Childhood model.

I should have submitted this to an agency.
I could have been rich and famous!
















The picture was taken when I was six years old at Snowbird Ski Resort.

Joining the military?

"Did you join the military?"

This is the question that I have heard twenty or thirty times in the past couple of days.  After the first couple of people asked me; I decided to play around with any further inquiries.  I claimed that I had signed up for the marines and was going to start basic training in two weeks.  What was surprising was how differently people reacted to that statement, including the people who work with me every day and know me well.



Some; reacted like my CNA coordinator. Laughed out loud and stated loudly, "Yea....right!"
Some didn't know what to say. "Oh..." Awkward silence and a subject change.
Some questioned my sanity. "Are you crazy?"
Finally some questioned whether I was telling the truth; but couldn't decide. "Are you serious or are you joking?"

I never expected to get so much enjoyment out of a haircut.

Oh. About the haircut. I was considering trying out different haircuts under a recommendation of a friend.  I asked a bunch of people what they thought I should try. I received all kinds of recommendations which I gave very thoughtful consideration to.  Then I realized it. All of those hairstyles looked like they actually required more than about two seconds of work.  Yea. Not happening.  I still wanted to something that would fit my two criteria. Different and easy.  A buzz cut fits both those criteria pretty well! The friend in question also approved so double bonus.

What color do we really see?

The nursing facility is prime opportunity for many people who are trying to do community service, court ordered and self-motivated.  Current govenment protocols require that  the court ordered community service people do their hours without any direct contact with residents. (Maintenance, laundry, groundswork, ect).  The problem that we've had in the past is that some citizens come into the facility saying they want to volunteer.  It is only after completing their specified number of hours that they go to the volunteer coordinator and ask for certification of their hours. They sometimes get very upset when they find out that we can't provide that certification.

This has resulted in a certain process when people ask to come in to visit or volunteer.  Typically if someone wants to visit residents we just let them visit. Sometimes it becomes obvious after a short discussion and observation that someone is there for community service hours and not to really volunteer.  Instead of just letting them visit; we need to send them to the coordinator.

Which brings us to my experience today. We had a mid-twenty year old person come in today to talk with residents.  He was wearing baggy, low-slung clothes, and the predominant color was black. His speech was mumbled and slurred.  He was African American. I came to the snap decision that this probably was a person who needed to see the volunteer coordinator before visiting with the residents.  I sent our visitor into her office; fully expecting not to see him again.

I was wrong. Turns out that this visitor; had recently changed his life. He had found the gospel, within the baptist community. He was so happy with how his life had changed that he was actively searching for various opportunities to share that experience. He thought the nursing home would be a good place to start.

Meanwhile. I'm feeling pretty crappy. I don't really consider myself a biased person. However; faced with a situation I jumped to a rapid conclusion based upon dress and physical appearance.   S. has a friend who had one parent who was Hispanic. He never learned Spanish; never participated in the culture. He mentioned that there are many times when he meets people that they assume he doesn't know English and their initial interactions reflect that belief.

I wonder sometimes how often our unknown biases and prejudices affect our decisions and rationales. We see someone and based on dress, appearance, skin color, and jump to a snap decision. How often do we see what we expect to see even though it's wrong? We aren't consciously biased but how often does it creep in without us knowing.  More importantly; how do we avoid this unconscious thought process?

Swollen ankles and narcotics

Several weeks ago I heard about a group of people who play soccer every Wednesday evening.  This past Wednesday I was finally able to go out and try to meet up with them to play.  I figured that if the group is like typical soccer groups most people will show up around 15 minutes after the scheduled time. I showed up at the park; and much to my surprise there were only two people on the field.  Both of whom were hispanic and practicing penalty shots. Not really the group I was expecting. I sat around twiddling my thumbs until finally 30 minutes later a mixed group of girls and boys show up. Much more like what I was expecting with a singles ward.  I go over to greet them; but don't recognize anyone at all.  Evidentally the group that played every Wednesday decided not to play that week.   I shrugged, and asked if I could just join in with this other group. They were nice and agreed.  We had just barely started playing when the 2 Hispanics and 7 other friends who had shown up came over. They offered to play against us. Despite some warranted trepidation about being outclassed; we agreed. We then proceeded to be absolutely destroyed over the next couple of hours by these guys.  Fortunately they were pretty cool about it; so it was still fun.  I managed to score a hat trick; that was about the only bright spot of the evening for me.  Early on in the game I did tweak my ankle; but it felt fine a couple minutes later so I continued playing.  We played late so as soon as we finished I went to bed.

The next morning I wake up and am mildly surprised to see that my ankle is rather large, swelling, and has some really nice bruises. It didn't feel all that bad when I went to bed.  It would have been nicer. Because it was so late in the morning already. I had to go to work. I spent the next 12 hours hobbling around on a gimp ankle; much to either the extreme sympathy or amusement of people around me. I managed to get someone to work most of the next day's shift for me.  I would still have to come in for 3 hours because no one would work that time.

I show up at 4 o'clock to work my three hours. The nurse on duty gives me a surprised look and asks, "What are you doing here? So and So is supposed to be coming on and you're supposed to be home because of your ankle!"  While surprised I wasn't exactly disappointed about the revelation. Until that is; the assistant director of nursing came up to me and said that she needed to talk to me in her office. Never a good sign; especially when you walk in and the human resource officer is also there. It appears that one of the liquid morphine bottles ran out of morphine while the narcotic sign out sheets still had it listed as having 5 mL left.  Because no one could account for those 5 mL of morphine...every nurse on the wing was going to get a surprise drug test.  They hadn't told me they had covered the shift so I would come and be drug tested. Always a great experience.  A certain part of me was glad that I was only taking Tylenol for my ankle pain at the time. If I had been prescribed Oxycontin things might have become a little bit sticky at work.

This is my "not" writing about something post.

In a conversation that I had with a friend a couple days ago I was given a very specific instruction.  She informed me that what she had just told me better not end up on my blog. Being the obedient person that I am: I'm not writing said thing down in my blog. This is me not writing it down. There you happy?