It's been a little while since I've gotten back and posted the photos on my website, but better late than never - the photos from this year's Guatemala trip are now up on my website. Anyway, here's the typical highlight/lowlight list. It's about the same as last year's, but the team really did seem to come together a whole lot better this year to make the trip more fun.
Highlights:
-Helping as many people as we did. 39 surgeries, plus a family practice doctor helping people in the hospital clinic.
-Getting back to near fluency in Spanish, again.
-The same skilled bus driver from last year who was able to maneuver through the tight streets of towns, several times with only an inch or two of clearance.
-The beauty of the country side - Guatemala is a really beautiful country.
-Dinner. We had the same local lady cater it every night, and it was awesome.
-Pacaya Volcano. Getting to climb on day old eruptions that still had molten lava.
-Getting to scrub in on surgeries, again, but getting to do a little more than just hold retractors this year.
-Much better weather this year - only rained off and on, not constantly.
-Better team this year, without all the lazy people.
Lowlights:
-Poverty - just plain sucks.
-Being sick for 2 1/2 days after getting back to the U.S.
-Not having time to visit the market in Chichicastenango.
Boo.
Find food when it's late & you're drunk.
He's a clown that Charlie Brown
He's gonna get caught,
Just you wait and see.
Why's everybody always pickin' on me?
This video alone isn't all that amusing. However, coupled with this one, it is much more entertaining. It will take a bit to load, so grab yourself a drink, and then skip to about 9:30 in the video.
You have got to be fucking kidding me....
U of Md has agreed to a $20 million naming-rights deal with Chevy Chase Bank
This didn't help either...
Jamari McCollough will miss the season because of an injured right anterior cruciate ligament
Happy Thursday - off to buy some beer. You know, to cope.
Well do you? And there is profanity. Shocker.
Okay, so I'm not much up on the "theoretical suppositions as to the nature of time and space" deal, but I read this and it's kind of neat. I like the idea of dark energy - if I could harness that, I'd be like a supervillain or something.
But tell me this: first, I mean, seriously, aside from knowledge for knowldege's sake, why do we need to know what comprises a galaxy cluster infinity-miles away? And second, if we can figure out that there is a limit to our universe, why isn't the big question then, "what's on the other side?"
. . . Crank, he has this to look forward to. The fact that the team's opponent is apparently the University of Maryland is a nice touch.
Take five and a half minutes and watch this. What do you learn? That Al-Jazeera is more fair than the American media (I am not here to start a discussion about this clip's content, just its delivery).
Sure, the hosts there have agendas in support of the official national doctrine just like here, but when have you seen someone that dissents so fiercely from O'Reilly, Hannity, or the bowtie guy get to talk so long without being silenced? Seriously, if she were on American TV arguing her counterpoint they would have cut to a commercial or baselessly laughed her off. Yes, I know she essentially agrees with all the loud white guys I just mentioned, but the point here is her relationship to the hosts. Not what was said, but how she was allowed to say it.
If you don't know about the sport of Downhill Mountian Biking, check this out for a rather intense sampling. It's slightly more insane, dangerous, fast, and difficult than coasting on a favorable incline.
Now, here's the rub. Michelle Dumaresq just won her third straight Canadian national title - Canada is to downhill what Colorado is to skiing, so she's kind of a big deal. Unfortuantely, as far as DNA and the first two decades of her life are concerned, she's also a dude.
Poor Danika Schroeter, a tasty bit of cycling crumpet if I may say so, places 2nd by one second. She feels slighted. She ascends the podium proclaiming herself the true female champion. Hilarity does not ensue, and she's suspended for three months.
I think this is ridiculous on several fronts. The main consideration for qualifying for gender-separated activites should no longer be the presence of a penis now that a penis can be modified by modern science. I mean, look at that picture - Dumaresq is a beast of a woman because she's a he. Post-ops should not be allowed to compete as women: discuss. Schroeter (I love you Danika) not only shouldn't be suspended, she should have had the gold: discuss.
Say what you want about equality/sexual rights/whatever (seriously, I encourage it, especially from the TT ladies)...men that turn their dick inside out are still men. If I had the surgery, for example, I'd be a 5' 11", 200-lb chick. I'd be a monstrous woman (and ugly as sin too), and I can only imagine the dominant small forward play I would dispense in pickup women's hoops games. I'd be a douchbag for doing it, though, and so is every other trans/post-op/whatverthehell that tries it: discuss.
Now that you've (hopefully) picked a side, agreeing with me or thinking I'm an asshole, consider that Dumaresq was 21.5 seconds slower (scroll down) than even the 10th place male finisher. In a sub-four-minute race that's a substantial margin.
Oh, and, Rick: stop imagining me with a vagina.
This is one of the funnier groups of pictures I've seen. And for all the Redick haters, well more fuel for the fire.
As seen on the Colbert Report last night, Heinz lets you create your own labels for ketchup bottles. We need to think of fun things to put on it for tailgating....
Yeah, Rick watches this movie for the flight scenes, not the oozing homosexuality that fills his mouth and dribbles down his chin. Here's 99 reasons* why it's a craptastic movie.
And before anyone gets on me, yes I know that nitpicking Top Gun is every bit as lame as the volleyball scene in that "film." But it lets me call Rick names on this here series of tubes (it's not a dump truck) so I'm digging it.
*It's actually 102 reasons, but 99 Reasons is a cool song.
off the mother-blanking blank.
Saw this a little while ago and granted, no one else is going to find this as funny as I did, but I thought I'd share. My favorite line: "Algorithms smooth like oil". And you thought people like me were all dorks.