Journal of Jeffrey R. Brant, MD

Marlowe and her friends had lots of fun last night. They had a really nice dinner party at our home before going to the Darlington School winter dance at Berry College in Rome. Here are a couple of photos of the gang in our house:





Here is a photo taken in our dining room showing Marlowe teaching some of her friends the fine art of folding napkins into various shapes, including braziers:



We attended Marlowe's chorus concert at her school this afternoon. The concert choir sounded great singing some very innovative holiday music arrangements. After that, we went to dinner with some friends and Nancy's parents in Rome.

Not looking forward to the next two weeks. I go on call not only for our practice and hospital, but for two other ophthalmology practices (in Cherokee County and Gordon County). Our associate ophthalmologist, Dr. Zhao, will be on vacation for part of that time. Things could get really hectic.

Looking forward to Amanda returning home for a couple of weeks. Nancy will fly to Miami Tuesday morning and accompany Amanda on her long drive back home. It will be great having Amanda home again for a while! I really miss her!

Well, that's about it for this post. Take care and remember to keep in touch!

Jeff

Spent part of the day as a volunteer ringing the Salvation Army bell at the Cartersville Wal-Mart. Our Rotary Club volunteered to help with this today.

We had 0ur annual office part at the country club last night. Everyone had fun. My staff thought the gag gifts they gave me were especially hilarious (a large sack of rice, a sink plunger, and a pair of latex gloves). Long story... I'll tell you about it in another message.

Here is a picture of my staff at the party last night:




Marlowe is having about 20 friends to the house tonight for dinner before they go to the winter dance at her school. She's all excited about this!

Here is a photo of Marlowe, Heather and Amanda. This was taken last month during our Thanksgiving vacation to Panama City Beach, where Heather and her family live. We rented a condo on the beach next to theirs. Amanda drove up from Miami and brought my mother with her. Nancy parents joined us, too, so it was like a big, happy family get-together.



Nancy and I are going to a party at some friends' house tonight. Scott Daniel is a surgeon. He and his family live on about 100 acres near us. They all sorts of farm animals and pets, including a parrot that has can say about 300 words or phrases. They also have their own air strip and hangar. Really nice people, too.

Well, have to run and help set up for Marlowe's dinner tonight. Take care and keep in touch!

Jeff

Dear Friends and Relatives,

Hope you are doing well this holiday season. I know I haven't written an entry in this journal since May (just too busy!). The following is our annual "what's new with the Brants" letter: (Some people hate reading this kind of letters, so we won't be offended if you just click the "delete" button!)

Where to begin? The older we get, the faster time seems to fly by and the more jumbled what we do becomes!

Marlowe is now 15, a sophomore at Darlington School, and learning to drive! The parental units have gray hair—or grayer than it was prior to this event! Hard to believe our last little bird is about ready to try her own wings and venture out alone. Scary, really! Marlowe is the child who tries it all and amazes us with her willingness to do things we never thought she would. She takes voice and piano and made concert choir at school this year. She continues to paint when she has time. She is a member of the Student Support Team, Spanish Club, Tour Guides, and was nominated for Leadership Rome and the Hugh O’Brien Leadership Program this year. This summer, she attended the Firespark Program at Brenau University, following in Amanda’s footsteps. Over spring break she will go to England with the school; in April she will perform in Orlando with the concert choir; and this summer will return to Brenau; and spend 3 weeks in Spain in an immersion program. Taking community service to heart, Marlowe began a UNICEF collection at the middle school when she started 6th grade there and has continued it through this year. We are thrilled this program continues and that Marlowe could be a part of it. Last, but not least (this has been a full year for the child!!) she was chosen to introduce Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Holocaust survivor and author of All But My Life, when Mrs. Klein visited Rome in the fall. It was a great honor and Marlowe was so thrilled to be able to meet her. If you have not read the book, it is a story you will never forget. Mrs. Klein, At 83, is an amazing person and she had over 2000 people in the auditorium so quiet (except for the crying) you could have heard a pin drop—a real first for the school gym, we can assure you.

Amanda is a sophomore at the University of Miami, double majoring in Motion Pictures and Graphic Design, and loving every minute of being a Hurricane—but not THE hurricanes! She found out exactly what living in a coastal area was like when she went through two lockdowns thanks to hurricane weather. Luckily, Miami did not get a direct hit. Amanda had an exciting beginning to the year as Richard Gere spoke to her film class, she got to see and hear the Dali Lama, and the Presidentialpresidential debates brought not only added security to the campus but a host of celebrities. We got to watch her on Hardball with Chris Mathews, she saw and heard Ralph Nader, and she was interviewed by Japanese TV at Smack Down the Vote. She serves as secretary of the Cinematic Arts Commission, is a member of the Concert Committee, and is a member of the Marine Animal Stranding Team and Marine Animal Rescue Society (MARS).

Melodee works with a local State Farm Insurance agency. She has weathered many crises this year including her car being stolen and recovered. She is moving to a new place soon. She had plans to get married and that fell apart so she is back to the single life. We are hoping for a better 2005 for her!

Heather, Dane and Gracie moved to Panama City Beach. Heather works at a local bank there as a loan and mortgage officer and is trying her hand at real estate with very good luck. Miss Grace, 3, is a priss pot! The child should be on stage. She loves to entertain us by singing and dancing—and of course, we love her to do it! She is also a good little golfer. Alec is 10 and a wonderful, if not reluctant, student! He loves video, and computer games and wrestling.

Nancy continues to “just say yes” to volunteer work but has added subbing at the Darlington School for some real pay! While she rotated off some medical committees this year, she still serves as Chair of the Health Committee for the Medical Association of Georgia Alliance, was chosen as a delegate to the American Medical Association Alliance House of Delegates, and is the Finance Chair for the Southern Medical Association Alliance. She serves as secretary to both the Darlington Fine Arts Booster Club and the Parent Association. She also volunteers at the school bookstore once a month just for the heck of it! Her state project as President of the MAG Alliance two years ago, “Strike Out Spit Tobacco,” continues to be a major project in this state and is spreading to others. The professionally-made video features Coach Mike Hurst (an oral cancer survivor) and Joe Garagiola. The video was made a mandatory part of all Division I college rules programs, was adopted by the Juvenile Court System in Bartow County and by all three local 3 Rotary Clubs, and is being placed in nearly all middle and high schools in the state. If anyone would like to have a copy of the video and accompanying brochure for your county, please let us know and we will make sure you get it.

As for Jeff, he continues to plug along trying to fix all the eye problems of Northwest Georgia by practicing comprehensive ophthalmology for his 19th year in Cartersville. They never have a dull moment at the office and the number of their small incision, sutureless cataract surgical procedures now exceeds 500 per year. Jeff says it is a real joy watching the expression on his patients’ faces the morning after their surgery when they can once again see clearly. Of course he still complains about all of the emergency and after-hours patients that he has to take care of, but that goes along with the territory.

When he is not doing eyes or things with the family, he spends what spare time he has serving as the president of the Cartersville Rotary Club (68 current members) and the president of the Bartow County Medical Society. He serves on the Board of Trustees, the Credentials Committee, and the Laser Safety Committee at the hospital. For fun, he has picked up the new hobby of building and flying large radio-controlled airplanes and continues to enjoy digital photography and imaging and messing with computers. He still likes unwinding by mowing our fields with our big Kubota tractor, and he says it’s cheaper than paying a psychologist! He also continues to write articles for Ocular Surgery News and enjoys a round of 9-ball with friends. When he has time, he tries to keep an online journal at http://www.allatoonaeye.com/jeff/blogger.html, so feel free to take a look at it. Also, chat with him on AIM (his screen name is JeffBrant; real original huh?).

That is about it from the Brant house—which now includes 2 cats (Duchess and Jo Mamma) and 3 dogs (Baylee Jayne, Coco, and Mariah). I guess we are a real country-living family!! It is not your presents that we care about—it is your presence in our lives; and the greatest gift of all is your friendship and love. From our home to yours, have a wonderful holiday season, remember our troops in whatever way is appropriate for you, and we hope 2005 will be a year of peace, prosperity, and good health for all.

With love,

Nancy, Jeff, Amanda, and Marlowe
(Melodee and Heather, Dane, Gracie and Alec, too!)

E-Mail Addresses:

Nancy: nbrant@mindspring.com
Jeff: eyemd@mindspring.com
Amanda: akrychek@mindspring.com
Marlowe: toastbuster89@mindspring.com

Well, I did it! Flew a genuine Marchetti SF260 fighter plane in aerial combat against an opponent in another airplane a couple of weeks ago. Check out some pics that Amanda took by clicking here. Amanda drove up from Miami and spent the weekend with me in Kissimmee, FL.

I know, this is crazy. But what a thrill! After an hour of "ground school" briefings from an instructor (retired TWA pilot and Viet Nam fighter pilot), I climbed into the cockpit of this marvelous, fully aerobatic aircraft. I got to do 90% of the flying. Even taxied the plane out onto the runway. Almost as soon as we took off, I was given complete control of the plane. We flew in formation with the other plane only about 20 feet away from us!

Then we started practicing some maneuvers and basic aerobatics, taking turns chasing each other through the sky while keeping the opponent's plane in the gunsight.

After that, we started the aerial dog fights. The only rules were that we had to stay at least 500 feet apart and not descend below 2500 feet. Most of the time, we were around 5000-7000 feet above the ground. My average airspeed was 260 MPH. As we set up for each dog fight, we came straight at each other and then passed each other to the left. After that, the object was to quickly turn the plane over and find the other plane to "shoot it out of the sky." Experiencing 4-5 G-forces was incredible. Draws the blood out of your head to the point where you can't hardly see. I had to keep tightening all my muscles to force blood back into my head during steep climbs and turns.

We did six dog fights. I won three and the other novice pilot in the other plane won three. They videotaped the whole flight (one hour) from three different cameras mounted in the plane. Just watching the video will make you airsick when you see the ground spinning!

I have to admit that even though I got a bit airsick by the last dogfight (which was a particularly aggressive one), the experience was fantastic! Once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. It is still hard to believe that they trusted me to fly this airplane without any hands-on from the instructor except during take-off and landing. I just followed his verbal instructions.

I hope to compress the video and put a link to it on here so you can see what I actually experienced. If you ever get the opportunity to do this, I highly recommend it. My flight was out of the Kissimmee Municipal Airport in Florida, but they travel around the country offering this experience in different cities each weekend. Check out Air Combat USA's Web site. They rock!

Thanks, Nancy, for giving me this wonderful gift!

In the meantime, hope everyone is doing well. I have been too busy to post anything on here lately. Please keep in touch!

Amanda comes home Thursday for the summer after finishing her first year at the Univ. of Miami! Can't wait to see her again!

Jeff

Hi, Everyone.

Been real busy lately (what's new?) but wanted to share some photos of our two newest pets. This is Baylee Jayne, a beagle:



Nancy has been wanting a smaller dog that we can keep mostly in the house. We found this one at the humane society a couple of weeks ago. We are pretty sure she is pregnant, but she will be spayed on Monday. She's very sweet and is just like a big baby. Our other two dogs, Mariah (shepherd mix) and Coco (black-and-tan hound) get along with her pretty well now, as long as she stays away from their food dishes.

The next picture is Marlowe's new kitten, NewZee (short for New Zealand):



We got her at the humane society a few weeks ago, also. She was spayed Monday and is doing well. She stays upstairs in the house for now, but eventually will become an outside cat, joining our other cat, Duchess. She'll enjoy helping Duchess control rodents in our barn.

Amanda is having a great time in Miami where she attends the University of Miami (studying film). She's coming home for a long weekend next week. Can't wait to see her again! If anyone is interested in reading her daily on-line journal, chatting with her on IM, or e-mailing her, let me know and I'll e-mail you the info.

Marlowe is doing great in her freshman year of high school. Straight-A's so far! She does lots of after school activities, too, that keep her very busy. She's grown very tall this year and is now taller than Amanda!

Be sure to keep in touch!

Jeff Brant

To all my friends and relatives,

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukkah, and a Healthy, Prosperous and Wonderful New Year!

Jeff Brant

Hi friends and relatives! Haven't posted anything here in a long time. Been very busy. Hope all of you are doing well. Things are going great here.

Amanda is having a wonderful time at Univ. of Miami. Getting good grades and involved in a lot of fun activities. She went to a Good Charlotte concert at the university last night and got to meet all of the band members. They all signed her purse!
Check out her Halloween costume and her friends:

http://www.allatoonaeye.com/amanda/halloween_2003.htm

I've been busy with work and my new hobby: building and flying radio-controlled airplanes. Here are some pictures of my first plane that I built (it is in my basement workshop in these photos):



It has a 6-foot wingspan and I installed an O.S. 61-FX engine in it that burns glow plug fuel (nitromethane mixed with some other things). It flies really well. Did some flying today at a local flying field. I spent about 30 hours putting this plane together. I joined the Coosa Valley Flyers club. Lots of nice people who are very experienced in building and flying these kind of planes.







Still very interested in learning to fly a trike or an ultralight. My trike flying instructor friend was involved in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago, so he's out of commission for a while.

Nancy is doing well. She finally (after 18 months) is no longer the state president of the Medical Association of Georgia Alliance. But she still stays very busy.

Marlowe is enjoying high school and doing very well. She is involved in a lot of after school activities (dance, chorus, tennis, piano lessons, oil painting lessons). She went as a "serial killer" to the halloween party and dance at her school Friday night. Nancy glued some cereal boxes to a shirt and the boxes had knives stabbing into them. Cute idea, I thought.

Well, have to go to bed. Exhausted and tomorrow's going to be a long day at work.

Take care and stay in touch!

Jeff

Take a look at each of the 16 high-quality short videos on the following link:

http://www.aerialadventures.net/videos/movies.htm

(You have to click on the "next page" arrow at the bottom of each page to get to all the videos.) Now you can see why I'm such a trike enthusiast! These videos were mostly created by mounting a camera on the left wingtip of the trike. Turn up your PC sound, too! And be sure to watch the "broadband versions" if you have fast Internet access. If you really like any of these videos, you can right-click on each link and save them to your computer's hard drive for future local viewing.

One day, I hope to have my own trike. A friend of mine lives on 200 acres of land near us and has a 3500 foot grass runway and empty hangar on his property. He offered to allow me to keep a trike in the hangar at no charge when I get one!

In the mean time, I'm getting into the radio-controlled (RC) airplane hobby. I'm just now shopping for a trainer plane, engine, radio, etc. I have met several people who have lots of experience in this hobby and who offered to help me get started. Plus, there is an excellent RC flying field and club in Cartersville that I can go to for some training and advice. The nice thing is that I should be able to easily fly RC planes from our "front yard" which is really a six-acre relatively flat, well-manicured pasture with a long, straight driveway.

I'm probably going to get a large high-wing training plane with at least a 60-70 inch wingspan (allows for stability and good visibility) and put a decently powerful engine in it. I am open to advice from any of you who are experienced RC airplane hobbyists.

Spent Tuesday evening changing the oil in my tractor. It is very easy to change its oil and filter, but it holds 2.5 gallons of 15W-40 diesel engine oil. I am planning on aerating our pasture once we get some significant rainfall here (it has been really dry for the past few weeks). Then we will have it fertilized, limed and over-seeded.

It is too rough to use as an airstrip. We would have to get a heavy roller in here to compress the ground some if we want to do that. Chuck (the trike instructor) did land here and take off once, but said he won't risk doing it again because his trike might get bent.

I am thinking about getting an aviation radio scanner so I can hear when the ultralights and trikes fly by. Since their pilots know I am a big enthusiast, they tend to make flights over our house whenever they are nearby. When we hear them, we run outside and they put on a free air show for us! Pretty cool! If I have a scanner, they would be able to let us know when they are heading our way. Will have to find something inexpensive on E-Bay.

We took Marlowe to see Les Miserables Saturday afternoon at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Somehow, Nancy managed to get us second-row seats, right in the center, at a decent price. The best seats in the house! Although Nancy and I have seen this musical at least four times in the past, it is our all-time favorite and Marlowe has been asking to see it. Marlowe really liked the play.

Had dinner at Red Lobster tonight for Alec's birthday. It is hard to believe he is already nine years old! We let him use our house and swimming pool yesterday for a birthday party while we went to the Fox. He is going to Disney World with his parents in October, the same time we will be visiting Amanda in Miami for parents' open house at U of M. Heather asked to borrow my conversion van for the trip. I'll have to ask her to lend me her really neat red Mercedes-Benz SLK230 convertible 2-seater for a while! That'll be fun to drive!

After dinner, went to the office for a couple of hours to set up a new piece of diagnostic equipment that just arrived Friday. It is an ultrasonic pachymeter (measures corneal thickness) which we will use to help us manage certain glaucoma-prone patients. Then swung by Dan & Jane's house (Nancy's parents) in Cartersville to get their Replay TV machine working again.

Looking forward to seeing Amanda next month. I miss her very much, although it is nice that she communicates with us often via phone, e-mail, text-messaging, Instant Messenger, etc. A lot different than when I went off to college!

Guess I got carried away with this posting; didn't mean for it to be so loooong! Sorry! Best wishes to all and please keep in touch! Your feedback and e-mails are important to me. (I now have 31 people signed up to receive my occasional journal postings.)

Jeff