Category: Journal

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As more parents skip shots for kids, other children put at risk

When I opened The Pioneer Press this morning, this was the article at the top of the front page (with the title above) and I did a little happy dance inside. Lemme explain why.

Basically, it drives me nuts when people make ridiculous, non-scientific claims and present them as objective truth: a woman’s body is capable of preventing pregnancy if she’s been raped (Rep. Todd Akin); Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for America’s abortion policy (Pat Robertson); and there’s a link between vaccines and autism (Jenny McCarthy, among others), something that’s never been proven. Never ever ever.

From the article: “Public health officials strongly maintain that there is no proof vaccinations cause autism. Last year, a prominent medical journal found a British researcher whose work gave rise to the childhood-vaccines-cause-autism movement in 1998 faked his data. Before that, other researchers checked out Andrew Wakefield’s hypothesis and none found a link between vaccines and autism.”

And to all the bull-headed parents who feel justified in ignoring the fact that there’s no data to support their beliefs about the dangers of vaccination, I have some good news: you’re putting everyone else’s kids in danger, too.

There’s something called “herd immunity”, which is pretty well explained by this website. As long as most kids get their shots, the rest should be fairly safe. As an increasing number of parents decide not to vaccinate their kids, my doctor has to start warning her patients about things like a local outbreak of whooping cough.

There is no connection between vaccines and autism. NONE. Scientific studies have demonstrated this fact time and time again. Consequently, if I have to accept medical advice from either my doctor or a Hollywood celebrity, I’d like to say this: Jenny McCarthy, shut the fuck up.

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Justice is served, Mosquito Hunter!

I was driving home from trivia last night—it’s a good way to relax my brain after spending a couple hours learning about stuff like strategic management—and as I rounded the corner onto my street, my headlights revealed something that was… unexpected. On the far side of the entrance into a park, there was a sign stuck into the ground advertising some company called Mosquito Hunter: “Get rid of mosquitoes!” It was bright white, placed right next to the entrance and impossible to miss. I disliked it immediately.

Some friends of mine, Marie and Michael “Porter” Porter, live in the area of north Minneapolis that got hit by a tornado last summer. Within a couple hours after their neighborhood was ravaged by Mother Nature, “vultures” were putting signs on people’s lawns to advertise repair services. They never asked anyone if it was okay to put them all over the neighborhood, they just did it. When Porter kicked one of the signs, it led to a very loud screaming match and, well, hearing that story left an impression on me about people who put signs where they don’t belong.

I pulled into my driveway, walked into the house, then asked my parents if people are legally allowed to post signs on public property like that. Neither of them thought so, but they weren’t sure. I decided to double-check, so I started surfing around on Google until I found a state statute that addressed advertising signs on public property.

Minnesota Statute 173.08 EXCLUDED ROAD ADVERTISING DEVICES, Subd. 2. Advertising devices prohibited. No advertising shall be erected or maintained:
(1) in or within 500 feet of national parks, state parks, local parks, historical sites, and public picnic or rest areas…

The sign was placed in a local park, which is prohibited (and pretty indicative of someone being a douchebag, too). I honestly wonder what the penalty is for posting advertising illegally like that, but I probably won’t get to find out: as soon as I found that statute, I went outside, walked down the street, plucked the sign out of the ground and brought it home. Part of me wanted to just toss it in the park’s dumpster, but I opted against it for two reasons.

First, the Mosquito Hunter might go dumpster diving and find it again. Second, I might be able to use the sign myself. Not just to cover it up and write something else, mind you. No, I could call the phone number on it and hold the sign hostage: “Gimme ten bucks or I start bending metal rods!!!” (And before any of you start getting judgmental, just remember that I saved him from a fine by taking the sign—he already owes me.)

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Why, yes, I love eating twigs and berries!

Okay, maybe this summer camp isn’t that extreme—we use cabins that have running water—but it definitely lacks the comforts of home: no air conditioning, no soft mattresses and… no internet access. Crap.

Actually, I’m not too concerned, given that this will be my 30th year of attendance. Yep, three decades. God, I feel old… But I’ve had fun since I started as a camper at age 5, became a teen counselor at 15 (I think—it’s been a couple years) and into my 20s (our definition of “teen” is a little loose when it comes to camp counselors) and now I’m the Waterfront Director, playing lifeguard during free swim and instructor during swimming lessons. Of course, that also means I have a higher potential of melting or spontaneously combusting since I sit on a dock while kids swim in the lake, but I’ve had plenty of years learning to deal with sunburn as well. (Hint: Shawn has had many days when he could have qualified for a wet t-shirt contest.)

I’m just mentioning this because I’m heading to IOGT Camp tomorrow after class so we can start setting things up for the official start on Saturday. Thankfully, I won’t have to study for a final exam during camp this year, so I won’t feel guilty about passing out on my cot once in a while. (Even if my skin doesn’t melt off, sitting in the hot sun for a couple hours a day gets draining after a while.)

The lack of internet access there means I won’t be able to write any blog posts for a while and also won’t be able to approve comments that look like spam. If you’re going to write something douchey, you’ll have to do it in plain English. Sorry, internet trolls.

So that’s it for now. I hope you all enjoy your summers and do all sorts of fun activities that put smiles on your faces and give you plenty of happy memories. I plan on doing the same, though that could be difficult if I spontaneously combust. In that case… hey, I’ll never have to take another final exam! I’m smiling already!

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A full moon in the middle of the day!

Some friends and I went out for dinner last night at a Thai restaurant and when ordering an entree there, you get to specify which level of spiciness you want: Low, Medium, Hot, Thai Hot, or Challenging. Matthew felt brave enough to order pad thai at the challenging level and, well, he really wanted to get ice cream after we were done eating.

“Is there a Dairy Queen around here?” I did a web search for “nearest dairy queen” on my phone and the first one listed was… 0.0 miles away. It was the building next door, but none of us noticed when we got there. Thus, we walked out of the restaurant, turned right, walked across two parking lots and then into the DQ.

After we got our ice cream, we sat down in the sun room area: all windows and glass ceilings. Matthew told us he’d love to have a porch like that so he could just lay down and work on an all-over tan. “Through the glass?” Well, you could lay down on top of the glass roof instead.

We started joking about that concept (walk out onto the porch and see a “moon” overhead…), then I thought about Matthew’s Thai food and blurted out, “It’s an eclipse! And look, there are some solar flares!”

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Temper, temper…

I went to dinner with Mom tonight and she ordered salmon. It sounded good and it looked good until she got to the thicker part and discovered it was undercooked. No big deal, she put it to the side, told the waiter when he came back to the table, he brought her another (fully-cooked) piece of salmon and gave me a slice of pie for free. (He offered one to Mom, but she didn’t want the extra calories.)

It made me think about all the times when people absolutely explode over something that isn’t that important. Your food sucks? Don’t throw a temper tantrum, just talk to waiters and they’ll try to make it better. Unless the waiter sucks, in which case you tell the manager, don’t leave a tip and then set the restaurant on fire when you leave.

A few weeks ago, I was walking into a grocery store and some guy was standing outside literally screaming into his phone. I guess he was a customer at US Bank… or at least he used to be up until that conversation. How much money do you want to bet that the other person on the phone was the one who set up the shitty policy that this guy was screaming about?

Last week, I pulled all of my money out of Wells Fargo because I had a free checking account there that was no longer going to be free starting in May. I’d made plenty of banking adjustments in the past so I wouldn’t have to pay fees: I accepted a debit card, I accepted a credit card, I started a savings account that automatically transferred $25 from checking to savings every month. Alas, they were changing their policy yet again, so my no-longer-free checking account would have cost me ten bucks a month.

I found another bank where I don’t have to pay any extra fees, so I went to Wells Fargo to close my accounts there. When I sat down at the desk to talk to someone, I asked him how many people were coming into the bank, yelling and screaming about the policy change.

“More than enough.”

Which means, of course, he was happy to charge people these new fees and didn’t care how they felt about it. He loved everyone yelling at him and didn’t mind because it was all his fault. Or maybe not.

Maybe I’m sympathetic because I worked in a call center for a while and had to deal with people screaming at me, too. I’m not the one who made the change, I can’t change it back, what am I supposed to do besides listen to you yell? When training people, the company would start by having them listen to a few calls. One morning, I had someone listening on my line. The first three calls, I had to turn and ensure him that not everyone will be yelling at him the whole time.

Some of you might be saying, “They’re stupid policies! The bank is taking people’s hard-earned money for no reason! I have the right to be pissed off!” I understand that. I’m not blaming you for being pissed off. I’m just trying to point out two things:

1) The people getting yelled at probably aren’t responsible for the reason you’re yelling, so lower your voice. It’s not going to make things better more quickly; if anything, you’re making the situation worse.

2) Some things are not worth getting upset about. It was a piece of salmon. Remember that your waiter has to face your wrath because someone else fucked up, so ask politely to get it replaced and enjoy your free slice of pie with a sense of peace and fulfillment. That’s how your stomach will feel in a couple minutes, so why not follow suit?

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“Dude, trivia tonight was nuts!”

Trivia at Green Mill in Lakeville runs from 9:00-11:00pm on Thursday nights. I have class on Thursday nights which can potentially run from 6:00-10:00pm. Given that my classmates and I tend to burn out before reaching the four hour mark, professors are generally gracious enough to cut things a little short, so with a 30-minute drive down to the restaurant (about two miles from home), I can usually be there by 10:00 or so. Plenty of time for food, drink and trivia.

Today was no exception: buffalo wings, root beer and trivia. There are four rounds of five questions and I got there in the middle of Round 3, which was all about nuts. I don’t remember what #1 was, #2 asked for another name for peanuts (legumes), and I sat down at the table in time to hear #3, which was the nut that’s used to make pesto (pine nuts).

Normally, the host uses a microphone to ask questions through the speaker system—I don’t know why it wasn’t working, but tonight, he had to walk around the restaurant supplying each table with the questions. Thus, before we heard #4, the guy sitting across from me said it’d be funny if one of us went to another table, listened to the question and came up with the answer before the host got to us.

So I did. Not the “listening to the question” part. I came up with the answer.

For no particular reason, when he said it’d be funny, I blurted out, “Macadamia!” Then the host got to our table and he posed a question along the lines of “the nut that was named after John Macadam, an Australian chemist, in 1957.” And I raised my hands in victory.

We did pretty well and came in second place, earning ourselves a $10 gift card to Green Mill, which I graciously accepted on behalf of our team. Getting “macadamia” right, getting the gift card and hearing a tie-breaker question made tonight awesome.

The tie-breaker question? “How many self-titled albums has Seal produced?”
The answer? Three.
The answer one team gave? Twenty three.

Like I said, that helped make tonight awesome, too.