Simulacrum, Dopamine, the Common Bug and other Queries

Is creation a necessary but not sufficient requirement for being art?  When is photography art?  Art is a creative process right?

Welcome to my hood.  Just a few bounces on the Pogo-stick down the block from my place in Denver and you've got rib's and catfish frying, a place to get your praise on (if you're into that), and a cafe with unprecedented rainbow power if you're in need of caffeine and want to shake up your predominant coffee house simulacrum.  Needless to say this is a huge change from my old digs near Chautauqua in Boulder.   Because I'm broke as hell I haven't tried to ribs and catfish yet but when I do be sure that there will be a post on that.

I've been sick for a solid week now; I swear that I had some simple RSV for a few days, thought that I was getting better, and maybe I was, but then I went and got the dang flu, the flue kicked my toosh so good that I was in bed by 9 the last 3 nights and sleeping till 8 the next morning.  Being in the while medical field now and studying pharmacology and viral vs bacterial illnesses has made this cold an unusually enlightening experience.  For one, I got to think about how to medicate myself: would I give me antibiotics? What kind and for how long?  How would I educate the patient on symptomatic care?  What have I learned about symptomatic care? What are the best products for cough, sore throat, myalgia, feeling like doo-doo, and nasal/sinus congestion?  I know we've learned some of this in lecture but I feel that there has been an emphasis in my lectures on how to figure out if it is bacterial and associated with serious morbidity or mortality and if it isn't then to convince the patient that they don't need antibiotics.  This is all fine and dandy but the worst part of a cold is the loss of swagger that goes on when you get sick.  I went to the doctor after day 5 with the cold when I felt like the back of my throat was bleeding and my head was near exploding, I didn't have a temp and my rapid strep was negative.  The MD told me to drink a lot of water and to FU if I wasn't getting better in a few days.  "But wait," I had to say, as she made for the door, "what do you recommend I do for the congestion, for the sore throat, for my mojo?"  I'm studying like mad for my end of 2nd year exams (must pass to go onto 3rd year clinical) and needed some help in clearing the snot from my brain.  She stopped and recommended what seemed somewhat in tune with my lectures on antihistamines but not all together satisfactory.  She was rushed, I was a walk in, I'm not dead, she was right with her diagnosis, I'm feeling a bit better, it wasn't bacterial, but there are lessons here, I've taken notes for myself.

Lastly, 4 weeks and 7 exams until Joe's Valley!!! Anyone that wants to ir con mio a Joe's (did I mention that I've been working at an all Spanish speaking pediatrics clinic every friday, oh that's where I got the bug...) should join me the last 2 weeks of May.  I've half thought about stickin around to finish off the 3 routes that my draws are hanging on in Boulder Canyon but... hopefully nobody's lame enough to take'm.  Oh, for those of you with limited time but want a good work out here's something I've been trying to do: get my tail up to the satellites, do Captain Hook v9, Turning Point v8, and Face Full of Brian v8, and maybe the 2 v6s on the BBC boulder and go home.  At some point I'll be trying to add on a few other problems (namely more dangerous Grundle City Boys and Flesh Fest) but as for now, its a great wee-little circuit... and gets the legs fit for the months soon to come.

Two medical ideas I’ve been throwing around for a while: engineering dopamine receptors that aren’t subject to drastic de and up-regulation.  If serotonin receptors and muscerinic receptors and and histamine receptors are like this why is it that we become so tolerant to dopamine stimulation?  Yes, the drug abuse potential of this sort of breakthrough would be absserd.  The other idea... well, I’ll save that one for later.