I attended a small get together a few Sundays ago and enjoyed awesome food, cold beers, beautiful beach weather, and friends.  At dusk, people started to head home, and we quickly realized that one person had a couple too many drinks and shouldn’t be driving.  A friend of mine conveniently had a breathalyzer on his keychain and whipped it out.  Most of us had never seen anything like it, and were pretty impressed with the shiny new toy.  Just a couple short minutes later, we unbiasedly proved to her that she was not fit to drive, and with the red light blinking in front of her eyes, she couldn’t argue with the facts.  She gave the keys to someone who was sober, and we avoided what could have been a close call.  The rest of us kept playing with the thing for at least a half hour.  It was kinda fun!

Even though it’s obviously best to not drink any alcohol before driving, I have a few recommendations in the way of portable breathalyzers and iPhone apps (yes iPhone apps!) that can be helpful in gauging your blood alcohol content (BAC).  Disclaimer:  none of these are 100% accurate.  First, the breathalyzer I mentioned above is only $10 on sizzletwist.com.  You blow onto the sensor for at least 3 seconds and it will report if your BAC is low (less than .05%), borderline (.05% to .08%), or legally intoxicated (greater than 0.08%).  It’s small enough to fit into your pocket and takes AAA batteries.  Keep in mind that you can get a DUI at .08%, and if you’re under 21, your state may have a “no tolerance” law which means if you’ve had anything to drink you’re screwed.

On to iPhone apps.  Even though these apps don’t know all the factors affecting your BAC, (what you’ve had to eat during the day, your emotional state – yep, that’s a factor too) it’s still worth checking out.  I recommend it as a tool to gauge your typical BAC.  Just be sure to enter your drinks in your iPhone as you go.  “DrinkTracker” warns you when you’ve passed your target BAC (eg: .05%) and “Last Call” lets you know when you’re over the legal limit and gives you local cab numbers to call.

Staying safe and having some fun while you do it…

Elena Shapiro.  Young, beautiful, talented. But now the 20 year old ballerina is dead after a drunk driver named Raymond Cook hit her car going 85 mph in a 45 mph zone last Friday Sept. 11th.

“This was an accident.  Nobody should be charged with murder due to an accident.  Dr. Cook should not be charged with anything or have his license taken away.  He needs to work and pay the family for what he has taken away from them.  We should not be locking people up for having a drink and driving home. DUI is not a crime!”

The above comments (there were many, many more) were posted online in response to a short Huffington Post article, and I was perplexed by the repetitively insistent claim that what Cook did is not a crime.  This is a crime: a young life was cut short due to a very careless drunk decision.  Not even Raymond Cook would disagree with that, I believe.  He recently released this statement to Elena’s family: “My wife, parents, and family join me in expressing our most profound sympathy to Ms. Shapiro’s family.  Yet we understand that words can never take away the pain of her loss.  Today, I surrendered my license to practice medicine.  In addition, I resigned my faculty position at UNC and my employment with WakeMed Facial Plastic Surgery.  Later this week, I will enter a program that treats substance abuse.  Time might heal some things, but it will never take away this hurt and this loss.”

Here is the bottom line.  This IS a crime.  Elena is dead.  You cannot put a dollar amount on a life.  There must be consequences, and people must know that if you get behind the wheel of a car drunk you could get in a whole lot of trouble with the law – oh and you also might “accidentally” kill someone.  If we know we won’t be punished, then think how many more people would be driving around drunk and putting innocent people in harm’s way?  Let me add that Cook had a previous offense with a DWI charge.  Why shouldn’t he have his license taken away?

I myself have gotten a DUI.  I am not proud of it.  I was 16 and it was a huge mistake.  But I’m glad there were consequences for my actions.  Otherwise, how would I have learned that it was wrong and I shouldn’t do it again?  I am not perfect.  Cook isn’t either, but I also don’t see him as evil for what he has done.  But at least Cook seems to know that not only has he made a terrible mistake, but he needs to pay for it, and not just with the green stuff.

This video is awesome – OSU sousaphone player bashes right into the cameraman while “dotting the i” in Script Ohio this Saturday.  Pay attention when he yells “watch out!” before slamming right into the camera – if you can’t see the camera part fly off into the air, here is an image below.  Sorry about the loss this weekend OSU : (

HALFTIME is in honor of my high school biology teacher, Mr. Williams, who gave us a break every day in the middle of class by telling a cool story, or doing something funny like cramming 6 golf balls into his mouth.  Not everything has to be all serious all the time.