Sunday Journal, Aug. 23, 2015

There’s still smoke in the air.  Fires are burning in the interior.  Campfire restrictions.  Concerns this summer about tourism. Firefighters from all over.  Many out of their houses. Whole communities destroyed.  In addition to the smoke, I can smell  Fall  in the air.  The nights are cool.
Wednesday my throat became raw.  Poor sleep that night.  Thursday my voice going by noon. Afternoon work cancelled.  I didn’t feel particularly infectious.  More like environment.  My patient has TB. I was in the radiology department getting X-ray.  Everyone snivelling. Laura said she’d had three days of headache and sore ear. Her waiting room was sore throats galore. Maybe it was viral.  I’m just seeing all the asthmatics having difficulty breathing. I’m tired too. Fatigued.  Run down.  Getting older. Don’t seem to rebound.  Whine a lot.
Seeing my chiropracterDr. Richard Cho these last two weeks the neck and back pain eased with more strength in right arm.  I was having difficulty lifting a cup.  Trying to ignore it.  Denial my first go to defence.  Using my right hand to drink coffee in public to conceal the tremor.  Thanks to my doctor friends in Virginia got the message of self care again. Phoned Richard.  Sure enough all the tension has taken it’s toll.  Running helps.  Getting to the hot tub.  Wading through the immense increase in work that follows and precedes a week off.
Dr. Smokey Bear. Stamping out forest fires.  All the beaurocratic demands for paper from doctors, exponentially increased a thousand fold.  Everyone now thinks the physician can be used as an extension of their organization. I was glad to hear the Ontario doctors refused. I wish the BC doctors would set minimum standards and stop demanding patients pay.  Despite the signs up to discuss with staff they bring work into the office and feign not seeing the signs. I learn they are trying to get a better deal than the gp offered.  Horrendous waste of health care resources.  Waitlists and double doctoring.
I spent 2 hours with a patient last week, it was a 20 minute paid visit, but I was concerned.  Concluded they needed an emergency Neurology and MRI visit and was beginning to pull favours when the patient told me the MRI they had last month was norma. They then complained the previous doctor hadn’t been any good. Pulled out some disability forms.   He wanted disability.  I’d asked him every which way about seeing other doctors about his problem.  He’d insisted no one had done anything and that no one took him seriously.  Even told me he had tried to sue one of his doctors but the lawyers wouldn’t take the case.  In the end he was just "Double doctoring".  Wanted disability.  Patients daily complain about waitlists but no one holds people like this accountable.  Yet the doctor police are multiplying exponentially as well. More and more doctors are afraid to see patients because of the threats to their licenses so become doctor police instead.  Of course no one polices the doctor police.  The last bastion of professional security.
I am tired today.  Another difficult night sleep. But great run yesterday.  5 k or more.  Along the river.  Furthest I’ve run without walking.  Walked a lot on the way back with Gilbert. He enjoys this all though fears that when running,  the territory isn’t being marked as often as canine standards demand.
Laura and I began watching Sons of Anarchy season finale.  I bought it at London Drugs when I was getting a set of AudioEngine 2+ speakers for the computer.  These plug in the wall and are awesome. Laura and I  watched an iTunes rented Rob the Mob movie which was terrific too. Loved the theatre quality surround sound. Then we got out the Sons of Anarchy DVD.  Of course we had heard he killed his mother.  It wasn’t something that the world could keep from getting out.  It wasn’t a ’spoiler’. In fact I wanted to watch the season to see how Sutter the writer killed off his wife Katey Sagal.  We’d heard Katey Sagal talk at the Turning Point gala so loved her.  “What’s going on between her and Sutter?” everyone was asking.  Okay, I bought the series to be in the loop. It really is  good.  Laura and I watched the first three seasons when we were up north at the first Sturges North Motorcycle Rally in Salmon Arm.  I’d driven up in the truck pulling the RV with my Honda 250 CRF strapped down  in the truck bed.  The whole weekend was so memorable with Steppenwolf and the Animals.  Laura and I rode in from the campground at night on the 250.  Then I joined the Veterans Ride with the smallest bike there and somehow kept up going Full Open Throttle without burning out the engine.  In those next months we watched all three seasons.
Then synchronistically, after I’d just told Laura I had to ride my bike this morning, Dave shows up to tell me the East Vancouver Show and Shine was going on Saturday at the Waldorf.  It couldn’t be better.
Dave usually rides with Emory his little dog.  I ride with Gilbert.   Today we left the dogs at home.  Gilbert would rather hang out with Laura. She spoils him.  Body rubs massages, treats.
Dave’s Harley is a red Heritage Softail. I’ve got a black Electraglide.  “They’re supposed to have a bikini contest,”  he told me on the way. “Even better”, I said.
Great sunny hot day.  Not too much traffic.  Good to ride in tandem.  Dave rides in shorts and t shirt.  I’ve got to have jeans and jacket armour.  At least my jacket is webbing. Too hot for leather.  When we got to the Waldorf there was a hundred or more bikes around.  It’s not like Gastown though where the bikes are congregated.  Here they were ranged around the block and in parking lots nearby.  Only weakness of the show. Half the fun is looking at everyone’s bikes.  In the actual venue there were only a few dozen, albeit some really fine choppers. Hot rods were in the venue.  Beer gardens.  Leather sale booths.  T shirts. Entrance by donation.  Dave gave them $5 for each of us.  I certainly didn’t complain.  All around fabulous young women showing a lot of skin.  Something about leather bras that speak to the inner animal too.  Lots of tattoos.  Great bikes.  One especially had silver skulls everywhere.  A couple of the cars and one of the bikes could have been right off the set of Mad Max.  Dave and I just walked about talking engines.  There was a souped up mustang.  Both Dave and I reminisced about our Mustang days. He’d had his in the 70’s and I”d had mine in the 80’s   One of the chevy “classics’ was a car my friends father owned when we were 12.  The ford truck on display looked a close proximity to my uncles truck from the Manitoba farm.  Dave told me his grand daughter was 20. He’s younger than I am.  “She says her friends like to tell the old guys they don’t have ‘daddy issues’.”  We’re laughing about that sad as it might seem.
We ride back to Burnaby taking Knight to Marine Drive.  There’s not much traffic this time of day on a Saturday.  I realize I’m normally only driving during the Vancouver rush hour so my view is skewed.
“I’ve been catching my limit up by Squamish,” Dave says. "The salmon are pooling in the ocean because the rivers are too dry to go up yet.”  It’s the salmon run time of the year.   After we get back he comes by bringing a lovely salmon.  Laura and I and Dave chat awhile while Emory and Gilbert play ‘he who pisses on something last wins”.  They’re dehydrating fast.  Dave’s got fish on his barbecue so can’t stay.  I use salmon rub on this and pack the centre with garlic butter before wrapping it in aluminum foil.  15 minutes on the barbecue and it’s perfect.  Incredibly tasty and melt in your mouth moist. So fresh.  Unbelievable good salmon.  Thank you Dave!
Laura and I had it with potatoes we boiled up and served with sour cream and salads.  We watched more episodes of Sons of Anarchy.  So many people getting shot in the show I’m sure it’s what affected Whalley Surrey this year. Gangland shootings galore.  Monkey see, monkey do.  So many young people smoking dope they lose connection between what is real and what is fantasy.
This morning Laura tells me she’s had dreams of being chased by motorcycles on her little bike.  My sinuses have been stuffy.  I had the couldn’t find a clean toilet dreams. Shit everywhere.  Sons of Anarchy doesn’t wake up the best part of the brain.   I remember the second last season when I found myself almost nihilistic after watching an episode but then counteracted it with watching an episode of Blue Blood.  Gives new meaning to the “Feed your Brain”.  Katey Sagal playing Gemma is an incredible actress. After years of fake feminist unidimensional ‘victim’ women with the ‘activist feminist’ saving the little girl, Gemna is playing a multidimensional sociopath with Oscar award winning complexity.  Unfortunately no Hollywood would award this Eva Braun performance. Lies that kill a nation.  And as usual no one is ‘pure’ in sons of anarchy. Everyone in Charming is corrupted somehow.  But that’s this slice of reality.  Even the ministers they know are into the sex trade.  In the methadone clinic I meet people who were raised in gangster families and this is their reality.  Not the sanitized CBC yuppie think.  Real ugly.  Maybe it’s why I dream of being unable to find a toilet which isn’t covered in shit with nowhere to stand and nowhere to sit.
Thankfully the Show and Shine Bikers are the norm. Good guys who like to ride. More and more people going two wheeled to enjoy the wind and freedom and save on gas.  When I was in europe and asia there were 10 times the scooters and motorbikes so there’s a long way to go here before the field is saturated.  Cars will always have a place like trucks but the motorcycle has a special place of it’s own. The ultimate commuter.  And there’s nothing that beats it for two people getting away with a tent.  Laura and I have had some wonderful times with the two of us on my bike and the tent and sleeping bags and cooking gear in the saddlebags.  Modern cowboys.  We stopped this since Gilbert and I got Laura a bike so the three of us could continue this only she’s anxious on her own.  That leaves the Miata which is almost as good but seems to suit staying in motels more than tenting.  The truck and RV are certainly the way to go. I can put the Harley in my toy hauler garage but I don’t want to do this for a weekend.  It’s perfect for a month or more vacation though. I’m the same with the big boat. I don’t want to take these out for a weekend anymore. Too much trouble whereas the motorcycle is perfect for the simple quick getaway and overnight camping.  We loved our rides down to the US too.  Maybe I need to get Gilbert his own trailer.  I just don’t like towing.  Defeats the purpose.
All of these are ‘cadillac problems’ and nothing that needs solving for today.  I’m still trying to figure how to mount the speakers in the RV but keep them portable so I could take them elsewhere.
I’ve been having fun with FITBIT - I do more exercise than I thought. My diet is still excessive, really good food but too much night snacking. That second portion of ice cream is the waist full  event.   I sleep better with 9 restless night events versus 30 when I use my CPAP machine.  I have to get the fittings fixed. Laura says I snore and shallow breath when I’m not using it.  It’s a bother but I see the benefit. When I first got it I really noticed the difference in my energy and alertness.
I finished Wilbur Smith’s Dessert God, a great historical fiction novel about Egypt during the time when the Hyksos took over northern Egypt, Nimrod was king in Sumeria and Crete was ascendent on the waters. I really enjoyed reading it.  This summer, partly because of the plane flights, I’ve been reading a lot and enjoying it.  Mostly fiction, though I was reading the Nady el Guebaly and Gallanter Textbook of International Addiction Medicine and the Teenage Brain, by the neuroscientist mother.   I read inspirational literature every day but haven’t been reading as many textbooks as I have other years.  I would love to get back into the study of Biblical Hebrew. I was astounded at how dynamic the language was compared to English translations.
It’s hard to believe it’s the end of August.  Hunting season opens for bow in 2 days on Vancouver Island. I’ve taken a couple of days off for a long weekend when rifle season opens here on the mainland.  Next weekend I might get the ATV out for the long weekend since it’s bow season.  I’ve got the bow but for bow hunting you really ought to sit along a trail where theres fresh spore since you need to be close for a kill.  Dave’s fish got me thinking of hunting. I don’t have the patience for BC fishing but I am so looking forward to having venison for the pot this fall.  I love venison stew.
All the reports I have to do are burdensome but somehow I find the time. Unfortunately they’ve interfered with summer and are likely to mess up the fall. I don’t mind extra work in winter and spring but I’d like less work in summer and fall.  My colleagues all share that this summer there’s been no slack.  The shortages of services are backing up with aging population meaning more patients and increasingly the ‘workhorses’ like me retiring and no one replacing us.
There’s an election year with each party claiming to be better able to spend our tax money and me increasingly disappointed by government giveaways.  30 years and more of working and taxes and more and more I see people not working and being paid by government and under the table.  But my mind is such it can always come up with the negatives. I have to actively focus on the positives, give my head a shake, show the right gratitude. I’m blessed with today. Outside the weather is lovely. I walked Gilbert this morning and it’s truly beautiful.  The luscious green of Burnaby is something I still remember finding so attractive when Baiba and I came here 1971 and stayed with her family friend. Coming from Winnipeg I couldn’t believe how luscious and green the trees and shrubs were.  Now I’m looking out of my RV at the green forrest. It’s truly a blessing.
I’ve this lovely mobile home with a great dog and girlfriend and full fridge. I’ve had spectacular coffee and porridge. I’ll not make it to church today.  I’m taking it easy.  A winter christian.  Hope to make a meeting later.  But the weekend like so many is a recuperation time for getting ready for work.  I think of work as the ‘front’.  So many angry people.  I was only verbally abused a few times last week.  But I’m tired of it.  It wears on me.  I find myself thinking death is better.  Then I listen to the media and it’s all skewed and merry with no grasp of the reality of drug addiction.  I’m the only lucid moment is some peoples days.  Meanwhile the authorities are into Chamberlain appeasement without the realization that’s there’s never enough and everyone demands more until they turn to violence.  I know. I’m on the front lines. The ‘authorities’ are so far removed they may as well live on the space station.
But its Sunday.  Day of rest.  Sabbath.  Time for prayer and thanksgiving.
Thank you God for all your blessings. Thank you for the sunshine and greenery. Thank you for the wealth and wellness, family,  friends and pets. Thank you for this day of rest.

Sons of Anarchy - 5th season

Katie Sagal and Ron Pearlman continue to amaze me.  Kurt Sutter has created  wonderful study in sociopaths. They really explain how some children grow up twisted.  Personally they’re great actors so it’s not them but the Biker Old Lady and ex Biker President they play.
All the lies and cover ups and betrayals.  All tribalism and empire. It’s better than any survival series.  This must have been the way early anthropological empires developed with racial gangs and territories.  I’m reminded of the Old Testament and Athens and Sparta.  Only here the only religion is money so it’s the new corporate America with the Roman Empire being the Feds.  The local police and CIA and prisons are all grey.  No one is black or white in this often racial drama.  Even one of the stars has to conceal his black father to be a member while the Irish and Italians challenge the Mexicans and blacks. All the while ‘legitimate’ business is being enacted in the mythical town of Charming, California without so many guns but just as much attitude.
I love Maggie  Siff as the Pediatric Surgeon mother whose in love with Katie’s son Jax , now the leader of the SONS, having taken over from Clay, played by Pearlman.  There’s cat fights and fist fights, murders, suicides, executions and mayhem.  Every minute there’s another bike chase or shooting with the sale of guns and the sale of coke.  Land deals and pornography.  I love all the locations, the street, the biker club house, the Sagal and Pearlman, old lady and ex press home and the Siff and Hunnan, now Pres, new home, the prison, the dockyards, the ex chief of police’s trailer, the call girl centre and the country.  It’s a truly moving adventure.
I’m in winter where sunny days are rare but I’ve been on a marathon watching this series in one sitting, with minor breaks here and there. The sun is setting outside and I think of all the errands I could have run, the things I could have done but here I’ve been, just eating up the action and drama.  I’m too old for this much "business" in life. It’s readily apparent watching the old guys and gals in this 3 age generation show,   that they’re all too old too.
Now if anyone asks, I’m just watching this as a ‘study’ in anthropology and social psychology. I’m not really loving this series. Every once in a while the gang is riding along on a nice road in summer. That’s when I can relate as a Harley rider.  I love the open highway and the maneuverability of the big machines.  I totally appreciate the lure of the big motorcycle and the attraction of the ride.  But being shot at, I’ll pass.
It’s like sailing in storms on the ocean. I thought that was more than exciting enough and when I thought of sailing vessels shooting cannon at each other I thought them crazy.  There’s more than enough to just riding a motorcycle on the open road without having to dodge bullets.  If there’s going to be bullets, give me a tank or an space craft escape vehicle.
But as a television series, from a biker perspective, it can’t be beat. I’ve yet to be able to just watch one episode.  All 5 seasons I’ve got in single seasons DVD and watched the whole seasons almost non stop. It’s definitely a marathon event when Sons of Anarchy is on. I don’t know how anyone can watch it on tv and wait for the next week to find out what happens to Bobby or Juice or if Katie stays with Ron or goes with the new latin lover.  I just loved the IRA blasting the 50 cal machine guns. The SONS have silencers for their pistons but that beauty was catastrophic in sound and damage.
The stuntmen in this series with bikes flying off roads, crashing people and cars, are incredible.  Great make up artists for the blood shots and body parts.
As I said, I’m not really watching this as entertainment. I may be entertained but this is really ‘serious’  educational material.  I just hope I don’t repeat any of the language I’m hearing.  That could prove very difficult in the wrong circles ( i.e. almost all circles).
And yea, I recommend it.  Totally.

Netflix TV

I've just watched the first season of Jericho on Netflix tv. I've been sick so I've had time lying about and enjoyed immensely the ability to program my entertainment with this brilliant series.  No commercials.  Easy download. I love Netflix.  Cheap at $8 a month.  I've loved tv series I bought in DVD but the cost of $40 or more a season was relatively prohibitive.  That said, Sons of Anarchy was well worth the price when we got it at Sturges North and watched it in the RV rainy nights after a Harley run.
When I first got Netflix a few years back the selection of movies was limitted and I only watched a couple before dropping out.   I've seen a lot of movies over the years being somewhat of a movie buff.  Tuesday 1/2 price movie at the theatre was a regular event some years.  Now it's only the movie that's a must see big screen event like the recent Men in Black that gets me out to the theatre. Some movies are cultural events and seeing them early in the first week at the theatre allowed one to be able to talk about them. Woody Allen films were like that a few years back.  Then there's Kidman's Australia which really needs a truly big screen to appreciate it.  Australia is that big a country.  Otherwise we like to stay at home with the dog and watch DVD.
I'd watched an episode of Jericho on tv and never watched it again. The commercials disrupted the 'flow'.  However, watching the series over a week has been like reading a great book .  The characterization, the sub plots and sub stories have all been so alive this way.  I realized too that commercials have caused television story telling to have to be 'dumbed down'.  Jericho has alot more happening than alot of the mainstream tv. Ironically lack of commercials can kill a tv series but equally commercials can kill a great tv show.
Thanks to netflix I'm reviewing tv series I've not 'caught on' too because without the commercials complex character stories like Jericho are really extremely intriguing. The fast pace thriller aspect is maintained without the interruption too.
I'm hoping that tv series and movie series find a better way to 'make money' to make the money they deserve.  The acting and writing of these has never been better.  Other venues seems to have sorted this out.  I don't mind paying the monthly rent for this sort of quality. I imagine however all manner of things that could of gone the 'commercial' route like 'educational lectures' at Univeristy interrupted every 5 to 10 minutes by a jingo.  Maybe with the health care crisis surgery can interrupted for a 'word from the sponsor'.  I recently had the experience of a video commercial board over a urinal and thought while I missed the opportunity for my own thoughts I preferred commercial in the washroom to commercials in my livingroom.
Just as Frank Lloyd Wright asked that architecture consider the environment it was in  an ahead of his time ecological consideration,  high quality marketting really needs to get on board with better ways of selling without abusing the potential 'customer' the way commercial disruptions of entertainment have.
Netflix  is a  great antidote.
I don't have much time in my schedule for tv or movies as is.  I suspect though I watch at least a couple of hours a day of some sort of entertainment making me one of those roughly 20 hour a week sorts.  Perhaps that's a lot by some standards, less by others.  Whenever I'm sick though or recovering from an injury or overworked tv series and movies are a favourite distraction and entertainment.
Thanks to Netflix though I can better program the content - indeed I could watch more 'discovery' channel easily if I was so enclined. Frankly I do watch a lot of history and science material but nothing beats a good tv series for 'comfort food enjoyment'.  Jericho did that like Friends and Tudors did it, like some of the HBO mini series have too.
Probably having watched so much Jericho this last week I'm a little post apocalyptic and more attentive to the BBC news about world terrorism.  Certainly Sons of Anarchy didn't affect my desire to do crime, if anything it made me more against it, but it did affect my desire to ride my Harley.  Just seeing the bikes on the open road was invigorating. "Friends" always takes me back to medical school days,  nostalgia of student friendships that is always enjoyable. I appreciate the friends I have today more as a result of the relationships depicted in the Friends series and in Seinfeld too.
Netflix lets me choose the tv I want to view.  I confess, if I'm eating alone at home, I prefer to watch tv , a half hour, rather than watching a movie which can have me infront of the screen for an hour and a half limitting the available choices for the evening after that.
I like that it's on my laptop too.  My Mac Air is just fine for viewing.  The Apple cube and tv seemed over priced and didn't have what Netflix has in comparison.