we stop and admire a local landmark Laura often insisted she wait under a tree. We then had a very wet lunch, and proceeded to have a very wet ride back after leaving behind very wet chairs and table clothes behind us.

We didn't stay in Yorktown or Old Williamsburg all too long, but there's always time for victory poses. Just like back in 1776.

Once all that was said and done we settled down to what really mattered. College football and puzzles.

Laura made this while slowly losing her mind -- smashing together decorated styrofoam is apparently more difficult than it looks. Coincidentally I was also losing my mind for an entirely different reason -- thank you Fighting Texas Aggies. We also saw a movie, had some food and drink, and then Laura went off to war. Went off to war a few weeks later after visiting other family and friends to be entirely accurate, but I'm pretty sure what prepared her most was my inspiring visit. My hat spurred her into a patriotic furor.

Montreal en Lumiere

This last weekend I went to Montreal with Kristen for the annual winter festival. For those not in the know, which is I am guessing everyone south of the Canadian border, Montréal en Lumière is a yearly food and arts fair for those more cultured than myself. This year's theme was Belgium and so they had a variety of expensive Belgian food we largely did not partake in. But we did have Belgian waffles. Sweet, delicious, chocolate filled Belgian waffles. No doubt just like the Belgians make.

Montreal's about a three and a half hour drive from Lebanon, and it's a fairly beautiful one at that. The Northeast Kingdom, a green hilly feudal area I believe run by hobbits, is very picturesque and Southern Quebec though largely flat farmland is punctuated by mountains that emerge periodically from the country side, climb rapidly into the air, and then descend back into the flat plains just as quickly again. You'll have to take my word for this, though, we didn't take any pictures.

But we did take a picture at the border! It was a small crossing and so small in fact that the Canadians did not care to put much in the way of a welcoming banner around it. Just a sign at a largely abandoned rest stop.

Montreal is a beautiful city and Old Montreal is especially so. Although there's a fairly efficient metro system it's perhaps better to walk if the distance is not too far just to see the city. We got in Saturday afternoon and immediately headed for the festival. After redirecting ourselves in the proper direction about twenty minutes later we headed for the festival again. The fair grounds were a collection of random colored lights, plastic domes to keep warm when it got too cold (and which had their own random collections of random colored lights inside but otherwise served no real purpose), a Ferris wheel, bonfires, and a giant ice slide that unfortunately had a two hour wait. It was my only regret.

Things got a little crazy at times like when they played a trippy, psychedelic video short on the wall of one of the nearby buildings, and a little rowdy at times when the Canadians spontaneously broke out into dance during the free concert by a French Canadian band later in the evening. Belgian waffles aside, we also had some poutine which is Quebec's contribution to the culinary world. Seriously, though, I cannot get the video short out of my head. Or my nightmares.

Much of the rest of the city was beautifully lit up as well, and we took pictures of some of it, but you're going to have to use your imagination for the most part. I was told by Kristen that much of it looked like Boston so, you know, if you've been to Boston before it's kind of like that but with more Frenchmen. The next day we tried to go to the biodome, but there was over a one hour wait in way too sweaty a line so we hiked over to the Montreal history museum instead. That's when our camera died, and when we'll say the trip ended. After a very long wait at the border to get back into the US. I'm pretty sure I've smuggled Mexicans across the border in less time than it took to get back into New Hampshire. It's good to know that part of the border is safe, though. From the terrorists and their flannel.

Pictures!

Volunteer to Make Money

Charity is supposed to be simple. You, in plenty, give; someone, in need, receives. You're hopefully a slightly better person as a result, God gives you a tip of the hat, and the individual receiving can lead a slightly better life afterward. The more you give the better, but every little bit helps. If you don't have money you can give time. Nobody wants your old frumpy clothes. See? Easy peasy.

One part of giving that seems to commonly confound is absolute giving versus relative giving. Should Mitt Romney be praised for giving millions of dollars to charity ($7 million over two years) or should we shrug that he simply gave just above the minimum required of him by his church and only a small portion of his enormous yearly income (16%)? And what should be done of Newt Gingrich who managed despite his professing of Christian values to give only a little over 2% of his similarly impressive intake ($3.1 million)? I'm sure in Mitt's case the rest of the money went to creating jobs and in Newt's well, shucks, he would have given more had he not been loving his country so hard. 

The uninspiring compassion of our politicians aside, I have recently come upon another problem of sorts. As I step further and further down the path to full blown, fully independent doctorhood I am finding it easier and easier to fill my pockets with cash. Cash being cash it is thankfully liquid. It's readily transferable to whichever charitable organization I fancy at the moment and cash in general has undoubtedly built many houses for veteran, one-legged snow owls down on their luck recovering from addiction. The ease with which money comes into my possession, however, has this year reached a critical level. I have arguably passed the point where it no longer makes sense to volunteer.

Now being board certified and fully licensed I have the opportunity to moonlight. I can sign up to work a weekend or night shift as a general internist for an hourly wage. And the currently reported going rate at our hospital: $100 an hour. A twelve hour shift can net you over a thousand dollars. If I were to then donate that to the local food bank for the poor and penniless they could buy chili mac for everyone. Even have enough left over probably to upgrade to frito pies. Heck, if I worked a few shifts they could even buy puppies and milkshakes for everyone. Milkshakes for the puppies too, why not. More pertinent to the point, were I instead to volunteer at the food bank making the same chili mac myself for those same twelve hours I'd arguably have only made twelve hours worth of someone else's donated chili mac. From a slightly different but purely economical -- and perhaps relatively dispassionate -- standpoint for every hour I moonlight I could hire ten individuals $10/hr to make ten times as much chili mac in the exact same time. My choice not to volunteer's friggin' creating jobs now! How then does it make sense sense to ever volunteer for anything else? To tutor a child is simply an inefficient waste of time.

Unfortunately where as I used to obtain a quiet satisfaction from sorting canned goods from boxed cereals I hate the very idea of moonlighting. I do not believe I'd obtain any joy from spending my evening sitting in the ED admitting people for chest pain rule outs. And there in of course lies the problem, charity is not supposed to be about the giver. It's arguably not even supposed to be about the gift itself either, yet the thought of volunteering to dig a ditch rather than volunteering to pay a team of ditch diggers just because it makes me happier seems selfish even if they are both acts of charity. Moonlighting is arguably one of the most generous things I could do right now and yet I still have no desire to do it. Paper Bird would be so disappointed.



Speaking of Paper Bird, here, finally, is a picture. He denotes all his money to charity. What a guy.

The Resurrection of Paper Bird

And then a shaft of light spread the sky. Paper Bird descended on a cloud. The whole heavens were resplendent with singing, the lambs danced in the fields, and the sick of DHMC stood up and were healed.

So was the second coming of Paper Bird. This last week I returned to my daily stair well to find him hanging out atop one of the stair cases resting on a hand rail. No mural can hold him back now. He sits where he wants to sit. He's Paper Bird.

I'm not sure where he disappeared to for a few weeks -- maybe flew south to Conneticut? -- but I am happy he's back. Paper Bird, don't you ever leave me again. Hurray for Paper Bird!



In other news. Back in November it was 11/11/11 at 11:11. We had a party at work. I took a photo that I wanted to share:

Not to be discouraged I quickly shot off another one:

What's perhaps more sad is my staff -- who also wanted to snap a screen shot full of 11's -- wasn't even paying attention when it passed, and my resident on service took a picture at the right time, but had the date displayed as November 11, 2011. What an amateur.

Needless to say it was the failure of the century.

Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time

This Christmas there were no children. In that respect it was sad.

This Christmas, however, there were zombies. And in that respect it was awesome.

All I want to talk about are the zombies.

The board game, Last Night on Earth, is a relatively complex game based around the relatively simple concept of brain eating zombies wanting to eat your brains. You can either be the brain possessing heroes or the brain craving zombies. The heroes have the advantage of various guns, clubs, and special traits while the zombies have the advantage of being numberless and relentless.

Round 1. Team Hero: Adam/Ellen. Team Zombie: Scooter/Ashlee.
The first game was a disaster for the zombies of their own design. The goal for the heroes was simply: kill a lot of zombies. The goal for the zombies was simply: eat some brains and don't get killed too much. And the zombies did quite well at first eating their first brain only two or three turns in. Worried that the heroes were holing up at the police station setting up a rowdy defense the zombies then decided upon the unorthodox plan of a strategic retreat thinking that time would run down before the heroes could kill enough of them to win then game. It turns out zombies don't usually run away because zombies aren't very good at it. The game ended when after the heroes loaded up on a variety of weapons the zombies didn't know existed they then proceeded to hunt down and execute a sufficient number of the poor, defenseless fleeing undead to declare victory. It was mass zombicide; war crimes were committed. 


Round 2. Team Hero: Scooter and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Adam.
Second game involved finding gasoline and a fire source to burn out all the zombie spawning points. The heroes for whatever reason spent most their time collecting awesome weapons, however, and eventually the time ran out. It turns out gasoline is a little hard to find in a run down, zombie infested wasteland, and it doesn't help when the zombies proactively guard the gas station. Make up your minds zombies: do you want brains or petrol?


Round 3. Team Hero: Adam and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Scooter.
The objective of the third round was to escape in the truck after finding the keys and some gas. Despite finding both practically strapped with a bow wrapped tightly around their faces the heroes still had a difficult time getting all the gear to the truck. The zombies succeeded in eating a number of the heroes, but this coincidentally led to their undoing because it turns out for every human you eat another one rises up in its place. Or more exactly in the middle of the game board right where the blasted truck is. Despite their being a dozen zombies on the truck with them -- and the corpses of a few of their friends -- the heroes managed to make it out of town at the very last moment.



Round 4. Team Hero: Scooter and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Adam.
Last game all the heroes needed to do was find four towns folk and then hustle their butts out of town. They performed swimmingly. They all quickly bound together at the gun shop, loaded up on weapons and obscene amounts of dynamite that no one had previously known were available, and then proceeded to blow the every loving bejeesus out of the zombies. Along the way they quickly collected their needed townsfolk and simply waited for dawn when they'd all stroll casually out of town leaving the city nothing but a smoldering crater of zombie parts. Unfortunately it turns out the zombies had the trump card of trump cards and the very last turn played it resulting in one of the four townsfolk running off to join the circus or some garbage like that thus leading to zombie victory. Stupid, dirty, cheating zombies.



Just so my Christmas story isn't entirely about the evil reanimation of the dead, let me say that we also went to a terrible Christmas carol opera in San Francisco and then ate a month's worth of chocolate at Ghirardellis. It's what baby Jesus would have wanted.  


It's toe lickin' time!

My World for Two Box TVs

Those six words have likely never been said before. Certainly not in New Hampshire.

For the better part of two months I have been trying in vein to rid myself of two box televisions. They are fully functional and without much in the way of scuffs or dings so I thought surely someone would want them. Surely?

Surely not. Even though buying such a television would have cost a good chunk of change just a year or so ago at any Walmart or Target, with flat screens being the only thing any self-respecting American will have in their home these days I may as well have been trying to give away anthrax or a swift kick to the nuts. 

None of my friends wanted them for free. No one on Craigslist wanted them for $10 or $20. None of the local thrift stores were interested. Even the local school district wanted nothing to do with them. They instead offered some box TVs of their own they wanted to get rid of! Argh, I'd rather have anthrax.

So I did what anyone would do in my situation. I took them out into the parking lot, doused them in lighter fluid, and set them on fire. I know of no other way to properly dispose of a television.

Actually I took them to Best Buy to get them recycled, but considering no one charged me the requisite $10 a television to recycle them I'm pretty sure they just took them back to the loading dock, doused them in lighter fluid, and set them on fire.

Happy New Year!