I recently found myself on the "client" side of the health care equation. I was on vacation - Canada to be exact - visiting my family and looking forward to some rest and relaxation. It would be a nice change of pace from the summer in Austin, that's for sure. Within hours of my arrival, I was stepping out onto my father's front porch ... placed my foot in an awkward position ... and suddenly, I felt an ouch. I sat down - and within moments, found myself trying to problem-solve my way out of it. That's the physical therapist in me - collecting data, assessing my active and passive ranges of motion, trying to make sense of my apparent clumsiness doing something I've done routinely for 40-odd years!

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There were many years in which I truly believed that Hawai'i was probably one of the last places I wanted to visit. Commercialized. A tourist mecca. Haven for newlyweds and the like. Las Vegas of the Pacific -ok, well maybe not quite that bad (and certainly with a whole lot less polyester) ...

Then I made that fateful trip to the Big Island in 2002 - and my life changed forever.

I can look back on it now and chuckle a bit. I went purely for non-metaphysical reasons - to experience the Ironman World Championship (and as a coach no less). It was a short trip, and the intent was, admittedly, far from "self-discovery". But all it took was walking off the plane, onto the tarmac at the airport in Kona - and I knew it was a special place. There is a purity, a vibe, a power that emanates and pervades all existence on the Big Island. It is something that words can't truly describe. It's a bit mystical and other-worldly, but it was definitely something I noticed immediately upon arrival.

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In today's world, the paradigm of health care is based around "going to see a provider for care". Yes, there are certainly instances and circumstances in which this is a necessary scenario. The question I pose today is this - how many health-related issues do we experience that can be readily dealt with on the basis of self-care strategies - if we simply knew how to use them?

Many of the chronic health issues facing our society today - for example, heart disease and diabetes - are integrally related to self-care. "Lifestyle changes" are critical to success with many (if not all) long-term chronic conditions. Along with these chronic conditions, we have another set of conditions that are self-limiting and have their own natural history. Consider the common cold as but one example. How many people get it? Lots. But it has it's own self-limiting course that it takes, and with time (and an environment in which the immune system can respond as it is designed), the condition goes away.

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Today is a big day in Texas. It's election day - and with any luck, the picture of our impending national election in November will be a little clearer.

In the midst of all of this, and after discussions with many (because "talking politics" starts to feel like "talking Longhorns football"), I found myself wondering about the potentialities that are ahead of us. So before the events of today play themselves out completely, I thought I'd throw out a few thoughts in no certain order ...

Let's take a look at our contestants.

I've got to start off with a comment by the Clinton campaign this past week - about how Barack Obama doesn't have the "experience" necessary to be president (and, of course, following that up with "... and Hillary does").

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