2022 was wild. For me, it was filled with big changes, some surprises, and a fair share of challenges. Let’s start with the good news first.
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The Death of my DSLR
Last week, while vacationing in Lake Tahoe, Katie and I were involved in a serious car accident. While stopped at a red light, we were rear-ended hard by a semi truck, propelled forward into a major intersection, and t-boned by an SUV.
Despite the severity of the crash (our car was very much totaled), Katie and I miraculously emerged with comparatively moderate injuries. We are still mired with said injuries and dealing the aftermath of the accident, but life goes on for us.
Meanwhile, my new DSLR (Canon 6D Mark II from 2020 and 24-105mm II from 2021) was annihilated, crushed in the trunk so tightly we couldn’t even extract the memory card.
Maybe someday I’ll have existential ruminations about the destruction of this precious, life-altering piece of machinery, but for now I’m just grateful that Katie and I are alive.
Hiking Honeymoon in the Rockies
Marry a girl whose idea of a good time is climbing mountains.
With an unexpected gap in our schedules, Katie and I scrambled together a short honeymoon — three months delayed — to the Canadian Rockies, mostly Jasper and Banff National Parks. It’s a region we’ve been trying to reach, but most of our vacations are in late autumn or winter, far past larch season. Thus, given this free week in late July, we packed in five nights of camping and loads of spectacular day hikes. Here’s a highlight reel.
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A big day
Rooting for Wordle
It’s so refreshing that the latest viral phenomenon is Wordle, a homegrown internet minigame about guessing words.
No one can really predict the virality (virulence?) of a concept, but Wordle sure has the makings for uncontrolled community spread. It’s a well-structured minigame. It’s simple to understand and play, its only prerequisites being English literacy and an internet browser. It comes in digestible daily chunks for periodic and anticipated engagement. It has balanced difficulty: 4 letters could be difficult to localize but 6 letters may enable too much variation; and 6 guesses allows enough space but applies tangible stakes. Its instantly recognizable green emoji sharing format with the gray, yellow, and green boxes is the perfect infectious vector. And, of course, it’s free without ads.
Katie and I play too. We solve crosswords weekly, and this Wordle craze is like the spiritual successor to our NYT Spelling Bee phase last year. It’s often my last activity before bedtime. We got started three weeks ago: “Have you heard about Wordle?” Katie had said. “Everyone at the office is talking about it.” A floor at a major bank abuzz about the hot topic of an internet minigame? How marvelous!
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Radiology Workflow Shortcuts
Modern radiology practice is one of high-volume, high-precision visual inspection. Our moment-to-moment visual attention is our singularly essential sensory resource, and we should design our workflow to conserve it. Visual distractions, no matter how brief, should be minimized. Push notifications, invocations of popup menus, glances down at the keyboard, saccades up to a toolbar, and even visually localizing the text cursor in a report all should be avoided.
Example: we have to switch our primary click tool constantly, say from a selection cursor to a 3D-localizing homing tool. I’ve witnessed one of our venerable attendings accomplish this by the following: right click to invoke the tool palette, pause, mouse toward the tool palette expansion command, click, pause, mouse toward the 3D localizer tool, click, mouse toward the X button to close the tool palette, click; then left click to actually use the 3D localizer; and then once again right click, pause, click on the default tool, then click on the X. A tedious and distracting six-second side quest that could be executed with keyboard shortcuts in a near-instantaneous sequence of keystroke, click, keystroke.
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Podcast Roundup
Here’s a roundup of the podcasts to which I’m subscribed. These shows comprise the media that I consume regularly as I don’t watch television. They tend to be educational, scripted, high production-value shows with only a few unscripted interviews sprinkled in. I listen while commuting, running, or cooking. Most shows I play at 1.5x speed on Apple Podcasts, but the music-related episodes I play in real time.
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2021 in Retrospect
Coronavirus, year 2. We’re ending on a sour note, in contrast to the burgeoning promise from last year’s end. I got my first Moderna vaccine dose on 12/31/20 and with it the hope we’d never see a crushing spike in cases again. Depressing that this is the new normal, huh? That this blasted virus can roll around and just ruin plans over and over again. I especially feel for my emergency medicine, internal medicine, and family medicine colleagues who continue to bear the burden of the pandemic on behalf of all of us. Not just in the realm of the hospital, but on behalf of the country as a whole. Thanks, guys.
All right, here’s my annual habit of public reflections. Not much to say.
Radiology
Firstly, I officially declare my radiology class the best class.
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