Orange Country

So we made it to South Carolina, the western part of the state and it was hard not to notice we seem to be in "Orange Country."

I suspect it is because we are only about twenty minutes from Clemson University.

Now, I am a graduate of the University of South Carolina, which is about two hours from here and their school color is red or magenta, but I do have a thing for orange and have had since my youth. Perhaps it is because with reddish hair I was never allowed to wear red or yellow, but for some reason orange was ok. I remember having an orange "turtleneck" I wore all the time in middle school until it had faded to a light color. As colors go, having an interest in orange seems more rare than not. I drive an orange car and have a closet full of orange colored shirts.

So I felt right at home walking down the Clemson aisle at our local WalMart with orange cups and orange towels and orange shirts on either side. Although not having attended school there I already feel a bond with the local university.

Beginning of a New Chapter

Well today is moving day. Supposed to be near 100 today. I'm sure I've packed more than will fit in my daughter's little car but will do the best I can stuffing it in. As my last work shift drew to a close, the nurses and techs threw me a little farewell party. Orange balloons (inside joke), a few snacks and lots of hugs and tears. Odd, I never got any goodbyes from most of the administration. The people I work with are awesome and I will miss them. I gave out the balloons to the pediatric patients awaiting discharge, said my last goodbyes and hit the road. Seven hour trip ahead of me today but ready for the change ahead.

It's Hot Out There

This has been a rather hot July, even for our standards. I know it's only 95 outside but the humidity makes it feel like 115.

With only a day or two in the 80s, people's ability to withstand the heat is wearing thin. Ambulance after ambulance carried in young and old today overcome by the heat.

It's summertime, it's the south, isn't it supposed to be hot? It's easy to say when you are sitting in an air conditioned room or building but as we are finding out, many of the old or the poor have no air conditioning at all. One EMS told me the house he went into earlier in the day was like going into an oven.












So what's the forecast? Supposed to get even hotter.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Well today was pretty much the last day I formally acted in my role as Medical Director of the Emergency Room. Last teleconference behind me, only one more meeting later today. I work one more shift in my nominal role as ED physician, then hit the road.

I never really got into the role as director. I've always considered myself more of a worker bee. And don't administrators love meetings. How much more productive could this country be if they just put a cap on meetings. Overall, I was able to push through a few favorite initiatives and tried to act as an advocate for those under my directorship, but found that as the number of meetings increased, my enthusiasm for starting new initiatives decreased.

So farewell to all of this, in a month I return to my worker bee status. And the next time someone offers an administration position to me, I'll offer the excuse that I'm allergic to meetings and to give it to someone who needs the ego boost more than me.

What to pack, what to leave

I remember years ago, one of those silly school games where the teacher would break us up into groups and pass out a list of items, tell us we were going to a deserted island and to rank the order of the items we would take. The reasons often became silly for some of the items. Well, right now I am at that point. Moving into a small apartment from a large house, what should I take, what should I leave. Of course my computer goes. My single conduit connecting me with the rest of the human race. How about books? Well I can take a few but already have resigned myself to the fact that the majority of my library will have to stay. Pictures? The large ones from Italy will have to stay on my walls, afterall, the originals are on my computer. Important papers will go, but tax forms for the past 100 years will have to stay. I can take one of my three printers (yes I have three printers, each serving their own purpose). File cabinet? Nope, too big, it stays. Tools all stay, except for my little electric screwdriver, better pack that. Luckily I have burned most of my CDs to mp3s and they are on the computer. Clothes? Well some stay and some go. Leaving my worn out clothes here and anything less than a few years old is going. So many other items will have to stay for now. Luckily I will have to make a few trips back in August so better to take a little now and see what I miss or what there is room for.

How do we accumulate so much junk in such a short time? Seems like we are all encouraged to hoard. I often have thought how liberating it would be to live with very little somewhere in a remote cabin, but there again I would rapidly start thinking of those things I'd be missing.

So whatever my daughter and I can get in a small car is all that goes this trip. Ought to make unpacking easy.

The Move

  Five days until the big move. I've always considered North Carolina my home as I've done most of my important growing up here, Well North Carolina is in some sort of a meltdown right now (as I suppose so is much of the country). Taxes are going up, we're several billion short of balancing the budget, teachers are being laid off, and the governor has new office furniture. Someday someone will answer for being the state with some of the highest gasoline taxes, property taxes and income taxes in the southeast but still coming up short in the budget, but that time seems a way off. As unemployment increases and property values decrease, this is a good time to move.

  So it's off to South Carolina we go. Right off the bat I noticed gasoline was about 25 cents less a gallon, the roads appear to be paved and the schools don't seem to be in shutdown mode. We're not new to SC as that was where I taught college briefly and received my medical degree. The move is slated as temporary, two years in fact, but who knows what the future will bring, I certainly do not.

  As property values have dropped so much in North Carolina (finally catching up with the rest of the country) and since the real estate market is on life support, we've decided not to sell the NC house right yet and let our daughter and son-in-law manage it while they finish their degrees. For the timebeing we'll be downsizing into an apartment smaller than the one we lived in when we were married. My wife is concerned that we'll be tripping over each other, but I know we will manage. The youngest will be enrolling in high school for her last two years. They still offer electives and AP courses in SC and in fact recommend that each student declare a concentration before graduation. Far cry from the 50 student classes we were looking at in NC.

   So we're moving south of the border. If you're ever driving down I-95 and feel the urge to eat a taco at four in the morning, I recommend you drive past south of the border and wait until taco bell opens. Years ago I ate one of their 4 am tacos and believe I never recovered from the gastrointestinal effects.

More to come.