Chuljian David T DDS

Information may not be reliable

Thanks to the Broders family for again allowing us the use of their property to do fireworks this weekend. For some odd reason, the Chinese weren't as keen to exchange fireworks for dollars this year, and prices were up about 30%. We compensated for this by doing fewer prepared set pieces ("Class B Cakes," for those in the know) and instead wired our own combinations of mines, ball shells, and cylinder shells. In the end, we calculated show prep required 80 hours, and the whole thing went off in 8 minutes. But it was a FUN 8 minutes. You can cut-and-paste the link below into your browser to see the video.

If that doesn't work, you can log onto Facebook, then do a search for "Susan Disman" who posted the fireworks video on her home page. Now I can relax until 12/31 when we do the First Night show . . .

This was the third year that I've put on the fireworks for First Night Port Townsend, and we got lucky with regard to the weather again--it rained during setup, and was windy most of the day, but calmed down for the midnight show. Midnight New York time, that is--9:00 p.m. here. But hey, old folks like me can't stay up past 10 anyway. It was a bit less than two minutes of mayhem, predicated on the assumption that a good fireworks show goes off all at once! Most people I talked to thought it was way longer than two minutes--I'm not sure if that's a compliment or a put down . . . I tried to include video here, but this blog won't let me do that, so I put it on my Facebook page. Search for "David T Chuljian" and click on the video. I'm having trouble getting this blog to accept the link,

As many of you know, my parrot, Chick Eastwood came down with cancer in August of 2009. Over the next several months, he lost vision in both eyes, but was still enjoying life, climbing around his cage like nobody's business, and still eating well. He was slowing down, however, and while I hoped he was in remission, it didn't seem likely given the type of cancer. On New Year's morning I was holding him and he had a really bad seizure. It was the second seizure I'd witnessed, but a lot worse than the first one. So I decided it was time, and the vet came to my house. I don't know that I'd do it that way again, as it was definitely more traumatic for him since he couldn't use isofluorane there, and Chick was apparently aware that he was dying, but I was at least able to hold him, and his mate was on my shoulder watching and being with him. That night we made a funeral pyre for him, put him in a box with a little blanket, and his favorite foods, and after it burned down to embers flung the sparks into the wind to the music (ignore the video, it's totally inappropriate to a Viking birdie send-off):

I'm hoping this isn't a portent of how the year is going to go. He was a wonderful little featherbag, and I will miss him; he lived with me almost 20 years, and was cuddly to the end.

For those of you coming to the office hoping to see our office mascot, "Baby," whose photo adorns the banner--he's moved to Sequim. A family medical problem resulted in Dr. Dave adding three more parrots to his menagerie, and seven birds in one kitchen was just a bit much. Regretfully, he found homes for the three most adoptable, and one of those was Baby. Currently, our Friday avian hygienist is Molly Gray, whose photo and bio we'll eventually put on the website. She can imitate the sound of a dental drill, a squeaking door, owls, cats, dogs, the fire alarm, microwave ovens, and a host of other things, many of which we can't recognize.

There is a new website which has a nice oral cancer self exam. While it's not a substitute for seeing your dentist--visibility in your own mouthjust isn't that great--it's a great thing for everyone to do occasionally, and the website is free. Here's the link,
www.oralcancerselfexam.com

I can't seem to make the blog manager accept a link, so you'll probably have to cut and paste the info into your browser.

There have been some minor changes to the website recently, including updated versions of the forms and some new pictures in the "Our Services" section, particularly about implants. If anyone notices problems with the site, please report them to me and I'll try to get them fixed as soon as possible (use the "Contact Us" page). Thanks! dtc