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An au revoir to an old friend while terrorists murder in Paris

Here I am in the “Oldest Town In Texas.” That has been the claim many years here in Nacogdoches. I lived here, went to and graduated from college here, and worked here, nearly as many years as I lived with my parents before leaving my hometown for the Navy.

I have partyied like a big dog here in what some college kids and others called “Nacanowhere.” I bet many a person who complained of what a small, nothing town, they were in, now wish they could be back here and in college at the age in which they attended. I have also loved here. A few of those were serious and some not so much.

Best of all, I made many friends here–those in school, and others — from my working as a firefighter and later a news paper reporter. But I am not here to see friends, old flames or otherwise. I am here to remember the life of my friend, Rick, who died earlier this week at the age of 61.

I don’t think I could write a memorial or an obituary for Rick, although I am more than capable of doing so. I believe I could do a better job in writing of the things we did and shared at some later date. As in “the book” I have yet to write. Rick’s death, at 61, reminds me I need to get busy, on a book and on other matters. I say this as I turned 60 last month.

Hopefully, I will write more about this unusual, talented and very funny man. His obituary in the paper — the same one where I reported and wrote for nearly four years — reminded me of the many things he had been able to do such as his work as a nurse, a mechanic and not too long ago, owning a vending machine service.

I write this as all hell breaks loose with terrorists shooting down scores of people in Paris. It was a better day when Rick was here, not that he could do anything about the terror attack. But things were a bit better yesterday. Au revoir.

 

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Tip-ping is NOT a country, at least at Joe’s Crab Shack

Casual dining place Joe’s Crab Shack is going where no man or woman has gone before — well, at least in recent times.

The Texas-based eatery said they are doing away with tipping. RTT News has reported that the seafood restaurant will be paying employees $12 per hour which will mean a 12-to-15 percent increase an order to offset the wage increase.

I suppose this will work out fine for the diner who normally pays Joe’s Crabs around $14 per order, according to some industry sources. But then, going out to a nice sit-down seafood dinner isn’t cheap. Seafood, especially fresh seafood, isn’t cheap.

Time will tell how well a change in such a long-held practice will add to the cost of living for restaurant workers whose livelihoods rely on tips. I would imagine it would depend on where one lives. Back in the late 1980s I worked for a lunch-crowd cafe for what was then the prevailing minimum wage of $3.35 an hour. Jeez, it didn’t even seem that much back then. In 2012 dollars for 1988, that would be $6.48 an hour, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures. Oh, and I was never tipped there. Even then with minimum wage I had to work three jobs to stay afloat in my crappy little trailer house. A friend, who lived elsewhere, let me live there for free except I had to pay rent for the lot. The best I can remember electricity, water and cable were free. It was a pretty sweet deal except for the fact I could barely hold my head above that free water.

There are, of course, true service professionals who earn a very good living in upscale restaurants one mainly find in large cities. Perhaps waiters in a smaller to mid-sized cities can make a decent living or perhaps stay afloat in college. But when you think about it $12 is not a whole s**t-pot of loot. I make $20.60 per hour, working 32 hours per week, and it isn’t a whole lot of money.

Despite my trying to sound clever with a Star Trek-style lead, Joe’s isn’t the only restaurant that doesn’t allow tips. I know at least one casual dining place where I live that has a posted policy of no tipping. The Georgia-based McAlister’s Deli, at least the one where I eat in Southeast Texas, posts the no-tipping sign,  saying the restaurant’s employees are well-paid and do not need tips.

Looking around on the ‘net, it seems like the Sonic Drive-In chain purposely keeps its policy toward gratuity on the sly. I see pages and pages where people inquire if you should tip your Sonic carhop.  What I don’t see are answers.

I know at least at one newspaper where I had worked, a local Sonic had been questioned as to whether its carhops should be tipped. The answer was no.

Part of the uncertainty about tipping in restaurants is the franchising of such places as Sonic and McAllister’s. What the corporate types tell the franchisee is not usually discussed in the open.

I have notice in the past few years, I suppose it grew along with the Recession of ’08, that everywhere one looked workers were asking for tips. This includes workers who, I would think, do not depend on tips. I have seen signs requesting tips in such places as Quiznos, where the customer stands from the time they place their order until it is completed.

So there are plenty of questions as to how well those companies who stop tipping will fare. Will it come out good for the worker? The same question can be asked for the customers and owners. For many, such policies might just seem as if they are headed into the deep, dark spaces of the universe. Then again, I may be wrong and probably a little over-dramatic.

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Navy launches missile. Southern Californians freak out.

Living where I do there are all sorts of catastrophes that are waiting to happen. I say that in light of all the supposedly “terrified” folks in the Los Angeles area who freaked last week when they saw a missile test just after sundown. The Los Angeles Times newspaper reports that a second and final missile was fired this afternoon off the California Coast.

Everywhere, at least in SoCal, people are “skeered.” At least that is what the media reports.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Navy photo of nuclear anti-sub rocket in 1962 from the destroyer USS Agerholm.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The destroyer USS Agerholm fires an atomic rocket in 1962.

I live in Beaumont, Texas. It is certainly a blip compared to Los Angeles, although, just a few miles from where I live is the nation’s fourth largest port in tonnage. The Port of Beaumont sits on the Neches River, at the northwestern leg of the Sabine-Neches Waterway. The 79-mile-long ship channel serves one of the largest petrochemical producing areas in the U.S. The port is also a “military outload” port. I saw weird bubble-wrapped helicopters being loaded during the prelude to the Second Iraq War, not to mention a plethora of tanks, fighting vehicles and assorted items most of which were covered in desert camo.

The waterway juts northward to the Port of Orange on the Sabine River. Just south of the confluence of both rivers is the Port of Port Arthur. That confluence is Sabine Lake, which is more of a bay than a lake. At the tip of the water way is Sabine Pass, where a small port sits. Also, two liquefied natural gas or LNG terminals are being built on either side of the lake. One is at Sabine Pass, the other near Cameron, Louisiana.

So, were one to be terrified of what might happen, this could be the place for you. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, fifth and ninth in tonnage respectfully, also makes for a scary place. There are refineries in that area as well and lots of varied military activity to the north and south of Los Angeles. This brings me to the big Pacific scare.

Now maybe people were really terrified. I don’t know. I bet some hipster sitting in his back yard looking over the ocean and tripping his ass off on acid had a real rush. But these type of things happen quite often off the Southern California coast. Take San Clemente Island, not to be confused on San Clemente, the city between San Diego and L.A. and the place where Tricky Dick Nixon used to live.

San Clemente Island sits to the southwest of Santa Catalina Island. The former is officially uninhabited. That is a good thing because the island has been, for years, a Navy missile and shipboard gunfire range. It is probably more of the former these days as Navy ships are more missile oriented these days. The ship I served a year on in the Navy was a World War II-era gun destroyer although it could fire “rocket assisted projectiles.” The armament system was called an ASROC, for Anti submarine rocket. The Agerholm, the ship on which I served, fired the first and I guess only, nuclear-tipped ASROC

The rocket test, called “Swordfish,” was part of a series of nuclear tests in the early 1960s, most of the tests were air drops from B-52s and were in the South Pacific Ocean. Swordfish took place about 400 nautical miles — about 460 miles — west of San Diego. According to information on the test, the 20 kilo-ton device was fired about 1 p.m. local time on May 11, 1962, from the Agerholm. The nuke’s so-called “yield,” the energy unleashed in the bomb, was approximately that of the “Fat Man” bomb detonated over Nagasaki. A raft some 4,300 yards — some 2.5 miles — away was the target for the ASROC.

 “The rocket missed its sub-surface zero point by 20 yards and exploded 40 seconds later at a depth of 650 feet in water that was 17,140 feet deep,” according to nuclearweaponarchive.org.

 “The spray dome from the detonation was 3000 feet across, and rose to 2100 feet in 16 seconds. The detonation left a huge circle of foam-covered radioactive water. Within two days it had broken up into small patches and spread out for 5 to 8 miles.”

Operation Dominic took place about 15 years before I reported aboard the Agerholm. Was nuclear fallout still on the ship when I boarded her in the former Todd Shipyard facility in Long Beach, Calif? I don’t know.

Now the majority of stories on the test firings from the ballistic submarine USS Kentucky speculate whether the Navy was trying to send some message. I think the answer is “yes.” The very being of the U.S. Navy sends a message, as in the photo above being an extreme example. Some believe the people should be forewarned of such tests. The Navy says “Sorry, we can’t tell you when this missile will launch, top secret.” I would bet if something like the picture above appeared off the coast of L.A., people really would freak-out. And they’d have every right to be scared.

I conclude with this tip: Assume the Navy will test fire a missile in the water — somewhere!

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Doc Carson, lies, and totes a loaf of bread while he walks like an Egyptian

This week has been the one week of the presidential “silly season” that I have come to enjoy and find fascinating.

I am talking about the “Lying Dr. Carson.” I could call it something like “Lying-Gate” or “Carson-gate” or even “Doctor-gate.” But isn’t the whole “Watergate” use to describe scandals way, way dated?

Veracity x Veracity = Veracity²
Veracity x Veracity = Veracity²

The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. — developed by an Italian firm — opened in 1965. The hotel was certainly meant as “the” place for anybody who is anybody. In the District that would mainly mean pols or high-powered lobbyists. And why wouldn’t it? Vatican money was used to build the hotel, with its view of the Potomac River, and its architect had been a favorite of the infamous strong-man Benito “Il Duce” Mussolini.

But it was Watergate as a “third-rate burglary” that made the hip 60s hotel immortal. That heist took place in 1972. And though it seemed back then that the American tragedy played out for ever and ever, it climaxed some two years and one month later, when President Tricky Dick Nixon raised his hands as his bye-bye with a “V” sign on each hand, for victory. I am not sure if anyone has developed a solid theory in what victory Nixon believed he had fomented. In reality, the president had essentially saved the nation from the spectacle of Nixon as the first president to be jailed. Vic-to-ry!

So, Watergate became a starting point more than 40 years ago as a partial synonym for scandals that were developed and used with no real objections by lazy journalists everywhere.

Holy crap!

Therefore, with a little — though necessary — social history we come up with a presidential scandal even though the person involved is only a candidate for the GOP nomination for president. As to whether the whole dust-up about Dr. Ben Carson is officially a scandal, we will have to see how this plays out.

We have, so far, learned that the acclaimed Dr. Carson, who separated conjoined twin babies, is apparently fudging on his claims of being a young tough in Detroit. And the good doctor also wasn’t telling the truth, or perhaps just flat out lied, about having been offered a “full ride” scholarship to West Point.

But there is more and it doesn’t particularly have any bearing on his veracity.

Carson, a Seventh-Day Adventist, has expressed beliefs that are not only anti-science but as well, lack any common sense. Exhibit A is that Dr. Carson believes that the Egyptian pyramids were built to store grain, a belief he allegedly developed from the Book of Genesis. No matter that the pyramids weren’t hollow and thus would not be an optimal granary.

So does this mean that the Bangles need to revamp their 80s hit music video for “Walk Like An Egyptian?” If you’re old enough to remember:

“Slide your feet up the street bend your back
Shift your arm then you pull it back … “

Oh well, just watch the damned video.

Perhaps one should walk like an Egyptian with one hand up and thrust forward while the other carries a loaf of bread. No?

One would think a pediatric neurosurgeon would be a man of science. Maybe Carson comes from the Gump School of Medicine: Science is as science does.

As an old high school friend used to say: “That fellow is as odd as a flying snake.”

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The internet and the ‘medical student syndrome’

Ed. note: Once again I have been editing after posting. This time I have been receiving help from Japan. So, hold on to your laptop, I might just edit some more.

There is a study I would like to see, and if you have seen such a study, please send it to our e-mail address. This study would gauge how people value (or no) that be-all-end-all tool, the internet. The study I’d like to see would measure quality of information and whether one often finds the quantity of the results too overwhelming. For instance, asking a question formed as such:

“How well does information you receive from the internet help you understand subjects you research?

A. The information is usually helpful in understanding a subject.

B. The information is occasionally helpful.

C. The information is mostly confusing and does not help me understand.

Think about the questions and answers regardless of how well they are constructed. I would pick B. That does not bode well for the internet if a representative sample of users — and definitely not an internet-based query — come to the same conclusion.

I have found the “information superhighway” can cause a 40-car-collision of data overload. In life before the internet I had similar experiences.

I came to that conclusion some 15 years before I ever heard the word “internet” and first used a rudimentary internet connection in my work as a journalist. When I first began training as an emergency medical technician, I had no idea that training would lead to what is a somewhat well-known syndrome.

Some call it “Medical Student Disease” while others describe it as a syndrome rather than a disease. You say potato. I say tuber. Some in the medical profession prefer to call it “nosophobia.”  While that term seems as if a person is afraid of noses — and I’ve found a few scary schnozzolas in my time — the term denotes a fear of illness. Apparently, someone felt that future doctors should not be characterized as hypochondriacs. Hey, if the shoe fits, oh wait, we’re getting off on the wrong foot here. Someone call a podiatrist!

I’m not an EMT anymore. I let my certification lapse almost three dozen years ago. But I was pretty much a hypochondriac for a little while. I finally came to the realization that I am not having this or that problem. No knee problems or back problems or heart problems. I had the majority of those medical experiences in more recent times with the exception of the latter.

I had several tests this year on my heart. It is practical that a man now 60 years old — ugh, that still is a little hard to accept — have testing done on their ticker. This is especially so because several family members had heart problems. I have had high blood pressure, controlled, with medicine for almost 20 years. I’m diabetic. I’m overweight. I haven’t touched any form of tobacco in 15 years. But the bad news is I may have problems with breathing because I smoked two packs a day for about half of 25 years.

Over the last year I’ve had three different types of cardiac testing. The first was an echocardiogram. It appeared to show a slight enlargement in the left portion of my heart. My cardiologist at the VA said that the enlargement was not anything of major alarm. Yeah, but it’s not his heart.

I had shortness of breath upon landing in Albuquerque, N.M. back in July. Upon deplaning I walked up into the jet way and upon reaching the waiting area I had to stop and catch my breath. My breath was already waiting in the Super Shuttle. I experienced breathing problems a few times in ABQ, which is right at a mile high in elevation. I did some reading on the internet and found that even though altitude sickness is found in people somewhere above 8,000 feet it can be seen in people below that altitude. One also has to realize I left a place just a few feet above sea level for almost 30,000 feet while flying in a jet airliner. And I never came down, so to speak, until I returned Southeast Texas,

The shortness of breath also became a reason for the docs wanting a bit more testing.  About two weeks ago I had an “imaging” stress test. This is where one is injected with a medicine that makes your heart beat more rapidly. My heart was not beating very fast. The cardiologist suspected a blood pressure medicine was causing the slow pulse. I quit the meds and my pulse was back to normal.

On Monday I had a “nuclear” stress test. This test involves a radioactive camera injected via IV inside one’s blood and allows pictures to show a much better view of inside the heart. Better than the outside looking in, I suppose.

I got my test results today via email from a physician assistant in the cardio department at the Houston VA. I immediately began looking on the internet for answers — more results than I probably needed —  that explained what the PA was actually saying. I understood that the testing had what was called a normal “ejection factor.” Looking it up on the internet I found the percentage that was given in my results is normal. But what were reputable internet sites also explained that a normal result does not mean a patient cannot also have had so-called “silent heart attacks” or congestive heart failure.

I was getting back into “medical student syndrome” mode with a bit of a furrowed brow when my cardiologist called and told me the test showed my heart was normal in how well the heart pumps with each beat. He said these pictures showed a much better view than the previous echocardiogram. What that means is I have no apparent heart problems. So what do I do? I just wait and see if I have any other symptoms of heart disease.

My relapse of nosophobia or whatever one cares to call it was brought on today by the internet. That and a little more information than I likely needed, or at least information that made sense. The only problem I have now is that I am obsessing over noses. Where’s Barbra Streisand when you need her?