SultanOfSwing

Lion in Winter

Not to wade into a battle, but a friend of mine had a near-fatal heart attack while in DC on a business trip. The emergency medics broke his chest bone and a few ribs bringing him back (NOT complaining!) and he had a pacemaker inserted in the hospital. He was on morphine for broken bones and had been diagnosed with a large coronary artery blockage which they did not treat. He was considered "stable" after 10 days and released with a large bag of pills and instructions to "find a cardiologist."

He did have excellent insurance coverage, fortunately.

robin1234

Can you explain this statement? As far as I'm aware, the NHS is simply not organized on the concept of certain medical issues being "not covered." Are you saying that if someone goes to the A&E in the UK with concussion from boxing, they won't be treated.

Apparently, doctors in the UK want boxing to be illegal, because, unlike (for instance) rugby, the health risks outweigh any benefits of the activity...

YouWantFriesWithThat

Yes - it was a joke, Robin, or a bad attempt at one

robin1234

OK sorry! My attempts at researching on Google were hampered by all the links about NHS and Boxing Day services!!

petitefrancaise

I know I've contributed to this but...

why does it seem that whenever there is a UK/USA thread it always goes to health coverage?

Let's be British and talk about the weather!!!

The weather in Austin today is FAB! I do not miss Scottish winters one iota. Actually the winters I could cope with, it was the summers that really got me down!

Summer here in Texas is HOT. However, last summer I packed up the car with kids/tent and bikes and went to Colorado, which was amazing. And cooler. With Bears apparently.

YouWantFriesWithThat

No probs, see post 284 and then preceding posts for context.

Pulaski

You're relatively new here. Many threads cover the weather - hurricanes, tornadoes, heat (dry and humid), cold, intense cold, and wind chill, snow, hail, rain, floods, and droughts, and related natural phenomena such as mudslides, wildfires, and earthquakes. I only know of one narrow strip of real estate with no or very low risk for all of the above.

robin1234

Weather is the US is obviously all over the map, even in the UK there are major differences, dry east and wet west for instance.

Me, I cannot live in this climate any more and it is ruining my health. Winters are simply too long and much too cold (anything below 10 degrees F is too cold for enjoyable outdoor activities, IMHO.) Much of the summer is too hot for comfort (85+)

By contrast, I can enjoy walking, cycling or just being outdoors EVERY single day of the year in Norfolk. Sure, I'd seek shelter if it pelted down with rain, but Norfolk gets about 25 inches of precipitation per annum, compared to 80 to 120 inches which I think is the norm in the US northeast....

robin1234

Yeah, I know, your back yard. But you have that weird thing going with your trees..

SultanOfSwing

It's not just the British. All people bloody do around here is bitch about the ****ing weather.

Oooo, it's winter, it's cold. Ooo, it's summer, it's hot. **** OFF.

robin1234

Oh jeez, Pulaski and his emoticons! I didn't even know what they were till you pointed it out!!

Pulaski

Your perception may be off, Massena averaged 35"/yr from 1981 to 2010. The northern New York region varied from 35" to 50" during that period, mostly clustered around the low 40's".

The only data point in the whole state with an average significantly over 50" is Slide Mountain at 62.8".

robin1234

Interesting. It does seem to rain heavily here all the time. But it seems I've been unfairly & inaccurately slagging off the US all these years! Whoda thunk!

petitefrancaise

well, that was a bit tongue in cheek from me, should have used the emoticons.

Talking about the health/weather differences is so, well, "old people" as my teenagers might say. That's not to say they're not important but there is other stuff too.

my daughter just came back from a hackathon for high schoolers in San Francisco where she stayed with a Goddess of high tech and got to meet a Google High Priest. She's off to study CS next year and thinks the US is the best place on earth. She's a bit quirky, a "third culture" kid and has met many kids just like her here in Austin.

My younger children are also thriving here, their schools provide them with many opportunities to shine, diverse subjects (chinese AND german for my son) who will end up being a physics major at college. I'm not sure that could have happened in the UK and most definitely not in France.

There have been other threads where it has been mentioned that "our" children have stayed here in the USA even though they could easily have returned to UK/EU. Maybe we could look at it through their eyes?