Water pic of the day

The other day Honeydew and I were working out on the grass near the beach down from the house when she spotted a seal swimming in the lagoon.  It beached itself then did what I so needed to do...rested

Old Wood, New Wood

After smoking a pipe for a few months regularly and after see some old nasty pieces of briar come back to respectable pieces of enjoyment, I decided to purchase a couple of estate pipes and restore them.  Ohhh man!  I do not think these pictures speak of how nasty these things were.  On one, there was so much cake I could barely get my fingertip inside.  The other, not so bad but definitely needed cleaning.   Here are some pictures after the cleaning. 

Philippine Military (Nursing Corps)

Blog or journal, blog or journal, blog or journal?????  I'll not decide, but let the writing determine.  Just a note to self about my trip to the Philippines because it's one trip I don't want to forget anytime soon.  I've come back to America with a slightly different perspective on my job as an Army Emergency Room Nurse and who would have thought, on life in general.

Why the change?  Let me just say that Americans in general are spoiled to the core.  We have everything we could possibly need and yet we complain and whine about needing more or better things.  Let's take the military.  I work in a major military hospital.  I have all the equipment I could possibly need to do my job and do it well.  I have enough equipment I can monitor each patient in great detail.  My counter-part in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) can't come close to this.  The hospital they would consider their "Walter Reed" is pathetic at best.  The ER had one defibrillator and was using it as a monitor.  Granted they only saw approximately 25-30 pt's per day Vs my ~200+ per day but that's not the point.  ALL their equipment was old, I'm talking Vietnam era old and they were holding down the fort