Joshua Flower

Atop the joshua tree in the center of the picture is our first flower on any of our three joshuas that we transplanted when we moved in 9 years ago.

Neither of us has seen one in bloom in Nevada. The root span is 8x the tree height. Tough plant. It can take all the heat of the summer and -5 in the winter.

I think that God gave us a "Thank You" for our joining the Desert Springs Methodist Church this year.

We in Nevada are Last

The Brookings Institution released a study this week with a poor finding for Nevada. The state is LAST in the amount of money it receives per capita from the federal government on Senate Leader Harry Reid's watch.

Nevada received $742 per person in the fiscal year 2008, about half of the national average of $1469 per person.

--from LV SunPublish Post

Poker Tour

When in high school Jr-Sn, we had a male poker game every Sunday night at 6:30. Sunday was a no girl date night. Period. Nickel-dime, 7-card, 7-card no peekie. No beer until college. Home at 9:30.

College at a fraternity. Poker right after supper. No beer while playing...STUK, a match pot game based on a variation of 21 was the most intense game I ever played.

90 % bluff. A bud once threw his Jaguar keys on the table as collateral.

Bought my 1st stock at 15 and visited Reno and Vegas on my honeymoon at 20.

So gambling has been part of my life. The stock market is rigged, like a poker game with a crimped card or two. Tough to beat. But I have so far.

Cocktails............Cocktails

Keep an Eye on George

March is an important basketball month. It reminds me of a story told to me by a patient, George, in Colorado.

George was playing in a spirited bb game in Canada. On jumping for a rebound he was cuffed on the side of the head and one of his eyeballs popped out of the socket, hanging by the meat.

Fortunately there was an eye doctor in the house who rushed out to his car and brought back a small bag which he opened and removed a spoon-like instrument. George told the doctor that he had vision but "things looked a little funny".

With the spoon the eye was quickly moved back into the socket. After some massaging, the eye seemed to function properly and George returned to the bench.

After a few minutes the coach sent George back into the game and said, NOW REBOUND !!!

Why I Left Iowa City

March 1st. Today.

Reflecting back. March 1, 1961. It was my senior year in dental school at Iowa.

Our VW had run out of gas along the side of the road. A friend had taken us to the gas station for a canister of gas. He parked in back of the VW and he and baby Kurt and my wife, Jeanette, with Mark in the oven, all moved up to the VW while I was pouring gas into the forward gas tank of a VW bug with the hood opened.

I awoke the next morning in the hospital with a spider of tubes spinning out of me and an elevated left leg in a full cast and a monstrous head ache.

I asked the nurse what had happened and she brought me the morning paper with pictures and the story of the accident. Apparently a drunk smashed into our friend's car from the rear at high speed which then forced the two cars into the VW and the hood jack knifed me 30 feet through the air and I landed on a bed of dirt, next to the concrete highway, below signs and soaked in gas.

God reduced the carnage that could have happened to any of us and He wanted me to treat patients from the federal prison system and from Colorado.