Mexico Medical Student |

Anybody who’s anybody in the medical blogosphere knows that Dr. Ramona Bates, besides being a plastic surgeon, is a master quilter of the first order. It’s also no secret that she’s a great person and supports so many bloggers with kind words and commentary.  However, her kindness totally went to the next level when she offered to make my daughter a “crazy quilt” from leftover fabric that had fun animals, bright colors, etc. that would be great for kids to relate.  

Here is the gallery where the quilt pictures are (plus some more from the same few days). I got an account on SmugMug a couple of months back because that’s where I really felt my “good” photos should live because I’d have control over the design, layout, etc. unlike Flickr. That said, I’m still moving stuff over slowly (read: barely) but feel free to bookmark the main gallery and check back as photos will be populating regularly. 

Ramona sent a nice card with the package, but one thing that stuck out was that she wanted the quilt to actually be used, not (I assume) tacked on a wall–or worse yet, left in a drawer. To that end I made a small video of my daughter with the new quilt that very evening. It’s nothing fancy, the lighting was off (it was almost bedtime, so only indoor light) and I overlooked correcting for WB or gain in the camera, but that’s not the point–the point was to show Ramona that her gift was received with the same care and affection with which it was sent, used immediately and often, and treasured forever.

Thanks Ramona!

I am not kidding. Elmo. For the last 6 months or so I’ve seen more Elmo than anything other single type of programming–period. It’s the side effect of the strange psychological mind-meld that furry creature can achieve with the 2-year-old age group.

However, a few moments of Sesame Street are actually cool and clearly have some “inside jokes” aimed at the older kids/grown-ups watching it with the little ones.** This one is perfect for the theme of today, featuring the sexy, sassy, singular Tina Fey as the Skipper of this bunch o’ scalawags! It’s about 13 minutes and has some “annoying” Elmo moments of course, but it’s all worth it for Tina and the smart-alecky muppet shipmates. I’m hosting here instead of YouTube in case of “copyright” violations (not with PBS, per se, but with hot-ticket celeb media lawyer types WRT Tina Fey)–enjoy!

And on a similar note, Change of Shift, the illustrious nursing blog carnival is hosted this week by Emily McGee, aka crzegrl, and of course also has the pirate theme built right in. She’s got multimedia content to go with all the awesome posts there, so check that out too!

In closing, yes, I know I’m posting this the day AFTER but the video encode (it’s my own personal rip from the TV, not commercial) and some other things didn’t allow me to get it in before the end of yesterday. But it’s never too late to honor pirates, right?! (and yes, I didn’t talk like a pirate, but I’m just trying to get this late post up before it gets later. Don’t make me walk the plank!)

Welcome to my first video blog posting!  I thought this would be appropriate to welcome myself back to my own blog (nobody else was gonna throw me a party) by giving you, my readers–now worthy of a medal of loyalty at this point–a little somethin’ somethin’ extra for your patience.  Here it is, or rather, here I am in moving pictures:

That was fun! I was honest when I said I did it in one take, believe it or not. I’m a pretty nim quick-witted person, and I actually thought of the whole “effect”/”transition” thing as I was talking up to that point. I filmed the “extra” scene separately, of course, but the rest of it was one take. The “goodies” were added in post, of course, and if it didn’t work I simply would have re-recorded another, less-silly take to replace this. I think it was a success!

I really, really have to give a shout out to Dr. Anonymous who pioneered so much multimedia for us medbloggers and who does his own video blogs about his radio show (before and after) as well as his own personal topics. Emily McGee, aka crzegrl, is also a pioneering medical vblogger whom I’ve admired greatly for putting herself out there and talking about her job and life in informative, silly, and touching ways.  Lastly, Vijay aka Scanman, had a brief foray into this area, but I think he dropped it in favor of audio ‘casts. It’s all good–I think anything we do to reach out to readers and each other in new and different ways just makes our social and professional networks that much stronger and more fulfilling.  Cheers to all of you, and now me, too!

As I mentioned in the spot above, a lot will be coming soon of a personal, and at times, difficult nature. I know I need to finish my personal illness story, and believe me when I say it has the highest priority.  After a week or so when I’m far more “caught up” with posting my narratives (I’m not going to inundate the blog all at once) I think you’ll understand where I’m coming from. I think you’ll also see that if after all that I’m still around, then I’m not going anywhere!  On to more posts, and thank you, thank you, thank you for caring enough to still be around–you’re the best!