So, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. died yesterday. If you’re only slightly old, you remember his daughter, Stephanie, from ‘Remington Steele.’ If you’re old, you remember Efrem from ‘The FBI’ (a show we were forced to watch every Sunday – I think it was – night because my mother liked it, though I don’t recall the rest of us liking it). If you’re even older, you remember him from ’77 Sunset Strip.’ And if you’re ungodly old, you remember his parents, who were apparently famous musicians.

I guess we’ll all soon be joining Ef and his folks because it looks like we’re all gonna die. Yes, MERS has made it to America.

Health officials on Friday confirmed the first case of an American infected with a mysterious virus that has sickened hundreds in the Middle East.

The man fell ill after flying to the U.S. late last week from Saudi Arabia where he was a health care worker.

He is hospitalized in good condition in northwest Indiana with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Indiana health officials, who are investigating the case.

Another Mooslam attack! Thank goodness Ground Zero is in Indiana – hopefully this thing will burn itself out before it hits the coasts.

The virus is not highly contagious and this case “represents a very low risk to the broader, general public,” Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters during a CDC briefing.

Yeah, right, like I beleive any of that nonsense. You, I, and Alex Jones all know this is a conspiracy by the oil-loving illuminati to knock down the US population and implement martial law.

Wake up ‘Merica!

So today is a big day, in work-land. It’s phase three of the implementation of electronic medical records (first came outpatient, then our main hospital and now the backup hospital we bought because we’re just loaded with money – so much that we’ve all endured pay freezes, furloughs, and increased health insurance premiums).

Even though I have more or less nothing to do with any of this, I was asked to “keep my phone with me” over the weekend (for free, of course) just in case some clueless administrator has some totally non-pertinent question or complaint. I could also have volunteered to answer phones in the “Command Center” (again, for free) which would have been rather pointless since I have no idea about any of this shit.

From what I understand, last time they did this the upper mucky-mucks sat around marvelling at what a smooth implementation they were having, because there weren’t any help calls. A few hours later, some low-level lackey asked them if they’d actually transferred the phones over.

Oops.

Oh well, big non-work plans today. Goal number one is drag the mower out of the shed, clean it off, grease it up, sharpen the blades, and then mount it on the tractor. If that’s successful, goal number two is to go out into the woods and get some dirt to at least start filling in the holes in the lawn. Then we’ll have to see if it’s worth cutting the grass or not.

Naturally I’ll keep my phone with me, though. ‘Cuz I can totally hear/feel the phone when I’m on the tractor.

But first, coffee….