Mar
06

You Really Don’t Want to Know; Embedded Objects part ll

What’s that your country cousin’s grandma always said? “Sure, you laughing’ now, but you be crying’ in a minute!”

 

He Never saw it Coming

A 13 year old walks into a bar…  No really.  While running through the field with his friends at a seemingly deserted construction site the 13 year old was surprised by a 12 inch rebar sticking up out of the ground.  What surprised him about it was that one end of it was in the ground and the other had pierced his face via the eye his eye socket and was now imbedded in his head.  Don’t call the cavalry; call the fire department.  And don’t forget to tell them to bring their Saws All.  Fortunately the rebar missed anything vital.  It passed next to his eye and stopped just short of damaging his gray matter.  However, that said, imagine what could be found on a rusty, old, disgusting, dirty rebar that’s been sitting around for goodness knows how long.  Infection was, at that point in time, the biggest worry.  With a little surgery on the muscles damaged next to the eye everything turned out pretty well.

 

Shot through the Heart, and you’re to Blame

They gave love a bad name, all right.  She plunged a butcher knife into his chest because after she asked him “does this make me look fat”…  He answered her.  Here’s the bad news: it was so close to his heart that you could actually see the handle of the knife moving as his heart beat.  Here’s the good news: it was close to his heart—not through it.  The blade never even nicked it.  Yes the police were extremely interested.

The moral of the story being; if something bad can happen, it will impale you.

Mar
05

You Don’t Want to Know; Embedded Objects

Accidents happen every day. The really interesting accidents are the ones that when they walk in the door of the ER, everybody looks and says “how the hell did you do that?”

 

I Was Strolling Through the Park One Day

There’s nothing worse than walking along, minding your own business; when all of a sudden, out of nowhere an arrow finds its way into your skull. (That was his story.) I hate when that happens.  But happen it did.  The young man walked into the ER with an arrow (not one of Cupid’s, either) sticking out of his face; more accurately, his cheek.  He not only walked into the ER, he walked in unassisted.

 

Pass Me That Nail Gun Would You

There are actually two of these:

  • A guy came into my ER in a wheelchair, being pushed by his buddy (at least I think he was still his buddy) grasping his leg and cringing in pain.  Seems they were working on his buddy’s garage when, while passing the nail gun back and forth, a shot was fired.  No they weren’t in a bad part of town, it was the nail gun.  My new friend now had a 3 inch nail sticking out of his knee, right through his jeans.  Can you say ouch?  He certainly did.  And a few other things as well.
  • Another young man decided that he was going to self pierce one of his nipples; with a nail gun.  In theory, the nail would make the hole through which he would then insert a stud.  Seriously, it’s almost too good to be true.  Again he walked in alone and I have to wonder if one could even get in such a position where it would be possible to do that to one’s own chest.

And they say that we as humans are the intelligent ones.  Be afraid…  Be very afraid.

 

Mar
04

Worst Natural Disasters of the Last Decade

10 years is a longtime, 10 years is an even longer time when ravaged by disaster upon disaster; be they natural or manmade, the last 10 years have seen some gruesome and harrowing sites.

 

Don’t Fool With Mother Nature

But, clearly, she can fool with us.  Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, showed the world just exactly what Mother Nature can do.  This category five hurricane took the Mardi Gras capital of the world and turned it into a muddy, ugly, floating bed of death and destruction.  1,386 died. So many people were displaced that the 49 other states had to open their doors and let in New Orleans’ devastated survivors.  Even though this area had been warned of such an occurrence, no one was ready.  But one year before that, on “Boxing Day”, 2004, around 230,000 people were killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami.  It was the most devastating undersea earthquake in almost half a century. The quake, which struck off the coast of Sumatra, measured a sensational 9.2 on the Richter scale.

 

Cyclones and Earthquakes Galore

Respectively, 146,000; 87,400; and 79,000 people were killed on May 12, 2008-a category four cyclone named Narjis, with a 3.5 meter wall of water and its 135 mph winds all but swept away the town of Myanmar (once again, warnings were ignored); also in 2008 -a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan sent tremors to at least 10 other surrounding countries.  Sadly this earthquake hit during school hours, causing many of them to collapse; October 8, 2005-Kashmir suffered a devastating 7.6 magnitude earthquake just before its winter months.  Survivors and victims had to be located quickly, yet two months later a 40 year old woman was rescued from her collapsed home.

 

*as a side note: The Disaster to End All Disasters (but by no means natural)

It’s hard to even say it out loud, September 11 2001.  It was the end of the world as many knew it.  More innocent lives were lost on that day than any single day I can recall in America.  My father, a World War ll Air Force vet, was devastated.  I had lived in New York for two years and to watch the city fall in such a manner was, to me, incomprehensible.  I still have trouble believing it to this day.  But believe it we must.  2751 souls lost.

Mar
03

The Most Expensive Places to Live

Define expensive.  To me, anything over $1000 a month for the rental of the three bedroom apartment is expensive.  I do find however, that many do not share in my values.

 

Most Expensive Places to Live in the United States of America

First we’ll take a look inside our own U.S. of A.

  • Coming in at a predictable number one, the most expensive city in which to live (inside the United States) is our ever lovable, The Big Apple, none other than New York City.  $1000 may buy you rent for a month here, but it is in a room which has been divided three or four times into smaller rooms.  And don’t even think about walking outside.  Without a 40 to 50,000 dollar a year salary, the little closet they misguidedly call a studio apartment is barely affordable.

  • Boston Massachusetts, home of the Kennedys, and the Kennedys income is about which you need to make a home in this quaint, rich, city.  Boston beats out most other cities in the United States by being approximately 48% more expensive in general.  It’s laid back, a great college town, and trendy……………………..  And pricey.

  • Possibly the 1880 is gold stampede affected our number three expensive city of Juneau Alaska.  Seriously, I am not really sure what the big attraction is.

 

Most Expensive Places to Live in the World

  • Tokyo, Japan’s $4436 a month for a two bedroom luxury home is not the highest, but certainly out of the reasonable ballpark by a mile.  Did you won a cup of coffee while you think about that?  No problem, that’s only $6.65

And now–The most expensive, outrageous, phenomenally costly place to live, in the whole entire world is: (drum roll, please) Luanda, Angola where a luxury two bedroom home will cost you a mere $7000 a month, and a cup of coffee $3.80 of your hard earned coins.

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