The Big Island

Brooks and Mary have been here for 6 fun-filled days. We have been swimming, beaching, snorkeling, eating, and touristing all over Oahu. The climax of our trip has been our weekend on the island of Hawaii. We stayed in a great B&B just outside Volcanoes National Park. Mary and I had been talking about wanting to see lava for months and we were not disappointed. From this point on Brooks and I will be narrating our trip through photos.

Here we are bumming on Waikiki beach.

Waikiki is an insanely commercial place with the highest end shopping and the lowest end whores I have ever seen. The economy here is fueled by Japanese businessmen on vacation. They have an insatiable apetite for luxury goods such as Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton luggage, and bleach blond street-walkers. Their good taste also carries over to swimwear. Brooks caught these shots on the beach of two men enjoying themselves in ill-fitting speedos. They were splashing about like toddlers.

We went to various beaches nearly every day. Mary was loving every minute of it until she was stung by a tiny man of war jellyfish. Here is her shoulder and a picture of the creature.

She recovered just in time to save Brooks and I from certain death when we swam out too far with our boogie boards. She swam out 200-300 yards to get us and we each took one of her heels as she pulled us back in with her arms alone.

We then went on to the Big Island to see some lava. We never saw any straight up liquid rock but we saw plenty of incredible volcanic formations and activity. There are holes in the ground spewing steam and fumes everywhere. The rugged black lava flows go on for miles. Here is a trail across the very crater of an active volcano. We stayed at the Bamboo Orchid B&B which I highly recommend. Gary the innkeeper made delicious papaya boats and taro root waffles for breakfast.

It really makes you appreciate what Sam and Frodo had to go through on their quest to return the Ring to Mt. Doom. Here is Brooks doing his best Gollum impression.

Here we are at the mouth of Kilauea. At night you can see the glow from the red hot magma deep within.

We then went to a beautiful black sand beach. The sand is made of lava rock that has been pulverized by the waves. This beach was also inhabited by sea turtles which were quite docile.

Right now Kilauea's eruption is out the side of the volcano into the ocean. You only really see the lava coming out by boat as the ground around the area is unstable. Here new land is created as lava falls into the sea and cools.

It was definitely a glorious week with Brooks and Mary. We will have to go on more adventures in the future.

Three months without a blog.

Its not like anything has happened right?

I mean thats old news to the select few who read this blog. That baby is now half way to freedom from the womb.

The three of us have been to Colorado to see Ben and Sara,

home to say goodbye to Jack the Shoeman,

and home again to see Tom and Jonetta get married.

We are now in Honolulu believe it or not, for a month. Here is the view from our balcony.

That white thing is the USS Arizona memorial. Amazingly all our flights were on time and Becca did not get a deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolus. We have a sweet pool and tennis court. Becca's cousin Matt lives here and is going to show us a good time. Best of all, Brooks and Mary are coming to play next week! This trip is going to rule and I plan to post pictures on here as we take them.

Garden update and vacation.

Heather asked about my outside garden and indeed it is coming along nicely.  I have planted more this year than last including: tomatoes, green peppers, dill, thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, sage, parsley, cilantro, green beans, and lettuce.  Since I am such a poor blogger I already have a progress photo to compare with the planting shot.

I also have a shot of this audacious punk ass rabbit just sleeping in my garden.  How dare he or she just lay there fearlessly.  

In other backyard news, avid Dingleblog readers might remember this fellow who has returned again to raise his family in our birdhouse.  There are several baby chickadees in there.

Becca and I also recently returned from vacation in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  We stayed in a cabin outside the park and drove in for some day hikes.  It is the most visited national park which I did not know, 9 million visitors a year in fact.  With that kind of attractive force I should have been prepared for assault of tourist traps in the area.  Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg are the Tennessee towns west of park and there is more fudge, funnelcakes, old time photo shops, magic shows, pancake houses, all you can eat buffets, tattoo parlors, airbrushed t-shirts, go cart tracks, minigolf courses, and waterslides then the Black Hills, Wisconsin Dells, Medora, and Mackinaw Island combined.  Here is a sample of the facilities.  

If you make it alive through that gauntlet you get to the park which has 800 miles of hiking trails including 71 miles of the Appalachian Trail.  We hiked to several sites within the park including two waterfalls and a high ridge lookout.  The area is thick deciduous forest, very lush and green, teeming with babbling brooks, ferns, mosses and lichens.  

Rainbow Falls

I ate these.

The magical place behind the waterfall.

The view from the top of Charlie's Bunion.

We made if about half way to Mt. Katahdin but it started raining so we turned back.  

Another blog is long overdue.  The problem is that it is just so easy to not sit down and do it.  TV is just so much easier than typing and thinking and loading pictures.  I often think about things to blog about but never get around to it.  Well here it goes.

We hosted Easter at our house for a few of our friends.  I made a delicious toasted spiced ham with honey glaze recipe courtesy of Michael Chiarello.  Chiarello is a douche but his food is always pretty good.  Here is the ham and the full meal with scalloped potatoes, lemon thyme carrots, and curried fruit.  

The curried fruit is one of my Grandma Macs recipes.  It is very easy and delicious.  Put canned peaches, pears, pineapple, mandarin oranges, and maraschino cherries into an oven safe dish.  Sprinkle with 1 cup of brown sugar (or more depending on the size of your batch), 1 stick of butter cut up into chunks,  and 1 teaspoon curry powder.  Bake it for 1 hour at 350 and it will look like this.

It is definitely spring here and in the 80s today.  The tulips are all up and the trees are blooming.  Here are a couple of specimens from our front yard.  

It is also about time for an aerogarden update.  This second attempt at aerogardening has taught me the importance of pruning.  You really need to trim new growth often to keep the plants shorter and thicker.  It is tempting to let them grow tall and fast because it is fun to watch but soon they start hitting the lights and you have to cut off their tops.  This has proven especially critical with the peppers because I find myself having to cut off a lot of flowers which would have become peppers if they could be left alone.  As you can see I do have some peppers growing.  The purple one is called a purple super hot and at 160,000 Scoville Units should render me confined to the toilet if I ever eat one. 

Another sign of spring is the presence of morel mushrooms at Weiland's.  Weiland's is my local grocery store and probably the best one in the world.  

I ponied up the dough for these morels and fried them in butter.  I don't really like mushrooms but I wanted to try them for the delicacy of it all.  They were good and it would be fun to go hunting for them in the woods someday.   My parents used to live in the Turtle Mountains and they survived off of ruffed grouse, morels, and woodticks.  That is enough blogging for now.

Its time for another blog and we have done many things since last post.  I am going to use the narrated picture method of blogging.  

My cousin Katie got married in Mexico and we were lucky enough to be able to go.  We were there for 6 days and it was great.  Here is the bride and father of.

This is Becca and I.

I caught this sailfish.  It was pretty sweet; about 7-8 feet long and 80 lbs.  It fought like crazy, jumping and stuff.

And it was delicious.

I also tried surfing for the first time with my cousin Jamie and uncle Jim.  It was damn hard.  I would like to do it again though.

The weather was perfect everyday.

Lets not forget to check up on the Aerogarden.  The first couple months are the best because you can almost see them grow.  Kind of like Annabelle except not as cute.  These plants are about the same age as her.  

The Dingleblog is back

I have taken a shameful hiatus from blogging.  Brooks, Simmons, Lane, and Scotty have been dragging me down I guess.  We will have to leave it to the Abrahams to keep the fires burning.  In December I was on a difficult trauma rotation where I saw many gunshot wounds, motor vehicle crashes, and other neat stuff.  It was fun but too time consuming to blog much.  Now I am on Toxicology which has a much better schedule so I will try to catch up.  

In past blogs you may have seen my front yard birdfeeder which is quite a popular spot for Central Ohio cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, and bluejays.  It hangs from a cord off a large tree branch and has for the last year and a half.  Squirrels have never been able to get at the feeder although I have seen them make a flying leap for it.  Last week I awoke to find the feeder on the ground with 5 squirrels gorging themselves on the seeds.  I figured the cord had just worn out and cracked from the elements so I put it back up with a length of the same cord.  Not two days later the cord had broken at the same spot as the previous one so I was suspicious that something was up.  Upon further investigation here is what I found.

Here is the empty feeder on the ground.

Here is the cut cord.

Look closely in the crotch of the tree.  I am going to have to use a cable or wire next time.

I am also resurrecting one of the most popular blog topics of all time... The Aerogarden!  It is replanted with hot peppers instead of herbs.  You can look forward to watching them grow.

I wrote this article for the residency newsletter so I thought I would post it here.  Since I don't like to write serious blogs I will finish it with a delicious recipe that is easy enough for even Dusty to make.  It is from that crazy grill master Steven Raichlen.

A Voice for the Uninsured 

If you watch as much TV as I do you may have seen the AMA advertisements touting their plan for healthcare reform.  They refer you to the website www.voicefortheuninsured.org so I thought I better check it out.  Both presidential candidates promise to “fix healthcare” but of course neither has a very detailed plan for doing so.  The AMA has developed a three-pillared strategy for reducing the uninsured population in the US and reducing wasteful healthcare expenditures. 

The first pillar of the AMA plan is to help people buy insurance through tax credits and vouchers.  The money to pay for this would come from the 125 billion already used each year for tax breaks on employer-based insurance.  Currently people without job-based insurance are forced to purchase expensive individual plans that do not receive a tax break.  Actual tax credits paid to the individual and dedicated for health insurance would make individual plans more affordable. 

Increasing the purchasing power of the individual is the basis for the second pillar in the plan.  If employer based health plans now have competition from individual plans they would be forced to increase their options and lower the costs of each.  In addition, by decoupling employment with insurance, individual policy owners would maintain coverage while in between jobs. 

Finally, the AMA proposes insurance market regulations that reward carriers for taking high-risk patients with chronic medical problems.  This would in turn lower costs for the young and healthy who are currently subsidizing the ill to some degree.  By lowering the costs for the young and healthy they could increase carriage rates for this too often uninsured group.  

I encourage you to check out the website and read more about the proposal in detail.  It makes good sense to me and I hope to see it come to fruition.  Our generation of physicians is likely to see major changes in health policy and payment during our careers.  Lets hope they have it all worked out by the time we are patients ourselves. 

Sweet Soy-grilled Short Ribs

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup Chinese oyster sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup sake (Japanese rice wine), Chinese rice wine, or dry sherry

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 piece (1 inch) peeled fresh ginger, minced

2 scallions, white parts minced, green parts thinly sliced

About 3 pounds bone-in individual beef short ribs, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide pieces

Preparation:

1. Place the sugar, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sake, garlic, ginger, and scallion whites in a large, nonreactive mixing bowl and whisk to mix. Stir in the short ribs. Cover the bowl and let the ribs marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours.

2. Set up the grill for direct grilling and preheat to high; use the Mississippi test* to check the heat.

3. When ready to cook, brush and oil the grill grate. Place the short ribs on the grate and grill until sizzling and darkly browned on the outside and cooked to taste, 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium.

4. Transfer the ribs to a platter or plates, sprinkle the scallion greens on top, and serve.

*When the fire is burning on high, you will be able to count to only two or three Mississippis before the intense heat forces you to snatch your hand away.