DIDJA KNOW

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%

The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work:
Alaska

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were
Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to hit his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the
US Treasury.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter:
Tom Sawyer.

The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

Each king in a deck of playing cards! represe nts a great king from history:

Spades - King David

Hearts - Charlemagne

Clubs -Alexander, the Great

Diamonds - Julius Caesar



try this math:
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of Their birthplace

Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested? "Obsession"

If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?

One thousand

What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?

All invented by women.

What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
Honey


Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?

Father's Day

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month . which we know today as the honeymoon.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."
It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"


Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired
by this practice.

~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~

!
At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow

......................................................

Don't delete the following paragraph just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it.

I cduolnt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty
uendsatnrd
waht I was
rgdnieg.The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to
rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are,
the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat
ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can
sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not
raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh

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Random thoughts.

I met a male nurse at work yesterday. He is also with a nursing registry for the past 10 years. We talked about the benefits of not being part of the staff. The only thing down side that we can come up with is the benefits. We have to buy health insurance and get our own retirement accounts.

We agreed about not having to play the politcs and the need to beg for vacation. Looking for someone to cover for my vacation was pretty stupid.

I met another male nurse who is also part of a nurse registry and he keeps a part time job to keep the benefits. He has three kids so he needs that big time. He loves to take pictures too. So, I gave him some pointers on how to take his kids pictures and how to make his snow scenes white.

Work was the same. Two patients who needs to be cleaned at least twice the shift. I'm so tired of cleaning diarrhea. Arrgh! My back started to act up again. That shooting pain due to my sciatica to my left leg. Despite doing exercises to prevent it, I'm still getting some pain.

_ I talked to my buddy J and he was telling me that he might get divorced if counseling doesn't work. He already has a lawyer. It's only been 4 years and their marriage is going down the dumps. His wife was on the psycho side. I can tell she was before they even got married but he still married her. What makes rationale person go nuts to marry a psycho? Who knows. The bad thing is that their one year old child will suffer. She tells him constantly that she is not happy. He's tired of hearing it for the past 3 years so he agreed to just go their separate ways if counseling doesn't work. I've known J for 10 years now and I knew his wife since they were dating. I also know her history so I'm pretty much on J's side.

_ Another friend of mine B called me this morning and wanted to meet at the Starbucks near my former work place. After ordering a cup of coffee, he told me that he cheated on his wife. Must be a bad week for married people that I know. His wife told him that she doesn't trust him at all. Well, that should do it. She just preconditioned him to act what she thinks of him. Good job wife, you just created a monster. I don't agree with cheating on one's spouse. A definite violation of the 10 commandments. There is only 10 laws and if you can't follow that, you are in deep shit.

I didn't intend to support him in his action but followed up in the fact that men do cheat and so do women. I don't intend to alienate him either by judging him. I would like to hear his wife's side of the story.

_500,000 people marched to support illegal immigration. The latino L.A. mayor talked about hard working and tax paying people. Ah, wait a minute, how can an illegal alien pay taxes? Maybe sales tax but not income tax. One needs to file a tax form to pay tax and you need a social security number. I don't understand why they are so mad. We don't need leaching illegal aliens that sucks the life out of our social services. They should have checked if there are any illegal aliens in the demonstrations. Arrest them and deport them back to their lovely countries.

They also tried to use Ceasar Chavez's name. He's dead and he can't do shit. I'm concerned about the price of produce as the people are out there demonstrating instead of working the farms.

_ There is again an effort to bring back an NFL team back to LA. We don't need one there is the USC Trojans. That's all we need.

_UCLA made it to the Final Four. Who needs another basketball team. We have two here in LA. they should concentrate on football. A stupid Bruin attempt to rule LA. We RULE LA, Long live USC, Long live TROJANS. BWAHAHAHAHA!

High school classmates.

I continue to recieve phone calls from my high school classmates. They are inviting me for reunions that seem to occur almost monthly. I attended the one that was held last summer. It was a nice gathering. I bought a bunch of souvineers to remind of of my old high school.

One thing that I've done to my life is to let go of the old and move on with the new. High school seem to nag me constantly. A couple of years ago, a website was created by one of our creative classmates and the whole high school spirit started to re-emerge. I even started dreaming about highschool, that's how intense this feelings were.

One of our organizers here in the US is one of my childhood buddies. He happened to be a lawyer in the Philippines. During the years, I've learned to dislike lawyers. They seem to be a big pain in the ass. My feelings extends to my old buddy. He sounds cocky and overly confident on the phone. Always having his opinions to be the right one. Arrgh, annoying as hell as it's only my opinions that I really care about. LOL.

Since the grand reunion my buddies have long invited themselves to my home. I was steadfast on saying no. They even want me to bring along some of my female nurse co-workers. What am I? a pimp. The concept of inviting young single women to meet middle aged married men is just repulsive.

Personally, I don't really care to hang out with them anymore. Once in 20 years should be fine. Constantly, I don't think so. I'd rather stay home than to bullshit with these guys. Think about it. It's been 20+ years that I have no contact with them and suddenly I will pick things up from highschool. I don't think so. I keep in correspondence with my friend R who happens to be a pilot. He has travelled here in the US as assitant pilot on a 747. I've tried to see him but his flight is always against my schedule. I would love to hangout with him as we've been through a lot together. These other guys I only know from school.

Yesterday, M called to invite me over to another friend's house. So and so are in country and I might want to hangout with them. I made an excuse about other plans for the night. I'm not driving to Simi Valley, 55 miles from home and in the rain, to hangout with guys I've never seen for 20+ years. I was more productive on up loading some photos of the twins baptism so I can order prints.

iVisit, video conferencing service.

Traveling to the Bay Area is fun but can get expensive when done frequently. Moving there is more complicated than reprioritizing one's life after deciding 8 years ago that I need to set root and stay put in one place. There are things to consider, weather, living in an apartment and having to do laundry in a laundry mat, dealing with noise coming from the neighbors, etc. etc. I'm not making excuses, I'm being realistic.

One alternative is to see my favorite neices by video conferencing. After searching the net for affordable setups, and it can get up there in the $$$$ range, I found a site that is free and requires gadgets I already have. iVisit.com is the place. Macs and PCs can get together without any problem.

I found a 7 year old camera that I hardly used and a headset microphone included in an old simulator game. I plugged them in my laptop and after setting up the camera and the mic, I was online. I told my brother in law, V, about it and we tried out his setup. First it was all chatting by typing then he heard my voice. Okay this got him excited enough to get an old camera and set it up. His work on the setup was delayed for hours due to his twins girls and a 5 year old all trying to get his attention.

After a couple of hours of feeding and diaper changes, V got the video going and was happy enough that the whole family went out to get a microphone setup. He can't find his old mic because it's in a box in a garage, god knows where.

After a few hours, he called me up and wants to try it again. Wallah, video and sound. I talked to my sister,T, and watched the twins in the background. God they are soooo cute. They sat in their little baby chairs and was playing with each other. Their legs are shaking as if they want to walk. They are now about 15 lbs each. Not bad, since they were only 6 and 5 lbs when they were born. That was 6 months ago.

My older neice will just walk past the video camera, just doing her thing. I try to call her over to no avail.

This video comferencing can save me money big time. I can watch the twins grow up without going there every month. It also saves on cell phone calls too. The software also allows me to record the broadcast. The resolution was in the low side. I don't care, it's free.

Sign up to iVisit.com and connect to friends everywhere in the world.

Bayan ng Pagasa. (City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte California)

I had the opportunity to work for a national medical center. It is world renowned in cancer research and treatment. As I walked around this prestigous medical center. I recognized the abundance of brass name plates mounted on the entrances of the buildings. Must be rich folks who gave to the hospital.

There are numerous professionally designed gardens that surrounds these buildings. Everything are just posh. I wonder if there are homeless folks who lives in these gardens. I doubt it. Security is pretty tight.

The new medical center looks and feels like a museum. I've never seen anything like it. It's brand new structure is cutting edge hospital design. There ICU is huge. I was pretty beat after a 12 hours shift walking up and down its corridors. By no means I miss the tiny compact design of a 40 year old hospital with run down fixtures. I love the details that they applied to every nook and crany of this hospital. The personnel are also so professional. Jeez, I can work here atleast twice a week.

Most of the patients have cancer. The bastard disease that took my father's life and now it's taking over my uncle's. It also took my kumadre's life. She was only in her 40's and left two kids behind. I believe they were 5 and 2 years old.

During my shift. A middle aged person passed away due to complications of lung cancer. Then a young child arrived with a cadre of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and social workers. After hours of emergent care, I believe the mother was told of the bad news and she wailed and cried in a way that will rip your heart out. I had to leave and hide in my isolation room. I can't take it. I was half in tears just hearing her cry. The husband was behind her crying and trying to comfort her. The doctors were in tears, everyone was crying. The nurse taking care of the kid was also red eyed. Jeez, how can a nurse work here for very long?

The charge nurse has been with the hospital for 15 years. Some has been there for 10-20 years. This is definitely a "special calling" type of nurses. When I was dealing with my patient's family. I tell them what's going on and then try to highlight the benefits of the treatments instead of concentrating on the gloomy truth. My way of showing them hope.

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four. You are the

classic warning against the threat of

totalitarianism. To you, politics and

philosophy are inseparable, authorities suck

and the reality might not exist outside our

imaginations.


Which literature classic are you?
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Letting go.

It's never easy to let go of a love one. I wish my parents are still alive so I can share with them the fruits of my labor. I envy those who still have parents and grandparents for they still have people who truly love them.

My patients last Friday were very sick. I was wishing that it will be a nice day as it was the last leg of a four day stretch of 12 hour shifts. One patient was in his 50s and comatose. The other patient was in her 90's and she's just running out of gas. I had three good days and a bad day is due to happen.

Taking care of the patients was challenging. Watching the families of both patients deal with their denial was painful. They tried to fish some good news from me but I can't find anything good to report.

The doctors unsuccessfully tried to place them on do not resuscitate condition. The grandson of the elderly woman was specially having a hard time dealing with reality. He has had confrontations with nurses, transfering his anger to them. That day, I was right there on his sights. Everything I say comes back negative. I tried to end the conversation with him and he manages to make a bg deal about it. I called the social worker on him so she can deal with his issues. I don't have time to baby sit a 29 year old man.

I don't know anything about this guy but the way he has been acting around his grandmother, he did something that he regrets. He accussed me of being uncompassionate. What? Shit I showed up to work didn't I? I don't appreciate it when someone judges me because their mind is clouded with guilt. This guy, I thought to myself, is the one who doesn't understand compassion.

There is more going on but for confidentiality reasons, that I will respect, I will skip them all together. Let me say this, this guy will be in therapy for years to come. That is if he asks for help. Suicide is a good option too. Hopefully he finds other means to deal with his issues.

He stayed around after talking with the social worker. He asked for my help but my teflon shield is up and I deflected all his requests. Sorry fucker, screw you. He left only to be replaced by another idiot, his brother. He is more emotionally stable than his sibling but at this time, I don't give a fuck anymore. He asked for the doctor's phone number and I gave it to him. After a few hours the doctor showed up and reported that the grandson was requesting for a dialysis treatment. The doctor refered to the grandson as a jerk. Apparently, he was comparing his grandmother to his friend's father. Great, a moron trying to be a doctor. I later found out that the grandson works for a mortgage broker.

It is hard to deal with death. It's a final state and no one comes back form it alive. I learned to deal with it early in my career knowing that I will be exposed to death rather frequently in critical care.

In general, the day was busy but not bad at all. The other nurses were very nice and good team players. Luckily, they supported me when the grandson was having a fit. That makes a whole lot of difference.