Several years ago, I broke my foot. Due to a misdiagnosis, I ended up in a walking boot for about 8 months. After numerous x-rays, then several MRI's, I then had surgery to correct the issue and was in a cast and then the walking boot again for about 3 more months. Between the walking boot, and the crutches for the hard cast, I developed back and shoulder problems. I spent about three years going from doctor to doctor to get relief. I had MRI's done, I tried Acupuncture, trigger point injections, chiropractors, meditation, yoga, massage therapy, physical therapy, and a whole lot of other things. I could get very little relief, and none of it lasting. Finally, the doctors pretty much gave up, saying that they could find nothing really physically wrong and that basically, chronic muscle pain and migraines, tranquilizers, muscle relaxants and pain medication was to be my lot in life going forward. I was not satisfied with this. I wanted the issue fixed, not just to treat the symptoms.
I, like most people, believed that since doctors are required to go through so much schooling and training, they MUST know more than we do about the human body. Maybe I have just had bad luck, but most of the medical practitioners that I have dealt with, mostly do not help me with the issues that I go to see them for. They can prescribe medications to treat symptoms, but I feel rarely correct the underlying issue.
During this process, I had started researching the issues on my own. Finally a friend recommended a Gonstead Chiropractic practitioner, who said he could fix the problem and make my headaches go away. I had been trying so many things that hadn't worked, that I didn't really believe him. I didn't feel that chiropractors did any better than getting a massage, but I scheduled an appointment as I didn't have anything to lose. I had been to a regular chiropractor, and only got relief for a few days after each session. The Gonstead Chiropractic treatments worked! It took several months, but the headaches went away. I had discussed this with my regular physician, who ridiculed me and the chiropractor. This is the doctor who prescribed Paxil, which I never took, and muscle relaxants, which I tried, but could not function while taking. Needless to say, I have not been back to that doctor since.
I also had a friend who was discharged from the military. She had severe medical issues from her time in the service, and the doctors had basically put her on morphine for the pain and seizures, and sent her home. She was pretty much bedridden. I suggested that she try the Gonstead practitioner, as she had nothing to lose, either. Now, her seizures are almost completely gone, and she is off the morphine!
I don't know how it works, but I have seen this happen with a number of people that I know personally.
The Gonstead chiropractic method has relieved issues for me and that has lead me to research other less mainstream methods of health and wellness. Learning more about how the mind and body work has made me healthier and happier. Knowledge is power, eh?
Why do software manufacturers always insist on changing things, and fixing things that aren't broken?
A friend of mine who lives here on Manana Mesa is a retired software engineer who worked for a major software company for a long time. Here's his take on the question:
This company hires software engineers on the basis of their specific talents, and how those talents are applicable to the specific piece of software that they need to develop.
Many months, even years sometimes, are spent perfecting and testing the code. When the software is ready for the market, the engineers' job is essentially over. Rarely, though, are they assigned to another project. Generally, they have to maintain the software, fix bugs, and develop updates that technology and the marketing department demand.
Although these tasks could be assigned to lower-echelon coders, the software manufacturer wants the engineers to stay on the same project. Even though they don't have very much for them to do, the software manufacturer doesn't want them to go work somewhere else! The engineers know where all the bodies are buried, and it could be bad for business if they went to work for a competitor.
So, to keep the engineers busy and suitably entertained, they ask them to keep tweaking the software. Move buttons around, change the icons, invent some new menus, etc. All these changes have to go through the marketing department for approval. Most of them are rejected. But a few are retained. Some on the basis of their usefulness and marketability, others just so the engineers will feel useful and won't seek employment elsewhere!
So that's the story from someone who has been there. It's a small consolation when your favorite piece of software has moved all the buttons around!
I love living in a small town. (Well, most of it. But how many of you can say you like 100% about where you live?) Most everyone is so friendly, and connected. I like that feeling, that I am connected to a large part of the community. I didn't feel that way as I got older, when I lived in the city. When I was a kid, there was a sense of neighborhood and community. As I got older, and lived in apartments, that feeling wasn't there. I felt very anonymous.
See, here, you are always looking to see who you know, what they're doing, waving hello. Friends give me a hard time because I don't “do” vehicles-I don't recognize what people are driving a lot of the time. So when I'm driving, sometimes I don't wave because I don't know what their vehicle looks like. (Most newer vehicles all look the same to me.) And you better believe I hear about it the next time I see them!
When I go to visit family in the big city, I have to be reminded to stop making eye contact. So then when I go back to where I grew up to visit family, I'm still in that small-town mode of looking at people and smiling, saying hello. It kind of weirds people out, in the city. Try that, at your friendly, neighborhood big box store. You'll probably get escorted out. I KNOW you'll get funny looks!
Going to the store or the post office here is a social event. About half the county does not get mail delivered to their house or cluster box, they have to go to the post office to get their mail. Not by choice, but because the USPS won't deliver mail there, and requires you to have a po box at the post office in town. (But that’s another story...) It can take an hour or more, when you see someone you haven't talked to in a while, and chat to catch up.
I knew a guy who got arrested one day a while back. The local cops were out to teach him a lesson, so in addition to arresting him, they towed his pickup truck to the impound garage, located under the courthouse.
Several days went by. People who worked at the courthouse started noticing an unpleasant odor in the parking garage. After a few more days, the smell was so bad that they had to evacuate the courthouse and call in a Hazmat team.
The Hazmat team finally found the source of the smell: A burlap bag filled with dead rattlesnakes in the back of the pickup!
They asked the guy “Why didn't you tell us about the rattlesnakes when we arrested you?” To which he replied “You guys seemed to know everything! I figured I'd let you find that out for yourselves!”