J.D. Long, Famed American Astrounaut, attempts to take his own picture in a mirror at the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston TX. (Rumors about his beard being caught in the helmet's visor appear to be false.) 

David Sheik-Hossen; world traveling French Astronaut, visits the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston TX. (Photo without space helmet not available.) 

Life Is What Happens To You On The Way To Do Other Things . . . .

The oddest thing happened to me the other day.

For the first thing, I've noticed that Interstate highways leading away from the Gulf Coast (I-37 from Corpus Christi TX; I-45 from Galveston TX; I-65 from Mobile AL) all have exta-wide right shoulders and little blue-and-white signs every 2 miles that read "Hurricane Evacuation Route." It's a bit weird watching the little signs leading away from the coast for 50 miles or so, but nice to knolw somebody had the foresight to think of such a contingency.

Makes sense, right? In case of impending hurricane, they use the shoulder too for added traffic capability.

The second thing? Well, last Sunday we decided to go to beautiful Corpus Christi Texas. Fabled land of Spring Break debaucheries, Sunshine, and the world's greatest coastal fishing, as well as the home of the U.S.S. Lexington -- the feared "Blue Ghost" aircraft carrier of WWII. Seems like a safe bet for a day trip, right?

Heh. Guess again.

Admission to the Lady Lex was about $21.95 per person -- substantially greater than we planned. After touring the old girl (which is in substantial need of repair, unfortunately) we drove though downtown Corpus looking for a beachside seafood joint, figuring it'd be chaper and fresher closer to the Gulf, right?

Again, Heh-heh-heh.

With apologies to any residents of the Belle of the Gulf, she's certainly seen better days. The downtown looked like a hurricane had been through there recently, although it's almost certainly been 10 years or better. Vacant lots; closed stores; and a general air of urban semi-blight prevailed. After miles of driving up and down Seaside Blvd looking for a place to eat, we eventually returned to our starting point to an old-fashoined Diner which had very good food -- but not the seafood we had our taste buds set on.

A nice day, slightly disappointing overall, but not terrible. Still, disappointing, and a bit creepy and sad.

So this past Friday (five days later, for those completists out there) I took a day off for another excursion. After a quick pit-stop at the ever-delightful Buc-ee's (see previous post) which has become my nephew David's favorite kitschy tourist trap, drove on to Houston TX and the Johnson Manned Space Center. There we saw the sights and (almost) took the tour of the Center before it started raining and abbreviated out tour.

Since we had some extra time on our hands, we decided to toodle the 27 miles down I-45 to Galveston Island and see what was out there as well. A trip unplanned; almost as an afterthought, but that road less traveled has made all the difference. We found Houston's Chinatown that we'd been looking for (for almost 3 years!) We also found a plethora of Seaside souvenir shops, bars, and cheap excellent seafood joints like we'd been searching for the previous weekend, and ate until we were stuffed. The place we found had the BEST deep-fried soft-shelled crabs I've eaten since i was stationed in Augusta Georgia 21 years ago -- just magnificent. Out waiter was a teenaged Russian emigre attending U.T.-Houston, and was both surprised and thrilled I spoke a bit of conversational Russkiy.

Imagine that.

Galveston's pretty enough and reasonably-enough-priced that we talked about maybe moving there. Oh yeah, that'd break my heart; having to live on the ocean and eat fresh seafood every day.

God Provides, indeed.

~~~JD~~~

A Brief Note Before I Run Off . . . .

Been awfully busy lately, so I haven't had much time to update lately. We've got our nephew David visiting from Paris (the one in France) so we're almost constantly on the go somewhere on the weekends -- which is when I usually post, y'know.

Plus to make matters worse, my USB ports on our brand-new laptop are on the fritz; which means I can't synch up my camera to post any new pictures. We've figured out a fix; but it will take me an hour or two of uninterrupted time to do it -- which I haven't had lately.

So we're all alive an well. Work is going very well for both of us; and we completed our move last weekend. Pictures when they become available. Gimme a week or two.

~~JD~~

Hurricanes & Moral Quandries . . . still don't help me do the Laundry!

It's a Saturday, which means here at Casa Largo we clean the house: vacuum everything, steam clean the "accidents" the cats have had recently; empty every garbage can in the joint, and do the laundry. Since we're in the process of moving to a new apartment the end of this month, that means everything, and I mean EVERYTHING gets washed. Linens, towels, blankets, comforters -- everything.

And, of course, we're expecting Hurricane Emily to storm through here later this week with some much-needed rain -- so we're trying to get a leg up on the situation by doing everything as early as possible. So, we're pretty busy.

That means a lotta laundry to be done!

As I'm doing the cleaning, the laundry, the vacuuming, and the garbage, I'm catching little bits on Fox News and the Internet. Three things really caught my eye that just make me shake my head in wonder. Maybe I grew up too morally bound to understand this "alternative lifestyles" thing -- buy I'm sorry; I just don't get this:

1) Natalee Holloway -- Sending an 18-year-old girl off to Aruba with "chaperones" who go to bed at 8pm and don't supervise these teenagers drinking underage and wandering off with locals into the hills for sex? Whose Idiot Idea of a good-time graduation gift was that? When I was driving limousines for a while I saw several parents try to rent "fully-stocked" limos for graduation -- including booze and pot for their high-school Seniors!

This reminds me of those "I've-gotta-be-friends-with-my-kids" kind of parents. I feel awfully bad for the Holloway/Twitty family, but what did they expect here? A Disney movie ending?


2) Shasta Groene -- Her mother has a half-dozen kids -- most of which by different fathers, by-the-by -- and invites total strangers into her house for drug parties? And when the family comes up dead and the two youngest kids missing -- whose fault was that? Shasta Groene and her brother pay the price . . . . but how did we get to this place? Didn't anyone from the Idaho Department of Families and children suspect anything? Didn't some member of her family suspect she might be in a potentially unhealthy or dangerous situation?


3) I stumbled across a blog here on Blogspot (and you'll forgive me; but I can't remember how I found it -- must've been the "Next Blog" button) called "Discreet London". This fellow has the chutpah to describe the affairs he has with other women in gloriously excruciating detail. But when his wife wants a divorce because she's having her own affair, he's at a loss for words. He makes this discovery, of all places, at a massage parlor:

The masseuse made eye contact with me; I could tell she was confused too. As soon as she clamped eyes on me, I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed of being here, and ashamed of not being able to get it up. Then, I did something I haven’t done in ages; I burst out in floods of tears.

Once the sobbing started, I just couldn’t stop. I was wailing like a baby, which only served to confuse the young lady even more. I’m sure whatever experience she had as a prossie didn’t prepare her for this sort of thing. I guess punters don’t break down crying very often.

It was very awkward, I could sense her unease. I sat up on the table and saw her looking at me, her expression bordered upon the horrified. I think looking me in the eyes was more than she could bear and she finally wrapped her arms around me and held me against her with my head resting on her shoulder.

I was back in my car before I knew it, heading back towards my home. But I wasn’t ready to go back home yet, so I decided to just drive around. I drove aimlessly, without purpose or destination for a little while before realising I had no place else I could go. Finally, I gave up and just went back to my house.

Maybe I just needed some human contact, perhaps the orgasm I didn’t have wasn’t really what I required. Maybe I just needed a good cry in the arms of someone sympathetic. Well, “the cry� wasn’t that satisfying and “the arms� were less than sympathetic, but at least it was something. It’s more than I'm going to get elsewhere, that's for sure.

Really.

Y'know, what did he expect? He's getting exactly what he was going to give his wife -- shattered marriage, shattered dreams, broken home -- and he's crying about it?

Lie with dogs -- wake up with fleas. You are judged by the company you keep, indeed. Don't get me wrong on any count here -- I feel really bad for the poor participants of the above-described tragedies. But I really feel somebody ought to be shaking the living crap out of these folks, telling them to wake up and smell the coffee, already!!!

The self-delusion of rationalization is a Sad, sad, and dangerous thing.

~~~JD~~~

NURSING: Noble Profession of Comfort and Care . . . ?

. . . . or just a Royal Pain in the Ass?

I'm a Nurse. More specifically, I'm a male Nurse, which many see as a contradiction in terms. Very specifically, mostly by other (female) Nurses.

An example, if I may. I always tell people I've been a Nurse for 25 years, because I consider it to be true. I re-enlisted in my second tour in the Army to become what they call a 91C10 (or "Ninety-One Charlie") to get better promotion opportunities. I attended a ten-week Combat Medic Course from June to August 1980, followed by the ten-week "Ninety-One Charlie" course from August to October; which was swiftly followed by six months of on-the-job training at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri from November 1980 to March 1981. So after 11 months of medical training I was officially awarded the title of 91C10 in March, 1981.

And promptly had it taken away in April.

You might ask why -- I know I sure as heck did. I had re-enlisted for a specific job -- only to have it rescinded a month later? What's up with that?

The explanation were complicated. It seems that several (if not, indeed, MANY) of the graduates of the 91C10 course were challenging the LPN (or LVN, depending on your state) boards of their home states and being granted licenses in their home states after graduating as 91C10s. At that time in the early 1980's LPN Nurses were a two year degree, and someone somewhere didn't like the idea that eleven-month wonders could become Practical Vocational Nurses.

I've frequently found that when an explanation is that complicated, somebody's hiding a nasty truth. The theory I've heard from more than one Army nurse is that it was not the quality of the nurses that civilian nurses found unpalatable; and the quality of these nurses was never in question. (Army-trained nurses consistently score in the top 10% of their licensure boards.)

It was the fact that the military was filling the nursing pool with male nurses. They were Gender Offenders; highly competent, capable nurses that were almost exclusively male in a traditionally female profession.

I laughed the first time I heard this, and you might, too. In the intervening years I've seen far too many nurses make rude, sexist comments to dismiss it easily.

Another story might illuminate more completely. I was interviewing for a nursing job in Valparaiso IN one time, and had a ten o'clock appointment with the Director of nursing to interview. I arrived to my interview in a shirt, tie, and dress slacks.

As I was waiting for my interview, the UPS girl came in to pick up a package. The receptionist called into the Director's office to tell her UPS was here to pick up, and her 10:00 am appointment was there as well. (The UPS girl was dressed in the traditional brown Dickies uniform of UPS workers, I might add.)

The Director of Nursing came out with a brown-wrapped parcel, which she put into my hands, saying "that needs to be there tomorrow, okay?" She then took the UPS girl into her office -- and as soon as the doors closed, the laughter began.

The laughter died fairly quickly, though. The Director of Nursing interviewed the UPS girl for almost five solid minutes before realizing her "mistake." When she finally did come out and get me for my interview, she spent almost a half-hour convincing me I wouldn't like working there -- that I was more of a "Home Health Nurse", and would be happier there.

(In other words, you're not good enough to work for a regular employer. Go work with nurses who have to worry from day-to-day about if they'll have work tomorrow.) And lest you think this is simply my own paranoid ravings, the demographic that the Nursing profession is losing fastest is males with under three years of nursing experience. Has been for the last 15 years, too.

The one thing about the "Center" where I recently worked? You don't have to be a female nurse to be sexist about men you work with.

Some days I just despair; but most of the time I laugh my butt off at the idiots I used to work for. I must be feling melancholy this week, otherwise I don't know why I'm sharing this.

Heh.

"Buc-ees, Oh Buc-ees, He's our little Beaver Friend!!!!"

Sometimes, in fact MOST times, south Texas is the most beautiful place in the civilized world. Green verdant plains abut desert highlands with a lush variety of wildlife and climactic settings. The warm, gentle breezes feel like silk caressing your skin in the heat of a luscious red sunset evening. The juxtaposed meeting points of differing cultures from American South to Mexican Norte to 18th century German to traditional Central American Catholic makes for a fascinating jumble to tastes, artistic styles, architectures, and holidays I�d never dreamed of before venturing south of the greater Chicagoland Area.

And then there's the times it's just plain Weird with a capital "W" -- but the best kind of Weird, as in "unusual, significant, different, and outstanding from the crowd." Case in Point: Buc-ees Travel Stop, Souvenir Store, and Eatery. Texas Eats and Texas Treats; Fabulous Bathrooms, and a brand-name Beaver that just won't quit.

Buc-ees (a definite hyphen in that spelling) is to the casual eye just another tourist trap waystop on Interstate 10, 52 miles east of the I-410/I-10 east interchange on the east side of San Antonio. But if the multiple billboards advertising the oncoming exits don't catch your eye (one coming from Houston loudly proclaims "IT'S A BEAVER!!!") most likely nothing will. As you exit the Interstate the differences between Buc-ees and their cross-interstate competition become abundantly clear.

First, the place is immaculately clean. I think they must scrub the oil spots off the concrete at night just to make the place look cleaner. There is not one single scrap of paper; not one straw wrapper; not one piece of errant cellophane to be found. I wouldn't feel bad eating off the floors of this place; it's that clean.

Second, everything here is first class merchandise and facilities. I've eaten in four-star restaurants where the bathrooms were not this immaculately kept and appointed. You almost expect there to be a valet in the corner with mints and colognes. (And I suspect that there would be, but this being rural Texas, the surrounding townsfolk might consider this too "fruity" and rise up to burn the danged place to the ground.)

Third, the souvenirs they sell are not junk. They're actually quite nice and respectable stuff that you'd be proud to show off as your travel trophies. Much of it is made by local artisans, like the five-foot wind chimes that sound just beautiful; or the wooden plaques proclaiming through burnt-on lettering such modern profundities as "I'm a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie-doll world" or "MISSING: Husband, bass boat, and hound dog -- Reward for the dog." There's also the stained- and cut-glass treasures, such as the (above) cut-glass fireplace screen, or the (below) stained-glass portrait of the Head Beaver himself. Oddly, though the Stained-glass Buc-ee is priced easily $100.00 above anything else in the window, the saleslady told me "we price it higher to prevent selling our logo, but we still sell two or three every year."

Finally, this place is better organized and more positive in outlook than Wal-Mart on their best day. The salespeople are friendly and don't hover. The offer advice and samples without prompting, and are happy to help in any way. The management is quick to correct any slips, but without browbeating their staff. These folks actually are happy to work there.

There's a few downbeats though -- as in any tourist trap everything is priced a bit upscale, but not terribly so. The lines are a bit long, but there's almost always 5 or 6 registers open. And the vast selection of beer in the cooler just seems wrong to my eyes, having been brought up in the North where Open-container laws are the norm.

If you get the chance when driving I-10 between San Antone and Houston, you need to make a rest stop here. It's well worth the look-see; the "Wall Drug" of South Texas.

The "El Cazador" Taqueria in south San Antonio Texas. The proprietor of this establishment is a hunter (hence the name) who will make you any kind of taco you like. Elk, Dove, Quail, Venison, Rattlesnake, Fresh & Salt water fishes, and God knows what else. (I'm afraid to eat there myself.)

Confessions of a Mad Diabetic, Part I

This is pretty hard, really.

Diabetes is a glandular disease. It means that your body has either (1) lost it's ability to produce Insulin, or (2) has lost it's ability to use Insulin properly. (Insulin is the hormone that transports sugar -- or glucose -- into the cells, so that the cells can burn it for fuel. No Insulin, No glucose. No glucose, no fuel -- and that is a very bad thing.

Fortunatley I have the second type, which is called Type 2 Diabetes (imagine that!). This type you can workd with, if you can just get your diet habits under control. So that's what I've been trying to do the past 3 or 4 weeks. So the first step is getting rid of all the excess sugar in one's diet.

That is a massive statement in and of itself. Try to imagine this in your own life. Nothing with free sugars or concentrated sweets in it anymore.

Goodbye soda pop. Goodbye Pepsi, goodbye Coke, goodbye Dr. Pepper, goodbye Sprite. Goodbye Root Beer. (Of course, you can drink all the diet stuff you want -- but you have to get used to it first. It's not really that bad -- but it's the "getting-used-to" that's the bear.

And of course, sodas are just the beginning. No more sugar coated cereals -- which pretty much limits you to shredded wheat, cheerios, and rice crispies.

Goodbye Ice Cream, of course. Goodbye popsicles.

Goodbye pancake syrup (so goodbye pancakes and waffles.)

Goodbye all that good junk food. Goodbye candy bars; Goodbye granola bars. Goodbye Twinkies, Ho-Hos, and Ding-Dongs. Goodbye Sticky Buns.

And, (sob!!!), Goodbye Doughnuts.

Once you learn to identify the "concentrated sweets" and eliminate them, you've got 50% of your diet under control. The rest is what we're learning in our Diabetic Classes. Certain things will elevate your blood sugars, and others won't. Obviously concentrated sweets surely will, which is why we cut them out of the plan right off.

The good foods I can eat (If you remember your basic food groups from High School nutrition) are your have meats and fish group and your vegetables. The meats and fish have calories and fats, so you want to get the leanest cuts possible, right? (Goodbye bacon, goodbye pork chops; goodbye ribs, goodbye fried chicken.) Vegetables -- you can eat all you want of the vegetables.

Fruits have lots of sugars in them, but not nearly as much as a candy bar, so you have to be careful. But generally speaking, if you want a small bowl of cherries or 2-3 apricots after dinner for dessert, go for it.

Then you have your starches, or as they call them today, Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates (or "carbs" as the Atkins people like to call them) are essentially two or more sugar molecules locked together with a weak molecular bond. When those carbs hit your small intestine they become sugar molecules again, which can play merry havoc with your blood sugars.

Sugars include breads and pretty much anything made with grains. Buns, rolls, any kinds of breads -- you have to treat them like they're sugars and go very sparingly on them. So you can have a peanut butter sandwich, but only use one slice of bread. You can have a taco, but only on tortilla. Eat all the Taco Salad you want, but don't eat the crispy shell bowl. Corn and peas are also so loaded with carbs that they're treated like carbs rather than vegetables.

So Phase I of my dietary adjustment plan (that is, from the end of May until last Monday) was weeding out the Concentrated Sweets. Phase II has been to decrease the fatty meats and carbs, and increase the fruits and veggies wherever possible.

I had my first hamburger tonight in two months. It tasted like manna from heaven, baby -- manna from heaven. And I'm learning to love Smoothies, too -- just small ones, not super-sized dietary monsters.

My blood sugars have come down from an average of the high 200's (and as high as 374 the first day I got my glucometer) to the 140's -- which is not bad at all. (Normal blood sugars are 70-140.)

I swear to you -- the Dairy Queen store across from my local comic book store calls my name like the Sirens of myth when I drive by.

I'm gonna get through this -- but the bear has his teeth quite deeply in my shorts some days.

The Nameplate that I made for the Nursing Office at my last job. My first effort at nameplates, and pretty darn good, I think.

Julian in the San Antonio airport; trying to look sophisticated and worldly wise; but just looking excited.

Otis and his "mother." (You thought I was kidding about him thinking the dog was his mom, didn't you?)

EVAN E. PARKER | THE TIMES Hunter Schroeder, 10, leads his cousins, Drew and Lily Doniger, through the Valparaiso Parks Department's preview showing of its Masterpiece Seats on Friday. The program features 24 park benches painted like classic art, but with a Valparaiso twist.

Valpo Shows Off Masterpiece Seats

Blogger's note: I think this idea is "absolutely brilliant," as the Harry Potter kids might say. A magnificient variant of the "Painted Cows" Theme of several years ago, this one both promotes local art and classical appreciation. Having said all that, my neice is one of the artists mentioned therein. Enjoy!

VALPARAISO: Painted benches to go on display this month

BY PHIL WIELAND
pwieland@nwitimes.com
219.462.5151

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Saturday, June 11, 2005 12:53 AM CDT

VALPARAISO | It's almost like dallying on a Dali or parking your posterior on a Picasso.

On Friday, the city's Parks Department unveiled its Masterpiece Seats, the first in what Parks Director Steve Doniger hopes will be an annual community art project in the tradition of the Chicago Cows and the Crown Point Bulldogs. The seats are park benches painted by local artists, and they will be on display all over the city beginning later this month.

Each of the 24 benches is painted with a copy of a masterpiece by a renowned artist, but it has been altered, sometimes in very subtle ways, to include a feature that is identified with Valparaiso.

For example, Vincent Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" was changed by artist Tracey Hunter-Doniger to include the Valparaiso University chapel in the landscape. When Becky Ashcroft recreated Claude Monet's "Japanese Bridge," she used the bridge in Ogden Gardens for the centerpiece of her masterpiece.

Other examples of "the Valpo touch" given the works of famous artists: a Viking ship floating on "The Great Waves" of Katsushika Hokusai when done by local artist Haylee Schwerdt, and a Valpo Velvet French vanilla label on a bench filled with copies of Andy Warhol's Campbell's chicken soup cans painted by Valparaiso High School advanced art students Christy Brown and Lindsay Popka.

High school art students Kaitlyn Cook, Lindsay Williams and Kathryn Dulla chose another Warhol work, the four portraits of Marilyn Monroe, and turned it into four portraits of Mayor Jon Costas. Valpo Velvet or Valpo are easy to detect in other paintings while the local connection in several of the benches is still a mystery to Doniger.

"I'm proud of how the whole project came together," Doniger said. "We started three months ago, and it took six weeks to get the benches. The artists had a window of five or six weeks to do their work. Everybody came together and did outstanding work."

The Valparaiso Arts Commission, made up of volunteers who are local artists, art students, park staff and community members, was set up by the Parks Department to assist in the creation of the art projects.

All 24 of the benches are sponsored, and 10 of them have been purchased for permanent display. The high school band bought one of two versions of "The Three Musicians" by Pablo Picasso for Band Director Dan Pritchett. The local artist is Chris Mooraidian. The parents of the Science Olympiad team at Thomas Jefferson Middle School bought one for display at the school. That bench was still being painted by the artist Friday.

The benches that are not sold for permanent display will be auctioned off in September to raise money for next year's art project. Doniger said the details of that project will be revealed at the auction, but it will involve something that can be displayed permanently at Foundation Meadows Park.

The benches have to be weatherproofed before being placed on display. Anyone interested in joining the Arts Commission or buying one of the benches for $800 can contact Barbie Johnson at the Parks Department, 462-5144.