Stayin Alive!

Disco tune "Stayin' Alive" could save your life

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. doctors have found the Bee Gees 1977 disco anthem "Stayin' Alive" provides an ideal beat to follow while performing chest compressions as part of CPR on a heart attack victim.

The American Heart Association calls for chest compressions to be given at a rate of 100 per minute in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). "Stayin' Alive" almost perfectly matches that, with 103 beats per minute.

CPR is a lifesaving technique involving chest compressions alone or with mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing. It is used in emergencies such as cardiac arrest in which a person's breathing or heartbeat has stopped.

CPR can triple survival rates, but some people are reluctant to do it in part because they are unsure about the proper rhythm for chest compressions. But research has shown many people do chest compressions too slowly during CPR.

In a small study headed by Dr. David Matlock of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, listening to "Stayin' Alive" helped 15 doctors and medical students to perform chest compressions on dummies at the proper speed.

Five weeks after practicing with the music playing, they were asked to perform CPR again on dummies by keeping the song in their minds, and again they kept up a good pace.

"The theme 'Stayin' Alive' is very appropriate for the situation," Matlock said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "Everybody's heard it at some point in their life. People know the song and can keep it in their head."

The findings will be presented this month at a meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Chicago.

Countdown Clock

So you will look to the left you will see a cute little clock. It doesn't tell you but it's counting down the days till I once again get to visit my great friends in Utah! I will only be there a short time! But I am so excited I could just spit!

I hope there is snow! It's still 85 here!

Ghosts in the Graveyard!

I just love Halloween time! It means the beginning of fall and ultimately the holidays!
I loved getting dressed up as a kid. My all time favorite costume was dressing up as a 50s girl and wearing a poodle skirt...just so I could twirl and make myself dizzy! I would have been that every year but eventually I grew out of the skirt. And lets face it...seeing little girl chubby legs when you twirl is OK but not big girl with chubby legs! (I have to admit my favorite costume as an adult is one of a witch...complete with a feather boa, fishnets and hooker boots!)Anywho...

One of my other favorite things at Halloween is the recipe Ghosts in the Graveyard! I have made it every year at Halloween for years. Anything with Oreos has be to good. You can see it here.

Other things that I love about Halloween: the colors, the food, the scary stories, even the music! Gotta love Thriller! And of course living in a small town there is always a scary legend! Well here in little 'ol Springtown we have The Glowing Tombstone! I have always wanted to see the Glowing Tombstone and have attempted it once...

It was about ten years ago and Jill, Cait, Tara, me and one of my friends all piled in Jill's tiny little Toyota Corolla. (This was before she came to her senses and is driving something more substantial!) It's dark outside and we drove down Old Springtown road to Veal Station Cemetery (yes Veal Station, it was a stagecoach stop and it's around the corner from Smelly Dairy...this is really true). We get to the cemetery and we see that someone else is already there. We see three men sitting in a truck enjoying what I can only imagine is something illegal, (after all we are very far out in the woods.) So we kinda slow down but we decide not to stop because seeing a glowing tombstone is not worth getting killed by stoned hillbillies! So, we drive on down the road only to find the high hillbillies have caught up with us and they are right on our bumper and have no headlights on! I am starting to feel like we are about to be part of a scene from Deliverance! We will go faster and then they would get closer and closer! I guess they didn't like us crashing their illegal substance party! If you are ever looking for something thrilling to do...go driving 60 mph on the windy back roads with crazies chasing you in the dark!

To this day I still haven't seen the Glowing Tombstone...any takers?

By the way..it sounds all cool and all but really it's just the a cow light reflecitng off of a headstone. It doesn't really glow..but we like to think it really does......

Technology Hates Me!

I love technology...it brings me great satisfaction in life to have the latest and the greatest computer item. I don't have a lot..but when I get them I expect them to work. Yet, I seem to have really bad luck with these items.

For example one year for Christmas my dad got me a DVD burner/player for my computer. Did it work? No it didn't, even with hours with tech support, a different burner and lots of frustration. So I gave it back to dad to fiddle with. Did it work for him? Yes it did.

I buy a new laptop and love it...but I get the one with a glitch with Vista and iTunes. When I install iTunes, my DVD drive disappears. To watch a movie or burn a CD, I have to uninstall iTunes. Which is kind of pointless if the point is to burn a CD from iTunes. But life goes on...

I become a Graphic Design student. I buy the complete Creative Suite package from Adobe. It has InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and all that fun stuff. I install it. Does it work? NO! I think it's exact words were ""Some problems occurred during installation," "Component install failed"! I was very close to having a wall-eyed hissey fit! But I am trying to be rational and working through the problems with Adobe! But if any of you hear wailing and gnashing of teeth..it's me and my computer!