High Technology Dentist

I had to tell you about my new found dentist. Saturday I bit down on a Hershey Bar (from the frig) and broke the side of a tooth that had a Gold crown on it. It managed to leave a really sharp bothersome edge that prevented me from talking well, and it cut my tongue. So.. I was anxious to find a dentist, come Monday to give me some quick fix. This is the second time in 8 months that I have been to the dentist thanks to CANDY. Last time I took one bite of some English carmels and when I opened my mouth, the carmel contained a cap to another tooth (it could have been the same one come to think of it...)

Anyway, my mouth is not really what I wanted to discuss. This Dentist I'm about to discuss has a practice in Hemet, California. Hemet is best known for its many retired folk living in semi-permanent trailer homes. It's not known as the hotbed of medical or dental innovation. (Though it probably has a more than normal density of such professionals due to the demands of older age Americans for staying healthy.)

First clue: I found his web site and he had his email address on it. So.. about 7 PM on Sunday I emailed him with my problem, and surprise.. he returned the email in less than an hour telling me to call him for an Appointment the next Morning. I was shocked. Most medical professionals have a hard time writing the word e-mail, much less knowing how to use it. (One of my pet peeves: a medical profession that eschews the use of computer technology to do any more than posting bills and keeping track of client addresses.)

Anyway, I visited Dr. David May on Monday morning. (His secretary asked when was the soonest I could get there...there is an eight month wait in England for a dentist). He said we would have to build a new cap for the tooth since most of the side was gone. Now, normally you'd have to have an impression of the empty hole in the tooth sent to a lab and wait two weeks. He has a 3D CAD system in the office that takes a picture of the tooth (actually two images, one of the tooth with the crown intact, and one after the crown was taken out), and it creates a 3D image of the area on the computer screen (he's doing this next to me in the dentist chair where I can see it.) He sits there and uses the system to build a tooth on the screen, turns it around for different views, and generally guides the program to a 3D model of a new "tooth hopeful".

Once he is satisfied that the tooth is right and the clearances between the teeth are OK, he uses an in-office wireless ethernet to control a milling machine in the next room to create the enamel looking cap. Once the 3D image is constructed it takes 18 minutes. So, within less than 1.5 hours I was out of there with a new tooth crown in my mouth. And.. since it replaced the Gold one, it looks like a normal tooth.

In addition, he uses digital x-ray photography to have instant x-rays and it reduces the x-ray dosage by a power of ten! I asked him if I could have a copy of the x-ray and he asked if I had a portable USB drive (I didn't), so he said he would email it to me.

So.. maybe this isn't that interesting to you, but I'm impressed that this guy would spend almost $100,000 on such a machine for his private practise so that he could have more control over the end result and happier clients.

One other thing. This dentist was willing to spend enough time with me to make me feel important, or at least that I wasn't in a MacDonald's fast-food line. So many dentists are too busy to talk to their patients. He answered all my questions and took the time to show me how everything was done.

If you need a good dentist in Southern California, Dr. David May in Hemet, California is a good bet.

Something Good

I've decided that I don't want to sound like an angry man, or a man without anything positive to say, so I want to promise any readers that I'll begin to balance my negative remarks with positive remarks. I don't mean that I'll balance every subject to make it sound neutral, but if I disparage George Bush, I'll think of something positive about the world to say at the same time.

People get tired of hearing of other people bitching and moaning about the world. That's because it's so easy to do. There's so much wrong. I suspect it's a bit harder to praise or find positive in something around you. I'm as guilty (or more) than the next person, so I'll try harder to balance my opinions with something positive. (Of course if I'm talking about something factual, or neutral, it doesn't count!)

I'm afraid I learned my negative attitude early in life. I was taught to be skeptical about everything. Not that being skeptical is bad.. it just doesnt' need to form the whole structure that holds my life together. It's good to be skeptical on the Internet, or when buying a car, or shopping for carpet, for instance.

So, what is my positive thing to balance my nasty thoughts I expressed yesterday about living in or near Los Angeles? Well, today I'm practising my music. I love music. Music is something I'd be unhappy without. It not only appeals to the emotional part of my being, but to the logical and creative sides. I'm always amazed at the talent I hear everywhere in music. It's closest to the universal form of communication that we can achieve. I smile when I hear a clever piece of lyric or melody. I amaze at the technical abilities of really good musicians, and I enjoy playing myself. (I learned Saxophone in high school, played a bit in college, and recently revived my playing with an electronic wind instrument (Yamaha WX-7 wind controller and VL1M synthesizer). It's a perfect instrument for the RV. I can use earphones and all my wife hears is the clicky-clack of my fingers (and that is soft).

So.. today's positive note is that music is good. I listen every day for several hours: classical, jazz, popular 40's, and show tunes (no I'm not gay). I listen to XM Satellite Radio, or music on my iPod when I'm walking the dog. Another day I'll talk about my feelings about where things are going with the technology of music.

So... have a nice day (even if you do live in Los Angeles).

In Los Angeles

Sorry for being so negligent of my blog. It's hard to write a blog. It's hard to decide what of the million thoughts I have each day to share with total strangers, and some people that aren't.

In any case, I'll try to do better. I want to stay away from politics. It gets my stress level going and that is something I'm trying to minimize. I'm still very unhappy with the US political situation.. but that's another story.

Well, I'm not doing too well at managing my stress while in Los Angeles. Today we moved from one of our favorite haunts in the mountains above Palm Springs to another place about 60 miles away on the edge of Los Angeles. The RV Park isn't so bad, (it's up a canyon hidden from the rest of LA) but the freeways getting there are horrendous.

After arriving in the RV Park (Mountain Lakes in Lytle Creek), I left in the Jeep to go to Upland to take my wife to see her sister. I noticed that the traffic going the other way (on Interstate 15) was stopped for about 6 miles. I decided to come back another way to avoid this.

After driving through city streets, dodging various accidents and a fair share of idiot drivers, I was ready to return home. I was doing fine on city streets until I got about 3 miles from the freeway on-ramp (which I need to go under, not onto). It took 40 minutes to go those 3 miles. This was on a 2 lane feeder street, not the freeway.

I later found out this was normal for Friday. It starts about 3 PM and goes to who knows when. People are so desperate to leave Los Angeles they put up with hours of stop and go traffic, smelly fumes and idiot drivers. The smog in Los Angeles was so bad that you could see the layers like those in a layered cake.

OK... after all that detail... my question is: Why would anyone in their right mind want to live in this? I can not figure it out. I am here because of my wife's family. Maybe everyone has family nearby? Certainly they could find jobs elsewhere?

My lesson from this is that I am SO HAPPY to have the freedom to leave this mess soon and be back in places like Idaho, or Montana where you can drive for hours and see three cars and several Elk, Moose, Antelope, rabbits, etc..

Maybe it's my age, but I just have no tolerance for the noise, the smog, the rush, the pushing, the smells, the dirt, the trash, the traffic accidents, the miles and miles of franchise stores (Home Depot, Michaels, Boston Chicken, Radio Shack, Walmart, KFC, McDonalds...ad nauseum). Every city in the USA is starting to resemble every other city. The variation is getting smaller and smaller. No wonder people enjoy visiting European cities. At least there are regional variances that give you a sense that people have their own minds, with their own thoughts, separate cultures, etc.

Enough.

Good Night