Baggas’ Blog

• Think I might have an email problem. My inbox is strangely quiet this morning #
• Email still not working. Help desk at my web hosting provider are not proving very useful #
• Okay email is back online but if anyone sent me email between July 30 and 31 it may have been lost so please resend. Cheers. #
• Lunch at the pub again - scotch fillet, red wine & Elton John Rocketman on the radio… nice #

• Now MobileMe is frustrating me - I have one appointment that will just not sync from the web to iCal, although it has worked on my PC oulook #
• Starbucks are closing stores in Aust. The reason, according to economists, is simply the quality of their coffee - haha #
• Haven’t even started Uni and I’m already behind - i thought semester started next week but it is actually this week - doh! #
• Finished clinic. Off for a coffee and some Uni stationery shopping before I get the boys. Then off to dinner for my brother’s b’day tonight #
• At the worst (but most convenient) cafe in town listening to Keith Green and reading some wacky theology.. #

• Now MobileMe is frustrating me - I have one appointment that will just not sync from the web to iCal, although it has worked on my PC oulook #
• Starbucks are closing stores in Aust. The reason, according to economists, is simply the quality of their coffee - haha #
• Haven’t even started Uni and I’m already behind - i thought semester started next week but it is actually this week - doh! #
• Finished clinic. Off for a coffee and some Uni stationery shopping before I get the boys. Then off to dinner for my brother’s b’day tonight #
• At the worst (but most convenient) cafe in town listening to Keith Green and reading some wacky theology.. #

• Always nice to be able to fix a chronic symptom with a simple treatment #
• Doesn’t matter how many free drug company pens I get, I can never seem to find one when I need it… #
• Just got my first textbook for my Masters - “Ecosystem Change & Public Health” - express delivery from Amazon. Much cheaper than here in Oz #
• Just had a thought - maybe ordering a textbook from the US was not the best idea. Anyone know if international purchases are tax deductible? #

• It’s refreshing to call a tradesman and have him actually come promptly as arranged #
• Stood on the front lawn this morning and just listened to the waves crashing at the beach nearby. Don’t do that often enough.. #
• Ahh Work internet is back online after a boring couple of hours. Another routine day here in the clinic, and no-one in labour so I can relax #
• One problem with Apple is that I am always afraid to buy one of their products, for fear of missing the next better one ‘around the corner’ #
• Finished for the day. Off to go furniture shopping.. #
• If anyone needs their Garage door fixing I can recommend a good tradesman. Good to finally have it repaired after 2 weeks inaction #

Haven’t blogged a lot here lately, and I doubt that’s going to change much since I officially resume life as a Uni student again next week. I got the course outline for my first unit of my Masters degree last week and I’ll admit I was not enthused. The unit is on Human Health & Environmental Change - basically looking at the effects on climate change on public health and disease as far as I can tell. The thing that I was least impressed with is that the bulk of the assessment for this unit is through a large project/case study - I’ve never been keen on assignments, preferring to get marks through cramming for exams, so this will not be my cup of tea. I’m yet to work out exactly what my weekly study commitment will be. This unit is one of the 5 compulsory core units for the MPH&TM so I don’t have any choice. The other, non-core, unit I will be doing this semester I’m yet to get any information on, but it promises to be much more interesting : Travel Medicine. This is one of the key reasons I’m doing this degree - to give myself another sub-speciality interest, especially if GP obstetric practice was to become unviable (there are constant changes going on in our health system so it’s impossible to say if things will still be the same in another 2 or 5 years time) - and I’ve fixed on Travel Medicine as that interest. This is because I love to travel, find the medical stuff quite interesting, and it also fits well with the medical mission stuff I’ve done over the last 2 years and plan to continue in the future. So that unit should be much more valuable. Part of it involves a 3 day teaching block in tropical Townsville in October which I’m really looking forward to.

So there’s my pre-emptive explanation if I am quiet on the blog front. Paradoxically I’ve also started a new blog for our music team but I’m hoping to get some other contributors on board with that one so I won’t have to carry the load too much. I will continue to use Twitter so at least there will be some updates as to what’s going on with me, and brief comments on various things. I’ve discovered a few interesting medical blogs of late which always makes me feel like I should talk about more medical stuff on here however lack on inspiration and confidentiality concerns (since this is not an anonymous blog) always stymie that. Maybe my studies will provide me with some interesting material?

Anyway patients waiting and I want to get away on time today so I can do some furniture shopping so I must be off.

• Top church service today. Excellent sermon by Jason. Worship was great. Played mandolin through my new acc amp for 2 songs - sounded v nice! #
• Looks like I’m going to have to wait a little longer for my new guitar - when the guy said ‘up to’ 30 days til shipping, he sure meant it #
• Doing an overdue clear-out of spam from my blog. Owen & Luke playing Sims. Jenni is off to the gym. Mia is crying - not sure why. #
• Working on a study for home group this week - intro to 1 John, Gnostics and other interesting stuff #

• A lazy Saturday morning. Reading books and eating breakfast. Off to coach Owen’s soccer team in an hour - hope we win #
• Watching ‘The Ride’ - motorbike trip from Alaska to Patagonia - I love these adventure travel shows! #

• Two separate job offers in my mail this morning … would be tempting to get away from the frustrations of the place #
• Looking forward to the weekend - just got 30 clinic patients and 1 baby to deliver before I can properly relax #
• Discovered a problem with Google Spreadsheet - won’t let me enter dates in the dd/mm/yyyy format, only the backwards way with month first :\ #
• @ruraldoctoring - home is best place for the doctor to be imho. Midwives are better at patiently enduring a long labour than us docs are #
• Condoleeza Rice is in Perth today and they dragged her to a school assembly http://tinyurl.com/5d98fo Surely there’s better things to do? #
• Heading off for lunch and then home. Still have a patient in labour so will have to return to the hospital at some point for the delivery #
• Chinese restaurant for lunch today - Chicken and cashew nuts - very tasty! #
• Heading home at last. There’s a bottle of red with my name on it waiting #
• Nothing can spoil a good day like bureaucrats - especially nursing ones. It’s not patients that make our life difficult - it’s bureaucracy #
• From a screaming baby at work to another screaming baby at home. Baby Mia needs a bottle I think. #

Haven’t done this for a while so here’s a snapshot of a day’s general practice clinic for me. In view of patient privacy I’ll mix this up and not go into much detail but here’s a list of the consults today :

1. Antenatal checkup 32 weeks
2. Child immunisations
3. Antenatal checkup 29 weeks
4. Abdominal pain - postnatal
5. Baby immunisations
6. Antenatal checkup 36 weeks
7. Hormone implant
8. Quick walk over to the hospital for a ward round to see a couple of post-op patients and their babies, and to check on my patient in labour. Narrowly avoided getting caught in the rain on the way back.
9. Neonatal check-up
10. Baby immunisations
11. Child immunisation
12. Antenatal checkup 24 weeks
13. Antenatal checkup 35 weeks
14. Child immunisation
15. Child immunisations
16. Antenatal checkup 20 weeks
17. Antenatal checkup 37 weeks   […by this stage the day is looking quite repetitive, but that’s fine by me.. usually it’s not quite this homogenous though]
18. Miscarriage
19. Depression
20. Eczema
21. Antenatal checkup 14 weeks
22. Child immunisation
23. Child immunisation
24. Wound infection
25. Burn
26. Antenatal checkup 29 weeks
27. Ear infection
28. Eye problem
29. Baby with abdo upset
30. Peripheral oedema
31. Injured finger
32. Abdominal pain
33. Knee injury
34. Antenatal check 38 weeks

And that’s my day.  Well mostly - I still have a patient in labour who could deliver any time this afternoon/evening.  And a pretty good day for appointments too - only had 2 who didn’t turn up which is a lot better than some days. Last appointment was 1350 and it’s now 1401 and I’m leaving to get some lunch before I pick up the kids from school. I like finishing on time

• Another slow start to the day - saw 2 patients, had a coffee, read the paper - still waiting for the next ones to appear #
• On politics : Liberal leadership talk - they should bring back Barnett at the state level and Costello should either quit or lead federally #
• Don’t know why I watch Fox News - Fair & Balanced? yeh right - Obama is taking a lot of flack from them tonight. Might switch to CMC instead #
• Decided to watch a DVD instead that I picked up today - Queen live in Montreal and Live Aid… cool #

• Another good discussion at Hamo’s blog about Christian schools : http://tinyurl.com/5fpone #
• More thoughts on MobileMe. Syncing with Mac & PC works well, but the me.com web client is sloww & unreliable at least on my work PC (Win2K) #
• Finished for the day so it’s lunch at the pub - penne pasta and a nice glass of white #
• Got my first subject guide for uni - Environmental Health. Big assignment which does not look like much fun… #
• I’ve always preferred subjects with the focus on exams, not assignments. #

• Slow day at work today 4/16 patients so far have not bothered to show up #
• Actually make that 6/16. And my afternoon appointments are not filling up. Waiting for a baby to be born but taking longer than I expected #
• Baby is born - was a nice delivery. One more patient then it’s time to stop for lunch - at least that’s what my stomach is telling me #

Here’s a video from yesterday of Mia and her cousin Seth, who is just a few weeks older than her. We have never seen her laugh as much as she does here - one of those moments I’m really glad to have captured on video…

• Don’t like the way CDs from the USA always have these annoying sticky labels over the top #
• Wrote a post fro the Worship team blog about eBay and buying music gear online : http://tinyurl.com/6nj2am #

• Playing with MobileMe - synced fine with my Mac, although it threw me into Cupertino timezone initially. Now trying it with Outlook on my PC #
• MobileMe seems to play nice with Outlook too, although I don’t like the weird Calendar overlay in Outlook - a while since I’ve used Outlook #

Like many, I’ve been watching the release of the iPhone 3G with interest. At present I have no definite plans to get an iPhone although I’m sure I will end up with one in the next couple of years. The main thing holding me back is that I’m less than halfway through my current phone contract and I’m fairly happy with my current HTC TyTnII phone - but if I found a way to get an iPhone cheap without having to pay huge contract fees I would jump at it. The other thing is, even in it’s second iteration I’m still not convinced the iPhone is a complete product - as a phone it lacks simple things like a decent camera, video capabilities, and MMS - I still cannot fathom why it won’t work with MMS. So for now I shall continue to bide my time, whilst still envying those cool people who have the iPhone already.

The other new release from Apple is their MobileMe service, which is an upgrade of .Mac which allows automatic over the air syncing of calendars, contacts, email and more between your Macs, PCs and iPhone. I’m quite excited about this one, having tried to achive similar things previously with Google with limited success. If I had an iPhone I would sign up for this in an instant but even without one I am quite tempted to do so anyway. Will be nice to have synchronized calendars on my Work and Home PCs and my MacBook Pro, which I can then sync to my phone with Missing Sync. I’m also planning to invest in a MacBook Air in the next couple of months to use for my Masters degree study and travel (just booked flights for my first Uni trip over to Townsville in October) - so keeping that in sync as well will be great. In fact, I think I’ve just talked myself into trying MobileMe. I’ll sign up for the free trial and let you know how it goes.

• Feeling a bit cyber stalked - this guy keeps calling my office wanting to use one of my travel photos on a TV show. Suppose I should reply #
• Took the boys to the Playhouse - this place sure is noisy! Using my iPod to help block out the noise as I read… #
• Playing around with Plurk - a similar (?better) service to Twitter recommended by @FatherRoderick Is there a way to synchronize the two? #
• Just realised I should start paying attention to all this news on climate change - one of my units at uni this semester is on the subject #

Getting a bit sick of all the negative press coverage surrounding the Catholic World Youth Day festival in Sydney at the moment. The condescending and patronizing tone they are taking, giving the impression that all the people attending are some sort of simpletons, and that the Church is full of perverts. The vast majority of these people are sincere and devoted Christians, and indeed the vast majority of Catholic priests are decent men who have given their lives to serve God - so it is unfair for the media to focus so much on the sins of a tiny minority and tarnish the reputation of the bulk of the church.

Hundreds of thousands of young Christians gathered in one place surely cannot be a bad thing. I may not necessarily agree with all the beliefs of the Catholic church but I find such a huge celebration of faith tremendously inspiring. Such a huge gathering could never happen in the Protestant church. I understand the reasons for the Reformation, however it’s a shame that they couldn’t have worked it all out without breaking up the Church in the process - Unity sure was a big thing to sacrifice… For the rest of us non-Catholic Christians, I guess we’ll have to wait until Jesus returns before we can join such an immense gathering for worship. The closest thing to this in Australian Protestantism at least would be the Hillsong Conference (which was in Sydney last week - big month for religion in Sydney) - one of these years I will get around to going along. In the meantime, I admire and applaud what the Catholics are doing with their World Youth Days and give posthumous kudos to Pope John Paul II for coming up with the idea

• Still not liking our new computer system here. For a supposedly paperless system they seem to be generating far too much unnecessary paper #
• Another reason to be uncertain about John McCain - he’s a complete internet ignoramus : http://tinyurl.com/5freab #
• I now have a university email address! Wonder how long it will take for the excitement of going back to Uni to wear off? #

• My power supply for my pedal board died this morning. Lucky Chas had a spare. Now it’s off to eBay to get a new one. #

• Chaos at work today. New computer system - bad software, appallingly implemented. Would be very tempted to move if I got a good offer today. #
• Time to get on my bike and go get my car from the tyre place. I picked a bad day to be cycling. #

• Slow day at work. Internet is down so a bit bored waiting for patients to show. #
• Yesterday we saw Kung Fu Panda which was a lot of fun. Good one for the kids #
• Trying a new noodle place today. You place your order on a touch screen - hi tech! #

• Strange - Joe Hockey just added me to his Facebook friends. #
• Finally got my official offer to enrol ifor Uni, but now there’s an error on the JCU website and I can’t fill in the necessary e-form #
• Was listening to another Casting Crowns song ‘Love her like Jesus’ _ #
• Was listening to another Casting Crowns song ‘Love her like Jesus’ - spoke right to a situation I dealt with last week #
• In theatre, waiting for a baby to be delivered by C/Section, then it’s dinner time… #

Although I love my music, and am involved in church music, I must admit I rarely listen to any Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) - I just find in general it’s a bit lame or boring or not great quality. Even with fairly good bands like Jars of Clay or Kutless or Switchfoot I tend to find myself listening to the album once or twice and then filing it away. They often have one or two good songs but for the most part it’s fairly boring.

So I was pleasantly surprised with my first listen to the band Casting Crowns. I’ve heard their name plenty but never felt compelled to listen to their music until I picked up their CD Lifesong at Koorong recently (partly due to a recommendation in a recent book I read by Roger Olson). Well it’s a great CD. Musically very tight, melodic and interesting. The main male vocalist sounds a bit like Neil Diamond in places but that’s not necessarily a bad thing And the lyrics are honest and original and generally down to earth. Only a couple of lines in one (otherwise very cool) song I didn’t quite see eye to eye with theologically, but at least the fact that I have listened that intently shows how much the music and lyrics have otherwise got me hooked in. I keep intending to take this CD out of my car and play something different, but after at least 5 times through I’m still keen. Well worth getting hold of.

Here’s one of my favourite tracks - Praise you in the storm

Read the rest of this entry »

• Finally got my official University acceptance paperwork, though on my Mac it ended up in the Junk folder. Lucky I check email on a few comps #

• Was checking out the new QANTAS frequent flyers scheme… lots more ways to use points. Looks good.. #
• Listening to a new bluegrass CD, “Secrets” by Sierra Hull. Young girl with a sweet voice and plays a tidy mandolin too! #