Random Observations

My time in Hawaii is winding down, and to fill the time waiting at the airport for my flight to the Mainland I thought I would try to capture a few of my thoughts over the past two days.

1. Hatches on-board ships can be dangerous. One form of injury occurs when the hatch slams down on your hand, fracturing all four proximal phalanges (the finger bones closest to the knuckles). This can be fixed, however, and the construct looks like a set of crossed hairpins, one "X" in each finger.

2. Orthopaedic (and other) surgeons spend one year after they finish their residencies and pass a written exam collecting details about the cases they perform. They submit these cases to an examining committee, and must successfully defend their treatment decisions in an oral examination in order to become board certified. There have been a number of orthopaedic surgeons who spent their entire case collection period in areas of current military operations. That is an interesting set of case decisions to defend! Good news - all of them passed their boards.

3. I saw an interesting poster about hamate fractures (one of the bones in the wrist). This is usually caused by a strong blow to a closed fist. Perusing the list of injury mechanisms, it is reassuring to note that in the midst of current world event, boys will be boys. Four of them had punched a wall, and one a tree.

4. Waikiki beach is still beautiful, though hemmed in by tall buildings in increasing density. It also gets very crowded when the local running club trots by.

5. A Hawaiian Luau features mostly Tahitian Hula. What's up with that?

6. The Honolulu airport has no glass in most of the windows. What a great place to live.

7. When Oahu experiences an earthquake, they turn off the electricity.????

8. When there is a traffic fatality, the highway is closed for the duration of the investigation. If you happen to be in a car on said highway, too bad. People have been known to leave the car on the highway and get a hotel room for the night, returning to retrieve the car the next morning after the highway reopens.

9. Sending blog entries via e-mail is a nice feature, but having to log on to Blogger in order to complete the post kind of defeats the purpose. Scratch that. The last two posts have bounced at the gateway. Fortunately, I had copied the post to my e-mail account and was able to grab the post there and paste into a post when I did get access to a computer. And I can't believe there is no way to mail a photo in.

10. I have a piano trio rehearsal scheduled tomorrow evening, and I haven't touched my cello since last Wednesday. This is going to be painful.

11. I am nearly over my cold, but still have fluid in both ears. More pain anticipated.

That is all.