Heck Of A Guy

He’s Not Just Unusual Or Even Unusualler Than Most;
He’s The Unusualist

Raymond Crowe describes himself as “Australia’s only unusualist.” I am unsure why Australia has one at all or why it has no more than one. Perhaps there is an immigration quota. I am also unaware of the number of unusualists populating other countries.

On the other hand, I am convinced of Mr. Crowe’s unusual level of skill in creating shadow puppets.

It turns out that he’s been a proficient puppeteer, magician, juggler, and entertainer, appearing primarily at parties and corporate functions for over 25 years, but fame eluded him until his performance hit YouTube.

Wonderful World

And what a performance it is. Set to Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World, his depictions begin with Louis Armstrong singing; Louis morphs into a horse, then a swan, then a rabbit pulled from a hat, and much more.

It’s one of those you have to see it to believe it sort of things.

So, see it here

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And Why Presidential Candidates Are Desperately Trying To Come Up
With A Better Healthcare Plan - Or Should Be

Anyone interested in the causes of the healthcare crisis in this country, examples of the law of unintended consequences, or the impact of economics on everyday life would do well to note today’s AlignMap¹ post, How The Economics Of US Health Insurance Work Against Compliance With Preventive Care.

That post introduces “Taking Our Medicine - The bad economics of switching health-care plans,” a Slate.com article by Ray Fisman that explores the implications of a health insurance system in which insurers cannot count on benefiting from long term coverage of the same individuals.

Beyond its intrinsic interest, this essay also provides an excellent instance of AlignMap’s central theme: the notion that significant improvement in treatment compliance is possible only if the interests of all healthcare stakeholders are aligned.


Footnotes

1. AlignMap is my professional web site and blog that focus on patient compliance, also known as adherence to treatment↩

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DrHGuy Meets The Director Of Nursing

The Director of Nursing at the Medical Center where DrHGuy served his residency once remarked to him that during her own training at that same institution, her nursing class was taught to stand respectfully when a doctor entered the nursing station and to serve properly chilled orange juice to physicians.

The Director of Nursing did not, it should be noted, relate this anecdote in the spirit of those were the good old days and, in fact, appeared to regard those experiences with more than a modicum of distaste. During the pause that followed her comments, DrHGuy, who, as a result of attending a minimum of three fundamentalist church services a week throughout childhood and adolescence, was familiar with the purpose of parables, asked the Director of Nursing if she would care for an Orange Crush (no juice then being available).

Fortune (and, more to the point, The Director of Nursing) smiled upon DrHGuy through the remainder of his training and his first years on the attending staff of that hospital.

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Cyber-Bookmarks From DrHGuy: 9 September 2007

Cyber-Bookmarks From DrHGuy are annotated links to arguably worthwhile, recently published online reading, new or revised websites of potential utility or ostensible interest, and other internet-accessible experiences that, were it not for the casually collected, cavalierly collated, & capriciously collocated components comprising these posts, could easily be overlooked - which would be, in some cases, a shame,

Don’t Call Us, …

No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov by David Oshinsky
The New York Times Book Review (7 September 2007)

A celebration of the rejection letters from Knopf that, as the author puts it, “missed the mark,” this column is essential reading for artists subjected to the capricious judgments of editors, agents, gallery owners, curators, critics, etc. and a reminder to the rest of us that rejection may have less to do with an accurate assessment of our own worth than with the faulty judgment of the individual offering the evaluation.

How about a rejection letter that includes the phrases, “very dull” and “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions” - like the one sent from Knopf in response to the submission of “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank. Of course, that manuscript would also be rejected by 15 other publishers before Doubleday bought the rights to one of the best-selling books in history.

A similar fate met the first submissions from Vladimir Nabokov, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mordecai Richler, Bashevis Singer, and Sylvia Plath, among others.

This essay on missed opportunities by those who claimed to know better can be found at
~ No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov ~

How To Shop The Internet Mall

Online Purchasing And Researching Tips is an expert’s list of cautions and tips for purchasing online.

From my own experience, I would especially emphasize these points from this piece:

1. The wisdom of researching (a) the product being purchased (I’ve had success, for example, finding cheaper alternatives, such as discontinued lines, to expensive electronic equipment) and (b) any online retailers not familiar to the buyer. The easiest means of checking out sellers is to punch the name into Google and search through the results for customer responses. If nothing negative turns up on that first search, run a second with the retailers name and “reviews” or “customer” to find useful information.

2. The necessity of checking shipping and delivery charges before committing to the purchase

3. The usefulness of the sale and coupon aggregation sites. In addition to those listed, I’ve had good luck with the following:

• Brad’s Deals
• More Stuff 4 Less
• Cheap Stingy Bargains
• Flamingo World

This advice about buying from internet sellers can be found at ~ Online Purchasing And Researching Tips ~

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Needlework, A Novel By Julie Showalter

Julie Showalter

Julie Showalter was my much-beloved, fiercely smart, extraordinarily sexy wife, who died in 1999 from cancer diagnosed the week of our wedding nearly 20 years earlier. She was also a prize-winning writer.

This blog includes many other posts about her and the unlikely but true story of our romance (See Julie FAQ) as well as several of her short stories and other pieces. Most of Julie’s fully edited and buffed literary efforts are already available under the heading, Julie’s Writings, in “Categories.”

Unpublished Julie is a group of pieces I’ve found on her computer or in her office that range from workshop exercises to story fragments to projects set aside to finish at a later day to work that appears, at least to me, to be fully as polished and effective as her published stories.

Needlework, The Novel

Julie completed a novel, Needlework, by 1997 but was revising portions of it for some time afterward. I have searched her files and have compiled the latest versions I have discovered.

I plan to publish that compilation of her novel on the Heck of a Guy Blog, a chapter at a time in serial fashion. Links to all currently published portions of Needlework can always be found at this link: Information About Needlework With Links To Published Portions. PDF versions of the posted sections of Needlework can also be found at that page.

Read

Chapter 5 of Needlework can be found at

Download

To download a PDF version of this section of Needlework by Julie Showalter, right-click on the link below and then choose “Save Link As … ” or “Save Target As …” from the context menu:

Previously Posted From Needlework

~Needlework by Julie Showalter: Opening and Prologue~

~Needlework by Julie Showalter: Chapter 1~

~Needlework by Julie Showalter: Chapter 2~

~Needlework by Julie Showalter: Chapter 3~

~Needlework by Julie Showalter: Chapter 4~

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A Visit To The Heck of a Guy Hardware Store

More than nine months have passed since the Heck of a Guy blog last showcased a non-virtual, three-dimensional, hold it in your hand & show it off to your buddy hunk-o-hardware sort of tool.¹

That drought has been broken by a nifty item (pictured below) that I ran across this morning. It has the right combination of geekish appeal, easily understood utility, and enough obscurity (at least for now) that a user has a reasonable chance of impressing innocent strangers unaware that such a thing exists.

This gizmo is the Inflight USB Power Unit , a gadget that plugs into the armrest headphone jacks found in most commercial airplane seats to power iPods, cell phones, and similar devices through their USB connections.

Those headphone jacks won’t yield enough juice to run a laptop, but on long flights smaller utensils can recharge fully on the trickle of electricity.²

The charge unit itself goes for $35, and the same retailer also sells iPod and mini B connectors. Again, these items can be found at Inflight USB Power Unit ,

The Downside

Of course, when these Inflight USB Power Units and their competitors are easily available, you may find yourself seated next to someone plugging in one of those less mainstream (i.e., more socially toxic) USB toys.

From top left, proceeding clockwise: Plasma Ball, Oil Fragrance Heater, Missle Launcher,
I Love You Light, Pole Dancer, Best Friend, Fruity Fragrances Dispersers

Credit Due Department: I was alerted to the Inflight USB Power Unit by Lockergnome Windows Fanatics

Footnotes

1. The most recent such tool was a nifty label printer featured in the November 20, 2006 post, The Fine Print(er)↩
2. For the worriers, the FAQs report that “The Inflight Power cable is FCC certified and does not emit radio noise. You can use it anytime.”↩

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John Edwards On Patient Compliance & Bloggers On John Edwards

If you are both obsessed with the bioethical dilemmas implicit in patient compliance and fascinated by nuances of public health policy pronouncements made by presidential candidates in locations like Tipton, Iowa - and really now, who isn’t? - then you, my friend, are in luck: today’s AlignMap ¹ post focuses on the speech Edwards made last Sunday, in which he declared that his health plan proposal “requires that everybody get preventive care,” (including, for example, regular checkups for everyone and mammograms for women) and the response, especially from the conservative contingent of bloggers.

Characteristic phrases in those posts include “This kind of crap,” “Comrade Edwards is going to force you to go to the doctor whether you like it or not,” and “a Howard Dean moment.”

All this and more can be found at ~ John Edwards On Patient Compliance ~

The gazebo on the Tipton Iowa courthouse lawn

Footnotes

1. AlignMap is my professional web site and blog that focus on patient compliance, also known as adherence to treatment↩

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The Lord of Leisure¹ Photo Gallery

The Aspens Of The Maroon Bells
[Click on graphic for view of larger image]

The Lord of Leisure writes:

The Aspens Of The Maroon Bells
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Footnotes

1. Lord of Leisure was previously known in these posts as Mr. Science. Both Lord of Leisure and Mr Science spend most of their time disguised as Neil Ellis, mild-mannered, retired teacher at a great suburban school system, who can identify a bird by its call, complete the New York Times Friday Crossword in ink, and snap a heck of a photo.↩
2. ”… the depth of field is again flattened …” references a previous photo, seen at The Maroon Bells