Archive for October, 2007
« Previous EntriesServing Firefighters Like They Serve Others
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
Numerous companies and corporations throughout the United States have made significant displays of generosity towards those affected by the 2007 California wildfires. While those actions are appreciated by many, there are thousands of people that dedicated their time and talents during the past two weeks, that the major media will less likely report about.
While the events were tragic and the devastation for many has yet to sink in, random acts of human kindness were plenty, during the days here since October 21. While the concept is not unique to chiropractors, there is a philosophy espoused amongst many of those in the profession of chiropractic to give for the sake of giving, serve for the sake of serving, and love for the sake of loving.
So when local chiropractors in San Diego began laying their hands on firefighters traveling in from their own state of California, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, and other states, they lived up to the old-school code in chiropractic to above all “serve mankind.” They didn’t call PR media firms, they didn’t make deliberate contact with local news, they just made their way to where they were needed most, and volunteered their services, expecting nothing financial in return.
What chiropractor Vic, Dr. Victor BJ Krauss of San Diego, didn’t know while he was serving one of the many firefighters that received an adjustment from him, was that one particular gentleman came from a family of firefighters who happen to frequent my office in Los Angeles, and I was notified about this chiropractors participation. In that lives another principle, you can’t out-give the giver.
So Dr. Victor Krauss, who is located at 6753 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego, CA 92115, deserves some recognition and appreciation from those of us in the profession of chiropractic for doing something the health-care industry was built upon, service to others.
Give Dr. Victor a call at 619-460-2887 and tell him he is in the news for his dedicated service to mankind, and that he is greatly appreciated for doing so.
Other chiropractors deserving recognition for serving others without expectation include Drs. Matt Hubbard (of Convoy Village Chiropractic) and Brian Stenzler. Both doctors practice in San Diego, California.
- - - - - - - - - -
Related Planet Chiropractic articles…
7 Southern California Wildfires Charities and Places to Donate
Mapping Fires in Southern California
From earlier California fires…
California Cedar Fire lessons
Decompression Nutrition Core Stabilization Seminars
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
From the batch of flyers I received in the mail over the weekend comes a decompression seminar in El Segundo, California, a nutrition seminar in Ventura County, California, and a core stabilization seminar also in California (but I thought it was in Cabo San Lucas).
The decompression seminar is on December 1 (which [...]
iPod Touch for Web Browsing and Music Listening
Sunday, October 28th, 2007By Michael Dorausch, DC
I picked up an iPod Touch today at the Apple Store, Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. I’d been looking at some mini computers and wanted to get something I could do some web browsing on. I didn’t know about this until just the other day and it looks like it has [...]
7 Southern California Wildfires Charities and Places to Donate
Thursday, October 25th, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
Thank you to all the friends, family, and colleagues who have been calling and e-mailing with concerns about our safety and well-being here in Southern California. Aside from a scratchy throat (from being a dummy and running outdoors on Tuesday) I’m doing fine here in Venice. Many others in the state are not so fortunate. I put together a list of charities and organizations that are accepting financial contributions intended to help those affected by the 2007 Southern California Wildfires.
California Volunteers
This is the state agency that manages programs and initiatives to increase the number of Californians involved with service and volunteering.
If your business would like to make a donation to help the victims of the Southern California fires please call: 1-800-750-2858
www.californiavolunteers.org
The Red Cross
According to the organization, monetary donations are needed most. If you’re sending checks they can be designated to “California Fires.”
American Red Cross, PO Box 4002018, Des Moines, IA, 50340-2018
www.redcross.org
The Salvation Army
Contributions can be made on-line at www.salvationarmyusa.org, by phone at (800) 725-2769.
Wells Fargo Bank
Wells Fargo has opened a special account called the “American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund (California Wildfire Relief Effort)” to help the fire victims. Make a donation at any branch, located throughout the Midwestern and Western United States.
Locate a Wells Fargo Bank
Operation USA
This is a Los Angeles-based nongovernmental relief organization that is providing medical supplies and assisting victims who do not have direct access to support services, including farmworkers and people in rural areas. Checks can be sent to: Operation USA, 3617 Hayden Ave., Suite A, Culver City, CA 90232
Credit card donations can be made by calling (800) 678-7255 or via the web site at: www.opusa.org.
Don’t Forget the Animals!
Dogs, cats (I can haz donationz?), llamas, horses, and all sorts of other pets and livestock have been displaced as a result of the fires, especially in the San Diego area. Agencies providing shelter and assistance for animals affected by the fires also are accepting donations.
Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The spcaLA’s Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) is a mobile command post and emergency response team for disaster situations, such as fires or earthquakes.
Visit the web site to make an online DART donation or call (888) 772-2521.
San Diego Humane Society
We need your help in supporting our efforts in rescuing, sheltering, and providing for the needs of the animals affected by the major fires now engulfing large parts of the San Diego County Area and in responding to future disasters. There is a link for making financial donations on the web site.
www.sdhumane.org
If you have something to add you can contact me via e-mail by clicking on the yellow envelope at the top of this post.
Thanks everybody!
More New Patients with Posters
Thursday, October 25th, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
I didn’t know where to put this so it’s ending up in the rant section. I’ve been posting regularly about stuff I get in the mail and I’m starting to get behind as a stack is building up on the couch. I can’t even lay down now so I’ve got to get [...]
Traveling San Francisco and Oakland
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
There’s nothing like getting away from your daily activities to open up your mind to other possibilities and perceptions of the world in which we live. My favorite travel is international but I take advantage of opportunities for lots of local trips on weekends. Living close to Los Angeles International Airport I am fortunate that there’s plenty of affordable opportunities for travel that can be done over the weekend. I typically travel at least twice a month for chiropractic events but I find it’s also important to do some non-chiropractic related travel once in awhile. This past weekend I took a trip up to Oakland & San Francisco and was back in Los Angeles by Sunday night.
Friday
I adjusted people in my chiropractic office until 7 pm on Friday and had an 8:30 pm flight to Oakland out of LAX airport. Some people would get nervous having a flight time so close to end of the day office hours, but once I got a travel preperation pattern down, everything typically flows nicely. For nearly all travel on the West Coast I use Southwest Airlines. At LAX, Southwest is in the first terminal, which allows me to park the car, grab my one carry-on, and walk to the terminal. I valet my car at ParkOne and get it washed while I’m out of town.
A flight from LAX to Oakland is about an hour and we were on the ground there before 10 pm on Friday. I was staying at the Marriott Courtyard (Courtyard Oakland Airport) and I’ll call the front desk for a shuttle pickup when I’m walking off the plane. That typically saves about 15 to 20 minutes if waiting for a shuttle.
The neighborhood around the Courtyard on Hegenberger is not anything spectacular, but I love the location for its convenience. Shuttle from the airport to the hotel takes less than 10 minutes and check in for me has never been a hassle. There is a sushi restaurant just next door to the Marriott that I believe opened less than two years ago. Great place to go for a late dinner and some drinks.
Saturday
Breakfast at the Marriott, waffles with fresh strawberries, and I’m off for a morning walk towards the bart station at McAfee Stadium. You can get a hotel shuttle to the bart if needed and you can also take the local bus. I like walking for the exercise and getting out to see the sights. A round-trip on the bart from Oakland Coliseum to Powell Street in San Francisco runs about $6.70 round-trip. The trip is less than 20 minutes and the trains run quite frequently (I don’t know the exact schedule). Getting off on the Powell Street exit puts you just underneath the Westerfield shopping Center Mall which is right by Union Square.
(A photograph of the bart map at Powell Street station in San Francisco. There is an iPod advertisement to the right of the train window.)
Apple pretty much has all advertising secured in the Powell station. Every pillar and location for posters featured an advertisement for iPod. I didn’t notice it at the time, but looking at my photos later, it looks like the actual advertising real estate is owned by CBS. Nice job by Apple in branding the entire Powell station.
There were lots of people in town on Saturday for the Nike women’s marathon so stores like NikeTown at Union Square were busier than I’d ever seen them before. I took some time to talk to some great folks at the Adidas store on Market Street. They were doing custom foot scanning for individually designed athletic shoes.
After getting done with the pre-day marathon involvement I had lunch at Max’s, which is just off of Union Square, and headed back to Oakland after a day of shopping Nordstrom’s, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s Men’s store, Bloomingdale’s, and others. Besides Los Angeles, this part of San Francisco has some of my favorite places to shop. My motto on clothing is pack light on Friday and leave room for new clothes to take home.
Sunday
If you’re planning to stay at the Oakland Marriott during football season you may want to check ahead and find out if the Raiders are playing while you’re staying at the hotel. On game day, you’ll encounter groups from the Raider Nation inside the hotel lobby and at breakfast. On this particular Sunday the Raiders were hosting the Kansas City Chiefs but I didn’t see any Kansas City fans at the hotel. Quite a few people were in town for the game and the restaurant was significantly more busy than it was on Saturday.
One thing I love about the Marriott Courtyard (thank you folks) is I get to check out and leave my bag at the hotel, while I go to see the game. I decided to walk to the stadium rather than use the hotel shuttle service. I’ve been to several football stadiums across the nation, but there are none like the Oakland Coliseum when hosting a Raiders game. The music is loud and they don’t mess around playing dorky country-western songs. Oakland knows how to rock a stadium with songs such as Hells Bells by AC/DC, Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, and Welcome to the Jungle by Guns & Roses. The raiderettes even danced to Crank Dat Soulja Boy but I don’t think the crowd was ready for it. I guess they missed the Spongebob version. In case you’re wondering, final score on Sunday was Kansas City 12 and Oakland 10.
Went for pizza at Red Brick after the game and headed back to the hotel for a shuttle to the Southwest terminal. If you’re flying Southwest on a Sunday night during football season you may also want to check if people are going to be coming from a Raiders game. If so, be prepared for some pretty hefty lines (they move quickly) and lots of people dressed in silver and black.
I travel with some essential electronics which include my laptop, Sprint Internet access card, digital camera, and some various cables, so I can pretty much hang out in an airport all afternoon or evening and get plenty accomplished. Not that I wanna hang out in airports but it is at about that time that all the activities of the weekend come together in ideas for web site articles, blog posts, stories in my office, etc. Fortunately, Southwest was impeccably on-time for both the Friday night flight and the Sunday night return flight. We flew the coastline from Northern California to Southern California and you could see the fires in Malibu while we’re approaching the LA airport. When we landed on the tarmac I thought I heard the flight crew say “Welcome to Los Angeles, you are now free to call your chiropractor.”
Mapping Fires in Southern California
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
I found a web site today that has organized a list of online mapping locations for the fires in Southern California.
I just came in from running on the beach in Santa Monica and the sky is a tinted haze due to all the smoke in the atmosphere. I was running along the shoreline and couldn’t see any evidence of fires in the Malibu area from the beach. I could smell the smoke at times but it’s not as strong here as it’s been in previous years. Looking out on the ocean there is a layer of gray on the horizon.
Getting back to the house I began to search for some sort of map that would show fire locations and current activity. I came across an article authored by Danny Sullivan, a former local reporter who is visiting Southern California, and he took the time to put together a list of web sites that are mapping the Southern California fires. For example, there’s information on Google maps about the Malibu Canyon fire. According to what is posted now, over 4400 acres have already burned and the fire is under 15% containment. About 1500 people have been evacuated from the area. That is the closest fire to my home in Venice (my mom was concerned).
Late Sunday night I was flying in from Oakland Airport, and you could see the fire in Malibu along the coastline. Interesting that you can’t see it from the beaches in Santa Monica, yet it’s actually rather close.
The last person in my office last night for a chiropractic adjustment was driving in from Simi Valley and she said that the ash from the fire on the roads may driving conditions slippery like driving through fresh snow. I had never even considered that. One more reason to drive safely and be careful when passing through areas such as the Interstate 5 freeway in Santa Clarita, and other major freeways that may still be open, but are in areas close to the fires.
Orthotic Foot Scanning At Five Adidas Locations
Monday, October 22nd, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
While I was in San Francisco this past Saturday, checking out the Nike Women’s Marathon Preview, I had some time to visit the Adidas store in Union Square. On the ground level of the store was a new foot scanning system that allows people to get custom orthotic fitting analysis while [...]
Interstate 880 South San Jose
Monday, October 22nd, 2007by Michael Dorausch, DC
Do you know the way to San Jose? According to this sign, which I took a picture of while walking along Hegenberger Rd in Oakland, Interstate 880 South is the way to San Jose. Looks like somebody tried to clean off graffiti from the sign. The soft flash on my digital camera [...]
Bay Area Chiropractors
Saturday, October 20th, 2007Something to consider when building out directory pages is names other than the common geographical location. For example, a chiropractic business in the San Fransisco area may want to incorporate terminology such as Bay Area Chiropractic and/or Bay Area Chiropractors.
This method could likely be applied to areas such as Palo Alto, Oakland, SanFran, Hayward, and [...]