Thing 3

I just returned from a trip to Orlando with my family. It was a great vacation. My wife and I appreciate that our 18 year old daughter and 21 year old son still want to travel with us. My most embarassing moments were when I was picked to serve as King Arthur by street actors in EPCOT and required to shake my body while shouting "Ha-cha-cha baby!" The theme continued two days later when I was up on stage at a dinner theatre (Arabian Nights) learning how to belly dance in front of several hundred people.

One of the many emails waiting for me was a reminder from the librarians to try more Things. Since RSS feeds sounded like a good way to keep up with new information without taking too long to search. I like the fact that they automatically bring me new items of interest that I might otherwise miss. It particularly seems like a good way to keep up with new medical information that I can use in my practice. Although not listed by the librarians, I found it easy to subscribe to two feeds from the American Academy of Family Physicians web site. It was also fun to look through the sites of my fellow 8 Thing bloggers and select a few to add to my RSS reader.

The whole Thing took me about 75 minutes, in part because I so much enjoyed reading through the multiple silly items that were on the Google Reader site when I first pulled it up. My only disappointment was that I lost that list of miscellaneous articles when I added other sites. Does anyone know the URL so that I can subscribe to it?

Thing 2

1. Good summary article from BMJ. The most impressive part of this is that such a respected mainstream journal has an editorial on this topic.

2. Stephen's Lighthouse -- interesting, but it feels a bit beyond me.

3. Did you know 4.0 -- fun video. This was also cited recently on Stephen's Lighthouse.

Blog prompts

1. I joined the Explore 8 Things program because I want to be able to use some of these tools more effectively, particuarly Wiki's, podcasts, and RSS. I also heard that the class was fun the first time it was offered.

2. Youtube videos --
a. Most of them are years old
b. How do you decide which ones are worth watching? When I search via Google, I get enough info to choose sites to focus on with a fairly good chance that they'll contain the info I need. Even if they don't, it's much quicker to visit the site, decide yes or no, then return to the search page than it is to go to a video and watch to find out what's contained in it.
c. The "not in words" video was fun.

3. The current HP site is much more attractive. It's also easier to use.

"Extra Challenge" -- How do you access PubMed to do a search? I don't think that is explained until Thing 14.

This assignment took me about 75 minutes, spread over four days and three locations. I have to admit I still like paper -- I printed out the BMJ article to read as a hard copy.

Musings about Web 2.0

I'm looking forward to learning about how to better use the electronic tools that are available. For those of you in the Web 2.0 class that are reading this post, I have a few questions:

1. How do you give your blog entries a title? It seems like many of you have already learned this. I assumed that putting my title in the "Labels for this post" box would work, but it doesn't seem to do so. Do I just put the title at the top of my entry? (I'll try that with this post.) Is there another way to assign a title?

Whoops -- I just hit "Preview" and found a place to put a title. Is that how the rest of you do it?

2. When does our Ning start? I'd like to be able to address my questions directly to my fellow students.

3. I've started a Wiki for one of the committees I lead. Everyone on the group agreed that it was a good idea, but very few people have posted to it. I think it's just part of their day to day workflow -- but I'm not sure how to encourage my colleagues to log in regularly and to contribute. I'd much rather discuss questions by email and save the face to face meetings for those items that require that sort of immediate interaction, but the Wiki won't work if people don't look at it and participate. Any suggestions?

Welcome! The name of this blog is based on two of my hobbies. For the past several years I've been learning to play the folk harp. Some say that buying my first harp was a response to my "mid-life crisis". It seemed better (and cheaper) than getting a sports car. Since then I've played in several venues, including church (many times,) parties, staff appreciation breakfasts, a wedding, and a fund-raiser for our local hospital.

The most fun I've had recently was during the Christmas season. On Christmas Eve my daughter and I played two duets at church, she on flute and me on harp. The next day I accompanied her while she sang an old Celtic carol prior to the Christmas Day service.

My dream is to own a larger orchestral harp, but that will have to wait until at least one child has graduated from college and tuition payments have decreased.

The "pipes" part of the blog's title comes from my newest musical adventure. Last month I was attending the monthly scotch tasting at Merlin's Rest pub in Minneapolis, where at the beginning of the evening the scotch is piped in by a man in a kilt. I asked him how I could learn to play the bagpipes -- and two weeks later I had my first lesson on a chanter. The lessons are free; I think his band feels that passing on these skills is part of their responsbility as members of the piping fraternity. It's also a good way to augment their ranks. Although I'm enjoying the new experience, I'm afraid my family (especially the cat) prefers the harp.