No Fiction Today!

September 25, 2009

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There will not be a new fiction story today.  Oh, no.  Why not?  Is Kosmo running out of ideas?

Nope, nothing that bad.  I have begun work on the capstone story for volume 2 of “The Fiction of Kosmo” and want to focus all my fiction energy into that at this point.  The new story is intended to be a bit disturbing, in sharp contrast to the capstone story of volume 1, Key Relationships.  The tentative title is The Cell Window.   It wouldn’t be a surprise if a short fiction story popped up on Monday, though.  If you really must have some fiction, I would recommend one of my older stories, The Tale of the Wolf.  This was written was readership was much lower, so you might now be aware of it.  I consider this story to be one of my better works.  Note that it is a two part story (clickable table of contents is at the top)

So, what other topics of interest can we discuss?

Well, for me, of course, there is the Rockies chase toward the playoffs.  Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki hammered another homer last night – that’s 30 on the season.  Quite impressive considering how much he struggled in the first two months.  The Rockies face off against the Cardinals this weekend protecting a 3 1/2 game lead in the wild card race.  I’m hoping that the Cardinals will sit some of the better players to avoid allowing the Rockies a fresh look at them (in case we face off in the playoffs).

And switching gears completely, one of the hospitals in my area now posts emergency room wait times on their web site.  I think this is a great idea.  The next step would be to allow reservations, so that you could simply show up at a particular time and have a minimal wait.  Some trips to the ER can be serious, but non-life threatening.  

I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to be in the ER twice in the last two years – the only two ER trips in my life.  The first was a combination of dehydration and a stomach bug that happened to hit me on a Sunday.  Did I need to be seen on Sunday?  Yes – I needed fluids via IV and some anti-nausea medication.  But it would have been great to bide my time waiting at home laying on the couch rather than sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the ER.

The second trip was due to an adverse reaction to Demerol that was administered during a medical procedure.  The on-call doctor definitely wanted me to come in that night (not only to prescribe anti-nausea meds, but also to make sure that it was simply a drug reaction rather than a result of them having punctured my innards during the procedure).  Again, waiting at home would have been preferable.

There are some problems with this plan, of course.  Obviously, exceptions would be needed for people with life threatening conditions.  A gun with a gunshot wound is going to get in ahead of me, whether or not he has a reservation.  There is also the issue that the system would discriminate against people who don’t have an access to a phone.  I don’t have a perfect solution, but it would be nice to see some discussion in this area.

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