Saturday, January 10, 2009

Serendipity, Car, Let It Heal, Patrick Swayze

I watched a fascinating programme the other night, it was presented by The Nature of Things hosted by David Suzuki and was entitled Gone Sideways. It was a lighthearted look at inventions and how they happened. The emphasis was on serendipity and how a scientist might be researching one thing when something distracted him and he ended up inventing something different. It pointed out the necessity of allowing scientists and researchers to have free range in their thoughts and not restricting them rigidly to one line of research. There is an article here you might like to read telling you about the programme. The picture above was from a short video which showed the researcher concentrating so hard on his microscope he didn't see the egg hatching into a baby dragon. It was also pointed out that you have to have to knowledge and ability to recognise what you are seeing. There is one segment in the article which talks about technology, in case you don't recognise it, they are referring to the microwave. So, serendipity, a friend sent a link to an article this morning about a new and accidental discovery that a particular kind of sleeping pill can help awaken patients in a coma after a head trauma. To read about this click here and follow an incredible story. I was complaining about car repairs yesterday, with our car having gone through all kinds of work just to find out why, periodically, it won't start. As I mentioned, it has had a new battery and a new starter motor, neither item fixing the problem (but we still have to pay) and finally after two days of messing around they decided it needed a new ignition system. So finally Matt took it to a dealer who then had to put in a whole bunch of other parts followed by a phone call to head office for a computer number to allow the ignition to work. This also meant a new key as the old one would no longer work. To get a second key would have cost $63 so Matt didn't bother. Altogether our bill seems to have totalled the best part of $1,000 - I won't write what I am thinking, but leave you to guess. Hopefully this has fixed the problem, we might not know straight away. Please keep everything you can crossed. I have mentioned, many times, about Let It Heal where both of us went at different times for Bowen Therapy which helped us so much. This afternoon they are having an open house for the New Year and showing new treatments available. So, we are going along to check it out. If you don't remember me writing about this, you can check out their web page here. It tells you about their treatment and there is a picture of Amber who runs my local clinic. What she says is absolutely true by the way, it does work. In 2007 I walked with a cane - I first went to Let It Heal late in the year and by Christmas I had stopped using a cane. I have recommended all kinds of people to go there. The treatment was invented by an Australian, Tom Bowen and I was interested, recently, to see Satima Flavell (Satima's Blogspot this page) visits a Bowen clinic in Australia. I nearly forgot to mention that Patrick Swayze was admitted to hospital yesterday with pneumonia. My very best wishes go out to him. OK, another Weight Watcher book from long, long ago, called Cooking With Weight Watchers. I made the Cream of Celery soup from this book many times - again I haven't made it for a long time - it is delicious and was always very popular. It is certainly very simple to make. The first WW group I joined, in England, used to have occasional pot luck parties, I remember taking a big pot of this soup which went down very well. Cream of Celery Soup Serves 2 1 head celery 2 beef or chicken stock cubes 3/4 UK pt. hot water (15 fl. oz.) 1-2 Tbs skimmed milk powder Wash the celery thoroughly and chop coarsely. Dissolve the stock cubes in the water and pour into a saucepan. Add the celery, bring to the boil, cover the pan and simmer until celery is very tender. Blend the soup until smooth. Return to the saucepan, stir in the milk powder and reheat, stirring, without boiling. Have a great day.

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