The Polar Bear Club Photo Essay

Back around 1990 I joined the local "Polar Bear Club" by jumping into a partially frozen river on January 1st. I remember it being a VERY cold day. We had to break some ice away from the river's banks to be able to jump in. I also remember standing on snow after getting out because IT FELT WARMER THAN THE GROUND. Good times! A few years later I needed a Christmas break photo essay for my high-school photography class and I remembered the Annual Polar Bear Plunge. I arrived on scene with my 35mm loaded with classic black & white film. I snapped a few photos of the plunge, developed the negatives that week, printed/mounted the shots the following week and got a decent grade on the photo essay. I recently unearthed the poster-board on to which I had glued the photos. Rather than just throw it away I have decided to retype my essay correcting only the spelling errors and share it with the world. Ladies and Gentlemen... The Polar Bear Club!

The date is January 1992. The time is 11:59 A.M. The temperature is approximately 34 degrees and the stage is set for the seventh annual Polar Bear swim in the Tulpehocken river at Stone Cliff. This year the number of Polar Bears slipped to five after peaking at thirteen in 1986 but there could be no doubting the bravery of the remaining quintet.

A small crowd of spectators and photographers as well as passers by stood waiting as the local heroes stripped to their swimming suits and prepared for the inevitable [shock] that awaited them. Then as watches and alarms announced the start of a new hour, five figures plunged into the frigid river and, after much gasping and wheezing, swiftly departed the murky waters. Shivering visibly, the five quickly donned warm and dry clothes, thankful that it was over but already anxious for their next opportunity to prove their worthiness of the title Polar Bear.

A split second before the Big Chill



The Polar Bears take the plunge


The swimmers hit the beach

Now back to cleaning out the basement (and justifying keeping the flat-bed scanner).

More Mailbox Mayhem

It has been a while since I shared the contents of my "Other Eric Dalton's" spam folder. Much of it really isn't spam and the past few weeks has seen a few real gems. Names, excepting mine, have been changed to protect the errant!

Of course, I continue to get invoices and quotes intended for E.D. of South Africa. Everything from industrial vacuums to boxes of paper to... Grease Nipples!



My namesake in Minneapolis is invited annually to a CBS Sports March Madness pool. As best I can tell... he has never won the pool... possibly because it is my address getting the invite? Phoenix Arizona E.D. was busy too... with a different kind of pool. He got a quote from North Star Pools for cleaning out and repairing his swimming pool. He's one of the worst for giving my address to marketers.  It is nice to finally pinpoint a location. Now that I have his address I'll send him a post card when I'm visiting.  Over the years he is probably responsible for:
North Star Pools (March 2017)
Desert Schools Federal Credit Union (March 2017)
P.F. Chang's (February 2017)
Hughes Federal Credit Union (October 2015)
PetSmart (March 2015)
University of Phoenix (April Fools 2011)

But my FAVORITE of the week was this gem from my friends in Virginia:



I have no words to describe my feelings about this email. Until next time, stay classy!

Not just rich... Beanie Rich!

I was recently mindlessly browsing the Facebook and a post caught my eye with an idiotic title suggesting that "if you have one of these 11 beanie babies you can retire now". I must have been avoiding doing actual work because I clicked through and crunched the numbers. If I had all of them and could sell them at the prices the inflated prices and EBay/Amazon didn't take their cut... I would have only 150 thousand dollars and couldn't possibly retire. Sounds like a Pump-and-Dump scam to me. But it got me to thinking.... so I brought out my Beanie Baby collection. Yeah, I have a whole collection! Back in the late 90s when they were all the rage I noticed the pattern that if they had "hard parts" like pincers, beaks, horns, etc, they were not collected as aggressively so they became rare. This collection method seems to have worked as my paltry beanie-stash contained 2 of the 11 on the list. Hooray! Good thing Allison wasn't too interested in them the last time I brought them out.

So, can I retire for a month or two at least? The two should fetch $3500. Let us check the Electronical Bay of Auctions to see for what price they are actually selling:
Mystic the Unicorn (with the Iridescent Horn & Yarn Mane) goes for $5.00 NOT $1,000. Oh well.
Claude the Crab (with the "error" on the hang-tag) goes for $4.00 NOT $2,500. Dad Gummit.

So, no I can't retire or even pay for my Fat Tuesday meal tonight at Popeye's. The BBs were only a few bucks each back in the day so I'm just going to give them to my daughter. Any she doesn't want can go into a Beanie Baby geocache. That way I get a few smiles out of it ... and hyperbole spewing bloggers and the EBay listings that feed on them don't get a cent. Yeah, Babies!

Pain in the Brain 2016

Question: What rhymes with couch and hurts like hell? Answer: OUCH.

I'm a few months late in writing this but BLTN as they post. Only two years after my 2014 cluster headache cycle I started a new one in 2016. This time around I fully documented every headache in an online calendar log. I started with the Auras in early May and by the end of the month was having at least a minor episode nearly every day. The onset of the cycle was likely expedited by the pressure/sleep and stress changes involved in a trip out west. This cycle was a little strange in that they headaches skipped tuesdays for the first month and then were not as long or as painful as I expected. Unfortunately by late July I was having them every day. August saw many days with multiple occurrences and a few dreaded waking eye-graines. The pain continued into September and faded out over about four weeks into early October. So May through October with 2 and a half months at full blast. This was a few weeks longer than the previous cycle and very painful. Since I started really documenting these each cycle has been longer. This is not a sustainable happiness model.

The good news is that these are now mainstream. Google has special results for when you search for them. They are considered Common and the pharmaceutical industry is standing by ready and willing to push me into a heroin addiction whenever I'm ready to offer up a co-pay. They may be willing to substitute a cancer causing steroid. Hooray! Ok, so yeah, the bad news is that nobody has figured out what the deal is with these as of yet but mainstream awareness just may prove useful. Can an awareness ribbon be far behind? We'll have to pick a color. I recommend something dark that doesn't strobe and kick off a headache for anyone actively in a cluster cycle.

Some links that give me hope:

• Clusterbusters.org - Somewhat new website that offers something of a support group and has info on clinical trials. I joined the patient registry and will be following them closely.


• Clusters are now well documented in the International Classifications for Headache Disorders... so where is our Awareness Ribbon already?!


• The disorder now has its very own ICD9 code. Once insurance companies recognize a disorder proactive pharma/nutraceuticals soon follow. Money talks!


• The top 5 links under Cluster Headache all seem to have been updated in the last year.

Until some solid science comes up with a preventative I'll just keep stomping up and down the steps and doing pushups at the first hint of an aura. Adrenaline still works for me which is a blessing. I will leave you with a fun quote:

Experts have suggested that cluster headache may be the most painful condition known to medical science.

Well, at least I don't have THAT kind of cluster headache! [attribution]