Jenny's in a room, doing okay. She has some pain and is tired and napping. She'll be here overnight.

Operation is done. Jenny's not awake yet. I'm still in the waiting room.

Jenny's doped up and wheeled away. Nurse Sunny's chasing her and seems very satisfied with the OR team.

We're checked in and in the waiting room of the hospital in preparation for the scheduled removal of Jenny's gallbladder.

PBS Frontline did a report on some National Guard soldiers escorting trucks in Iraq. The unit was nicknamed Bad Voodoo and this video report is part of their story. (Click on Watch the full program online) The report is too short at 1 hour.

And thank you, Jake, for escorting and driving fuel trucks in Iraq. I'm glad you made it home.

To those who think that America is overly litigious, I present this evidence to the contrary: Sniper Prank Video. Wherein, a hidden camera TV show pulls a prank where everyone else in the room gets 'shot' by a sniper.

This video makes me think that we're a decent amount of sue-happy.

oh! I almost forgot, this week marks the official weight loss goal of there being 10% less Tom!

right in front of out building is The Tree That We Don't Park Under. Sometime between me getting home and us going out for our evening walk, it dropped a limb into The Parking Spot We Don't Use. It was the only tree in the neighborhood that dropped anything. The limb looks like it would have caved in Jenny's car roof. Hurray for good luck and clever monkeys.

not to erect a straw man, but... People without jobs should only get care at the ER? Is that cheaper than government sponsored preventive health?

And people who work 2 or 3 jobs at 30 hours a week? Neat trick to lower your cost of doing business, don't let your employees have enough hours to qualify as fulltime. No benefits to pay for!

I found this article on Wired to be quite enlightening, The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

In brief, the author speaks about how business is moving into untapped niches. Most people ar e content having a minimalist product or service if they can get it painlessly (cheaply). MP 3's lack sound quality over other formats, but they're cheap and fit neatly into cheap hardwa re. Point and shoot cameras lack features, but they don't cost a rent payment or two. The a uthor proposes that this is a general trend and that we'll see a lot more solutions which are good enough.