Doctor Smoctor, Take Your Child to an Exorcist!

Reason #147 that religion is generally a bad idea. This story from the associated press. Read the entire story here.

Sunday, in Arizona police responded to a call and found 49 year old Ronald Marquez nearly choking the life out of his 3 year old granddaughter behind a barricaded door. Why, would anyone do something so heinous? Enter religion.

Marquez and his 19 year old daughter-the 3 year olds mother, were performing a ritualistic "exorcism" to release demons from this child. The police reported that upon gaining access to the barricaded room, they encountered the mother covered in blood and "chanting something that was religious in nature". The grandfather was choking the young girl and had to be shot with a Tazer gun, twice, to free the girl and remove her to safety. On the bright side the grandfather promptly dropped dead after being taken into custody and was unable to be revived. Perhaps the exercised demons entered him and killed him;......that.......or the 100,000 volts of electricity that ran through his heart- twice. I guess we will have to wait for the autopsy. By the way they still haven't decided to charge the mother yet. In my opinion, not only should she be charged with accessory to attempted murder, child abuse, and a slew of whatever else the DA can come up with; She should undergo religious deprogramming. There is NO REASON WHATEVER to choke a 3 year old (even if she dumps a bottle of 18 year old single malt down the drain).

You are probably saying to yourself, Vince, this is just some crackpot who has an especially weird and perverted view of religion. Well you'd be wrong. According to a recent Gallup poll 7 out of 10 Americans believe in the devil. The Catholic church still sanctions the practice of exorcism. Among other faiths, many have differing views on demonic possession and exorcism; but it is widely practiced among many fundamentalist and evangelical Christian churches. To read more about what these groups believe in regarding possession et al click here. This is some seriously scary shit! Devils, demons, lions, tigers, and bears, OH MY!

There are many religious that practice exorcisms, but most famous among these is Bob Larson. He is the country's preeminent Protestant Exorcist. He has amassed quite the little empire for himself casting out supposed demons and fronting the DWJD (Do What Jesus Did) movement, whose mission is to: "preach the Gospel, heal the broken hearted, and set the captives free". Captives from demons I assume.

I wonder when we will be able to turn to science and reason to address problems and move away from this superstitiousness. Dum spiro, spero.

Scary times are upon us indeed.
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Programming Note

As you may have gathered from some of my remarks, I have an opinion on the topic of religion. Since it is not my desire to offend readers of this blog ,I will be starting a sister blog to this one. I will post about more controversial topics such as religion, morality, and the viability of Lindsay Lohan's future career on this sister blog.

Stay Tuned!

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead!

Haven't posted anything in a couple days. I tried to catch up on some desperately needed sleep this weekend but it wasn't to be. Insomnia 1, Vince 0.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare said of sleep:

"... knits up the ravelled sleeve of care
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

I am neither nourished nor is my mind soothed by such a balm. Shakespeare never met my cat!

On Friday night I couldn't sleep and was reading in the living room until about 3:45 am. I fell asleep on the couch not long thereafter, but was soon awakened by a thunderous crash. The crash involved a pint glass, a counter top, tiled floors and a certain fat furry bastard. The culprit is pictured here but was camera-shy and denied comment on the incident. Diablo has released the following statement regarding the incident through his attorney, Garfield D. Cat, Esq :

"Meow", which roughly translates into:

"I vehemently deny any and all charges in this matter.The whole thing is preposterous. Ludicrous! Inconceivable! If a glass broke, and I'm not saying it did, I was in no way responsible. I was patrolling my counter top as I usually do, and the next thing I know- I was being yelled at and being called very insensitive species-epithets. I am traumatized by this treatment and am considering a counter suit. Besides, who leaves a glass on the counter?"

Other theories put forth by the Diablo defense team include planetary gravitational wobble, earthquake, errant breeze and other non feline-related causes.

Those of you who know me will note that this is not the first attempt by my kitty to kill me, he has previously pushed a lamp onto my head from a dresser while I was sleeping and on another occasion, let's just say he chose to scale Mt. Vince by using inappropriate footholds.

Needless to say I was unable to fall back to sleep and between my mischievous cat and 1 month old daughter, I am working on about 3 solid hours a night. Collapse is imminent.

Kevorki-Kittie Performs Deathly Cat Scans

Well, beam me up Scottie I have seen it all now!

This furry feline is Oscar. Oscar lives in a nursing home in Rhode Island and has a penchant for predicting people's passing.

He apparently was adopted as a kitten and has grown up in the nursing home's 3rd floor dementia unit. The staff soon noticed that Oscar would make his rounds going room to room checking on patients and would snuggle up with those patients who would wind up dying within hours. The staff says he is not normally friendly with the (long for this world) patients and only seems to be intimate with those who are about to shuffle off their mortal coil. The staff reports that Oscar is very accurate in his prognostications and families of those who are about to die take comfort in the cat's companionship with their loved ones in their final hours.

What gives Oscar his ability to sense imminent death? No one knows for sure, he may be able to pick up scents or there may be behavioral cues from the staff. The cat's talents are so impressive however, that Dr. David Dosa, a professor of medicine at Brown University and a geriatrician, has written an article about Oscar that appears in today's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. (NEJM Website) No Kidding. I couldn't make this up. OK, maybe I could; but I'm pretty sure that my version would involve: drug use, governmental cover-up conspiracies, appearances of the Virgin Mary, and maybe even bestiality. (It's a scary place inside my head hehehe)

You need to be a subscriber to read the entire article online at the NEJM website, but you can read CNN's coverage of this story here.

I will be very nervous from now on when my cat decides to snuggle up with me in bed!

Puritanical Terror!

Due to a recent windfall, courtesy of the generous blackjack gods, I decided to splurge and buy the Cadillac of baby swings.This thing is loaded: multi-speed, whisper-quiet operation, a automatic timer, built-in music with 15 songs! I want one for me!

Rileigh enjoys her swing, much like her siblings did, and there was joy in McDonoughville. However while enjoying the built in music I noticed something that I never noticed before.

One of the songs it plays to "soothe" babies is Rock a bye baby. I'm sure you are all familiar with this little ditty, but have you ever really listened to the lyrics. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

Let's review:

Rock-a-bye, baby [you'll notice it's not rap-a-bye or hip-hop-a-bye, but maybe that' just me]
In the treetop [the creationists won't be happy here- what the hell are humans doing in treetops?!]
When the wind blows [obviously a nod to the global warming effects on our planet]
The cradle will rock [so far so good]
When the bough breaks [uh-oh perhaps the evil logging companies and their deforestation are at work here]
The cradle will fall [Thank Newton, I wouldn't have it any other way]
And down will come baby [Sweet mother of Trauma!]
Cradle and all. [by the way, the cradle and baby will accelerate toward the earth at the exact same velocity-barring wind resistance of course]

Now, what the hell kind of baby song is this? I mean you got babies in cradles, unattended, falling out of trees. Trees, really? Who puts a kid in a tree? What sick demented bastard wrote this Charles Manson? Hitler? Dick Cheney? Well, I did a little research.

It seems Puritans are the responsible for this sick and twisted nursery rhyme. Yeah, those puritans. The same spartan living, Mayflower sailing, Indian killing,goth dressing, quaker oats cooking puritans.
According to my research the puritans used to hang their cradles from tree branches so that the wind would rock them to sleep and give the puritan moms time to ....to... continue to be sexually repressed, read their bible, churn butter, accuse each other of witchcraft, or whatever the hell else puritan women did. Apparently it was not uncommon back then to see trees festooned with multiple suspended cradles (during 18th century Tupperware parties I guess). Scary scary stuff.

So the next time you read or sing a nursery rhyme to your kids, pay attention to the words. Let's stop the cycle of acrophobia inducing, arbor vilifying, cautionary tales of parental neglect that only terrorize our children!

GODZILLA ON THE GOLF COURSE!

I took these from our balcony. This sucker was at least 2 1/2 feet long!


Click on the pics to enlarge

Look Mom, I'm in Law School- Grade Grubbing 101

I got my results of yesterday's pharmacology exam. While I did OK, ( a 'B') I apparently got a couple more wrong than I had originally thought. This exam covered: drugs used in endocrine disorders, diabetic agents, antibacterials, antifungals, antivirals, yada yada yada. In all it was a boatload of stuff to remember. I suppose I should be happy with my grade but there are a few questions that I got wrong that I disagree with. Tomorrow will begin what I like to call the litigation phase of test taking. This is where students line up to discuss with our professors those questions we got wrong and "plead our case". Usually it winds up the professor summons saintly patience and points out where our ENORMOUS error in thinking was. Sometimes however, they forget to don their infallibility cap when they write the exam questions and we are forced to choose among bad choices for a poorly worded question. Occasionally they see the error in their ways and amend our grade accordingly.

I know what you are thinking, that this is a petty and vain pursuit of a few points that in the grand scheme of things wont matter one flying fig newton to most of us, I agree mostly, but principles are involved. Besides, it give us practice in our justification and reasoning skills. Skills we will draw upon when we enter the very litigious world of medicine.

Speaking of lawyers.....

An anxious woman goes to her doctor. "Doctor," she asks nervously, "can you get pregnant from anal intercourse?"

"Certainly," replies the doctor, "Where do you think lawyers come from?"

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Four surgeons were taking a coffee break and were discussing their work. The first one said, "I think accountants are the easiest to operate on. Everything inside is numbered."

"I think libarians are the easiest" said the second surgeon " When you open them up all their organs are alphabetically ordered".

The third surgeon said, "I prefer to operate on electrians, all their organs are color coded".

The fourth one said, "I like to operate on lawyers.They are heartless ,spineless, gutless, and their head and their ass are interchangeable."

If Women Ruled the World.....

This Just In...

The White House announced this afternoon that President Bush will undergo a routine colonoscopy tomorrow while at the presidential retreat, Camp David. A clonoscopy procedure involves inserting this lovely instrument (see picture) through the rectum and its fiber optic camera allows direct visualization of the mucosal surfaces of the colon to catch cancerous changes early and improve survival. The current recommendations include those over 50 and of average risk to have a colonoscopy done every 10 years. So I got that to look forward to. Yay!

The president had a similar test performed in 2002 and received a clean bill of health. Interestingly enough the president will invoke section 3 of the 25th amendment and appoint Vice-President Dick Cheney to act as president during the 2 1/2 hours that the president will be under anesthesia. This will finally force Cheney into the executive branch of our government since, according to him, the office of the vice president is NOT a part of the executive branch and apparently belongs to the elusive '4th branch' that was curiously omitted from the constitution, perhaps due to printing constraints.


While the official word from the press secretary is that this procedure is routine, sources close to the White House have leaked that the test will be performed to rule out a particular condition known as cephalorectal inversus. (pictured below) Godspeed Mr. President. Godspeed.

Hablamos Espanol. Not Any God Damn More! / Kitties Gone Wild

Via Comedy Central, this clip almost made me spit scotch across the room! My ER buddies will appreciate the last 20 seconds!



This is Diablo. Diablo thinks he is too sexy for his fur. This is his "come hither and lets do some catnip together" look. (notice the smile(upper right pic) and crazed look in his eyes)

Back off Shrink.. I'm filled with the Ghost!

I know many of you are sick of hearing me rant on ad nauseam about my medical psychology class, to you I apologize, but today's hypocrisy has me shaking my head and in a 'ranty' mood.

We are covering 'somatoform disorders' - these ailments deal with the (not completely understood) relationship between the mind and body and how problems in the former lead to symptoms of the latter. During today's lecture we covered a particularly interesting one called Conversion Disorder. This particular diagnosis is 'pseudoneurological' and basically is the physical manifestation of neurological symptoms due to some psychiatric cause. For example: I accidentally walk in on my grandparents having sex and from that point on I am blind. Enter the dreaded DSM IV.

To diagnose this curious ailment a series of criteria have to be met. The most important is to make sure there isn't an underlying medical condition- in my example you would have to rule out retinopathy for instance as one possible cause of my blindness. So far it makes sense.

Here is where the psychiatrists lose me. Criterion D. states that the symptom cannot be explained by: medical condition, substance, or culturally sanctioned behavior or experience. Huh? What?? So if you are paying attention: YOU ARE NOT CRAZY IF EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT! I guess this means that Jim Jones and his kooky Kool-Aid crew were not nuts since all of them 'sanctioned' each other's idiocy. Once again the ridiculousness of psychiatry rears its ugly head by allowing "diagnosis by democracy".

As an attempt to explain the caveat of "culturally sanctioned behavior" our professor brought up the oft seen phenomenon of the 'speaking in tongues' or sudden epileptic-like spasms that the faithful have during some of the more 'animated' church services. Pardon the pun but has Psychiatry lost its mind?

Apparently we abandon all scientific reasoning here and allow for the 'holy spirit' to account for wild gesticulating , frothing at the mouth, shaking, and shouting unintelligible utterances, flailing about on the ground, passing out and temporary paralysis that some of these people experience. No shit?( if by some chance an atheist is in a church and behaves thusly how do we code that in the DSM? just a thought)

If someone displayed this behavior in a mall for instance, it would be looked at as abnormal to say the least. But if the same manifestations occur during a church ceremony (where it is culturally sanctioned) it is "normal". Hmm?

I don't want to make this about religious experience or the validity of certain beliefs but if we are to set some sort of scientific standard here when it comes to medicine, and psychiatry in particular, then it baffles me how we don't label this type of behavior with the same scrutiny just because it occurs during a religious service. This seems to be an unabashed attempt to be politically correct and not offend the devout by labeling them with the same diagnosis that we would place on anyone else exhibiting those same behaviors without the 'holy ghost' causing them. Hypocrisy abounds.

Stormy Sunday

Well, the weather gods have finally smote the little island of St. Maarten and its 350 days of "88 degrees with a 30% chance of rain" monotonous forecast. For the last 45 minutes or so, the sky has darkened and opened up dropping a good bit of rain. The winds are whipping pretty good and (since we live at the edge of the golf course) we are experiencing what Forrest Gump calls "sideways rain". Our balcony looks at the moment like the set of a nautical disaster movie. As an exclamation point a HUGE and I mean HHUUGGEE lightning bolt just struck about 200 yards from where I am sitting hitting the lagoon. (hang on a minute)

OK I'm back (with clean underwear now). I do love watching storms but at my advancing age, sudden starts like that can't be good for Vince's life expectancy!

In other news, Kathy's sister Beth and family left today and I suspect that marks the end of any visitors we will have for the remainder of our time here. Time has really flown by this semester and in less than 5 weeks we will be headed home for a short break. Rileigh will get to meet her other grandparents as well as her rest of her family (and friends).

Meagan is globe trotting around Rome and is doing fine -so I hear (from her mother since Meagan has no need to speak with me directly, having already provided her with some spending money, I am now obsolete hahaha) I am sure she is having a great time. Just in case there is some way she gets to read this while she is there: Daddy would like a nice Chianti Classico or Valpolicella.

Real Men of Genius

Many thanks to John Gilbert- fellow student over 29, Sopranos fan, and one hell of an American, for sending me this video clip based on the Bud Light Real Men of Genius ad campaign. I applies to a few fellow students we know.



It reminded me how much I liked those original commercials so here are a few of my favorites:

Thursday Update...

Well, it's Thursday and, in a rare display of clemency, AUC decided that there are no classes tomorrow. YAY!

It has been a rather busy week for yours truly, I had a test Tues, Wed, and today. I did very well on both my Ethics quiz as well as my Med Psych exam (despite my personal feelings on the subject matter) and expect to have done well on my Medical Ethics final which was this afternoon. I shall take advantage of this long weekend to regroup and catch up on some pathology and pharmacology that I have woefully neglected this week.

On the home front, Rileigh is doing well, and by well - I mean sleeping through most of the night. She is usually up only once during "daddy's sleepy time". Even so, it doesn't impact on me so much (since she is breast feeding; and despite any perceived anatomical similarities to the contrary, I am ill suited for such a task).

My oldest daughter, Meagan begins her trip to Italy this afternoon leaving from Philadelphia she will stop in Boston, and then Munich before touching down in Rome at obscene:thirty o'clock tomorrow morning. We are excited for her and know she will have a blast while there.

Kathy's sister Beth is on-island with her husband and 2 year old daughter to visit and we will be heading out to what will be Rileigh's first dinner out; we will see what level of cooperation there is.

I look forward to a relaxing weekend. But given how things go, I don't rule out the possibility of a category 4 hurricane hitting the island.

Hoop Jumping 470 (Medical Psychology)

Today is Monday and I find myself holed-up reading about the the mind numbing rules for diagnosis as laid out in the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Diseases, 4th Edition).

Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I have previously accused my Medical Psychology class as being the equivalent of academic masturbation. (You can read it here if you missed it the first time.) Perhaps I was too kind. Masturbation at least feels good. This class has become the absolute bane of my existence. Allow me to (rant) explain.

While I am not ready to join Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirsty Ally or any other delusional religious moron in calling for the boycott of the entire psychiatric branch of medicine, I do loathe the course work that we are forced to undertake in its name. If we were simply learning about the various afflictions of the mind, recognizing them, and theories on their respective treatments it would not be too bad. This is not the case. We are forced to undergo what equates to an exercise in taxonomy. The rules to "label" a patient with a particular numbered diagnosis read like corporate tax code:

"In order to meet the criteria for the diagnosis of blah blah blah, the patient must have had 4 of the following 9 symptoms from column A, and at least 2 of the 5 from column B. Furthermore, must never had had any previous diagnosis of any overriding disorder which preempts this diagnosis. Oh yeah, by the way, the symptoms must be present for at least xxx but no longer than xxx. If ,and only if, the aforementioned criteria are met then hop on one foot, point a thumb east and enter this number on your diagnosis sheet."

Sweet mother of tap-dancing Christ! This would be an almost noble (albeit tedious) pursuit were it not for the intentional ambiguity and rampant overlap. I asked the professor in class what, other than a curious taxonomic diversion, was the point in all this hair-splitting. The answer I received, suffice it to say was less than satisfactory, although, in her defense I suppose the question could have been interpreted as rude and an insult to her life's work.(my bad)

Todays particular brand of Vince tourture (oh yeah it is ALL about me, that gets me a diagnosis of 301.81 if you're playing along at home for Narcissistic Personality Disorder) involved being critiqued on how well we 'pretended' to interview a 'pretend' patient who 'acted' like she had a substance abuse problem.This was the first hour of hell, without so much as a milk and cookie break or nap time, we were forced to watch a video of a (I presume) a real psychiatrist interviewing a (again I'm guessing here) real patient with some "depression issues". We were then charged with the task of flipping around in our little DSM IV books and finding numbered diagnoses to label her with. 296.33 was her winning label: Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent, Moderate in severity with no psychosis. Really! No shit. Thats how I spent 2 hours of my afternoon in medical school. I miss and long for the days of old when I was being bled on, puked on, and spit at. (and no I am NOT talking about the delivery room! ) I miss the ER. Even when I was having my life threatened by some of the kindly denizens of Philadelphia, or being assailed with various bodily fluids, I at least knew why I was doing whatever it was I was doing. This mindless hoop-jumping is enough to drive me to drink some scotch and forget all this! (291.1 - Alcohol-Induced Persisting Amnestic Disorder)

Whatever Psychiatrists earn in a year it's not enough! Not only do they spend all day dealing with, well let's face it, crazy people; they are forced to play this ridiculous square-peg, round-hole diagnosis game with silly little rules. If other physicians had to do this, the whole practice of medicine would grind to a halt.

Killer Cement Trucks loose on St. Maarten!

The picture on the left was posted by Paul Kyser with the title "Insert Your Own Darwin Joke".

I thought that was pretty funny and I dug out a picture that my daughter Meagan took about 2 weeks ago. This was right before we crashed into a rogue cement truck that was for some reason driving backwards at a very high rate of speed. Also, I didn't see it coming at all; it must have been going WAY to fast!

These cement trucks are very very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs!



DISCLAIMER : Although the pictures are real, I am KIDDING about crashing. (but I still believe those cement trucks are evil incarnate)

Quiet Friday

Today was a pretty quiet day, after taking a quiz in my ethics class I came home to get in a couple hours on studying Pathology, learning about the wonderful world of Lymphomas and Leukemias. It has taken a while to beat all the variants of each into my increasingly thickening skull. With our tests being 7 weeks apart, I have to try to stay on top of things. As is my luck, I am enjoying my ethics class more than any other I have taken in medical school but alas, it is only a week long.

Maybe because it is a diversion from my usual assault by science based courses, but I enjoy the debate and discussion about issues in medicine that don't have an answer based in flow cytometry or hemoglobin values. This is the first time when we have been expected to think about not only our role as future physicians but how the patient and society for that matter fit in to this dynamic that we will be working in for the rest of out careers. Our professor is very knowledgeable and is more of a conversationalist than a pedantic. She holds a position with The Catholic University of America but has maintained a secular tone in her treatment of the topics.

On the home front, Kathy's mom, Betsy came back to our lovely little island today to visit her latest grandchild. Both she and Kathy's dad were here for the week ending June 20th but, just like Meagan and Kaitlyn, left prior to Rileigh's arrival. She is pictured to the right holding Rileigh after bath time this evening.

I would like to offer a big Thank-You to all the members of the AUC Spouses' Organization for their wonderful support this week. As is tradition now, members take turn bringing new moms and their (starving to death husbands) meals for the first week. We have eaten very well and I can say to those who have been worried about my wasting away: crisis averted!

Good Cop, Baby Cop

Thanks to Jason and Mary I found this video at www.funnyordie.com. Will Farrell proves he can be the straight guy too. Go ahead try not to laugh. I guess someone really needs a nap!

The Upside of Outsourcing!

Courtesy of the Onion : Finally a fiscally responsible solution to working parents' dilemma. I love little Kimberly's comments! Hysterical.

Happy Birthday America / Medical Moos

Happy birthday America, or as some like to call it, Northern Mexico.

It is definitely an eye-opening experience living in a foreign country. If you ever have the chance, I recommend it highly. Too often we as Americans are lulled into a mindset of patriotic zeitgeist where we assume that our way of doing everything is "the best" since we are "the greatest" country on the planet. One could make the argument that this arrogance and elitism is at the root of some of our foreign policy missteps but I digress... I don't want to turn this post into a political diatribe on the 4th of July. I'm not that patriotic.

I have however, seen too may examples of American tourist living up to their "ugly American" stereotype that much of the world holds about us. One quick word of advice and then I will step down from the soap box: when visiting a foreign country, RELAX and accept that, although things are different and admittedly at times frustrating, acting like a 3 year old whose ice cream was snatched out of his hands, stomping your feet, yelling, and other obnoxious behaviors will NOT ACTUALLY HELP YOU GET ANYWHERE. In fact in most cases, people will actually treat you like you behave: an idiot. In the great globalization of the planet, ideals such as customer service and 'time is money' have not yet pervaded the culture everywhere; especially here on SXM.[PREACH OFF]

Of course living in a different culture allows one to better appreciate how good we actually do have it. Creature comforts such as dependable electricity, running water, and oh.. I don't know... let's say... PAVED roads are a distant memory that makes me long for the good old U S of A.
Not everything has been bad however.

Dozens of people have asked me how I felt having a baby in a foreign country. I admit at first I was a little anxious about having a baby here. As a paramedic and an ER nurse I have had ample opportunity to deal with my share of sick neonates. I have a keen appreciation of the importance of a certain level of expertise as well as a certain amount of necessary technology required to do it well. At my first glance of the hospital on the French side there was little to substantiate the claims by everyone I spoke with that the French hospital was more modern and better equipped than the Dutch hospital here. As we drove into the complex we passed a small herd of cattle were lazily grazing. Hmm ,I thought, "We're not in Kansas anymore." (that and the curious lack of a creationist lobby here on the island..again with the digressions....)

My anxieties were soon allayed however when, in the exam room, I noticed that these backward, heathen, socialistic, and altogether French people use the same exact equipment that was in use at most of the hospitals that I have worked in. OK, fine they have the toys but do they know how to play?

This too proved to be worry over nothing. As a matter of fact I would go out on a limb and say that for the entire experience that it was not only comparable to a US hospital, in our case* it was superior. The entire delivery was handled by a nurse-midwife and I do mean the ENTIRE delivery. She was the only staff member (besides the anesthesiologist who administered the epidural) that we dealt with. She placed the IV, drew labs, hung and titrated her own medications, during the delivery make the episiotomy incision, and sutured it herself at the end(no pun intended hahahaha). A physician was only called when the baby's head was crowning (as back-up in case of a need arose for an emergent c-section) but the baby was delivered by the time he arrived. I was invited to participate in the peri-partum care: I got to help clean, bathe, dress, measure, weigh, and hang out during the entire process. The staff was wonderful and extremely helpful. So, based on my prior experience, and my being about 40% of a doctor now(yikes!), and what I witnessed here for myself, I would whole-heartedly recommend having a baby at the French hospital if you found yourself here.

This picture was taken while I was leaving the hospital for the evening and the cows were munching right next to the hospital entrance.


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* Thankfully we had no need of a NICU nor were there any complications that needed attending to. One could argue that a routine delivery, sans problems, can be effectively handled in a barn- and you'd be right.

For Audiophiles Only...Virtual Barbershop

Mugging for the camera

As Professor Jodi Parr would say, "more gratuitous baby pictures"...

Left: Rileigh's first smile(smirk) caught on film

Right: Annie Liebovitz called and she said, "Don't quit your day job, Vince!"

Lacrimal Confessions

On the way home from the hospital last night I met up with the DiCarlos and Jersey Pete. I decided to go along with them to Bali Bar in Marigot where they were meeting up with Cyrus, Dan, Grace and her friend from the states Cindy. It was a load of fun and we had some great conversations. One of which is the inspiration for today's post.

Somehow we got to talking about movies that made us cry. Any of you that know me would probably not categorize me as the touchy-feely type that gets all mushy and weepy at a movie. Now for the most part you would be right. Perhaps I am getting a bit softer in my old age but there have been a select few movies that moved me to tears. The one that pops into my mind first is, I am Sam with Sean Penn Michele Pfeiffer and Dakota Fanning. Maybe it is because I am a father, or maybe it is due to the soft spot I have for the mentally retarded, but this movie reduced me to a blubbering, sobbing idiot. I have only seen the movie once but once was enough. As a matter of fact a few months ago I was in the bedroom studying and Kathy was flipping the channels and stopped on this movie. I heard a few lines of dialog and rushed out to ask, make that, DEMAND that she turn it off, lest I cry all over my Pathology book. My Achilles heel has been uncovered.

Other films mentioned last night included:
Field of Dreams
Braveheart
Saving Private Ryan
Rudy
Life is Beautiful
The Notebook


So I'll pose the same question to you: What movies made you cry? Post your answers below (you can post anonymously, if you don't want to be embarrassed) I am curious to see what makes other people cry.