For All You EMS Types...

...I have a new column up at EMS1.com.

I'm putting on my Nomex skivvies in anticipation of the indignant howls of protest by Mr. Fixit, Detail Medic and others...

One Major Milestone Down...

...only a couple more to go until the finish line.

Today, my lardassitude just took another kick in the crotch. Weight as of this morning, 299 pounds.

I broke the 300 pound barrier, folks! That's 63 pounds lost in 3 1/2 months.

I am made of win.

Life Imitates Art...

...which imitates life, which in turns rips off stories from some guy named Ambulance Driver.

I've just had my Major Caudill moment, although mine wasn't as traumatic as Marko having one of his better essays ripped off and passed around teh Intarwebz and attributed to someone else.

Actually, I found mine rather funny.

I was going through some conference evaluations that arrived in the mail today. Inside were the usual mix; 90% excellent evaluations, some beefs with the venue's sound system and climate control, a smattering of people who obviously wandered into the wrong session or didn't bother to read the description in the program, the usual five percent or so that think I have a potty mouth, and ten or so that reminded me that my closing keynote speech should never run fifteen minutes long, especially since it was the last session of the day and there was, you know, beer to be drunk.

Nestled among the evaluations was this gem:

What a load of BS. The guy just told a bunch of stories straight off an internet site like they had actually happened to him.

Heh.

Aside from the popular jellyfish story - which I identified as a possible internet hoax - all the personal anecdotes I shared were either straight from my book or this blog. They have appeared nowhere else.

That means, as far as I can tell, that the fellow I'm accused of plagiarizing so blatantly is...me.

For some reason, that just tickles the shit out of me.

Happy Mother's Day

You'll find last year's ode to my mother on my left sidebar: A Love Song For Joyce.

Aside from being a professional martyr, my mother also was a talented artist with a wickedly funny sense of humor.

On a Mother's Day over twenty years ago, she presented all each of her children with an identical painting - five in all. The painting depicted a peaceful cemetery on a lovely spring day, fresh flowers colorfully adorning each headstone...

...and smack in the middle, one ugly headstone fashioned to look like a beaten, weathered outhouse. The inscription on the door read:

Here lies Joyce Hazel Felts Wroten Grayson,
Who lived without an inch of backbone or an ounce of spine.
If you missed your chance to shit on her in life,
Please feel free to do so now.

Heh. That was my Mom.

And yes, I was on the crapper when I remembered what today was, and that memory came wafting back, so to speak.

Mom would be so proud.

5:1

That's the ratio of patients I've seen to the patients the nurse has seen, over the past two shifts.

You know, the nurse that gets paid 50% more than I do. The one who is actually supposed to be assessing and triaging these patients, rather than just affixing her signature to the charts as she flits through the department every few hours like a phantom.

I think I'm about to go jam a pack of cigarettes up somebody's ass.

Yes Folks, I'm Still Alive...

...but my muse is on life support.

What with being unwillingly single, overworked, stressed, impending job changes, and just plain being depressed, I haven't found much worth writing about. Everything that comes out just has no...flow.

And for someone whose best writing flows straight from brain to keyboard without much thought, that just sucks.

Bear with me, though. Go read my archives or something. I'll be back up and posting something worth reading in a day or so.