New vocabulary: osteomyelitis, vertebral, in this case

Um, Belk's is having a good sale on light summer pajama pants and shorts, some more than 50% off.

My brother developed a debilitating low back pain that didn't respond to treatment. A trip to the VA for a week and two MRI's and a bone scan later brought doctors to this diagnosis.

Now he's hospitalized again for up to eight weeks of treatment. The only thing he can think of that might have caused the infection is a persistent bedsore that he developed when he was in the hospital before.

What a bore. But this time, he is being treated in our new Promise acute care facility on the bank of the Mississippi here in Vidalia. It's about five minutes away from here and accessible to friends.

His room is on the river side with a huge picture-window view of the river and the bridge.

Thank you, Leila.

Why do I think Leila lives in a Southern household? Maybe Texan.
"...through the niiiiight, from the liiiiight up abuv..."

Leila, sweetie, I'm not making fun. I'm a Texan in the Deep South.

I had the oddest dream the other night. An old friend showed up to hold my hand. He has been dead for seventeen years. His hand was dry but not fleshless.

We didn't talk much. Most of the dream is lost. I do remember the comfort.

Happy Father's Day!

How about a little good news from the Gulf of Mexico?

BP feeds have been updated here.

I am currently watching a screen of several live feeds found here.

Something similar can be found here.

Better techs than I can use these feeds.

A useful diagram of BP's current plan is here.

I'd like to know why CNN's Kyra Phillips thinks she's at the heart of the BP operation when she's not on the ship Discoverer Enterprise or Houston headquarters, but traveling with Adm. Allen.

It's all like so technical and I can't understand what they're saying, and these people do tedious things.

To try to understand what they're saying (not saying that I can, all of it) try The Oil Drum.

UPDATE: A Silverlight multifeed here.

Some people watch NASCAR, some golf, some baseball. I've been glued to the footage of ROVs the past two days, at BP's live feed and all the others I can access.

At the mildest estimate, 210,000 gallons of oil are released into the gulf everyday until BP at least reduces that amount with a containment cap. So why did it take from 12:30 or 1 am last night when it stalled until past 4 this afternoon to bring the diamond saw to the surface for repair or replacement?

Sometimes life just ain't worth living.

Returning home today from the Redneck Riviera we passed the site of Vernon Beal's OK Body Shop. The name has been changed to "Beal's Collision Center."

I bet it's those execrable uppity children changing things after papa's retired or gone.

Now, the beach is as gorgeous as always.

Your home away from home in beautiful Orange Beach, Alabama.

Hear the crashing of the waves syncopated by the musical tinkling of the drip from your neighbors' showers and toilets. Are you having fun yet?

Happy Mother's Day, y'all!

We celebrated on Friday with a fried catfish lunch for Lyman's mother. It's her favorite meal here because Lyman will cook her fish just the way she likes it -- crisp through and through. None of that yucky moisture in the fish for her.

The pomegranate tree has finally blossomed. It has been in the ground at least four years.

This article has some decent information on ongoing procedures to capture the oil spewing from the riser pipe.

It's time to stop admonishing BP for not installing a blow-out preventer. It was done, and they can't get the damned thing to close.

Deep Water Horizon is the name of the well. I wish it weren't on mine.

Have good thoughts for this woman.

Charles Gore (Little Charles, the bird) just sang for his supper:

I want some corn.

We got the cutie and the sweetie pie birds,
We got the sweetie pie birds and corn!

Dr. Jeff Masters has temporary projections for the movement of the oil slick in the Gulf.

Some of the animals expected to be affected by the BP rig blowout.

For Max, Aquarium of the Americas prepares to accommodate sea turtles.

Heart-wrenching days for some local families.

A name for a girl.

Clara is a pretty name that I haven't heard applied in years.

We had an adventure this past weekend.

Lyman was vomiting blood (not the bright, scary kind, the rusty coffee-looking kind) Friday morning. So we took him to the emergency room in Natchez. Doctors determined he should be admitted, but since no gastroenterologists were on call this weekend, they transferred him to a hospital about 50 miles east in McComb, MS.

They treated him with two units of blood and IV fluids all weekend. On Monday he underwent an EGD or upper gastrointestinal scope and found nothing to be alarmed about -- no lesions, no ulcer, just a slight redness in some tissue.

He was released Monday with no medications and no dietary restrictions and is just fine, if a little weak.

How weird. Well, not really, according to the specialist. They see cases like that from time to time.

Don't ask me how I got from here to here, but I did.