Blatant Plug: The Survivalist Blog

M.D. Creekmore over at the The Survivalist Blog – a survival blog dedicated to helping others prepare for and survive disaster – with articles on bug out bag contents, survival knife choices and a wealth of other survival information is giving away a Go Berkey Water Filter System (a $139.00 value)! To enter, you just have to post about it on your blog. This is my entry. Visit The Survivalist Blog for the details.

Pun: 5th of May

Nearly 100 years ago, Mexicans discovered a European condiment made of whipped oil & eggs. They went crazy over  it, and would not be satisfied with homemade Central American versions of it – no, they demanded the real thing from Great Britain. Arrangements were made for a large shipment of this smooth, white delicacy via the Titanic.
 
Well, you know what happened to that shipment.
 
News of the loss of the huge and much-anticipated cargo reached Mexico on May 5. Enthusiastic expectation turned to horror and lament, so great that every year the nation remembers the loss with ... Sinko de Mayo.

Rant: Perception

We sense an incredible amount of data, far beyond what gets filtered down to a tiny articulable amount. Sometimes some of that data bypasses some of those filters, or seeps thru anyway, and reaches conscious cognition anyway – kinda freaking us out in the process with the manifestation of the perception & interpretation. AFAIK the phenomenon of autism is the lack of certain mental filters, inundating the autistic’s cognition with huge amounts of raw data, allowing for the “savant” ability to perceive & recall intricate details, and as a consequence be unable to focus on particular details which are socially expected by “neurotypicals”.
 
For a more sane analysis of nuanced perception, read Tom Brown’s “Science and Art of Tracking”. Might help translate the weirdness of perceptive dreams and nutcase supernaturalism into the reality of better understanding what you do perceive.

Movie: Taken

Teenage daughter vacations in Paris. Father has 96 hours to rescue her from kidnappers. Visceral, compelling tale - to parents, about what evils may befall their offspring; to older children, a reveal of how evil others can be and how playful ignorance can kill.

I put this with Braveheart as a story parents should share with their older (!) kids, a platform for frank discussion of how much of the world operates and how we should behave in response.

Well done as an entertaining thriller. Downfall is how so much of the story relies of nick-of-time coincidences; consider how different an end if only actions spanning days occurred a few seconds off. As a father of a playful little girl, I hoped for somewhat more applicable solutions to every parent's nightmare. Perhaps a trip to Storm Mountain's High Risk Personnel training (to wit: how to survive a kidnapping) is in order.

Movie: X-Men Origins Wolverine

Teeth-grinding adrenaline-pumping low-cognition guy movie. The three prior X-Men movies alluded to the mysterious amnesic history of the unsophisticated yet compelling character Wolverine; this story at long last unfolds his 175-year lifespan - and why that one nasty badguy is so keen on almost but not quite killing him.

Understand that this movie is a tangent to the obsessively complex X-Men comic book series. Lots of characters are introduced, many with very brief involvements featuring unexplained extreme behavior which will leave fanboys smiling and nodding while their SOs tilt their heads wondering "what the heck was THAT all about?" Relax, enjoy, and recognize this is just a small part of a much bigger story.

Movie: The Woman in White

Another nicely-done Victorian-era chick-flick about aristocrats jockeying for positions to marry up, access fortunes, and bump off anyone in their way. This one is a bit darker than usual, as we discover why the ghostly, disheveled & deranged woman in white is the key to the high-society combat that unfolds.

Surgery: complications and recovery

Went home for a couple days, then had signs of internal bleeding so I went back to the hospital for another week.

Upshot for the whole affair:
- Lost one organ (gallbladder)
- Almost lost another organ (pancreas)
- Seriously annoyed another (liver)
- Got knocked out 4 times
- 4 CaT scans
- 1 radioactive injection
- Transfused 9 units of blood & plasma
- Starved for most of 2 weeks
- Lost 10 pounds
- Jabbed with needles maybe 100 times
...and thankful for all of it.

We have a wonderful health care system. Everything done was just between me and my 8+ doctors. Keep government bureaucrats out of it.