Friday before the Marathon

[This was supposed to be published last Friday; my apologies.]

Hey all,

Gonna be a short one today. I am off to Chicago tomorrow morning, and I have a very busy day today. I have to tell you - I am kind of nervous. I don't know why. I think because it is out of town and I don't want to forget anything. We are getting in at about 1pm tomorrow, and the Expo where I have to pick up my number and stuff closes at 5pm. This is kind of tight for my liking, but it is what it is.

I have to remember my watch, my Ipod, the chargers, my shoes, and appropriate clothing. I have to remember my camera for my wife to take photos of me winning 1st prize (or just finishing). I have to remember my computer so I can watch DVDs on the plane. I have to go to the store today to by earphones and running stuff before I go. I am just kind of stressed out and, oh yeah, I have to run 26.2 miles on Sunday.

So before I forget, my website for the smiley silly wristbands is up and running. Very basic but it gets the job done. The order is in and for the first 400; we are going to lose money but I want to see how it goes.

I am still in a quandry over the price. It is a packet of 5 dental-related plastic wristbands. What would you sell it for? Or, better yet, what price would you buy it for? $1? $1.50? Would you pay $2? Think about it, and at the end of the blog, I will tell you how much 2,000 bands cost to have made.

Today I am going to tell you about one of my successes and Wednesday I am going to show you how I messed up one tooth. We have been blogging together but we haven't really talked about screwing things up. I think in the three years I have been blogging, I haven't really done anything that was terrible... until today. I am embarrassed to show you, but I think if I show you all my successes it is only fair that I show you when things don't go all that well.

Success
I don't know if we have ever talked about it, but I do root canals. I don't have a problem with doing molars; in fact, I like doing molars. I have been doing root canals since I got out of school. I went to a bunch of hands-on courss after I graduated and felt really confident in my ability (and since then, I feel like I have really improved). I took a Steve Buchanan course and it changed my life. He taught me rotary instrumentation and warm gutta percha obturation. The thing is, I have been doing my root canals the same way for about 12 years.

I have looked at periodicals and they still are teaching the same technique.
I have called my old dental school professor (I know what you are thinking, "Oh, yeah, dental school is where to get cutting-edge dentistry."), and he says that it is still the technique that I am using. Well, the other day I got into this lateral and I soon found out that it was pretty curved.

I thought about closing it up and sending to an endodontist, but I figured, as long as I am here, I might as well see this through. I got to tell you that I didn't think it was going to come out this well. I thought I would be a millimeter short but, man, did it come out well. Here is the final x-ray:



This is a success. Now, before you go thinking about how awesome I am, I just put in a call to my oral surgeon to see how he is going get me out of this doozy that I did today. I will tell you all about it on Wednesday.

Have a great weekend,
John

P.S. Ok, how much would you spend on 5 smiley bands? What if you are a pediatric dentist and you are going to buy 100 packets? How much would you spend for each pack?

Thanks for your help.