The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America's birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as 'Flag Birthday'. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as 'Flag Birthday', or 'Flag Day'.
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The Kevin MD Top 8 List
Here's something interesting hot off the press over at Kevin, MD:
I am pleased to introduce the MedBlog Power 8.This is an interesting concept. I wonder what the reaction will be out there in the medical blogosphere. There is no doubt that Kevin, MD is influential and being named to the Top Eight List is a recognition that most medbloggers will be shooting for (hint, hint).I'm publishing a list of medical blogs that have had an exceptional week of blogging, similar to the "Power List" rankings you find on various sports websites - the so-called "Power 8" medical blogs.
Here is how it works:
* The list is revised every Wednesday and published every 2-3 days
* The blogs I choose to include, and subsequent rankings, is a purely subjective process. The decision is final and without debate.
* Kevin, M.D. is ineligible to be on the list.
I wonder why the number "eight" was chosen instead of a "top 10 list" or some other number. Curious. Plus, the "purely subjective" criteria will be interesting to see how that all plays out. You can kind of get some hints of Kevin, MD's interests by seeing what he highlights on a daily basis.
Kudos to the group from the Shrink Rap blog for making the very first Medblog Power Eight. Guess I have some work to do to try to make the list. I've always liked a challenge. We'll have to see how the concept of a top medblog list all plays out....
Revisited: Blogaholics Anonymous
Now, I realize that I'm not the first person to come up with the term "Blogaholics Anonymous." (Thanks Moof for the pic!) A quick google search finds about 30,000 results. Nonetheless, BA came along at the perfect time in the infancy of my blog.
Here's a little piece of the post from June 28, 2006 (day 9 of the blog):
I can hear the radio ads now, "Hi, I'm Dr. A, I'm not only a doctor, I'm also a client!" How about this as a slogan, "Join BA today! It's no BS!" Or, "Think you're addicted? Well, let's blog and find out!" There could be t-shirts, mugs, posters, mouse pads, key chains, etc --this could be HUGE!And, HUGE it was. Little did I know how this thing would take off. I encourage you to check out the "minutes" of the BA meetings and see all the places that we have been to in the past. It was quite fun!
You know, I'm thinking about having a BA meeting next week. Hmmmm..... How would that go over? Would people show up? Would people have a good time? With everything going on in the medical blogosphere right now, it wouldn't hurt to try to have some levity. Interested? Check out I'm A Blogaholic for details....
Revisited: Friends
No, not those Friends. Back in August 2006, I was in the midst of one of my blog block sessions, which I go through every few weeks. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who goes through this.
I don't know about anyone else, but I've always found it challenging to keep in touch with the friends that I have around here (I'll call them my non-blog friends). It has always been difficult to get our schedules to match up.
But, having blog friends means that you can keep in touch pretty much anytime. Contrasting these two types of friends fascinated me. And, naturally, I blogged about it on August 23, 2006....
In this day and age where electronic communication is more common and more convenient than in-person communication, do I have communication more with my blog friends or my non-blog friends? Now, the people at work don't count, at least for me, because all of you know how much I work (too much).Little did I know how much discussion it would generate. There are currently over fifty comments over there. I guess people really like talking about their friends. And, who can blame them?This entertains an interesting question: When it comes to citizens of the blogosphere, do people have more blog friends or non-blog friends? For me, I've come to find out that it's the former -- not that it's a bad thing, but an interesting realization. How about you? Do you have more blog friends or non-blog friends? Do you care? Does it bother you one way or another?
It's hard to believe that almost a year has passed since that time. But, I still remember those thoughts like it was yesterday. I'm going to reflect on other posts in the next week during the countdown to my blogiversary. Hope you enjoy this series, because I know I am!
Revisited: The GR experience
Even though I initially said that this is not a medical blog, I eventually found myself blogging about - guess what, medical stuff. I guess I initially said that because I didn't want this to be all about medicine. There is no way that I wanted to become some kind of medical resource of information. There are a lot of other blogs out there with the reputation and quality information for that sort of thing.
I forget who first mentioned Grand Rounds to me, but I was very much flattered that people thought I could submit a post over there. As I was reading GR every week, I learned that there were a lot of great writers out there in the medical blogosphere. And, you guess it, I didn't think I could be in the same league as them.
My first Grand Rounds was July 11, 2006 over on the donorcycle blog. I was even excited that I made the "editors top picks." "Yay me," I said at the time. I was definitely on my way at that point.
For the next few months, I tried to write something for every GR. Sometimes I was able to, and other times I could not (or didn't like anything I wrote that week). It was really weird (in a good way) because my blogroll started to grow and people started to recognize/remember my blog.
Then, November 9th is a day that changed this blog forever. That was the day that I got the e-mail from Nick Genes asking me if I was interested in hosting Grand Rounds. Like, duh! This was a no-brainer. The catch was that I would be hosting in like two weeks.
So, what did I do? I held a press conference, asked for some reader feedback, described what GR was, tried to hype things up to generate interest, and waited, and waited, and waited for the posts to roll in. And, did they! That weekend was nuts for me. If I recall correctly, I was on call that weekend as well. So, trying to balance everything was challenging (and fun!).
The big day quickly arrived. Grand Rounds 3.09 premiered on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 to big fanfare (or at least what I thought was big fanfare). In the weeks prior to this, there was debate about the use of themes for GR (there is still occasional discussion on this). I didn't use a theme, but chose to break things up in three sections. Looking back on things now, I may have been a little bit harsh on those in the bottom section. I don't know, but maybe that treatment will prevent me from hosting in the future - well see.
Other than that, I was very happy about how things turned out. That time was probably at the height of my obsession with stats and how many visitors I was going to receive. As I remarked on my hosting experience in part 1 and part 2, this will probably be the only time in my blog life that I will receive 1000 visitors in one day. I was ecstatic!
Are grand rounds still a priority for me? I guess it is, but I'm not pushing myself every week to submit something - like I did in the past. In my opinion, anyone who calls him/herself a medical blogger should go through the experience of organizing some kind of blog carnival like grand rounds, pediatric grand rounds, change of shift, etc. It's a great experience.
It's hard to believe that almost seven months have passed since that time. But, I still remember those thoughts like it was yesterday. I'm going to reflect on other posts in the next week during the countdown to my blogiversary. Hope you enjoy this series, because I know I am!
Revisited: Does this thing work?
Welcome back to retrospective week here at the Doctor Anonymous blog....
So, here is a little synposis of how this little blog got started. As I have probably remarked before, my first exposure to blogging was with political blogs. And, as I did further exploring, I wondered whether there was any blogs about medicine.
I think back then, I typed "doctor blogs" in a search engine somewhere, and one of the first blogs that came up was Fat Doctor. I read every single post she wrote and was captivated by the story telling. Of course, this was in early 2006 when she only had been blogging for a few months.
For the months following, I kept asking myself, "Could I do that? Could I write about myself or write about medicine or both?" Like most bloggers-to-be, I went back and forth.
The next step for me was to go from "blog lurker" to "blog commenter." I remember commenting on her blog and other blogs. And, it was a good time. I was amazed that people were commenting on my comments. The back and forth conversations and banter was fascinating to me. My blog confidence grew, and I knew I had a decision to make. Could I go from "blog commenter" to "blog writer?"
I decided to go for it. For an introverted-type person like me, to risk something like this (for me) was huge. The next step was deciding on a blogger name and blog name. I was reading anonymous lawyer at the time and thought that anonymous doctor would be kind of interesting, but found out the name was taken.
How about the name Doctor Anonymous? I could use "Dr. A" as kind of a nickname. I hoped that it wasn't taken as well. I typed it in, and, Voila! A blog and a blogger are born.
Now, what the heck do I talk about? And, thus comes my very first post on Monday, June 19, 2006 called Does this thing work? It was just four of five lines just to get me started...
I've got to admit off the bat that I'm no techno-expert. This entire sign on process was kind of traumatic. Is this what this blog is going to be about -- whining? Hope not. I'm glad just to be up an running. Don't worry, this sparse blogspace will be filling up soon. Just as soon as a figure out what to talk about...I was so proud of myself when I hit the "post" button. I had no idea was going to happen. But, I told myself at the time that even if I got zero comments, I had an idea out there in the blogosphere for everyone to read. That concept amazed me then and continues to amaze me now.
It's hard to believe that almost a year has passed since that time. But, I still remember those thoughts like it was yesterday. I'm going to reflect on other posts in the next week during the countdown to my blogiversary. Hope you enjoy this series, because I know I am!
The Sopranos finale
I have to tell you that I have never seen The Sopranos, but in reading the press this morning, everyone was surprised and/or upset by the ending of this series. Here is the Washington Post point of view this morning.
So, in case you missed it, here are the final five minutes of the episode. Watch it now before YouTube is forced to remove it from their database. Personally, I don't get the ending, but, I guess that's how the writer/creator wanted to leave it.
Update: After a couple of hours since the original post, the above video had already been "deleted by the user." I've also seen this message today: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Home Box Office, Inc." I did manage to find found another YouTube link (for now). If you haven't seen it, click here before this is deleted.
Countdown To Blogiversary
I'm going to continue on this sentimental streak of thinking/writing that I've been having. It started with yesterday's post. Over the next week or so, I'm going to be taking a little bit of a departure from the "usual" Doctor Anonymous style posts.
So, next week is my one year blogiversary. And, over the next seven days or so, I'm going to be re-visiting some past postings and give some perspective of what I was thinking then. I'm actually really excited about it. I've been in a kind of blogging rut lately. I needed something to mix things up - and this is perfect.
BTW, if you haven't had a chance yet, check out the most recent installment of My Three Shrinks where they hear from Dr. Phil. It's a great interview - Hilarious! I'm going to be a guest on their podcast next week. You know, I call myself the "unofficial Fourth Shrink" (that's kind of like The Fifth Beatle - HA!).
For my faithful readers out there, do you have a favorite Doctor Anonymous post, or a post that you particularly remember over the past year? I'm kind of curious if my favorite posts list is similar to yours....
High school graduation
It's high school graduation around here this weekend (image credit), and I cannot help but get a little nostalgic. I guess that tends to happen every year as I get further and further away from my own HS graduation. Why does that happen?
Anyway, way back when, I couldn't wait to get out of there. It's not that I had a bad high school experience. But, like almost all people that age, I was ready to move on to the next step in my life. Some of my friends went into the working world, some of them went into the military right out of high school, and some people went to college. I was in that last group.
But, before that, I remember my last two months of high school like it was yesterday. I went in with about a dozen of my friends to purchase a "class car." It was a beat-up old boat-sized vehicle, but it was ours. We painted the thing; we drove it everywhere; we pushed it to the gas station when it ran out of gas; and we took it to the graduation ceremony as we were dressed in our caps and gowns - Good times!
And, then, for the rest of June, there was graduation party after graduation party. Little did I know that would be the last time that I would see some of those people -- because hardly anyone moves back to this economically deprived area. For a lot of my friends, it was time to move on to bigger and better things.
For me, I had a feeling of accomplishment that I finished high school. I was going to miss my friends, but I knew it was time for me to move on as well - to the next step in my life. I was excited, yet a little scared of what was to come - namely college.
Thanks for this quick stroll down memory lane. Maybe I'll have more to blog on this later. Any fun high school graduation memories out there?
Blogblast for Peace
Don't be surprised if you see this graphic in a lot of places on June 6, 2007. I'm posting this a little early because I'm afraid that I'll forget tomorrow....
The message is pretty simple: Peace on Earth. Were you there on November 7, 2006 when this first happened? You can read all about it here. The idea came when Mimi saw a plane.
Outer peace (meaning world peace) always must start with inner peace. And, I gotta tell ya, trying to organize and trying to control my life has been really difficult lately. So, as I go forward on this special day, I know that the only way that I can be of any impact to anyone else is to look in the mirror first.
Finally, kudos to Mimi Lenox, who appears to have made it her passion to spread this message to so many people in the blogosphere. I hope to see many more peace globes around blogland as compared to November. Great job Mimi!