Playoffs!

The Major League Baseball season drew to a close yesterday, with the Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals securing the American League and National League wild card playoff spots, respectively. While the division races were decided days (or even weeks) before the end of the season, not even nine innings were sufficient to determine the final standings. Both the Yankees-Rays game and the Phillies-Braves game went deep into extra innings before things were decided. And while it's tempting to rub in the demise of the Yankees' nemesis, I think the Red Sox's September record is punishment enough. Actually, I take that back. Watching the Yankees' ticker-tape parade next month will be punishment enough.

The U.S. Chess League is at the halfway point of the season, with the Philadelphia Inventors and the New York Knights tied atop the Eastern Division with a record of 3.5-1.5 (though Philadelphia currently holds the edge on tiebreaks). In the West, the Chicago Blaze are the class of the league, with an unbeaten 5-0 record. The San Francisco Mechanics are in second place with a 3-2 record. Next week sees interleague action, with New York taking on the Seattle Sluggers and Chicago facing off against the Baltimore Kingfishers.

Despite living in Buffalo for more than a year, I never acquired a rooting interest in the Bills. Nevertheless, I am pleased that the Bills' 3-0 start in the NFL season has given them something to cheer about. Whether or not it will last remains to be seen, but for the time being life is good in Orchard Park.

In other news, Ellen is running in her first marathon on Saturday. Everybody wish her luck!!

Medical school EMTs

Time magazine ran a fascinating article back in July about Hofstra North Shore - LIJ School of Medicine requiring their students to obtain EMT certification and spend time riding on an ambulance. The program is new this year--in fact, everything is new this year, as this is the inaugural class of medical students--but a number of the students interviewed for the article said they were excited about it. One even said it influenced his decision to attend Hofstra North Shore.

The article went on to say that the program was implemented largely in response to the demand for physicians with improved people skills; forcing medical students to operate as part of an EMS unit would help forge their teamwork and leadership abilities. This is certainly true, and I think that the program will achieve its stated goals. I predict, however, that it will also have a number of unintended, positive results.

A common lament among EMS providers is that we don't get enough respect in the medical community. There are a number of contributing factors, but one big reason is that many hospital providers don't understand what we do or the conditions under which we do it. Putting future physicians in the field will imbue them with a better sense of how EMS fits into the patient's overall care. This will, I think, allow the next generation of doctors to better appreciate, interact with and utilize EMS in a way that maximizes the system's resources and provides superior patient care from start to finish.

Furthermore, the medical students will have in their capacity as EMTs a unique opportunity to provide direct patient care long before their traditional schooling would have allowed them to do so. For example, a student at Dartmouth Medical School doesn't do his OB/GYN rotation until midway through his third year, and even then in a controlled environment under close supervision. Some of these students may not make it one month in the field before they find themselves delivering a baby in the back seat of a car, alone.

And even if the students have a relatively "vanilla" experience on the ambulance, they will still gain valuable experience in delivering care to patients in their hour of perceived greatest need. Because no matter the patient's level of clinical acuity, the situation is still an emergency in his eyes and you must treat him with compassion. And that lesson alone is worth the price of admission.

Tunbridge World's Fair

Ellen and I decided that no one who lives in New Hampshire should go without visiting the Tunbridge World's Fair at least once. The fair, which is in its 140th year, is held in Tunbridge, VT and while I can't figure out where the "world" part came from, it's not definitely not small. Ellen and I enjoyed the livestock and crop exhibits in particular. I, for one, had never before seen a 700 pound pumpkin! (Nor, for that matter, a fifteen-pound zucchini.) Unfortunately the timing didn't work out for us to see the Antique Tractor Pull, but we were able to catch the first heat of the pig races. In case you're wondering what exactly transpires during pig races, it's precisely what it sounds like. Pigs run (surprisingly quickly) around a miniature track and the first one to cross the finish line is the winner. Coming soon to an OTB near you.

Earlier this week, Ellen and I visited Henniker, New Hampshire, a charming town on the Contoocook River. Henniker has two major claims to fame: It is home to New England College and it is, to quote what is evidently the town motto, "The Only Henniker on Earth." The weather held out beautifully, and we really enjoyed our time there. A special shout-out to the Henniker House B&B, which was our first exposure to a bed-and-breakfast and will no doubt set the bar for all others to come.

In other news, the U.S. Chess League season is well underway, and the New York Knights are tied for second place along with the Manhattan Applesauce. The Boston Blitz, fresh off their Week 3 victory over the Knights, currently enjoy a half-point lead in the standings. Next up for the Knights are the Carolina Cobras; I predict a return to form. Go Knights!

Border Battle

New Hampshire defended its chess honor against Maine yesterday in a ten-board, twenty-game match held at the Portsmouth Public Library in Portsmouth, NH. This event was held for two years in the late 1970s before beginning a thirty-five year hiatus. It was resurrected last year (New Hampshire won 12-8) and the organizers are hoping it will become an annual event. This year's edition saw New Hampshire field a slightly stronger team than in 2010, and when the dust settled, the Granite State retained bragging rights by a score of 14-6. Maine managed to save face, however, by scoring two second-round upsets; International Master Joe Fang lost to David Oshana and yours truly went down in a topsy-turvy game against Adam Schaff. I had an absolute blast playing, and I hope I will still be in New Hampshire for the 2012 edition!

I recently finished Closing Time by Joseph Heller. This 1994 novel is the sequel to his seminal work, Catch-22, and several characters return. I wanted to like Closing Time, I really did. As much as it occasionally irritated me, I found Catch-22 hilarious. Closing Time, unfortunately, just didn't make sense. I finished it half out of a sense of obligation and half in the hope that Heller would explain it all in the end (he didn't). If you enjoyed Catch-22, you may want to read Closing Time if only to see where all the characters' stories end. But if you decide not to, I wouldn't blame you a bit.

Now that the weather is turning cooler and the leaves are beginning to lose their verdancy, back to school is not far from mind. My schooling is, for the time being, complete, and as a graduate student Ellen works year-round. But DOC Freshman Trips is well underway, and Move-In Day for the Dartmouth freshmen is this coming Tuesday. Ellen and I strolled through campus this morning, and I was hit with a feeling of nostalgia. It's hard to believe that it was only six years ago that I was in their shoes.

And of course, no post published on this day would be complete without a mention of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Every generation has a day that comes to define it--November 22, 1963 for some, December 7, 1941 for others--and I think September 11, 2001 will be ours.

Oregon, Pt. 2

The travel hassles notwithstanding, Ellen and I actually had a delightful trip to the West Coast. We stayed with a childhood friend of my mother-in-law's in Vancouver, Washington, across the Columbia River from Oregon (the Portland Airport was actually visible from our hosts' driveway). They have a charming home, and all three of us (Ellen, her mother-in-law and me) were blessed by their friendliness and hospitality.

Unfortunately, our rapidly evolving travel plans meant that we arrived later and left earlier than we had planned, so we were unable to fit in everything we had planned to see and do. Nevertheless, we managed a full day and a half of sightseeing. On Friday, after our arrival, we took I-84 (which I was tickled to discover runs through Oregon, as I am more familiar with it as the road on which I traverse much of Connecticut) to the "Old Highway," which was an extremely scenic drive past a number of waterfalls and other hiking spots. One highlight was the Vista House on Crown Point, which offered a panoramic view of the Columbia River and the surrounding hills and mountains.

After lunch, we visited the Bonneville Dam, which is both a National Historic Site and a working dam and hydroelectric plant. There I was introduced to the concept of a fish ladder, which is essentially a way for fish to bypass the dam when returning to their breeding places in order to spawn. It's actually neater in real life than I'm making it sound. And in a tiny office off of the main underwater viewing area, the official Fish Counter was hard at work. Yes, this person's job is to count the fish that swim past her window.

Next up was a fish hatchery, which featured local legend Herman the Sturgeon. This seven-foot monstrosity has been the star resident for quite a number of years, according to the numerous signs surrounding the sturgeon habitat. A seven-foot fish is, actually, quite a striking sight, especially when the majority of the other fish there are extremely young (it is a hatchery, after all). There was also a simulated salmon run, and Ellen got a number of excellent photos of the fish trying to navigate the man-made locks.

On Saturday we ventured into downtown Portland, which is a nice little city. It's not New York, but then again, nothing is. We met Ellen's aunt, whose health is beginning to fail, and had a great visit with her. It's not clear when or if we'll get another chance to see her, and the whole trip was worth it for those few hours alone.

I'm not expecting to do any more significant traveling until early December, so now it's time to turn my attention to the rapidly approaching foliage season here in New Hampshire. I've begun to wonder if the brilliant colors of fall are an apology for the six months of winter that follow ...

Oregon, Pt. 1

The YankeeVox summer vacation is over. First and foremost, I hope that everyone has come through the recent East Coast natural disasters--the August 23 earthquake and Hurricane Irene--relatively unscathed. Ellen and I were extremely fortunate that we were almost entirely unaffected by the storm (and completely unaffected by the earthquake). As it happened, we were on the West Coast visiting Ellen's family during the worst days of the hurricane/tropical storm, and the only snags we hit were travel-related.

We were originally scheduled to fly from Manchester Airport to Newark and continue on from Newark to Portland last Thursday afternoon and evening. Unfortunately, an unrelated rainstorm delayed our flight out of Manchester for more than three hours, which meant we missed our connection in Newark. Maddeningly, our Newark-to-Portland flight was also delayed, so instead of missing it by a matter of hours, we arrived at the gate literally minutes after they shut the cabin door (the plane had not yet left the gate, but they refused to reopen the door to allow us to board). There were no more flights to Portland that night, so we were rebooked onto an early-morning flight to Seattle instead. A good friend from college lives near Newark, and he graciously offered to let us spend the night with him and his family, as well as providing rides to and from the airport. Thanks again, John!

Once we boarded our Newark-to-Seattle flight, things went more smoothly. We had an uneventful trip and brief layover before our final flight, from Seattle to Portland. My mother-in-law picked us up at the airport, and we began our visit, albeit regrettably about fourteen hours later than we'd hoped. Our time in Oregon itself will be the subject of a subsequent post.

Except for the text message Ellen received from Orbitz partway through Friday afternoon, which informed her our Portland-to-Newark return flight on Sunday evening had been canceled (our Newark-to-Manchester flight wasn't canceled until Saturday, but it was a moot point by then). As Continental Airlines had canceled hundreds of other flights too, their phone lines and website were overwhelmed by people attempting to rebook. Fortunately, we were staying only a few minutes from the Portland Airport, so we drove over there on Saturday morning to attempt to rebook in person. The ticket agent, who was remarkably pleasant considering the barrage of no doubt stressed-out passengers with whom she'd been dealing all morning, told us that the next available flight combination ending in Manchester would be on September 3. If we couldn't wait that long (which obviously we couldn't, as both Ellen and I had to go to work), then she could put us on a flight into Dulles Airport the next morning. With no other options we could see, Ellen and I chose to fly into Dulles.

Sadly, this meant cutting short our visit by close to twelve hours on the tail end, too. It also meant trying to find a way from Washington, D.C. to New Hampshire when many trains were not running due to flooded tracks and many buses were sold out. Renting a car was an option, albeit a sufficiently costly one that we considered it an absolute last resort. Finally, we were able to find bus tickets from Baltimore to Boston. And once again, we were bailed out in a major way by college friends of mine. One friend, who lives outside Baltimore, offered to pick us up at Dulles, let us spend the night in his apartment, and then drop us off at the bus terminal in Baltimore in the morning. The other, who lives in the Boston suburbs, agreed to drive us from South Station to Manchester Airport, where we could pick up our car. Ryan and Chris, thank you so much!

By the end of the day on Monday, nearly thirty four hours after we left Portland, Ellen and I had arrived safely in Enfield. It was a great trip, well worth the travel hassle. Pictures and a trip report to come soon!