Slice Of Life

Slice Of Life, is a Weblog (BLOG) that I write, in which I try to tell some sort of story about something, or someone in my life. Sometimes it's happy, sometimes not, sometimes informative, sometimes...... HA, gotcha, did ya think that I was going to say not? Don't know me very well, do ya? :=) I will try to update the BLOG from time to time, whenever I can.

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Location: Chandler, Arizona, United States

My personality is outgoing, I use to be a wallflower, until I realized that it was all the outgoing people that were having the most fun. It was a tough conversion, but nobody I know today would even remotely consider me to be a wallflower. Basically, when I was young, my parents taught me that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. I haven't quite found the "anything" part to be always true, but it has inspired me to always try to do, and be, my best.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

If you haven't noticed, as far as my SOL writings go, I sort of tend to keep most of my personal life to myself. I don't talk about my finances, my love life, etc etc, mostly because I basically feel that it's NOYB :-) but I think, that just this once.....

For reasons that I won't go into, my Dad and I didn't have a close relationship, from my pre-teen years, into adulthood. Then I joined the Marines, and moved away from NYC, blah blah blah blah blah, long and boring story, that you don't want to hear, trust me.

Happily for me, all that mostly changed in the late 90's, after I moved to PHX from CA, and Dad retired and moved here too, (across town.....Whew). I guess Dad came to the conclusion that Sun was better then snow, go figure.

Anyway, one of the things that we both shared was a love of sports, particularly, baseball. We had partial season tickets to the Diamondbacks, as well as the basketball Suns, and the Football Cardinals, but our favorite was baseball. Through that interaction, I got the chance to know my Dad in a way that I never had the opportunity to in my youth.

The thing is, unfortunately, Dad passed away late last year, and after the initial shock and grief, I realized that I was left with one more set of Diamondbacks tickets. The last game of the season. Of course, I was in no frame of mind to attend, so they went to waste, and I haven't been back to the ballpark since. Until this week.

This week, was May 26. FYI, May 26 was Dad's birthday. He would have been 73. The Diamondbacks were playing the Padres, so I got a ticket. Of course, the seat didn't matter, because the crowd was light, and I had no intention of sitting there anyway. So, I go over to section 306, row 14, seat 16 & 17, and..... there's somebody sitting there :-(

Can you believe it? The damn stadium is 3/4 empty, and somebody is freekin sitting in OUR seats. A nice middle aged couple though, and although I usually don't share personal info with strangers, after I sat down next to them, and told them my story, the wife hugged me, and they both immediately moved down the row. When I sat down, It was kind of eerie. My entire body "goose bumped", and I swear, I could feel every hair stand on end. Another thing, although I know that I was physically sitting there by myself, there were a few times during the game, that I could have sworn that I felt.....something. Crazy huh?

Everyone deals with pain and grief in their own way. I think that psychologically, this trip to the ballbark, may have brought me some closure, and I think that now I even feel a little better. I'm very sure, that I won't be sitting in those particular seats ever again, but I have to say, that even though it was initially a tough thing for me to do, and the Diamondbacks got slaughtered by the Padres 10-0, I think that for me, it turned out to be a very good game :-)

Monday, May 09, 2005

Don't Laugh..... I Learned CPR

Hey, First off..... All I want to ask, is..... Don't laugh..... OK?

So, I went to an on-site company sponsored class last week. The subject? C.P.R. For those that don't know, that stands for Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, or, Chest Compressions, used primarily to force an unbeating heart to pump blood through the body, in the hopes that the brain can be kept alive, until medical personnel can respond to the situation.

Remember..... You promised not to laugh.....

So, anyway, We go to this class, which is being taught by a Doctor from one of the most prestigious hospitals in the Phoenix area. He shows a bunch of informational slides, he has the standard "Dummy" to practice on, an we all get a chance to practice our CPR techniques as described in the slides, and everyone is pretty much successful.

OK, OK, steel yourself..... Remember your promise......

Up to this point, you probably think I'm a little nuts for suggesting that I might think that anyone might find the learning of CPR to be funny, or amusing, or comical in any way, after all, it's training to save a life in "desperation", right? So what's so potentially, funny? Well, while I was truthful in revealing that the class was indeed on CPR, when I tell my local friends about it, the thing that people seem to find amusing, is that the type of CPR I learned, was..... unusual. You see, the type of CPR I learned was.......

PET CPR For Dogs And Cats

HEY!!! QUIT LAUGHING, I SEE YOU :-)

What? What? Hey, if you thought I was talking about "Human" CPR, well, I never actually said that. If you go back and read the first paragraphs, I never actually referred to "human beings", or "people" when I talked about CPR, or referred to "The Doctor" (A Vet), or "The Hospital" he came from, which btw, happens to be Phoenix's finest animal hospital.

Besides, if your Dog, or cat, happened to get an electrical shock, or fall in the swimming pool, or have any number of other accidents that might stop their heart, would YOU know what to do? Do you know where your Dog or Cats heart is? I didn't. I do now. To find it, just fold your Dog/Cat's front leg back (up), until it's "elbow" touches it's chest. Right there. Now, the chest compressions are the same technique as human, EXCEPT, that the pet lays on it's side, instead of it's back, and Pet CPR, is twice the pace of human, and 15 compressions instead of 5 between rescue breaths. Pulse can be taken 1/2 way up, inside either hind leg, near the joint. That's it, so now you're as "smart" about Pet CPR, as I am.

Ummmmmm, btw, did I forget to mention the Rescue Breathing? HEY..... You said that you weren't going to laugh. :-) Anyway, It's not the human, Mouth To Mouth type, it's more like....Mouth to cupped hand, wrapped around closed muzzle, and over nose. What.....? Do you want to save the pet's life, or not? I though so :-) If you can visualize, the correct technique, is to use the heel of your hand to hold the muzzle closed, forming a "tube" with your fingers around the muzzle/nose, and then, it's like your "blowing a dart through the tube" . Again, at twice the speed of human Rescue Breathing. There, that's REALLY it. All in all, for me, I thought it was a very informitive class.

Besides, I met a couple of very nice "Dog and/or Cat People" that work around here, that I didn't know before, and they seem like real nice people. So, it seems like every person....... ummmmm I mean, everyone, came out a winner in this deal, eh?

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