Memes that made me laugh 331

 

Back from vacation, with memes collected from the Web while on the road and in our hotel.  Click any image for a larger view.

Vacation update 2

 

Nothing exciting to report - which is the point of a vacation, after all!

We've spent a while on the beach, enjoying the pleasantly warm (rather than ridiculously hot) weather and the equally warm Gulf water.  To my unpleasant surprise, my difficulties with balance (due to my spinal injury and nerve damage) turn out to be magnified as I get into deeper water;  if I lose my balance when waves are pulling me around, it's difficult to get to my feet again.  I really don't like that, but there's nothing much I can do about it.  I'll be starting another round of physiotherapy when I get home, so I'll mention it to the therapist as another symptom to be addressed.

We spent a few hours yesterday aboard the USS Lexington, an Essex-class aircraft carrier that was the last World War II-era carrier to be retired from active service in 1991.  This was my second visit to her, having seen her a couple of decades ago during a visit to southern Texas, but my wife's first.  Due to my mobility limitations, this time I restricted myself to the hangar and flight decks, where everything is on a level.  The ladders and stairs below decks don't lend themselves to using a walking-stick!  My wife went through them all while I enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the flat bits.  We enjoyed our visit.

We've taken the opportunity to visit several local restaurants.  The fresh seafood is great - we both enjoy it.  (I'm sorry, but fresh water fish is not "sea" food - it's just fish, not sea fish.  The real thing tastes much better, IMHO!)  There's also a German restaurant in town, where we tucked into schnitzel, strudel and Black Forest cake.  So much for our diets . . .

We're thinking of driving down to SpaceX Starbase tomorrow or Thursday.  It's about three hours from here, making for a long return drive, but we're much closer to it now than we're ever likely to be again, so it seems like a good idea to take advantage of that.  The main road goes right past the SpaceX compound, so one can see almost everything going on around the launch complex.  Furthermore, the upper stage from Starship flight test 13 is due to return to Starbase this week, after splashing down in the Indian Ocean and being recovered intact.  It'll be great if we can see it coming home.  We're both big fans of SpaceX and Elon Musk.

The nicest part of this break is that we don't have to do anything.  We can sleep late, go where we wish, eat whenever and wherever we want, and ignore our normal daily routine.  Just what we needed!  Of course, come next Monday it'll be back to normal, with my wife returning to work and me heading for another physiotherapy session, but we'll take what we can get this week.

Peter

Vacation update 1

 

We left on Friday morning, much to the woe and lamentation of our cat.  She'll survive, we're sure, particularly because friends from the North Texas Troublemakers will look in from time to time to restock her food, pet her, and generally reassure her that she hasn't been abandoned.

We spent Friday night in San Angelo, TX.  Friends there were flooded out by the tragedy last year, and left all their guns with us while they dried out and began remodeling their home.  Repairs have now progressed far enough that they've been able to move in again, so we took their guns back to them.  I must admit, I was half-hoping that a traffic cop would stop us and ask, "Any guns in the car?"  I'd have invited him to take his pick of a score or more!  In some places that would make the cop nervous, but here in north Texas he'd probably have spent the next half-hour on an impromptu show-and-tell.

We drove down to Corpus Christi today.  It was a relatively cool run, thanks to widespread light rain.  We're going to spend the next week in the area, playing tourist, walking along the beach, swimming, and generally relaxing and unwinding.  We're both under doctors' orders to let go of all our cares and concerns, which have been rather heavy over the past while, so we'll be lazy and enjoy the abundant seafood.  We started that tonight;  I had a grilled snapper, while my wife tried a "black drum", a type of fish of which I'd previously never heard (but which tasted great).  Key lime pie and turtle cheesecake finished the meal, with some coming back to the hotel with us for a midnight feast (if we can hold out that long).

Laid back and lazy will be the order of the next few days.

Peter

On the road again

 

My wife and I are heading south for the winter to the Gulf of Mexico for a week lazing in the sun.  We've both been far too busy for the past several months, me with medical issues and her with being the the primary technical adviser to her employer's support staff.  We need breathing room, and space to unwind.

I'll post to this blog occasionally, as and when I feel the urge, but I don't want to commit to daily posts.  I really do need time to relax.  For the same reason, I'll only moderate comments at irregular intervals, so if you comment and it doesn't appear soon, please be patient.  Amuse yourselves with the bloggers listed in my sidebar until I'm back in harness.  Regular blogging should resume on Monday, October 12th.

I'll leave you with these encouraging thoughts from Rat.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the comic's Web page.

Sadly, no gin for me.  I'm driving!

Peter

Sadly, it takes war to spur improvements in emergency medical care

 

During my military service four to five decades ago, our medical training was pretty basic.  You could call it slightly more advanced first aid, if you like.  There were none of the techniques, equipment and medicines that emergency medicine offers today.  Pretty much all a grunt in the field could do was try to stop the bleeding, then get the injured person to a combat medic (if one was available - they weren't always around).  Anything more required evacuation to a forward aid station, which might be dozens or scores of miles away, and often could only be reached by vehicles bouncing around dirt trails or even through the bush.  It could be a nightmare experience for the wounded soldier, often causing more pain and suffering than the original injury.  (Allow me to assure you, I know this from personal experience!)

I was reminded of that by an interesting article at Strategy Page, looking at how, most recently, the Ukraine war has brought a new perspective to battlefield medicine, and examining some of the new technology and techniques that have evolved in recent decades.  Here are a couple of excerpts.

When Russia invaded in 2022, one of the many shortages was blood for transfusions to wounded soldiers and civilians. Using the slogan, “Your blood can fight too”, Ukraine made it easier to donate and converted blood collection from local hospitals and regional networks to a unified national network. Donation centers were prepared to run 24 hours a day when needed, accepting donations around the clock if the emergency lasted. Ukraine created an Operational Headquarters to monitor and coordinate nationwide blood collection and distribution activities. This conversion to a national system came several decades after the United States made the move. In turn, the Ukrainian experience has much to teach America and other NATO nations.

Russia provides less frequent and effective medical care for its wounded soldiers; military and civilian leaders are appalled at how the Ukrainian efforts have substantially reduced the number of combat deaths. Prompt blood transfusions are a key part of this and one of several reasons that for every Ukrainian combat death there are eight or more Russian losses.

. . .

Now, new medical tech is coming in the form of band-aids or bandages for people with minor bleeding injuries like cuts or scrapes. Some people do not heal as quickly, and these minor injuries can take a long time to heal. The solution is self-monitoring polymer band-aids or bandages. This smart bandage tech has completed animal testing and now faces up to a decade of human tests and development of larger bandages before it is generally available.

This smart bandage is worn for a week or two until the chronic bleeding is healed. The smart bandage consists of two parts. The most obvious part appears to be a disposable Band-Aid or bandage containing biosensors, electrodes, and hydrogel with medications, along with a device that delivers low-level electrical stimulation to speed healing. The second component is a flexible, reusable electronic patch that monitors the healing process by tracking temperature, pH, and other factors, allowing a doctor or medical technician to monitor healing. Each year, millions of people have slow-healing wounds, and smart bandages are designed to speed healing.

The smart bandage builds on two decades of major advances in emergency and combat medicine. These new technologies and procedures led to a reduction in combat deaths by more than half since 2003.

. . .

... since September 11, 2001, over two million American troops went off to war and about two percent of them were killed or wounded. Only 12 percent of the 57,000 combat zone wounds were fatal, the lowest percentage in military history. This was largely due to major improvements in dealing with rapid blood loss from a major artery being severed and the increased speed with which complex medical care could be delivered to wounded troops. New medical technologies also made it possible to detect injuries (like brain trauma) that, in the past, were very difficult to detect and treat.

There's more at the link.  Interesting and recommended reading.

If you'd told us, way back when, that "smart bandages" would be a thing, we'd have accused you of drinking entirely too much of the field hospital's rubbing alcohol, probably using it to wash down morphine tablets!  For the sake of today's soldiers, sailors and airmen - not to mention civilian EMT's and paramedics and their patients - I can only hope they perfect this new technology as quickly as possible.

I guess being wounded in combat kinda changes one's perspective on the importance of military medical care in particular, and general emergency medical care as well.  When one's lying there, not knowing whether it's safe to close one's eyes because one can't be at all sure of being able to open them again . . . it re-orders one's priorities, to put it mildly.

Peter