DentistGoneBad,com

Hi all,
Hope everyone had a great weekend.

I apparently have upset the masses from my Friday blog.

I think a Townie must have read it and then it spread like wild fire.

I was then called all the names in the book.

For the first time in the history of the blog I had to censor comments.

I don't like censoring but when the f-word is being thrown around...this won't be tolerated (you know I am the only one that can cuss on this blog).

As I said in my comment to the comment. I am just telling my story. I loved the guys lecture. I just had a weird experience with him after. That is it.

I did however go back and read the post. I thought everything was just telling the story. But at the end I alluded to that he might not care about his patients. For this I am sorry.

I have no excuse...I must have been tired and ready to go from the office or something. I don't know why I wrote this. I didn't mean to attack his character. I truly thought he was a high character guy. (as I alluded to in Wednesday's blog)

Okay,

I wanted to tell you this story that happened to me last week.

I have an assistant that thinks the world of me (much different than the Townies right now). We have been working together for 13 years now. I have treat her whole family. She has two brothers that fly to see me from Maryland and a sister that drives up from a town 3 hours south of here.

One of them has a friend that went to a dentist.

The friend was a 59 year old woman that never liked her teeth. Her kids were finished with college and this freed up some time and money to go to the dentist.

I think the brother (who I am presently doing work on) was visiting the sister and they all started talking about teeth.

It seems that the woman went to a local dentist and had some questions about her treatment plan.
My assistants sister says you ought to call my dentist. He would be glad to talk to you.

So instead of calling me, she just faxed her treatment plan to me and asked me what I thought.

First of all the $69,000 treatment plan about knocked me out of my chair.

Yes, I said SIXTY-NINE THOUSAND.

Seems this dentist was going to take all her teeth out put in 14 implants and do two perio-

prosthesis bridges on the upper and lower.

Now to some of you non-dental people taking out all of someone's teeth is something that is done and I have done it a number of time.

But this is usually the LAST resort.

So I called her.

I wanted to know what was going through her head. I wanted to know what kind of dental I.Q. she has.

I also wanted to make myself available to her to answer any questions or, and if she desires, take a look at her teeth.

So we started talking. She just wanted to know if I thought what he wanted to do was legitimate. I said "yes".

But I think I should have used a caveat. Like I think it is okay IF your teeth need to be taken out.

At the time she said that she just left the office because she was getting a deep cleaning. Hmmm?

Why would she be getting her teeth cleaned if she was getting them all pulled?

So she said that the money was not something that was an issue. She just wanted to know what I thought.

While we are talking I start at my computer and wonder what this guy was like so I put in a Google search for him.
I was looking for his website. I can kind of see what kind of dentist this guy is by his website. I can browse his before and after pictures...stuff like that.

But what I found was so much more.

The third item down was DENTISTGONEBADINthecitysheisfrom.COM.

Seems that he has pissed someone off enough that this patient made a website about how bad this dentist was.

The top of the website claims that this particular dentist is working on a suspended license.

Then it goes on to say what a quack this guy is.

I am talking to this woman and I said, "I think it might benefit you to Google Dr. So-and-so.

I am presently looking at a website that is not saying such good things about him." I continue, "I am not out to slander him but I think you should see this for yourself."

She said, "I am not very computer literate so I don't know how to do all this, plus you can't just take one person's opinion about someone."

"I totally agree with you." I continued, " I have not pleased 100% of my patients and I would hate to have someone have a personal vendetta against me. But I still think you should have your daughter or someone help you check it out."

This website was about an eight page website that started with this persons story.

Then it welcomes everyone to chime in.

Then the next page is a bunch more stories all tearing this guy a new one.

There is a thread from a previous employee that states she wanted to stand in front of the office and tell people not to come in.

Then another from an attorney stating that he had SIX cases presently against this dentist.

If anyone wanted to talk to him they should follow up with him.

So I continued our conversation and moved in a different direction. I answered her questions. Turns out that she found this guy because he has TV and radio commercials and takes out full page ads in the newspaper. I was getting a nice picture of the whole thing.
What could I say? Nothing.
Now for the record I don't have a problem with ads so I was not talking negatively about that.
So we hung up. I told her to call me if she needed anything else.
And that was it.

So a couple of days go by and my assistant got a call from her sister.
Turns out the woman went back to the dentist and he wasn't there. He was in Orlando renewing his license. Hmmm?
I renew my license all the time and I never have to travel to do it.
But she talked to the treatment coordinator and she apparently dropped the price $10,000. Isn't that awesome she went in and they dropped the price 10 G's.
(As an aside, this is where I have a problem. When we start looking like car salesman [even sometime we feel like it] is when the profession is being hurt.)

So as it turns out it looks like this woman is going to use this dentist. I don't know a thing about either of them but...if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck....it probably is a duck.
My real issue is Where are all those patients at my practice? They have unlimited funds. They don't really trust me. They go to another dentist for advice. AND THEY STILL GET THE WORK DONE. Amazing.
My patients wouldn't even finish the exam before leaving.

Have a great Wednesday,
Talk to you on Friday,
john

Balti-MORE

WOW!!!


I am in the Baltimore airport, it is Saturday afternoon. I came to the airport in a hurry because I thought I could catch an earlier flight. The flight I tried to catch was a 2:15 (I got here at 12:45). I didn’t get it. Problem was that my booked flight is at 7:45. Yeah, you heard me, I am sitting in the airport for 7 hours.

So I have some time to write a blog or twelve while I sit here.
I am still on a high from the weekend.
As you know I went to AGD annual meeting this weekend. I went for a couple of reasons. I went for my opinion about dental speakers to be restored (if you can remember that I went to the FNDC about a month ago and I was very disappointed).

The second reason I went was…as you also know that I am a member of the Tech and Web council and we were charged with presenting some aspect of the website that people could appreciate.
I developed a PowerPoint presentation (with the help of others smarter than me) and I spoke for 10 minutes twice on the exhibit floor.
And three, I went because I had two dental school classmates/friends that were getting their Mastership.

I gave my talk and I got to spend some time with my friends and go to the Orioles game.
But this is not what I wanted to talk to you about. I saw two of the best lecturers in all the country this weekend.
Okay maybe I am exaggerating but I have to tell you, they were awesome.
All day Friday I saw Gordon Christenson. I love this kind of lecture. He is such a big wig but he is so real. He talks about how HE practices dentistry. He talks about what he says to HIS patients. He breaks down every procedure and the products that HE uses and why. His objective is to tell us about things that will make us better dentists, make the procedure easier by using less expensive products.
8 hours of me eating it up. Some of it dragged because it was things that I knew and I felt like he spent too much time on some things but it was just awesome.
His delivery was so great and he made himself very translucent and approachable.
I dig that.
That was Friday.

Now I have to tell you Saturday.
I knew it was going to be a good day when I walk out of the hotel at about 7:15am. I a dragging a bit from the night before. I get out to the street and a couple of guys are coming at me walking the other way. One of the guys says to me, “Dude that is a really nice suit. And you look good in it.”
Now this wasn’t a girly man or anything. He talked in a very manly voice. I just think it was a guy, who was very comfortable with his sexuality, telling another guy that what ever he had on worked.
I said, “Thank you” and kept walking. You know it was the kind of thing where you think to yourself, “Did that just happen?”
I still am kind of cracking up as I am writing this.
But where I was walking to was the convention center to introduce Howard Farran.
Now all you dental people know him as the founder of DentalTown. And all you non dental people need to know that DentalTown is a dental forum that has grown to monumental status. It is hugely popular.

I was the course manager or “host”. I was to make sure his needs were met and the room was in order.
My first order of business was to introduce myself to him and to make sure he didn’t need anything.
Before I tell you anything I have to tell you that I had some preconceived notions of Howard Farran. I don’t know why.
I guess I always think that someone that has got big wig status is going to be kind of a premadonna.
I scanned the room to find him and no one in the room looked like the guy I was supposed to introduce. I start walking the halls. I see a bunch of guys in suits and stare at them. “No that wasn’t him.”
So I see a guy that looks like him but I say to myself, “that can’t be him.” This guy was in a Hawaiian shirt, 5’8 and about 270. You know the kind of guy that leans backwards when he walks because his is so heavy in the middle. So I went back to the room. Then this guy walks in. I go and introduce myself to him and sure enough it was him.
I tell him who I am and if that he needed anything to let me know. He had this guy that was kind of hanging around him. I don’t know if it was a wanna be or what but he sent him downstairs for coffee (better him than me).
He seemed kind of cool.
Now when he started his lecture he has this raspy voice, like he is a smoker and drinker. And the first thing he says was he may have tied a few too many off the night before at the baseball game.
But once you get past the fact that I can’t believe this person is Howard Farran and started listening to the lecture…It was great.
I have to tell you that it was a four hour lecture and I don’t think I have laughed out loud like that at a dental lecture ever. He was so real.
Has anyone ever seen Linda Miles? He was like the male (drinking and smoking) version of Linda Miles.

He made us laugh at ourselves. He taught us by breaking ourselves down. He, like Dr. Christenson but in so many different ways, was so real.
For instance, he cussed during his presentation. He said the “A” word, the “B” word and “S” word all in the same sentence. I looked through the crowd and there was dentists of all ages there. And while I was scanning the crowd they were all laughing.
(He reminded me of, Ron White, the comedian that drinks and smokes throughout his comedy routine....google Tater salad)

Before the lecture I was talking to this guy and he says he was a big fan of Dr. Farran, but he said, “He has a way of rubbing people the wrong way.” But at the break I went to the guy and asked him what part of his lecture would have rubbed anyone the wrong way.
He said he just doesn’t conform with the muckity mucks.
He as been through all the Pankey Courses. He has been through all of Dawson’s courses, he has been through all the LVI courses. He is funny, he is smart, he is well versed on all dental topics and he tells it like it is. What is not to like about him?

Bravo AGD for a great meeting.
Baltimore was a beautiful city.
Thank you Drs. Christenson and Farran for restoring my faith in the dental lecturer.

See you on Friday.
john

Tarnish

Hey all,

Two days until I leave for the AGD Annual Meeting. I am very excited.

I have been enjoying my book The Unlikely Disciple. I didn't think I would but I really like this guys style of story telling. He tells it like it is and he really hasn't made fun of the way Christians live, he just says it.
Granted to a self professed left winged liberal, like that author is, an evangelical Christians life style has got to look weird. Especially to a college student. I just remember how I acted in college and then look at the rules at Liberty. No kissing, no cussing, no going to the opposite sex dorms, no drinking or smoking. I mean that is some weird stuff.
But now that I am sort of there, I can see how it might look.
I mean I try to live somewhat like that and I think it is weird. I have friends that don't have a TV. I mean we didn't have cable for a two year span about 5 years back.
I mean I push the profanity envelope and I watch R-rated movies but I certainly want my kids to walk a much narrower path than I did.
So this guy has plopped himself in the middle of this lifestyle and is seeing some warrant to it. He is finding the people genuine and a lot like him.
I will keep you posted.

Speaking of kids....
I got a comment from Monday's blog about how I view my kids.
Lets go over the unwritten rules of blogging. I try to write things that are true and readable. I think what makes this blog more readable is my translucency. I tell you my true feelings and hopefully you can find comfort in my realness.
Then you can go about your day thinking you are not alone in your quirkiness.
So when you comment YOU can rip on me and be anonymous. It is not fair but it is what it is.
I'm okay with you calling me out on things. In fact I want you to.
Just don't write a comment insinuating that you have all the answers and blasting me for my feelings.

If you didn't tune in on Monday I was telling you how my son was bullying another kid.
And how mortified I was. I was telling you that I have always thought of Luke as the Golden Boy. But lately I have seen some of his gold tarnish.
He is such a good kid but it is really my job to keep him with in a box of acceptability (I forget what Ted Trip calls it). I know he will be more successful in his life if he gets comfortable in this box.
In this box includes, not talking back, doing things with a good attitude, respecting people of authority, working hard, and being disciplined.
I talk about Luke, but all this does apply to my other kids as well.
Sunday, it just so happened that we made it a "no screens" day. That is no TV, computer, Wii or phone. And it was about an hour after church when my kids were like we had taken away food.
(add your own whinny voice) DDAAADDD, I'm soooo board. I said, "Go swimming, call a friend, go do some yard work. Go play outside."
Then it is, "Commmeee on ddadddd. Just let me watch a movie."

At 3:30 I was suppose to meet a couple guys at church because we were preparing to go put on a BBQ for the Coalition for the homeless, woman and children's home. With the help of 40 teenagers, my job was to get a couple of grills and cook about 125 burgers.
We were going to go first and set up. That is get the patties out. Cut the tomatoes, cut the onions, things like that.
I would start cooking at 5:30 and eating would begin at 6.
I dragged Luke to this thing with me.
I have to tell you things like this, for a 10 year old that basically gets everything he wants is a very good thing (and I have to tell you that taking a 40 year old that also gets basically everything he wants is also a good thing).
Luke was able to prep food, he went to the store to buy more food with another volunteer as I prepared the grill and started heating up the coals.
The volunteers arrived and Luke began to play with the teenagers as well as the kids in the home, I think there are about 90 residents and more than half were kids.
I cooked and cooked for about 1 hour straight while the food line began inside. Everything was served, it was a feast. Burgers, beans, chips, pickle slices, mac and cheese, and all the deserts you could ask for (made by the teenagers and their folks).
When I finished cooking and putting things away I went into the dining hall. Luke was occupied with some other kids and their mothers.
I plopped myself down with three of the woman residents. I joked with them and try to have a real blast. I think they appreciated my humor and started to open up to me.
While we were talking Luke came up to my table and stood next to me. I introduced him as my son. One of the ladies said, "Oh, this is your son. He is such a gentleman. He is such a great kid and when people saying thank you to the volunteers he made it a point to look at them in the eyes and say 'thank you' back."
Man was I about to lose it. He later told me that he was about to cry too.

Well we said our goodbyes and packed up the truck.
I have to tell you that the ride home is great father and son time.
He said, "Thank you for taking me dad. I know I didn't want to go at first but I am glad you made me."
We talked about how these women don't have a home and what it means to be homeless. We talked about the kids and what that means to them.
He said, "Dad, do you think we will ever be homeless?"
Did I tell you that this was good father and son time or what?
What do you say?
I told him that we have a home that is modest and we try to save money so that will never happen. I told him that when mom and dad are always talking about money (okay arguing and yelling) there is a purpose.
And if we did have trouble paying for our home that we have a family that could help us.
I told him that God has a plan for us and we need to be able to handle anything he throws at us.
I am still thinking about the impact Sunday had on Luke and me. Powerful.

I am going to stop here because it is getting a little long.
How are you doing with your kids? How are you impacting them?
How are you creating a world view for them?
If you have a story I would like to hear it.
But for now, I think on Sunday that some of Luke's tarnish started to shine a little more, at least until he won't mow the grass.

I hope to talk to you Monday and tell you how great the meeting was.
john

July 4th weekend.

Yes I am working on Monday. I hate it. But I am going to be off on Friday because I am going to the AGD annual meeting. So blog today and Wednesday and no blog on Friday. Remember to say Hi to me if you are going to the meeting and see me.

Man was this an eventful weekend.

First and foremost I talked to Seth for the first time about the book. I don't know if you remember but I told you I wanted to write a book about Seth and his life so far. Seth is my nephew that lived with me and my family for 7 years. This kid has had a screwed up life and continues to try to be screwed up by his mother and grandmother. For instance, last week his mother stole a credit card from the grandmother and then maxed it out (about $450) to buy crack. Then the grandmother who is all distraught because she probably needed that money to buy booze and maybe pay the electric bill, called Seth to see if he, an 18 year old 4 months out of jail, could send them some money.
When we took him to a counselor when he was about 6 or 7 years old the counselor said he had a 2% chance of not ending up in jail. All because of his family.
In writing this book I don't want to treat him like a subject. I don't want to tell his and our story just for individual gain. I just think it would be a compelling book. But what exactly is my motivation?
So, about the book....he said he thought it was a good idea. I told him that would involve him and I talking a lot more. He said he was okay with that. I told him that he should start writing all the stories he remembers down. He sounded excited. I guess when you don't have much, something is exciting.

I am going to tell you only one story from the weekend.
In my town they always have fireworks on July 3rd. I guess they know everyone is off from work on the fourth so people can live it up on the third. And it doesn't conflict with any other fireworks in downtown Orlando.
We have some friends that live within walking distance of the fireworks. So they have an annual party. They supply the food and beer and you bring a side dish and your chair for the show. A lot of people from the church come and a lot of his neighbors always come.
People get there early and just enjoy each other. I plopped myself out back and most of the men hung out by the grill and the keg. The woman congregate in the kitchen getting the food prepared. Then the third element are the kids. They are running around like packs of wolves.
Occasionally you see them when they come for a drink. They are either playing basketball, tag or beating each other up. Its all cool because I am hanging out by the keg.
Now I decided I was going to kind of walk around to see how the kids were doing.
They were playing pretty good on the basketball court.
Then another mother came up beside me and we started talking. She had a 6 year old. I said man they are going to be wiped out. I said they are going to need baths big time.
She said, "Yeah, I just took my little Alex home and gave him a bath. Turns out the bigger kids were picking on him and someone poured dirt on him."
She said, "I think it was that kid in the orange and blue."
Now you know what I am going to say next. Luke, my 10 year old, is the only kid wearing orange and blue. I WAS MORTIFIED.
Now I don't know if you know this but I am a stickler to bullying and down right meanness.
I called Luke over and then she was mortified that she was talking about my son.
But he needed to be called out on it.
I brought him over and asked him what happened. I said what she said and he admitted that they might have been pretty tough on the kid. He said however he didn't put dirt on him and threw someone under the bus on that one.
I told him that was unacceptable he needed to apologize to the kid and next time when sh@$#!t is going down someone has to be a man and say STOP. Someone has to say picking on someone or having fun at someone else's expense is not right. And the next time it is going to be you.

I have to tell you this was a wake up call for me. I have to tell you that to me Luke is the golden boy. I know he has a mouth on him and he is learning to push his mother like you wouldn't believe but when it comes to his heart or how he interacts with other kids, especially younger ones, I think this kid has no faults.
I am still in shock as I write this. I guess this is my Achilles heal....I think my kids are, not perfect, but pretty damn close.
I know I have to have my guard up at all times. I have to anticipate, I have to lower my expectations so they will deliver more. I have to raise my awareness to their brokenness.
This is not easy for a dad like me. Love is so blind and I will tell you I am blind as a bat.
I didn't want to break Luke's spirit and really get on him but we had a couple discussions this weekend about our hearts. About how a mother and father feel about their kid. How this mother's heart must have been broken when she found out that her son was being picked on.
Man, I just sit here and it sucks the air out of me to think what that woman was thinking and to think it was MY Luke that did it.

Okay, enough of dragging him through the mud.
We did something really special yesterday with homeless woman and children and I hope it will restore your tarnished image of Luke. Did I tell you he was perfect? Wait I can't do that anymore.

Have a great Monday,
Talk to you Wednesday
john

Community Health

Happy 4th.
Yeah I am working today. I called my bank and the power company and they told me the bills were still going to be coming and no they wouldn't hold off on sending the bills because of Independence Day....hence we work.

Man it is these kind of holidays that make me think about what I have.
I mean can you even see the greatness of this country. We can say what we want, we can have our own businesses, we can worship who we want, we can drive cars to the grocery store that is right downt the street and if we don't like that grocery store we can just go two more miles and go to another one.
I think about how blessed I am not live in China or North Korea or Iran (they could be beautiful places, I am talking about their government).
I try to sit down with my kids and explain to them the enormity of this blessing. And when we pray I always thank God for it. It is really hard to explain to children.

We are off to our friends house for the yearly July 3rd bash. See they live about a 10 minute walk from great fireworks. So they have a party and everyone walks to the show.
Saturday the party is at my dad's. See he lives on a lake that beyond it is downtown. So we can sit on his deck and see the downtown fireworks.

I haven't mentioned it in awhile but the pregnancy is going well. We are due October 11th. Hilda is a champ. Can you imagine having three rugrats to parent and and doing all this with a basketball in your gut? Then having to cook dinner and clean the house.

Okay with all that out of the way...
Now that I talked about how great our country is I want to tell you about a government run facility that is the community health center.
As I told you before I worked there for about 5 years. I think I was there two days a week to start then I went to one for the last 3 years or so.
I was an instructor and I was "the" dentist.
I think the center is a must. People have dental pain and they have no means to pay (or they don't have all of the means). So I think it is our governments responsibility to take care of its people (now I don't want to get into who is responsible. The people are responsible for their health so is the government and so am I. But I don't think we have figured how all three can work together).
Okay so the clinic is there. I use to see patients for an exam and then we would schedule for treatment. Basic dental flow. But the first hour of the day, like I alluded to on Wednesday, is set aside for three emergencies.
Now this was first come first serve, so you never know what you are going to get. You could have someone waiting for 3 hours since 5am. Sometimes you can have 5 emergencies.
You know me. I am a bleeding heart. I don't want to know the story. I don't want to know that the guy is driving a corvette but says he can't afford a dentist. I don't want to know that this person has a dentist and a year and a half ago the dentist told them that they needed a filling.
All I know is this person is in pain, and I mean in a lot of pain, and they are in my waiting room.
At my office we do not turn away people in pain. This is where my office and my "clinic" office differ.
The employees at the clinic do not necessarily have the same attitude as me. See at my office if the staff I have are paid to be an extension of me. Now the staff at the "clinic" office are being paid to follow rules. It is a job to them.
It is a nine to five. 15 minute break in the morning, one hour lunch, 15 minute break in the afternoon.
It seemed that the attitude was, people are in pain....not my problem.
I would think that if this clinic did not have to have regularly scheduled patients they could fill a day with just emergencies.
But why would they do this? There is no incentive to see patients. There is no reason to help the fourth and fifth emergency. If they see those people they are simply working harder for the same price.
I told you I am not the boss here. There were many of times I just shook my head at the "systems".
Now all five employees have been there for over 20 years. They are working for a government organization. How easy do you think it was to get rid of employees that are worthless? It was impossible.
The front desk person, who was very nice, didn't care that over 50% of the patients didn't show up.
She didn't care if people waited for 6 months to just get into the program. It was not in her job description to be responsible for people to show up.
Now you know that we all confirm our patients. Why then do they not confirm?
Now it is not the staff I blame, it is the bossman. He was too busy getting grants and filling out pages and pages of paper work to have this facility running. I like him, don't get me wrong, but his is a real wussy. He would never get on his staff for taking a smoke break in the middle of a crisis (which I have seen many a times).
So I would go in and they would pay me a bunch of money and I would sit and do nothing for almost half the day, because people wouldn't show up, meanwhile two hours ago they sent three people away that were in pain.
And don't forget I wasn't the only one standing around. Don't forget the three assistants and the front desk person.
So what got me ticked about this whole thing was that I read an article about someone trying to be a patient in a government facility.
See to be a patient you have to call on the first day of the month and this is the only day of the month that they make new patient appointments. All the other days the recording tells the helpless patient that they are booking 6 months in advance. So someone that is calling and they call all day there is about a 10% chance they are going to get someone on the phone and if they do the first available appointment is next March (can't imagine why people don't show up).
So this poor person in the article was lamenting about trying to call at the right time and waiting months just to get someone on the phone.
Now I started to think back about my time at the place she was trying to call.
If I ran my business like them I would be bankrupt in a jiffy and if they every ran their place like I run mine they would be able to serve their community so much better.
The only problem with them running their office like mine is that they would have a staff mutiny. They just don't work like that.
I really like the hygienist there. I had a hygiene opening in my office so I asked her to apply.
She kindly declined. I couldn't understand it. But after I thought about it for awhile I thought to myself why would she want to change her job? She sees about 5 patients a day on a tough day. Great benefits. A pension plan.
The staff use to always complain about the job. One of the staff kept asking me if I had any openings in my office. I would pretend I didn't here her.
They are always talking about leaving and going to work for a regular dental offices. Man that would have been a rude awakening. I would have loved to see this.

I don't know why this article hit me so hard. I felt so bad for this woman. It just made me mad thinking about how they won't allow someone to schedule for a new patient exam because it wasn't the first of the month, knowing good and well that they have 3 hours open on TODAY's schedule.

Got to run. Party starts in two hours.
Have a great weekend,
john

Hey all,

Nothing really going on at home. I am doing a lot of running.
Did I tell you I am training for another marathon. I want to try to break 4 hours. I am realizing this is a huge undertaking. This is about a 9 minute and 9 second mile. That is if you don't take breaks.
So now the training is harder and the breaks are shorter.
We ran 14 miles on Saturday. I ran 4.5 on Monday and I did speed work yesterday and I will run tomorrow.
Like I said, lots or running.

I went to the Nickelodeon Hotel last weekend. My wife's cousins came up from Miami. See our niece and God daughter turned three years old.
Here is the deal. It appears that I have become a resort snob.
You see when you go to the pool and it looks like the scene in the Titanic and when the ship sunk and there were thousands of people floating in the water you start to think, "Oh no".
Personal space went out the window. See the rooms were all suites. So some people thought, hey lets bring 25 people and jam them into a 3 bedroom suite.
So not only was I sharing my personal space with people in the pool, I was sharing it with people with tattoos on their necks and some with tattoos on there stomach.
Now I don't have a problem with tattoos. I have problems with tattoos on your neck and hands and stomach. Like if I see a guy, who has a tattoo on his hand and when he make a fist and it says a cuss word, I am at the wrong resort.
If someone has a tattoo of a spider web on his neck or chin is swimming next to me...I am at the wrong resort. He might be at the right one but I am at the wrong one.
My kids...they loved it. Me...not so much.
I had to wake up before 8am and go and put our towel on chairs so that when we made it to the pool about 9ish there would be a seat for us.

I have finished The Same Kind of Different as Me. Everyone that read this book absolutely loved it. Me...it was okay. It was good but for me it wasn't great.
I am now going to read a book called the Unlikely Disciple. This is about a intellectual. An undergraduate student at Brown University that decides to spend a year at Liberty college. Liberty is Jerry Faudwell's school.
You know the one....No Cussing, no dancing, no music, no dating.
I have a bad feeling about this book already.
I mean I don't like people looking at religion like a science experiment (especially my religion).
Or looking at Christians like cells in a peitre dish or mice in a maze..."lets see what they will do."

I want to start a series about my experiences as an employee in the Community Health.
I have told you about my past jobs. When I started full-time at my practice I was not busy enough to warrant working here five days week. I would work here three days a week and at the clinic 2 days a week.
At first I worked under the director of the clinic and over saw the clinic. At the beginning I would work on regular patients. Doing regular treatment plans and carrying them out.
We would see three emergencies a day on a first come first serve basis every day.
After about a year of this they changed the way the clinic ran. We now became a partner with the University of Florida, and this meant that the two days I was there I was going to be watching junior and senior dental students. They would come to our clinic for a two week rotation.
I have to tell you that I like this part the best. I loved the students that came in and wanted to get away from school for a week and just do work. No grades, no professor breathing down there neck. No pressure what so ever.
I gave them a bunch of autonomy (that is me asking how they would do it and then gently telling them how I would do it, and then making them do it my way).
I would usually take the students to lunch on the first week and if I liked them I would invite them over my house for dinner.
One thing that would always get me was the ego.
Even as a junior in dental school. Now let me say I think you know about 25% of what you need to know about "real" dentistry when you graduate from dental school. How much do you think they know a year and a half before they graduate? Maybe 5%.
I saw some people really screw up some things because they wanted to proceed before coming to me and asking for some guidance.
It is so hard to talk to a student and tell them it is hard on the outside. In school if you are getting "A's" on all your tests you start to think that you have it all together.
So this is why I had them over because then my wife tells them what a mess I was 3 years after graduating.
Then I moved. I moved to another clinic. Now I worked in this clinic as a dentist doing the same thing as I was doing at the other clinic (as just a dentist) for a couple of years. Then this clinic turned into a AEGD residency. For you non dentists this stands for Advanced Education in General Dentistry, the clinic became a place where graduate dentists come and do a two year residency.
This was good. The young dentist realize how much they didn't know and came to learn more.
I loved doing this. I loved preaching. I would come in with my problem of the week and the three of us would just rap dentistry.
But one thing I would always try to do was show passion.
I never wanted the young dentists or students to think that dentistry for me was a job.
Sometimes if feels like a job, and I have to drag my ass out of bed, but it is never the job.
I wanted them to know that regardless of the problems I was having, I consider it joy.

I am getting somewhere with this series.
I will show you an article on Friday about Community Health and I will push my opinion on you.

Have a great Wednesday,
John