30 Websites for Retro Inspiration

My Google Blogs digest alerted me to this post, full of luscious retro goodness. Wow.

No, I will NOT be part of Iowa history after all.

Maria,

Jen Cannon, Competitive Events Director, for the Iowa State Fair confirmed that Jim Pfiffner’s quilt design won. His design will be among the other 99 counties in Iowa to have a barn quilt mural displayed on the outside of the Richard O. Jacobson Exhibition Center in 2010. The winning designs will be on display at the Iowa Fairs Conference in December. Please look for an upcoming announcement about the winning design in the newspaper.

Thank you for your interest in the Richard O. Jacobson Exhibition Center Tile Design Contest. I commend you for designing a quilt mural that is truly unique.

Kris

Oh well.

The Capehart is on eBay

I put the Capehart Panamuse on eBay last night. I hate to do it, but we cannot afford to restore it, and I want SOMEONE to.

Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner Clean-Up Made Easi(er) with a Presto Pressure Cooker

Last spring I bought a 23-quart Presto pressure cooker at the recommendation of Judy Laquidara. I have used it much more than I guessed I would! I am now in a routine of making turkey or chicken stock and canning it, and using it just about as fast as I can make it. I thought I'd tell you about how this helped this Thanksgiving.

We had a 20-pound bird which I roasted unstuffed this year. I rubbed herbed olive oil beneath the skin and roasted it breast side down and it came out very nice and moist. Barry carved it, doing a great job of boning most of the meat as he went, so after dinner, instead of having to face my usual after-dinner chore of boning the rest of the meat, that part was done for me. I emptied the roaster into my Presto pressure cooker. I have developed the habit of keeping a freezer bag handy in my freezer into which go all the vegetable scraps we produce - onion skins and root ends, carrot and parsnip tops, potato peelings, even apple cores and in this case a pineapple core. I dumped that bag into my pressure cooker, too, and then I filled the pressure canner with hot tap water to the maximum fill line. I cooked all that for an hour at about 15 pounds pressure, then let it cool down on the back porch. I drained off all the broth, threw out all the other stuff, chilled the broth further so that I could easily defat it, then canned the broth, again in the pressure canner, at 11 pounds pressure, 25 minutes (quart jars). I should probably can some pints because sometimes we don't need a whole quart of broth.

Extracting all possible flavor from the bones of the bird makes me feel thrifty. :o)

Blaze Orange Daughter

Britta is home for Thanksgiving, and Barry's sister Ronda, her husband Bill and their little girl are also here from Texas. Bill has been trying to bring in his first deer. This afternoon he took Britta out with him, and she asked me to take a picture of her in blaze orange.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving service over at the church tonight. I always wish I could stay home and then I'm always so glad I didn't, once I'm there. It was wonderful. I just love my church.

National Tie One On Day (a little early)

National Tie One On Day has nothing to do with what YOU were thinking just then. It's supposed to be a chance for women to encourage other women in the midst of the holiday bustle and fuss. See, you're supposed to make a homemade baked good, possibly bread or maybe something else, wrap it in an apron and give it to a woman in need of encouragement, with a little note offering encouraging words. I made my apron Saturday night because that's when there was time, and as I sewed, I prayed about who it should go to. I got an extremely clear, and rather surprising, answer - a woman I see about 3 times a year and don't know well at all. So I really think it was an answer to my prayer. Since I had an easy way to deliver a gift to her on Sunday I also made a loaf of bread.

A funny thing is that since God had given me this woman's name as the person who needed some encouraging, I assumed that He would also give me the words of encouragement she needed. So I opened the Bible and started searching for the words I was to give her. And instead I kept finding words that really aren't very encouraging - like geneaologies. :o) And proverbs about not eating too much honey, or wisdom calling out at the gates. Very obscure, if it was meant to be encouraging! I ended up just writing her a note saying the truth, that I pray for her, and I do, and I'll keep doing it, too.

Here is the apron and bread I sent. The apron is a disappointment to me because I made it of scraps and wasn't thinking and made the waist sash rather short. I ran out of scraps! Argh!

Chuck Returns!

Catch the Laserdance bit at the very end. I need more Chuck.

Blenback Oilcloth Shelf Edging with Strawberries

This is 1940s-1950s Blenback oilcloth shelf lining with an edge that you fold over. I bought a bolt of it on eBay thinking I'd use what I wanted and then sell the rest at LulusDressShop.com, but it's very brittle, and I'm afraid my buyers would be disappointed.

Netflix - Now in Cedar Rapids

We were served out of a Netflix distribution center in the Twin Cities for some time, and I loved it because we would get our movies in 1 day after shipment (though it took 2 days for a returned disk to get back there). Then they opened a Des Moines center and everything slowed down to 2 days each way. Go figure. Then things improved, and lately it's usually a day each direction.

I just noticed that my envelopes now have a Cedar Rapids address. It will be interesting to see if the speed continues to hold with this new center. I read an article on the way a Netflix distribution center operates and it's an amazing example of an efficient combination of human and machine (a cyborg, if you will) labor. The slowdown has always come from the postal service.

CORRECTION: HackingNetflix says that center has been around since !!2005!!. So it's not new, it's just new to us. Interesting.

I think I may have found the ultimate bread recipe! EDITED

I have been making most of our bread lately in an effort to save money, and while the results have been tasty, they have also been rather crumbly, making it difficult to make sandwiches. Barry has been nice about it but finally asked if he could please just get one loaf of "real" bread for sandwiches.

This morning I tried yet another recipe from allrecipes.com and with a few changes I think this might be The One! The One Bread to Rule Them All! The Chosen One! Here it is.

Bread (how's that for a catchy name?)

Ingredients:

1 c. warm water (110 degrees Fahrenheit/45 degrees centigrade)

2 tablespoons white sugar

2 teaspoons dry yeast

2 cups white flour/bread flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Scant 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten

2 tablespoons golden flax seed

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

We'll be starting with the bread machine, then moving to the oven to finish. Put the warm water in the bread machine bowl, then add the sugar and yeast. Swish it around a little to mix and then let the yeast proof for about 10 minutes.

Mix the flours, flax seed and salt together in another bowl. Begin scooping the dry mixture into the bread machine. When you get most of it in there, start the bread machine mixing on the "dough" setting. When most of the dry stuff has been mostly incorporated into the liquid, pour the olive oil on top of the glob of dough that is bouncing around in the bread machine. Close the top and let the dough cycle finish.

As soon as the machine beeps to tell you the dough cycle is over, start preheating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Punch down the dough and remove it from the bread machine. Form it into a loaf and place it in a greased cast iron loaf pan. Cover it with a cloth and set it on top of the oven while the oven preheats. When the oven has preheated and the dough has risen a little above the top of the pan, pop it in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes or so until the loaf is golden brown and you can touch the top of it without burning your hand. Remove it from the oven, then from the pan, and let it cool on a rack.

This turned out to be a delicious, light bread that sliced very neatly and (so far at least) has not died out to a pile of crumbs, as my bread has been wont to do.

Adding the oil last is a trick I picked up from my Home-Ec queen sister in law Vania, who said that the oil can coat the yeast particles and inhibit them, so it's best to add it after they have been incorporated into the rest of the dough.

Yield: One loaf for slicing or half a loaf for slicing and the other half for a hungry teenaged boy to devour in about 3 bites

Notes from Trends in Emergency Care 2009

Friday I spent the day at Gundersen Lutheran, attending a seminar on emergency medicine. They have this every year. I am definitely going to try to go again next year, as it was excellent!

Here are my notes from the day:

_________________________________________________________________________________

Trends in Emergency Care 2009

Friday, November 6, 2009

Session I and II: Agricultural Trauma

Dan Neenan, Paramedic Specialist Manager

National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS)

Peosta, Iowa

This lecture focused on farm trauma that upper Midwest EMS personnel are likely to encounter. Farming is a hazardous occupation. OSHA law does not even apply to it unless a farm has 12 or more employees, and that leaves out most family operations. Farmers live on their farms, so there are usually children around, and the teenagers usually help, representing an undertrained work force. Plus there are the old farmers. Dad may have sold the family farm to his son, but you can't keep him off that tractor when there's work to be done, and while the son may have bought a new tractor with updated safety features, the one Gramps will want to use is the one he is most familiar with, the old one. Plus, they don't want to put too many hours on the new tractor. So he ends up doing the grunt work, running the Bush Hog or pulling stumps, with the older tractor. Farming also tends to be a solitary occupation, especially with the trend over the past 30 or so years of the wife having to work outside the home to provide steady income and, more importantly, insurance. So if she is gone to work, the kids are in school, and Dad gets hurt in the field, it could be hours before anyone even notices he is overdue and goes out looking for him. The Golden Hour of trauma is lost long before anyone even knows he needs help. (Statistically, the busiest time for farm trauma is Tuesday mornings at about 10:30 for some reason.)

Neenan talked about the personality of the farmer in general. They tend to be extremely hard working and tough. They don't want to admit when they're hurt, and they don't want to stop working. It takes a lot for a farmer to admit he needs help, so frequently the 911 call doesn't even go out until things are really, really bad.

Neenan presented 4 clinical scenarios which were taken from actual case studies. He presented the scene through photographs and diagrams and had the group work out how they would take command of the scene and what steps they would take for extrication and transport. Along the way we learned many of the pitfalls of farm rescues, access being a big one. Most of the accidents happen far back on the Back 40 where you can't get an ambulance in and you have to hike the person out. He encouraged everyone to put Medlink on standby for any callout for farm trauma, just in case. They can always be told to stand down if you don't need them but it takes awhile to spin up the bird so you might as well get them in the air ready to go. Average time from 911 call to EMS on scene on a farm trauma is 45 minutes, and even if the trauma was reported immediately, that leaves only 15 minutes of the Golden Hour for transport. Use the helicopter.

The cases he presented were: A man who tried to clear a jammed grain auger on a combine and had his hand caught in it, and was not discovered for hours, by which time he was covered in snow; two teenagers riding a tractor, struck by a pickup on the highway; an inexperienced driver on an old tractor, trying to pull stumps with it (which they are not rated to do anyway), who flipped the tractor over onto himself; and one more. I think it was a grain bin entrapment but I cannot remember for sure.

By the way, grain bin rescues are unique in that usually only one or two EMTs will actually have eyes on the patient until after the rescue. He pointed out that this can be very tough for the rest of the EMTs on scene, who are maybe walking around outside the grain bin for up to 3-4 hours waiting for something to do. He pointed out the psychological effect of this on a person who wants – needs -- to rescue, and said that it can cause poor judgment and that Incident Command needs to be watching for this.

By the end of this lecture I wanted to sign up for the EMT-B class.

Session III: A Sneak Peep Down the Pipes (Airway Management)

Terry Dorshorst, RN, RRT

Kolby Kolbet, RN, BSN, EMT-P

Gundersen Lutheran Specialty Care – Transport and MedLink Air

Terry and Kolby brought in two anatomic specimens which they set up on a table at the front of the hall with a camera and projector so we could all easily observe on the screen. The specimens were porcine lungs, heart, trachea, esophagus and larynx. One specimen also had the aorta attached. They demonstrated various forms of intubation and the tools used. At long last I understand what LMA is because I saw it demonstrated on a pig! They did endotracheal intubations and then did some tracheostomies to show how that works. They showed how a collapsed lung inflates. They demonstrated hyperinflation and its dramatic effect on the lungs. They demonstrated a tension pneumothorax by stabbing holes in the lungs, putting a plastic baggie over the heart-lung specimen and then using the Ambu bag to try to inflate the lung, then demonstrated insertion of a chest tube through the baggie and how the lung quickly reinflated.

There was still some time left, so they demonstrated what an abdominal aortic aneurysm is by injecting water between the layers of the aorta. They also dissected one of the hearts to show the thickness of the left ventricle wall compared to the right. (A pig's atria are very small compared to a human's, in case you ever wondered.)

After the presentation, we were all invited to come up and play with the pig parts if we wanted to. This was right before lunch. :o)

Session IV: Should Tipping Be Allowed in EMS?

Tom Carpenter, NEMT-P, CCEMT-P

EMS Educator

Gundersen Lutheran EMS

Tom Carpenter, or “Carp,” presented this fairly light after-lunch session on tipping. His premise is that yes, tipping should be allowed in EMS – in fact it's mandatory. Only his twist on it is that he feels he owes his patients a tip. He has worked out a scale: They get a dollar for making him smile, five dollars for making him laugh, ten dollars if they teach him something new. He spent about an hour telling the stories of things he has learned on EMS calls and concluded by saying if he actually had to pay out the tips he owes in cash, he would be broke, so he puts them back into being a better paramedic for the next callout.

Session V: Underlying Psychiatric Disorders in Emergency Care

James Padesky, MS, RN

Nurse Therapist

Gundersen Lutheran Psychiatry

This was an excellent presentation on how to handle psychiatric emergencies as EMS personnel. Padesky was well prepared but also tailored the lecture to his audience so beautifully that he appeared to just be having a chat with us all. He asked for example situations that the EMS people present had faced in the past year or so. I believe over the hour 4 different people brought up their scenarios and how they had handled them. He led a discussion of each case and the strategy employed to help the patient. My husband told me that his EMS training skips straight from the part were the EMT tries to figure out what is wrong with the patient to the point where the patient is in the ambulance and is completely unhelpful in instructions on how to get the patient to get in that ambulance. That was what this session was all about: Gaining trust, establishing rapport and defusing a dangerous situation to the point where the patient is willing to be helped. Strategies that people had employed successfully mostly centered around the establishment of a real rapport with the patient based on cues on the scene and in the patient's behavior or speech. One EMT faced a locked door when her patient refused to allow her in, thinking the EMT had killed the patient's father. The EMT spent about 20 minutes on the other side of the door, talking with the patient “as if she were my grandma.” Eventually the patient unlocked the door. In another case, EMTs were able to establish rapport with a gentleman by picking up somehow on the fact that he had once been a fireman, engaging him in conversation about that, and then appealing to him to allow them to do the job he had once done so well himself.

Padesky also briefly touched on the difference between a psychiatric emergency that an EMT should be able to handle, and a situation where law enforcement needs to take over. An example would be any time there is meth involved. He said that's primarily a criminal situation, not a psychiatric one. Another would be where the patient has put a child or other helpless person at risk, essentially a hostage situation. That's the time to step back and let law enforcement work.

Session VI: I-35W Bridge Collapse

Kurtis Bramer, EMT-P, AS, CEM-MN

Supervisor, Emergency Manager

Hennepin Emergency Medical Services

Minneapolis, Minnesota

This was a wonderful session that talked through the EMS response to the I-35 bridge collapse. We heard the early 911 calls and analyzed the response from that moment on till the last body was gently and respectfully carried to shore. Bramer's team was in charge of all the EMS response and credits its success to careful planning long beforehand, so that people did not have to consult a playbook or wait for direction, but smoothly stepped into what they had been trained to do. His response plan's strength is its flexibility. It is a very lightweight plan where people's duties are assigned based on how quickly they arrive on scene. For example, the first EMS person on scene always takes the position of EMS Branch Director/Transportation. The second EMS person, who is usually the first person's partner, takes on the job of Triage Supervisor. The second ambulance in goes straight to the EMS Branch Director and is assigned a job from there. Everybody is trained for all jobs, so anyone can step in and do the job. There are specific directions on how to identify oneself on the radio, instructions to do face-to-face communication any time it is practical and stay off the radios as much as possible, and to avoid the use of cell phones entirely unless there is no choice.

The I-35W bridge collapse represented many huge challenges, geography being a big one. There are no boat landings near there. The river is encased in concrete banks with no place to get down there and pull people out of the river, no way to get a boat up there unless you go way downriver. Plus it's right below the lock and dam so you cannot approach it from upriver. The bridge itself dumped all kinds of rebar and concrete into the river. The bridge deck was about 70 feet above the water line, so cars had already fallen a great distance by the time they came to rest, and so had the people inside. One area, where the bridge had fallen straight down from a pilon, had formed what they called “The Pile,” a several layers thick heap of concrete, rebar and cars. People were trapped in there.

There were jurisdiction issues to hash out at first, too: The state highway patrol said they were in command, since it was an interstate. Minneapolis city police thought they should be in command, as it took place in their city. Hennepin County Fire thought they were the obvious choice. And EMS just wanted to get a good handle on who might be hurt, and where.

There was a huge response from fire departments and EMS personnel from all over the place, which is admirable, but there were very few access roads to the area that were not already blocked, and all the additional traffic actually hindered the rescue efforts. That tide was actually turned by a few people on foot who started directing traffic and kept vital access roads open for EMS. Private citizens in pickup trucks also ended up running patients out to where the ambulances could park, which was vital.

Bramer commented on the bigheartedness he saw that day, how many people he saw who were wounded but would not leave the collapsed roadway, persisting in rescuing people from cars. He talked about a man with a flail chest who simply would not stop working until finally he was so short of breath that they were able to get him into an ambulance. Trucks from various area restaurants and food service suppliers showed up to help feed the rescue people. We saw slides of people in shorts and flip-flops, climbing around in the rubble trying to rescue others. It was a little frightening to see, but you have to admire their concern for their fellows.

Bramer discussed the effect of shock on EMS personnel and how it clouds judgment. One of the early 911 calls was from a very experienced EMS officer. His voice sounds so calm on the tape. Yet his shock is evident in his choice of words; he understated the magnitude of the collapse and politely requested “three or four units, if you have them available.” It was not ignorance on his part, it was shock that made him make this erroneous call.

This presentation was fascinating in that he told about both successes and failures. Over all the effort can only be seen as a giant success. When one considers the possibilities, the fact that only 13 died is a success. He also pointed out errors that were made in the field that he hopes to learn from. In context, these mistakes were not major, but they were things that could have been done better, certainly. One was that the “walking wounded” were not attended to. An EMS team that was on the scene early in the situation was met by a large crowd of shocked, frightened but still mobile survivors and directed them to take rest in a grassy, shaded park area, but then they did not leave anyone with them to take care of them, and by the time someone went back to check on them, they had all left. Some of them surely needed help but did not get it.

Another mistake was when the mobile command post was first set up right in the middle of the Tenth Street Bridge. It offered an excellent view of the scene, but was a poor choice of site because nobody knew yet what had caused the I-35 bridge to collapse. What if it was terrorism? A favorite tactic of terrorists is to stage a second blast for an hour or two after the first, right where emergency personnel are likely to set up. He encouraged EMS commanders to practice running an operation without line of sight of the scene. He asked, “Do you really need to SEE the accident to run it?” The answer is no, yet as helping personality types, we tend to want to have eyes on scene. It takes practice to run it without seeing it, and he encouraged that.

And another mistake was in supervision. He showed a bunch of slides of rescue personnel taking risks with their own safety in an effort to rescue someone. He said that this is a supervision problem. He said that when helping personalities are all wrapped up in their effort to save someone, they tend to do things they would normally realize are too risky. For example, there were guys in full bunker gear working at the water's edge. Bunker gear does not float. If it gets wet, you sink. That was not really the fault of the firemen, it was the fault of their supervisor who should have been checking on them and reminding them gently to be safe themselves.

He touched briefly on the response from Hennepin County Hospital. There was not a lot of hard information coming out of the scene at first (another mistake he admits), and someone had to make the decision to put the hospital on an alert status. As he put it, that's a “six hundred thousand dollar decision.” Whoever it was did make the decision to go on alert and it turned out to be correct, of course. I was interested to hear that one part of the alert is to clear the ER and trauma bays. They make a sweep through and immediately admit everyone who is waiting who is actually sick, saving further assessments till later, and everybody else, they send home. That must be a hard call to make. For starters, that's money going out the door. Plus they might be sending home someone who really needs help. But that's the call they have to make. Within about 20 minutes they had cleared the ER, had most of the trauma bays open and staffed, and had cleared out and staffed several ORs.The staffing part is probably what made the effort pay off so well; trauma patients were in the door and on the table in a matter of minutes.

My husband attended a presentation on the same topics a year ago by the same gentleman, and he commented how much the presentation had improved over the months. He recalls that Bramer had a lot of anger to express the first time around, and wonders if maybe it was just too soon after such a traumatic event for Bramer to have processed things sufficiently. This is now an excellent presentation, informative and inspiring.

Applesauce Coffee Cake

From Cooks.com.



ONE PAN APPLESAUCE RAISIN COFFEE CAKE

2 c. prepared baking mix
1 c. natural applesauce
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
2 eggs
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
1/2 c. raisins
Streusel topping (recipe follows)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix baking mix, applesauce, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and eggs in ungreased square pan, 9 x 9 x 2 inches. Stir in walnuts and raisins. Sprinkle with Streusel Topping. Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. 9 servings.

STREUSEL TOPPING:

1/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. prepared baking mix
2 tbsp. firm butter
2 tsp. ground cinnamon

City Council Race Today

For the record, Shallow Thoughts endorses Dick Mauss for Mayor, encumbents Lori Darling and Tom Schofield for Council Members-at-Large, and write-in Council candidate Barry Stahl.

Just in case you were wondering.

I don't think now is the time for a shake-up. Quite frankly, the current Council and Mayor were the ones who allowed our town to come inches from bankruptcy. They need to stick around and help put it back together. Sure, they were not the ones who embezzled funds and lost a year's worth of tax income for the town, but they were charged with overseeing the town's employees, and that did not happen. Putting someone new in those seats leaves them no opportunity to repair the damage. Let's keep them in their positions and support them as they sort out the mess we are in.

The Browncoat is Back!

Abbyshot Clothiers is back with a licensed replica Browncoat. See it here. Is it my faulty memory or has the price actually gone DOWN? It's now $359. Of course it's no longer custom sized and it's cowhide, not deerhide. But it looks wonderful. And of course I want one. And of course I won't get one, at least not till Barry is out of college.

If you start at www.realbrowncoats.com you can take a ridiculously easy Serenity trivia quiz that will make you at least smile and want to watch the movie AGAIN.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Movie Preview - What I Learned

I learned that the ancient Persians spoke English with fake English accents.

IGN Video: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Movie Preview - Video Preview

Lulu's Dress Shop and ecwid.com

I put a little link box over there ======> to show you my new website, Lulu's Dress Shop, but never said anything about it. It's in progress; I'm slowly working on stocking the shelves.

I just have to blather a little about the shopping cart I am using. It's a widget by ecwid.com. These are the same people who developed X-Cart, which is a full-function cart that I use at Sweet Gal Decals, but this widget is such a cute little thing! 'Widget' is a perfect word for it. You build it on their site, plug the html into your page and boom, you have an ecommerce site with a shopping cart. Seriously, if I can do it, anybody can.

I also added a blog version, same stuff, just a different location. It's amazing, because I just had to insert the same widget and there all the stock is, in two locations! If someone buys something off the blog, it will disappear off the website, and vice versa. There's even supposed to be a way to load the widget on your Facebook Page, though I have not figured that one out yet.

If you are even pondering opening an ecommerce webstore I strongly recommend you check out ecwid. I love their philosophy that everything must be simple. In fact, they don't even have a manual for ecwid, because they figure if it needs a manual, it's already too complex. These are my kind of software developers.

And I'll say it again: IT'S FREE. They promise there will always be a free version, even when they move up to a more professional version.