Interesting Facts of the Day...dum dum daaaaah!

1) Garlic pills = less mosquito bites


The summer I spent working at a summer camp one of my fellow co-workers let me in on this little secret. Having the “sweet sweet blood” myself that mosquitoes are irresistibly drawn to (true story: when I was 11 I was hauled into town from the summer camp I was staying at to be inspected by a doctor since the counselors were convinced I had come down with a case of the chicken pox), I have wanted to test this theory myself for a number of years.

At the beginning of the summer I found out I would have a chance to participate in a camping trip into Algonquin Park in mid-August and figured that early June would be a good time to start swallowing garlic pills daily. My hope was to stink up my skin so much that by the time I entered the park I would not only remain bite-free myself, but would also shield all of the outdoor enthusiasts around me within a 5 kilometer radius. (I have since learned that the smell of garlic does not drive these little blood-suckers away, but rather it acts as a cloaking device that makes you hard for the mosquitoes to find). So the garlic pill swallowing continued religiously for a few months and then the moment of truth – camping in the woods for 4 days.

The Results: I left the park with about 5 bites which for me is pretty incredible since similar trips have left me more within the it-is-easier-to-approximate-how-much-of-my-skin-surface-has-NOT-been-bitten ballpark than vice versa. However, I was also told that because the timing of our trip coincided with the natural decline in mosquito populations, a direct correlation seemed impossible to make.

Until this weekend that it is, wherein having been garlic-free for approximately one week I sat on a patio for the span of 4 hours and got bitten at least 7 times! Hallelujah!...kind of. My current itchiness is comparable to a ride through the Burlap Sack Tunnel (real ride: look it up), but I believe I was able to partially prove that the garlic pills do some good. Needless to say I am back on the garlic wagon and will be until first frost. It also helps that one of my camping mates had a very similar experience.

yep.

2) The elusive truth about eye-patches revealed.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and need to turn the light on to do something – cover one of your eyes prior to turning the light on and keep it covered until you turn the light off again. The covered eye will maintain its “settings” for darkness and you will therefore be able to get back to bed without stumbling around in the dark and knocking over that priceless grandfather antique clock at the foot of your bed. Isn’t that neat?! This is the real reason that a lot of pirates wore eye patches – this would enable them to go from the deck (sunlight) to the low light level below deck and not have to spend a period of time adjusting to the light. Genius!

I have resisted looking this one on Snopes.com because I so want to believe this to be true…the eye patch part…the stumbling in the darkness business would suit me fine. I secretly despise that antique clock…

HOLLA!  Even in death pirates understand the importance of unimpaired vision in changing light conditions

Gogol-iffic

Folks,

Let me say this.  If there is one thing you do today it should be to discover Gogol Bordello.  They are a fantastic band out of NYC that blends gypsy folk music, punk and dub.  I would provide the link but I think your Googling skills require a brush up.

A little less conversation, a little more Gogol Bordello

It's just that kind of day

"M-E-H!  Meh"

How cussing convenient!

This is just so ridiculous!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/04/rick-perry-oil-spill-may_n_562491.html

Texan governor claims the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may have simply been "an act of God".  Wow!  I guess next time I fail at something that I could have easily prevented I can say a higher power willed it.

Shifting Gears

"A highly successful electronics executive, this man compared perfect health to the kind of 'breakthrough thinking' that transforms corporations. Breakthrough thinking is a unique form of problem solving: it involves making a situation better by first raising your expectations much higher than anyone believes possible and then looking for ways to make your vision come true. 'If people continue to think and act in the same familiar ways' this man commented, 'they may accomplish five to ten percent improvements by working harder.  However, to get improvements of two to ten times, targets must be set high enough that people say, 'Well, if you want that much improvement, we'll have to do this an entirely different way.' "
----from Perfect Health:The Complete Mind Body Guide Deepak Chopra

As someone who is extremely interested in "lean thinking", process flows, process improvements, and problem-solving in general as it can be applied to large-scale processes or daily activities, I was blown away by how I have failed to apply the same concepts to my health.  To me, the transition of one to the other makes perfect sense.  For example, I have noticed with myself, that I have broken my health issues into compartments - things that I want to fix right away, things that can wait, and things that are "nice to have"s but not necessary.  Even when  I talk to my Ayurvedic doctor and we discuss the holistic approach to health that Ayurveda embodies, there is some part of me that thinks I need to prioritize my symptoms and take care of them one by one, like checking items off a grocery list.  I am very resistant to the idea that there is a one-stop solution for all bodily ailments, despite the fact that I can imagine clearly how this could be true.

After I read the above quote I realized that the best process fix is to revolutionize the whole tamale-set a really high goal which forces a complete re-thinking!  Brilliant!  This may still necessitate the breaking down of the whole into sections and dealing with them one by one, but the overall goal is one that affects it all.

So, how to go about this when it concerns my health?  That is really the big question folks. 

In the training I have received on how to facilitate events concerning the reduction of waste and the increase of efficiency in the workplace, the steps are as follows:
1. Identify all the key players that touch the process in question
2. Lock them in a room for a few days with a facilitator to drive the discussion
3. Create process maps for the way things are now
4. Identify gaps in the process (all using the language of 'opportunities of improvement')
5. Create tasks based on these gaps
6. Map out the new process

Having participated in/facilitated a number of these events I can definitely see in retrospect that the goals we outlined going in, set the stage perfectly for the 'five to ten percent improvements' mentioned above.  They were more like spring-cleaning goals versus complete re-decorations.  I wonder if this is what I have been doing with my health; puttering along making small tweaks here and there instead of setting a really high goal that makes me think completely differently.  I am not talking here about running away to some ashram in India never to return, or becoming a level 6 vegan overnight (you know, the level where you can't eat anything that casts a shadow?), but what about shifting the gears in the mind?  What about choosing to look at things in completely different ways?  Ultimately, is this even possible or are we doomed to return to our habitual patterns of thinking?  I am hoping that the further I get into Dr. Chopra's book, the more ideas I will have about how to proceed, but in the meantime the spring cleaning is underway and even if it's not enough, chasing out the proverbial dust bunnies from under the bed is still better than doing nothing at all.  Ammirite?

I call him Fluffy

I have become a cat person.  The kind of person that has a whole album dedicated to their cat on Facebook.  The kind of person that talks about their cat like it is a child.  Luckily, almost all of my friends are also "cat people".  We sit around and compare stories of cute/annoying/funny/abnormal things that our cats do.  This conversation always starts with one simple story and then, before we know it, we are an hour deep into cat lore.  I worry about this.  Before I owned a cat, my friends' cat stories were boring and tedious to listen to.  This all changed when I got my cat and had my own stories to contribute.  The thing is, I know that this will happen again when my friends start having babies, and frankly I don't think I could do another round of listening to stories without being able to contribute. It is just downright boring.  I guess this will force me to a) have a baby, b) get better at steering the conversation towards something else, c) get new (childless) friends.  At least I have a few options.

I'm a white person!

I am apparently quite late at discovering this but I think it is fantastically funny and recommend it to all y'all!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

I am particularly fond of #128