I noticed that there were a lot of good posts today as I made my daily tour. Thought I’d point out a few of my favorites … in case you miss them on your own blog-run …

Dr. Hébert over at Doctor Hébert’s Medical Gumbo has a different take on Abortion. I found what he had to say quite interesting – and a bit unnusual. I think it’s good reading whatever side of the issue you consider yourself to be on. Scoot on over and take a look!

Dr. Emer over at Parallel Universes has some interesting information – did you know that being FAT can be CATCHY??? Oh whoa! Yo all of you medicos out there … I want a vaccine!!!

Dr. Hildreth over at the Cheerful Oncologist has graced his readers with a bit of philosophy about problems, the passage of time … and DNA! Clever … insightful … and as usual, extremely well written.

Dr. Ibear of Doc Around the Clock had quite an experience recently with two patients … and two completely different reactions to bad news. Honestly – I don’t know how you physicians pull it all off with such grace. You have to be born into the medical profession, I think.

There were lots of other excellent posts in the last couple of days, but there are just too many to post.

Drop in, take a peek … and if you get the chance, leave them all some kudos – they deserve it!

We found out last week that my dear friend, Fr. Paul Grégoire, is retiring this spring. At 77, he feels that he can no longer administer his large parish. I can’t tell you how much I’m going to miss him.

We’ll still get to see him, but he’s going to be further away. He spent nearly a year “further away” a number of years back, and it seems that we saw him more often then – than we do now. Perhaps … we have a way of taking our time with those we love for granted … and time is a very fickle friend.

Tonight, if the roads aren’t too slippery, we’ll be meeting Fr. Paul for dinner at a local restaurant. I’ll try to post some pictures tomorrow. We usually go out as a large group, although some of our dinners have been small and quiet. Tonight, we’ll have a medium sized group – there are a lot of people I haven’t notified … I hope they’re not angry with me. Time just got away from me …

For now … I’d like to reminisce about some of the good times we’ve shared in the past …

(L-R) My son Daein and his sweet wife, Sarah … “Mom” England, at the other end of the table, my dear friend Joanie, whom I’ve known since I was 13, and Lucille from Manchester. She has cancer, and her hair was just growing back from her latest series of treatments. This photo was taken just over a year ago at the Pilgrim’s Back Room in Manchester, NH.

Fr. Paul … tucked into a corner, and Lucille Corriveau … looking over a menu. Same place and time as group picture.

My mom-in-law, Althea Ballard, and Susan Holman … same place and time as above. Susan had just cracked a joke. She’s one of the funniest, sweetest ladies I know. Last night, she told me she had taken up “line dancing” in order to get on top of the extra holiday pounds. She said, “Oh! It’s a riot! You can dance, make mistakes, laugh … lots of fun!” When I think of all the stuff she’s into … I need to take a nap! *LOL*

My son Dougie and myself. Same time and place as above. I think I was complaining about my “Grateful Dead.” Some restaurants make great drinks … and others, well … Grateful Deads are hard to get right anyway. Anyone want to try a novel drink … which if made right, is both deadly and delicious (restaurants won’t serve you more than 2,) let me know … and I’ll send you the recipe for making it right in your own home.

This is Fr. Paul and I at Alexander’s, in Dover, NH, back in December of 2003. Life was in flux for all of us then. I had just started all of my health crises, and Fr. Paul had just come out of a different sort of crisis of his own. I don’t remember everyone who was with us on that day, but I know Joanie and her Mom were, because Joanie took the picture. I’m sure that Dougie was, too. Daein was probably up at the university.

Is there anyone that you love deeply … but you haven’t told them so lately? Don’t wait. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Of the things I regret most in my own life … those I left unsaid or undone are the most exquisitely painful.

Michael C. H̩bert, MD РJournal

This fellow kindly left a comment for me overnight, and I went to take a look at his blog this morning – it’s a hidden gem!

Please – go check out Dr. Hébert’s blog!

He lost his home in Katrina, pulled up stakes, and moved further inland. He has a lot of wise, insightful posts. So far I’ve seen some regarding medicine, Katrina, and spirituality.

Excellent reading! Take a look! :-)

My new computer came at about suppertime yesterday, and my son and I set right to work preparing it for use!

We were hard pressed to get enough onto it for me to be able to do my classes today. Also – I had to copy all of the programs from the storage partition of my old lap top onto the new one … started out doing it over wireless, and decided that I wouldn’t live long enough to see it end, so I switched over to a network cable. Then … there was the task of moving all of my emails, email accounts (8 POP accounts now – ugh!) … address book … etc. … without losing anything.

Thunderbird is a great email program … but it doesn’t import from TBird, or export. I managed to fool it into thinking it was still on my old lap top, and I didn’t lose a single email.

The keyboard has decent layout for a lap top, and I like the feel of the keys. That’s a plus. There are only a few changes, which I’m sure I’ll get used to soon enough. It’s got one of those wide screens … I think it’s 1280 X 800. Everything seems stretched! ;-)

Here are a few screen shots of my desktop, as it is now. I had to break it in half to get into here, and still have some detail to it. You can see that there’s a bit of overlap …

The background is a photo from the camp we stay at in August and September … a gorgeous sunset. I don’t know if I took that picture, or if my son, Daein, did. We’d just had a terrific storm. This was taken in Acton, ME.

By the way – clicking on the pictures brings you to the full sized versions.

There are still a few icons on my desktop. Those are shortcuts to proprietary programs which came with the computer. I haven’t had time to explore them and sort them out into their proper homes yet. Generally, the only things I have flat on my desktop are the programs or files I’m dealing with at the moment … I like to keep it free from clutter.

You can see that I’m fond of tool bars! I’ve got tool bars all around the edge of my desktop. Now that I have a stretched viewing field, I may make a few columns of tool bars on the right side … not sure if that will work for me or not.

I still haven’t finished installing much of the software I use on a regular basis … once I do, all of those “what the heck is this? icons in the tool bars will be replaced by their own cute little shortcuts.

And that’s it for now. I’m way behind on my emails!!! If I owe you an email … hang in there! It’ll come! *LOL* It may not be tonight, but it’ll come!

The Doctor Is In » Apollyon Appears-I: Looking Back

Dr. Bob of The Doctor is In has made the most amazing post I’ve read in a long time. It left me feeling as if I’d just finished reading a Tom Clancy novel.

Terrifying … very imaginable … it follows in such logical sequence that it seems unlikely that it wouldn’t happen …

This post was definitely written in Dr. Bob’s fine style and with his usual depth and clarity … with evocative visualizations … although here we see that the good doctor is able to induce an adrenalin reaction every bit as well as he can draw a reader to faith and trust.

An absolute must read.