Now if this article doesn’t remind you of 300 then your brain is slipping

What an interesting article … the web is full of craziness.

Mixing archival records and extensive fieldwork at the site, James was able to reconstruct the coldest of cold-case crime scenes, and came to the conclusion that the Roman soldiers had been deliberately stacked atop one another at the mouth of the countermine by the Persians.
“They used their victims to create a wall of bodies and shields, keeping Roman counterattack at bay while they set fire to the countermine, collapsing it,” James said.
A question, however, remained: How did the Roman soldiers die? Killing almost two dozen fully armed men in a space less than 6 feet high and 36 feet long would have required “superhuman combat powers, or something more insidious,” James concluded.

…and when the Romans broke through, the Persians gassed them by adding sulfur crystals and bitumen to the fire. This filled the tunnel with toxic sulfur dioxide gas…

Looks like we humans have been figuring out ways to slaughter each other for thousands and thousands of years – and things that used to be ‘new’ in World War One … now were new about 2000 years prior to that!

PAF

Asynchronous Story Telling At Its Worst?

No one has gone that far… but I haven’t gone back and looked either … and its sort of come to my attention that I’ve done kind of a crap job on explaining what happened to me and PJ on Christmas Day 2008…. not a surprise … but I’ll do my best to put it in better order or update its readability.

Summary

No One Died.
It was Christmas Day Morning … and school here is open that day … and I was on my way to teach school for about an hour. Why? Because I’m an 情爱爸爸 – loosely translated as a parent volunteer … but the Chinese is much more honorific; it is only used for a volunteer that goes so often all the kids know and like you … and remember you…. and the Chinese 情 qing means (roughly) dear, feeling, affectionate 爱 ai (pronounced like not I in English) is the word for love 爸爸 ba ba means father…. So I go often enough that all 32 students in PJ’s class knows me and has fun when I go. I usually teach some esoteric thing in English…. ALWAYS by playing games. It’s cool, it’s 45 minutes, and it’s 1x per month. And the kids think PJ’s dad is super cool and therefore they seem to treat him better for that!

A certain Mr. Chen, who shall go nameless (or further so, as Chen is like Smith here), decided to pull out of a tiny alley without looking and drive the wrong way against traffic in my lane waiting for an opening in his lane.

And watching him pull out … and having been riding motorcycles for over 25 years … I was presented with a(n easy) choice:

• Gas it & radically swerve and miss the car. Seeing as we were on my 158 horse power, 1000cc Yamaha FZ-1, PJ would have been ejected off of the back of the bike sometime during the swerve… meaning directly in front of the idiot Mr. Chen who was in MY lane and coming towards me.
• Hit the brakes and lean and try to cut an arc. If you’ve ever ridden you know that nothing – especially a heavy motocycle wants to turn while hard on the brakes. The VALUE is that your passenger is CRUSHED INTO YOU and doesn’t fall of. So choice one – EJECTING PJ – was not a choice.

Finally, Parker Jr. He saw my left leg as it spelled an “S” on the street…. as I had two Open Fractures (Thigh, & Tib/fib; meaning the bone sticks through your pants) and 1 partially open fractured foot. Blood was quite in evidence. I was conscious and ordered him to walk away and not look BEFORE calling 911.

It was Christmas to never forget.

Next Steps

For the first post … the easiest way is click here – I’m using the CALENDAR function as the first post was Dec 28 2008.

If you’re addicted, the easiest way to read the whole story – cause your bored at work – is click here…
Then just if this is months from now, scroll (Next Page / Previous Page) towards the right date.

For example, if it says Sorry, there is no post to display… just hit previous page. The first posting is on 12/28/08.

Wow!

I’ve thought about what I’d say in an attempt to say how much I appreciate those of you (cutting back on your liquor consumption to) helping me with my surgeries.

I logged into PayPal today for the first time in a while … and wow, what a fantastic feeling. Thank you all for the help! le it’s truly the thought that counts, on the other hand for us, being able to reduce the debt to the hospital is one less thing that I’ll need to worry about!

As some of you know, I got them to release me early (stir crazy, and 12 or 13 roommates in 30 days) and am planning on flying back to Guangzhou on February 4th … as I’m afraid of losing my job (I’m supposed to be in China 95% of the time… I’ve not been there since December 24th.)

It’s an amazing feeling knowing that I’m loved, and that even in these economic blue times people take the time to to donate some of their hard earned security.

Human nature is sometimes a beautiful thing – and witnessing it first hand truly takes the words out of my mouth.

Thank you all so much.

Love,

Parker

It’s “Chu Er” today – which means that it’s the second day of the new lunar new year – the year of the Ox.

Lots of things happen today – most importantly no one goes to work … and most married daughters go home; except when your husband just got out of the hospital for 30 days … good excuse to stay home and chill.

Today’s day three (3) (or so; time flies when you cant find a watch) since I left the hospital.

The hospital experience was so good and so bad at the same time it really is confusing to summarize it. The word I use in Chinese is “ancient.” Either everything still operates as if it were 150 years ago, or it’s up to date (like CT scans).

Me? I’m better. I’m home first of all… which AMAZINGLY except for sleeping is so much better. We have the Nova-Form California King mattress from Costco – the best as far as I’m concerned … the only problem is trying to get your weight distributed right so that it’s not tugging on the new metal plate in your leg.

I’m exhausted 1/2 the time – which is better than before when I was ALWAYS exhausted!

My idea of a long walk – on crutches with a 15 pound splint – is about 50m (50yds)… I did that 2x today. Going for about 60m tomorrow 2x. I walked down the stairs with crutches for the first time today (actually ONE crutch and I make one of the kids schlep the other one for me)… and I climbed the stairs with crutches twice (as opposed to sitting on my but and using my arms to lift my body up). Getting stronger.

The kids are great. And when I was in the hospital I used to wish they could visit everyday – they lived too far away. Now PJ has asked a few times if he could sleep with us. Talking with me, he clearly saw the whole thing … me on the ground with my bones hanging out don’t click on this link unless you TRULY have a strong stomach and want to see what bones sticking through pants looks like; you’ve been warned.) and now he loves to hang out, talk, and I think get over his remorse. I try to reinforce that he’s a cool kid, and he’s got nothing to be upset about. People get hurt, traffic is dangerous EVEN if you’re doing nothing wrong – and I’d do it again (chose to be seriously injured) over allowing him to be hurt. I just found out the other day that he was scraped up pretty good.

Now that I’m home, PJ loves to be around me and talk to me and help me. He’s always doing things – getting me something to eat, helping me carry stuff, etc. I do my best to let him know that it’s a father’s job to protect his children … but that’s a heavy load for a 7 year old to understand. He understands that there may have been something I could have done but I didn’t … and he, in his own way, is trying to find out what it is.

We have yet to talk about the motorcycle – something we used to do all the time … nor have I gone thru the Patient Belonging bag which Charlene described to me; needless to say they don’t through USELESS bloodied clothing away here like they would in the USA. Not ready for that yet.

Wish you all were here for Chinese New Year.

PAF

Sometimes My Best Friend Has The Sickest Sense Of Humor

Here I am thinking he’ll donate something like some money for me to pay the (very reasonable) bills for the (mediocre to) great surgery I got …
and he wants to donate something truly amazing

- two flights in two truly amazing (enemy) jets

A Cool Video Of The Event
[youtube]UVgL6h_o2lI[/youtube]

The little catch is that all I have to do is be able to fly the two planes by June 31st, 2009.

Little catch. Thanks! I’ll just have to keep dreaming!

Images Thanks To incredible-adventures

Got my fill of hospital life.

Going Home after ONE FULL MONTH! Assuming they let me out I’m sure I’ll have to some ridiculous terms – something like pay us or we’ll break your leg.

On the “get used to it” side, while I was getting my dressings changed the intern doctor mentioned that I’ll never really be able to run again.

Looks like SCUBA diving is becoming the family sport.

So in walks some official looking lady.

Hands me some form. I thik it was a horse betting form hecause it so many lines on it with random numbers, check boxes, text in random colors, and what seemed like odds on it. I don’t know. For all I know it was unintersting. I started to throw it away. Charlene was like – that’s a BILL!
Oooops. my bad.

It happened to be the first of many installments. A few days of breathing hospital air, eating hospital food for NTD 18,000 and that in itself just means the high tech alloys of the screws, etc. are going to break the bank…. which leads us to ask.

Can you spare a dime? I won’t threaten your existence by asking for 3,000, nor by hoping for US 10,0000.

Click on the banner below, or on the
above to be taken to PayPal.com

That and you forwarding the email that you received, read, and lead to you donating to our good cause to your friends. Both are the things we wish for.


Yours,

Parker – “Screw, plate, bolt & wire leg” Fairfield

It’s cool that the international language of Medical Doctors is a combination of English & Latin.

The more professional international hospitals I have been in keep the amount of the ‘local language’ down to a bare minimum; I’m not sure of the purpose of this …. only to confuse the patient, or to prohibit other smaller hospitals from poaching goood patients?

Today, while in the recovery room (we go daily), in my makeshift ‘room’ Charlene & I read about 20 pages of my patient book – which over the coarse of a month, it is about five (5) centimeters, or a little over two (2) inches thick.

One of the SCARY things was the description of me and my leg when I came into the ER. It says that I was well nourished etc, but I was pale and ill looking.

Then they described my left leg.

1. My left foot was a Type II Open Fracture with a decent amount of dirt & debris in it.
2. My left lower leg (tibia / fibula was a Type I Open Fracture with a decent amount of dirt & debris in it.
3. The worst of the bunch was my femur … which was a Type III B Open Fracture with an extreme amount of dirt & debris in it. It was missing about 6 centimeters of pulverized bone … and they were the most concerneed with this section of my leg.
4. What they didn’t know at the time was that my toe nails were truly dirty {ROFLMAO}
5. Mr. Magoo, where are you! The item that for whatever reason was hidden from view was that my ankle was screwed up and needed surgery on it too!
6. My pulse at my left foot was weak – which meant that my femoral artery had not been completely severed (or I would have been dead prior to arriving in the hospital, as it takes less than five (5) minutes to die from a severed femoral artery; more like three minutes) but that it had been cut – possibly in several places as there were so many bone chips wiggling around inside, which meant that one (or more) of the broken bones had sliced into the femoral artery….

blackholes
lasers are hot
moon babies
astronautics
shooting starz
shuttlescoot or shuttle scoot
hubble bubble
mir
deepfield project
quantum
into the void
solar calipso
lunar landerz
space balls
moon craters
crash landing
star chaser
trig is hard
stupornova
jupiters rings
halleys comment

How About A Little Help? Cross your mind?

Talk about feeling like you’re between a rock and a hard place? I’m on my way to have 6 to 8 hours of surgery and I’m wondering how much I’ll rack up in debt today.

Rock= Expired COBRA period; didn’t matter, my health insurance didn’t cover overseas travel without prior approval.
Hard Place=Probation Period before I can qualify for Taiwan’s National Health Insurance – and then that insurance doesn’t cover a LOT.

Felt like a shmoo creating the index.html page … but then I thought – why can’t I be honest with the situation?

Here’s to honesty
Here’s to those that can help