Bee’s Musings

Don’t we all? Really?

I took news writing classes in college - it was mandatory since one of my 2 majors was journalism. I understand that headlines need to be sensational enough to get the attention of a prospective reader. But this one certainly got my attention today:

Did doctors remove babies’ hearts too soon?

The story isn’t much better - essentially asking if a team of doctors were violating a code of ethics among doctors to only harvest organs for transplants from someone who has been declared dead. For adult transplants, that means waiting 2-5 minutes after the person has been removed from life support to see if the heart starts beating again on its own. If it does not, then the organ may be harvested. In these pediatric cases, the doctors waited 75 seconds before harvesting. The hearts come from newborns who suffered major birth trauma resulting in severe neurological damage - damage from which the babies will never recover. By waiting the 75 seconds instead of 5 minutes, the transplant rates are much more successful.

One of my cousins actually had a heart transplant when I was a kid - I never met him (he lives in California), but I remember seeing pictures of him. He was “Baby Brian who had a monkey heart for a while.” And, a friend of mine in elementary school ended up having at least one heart transplant over the past several years. It seems like he’s on his second heart now, but we’ve lost touch so I don’t know for sure.  The measures that were taken in those operating rooms saved their lives. What these doctors are doing now are saving even more lives.

When my time comes, if they need my organs - and they’re sure I won’t wake up - you don’t need to wait 5 minutes to see if I change my mind.

You can read the whole article about the heart transplants from Salon.

So, I often think that NeverLost (from Hertz) or GPS systems generally are lifesavers. I’ve grown accustomed to the friendly little “bing” noise whenever I’m supposed to turn in an unfamiliar city. Well, in my navigation from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport to my company’s office in Cincinnati, that little bing let me down. And it let me down leaving the airport - so I there I was wandering around the back roads of northern Kentucky, in a rented Mazda M3, that conveniently had Florida plates.

I hate standing out, being conspicuous, anywhere. I go to great lengths to avoid drawing attention to myself. So out of state plates and rental cars go against my nature. As I’m speeding along a little 2 lane highway, avoiding some of the largest roadkill I’ve ever encountered, I can envision the classic hillbilly taking a look at my shiny car and saying slowly “You ain’t from around here, is ya?” And of course, my boss’s voice: “Don’t make a run for the Kentucky hills when you get there!”

Luckily, NeverLost didn’t fail me permanently. 30 minutes later (including going 20 over the posted speed limit on the highway), I arrived at our office to finally meet more of my coworkers, and set some goals for the upcoming months. Overall it was an exciting and invigorating experience - I love sharing what I love about online marketing with new people. My favorite is the moments when pieces of it all click and they catch my enthusiasm. I like when they see that they can own a process from beginning to end, and every result is their own result.

But I still hate being lost in Kentucky with Florida plates.

In the vein of “Dear Stupid“, and PostSecret, I’ve discovered “Oops, I’m sorry.” Its a fun little site, where you can anonymously post apologies to people you’ve wronged, and request apologies from people who have done you wrong.

Maybe I just like to live vicariously, reading what other people can’t say to each other… it makes me feel better about the things I can’t say to the people I know.

Since I started a new job this week, working exclusively from home, I’ve got the unique opportunity to listen to some of the 3992 songs currently in my iTunes library. I listened to my iPod quite a bit at my last job, and when I’m traveling (like when I was stuck in the Charlotte Airport for 3+ hours last week). Unfortunately, the flaw in listening on the iPod is that I can’t build playlists or flag songs that I absolutely hate to delete them later.

One of my friends asked if I could recommend any Ben Folds music today, because he’s going to see him in concert tomorrow night. (I’m a bit jealous of that, but I’ll cover that in a different post…maybe.) So, I set my iTunes to play, starting at the beginning of “Rockin’ The Suburbs”, and I just let it play for most of today.

I’m learning a lot about my musical taste through this little adventure. Here’s what I’ve found today:

• I know every word to some albums that I bought in high school. Albums that I bought in college, or after, I’m lucky to know every word to even 2 songs.
• Billie Myers album “Growing, Pains” really is about growing pains, and epitomizes so much of my high school career. Particularly the song “First Time“
• I hate some of the stuff that Big & Rich did. It doesn’t even have redeeming humor value. Those songs diminish from some of the more enjoyable songs that they produced.
• I could listen to Ben Folds almost every day. I wish I hadn’t forgotten about him for so long.

More music-y goodness as I listen to nearly 4000 songs.

Since I’ve got unlimited texting set up on my cell phone now (much cheaper than minutes or overage charges…), I figure its about time to start putting it to good work. I found the article 10 Killer Texting Tricks on MSN today which has some good suggestions on how to make the most of your SMS service.

My favorites:

• Scheduling events on your GCal
• Google search from the road - includes driving directions, closest pizza locations and more (dial 466453)
• Archiving text messages (although I haven’t tried this, I’ve got several messages that I’d like to save to look back on another day, so I’ll be looking at these services).

Carry on, texters!

Apparently there are more chickens in the world than people.

Think about that for a second… of course, they’re smaller, have a shorter life span, and we have them for dinner. Of course it makes sense for them to be more of them.

When I first read it though, I thought of all the people in the world who are “chickens.” I know that I’m one of them. There are so many amazing opportunities in this world that I let pass me by because I’m too afraid - in a sense, I’m too big of a chicken.

I’m starting to make changes now that make me feel like more of a person, and less of a chicken. I’ve taken a new job with a new company, working on the type of projects that I haven’t worked on in a long time, but always loved. I’m moving into a new place, all on my own… I even get to buy my own brand-new living room furniture.

And I’m opening myself up to the love the universe has to offer, whenever it is ready to offer it to me.

Very few people actually like to think about death. Most of us avoid it - when we hear of someone passing, we give our condolences and move on as quickly as we can. Mortality is frightening.

In the gallery Life Before Death, German photographer, Walter Schels, and his partner Beate Lakotta present contrasting portraits of individuals: one taken shortly before their death, and another after.

Rarely do we see death so vividly, have the opportunity to gaze at someone who has passed, and look for what’s still there, or what’s missing. Most of images of death are violent - scences from war and from crime. These are photos of people living in hospice, who kne that their time had come. What stories are they trying to convey with those last portraits? What can you learn from the set of their jaw, the depth of their eyes? Online, these images are haunting. I can only imagine how powerful they would be when encountered in person.

Something new I’m going to try… I think I may combine it with the 52 Screen-Free Nights:

101 Things in 1001 Days

I’ll be setting up a separate blog with my list and progress, once I get organized and get started. More to come!

The plates don’t get bigger here … and this isn’t Country Buffet where when you get something you don’t like you just get a clean plate.

We all have limits.