It was with great excitement that I watched the clock strike midnight last Saturday. December 22. Whew. Apparently, we had survived the end of the world successfully. And I felt fine (with all due respect to R.E.M. of course). Time just kept on moving along – or as the Rolling Stones once noted, “time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me”.

But that left us with Christmas just a scant 4 days later. Would we be able to get our last-minute shopping done?

They tell me that it was all just the beginning of the age of Aquarius. Little did I know. One thing that an impending and successfully averted apocalypse will do – it will cause you to reflect on life as you know it. And if the aforementioned apocalypse doesn’t put you in a reflective frame of mind, maybe Christmas and the holiday season will.

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It is a call to action that has resonated with me for years. It is a call to action that I have used repeatedly, having even written a blog post of the same title last year.

The Right To Choose.

It was a great day when physical therapists in Texas adopted this phrase as a rallying cry for consumers. Simple - and to the point. The next legislative session in Texas is in 2015, and consumer awareness can't begin a moment too soon.

In a country founded on free markets, you would expect consumer choice to be a primary element in health care. My question to you, the reader, is simple: does a patient have the freedom and the right to select their health care provider freely and of their own volition? The answer, in the vast majority of states across this great land, is a resounding "no".

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Happy Holidays! It is that special time of year again, a time that we run around frantically from store to store, curse the traffic, and agonize over getting just the right gift for Uncle Fred. Ah the special enjoyment that the holidays bring us [insert sarcasm here].

Oh, wait, there’s more, or maybe not. With this year’s holiday season comes something a little different, courtesy of the Mayan calendar. The world might just end on December 21. That sure would take the edge off of last-minute Christmas shopping. I am sure that our friends in New Zealand can give us some lead time to let us know if December 22 makes an appearance. It will still be 5:00 am here in Austin, so 19 hours of lead time might be a good thing.

Meanwhile, plans move forward for the holiday season. So sit back, grab a glass of egg nog, and enjoy the latest episode of the Rhubarb Report.

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I have been a photographer for many years. It all started with an Instamatic, progressing to a 35 mm SLR, a point-and-shoot digital camera, and now to a digital SLR. I think I had my first camera when I was 9 or 10 years old.  Having a camera in my hands is a natural feeling for me. 

Photography was almost my chosen profession. It was that or physical therapy. Yes, a strange dichotomy and a very intriguing story to go along with it. I'll share that tale at another time, but suffice it to say we all know which pathway I took.

I appreciate the challenge in taking the best photo possible. It is all about being in the right place, at the right time. Part of it is the creative aspect of putting colors and tones and lines in an image artistically. But part of it is a technical process. You have to select the right lens for the task at hand.

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