Back to the Upper Valley

For 2010, that is. My fiancee was officially accepted as a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth, where she will be continuing her space physics research. Which means that once I complete paramedic school in August 2010, I'll be returning to the Upper Valley for the next few years. It also means that Ellen and I are close to picking a date for our wedding!

Last week I wrote about a federal advisory panel's recommendation to ban Vicodin and Percocet, along with several other painkillers, due to concerns about the overuse of acetaminophen. Yesterday Tara Parker-Pope's New York Times health blog ran an article seeking to calm fears about acetaminophen use. The issue, she writes, is not that it is an inherently harmful drug but that it's so ubiquitous that people are unknowingly exceeding the recommended dose. No word yet on whether or not the FDA will adopt the panel's recommendations. For now, make sure to carefully read the label whenever you take medicine.

In other news, a tentative deal has been struck to sell the Chicago Cubs. The prospective buyer is the Rickett family, whose credentials include founding the TD Ameritrade brokerage firm. The Cubs haven't won a World Series in 101 years and Wrigley Field now hosts night games, so things really can't get any worse. Maybe this will be a jolt in the right direction?