Greg's Blog

White Water Rafting in Charlotte

Today I took my girlfriend and 4 Jetti's out to Charlotte, NC and enjoyed some white water rafting at the US National Whitewater Center. We booked a raft earlier this month and took the hour drive to the facility. Upon arriving we were witness to a gigantic park, featuring the largest man made circulating river in the world. Although there were various mountain bike trails, shops, restaurants, obstacle courses, and kayaking that could be done we decided to stick with the rafting for today.
When you first arrive, you must go through a half an hour of instructions that tell you everything from how to paddle to how to get back into your raft if you fall. We then were introduced to our guide John. He yelled at us a few times because of our lack of being able to paddle in unison but we quickly got the hang of it. For the next hour and a half, we rafted down three different waterways. Since I had never been rafting before, I was apprehensive at the first few falls. I soon realized that I would not fall out during every rapid. On the contrary, the glide down the rocks was actually fairly easy. I was disappointed at first about the difficulty of rafting until our guide introduced us to going back up the falls, which almost sunk us every time we tried it. The other thing I realized is that the front seats of the boat are exponentially more difficult to sit in than the back four. The front of the boat is constantly being dipped, turned, and popped up while the back stays pretty steady.
Scott and his wife Kelly were the only ones that were dunked into the water. At first it was pretty horrifying to see them fall off but Kelly basically jumped back in the boat as soon as she hit the water. Chris had to tug Scott back in a moment later. At one point another rafter fell in the water and we had to pick him up after he got stuck underneath our raft for a little while. We ended the trip with a fast paced trip through the hardest waterway... backwards.
If anybody is interested in going rafting, it is 35 dollars per person and you usually need to book your trip in advance.

One of the Best Teachers at Sherman College

Starting out at Sherman College, it is important to be prepared for your upcoming anatomy classes. Many students have referred to the first, second, and third quarter anatomy classes as the "weeding out" process because you have to commit yourself to studying to get through them. You also are introduced to dissecting and studying the anatomy of cadavers, an unforgettable experience. Not only are the anatomy classes tough, but you are spending more time in this class than any of the other classes you will have at Sherman College.

Luckily our school has a brilliant anatomy teacher that makes a subject that could be dry and monotonous into an organized, humorous, and interesting endeavor. Dr. Sheldon Clayton has been with the school since 1984 and has literally saved thousands of students from failing the anatomy portion of our national boards. He does not give "cupcake" tests and emphasizes the importance of attendance. In return, students have to focus each and every week so that they can pass the anatomy part of our curriculum. Having never taken an anatomy class in my life before coming to Sherman College, the material was pretty overwhelming to me. I spend a lot of hours after school rewriting my notes so that I could keep my B- average. During Anatomy 2, I realized how bad I was at studying the cadavers in our lab and ended up having my soon-to-be girlfriend of two years walk me through the miles of nerves, arteries, and veins of the human body.

Dr. Clayton would always take the extra steps to make sure we were learning as much as we could. He knew when our class needed a break and could use some of his comical stories. He aided us by creating videos that we could watch on our computer to study anatomy when the labs were closed. Most importantly, he made sure we had all of the tools we needed to get us through our national boards as well as to become better chiropractors.

I thought this was an interesting article in that it is so strongly connected to chiropractic. Researchers have developed a way for monkeys to use their minds to send signals to a robotic arm in hopes of advancing the technology of prosthetic limbs. It just goes to show you that your brain's communication with the rest of your body is so vital to maintaining good health. When these lines of communication are impaired, as can happen with subluxations, the messages that aren't getting through can be a real health hazard. Make sure you visit your chiropractor regularly to keep these communication lines open.

Sherman Elects a New Mascot

This is how I feel about the new mascot.

As one of the few people who actually plays sports around the county under the Sherman College name, I felt we had to change the unicorn as the mascot. I have written about this before but to reiterate, it was a little embarrassing to be the unicorns. Most of the time, our soccer teams would just "leave out" the unicorn name when registering a team into a league. Before there was a vote for the mascot, I was a big proponent of adopting the Raptors as the mascot because of the giant raptor statue that Reggie Gold donated to our school. However, I feel that being represented by a pack of lions was a good choice. I look forward to the 2008 Chiro Games with our new mascot.

Sleep Can be Hurting Your Spine

I have learned from Sherman College that one of the main causes of subluxation to the spine comes from prolonged inactivity, especially when your body is maintained in a bad position. I was reading an article from Health.com that had some helpful tips on how to keep excess stress off your spine while sleeping.

Dorothy Foltz-Gray writes,

"Back sleepers. If you have lower back pain, a small flat pillow under your knees may help your back curve naturally.

Side sleepers. A pillow between your knees can help to keep the pressure off of your hips.

Tummy sleepers. If you must sleep in this back-unfriendly way, a flat pillow under your tummy can help keep the spine's natural curves."

NBA continued...

If you have missed the entire NBA season, here is a quick recap of what happened in the last year....

Both the Celtics and Grizzlies lost the Kevin Durant/Greg Oden sweepstakes despite having the worst records in the league. Seattle landed Durant, while Oden went to the Portland Trailblazers. Oden however never played a game, having season ending surgery before the season started. Portland ended up being the surprise of the league even without Oden and just barely missed the playoffs.

The Celtics drastically changed their roster, trading away their entire team for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (two perennial all-stars). They went on to acquire the best record in the regular season.

In New York, coach Isiah Thomas had somehow spent more money than almost every other NBA team but could not get the Knicks to produce a winning record. He was charged with a sexual harrassment suit, was found guilty, and is now jobless. The Knicks threw out all the garbage in their front office and are now run by former Pacers GM Donnie Walsh and coach Mike D'antoni.

The Suns made a desperate move to bring an old and injury plagued Shaquille O'neal onto their team in hopes he could guard Tim Duncan when they would play their rivals the Spurs in the playoffs. Shaq couldn't get the job done and the Suns window of opportunity to win a championship looks very small now.

The Mavericks made a similar move getting an old Jason Kidd who lost any ability to shoot a jump shot. Likewise they dumped their coach and are also looking at a small window.

The Lakers were in the papers all season because Kobe Bryant was unhappy with his team's ability. They somehow got All-Star center Pau Gasol for next to nothing and are now the favorites to win the West. Kobe won the MVP just recently.

The Orlando Magic and New Orleans Hornets have been the Cinderella stories of the league so far. Led by the best point guard in the NBA (Chris Paul), the Hornets are in prime position to knock off the defending champion Spurs and get to the Conference Finals. The Magic have found maybe the best center in the NBA in young Dwight Howard and are battling the Detroit Pistons currently.

The Western Conference brought us one of the closest playoff races in NBA history. Only a few games separated the top seed from the last seed.

The Sixers and Hawks brought their fans some great hope for the future as they narrowly lost to huge favorites Boston and Detroit in their first round. Both are young teams that should be very excited for next year.

The Charlotte Bobcats continue to make bad moves in selecting players. Through the years they have tried to increase fan interest by drafting UNC players heavily despite the lack of recent talent from the school. They have given too much power to Michael Jordan, who has shown to be a bad judge of talent in terms of running a team. They are pretty cheap in terms of spending money on their players and are unfortunately not bad enough right now to get into the top 2 or 3 picks in the draft so that they can bring in a college star. I am not sure how they are going to right the ship in Charlotte. On the bright side, they are bad enough that I can get a ticket for 10 dollars and move up to one of the many empty seats in the arena to get a better view of the game.

Yao Ming broke his foot, ending his season.

Dwight Howard showed us the most exciting dunk contest in the last 10 years.

The Chicago Bulls were the most disappointing team of the year.

Utah became the toughest place to play in the country. Great fan base.

Seattle's heartless owner has decided to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

The Miami Heat became the laughing stock of the NBA despite winning a championship a few years ago with basically the same team.

Round 2 Action in the NBA

Due to the length of the blog, I am splitting up my thoughts of the 2008 NBA season and postseason into a few blogs.

As I have written before, this season might be one of the most memorable in NBA history. There are so many interesting story lines and crazy subplots going on that fans of almost every NBA city have built some lasting memories. Through the last few years, the NBA was dominated by the "big three" of the Western conference. Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio were simply playing at a level that no other team could match. But this year, there have been early exits by both the Suns and Mavericks, as well as failed blockbuster trades and coaching changes. While the Suns and Mavericks have been coming back to the pack, it looks like teams like Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Utah, and New Orleans have jumped into the upper echelon of the NBA. At his point in the playoffs, it looks as if anybody could win their series as Utah, Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland, San Antonio, New Orleans, Detroit, and Orlando are the only teams left. The odds on favorites to meet in the finals are Los Angeles and Boston, but after the last two days, neither of these teams looks very dominant.

For those of you who have been watching the playoffs, I am sure you have noticed how much better the TNT coverage has been compared to ABC and ESPN. ESPN has been especially awful to watch as they have Stephen A. Smith almost forcing viewers to change the channel during pregame, halftime, and postgame shows. TNT on the other hand has provided maybe the most entertaining coverage in the history of sports. They hit the jackpot with their postgame show "Inside the NBA." The show focuses on Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith throwing out all of the normal etiquette of your basic sports show and gives the viewer funny, honest opinions on teams.

While "Inside the NBA" has written the book on how to have a great postgame show, former-head-coach-turned-announcer Jeff Van Gundy has been equally as impressive as the color commentator in several of the games. His off the wall, yet insightful opinions on the games have been hilarious, confusing, and outrageous all at once. Most recently he demanded that Lebron James wear a scarlet "F" on his jersey for the rest of the series because of his excessive flopping (flopping is a term that describes a player diving onto the ground as if he was hit by a truck when in reality he was barely touched).

Business of Business

A couple of this quarter's classes revolve around the business aspect of operating a successful practice. There are so many different ways in which chiropractor's can design the way that they want to do business, that it is a pretty daunting job making sure you can keep track of all of your first year expenses. While Sherman College does not accept insurance, many chiropractors choose to include it as part of their payment plan. Unfortunately there are dozens of little nuances to filing insurance that must be remembered or you can dig yourself into an unpleasant hole. Hopefully I can continue to get advice from the chiropractors around campus about billing and managing records so that everything runs smoothly when I begin my own practice.