Trunk Monkey

No car should be without one?

Thank you for signing Oppose Vice President Dick Cheney's BYU Commencement Speech

Couldn't help myself. I guess Darth Vader wasn't available.

BYU commencement speaker

So happy that none of my kids is graduating from BYU this year.  I am surprised they didn't have Mitt Romney speak instead.

"An invitation for Vice President Cheney to speak at BYU's April commencement was extended by members of the First Presidency of the LDS Church in their capacities as chair and vice chairs of the BYU Board of Trustees," Jenkins said.

BYU NewsNet - Cheney Visit Confirmed

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Vanity Fair: The Night of the Generals

Amazing article in the current issue of Vanity Fair.

The six retired generals who stepped forward last spring to publicly attack Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war had to overcome a culture of reticence based on civilian control of the military. But while each man acted separately, all shared one experience: a growing outrage over the administration's incompetence, leading some of the nation's finest soldiers to risk their reputations and cross a time-honored line.

The Night of the Generals: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

I always figured that 9/11 was just an excuse for the Bush administration to declare war on Iraq.  The article talks about General John Batiste, former commander of the First Infantry
Division

From March 2001 to June 2002, Batiste worked alongside Wolfowitz. ("Unflappable," Wolfowitz later called him.) In that position, he saw the Iraq war take shape even before September 11, then saw the plan solidify. He was there that Saturday morning in early 2002, for instance, when Rumsfeld, unhappy with the proposed troop numbers, sent General Tommy Franks, the CentCom commander, packing back to Tampa with orders to come up with a way to do the war on the cheap. Batiste says he had doubts from the outset, but though he had Wolfowitz's ear daily, he didn't bend it; someone else, he thought, surely would. "I didn't always agree with his thinking," he says, "but you have a certain amount of trust that your government and its apparatus will look at all sides of something before they go to war."

.

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Have a Messy Desk? Congrats, You're More Productive

Sponsored by publisher Little, Brown and Co., the competition promoted "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder," by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, a new book that argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity."We think that being more organized and ordered and neat is a good thing and it turns out, that's not always the case," said Freedman."Most of us are messy, and most of us are messy at a level that works very, very well for us," he said in an interview. "In most cases, if we got a lot neater and more organized, we would be less effective."

Have a Messy Desk? Congrats, You're More Productive - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

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From my dad: *Murphy's Laws on Computers*

• As soon as you delete a worthless file, you'll need it.
• Installing a new program will always mess up at least one old one.
• You can't win them all, but you sure can lose them all.
• The likelihood of a hard disk crash is in direct proportion to the value of the material that hasn't been backed up.
• There are only two kinds of computer users: Those whose hard disks have crashed, and those whose hard disks haven't crashed yet.
• Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it. If you fiddle with something long enough, you'll break it.
  

Office workers more prone to blood clots

Incentive to get off my butt and walk around during the day.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Office workers glued to computer screens are at greater risk of deadly blood clots forming in their legs than long-distance air travelers, the author of a New Zealand study on thrombosis said Monday.ADVERTISEMENTThe study found that 34 per cent of patients admitted to hospital with blood clots had been seated at work for long periods, its leader, Prof. Richard Beasley of New Zealand's privately funded Medical Research Institute, told The Associated Press.

Office workers more prone to blood clots - Yahoo! News

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My aching back, part 2

I now have two back specialists, one for my lower back and one for my neck and upper back.

My lower back doctor indicated that I have:

• Spondylolisthesis
  
  The skeletal anatomy involved in spondylolisthesis is complex but, in brief, it works like this: Each vertebra in the spine has a thick anterior body (called the centrum). A vertebral (or neural) arch on the surface of the centrum encloses a "vertebral foramen," which the spinal cord passes through. On each side of the neural arch on each vertebra, a pair of "superior articulating processes" projects up, and pair of "inferior articulating processes" projects down, supplying support and flexibility.
  
  Spondylolysis is the degeneration or deficient development of these articulating parts of the vertebra. It can range from a serious condition to a mild one.
  
  Spondylolysis may permit forward slippage of a vertebra onto the next vertebra below it, producing a spondylolisthesis. Spondylolysis occurs in 6% of the population, but only in people who can stand upright and walk. Spondylolysis is more common among athletes active in sports that require repetitive hyperextension, such as diving, weight lifting, wrestling and gymnastics.
  
  Children and teens with this condition may have no symptoms, though symptoms often develop during the preadolescent growth spurt. The magnitude of symptoms does not always correlate with the severity of the slipped vertebra. Many people with this condition don't require treatment. Spondylolysis or low-grade spondylolisthesis may be managed conservatively without surgery. However, young ("skeletally immature") people with more than 30 to 50% slippage are at increased risk for progression and are candidates for spinal fusion without delay. For other patients, treatment can vary from surgery to physical therapy to modification of activities.
  
  Spondylolisthesis has an emotional impact because pain can limit function and impair quality of life. Education is important in giving the patient a sense of control and the information necessary to make informed treatment decisions.
  
  
• neurogenic claudication
  
  Spinal claudication is pain in the buttocks and legs brought on by exercise with the back in an extended position.
  
  Spinal claudication may be mistaken for:
  
  * intermittent claudication due to arterial disease, or
  * typical lumbar disc prolapse
  
  It is relieved by sitting, bending forward or lying down.
  
  
• multilevel disc degeneration
  
  Description of Degenerative Disc Disease
  
  DDD can affect any part of the spine, although common sites are the lumbar (lower back) and cervical (neck) spine; thoracic DDD is very uncommon.
  
  Radiographic (x-ray) findings of DDD are a narrower disc space and some osteophyte (bony outgrowth of spur) formation. As people age, these changes tend to show up on the radiographs of most men and women. However, the first imaging modality to detect changes of DDD is MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), even before plain radiographs. Loss of water content (hydration) in the invertebral disc is an early finding, which is followed by narrowing of the disc space. People in the 20?s and 30?s may already have changes to their discs but no clinical symptoms. As the aging processes continues, the prevalence of DDD increases.
  
  In the early phases of DDD, spontaneous or post-traumatic tears, degeneration, fibrosis, and collapse of the disc may lead to failure of mechanical function. This is associated with low back pain and possible leg pain if there is nerve root impingement (radiculopathy).
  
  As DDD progresses, there is ligamentous buckling and osteophyte development which can cause narrowing of the space for the spinal cord and nerve roots. Lumbar spinal stenosis is the narrowing of the neural canal and foramina to an extent that results in compression of the lumbosacral nerve roots or cauda equina. Acquired lumbar stenosis is caused primarily be degenerative disease of the spine. However, a congenitally narrow or small spinal canal is a common finding; when present, it requires less disc degeneration, smaller disc herniation, or osteophytes to cause symptoms.
  

How old are you? History Exam

History Exam...
If you don't score very well blame it on being too young !! It is a
Win - win situation.

This is a History Exam for those who don't mind seeing how much they Really remember about what went on in their life. Get paper and pencil and Number from 1 to 20. Write the letter of each answer and score at the end. Then, best of all, before you pass this test on, put your score in the Subject line!

1. In the 1940's, where were automobile headlight dimmer switches Located?
A. On the floor shift knob
B. On the floor board, to the left of the clutch
C. Next to the horn

2. The bottle top of a Royal Crown Cola bottle had holes in it. For what Was it used?
A. Capture lightning bugs
B. To sprinkle clothes before ironing
C. Large salt shaker

3. Why was having milk delivered a problem in northern winters?
A. Cows got cold and wouldn't produce milk
B. Ice on highways forced delivery by dog sled
C. Milkmen left deliveries outside of front doors and milk would freeze, Expanding and pushing up the cardboard bottle top.

4. What was the popular chewing gum named for a game of chance?
A. Blackjack
B. Gin
C. Craps

5. What method did women use to look as if they were wearing stockings When none were available due to rationing during W.W.II
A. Suntan
B. Leg painting
C. Wearing slacks
6. What post war car turned automotive design on its ear when you Couldn't tell whether it was coming or going?
A. Studebaker
B. Nash Metro
C. Tucker

7. Which was a popular candy when you were a kid?
A. Strips of dried peanut butter
B. Chocolate licorice bars
C. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside

8. How was Butch wax used?
A. To stiffen a flat-top haircut so it stood up
B. To make floors shiny and prevent scuffing
C. On the wheels of roller skates to prevent rust

9. Before inline skates, how did you keep your roller skates attached to Your shoes?
A. With clamps, tightened by a skate key
B. Woven straps that crossed the foot
C. Long pieces of twine

10. As a kid, what was considered the best way to reach a decision?
A. Consider all the facts
B. Ask Mom
C. Eeny-meeny-miney-MO

11. What was the most dreaded disease in the 1940's?
A. Smallpox
B. AIDS
C. Polio

12. I'll be down to get you in a ________, Honey"
A. SUV
B. Taxi
C. Streetcar

13. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy's pet pony?
A. Old Blue
B. Paint
C. Macaroni

14. What was a Duck-and-Cover Drill?
A. Part of the game of hide and seek
B. What you did when your Mom called you in to do chores
C. Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill.

15. What was the name of the Indian Princess on the Howdy Doody show?
A. Princess Summerfallwinterspring
B. Princess Sacajawea
C. Princess Moonshadow

16. What did all the really savvy students do when mimeographed tests Were handed out in school?
a. immediately sniffed the purple ink, as this was believed to get you high
B. Made paper airplanes to see who could sail theirs out the window
C. Wrote another pupil's name on the top, to avoid their failure

17. Why did your Mom shop in stores that gave Green Stamps with Purchases ?
A. To keep you out of mischief by licking the backs, which tasted like Bubble gum
B. They could be put in special books and redeemed for various household Items
C. They were given to the kids to be used as stick-on tattoos

18. Praise the Lord, and pass the _________?
A. Meatballs
B. Dames
C. Ammunition

19. What was the name of the singing group that made the song "Cabdriver" a hit?
A. The Ink Spots
B. The Supremes
C. The Esquires

20. Who left his heart in San Francisco ?
A. Tony Bennett
B. Xavier Cugat
C. George Gershwin

------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
ANSWERS

1. B) On the floor, to the left of the clutch. Hand controls, popular in Europe , took till the late '60's to catch on.

2. B) To sprinkle clothes before ironing. Who had a steam iron?

3. C) Cold weather caused the milk to freeze and expand, popping the Bottle top.

4. A) Blackjack Gum.

5. b) Special makeup was applied, followed by drawing a seam down the back of the leg with eyebrow pencil.

6. a) 1946 Studebaker.

7. c) Wax coke bottles containing super-sweet colored water.

8 a) Wax for your flat top (butch) haircut.

9. a) With clamps, tightened by a skate key, which you wore on a shoestring around your neck.

10. c) Eeny-meeny-miney-mo.

11. c) Polio. In beginning of August, swimming pools were closed, movies and other public gathering places were closed to try to prevent spread of the disease.

12. b) Taxi. Better be ready by half-past eight!

13. c) Macaroni.

14. c) Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill

15. a) Princess Summerfallwinterspring. She was another puppet.

16. a) Immediately sniffed the purple ink to get a high.

17. b) Put in a special stamp book, they could be traded for household items at the Green Stamp store.

18. c) Ammunition, and we'll all be free.

19. a) The widely famous 50's group: The Inkspots.

20. a) Tony Bennett, and he sounds just as good today..

SCORING

17- 20 correct: You are older than dirt, and obviously gifted with mental abilities. Now if you could only find your glasses. Definitely someone who should share your wisdom!

12 -16 correct: Not quite dirt yet, but you're getting there.

0 -11 correct: You are not old enough to share the wisdom of your experiences.

Medieval Helpdesk

I can relate to this.

Spinal stenosis

After spending over an hour in an MRI earlier this week I have been diagonsed with Cervical Spinal Stenosis (I had the doctor write it down so I would remember before I got to the car). If is isn't one thing, it is another. If I start to lose function in my hands then I will probably have to look to some surgery since I really do rely on my ability to type.

Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal, which places pressure on the spinal cord. If the stenosis is located on the lower part of the spinal cord it is called lumbar spinal stenosis. Stenosis in the upper part of the spinal cord is called cervical spinal stenosis. While spinal stenosis can be found in any part of the spine, the lumbar and cervical areas are the most commonly affected.

What Causes Spinal Stenosis?

Some patients are born with this narrowing, but most often spinal stenosis is seen in patients over the age of 50. In these patients, stenosis is the gradual result of aging and “wear and tear” on the spine during everyday activities. There most likely is a genetic predisposition to this since only a minority of individuals develops advanced symptomatic changes. As people age, the ligaments of the spine can thicken and harden (called calcification). Bones and joints may also enlarge, and bone spurs (called osteophytes) may form. Bulging or herniated discs are also common. Spondylolisthesis (the slipping of one vertebra onto another) also occurs and leads to compression. When these conditions occur in the spinal area, they can cause the spinal canal to narrow, creating pressure on the spinal nerve.

Symptoms of Stenosis

The narrowing of the spinal canal itself does not usually cause any symptoms. It is when inflammation of the nerves occurs at the level of increased pressure that patients begin to experience problems. Patients with lumbar spinal stenosis may feel pain, weakness, or numbness in the legs, calves or buttocks. In the lumbar spine, symptoms often increase when walking short distances and decrease when the patient sits, bends forward or lies down. Cervical spinal stenosis may cause similar symptoms in the shoulders, arms, and legs; hand clumsiness and gait and balance disturbances can also occur. In some patients the pain starts in the legs and moves upward to the buttocks; in other patients the pain begins higher in the body and moves downward. This is referred to as a “sensory march”. The pain may radiate like sciatica or may be a cramping pain. In severe cases, the pain can be constant. Severe cases of stenosis can also cause bladder and bowel problems, but this rarely occurs. Also paraplegia or significant loss of function also rarely, if ever, occurs.

Atkins diet in the news

I have been on Atkins for the last 3 1/2 years and have been able to keep much of the weight I have lost off.  As the article points out though, it is no silver bullet.  Beats a silver buffet though.

The low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet gets high marks in one of the biggest, longest head-to-head studies of popular weight-loss plans, beating the Zone, the Ornish diet and even U.S. guidelines. Even so, critics say the results show how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off.

Atkins beats other diet plans in study - Yahoo! News

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NEW WORDS FOR 2007

This is why I have a blog. Thanks to my good friend Beverly M.

Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace (and elsewhere)!!!

1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard .

4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles.

6. PRAIRIE DOGGING : When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

7. MOUSE POTATO : The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

8. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

14. ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

15. 404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message"404 Not Found," meaning that the requested site could not be located.

16. GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).

18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.

19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube Farm.

Well, what better endorsement could you ask for?

March 3, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- The Ann Coulter presidential primary ended on Friday, before an oversold crowd of Republican college kids and conservative activists in a basement hotel conference room. She had just finished doing her incendiary stand-up act, joking that Al Gore was fat ("Did Al Gore actually swallow Michael Moore?"), that Bill Clinton was the first black president ("half white, half trash") and that John Edwards was a "faggot."Then a question came from the audience. What did she think of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor now running for president? "I think he is probably our best candidate," she said, with a sudden lack of sarcasm, prompting a round of applause from the room. "I think we have to be serious about this."

The Republican candidates -- and Ann Coulter -- try out their acts | Salon News

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Gallup poll on feelings about mormon church

I thought this was an interesting poll for a lot of reasons. Here are some of the key findings from the poll. I was surprised to find that those who are most like active members of the church are those who have the most negative opinions of the church (i.e. conservative church going Republican Protestants).

• Americans who are more religious (as measured by frequency of church attendance) and those who are Protestant have highly negative views of the Mormon religion. The differences in views of Mormons among groups defined by their church attendance are significant. There is a net negative view of -21 points among Americans who attend church weekly, contrasted with a net positive view of +10 among those who seldom or never attend church.
  
  
• Protestants are significantly more negative in their views than Catholics, who are the most positive group by religion.
  
  
• There are minor partisan differences. Republicans are slightly more negative in their views of Mormons than are either independents or Democrats.
  
  
• There is a major difference by ideological group. Liberals are extremely negative in their views on a relative basis; 28% have favorable opinions and 61% unfavorable opinions. By contrast, conservatives are essentially evenly divided in their views, while moderates break to the positive side, with 48% favorable and 40% unfavorable opinions.
  
  
• Opinions of Mormons are better formed in the West, where the preponderance of Mormons live, and are slightly more positive than negative. Only 3% of those living in the West have no opinion whatever of Mormons.

I was also surprised that polygamy is still the first thing more people associate with the church than anything else.

Even among this group of Americans who have favorable opinions, Gallup finds that polygamy is the most frequently mentioned single impression of the religion. Officially, the LDS church has outlawed polygamy since 1890, and those who practice it are excommunicated. But the historical connection of the Mormon church with polygamy, more recent highly publicized cases of polygamists in the news, and perhaps the HBO show "Big Love" have kept the connection fresh in people's minds.

Not for the easily offended: Mormons as Al-Qaeda

The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson

I was very touched by this.

Craig Ferguson puts it out there

Here's an unusual late night monologue. In this two part clip, "The Late Late Show's" Craig Ferguson talks earlier this week about some things that have been bothering him about making fun of people on his program. It turns out that this talk show host wants to be able to sleep at night. Then he talks a bit about how he doesn't want to tell any Britney Spears' jokes because he just marked 15 years sober and then, well, if you don't have a lot of time, cue it up to around 4:50 to hear about some dark times.

Part 1


Part 2

Freeload: Upload a Ringtone to Your Cell Phone

Go out to the Internet and find a MIDI file you like. Make sure it's 20KB or smaller. Here's a Google search loaded with sites:
MIDI ringtones

Once you've downloaded the MIDI to your PC, head for the Freeload home page:
Freeload

There you'll upload the file to the Freeload server, and you'll get an eight-digit code to retrieve the MIDI using your cell phone.

While I was exploring, I noticed the site owner's warning--and I think it's great:

"READ THIS BEFORE YOU PRESS THE BUTTON: Freeload works for most phones with WAP and polyphonic tones. However, if it does not work for yours, I cannot suddenly make it work just because you e-mail me. I am not technical support for your phone. Don't e-mail me saying 'doesnt work 4 my fone wtf is up wit dis,' and then swear and whine at me when I'm not able to magically fix it."

Something I had not thought of

Silent running: For the environmentally minded, hybrid cars are an obvious boon -- great gas mileage, low emissions. For the blind pedestrian, though, there's a big downside: The cars, when in electric mode, make almost no noise, so it's difficult to be aware of them. While hard numbers on accidents involving the cars and the blind are hard to come by, some groups have swung into action. As the Wall Street Journal writes, "The National Federation of the Blind, an advocacy group, says all hybrid vehicles should emit a sound while turned on and is calling on the auto industry to make changes." Several schools for guide dogs reportedly will soon start to include hybrid car training with their animals. ("Blind Pedestrians Say Quiet Hybrids Pose Safety Threat," Wall Street Journal)

Will I Live To Be 80?

I recently chose a new primary care physician. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age. A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him, "Do you think I'll live to be 80?"

He asked, "Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages?"

"No," I replied. "I don't do drugs, either."

Then he asked, "Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"

I said, "No, my other doctor said that all red meat is unhealthy!"

"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?"

"No, I don't," I said.

He asked, "Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?"

"No," I said. "I don't do any of those things."

He looked at me and asked, "Then why do you give a shit?"