Neat Old Stuff: Creepy Portrait

This gem came from the Salvation Army in Binghamton Ny. I've forgotten what it cost me, but being that I was a sophomore in college, and had no job, I doubt if it was more than $8.99. Many cool things were purchased at the Bingo Salvo, and this was likely one of the first.

This portrait, nicknamed Jacobin Joe, has hung in my Sophomore year dorm room (above the door,) in my Junior year apartment (somewheres?), in the bathroom of our Senior year apartment (directly across from the crapper!), and now in the shadows of our mini hallway.

Sarah has long complained that Jacobin Joe is too creepy, too ugly, or something else that results in my complete zoning out. I say it could be worse.

OR MORE AWESOME!

Frightening.

My annual rant:

Now I know that Halloween is a time-honored opportunity for the ladies to dress more, um, provocatively than they normally would. There are classics like the sexy nurse and the french maid and what have you. But it seems like lately there is a slut-ified version of everything. I remember holding back gags as the girls on my college cheerleading team recited their plans, which included such ideas as (and I may be paraphrasing): "slut with butterfly wings," "whore with devil horns," "hooker with cat ears," and the list went on. I would then go home and joke to Matt that I was going to dress-up as something like a "sexy hobo" or a "trampy giraffe." I thought I was being ironic, but it turns out that you really can make anything slutty:

To my dismay, alarm, and amusement, these are all commercially available on the internets. A sexy Sherlock? Really? And the "mental patient" one is just downright offensive. Although this nonsense does make me feel like I am taking crazy pills!

Mmmm...brains!

I saw this project on the MAKE blog last week and loved it so much that I decided it deserves it's own post. Reminds me of the cool stuff mom used to do with Nate and I when we were kids.
With only a small seedless watermelon, a veggie peeler, and some knives... presto! a nice juicy brain. The red of the watermelon flesh really makes it! Full instructions via instructables. Imagine this in the center of a snack tray at your next Halloween Party!

And if you don't feel your fruit sculpting talents are up to par, check out this brain jello mold available on amazon.

Use your favorite jello flavor or, for more gore factor, go for this recipe here.

'Tis the season! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Tie-A-Thon: An Introduction

When I was in High School, I only had one necktie. It was a skinny little black tie, and I (correctly) thought that it was cool. I only occasionally found myself in a situation where I had to wear it, but when I did, I (correctly) thought that I looked "hip." Later, in my 3rd year of college, I found myself working a job that required that I always be wearing a tie. For the two years that I had that job, I owned 3 ties (Pineapple, solid red, and a solid gray.)

And now, after working my current job for almost three years, I have so many ties that I really have no idea how many I actually have. Restated - and this is for Sarah and her potty mouth - I have a poop-load of ties. Over the last three years, ties have come to the occupy the role previously held by t-shirts. I used to love finding and wearing cool t-shirts. Well, no more. Don't let "them" fool you, once you get a real job you spend more time in a dress shirt and tie than you do in a comfortable t-shirt. Hence my current situation: up to my neck in ties.

Anyways, my coworkers have noticed that I have an, uh, assortment of ties, and have logically challenged me to wear a different tie, everyday, consecutively. If nothing else, I figure this will be a good way to find out how many ties I have, and to rediscover ones that have been buried.

I am arbitrarily establishing the basic rules as being:
1. Once a tie is worn, it must remain unworn until this farce is over.
2. Incidentally acquired ties (either thrifted or gifts) can be worn. What I mean by "incidentally" is that, if I am out thrift shopping, and if I see a tie that I would normally purchase, I am going to get it, and I am then going to wear it during this streak. What I will not do, is run out and buy ties simply to prolong this streak.
3. Ties worn will be left at work, to prevent confusion, mistakes, and cheating. My coworkers do not trust me.
4. I will wear ties everyday that I work, including Saturdays and "casual" Fridays, because "casual" Fridays are a buncha crap anyways.
5. I will try to blog weekly about the ties worn.
6. It ain't over until I run out of ties.

I urge readers to guess what day and month they think this epic-tie-wearing-extravaganza will end. To the winner I will give my least favorite tie.

Female Parts

Now here is a face only a gynecologist could love! I made it as a gift for my boss, Dr. G, the summer I was working in the Kings County Family Planning Clinic:
Isn’t it cute!? Get it? … a uterus doll! (The skirt is a vagina, and the pigtails are fallopian tubes.) Note the little cervix underneath …

Made from two old T-shirts.

Radiology 101

“What specialty did you pick?” is a common question I’ve been fielding lately, and when it comes from someone outside the medical community (pretty much all of the important people in my life), my response of: “radiology” is often answered with … [cue crickets chirping]. I can’t blame them. In fact, I don’t recall if I was aware of what a radiologist was (or whether or not they were actually doctors) before I started medical school. I knew that things like x-rays and MRIs were used, but I never really thought about how these images got interpreted. People don’t encounter the radiologist on routine basis, so naturally this specialty seems a little foreign. In light of this, a little about my beloved field of choice …

What is a radiologist?
A radiologist is a medical doctor who has expertise in diagnosing and treating diseases using medical imaging technology, such as: x-ray, CT scan, MRI, mammogram, PET scan, and ultrasound. In diagnostic radiology, the images are interpreted to assess the most likely diagnosis or to track the progression of a known disease. In interventional radiology, imaging techniques (for example: fluoroscopy, which is a real-time, moving xray image) are used to improve accuracy of invasive procedures, for example: to stent an artery, biopsy a tumor, to drain and abscess, or to insert a feeding tube. That was a lot of information, so let's break for some purdy pictures ...
Radiology is sometimes confused with radiation oncology, a specialty in which radiation is used to treat cancers. There is some overlap with the technology used, however these fields are very different.

Why can’t my regular doctor just interpret the x-rays?
All medical students and residents get some exposure to radiology, however this is not standardized across different training programs and is not typically a required rotation. Certainly there are many findings that may be picked up by, for example, an ER physician or a primary care doctor, however often there are subtler or stranger things that could be missed. In fields like pulmonology (lung specialists) or orthopedics (bone and joint surgeons), doctors may be adept at reading images related to their specialty, however they always have the radiologist’s official report to confirm their impressions. (This is an important safety net malpractice-wise, since, if something is missed on the image, it is typically the radiologist who is held responsible.) Another important role of the radiologist is to be an advisor to clinicians. (In my experience, their phone never stops ringing!) They can offer expertise in which imaging techniques are most appropriate in a given situation, and can subsequently help the referring physician to understand the image findings. It is for this reason that they are sometimes referred to as "the doctors' doctors," although in my opinion that is a little much.

Do radiologists ever interact with patients?
Yes. For simple x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs, the radiologist may not need to meet the patient in order to interpret the images. However, dynamic procedures such as an ultrasound or a barium swallow may require the radiologist to be present during the exam. With more sensitive issues such as mammography, many radiologists will counsel the patient on her test results. And obviously the radiologist is present to perform interventional procedures (like biopsies, etc. as described earlier).

Is it true that a radiologist must avoid sunlight and can only be defeated with a wooden stake?
Yes.

What training is required to become a radiologist?
After medical school, a minimum of 5 years of training is required (and you thought I was almost done!), including 1 year of internship, for example in internal medicine or surgery, followed by 4 required years of radiology residency training. During this time, oral and written board exams are required as well as a physics board exam. Additional 1-year fellowships are available if one chooses to become sub-specialized in, for example, pediatric radiology, musculoskeletal radiology, mammography, neuroradiology, interventional radiology, MRI, body imaging, etc. Like most specialties, radiologists must attend conferences for continuing medical education (CME) credits and take recertification exams every 10 years to remain board certified.

Why did you pick radiology?
I chose radiology because I am a very visually-oriented person. (Not to brag, but I happen to be VERY good at finding Waldo.) Most of my interests (artsy-crafty stuff, choreography) reflect a tendency for visuospatial reasoning, and I genuinely enjoy applying this to my medical training. Rotating through different clinical settings, I realized that medical imaging was my favorite part of every case. Additionally there is a terrific variety of career options (academic settings, private practice, different sub-specialties) and scheduling choices (full or part-time, days or evenings, teleradiology) available, so I know I'll have flexibility in the future. It is also a very exciting field as the existing modalities get better and new ones are developed.

[Full disclosure: there are a lot of controversies regarding radiology these days: self-referral by non-radiologist physicians, outsourcing of teleradiology oversees, will radiologists be replaced by computers?, and so on. It is super-interesting. I will try to address some of these issues in future posts.]

Bits and Pieces

So I had this epiphany one day concerning old books - they are an awesome craft medium. I was so convinced that they were this undiscovered and cheap resource that I started blindly collecting and saving them. This process quickly escalated. For storage reasons, I ended up only saving the covers. With quite a stockpile of these book covers, I still hadn't come up with a function for them. I toyed with the idea of mosaic-ing them into a tabletop of sorts, but that project never became a reality. Then, with a little help from this book, it hit me ... I should turn to my first and strongest love for inspiration - Video Games!
8-bit art from salvaged book covers was born!

Obviously, as much as I love some of the current or recently current games out there (video game obsessed posts to come!), I knew that capturing next-gen graphics with cut up book covers wasn't going to happen. So I turned to the NES classics - Mario, Mega Man, Link. But first I had to transform the book covers of varying sizes into almost uniform and manageable bits. Now I know that I am a librarian, and maybe it seems wrong that I cut up books, but let me tell you ... it is so therapeutic. That probably means it is wrong, but eh. So I began cutting up the covers into half inch squares. The thing is, once I started cutting, I found it somewhat hard to stop. Before I knew it, I had a bit of a surplus. Sarah, on the other hand, has referred to it as a "poop-load of crap." Now I think that calling something a "poop-load of crap" is a bit redundant, but I am told that in this instance "poop" is being used to describe a quantity, while "crap" is referring to the item in question, so really she isn't even talking about feces. Yea right. All I know is that when we move out, and we have to have a couple of boxes dedicated to my cut up book covers, she is going to be angry. That'll teach her to throw poop around. Once I had the bits, I had to come up with the image. I started to look at old Nintendo characters, and began dividing the image up into a grid.

With the covers cut up into bits, and the image chosen and gridded, I was ready for the fun part. The plan was to paint a canvas, and then to glue the different book bits on in the shape of a NES character. Not hard at all. Here is one coming together:

I was really happy with this first one, and I ended up making a bunch more for close friends and family. (Below are some others that I have made.) Eventually I decided that it would be cool if I cut the half inch pieces into quarter inch pieces, thereby allowing me to use smaller canvases. You cannot really tell from these pics, but Duck Hunt and the one of Mega Man shooting are actually composed of quarter inch pieces. I found that cutting the half inch pieces into quarter inch pieces further appease my dominant anal-retentive side.

I have also decided to start trying to sell these things on etsy.com, which is a very cool site that only sells objects which are either vintage or handmade. These are the two that I'll be putting up for sale on that site.

So, when I am not giving books to children to read, I am destroying books to honor a childhood passion. Or playing Halo.

Neat Old Stuff: Vintage Souvenir Glasses

Today's Neat Old Stuff cost a whopping $3 from the Salvation Army on Central Avenue in Albany. Check out these adorable vintage souvenir frosted glasses (Matt had the bright idea to put candles in them) ...

As you can see one is a New York State map and the other shows story book characters from the old Enchanted Forest in Old Forge, NY. They have the Hazel Atlas Glass Company's "HA" stamp on them, and best I can tell they are from the 1960's.

Based on the ebay market for these bad-boys, they seem to be pretty collectable (although maybe not that valuable), but for me they're keepers just because of the local nostalgia and the super-cute retro graphics. Yes, I said it. Super-cute.

The Inaugural Post

Welcome friends, family, creepy eavesdroppers. After years of lagging behind in hip, technological areas, such as what the kids like to call "text messaging" and "ipods," we've decided to catch a late ride on the blog bandwagon! Behold, as we freneticly document (and glorify) a gamut of ideas, projects, and routine happenings with lots of blog-tastic grandiose flair.

--S & M