The Roving Eye: 2/9/08

Ole Eichhorn is blogging again, and has been for about a month. Welcome back!

My favorite new read of the holiday season was Richard Preston's "The Wild Trees"" (Fluffer to Kevin Kelly for the recommend.) It tells the story of men and women compelled to find the world's tallest tress - and climb them. Many of these monsters are in North Coast redwood country that I know fairly well. Not that I've got ambitions towards the climbing, but I'd love to walk those groves. [Shack happy already? — ed. Yes.] The author has a photo gallery section on his site that's well worth a look. Sort of puts my own old growth hunting activities in the shade, so to speak.

If you're anticipating major surgery, voluntary or otherwise, here's a word for you: Acidophilus. Seems the antibiotic cocktails used to prevent post-operative infections are also powerful enough to blow away your internal set of intestinal flora. That's the collection of bacteria that have become our symbiotic digesters in return for a usually congenial host environment. Once they're gone, the old GI tract - um - doesn't work so well. So the Acidophilus capsules with replacement flora, usually ignored by all but diet supplement fiends, are suddenly important in rebooting the system. You can find them at the nearest health food store - that would be Trader Joe's in our case. HT: our doc, who we love for his minimalist outlook on prescriptions.

Best YHOO post. Cruel, but fair, just like the Piranha brothers.