Pooped. Too pooped to pop, almost. I finally got out of the hospital at 19:00, just when I was supposed to, and now I'm FREE for 24 hours! It was a longer day than I had anticipated, mostly because of computer problems. I did make it in at 08:00 to do the inpatient, and the biopsy cancelled, so I came back home... for about 20 minutes. And then I was back and forth all day, and then about 15:00 I had a patient whose images didn't make it to the PACS server. I tried everything that I could think of, putting the images on every non-PACS machine in the department and shovelling them into the system from all directions... still didn't take. I got frustrated as hell, but I couldn't let it go, because there were people waiting to see the images. In desperation, I scanned the list of patients that I'd done today, and lo! and behold, I found the images under a patients' name that I didn't do. No easy fix, that, so I tried to get ahold of the systems admin. I was finally able to get ahold of her, and got some over-the-phone help, and got it fixed. And actually, if it hadn't been so critical, I would have considered it fun. But it *was* critical, the patient that I did the CT on had an abnormal exam, and the one that I *didn't* do anything on *didn't* have an abnormal exam, in fact, he had no CT exam at all. That type of mistake has no place in modern medicine.... We must be eternally vigilante with these infernal machines. Well, moving onward to the uppermost thing in my mind, but still mindful that I promised to talk about last night.... JD is having transportation troubles. Nothing really major, but enough to prevent him from getting here on time... on time being ten hours from Huntsville to here. 666 miles, and I've never made it in less than twelve hours. I am an excessively careful driver, though, but not nearly as much as my brother.... So, evidently his overdrive went out in his Dodge truck. Now, if I remember rightly, the OD in Dodges is a pretty simple fix... or wait, is that in Chevvies? I can't remember, I just hope that whatever problems he has are easily fixed.... So anyhoo, he's limited to going about 60MPH, 20MPH slower than what he's used to. Additionally, he'll be driving through heavy rain... I haven't mentioned the rain yet, heh... more on that later, too. Karen fixed a big pot of chili. Man, I love chili, and the weather (cool, rainy) is perfect for it. (I must admit, I like my chili better'n Karens', but don't tell her I said that!) So... it's been raining for 24 hours. An excessive end to a drought, heh? I can't find it online, but I think that we've probably got about six (yes, SIX!) inches of wet in the last day. And it's still coming down by the bucketfull. OK, last night. We had a blast. Vrummy little bar in North Topeka, band on a stage in the corner, a nice dance floor. Excellent music, and an old friend, Tom Artzer, was there and was persuaded to do a little singing and playing. And the lady that I knew whose boyfriend was the singer was fantastic. Excellent guitar player, too. Made me hate myself and my lame guitar playing. And we did some dancing. Yep, I had my sandaled feet out amongst all those pointy cowboy boots, and they survived OK. And there were a lot of, um, generously-build esthetically-challenged females out on the floor dancing with each other. Sometimes three at a time, the floor was groaning. And the cops came in, looking for a thief, and they found him. As we were leaving, a cop was pulling away with a pick-up with the stolen lawn tractor in the bed, presumably the (accused) thief was in another cop car on the scene... Anyway, the whole scene brought back memories, mostly good, and Karen and I had a really fun time, but didn't get to socialize much, due to the loudness and proximity of the band. We didn't leave until about midnight, and I was in bed by 01:00... and I got up at 06:30. Not enough sleep for this old man, heh. Inetresting thing that I noticed about rain today, having to drive a lot in it... we have a lot of trees here on the side roads, residential areas, and I noticed that every time I drove under a tree, the drops of rain were much bigger... of course, there's a simple explanation there, the drops consolidate on the leaves... but it was something that I never thought about before. 21:58... But I'm gonna put this baby to bed, and go watch some news or something. Or maybe catch up on some journals, or read some more atheist propaganda, heh.
JD just called, he's just south of Emporia, and there was an accident that has closed all four lanes of the turnpike... he said to not wait up for him, but I will anyway, y'know?