Well I did happen to finally find the official Mason Proffit website yesterday for anybody interested.

I'm free. Yesterday was the last day of my employment as Director of Nursing. Quitting was much harder than I anticipated. The same staff I've dragged, battled, carried - kicking and screaming to to provide a higher standard of care had become emotional wrecks over the past month of working out my resignation. God love em.

Six weeks ago I was horrible, the meanest bitch in the valley, the cursed management who doesn't do anything to treating me like I walked on water. Now I'm the best boss and "what are we going to do now?" and "you can't leave us!" person. I feel like I'm stepping out of the twilight zone. I gotta love them.

In the last 2 weeks I've been bombarded with parties and presents. My house looks like Christmas morning I have so much stuff sitting around. Some of my presents: candles, clothes, cds, a variety of chocolate, soaps, body lotions, a Bible, dishes, a few wine baskets, a homemade blanket, several pieces of jewelry, a Luis Vuitton purse, a scrapbook of pictures and memorabilia and last but not least an XBox with money to buy some games. It's really hard to understand people.

So what's on the agenda now? Peace. Rest. For a few days anyway. I'm supposed to start my new job February 14th. In the short interim I've reluctantly agreed to help out a troubled facility with the same company. They promised they won't call me until February 1st. I won't answer my phone til the 1st anyway. That's what, 4 days of "Peace" and "Rest"? I really want alot more. I have enough vacation time racked up my last paycheck will be March 16 without helping out the other facility.

I'm really not a workaholic, I'm just too stupid to say no.

I've been wanting to do a post on abortion vs pro-life for a couple of weeks now but every time I sit down to write something I get so angry I have to walk away from it. I think I was probably 16 or 17 when I first heard about abortion - a long time ago, and remembering how apalled and shocked I was. The feeling has never left. At times I honestly wish I could become just as indifferent and apathetic to the situation as many American's have become. It just won't happen.

To me this is a very black and white issue, with no shades of gray. I can't even think about abortion without the graphic images coming into my mind. These graphic images were there the minute I heard about abortion, long before the Right To Life posters emerged to shock people into seeing what abortion really is. The graphic images is exactly what abortion is. Let's keep it real here.

So this morning I'm reading this aricle and wondering if I'm a fanatic. So I went to the dictionary and looked up fanatic and this is the definition:

marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion

Yes, I've determined I'm an anti-abortion fanatic. I can live with that. It's a damn shame thousands upon thousands will never get the chance.

It does give me some peace that at least some of the babies are getting a burial rather than ending up in a biohazard dump to be forever forgotten by the apathetic.

I haven't had any news on all day, so when I signed online this afternoon - which I have Google news as my homepage, there's the news. Johnny is gone. I think of all the faces in show biz, Johnny is the one that's as familiar to me as my own family. Thirty years of five nights a week is powerful stuff.

I was never a big fan of Johnny but he was like someone that was always there, for a huge part of my life. Summer vacations being able to stay up and watch Johnny. Damn, I remember watching Johnny being in labor. I remember watching Johnny rocking and feeding my babies.

I quit smoking once for 10 years. December 13, 1984 at 10:45pm while watching Johnny I smoked what I thought was my last cigarrette of my life. Heh. Now he dies of emphysema - yes, I'm cringing as I should be.

Funny how different things of my past has come to mind just remembering Johnny.

Oh and Johnny was actually an Iowa boy first.

It's blizzarding out. It's dark, dreary, 12 degrees and I can hear the wind howling through my windows. I haven't a clue how much snow there has been so far, I'm not sure if I want to know. Just another winter day in Michigan.

Looks like I'll top 50,000 hits sometime today. That somewhat amazes me, but yet let's be real here. I have had lots of help from the comment spammers this past year. This spring, summer and fall they brought me to my knees until Dean Esmay heard my cries in the wilderness and led me out. My comments are only open 2 days now so they've gone on to greener pastures.

A friend of mine, a fellow blogger is now beginning the descent into hell with the spammers. It does take the joy out of blogging when you see your blog has been raped and pillaged by pornagraphers, having to spend 30-60 minutes a day removing the crap. Whoops and there goes your time to blog and you are reduced to a sniveling, whining fool that other people just don't get until they are targeted. Again, thank you Dean, it's really taken almost what, 3 months now to not cringe every time I sit down to open my email or look at my blog. I'm sure if it was still going on, I would of shut down this blog by now.

So the joy of blogging has been returning, I'm sure you probably noticed the posts are a little more frequent lately. I think that will continue. If you are one of the handful of people that do drop by routinely, I thank you. I think it's safe now to give out some link love again without sending the packs of vultures to your site. I hope, I hope.

I received a letter from a reader informing me that Mason Profit has a compilation CD coming out this week. Woo Hoo! Finally. Seems I've been waiting for years. I've did a couple of posts on them in the past. I continue to get a lot of hits here for people searching for info on them. I personally can understand why. I just wish I knew more then I know. Which is little of course. Some of their songs were very much anti-war, anti-government. The song Eugene Pratt was one of their biggies - mostly underground of course. I can honestly say I never heard that song on the radio, but it definitely made it's rounds.

Being a pre-teen, young teen in the Vietnam war era, I was pretty much anti everything. That's a difficult time to talk about for me anyway. To be able to put the emotions and feelings of those times into words that convey the proper perspective of what was happening. A revolution definitely took place. The words of my very conformist ex-fatherinlaw (who passed away) comes to mind: "The United States went to hell when they let those damn Beatles come over here!". Still makes me laugh. But my point is, things changed in a profound way.

So below I'll print the lyrics for Eugene Pratt by Mason Profit.

Is this real?

I'm sure most bloggers through out every day see, hear or think about something they want to blog about...and keep forgetting about it. Umm...well I do. It's been the inauguration parties for me. Mitch Albom has an article this morning in the Free Press titled: It's No Time To Throw a Party Like This, that prompted what I've been wanting to say and his article was enough to get me going. So Mitch:

Why not?

Probably even a decade ago I'd of been bitching too, but my views have changed alot. When is the right time? When there is no more war? When there is no more suffering? When some natural disaster hasn't claimed many lives in the past year? When children aren't starving? When there isn't bitching losers over a presidential election? When government quits spending too much? When people haven't lost jobs?

Shall we wait until then? Tick. Tock. Speaking for myself, my hair has turned gray, I've got fine wrinkles around my eyes and I'm now wearing bifocals. Tick. Tock. How much longer should we all wait to have some celebration and some joy? Tick. tock.

Besides at least 40 million dollars is being taken out of a few rich man's pockets and being dumped back into our nation. It's not being outsourced to some country who sits around and bitches, moans and groans about how bad the American's are.

So down with the naysayers, it's time to party.

Two weeks from today and I'm out of this job from hell. Yea! With the flu epidemic, the new computer program that went into effect January 1 and training people to take over my job it's been a zoo.

Notice I said "people" I have to train to take over my job. That's right. My boss has now deemed my assistant who is taking my position will not survive doing what I was/am doing. So a full time medical secretary has been hired who I have yet to train to take over the computer aspect/paper shuffling of my job. Yes you read that right - a full time position in itself. My staffing/scheduling piece is being passed to someone else. My payroll/hiring/staff development piece is being passed to yet another manager. Now the rest I get to train my assistant to do. Now the job is a piece of cake, I should keep it. Not.

Umm...I don't think so. I'm not buying this:

Aiming straight at the nation's paunch, the U.S. government Wednesday told Americans what nutritionists have been saying for years: Count your calories, get a lot more exercise and make every mouthful pack a nutritional punch.

That's just a little too much like work.

AOL this morning has the Consumer Report on wireless carriers. I have Sprint, which has improved alot over the past three years, but still sucks. We have all of these wonderful new smart phone gadgets but the services can't seem to catch up.

This paragraph sums it up:

Every national wireless carrier has chronic major problems with service, billing, and complaint-handling, according to our third annual subscriber survey, our most expansive to date.

But they did come up with the best of the bad: Verizon.

I haven't seen or read much lately that would bring me out of my winter blues isolative and stuporous behavior until I clicked on my normal newspaper readings this morning.

Brian Dickerson of the Free Press is ragging on the "uppity class". Seems Brian is still a sore losing Dem because he starts off his article with this:

We have way too many lawsuits in this country. Everyone says so. Well, OK -- maybe not everyone. But the people getting sued are plenty upset, and now a president flush with political capital (and political debts to deep-pocket defendants) is rushing to their rescue.

Come on Brian get your tunnel vision off the Republicans, jump off your whine throne and ask Joe Blow America how "frivolous lawsuits" are affecting them. Wait let me offer up a few lawsuits I am involved in or have been involved in over the last three years:

1. Employee found sleeping on the job and terminated. Over $10,000 in attorney fees.

2. Employee witnessed physically and verbally abusing a patient and terminated. At $15,000 and climbing at this point.

3. An alert, oriented, competent patient refuses to eat, drink or move out of bed despite intense family, medical and psychiatric intervention. Patient finally becomes dehydrated and delusional enough the durable power of attorney kicks in and family over rides the advance directives and sends the patient to the hospital. Patient dies 7 days later. Family sues nursing home. Cost? Tens of thousands and climbing.

4. ( I have 2 of these suits pending.) Alert, oriented, competent patient falls and fractures (leg, hip). Family sues just because they can.

5. Employee refuses to do a routine assignment, physically threatens supervisor and is terminated. $15,000 in attorney fees so far and climbing.

I could go on with at least 5 more, but what's the point. The above amounts is just attorney fees that I know of so far. Not counting in lost time and wages for employees who has to testify or give depositions etc.

So Brian as your tunnel vision is only looking at the big boys at the top of their game, don't forget the smaller businesses that's that backbone of this country. Don't forget the Joe Blows.

Damn I forgot to mention insurance premiums. Oh well, maybe next time.

I should be getting ready to get my butt out the door, it's snowing. Supposed to snow all day today and tomorrow. I can't wait to drive in it. It will be so fun and stimulating.

(Did you read that above? That's my positive outlook on life and things I've been trying to put into practice for the past couple of weeks. Are you buying it?) Let me continue.

I'm so excited about getting to work today. As of 6pm last night I had a patient population of 34% with influenza type A. Today I will get to use my skills ministering to the sick and begging, borrowing and stealing enough staff with dripping noses, sore throats, raging temps and the trots to survive as a care giving institution for another 24 hours.

I'm feeling excellent, physically, emotionally and spiritually. What a glorious day!

Via Dean's World I stumbled across a new to me blog: RangelMD. Check it out, Dr. Rangel is hosting other medical bloggers with some very interesting posts. I've finally found out why I really eat a couple of ice cube trays a day for the past 4 years, I really wasn't buying that sexually frustrated line. Sheesh.

Sandra Bullock Donates $1 Million to the Red Cross

Beautiful, talented and caring. She could make crap for movies here on out, I'll watch them anyway. Ok, she made a couple of crap ones already and I watched them but she's still my favorite.