Targeted advertising...

From time to time I notice how targeted advertising on different sites - like facebook, or Google - changes. Sometimes it's entertaining. Sometimes, I think that they must be employing psychics.

How do they KNOW?!?!? ;)

...and it totally works, I caught myself looking for this label at the store the other day. Well done, Facebook, well done.

Details...

Don't forget about the A to Z blogging challenge coming up in April - you can click on the icon in the sidebar to sign up! I'll be doing my HoCo-centric posts at 9pm every evening. Bonus points to anyone who can guess what topic I'll be covering each day!


With the exception of food v. food (which will resume Apr 8), A to Z will take up much of my normal blogging schedule. This is kind of a deviation from the original plan, but unfortunately I'm finding myself with less time to tap away on blogger these days.


Speaking of food... I'll be in DC shortly for a conference at the Washington Convention Center. Any suggestions for tasty affordable eats? 


Did you attend the Aquatics Master Plan Meetings last night and tonight? I missed both, would love to hear thoughts (blogs, etc).


Halfway through the week! Good bye, Wednesday!

Bring it On Thursday

I can't help it; today just seems primed for Awesome.


I'm so sure of it, I used a semicolon in my opening line. I KNOW.


Want to see how awesome works too? Check out this effort by YA author Maureen Johnson* - she woke up yesterday and decided to make the world suck just a little less. And then she did something. She raised, over the course of the day, $6000 in donations for a charity called Shelterbox. And the fundraising will continue today.


In a world where too many well-known people tweet/blog/say... just... the stupidest things... this was pretty cool.


I have a plan to make the world (or at least, my little piece of it) a little more awesome too - small things. It will involve smiling and greeting everyone I meet, getting in touch with people I've neglected, and doing at least one nice thing for someone else.**






What are you going to do today? Tell me in the comments below!







Don't forget to sign up for the Bucket List Blogfest, and tune in tomorrow for a very sweet Food Versus Food. 


Edit: Link to case-in-point example of celebrity stupidity via Twitter.




*  YA author? Yes, I am an adult. And I read her books. They're very good.
** I felt like I needed a list, but the plan is flexible. Who knows what the day will bring?

"Mr. Watson, come here...

...I want you," said Alexander Graham Bell on January 25, 1915.


To which Watson replied, "Do you have any idea what time it is here?!?!"


Alright, I may have taken some artistic liberty in the re-enactment of the conversation. Today marks the anniversary of the first transcontinental telephone call. Amazing to think about now, in an age where calling around the globe or videoconferencing over the internet is more or less routine.


I wonder where we'll be in another hundred years*.


Somewhat ironically, I left my phone at home today. It's thrown me off a little, but at the same time, has been somewhat liberating.


We may get snow tonight and tomorrow - stop by the store for milk, bread, and TP. Then bring them all by my house, 'cause seriously, I'm almost out.


Happy Tuesday, everyone. 






*Barring destruction via global warming, Zombie Apocalypse, or the election of Sarah Palin to the presidency.

Flash + Mob = Fun

Really.


There was a flash mob at the Columbia Mall tonight.


And who was there?  This girl.


And about three hundred other people. 


All of whom were enthusiastic, energetic, and really nice. What a great community. (hocoblogs@@@)


The Flash Mob's already hit the airwaves courtesy of HoCoMoJo (who in part organized the event), HoCoRising, A Tale of Two Cities, and Columbia Patch. (Full Disclosure... I wrote the account for the Columbia Patch. David caught the great video)

I'll add in more links as they come out, to the bottom of the post.

To my surprise, I found out this was not the first time Columbia had been flash mobbed. How had I missed the Michael Jackson tributes of 2009??

I do have to say, the experience was pretty awesome. Thank you so much to Erinn at Something Else to Distract Me for spreading the word, I had a great time with her and Cindy at Thoughts From a Swimmer! 

And of course, thanks to the organizers of this event - Pam Land and and Sally Livingston from HCPSS, and the Bittners from HoCoMoJo.

Cindy, Erinn, and Mo at the rehearsal for the Flash Mob Event of 2010.

HoCoMoJo's Video of the flash mob

Updated links (12/24):

• Check out the preview post on Something Else to Distract Me. And here's her full recap - great breakdown of the whole event.
• HoCoRising does a nice recap post along with Thursday Links.
• Conversation about the flash mob with a bystander (and Queen Anne's Pretzels) on Tale of Two Cities.

Did you see the flash mob? Did you participate? Tell me about it in the comments below!

Wednesday Weeklies

Hey everyone, here are some highlights from the week and points of interest for the upcoming weekend...

Events

Did you know that Ellicott City hosts a literary pub crawl on the first Thursday of each month?  Me neither!  More info here.


Don't forget the Howard County Library's holiday music Coffeehouse on Dec 2.  Are you a musician yourself? Register in advance with Jean Salkeld at 410.313.7766. 


This weekend is Breakfast with Santa at the Columbia Mall.  I remember going to these as a kid when they were held at Woodward & Lothrop.  It was awesome, and instilled in me a deep love of pancakes rolled up and stuffed with apple filling.  Now it's held at the Nordstrom Cafe, at a cost of $10/person, proceeds to benefit the Howard Hospital Foundation.


Saturday, the Supreme Sports Club will be holding an 'Iron Fitness Challenge' - 140.6 minutes of activity. The breakdown is 20 min swim, 80 min bike, 40.6 min run = 140.6 min.  (Full disclosure: I teach lifeguarding for the Aquatics Department at Columbia Association)  (Second Full Disclosure: although this seems like a cool event, I'll probably just do Bagel Run)


On December 4th and 5th, consider attending an art show to benefit the Ulman Cancer Fund.  View the work of local artists.  RSVP 410-461-3400 or email dulman at connext dot net or cherylduvall at mac dot com. 

The Columbia Orchestra will be performing an event called "Earth and Sky" at the Rouse theater in Columbia on December 4.  For more info and ticket prices, check out their site.  I've seen them several times and they're really good.

Just in case you need more arts, the Columbia Pro Cantare group will be performing Handel's Messiah at Rouse theater the next evening, Sunday December 5, at 7:30pm.

The Columbia Jewish Association is holding a Latke Potluck and Auction on Tuesday, Dec 7. Click here for more info.  Can we say... yum?

Links

C2.0 covers Ken Ulman's plan to transform the county.  Recap and video available.  Also, HoCoRising listened to Ulman's weekend Q&A.


HoCoRising also points out that the economy is on everyone's mind, and HoCo is not immune.  Sarah at Sarah Says posted an interesting recap and analysis of a discussion on the federal deficit. 


Sarah also recaps her CSA experience.  I'm really hoping Matt and I do a split-share in a CSA for 2011.


HowChow mentions bubble tea at Ichiban Cafe, a place in Columbia that just opened.  As I understand it, they offer free WiFi, so this is a spot I've been eyeing for writing later in the month.  Look forward to trying it!


Did you know that Merriweather Post Pavilion ranks in the top three venues in the world?  A shame that Jimmy Buffet doesn't play there anymore.  Check out the story on Patch.


Erinn re-posts an entry about holiday decorating, something we've not even begun to do (but we are doing!  See future post.)


Finally, Cindy posted about her Marathon experiences on Thoughts from a Swimmer.  It was so awesome that they're looking forward to Shamrock fest in 2011!  The highlights, particularly about how they ran it together, are a really nice read.


Post-Black-Friday, enjoy your holiday shopping.  Don't forget to look for the generic and/or scary holiday presents out there.

H to the P...

Please enjoy the long weekend.  We'll return to scheduled programming on Monday.  In the mean time, thanks to The Rejectionist for sharing this vid.

If ninjas played multisport...

They might play cycleball.  What's that you say?  Yes, Ninjas ride bikes.  


Of course, they don't wear tube socks.  Or shortie bike shorts.  And you'd never be able to see them, which would make spectating difficult.  


So maybe not.

Heard of cycleball?  Me neither!  Watch this fun video and get more information here, courtesy of wired.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I learned this week: November 14

And now a sampling of things I learned this past week...

1.  Grimace (Pug) has very vivid dreams.  Sometimes I can hear him yelping and paddling from the next room.

2.  Wearing a bright green-yellow shirt while running makes it impossible to drop a sock.

3.  Bigotry can live in any zip code.

4.  So can tolerance.

5.  I get impatient at seminars when I realize no new information is forthcoming.

6.  Bon Fresco is awesome with a capital Awesome.

7.  Neglecting exercise in favor of sleeping or writing is not always a good idea.

8.  Starbucks gingerbread latte is nasty.  I used to have fond memories... no idea what happened.

9.  I <3 my Marine.  (Alright that's cheating.  I already knew that.)

10. If I find myself saying 'I have nothing to do'... I'm doing it wrong.

What did you learn (or remember) last week?

Friday Freedom!

We're headed off to enjoy the stunning weekend weather.  I thought I'd leave you all with some tunes to sing while I'm gone.


Check out this music video about NaNoWriMo.

And this one.  She plays a Ukulele.  Which rocks.

Hopefully I'll be past the 40K hurdle (and still without a nervous twitch) when we come back!  How will you be spending your weekend?

Personal revelation: hulk smash!

I am actually a pretty easy-going person.  I keep my hangups under wraps in the privacy of my own home, prefer rational discussion to livid debate, and understand that many people will not, in fact, agree with my values or point of view.


But occasionally... usually after reading a comments section on a website... I transform.  Like Bruce Banner to Hulk, with less Green and slightly more estrogen, I grip the keyboard, wave it around, and let out an unearthly, primal scream.


Alright, in reality, it's more like this.

XKCD #386

Happy birthday to you...

CPR!  Yup, that's right, CPR turns 50 years old today.


Whoops.  I mean 38.  Again.


Seriously, though, on this day in 1960, the official guidelines for CPR were adopted by the American Heart Association.  I thought this was kind of cool, seeing as I've been teaching it for roughly ten years now and have seen the protocol change even in that short window of time.


CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is an emergency intervention used to maintain the flow of oxygenated blood in a person (or patient, victim, etc) when the person's heart stops working effectively.  Typically this would be used when someone goes into cardiac arrest or encounters some other life-threatening situation that stops the heart. 


I was surprised to learn that the use of artificial breaths (ie, mouth-to-mouth) and chest compressions has been around for several hundred years.  As early as 1760, artificial breathing was touted by the Parisian Academy of Sciences as part of a protocol to revive drowning victims.  Successful use of the practice was seen years earlier, when Dr. William Tossach used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive a miner.  Depending on the sources I found, dates for this varied wildly between 1732 and 1771, though the most commonly cited appears to be 1743.  Dr. Friedrich Maass utilized chest compressions to revive a teenager in 1892 (again, some variation in date based on source).  There is also evidence that different forms of resuscitation may have been used earlier in history.  Check out some of the earliest methods here and here.


So what did CPR in 1960 look like?  The major development in 1960 was the establishment of a protocol that used "closed-chest cardiac massage."  Basically, the protocol focused on pressing on the chest to circulate blood, which was oxygenated by the delivery of artifical breaths.  This use of chest compressions and breaths differed from the then-commonly-used Holger-Nielsen Technique that was utilized from 1911 through the 1950s.  


In recent times, the AHA has changed its CPR protocol, such as the ratio of compressions to breaths delivered in a minute.  In 2005, the AHA recommended the use of 'Hands-Only CPR' for bystander-intervention in an emergency.  Three years later, following the publication of its recommendation panel in a peer reviewed journal, the guideline was expanded. 


Basically, this revision eliminated the use of artificial breaths for the lay person, or bystander.  The change was thought to focus on three advantages (in no significant order):
1) Eliminating bystander hesitation to intervene (by removing a step that requires a barrier like a mask to be performed safely)
2) Focusing on the delivery of high-quality, rapid compressions at a rate of 100 per minute (think about the beat to 'Staying Alive') is used as a temporary intervention until EMS arrives
and
3) Making the protocol easier to learn, thus increasing the chances a person will receive CPR care. 


Subsequent studies have shown that Hands-Only CPR requires more effort on the part of the rescuer, but quality of CPR has improved.  Studies also showed that removing the artificial breaths did not change the outcome of survival or the flow of oxygenated blood in the subjects.  At present, no studies in human patients or animal models support the claim that reducing or eliminating breaths is harmful.


Although this idea seems counter-intuitive, it actually makes sense from a biology standpoint.  You may remember from basic biology that oxygen is carried by hemoglobin on red blood cells.  To describe a simplified loop, the red blood cells squeeze their way through capillaries in the lungs and pick up fresh oxygen.  They then tumble through the bloodstream via arteries until they reach a new capillary bed, this one in tissues. A second exchange happens, and the oxygen is delivered to the rest of the body.  The red blood cells then return through veins to the lungs, where they pick up more oxygen.  Check out a handy diagram here.  Venous blood doesn't have 'zero' oxygen, it just has oxygen present at a lower pressure than that of arterial blood.


Interestingly, delivery of 100% oxygen doesn't actually increase the amount of oxygen in a person's blood or tissues.  The advantage of 100% oxygen delivery is that it increases the amount of oxygen in the lungs.  When a person becomes unconscious and is unable to breathe, the amount of oxygen available to them is largely a function of the amount of oxygen in their lungs (ie, lung volume, and the amount of oxygen in small sacs called alveoli that help mediate gas exchange).  The air we breath is typically about 20% oxygen.  Increasing this percentage facilitates the exchange of oxygen to hemoglobin as the blood pumps through the lungs, but it doesn't significantly increase the amount of oxygen in the blood itself.  There are even situations when delivery of 100% oxygen (or hyperoxia) can be detrimental - email me if you want to discuss that and we can chat. It's a fascinating field of research.


So, intuitively, if the blood is pumping through the lungs as a result of hands-only CPR, it will pick up some oxygen as it passes through the alveoli and circulate it during the intervention (lungs have a residual volume unless they're collapsed).


Likely the biggest advantage of hands-only CPR is that it dramatically improves the odds that a person in cardiac arrest will receive CPR intervention.  The technique is easy to learn and reduces the need for a mask to mediate safe contact between rescuer and victim.  CPR alone actually has a low rate of success in reviving adults, and is meant to be a primary, temporary intervention until expert care is available.  The introduction of defibrillation confers significantly higher survival advantage than CPR alone, even when the shocks are delivered by non-healthcare professionals.


Current AHA CPR guidelines are summarized neatly here (or here in full, if you want to read a lot of journal articles).  Italics not mine.

"When an adult suddenly collapses, trained or untrained bystanders should—at a minimum—activate their community emergency medical response system (eg, call 911) and provide high-quality chest compressions by pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest, minimizing interruptions (Class I).

• If a bystander is not trained in CPR, then the bystander should provide hands-only CPR (Class IIa). The rescuer should continue hands-only CPR until an automated external defibrillator arrives and is ready for use or EMS providers take over care of the victim. 
• If a bystander was previously trained in CPR and is confident in his or her ability to provide rescue breaths with minimal interruptions in chest compressions, then the bystander should provide either conventional CPR using a 30:2 compression-to-ventilation ratio (Class IIa) or hands-only CPR (Class IIa). The rescuer should continue CPR until an automated external defibrillator arrives and is ready for use or EMS providers take over care of the victim. 
• If the bystander was previously trained in CPR but is not confident in his or her ability to provide conventional CPR including high-quality chest compressions (ie, compressions of adequate rate and depth with minimal interruptions) with rescue breaths, then the bystander should give hands-only CPR (Class IIa). The rescuer should continue hands-only CPR until an automated external defibrillator arrives and is ready for use or EMS providers take over the care of the victim.^"

--directly quoted from Sayre, MR. et al. 

"Hands-Only (Compression-Only) Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: A Call to Action for Bystander Response to Adults Who Experience Out-of-Hospital Sudden Cardiac Arrest" Circulation. 2008;117:2162-2167 

Check out an instructional video here.  There's also a video of the American Red Cross Science advisor's lukewarm assessment of hands-only CPR here.  (One specification he mentions is that full CPR is more effective in children.  In the interests of keeping this post to a reasonable length, I've chosen to focus on adults.)

I am interested to see if the recommendations will change for primary responders such as lifeguards or even EMS, to further accommodate Hands-Only CPR.  In my effort to look at primary sources, I noticed that many of the studies I read used animal models instead of humans.  This is necessary for controlled conditions and physiology, but the differences between real human patients (huge amount of variables) and identical animals (minimized variables) does leave some questions as to the benefits of ventilation in cardiac arrest.  

However, at the most basic level the take away of the AHA's recent change is that early intervention can increase a person's chance of survival in case of emergency.  

So, awesome readers, to celebrate CPR's birthday, get out there and find a class in your community.  Help ensure this skill continues to save lives!

Have a comment about the history of CPR, current guidelines, or any of the science I've mentioned above?  Leave one!

Things I learned this weekend (and maybe some other weekends mixed in)...

November is one of the best times of the year for camping... provided it's
a) in a camper, with a toasty ceramic heater.
b) sunny, which shows off the beautiful fall foliage.
c) accompanied by a cool propane heater and a blazing campfire.


Fresh S'mores are awesome no matter how old I am.


New cars manufactured after 2006 are required to have some sort of tire pressure monitoring system that notifies the driver when there's a problem.


It is possible for boxed wine to taste vastly superior to wine in a bottle.  Silver Birch Savignon Blanc was really, really pleasant to drink.


I can make almost anything with a grill, a slow-cooker, and/or an electric skillet.  Hey.  I said almost.


Jack London was a great American writer.  He is so much more than White Fang, which to be honest I didn't really enjoy that much when we read it in school.


Without distractions, I can write thousands of words in a day.


When most days involve running from place to place, focusing on a hundred different things, it's hard to get in time with the people you love.  I get a whole weekend with Matt when we go camping, and that's very special.

Things that make you go "Hm."

I was all set to write a story about a man in my neighborhood who brought his trashcan back in using his car (over about 20 yards of parking lot).  However...


Jeff sent me this video.  Good enough for a rainy Thursday.

Attending a cool event tonight before the write-in with local restaurateur Tony Foreman.  Stay tuned!